Black_Paladyn
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MHA Paragon 2.0 Chapter 44: Sport Festival Pt. 6
🕑 Added 2025-02-22 17:51:01 +0000 UTC"What the hell is that supposed to mean," I muttered under my breath as flux started to creep across my body preparing for the inevitable fight.
"The First Round of the Tournament of Champions Will Begin In...FIVE...FOUR...THREE...TWO...ONE...FIGHT!"
The moment Midnight reached zero, I launched myself across the arena straight at Shinso. Even without the use of lightning, I moved with unparalleled speed arriving in front of Shinso who had yet to move a muscle.
My fist blurred spearing through the air aimed at Shinso's unflinching visage, 'Is he not going to block it?'
For a moment I considered the possibility of a trap, but I quickly dismissed it, 'Even if it is, I'll counter it!'
"Freeze."
In an instant, my entire body froze mid-punch my fist still raised and clenched tight with my shoulders rotated and feet staggered.
A smirk spread across Shinso's face as he stared into my burning gaze, "Like I said this fight is over..."
As Shinso gloated I tried my hardest to wrench back control of my body, to no avail. I could barely even feel anything, all my senses were muted and numbed, 'Just my luck he has a fucking mind control quirk!'
As if sensing my frustration Shinso cocked his head to the side, "It must feel terrible, being trapped within your own body...unable to do anything. It's not a very seemly quirk, definitely not for an aspiring hero...but It doesn't matter. Even if I'm cursed...I won't let it stop me from achieving my dream!"
'I don't care about your fucking life story! This is a fight stop fucking monologuing,' I roared inside my head, still trying to figure out some way to break free of Shinso's mind control. There was no way I would lose in the first round to some two-bit emo.
"Now....walk out of the area," Shinso ordered and I felt my body lurch into motion and start walking toward the edge of the platform.
"WHAT'S THIS IT SEEMS AS IF KENJI ATOMA HAS FALLEN UNDER SOME SORT OF SPELL AND IS NOW WALKING TOWARDS THE EDGE OF THE ARENA!"
Pushing Midnight's distracting commentary out of my mind I floundered.I gritted my teeth, trying to grasp at anything—any flicker of control.
Then—
Something shifted.
A crack in the fog.
Through my mind’s haze, I felt it.
A connection.
No—a hijacking.
My nervous system was still firing off signals, still transmitting data to my muscles—but it wasn’t coming from me. Shinso’s quirk had invaded my biology. The commands—the very electrical signals that dictated my movement—weren’t originating from my brain anymore.
A slow, creeping dissatisfaction settled over me.
It wasn’t just about being controlled.
It was about weakness.
A flaw in my design.
A limitation in human biology.
A familiar restless feeling of discontent welled up within me as I found a weakness within my design. My brain stirred to life generating a model of the human nervous system, including every single fiber, and cluster. The network that was responsible for relaying information and controlling my every movement both conscious and unconscious.
A design created by evolution improved over the course of millions and millions of years without conscious thought. Survival of the fittest had been the sole driver of a series of random adaptations that over time had created something complex that humans today with all their technology would struggle to recreate. However, the design was still flawed, limited by the rules of biology and science.
For a moment I found myself on a precipice, as I faced a choice that would have irrevocable consequences. I only hesitated for a moment before I felt my legs take another step against my will dragging my body closer to the edge and the end of my purpose.
At that moment everything else ceased to matter and the last shred of my reservation disappeared. My design was flawed...and I had the means to improve it....nothing else mattered.
My flux exploded but instead of emerging from my skin, it flooded through my body penetrating past my musculature and veins into my nervous system.
On a microscopic scale, each molecule of flux bonded with a nerve cell, targeting the myelin sheath, the insulating organelle that protected the cell from the electric signals carried along the nerve.
Flux bonded with the slim transparent organic sheath an irreversible process, a sacrifice in order to surpass the limits of biology.
