Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Vongrak.
September 9 - Izumi POV.
"Do we really have to get up so early on a Saturday?" Mai yawned lazily; she didn't even know she could yawn in the shape of a sword, good to know.
"I told you to go back to sleep, you didn't need to come, I could have used any sword, I usually use a ceremonial wooden sword to welcome the sun." I said as I transitioned from one form of Sun Breathing to another.
"Don't be ridiculous, you're my master." Mai said sleepily. I paused for a split second before smiling and continuing. I heard a snort beside me; I could see Maki huffing and puffing as she trained.
"You're getting soft, Mai," Maki teased. She was also training beside me, her body moving through different forms of Water Breathing. She had found the trick quite quickly; it had barely been three days since I met her, but her body was rapidly memorizing the sword style, and her breathing was also changing, getting used to the new way of breathing I had taught her.
Really, Maki was a damn diamond in the rough, I almost exclaimed, not even rough, Maki was already a diamond formed in her own right, she just needed to be polished a little more before she shone with full intensity.
Once she manages to enter Total Concentration Breathing, the next thing she should focus on is Haki. Even without an aura, she should be able to use it. With Haki, she'll be able to overcome the gap created by her lack of aura; everything else is secondary.
Maki already knew how to handle weapons with enormous mastery, so just the raw increase in all the stats that the Breathing technique granted would make her improve enormously and would be more than enough for her to handle it with ease. Yes, the breathing styles were created to exploit the full potential of Total Concentration Breathing, but it wasn't completely necessary.
Although… with the talent that Maki had, mastering one or two styles would be really easy and quick.
"Oh yeah? Well, you— agh, forget it, I'm so sleepy I don't feel like fighting." Mai sighed hoarsely, I chuckled, Maki just smirked. I turned my head and looked at Azula; she had already imitated me the first few times and had cycled through the 12 forms of Sun Breathing a couple of times before switching to her lightning generation.
She frowned as she tried to maintain a steady beam of energy, using her sword as a conduit. It didn't seem to be working very well; her beam generation was more demanding than mine. She needed control, a stable stance, and exhaustive manipulation of her quirk. Moving with her was difficult, if not impossible. And the most frustrating part? She had absolutely no control once the beam left her body.
She couldn't steer it properly anywhere; it simply followed its own path regardless of Azula's wishes, which she demonstrated by hitting the ground and leaving a small burn mark on the patch of grass in front of the bedroom.
Azula stared at the burn patch as if I had personally offended her and she was deciding its punishment. I laughed, which made Azula turn and glare at me. I just smiled mockingly, which only deepened Azula's frown.
Azula looked again at Amaterasu in her hands as she stood lost in thought. After a few minutes, she groaned loudly.
"I'm such an idiot." Azula grumbled, then, to my surprise, she got into position, took a deep breath, gripped her sword tightly, and moved explosively. Thunder Breathing: Second Form: Rice Spirit. My eyes widened as the five arcs of lightning appeared around Azula perfectly. My eyes narrowed at the end. Well, almost perfect.
"Wow, that was almost perfect." I said, genuinely impressed. Azula smiled broadly despite her final mistake.
"Yes, I finally realized my mistake," Azula growled. "You said I had to guide the lightning, not control it. The only way to guide it was if I'm faster than the lightning; my sword has to be ahead of the lightning," she said almost petulantly. "Although it's certainly not a speed I can maintain constantly," she frowned before looking at me. "You're a monster," she growled, and I burst out laughing.
"While I can move faster with that, my situation is different from yours," I said playfully. "Nue is able to imbue her wings with lightning, so it's easy for me to imbue my swords and keep them in that state, and then generate lightning from there," I said, shrugging.
"What modesty." Azula sneered dryly. I smiled mockingly at her. Azula snorted and went back to training, though not her lightning generation, just swinging Amaterasu with her arms fully extended. She was training the strength and speed of her arms.
I let her train in peace while I did the same. Once I finished Sun Breathing, I started moving to different styles while thinking about Taylor.
It was interesting to hear what Taylor had to say about the heroes of the Protectorate, especially Vista. The fact that she could use her quirk with such mastery was incredible. I was almost certain that she couldn't manipulate her quirk so quickly to deflect bullets so perfectly.
Or that Clockblocker uses a yo-yo to attack and freeze around targets, although it was a good idea. And it was also really curious that Lily and Weld were present in Brockton Bay at the same time that Taylor was doing her internship.
