They continued their walk, Yamamoto's long, measured strides leading them to a destination the child still didn't know. It was a place he had glimpsed a few days ago, a fleeting curiosity without purpose until now.
The cacophony of the human world grew louder as they moved, the sharp honks of primitive locomotives and the hollering of passersby blending into an annoying symphony that Yamamoto ignored with some effort. With each step, the surroundings shifted, from the dense familiarity of the Asian district and gave way to a more varied environment. Their destination lay slightly beyond its borders, where cultures mingled and clashed. The discrimination and segregation he had noted on his first day in the city were clear as day, and the closer they got, the more their presence stood out.
Here, Yamamoto and the child were undeniable anomalies. The stares were more wide-eyed this time, longer, more deliberate. People stumbled, froze, or even backpedaled, twisting their necks to confirm what they were seeing. His presence was no longer a sight to grow accustomed to, as it had been in the Asian district. Out here, it was an abrupt disturbance, an unmistakable ripple in the mundane. The weight of their attention brushed against him, unwanted and insignificant, and he waved it aside with the indifference of someone far removed from their world.
As they neared their destination, the atmosphere shifted. The stink of the human vehicles was forgotten behind and instead replaced with the smell of salt and rust. The boat graveyard lay before them, a desolate area where the city's discarded vessels came to die. Hulking carcasses of metal and wood sat scattered across the shore, their skeletal remains jutting out at awkward angles. Some boats were split clean in half, their insides spilling out like entrails, evidence of meeting something in the sea. Something that tore through the multi-ton ships like paper. While the rest stood whole, lopsided and half-submerged in the brackish water.
Yamamoto took a deep breath and frowned. The air here was heavy with decay, the mingling scents of seaweed, stagnant water, and corroded iron forming an acrid stench that he disliked. His spiritual senses stretched out and noted life, minuscule as it was. Barnacles clinging stubbornly to rusting hulls, crabs scuttling beneath the titanic, desolate hulks, and finally vagrants whose reiatsu was so low they barely registered.
A brief and measured flex of his reiatsu was enough to send them all scattering. Even if they didn't understand why they ran, sheer animal instincts took over in place of reason and sent them scrambling away until Yamamoto and the child were truly left in a graveyard.
His gaze swept across the scene, unreadable as ever, and when he was satisfied he finally spoke. "We're here," he said simply, his voice cutting through the silence and drawing the child's attention to him.
The child stared up at him, a piece of meat on a stick still stuck between her lips. Feeling the weight of his focus, she hurriedly chewed and swallowed, wiping her hands on her shirt before her gaze began to truly take in their surroundings. For the first time, it seemed she was paying attention, her wide eyes darting from the skeletal remains of ships to the rippling water that lapped at the shore.
He allowed her this moment of curiosity, stepping away from her in slow, measured strides. His steps echoed faintly against the rusted metal pieces and cracked wood littered beneath his feet until he came to a stop several meters away.
"It's big," the child said, her small voice carrying across the emptiness as she spun slowly in a circle, taking it all in. She came full circle and stopped directly opposite him.
"It is empty," he replied.
The girl nodded, her expression clouded with confusion. Her eyes flicked to him, searching for answers, for the purpose of their presence in this desolate place. Yamamoto remembered a conversation he had once shared with Sachiko:
"She's afraid of her power. Terrified, I'd say. It changes her. It consumes her. She knows what it is at its core: fire. Destructive, unrestrained, and unbridled. In the hands of a child so young, it is no wonder she fears herself."
He stood tall and straight, his gaze steady as it rested on the girl before him. A child who needed guidance. A child who needed teaching. A child who needed purpose.
"Sachiko told me about your problem." He didn't need to look at her to recognize the nervousness that overcame her immediately.
"You fear your power because you do not know to fear anything else. You fear who you become once you use it." Her brows twisted further so he continued. "The solution is simple, you need to fear something greater. Something unattainable. Something that, even in your power-addled state, you would know to fear. Only then will you see a path forward."
The child's look of confusion remained. She didn't understand.
Fine. She would soon enough.
He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the salt and rust-laden air. When he opened them again, they gleamed with purpose. Slowly, he began to unravel the iron grip he kept on his reiatsu. The air around him thickened, pressing down like a thundercloud ready to burst. The tortured groan of metal filled the graveyard as his spiritual energy rippled outward, the discarded ships bearing the brunt of his presence.
"Unchain yourself, child," he commanded, his voice deep and resonant.
