"Ah! Kaijin…"
Kaijin looked up from his clipboard , his brows knitting. "What?"
"I think I awakened another quirk."
Silence.
Kaijin blinked. "…What?"
Dante dropped the weights with a loud clang that echoed throughout the gym. "I'm serious. During my last match, I'm sure you saw that fire right?"
Kaijin stood straighter, his expression shifting from surprise to full on interest. "You're not screwing with me?"
"You saw it with your own eyes."
"Alright," Kaijin said, putting his clipboard down. "Come, show me."
They moved through the gym to a reinforced sparring section behind the gym.
"I haven't tried using it yet," Dante warned. "It just… happened before. But I'll try it."
Kaijin folded his arms, watching intently.
Dante took his shirt off and focused.
He thought about the heat in his chest. The same pressure from when he first used it. The power, the need for power.
The air shimmered. Steam hissed off his body as cracks began forming across his skin like dried lava. Glowing orange veins lit up beneath his flesh. His eyes flared, his hair started to glow bright gold.
Then—
FWOOM!
A blast of heat surged out from his body, not wild and berserk like before, but definitely wild. His mouth parted, and flames started to come out of it along with all the cracks on his body.
The temperature around him skyrocketed and his body from his abs up burst into bright red flames.
Kaijin's eyes widened. "Holy hell…"
Dante stood there, the heat slowly fading away, his skin hissing as it cooled and the cracks sealed shut. His chest heaved, but his eyes were locked on Kaijin to see his reaction.
"…so?"
Kaijin grinned like someone who had just found a new puzzle to solve.
"Do it again, just with your hand." Kaijin said.
Dante looked at his hand, it turned a darker shade of red and fire started to form around it.
The fire danced steadily in Dante's palm, flickering from his hand. Kaijin stepped forward, arms crossed but eyes locked onto the fire.
"Does it hurt when you're doing that?" He asked, tilting his head slightly.
"Not really, just tickles," Dante muttered, staring into the fire. "It kinda feels like I'm flexing a muscle. It feels warm, nothing I can't handle."
Kaijin circled him slowly, examining the cracks along Dante's hands where faint embers pulsed.
"You can do this for your whole body, yes?" He asked.
Dante nodded. "Yes. I can make it come from pretty much anywhere, shoulders, mouth, chest, hands are the easiest to manage right now though."
"Neat," Kaijin said thoughtfully, tapping his chin. "How about your sludge? Can you ignite that too, seeing as it's part of your body?"
There was a slight pause. Dante looked down at his arm, where a thin stream of sludge had begun to harden into armour near his wrist.
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I haven't tried it. But I think they're seperate. Like two completely different systems, I can feel the fire flowing beneath my skin, but not quite the sludge."
"Interesting," Kaijin said, eyes narrowing. "So no combustion trails, no flame channels running through your body, just raw production at the source? You ever try a small controlled burst?"
Dante raised his free hand and focused. A spark flared to life above his palm, hovering like a candle light, small and quiet.
"Yeah. It takes more focus, but I can scale it down."
"And drawbacks?" Kaijin finally asked. "Burnout? Dehydration? Fatigue?"
"Nope," Dante said. "I feel perfectly fine, no calories lost. But when I use it across my whole body, I usually get really hot and start to steam up, but that's fine."
Kaijin stepped back, nodding slowly.
"You're one lucky kid." He said, clearly impressed. "But we're gonna have to test this properly. Measure the temperature, the limits."
…
Kazuya had just got done with a nice hardcore training session.
He shoved open the side door of the gym to the reinforced sparring room, towel around his neck, expecting the usual post gym peace and quiet.
Instead, he walked straight into a room with a human sun inside.
"What the hell—?!" He stuttered, stopped dead as a ripple of dry air washed over him.
In the middle of the training yard stood Dante, shirt off, body laced with glowing red cracks like magma veins, small plumes of steam rising from his skin. His whole upper body was ablaze, a white hot flame swirling in the air. Kaijin knelt on the other side of the training ground, holding a scorched, half melted long thermometer probe at arms length like it was about to explode.
