Chapter 21: Portrait of a Man on Fire
"Welcome to the Endeavor Agency!" A young woman with yellow hair, shaped in a way that evoked flames, and sharp teeth spun in a circle, lifting her arms up. "You must be Katayama, the boy that bested Shoto! And of course Shoto himself is here too!"
Todoroki sighed. "Hello again, Burnin."
"Shoto already knows who we are, but to you Katayama, we're the Flaming Sidekickers!" Burnin said. "We serve the big man upstairs."
"That sounds vaguely like worship," Doko commented.
Burnin's fiery personality briefly sputtered, as she gave him a funny look.
Shoto waved a hand. "He likes to make observations. Don't let it get to you. Where's the old man?"
"In his office, of course." Burnin pouted. "He requested to see you both."
The two boys boarded the elevator silently. Todoroki pressed the floor button, and up they went.
"How respectful should I be?" Doko asked him.
"More than I'm about to be," was the ice user's answer.
The elevator opened, and they were faced with a large, spacious room. Sitting at a small desk on the far end was the number two hero himself.
"Welcome, boys!" he boomed, grinning. "Come in, come in."
Todoroki strided forward confidently with a grimly determined expression. Doko followed somewhat behind and to the side. The last interaction he'd had with this man hadn't been so great. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.
"So, Shoto!" Endeavor exclaimed. "You decided to take the path of the mighty after all, huh?"
"My path is my own," Todoroki responded testily.
Endeavour hummed, and turned to Doko. "And you, boy. I confess I was not impressed with you outside of battle...but in it, you were something to behold! A force to be reckoned with! I am interested in cultivating that flame further!"
Doko bowed. "I'm honoured, sir." Inwardly, his heart was pounding. Is he bluffing? What exactly does he think he can teach me?
"Hehehehe." Endeavor grinned. "Now, I have something important for us to do, but first, let us go to the basement. I want you two to fight again."
...
"Where am I, Shojiiiii~"
Mezo winced. Reflector was using some kind of mic that connected to speakers in the walls. Normally, his Quirk allowed him to hear very well...not to the extent of Jiro, who could practically pinpoint people, but he was still normally able to nail someone's general location down. But Reflector was intentionally confusing him with the speakers.
Oh, and the labyrinth of mirrors didn't help.
The exercise was to find Reflector and take her out before she took him out. The problem was that she'd used her Quirk on every wall in the upstairs room, which was already designed as a maze.
As it stood, Shoji was using three of his arms for eyes and three for ears. He'd tried to make more eyes, but the mirrors actually made his panoramic vision less useful. The reflections confused him; he wasn't sure how to reconcile them with the circular view. He'd already run into several walls, not in a small part due to his size and the closeness that the labyrinth was built with.
All in all, it was a miserable time, and Shoji had begun to lose his cool.
"Shojiiiii, I see youuuuuuu~"
The boy whirled, and ran right into a mirror with a smash. He backed off, closing the eyes on his head and shaking them...but in his back two eyes, he saw Reflector running at him, her arms stretched low.
Shoji turned and swiped with two open palms to knock her back, but he remembered his ears too late. Her rushing footsteps were coming from the side...and those two hands struck another mirror, right as she leapt up and kicked him in the webbing between his limbs.
"ARGH!" Shoji staggered. She kept up the assault, punching his webbing again, and then kicking him in the gut. He turned and turned, trying to zero in on her sounds, but she yelled through the speakers again. "That webbing is sensitive, isn't it?" she taunted. "As an emitter going up against a brute like you..." she yanked on one of his arms, and drove an elbow into his back. "...I've got to exploit your weaknesses!"
"Guh!" Shoji swung a punch at her, and his knuckles hit another mirror. "You're too big for this place!" she shouted. Three more blows pushed him into the opposite wall, sending glass shattering everywhere.
"I'm everywhere, Shoji!" Reflector sang. "I'm everywhere..." Right as he thought he saw her, he realised he was looking at himself, and she kicked him in the back of the head. "...and nowhere!"
Time seemed to slow, as Shoji stumbled toward a corner of mirrors. She really is everywhere. The speakers and the mirrors make it impossible to nail her down...my Quirk made it impossible for Hagakure to sneak up on me when we sparred earlier, but now...I've been neutralised.
But Reflector's taunts had stopped seeming like taunts. Suddenly, as time slowed to a crawl, Mezo Shoji began to think about them.
