Operation DESPERADO
[Part 1: In A Thousand Little Ways, He's Changed]
The villain winces as she lands from her jump. Blood dyes her costume into a deeper shade of brown, and the next leap has her clutching at the gash on her chest. It fails to stanch the flow, but she can't afford to stop now. Not when she's so close.
Dragging her failing body from rooftop to rooftop, she crawls down the last building. Her chameleon skin is a fleeting kaleidoscope, rippling as she finds the right hues to blend with the neighborhood.
In the streets, she disappears, silently moving toward the largest house in this residential area. It's morning. Children are at school; parents are on their commutes. Therefore, no one around sees the growing blood stain on the window Karma leans for support. No one hears the crash as she kicks through the glass and darts inside the duplex.
Except for him. The only pro hero with an agency nearby, who also lives in this building. When he wears the mask, he's the Spring Dragon Hero. Without it, he's the sole heir to the Atsushi family's main branch.
At this moment, he wavers between Seiryu and Yuusei. The black costume clings to his frame as he approaches his couch, where the villain sprawls. But the mask is nowhere to be seen, revealing a frown that doesn't belong on a hero facing his enemy.
Karma can shed her skin and induce reflex bleeding. He can tell she's been stabbed, but he doesn't know how deep the wound is. How much of the damage is real and fake, a ruse or cry for help. It's Yuusei who leans closer, undoing the laces in front of her costume, exposing her wounded chest. Perhaps a year ago, Seiryu would have been in his place, calling the authorities and restraining her.
And yet, what is the reward for his lack of professionalism? Karma puts a hand on his face, trying to push him back, mumbling about her regeneration. She wants to speak with the hero, not the man.
It's pitiful. But deep down they are one and the same, so it doesn't bother him.
One bullet enters the chamber, and their lips move in a hushed conversation.
"Who did this to you?"
"... bounty hunter... found out where I live... I reacted just in time not to die in my sleep..."
Karma's answer comes between short pauses as the adrenaline wears off her. Seiryu acts through it, setting her into a proper position on the couch, checking the window she came through for any pursuers, and fetching a first aid kit to clean her wound.
"Don't," she tells him again, her tail wrapping around his wrist and keeping the cloth away from her wound. "I'm fine... 'm healing..."
Another bullet enters the chamber, and a crack forms in his hurried professionalism.
"Then why are you here?"
"... apartment's busted... were you not listening...?"
"And no one in Night Parade has a couch for you to bleed on?"
"...Midas and Greenfinger are on a mission... Tatari's off-city... dunno where Maw is... and Bogey..."
"I get it," he sighs, "Save your energy. Give me the essentials."
"...there's a reward... on your head, too—!"
She hisses at a sudden pain, and he barrels past her following protests, cleaning her wound and applying pressure.
"... yours says Alive Only ... while everyone else is... Dead or Alive ... that's why I'm here..."
He catches the implication. It's not just him and Karma. Other heroes? Other villains? Both?
"Who set the bounties?" he asks instead, focusing on the bigger picture.
"Ibuki Matsuba... fake name... Midas said... he'd try to find out who's behind it..."
Seiryu stills, his expression darkening. The name means something, and it doesn't take him long to remember what. It's not a fake. It belongs to a dead man.
"The bounty hunter. Was her quirk blade manipulation?"
Karma nods, realizing he has someone in mind. The final bullet enters the chamber.
"She used my own knife to—"
He's moving before her lips part, crimson eyes looking out his front window in time to meet my scope.
I pull the trigger. The dragon rises faster than my bullet can reach its mark, blocking with his scaled body.
Unfortunately, I am no Desolator. From over one kilometer away, Seiryu disappears further into his home and none of my bullets can find a clean shot on Karma.
I rise and jump off my nest, equipment trailing behind me. My blades meet me as I fall, serving as a foothold and taking me to the streets. My case pops open. Out go the drones, in goes the disassembled rifle, save scope.
If Seiryu stays indoors, he's an easy target alongside Karma, so his best option is to flee with her. However, the streets won't be vacant for much longer.
Civilians and heroes are bound to see them being chased, which wouldn't be a problem if he weren't helping a villain. Protocol dictates him to leave Karma under police custody before facing me, but if he had such intentions, he would have alerted the authorities when she broke into his home.
She's dragging him down. Even if he comes to his senses and gives her up, she won't stay still and let herself be captured, turning this into a three-way conflict where the wounded one has little chance of surviving.
Unsurprisingly, the first drone registers movement from the duplex. Seiryu, alone, taking the battle to me. It's disappointing. But he lost the moment Yuusei reached out first. Someone who surrenders to emotion can't think of what's correct, only what's right.
The dragon leaves my fields of view. I can't see him in the skies no matter the angle. A mistake. It would have revealed his position, but also given him a bird's eye view to spot me. If he wants to take me by surprise instead of overwhelming me with speed, then I'll sneak past him and finish off Karma. Neither of the drones have spotted her yet, but it's only a matter of time. Even if she camouflages herself, her outline will still be revealed by thermography—
There, leaving through the back door. She must have taken some time to bandage herself, because her agility is beyond anything she's displayed so far.
Is that her play? Forcing me to break stealth to keep up with her speed? Another mistake. The only reason he saw me behind the scope is because I wanted him to know it was me.
Surfing on a single blade, I let the other hover above me, activating their joint cloaking field. Karma's current trajectory takes us away from the city, into a desolate road surrounded by nothing but tall trees and humble temples. A straight dash that'll lead her to Yamashina Ward, the one place in Kyoto with the lowest density of heroes.
While the drone beside me keeps track of the heat signature ahead, the other stays behind in the concrete jungle, looking for any sign of Seiryu.
I lost him, but he's also lost me. Still stuck in a cat-and-mouse game of his own creation.
The outline of Karma's head turns, detecting me through superb hearing when her vision fails her. But since I destroyed her phone during my assault on her apartment, she has no way of communicating with him—
She smiles, breaking her camouflage and making the drone's output flash orange in one spot—
Two. The blue dragon bursts from the foliage, seeing right through my disguise. Not from behind, but from my left, as if he'd been waiting for this moment all along.
My only option is to go right, swinging both blades to parry his charge. It's not enough.
I land on the road's railing and rip parts of the pavement into a wall. It's not enough.
I command his glove to move away from me, but it's not enough. He breaks through every obstacle in his path, catching me in his claw, slamming me against the asphalt, forcing out all the air from my lungs.
An almost perfect takedown, except for a singular mistake.
He did not forget to put on his mask before leaving home.
I crush it, flinging the fragments where they'll hurt the most. Eyes, nostrils, mouth.
Though his other claw rises to bat away the metallic hail, it leaves his side open for my blades. Before they can pierce his lung and liver, his tail wraps around the handles, pulling them back. While he's busy with that tug-of-war, I force his glove up and roll away from his grasp.
I understand it now. Karma wasn't only bandaging herself. She was giving him a head start. Seiryu was never looking for me in the city after dodging my drones. He knew exactly where he would find me.
"I underestimated how low you've fallen," I realize. He's not treating her as enemy to defeat or a person to save... but as an ally. They're coordinating.
Karma has disappeared, but Yuusei remains, reverting to his human form and reaching for the gauntlets contracting with him. Once, their purpose was dulling his claws, stopping him from maiming his opponents. After he mastered his quirk, they became an accessory. Now that he faces me, they're a liability, the same as his mask. I can still control them, but it'd be a futile gesture. He'll crush them into scrap the moment they waver again.
While I give him time to take the gloves off, he gives me time to check for Karma's heat signature. She's so far down the road I can barely pick it up. One of the drones was also destroyed on her way out.
Seiryu used her as bait, and she's using him as a distraction, but he only has eyes for me.
A gauntlet is tossed at my feet, echoing like a shot from a starting pistol.
Our race ends as soon as it begins, and the azure dragon looms over me again. Even if I hadn't lost a precious tenth of a second recalling my weapons, he would have reached me all the same. I can't match his wings riding on a single blade, and I can't match his claws by swinging the remaining one. Ripping sections of the road to block him only delays the inevitable, but not long enough to mount my rifle and fire.
