Patreon Exclusive- When Nejire Found Out- Part 2

After food was consumed, they settled with drinks. Nejire leaned in like she was mid-interrogation, the straw in her soda twisting merciless

After food was consumed, they settled with drinks.

Nejire leaned in like she was mid-interrogation, the straw in her soda twisting mercilessly between her fingers. “Then, then! What happened after that?”

Mirko leaned back, sipping from a highball glass, clearly savoring the memory more than the drink. “Day two. He tried to file his patrol log in emoji.”

Nejire blinked. “What?”

“Actual emojis,” Ryukyu confirmed. “Three frowny faces, a fire emoji, and a thumbs up. That was the entire report.”

Nejire gasped like a Victorian woman hearing scandalous news. “Ryukyu! You allowed this?!”

“I gave him a second form and threatened to make him hand-deliver it to the Hero Commission.”

“He handed it in with a post-it that said ‘This one’s for the government narcs,’” Mirko added, grinning.

Nejire slapped the table. “Nooo, how did I miss this?!”

“You were busy neck-deep in hostage evacuations,” Ryukyu said mildly. “As I recall, you texted me an angry emoji and a picture of your boot in swamp water.”

“Still not worth it!” Nejire whined. “Okay, okay, back to Ryuu. Tell me more.”

Mirko looked at Ryukyu. “Your turn. C’mon. You saw him that one morning when he got up early and tried your training regimen.”

Ryukyu’s lips curled just slightly. “He tried to match my dragon form tempo drills.”

Nejire’s eyes widened. “Wait. The ones even your sidekicks avoid?”

“He made it halfway,” Ryukyu said. “Collapsed after the third aerial sequence. Said, and I quote, ‘I regret everything except the soup I had last night.’ Then he threw up in the plant pot.”

Nejire’s face was frozen between awe and horror. “...Which plant?”

“The plastic one.”

“Good choice,” Mirko nodded. “Unkillable.”

“I still had to bleach it,” Ryukyu muttered.

Nejire giggled, swirling her drink. “Okay, he’s insane. But like, funny insane. What was his quirk again?”

Mirko snorted, “As weird as him. His physique improves under duress—Strength, Agility, Intelligence, you name it. If he’s challenged, he gets stronger. He also has weird abilities. Fast footwork, and some other unholy tricks. But I swear, his powers come from that bat of his.”

Nejire blinked. “Wait, what? Like… anime training logic? Get punched and level up?”

“Basically,” Mirko said, grabbing another dumpling. “Except more dramatic. The harder the fight, the more he adapts. It’s like his entire body’s running on pure spite and sarcasm.”

“That’s…” Nejire’s eyes sparkled. “That’s so unfair. Why do boys get the stupidest, coolest quirks?”

Ryukyu arched an eyebrow. “I believe the official term is ‘growth-type combat enhancement with adaptive response.’”

Nejire leaned over the table, chin in her palm. “That sounds like a quirk you describe to the press because the real explanation would make them think he’s cursed.”

Mirko pointed with a chopstick. “You’re not wrong.”

“But seriously,” Nejire said, sitting up straighter, “is that all he had? Just that and the bat?”

“The bat,” Mirko said gravely, “deserves its own license.”

Ryukyu, half-exasperated, nodded. “It’s some kind of metal bat. Reinforced. But with how he fights, it may as well be a limb.”

“I saw the Sports Festival,” Nejire remembered, “but that was different. Controlled setting. He was funny, but this… sounds like he was dangerous.”

“Oh, he was,” Mirko said, tone dipping into admiration. “Kid had no hero license, and yet every instinct was battle-ready. He didn’t need instructions—he made his own problems and solved them faster than we could shout at him.”

“And he was annoying,” Ryukyu added.

“Lovable annoying or kickable annoying?” Nejire asked, poking her straw into the ice in her glass.

“Both,” the other two said in unison.

Nejire beamed. “Perfect.”

She then remembered, “Wait, isn’t he the one who took down Hero Killer Stain? I was just checking memes on the way!”

Mirko paused mid-chew. “You didn’t know that part?!”

Nejire sat upright with the force of divine revelation. “I saw the clip! I thought he looked familiar! Someone turned it into a Tiktok remix. It had the ‘I’m in me mum’s car—vroom vroom’ sound over his bat swing!”

Mirko howled with laughter. “Oh my God. That was him!”

Ryukyu rubbed her temples. “This is why the PR team is always two days from quitting.”

“I just thought he was some chaotic vigilante with good hair,” Nejire muttered, still stunned. “Wait, he took down Stain? Like, actual legendary villain Stain? Hero Killer, murder fetish, creepy tongue guy?”

“Yup,” Mirko said proudly, raising her glass like a toast. "Turned Stain into a discount chew toy.”

Nejire’s eyes widened to comic proportions. “Okay. Okay. But HOW?”

“Some kids run from fear. Ryuu runs at it. Full speed. Yelling slurs.”

Nejire was already typing furiously into her phone. “Where’s the video? I need to see it again. I need to study him. For hero purposes.”

“You mean stalking.”

“Research,” Nejire corrected, dead serious. “Academic interest.”

She soon found the banned videos from somewhere—some hidden thread on a side forum of a forgotten subreddit—and played the clip on max brightness, cranked volume, and an intensity usually reserved for rare idol drops.

