"Try to keep up!!"
"I'll do my best to entertain you, my lady." After saying that I moved.
My feet exploded against the floor, launching me forward in a dead sprint directly at her. It was probably the last thing she expected—a nine-year-old charging a veteran assassin instead of running away. Her eyebrows shot up, and for just a fraction of a second, surprise flickered across her features.
Then her training kicked in.
Both arms came up, spikes already forming along her forearms in dense clusters. But she didn't aim for center mass—her first volley went wide, spikes embedding in the walls on either side of me. Warning shots. Testing my reactions.
She really wasn't trying to kill me.
That was interesting.
I kept charging. She fired again—another spread, still not aimed to hit. This time I didn't dodge. I just ran through it, letting the spikes pass harmlessly by. Her eyes narrowed. Frustration? Or reassessment?
I closed half the distance.
She finally aimed properly—a volley of five spikes directly at my torso. But even now, the targeting was off. Center mass, yes, but not the head. Not lethal zones. She was trying to wound, to disable, not to kill.
Good to know.
My shield came up, catching two with solid thunks that vibrated up my arm. I twisted my body, letting a third glance off the curved surface, then dropped into a forward roll that carried me under the remaining two. They whistled past my ear as I came up still moving, still charging.
Thorn's eyes widened slightly. "Quick little thing—"
She backpedaled, already forming another salvo. This time she didn't fire all at once—she staggered them, sending spikes in rapid succession to cut off my approach angles. Left, right, center, left again. A wall of sharpened bone designed to force me to stop or get impaled.
I fired a web line at the ceiling.
THWIP.
The line caught, and I yanked myself upward, flipping through the air in a tight arc that carried me over her entire firing pattern. Spikes passed beneath me, embedding in the wall behind where I'd been. I released the line mid-flip, twisted, and landed on the wall itself—feet perpendicular to the floor, spider-grip boots holding firm.
Thorn tracked me immediately, her head tilting up. "Now that's a trick."
I didn't answer. I was already moving.
The wall became my floor as I sprinted along it, circling around her position at an angle she couldn't easily target. She pivoted to keep me in sight, but I could see the calculation in her eyes—she was used to controlling engagement distance, forcing opponents to come at her through predictable kill zones. Having someone who could attack from any surface was clearly messing with her expectations.
She tested me with another volley, this one aimed high on the wall where I was running. I leaped before the spikes arrived, pushing off hard and flipping through the air to land on the ceiling. More spikes followed, tracking my trajectory.
I fired another web line, this one at a decorative beam across the room. The line caught, and I swung—a perfect arc that carried me in a wide circle around her. Spikes whistled past, some close enough to feel the wind of their passage, but I was already gone by the time they reached where I'd been.
I released the line mid-swing, dropped, and landed on the floor ten feet in front of her.
She hadn't moved. But her stance had shifted—weight lower now, arms closer to her body, spikes retracted slightly. She was reassessing. Good.
"You fight like a spider," she said. There was genuine interest in her voice now, the condescension fading. "All that web-slinging, wall-crawling nonsense. It's annoying to deal with."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
I charged again.
This time she didn't backpedal. She held her ground, spikes forming along her arms in a different configuration—denser, shorter, arranged more like blades than projectiles. Her stance shifted into something more defensive, weight centered, arms positioned to block and counter.
A mid-range fighter forced into close combat. Exactly what I wanted.
I closed the distance in three heartbeats. She swung first—a wild, arcing strike with her right arm, the spikes along it extending into something like a natural sword. I ducked under it easily, the blade passing through empty air where my head had been.
Her left came next, a rising thrust aimed at my chest.
My shield intercepted it. The spike blade scraped across the V1 surface with a horrible screech, and I felt the impact travel up my arm—but the shield held. I pivoted, using the momentum to drive my knee toward her hip.
She saw it coming and tried to dodge, but her melee footwork was sloppy. The knee connected—not full force, but enough to make her grunt and stumble sideways.
I pressed the advantage.
My claws extended with a sharp shink, and I slashed at her extended arm. She jerked back just in time, but not fast enough to avoid the tip of one claw tracing a thin line along her forearm. Blood welled up, bright red against her pale skin.
She hissed and retaliated with a spike launch from point-blank range—desperate, uncontrolled. Three projectiles shot toward my face.
My shield was already there. Thunk-thunk-thunk. All three embedded in the metal and dropped to the floor.
"Close combat really isn't your thing, is it?" I asked, genuinely curious.
Her eyes narrowed. "Shut up, brat."
She tried to create distance, backpedaling hard, spikes forming along her legs now—launching them downward to create obstacles, buying space. I let her go for a moment, watching her movements, cataloging her tells.
