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Bending over her knee, she watched the crowds of people hurry about their daily lives, oblivious to shadows creeping up on them as the sun dipped behind the cold buildings. What it would be like to have that type of blissful ignorance?
Kaina turned to her student, perch on the roof next to her, chicken skewer in hand. It wasn't often that they finished the mission early enough to stay out and simply enjoy the nothingness before the two of them were due to report back.
"Do you ever think what you would be if the Commission didn't take you in?"
"Dead." Hawks didn't even skip a beat as he took another bite, and god wasn't that depressing.
Kaina gave him a playful shove, watching as the crimson wings fluttered out to keep him from falling off the side of the building. "You little shit, give me the fantasy."
"I don't know what you want me to say. Jail, maybe?" Hawks waved the skewer absentmindedly, gold eyes staring longingly at the people below betrayed the illusion of cheerful boredom. "But I think even if things were different, I still would have ended up a hero."
"That so."
"Ya. Probably still in the top hundred, but as far away from the top ten as I can be and still afford this daily." Hawks took another pointed bite, and Kaina let out a barking laugh at her student’s ridiculous habits. "What about you?"
Kaina shrugged. She had been younger than Hawks when the Commission scooped her up. She barely got her quirk when people in suits came with vague promises of fame and money passed under the table to parents that hadn't wanted another child. From there on out, Kaina never got a chance to pause and think about anything other than training and living up to the Commission’s expectations. Draining her of all thoughts but the raw, guttural, need to please.
"Miltary was the next bet."
"The fantasy." Hawks nodded sagely, repeating her words back to her and making the corners of her mouth twitch upwards.
"I don't know, never gave it much thought. I think I would want to work with brats like you." Kaina paused to look at her student, what Hawks could have been if there were options other than the Commission. "Maybe a social worker."
It would have been nice to use her hands to do something good, to make a change that really mattered. All Kaina wanted since she was a kid was to help people. While kids in her classes looked in wonder at All Might and boasted of the glory and recognition they would get when they became heroes, Kaina sat back, planning how to be a hero to those who really needed one.
Hadn't she worked hard to prove that she had what it took to make it into the Hero Commission's programs? Clawing tooth and nail to the top, she fulfilled all their demands, even as the dark red stains crawled up her arms.
Transform, reload, fire.
The simple progress soon became routine. And her file quickly became filled with a list of crimes that, had she not been under the Commission, would have landed her instantly in prison. How ironic, and yet Kaina continued pushing blindly forward, wanting to believe that what she was doing was for the great good.
Until one day, when she looked in the mirror and couldn't recognize the dead-eyed person that stared back at her.
Kaina sighed, moving closer to her idiot student and ruffling his hair, laughing as Hawks tried to brush her hand away. "Come on then, we should be getting back. They'll be wondering where our report is."
Hawks spread his wings, red feathers brushing against the wind. One of these days, Kaina thought to herself, his wingspan would be a sight to behold, a symbol for the next generation of heroes. It's a shame she would never get a chance to see it.
"Okay, Teach." Hawks grinned as he backed towards the edge, letting his heels hang over empty air. "Race ya!"
"You little shit." She yelled as Hawks leaped, barely catching her student's trilling laugh as, true to his title, he dove down with blinding speed.
Quickly, Kaina turned her arm into a grappling gun and followed her student. Speeding down the back of the tower, a thousand tiny needles sliced at her as the air lashed around her. She felt a liberating pain as she grew closer and closer to the street below at a controlled free fall.
All too soon, she landed with a soft sound, back to the confines of the ground. Kaina hurried over to where she parked her bike, strapping on the helmet before kicking the center stand and racing after her student, who by now was likely already at the front doors of the Commission's main building.
Sure enough, by the time she arrived, Hawks was already waiting for her. "Getting slow in your old age Teach?"
"You wish." Kaina gave him a gentle shove as she passed. "Maybe then you would have a chance of beating me."
But with every step they took towards the President's office, the more Hawks' smile seemed to vanish. The kid's eyes hardened to that of a soldier. To the best of her knowledge, Hawks had been scooped by the Commission even younger than she had. A scrap of kid that quickly defined himself as an upcoming star and one that would fast replace her as the Commission's favourite pet.
"I can do this alone. Go rest up."
Hawks froze, tilting his head, cold eyes watching her. "They will be expecting both of us."
"Don't worry about me, kid. Just going to give this to the Up-Highs." Kaina pulled her student in a one-armed hug. Feeling her student freeze at the unfamiliar gesture, Kaina wondered when was the last time anyone had shown the kid any affection. "Goodbye, Hawks."
Hawks gave her a puzzled look, escaping from her hold. "See you later."
