The relay station felt smaller than before, like the air itself was waiting for his decision. Shinso stood in the half-dark, rain dripping faintly from the ceiling joints, screens casting the only light across his face.
The console kept blinking.
WARD FOUR FILE DUMP READY.ANONYMOUS SOURCE ACTIVE.
Aizawa was still on the stairwell landing below, unmoving, waiting—not demanding, not forcing, just waiting the way someone waits for the truth to be spoken aloud.
Shinso exhaled slowly.
He opened the door.
Aizawa looked up. No triumph crossed his face. No relief either. Just quiet acknowledgment, like he'd known Shinso would choose this path eventually.
"Come in," Shinso said.
Aizawa stepped inside, dripping water across the concrete, eyes scanning the wall of red ward markers.
"…They did this much?" he muttered.
Shinso nodded. "And they'll do more if someone doesn't break the pattern."
Aizawa moved closer to the largest screen. Shinso transferred the newest files to the main display.
Ward Four:Clinical notes. Psychological metrics. Recorded screams behind sterile walls.Words dressed in medical language to hide violence.
Aizawa's jaw tightened. "They'll bury this before sunrise."
"That's why it needs to go out tonight."
Aizawa opened his mouth—but something buzzed sharply. His comm.
He checked it.
A new Commission directive. Level Red.
SHINSO HITOSHI: AUTHORIZED FOR DIRECT QUIRK-SUPPRESSION ENGAGEMENT.ANTI-MENTAL MANIPULATION UNIT DEPLOYED.CAPTURE OR NEUTRALIZATION PERMITTED.
Aizawa's eyes widened by a fraction. Enough to say everything.
"This isn't containment anymore," he said. "They're scared."
Shinso didn't flinch. "Good."
Aizawa looked at him long and hard. "They'll come here first."
"I know."
Shinso walked to the console and began prepping the citywide burst transmission. His hands moved fast, precise. The storm outside intensified, wind slapping the building, thunder rattling the old wiring.
The moment he initiated the upload, alarms blared.
BREACH DETECTED – PERIMETER LEVEL 3BREACH DETECTED – PERIMETER LEVEL 2
Aizawa pivoted toward the door. "They're here."
Shinso didn't stop typing. "They'll jam the signal if they breach the tower's main node."
"Then we stall them."
Shinso glanced at him. "You don't need to do that."
Aizawa smirked, tired and razor-edged. "I'm not protecting you. I'm protecting the truth."
They descended the stairs together.
Scene 2 – The Anti-Mental Unit
The Anti-Mental Manipulation Unit entered with chilling synchronization—helmets tinted black, sound-dampening boots, quirk-nullifying devices strapped like collars around their wrists.
Their leader stepped forward.Hero codename: Greylock.A specialist whose quirk fractured concentration.Shinso's natural counter.
Aizawa muttered, "Of all people… they sent him."
Greylock lifted a gloved hand. "Shota. Step aside. You know he's compromised."
Aizawa's scarf swung forward, coiling like a warning. "He exposed crimes you ignored. That's not compromise."
Greylock didn't blink. "Obedience isn't optional."
Shinso stepped forward, unafraid, voice calm.
"You don't want me. You want silence."
Greylock activated his quirk.
The air shimmered—like reality itself warped at the edges.
Shinso staggered, equilibrium tilting as invisible pressure compressed around his skull.
Aizawa's eyes burned red.Erasure cut through Greylock's quirk instantly.
"Move," Aizawa ordered.
Shinso didn't hesitate. He bolted up another flight. Aizawa followed, intercepting two agents, scarf snapping like a living blade.
But Greylock wasn't done.
He switched tactics—firing a quirk-nullifying collar toward Shinso.
Aizawa intercepted it mid-air.
"Don't touch him," Aizawa hissed.
Greylock's jaw set. "He's a danger."
Aizawa's voice was steel. "No. He's a consequence."
Scene 3 – The Broadcast Line Fails
Shinso burst into the relay room and slammed the door shut. He reinforced it with a steel bar.
He sprinted to the console, heart racing.
The upload was still moving—Twenty percent…Forty…Fifty-five…
But then the lights flickered.Static crackled across the screens.The building's external signal nodes were being overridden.
The Commission was cutting him out.
"No, no…" he whispered, typing faster.
A new message appeared:
EXTERNAL NETWORK ISOLATED.CITYWIDE BROADCAST DISABLED.
