When the smoke finally settled, Mewtwo was still standing alone among the ruins—breathing heavily, the faint blue glow of his aura fading into the morning light.
By the time the heroes and police arrived, the battle was long over. The street was half-destroyed, the asphalt still warm from the pressure waves, the walls carved open by psychic and kinetic energy alike. But the enemy was gone.
It was too late.
The Symbol of Fear and the others had escaped without a trace.
When Mewtwo was escorted back to the Hero Bureau and asked for his report, disbelief hung thick in the air. Not that he had fought—his injuries and the cratered street made that obvious—but that he had faced two of the Symbols and survived.
That was what no one could process.
But as Mewtwo explained, carefully, step by step—the mechanics of the dream-based Quirk, the lucid manipulation, the transference of damage from dream to reality—the skepticism began to fade. The logic was there, and so was the evidence.
And then came the part that changed everything.
He told them about the alley—the Symbol of Fear, the ambush, and the arrival of the others. The first assumption among the senior heroes and investigators was that these newcomers were allies of the Symbol of Fear, or perhaps remnants of the Symbol of Progress' faction. The idea fit the existing theories neatly.
But then Mewtwo described the end.
The black liquid. The way it poured from the Symbol of Fear's mouth and consumed both him and the man wrapped in wires.
At that detail, the entire room went silent.
Several agents exchanged uneasy looks. The color drained from the director's face. The change was immediate and unmistakable.
They knew something he didn't.
From that moment on, the tone of the debriefing shifted completely. Every word he said was recorded and replayed. Artists from the forensic team were brought in on the spot to sketch the villain's appearance based on his description. Once the portrait was confirmed, the Bureau issued a nationwide search.
For the first time, they had a face to match the nightmare.
And just like that, Mewtwo was taken off the case.
No explanation, no further instructions—just a polite dismissal and a reminder that he was still on his provisional license. Maybe it was to protect him, maybe to contain information, but he knew better. Something about that last scene terrified them more than they were willing to admit.
The rest of his holidays passed quietly.
He stopped chasing leads, focusing instead on smaller hero work around the city—minor crimes, rescue calls, anything that kept him grounded.
He made time for five things.
First, he spent more time with his family. The peace of a normal breakfast was something he had missed.
Second, he trained relentlessly—refining his focus, control, and the limits of his psychic abilities.
Third, he reconnected with his friends, making up for all the time lost during the chaos of the last year.
Fourth, he trained with them, sparring until exhaustion, sharing techniques and insights, learning what it meant to trust a team.
That was how his vacation ended—quietly, almost peacefully.
When the new school year began, it was back to the same routine.
By the second month, internships resumed—and this time, the Bureau trusted him more than ever.
His psychic skill had grown sharper. He could now enter minds with minimal resistance, especially among those with weak mental defenses—maintenance staff, low-ranking criminals, even civilians under investigation.
Whatever had happened in that nightmare… had changed him.
The Bureau was a fortress of silence—but the janitors, clerks, and late-shift techs were anything but.
They didn't know the classified details of ongoing cases, but they heard everything else: the whispers in hallways, the offhand remarks, the half-truths from overheard calls.
And over time, those whispers started painting a picture Mewtwo didn't like.
With Kaina's help, he began piecing the fragments together. For two months they operated quietly, never openly questioning anyone, just listening. A comment from a night guard here, a joke from an accountant there—it wasn't much, but it was enough to start connecting dots.
And one name kept coming up: the Director.
Nothing overt, but there were inconsistencies—small details that didn't add up.
Unexplained acquisitions.
A quiet expansion of personal property.
A few "family investments" that seemed far too profitable for a public servant's salary.
It wasn't proof—just rumor. But to Mewtwo, it smelled wrong.
So he dug deeper.
He cross-referenced internal records with the Bureau's own disappearance files—cases involving both heroes and villains that had gone dark in the last few years. Patterns emerged. The timelines overlapped. The names aligned with regions under the Director's jurisdiction.
