Chapter 124| A Suit Befitting Code Zero

Chapter 124: Chapter 124| A Suit Befitting Code Zero

Zane arrived at Mori’s office at exactly 4:45 PM.

The corridor outside her office had two other first years leaving as Zane arrived, both carrying suit bags with the specific careful energy of people transporting something they didn’t want to damage. He clocked their expressions. The contained version of something significant that people wore when they were trying not to look like it was as big a deal as it was.

He knocked.

"Come In," Mori said.

He pushed through the door.

She sat at her desk wearing a white lab coat, its open neckline revealing a small portion of the skin above her huge bust. The way her cleavage showed through the opening almost looked like an invitation, though Zane knew better than to interpret it that way. She looked up with a bright expression when he entered.

Looked back down at her tablet.

"Fitting room," she said. "It’s on the stand."

He went in.

The suit was on the stand.

It was Dark green just as he prescribed.

He stood in front of it for exactly three seconds before touching it.

The colour had done something in the finished version that the sketch and the charcoal prototype hadn’t communicated. It sat differently under the fitting room light. Not bright. Not loud. The specific dark green of something that had been chosen with intention rather than assigned by default. The contrast lines running along the forearms and shoulders sitting against it with a precision that made the whole thing feel like it belonged to a specific person rather than a generic hero registration.

Which it did.

He changed into it.

Stood in front of the full length mirror.

Code Zero.

Dark green. Contact point reinforcement at both palms sitting flush with the material. NSA emblem on the left chest in the same tone as the suit, present but not announcing itself. The whole thing fitting the way Mori had measured it to fit seven weeks ago and had adjusted twice since.

He looked at himself.

Not the training gear version. Not the classroom version. Not the guest room version or the training grounds version or any of the other versions that had been accumulating since he walked into Aldren Academy as an abnormal sigilless student.

This one.

Finally a different version.

Something settled in him that hadn’t fully settled before. Not pride exactly. Something quieter than that. The specific feeling of something becoming real that had previously only existed as a name on a submission form and a blog entry between forty other names.

He pressed his palm flat against the A-rank resistance dummy standing in the corner of the fitting room.

Impact Breaker — B-rank 20% full output.

The shockwave rolled through the dummy at the contact point. The A-rank resistance material absorbing it cleanly — no structural damage, just the deep compression of high grade composite taking a B-rank hit and holding. The contact point reinforcement in the suit channeling the output distribution exactly the way Mori had designed it, not dampening, directing.

He stepped back.

Looked at the contact point on the dummy.

Then at the suit.

’Nice suit for someone with my abilities,’ he thought. He flexed his fingers inside the contact point reinforcement. The suit doing something that bare skin hadn’t, he could feel it. The way the reinforced material at his palm compressed and directed the output rather than letting it disperse. Compacting it. Controlling it. Like the suit was an extension of the Sigil architecture rather than just clothing over it.

’Mori built this specifically for how I activate,’ he thought. ’Not for a standard registered Sigil. For whatever she’s been watching me do since the first fitting.’

’This is what seven weeks of waiting amounts to,worth it,’ he thought.

The system surfaced.

『 System Note: The host is wearing the Code Zero suit for the first time in a non-fitting context. The system notes this is a meaningful distinction. A fitting is a measurement. This is the thing itself. 』

’Yeah,’ he thought.’It is.

He came out of the fitting room in his regular clothes. Suit carefully folded in the bag Mori had provided — the specific NSA-grade material that protected the suit during transport.

Mori was still at her desk.

She looked up when he emerged.

Looked at him for one moment with the practiced assessment of someone who had spent twenty years reading how people carried themselves after putting something on for the first time.

"Good," she said. Simply. The one word carrying the full weight of a professional verdict from someone who didn’t waste words on verdicts that didn’t mean anything.

He almost smiled.

"Thank you," he said.

She was already back at her tablet.

He headed out.

_ _

The corridor outside Mori’s office at 5:10 PM was quieter than the post-class rush. A few students still moving between buildings. The campus settling into its early evening frequency.

He walked back toward the dormitory with the suit bag over his shoulder.

It felt different from the training bag. Different from his school bag. Not heavier, just more present. The specific weight of something that meant something sitting against his shoulder.

His communicator buzzed.

He checked it mid-walk.

Academy blog notification. NSA header. Posted at 4:58 PM.

He opened it.

SECURITY BULLETIN — ALDREN ACADEMY

Date: Monday

Issued by: NSA Field Operations Division

Classification: Student Advisory — General Awareness

The NSA has confirmed ongoing investigation into parties connected to a dismantled artificial Sigil production operation previously intercepted by active field personnel. Intelligence suggests individuals connected to this operation may be conducting observation activities in proximity to registered hero academies along the west coast.

Students are advised to report unusual contact from unregistered individuals. Standard academy security protocols remain active.

Point of contact for further information: NSA Field Operations — Ref: OPERATION GLASSWALL

He read it once.

Then scrolled to the bottom.

One line. Small. Administrative detail. The kind that most students would pass over without registering.

Operation Glasswall — previously classified under case file ref: HARBOR COLLAPSE ADJACENT — reclassified for student advisory distribution.

He stopped walking.

In the middle of the corridor. He just stopped.

’Harbor Collapse Adjacent,’ he thought.