Thanks to their incredible skill and experience, the Pussycats managed to swiftly make their way through the forest, quickly reaching the vicinity of the incident. There, Ragdoll, using her quirk, spotted an injured boy running and a critically wounded woman a little farther back, which she immediately reported to her teammates.
"I've detected two people: an injured boy running a few kilometers northwest of our position and a woman in critical condition about 600 meters from the boy."
"Hurry, Pixie-Bob and Tiger, you help the woman in critical condition while Ragdoll and I go after the boy."
"Understood."
Following Mandalay's command, Ragdoll, Pixie-Bob, and Tiger quickly acknowledged, and immediately after, they all visibly picked up the pace, heading quickly toward the direction indicated by Ragdoll.
About 20 minutes later, the group of Heroes reached the intersection point between the two targets. They quickly split into their previously assigned roles to carry out their tasks, but just then, Ragdoll informed Mandalay.
"The boy changed direction."
"Where to?"
"Right towards our position."
"Huh?"
Ragdoll and Mandalay exchanged confused looks but continued advancing at full speed. Shortly after, they saw a small boy, around five years old, who was evidently in a state of panic and shock, running through the forest as best as he could.
Interestingly, he was indeed heading directly toward them, stumbling and falling, but refusing to give up. The boy quickly got back on his feet, and when their eyes met, the boy's eyes momentarily lit up before he sprinted towards them with all his might. They responded in kind.
"PLEASE SAVE MY MOMMY, HEROES, PLEASE, SHE'S FARTHER BACK," the boy shouted, pointing behind him with fear and urgency in his expression. "IF YOU KEEP GOING STRAIGHT, YOU'LL FIND SOME FLAGS, JUST FOLLOW THEM, SHE'S RESTING BUT SHE NEEDS HELP, HURRY!!!"
"Don't worry, kid, my teammates are already going to look for—"
"NOOOOOOOOO!!!"
As Mandalay tried to calm the boy, he suddenly let out a guttural scream filled with infinite anguish and pain, leaving the professional heroines stunned for a moment. However, thanks to their extensive experience, they quickly reacted upon seeing the boy turn around and run in the opposite direction, screaming in the midst of a heart-wrenching cry.
"MOMMY, YOU PROMISED!!! I FOUND THEM, I FOUND HEROES, YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T LEAVE, MOMMY!!!!"
The heroines quickly caught up to the little boy and held him tightly, as he struggled with all his might to break free while crying and screaming with all his strength. His innocent face showed nothing but absolute despair.
"LET ME GO, MY MOMMY!!, MY MOMMY!!!, SHE PROMISED ME, SHE PROMISED ME!!!!"
With a quick and precise blow, Mandalay knocked the boy unconscious, intuiting what he meant. She quickly turned to her companion, who, with an incredibly serious and slightly sad expression, gently shook her head.
With a defeated sigh, Mandalay held the innocent boy in her arms, then headed to the rendezvous point with her companions, quickly followed by Ragdoll. Despite the sadness of the situation, Ragdoll couldn't help but wonder what kind of quirk the little boy had to realize his mother had passed away before she did.
Upon arriving, the heroines found a macabre scene more akin to a war zone, with a large patch of burnt earth and a deep, irregularly shaped crater not far away. A few meters away lay a beautiful woman in a bloodstained white dress, seemingly peacefully asleep on the ground in a crimson pool.
While her companion Pixie-Bob clenched her fists tightly and bit her lips in frustration, Mandalay handed the little boy to Ragdoll and approached the woman to take a closer look, as she couldn't shake off a strange feeling of familiarity with the boy.
Kneeling on the ground, Mandalay brought her palms together in a prayer-like gesture, then gently and respectfully moved the woman to see her face. But the moment she saw her, she felt as if lightning struck her body from the shock, and she quickly turned to look at her companion, Ragdoll.
"IT'S SAITO ALISA, QUICK RAGDOLL, LOCATE IRON PALM, SHE'S HIS WIFE!!!"
"... ... ... I can't locate him, it's as if he no longer exists..."
After a moment, Ragdoll responded softly, causing the other three members of the Pussycats to feel a lump in their throats. They knew perfectly well what that meant, as they were aware that after the joint raid, Iron Palm had planned to go on vacation with his family.
With a long sigh filled with mixed emotions, Mandalay contacted the only person she knew who could handle something so important, informing him of the death of the world-renowned therapist, Alisa Saito, and the 'disappearance' of her husband, the number 5 Hero in the Japanese rankings, Iron Palm.
...
...
...
In the middle of the night, in a clean, white hospital room filled with all kinds of medical equipment, a beautiful boy of about five years old lay sleeping on a large bed. He had black hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, but his innocent figure was marred by a bandage wrapped around his forehead.
The peaceful figure of the sleeping boy was interrupted when his eyes suddenly began to move rapidly in all directions beneath his eyelids, and his body occasionally twisted. This continued for a while until the boy suddenly opened his eyes, evidently startled, and began to look around in confusion.
"Where am I? What happened?"
The innocent boy, Kai, closed his eyes as he tried to remember anything that could explain his situation. After a short time, he sat up abruptly in bed, utterly incredulous, with his mouth open and his deep blue eyes wide in surprise.
"What?! How is this possible?!"
Searching through his memories, Kai not only remembered the tragedy that brought him to this situation, but he also found other memories of himself, with a different name and a slightly different appearance, in a place where quirks didn't exist and heroes were just fantasy. He recalled living a complicated and not very long life, ending in a tragic and somewhat bitter way.
After pondering his memories for a long time, trying to analyze and understand them, Kai reached a conclusion that was hard to believe, one that seemed almost ridiculous, but at the same time, explained his strange situation.
(Reincarnation? But how? Why? Does that even make sense? Although, well, there's always the possibility that my brain invented an entire past life to help me cope with the shock and mental stress of what happened...
Sure, because there are plenty of five-year-olds with the analytical capacity to calmly conclude that the disconcerting situation of finding memories of a past life in their mind is just a peculiar defense mechanism of the brain attempting to mitigate the emotional and psychological damage caused by a traumatic event like the one I experienced. Yep, if you ask me, that sounds logical. Nothing too crazy, really...
All jokes aside, I must say that if this is a defense mechanism to protect my mind, it's quite effective. Although it's still very painful and sad to remember, it feels like I've had years to learn to live with it. It's impressive, but the question is, what do I do now?...
I have nothing left. Daniel lost everything and died just as his life was beginning to improve, while Kai lost what he loved most right before his eyes, his only family, leaving him alone in the world. Besides, the concept of quirks and heroes was something Daniel knew.
More specifically, he saw it in an anime called My Hero Academia during his years of depression when he was looking for any source of entertainment to escape reality. Although he didn't like it much because of the protagonist and only watched the first two seasons, I still remember it. Then again, my brain could have made up that part or everything...
But what really matters is... should I continue living? I'm already tired, "old", and unmotivated. The very idea of starting a new life seems incredibly exhausting, risky, and difficult—something that young people should do, not an old failure like me. And that's not even mentioning the possibility that I might be crazy, which adds an extra problem to this whole shitty situation...)
As Daniel or Kai continued debating with himself about his life and what he should do, tears began to fall from his eyes. Although, honestly, he didn't know whether it was because of what had happened in this life or what had happened in his 'previous life.' He just felt overwhelmed by the entire situation and needed to release his conflicting emotions, so he kept thinking in silence all night, while the tears never stopped.