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Chapter Text

Chapter 1 - A Home Once Hers

There is a tale of a man, a farm boy, who through circumstance, fate, and luck came to importance. He found the egg of a dragon, lost all he knew, journeyed long and far, suffered, loved, and eventually triumphed over the evil that had blanketed the land for a century.

This is not that tale. Unknown to all, somewhere in the vast world, a wild magic was cast. Reaching across the borders of existence, it grasped a young girl in the depths of her despair and tore her from her home. Dropped into a strange world she didn’t understand, like the flap of a butterfly’s wings, the changes she brought were vast and unknowable. Made sister to the farm boy, witness to his tragic death, finder of the egg in his place, his journey became hers.

Yet always she would remember where she came from, and yearn to return to her ancestral home. So it was that, at the twilight of her journey, she sought and found the means to return.

♦♦♦

The one lonely hour of sunlight shone down the throat of Farthen Dûr, bathing the conical mountain city of Tronjheim in golden warmth. The light shone through the Isidar Mithrim, twisting and bending through the rose-shaped star sapphire’s petals of crimson and dusky gold. Nearly a mile beneath its radiant bloom, at the floor of the Dwarven capital, a gathering of races the like of which had not been seen since the fall of Galbatorix two years prior was in progress. One might mistake the gathering for a grand festival, such was the decorations and feasting going on across the cavernous space, but in truth it was a much more somber event than appearances let on.

Kaenna laughed as Ismira, now just over two years old, tottered about, seeking to burn the image of her young niece into her memory. Following her as best a heavily pregnant woman in a festive ankle-length dress could, Katrina sought to prevent her firstborn from hurting herself or stumbling into one of the many drinking contests taking place. Ismira squealed as she was scooped into her mother’s arms just short of running face-first into a Kull’s leg that was more like a young tree than a limb.

A burly arm slung across Kaenna’s shoulders, pulling the young woman into a familiar embrace.

“What did I do to be so lucky?”

Kaenna turned her head to see the bearded face of her brother, Earl Roran Stronghammer. Though he was dressed in a fine white shirt, he had rolled up the sleeves to show his forearms, a habit from when they were young working on Garrow’s farm. Crisp black pants and polished black boots rounded out his ensemble, with the hammer for which he earned his name hung from his waist.

She tucked a lock of green hair that had fallen out of place back behind one pointed ear. “Oh, I don’t know.” She raised a hand and started counting, “You fought off the Ra’zac at Carvahall, lead the village across the Spine, stole one of the Empire’s greatest warships from under their noses, saved all our lives at the Burning Plains, lead the Varden to more victories than most of the other captains, and helped win the day at Urû’baen.” She dropped her hands and smirked at him. “And to top all that, you treat her right.”

“Hah, I suppose you’re right. Like you usually are.” His arm left her shoulders only for his large, calloused hand to plant itself atop her head and start mussing her hair. “You find a dragon egg, get trained by the Elves, even look like one now, and you turn into the wisest person from the valley. And now all this, just for my baby sister.”

Kaenna’s slanted eyes took in the massive gathering once more. All around them were familiar faces. Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Urgals all mingled together as one people in a celebration of the life Kaenna had lived and the journey she was about to take. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but the words died in her throat as a familiar voice approached.

“Kaenna, mine kin,” Orik threw his arms open wide, “are you sure you must go?”

A sad smile drew up the corners of Kaenna’s lips at the sight of her adoptive clanmate and king of the Dwarves. “I must, Orik, you know this.”

“Aye, but what of the Riders? Without you to lead them-”

“The council will lead them well, I’ve made sure of it.”

Roran mumbled a goodbye and dipped away towards Katrina and Ismira, leaving the two members of Dûrgrimst Ingeitum alone. Orik looked up, meeting Kaenna’s determined gaze, before sighing. He ran one thick hand through his finely braided beard glistening with a fragrant oil.

“I still don’t like it. All this time and effort to win our peace and rebuild and the one most responsible for it leaving it all behind.”

“I know, but I’m pulled in too many directions. Between my loyalty to Roran as his sister, my oath to Nasuada, and you as my clansman and king, there are too many who have claim over me for me to appear impartial in nearly any matter. Even though you and the other leaders know I would give the truth, the people do not. That is why the council exists, why they have sworn oaths to recuse themselves if a matter would involve their personal lives, and why I cannot be a part of it.”

Orik sighed, reaching up to clasp a heavy hand on her upper arm. “You really do think of everything, don’t you Shadeslayer. To be honest, I knew there was no chance of persuading you now. Not after you and every magic user you could get your hands on spent a year putting power into the Isidar Mithrim like you would the gem on your sword.” He cocked an eyebrow as he looked at the sparkling gem far above them. “You sure you need that much?”

Kaenna shrugged. “The first test I did to send an acorn over would have killed me if I hadn’t worded my spell to have a way to stop it, and that was after a whole week of doing nothing but resting and charging my sword’s gem. The first successful test took me and Saphira pouring everything we had into it for a fortnight. If we’re to send Saphira, the eggs, our belongings, and myself through successfully… well I hope this will be enough or you’ll be throwing this party again in two years!”

A bit of the color drained from Orik’s face and Kaenna would swear his beard wilted slightly. “Oh please no. The number of strings I had to pull, favors to promise, just to get the clans to agree to this one time, I can’t afford it twice!”

“Well,” Kaenna clapped his back hard enough for the sturdy man to stumble, “I guess you’d best pray that it’s enough then!” A familiar head of black hair next to dark brown skin caught her eye. “If you’ll excuse me, I have more family to see.”

Glancing over and seeing what she meant, Orik let out a chuckle. “Right, and I’ve got more knobs to polish.”

Suppressing a laugh at Orik’s choice of expression, Kaenna moved to intercept her targets.

“Queen Nasuada, Murtagh!” she hollered over the din.

The pair stopped and turned, along with the dozen armed men surrounding them. The man’s eyes shone in recognition as he looked at her. A fine red shirt with black trimmings graced his torso, utterly failing to disguise the muscles beneath that could have been chiseled from solid rock. Beside him, the woman was dressed in a deep burgundy gown with sleeves that ended at her elbows.

“Ah, the lady of the hour finally graces us with her presence,” Murtagh said with obvious mirth.

“It is a pleasure to see you again, Kaenna Shadeslayer,” said Nasuada.

Kaenna gave a short bow. “It is mine to see you in such good health.” She straightened and the rigidity fell from her face, stepping forward to clasp an arm with Murtagh. “I’m glad you two were able to make it, your message said your presence was still required in Ilirea.”

“Yes, the sorting through of Galbatorix’s archives demanded much of my attention,” Nasuada explained, “but, fortunately, I was able to make enough progress to spare a week for your farewell.”

“I’d imagine having a Rider for a husband helped cut down the travel time a good deal.”

A hint of color came to Murtagh’s cheeks, but if Nasuada’s flushed at all it was hidden by her natural tone.

“I-indeed, Thorn traveled the distance in far less time than a carriage would have, though my escorts would have preferred the longer trip to being separated.”

Murtagh sorted. “I told them Thorn could carry a wagon with them, but they said they’d rather have their feet on the ground. Besides,” he wrapped one arm around the woman’s waist, “I’m all the protection she needs.”

That did get a flush on Nasuada’s cheeks, visible as a pair of darker splotches on her already rich skin. She raised a hand to her mouth and coughed. Murtagh, getting the hint, let her go.

Kaenna smiled at the interaction. While learning about their mutual attraction during the confrontation with Galbatorix had been surprising enough, them choosing to pursue a relationship after Murtagh’s journey to heal from his mental enslavement was even more so. Nonetheless, she was happy for him. Being a member of Roran’s family meant he was like another brother to her, one she had precious little time to get to know before he’d been taken by the Twins and ensorcelled by Galbatorix. Their reunion at the Burning Plains, their clashes during the slow advance towards Urû’baen, and finally the confrontation in the throne room could hardly be called happy memories.

Since his return, however, he’d been almost like a new man. Similar to how she’d known him before they’d first arrived at Farthen Dûr, but with the cloud looming over his fate lifted. His marriage to Nasuada several months before, in particular, she’d never seen him happier.

Letting the barriers on her mind drop, she felt the sheer weight of life in the grand hall. Some, the few that could sense her mind brushing against theirs, recoiled behind their barriers, though most were as oblivious to her presence as a blind and deaf rabbit would be of a circling hawk.

Feeling one life in particular, her mouth lifted into a knowing smirk.

“So, were you going to tell me before I left?”

Surprise flashed briefly on the couple’s faces before both sighed in resignation.

“I suppose it was inevitable, nobody can hide from you,” Nasuada said, a hand moving to rest lovingly on her stomach. “Yes, I am with child. We were going to announce it when we returned to Ilirea.”

Kaenna suppressed a happy squeal, bouncing on the balls of her feet and clapping rapidly. “Congratulations! Oh I’m so happy for you both!” She jumped forward, pulling the couple into a hug by their necks despite being a whole head shorter than Nasuada and a head and a half shorter than Murtagh.

For their part, Nasuada and Murtagh returned the embrace with slightly more restraint. After a moment, Kaenna let them go, a veritable river of tears running down her cheeks.

“I’m going to miss seeing them grow up. Ismira, Roran and Katrina’s second, your first and however many more you have. All the Riders that will be born after this, the dragons returning to their former glory…”

‘Arya and Fírnen,’ she thought to herself, a sting shooting through her heart.

A warm feeling embraced her mind, the touch of Saphira soothing the ache Kaenna felt. She let the feeling wash away her anxiety before sending her own emotional thanks and comfort across their telepathic link. She knew that, as much as she was hurting from these farewells, Saphira was too. Up above the Isidar Mithrim, in the Dragonhold, the blue dragon was spending her remaining time with her green-scaled mate.

Refocusing on Murtagh and Nasuada, she wiped away her remaining tears and gave them a gentle smile.

“I think I’d like to spend some time alone. I’ll see you both later for the ritual.”

Turning on her heels, Kaenna left the couple behind, heading for the outskirts of the gathering to clear her mind.

♦♦♦

With the grand party taking place in Tronjheim’s central hall, most of the rest of the vast city was quiet and empty. Kaenna passed a handful of guards on patrol in twos or fours, some lone dwarves trotting on whatever errands occupied them, and a single lone werecat napping atop a statue. As she ascended level after level, though, even those rare presences faded from her awareness, leaving her with only her own thoughts.

It had been over a decade since she had arrived in Alagaësia. A decade spent in a land not her own, yet had become a home to her. Yet despite having spent most of her eighteen years here, part of her had always longed for the distant home in her memories. Memories of a gentle mother with hair the color of oak leaves; cities of stone and glass that would make any in Alagaësia seem mere hamlets in comparison; people with powers as fantastical as the most complex magic innate to their very beings.

A deep sigh slipped past Kaenna’s lips. It had been years since she’d thought so much of that distant place, letting it come to her only in her dreamlike trance that had replaced sleep for her since the Agaetí Blödhren. Only once Arya had pronounced her fluent in the ancient language had she begun working on a spell to, in theory, send herself back.

The basis of it was the same spell Arya had once used to send Saphira’s egg to Carvahall. Thinking of a way to say things that didn’t properly exist in the ancient language had been problematic, but the real breakthrough had been when she realized she could be somewhat vague with her wording so long as her focus on her memories of the place held firm. It was risky, relying on a wordless component to a spell, but to Kaenna it was worth the risks.

What she was less sure about was everything she was leaving behind.

After the battle for Urû’baen, and his ennoblement, Roran, now Earl Stronghammer of Palancar Valley, had rebuilt Carvahall into a thriving town. In a generation or two, perhaps, it would grow into a proper city. Most of the surviving villagers had returned to rebuild, and some whose homes had been lost in the war followed to buoy up the population and labor force.

The bald hill they’d played upon as children now boasted the castle Roran had envisioned. Well, part of it. It would take years more for it to be completed, but what was there had weathered the previous winter like it had been there for ages. To Kaenna’s surprise, a spacious room connecting to a large chamber for Saphira to rest in had also been constructed. They’d happily availed themselves of it when they’d come to celebrate Katrina’s second pregnancy.

Here in Tronjheim, the Dwarves had offered her a life of luxury which Stronghammer Castle wouldn’t be able to match for decades. Saphira repairing the Isidar Mithrim, the greatest treasure of the Dwarven nation, had earned them no small measure of good will. Saphira, in particular, enjoyed the Nagra brought to her to feed her ravenous appetite, while Kaenna took great pleasure in finally besting Orik in a drinking contest.

Then, there was the place where her heart had set its deepest roots, the Elven capital of Ellesméra. There was where she had truly become a dragon rider under Oromis’s teachings, had her wound inflicted by the shade Durza healed by the dragons in the Agaetí Blödhren, had her sword Brisingr forged.

Where she had confessed her feelings to Arya.

Heat rose to Kaenna’s cheeks, even as her heart ached anew.

Arya Dröttning, the current queen of the Elves, Rider of Fírnen, and Kaenna’s first choice for the Council of Riders. More than any other person or being in Alagaësia, she was the one Kaenna would miss the most. No, miss was insignificant for the hole in her heart that would be left behind once she departed. If any one thing would get Kaenna to rethink all her plans, discard all the work she had done over the past year, it would be Arya returning her affections in full.

She knew Arya shared her feelings, at least in part. Whenever their minds touched, it was impossible for her to not notice the emotions Arya kept tightly controlled just beneath the surface. And the night they had exchanged their true names, Kaenna had wept with happiness at being accepted into Arya’s heart.

But despite the intimacy that sharing one’s true name entailed, Arya’s position had forced her to set aside her personal feelings on the matter to focus on the rebuilding of Du Weldenvarden and, now, her position on the Council of Riders. There was no possibility of her and Kaenna being together so long as the greater good of the realm was more important.

Wiping away tears she had failed to notice in her reminiscing, Kaenna resumed her walk through the empty halls of the Dwarves.

♦♦♦

The mood in the grand chamber below the Isidar Mithrim was somber. Gone were the feasting tables and large casks of mead, ale, and wine. In their place, all present had gathered in a vast circle, in the center of which stood Kaenna, Saphira, six sparkling dragon eggs, and all the physical belongings they would be taking on their one-of-a-kind journey. Peering over the heads of the assembled people, were four draconic heads. Thorn’s red and Fírnen’s green, long since a familiar sight, were now joined by the copper of Mauvea and ruddy brown of Tugubad, the first dragons partnered with a Dwarf and an Urgal, respectively. Together they and their Riders, Murtagh, Arya, Orghó, and Yabgresz, formed the Council of Riders that would oversee the rebuilding of the order and ensure that peace was kept in Alagaësia when Kaenna was gone.

Stepping out from under Fírnen’s shadow, Arya entered the clearing.

“Kaenna Svit-kona,” the raven-haired woman greeted.

“Arya Dröttning,” Kaenna replied before offering the Elvish customary greeting.

Arya returned its companion phrase, a soft smile gracing her features as she finished. “Are you prepared?” She asked, still speaking the ancient language.

“I am in body and mind, and though my heart too yearns for that place it also aches to remain.”

“And yet you will stay the course?”

Kaenna nodded, “I must. Though the Council will ensure the Riders neutrality, and the wild dragons have taken up the plains east of the Edda River, I am too much of a destabilizing factor. I cannot remain if peace is to be kept. And we all five agreed that I should take some eggs with me, so that if another tyrant like Galbatorix were to arise here the dragons would still survive.”

Arya reached out a hand to cup Kaenna’s cheek. The green haired woman instinctively leaned into the gentle touch. They lingered a moment, the world around them disappearing into irrelevancy. Then, her fingers sliding away like a ship at night, Arya retreated.

“It’s time, little one,” Saphira’s melodic voice rang in Kaenna’s mind

“I know. Thank you, Saphira, for wanting to do this with me.”

“I’ve seen your memories of your world and been fascinated by them my entire life. Parting from everyone here is painful, but the honor of being the first to soar in a new sky is one I cannot turn down.”

She was right, as she often was, Kaenna begrudgingly admitted to herself. How a three year old dragon had more wisdom than an eighteen year old woman, she’d never know, but Saphira being wise beyond her years had saved them more times than she cared to count.

Turning away from the Council, Kaenna focused on the piles of belongings they were to take with them. While Saphira had grown significantly over the past two years, now being about the size of a house, the stacked crates, barrels, and bags would probably have been enough to inconvenience even the massive Shruikan before his demise.

Fortunately, Kaenna had learned a few tricks in her experimentation with hopping dimensions. Whispering words in the ancient language, she wove a spell to twist space upon itself like she once had to carry the Eldunarí. This time, however, she bound the space to an empty chest sitting apart from the rest. As she spoke, the assemblage shifted, shrank, then compressed into a black mote that drifted through the air to rest inside the chest. At her final word, the lid snapped closed with a heavy thud.

Breathing a sigh of relief at her spell having been completed, she moved next to the six dragon eggs. Picking up each with all the tenderness she would a newborn babe, she set them into nests of soft blankets in another chest, taking care to set each upright and to swaddle them before moving on to the next.

