"Like any interaction with another human," Hina said, gesturing to herself, then out at the class, "first impressions with the people watching the festival are crucial. Especially when there are so many of you hoping to shine, there will be many others to focus their attention on. The first 7 seconds are all you have before someone's made an opinion about you."
"Only 7 seconds?" Midoriya asked, completely surprised. "You can't even say a proper hello in that time."
"Correct. So, following that," her eyes swept around the room, "what might they be making those opinions on, if not what you say to them?"
"Physical appearance, of course." Todoroki answered.
"That is one of them, yes." Hina pointed to Hagakure, who's sleeve was lifted in the air.
"Facial expression is a big one!"
The redhead smiled, somewhat amused by the irony, but nodded. "Definitely."
No other hands raised, and she tilted her head. "Anyone else have an idea? No? Ok, let's go over everything you may have to think about before walking out onto the sports field."
The words 'Physical Appearance' and 'Facial Expression' were written at the top of the board, along with 'Body Language.' She turned and spoke to the class again. "There are three main things a person will base their immediate opinion of you on, taking into account you haven't spoken a word to them yet. "Outward appearance, facial expression, and your body language, with each getting progressively more difficult to consciously control."
She turned back to the board and began drawing small lines below each category, branching them out a few different directions. "There are many factors to each of them that, as a whole, create a positive or negative impression on the person you're associating with. For example, physical appearance can mean your clothing," she wrote that down under one of the branching lines, before going to the next, "hairstyle, cleanliness, body odor, or even something as superficial as height and weight. For the most part, you are in total control of how you appear to other people. You can dye your hair, put on makeup, wear new clothes, that sort of thing, to improve your chanves of a good first impression."
Hina gave them another few seconds to finish writing on their papers, before going onto the next. "Facial expression is particularly important. Amount of eye contact, whether or not your smiling, eyebrow position, etcetera. While you have a fair amount of control over your expressions, sometimes you may not realize you're pulling a strange face at someone. Without a mirror handy, it can be tricky.
"Body language," she began on the third category after another small pause to allow them to catch up, "is perhaps the most difficult to consciously control. It also has the majority of the factors involved that contribute to it's category. "Arm position, like being crossed or extended. Is your hip cocked? Rigid? Are you faced away from them or towards them? Do you keep your head high with confidence, or down to try hiding away? Are you relaxed or tense? Too close? Too far away?"
Finished filling out the branching lines from below the three categories, she put down her chalk and waited until the pencils stopping scribbling down notes. She returned to in front of her desk. "Most of the time, our body react to things on their own. For example..."
"Boo!"
She shouted into all of their minds, and they startled in place, not having anticipated her doing so. "Just now, everyone jumped in place. It's the body's natural reaction to being startled or scared. The same goes for our innate reaction to being near other people. If you're socially anxious, you may try to shrink into yourself and take up as little space as you can to ward off people talking to you."
Hina demonstrated by stuffing her hands in her pockets and slouching a little.
"You look like Aizawa Sensei!" Ashido exclaimed, and the redhead only laughed.
"On the other hand, outgoing and social people like to make their presence known and maintain a friendly and welcoming posture to encourage interaction." She said, switching her posture to lean back a bit and tilt her head to the side, shoulders back a bit to make her face the focal point.
"Any questions so far?" She asked, and Uraraka raised her hand.
"Do pro heroes look for anything specific from students in the sports festival? Is there a certain way to act that will get us noticed by more pros?"
"A good question." She said, noticing that many of the students were curious as to the answer themselves. It must have been on a lot of their minds. "And unfortunately my answer is that it varies widely."
She hopped up onto her desk and sat on the edge, crossing her legs at the ankles. "Some heroes look for candidates that they feel will mesh well with their agency. Others like to recruit based on pure power, or personality, or in some cases even something as superficial as the way you look." She finished up with a shrug. "All pro heroes are different and choose to focus on different aspect of being a hero. That's the long and short of it."
"Well, that doesn't really tell us much..." Bakugo grumped.
Hina smiled. "I will leave you with this piece of advice, which may help a little. Compose yourselves as the heroes you want to see yourselves become, and like-minded pros who will be the best suited to help you get there will definitely notice. Act with the future in mind."
The redhead glanced at the clock and noticed that they still had several minutes before the end of class. "Well, it looks like we finished a little early. Are there any questions that just you're dying to ask?"
