Chapter 8: Internships: Beorn
Reikokuna bowed to his friends at the train station before stepping into the waiting car. As the class soon found out, Reikokuna's parents owned an oil company in the Sea of Japan, and his family was rather wealthy. His father's chauffer, Katai, nodded to him as he sat in the reclined executive seat of his father's Maybach, sighing as the massaging seats worked a knot out of his back. Transforming into different animals meant using muscles you didn't even knew you had, and he would get rather stiff after a hard day of training.
"Where to, sir?" Katai asked from the driver's seat, setting the radio to relaxing classical music for his young master.
"I believe that Mr. Sub Nautica works near the Coast Guard base," Reikokuna said, not opening his eyes and letting out another grunt as the massage program hit another kink in his lower back. "Let us head there, and I shall begin my work immediately." The hero he was interning under, Sub Nautica, had a rather unusual Quirk. It was called "Pressurize", and it allowed him to control his body's internal pressure, and consequently, his internal temperature. He worked as a diver, spending much of his time in the ocean doing rescue missions, and as a result of his Quirk, he could dive to a maximum depth of over 30,000 feet. A rather interesting part of his abilities was that he could adjust his skin's pressure so finely that he could passively absorb oxygen through his skin, allowing him to breathe underwater. He had a sense of pride about his job, and just like his intern, loved to work hard.
Reikokuna, unlike most wealthy teens his age, was more than willing to get dirty and sweaty, and actually enjoyed doing work. It made him feel pride whenever something he made or fixed worked flawlessly, and he would do lots of community service. Whenever some charity group was having an event, he was the first person to volunteer to help. He worked with animal rescue programs (since he could become the animals they typically rescued, he could communicate with them and earn their trust much faster), construction projects (gorillas and horses can carry immense amounts of weight), search-and-rescue teams for lost children and elders around the city (he could communicate with the various critters around the city, who often saw almost everything that happened), and even ordered Katai to stop the car once when he saw a traffic accident. Not only did he end up saving the victims' lives, but he also offered to help repair their car for free (he sometimes helped out on his father's oil rigs, and consequently knew a lot about mechanics).
An hour later, Reikokuna was standing at the doorway to a small shack on the pier, lightly knocking on the door. A tall old man opened the door and looked him over. The man had blue-green mottled skin and dark green hair that clumped together, looking rather like kelp. Despite his age, he had large muscles that rivalled Reikokuna's, and a thin hint of stubble dotted his square, well-defined chin.
"You're the intern, right? Beorn?" he asked, voice scratchy yet stern. "Come on in, I'll brief you on what we're going to be doing this week." Reikokuna bowed and followed the hero inside. He set his bag down near the door and sat in a chair in front of Sub Nautica's desk, which was littered with various papers, fishhooks, and ropes. "Now, before we get into anything," Sub Nautica said, leaning back in his chair, "let me tell you why I wanted you here. You remind me of me, in a way. We're both strong, handsome men, we both have a good sense of honor and hold others to a high respect, and we both make stupid mistakes." His gaze hardened and he leaned forwards. "Not that you were weak at the Sports Festival, you did fantastic, but you could have done better. I saw you hold back on that Hatsume kid. You could have beaten him in a heartbeat, but you wanted to give him a chance to prove his strength. A mindset like that is great for a student looking to make friends, but not as a hero trying to stop criminals." He stood up, turning towards a metal locker behind him.
"I made some mistakes like that when I was your age, forty-eight years ago," he said as he opened a drawer and began rummaging through it. "On my first mission out in my internship, I got cocky and let the villain get away. When the pros finally caught him two weeks later, he had killed two people." He turned back around, holding a piece of metal. He set it down on the desk, and Reikokuna saw it was a short section of steel pipe, walls almost an inch thick. One end seemed to be torn, as if someone had ripped it out of whatever pipe it had been a part of. "But that's only half the reason I needed you. I work as a maintenance worker and guard on an oil rig a few miles offshore. Someone's been sabotaging it. I found this piece of pipe torn out of one of the legs. See this mark here?" he asked, pointing out a strange puncture. "That's a tooth mark. Whoever did this bit through two inches of steel, 1,400 meters underwater. They caused almost 2 billion yen of damage with one bite. I need someone who can dive underwater like me to help me stop this criminal. Are you up for it?" Reikokuna stared back at him, gaze never faltering.