Once all six were secured to her satisfaction, she closed and locked the chest, then placed a ward upon it to keep all but herself from being able to open it and to protect it from harm. Hefting the chest in both arms, she hooked it onto one side of Saphira’s saddle. Lifting the other, much lighter chest, she stepped under her companion’s neck to attach it to the other side.

With another sigh, Kaenna went over her mental checklist of things to do. Concluding she was, in fact, at the final step, she returned to her previous location and faced her friends and family.

“Well, everyone,” she addressed the crowd, “it would seem the hour of my departure has come.” Her eyes locked on the group from Carvahall, “Roran, thank you for being my brother these twelve long years. Katrina, you keep him out of trouble.”

“I’ll do my best,” the redheaded woman smiled, “but you know how stubborn he is.”

A chuckle ran through the townsfolk as Kaenna looked next to Murtagh and Nasuada.

“Murtagh, though we share no blood you become like a brother to me. You would have loved Eragon, and he would have loved you in return. Queen Nasuada, may your reign be long and peaceful.”

Her green eyes moved again, next settling on Orik.

“Grimstnzborith Orik, I can never repay the kinship shown to me by yourself and your predecessor in making me a member of Dûrgrimst Ingeitum. It is an honor I shall carry with me for all of my long years.”

“The honor is ours, Shadeslayer!” Orik’s voice rose to carry across the vast space. A cheer of approval ran through the host of Dwarves assembled behind him.

Letting a smile tug at her lips, Kaenna faced the Urgals, the smallest group represented, at least in terms of numbers. 

“Nar Garzhvog, your people have demonstrated honor I could not have imagined when we first met. The tales of your people I will carry with me and sing of until my dying day.”

“And yours shall be woven into the Namna of my tribe so that all shall know of you,” the Kull’s deep voice growled.

Last, but certainly not least to her, Kaenna’s emerald eyes met Arya’s own verdant orbs. 

“Arya Dröttning, out of all Alagaësia I would consider Ellesméra my home if I could stay. The gifts your people have given me are what allowed us to finally have freedom from the long night and the peace of the past two years. Would that my heart let me stay, so I could dwell among that sheltered space with you again.”

Arya returned no words, but Kaenna felt her mind brush affectionately against her own. It was the kindest gift she could have received at that moment.

Closing her mind, Kaenna looked across all the hundreds of people there for her. “I would have goodbyes for you all personally, but then we’d been here all season.” A few people snorted at her joke. “Instead, I say this to you all. May the wind always be at your backs, your harvests be bountiful, your children healthy, and your blades unneeded. Farewell.”

Pulling a sheet of parchment from a pouch on Saphira’s saddle, Kaenna unrolled the complicated spell she had devised for her transference. With how complex this undertaking was, even with her mastery of the ancient language and memorization of the spell itself, she was taking no chances.

Reaching out a mile above, she touched the well of power stored in the Isidar Mithrim. Once, she would have called the store that Brom had put into his ring as vast. Compared to what Kaenna, with the aid of magicians from every race, had gathered over the past year, it was but a dwindling pond under a midsummer sun. The vast ocean of magical energy inside the rose of Tronjheim answered her call, and she felt power beyond compare start to flow into her.

Not wasting a second, Kaenna placed her free hand on Saphira’s flank, then began to speak. The words of the ancient language flowed from her mouth with practiced ease, even the most complicated pronunciation gliding off her tongue. The spell was long, filling nearly the entire forearm-long piece of parchment, with numerous points she could abort if she felt something go awry.

As she neared the end, the air around her seemed to grow heavy and warp, the light shining through seeming to pass through molten glass. The sound of the murmuring crowd faded out, like a heavy curtain had been drawn across to muffle them, before the space was silent except for Kaenna’s words.

At the final sentence, she raised her eyes, casting from memory, to look one last time at Arya. A small trail of tears ran down the woman’s fair face, matching the ones on Kaenna’s.

She spoke the final word, felt all the power in the Isidar Mithrim drain through her, then the world cut to black.

♦♦♦

Blinding light flooded Kaenna’s eyes. Next to her, Saphira likewise let out a snort of discomfort at the sudden shift. Her eyes adjusted rapidly, though, letting Kaenna take in the sight so different from the depths of Tronjheim she had been in a moment before.

A sea of trees surrounded them, their broad canopies barely taller than Saphira’s raised head letting a midday sun speckle the loamy ground with light. The air was warm against her face, with a humidity that suggested the ocean, or at least a vast lake, was nearby. She closed her eyes, letting her senses expand from where they stood.

The babble of a stream was nearby. Birds, previously silent at the sudden appearance of a massive predator, had begun to sing again. A squirrel ran up a camphor tree, placing the wooden bulk between itself and them.

And then, at the edge of her hearing, a sound unlike any in Alagaësia reached her. Unnatural, sounding of metal and fire. Her eyes snapped open.

“Stay here, Saphira.”

“Stay safe, little one.”

Checking that Brisingr was secure on her waist and that none of her mail had come loose, Kaenna faced the direction of the unnatural sound and began to walk.

Familiarity tickled at her memory as she came to the small stream, crossing over a fallen log acting as a bridge. The trees began to thin, and light shone through the gaps in their trunks stronger with every step.

Passing out from under the sprawling arms of the final tree, Kaenna stepped out under a cloudless blue sky. There, spread before her, was the city of her memories. Buildings covered in glass stretching floors higher than any shop or home in Alagaësia; roads made of fused black stone bore metal carriages without horses or oxen to propel them; people walked along the smooth gray paths alongside the roads, their forms mostly human but some varying wildly.

Tears ran down her face and her lips curled into a quivering smile. Taking a breath, she spoke in a language she hadn’t uttered in over a decade.

“I’m home, Japan.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 2 - A World of Heroes

Kaenna stood under a warm, cloudless sky, the sun glinting off the rings of her mail like fired silver. The sounds of civilization rang in her ears and its smells filled her nose. They were unlike anything in Alagaësia. The general smells of people living in a confined space were there, but there was an artificialness left lingering on every breath. Sounds that no animal or person could make echoed through the street of stone and glass.

A more familiar sound, the cry of a child in distress, broke Kaenna from her reverie. Turning to face the source, what she saw brought a familiar pang to her heart.

There, in an area of sand with scattered metal pipes and wood-like material, two children were huddled over a third lying on the ground. As she watched, one of the two standing, a boy with hedgehog’s spines sticking from his back, kicked the prone one in the gut.

“Whoops, sorry Shima, I didn’t see you there, I guess your quirk isn’t so useless after all.”

The child on the ground’s skin flickered. For an instant, Kaenna could see clean through him in a handful of places, before his appearance returned to normal. She didn’t understand all of the words, having not been able to speak or hear Japanese for twelve years, but the tone of voice more than made up for it.

“Hey hey, if you kick him again, maybe he’ll go completely invisible,” the other standing child, a girl by her voice, suggested.

“Oooh, good idea Tazawa-chan!”

The hedgehog boy pulled his leg back in preparation for another strike. Kaenna had seen enough. She began taking long, heavy strides towards the bullies and their victim.

“Hey!”

Three pairs of eyes, two angry and one hopeful, swung to meet her.

“What do you want, hag?” hedgehog boy snapped at her.

The girl eyed Kaenna up and down, clearly appraising her appearance. Now that Kaenna could see her face, she had an impressive set of horns sticking out of her forehead.

“Um, Saiki-kun, I think she’s a hero. She’s wearing armor and stuff.”

“Huh? What are you talking about? No hero wears old crap like that!”

Ignoring the insult to her armor, a parting gift from Rhunön, Kaenna chose to be diplomatic. “Why hurting him?” she asked in her broken and inevitably accented Japanese.

Saiki’s expression soured more. “Oh great, she’s a foreigner.” He made to shoo her away. “We’re just playing, go away.”

Kaenna looked past him to the other boy, Shima, still lying on the ground with his hands clutching his side. Stepping past Saiki and Tazawa, she knelt next to him.

“You okay?”

Clear blue eyes, the color of Saphira’s lightest belly scales, looked back at her with a painful draw to their corners. Not needing any further sign of distress, Kaenna held out her right hand and tapped into the well of power inside herself. Softly, she spoke words from the ancient language.

From her palm, a soft azure light shone down onto the boy. He watched, wide-eyed, as Kaenna felt her healing spell take effect, soothing the bruise on his ribs and mending the slight tear in the muscle that would have been invisible to the naked eye.

“See, I told you she’s a hero!” Tazawa said with panic in her voice.

Feeling her spell complete its work, Kaenna stood and faced the bullies. “Just because different, no reason to hurt. Understand?”

The girl nodded vigorously, but the boy just scoffed. “Whatever, hag. Go cosplay somewhere else. C’mon, Tazawa-chan.” He grabbed her by the wrist and they quickly left the sanded area, heading down one of the gray stone paths.

Kaenna turned at the sound of the beaten boy standing.

“Th-thank you, miss,” he stuttered. “I d-don’t know what you did, b-but I feel much better.”

Kaenna’s stern expression softened as she squatted to look him in the eyes. “I healed you. Go be safe.”

The boy nodded, then quickly ran off in the opposite direction from the bullies. Once he was out of sight, Kaenna reached out to Saphira who had been prodding at her mind for some time.

“We’re not even here half an hour and you’re already finding people to help.”

“I couldn’t help it. You know how I can’t stand bullies.”

“Just be careful, little one. This might technically be your home, but you’ve been long from it so it doesn’t know you.”

Picking a direction none of the children had gone, Kaenna set off again. Seeing that the people kept to the smooth gray stone paths on either side of the black roads, she fell in among them. She could feel eyes on her, minds inquisitive about her, but without any hostile intent she paid them no mind. Instead, she took in the world around her as she walked.

From her vague memories, she knew this city, for it was a city, was far from the largest in Japan, but it still dwarfed even Ilirea in size and splendor. Only Ellesméra, in her opinion, was a grander city, and dwarfed it in natural beauty. Here, everything was the same. Large panes of glass on the ground floors showcasing wares, foods, or services, while upper levels had smaller windows and unknown businesses behind them.

Kaenna wandered aimlessly, having no particular goal or destination. An hour passed and she ate an apple from her pouch to stave off her hunger. She paused when a young man with elephant ears waved at her, only for him to pose next to her and hold a small box with a glass face at them. A light flashed from it, then he ran off.

She passed another couple intersections before, startling slightly at its suddenness, a crack of sound like thunder echoed down the street. Before she could contemplate its source, as the sky was as clear as could be, another clap rang out, and another. People began to run by her in the opposite direction, screaming in words too shrill and complex for her memory to tell the meanings.

“You wanted to save people, Kaenna, time to do it,” she muttered to herself before breaking into a dead sprint.

Getting a questioning mental nudge from Saphira, Kaenna opened her mind to show her the last few minutes of her memory.

“I’m coming to you.”

“Not yet, Saphira,” Kaenna urged. “Whatever is going on, adding a dragon to the mix is likely to cause more problems that it would solve right now.”

Saphira mentally huffed, but calmed slightly.

Another thunderclap shook the glass windows Kaenna ran past in a blur. Something struck her as odd about the way they sounded. They were too short, like the crack of a whip, but with reverberations that lingered in the air.

Turning a corner to chase the sounds, Kaenna skidded to a stop, her leather-soled boots catching on the gray stone more than she was used to.

Before her, a crowd had gathered. Over a dozen people were milling around the entrance to a sidestreet, some with the same thin boxes the man from earlier had, raised high to face into the sidestreet. Blocking their way in was a man seemingly made of wood and another man with heavy-looking black and yellow metal cuffs on his wrist and one on his head. A third figure, a strange red hat on their head, a banded cloak the color of dandelions, and red metal fixtures for hands was shooting water at a series of fires in the buildings. Looming over it all was a woman clad in a skintight suit of cream and dark purple. A pair of violet horns parted her fine honey blonde hair at the temples.

Working her way through the crowd, Kaenna finally managed to see the source of the now deafening cracks. There, flames bursting amid a swirling morass of greens and browns, was a young man. He seemed to be struggling to free himself from whatever was binding him. Every time he got a hand free, fire and smoke crackled and banged from his palms. His face got free, only for the sludge to dive on top of him again.

Something about the captive boy dug at Kaenna’s memory in an unpleasant way.

Finding herself closest to the man with the strange metal equipment, Kaenna looked up at him. He had the squarest jaw she’d ever seen, short of on a Kull.

“Excuse me, why no help?”

“Huh?” He glowered down at her. “What, you some sort of cosplayer or something? Villain’s quirk is a bad matchup for me, so I’m doing crowd control.”

Understanding enough of what he said, Kaenna’s expression soured. Through her link with Saphira, she felt the dragon mirror her mood shift.

“Reason stupid. Heroes help if can.”

Kaenna took one step forward, only to be stopped by a hand bigger than a Kull’s landing on her shoulder.

“Stand back, kid. That tin foil isn’t gonna protect you from-”

The man’s voice twisted into a scream as Kaenna, with all the effort of crumpling a piece of parchment, grabbed the outside of the massive black and yellow wrist cuffs on the hand he used to grab her and proceeded to crush it. She heard and felt the bones in his arms give under her unyielding pressure with a satisfying snap.

“Never touch again.”

Not waiting to see or hear how anybody else reacted, Kaenna released the disappointing man and leapt forward. The explosions, she now recognized what they were, from the trapped boy were growing weaker, as were his struggles inside the sludge creature.

Whispering words of the ancient language, she cast wards to protect her ability to breathe as well as defend against bludgeoning attacks with practiced ease. Drawing her sword with one hand, she whispered.

“ Brisingr . ”

♦♦♦

Bakugou Katsuki had been having a great day. The hag didn’t bother him in the morning, he blew up some fucking extra that dared to get in his way at school, and he absolutely murdered the math quiz. Then, out of fucking nowhere, this slime fuck grabs him and starts trying to murder him!

At first the fight was going fine, his Explosion quirk was the fucking best and the fucker seemed none too fond of fire. Then, though, things started to change once his face was dunked into the disgusting filth.

‘Fuck, I’m starting to see spots. I need air,’ he thought, firing another series of explosions in an attempt to blow enough of the sludge clear of his face for a desperate breath.

The explosions rang in his head like a bell and did precious little to clear space for his mouth. It did, however, get his eyes free.

The street was on fire, whatever, but the useless heroes were just standing there. Not like he needed their help to get out of this crap. Okay maybe he was in a bit of a pinch, but he’d never admit it to anybody.

Movement drew his attention back to the main road. His red eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat.

There, the fire glistening off her old fashioned western armor like so many burning coals, was a woman. Her curly green hair hung just past her shoulders and was tucked behind a pair of pointed ears. Her eyes shone like jewels, the green surrounded by red from the flames.

She muttered something Katsuki couldn’t hear as she ran faster than he’d seen anybody besides All Might move. She placed one hand on the hilt of the sword at her waist, and her lips moved again.

“ Brisingr. ”

Blue flames erupted from the blade as she drew it, casting a cold light across the street. Even from inside the sludge fucker’s body, Katsuki could feel the heat it was giving off.

“ Drahtr! ”

Suddenly, Katsuki found himself yanked free of the sludge and landing with a painful thud in the crook of her free hand. Coughing up a lungful of the disgusting gunk, he looked up at his apparent savior.

“Hey, that’s my skinsuit you bitch!” the slime fuck shouted at the woman before a whip of ooze lashed out at her.

With grace exceeding anything Katsuki had seen before, the woman sidestepped the blow. Trailing azure flames, her sword sliced up, severing the tendril with a vicious sizzle.She then spun, her mail glinting blue and red, driving the blazing edge of her blade deep into the sludge fucker’s body.

The bastard screamed and swung at her again. Again she dodged and countered. Around and around they went, like the world’s deadliest dance, more and more ruined sludge splattering against the walls. All the while, Katsuki couldn’t take his eyes off her. The way her hair trailed her every movement; her lithe body bending in ways no human should be capable yet wielding such strength; the unwavering confidence in her angled emerald eyes.

She was perfect.

Katsuki had never held much interest in romance, seeing it as nothing but a distraction from his goal to become the next number one. There was never anybody that he would consider worthy of being his anyway. Now, for the first time, someone who was fit to stand with him, a woman who clearly could handle him. Her first impression of saving him was her only fault, but Katsuki could look past that.

After all, she would be his. That was just the natural order of the world.

♦♦♦

Another tendril of sludge broke the ground where Kaenna had been a fraction of a second ago. That same tendril then splattered across the ground as she swung Brisingr to slice it off. This foe was proving tiresome. Perhaps due to its single-minded fixation on finding a way to escape its current predicament it had inadvertently shielded its mind. Sword strikes had served to inconvenience it and reduce its overall mass, but unless she wanted to be here a while she wouldn’t win this by the blade.

Dodging and countering another strike, she spared a glance back at the rescued boy and the rest of the onlookers. The boy was staring at her in rapt fascination, while the others seemed content to let her fight while some tended to the man who had tried to restrain her. She was clear to act.

“ Thringa. ”

With a sickening squelch, the sludge creature shuddered, then started collapsing in on itself. After a couple seconds, it stopped, having compressed down to a sphere a little larger than Kaenna’s head.

