Underground Lab — Subterranean Levels Beneath Aokusa Forest
They were too deep. Too far down. Even hope didn't echo here.
Mirko wiped blood from her mouth, swaying as she stared up at Mazoku. Her body shook with exhaustion, her vision flickering from the mounting pressure in her skull. The Scarlet Rush in the air was no longer just a scent—it was a presence. A whisper at the edge of her thoughts.
Tigress was unconscious. Ragdoll wasn't moving. Pixie-Bob's quirk was overtaxed, and Mandalay clutched her ribs, breathing shallow. They were losing. Fast.
And Mazoku—he hadn't even started trying.
He stepped down from his pulsing throne of bone and muscle. His eyes glowed faintly red, but it wasn't malice that radiated from him—it was certainty. That terrifying calm that came from knowing you'd already won.
"You're strong, Mirko," he said softly, voice nearly affectionate. "That's why I want you."
"I'd rather die," she spat, stepping forward, legs trembling. "Than be part of your freak show."
Mazoku tilted his head. "That's the problem. You heroes see evolution as corruption. But I offer only freedom. Power without limits. Purpose without chains."
She roared, launching herself at him in a final charge—every muscle igniting, adrenaline ripping through her blood.
He caught her mid-air with one hand.
She kicked. Elbowed. Snapped her head forward to headbutt him.
He didn't flinch.
"You're tired," he whispered. "Let me help."
His fingers pressed against her neck. She felt the puncture before she saw it. His claws split open, syringe-like, and drove deep into her jugular.
Mirko screamed.
The blood—his blood—flooded her system like fire. Not just liquid but something alive. Writhing. Tearing through her cells like a storm.
Her scream turned guttural. Her knees buckled. Eyes bulged.
Veins lit up beneath her skin in crimson lightning. Her muscles contorted, expanded, cracked.
Mandalay's voice cracked from across the chamber. "No—Mirko—don't let it in!"
Mirko's mouth opened wide in a howl—then snapped shut. Her teeth had grown. Her ears elongated, twitching violently. Her skin darkened in blotches—black spreading from her arms up to her neck. Her sclera turned pitch, pupils glowing gold.
Mazoku stepped back, watching her convulse.
"Shh," he murmured. "You'll adjust. They always do."
Mirko collapsed to her knees, trembling, arms shaking as her hands dug into the floor.
Then she stopped moving.
Silence.
"M-Mirko?" Pixie-Bob called out. "Can you hear me?"
The rabbit hero's body twitched.
And then she rose.
Slowly.
Eyes glowing with inhuman light.
She exhaled—and the sound was wrong. Too deep.
Then she smiled. Blood on her lips.
When she looked at her former teammates, there was no recognition in her gaze. No pain.
Only hunger.
She lunged.
In a blur, she slammed into Mandalay, sending her flying across the chamber. Before Pixie-Bob could react, Mirko was already on her, claws raking through her shoulder, blood spraying across the wall.
"No!" Ragdoll shouted, barely conscious. "That's not her! That's not—"
A sound like thunder ripped through the chamber. Mazoku simply watched, eyes content.
"She was always close," he said. "It only took one push."
Mirko turned to him, panting, her mouth open in a half-snarl, half-grin. Her hands twitched as if struggling with memory. But the glow in her veins pulsed stronger—and her mind dimmed under it.
Mazoku stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
She didn't flinch.
"Welcome home," he said.
Blood soaked the stone floor. Scarlet trails painted claw marks into the walls. The underground lab was no longer a base. It was a tomb in waiting.
Mandalay lay slumped near a cracked pillar, ribs crushed, breath shallow. Pixie-Bob's shoulder bled freely, her quirk fading like a dying ember. Ragdoll crawled toward them, voice cracking with what little air she could spare.
"Mirko… please…"
But the thing standing in front of them wasn't Mirko anymore.
She moved with unnatural grace, like a puppet reborn with its strings replaced by sinew and instinct. Her ears twitched, not in alertness but bloodlust. Her legs were coiled, body low to the ground, arms limp at her sides. But her hands—no, claws—scraped the stone, fingers twitching as if tasting the air through sensation alone.