Her eyes widened in uncertainty, hesitation flickering across her face. He refused to ask again, so when she failed to move, he slammed his cane into the ground with such force that the graveyard trembled like a miniature localized earthquake. The vibrations sent a cascade of rust flakes raining down from the skeletal ships, and the girl stumbled backward, falling onto her backside with a startled cry.
It was a display of strength, unlike anything she had seen from him since arriving at the orphanage. His presence was undeniable, an unyielding pillar that loomed over her like a mountain. Yet, amidst the fear, something else began to stir within her. Her spine straightened, resolve stiffening like iron under the weight of his gaze.
Mei Mei let loose in an explosion that shook the boat graveyard.
Flames erupted from her small form in a torrential blaze, a wild, unrestrained inferno that surged outward with a life of its own. The air warped around the heat, distorting the graveyard as her fire swallowed the space, consuming the rusted remains of ships and sending waves of heat rippling through the brackish water.
Her power was raw, chaotic, and beautiful. A force of nature untempered by control. And in the midst of that chaos was the tinniest bit of reiatsu, empowering her flames and giving them a life of their own.
Yamamoto stood amidst the maelstrom, unflinching as the firestorm raged around him, his cane held firmly at his side. The image in front of him was something he expected a lot of his enemies to be familiar with, An image of himself
"Good," he said, his voice calm and unwavering amidst the roaring flames. "Now, command it."
Mei Mei's response was a laugh. Wild, unrestrained, and broken into hiccuping bursts. It tore through the air like a primal scream, echoing against the skeletal remains of the graveyard. Her hands spread wide as if to embrace the inferno, twirling on the spot and intoxicated by the sheer thrill coursing through her veins. The laughter rose, louder than the crackling blaze. The laughter of someone who believed they were untouchable. Then she spun to face him and the laughter died in her throat for there he stood.
Untouched. Unmoved. Unscathed.
An old man wrapped in a white haori over a black kimono, gripping his weathered cane with one hand while the other sleeve hung empty. His features were carved with age, and his skin like ancient parchment glowed in the heat of his fire. A flowing white beard and long brows swayed in the superheated air, framing an unamused face so still it seemed almost carved from stone.
The only part of him that truly seemed alive were his eyes.
Half-lidded and barely open, those eyes burned brighter than the flames themselves, their gaze piercing through her in a way that no fire could match. They held no awe, no fear, no pride, not even curiosity at what she had done, only apathy. A cold, detached understanding of her power and, by extension, its insignificance in his presence.
For the first time since that day, Mei Mei felt it even while using her power at its strongest. A primal, unfamiliar sensation crept into her chest. Something that should've been impossible with the way her powers worked. Her snuffed-out empathy and impulse control were dragged back to life, kicking and screaming, as the flames flickered, faltered, and fear and uncertainty crept into her expression. She looked at him, her hands trembling as the inferno began to waver. Fear.
Her flames, wild and feral, faltered even further as that uncertainty took root. Her laughter died completely her feeling of unshackled dominance, replaced by trembling hands and an uneven breath. The inferno continued to waver, its strength dwindling under the weight of those unyielding eyes.
Eyes of a man that stood in the heart of her flames without the slightest bit of discomfort, for not even his robes were the slightest bit charred.
"End it."
The single word was a proclamation, delivered with a weight that might as well have been etched into reality itself. It was not just a command but a decree, spoken with the quiet authority of one who wielded a blade weathered and aged yet pristine enough to cut God.
Without another word, the flames vanished.
The oppressive heat dissipated, leaving only the eerie silence of the boat graveyard in its wake. Mei Mei staggered backward, her wide eyes locked onto him as the clarity born of her psychopathic instincts faded, replaced by the muddied lens of her youth. The monstrous figure she had glimpsed moments ago was gone, leaving only the old man known as "Jiji" to the children at the orphanage.
He tilted his head ever so slightly, his expression unreadable. "Commendable," he said, without even the faintest trace of disappointment coloring his tone, yet Mei Mei felt it rolling in her guts. She had failed him. "Yet you extinguished it not by your will, but by mine. That is not control."
Her eyes trailed to the ground beneath his judgment. He was going to abandon her just like every other person in her life had done. Just one more would do, because she was useless. A girl that could not even control her own stupid powers.
He straightened, his cane tapping lightly against the ground as he turned his full gaze upon her. "We shall try this again."
Mei Mei's eyes widened at the words, her head jerking up to look at him in surprise as something burned in her chest. Not fire, but something she had felt before, as she watched the video of an old man standing alone in the sky, facing a walking calamity that was strapped and pinned to the ground. The feeling that had spurred her desire to leave the Correctional Center.
Hope.
