"So, when making a joint operation with heroes from multiple countries, the guidelines become different depending on whether you're in the same continent or not..."
Yuusei dutifully jotted down the principal's insights in his notebook, hanging onto her every word. It was rare that Karaburan would offer one of her special classes, so he resolved to make the best of it. Sadly, many of his senior classmates didn't share his attitude, and he was 1 of 4 who appeared in the extracurricular lesson.
As the principal began to give an example of a mission she performed in China with Rosethorn, Yuusei's phone buzzed in his pocket. An unusual occurrence; He had it set to silent for most notifications, so that meant...
A call from his family.
Yuusei jumped to his feet, making the principal pause her lecture.
"Excuse me, Karaburan-sensei. I must take this," he said, holding up his vibrating phone. The educator replied with a nod and a wave of her hand, turning to the class a second later.
Yuusei bowed briefly to her as a sign of respect and an apology for briefly disrupting the class, then walked out of the room and into the hallway, where he brought the device to his ear, answering the call.
"Good afternoon, Mother."
"Hello, Yuusei." to some, Aoi Atsushi's would carry the same soft tone as always. But Yuusei was privy to even its slightest intricacies. Something had made his mother cry recently.
He clutched the phone tighter, a deep frown settling on his naturally serious face. "What happened?"
A short, mirthless chuckle was his answer. "Am I that easy to read?"
"No. I just know where to look," Yuusei assured.
"... It happened an hour ago, Yuu-chan," she started, breaking any pretense of composure, "some villain invaded our main estate and stole The Golden Dragon's Claw."
It took a few seconds for Yuusei's brain to fully comprehend it. His eyes widened, his frown turned into raised eyebrows, and his grip on the phone slackened. Then, the anger came, but Yuusei did not lash out. He had better self-control than to show the extent of his frustration to his mother.
"Who? Who dared?"
"The police believe it's one of the members of that Night Raid group. Karma."
"... I see." Yuusei recognized the names but didn't particularly care about the group. Just more villains that he had a duty to stop. Until now.
"What is our family doing about this? Why did the elders wait for a police report instead of using private investigators? Why did you only tell me now when it happened an hour ago?"
The young man paced around the hallways, rattling off questions to his mother. His tone was cold and measured, not leaving a hint of the emotions storming within him.
"Calm down, Yuu-chan." but just as he knew his mother's cues, the reverse was also true. "The elders are shocked, but there's not much they can do. Private investigators would speed up the culprit's reveal, but then what after? We would still rely on the police and the heroes to capture Karma."
"I only called you now because you had classes at the time. I didn't want this weighing on your mind," Aoi finished, making her son stop in his tracks.
Yes, that was the crux of the issue. She didn't want him to worry. There was a villain out and about with one of his family's heirlooms, no pro hero had been able to catch her until now, and Yuusei's family was going to be another name on her list of crimes. Because he was too busy with classes. Because he was not a hero yet.
"Thank you, Mother. But if I am to become the Atsushi heir, you can't keep shielding me from my duty."
This stain in his family's pride... Yuusei would not allow it to linger.
"Yuu-chan? What do you mean by that?"
Truly, there are some things you can never hide from family. Such an innocuous statement meant to refer to calling him earlier, yet she had somehow caught the underlying message.
"Don't worry. Thank you for calling me. It's better I know now than when the news hits the media."
Yuusei would also not mention that he was taking an extracurricular activity when she called. It would just make her mood worse.
"I will take a plane to see you at the estate today. We must talk more about this in person," he continued, walking through the hallways and leaving the building where his class was being held. Yes, a flight to see his mother and to bring back the Golden Claw.
"... Yes, I would appreciate that. Goodbye, Yuusei."
"Goodbye, Mother," Seiryu said and finished the call. He pocketed his phone and opened his locker, taking the briefcase holding his hero costume.
It was time to hunt a thief.
