Once inside the city's central police station, Mewtwo, Lady Nagant, and a detective stood face-to-face with Muscular. Despite his rough demeanor and brute strength, all three quickly reached the same conclusion: he was more than just hired muscle—he was the one running the show.
At the very least, Muscular had been overseeing the receipt and movement of illegal Quirk Gear, acting as both the enforcer and the logistics handler.
By day, he served as the operation's security lead, intimidating anyone who got too curious. But at night, his role shifted. He was the one responsible for transporting the contraband. His dual role made it clear—Muscular was not just a pawn. He was the one in charge of the local network.
Now, Mewtwo, Lady Nagant, and the new detective—Komamura—stood together in the interrogation room, facing the captured villain.
Komamura was the first to break the silence. "Muscular—that's both your villain name and the name of your Quirk. We already have more than enough evidence to lock you away for the rest of your life. You murdered two pro heroes. We have the recordings. That alone guarantees a life sentence. Depending on the prosecutor, you might even face the death penalty."
He paused, before continuing. "And now we've caught you trafficking Quirk Gear—an international-level offense. That seals it. Death penalty is practically guaranteed. Unless…" he leaned forward, voice cold and sharp, "you cooperate. Talk now, and we might be able to strike a deal. Best-case scenario: life in prison without parole."
Muscular scoffed at first, his expression unreadable. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, as if weighing his options, before finally speaking.
"I can help," he muttered, voice low but firm. "I've got no intention of dying."
From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Mewtwo, and the truth became obvious—there was no escape through brute force. If he tried to fight his way out, he'd be destroyed. And if he wanted even a sliver of a chance at freedom, he had to stay alive—and that meant cooperating.
"I don't know who's on the other side," Muscular admitted. "We're just the transport team. Our job is to move the Gear. We drop the packages off in a small rural town near Kyoto. It's not even a real city, just a cluster of old buildings in the middle of nowhere. Once we make the delivery, we collect the cash from a different location. Always in cash. After that, we launder the money—keep it clean before it goes back to the big guys."
As Muscular spoke, Lady Nagant turned slightly toward Mewtwo, speaking to him telepathically—a message only he could hear.
"Can you tell if he's telling the truth?" she asked.
Mewtwo answered without hesitation. "Yes. He is—but he's hiding something. I can sense it. He's holding back."
Lady Nagant's gaze narrowed. "Then force it out of him? Read his mind?"
"He's the perfect subject," Mewtwo replied. "And I'm sure he's hiding more than he's saying. His mind might give us the answers we need."
Lady Nagant's eyes widened slightly in alarm. "You said it yourself—inside someone's mind, they're always stronger. There's no guarantee you can win. That's dangerous."
"That was just a theory," Mewtwo countered calmly. "Think about it. You were stronger than me, even in the mental space—and that's why you had control. But I didn't resist. I didn't want to harm anything. I held back. Same goes for me. I might be much stronger in my own mind. Now this guy? He's physically strong, sure. But mentally? He's weak. His inner self-image might be tougher, but not enough to overpower me. I'm confident I can win."
He paused for a moment, then added, "And I know this sounds harsh, but look at the situation. He's facing either a death sentence or life behind bars. If there's someone whose mind I can afford to push—maybe even damage a little—it's him. So... may I?"
"Wow, you're getting colder every day," Kaina said, her voice a mix of amusement and unease. "I'm not sure whether to be scared or proud. Go ahead—invade his mind if you must."
"It's not that I'm colder," Mewtwo replied, his voice calm.
"It's just that I don't think someone like him—someone who's shown no remorse—deserves our sympathy. He's already thinking about how to escape, how to crawl back into the underworld and kill us if he gets the chance. Wasting empathy on him would be pointless. You harvest what you plant."
Without another word, Mewtwo's eyes began to glow, a soft psychic light pulsing from them. He activated his abilities and slipped into Muscular's mind.
Inside, the landscape was nothing like what he expected. No familiar mental construct like a city, a laboratory, or even a protective dome.
Instead, he found himself floating inside a grotesque cave. The walls pulsed slightly, as if alive—flesh-colored, wet, and veined, like they had grown from Muscular's Quirk itself. The entire place reeked of aggression and twisted biology. It was revolting.
"This is disgusting," Mewtwo muttered, frowning as he hovered deeper into the cave.
There were several branching paths, but many were blocked by massive boulders—mental barriers. Mewtwo tried to move one gently with his powers, but it didn't budge. In the past, he would hesitate, approach carefully. But not this time.
He raised a hand, summoned a surge of telekinetic energy, and blasted the rocks apart.
The result wasn't what he expected. The "rocks" exploded into a wet mess—torn flesh, blood, and tendrils of nerve-like tissue spraying across the walls. Mewtwo didn't flinch.
He pressed on.
Beyond the debris was a wide chamber, dimly lit by a strange, internal glow. As he entered, images, emotions, and memories surged into his mind—Muscular's recent thoughts spilled forward in chaotic waves. It was overwhelming, a flood of violence and cruelty.
In just the last week, Muscular had killed a fellow gang member—his only offense being too slow during a delivery.
He had assaulted and murdered two women, chosen purely because he found them attractive.
Three lives, snuffed out with no remorse, and each death more brutal than the last. The memory flashes were vivid, soaked in blood and screams. Mewtwo's gut twisted.
"You sick bastard," he muttered, jaw clenched.
At the same time, the first of Muscular's mental barriers cracked open completely. Back in the real world, Muscular jerked in his chair. A thin stream of blood began to trickle from his nose.
