Chapter 262 Strongest Sparring

Location: USS Ronald Reagan Flight Deck, Classified Pacific Waters

Time: One Month Later | 2:00 PM

WHOOSH.

Salt spray blew across the steel flight deck of the American aircraft carrier anchored three hundred miles off the coast of Japan.

Leaning both elbows back against the safety railing of the observation platform, Mirko crossed her muscular legs and clicked her tongue loudly.

"...This is total bull, Hawks," Mirko complained, jerking her thumb toward the center of the tarmac while her white rabbit ears twitched in annoyance. "...I spent the last four weeks tearing up three different training mountains to master that 'Shave' footwork off his USB drive, and the stripey woman gets to fight him before I do?"

Standing beside her with his hands tucked into his tan jacket, Hawks chuckled softly as the ocean wind ruffled his red wings.

"...Relax, Rumi," Hawks said, tilting his tinted visor up with one finger. "...Star's been booking this match through the Pentagon since the day she bought those ten stealth jets from his company. Besides, you kick down his lobby doors every Saturday anyway."

"...And every Saturday he just dismissed me again and goes back to eating pork cutlets with his manager!" Mirko barked, cracking her knuckles with a fierce grin. "...Next time he steps onto solid ground, I'm dragging him into the ring whether he's off the clock or not."

Ten feet down the railing, Yokumiru Mera slumped over a portable HPSC monitoring console, rubbing his bloodshot eyes behind his glasses while two commission technicians typed frantically on their keyboards.

"...Sir, the orbital tracking satellites are already lagging by four seconds," one of the technicians reported, pointing at the flickering radar screen. "...Every time Hero X shifts his weight on the runway, the targeting computer loses his spatial coordinates."

"...Just switch the cameras to manual optical zoom and pray the lenses don't crack," Mera groaned into his scarf, reaching for a thermos of black coffee. "...My ulcer hasn't stopped burning since Geneva."

Over near the boarding ramp, Toshinori Yagi stood in his oversized yellow suit, smiling fondly as he looked across the deck toward the towering blonde woman warming up near the fighter jets.

Standing right beside Toshinori's left elbow, Mirai Sasaki adjusted his glasses, while Tsunagu Hakamada stood on his other side with Principal Nezu perched cheerfully on Tsunagu's shoulder.

Toshinori said softly, a proud light shining in his sunken blue eyes. "...Back when I saved her family in Santa Monica, she was just a little girl waving from the back window of a car... now look at her."

"...She modelled her entire heroic presence after yours, All Might," Principal Nezu remarked, holding onto Tsunagu's high denim collar with one white paw. "...Though watching how her New Order interacts with Hero X's Canvas today should give us a fascinating look at the very pinnacle of modern Quirks!"

"...Kudo, make sure your tablet is recording the barometric pressure readings," Tsunagu said, glancing over at Mirai. "...If those two actually trade blows, the shockwaves alone might push the carrier off course."

"...Eve is already logging the atmospheric data from Makoto's tablet, Tanaka," Mirai replied calmly, nodding toward Makoto, who was sitting comfortably on an ammunition crate sipping a canned lemon soda.

Down on the main runway, ten sleek, silver B-300 Valkyrie stealth jets sat lined up with their engines humming low.

CRACK.

Rolling her broad shoulders in a wide circle, Cathleen Bate grinned down at Ethan Drive and her squadron pilots standing beside the lead cockpit.

"...How do the new birds feel, boys?" Cathleen asked, slapping her gloved hand against the smooth, seam-free titanium wing of Ethan's jet.

"... Still the same, like flying a dream, Cathy!" Ethan Drive called back, patting his bald head before pulling his flight helmet down over his ears. "...Zero air drag on the turns, and the laser batteries charge twice as fast as our old F-35s! Still feels weird using a plane built by the guy we're about to shoot at, though!"

Up on the carrier's bridge wing, Commander Agpar leaned over the rail with a pair of heavy military binoculars hanging around his neck, flanked by three Pentagon defense secretaries.

TAP. TAP.

Walking casually across the painted white lines of the flight deck, Kaito approached the jets with his hands resting in the pockets of his slacks, his dark necktie fluttering lightly in the sea breeze.

"Hey, Star," Kaito called out, stopping twenty feet away from the nose cone of the lead fighter. "You ready to get started before the afternoon fog rolls in?"

Turning around with her red, white, and blue cape billowing behind her, Cathleen planted her fists on her hips and laughed loudly.