"If I had thought that I could not do the jobs required of a hero," he said, "then I would never have even tried. I am not one to overestimate my own capabilities. I will become a hero, and I will do whatever it takes to protect the people." Sub Nautica nodded, closing his eyes.
"Very well then," he said, reaching up to the rafters and pulling down a large harpoon, "let's go chase some bad guys." Five minutes later, he was standing at the end of the dock, stretching. He was wearing a black wetsuit with blue stripes down the arms and carbon fiber plates on his chest, back, forearms, shins, and groin. He had a set of scuba goggles on, and strapped to his ankles were small turbines. His harpoon lay next to him, and the rest of his equipment consisted of small spearguns and lights strapped to his arms, a spotlight attached to his mask, and shark-like fins on his calves. Reikokuna sat behind him in his shorts, meditating, clearing his mind.
"Whelp," Sub Nautica said, picking up his harpoon, "let's go." He dove into the water and his turbines kicked in, sending him down into the depths. Reikokuna stood and leapt into the air. As he fell towards the water, his skin turned blue, and his nose grew long and sharp. Reikokuna, the swordfish, plunged into the water and sped off after Sub Nautica. He swam after the departing hero, catching up to him in no time. Sub Nautica glanced over and gave a thumbs up, to which Reikokuna wagged his fin. The two heroes raced through the blue depths, rocketing past schools of fish, until they came across a set of giant concrete and iron pillars, sinking all the way to the seafloor. Sub Nautica rocketed to the surface, launching into the air, before landing on the platform of the oil rig. Reikokuna shot through the waves, flipping through the air as he transformed back to a human, and landed next to Sub Nautica, flipping his long black hair away from his face. Several workers were doing their jobs, and gave polite nods to the heroes as Sub Nautica led the way to the main control room.
"You know what?" Reikokuna asked. "I think this is one of my father's oil rigs." Sub Nautica looked over his shoulder in surprise.
"Really? What a coincidence," he said, looking at a logo on the wall. It read "Reikokuna Oil Company". He stared at it for a few seconds, looking back at Reikokuna every so often. "Huh." He knocked on a door, and without waiting for a response, went in. A large, bearded, muscular man was sitting behind a desk, one eyebrow raised at the intruders.
"Oh, it's you. Come in," he said in a gruff voice, waving them over with a massive hairy arm. "You here to get rid of our shark problem?" He held out a few pictures to Sub Nautica as he sat in a chair across from the foreman. "Caught this bitch chewing through our pipes on a security camera." As Reikokuna and Sub Nautica looked over the surveillance photos, the foreman continued. "Calls herself "Hammerhead", he said, "I guess that's her Quirk. No clue why she's trying to destroy our rig. I was hoping you two could knock some sense into her." The photos showed a tall, grey-skinned woman swimming around the base of the rig. Her head was shaped like a hammerhead shark's, and she had fins on the sides of her calves and forearms. Her hands and feet were webbed and clawed, and her mouth was filled with rows of terrifyingly sharp and jagged teeth. "She's been coming around here every few days, you just missed her. She was here yesterday."
"We'll get her," Sub Nautica said, standing up. "Come, Beorn, let's go fishing." The two left the room, and walked to the railing on the edge of the platform. "Beorn, I need you to go and catch some fish," Sub Nautica said. "The bigger the better." Reikokuna nodded and dove off the railing, transforming into a large sea lion. Over the next half hour, he managed to haul in almost 100 fish, mainly tuna. Sub Nautica grabbed a large tub and dumped all of the fish into it. "Beorn," he called, "come turn this into chum." He morphed into a polar bear and slashed the fish with his claws, slowly grinding them down to a bloody soup. Sub Nautica dumped the tub of blood and guts into the ocean, then nodded to Reikokuna, diving off to the side of the chum as fish already began to nibble at it.
The two heroes waited near the cloud of blood, watching for Hammerhead to appear. For about fifteen minutes, there were only sharks and barracudas preying on the chum, but finally, a grey woman appeared. She narrowed her eyes, looking around her suspiciously. Before the two could react, she had turned and was dashing straight towards Sub Nautica, jaws wide open. He dodged to the side, firing his speargun at her. It stuck in her thigh, and her face contorted in pain. She whirled around, biting through the line and shooting away. Reikokuna transformed into a mako shark and gave chase, followed closely by Sub Nautica. His powerful tail churned through the water as he slowly caught up to Hammerhead, snapping at her heels as she kicked harder. She suddenly dove down, and Reikokuna turned sharply, avoiding an underwater cliff she had been leading him to. He looked down, and saw a maze of tunnels in the cliff face.
