Chapter 10: The Over-Release
The Black Site Registry was a treasure trove of the Hero Commission's darkest sins, but for Rei Arata, it was also a map.
Sitting in the blue glow of his basement monitors, Rei cross-referenced the Commission's data with the underground chatter he had picked up from Giran. The League of Villains was already moving, preparing to strike the containment facilities. Chaos was brewing. But Rei needed more power, and he needed it now.
His eyes scanned a highly classified Commission intercept regarding a foreign syndicate known as the Gollini Family. They had infiltrated Japan alongside a madman masquerading as a false symbol of peace—a villain who called himself Dark Might. But Rei didn't care about the false All Might. He cared about the prize the syndicate was hunting: a young European girl named Anna Scervino.
Target Quirk: Over-Release, the Commission file read. Ability to forcibly enhance and amplify the Quirks of others, often resulting in catastrophic loss of control.
Rei leaned forward, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Catastrophic loss of control. To anyone else, Anna's power was a curse, a weapon that turned Quirks into volatile bombs. But to the Winged Sovereign, whose power was rigidly locked behind a one-year gestation period, her Quirk wasn't a curse. It was a key. It was the exact catalyst needed to force a premature mutation.
"Rin," Rei spoke into his secure comms, his voice dropping into the dual-toned resonance of Nocturne. "Track these coordinates. I need a quiet route to the Yokohama shipping yards."
The rain over Yokohama was relentless, washing the smell of salt and rusting iron across the maze of towering shipping containers.
Deep within the labyrinth of steel, Anna Scervino huddled beneath an oversized, rain-soaked coat. She was trembling, her wide, terrified eyes darting at every shadow. Standing squarely in front of her, his cybernetic prosthetic arm humming with barely suppressed energy, was Giulio Gandini.
The butler's one good eye narrowed, peering through the torrential downpour. He held a customized, high-caliber revolver at his side. He was bleeding from a shallow cut on his cheek, exhaustion pulling at the corners of his mouth. They had been running for days. The Gollini Family was relentless, and the man who wore All Might's face was tearing the city apart to claim Anna's power.
"Stay behind me, Miss Anna," Giulio murmured, his voice a steady, uncompromising anchor in the storm. "We will find a boat. I will get you out of this country."
"They're too close, Giulio," Anna whispered, tears mixing with the rain on her face. "If they catch us... if he forces me to use my Quirk on him... he'll destroy everything."
"I will die before I let them touch you," Giulio promised.
"A noble sentiment," an ethereal, grinding voice echoed from the dripping shadows of the containers. "But dying for your lady will not keep her safe. It will only leave her defenseless."
Giulio whipped around, leveling his revolver at the darkness between two massive red containers. He didn't hesitate; he thumbed back the hammer. "Show yourself! Step into the light, or I'll put a bullet in you!"
From the pitch-black void, the shadows seemed to physically peel apart. Nocturne glided forward, his long black cloak absorbing the sparse light of the docks. The violet butterfly-wing patterns on his fabric pulsed with a slow, hypnotic rhythm. The rain seemed to curve around him, completely repelled by a faint, invisible iteration of Akio's Aegis Pulse.
"I am not with the Gollini Family. Nor do I bow to the false god hunting you," Nocturne stated calmly, his masked face entirely unreadable. "Put the gun down, Giulio Gandini. I am here to make a trade."
Giulio's grip tightened, but he didn't fire. He was an expert at reading threats, and the towering entity before him radiated a suffocating, almost cosmic pressure. "What trade?"
Nocturne shifted his gaze to the terrified girl shivering behind the butler. "You possess the Over-Release, Anna. You have spent your entire life terrified of your own power because it breaks the limits of those you touch, turning them into monsters. I am asking you to touch me. I am asking you to break my limits."
Anna gasped, gripping Giulio's sleeve. "No... no, you don't understand! If I enhance your Quirk, you won't be able to control it! It will tear your body apart!"
"My body is already a vessel for things you cannot comprehend," Nocturne replied, stepping closer. "My power requires a year to forge a single gift. I do not have a year. The Hero Society is collapsing, and I need an army to protect what comes next. If you force my Quirk to evolve tonight... I will give the resulting power to your butler."
Giulio's eye widened. He looked at his own cybernetic arm, then at the masked stranger. "You can... grant Quirks?"
"I grant miracles based on desire," Nocturne whispered. "You desire to be the absolute, unbreakable shield for your lady. If you let me do this, Giulio, you will no longer have to run from Dark Might's thugs. You will have the power to slaughter them."
Giulio looked back at Anna. He saw the terror in her eyes, but he also saw the sheer, crushing exhaustion. They couldn't keep running. Eventually, a bullet would find him, and Anna would be taken.
Giulio lowered his gun. He looked at Anna and gave her a single, resolute nod. Do it.
