Zero
The sky screamed.
Then, the ground shattered.
Zero hit the courtyard of the ME Corp facility with enough force to crack the foundation of the nearby buildings.
The impact sent a shockwave of dust and pulverized concrete rippling outward, blowing out windows for three city blocks and buckling the reinforced security walls.
In a single second, nearly half of the facility was reduced to a smoking crater of twisted rebar and debris.
Deep in the center of the destruction, silence settled over the dust.
Then, a wet, ragged cough broke the quiet.
"Gah...!"
A hand, bruised and trembling, reached up from the rubble.
Zero dragged himself out of the hole. He was a wreck. His left leg was twisted at a sickening angle, dragging uselessly behind him through the dirt.
His ribs were caved in, making every breath a shallow, bubbling struggle against his own lungs. He collapsed onto a slab of broken asphalt, gasping for air.
"Regenerate..." Zero hissed, blood dripping from his chin.
He focused his will. He waited for the familiar, itching heat of cells knitting his flesh back together. He waited for the snap of bones realigning.
It didn't come.
Instead, he felt cold.
"What?" Zero wheezed.
He looked down at his leg. The bone was protruding through the skin. It wasn't moving. The wound wasn't closing.
'Why isn't it working?!'
He tried to push more energy into the limb, but it hit a wall. An invisible, stubborn barrier inside his own mind.
"You..." Zero snarled, clutching his head with his good hand. "Kenji!"
It wasn't that he couldn't regenerate. It was that Kenji was actively stopping him. The vessel was rejecting the repair. Kenji was holding the door shut, forcing Zero to live with the broken body.
Zero inwardly cursed. Kenji wouldn't be able to do this normally, he made sure of that. It was those wretched Flame Chasers who were helping him.
"Let... go!" Zero screamed, punching his numb thigh in frustration. "If you don't heal, we can't move! We'll be sitting ducks!"
"That's the point!" Kenji's will echoed back.
"You suicidal maniac!"
Zero tried to stand up on his good leg, but his knee buckled immediately. He face-planted into the dust, groaning.
It wasn't just the broken bones. Something else was wrong.
His limbs felt unresponsive. His eyelids were heavy, dragging down as if weights were attached to his lashes.
The world was spinning in a fog rolling over his brain.
'The bullets!'
Zero remembered Kiana's special rounds. He had suspected another effect, but the thought completely left his mind when he fought Wendy.
'Did it have a delayed effect? Muscle relaxants? Sedatives?'
Normally, his metabolism would burn through such toxins in seconds. But with his incomplete control and Kenji blocking the regeneration, his body missed the secondary effects of the bullets. The drugs were circulating freely, flooding his nervous system.
"Move..." Zero commanded his arm. It twitched, sluggish and unresponsive.
He tried to summon Float. He needed to get lighter. He needed to fly away before they came back.
His body lifted off the ground for a few seconds before falling pitifully. His brain was too foggy to hold the complex calculations required for the quirk.
"Dammit..."
Dan…ger
The warning from Danger Sense didn't come as a sharp stab through his brain. It came as a dull, distant throb, muffled by the drugs.
Zero looked up, his vision swimming.
Through the settling dust, a silhouette approached.
She walked calmly, her footsteps crunching on the shattered pavement. Violet electricity arced around her, jumping from the ground to her boots.
Horns protruded from her head, and her eyes glowed with cold, absolute authority. Mei stopped at the edge of the crater, looking down at the broken, crawling boy.
She didn't say a word.
She simply raised her hand, and the air around them began to crackle with static.
"Stay down."
Mei didn't give him time to catch his breath.
She simply snapped her fingers.
A bolt of violet lightning erupted from the sky.
"GAAAAAAAAH!"
Zero arched his back, screaming as the voltage coursed through him.
Every nerve ending in his body fired at once. His muscles locked up, then released, then spasmed uncontrollably.
He tried to clench his fist to summon Blackwhip, but his fingers splayed open instead. He tried to activate Gearshift to escape, but he couldn't connect to the quirk.
