Dormient Potential - 4.

 

4.

She saw the students heading back to the dorms and sped up to catch up with a smaller group in which she recognized the spiky red hair. When she was closer, she heard a part of the conversation.

“It’s finally weekend,” a boy with blonde hair and a black zigzag on a side of his head said. “Pity we cannot take the new girl for a band practice for the school festival.”

“Maybe she’s playing some instrument, who knows,” a girl named Jiro said. She had audio jacks growing straight from her ears, that she could extend and plug herself to any structure or just the ground to hear various sounds from a distance.

Mariko closed more space between them and finally heard someone calling her. Unfortunately, it was the little grape man, who nearly creeped her out this morning.

“Oh, hi there,” he winked, striking a seductive pose that looked absolutely ridiculous on him.

“Hey,” Mariko said and Minoru screamed and then started murmuring something about noticing him.

“Hi! We haven’t met yet. I am Kaminari Denki,” the boy with zigzag on his hair introduced himself.

“Okaido Mariko,” she replied.

“Kacchan, you should also introduce yourself,” Iida said and the group diverged, creating two rows. Mariko and one guy she didn’t have the occasion to meet was standing still, his back towards her. He spluttered and started to walk towards the dorms.

“Umm, what’s going on with that guy?” Mariko asked.

“Kacchan? Oh, he’s being himself,” Izuku Midoriya, the green haired boy said, appearing behind Mariko.

“SHUT UP!” the so called Kacchan yelled and Izuku chickened out.

Mariko snorted with laughter.

“Where did they find all of these people?” she asked herself, amused.

The group soon started chatting and they all returned to the dorms to split up into smaller groups most of which returned to the rooms. Mariko quickly changed to her khaki sports bra and matching military like pants, that were extremely comfortable - the young woman loved working out while wearing them. Additionally, the pants had a lot of pockets, in which Mariko liked putting additional weights, to make her training even harder. Since she was a child, she knew that relying on her Quirk would be fatal most of the time. If she was to master it then she would still be a late game character, just like in games. She will not do much in the beginning of the battle. In fact, the beginning would be like a survival match for her. She was becoming more powerful, the more time passed by.

She quickly grabbed her phone with headphones as well as her backpack with a water bottle, a big grey towel, a few weights and a pair of workout gloves, exited the dorm and entered the common room. The second she stepped on the first floor, she heard another familiar scream and saw the purple haired guy, peeping at Mariko behind a corner.

“Sweet Jesus, please stop,” she said, rolling her eyes and leaving the boy alone in the common room.

She turned on her heels and checked what time it was. She smiled to herself, knowing that she will make it right on time to the gym. Once she entered the gigantic room, she saw Mirio inside.

“Mirio!” she called, waving towards the boy.

“Mariko, ohayo!” he waved back and started running towards her. “Are you here for some workout?”

“Actually, I am. I have to prepare myself for Monday, when I will start working with class 1A. I don’t want to be a burden, you know. Actually, the second I become one, I will get dismissed.”

“Is there any way I can help you with your training?” he offered.

“I could actually use a sparring partner. But like, without Quirks.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea. Sign me up!” he smiled and striking his usual thumbs up pose.

“Perfect!”

“Do you want to go outside or stay inside? The weather is extremely hot today.”

“What is outside?” she asked. “I never seen the UA, you know.”

“Of course. I forgot because you already look like one of our students. If we leave the gym from that side,” he pointed at a tall reinforced door that was on the right wall of the gym “we will end up in a workout park. There is not that many equipment there but it takes only creativity to come up with an extremely good workout plan.”

“Wow, I’m in. But first, our sparring.”

“Alright.”

They both started stretching and doing some simple exercises to warm up their muscles and once they were done, both Mariko and Mirio stood in front of each other, their poses showing tension and focus. They were not sure if they were allowed to do a real sparring match, as the school nurse could refuse to heal their possible injuries, so they settled on the modified game of tag in which the first person to touch their opponent wins. However, instead of running around, they had to face the enemy and evade attacks as efficiently as possible.

The first to attack was Mirio, quickly dashing forward in the girl’s direction. Mariko jumped away to the side and stretched her body, reaching towards Mirio. He turned his body and agilely recoiled. They ended up facing each other again and just couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s gonna be fun,” Mariko said.

“Haha, yes!” Mirio answered, showing off his white teeth.