Seiryu was aware of the consequences of his current actions, but he would not stop now. This was his best chance to capture Karma before the trail got cold or she moved away to another country. He'd researched her as best as he could on the way here, and while her modus operandi was beyond him, he still had an edge on finding her. He was intimate with the location of her latest caper, so he could trace her possible escape routes in his mind. It was criminology 101 in action: He was putting himself in her shoes to determine where she would crop up after stealing his family's oldest treasure.
However, this method still relied on luck. There was more than 1 possible place where Karma could be, along with the possibility that she would go against the grain and take an alternate route. Speed was of the essence, so he could scour every possible avenue. Thankfully, he had it in spades.
Seiryu flew through the night sky, propelled by electric blue wings coming from his back. He could only hold his transformation for about 10 minutes, but it was plenty to get where he wanted.
His wings retracted once he landed on a roof with a gust of wind. Seiryu pulled on his mouth cover and transformed his mouth into a dragon's. His forked tongue tasted the air a second later, then retreated to the roof of his mouth. Seiryu did not smile, but his frown lessened considerably. It seemed fate was on his side tonight. He had managed to track a scent in his second location.
Wings burst forth from his back again. With his enhanced sense of smell, he followed the trail around him, finding the woman he'd been looking for.
Karma stood on a rooftop with her back turned to him, her tail swishing back and forth. She knew he was there, but Seiryu wasn't attempting a sneak attack in the first place. He soared above her with a flap of his wings and turned to face her.
"Cammy Link, Villain Name: Karma," he announced, looking down at his target and landing on the roof with a soft thump.
His hand rose to point at her.
"I'll give you one chance to surrender." It was more than she deserved. "Give me back the Golden Dragon's Claw, or I'll stop you here and now."
Karma looked too amused by his declaration for his liking, looking at his hand with a quirked eyebrow and a smirk pulling at her lips.
"That was faster than usual. You guys can get your act together pretty quick depending on the victim, huh?"
She tilted her head, shifting her arm to rock her canvas bag, but Seiryu's eyes did not stray from her body, watching out for any sudden moves.
"You've gone too far this time, villain," Seryu responded, clenching his fist. "Now. Will you surrender? Or will you resist?"
"Kekeke~" Karma laughed while mockingly covering her mouth. "Even if you catch me —you won't, by the way— how can you be sure I didn't hide your pretty blade somewhere? I did have the time for it..."
"Hmph. Even if that's the case, I'll simply extract the information from you." However, Seiryu knew for a fact she still held his mark. When he caught her scent, he also detected the tang of ancient steel held by the blade.
"Heh. Good luck with that." With those parting words, the villain leaped to his left, reaching the roof's edge in a fraction of a second.
What speed. With such clean movements, Seiryu could understand why she avoided getting captured this long. However, he didn't need luck for this part of the job.
The dragon hero lunged after her immediately, forming a tail and dragon arm with his quirk and attacking with them simultaneously. His tail swiped at her stomach from the left while his hand rushed towards her neck.
Karma leaned back, missing his claws by an inch. Before his second attack could reach her, her tail smacked into his, canceling the impact. The two appendages fought for dominance, twisting and wrapping around each other.
She drew a knife and swung at his face. Seiryu headbutted the weapon before her attack could gather momentum, making the steel edge bounce against his mask. He leaned back and attempted to catch her wrist with his claw, but Karma proved too slippery.
The 2 kept swinging and dodging each other at close range, neither able to retreat due to the tug of war between their tails. Until Seiryu pulled one last time and dismissed the transformation on his back, bringing his opponent off her balance long enough to transform his left arm and land a blow on her center of mass.
Or so it would be if she didn't take advantage of his lack of tail and wrapped hers around his waist, dragging him to the side. His fist still smacked her shoulder, but he was pulled to the ground and pinned down by the criminal a second later.
"Are they sending people with matching quirks to get me now? Kinda bigoted if you ask me." Seiryu didn't deign that deserving of a response, merely glaring and struggling for a reversal. Karma had her tail wrapped around his waist and thighs while her hands pushed against his, keeping him from leaning forward.
