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Superman In A Romance Anime (AU) Chapter 96: Duty Bound
🕑 Added 2025-11-18 21:25:39 +0000 UTC[Third Person Pov]
Clark, Lala, and Momo descended deeper into the fortress inside an elevator that looked less like a machine and more like a column of living light. A shimmering prism surrounded them, its walls shifting with soft colors. The hum was gentle, almost soothing, but the atmosphere between the three was far from calm. Clark leaned back with his arms crossed, trying—and failing—to maintain a stoic expression while Momo was still snickering under her breath.
“I’m telling grandma,” Clark said flatly.
The effect was immediate. Momo’s laughter died mid-note, freezing her in place like someone had hit a pause button.
“What?! You snitch!” she burst out, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “What are you, a little girl?! Take the prank like a man!”
Clark’s eye twitched. He reached out, grabbed her by the head, and began clawing at her scalp with controlled but very real irritation. “You built a sex dungeon in my fortress…” he growled, voice tight with disbelief.
“Ow-ow-ow-ow—okay, okay, I’m sorry!” Momo yelped, flailing her arms as she tried prying his fingers free. “In my defense it was a hilarious idea!!”
Lala had a hand over her mouth, giggling behind her fingers as the elevator softly chimed and slowed. The prism peeled open like flower petals, revealing a massive circular chamber bathed in pale blue light. Floating around them were dozens of 3D holographic projections—entire solar systems spinning in place, star maps rotating, and detailed models of planets suspended in the air like glowing marbles.
“Woah…” both Clark and Momo breathed as they stepped out, instantly dwarfed by the scale of the room.
“This is the monitor room,” Lala said proudly, walking ahead with a slight skip in her step. “It tracks criminal activity, emergency signals, and distress calls across multiple sectors of this galaxy specifically. It’s one of my favorite projects!”
She reached up and plucked a holographic Earth from the air, handing it to Clark. The projection shifted in his palms, continent outlines glowing beneath tiny red dots that flickered all across the globe.
Clark’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, perfect.”
He walked around the room slowly, noticing more holographic planets with their own clusters of emergency markers. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Why are you increasing my workload, Lala…?”
Lala stiffened, ears twitching anxiously. “Did I… do something wrong?”
“No. Not really,” Clark muttered. “It’s just a personal annoyance. A big one.”
Momo opened her mouth to comment, but before she got a word out, a sudden gust of wind hit both her and Lala. They stumbled back a step as Clark vanished from where he stood, leaving only a fading ripple of light behind.
“Clark…?” Momo blinked, then looked around in disbelief. “Did he just—”
“Look,” Lala whispered.
The 3D Earth in the air showed the red dots rapidly vanishing. One blinked bright red, then instantly went dark, as if snuffed out. A second later, another disappeared. Then another.
“He’s seriously taking them down one by one,” Momo muttered, a mixture of exasperation and awe washing over her. “He couldn’t wait five seconds…”
Lala grinned from ear to ear. “Let’s take a closer look!”
She tapped one of the remaining red dots. A holographic screen expanded outward, showing a purse snatching underway—two men on a motorcycle speeding down the street. A blur of red and white cut through the frame, and the next instant the thieves were tied up neatly on the ground, their bike parked politely on the sidewalk while the bewildered woman held her purse with both hands.
Lala giggled and tapped another. The scene shifted to Clark phasing into a house mid-robbery, disarming two masked intruders and securing them before disappearing again in the same heartbeat.
Momo pressed the next one. Clark was already airborne, carrying a man suffering from a heart attack straight into the emergency building as startled nurses rushed forward.
“Show me the next,” Momo said, now fully invested.
The projection revealed Clark descending from the sky with a hiker slung over his shoulder, the man’s leg clearly broken. Clark placed him gently at the base of the mountain before disappearing once more.
Red dot after red dot faded from the map, each one replaced by a scene of Clark intervening, rescuing, or stopping a crisis within seconds of its appearance. Finally, for the briefest moment, the Earth projection showed no alerts—clean, calm, peaceful.
Then a burst of wind roared through the room.
