Chapter 17 – The Little Girl 

Raiko's POV

Four and a Half Months later

I was once again doing my nightly patrol, thinking about how I could find The Invisible Rose. Over the last few months, I had been invistigating them and it hadn't been very fruitful, even with Giran's help.

Faithful to their name, they were invisible. I had been studying their crimes and I had discovered some very concerning and interesting things.

Firstly, I was convinced that someone in their group had a quirk that made someone invisible, probably their leader.

Why? Because each of their crimes was committed by someone seemingly invisible, but that was also using a quirk. And there had been multiple assassins, I was pretty sure, as each assassin had different methods and left a different variety of rose on the crime scene.

Wait…They left roses on each of their crime scenes, often times rare species of roses. And unless they had their own garden, they must've bought the rose someone soon before the crime, as the flowers were always fresh.

I could find the person who buys the roses and track them down to The Invisible Hand. They probably took precautions, they weren't dumb and quite careful, but it could be a possible lead on them, one that I desperately needed.

Nice! Now I only needed to spy on every flower shop that sold rare varieties of roses and wait to see if someone had bought the rose that had been used on the crime scene, then find said person. I could work with that, after all, I wasn't a genius for nothing...

Speaking of genius, I was in my second year of high school, with the 16-year-old, and I was ten… Things were going well, and my parents were happy with my progress, how could they not.

Although they weren't that present in my life since a couple of years ago. They were both working nearly all the time since we had agreed that I was as mature as an adult and didn't really need them that much. It was still nice to see them, but I was far from dependent on them. I had my secrets and I didn't need, nor did they want, to know everything about me. They obviously knew I was the Vigilante Knockout, but we liked to pretend we were a normal family when we say each other.

They agreed with me and, since then, they had moved to an apartment closer to their work, but still came over to the mansion/castle as often as they could.

That left me with a gargantuan house all for myself and, of course, my guardian who, at this point, was more of a grandma to me. Though, she doesn't know I'm Knockout. I'm sure she wouldn't mind at all, but she would always worry about me and it would stress her to no end knowing that I could be in danger (even though I was not).

Quickly pulling me out of my thoughts, I heard a scream in the distance. I quickly started to run on the roof of buildings, moving toward the scream, which seemed to come from a child, and that made me run even faster.

I arrived and saw an awfully common scene, two adults beating a small kid that was probably younger than me (remember I am only ten). I didn't know why they were doing it, and it honestly didn't matter, they were no good reason as for why someone would beat a small child, so I quickly beat both men, gave them a good concussion and broke their legs.

After doing what was right, I help the kid, who was a little girl, and asked her what happened.

"I was trying to be a hero -sob-, like you or Present Mic, and stop those bad guys from beating a teen…But then they attacked me instead, and I froze! I wasn't a hero at all, not like you… -sob-. I couldn't even use my quirk…I was useless…-sob-."

Well, her intention was good, but she was incredibly stupid, but, at least, she had the heart of a hero, so, with a warning, she probably wouldn't attempt this again. I checked her quirk, not to check if she was quirkless, I knew how powerful quirkless people could be, I was trained by Knuckle Duster after all, but to be able to give her advice on the type of hero she could become, where she would excel.

Sound Control (7134): Allows user to control sound with hand movements.

Well sh*t, that was a powerful quirk if I ever saw one, it was brutal. It wasn't like Present Mic's quirk, that allowed him to amplify his voice. No, it was control over sound, which meant that she was able to nullify, amplify, modify, to whatever she wanted with sound. With enough training, it could be unstoppable, as sound was very hard to defend against when you were unprepared. With enough training, it could be perfect for all situations.

I still replied to her:

"I know you were trying to be a hero, but do you know why me and the heroes are able to save everyone and defeat villains? It's because we trained hard so we were powerful enough to save people and defeat the villain. So, I need you to understand that what you did was very dangerous, if I hadn't been there, you could've been gravely injured, or worse. Do you understand? Tell me, little girl, what is your quirk? Because special quirks help a lot when you try to be a hero, but even if yours isn't all powerful, you can still be a hero with enough training."

I asked her that only so that I could give her a little confidence that she would definitely lack after this incident.

"My quirk is Sound Control, I can control sound, but it's not very powerful. Can I still become a hero?" She said, full of hope, but seeming a little downcast about her quirk.

"Of course, your quirk is awesome! You know Present Mic, right? You quirk is like his, but even better. I'm sure that with enough training, you'll be able to da awesome things. Think about it, you can control sound, why can't you nullify it, or amplify it, or modify it? Even though you think your quirk isn't really powerful, it's just that you didn't train it enough yet. I have a friend who thought he had a bad quirk, but still trained it day after day to improve himself. Now, he's super powerful. It could be you!"

Now, that part about the friend was complete and utter bullsh*t, but the girl would never know that and it would (hopefully) motivate her. Everything else that I said was true and came from my heart, though.

And when I saw the literal stars the girl had in her eyes after I spoke, I knew it worked. She gasped and replied, with an enlightened look on her face:

"Yes! Thank you Knockout. I promise I won't try to play the hero again when I can't defend myself."

"No problem kid, now let's drop you to the hospital, shall we?"

After I gave the villains to the police, I took the small girl to the hospital, which didn't take long considering I had a warp gate quirk. I ensured that she had called someone who would look out for her before I directly went home, not doing any Vigilante work today.

Man, talking to a small kid while actually putting emotions in my voice was tiring, but tonight was rewarding as well. It was why I had become a Vigilante, to help people.