The process was slow at first, but with each flux-bonded neutron, my thoughts became smoother. Had it been only a couple hundred million the result would have been negligible. But the human nervous system was comprised of trillions, roughly seven thousand billion more stars than there were in the entire galaxy. With every million neurons that my flux bonded the conversion speed doubled with every billion it was ten times faster.
I felt my reserves drain at a furious rate but I was fine with that, knowing there was a way to replenish my flux I didn't care how much I needed to spend. By the time the flux reached my spinal cord, I was roughly half done, which would have been a good marker considering I only had my spine and brain left to convert, but with my design, they required a far greater investment.
The spinal cord was responsible for transferring the millions of signals sent from the brain to the rest of the body, an important role that needed to be bolstered. Eager to fulfill its purpose flux swarmed my spinal collum sinking into the cord of nerves first creating a protective and hyperconductive hexagonal sheath. Then the individual nerve strands as well, forming parallel connections between the individual nerves responsible for my motor control allowing them to convey and generate information between themselves and the rest of my body instead of waiting for my brain to act.
---
Shinso watched as Kenji walked towards the arena's edge in a trance-like state moving at a slow but steady shuffle. A sight that no doubt unnerved many of the spectators, but Shinso was used to that reaction from a society that had deemed his quirk villainous.
Shinso clenched his hands into fists as his determination soared, 'Even if I'm cursed I will become a Hero and prove to everyone that-'
"WHAT'S THIS KENJI ATOMA HAS STOPPED!"
Shinso blinked and focused back on Kenji only to find him standing stock still only a few feet away from the edge, 'W-what?!'
Shinso could still feel his quirk had a firm grip on Kenji's mind, but even as he pushed Kenji refused to budge. Then Shinso noticed a faint purple glow beneath Kenji's skin as sparks of purple electricity arced across his skin. A deep sense of foreboding welled up inside Shinso and he quickly turned and ran at Kenji hoping to shove his opponent off the edge before he could completely shatter Shinso's hold.
---
As the last connection formed within my spinal cord, my remaining flux surged up into my brain and wasted no time converting my grey matter. While humans may not have possessed the highest brain-to-body weight ratio, what truly made us capable of forming complex thoughts was the dense networks of wrinkles increasing the surface area of their brains. Creating a direct correlation between intelligence and the number of wrinkles.
My flux took it to the next level diving into the countless crevices of my brain and creating new pathways. If one could look directly into my head they would see a dense hexagonal pattern overlayed across my brain covering every exposed nanometer of available space. With the very last molecule of my flux, the last line was drawn, completing the pattern and forming a connection.
An intense shock rippled throughout my entire body as my nervous system came alive glowing with purple lightning that raced back and forth across my body through my neurons in the span of a millisecond. It was as if someone had injected a cocktail of stimulants directly into my brain, but I knew that this high would never run out.
On a whim I shattered Shinso's control over my mind, his quirk no longer able to keep up with my accelerated thoughts, and I felt my awareness return to the physical world around me.
Looking around I frowned when I saw the nearest members of the audience frozen in silent cry. Panning my gaze across the rows I saw that everyone was similarly frozen in place, but then I noticed that they weren't frozen. They were moving slowly as if caught in molasses.
It didn't take me long to figure out why, 'My thoughts are moving so fast I'm perceiving time differently.'
A grin spread across my face as I looked down at my hands and watched the faint traces of purple lightning arc across my skin. Satisfaction flooded my psyche like a drug as I took in the result of my new design.
Turning around my eyes landed on Shinso's slow-moving form his face now a mixture of urgency and panic as he lundged through the air arms out thrust to push me off the arena.
My grin turned into an almost manic smile as I saw the desperation in his eyes, but also a deep sense of gratitude, 'Thank you Shinso I'll forever be in your debt...for exposing a flaw in my design.'
Comments
Trevor Standifer
Beat him to a pulp
