Chapter Text
By the time Hitoshi Shinsou arrives on scene, the situation has already reached a brittle stalemate.
Police lights strobe red and blue against the glass facade of the building, reflections jittering across the windows like nerves under skin. Barricades hold back a growing crowd of news crews and curious onlookers. Officers are clustered in tense knots, weapons lowered but ready, while barely intelligible voices crackle through open comms.
At the center of it all, framed by the revolving doors of SAIKO’s headquarters, stands a man with a knife pressed far too close to a child’s throat.
Shinsou stops just long enough to take it in.
Six or seven years old, maybe. Small. The girl’s shoes are pink and scuffed, toes barely skimming the pavement as the man behind her drags her back against his chest. Her dark hair is pulled into neat pigtails that have since begun to loosen, stray strands sticking to her damp cheeks. Her face is pale, eyes wide and glassy, fixed on nothing at all.
The man holding her is shaking.
The knife in his right hand is kitchen-grade, made of cheap steel. His grip is white-knuckled and sweat-slick. His voice carries across the plaza, cracking as he shouts about betrayal, about being owed, about how they ruined his life.
“Kenji Sato,” an officer explains quietly at Shinsou’s shoulder as he steps into the perimeter, still well clear of the action. “Former employee. Fired four months ago. Security breach this morning. He waited until the CEO arrived with his daughter for a site visit.”
Shinsou absorbs the information without comment.
This kind of thing always sounded more complicated than it was.
He adjusts the capture weapon resting around his neck, fingers brushing the familiar weight, and lets his gaze move to gather the surroundings.
Distance. Lines of sight. The way the man, too frantic to notice his arrival, keeps jerking the knife when his voice rises. The way his attention keeps snapping toward the police, never once checking behind him. The way the girl’s hands are clenched in the fabric of her own coat, knuckles bloodless, but she isn’t screaming.
Brave kid.
A negotiator is speaking now, voice low and coaxing, promising everything and nothing all at once. The man doesn’t hear him. He isn’t listening. He doesn’t want resolution. He wants acknowledgment.
Shinsou exhales slowly through his nose.
“Mind Jack on scene,” someone murmurs into a radio.
A few heads turn as a ripple moves through the officers nearby. Not excitement exactly, but something more hesitant, cautious, curious.
Shinsou doesn’t acknowledge it. He never does.
He moves.
Not forward, but sideways. Slipping into the edge of the crowd, letting the tension of the scene pull eyes toward the obvious threat. His footsteps are unhurried, casual enough to blend into the ambient noise. He keeps his head down, posture relaxed, as he moves circumferentially towards the man and child.
Sato is still shouting.
“…THINK YOU CAN JUST THROW ME AWAY-”
Shinsou activates his vocal modulator as he closes in.
“Hey, Kenji.”
The words come from behind the hostage-taker. Close. Familiar. Almost intimate.
The man freezes.
“What-?” he answers in confusion, turning slightly.
That’s all it takes.
The knife clatters to the ground as his body goes slack, eyes glazed, mouth falling slightly open. Shinsou doesn’t hesitate. He steps in with quick precision, using one arm to haul the man backward, away from the child, while his other sweeps her forwards and out of reach in one smooth motion.
Restraints shut over the offender's wrists with a quiet click.
Done.
It takes less than ten seconds.
For a heartbeat, no one moves.
Then the girl is crying - sharp, hiccupping sobs tearing free as officers rush in, lifting her, shielding her. Someone drapes a blanket over her shoulders. Another officer drags the subdued man away, shouting orders that now feel redundant.
The crowd exhales.
Shinsou straightens and rolls his shoulders once, already fading back into the edges of the scene. His pulse is steady, his breathing even. His mind already disengaging.
He tries not to notice the looks.
The awe is there, yes, but threaded throughout it is wariness. The way people’s expressions tighten once they remember how he did it. The way relief curdles into something uneasy once the adrenaline drains.
Mind control always does that. Shinsou is used to it.
What he isn’t used to is Yoji Yamanashi.
The CEO barrels toward him with the force of a man who has never once been told no. Late forties, impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit without a single stray crease despite the chaos, Yamanashi looks more energized than shaken. His eyes are bright with emotion, and something dangerously close to delight. One arm is wrapped firmly around his daughter, who clings to his side, face buried in the fabric of his coat.
“You,” Yamanashi says, grabbing Shinsou’s shoulder without hesitation, grip overly familiar. “That was incredible!”
Shinsou stiffens. “Sir-”
“You saved my little girl,” Yamanashi continues, turning him half towards the watching cameras as if to include them in the spectacle. “Did you see that? So calm. So clean. Just bam!-” He snaps his fingers. “Over.”
