Chapter 17: The Puppeteer and the Monster
The Hero Public Safety Commission's secondary data-vault in the Shibuya district was entirely off the books. It was disguised as a defunct water-treatment facility, guarded by private military contractors and automated security drones.
It was supposed to be impenetrable. But the Commission had never accounted for a ghost who could walk through walls, or a puppeteer who could steal minds.
Hitoshi Shinso stood in the rain-soaked alleyway outside the facility's loading dock. He was dressed in a sleek, dark tactical jacket lined with faint, violet butterfly motifs. A black half-mask, equipped with a voice modulator designed by Nocturne, covered his nose and mouth.
He took a slow, deep breath, feeling the Synaptic Overclock humming beneath his skin. It didn't feel like the leaking, agonizing pressure Aoyama had described. It felt like standing on the edge of a thunderstorm, waiting for the lightning to strike.
"I'm in position, GateL0ck," Shinso whispered into his comms.
"Copy that, Overmind," Rin's voice replied, using his new Swarm callsign. "I am phased inside the concrete of the exterior wall. Two guards approaching your position. Give me the green light."
Shinso stepped out of the shadows and directly into the pale light of the loading dock.
The two heavily armed contractors immediately raised their assault rifles, the laser sights painting Shinso's chest. "Freeze! Hands in the air! Who the hell are you?"
Shinso didn't raise his hands. Through the voice modulator, his words came out as a smooth, metallic echo. "Is it always this cold on the night shift?"
The guard on the left frowned, his finger tightening on the trigger. "What did you just—"
Snap. The moment the guard answered, Shinso's Quirk engaged. But the Synaptic Overclock changed everything. Shinso's pupils dilated, glowing with a fierce, telepathic purple light. He didn't just seize control of the man's motor functions; his own nervous system instantly networked with the guard's brain. The processing power of a second human mind was forcefully routed into Shinso's physical muscles.
A shockwave of purple, crackling energy erupted around Shinso. He felt his muscle density instantly multiply. The world around him seemed to slow down to a crawl.
"Drop your weapons," Shinso commanded.
Both guards rigidly lowered their rifles, their eyes blank.
Above them, a security camera swiveled, its red lens locking onto the anomaly. A heavy, automated defense drone dropped from the awning, its twin machine guns revving up to neutralize the intruder.
In the past, Shinso would have been torn to shreds. Now, he was a psychic dreadnought.
Fueled by the cognitive processing of the two guards, Shinso moved with blinding, superhuman speed. He leaped twenty feet into the air, the concrete cracking beneath his boots. He grabbed the heavy steel drone mid-air, his fingers crushing the reinforced titanium plating like aluminum foil, and tore its central processing unit clean out.
He landed silently, tossing the sparking machinery aside.
"Clear," Shinso breathed, his heart hammering with the sheer, intoxicating thrill of true power. He wasn't fragile anymore. He was a weapon.
A silvery-blue tear ripped open the heavy steel blast doors in front of him. Rin stepped out of her Sanctuary Phasing, holding her decrypted tablet. She looked at the crushed drone, then at Shinso, her eyes wide. "Show-off. Keep them under. The longer you hold their minds, the stronger you are. I need ninety seconds to pull the Project Seraph files."
Rin plugged her tablet into the loading dock's external override port, her fingers flying across the screen. Shinso stood guard, his purple aura humming.
"I'm bypassing the mainframe," Rin muttered. "I'm looking for Subject 09... Icarus. The Commission must have a containment protocol for him."
Rin's tablet flashed bright red. A string of error codes flooded the screen, followed by a live GPS telemetry map.
Rin's breath caught in her throat. "Overmind. He isn't here. Subject 09 was deployed four hours ago."
"Deployed?" Shinso asked, stepping closer. "Where?"
"The Commission's tracking sensors... they picked up the Sovereign's cosmic energy signature when he empowered you at the stadium," Rin said, her voice rising in panic. "But the energy tangled with something else. Another massive Quirk signature. Icarus is tracking the anomaly right now. He's not hunting the Sovereign. He's locked onto the kid you fought today."
Shinso froze. "Midoriya?"
"He's in the Musu-East residential district," Rin typed frantically. "The Commission just unleashed a bio-engineered assassin into a civilian suburb to kill a UA student! We have to call the Sovereign!"
"I am already listening, GateL0ck," Nocturne's dual-toned voice hummed through their earpieces, chillingly calm. "The Commission's arrogance has blinded them. They have sent their monster after the wielder of One For All. Do not let Midoriya die. Intercept Icarus. Test your new strength, Hitoshi."
Rin didn't hesitate. She raised her hands, tearing open a massive, swirling portal of spatial energy. "Let's go save your rival, Overmind."
The streets of Musu-East were quiet. Izuku Midoriya was jogging home from the train station, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. The exhaustion of the Sports Festival weighed heavily on his bones, but his mind was racing.