He sensed it. Even if he didn't understand what was happening, his instincts kicked in. Somewhere in the dark depths of his psyche, his subconscious flared up in defense.
Inside Muscular's mind, something began to stir—an instinctive force taking shape, forming a defense. A figure emerged from the fleshy cave's shadows. At first, it resembled Goto—Muscular's physical form—but quickly, it became clear this was something different. This wasn't the usual manifestation of Muscular's consciousness. His body was bigger, more grotesquely exaggerated than ever before. Even in his base state, he looked like a walking wall of raw, overdeveloped muscle.
"So this is your natural defense," Mewtwo said, narrowing his eyes as he hovered above the ground. "Let's see what happens if I break it."
The monstrous version of Muscular didn't respond with words—didn't even seem capable of it. Its eyes lacked focus, its expression vacant.
There was no intelligence behind its gaze, just primal instinct. It was like a beast defending its host, reacting to Mewtwo as if he were an invading virus.
With a guttural roar, the creature lunged.
In an instant, it transformed further, ballooning into a hulking mass nearly fifteen meters tall. Tendons snapped and reformed, piling on more muscle as it charged forward, destroying everything in its path. The floor cracked beneath its weight, and fleshy walls tore apart under its stampede.
Mewtwo quickly responded, launching two shadow balls—small tests to gauge the enemy's strength. The dark orbs hit their mark, exploding against the creature's torso and shredding layers of muscle tissue.
The damage was visible—fibers torn and scorched—but the beast didn't even flinch. It kept coming, mindless and relentless.
That was the nature of diving into another's mind. In here, the strongest part of a person's will—sometimes a memory, sometimes an instinct—rose to fight back. Mewtwo had seen it before. He knew this was Muscular's last line of mental defense: brute strength incarnate.
"Finally," Mewtwo muttered, his pulse quickening—not from fear, but anticipation.
An enemy that might actually push him to his limits once more. Even if it wasn't a real battle in the physical world, the stakes were no less intense here. He wouldn't gain experience points or level up like in a proper fight, but that didn't matter.
Without hesitation, Mewtwo activated Calm Mind, centering his thoughts and sharpening his focus. A second later, Agility took hold, enhancing his reflexes and doubling his speed. His aura pulsed, the psychic pressure around him intensifying like a storm brewing within his mind.
The real fight inside Muscular's consciousness had just begun.
In an instant, without wasting a second, Mewtwo unleashed Psycho Cut.
The glowing blade of psychic energy sliced cleanly through one of Muscular's limbs, severing it at the joint. Flesh tore apart with ease, but the beast didn't even flinch. Before the limb hit the ground, the creature activated his Quirk, and from the torn socket, a new arm formed—nothing but raw, twitching muscle fibers, regenerating in seconds.
Muscular retaliated immediately with a brutal barrage of punches, fists pounding the air like falling meteors. Mewtwo darted and weaved through them with split-second precision, using his telekinesis to propel himself effortlessly through the air. Despite Muscular's size, his attacks were relentless and fast—one after another, each hit stronger than the last.
It wasn't easy.
Still, Mewtwo moved with grace, reading every motion, anticipating every blow. Then, for just a moment, their eyes locked. Mewtwo's eyes flashed with a fierce purple glow—and in that instant, he launched a volley of Confusion waves, hitting the creature directly between the eyes. The impact pulsed through Muscular's skull like psychic tremors, forcing the beast to stagger backward for the first time.
But Mewtwo didn't plan to give him a second to recover.
Without hesitation, he clapped his hands together and summoned four Swift attacks. A flurry of golden stars shot from his fingertips, arcing through the air in tight formation before exploding on impact with the monster's body. Each explosion sent pieces of flesh flying, staining the cavern walls with raw tissue.
Not done yet, Mewtwo gathered a charge of electricity in his palms. With a snap of his arm, he fired a bolt of lightning that cracked through the air and struck Muscular's upper torso.
The creature convulsed, his overgrown muscles twitching violently under the electric surge, distorting his form in jagged, uncontrollable spasms.
Seizing the moment, Mewtwo rushed in with blinding speed.
He maneuvered below the towering mass and delivered two brutal Thunder Punches directly to the creature's jaw.
The shock and impact rattled through its skull, disorienting the beast. For a brief second, it stumbled, its massive body losing balance. Mewtwo hovered back several meters, preparing for the final blow.
He brought his hands together once more, now channeling a different kind of power. Between his palms, yellow and violet energy condensed and twisted, forming a pulsing sphere of raw destruction. The energy built rapidly, humming with lethal force.
Then, with a fierce cry, Mewtwo fired.
The Hyper Beam shot forward like a lance of pure power. Muscular crossed his arms in a last-ditch effort to defend himself, but it was no use. The beam tore through his limbs, breaking bone and shredding muscle as if it were paper. The blast struck his torso dead-on, carving through the creature's core with overwhelming force.
In seconds, the body disintegrated. What remained was a smoking crater—and two twitching legs that dropped lifelessly to the ground.
He had won.
And just as Mewtwo suspected, the theory was confirmed. When his power was overwhelmingly stronger than the mind he entered, he could shatter its defenses completely. Mental barriers meant nothing against sheer force.
As the mental construct of Muscular dissolved, the world around Mewtwo shifted. The landscape of flesh warped and began to morph. He now had full access to Goto's mind.
It wasn't just that the defenses were down—it was more than that. Mewtwo could now bend the environment within the mindscape, shaping it just enough to navigate and read thoughts freely.
At last, he understood how to truly read minds—and more importantly, how to break through the walls that kept them hidden.