Chapter 35

Mirko's agency occupied a simple building in the third district of Samurai; it was built to be functional and compact, and the doorframe looked like it had been replaced at least twice. When I arrived, she was waiting for me in her training gear, looking at me from head to toe like someone deciding how hard an object could be thrown.

"So you're the sports Festival kid," she said, crossing her arms. "I watched your matches. Tell me, why did you hold back the entire tournament?"

"There was no reason for me to show everything that I could do in public," I replied while looking back at her.

"So you sandbagged the whole thing."

"I just acted at the level the situation required."

She held my gaze for a moment, then turned toward the back. 

"I see. Since it's your first day, we're not doing any patrol. We're doing conditioning instead; you better keep up."

The inside of her agency and her training facility were lacking compared to U.A.'s. It was sparse at best; the training equipment was built for raw physical strain: heavy bags, iron plates, and rubber floor padding. 

….

Three hours later…

‘ To hell with this shit. What Mirko called training had just a beginning and no other structure. She kept applying pressure on me until something gave way; she would then let me rest for a short time before doing it again, but faster. That's all, that's her whole strategy. I wanted to give up multiple times, but I kept pushing forward without complaining.’

For the past three hours, she did not hold back on me. Her leg whipped around in an axe kick that whistled past my ear, cracking the floor padding where my head had been a second prior. Before I could try to fight back, she closed the distance, driving a heavy palm strike into my crossed forearms. The impact sent me sliding three feet backward across the mat, leaving my arms aching.

Even when I was using the black ghost, she kept avoiding its attack simply by relying on her instinct before coming back at me harder.

Mirko stepped forward and grabbed my right forearm, her thumb digging into the bruised muscle. "You sure know how to take a beating," she said, her tone shifting from boisterous to analytical. "Your muscles should be screaming at this moment, but your breathing is still stable, and your face didn't twitch even when I hit you."

"I'm very good at taking a beating," I said, keeping my breathing even and doing my best not to start swearing. 

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't feel pain. You're taking hits that could fracture bone," Mirko's eyes narrowed. 

"What can I say? I'm just sturdier than I look," I answered smoothly. 

She stared at me, then grinned. 

"So you're saying you won't complain no matter how hard I go on you. Bold words, Specter; let's see how long that mentality holds up when we double the pace."

She launched forward again, landing a heavy kick to my left shoulder. I staggered, found my footing, and kept my guard up, masking my frustration as best I could.

Mirko stopped. 

"That should have put you down."

"It hurt." 

' Yeah, that one definitely hurt. The bone may not be broken because she's holding back, but if I don't reset later, I'm going to be quite sore tomorrow.’

"That's not what I asked."

She watched me closely, noting the slight shift in my stance as I compensated for the shoulder. Since I didn't say anything more about it, she continued to push me for another twenty minutes of high-speed drills. Every time a hit landed, I gave her as little visible reaction as possible.

Once she was done, I was lying on the floor. She threw a towel at me and sat on the edge of a bench before picking up a notepad. "Patrols start at six tomorrow. Your role is just observing, not acting. Do you understand?”

Once she saw me nod, she continued speaking.

“Good. Tell me, can you fly independently, or does the *Ghost* is that how you call it carry you?"

"Yeah, you can call it that. It carries me; I control direction and altitude."

"We go east. You stay in the air and call me whenever you see something." She set her pen down. 

"Now, go home."

On the train back, I watched the city move past the window. 

She had noticed the gap between the impact I took and how I reacted afterward, filing it away. I hope she doesn't believe I'm a masochist or something.’

Once I came back, my mother asked how it went the moment I walked through the door.

"Hard, she had me on the floor the whole day, but I'm learning quite a few things from her," I said.

She accepted that, made tea, and asked follow-up questions about Mirko's personality that I answered in single words until she gave up.

My father looked up from the table. 

"You came back in one piece."

"Yes."

"She's that good?"

"She was even better than I expected." My answer seemed to satisfy him since he stopped asking more questions.

At six in the morning, Mirko was already moving when I met her at the district boundary. Without a greeting or briefing, she pointed east and took off.

I took altitude, letting the Black Ghost carry me to the same level as the main roofline, nearly two hundred meters up. Below, the city was mostly empty with only some delivery trucks, early commuters, and the quiet of a town waking up.

"There's something on the corner of Fifth and Haname," I said into the earpiece. "Two people on the convenience store roof. They aren't moving; it seems like they are Lookout.