But to confirm it, he needed data.
That trail led to the Bureau's head of logistics—a man whose job was to handle all internal transactions and equipment inventory. If there was a money trail, it would pass through him.
At first glance, the man was ordinary: low voice, tired eyes, the kind of bureaucrat who blended into any crowd. But there was one detail Mewtwo couldn't ignore—he always carried his own laptop. Not the Bureau-issued one, but a personal machine with several external drives he guarded obsessively.
That alone was suspicious. Everyone at the Bureau used standard hardware for data security reasons.
So Mewtwo decided to act.
He didn't break in like a blunt-force villain—no smashed doors, no alarms. He waited until the perfect night, when the man was home and the streets were empty. Then he approached quietly, cloaked in the cool wind of early morning.
From the air, the house looked too secure for a normal government employee: motion sensors, reinforced doors, private cameras. Definitely overkill. But not for him.
Using his telekinesis, Mewtwo hovered above the roof, his psychic perception expanding like sonar. The layout of the house revealed itself in his mind: two bedrooms, an office, a basement filled with electrical hums. That was where he found it—the laptop, glowing faintly under the desk.
He never touched the ground.
Instead, he pulled a small set of devices from his utility belt—custom USB drives, each preloaded with an auto-copy protocol. With delicate precision, he guided them through an open window, floating them silently toward their targets.
Click. One plugged into the laptop.
Click. Another into a hard drive.
He felt the psychic vibration of each connection, like threads tightening. The data transfer began instantly, and within minutes, the pendrives detached and floated back into his hand.
No alarms. No noise. No trace.
By the time the homeowner stirred from his sleep, Mewtwo was already miles away, continuing his patrol as if nothing had happened.
He didn't touch the drives for two weeks—too risky. He had to wait until any digital surveillance or checksum alerts passed unnoticed.
When the time was right, he met Kaina in a secured safehouse.
Under the dim blue glow of a single screen, they plugged in the first drive.
And as the files began to open—slowly, one by one—what they found would change everything.
And jackpot.
There it was—everything.
Transactions, transfers, and coded ledgers. Hidden accounts linked to "confiscated" villain assets. Money laundering trails carefully routed through shell charities. Even confidential archives on active heroes—including one on Kaina herself.
It was all there, buried in spreadsheets and encrypted folders.
This man hadn't just been managing the Bureau's resources—he'd been controlling them. Every file showed how deep the corruption went, and the tighter Mewtwo and Kaina looked, the clearer it became: he was the Director's shadow, the one pulling strings from below.
And the security around his house made perfect sense now.
But something still didn't add up.
If he really was the Director's right hand, then why keep this information outside the Bureau's system? Why take that risk?
Because, as Mewtwo reasoned, maybe the Director didn't even know.
That would explain why the house systems hadn't triggered any formal investigation after Mewtwo's infiltration. Bureau-issued hardware always flagged external copies. A missing checksum, a hidden extraction, something.
But weeks had passed—and only one man looked nervous.
The treasurer.
Mewtwo watched him closely during those days. Every visit to the Bureau, the man looked more restless. He checked his phone too often, left his office too quickly, and once, Mewtwo noticed him carry a new external drive—heavily encrypted, wrapped in aluminum casing.
He knew the leak happened. He just didn't know when.
That was enough confirmation.
So Mewtwo broke in again—but this time, he didn't take anything. He observed.
Night after night, he watched the man's office from the shadows, using Telekinesis to map his movements, memorizing which drawers he opened and where he kept his drives. Two weeks later, he had every location marked—both in the Bureau and in the man's home.
Then, he and Kaina made their move.
They both knew it would cross a line. This wasn't sanctioned hero work anymore. It was sabotage.
Their plan was simple but dangerous:
Delete every trace of the files that targeted Kaina.
Expose everything else.
They coordinated with surgical precision. While Mewtwo hovered outside the Bureau windows, directing his telekinetic tools, Kaina slipped through security as a technician, her credentials still valid.
