BLOOD AND RUST WERE THE HUES THAT TAINTED HER VISION. They were the colours that followed her wherever she went. It stained the air, tainted her very being. And it manifested itself within her very quirk, as if reminding her that she could never escape it's grasp.

Kali lay resting in one of the hospital rooms dedicated to long-stay patients when Zinnia arrived with arms of her mother's luggage in tow, and a sharp crease between her brows as she gazed upon the sickly woman's ghostly visage. A drip was hooked into her arm with a unit of blood feeding into her, and all the standard monitoring equipment was attached like the lifelines they were synonymous with. Zinnia could see without fail that her mother's readings were a little high, as she'd already come to expect.

But at least she was stable.

In and out, the woman breathed, labored perhaps, but otherwise still undeniably "alive", and the rhythmic tones of the heart-rate monitor only confirmed the information for Zinnia. And yet, in spite of that, she couldn't help but gaze at Kali's form to burn the reminder into every facet of her conscious mind until it took permanent hold of her gnawing doubts.

'She will be asleep for at least a short while.' Spoke a voice from the door of the room, bringing Zinnia's attention away from her mother within an instance.

Seiya's familiar form stood in the doorway, with his doctors coat affixed in place and his hands otherwise buried in the pockets of his coat. His rather expressionless form was a common sight, however the edge of his gaze shifting towards Kali's form lying in the hospital bed was perhaps, a little more stern than what he usually wore.

'At the present moment she needs undisturbed rest, so we are keeping her in an induced coma to accommodate that.' The man who may well be dubbed as Zinnia's mentor spoke as he turned his attention back to her. 'She will be roused in twenty four hours to check her recovery progress, as you should already know.'

Zinnia inclined her head forward in a brief nod as she carefully set Kali's belongings on the table at her bedside. 'The umm ... dog apparently jumped up onto her...'

'So Hatori had informed me when they brought her in.' Seiya responded in almost a rather dismissive manner.

'... This isn't as bad as other relapses she's had, right?'

There was no immediate response, even as Seiya turned on his heel to head back out onto the floor.

'You have more important things to concern yourself with right now, do you not?' Was all he said as he disappeared from sight, leaving Zinnia to stand there staring down at Kali's unconscious form. 'Don't forget to increase your intake of fluids while you can.'

More important things, was it?

Zinnia's breath trembled as she tried to get her thoughts back in order.

Seiya was right; Now wasn't the time to sit dutifully at her mother's bedside while she was in an induced coma. She had things she needed to do, things that would make life a lot easier for her parents if she actually succeeded.

If she succeeded, then maybe they could afford better treatment for Kali.

'I have to do this...' Zinnia told herself as she grit her teeth.

It was the only thing she could do right now.

And as she managed to convince herself that she really did need to focus, she turned and left, with just one last fleeting glance towards Kali's form as she shut the door behind her.

However, Zinnia was not expecting the peculiarity of being seized by a duo of the ward nurses the very moment she looked up at the clock, both of whom were quick to hand her what turned out to be one of the smallest sets of paramedic uniforms from the locker room and a large bottle of bright orange cordial, with instructions to change out of her marred uniform.

She hadn't realized her clothes, and even her legs were smeared in blood, and she knew for a fact that she really didn't need to turn up at the exam location looking as if she had just murdered someone. It worked out more to Zinnia's preference, since she really was more comfortable in anything that wasn't her school's uniform. It just meant she probably was going to stick out like a sore thumb, being what may well be the only student in medical garbs instead of a school uniform.

Promptly after re-emerging from the locker room, Zinnia was then shooed towards the emergency entrance to the hospital, where Seiya and Hatori were standing within immediate view. She couldn't quite grasp what they were talking about, only that the topic more or less was dropped the moment the automatic doors slid open and Hatori's attention was straight upon Zinnia.