Seiryu pulsed his quirk through his entire body except for his head. Muscles swelled, scales grew beneath his costume, wings raised his back from the ground, and his tail pushed against hers. Karma reacted to the transformation in time, vaulting away and backflipping but with 90% of his body shifted, the dragon kept pace, smacking his tail against the floor to recover and flapping his wings to engage her again.
Karma was faster than him, and despite her lithe frame, she could easily match his strength when using only his claws. It would be draining on his stamina, but turning up his transformation would allow him to create a gap in their physical abilities.
Seiryu's pupils became slit as he transformed one last time, evolving his crimson eyes to seek fast-moving prey. His opponent hopped back twice, reaching the edge of the roof and then landing on another building. The hero student took off and dived at her with a flying kick that missed, destroying a section of the ceiling. The game of cat and mouse began, with Karma constantly disengaging and avoiding his blows, sometimes getting a few slashes at his costume.
The young hero was a storm of limbs, attacking from every possible angle with claws, kicks, and tail thrusts. He used his wings to create gusts that would slow his opponent if she dodged a certain way, forcing her to make awkward movements or take glancing blows. Despite that, Karma's red eyes expertly dissected his offense, allowing her to deflect his attacks, twist away at the last moment, or take a blow and retaliate with her knife. The wind on his side only degraded her agility from overwhelming to above his, and her tail kept parrying his away.
It was a stalemate, but Seiryu wasn't too shocked about it. Karma was proving deserving of her S-Rank with each passing second, and even with his status as the cream of the crop at Shiketsu, he was struggling to keep up. However, he could not afford to chip away at her incredible defense due to his quirk's limits. He couldn't let this become an endurance match at any cost.
"Hey, dragon guy, you're actually decent at this!" Karma said, parrying 5 of his strikes in quick succession and thrusting her knife at his chest. Seiryu tanked the strike with his costume and scales, finally grabbing her wrist and landing a solid palm strike to her collarbone.
Before he could exploit the opening further, the villain's tongue rolled from her mouth in response to his attack, tying his arm from hand to elbow. He deactivated his transformation on his arm, using the sudden decrease in volume to pull it from its slick prison and keep the offense going with a knee to her liver.
"I'm still better, though!"
Karma jumped back, dodging him again and rising several meters off the ground. Seiryu soared to meet her in the air, abusing his superior aerial capabilities to circle around her and make a fly-by strike as she fell. The villain wrapped her tongue around his torso, using him as a swing platform to escape.
She vaulted away, her tongue leaving his upper body. With enough distance between them, she felt safe with turning her back on him and running away. Seiryu took off right after, chasing his enemy across the city.
Karma used her quirk to outpace him in the concrete jungle, crawling on walls, swinging around light posts with her tail and tongue, and diving through small gaps in buildings to exploit her smaller size compared to his transformed self. The hero student would manage to keep her in his range by flying outside her vision and emerging from another angle. But she would always be prepared no matter what direction he re-entered her sight. Sometimes she would attempt to camouflage herself with her reptile quirk, but he would still find her through his draconic sense of smell.
Seiryu was running himself ragged to land a decisive blow on her, but he was getting closer and closer. With each exchange, he could see through her style a bit clearer and adapt accordingly.
Karma ducked under a spinning kick, and Seiryu deflected her counter with his tail, swiping his claws to ward off her tongue. The two lizards circled each other inside a pier's warehouse, one huffing for breath and the other grinning smugly.
"Stamina problems?" Karma teased.
Seiryu rolled his eyes. He didn't like dealing with the talkative types during a fight, but if she was going to give him a window to gain a second wind, he wouldn't stop her.
"You wish, Karma. I'll chase you even underwater if I have to."
"Ha! I don't think your quirk can keep up with my swimming, Dragon... erm, what was your name again?"
The hero cocked his head. "I never gave it to you."
"Wow, really? And here I thought I was being rude, but it was you! I mean, you come up to me saying my real name, then demand I give you something I worked very hard to get, and you don't even introduce yourself? Aren't heroes supposed to be chivalrous?" She complained, putting her hands on her hips.
