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Description
In the facility courtyard, a man took a seat on a makeshift throne assembled from nearby rocks. He didn’t look particularly impressive or intimidating at first glance, he only stood at around 6 feet tall, with an average build, he was clearly muscular and in good shape, but in an age where mutant type quirks were giving people physical strength that was once considered impossible being muscular didn’t matter much anymore. His attire wasn’t flashy like many villains either, a simple black vest with gold trim and black pants. His hair was neatly trimmed and parted on the side, making his hair perfectly average. The only physical trait he had that seemed potentially villainous were his piercing golden eyes.

Yet in spite of this unremarkable appearance, the two thugs standing to the sides of his throne as bodyguards were visibly nervous being around him, trying their best to be just inside his vision so that he knew they were still doing their duty, but far enough to the peripherals that he was unlikely to pay them any mind. Off in the distance the sound of combat between the villains and hero students resounded throughout the compound, clearly not the noise made by small groups of isolated students being beaten up by a gang of villains, but the sound of a pitched battle, the very thing they’d gone to great lengths to avoid. Despite this, the man’s expression remained unchanged. He was calm and collected, his posture was pristine as he folded his hands on his lap and rested in his chair. It was impossible to tell whether or not he was angry that his plans were failing, or if perhaps he was confident that he would win anyway, his expression was unreadable.

“Uh… boss, it sounds like things aren’t going well over there, shouldn’t we do something?” One of the bodyguards managed to ask

“No, it’s fine, we have the advantage in numbers, and according to our friend in the system, only a relatively small team of them actually regrouped and came to fight. Besides, one of their heaviest hitters is coming here, and me and her have some catching up to do” The man chuckled, a sadistic grin spreading across his face “if you two are concerned, you can go join the fight, I want to face this one alone regardless, you’re useless here.”

“If… if you say so boss” the guard said, shifting nervously and glancing at the other guard, after a moment or two they nodded at each other and ran towards the battlefield, running past the girl who had silently been walking towards their boss, they hadn’t noticed her approaching at all until they were right next to her, but even as they noticed her and tried to turn to react to her presence, it was too late.

Serena threw short jabs with both her fists out to her sides, striking both thugs in the hip hard enough to shatter the bone and incapacitate them. They crumpled to the ground, groaning in pain as Serena calmly moved past them and stood before the man on the throne.

“So it really is you after all, I knew you’d come for me, you must have really missed all the good times we had together.” The man said, his smile widening “come back to relive the old times? I can see you’ve developed that body quite nicely for me to enjoy my dear pet”

Serena scowled at the man “Keep dreaming you perverted bastard” she growled, clenching her fists so tightly her knuckles turned white “I’m here to kick your ass and send it right back to prison where it belongs.”

“Ha! That’s a laugh, you always were an amusing one, you get a fancy quirk and some basic education and you think that puts you on my level?” The man said as he slowly stood up from his chair “that quirk won’t save you from me, but since you seem intent on having your little rebellious phase, I’ll teach you exactly why I’m the top dog around here before I get around to putting a leash around your neck again.”

Serena’s glare didn’t falter in the slightest, but she knew he wasn’t bluffing. They knew about her quirk and had managed to have someone exploit weaknesses in it before, she didn’t know what his quirk was, but clearly it was one he felt could beat hers. All she had to go on was his reputation, he had a penchant for torture, and was known for being able to inflict massive pain on people with just his bare hands, beating them to bloody pulps slowly and painfully. Based on that, her quirk ought to work against it… but he wouldn’t be so confident if it were that simple.

“Here’s how its gonna go, I’m gonna beat you up until you’ve had enough, and when you’re ready to give up this silly rebellion and be my plaything again all you need to do is call my name. As a little gift, I’ll tell you what it is now” the man taunted “normally my playthings only get to call me boss or sir, but you’ll get to call me Kuru”

“I’ll die before I give you the satisfaction” Serena spat as she charged forward, absorbing the energy of her feet hitting the ground and expelling it from her other foot to accelerate her, then reabsorbing as much of the expelled energy as she could before it traveled too far to slowly increase her reserves.

“Perhaps you will, but either way I’m going to enjoy myself here.” Kuru laughed, not flinching as Serena leapt at him to throw a punch, he simply drew his arm back and threw a punch of his own, aiming at the shoulder of the arm she was punching with. His arms were longer than hers, and so his blow connected first.

Serena immediately knew something was wrong as pain shot through her shoulder instead of the punch stopping harmlessly on contact, the pain surprising her enough that she had to abort her attack and stumble backwards to grab her shoulder. It made no sense, she felt herself start to absorb the energy of the punch at it connected, but she’d still seemed to take damage as if she hadn’t, worse than that even, this hurt much more than a regular punch should have. Looking at her shoulder, she couldn’t see any real damage, so it wasn’t that her quirk had simply been overpowered, something else was going on.

“Sloppy, examining your injuries this close to their source” Kuru said as he stepped forward and kicked Serena in the chest, sending her tumbling backwards as once again pain shot through her body at the point of impact.

Serena rolled to her feet and gritted her teeth against the pain as she stood back up, the pain was fading to a dull ache in both locations now, but she had no idea how he was inflicting it. Until she did, she’d have to avoid taking unnecessary hits for the time being. She darted forward again, darting from side to side to make her approach harder to read as she closed in for another punch.

Kuru stepped in close as Serena threw her punch, batting it aside by striking her wrist with a light chop, sending pain through her once again, though not as much as before. Now in an advantageous position, he threw a palm strike at her head. Serena countered in much the same way he had, using her free hand to knock his strike to the side, then spinning around to the opposite side for a roundhouse kick, making sure to absorb some of the energy of his strike when she did so.

