The Emperor's Dragon II

Volunteering Is Easy!

"How is the apprenticeship coming?" Mei asked. With Ochaco and Izuku gone, it was just herself and Hitoshi at lunch. While she was happy to focus on her babies, even Mei could admit it was quieter.

And... well, she'd promised Izuku she'd keep Hitoshi supplied and that required talking to the client, so this wasn't chit-chat, it was business.

She had already contributed to his costume. Given that Hitoshi was being trained as an underground hero, his costume wasn't that fancy. It was distinctly like his mentor, Eraser Head's, though with more armor... and thanks to her, better protection and gizmos.

"It's going okay," Hitoshi told her.

Most of Mei's class would not believe she had tact. They would not believe that she could pick up on subtlety from the mere tone of voice but she could. She just knew, from long experience, that if she reacted to those things, she'd be dragged into the so-called dramas and traumas of her classmates. She had way too much on to be bothered with that.

However, a client was a different matter.

"Really?" Mei replied, her tone enough to convey her doubt.

"It's fine," Hitoshi repeated.

Mei looked over at him. Hitoshi was sitting in the area deemed safe for eating. All that meant was Mei didn't put oily or otherwise contaminated pieces of equipment or tools there. But... it worked, which was good enough. From what she could see, Hitoshi meant what he said but...

"Which bit of the apprenticeship is bothering you?" she asked.

The purple-haired teen huffed. "Eraser Head has me practicing with a version of his capture scarf," he began to explain.

Mei nodded. She'd seen the plans to incorporate a version of the scarf into Hitoshi's costume. It would literally wrap around his neck and upper shoulders and would, if positioned right, cover the mouth guard he used to modulate his voice.

"He won't let me have one though until I can break out of it," Hitoshi continued.

"Ah!" Mei got the drift. She might be concerned with making her babies but she knew what type of teacher Eraser Head was. He'd probably trapped Hitoshi in his capture scarf and expected the teen to get free. And Hitoshi hadn't been able to. "What have you tried?"

"It's fire resistant, so I can't burn it, and even if I could, doing that while wrapped in it is stupid," Hitoshi told her. "You can't wriggle out of it, since it just tightens, and I can't cut it."

"What have you tried to cut it with?" Mei asked.

Hitoshi made a small gesture and a knife appeared in his hand.

It wasn't anything special. The blade was about four to five inches long and looked sharp but Mei knew just because something looked sharp, didn't mean it was. "Did you get through any of it?" she asked, stepping forward to look at the knife.

"I think I dulled the blade, but that could also have been the angle," Hitoshi told her.

Mei snorted. The answer told her something that should have been immediately obvious. "Eraser Head's capture weapon, what's it made of?" she asked Hitoshi, hoping he'd pick up on it as well.

"It's a bias bound cloth made of- Ah, fuck!" he snapped. "This was never going to go through it," he brandished the blade.

"Not in a million years," Mei agreed. Eraser Head's capture weapon was not 'cloth.' Not technically. It was a steel wire alloy, woven with carbon nanofiber. It was one of the super fabrics that manufacturers like Tissu made exclusively for the hero industry.