The rain had stopped, but the city still felt damp with unease.
Musutafu's skyline shimmered beneath pale clouds, the sun failing to pierce the haze that blanketed its rooftops. A layer of mist clung stubbornly to the streets like the residue of a dream—or a nightmare—that refused to fade.
Tensei Iida sat on a bench overlooking the river promenade, his coat pulled tight against the chill. His visor lay beside him on the metal bench, inactive. He didn't need its augmented view today. He wasn't here as Ingenium.
He was just a man trying to understand something that logic refused to hold.
The events of Sector 14-A hadn't left him. Couldn't. The memory replayed behind his eyelids like a wound that wouldn't close: the silence, the flicker, the masked figure who moved like a phantom. Who tore reality apart with a wave of energy—and then vanished as though he were never there.
Delta.
A name whispered by rumor and classified files. A name that shouldn't exist.
Tensei had spent days combing through Hero Commission archives, digging deeper than most were ever allowed. But the deeper he went, the more he found... nothing. No footage. No records. No paper trail.
Just redacted files, vanished reports, and corrupted timestamps.
And that message.
"Not all heroes wear capes."
He closed his eyes, breathing through the tightness in his chest.
That meeting—if you could call it that—had left something inside him fractured. Not broken. Not yet. But shifted, like a crack in the foundation of a tower that once felt unshakable.
He needed to talk to someone. Not a superior. Not a politician. Someone who remembered what being a hero used to mean.
"Late again," a voice said from behind him.
Tensei didn't need to turn. He knew that tone, dry and sarcastic, but with the soft undertone of concern.
"Kodai," he murmured. "You always show up when I'm losing my grip."
Ryoma Kodai—call sign: Vectra—was one of the few pro-heroes Tensei still trusted. Older than him by a few years, and with fewer public victories to his name, but infinitely more wisdom in navigating the rot beneath the marble floors of the Commission.
Kodai sat beside him with a quiet grunt, brushing damp hair out of his face. His costume was simple—gray plates over a black jumpsuit, no cape, no glowing emblems. His quirk allowed him to manipulate motion vectors, redirecting force. Subtle. Quiet. Unflashy.
"Don't flatter yourself," Kodai said. "I was in the area. Heard you were brooding again. Thought I'd offer moral support."
Tensei gave him a sidelong glance. "And judgment?"
"Always."
They sat in silence for a moment, watching the river ripple under drifting patches of light.
"I met him," Tensei finally said.
Kodai didn't react. Not visibly. Just reached into his coat and pulled out a thermos, unscrewing the lid with deliberate calm.
"Delta," Tensei added.
A beat.
"Thought so," Kodai said, offering the thermos. "Tea?"
"No."
"Heard your comms went dead for ten minutes. That's his signature, isn't it? Signal blackout, no data footprint, and when it's over, nothing's left but rumors."
"It's not just rumors," Tensei said quietly. "He was real. And he wasn't like anything I've ever seen. Stronger than anything I've faced, but... it wasn't his power that got to me. It was the way he talked. The way he looked at me."
Kodai sipped his tea. "Like you were the villain?"
"No," Tensei said. "Worse. Like I was irrelevant."
That made Kodai pause.
"I don't know where he came from," Tensei continued, voice low. "There's no record of him anywhere. Not even off-world surveillance has sightings. It's like he stepped in from another reality. And the way he fights… his tech, his aura—it doesn't match anything in our databases."
"Well," Kodai said, "if it doesn't come from this world, maybe that's because it doesn't belong here."
Tensei blinked. "You believe me?"
"I've seen stranger things. And I've read some of the same redacted files you probably weren't supposed to." Kodai leaned back, arms crossed. "Tensei. You know the system better than most. You know how it hides what it can't control."
Tensei hands clenched.
"He told me…" he began, then shook his head. "No. He didn't tell. He showed. The system's broken. No—worse. It's protecting itself. Covering up crimes so deep they've infected the foundations. Children vanishing, facilities hidden beneath hospitals, fake reports, silenced families—"
"I know," Kodai said, cutting him off softly.
That stopped Tensei short. "You… knew?"
"I've been trying to gather proof for years. Quietly. Carefully. So no one gets 'transferred' or 'reassigned' in the middle of the night." Kodai looked out across the water. "But every time I think I have enough, the goalpost moves. Data wiped. Witnesses bought off. Whistleblowers disappear."
Tensei felt a sudden spike of anger.
"Then why keep serving them? Why stay quiet?!"
Kodai turned to him, eyes sharper now.
"Because I'm not strong enough to tear it down alone," he said. "And neither are you."
Tensei's breath caught.
"That's what you're feeling right now, isn't it? That helplessness. That rage. That voice in your head whispering, 'Maybe he's right.' Delta's playing the part of executioner because he doesn't believe the system can be saved. But we—"
He pointed between them.
"—we're not alone."
The bench creaked as Tensei shifted, face tense.
"I don't know if we can fix it."
"Maybe not. But we can start holding it accountable. Piece by piece. Also, we're not the only heroes. Most will move if we tell them, together we can topple this corrupt hero commission."
Tensei looked down at his hands. Calloused. Scarred. Strong enough to stop speeding cars, catch rubble mid-fall. But too weak to lift the weight pressing down on his conscience.
"I've always believed in the rules," he said. "That structure was what separated us from the villains. But what if the structure is just another cage?"
Kodai smiled faintly.
"Then maybe it's time to pick the lock ."
---
That night, long after Kodai had gone and the river had slipped into darkness, Tensei sat in his apartment again. No lights on. Just the glow of his monitor.
He stared at a blinking cursor in a secure messaging window.
The recipient was blank.
The message read:
"If you're still out there… I'm listening now."
He hovered his finger over the send key.
But didn't press it.
Not yet.
Instead, he saved it as a draft and closed the window.
Because this wasn't about reaching out to Delta.
Not yet.
It was about acknowledging the fracture in himself.
The crack that had formed beneath the surface of everything he thought he understood.
He wasn't sure what came next.
Only that the man who walked into Sector 14-A had not been the same man who walked out.
And somewhere out there, beneath a sky with no cameras and no names—
A ghost in silver and shadow was waiting.