You ever wake up feeling like you broke every single bone in your body, only to remember—oh right, I can't break bones. At least, not for longer than it takes Super Regeneration to stitch them back together.
That's how you know you had a fun night. Or a really bad one. For me, the line's kind of blurry.
The ceiling above me is the same cracked slab of concrete it's always been, the air's still that perfect mix of mildew and old electronics, and the couch—if you can call it that—still feels like it was designed by someone who thought comfort was a federal crime.
But the headache? That's new.
New Order hangovers hit different. It's not like normal exhaustion, where your muscles ache and your brain's foggy. No, this is more like... the world itself is tired of your existence. Like gravity's just a little too heavy, light's a little too bright, and time's moving too slow, even for me.
"Alive, huh?"
That voice.
I don't have to turn my head. I'd recognize that tone anywhere. Half mockery, half genuine concern, all wrapped up in the signature arrogance of someone who controls gravity for fun.
Rai Kurosawa. My so-called ex-teammate. My only almost-friend. The one person who still sticks around, even after the whole 'turning into a walking weapon of mass destruction' thing.
"Yeah," I grunt, forcing myself upright, "Define 'alive.'"
"You're still breathing, and the building's still standing," he replies, leaning against the doorframe like he owns the place. His Hero suit looks like it hasn't seen a dry cleaner in weeks, and his face? Equally wrecked. "Close enough."
My body protests as I swing my legs off the couch. Every joint pops like microwave popcorn. I can feel the micro-fractures knitting together under the skin, the muscles reinforcing, the organs recalibrating. Super Regeneration is the only reason I'm not a splatter of genetic waste across Musutafu's streets.
The mission had gone sideways. Or, more accurately, Void Chain showed up, and the laws of physics packed their bags and went on vacation.
And me? I barely walked away.
"You ever get tired of this, Rai?" I mumble, flexing my hand as strength floods back. "Being the guy who shows up after the fact, just to confirm I didn't die?"
Rai doesn't answer at first. He just shrugs, like it's the most normal job in the world. For him, maybe it is. Gravity quirks make people heavy, but guilt? That makes them heavier.
"You should've stayed with us," he says finally. "You wouldn't have to wake up like this."
"Yeah," I snort, standing up, "But then I wouldn't have the pleasure of blowing holes in Bureau property every other night. We all make choices."
Rai opens his mouth to say something, but the shrill beep of the holo-screen cuts him off.
[ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED QUIRK SIGNATURES DETECTED][REGION: MUSUTAFU DISTRICT — OMEGA LEVEL RESPONSE REQUIRED]
I glance at the screen, and my stomach sinks.
Not because I'm scared. Fear's kind of a foreign concept at this point. It's the names flashing across the feed that bother me. Enhanced quirk signatures. Ex-military grade. Bioengineered freaks like me.
The Kinetic War wasn't waiting for permission to start.
It had already begun.
[Field Deployment: Musutafu Central]
The air stinks of ozone and pulverized concrete.
Musutafu's skyline is missing a few buildings, and the ones still standing look like they're one bad punch away from joining the rubble. Hero Bureau strike teams swarm the streets, all geared up, all trying their best not to look terrified.
But they are. You can feel it in the way they move, the way their eyes dart.
I've seen what they're up against.
So I don't waste time.
Gearshift kicks in the second my boots leave the rooftop. Velocity jumps from zero to triple digits in less time than it takes to blink. Overclock stretches the world out like molasses, slowing everything down until I can read the street signs mid-air.
Fa Jin hums under my skin, kinetic energy packed tight and ready to blow. Jet's micro-thrusters scream, pushing me through the gaps between buildings like a bullet looking for a target.
And I find one.
Vox.
Human subwoofer, Hero Bureau enforcer, quirk: Sonic Override. One word from him, and the surrounding five blocks collapse like a house of cards.
I've tangled with Vox before. The guy's a nightmare, and worse, he knows it.
He spots me before I land, mouth already open, soundwave primed.
But I'm faster.
Fa Jin releases. Springlike Limbs recoil. Gearshift slams into max. The world turns into a smear of light and wind, and my fist connects with his face before the sound even leaves his throat.
The impact is enough to send him skidding across the asphalt like a skipped stone.
But the fight's only just starting.
Vox's body skips like a rock across the broken street, smashing through two cars and a light pole before he finally grinds to a stop. For a second, I think I might've overdone it.
But the thing about enhanced quirk users? Overdoing it isn't usually enough.
Sure enough, the bastard's already getting back up, head lolling sideways on a half-broken neck until the wet crack of self-resetting cartilage sets it straight. His jaw flexes once, twice, and then the smirk's back like it never left.