I'm everywhere...
Emitters have to expose weaknesses against brutes like you...
You're too big for this place...
Of course. Why was he trying to pinpoint her at all? He knew she was close enough to hit him...and that meant she wouldn't dodge this.
Shoji closed all his limbs into fists.
"OCTO-SPIN!" He roared and began twirling around, smashing mirrors and walls with his fists in a crazy chaotic radius. He felt himself strike human, and then strike it again. The eyes and ears on his limbs were gone, and he even closed the eyes on his head. When someone's too quick for my senses...I'll just DESTROY!
He landed a flurry of whirling blows on Reflector...and she collapsed backward,laughing joyously despite the bruises on her face. "I think you mighta knocked a tooth out or somethin'." She spat blood onto the floor, which was covered in broken glass.
"I'm..." Shoji realised all the damage he'd just caused. "I deeply apologize!"
"Nooo, haha. You did exactly what I wanted you to do. When you sparred with Hagakure I saw that your sensory skills are pretty much as fine-tuned as they're going to get. So..." she stood up slowly. "I created a scenario where they wouldn't do you any good!"
She swayed, and Shoji immediately moved to support her with his arms. "Show me the way out and we will get you medical attention," he said.
"Thanks...you're a real hero..." Reflector grinned. "I guess I should have been ready to take rapid punches from a six-footer, huh? We'll...delay Hagakure's turn...for the time being..."
...
"Ready?" Kamui Woods asked them.
"I'm prepared," said Ibara.
Hanta Sero took a deep breath, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He looked out at the series of rooftops that laid before him. To a casual observer, they were just normal rooftops. But to him, after hours of mobility training with Kamui Woods...he saw only laundry lines. Railings. Poles. Any surface could be used.
And now, he and Shiozaki were having a race.
"Ready," he said.
"Go!" Kamui Woods exclaimed.
Hanta shot out tape to the first railing, swinging in-between buildings. Ibara was already doing the same with her vines, detaching them from her hair and swinging by clinging to them. I'm faster! He shot more tape onto a clothesline, causing someone's swimsuit to flap up and down. Wrong season for that anyway! Ibara was barely visible for a second in the corner of his eye, then disappeared. I'm ahead!
In a thin gap between buildings, Sero shot out tape from both of his elbows and swung between them like a slingshot, flipping upwards and back a bit. He landed on the roof and took off running to the ledge. He could see the apartment complex across the gap! His heart soared. "HAHAHAHA!" he laughed joyously, taking the leap and making the last tape-swing over the finish line.
Ten seconds later, Ibara arrived, out-of-breath. "Well...done..." she said, forcing a smile.
Hanta beamed. "You've gotten faster, too."
She made a strange face.
Kamui arrived soon after. "It's lunchtime now. You two take a break. I've got something planned for the afternoon."
Hanta got ready to leap down via the fire escape, but a dainty feminine hand rested on his shoulder.
"I wouldn't want to intrude, but..." Ibara looked down at her feet. "I have enough lunch for two..."
So they ended up sitting on the sidewalk together outside Kamui's apartment, watching the passers-by, eating lunchboxes.
"Man, thanks Shiozaki," Hanta said while chewing. "Did you make this? It's amazing."
She winced. "You ought not to chew with your mouth full. And yes, I did. Thank you for the compliment."
Hanta made a point of swallowing before continuing to speak. "Sorry about that."
She let out a half smile. "It's alright. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. In Class B...Tokage calls me uptight."
"Well, maybe you are a little. But..." Hanta stretched a bit. "It's not a big deal to me, one way or the other."
Ibara put a prim hand over her mouth, as if she was trying not to giggle. Her eyes glowed. "You're quite...laid-back, aren't you? An outside observer may call us opposites."
"But we have similar Quirks," Hanta pointed out. "As far as uses go, I mean. Mid-range combat, capture, mobility, the works."
"Yes, but..." Ibara smiled sadly. "You are still much faster than me. Your elbow tape doesn't hurt to swing on like my vine hair does. I have to take the extra effort to detach." She paused a moment, ate another bite. "The races and mobility practice are for me, not for you. Woods-san already knows that you have those things. He told me in our private meeting that I needed to work on my hesitation." She sniffed. "When I battled the warping boy from your class, I became overwhelmed. First I was worried I'd hurt him, and then his tenacity surpassed my own. I started thinking about...what if that had been a villain? If there was a villain out there with more tenacity, wouldn't I have lost just as easily?" Her hands were shaking, Hanta realised.