Which one did she go into? He thought to himself as Sub Nautica began shining his lights down the tunnels, inspecting them. I am certain that this is where her hideout must be.He transformed into an eel and slid into one of the tunnels. He swam through the maze, his nose picking up the scent of blood. He followed the trail, the sharp odor acting as a magnet to him. Slithering into an opening, he saw Hammerhead floating in a small cavern, struggling to remove the harpoon barb from her leg. He felt a deep, rumbling growl as she closed her teeth around the end of the barb and ripped, tearing it out. Her jaw clenched in pain, and he saw the barb snap in half, a broken tooth sinking to the bottom. He slowly backed out and returned to Sub Nautica, memorizing the path as he went. Exiting the labyrinth, he transformed into an octopus and signed to Sub Nautica. He gestured with his tentacle, showing the grizzled hero the path he took, and Sub Nautica nodded, pointing to the surface. He rose through the surf, swimming towards the shore of a nearby island. Reikokuna leapt out of the waves as a dolphin, transforming back into human form in mid-air before landing next to his mentor.
"Our next step is to tell the Coast Guard where she is," Sub Nautica said, pulling a small waterproof radio out of his belt. "They'll send in a team to isolate the passage to her secret cavern, and then we'll send her the terms of her surrender. We shouldn't get in a fight with her." As he spoke to the captain of a nearby Coast Guard boat on the radio, Reikokuna transformed into a pelican and took off. He circled above the island, examining it. The island was small, about the size of the cafeteria at U.A, he thought. About half of it was covered in trees and plants, and the rest was rocky, gravelly beaches. His eye picked out something suspicious, and he swooped down to a bush, transforming into a crab before sneaking off. He came across what looked to be a small lagoon in the middle of the island, the bottom of which seemed to go down for dozens of meters. He approached it, but a sudden splash made him curl up, blending into the rest of the rocks. A single eye stalk rose up, and he saw Hammerhead in the lagoon, staggering onto the shore. She grimaced as a rivulet of blood dripped down her leg, and she yanked a palm frond off of a tree and tied it around the wound.
"Goddamn old man shooting at me," she muttered, laying down on her stomach. "Can't he just let me be alone? Why does everyone try to shoot me?" She sighed, and rolled onto her back, dipping her hand into the lagoon and splashing some water on her face. "It's not like I've killed anybody, right?" she asked herself. "All I've done to anybody is try to destroy that oil rig in my fishing spot, scaring away all the fish with its loud drill, and how do I get repaid? They send the fucking heroes after me! I'm not the bad one here!" She snarled and swiped her clawed hand at a tree, leaving deep scratch marks in it. She coughed and looked at her arms, which were beginning to shrivel. She slinked back into the lagoon, floating on her back. Reikokuna slowly skittered off, and transformed back into a bird, flapping to Sub Nautica. He found the hero where he had left him, tapping his foot.
"I saw you leave, so I assumed you were scouting this island," he said as Reikokuna transformed back into a human. "Did you find anything?"
"It appears that this island is connected to Hammerhead's tunnel system," Reikokuna said. "There is a lagoon in the middle of it that she appeared in. She is currently sunbathing and speaking to herself."
"Oh, really?" Sub Nautica raised an eyebrow. "What's she saying?"
"She was referring to her motive," Reikokuna said. "She seemed like she was trying to justify her crimes to herself. Apparently, the oil rig is located in a prime fishing spot, and the sounds of the drill scare away her fish. I believe she wishes to get rid of the rig so that she can freely fish there again."
Sub Nautica scratched his chin, eyes closed in thought. "You see, Beorn, this poses a dilemma to us heroes," he said, looking at his intern. "Do we ignore her personal reasons and arrest her for the damages she's caused, or do we try to work out an agreement between her and the foreman of the oil rig? If they can't decide, what then? Do we tell her to go away somewhere else? Do we tell her to suck it up and find a new fishing spot? Would it be too harsh to charge her, or do we as heroes have the responsibility and duty to arrest all criminals, no matter the reason?"
