The dome felt too big without voices.
Aoi Shigure sat alone in the first row of the spectator seats, hands folded loosely in her lap, eyes fixed on the empty arena below. The Tournament of Heroes stage—once a blinding spectacle of light, banners, and roaring crowds—was now just bare stone and silent scaffolding soon to be filled to the brim with thousands of people in just a day or twos time.
The floor still wore the scars of yesterday's rehearsals. Cracks spiderwebbed across tiles where Molten Fist's blows had landed. Frost still clung faintly to certain patches where Ice Cliff's power had bitten into the ground. Here and there, scorch marks, dust, and faint indentations hinted at speed, weight, impact.
To the cameras, to the crowds, all of this would look like proof of glory, but to Aoi, it just looked like damage.
She leaned forward, resting her chin lightly on her folded hands, letting her legs swing a little off the edge of the seat. Her eyes traced those scars like they were lines in a story she hadn't finished reading.
Ever since that conversation with Asol, something inside her had been wrong.
He had looked her in the eyes and told her a story that could not be true. That their world wasn't what it seemed. That down below all this light, something was rotting in the dark. That heroes—the ones she admired, worked with, headlined events beside—were hurting people.
She'd told him he was wrong.
She'd needed him to be wrong.
Then he'd vanished.
Days had passed. No one seemed to know where he was. Kazuma said he was probably just "cooling off." Her brother smiled and said everything was fine and that Asol just needed rest. That people like him carried heavy burdens and sometimes broke a little under the weight.
She wanted to believe him.
She also remembered the look in Asol's eyes—haunted, certain, desperate.
If he was wrong, why did it hurt so much to say it?
She let out a small sigh that disappeared into the dome's huge, empty air.
"I'm supposed to be happy."
That was what idols did. That was what heroes did. Smile, shine, give people something to believe in. In concept, the two were very similar. Even when they were tired. Even when it hurt.
But ever since that day, that smile felt glued on from the outside instead of rising from somewhere warm.
She hadn't smiled at all since.
Aoi pushed herself to her feet. The sound of her shoes against the metal steps echoed faintly as she descended toward the arena floor. The dome's interior swallowed her footsteps, the vastness making her feel both very small and very exposed.
On the arena floor, she walked slowly, tracing a line between craters and scorch marks. Here, Thor's hammer had struck. There, Blue Volt had skidded to an impossible stop. And over there—a thin, almost invisible line of gouged stone where Yoru's attacks had landed.
She reached out, brushing her fingertips along a jagged crack.
"If what Asol saw is real…" she murmured, "why hasn't it been brought to my brother? Why hasn't he done anything?"
Maybe he already knew. Maybe he was quietly fixing it. Maybe, like Ultima before him, he was working in shadows so others could live in the light.
…Or maybe he knew and didn't care.
The last thought stabbed at her chest like a knife.
"No." She shook her head sharply, choking it down. "No. That's not fair… That's not him."
Her brother had stood between her and death more times than she could count. He'd carried her when she couldn't walk. He'd held her when the slums still stank of smoke and blood. He was the one who'd looked up at Ultima and decided to become that kind of light.
Doubting him felt like betraying both of them.
She turned away from the arena and headed toward the inner halls—where the dome's echoing openness gave way to narrower corridors. These were quieter, lined with polished floors and soft lights, the world of staff and heroes rather than cheering crowds.
On either side of her, portraits lined the walls.
She slowed.
There were so many—dozens, maybe hundreds. Heroes from every part of Aegis Prime and beyond.
Though there were some faces she didn't recognize at all. Old uniforms, old sigils, people whose names she only knew because other heroes occasionally told stories about them. But others, she knew very well.
Her brother, Providence, in several shots—standing alone, standing with other heroes, raising a hand to a crowd, hovering mid-air, cape billowing behind him.
Blue Volt, mid-laugh, sparks dancing around his shoulders.
Thor, hand on his hammer, storm-light cracking in the background.
Alberstein, half-turned from a chalkboard filled with equations, a faint smile on his face.
Ice Cliff and Molten Fist together, frost and flame caught in still image.
Yoru half-veiled in shadow, glowing eyes the only clear point.
628… and the longer she stared, the more wrong their blurred, half-formed outline looked, even in stillness.
And Bodhi, hands folded, a faint halo of light around him, calm as a mountain.
Aoi let her fingers trail lightly along the bottom edges of the frames as she walked past, needing the sensation of something solid under her hand. Wood. Glass. Names engraved in metal plaques.
Heroes. Symbols. Legends.
Then she stopped. One portrait tugged her gaze more than the others.
Ultima.
