Age: 5
A mighty predator stalked through the forest.
It crawled beneath fallen logs, leaped over puddles, climbed on top of the tallest rocks and explored the deepest crevices and cracks. It sniffed at trails left by deer herds and barked at passing squirrels.
Suddenly, a shift in the air had it freeze to a standstill, crouched in preparation for a leap. Instead, inquisitive eyes surveyed the surrounding forest scape, head raised to sniff at the air.
There it was again. A slight tremor in the ground, the soft sigh of moss being depressed under a heavy foot. The predator stalked through the forest, darting between cover as it approached its prey.
Hidden beneath the canopy of a spruce tree, it spied the huge creature stomping through the forest, coming closer and closer until it was just within range. The predator's muscles coiled, springing into a leap, wings beating the air once to give an extra bit of speed as its powerful jaws approached the exposed neck of the pre-
A massive, scaled fist caught me right out of the air, wrapping around my torso. I went limp in its grip like a cat and uttered a whining noise. It relented immediately, and I dropped onto the ground, twisting my torso to land on my feet.
"Sorry 'Zaki, I know you were enjoying yourself, but it's half past five already, we need to go."
I pouted up at her for the interruption, but her stern glare brooked no arguments as we began making our way back home, leaving the forest behind.
Being a dragon was awesome. No words could do justice to the feeling of power and freedom offered by being a four-legged two-winged avatar of death and destruction.
An avatar of death and destruction the size of a small pony, like the kind they use to teach children how to ride, but still. I was physically only five years old, after all.
By comparison Ryuko's almost adult-sized dragon form was massive, nearly ten meters from snout to tail tip and with the wingspan of a small propeller plane. It was impossible to tell if I'd match her as an adult, since even Quirks as similar as ours could have notable differences, as had become apparent over two years worth of hide and seek, racing, mock fights, and more.
The most outwardly obvious part was that Ryuko's quirk transformed her clothing while mine didn't, and that I had horns while she didn't. But there were many others- Ryuko had powerful hind legs that allowed her to walk like a bear, something that I couldn't do. She was more lithe and agile while I was comparatively more heavily built with a thick, flat tail, and the "fingers" on my wings were each tipped with a small, curved claw while Ryuko's weren't, being more like a bat's. She had a better sense of smell, but my frilled ears gave me excellent hearing.
For the last two years I'd taken every opportunity I could to drag Ryuko over into the forest to explore and play around, trying to get used to my Quirk. It wasn't real training- Mom would have never allowed it if it was, and it's not like Ryuko could really train with someone so much smaller than her. Most of the time I was just running around to my heart's content while Ryuko watched, or played on her phone while she thought I wasn't looking.
But still, like I said, just being a dragon is awesome. Frankly if Ryuko wasn't there to remind and drag me back if necessary, I would probably never actually leave the forest and fulfill the social obligations of modern society.
But alas, such is life.
Ryuko landed on the yard with a flap of her wings, transforming back into a human in a cloud of smoke before her feet even hit the ground in one smooth motion.
Show-off.
Ever since she'd gotten to high school last year and began her training to become a Pro Hero Ryuko had started to change. For the length of my new life, she had always been the more… I guess active of the two of us, rushing off to new things with unbridled enthusiasm while I toddled behind her at a more sedate pace.
I don't think there was any one thing that set it off, but around the time of her entrance exams she started to try to be cool. No hugging or other physical affection in public, no more gushing over every dog that she came across, no more challenging me to race everywhere, and certainly no more backpack rides for poor, tired little sisters. Oh, she'd still do it in private, but even then she was more… aloof, I guess.
In short, she'd started to mature. Which was, well, inevitable, but I liked her better before. Leaning against the back door I pawed the handle open, only to come face to face with my mother, fussing over pieces of clothing.
"Oh good, I was just about to get worried. Now, which dress do you want to wear?"
Oh no.
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A few minutes later I was perched on top of the dresser of my room, staring defiantly down at Mom. She had one hand on her hip, the other holding the grey dress she'd decided upon.
"Ryuuzaki Tatsuma you will come down this instant or so help me-" That was her I Am Your Mother Voice.
"Make me." I saw the slightest quiver of her nostrils as she took in an enraged breath, and I had a moment to consider if I had just made a terrible mistake.
"You're banned from practicing with your Quirk for the next month unless you come down."
"Deal." Only a month? I could deal with that.
Mom looked bewildered for a moment, before setting her jaw.
"Ryuuzaki. This is not up for discussion. We are going to my father's funeral, and you will not embarrass us in front of the entire extended family by appearing in a funeral as a dragon."
Dammit, she knew guilt was the best way to get me to do what she wanted. I really, really didn't want to do it, but I hated making trouble for Mom and Dad.
I grit my teeth and leapt down, shutting my eyes. I pictured myself being squeezed by a giant hand, crushing me, compressing me. I then imagined a bottle, a human-shaped bottle, and that giant hand forcing me into it. I felt the air around me heat up as the flash of light came over me, and then I stood on two legs once more.
