Chapter Text
It really could have been so easy to just be a backup for a random hero. Instead, Kaina was being driven by a random grunt who had the quirk they needed into Deika City.
Shimura was sitting in the back of the van and Kaina’s mind wouldn’t let her forget that. Tonight, they shared a common goal, but Kaina also had two different missions to accomplish.
She had the “official” mission of going with Shimura to suppress the possible future power grab and rebellion by a rogue faction ready to take over whatever evil empire had just crumbled. She really wasn’t privy to many details about that.
Then, her confidential commission assigned duty was to ensure no civilian witnessed this or remained alive after doing so. This was necessary as these people were more than a bit fanatical about their messianic leader.
And of course, her self-assigned mission to end Shimura. Logically, after the mess her first attempt had been, this would probably be her best chance. Just wait until Shimura took out most of those villains, shoot her while she was distracted and clear out the rest by herself.
That last one just made her feel even more dirty.
Kaina had been no stranger to assassinations, not even cowardly ones. Sometimes she just had to take out a hero who had been deemed irredeemable and unnecessary, or a villain who was too dangerous to be kept alive, or even a normal person who became aware of something like Yoroi Musha’s incredible homophobia.
But she had never taken out someone like Shimura.
Such a good and kind person, truly working towards making the world a better place. It was such a sad thing that her existence only let the trash of hero society hide further under her cowl. That scum was left free to weave a world of lies kept safe by her shadow.
And, admittedly, a smaller part of her also felt sad. Shimura was her age, and yet she was beloved by everyone. She was so warm while Kaina just couldn’t find it in herself to be positive. She was so strong and smiled so honestly every day.
When was the last time I was happy like that?
Cut short from her musings, she glanced over at Shimura for a second to see an expression that shouldn’t have been there. Kaina couldn’t quite read it. Maybe it was some sadness, or anger? Whatever it was, the sight of it worried her. What if Shimura had found out?
“How do you feel? Are you worried about the mission?” Kaina spoke in a cautious, neutral voice. No need to upset her or further antagonise her.
For a second, Shimura chuckled. It was an empty thing, just meant to reassure.
“I’m not afraid of these guys. They aren’t even as frightening as my master and he was a big softy. I just thought…” She trailed off. Kaina could tell by the way her expression shifted that she was avoiding something.“Have you ever thought that things would be simple? Just, train hard, defeat the big bad, maybe fall in love and live happily ever after?”
It was a fairly optimistic view of things, but Kaina could relate. When she was younger she thought maybe, one day, society could become something easy, something clean.
She now understood that was impossible. Too naive. No matter however much she cleaned, trash would always pile up. Sometimes she would even be forced to protect that same trash.
It made sense for Shimura to see things that way, though. That justice was something achievable, that she was working towards a good world.
“I once did. When I was younger. But now, I can see it clearly. There is no end to this, there is no perfect future we will reach someday. All we can do is keep going forever to preserve what we have or change where the shadows hide. We can never truly improve.”
Now Shimura was looking at her with a puzzled expression, almost cute in a way. At least she seemed a bit less upset.
“Since when do you feel like this? That's a pretty depressing thing to think of as a hero. Did something happen to make you think that?”
Was Shimura probing her? Was all of this actually calculated?
Deflect, quickly!
“I don’t think it’s that strange. You just said something pretty similar. Don’t we all feel powerless from time to time? Like things are not improving?”
That seemed to work. The other woman had a frustrated look on her face, clearly irritated about something.
"It's not that, it's just that… There was this man, and he was the worst villain I've ever met. I still feel proud about taking him down and I know the world is a better place for it, and my Master would be proud of me."
She paused for a second, taking a breath. She looked as if she were reminiscing for a second, before that was gone.
"But it feels like nowadays everyone wants to take his place. Yakuza torturing children for power, mad scientists trying to copy his quirk, liberation advocates who want to turn everything into a "this wouldn't have happened if normal people were able to legally use their quirks" scenario. It feels like all of these people just jumped out because I defeated that man."
The half-pout on her face was something Kaina never expected to see. Nor did she expect to feel sad about the life troubles of the woman she would hopefully kill later that night.