'You ready to go, Zinnia-chan?' Hatori asked, drawing the girl's attention from Seiya as he turned on his heel to return back to the emergency ward. 'We'll drop you off at the exam. It's Yuuei, right? It'll save you the walk.'

Well, she wasn't going to argue that.

So Zinnia cast Seiya's departing form once last glance before she climbed into the back of the ambulance and set herself down on the bench inside.

'Should we put the sirens on?' Zinnia faintly heard Hatori suggest as he climbed into the passenger seat at the front. 'We are on a time limit.'

'Don't be ridiculous.' Shinji barked with clear disapproval showing across his face. 'Do you want to get sacked for misusing government department equipment?'

'Psh, killjoy.'

The city passed by relatively slowly as the ambulance drove along the streets towards Yuuei High School, with every minute ticking away faster than she felt comfortable. Her hands were busy readjusting the bandages wrapped firmly around her wrists, pulling her hair back properly, and otherwise just fidgeting as she tried to keep herself in check.

She felt sluggish and woozy, even after two hours since she had rendered medical aid to Kali, but in a twisted sense, she wasn't surprised by that.

'I'm running at a little over half-capacity...' She mumbled as she pinched the skin of her forearm to see how quick her capillaries refilled with blood. 'I can't get reckless during the practical exam.'

It would be tragic to have to be taken back to the hospital because she messed up and overspent her blood, after all.

'Zinnia-chan.' Hatori's voice called out from the front seats, snatching up Zinnia's attention within an instance. 'We're here.'

And in fact, they really were. Zinnia could see the tall and rather daunting looking building through the windscreen of the ambulance.

'Right... thank you.' Zinnia spoke as she climbed out of the back of the ambulance.

Crowds of students her own age from various schools were walking towards the extremely large school building, practically flooding the sidewalk Zinnia stepped out onto as she slid the door shut once more. She felt glances fall upon her, but nothing more – It appeared practically everyone around had more important things to do than gawk at a middle-school student seemingly working as a paramedic.

'Best of luck, Zinnia-chan!' Hatori called out to her.

'Yeah, knock 'em dead, kid.' Shinji's flat remark followed suit.

'Umm, thanks, but its not like I'm auditioning for an acting role.' Zinnia hedged.

However, Shinji just lifted a lone brow and said, 'Is that right?'

And with that, the ambulance left to head back to the depot, leaving Zinnia standing there with all the colour gradually draining from her face.

Hang on, this was an entrance exam! There essentially was no difference at all!

'As if I needed to be even more nervous about this!' Zinnia practically whined as she buried her face in her hands.

Still, she couldn't afford to stand here bemoaning her sudden realization. So she took a deep breath and forced herself to following the crowds of students swarming the exam location.

Finding her way certainly wasn't difficult at this point in time.

'Say, isn't that a paramedic's uniform?' A voice whispered from somewhere in the crowd, though Zinnia paid the voice no heed as she took the front steps into the building two at a time. 'What's a paramedic doing here?'

'Reckon they're here working since the exams on?' Another voice questioned.

'No way a kid younger than we are is actually qualified for that. It's just cosplay.' A third remarked.

Well, she couldn't deny that she wasn't exactly qualified per say, but she wasn't that much younger than they were.

But then, the gossiping whispers moved onto a completely different topic as Zinnia reached the front desk. Their words mentioned something about a slime villain incident, though Zinnia paid no heed to such a topic, since it had nothing to do with her or her volunteer work.

She handed over her paperwork to the receptionist, who glanced it over and gave her just two pieces of paper in return; Her applicant page with her photograph, identification number, 3809 with "Scholarship Applicant" in brackets next to the number, and an overview of the Practical Assessment for the entrance exam.

However, mid-way through her gazing down at her page, a form suddenly knocked into her from behind, sending Zinnia stumbling forward with a small squeak escaping her.

'Whoa! Sorry about that! I actually didn't see you there!' A voice spoke up from what sounded to be right above Zinnia's head, bringing the girl to turn in surprise.

