Five months changed the shape of things.
Not dramatically. Not visibly.
But Shinwa felt it in the way the city reacted before he acted—how conversations thinned when he entered certain districts, how groups quieted without knowing why. He hadn't become famous. He didn't have a name.
But he had become expected.
That expectation followed him as he left his house that night.
The hoodie was the same. The mask had been modified—lights dimmer, edges softened. Still unremarkable. Still deniable. He moved with more confidence now, steps quieter, posture settled. The baseline strength had grown too—not explosively, but undeniably. His body held weight better. Took impact better.
He had tested carefully.
Too carefully.
Tonight wasn't about testing.
Tonight, he went looking.
The gang occupied an old redevelopment zone—half-finished buildings, temporary fencing, pop-up infrastructure meant to make the place feel alive before it actually was. Shinwa had heard rumors. People disappearing for hours. Money changing hands too fast.
Villain-adjacent.
Good enough.
He entered from the side, letting himself be seen.
That was new.
Four of them noticed immediately. One recognized the mask.
"That's him," someone said, voice tight. "The dock guy."
The weight answered instantly.
Faster than ever.
Shinwa moved.
The first exchange was clean—two quick strikes, controlled, heavy. One man dropped. Another staggered back, fear sharpening his movements. The others spread out, smarter than the last group had been.
They hit him together.
Shinwa blocked one strike, felt another glance off his ribs—harder than he expected. He slid back, boots scraping concrete. The weight thickened, his muscles responding automatically, bracing, aligning.
Still manageable.
Then one of them pulled something heavy from behind a crate and swung.
The impact caught Shinwa across the side.
For a split second, he felt weightless.
Then the wall behind him exploded outward.
Concrete fractured. Dust and debris followed him as he was launched through the structure and out into open air.
He landed hard—
—on a stage.
Wood cracked beneath him. Lights flickered. A microphone screeched with feedback as Shinwa rolled to a stop at the center of it.
Silence.
Not empty silence.
Crowd silence.
Hundreds of eyes stared at him.
Beyond the stage lights stood rows of people—civilians, cameras, staff. A massive screen behind him froze mid-frame, displaying the shocked face of a well-known celebrity who had been in the middle of a speech seconds earlier.
Not a hero.
Just famous.
Someone screamed.
The gang burst through the broken wall behind him, spilling onto the stage in a rush of confusion and adrenaline.
And the world decided something was happening.
The weight hit Shinwa like gravity being turned up.
Not sudden—absolute.
Air compressed. Sound dulled. His presence expanded outward, not violently, but decisively. He felt his stance lock in, felt strength pour into his frame—not borrowed, not imagined, but earned through perception.
Fear surged through the crowd.
Awe followed it like a shadow.
Cameras came up.
The first attacker reached him.
Shinwa met him head-on.
The strike sent the man skidding across the stage, wood splintering under the force. Gasps rippled through the audience. The weight surged again, responding instantly.
Stronger.
Faster.
Another attacker hesitated—just long enough.
Shinwa crossed the distance in two steps and drove him down with a blow that rattled the lights overhead. The crowd recoiled as one, voices overlapping, feeding the moment.
"He's not a hero—"
"Is this part of the show?"
"Look at him—"
Each word pressed the air tighter.
Shinwa felt it clearly now.
This wasn't combat anymore.
It was amplification.
He moved through the remaining fighters like a current—efficient, overwhelming, unstoppable. Every fall drew sharper reactions. Every reaction fed him back. His strikes grew heavier, his movements cleaner, his presence undeniable.
For one terrible second—
—the idea crossed his mind that he could end it completely.
That he could let the weight decide for him.
Shinwa stopped.
He stood at the center of the ruined stage, chest rising and falling, the crowd frozen around him. The gang lay scattered, broken but alive.
His hands trembled.
"No," he said quietly. Not to them. To himself.
He stepped back.
The weight resisted.
For the first time, pulling away felt harder than advancing.
But Shinwa forced himself to turn, to retreat into the smoke and broken wall he'd come through. The moment he vanished from view, the pressure collapsed in on itself, leaving noise and confusion in its wake.
Sirens began to wail in the distance.
Shinwa ran.
By morning, the footage was everywhere.
Clipped. Slowed. Zoomed.
A masked figure emerging onto a stage. Criminals flying backward. A crowd reacting as one.
No name.
But no deniability either.
And somewhere in the city, professionals watching the same footage felt a familiar, unwelcome sensation—
—not fear.
Weight.