"Tooraaaaa, I'm hungry! Is dinner ready yet?" Kaira whined. Her upper body was stretched out over the table and she was pounding her arms on the top. She looked like a petulant child, rather than a Hero in training.

"You complain an awful lot for getting free food, you know that?" Tora faked annoyance, but Kaira could clearly see the corners of his mouth rise while he was stirring the noodles.

She was happy that things went back to normal so quickly. She had missed the mornings and evenings with Tora. His cooking was a nice extra, but it, of course, was his company she had missed the most. His laid-back attitude despite his commitment to becoming a Hero, his quips and his general friendliness. Nothing seemed to get to him, apart from her obvious mistake a bit over two weeks ago, and that allowed Kaira to speak her mind.

"It's not free! What do you think those envelopes have been for?"

"What envelopes?" Tora stayed focused on his cooking, but the curiosity was clear in his voice.

"The envelopes I've been pushing under your door for a few days now."

"I haven't had any letters pushed under my door. You sure you got the right room?"

"Yeah! First floor, second door on the left."

Now Tora turned to look at Kaira to make sure she wasn't kidding. She wasn't.

"Kaira… I live on the second floor, first door on the left."

The girl's eyes widened as realization set in. She jumped of her chair and quickly yelled "I gotta go do something" while she ran up the stairs. Tora heard his friend's footsteps thump against the floor above him. He chuckled to himself as he turned back to the breakfast he was preparing. He figured Kaira had made a mistake when she mentioned letters he had never received, but he was curious what was in them. She wasn't the type to write thank you letters.

Tora's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of splintering wood overhead. What was Kaira doing? Was she alright? A few moments later, the blue girl came down the stairs, her hair and school uniform covered in splinters and sawdust, holding several letters in her hands.

"W-what happened?"

"The door was locked and nobody lives in that room. I panicked." Kaira responded swiftly and lightly out of breath.

"You didn't..."

"I'll call campus staff and explain. I can pay the damages. This is more important right now." She held out the envelopes for Tora to take. She was blushing, averted her eyes and her ears were lying flat against her head.

He hesitantly took them. "I'm not sure it is…"

The letters were bulging to some extent but were still light. The brunet opened the first envelope to reveal a small stack of bills. If the letters were all filled like this, he was holding well over twenty-thousand yen in his hands.

"Why are you giving me this?"

"To pay back for all the times you've cooked for me. You're buying ingredients for two people. I wanted to give something back."

"I-I can't take this. This is way too much."

"You can and you will. I don't want to leech off of you."

"No, Kaira, I don't want-"

"It hardly covers what you've made for me the last week."

"No, I don't-"

"Take it or I'm burning it."

Kaira looked angrily at Tora, daring him to deny her gift. She wasn't bluffing. That much was clear.

Tora sighed and admitted defeat. "Fine, I'll keep it, but you really don't have to do this."

"I know, but I want to. It just doesn't feel right." Tora opened his mouth to rebuke her, but she cut him off. "I don't care if you don't have a lot of money. Remember when you said you didn't want me to feel like I owed you? This is me making sure I don't."

Tora sighed, but smiled afterwards. His own reasoning used against him. He couldn't argue against that. "Let's eat then. Breakfast is ready."

After Kaira dusted herself off, both students ate in somewhat awkward silence. Tora appreciated the gesture, but he didn't like taking money from people. Maybe it was a misguided sense of pride or just his general dislike of accepting favours in return for things he did. He wasn't sure, but it always felt wrong to get things back in return for what he did. He knew it was normal, but still…

"Are you looking forward to the internships?" Kaira's face was pointed at her food, but her eyes were looking up at Tora. She really wanted to give something back for all the things the boy had done for her, but she also felt she'd upset him somehow. Maybe just giving money wasn't the best way to go about it.

"Oh yeah, I'm excited to see how things work out in the field. You kinda get a skewed image from what you see on TV."

Their homeroom teacher had recently told them that they would spend a week interning at a Hero agency to get an idea how things would work once they graduated. Thankfully, they didn't have to look for an agency that would take them themselves. The school had made arrangements with several offices and everyone got an internship assigned to them.

"Where are you going?" Tora continued. He didn't seem to bothered with the gift anymore and was happy with the change of subject.

Kaira thought to herself for a moment, trying to remember what was written on the form she had received from the class president, the boy at the table with her.