Himeko peeks out from her father’s side, eyes red but curious. She looks at Shinsou briefly, then bows her head shyly.
“Thank you,” she mumbles quietly.
Shinsou pauses.
Then he nods once, awkward. “You’re welcome.”
Yamanashi laughs, loud and unrestrained. “What presence!” he declares, “What control! Like a conductor commanding an orchestra - or a puppet master pulling the strings!”
Shinsou has a bad feeling about this.
“You know what?” Yamanashi continues, already gesturing animatedly as an idea takes hold. “You would be perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“For…?” Shinsou asks, not quite wanting the answer.
“For SAIKO’s next campaign,” Yamanashi says, grin widening as if he’s just discovered something revolutionary. “Dark. Gritty. Power without apology. You embody it.”
Cameras flash. Someone calls out the CEO’s name. Another voice asks Shinsou for a comment.
Something cold settles low in Shinsou’s stomach.
He steps back as soon as it’s socially acceptable, murmuring something polite and noncommittal, trusting that the words will be lost in the noise. The CEO is already being ushered away by staff and police.
The moment passes.
Shinsou leaves.
That night, he tells himself it was nothing.
An emotional man saying emotional things after an emotional moment. It happens. Perhaps it strayed quite far from the way people usually reacted to witnessing his quirk, but maybe that was something to be glad about. People will talk, then they’ll forget. The news cycle will have moved on by next week.
He holds onto that thought the next morning as he clocks in, moving through his routine with the detached precision of habit. Suit up. Check comms. Fill out incident logs. He even allows himself a flicker of optimism as he sits down with a cup of coffee and opens his reports.
It dies quickly when he’s called to a meeting in PR.
Waiting for him is the agency manager, a perpetually stressed-looking middle-aged man with dark circles that rivalled Eraserhead’s. Normally, he looks like he's inches away from a mental breakdown.
Today, he’s practically glowing.
The contrast is unsettling.
“Shinsou!” he says, rising halfway out of his chair as if greeting a new celebrity. “Great news, really great news.”
Shinsou’s shoulders tense on instinct. “What kind of news?”
Instead of answering, the manager slides a tablet across the desk. The screen lights up with a sleek, immaculately designed document: SAIKO branding stamped across the header, followed by figures, timelines, and glossy mock layouts.
An official proposal.
They want him as the face of their next collection.
Shinsou reads it once. Then again, slower, like the words might rearrange themselves into something more reasonable.
“They’re serious,” he says quietly.
The manager beams. “This is huge. Do you know how popular SAIKO is these days?”
“I’m not a model,” Shinsou says immediately. “I’m a hero.”
His manager waves a hand. “You don’t have to be a model. You just have to be yourself.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” Shinsou replies. “I don’t do photoshoots. Or runways. And I definitely don’t have time.” He gestures vaguely. “I've got patrols. Missions. Actual work.”
A second voice cuts in smoothly. “Which is why this is perfect.”
The PR rep, young and relentlessly upbeat, leans forward in her chair. “You won’t be expected to drop everything. We’ll work around your schedule.”
Shinsou frowns. “That’s not what happens.”
“This isn’t just any brand,” she continues, undeterred. “This is an opportunity to reposition you. To reframe your image.”
“My image,” Shinsou echoes, thinking of knives and shouting men and the way people flinch after his quirk takes hold.
“Yes,” she says brightly. “People see you as intimidating. Mysterious. This could help soften that.”
His manager nods along. “The CEO himself said you were a perfect fit.”
Shinsou feels the familiar weight settle between his shoulders.
“I don’t like the way he talked about it,” he says after a moment. “Yesterday. He kept saying things like ‘dark’ and ‘gritty’.” His jaw tightens. “Called me a puppet master.”
The manager chuckles, as if that were charming rather than concerning. “That’s just branding language. It doesn’t mean anything concrete.”
Shinsou looks back at the tablet. At the neat numbers, the contractual certainty. At their bright smiles and the way both of them were already talking as if the decision had been made.
This was how it always happened. Not with force. Just momentum.
“…I don’t want this to interfere with my hero work,” he says quietly.
“It won’t,” they promise in unison.
He hesitates.
Then, reluctantly, he picks up the stylus and signs.
The glow in the room intensifies.
Later, alone, Shinsou stands by the office window, staring down at the city below. Neon lights bleed into the dusk as crowds move in restless streams, faces blurring together. A thousand eyes, none of them truly seeing him.
A clean rescue, he thinks.
And somehow, it still got messy.