The convenience store's dumpster sat behind a rusted chain-link fence, half-hidden by overgrown weeds and shadows cast by the setting sun. Perfect.
I crouched in the alley across the street, watching. Waiting. Old habits from my previous life kicking in automatically—observe the pattern, identify the risks, plan the approach, execute cleanly.
It had been three hours since I'd left the slum alley where Ryō had died. Three hours of walking on legs that threatened to give out with every step, fighting off dizziness and the constant gnawing in my gut. I'd passed other dumpsters, other potential food sources, but I'd forced myself to keep moving until I found the right target.
Location mattered. This convenience store sat on the edge of the industrial district, far enough from the main streets that foot traffic was minimal but close enough that the food would be relatively fresh. The employee—a bored-looking teenager with a mutation quirk that gave him lizard-like scales—had taken out the trash twenty minutes ago and hadn't returned.
Shift change would be soon. That gave me a window.
I pushed myself up, ignoring the protest from my muscles, and crossed the street. Moving with purpose but not urgency—someone running drew attention, but a small kid walking with direction was invisible to most people. Another lesson from my previous life: confidence sold the illusion better than stealth ever could.
The fence had a gap near the bottom where the chain-link had pulled away from the post. I squeezed through, the metal scraping against my too-thin frame, and approached the dumpster.
The smell hit me first—rot and garbage and food waste all mixed together. In my previous life, I would have grimaced. Now, my stomach growled in anticipation.
I grabbed the edge of the dumpster and pulled myself up, arms shaking with effort. Too short. Too weak. I needed something to stand on.
A discarded crate sat nearby, half-crushed but stable enough. I dragged it over and climbed up, finally able to peer into the dumpster's contents.
Jackpot.
Convenience stores threw out food that was approaching expiration, and this one was no exception. Wrapped sandwiches with today's date. Onigiri still in packaging. A few bruised apples. Some packaged snacks with torn wrappers.
I reached in and grabbed what I could—two sandwiches, three onigiri, the apples, a bag of chips with a small tear in the corner. My hands moved quickly, efficiently, shoving the food into the pockets of my oversized shirt and the waistband of my pants.
"Hey!"
I froze.
The lizard-scaled employee stood at the back door of the convenience store, eyes wide with surprise. "What are you doing, kid?"
Every instinct from my previous life screamed at me to run. But I forced myself to think it through in the split second I had. Running would confirm guilt, would make me memorable, would potentially lead to police involvement or worse—a hero patrol picking up a "troubled child."
Instead, I let my face crumple. Let the exhaustion and hunger and fear that I'd been suppressing show through.
"I'm hungry," I said, and my voice came out small and broken. Not entirely an act—this body was starving. "Please, I just... I'm really hungry."
The employee's expression shifted from anger to uncomfortable pity. He glanced back into the store, then at me, then sighed.
"Look, kid, you can't just—" He stopped, really looking at me for the first time. Taking in the dirt-stained clothes, the visible ribs, the hollowness in my cheeks. "Where are your parents?"
"Don't have any."
Another uncomfortable silence. I could see him weighing options—call the police, call child services, chase me off, ignore it entirely.
"The food in there was getting thrown out anyway," I added quietly, carefully. Giving him an out. Making it easier for him to rationalize looking the other way.
He rubbed the back of his neck, scales shifting with the motion. "Damn it. Fine. Take what you need and get out of here. But if my manager asks, I never saw you."
I nodded quickly, grabbing one more sandwich before climbing down from the crate. "Thank you."
"Yeah, whatever. And kid?" He waited until I looked at him. "There's a shelter two blocks north. They do meals for street kids. You should check it out."
I nodded again, knowing I wouldn't. Shelters meant questions, records, potential identification. But the employee didn't need to know that.
I squeezed back through the fence and disappeared into the alley before he could change his mind.
Two blocks away, hidden in the shadow of an abandoned warehouse, I finally let myself stop. My hands shook as I unwrapped the first sandwich—egg salad, slightly warm from the dumpster but still sealed and safe.
I forced myself to eat slowly despite every instinct screaming to devour it. Eating too fast after prolonged starvation could make you sick, could cause your body to reject the food. I'd seen it happen to rescued hostages and prisoners during extractions.
The sandwich was the best thing I'd ever tasted.
I rationed it carefully—half the sandwich now, save the rest for later. One onigiri. A few bites of apple. Enough to take the edge off the hunger without overwhelming my system.
As I ate, movement caught my eye—my reflection in a puddle of stagnant water near the warehouse wall. I paused mid-bite and moved closer, crouching down to see myself properly for the first time since waking up.
The face staring back at me was young. Too young. Four years old, just like the memories had told me, but somehow the features didn't quite match the age.
Black hair with distinct purple highlights hung in messy strands around my face, the violet undertones catching the fading sunlight. Sharp features that hinted at East Asian heritage—Chinese, specifically, based on Ryō's fragmented memories of his mother's face. High cheekbones, a defined jaw that would probably be handsome when I was older, assuming I survived long enough to get there.
But it was the eyes that really caught my attention.
Purple. A clear, vibrant purple that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light. Intense. Too focused, too aware for a four-year-old child. They held the weight of two lifetimes behind them—a special forces operative who'd seen combat and death, and a boy who'd witnessed human trafficking and died alone in the streets.
The rest of me looked exactly like what I was—a starving street kid. Gaunt cheeks. Pale skin from malnutrition and lack of sunlight. Dirt-stained clothes that hung off a frame that was nothing but skin and bones. Visible collarbones. Arms like twigs.
The contrast was jarring. Features that suggested I'd grow into someone striking, someone who could blend into high society or command a room, paired with a body that was barely surviving.