Even frozen in a picture, his presence seemed to fill the whole frame. He was not smiling broadly—just a small, calm curve of the lips, the kind that said he had seen all the world's ugliness and still chosen to stand anyway. His armor looked worn but strong. His cloak hung casually, as if it belonged more on his shoulders than any title ever would and could.
Her fingers brushed the bottom of the frame again—and misjudged the weight.
"Ah—!"
The portrait tilted, slipped from its hook, and dropped.
The sound of glass hitting the glossy floor made her flinch. It didn't shatter—just clattered and slid with the frame landing face up at her feet. Her heart pounded as she bent down quickly and scooped it up, checking for cracks.
None.
"Thank you…" she whispered to no one, relieved.
The last thing she wanted was to break him. She held the portrait for a moment, just looking at his face.
"If it were you in my place," she murmured, "what would you do?"
Believe Asol? Investigate? Trust no one? Or smile and pretend everything was fine until the right moment to move?
She didn't know. She wanted him to tell her. To step out of the frame again like he had when she was a child and say, It's all right. Do you want to live? Then stand up.
Her gaze drifted up to where the portrait had been hanging.
Behind it, where the wall should have been smooth and blank… something red glinted faintly in the light.
"Huh…?"
Carefully, still hugging the frame to her chest, Aoi stepped closer. The portrait had knocked slightly higher than where it had originally rested, revealing a small recessed cavity in the wall and inside that cavity was a button.
Round.
Red.
Glossy.
And absolutely not supposed to be there.
"What is that…?"
Aoi stared at it, throat suddenly dry.
A secret button hidden behind Ultima's portrait. Not Bodhi's. Not Thor's. Not her brother's.
But Ultima's...
"That's weird…"
Her first instinct was to put the portrait back and pretend she hadn't seen anything. That would be safer. Smarter actually.
But her second instinct—the one that grew in the crack Asol's words had opened—told her that maybe this was the answer to a question she hadn't fully let herself ask.
If there was something wrong with this world, if there was a truth heroes weren't sharing…
Would Ultima have hidden it?
Or would he have hidden a way to stop it?
Her fingers tightened on the frame.
"I'm scared."
But she'd been scared plenty of times before. Starving in the slums, facing countless Kaijus throughout the years, facing crowds of hundreds of thousands with only a microphone and a trembling heart.
"...If I were Ultima," she whispered, "would I look away?"
She set the portrait gently on the floor, propping it against the opposite wall. Then she reached into the recess and rested her fingertip lightly on the button.
Her heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears.
"This is stupid…"
But she pressed it anyways. There was a soft, mechanical click. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the wall in front of her shuddered.
Lines appeared, glowing faintly, as if someone had traced a rectangle with light. The slab of wall slid aside with a low, grinding sound, revealing a dark opening—a staircase descending into shadow.
Aoi stepped back automatically, eyes widening.
"A secret passage…?"
The air that flowed up from the opening was cool and stale. It smelled faintly of metal and dust. She stared into it as her mind raced with numerous thoughts. This wasn't something for show. This wasn't a hero gimmick. The stairs descended too far, at too sharp an angle.
She could turn back and close the wall and forget she ever saw it.
She could tell her brother or tell no one.
Her hand lifted to her chest, fingers digging lightly into the fabric of her shirt. The doubts she'd been trying to smother all this time rose like smoke, curling into her lungs.
Asol vanished, but he looked afraid. On top of that, her brother's reassurance had felt… too smooth.
If I don't look… then I'm choosing not to know. Maybe...
The thought hurt more than the fear as Aoi took a breath that felt too big for her ribs.
"…Okay," she whispered, to herself, to Ultima's portrait, to no one. "If there is something down there, then it must'vebeen fate that lead me here."
She stepped across the threshold, but the moment her foot touched the first stair, the wall behind her began to close.
She whirled around, eyes widening as the slab slid silently back into place, sealing the entrance. The portrait, the hall, the familiar light—all had vanished behind solid stone.
Her pulse hammered.
"…Right. No going back," she muttered, squeezing her hands into tight fists. "It's fine. It's fine. Totally fine."
It was not fine. But she moved anyway.
The staircase seemed to spiral forever, each step ringing faintly underfoot. The light at the top faded quickly, swallowed by the dark. Only faint strips of recessed lighting along the wall guided her, casting everything in cold, pale tones.
With each step, the sounds of the dome—the distant faint hum of systems, the echo of cleaning crews, the muffled noise of a city—fell away.
Silence settled in their place. Not absolute, but close. Just the soft buzz of unseen machinery in the walls and her own breathing.