"Some guy named Lockjaw. It's not a big agency. He works alone with a few administrative employees, but he's got a dojo where he teaches classes in martial arts as well, so it should be interesting. What about you?"

Tora sighed. "It's gonna be a bit of travelling for me. I gotta go to Nagano. Heatray is gonna teach me what it's like to be a Hero there."

"Maybe he'll take you skiing after a day's work." Kaira laughed more at her own joke than Tora did.

"At this time of year? I doubt it…"

"Hey, you don't know." Kaira wagged her finger at her friend. "It's not high season and there's bound to be some snow all the way up on the mountaintops."

Tora chuckled. "We'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up though." He then got up and walked to the door, grabbing his backpack on the way. "Come on, we gotta go or we're gonna be late for class."

Kaira groaned, but followed Tora shortly after.


Kaira stood in front of the building she was supposed to go to for her internship, her Hero costume and some lunch Tora had made for her in her bag. For the first time in a while she felt uneasy. She didn't know who this Lockjaw was, what he was like and how she should behave around him. The internship was only a week, but it was a week that meant a lot. Giving a good impression would help get her name around if only by word of mouth, whereas a bad impression could just as well drive agencies away from her.

The nervous girl took a deep breath, made another futile attempt to straighten her school uniform's skirt, despite her tail getting in the way and stepped inside the building. If you didn't know this was a Hero's office you'd have guessed you stepped into a corporation's office. The entrance hall was almost too sterile. The walls were bare, only a few chairs stood to the side and behind a white reception desk sat a bored, middle-aged woman staring at her computer screen, doing nothing.

Kaira walked up to the woman and cleared her throat to get her attention.

"Can I help you?" The receptionist sounded as bored as she looked, staring at Kaira over the rim of her glasses.

"Um… I'm here for the internship with mister Lockjaw. Netsuka Kaira."

"Oh yes. Just a moment. I'll let him know you are here." The woman picked up the phone next to her on the desk, pressed a button and waited a moment until the person on the other side, presumably Lockjaw, answered. "Lockjaw sir, the intern has arrived… I'll let her know." She then put the phone down and turned back to Kaira. "He will be here shortly. You can take a seat while you wait."

Netsuka nodded and walked to the centre of the reception hall, but she didn't sit down. She was far too nervous for that now. She looked around trying to find anything interesting to take her mind of whatever she would encounter the next week. What she had seen of the agency so far didn't bode well. Everything looked bare-bones. The outside of the building looked like the office building of one of those dime a dozen corporations you still had in Japan, the entrance hall had no decoration and was almost blinding with how white everything was. She wouldn't be surprised if Lockjaw turned out to be a lean man in a business suit with glasses.

"I'm guessing yer Netsuka Kaira, huh? I'd recognize tha' school uniform anywhere." a voice like a landslide suddenly erupted behind the pensive girl.

Kaira jumped out of her skin. Behind her stood the exact opposite of what she expected Lockjaw to look like with the building in mind. A tall, broad man twice the size of Netsuka stood before him. He wore cargo pants and a shirt with a flowery motif on it. The origin of his name was clearly apparent: his entire lower jaw was made of metal, He had a strong underbite and his pointy, metallic teeth almost reached past his nose. The stark contrast between his attire and the appearance of his Quirk created an absurd image. Kaira would have to hold in her laugh if she wasn't still recovering from the shock of his sudden appearance.

"Oh, did I scare ya, lil' lass?"

The intern wasn't sure how this hulking man had somehow managed to sneak up on her. Too surprised to respond, she merely nodded.

The man laughed jovially, "Sorry 'bout tha'. Name's Lockjaw, though ya probably already guessed tha'" he pointed at his distinct jaw.

Kaira finally managed to get a hold of herself. "P-pleasure to meet you, sir."

"Likewise, some new faces are always welcome 'ere. Did ya find the place well enough?"

"Yessir, your instructions were very clear."

"Good good, follow me then. We'll get righ' into it." the big man beckoned Kaira to follow him through one of the doors that led to a hallway, further into the building.

"I s'pose you have yer Hero costume or some sort of gym outfit with ya."

"I do, sir. I brought my costume with me."

"Very good! 'Cause ye'll be needin' it soon. I've read what information U.A. sent me about ya and I gotta say, I wanna see 'ow far yer Quirk can go. So I wanna test tha' first."