The air thickened once more, heavy with unspoken expectation. His deep and rough voice carried across the empty graveyard, and Mei Mei found herself regaining that steel in her spine once more. She straightened up to stare back at the old man. This time, she had the faint beginning of what looked like a smile on her lips as she stood up once again and faced the old man as her eyes began to burn once more. Then he said something that she would grow familiar with.
"Unshackle yourself, child."
…
Legend blazed through the sky, a streak of brilliant blue-white light tearing a path through the heavens like a shooting star. The air rippled, shook, and roared in his wake, wind pressure carving a trail into the clouds that could be seen by anyone who cared to look for miles. The atmosphere itself bent and bowed to his presence.
Flight was something he was not sure he could ever tire of. He spun and spiraled, continuing his dance among the clouds. His movements were precise yet almost casual, each shift of his body directing him with pinpoint accuracy while he glowed like a second sun.
Yet he was not flying without reason, despite how much he enjoyed the act. He had picked up a distress call: some brute and mover cape had wrecked a casino and was trying to escape with the loot. Such brute-forced and poorly thought-out plans spoke more of a recently triggered cape than the kind he was used to dealing with. He hoped, with any luck, he could turn the fresh trigger away from villainy and toward heroism.
His eyes scanned the ground below, searching and scanning while he dipped, ensuring his presence was visible to those below. Let them see him, let them know he guarded them, and let them find comfort in that knowledge.
There was an explosion of sound that made him instinctively shift into his energy form. He quickly realized he was unharmed and reverted from his breaker state.
His focus sharpened as he caught sight of a disturbance on the main road ahead. A massive crater, its edges cracked, jagged, and rough, as if a god had slammed a fist into the earth in fury. Dust still hung in the air, a faint haze that partially blocked his vision. At the center of the devastation, a figure floated above a downed and broken form. This was not the act of a god but simply that of a woman.
Floating just above the villain, serene and unyielding, was Alexandria. Her black cape billowed gently in the lingering updraft from the crater. She tilted her head to meet his gaze as he slowed to a stop meters away. She wore a full visor today, one that hid her expressions, but he could almost tell there was a grin on her face as she looked up at him. There had been a change to her since Behemoth's death—like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She smiled more, laughed more, joked more. This was the closest he imagined her to have been before she got sick and took the deal that granted her powers.
"You owe me lunch for this, at least," she started, and now he was certain she had a smirk on her face.
He facepalmed as he readjusted his recruiting strategy. There was no way he was going to cajole the cape into enlisting with the Protectorate now. Not after Alexandria had smashed him into the ground like a gnat. His planned gentler method was out the window. Now it would have to be the carrot-and-stick approach. It was a good thing Alexandria could play the big stick when she wanted to, especially since she was already here.
"You're a long way from Los Angeles," he noted, letting out a grin in response.
He could tell the mood shifted in the next moment because Alexandria stilled for a second before returning to her regular range of movements. She waved him to follow as she drifted away, and he hesitated until he saw the PRT vehicles rolling in. With a wave to the onlookers and civilians, and a riot of applause and cheers of happy New Yorkers, he took off after her.
They flew high, piercing the clouds, the world below fading into an indistinct patchwork of color. The air grew thinner, the temperature dropping, but neither of them slowed until they were just shy of the stratosphere. Here, the sky was a darker blue, the earth below distant and surreal.
Alexandria came to a stop, hovering with practiced ease. Legend mirrored her, crossing his arms as he gave her an expectant look.
"Well?" he prompted.
She shrugged, a motion that seemed almost unnatural coming from her. "I needed to talk to someone. Doctor Mother and Contessa are too busy scheming about how to add the Old Man to our plans. Hero is buried in his anti-Endbringer weapon, and Eidolon is still acting salty."
Legend chuckled, the sound warm despite the chill of the altitude. "You know how David is. He'll get over it. Give him time."
"Time," Alexandria echoed, her voice softer now, almost lost to the wind. She reached up and removed her visor, her black hair whipping around her face as she held the helmet at her side. He followed suit, pulling off his half-mask and shaking his brown hair, allowing it to drift with the breeze.
Without the barrier of her visor, Legend could see the worry etched into her features, the faint lines around her mouth and eyes that were slowly disappearing.
"Well, that's the thing that has me worried," she admitted, her tone grim as her eyes trailed up. "Time. We're past due for another Endbringer attack, and yet there's been nothing but silence from the two Endbringers present."
Legend felt his stomach drop at that reminder as his eyes followed hers, and he knew with certainty what she was looking at. The still unarmed and quiet endbringer floating somewhere above them.
AN: School of hard knocks.