[center][h1][color=steelblue]Kenichi[/color] and [color=#F50A83]Fumika[/color][/h1]
[h3]Nurse's Office > 1-A Classroom[/h3]
[sub]Feat. [@Feyblue][/sub][hr][/center]
Her first sensation upon awakening was pain: a dull, aching throb that surged through her body with each breath she took, then just as quickly receded. Fumika’s blue eyes fluttered open as she finally found within her the strength to lift her seemingly immovable eyelids. She instinctively tried to raise an arm to brush the fog from her vision, but another dull jolt of pain as several bruises cried out in protest quickly put a stop to that plan. So it was that she found herself simply lying flat on her back, gazing up at an unfamiliar white ceiling.

Her energy levels had plummeted… what exactly had happened again? Her memories were still a jumble, structural blueprints and molecular properties flashing through her head when she tried to recall the information she’d encoded that afternoon. Faces appeared before her mind’s eye, but she couldn’t put names to all of them. There was a blonde girl who was glowing, a red-haired young man with wires extending from his arms to form a cage, a gloomy looking boy with gold eyes peering out from over the frame of a gas mask… And then there was the face of Haruka, gazing down at her as she reached out her hand, and the face of a blue-haired boy, a broad grin on his face as he raised his fists. This was… her enemy. Right. A jolt of static ran through her hair, causing her bangs to fluff themselves violently outward to either side of her as she slowly sat up, ignoring the lingering soreness in her body as best she could. A single strand of hair stuck straight up from her head, and she glanced back and forth, only to see featureless white curtains hanging to either side of the bed she had found herself lying upon. Was this… the nurse’s office? It reminded her of the hospital...

Then, she’d really gotten hurt that badly? It seemed hard to believe, especially considering that she no longer seemed to have a scratch on her, but the bruises and soreness in her muscles that yet lingered made it somewhat difficult to deny... Even so, it was a bit baffling to contemplate. When she’d been training with Haruka, she’d fought just as hard, but their fights had only ever lasted until she invariably was knocked down and Haruka managed to pin her. This time, she hadn’t had that luxury. She’d been beaten down time and time again, but there was no rule that said she when she was defeated, and she herself had been too desperate to give up… So, she’d just kept getting back up time and time again, taking blow after blow until finally neither of them could move anymore. Because the match would only end when someone either conceded or couldn’t fight, the only limitation she’d had was on how much energy she could use and how long she was willing to hold out. But, her opponent had to hold back his own strength to avoid killing her… She’d seen his real power in his final attack, and now that the adrenaline had worn off, she began to realize she’d mistaken his intentions. He hadn’t been holding back because she wasn’t worth his time. Rather, he’d held back because he had no other choice. In other words, she’d been fighting as if her life was on the line, when her enemy had only been treating it as a spar.

Now that she thought about it, every step of the way, the fight had only escalated because of her. She hadn’t simply attempted to withdraw when she had the chance, and had instead attacked him directly. Then, when he’d held back against her, she’d taken it as an insult, and had resorted to burning herself out using more dangerous projections. She’d even hurled him through a wall, and used steel beams of all things are a makeshift projectile! Because she hadn’t been thinking clearly… Because she’d assumed he could take it… Because nothing she could have done would have worked on Haruka anyway, so she’d acted without thinking of the potential consequences. He’d done his best to dodge and defend against her, and had kept trying to take her down without hurting her too much… And for his trouble, he’d ended up even worse off than her.

She needed to apologize. She’d done something very wrong without thinking about it. Even she, who could hardly understand other people, realized exactly how mistaken her actions had been. Because of her, someone who’d just been trying his best was hurt. Even if he was scary, even if he’d hurt her a bit too… That was wrong. For a Hero who should have been doing her best to make everyone happy, that was definitely wrong!

She stood up without thinking. Her legs popped in protest, the burning soreness in them trying to deter her from any further movement, but she paid them no mind, shuffling clumsily over to the curtain and pulling it violently open. There was still a haze in front of her eyes… she couldn’t see well… She glanced back to the bed, locating the thing she was missing. Her glasses must have either fallen off or been removed while she was asleep. Retrieving them, she placed them gingerly upon the bridge of her nose, but found her hands weak and shaky. She felt so tired… Even though she’d gotten a bit of rest, she was still probably only at the bare minimum energy level to remain conscious. But even so, she couldn’t sleep now. She had something she needed to do, and to delay any further would be unacceptable.

It looked like there were a few other people in the office… The pink haired girl from earlier appeared to be up and about, while a few others were coming and going. 

Kiwi grinned as she moved her hand towards Kenichi, right when the door opened and Mako appeared with another student. On top of that it seemed that Fumika had woken up first. Mako dropped off a boy from earlier, one who seemed to linger around rather then getting to class. She smiled, “Sure you can stay a little...Now where were we” Right as she was placing her hand over she was interrupted by another student getting up as well, Kiwi was beginning to get annoyed. One more interruption and someone was gonna suffer, “Be a good boy now and sit tight while I experime- err I mean heal your wounds” She said bringing her hand slightly above the boys face. The bugs began crawling out of her pores, the big beetles and the smaller ones began crawling onto Kenichi’s body, the big ones latching onto his skin to suck out the paralysis while the smaller ones repaired broken tissue. “Try not to move honey” She said.

