𓆱❀𓆱

I startled awake to my alarm. Throwing myself out of bed, I tripped over my blanket and fell to the floor.

"Ugh..." I groaned. "Good morning, Akiharu. Eat shit, Akiharu. Thanks, legs..."

It was still early in the morning. I rushed to the bathroom to collect myself and reached toward my uniform. 

My fingers froze, outstretched toward the heap of grey fabric. Right. There's no U.A. anymore.

On the bright side, without my morning commute, it meant I had plenty of time before I had to be in the gym. I showered and dressed into one of the training uniforms I kept neatly in my closet.  The compression shirt felt tighter than I remembered – I hadn't worn it since school began. I made sure all of the monitoring patches were in place before pulling my hair up and lacing my boots.

I stopped by the Cafeteria for breakfast, where several agents who didn't have time to go home were eating a weary meal.

When I got to the gym, several agents awaited me per usual. All of them looked exhausted. The HPSC must be fighting with the media right now, I thought. They were understaffed and overworked.

"Miss Akiharu!" one of the younger agents called. "This arrived for you from up top." In his hands was a coffee from my favourite cafe down the road. "I-It said it was from Hawks..."

I took it gratefully, seeing the french vanilla marked on the side. That dodo's good for one thing, at least. 

Glancing up, noticed one of the long-time instructors eyeing me. Right. Training. Coffee = bad. I handed it back to the agent with a smile. "Would you mind putting that in the fridge for me?"

"Of- Of course!"

I sighed as they ran off. Damn... At least I have something to look forward to.

"We're getting right into it. You'll need this for the first exercise. Please put it on." I was handed a black sash of sorts – ah. It's the blindfold. 

I pulled it on over my head, tying it tightly. "A'ight..."

"You know the drill: Stop the enemies before they reach you."

Ugh. I hated this exercise. I never lasted until time ran out. "No warmup this time?" I complained, but it fell on deaf ears. As the gym whirred and clacked, I pushed my energy out through the concrete floors. I could feel as it sank and moved with the machinery, and sense its shape as if it were an extension of my body. The hairs on my arms stood on end as I directed every drop of my focus into the sensation.

I felt a slight tremble to the left. It felt like a bug crawling across my skin. Whipping that way, I dragged whatever was causing it into the ground. I felt two more simultaneously as more training dummies (with the occasional agent) moved across the floor toward me. I trapped them beneath ground, one after another.

"Level one, complete. We're moving on to level two."

The faux enemies gradually approached faster and increased in number. When I made it to level four, some started flying, and I couldn't use my Quirk to sense them at all – only sound.

"Level five, complete. Exercise is now ending."

I huffed for breath, pulling the blindfold off. I met eyes with the head instructor – he looked stunned. The younger agent with the clipboard ran over. "Y-Your results! It's a perfect score. C-Congratulations!"

I looked down at my hands. My reaction time and focus had improved. Was it because of yesterday? Facing those villains couldn't have made that much of a difference... Only that Nomu and the hand-guy were a challenge, anyway.

Tomura Shigaraki.

My hand clenched into a fist. Damn. I never got to punch his ugly mug, did I?"

"Take your supplements and a quick break. The next exercise will be completed Quirkless."

It wasn't very often that I trained in close-combat during supervised hours. I had a feeling they wanted to make sure I hadn't slacked off while at U.A.

It was hard to get the jump on me in Quirkless combat. Aizawa was one of the greatest pro-heroes when it came to hand-to-hand – he'd had to be. His Quirk didn't work on most mutant types, who statistically fought on the front lines, and he was the one who taught me everything I knew about fighting Quirkless.

Though I never got the hang of that stupid fucking scarf.

We returned to the basics for some time, until the one-on-one sparring turned into three-on-one. Then it was one-versus-group fighting. Eventually, they brought weapons into it.

I felt light on my feet after yesterday, like some kind of danger sense had awakened. By the time I disarmed a group of twenty on my own, the head instructor looked straight-up disgruntled.

"For Quirk training, you have two hours of simple control exercises. After that, it'll be strength and endurance training for the rest of the day. Please complete this on your own."

"Yessir." Oh, right. I stepped forward before he could leave. "Would you mind giving a word to the Chairwoman? I'd like to have a meeting with her..."

The instructor's brows raised over his sunglasses. "Well... Yes, I suppose."

I guessed that was an odd request. I doubted I'd said more than a word consecutively to this guy before, (not counting snide remarks under my breath.) 

