Musutafu High School was enveloped in a graduation-year atmosphere: half-empty backpacks, nervous laughter, returned exams with final comments, and teachers too tired to control the hubbub.
Reiji walked down the main hallway accompanied by Hitoshi Shinso. They both stood out for different reasons.
Shinso had changed. He was still curt and inexpressive, but he no longer walked alone. Some classmates even greeted him with respect, ignoring the ability of his Quirk that had caused him so much trouble in the past.
Reiji's serene posture, his penetrating gaze, his well-defined physique, his distant and confident air, and his occasional interventions in school problems had made him a figure difficult to ignore. He had become popular; many people admired him, and a few even saw him as their crush. Although there were also others who hated him for the same reasons...
Months had passed since they met, and the strange affinity between them had become a silent routine.
"So... have you thought about what you'll do next?" Reiji asked without looking at him, his hands in his pockets.
"The same thing I said from day one," Shinso replied in a subdued tone. "Get into the hero class. Although you know how they see me... my Quirk doesn't help."
"Most people don't see beyond the name. 'Mind control' sounds terrifying if you don't understand how it works."
"I know. That's why they don't take me seriously."
They walked for a moment in silence. The students were saying their goodbyes; some were making summer plans; others were simply happy not to have to get up early for a few months.
Reiji glanced at Shinso. He knew that later, under the right guidance, he would become a force to be reckoned with, but... Why not start training him himself?
He was already helping Mei develop her inventions. Being a part of the evolution of two geniuses could be a huge help in the future, especially considering the upcoming threats and the fact that he didn't know how many other events would unfold.
"What would you think if I told you I wanted to train you?"
Shinso stopped in his tracks, surprised. He looked at him with a mixture of confusion and distrust.
"Train me... you?"
"Yes. I don't have an official course, nor am I a recognized hero, but I know what it takes. And you have potential. The kind of potential that doesn't shine brightly, but can cut through the darkness."
Shinso raised an eyebrow.
"Poetic... You have your moments, but I didn't expect this from you."
"I don't usually do that," Reiji said with a crooked smile. "Besides, I also want to be a hero, and in the future we could work together. I had the proper guidance and subsequently my own discipline. I know what I'm talking about."
"And you also have a powerful Quirk."
"Aizawa is proof that your Quirk can be used to protect. You don't need to be charismatic or have muscles like All Might. You just need discipline... and direction. I can give you both."
Shinso looked at him silently for a few seconds. He didn't seem entirely convinced, but something in his gaze had changed. A small crack in his usual shell of skepticism.
"And what do you get out of this?" he finally asked, with his usual distrust, although his tone was no longer hostile.
Reiji shrugged, as if it were obvious.
"Someone reached out to me when I had nothing. I'm just returning the favor... in my own way."
Shinso clicked his tongue, but he didn't sound annoyed.
"You know this is going to cost me, right?"
"That's why it's worth it."
The bell rang loudly, breaking the moment like a bell in a ring. Students poured out into the hallways, laughing, shouting, pushing each other. The last day of school. The end of an era.
Shinso looked at him for a second longer, then extended his hand.
"Okay. But you better not bore me with your weird training."
Reiji squeezed his hand firmly, and a sincere, if faint, smile spread across his face.
"I promise it'll be hell."
***
It had only been a few hours since his last class, but to Reiji it seemed a world away. The sky was still clear, with a few thin clouds on the horizon heralding the arrival of dusk. A warm breeze swept through the almost empty streets of the district, carrying with it a smell Reiji knew all too well: ash.
'So, this was it...' He thought, stopping in front of the remains of what had once been a three-story building that served as a hub for smaller offices like psychologists, dentists, and the like.
The walls were blackened, partially collapsed, and the roof had caved in in several places. Although firefighters had been working in the area days before, the smoke still lingered in the air, sticky, as if the place didn't want to let go of its history so easily.
According to the police report, the fire had been caused by the spontaneous out-of-control of a combustion Quirk.
However, the secret report he received that morning indicated that the site had been under passive surveillance for months. It wasn't listed on any recent official map, but there was recorded activity, medical supplies moving in and out discreetly. The suspicion: human experimentation with unstable Quirks, probably unregistered.
His mission was to follow the thread.
Reiji crossed what remained of the main gate, dodging twisted beams and damp debris. The floor was covered with charred fragments, but something didn't add up. The ignition points weren't natural. Some were perfectly circular. Others had green or purple residue between the cracks.
He frowned. He crouched near a thick puddle that didn't look like water or oil. Rather, something in between. He extracted a small sample using a hardened blood fiber and stored it in a sealed tube.
'This wasn't caused by just any Quirk. And if it did, it wasn't without help.'
He advanced to a room half-covered by the remains of the ceiling. There he found a toppled metal stretcher and a reinforced piece of furniture, partially charred but still intact. He carefully forced it open and, from among the melted drawers, extracted a blackened folder.