Who she found to have been responsible for her small fright was a boy who stood remarkably much taller than her own measly height of 4"2. With his black hair hanging down towards his jaw and an apologetic, closed eye smile revealing what looked remarkably like shark teeth, Zinnia found herself staring at a boy who gave off a very clear aura of genuine friendliness, that of which felt remarkably alien to her.

And yet, as she remained momentarily silent, the boy blinked and adopted a somewhat curious look.

'Sorry, are you alright? I didn't actually step on you or anything, did I?'

'N-no, sorry. You just caught me by surprise, actually.' Zinnia apologized as she quickly shook herself out of her stupor.

'Well that's good, then! Anyway, I should really get going.' The nameless boy responded with the broadening of his grin once more as he stepped around her to continue on his way. 'Good luck, by the way!'

Leaving Zinnia standing there at a loss of what was even going on.

Though the sudden knock of another, larger form shoving past her jostled Zinnia right out of that moment with yet another squeak.

'Out of the way, damn extra!' Barked a hoarse and rather unpleasant sounding voice as a large form disappeared through the crowd.

Well... guess it was her fault for the fact that she was still standing in the middle of the walkway.

Zinnia quickly followed the torrent of applicants until she finally reached a large auditorium, that of which seated thousands in front of a stage with a remarkably large screen as the back wall. The seats were all numbered, she soon discovered, and her own seat was down in the seventh row. She wandered until she finally found her seat, off to the far right of the stage.

Before long, everyone was seated and the door of the auditorium were closed shut as a blond man with a strange fashion sense came wandering out onto the stage. Whoever he was, Zinnia didn't care, only that his voice when he started talking was excessively loud and overbearingly energetic.

The written assessment was to be completed after the practical, he announced first of all, leaving Zinnia feeling more uneasy about the situation. She probably wasn't going to be able to focus too much on the written if she spent all her blood supplies on the practical.

The practical examination was to be a mock battle lasting a mere ten minutes, with a point system based on how many mock villains one dispatched, and their worth. It was simple enough, but the words scarcely sunk in on Zinnia at all

Through the throws of explaining how the practical assessment was going to work, a largely built boy from the dead centre of the auditorium seating interrupted with just as much volume as the man on the stage. He sternly reprimanded the man on the stage for what he decided was an error Yuuei had made with their paperwork, which in fact was no error at all, but merely a part of the assessment that hadn't been explained fully yet. And further to that, the boy then turned and pointed to another in the crowd, blatantly calling whoever it was out for being disruptive, purely because he was whispering excitedly away.

'You're the moron who's holding everything up, conceited fool.' Zinnia muttered bitterly beneath her breath, which somehow earned a faint chuckle from the nameless girl sitting directly to her left.

Either which way, the explanation was given, and they were then instructed to board buses that would take them to their dedicated examination area once they were changed into gear and their unneeded belongings placed in secured lockers until their return.

Zinnia's student paper was specified with area "G", which was all the information she needed, apparently.

She was swept up in the crowd of students wandering towards the provided change rooms to get into more rough-handling clothes, though she, like the odd couple here or there, didn't bother and managed to make her way towards the outside, where a series of buses were standing in wait. She glanced around to identify which was her own shuttle bus and proceeded to wander over once she had. She merely had to entertain herself for five minutes before others started boarding the bus along with her, though whatever they were talking about, she couldn't tell; She had donned her headphones and drowned the world out with music, though she could see the odd motion or two of people talking about her before the bus left for their destination.

The sheer size of the school's premises was already surprising for Zinnia, but that was nothing in comparison to the actual size of the examination area in particular. It was a replica of a chunk of city buildings, from the huge skyscrapers to the asphalt within, walled in by a huge wall that kept it intact. In the distance, the other replica city areas stood walled in as well.

It was an amazing sight, but Zinnia was not surprised in the least that the number one hero school in the country had the money to make such an expansive area. Or perhaps it was manpower, instead? Zinnia certainly couldn't rule that out after having had to deal with Slate and his particularly painful quirk.

