Chapter 3: The Shattered Sanctuary
Rin did not like the outside world. The outside world was loud, unpredictable, and entirely out of her control.
Inside her fourth-floor apartment, however, everything was perfectly ordered. The glow of her triple-monitor setup bathed her pale face in a comforting, sterile light. On the center screen, a high-stakes match of Global Heroics Tactics was reaching its climax. Rin, under the username GateL0ck, was currently dismantling the defenses of a highly-ranked opponent named Null_Sector.
She didn't need to look away from the screen to grab her soda. Raising her left hand, Rin activated her Quirk. A small, shimmering blue tear in space—no larger than a dinner plate—ripped open in the air beside her desk. Two feet away in her kitchenette, a corresponding tear opened inside her refrigerator. She reached her hand through the portal by her desk, felt the cold aluminum of a soda can, and pulled it back through.
Gatekeeper. It was a pathetic Quirk by society's standards. The portals were too small to step through and required exact spatial awareness. It was a Quirk meant for parlor tricks and ultimate laziness, not heroism. But Rin didn't want to be a hero. She just wanted to be safe.
Checkmate, Rin typed into the game's chat box as her digital units swarmed Null_Sector's base.
A message popped up from her opponent almost instantly.
Null_Sector: You have an incredible mind for strategy, GateL0ck. You anticipate every angle of attack. It's a shame your physical walls aren't as strong as your digital ones.
Rin frowned, her fingers hovering over her keyboard. What is that supposed to mean?
Before she could type a reply, the world exploded.
A deafening shockwave shattered her apartment windows, sending a hurricane of glass and rain whipping through her bedroom. Rin screamed, throwing her arms over her head as her monitors sparked and died, plunging the room into darkness lit only by the violent flashes of explosions outside.
The floor heaved beneath her. Car alarms shrieked in chorus down on the street. Peering terrified through the shattered window, Rin saw the nightmare of the outside world breaking down her door.
Two blocks away, the massive, towering form of the Pro Hero Mt. Lady was wrestling with a villain whose body seemed composed of volatile, expanding sludge. The villain roared, detonating a massive chunk of his own shoulder. The blast sent Mt. Lady stumbling backward.
The giant heroine lost her footing. With a terrified shout, she crashed backward, her massive form colliding directly with the foundation of Rin's apartment complex.
The screech of tearing metal and shattering concrete was agonizing. The building tilted violently to the right. Rin's bookshelf toppled, burying her door beneath hundreds of pounds of wood and paper. The ceiling groaned, raining plaster down on her desk.
"No, no, no!" Rin panicked, scrambling backward until her back hit the far wall. She was trapped. It was her absolute worst nightmare brought to life.
She raised her trembling hands, trying to force her Quirk to its absolute limit. She needed a portal big enough to step through. She focused on the alleyway below, pouring every ounce of her adrenaline into her hands. A blue tear sparked in the air, stretching to the size of a tire, then a hula hoop—but the strain was too much. Her nose began to bleed, a sharp migraine stabbing behind her eyes. The portal sputtered and collapsed into sparks.
She couldn't do it. She was going to be crushed, collateral damage in a fight between titans who didn't even know she existed.
"They call it 'acceptable losses,'" a distorted, ethereal voice whispered through the dust and chaos.
Rin gasped, her eyes snapping to the shadows near her ruined computer desk. The darkness there seemed to thicken, weaving itself into the shape of a tall man in a long, black cloak. Luminescent, violet butterfly wings pulsed faintly against the dark fabric. A silver moth-mask obscured his face, reflecting the fires burning down on the street.
"Who—how did you get in here?" Rin choked on the plaster dust, pressing herself harder against the wall.
"I have been watching you, Rin," the figure said, his voice a mesmerizing blend of silk and grinding stone. "I watched you build your digital fortresses. I watched you calculate every variable to keep yourself isolated and safe. Null_Sector was an adequate opponent, wasn't he?"
Rin's breath hitched. The game. He found me through the game. Another explosion rocked the building. The ceiling above Rin gave way, a massive steel support beam groaning as it began to snap.
"The heroes out there do not care about your sanctuary," Nocturne continued, stepping calmly through the falling debris. He didn't even flinch as a chunk of concrete shattered against his shoulder. "To them, you are a statistic. A necessary sacrifice for their glory. But to me... you are a master tactician trapped in a fragile cage."
Nocturne raised his gloved hand. From his palm, a sphere of cosmic, violet light bloomed, coalescing into a stunning, ethereal butterfly. The sheer power radiating from the insect made the hairs on Rin's arms stand up. It was the culmination of his second year in this world, and the energy was intoxicating.
"I am the Winged Sovereign," Nocturne declared, his voice cutting through the roar of the collapsing building. "I offer you an escape from this terror. I offer you a sanctuary that no hero's carelessness and no villain's wrath can ever breach. Do you want to be helpless, Rin? Or do you want to be untouchable?"
The steel beam above her finally snapped, plunging downward with lethal force.
"I don't want to die!" Rin screamed, her blue eyes locked onto the glowing butterfly. "I just want to be safe!"
"I accept your desire," Nocturne commanded.
He flicked his wrist. The butterfly darted forward, phasing instantly through the falling plaster to sink directly into Rin's chest.
A shockwave of iridescent, silvery-blue light erupted from Rin's body. The falling steel beam, mere inches from crushing her skull, suddenly hit the aura of light. But it didn't bounce off. It slipped through her, as if Rin were made of air, crashing harmlessly through the floorboards beneath her feet.
Rin gasped, her entire body vibrating with a new, impossible frequency. She raised her hands. Instead of the small, strained portals of her past, a massive, swirling gateway of silvery energy tore open the fabric of reality itself, entirely swallowing the space around her and Nocturne.
The building collapsed entirely, thousands of tons of concrete and steel raining down. But inside the portal's radius, there was only utter stillness. The rubble fell right through them, splashing into the real world while Rin and Nocturne stood safely within a shimmering, intangible pocket dimension.
Sanctuary Phasing. It was a perfect synthesis of her spatial manipulation and her desperate need for absolute defense.
Rin looked at her glowing hands, then out at the dust settling over the ruined city block, which she could see as if looking through a one-way mirror. She was safe. She was finally, truly safe.
She turned to look at the towering, masked figure standing beside her in the pocket dimension. He was observing her, a satisfied tilt to his head.
"You saved me," Rin whispered, the anxiety that had ruled her entire life suddenly quieted by the hum of her new power.
"No, Rin," Nocturne replied, stepping closer, his butterfly-wing patterns glowing softly. "I gave you the tools. You saved yourself." He reached out, placing a gloved hand on her shoulder. Deep within his own chest, the power of Sanctuary Phasing locked itself into his arsenal, nesting neatly beside Akio's Aegis Pulse. "Now... let us put that strategic mind of yours to proper use. We have a broken world to fix."