The night was cold and starless, as if the sky itself was holding its breath. The three of us—me, Ryukyu, and Momo—crouched on the roof of an abandoned industrial building, staring at our target across a dark field. The old medical research facility stood like a concrete tomb, silent and menacing. No lights, no visible guards, just a high barbed-wire fence surrounding it like ribs protecting a rotten heart.
"The surveillance team hasn't detected any movement for the last hour," Ryukyu whispered through our encrypted communicators. She had shed her elegant dress and was now wearing the same black tactical suit as me and Momo, making her look more like a shadow predator than a shining dragon hero. "Either the place is completely empty, or their defenses are entirely internal and automated."
"I'm betting on the latter," I replied quietly, my eyes never leaving the fence. "A group that can snatch a member of the Big Three in broad daylight wouldn't be stupid enough to leave their front door unlocked."
I moved to the edge of the roof, taking a deep breath. I focused my will, feeling the familiar heat gather at my fingertips. With a pain that had now become part of the routine, short, sharp black claws emerged from my gauntlets. This was our first step.
"I'll clear a path," I said. "Momo, get ready with your EMP. Ryukyu-san, please cover us from above."
Ryukyu nodded. "Be careful, you two."
With a practiced agility, I leaped from the roof, landing silently in the shadows near the fence. I approached the thick steel wire. With a precise and controlled motion, I used my claws to cut it. There was no loud 'SNAP'. The Incursio claws were so sharp they cut through the metal as if it were thread, leaving only a barely audible hiss. I made an opening large enough for the three of us to pass through.
As we crept into the facility's yard, Momo took over. "There are three security cameras with motion sensors between us and the main entrance," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the layout displayed on her tablet. She took a small device from her pocket, a pen-sized tube she had just created. "This will release a short-range electromagnetic pulse. It should be enough to disable the cameras for thirty seconds without triggering a central alarm."
She pressed a button, and I felt a strange vibration in the air. The small red indicator lights on the cameras went out. "Now!" she hissed.
We ran across the open yard, every second feeling precious. As we approached the main entrance, we saw them. Two guards in dark gray uniforms, standing silently on either side of a large steel door. They didn't look like ordinary thugs; their posture was rigid, and the way they held the energy weapons in their hands indicated military training.
Before Momo or I could react, Ryukyu moved. She had descended from the roof behind us, her movements so silent I hadn't even noticed. She shot forward, a swift shadow among other shadows. Before the first guard could even turn, Ryukyu was behind him, one hand covering his mouth while the other delivered a quick, precise blow to a pressure point on his neck. The guard collapsed without a sound. The second guard, sensing something was wrong, started to turn, but Ryukyu was already there, disabling him with the same cold efficiency. It all happened in less than five seconds. She was a Top 10 Pro Hero for a reason.
Momo quickly approached the electronic lock panel next to the door. "The cryptography is advanced," she muttered, pulling out another device. "But nothing that a little frequency forcing can't handle." She worked with incredible speed and concentration, and a few moments later, the heavy steel door opened with a soft hydraulic hiss. We were in.
Inside her metal cage, Nejire Hado felt her weakness. It was a foreign feeling for her. Ever since her Wave Motion Quirk had developed, she had always been filled with an overflowing energy, a vitality so great she had to constantly move and talk to keep from exploding. But now... she felt empty. The white room she was being held in seemed not only to confine her physically but also to drain her power, leaving her feeling tired and listless.
The door to her cell opened silently, and a woman in a white lab coat and thick glasses entered. Her face was expressionless, her eyes cold and filled with the curiosity of a scientist observing a specimen. "Good morning, Specimen 73," she said, her voice flat. "Or should I call you Nejire Hado?"
"Who are you?" Nejire asked, her voice weaker than she wanted. "Where am I?"
"You are in a safe place," the woman, who called herself 'The Curator,' replied. "A place where your 'illness' can be studied." She walked around Nejire. "Your Quirk... Wave Motion. The ability to convert your own vitality into pure shock energy. Such a beautiful yet flawed design. A perfect parasite, giving you incredible power by burning the fuel of your own existence."
"My Quirk is not a disease!" Nejire retorted angrily, trying to sit up, but her legs felt like jelly.