"..."
While her logic was supremely twisted, her words did make some sense. Seiryu had been so focused on capturing her that he hadn't even spoken his name. His teachers would be ashamed... mostly because he was chasing a villain without a professional license, but still.
"Hmm. As you say. Spring Dragon Hero: Seiryu. That's the name of the hero who's going to catch you."
"Ryu-kun, then." Karma nodded, seemingly pleased with herself.
"No."
"Ryu-chan?"
Seiryu shook his head. He was instantly regretting saying his hero name to this vexing woman.
"Qinglong?"
"I'm going to hit you now. Steel yourself."
"How about stalker—woah!"
Their battle recommenced.
"I was right; you are rude!"
This was the person holding a piece of his family's legacy. Seiryu growled and struck out with a roundhouse kick, which his opponent blocked with a single arm. His energy had recovered slightly, but he would collapse in a few minutes if he fully transformed again. Thus, he'd only activate his scales to defend against her weapon and his tail to match hers.
And Karma was exploiting that. For once, she was not using her superior speed to dodge and dart away, but instead to batter him with blows, disengage, forcing him to waste more energy running after a counterattack, and then repeat the process.
Her tongue struck his temple like a fleshy whip, knocking him to the ground. Seiryu groaned, pushing himself to his feet as soon as he heard her stepping away from their impromptu arena.
"I'm... I'm not done with you yet, villain," he called out. His target turned around and gave him a come hither gesture.
Seiryu took a deep breath, thinking through hundreds of potential moves and responses. One night wasn't enough to pierce through her fighting style, but he just needed to make one opening. The hero student removed his mask, focusing his quirk on his right arm and back. Crouching down slightly, he let his wings spread and prepared himself for one last charge.
He burst from the floor, wings beating at full force, going above Karma at the last second for an overhead strike. The villain sidestepped his claw and batted away his sprouting tail with her own appendage, shifting her weapon to a reverse grip and carving at his shoulder.
Seiryu rose in altitude to avoid her next attack, but she bounded up to match him in the air, spinning around to hammer her tail at his torso with full force. He stopped it with his claw, not caring when she wrapped it around his limb and pulled him forward. Karma came at him with 3 strikes.
A stab to his left kidney.
A knee to his groin.
A tongue whip to his face.
None of the former managed to reach him as Seiryu transformed his face and nipped at her tongue with his sharpened teeth. It was muscular and doubtlessly didn't have the same sensitivity as a regular one but the pain brought by his attack was still enough for him to dodge her others. She was finally overextended.
Karma gasped as the young hero drove his weight into her mid-air, diving both bodies into the floor with a single flap of his wings. Seiryu crashed on top of his opponent, scrambling to take her down. One of his hands covered her mouth and throat, preventing her from using her tongue, while the other held up her wrists. His tail weighed down on her legs, but that left—
"Guh!" The hero choked as the villain's tail wrapped around his throat, squeezing out his airway. His hand clenched against her throat harder in response, but now it was only a matter of who gave out first.
'Shit. I was trying to avoid an endurance match at any cost, but I can't let up now!' Seiryu thought as his vision began to blur. Her grip on his windpipe was so tight he couldn't bend his neck and lash out with his teeth again.
Options ran through his head. Should he remove his tail from its spot and use it here? But that would let her kick him away and reset the battle conditions! He was already transforming his entire body to keep her beneath him. Choking or not, he would not move properly after this.
Seiryu's awareness began to slip. His vision darkened at its corners and blinked in and out. Underneath him, Karma's struggling visage glared at him. She was trying to bite his fingers through his costume's gloves and his scales, bucking her hands and legs against his transformed limbs.
Everything was dark for the young man now. Everything except two burning eyes. Did those belong to his opponent? Or were they a reflection of his own gaze?
Another second passed. Yuusei felt his grip weaken. His fight was over, and he couldn't see if his opponent was defeated. But she would likely recover from unconsciousness first.
'I'm sorry, Mom. I couldn't get it back...'
