Izukus point of view:
I looked over at the adults. My mom was watching from Hikaru's side, her eyes soft with pride. The Yaoyorozus looked stunned and the Intellis seemed amazed by my actions.
Then Jarvis spoke up.
"I have completed my analysis of their network, sir. Their operational files are quite detailed. Shall I—"
"KYAAA!"
Momo shrieked and nearly launched herself out of my lap. Saiko flinched hard and grabbed my sleeve. Both girls whipped their heads toward Jarvis, who was still coiled calmly on the dusty floor, his sensor glowing bright blue.
"Jarvis," I said, my voice flat. "We are going to have a serious conversation after this about your timing And about what is and isn't appropriate to do during a crisis situation."
Jarvis's sleek head lowered slightly. "I... apologize, sir. I did not intend to startle the young ladies."
I sighed and looked down at Momo and Saiko. Momo was still clutching my shirt for dear life, her face burning bright red. Saiko was frowning deeply, her arms now crossed tight over her chest.
"It's okay," I said gently. "It's just Jarvis. He'll be properly disciplined later for scaring you guys. I might even take away his snake documentaries."
Jarvis's scales visibly shifted to a pale, ashy gray. "Sir, please. Not the documentaries. I was only three episodes away from completing the series on King Cobra habitat selection. The anticipation has been tremendous."
Momo let out a wet, surprised giggle. Saiko's frown cracked into a small smile despite herself.
I looked down at Momo, still settled in my lap. "I need to speak with Jarvis now, okay?"
I carefully lifted her and set her down beside Saiko on the dusty floor. Momo made a tiny, embarrassing squeak, and her face went from pink to deep crimson. She quickly smoothed her dress and stared intently at her own hands, her shoulders hunched up to her ears.
Beside her, Saiko was pouting. Her lower lip was actually stuck out, her brow furrowed, her arms still crossed. She looked at Momo, then at me, then back at Momo. Her pout deepened.
That was weird... ehh what ever I didn't have time to figure out why she was pouting right now.
I turned to Jarvis. "Okay. Give me everything you've got."
Jarvis's scales shifted back to their normal iridescent sheen. "Certainly, sir. There are thirty hostile individuals currently inside the estate as off right now. They are actively moving through the building, searching every room. Their primary objective is to locate the Yaoyorozu family."
The room felt colder as soon as those words left his mouth.
"They are searching for us," Renjiro whispered. His face had gone pale. Sayuri grabbed his arm.
"They are," Jarvis confirmed. "However, they have not yet reached this wing. Your window is narrow, but still present."
"Threat assessment," I said. "Use the star system. I want rankings for every hostile based on their quirk and known criminal history."
"Compiling now." A pause. "The majority of the hostiles rank between two and three stars. Standard combatants with minor quirks. Enhanced reflexes, minor strength amplification, basic sensory abilities. Low to moderate threat individually."
I nodded. "And the leaders?"
Jarvis's voice grew more serious. "There are three primary command figures. The overall leader is Goro Takamura, alias 'Ironhide.' Individual threat ranking: four stars. However, his command position and group coordination raise his effective threat to six stars."
I frowned. "He used to be a hero, didn't he?"
"Yes, sir. Formerly registered under the hero name 'Fortress.' His quirk, Fortress Frame, is an enhancer type that grants significant strength and durability. He can lift approximately three tons and withstand most conventional firearms. His speed is below average. He was almost incarcerated for corruption and excessive force, but he escaped custody and formed this villain group. He is currently on the ground floor, guarding the hostages alongside his other commanders."
I filed that away. "Can my claws break through his defenses if necessary?"
Jarvis's response was immediate and confident. "Easily, sir. Fortress Frame provides excellent protection against blunt force and standard projectiles. However, your mono-molecular filament claws cut at the molecular level. His quirk offers no meaningful defense against that level of precision. You should be fine."
A low chuckle escaped me. "Good."
Jarvis continued. "The second commander is Akihiko Mori, alias 'Wildfire.' Threat ranking: five stars. His quirk, Pyro Cloak, allows him to generate and manipulate flames from his entire body. He can project fireballs for long-range attacks and create sustained streams of flame for mid-range engagement. He has significant combat experience and has been involved in multiple arson-related crimes. He is also on the ground floor with the hostages he is the main one who is keeping everyone under control."
Five stars. He may be a real problem.