She was breathing harder now. Not from exertion—the fight had barely started. From frustration. She was used to being the predator, the one in control. Having a kid dictate the engagement was clearly getting under her skin.
She stopped at the far end of the room, putting about ten meters between us. Her arms came up again, spikes forming in dense clusters—not for melee this time. She was going back to what she knew.
"Fine," she muttered. "If you want to play games, let's play."
She launched another volley, but this one was different—wider spread, more spikes, designed to force me to dodge in predictable directions. I saw the pattern immediately. She was herding me.
I played along.
I dodged left. She fired right. I ducked. She fired low. Every movement I made, she adjusted, slowly but surely pushing me toward a corner where my mobility would be limited.
Clever girl.
But I wasn't just a spider. I was also a soldier.
Instead of continuing to dodge, I stopped. Planted my feet. Raised my shield.
The next volley slammed into it—thunkthunkthunkthunk—six spikes in rapid succession, each one jarring my arm but none penetrating. I held my ground, letting her waste ammunition, watching her expression shift from satisfaction to confusion as she realized her herding wasn't working.
Then I threw the shield.
It left my hand in a perfect spin, arcing across the room in a gleaming silver blur. Thorn's eyes went wide—she clearly hadn't expected a projectile attack from me—and she dove to the side just in time. The shield missed her by inches, slammed into the wall behind her, and ricocheted at a perfect angle.
She didn't see it coming back.
The shield caught her square in the back as she was still rising from her dodge. Not hard enough to seriously injure, but hard enough to send her stumbling forward with a startled yelp. She caught herself on a column, spinning to face me—
I was already there.
The shield had returned to my hand mid-charge—magnetic catch, perfect timing—and I was on her before she could fully recover. My left hand grabbed her wrist, pinning it against the column. My right hand, bracer crackling with built-up charge, pressed against her side.
CRACKLE.
The shock wasn't full power—maybe thirty percent. But it was enough to make her whole body seize for a split second, enough to break her rhythm completely. She gasped, spikes retracting involuntarily as her muscles spasmed.
I released her and backed off, giving her room to recover.
She stared at me, chest heaving, eyes wide. The amusement was gone. The condescension was gone. In their place was something I recognized—the focused attention of a predator who'd just realized they were sharing territory with something equally dangerous.
"What... are you?" she breathed.
I smiled. "Just a kid who wants to be a hero."
She laughed—a short, incredulous burst. "Kid, heroes don't fight like you. Heroes follow rules. Heroes wait for backup. Heroes don't..." She gestured at me, at the webs on the ceiling, at the shield in my hand. "Do whatever the hell this is."
"Maybe that's why I'll be better than them."
Something flickered in her eyes at that. Not agreement, exactly. But recognition. Like she'd just filed away a piece of information she wasn't sure what to do with.
Then she shook her head, rolling her shoulders. "Enough talking. You're good, kid. Really good. But I'm done playing."
She launched forward—actually attacking instead of retreating. Spikes formed along her arms in the melee configuration, and she came at me with both blades swinging. Fast. Furious. Committed.
This was what she looked like when she stopped holding back.
I met her head-on.
The next thirty seconds were a blur of motion. Her spikes slashed and stabbed. My shield blocked and battered. I ducked under one swing, pivoted around another, used my webs to yank myself out of range when she got too aggressive. She was faster now, more desperate, but desperation made her predictable.
Every time she tried to close for a disabling strike, I was already somewhere else. Every time she committed to a swing, I was inside her guard with a shocking palm or a claw slash. She couldn't land a clean hit, and every exchange left her with another small wound, another jolt of electricity, another frustration.
She was strong, Dangerous. Her spikes could hurt me badly with a single solid hit if I let it happen.
But she couldn't land one.
I was too fast. Too unpredictable in her own eyes.
"Hold still!" she snarled, launching another desperate point-blank volley.
My shield caught three. I twisted away from two more. The sixth—she'd managed to angle it around my guard, sending it toward my thigh.
I caught it.
My hand closed around the spike an inch from my leg, the tip stopping just short of my reinforced suit. The bone-white surface was warm from her body heat, slick with whatever fluid her quirk produced. It was solid in my grip, surprisingly light for something that could punch through drywall.
I looked at it. Then at her.
Her eyes became wide. She hadn't expected that. Hell, I hadn't expected that—but Hikaru's training had drilled into me that if you can't dodge, you intercept. And my reflexes, honed by years of his brutal drills, had obeyed without conscious thought.
I smiled. "This," I said, hefting the spike in my hand, "is definitely going to be a good souvenir from our fight don't you think?"
