It was the third day of my last year of school. I usually took walks back to my house, as the school building wasn’t far from my home. As always, the sidewalk was empty, as everyone who looked at me crossed the street immediately. I’ve gotten used to it. This time, though, I heard shouting coming from an alleyway.

“So that’s the deal. Give us the homework answers, and we won’t hurt you.”

“Heh, and if you don’t, we’ll just have Sitch here make your life hell.”

I got closer and took a peek. There were two large, burly students and an average-sized one surrounding a short student pressed against a wall. The short student was grappling his backpack and had seemingly pissed his pants.

“Hey now, you two have your super-strength, that’s more than enough to deal with this kid,” the one called Sitch said.

“Aw, come on! Fire is much more threatening,” one of the large bullies said. This one’s name was Tullis.

On a whim, I decided to intervene. Not a very smart idea in most cases…

“Hey. What are you doing?” I interjected.

“Oh, shit! It’s him!” the other of the large bullies said. This one’s name was Rand.

“Fuck… Please don’t hurt us!” Tullis pleaded.

“Hm? Who’s this guy?” Sitch said.

Before I heard an answer to that question, I took a glance at the short student. He had completely fallen to the ground, cowering in fear and shaking.

“I don’t know his name, but I heard he’s harbouring a gigantic dark beast in his body, which he can release to kill anyone he wants!” Tullis said.

“I heard he can open up portals straight to hell and throw you in them if you slight him!” Rand said.

“So what?” Sitch asked. “That’s probably not true.”

While this was going on, I was still looking down at the floor, which meant none of them could see my face. The large bullies had clearly seen my hood and scarf, though. I looked up at them.

“W-Why does he look like that?!” Sitch said in surprise. “What the fuck?!”

“See?” Tullis said, clearly shaken. “Please, spare us!”

“Sure,” I said. A brief burst of adrenaline coursed through my body after saying that.

“Let’s get out of here!” Rand shouted.

And then, they ran away. The student on the ground stood up, with tears flowing through his eyes and snot crawling down from his nose.

“A-Are you gonna hurt me?” he said.

“No, of course not.”

“You saved me…” He sniffed multiple times. “Thank you.”

“Oh, uh, no problem, yeah.”

Frankly, I was still confused.

Turns out, I had built up quite the reputation without knowing. While I was already used to people looking at me in fear because of my appearance, students at my school had made up tons of rumours about me. They said I had all sorts of dark powers, and that I would harm anyone who made me angry for some reason. I imagine that’s the reason why everyone avoids me and even my teachers are afraid of slighting me. I suppose that explains why I was always given great scores on tests and homework that I’d put zero effort into. The thing is…

I didn’t actually have powers.

After this incident, the student I saved told all his nerdy friends about what happened. Suddenly, I had become popular among all the less popular students from my school. They kept hounding me while I was walking through the school halls. They kept telling me about their problems with bullies and asking me to help them. And I did. Every time I saw someone being bullied, I walked towards the them and the bully ran away. Truth be told, I felt a rush every time I did this. Helping others felt good, even if I couldn’t actually do anything.

My appearance… I didn’t look like the average person. Many heroes didn’t, but everybody was used to that. Even the ones that didn’t look human at all got less shocked looks than me. I wore a hood and a scarf, not to conceal my face, but because of the light-sucking properties of my head. My face had been described as creepy and off-putting. I could see why. It’s pure black, except for my eyes, which are white, circular and 2-dimensional. I hadn't seen the rest of my body in years, so I couldn’t describe that aspect of my appearance.

My home wasn’t very fancy. You’d expect that a former top-ranking professional hero like Shadow Valkyrie would live in an expensive home away from the city like most retired heroes, but Grandma Shadow decided to live in the city. We lived in a small house surrounded by tall buildings, so it stuck out a lot. When I got home, there was usually a reporter or an author interviewing her about her prime years, as she accepted all requests for whatever reason.

I didn’t have any friends. I tried hanging out with the students I save. They’d invite me to their student clubs, but many of them were boring. Science, mathematics, and things of that sort didn’t particularly interest me. The clubs that sounded less like work and more than fun also bored me. The biggest one was the anime club, but it was just a room full of nerds watching TV shows that featured weirdly-drawn women with impossibly large breasts. Not for me.

That was my life up until that point. The most exciting thing I did was stare at people intensely until they ran away, but I had no real abilities, skills, or hobbies.

However, my life took a sharp turn in the most unexpected of places: a grocery store.