However, there was a tapping of a hand against her shoulder all of a sudden, startling her out of her thoughts quick enough to have her jump.

'Hey! So we're in the same exam area!' She faintly heard a voice speak over the music.

She turned her head to see that same, friendly boy from the corridor standing right there next to her, bringing her to shift her headphones to hang around her neck. It was here, while he was out of his school uniform that Zinnia took note of how well built he was, which told her that his quirk may well possibly work in physical enhancement.

'It appears so.' Zinnia agreed as she turned her attention down to her arm as she pinch-tested herself once again.

'Man, I'm really hyped to get started! That explanation Present Mic gave makes this sound like it's going to be a lot of fun!'

So Present Mic was the Hero name of that blond man, was it? Guess he was one of the teachers, of some description.

'Hey so, sorry if I'm prying a bit too much, but are you feeling alright?' The boy asked her out of the blue, drawing Zinnia's attention once again. 'I don't know if you normally look so pale or not, but I'm taking a guess and thinking you're not feeling very well.'

Needless to say, Zinnia was actually rather surprised by his question.

'I'm fine, umm...'

'Kirishima.' He interjected, suddenly.

'Say what?' Zinnia practically gaped at the boy, who was grinning sheepishly.

'Oh, I thought you were scratching for something to call me by. Sorry about that.' He apologized, though he didn't seem all that bothered by his own misunderstanding. 'Anyway, the names Kirishima Eijirou. Just felt like I should introduce myself, you know? It's cool to meet you.'

Well okay, but that still was kind of strange.

'Ah... It's nice to meet you, too Kirishima-sa--'

'AND START!' Came the loud and rather grating voice of that man from the exam introduction, dragging everyone's attention to the top of the large tower at the centre most point of the area. 'COME ON! THERE'S NO COUNTDOWN IN A REAL BATTLE! GET GOING!'

And before Zinnia even knew what was going on, everyone let out shouts and exclamations as they took off at full speed straight into the city grounds.

Well damn.

She let out a breath as she placed her headphones back over her ears and took off running after everyone else.

The rhythmic beat of drums and fiddles sent her movements into a similar pace as she ran down the makeshift streets with her gaze tracing her surroundings.

The air shook and the ground trembled as smoke and fragments of debris flew through the air, revealing an already chaotic shift of events the moment Zinnia had caught up to at least some of the others. Large robots standing in as Villains with numbers painted on their body to assign points began to litter the area in destroyed lumps of steel, with their dispatchers quickly moving onto the next.

Zinnia decided that she should veer off to the side and loop around to head further in.

She bounced on her feet as she moved, manipulating her own body to circulate more adrenaline, numbing down her own pain receptors as she forced her quirk into action within herself.

And as soon as she rounded the next corner, Zinnia was immediately thankful for her anticipation.

A fully intact and large robot with the number 3 painted across its body turned to face her, and before it had even fully turned, it was already hurdling towards her with great speed. Instinctively, and matching the pace of the music ringing in her ears, Zinnia threw herself to the side in a sweeping turn and forced her quirk into violent action.

Her blood burst forth from the palms of her hands with what would have been great pain if not for her manipulated pain receptors, warping and shifting until it lashed out like tendrils with every shift of Zinnia's form, slicing the air with shrill force.

As the robot turned back to face her with its appendages raised to attack, Zinnia threw herself in a pirouette, slicing a great gouge through the front plating.

She danced around the robot's vicious moves, twirling and dipping to the music blaring through her headphones until finally, enough slices had been made to sever the robot's head from the rest of it's body, sending it crashing entirely to the blood-splattered asphalt beneath her feet.

'That's three points...' Zinnia heaved as she forced herself onwards.

She managed to pick off the odd robot or two as the minutes ticked by, with Present Mic's timekeeping shouts echoing through the air as she struggled to keep herself going amid the blood loss. She could feel after just that first robot that in combat situations she needed the full surplus she should have, unlike the three or four patients she could treat in her usual means.