“ Malthinae. ”

The sphere ceased struggling against its shape as Kaenna’s spell locked it into place. Cutting off the flow of power sustaining her sword’s blazing blade, she flicked away any lingering sludge with one sharp motion before sheathing it with a satisfying clink.

Turning back to the crowd, Kaenna was surprised to see some of the people applauding. Others, though, seemed much more agitated.

“An impressive display,” the man made of wood said. “You look a bit young to be having your debut, though, so it would be remiss of me to not ask to see your pro or provisional license, whichever you have.”

Kaenna understood less than half of what he’d said, but his increasingly aggressive posture more than made up for it.

“You no help, I do instead,” she explained.

“Fuck the license, that bitch broke my fucking arm!” 

Her brow furrowed under her mail coif. “He touched first.”

“Nonetheless,” the wooden man stepped forward, one arm raised, “without a license you have just committed the crime of vigilantism. Assaulting a pro hero is another serious matter. Now, come with me.”

Kaenna sensed no intent to harm from the man’s mind, but she didn’t intend to just let herself be captured either. Before she could respond again, or make a move, she saw a change in one of the bystanders. A tall, thin man with wimpy blonde hair and a white shirt big enough to fit three of him had gouts of steam erupt from his body. Had she not gone through the changes brought about by the Agaetí Blödhren and her perception training with Oromis, Kaenna was sure she would have missed what happened next.

His arms and chest inflated, threatening to rip the now too small shirt with their bulk. His hair, previously hanging down in his face, shot up like a catapult’s arm. His gaunt face filled out to form a chiseled chin and a broad gleaming smile that, even all those years later, Kaenna recognized instantly.

The man blurred forward, challenging even Kaenna’s perception, to place himself between her and the oncoming wooden man.

“Now then, let’s not do anything too hasty!” All Might’s booming baritone voice filled the street.

The wooden man faltered, “A-All Might?! Thank goodness you’re here! This vigilante-”

“Did your jobs for you while you just stood and watched a civilian almost suffocate to death.” The tall man glowered down, “While her actions might be against the law, her spirit is that of a true hero. She asked Death Arms why he didn’t help,” his burning blue gaze swept to the man cradling his crushed wrist, “and I must say I am disappointed. A bad quirk matchup is no reason to just stand aside. Also, laying hands on the young lady could itself be seen as assault.”

The man, Death Arms, seemed to wilt under All Might’s criticism. The giant lady above, having stayed silent the whole time, then shrank back down to a more regular size.

“Okay, but are we just supposed to let her go then? She clearly used her quirk to stop that thing.”

All Might shook his head. “I’m not saying we let her go, I’m saying that, with the exception of Backdraft fighting the fires, you all failed your duties today.” He turned around to face Kaenna. “Young lady, may I have your name?”

“Kaenna,” she responded. “It’s…” she struggled to find the words she wanted in her faded memory of the Japanese language, “good feeling to meet you.”

The Number One Hero blinked a few times, his smile cracking slightly. “I don’t mean to assume, but are you not from Japan?”

Kaenna shook her head. “Here home, gone long.”

“Ah, someone else who spent a lot of time abroad! Now, as much as I would love to continue talking here, I do need to take you to the police station for questioning. Please, it will be much easier to explain your circumstances as being unfamiliar with our laws if you cooperate.”

Taking a second to understand as much of his words as she could, Kaenna nodded. She quickly communicated her intentions with Saphira, who reluctantly agreed to let her go alone. When All Might reached for her sword, however, she dropped her left hand down across its hilt.

“I will go, but I won’t give.”

“Now listen here-”

“She may keep it,” All Might cut Death Arms off, “and I will take full responsibility for any consequences of this decision. Now, let us be off.”

Kaenna found herself shuffled into the back row of one of the metal horseless carriages. It was a bit cramped and she had to adjust Brisingr on her hip to not have the sword jut out at an awkward angle. Through the window, she saw All Might trying to force the sludge creature into a clear plastic bottle in his hand. Letting out a small chuckle, Kaenna released her spell, letting All Might capture the creature. He then leapt into the air away from the scene, but she didn’t miss the steam pouring off of his body as he did so.

As the vehicle pulled away from the scene, Kaenna’s emerald eyes met those of the boy she’d rescued. She saw a longing in them, but also something deeper, something darker. It was a look she had become familiar with in Carvahall, where almost all the boys desired the exotic girl from far away.

♦♦♦

The ride was quiet, neither of the identically clothed men in the front half of the vehicle seeming to have any inclination to talk. Kaenna passed the time watching the city stream by her window. People of all shapes, sizes, and colors filled the streets, a variety she could only believe were all human thanks to her memories. Had she been born in Alagaësia, she’d have thought she was watching a thousand different races all coexisting.

Back in Alagaësia, at the height of the war to overthrow Galbatorix, the Urgals had asked to join the armies of the Varden and Surda against their common enemy. Thanks to the events in Farthen Dûr and the long history of the Urgals' marauding behavior against human settlements, most of the Varden and Surdan soldiers initially refused to work with them. It was first Nasuada, then Kaenna herself, who had convinced them to work together. In the end, without the help of the Urgals, Kaenna doubted they would have been able to prevail.

A jolt brought the young Rider out of her wistful remembrance. Peering through the window again, she saw they were stopping next to a nondescript gray building. A series of symbols adorned its side which Kaenna knew were Japanese, but their meaning was beyond her grasp.

Her door was opened and she was escorted out of the vehicle and through a set of double doors into the building. The light inside was a harsh white and her sensitive ears picked up a high pitched hum from their sources embedded in the ceiling. The floor under her feet superficially seemed to be tile, but her every footfall showed it was something else, something softer.

Led though another door into the plainest room Kaenna had ever seen, she was nonverbally directed to a bare metal chair. Sitting, her escorts left the room and closed the door behind them.

Settling into what was clearly going to be an interrogation, Murtagh had told her plenty about his time under Galbatorix’s not-so-tender care, Kaenna took stock of her situation and surroundings. She still had her sword and armor, thanks to All Might vouching for her, and though the battle against the sludge creature had been slightly frustrating it hadn’t tired her much.

The room offered little in the way of information, directly at least. The walls were of the same gray stone the walking paths had been, as was the floor, though it was slightly more polished. The ceiling resembled white cork, with the noisy lights behind opaque panels. On the wall adjacent to the one with the door was a large mirror, recessed into the stone.

Or not a mirror.

It was faint, but Kaenna could see figures moving beyond it. A trick glass, then, designed to let people see into her room, but not see into the other. Against normal human vision it would have worked, but against her eyesight it was futile.

Letting the barriers to her mind drop slightly, she could feel a handful of people in that other room. Their thoughts were jumbled. She didn’t delve deep into them, wanting to make a good impression, but she gathered that they didn’t quite know what to make of her.

One of the people left the bordering room and came to the door of her own. It seemed it was time for her questioning to begin.

As the door clicked, Kaenna raised the walls of her mind once again and focused on her would-be interrogator. He was of average height, about half a head taller than herself, clean shaven and with a head of short cropped black hair. He wore a crisp white shirt, black pants with a sharp seam on their outer edge, and a strange dark strip of fabric around his neck.

The man pulled out the chair opposite Kaenna’s and took a seat.

“Good afternoon. I’m detective Tsukauchi. I’m told you don’t speak Japanese very well, so I’ll try to be as simple in my wording as possible.” Kaenna nodded her understanding and he continued, “Just for clarity, my quirk lets me know when someone is lying. Do you understand?” Again Kaenna nodded. “Good. Now, what is your name.”

“Kaenna Shadeslayer.”

The man flinched slightly and noted something on a notepad.

“So you know, I know that was a lie. Now I’ll ask again. What is your name?”

Kaenna swallowed. As soon as she heard what the man’s quirk was, she suspected this would happen. She had gone by that name for over a decade, but she knew it wasn’t her birth name the man was really asking for. That knowledge, she suspected, acted like telling a falsehood in the ancient language, only possible if you believed the information to be true.

Parting suddenly dry lips, she prepared to speak a name she hadn’t used since Brom had given her new one.

“Kotoko.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 3 - The Story in a Name

“Kotoko.”

The name felt strange in Kaenna’s mouth, like bitting into an overripe fruit.

Tsukauchi nodded, writing down Kaenna’s birth name. “And your family name?”

She shook her head, “Don’t remember.”

The man tilted his head. “You don’t remember your own name?”

A sad smile tugged at Kaenna’s lips. “Long time not in Japan.”

“Where were you, if not Japan?”

An old habit resurfaced in the form of her bottom lip finding its way between her teeth. Kaenna hadn’t expected to be explaining her whole history on day one. It would have been inevitable and necessary, but she’d hoped to last at least a week, time to start relearning the language, before needing to explain herself.

“Long story, sound weird.”

Tsukauchi readied his pen.

As best she could, Kaenna began to tell her tale. How she was diagnosed as quirkless at four years old; how she had been with her former childhood friend turned bully in the forest when she was six; how she had fallen unconscious and woke up in a completely different world; how she grew up in that world, found a new family in two brothers, an adoptive father, and a cranky old storyteller who gave her the name Kaenna.

It was when she was about to describe finding Saphira’s egg that she felt a familiar presence enter the adjacent room. Facing the trick glass, she focused on it.

The mind was sharp, full of years of experience, but in constant pain it had learned to mask. One corner of her lips curled up into a lopsided smile, then she faced Tsukauchi again.

“Why is All Might here?”

Tsukauchi blinked owlishly, clearly taken aback by Kaenna’s question. He glanced at the trick glass, then back at her.

“All Might isn’t here, but a representative of his agency has just arrived.”

So that’s what it was. Kaenna let out a sigh as she put the context clues together. All Might had transformed from an emaciated man to the heroic form of her memories, then fled when it seemed like he was about to change back. The mind she felt on the other side of the glass was undoubtedly the same man, and if the sudden panic she was feeling from him and Tsukauchi was any indication it was not a commonly known thing.

She motioned for Tsukauchi to lean in and, when he did so, whispered, “I know All Might hurt.”

The chair clattered to the floor as Tsukauchi leapt to his feet, drawing his gun in the process.

“How do you know that?!” he demanded.

Calmly, Kaenna answered, “Saw him change, small to big.” She chewed her lip again before continuing, “I can heal him, maybe.”

Tsukauchi’s eyes blew wide open, and Kaenna could hear a clatter from beyond the trick glass. A second later the door to her room was flung open. Standing in the doorway was the same painfully thin man Kaenna knew to be All Might.

“Young Kotoko, is it true?” He yanked up one edge of his oversized white shirt, revealing a cavernous knot of scar tissue just below his left ribs. “Can you heal this?”

Kaenna took an instant to process the previous few seconds before replying. “I don’t know. I can try.”

“Toshinori-san, you know you’re not allowed in here during questioning,” Tsukauchi scolded.

“I’m sure you can look past it this once. If there’s a chance I can regain my former strength, I have to take it!”

“Just, just get out for now.” The door clicked closed again, and Tsukauchi turned to Kaenna with an exasperated look on his face. “Where were we?”

The answer came not from Kaenna herself, nor from anybody else in their immediate vicinity. The entire building shook and the walls trembled as a mighty roar filled the confined space. Kaenna smiled as the most familiar of minds embraced her own.

“I have a friend.”

“Just… just stay there a minute.”

Kaenna couldn’t help but giggle as an increasingly flustered Tsukauchi rushed out the door.

“I think you scared them,” she said to Saphira.

“Good,” her partner mentally snorted, “it means they have some sense.”

“Why’d you come?”

Frustration echoed across their link. “It was boring just sitting there while you got to explore and have fun. This city is strange.”

“It’s as I remember, though only All Might is familiar to me.”

“Oh, the people questioning you have arrived.”

“Don’t hurt them, please.”

Saphira assented, but any further conversation was cut short by the door to Kaenna’s room opening once again. A now very stressed looking Tsukauchi, flanked by two identically-clothed men, stepped inside.

“Your friend,” Tsukauchi sighed, “is he friendly?”

Anger flared across their link and Kaenna was quick to correct him. “She, and yes. Don’t attack, you stay okay. She was… forest tired.”

Tsukauchi nodded, whispered something in one of the uniformed men’s ears, then retook his seat. Pulling out his notepad and pen again, he let out a heavy sigh.

“Right, so where were we?”

“About to talk about Saphira.”

“Saphira,” he scribbled, “is that her name?”

Kaenna nodded. “My best friend, my partner in everything.”

“And how did that happen?”

She told him about finding Saphira’s egg, how she’d been forced to flee Carvahall, and then started on her hunt for Ra’zac when he stopped her again.

“Let’s stop there for now. It’s clear you have quite a story to tell, and we’ll take it later, but for now we have more important business to take care of. That power you showed, if that wasn’t a quirk then what was it?”

“Gramarye,” she reflexively answered using its name in the ancient language before correcting herself, “magic.”

“Magic?”

“Magic.”

The disbelief at her words contrasting with his quirk telling him she was telling the truth combined to put the most constipated look on Tsukauchi’s face that Kaenna had ever seen. Eventually, his trust in his quirk seemed to win out and he settled back in his seat.

“I suppose this magic is also what you used to get back here?”

“Yes, and what took me.”

“Alright, Kotoko-san, I think that’s all we need for now,” Tsukauchi closed his notepad with a snap. “We’ll get started on finding your family and go from there. Do you remember your parents' names?”

Kaenna frowned, her memory of those times so faint. “Dad gone, only mom. I don’t remember name.”

“Alright, that’s no problem. We can use your description and lack of a quirk as a starting point. Do you have somewhere to stay in the meantime?”

“Forest is fine.”

“The forest? I suppose if you’re comfortable there we can’t stop you, and having a place large enough for your friend is important.”

A sharp rap on the trick glass brought the attention of Tsukauchi and Kaenna both to the side. The glass suddenly became transparent, showing the gaunt form of All Might beyond it.

“If I may, there are apartments at Might Tower designed to house those who otherwise wouldn’t have a roof over their heads. There is additionally a large helipad on the roof with facilities to store several helicopters that, in a couple hours, could be emptied out for your draconic friend.”

Kaenna’s eyes widened at the offer. “Money?”

He raised a palm to her, “No money needed. Instead, all I would like is a little bit of your time.”

“Saphira?”

“It sounds better than staying in the forest overnight. Ask about what they can provide for me to eat.”

“Um, how much food have?”

“More than enough for you and I’m certain we can track down some cattle for Saphira.”

Pushing her chair back with a squeak of protest, Kaenna nodded. “Yes!”

Tsukauchi stood after her and opened the door. “Please don’t use magic or start any fights. You’re getting a warning this time.”

The walk outside was much like the walk in, but now there was a sizable crowd gathered outside. Most were holding up the glass boxes aimed at Saphira, who was still perched atop the two-floor structure. Seeing Kaenna exit safely, visible tension relaxed from the great dragon’s muscles. Another horseless carriage had its door open, undoubtedly waiting for Kaenna to enter.

“I think it would be best if you just followed us. I don’t know where we’re going yet and it will be easier for you to follow me.”

“This is too much time apart already, but I agree,” Saphira responded, spreading her vast wings.

Climbing into the vehicle, Kaenna was surprised to find All Might in the seat with the controls. Once the door was latched, they pulled away from the guard station. Saphira leapt into the air, her wing membranes casting a broad shadow across the ground as she rapidly gained altitude.

“Young Kotoko-”

“Kaenna, please.”

“My apologies, Young Kaenna. I wanted to thank you for agreeing to listen to me. Now, you said you can heal my injury?”

“Need to understand, but yes.”

“I see. Young Kaenna, allow me to be blunt. Today, when you stepped in while the other heroes watched that boy almost die, it inspired me. For years now, this injury has made the time I’m able to be All Might less and less, and it’s made me a bit jaded. But you, you who just got back from another world, you didn’t hesitate to put yourself in harm’s way. That sort of pure heroism is something this world needs even more of.

“My quirk is special, see. It’s called One for All, and it was given to me by my master, and to her by hers. Generations have nurtured this power, growing it with each subsequent holder. With my injury, I began looking for a successor, someone to pass this sacred torch onto.

“Young Kaenna, I would like you to inherit my quirk, and use it to become the next Symbol of Peace.”

There was a lot in the man’s monologue Kaenna missed, but she understood enough to understand the gravity of the situation.

“What do you think I should do?” she asked Saphira.

“You are a Rider, you need no power other than what you have. Between the two of us, there is nothing we cannot already accomplish.”

She thought for another few seconds. “All Might, offer nice, but no. I do not want quirk.”

Her refusal seemed to surprise him. “I, um, that is… Are you sure? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“I understand. I have strength, do not need quirk to be hero.”

The shriveled stick of a man sighed. “Alright. Thank you for hearing me out at least. My offer for shelter for you two stands, so don’t worry about needing to find somewhere else to live while you sort things out. You… you do intend to be a hero, though?”

She nodded emphatically. “All my life, want to be hero. In Alagaësia, I tried hard. Here, want to go to UA.”

The man cocked an eyebrow in the mirror. “UA, huh? Well, you’re going to have a lot of catching up to do to qualify! After all, you’ve missed twelve years of education, and your Japanese will need to be improved. I can help you with that, if you’d like.”