She stared at me for one frozen moment. Her chest was heaving. Sweat beaded on her forehead. And in her eyes, I saw something flicker. Not fear, exactly. But recognition. The kind of recognition a predator feels when they realize they're not the top of the food chain.
Then I moved in to finish this dance of ours, I have danced with her long enough.
I threw the spike back at her—not hard enough to seriously injure, but hard enough to make her flinch and dodge. While she was distracted, I fired a web line at the column behind her, yanking myself forward in a blur of motion.
I hit her like a missile.
We crashed to the ground together, me on top, her struggling beneath me. Spikes tried to form along her body—I could feel them starting, the sharp points pressing against my suit—but I didn't give her time.
My left hand grabbed her wrist, pinning it. My right hand pressed against her chest, directly over her sternum. My shield arm was trapped between us, but that was fine. I didn't need it for this.
Both bracers discharged at full power.
The electricity arced between us, blue-white and blinding. Thorn's body convulsed violently, her back arching, a strangled cry tearing from her throat. The spikes that had been forming retracted instantly as her quirk lost coherence. Her muscles locked, then spasmed, then locked again as the current kept flowing.
For three full seconds, I held the discharge.
Then I let go.
She went limp beneath me, unconscious, her eyes rolled back and her body completely still. The faint smell of ozone hung in the air. Her chest rose and fell steadily—alive, just out cold.
I sat back on my haunches, breathing hard. Not from exertion—the fight hadn't even lasted ten minutes. From adrenaline. From the sheer, electric thrill of matching myself against a real opponent and winning.
I looked down at her. In repose, without the snarl and the spikes, she almost looked peaceful. Younger, somehow. Like the woman who'd laughed at finding me and called me a gentleman was still in there somewhere, buried under years of bad choices.
"You're not a bad person," I murmured. "Just someone who made terrible life decisions. Maybe someday you'll figure that out."
I stood, rolling my shoulders. The shield felt heavier than it had before—not physically, but symbolically. I'd used it. I'd fought. I'd won.
But I also felt the limitations of this body more acutely than ever.
If I were older—if I were the size and strength I'd have in another five or six years—that fight would have been over in thirty seconds. I could have overpowered her, overwhelmed her, ended it before she even knew what hit her. Instead, I'd had to dance around her, use every trick I had, exploit every weakness, just to come out on top.
I hated being this young sometimes.
But for now, this would have to do.
Silk chirped from her perch on a nearby beam, her legs tapping an excited rhythm. I looked up and saw her little form silhouetted against the dim light, and I couldn't help but smile.
"Yeah, girl. I know. Good work staying out of it like I asked."
A soft rustle from the vent above announced Jarvis's presence. His sleek head emerged, sensor-eyes gleaming. "An impressive display, sir. Though I must note that your heart rate exceeded optimal combat parameters for approximately forty-three seconds during the engagement."
I chuckled, reaching down to check Thorn's pulse one more time. Strong and steady. She'd wake up in a few hours with a hell of a headache and some interesting questions about what just happened.
"Sometimes, Jarvis," I said, standing and rolling my shoulders, "optimal isn't the point."
I looked around the room—at the spike marks in the walls, the webs on the ceiling, the unconscious woman at my feet. Twenty-three down. Two commanders and three combatants left.
The hunt wasn't over yet.
I tapped my glasses, pulling up the HUD. The display flickered to life, and I immediately noticed three red markers moving rapidly through the eastern wing—straight toward my location. Behind them, the main hall remained static: Ironhide, Wildfire, and the remaining three combatants holding position with the hostages.
A slow smile spread across my face.
"Well, well," I murmured, watching the markers close in. "It seems my prey has decided to come to me instead. How... cute."
Silk chirped inquisitively from my shoulder.
"Jarvis. Silk. On me." I crouched low, scanning the corridor ahead. "We're going to ambush them. Quick and clean—I want this over with. The longer we play with these three, the longer Ironhide sits down there thinking about what he planned to do to Momo."
My voice dropped, the temperature in the words falling several degrees.
"That bastard is going to pay for even daring to think about hurting my first real friend. But I can't get to him until I clear the path."
Jarvis's sleek form slid silently from the vent, coiling at my feet. "Understood, sir. Ambush protocols engaged. I suggest the intersection thirty meters ahead—multiple concealment options and clear firing lanes."
Silk's legs tapped an eager rhythm against my shoulder plate.
I nodded, already moving. "Let's go hunting."
We slipped into the shadows, three predators waiting in the dark for prey that had no idea what was coming.
