Back at school, President Maya kept picking up bits and pieces of the story. "Sleeping Marion—the Super Killer" had already become Hell's Kitchen's newest urban legend.
Maya never commented on the rumors. Even when someone brought it up to her face, she maintained that trademark ice-queen indifference—cool, aloof, utterly unbothered.
And why wouldn't she? Nobody on the planet knew the full story better than President Maya herself. That "Super Marion" was her creation from start to finish.
Back in the alley, she'd deliberately let Marion go so she could use him to fish for intel on the killers. Originally, she'd only wanted to gather a bit more information—after all, she couldn't eavesdrop on all of Hell's Kitchen the way Matthew could.
Then that killer Ranskahov just had to run his mouth: "Recruiting high schoolers as cannon fodder is a great idea—I should take a page from Marion's playbook."
Excuse me? Maya had just finished cleaning up Marion's mess, and now this guy wanted to start the same nonsense? All her hard work would've been for nothing!
And so, "Puppet Master" Maya Hansen premiered the Marion Edition of The Matrix a little ahead of schedule.
Thanks to Maya's keen sensory perception, the "Chosen One" was born.
Even after the dust settled, Maya didn't discard her Sleeping Marion cover identity. She'd heard clearly enough—the redheaded knockoff Wolverine wasn't one of Ranskahov's underlings. They were partners, which meant someone was pulling strings behind Owlsley too.
That made Sleeping Marion the perfect decoy—a big, shiny target for whoever lurked in the shadows.
If they blew the decoy to pieces? No skin off her back. Just an expendable gambit.
Now, during the lunch break, President Maya tracked down Matthew to follow up on the aftermath.
"Matthew. Matthew Murdock, get over here!" She called out without waiting for a response and headed straight for the student council office. She never doubted Matthew's hearing.
"Hey, Matt! The President's calling for you!" A pudgy white kid elbowed Matthew with a teasing grin. "So when did you start getting cozy with the President, huh? You sly dog!"
"Foggy, knock it off. Probably about yesterday's thing. Look, I'll fill you in later—let me go see what she wants."
Lunchtime. Student council president's office.
"Do you know what happened last night?" Maya cut straight to the point.
Matthew's expression flickered. He thought for a moment before answering: "I didn't know at the time. I only heard about it today from other people talking."
Oh, Matthew. You're still too green. That was practically a neon sign reading "I DEFINITELY KNEW." Could he have been any more obvious?
In the end, Maya didn't call him out on it. Instead, she asked: "So do you know what's going on with Marion now? Has the police caught him?"
Matthew wasn't actually stupid—far from it. You don't pass the bar exam while blind without serious brainpower. And people shouldn't mistake his future shabby law office for Matthew Murdock being worthless. Opening your own practice before thirty? That alone spoke volumes about his ability.
Sure enough, fifteen-year-old Matthew caught his own slip almost immediately. But faced with President Maya's direct question, he couldn't exactly refuse to answer. "The police don't have solid evidence. Besides, when it comes to gang-on-gang violence, as long as it stays inside Hell's Kitchen, the cops generally don't bother."
This genuinely surprised Maya. "That many people died and the police aren't even reacting?"
Matthew let out a bitter laugh. He recalled what he'd overheard from the precinct inspector yesterday and said with resignation: "They're apparently focused on monitoring Frank's situation. As for street shootouts—this kind of, well, minor incident—they don't have the manpower."
Minor incident? Sixty or seventy dead, and it's a "minor incident"? Manhattan—the borough with the highest police density in America—and they're short on manpower?
Then again, in this insane world, someone had once tried to nuke Manhattan. What was impossible anymore? They didn't bat an eye at tens of millions of civilian lives. Seventy dead gangsters didn't even register as a blip.
"And Marion?"
Matthew's expression turned strange. "Marion, uh… Marion actually seems to have some kind of mental condition. For some reason, he was already packing his bags this morning, trying to skip town. But his leg muscles are torn and he can't walk, so he ended up stuck at Manhattan Hospital."
A quick note here: President Maya's shadow clones had no heartbeat. That's right—shadow clones didn't need to breathe. Sustained entirely by chakra, they required no respiration and produced no pulse.
A shadow clone could breathe, could make its heart beat. But those functions weren't automatic—Maya controlled them manually.
Even if Matthew had been monitoring the Butcher Bar all night with his superhearing, he couldn't have detected Maya's shadow clone. He couldn't even sense the shadow secret technique controlling Marion, because hearing simply couldn't pick up chakra. Maybe if Matthew had been physically present—close enough for his enhanced spatial awareness to kick in—he might have sensed something. But at range? Nothing.
What Maya hadn't expected was Marion being paranoid enough to bolt the moment he sensed something was off. As for his legs—well, yesterday's wall-assisted backflip covering over 10 meters (~33 feet) had sent way too much recoil through both legs. Without Maya's chakra shielding, he wouldn't have gotten off with just torn muscles. His shins would've snapped into pieces on the spot.
Maya noticed Matthew still standing there after she'd finished her questions. He wore an expression like he wanted to say something but couldn't quite get it out.
"You're not leaving. Is there something else?"
Finally, with the look of a man walking to the gallows, Matthew spoke: "President Hansen, do you—do you know—I mean, do you already know—um—"
"Whether I already know how you knew all that?"
The question was grammatically tangled, but Matthew understood perfectly. He nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes! I've never told anyone. After that accident, my hearing and sense of smell grew far beyond normal. I haven't even told my father."
Maya propped her chin on her hand and thought for a moment. "There are only a few hundred students in this school, and we're in the same grade. Matthew, hasn't it occurred to you? You're blind, yet you've never once properly used a cane. In the month since you transferred, students with perfectly good eyes have tripped and fallen more than once—but you haven't stumbled a single time. In the cafeteria, you navigate the lunch line more nimbly than sighted kids and you've never bumped anyone's tray."
Matthew's face was a picture of shock and embarrassment. Maya pressed on.
"Most blind people, even in a familiar environment, minimize their movement to avoid getting disoriented. You? You're bouncing around the campus like a pinball—more active than your buddy Foggy. Matthew, honestly, in what way do you resemble a normal blind person? And I've got more. The speed at which you learned Braille. The time you took down several bullies who tried to mess with you. That one time you told your best friend which teacher was coming before they even walked through the classroom door—"
Satisfied with the look of utter defeat on Matthew's face, President Maya stopped there. She gave him a moment to collect himself.
Truth be told, everything she'd said was genuine observation. In her past life, the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie had come out too early for her to catch, and the TV series? Well, someone had been busy grinding out code to pay off loans.
She only knew of Daredevil from some webnovel she'd read—just that there was a street hero by that name. Everything else was fuzzy at best.
As for names? Ha.
Setting aside the infamous "Your mom's name is Martha? My mom's name is Martha too!" meme from the other franchise—just look at the two people in this room. Maya's stepfather was named Jack. Matthew's biological father was also named Jack.
In the West, names really didn't have much distinguishing power.