'What is she doing?!' Zero thought, panic rising through the pain.
The lightning wasn't just another attack. It was a jammer!
It was flooding his nervous system with so much electricity that his brain couldn't send the correct signals to activate his quirks.
She was frying his brain!
"My... arm...!" Zero gasped, watching his own limb spasm uselessly in the dirt.
Mei walked closer, the lightning tether still connected to her raised hand, feeding a constant stream of disruption into his system.
She didn't say a word. Her eyes were cold, glowing with the indifference of a storm looking at a dying insect.
But he could see a slight trembling in her arms. A sight that only further infuriated him.
Zero fell to his knees, drool dripping from his mouth as the muscle relaxants and the electricity waged war on his motor functions.
"Don't... mock me!" Zero gurgled.
He forced his head up. He pushed through the white noise. He grabbed the pain and used it as fuel.
'Move, dammit!'
With a roar of pure, desperate will, Zero lunged.
He threw himself off his good leg. He swung a wild, clumsy haymaker at Mei's face, trying to coat his fist in a layer of Fa Jin. But the kinetic buildup sputtered out, unable to materialize.
It was slow. It was pathetic compared to the speed he had shown previously.
Mei side-stepped. The punch sailed past her ear, the momentum causing Zero to stumble forward.
"Too slow," Mei said softly.
She drove her knee into his stomach.
Zero retched, doubling over. Before he could hit the ground, Mei grabbed the back of his tattered jacket.
"You used his face to hurt my friends," Mei whispered, the violet horns on her head glowing brighter.
She spun him around, throwing him like a rag doll against a slab of concrete.
Zero hit the wall and slid down, coughing up blood. The world was tilting. The static in his head was getting louder.
He tried to summon Blackwhip. He focused on the feeling of the dark energy.
'Come out!'
A single tendril of black energy shot out from his back. It was thin, weak, wavering like smoke in a breeze. It lashed out at Mei, aiming for her leg.
Mei caught the tendril with her bare hand.
Her lightning traveled up the black whip, frying the energy construct instantly. The feedback hit Zero like a kick to the spine.
"Agh!" Zero convulsed, the tendril dissolving into nothingness.
Mei dropped the charred remains of the energy strand. She crouched low, her hand resting on the hilt of her katana, though she didn't draw it. She was charging her leg instead.
Violet arcs of electricity concentrated around her right heel, compacting into a dense, humming ball of potential energy.
Zero grit his teeth. He tried to stand, one last time. He tried to find a way out.
Da….G…r
The warning was faint, barely a whisper through the static. Danger Sense was finally blocked from his access.
Zero turned just in time to see Mei move. She vanished from her spot and reappeared directly in front of him.
She pivoted on her heel, unleashing a high-kick aimed squarely at his chest.
BANG.
Zero felt his sternum crack—or maybe it was already cracked, and this just pulverized it. The force of the kick lifted him off his feet.
It launched him backward with so much force that it threw him through multiple buildings before crashing into the high walls of the facility.
He slammed into the reinforced concrete wall that surrounded the ME Corp facility, his body leaving a spiderweb of cracks in the masonry before he slid down to the asphalt below.
He lay crumpled in the shadow of the wall, staring sideways at a piece of rebar sticking out of the ground.
'Move.'
His left leg twitched, but it didn't bend. The muscle relaxants were winning. His body felt like it was filled with wet sand, heavy and unresponsive.
'I have to… hide and… recover!'
He dug his fingernails into the asphalt, dragging his broken torso inch by agonizing inch along the base of the wall.
If he could just get around the corner... if he could just break the line of sight… He needed time to take control!
CLANG.
A sound of heavy metal hitting concrete echoed from above.
Zero froze. He stopped dragging himself, pressing his face against the cold ground, trying to make himself smaller. He didn't look up. He didn't have the energy to lift his head.
'Where is it?'
He waited for a shadow. He waited for a footstep.
"Got you now," a small voice said from the top of the wall.
Zero didn't have time to process the location as gold erupted from the air.
