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Dragon's Pride (Ch 51)
🕑 Added 2025-06-11 20:42:34 +0000 UTCShota Aizawa is a person who does not enjoy the daytime. Admittedly a large part of that is due to the fact he spends most of his nights working as an Underground hero, but he is also of the firm belief that many of his most problematic issues force themselves to the forefront during the day. Case in point; the students he teaches at UA. Then again, now that he isn’t the homeroom teacher for one of the heroics classes he can get more sleep than he used to get. Sure, he isn’t allowed to use his expulsion threat to get students to take being a hero more seriously, but his fellow heroics teacher is well versed in terrifying people, so he doesn’t really need to do it himself anymore to ensure they understand being a hero isn’t some easy job where you only have to worry about making yourself look good for the media while arresting the occasional purse snatcher.
Well, with how more ruthless villains have been taking advantage of the reduced hero presence to make a name for themselves, he doubts the intimidation isn’t strictly necessary anymore. But he doesn’t think it hurts anything to maintain and it helps to reduce the amount of trouble the students are willing to get into during lessons.
Anyways, another persistent problem that he has to deal with whenever he’s awake during the day is his friend Hizashi Yamada, or rather, how utterly loud the man is. Something he does not want to deal with just after spending a night fighting villains. Or just after waking up. Or just in general, really. Why he ever let that damn cockatoo convince him that sharing a living space was a good idea he’ll never know.
Another issue is that he can’t just run across rooftops to travel during the day since he’s an Underground hero. Not only does that draw attention when he works best in anonymity, but too many Limelight heroes make the mistake of assuming he’s some villain trying to escape pursuit using the high ground, and not enough of them bother trying to tell him to stop or to question him on why he’s running across rooftops. Well, that’s been less of a problem ever since the purge conducted on the ranks of heroes, one of the best decisions he thinks the HPSC has ever made - even with how more dangerous villains have cropped up - but it’s still something that happens from time to time. Which is why he’s currently stuck on a crowded train, grumbling to himself about all the different things that upset him during the day. At least none of those media vultures are on it with him. Deranged scavengers.
The media is probably the biggest problem he has with the day, and how utterly insane they all are. It’s not an uncommon sight for them to just be driving around in a news van or even wandering the streets on foot in the hopes that they’ll be the first on the scene if a villain attack happens, which is utterly moronic in Aizawa’s eyes. What kind of idiot goes around the city hoping that a villain attack will happen near them?
He hears a sneeze and instinctively glances over to look, only to freeze and blink in surprise at the sight that greets him. He reaches up and rubs his eyes to try and clear the sleep away from them because he knows that he’s not seeing what he thinks he’s seeing, but despite his efforts the view doesn’t change, and his belief that the daytime is nothing but trouble is once again reaffirmed with extreme prejudice. Because standing not three feet away is the same girl who got his hero license suspended four years ago.
…Except now she’s taller than him now? What the hell?
He glances down to see if she’s standing on something and feels a headache rapidly building behind his eyes. Why the hell is she here, and why the hell is she naked!? He had thought that he’d had enough coffee to last the rest of the day, but evidently he’s been proven wrong. Because anywhere this girl goes means trouble. She got his and Hisashi’s licenses suspended, hit Snipe so hard he got short-term amnesia, and threw All Might into an entirely different city than he was in and then got his license suspended for two years! So, he thinks that it’s perfectly natural to not want to be anywhere near this girl. Not that he really has a choice right now since the train is moving and he can’t just kick out a window to defenestrate himself from.
He heaves a massive sigh, loosening his scarf just in case something goes wrong. Which it will, but he’s not sure what he’ll actually be allowed to do when it does. He can’t actually oppose her, both from the perspective of the law and due to how freakishly strong she is. Oh, and lets not forget that he can’t even erase whatever it is her power is because quirks are bullshit like that sometimes. Hopefully she doesn’t cause any problems until she’s off the train and he has more options with trying to keep her from hurting anyone.
Regrettably the sun is indeed out, and as such he must be forced to suffer because she seems to notice him, her eyes narrowing on the Underground hero for a moment before her arm reaches out and grabs something, starting to make her way closer to him. He can only groan quietly, lamenting the fact that he agreed to meet with Akaguro to discuss how they would deal with the few students in the 1-A heroics class that still seem to think that fame is more important than actually doing their job as heroes. Hopefully they’d get their act together after the summer training camp next week, but he’s not holding his breath.