"No see you were clearly about to say [i]experiment[/i]--" Kenichi winced as the bugs swarmed him. At the moment he couldn't feel their hundreds of little legs prodding and poking their way along his body, and oddly enough that was enough of a removal from the situation that he could watch it from a sort of third person viewpoint. A smaller, buzzing variety with four wings and what looked like a medical syringe instead of the proboscis it would normally have flew anywhere where blood had been spilled, especially to the cut on his scalp. Just around the edges of the cut they inserted their needles--he didn't feel more than a light pinch, given their size--and sucked up all the blood still dribbling around the wound and under the skin. Kenichi couldn't see it, but he had heard that when a mosquito bit you it released something that kept your blood from clotting and irritated the skin, which was why the bites usually swelled up; these medicine bugs seemed to do the opposite, as once they withdrew their needles the blood had stopped flowing and, instead of a dark colored blood clot that would eventually harden into a scab, the cut seemed to have been covered in a clear, shiny paste.

The flying ones did the same for the cuts all over his arm, but first they held back the edges of the skin so that something that looked suspiciously like ants and termites--colored in white with red crosses on their backs and a small growth on the head that looked like a nurse's cap--could [i]crawl into his arm[/i]. This was where Kenichi started mentally screaming but physically locked his jaw shut, grinding his teeth so hard together it made an audible and disturbing noise. The creatures went below the surface of the skin, and were even small enough to slip between muscle fibers in some cases. Once again unseen but merely felt by Kenichi, the termites found any places where micro fractures or other stresses had been caused on his bones and began to eat any fragments of broken material they could find. With a mixture of calcium inside them they worked the bone dust into a paste, which they then spat out and worked back onto the patient's skeleton. The ants were doing something similar with all the torn muscles, depositing sticky gobs of something like silk (which was made of materials that would be re-absorbed into the patient's body over time) onto the tissue fibers and weaving them back together. They then marched right out of the openings they had come through the first time, and by now Kenichi's eyes had rolled back into his head and he was starting to foam at the mouth.

The mosquitoes now darted all along his arm, sucking out the blood that had clotted underneath the skin after blood vessels had burst. The limb's purplish coloration began quickly fading in circular spots that grew until they intersected, and soon his limb looked human again. While they did this, a new insect with a long thorax and antennae crawled over and began spinning some kind of web--again a synthetic compound that would dissolve safely over time--that they used to suture up the worst of the cuts.

Then the other insects headed back to Kiwi, while the beetles latched on and hoovered up the paralytic agent in Kenichi's system like crack addicts in a Tarantino film. The rush of sensation back to his limbs brought the blue-hair back to consciousness, and he sat there for a moment looking himself over while the bugs returned to their mistress.

"Well uh...at least it's all over now?" He looked at Kiwi, then at Mako. "Are you the school therapist by any chance? Because I'm gonna need that. Forever."

Then he noticed that the bed next to his had the curtains pulled back, and the girl he had fought stood there with her ahoge drooping slightly, although the rest of her hair was frizzed out for some reason like she'd been rubbing a balloon on her scalp.

"Yo, good to see you up and about!" he said, the horrifying memories of bugs instantly repressed and replaced with a bright smile. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the cot as he turned to face her. "I was worried I'd hit ya too hard--sometimes my Quirk's hard to reign in. Nice fai-to, Ahoge-cha--Oh, sorry." He turned his head to one side, scratching his nose to help hide his bashful expression. "I never got your name. You probably already heard mine, since I've screamed it like three times today, but I'm Yoshida Kenichi. Nice to meet you!"

Fumika stared. What was she looking at, exactly? There were insects everywhere, and they seemed to be crawling out of one person’s body and into someone else’s. There were so many of them, though, she couldn’t really make out any details of what was going on or who the unfortunate person being crawled all over was. Her eyes pulsed red as curiosity got the better of her, although they immediately shut when a pounding in her head reminded her that she barely had any energy left to spare, and the only data she got was that the insects seemed like they were being constructed before emerging. So… an emission Quirk? It seemed like they were permanent, but for once, Fumika couldn’t bring herself to be envious of this particular ability. It seemed… kind of disgusting.

Well, whatever was going on, everyone seemed to be treating it like it was normal. That meant it probably was normal, so she was the strange one for thinking it was unusual, right? So, she just needed to act like it was totally normal and everything would be fine. Then she’d be normal too. So, she watched patiently until the insects crawled back revealing…

It was the boy from earlier? Her attempts to search for him had ended just two steps away from where she’d awoken. Compared to how difficult and stressful everything else that morning had been, it almost seemed too easy.

As he suddenly shot upright, Fumika drew back instinctively, memories of his fist drawn back and ready to strike flashing into her brain. She’d been analyzing his movements as closely as she could during the fight, and now, all of a sudden, it was hard to associate him with anything but an incoming attack. She flinched, but no such flurry of motion came. Right. The match was over. He was smiling at her, complimenting her, even worrying about her… He wouldn’t have had to worry if she hadn’t taken things so far.

The boy - Yoshida, apparently. Right, she remembered that he’d said his name once or twice before. He had said so much at once, and she was still so sleepy that she had trouble processing all of it. What was she supposed to say here? [color=#F50A83]”I’m… sorry,”[/color] She stumbled over her words, beginning with her original message before realizing that wasn’t what he’d asked for. No, he’d asked for her name! [color=#F50A83]”Or… Um...  That’s not my name, but rather what I wanted to say… I’ve never actually met anyone named ‘Sorry,’ and I think if someone actually had that name it would just be confusing for everyone.”[/color] She blinked. Wait, what had she been saying again? Right, her name. [color=#F50A83]”Motome Fumika.”[/color] She announced her name without any explanation or clarification, bowing slightly as she did so. The strands of fluff sticking up from her head wobbled unsteadily as she lowered her head, only for another brisk jolt of static to run down the ends of her hair and force them straight back upright again.

