Brooklyn, 2011.
Sahil Hamato turned eight—and he was no longer pretending.
The Brooklyn most people knew was full of honking taxis, food trucks, and rooftop basketball courts. But nestled behind a warehouse in Red Hook, hidden beneath layers of legitimate business fronts and a converted industrial facade, the Hamato clan had quietly set up something far more dangerous.
A base. A proper one.
It was Ryota's doing—his way of investing in Sahil without letting his younger brother, Kenji, suspect a thing. Sahil's father remained blissfully unaware. He still believed his son was focused on homemade science projects and hanging out with neighborhood kids.
And Sahil let him.
But behind the sealed walls of that base, Sahil trained with live firearms, studied ancient and modern weapons, and sparred until his muscles ached and calloused. Cold weapons—katanas, tonfa, batons, knives—were introduced slowly at first. Then came marksmanship: pistol, rifle, even bow and shuriken. It started with stances, then static targets, then moving targets, then reactive drills.
Karai was his partner and rival.
At seventeen, she was already an elite operative of the clan—agile, precise, and composed. She didn't like the idea of babysitting her young cousin at first. Their first month together was brutal. She didn't hold back, and Sahil barely kept up.
But that didn't last.
By the third month, Sahil wasn't just matching her strikes. He was anticipating them.
He was no longer reacting—he was dictating.
Karai stared at him one afternoon after he'd disarmed her during a knife bout. Her chest rose and fell with exhaustion. She didn't smile, but the respect was there in her silence.
"You're better than Daichi ever was," she said simply.
Sahil nodded, catching his breath. He remembered Daichi—the arrogant cousin who tried to knock him down at his sixth birthday, only to be humiliated. Daichi was fourteen now, but far behind.
Their grandfather—the clan elder—watched every session via remote surveillance. He didn't visit often, but when he did, his words were few and heavy.
"You move like a shadow, and strike like lightning. Our blood has found its true sharpness in you."
That praise came after Sahil landed a disarm-feint-flip combo on Karai during a live blade drill. It wasn't just training anymore. It was becoming who he was.
After months of weapons training, evasive acrobatics, silent takedowns, and marksmanship sessions, the Snake Eyes template hit 30%.
He could sense it.
Movements flowed with almost precognitive clarity. His posture self-corrected. His footfalls became inaudible. The Brooklyn rooftops had become his playground.
Meanwhile, the Baxter Stockman side advanced in parallel.
Thanks to Ryota's patronage and trust in Sahil's potential, the clan converted a sealed lower chamber of the base into a lab—a real lab.
Clean benches. Power tools. A quantum microscope. Reclaimed processors. Crates of military-grade scrap. Sahil practically lived in that chamber when he wasn't training.
With the privacy, funding, and advanced tools finally available, Sahil upgraded all his previous work.
Micro-drones were now equipped with soft-mesh wings and visual cloaking. His signal scramblers could interrupt shortwave police bands. He created bug bots that crawled like spiders and relayed encrypted audio back to him via proxy relays.
When the Stockman template hit 40%, it wasn't a surprise.
He was building systems now—networks. Not just gadgets.
Each night, Sahil would return home to his apartment in Brooklyn, his parents none the wiser. His mother, Ananya, smiled when he returned sweaty or distracted—assuming he'd been practicing parkour or doing electronics with his uncle.
Kenji, oblivious and occupied with his schoolwork and students, never questioned where Sahil disappeared to for hours at a time.
But Sahil wasn't hiding.
He was evolving.
At eight, he had fluent mastery over eleven languages, had surpassed two teenagers in combat, and had begun manufacturing prototypes that could rival defense tech.
The world still saw him as a child.
But the shadows knew better.
And so did Karai.
One night, as they walked back to the base after rooftop recon, she finally spoke what she'd been thinking for months.
"You're not the heir, but you're the sharpest weapon this clan has forged in years. I hope Daichi's watching."
Sahil didn't reply. He just kept walking, eyes scanning the skyline.
There was more to do.
And he was just getting started.