Kuru recovered almost instantly from his hand being knocked aside, quickly bringing it back to strike Serena’s leg from below and send her kick high as he ducked beneath it, also knocking her off balance. Before he could follow up Serena let herself fall backwards, landing on her hands and pushing herself into a backflip to gain some distance, then as she landed on her feet she threw a punch to send a force shockwave at him, which he easily sidestepped.

Serena felt pain like she hadn’t experienced in a long time, each point he’d struck her in hurt like hell. Even that light chop to deflect her initial punch had hurt her wrist briefly, and the blow to her leg had been agonizing. Still, she’d felt far worse before, and as far as she could tell she wasn’t taking any real damage yet, her quirk was definitely working to protect her from that. Gritting her teeth she darted in again, leading with some light jabs to try and create an opening, using a quick burst of energy to pull her fists back whenever Kuru went to strike her wrists or arms to deflect a blow.

Kuru let himself be driven backwards by the jabs until he felt his foot strike an uneven part of the terrain. Then he let himself seem to lose his balance and begin to fall backwards. Serena immediately saw the opening and stepped in to deliver a decisive blow, only to play right into his hands as he brought his leg up and kicked her right beneath the jaw as he turned his fall into a backflip, using his hands as an anchor to the ground just like she had moments before.

Serena staggered back, her vision was blurry and the world was spinning, it was like fiery spikes had been driven up through her skull and directly into her pain receptors in the brain. She wasn’t given any time to recover either, as Kuru moved in and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her forward as he kneed her in the stomach hard enough to make her feel like vomiting. She fell to her knees, gasping for air, then felt a kick to her side knock her over. She rolled away, narrowly escaping the foot smashing down where her head had been moments before. She struck the ground with her fist, expelling a huge amount of energy to launch herself backwards, getting the distance between her and Kuru that she needed to recover.

Struggling back to her knees, Serena tried to catch her breath and bring her vision back into focus. Slowly she managed to get herself together again and get back to her feet, she could taste something tangy in her mouth and spit out a bit of blood, there was no mistaking that she was actually taking damage now. But she still didn’t know how. On the surface her skin was untarnished, she felt no cuts or bruises, and yet there was bleeding in her mouth. It was like his blows were damaging her insides somehow, deep enough beneath the surface that the bleeding wasn’t showing up as bruises yet.

Taking a deep breath and forcing the pain out of her mind, Serena took a defensive stance. She couldn’t keep attacking and taking the offensive like she had been, she’d burned a lot of energy even in spite of the energy she was absorbing from his hits, and her attacks weren’t even coming close to landing regardless. She’d need to force him to leave an opening to counterattack with.

Kuru wasted no time pressing the advantage, closing in and throwing a series of jabs to force Serena backwards. Serena waited for an opening, then moved to the side to narrowly dodge a jab and counter with one of her own, ducking down low to land the blow in his gut, she released a bit of energy to amplify the strike, but saved most of her reserves for a follow up attack.

Kuru stumbled back a few steps from the blow, doubling over and trying to catch his breath, Serena threw a kick at his face to send him flying, but he quickly straightened up, having faked his being immobilized. With a grunt he grabbed Serena’s ankle and pulled it to his side, throwing her off balance and pulling her into a vicious punch to the side of her skull, smashing her down to the ground.

Serena’s vision swam and she felt waves of pain wash over her, but she kept her composure long enough to unleash a large portion of her energy reserves as she hit the ground, making her body bounce sideways and tumble along the ground to gain some distance as she rolled to her feet. Her vision came back into focus just in time to jump backwards as Kuru fell down from above her to smash his foot into the ground. With a quick burst of energy she redirected her flight path to move to the side of his follow up punch, throwing one of her own in retaliation. Kuru smirked and threw a punch with his other hand to meet hers their fists clashing for a moment before she pulled her hand away with a grimace.

“Running out of energy are we?” Kuru said as he lunged forward to grab her by the throat and pulled her into a palm strike to the chest that sent her flying back into a wall

Serena crashed into the wall, grunting at the impact. At first she simply collapsed, seeming to have lost consciousness, but after a moment she struggled back to her feet, coughing up blood. She knew this couldn’t continue onward, she was starting to figure out his fighting style and read his moves better, but she was already too injured to react properly, and she only had enough energy left for one more solid strike before she was going to run out, if that happened she’d be defenseless, with her offensive and defensive options both depleted.

“My my, you’re a resilient one, I’m impressed pet” Kuru taunted, clapping slowly “most normal people are down for the count or worse after taking that many blows, not to mention how many of those were to vital areas. But look at you standing back up, you’re gonna be worth reclaiming for sure.”

“Screw… you” Serena panted “I’m not… your pet…”

“Tsk tsk, bad girl, guess you need to be beaten some more until you remember your place” Kuru snarled as he charged towards her, he opened with a punch, but pulled it back at the last moment to switch to an uppercut with his other arm. Serena managed to see through the feint and lean back to avoid it, then decided to do something unexpected and threw a punch, seeming to capitalize on the opening attacking had left. As Kuru prepared to evade however Serena’s real target was revealed, as she struck the forearm of the arm he’d thrown the uppercut with, striking it with a large release of energy to crack the bone.

“Gah! You bitch!” Kuru snarled, recoiling in pain and withdrawing his arm. Serena smirked as she stepped forward to follow up, with the force she could strike with, even attacks to non-vital areas could inflict serious damage and pain, it was perfect to create an opening on someone she could tell was more experienced and skilled than her in actual martial arts. Her energy reserves were all but gone now, but if she could land a bunch of normal punches and kicks to his vitals now and press the assault, she could finish him off before that became a real issue.

“heh, kidding” Kuru said, his expression of pain changing to a smirk as Serena committed to her next punch, the arm she’d just struck thrusting forward as he punched her on the side of her face. He didn’t let up as she staggered back, hitting her in the face again with a hook from his other arm, then again with the first arm. He then delivered a swift kick to the knee, making it buckle and dropping her down to one knee as he followed up with a knee to the face, driving her upwards enough to grab her by the throat and lift her off the ground.