She paused to watch as Hawks made his back down the hallway, shoulders set stiff, so different from the carefree child she had seen just minutes earlier. Hawks believed that he wouldn't have made it this far without the Commission, but Kaina couldn’t help but wonder who he could've been without the Commission. And worse yet, who he would become under them.
Steeling herself, Kaina opened the door.
The President stood by the window, his back to her, watching the as the people they were supposed to serve scurried around below them. "Lady Nagant, report."
"Mission successful, no witnesses."
"And the boy." President placed his arms behind him, his back still to her. Unsuspecting. "Did he live up to his purpose?"
Her hand rippled, silently changing forms. "No doubt he will make the Commission proud someday."
Click.
Finally, the President turned, only to come face to face with her gun. Kaina could read the realization slowly dawning on him. A grim smile twisted her lips. Good, she thought, let him understand what she was about to do and why.
"You would betray the Commission? After everything, we have given you. You would be nothing, another unwanted child on the streets of Musutafu, if we did not get to you first." The President stood frozen, but his eyes burned with contempt, looking at her like when she was a child and wanted to make her feel like tiny, nothing more than a bug to be stepped on.
"Or I could have been someone better."
Kaina stood tall and raised her arm, the barrel of the gun centimetres away from the President's forehead. Close enough to see the bead of sweat make its way down his face. Close enough for Kaina to know she would be the last face he ever saw.
"It's all just a phony scam." Kaina widened her stance, her gun arm steady, pointed directly at the spot between the President's eyes. "You made me kill people just to what? Put a bandage on this false society."
"The people don't know what they want." President tried to give a dismissive wave, but Kaina moved her gun closer, stopping him in mid-motion. "Without us to give them order, society would crumble into anarchy."
She shook her head. "That's just a pretty lie you tell yourself to keep power. And I've done terrible things to keep your illusion up for too long."
As their conversation trailed to an end, fear began to show on the President's face. "I never took you for a fool Kaina. But think about what it is you are trying to achieve here. In this era of quirks, without our system, they would lead themselves into total destruction."
"Consider this my resignation." The single-shot rung with finality as the body of the Commission President toppled to the ground.
Transform, reload, fire.
No hesitation. Just like he taught her.
There would be no point in staying longer, and with every second she spent the likelihood that , she would have to enter a firefight just to escape increased. But she barely had time to turn before the door opened.
"You killed him."
"Yes"
"Why?" Hawks stared down at the body, head tilted like the creature he received his hero name from. Predatory . There was no other way to describe how he looked at the moment.
"So I could save others."
She tried to move past him, but Hawks' wings spread out to stop her, feathers razor sharp.
"I'm done, Hawks." Kaina took another step. "I'm exhausted. Death after death, there is so much blood on my hands for what? To keep this machine of lies going and preserve this sham of a society."
A series of lethal feathers floated around them. Kaina sighed, reloading her pistol. "You or me, Hawks, what will it be."
Hawks shifted a feather against her throat as she moved the gun closer towards her former student. Stance identical to those he did in their sparring matching, but with none of the playfulness. Here was the prodigy the Commission praised.
"That was never even a question."
Hawk's eyes remained locked on her's, and for all the Commission tried to strip the more unpleasant features for his quirk, a shadow of them remained in his focused stare. If Kaina had been anyone else, her will might have faltered. But in this small room, with the two of them at quirk disadvantage, the outcome would come neatly down to experience.
Hawks barged at her armed only with his quirk, and she could name ten ways to make a quick, easy escape. Each coming at the cost of the kid, in one way or the other. Either by her bullet or the deadly weight of the Commission's disappointment.
"Aw shit, kid."
She couldn't do it.
God knows how many people she killed over the years. Civilians and villains alike fell to her gunfire symphony. One more. One more, and freedom would be around the next corner. In the past, Kaina bottled the guilt up, yet face to face with her student, it came crashing down in waves.
Kaina watched Hawks grow up in the hallways of the Commission, turning from broken stray to the promising young upstart. She was there on his first mission, tied the bandages around tiny fingers when uncooperative feathers sharpened into wild knives.
Kaina might never have been a sympathetic shoulder, especially for a child ripped away from everything familiar and launched into their sterile world. Still, tears went ignored in her reports on Hawks' progress. A small mercy in a system designed to crush you. Hell, she laughed when his voice cracked and bought Hawks his first drink.
She raised her hands above her head. And surrendered.
"Guess this is it, Keigo."
"You are hereby under arrest." Hawks moved automatically, the feather sword never leaving her neck, following the Villain Arrest procedure precisely as he was trained to. Good, just like Kaina taught him. "Anything you say can and will be held against you."
"Ya ya, I know the deal. Before you send me off," A bitter smile traced her lips. "In my back pocket is a number of someone that might help you burn your cage when you're ready."