"Born ready, little bro!" Cathleen boomed, gesturing toward Ethan and the pilots climbing into their cockpits. "I told the boys to stay parked on the deck so you and I could have a clean one-on-one!"

Kaito shook his head, letting out an easy laugh as he pulled one hand out of his pocket and waved at the ten stealth fighters.

"Don't do that on my account, Cathleen," Kaito said warmly. "Everyone in the business knows Star and Stripe is at her absolute best when she's flying wing-to-wing with her brothers. Tell Ethan and the squadron to take off with you."

Cathleen blinked, her blue eyes widening slightly before a massive, ferocious grin split her face.

"...You heard the man, Bros!" Cathleen roared over her shoulder, tapping the comm unit on her collar. "...Scramble all ten Valkyries! Hero X wants the full American welcome!"

"[Roger that, Cathy!]" Ethan's voice crackled excitedly through the cockpit speakers as the ten canopy hoods hissed shut. "[Don't complain to the warranty department if we scratch your fancy suit, kid!]"

"Give it everything you've got," Kaito replied with a relaxed smile, walking past the jets toward the far edge of the flight deck. "If you guys hold back, this spar's gonna be over before everyone finishes their drinks."

ROOOOOAR!

Twin blue thrusters ignited across all ten Valkyrie stealth jets, blasting waves of hot exhaust across the deck as the squadron rocketed down the catapult tracks and climbed straight into the cloudless sky.

Crouching low on the tarmac, Cathleen kicked off the steel deck with enough force to dent the plating, launching her eight-foot frame hundreds of feet into the air to land squarely on the back of Ethan's climbing jet.

Over at the edge of the bow, Kaito didn't crouch or wind up his legs.

Stepping casually over the yellow safety line, he walked right off the front of the ship, his leather shoes clicking against the empty air fifty feet above the rolling Pacific waves as if he were climbing an invisible marble staircase.

--<>--

Location: Pacific Ocean Airspace, Five Miles Off the Carrier Bow

WHOOOOSH!

Two thousand feet above the water, the ten Valkyrie jets banked hard in a wide circle around Kaito, their wingtips slicing through the scattered clouds.

Standing upright on top of Ethan's cockpit without holding onto a single handle, Cathleen looked down at the white-suited figure floating calmly in the center of their ring.

"[All units in position, Cathy!]" Ethan barked over the squadron radio, locking his targeting reticle onto Kaito's chest. "[Firing opening laser salvo on your mark!]"

"Light him up, boys!" Cathleen shouted, kicking off the spine of the jet and diving straight toward Kaito with her right hand stretched out in front of her.

ZAAAAP!

Ten concentrated beams of red tactical laser fire lanced inward from every angle of the compass.

Right before the beams converged, Kaito took a single sideways step in mid-air.

SWISH.

The geometric space around his shoulders tilted by forty-five degrees, causing all ten laser beams to bend harmlessly past his ear and shoot into the upper atmosphere.

Dropping right into close range above him, Cathleen slapped her open palm against the empty sky and bellowed her command at the top of her lungs.

"New Order..." Cathleen whispered. "The air will cease to exist in the space a hundred meters ahead of me!"

THOOM!

A massive, invisible sphere of atmosphere vanished instantly around Kaito, creating a sudden vacuum that sucked the surrounding clouds inward with a deafening thunderclap.

'If he needs to speak or breathe to trigger his spatial folding, this vacuum will lock him down for Ethan's follow-up!' Cathleen thought, drawing her right fist back to smash him straight into the sea.

Standing inside the dead center of the airless void, Kaito didn't gasp or clutch at his throat.

With his hands still relaxed at his sides, he looked up at her descending fist and offered a polite, casual smile.

"[Cathy, he isn't even suffocating!]" one of the pilots yelled over the comms. "[Firing continuous beam array—grab it!]"

ZZZZZT!

All ten stealth jets fired a sustained stream of high-output lasers directly into Cathleen's left hand as she aborted her punch and caught the converging light in her palm.

"The laser is holdable!" Cathleen declared, her fingers closing tightly around the blinding energy.

CRACKLE!

The ten separate beams compressed together into a single, crackling javelin of solid red light fifty feet long.

Twisting her hips in mid-air, America's Number One Hero hurled the blazing spear point-blank at Kaito's chest.

"Take this!" Cathleen shouted.

Kaito raised his right hand, lining up his thumb and middle finger inside the vacuum.

SNAP.

Even without air molecules to carry the sound, the crisp snap echoed clearly across a five-mile radius.

The moment the tip of the solid laser javelin came within three inches of Kaito's necktie, the three-dimensional energy flattened completely.