(Before the bigining of the fight back with everyone else )
No One's Point of View
The tablet screen glowed in the dim storage room, casting pale light on the faces huddled around it. Momo had positioned it carefully on an overturned crate, its surface angled so everyone could see. Jarvis had kept his promise—the feed was flawless, every moment of Izuku's hunt streaming in crystal clarity.
The first few minutes passed in stunned silence.
They watched him crawl across ceilings like it was the most natural thing in the world. Watched him drop on unsuspecting villains with the precision of a striking viper. Watched electricity arc from his bracers, tranquilizer darts fly true—
And then they watched him fire a web from his wrist.
Hikaru's eyes went wide.
He leaned forward, his usual composed posture abandoned. His golden eyes tracked the white strand as it shot through the air, anchoring to the ceiling, pulling Izuku upward in a smooth arc.
"What," he breathed.
Inko glanced at him. "Is something wrong?"
Hikaru didn't respond immediately. He was watching Izuku swing from that web line, watching him flip and reposition, watching him move through three-dimensional space like it was his natural habitat.
"That's not—" Hikaru started, then stopped. "I didn't teach him that. I've never seen him use anything like that."
The web-swinging continued. Izuku launched himself from perch to perch, using the webs to change direction mid-flight, to gain momentum, to drop on unsuspecting villains from impossible angles.
Hikaru's mind raced through every training session, every forest drill, every moment he'd spent pushing his cub to the limit. None of it had prepared him for this.
He's been holding out on me, Hikaru realized. For years. He's been developing techniques I never imagined, and he hid them completely.
Pride warred with something else—something that might have been shock, or maybe the dawning recognition that his cub had surpassed his expectations in ways he couldn't have predicted.
"That's my boy," Inko whispered, and Hikaru felt her grip tighten on his arm. He pulled her closer automatically, her eyes never left the screen.
What else have you been hiding, cub? he wondered. What else are you going to show me tonight?
---
The montage of his takedowns continued, each takedown more impressive than the last.
When Izuku dropped behind the enhanced hearing villain and delivered that perfect nerve strike, Kenji Intelli let out an appreciative hum. "Textbook pressure point disablement. That's not something a child should know."
Hanako's hand pressed to her heart. "Where did he learn that?"
Hikaru's jaw tightened. Not from me.
When Jarvis struck from the vent, wrapping around one villain's throat while simultaneously injecting another with paralytic venom, the room erupted in gasps.
"They're thinking," Renjiro said, his voice hushed with awe. "The AI isn't just following orders—it's adapting, strategizing, executing complex takedowns independently."
Sayuri nodded slowly. "Izuku built that. With his own hands. At nine years old."
When Silk danced through shadows and took down both scouts in under three seconds, Momo actually clapped her hands together. "Silk is so fast! She's like a little ninja!"
Saiko's magnified eye tracked the crimson spider's movements with clinical precision. "The venom delivery system appears to be instantaneous upon contact. And the electrical discharge suggests multiple integrated weapon systems within a chassis no larger than my palm." She paused. "The engineering required is... significant."
Kenji glanced at his daughter, pride and concern mingling in his expression. Trust Saiko to analyze combat like a research paper.
---
Then Izuku sat on his pile of unconscious villains.
The image on the tablet shifted to show him perched cross-legged on top of three bodies stacked neatly in a corridor intersection. He looked completely comfortable, like he was waiting for a bus rather than taking a break during a one-child war against two dozen criminals.
Momo blinked. "Is he... sitting on them?"
"It appears so, Young Miss," Alfred confirmed, his tone perfectly neutral despite the slight furrow in his brow.
Sayuri pressed her lips together, something caught between amusement and concern flickering across her elegant features. "That's certainly... a choice."
Then Izuku looked down at the top villain—a bald man with an aggressively shiny head—and snorted.
"I literally found this world's version of Mr. Clean," he muttered through the tablet's audio feed. "Same bald head. Same obsession with shiny surfaces. All he's missing is the white outfit and a magic cleaning product." He chuckled at his own joke. "I almost feel bad for knocking him out. Almost."
Momo tilted her head. "Who is Mr. Clean?"
Saiko adjusted her monocle. "An American cleaning product mascot, if I recall correctly. Bald. White clothing. Associated with shiny surfaces." She paused. "The comparison is... unexpectedly apt."
Hikaru made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
Inko just shook her head, a fond sigh escaping her. "Of course he's making pop culture references while sitting on unconscious criminals. Of course he is."
---
The moment Thorn's voice crackled through the radio on one of the unconscious villain's belts, the room went still.
"Ironhide, we got a fucking problem on our hands!" Her voice was sharp, furious. "Our hired hands got taken out!! They were supposed to deal with the heroes, giving us time to escape!!" A pause, then even more venomous: "Did you not kill all the guards?!"