Immediately, it felt like I'd taken off a strong pair of glasses and put mufflers over my ears. Everything felt so muted in comparison. My draconic body had been replaced by that of a give year old human, tiny, stubby and clumsy.
I sighed.
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Twenty minutes later I was sitting in the back of the car, munching on a packet of peanuts- transforming took a lot of energy -and wearing the stupid dress. It was a muted grey one and I got to wear a white cardigan over it so it wasn't as bad as it could've been, but still. It was the principle of the thing.
I fidgeted with the hem of the dress, uncomfortable but resigned to my fate. At least I was only banned from the forest for two weeks. It wasn't something I could do anything about now, so I pushed it out of my mind.
The fact that we would be attending the funeral of my grandfather was somewhat more immediately pressing in my mind. Now, I'd never met the man and Mom had literally never even mentioned him before last week; I hadn't even known his name before hearing it mentioned on the TV before Mom snatched the remote and turned it off. She had one day just announced that we would be going and offered no explanation or clarification. So, I didn't really know what Ryuunosuke Tatsuma had actually been like in life.
But, y'know, I could make inferences from what I did know, more than what Mom probably thought I could.
Ryuko was sixteen and Mom thirty-three, meaning she would've been seventeen when she had her. They would sometimes talk about Ryuko's childhood, and from what I could tell they went through some rough patches of life when she was very young. Just little things, like references to how she didn't have many toys or how they moved around a lot, other signs of monetary troubles. And given that Ryuunosuke Tatsuma was also known as Dragon Hero: Ryugo, one of the most successful Pro-Heroes in Japan and owner of the frankly quite massive estate we were now approaching…
So you've got a teenage pregnancy followed by estrangement. It certainly didn't paint a pretty picture.
Nor, for that matter, had I ever seen hide nor hair of Ryuko's father. Yes, Ryuko was technically my half-sister. Dad hadn't entered the picture until a couple of years later, though you wouldn't know it from seeing the two interact.
I was a more… planned addition to the family, after their situation had stabilized. They'd prepared in every fashion even remotely reasonable. And what they got stuck with was, well, me.
I knew I wasn't an easy child to deal with, alternating between being so quiet they'd forget I was there, and throwing tantrums about what must have been the weirdest little things.
And now I felt depressed again.
I shook my head; we'd arrived at the funeral. The Tatsuma family house was impressively traditional-looking and massive, a huge mansion built on top of a hillside overlooking the sea. We walked in through the front door, and there were even actual servants to greet us and usher us into the large room where the funeral was taking place.
The ceremony itself dragged on and on and on- I fidgeted in place, feeling dizzy and out of place. It was too cold and the room felt cramped. The smell of incense was clogging up in my nose, and every time I shifted around to get more comfortable, I'd get disapproving looks from the other guests.
The stares were the worst part: constantly being sized up and judged by standards I didn't have the faintest of clues about. Just about the only thing I could tell was that they kept glancing at my horns. The one thing keeping me still was what Mom had said earlier- "you will not embarrass us in front of the entire extended family". And even that was hanging on by a thread.
Mom was doing little better, though she seemed to alter between icy stoicness and frustrated stubbornness. Dad was unaffected, of course, though I thought I could spot a bit of indignation in his stance? It's hard to tell with him, but I've lived with him for over five years now. He'd taken a protective half-step forward, his black eyes locking gazes with anyone staring our way until they backed off. It helped, if only a little bit, but it helped.
Ryuko on the other hand was in her element. If I dyed my hair and wore contact lenses nobody would be able to tell we're siblings: hair and eyes aside, we looked nothing alike. Her smooth, neck-length white hair was slanted to the side, covering the right half of her face. She shared the same sharpened teeth and red eyes as I had, but hers had reptilian, slit pupils.
Ryuko had always been expressive, and when she wanted to be, elegant. The stares seemed to bounce off of her, and when it was our turn to make the incense offerings she led the way with confident grace, compared to our parents' stiff posture and me, following the motions in a daze.
We retook our positions, and with our part in the ceremony over and done with, I could breathe a little easier again. The attention of the funeral crowd was on the priest, and I took the opportunity to study the guests.
There weren't many, most of them seemed to be extended family. There was one major exception however- Todoroki Enji, the Flame Hero Endeavour. The man seemed displeased, for whatever reason. There were two others with him: a young boy around my age, with his hair split down the middle into white and red. His son presumably- I didn't pay too much attention to him, given the other companion: a tall man covered in scales. A frilled neck extended from his shoulders, ending in a distinct reptilian head that seemed quite familiar.
He'd seen us as we walked in, and looked like he'd eaten a grapefruit whole. He'd kept his eyes on us for a while now, his displeasure obvious, and given his features…
"...Who is that?"
