CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
"We'll be heading out," Gideon announced as he adjusted the cuffs of his jacket. His tone was as even as ever, but there was a sharp edge beneath the calm.
Father Lance looked up from his mug. "Oh? Where to?"
Ash stood nearby with his arms folded, his usual scowl carved deep into his face. "We've got loose ends."
Gideon continued, "I've got a few strings to pull. I'll need to sort out temporary identities—fake names and clean records. We can't move around in this city without attracting too much unwanted attention otherwise. Meanwhile, Ash is on scout duty."
Ash added, barely looking back, "I'll see what the Donati family really wants. People don't move this aggressively unless they want something appeased. Imma find out what's got their panties twisted in a bunch."
Father Lance watched them both in silence before nodding once. "Just don't bring any more trouble back with you. This place is barely holding itself together."
Gideon gave a small nod. "We'll be careful."
As the door closed behind them, silence took its place—a long, hollow kind. Tobias, who had been leaning quietly against the wall, stepped away.
"I'll be in my room," he muttered. "I need quiet."
There was something brittle in his voice. Not angry, not cold—just tired. No one replied. They all had things on their minds.
The underground bunker was larger than it looked from above—corridors spidered out beneath the earth like a forgotten shelter turned cold sanctuary. Each of them had a room to themselves.
Now, only three remained in the common space: Hayato, Rio, and Father Lance.
Rio's gaze flicked toward the stairwell. This was it.
An opportunity.
With Gideon and Ash gone and Tobias tucked away, it was the perfect moment to slip out and report to Re-Destro. The information was too valuable to sit on—especially what he'd seen back on the ship.
Rio tapped his foot slowly. He hadn't been shaken like the others during the Donati ambush. Not really. While chaos tore through the ship, he had seen something else—something everyone else missed.
The Gauntlet.
That wasn't a missile. It wasn't a bomb. He saw it—an object hurled with intent, dropping like a god's judgment. The second it hit the deck, there were three separate quirk effects all at once.
This wasn't about politics or family honor. This was about that weapon.
He would fulfill his part of the deal. Re-Destro had to know.
But there was still one problem.
Father Lance.
While he had proven to be a generous host so far, Rio wasn't sure he would take kindly to him stepping out unattended for over an hour.
Father Lance was still wide awake and still had the air of a man who could smell lies in the dark. Slipping out without alerting him would be tricky.
So Rio shifted tactics.
"Hey, Father," he said casually. "Mind if I ask you something?"
Lance looked up, one brow raised. "Depends."
Rio grinned, scratching his hair. "I was just wondering—how'd you end up here in Europe? I mean, you've clearly got Mexican blood, Spanish accent. It's a bit of a jump."
Father Lance raised a brow, amused. "How are you African in Japan? I thought we were past that sort of thinking."
Rio chuckled, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "Nah, I didn't mean anything by it. I'm genuinely curious. You seem… grounded. Like you've seen a lot. I figure there's a story there."
The old man looked at him for a moment, eyes narrowing. Then his gaze softened.
"I'll tell you this much," he said, voice gravelled with age. "If you're looking for stories about Gideon, you'll have to get them from him. That's his history—not mine to share."
"Fair enough."
The priest leaned back, sipping from a chipped mug that smelled vaguely of cinnamon and ash.
"I was born in a small town in Mexico. Back when the government still had some semblance of power. But that didn't last long."
Rio listened, casually shifting to make himself comfortable.
"After quirks became widespread, the country broke up fast. The cities fell to warlords. Cartels got themselves weapons they couldn't control. Suddenly, every teenager with a mutation thought he could be a king."
He looked down into his mug.
"You put a gun in someone's hand, and the temptation to use it is already bad enough. Give him a power he doesn't understand? The killings stop having reasons."
Rio stayed quiet.
"And it wasn't just Mexico. Everyone thought superpowers would lead to world wars. But nobody had time for that. They were too busy trying to survive inside their own borders."
The priest shook his head slowly.
"Governments collapsed from the inside. The strong rose up, but strength doesn't equate to wisdom. Those brutes had all their talents invested in strength—they had zero capability when it came to management. It was we, the people, who suffered. It always is."
The priest's voice dipped into silence for a moment.
Rio, half-turned to leave—it was a prime opportunity to slip out—but he paused. Something about the look on the old man's face—faraway, almost hollow—kept him rooted.
"You know," Father Lance said suddenly, "back then, resistance wasn't even a thought. The only choices available were simple and cruel—run, accept the boot on your neck, or sell your soul and become part of the machine grinding your people down."
Rio slowly sat back down.
"I chose none of those," the priest continued. "But that world didn't care about choices. I was just another cog. Until my eighteenth birthday. That's when I decided to gamble."
He tilted his head, eyes half-lidded.
"There was a shipment of weapons bound for Europe—crates heralding death. I hid inside one of them. If they'd found me, I wouldn't be sitting here. But I made it out. That's how I ended up in Italy."
There was no pride in his voice.
"I thought everything would change. I was on a new continent… it was going to be a new start. I believed I could finally live with dignity, like a human being instead of an animal. But reality..." He shook his head. "Reality begged to differ."