How can I kill Yuusei—How can I fight Seiryu—When I'm under-equipped? I cannot. And he should slay me in return, but he's too cool-headed at the moment.
He traps my next swing with his fangs and turns his head, stripping the only barrier between us. I swerve right and barely avoid him, grinding over the railing.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Karma should have died in his arms after telling him I'm the killer.
If I can't rouse his anger, then...
"Yuusei."
I call out to him over the sound of screeching metal. He replies by closing the distance once again, destroying the rails behind me with his tail.
The world spins as I dodge another swipe of his claw. My weapon sinks into the pavement and I land on its pommel, wrestling its twin from the dragon's jaws.
Back on the road, I finally meet him with everything I have. It's an ancient routine. The dragon soars beyond the flying swords, parrying, twisting, ever approaching. Then he's human, a smaller target that slips right between them and lands beside me. Blocks of the road bounce off his growing scales. The metal railings I twist around him break away with a flare of his wings.
Seiryu lunges for me. His tail prevents my steel from sinking into his back, then wields it against me, parrying the following blade.
"Seiryu," I call again as his claw swallows my vision, lifting me by the neck.
The world narrows to the burning in my lungs and the pulse hammering in my skull. Deep breath, slow release.
"Take me out."
My blades fell during the sensory lapse. Right now, he can choke me out before any of my attacks reach him, and he knows it too.
"I’m... already dead..."
He hasn't spoken a word yet. I know he wants to. He's holding himself back until he finishes the job. If I can't rouse his anger, then I'll make him pity me.
"Death row... you... same..."
My nerves are calm. My tension is nonexistent. But it's still so hard to get the words out. The lack of air only makes it worse.
"Just... faster... this way..."
His fingers twitch. Not loosening their grip, but not tightening either.
Pathetic. So pathetic.
"I'm sorry," he tells me.
No.... He told me. Three years ago, at my office. He failed his provisional license exam and apologized for...
"I'm sorry."
A mistake during a mission.
"I'm sorry."
An overly personal question.
"I'm sorry."
He's making my life flash before my eyes. I want to thank him, but my voice is gone, stolen by the pressure on my throat. That's fine. I'm not good at expressing myself, so it's better this way.
Darkness. No last words. Fear. Anticipation.
Death is here.
[Part 2: My Dear Everyday Life]
It doesn't come. There is no pain. No voices. Only something shining dimly above me, flickering every other second...
It's a fluorescent bulb, bathing the empty corridor with its pale light.
Am I not done? Is death still waiting for me to sort through my memories? Maybe this is what they call the afterlife?
I never thought deeply about it. All I wanted was the nothingness that comes after unconsciousness. But without a clear vision of my present or my future, there's nothing to be done except wait in the past.
And yet, I'm already moving. After a marble rolling on the floor of all things.
Of course. This is a memory, so there's no control over my body. No control over what already happened.
When I was three years old, I chased a marble through a blue corridor that seemed to stretch beyond reason. It slipped through my fingers and bounced off a wall, disappearing into the kitchen. My tiny body hesitated, suddenly aware of the noises echoing from the doorway. The screams I tried to ignore by playing.
I couldn't understand why he and she didn't get along, because I was already asleep when he came home. I couldn't talk to him about it, because he was always away to work. Whenever I asked her about it, she told me everything was fine. Eventually, I stopped asking and accepted it.
Everything was normal, so I entered the kitchen with hurried steps, knowing they would notice me and lower their voices. But they didn't. She began crying, begging for him to admit he had a problem. To think of her. To think of me. I had found my marble at this point, but I was too distracted by them to pick it up. What was his problem? Why couldn't he admit it?
His eyes roamed around the kitchen, settling on the counter. He told her he didn't have a problem.
She followed his gaze to the bottle and screamed. Her hands moved wildly, shoving a finger on his chest, sweeping it off the counter. A strange brown liquid pooled beneath my marble, glinting with shards of glass.
I kept my eyes on him. He kept his eyes on what was left of the bottle. Her hand flew across his face, and finally, he looked at her, baring his teeth in an expression I had never seen before.
He hit her back, harder, and didn't stop. As I witnessed real violence for the first time in my life, I realized death was soon to follow.
Something cold settled on my chest. I was clutching my shirt, and the marble was in my palm.
When had I picked it up?
Before I could find an answer, it was quiet. I looked up, and the two of them had finally realized I was there.
I blinked once, then again. Something heavy buzzed in the back of my head. It almost looked like she was holding a knife. But it didn't make any sense, because there was no blade. Only a sleek plastic handle pressed against his neck.
Why was she poking him with a handle? Why was his shirt wet?
She pulled, and everything went red.
The walls bleed into the next week. Courtroom lights, harsher than my home's, stinging my eyes and making me dizzy.
When I was four years old, I discovered I wasn't normal.
My birthday had been a few days ago, but I couldn't celebrate. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same things. The red spreading across kitchen tiles, the way his body slumped, the light dying in his eyes.
I opened them, and shifted on the wooden bench. My feet dangled above the floor, trying to keep still while adults argued about things I didn't understand. My mother's voice cracked as she spoke of how the knife flew from the counter and into my father's throat. How she couldn't have done it while she was being attacked. How she was only trying to pull it off him.
It was all true. The headache I felt at that moment was my quirk awakening. I did it.
The man with the hammer called me forward. They placed a knife on the table before me, exactly like the one from that night.
Move it, they said.
I reached out, begging the blade to obey. But it only twitched. My fingers trembled as I tried to lift it up, but it was too heavy.
No. The weight was the same. I was the one who changed. My quirk was strong when it was time to kill my father, but it barely responded when it was time to save my mother.
The crowd murmured. The man with the hammer sighed. My mother sobbed.
Guilty.
Not her. Me. But they took her away all the same. I was handed to a pair of strangers who claimed to be my father's friends. Though they smiled at me, their eyes were the same as mine when I saw my reflection on the stainless steel. Void of compassion.
They were killers, too.
With soft voices and careful tones, they told me it wasn't my fault. That I was not like the other children. In fact, I wasn't a child at all. I was a weapon, unsheathed at the wrong moment. A weapon that needed a proper wielder, lest it harm any more people.
Thus began my training under the Hero Public Safety Commission.
The memories blur. White walls and cold floors. Endless drills. The weight of metal, in my hands and my mind.
When I was thirteen years old, I received my codename: Stormrazor. It completely replaced my real name in the mouths of the other trainees.
There were many children training to be heroes. Some were adopted like me, others were scouted. They learned how to smile and pose for the cameras, how to spin their government provided backgrounds into touching backstories. They were molded into top heroes the public could love.
I couldn't do that. My smiles were too fake. My tears wouldn't come out. I had a hard time pretending to be a person, let alone a superhero.
Eventually, they stopped forcing me to be one. I was sharpened into something cold and silent, just approachable enough to pass as "cool" to someone my age.
The monotonous days speed up. Wake up. Train. Eat. Train. Sleep. Wake up, train, eat, train, sleep.
Repeat.
When I was sixteen years old, I enrolled at Shiketsu Academy as a formality. A way to cement my cover story as another hero in the system. I sat through classes I didn't need, surrounded by twenty-three students that had seen less blood than me combined. By the time I graduated, I had forty victims. Terrorists. Revolutionaries. Corrupt heroes. People who had to disappear quietly, without spectacle, without becoming martyrs.
Their faces elude me, but their bodies flash around me, pinned in place by dozens of blades, unable to lay down in their final moments. Then, the sterile glow of my state-provided apartment dissolves into warm, unfiltered sunlight.
Spring. Cherry blossoms drifted lazily through the air.
When I was twenty years old, I met Yuusei Atsushi.
His family was old money, the kind of hero dynasty coveted by the Hero Public Safety Commission. They had an amicable relationship with the previous head, but the current one was an unknown. An outsider who married into the main branch. A civilian who would not approve of their methods. But there was always a chance with the next generation.
