Dormient Potential - 5.

 

5.

More minutes passed and Mr. Aizawa led Mariko to a room on the third floor without windows and a low coping. There were a few lanes with targets positioned in different spots, some of them closer to the firing spot and the rest farther away.

“A firing range?” she asked, looking around the room. “Is it Mr. Snipe’s?”

Aizawa nodded and pulled out the knife from a hidden boot holder, handing it over to Mariko. She looked at the blade, admiration in her eyes.

“Very fine work. Nicely fits your hand and is well balanced, too,” she muttered and stood in the middle of the firing position. She looked over her arm at Mr. Aizawa, non-verbally asking for permission. He nodded once again and then she swung her forearm, releasing the knife in the perfect moment. The blade carried the distance to the closest target and got stuck in the target’s chest.

“I didn’t throw for a while so please let me get used to your knife a bit,” she pleaded, jumping over a firing position cover, to get the knife back from the target.

He said nothing, observing her.

She quickly grabbed the knife, returned to the throwing spot and pounded the knife down a few more times in various areas of the target.

“OK, I think I got the feeling of it,” she informed, turning towards the teacher. “Can you please tell me what exactly I need to aim, like arm, leg - you get the point.”

“I have a better idea,” he said. “Have you tried any other throwing weapons?”

“I tried axes but it’s not my thing. They are very similar to knives but you can carry less, because they are heavier. I tried darts but they wouldn’t be useful in most situations I think… unless I would use blow darts, but I was always scared of them,” she said.

“What about bo shurikens?” Shota asked.

“Bo shurikens? I don’t even know what that is,” she admitted.

Mr. Aizawa opened the door at the end of the small lane connected with the firing positions. It was a small arsenal room with firearms mostly, but there were some sharp weapons too.

“Snipe was experimenting a while ago with other projectiles but apparently his quirk doesn’t work with knives, shurikens and all that stuff - only bullets.”

“What is his Quirk?”

“Controlling projectiles.”

“Wow, that is so cool!” she got excited and looked around the small arsenal with walls covered in weapons.

“Those are bo shurikens,” he pointed at one side of the wall, on which sharp weapons that looked a bit like huge nails or needles were mounted.

Mariko collected all the bo shurikens and inspected them closely.

“They are a bit lighter than a knife, but feel extremely good in my hand,” she informed, leaving the room.

“Try them out,” he requested, leaning his back on the wall behind her.

Mariko focused, raised one arm and straightened it, indicating her target. She was holding the bo shuriken gently in her other hand with the thumb, tilting the palm slightly so that the shuriken was leaning down on it. She then placed her right leg behind her, instinctively taking the position that was actually the correct one. The second she was about to throw the shuriken, she made a bouncy step and swung her arm, releasing the shuriken. It hit the target’s shoulder.

“Hmm,” she muttered under her breath.

She stretched her arms and prepared herself again, striking the aim one more time. The second bo shuriken landed near the target’s crotch. She released another one, which bounced off the edge and landed on the floor. Mariko looked at her right palm, wondering if she does it correctly. She tried once again and this time it was a bullseye.

“Lucky,” she said to herself, speeding up the pace of her attacks.

Once she was out of the bo shurikens, she quickly jumped over the barricade and got every single one of them. Instead of returning to the regular spot, she stayed in front of the cover.

“Mr. Aizawa, please tell me which target to shoot and do it quite quickly. I want to do a stress test,” she said and he nodded.

“Left,” he ordered and heard a “bang!” noise. “Front,” another bump. “Upper left,” the bo shuriken missed the target, hitting the wall. “Right,” another hit. “Front,” bullseye.

Mariko quickly rushed for all the bo shurikens and started throwing them again. She did that a few more times, until she felt her arm muscles tense and tried to stretch them to lessen the pain. Shota stood behind her, separated by the firing spot cover. He was not going to say that aloud but he was quite impressed, especially by her throwing accuracy, speed and the results of the balance test. He didn’t want to compliment her about that because he was not sure how would she react and he didn’t want to give her a reason to stop working hard as she still had a long way to go.

“I really like those bo shurikens,” she informed, releasing another series of strikes. “But will they be accepted?” she turned around and looked in the man’s eyes.

