CHAPTER FIVE

Velocity hated awkward assignments.

This one reeked of it.

The city was still cleaning up from the latest Bakuda incident, and the site told its own story. There hadn’t been a conventional detonation—no scattered shrapnel, no outward blast. Instead, there was a crater. A perfect, unnatural hollow in the rooftop, with metal twisted inward like it had all been sucked through a gaping hole. 

Bakuda was gone. Not arrested. Not recovered. Just gone—like someone had erased her from the face of the earth, along with everything in the immediate vicinity.

At least, witnesses saw the cause: a man—going by the name Gojo— with white hair, blindfolded, standing where the implosion happened. He had vanished, only to appear on the street beside a destroyed food truck, calmly eating a churro.

And now it was Velocity’s job to talk to said man.

Not detain. Not threaten.

Just… talk.

He didn’t like that either.

Because, in his line of work, things didn't always go accordingly. 

. . . . .

Gojo was waiting for him on the roof of an abandoned office building, legs casually crossed at the ledge. The sun caught in his hair, silver-white and windswept, while his blindfold fluttered gently in the breeze.

Velocity came to a stop a few feet away, kicking up a few loose pebbles.

“You’re fast,” Gojo said without turning. “But not fast enough to sneak up on me.”

Velocity didn’t answer right away. He exhaled slowly, letting the tension ease from his limbs. “Officially, I’m here to ask you some questions.”

“Unofficially?” Gojo’s voice was light, almost teasing. 

“Unofficially,” Velocity said, “I’m here because I drew the short end of the straw.”

Gojo grinned. “Lucky.”

There was a long pause.

Velocity broke it first. “You killed Bakuda.”

Gojo’s smile didn’t dim. Instead, it seemed to stretch even further. “She died trying to be clever. I just finished the thought.”

Velocity’s eyes narrowed as they drifted toward the distant site of her death—still cordoned off, still filled with the remnants of whatever it was Gojo had done. “Wasn’t much of her left to ID.”

“Blue’s not subtle,”  Gojo said, tone turning faintly amused. 

Velocity was quiet for a moment, then said, “No one’s crying over her. But that wasn’t an arrest. That was an execution.”

Gojo finally turned toward him, one elbow bearing his weight. Even behind the blindfold, Velocity felt the weight of eyes he couldn’t see. “After all she had done, you think cuffs were still an option?”

Velocity didn’t answer.

“She killed civilians by the dozen, and seemed the type to gloat about it. And then tried to unmake me with a bomb.” Gojo continued with a shrug. “She was no genius. Just a toddler with too much power and too little intelligence playing in a sandbox of something else’s design.” Velocity felt pinned to the ground by Gojo’s attention, now sharper. “And if you’re about to ask if I regret it…”

He let the sentence hang.

Velocity didn’t ask. He couldn’t. Not with the air feeling like glass stretched too thin.

Instead, he asked: “What are you?”

 “Not from here, for starters.”

“Yeah. That much we figured.”

“Ah, but that’s the easy part.” Gojo’s voice softened, contemplative. “The real question is what you are.”

Velocity blinked. “I’m the one asking questions.”

“Sure you are,” Gojo agreed easily. Then, he looked up at the sky, letting the sun hit his face. “You asked me what I am. I’m not a hero. I do what I want, and I just happen to be strong enough to get away with it. Now I’m in a world full of people who think they’re human, but carry something else around with them. Something… parasitic.”

Velocity frowned, his stomach flipping. “You’re talking about powers. We were made aware of your conversation with Glory Girl.”

“No.” Gojo lowered his gaze again. “I’m talking about the thing that gives you powers. The parasite. The… passenger.”

The rooftop went still. The wind stilled. Even the distant city noise seemed to fade.

“They nudge you to grow, to fight, to use its ‘gifts’. It whispers in your sleep and shows you things to manipulate you.”

Velocity swallowed. “You think we’re being controlled?”

“Not really,” Gojo said. “You’re being shepherded.”

There was no heat behind the words. No threats. Just fact. Like saying a scalpel cuts, or a black hole swallows.

He turned away again, toward the edge of the roof. “To what end, I don't know. But some of you are just fine with that.”

The silence was thick with implication.

“So what now?” Velocity asked. “Why are you here?”

Gojo paused. His tone shifted—lighter, but not less serious. “Still figuring that out. I died in my world, y’know. Should’ve stayed dead. But I woke up here instead, in a cratered city block. So either your god has a sense of humor, or mine does.”

Velocity remained quiet. 

Gojo stood, balancing precariously over the edge of the roof. 

“Tell your higher ups I’m not interested in joining any teams. And I'm not looking for trouble,” Gojo said, smiling faintly. “But if it finds me? I end it. Completely.”

Then he disappeared over the edge.

Velocity rushed forward on instinct—only to find the man already gone. No sound, no sign, just air.