My mission was simple. Become Yuusei Atsushi's bodyguard. Ingratiate myself with him. When the time was right, offer him a place in my hero office.
The Commission would take care of the rest.
Traditionally, one of the Atsushi family's heroes guarded the main branch heir, but the current head was an outsider. Playing favorites to one branch would deepen his rift with the others. So he made it a contest and opened the selection to outsiders. Complaining about it would be showing a lack of faith in their own strength, so the Atsushi acquiesced.
It was a long-term assignment, one most other enforcers couldn't take. They were too busy polishing their public personas. Working underground, I had no such obligations. I entered the Atsushi compound expecting hostility. Glares from branch family members and other competitors, leading into a series of tests to prove my power.
Instead, Yuujirou Atsushi stood at the entrance with a warm smile.
No trials. No challenges. A single interview. He believed our records spoke for themselves. Resumes, licenses, the scars we carried. The weak and incompetent had already been weeded out. All he cared about now was character.
While waiting for my turn and the inevitable rejection, I wandered the estate's gardens. The scent of blooming flowers was cloyingly sweet, and I felt a weight on my back that did not belong to my blades.
When I turned to him, Yuusei didn't look away. Instead, he met me on the engawa and introduced himself as if I wouldn't already know. His red eyes lingered on my costume. Black, sleek, devoid of icons.
"What's your name?"
He had never heard of Stormrazor. It did not surprise me, as my work wasn't meant to be known.
"What does being a hero mean to you?"
However, his next question hung between us. It shouldn't have. It was basic interview material, something any hero should be able to recite. But I never had to. I wasn't a hero at all. I was a weapon. The Commission never cared for my ideals, only my obedience.
Yuusei waited, his gaze wandering between falling petals. My mission was already over. I would not get the bodyguard position, because I couldn't answer questions about character and sound like I believed them. Not enough to fool his father, at least.
Still, my superiors would request a report, and failing before the interview started would lead to punishment. So I thought of the heroes who mattered. The ones who clawed to the podium without the Commission's strings pulling them from behind the curtains.
They were not weapons to be wielded, but humans with their own sense justice, which could often times clash with the rigidness of the law. However, it wasn't as if they were mavericks who got away with it. They understood the consequences of their actions. Experience enlightened them to how far they could push. In the end, being a hero was a balancing act between idealism and professionalism.
"So you're a professional."
Yuusei saw through my lack of ideals. By the time denial reached my lips, the silence had stretched for too long. He turned and walked away, gesturing for me to follow with a flick of his hand. On the living room, we found his mother conversing with the other candidates.
"I want her."
There was the reaction I initially expected. Murmurs rippled through the room, and the Atsushi family members glared daggers at me. His mother hid a giggle behind her palm before ushering everyone else out.
For the next few minutes, I stood there as an outsider while his parents pressed him for an answer. He told them he didn't want to hire a hero for this job. If he were ever attacked in public, they would be forced to put his life above others when they were supposed to protect everyone. But I was a professional, so it wouldn't be a burden on me.
After that childish answer, his parents exchanged a look. His father broke away first, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose.
I got the job.
The next memories are still utterly foreign to me.
Most of my days were spent shadowing Yuusei, driving in and out of the compound, waiting outside cram schools, idling near his friend's homes. Over time, I watched him not as a bodyguard assessing threats, but as a weapon facing a window to something unknown. Homework spread across his lap, laughter shared with classmates, meeting a new branch family member every other day.
I couldn't have any of it. But I didn't resent him for it either. At some point, he must have noticed my gaze. He began striking up conversations about the things I missed. When Wash was a guest speaker at his school, when his older cousin gave him a gadget as a birthday gift, when he broke an expensive vase while brawling with his younger cousin...
I never got to share anything about myself in response, but it never bothered him.
When I was twenty-four years old, my contract with the Atsushi expired. Yuusei didn't need me anymore. He had training, confidence, and soon a provisional license to use his quirk. His family offered to renew my contract anyway, this time as a chauffeur. A courtesy for supposed years of excellent service.
My superiors' response stumped me.
Your choice.
As long as Yuusei joined my agency when the time came, it didn't matter.
After two decades of not knowing the taste of autonomy, the choice was strangely clear to me. I signed the contract to keep watching that normal life.
When I was twenty-five years old, I finally extended Yuusei an invitation.
It should have happened one year earlier, but his provisional license had been delayed after a reckless fight with a senior. He'd won, but the injuries cost him the exam. Even so, he was an undeniable prospect. After passing the remedial course and becoming a sophomore, Seiryu had agencies of all ranks circling him, drawn by his family name and work ethic.
Still, my time as his shadow paid off. I offered the internship, and he accepted without hesitation or stipulations.
"Let me bring Kalianne."
Except one. I refused. And so it began.
...Although I had to cancel my contract with the Atsushi first. It was apparently illegal to have an intern who was technically my boss.
I never taught him anything. It wasn't my purpose. Shiketsu could handle lectures and training exercises. My role was to take him outside and plunge him into real emergencies.
Still, the Commission wanted me to ease him into it. We started with standard patrols, letting him defeat small time villains and help with the aftermath of more dangerous battles. But week after week, the operation became rougher. The villains more brutal. The stakes higher than before.
I took him to bloodstained apartments where psychopaths held hostages. To underground clinics where quirk enhancing drugs were produced and tested on captives. To abandoned warehouses where revolutionaries planned bombings.
Each time, I waited for his normal life to end. He would show that spark of brutality I had as a child, and I had to tell him it was alright. That he was just a weapon unsheathed at the wrong moment.
Instead, he would cover his claws in blunted gauntlets. Tried to talk down abductors. Dived in front of fallen enemies to take stray bullets. It was unsurprising. I'd spent half a decade watching his life unfold, after all. The way he would spoil his younger cousin, the way he brought classmates home to tutor them, the way he looked at me even knowing I was an unsentimental weapon.
As much as I watched him, he would watch me in return, absorbing without being instructed. The precision of my movements, the detached way I approached combat. He would mirror me, his quiet warmth giving way to cold efficiency when facing villains, until the last moment where he would go back to himself. Then, the fight would end, his mask would fall off, and he'd flip a switch, smiling before showing me a picture of his best friend messing around in her own internship.
He'd taken my hollow words from years ago about professionalism and idealism and tried to make them into a reality.
I realized he would not become an enforcer. But my job wasn't to make predictions. I kept following the plan, forcing him down my path. And every time I failed, I got to watch him carry on with his normal human life.
When I was one hundred and...
No, I was... twenty-nine...?
Twenty-seven?
Everything is dissolving now that I'm closer to the present.
There was a serial killer case. State Minister Ibuki Matsuba, found dead in a love hotel. The Commission sent me because he was one of their puppets, and I took Seiryu because he was still my main mission.
Matsuba had a phasing quirk, and enough self-defense training to use it. The police focused on quirks that would let the killer get close to him and choke him to death, but this time, it was my job to theorize.
He hadn't fought back. Erotic asphyxiation dulled his survival instincts. I scoured his contacts instead of the quirk registry, and in grainy security footage, I found the prime suspect was—
Me.
—A woman who shouldn't exist. Airi Ogawa, officially declared dead months ago, likely killed by the same killer I was chasing. But there she was, disguised yet alive, linking her arms with Matsuba.
I delivered my findings to the officer in charge of the case. Their expression shifted into a smile I had never seen before, and I patted my shoulder.
When I was twenty-six years old, I died.
When I was one hundred and thirty-one years old, I found a seemingly ideal vessel.
I had spent decades jumping from body to body, each one decaying faster than the last as the weight of two quirks ate away at me along with the combined memories of hundreds of others.
Then I found her. Stormrazor. A weapon crafted from the husk of a woman. No ego. No emotion. All obedience. Classic HPSC work. They had been a thorn in my side since I began using my power, interfering with my decades-spanning plans, hunting me down whenever they caught a whiff of my scent.
Aburamushi. The designation they gave me.
My recent killing spree had just been stress relief. I wanted to watch them scramble to connect the dots.
