Chapter Four
*What a wonder…* Doma was, in his own small way, stirred.
He sat calmly on his elder sister's lap, watching the flat-screen television. The screen showed aerial footage of a shopping center surrounded by a great many police cars. But that was not what had caught Doma's attention—there was something far more interesting. One of the concrete walls had simply torn apart, exposing twisted steel beams behind it, and through the gaping hole two silhouettes came flying out.
Ignoring the reporter's commentary, Doma smiled to himself and fixed his beautiful eyes on a muscular man in a rather peculiar outfit of blue, red, white, and yellow. Beside the man's proudly standing, grinning figure, a gangly young man lay crumpled in a position that spoke clearly of pain. Blood trickling from his nose ran down a week's worth of stubble and mustache and dripped onto the asphalt, grey with debris.
People in blue uniforms rushed toward the victor, taking the villain off his hands, and then a whole crowd descended on him—cameras on shoulders, microphones outstretched. The one they called All Might delivered his commentary with an electric atmosphere, constantly exclaiming, his voice rising and falling. His tone carried an unshakable confidence that visibly captivated the reporters around him. Glancing back, the former Second Upper Moon saw his sister watching that magnificent mountain of a man with the same reverence as the people on the other side of the screen.
Yes. He could understand why.
As a demon, he had come to the conclusion that he and this All Might were not so dissimilar. Doma had been admired in his time to an equal degree—if not more so—though by far fewer people. He, too, had been a kind of symbol, though not of "peace," as the television called this hero. Almost everyone who had known his true nature had been seized by an irresistible, primal terror at the sight of him. And those who lingered in the sweet haze of ignorance had praised and celebrated his name, marking each year with a festival in honor of the divine messenger's descent to the mortal world. He had been an emblem of terror to some and of love to others. The Second Upper Moon and the leader of the Paradise Faith cult—Doma.
As for strength… with his present human eyes the boy couldn't say with certainty how fast this hero was, but brute power was easy enough to assess. The man was a natural monster. Having a point of comparison, the child could say with confidence that this was truly first-class demonic power.
Even the Third Upper Moon Akaza and Doma himself could not have matched those numbers.
Though he couldn't speak with certainty about Muzan or Kokushibo—he had never seen either of them in action. He could only confirm, with any precision, the obvious chasm of power separating the Upper Moons beginning from the third and climbing upward.
And if one were to assume that Kokushibo surpassed him by the same margin that Doma himself surpassed Akaza—then the First Upper Moon would have had no chance in a contest of raw physicality against this creature. The force behind those blows was simply beyond imagination. Even so, none of it ultimately mattered. Without sunlight or a specialized weapon, a human could never defeat a demon. So what did it change?
*Except that I'm no longer a demon…* Doma had to remind himself of this each time he forgot.
The owner of those extraordinary eyes was, by his own nature, rather absentminded and forgetful. There were times when he'd had to practically scratch his own brain—pressing a finger into his skull to bore a hole—just to retrieve some necessary detail.
When the breaking news segment came to an end, the excited and inspired girl turned to her little brother with an expression on her face that most would find unsettling. Though he himself did not find her smile unsettling in the least. Two of a kind.
"Doma-chan, what do you think my Quirk will be?!" She pulled the boy tighter against her. "I'm supposed to manifest it this month! Will it be strong?"
"Wah, wah-wah!" Tilting his head back to look up at his relative's eager, trembling eyes, the one so addressed produced a stream of indeterminate but thoroughly charming and spirited sounds.
"Oh, right, you can't talk yet…" She said it with a trace of gentle childlike disappointment, which vanished the moment her next words arrived. "But my little brother is very smart and will learn to talk soon!"
Quirks—yet another subject of interest for the former demon. They reminded him greatly of Blood Demon Arts. They were just as varied and unusual as the people who possessed them.
This phenomenon had exerted an extraordinary influence on the society around him, but delving deeper into the subject was something Doma still had ahead of him—provided he hadn't lost interest in the topic of Quirks by then. Or forgotten about it entirely.
What it all amounted to, as far as he understood, was some superhuman or extraordinary ability that nearly every person acquired around the age of four. Though the definition had been revised from "every person" to "every living creature" following some incident he had only heard about on television. He found that rather amusing.
But what interested the boy most was his own future Quirk. What would he receive? The ability to control ice, perhaps, or something else? Or would he be born Quirkless as punishment for his sins? It was so intriguing that it even stirred a faint note of curiosity in the cold heart of the monster. That happened to him very rarely.
"Himiko, lunch is ready!" The mother of the family called from the kitchen, from behind the partition that opened directly into the living room. "Sit your brother in his high chair."
Doma was a little excited. He liked the children's food here.