Lockjaw opened another door to reveal the dojo Kaira had heard about. The floor was lined wall to wall with mats, to one side stood several pieces of training equipment, punching bags, wooden dummies and more. On the other side stood a cooler box. No other people were in the dojo. It made sense. Everyone was still at work or in school.

"You get in costume while I set things up. There's changin' rooms over there."

Kaira hurried to the door her mentor pointed out and got into costume as quickly as she could. She didn't want to keep Lockjaw waiting, but she was also eager. She had expected to be thought the boring parts of the Hero business, paperwork, laws and the like. Instead she was already in costume and was going to train more.

She rushed back into the dojo to see the big hero hanging the punching bag onto a hook with link chains. If this was a normal punching bag, Lockjaw hanging it up without effort was a testament to his strength and his appearance wasn't just for show. He had also changed in what she assumed was his hero costume, which was a simple, black wrestling outfit with a symbol resembling his jaw on his chest.

"Alright, if I remember correctly ya get stronger the ho'er ya get, yea?"

"Yessir, though my core temperature needs to rise. Just putting me into a hot bath won't do much."

"Then we be'er get started. Drop the gloves, I've got some bandages ya can put on. I'd rather ya not rip my punching bag with those studs."

While Kaira wrapped the bandages around her hands, Lockjaw kept explaining.

"I wanna see 'ow far you can push yerself. We're gonna be warming up wit the punchin' bag and after tha' we're gonna spar"

"A-are you sure about that, sir? I don't want to hurt you. I tend to get lost in a haze when I get too warm."

Lockjaw laughed away her worries. "Oh, dontcha worry 'bout tha' lass. I can take a punch."

With her conscience put at ease slightly, Kaira began warming up. First some stretches and then she went to work on the punching bag. It didn't take long for the fire in her chest to be ignited and it began demanding more. The girl figured she didn't need to hold back as Lockjaw wanted to see how far she could push herself, so she kept going and kept feeding the fire. Not much after, she was whaling on the bag without remorse, but her mentor kept egging her on.

"Come on lass. Yer stronger than tha'."

Pushing herself further, she put more force behind her punches and tried going faster. The punching bag, despite its size and weight was beginning to sway.

"More! Ya can do better."

The punching bag didn't even have time to reset back to a vertical position. Kaira kept going at it. Steam was now rising from her body as her sweat was immediately evaporated by her body's temperature. Somewhere, she could hear the groaning of metal giving way.

"Be'er! Give it all ya got!"

"Raaaaagh!"

Kaira pulled back her right fist and put all her energy into it. With one last punch, the bag swung into the air. The sheer force behind the blow broke the chain with which the bag was attached to the ceiling and with a loud thud the punching bag hit the mats a few feet further and laid there, motionless.

"Now tha's wha' I wanted ta see!"

Netsuka turned to her mentor, her fists were still raised in fighting position. Her shoulders heaved with every breath, smoke and steam were rising from her body as if she was actually burning, but she wasn't done yet. Her eyes stood sharp and she was ready for the next part of her training.

"Now it's your turn."

"Ohoho! Eager, now arentcha? Very well, I'll give ya the first punch."

The teen pulled back her fist again, but this time it didn't connect. Lockjaw had deftly gotten out of the way of her shot and she touched nothing but air. She, again, wheeled back her arm, trying for a feint to catch her opponent off guard, but he once more dodged the attack.

Lockjaw turned out to be faster than his physique suggested. Kaira kept trying to connect with Lockjaw, only for him to move away every time she got close. It was a frustrating dance. The inferno in her chest demanded combat, not some waltz.

"Stop dodging and fight me!"

"I said I'd give ya the first punch. Ya still haven't punched me now, have ya?"

"Then stop fucking running away!"

"Now now, language missy."

Kaira grit her teeth and kept going. After a few more punches, the Pro Hero saw an opening. Kaira lunged forward, Lockjaw stepped to the side and landed a quick chop in the girl's neck. She got knocked off balance, but quickly recovered. It hurt, but she wasn't out yet.

More punches whiffed and Lockjaw kept getting in jabs and pokes whenever an opening arose. In the end, Kaira ended up lying face-down on the floor. Her entire body ached from all the hits her teacher managed to get in and her Quirk was beginning to die out, with its side-effects only worsening the pain.

