𝐖𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇 || ᵇ.ᵏᵃᵗˢᵘᵏⁱ

XXI

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Aeri stared at the list of apprenticeship offers in front of her, overwhelmed. The stack she'd been handed was hefty and easily had nearly 100 double-sided pages. She was grateful that so many heroes saw potential in her of course, but going through these would take her hours.

Luckily enough, the surprise Jinyoung promised her was at the bottom of the first page; he opened a branch of his Hero Company in Japan which not only meant that he'd be spending a lot more time in Japan, it also meant she'd be the first apprentice under the Japanese branch of Geomtusa Heroes.

She took a guilty glance over at Jungwon, who had drifted over to Kirishima's desk, and wondered if Jinyoung had offered Jungwon the same thing. Her brother's favouritism towards her was blatant and everyone knew that he preferred Aeri over Hyunjin and Jungwon but no one really knew why. Maybe he just got sick of having so many brothers.

"What one are you choosing?" Bakugou turned around in his seat.

"My brother's agency." She answered. "What about you? You can't have gone through all that already."

"Didn't need to, highest ranking heroes are on the first page so I don't need to deal with the rest of these extras," Bakugou said slyly. "I'm choosing Best Jeanist."

"Jeanist? Aren't you two like polar opposites?" She mused.

"So what!" Bakugou growled and Aeri smiled, holding her hands up innocently.

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Aeri stood alone in front of Jinyoung's new building, staring up in awe at the name printed in huge letters above the door.

Amsalja Memorial Agency.

Of course, Jinyoung would do something like this.

Aeri smiled and tightened her grip on her tote bag before skipping through the revolving doors and towards the elevator. The ground floor was empty, aside from the receptionist who nodded to her as she passed by. She pressed the button to the 60th floor, Jinyoung's office and tapped her foot impatiently as she travelled upwards. The door opened a minute later and Aeri walked out into a giant open space.

His office was a giant room of glass windows with a perfect view over Tokyo. On one end was a seating area with a couple of wonderfully plush light blue couches, decorated with white throw pillows and a matching fluffy white rug underneath. There was a bar cart by one of the couches and a snack cart by the other one. Aeri noticed that they were all of her favourite Korean snacks from when she was a kid.

Jinyoung was sat at his desk at the other end of the office, smiling happily at his sister as she looked around in wonder. She strolled over and sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk.

"How'd you manage to buy an entire company without me finding out about it?" She questioned.

"I told your dad to keep it a secret. It's my surprise to you. You're gonna run it when I'm not around... of course, you'll need to get your license and finish school first, but after that, it'll be half yours until you get your own company." He explained with a small smile. He stood up and walked around the desk. "But for now, we'll be training. Go get changed and meet me on the 36th floor." With that, he was gone, teleporting away.

Aeri sat for a moment, taking in the new information. He'd bought this branch for her so she could have an easy start to her career. She jumped up from her chair and squealed excitedly. This would all be hers one day...well half of it would be anyway. Her mini-celebration continued until she remembered that Jungwon hadn't been offered the same and her cheerful mood dimmed. She sighed, conflicted, and made her way to the changing rooms.

It took her a while to find them since Jinyoung hadn't told her where they actually were, she ended up having to go all the way back down to reception just to ask this building's sole employee where they were. Jinyoung pointed to the clock on the wall when she finally got to the 36th floor, raising an eyebrow at how long she took.

"You forgot to tell me where the changing rooms were. This is a very big building!" She defended herself. He rolled his eyes and charged at her instantly, not giving her a chance to get her bearings or ask what they'd be doing.

She dodged his blow by a hair, teleporting to the other side of the training room and flinging a dagger out towards him. He dodged it with ease and returned the favour. He flung a moonstone dagger along with a few shurikens and then teleported behind her doing the same again. Aeri panicked and dropped to the floor as the plethora of sharp objects flew over her body. She rolled out of the way when Jinyoung attempted to kick her.

"Stop dodging and attack." He said calmly, collecting his fallen daggers with a single sweep of his toned arm.

"I'm trying," Aeri grunted. She lurched forward and caught the punch Jinyoung threw at her with great difficulty and attempted to drive her knee into his stomach. He gripped it with his other hand and used the momentum of her kick to throw her to the floor.

"Dead." He said simply. "If I were a villain you'd be dead."

"You have about 15 years more training than me under your belt, I'd say I did pretty good considering that." She scoffed. "You didn't land a hit other than throwing me to the floor."

"That was me holding back. Get up, we're going again."

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After 3 hours of gruelling training, Jinyoung dragged her up off the floor of the training room, bruised and bloody and forced her into the changing room, instructing her to get changed into her hero costume and meet him in reception.

Knowing Jinyoung would complain and fuss over her if she didn't clean up her wounds (even though he was the one who gave them to her) she quickly doused the shallow cuts on her upper arm, shoulder and lower thigh in disinfectant and then wrapped them in bandages. There was nothing she could really do about the bruises right now; she'd ice them when she went home.

Aeri slipped into her suit and secured her daggers and swords to her body. She opted to teleport to reception to save time, ignoring the wave of slight nausea that washed over due to overuse of that aspect of her quirk.

She stumbled over to her brother who was unsurprisingly already there waiting. He handed her a deep green rectangular present box and stood in silence as she looked at him. She lifted the lid slowly, her face breaking out into a grin as she saw what was inside—A beautifully ornate dagger.

The hilt was pure gold, with all the stages of the moon carved into the backside. On the front was her signature emerald embedded into it and as usual the blade was silver and so shiny she could see her reflection.

"I commissioned it from Korea when you won the sports festival. You've made it to the golden stage. Congratulations Aeri." Jinyoung smiled proudly, his white hair shimmering under the sun from the window.

Aeri dropped the box and threw her arms around her brother, clomping him into a tight hug to show her appreciation. He chuckled and patted her on the back.

"Does this mean I'm one stage away from moonstone?" She asked excitedly, breaking away from the hug and assessing the weight of her new dagger in her hand. "It's heavier, is this real gold? Have you given Jungwon his yet?"

"You still have a lot of work until you're at the moonstone stage, but yes you've completed the black stage. And it is pure gold. Don't even think about losing it. Jungwon is not yet qualified for the golden stage." He told her. "Now come on, we have patrol."

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