She stared in silence, thinking back on his words. She understood most of it, since she’d been trying really hard to pay attention this time. But, one thing he’d said still hadn’t made sense. She didn’t recognize it. She tilted her head slightly to one side, looking like a curious bird as she spoke.

[color=#F50A83]”What’s an ahoge-cha?”[/color]

The girl still seemed a little out of it, fumbling with her words, but Kenichi gave her a patient smile and waited for her to finish. Glasses, soft spoken, but he knew for a fact she had to be intelligent, so she was probably just one of those shy bookish types. He noted what looked like a spark of electricity running through her hair for a moment, and for the first time also noticed what seemed like...some kind of digital display? He had thought it was a hairclip, but it seemed like it was actually part of the hair instead? Was that something to do with her Quirk?

She asked him what he had meant by the nickname earlier, and he chuckled.

"Ah, before I knew your name I had just kinda taken to calling you "Ahoge-chan" in my head, since there were a couple of other blonde girls in the class. Sorry, Motome-chan." He put one hand on his head and pointed a finger straight up. "An ahoge is like...you see it anime a lot, a character has this one strand of hair that always sticks up. Sometimes it even moves around like an antenna or makes shapes to match a character's expression." Fumika nodded slightly, placing a hand on her own head and pointing straight upward as well - a motion which her antenna mimicked, curling itself into a shape oddly reminiscent of a question mark. He then gestured to her. "You've got a noticeable one...and now that I think about it, it moves sometimes too."

He put his chin on his fist and looked at her with intense concentration for a few long, awkwardly quiet moments. Then he snapped his fingers.

"Okay, I think I got it. You can project copies of stuff, that little symbol on your head has changed at least once when I think back on it, and your hair acts like it conducts electricity. Does your Quirk have something to do with video cameras?" Honestly he felt dumb for not picking up on this earlier--his dad was a reporter and photographer. Kenichi hadn't really ever studied it, but he'd picked up enough over the years to start recognizing the signs. "And I bet your hair is like...some kinda optic fiber? With your ahoge acting like a kind of antenna to broadcast your projections." He smiled again. "Sorry, I hope I'm not pryin' too much! Your Quirk was just really cool and useful back there; if you could maintain more copies or hold them for longer, you'd be a one-girl Hero army!"

Fumika nodded. She was a little reluctant to confirm his suspicions at first, but that was probably just her lingering unease after their fight. After all, he was supposed to be her classmate, not her enemy, right? And, besides… even if he was still a little bit intense, he wasn’t so scary now that she saw him up close. He was smiling, and laughing, and joking with her… He even complimented her on her Quirk… And yet, despite how nice he was, she’d gone and hurt him like that… Her bangs drooped and she tugged on them again for reassurance. She needed to apologize, but she also needed to answer his questions. What was she supposed to say?

[color=#F50A83]”It’s basically like that,”[/color] She began slowly, nodding. She demonstrated as best she could without any power left to actually project with, changing modes three times in quick succession. Her eyes blinked red with a matching dot appearing above them, which then shifted to a green arrow, and then finally back to two pale blue bars which then faded out as her eyes went from green back to their normal color. [color=#F50A83]”When I look at something, I can record it and store it in my hair. Then I can make a copy that does the same thing as the original so long as I’m looking at it, so long as my body can create enough particles to form it. If I can’t see it, though, the signal gets messed up and it stops being tangible.”[/color] She looked away, seeming… embarrassed? It wasn’t that she was uncomfortable talking about her Quirk - she knew its ins and outs fairly well, and although she wasn’t terribly fond of how it worked, it wasn’t as if it was some deep, dark secret to her. But rather…

[color=#F50A83]”I’m sorry. Everything I said about what I could do when we were fighting was a complete lie. Actually, the only things I can make copies of are things I’ve already seen and recorded, and moving myself between them was just something I made up because you were scary.”[/color] Her eyes slowly dropped down to the floor, and her antenna followed suit, drooping to one side. [color=#F50A83]”My powers aren’t really good for much more than copying other people, so I was scared to fight head-on when I knew we were being tested. I thought that if I won using somebody else’s Quirk, it would be like I hadn’t even tried at all. And because I acted like that, you got all hurt…”[/color] She trailed off, seeming uncharacteristically gloomy. And really, why wouldn’t she be? There were few things she disliked more than people who used their powers irresponsibly, but she herself had done just that. If he was mad at her, or even if he just thought she was pathetic… She’d understand that much. That was how it usually was, after all. She’d enjoyed people talking to her, but she knew full well that after today, it would probably go back to the way it had always been. She’d sit on the sidelines, observe the people around her, and record what she could make use of. She wouldn’t bother anyone, wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. She’d just continue living by herself, disconnected from everything but her goal.

She kept tugging her hair every so often...was that a tell of when she was distressed about something? Had asking about her Quirk been too much, right after learning her name? Some people were sensitive about it after all. But she confirmed his discovery, making her eyes flash along with the recording symbols. Kenichi leaned in closer unconsciously as he watched, but then jerked back for fear that their faces were getting too close. Talk about getting lost in someone's eyes...still, hers were pretty...