“Tomorrow you should go to the Support Department and discuss your new supporting items,” Mr. Aizawa said.

“Where is that?”

“The fourth floor,” he answered.

“I was also thinking about the thing you said… that I won’t survive the beginning of the battle. Bo shurikens can keep enemies away for a little bit but that won’t help me with evading attacks,” she thought aloud.

“That is another thing,” he thought to himself, cupping his chin. “She has a great sense of balance and good aim, maybe my capture weapon would take her less time to master.”

“Sir?” she asked, making him look at her. “What about like an arm-guard or vambrace that would release a grapple… or two arm-guards?”

“That might work,” he admitted.

Mariko was standing still, looking at the man as if she was waiting for something.

“We can call it a day,” he said and she nodded her head and returned the bo shurikens to the small arsenal.

“Do I still need the guest badge, sir?”

“No, we added you to school security yesterday evening. Do you have it right now?”

“Yes,” she said, handing it over to the teacher.

After that they both left the firing range and started walking towards the dorms in silence. Okaido tried to focus on her hero costume upgrades but she couldn’t help but look at her teacher from time to time, trying to read his neutral expressions. When they were close to the pavement leading to the dorms, she examined his facial features as well as his body shape and then her gaze shifted back to his face making eye contact with him. They didn’t say anything, just looked at each other, Mr. Aizawa’s sight showing a hint of suspiciousness.

“So… see you around, sir,” she said and sped up the pace, walking towards the 1A dorm.

“Don’t turn around, don’t turn around, don’t turn around…” she was talking to herself in her mind, walking in a very unnatural, wooden way.

Mr. Aizawa hid his hands in his pockets, turning in a direction opposite to the young woman. After a few seconds, he gazed over his shoulders looking at the girl.

The next day Mariko woke up early in the morning and grabbed fresh clothes, heading for the shower. Her costume improvement design has been stuck in her head since the previous day as she was so excited to visit the Support Department and discuss the upgrades. She quickly dressed up and left the bathroom, returning to her room to make a banana milk shake with cocoa powder. Mariko finished her simple breakfast in a hurry and left the dorm, waving a hello-and-goodbye to Uraraka who was in the common room.

She raced to the main UA building, heading towards the stairs. She climbed them at lightning speed, stopping on the fourth floor. She decided to go with her instinct, so she turned right and walked to the end of the corridor, then turned left to the hall, which right wall was covered with huge windows. After a while she saw an extremely large door and smelled smoke.

“What? A fire? In the school?” she thought to herself and walked up to the entrance. There was a sign right next to it saying Support Department.

Mariko pressed the door handle and entered the room, crouching a bit to avoid smoke.

“Oh, I know what I did wrong!” she heard an oddly excited female voice.

“Ah, please try to not burn anything, OK?” a male voice asked.

“Hello,” Mariko greeted. “What happened?”

“Nothing! One of my babies didn’t want to cooperate, but its fine! I will fix it and it’s gonna be as cute as it was previously!” she said, approaching Mariko through thin smoke.

The female had thick pink dreadlocks, yellow pupils that looked like sniper sights. She was wearing a school uniform, big weird boots, a utility belt and steampunk goggles sitting on top of her head.

“But what are you doing here?” she asked, jumping in front of Mariko’s face.

“I’m Okaido Mariko,” she greeted. “And I would like to speak about my hero costume improvements. Mr. Aizawa directed me here.”

“I haven’t seen you around,” she informed. “I’m Hatsume Mei and I am an inventor!” she said proudly, straightening her back but the smoke covered her face awkwardly .

Mei quickly opened the front door and some windows on the corridor, releasing the smoke outside. She came back to Mariko and looked at her with eyes wide open, waiting for her to switch to hero costume topic.

“You haven’t seen me around, because I recently joined the school.”

“Oh, you look older, though.”

“Yea, I’m 18,” Mariko admitted, a bit tired of saying the same thing over and over again. “Anyway, I need to upgrade my costume. Add two support items, to be precise.”

“Would you like this armor? It’s one of my cute babies,” Mei pointed at a full sci-fi body armor and grabbed a ruler, measuring Mariko’s body.