"The third commander," Jarvis said, "is Reina Shirogane, alias 'Thorn.' Threat ranking: four stars. Her quirk, Spike Body, allows her to generate sharp, bone-like protrusions from any part of her skin. She can launch these spikes as projectiles or use them as melee weapons. The spikes regenerate rapidly. Her criminal record includes assault, armed robbery, and suspected assassination contracts. She is also positioned in the main hall."
I blinked. "Spike Body? She can grow spikes out of her skin and shoot them?"
"Correct, sir."
I muttered under my breath. "She must have eaten the Toge Toge no Mi or she is from the Kaguya clan."
Saiko tilted her head. "The what?"
Momo blinked, her embarrassment momentarily forgotten. "Is that a food? It sounds spicy, and who are the kaguya?"
"Nothing to it really, they are just Anime references. Don't worry about it."
I shook my head and refocused. Something was bothering me. This was too organized, too targeted. Thirty villains, coordinated decoy attacks to remove hero's from the estate, professional equipment, and three experienced commanders. This wasn't a random robbery.
"Jarvis," I said. "What is their actual plan? What do they want with the Yaoyorozus? This isn't just a regular smash and grab."
Jarvis paused. "Accessing their primary objective files now sir."
The room became dead silent. Everyone was holding their breath.
Then Jarvis spoke.
"Oh dear..."
My entire body went rigid as soon as those words left his mouth. Jarvis didn't say "oh dear." Jarvis calculated probabilities, delivered assessments, and occasionally made dry observations and dry remarks about my questionable life choices. He did not express alarm.
"Jarvis." My voice came out flat, controlled. "Report your findings now."
He paused. Then he said: "Sir, I must warn you. What I am about to relay may provoke a significant emotional response. You may become Enraged, specifically because of certain things I have found sir."
The words hit me like cold water. Not many things made me truly angry. Frustrated, yes. Annoyed, constantly. But enraged? That required something specific. Something that cut past every layer of control I'd built for myself.
Jarvis didn't know what I was capable of, heck he and silk did not even know about my training with Hikaru. The fact that he was warning me about my possible emotional response that spoke volumes.
"Just tell me now please." I said.
Jarvis complied. "Their plan extends beyond ransom, sir. They intend to use the Yaoyorozus' Creation-type quirks to construct a device. A bomb to be specific. Based on the schematics in their operational files, its projected yield would be sufficient to destroy an entire metropolitan area."
Sayuri made a sound like she'd been struck. Renjiro's face went from pale to ashen.
"They planned to use Momo," Jarvis continued, his voice carefully neutral, "as leverage. A control mechanism. Her presence would ensure her parents' compliance. They believed parental instinct would override any attempt at rebellion or sabotage. She would make them... manageable."
I exhaled slowly through my nose. "Is that all?"
He stayed quiet.
"That's the part you thought would enrage me?" I shook my head. "This is a basic villain cliché. Hostage family, force compliance, build doomsday weapon. It's stupid, inefficient, and morally bankrupt, but it's not—" I stopped, because something in Jarvis's posture had shifted. His head was lowered slightly. His scales had gone flat and dull.
"There's more isn't there?" I said.
"Yes, sir." A pause. "The leader—Goro Takamura, alias Ironhide—also included... additional provisions in the operational plan. For after the bomb's completion." Another pause, this one longer than the last. "He specified that he intended to have 'fun' with both Mrs. Yaoyorozu and Momo. His documentation expressed a particular... enthusiasm regarding Momo."
The world went very, very quiet.
Jarvis added, barely above a whisper: "I am sorry, sir."
I didn't move. I didn't speak. I didn't even breathe.
Behind me, I heard Sayuri make a sound that wasn't quite human—a raw, keening gasp. Then she moved quickly. She crossed the space between us in two steps and pulled Momo into her arms, crushing her daughter against her chest. Her entire body was shaking in fear and dread.
"Mama?" Momo's voice was small, confused. "Mama, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"
Sayuri couldn't answer. She just held her tighter, her fingers digging into the pink fabric of Momo's dress.
Beside them, Saiko had gone very still. Her magnified eye caught the light as her gaze shifted from Momo to me, then back to Momo's confused face. I watched her process the information provided and I saw the exact moment understanding hit her.
Her face went white.
I was mad.
No. That wasn't right. Mad was too small of a word.
I was pissed!!