“Prosthetic arm, lost most of the real one in a gang fight a while back” Kuru said “still had the doc keep enough organic material in there to keep the quirk working though, you’ll need to hit a lot harder than that to hurt that arm.”

Serena grabbed the arm holding her off the ground to try and squeeze it and cause enough pain to get it to release her, but sure enough, as she grabbed it she could feel the metal underneath a thin layer of what was presumably fake skin, she didn’t have enough energy in reserve to break it, and she couldn’t focus enough to think of a different plan with all the pain those head blows had inflicted. She could barely focus her vision enough to glare down at him and grip the arm as tightly as she could manage.

“You’re probably confused as to how I’m hurting you this much when your quirk makes you effectively invulnerable to physical strikes” Kuru said “see, my strikes aren’t damaging you externally, in fact the strikes are getting stopped just like they should, but my quirk lets me shoot a burst of a special kind of energy into anything I strike, damaging it on the inside. Your quirk can’t absorb it, and the pain it causes is interrupting your absorption, letting me still knock you around. In essence, you’re just as defenseless now as you were when you had no quirk at all.”

Kuru’s smirk grew as he drew back his other fist “remember now, you can make it all stop by begging to be my plaything again” he said as he rammed his fist into Serena’s gut.

“N-never” Serena grunted, then spit into Kuru’s face. His smirk slowly faded as he wiped the spit away, turning into a scowl as he glared back at her

“We’ll see about that, I don’t like that look in your eyes, that defiant glare, as if you had the right, I’ll beat it out of you!” Kuru snarled as he punched again, then again, and again. He kept punching, sending waves of pain through Serena. She could barely breathe, her body felt like it was on fire, her vision blacked out briefly at each surge of white hot pain surging through her. But she kept her grip on the arm holding her, and each time her vision returned she went back to glaring at him. She didn’t make any noise at the blows, refusing to cry out and give him the satisfaction.

The beating kept going for several minutes before Kuru paused to catch his breath. His composure was gone now, a look of absolute fury plastered on his face as he slammed Serena into a boulder and squeezed tighter on her throat. “Stop it! Stop giving me that damn look! You are not a person, you don’t get to talk back or defy me! You’re nothing but a sad little orphan that nobody wanted, you got taken in, and raised as a toy for me and others to use!” he roared as he punched her in the gut again “you’re here trying to be a hero? Being a hero is something people get to do, not objects, you’re nothing! You think just because you escaped and got a quirk that you’re worth something now? You think we don’t still own you? Well. You’re. Wrong!”

Kuru punched Serena to accentuate each word as he screamed at her, the pain making her lose consciousness for an instant, but as she woke back up she went right back to defiantly glaring at him, enraging him further.

“You’re… wrong…” Serena wheezed “I’m… not… like that… anymore!” With a guttural roar of defiance, she tightened her grip on Kuru’s arm, and it shattered.

“WHAT?” Kuru shouted in shock and rage, stumbling back, before he recovered from his surprise Serena nailed him in the gut with all the power she could muster, sending him flying back several feet and crashing to the ground.

“Shouldn’t have told me… it was mostly metal” Serena panted, still in too much pain to stand back up “your nerves were gone… you didn’t feel me absorb every bit of heat in the arm to freeze it. After that it was easy to break”

“Why you little wench!” Kuru roared as he got to his feet, he was spitting out blood from the strike, but Serena had used most of her energy breaking the arm, so her punch hadn’t done enough damage to keep him down. He stormed over to her and stomped down on her back, forcing her to the ground. “You know how much that arm cost me? It was worth more than TEN of you!”

Using his remaining arm Kuru rolled Serena onto her back, then groped her breast “I wanted to get you to break first before enjoying myself, but screw that, I’m gonna have my way with you right now and break you nice and slow. By the time I’m done with you there’ll be nothing left of that defiant personality, you’ll be an empty husk, a broken doll existing only to pleasure me, maybe I’ll get a lobotomy done, there’s black market doctors who’ll do that”

Serena tried to force the man off of her, but her energy reserves were gone, and she was in too much pain to muster up any natural strength, still, despite the panic and traumatic memories her situation would normally bring up, she kept calm and remained defiant, struggling as best she could, even if it was a futile gesture.

“Get that damn look off your face!” Kuru snarled as he drove his knee into her chest, freeing up his arm to reach towards his pants. Before he could get to unzipping it however diamond spikes erupted from the ground around Serena, forcing him to throw himself backwards to avoid being stabbed. He rolled to his feet and pulled a switchblade from a hidden pocket on his leg and opened it up, swinging to knock aside a quill aimed for his heart. Before he could identify the source of the attack a large boulder shot towards him, slamming into him and driving him back a dozen feet before he managed to stop its momentum. As he stepped back from the boulder vines erupted from the ground around him wrapping around his arms and legs and lifting him into the air as they worked their way around his torso, binding him.

“What the hell? What happened to my men?” Kuru spat, struggling in vain against his bindings as Tyra, Kura, Daiki, Onaka, and the other students began arriving on the scene.

“They’ve been taken care of” Ayane said as she stepped into view “a bunch of disorganized minor crooks and C-list villains didn’t stand a chance without proper leadership, I barely had to strategize at all to organize my classmates enough to take them down. We knew you were a tougher mark though, so we got into position and set up a trap to snare you.”

“You little bra..!” Kuru began, only to be gagged by a vine and cut off.

“Shut up” Tyra snapped through gritted teeth, her fists clenched “not another damn word. Listening to you as we got into position to capture you… you’re lucky I don’t cut your tongue out of that filthy mouth”

Ayane walked over to stand in front of Serena, who was now laid against one of the diamond spikes and being treated by Freya. “That’s an understatement, let me make this clear to you” she said, anger dripping from her voice like molten lava “Serena is NOT some object for you to own, and she never was, not even before she escaped you.”