She broke contact at about the same time as he did, turning away. Kenichi hoped she didn't think he was some kinda creeper--did she even remember the whole falling down thing from earlier? But then she started apologizing for lying about her Quirk earlier--she couldn't actually switch between copies, she had just said it to get a leg up in the fight. Her ahoge drooped now--yeah, she was definitely distressed. But her perception of her Quirk was all wrong, from Kenichi's point of view.

"Hey, don't look so glum!" Kenichi said, a little louder than he meant to, while putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder without even questioning whether or not she was cool with personal-space infringement. He gave her a thumbs up and another grin. "It was a spar, a really good one at that! I was worried about hurting you too, but that's just one of those things--I mean, you wouldn't go to a Judo club and expect to not get thrown on your head every once in awhile, right?" He stood up off the cot and struck a series of body-building poses to prove that he was alright. Then, with the same kind of intensity, he struck a pose where he pointed at her dramatically.

"And don't think that way about your Quirk! When did you use someone else's? Even if your projections can use powers of their own, they're still [i]your[/i] creations and you're the one controlling them! Not using your Quirk in Hero-school is like...is like jogging for a bike race just cause you had to buy your bike from a store!" Actually he wasn't sure if that was a good analogy, and he stopped posing to think about it. As he did so, he also absentmindedly thought out loud about some of his own insecurities.

"Besides, your Quirk has tons of potential. Me, I'm just a poor man's All Might--I can run fast, hit stuff, and jump around. I'm only good for fighting or lifting things." He looked at her, again appraising his memories of what she had done. "You can do anything, so long as you have a recording that fits the situation. And you're smart--I bet since you can record things, you have a good memory. As for me, things tend to go in one ear and out the other." He lightly bonked himself on the head with his knuckles, winking at her in the process. "Just like anything else, Heroes with brains like you will win out over dumb brawny types like me."

Fumika winced slightly as all-too-suddenly, Kenichi reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her tracksuit was still rather ragged from the earlier fight, and he’d happened to place his palm right over a small gash in the fabric. She felt an all-too-clear impression of his skin, down to the finest of lines and creases in it, pressing its way onto her particle shell, leaving an imperceptibly faint imprint that nevertheless lingered even when he drew back his hand and jumped up, striking a few odd poses. She’d have tried to mimic him, but he kept moving around so quickly and all the words he was saying were coming out so fast and she could still feel his hand on her shoulder and it was all just so hard to keep up with!

Finally, he seemed to be finished. What he’d said… it was so much to take in, but… He wasn’t mad at her for lying? He was smiling even though she’d hurt him? And what he’d said about her Quirk… Nobody had ever told her something like that before. Whenever she copied someone else, they’d always get upset, as if she’d stolen something from them. At the very most, they’d grudgingly admit that it was useful for the situation, but they’d still never been happy with it. It has always been their power that did the work, not her own. But this boy, Yoshida Kenichi, thought that this power wasn’t a fake? He thought that it was her own? Rather, he talked about his own abilities as if they were nothing special?

[color=#F50A83]”But that’s wrong, though,”[/color] Fumika stated matter-of-factly. Yet, as she continued, she seemed more to be talking to herself than to the boy in front of her. [color=#F50A83]”Yoshida’s Quirk has all sorts of uses… He used it to kick up dust so I couldn’t control my projections, and he could easily have used it to pull me in just by breathing. He might even be able to use it to clear away rubble and debris, so it’d be good in a disaster, too. Oh, or he could use it to blow out fires like a big birthday candle! ...Wait, does that mean that he needs to have a really big candle on his birthday? But what about the cake? Wouldn’t it get blown away too…? Oh!”[/color] Her gaze suddenly refocused on Kenichi, as if she’d just remembered she was having a conversation, and she seamlessly shifted from thinking aloud to talking to the boy in front of her. [color=#F50A83]”You’re amazing. You’re almost as fast as Haruka, and at least as strong. No matter how tough your enemy is, and no matter how hard a me could try to beat you, you could still definitely win.”[/color] She spoke with the same sort of childlike admiration as if she was talking to a real superhero already, rather than just a hero-in-training.

...And then promptly ruined it. [color=#F50A83]”Oh, but I don’t know if Yoshida is smart or not. He fought like he was smart, and figured out my Quirk right away… But he also didn’t realize about my energy limit and burned himself out attacking a copy when just hitting me would have worked… He also jumped right in even though I made five people to guard against him, and didn’t even try a surprise attack to even the odds... And he kept yelling the names of his attacks even when I didn’t know where he was, so he couldn’t take me by surprise, either… But his attacks had cool names, like Haruka’s… Hmm…”[/color] Once more she lapsed back into her own thoughts, evidently not realizing that the person whose potential idiocy she was contemplating was standing right in front of her.

Now it seemed to be her turn to reassure him, and though Kenichi was a bit confused by her use of third-person at first, he laughed when she talked about the birthday cake. When she refocused the conversation he kept listening, but at the mention of Haruka his expression sobered up a little--he wasn't irritated or anything, but that name gave him something to think about, in particular that one-sided conversation Motome-chan had during their battle, and the dark haired girl who wasn't in their class that she had projected. Nonetheless, the blue hair blushed a bit at all of the blonde girl's complements...then he drooped somewhat when she talked about all the mistakes he'd made during the battle.

