Chapter 138: Chapter 138 : The Goggles
Kamino Ward – Dawn After the Battle
The smoke has begun to clear.
Emergency sirens wail faintly in the distance. Debris crunches under the boots of rescue workers as the fire crews douse the last smoldering remains of yesterday's disaster.
Kana limps through the broken streets.
She shouldn't be here.
Her ribs ache. Her left leg drags behind her, bound in emergency splints and tape. Every breath feels like fire in her lungs.
But she's here anyway—because she had to see it for herself.
The place where Satoru made his stand.
---
The Crater
It's still there.
Massive. Charred. The concrete twisted in strange directions as if the earth itself flinched.
There's no tape, no guards. Just the haunting silence of absence.
Kana stands at the edge, shoes pressed into ash.
And there—half-buried under a bent streetlamp and a blanket of scorched dust—she sees them.
His goggles.
Cracked down the middle. One lens shattered completely. The strap torn.
But still recognizably his.
Mumen Rider.
Satoru.
She kneels slowly, painfully, and pulls them free.
A flake of burnt fabric peels away from the side—part of his hood, maybe. The last part of him anyone will ever find.
---
Flashback – Kamino, Yesterday
He had stood there.
Right there.
His armor had been mangled. His face bruised beyond recognition.
But his back was straight.
And he'd screamed.
Not in fear.
But in defiance.
Right before the light took him.
---
Back to Present – Kana
She clutches the goggles to her chest.
Her fingers tremble.
She doesn't cry. Not yet.
Instead, she remembers:
Not his voice—but the silence that followed it. The moment after the blast when the world stood still, and something deep inside her cracked open.
"You stood there so I didn't have to."
"You didn't even have a Quirk."
"And you still protected me."
---
POV Moment – Internal
She thinks back to the day she first saw him.
A street corner. Smoke. Screaming. And then—him.
Charging into chaos on a bicycle like a fool. Like a legend.
People had called him reckless.
Delusional.
But he'd kept standing.
Even when the strongest villain in the world knocked him down—he got back up.
Again.
And again.
And again.
---
Later That Morning – Rescue Worker Approaches
"Miss, you shouldn't be out here," a pro hero says softly, approaching her from behind.
Kana doesn't look at him.
She just stands.
Holding the goggles like a glass heart.
"He was the only one left," she whispers.
"And he still fought."
The pro hero doesn't answer.
He just lowers his head, then turns and walks away.
---
Kana Walking Away
She limps back through the ruins, the sky over Kamino softening from smoke-gray to morning blue.
The goggles now hang from her hip, tied to her belt by their broken strap.
They sway with every step.
She doesn't look back.
She doesn't need to.
Because she understands now.
"He wasn't just trying to be a hero…"
"…he already was."