They were sealing the truth in darkness.
His breath hitched—but only for a second. He changed tactics.
If the citywide node was dead, he'd scatter the data through smaller networks: student forums, underground datasets, emergency channels, even dormant servers from defunct agencies.
He rewired the output path manually.
The system protested.He forced it anyway.
Scene 4 – Aizawa Falls
A crash echoed below.Aizawa's grunt followed.
Shinso froze.
"Aizawa?"
No response.
He ran to the stairwell slit.
Aizawa lay on the landing, half-conscious, Greylock standing over him. The anti-mental unit advanced behind him, collars charged.
Greylock looked up at the slit. He couldn't see Shinso, but he knew he was there.
"You're out of time, Hitoshi."
Shinso's hands shook—not in fear. In fury.
He sprinted back to the console.
Upload at 78%.
"Come on—"
The door behind him exploded inward. The steel bar snapped. Three agents stormed in.
Shinso hit the emergency switch.
The server core began to overload. Lights pulsed violently.
One agent lunged. Shinso dodged. Another grabbed his arm.
He inhaled.
Just one word.
"Sleep."
The man's grip loosened instantly, body sagging.
But Greylock surged in, quirk crackling like psychic static.
Shinso staggered again, head splitting.The upload dropped from 89% to 0%.
Greylock snarled. "We traced every node you touched. You're finished."
Shinso's vision blurred.
No more backups.No more networks.No more time.
Greylock reached for a suppression collar.
Shinso forced a smirk through the pain. "You traced what I wanted you to."
Greylock froze.
Shinso tapped one last key.
A secondary file opened—one the anonymous source had sent.A file Shinso hadn't fully understood until now.
Aizawa's voice, from the stairwell below, barely audible:
"Hitoshi… don't."
But it was too late.
Shinso hit ENTER.
The server core detonated—not explosively, but in a burst of electromagnetic light that ripped through every connected device within fifty meters.
Billboards.Phones.Hero comms.Commission networks.
All wiped to black.
Then rebooted.
And when they came back online—
Every screen in the city displayed the truth.
Not just Ward Six.
All of them.
Ward Three.Ward Four.Ward Eleven.Ward Twelve.
Everything the Commission hid.
Everything Shinso risked.
Everything they tried to bury.
Greylock staggered backward. "What did you—"
Shinso collapsed to one knee, dizzy, drained, barely conscious.
"I didn't broadcast it," he whispered. "I embedded it."
Greylock's eyes widened in horror as the realization hit:
Every device in the city had become the broadcast.
Unstoppable.Uncontainable.
Truth weaponized.
Scene 5 – The Bittersweet Ending
Aizawa dragged himself up the stairs, half-limping, half-crawling.
He reached Shinso just as the last sparks from the relay core faded.
"Hitoshi," he murmured, pulling the boy upright before he slumped entirely. "Stay with me."
Shinso blinked hazily. "They'll come… for me."
"Yes," Aizawa said honestly. "But now the whole city knows why."
Shinso looked out the shattered window.
People were pouring into the streets.Heroes arguing with reporters.Parents screaming for justice.The system cracking, not from violence—but from illumination.
He exhaled, relief mixing with exhaustion.
"I didn't want to become the villain."
Aizawa tightened his grip. "You didn't. They just needed you to look like one."
Below them, a wave of protesters chanted his name—not as a savior, not as a monster—
—but as someone who forced the world to see what it didn't want to.
Aizawa's voice lowered.
"You changed the city, Hitoshi."
Shinso's eyes slipped shut.
"I just wanted to be heard."
"You were," Aizawa said. "You were louder than all of them."
Footsteps echoed through the stairwell. More heroes. More agents. Reinforcements.
Aizawa shifted, standing between them and Shinso.
"Get behind me," he said.
Shinso didn't move.
He wasn't afraid.
He'd done what he came to do.
When the agents reached the landing, they paused—not because of Aizawa's glare, but because their comms were flooded with public outrage, judicial orders, emergency reviews, live confessions, and demands for accountability.
The world wasn't looking away anymore.
Shinso let his head fall back against the wall, breathing slow, steady, resolute.
Bittersweet.Painful.Necessary.
Aizawa knelt beside him, voice barely above the storm:
"This isn't the end, Hitoshi."
Shinso managed a faint, tired smile.
"No," he whispered. "It's the beginning."
And the city outside roared—not in fear—
but in awakening.