Mariko made a few steps forward but Mirio kept his distance. She stopped and stood still for a few seconds before rushing forward, just to jump to the side in the last second. Mirio stepped back and lunged, nearly reaching her belly. She evaded the attack and dodged a few others that he tried to land on her immediately after the first strike. They were jumping around and evading each other for more than 10 minutes, slowly feeling the warmth inside their muscles. This time, Mariko dashed forward and Mirio evaded her attack and she tried to perform a chain of strikes, none of which was successful. Then, Mirio looked as if he was about to pull back, but instead of giving up, he jumped in front of her. Mariko turned her body and bent it, reaching with her hand towards his right hip. The second her fingertip brushed the material of his school sport uniform, she felt his palm on her back.

“Oh no! I thought I got you there,” he sighed. “So, a draw then?”

“Yes, looks like it,” Mariko straightened herself up and smiled at the boy.

“You are quite fast.”

“Oh… Thank you. But I think you are much faster,” Mariko said, disbelieving in her skills.

“No, no. It was a draw, so we are even without our Quirks.”

She frowned, but Mirio turned around and waved at her, letting her know that they should go outside now. The girl grabbed her backpack and followed the young man, chatting with him in the meantime.

Once they left the huge gym, they saw a simple workout park with resilient floor and a few horizontal bars set up at various heights. They both agreed that they should focus a bit on their training so stopped talking. Mariko put on her headphones and started stretching and then moved to one handed push-ups and various pull-ups. She wasn’t really tired yet so she knew that she had to try to push her limits. But in that second a thought came to her mind.

“Mirio, sorry for disturbing you now but is there any time limit for this workout park… Like specific amount of time the students are allowed to use it?”

“No, not really. We can use it anytime, really. Well, unless you should be on one of your lessons, haha” he answered.

“Alright, thank you,” she nodded and started pulling her legs up as high as she could, while hanging on the horizontal bar.

“No time limit, hmm?” she thought to herself and an image of Mr. Aizawa allowing her to use the gym for only one hour came to her mind. “Maybe he didn’t mean the outside one but the regular one? No, that wouldn’t make much sense as the gymnastic hall is quite empty. It’s more of a place for practicing quirks than working out,” she switched to slow pull ups.

So why did he say something like that? And why didn’t he talk to her or call her in regards to her timetable? She surely had to know what kind of classes she had to attend.

“Or maybe…” she stopped, face hanging above her hands tightened around the horizontal bar. “Maybe yesterday’s test wasn’t the only one I will have at the beginning. Of course! It makes perfect sense!”

“Mirio, sorry again.”

“No need to be sorry, go on,” he answered starting another series of push-ups.

“The UA also does this kind of physical performance tests at the beginning of every school year, to check your progress like rest of the hero schools, right?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” she answered and dropped down to the floor. She reached for her phone and checked the time. “15 more minutes till 4 pm,” she murmured.

“If my predictions are correct, Mr. Aizawa should appear here soon. I'd better start working out for real. I don’t want him to think that I was wasting my time on chatting with Mirio or whatever he might say,” she thought to herself and jumped to the horizontal bar, gripping it tightly. She flipped herself upside down and hung back of her knees on the bar and started doing crunches, focusing her mind on soft electronic music that was filling her ears.

She tried as much as she could not to think about the passing time and had to force herself to close her eyes to avoid peeping towards the entrance to the gymnastic hall every second. The music wasn’t too loud, because she could easily talk to Mirio before, but still she was extremely worried that the teacher might have received that as a sign of disrespect towards him. It wouldn’t be the first situation like this to happen to her.

Suddenly, she felt the need to look over her shoulder. The thought was so strong that she couldn’t resist it anymore. Mariko grabbed the horizontal bar, slowly released her knees and landed on the ground safely. The girl turned around, wanting to look as natural as she could but when she saw the familiar unimpressed expression, she nervously brushed her palms against her pants. She wanted to impress that man, prove to him that she wasn’t useless and she was willing to learn.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Aizawa,” she greeted, reaching inside her backpack to drink some water. Mirio jumped on his feet and bowed gratefully towards the teacher.

“Good afternoon,” the tired man answered. “Okaido, please come with me,” he asked and her black eyes snapped to the tall man.

Mariko waved a goodbye to Mirio and fell into Shouta’s step.

“What is it, sir?” she asked politely.

“I want to measure your physical performance, see what your endurance levels are. We don’t have much time, so better show me that you were actually doing something in your previous schools,” he said, half opened eyes now directed at her.

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“I was right!” she thought to herself. “So if it was a right guess with the physical test, then the lack of timetable can mean only one thing. They are going to test out my knowledge and decide what kind of plan I should have… at least that’s what I think.”

They walked past the workout park, right next to the UA school wall and soon ended up on another training ground.