But now, I had something more fun.
Stormrazor's body. Her skills. Her access level.
As I sifted through my memories, I saw the generations of stolen lives behind me.
To me, this was an adjustment period before another conquest.
To me, it was a battle for survival.
I didn't want to die. Even after a lifetime as a weapon, a vestige of human instinct still remained.
Unfortunately, I overestimated her as a weapon. The transition should have been seamless, but more officers were approaching while I couldn't shake her loose. I carved my way out of the station, blades slicing through familiar faces. Agents, handlers, people I'd worked beside for years.
I couldn't shut me out of my mind, so I redirected the killing intent, going through the Commission's hit list while I still could.
I remember flashes—
I don't remember anything.
Days blurred into a bloody haze. Control flickered between us like a faulty light.
Finally, twilight pierced through a broken ceiling. There was the pain of my body hitting the ground, accompanied by faint aches everywhere else. Yuusei was above me, his claws digging into me hard enough to fracture bones. His expression was mix of horror and relief. Around us, wounded targets laid scattered.
I blinked, and the cell doors were already sliding shut, sealing me in a maximum security coffin.
I knew what happened outside. My superiors were burying the truth. Fragments of my past missions would be leaked, carefully curated to paint me as vigilante rather than an agent. Such was the fate of a malfunctioning weapon. I was sent to a max-security prison, and the century worth of stolen memories and secrets inside my head was the only thing keeping me from death row.
However, I couldn't answer their questions. After winning the battle of wills, a boundary had been set within my mind. I was unable to access my memories, and I was unable to control my body.
In the beginning, they tried torture. After that proved ineffective, the experiments started. Brain scans to locate the cracks where I hid. Stimulants that left me choking on my own tongue. And the surgeries. My body was quickly collapsing from the burden of two powers, so they had to intervene and cut me open every other week.
When I was twenty-seven years old, I wanted to die.
The spark of human instinct that preserved my mind was nowhere to be found. There was no point to me anymore. I had long lost my chance to live as a human, and my opportunity to do good as a weapon was taken from me. Imprisoned, I was simply a waste of resources, constantly sedated and occasionally operated on.
All I could do was wait for an end, and one day, it came. The hum of machinery died around me, and light stopped peeking through my blindfolds. With a body aching from the latest surgery, I strained against my bindings to listen better. Somewhere outside, there was a grinding, metallic screech, followed by the final throes of a guard.
The breach had disabled most security systems in my cell, but it did not matter. There were no blades within reach, so I was left waiting for my turn, once again. Footsteps echoed outside, louder and louder. No prisoner would come for my rescue, and each guard was equipped with a pistol and knife, so I reached through the darkness for the latter.
Yet the blade would not respond. The sounds went past my cell, and I missed my chance.
I missed many chances. Each attempt left my heart thumping with urgency, flushing the drugs out of my system, shaking the rust out of my talents.
Yet the blade would only waver.
I had forgotten. My quirk wouldn't move to save others. It was as simple as changing my mindset from rescuing myself to killing myself.
I tore the knife from its sheath, hearing a sound of panic from its owner. It spun, building maximum speed in that brief window of surprise. The glass at my door shattered, the knife met my skull, and death finally came for me.
Or so it should have been. There was an impact against my forehead, but not enough to pierce through skin. As my blindfolds fell, I prepared to raise the knife again. Without losing momentum after breaking through my cell window, it would surely hit its mark.
But there was no knife. Only the security guard's baton.
[Part 3: Professional, Silent Liar]
The darkness gives way to the morning sun's oppressive glow.
Something heavy clung to my skin. Itching. Pinching. Suffocating. An all black costume, slowly cooking my body.
I pressed a palm to my forehead, failing to stifle the throbbing rising behind my eyes. Someone behind me clicked their tongue, and I...
I step aside. The convenience's store's door hisses close, and the customer vanishes into the stale air.
I walk in the opposite direction, staring at my gloved hand. The pills are already there. I don't remember pulling them out. I reach into a pouch in my utility belt, fingers trembling as I turn the packer bottle.
Not poison. I take the aspirin dry, and it scrapes down my throat. It will be a while until this fog lifts from my head, but I am certain now.
This is not a memory. I'm in control.
I'm... still alive.
... I was never at risk of dying at all, was I?
But I was desperate for it. I wanted to believe it so badly I managed to trick myself into thinking it was happening. I trapped myself in my memories while I tried to kill Seiryu.
However, he's still—somehow— alive. My frustration over it is palpable enough to carry the residual memories of the last few minutes.
Back then, the attack was perfect. I was caught up in suicidal delusion, and Yuusei was distracted by the look in my eyes as I pleaded for death. There was a gap in our attentions long enough for me to use the remaining oxygen in my brain and activate [Cloud Of Knives].
The great-swords are not my main form of attack. They're there to occupy and control space, to distract the enemy and block their attacks while the unseen blade delivers a fatal blow. This one would come from a needle hidden in my right thigh strap. I slipped it through a gap in his scales I had carved earlier in the battle, between his seventh and eighth ribs, angled to pierce his heart.
Seiryu transformed, turned back, and transformed again. Faster than my needle could reach his heart, his body shifted in height and width, shrinking and expanding his organs before I could break momentum and change trajectory. He avoided death by literally moving his vitals out of the way, and pinched my needle between his claws as it exited his ribs on the other side. Then, he choke-slammed me into the pavement.
Although I had failed to kill him, my blade had still ruptured his stomach and intestines. He could no longer chase me at his top speed without bleeding out, so...
So...
So...
"Hah..."
... It's over. The aspirin is doing its job, and the boundaries in my mind have been reset.
I must have fled to Yamashina Ward. It's the same place Karma had been bounding towards, for good reason. Barely any heroes patrol this place, and the ones that do aren't a threat.
My blades are still with me, but their cloaking function has been damaged. All my drones are gone.
Now, where is Yuusei? He would have chased me until his body gave up on him, but what would he do after?
What would I do if I were Seiryu? My stomach and intestines have been lacerated, so every movement is a calculated risk. There are two targets. The villain I've been chasing for almost a year, and the weapon... the professional that tried to kill me after begging for death.
I know how the professional moves. She will either retreat to re-arm herself or pursue her original target after losing me. In my condition, I can't scour the city for her. And I can't retreat and leave this to another hero, because there's a risk they give her what she wants and kill her in self-defense.
As for the villain... how do I feel about her? Do I want to protect her by myself until this all blows over? Do I want to put her in police custody now that the immediate threat has been deal with?
No, it doesn't matter what I feel. As a hero, I can't allow Karma to die, and there's a chance Stormrazor will still go after her. I don't have to scour the entire city for her, because I've spent the last months memorizing her patterns. So I will... he will prioritize her safety over my capture.
... is that even right? He wants to talk with me, I could see it in his eyes. Am I overestimating or underestimating his control over his emotions? It's most disturbing. After watching him for so long, I figured I'd feel doubtless about my deductions.
I knew the boy. I knew the student. I knew the intern.
I'm... not sure I know the man before me right now.
Through the windows of a little cafe, I see him slump further in his booth. Across from him, Karma leans forward, hands clasped under her chin. They're chatting. Waiting for their orders. If it weren't for the dried blood on her costume and the way his right hand puts pressure in his midsection, I'd dare say they're in the middle of a date.
Hiding in plain sight. I wonder if it would have worked if they weren't the only customers inside this "Thanks-A-Latte". The barista coming from the back door with a tray certainly doesn't seem bothered.
The door chime rings softly as I enter. Predictably, the air is thick with the scent of coffee and pastries. The barista glances at me as she sets down the tray in their table. "Helene", reads her name tag. Her eyes flicker between me and the great-swords hovering beyond the window.
... She's sizing me up. Measuring the distance between us. Calculating how quickly my blades will breach through the glass.
"... no fighting indoors," sighs the woman who has doubtlessly dealt with anyone disobeying that order. Dozens, no, perhaps hundreds of times.
Interesting. So there is a reason they met here of all places.