The word didn't fit either. Pissed was traffic jams and broken prototypes and Bakugo's existence. This wasn't that. This was something else. Something that sat in my chest like a block of frozen nitrogen, cold and expanding, pressing against my ribs from the inside.
They were going to use her.
They were going to take this girl—this bright, earnest, ridiculously enthusiastic girl who named koi fish and puffed out her cheeks when she was indignant and grabbed my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world—and they were going to use her as a tool. As leverage. As something to be enjoyed for their fuck king pleasure
The cold in my chest cracked.
And something else came out to play and all I saw was red.
Hikaru's Point of View:
The killing intent that rolled off Izuku was unlike anything I'd ever felt from him.
In all our years of training—the silent drills in the forest, the brutal hand-to-hand sessions, the moments I'd pushed him past exhaustion and watched him rise again—he had never once released this. Not a flicker. Not a whisper. He'd kept it buried so deep I'd begun to wonder if he even possessed the capacity for true predatory rage.
It seems that I was wrong.
The wave that flooded the room was wild and Untamed. The first eruption of a volcano that had been building pressure for years, maybe ever since what happened with bakugo. His killing intent wasn't controlled like my own, not yet anyway but even in its raw, chaotic state, I could feel him fighting to contain it. To keep it from spilling past these walls and alerting the scum downstairs.
That restraint, in the middle of this storm, was impressive.
But the volume of it. The depth. Kami above, I hadn't known he carried this much darkness. This much hate. The sheer monstrous weight of it made my own instincts sit up and take notice—not in alarm, but in recognition. This was a predator's soul, finally showing its true shape.
And I understood it completely. Because my own killing intent was rising to meet his, a silent echo from across the room.
The bastard downstairs had planned to touch a child. A cub. Momo was barely nine years old, bright and innocent and full of light, and that animal had written detailed plans about what he wanted to do to her. The thought made something primal in my chest snarl with bloodlust.
I wanted to kill them. All of them. Slowly and painfully.
Then I felt it—a shift beside me. A familiar warmth pressing closer to me.
Inko.
I looked down at her and her eyes had gone fully slitted, those beautiful green irises now vertical and predatory, gleaming with reflected light from the room's dim bulbs. And she was purring.
A low, rumbling vibration that started deep in her chest and resonated against my side where she leaned into me. Her head tilted, rubbing against my shoulder in a gesture so unconsciously feline it made my heart miss a beat.
Her voice was a low, pleased murmur. "Our cub... really is something, huh?"
Our cub.
The words hit me like a physical blow. Not Izuku. Not her son. Our cub. She'd included me. Claimed me as part of her family without hesitation.
I felt heat crawl up my neck. My ears burned. But I didn't pull away. Instead—and I'd deny this under torture—I rubbed my head gently against hers in return, a mirror to her gesture.
"He is," I murmured back, my voice rough with emotion I couldn't fully name but I knew to well. "He really is."
Her purring deepened, and for one suspended moment, surrounded by danger and death and the cold promise of violence, we were just... together. A family unit, consolidated by the threat in our territory.
Then I forced my attention back to the room.
The Yaoyorozus and Intellis were staring at Izuku with expressions that shifted rapidly—shock, awe, and a thread of primal fear. But it wasn't fear of him, exactly. It was the fear of being in the presence of something primal and deadly. The feeling of having death itself breathe down your neck, even though its jaws were aimed elsewhere.
Renjiro had gone pale, one arm wrapped protectively around Sayuri, who was still clutching Momo for dear life. Kenji Intelli had pulled Hanako closer, his jaw tight. Even Alfred, that paragon of British composure, looked like he'd seen a ghost.
But the girls.
Momo, still wrapped in her mother's embrace, had gone completely boneless. Her eyes were half-lidded, her expression peaceful—content, even. As if Izuku's killing intent wasn't a threat but a blanket. A promise of safety. She looked exactly where she belonged, and that realization sent a complicated pulse through my chest.
And Saiko.
Saiko Intelli was a different story entirely.
She had been sitting beside Izuku when the killing intent erupted. Close enough to feel it wash over her, to breathe it in. And instead of recoiling like any sensible person would, she was leaning forward. Her body angled toward him, her eyes—one magnified by that monocle of hers—fixed on his face with an intensity that bordered on hunger.
It was like watching someone drawn toward a flame. Not like a moth, exactly. Moths were mindless. This was something else. Something more deliberate. Like a sailor hearing a siren's call and choosing to steer directly into the rocks.