"New tricks, Framebreaker?" His voice is rough, like sandpaper soaked in battery acid. "Thought you were all speed, not power."
I roll my shoulder, feeling the last traces of Recoil energy still buzzing in my muscles. One hit like that, and most people would be permanent stains on the pavement. Vox is built different — just like me.
"Adapt or die, sound boy." I hop down from the cracked edge of the building, landing light on my feet. "You know the rules."
His smile sharpens into something feral.
"Then die."
His chest expands.
Oh, here it comes.
I don't stick around to let him scream me into next week. Gearshift slams into second gear before the first syllable leaves his throat. My world fractures — buildings warping into long, streaky lines, streetlights stretching like melted glass — and I'm gone.
Overclock's still active. In this state, even sound looks slow. I can literally watch the shockwave ripple through the air, like a bullet submerged in syrup.
But even at that speed, my brain's doing its math: Vox's range is about 120 meters. His quirk isn't just sound, it's kinetic transfer hidden inside the vibration payload. One good scream, and my bones would liquefy.
If I want to end this, I need to hit him harder. Smarter.
Plan A: Use Jet for a burst-dodge sideways, loop around, crack his skull before the next breath.Plan B: Let him hit me. Shock Absorption + Impact Recoil = free power boost. Pay it back twice as hard.
A lesser man would flinch at the idea. I? I let out a sharp exhale and brace.
His soundwave hits.
It's like standing in front of a train going Mach 2. My entire skeleton groans, Hardening kicking in mid-impact to stop me from turning into kinetic jelly. Shock Absorption eats most of the damage, funneling it straight into the Recoil reserve in my limbs.
By the time the wave passes, I'm still standing. My ears? Ringing. My vision? Flickering. But the power... oh, the power is unreal.
"Thanks for the charge."
I barely hear my own voice over the ringing, but it doesn't matter.
My feet dig into the ground, muscles ballooning under Fierce Gains and Muscle Augmentation. Springlike Limbs coil tight — like drawing back a slingshot the size of a skyscraper.
And then I release.
The world disappears.
Just air. Pressure. Speed.
When I reappear, my fist is halfway through Vox's chestplate, and the ground behind him has cratered so deep you could host a swimming pool. The air warps from the leftover force — a rolling distortion, like the aftershock of a nuclear test.
Vox coughs once, blood spraying from his mouth in a wide, lazy arc.
"Still...not enough," he gurgles.
Damn persistent, I'll give him that.
But the battle isn't about winning individual fights anymore.
No, this is just the appetizer. The real problem's still out there.
As I step back, boot crushing broken asphalt, the sky above the city flickers — like someone slashed reality itself with a rusty knife. Black scars ripple in the clouds. Gravity spikes for a heartbeat.
That's not a natural phenomenon. That's quirk interference. High-level. Borderline unquantifiable.
Void Chain's nearby.
My body stiffens. Reflex, not fear. Fear's for people who can afford the luxury of second chances. I don't get those anymore.
I click my comms open — the old, scrambled Bureau channel Rai still uses.
"Code Black. Chain's in the sector."
Static. Then:
"Got it. Evacuation en route. You need backup?"
I glance at the distortion overhead, feeling the air pressure shift, the fabric of space itself warping.
"Backup won't matter," I mutter. "Not against him."
Because Void Chain doesn't fight fair. He doesn't fight with brute force, or speed, or flashy quirks.
Void Chain fights by erasing the rules.
And for someone like me, who relies on bending the laws of physics until they scream? That's as close to a natural predator as it gets.
I take one step forward, and the world... hesitates.
Not me. The world.
That's how you know he's close. Void Chain's quirk doesn't announce itself with fireworks or pretty lights. No, it's more like reality getting...laggy. Ever try walking through deep water, where every move feels half a second behind your intention? Now imagine that, but the water is the space around you.
I blink twice, forcing Overclock back online, pushing through the resistance.
"Kael. Don't engage." Rai's voice cuts into my comms again, sharp and clipped. That old professional tone of his. The one that says: I've already accepted we're screwed but I'm pretending we're not.
Too late. My instinct's already telling me he's here.
The air ripples, folds, and then — just like that — Void Chain steps out of the fracture.
Black trench coat, half-masked face, eyes like event horizons. His presence alone drags the temperature down a few degrees, as if the universe itself is trying to back away from him.
"Kael." His voice is flat. Quiet. Almost polite.
But the ground around him fractures — not because of strength, but because mass, distance, gravity, and even light aren't quite sure what they're supposed to do near him.
"Chain." I tilt my head, cracking my knuckles, casual on the surface. Inside? Every neuron's on red alert. "You stalking me now, or just taking the scenic route to murder someone?"