The rest of the day, I made good use of the gym's materials, frequently checking the list to make sure I completed all the exercises. Then I returned to the equipment area, and worked to keep myself in shape.  At last, I made a request to leave the building for a run. I found treadmills boring, and sometimes I could sneak away to a cafe for dinner. Usually I was able to do this with minimal resistance, but this time, a team of agents were assigned to trail behind me in a car – (Far enough away that it didn't look suspicious to passerbyes, but close enough that they could intervene if I was attacked.)

Get attacked by villains once and suddenly you need a damn babysitter to follow you everywhere.

𓆱❀𓆱

When I finally retired for the day, there was a knock at my door. I pulled it open to a red-haired agent. "Miss Akiharu. We've arranged a meeting with the Chairwoman at the earliest convenience. The time is two days from now, at 9:00 AM. Does this suffice?"

"Yes, thank-you."

"That's all."

Two days from now... U.A. classes would resume the day after that. Would I make it back in time?

I plopped down into bed with a sigh. More importantly, how would I convince her to let me go anyway? That PR thing? Ugh, I didn't want to rope myself in to a bunch of interviews...

I picked my U.A. uniform up off the floor and started putting it back into my closet. As I did so, I felt folded paper in the back pocket of the pants.

I pulled it open to a list of phone numbers.

Oh... I forgot about this...

I pulled out my phone for a moment, pursing my lips. It'd already been a day. They were probably at home with their families. I didn't want to bother them so late – and I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up that I'd be back.

I shut my phone off and set the paper down on my dresser.

I'd call them when this all blew over.

𓆱❀𓆱

"You asked to see me?"

This had seemed like a decent idea before, but it was quickly snowballing into The Worst Idea I've Ever Had.

The Chairwoman stood at her desk, staring at me with a face that might have resembled confusion. With her, I could never really tell – Confusion would make sense, though. I'd never asked to speak with her before, especially not on such short notice.

I fiddled with my hands, linked behind my back. "Yes ma'am," I said, my throat unbearably dry. "Sorry, I just..." I took in a sharp breath. Speak clearly. You know you're not in the wrong, so talk like you're confident about it. "I wish to continue attending U.A."

The woman's thin lips sucked against her teeth. Her chin inclined to one side ever so slightly. "Pardon?"

"I know I didn't say anything in the meeting, but I didn't think I could," I continued carefully, like walking a tightrope. "To be honest, I think the benefits of U.A. greatly outweigh the risk. I'm too used to the program here. I know the exercises too well, and I know you're too understaffed to have workers trying to come up with new ones.

"On top of that, I've spent the past decade in a basement. I haven't had the chance to interact with other people. Being mentored by pros alongside future heroes is the best way to prepare to be integrated into a role alongside them."

"What's being brought into question isn't the quality of U.A.'s education," the Chairwoman countered, "But their ability to safely educate their..."

"Ma'am," I retorted, "With all due respect, the incident yesterday didn't have any precedent. In the end, you decided to support U.A. for that reason."

She shook her head. "I read the reports – your reports. You had an episode. That's not something we can risk."

"What we can't risk is me having an episode out on the field. My costume took care of it before it got out of control – and I need peers who know the correct response when something like that happens."

The Chairwoman shook her head slowly from side-to-side. Her lips were pressed together so tightly they almost disappeared.

"Please," I pressed. "It'd be a shame to pull me out so close to the Sports Festival." I watched her closely, saw her aqua eyes glance to one side. Just one more push.  "At least wait until you see my results for the tests tomorrow morning. They'll speak for themselves."

The Chairwoman's pinched brow slowly relaxed. Her ash-blonde hair swayed with the shake of her head. "Very well," she said. "I'll be at the examination room in time for your results."

I smiled sheepishly. "About that... Can we move up the test time two hours?"

"That's an unusual request."

"Please?"

"I'll see what I can do," she sighed. "But you have to understand, it's quite short notice."

I managed to hide my grin with a hasty bow. "Thank you, ma'am."

"You're dismissed."

𓆱❀𓆱

LOOK AT THIS ART MY FRIEND DID OF AKIHARU IN A DRESS I'M SCREAMING

Fem Akiharu real. Also hiding the arms so you don't have to learn to draw muscles is also so real. As always, love you @-Aoi-Akane-

(The actual loml everyone say thank you Maki for beta-reading and leaving the funniest comments everywhere. I believe in Maki supremacy!!!!)

anyways that's all bye <33

1698 words