Stanley was confused and scared.

His hands were tied by the old man Sam and they had somehow suppressed his powers enough so that even his body had grown weak. It was only then that he truly realized just how overworked his body was.

It was dull and painful. His muscles cried in spasms while they burned from the pain. Stanley felt like he couldn’t even move it at all and had a hard time stopping himself from falling to the ground.

He hadn’t realized just how much he had been relying on his powers.

’So I did have powers,’ he thought. All this time, he had believed he was powerless, and yet the truth was that he really did have power at all this time.

He wanted to smile knowing that, but even smiling was a pain for him right now. All he could do was tear up in silence.

He wondered why the powers never showed themselves to him as they did to the other people. Why did he have to go around believing he was a Dull for the longest time?

Had the powers just told him what they were, would he still have to feel so bad? Wouldn’t he have believed in himself a lot more?

Only now he knew what power he had. The power of Foresight. However, was that really why his body was strong? Did that really make any sense?

Or was that a different power entirely instead? Another power that he had no idea about just yet.

Would people even believe that if he told someone?

’Brother would,’ Stanley thought, remembering all the time his brother trained him, and taught him to be strong. He was the only one that believed that he could gain a new power, even when everyone else stopped believing in him.

Even when he stopped believing in himself.

He saw the smiling image of his brother in his mind as he stood tall in front of him. He saw the image of him encouraging him never to give up, and to always continue fighting for himself.

What was even the point of thinking about it now?

He looked at the mayor, his emotion bubbling when he saw him, only for him to not be able to do anything. He was just way too tired at the moment.

Anytime he thought of something negative about the mayor, his emotions would be suppressed, not allowing him to act upon it.

’Hypnosis. Emotional manipulation,’ Stanley thought.

Sheila had told him about it. About how the Defenders weren’t looking for him because they wanted to, but because they were hypnotized to do so.

Stanley looked at the mayor, thinking about what his powers were. Was it him that hypnotized them all into not being able to fight back?

It was certainly a possibility, but Stanley chose to explore the other options.

Old man Sam’s powers were that of nullification. He wasn’t the one that hypnotized anyone.

Stanley looked at Illan, the adult with a kid’s mind. With such a broken mind, he doubted the giant man had any hand in hypnotizing them.

That left him with Gallan, the first-year trainee of the same batch as him that had suddenly left the training despite his relatively good results.

What were his powers again?

Stanley couldn’t remember any power that the young man used back then, but he did remember getting into a lot of conflict with him. He remembered Gallan distinctly for his jealousy of him for being good at combat.

He remembered the constant conflicts that he would get into with the short-haired man but he never understood why he did afterward.

’Wait...’ Stanley thought. ’Was that... emotional manipulation? Was he taunting me with his powers?’

If that truly was the case then, Stanley might have finally found the person he had been looking for.

Still, what point was there now that he had found him? He was ordered to stay where he was, so he couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to. After all, he had to follow the mayor’s orders unconditionally.

Staley looked in the mayor’s direction again and saw him hold Yasu’s palm in his own two hands.

"Now, it is finally time for me to change my body once again," the mayor said. "I had chosen Bradley to be my next vessel, but he died. So, I must now return to the only remaining one of the four of you I initially chose."

"Yasu, will you let me take over your body?"

The question and the entire statement left Stanley in a puzzle, just as it seemed to do with Yasu who didn’t answer immediately.

Stanley thought about what he had just heard. ’Change his body? Vessel? Take over?’ the words confused him, even if the meaning was very clear.

’Your personality changes after you become the mayor.’ Old man Sam’s words drifted back into his mind from a conversation long ago.

’Personality change... body change...’ the reality clicked in Stanley’s head. The mayor wasn’t the mayor they thought he was, but rather someone that had taken over the previous mayor’s body.

Or rather, the previous mayor never existed and was always this person who had taken over the body of the man named Damien.

’Bradley was going to be the vessel?’

As he slowly understood what it had meant for Bradley to become the next mayor, anger started bubbling up inside of Stanley.

From the very first day, the mayor had planned on taking Bradley’s life for himself. He had never even considered Bradley a person, but just a flesh to be taken over.

Just like from the very first day, he had not considered the people of this town as humans, but rather cattle to be killed for the person that was called Nova.

Anger built up in Stanley as rage maddened him. Resentment filled his heart while animosity revealed itself to him once again. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Frenzy filled his teared-up eyes, mania filled his weak body, and fury filled his broken soul.

True madness filled Stanley to the brim, and it spilled over.