Emperor

--- Chapter 9 ---

"Aoba's quirk might have caught their attention, woof." Kenji calmly said while staring at them.

The entire watase family immediately frowned when hearing this and intently stared at Kenji like they wanted an answer.

"The hero, who got defeated by Aoba a few hours ago was actually a [Pure Blood] villain in disguise," Kenji stated while putting two pictures side to side.

They looked at the pictures and immediately noticed a man, the hero that Aoba defeated earlier. While in the other photo, they saw a white-haired man with a wide grin on his face.

"Who's this person?" Shizuka asked while looking at the white-haired man's picture with a confused expression.

"They are the same person, woof," Kenji honestly answered, which really surprised Shizuka and Tomoe.

"Now, that's making sense now..." Aoba quietly muttered because it explained why this fake hero was bragging about a powerful villain he just fought, who was probably his villain teammate or himself.

"From our intelligence. There is a villain attack in katajo city near the hospital, and nearly all of the heroes launched there got injured, woof." Kenji presented them another picture, showcasing a few destroyed buildings and infrastructure

"One hero is missing, Fusen and his quirk is air blast. The [Pure Blood] villain killed Fusen and transformed into him, woof." He continued while releasing a sigh.

"The reason why he transformed into this guy?" Kyojuro asked while thinking about something.

"They want to merge into society because another hero group has arrived there, woof," Kenji replied while showing a few pictures of heroes, which looked oddly familiar to everyone in the room.

"All Might?" Rose suddenly opened her mouth and immediately hid herself behind Aoba because got embarrassed.

"That's why, he's running away…" Aoba commented while remembering a few things.

"Wait… Doesn't that mean, this man had two quirks?" He abruptly added, which caused the room to become silent.

"Right, that's why you caught their attention, Aoba-kun… You had two quirks, woof." Kenji said with a solemn expression on his doggy face.

Even though the police force has sealed the information from the outsider, someone leaked out about Aoba's quirk, which led them to a few spies, but it was a little too late the villain had found out this boy's existence.

"What should we do then? I don't want my son to get caught by a villain group." Shizuka suddenly asked with a worried expression.

"We have found a few ways to protect him, woof." Kenji said while showing his three fingers at them, which caused Kyojuro to frown because he had a hunch about what would happen.

"First, we assigned a special bodyguard for Aoba-kun, which will protect him from the shadow."

"Second, we put him in a hidden place, which our agents protect."

"Third, we changed his identity to hide him away from the outside world."

"I have the fourth way." The door suddenly got opened by a crimson-haired man, who had a smile on his face.

"He came to our empire so that we can aid him for his bravery." The crimson-haired man stated.

"Papa!" Rose suddenly jumped out of the sofa, and the man caught her.

"My little princess, I'm glad that you're safe." He softly hugged his little princess with a gentle expression on his face.

"You are suffocating her, honey." A beautiful white-haired woman also entered the room and smiled at them.

"Haha, is that so? My little princess?" The man asked while looking at Rose, who shook her head.

"Nope!" Rose replied, which caused them to laugh as if they were in their own world.

This scene in front of him reminds Aoba about Tomoe and Shizuka, who are always cheerfully hugging him like no tomorrow.

"Deja Vu?" Aoba commented.

The father and daughter kept hugging for a few seconds and stopped when the mother coughed.

"Honey." Rose's mother slightly frowned.

"Haha, my bad, my bad." The man, who was supposed to be an emperor, laughed while giving them a sorry look.

"Let me introduce myself."

"My name is Lucien Vermillion, the ninth emperor of the vermilion empire." Rose's father introduced himself while greeting them with a slight bow.

"No, your majesty, don't bow your head, woof." Kenji suddenly said because Lucien shouldn't do this.

"It's fine. It also can be considered as a gratitude bow because they saved my precious daughter." Lucien humbly replied and slightly released a chuckle.

"He's right. If they didn't save our daughter, we probably would be devastated right now." Rose's mother suddenly said, which caused Kenji to stare at them with a surprised expression.

"Also, let me introduce myself too." She continued while bowing her head a little. "My name is Elucia Vermilion. Thank you for saving our daughter."

"You're welcome." Aoba calmly responded without any hesitation because their status wasn't really important in his eyes.

He also somehow respected them because willing to bow their heads for Rose, which is really different from noble clans he knew in the past.

Lucien Vermillion looked at Aoba with a surprised expression for a moment and chuckled. "I see, you're the one, huh," He said.

"Thank you for saving my daughter." Lucien offered his right hand at Aoba, and he calmly shook it.

"Aoba, you're in front of an emperor. You should be more polite." Fuyumi suddenly said, but Lucien only shook his head.

"It's fine. He's still a kid." Lucien responded, which caused Fuyumi to become slightly worried.

Kyojuro stood up from his seat and walked toward Lucien. "Watase Kyojuro." He calmly said.

"Watase?" Lucien tilted his head and looked at Kyojuro with a surprised expression.

"Don't tell me. You're the last Onimusha?" He continued.

"Yes," Kyojuro responded with a nod, and Lucien immediately shook his head.

"My father has told me about your family in the past. He said that Watase Kyoichiro had saved his life." Lucien stated.

"Ah… I never heard anything about that." Kyojuro awkwardly replied.

They awkwardly shook each other's hands for a few seconds, and the room became really quiet all of a sudden.

"Let's talk about your fourth way, vermillion emperor." Then, Aoba broke the awkward situation by asking a question.

"Sure, let's talk while having dinner, shall we?" Lucien smiled at Aoba while thinking that this boy is really odd.