Mirko immediately answers back.Age.”

"I think they're in their late teens. I don't see anything else in particular."

"Leave them." She didn't break her stride.

Mirko ran patrols the same way she fought: fast and aggressive. She bounced across the ledges and alleyways while I continued following her and giving a report. But forty minutes in, she stopped cold on the edge of a seven-story building, her long ears twitching in the wind.

"You're doing this the wrong way," she called out, stepping off the ledge without warning.

I flew down to the edge and watched her drop onto a fire escape three floors down.

"You're relying too much on staring straight down," she said, jumping back to the roof in a single leap. "From way up there, you miss whatever sits under the roof or overhangs. Look at that second-story window across the street. See how the glass reflects the alley underneath? If you stay up there, you'll see nothing but shadow.”

"Got it," I said.

"Don't just say it. You're checking the map, but you aren't looking at the actual buildings."

I brought the black ghost lower, staying near the window lines instead of hovering high overhead.

Ninety minutes in, she called out another of my mistakes when I reported a suspicious vehicle two streets over that she had already rerouted around.

"You checked the alley, but you skipped the stairs under the basement exit," she said, pointing at a concrete recessed section hidden beneath a fire escape. 

"You're calling what you see. Call what you expect to see."

I didn't answer since it would sound like an excuse. She was right. By midmorning, the patrol settled into an ordinary rhythm. Mirko stopped at a vending machine near the eastern boundary, bought two cans, and handed one up to me without comment when the Black Ghost brought me down.

She drank in silence for a moment.

"Most interns fill the silence," she said eventually.

"I'm not the chatty type."

"That's not what I meant." She looked sideways at me. "You've been up there three hours, and all I've had was clean callouts from you." She crushed her can. 

"And that shoulder yesterday. You favored it for the rest of the day after I hit it, then today you just stopped."

"I heal fast when I'm asleep."

 "That's a different thing." She said, clearly unconvinced by my answer.

I just stayed quiet. Mirko looked at me for another second, then nodded back toward the route. "We go again tomorrow. Same time."

….

Wednesday afternoon brought our first real emergency call. A dispatch reported a fire in a multi-story retail building three streets off our route. Smoke was pouring from the upper floors, and two civilians were still trapped inside.

"Stay outside and keep your eyes up!” Mirko didn't wait for the fire department. She kicked open the front entrance and charged into the burning lobby.

She called over the roar of the flames. "Use that ghost to guide me through!"

I stayed on the pavement, sending the Black Ghost flying through a broken window on the third floor. The smoke was thick enough to blind blind normal people. 

"The ground floor is clear," I reported into the earpiece. "Take the main stairs to the third floor. The north stairwell is failing, but the south holds for now despite debris landing on its way. I see two people on the fourth floor; one of them is still moving, the other one is unresponsive."

"Got it," her voice came back over the radio.

Through the Black Ghost perception, I tracked her movement, calling adjustments as she navigated the corridor.

" The ceiling above them, it's about to give out!"

Tons of concrete collapsed toward the civilian. Mirko threw herself over them, absorbing the impact directly across her back and left shoulder before shoving the heavy wreckage off.

"Are you alright? You took a heavy hit," I asked, while keeping a visual over the surroundings to avoid another incident. 

"I'm fine! Don't worry about me, just tell me which way to go.”Mirko grunted, her voice raspy from smoke.

"The left corridor is completely blocked by rubble. You have a narrow opening to your right leading straight to the fire escape. Turn right, five steps, then push through the door."

Seconds later, Mirko burst through the emergency exit, carrying a child with one arm while an older woman leaned against her side. She set both civilians safely on the pavement, where paramedics immediately rushed over.

Mirko leaned against the curb, breathing heavily, soot staining her forehead. Her left shoulder was visibly swollen, and she held her left arm slightly away from her body.

"You made it out," I said, stepping beside her.

A paramedic approached, but she waved them off with her good arm. She looked up at me with a sharp grin.

"Your ghost called those paths perfectly through the smoke," she said. "Saved me from walking straight into a dead end."

"You took a bad hit saving them," I noted, watching her shoulder. "We can wrap up early and let the medical staff take a look."

"Hell no," Mirko grunted, forcing herself upright and popping her shoulder back into place with a sharp wince. "We still have two miles left on patrol. We are finishing this shift."

I didn't argue with her. I took altitude again, while she moved with her in front of me, neither of us mentioning her injury for the rest of the route.