SPLAT.

Instead of exploding, the lethal spear turned into a long, harmless strip of bright pink and blue neon spray paint hanging flat against the empty sky like a party streamer.

Down on the observation deck of the USS Ronald Reagan, Commander Agpar lowered his binoculars halfway down his nose, his mouth hanging open.

"...He just turned a sixty-megawatt combined laser array into a coat of paint," one of the Pentagon secretaries whispered, gripping the steel rail with white knuckles.

Standing a few yards away, Hawks let out a low whistle, squinting up at the pink streak floating in the clouds through the live monitor feed.

"...Did you catch his finger movement on the high-speed camera, Rumi?" Hawks asked, glancing sidelong at Mirko.

"...Hell no," Mirko grinned, her golden eyes wide and practically glowing as she bounced on the balls of her heels. "...The guy didn't even shift his center of gravity! Look at his posture—

, he's treating a military air raid like a walk to the convenience store!"

Beside the HPSC console, Tsunagu shook his head slowly as he watched the radar display.

"...Removing the oxygen around him didn't slow him down for a millisecond," Tsunagu murmured. "...Does the man even need to breathe while his Quirk is active, Kudo?"

"...Trying to apply biological rules to him is a waste of energy, Tanaka," Mirai replied quietly, pushing his glasses up his nose.

--<>--

Back up in the airspace, Cathleen flipped backward onto the wing of a passing Valkyrie jet, staring at the floating strip of neon paint in disbelief.

"[His quirk is really unreasonable as Cathy]" Ethan shouted over the radio, banking hard to avoid flying through the floating graffiti. "[My instrument panel says the laser energy didn't disperse... It literally turned into two-dimensional pigment!]"

"Don't lose focus, Bros! Circle back for pattern Delta!" Cathleen ordered, though she couldn't stop a thrilled laugh from bubbling up in her throat. "Let's see how he handles a full—"

Before she could finish her sentence, Kaito stepped forward in mid-air and vanished from the center of their formation.

STEP.

He reappeared three feet above the canopy of Ethan's lead jet, looking down through the tinted glass with a friendly wave of his left hand.

"...Whoa, crap! He's right on my nose!" Ethan yelled, yanking his control stick hard to the left.

"My turn to pick the stage," Kaito said smoothly, raising his right hand toward the ocean below.

SNAP.

A translucent grid of white lines expanded outward from Kaito's fingertips, sweeping across all ten stealth jets and Cathleen in less than a heartbeat.

WHOOMP!

The three-dimensional sky around the squadron collapsed straight downward like a folding cardboard box.

In the blink of an eye, Kaito, Cathleen, and all ten B-300 Valkyrie fighter jets vanished from the air and dropped flat onto the rolling surface of the Pacific Ocean.

"[What—where'd the sky go?!]" one of the younger pilots panicked over the radio, yanking furiously at his unresponsive throttle stick. "[Is this the 2D dimension? Everyone's talking about?Cap! My altimeter says zero, and my wings are flat as paper!]"

"[It should be, I can't even pull up!]" Ethan barked, looking out his flat cockpit window in total shock. "[We aren't flying above the water anymore—we're painted right onto the waves!]"

Across a two-mile stretch of the ocean, the rolling blue swells were now covered in a massive, hyper-detailed comic-book mural.

Flat, two-dimensional drawings of ten silver fighter jets and a giant blonde woman slid up and down across the crests of the moving ocean waves like living street art.

"[Fire the wing missiles! See if we can blast our way out of the water!]" another pilot shouted, mashing his weapon release button.

FWOOSH.

Four missiles slid out from the painted wings, traveling across the surface of the ocean waves as flat black-and-white pencil sketches before fizzling out into harmless ink bubbles against the foam.

"...My New Order isn't registering the water around us!" Cathleen called out through the comms, trying to lift her flat, two-dimensional boots off the crest of a thirty-foot wave. "...I can still talk to you boys, and I can move my arms, yet there's no third dimension here for me to grab!"

TAP. TAP.

Walking casually across the surface of the rolling wave-canvas, Kaito strolled right past the painted nose of Ethan's jet, his three-dimensional white suit standing completely upright on top of the water while the 2D drawings rippled beneath his shoes.

Stopping a few yards away from Cathleen's flat figure on the water, Kaito pushed his glasses slightly down the bridge of his nose and looked down at her with a playful, teasing grin.

"Come on now, Star, don't tell me that's all America's Number One has up her sleeve," Kaito joked lightly, resting one hand on his hip as the ocean breeze blew past his hair. "If you and your brothers keep holding back like this... you aren't even gonna brush the hem of my suit."