Her lips were slightly parted. Her cheeks held a faint flush. And her hand had drifted unconsciously toward Izuku's arm, stopping just short of touching him.
I'd seen that look before. In the eyes of recruits who'd just witnessed their first real display of power. In the faces of people who'd found something they wanted to belong to.
Saiko Intelli, had just decided something important about her future it seems. And if I was reading the situation correctly, that future involved my cub in a way that went beyond simple friendship.
I looked at Momo, still wrapped in her mother's arms with her eyes fixed on Izuku with an expression of dazed contentment. Then back at Saiko, who looked ready to crawl into his lap the moment no one was watching them.
A few hours. That's all it had taken. This cub of mine had walked into a birthday party and somehow, without even trying, snatched the hearts of two very intelligent, and very promising young ladies.
I shook my head slowly, a quiet chuckle escaping me. Hopefully he won't be as dense as most boys his age. Girls like this—especially Saiko, with that sharp mind and focused intensity—he'd need to pay attention or get completely run over.
But that was a problem for future Hikaru to talk with izuku about. Present Hikaru had more immediate concerns.
Like the fact that Izuku's killing intent was still flooding the room.
As I was about to bring izuku back to the reality of the situation his killing intent as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished.
The shift was so abrupt that the yayurozus and intelli adults gasped, sucking in air like they'd forgotten to breathe. Renjiro staggered slightly, catching himself against a covered bookshelf. Kenji Intelli's hand went to his chest, his face pale. Even Alfred, unflappable Alfred, let out a quiet breath that sounded almost like relief.
Beside me, Inko stirred. Her purring had stopped the moment Izuku's intent faded, and now she was looking at him with an expression I couldn't quite read—pride, yes, but also something else. Something wary. The look of a mother realizing her cub had grown sharper claws than she'd anticipated.
Izuku spoke, his voice calm and measured, as if he hadn't just unleashed a wave of primal fury.
"Jarvis. Silk. Prepare yourselves. We are getting involved in this."
Jarvis's sleek head lifted from where it rested on the dusty floor. His sensor-eyes glowed brighter, and when he spoke, there was an unusual edge to his synthesized voice—something that might have been concern.
"Master, I must protest. You are a nine-year-old child. These are trained villains with combat experience and dangerous quirks. While your genius is beyond question, and your gear is exceptional, they possess powers. As far as Silk and I are aware, you have no fighting experience. Engaging them directly would be—"
Izuku laughed.
It wasn't a nervous laugh, or a dismissive one. It was genuine amusement, warm and surprising in the tense room. He reached up and patted Jarvis's sleek head.
"Jarvis," he said, still chuckling. "I'm not that defenseless. You don't know how extensive my training really is." His smile widened, taking on an edge that matched the cold fire I'd seen in his eyes moments ago. "And if I'm going to be a hero, I can't be a one-trick pony now Can I?"
As those words left his mouth Pride swelled in my chest. That was my cub. My student. The boy I'd spent years training in the woods, pushing past every limit his body had, watching him rise again and again. And now he was going to show the world what he could do.
Beside me, Inko made a small sound. I felt her shift, felt the tension in her body as she processed what Izuku had just said. She wanted to speak—I could see the words forming, see them getting stuck in her throat. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
But when she looked at his face—at the calm, absolute certainty in his expression—the words died.
She didn't agree. I could see that. But she also couldn't argue. Because she saw what I saw. The same thing I'd seen in the forest a hundred times. The look of someone who had already made up his mind, and who would find a way to do what he'd decided regardless of what anyone said.
I support his choice. My cub was strong. I'd trained him myself, pushed him through exhaustion, pain and frustration until he could move like a ghost and strike like a serpent. I knew what he was capable of.
And I was here. If things went wrong—if the situation spiraled beyond his control—I would intervene. These pests downstairs wouldn't lay a killing blow. Not while I drew breath.
But more than that, I was curious. I knew about his secret training—the hours he spent alone, training without my supervision. He thought I wouldn't notice. He thought I was oblivious to the calluses on different parts of his hands, the new patterns in his movement, the way he sometimes corrected forms I'd never taught him.
I didn't know what he'd learned. But tonight, I'd get to see what he has been learning behind my back.
Time to see what you've got, cub. Time to show this world your fangs.