"Come on... Come on!" Kimika repeated, feeling along the bottom of the safe for a hidden mechanism, while hearing the barrier crack under the impact of feathers.

*Click.*

"I found it!" Kimika exclaimed joyfully, sliding the lid of the double bottom.

She quickly began transferring the new photos into her backpack, alongside the neatly folded diary, until finally, only one small box with red pills inside remained in the safe.

"Now all that's left is to take them, and the quirk will return. Pull yourself together, Kimika! Prove to everyone that you're not weak!"

Bringing the box to her mouth to take all the pills at once, Kimika heard the barrier finally shatter with a loud crack, unable to withstand the strikes from Hawks.

"You know, I understand how you and your frie..." he began, but as soon as the shards of the barrier fell, a scene unfolded before his eyes that silenced him.

The girl with red, swollen eyes from crying sat on the floor, holding a plastic box near her mouth with surprisingly familiar pills inside.

"Trigger!" he hissed, instantly launching the nearest feather into the box.

Feeling as if time around her had slowed, and the feather was slowly flying straight toward her, Kimika shifted her gaze to the box and, without a moment's hesitation, lifted its end slightly higher.

All the pills inside rushed downward, one by one, landing on her tongue.

Without even swallowing them, Kimika felt everything around her start to spin and darken, while the pulsing headache, once dulled by Kurami, suddenly returned, striking with renewed force.

Clenching the box tightly in her hands and trying not to fall, she continued to empty the box, feeling how with each pill the pain only intensified, beginning to pulse not only in her head but throughout her whole body.

Her body trembled with each pulse of pain, until finally, the last pill reached her mouth, and at that very moment, with a whistle, the feather pierced the box, knocking it out of Kimika's hands.

"Spit them out immediately!" – shouted Hawks, rushing over and grabbing Kimika by the chin, forcefully trying to pry her jaw open. "You'll die if you swallow them!"

Meeting the girl's gaze, he saw gray eyes with barely noticeable black droplets. There was no trace of fear in her gaze, only determination. And in the next instant, the girl swallowed the pills.

"Damn it!" hissed Hawks, stepping back a few paces, running a hand through his hair, occasionally glancing at the girl who didn't even realize that with her own hands she had signed her own death sentence.

Barely staying upright, swaying from side to side, Kimika breathed heavily, until she finally collapsed forward onto her hands, feeling as if every cell in her body was burning.

"Why... does it... hurt so much..." Kimika rasped, starting to rub her burning eyes.

In an instant, she flinched, grabbing her stomach with one hand. Her face twisted in pain, and with a rasping sound, she vomited blood.

Hawks leaned in, watching with pity as she suffered.

He had flown after the running teenager in the middle of the night to find out the reasons, not even suspecting that this girl would turn out to be a well-known criminal.

And even more so, right now he was watching as this criminal slowly died from a trigger that was eating her from the inside, with no way of saving her.

He knew that the dry trigger was never taken in its pure form by anyone, ever. Even the most desperate criminals would rather surrender than risk taking those pills.

They served only as a convenient way to transport the substance, which was later diluted in water to create the regular trigger.

One such pill was equivalent to three standard doses of trigger. And due to its property of almost instantaneous dissolution upon contact with water, the process became irreversible.

And even if, at that moment, the person who took the dry trigger were in a hospital with prepared doctors nearby, the best that could be hoped for would be a delay of the inevitable death by a few minutes.

But this girl... She simply took and swallowed dozens of such pills.

"I can do it! I can... endure this!" Kimika rasped quietly, clenching her fists and teeth as she was thrown up with blood again and again.

And at the same time, she felt something new growing inside her — a warm sensation, completely opposite to the pain. "Just a little more..."

With great difficulty, she barely managed to open her clouded eyes and saw before her a hero holding a sword made of several feathers. A barely noticeable hint of sorrow flashed in his gaze, but his face remained impassive as the blade slowly rose, preparing for the strike.

"It will be better this way."

And at that moment, when the sword was only an inch from her neck, everything around her turned completely gray — the entire world around her froze.

And in her head, an irritated voice sounded: "Tch, Eye, you're lucky today. But who knows if you'll be so lucky next time. Do whatever you want. Recoil."

With a barely audible click, the voice in her head faded, and Kimika was enveloped in a bright blue glow. The pain that pulsed in every cell of her body gradually receded, and strength began to return, filling her exhausted body with a strange sense of relief.