"Uhh...Motome-chan? Maybe we should start heading back towards the classroom while we talk?" he interrupted tentatively. Assuming that she would follow him out, he held the door open for her and then followed her down the halls.

"Anyway, Yoshida's glad--I mean, I'm glad you're okay after all that." he added. "Kimoto-kun--the gas guy--took some nasty cuts, and I'm pretty sure Don-kun--the fat kid on my team--was planning to just completely collapse Point B, which sounds even more dangerous." His eyebrows wrinkled and he folded his arms. "I think Yoshida-sensei--no relation, by the way--took the whole "prove you deserve to be here" thing too far. Don't you?" He looked over at her expectantly. Maybe if L Guardian hadn't pushed them so hard, she wouldn't have felt so bad about using her own Quirk. But he had a feeling it was more deeply rooted than that--probably just the nature of her Quirk. She copied things, and people, and played their actions back like a movie. And she compared herself to this Haruka girl a lot; like he thought before, something must have happened in the past. It was probably too early to pry into that just yet...

Fumika shook her head slightly, tugging at the ends of her hair as if forcibly trying to pull her thoughts back to the present. Back to the classroom, he said? Oh, right. She’d been unconscious, so even though she had been thinking as if it had only been a few minutes since her battle - since her last attack was where her awareness of the passage of time had ended - it had probably been longer than that. Given that her energy levels had risen to the point where she’d been able to regain consciousness, it might have been more than an hour since the fight, which meant the exercise had likely long since ended. In that case, classes would have resumed…

[color=#F50A83]“Oh. Right. We have other classes than just fighting,”[/color] The blonde murmured, placing a fist in her open palm as if she’d just had an earthshaking revelation. She stared quizzically at Kenichi for a moment as if re-evaluating him, and then gave a faint smile. [color=#F50A83]“Yoshida is smart,”[/color] She said conclusively, and that was the end of that.

Following him out the door, she listened to his little summary of the battle with an unreadable expression on her face. If Sen had gotten hurt, then the plan to attack Point C had probably failed. And if the empty man had been able to bring down Point B, coupled with her own failure to protect point A… So, they’d lost on every single front. She’d given her everything to win the battle, but she hadn’t even been thinking about what to do after that. Her entire plan had fallen apart, and she’d let the entire team down after all by sending them all into traps and then failing to uphold her own goals. She hung her head in dismay. This was why she didn’t like thinking - it always came out all wrong, and now everyone would probably be mad at her. And what would the teachers think? Wouldn’t they blame her for her team’s failure? She’d not only dragged everyone down, but she hadn’t even passed the exercise herself. She’d let Haruka down too.

[color=#F50A83] “If I’d done a little better…”[/color] She mumbled under her breath, her antenna drooping in gloom once again. But what more could she have done? Already, she was so tired she felt like she might just topple over. Her eyelids were still fluttering, demanding sleep, and she yawned loudly, her fatigue plainly obvious. She just wanted to find somewhere nice to lie down, with a warm, soft pillow… She’d had a nice pillow when she fell asleep last time, hadn’t she? Where had that come from, anyway? And what had happened to it? A pillow in the middle of a training ground? No matter how she looked at it, it didn’t really make sense.

...Yoshida was staring at her. Did he want something from her? He’d said something about the other Yoshida - the teacher - taking things too far, but she wasn’t really sure about that. Still, this Yoshida was nice, while that Yoshida was mean, so this one probably deserved a response of some kind. [color=#F50A83] “The mean Yoshida seemed like he made everyone upset,”[/color] She affirmed sleepily, nodding slightly. Her head wobbled slightly at the motion, and she yawned again.

"Heh, you seem like you need to recharge, Motome-chan!" Kenichi grinned as the girl blinked and yawned. Then a thought seemed to occur to him and he held up a hand in an apologetic manner. "Sorry, you don't actually have to do that, do you? Plug your hair into a socket or something to actually recharge like a digital camera?"  Truth be told, now that the adrenaline was wearing off he felt pretty drained too. He wondered if anyone else had made it back to class yet...Mamoru hadn't been in the nurses' room when he came to from the bug treatment, so maybe she had beaten them back. She better not have stolen his main character seat! But let's see...Kimoto, Lysander, Mamoru, himself, and Fumika. Five in all, not all that bad actually when you had around twenty kids in the class. And Alpha team had more losses, so chances were good that Delta would take the win. But if L Guardian tried to expel any of them...Kenichi reflexively clenched the fist hanging by his side.

"Maybe since this is the first real day and we already had that dumb orientation test, they'll call it after lunch and we can head back to our dorms." he said as they reached the classroom--once again he opened the door and held it for Fumika. "A test to get to the classrooms, and then an all-out team brawl right afterwards...Komei must be trying to outdo U.A. or something." He rubbed the back of his head as he walked towards his seat. "I just hope the other teachers aren't as sadistic as homeroom and the nurse."

In response to his questions, Fumika nodded, then shook her head, the tuft of hair on top of it first bobbing up and down, then wobbling side to side. Come to think of it, it seemed a lot less rigid than it had before, during their fight. Even when she'd been knocked around or sent flying, it had kept sticking straight up without a problem, but now it was flailing all over the place at the slightest movement. Given her lack of energy, it was likely that the electrical current running through her hair probably wasn't even outputting enough power to keep it sticking up - which was a problem, because that in turn meant that her bangs kept falling over her eyes any time she brought her head down, forcing her to fumble to try to push it back up into its usual place.