I reject Helene's offered menu. The swords fall outside as I slink into the booth seat opposite to Yuusei, now empty. Karma has already sunk next to his side, glaring at me. His shoulders slacken as he tastes his tea, and he sets his teacup down, looking me with weary eyes.
I have tried appealing to his anger. I have tried appealing to his pity. Both failed.
"I'm sure you have questions."
This time, I'll appeal to his reason. Emotions were never my strong suit.
"Just the one, actually," Karma starts babbling, mistaking my "you" for the plural variant.
"See, I gathered from him you're his old mentor who got possessed by a villain and went crazy—"
So he knows about Aburamushi's quirk. I never got to tell him since I went straight for the police that day, but he should have noticed the unusual behavior during my rampage.
"And now you're trying to make him kill you—"
... It matters not. I offered to answer his questions, so I'll hold my own.
"What I want to know is..." the meddler pauses to sip at a coffee cup that dwarfs her hand. "Why am I even here? This guy has family, friends—hell, he even has some kids following him like little ducks nowadays. You could have went for so many other people instead of messing up my Friday for this..." she vaguely gestures at me. "Hero-assisted suicide."
I let her self-absorbed words roll off my back. Yuusei seems to be waiting for me to answer her, so I suppose I should.
"I don't want to ruin his life. I only wanted his rage and retribution. You are an S-Rank villain. A member of Night Parade. And a terrible influence on him. Unlike his family, friends, and interns, the world would be a better place without you in it."
Fury flashes in her eyes, but my mind moves faster than her body, halting the dagger below the table in place. There's a sharp intake of breath from her, and her glare turns to Seiryu, their prehensile tails likely intertwined in a struggle to make her drop the weapon, even though I've already bent and twisted it.
"No fighting indoors," Helene reminds from behind the counter, not looking up as she polishes a steam wand.
The tension of battle vanishes. Yuusei grunts, applying more pressure to his wound. Karma slumps back in her chair, hiding her petulant pout with a coffee cup.
"Why?" Yuusei is the first to speak after our altercation, pinning me with a strange look. He felt me stopping the blade.
"Yeah, don't you want to die?" Karma follows with a cheap taunt. "Since I'm already here, I'll gladly do the job for him. After I finish my drink," she adds, rolling her eyes at the cafe's owner.
"I've tried doing it alone. Ever since I escaped."
I remember waiting for my body to collapse. Starvation, dehydration, brain death. Passing out after one week of staying still and waking up with a full stomach. The treatments to prolong my life had worked too well. Not only had my body acclimated to two quirks, but the one I had been born with changed from controlling blades and evolved into telekinesis.
I remember the cool weight of a bottle of pills. Tipping them into my mouth and letting the bitter, chalky taste coat my tongue. Then, convulsions that weren't mine, a violent, involuntary retch that sent them scattering across the floor, covered in spit.
I remember the wind whipping past my face as I stood on the railing. The dark water below pulling me down before control was seized from me. My quirk ripping a section of the bridge's ironwork to catch my fall and break my speed.
I remember—
"Four months," I blurt before he can ask, draining the color further from his face. "That's how long I've been at it."
"That's not the only thing you've been doing, is it? Ibuki Matsuba," Karma calls out with the name that started all of this.
"Ah. Your bounties." Is she still worried about that? "Those were to attract other mercenaries."
"So you put targets on a bunch of people under a fake name, kill the mercenaries going after them, and cash out the bounties yourself?" she repeats my strategy, her face scrunching in displeasure with each step.
I nod. She blows a raspberry, sticking out her tongue.
"That is such a roundabout way of getting yourself killed. Why don't you just put a bounty on your own head? Would be a lot easier for all of us."
"She had no intention of dying to those mercenaries," Seiryu corrects her, glancing meaningfully at my great-swords leaning against the window.
Indeed. It was all to prepare myself for today. I needed funds to commission replicas of my old hero equipment, so I sold weapons from mercenaries on the black market while taking out old enemies of the Public Safety Commission.
"There has to be a struggle," I try to stress, returning to my main point. "Every time I muster the resolve to embrace death, my control over this body wavers. So I have to stay in control until the final moment."
His lips set into a thin line. Thankfully, Karma does not try to fill the silence.
"... Resolve," he finally scoffs. "Is that how you call it? Have you considered the loss of control is a natural product of giving up on your life?"
I won't rise to the provocation. It's exceedingly easy to worry about semantics when you're not the one with a tumor clinging to your skull.
"It happened back on the road, too," he continues, frowning. "You asked me to kill you, and the villain took your opening to almost kill me instead. Changing your method won't change the result."
"It will. Unlike doing it alone, there will be someone with me to follow through while I struggle to keep control. However... I will admit there is an additional risk. Aburamushi may try to jump ship and take over my executioner. I do not know many heroes or villains who can put me down in a struggle. And I don't know a single one of them personally."
I don't know what will happen if they get possessed. Will they win? Will they lose? Will they rot in the same borderline I find myself in? That's why I can't have an unknown mercenary kill me. That's why I can't simply fly to any of the top ten and have them do the job.
"That's why it has to be you."
The only person I came to know in my life as a weapon takes a deep, shuddering breath, his pale face etched with a profound sorrow as I finish laying out my reasoning.
"Even if you don't think it's right... slaying me is still the correct thing to do."
There is no hesitation on Seiryu's end. Or is it Yuusei? It doesn't matter. Deep down they are one and the same, so there's only one answer.
"No."
Simple and clean. That single word hangs in the air around us, filtering into my next breath and coiling tight in my chest. For the first time I can remember, I want to scream. He is the only person I know to be stubborn enough to resist anything I throw at him. So stubborn that he can't get over his idealism to do me in. And I already knew that. I took the time to catch up with his life, and that part of him hasn't changed at all.
But that is fine. Even if the pounding in my head has returned with a vengeance, it is fine. This is why I only used logic on my third attempt.
"... I will keep coming after you," I state, but the words come out brittle. "Both of you," I add, flicking my gaze to his companion, who still seems nonplussed.
Seiryu leans forward, claws landing on the table. "You won't. I'll stop you today."
The throbbing in my skull is becoming too much. It only gets worse when I look at those crimson orbs, burning with a conviction beyond logic. My gaze drops to his bloodied left gauntlet. Blood from my student that I spilled because I'm too inept to end myself alone.
"But it doesn't have to be this way." His voice is softer now. The wound in his side has been stitched, poorly. Did he do it? "There has to be another answer. A quirk or treatment that can remove your worse half."
"It was left there for a reason—"
"I don't care! If they couldn't finish their business with this parasite after a year, then I say it's time to stop torturing you."
It burns. Why am I looking at his eyes again? He's too close for me to look away from the wounds, but I can't shut my eyes, either.
"Please. Let me help you, Hiyori."
Hiyori.
How long has it been since that name left someone's lips?
Two years? No. He's never called me that before. It was always Stormrazor or Sugawara.
Hiyori.
Ten years? No. It was always the same for my classmates and pro-heroes. Stormrazor. Sugawara.
Hiyori.
Fifteen years? No. It was always the same for my handlers and fellow weapons. Stormrazor. Sugawara.
"Hiyori!" my mother calls as she's being dragged away by the police. Twenty-three years ago. That's how long you've been a weapon, Hiyori Sugawara.
There is no point in trying to revert time, Stormrazor.
"Hiyori," Seiryu calls today.
"It doesn't matter," I tell him, my voice devoid of heat. "You will rid me of possession, and then what? I'm still a wanted criminal. A killer. Without the secrets in my head, I'm doomed to death row. By healing me, you are only delaying my death for a few weeks."
The simple math of my existence makes him wince.
"It would be kinder to let me go out on my own terms."
Those red eyes can no longer burn me. It's not as if they've been extinguished, but he's simply not aiming at me anymore. He doesn't even know where to aim at.
It's Karma who speaks first, low and mocking as always.