Without time to think about what had just happened, Kimika knew only one thing: her quirk had returned. This meant the timer had started.

'I only have one minute to defeat him.'

Shutting out all unnecessary thoughts, she smiled, clenched her fists, and activated acceleration.

Pushing off the ground, she bounced to the right. The very moment her feet touched down, the frozen time resumed its pace, coming to life and regaining its colors.

*A strike.*

A sharp sound echoed precisely where she had been just a moment ago.

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"Teleportation quirk?" Hawks exclaimed in surprise, unable to believe his eyes.

The sword, just an inch away from her neck and meant to end her suffering, instead simply passed through the air, where a faint golden glow was barely visible.

And the girl, as if teleporting, appeared in a different spot, surrounded by the same golden glow.

In addition to this teleportation, he noticed that her eyes had changed: instead of two gray eyes, one now blazed red, the other blue, and a third eye appeared on her forehead, golden and glowing, staring straight into his soul.

"Your quirk is teleportation, then..." quickly shifting his gaze to Giran, Hawks saw that he was still unconscious, pinned to the wall by feathers, with a blanket covering his eyes.

Turning to the now standing Kimika, Hawks assumed a battle stance.

"He can't be the one who created the barrier, and I don't think you have two quirks. So either there's another partner of yours here, or... has the trigger given you another quirk?" pausing, he released feathers from his wings, directing them at Kimika. "I'll figure that out after your capture."

And in the next moment, dozens of feathers flew straight at Kimika.

Closing her eyes and activating acceleration on her eyes and brain, she whispered with a long exhale, "Future vision."

Opening her glowing red eyes, she saw dozens of red feather-like copies flying just a little closer than the real ones. In the next moment, all the feathers began to shine with a blue glow, and Kimika, illuminated in red, rushed forward, effortlessly dodging the slowed-down feathers, seeing the trajectory of each one.

Her smile stretched wide, and a surge of confidence lit up in her thoughts: "I have a chance to defeat him!"

Hawks pushed himself backward with his wings, trying to dodge the attack from Kimika as she charged at him. But at that very moment, everything around him seemed to slow down, and his wings began to move as if with a second's delay.

He saw them glowing with a blue radiance, and in the next instant, Kimika, like a battering ram, crashed into him.

Without stopping, only accelerating, Kimika collided with the wall a moment later, using Hawks' body as a shield to break through it, shifting their fight into the hallway.

Sitting on the fallen Hawks, the girl began relentlessly attacking him with accelerated punches.

Hawks, blocking each of her strikes, tried to push the girl away with his leg, while directing all available feathers, except for the slowed ones on his wings.

"TRITE!" Kimika shouted, clearly remembering how both Sotrygolova and Toga had pushed her away with a similar move in the past.

This time, fully prepared for it, just a moment before the hero's leg was about to strike her abdomen, she activated her acceleration, swerving to the side, causing the leg to only partially hit her in the side.

Kimika continued to attack Hawks relentlessly until suddenly, one of the feathers, shooting out from the floor with a sharp crack, pierced her left shoulder, throwing her backward and pinning her to the wall next to the unconscious Giran and the entrance door.

Screaming in pain, she saw Hawks, standing up and looking coldly directly at her, spit blood from his mouth and wipe it away with his hand.

And at that moment, Kimika, hearing the characteristic whistle of his feathers, shouted a move never before tested, prepared as a gift for Toga: "TIMEFREEZE!"

And as soon as she uttered the last letter, feathers appeared from all sides, breaking through the walls.

Quickly grabbing the feather that had pierced her shoulder and pinned her to the wall with her right hand, Kimika, clenching her blood-red teeth almost to the point of breaking, screamed as she pulled it from her shoulder and fell to the ground.

Not taking her eyes off Hawks, Kimika, feeling the anger, aggression, and an overwhelming urge to leap at him and tear him apart right then and there, activated her regeneration acceleration.

"Barrier, teleportation, acceleration, deceleration, area deceleration, future sight, and regeneration. You even survived and are feeling pretty good after that amount of trigger... who the hell are you?" Hawks exclaimed, looking at her left shoulder, which had been pierced by a feather just a few seconds ago and was now actively glowing red, regenerating right before his eyes.

*Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.*

Both of them shifted their gaze to the door, establishing a brief silent truce, listening to the quiet. And after a moment, an irritated voice sounded from behind the door.