"Whoa, whoa, hey." Without really thinking about it, he grabbed her hands in his own to steady them. "Listen. First of all, a battle at the festival is way different from fighting a villain, right? Of course you weren't invested in it as much as you would be in a real fight. You weren't supposed to be. Second of all..." he cast his eyes sideways. "Do you know what Kamui told ME in our private meeting? He told me that I might reach a skill ceiling with my Quirk soon. That once I master all the technical and tactical stuff, there isn't much more I can do, power-wise. So basically..." Hanta smiled bitterly. "I have to come up with a way to make myself stand out. And I don't really know what that is yet. I guess what I'm saying is...we're still in our first year, Shiozaki. We're not gonna get all the answers this soon."
Ibara blushed deeply. "But you...your class was attacked by villains...surely we must be prepared now more than ever."
"Then we'll get prepared," Hanta told her, looking into her eyes. "We'll do it together!"
Her blush deepened. Hanta realised he was holding her hands, and realised what he'd just said.
He pulled away quickly, blushing too. "I mean, umm, all of us! Both classes! All of us, together..."
"Of course," Ibara muttered, casting her embarrassed gaze downward. "That's what you meant."
"This 'eating' I told you guys to do sure looks a lot like flirting," said Kamui Woods from behind them.
Both students must have jumped six feet into the air, going pale with shock and whirling up to attention.
Their hero boss was standing behind them on the sidewalk, sipping languidly from a juice box. "Come on," he said after finishing the box and crumbling it. "Now that you two have connected so well, it's time for my afternoon plan. You're going to fight each other."
...
Mina walked between the shelves, gazing into all the crates on them. "It's just...junk!" she commented. "A broken light bulb, old rusty scissors, a freakin' Rubin Cube..." she tossed the toy in question up and down in her hands.
"Ever seen Wall-E?" Switcheroo asked her.
"No. What's that?"
"It's people from the 2000s envisioning the world of the 2800s. Weird, right?"
"Yeah, sounds nuts. Anyway, why do you have all this?"
"My power is to switch objects." Switcheroo held up his hands and let them glow orange, coursing his power through them. "You can find anything and everything at a crime scene. In this warehouse room is where I train. I train with my sidekicks, thinking of any way I can feasibly use any of these objects to my advantage. Some, like the Rubix Cube, are better as decoys. But don't forget that a switched object retains the velocity of what was in the position before it. I can send scissors at someone and do some real damage."
"So..." Mina placed the cube back. "You just use all this stuff to test any possible scenario?"
"That's right. It's only through practice and memorisation of many different combinations of objects that I have achieved what you call a dance." He suddenly took on a fighting position. "Now. I want you to come at me. No need for acid, we'll address that later. For now, just try and land a punch."
Mina knew where this was going. She'd seen enough shitty kung-fu movies. If this professional was baiting her with something deceptively simple like landing one hit...then she was probably about to get her ass kicked.
But she shrugged, and charged anyway.
Switcheroo spun and kicked a crate off the nearest shelf, causing the objects to scatter everywhere. He picked up an old alarm clock and tossed it behind himself.
When Mina got ready to punch, he touched her again, sending her flying to where the clock had been. Mina slid on the tiles, re-orienting herself. I've got to avoid his hands!
She charged a second time, pretending to wind back a punch with her right hand. Switcheroo raised his forearms to defend, orange light glowing in his hands.
At the last second, Mina ducked and brought up her left fist in an uppercut. But Switcheroo slid back and grabbed her forearm as it came up to where his chin had been a second ago. He gave her arm a yank, and then used one hand to push her past him, downward to the floor. Mina hit the tiles with a grunt, and felt his knee on her back, keeping her down.
"I saw you use the uppercut on the laser boy," he told her while she struggled. "I really wish you'd been a bit more tricky."
Mina turned her head over to look, and saw him throw a porcelain spoon into the air over their heads. Then...he leaned over...and touched the heaviest object to have fallen out of the crate. An old textbook, falling straight onto her.
Switcheroo got off of her at the last second, and Mina rolled, instinctively spraying acid upward to protect herself. The smell of burning pages filled the room, and the goo rained down on the tile.