One by one the other students gathered around and behind Serena, staring down Kuru. “You think that just because someone took her in and forced her to serve you that means you own her? Get real” Ayane spat “she is, and always has been, a person, regardless of what you did to her or used her for. And now more than ever, she’s the furthest thing from being your possession”

“Ayane…” Serena said softly, she felt the tears welling up in her eyes as her classmates rallied around her to stand up for her. Now they’d all heard what she used to be, but instead of being repulsed by the things she’d done in the past, they were defending her. They didn’t know about her past as a thief and street urchin yet… but this still meant more to her than words could describe.

“Serena is many things. An amazing woman, she’s strong, smart, brave, and beautiful” Ayane shouted “she’s my friend, she’s the daughter of her new foster parents, she’s our classmate, she’s a hero in training, the list goes on. The only thing she definitely isn’t, no matter what you say or do, is your possession. She’s one of us, and if you want her, you’ll have her over our dead bodies!”

Kuru’s furious expression grew more and more as Ayane spoke, but he looked around at the students standing before him, and at his own position. Down an arm, tied up in vines, and without any of his henchmen to back him up. There was no way around it, he’d lost completely, even if he broke free, he was outnumbered and outmatched. Slowly his anger faded into resignation, and his struggling stopped.

With Freya’s help, Serena got to her feet, she wobbled a bit, her body weakened from the effects of Freya’s healing, but she soon steadied herself as she walked in front of Kuru and stared him down. “You heard her” Serena said “I thought I had to beat you to prove I was different, to prove I wasn’t just some object anymore. But I was wrong, I didn’t need to do that at all, I never belonged to you or anyone. You and that bastard foster father may have chained me up and treated me like a pet or toy, but that never meant anything, just that you two were awful people exploiting a defenseless person. I had nobody to rely on, and no power to defend myself, but now I do.”

Serena turned and began to walk away from her former tormenter without another word. Kuru’s eyes widened in fury, and in a burst of rage induced strength he bit through the vine gagging him “Get back here! You can’t talk to me like that! I own you, you can’t just walk away! You hear me?”

Serena paused for a moment, then took another step forward, she wasn’t going to let him have any power over her now. As much as she wanted to go back and punch him, that would be admitting he’d gotten to her, that he still had some measure of control of her actions. The only way to reject him completely was to ignore him. With this decision in mind, she continued to walk away.

“No! Stop it! You… you can’t! I… I own…” Kuru shouted, then his voice trailed off as he realized Serena wasn’t responding “you can’t… this isn’t… you’re not allowed to”

“Yes, she is” Ayane said as she stepped between Kuru and Serena with her fist drawn back, then with a grunt she socked him as hard as she could manage, knocking him out.

Tyra finished wrapping the man up while Ayane rubbed her hand and winced “ow, should’ve let Onaka or Freya do that… worth it though” she muttered as she ran to catch up with Serena just inside the facility “Serena, are you…?”

“I’m fine, better than fine actually” Serena said, a smile spreading on her face even as the tears began flowing. Slowly she turned to face Ayane, then pulled her into an embrace “thank you, for all that you just said, and for getting everyone to stand up for me”

Ayane pulled away a bit to look Serena in the eye “I may have been the one speaking, but I didn’t do anything to get the others to come to your defense. They did that on their own, each of them individually stood up for you.” She said as firmly as she could, she knew that, from a psychological perspective, Serena was probably reflexively assuming everything was all because of her and not processing the true weight of the class’s solidarity on the matter, and she knew if she didn’t dispel that idea now that interpretation would be permanent. “No matter what that man did to you, you’re as much of a person as we are, and not a single one of them was willing to stand by and let him treat you like that. Remember that, it’s not just me who believed the words I was saying, everyone did, because each word I spoke is the truth.”

Serena nodded, deep down she knew Ayane was right, and no matter what her insecurities tried to tell her, that was the truth. “I… I know” she said after a long pause, then pulled Ayane back into the hug “I won’t forget this, not ever.”

“Good, otherwise the next person I punch might have to be me beating it back into you” Ayane said, hugging back as tightly as she could.

As the two released each other their eyes met for several moments before Serena remembered about Ayane’s sexuality and realized how closely they’d been touching just then. She immediately blushed slightly and turned away “Uh… right… wouldn’t want to get beaten up, I’ll have to be sure to remember it then” she said, trying to compose herself and not come off as too embarrassed.

Ayane noticed Serena’s blush and suddenly realized how close they’d been as well, her face turning as red as a tomato in an instant. “Y-yeah, don’t you test me… I’ll beat you good…”

“Oh just kiss already” Onaka groaned, alerting both girls to her presence “you obviously want to, quit beating around the bush and do it!”

“Eh!?” both Serena and Ayane said in unison, looking at each other and then back to Onaka “n-no we don’t!”

Onaka sighed “hopeless, both of you, fine fine, don’t mind me I’ll just go over to the ‘people who aren’t total liars’ part of the building”

Onaka walked off, leaving the two alone again. “Well if we want to avoid letting her get the last word in we should chase after her” Ayane said with a nervous laugh

“ Yeah we should… actually you know what? To hell with it” Serena said, then grabbed Ayane’s face and pulled her into a kiss. Ayane reflexively tried to pull back for a moment, then quickly stopped and simply savored the moment until Serena pulled back and turned away. “I uh… we can sort things out after some sleep… I just felt like I needed to do that after all of that.”

“R-right, don’t wanna… you know… rush things when you’re extra emotional from everything… go get some rest” Ayane squeaked out, too embarrassed now to protest, she needed a bit of time to herself now too.