"Oh, hey, Kazuya." Kaijin called casually, eyes not leaving the readout. "You came at a good time."
Kazuya blinked. "Yeah, great timing," he said, slowly walking around Dante, his face twisting in disbelief. "Then hell happened to him? Did you light him on fire??"
"Nope. Turns out our boy's got a second quirk," Kaijin said, holding up the reader. "We're clocking about 900°C at the core right now. You feel that right? This isn't even him fully pushing it."
Dante glanced over, still focused but grinning faintly. "Hey, Kazuya."
"You're on fire, dude," Kazuya said finally. "Like literally."
"I noticed."
Kazuya pointed at him. "You tell me I'm intense in my training. Look at you! You're making it hard to breath in here! Even the floor is starting to melt!"
Dante ceased the fire, his skin hissing.
Kaijin smirked and stood up. "We're running tests, seeing if he can modulate heat and control the burn radius. He's got no flame projection yet, but the internal pressure is off the charts."
"Great," Kazuya muttered. "I wanted to unwind, not walk into the kid I met years ago turn into a furnace."
Dante chuckled, his shoulders shaking slightly, ash flickers from the cracks in his collarbone.
"Sorry, " he said. "Got a little carried away."
Kazuya sighed and sat on the edge of a nearby bench, still watching Dante's body slowly return to normal, steam rolling from his chest. "Just don't burn the place down. You know I like this gym."
"I won't, I like it too." Dante said with a smile, then turned back to Kaijin. "Alright, what are we doing next?"
Kaijin held up a fresh gauge with fireproof gloves.
"Next," he said, "we're gonna see how fast you can heat up a steel plate from room temperature to its melting point. Let's see if your flames really are as hot as the thermometer said they were."
Kazuya leaned back, shaking his head with a sigh. "Yup. Totally normal day."
…
…
As the last few tests wrapped up and Dante's body was back to normal temperature, Kaijin jotted down a few final notes on his clipboard. Kazuya had grabbed a towel and started wiping down the bench covered in soot, muttering about how "this place is going to end up smelling like burnt rubber."
Dante pulled his shirt back on and gave the outside training area one last look. But something caught his eye, on the far wall, hidden behind a stack of weight plates, was a small, round little hole.
He walked over, crouching beside it. "Hey… what's this?" He muttered, brushing away the dust to reveal a smooth metal circle embedded in the wall.
Kaijin's voice cut sharply from behind him. "Don't touch that."
Dante looked back, a brow raised. "What even is it?"
Kaijin exhaled and set the clipboard down, walking over. "It's a lock. For a very old door behind that wall. No one's allowed in, students, trainers, not even Kazuya."
Dante stood up slowly, gaze still lingering on the strange keyhole. "Even Kazuya? Isn't he your second in command?"
Kaijin gave a short, dry chuckle. "Yeah, he's my right hand. Doesn't mean he's allowed to know what's in there."
Dante nodded, stepping away from the wall. "Alright. I won't mess with it."
Kaijin gave him a grateful pat on the shoulder. "I appreciate that."
Kazuya, still towering off nearby, squinted at the wall. "Still not even gonna give me a hint?"
"Nope," Kaijin said. "Not gonna happen."
Dante stretched, rolling his shoulders. "Mysterious hidden room in the back of a secret gym, something awesome must be behind there."
Kaijin grinned. "Not exactly awesome, but yeah."
Dante chuckled.
He grabbed his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. "Okay then, I'm out. Gonna head back, got school tomorrow…"
Kaijin gave him a wave. "Get some rest. We'll pick up when you next come down."
"Goodnight, Kaijin. Goodnight, Kazuya."
Kazuya raised a hand lazily. "Don't burn your apartment down in your sleep."
Dante stepped out into the night air, the door clicking shut behind him. He walked down the quiet sidewalk, he really wanted to see what was behind that door, but it was an itch he wasn't going to scratch. He respected Kaijin, so he let it go.