(AFO POV)
The machines never stop humming.
Even in silence, this place breathes. The gentle thrum of power lines beneath the floor. The rhythmic hiss of pressure seals. The occasional flicker of an overhead light struggling to maintain its voltage. A tomb of steel and circuitry, carved into the earth, humming with life that isn't alive.
And I stand at its heart.
The mirror in front of me shows a face that is no longer human. What remains is not vanity. There are no eyes to behold myself, no mouth with which to smile. Only scarred tissue and medical bindings where a man used to be. A face that cost everything to lose, and nothing to wield.
This body endures. That is all that matters.
Shigaraki. My endgame. My storm.
He will bring the world to its knees, not simply through power, but by embodying my will. He is a symbol meant to replace a broken society's icons. But he is not ready. Not yet. He still clings to embers of emotion, to a past that tethers him to weakness. That must be severed. But severance takes time. Time I must occupy with precision.
That's why Rei exists.
Not as a second Shigaraki, no. Rei is not the future.
He is the scalpel.
Rei was a child when I found him. Soft, unshaped. Not innocent—there is no such thing—but untempered. And in that softness, I saw potential. He was neither defiant enough to burn the world nor compliant enough to fade into it. What he was, however, was moldable. And pain is a sculptor more skilled than any teacher.
Weeks. That is what it took.
Weeks of peeling back layers, of unraveling his resistance strand by fragile strand. Until the boy who cried in his sleep and whispered for help stopped doing either. Until he was silent. Not out of fear, but because he no longer remembered what it was to speak of his own volition.
They ask me why I do not simply control minds. Why I do not use quirks to overwrite free will and create the perfect soldier.
Because there is no perfection in puppets. There is only obedience. But obedience without understanding is brittle.
Rei understands.
He knows, now, what pain is. He knows what it is to lose everything and be reshaped into something better. That knowledge is a blade.
And I will wield it.
He will not lead, as Shigaraki will. But he will clear the path. He will be the shadow that precedes the collapse of the sun. The whisper that comes before the scream.
A hiss. The telltale sound of warping space.
Kurogiri's portal spirals open like a wound in the air, mist spilling out onto the polished floor. From the darkness steps Rei.
Eidolon.
That is the name I gave him. A ghost of what was. A name that means apparition, omen. He wears it well.
His armor is black, not sleek but jagged—plated like a carapace, reinforced at the joints with smart-polymer mesh. The helmet is retracted for now, revealing a face as expressionless as a corpse. He is thirteen, but he could be thirty for all the age his eyes have lost.
"Welcome back," I say. My voice is low, raspy, shaped by machines and pain.
He nods. "Mission completed. Target neutralized."
No wasted words. No embellishments.
"Injuries?"
"None sustained."
"Collateral?"
"Minimal."
Good.
I step closer. The smell of ozone clings to him, faint but distinct. Traces of quirk discharge. His hands are still faintly glowing, the remnants of his spectral appendages not yet dissipated. Faint blood smudges across the plates. A few dark flecks on his gloves—most likely from the hero who thought themselves righteous enough to stand in his path.
He does not look at me. He does not need to.
"You're becoming more efficient."
"I have adapted."
I place a hand on his shoulder. He doesn't flinch. Doesn't even blink.
"You are more than a weapon, Eidolon. You are an idea. And ideas endure."
He doesn't answer.
"Decontamination," I say, gesturing toward the corridor beyond. "Kuroda is waiting. We need full vitals before your next deployment."
He moves without hesitation. Every step is deliberate. I watch him disappear behind reinforced doors, and only then do I speak aloud again.
"They will fear him before they fear Shigaraki."
Dr. Kuroda is a gifted man. Unburdened by morality, which is the true weight that breaks most minds. He studies Rei—no, Eidolon like one might study a rare strain of virus—with awe, caution, and the quiet thrill of destructive potential.
When I first gave him the boy, Kuroda was skeptical. Not of the task, but of the timeline. He said the mind of a child is elastic, but also fragile. That if we pulled too hard, it would snap.
"Then we rebuild it," I told him. "Into something that doesn't break."
And we did.
The vitals come back pristine. Neural response consistent. Suppression stability holding at 97%. The Ghost Hands quirk—still evolving. That part fascinates me. It's growing stronger the more detached he becomes. Almost as if the power thrives in his emptiness.
That will be important later.
That will be important later.
Because one day, Shigaraki may need something more than just decay. His quirk is destruction—total, beautiful annihilation—but it is blunt. Loud. Final. Shigaraki is the earthquake, the avalanche, the thunderclap that splits the sky. And I love him for it.
But empires are not built by earthquakes alone.
They are constructed in silence. In whispers. In shadows that move just out of sight.
There will come a time when Shigaraki must be a god—visible, untouchable, vast—and in that moment, he will need more than brute force. He will need ghosts. Phantoms who slip through walls, bypass locked doors, reach through armor, through sanctuaries, through the fortified delusions of heroes—and tear the hearts from their peace.
He will need a blade that does not clang when drawn. A hand that is never seen until it is too late.
That is why I forged Eidolon.
And that is why he returns now.
The room that leads to the contamination room opens as Eidolon walks in. Silent. Steady. No hesitation in his stride, no flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.