Serena nodded, then hurried off to her room as fast as she could. She closed and locked the door behind her and laid down on her bed for the night, then passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Description
In the facility courtyard, a man took a seat on a makeshift throne assembled from nearby rocks. He didn’t look particularly impressive or intimidating at first glance, he only stood at around 6 feet tall, with an average build, he was clearly muscular and in good shape, but in an age where mutant type quirks were giving people physical strength that was once considered impossible being muscular didn’t matter much anymore. His attire wasn’t flashy like many villains either, a simple black vest with gold trim and black pants. His hair was neatly trimmed and parted on the side, making his hair perfectly average. The only physical trait he had that seemed potentially villainous were his piercing golden eyes.

Yet in spite of this unremarkable appearance, the two thugs standing to the sides of his throne as bodyguards were visibly nervous being around him, trying their best to be just inside his vision so that he knew they were still doing their duty, but far enough to the peripherals that he was unlikely to pay them any mind. Off in the distance the sound of combat between the villains and hero students resounded throughout the compound, clearly not the noise made by small groups of isolated students being beaten up by a gang of villains, but the sound of a pitched battle, the very thing they’d gone to great lengths to avoid. Despite this, the man’s expression remained unchanged. He was calm and collected, his posture was pristine as he folded his hands on his lap and rested in his chair. It was impossible to tell whether or not he was angry that his plans were failing, or if perhaps he was confident that he would win anyway, his expression was unreadable.

“Uh… boss, it sounds like things aren’t going well over there, shouldn’t we do something?” One of the bodyguards managed to ask

“No, it’s fine, we have the advantage in numbers, and according to our friend in the system, only a relatively small team of them actually regrouped and came to fight. Besides, one of their heaviest hitters is coming here, and me and her have some catching up to do” The man chuckled, a sadistic grin spreading across his face “if you two are concerned, you can go join the fight, I want to face this one alone regardless, you’re useless here.”

“If… if you say so boss” the guard said, shifting nervously and glancing at the other guard, after a moment or two they nodded at each other and ran towards the battlefield, running past the girl who had silently been walking towards their boss, they hadn’t noticed her approaching at all until they were right next to her, but even as they noticed her and tried to turn to react to her presence, it was too late.

Serena threw short jabs with both her fists out to her sides, striking both thugs in the hip hard enough to shatter the bone and incapacitate them. They crumpled to the ground, groaning in pain as Serena calmly moved past them and stood before the man on the throne.

“So it really is you after all, I knew you’d come for me, you must have really missed all the good times we had together.” The man said, his smile widening “come back to relive the old times? I can see you’ve developed that body quite nicely for me to enjoy my dear pet”

Serena scowled at the man “Keep dreaming you perverted bastard” she growled, clenching her fists so tightly her knuckles turned white “I’m here to kick your ass and send it right back to prison where it belongs.”

“Ha! That’s a laugh, you always were an amusing one, you get a fancy quirk and some basic education and you think that puts you on my level?” The man said as he slowly stood up from his chair “that quirk won’t save you from me, but since you seem intent on having your little rebellious phase, I’ll teach you exactly why I’m the top dog around here before I get around to putting a leash around your neck again.”

Serena’s glare didn’t falter in the slightest, but she knew he wasn’t bluffing. They knew about her quirk and had managed to have someone exploit weaknesses in it before, she didn’t know what his quirk was, but clearly it was one he felt could beat hers. All she had to go on was his reputation, he had a penchant for torture, and was known for being able to inflict massive pain on people with just his bare hands, beating them to bloody pulps slowly and painfully. Based on that, her quirk ought to work against it… but he wouldn’t be so confident if it were that simple.

“Here’s how its gonna go, I’m gonna beat you up until you’ve had enough, and when you’re ready to give up this silly rebellion and be my plaything again all you need to do is call my name. As a little gift, I’ll tell you what it is now” the man taunted “normally my playthings only get to call me boss or sir, but you’ll get to call me Kuru”

“I’ll die before I give you the satisfaction” Serena spat as she charged forward, absorbing the energy of her feet hitting the ground and expelling it from her other foot to accelerate her, then reabsorbing as much of the expelled energy as she could before it traveled too far to slowly increase her reserves.

“Perhaps you will, but either way I’m going to enjoy myself here.” Kuru laughed, not flinching as Serena leapt at him to throw a punch, he simply drew his arm back and threw a punch of his own, aiming at the shoulder of the arm she was punching with. His arms were longer than hers, and so his blow connected first.

Serena immediately knew something was wrong as pain shot through her shoulder instead of the punch stopping harmlessly on contact, the pain surprising her enough that she had to abort her attack and stumble backwards to grab her shoulder. It made no sense, she felt herself start to absorb the energy of the punch at it connected, but she’d still seemed to take damage as if she hadn’t, worse than that even, this hurt much more than a regular punch should have. Looking at her shoulder, she couldn’t see any real damage, so it wasn’t that her quirk had simply been overpowered, something else was going on.

“Sloppy, examining your injuries this close to their source” Kuru said as he stepped forward and kicked Serena in the chest, sending her tumbling backwards as once again pain shot through her body at the point of impact.

Serena rolled to her feet and gritted her teeth against the pain as she stood back up, the pain was fading to a dull ache in both locations now, but she had no idea how he was inflicting it. Until she did, she’d have to avoid taking unnecessary hits for the time being. She darted forward again, darting from side to side to make her approach harder to read as she closed in for another punch.

Kuru stepped in close as Serena threw her punch, batting it aside by striking her wrist with a light chop, sending pain through her once again, though not as much as before. Now in an advantageous position, he threw a palm strike at her head. Serena countered in much the same way he had, using her free hand to knock his strike to the side, then spinning around to the opposite side for a roundhouse kick, making sure to absorb some of the energy of his strike when she did so.

