Chapter 72

The warehouse reeked of damp concrete and desperation, a fitting backdrop for my decision. Shira Aizawa, her red eyes glinting in the dim light, handed me the final document. "Are you absolutely sure about this, Anos?" she asked, her voice laced with a concern I didn't deserve.

I nodded, the weight of my resolve a heavy cloak around me. "I'm tired of being useless. Tired of waiting. I need to do something real, something now. I know it's wrong, going against the hero system, but the system isn't enough."

"Being a vigilante isn't glamorous, Anos. It's brutal. It's assassination veiled in justice. There's no glory, only the shadows."

"I know," I said, my gaze steady. The irony wasn't lost on me. Once a symbol of hope, now a phantom lurking in the darkness. Superman, reincarnated as Anos Midoriya, the overprotective older brother of Izuku, a vessel for power beyond measure, was about to become something very different.

A name. I needed a name. Something that whispered fear and hinted at the power I wielded. "Dark Phantom," I finally declared. Simple, classic, and fitting.

"Dark Phantom," Shira repeated, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. "Training starts this week. Missions begin next week. Your team designation is X, your company is Dark Red."

I suppressed a shudder at the name. "Let's get to work."

The week blurred into a hellish montage of UA classes during the day and grueling vigilante training at night. Shira and her team pushed me to my absolute limits. Physical conditioning, combat simulations, quirk amplification, but most disturbingly, the tests of pain and pleasure. They wanted to break me, to mold me into the perfect weapon.

The 'pleasure' trials were… intense. I'd walked in confident, arrogant even, only to be confronted with a carefully orchestrated assault on my senses. They probed my weaknesses, exploited my pent-up desires. Each session was more agonizingly enjoyable than the last. I had failed the trial 4 times. By the fifth, I realized that its not about succumbing or resisting its about control. I can succumb the the feeling without going crazy. I focused my mind and passed. It felt like a massive weight had lifted from my shoulders.

Saturday was devoted to mental fortitude. Facing my deepest fears in a holographic simulator, enduring psychological manipulation designed to shatter even the strongest minds. I pushed through, fueled by the image of a safer world, a world where Izuku could achieve his dreams without the constant threat of villainy.

Finally, it was over. I stumbled into my penthouse apartment, the expansive space feeling less like a home and more like a gilded cage. Akira, greeted me with a shy smile. Emily, the maid I'd hired to look after her, hovered in the background. I couldn't tell them the truth about what I was doing. Not yet.

The next few days were a whirlwind of schoolwork, trying to frontload my assignments so I could take time off. Sleep became a luxury. But as the week drew to a close, a strange sense of anticipation began to build within me. I was ready. Or at least, I hoped I was.