The screen lit up with chaos. Ryuu’s bat was already mid-swing.

The first thing they heard?

"Yeah, yeah, society's fucked. You done?"

Nejire choked on her soda.

“He said that?” she wheezed.

Mirko grinned like a proud aunt at a criminal trial. “Keep watching.”

Ryuu’s voice came again, all grit and no hesitation:

"Nah, I mock it because you're full of shit."

Nejire slapped the table. “He’s talking to Stain like he’s his disappointing group project partner!”

On-screen, Ryuu drove an elbow into Stain’s ribs. Then the bat came back around, merciless and efficient.

Ryukyu, still watching calmly, murmured, “Look at his footwork. He’s keeping angle priority even while trash-talking.”

Nejire looked at her like she'd just explained algebra with sparkles. “You’re complimenting him!”

“I’m analyzing,” Ryukyu corrected.

Mirko leaned in, voice low and gleeful. “Wait for it—this next part’s the best.”

They watched Ryuu block, twist, and knock the blade from Stain’s hand like it was a party trick.

Then the monologue resumed:

"You think killing a few pros is fixing the world? You ain't fixing shit."

“Yesssss!” Nejire half-screamed, nearly launching her phone. “Drag him! Drag him into emotional therapy!”

Mirko laughed into her drink. “He headbutts him next. Watch him lose it.”

They waited.

Thud.

“Oh my God, he did it!” Nejire’s whole body spasmed. “He forehead-kissed justice into his skull!”

“He bled in both directions,” Mirko said, impressed.

As the fight continued, the vulgarity levels went nuclear.

Inside the diner, Nejire’s mouth was agape. She had a dumpling halfway to her mouth, frozen in time. Her phone’s screen glowed with Ryuu’s snarling face mid-swing. In the background, a bat-shaped blur was making yet another statement on spinal alignment.

“Oh my GOD,” Nejire hissed, clutching her cheeks like she’d just witnessed a public proposal that ended with arson. “Is he—he’s lecturing Stain? Like it’s parent-teacher conference night?”

Mirko looked downright delighted. “Oh, it gets worse. Or better. Depends on your morals.”

Ryukyu, stone-faced as ever, sipped her drink and muttered, “He did tell the Hero Killer to ‘get a grip’ like he was canceling his magazine subscription.”

“Did you see the part where he forehead-slams him?” Mirko leaned across the table. “That’s not training. That’s ancestral beef.”

Nejire rewound it with frightening speed. “Here, HERE—look, he grabs his collar—oh, my god—AND—BAM!”

The forehead impact echoed through the diner speakers. The sound made a passing waitress wince.

Nejire gasped. “That’s a hate crime. That’s an exorcism. That’s—Ryukyu, you let this child into society?”

“He wasn’t mine to begin with,” Ryukyu replied, setting her glass down. “And besides, he won.”

Mirko nodded, solemn. “With a concussion count of one and a bat count of seventeen.”

Nejire played the final stretch again, where Ryuu slammed the bat into Stain’s gut, then monologued about human flaws and moral relativity like a drunk philosopher in a parking lot.

Ryuu (on screen): “You want a world without fake heroes? Keep dreaming. People are flawed. Society is fucked. But you wanna know the difference between you and them?”

Nejire, gasping: “He just invented sociology with that swing.”

Ryuu (on screen): “They’re still standing. And you’re lying in the dirt.”

The phone screen froze on Stain crumpling dramatically like a GameStop receipt. Sirens screamed. Ryuu turned away like a man with no taxes to file.

In real life, Nejire collapsed onto the table, face smushed into the wood. “I missed everything. You guys were in a buddy-cop drama with a foul-mouthed bat gremlin and I was fighting damp mold in a swamp!”

Mirko patted her back with mock sympathy. “Should’ve skipped the mission.”

“I’m going to fight God,” Nejire mumbled into the wood.

“You’ll need a bat,” Ryukyu murmured.

Nejire sat up sharply, pupils practically stars. “Do you think he’d lend it to me? Or should I get my own? Like a themed one? Maybe glitter on the handle? Something with a grip?”

Mirko looked thoughtful. “You’d need something lighter. Aluminum maybe.”

Ryukyu deadpanned, “You are not forming a bat-based sub-unit in my agency.”

Nejire held up a chopstick like a sacred relic. “We’ll call it... Bat Force Alpha.”

Mirko, immediately joining in: “No capes, just bats.”

Ryukyu sighed the sigh of a woman who saw her career timeline branching toward HR paperwork. “I should’ve taken a desk job.”

Nejire spun her phone toward them again. “I’m going to memorize this fight. Every line. Every swing. I want his exact insults. I’ll make flashcards.”

Mirko pointed at her. “You better deliver them with the same deadpan fury or I’ll confiscate your bat.”

Ryukyu stood, finishing her drink. “This dinner escalated beyond salvation.”

Nejire giggled. “That’s what happens when you skip briefing your favorite intern past me.”

Mirko stood too, stretching with a satisfied groan. “Alright, Hado. Let’s get you back to base before you start live-tweeting this fight like a K-drama finale.”

Nejire gathered her things like a soldier preparing for war. “You don’t understand. I missed history. But next time?”

She jabbed a finger upward. “I don’t care if the whole city’s on fire—if we get another Ryuu, I’m staying. Day one. Hour one. I will record his insults like poetry.”