Together, they executed the plan:
They inserted the prepared drives.
They uploaded the copied archives to an anonymous police drop server.
And when the upload completed, Mewtwo sent a final command through his telepathic link—trigger.
A single pulse from an USB killer fried every system connected to the corrupted drives. Lights flickered, monitors died, and the faint smell of burnt circuitry filled the air.
All the evidence was out—and all the internal copies were gone.
That night, they met on a rooftop overlooking the Bureau. The two of them sat quietly, the cool wind brushing their faces as sirens wailed faintly below. Through the glass facade, they watched the controlled chaos of the aftermath: confused agents, flashing alarms, the Director himself shouting orders.
The Bureau didn't literally burn—but metaphorically? It was on fire.
And then… silence.
The following morning, the Director appeared on the news.
A calm statement. No accusations. No investigations.
Just an announcement.
Effective immediately, he was stepping down from his position and would be "traveling abroad to give a series of lectures and consultations on international hero policy."
A quiet retirement.
No arrests.
No trials.
Just a polite exit.
Mewtwo and Kaina watched the broadcast together, neither speaking for a long time.
They'd expected fallout—chaos, scandal, something. Instead, they got diplomacy and a smile.
The Bureau had protected itself, cleaned its name, and buried the truth deeper than ever.
But at least now… Kaina's record was clean.
But behind the public statement and the Bureau's carefully staged "retirement," the truth moved quietly.
Three nights later, long after the press had stopped caring, the police made their move.
Kaina and Mewtwo were there when it happened.
The Director didn't resist. He was waiting. Sitting in his house with a cup of tea, staring out the window when the agents arrived. When the door burst open, he turned calmly—and smiled.
Not a forced smile. Not one of panic or despair.
It was calm. Peaceful. Almost knowing.
Like a man who had already accepted his place in the story.
He said nothing as they cuffed him. Nothing as they read the charges. Not a single protest as they listed the evidence: embezzlement, money laundering, obstruction, conspiracy, and enough classified violations to bury him for five lifetimes.
And still, he smiled.
That was what unsettled Mewtwo the most.
As the agents led him away, the Director turned his gaze toward them—first Kaina, then Mewtwo—and simply nodded, as if to say, You did well.
It wasn't defiance. It was something colder.
Something that felt like the story wasn't over yet.
But for now, it was done.
The Bureau fell into quiet reconstruction. A new Director was appointed—a woman named Saiden Airi, an external investigator with a spotless record and a reputation for unyielding integrity. Every corner of the Bureau was restructured under her watch. Every connection was audited twice.
And slowly, the tension eased.
The first semester of Mewtwo's second year came to an end. Under Kaina's guidance, he continued his patrols—more measured now, more experienced, more observant. The city felt calmer, even if he knew peace was never permanent.
By the time internships ended, the days had begun to warm again. The class returned to routine, the noise of students filling the hallways once more. Mewtwo—Raiden—sat at his desk, watching sunlight drift through the classroom windows.
Everything felt normal.
Until Snipe walked in.
The teacher stood before them, tipping his hat as the class quieted down.
"All right, kids," he said, his tone carrying a spark of excitement. "You've made it to second year—and that means one thing."
He paused, hands on his hips.
"You're now eligible to compete in the annual U.A. tournament—the event where second- and third-year students fight for the title of Closest to the Pros."
A murmur spread through the room.
"Every year," Snipe continued, "the best rise to the top. Sometimes there's one champion, sometimes two. The last winners—our current top third-years—earned the title The Dynamic Two. They plan to defend it until they graduate."
The room erupted with energy—nervous laughter, whispered strategies, quiet determination.
Raiden just leaned back in his chair, eyes thoughtful.
A new challenge. A clean slate. A chance to test what he'd learned—without nightmares, corruption, or death waiting behind the curtain.
At least, that's what he hoped.
A/N: From this point on, the U.A. Hero Course is structured as a four-year program instead of three. Three years felt too short for a real college? career?