Down inside the flat surface of the wave, Cathleen's blue eyes twitched as a mix of sheer annoyance and fiery competitiveness shot straight through her veins.

"[Oh, did this guy just talk trash to the whole squadron?!]" Ethan hollered over the radio. "[Cathy, get us out of this puddle so we can blow that smug grin off his face!]"

"Oh, you just asked for it, X!" Cathleen laughed fiercely from the water.

Smiling warmly at their reaction, Kaito raised his right hand again.

SNAP.

POP!

The ocean surface rippled once, and the ten stealth jets along with Cathleen popped straight back into three-dimensional reality three thousand feet up in the sky.

"Agpar! Patch into the fleet submarine three miles south!" Cathleen roared into her collar mic the exact microsecond her body became solid again. "Tell them to launch the full rack of kinetic training cruise missiles on my coordinates right now!"

"[Wait, the Tiamat kinetic warheads?!]" Commander Agpar's voice crackled back from the carrier bridge. "[Cathy, even without nuclear payloads, six of those missiles hitting the same spot will vaporize half the sea!]"

"He told us not to hold back, didn't he?!" Cathleen shouted, slapping both of her hands outward against the open sky as her muscles bulged beneath her costume.

"FIST BUMP TO THE EARTH!"

BOOOOOOOOM!

The clouds above the Pacific Ocean parted violently as millions of tons of atmosphere compressed together, forming a colossal, thousand-meter-tall translucent avatar of Star and Stripe that towered from the ocean waves all the way into the stratosphere.

"AGHHH!"

SWIISH.

The invincible figurine punch directly to Kaito, with massive strength.

"That's more like it..." Kaito just raised his hand and then...

SNAP.

Star and Stripes then clap her hand and deliver devastating blow to Kaito of which he just SNAPPED again.

Another attack for Star and Stripes

"KERAUNOS!"

BOOOM.

But..

SNAP.

--<>--

Two miles away, the sea surface erupted with white foam as six supersonic cruise missiles breached the water, streaking straight toward the battle zone on pillars of orange fire.

"[All Valkyries, give Cathy one hundred percent reactor output on those missiles!]" Ethan yelled, lining all ten jets up behind the giant air avatar's shoulders.

Reaching out with both titanic, invisible hands, Cathleen's thousand-meter air giant snatched the six roaring cruise missiles right out of mid-flight while the ten stealth jets poured every ounce of their red laser reserves into the center of her palms.

"Let's see you paint over this, Hero X!" Cathleen roared.

"STATE OF THE ART... HYPERSONIC INTERCONTINENTAL CRUISE PUNCH!"

WHOOOOOOOSH!

With the force of a falling meteor, the thousand-meter giant drove the roaring punch of missiles and lasers straight down at Kaito.

Floating alone in the sky beneath the shadow of the descending lance, Kaito kept his left hand tucked neatly inside his trouser pocket.

"Heh.. What a long ass name."

Looking up into the blinding white glare with a calm, genuine smile, he raised his right hand and pressed his thumb against his middle finger.

SNAP.

--<>--

"Everyone brace for the shockwave!" Toshinori yelled on the carrier deck, throwing his arms out to shield Makoto and Principal Nezu as the blinding column of light dropped toward the sea five miles away.

Even Mirko and Hawks crouched low, gripping the steel railing to keep from getting blown into the water by the incoming blast.

Wait one second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

No explosion came.

No tidal wave rose from the horizon.

The deafening roar of six supersonic cruise missiles and ten military laser reactors simply vanished into dead, unbroken silence.

"...Huh?" Mirko blinked, slowly straightening her knees as she squinted out over the calm blue ocean. "...Where'd the boom go?"

Up on the high-definition tracking screen mounted above the HPSC console, the zoomed-in optical camera showed Kaito floating in the exact same spot fifty feet above the water.

Right in front of his chest, the thousand-meter air giant, the missiles, and the blinding punch were completely gone.

In their place floated a single, standard eight-by-eleven sheet of white notebook paper, printed with a tiny, colorful drawing of a giant woman holding a glowing spear.

Reaching out with his right hand, Kaito plucked the flat sheet of paper out of the air.

CRUMPLE.

CRUMPLE.

Using both hands, he casually balled the sheet of paper up into a tight little sphere the size of a golf ball and tossed it over his shoulder into the waves below.

PLOP.

The tiny paper ball bobbed harmlessly on the sea foam and sank out of sight.

CLATTER.