"Hey you! It's four in the morning, damn it! People actually want to sleep here, not listen to your damn arguing, you little bastards!" the old lady shouted, continuing to bang on the door, almost knocking it down. "I've already called the heroes! And I won't move an inch from this damn door until they catch you and send you to your death!"

"Civilians!" Hawks suddenly realized. During the fight, he had been forced to pull in all available feathers, even those that were reporting on the situation around the apartment.

That's why he didn't notice how a civilian approached the door. And the fact that she called the heroes and now won't move away from the door could serve as an example to other neighbors, which could lead to casualties. 'Kimika, do you mind moving our 'arguing' to a more suitable place?

Kimika, despite the overwhelming desire to kill the hero, which only grew stronger with every passing second, and the aggression that became more intense due to the increasing negative effect of the trigger, realized that she had little time left.

Once her time is up, Kurami will forcibly remove the trigger from her body, and without it, she has no chance of winning.

Understanding this, she activated the maximum acceleration her body allowed and, without hesitation, charged at Hawks at full speed, wanting to end the battle as quickly as possible.

Hawks, smiling, stood at the end of the corridor, launching his feathers at her, which Kimika immediately slowed down, effortlessly avoiding each one by seeing their future trajectories, getting closer and closer to the hero with every step.

But suddenly, Kimika felt a sense of distrust, and her accelerated mind quickly pieced all the details together. Hawks was launching his feathers only to make her focus on them, not on him.

'Damn! He has no wings!' Kimika thought, staring directly at Hawks.

"TIMEFREEZE!" she shouted, and in an instant, almost hundreds of feathers appeared from all sides.

From their sheer number, Kimika felt her slowing zone begin to crack, consuming more and more of her strength.

In just a second, the zone shut down, her left eye lost its vision, and the world froze again.

A strange mixture of warmth and pain made Kimika touch her left eye and forehead. After running her hand across, she saw black liquid on her fingers.

"I've seen this before..." Kimika whispered, watching as the black liquid was absorbed into her body, and suddenly memories began to surface in her mind. Theater. Stage. Toga. Tango. Tied-up Nezu. Heroes.

"No!" she cried out with difficulty, pushing the flood of images away. Her head throbbed with pain, but she forced herself to rise.

Avoiding the frozen ring of feathers, she lunged forward. And after just two steps, the world came alive again.

Hawks only managed to see the girl teleport again, and now, at breakneck speed, she was charging straight at him. Before he could brace for the impact, the girl slammed into him with all her might, sending him flying backward, crashing into a window, which couldn't withstand the force and shattered.

In the moment of falling, he saw her face, filled with pain, especially her left eye — dark as an abyss, with veins stretching toward her forehead, where a golden third eye was located.

But in an instant, that eye quickly returned to its normal human appearance.

Mentally commanding the feathers to save him, Hawks heard the girl cry out in pain as his feathers struck her back.

Only when he was already near the third floor did the feathers form new wings, saving him from the fall. Despite the pain after being literally used to break through walls and windows, he landed on the ground and, gathering his strength, took off, returning to the battlefield.

"Ran away?" he asked himself, seeing that, apart from the bloody trails leading first to the bedroom and then to the door, nothing else remained. Just like with Giran, once pinned to the wall.

Near the exit of the apartment lay the unconscious old woman, the same one who had been shouting earlier.

"You couldn't have run far with such injuries..." he muttered, releasing the feathers that carried the old woman back to her apartment.

He entered the bedroom, where Kimika had hidden behind the barrier at the beginning of the fight. "So whose quirk was this..."

Following the bloody trail, he reached the place where the barrier's center had once been, now only its shattered remnants remained, alongside a backpack and an empty plastic pillbox.

"I still don't understand how you survived... Who are you, Kimika?"

He picked up a few dark shards and placed them in his pocket, and then, almost without thinking, while planning to continue following the girl's trail, he noticed a photograph pinned by one of the shards.

Lifting it, he saw a smiling Kimika on the photograph, standing next to another girl, probably her partner. He sighed heavily and, looking at the photo, quietly muttered, "What could have possibly made you turn into criminals?"

"What is this?" he quietly muttered, scrutinizing the photograph.

The girl had horns, but lacked the third eye — completely opposite to the appearance of Kimika, with whom he had just fought. Placing the photograph in his pocket, he sighed heavily, then leapt out of the window, soaring into the night sky, knowing a long, eventful night awaited him.