Dozens of chains shot down from the darkness above.
Zero tried to roll away, to scramble into the open, but his body was too slow.
The first chain slammed into the pavement next to his head, burying itself deep in the asphalt. The second wrapped around his right wrist. The third caught his shattered left leg.
"Gah!" Zero gasped as the metal cinched tight.
It wasn't just physical restraint. The moment the gold touched his skin, he felt a sickening sensation of emptiness.
It was as if a drain had been opened in the center of his chest. The remnants of his Honkai energy, the sparks he was trying to use to kick start OFA were being drained away.
More chains descended, wrapping around his torso, his neck, his waist. They pulled taut, dragging him from his slump against the wall and forcing him into a kneeling position.
His arms were wrenched behind his back, pinned by the divine metal against the concrete barrier.
Zero thrashed, but it was weak. With OFA unresponsive and without Honkai Energy to rely on, he was just a boy with broken bones fighting against a weapon designed to bind gods.
"Stop... struggling," Theresa's voice came closer.
She dropped from the top of the wall, landing softly on the asphalt in front of him.
Theresa walked up to him. She didn't look angry. She looked tired. She looked sad.
An expression that made him even more infuriated.
"We got you know, Zero," Theresa said, checking the chains. "Judah is suppressing your Honkai output to zero. The sedatives have saturated your bloodstream. And Mei has disrupted your neural pathways."
She knelt so she was at eye level with him.
"Please, this is enough. Stand down."
"You... cheated," Zero rasped, blood bubbling past his lips. "If it weren't for Kenji, You'd be ded, and I'd already be gone by now."
"We can help you, please just—" Theresa corrected gently. She reached out to him.
Zero flinched away from her touch.
"Don't touch me!" he spat. "I'm not going to fall for your false words! You're no different from the rest, you're leading him–us closer to our deaths."
"...I don't believe you," Theresa said, standing back up. She tightened her fist, and the chains constricted slightly, squeezing the air out of him.
"But… If there is the slightest chance that your words are true… Then, as the principal of St. Freya, I promise that I will ensure his survival."
Zero slumped against the chains, his head lolling forward. He couldn't feel his fingers anymore. The darkness was creeping in at the edges of his vision.
He never expected them to go this far.
Kiana's bullets with a hidden sedative. Wendy fighting him in the sky to stall him, then sending him down to encounter Mei. Then she fried his brain, cutting off his connection with his quirks, and sent him to Theresa, who finally held him down.
It was a perfect trap. They hadn't tried to overpower him. They had systematically shut down the biological and supernatural mechanisms he needed to function.
'And it's all because of Kenji,' Zero thought bitterly. If it weren't for him, he would have beaten Wendy and escaped long ago.
He forced his heavy eyelids open. Through the blur, he saw five figures walking closer.
/ — /
Kiana
"Please tell me he's down."
Kiana kept her pistols raised, aiming into the settling dust near the facility wall.
"He's down, Kiana," Himeko's voice came from her left. It was low and heavy, sounding exhausted. "Lower your weapons."
Kiana blinked, forcing her eyes to focus. She felt a large hand rest on her shoulder, pushing down gently.
She resisted for a split second—her instincts screaming that the monster would get back up—before she finally let her arms drop to her sides.
"We didn't..." Kiana swallowed the lump in her throat. "We didn't kill him, did we?"
"No," Mei answered. She walked past Kiana, stepping over chunks of broken asphalt. The violet horns on her head dissolved into sparks of light. "But he isn't going anywhere."
Kiana followed Mei. They moved past the ruined bus stop and the spiderwebbed craters in the road.
The sight waiting for them against the perimeter wall made Kiana's stomach turn.
Theresa stood there, her hand resting on the massive golden cross of the Oath of Judah. But Kiana barely looked at her principal. Her eyes were locked on the boy pinned beneath the chains.
Kenji looked broken.
There was no other word for it. He was kneeling against the concrete, his arms wrenched behind his back by the golden links.
His left leg was bent at an angle that made Kiana instinctively look away. His clothes were shredded, soaked in blood and grime.