"So, what's the next paragraph of the speech?" she pours salt onto his wound, leaning her chin on her hand. "Gonna double down? Offer your guest room after you go behind the suits' backs and heal her? Maybe buy her a fake ID and set her up with a new life overseas? You rich boys do love playing that card."
His head snaps towards her, temper flaring up again. "Stay out of this. Why are you even still here—"
His phone rings. Karma's smirk widens.
"What can I say? I'm starting to like the drama."
He hesitates, eyes darting between me and her, unwilling to give me the last word or let us alone together.
"Take it," I say.
"I..."
"Just take it, Yuusei. I know that ringtone."
A Brazilian Love Affair.
With a final glance, he relents, pushing himself from the table with a pained grunt. Then, he walks away, phone to his ear, free hand pressed to his side again.
"... ... ...!"
"Listen, I'm sorry for not call—"
"... ...? ...?"
"I'm fine. Well... not too hurt."
She gauged it from half a sentence over the phone? Impressive.
"Isn't he just precious?" Karma whispers, shifting across the table. Too close.
"Back off."
"You know, he also offered to help me once."
"I'm aware."
Do you think I decided you were a bad influence after only seeing you fight?
"And he already knew I wouldn't—" she pauses. One of her eyebrows raises to her hairline. "... you wanna elaborate on that?"
I don't want to talk to you at all. I need to figure out whether Honoken will be present as backup and prepare accordingly.
"...? ... ...!"
"There's no need. Give me one more hour, I can handle it alone."
"......... ...?"
He sighs. His gaze lands on us. "Yes... I am keeping something from you. But I'd like to explain myself in person—"
"He might want to do good," the villain continues, disregarding my social cues. "But he can't, 'cuz he's a hero. All he's allowed to do is save the law-abiding citizens and put us bad girls in jail."
Though she is noisy, I can still isolate the major details of the phone call. Somehow, Seiryu has placated his sidekick. Considering her personality, she might still come anyway, but it's not an urgent threat.
Seiryu stiffly returns to the table, picking up his unfinished cup of tea. He downs the now cold beverage in a single gulp, and sets it down with a soft clink.
"I will bring you down," he declares, but the gleam in those red eyes doesn't hold a candle to what I saw earlier. "Then, I'll find a way to rid you of that parasite."
He moves to the counter, widening the gap between us, and leaving no more room for compromise.
"How much, Helene?"
"Seven thousand. Do you want to pay in..." the much shorter woman subtly gestures for him to get closer, and he bends down, returning her whispers. So begins another conversation I have to pick up and plan around.
"... want help? I could clock out right now. Slow day."
"Her quirk is a horrible match-up for you. Protect whoever you can. Try to get people away from the action."
"... alright. Don't die."
"I won't. Thanks... for everything."
In a blink, hero and vigilante become customer and server again. Yuusei fishes out his wallet, and Karma disappears from her seat.
"Can you pay for my latte too? I'm a little short..." she laments while clinging to his arm, a picture of performative innocence.
He shoots her a look. "Didn't you have a coupon for that abomination of a drink?"
"It was expired..." she whines, and he sighs, profoundly exhausted. Before she can start batting eyelashes, he adds her coffee to his bill, nodding one last time to Helene as he meets me at the door.
"You shouldn't have bothered postponing with Honoken," I tell him, gauging his injuries again. "You're suffering from a ruptured stomach and intestines. Early symptons of sepsis, confirmed by your paleness. Furthermore, any significant transformation will tear your stitches and resume hemorrhage."
"Hemorrhage? The cut wasn't that deep," he murmurs, sounding almost petulant. Proud of his scales, I'd wager.
"We shall do this another day. I'll find you after you've recovered."
Next time, I will bring Karma's corpse instead of having her die in his arms. It will remove a lot of pesky variables.
"Aw, aren't you considerate?" she coos, following from my right as I step off the sidewalk. "But I'm not so sure you'll get to see him recover. After you attacked me at my place, Night Parade will find wherever it is you sleep, and we'll show you how to do the job right."
"Go away," Seiryu warns. "This is between me and her."
"Make me."
The villain leaps over my returning blades and lands atop a lamppost, fangs peeking from her smile. The hero steps past my left, angling himself against me so any attack at him will land on the street instead of an establishment.
"I can't afford the luxury of marking this fight on a calendar. Not while you're still a danger to yourself and others. So I'll pass."
"It wasn't an offer," I correct, but with Karma behind me and him in front of me, most of my retreat angles have been cut.
This clash is inevitable.
We move all at once. Karma pounces, crocodile-like teeth aimed for my jugular. I uproot the lamppost she stood on and twist it around her, but Seiryu is already charging for me, azure scales covering his growing frame.
I swing both my blades, a wide defensive arc behind me, and a downward slash before me. Predictably, she dodges, but he doesn't, meeting tempered steel with a draconic claw. His other hand shoots out, catching the parked car I threw at him. My control strains against him as he lets down the ton of metal and closes the distance between us.
He will grasp me before my other sword can make it. Pieces of the pavement will simply bounce off his scales, and he's covering his wound with his tail.
I only have a moment to brace myself before he wrenches me upwards, blocking the bite meant for my liver with his wing while taking Karma and I to the skies. The three of us spin mid-air as he twists and weaves past every obstacle I raise. Karma crawls around his body, and I duck to avoid her whipping tail before the dragon pries her off his shoulder.
"Stay out."
"Hey—!"
Her screaming protest fades into the air as he hurls her back to the earth. That over-extension of his arm is the opening I needed. I command my great-swords to capitalize on it. The first feints for his body and slices at his left wing, forcing him to compensate in the next beat. Right into the next sword spinning toward his arm.
For a second, his grip falters, and then, he's gripping only air. Before I can plummet, I tear a billboard free from its building, angling it beneath me.
Now, to figure out a escape route—
My platform dips behind me. Karma.
The dragon's shadow falls over us. Seiryu descends with an impact that dents the metal, sending my other opponent flying with the seesaw effect. I allow myself to fall back and slide towards him, swinging twin blades at the airborne villain. Then I tilt our platform to avoid his tail swipe and crash us into the nearest rooftop. Metal rends, led lights shatter, concrete rumbles, and I take advantage of the latter, punching a hole into the structure and falling with my blades and the sound of crumbling drywall.
My boots find perfect purchase on an emergency staircase railing. Confined space. Suitable ammunition.
I ride down the railing and tear everything behind me apart. Steps rise as barriers, banisters twist into javelins, support beams are flung like spears.
They follow, of course.
Karma is a flicker of motion in my peripheral, dancing through the chaos, her tail lashing out to deflect any projectiles. Seiryu is behind her, wings scraping against the walls as he navigates the narrow shaft. They clash against my swords as much as they do with each other, a tornado of steel and scales that must slow down or else crash in a bloody crater.
As we near the last staircase, his wings beat, and she coils her tail around his ankle, both breaking momentum. Then, the entire mass of metal I had been throwing at them comes down, burying them.
I land on the pommel of my waiting sword, hovering away from the settling dust and outside the emergency exit. The salary-men flee from the lobby, as they usually do, and I crush their phones to delay hero reinforcements.
Escape route. North only leads to a forested area, which puts me in a disadvantage, so I can only go south, east, or west.
West leads to Otsu city. Too few routes. Denied. South or east...
With a roar of tearing metal, Seiryu erupts from the pile of rubble. He is unscathed from my attack, but his side is bleeding from tearing his stitches. As Karma scrambles away from the rubble, he grabs her by the scruff of her neck and hurls her into a corner, but she recovers mid-air and wraps her tail around a pillar, launching herself at me.
The dragon meets her halfway there, swatting her out of the air. "Stay out of this," he snarls while parrying one of my blades. "I won't say it again."
"Are you kidding me?" she bites back, dusting off her shoulders indignantly. "If they find out she cut me up and I couldn't even get my licks in, I'll never live it down! This is my street cred on the line here."
We spill out of the office building and into the next street. The world outside is a blur of civilians scattering under Helene's guidance, too many devices for me to disable. I ride one of my swords, Karma bounds from car to building to lamppost, and Seiryu flies in straight lines, cutting off the villain halfway into her lunging strikes.