A splash behind the duo made them jump and look back just as Hammerhead leapt out of the brush, teeth bared. She clamped her jaw around Reikokuna's arm and yanked him back as he yelled, punching at her. He transformed into a gorilla and pried at her jaw, but she bit down harder. Sub Nautica aimed his speargun at her, but she yanked Reikokuna in front of her, blocking his shot. She dragged him to the lagoon and dove, tugging him deep underwater. He choked and tried to transform, but a rush of seawater into his lungs ruined his concentration. As his ears popped and the sun grew distant and dark, he forced all of his mental strength into his body, and transformed.
Sub Nautica was about to leap into the water after his intern when the lagoon suddenly erupted into the air, millions of gallons of water blasting into the sky as a massive dark form soared out of the crevasse. An enormous, writhing mass of tentacles, hundreds of feet tall, spilled from the depths of the island, a deep, rumbling roar emanating from within its body. Its tentacles were knobbed with large suckers lined with sharp, jagged teeth, and large, glowing yellow eyes leered out through the thrashing tentacles. Sub Nautica fell back in shock, staring up at the colossal beast. Hundreds of feet in the air, Hammerhead screamed in terror as the monster flung her down, crashing into the ground. She trembled as the monster roared, tentacles smashing all around her. Its tentacles drooped, and its massive, slitted eyes fell shut and Reikokuna transformed back into a human, unconscious from the effort of holding such a form. He fell from the sky, limbs flailing as the wind rushed around him. Sub Nautica looked down in horror at the lagoon he was falling towards, water just beginning to rush back in but still very empty. He kneeled down to leap and catch him, but a grey streak blew past him. He watched in shock as Hammerhead jumped into the air, catching Reikokuna in her arms and crashing into the ground, rolling to a halt against a tree. She groaned as Sub Nautica rushed over to them. She limply held out her arms to him, and he slapped a set of handcuffs around her wrists as he knelt down next to Reikokuna.
"Hey, kid!" Sub Nautica shook him, trying to wake his unconscious intern. "Beorn, wake up! Can you hear me?" Reikokuna snapped awake, accidentally transforming in his panic. He rapidly switched forms, struggling to get away from the hands holding him down, until his eyes finally focused and he realized where he was. He relaxed, transforming back into a human and sighing, slouching down. "Kid, what the hell was that?" he asked.
"A Leviathan," Reikokuna responded, taking deep breaths. "I read about them in a book of mythical creatures one time; I was not aware of exactly how large it would be."
Sub Nautica turned to Hammerhead. "And what was that? Why'd you save the kid?"
"I don't like death," she responded, then looked into his eyes, a toothy grin on her face. "Not when I'm not killing them, that is." He glared at the villain, then looked in confusion as she started to cough. "Damn it," she muttered, "I need to get back in the water."
"Yeah right, why would I let that happen?"
"I can't breathe if my gills dry out, and I get eczema in the sunlight," she responded. "You wouldn't want someone to die on your watch, would you?"
He turned around, muttering to himself. He punched a tree a few times, then sighed, turning back to her. "I'll get a hose." He left, and Hammerhead tried to stand up, but a powerful hand forced her had to the ground. Reikokuna towered over her, left arm still bleeding heavily. He transformed into a starfish and pulled his arm off, just as he had done in the Sports Festival, then returned to human form once it grew back.
"Make a move, and I will snap your head in two," he growled, rage in his eyes. Hammerhead gulped, nodding, and the young hero walked a short distance away from her, transforming into a bear and laying down, piercing yellow eyes trained on her. Several minutes passed, then he heard a helicopter overhead, and transformed back into a human as Sub Nautica emerged from the brush with a team of Coast Guard soldiers, guns drawn.
"Take her to the shore," a voice said behind the sailors, and they parted as a tall man stepped forward. He had the head of a seal and had a set of goggles on his forehead. As the soldiers dragged Hammerhead to the waiting boat, Sub Nautica greeted the officer with a firm handshake.
"Good to see you again, Lieutenant Selkie!" he said, patting him on the back. Selkie grinned and nodded down to his shoulder. A gold star, with four gold bars under it, shone in the sun. Sub Nautica's eyes went wide. "CAPTAIN!? You? Haha! How the hell'd ya manage that? It's only been a year and a half since I last saw you!"