I tried nudging at Mom, but she only shushed me, her jaw set. On my other side, Ryuko shifted uncomfortably, leaning closer to me.
"Ryuo Tatsuma, aka Dragon Hero: Ryuhachi."
"So he's..." I felt the pieces click to place.
"Our uncle, yes. The eighth Dragon Hero. He works for Endeavour's agency." She seemed about to say more, but the man in question seemed to have noticed my attention and was making his way over as the funeral ceremony came to a close.
Ryuo Tatsuma was a tall man- he had had to be approaching Dad in height- looming over everyone as he approached. He wore a suit and tie but went bare-feet, claws clacking against the floor.
By comparison my mother was tiny: though tall for a japanese woman she was only chest-level with her brother, but her presence more than matched his as she stepped in front of us, glaring up at him.
"What do you want, Ryuo?"
"Ryutsuki, Ryutsuki, is that any way to greet your brother, sixteen years after you ran off?" He spread his arms theatrically, and I could see the attention of the room refocusing on us.
"I seem to recall you and Father kicking us out, so you'll have to excuse me, brother."
"And yet here you stand, as if nothing had happened. As if you could just waltz back after spitting upon the name of Tatsuma."
With something approaching detachment I noted that Ryuo was deliberately drawing the attention of the guests upon the scene: he was putting on a display for the room.
"Did you expect to be welcomed here with open arms? After you've done nothing but waste the potential that was passed on to you?" He turned his attention towards Ryuko. "When you allow your children to lay claim to the mantle of the Dragon Hero, when they know nothing of the traditions behind it?"
Calm as ice, Ryuko stepped forward and laid a hand on Mom's shoulder, tugging her back. "Let's go, Mom. This isn't worth our time. He's just trying to goad you."
"I also saw that you'd spawned another one." Suddenly, all eyes in the room were on me, and I froze to the place like a deer caught in headlights. I hated being the center of attention at the best of times, and what with the whole "physically five years old" thing I counted my blessings I managed to preserve some part of my dignity by not bursting to tears right then and there, or worse.
"I hear you've inherited quite the Quirk from your mother? Planning on squandering it like she did?"
The adult part of me wanted to blow him off, say something snarky and show him I wasn't afraid of him. The five-year old part of me overruled that part hard and hid behind Dad, burying my face in his leg.
"How dare you." Mom seemed just about ready to murder her brother with only Ryuko's hand on her shoulder keeping her. I could feel the stinging odor of smoke in the air and there were small wisps escaping from between Mom's teeth as she ground out the words.
"You came to my home," He pointed out, before turning away. "I suggest you leave, Ryutsuki, and don't come back."
Mom ground her teeth again, but Dad took her hand in his and with the other on my shoulder, began steering us toward the exit. Once we were out through the door Dad lifted me into his arms, carrying me to the car with Mom and Ryuko in tow. We got in, Mom and Dad front, me and Ryuko in the back. For a few moments everyone was silent. Ryuko took my hand in hers, and held it until it stopped shaking.
"I'm sorry you had to see that, Ryuuzaki, Ryuko," Mom said with a sigh, leaning against her seat. "I wanted to… I wanted to say my goodbyes to your Grandfather, and show you some of my childhood home. I wanted the two of you to know at least something of where you came from. But I should've realized Ryuo would cause a scene."
"You couldn't have known." Dad laid a hand on her shoulder as he started the car and began driving us out of the estate towards home.
"No, I should've known. I should've come alone. Ryuunosuke was always obsessed with furthering the prestige of the Tatsuma name. He had grand ambitions, political ambitions, and he expected us to fall in line. Ryuo did. I didn't. I didn't want to become a Hero. I defied him when I went to art school, and when I had Ryuko, that was the last straw."
I glanced at Ryuko: she was harder to read nowadays, but she must've guessed at least some of what Mom had just told us, like I had.
"Ryuo had always been bitter about inheriting the weaker Quirk of the two of us, but I didn't realize… Well, it doesn't matter now. We won't be coming back to that place." She turned around in her seat, facing the two of us.
"If my brother tries to contact either of you, at any time, I want you to come to me immediately, okay? Don't try to talk to him. Promise me."
"I promise."
"I promise." I echoed after Ryuko, as the car pulled out onto the public street. For a while the car was silent again, the mood somber.
Then the quiet was broken by a gurgling noise, which took me a moment to realize was coming from my stomach.
"I think somebody hasn't eaten dinner." Dad said, his eyes glancing back at me before returning to the road. "I think we all need a little bit of a break. Ryuuzaki, where do you want to eat?"
"Pizza!"
"Can we not eat somewhere that won't clog our arteries?" I glared at Ryuko. I refused to be denied my greasy goodness. She and Mom were health and fitness nuts who conspired to keep me from anything actually tasty. Mom seemed to still be a little bit out of it, so I directed my best puppy eyes at Dad.
"Sorry Ryuko, but Ryuuzaki gets to pick this time."