Okaido felt very awkward and embarrassed, so she grabbed Mei by her shoulders and brought her to a standstill.

“Two supporting items, Mei. I have some ideas,” she said.

“Alrighty!” she yelled to her ear, excited.

Mariko let her go and followed the other girl to the closest workbench, where a few blueprints were laying.

“So actually not two supporting items, but two kinds of supporting items,” Mariko explained. “I would like to use bo shurikens as my primary weapon, but I also need something for mobility as my Quirk isn’t really offensive.”

“A non-offensive Quirk?” she clarified. “Oh, my! It’s such an opportunity!”

“Mei, please, I will be so glad if you will consider my own ideas. After all, those will still be your babies, just fitted to mine fighting style.”

“Alright, alright. I’m all ears,” she said, leaning down on the workbench.

“OK, so for mobility I was thinking about like an arm-guard that would have a grapple mechanism inside. But it would need to be quite small not to limit my movements.”

“Hmm, I see. I actually designed something similar already,” Mei informed and turned on her weird boots that hovered over the floor to the other side of the room, where a huge pile of various support items was kept. “Try it out.”

She came back to Mariko and put an arm-guard on her right forearm. There were small levers ended with cirlcles. The vambrace looked like a prototype, with just a simple protection and a grapple mechanism visible on its bottom.

“These small levers tell the arm-guard what to do. So for example if you pull all of them at once, the grapple is going to shoot and release the mechanism. Basically, it would be useful if someone was pulling the grapple or if the mechanism got stuck. If you pull the index finger lever, it’s going to work as a regular grapple. Aim, pull, shoot and it’s gonna pull you somewhere.”

“I see.”

“But as you can see, it’s just a prototype. To really test it out, you would need to go to one of the training grounds but for that you would need a special teacher’s permission or maybe even the principal’s, I don’t know to be honest. Overall, do you like it?”

“I mean, it’s hard to say now, Mei, but it really does feel like something I should use.”

“What is your Quirk?”

“The longer I am in the battle, the more I can empower someone’s abilities or drain them. It depends on me liking or disliking a person, the stronger the feeling, the more powerful the effect.”

“Oh my god! I have so much ideas now!” Mei exclaimed, thrilled.

Mariko rolled her eyes.

“Is she treating me seriously?” Mariko thought.

“But still it seems that we will need to start all over again. You just came up with that idea right now, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I see, so I think we will have to discuss everything from the beginning as your basic hero costume, without any hardening, wouldn’t last long. We have to add some guards and keep in mind that it cannot be too heavy,” she cupped her chin, thinking. “Do you have some kind of sketch or detailed description of your costume? Or the costume itself?”

“I have a sketch with the description,” Mariko said, pulling out a folded note and placing it on the workbench.

Mei unfolded the piece of paper and examined it. It was a clean line art of a hero costume containing black military-like pants and a matching t-shirt, a pair of maroon fingerless leather gloves and the black left-handed grapple arm-guard with the long, black, steel toe boots similar to grinders. There was also a belt for bo shurikens matching color of the gloves.

“I like it,” Mei said. “But don’t you want some more protection? Like on your elbows or knees?”

“I didn’t think about it, actually. We might improve the design later, right?”

“Yes, of course. Just a suggestion,” Mei nodded. “This kind of process will take a bit longer. I think you should get your new suit within two or three working days.”

“OK, so do I need to do anything else? Do we need to test something else?”

“I will try to improve the grapple in that time but because of the school festival I might be quite busy,” she explained.

“That is absolutely fine,” Mariko said. “I will work on my arms strength in the meantime. I think I have to be more athletic to master the grapple.”

“I will try to work on your grapple vambrace. Where will I find you?”

“Maybe you will text me once you have an update on the progress?” Mariko suggested and Mei agreed.

They exchanged their mobile numbers and Mei gave Mariko a document that she had to fill in – a request for changing her hero costume, where she had to put various details such as an explanation why the outfit has to be changed and some personal data.

“Do you usually work on Sundays?” Mariko asked.

“My cute babies are everything to me, so even when I don’t have any school work, I love to invent.”