Only a few pages remained intact. Most were graphs without context, but one page had a half-burned heading:
"Subject 12-A — Degenerative phase not concluded."
Reiji swallowed. It wasn't the first time he'd seen that kind of document. That technical, cold, and dehumanizing language… it was part of his childhood. Part of his previous sentence.
He forced himself to put the page away and took another look at the place. Although it was destroyed, it didn't seem entirely abandoned. There was no accumulated dust, no cobwebs. The fire had scorched everything, but the edges of the disaster were clean, surgical. As if someone had wanted to erase evidence… quickly and without a trace.
But he knew it. He knew how they operated in these kinds of places. There was always backup. Double documentation. Mobile capsules. And if something went wrong, emergency protocols to incinerate everything… leaving no trace.
'Something else must remain…'
He sharpened his gaze. He wasn't looking for large or obvious clues. He wasn't looking for documents or hard drives. What he needed was an anomaly: something that shouldn't have been there if the fire had consumed everything.
Then he noticed it.
A barely perceptible line on the floor, no wider than a hair, ran diagonally across one of the back tiles, stained and scorched by the fire. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary crack. But it wasn't. These kinds of cuts weren't formed by temperature or pressure. It was a kind of deliberate groove, used in older labs to mark hidden compartments where emergency samples or chemical replicas were stored.
It was old technology. Obsolete for most. But not for him. Because in his previous life, he was part of a facility that used them.
He knelt carefully. He used a thin needle of solidified blood to trace the slit and test the interior. With enough concentration, the blood became a part of his body.
When he felt the presence of a button, he cautiously pressed it. From the same compartment, both slabs opened, revealing a few records. They hadn't escaped the flames: the heat had partially deformed them, and some were charred around the edges, illegible in key sections. As if someone had gotten there first… and had only taken what was considered truly important.
Reiji took the documents with great care. Some names were blurred, but among the ruined lines, he could make out a term repeated several times: "liquid-based adaptable form – prototype series 06."
The ink was smudged on most of the fragments, but a partial seal remained visible:
"Distribution suspended. Potentially unstable. Transferred to zone S4."
"S4…" He repeated it mentally, finding no immediate connection.
A distant roar of a train brought him out of his thoughts. The sun was already beginning to disappear behind the buildings, and the light inside the lab was fading. But the information was clear.
That wasn't the origin of the experiment. It was just another step in a longer, older, and still active chain.
Reiji stored the salvageable documents in a sealed folder, covered them with a thermal blanket to preserve the remaining ink, and stood up.
The Commission would have to receive this. But he would keep some of the information for himself. He couldn't leave this case outside his watch; a part of him absolutely refused to do so... However, right now he had no legible clues.
'Maybe I should use Hawks's contact...'
***
Several days had passed since Reiji immersed himself in the search. The sky was tinged with deep violet, and the distant lights of Musutafu flickered as if the world were about to fall asleep.
Thanks to Hawks's contact, he had found a new lead. A place that didn't really have much to do with the previous facility, but at least there might be some connection.
But when he arrived, his intuition told him something had been evacuated in a hurry. And if it was there, it had probably arrived too late.
'There's always something left behind when things are done in a hurry...' An old phrase doctors used in his previous life, but how right they were.
He made his way through rusted shelves, narrow hallways with broken tubes and empty containment bags. It seemed like nothing more than junk concentrated here, no real connection. His fingers touched remnants of old resin, and each step took him deeper into the structure.
The deeper he went, the fewer things he noticed that might have real relevance to his investigation... That was if it weren't for the little dust accumulated, his only real clue.
His steps suddenly stopped, his nostrils inhaled an exaggerated amount of air. A light fragrance covered the entire tunnel, and he reacted immediately, hardening a thin layer of blood in his nose and throat. It wasn't a perfect mask, but it slightly filtered the air he was breathing. Even so, he felt a tingling run down his spine, an invisible whisper trying to lull his body.
He closed his eyes for a second, checked his pulse, and opened them again with sharp vision. Then, from the darkness, walking with a sure pace and an impossible-to-mistake figure, she appeared.
Heels clicking on the concrete. Hips swaying with natural dominance. A whip slung at her side, tight clothing that looked more like an aesthetic statement than a uniform. Eyes lined, a sharp smile, and lips curved in an expression of predatory interest.
"Hmmm..." He purred in a deep, playful voice. "You have good stamina. Most guys would be drooling on the floor by now with the amount of pheromones you inhaled."
"That's the one..."
Reiji held his position, but fatigue betrayed him: his shoulders relaxed slightly, as if his body felt the strain of maintaining the posture.
Midnight noticed.
"Don't you have a containment mask?" She asked with mock surprise, taking a step closer, close enough for the scent to intensify. A small smile appeared on her face in a seductive way. "Or do you perhaps like this kind of punishment?"
Reiji didn't respond. He looked at her with a mixture of assessment and warning. His muscles were tense, his breathing controlled, but deep down... he knew that if it weren't for his training and his Quirk, he'd already be on the floor. Fortunately, it wasn't an enemy... At least not one who wanted to kill him outright.