"I'm not done!" she declared, springing up onto her feet. Switcheroo was holding a tennis ball as she charged again, but when he tried to throw it past her at the last second, she caught it and threw it back at his stupid face.
The pro's eyes widened for a split second, but he still slid out of the way as Mina arrived, and her fist swung through air again. But this time when he reached out with his fingers, she sucked in breath and slid back...before leaping over his clutches in a flip, aiming for a solid kick to his head.
Switcheroo reached up and activated his Quirk on her foot, sending her to the ground where the tennis ball had landed.
Mina skidded against the tile, her velocity used against her. "Your physicality and mobility is excellent," he commended as she stood up again. "But what happens when an enemy is fast enough to counter all your moves? You're doing the most predictable things to attack me and dodge my own attacks. You must think outside the box!"
Mina let out a frustrated growl and charged again.
This time, Switcheroo threw an old dart up into the air, and Mina rose her hand up to the ceiling to blast whatever he'd switch up there with her acid. Like Bakugo did against Doko.
But then...Switcheroo slapped himself in the chest, and disappeared.
"HUH?" Mina looked up, gawking, as he fell on top of her in a cannonball, knocking her to the ground. For a moment, they struggled on the ground, wrestling for control, but Switcheroo managed to lock her arms behind her back, and she stopped, laying on her stomach.
Mina struggled, but he didn't get off of her. "I know I told you not to use your acid on me," he said. "But if I was a villain, that's how you'd get out of this situation, right?"
"Y-yes," she spat.
"Right then." He released her and allowed her to stand up.
Mina ached all over. Nothing she'd tried had worked. He was just too...versatile. Some Quirks are just better than others.
"I see that defeated look in your eye," Switcheroo said. "Don't you dare give up on me. We'll take a break and try again in an hour. I will get you to land a hit on me before the week ends."
...
"How much further?" Pixie-Bob asked.
"Are you complaining when a child's life is on the line?" Tiger demanded.
"No, but..."
Koji sighed. The Pussycats had been chatting and bickering with each other all the way up the slope.
They'd been walking for several miles now, under the cover of pines and oaks and old gnarled spruce. Mandalay and Ragdoll were in front of him, while Pixie-Bob and Tiger were behind.
"I'm just asking how many kilometres there are..."
"Doesn't matter! I'd walk a hundred kilometres to save a child in trouble!"
Koji suddenly heard more voices over the bickering. He looked up at a tree branch and saw two birds.
What are the skinwalkers doing this far up? Wishing they could fly, I bet, one bird tweeted at the other.
Sometimes they come up to see the earth-hole. I've seen them go in there before, said the other.
Pffft, you mean like that little girl earlier?
Excuse me, said Koji. By earth-hole, do you mean a cave?
WTF? The skinwalker's talking to me!
It must be the thing's meta ability or whatever. As to your question, skinner, I never heard of anything called a cave before. The earth-hole is another five minutes of flying time up the hill.
And how fast can you fly? Koji asked.
Faster than you, I bet! Both birds tweeted laughter. Koji sighed. Usually birds were easy, but these ones out here in the woods had attitude! It was almost as scary as talking to humans.
He turned back to Pixie-Bob and Tiger, who were looking on in awe at the exchange he'd just had with the birds. "They say it's five minutes flying time up to the cave," he reported quietly. "So not far."
The blonde Pussycat's eyes glowed. "That's your power in action?! Oh my god, it's amazing!"
Tiger smiled approvingly. "Mandalay!" he called up to the front. "We're close enough now!"
"Got it. Sorry for what you're about to hear, Koda-kun. Since I've never seen this little girl, I'm gonna have to make this a general announcement." Mandalay cleared her throat.
Koji gasped as he suddenly heard her feminine voice inside his head.
Rin, can you hear me? This is Mandalay of the Wild Wild Pussycats, a hero team. We are coming to rescue you, all right? If you're hearing this, just sit tight. We will be there soon. Don't lose hope.
Twenty minutes later, they found themselves at the cave entrance. It was a dark, gaping hole, framed by boulders. Moss and algae grew on the grey stone, and Koji could hear ethereal dripping inside.
"Don't like caves," muttered Ragdoll.
Her and Mandalay went in first. The layer of the two used her Quirk again.
Rin! If you can hear me, yell as loud as you can!
