Welp here we are again. 2300 ps, third in the ranking. I am living in a dream.
PLUS this chapter is double editted by yours truely, Joe_Mama
LET ME KNOW IF IT FEELS BETTER!!!!!
That's all.
Happy reading
Next stop:- 2300+400 = 2700PS. LETS GET IT!!!!
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Honoka Shuzenji walked down the west wing corridor, the soft click-clack of her walking echoing through the halls.
She had finally changed into something more comfortable. Which was a comfortable silk robe colored deep emerald green, though the headaches of the day — the missing alloy shipments, the China trip, the stress of Akira's exam(Even though she knew damn well he destroyed it) — still weighed on her shoulders.
Another thing on her shoulder was a certain black kitty.
Nia was purring, her head resting on Honoka's shoulder, her tail swishing against the silk. To anyone else, she was just a cat. To Honoka, she was the fourth member of their small family.
"And then?" Honoka asked, enjoying the conversation. She scratched the cat behind the ears, right in the sweet spot. "What happened after the written exam? Did he actually focus, or did he speed-run it?"
"It was sooooooooooooo boring!" Nia complained; her childish whine echoed through the hallway. "Daddy just sat there filling in circles for an hour. He didn't even use his brain! I could feel his thoughts, Miss Honoka. He was thinking about dinner and about Elden Ring. He just looked at the paper and moved his hand. Scribble, scribble, scribble. I fell asleep twice. The desk was sooo hard."
Honoka chuckled. "He has a high IQ, Nia. Written exams are just a formality for him. Nezu made sure he studied the curriculum three years ago."
"Yeah, but then we went to the big hall!" Nia perked up, her yellow eyes widening as she remembered the sensory overload. "And that loud banana-man yelled at everyone! He was so loud! I wanted to bite his ankles!"
"Present Mic," Honoka nodded, suppressing a smile. "He takes some getting used to. He's a good hero, but his volume control is broken."
"And then..." Nia's ears flattened against her skull. Her body tensed in Honoka's arms, the purring stopping abruptly. "Then the rude glasses boy stood up."
Honoka stopped walking. She felt the shift in the cat's mood instantly — the sudden spike of fear and defensive aggression. "Glasses, boy?"
"Yeah," Nia hissed softly, her claws extending slightly into the robe. "He pointed at Daddy. He yelled at us. He said we were distracting. He said I was a creature."
Nia buried her face in Honoka's neck, her voice trembling with a memory that wasn't just about today, but about a cage in a lab years ago.
"He told Daddy to put me on a leash."
The temperature in the hallway dropped.
It wasn't a quirk effect. It was the weight of maternal rage.
Honoka didn't move. Her face remained calm, but her eyes — those amber eyes that had stared down villains, negotiated billion-yen contracts, and watched her friends die — burned with green flames.
"Did he?" she whispered. "Did he really say that?"
She knew Nia's history. She knew about the research facility Akira had saved her from. She knew about the tests, the collars, the restraints.
"Don't worry," Nia said quickly, sensing the rising killing intent radiating from the woman holding her. She licked Honoka's chin. "Daddy handled it! He got super scary! He made blue fire swords with burning red edges appear around the glasses boy's neck! He looked like the Demon King! And he promised me he would never leave me!"
Honoka exhaled slowly, forcing the green flame in her eyes to die down. She resumed walking, holding Nia just a little tighter.
"Of course he did," Honoka murmured, kissing the top of the cat's head, "And he's right. We would never leave you, honey. You are part of this family. Anyone who tries to put a leash on you will have to go through me. And I have very expensive lawyers."
Nia giggled, the tension melting away. "I know! You're the best, Miss Honoka!"
They turned the corner, heading past the display cases filled with antique medical tools — the Shuzenji legacy — toward the back of the house where the private gymnasium was located.
"Oh! By the way!" Nia chirped, her mood swinging back to excitement like a pendulum. "We also made a friend!"
Honoka paused mid-step. Her eyebrows shot up. She looked down at the cat, genuinely surprised.
"Really?" she asked, skepticism coloring her tone. "A friend? Akira? My Akira? The boy who called his classmates 'NPCs' all the time? The boy who wears a kimono to a high school orientation specifically to alienate people?"
"Yeah!" Nia beamed. "She's the sweetest invisible girl I have ever seen! Well, I didn't see her, but she smelled like peaches and sunshine! She was so fun to be with. When I was crying because of the bad word, she came over to check if I was okay. She wasn't scared of Daddy at all!"
Nia's eyes sparkled with the memory of the sugar rush.
"And above all... She gave me a candy! A strawberry one! It was crunchy!
"
Honoka blinked. "An invisible girl gave you candy, and Akira didn't push her away? He didn't give her the 'I am a lone wolf' speech?"
"Nope!" Nia said proudly. "Because she was kind to me. And Daddy loves me very much. So if someone is nice to Nia, Daddy is nice to them! It's the rules!"
Honoka threw her head back and laughed.
"Yeah, yeah," she chuckled, shaking her head. "Your Daddy loves you very much. He's a softie for you. If something happened to you, he would burn the world down, and I am not even joking. He would literally glass the planet and roast marshmallows on the ruins."