"Is it not?" The Curator asked, a faint, cold smile on her lips. "Every Quirk is an aberration, a mutation that is pushing humanity toward its own destruction. We at Humarise do not wish to destroy these biological marvels. We want to understand them, catalog them, and ultimately... find a 'cure.' We will free humanity from the shackles of this misguided evolution." She stopped in front of Nejire. "And you, with your Quirk so powerful and self-destructive, are the perfect research subject." She pulled out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. "Don't worry. This 'extraction' process won't hurt. Probably."
Nejire looked at the syringe in horror. She might be weak, but her spirit as one of U.A.'s Big Three was not extinguished. She knew she had to fight, had to find a way out of here.
The inside of the Humarise facility was a labyrinth of sterile, silent white corridors. It felt like walking inside a modern tomb. Every door was marked with codes and symbols we didn't understand. The air was cold and smelled of chemicals.
"I can sense people ahead," I whispered, pointing to a corridor intersection. "Two of them. Guarding. Not moving." My dragon's heartbeat, which had now become my personal radar system, pulsed softly, giving me a rough picture of my surroundings.
"There's a ventilation shaft above us," Momo said, checking her tablet, which was connected to the building layout she had partially downloaded. "It should be able to take us past that guard post."
We moved through the narrow, dark passages of the ventilation system, a job that made me very grateful I didn't have claustrophobia. From above, we could see the activity below. People in lab coats walked with purpose, carrying strange equipment. We passed a large laboratory with glass walls. Inside, we saw something that made our blood run cold. Incubation tubes, similar to the ones at the Nomu factory, but their contents were different. Inside were not monsters, but... weapons. Intricate-looking metal weapons, some of which had designs that vaguely reminded me of other Teigu from my stories. And on a monitor screen in the lab, I saw data and analysis on "Quirk Factor," "Primal Energy," and "Artifact Resonance."
"They're... they're not just studying Quirks," Momo whispered in horror. "They're trying to... engineer them. Create weapons from them."
I felt an echo of the original Tatsumi's dreams. About Dr. Stylish and his horrific experiments. Humarise and the Empire... they might be from different worlds, but their cruel and inhuman methods felt terrifyingly similar.
As we continued deeper, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu as we passed a chemical storage area. A memory that wasn't mine flashed in my mind: an infiltration mission with Night Raid, where Bulat used Incursio to break through a wall that seemed solid but was actually fragile due to chemical erosion from a leaking pipe behind it. I stopped.
"What is it, Tatsumi-kun?" Ryukyu asked.
I looked at the wall in front of us. It looked solid. But my instinct—the original Tatsumi's instinct—told me something else. "I have a hunch," I said. "This wall... it's not as strong as it looks." I pointed to a small panel near the floor. "Momo, can you create something that can dissolve the plaster around that panel without a sound?"
Though confused, Momo complied. She created a solvent gel, and sure enough, behind the panel was a cavity that showed severe corrosion on the wall's support structure. We had found a shortcut, a path that wasn't on any layout.
We finally arrived at a more heavily guarded area. Sub-Level 4, Sector Gamma. The pulse from my power told me that Nejire was somewhere behind these steel walls. But our path forward was blocked by a giant vault door.
"This will take too long to open silently," Momo said worriedly. "The alarm will definitely go off."
I closed my eyes, trying to focus, trying to get another vision like in the exam room. I pushed my senses to their limit, searching for a connection with Nejire. I called her name in my mind.
And then, I got it. A brief, painful flash. I saw the white room from Nejire's eyes. I saw The Curator approaching with the syringe. And I saw a control panel on the wall, with a serial number clearly printed on it.
I gasped, fresh blood trickling from my nose from the mental strain. "Tatsumi-kun!" Ryukyu exclaimed, steadying me.
I looked at Momo, my eyes filled with desperate urgency. I didn't have time to explain my vision. I just gave her the most important data.
"Yaoyorozu," I said, my voice ragged. "I need the ventilation system layout for Sub-Level 4, Sector Gamma. Find an access panel with the serial number 734. Now!"
Momo and Ryukyu stared at me in shock, surprised by my impossible and specific knowledge. But there was no doubt in their eyes. Only trust. Momo immediately went to work on her tablet, her fingers flying across the screen. Our time was running out.