Momo flinched at the word "kill." Beside her, Saiko's hand found hers and squeezed.
On screen, Izuku's smile faded completely.
The change was immediate and unsettling. One moment he'd been relaxed, almost playful. The next, his expression went cold—not angry, not yet, but something was shifting behind his eyes.
Sayuri's hand pressed to her chest. "The guards..."
Renjiro's jaw tightened. "I have twenty-three security personnel on staff. If they're all—" He couldn't finish the sentence.
Hanako Intelli reached for her husband's hand. Kenji took it without looking away from the screen.
On the tablet, Izuku's voice came through, quiet and controlled. "I hadn't even thought about them. In the chaos, in my focus on protecting everyone in that room, I completely forgot about the estate's security personnel."
A pause.
"If Ironhide killed them all..."
Another pause, longer this time.
"That's more than twenty people. Men and women who were just doing their jobs, protecting the family they served. And Ironhide slaughtered them without a second thought."
His jaw tightened visibly. For a moment, the cold anger from earlier flickered across his features—that same primal fury they'd witnessed in the storage room when he'd learned what Ironhide planned for Momo.
Then he pushed it down. Deliberately. Purposefully.
"Not now," he murmured to himself. "Focus on the mission. Mourn later."
In the storage room, no one spoke.
Sayuri's eyes glistened. "He's putting it aside. The anger, the grief—he's setting it aside so he can keep fighting."
Renjiro nodded slowly. "That's not something a child should have to do."
Hikaru's voice was quiet, almost reflective. "He learned that from me. Compartmentalization. You deal with the mission first, then the emotions. It keeps you alive." A pause. "I never thought he'd have to use it so soon."
Inko said nothing. She just gripped Hikaru's arm tighter, her eyes fixed on her son.
---
When Ironhide's voice rumbled through the radio—"I did my part! They're all dead! Every single guard in this estate is gone!"—the confirmation hit the room like a physical blow.
Renjiro closed his eyes. Sayuri made a soft, wounded sound.
Kenji Intelli's expression darkened. "Twenty-three people. Dead. Because they were doing their jobs."
Hanako pressed closer to him. "The heroes will have to answer for this. The decoy attacks pulled them away, left these people defenseless."
"Later," Hikaru said quietly. "That conversation happens later. Right now, Izuku is still out there."
On screen, Izuku's smirk returned—but it was different now. Sharper. Colder.
"Hero. Right. Sure. Keep thinking that."
Then Thorn's annoyed sigh crackled through. "Sure. Let's see if I can clean up your mess."
The radio went silent.
Izuku sat there for a moment, processing.
Then a slow chuckle escaped him.
"I really threw a wrench in their plans," he murmured. "And now they want me dead." He grinned—and it was a grin that made several adults in the storage room shift uncomfortably. "This is so much fun!"
Silence.
Absolute, complete silence in the storage room.
Renjiro blinked. "Did he just..."
"Say that having multiple armed criminals actively hunting him is 'fun'?" Kenji finished. "Yes. Yes he did."
Sayuri and Hanako exchanged a look—the kind of look that mothers exchange when they're collectively questioning the sanity of a child they're rapidly becoming very fond of.
Inko pinched the bridge of her nose. "I have no idea where he gets that from. The joy in danger, the grinning while people want to kill him—that's new. That is absolutely new."
Hikaru went very still beside her.
Please don't let it be what I think it is, he thought desperately, his mind racing through every training session, every forest drill, every moment he'd pushed Izuku past exhaustion and watched him rise with fire in his eyes. Please don't let it be my fault. Please don't let me have created—
His internal spiral was interrupted by Inko's next words.
"He didn't used to be like this, you know," she said softly, her gaze still on the screen. "Before the diagnosis, before the quirkless label, he was... softer. Quieter. He'd cry at heroes saving people on TV. He'd draw pictures of All Might and leave them on my pillow." A sad smile touched her lips. "Then everything changed, and he became... this."
She gestured vaguely at the screen, where Izuku was currently checking his HUD with the calm efficiency of a seasoned operative.
"I don't know if the company did it, or the training, or just... growing up too fast." She glanced at Hikaru. "But that part—the part that enjoys this? That's not from me."
Hikaru felt the weight of her gaze like a physical thing.
He said nothing.
Because what could he say? Yes, Inko, I may have accidentally turned your son into someone who finds joy in combat. My apologies. I'll add it to the list of things I never meant to do but somehow accomplished anyway.
Instead, he just watched the screen, his jaw tight, and hoped his cub would survive long enough for him to figure out how to feel about all of this.