Somehow, they still find time to keep bickering.
"I could not care less about your street cred."
"Cared enough to keep a secret from your sidekick, Mr. I Don't Kiss And Tell."
Maybe I should kill her now.
I can escape from Karma. I can escape from Seiryu. I cannot escape from both in a timely manner, and their noise will inevitably attract the few heroes around. Any risk of capture is unacceptable.
Although the original plan was to present him Karma's corpse as the ultimate provocation, she was right about one thing: it will be difficult to strike at her again if all of Night Parade is on high alert. I'll attempt an adjustment. Perhaps if he watches her die while he is too injured, too exhausted to stop me—
I recoil, the gust from Karma's missed kick whipping past me. Her tongue snaps back to avoid getting sliced, and she pirouettes through the air, vaulting behind a car to block off my blade and...
When did I deploy the needles from my thigh strap?
... it doesn't matter. I can discard the intrusive bloodlust as long as there's merit in the idea behind it. My needles dart forward, seeking space between the swinging great-swords.
Brain. Heart. Lungs. Liver. Karma avoids death at every step, flowing between any obstacle or projectile I put on her path.
There is a reason I had to ambush her on my first strike. Agility, dexterity, reflexes. She excels at these parameters far beyond me and... him. Seiryu is still here, lagging behind, yet not de-accelerating.
I play my part until he does.
At that critical moment when body betrays mind, and his internal injuries outweigh the adrenaline pumping through his body, slowing him down for a fraction of a second...
I break the stalemate, forgoing conventional tactics and taking my eyes off one opponent.
She is faster, using him as a springboard and launching herself at with a dropkick. I bring a sword to block, and it creaks under her weight and momentum, slamming into me anyway. Air and blood burst from my lips, and it feels like my rib cage has been caved in, but I'm conscious enough for a counter.
Chunks of asphalt, street signs, mangled car parts, everything I'd been using to keep Seiryu at bay catches up to us, enclosing her in metal and concrete. My back hits the far wall of our flying cage, and she halts her next lunge as a piece of rebar almost buries into her gut. In enclosed space, my needles are a testament to my name, aiming for every weak point from every angle. One slices her thigh, another grazes her temple. She contorts, and a few sink into her tail as she bats another batch away, finally exposing her spine.
The sword reverses momentum. Her tiny gasp is drowned by the sound of metal meeting flesh and bone. I get one look at her murderous expression before the impact sends her flying through my cage like a broken doll, and then my world is overshadowed by black and blue.
Shit.
Seiryu slams into me. Pain explodes from my chest, shattering whatever ribs Karma had not. Everything blurs, and I can't even see if my weapons are returning to me.
My back crashes through concrete, glass, then... everything goes white. A convenience store counter. He drags me over it, pounding my head against the register and hurling me into a tall rack. It collapses under my weight and momentum, sending plastic wrappers everywhere.
"... sloppy..." I cough weakly, but I doubt he hears it over the screaming patrons scattering off. "... avoiding property damage is a core tenet of heroics..."
Everything aches. Glass shards have ripped through my cape and sunk to my back.
I failed. I had one clear shot and I couldn't execute it. Karma moved at the last possible second. At the angle I struck her, she can still survive by slowing down her metabolism and breathing anaerobically. She will be incapacitated, but she is not dead.
And he knows it, too. He is angered, but not enough.
My torso screams in protest as his draconic heel presses down on me, pinning me down and making the darkness in the corner of my eyes creep ever closer to the center. If he lands another blow on me, I will surely black out.
I fling the final needle at his eye. It never lands. His tail whips up in a parry, and he snatches it out of the air, bending hardened steel with a flex of his claws. That millisecond was all I needed.
Above, the whine of my great-swords finally arrive. They slice through the store's ceiling, raining down metal and concrete upon him. He raises one arm, taking the brunt of the collapse, while his free limb and tail swing around, deflecting the twin blades.
I lift a bunch of bottles from the cleaning section and smash them together between us, but even the cloud of chlorine gas is not enough to get him off me. With wide eyes, he shuts his nostrils in time, wings beating to disperse it.
I try to hold the cloud solely around him, and my head pulses in response. There is a hot, sticky sensation in my ears, as if my brain is melting and pouring out.
I can't even see if my blades are hitting their mark anymore. Controlling fluids is simply too many steps away from my life's training.
Yet the risk pays off. His silhouette trembles. His wings falter. I hear the coughing start as the gas seeps into his exposed gash, and he sinks on all fours above me, bleary eyes locking into mine.
Something lands on my stomach. His tail, coiling around my waist, lifting me off the ground even as my blades hack at his back.
How obstinate. We burst through the hole in the ceiling, but between his erratic flight and faltering transformation, it's not a long journey. I land hard on a rooftop, stabbed multiple times as glass shards sink further through my back.
... I can't feel my blades. I know they were left behind in the store, but I can't even hear them waver at my call.
Still, my opponent is in direr straits. This flight has cost him the last of his energy, and he pins me down not with draconic strength, but stubborn, human weight. His face is a mess, bloodshot eyes streaming tears from the gas while drool and blood mix on his chin. The wound on his side is a burnt, angry mess of flesh, bleeding profusely from the chemical exposure to his blood vessels.
The sound of sirens cuts through the haze of pain. They're too close. A fresh, cold wave of adrenaline surges through me, and I shove at the chest pressing against my face.
"Move," I tell him, but it feels like I'm punching against a sack of rocks. "You lost, Yuusei."
I will not return to the blindfolds. The needles. The pointless torture. If I have to hurt him more, so be it.
"I didn't know... I thought..." he slurs out clumsily. "They told me after I took you down, they'd get it out of you as soon as you were restrained in a facility. I'm sorry... Hiyori... If I had visited you... at least one time..."
He's not even looking at me. Delirious, babbling, on the verge of passing out.
"You wouldn't have gotten the approval."
So why am I answering?
He shakes his head weakly. "I could have... pulled some strings. But I was afraid..."
"... afraid?"
"I modeled so much of myself after you... the precision, the professionalism, the thoroughness," he rasps, voice fraying at the end. "After you were caught, I was forced to confront... whether I learned from a professional or a murderer. And what it said about me... if I took it like a fish to water..."
Professional. Once upon a time, he called me that, and I couldn't answer him in time.
"I was never even a professional, Yuusei. I was a weapon wielded by them. Right now, I'm only a defective product."
He never saw how empty I truly was, because I had to hide it from him.
Yuusei finally finds my face, searching for the answer to a question buried by the years.
"So... all those people you killed even before the possession... what did that mean to you?"
"Parameters on a mission."
"Hah... so that's how it is..." he coughs out, a smile twisting his bloody lips. "I didn't consider the Commission would go that far... how shortsighted of me..."
He closes his eyes, and they don't open again. His body slumps on top of me, all strength fading.
"... but you're wrong... the fact... you're worried about what the parasite might do... after you die... is proof... you're human... enough..."
Nonsense. Utter, absurd, borderline idiotic nonsense. But any answer I give won't be heard, so I roll him off me, my body screaming in protest as I scramble into a crouch.
The police cars are surrounding the office building we crashed through, although a few are coming to the store. There is no sign of Karma. Finding her again will be a challenge—
"Turn around, slowly."
A soft thud lands behind me, accompanied by a faint heat. Of course, she came here anyway.
I rise and turn to Honoken.
"I have a needle lodged in his peritoneal cavity," I state, my tone betraying none of my exhaustion. "Make a move and I finish him off."
This is my only out. I can barely stand, let alone fight her.
She glares down at me, burning fists clenching in frustration, but in the end, she can't risk it. I use those precious seconds to catch my breath and slowly back away.
"He needs immediate medical attention. Don't let him die."
By the time she recognizes my bluff, I'm already off the rooftop's edge, landing on the flat of my blade. I pour the last of my mental strength into propulsion and don't look back. Honoken's cries for an ambulance reach me after a second. Predictably, she chose to stick to his side instead of pursuing me.
I live for another meaningless day.