Kuru recovered almost instantly from his hand being knocked aside, quickly bringing it back to strike Serena’s leg from below and send her kick high as he ducked beneath it, also knocking her off balance. Before he could follow up Serena let herself fall backwards, landing on her hands and pushing herself into a backflip to gain some distance, then as she landed on her feet she threw a punch to send a force shockwave at him, which he easily sidestepped.

Serena felt pain like she hadn’t experienced in a long time, each point he’d struck her in hurt like hell. Even that light chop to deflect her initial punch had hurt her wrist briefly, and the blow to her leg had been agonizing. Still, she’d felt far worse before, and as far as she could tell she wasn’t taking any real damage yet, her quirk was definitely working to protect her from that. Gritting her teeth she darted in again, leading with some light jabs to try and create an opening, using a quick burst of energy to pull her fists back whenever Kuru went to strike her wrists or arms to deflect a blow.

Kuru let himself be driven backwards by the jabs until he felt his foot strike an uneven part of the terrain. Then he let himself seem to lose his balance and begin to fall backwards. Serena immediately saw the opening and stepped in to deliver a decisive blow, only to play right into his hands as he brought his leg up and kicked her right beneath the jaw as he turned his fall into a backflip, using his hands as an anchor to the ground just like she had moments before.

Serena staggered back, her vision was blurry and the world was spinning, it was like fiery spikes had been driven up through her skull and directly into her pain receptors in the brain. She wasn’t given any time to recover either, as Kuru moved in and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her forward as he kneed her in the stomach hard enough to make her feel like vomiting. She fell to her knees, gasping for air, then felt a kick to her side knock her over. She rolled away, narrowly escaping the foot smashing down where her head had been moments before. She struck the ground with her fist, expelling a huge amount of energy to launch herself backwards, getting the distance between her and Kuru that she needed to recover.

Struggling back to her knees, Serena tried to catch her breath and bring her vision back into focus. Slowly she managed to get herself together again and get back to her feet, she could taste something tangy in her mouth and spit out a bit of blood, there was no mistaking that she was actually taking damage now. But she still didn’t know how. On the surface her skin was untarnished, she felt no cuts or bruises, and yet there was bleeding in her mouth. It was like his blows were damaging her insides somehow, deep enough beneath the surface that the bleeding wasn’t showing up as bruises yet.

Taking a deep breath and forcing the pain out of her mind, Serena took a defensive stance. She couldn’t keep attacking and taking the offensive like she had been, she’d burned a lot of energy even in spite of the energy she was absorbing from his hits, and her attacks weren’t even coming close to landing regardless. She’d need to force him to leave an opening to counterattack with.

Kuru wasted no time pressing the advantage, closing in and throwing a series of jabs to force Serena backwards. Serena waited for an opening, then moved to the side to narrowly dodge a jab and counter with one of her own, ducking down low to land the blow in his gut, she released a bit of energy to amplify the strike, but saved most of her reserves for a follow up attack.

Kuru stumbled back a few steps from the blow, doubling over and trying to catch his breath, Serena threw a kick at his face to send him flying, but he quickly straightened up, having faked his being immobilized. With a grunt he grabbed Serena’s ankle and pulled it to his side, throwing her off balance and pulling her into a vicious punch to the side of her skull, smashing her down to the ground.

Serena’s vision swam and she felt waves of pain wash over her, but she kept her composure long enough to unleash a large portion of her energy reserves as she hit the ground, making her body bounce sideways and tumble along the ground to gain some distance as she rolled to her feet. Her vision came back into focus just in time to jump backwards as Kuru fell down from above her to smash his foot into the ground. With a quick burst of energy she redirected her flight path to move to the side of his follow up punch, throwing one of her own in retaliation. Kuru smirked and threw a punch with his other hand to meet hers their fists clashing for a moment before she pulled her hand away with a grimace.

“Running out of energy are we?” Kuru said as he lunged forward to grab her by the throat and pulled her into a palm strike to the chest that sent her flying back into a wall

Serena crashed into the wall, grunting at the impact. At first she simply collapsed, seeming to have lost consciousness, but after a moment she struggled back to her feet, coughing up blood. She knew this couldn’t continue onward, she was starting to figure out his fighting style and read his moves better, but she was already too injured to react properly, and she only had enough energy left for one more solid strike before she was going to run out, if that happened she’d be defenseless, with her offensive and defensive options both depleted.

“My my, you’re a resilient one, I’m impressed pet” Kuru taunted, clapping slowly “most normal people are down for the count or worse after taking that many blows, not to mention how many of those were to vital areas. But look at you standing back up, you’re gonna be worth reclaiming for sure.”

“Screw… you” Serena panted “I’m not… your pet…”

“Tsk tsk, bad girl, guess you need to be beaten some more until you remember your place” Kuru snarled as he charged towards her, he opened with a punch, but pulled it back at the last moment to switch to an uppercut with his other arm. Serena managed to see through the feint and lean back to avoid it, then decided to do something unexpected and threw a punch, seeming to capitalize on the opening attacking had left. As Kuru prepared to evade however Serena’s real target was revealed, as she struck the forearm of the arm he’d thrown the uppercut with, striking it with a large release of energy to crack the bone.

“Gah! You bitch!” Kuru snarled, recoiling in pain and withdrawing his arm. Serena smirked as she stepped forward to follow up, with the force she could strike with, even attacks to non-vital areas could inflict serious damage and pain, it was perfect to create an opening on someone she could tell was more experienced and skilled than her in actual martial arts. Her energy reserves were all but gone now, but if she could land a bunch of normal punches and kicks to his vitals now and press the assault, she could finish him off before that became a real issue.

“heh, kidding” Kuru said, his expression of pain changing to a smirk as Serena committed to her next punch, the arm she’d just struck thrusting forward as he punched her on the side of her face. He didn’t let up as she staggered back, hitting her in the face again with a hook from his other arm, then again with the first arm. He then delivered a swift kick to the knee, making it buckle and dropping her down to one knee as he followed up with a knee to the face, driving her upwards enough to grab her by the throat and lift her off the ground.