"You've exceeded your operational allowance," he replies. "Bureau's leash broke. I'm the replacement."
Of course. Of course the Bureau would send him. You don't waste a nuclear warhead on a mosquito. You use it on the thing that makes your entire R&D department lose sleep.
I roll my neck. "I figured they'd send someone eventually. Didn't expect the black hole babysitter himself."
Chain doesn't blink. Doesn't even twitch.
And then the real fight begins.
My body lunges forward before thought can catch up, propelled by pure kinetic instinct. Gearshift drops me straight into third gear — microsecond bursts of momentum acceleration — and Jet ignites in the soles of my boots.
But Void Chain doesn't move.
The second I enter his effective range, everything snaps. My acceleration disappears. My inertia? Gone.
I'm floating. No, worse. I'm still moving, technically, but the distance isn't decreasing. Space isn't working right.
"Rules don't apply here," Chain murmurs, voice carried on a breeze that doesn't exist. "Not when I'm present."
New Order pulses in the back of my mind. The god key. My last resort.
I could force the rules back in place. Rewrite the scenario. Make space normal, make inertia real, make my body unstoppable again.
But that voice — the one born from experience, from bitter close calls — reminds me:
"Don't rush New Order. Chain's quirk isn't about power. It's about baiting you into rewriting the wrong thing."
I freeze, letting the stalemate hang. A single move out of place here could mean rewriting myself out of existence.
"Why now?" I ask instead. Stall for time. Buy my brain another two seconds. "Why chase me down now, Chain? I've been off the leash for months."
His head tilts, just slightly, as if I'd asked the world's most boring riddle.
"Because now you're not the only one rewriting physics," he answers.
That's when I feel it. Another distortion, further west. Subtle, but growing.
Someone else — another high-tier quirk user — is bending reality. And not just some random side effect. Someone's actively rewriting the combat grid.
Void Chain isn't here for me.
Or at least, not just me.
My blood runs colder than the void surrounding him.
"Who else?" I press, trying to sound indifferent, failing miserably.
But he doesn't answer.
Because the sky does it for him.
A bright white flash arcs across the city skyline, and for a brief second, gravity forgets which way is down. Cars lift off the streets. Broken glass hovers in midair. The buildings shudder, caught between two conflicting gravitational states.
That's not me. That's not Chain.
That's something worse.
The sky doesn't go dark. It goes wrong.
When the flash fades, there's no comforting return to normal, no soft fade back to blue. Instead, the world looks... glitched. Like a video feed trying to buffer two realities at once.
I lock my body into a braced stance. Hardening, Shock Absorption, Springlike Limbs — all of them snap into place like muscle memory on steroids. My quirk stack is prepped for hell.
Void Chain, of course, looks unfazed.
"The Kinetic War's started." His voice is that same calm, emotionless warning a pilot gives right before a nosedive. "You're late."
I click my tongue, shifting weight to the balls of my feet. "Wasn't aware I RSVP'd."
Another pulse ripples out from the epicenter of that white flash — and this time, I feel it in my bones. A gravitational override. Someone out there just told the entire city to kneel. My enhanced muscles tighten, rebelling against the unseen force trying to fold me like cheap laundry.
"Recognize it?" Chain asks.
And I do.
Only one person has ever made me feel like gravity was a personal insult.
Rai.
I snap open the comms again, static crackling against the override. "Rai! You alive out there?"
Nothing.
Just more distortion.
Chain finally moves, slow and deliberate, as if space is rearranging itself around his convenience.
"He didn't survive the last pulse," he says, the words slicing through the air like a scalpel.
But I know Rai better than that. Gravity quirks don't just misfire like this unless the user is forced to break their limits — or die trying.
"Who's targeting him?" I demand.
"New player," Chain replies, as calm as if we were discussing weather forecasts. "Same tier as you. Another fusion product, I assume. City's turned into a testing ground."
My jaw tightens. Of course it has. Of course the Bureau couldn't stop at one monster. One failed Project Tyrant wasn't enough. They always double down.
I've seen this play before. I know the ending.
But not this time.
The next pulse hits harder.
This time I let it.
Shock Absorption drinks up the impact, Impact Recoil logs it, and Fa Jin stores the kinetic bleed-off, building it layer by layer under my skin like a living warhead.
I've got one shot at this. One chance to snap the rules back before whatever's out there turns the whole district into a zero-gravity graveyard.
Chain's shadow warps, stretching longer than physics should allow, and for the first time since he showed up, his posture shifts.
"You going?" he asks, like it's the most casual thing in the world.
"Yeah," I exhale, rolling my shoulders once, feeling the kinetic bank inside me ache for release. "Looks like this war wants me on the front lines after all."