Sero raised his hand. "Hitagawa Sensei, how did you do at your sports festival?"
Hmm, not the question she'd been expecting, but now that it was out there, all of the students were seemingly curious as well. She smiled. "I did not attend UA, so I didn't participate in a festival like you will."
They seemed disappointed by that, but she raised a finger. "We did have a similar event, but it was school exclusive. Just parents of the students were allowed to attend and watch their childrens' progress. A pretty small thing. And truthfully I didn't do all that great."
"What? Couldn't you have just read everyone's mind to know what they were doing?" Jiro asked, a little surprised by her admission.
Hina shrugged ruefully. "I tried, but knowing what someone's thinking will only get you so far. Reacting to what they're about to do is much more difficult. My speed wasn't what it is now."
Mineta spoke up now, interested. "What events did you have?"
She ticked out on her fingers. "The first one was navigating a maze, which I only barely got out of within the time limit. The second was a baton race. That was probably my best event, since I was fast, but the mock battles were where I failed. I was eliminated in my first battle."
"Who did you face?"
"He's a pro hero, now. He goes by Kamui Woods. Maybe you've heard of him?" She grinned, and the class looked ready to burst at the seams. She only laughed. "He made quick work of me with his wood abilities. I was out of the match in about 10 seconds. Pretty embarrassing, to be honest."
Just then, the bell rang, and despite having so much more to ask of her, she sprang up from her desks and clapped her hands together once. "Go on, now! Off to your next class! The next time I see you will be after the tournament, so please do you best! I look forward to seeing you all in action."
The students reluctantly packed up their backs and left to go to wherever they went next. Hina circled around to the other side of her desk as they eventually all left, grabbing her mug of tea to refill it from the teacher's lounge.
The redhead walked in to several teachers huddled around Present Mic, who was reading a newspaper. She stopped just inside the doorway and they all looked up.
"Hina!" Mic called out to her, and she held up a peace sign. Snipe and Cementoss straightened and stepped away from Mic. Not having noticed him there until now, Aizawa turned in his place on the couch opposite them.
"Yo. What're you all looking at? Did something happen?" She hadn't checked her phone for news that day, so she hoped nothing awful had occurred since yesterday. Wandering over to the tea pot, she began heating up the water for her tea.
"Some heroes captured two of the prison escapees last night." Cemetoss said, and she perked up at the news, looking over to them. "Kamui Woods and Edgeshot found Katakura Reiji and Sutsu Hajime last night in their hideout."
Hina's enthusiasm stalled and she turned back around. "Ah. That's great to hear." Was her lackluster reply.
She supposed it would have been asking too much for someone else to have found Daichi already. He was an intelligent and persistent man. He wouldn't be caught so easily, and she worried for any hero who may end up finding him first, now that she gave it thought.
"Your brother's still out there, isn't he?" Snipe asked, but Hina didn't turn to acknowledge his question. Instead, her eyes stared at the tea pot as it heated. She hoped her discomfort didn't show through too much in the muscle on her back.
"Yeah..." Was all she said.
"How are you, anyway? It can't be easy, having him on the loose like this." He continued, and she shook her head.
"I'm fine. Really." She added when there was a long pause afterwards, finally turning to regard her fellow teachers. They all looked at her with pity. "I'm just...disappointed that it's come to this. It was hard enough bringing him in the first time, and now after a few years of sitting in prison to stew on the fact that his own sister had him arrested, I'm sure he's full of rage right now."
"He may try to target you first, then." Cementoss concluded based on what she'd said.
"Yeah, Hina, so no going out by yourself until he's back in prison." Present Mic pointed at her with a worried frown, an expression not often seen on the voice hero's face. "We don't need another teacher looking like Eraser over here."
Mic gestured to the heavily bandaged Aizawa, who only stared at his friend.
"I know." She said with a sigh, pulling the tea pot away from the heat and pouring herself a cup. She filled it up to nearly the brim of the mug before setting it back down. "My biggest fear would be him targeting the students to get to me. If Tomura could manage to bypass the UA barrier, I'm afraid Daichi could as well."
"As their teachers, we wouldn't allow that to happen." Aizawa said suddenly, pinning her with a hard stare. Even with the bandages covering most of his face, she could tell he was deadly serious. "Something like the USJ incident will not happen again."