Mandalay tried to lift her head. "Rumi… we're your friends."
That name.
Mirko flinched.
Just a little. A flicker.
Mazoku's voice was a velvet weight behind her. "She doesn't need names anymore. Not when she has instinct."
She hissed, a wet sound.
Then lunged.
In one bounding leap, she crossed the chamber and slammed Ragdoll into the wall. The sound of bones cracking was muffled beneath the wet choke of breath leaving lungs.
"RAGDOLL!" Pixie-Bob screamed, staggering up despite the pain. "Don't you touch her!"
Mirko turned. Her eyes were pits of golden fire.
Pixie-Bob activated her quirk, forcing the floor to rise into jagged stone pillars between them. For a moment, it bought her time.
"Don't do this!" she yelled. "You're stronger than whatever he put in you!"
Mirko crouched, then punched the floor.
The pillars shattered.
Pixie-Bob gasped—too slow.
Mirko was already in front of her.
Too fast.
The claws sliced through Pixie-Bob's abdomen. She crumpled with a cry, falling to her knees.
Mirko stared down at her, head tilted like a curious beast. She leaned in, nose inches from the bleeding wound.
She sniffed.
Then licked the blood.
Pixie-Bob froze in horror, whispering, "No… please…"
Mirko whispered back, "It's better this way."
Then she drove her fist through her chest.
Pixie-Bob's body twitched as the hand inside her chest clenched once—twice—and then pulled back. Her blood sprayed in a thick arc across the lab floor. She slumped forward, eyes wide, lips parted in a final, silent question.
Mirko didn't answer it.
She turned, dripping with the gore of her former comrade. Her breathing slowed—not labored, but… sated. For a moment, she simply stood in the center of the massacre, head bowed, her white hair streaked with crimson and sweat.
Mazoku stepped down from the ledge of organic bone that had risen behind him like a throne. He moved with casual reverence, his steps quiet on the blood-washed stone. He approached her from behind.
"You feel it now, don't you?" he said softly. "The false morality draining away. The burden of control lifting. You were born for this."
Mirko's fingers flexed.
Behind her, Mandalay struggled to crawl forward. She'd seen it all—Ragdoll crumpled in a heap, Pixie-Bob butchered like an animal. Her chest felt like it had collapsed, but she kept moving, one hand at a time, dragging herself across the stone.
"Rumi…" she croaked. "You're still in there. I know you are…"
Mazoku's expression hardened slightly, his voice sharpening. "That name again. Let it die.
But something flickered across Mirko's face. Not hesitation. Something smaller. A twitch of memory. Laughter on rooftops. Sweat and bruises after patrols. Coffee before sunrise. The smell of old uniforms.
Her claws twitched.
"Rumi," Mandalay repeated, voice weak but steady. "You remember us. You—"
Mirko turned, face blank.
And then leapt.
She landed with both feet on Mandalay's back. Bones crunched beneath the impact. Mandalay screamed once, a short, raw sound, then went silent.
Blood pooled beneath her body.
Mirko stood tall now, bathed in the carnage of her sisters-in-arms. No voice came from within. No memory rose again. The transformation was complete.
Mazoku approached, eyes glowing faintly as he extended a hand.
"Well done," he murmured. "You've shed everything unnecessary. Now you're free."
She didn't take his hand.
Instead, she stepped past it—and bowed.
Kneeling before him, head low, one fist clenched to the ground, she spoke clearly for the first time since the change.
"What do you wish of me… Master?"
Mazoku smiled.
"I wish," he said, placing a hand on her blood-matted hair, "for the world to see what happens when peace dies. You will be the first herald."
Her breathing deepened.
"Then give me a name," she said.
Mazoku thought for a moment.
"You are no longer Mirko… nor Rumi Usagiyama."
He leaned down, his whisper like a knife drawn across silk.
"You are Usagi now—the first of my Apostles."
And behind them, the lab's walls pulsed in time with something awakening far beneath.