It was all too suspicious, and I was almost certain it was some kind of strategy to bring Taylor to their good side. If Taylor remained hostile toward the heroes of Brockton Bay, having heroes from other states like Lily and Weld might help defuse the situation, or even help Taylor connect with them.
Luckily, it seemed Armsmistress and Miss Militia were on her side, or at least on the side that would cause them the least trouble, so that was good. Or rather, we'd have to see what the PRT's move would be on Monday; by then, they should already know that Taylor is married to me.
But putting that aside, it seems the visit to the Protectorate went quite well. After the training, they brought Taylor up to speed on how things were done, especially communications, patrols, paperwork, and all the tedious stuff, so yes, the boring part.
It was good, Taylor could take care of herself. I stopped for a few moments when I felt a presence approaching us, I turned to look at Miorine.
"Miorine?" I asked without even stopping. She just stared at me, almost hypnotized, for a few long seconds before shaking her head. I looked at her closely; she seemed really exhausted, her eyes slightly squinted, bags under her eyes, her hair slightly disheveled, and her steps slow. She had a folder on her arm as she approached.
"Miyamura, good morning. I didn't think you'd be awake so early," Miorine said, wrinkling her nose. "And even less training. Is everyone in the Hero Department like this?" she asked with a grimace, looking at the three of us.
"Special situations," I said simply. "And good morning, did you need anything?" I asked curiously. Miorine just nodded.
"Yes, we need to talk," Miorine said firmly, lifting a folder. "Business," she added seriously. I stopped mid-sentence and looked at her, confused.
"Business? What kind of business? About our engagement?" I asked, confused. Miorine snorted and shook her head.
"No, the other thing, you started your internship with Mirko yesterday, and your image is all over the media and social networks," Miorine said, opening her folder. "It would have been nice to receive a message sooner, but it's not too late. We need to talk about your image and social media presence and how to properly capitalize on your image and name," Miorine said, speaking quickly. I stared at her stupidly.
"Excuse me, what?" I asked awkwardly. Miorine rolled her eyes.
"Your image, Miyamura, your image as a hero and hunter—right now you're a UA student, you participated in the Kamino incident, you interned at the Draw Sword Guild, and most importantly, you're Ryuma Shimotsuki's grandson—you're an important person, important enough that the media and social networks are constantly talking about you and you're a topic of conversation every time you appear in public, and not just in Japan. My engagement to you only makes that worse," Miorine emphasized firmly.
"And... that's important, why?" I asked, still confused. Miorine sighed.
"It's important because they're talking about you without permission, and more importantly, without any control. You don't have any legal assistance, any representative, and no one to legally speak on your behalf when, inevitably, someone speaks ill of you or says something incorrect, false and damaging speculations about your image, so you have to move first." Miorine said without hesitation; I opened my mouth before closing it.
"Yeah, no, I'm not understanding anything," I said, shrugging. "I understand all this talk about the media and social networks, but I really didn't have anything planned with that," I said, shrugging.
"I know, I've seen your social media," Miorine said dryly. I smiled broadly. "It was the most absurd mix of random things I've ever seen in my life."
"I'll let you know that my social media accounts have personality," I said with a huge smile. Miorine just stared at me, flat and blank, then opened her folder.
"Leaving aside all the pictures and videos you upload of yourself and your partners, or with your mother, which are completely normal, there are a lot of pictures of food, especially chocolate. You did a video review of Swiss chocolate, you talked about chocolate for 20 minutes. 20 minutes." Miorine said tensely, I smiled.
"It was an important chocolate, there was a lot to say." I said playfully, Miorine glared at me.
"You uploaded a video of dancing bees, real dancing bees, it's the first and last time I want to see bees twerking." Miorine grumbled, and I stifled a laugh.
"It took me a week to convince Taylor to help me, Ruby helped me with the camera and editing, she loved it." I said jokingly.
"You uploaded an upbeat song about Narwhals, the lyrics of which are simply questionable; you practically said they would make Shish Kebab out of men's testicles," Miorine said, glaring at me.
"The Narwhals needed a little love." I said, trembling with laughter.
"You uploaded a 24-hour video of Snake Jazz! It's just hissing for 24 hours!!" Miorine exclaimed loudly.
"I'll let you know that Ruby likes me too, and so does my snake summon, and she has the last word, she's a snake." I defended myself playfully.
