SWNOVELXO Chapter 126: Number 1 Hero!
Daily Meme
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When we stepped back into the common room, it was like nothing had happened. Same dumb arguments. Same lazy bodies strewn across couches. Kirishima and Bakugo were still locked in some testosterone-fueled debate at the kitchen counter, probably about protein powder or explosion techniques. Sero had his feet up, nodding along as Jiro talked, not actually listening because multitasking for him meant pretending.
Then all hell broke loose in notification form.
Phones pinged. Buzzed. Chirped. A digital symphony of "Oh, shit."
Everyone instinctively grabbed their devices like the world was ending.
Kaminari sat up fast, brows furrowed. "Shit."
Mina's phone lit up next to me. She read it and frowned. "What now?"
Yaoyorozu was already in full news-anchor mode, scrolling fast. "There was an attack."
That did it. Every neck in the room snapped toward her like we were watching someone read our death sentence.
Todoroki stared down at his screen. The blood drained from his face as he spoke a single word, "Father."
Jiro turned up the volume on the TV. The image cut to live footage... shaky, zoomed-in aerial shots of chaos incarnate. Smoke pillars. Flames licking the skyline. Then came the unmistakable figure of Endeavor, mid-fight.
But he was not alone.
It was a Nomu, sure, but on steroids, Adderall, and a cheat code. Bigger. Smarter. Meaner. Like Frankenstein's monster got a PhD and a gym membership.
Endeavor charged, fire roaring like a furnace.
The Nomu dodged.
Bakugo stood so fast his chair screeched. "Fuck."
The camera bounced around... reporter's voice in the background, tense and breathless, but none of us were listening. Then Hawks appeared on screen, wings splayed wide, directing civilians out like some sort of heavenly traffic cop.
The next few seconds were pure chaos.
Endeavor connected. Or tried to. The Nomu twisted, grabbed him by the arm, and yeeted him into a building like he was just a toy. The camera feed glitched from the impact, then cut back in just in time to catch the Number One Hero peeling himself out of a crater.
[SYSTEM ALERT: NEW QUEST – "Watch the World Burn, Preferably From a Safe Distance"]
[REWARD: +10 XP for Emotional Resilience. BONUS: Extra Trauma.]
[FAILURE: Crying in a corner like Izuku watching All Might reruns.]
'Can you not?'
Blood down Endeavor's face. One arm dead weight. But he stood.
The Nomu? Barely scratched.
"This isn't a fight," Kirishima whispered. "It is a massacre."
"They have to win," Yaoyorozu muttered, as if she was praying.
Todoroki stayed silent, but his fingers were clenched white against the edge of the couch.
The Nomu moved again- faster now. It closed the distance like teleportation, slamming into Endeavor before anyone could blink. The screen blurred. They vanished in smoke.
Kaminari breathed out. "It is thinking."
Sero leaned forward, squinting. "It is speaking."
That was the part that made my skin crawl. This wasn't a wild animal... it was a tactician in monster form. A demon playing chess now? This was nothing like those I fought in USJ or Lodge.
The feed cut again. When it returned, Hawks and Endeavor were mid-air, locked in synchronized motion.
But the Nomu was still winning.
Another strike. Another fire burst. Endeavor gave it everything. The Nomu slipped past like smoke and crack- he was spiraling.
The feed died again.
Gasps filled the silence. Then the news anchor came back on, voice full with panic.
"We… We have lost visual of the Number One Hero-"
The screen flickered, then cut back to the aerial shot. Rubble. Fire. Wreckage.
And Endeavor, face down in the street, motionless.
Nobody breathed.
On the street, people screamed. The camera didn't move. Just held, waiting for a miracle or a death confirmation.
Then… a flicker.
A tongue of flame, weak and sputtering, licked the sky.
"Get up," Todoroki whispered, voice shaking. "I am watching, father."
The flame grew. Inch by inch. A matchstick turned bonfire. Then, whoomph, a blazing column of fire shot skyward, swallowing the dust.