"Ya done lass?" Lockjaw stood over her, looking at his student with a smile on his face. He was sweating, but looked to be in good shape considering the exercise he just performed.

Netsuka didn't respond. She just pressed her face into mat, shame washing over her. She hadn't scored a single hit. She hadn't expected to win from a Pro Hero, but she had hoped to at least get a few hits in.

A large hand grabbed her by the collar of her costume and pulled her to her feet. She was so tired however that her legs didn't even try to support her body and her feet slid out from under her while her knees buckled..

"Whoa there! Yer really knackered, huh? Lemme getcha somethin' ta drink."

Lockjaw walked to a corner of the dojo where he grabbed two bottles out of a cooler box, walked back and gave one to Netsuka. She poured the contents, not into her mouth but over her head. With loud sizzling, the water quickly evaporated and Kaira was still sitting on the floor, completely dry, smouldering like a dying campfire.

"You uh… Ya need somethin' more lass?"

"Something to cool me down please." Kaira spoke in a weak, hoarse voice. She barely had the energy to empty the bottle over her head, now speaking was about all she could muster.

"Well, The cooler box is 'bout all I have. Good thin' it's a big one."

Lockjaw tried to lift up Kaira, but withdrew his hand when he touched her. "Ouch, ya really are hot! Good thing these mats are fireproof." He instead brought the cooler to the overheating girl. He removed all the bottles from the cooler and scooped Kaira up with the box. The ice quickly melted and after that the water too evaporated. Thankfully, it was enough. Kaira was still exhausted, but at least she could stand again. She crawled out of the box and thanked her teacher.

"That's quite the Quirk ya got there, lass. Ya wanna rest up 'fore we continue?"

"I should be fine now, sir."

"Very well, Do ya know why we had this fight?"

"To dampen my ego?"

Lockjaw ignored her remark and continued. "I wanted to confirm ma suspicions and it turns out I was right. Yer strong, but ya lack control and technique. Ya just put everythin' in every punch and expect yer opponent to fall down and fer a sixteen-year-old, tha' works, but ya can't go on like tha' though. I'm a big man and even I could avoid every punch ya threw. Imagine wha' a Villain with a Speed Quirk could do. Tha's what I wanna focus on with ya this week. We're gonna work on yer technique, 'cause Lord knows yer already stronger than I am."

"Not showing me the business side of heroics?"

"Oh, we'll be doin' tha' as well jus' no' as much. Ye'll be seeing plenty of administrative work through yer school career, but I think this'll be more important fer ya."

Kaira nodded. She wasn't particularly bothered with more training. In fact, she was happy to not have to listen to someone drone on about how she should present herself or how forms needed to be filled in.

Lockjaw clapped his hands together. "But first, we're gonna eat. I dunno 'bout ye, but I'm starving.

Kaira just now realized that it was indeed lunchtime and now that she had cooled down, she could feel her stomach growling as well.

"Did ya bring some food with ya or are we gonna have ta go to the takeaway 'round the corner?"

"No, sir. I brought my own lunch with me."

"Well, go grab it. We'll eat 'ere, so we can get right back into it after."

Kaira walked back into the changing room to grab the lunchbox Tora had made for her. She was curious what he had prepared. The lunch was already packed when she got downstairs that morning and it had a note attached from her friend saying he had to leave extra early to arrive in Nagano on time and a request that she only open the lunchbox when lunchtime arrived.

When she returned to her teacher's side, who was already digging into his own lunch, she opened unpacked her own. Her eyes grew a little wider when she saw what Tora had prepared for her. Wrapped inside some seaweed, stood three balls of rice, no doubt filled with all kinds of fish and dried or pickled fruits and vegetables.

In passing, She had mentioned to Tora that onigiri was her favourite food, but he didn't seem to take it in stride at the time, preferring to make stir-fried meals that were easier to prepare. She understood why he did so. Between training and studying, there was little time to be spent on making extravagant, multi course dinners and while Onigiri wasn't particularly hard to make, it was more time-consuming than their usual meals.

"Oh, do I have a lil' cook as ma intern? Those look pretty good."

Lockjaw had taken notice of Kaira's lunch and poked her with his elbow. Her lunch did look good. She couldn't imagine how much earlier he would have had to wake up to prepare it. Knowing his perfectionism, there were a few 'failed' batches that were either thrown away or he had taken with him for his own lunch.

"No sir, these aren't mine. My friend made them for me."