Hina nodded, knowing that he believed every word he said, but unsure if she could truly make herself believe them too. When it came to sheer power, her ability was nothing compared to the other people on staff. In a one-on-one fight, she wasn't confident her skills would match her brother, who'd always been the more powerful telepath. She didn't want to talk about Daichi anymore, or the things he could possibly do should he discover where she was. Worrying about it wasn't helping any, and she was tired of the others staring at her with pity.
Taking her tea with her, she hurried out the door before they could ask any more questions of her.
Slugger ran. His feet carried him through the dark forest as fast as they possibly could, nearly tripping up on twigs and small rocks jutting out of the earth below, which up until five minutes ago had been the solid concrete of Musutafu City's sidewalks. Panting heavily, he continued on, fearing for his life.
He'd never encountered a villain with such vast power. The ability to create a forest in the middle of a city? And in the blink of an eye, too! What kind of guy could do that? What quirk even was this? This was maddening, but he had to find a way out and get reinforcements, before-
There! Grabbing his bat, he swung towards the dark shadow that began closing in on him from his left, and the mist dissipated in a swirl as the wooden weapon swiped through it, just as the other apparitions had done.
"Where's Scarlet Seer?" A cold, angry voice demanded again. It felt as though it dug into his brain. No matter how far he ran, it never seemed to grow any further away, always just as loud as the time before it. Echoing everywhere around him in the darkness...
"Tch..." Slugger turned in place and began running again, his fear slowly overtaking him. He didn't like the dark. He never had. It was one of those childhood fears that he never could shake off entirely, and the sense of dread just continued washing over him with each step. If nothing was done, he was afraid he'd be paralyzed with fear before too long. He had to get out of there.
His bat was no use, other than keeping the phantom things at bay, but the rugged path he took didn't seem to be going anywhere at all. The trees were dense, leaving no room to truly see through any of the trunk to try finding another path out, as if it were leading him further in to it's depths, where he'd never been seen again-
"Where is Scarlet Seer!?"
The voice was angrier now, and Slugger whimpered out of pure instinct, his heart hammering in his chest. The forest seemed to be closing in on him from all sides, and the feeling of claustrophobia became nearly unbearable.
The demonic roar of something up ahead made him gasp, and his foot caught against a branch that was sticking into the pathway, tripping him and causing him to crumple to the ground in a heap. The demonic roar sounded again, reverberating the trunks of the trees. He curled up, fear gripping him tight and refusing to let go, the pressure in his head mounting.
"I don't know...I don't know!" He cried out with fright, just wanting it all to go away. He didn't even know who this Scarlet Seer person was! How was he supposed to know where to find them?
The darkness took form beside him, standing over him. Looking down with hateful, red eyes, the only source of color or light within the being's form. It crouched down, extending a hand towards Slugger's chest, and he tried scrambling away but he couldn't seem to find purchase on the dirt around him.
The black, inky hand grasped his hero costume, dragging him closer to where it's face would be. Closer to those glowing, red eyes. For as terrifying as they were, he couldn't seem to look away. They bore deep into him, looking past his eyes into his very soul, almost.
"Show me what you know."
Slugger opened his mouth to deny knowing anything, but a pressure like he'd never known before hit his skull, and he was unable to speak. The pain was indescribable, as even describing it at that moment was too much mental function to even attempt. He felt bare, vulnerable, and completely at this thing's mercy.
However there was no mercy here. His mouth open in a silent scream, Slugger's body spasmed as his mind was figuratively broken apart and shredded, until he went still and nothing at all mattered anymore.
He stood over the orange-haired hero in disappointment. Slugger had turned out to be useless, never having even heard of Scarlet Seer before, let alone know where she was. But in truth, his foray into the man's mind hadn't been all bad. It had been some time since Daichi had exercised his quirk like this, and it felt good to stretch those long-disused mental muscles. Exploiting the man's fears to terrorize him a little had been almost a joy, a cakewalk. Watching him basically implode from the inside had even brought an amused smile to his face.
He looked up at the sky, still bright and blue with the mid-day sun. He didn't like having to work this hard just to find that bitch, but he was a patient man. Getting caught now would ruin everything, and if he had to pry open a few more heroes to get the information he needed, so be it.
Stepping over the unresponsive hero, Daichi walked out onto the street from the hidden-away alley they'd been standing in, blending in with the crowd seamlessly.
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