Kaenna mulled the offer over. Already, her proficiency with spoken languages was letting her pick up more Japanese than earlier in the day, but her writing was always going to be a problem. Having access to a tutor would be invaluable.

“I heal you, you get… teacher?”

All Might’s grin broadened. “It’s a deal! And please call me Yagi Toshinori when I’m in this form.”

“Right, Toshinori.”

In the sky above them, Saphira roared her approval.

♦♦♦

Kaenna’s jaw dropped when she saw the building Toshinori was taking them to. Stretching into the sky like a thin, glass finger, was the tallest single structure she’d ever seen. She couldn’t tell exactly how high it reached, but it undoubtedly would have towered over the ancient and mighty evergreens of Du Weldenvarden and, maybe, even above the lowest peak of Helgrind. It was still dwarfed by Tronjheim in height, but the fact it was a lean spire rather than a broad cone made its height all the more impressive.

Saphira glided to a stop and alighted on its distant peak, while the car, she had learned the horseless carriage was called, pulled into an underground space filled with dozens of others. Toshinori stepped out, and Kaenna followed him, adjusting Brisinger to rest at her side again.

The gaunt man led them to a pair of smooth metal doors which, at the push of a button next to the frame, slid open noiselessly. Stepping inside, he pressed his thumb to a small panel, then pressed one of the higher buttons in a large block of them. The doors closed and Kaenna felt her stomach lurch as they started ascending.

“This box goes up?”

“Elevator,” Toshinori explained, “and yes it takes us up and down the building. Did you think we’d be climbing stairs the whole way?”

“A little,” Kaenna admitted, a flush of embarrassment coming to her cheeks.

A chuckle rumbled out of Toshinori’s throat. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they didn’t have those in, what did you call it, Aragesea?”

“Alagaësia.”

“That.”

Their ascent slowed, then lurched to a stop with a soft chime. The doors slid open, revealing a clean, inviting hallway Kaenna wouldn’t have found out of place in the rebuilt Ilirea. A plush beige carpet under her feet lined the hallway. The walls were the color of early season milk heavy with cream. Artwork dotted the long stretches between doors, with at least a dozen paces between the two pairs on either side of the path in both directions. The ceiling was similar to that in the police station, not guard station, with a textured white surface and soft whitish-yellow lights recessed into it every couple paces.

They walked to the end of the hall and Toshinori opened the door on the left.

“Well, here it is, home for you for now.”

Stepping through, Kaenna’s jaw again dropped. Through their mental link, Saphira echoed her amazement.

The manor, for what else could she call it, was fit for royalty. A new carpet, this time a speckled field of tans, beiges, and whites covered the floor stretching from the door to a window spanning the width and height of the room at the far end. In the space between, a low table was flanked by a plush, brown couch on one side and a squat cabinet pressed against the wall. A broad, tall, but thin black box was mounted to the wall like the Urgal horns had been at the Seven Sheaves tavern in Carvahall.

Set aside from the sitting room, the floor covered in flat black tiles, was a kitchen. Strange implements filled the space, though Kaenna recognized what seemed to be a stove and a block of knives. The rest, she supposed, were mostly things that had no equivalent in Alagaësia and she’d have to learn their names and purposes.

She walked down a side passage, away from the kitchen. A small room was through a door, floored in white tile with metal and ceramic fixtures strewn about its area. Unable to divine its purpose, she turned back to Toshinori.

“What this?” she asked, pointing into the room.

“Did they not have bathrooms there?”

Her eyes widened as she took in the information. “Baths not easy, few. Use rivers, lakes. Ellesméra had water rain.”

“Water rain? Oh! You mean a shower!” A clap and point signaled Kaenna’s recognition of the forgotten word. “Yes, here you can shower and take a bath as you like. Come to think of it,” he guided her to the next door down, which was latched closed, and opened it, “this is the toilet. Do you remember that word?”

“Toilet, yes. Thank you.”

“And that just leaves the bedroom.”

The final door, as Toshinori had said, connected to a bedroom more extravagant than any she had experienced in her memory. A bed, wider than twice her height and equally as long, dominated the inviting space. End tables flanked its head, the wood given a warm honey color through its stain and the yellow lights in the ceiling. The carpet had changed again, now being the color of the deep ocean surrounding Vroengard. Another window, smaller than the grand one in the sitting room in both height and width, had a sheer white curtain pulled across it to let the fading sunlight paint the walls in the hues of sunset. A dresser stood against one wall, and an open closet filled another.

Drinking in the room, Kaenna turned to Toshinori with dew in her eyes.

“All this, so much.”

The older man chuckled, “I’ve made a lot of money in my time as the Symbol of Peace, far more than I could ever want for myself. This,” he gestured to the room, “is my way of giving back to the people that need it most. Speaking of that, when do you think you’ll be able to heal my injury?”

“Don’t know,” Kaenna replied bluntly.

Toshinori blinked in surprise. “You don’t know? How can you not know?”

“I don’t understand hurt. Helping from knowing. Japanese too bad to understand.”

Communicating in such a broken fashion was growing increasingly frustrating for Kaenna, but fortunately it seemed Toshinori was able to figure out her meaning.

“You’re saying you need to understand the nature of my injuries to be able to heal them, and in order to do that your Japanese needs to improve more?” At her nod he continued, “Well, it sounds like I’ll be starting a search for tutors tomorrow! Both for you relearning Japanese and to help with getting you caught up to a high school education! Now, it’s getting late, and I bet you’ve had a longer day than I have, so what say you get settled in for the night?”

“No!” Kaenna responded perhaps too sharply. “I mean, need to see Saphira first.”

“Oh, right. This way then.”

Locking the front door behind them, then passing the key to Kaenna, Toshinori led them back to the rising box. Pressing the topmost button, they ascended again. At their destination, they stepped out into a cavernous space that would have been quite roomy if not for Saphira curled up in the center of the space. The remains of a cow were clenched between her sharp claws.

“Hey Saphira, did they bring you dinner?” Kaenna asked in Alagaësian.

“No, but I found this wandering in a field as I was following you.”

Kaenna sighed. “You know that was probably someone’s, right? Japan isn’t like Alagaësia, even seemingly free herds belong to someone.”

“Then they should tend to their herds better.”

“I don’t mean to intrude, but do you know where she got the cattle?”

“Found it flying,” Kaenna shrugged, walking over to scritch lovingly along the tender scales behind Saphira’s mighty jaw. “Sorry.”

“If that’s the scale she eats at, then the apology is mine. I’ll inform the staff to have whole sides of beef brought up as soon as possible. Um, how many should I have them bring?”

Kaenna translated for Saphira.

“I ate well before we left Farthen Dûr, so this will be enough for tonight. Tomorrow I shall need twice this by evening.”

“Four.”

Toshinori nodded. “Is there anything else you need then?”

Walking behind Saphira’s foreleg, Kaenna came to the first of the chests she had packed. Unfastening it, she hefted it down to the ground. 

“Need this.” 

Kaenna walked around the rest of Saphira’s coiled body, stepping over the end of her serpentine tail, to arrive at the other, far more precious chest. Releasing its straps, she set it back down with all the tenderness of a mother guarding her children. Hastily undoing the fasteners for the great saddle, she pulled the leather masterwork off Saphira’s shoulders to rest on the smooth floor. Returning the egg chest to her arms, Kaenna walked back around.

“And this.”

Toshinori looked at her, looked at the chest in her arms that was bigger than she was, then at the smaller one on the ground. With a rush of steam he bulked up into his heroic form and tucked the chest under one arm.
“Let us be quick then!”

As they hustled back to Kaenna’s new home, she let her mind expand to search for possible threats. It was now, away from Saphira’s protection and before she had the chance to secure them with additional wards, that the eggs were at their most vulnerable.

Letting All Might open the door with a spare key, Kaenna wasted no time in moving the egg chest to the bedroom. Kicking the door closed behind her, she bid Toshinori a hasty farewell, then prepared for her final ordeal of the day.

Placing the chest in the closet, Kaenna thought on the wards she wanted to place upon it. Deciding, she began to sing. It was a wordless tune she’d created after hearing how the Elves would sing their spells rather than chant monotonously. Laying the words of her wards over the melody, she sang of protecting from blade, bow, and fist; of repelling fire; of deterring those who mean ill from opening the chest.

Over an hour later, she bound the wards not just to her own strength, but also to a small, rough-cut emerald the Eldunarya had poured their own power into for such a purpose. Setting the small gem inside the chest, she closed it with a satisfying thud.

“Laesa.”

At her command, the concealed lock clicked closed, ensuring that only one who could wield magic could open it.

Performing similar, but less intensive wards on the front door, Kaenna finally allowed herself to relax. Stripping off her armor, she collapsed onto the excessively large bed.

“I’m finally home,” she whispered as sleep took her.

♦♦♦

The next morning, Kaenna awoke with a fierce hunger in her stomach. Realizing that she’d fallen asleep without eating, she hauled herself from the bed to the sitting room, where Toshinori had left the chest full of her belongings.

“Yeah, this should be a big enough space.”

Speaking a well practiced phrase in the ancient language, the chest burst open, its compressed contents arranging themselves across the vastness of the room. Opening a sack, Kaenna pulled a loaf of sourdough bread and a wedge of cheese from its depths along with a sealed bottle of ale for her parched throat. Tearing the bread in half, she took a knife from her hip and started carving the cheese to eat.

It was a simple breakfast, but she liked simple. She’d been thrown extravagant feasts aplenty in Ellesméra, Tronjheim, and Ilirea, but the simple meals she had shared with Garrow, Roran, and Eragon in Carvahall growing up were more soul soothing than any feast. Part of her still missed the way Garrow could cook the deer she and Eragon would bring back from their forays into the Spine, but she couldn’t conscience the eating of flesh anymore. Not after the number of animal minds she had been inside during her training and ever since.

Speaking of other minds, she didn’t feel any on the whole floor she was on. Nor above or below. It wasn’t until Saphira at the pinnacle and one other a couple levels below, Toshinori’s now-familiar mind giving away the occupant’s identity. Further below, it was over a dozen levels before she felt the flickers of human life. It would seem, despite the tower’s impressive volume, much of it was empty.

A presence started ascending rapidly, then slowed, and finally stopped at her level. Kaenna tracked it as she finished the last of the bread and cheese. It stopped at her door, where a knock echoed through her home.

Feeling no hostility, Kaenna released the wards on the door, then pulled it open. Outside stood Tsukauchi, now wearing a dusty overcoat with a matching hat in his hands.

“Ah, Kotoko-san, it’s-”

“Kaenna please.” She hated interrupting but the sooner she impressed on people that she’d rather not go by that name anymore, the better.

“Sorry, Kaenna. I hope you slept well. I wanted to let you know that we ran your name and quirk status through the database, um, the records, and we found your family name and your mother.” Tsukauchi smiled, “Midoriya, and her name is Inko. She apparently pressed the police to keep searching for you for years, never giving up. She lives with her friend’s family now.”

Hearing how her mother, Inko, never gave up the search, Kaenna couldn’t help the swell of emotion that rippled through her heart. Feeling it just as strongly, Saphira bugled above, a haunting sound that echoed in the morning air. Tears began rolling unbidden down Kaenna’s cheeks.

“Can I see her?” she asked.

“That’s why I’ve come to get you two.”

“Just give minute please.”

Her heart pounding in her chest, Kaenna hurriedly closed and locked the bedroom door with another set of wards. Strapping Brisingr to her waist, she decided to forgo her full armor. She cast an excited look over her pile of belongings before finding the small crate she’d wanted, no bigger than a forearm’s length on each side, and tucked it under one arm. Giving herself one final look over, she met Tsukauchi’s expectant gaze.

“Ready to fly?”

The man blinked. “Fly?”

Kaenna nodded, a grin spreading across her face. “Fast, fun, Saphira take us.”

Tsukauchi paled. “Why not take the car?”

The grin turned into a smirk. “Dragon better than car.”

Not waiting for the detective to respond, Kaenna walked confidently out the door. Brandishing her key like it was a dagger, she huffed in impatience.Once Tsukauchi got the message, she quickly locked her door, cast her wards again, then made for the elevator.

Opening into Saphira’s temporary housing, Tsukauchi’s eyes boggled at the sight of Saphira. Kaenna approached her.

“It’s time for us to fly again.”

“Good. Even a day without flying with you feels like an ache I cannot soothe.”

Working together, the pair of dragon and Rider got Saphira’s saddle back on and the straps secured. Dropping her crate into one deep saddlebag, Kaenna turned to Tsukauchi, who was still standing next to the elevator.

“Come?”

Hesitantly, the man took a step forward.

“She, uh, isn’t going to eat me, right?”

Saphira snorted, a short gout of blue flame scorching the ground.

“If he doesn’t hurry up I might consider it.”

“She says hurry up or eat.”

That seemed to light a fire under him, as Tsukauchi rapidly closed the remaining distance. With practiced ease, Kaenna leapt up into the saddle and strapped her legs down. Once she was secured, she lowered an arm. Tsukauchi, seeing an invitation when it’s given, let himself be pulled up behind her.

“Tie here,” Kaenna pointed at a second set of leg straps behind her own.

“Got it.”

Mimicking what he’d seen the Rider do, Tsukauchi was quickly strapped in.

“Are you ready, Saphira?”

“I am, little one. Instruct our friend to hold on tight.”

“Hold onto me. I will need map.”

“Directions? Sure I can tell you where to go, but hold onto youuuu!”

Tsukauchi’s squeal of fear was drowned out by a rush of wind as Saphira lunged for the open side of the rooftop shelter. They broke into the mid-morning sun at a gallop, the building’s edge rapidly approaching. Kaenna whooped as she dove off the edge.

The ground, previously well over a furlong below, rapidly rose to meet them. At the last second Saphira flared her vast wings. Kaenna nearly choked as Tsukauchi gripped her hard around her waist.

“See? Fun!” She shouted over the wind.

“This is not my idea of fun!” he screamed back. He then pointed off to the distance. “We need to go that way, she lives back in Musutafu!”

Communicating at the speed of thought, Saphira slid into a graceful turn. Screams sounded from below, though if they were in excitement or fear of their presence, Kaenna couldn’t tell.

As they gained altitude and the tranquility of flying replaced the exhilaration of their starting dive, fear began to creep into Kaenna’s heart. Sensing her unease, Saphira nudged her mind.

“What troubles you?”

“It’s my mother. The last time I saw her I was barely old enough to care for myself, and so much about me has changed since then. She never stopped looking for me, but will she recognize me when she sees me?”

“I’m certain she will. Mothers seem to have a way to know their kin.”

“But what if she-”

“Kaenna,” Saphira rarely used her given name, “trust in her. If there are questions, we shall answer them.”

“You’re right. Thank you.”

♦♦♦

The remainder of the flight took them just over an hour. The cities below, completely unlike those Kaenna was familiar with, sprawled across leagues. The black roads stretched across their vastness like the web of some impossibly large spider. Some buildings rose high into the sky, but most sat just a handful of floors tall. People in the millions milled about like ants, simply going about their lives.

Eventually, with the help of the glass box in his pocket that Tsukauchi helpfully told Kaenna was called a cell phone, they began their descent. Guided down to a smaller street with large houses flanking either side, Saphira landed with all the grace of the finest Elven dancers. Unstrapping herself first, Kaenna then twisted in the saddle with practiced ease to free Tsukauchi. Landing with the soft patter of leather on stone, she took in the house, though she wanted to call it a mansion, that her mother apparently now lived in. Three floors tall, with arcing green roof sections broken up by abrupt offsets, it would have been fit for a major lord or merchant prince in Ilirea or Aberon. A balcony hung off the right side’s third floor, while the front door was shadowed by an overhanging section of the second and third floors. Much of the property was guarded by a brown wall a couple yards high, a small section of groomed grass and dwarf trees between it and the road.

“Be brave, little one. You’re the one who bested Galbatorix, united the races of Alagaësia, and have me by your side.”

That final bit of reassurance kicked Kaenna into motion. Leaving Tsukauchi to regain his footing, she approached the warm, wooden door. Three sharp knocks and she took a step back, bracing herself.

“Coming!” a loud voice called from inside.

The lock clicked open and the round brass knob twisted. Pulled inwards, an older woman with short, spikey blonde hair was revealed. Her striking red eyes blinked, taking in Kaenna’s appearance.

“Can I help…” her eyes flicked over to Saphira, “you…”

“Mitsuki, who is it?”

A shorter, heavy-set woman with hair a familiar shade of green walked up behind the blonde. Her eyes met Kaenna’s, two sets of orbs the same brilliant emerald. A ceramic cup fell from her hands to crash on the floor below. Ignoring the blonde woman, she stepped forward, a shaking hand reaching out.

“Kotoko?”

Taking the hand and resting her cheek against it, Kaenna smiled. “I’m home, Mama.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 4 - Reunion

“I’m home, Mama.”

The older woman hiccupped, brought her free hand to her mouth, and the dams burst.

“My baby’s home!” she lunged forward to pull Kaenna into a crushing hug, tears gushing from her face like twin waterfalls. “I knew you were alive! They told me that I should give up, that I needed to move on with my life, but I couldn’t! I just-”

Her stream of mumbles was cut off by the blonde woman, who had been staring wide-eyed past Kaenna, finally breaking out of her stupor enough to scream.