[color=#F50A83]"I do recharge, but not like that. Although, it would be convenient if I could do that... But that would probably light my hair on fire. Or fry my brain. It would definitely delete my recordings, too. Plus I'm not sure if my hair could fit into an electrical socket. Overall, I just don't think it's possible."[/color] She stopped there, looking at him as if satisfied with her explanation, but he was still staring back at her expectantly... Had she forgotten to mention something? Oh, right. She hadn't actually said how she did recharge, just how she didn't. [color=#F50A83]"I take lots of naps,"[/color] She added with a yawn, leaving the matter at that as if this explained everything.

As Kenichi kept talking about the school, Fumika didn't comment, but simply seated herself at the desk next to his. It wasn't the same as the one she'd used that morning, but she didn't really think about the possibility that it might have belonged to someone else. To be honest, she hadn't even realized that the day's events were unusual. Since this was her first time in a Hero school, she didn't really have any precedent to determine whether or not what she was being asked to do was unreasonable. She'd thought that her fatigue and inability to keep up was a problem on her end, but...

[color=#F50A83]"Is Yoshida tired too?"[/color] She wondered aloud. There wasn't any way, right? He was so fast and strong, and his stamina seemed limitless. Even after everything she'd done against him in their fight, he was up and about like this just an hour or so later, while she could barely keep on her feet. Of course he couldn't be exhausted too... right? But if he was... Then maybe this really was strange?

"I'm a little worn out, but--" Kenichi had to stop as his own jaw stretched. Yawns were contagious--and his own inhaled and exhaled so forcefully that all the window panes on the side of the classroom rattled in their frames. He blushed as he clamped his mouth shut and looked away.

"Sorry bout that. But mostly I'm hungry instead of sleepy." He looked at his fully repaired arm, flexing his fist open and closed. "My Quirk's a mutant type--the actual structure of my...respiratory..." he had to take a moment to make sure he was pronouncing the word correctly, "system is different. So even if I'm not doing my super-breath, my stamina's generally better. It's just that, this time, I had to use a trump card." He held up his fist in a manner reminiscent of everyone's favorite number one Hero. "The Jet Smash is the strongest move I got, but it's got some side effects."

He was already thinking about how to fix that, though...if his muscles were tearing, then he needed to build them up for more stability. If his bones were cracking, he needed to put small amounts of stress on them over time and supplement his diet. And to make his lungs more efficient, he needed to find some way to force them to work harder temporarily...maybe he should start wearing a facemask to school? But then he'd look even more like a delinquent... 

Fumika gazed at Kenichi with an unreadable expression on her face, her sleepy eyes slowly widening and growing more focused as the glass began to rattle. He was really incredible, to have so much stamina left after such a hard battle. Of course, the fight had only really been hard from her own perspective, but she didn't really think of that. And even his yawns were powerful enough to shake the room! To think that there were other people as incredible as Haruka... She'd probably always known it, but to meet one so soon after entering Hero school... It was incredible, but also a little bit disheartening. After all, this was the sort of standard she'd be held to from now on, right...?

As he continued speaking, she attended to his every word like a child listening to an interesting story told. Indeed, this comparison was much more plainly obvious now that she was sitting down and looking at him on eye level, instead of peering down at him with that quizzical look of hers. And, as he went on to talk about his special move, striking a particularly heroic pose that was all too familiar to her, Fumika suddenly got the strangest sort of smile on her face. It was the smile of someone who's just been given a chance to shake hands with their favorite celebrity, the smile of someone given an autographed ball by a sports star, or the smile of a bystander witnessing the charisma and power of a hero firsthand. And yet, in that smile, there was something oddly telling, since even though she was the one who had pushed him to such an extent, she was still the one looking up to him in the end.

[color=#F50A83]"You're so cool!"[/color] She said, her admiration obvious in her voice. Instead of her usual calm, stoic tone, she practically shouted these words, hopping halfway up from her chair before she evidently thought better of this decision and wobbled back down into a seated position. [color=#F50A83]"You can do stuff like that and even if it hurts you it doesn't slow you down. And even your yawns are strong!"[/color] She sighed, glancing away somewhat awkwardly. She didn't normally do this, since it was already selfish of her to have started this conversation anyway. And even though she'd already apologized, she was still talking to him. Because, now that she'd thought about it, even when she'd been on the verge of losing, and even though she'd hurt him in the end... Even when he was her enemy, and even though her decisions had been the downfall of her team, he'd still said something like that.

[i]"Your choice wasn't wrong."[/i]

She didn't know why he thought that way, or why he wasn't mad at her, or why he was still talking to her, or anything like that. But, being close to such an amazing person... She didn't dislike it. Even though she was slow and didn't really get what he was saying sometimes, he was always smiling at her, just like Haruka.

Maybe she was just tired, and wasn't thinking clearly, and so didn't consider the consequences. Or maybe she missed having an example to follow, having someone to look up to? Or maybe, she was just sick of being alone. But, all of sudden, she blurted out the last thing she had expected to say.

[color=#F50A83]"Even though you're so cool, you still talk to me like I'm your friend."[/color] Her sudden words sounded almost... sad, which just seemed bizarre coming from someone as spacey and seemingly carefree as her. It really was the same way as it was back then. All of a sudden, swift as the spring wind, a new person had entered her life and shown her kindness. When that opportunity had presented itself on that day, she'd hesitated, but ultimately accepted. She hadn't been mistaken to do so. So... was it alright if she made another choice of her own today? But, expressing herself was so hard... She couldn't find any big words that would really do the trick, so she decided she'd keep things simple. Simple was best, right? Then there was no room for anything but the truth, no room for anything she couldn't understand or didn't know how to deal with.