Up on the bridge wing, Commander Agpar's heavy binoculars slipped straight out of his fingers and bounced off the steel deck.

None of the three Pentagon secretaries beside him moved a muscle, their mouths hanging wide open as they stared at the empty sky where hundreds of millions of dollars of military ordnance had just been balled up like a grocery receipt.

Down by the railing, Toshinori slowly lowered his long arms, a bead of cold sweat rolling down the side of his hollow cheek.

"...Good grief," Toshinori whispered hoarsely, staring at the screen in pure awe. "...The sheer kinetic pressure Cathleen packed into that final strike was easily on par with my own United States of Smash in my prime... and he crumpled it like a piece of scrap paper."

Stepping half an inch closer to Toshinori's side so Hawks, Mirko, and Tsunagu wouldn't overhear them over the wind, Mirai kept his eyes fixed on the monitor and spoke in a low, quiet voice.

"...He doesn't clash against raw power, Toshinori," Mirai murmured privately to his former partner. "...Whether an attack carries a hundred pounds of force or a hundred million tons, once he folds the third dimension out of it, it's all just ink on a page to him."

Toshinori glanced sideways at Mirai and gave a tiny, stunned nod before looking over at Makoto.

Sitting on her crate with her empty soda can in hand, Makoto just shook her head with a fond, amused smile.

"...At least he didn't play his song this time," Makoto remarked lightly, standing up and brushing off her skirt. "...I think he actually took her seriously."

'Thats seems fair.' Everyone thought.

--<>--

High above the water, Cathleen floated in mid-air as her giant atmospheric avatar dissolved completely, her muscular arms hanging loosely at her sides while she stared down at the spot where the paper ball had sunk.

Inside the lead Valkyrie cockpit, Ethan Drive slowly took his hands off the flight stick and rubbed his face with both palms.

"[...Did he just wad up her final punch and throw it in the trash?]" Ethan asked over the open squadron channel, his voice cracking like a teenager's. "[Cathy... please tell me I'm hallucinating from altitude sickness.]"

For three full seconds, Cathleen didn't make a sound.

Then, throwing her blonde head all the way back, America's Number One Hero let out a massive, booming laugh that echoed across the open water.

"BWAHAHAHA! Oh, man, you weren't kidding about not brushing your suit!" Cathleen howled, wiping a tear of pure laughter from her eye as she looked down at Kaito. "Alright, I call uncle! You win, X!"

Smiling warmly, Kaito floated up to her level and raised his right hand.

"Come on, let's head back to the boat before Commander Agpar has a stroke on the bridge," Kaito said easily.

SNAP.

In a single blink, the spatial distance folded together.

Kaito and Cathleen appeared standing side-by-side right in the center of the USS Ronald Reagan's flight deck, while all ten Valkyrie stealth jets materialized neatly in their parked rows along the runway with their engines already cooled down.

THUD!

Walking straight over to Kaito with a huge, bright grin on her face, Cathleen clapped her heavy hand down onto his shoulder completely free of any bitterness, hurt pride, or jealousy.

"Master! Did you see that?!" Cathleen called out, waving enthusiastically toward Toshinori as he and the others walked out onto the tarmac to meet them. "Here I thought I was catching up to your old records, and Japan's been hiding a guy who can turn my biggest punch into spitballs! Knowing we've got somebody this crazy watching the world's back makes me sleep a whole lot better at night!"

"...You were magnificent up there, Cathleen," Toshinori laughed warmly, stepping up to shake her hand. "...Though I don't think anyone on earth was prepared for that ending."

CLACK-CLACK.

Popping their cockpit canopies open, Ethan Drive and the other nine Air Force pilots scrambled down their boarding ladders and jogged straight over to Kaito, holding out their white flight helmets and permanent markers like excited kids at an airshow.

"Yo, Hero X! No hard feelings about trying to vaporize you five minutes ago, man!" Ethan grinned, shoving his helmet and a black marker toward Kaito. "Sign the visor for me, will ya? None of the guys back at the California base are ever gonna believe you turned my jet into a comic strip on the ocean!"

"Mine too, sir! Put 'No Overtime' on the side!" another pilot chimed in eagerly.

Laughing as he uncapped the marker, Kaito started signing the helmets one by one while Mirko marched straight up to his elbow with her ears standing straight up.

"Alright, the American giant had her turn, X!" Mirko barked, jabbing a thumb at her own chest with a wild grin. "Your suit isn't even wrinkled! Put the pen down and let's go ten rounds right here on the deck!"

--<>--

A/n: Six hours blackout here. Wifi just got back up.

--<>--

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