Her conviction earlier was shredding and making way for doubt and anxiety, and as the blood splattered her body in grim, visceral hues, she found herself feeling that she looked much more like a villain than an aspiring applicant to a hero school.

A violent crash of rumbling and crashing had shaken the whole makeshift city just shortly after her second robot was dispatched, and she was doing her best to stay away from wherever that dangerous commotion was coming from.

'Two minutes left!' Present Mic shouted from atop his tower, causing Zinnia to grit her teeth in exertion.

However, as she staggered down the street she was traversing, a sudden clang of movement in her peripheral vision drew her gaze away.

The boy called Kirishima was mid-brawl with a 3 pointer robot, with his body appearing much more rigid and sturdy than she recalled as the robot's attempted slash practically rebounded off of his own arms crossed protectively in front of him. However, as Zinnia paused for a second to appreciate the boy's rather sturdy and versatile quirk, she noticed another 3-pointer robot charging straight for Kirishima.

She sprung forth without even realizing it, bringing both her arms up the very instance she knew that the friendly boy was too preoccupied with the robot in his face to heed the one charging straight for him.

And with the sudden backlash of vicious force, a large globule of blood was shot from the palms of her hands towards the approaching robot. The makeshift bullet pierced the robot's head in a bloody splay of shorting wires and fragmenting chunks of steel, splattering the ground in blood and shrapnel as it collapsed in a heap just at Kirishima's feet.

Needless to say, the boy's surprise was evident, even as he finally managed to land a solid punch straight through it's head to destroy it.

'Hey! Thanks for the save!' Kirishima called out the very second he turned his head towards her, though his prior look of thanks was quickly speckled with concern. 'Wha--'

'No time!' Zinnia called back, signing towards the back of her wrist when she realized he hadn't heard her from that distance.

Kirishima seemed to hesitate, however he cast her a wave and left on his way once Zinnia had given him a smile and brief thumbs up.

'I'll thank you properly later, alright!' Kirishima shouted over his shoulder.

However his words didn't necessarily reach her.

For as he disappeared from sight, Zinnia wavered before crumpling to the asphalt as the strength began to trickle away on her. Her breath trembled as she found herself staring down at the chunks of steel and rocks beneath her weary form.

'I screwed up...' She whispered as she felt her eyes slowly droop shut on her. 'Spent... too much...'

As the rumbling of the makeshift city continued around her, Zinnia's grasp of the world slipped from her control

Darkness overcame her senses, and next she knew, she was lying atop a bed in what looked like a school infirmary, with a small elderly lady standing over her with a kindly smile behind the coloured visor she wore.

She missed the second half of the entrance exam, and she was gutted. She knew within herself that she had done terribly, and there was nothing she could do.

The next day, the entrance exam for Shiketsu High came, and the one for Ketsubutsu High the following day. While she did her best for all three schools, the doubt and self-loathing inside of her didn't fail to grip her like a vice. Not even the news that her mother's recovery was going smoothly was enough to ease any of it.

When the letters came in the mail one week later, Zinnia felt sick to the stomach.

She sat alone in her room, staring down at the three envelopes that lay atop her bed. Her heart was heavy with dread, her mind ringing with doubts and concerns as she tried to will herself to open them up and find the verdict. But she did.

All three letters informed her that her application for the scholarship course was rejected, and for both Shiketsu and Ketsubutsu, she was reprimanded for her unstable and exceedingly self-destructive quirk.

And Yuuei, while lacking in any reprimands at all, was the most heart-wrenching of all, because the letter told her to have hope and recommended her try for Shiketsu and Ketsubutsu's second set of exams in one week time.

As she gazed down at the letters in the end, the tears flowed down the sides of her face as she found herself faced with the harsh truth.

Her best was not good enough.

And there was nothing she could do.

--=[Submitted 22nd June 2018, 4102 words total]=--