Anna swallowed hard. Her hands trembling, she slowly stepped out from behind Giulio. She approached the terrifying, masked figure of the Winged Sovereign. She reached out, her small, pale hand pressing against the dark fabric of Nocturne's chest.
She activated her Quirk.
Over-Release.
The reaction was instantaneous and apocalyptic.
Rei Arata threw his head back behind his silver mask, a horrific, distorted scream ripping from his throat. The pain was beyond anything he had ever experienced. It felt as though liquid fire had been injected directly into his soul. His innate Quirk—the delicate, cosmic machinery that slowly spun his raw energy into butterflies over 365 days—was suddenly flooded with a tsunami of raw, hyper-compressed power.
The glowing violet wings on his cloak flared into a blinding, searing white-hot crimson. The Emotion Sight in his brain short-circuited, projecting a blinding aura of blood-red light across the entire shipyard. The phantom Quirks of his avatars—Akio, Rin, and Kenji—screamed in protest, threatening to tear his physical body to pieces.
MUTATION IMMINENT, his mind roared.
Nocturne fell to his knees, gripping his chest. From his palm, the dark cosmic energy didn't just bloom; it erupted.
The fourth butterfly was born.
It was nothing like the others. It was larger, its wings razor-sharp and jagged, burning with a volatile, brilliant crimson-gold fire. It hummed with a terrifying, heavy frequency that cracked the concrete beneath Nocturne's knees.
He had done it. He had shattered the one-year rule. His Quirk had forcefully mutated under Anna's Over-Release, unlocking the ability to rapidly generate avatars—at the cost of unimaginable physical agony.
Gasping for air, his muscles twitching violently, Nocturne held the burning crimson butterfly out to the stunned butler.
"Your... your desire," Nocturne rasped, his voice glitching between its human and ethereal tones. "Take it."
Giulio stepped forward, his eye locked onto the burning construct. He didn't hesitate. He reached out, and the crimson butterfly phased directly through his chest, sinking into his heart.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Giulio's good eye snapped open, glowing with a brilliant, predatory gold.
A shockwave of crimson energy exploded from the butler, instantly vaporizing the rain in a hundred-foot radius. The cybernetic arm attached to his shoulder began to shift, the metal reconfiguring as the new Quirk fused with his existing tech and his innate nullification abilities.
Crimson Arsenal. A manifestation of his absolute devotion, Giulio's new Quirk allowed him to forge ultra-dense, crimson-energy constructs—swords, shields, and artillery—directly out of his own life force, all perfectly harmonized with his cybernetics.
"Over there! I heard shouting!" a gruff voice yelled from the edge of the shipping yard.
A dozen armed thugs from the Gollini Family rounded the corner, their Quirks flaring—men made of rock, women with bladed arms, and mercenaries holding heavy assault rifles.
"There she is! Grab the girl!" the lead thug roared.
Giulio didn't run. He turned to face the dozen assassins, his posture perfectly straight. He raised his cybernetic arm. In a flash of blinding red light, a massive, jagged broadsword forged of pure, crackling crimson energy materialized in his grip.
"Miss Anna," Giulio said, his voice terrifyingly calm as the golden light burned in his eye. "Please cover your ears."
In a blur of superhuman speed, Giulio vanished. He reappeared instantly amidst the thugs, moving with the lethal precision of a guided missile. The crimson sword cleaved through a mercenary's rock-armor as if it were wet tissue paper. He spun, generating a crimson energy-shield from his left arm to block a hail of bullets, before unleashing a wave of concussive red force that sent five men flying into the ocean.
It was a massacre. Within thirty seconds, the elite Gollini hit squad was incapacitated, groaning on the wet concrete.
Giulio stood amidst the fallen, the crimson sword dissolving into mist. He looked down at his hands, awestruck by the sheer, unbridled power he now commanded. He was no longer just a bodyguard. He was a one-man army.
Nocturne slowly pushed himself up from the ground, leaning heavily against a shipping container. The Over-Release had faded, leaving him physically drained but victorious. His Quirk had survived the mutation.
Giulio hurried back to Anna, checking her for injuries before turning to the masked Sovereign. The butler placed his right hand over his heart and offered a deep, respectful bow.
"You gave me the power to protect her," Giulio said, his voice thick with gratitude. "I do not know your endgame, Sovereign. But when we are finished with Dark Might... my life is yours."
Nocturne offered a weak, but triumphant nod. "Keep her safe, Giulio. The Swarm will be waiting."
With a swirl of his dark cloak, Nocturne stepped backward, dissolving perfectly into the shadows as Rin's Sanctuary Phasing pulled him back to safety. He left the butler and the heiress alone in the rain, a devastating new alliance forged in the fires of a mutated Quirk.