"I've been working like mad," Selkie said, chuckling. "That little dispute with China certainly helped."
"Oh, yeah, I remember that! This old body of mine got shipped to Beijing to help suppress those drug lords' goons; what did they make you do?"
"I led a strike team that infiltrated their yacht." He rolled back his sleeve, and Reikokuna saw a jagged scar slithering its way up his left forearm. "Bastards got me with a speargun, but there's nothing that can stop me!" His eyes wandered over to Reikokuna, who bowed politely. "Captain Selkie, Japanese Coast Guard," he said, extending his hand.
"Beorn, intern under Sub Nautica," he responded, feeling Selkie's firm grip and squeezing his fist tighter. Selkie noticed and grinned, a vein on his wrist pulsing as he gripped harder. Reikokuna transformed into his gorilla form, his massive fist nearly crushing Selkie's hand. He tapped out on Reikokuna's arm, and he turned back to a human as Selkie laughed.
"Strong grip you got there, kid! What's this old geezer got you doing, anyway?" he asked, jabbing a thumb towards Sub Nautica. "He makin' you do all the chores he claims he's too old to do?"
"Alright listen here you overgrown dachshund," Sub Nautica interjected, a smug grin on his face. "Just because I don't like doing paperwork doesn't mean I'm too old to do it! I'm only 64 for cryin' out loud!"
"He had been a phenomenal mentor to me," Reikokuna said to Selkie, ignoring the older hero. "Even though I only arrived this morning, I feel that I have learned a lot about a hero's duty from him, and I fully expect nothing less for the rest of this week."
"… You a rich boy or something?" Selkie asked after a short pause. "I don't know anyone else who would talk that properly."
"My father owns the oil company that rig out there belongs to," he said, pointing to the platform silhouetted by the setting sun. "I am not sure if my internship here was entirely coincidental, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to help out my father's company."
Selkie nodded, then bid farewell and left to the boat. As it disappeared over the waves, Sub Nautica and Beorn dove into the surf, racing back to the docks. They passed by a ferry, and Reikokuna pointed his fin at it, a questioning look in his eye. Sub Nautica smiled and nodded, and Reikokuna transformed, rushing to the surface.
On board the ferry, a little boy was resting his head against the railing, bored. He held out a little toy whale, pretending it was splashing through the waves after the boat. A massive rush of water just past the toy caught his eye, and he watched in awe as a blue whale, a hundred feet long, broke through the surface, breaching the waves as it soared into the air, then crashed back down, soaking the entire boat in a massive wave as the boy laughed and cheered, passengers pulling out their phones to film the massive creature. Reikokuna splashed along beside the boat for a few minutes, then dove back down and turned to the docks.
The next few days were rather uneventful. Sub Nautica typically didn't work on fighting villains and stopping crime (though he refused to admit it, his age was beginning to slow him down); he preferred to fix things around the harbor, deep down where the water was pitch black and freezing cold. Since he was one of the only people in Japan that could do that kind of deep-sea work, he was in high demand, and Reikokuna enjoyed the hard tasks assigned to them. On the Thursday of that week, Reikokuna found himself almost 1,000 meters under the surface of the ocean, 38 miles off the coast of Kamisu, a city a few miles to the east of Tokyo. He and the grizzled hero were trying to repair a rusted undersea broadcasting cable that had been causing lots of problems with overseas communication. Reikokuna, as a giant squid, could manipulate the heavy, three-foot thick cable much better than Sub Nautica could have on his own, and as Sub Nautica made the final weld in the cable, he aimed his flashlight to the surface and bobbed it up and down. That was the signal for them to ascend, and as they got to shallower waters, Reikokuna felt a sharp pressure change in the water, and something lit up the cloudy sky hundreds of meters above them.
The temperature rose, and as he and Sub Nautica looked around in confusion, a powerful shockwave struck the duo, the water boiling and churning as the slug of nearly solid water hit them like a punch from All Might. The water rushed back the opposite way, and Reikokuna turned into a sailfish and powered through the water away from the suction, Sub Nautica just in front of him. As the two finally made it to the surface, Reikokuna felt his skin heat up. He transformed into a human and, seeing the look of horror on Sub Nautica's face, turned around. A massive, instantly identifiable mushroom cloud towered above them, about 15 miles away from the coast. The sky was swimming with all the colors, the cloud broiling and writhing as purple and orange tendrils shot into the atmosphere, rolling across the sky.