They continued walking, the mood lighter. But as they approached the heavy soundproof doors of the gym, Nia went quiet again. The playful energy dissipated, replaced by a somber heaviness that felt too old for a cat.
She fidgeted in Honoka's arms.
"Miss Honoka?"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"Daddy..." Nia hesitated, looking at the closed gym doors. "Daddy still gets nightmares. About that day."
Honoka's smile vanished.
"I know, honey," she sighed, her gaze softening. "I know."
"He wakes up randomly at night," Nia whispered, her ears drooping. "He thinks I'm asleep, but I'm not. He sits up, and he shakes. He needs his calming pipe to stop the Red Flame from hurting him inside. And then... he keeps repeating it."
Nia mimicked Akira's whisper, her voice heartbreakingly accurate, stripping away the bravado he wore during the day.
"What if I awakened sooner? They would be alive. It's my fault. I was too weak."
Honoka closed her eyes. Pain pierced her heart. It had been two years, but the shadow of the Hida Mountains still stretched over their lives.
"I pretend to sleep," Nia confessed, a tear leaking from her eye. "So he doesn't have to worry about me. But I hate watching Daddy like that. He looks so sad. He looks like he's breaking apart."
Honoka stopped at the gym doors. She shifted Nia so she could look the cat in the eye.
"He is hurting," Honoka admitted softly. "Trauma doesn't just go away, Nia. Even when you're strong. Especially when you're strong, because you think you should have been able to stop it."
She hugged the cat close, burying her face in the fur.
"But he will get through it. Do you know why?"
Nia looked up. "Why?"
"Because he isn't alone anymore," Honoka said firmly. "He has his mother. He has his grandmother. And he has his daughter. We are his shield, just like he is ours. We hold him together when he cracks."
Nia's eyes widened. She sniffled, then nodded vigorously. Her small face set in a determined expression that mirrored Akira's own stubbornness.
"YEAH!" she declared. "Nia will help Daddy get better! I will purr extra loud! I will hunt all the nightmares and bite them on the butt!"
Honoka smiled, stroking her back. "That's the spirit. Now, let's go see what he's doing. Hopefully, he hasn't destroyed my expensive equipment again. The insurance premiums are getting ridiculous."
***
The Shuzenji Private Gym.
The room was vast and filled with millions of yen worth of state-of-the-art training gear. The walls were reinforced with the same titanium-tungsten alloy used in Tartarus cells, capable of withstanding extreme heat, impact, and quirk discharges.
In the center of the room, the floor was cleared of mats and weights.
Akira stood there.
He wasn't wearing his kimono. Here, in the privacy of his sweat and blood, he was dressed in a traditional indigo kendo-gi and hakama.
He wasn't holding a wooden shinai. He wasn't playing points.
In his hands, he held two katanas. They weren't sharp steel; they were dull training blades made of a dense tungsten alloy, weighted to mimic the real live-steel swords he used as "Blade."
He stood perfectly still, his breathing rhythmic and slow. Inhale for four. Hold for four. Exhale for four.
Opposite him stood a machine.
It was a Type-Zero Combat Droid — a prototype developed by Shuzenji Enterprises. It was a sleek, humanoid robot with four mechanical arms, each holding a shock-baton capable of delivering 50,000 volts. Its chassis was matte black, and its single optical sensor glowed a menacing red.
"Begin," Akira said. His voice was calm, devoid of the playfulness he showed Nia.
The robot whirred to life. Its synthetic voice echoed in the cavernous gym.
"INITIALIZING. PLEASE SELECT DIFFICULTY."
"Max," Akira stated without hesitation.
The robot paused, its processor cycling.
"WARNING. MAX DIFFICULTY IS SET FOR PRO HERO SIMULATION. LETHAL FORCE PROTOCOLS ARE DISABLED, BUT SIGNIFICANT INJURY IS LIKELY. CONFIRM?"
"Affirmative."
"CONFIRMED."
Akira tightened his grip on the hilts. He rotated his wrists, the heavy blades cutting through the air with a sharp swish. He shifted his stance, lowering his center of gravity.
"Add parameter," Akira ordered. "Turn on the heat signatures."
The robot paused again.
"HEAT SIGNATURES ACTIVATED. THERMAL EMITTERS ENGAGED."
The robot's chassis began to glow. Vents opened along its torso and arms, releasing waves of intense, shimmering heat. The temperature in the gym began to climb rapidly, simulating the environment of a fire-zone... or the presence of a heat-based villain.
Akira didn't flinch. He let the heat wash over him. It reminded him of the canyon. It reminded him of Sasha and Shino. It kept him sharp.
"STARTING IN 5..."
Akira lowered his stance further. His muscles coiled like steel springs.
"4..."
He closed his eyes.
"3..."
In the darkness behind his eyelids, he didn't see the gym. He didn't see the robot.
He saw a cliff. He saw a man made of muscle laughing as he dropped a boy into the abyss. He saw the dead bodies.
"2..."
He pushed the fear down. He compressed it, turning it into fuel.
"1..."
--<<>>--
What do you think? Like I said, he did not walk out of all that gore without any negitives.
Next chapter will explore it even further.
What do you think of this? Let me know.
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