He couldn't stop thinking about the shadow in the stadium. The impossible, ancient pressure that had flared against One For All.
Suddenly, the hair on the back of Midoriya's neck stood up. Danger Sense, a latent vestige of his Quirk, screamed in his mind.
Midoriya spun around, dropping his bag and dropping into a defensive stance, green lightning immediately sparking around his arms.
Standing beneath a flickering streetlamp fifty feet away was a nightmare.
The man—if it could still be called a man—wore a tattered, gray Commission uniform. His skin was hardened into slate-gray scales. His arms were disproportionately long, ending in wicked, bone-white talons. But the most terrifying feature was his eyes: six completely black, soulless orbs dotting a face that lacked a mouth or nose.
Icarus.
The monster didn't speak. It simply vanished.
Midoriya's eyes went wide. It wasn't speed. It was a localized teleportation Quirk.
Above me! Midoriya realized, looking up. Icarus materialized directly over him, gravity intensifying around the assassin's talons as a secondary Quirk engaged, meant to crush Midoriya's skull into dust.
Midoriya crossed his arms, pushing One For All to ten percent, bracing for an impact he knew would shatter his bones.
KRRR-CRACK!
The impact never reached him.
A blur of crackling, violet energy slammed into Icarus from the side. The kinetic force of the blow was so immense it generated a shockwave that shattered the windows of the parked cars lining the street.
Icarus was thrown off course, crashing violently through a brick retaining wall and skidding across an empty intersection.
Midoriya gasped, stumbling backward. Standing between him and the hole in the wall was a teenager in a dark tactical jacket, crackling with telepathic purple lightning. He wore a black half-mask, and his stance was entirely composed.
"W-Who are you?!" Midoriya stammered, recognizing the faint violet butterfly motif on the boy's jacket. It was the same emblem the golden-shield vigilante had worn at the USJ. The Swarm.
Shinso didn't look back. Through his comms, he could feel the connection to the two guards back in Shibuya fading, meaning his physical strength was on a timer.
"GateL0ck! Get the kid out of here!" Shinso roared through his modulator, his metallic voice echoing down the street.
A silver-blue tear ripped open the asphalt beneath Midoriya's feet.
"Wait!" Midoriya yelled, reaching out. But gravity took over. He fell straight through the portal, which snapped shut instantly, depositing the bewildered hero student safely on the roof of his own apartment building miles away.
In the empty intersection, Icarus rose from the rubble. The monster's gray scales shifted, rapidly healing the damage Shinso had inflicted. The six black eyes locked onto the psychic dreadnought.
"So," Shinso whispered, rolling his shoulders as the purple lightning flared brighter. "You're the Commission's ultimate weapon. Let's see if you have a mind in there for me to break."
Icarus screeched, a sound like tearing metal, and charged.
Shinso lunged forward to meet him. The clash of their fists generated a concussive blast that shook the very foundations of the street. Icarus teleported, attempting to strike Shinso's blind spot, but Shinso's Synaptic Overclock allowed him to process the spatial displacement in microseconds. Shinso ducked the talons, driving a devastating, purple-infused uppercut into the monster's jaw.
But Icarus was a sponge for punishment. The monster grabbed Shinso's arm, its gravity Quirk engaging. Shinso felt his bones groaning under the sudden, localized pressure of a hundred G-forces.
"Get off him!" Rin shouted.
From the shadows of a nearby alley, Rin threw her hands forward. Two silver portals opened simultaneously—one directly behind Icarus, and one high in the stratosphere above Musutafu.
A vacuum effect instantly took hold. The sheer difference in atmospheric pressure yanked violently at Icarus. The monster lost its grip on Shinso, staggering backward.
"Now, Overmind!" Rin yelled.
Shinso didn't hesitate. He channeled every ounce of processing power he had left into his right leg and delivered a flawless, devastating roundhouse kick directly to Icarus's chest. The monster was launched backward, tumbling helplessly into the silver portal.
Rin snapped her hands shut. The portal vanished, trapping the Commission's ultimate assassin miles above the earth in a freefall he would have to teleport his way out of, buying them precious time.
Shinso fell to one knee, the purple lightning dissipating as he finally released the guards' minds from his control. He was gasping for air, his arm bruised from the gravity Quirk, but a fierce, triumphant grin was hidden beneath his mask.
Rin ran over, hauling him to his feet. "You crazy idiot! You went toe-to-toe with Project Seraph and won!"
"I had a good spotter," Shinso panted, looking at the empty street. He had saved the boy who defeated him. He had fought a monster. He was finally, truly, a hero.
"Excellent work, my Swarm," Nocturne's voice purred in their ears, resonating with dark pride. "The Commission's weapon has been tested and found wanting. Return to the shadows. We have a war to plan."