"You uploaded a totally racist song calling for the death of America, sung and danced by an Iraqi Lobster!" Miorine snapped, completely furious. I looked away as I started to huff and puff heavily. I could feel the corners of my eyes beginning to water as I stifled a laugh. I could feel the incredulous stares of Maki, and even Mai, who had transformed back.
"It was a good Lobster, Taylor helped me with that too, although she never listened to the song before I uploaded it to social media." I said, laughing. Azula snorted.
"She chased you for three hours and didn't speak to you the rest of the day," Azula said playfully. "Although that lobster did look good with the turban and beard, and it even tasted good after eating it." Azula said with a smile, and Miorine glared at her.
"And those were just some of the weirdest ones. You uploaded or shared videos of all kinds: animals, video games, movies, TV series, anything. Most of it is understandable, but aside from the videos, the writing is the most questionable."
"There are tens of thousands of words of lesbian fanfiction that can only be described as complete filth, both about fictional and real characters. I can understand having some kind of weird hobby, but sharing it publicly under your real name and not a pseudonym? That's completely idiotic." Miorine grumbled, completely blushing.
"You're lucky, what he posts isn't even half of what he writes. You should see the folders on his computer, or even some of her notebooks," Azula said dryly. Miorine froze before shuddering.
"No... just no," Miorine said, massaging her temple. "Even so, you need someone to manage your social media, starting with deleting everything, or making it private. It's too late for most of that stuff; it'll be impossible to erase it completely since you have a million followers, so that content is already public property, but it would be better than nothing," Miorine said with a sigh. I froze.
"Excuse me, how many do I have?" I asked stupidly.
"More than a million followers?" Miorine repeated, confused. My eyes widened.
"What?! When did they increase so much?!" I squealed in disbelief. Miorine looked at me incredulously.
"Don't you even know how many followers you have?" she asked incredulously.
"I don't even care about that! I've never cared about followers! I just post stuff!" I defended myself. Miorine grunted. 1 million followers, I could almost feel dizzy. I was prepared to be famous in the future as a hero, but this... I guess it made it more real.
"It's all because of the Kamino incident. Obviously, your followers would increase when it became public knowledge that your grandfather was Ryuma-sama," Miorine said, massaging her temple. "Oh… I guess that makes sense." Miorine sighed. "Getting back to the topic, you need a social media manager, someone to handle the legal aspects of your public appearances and the commercial use of your image and name, and we could possibly talk about merchandising. Male heroes are quite famous and very profitable; attractiveness sells. I wouldn't be surprised if you already have some offers from someone," Miorine said quickly.
"Before we continue... why does it matter? Or rather, why does it matter to you?" I asked curiously. Miorine wrinkled her nose.
"I don't want my father to interfere." Miorine snorted, crossing her arms and making a face. "I'm... quite content with my temporary freedom, so I don't want my father sending someone to 'fix' the problem and keep a close eye on me because of my fiancé's mismanagement." Miorine snorted again. "And he will. His image, and by extension mine, matters enough to him to intervene if necessary." She rolled her eyes.
"That sounds good to me," I said, shrugging. "So, are you going to do it?" I asked Miorine directly. "I don't think you gathered all that information overnight if you weren't planning on taking charge. You have dark circles under your eyes like you haven't slept." I pointed this out playfully, and Miorine snorted.
"You're lucky I'm bored enough. I have a small vegetable garden I bought about 10 minutes away from the university, but you need constant supervision. I need something to do to ease my boredom," Miorine said with a slight blush. I snorted.
"Well, I guess you're right… I should be more mindful of that, especially since I'm starting to get famous and all, but I haven't the slightest idea what to do about it, so I'll leave it all in your capable hands," I said easily. Miorine blushed slightly, and I smiled. "Alright, let's have breakfast first and then we can talk," I said playfully, and Azula, Mai, and Maki all nodded in agreement. Then I looked at Miorine. "And I'm telling you right now, you can't delete anything from my social media; that's going to stay the same," I said playfully as I started walking.
"What? No! At least delete that damn Iraqi lobster!" Miorine growled as she approached my side. I chuckled. Luckily, Miorine was so tired that she fell asleep halfway through breakfast, and my social media survived longer.
Author's Notes: If you don't recognize at least two of the videos mentioned, it's because I spend too much time on the internet.
Snake Jazz – Rick and Morty.
Narwhals – Weebl's Stuff.
Iraq Lobster – Family Guy.
I'm a Bee – Da Sassy Owl.
By the way, the bee one is definitely my favorite.