"Sit down, Atsushi," the principal said once he entered her office. All things considered, she didn't look angry. Not even disappointed. No, Karaburan looked... pensive.
Atsushi bowed deeply before taking his seat. His expression was stone-faced despite the massive dark red bruise on his throat.
"I'll say this now. The only reason why we're speaking about what happened yesterday is that your mother and grandfather begged me to spare you. Otherwise, you would have been expelled already," she declared, placing her hand over her desk.
"Your mother spoke about your feelings of responsibility towards your family and the importance of the stolen heirloom. She mentioned your pristine record as a class representative and the reports from the hero you took your internship with."
The principal shifted through various files as she spoke, using her air manipulation to organize them. "Your grandfather said to keep you at school so he wouldn't have to deal with your hoarding back home."
"We've had many cases of students with provisional licenses taking matters into their own hands. But they only get held back and have their licenses suspended if they possess one. Do you know why your case is different, Atsushi?"
"Yes, Karaburan-sensei." Speaking was still painful, but his tone was still the same baritone as always.
She leaned forward. "Can you tell me?"
"... It's because I sought out Karma."
Karaburan nodded. "Correct. The other students reacted to situations happening in front of them. They saw a crime happening and moved to help. It's a heroic attitude that we would like to nurture, but national law still demands we punish them."
Atsushi stopped meeting the principal's gaze. The implication that he was not heroic stung far more than he expected.
"But you didn't do that. You left class, took your school-issued costume without permission, flew around the city, and engaged an S-Rank villain... on account of a personal connection with her last crime. And you survived because the villain decided to spare you."
Karaburan left her seat, walking around her desk before looking out the office's window. "I shall ask you one question, which will decide your future in this school."
The principal walked up to him and leaned down, eyes boring into his very being.
"Do you regret what you've done?"
Yuusei's eyes widened by a fraction. He expected a lot of things, but not that.
"Why did you do it?"
"What would you have done if you succeeded?"
Those were the sort of questions he'd been waiting for. Questions that would force him to explain himself, to show the thoughts, or lack thereof, behind his actions. But Karaburan was giving him an out. All he had to do was say "Yes."
To say he regretted it and would take the lesson to heart. To strive to do better and atone.
... But he couldn't get the words out.
Yuusei did not regret his actions. He only regretted failing. Even now he still desired to reclaim his family's oldest treasure once his wounds healed. And beyond that, he wanted a rematch with Karma.
Should he lie? Should he confess the shameful truth? Which one would the woman looking into his eyes believe? Which one would preserve his future as a hero?
"I... I don't regret it, Karaburan-sensei. I still feel like I have to go out there and get it."
The principal sighed, leaning back and breaking their staring contest. She squatted on a chair made of solidified air and used the wind to bring a cup of coffee from her desk below her lips.
"Well, there you have it."
Yuusei's shoulders slumped, but his face remained like a statue. He would not cry now. He wouldn't shame himself further. He... he would find a way to explain himself to his mother—
"You can stay in Shiketsu High."
"...What?"
Karaburan smiled at this deflated expression. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I already knew you didn't regret it; I just wanted to hear it from you. I needed honesty. Now we just have to fix that mentality of yours and hope you can graduate as a true hero."
"Then... I won't get held back?"
"Nope. Your license is still getting revoked, albeit."
Yuusei rose to his feet, wiped a bit of dust from his right eye, and bowed to the principal twice.
"Thank you, Karaburan-sensei. I swear I'll do my best to see the error of my ways."
"Yeah, yeah, don't get all teary-eyed with me now," She said, rising to her feet and patting him on the shoulder. "Also, you have detention for 2 months."
"That's fine."
pat pat
"And mandatory community service for the school."
"Ok."
pat pat
"And you have to pay for your damaged costume from your own pocket."
"Sensei..."
"And you have to deliver a 10-thousand-word essay to Rosethorn about laws concerning cases of unlicensed hero work..."
Yuusei was already regretting his actions. Truly, Shiketsu was an incredible school for inciting such quick change.