“Inko get inside! Call the heroes, there’s a villain!”

Freed from her fixation on Kaenna, Inko turned to see where the other woman was pointing. Following the finger, Kaenna couldn’t help but giggle.

“Mama, Saphira is my friend, not a villain.” She looked at the various faces peeking out of curtains in the nearby houses. “Maybe you should go hunting for a while. The ocean is close and there’s no Nïdhwal. If you’re back around sunset, I should be done by then.”

“I shall. Enjoy bonding with your mother, little one.”

Lifting herself to stand half her neck above the house, Saphira narrowed one gleaming eye on the panicking blonde and Inko, before launching herself into the air with a mighty leap. A gust of air like a gale blew past them all at her first wingbeat. Then, she was gone, vanishing above the rooftops in the direction of the sea.

Kaenna faced her mother again. “I have a lot to say.”

“R-right, come in sweetie.” Inko stepped back inside.

“Are we just going to ignore the fucking dragon?!” the blonde woman shouted.

“Please,” Kaenna gave her a gentle, soothing smile, “let me say?”

Her red eyes, so painfully familiar Kaenna could almost remember, glanced back in the direction Saphira had gone. She then huffed and turned.

“Fine. Welcome to my house, I guess. But let me warn you, if you’re not Kotoko, if this is all some prank to pull on Inko, I will see you dead.”

Sensing no actual malice from her, Kaenna nodded. She followed the woman into a large, open living space. A pair of large couches sat facing each other across a low, honeyed wooden table in the center of the room. Against one wall was a set of bookshelves packed to the brim. Seated on the far couch was her mother, looking at her expectantly.

“I’ll get some tea or something,” the blonde woman walked off.

Taking the offered seat next to Inko, Kaenna thought about how she would even start. Fortunately, Inko, maybe sensing her unease, started first.

“It’s really you, Kotoko?”

Kaenna nodded, “Yes, but I use Kaenna now.” She looked down, ashamed, “Gone so long, my Japanese is bad.”

Sadness flickered across Inko’s face at Kaenna’s words, but almost immediately shifted to concern. With a speed contrary to her plump proportions, she pulled Kaenna into a hug.

“None of that matters, sweetie. I’m just happy you’re home.” The blonde woman returned, carrying a pot of fragrant tea and three cups. “Koto- Kaenna, do you remember Mitsuki?”

The memories clicked together like the Dwarven puzzle ring Orik had once gifted her. “Auntie Mitsuki?”

The woman’s face shifted, her eyes appraising Kaenna like a piece of fine art. “It really is you,” she said, barely a whisper. “Nobody else ever called me that. Oh, Katsuki is going to flip when he learns this.”

Katsuki. That name drew up more memories, and not happy ones at that.

“Sweetie,” Inko got Kaenna’s attention, “tell me what happened please.”

Putting aside the unpleasant memories of her childhood friend turned bully, Kaenna began to tell her story, hiding nothing. Inko resumed her river of tears and Mitsuki looked like she was ready to strangle Katsuki when she told of how his behavior shifted after her quirkless diagnosis, and how that resulted in him throwing her into the stream in the woods. His leaving her there in the water, only to be taken by the wild magic to Alagaësia, set Mitsuki positively fuming.

Getting past the traumatic start to her tale, Kaenna continued with her joy at finding a loving family in Carvahall, learning how to farm and hunt, and being genuinely happy for the first time since she was three. On and on she spoke, letting Inko or Mitsuki interrupt as they wanted, a happiness she hadn’t known for years filling her heart.

♦♦♦

Friday was normally a good day for Katsuki. It meant the next day at school was going to be a half day, his weekly allowance came in, and the next episode of his favorite show came out. That Friday, however, was completely soured by the events of the day before.

Not only was he harassed by the press for his ‘bravery’ and ‘tenacity’, but today Wings and Fingers had been all over him about it! Those extras were always hanging off him, hoping for scraps while he did all the real work.

Katsuki let out a sigh while small explosions popped in his palms, leaving a drifting scent of burnt caramel in his wake. That was over, so now he could finally try to enjoy the rest of the day. He found a pebble to practice his quirk on, he had brought the ingredients for curry like the hag wanted, and his favorite show would be on after dinner.

Just as he reached to unlock the door, he heard giggling from inside. His brows, always bent in an angry arch, furrowed further. The hag laughed often enough, but that was multiple voices. Auntie Inko hadn’t laughed once since her useless brat went missing, but that sounded like her voice. There was also a third voice that wasn’t his old man, and he was on a business trip anyway. Curiosity rose in him. Something was fucking with his home life and he was going to find out what.

The key slammed into the lock, turned with a thunk as the deadbolt retreated, and then he threw open the door.

“Oi, hag, the fuck is going-”

His demand died in his throat as he saw, sitting next to Auntie Inko and laughing like it was the most natural thing in the world, was the girl from the day before. Her slanted, malachite eyes that seemed to hold an impossible depth behind their surfaces widened at his arrival. Several emotions flickered across her angular, well defined face in the span of a second. Without the old armor she wore before, Katsuki could now see a pair of pointed ears peeking out of the jade curls that fell just past her shoulders.

“Katsuki,” Auntie Inko’s smile, the smile he hadn’t seen in over a decade, almost blinded him, “I know this is going to be hard to believe, but Kotoko’s back! Oh, but she prefers Kaenna now, so please call her that.”

Every thought in Katsuki’s mind ground to a halt. Kotoko? That quirkless bitch he’d left in the woods all those years ago? The bitch who’d vanished without a trace and put a target on him for the next year because he was the last to see her? That was her sitting there, the woman he’d planned to make his own if ever he met her again?

“Katsuki?” the woman asked quietly, a strange accent to her voice.

“Kusa?!” Katsuki shrieked, his face and heart torn between disgust and desire.

Her eyes hardened. “Kaenna. Not ‘Kusa’.”

Katsuki felt his temper rising. Her gaze flicking to the door behind him and a small smile tugging at her lips was all it took for his patience to wear out. He opened his mouth to yell at her, to remind her of her place, to scream ‘why now?’, when the house leapt under his feet. His teeth clacked together, barely missing his own tongue.

“The fuck is it now?!” he got out.

The woman, Kusa, got to her feet. It was then that Katsuki noticed the sword, the same one she’d worn the previous day, swinging at her hip.

“My friend,” she answered.

“Oh yeah?! Your friend thinks they’re tough?! Thinks they can use their quirk to mess with my house?! Well they’re about to get put in their place, and it’s all your fault, Kusa!”

“Wait, brat!”

Ignoring the hag’s cry, Katsuki wheeled around to the door. He heard three sets of feet hit the ground after him, but they didn’t matter. Whoever thought they could just show up to save that worthless weed would have another thing coming. He threw the offending slab of wood open and stormed outside in a fury, his palms crackling.

Only for his mind and hands to go deathly quiet at the sight of an azure eye as wide as his torso was tall blocking his path.

No, not just an eye.

Prying his eyes away from the orb, Katsuki’s gaze took in blue scales over an enormous eye socket, a jaw big enough to fit him whole, fangs protruding the length of his leg, and, behind a sinuous neck, a body big enough to put Ryuukyuu’s draconic transformation to shame.

A blast of hot air blew his hair back as the dragon, for what else could it be, turned to snort on him. A lick of cerulean flames danced at its nostrils, ending just short of his body.

Katsuki then did something he would forever deny happening. He fainted.

♦♦♦

Kaenna couldn’t help but snort as Katsuki, apparently grown into the young man she had saved the day before, fell stiff as a board to the ground, unconscious. Saphira likewise found the sight amusing as a deep rumble echoed from her. Behind her, Inko gasped and Auntie Mitsuki simply sighed.

“What am I gonna do with this brat?” Auntie Mitsuki asked, her tone making clear she expected no answer.

“He called you ‘Kusa’. What did he mean?” Inko asked.

Hefting Katsuki’s limp body with all the difficulty of lifting a housecat, Kaenna let out a weary breath. “From my name.”

Inko seemed to think for a few seconds before her eyes widened in realization. “He called you that before you disappeared?”

“Since I was quirkless.”

Leaving her mother the mull over the fact her best friend’s son had come up with a creative derogatory based on the kanji of her birth name, Kaenna unceremoniously dropped Katsuki on the couch. A satisfying pop sounded from her shoulder as she gave it a roll, now free of its burden.

“I’ll talk to him when he wakes up,” Auntie Mitsuki glared at her unconscious son. “First, though, would you like to stay for dinner? I’m making curry.”

The memory of heat and flavor rolled across Kaenna’s tongue before she shook her head. “I can’t. No meat.”

The older women blinked at her.

“Wait, you’re a vegetarian now?” At Kaenna’s nod, Auntie Mitsuki continued, “But what about your mom’s katsudon? It was your favorite.”

Giving them both a sad smile, Kaenna answered, “I can’t. Not now. Hurts the heart.”

“Well, um,” Inko fumbled over her words, “I don’t know what your favorite is now, but give me some time and I can learn it!”

Her mother’s kindness and generosity warmed Kaenna’s heart. “Next time, maybe. For now, go back to Might Tower.”

“Wait, you live at Might Tower?!”

“Mhm, All Might is nice.”

A rap on the doorframe got their attention.

“If it’s alright with you ladies, I’d like to get our young dimension traveler and her scaly friend out of here sooner rather than later.”

Oh right, Tsukauchi had been there. Kaenna had gotten so wrapped up in spending time with her mother that she’d completely forgotten about the man. She made a note to find a way to make it up to him for taking up his entire day.

Kaenna walked to the door, before sparing a glance back. “I’ll be back, Mama.”

“Mm, be safe, Kaenna.”

 ♦♦♦

The flight back was mostly occupied by Tsukauchi complaining about how Kaenna had locked him out for hours while Saphira disappeared to who knew where when he was supposed to be keeping an eye on her. He had managed to get some relief sent over around mid-afternoon, but he was still quite cross with her. For her part, Kaenna apologized for getting so lost in the moment with her mother that she forgot about him, an admission that definitely didn’t endear her to him further.

Once they’d landed at Might Tower, finding the promised halves of cattle placed on a large sheet for Saphira, the detective hurriedly excused himself. Rider and dragon exchanged their memories of their respective days. Kaenna couldn’t help but laugh at Saphira’s encounter with a fishing boat; those three men would have one hell of a story to tell about the dragon eating a dolphin.

Bidding each other good night, Kaenna returned to her ‘apartment’, Tsukauchi had called it. Inside, seemingly waiting for her, was Toshinori. The gaunt man smiled at her, then patted a set of bulging paper bags on the kitchen counter.

“I realized last night that you didn’t have anything to cook with, so I brought you some basics! Although,” he looked at the pile of crates, chests, and bags in the middle of the room’s open space, “maybe I didn’t need to worry so much.”

Kaenna shook her head. “No, thank you for worry. Um, no meat, please?”

“Hm? You don’t eat meat?” At Kaenna’s nod he rubbed the back of his head bashfully, “Well, I’ll have to find someone to take all that then.”

He stood and opened one side of the large silver box situated to one end of the kitchen. A gust of chilled air from it drew Kaenna’s attention.

“What is that?”

“Hm?” Toshinori turned around, holding several white trays full of meats. “You mean the refrigerator? Why would you-” He slapped himself with his free hand, “of course you wouldn’t know what everything in here is. Young Kaenna, please forgive me, and allow me to go over what everything here is and what they do.”

Over the next hour, Kaenna was taught about all the modern devices in her kitchen. The ‘refrigerator’ and ‘freezer’ to keep food cold or frozen, respectively, thus preserving it for longer; the stove, which ran on a flammable gas and ignited with an electric spark; the oven, which ran on electricity alone; the pressure cooker, a pot that could be sealed to cook meals faster than they could be in open air alone.

Together, they put away all the goods Toshinori had bought her. It filled significantly less space than the kitchen provided, partly due to the dozens of pounds of frozen meats Toshinori had thoughtfully tried to provide. Kaenna genuinely felt bad about it all possibly going to waste, but unless her life was on the line she simply couldn’t conscience the life of an animal sustaining her own.

Once they were done, the young Rider rummaged through a chest, her arm emerging with a small silver flask. Grabbing two small pewter glasses in her other hand, she set them down on the kitchen’s stone counter.

“As thanks, a drink!”

Toshinori eyed the flask, sniffed, then turned his sunken blue eyes on Kaenna.

“Young Kaenna, how old are you, exactly?”

Clear liquid splashed into the two mugs, the heady aroma of faelnirv filling the air.

“Birthday July 15, should be eighteen. Year different in Alagaësia.”

“Eighteen!” He snatched the flask away. “Young Kaenna, you are far too young to be drinking! The legal age to consume alcohol in Japan is twenty! I cannot allow you to-”

The flask vanished from his hand as Kaenna blurred forward and snatched it from him. She stared up at the Number One Hero’s skeletal form, her eyes ablaze with fury. Holding the flask like it was a priceless artifact, Kaenna spoke.

“Never take mine again. Gift from…” her eyes softened and her heart ached, “from a friend.”

His understanding of the pain he’d caused was written on Toshinori’s face. “Nonetheless, as a hero, I cannot allow underage drinking.”

Kaenna shook her head. “Adult in Alagaësia at sixteen, drink before with water.”

“The laws and customs there don’t apply here.”

Reaching out with her mind, Kaenna brushed against Toshinori’s. Despite the strong front he was putting on, she could feel his conviction against her wavering. She decided to push it.

“I have drank, fought in a war,” she looked him in his shadowed blue eyes, “and killed. I am adult more than any twenty here.”

As Kaenna had hoped, Toshinori seemed shocked by her admission of having killed before. She felt his mind relent before his posture shifted to one of reluctant resignation.

“I don’t wish to aggravate you, Young Kaenna, so against my better judgement I’ll allow this for now so long as this only occurs in your apartment. I would not expect others to be so lenient were they to learn of your… supply. Oh,” he bonked the heel of one bony fist into the other palm of the other, “speaking of, tomorrow morning I’ll be stopping by with someone to gauge how your current level of education measures up to the standards of UA.” He glanced at the flask, “Try not to overdo it.”

Left to her own devices for the remainder of the evening, and now aware of how to work her own kitchen, Kaenna decided to be a bit bold for dinner. Mentally pulling up a recipe for a vegetable pottage she’d been taught, she got to work.

An hour later, having had to substitute some items to the best of her ability, and no small amount of guesswork, she sat down to eat.

“Hmm, definitely not my best work, but at least I know how to work with this now. Next time will be better.”

♦♦♦

When Toshinori had said someone was coming to assess her academic knowledge, Kaenna had expected one of a few things. A snooty scholar that had spent their life with their head buried in as many books as possible; a hard-nosed tutor that would be a slave-driver if given half the chance; a sagely man like Oromis had been, that would nudge in the right direction and leave her to arrive at the answers herself.

A small, white-furred animal in a suit had been so outside the realm of possibility that she would have guessed a Ra’zac before that. She sensed a vast intellect behind its beady black eyes, such that she had only felt from Glaedr and the Eldunarya of similarly aged, or older, dragons. Clearly, any expectations she had were worthless, so an open mind was called for.

“Good morning?”

“Greetings, Midoriya-san, though I am told you prefer to go by the name Kaenna,” the creature spoke. “Am I a dog, a mouse, or a bear? What does it matter, for I am the dean of UA University, Nedzu.”

The dean of UA University. This was an opportunity to get her foot into UA’s door months before the entrance exam. She had to make a good impression.

With a motion that had long since become second nature, Kaenna twisted her right hand to rest it over her sternum. “Atra esterní ono thelduin, Nedzu-elda.”

“Ah, this must be the language of magic Yagi-san mentioned. By the timing and motion you made, am I correct to assume it is a greeting?”

“Greeting of the Elves, yes. I… don’t know words in Japanese.”

“And that’s perfectly acceptable, Kaenna-san. I also understand that you are but one half of a pair that has recently returned to Japan. May I be introduced to your companion?”

He wanted to meet Saphira? Oh this was going to be good.

“This way, please.”

The elevator ride up was quiet, but Kaenna could feel Nedzu’s attention on her every move. It was like she was being assessed for her fitness of body and mind.

When they arrived at Saphira’s temporary den, they found it empty. Not a surprise to Kaenna, she’d known that the great dragon had gone for an early morning flight to stretch her wings. She also knew that Saphira would be returning shortly, as she’d felt the touch of her mind on the ride up.

“Did your companion leave?” Nedzu asked.

“Wanted exercise, she’ll be back soon.”

The sound of mighty wingbeats heralded Saphira’s arrival a second before her azure bulk landed outside the shelter. Her head, crowned by cloud-white spikes, bent down to fit inside, her vast wings folded flat against her body.

The sensation of primal fear washed over Kaenna’s mind like the coldest air off the Beor Mountains. She looked down at Nedzu to find the quirked animal frozen, his fur standing on end where it was visible and his lips drawn into a thin line. She could feel his intellect fighting with his instincts to flee in the face of Saphira’s presence.

