Hangman 1 (Patreon)

Basically, this story, Hangman, and the other story, Amalgamate, have been in my head for a month, and I've been working on them little by little.  How's the idea of a villain who's given up on the system and chose to fight instead?

-VB-

Hangman
Chapter 1: A Monster in Human Skin

-VB-

It was a special occasion that brought him, the Symbol of Peace, out of Tokyo to fight a villain in other parts of the country. More often than not, it was unnecessary for him to come out when there was an abundance of pro heroes to keep the crime contained.

But in Hokkaido, a villain of incredible strength rose to power and manhandled nearly all of the pro heroes sent to take him down. Even Paddler, Hokkaido’s greatest pro hero, fell to the villain after a protracted one-sided slaughter, which was how the media was calling the battle.

Yagi had to admit that it was indeed a one-sided slaughter as the media was calling it. Paddler, whose macro-hydrokinesis was unrivaled in the Far East, couldn’t even utilize his Quirk properly before he was kicked to the curb, so to speak.

“I AM HERE!” he declared as he came crashing into the snowy plains where the battle was supposed to take place. The villain, dressed in the same white and black checkered skintight spandex, jacket, and pants, met his arrival with barely any acknowledgement.

He did not shout out in defiance, yell in panic, or declare something lame. He just sat there on a snow covered rock in a snowy weather as if they did not affect him.

All Might considered the villain in front of him. It was actually the villain who told him to come to this place for their fight, saying that fighting in a city would result in collateral damage. Most villains were not as half as considerate as the Hangman.

"You're here." Despite the wind, All Might heard the man clearly as if he was not fifty meters from him. "But are you ready?"

"I AM ALWAYS READY!"

"You know my demand, right?"

"AN UNACCEPTABLE DEMAND, YOU MEAN?" All Might scoffed while keeping his smile up.

The villain before him had made a declaration on the internet for all to hear: from March 18, 2077 onward, the island of Hokkaido was his. It was a declaration of war slapped into the face of the Japanese government and the Japanese people. There had been many condemnations internationally towards the Hangman as well as offers to help Japan just as the world had done before against the likes of Destro.

Japan opted to send All Might to take care of the problem before they did anything else.

Hangman stood up. "But if I show you that I truly am powerful enough to enforce my demand, it won't matter, would it?" he paused. “No, once you see what I am, I don’t think you can deny me what I am.”

“AND WHAT ARE YOU?”

“The Ainu people’s only protector.”

All Might paused.

Ainu? The indigenous people of Hokkaido? What did they have to do with this? Weren’t they part of the protected minority along with the Ryukuans?

“No, they are not protected.”

Ah, he must have spoken out loud.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY ARE NOT PROTECTED?”

“Did you know, All Might, that for every ten crimes reported to the authorities by the Ainu people, only one would be solved, if that, compared to the nine out of ten solved for the ethnic Yamatoan?”

Yagi frowned. “THAT IS A SERIOUS ACCUSATION.”

“Here,” Hangman said as he pulled out a notebook from … somewhere, and -.

“Woah!” All Might backpedalled, clearing dozens of meters in seconds upon realizing that somehow, in less than a blink of the eye, Hangman had gone from sitting on a rock fifty meters away to standing in front of him.

“I won’t fight until you’ve at least read this.”

All Might hesitantly came closer to the villain who moved faster than he could physically react to, and took the notebook. He opened it up and started to read. He frowned when the first ten pages described the institutionalized neglect and discrimination that had cropped up during the new era of Quirks. His frown grew deeper as he read about how the discrimination had only deepened since then, and how Quirks took away focus from the people.

Some of the “evidences” presented to him sounded absurd, like the idea that Hokkaido’s second most celebrated hero, Boria, was a racist?

He pulled out his own phone and looked it up.

What he found, the correlation of Boria’s activities to the damages Ainu communities received compared to ethnic Yamatoan, was … disturbing.

“Why didn’t you bring this to the authorities?”

“I did.”

All Might looked up in shock. “Then I would have heard about it now-”

“If your system wasn’t corrupt and earning so much money from the adoration of the public.”

All Might’s frown shifted into a grimace. “You are criticizing the Hero Public Safety Commission.” It was not an uncommon criticism, one that even he had to face against the more disgruntled reporters.

Hangman nodded as he turned around and took a few steps back before whirling back to face him. “Yes. A commission made up of politicians who have shares in the zaibatsu(conglomerate) who make the hero merchandise? Why the hell would they accept a small time local politician’s words over the word of their money making hero?” he chuckled. “Did you know that the commission actually told me to shut up unless I want to sued to the ground?”

All Might lost his smile then.

“So I decided that if the right way does not work, then it’ll have to work with any way that I can come up with. So here we are.”

“... Is this why you were especially harsh to Boria when you took him down?”

“Bingo.”

All Might took a deep breath in before taking the boxer’s stance. “You are still a villain. I must take you in. However, when this is over, I will make sure to look into the issue and correct any injustice. You have my word.”

Hangman’s shoulder shook in his mirthful laughter. “This is why you are the Symbol of Peace, for peace cannot exist without justice.”

And then…

Yagi saw despair.

-VB-

“Yo.”

Yagi blurrily pushed himself off from the sticky ground, groaning all the while. “What…?”

“You lost.”

Yagi looked at the speaking man and then his eyes widened as he remembered what he just fought. A cold shiver ran through him in under a second, and he jumped away from the monster.

The man looked up from the half crouch he’d been in while looking down at him. “I suppose that you are okay then? I did try to hold back…”

“What… what are you?” Yagi asked with a trembling voice.

“Just a small time villain, All Might.” The thing smiled. It wasn’t human. Its true form wasn’t human.

Did Quirks come from something not human?

“Come on now, let’s go settle some agreements. You as the representative of the Japanese government and me as myself.”

Yagi continued to stare at the outwardly mirthful villain in his sight even as he felt his hyperventilation start to come down.

“... I am still a hero,” Yagi objected. “I also don’t have the capacity to negotiate on behalf of the Japanese government.” Not to mention the impact of having him, the Symbol of Peace, admit his loss to a publicly known villain.

Hangman seemed to sag. “Oh. Is that so? I was hoping that this would have been the end of my hero curb stomping.”

Yagi’s cheeks twitched in annoyance at being regardless so poorly.

“Should I just nuke the Senate building?”

And just like that, his annoyance was replaced by fear.

“Wait, wait, wait! Let me just … give a call.”

Hangman looked up from where his head had fallen during his contemplation. “Oh? Sure.”

He jogged over to the car he’d come in on the other side of the open plains. It was a rented van, but his “fight” with Hangman had resulted in its front window shattered by a rock as big as his torso was. Pulling the unlocked door open, he rummaged through the front driver seat until he found his cell phone. Quickly coming back to Hangman so that he could keep an eye on the thing, he hurriedly dialed the Hero Public Safety Commission.

If he said that he couldn’t beat it, then even if they were politicians, they would at least do the sane thing, right?

They wouldn’t call a coalition on Hangman like they did with Destro, right?