[Part 4: Não Existe Amor Sem Medo]
"...lcome back... eiryu."
The sun lowers beyond the Kyoto skyline, painting my dusty apartment in orange shades. It belonged to a mercenary I terminated three weeks ago. There are bugs everywhere, the fridge has nothing but cheap beer, and the whole place smells of stale cigarettes. Still, a bed and a ceiling are enough for me.
"... long hav.. been out...?"
I will likely have to forfeit this place once Night Parade finds it, but since I can barely float a med-kit to me, fetching my equipment will have to wait.
"...ix hours..."
I sit on the edge of the bed, painstakingly bandaging my wounds, tightening the wraps until the ache is manageable.
"... vitals... stabilizing ... I give one..."
A prognosis? I stop applying gauze and place the device between my legs. The small black receiver crackles again, cutting through the sound of my ragged breathing.
"...perhaps a week and a half before you can even think about patrols. You... you pushed your body past every reasonable limit, Yuusei."
There's a rustle of the sheets. "Understood. Thank you, Tabikawa."
A sigh. "Well, if you experience any pain or returning symptoms from chlorine poisoning, I'll be back. For now, make sure to get some rest."
Footsteps recede. A door clicks shut.
Another sigh. Honoken's voice. "Alright. You don't show up this morning. You ignore my calls for an hour, and when you finally pick up, it's to tell me you're fighting a villain, but I shouldn't back you up? I had to find out what exactly you were fighting from a freaking HN notification..."
I stop paying my full attention.
"... also said Karma was there, so there's half your behavior explained..."
"... doesn't explain why a bunch of suits from the Commission..."
Until Honoken drops another key word.
"... showed up while you were resting. Started asking a bunch of questions I had no way of answering. So, spill the beans. What the hell is going on, Yuusei? And what's that big secret you were apparently keeping from me?"
"... You already know Stormrazor. Hiyori Sugawara... former bodyguard for the Atsushi family."
"Yeah, yeah, your second year internship mentor. Who was apparently a villain killer on the side..."
Finishing my bandages, I walk to the dresser and cover myself with the first shirt I find. Meanwhile, Yuusei continues with his side of the story.
"... At the time, I was confused and... angered by the news. I couldn't go out and do anything about it since she was my pro hero instructor..."
"... I didn't patrol. I put myself in a spot I knew she'd be likely to appear..."
"... Legally, we just happened to cross paths, and I had the provisional license to defeat her then and there."
Nothing I hadn't presumed already. I move onto the pants. Even with a belt, they are still too loose on me.
"... you never told me about any of this."
"I was instructed not to. The existence of the villain who took over her, Aburamushi, is a state secret by itself. And they acted while Stormrazor was investigating the murder of a minister... it was classified information all around."
"... so she's out for revenge?" Honoken's question echoes from behind me.
"... no, no. Let me keep going. Back then, I expected to be scolded, but I was praised for my courage instead. I don't know if they were sucking up to me because of my family, or inflating my ego to convince me to keep quiet..."
"Maybe it was both."
"... maybe. But I didn't care. I was more worried about justice. Stormrazor was a killer, but the thing inside her had a body count of a different magnitude. It would not be fair to imprison them together, and the Commission assured me they wouldn't. The villain would be split from her, so they could get separate judgments under court."
I fall back on the creaky mattress, letting the receiver crawl next to my ear.
A judgment under court. That is... almost laughable.
"It was a lie. She's still possessed. She's been suffering with a parasite in her head for over a year. She... she wants to die, Kalianne. She wants me to kill her."
"And you're already planning on going after her," Honoken accuses. "Don't try to hide it, I know that look."
There's no visual feed on his agency's medical bay, but I know it too. The stubborn set of his jaw. Those red eyes that seem to flicker with flames. However, I expect Honoken can succeed where I failed, and get past his thick skull to convince him to rest. He needs to be at top form to finally put me down.
"She'll be coming after me. It'll be better if I set the terms."
"You're already letting her set the terms by fighting her at all! I know they're apparently scumbags, but let the Commission handle it for now!
O-Or one of the hundreds of heroes in this city!"
... starting off with the wrong choice. She's only reinforcing his hypotheticals of what will happen to me once the Commission gets me.
"..."
"Yuusei," her voice is softer now. "I'm not saying you can't handle it. But would it kill you to at least wait until you're healthy?"
"... It's a time sensitive matter. She is... going after Karma, too. Not just me."
"... huh? Was she there back in... no. You two fought for the first time during your third year. Why the hell would she...?"
"Because... I had a physical relationship with Karma."
A small sound escapes me. Perhaps I should tune off for now. I only wanted a sense of his plan of approach, but I expect the conversation won't broach any strategy after this point.
"It began in July, and I ended it a few weeks before we took in the interns. Stormrazor is under the impression there's something deeper between us—which there isn't. But she's still using Karma to goad me."
"You are joking."
"Kalianne..."
"It's a terrible joke, by the way."
"... I'm sorry I couldn't tell you earlier."
Then again, I had his agency bugged for months now. My memory of this will die along countless other insignificant conversations about patrol schedules, paperwork, and school gossip from his interns, so it doesn't really matter what I hear or not.
"Well? Keep going."
Step. Step. Step. She's pacing around the room. Were he not bedridden, I doubt her reaction would be this tame.
"What about you and Karma makes it so time sensitive, hm? Had a hot date lined up with her? I mean, Christmas is coming up."
"... I can't predict what she will do," he sighs, clinging to the mission parameters. "In one scenario, she could want payback for the attack, which lets me monitor both of them. But in the worst-case scenario... she goes off-radar with Night Parade protecting her underground and... Stormrazor will try to provoke me with something else. A civilian hostage. Another villain. A hero. Someone I love."
That's untrue. If I can't get to Karma, I'll attempt to locate the missing Golden Dragon's Claw and use its destruction as leverage. Failing that, then I'll find another target. But I can't fault him for his theory.
"Wow. How many physical relationships does that make?"
"... you know what I meant, Kalianne."
"Do I? I thought I did. I thought there was something! Some chemistry, s-some spark between us during all these months. But I guess it was all my imagination. All those times you smiled when you thought I wasn't looking, you were thinking about her."
"You're wrong—"
"And do you know what the saddest part is?! You don't even realize what you're doing! You're so obviously worried about her right now, but you keep making these excuses to me and yourself! A-About how there's nothing deeper between you, how Sugawara might go after someone else...! You know what you haven't told me? That it wouldn't work! That you'd never go off in a rage if she got killed!"
"..."
"You spoke her name. Back in Yamashina, while I doing first aid on you. I thought you were mad that she escaped during the battle. You know, the usual. My god, I was such an idiot...!"
Step, step, step... she's getting further away. Yuusei's bed rattles.
"Kalianne, wait—!" his plea breaks into a violent cough. He cannot reach her in his condition. "I was weak. I was selfish. I kept a secret from you. I won't deny any of that."
"..."
"But not once... did I think of her when I was with you. She and I came together more than once, but we always went our separate ways."
"Yuusei, I..."
"I was just... ashamed. I didn't want to deepen my relationship with you while I was tangled up in these... base desires."
"I'm done hearing it," she sniffles. "What you were doing in these past months tells me enough. So you can go after Stormrazor and y-your villain fuckbuddy, but I'm not going with you, and I'm leaving my costume here. Orochi will be here tomorrow, though. Good luck explaining the mission to her."
The door creaks open. Her steps fade away. For a moment, there is only the faint crackle of the receiver.
"... damnit...! Damnit..."
Then, his harsh breathing is accompanied by a dull thud of a fist against the floor. As he starts coughing again, I tune off.
I suppose I owe him an apology the next time we meet. I made it clear I didn't want to ruin his life, but no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Still... he will be more emotionally susceptible in the coming days. Instead of apologizing, it would be more convenient for both of us if he takes out his frustration on me.
So, hate me all you want, Yuusei Atsushi. It only helps me in the end.
"... you have a duty to come for me until I die," I tell him as sleep begins to claim me.