Midnight tilted her face in an almost feline gesture. It was at that moment that something changed in her gaze. Seeing her prey in front of her, she analyzed the strange mask on his face.
"Wait..." She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the makeshift mask of hardened blood that still partially covered his face. "That technique..."
Reiji watched her frown in mild fascination.
"I see... Aizawa mentioned something to me about an unusual boy. One who could control his blood at will and who pretended to be a vigilante."
Reiji was relieved; he had realized he wasn't an enemy. Even he, who could control his own blood flow and had a recovery Quirk, couldn't use the full capabilities of his power if he was partially asleep.
"Interesting... You're prettier than Aizawa told me, though I don't think this is your true face, is it?"
Reiji remained on guard. He did indeed have contact lenses and a different-colored hair, which hid his identity better. Midnight's gaze was playful, interspersed with flirtatiousness. A look designed to elicit reactions. And Reiji... was human, despite everything.
Midnight leaned even closer, close enough for Reiji to smell a delicious scent coming from her body. He couldn't deny that the woman in front of him was attractive, and neither was her body, which was a drawback.
"Are you a vigilante or an agent? You move too well. And you smell like secrets... Besides, I don't think those muscles are fake." Reiji stood still as Midnight touched his body lightly, making sure to test his muscles carefully through his clothes... She was having fun, that much was clear.
"Aren't you afraid I'll knock you out right now?" She finally said, her voice husky but firm.
"Did you get rough, honey?" She replied, tilting her lips very close to his ear.
Midnight laughed softly, a low, melodic sound that echoed through the tunnel like a provocation rather than a threat. Her fingers slowly withdrew from Reiji's chest, as if granting him a break… even if it was just a game to her.
"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you," she said in a softer tone, though no less laced with ulterior motives. "I've already confirmed that you're not an idiot with a rebellious hero complex. If you were, you wouldn't have blocked my pheromones. Not even professionals know how to do it so quickly… Aizawa was right about you."
Reiji didn't respond immediately. His pulse had stabilized, but the slight tremor in his fingers reminded him that he wasn't completely out of danger. Although his Quirk kept him on his feet, physical fatigue was accumulating like a damp second skin.
Midnight seemed to notice. She took a step back, this time with elegance rather than seduction, although her posture remained just as confident.
"Are you going to tell me what you were doing snooping around here?" she asked, deliberately crossing her arms under her bust, still smiling felinely.
"Probably the same as you."
She began to walk slowly around him, like a panther that no longer intended to attack, but still watching closely.
"You're not here on impulse. And not out of justice either," she said finally. "You're here because you know something is similar to you. This place... or whatever it was... seems familiar to you, am I wrong?" Reiji's eye twitched unconsciously; she had read him from head to toe in just a few minutes, maybe even less.
"Aizawa mentioned you were quiet, but I didn't expect it to be that quiet. Also, you're quite small, though... Some parts of you are much better than a man's." She licked her lips mischievously, not caring about seducing even the hormonal teenager in front of her.
Midnight let out a soft, almost musical laugh as she continued to slowly circle around him. Her gaze never left his, though it wasn't the kind that felt invasive. It was as if she were measuring him... weighing him... looking for the exact crack to enter.
"Relax. I'm not going to eat you... at least not literally," she murmured with a hint of mockery.
Reiji didn't respond. He was tired, his body felt it. But his mind remained sharp. He knew that falling into Midnight's game would be a mistake. And yet, the tingling running down his spine wasn't just from the Quirk. It was human. And Midnight knew exactly how to push.
Reiji turned his head slightly, looking into her eyes with controlled coldness.
"Do you enjoy playing with what you don't understand?"
Midnight licked her lower lip, and for the first time, her smile faltered slightly. A barely visible line of seriousness crossed her face.
"I'm more intrigued by what others try to hide. And you, mysterious boy, are like a sealed diary with dried blood between the pages."
The young man couldn't tell if that was a compliment or a threat. Probably both.
"I'll let you get on with it," Midnight finally continued, taking a couple of steps back, though her eyes remained fixed on him as if she didn't want to forget even a millimeter of his figure. "But be careful. Not everyone who works in the shadows has intentions as noble as you... if you really do."
She gave him one last look, intense, dangerous, and protective at the same time.
"And the next time you want to spy in dangerous areas... bring a better mask. A sexier one, at least."
Reiji didn't answer. He just nodded slightly as she finally turned around, the echo of her heels fading into the distance.
When the tunnel fell silent again, Reiji let out the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. His body trembled, not because of the Quirk... but because of the fact that, for the first time in weeks, someone had seen more than he wanted to show.
'That was... Strange. Why do she and Aizawa seem so willing to work with a vigilante like me? Have they done this before?'
He shook the thoughts from his mind and took a few steps forward. All that chatter with Midnight had made him notice invaluable evidence in the shadows: a small, slimy presence. It wasn't much, but at least it wasn't nothing.