He chuckled bitterly. "I couldn't speak the language. I had no valuable skills to speak of. I begged on street corners and scraped up odd jobs where I could. Even begging was dangerous—you never knew when some drugged-up lunatic would level the plaza over a stolen wallet or a dirty look."
Rio frowned. "Weren't there any heroes around? Patrols?"
Father Lance let out a short, dry laugh. "Heroes? We had vigilantes back then. You can't judge them with the same standards you'd have for heroes today. Back then, they were much worse—no training, no oversight. Half of them didn't know the difference between protecting civilians and turning them into meat shields."
He shook his head.
Rio's brow furrowed. "But in school, they told us the first generations of heroes were moral beacons. Brave and selfless. They're the reason hero culture even exists."
This time, Father Lance really laughed—loud and grating. It echoed slightly off the bunker walls.
"That's just government propaganda. You think they'd teach kids how messy it really was? Most of those 'heroes' just wanted to be rich and famous. The few with actual ideals got buried so the ones with flashy quirks could take center stage."
"They weren't noble, either. They were just slightly better than villains. They robbed corrupt officials and the mafia, but they still stole. They still hurt people."
Rio thought of Uwabami in a perfume commercial, snakes dancing around her face while she winked into the camera.
Not much had changed.
The priest took a long breath, more composed now.
"I lived like that for nearly a year. One missed paycheck from dying in a ditch. But then... I found something."
He turned slightly, looking past Rio, toward something unseen.
"The Church had established a sanctuary in the Vatican. They called it a haven for the forsaken. And for the first time, I saw order. Not enforced by power or fear—but by faith. By choice."
Rio blinked. "You mean they just... lived in peace? No one bothered them?"
Father Lance nodded. "They gathered strong believers—people who shared values. They weren't knights or warlords—they used their quirks only for defense, only to protect that little patch of peace."
Seeing Rio's raised brow, the priest smirked. "No, it wasn't the Knights Templar all over again. We weren't about to start another crusade. We were just men and women doing what they could to keep something good alive."
He leaned forward slightly, resting the empty mug on the floor.
"That was when I found purpose. Not in running. Not in fighting. But in giving people something to believe in."
Rio looked at him. Really looked. For a moment, the man wasn't a strange old priest with scars and a weapon hidden under his robes. He was just someone who had walked through fire and found something to kneel for.
Rio nodded again—this time slower, as if processing the information.
"I see," he said quietly. "Thanks for sharing all that."
The priest gave a short nod. His eyes had drifted again, somewhere far, far back.
Rio turned toward the corridor. The path was open now.
Time to move.
Just as Rio reached the hallway, Father Lance's voice called out behind him.
"Do you believe in God, Rio?"
The question hung in the air—impossible to ignore.
Rio froze.
It should have been easy to answer. In his old life, he had been a believer. He prayed. He went to church. Back then, faith was something he carried quietly—something personal.
But in this life? He hadn't stepped into a church until yesterday.
He turned back slowly, expression unreadable.
"It's... complicated."
The priest raised his brows, a quiet smile tugging at his lips. He said nothing—just nodded, as if he understood more than Rio had said.
Rio hesitated. Part of him wanted to answer more fully.
After everything he'd seen... being reborn into a world that was once fiction... it wasn't hard to believe in something greater. Maybe not an all-powerful, all-knowing God—but something. Some force. Some design.
Perhaps that being wasn't a god in the traditional sense, but something closer to the "ROB" humans in his old life joked about online—a random omnipotent being: powerful, strange, unknowable.
And maybe this one had a church here, too.
He couldn't decide if that made the idea more comforting or more terrifying.
"Anyway," Rio murmured, rubbing the back of his neck, "like I said... it's complicated."
Father Lance let out a low chuckle, his voice soft and weathered. "That's alright. Faith isn't a math problem. It's a journey. Yours will unfold when it's ready."
He turned away with a slow, deliberate step. "That's all for today."
With the soft creak of boots against concrete, the old priest made his way up the stairwell. The air grew still in his absence.
Rio stared after him, then cursed under his breath.
Damn it.
He'd been so engrossed in the man's story, he forgot the entire conversation had been a distraction so he could slip out.
He spun on his heel and dashed into the hallway.
"Hayato!" he hissed, grabbing the boy by the arm.
Hayato blinked. "What—?"
"Cover for me. If anyone asks, I'm still in my room."
"What's going on?"
"I'll owe you," Rio said, already moving.
Then he was gone.
He reached the exit in seconds, slammed the vault door behind him, and breathed in the outside air. His eyes narrowed. Lightning flickered across his skin, his aura activating.
The Speedforce surged to life.
And in a blink, he was gone.
Destination: Japan.
Author's note: The funny thing is that I have a backstory for all of my OC's. Every single one of them. I craft the backstory before I introduce any non-canon character, it helps me with getting into their head. I feel the period before the heroes in Rhode Island got recognition from the government and the general public is an interesting topic to cover so I did this. In the next chapter we'll continue with the Donati Family and their new mysterious weapon.