Chain steps aside. Not out of fear. Not out of mercy. Just simple logic. The fight ahead isn't his.
At least not yet.
I blast forward.
Gearshift punches me straight into fifth. Jet launches me from rooftop to rooftop. Overclock pushes my perception until the world slows to a crawl.
The next time gravity tries to pin me, I declare my first New Order rule.
"I reject forced gravity."
And the weight disappears. Just like that. The city's bending physics can't touch me now.
I ride the building tops, cutting a streak through the distortion. In the distance, the skyline finally reveals the battlefield: cars stacked like scrap metal towers, roads caved in like someone peeled back the asphalt with a cosmic can opener, and right at the epicenter — a single figure standing on air.
Rai.
Alive. Barely. Bloodied, hovering, straining against an unseen enemy's pressure.
And his opponent?
Not a villain.
Not a hero.
But another Project Tyrant.
The Bureau's been busy.
I don't stop.
I can't.
The second I break visual on the battlefield, every part of me screams one thing: too late.
Rai's body is barely holding formation, his gravity field twitching out like a busted neon sign. He's floating — no, dangling — in midair, suspended by whatever crushing force is holding the entire area hostage.
And the person responsible?
A silhouette, perched on the jagged remains of a semi-collapsed skyscraper. Tall, broad, sharp-edged — like somebody built a final boss out of leftover cyberpunk villain parts.
The second I spot them, my instincts confirm what I already feared.
They're like me.
Quirk fusion signature all over their aura. But not the same batch. Their posture, their energy output, the rippling heat mirage hanging around their limbs — different loadout, different theory. Another Tyrant, but not the same breed.
Project Tyrant had other candidates. Looks like one of them survived.
"Kael Arashi," the voice cuts through the air like broken glass dragged across metal. "Took you long enough."
I hate it when enemies know my name.
"Mind telling me yours before I bury it?" I call back, sliding to a halt on the crumbled rooftop, balancing on the edge as the ground around us continues to fold under unseen weight.
"Designation: Omega Draft," the figure replies. "But you can call me the End."
Of course. Edgelords, always with the dramatics.
I cock my head, forcing the smirk. "Wow, your parents must've really loved you."
No reply. The End lifts one hand, curling their fingers into a loose fist — and the air itself vibrates.
Rai lets out a choked grunt as the gravity field doubles down, his quirk fighting desperately to keep his lungs from collapsing under the crush. His eyes snap toward me. No words, just pure warning: don't screw around.
Got it.
Fa Jin: fully charged.
Springlike Limbs: loaded.
Impact Recoil: brimming with every hit I've let myself eat since this morning.
New Order's mental load hums at the edge of my focus, like a second heartbeat waiting for the command.
One move. That's all it'll take. One wrong or right move, and this whole stalemate explodes.
I exhale slow, let the world stretch thin, and whisper under my breath:
"New Order: My speed is untraceable."
The moment the rule locks, I vanish.
The End snaps their head toward where I was, too slow.
I reappear mid-air, right above Rai's battered form, snatching him by the collar before the next gravity pulse can crush what's left of his ribs. The force wants to rip us down, but New Order's rewrite holds. Physics can take the day off.
Jet engines flare, Springlike Limbs launch, and Gearshift slams me into a breakneck side-dash, cutting an impossible arc around the skyscraper as The End's attack detonates the space we'd just abandoned.
The shockwave peels away the clouds.
But I'm already gone.
I land four blocks away, dropping Rai onto the asphalt as gently as a human wrecking ball can manage.
He coughs once, blood spattering the road, and gives me a half-hearted glare.
"Took your sweet time," he rasps.
"Fashionably late," I reply, kneeling beside him. "You know me."
His fingers twitch, reaching for his comm unit — still dead. Whatever field The End's quirk set up, it's more than just gravity. The whole district's a dead zone.
"That thing..." Rai breathes, "...not Bureau."
My blood runs cold.
If The End isn't a Bureau ghost, then whoever made him is off the books entirely. Worse than the Tyrant program. Rogue science. Black budget stuff even the Bureau wouldn't touch.
I straighten up, scanning the ruined skyline as The End's silhouette reemerges, walking slow and steady through the wreckage.
"Round two?" he calls, voice still sharp enough to slice steel.
Yeah. Definitely not Bureau.
I roll my neck, letting the tension click out. Fa Jin's still half-full. Impact Recoil's begging for a target. Springlike Limbs are primed.
And the best part? I haven't even flipped the switch on Singularity Mode yet.
"Alright, Omega Draft," I mutter under my breath. "Let's see if your 'End' can outrun my beginning."
The Kinetic War just declared itself open.
And I'm done running.