“Prosthetic arm, lost most of the real one in a gang fight a while back” Kuru said “still had the doc keep enough organic material in there to keep the quirk working though, you’ll need to hit a lot harder than that to hurt that arm.”

Serena grabbed the arm holding her off the ground to try and squeeze it and cause enough pain to get it to release her, but sure enough, as she grabbed it she could feel the metal underneath a thin layer of what was presumably fake skin, she didn’t have enough energy in reserve to break it, and she couldn’t focus enough to think of a different plan with all the pain those head blows had inflicted. She could barely focus her vision enough to glare down at him and grip the arm as tightly as she could manage.

“You’re probably confused as to how I’m hurting you this much when your quirk makes you effectively invulnerable to physical strikes” Kuru said “see, my strikes aren’t damaging you externally, in fact the strikes are getting stopped just like they should, but my quirk lets me shoot a burst of a special kind of energy into anything I strike, damaging it on the inside. Your quirk can’t absorb it, and the pain it causes is interrupting your absorption, letting me still knock you around. In essence, you’re just as defenseless now as you were when you had no quirk at all.”

Kuru’s smirk grew as he drew back his other fist “remember now, you can make it all stop by begging to be my plaything again” he said as he rammed his fist into Serena’s gut.

“N-never” Serena grunted, then spit into Kuru’s face. His smirk slowly faded as he wiped the spit away, turning into a scowl as he glared back at her

“We’ll see about that, I don’t like that look in your eyes, that defiant glare, as if you had the right, I’ll beat it out of you!” Kuru snarled as he punched again, then again, and again. He kept punching, sending waves of pain through Serena. She could barely breathe, her body felt like it was on fire, her vision blacked out briefly at each surge of white hot pain surging through her. But she kept her grip on the arm holding her, and each time her vision returned she went back to glaring at him. She didn’t make any noise at the blows, refusing to cry out and give him the satisfaction.

The beating kept going for several minutes before Kuru paused to catch his breath. His composure was gone now, a look of absolute fury plastered on his face as he slammed Serena into a boulder and squeezed tighter on her throat. “Stop it! Stop giving me that damn look! You are not a person, you don’t get to talk back or defy me! You’re nothing but a sad little orphan that nobody wanted, you got taken in, and raised as a toy for me and others to use!” he roared as he punched her in the gut again “you’re here trying to be a hero? Being a hero is something people get to do, not objects, you’re nothing! You think just because you escaped and got a quirk that you’re worth something now? You think we don’t still own you? Well. You’re. Wrong!”

Kuru punched Serena to accentuate each word as he screamed at her, the pain making her lose consciousness for an instant, but as she woke back up she went right back to defiantly glaring at him, enraging him further.

“You’re… wrong…” Serena wheezed “I’m… not… like that… anymore!” With a guttural roar of defiance, she tightened her grip on Kuru’s arm, and it shattered.

“WHAT?” Kuru shouted in shock and rage, stumbling back, before he recovered from his surprise Serena nailed him in the gut with all the power she could muster, sending him flying back several feet and crashing to the ground.

“Shouldn’t have told me… it was mostly metal” Serena panted, still in too much pain to stand back up “your nerves were gone… you didn’t feel me absorb every bit of heat in the arm to freeze it. After that it was easy to break”

“Why you little wench!” Kuru roared as he got to his feet, he was spitting out blood from the strike, but Serena had used most of her energy breaking the arm, so her punch hadn’t done enough damage to keep him down. He stormed over to her and stomped down on her back, forcing her to the ground. “You know how much that arm cost me? It was worth more than TEN of you!”

Using his remaining arm Kuru rolled Serena onto her back, then groped her breast “I wanted to get you to break first before enjoying myself, but screw that, I’m gonna have my way with you right now and break you nice and slow. By the time I’m done with you there’ll be nothing left of that defiant personality, you’ll be an empty husk, a broken doll existing only to pleasure me, maybe I’ll get a lobotomy done, there’s black market doctors who’ll do that”

Serena tried to force the man off of her, but her energy reserves were gone, and she was in too much pain to muster up any natural strength, still, despite the panic and traumatic memories her situation would normally bring up, she kept calm and remained defiant, struggling as best she could, even if it was a futile gesture.

“Get that damn look off your face!” Kuru snarled as he drove his knee into her chest, freeing up his arm to reach towards his pants. Before he could get to unzipping it however diamond spikes erupted from the ground around Serena, forcing him to throw himself backwards to avoid being stabbed. He rolled to his feet and pulled a switchblade from a hidden pocket on his leg and opened it up, swinging to knock aside a quill aimed for his heart. Before he could identify the source of the attack a large boulder shot towards him, slamming into him and driving him back a dozen feet before he managed to stop its momentum. As he stepped back from the boulder vines erupted from the ground around him wrapping around his arms and legs and lifting him into the air as they worked their way around his torso, binding him.

“What the hell? What happened to my men?” Kuru spat, struggling in vain against his bindings as Tyra, Kura, Daiki, Onaka, and the other students began arriving on the scene.

“They’ve been taken care of” Ayane said as she stepped into view “a bunch of disorganized minor crooks and C-list villains didn’t stand a chance without proper leadership, I barely had to strategize at all to organize my classmates enough to take them down. We knew you were a tougher mark though, so we got into position and set up a trap to snare you.”

“You little bra..!” Kuru began, only to be gagged by a vine and cut off.

“Shut up” Tyra snapped through gritted teeth, her fists clenched “not another damn word. Listening to you as we got into position to capture you… you’re lucky I don’t cut your tongue out of that filthy mouth”

Ayane walked over to stand in front of Serena, who was now laid against one of the diamond spikes and being treated by Freya. “That’s an understatement, let me make this clear to you” she said, anger dripping from her voice like molten lava “Serena is NOT some object for you to own, and she never was, not even before she escaped you.”