Okaido nodded and thanked Mei for all the help. Then she left the room and decided to return to the dorm and then go to the workout park. She was also quite hungry so she decided to stop by the school cafeteria, which was close to the school entrance. Mariko entered the spacious room with a few couches and square dining tables and saw a few unfamiliar faces as well as three which she recognized. It was Tokoyami, Todoroki and Midoriya.

The first boy who noticed her was actually Izuku, so she waved her hand towards him, climbing down the stairs decorated with pot plants.

“Hi, Deku!” she greeted, joining the small group from the class 1A. “Hey Todoroki and Tokoyami.”

“Hey, how are you?” Izuku asked, smiling.

“I am good, I returned from the Support Department. I requested some improvements for my hero costume,” she replied.

“Wow! What kind of improvements?” he enquired excitedly.

“So… you remember what I said about my Quirk, right?”

“Of course I do! I even wrote a chapter about your Quirk in my notebook,” he admitted.

“You… what?”

Midoriya looked at her, silent. Mariko’s eyes narrowed suspiciously and the boy’s cheeks flushed red.

“Don’t get me wrong… I just,” he started and she laughed.

“I’m messing with you, c’mon. I’m not mad or anything. I saw your notebook once, when we met for the first time and you were practicing your kicks,” she said. “I didn’t see much but I’ve noticed some drawing there. You are capturing poses quite correctly, I must say.”

“Do you draw?” he asked.

“I used to, now I just doodle from time to time.”

“I see.”

Tokoyami and Todoroki stood still, silent.

“Are you guys waiting for lunch or breakfast or what are you doing here?” she asked.

“We actually wanted to buy something, we are just not sure what we would like to eat,” Tokoyami said.

“I was quite hungry myself but you know what? I have an idea. And you might like it, actually. What if we were to make a breakfast for the whole class or at least the people that are as hungry as we are,” she suggested. “I make very tasty pancakes and smoothies. We can also try to make some scrambled eggs, steamed rice or… I’m sure we’ll come up with something.”

“Sign me up for that. If you are going to buy some fish, I can prepare it with rice,” Tokoyami offered.

“Fantastic,” Mariko smiled.

“Let’s go to the dorm, check who is hungry and then we can go to the grocery store,” Izuku said and the rest agreed.

After approximately 40 minutes, Mariko, Izuku and Uraraka left the dorm and headed to the nearby grocery store to get two packs of rice, a big pack of eggs, a pack of seasoned dried seaweed, a small soy sauce bottle, a few fillets of fish and some ingredients for a side dish. The group was not sure what to buy for a side dish so they left that decision to Izuku, Mariko and Uraraka, who decided during their way to the grocery store to make a simple salad. Because of that they also bought a head of lettuce, eight cocktail tomatoes and a bulb of garlic.

They quickly came back, chatting on their way and got to work with Todoroki and Tokoyami, who were willing to help. Mariko prepared scrambled eggs, while Tokoyami fried all the fish fillets, producing a delicious smell that attracted the hungry students from the class 1A dorm. Once the rice was boiled, Todoroki unpacked the seasoned seaweed and rolled it with the rice inside and prepared the soy sauce on a small plate, so that students could dip the rice rolls in it. Because of all the help, they quickly finished and by 10am they all sat at the table, eating breakfast together and drinking expensive green tea prepared by Yaoyorozu.

“It’s so delicious!” Uraraka said. “You are a master chef, Tokoyami,” she complimented the fish he fried.

He nodded a thank you, consuming a portion of mouth-watering scrambled eggs. Even Kacchan, who wasn’t exactly friendly, said nothing and just enjoyed his meal. After a while they all were full and split the cost of the ingredients between the whole group and then helped clean the dishes.

“Mariko, I have a very weird request,” Izuku said. “I want to go to the hospital to visit my young friend that recently woke up from coma.”

“Oh, I’m glad that your friend woke up,” Okaido said honestly.

“The breakfast was so delicious that I thought maybe I could bring some of it to her?” Izuku asked.

“Deku, you also paid for breakfast, don’t ask me for any kind of permissions. We have some food left and some ingredients so we can prepare some more breakfast snacks if you wish.”

