Five men in immaculate suits lined up beside our table. They were all tall, broad shouldered and, most importantly, heavily armed.

I turned to old Todoroki, who was watching me with a glass of wine in her hand.

“If they use their guns, can I have mine ?”

None of them reacted outwardly, yet I sensed their amusement.

“So you know how to use a gun ?”

“I specialize in bladed weapons”

She took another sip.

“Tantô, I suppose? It was also your father's favorite when he was about your age”

The parallel surprised me. And worried me.

What kind of mother gives her child a sword ?

My eyes wandered to the huge bay window overlooking the Todoroki Estate.

A forest - how amazing - of well-groomed trees overlooked a cliff beyond which stretched the sea.

The sun was setting over Florence, bathing the clouds in glowing reflections. The sea looked like a bloodbath.

These waters - and the whole region - belonged to the Todoroki.

I'm really starting to think that our family is involved in organized crime.

“To answer your question, no. Weapons are forbidden”

She smiled from behind her glass.

“I don't want to hurt you before your father returns”

I gave her a disillusioned smile.

As if.

My eyes returned to the five silent giants. Their eyes were riveted straight ahead, fixed on an invisible point.

My chakra wrapped around them, measuring their energies. “This one”

It was the one with the largest, most powerful ball of light.

He exchanged glances with his colleagues, running a distracted hand through his trimmed beard.

“Agresti, come here”

I didn't miss the collective effort to always speak Japanese in my presence. Agresti placed his gun on the table next to a pair of gold ankle braces.

“You will each leave from one side of the property. Agresti will try to catch you in ten minutes and bring you back here. Then you can go upstairs and choose your new room”

She spoke as if she'd already won.

“Are there any cameras in the garden ?”

“They will be turned off”

“How can I be sure that no one else will tell him where I am ?”

Agresti looked offended at my suggestion that he would be cheating at hide-and-seek with a child, but his professionalism - and my grandmother's steady gaze - kept him quiet.

“Agresti”

He placed a walkie-talkie and earpiece on the table.

“Satisfied ?”

I looked down at my beef blood-stained suit.

“Can I change ?”

“No”

I was perched on a branch, waiting for the game to begin.

When the whistle blew, I took off my bloody shirt and pants. The smell was so strong that even the worst police dog would have had no trouble tracking me down.

Agresti, at the other end of the field, came at me without waiting. His energy purred like a car engine, excited.

I knew this old hag wasn't playing fair.

Agresti - and the four other men I'd chosen - had to have a Quirk suitable for tracking.

I tore off my clothes and hung pieces of them on branches. Using a shunshin, I turned to the next tree and did the same.

When I decided that this was taking too long, two clones jumped out of my body and took the remaining clothes.

We dispersed, each taking charge of spreading my scent throughout the forest.

The whole thing took less than a minute.

I felt Agresti arrive at the first tree I had started under. His energy pulsed like a rubber ball being squeezed and released.

He turned left, toward my clone.

Delighted, I took off to where he had started.

Sitting in a tree, I waited in silence for the time to run out. My own scent was masked.

“Don't you feel stupid ?”

I jolted as I looked down at my huge bodyguard.

Emmett was leaning against the trunk of my tree, arms crossed. He looked extremely amused.

“I mean, look at you, sat on a branch in only your underwear. You'd be pretty humiliated if someone took a picture of you”

I blinked.

“No one's going to take a picture”

“Of course not. But as you know, my brother Edward is a telepath who likes to poke around in his brothers' and sisters' heads. If I see you like this, you can be sure that he sees you too. And that the image will be etched in his mind forever”

I rolled my eyes.

Agresti ran around like a headless chicken.

“You know, if you wanted that photo album so badly, you could have asked us.One of us could have stolen it for you”

“Don't lie”

He laughed.

“Oh, well...”

His eyes wandered into the woods. In the same direction as Agresti. I suddenly sat up.

“Why are you here ?”

“Your grandmother's little game was a foregone conclusion, and you knew it. And since I'm bored to death...”

Agresti suddenly spinned and ran towards me.

“You reek of pheromones, boy. You better run”

And Emmett disappeared as fast as he came.