"Aaaaaah..." Koji's eyes widened as he realised he was hearing the girl's voice.
"That's her!" declared Tiger. "Let's go!"
Tiger and Pixie-Bob broke past him to enter the mouth of the cave. For a moment, Koji hesitated. The blonde Pussycat turned around and beckoned him. "Afraid of caves, Koda-kun? It's alright!"
He gulped and followed.
The Pussycats had little flashlights on their cat-ears, which caused dancing yellow beams to bounce off the dripping walls. The sounds of the water seemed to echo all around them. Koji had no light source on his own costume, so he stayed close.
Yell again, Mandalay messaged.
"aaaaaaaah..." the girl's voice seemed to whisper up at them from the depths.
"She's this way." Ragdoll took the lead and went down to the right, deeper and deeper.
A few minutes later they found themselves at a branch in the cave. Four different passageways led away from the room, and two of them were collapsed in with rubble.
Mandalay swore.
"HELP!" They could hear the girl's cries clearly now. "HELP ME!"
"I'll move this out of the wa..." Pixie-Bob placed her paws on the ground, aiming her Quirk at the rubble.
Mandalay threw up a hand in alarm. "PIXIE-BOB, WAIT!"
Too late. The entire cave shuddered, and dust and pebbles began to rain down on their heads.
Koji looked around wildly, along with the others. Pixie-Bob's jaw dropped. "I...oh no!"
"You compromised the integrity of the tunnel!" Mandalay snapped. The cavern was still shaking, and larger rocks were starting to dislodge and slide and fall.
"Now the whole thing is gonna collapse," Tiger growled. "We gotta hurry..."
"HELP!" the girl cried. "HELP, THE CAVE IS..."
"Which way?" Ragdoll's eyes darted between the passageways. "Which way is it?"
Without warning, something swarmed out of the furthest left tunnel.
"AAAAAH!" Pixie-Bob squealed, as dark, leathery wings enveloped the room, the bats squeaking and squawking and fleeing the chaos.
Koji panicked and fell to the ground, the bats flying over him. The cave continued to shudder, worse and worse.
Aaah, this is it! I'm done for I'm done for I'm done for...he closed his eyes to stop the tears.
"I can squeeze through the rubble with my Quirk, but I need to know for certain!" Tiger roared over the din. "Which way?"
"I..." Pixie-Bob's voice wavered. "I don't know..."
The bats know the way, Koji thought all of a sudden.
But they're scary and angry and I've never talked to bats befo...
You idiot. If you think you're scared, how scared is that little girl, huh? Some kind of hero you turned out to be.
Koji got up on one knee, rising in the swarm of the bats.
You! he roared at them, with all the conviction he could muster. There is a little girl in this cave! WHERE IS SHE? TELL ME!
Ah!
Scary biped!
Little biped, we saw her earlier!
She's down the way we just came, aye!
Aye!
Ah!
"The direction the bats are coming from!" Koji cried, hoping it would reach Tiger's ears. "She's down there!"
"GOT IT!" The male Pussycat went running down the tunnel, Mandalay following.
"Pixie-Bob, get the kid out of here!" Ragdoll cried, as the bats finally swarmed out, leaving them with just the shaking earth.
"The kid? You mean Koda-kun?"
"We can't let him die on our watch!"
"I'm staying..." Koji managed to let out. "Gotta...make sure the others come back..."
Twenty seconds later, Mandalay and Tiger returned, the latter carrying a bloody, bruised, frail little girl in his arms.
"She was trapped under some rocks, but I used my Quirk!" he boomed. "Come on!"
Ragdoll used Search on the girl. "She's got a broken ankle! Take care!"
They all fled back upward, as the cave collapsed behind them.
...
Doko and Shoto stood forty feet apart, facing one another. The basement of the Endeavor Hero Agency was a massive empty space, designed specifically for sparring with fire Quirks.
"Now," said Endeavor from the sideline. "Shoto, I want you to focus on aiming your fire. Your attacks were imprecise at the festival; you ended up setting everything aflame. We fire heroes can not afford to cause more damage than we prevent. By the end of this week, I expect you to have worked towards getting your fire as refined as your ice. And as for you, Katayama...don't hold back against my son."
Doko made a face. Don't you have any specific advice for me? But outwardly he only said "Alright."
"Now, begin."