“G-g-g-greetings! A-am I a d-dog, a mouse, o-or a bear? I’m Nedzu, the d-dean of UA. I-it’s a p-pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh? Little One, you didn’t tell me this world had such amusing little creatures. Is it a wererat?”

Kaenna choked back a snort. “I don’t rightly know what he is. Animals here very rarely have quirks, and his makes him intelligent enough to not only live among humans but teach them.”

Saphira bent her neck to bring one vast eye level with the now-shaking dean. “Small-prey-that-is-not-prey,” she spoke to them both in the ancient language, “you may not understand my words but you understand my meaning. I will bring you no harm so long as you judge the partner-of-my-soul with the fairness befitting your station.”

The change was subtle, but Nedzu did seem to calm down somewhat.

“Curious. The telepathy is surprising, but more so is the fact I could understand your meaning without knowing a word you just said.” Nedzu turned back to Kaenna stiffly. “Is this a property of that language?”

Still struggling to not laugh at the change in the dean’s sharp change in demeanor, Kaenna nodded. “Yes, Nedzu-elda. Speak only truth, understood all.”

“Most interesting.” He turned back to Saphira. “Saphira-san, thank you for your understanding. It has been a terrifying pleasure to meet you.”

Rather than speak to him again, Saphira merely curled her lips into a scaled smile, then let out a puff of blue flame from her nostrils.

“Right. Kaenna-san, shall we return and begin our assessment?”

♦♦♦

“And that is the end of the examination. Thank you for your patience, Kaenna-san.”

Kaenna let her body fall to the floor, her mind feeling like stew left over a fire for far too many hours.

Nedzu’s testing had taken the remainder of the morning and most of the afternoon. Her math skills had proven surprisingly robust, considering she had no formal education after leaving Japan until she came under Brom’s tutelage. Out of the prepared materials, it was only when Nedzu presented her with ‘trigonometry’ that she’d begun to falter, and ground completely to a halt at the concept of ‘calculus’.

Unfortunately, and predictably, math had been the subject she was best at. Her language skills were impeccable, but two thirds of her life spent away from Japan meant she didn’t even remember the basics of hiragana and katakana. Kanji were right out. As such, any written tests placed her right at the bottom, while her spoken Japanese was still audibly infantile. Nedzu had pointed out that, even through the course of the few hours since his arrival, she had already improved, using words and phrases she hadn’t known when she woke up, and that if she continued at that pace she would be considered fluent within six months. Her writing would take years, but the quirked animal expressed confidence in finding a tutor that could get her to a passable level in the same time.

If her Japanese was bad, her knowledge of Earth history was nearly nonexistent. Some major events she had learned about as a child had managed to persist, but without living among that history there was nothing else.

“Powerful enough to fight an army by myself, yet I can’t pass a simple test,” Kaenna muttered in Alagaësian.

“Kaenna-san, just because I cannot understand the words doesn’t mean I missed that defeated tone,” Nedzu said. “You have much to learn if you want to pass UA’s entrance exam, but I’m certain that, by applying yourself to your studies, you will succeed. In fact,” he tapped Kaenna’s test papers on the counter to straighten them, “I have a proposal for you.”

“‘Proposal’?”

“Ah, sorry. A deal, if you would. A trade.”

Kaenna peered between her bangs, the kitchen counter pleasantly cool against her cheek. “What deal?”

She knew she’d walked right into a trap when she saw Nedzu smile. It was probably meant to be reassuring and friendly, but to Kaenna it looked like a predator that had just found its next meal.

“I will provide tutors for you to be ready for the UA entrance exam in the form of UA’s own professors. However, this would be quite the long commute for them, considering their already busy schedules. To remedy that, I will also provide you and Saphira with housing on UA’s campus.”

Kaenna was sitting upright now, doing her utmost to parse everything Nedzu was offering. It was a lot, and sounded too good to be true. If there was one lesson she’d learned in Carvahall better than any other, it was when something appears too good to be true it always is. There was a catch coming.

“What cost?”

“Oh my dear Kaenna-san, why nothing you cannot afford. I simply want to learn this language of truth you speak and, if Yagi-san’s account of you protecting yourself with magic is true, see about improving the security of UA with your abilities.”

And there it was. Kaenna knew there would be people here that would seek to exploit her abilities, curry favor with her for their own ends. The exact same had occurred in Alagaësia and was part of why she couldn’t stay there. Here, though, she had no oaths already binding her, no loyalty except to herself. She could choose who to align with, and UA presented her with just the opportunity she had been hoping for.

She reached out to take Nedzu’s offered paw. “I have needs.”

“And I’m sure we can meet them.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 - Moving House

“There it is!” Kaenna mentally shouted, pointing at a large, glistening building on the peak of the hill.

“As far as defensible locations go, it’s not ideal,” Saphira remarked. “Are you certain this is where we should make our den?”

“It’s quite visible, yes, but as a beacon for hero society it has to be. It’s also a public institution, not a castle. From what Nedzu told me, though, it is far more defended than it seems. That wall,” Kaenna pointed at the concrete structure rapidly approaching beneath them, “is not all there is to it.”

A week had passed since Kaenna’s first meeting with the dean of UA, and that morning she’d been told that their new accommodations on the campus were ready. Repacking her belongings had taken about an hour, and another hour for removing the wards on the egg chest, before transporting both back to Saphira’s saddlebags. They had then set off again for Musutafu, an aerial map of the UA campus with their landing site circled in red ink memorized by Rider and dragon both.

“There,” Kaenna gestured ahead, “those two buildings adjacent to each other, I think that’s it.”

“Hmm,” Saphira sent a mental picture of her vision to Kaenna, “the smaller of the two seems large enough for me to nest safely. The other couldn’t fit me with that courtyard in the middle.”

“That must be where I’ll be staying, but it seems far too large for a single occupant. Perhaps it’s meant for the entire class.”

They passed over the perimeter wall, bringing them at last within UA’s borders. They circled around the central building, its four separate glass-sided towers joined by enclosed walkways about halfway up their height. Once behind it, they came to a gently curving road lined with trees and well manicured grass. A line of identical buildings stood on one side of the road, each made of two separate towers standing five floors tall. The first one in the row stood out, as it had a second building nestled up behind it.

Kaenna’s stomach lurched as Saphira tucked her wings in slightly, taking them from a slow glide into a dive. A hundred feet from the ground, she flared, snapping Kaenna’s spine back upright. Her feet hit the ground at a dragon’s equivalent of a gallop, her wings tucking in tight to remove the last of their lift. Her tail left a spiderweb of cracks along the concrete road where its momentum was stopped.

Releasing her legs from the saddle, Kaenna hopped to the ground. “I think we made it,” she spoke aloud now that the wind noise was gone. “Now where’s-”

Her musing was cut off by the sound of metal on stone rapidly approaching. Saphira growled and Kaenna turned to face whatever was approaching. She was greeted by the sight of a dozen mechanical contraptions making their way towards them by various means of propulsion.

The smallest, balanced on a pair of inline wheels separated by a segmented, serpentine middle, was also the fastest, and thus the closest. There were five of them, a small, boxy ‘head’ on a flexible ‘neck’ attached to a ‘body’ above the front wheel. Extending from either side of the ‘body’ was an arm, long and segmented like the ‘neck’ with a broad and tall shield for ‘forearms’.

The middle-sized ones were somewhat more familiar, resembling four-legged scorpions. Rather than the segmented limbs of its smaller cousin, the three units’ legs were made of hinged and articulated metal. Small shields made up the final ‘segments’ of each limb. A ‘neck’ nearly identical to the two-wheeled machines’ carried a somewhat more angular ‘head’, reminding Kaenna of the snakes she would hunt for fun in the fields of Carvahall. Befitting a scorpion, it had a tail disturbingly accurate to the real article, though instead of a stinger it was tipped in a metal box with the far end open.

Finally, the largest machines were certainly the most intimidating. Standing taller than a warhorse’s head on their two rear-mounted wheels, they likely appeared quite imposing to most people. Its ‘head’, contrary to the other two, was fixed to the lower-front edge of its boxy central ‘body’. What almost resembled the lower faceguard to a plate helm jutted out from it like a chin. Atop the ‘body’ was two hexagonal boxes, each with five holes in their faces. From the lower outside side of each was the same flat, segmented arm material as was on the smallest machines, but on these they terminated in a large ‘elbow’. Short, fixed sections jutted out from those, ending in another set of boxes. A pair of large ‘fingers’ were the final endpoints of the limbs, curled under to allow the machine to balance on the equivalent of its ‘knuckles’.

“Intruder sighted,” the lead machine called out in a synthesized voice, “initiating apprehension protocols.”

“Wait, Nedzu offer me here!” Kaenna tried to explain.

The machines continued forward. Either her broken Japanese wasn’t good enough to convince them or they didn’t care.

“We have to fight.”

Saphira roared in answer. With a mighty leap, she pounced over the first two lines of machines to smash into the largest two. The sound of sparks and rending metal was drowned out by a gout of flame from her jaws. One of the medium-sized machines turned around and began assisting its brethren, while the remaining six charged ahead towards Kaenna.

“Barzûl,” the Rider swore in Dwarvish, her hand already pulling Brisingr from its sheathe.

The lead machine raised one shield-arm at Kaenna., revealing a set of tubes arrayed in a circle under its cover. The circles began to spin rapidly, before fire belched from their ends.

A series of projectiles whizzed by her head, and she felt the drain on her stamina from her ward against projectiles being activated in rapid succession. She sprung to the side and forward, closing the gap in an instant. Brisingr’s cerulean blade blurred as, in one clean stroke, Kaenna cleaved the machine in half. She had no time to celebrate, though, as the rest of the small machines raised their arms like the first had.

Kaenna remembered guns, of course, but she also remembered Japan had very strict laws on owning them. How UA got to use so many on security machines, she didn’t want to guess. Rather, she was more concerned with not finding out how bulletproof her wards were.

Speaking rapidly in the ancient language, she commanded the concrete beneath them to buckle and break. Their aim thrown off by the localized earthquake, the machine’s shots went wide, flying into the air well above Kaenna’s head.

Another dart forward, and another swing of Brisingr deprived three more of the small machines their facsimile of life. The last, having lagged behind, now aimed at Kaenna, along with the two mediums. Their efforts proved futile, however as Saphira, having finished with her initial engagement, bit down on the last small machine. Her forelegs planted on the backs of the two mediums, her claws digging into the metal like a branding iron into fresh butter. Sparks flew from between her fangs and the scorpions caved under her weight, their tails going limp.

The dragon spat out the twisted wreckage that had been the small machine. “If this was supposed to be a threat, then they woefully overestimated those things’ capacity.”

“In all fairness to UA, they likely don’t expect a dragon and her Rider to go against their defenses. I don’t understand why they’re attacking, though. We were invited here.”

Saphira turned her head towards the main building, prompting Kaenna to do the same. “It seems they are not done testing our patience.”

Several figures were approaching them at a dead sprint. Most were in the colorful and eccentric outfits that identified them as heroes, but one, wearing all black and gray, seemed like he’d have been more at home in a funeral procession. Another ping on Kaenna’s ward drew her attention to the main building itself. With her sharp eyes, she saw a figure leaning out a window, a wide brown hat on his head, a red cape around his shoulders, and what was undeniably a gun in his hands.

“Crap, they’ve already taken out the robots!” The one with a large shock of bright blond hair over his head shouted.

“Somebody call Ryuukyuu, we’re gonna need her to tackle the big one!” another, a large man in a black and red bodysuit with a tube running from the back of his neck to the white bracer on his left arm. To Kaenna’s surprise and horror, a red liquid that was obviously blood flowed out a hole on the front of the bracer and formed into the shape of an axe.

Kaenna raised her empty hand to placate the heroes. “Wait! Nedzu want me!” she shouted, mentally cursing her Japanese for not being good enough.

“Silence, villain!” the blond man replied, his voice far too loud to be normal.

He inhaled, then wordlessly shouted. The air rippled, the ground churned, and a wall of noise unlike anything in Kaenna’s experience slammed into her. She thrust Brisinger into the ground to keep her footing, the blade piercing the concrete with ease. She stared at the blonde man, focusing on him in her mind.

“Theyna!”

In an instant, the pressure ceased. The man reached up to his throat, shock on his face. He moved his mouth, but no sound came forth.

“Fuck, she got Mic!” a woman with long, spikey back hair and a bodysuit that left nothing to the imagination cried. 

The man in black clutched at the gray scarf around his neck. His eyes, previously black coals in bloodshot whites, began to burn an angry red, and his shaggy hair floated off his head. A confident grin tugged at the corners of his mouth for an instant, before his expression fell.

“Her quirk’s not being erased!” he bellowed in obvious panic.

“The fuck is she?” The blood-axe man continued charging forward, his weapon now in both hands.

Another bullet was flung aside by Kaenna’s ward, and she felt one do the same with Saphira’s. “Please listen!” she screamed.

At the same time, the blood-axe man swung at Kaenna and black-clothes man launched his scarf at her like a coiled snake. Kaenna blocked the axe with Brisingr, the enchanted blade slicing through the solidified blood as if it were green wood. The scarf wrapped around her arm, the limb yanked towards its wielder.

“Enough!” Saphira roared in the minds of all present, one clawed foot slamming down on the taut scarf. Kaenna was pulled one step forward, as was the man on the other end.

“Telepathy! Did anyone understand that?” the woman asked.

“No, now get in here and knock them out, Midnight!” blood man shouted as he reformed his weapon.

Neither got to act, however, as azure flames forced both to retreat. The scarf ignited, forcing the man to pull a knife and sever it before the flames reached his neck. The blonde man, still trying desperately to speak, leapt out of the way of Saphira’s jaws. More bullets flew off both wards, draining another lick of stamina from Kaenna’s reserves.

The sound of clapping and a familiar, squeaky voice brought all the combatants to halt.

“I think that’ll be sufficient. I don’t want my staff being turned into a dragon’s dinner, afterall.”

Kaenna’s shoulders relaxed when she saw the white-furred, suited, diminutive form of Nedzu. The man in black clothes likewise relaxed, though the other heroes remained tense.

“Of course it was you,” the man said, the remains of his scarf muffling the lower half of his face.

“Nedzu,” Kaenna sighed as Brisingr clacked home in its sheathe, “please tell them.”

“Indeed I shall, Kaenna-san. But first,” he faced Saphira, her bared fangs longer than his entire body, “Saphira-san, please calm down. I planned on this and had the full confidence of yourself and Kaenna-san to not be harmed by my little test.”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed and a wisp of flame tickled past her fangs. “You play a dangerous game, rodent,” she said in Alagaësian.

Kaenna translated, causing the heroes to drop into ready stances again. Nedzu raised a paw at them.

“Before I begin, Kaenna-san, can you release your spell silencing Yamada-san?”

Cutting off her spell, Kaenna immediately regretted the decision as the blonde man’s voice returned in force. All present clutched at their ears and Saphira bellowed in pain.

“Oh, I can talk again! Sorry!” he shouted, quieter but still louder than an angry urgal.

“Thank you, Yamada-san. Now, to start,” Nedzu bowed towards Kaenna and Saphira, “Kaenna-san, Saphira-san, I apologize for involving you in this little test of mine. I wanted to see your abilities firsthand, and there was no more expedient method than UA’s own defenses. The measuring of said defenses against trained and battle-hardened combatants such as yourselves was also something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now.

“To you all,” Nedzu faced the heroes, “may I introduce to you Kaenna Shadeslayer and Saphira. Starting today, they shall be taking residence in the future 1-A’s dormitory as its caretaker and first student occupant!”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” the man in the red and white bodysuit scowled down at the dean, “but that makes no sense. The entrance exams aren’t for another six months, so how could this girl possibly be a student already? Not to mention the one with the dragon mutation.”

“Patience, Kan-san. To elaborate, there is a little-used section in UA’s charter that allows the dean, me, to, after passing certain criteria, have a student bypass both the regular entrance exams as well as the recommendation exams. I am only allowed one of these students in UA at a time, with a minimum of five years after the last has graduated before I can do so again. In my long tenure as dean of this fine establishment, I have not once chosen to invoke that privilege.”

“But you’re doing so now?” scarf-man asked. “This is highly illogical, so whatever they have to offer by you giving them this must be important.”

“Invaluable, Aizawa-san. You see, Kaenna-san here is quirkless, as is Saphira.”

“Quirkless?” Yamada shouted. “She made me mute with a word, how is she quirkless!?”

“Because, Yamada-san, that was magic.”

Aizawa huffed, “You expect us to believe magic is real?”

“I expect you to believe your senses. Kaenna-san,” Nedzu turned back to the young Rider, “something simple and harmless, if you please.”

Understanding what Nedzu was getting at, Kaenna thought of what she could do that would convince the skeptical heroes. Whispering words of the ancient language, she willed a werelight into existence above her head. The small, floating orb of indigo light bobbed up and down slowly, failing to shine through the bright late-morning sun.

“That’s… certainly different than what she did before,” Kan brought a loose fist to his chin. “So she says strange words and ‘magic’ happens?”

“From what she has told me of how it works, it’s more involved than that. Saphira-san, meanwhile, is not a person with a transformation or mutation quirk, like Ryuukyuu,but rather a genuine dragon. Now wait,” his raised paw stopped another question from Aizawa in its tracks, “let me finish.”

