What Now?

After hugging each other until they felt some degree of warmth in their chests and their tears started drying up, Anita and Nathan sat down again. After a few moments of silence, Anita looked at Nathan.

"What now?"

Nathan tilted his head in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't I and Terrence, along with the rest of the city, hovering in mortal danger? Shouldn't you be a filial son and do something about that?"

"Ah, right."

Nathan nodded.

"That's a good idea. What date is it today?"

"The third Sunday of March."

"And the year?"

"Thirty-six of the New Sky Calendar."

Nathan's eyes widened in surprise.

"Thirty-six?"

"Yeah? Is that bad? How long until…"

"Two years give or take."

Anita also raised her eyebrows in surprise.

That was a lot of time.

"That's a lot of time to prepare."

Nathan tilted his head.

"Prepare?"

Anita's eyes narrowed with a gleam of understanding as she looked at her son.

"Don't tell me…"

Nathan's expression turned serious, and he rested his arms on the table as he leaned forward.

"Mom, I am going to be frank with you."

Anita nodded, responding in kind to Nathan's seriousness with a grave expression of her own.

"I am not a good person."

Nathan hadn't sweetened his words when he described what he did before regressing. But he needed his parents to understand that he wasn't the same as he had been before.

"I might have regressed, but the scars of everything I have done and that happened to me remain. I couldn't care less about the city or whatever. I'm going to keep you and dad safe and as happy as possible. But I won't be saving you from trouble. I'll be tearing the trouble away from this world by the roots before it even has a chance to affect you two."

Anita met Nathan's eyes.

In them, she saw a bloodthirsty violence that she wouldn't have recognized in her son a few days ago. At the same time, his eyes were filled with an intense familial love and desperation to keep his parents safe.

After a while, Anita nodded.

It pained her to see her son like this. And she didn't like his clearly violent inclination. But if she had to choose between her son and the safe apprehension of violent criminals, it wasn't a choice at all.

"Do what you need to do, Nathan. I will support you as long as no innocents get harmed. That's where I draw the line."

She met Nathan's gaze and made sure he understood that if he crossed that line, it didn't matter how horrible his life had been before his regression. This was his chance to make things right, to heal, and to become more than a mindless killer. If he didn't take it, he didn't deserve getting his parents back.

Nathan gave a quick nod to signal his understanding of his mother's wishes.

"Nate."

"...I promise I'll try and control myself."

"I guess that's all I can ask."

Although Anita seemed to have accepted Nathan's story at face value, she still needed some time and privacy to fully process everything he had told her and what it would mean for the future, hers and her son's. Nathan left her alone and went up to the room he hadn't been in for decades.

It was nostalgic. But it wasn't as great as it had been to reunite with his parents. His room was of the old him. He was such a different person now that everything was foreign and unfamiliar.

But Nathan plopped down on his bed and dozed off while thinking about how he would get to tear the heads off of every single Vijang Syndicate thug again.

However, he didn't have any justification, nor did he have any strength. Drawing out enough of his body's latent strength to defeat two thugs had landed him in the hospital for a couple of days.

Last he knew, there were several thousand members of the Vijang Syndicate.

But even if he managed to kill them, he would still get the heroes after him. It had happened after the Vijang Syndicate took over Avalio. It would definitely happen if he killed the syndicate members before they got the chance to do any great misdeeds.

'No, wait…'

An image of Marcus flashed in Nathan's mind.

He might have justification. Something like taking over a city wasn't done on a whim. And the fact that no one, not a single hero, checked on the city for several weeks after it happened hinted at there being a greater scheme behind the whole thing.

Nathan figured that the Vijang Syndicate had probably already planned a couple of years ahead.

'At worst, I'll just continue fighting.'

Even if Nathan got the blame again, he wouldn't mind resisting arrest. His mother had asked him to keep any innocents out of it. But if they attacked him first, they were no longer innocent, were they?

'Well, it'll sort itself out one way or another.'

Nathan stopped worrying about the fallout of taking out the Vijang Syndicate. It didn't matter what would happen afterward. He was going to eradicate the Syndicate.

Nathan frowned.

But if Marcus was onto something, and it wasn't a coincidence that led to Avalio being abandoned, someone was above the Syndicate.

Nathan's face contorted in a twisted grin. Seems like he had another target.

'Speaking of which…'

Nathan got up from the bed and skipped over to the computer on his desk. It was old, even for his current timeline. But it worked, and it had access to a network of active heroes.

Since Rival Reconnaissance didn't work, Nathan would have to look up the Shrouded Hero manually.

However, as he was about to begin typing on the keyboard, Nathan frowned.

He moved his fingers to one of the letters before stopping his hand. He didn't press anything.

His mind was blank.

He couldn't remember.

He couldn't remember the Shrouded Hero's name.

'What the fuck…?'