"…What the hell…" Sub Nautica pulled out his radio and called the Coast Guard. "Selkie! Are you seeing this!?"
"Yeah! We felt it too!" a voice called from the radio. "What the hell happened?"
"That looks nuclear!" Reikokuna exclaimed. "Are we under attack?"
"I don't think so," the radio said, "if we were, they wouldn't have missed the land by that much. I think that was a villain's doing."
Another voice crackled to life on the radio. "Captain Selkie!" a familiar voice called.
"All Might?" Selkie responded. "What's going on?"
"A villain with the power to control radioactivity attacked us. She formed a supercritical mass that would have annihilated the city, but she was stopped. A team of heroes managed to get the mass away from the city before it detonated. We need all the help we can over here! The shockwave caused a lot of damage to the city!"
"Then there is no time to lose," Reikokuna said. "We are heroes; it is our job to help those in need." He transformed back into a sailfish and took off, aiming to go around the churning cloud. Sub Nautica sighed, rubbing his forehead, before diving down and following his young ward. All through the day and into the night, thousands of first responders and heroes worked, saving people trapped under collapsed buildings and bridges, fighting fires, coordinating evacuation routes and emergency shelters, and clearing the debris from the roads.
At around 1:30 the following morning, Reikokuna and Sub Nautica were finally finished, and were sent back home. During the three-hour long train ride back home, Reikokuna tried to sleep, but he couldn't. Sub Nautica had decided to end the internship there, telling him to go home and rest over the weekend. When he finally arrived at his house, he just walked in and collapsed on the sofa, utterly exhausted, physically and mentally. He didn't wake until the following morning, Saturday, and even then, he didn't feel like moving at all, having to make an effort to go outside to his mother's lavish garden and sit in nature. His friends had been texting him all day asking about his internship, and he had simply told them it went fine. He felt bad lying to them, but he didn't want them to worry.
The following Monday, Reikokuna was sitting in his seat, the first one in the room as always. More of his classmates showed up, talking about their internships, but he noticed Toschi wasn't among them. Usually, he was the second or third person to arrive, but his desk was empty that morning. Shizuka and Kalantari showed up, the former with a strong tan and the latter seeming slightly more bronze than he usually did.
"Got some sun out there in Kuwait, Shizuka?" Akijaso called, and she chuckled, nervously rubbing her arm.
"It was a lot hotter than I expected," she said, pulling out her phone and opening the camera roll. "Kalantari was dressed for the heat." She showed her friend a photo of the two of them standing in front of what appeared to be a palace. Shizuka was wearing a teal skinsuit with a purple and orange miniskirt and corset outside that framed her curvy figure (nicely, Akijaso thought to himself) and had a black domino mask and high heels. She was smiling, but it seemed forced and she looked like she was trying hard not to sweat. Kalantari, on the other hand, looked like a genie: he had a gold-threaded sirwal and slippers, and a shiny golden belt sat around his hips, a large ruby set in the buckle. A dark blue turban was wrapped around his head and fastened with a large sapphire brooch in the front. He had golden wrist gauntlets with various gems inset in them, and he looked as though he had started growing a small goatee on the trip, although he was shaved now. "See that palace we're in front of?" she asked Akijaso. "That's his FUCKING HOUSE. HE LIVES IN A PALACE. IT HAD GOLD FLOORS AND EVERYTHING."
"God damn," Akijaso said, looking over to his friend and shaking his shoulder. "You never told us you were a rich boy!"
"I didn't want you to treat me any differently just because of my socioeconomic status," the bronze teen said, and Akijaso sat back, smirking.
"No, we treat you differently because you say shit like 'my socioeconomic status'."
Reikokuna barely heard them, his eyes still focused on the empty desk. His eyebrows furrowed as he thought. Where could he be? It is unlike him to be this late for class. All Might's agency is in Tokyo, perhaps I should have gone to see him during the- His eyes widened as he realized something. He was in Tokyo that day. The villain attack was in Tokyo; they said the villain died at the scene; the team of heroes diverted the bomb over the ocean; oh God, does this mean…
Midnight stood up, facing the class. "Everyone, I have some bad news," she said. She sighed, then threw a desolate look to the empty desk. "Toschi Hatsume has quit the hero program."