[Kupo]

---

| ★Jason Riviera★ | @crystalprincekupo
Location: UA, Tokyo, Japan. | Current Status: There's always higher to climb!
Now Playing: Lemon Demon - Eighth Wonder

---

'I have to get stronger.' This thought had been repeating in Kupo's head for years, burrowed in his mind since he could remember. Lately, in the few months since he'd started at UAU, it had gotten louder. All of his peers were so strong, almost all of them more geared towards combat than he was. Even having trained with his father and sister since he was small (mostly combat training), he was still outmatched. Of course, he wanted to be a rescue hero, but that was no excuse to be a subpar fighter. No excuse to give up or stop focusing on it. He could train his martial arts technique and (limited) strength as much as he wanted, keep challenging other students that he thought were on his level, but that was slow. Inefficient. Cowardly. The fastest way to improve was to fight people stronger than you, let them show you where your weaknesses lie and then target them. It meant he was far more likely to get hurt, of course. More likely to push himself too hard or exhaust himself. Kupo had done both, before. He entirely dedicated himself to his training.

So, when Jack had come home ranting and raving about another strong emitter student, Kupo's interest was piqued. He'd sent this 'Kaiser' an email via their university accounts, sometime in the past week.

Another hero, requesting help!

from: [e-mail], to: [e-mail]

Hi, Kaiser-san! I'm Jason, another first year hero-student. My cousin (Jack Orion, I think you met him?) said you were really strong, so I was wondering if you could help me with some combat training? I'd really really appreciate if you could please meet me at [exact location] in Ground Beta at 6am on Friday.
Thanks in advance! If you have any questions, or don't wanna meet up, please email back!
Sincerely,
Jason Riviera.

Then, he went to sleep at his usual early hour.

On Friday morning, a little over an hour before the scheduled meeting, he'd woken up to the annoyingly early dawn of summer. Kupo took a shower, got dressed in his PE uniform, had breakfast, and brushed his teeth, before heading off towards the now-open Ground Beta. When Leo arrived at the meeting point, he'd find Kupo standing across an empty city crossroads from him. They were in a more built-up area of the grounds, false skyscrapers rising all around and providing areas of both cooling shade and intense light focused almost like a magnifying glass. Kupo stood on the edge of the former. Streetlights, though turned off at the moment, stood along each of the roads leading away from them into different parts of the 'city'. The air wasn't cold, but had not yet warmed up to the summer day's heights.

Kupo was dressed in uniform, as stated, with the only notable exception being the medical device around his left wrist (attached to his forearm). He'd just done an aerobic warmup (evident by his light panting) and was now stretching as the other approached. He quickly hopped up to a proper posture, waving. "Hi! Thanks so much for coming, Kaiser-san! I hope the area I picked is alright, I thought this would be pretty boring for you and pretty short for me unless I gave myself a little terrain advantage, so now this can be worthwhile for both of us!" He finished stretching, then took a ready stance. "I, Snow Fox, challenge you, Little Devil, to a duel! Please, don't hold back!" His last sentence was not just a request, it was a plea. So many people saw the childlike form of Kupo in front of them, and went easy on him out of pity. It was clear by his tone of voice that Kupo was deadly serious about this.

[Leo Kaiser]

What you hide in your heart
appears in your eyes
Little Devil Stats & Quirk Schwarzkraft: S+ (Emitter) Allows the user to create Dark Energy constructs from the user's dark emotions. AWARENESS (B) VITALITY (D-) DURABILITY (D) SPEED (A-) DEXTERITY (C-) STRENGTH (C-) CQC COMBAT (C-) The boss theme is playing now, little fox.	Leo did not usually reply to emails. He did not really do much outside of glancing at them. Most of them were anonymous spam. Then one day, someone wrote their need for beef with him and said the magic word. Jack. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. He hadn't replied to the email, but he had showed up as requested. The guy was... small. Smaller than Jack. But he was his cousin, so there would probably be some kind of substance under there somewhere. Another mutant too, so he wasn't lying. Maybe. He didn't look too much like jack, but he did have the same hair color. He was partly curious to see if there was someone else around that could challenge his superiority like Jack could. That could push him like he could. That could kill him like he could. It was the only way for Leo to get stronger: A worthy opponent. Leonard stopped across from the guy like as if it was a cowboy duel. He stared silently at the guy yapping. Spewing the same kinda bullshit he had heard a bunch of other idiots say. A snap and he already wearing the jet black suit he was known for. Snowfox wouldn't even be able to finish the phrase about terrain advantage that a sea of black shot out from under Leo, instantly flooding the ground in black tar, washing past the young fox to carry on further, spreading in a wide area on the ground, then up the fake city and high in the sky, trapping the poor mutant in a dome made of Leonard's dark matter. The sheer range of Leonard's quirk making immediately apparent it would be futile to try and run before the dome fully formed and plunged the area in the dark. A single move that made a clear statement... and annihilated the so called advantage Snowfox was so brazenly boasting about. Brazen of him to treat this as if it was a run of the mill sparring match. Brazen of him to ask Leonard to not hold back. Jason was now trapped in Leonard's domain of absolute darkness, where only the brightest stars had the power to shine and not be snuffed out. The floor felt sticky and gooey, cold and very unsettling. Within that zone every inch of concrete had been covered in dark matter. If Jason had done some research with his draconic cousin, he would know that Leo pretty much recreated the conditions of his first bout with Jack.  It would now probably dawn on the foxy contender... that the ex-villain never had any intention to hold back... he intended to show him the same courtesy he showed Jack, should he fail to prove himself capable: a swift death. "Jack's cousin, huh~?" Leonard said, slowly transitioning into his fighting stance.  And when you stare into the Abyss, the abyss stares back... live and let die, fight start!