“I want you to do long jumps, sprint, balance test and a ball throw. Remember about my words after our sparring match. I was dead serious,” he reminded.

“I am absolutely aware, sir.”

“Good.”

Mariko was extremely suspicious. Every single thing that he wanted her to perform was something that she was actually quite good at, especially the balance and ball throw. She ended the long jump with a score of 232 centimeters and the sprint took her 17 seconds to finish the 100 meters run. She wasn’t very tired after that and she knew she did her best, but the time to shine was right in front of her. For the balance test she had to climb a few stairs and then step on a thin wooden balk. Mariko never had issues with her balance, so this test was like a child’s play. She crossed the balk reaching the other mini staircase at lightning speed, showing off her confidence as well as gentle, careful steps.

Mr. Aizawa crinkled his eyes.

“Okaido, step on it once again.”

She turned towards him, doing as he said.

“But why, sir? Did I do something wrong?” she stood in the middle of the balk.

Aizawa’s eyes flashed red and his scarf rose from his shoulders.

“Try to evade,” he said.

She nodded and focused on the older man standing a few meters away from her. He aimed an attack towards her feet, making her jump up. She landed on her left foot, regaining her balance with impressive speed. Shouta stroke from the other side but this attack was also evaded. He then released two at once, aiming for both feet, but she jumped off the balk, quickly grabbed it with her both hands and pulled herself onto it once again.

The Binding Cloth fell to his arms and his hair peacefully landed on his forehead.

“That’s enough,” he said.

Mariko jumped down on the ground and looked at the teacher. He didn’t say anything, making her uncomfortable.

“Can I ask you something, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Is your Binding Weapon made of your hair or what? Why does it float same as your hair?”

Aizawa looked into her dark eyes.

“It does contain my hair,” he answered and she looked as if that wasn’t the last question. “Go on.”

“How do you aim it? Isn’t it too light?”

“If I can throw it, it means it works, so not too light.”

“Right, my bad. Stupid question, sorry,” she realized and went silent.

She waited for the next instruction, avoiding his exhausted gaze.

“Now, throwing a ball,” he finally said, handing her a small, but heavy leather ball.

Mariko tossed it in the air a few times, getting used to its weight. Once she was ready, she stood in the right spot, facing the narrow area that wasn’t covered with any grass and was marked with meter metric on the side. She focused and imagined a target standing on the 100 meter line and threw the ball as far away as she could. She made a weak shout and followed the ball with her eyes.

“79 meters,” Mr. Aizawa said and she clenched her fists, furious at herself.

“No way!” she punched herself in the leg. “Can I try once again? I am sure I can throw further.”

“No,” he simply said. “That is not the last test today.”

Mariko turned around and joined the man, who started walking towards the school. He showed her the girl’s dressing room, in which the showers were, giving her a few minutes to pull herself together. She quickly cleaned herself, put on casual black clothes and drank the rest of the water she had. When she left the dressing room, Aizawa nodded at her, letting her know to follow him without saying a word. The girl walked beside the man in silence, thinking about her physical test.

He didn’t say anything about her results, leaving her uneasy. Was he disappointed with the score or was he actually quite pleased? She couldn’t tell. It was so hard to read Aizawa’s neutral expressions.

“We want to test your knowledge from your three years of school. It’s quite demanding and the pass rate is 95%,” he informed.

They entered the school's second floor and walked down the corridor for a few minutes, the huge windows showing the school’s park on their left. Mariko was extremely nervous. 95% pass rate? That is a lot. But what was she expecting? After all, it was the UA, the best hero school in the whole Japan.

“Here we are. I will be in the teacher’s break room over here and the class, in which test is going to take place is right here,” he pointed the two doors and left her alone in the corridor.

Mariko swallowed her fear and knocked on the door on her left.

“Please come in,” she heard a muffled male voice with a robotic tone to it.

The girl entered the classroom and saw a teacher that wore something similar to a beige gas mask that looked quite stretched in the front. He was also wearing a bloody red cape that was covering his back and left side of the body and a brown cowboy hat. She bowed to him and introduced herself.

“Good afternoon, Okaido,” he said, greeting her. “My name is Snipe. I am in charge of third year students in the UA. I heard you were transferred, correct?”

“Kind of correct. I was dismissed and I basically decided to seek help in here as I cannot control my Quirk.”

“Interesting,” he said, taking the test from a desk. “How do you like it so far?”

“The UA is outstanding. Even your gym is much bigger than what I’ve seen in other schools.”

“I see. You have two and a half hours to finish the test. So, good luck then, Mariko.”