While he’s been mentally complaining, the girl (woman?) has managed to get closer to him, dragging… a smaller girl with long silver hair, two horns curving around her head at different angles, and a left arm covered in silver scales ending in a set of fingers tipped with claws that look dangerously sharp. Now, he knows that the girl they were warned about is too young to have a kid, let alone one as old as this, so he’s aware that the smaller one can’t be her biological child. It’s possible that she randomly decided to adopt her due to their shared mutations, but, again, she’s too young to possibly think that’s a good idea. Unless she’s crazy, of course, but he doesn’t think that’s the case. Which leads him to believe that they’re simply related, maybe she’s a younger sister or something.
Honestly, that doesn’t reassure him. The situation was stressful enough when he thought he only had to deal with the green girl, but now he has to deal with a second one with a different color scheme. He really wishes that he’d stayed in bed today and slept. Or even just felt like he had the patience to deal with well-meaning or overzealous heroes chasing him down across rooftops. It would definitely be easier to deal with than whatever problems will indubitably occur because of this girl.
By the time he’s finished mentally lamenting the fact that the sun must rise, the girl and the smaller girl have made their way over to him, the older still with that narrow-eyed stare. She opens her mouth and he tenses, drawing upon his years of experience both as a hero and a teacher in the hopes that he’ll be able to react well enough to whatever she has to say that he won’t be threatened with jail time again.
“Have we met before? Because you seem really familiar.”
…His experience has failed him. He’s not entirely sure how to react to the fact that she’s apparently forgotten their encounter in the warehouse. Then again, it was four years ago, and she’s not even half his age. Still, he can’t help the way his eyebrow twitches in irritation that such a major event in his career is only worth ‘him feeling familiar’ to her.
“We’ve met,” he says drolly. Just because she can break him like a twig doesn’t mean that he’s going to bend over backwards to make her feel special. He can be polite (Nemuri), he just refuses unless he thinks they deserve his respect. And this girl doesn’t deserve his respect, she deserves a… actually, he has no idea what she’s been up to, so he has no idea if she’s been committing crimes or not. At the very least she’s supposed to be wearing clothes right now and is committing an act of public indecency, which would allow him to place her under arrest. You know, if it hadn’t essentially been declared that she has diplomatic immunity and can basically do whatever she wants.
She hums consideringly before nodding. “Yeah, probably. But I meet a lot of people, and only a few of them are important enough to bother remembering the names of all the time.” She holds up her hand and starts ticking names off of her fingers. “Ora. Kami. Rappa.” He mentally notes the new name down for both him and Nezu to look into at a later date. More information on the girl will be useful if they have to deal with her again. Though, he supposes he should say when they end up dealing with her again. “Hawks.” Not surprising, Mera has basically put the crimson winged hero permanently on call to deal with her since he’s the only hero who has managed to establish a cordial relationship with her. “Mirko.”
Ok, that name he was not expecting. Why is she familiar with Mirko, out of all heroes? Does it have something to do with the villain attack that put Ryukyu out of commission a few months ago? Who is he kidding, she’s the Dragoon Hero and this girl likes to act like a dragon. Of course she’s the one responsible for Ryukyu’s injuries. Hopefully she manages to avoid ever running into the kid again in the future, though having moved her agency to Hokkaido after she recovered will probably help with that.
She pauses then, brows furrowing in thought for a few moments before she snaps her fingers. “Oh yeah! And Viran!”
Aizawa can’t help but raise an eyebrow at her. “Can you really say that you remember their name if you couldn’t remember it right away?”
She shrugs dismissively. “It’s not like we’ve met more than a couple of times. Not to mention that they aren’t really interesting enough for me to remember them constantly when they aren’t around.” She moves her hand as if waving the detail away. “But enough about that, why are you familiar?”
He hums, mind working furiously to decide whether or not he should be honest. Really though, he can’t make an accurate prediction of what she’ll do regardless of his choice given just how much of an anomaly she is. So, he’ll be honest and hope she doesn’t throw him out of the train. Or he’ll hope that she does. At least then he could reasonably make this someone else’s problem.
“We fought in a warehouse a few years ago. My colleagues and I were trying to apprehend a gang, Snipe threatened the guy you were there with, and you ended up breathing fire on all the gang members.”
She just stares at him for a moment before speaking. “Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?”
His eye twitches again. “Snipe said you had a quirk and you slammed his head into the ground.”