"But it is not your fault. People are opportunistic and move wherever there is a space open. We will never be in a world without villains because even then heroes would make their own villains. Just look at that insane Todoroki boy," Kaina spoke, allowing herself to be a bit more compassionate and caring than she had been in a long time.
"Oh, yeah, Touya. I remember that. I ended up using his dad as a punching bag when the news broke." She chuckled for a bit, clearly recalling some fond memories. "But good always needs to rise to fight evil. And all these guys that came after, I can tell you none of them would have been able to do as much damage as that man did every day for two centuries."
"Sounds like a right old arsehole. So you think that by taking down that man you made a better, more fair world? And that there will be no one like him in the future?” Kaina asked, trying to gauge the difference in their beliefs. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to go. Maybe Shimura could be persuaded to join her?
In her eyes, Shimura was always too idealistic. How could she tell the world that everything was going to be okay? How could she believe that?
But if this was her true face, the one she kept hidden from the public, Kaina could see her being more similar to herself than she had previously thought. After all, her quest had just been to get rid of heroes and villains who would taint public perception in the beginning. She had been completely unaware of how far she’d be thrown into the deep end.
“I know that there will be no one like him in the future, but if there ever was I would stop them,” Shimura answered, completely resolute once more. “Peace, good, and kindness may seem like fragile things to you, and they are things you have to take care of, but they are always worth preserving. You don’t just give away your cat because it needs upkeep.”
Somehow, that struck a chord within her.
“But how much do you have to lie? How much longer will you keep telling the world that everything is okay? And when will you admit that things are awful? People look up to heroes but they don’t know half the stuff they pull whenever they’re in private. Even us, right now we’re going to take down popular leaders of a civic movement! I just...need you to say that things are not alright, and that they aren’t getting better!”
Without realizing it, her voice was raised and she had started moving closer to Shimura, almost shouting in her face. Shimura herself didn’t look angry or disappointed, just understanding. Maybe she had given a bit too much away.
“If you know of any heroes doing the wrong thing, tell me and I will stop them. But sometimes telling people that things are going to be okay makes them want to work towards being okay too. A person who has been told the world is broken and can’t be fixed is more likely to not care about breaking it a little more.” Her eyes pierced right into Kaina as she spoke, like she understood her. As if this wasn’t her first time having this conversation.
“I feel like no one has told you things will be okay in a long time. And, you know what? If you ever need a hand, let me give you mine. Whatever problems this world throws at you, I promise to help solve them. If you think that the world is awful, let me prove to you it can be better.”
Shimura extended her hand forwards and Kaina was so tempted to take it. To trust, for the first time, what that smile had been saying all these years.
To feel like that hole in her heart could be fixed.
Just then, the van stopped and there was a shout directed at her.
“Tsutsumi, you should get down here! The dossier says you need to climb this building to be in position. Imma take Shimura-sama to the entrance and we’ll signal you when we’re in position!” commanded the driver, completely ruining the moment.
Kaina hadn’t minded this guy earlier since he was just some thug chosen for his quirk, but now she felt incredibly irritated at the intrusion. Leaving the van right now was the last thing she wanted, opposite to how she felt at the beginning of the trip. There was just something drawing her to Shimura right now.
Meanwhile, Shimura’s face was back to that usual smile. Telling the world to throw anything at her, knowing that she could take it on. For some reason, it made Kaina’s cheeks feel warm now.
“I hope we can keep talking later! Please try not to shoot me!” And there was that wink again. “See you later, Kaina-san!”
Kaina .
She got out before replying because she was pretty sure her brain was in no state to speak right now.
The night air helped cool her face down, and, almost before she realized it, she was already in position. Her mind felt blank, unable to think straight, so many doubts racing through it.
Was Shimura being serious? Did she know more than she let on? Would she really help her if she knew what Kaina had been doing? Why had she called her by her name? And why did hearing it make her feel so warm ?
She must have missed the signal sent out by both of them, because after a few minutes she could tell that guy had used his quirk, Unsafe, to shut down the security in that building and there was Nana, climbing through a dozen floors to fight thirty to one.
“Right, try taking the stairs and going through the big conference room on the next floor. That’s where they’re all gathered up, I don’t think they realized their cameras went out.” She could hear herself speaking to Shimura, even if she couldn’t quite register it as her own voice.
