Life is beautiful. So beautiful that, in the face of death, it reveals itself with a cruel and merciless ugliness, as if it were a lie that collapses with a mere breath from the end. It is this brutal contrast that gives existence its value — but also makes it fragile… almost illusory.
Seijuro Nagi — or simply Nagi, as he came to be called — grew up with eyes fascinated by the world. From a very young age, he would observe the silent ballet of the clouds, the whispering of the leaves in the wind, and the gentle laughter of flowers blooming under the sun. To him, life was a serene and magical spectacle. But that illusion was torn from his soul at the age of four, when he met death… not as an idea, but as a living, destructive presence directly connected to himself.
It was in that year that his Quirk awakened. A moment that should have been celebrated became a curse. Nagi didn't understand what was happening — no one did. A strange heat emanated from his body, followed by an unnatural stillness. The plants around him, once green and full of life, withered in seconds. The flowers wilted, the surrounding trees darkened as if scorched by an invisible plague, and the ground became dry, barren.
When his parents rushed to help him, distressed, trying to comfort the trembling child amidst the silent chaos, the horror revealed itself fully. All it took was a touch. A single moment. And their bodies began to disintegrate before his wide, terrified eyes. The flesh vanished, bones turned to ash, and finally… nothing. No screams. No goodbyes. Only dust dancing in the wind. Their life force — all that pulsing energy that kept their hearts beating — was drained, taken by him. An involuntary and irreversible theft.
Since that day, Seijuro Nagi carried a burden no child should ever have to bear. The power to steal energy—be it vital, thermal, electrical, kinetic—any form, from any field of physics. Anything that had motion, heat, or force… could be drained by him.
The world, once colorful and full of promise, became a field of exile. He isolated himself, afraid of hurting anyone else, afraid that his mere presence would be enough to extinguish more lives. The boy who once admired the sound of the wind began to live in silence, like a ghost among the living.
But even wrapped in solitude, Nagi didn't give up. As the years went by, he sought to understand the curse he carried. He had to control it—precisely—or he would never walk among people again. And that desire kept him going.
"I stole every kind of energy," he thought to himself, slowly rising in the clearing darkened by his presence. "Be it vital… or the one that governs the universe. And the worst part… it's fast. In a matter of days, I turned a vibrant forest into a dead, cursed land. Nothing survives where I exist for too long."
The thought echoed like a bitter whisper in his mind. Nagi clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging into his palms as his body trembled slightly. He sat, curled up in a fetal position, breathing deeply, trying to tame the chaos inside him. A breath of wind crossed the area—but upon touching his skin, it lost its warmth. Even the breeze seemed to die near him.
"I need to control the rhythm… if I can slow down the draining, or speed it up only when necessary, maybe I can live without destroying everything around me…"
He sighed. A heavy sigh, as if trying to push his own fate away. His eyes were fixed on the ground, but his mind aimed at the sky — a distant hope, perhaps unreachable, but still alive. And in that moment, even surrounded by death, Nagi decided to keep fighting. Because deep down, he still believed that life… could still be beautiful. Even if he was the very denial of it.
...
Understanding his special ability wasn't a complex process… at least not in theory. For Seijuro Nagi, the sensation felt strangely instinctive — as if it were part of his very essence, something that had always been there, dormant. It was like being a living magnet… but instead of attracting metals or magnetizable objects, he attracted energy. Every and any kind of energy. Vital. Kinetic. Thermal. Potential. Electric. Spiritual. There was no distinction — anything that contained energy would inevitably be pulled toward him.
But the real mystery was what happened afterward. Where did that energy go? Into his body? To some unknown dimension? He didn't know. His organism, no matter how absurd the amount it absorbed, showed no sign of overload. No cellular collapse, no anomalous accumulation, not even the slightest pain. His body seemed to accept it as if it had been molded for this very purpose. As if he were... the perfect vessel for the inevitable.
Nagi realized early on that his greatest enemy was rhythm. The speed at which he drained was devastating — almost automatic, as if his mere presence were a death sentence. That's why he dedicated the following years of his life to control. He started small, observing. Studying. Trying to understand the patterns. In moments of high stress, the draining intensified. When he was calm, it still happened… but seemed slower.
And so, through trial and error, he took his first step: slowing down, even just a little, the speed of the theft. A small feat, but monumental for someone who had lived in isolation for a decade, afraid of killing with a simple touch.
The years that followed were marked by an exhausting routine. Nagi created controlled environments — small greenhouses, patches of forest, even stretches of desert. But they all ended the same way: in silence, ashes covering the ground, trunks as dry as mummies, and the bitter taste of failure. Many times, he found himself on his knees, surrounded by a field of dead earth that he himself had created.
But he didn't give up.
It was ten years of pain, solitude, and unwavering determination. Until, finally, the impossible became real: he had managed to reduce his Drain to the bare minimum. An almost invisible thread. A whisper, where once there had been a hurricane.
"Alright…" he murmured to himself, a faint smile on his lips, as his blood-red eyes stared into the green horizon. "Let's go."
And then he ran.
His body vanished in a trail of speed so intense it left behind only a red blur in the air, like a brushstroke of blood across the landscape. The sound of his movement exploded in the air, like thunder after a flash of lightning.
As he dashed through the trees, he felt the wind tear around him. But in his mind, there was only focus.
'My energy drain, at normal speed… makes the leaves around me dry out in up to five seconds. If that doesn't happen… then I've won. I've managed to control what once destroyed my life.'
Suddenly, he stepped on air — a technique he had developed himself, manipulating the energy beneath his feet as propulsion, as if gravity too had been deceived. Physics no longer limited him.
Arriving at the heart of a living forest, Nagi slowed down. The sound ceased. Silence reigned for a few moments, broken only by the natural rustling of leaves and birdsong. An environment full of life.
Calmly, he extended his hand and touched a leaf—green, vibrant, pulsing with vitality.
One...
Two...
Three...
Four...
Five seconds passed.
Nothing.
The leaf remained intact, attached to the branch, alive. Although he could subtly feel the life energy being drained, it was almost imperceptible. A thin current, faint like an autumn breeze. Small. Tiny. Slow. Like drops of water falling into the ocean—nearly insignificant.
A smile formed on Nagi's face. A genuine smile. For the first time in a very, very long time, he wasn't a harbinger of death. For the first time, he had touched something living... and it still remained alive.
Nagi knelt and… jumped.
Boom!
The forest was hit by a massive shockwave and gust of wind, as a red blur shot up into the sky.
...
After so many years, society felt like a different world. An almost alien world. Seijuro Nagi observed everything with quiet eyes—eyes that had witnessed far more than they ever should have, and because of that, were now cautious. Ten years. Ten years without seeing a crowd. Without hearing the chaotic noise of voices, horns, laughter, hurried footsteps. Without smelling hot concrete, street food, the pulsing life of the urban world.
The last people he had seen up close were his own parents… before his uncontrollable Quirk turned their bodies to dust, their souls into distorted memories. Since then, human touch had become poison. A lethal risk.
He swallowed hard, averting his gaze at the memory. His heart gave a small spasm.
'Not now. Not here.' He shook his head slightly, as if trying to shake the memories away, to bury them once more in the shadows of his mind.
The redhead walked through the crowd with calm yet tense steps. He kept a certain distance from others, his eyes analyzing every movement, every laugh, every expression of boredom or joy. It was strange. To see children running after a ball, to see couples talking, to see an old man offering flowers at a simple stand. So ordinary. So human.
But for Nagi, it was almost surreal.
'They're living… even with all this around them.' he thought, watching the city in constant motion. There were still cracks in the buildings, construction machines on the streets, marks of something massive that had happened. But people kept going. They kept living.
For a moment, he thought about smiling. About getting closer. But something inside him stopped him. Something hard. Rusted. The isolation, the time… had left invisible scars. He didn't know how to be part of something anymore. He didn't know if he could.
"Hmm… It's not right to stay here," he murmured to himself, his voice muffled by the sound of cars and the city. And before anyone could truly notice him, he bent his knees and jumped with silent agility, landing on the rooftop of a building with the ease of someone used to avoiding attention.
From up there, the world looked smaller. More contained. Less suffocating.
"After ten years… I still can't be among people. I need to get used to it," he said, almost as if trying to convince himself.
He turned his back, ready to vanish into the concrete horizon… but was interrupted by the sound of a nearby screen. It was one of those large news displays, common in the busy zones of the city. And the voice that came from it froze him for a moment:
"The city of Tokyo, currently under reconstruction after the attack by the villain known as Destroyer, faces more dualities than one might imagine. Even with the tireless help of the Number 1 Hero, All Might, there are no guarantees the city will return to what it once was before the battle…"
Nagi slowly turned his gaze.
The images on the screen showed ruins. Collapsed buildings, completely destroyed roads, overturned cars, and people… people being rescued by heroes. Crying children. Blood. Dust. Chaos.
The impact of the images hit him like a punch to the chest.
His jaw tightened. His fists clenched tightly at his sides. He felt the wind hit his face, rustling the reddish strands of his hair, while something inside him... hurt.
It wasn't just empathy. It wasn't just compassion.
It was a deep, almost instinctive feeling of outrage.
"...Why do something like this?" he murmured. The question slipped out without thinking, as if torn from the depths of his soul.
He didn't know Destroyer. He didn't know the reasons, nor the story. But he knew the outcome. He knew what it meant to take someone's life. He knew what it was like to watch the light fade from someone's eyes because of something beyond control.
And that... that wasn't strength. It was selfishness. It was destruction for the sake of destruction.
Seijuro's gaze hardened as he stared at the wreckage on the screen. For the first time in a long while, something inside him began to stir. A silent call. Not of heroism... but of purpose.
Maybe he still couldn't walk among people.
But maybe... just maybe... he could protect them from afar.