Shoto immediately came running at him on a path of ice, traversing the basement in a matter of seconds. Doko warped left to dodge the spurt of fire that came shortly after.
As Shoto turned, Doko warped the ice path out from under him, causing him to slip. In that moment, he warped forward to the other boy, cocking back a punch...but was forced to flash out immediately, to avoid another blast of flames.
Endeavor laughed. "Yes, that's it, Shoto! Katayama, don't give him a chance to breathe!"
Be relentless. Right.
Doko warped from side-to-side in a zigzag, trying to close in on his opponent. Shoto turned his feet in a circle, sending out a ramp of ice, and then another fire blast. Doko backed up and sent his Quirk through his arms, lifting up the ice and dropping it on Shoto's head. The son of Endeavor lifted up his left arm and blasted the ice into steaming rain.
Doko warped backward quickly this time, wary of getting scalded like before. Todoroki said he wouldn't do that to me again...is he angry right now?
"Katayama, why are you falling back?" Endeavor demanded. "Attack!"
With a weary sigh, Doko charged forward again, warping left out of the way of an ice-shot and then closing in on Todoroki. He managed to land a hit, but then Shoto lit up his left side again, and Doko shrank back. Shoto slammed down his right foot, and a massive cropping of sharp ice cane rushing up between them. Doko threw his arms up to protect himself...and scattered the ice, warping it to all corners of the room.
But Shoto had been ready for that, and was leaping at him in the new open gap, sending flames his way.
Doko gasped and panicked, warping backward and sideways out of the fire.
"Boy!" Endeavor roared at him. "Why aren't you warping Shoto away! There's no need to retreat! Push your opponent back instead, like you did at the festival!"
"That...was a fluke..." Doko gasped, coughing up smoke. "I can't just warp other people all the time."
Shoto had stopped his attack, and was now just standing there.
"I was hoping that battling such an untouchable opponent would unlock my Shoto's full potential," Endeavor said coldly. "But if you are unable to stay at that level of power all the time..."
Who the hell does this guy think he is? He was just using me after all? "Would you rather me cut your son's leg off by accident?" Doko asked him, matching his steel. "Because that's what happens."
"Don't give me that tone like it's my fault. It's your Quirk, is it not?"
Doko blinked, suddenly confused.
"Part of what makes flame users like Shoto and myself so strong is that we are on fire. That makes us hard to touch, unless you have a very specific sort of Quirk. And you boy, are hard to attack as well...but only for an instant. You flash away and that's the end of your dodge. And you can't keep that up forever, can you?"
"No, I have a limit like everyone else," Doko muttered.
"I see the way you use your power. You send it through your limbs with each use, and then pull it back until you use it again. All that back-and-forth is such a waste of energy! Do you see me turning off my flames right now? No. They're always on. You should learn to keep YOUR Quirk always on as well."
Doko's eyes widened. He'd never thought about it like that before. Keeping...the energy in my arms and legs? At all times?
"But sir," he protested. "My Quirk may be emitter based, but it's not a fire Quirk. Leaving it on, like a light switch? What would that even do to me? Would I just disappear from reality?"
"It sounds to me," Endeavor said, "like you need to stop thinking. All great heroes do a lot of thinking at first - but it shouldn't last forever. Your abilities should become second nature, instinctual. So much that you can just release them at any moment. The first step to getting there is having them at your fingertips at all times. Which...like I said before, means keeping your Quirk active."
"I..." Doko swallowed. This man...it's just like Todoroki said. He's not number two for nothing. Maybe...he knows what he's talking about.
"That's enough for now," said Endeavor. "Shoto has at least shown me that he is capable of integrating fire into his combat, although it is still decidedly less accurate than the ice is."
"We're stopping already?" Shoto asked.
"Yes, we have a more important engagement. The helicopter will set out for Hosu in twenty minutes."
Helicopter? Doko had never been in a helicopter before.
"What's in Hosu?"
Endeavor grinned. "It's time to show you boys what a real hero is. We're going after the Hero Killer."
That's all folks. Next time: Toru vs Reflector, Sero vs Ibara, and our first look at the villains in a while!
Also, Burnin is a real canon character, not an OC. She's a sidekick of Endeavor introduced in the most recent arc of the manga. With that being said...I'm planning on introducing certain other manga elements early, so if you're not caught up, there will be spoilers in this fic. Not in this arc, but in the future. Just warning ya.