From her vantage point, she could see everything.
The group was sitting at a massive conference table, sharing beverages and conversing spiritedly. Definitely not business talk of any kind, even if their target’s lawyer was there, it held too much camaraderie for work talk. No, it felt distinctly of people who were complicit in something, sharing a celebration.
Their expressions quickly soured not long after.
Shimura broke through the door with a swift kick and probably said some stupid quip or one liner.
The reaction was immediate.
A man who, seriously, was wearing a parka indoors ran at Shimura, clearly more than a bit confident in his quirk, while a nearby woman started creating water from her hands.
The result was an enormous iceberg encasing Shimura in less than a second.
For anyone else, that may have been overkill.
Instead, it just shattered cleanly into a shower of ice fragments that littered the room, and Shimura emerged unscathed, glowing with power.
Damn .
The man in front of her tried to bend those fragments into spears and daggers and anything to cut the heroine, but nothing was able to do any real damage.
It was interesting , how Shimura just threw those massively powerful and trained individuals aside like nothing. If nothing else, it made for a great viewing experience when she started slapping a gigantic monstrosity that was supposed to be their leader around like a balloon.
The people she was fighting were determined and well coordinated, but they were well beyond outmatched. She’d put their odds at slightly less than lightning hitting a random passerby, only for those relatively unknown quirks.
At some point, a thought crossed her mind. They were all way too coordinated, as if they had been fighting together for a long time. It could be excused by their philosophy, but Kaina knew that this level of coordination between over two dozen people was not something natural.
They took turns trying to pelt Shimura with whatever quirks they had, from explosions to ice to just huge jets of water. It wasn’t hurting her, but it looked as if she was wearing down, just a bit.
And by looking around, Kaina was able to spot the cause of their teamwork and coordination. In one corner, there was a man they already had identified as Koku Hanabata, alias Trumpet. His quirk allowed him to boost the abilities of others around him. In the opposite corner was Rikiya Yotsubashi’s mysterious lawyer, just standing there with a serene look on his face.
If she allowed them to go on, she could get a better shot at neutralizing Shimura later but...did she even want that anymore? How dirty would she feel by doing it this way? And... would it actually incite a war if she was killed here?
Also, her hatred for lawyers prevented her from letting this one win.
He seemed to be a telepath, if she had to guess, helping to coordinate the people around him. His quirk was probably tied to his emotions as he was the only one calm in the middle of all this.
Kaina knew this would give her position away and maybe leave her open to a future attack, but with Shimura there she felt like she could risk it.
Two bullets were fired, one hitting Trumpet in his left knee. He went down screaming and the group visibly became more sluggish after that.
The second one also hit its target in the knee, but his reaction was very different. The lawyer went down with a blissful expression on his face, like some deep dark dream of his had just been fulfilled.
Disgusting.
After that, the fight changed from an incredibly outmatched, well organized group trying to take down the number one hero to people just trying to dogpile her. It was amusing to say the least.
So busy watching them struggle, Kaina forgot any of them could pose actual danger to Shimura.
That was, until the other hero was frozen again. This time, the woman was encased in a much more compressed sphere that had its creator nearly falling to the ground in exhaustion after making it.
That could be dangerous. But Kaina doubted her bullets could break it and giving their targets a reminder that she was there would probably go poorly.
Still, a part of her mind was screaming at her to help Shimura. As ridiculous as that thought seemed, for a variety of reasons.
In the end, she was wrong to worry. Slowly, some kind of energy had started spreading throughout the sphere, like black lines that caused cracks in it.
Then, it exploded. Shattered into millions of small pieces that looked like a rain of glass. Floating in the middle of that was Shimura, smiling triumphantly as if to say " You can't stop me. "
From her body emerged strands of darkness, grabbing and subduing the more dangerous and persistent threats.
Kaina really couldn't understand what was happening. Flying and super strength was one thing, but this was beyond what most quirks could do. It was something she had never seen the other woman do before.
As fixated as she was on watching Shimura whip people around, Kaina almost let one of the people with an unknown quirk touch the hero’s back. A second before the man’s hand reached Shimura, a bullet put a hole in it.
And then, Kaina's entire body felt like it was on fire.