pyxis ★

[Kupo]

---

| ★Jason Riviera★ | @crystalprincekupo
Location: UA, Tokyo, Japan. | Current Status: There's always higher to climb!
Now Playing: Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Ray Dalton - Can't Hold Us
Awareness: A+ | Speed: A+ | Fighting Style: B | Dexterity: C+ | Acrobatics: C | Vitality: C- | Strength: C- | Durability: D-

---

As Leo's Quirk expanded outwards from him, cutting Kupo off, the young hero quickly stopped talking. It's clear this guy didn't wanna talk, clear that he was taking this just as seriously. Finally. As the wave of darkness swept past and around him, removing all light, Jason just took a deep breath. Step 1: Don't panic. Nobody is all-powerful, none without weakness. If he let himself be overwhelmed by an enemy's power, he'd lose before the fight began. Instead, Kupo honed in on his other senses. Spring green eyes did not see, but they shone through the darkness with that same twinkle as in daylight. No matter what, he was gonna keep fighting today. Otherwise, what had he even come out here for? To give up? This was the only way to truly get stronger: an opponent in a league of his own.

The landscape seemed lost in the infinite darkness, but was that really the case? Was his advantage really lost? Jason decided to debut a technique he'd been working on for a while. Initially, there was a high-pitched whining noise that could be misconstrued as the fear of a dog. This would quickly increase in frequency until it became hypersonic. A pulse of noise, too high for Leo to hear, rose from Kupo's throat and reverberated throughout the dome of dark matter. From each surface and detail, Kupo heard the staggered echoes and roughly built out a map of the space in his mind's eye. Bright eyes closed, blending in with the darkness that wrapped his form. Sure enough, in a second or two, he'd confirmed his suspicions. The dark matter obscured the urban playground around them, but did not delete it. With careful maneuvering, Kupo could still use his superior 3-dimensional mobility to somewhat level the playing field.

Of course, Kupo knew that Leo had the massive advantage of range, and fine control of their environment. He couldn't just rush in wildly, that only worked for people like Jack, able to over-power a tactical advantage with raw strength. Kupo hopped on his feet, testing the resistance of the floor to his motion and adjusting accordingly. His max vertical and leap were overkill for most navigation, so there was more than enough power to move freely here. He bounced back-and-forth within a small area, limiting the time he was in contact with the Quirk's substance, even with his usual fighting posture of standing on the front of his feet. He'd heard from Jack that Leo was fast, and smart, making great use of his strong and technical Quirk. He'd have to be reactive until he saw Leo's capabilities for himself. He waited, ready and alert to react to whatever Little Devil was about to throw at him as (he presumed) an early 'killing blow'. The only reply Leo received would be an excited yip, as Snow Fox took his own fluid stance.

Staring into the abyss without fear, the quick white fox jumps into action! With the will to live, fight start!

[Leo Kaiser]

What you hide in your heart
appears in your eyes
Little Devil Stats & Quirk Schwarzkraft: S+ (Emitter) Allows the user to create Dark Energy constructs from the user's dark emotions. AWARENESS (B) VITALITY (D-) DURABILITY (D) SPEED (A-) DEXTERITY (C-) STRENGTH (C-) CQC COMBAT (C-) The boss theme is playing now, little fox.	Leo of course, was already anticipating echolocation. That was the very first things many people tried to do when faced with the realization that their sight would be impaired. There was a sudden cachophony of many weird thunks and other metal on metal, then suddenly the entire place started squealing. Leo had just forcefully triggered as many car alarms as he had within range. Given that they could go on for hours and were kind of pretty grating, there would certainly be some nice disturbance to interfere with the high pitch noise he heard rising from where his opponent was. Reaching over to his own ears, Leo's hands molded some of the black goop into a pair of ear covers. While he couldn't just filter out the bad noise, he could reduce it until it was a non issue for him. He could kind of understand the other guy was on the move, but not the reason why they hadn't attacked. Nevertheless, Leonard Von Kaiser didn't need much invitation to attack someone. With a snap of his gloved finger, Leonard sprung his domain into action. From this point onward, a spike would immediately shoot out from any spot that was not touched by himself. That would for sure put a damper on enemy mobility, given he could control a whole city block worth of dark stuff. That and he would kind of be forcing the guy to keep on the move. The longer they played the floor is lava, the more stamina they would burn. And once a star's fuel runs out it dies and gets swallowed by the eternal dark. Now, let's see how the little kiddo dealth with this kind of approach...

pyxis ★