She lost track of how long she walked and at some point, she realized her shoulders had tensed, her hands were shaking, and she'd bitten her bottom lip hard enough to taste metal.
"Get a grip, Aoi…"
Finally, there was something ahead that wasn't just gray.
A thread of light spilled from the bottom of the stairs, thin but steady.
She slowed, pressing herself lightly against the wall near the last step. Years of training and idol rehearsals—not exactly espionage, but enough to teach her how to move quietly—kicked in.
If someone was down here…
She listened.
No voices. No footsteps. Just a subtle, constant hum and a soft, intermittent chiming sound, like notifications or distant bells.
Her heart climbed into her throat. She edged forward and peered around the doorway. The room beyond glowed with pale artificial light.
Old lab equipment lay scattered across the floor—broken consoles, toppled metal stands, cables coiled like dead snakes. Glass cylinders stood along one wall, tall enough to hold a grown person. Most of them were cracked, shattered, or empty. Dried streaks of some long-cleansed residue clung to their interiors.
Her stomach turned as she stepped inside.
The floor was colder here. The air smelled sterile…but underneath it, she could still smell something else. The ghost of chemicals. The ghost of… fear.
Her eyes moved instinctively to the one thing in the room that still looked alive.
A bank of monitors.
They lined the far wall, stacked in a grid of screens. Some were dark, some flickering, some steady. Cables fed into an old, humming console; green and orange indicators blinked in steady rhythms.
Aoi's feet carried her forward before her mind caught up.
The closer she got, the clearer the images became. At first she didn't understand what she was looking at. Dark tunnels, caverns lit by weak bulbs, shacks built from scraps, and people.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
They were everywhere.
People with sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, skin stretched tight over ribs. Children dragging tools too heavy for their small arms. Women with hands raw from scraping stone. Men coughing, swinging pickaxes against walls that shimmered faintly with some mineral glow.
And heroes.
Not in shining capes, but in armor. Their Helmets obscured their faces. The Emblems of Aegis Prime etched on their shoulders. She watched one shove a stumbling worker back to their feet. Another crackled a whip through the air, its invisible lash scattering dust and panic.
Her breath hitched.
"No…"
Her voice sounded too small in the cold room.
On another screen, she saw a cluster of children cowering in a corner as a hero walked past, boots splashing in the filth at their feet, not even looking down.
On another, a cart heavy with ore—glowing faintly, pulsing—being pushed by three people at once, their knees shaking.
Adamantium?
"Was this… was this what Asol was talking about?"
Her vision blurred.
Her nails dug into the edge of the console as she leaned forward, eyes wide.
"Was this what he saw…?"
Her heart raced so fast she thought it might burst.
These were her heroes. The ones who appeared at charity events, who posed with her for photo shoots, who stood beside her on stage as the city cheered. The ones she'd wanted to be like since the day Ultima saved them.
Her breath came in quick, shallow pulls.
Think! Maybe—maybe this was training footage?
Maybe there was context she hadn't seen. Maybe this was—
A few of the screens changed suddenly, feeds rotating to different areas. One zoomed in on a group of miners huddled together around an older man. Another panned across what looked like a makeshift shack.
The camera feed jittered, refocused—
And then she saw
"Asol…?"
He was there. On one of the central monitors.
His black hair was messy, his clothes dusty, his expression tight with something halfway between anger and determination. He stood beside an old man and a small girl in a tattered uniform with crimson eyes.
He was underground. He was in that place. Her fingers shook as they reached toward the screen, not quite touching it.
"What are you… doing down there…?"
Was this what he'd been chasing? The truth he'd tried to put into words that she'd refused to believe?
Her thoughts tangled, knotted, then snapped as doubt crashed over her, not as a slow tide, but as a wave hitting too fast for her to breathe.
If this is real... If these people are really suffering—here, under our feet...If heroes are doing this…
Her chest hurt. Her knees weakened. Tears spilled before she realized she was crying.
"Brother…"
Her voice broke, the word scraping out of her throat.
"…did you know?"
Had he seen this room? These screens? Had he watched the same people and called it necessary? She gripped the edge of the console harder, knuckles white, trying to anchor herself.
"I…"
Her head spun.
"Asol…"
The room tilted.
The hum of the machines grew louder, deeper, until it felt like it was vibrating through her bones. For a heartbeat, she thought it was just panic—that she was breathing too fast, that she needed to sit down. That was all.
Then she noticed the light in the room had shifted.
A shadow fell across the monitors.
The last thing she felt was a chill at the back of her neck, like someone standing too close.
Her eyes widened.
And before Aoi Shigure could turn, or scream, or even form a single word more—
—everything went black.