“Thank you.”

He handed her the file and gave her a black pen. She signed the test and then started answering heroics questions about first aid and behavior on the battlefield as well as on the villain attack sites and some easier and more complicated examples from maths. After approximately two hours she browsed through the document, checking if she answered every question. After she was sure, she stood up and was about to leave, but Mr. Snipe informed her that they should check the test immediately so she might as well help him with it a bit. Half an hour passed and Mariko’s heart sunk. She got only 89%.

“Thank you for the help, Mariko. You are free now,” he informed.

“Goodbye, Mr. Snipe,” she nodded and left the classroom. Her heart was pounding so fast, that she felt like vomiting.

Now, she had to face Mr. Aizawa and inform him that she had already failed. And that was only her second day in here.

She blinked a few times, stopping the tears.

“It’s gonna be fine, maybe I will ask Principal Nezu if he knows anyone that can help me in this case. Maybe Mr. Aizawa will do something,” she started to calm herself. “Why would he do that? He obviously isn’t the guy that would waste his time on someone without any kind of potential,” an evil voice rang inside her brain.

She shook her head and stood in front of the teacher’s break room, her fist stuck in the air, only a few centimeters away from the wooden surface.

“Pass rate is 95%,” she heard Shouta’s voice in her mind.

Mariko wiped her eyes and felt rage forming inside her. She was so pathetic! Always failing, no matter how hard she tried.

She knocked and after a few seconds heard a familiar, tired voice. She entered the break room and leaned back on the door, not looking at her teacher. After a nervous swallow, she rose her head, searching for eye contact with the teacher. But he wasn’t here. She looked around the room, confused. Did he answer her request to enter the room or was it her imagination?

“Here, Okaido,” she heard again and nearly jumped at the sound of his voice.

She turned her head slightly to the left and saw a huge, bright yellow sleeping bag with the face of her teacher. She was stunned, unable to say anything. Mr. Aizawa blinked a few times as if he was fighting the urge to nap again and then he unzipped the sleeping bag and stood up, looking at Mariko with his usual neutral expression. It was so ridiculous that she forgot what she was about to say.

“Yes, Okaido? Do you want to tell me something? Probably your test results?” he asked, bringing her down to earth.

She felt a lump inside her throat, making her unable to speak. She clenched her fists, accepting her defeat and looked the teacher straight in his tired eyes.

“I failed. I apologize, Mr. Aizawa. I thought I am prepared,” she said, looking down again unable to bear his gaze.

“What was the result?” he asked.

“I got 89%, so below the pass rate,” she informed frowning.

“So actually you passed.”

“But… you said…”

“It’s a rational deception,” he said and a wild, ridiculous grin appeared on his face.

“A WHAT?” she asked, mouth opened. Her stress was instantly washed away and she couldn’t help but smile at his funny face.

“I tricked you,” he admitted.

“Oh, so you are just the abusing type, gotcha,” she said, jokingly pointing her finger at him.

Mr. Aizawa let loose a laugh that made his expression look more genuine. She looked at him and wiped her palms against her pants. He put on his regular, unimpressed expression, grabbed the sleeping bag and led her outside the room.

“So now I can explain some details to you. Because you passed the test, you are not going to join my first class in their regular subjects.”

Mariko looked at him, puzzled.

“We will be focusing on your Quirk, but that doesn’t mean I will go easy on you, in fact…”

“It means the opposite,” she finished for him, looking absolutely serious. “I will gratefully face every one of your challenges.”

“We shall see.”

They started climbing up the stairs.

“What is your hero costume?” Aizawa asked.

“Umm, it’s very basic. Has a bit of a military vibe to it,” she answered.

“Kiddo, don’t make me change my mind about your intelligence. I wasn’t asking about looks. Do you have any supporting items?”

“No.”

“That’s bad. You need them, otherwise you will not be able to survive, no matter how hard you try,” he said honestly.

“I used to practice throwing knives, but the schools didn’t accept them as a weapon for me. They basically said that this is more a villain type of weapon, than something a hero would use. Like… I don’t know what you think about it, sir, but having your body frozen and shattered to pieces is something scarier than a knife wound.”

“Mhm,” he nodded, looking at her. He led her to the third floor and then turned right, walking to the end of the hall.

“Where are we going, by the way?”

“Okaido, do you have to ask so many questions?”

“But you were the one asking the most now, sir, in fact that was another question,” she said raising one eyebrow at him.

Mr. Aizawa glanced at her, warning red flash in his eyes. He tried to look irritated, but there was something else to his expression. Amusement.

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