She grabbed one of the rice-y triangles and greedily took a bite. The first one was filled with salted salmon. She hummed when the delicious flavours hit her tongue.

"Well, ya got a good boyfriend then. I couldn't cook like tha' when I was yer age."

Kaira nearly choked on her food at her mentor's assumption. With some coughing, she managed to guide the bite down her throat and answered him with flushed cheeks.

"H-he isn't my boyfriend! He's just a… close friend..."

A smirk and a look of disbelief stood on Lockjaw's face.

"Is that so? Well, 'e's a really close friend if 'e's already making lunch for ya."

Kaira looked down at her lunch. A smile snuck its way on her blushing face. "He… He is. We haven't known each other that long, but… he's a good friend."

The man next to her gave her a slap on her back. "Keep 'im close then. Good friends are hard to come by, especially in this line of work."

"What do you mean?"

His smile changed into a look of melancholy. "Heroics can be a lonely job. A lotta heroes don't really 'ave others they're close with. Ours is a dangerous job and not a lot o' peeps can handle the stress of a significant other throwin' 'emselves in the line o' fire like we do."

"Knowing him he'd be worried about me if I went to the convenience store…"

Lockjaw guffawed when he saw Kaira puff out her cheeks in annoyance at the thought.

"I'll stop teasin' ya. We gotta get to trainin' soon, so eat up!"


The rest of the day involved, much to Kaira's chagrin, a lot of theory on posture, covering your openings and reading your opponent. The tedious explanations where interspersed with some exercise to make the afternoon go by just a little bit faster and soon it was time to go back home.

After a quick shower and changing back into her school uniform, she bid her teacher farewell and was on her way back to U.A. and her dormitory. On the way back she was lost in thought. The lessons had kept her mind occupied, but now that she was by herself her mind wandered back to what Lockjaw had said during lunch.

She didn't like Tora in that way, did she? They were good friends. You naturally ended up getting close if you lived under the same roof. But they weren't that close. Besides, she didn't have time for romance. She was training to be a hero and this would just distract her and take time away she could spend training.

And even if she wanted to get together with Tora, would he want to? He already had a lot on his plate. He was studying to become a Pro Hero, just like her, but he also was class president which brought its own set of extra responsibilities. And of course there was just the way he was. He was caring, sure, but he was more a big brother or father kind of caring than caring like a boyfriend.

"Kaira! You there?"

With a start, the contemplating girl realized she had just walked into the school dormitory and Tora was yelling to grab her attention.

"There we go. Was your first day that tough?"

Kaira was silent for a moment. Her mind still trying to process where she was.

"You okay? You look flustered. You don't have a fever, do you?" The boy placed a hand on Kaira's forehead. "You feel warm, but you're always hotter than most people, right? So I can't really tell…"

Netsuka pulled Tora's hand away and shot a glare at him. "I'm fine! I just had my first day on internship and got the crap beaten out of me by my mentor. How do you think I feel?!"

Tora took a step back and defensively put his hands up. "Sorry, didn't mean to annoy you."

"Urgh, whatever. I'm going to my room."

Kaira walked to the stairwell, but before she rounded the corner she turned to Tora. Her scowl had softened and she looked almost remorseful.

"Hey Tora?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for the lunch. It was really good."

Tora gave her a smile that seemed just a bit sweeter than usual. "Anytime."


Kaira was dead-tired, but she couldn't fall asleep. Her mind was running a mile a minute. Images of Tora were flying through her head. The way he smiled, the way he hummed to himself when he was cooking, his smouldering, focused stare when he was in a heroics exercise with someone else. She wouldn't say he was handsome, but he had a certain charm about him. He was helpful, kind and never expected anything in return. He almost abhorred getting something back.

Her fantasy was getting out of hand. She was beginning to wonder what it would feel like to hold his hand, to rest her head against his chest while they were sitting on the couch.

"Maybe I do have a crush on him..."


And there we go! The beginnings of romance. I'm kinda torn between jumping between several people to give them their time in the spotlight and focusing on the 'main' characters. If you have a preference, let me know. Might push me one direction or the other.

I would also like to advertise my fictionpress account under the same name where I'm going to write (short)stories not set in any established universes.

The first story is already up: Warranty Voided.
Sarah is an android programmed to serve whoever buys her, but things don't go as they should.

A second, darker story will be put up there soon as well.