“Kaenna-san is Japanese, but disappeared twelve years ago without a trace. Then, suddenly she returned just over a week ago, with magical powers, her sword and other belongings, and her partner Saphira-san. As outlandish as it may seem, she had been transported to another world, one in which magic is very real, along with dragons, elves, dwarves, and a tyrannical ruler.” The quirked animal’s beady eyes hardened. “She was chosen by Saphira-san to be her Rider, a position of some distinction above even our top 10 heroes. She fought in a war to liberate the masses, won, then sought a way back to her true home.

“You all may have heard of the sludge villain attack a little over a week ago, and how it was resolved by an unknown vigilante? How that vigilante was spoken for by All Might before they were taken in for questioning?”

“That report also mentioned a large heteromorph that attacked the police department soon after,” Aizawa said flatly. “Are you saying these two are that vigilante and, supposedly, not-heteromorph?”

“Precisely!”

“And now you want them to become hero students?” the woman, the last present Kaenna didn’t know the name of, asked.

“I do indeed, Kayama-san, mostly because it was the desire of Kaenna-san herself to become a hero.”

Kaenna nodded. “Since little, I wanted to be hero.”

“Am I correct in assuming her broken Japanese is because she was in this other world for most of her life?”

“Alagaësia different, no Japanese speak there,” she replied to Aizawa’s question.

“Indeed it is, which is partly why I wanted her here on campus early. What better way to catch her up to a high school education than from those she will be studying under in university!”

“What’s her current level of education?” Yamada queried.

“From the testing we did last week, her math skills are early high school. Her spoken Japanese is, as you can hear, very broken, though she understands more than she can speak and has been improving every day as she hears more of it. Her written Japanese, however, is nonexistent. I gave her hiragana worksheets to begin practicing three days ago and haven’t had the time to reassess since. All her other primary curriculum scores are nearly zero. Afterall, it is hard to learn about history, economics, or the sciences in another world while living in a rural village where the most advanced piece of technology was the local blacksmith.”

“So,” Aizawa crossed his arms, “you’re expecting us to teach her in addition to all of our regular classes and our patrols?”

“Not just you four, no, but all the UA faculty shall be involved, including myself.” Nedzu turned back to Kaenna, “I see great potential in this young woman and her partner. Beyond their physical prowess, which as you can see was more than enough to stand against our automated security and five pro heroes, they have the ability to shake up this world that has become so complacent these last few decades. They are a force that all of hero society could not stop if they wished to oppose us, so we should count our blessings that they choose to work with us. 

“Now, I believe you all have classes to return to! If you have further questions, I’ll be holding a meeting after classes today for all faculty and staff. For now, I shall show these two their new accommodations.”

The four heroes walked back to the campus, their voices diminishing as they talked amongst each other. Even once she couldn’t hear them, their body languages told Kaenna a lot about her future instructors.

Aizawa was pragmatic, taking information and finding the best solution from it. Kayama was… a lot, in the kind of way that would have had the old ladies of Carvahall nattering about her endlessly. Yamada was likewise a lot, in the way a drunken bard didn’t know how to be quiet. Kan was blunt, but there was more to him under the surface she couldn’t tell yet.

“Again, I do apologize for your unorthodox welcoming,” Nedzu walked between Rider and dragon towards the buildings. “Shall I show you your new home?”

“He had better be done with his tests, lest he find himself between my jaws.”

Kaenna grimaced at Saphira’s obvious threat, before translating it the best she could. For his part, Nedzu took the dragon’s threat better than he did her mere presence a week ago.

“I assure you, I have no more surprises for either of you planned. After we’re done here, I’ll be personally adjusting the security system to recognize Saphira flying over the walls so you both may come and go freely.” He looked up at her with what passed for a smile. “Shall we start with Saphira’s dwelling?”

Nedzu led them around the first building. Through the tall, clear windows Kaenna got a view of a large dining room, capable of holding at least two dozen people, and an open kitchen next to it suitable for feeding that many. There was a sitting area with green lounge chairs and couches in the front corner, along with a very large ‘TV’. The central courtyard, filled with green plants, was visible through another set of tall windows.

Once they came around the back, where the second, smaller building abutted the first, Kaenna couldn’t help but whistle in approval.

From the air, it had seemed like just another building, but on the ground it was much more like the specifications she and Saphira had given to Nedzu. Save for the shared wall with the other building, it was open-sided, two massive pillars at the corners suspending the roof well over their heads. An appropriately dragon-sized pile of straw was gathered in the middle of the space, along with the largest pillow Kaenna had ever seen.

“The rest of your bedding is still being prepared, Saphira-san,” Nedzu walked into the open space, “but we were able to finish this example pillow for you! It should prove resistant to your claws and most delightful to rest your head on.”

Ducking her head inside, a small movement, Kaenna noticed, Saphira pawed at the pillow. Her claws sank deep into the fabric, but when she pulled back there wasn’t a single mark on its surface. A bugle of surprise echoed from the dragon’s chest as she repeated the motion with both forelegs, with identical results.

“This must be some sort of sorcery!” she exclaimed, her voice filled with glee. “It’s so soft, yet I can’t tear it.” She leaned down and bit into it, with identical results. “Is this what the rest of the bedding will be made of?”

After Kaenna relayed her question and praise, Nedzu nodded. “Indeed it is, Saphira-san, and I assure you there is no sorcery involved. Materials science in our world is significantly more advanced than in yours, though even this took our resident expert most of the week to develop and produce.”

The ground shook as the great dragon flopped to the floor, her head resting on her new pillow. A sound closely resembling a cat’s purr rumbled in her throat, her eyes contentedly closing.

“In addition to her custom bedding,” Nedzu pointed at rolls of metal above each open wall, “those shutters can come down to enclose the entire space in case of poor weather, we do get typhoons every couple years, or if privacy is desired. The connection to the main part of the dorm,” a gesture at the one solid wall, “is currently only accessible by you, Kaenna. As the caretaker of this dorm, you may choose who can have one of the spare keys. Now,” he unlocked the door before placing the key in Kaenna’s hand, “shall we examine where you’ll be staying?”

“Please,” Kaenna said with a smile, eager to see her new home.

The first impression Kaenna got was spaciousness. After a short corridor, the room opened up into a hall tall enough for a Kull to hold Kaenna on his shoulders and still not reach the ceiling. Immediately to her left and right, facing back the way she came, was a pair of elevators. The whole space smelled of an artificial freshness and grout, like it had just been completed a few hours before.

“The one on your left leads to the men’s side of the dorm, while the right, the one you will primarily be using, leads to the women’s side.”

“Men and women separate?”

“Yes, at least in the dorm rooms and the baths on this floor,” he gestured to the side of the hall opposite the kitchen, where Kaenna could see two doorways into open spaces, “and the laundry facilities,” another gesture at the rooms just past the elevators. “The rest of the common room is fully mixed.”

Kaenna nodded in understanding. It was certainly different than how things worked in Alagaësia, where gender roles were very well entrenched. She looked forward to not being pressured to do the cooking and cleaning just because she was a woman.

“On this side,” Nedzu led her past the men’s elevator and laundry, “are the kitchen and dining room.I took the liberty of having the kitchen stocked with everything you could need, and there’s nothing that involved harming an animal. Back in each corner,” he pointed back the way they’d come, “are the stairs to each side.”

The kitchen was a tad bigger than had been in Kaenna’s Might Tower apartment, which made sense given it was expected to feed far more than just her. It also put into perspective how luxurious that apartment had been, being only slightly less spacious in cooking and dining space than the dorm.

“In the middle is the atrium. We’ve provided some greenery there, but if students wish to plant their own, we fully encourage it!”

That got Kaenna’s attention. While farming had been a necessity in Carvahall, after the war she’d found she enjoyed more casual gardening. She had even gotten decently good at the Elven practice of singing spells to plants to grow her food faster. Images of produce she’d sung to that evening being served with dinner floated through her mind, bringing a sense of peace with them.

Once they arrived at the front of the hall, past the six identical dining tables with four chairs each, Nedzu motioned to the couches Kaenna had seen earlier.

“There are two identical lounge areas, here and the other front corner. Couches, cushions, and of course the best TVs on the market today. Any peripherals for the TVs the students will have to provide themselves. Now, onto your duties as caretaker.” He turned to face her, what Kaenna now recognized as his best imitation of a happy smile on his rodent snout, “Primarily, you’ll be in charge of making sure the dorm is kept in a generally presentable manner. We don’t expect perfection, this is the first time many of these young adults will be on their own for the first time and they’re going to want to stretch their wings a little.

“You will also be the point of contact for the students if they have complaints they need us, the faculty, to know about. This building had to be almost completely rebuilt in a week to accommodate Saphira’s unique needs, so there may be some complications of that haste that arise. They may also have issues with each other, having twenty strangers suddenly start living together rarely goes perfectly smoothly, so I am counting on you to mediate if possible, and inform us if not.”

Kaenna’s brow furrowed slightly. Mediating disputes was something she had hoped to be done with by returning to Japan. Even still, the benefit of getting into UA for free and all her other, special requests for her and Saphira’s rooms far outweighed that unpleasantness.

“I understand.”

“Excellent! That concludes our downstairs tour, so let me show you to your room.”

They went up one flight of the women’s stairs, presumably so Kaenna would be familiar with them, before Nedzu led her down the corridor towards the front of the building again. Stopping at the first door of three, a significant gap between it and the second compared to between the second and third.

“Here we are! I’ll let you go in first to make sure it is satisfactory.”

Another key placed into her hand, Kaenna unlocked the door and stepped in. What greeted her was a space about half the size of the home she’d shared with Garrow, Roran, and Eragon. It was completely empty, save for slats of a warm, yellowish wood covering the floor. An open door to her right revealed a compact bathroom with a small shower.

Further in, a hanging closet lay flush against the back wall of the bathroom and a closed door against the wall adjacent to that, a key still in its lock. The final features of note were a sliding glass door that opened into a short balcony and an air conditioner above it.

“As you can see, we’ve left it a blank slate for you to customize. I understand you don’t own most of the typical furniture a student would be bringing with them, so we’ll give you a selection of desks, chairs, and beds to choose from. And, behind here,” Nedzu patted the closed side door, “is the extra space you said you would require. Does this meet with your satisfaction?”

“It does,” Kaenna said, a smile tugging at her lips. “I look at bed tomorrow?”

“Certainly!” Nedzu said with enthusiasm. “In case you wish to leave campus on foot, please use this keycard at the gate. I’ll leave you to your unpacking for now.”

With Nedzu gone after placing the card in her hand, Kaenna found Saphira asleep, her head firmly planted on her new pillow. She couldn’t help but laugh at the sight and imagine what Arya, Fírnen, Glaedr, or any of the other Eldunarí would say if they saw her like that. One large eye opened to stare at her.

“Did you enjoy your nap?”

“Bite me, it’s comfortable.”

“I could see that much. If the whole bed is that comfortable, I might be the first Rider who can’t get her dragon to fly because she’s too comfortable napping.”

Saphira huffed, fire scorching the ground just beyond the pillow’s edge. “I would not abandon flight so easily.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Most of the mirth left Kaenna’s face. “Keep an eye on them for a bit longer, I’m going to move my things up first.”

Taking the chest of her belongings after Saphira’s assent, Kaenna wasted no time in returning to her room. Opening the side door, she stepped into an open space the same size as the main room plus the bathroom. Placing her chest down with a heavy thud, she got to work undoing the compaction spell yet again. Once completed, she got to work properly sorting them for the first time since Farthen Dûr.

The system she had planned in her head worked just right with the space Nedzu had given her. In short order all the boxes, chests, sacks, and handful of larger, loose items were tucked away in an accessible manner. Her trusty bedroll that she’d carried all the way since she and Brom had first fled Carvahall would serve again for the night.

All her belongings dealt with, the matter of the eggs was next. Retrieving their chest from Saphira, and finally unburdening her of her saddle, Kaenna moved it too to her storage room. Placed among several externally identical chests, the better to disguise it from anyone who actually got that far, she set about casting her wards anew; a ward to deflect physical blows or shots aside; a ward to give a high level shock to one who touches it and means harm; a ward to show naught but an empty chest if one does not know the eggs are there.

Her spells completed and the crystal powering them refilled, she closed and locked the chest. With a satisfied huff, she got back to her feet. The day was still far too young to consider going to bed.

“I guess I can set up the room for now.” Kaenna looked at the bare white walls. “It feels too soulless.”

Back in the storeroom, she opened a chest marked in a swirling script, the written version of the ancient language used by the elves. Inside, packed in straw and wrapped in finely woven cloth, were a set of fairth. Picking up one of the pigment coated slates, Kaenna admired the scene it captured.

Green trees glistened with morning dew in a valley lit by golden sunlight. A large cluster of wooden buildings with thatched roofs spread across the valley floor, thin wisps of smoke starting to rise from a few of the chimneys. In the far distance, at the head of the valley, a waterfall spilled over a cliff, the spray leaving a rainbow suspended in its shimmering mist.

Palancar Valley, and the village of Carvahall as it had been before she left with Brom and Saphira.

Grabbing a hammer and a nail from a sack, Kaenna carried the fairth back to the main room. She scanned the room, trying to picture the desk, bed, and other furniture that would fill the space. The mental picture guided her to a spot on the wall above where she would put the bed, opposite the door to the storage room and butting up to the balcony wall.

The fairth pressed into the carpet where Kaenna set it down.She found wood behind the thin wall and, with three quick strikes of her hammer, drove the nail in. The fairth settled on the nail nicely, the steel head locking into a recess Kaenna had made on the back.

She repeated the process with the fairths of Ellesméra, Roran, Katrina, and Ismira, Murtagh and Nasuada, and finally Arya.

Next was a massive rug made from the skin of a cave bear. It had been a gift from Nar Garzhvog on the day the urgal Rider’s dragon hatched. The brown fur stretched from one wall to the other across the room and two thirds its open length, such was the beast it had come from.

Finally, she laid down the bedroll where she wanted her bed to be. It was such that, looking right, she could see the fairth of Palancar Valley.

Her toiletries from Might Tower went in the bathroom; she had grown rather fond of the orchid scented shampoo and conditioner which left her curls practically lustrous and the jasmine body wash that made her skin soft and supple even by elf standards.

“I think that’s all for now,” she said to herself, taking in the room. She looked out the window, taking note of the midafternoon sun. “Still plenty of daylight, I think I’ll look around campus.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 6 - The Pain of Knowledge

Wind driven by the afternoon sun blew through Kaenna’s hair and whipped the loose fabric of her brown breeches and white linen shirt. The flattened hilltop that held the entirety of the sprawling UA campus was filled with natural beauty that she hadn’t expected. The woods behind the dorms stretched for a quarter of a league before she hit the perimeter wall. Where there was an open space between the various buildings and paths, large or small, greenery flourished. Most of it was grass, cropped short with a plushness that spoke to how well tended it was. Some were gardens of flowers and aromatic herbs abutting the paths, narrow gravel walkways weaving between them to allow people free access to their interiors. She even found a small, artificial lake with waterlilies, frogs, and brightly colored fish.

It was when Kaenna was leaving that unique discovery that she stumbled across an even more unique person. Or, more accurately, she watched him walk through the wall of a building two steps in front of her.

Beady blue eyes that at first reminded Kaenna of a rodent’s gleamed under a short shock of blonde hair. Blue leggings over well muscled legs and white boots with a wide cuff covered his bottom half. Above a bright teal belt was a form-fitting white long-sleeved top that ended at dark red gloves almost up to the young man’s elbows. Thin, yellow stripes ran up the top, bending around the central ‘1000000’ on the front. A cape, the same color as his gloves, was clasped to the front of his shoulders and hung down to the middle of his calves.

The final feature, and among all the other extravagances managing to be the most stand out of all, was his wide, toothy smile. It reminded Kaenna of one other she had seen, and once she made that connection the rest of the costume seemed to fit right into the picture.

“Oh hey, I haven’t seen you around before!” the young man said in a loud voice. “Are you here to see someone in particular? If so, it might be hard to find them, today’s been a bit interesting. But, such is a hero’s life!”

He chuckled, perhaps at some joke Kaenna didn’t understand, but it gave her an opening.

“No looking for someone, just looking.”

Her broken, accented Japanese seemed to get his attention.

“Oh, you’re not a native speaker.”

He then said something in what Kaenna recognized as English, but understood none of. Her quizzical look seemed to clue him into that fact.

“Wow, I’ll admit this is a new one,” he returned to Japanese. “So if you’re not here to meet someone, what are you doing here?”

“Lemillion,” a new, cold voice called from beside them.

Turning to see the new arrival, Kaenna couldn’t help it as her jaw fell open. There were just a few heroes Kaenna could remember and recognize, All Might among them, and standing there was another. A crisp, light gray suit hung over a lanky body, sharp yellow eyes sat behind angular lenses, and dark green hair, flatter in tone than Kaenna’s own, with yellow highlights all blended to strike an unmistakable persona.

“Sir Nighteye,” she said softly.