Endeavor stood.
Battered. Broken. Burning like a goddamn phoenix.
And right as our hearts started crawling back into our chests- the Nomu lunged again.
The screen went black.
The silence in the room was suffocating. No smartass comments. No awkward jokes. Not even Kaminari had the balls to break the tension with a dumb pun. That was when you knew shit was real.
"We are watching the Number One Hero struggle." Jiro muttered, though in silence, it was loud as hell.
"Not just struggle," Kirishima added, eyes glued to the screen. "He is barely keeping up."
The footage flickered back on. New angle. New chaos. Endeavor, flames blazing like a dying sun, was dragging that monster higher into the sky. Hawks darted below like a desperate guardian angel, catching debris and shielding civilians.
The anchor tried to keep it together. "If you are just joining us, the fight continues. The extent of the damage is-"
She stopped. Everyone did.
The camera zoomed in.
Endeavor had latched onto the Nomu mid-air, his flames no longer orange, they were white hot. Blinding. The kind of fire that didn't just burn, it erased. The kind of heat you felt through the damn screen.
Then, boom.
The world went white. Light swallowed everything. Then silence. Static. The feed was gone.
A long, agonizing second passed. Then the camera sputtered back to life, like even it needed time to recover. Smoke blanketed the scene. Visibility was garbage. There was nothing.
And then… the dust moved.
A shape staggered forward. Limping and bloodied but very much alive.
Endeavor.
He raised one fist, trembling but defiant, into the air.
The crowd on the footage lost it. Screaming. Crying. Roaring.
In our room? Not a sound.
Todoroki finally let out a breath. His fists unclenched. Shoulders sagged just a little.
"He won," Yaoyorozu said.
"Almost died doing it," Jiro muttered.
"But he won," Kirishima echoed, firmer this time.
The camera stayed on Endeavor, standing amidst the wreckage like a phoenix that forgot how to die. Civilians were still being evacuated. Analysts started talking over the footage... trying to interpret what we had all just seen.
Then the feed shifted.
New angle. Different rooftop.
A silhouette stood there, arms crossed. The screen zoomed in.
Dabi.
That smug, patchwork bastard. Face carved by flame and stitched together with spite, grinning like he just won the lottery.
There was still no sound. Just him mouthing something before the screen glitched.
When it returned, blue fire was everywhere... not just random destruction. No, this was surgical. Personal. The fire twisted around Hawks and Endeavor in a ring, like he was fencing them in. Like he had a beef with them. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing.
And then, like a plot twist with a pair of juicy legs-
BOOM.
Something slammed into the street like a meteor.
Mirko.
She landed like gravity. Knees bent, back straight, smirk full of violence. Her eyes locked onto Dabi like a predator that skipped breakfast.
And Dabi flinched flinched like whenever I saw Mirko's grin in our spars. His cocky edge slipped for just a second. Even he knew he did not want that smoke.
Kirishima let out a low whistle. "Shit. He is not staying for that fight."
"No one would," Bakugo muttered.
Dabi backed up, chewing on his lip, probably calculating if his life was worth five more minutes of rabbit-fueled carnage. Answer, it was not. Black sludge swallowed him whole. He disappeared like the coward he was.
"Gross," Kaminari said, probably trying to lighten the mood. No one laughed.
The fire died with his departure.
Then the screen cut to the anchor, who looked like she had just aged ten years live on camera.
I turned to Todoroki. He was still staring at the screen, not blinking, not breathing. I slapped his shoulder hard enough to shake him.
"Go," I said. "I will let Aizawa know."
He blinked. Nodded a thank you and left.
Kaminari opened his mouth. "Should we-"
"No."
He shut up.
Yaoyorozu was already pulling her phone out. "I will notify the faculty."
"Good." I dropped onto the couch next to Toru. She rested her head on my shoulder. No one but me saw it.
I muttered, "Timing couldn't be worse. This was calculated."