One by one the other students gathered around and behind Serena, staring down Kuru. “You think that just because someone took her in and forced her to serve you that means you own her? Get real” Ayane spat “she is, and always has been, a person, regardless of what you did to her or used her for. And now more than ever, she’s the furthest thing from being your possession”

“Ayane…” Serena said softly, she felt the tears welling up in her eyes as her classmates rallied around her to stand up for her. Now they’d all heard what she used to be, but instead of being repulsed by the things she’d done in the past, they were defending her. They didn’t know about her past as a thief and street urchin yet… but this still meant more to her than words could describe.

“Serena is many things. An amazing woman, she’s strong, smart, brave, and beautiful” Ayane shouted “she’s my friend, she’s the daughter of her new foster parents, she’s our classmate, she’s a hero in training, the list goes on. The only thing she definitely isn’t, no matter what you say or do, is your possession. She’s one of us, and if you want her, you’ll have her over our dead bodies!”

Kuru’s furious expression grew more and more as Ayane spoke, but he looked around at the students standing before him, and at his own position. Down an arm, tied up in vines, and without any of his henchmen to back him up. There was no way around it, he’d lost completely, even if he broke free, he was outnumbered and outmatched. Slowly his anger faded into resignation, and his struggling stopped.

With Freya’s help, Serena got to her feet, she wobbled a bit, her body weakened from the effects of Freya’s healing, but she soon steadied herself as she walked in front of Kuru and stared him down. “You heard her” Serena said “I thought I had to beat you to prove I was different, to prove I wasn’t just some object anymore. But I was wrong, I didn’t need to do that at all, I never belonged to you or anyone. You and that bastard foster father may have chained me up and treated me like a pet or toy, but that never meant anything, just that you two were awful people exploiting a defenseless person. I had nobody to rely on, and no power to defend myself, but now I do.”

Serena turned and began to walk away from her former tormenter without another word. Kuru’s eyes widened in fury, and in a burst of rage induced strength he bit through the vine gagging him “Get back here! You can’t talk to me like that! I own you, you can’t just walk away! You hear me?”

Serena paused for a moment, then took another step forward, she wasn’t going to let him have any power over her now. As much as she wanted to go back and punch him, that would be admitting he’d gotten to her, that he still had some measure of control of her actions. The only way to reject him completely was to ignore him. With this decision in mind, she continued to walk away.

“No! Stop it! You… you can’t! I… I own…” Kuru shouted, then his voice trailed off as he realized Serena wasn’t responding “you can’t… this isn’t… you’re not allowed to”

“Yes, she is” Ayane said as she stepped between Kuru and Serena with her fist drawn back, then with a grunt she socked him as hard as she could manage, knocking him out.

Tyra finished wrapping the man up while Ayane rubbed her hand and winced “ow, should’ve let Onaka or Freya do that… worth it though” she muttered as she ran to catch up with Serena just inside the facility “Serena, are you…?”

“I’m fine, better than fine actually” Serena said, a smile spreading on her face even as the tears began flowing. Slowly she turned to face Ayane, then pulled her into an embrace “thank you, for all that you just said, and for getting everyone to stand up for me”

Ayane pulled away a bit to look Serena in the eye “I may have been the one speaking, but I didn’t do anything to get the others to come to your defense. They did that on their own, each of them individually stood up for you.” She said as firmly as she could, she knew that, from a psychological perspective, Serena was probably reflexively assuming everything was all because of her and not processing the true weight of the class’s solidarity on the matter, and she knew if she didn’t dispel that idea now that interpretation would be permanent. “No matter what that man did to you, you’re as much of a person as we are, and not a single one of them was willing to stand by and let him treat you like that. Remember that, it’s not just me who believed the words I was saying, everyone did, because each word I spoke is the truth.”

Serena nodded, deep down she knew Ayane was right, and no matter what her insecurities tried to tell her, that was the truth. “I… I know” she said after a long pause, then pulled Ayane back into the hug “I won’t forget this, not ever.”

“Good, otherwise the next person I punch might have to be me beating it back into you” Ayane said, hugging back as tightly as she could.

As the two released each other their eyes met for several moments before Serena remembered about Ayane’s sexuality and realized how closely they’d been touching just then. She immediately blushed slightly and turned away “Uh… right… wouldn’t want to get beaten up, I’ll have to be sure to remember it then” she said, trying to compose herself and not come off as too embarrassed.

Ayane noticed Serena’s blush and suddenly realized how close they’d been as well, her face turning as red as a tomato in an instant. “Y-yeah, don’t you test me… I’ll beat you good…”

“Oh just kiss already” Onaka groaned, alerting both girls to her presence “you obviously want to, quit beating around the bush and do it!”

“Eh!?” both Serena and Ayane said in unison, looking at each other and then back to Onaka “n-no we don’t!”

Onaka sighed “hopeless, both of you, fine fine, don’t mind me I’ll just go over to the ‘people who aren’t total liars’ part of the building”

Onaka walked off, leaving the two alone again. “Well if we want to avoid letting her get the last word in we should chase after her” Ayane said with a nervous laugh

“ Yeah we should… actually you know what? To hell with it” Serena said, then grabbed Ayane’s face and pulled her into a kiss. Ayane reflexively tried to pull back for a moment, then quickly stopped and simply savored the moment until Serena pulled back and turned away. “I uh… we can sort things out after some sleep… I just felt like I needed to do that after all of that.”

“R-right, don’t wanna… you know… rush things when you’re extra emotional from everything… go get some rest” Ayane squeaked out, too embarrassed now to protest, she needed a bit of time to herself now too.

Serena nodded, then hurried off to her room as fast as she could. She closed and locked the door behind her and laid down on her bed for the night, then passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow.