The middle of the night is always haunting those with paranoia. The darkened sky remained a blanket over the neighbourhood. The residential district was silent.

Shuffle shuffle-

Footsteps belonging to that of a male youth could be heard. The lone individual darted his eyes around with apprehensive eyes.

...

"..."

Raspy breaths and choking gasps could be heard, it seemed like he had been running. Or perhaps, running away from something. Despite his desperate attempts at pacing, the youth did not seem very familiar with exercising. The sweat from his forehead clearly showed his meagre amounts of stamina.

Within a few more steps, the youth had already given up. His right arm was resting against a ledge of a terrace house.

"..."

Still he was silent. No matter how embarassing it was for a teenager like him to be this physically inept, the youth called "White" did not dare to make a sound in the middle of the night.

"...Ghh..."

Giving in to his paranoia, White turned around one more time. He had been doing this for the thirteenth time now, yet he still felt uncomfortable, as if he was being watched from the corner of his eyes.

Taking in the sight behind him with his droopy eyes, White saw...

Nothing as usual.

The neighbourhood was silent as it had always been, and there was no one behind him.

The youth grit his teeth, as if he had enough of the unnatural tension. He never felt safe once he was outside.

Yet as if to prove him wrong, the streets were empty, illuminated by a few lampposts stemmed onto the concrete pavement he had been walking on.

"...Haahh... haahhh... haaahh... euk... kahhhaah..."

His breathing slowly stabilized.

(...Fuck... this...)

White cursed inside. If anyone were to see him like this in the middle of the night, he might have been detained by the police because of how suspicious he looked.

...Unable to do anything about it, the youth turned his head back forward and hastened his pace.

It wasn't as if he wanted fresh air out of the blue. At least to an onlooker, it did seem like the youth needed it.

His unkempt and shady look did not inspire any girls to look at him, White seemed like the unpopular kind who would be picked on in high school. ...In any case, he was out of his usual abode for a different purpose.

The youth had awoken to a series of thunderclaps.

As disturbed as he was, it was a dangerous thought to wander outside this late at night.

Even a NEET like him could understand that. He lived in a country with a low crime rate, but nothing was ever certain in this world. Perhaps he would be stabbed to death by some stalker cooked up inside his head. Maybe he would be run over by a truck, sending him over to another world.

Such delusions continued to bog his mind down. White was someone who overthinks, symptoms of one who would contract the deadly eighth-grader syndrome.

...But this time, perhaps he truly felt a 'real' premonition. A dream? A nightmare?

The youth awoke in cold sweat an hour ago.

He could not remember its contents, but he could feel something from it.

The irrational thought of wanting to head outside. Yet without a direction, White still felt like he had to leave his chilly apartment.

(What is it? What is going on?)

The youth felt as if his feet were not his own, he had been heading towards a certain direction for a while now, yet his mind was blank. ...Perhaps, he was having a lucid dream.

Presently-

The chill from the air in the open seeped through his skin. The youth rubbed his hands together and moved them close to his mouth. Exhaling softly, a cloud of air dispersed into the surroundings. Of course, he never stopped walking, as if being directed to do so.

There were truly no one around on the streets.

The path that he was walking on, guided by adjacent street lamps illuminating the pavement. Occasionally he would find a few beggars sleeping along the streets, but nothing else stood out in the silent neighbourhood. He continued walking.

Passing by a few facilities that were rather unfamiliar to him, he walked and walked.

A playground with a sand pit, a child-care centre, a small mart that seemed to run on a family business. Of course, that was closed. The youth walked on briskly, and the destination seemed to be clearer.

He was heading towards a nearby convenience store, while being wary of his surroundings.

Perhaps he needed painkillers...? Was that why his body was being incited to move like this?

White clutched his head, and felt himself getting a little light-headed from his apprehension.

The convenience store served as a drugstore too, so long as he showed his identification card for a legal purchase. The restrictions weren't really heavy since he was too, diagnosed with similar illnesses that caused him to suffer from constant insomnia.

(...Fuck... this is so weird...)

His migraines came in a series of unfamiliar voices overlapping, and he was the one to receive the full brunt of that disjointed noise. Like a radio with bad frequency, it wasn't something pleasant to the ears.

Clutching his head to balance himself, the voices slowly settled down one after another.

Sighing to himself while gripping his jacket even tighter to extract some warmth, the youth slowly reached the entrance of the convenience store. An out-of-service gas station was right behind it and further behind was a hill fenced off as private property, but it wasn't really something he wanted to know anyway.

Feeling a little more lethargic than usual, he decided to grab his items and quickly pay for them when he entered. But that thought was quickly erased, and his senses turned sharper.

Clearly, the situation had changed.

The youth's eyes had finally rested upon the glass doors of the convenience store. He assessed the situation at once, quickly before his eyes. Rather, right beyond the glass doors.

There was... something unbelievable happening.

A burly man wearing a beige-coloured beanie and a purple trenchcoat. ...Not that it mattered how he looked like, but the situation he was placing himself in. In the hand that was holding what seemed like a black metallic firearm, the man was placing its nuzzle right before the head of a female clerk.

His eyes widened.

"...Wh...at...?"

For a moment, White did not catch on. He did not seriously think that something would happen. The rationality within his head turned into a sea of white.

(A... robbery... ...?!)

...A robbery was taking place.

His feet had led him to such a peculiar event.

But of course, the youth at this time, was not aware of it.

This had been the catalyst that would carry him forward. To graduate from his weak self.

White Shigaraki would cross over to another world this fateful night, just like the novels that he had read before countless of times.