Kaminari, ever the curious idiot, asked, "How so?"
I just looked at him. Too lazy to spell it out.
Izuku picked it up instead, mumbling his way to the obvious. "The new hero rankings were just announced. Then this happens. Right after. Top two heroes thrown into chaos. What does that say to the public?"
Bakugo nailed it. "They ain't safe."
That silence again. Everyone was thinking it. If the best of the best were barely surviving, what chance did the rest of us have?
"Endeavor barely pulled through," Sero said. "And Hawks? He couldn't do shit but play babysitter."
Mina exhaled. "People are gonna lose their minds."
Yaoyorozu didn't look up. "There is a press conference already scheduled."
Jiro scoffed. "What the hell are they even gonna say? 'Oops, our strongest barely survived'?"
Kirishima leaned forward. "This is bigger than them. The rankings are the backbone of hero society. If those crack…"
"That was the point," I said.
Every head turned.
"It is obvious. They weren't just trying to kill Endeavor. They wanted to humiliate him. Make people doubt him. Same with Hawks."
"Fear spreads fast," Shoji added.
Izuku nodded. "It is not just about this fight. It is about what comes next. If people don't trust the rankings, they will start questioning everything. It weakens the foundation of hero society itself."
--
I climbed to the roof like I was being hunted by algebra and adolescent drama. Maybe I was. Either way, up here? The air didn't reek of microwave noodles and testosterone-fueled existential crises.
I pulled my phone out and hit the contact, Mirko.
She answered fast, irritated as fuck. "What?"
I smirked, tapping the screen to add Ryukyu. "Damn, no hello? No 'how is the view from your rooftop breakdown'? Just raw hostility?"
"I just got out of a debrief and you are already pissing me off," Mirko growled. "What do you want, smartass?"
Ryukyu joined with a soft chime. "Ryuu?"
"Just because you failed to kick that bastard's ass doesn't mean you have to be rude to me, bunny."
Mirko snorted. "Coward escaped."
"Technically, yes," Ryukyu added. "But containment wasn't the goal. Survival was."
"And here I thought the top-tier heroes were supposed to win, not just not die," I said, making sure she could hear my grin. "What happened, Mirko? You lose your rhythm or just too distracted admiring your own thighs mid-air?"
"Say that again and I will knock your teeth into a new dental bracket," she snapped.
"Aw, you say that like it is a threat. But honestly? That sounds like foreplay coming from you."
"I will end you."
Ryukyu sighed. "Please do not flirt with each other during emergency recaps."
"I am not flirting," I said. "I am emotionally damage-testing the bunny. If she bites, I know she still has enough rage to fight."
"I don't bite," Mirko said, then paused. "I maul."
"She means that lovingly. That is her way of bonding." Ryukyu interpreted.
"See? That is the spirit."
There was a beat of silence on the call then Ryukyu cleared her throat. "Endeavor's injuries are not severe. Internal damage, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder. He will survive."
We talked a bit longer before ending the call. I told them some of my concerns... about Dabi's timing, the way the Nomu moved, how the whole thing felt less like a brawl and more like a message carved into a corpse. They listened. Or at least, Ryukyu did. Mirko mostly threatened to kick my ass between comments about burning down every lab making creatures like that. Honestly? Mood.
They said they would look into it. Promised me updates.
I pocketed my phone and leaned back against the railing. Toru drifted up beside me and leaned against the rail too, half on it, half on me. She was shaken, yeah, but not in a panicky, "we are all gonna die" way. More like… a realization. Like the world just dropped a grown-up burden in her lap and whispered, "Tag, you are it."
--
To summon the Bonus Chapter, gather six million readers,
All must remain anonymous.
No usernames. No avatars. No engagement.
Chant the sacred phrase:
"Just one more chapter."
But beware.
Do not cast the stone.
For the moment you do...
Ryuu sees you. And forgiveness is… not his domain.
(Trying Reverse Psychology Now)
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