They turned just in time to see Clark appear behind them, hunched over with his hands braced on his knees. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he tried to catch his breath, one hand lifting to cover his eyes.
“Lala…” he managed, voice strained. “Shut. It. Down”
“Wha—? Oh! Right!” Lala said quickly. She flung the hologram aside, causing the projection to dissolve into particles of light.
Clark stayed bent over, breathing hard, while Momo patted his back with exaggerated sympathy.
“You know,” she said, “you could have just ignored the screen.”
“Don’t,” Clark wheezed, not lifting his head. “Just… don’t.”
“This is one of those times I hate doing what I do…” Clark grumbled, voice low and weary. He dragged a hand down his face, irritation flickering across his features. “It’s why I called it slave work. The moment I took the mantle of ‘hero,’ I lost the luxury of pretending I don’t see trouble anymore.”
He straightened just enough to meet their eyes, the light from the hovering star map reflecting against the exhaustion in his expression. Frustration. Resignation.
“It’s one thing if danger happens and I’m unaware of it,” he continued, tone tightening. “But it’s another entirely if danger is right there—right in front of me—and I’m deliberately aware of it. If I know someone is about to get hurt and I just walk away and choose to ignore it? That isn’t ignorance. That’s negligence. That’s me choosing comfort over responsibility.”
Momo’s smirk faded a little. Lala’s ears dipped.
Clark looked between them. “I don’t get to choose when it’s convenient for me to help someone and when it’s not. That’s not being a hero—that’s playing God with the fate and welfare of people. The moment I stopped being just Clark Ayase and decided to be Superman, I accepted the obligation. The duty. The burden. If trouble is there and I see it… then it’s my problem. Always. No questions about it”
He let his shoulders sag. “It’s why I couldn’t ignore Lala when she needed my help. And why I couldn’t ignore that damn screen even though I really, really wanted to. Even though it annoyed the hell out of me.”
Clark sharply exhaled, pressing his palm to his forehead. “Coming here was a mistake…” he muttered under his breath.
Lala’s eyes widened. Momo blinked, genuinely taken aback. Neither had expected this kind of admission from him—not even close.
Clark inhaled again, steadying himself. “Look… I’m sorry for raising my voice—”
He stopped. Mostly because he suddenly found himself with an armful of two girls hugging him from both sides, squeezing tightly as if they could physically pull the stress out of him.
“What the hell are you two doing?” Clark asked flatly, glancing down at the pair of them clinging to his torso.
“Comforting you,” Lala said sweetly, looking up at him with her warm, gentle smile.
“Yeah. You’ve got it rough, little bro,” Momo added, though her teasing tone softened the words. “You looked like you could seriously use a hug.”
“I’m clearly older than you…” Clark deadpanned.
“Shhh…” Momo whispered, patting his back like she was consoling an upset toddler.
Clark tilted his head back, staring up at the ceiling as if silently asking the universe for patience. His chest rose and fell with a long, weary sigh—right up until he noticed a bright red flash dancing across the starmap projection above them.
“...fuck,” he muttered.
Both girls flinched and glanced up at the blinking warning light.
“I’ll turn it off…” Lala offered sheepishly, lifting a hand toward the console.
“Don’t,” Clark said before she could touch anything. “It’s far too late.”
He floated upward out of their embrace, the air gently swirling around him as he ascended. His cape rippled behind him, catching the glow of the room’s golden and blue projections, making him look almost mythic—like something carved out of starlight.
“Besides,” he added, voice calmer now, “it was inevitable that my work would take me off-world sooner or later.”
Momo and Lala watched him rise, wide-eyed, as he hovered above them. Clark’s gaze turned toward Lala—not stern, not annoyed anymore, but steady and resolute.
“After all… Superman was never meant to be the hero of just Earth and humanity. He’s the hero of the people… of everyone.” His voice grew firmer. “And that includes aliens—every life, no matter the world it comes from.”
Momo leaned toward Lala and whispered loudly, “He’s talking in third person. I think he finally snapped.”
Lala giggled softly, hands clasped over her heart, her cheeks warm with admiration. She never took her eyes off Clark.
“I think,” she murmured, “he’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”
