Ace stood over the sink in the executive washroom of the 40th floor, the water running cold over his hands. He scrubbed the grime, sweat, and black essence from his face and chest, desperate just to feel human again after the nightmare of the jungle atrium.
He grabbed a towel, dried his face, and finally looked up into the wide vanity mirror.
He froze. For a moment, he didn't recognize the man staring back.
His jawline was razor-sharp, the soft edges of his former office-worker life completely burned away. His features were more angled, more refined. He looked objectively more handsome, but it was ruined by a cold, predatory edge in his eyes that hadn't been there two days ago.
But it was his hair that shocked him the most. His raven-black hair, which had been a standard, messy shoulder-length cut just that morning, was now flowing past his shoulders, stopping near the middle of his back. It was growing at an impossible, supernatural rate.
"The system is changing me," Ace whispered, dropping the towel. He ran a calloused hand through the unnaturally long locks. The class architecture wasn't just giving him weapons; the Burden of History was aggressively overwriting his mortal biology to match the legendary profiles he was downloading.
He walked out of the washroom, the safe, amber-lit silence of the 40th floor offering a momentary reprieve. But the industrial shadows of the 49th-floor maintenance maze still loomed heavy in his mind.
He knew he couldn't face the mechanical labyrinth above—or the massive vibration shaking the roof—with gaps in his defense. His chest and legs were covered by the Shihakusho, and his torso was protected by the Demon Hunter's Coat, but his head, hands, and feet were still completely vulnerable. He needed a full kit.
Instead of going to the couch to sleep, he marched back into the Costume Department, his unreinforced straw sandals slapping softly against the tile, and began digging through the "Hero" and "Warrior" sections.
Ace spent nearly an hour sifting through the gear. He needed head protection—something to keep the snapping teeth and claws of the arboreal variants away from his throat—but the "functional" options were a disaster. He picked up an All Might headpiece and a fiberglass knight's helmet, but tossed them aside immediately. They were cumbersome, heavy, and turned his peripheral vision into a dark, narrow slit. In a world where a second's delay meant a bite to the jugular, he couldn't afford a blind spot.
Then, tucked behind a rack of assorted anime props, he saw it: a Hollow Mask.
It was a high-end resin piece, bone-white with jagged crimson stripes painted over the left eye. It was designed as a half-mask, covering the upper jaw, cheekbones, and forehead, but leaving the lower jaw and peripheral vision completely unobstructed. It was iconic, matched his current Shinigami aesthetic perfectly, and most importantly, it kept his vision clear.
For his hands, he bypassed the bulky gauntlets and found a pair of Tactical Grip Wraps—heavy-duty, fingerless combat gloves made of matte-black leather. They covered the knuckles and ended in thick, tightly wound leather bands meant to be secured with dark-metal snaps at the wrists. They were perfect for CQC, allowing him to maintain the precise tactile "feel" of his sword hilt while protecting his knuckles for martial arts strikes.
Finally, he looked down at his feet. The unreinforced waraji sandals he had been forced to put on earlier had given him great mobility, but striking that Stalker's skull had nearly bruised his heel to the bone. They were fast, but they were fragile. It was time to fix that.
Ace laid the mask, the gloves, and the sandals on his workbench and closed his eyes. To make these more than just cloth and resin, he had to feed the Genesis Override the right lore.
He focused his intent on the Tactical Grip Wraps first. He pulled from his own life as a developer and a gamer. He weaponized decades of fighting games—the frame-perfect precision of a counter-attack, the kinetic weight of a focused strike, and the fluid, unbreakable grip of a grappler. He fed the system the pure, conceptual lore of hand-to-hand combat.
"Trace."
The lore anchored to the leather.
Next, he focused on the Mask and Sandals. The process was seamless, as he already had the Shinigami lore front and center from his sword. He visualized the mask as a physical manifestation of inner, monstrous power. He visualized the sandals as the absolute conduits for the Shunpo—the Flash Step.
"Trace."
With the conceptual blueprints locked into the physical vessels, it was time to forge them.
"Reinforce."
The sapphire light surged from his chest, splitting into three distinct streams and consuming 3 UP from his bank.
The Grip Wraps wove tightly into his skin's texture, shrinking and snapping shut, feeling less like leather and more like a second layer of dense, unbreakable muscle.The Hollow Mask hissed loudly. The cheap resin melted and reformed, turning into a dense, calcified bone-like substance harder than dragon scale.The Waraji Striders underwent the most radical change. The woven straw and cotton tabi didn't just get tougher; the fibers condensed into something functionally indestructible—as hard as tempered steel, yet entirely weightless.The Test: Speed vs. Steel
Ace strapped the reinforced sandals back on. He felt impossibly light, like the air itself was offering less resistance to his movements.
He moved over to a heavy wooden training mannequin in the armory to test the responsiveness. He spun, his body moving faster than his brain even expected, and delivered a thunderous roundhouse kick.
THUD.
The impact vibrated all the way up to his hip. The Waraji Striders hadn't yielded a single millimeter; they had hit the solid wood like a sledgehammer, cracking the mannequin's torso. He felt the sheer kinetic force of the blow ring through the bones of his foot. The system's passive durability made the impact manageable, absorbing just enough of the shock to keep his leg from shattering, but it was a clear warning. He was a mortal human body wielding supernatural tools. He'd still have to be careful with his technique, but the speed and stopping power were undeniable.
Thoroughly exhausted from the physical training, the brutal climb, and the mental strain of forging, Ace finally settled down on the leather couch for the night.
But sleep brought no peace. He tossed and turned, dreaming of the coworkers he'd known trapped in the trees of the atrium, their faces merging with the bark, screaming for a release he wasn't sure he could give.
He snapped awake in the early hours of the night, his chest heaving, the silence of the 40th floor feeling suffocatingly heavy.
He didn't try to go back to sleep. He put on his Shihakusho robes and strapped the Demon Hunter's Coat over his shoulders.
He took his position by the floor-to-ceiling window, the heavy steel of the Rebellion replica resting against his back and the Tensa Zangetsu replica on his hip. He watched the massive, mutated vines pulse with sickly bioluminescence in the dark, a long-haired shadow in a crimson coat, waiting for the sun to rise so he could finally finish his climb.
Current Status Readout
[GENESIS OVERRIDE: HOST PROFILE]
Available Upgrade Points (UP): 8
[SOULBOUND CORE SLOTS (SEALED)]
Core Slot 1:Zangetsu (Legendary Soul - Shikai)
Core Slot 2: (empty)
Core Slot 3:Ebony & Ivory (Legendary Soul)
[CURRENT PHYSICAL ARSENAL]
Main:Tensa Zangetsu Replica (Rank 2 - Uncommon Arcane)Ranged:Ebony & Ivory Replicas (Rank 1 - Common Arcane)Heavy:Rebellion Replica (Rank 1 - Common Arcane)
[ARMOR GRID]
Head: Hollow Mask (Rank 1 - Arcane Armor)
Chest/Legs: Arcane Shihakusho (Rank 1 - Arcane Armor
)Outerwear: Demon Hunter's Coat (Rank 1 - Arcane Armor)
Hands: Tactical Grip Wraps (Rank 1 - Arcane Armor)
Feet: Waraji Striders (Rank 1 - Arcane Armor)