[color=#F50A83]"You're a nice person. I like you."[/color] Both of these things were true, but there had to be something more... Haruka had told her often about the way you were supposed to make friends, so, if she did something like that, would it really work? She drew back her head, trying in that moment to be as friendly as the person she'd admired most. [color=#F50A83]"Umm..."[/color] She hesitated only a moment, stumbling over her words before the magic phrase Haruka had taught her burst forth.

[color=#F50A83]"If it's alright with you, please be my friend!"[/color]

She bowed deeply, only for her forehead to collide violently with something hard. Oh. Right. She'd been sitting at a desk. She'd been too tired and too worked up to think about it, and so hadn't remembered that there was something beneath her, in spite of her perfect mental image of the location. Her hair drooped lifelessly as if in shame, and she gave a quiet whimper, rubbing her head but refusing to so much as raise it to look up. She'd messed it up... It was so simple and she'd still messed it up...!

Seeing her smile like that, for what he thought was the first real time since they'd met each other (and how was that for a first meeting, beating the hell out of one another?), Kenichi couldn't help but blush. It was like having your parents praise you for something that wasn't really that big a deal, but they wanted you to know how proud they were of you. But somehow, in his gut, he could feel something else coming. Motome-chan didn't seem the type to completely throw a switch or swing between moods. And sure enough, there she went being sad and gloomy again...but at least she wasn't beating up on herself this time, at least not out loud.

And then she said she liked him and he almost had a heart attack because he hadn't been prepared for that much Moe--then surprise turned into outright fear as she slammed her head into the desk hard enough to make Kenichi startle. 

"M-m-Motome-chan?" Kenichi asked tentatively. The only answer was a whimper as her ahoge drooped, and they stood there for several awkward moments. Then Kenichi sighed, and reached out to playfully flick her hair-antennae with a finger.

"Hey, there's no need to ask. Of course we're friends!" he said, putting his hands on his hips. "And I'm glad you think I'm cool, cause I think the same about you. But...maybe I'm wrong, but I think you're still bein' down on yourself."

Kenichi had stopped smiling a couple of times since she'd met him, but it certainly seemed like his default state. This would be the first time she'd see him looking sad.

"We talked about Quirks already. Some are always gonna be stronger or better than others, but if ya ask me that's like...maybe twenty-five percent of bein' a Hero." He turned to look at the window. "You think I'm so strong, or that I just keep goin' through the pain like it's nothin', but..." He bit his lip. He didn't wanna berate her, but he wanted every word to have the right weight.

"We're [i]born[/i] with our Quirks, even if they don't activate til later. Have you ever heard of someone who was strong because of the hair or eye color they were [i]born[/i] with?" He looked back at her, and maybe, with the way her own eyes recorded so much, she could see the memory in his that burned so vividly every time he thought about the story he was about to tell her.

"When I was six years old, my dad traveled the world as a journalist. During a civil war, far away from Japan, he was...[i]they[/i] attacked the convoy he was with, blew it up. Suicide bombers." Sadness was turning to anger, but his gritting teeth kept it in check. "My dad got hurt, bad. Barely made it home alive. That's when I decided I was gonna be a Hero--every kid wants to be a Hero, it's the ultimate kind of celebrity. But I [i]wanted[/i] it."

He looked at his fists, forced them to unclench, and calmed himself.

"I'm fourteen now. Eight years ago, the day after that attack, I ran a mile in about four minutes." His hands fell back to his sides. "This morning, I did pushups, situps, squats, and jumping jacks, fifty each. Ran two miles, taking it easy, so probably six or seven minutes. That's what I call my daily--every day, even weekends, I get up and I do that. It's taken me eight years--you can't start off doing something literally every day, that's how you hurt yourself or overtrain--but I do that before anything else. This week, since school's started, I was gonna take it easy until I got used to the new routine. But after my daily, I typically do other stuff too. Right now I do three days of upper body, two for lower, but I change it up whenever I stop getting results." He started counting off things on his fingers.

"Curls, bench press, rows, overhead press, deadlifts. Burpees, windsprints, calf raises, jumprope, almost every damn thing I can find on the internet or in a guidebook. Sometimes to failure, sometimes counting reps and sets, sometimes max weight, sometimes just enough to feel like I'm doing work."

He looked at her again, and all the intense emotions seemed to have faded and he was back to a generally cheerful countenance, though not quite the wide-grin fool again yet.

"I probably am strong, to a lot of people. But it was eight years of work, and hurting, and crying. Just cause I had a convenient Quirk for physical stuff wasn't any help--in fact, [i]because[/i] of my Quirk, I worked that much harder to make up for it, to go further beyond. And when I tried to get into UA, I learned that I could still push even further."

He pointed at Fumika, and this time he did smile. He took a cue from how she mimicked everything around her, and mimicked the same bright smile she had shown him.

"And you can too! It's not about your Quirk, it's not about comparin' yourself to other people all the time. All that matters is the work you put in, and I'm sure you've been putting in lots of effort of your own to this day! But just like All Might says, we've got to go even further beyond--Plus Ultra!"