His gaze swung to meet hers. “I don’t know how you got in, but this is no place for tourists. Go home. Lemillion, we’re leaving.”

“Yes Sir!” Lemillion followed after Nighteye, leaving Kaenna behind.

“I just met All Might’s sidekick!” she mumbled in Alagaësian. She checked the sun, hanging low over the trees. “But he’s right, that’s enough looking around for today.”

♦♦♦

Kaenna jolted awake to an alarmed call from Saphira. She rolled to her feet out of her bedroll and grabbed Brisingr before throwing open the door. Thundering down the stairs, she reached out to Saphira.

“What’s happening?”

“There’s someone at the front who reeks of blood and meat.”

A grimace set on Kaenna’s face, the expression of one who has seen far too much war and been in the thick of it. She unseated Brisinger from its sheathe, ready to face whatever threat had managed to infiltrate UA.

What she was met with when she threw open the door was not a bloody murderer or hidden assassin, but a chef. At least, parts of their outfit looked like a chef’s. The strange white hat was wide and tall enough to cover their entire face, save for a metal tube as thick as Kaenna’s arm that wound its way down before bending over one of their shoulders. A white, double-breasted coat, white gloves, white pants, and white shoes rounded out the appearance. Balanced on one hand was a tray covered by a shiny metal lid.

“Can I help you?” Kaenna asked, still wary of the chef.

“You must be Kaenna-san. I’m Lunch Rush, and I run UA’s cafeteria.” Kaenna relaxed slightly, sensing no deception from the man. “I was told that you are a vegetarian, and I wanted to talk with you about something we have on offer for other students with similar dietary needs or preferences. May I come inside to borrow your kitchen?”

Rather than answer verbally, Kaenna clinked her sword away and held the door open. As Lunch Rush carried his mystery tray in, she caught the same scent that had so worried her partner, and reached out to Saphira.

“Just the campus chef. He probably smells like that because he butchers his own meat.”

Saphira humphed, a dust plume rising behind the dorm in response. “He must butcher enough for a small army then.”

“This is a school for training heroes, champions, and those that support them. It makes sense that they’d need to eat a lot.”

The great dragon fell silent, content with the explanation.

By the time Kaenna caught up to Lunch Rush, the man had already pulled a pan from the cupboard, lined several spices up next to the stove, and was waiting calmly for her. She stood across the counter from him, her nose crinkling at the subtle smell coming from beneath the silver lid.

“Before I begin, have you heard of Impossible Meat?” The words rang empty in Kaenna’s ears and she shook her head. “It’s vegetables cut and processed in such a way to replicate the appearance, taste, and texture of real meat when cooked. I wanted to cook some for you and get your opinion on whether or not it would be an acceptable piece of your diet.”

A sick, twisting feeling began to churn in the Rider’s gut at the thought of eating meat. “May I see it first?”

“Certainly,” Lunch Rush lifted the cover off the tray.

If Kaenna had been uncertain at the prospect, that feeling only reinforced itself at what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be at least a pound of ground beef. She swallowed back bile, the memory of dying animals whose minds she had been in flashing by.

She shook her head to clear those thoughts. This was different, no animal was hurt or killed in the making of this fake-meat. A deep breath did little to settle her guilty heart, but she forced her eyes open again.

“Looks real.”

“And tastes real, though any professional worth their hat will tell you it pales in comparison to genuine beef.”

Kaenna took a step back from the counter. “Cook. I will try.”

If someone had told her that Lunch Rush was an elf from the speed and agility he displayed in the kitchen, Kaenna probably could have believed them. The chef was a blur, the not-meat spread out and browning while spices were tossed into it. The aroma that wafted from the sizzling pan was different than anything Kaenna had smelled before, but whoever had developed the replica beef had unfortunately done an adequate enough job of getting even the smell right that she was unable to help the memories of animals in the Varden camps dying while she siphoned them for energy that flowed back through her.. Eventually, she couldn’t take it any more.

“Stop!” she shouted over the low hum of the fan over the stove.

Lunch Rush paused his efforts, but didn’t turn off the stove. “Is everything alright?”

“No, not alright,” Kaenna keened. “Too real, too much like meat.”

“But it’s not made of-”

The man trailed off as fat tears rolled down Kaenna’s face. She stumbled backwards until she came against the cool glass of the atrium. She let herself go into a controlled collapse, pulling her knees against her chest as she sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” she slipped back into Alagaësian, “I’m so sorry for what I had to do to you.”

Finally, after what seemed an age, Kaenna brought her emotions back under control. Her eyes were sore from crying and her throat was painfully raw, but she was okay. She straightened up, the gentle concern of Saphira brushing against her mind. As she reassured her partner that she was alright, and that Lunch Rush didn’t need to be mauled, the chef stepped out from behind the kitchen.

“My apologies. I had not suspected your aversion to meat was so intense. I had thought it was a preference or religious requirement, but it would seem there is something more to it than that. You don’t need to tell me, and I have already cleaned up everything inside. The smell may take a while to dissipate but I turned on the fans to help speed that along.”

A weak nod was all that Kaenna could be bothered to muster to acknowledge his words. Tray once again in-hand, Lunch Rush retreated from her dorm. Left alone, Kaenna spent the next few minutes breathing the fresh air that flowed from the atrium’s door, left open in the night. Once the smell of the fake-meat cleared from the room, she stood. She had a busy day ahead, meeting her various instructors and beginning her lessons.

A simple breakfast of soft cheese spread on slices of sourdough bread and a sip of faelnirv diluted in a glass of cold water served to fill her painfully empty stomach and soothe her mind. The idea that she could get cold water on demand, or even cubes of ice, without the use of magic was something she was still getting used to. That didn’t stop the young woman from indulging, a piece of ice from the dispenser on the front of the refrigerator alternating between being rolled around by her tongue and a piece crunching between her teeth as she walked.

Saphira had gone to hunt, having rather enjoyed the blubbery sea creature she’d caught before. That left Kaenna alone to walk to the main campus building, those gleaming towers of glass containing her future.

As the morning classes had already begun, the hallways were empty, leaving Kaenna’s footsteps to echo alone on the polished tile floors. Nedzu had told her the path to his office, and without those instructions she was certain she would have gotten lost in the modern labyrinth. Rather than use the elevator, she jogged up the flights of stairs to reach the correct floor, the light exercise not even making her pulse quicken in the slightest.

She arrived at a set of double doors that reminded her of those on the dorm building. She made to knock, but the doors opened on their own before she could.

“Come in, Kaenna-san,” Nedzu’s chirpy voice beckoned.

The quirked rodent was seated behind a solid desk of dark wood in a high-backed chair that towered over his ears. On the desk were stacks of paper of varying heights, but no less than the width of three fingers. The calming aroma of what Kaenna recognized as chamomile tea wafted from a pot sat on a table sat before the desk. Two identical black sofas flanked the table’s long sides.

“Thank you,” Kaenna said, entering and sitting herself on one sofa.

“I understand you had an issue with Lunch Rush’s offer earlier. My apologies for that, he insisted on trying to ensure that you were receiving proper nutrition. You are not the first student we’ve had that is vegetarian, but some of those were either doing it for unhealthy reasons or were not making up the nutritional deficiencies such a diet can risk.”

The taste of bile echoed on Kaenna’s tongue as she remembered the sound and smell of the fake meat. “I know how to care for myself.”

“I know you do, and I told Lunch Rush as much.” He reached for one of the stacks of paper. “I’d like to put that behind us, and begin your first, and arguably most important, class. The Japanese language. I didn’t get the opportunity to ask yesterday, but how has your progress been on hiragana?”

Kaenna swung the waxed canvas bag she’d brought onto her lap and fished out a piece of paper with an uneven empty grid on it. Next was a corked bottle of ink and an eagle feather quill. It brought her back to her lessons with Oromis on the elves’ written language as, with a steady hand, she drew out the glyphs that represented the syllables of the Japanese language. When she finished, she blew across the page to ensure the ink was dry, then passed the page to Nedzu, whose eyes hadn’t left her for a second as she wrote.

“Fascinating. Your writing is as smooth as a master calligrapher’s, yet you’ve only been writing these for a week. Now, can you tell me the sound of each in order?” Her recitation of the alphabet was met with more approval from Nedzu, who then set the sheet aside. “Very good. Your mastery of writing hiragana in such a short time astounds me, but it is most appreciated. The spoken language you’ll learn by exposure, so that leaves reading hiragana, and the matter of kanji. Let us begin.”

♦♦♦

If it were physically possible for a brain to turn to liquid, that was the state Kaenna found herself in by the end of Nedzu’s introductory lesson on kanji. She had thought Oromis’ lessons could be intensive, but Nedzu put him to shame. Three hours on structure, different readings, and the ways kanji could combine to form words that none of their components would otherwise suggest.

“Cheer up, Kaenna-san,” Nedzu said, “if you are able to keep this pace up, you’ll have reached a high school level ahead of schedule by about a week!”

“Yaaaaay,” she droned, lifelessly.

“Your next instructor will be here in a few minutes to begin your lesson on Japanese history. I hope you will be similarly productive.”

The suited animal walked out the door, leaving Kaenna alone to collect herself in the brief time she had. She rolled out her shoulders and neck, eliciting a series of pleasantly relieving pops from her joints. History may be a pretty dry subject for most people, but it had been one of the things that had fascinated her about Alagaësia. Afterall, people are defined by their history. Palancar Valley was named for the first human King after they migrated across the sea, something she never would have known had her curiosity not driven her to seek that information out.

The door latch clicked, signaling the end of her too-brief break. In her head, Kaenna had a mental picture of some wizened scholar, dusty tomes tucked under one arm, coming to teach this young woman about history. That image shattered as in walked the woman with hair like condensed darkness in a skintight bodysuit from the day before. The woman, Midnight, she recalled, raised an eyebrow at her and cocked her hip in the way the street walkers in Teirm and Dras-Leona had done.

“Well, I didn’t expect I’d be called in so soon after you beat us halfway to an early retirement,” Midnight said, a levity in her voice telling Kaenna she was much more relaxed than before. “Usually, I teach modern hero art history to the hero classes, but I also started teaching regular history to the gen ed classes. By the end of all this,” she sat on the sofa across from Kaenna, “you should be familiar with the major events of Japanese history from the dawn of quirks to the present and the major events of the preceding five centuries as best we have records for. Any questions?”

♦♦♦

Another three hours passed, and Kaenna was having a blast. Midnight, or professor Kayama, as she preferred to be called when teaching, had fed Kaenna’s enthusiasm for the subject with gusto. They hadn’t dove too deep into any one historical event, taking a broad overview look and going over what the schedule was going to be like. By the time professor Kayama left, Kaenna was feeling much better about her prospects than she did after Nedzu.

A slightly longer break followed, to give the young woman the opportunity to refresh herself and eat the lunch she’d packed. Soon enough, however, she was back in Nedzu’s office preparing to face her mathematics instructor.

An audible clack of footsteps in the hallway reached Kaenna’s ears before anything else. It sounded like someone was walking on horseshoes, such was the metallic ring she picked out of every step.

Sure enough, when the doors opened, the man that greeted her was walking on metal. To be more precise, what little of his legs she could see beneath the truly voluminous tan cloak that covered nearly his entire body was metal; tapered gray stalks ending in flat black caps, rather than legs and feet bore the entirety of his weight.

His head, being the only other visible part, seemed to be a ghastly visage not unlike the scary stories of ghouls Garrow had told her. A fully visible set of white teeth, from the front incisors to the rearmost molars, gleamed in the light that streamed through the windows. A yellow-over-black jaw and noseguard wrapped around his face, the back ends melding with a pair of caps over his ears. A similarly colored bodysuit, or so Kaenna assumed, covered his neck before disappearing into the cloak. Above the line of color granted by the noseguard, in a shell that Kaenna couldn’t be sure if it was fabric, glass, or metal, two eyes gleamed cold and white on a sea of abyssal black.

“Greetings,” his voice was low and gravelly in the way of men who smoked far too much. “My name is Ectoplasm, and I teach mathematics.” An arm clad in the same back suit as his neck slid silently from a fold in the cloak. “Let us begin.”

♦♦♦

The slow, plodding slaps of boots on concrete echoed through the veil of darkness that had fallen over the UA campus. With night came the end of Kaenna’s lessons for the day, and she was on her way back to the dorm. Saphira had returned in the middle of her maths lesson, and she’d gotten a good chuckle out of how drained Kaenna was after a single day.

Unlocking the front door, she walked inside and flicked on the lights. Being able to light a room without going through the meticulous process of firing a lantern or a dozen plus candles was something that she had really grown to appreciate in her week back because it let her get straight to work on dinner.

What she didn’t expect was to find a large book sitting on the kitchen counter. A note, written on a square of pink paper, was stuck to the front cover, a tiny caricature of Lunch Rush in the corner. She couldn’t read what was actually written on it, so she peeled the note off and set it aside to ask someone about later.

The cover of the book itself was highly decorated, pictures of fruits, vegetables, and grains ringing its periphery while meals filled the center. Meals that, upon closer inspection, lacked any visible meat.

A smile pulled at Kaenna’s lips. A recipe book for those that don’t eat animals. Lifting the stiff cover, she flipped blindly a few dozen pages in. Hiragana, katakana, and kanji filled the pages beside a few numbers and black-and-white illustrations. Maybe in a couple months she would understand enough to make something from this.

Placing the book on one of the open shelves, Kaenna got to work. A can of white beans, a can of tomato paste, and the bottle of vegetable oil from the pantry, two cloves of garlic, an onion, and a lemon from the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, a hard cheese she had been told was called parmesan from its cubby in the refrigerator, the bottle of premade vegetable broth from one of the machine’s chilly shelves, and finally a healthy bunch of kale she had leftover from Might Tower. In a flash, she had chopped the onion and garlic and sauted them to fragrancy. In went the can of beans, after draining of course, the tomato paste, and some of the vegetable broth. After it simmered for a few minutes to thicken, she squeezed in the juice from the lemon, stirred in some of the cheese she’d shredded, and tossed in a pinch of red pepper flakes and salt.

It was a variation on an old Carvahall recipe she’d learned, one she was quite thankful that Japan had beans, vegetable broth, and tomato paste just ready to use. The true Carvahall version used whatever leafy greens were available at the time, broth from another meal made either earlier in the day or the day before, and tomatoes didn’t exist there. It also usually included some meat, whatever she or Eragon managed to bring in from the Spine. It was in Ellesméra that she’d developed this alternate version, thanks to the elves growing all their food with the assistance of magic making seasonal produce a non-issue.

Kaenna remembered when she’d first served it to Arya like it was yesterday. How the woman had positively beamed at the flavors and complimented Kaenna on her creativity in making sure it was a balanced meal. After that, it became a staple of her house and the recipe was even named after Kaenna.

Kaenna ate silently as she reminisced, letting her mind wander from memory to memory, the stress of the day shedding from her mind and body like autumn leaves from a maple tree. This was what she had signed up for, what she had wanted her whole life. If it meant she had to push through pain and discomfort to achieve it, well, she’d done that and more before.

She finished her food, did her dishes, and went out to check on Saphira. Soon she’d fall into a routine, but for now she needed the comfort of her partner. They shared their experiences of the day, Kaenna teaching Saphira Japanese like she’d once taught her the ancient language after Oromis’ lessons.

♦♦♦

“Congratulations, Kaenna-san, you have passed all your exams. Welcome to your hero academia!”

Kaenna let out a sigh of relief she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Months had passed, and finally, the hurdle Nedzu had set for her to attend UA had been cleared. She’d been worried about her writing, kanji was still a struggle, but she’d clearly been good enough to pass tests on Japanese, English, math, geography, history, biology, chemistry, and physics.

“So, what next?” she asked Nedzu as he tapped the stack of exams to straighten them.

“Now, you wait for the rest of your peers to join you!” Nedzu said excitedly. “With your position secured as a special recommended student, the other recommended student who placed highest will be informed of their successful application tomorrow. Those that failed shall also be informed and have the opportunity to participate in the general entrance exam next week. Then, at the start of April, is when classes will begin. Aizawa-san will be your homeroom professor. I know you didn’t interact with him these past months, but I’m confident you will grow on him like the two of you have on the rest of us.”

“Aizawa? Drat, I was hoping for Vlad,” Kaenna groused. “What should I do in the meantime? Where can I improve?”

“Well, since you’re asking, you of course need more work on your written Japanese. Your spoken is wonderful, and I’m certain people will find that lingering accent exotic, but you barely passed when it comes to writing. You’ve also made yourself quite at home in the dorm building, so it could probably use a good cleaning inside and out before the rest of its occupants arrive. You might also consider exactly how you will introduce them all to Saphira-san and how to answer the variety of questions they will have about the two of you.”

Kaenna rose. “Thank you, Nedzu-elda.”

As she walked back to what had rapidly become a home to her, Kaenna mentally fielded Saphira’s question on her results. To say the dragon was jubilant would be an exaggeration, and Kaenna could hear her bugling from the main building.

The young Rider looked up at the sky. Clouds obscured the sun and the winter breeze nipped at the points of her ears. Another month and a little, that was all the longer she had to wait. Then, at last, she could learn to be a hero.