He kneels, briefly. A gesture not born of reverence, but obedience.
A weapon acknowledging its wielder.
I speak without raising my voice.
"Your next mission will require subtlety."
He remains kneeling, head bowed, waiting.
"There is a surveillance hub in the Eastern District—Hero Watchpoint Seven. It appears insignificant, but it is not. It is the spine of their eyes. Every patrol from Kamino to Chofu routes through that node. Real-time coordination. Rotations. Dispatches. And, unfortunately, predictive models."
I step forward, folding my hands behind my back. "I want it gone. Quietly. No alarms. No unnecessary spectacle."
He lifts his head slightly, just enough to speak. "Understood."
"You will not go alone this time."
A flicker. Subtle. But I see it.
"You will be shadowed by another. Her codename is Dusk."
There it is again. Barely perceptible. A pause in his breathing. Not concern. Not fear. Curiosity.
"Dusk," he echoes. "A partner?"
"Not a partner. A witness."
He doesn't question it. He never does. But I clarify anyway.
"She will not interfere. But she will observe you—your decisions, your method. We are refining our calculus. Preparing… for scale."
I move closer, circling slightly, letting my steps echo in the chamber.
"You trust me," he says, voice steady.
"I do," I reply. "But trust is not static. It must be measured. Catalogued. Reinforced."
Another beat of silence passes.
"She is not there to test you," I add. "She is there to record you. To learn from you. To understand the shape of fear… as you wield it."
He bows his head slightly. Acceptance.
"When do I leave?"
"One hour. Rest until then. Your vitals are within threshold, but your output dipped slightly after the previous exertion. Kuroda will recalibrate your quirk amplification nodes while you decontaminate."
He begins to rise, but I halt him with a word.
"Eidolon."
He stops.
His body stills, poised, expectant. I speak deliberately, each syllable slow and sharpened.
"If the situation escalates, what will you do?"
He turns his head slightly, his voice flat and ready. "Eliminate the source."
"Even if it is a civilian?"
A pause. Not long. He is well-trained. The answer comes without faltering.
"Collateral is acceptable if the mission is critical."
I nod once. "Correct. But unnecessary death is waste."
"I understand."
I let him go.
His footsteps recede—no haste, no wavering. Measured. Mechanical. Focused.
A perfect blade, returning to its sheath until the next incision.
And then I am alone again.
But not truly.
Because within the walls of this place, everything listens. The monitors. The data streams. The minds I've shaped. Even the silence has ears, by now.
I return to my seat, the quiet hum of machines filling the chamber like a low hymn.
Eidolon is not just a soldier. He is the axis of control. The proof of concept. The bridge between raw potential and perfect obedience. He is the test case—what happens when you grind down the soul until only function remains.
And he works.
More importantly—he endures.
Shigaraki is chaos made flesh, the stormfront. But when the dust clears, it will be Eidolon still walking. Picking through the wreckage. Silencing the survivors. Removing evidence. Inserting new truths.
He will be the hand that tightens the leash of fear around the throat of society.
And Dusk?
She will learn from him. Just as he once learned from pain.
It's all momentum now. Cause and effect. A single chain of entropy I set in motion years ago. Every link forged in agony, tempered in isolation.
Shigaraki will rise.
But it will be Eidolon who walks through the ashes first—marking the land, whispering into what remains, ensuring that what is reborn never remembers the light.
I lean back, feeling the weight of time pressing against my ruined face. Breathing through cracked tubes, vision filtered through tech and scar tissue.
They thought they broke me.
But I had already won the moment I learned how to break others better than myself.
The world is changing. And change, when planned, is merely inevitability.
The next generation is not hope.
It is design.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[BREAKING NEWS – HNNTV Channel 5]
"We interrupt your regular programming with breaking developments out of the Western Kamino area, where authorities have cordoned off a crime scene in Alleyway 14B following a violent and unexplained incident late last night."
The screen shifts to aerial footage withblue lights flashing, a cluster of ambulances, and white forensic tents lining the alley. Several figures in hazmat suits move between body outlines, blurred for broadcast.
"According to early reports, a group of low-level gang affiliates were found unconscious and severely injured at the scene—multiple with fractures, burns, and signs of blunt trauma. No fatalities have been confirmed, but at least two individuals remain in critical condition."
Cut to a press briefing. A tired-looking police chief adjusts the mic.
"We are cooperating with the Hero Public Safety Commission to determine whether a new vigilante—or something else—is responsible. As of now, we are not ruling out any possibilities."
Then, another feed. A reporter stands just outside the alley, wind catching her coat.
"And in a disturbing development, authorities have issued an internal alert for a missing semi-professional hero operating in the area at the time of the incident. The hero, known publicly as Strikeline, has not been heard from since their last patrol update. Officials have neither confirmed nor denied whether Strikeline's disappearance is connected to the events in the alley."
Back to the anchor.
"Speculation is already swirling online, with some suggesting the incident marks the emergence of a new villain. Citizens are urged to avoid the area as investigations continue."
A final shot of the alley, cordoned in yellow tape, as snow begins to fall.
"We'll have more updates as the story develops. Stay safe, and stay alert."