"Status?" Himeko asked, stopping beside Theresa.
"Secured," Theresa said, her voice flat. "Zero is running on fumes. The sedatives from Kiana's bullets are doing the rest."
Kiana flinched. She had shot him. She had pulled the trigger on her best friend's body until the slide clicked empty.
She stepped closer, her boots scraping on the gravel. She needed to see his eyes. She needed to know who was looking back.
"Kenji?" Kiana whispered.
The boy's head hung low, chin resting on his chest. At the sound of her voice, he didn't move at first. Then, slowly, painfully, he lifted his head.
Zero stared at her. His face was pale, sweat streaking through the dirt on his cheeks. He looked like a cornered animal—weak, trembling, but ready to bite.
"You..." Zero rasped. His voice was wet, bubbling with blood.
He tugged at the chains. They clinked softly, but held firm. He turned his gaze to the pistols at Kiana's hips.
"You poisoned this body," Zero hissed. "Cheap fucking trick."
"I had to…" Kiana said, her voice shaking. She clenched her fists. "Give him back. It's over."
Zero laughed.
"Maybe you're right." Zero scoffed, leaning his head back against the concrete wall. "Look at him, Kiana. Look at this pathetic body. You broke him to stop me."
"Because you would have hurt him!" Kiana said.
"I tried to run," Zero continued, "I tried to get us away. But you dragged us back. You pinned us down."
He looked at Mei, then Himeko, before locking eyes with Kiana again.
"And now you're going to hand him back to the people who are killing him."
"We're not killing him," Kiana snapped, stepping forward. "And we're not going to let him die."
"Highly doubt it." Zero smiled, blood staining his teeth. "You all have no idea where his powers came from."
"What?"
"He has voices, you know," Zero whispered, leaning forward as far as the chains would allow. "His predecessors' voices echo in his head. They're asking him for a trade."
"Stop lying," Kiana warned, her hand drifting back toward her gun.
"I see his memories," Zero said, his voice dropping to a hiss. "He's preparing for a transaction. One that not only will result in his death, but the destruction of his soul."
Zero glared at her.
"He's going to walk into the fire, Kiana. And there's nothing you can do to convince him because he already made the choice long ago."
"So don't you dare cry," Zero spat. "When he finally succeeds in killing himself... don't you dare cry. Because you are the one stopping me. I am the only one fighting for his survival, and you just put a bullet in me to keep him on the path to an early grave."
Something inside Kiana snapped.
The guilt, the fear, the hesitation—it all evaporated. She was done listening to this parasite use her friend's mouth to twist the knife.
She was done letting him make her feel like her friendship was a death sentence.
"You don't get to speak for him," Kiana said quietly.
"I know he's going to—"
Kiana had enough.
She didn't ask Himeko for permission. She didn't look at Theresa. She didn't draw her weapon.
She sprinted the short distance between them.
Zero's eyes widened. He tried to flinch, tried to turn his head, but the chains held him firmly.
"Shut up!"
Kiana planted her left foot and swung her right leg in a vicious arc. Her boot connected with the side of Zero's head with a sickening thud.
Zero's head snapped to the side. His eyes rolled back into his head instantly. The tension left his body, and he slumped forward into the chains, dead weight.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Kiana stood there, breathing hard, her leg still raised. She lowered her boot to the ground slowly. She looked down at the unconscious boy. The red glow in his eyes was gone. The jagged, angry aura that had surrounded him all night finally dissolved.
"Kiana," Himeko started, stepping forward cautiously.
Kiana stared at Kenji's slumped form.
"He's not going to die," Kiana whispered to the silence, her voice fierce. "We're not going to let him throw his life away. Not for us. Not for anyone."
She turned around to face the team. Her eyes were dry.
"He's out. Let's get him to the ship."
No one else made a sound, but made a silent agreement.
The mission was a success, they were able to get Kenji back. But at the cost of Bronya going into a coma, and a new Herrscher being awakened.
She had to wonder, did this even count as a victory?