She perks up at that detail, snapping her fingers with a satisfied look on her face. “Oh yeah! I remember now! It was when I first met Ora and Kami and was introduced to the DAB!” She looks down at him and smiles wide, teeth bared in a way that sends a line of tension down his spine. “You’re the Underground hero, Eraserhead.”
“…I am,” he says cautiously, prepared to react at a moment’s notice if she attacks. Probably the only good thing about that incident is the fact that he and Mic have ‘special permission’ to fight her since she said she wanted them to be allowed to. Which, he’s pretty sure she said she wants people to be allowed to fight her in general, but he can understand why DAB would want to try and limit the amount of people actually trying to do so. She did beat All Might without too much trouble, depending on who you asked.
Her smile seems to widen at his nerves and she chuckles, looking down at the silver child who’s been watching their interaction with inquisitive eyes, quiet enough that he’d almost forgotten she was there. “This is how humans are supposed to react to us,” she says in a lecturing tone. “Fear, wariness, and respect. But as long as you have two out of the three in any interaction you’re doing something right.”
The girl nods her head firmly. “Got it, Mom!”
She smiles down at her - adopted - daughter and raises a hand towards her head before spinning on her heel so fast it causes a breeze in the train. Aizawa blinks at the speed and suddenness of the action before realizing that she’s holding a man by the wrist, lifting him up as his feet kick ineffectually in the air. “Did you just grab my ass?”
The plain looking man, his eyes shadowed by his plain black hair, stammers out, “N-no! L-let go of me!”
She hums in thought, tilting her head from side-to-side while Aizawa’s eyes widen and he steps forward with a hand raised placatingly. “Let’s not do anything rash. If he assaulted you, let me take him to the police station. It is my job as a hero.” He really, really hates how the crowd immediately locks onto that statement and focuses on their group, clearing a space around them by some kind of unspoken agreement. The girl hums again before nodding.
“True, that is your job.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “But why should I care about that? He grabbed my ass, I didn’t like it, and now I’m going to roast him for lunch.”
Aizawa recalls the jacket she wore when he first saw her and he realizes that it wasn’t a bad joke. Well, it probably was, but he didn’t think the girl was actually a cannibal. His mind races as he tries to think of a way to talk her down, because he knows from past experience that he’s not strong enough to actually stop her if she does decide to kill the molester. The fact that she hasn’t done so yet means that there’s a chance he can get the man his life.
“Screw you! Why the hell are you naked if you didn’t want someone to cop a feel!” If only the man himself could decide that he wants to live.
Without bothering to look she throws the man on the floor and plants a foot on his chest to stop him from rising despite how he struggles to push her off. “So?” She asks casually. “Why should I let you arrest him instead of enjoying myself and killing him?”
He has no idea what to offer her, nor any idea what she would accept, so he blurts out the first thing that crosses his mind. “I’ll get you an autograph.”
She blinks at him for a moment and he mentally berates himself. There’s no way that she’d-
“Ok.”
His mind screeches to a halt and he looks at her, baffled. “Huh?”
She shrugs. “I said ok. I used to collect hero autographs, and this is as good an opportunity as any to start rebuilding them into my Hoard.”
…He has no clue what’s going on with this girl anymore. Not that he did in the first place, but he thought he had a better read on her than this.
“I’m still taking something to snack on though.” His eyes widen at her amendment, but there’s nothing he can do as she twists her foot and digs her claws into the man’s shoulder as he screams before she pulls her leg back. Taking his arm with it.
She reaches down to pick it up while the train car erupts into screams of terror, people shoving against each other as they attempt to get as far away from her as they can. She ignores them all, choosing instead to look down and breathe out a small tongue of flame that cauterizes the man’s wound, causing him to pass out from the pain.
She gives Eraserhead a smug look before bringing the arm up and taking a bite out of it. “He’s still alive,” she says around a mouthful of human flesh. Aizawa has to fight back the bile that tries to climb up his throat at the sight. He knew that she doesn’t think like a normal person. He knew that she doesn’t care for others. But still, the casual ease of her actions make him worry for the future.
Who could possibly reign her in if she decided to start a massacre?
Comments
Yann Bourgeron
Maybe if she do the puppy eyes
Turbo Toboggan
Another dragon if they cared enough to do it. Which is not likely.
eevin1
Who could possibly reign her in if she decided to start a massacre? eri?