As Yoshida began talking to her, Fumika slowly raised her head from where she'd slumped over the desk. Dismay turned to confusion, then to slight hope, and then to surprise and relief. They were already friends? When had that happened? Hadn't she hurt him? Just like Haruka, he was moving along so fast, it was all she could do to keep up. And the more he kept talking, the more her head spun. He wasn't strong because of his Quirk? All that power, all that she admired... If she put in the effort she could be like that, too? But then he started talking about attacks and things that sounded sad, and she didn't understand why. This was his reason for becoming a Hero, but didn't talking about things like that hurt him? But then he smiled again, as if it was all alright... She tried her hardest to understand, but so many of the things he talked about were unfamiliar to her, it was like hearing somebody speaking an unknown language. Even when he was finished, she had no idea what to say, or where to begin.

[color=#0A8BF5]Start from the beginning. Address one problem at once.[/color] The last subject he'd spoken of that she'd understood... It was his reason for being there, why he was a Hero. In that case, she needed to start at square one, too. But... just thinking about that hurt... Her chest felt tight, and even when she didn't want to look, the image of Haruka on that day was still burned into her eyes...! Even though she was bleeding, even though her breath was coming in ragged gasps, even though she'd given up everything and still come back...! Why was she looking at her with that face?! Why was she smiling even when she was crying from the pain?

[color=#c9c916][i]"I'm sorry. I should have been faster. But I made it... I made it on time."[/i][/color]

Fumika found her hands clutching her throat. She tried to say something - anything - but suddenly, the air wouldn't come in or out. She thought for a split second that she was choking, that there was smoke all around her, but that couldn't be true. She was just tired, just dreaming, right? She lowered her hands and hung her head. She couldn't talk about it, couldn't think about it, couldn't help but see, didn't want to see anymore. This was the sort of thing that hurt too much, that was too sad. How had he talked about something like this so easily? Did he just not feel pain? She didn't understand it at all, couldn't understand no matter how hard she tried. He said he'd worked hard to get where he was, so she felt like it was insulting to him to think that it was just because of who he was. But, at the same time... In more ways than one, he was so much stronger than her that it hurt.

She threw up her hands and tugged on the ends of her hair, shaking her head wildly back and forth. She wouldn't think about it anymore. It couldn't be understood, and trying to understand it would only hurt. She couldn't start there, so she'd have to start somewhere else. [color=#0A8BF5]Go back further.[/color] Then, what else had made sense? There had to be a starting point somewhere, so if she couldn't find it, she'd start by looking instead. Rather than becoming a Hero, what had she done to prepare to become a Hero? He'd worked so hard... what about her? What had she been doing? Running from place to place, sprinting until she dropped just to keep pace? Fighting hopeless fights in the hopes of getting a little closer to that person's strength? Recording anything, everything, that might be useful to her? It wasn't enough. If someone as strong as Yoshida had to work that hard, then didn't someone as weak as her have to work even harder? Then what was she supposed to do? That question would lead to her starting point.

Oh geez, he'd done it again, she was pulling her hair and shaking. Crap in a basket...maybe she thought he was implying that she hadn't put forth any real effort of her own or something, like telling somebody who had given it their absolute all that they weren't good enough. In a way...was that what he was telling her? He'd tried to think things through before he said them, but dammit he wasn't the greatest thinker...and talking about his dad always got him worked up. This was weird for him, being such an outgoing and high-energy type--talking to someone like Motome who seemed to hang onto every word and internalize it, analyze it. And he just sort of said things, assumed things about how she was feeling on the inside but the truth was he didn't know all that much about her. Maybe he'd gotten too heavy too fast, considering how they hadn't even known each other until...what, an hour ago? Less than that?

[color=#f50a83]"Right now, it's not enough, then. ...So, if I work hard will I be strong too?"[/color]

No hesitation, no doubt. He put one hand over one of hers, gently, but stopping her from pulling at her hair so much. He looked at her seriously, just like he had before the second round of their battle.

"Absolutely." he answered her.

There it was. A simple answer, one which wasn't hard to understand. Fumika took a deep breath and smiled faintly. [color=#f50a83]"Okay,"[/color] She said, giving a slight nod as she seemed to relax. There wasn't anything ambiguous to worry about anymore, so she didn't have to think about possibilities that hurt her. [color=#f50a83]"Then I'll work harder."[/color] If it wasn't enough the way things already were, then she'd have to do as he told her, to push her limits and go even further. Whether or not the day's training was normal or not, the fact of the matter was, she had been hard-pressed just to meet expectations. She'd managed to fight harder and do better than ever before, but it still wasn't good enough. Hearing Yoshida explain how he'd become so strong, it was obvious in hindsight that she herself had been the one to blame, that she'd been slacking off. Even if a person was born with incredible power, like Haruka, nothing was guaranteed. So, just like she'd copied Haruka's dream, she'd take what she could learn from Yoshida and apply it to herself. If he said that was how she could become strong, how she could be a better Hero for Haruka, then she'd do as he told her. This way, she didn't need to think about it, didn't need to make risky choices. The path of least resistance was open to her. This was, without a doubt, the right choice.

[color=#f50a83]"Hmm,"[/color] She mused aloud, murmuring to herself once again as she made a mental note not to forget what she'd learned, committing it to her perfect memory once and for all. [color=#f50a83]"Yoshida is hard to understand, but he gives good advice."[/color]

"D'aw." Kenichi took his hand off hers and rubbed the back of his head with an embarrassed grin. "Thanks, Motome-chan!"