“Yea, I know… I still wanted to ask,” he scratched the back of his neck.

“Izuku and Uraraka are so pure,” Mariko thought to herself, looking at the boy. She turned around after a few seconds, reaching for the kitchen cabinet to grab a lunch box, where she could put all the food.

“For only one friend or some more?”

“She is a child so she will not eat that much, but there might be two more adults there with her.”

“I see, so let’s pack everything we have after that breakfast.”

They grabbed two more lunch boxes and put the dishes inside, decorating them with the salad and a bit of soy sauce.

“Should be enough, what do you think?” Mariko asked.

“It’s perfect, thank you so much!”

“Oh, actually. I want to make something for your little friend. I like making smoothies and children usually like them, so if you will give me literally two minutes, I will be right back.”

“Sure, that’s a great idea,” Izuku smiled.

Mariko raced to the second staircase leading to the girl’s section of the building and entered her room, grabbing the milk bottle and bananas. She sliced the fruit and put it in the portable mixer, added a bit of milk as well as some cocoa powder and turned on the mixer, grabbing three bottles made of thick plastic, designed to be reused.

“I’m here!” she announced and Izuku stood up, an opened a backpack with three lunch boxes in his hand. “Please bring back the bottles and lunch boxes as those were taken from this kitchen,” she reminded.

“I will, don’t worry. See you later, thank you for your great idea with the breakfast!” he waved and left the dorm.

“You are welcome,” Mariko smiled, looking through the windowed door at the running green-haired boy.

Later that day, Okaido was working out, trying the handstand push-ups for the first time. It turned out to be an amazing exercise for her, putting some more pressure on the muscles that she would be using a lot with her future grapple swings. While she was finishing her second series of push-ups, she heard a ripple of the grass growing around the workout park. She safely landed on her feet and looked up, seeing a boy with medium-long indigo hair that was styled endways. His pupils were purple and he had a very familiar look on his face. He looked like a younger and a bit different Aizawa, but the resemblance was quite stunning. He approached Mariko, dressed in his workout uniform and nodded at her.

“Hello,” the girl greeted.

“Hi,” he simply answered.

“Umm, we haven’t met so… I’m Okaido Mariko, but I prefer when people call me by my name,” she introduced herself.

“I’m Hitoshi Shinso,” the boy informed. “Are you the transfer student?”

That surprised Mariko, but she confirmed with a nod and a slight smile.

“I actually want to be transferred myself.”

“From the UA?” Mariko asked, her eyes-widened.

“No, to the 1A class. I am from general studies. Also a first year.”

“Oh, I see now!”

“What are other schools like?” Hitoshi asked.

“Worse,” Mariko answered, leaning her side on the post that was a part of the horizontal bar. “People there are extremely weird and the teachers allow such behavior. It’s even hard to describe… Like, let’s say, when I met the UA’s 1A class, I was blown away. They are all just… themselves. They don’t want to pretend that they are undefeatable or invincible. The UA has a totally different mindset than other schools. My previous classmates from from the Ketsubutsu Academy and the Seiai Academy were so proud of themselves. Their pride even reached this kind of level, where they would brag about how loud and stinky their farts were.”

Hitoshi burst out with laughter, his tired expression changing to an amused one.

“What? I am completely serious!” Mariko said, smiling at the younger boy.

“It’s just… the way you described it was hilarious,” he admitted. “I know the feeling, with the classmates I mean. In my middle school people who had offensive quirks were getting all the attention and the rest of the class was just like complete strangers to them, even though we spent three years together.”

“You sound like that part of the class with non-offensive quirks,” Mariko said and Hitoshi nodded, his gaze leaving her eyes for a moment. “But that’s totally fine. My quirk was called useless a few times and I am not really a transfer student. I was dismissed from hero schools twice.”

“Dismissed?” he repeated, sounding very surprised.

“Yes, I still don’t know how to control my quirk and how could I use it for the good of others. I am also a supporting hero.”

“That’s nice,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I would like to join you in your workout routine.”

“Be my guest, Hitoshi.”

Mariko smiled at the stretching boy and got back to her own workout. Something deep inside her told her that this is a beginning of a great friendship.

Next chapter