I swore and ran through the forest, a henchman who didn't want to be the laughing stock of his colleagues hot on my heels, Emmett’s laugh ringing long after he was gone.

*

“And Shoto, how is he doing ? He's not too upset, is he ?”

Teka's eyes wandered over the half dozen aerial photos of the hangar she'd just received.

“You can call him”

Enji grunted at the other end of the line.

Teka went on, indifferent to her son's frustration.

“Just because you're a failure as a father doesn't mean you can't talk to him”

Her glowing eyes slid from one polaroid to the next. She snapped her fingers, and one of her agents emerged from the shadows with the famous USB drive.

She plugged it into the computer as she sat back in her chair, waiting patiently for the video to load.

“How far along are you in your hunt ?”

For a second she thought he wasn't going to answer.

“I'll finish it tonight”

Teka nodded, her polished nails clattering on the desk.

“And the video ? Did you get rid of it ?”

A suspicious Enji replied.

“What did you do? You saw it, didn't you ?”

Teka rested her glowing eyes on the screen. It was still loading.

“No. But we both know what such a recording could do to your career”

Teka had read the reports and seen the crime scene photos.

The documents had been falsified so the bodyguard's death would be after all the other mercenaries massacred in the hangar.

But when his son told her about it, he never said it was the bodyguard who killed them.

And the only one who escaped alive was her grandson.

Enji sighed into the phone.

“My second in command took care of it. After we watched the beginning together”

The loading screen showed 98%.

“And ?”

“That's my son. That's all there is to say”

Teka didn't approve, like many of the decisions Enji had made in his life.

She forced herself to say nothing, not wanting to jeopardize the fragile relationship they were rebuilding.

But if he wanted to deny how his beloved Shoto could have committed such a massacre, good for him.

It wouldn't be long before Teka knew the truth.

The video started.

The screen reflected on her retina.

She saw the pixelized silhouettes of the boy and his bodyguard rush into the hangar, closing the doors behind them.

The door was riddled with bullet holes.

The bodyguard threw himself onto the nearest boat and used a screwdriver to rip off the control box. He fumbled inside, the boy leaning over him as the men silently entered through the attic windows.

The old man suddenly fell to the ground.

The bullet was too small, too fast, for the camera to catch it.

The boy stood motionless, watching the fallen body in silence. The mercenaries poured through the windows like a battalion of ants.

They pointed their guns at the boy.Teka could clearly hear them shouting, but the sound was muffled. She turned up the volume.

Get down ! Get down !

One of the mercenaries, his gun still pointed at the child, moved as close as he could, trying to intimidate - or immobilize – him.

The video froze.

Teka frowned and rewound it a little.

The video fizzled in the same spot.Then, just as she was about to rewind it a third time, the screen went black and then lit up again.

The next second, Shoto was stabbing the man with a screwdriver.

“Teka?”

The boy hit, hit, hit, as if it was his life or the mercenary's.

The others panicked and fired into the crowd.

A blinding white light surrounded the boy. In a split second, he was gone.

He reappeared at the other end of the hangar, stabbing a man in the chest in cold blood.

Blood splattered his face.

Teka blinked.

“What did you say ?”

“Take care of my son. Until I return”

Her eyes went back to the screen.

Shoot hi-

She saw mercenary after mercenary fall, blood and screams flying in all directions.

One of them was crawling on his back, pistol at his side, looking mad, while Shoto walked calmly towards him, the strange white light forming a halo around him.

He raised a long knife over his head.

For God's sake !

Teka closed the computer.

She heard a scream and then the video stopped.

Teka pulled out the flash drive and reduced it to ashes.

“Of course”

She'd make sure that no one ever found this video.

*

Author's note :

Well, well, well.

A silly goofy chapter, isn't it ?

What do you prefer ? Chapters where everyone fights and dies or quieter one like this ?

Please everyone, try to pay attention when I'm describing Shoto's abilities because - in this story at least - I did not focuse heavily on any training montage and if you don't get some information you can get lost later on.

You can support me on my P@treon, Nar_cisseENG and read up to 50 chapters ahead there (which is roughly 100,000 words. I know I know, I'm such an insanely well organized author).

And see you in the next update everyone !