I touched my face, watching the reflection mirror the movement. This was me now. Kiritani Ryō. Not the operator I'd been, not entirely the boy who'd died, but something new. Something forged from both.
I'd work with it. The appearance was actually advantageous in some ways—distinctive enough to be memorable if I wanted to make an impression, but currently pathetic enough that most people would overlook me as just another street kid. A ghost in plain sight.
I pulled back from the puddle and finished the onigiri, mind already moving to the next problem.
As I ate, I took stock of my situation with clearer thoughts than I'd managed since waking up.
'Immediate needs—partially met.' I had food for the next day or two if I was careful. Water was still a concern, but I could source that from public fountains or bathroom sinks. Shelter existed in the form of that lean-to I'd spotted materials for near the beach.
'Short-term goals—clearly defined.' Stay off the grid. Avoid orphanages, shelters, and any institution that would create records. Build a sustainable survival routine while this body grew stronger.
'Long-term goals—complex.' Master the quirk. Train the body. Navigate the plot of this world while keeping my existence hidden from the major players.
And then there was the quirk itself.
I set down the half-eaten apple and focused inward, trying to understand what I'd been given. The abilities hummed beneath my skin like static electricity, waiting to be directed.
During Ryō's escape from the orphanage, the quirk had activated on pure instinct—shadows responding to fear, a rift opening in desperation. But that had been panic and survival instinct, not control.
I needed to understand how it actually worked.
I closed my eyes and reached for the sensation I'd felt earlier. The awareness of multiple distinct ability sets, all different, all mine.
Yoru's abilities came first—the dimensional manipulation felt the most active, probably because Ryō had used it during his escape. I could sense how to create those rifts, how to send out false footsteps, how to phase through space itself. The knowledge was intuitive, like muscle memory that existed purely in my mind.
Omen's powers felt similar but darker, colder. Teleportation through shadows. Creating zones of obscured vision. That paranoia effect—something that could instill fear and nearsightedness in targets.
Iso's abilities were more straightforward—energy shields that could absorb damage, a way to create a pocket dimension for isolated combat. Simpler but no less useful.
And Cypher... Cypher was different.
The other three felt like pure quirk manifestations, abilities I could activate through will and practice. But Cypher's kit felt incomplete somehow. I could sense the potential—the ability to gather information, to tag targets and extract intel, to know when someone crossed a threshold I'd marked.
But the tripwires? The camera? Those felt like they required something physical. Like the quirk was designed to enhance equipment rather than create it from nothing.
Then something else clicked into place. Another layer of understanding that came with Cypher's abilities, flowing into my consciousness like data downloading directly into my brain.
Code. Programming languages. System architectures. Network protocols.
I understood them. Not just theoretically, but instinctively. I could see how digital systems worked, how they connected, how they could be exploited. Encryption methods that would take normal hackers years to master felt as natural as breathing. Cybersecurity, network infiltration, data extraction—all of it made perfect sense in a way it never had in my previous life, despite my intelligence training.
This was part of Cypher's information-gathering toolkit. The physical surveillance equipment was one aspect, but the digital space was another battlefield entirely. In a world where nearly everything ran on computers and networks, where hero agencies kept digital records and the HPSC maintained encrypted databases, this was perhaps the most dangerous ability I'd been given.
I could hack into systems that were supposed to be impenetrable. I could find the digital evidence of corruption that heroes and the HPSC worked so hard to bury. Bank records. Communication logs. Classified files. All of it would be accessible given the right equipment and time.
My grin widened despite the exhaustion.
The Hero Public Safety Commission had plenty of secrets. Lady Nagant, forced to assassinate threats in the shadows. Hawks, groomed from childhood to be their weapon. Cover-ups of hero misconduct. Deals with criminals. All of it documented somewhere in their systems because bureaucracies always kept records, even of their darkest deeds.
And I would find them all.
But that was future planning. Right now, I needed the basics.
I opened my eyes, understanding crystallizing fully now.
The game limitations weren't just about cooldowns and range. Cypher's abilities in Valorant required the agent to place physical devices—cameras, tripwires, cages. The quirk gave me the capability to use those tools at a supernatural level, to connect with them and enhance them, to interface with any technology I created or encountered, but it didn't conjure them from thin air.
Which meant I needed to build them.
And just like the coding knowledge, I realized I knew how. Schematics and designs flowed through my mind—circuit layouts, sensor configurations, how to wire a tripwire to alert me across distances, how to modify a camera to connect directly to my awareness. The knowledge was intrinsic, part of Cypher's toolkit embedded in the quirk itself.
A grin spread across my face despite the exhaustion and hunger.
I could build equipment that would seem impossible for someone my age, not because of training from my previous life, but because the quirk gave me the blueprint. My special forces background would help with tactics and survival, but the actual construction? That came from Cypher.
And the beach—that trash-filled wasteland I'd spotted earlier—would have everything I needed. Broken electronics for components. Discarded cameras. Old phones for processors and batteries. Wire, metal, plastic. A treasure trove of technology just waiting to be repurposed.
I finished the apple and carefully wrapped the remaining food, tucking it into my shirt. The sun was setting now, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. I needed to get back to the slum district, find those materials for shelter, and set up a base of operations before full darkness hit.
Tomorrow, I'd start scavenging in earnest. Materials for Cypher's equipment. Tools for building. Maybe even some items I could sell for cash—I'd need money eventually, and scrap metal or electronics could be traded at the right shops with no questions asked.
But tonight, I just needed to survive.
I pushed myself to my feet and started walking back toward the industrial district, toward Dagobah Beach and the mountains of trash that would become my resource stockpile.
Kiritani Ryō had died with nothing.
But I would build something from that nothing.
One day at a time.
One scavenged piece at a time.
The long game had truly begun.