Scarlet Seer's breathing came out in hard pants. Night had fallen and the lone lamp post beside the P.E. Grounds was her sole illumination in the darkness. On a normal night, she might stop and admire the sight, but there were currently more pressing matters to attend to. She jumped backwards as the carbon fiber, steel alloy ribbons swooped in towards her, then sprinted forward a moment later to avoid the second end of the capture weapon coming from the right side.
Eraserhead wasn't giving her any time to think, coming at her with attack after attack in rapid succession. Up to this point she hadn't been able to get a hit on him, despite having full use of her quirk. The wind whipped at her sweat-dampened forehead as she ran, trying desperately to dodge the next one, feeling the 'whoosh' of air as it soared past her neck.
"You can't avoid them forever. At this rate, you'll tire out before you can go on the offensive."
"I'm aware of that."
"Then do something about it."
Gritting her teeth, Scarlet Seer tried taking a diagonal path through the capture weapon's reach in an attempt to catch him off guard, but he corrected their trajectories quickly and cut her off, forcing her backwards to avoid being caught again.
"I could do something about it if you stopped attacking me, you know."
"You think a villain is going to let you prepare an attack in the middle of a fight?"
The fact that he was right wasn't making his words any less frustrating. She'd been unsuccessful so far in accomplishing what this training had even set out to do, which was projecting images into someone's head. Daichi had mastered the technique years ago, and she knew if she had a chance of facing him again, she'd need to know it too. Hina had originally just wanted to sit in the gardens and meditate with him in a calm environment, but Aizawa had suggested to practice while actively fighting, so as to get used to the feeling in a real situation.
She tried extending her quirk further, but staying still like she had the instinct to do when using it was her weakness. The capture weapon lashed out, and she was forced to put her full focus back onto evading his attacks.
"Dammit..."
"I told you I wouldn't go easy."
"Do you even possess the ability to go easy on someone?" She projected to him with a mix of frustration and amusement, barely finishing the thought before having to propel herself to the left again to avoid his capture weapon.
"Yes, but what would the point be?" He thought seriously. "You just need to try harder."
She tried running after him, keeping her quirk on him. She already had a mild headache, and the intense spar was exacerbating the pain. It pounded at her skull, throbbing in a regular rhythm.
"Yeah. Great. Thanks for letting me know. I was wondering what I was supposed to do now." She thought sarcastically, letting out a huff of breath. Focusing on fighting and using her quirk at the same time was already hard enough. Using any additional brain function on opening her mouth to speak was too much. For now, she simply stuck to her quirk to communicate.
Scarlet Seer frowned when he kept his distance from her as she ran forward. She tried closing in but he was fast.
"If you have time to be snarky, you have time to get in my head."
"Tch...No need to be an ass about it though."
"Isn't that exactly what you needed a few days ago?" Eraserhead pointed out, referring to what she'd told him during their first training. She couldn't help but smile ruefully.
"Guess you have a point. There's a reason I keep you around."
"Less thinking, more doing." Was his pointed retort, obviously waiting for her to do something already.
The redhead pushed her quirk further, digging into his head deeper than the surface-level needed to read his thoughts and project her own. Ignoring the sharp pain that snapped through her head, Scarlet Seer traversed to his center mind, pushing something that might distract-
The feeling of the capture weapon wrapping around her midsection snapped her out of his head, and she collapsed to the ground unceremoniously with a yelp of surprise. Despite knowing it was futile she couldn't help but wriggle in place to try getting out of the wrap. Her arms were pinned uncomfortably at her sides, and Aizawa walked closer to her as he took off his goggles.
"So-" He started.
"I know, I know..." She heaved out, still trying to gain her breath back while she was restricted by his capture weapon. "Try harder. I need to focus. And everything else you've been telling me."
He just watched her curiously, but eventually let up his weapon and unfurled her from it's binding. It gathered up around his neck as she pushed into a sitting position on the ground, still tired from their last bout. She brushed back the strands of hair that had escaped from her hair tie.
"Let's take a break." He stated, walking over to the lamp post where a few bottles of water were sitting. He'd anticipated that they'd be there awhile; Hina still hadn't made any progress on furthering her image projection. Day three of training and nothing to show for it was a little disheartening, but thinking back on his capture weapon training, he knew that sometimes these things were just slow to start out.
Hina stood and grabbed her water, wandering over to the school building's wall to lean against. Aizawa followed after, content to go wherever she wanted to sit and relax for a bit. The bricks felt cool against her skin, and the gentle wind was doing wonders for cooling her down.
For several minutes they just sat there in silence, recovering from their last spar and replenishing their hydration. It was hard work, and not only was she gaining a lot of practice with using her quirk in combat, but Aizawa proved to be a very physically challenging opponent as well, forcing her to constantly be on the move and never stay in one spot for too long. It was good practice for actual combat, where you had to keep on your toes at any given moment.
But despite the growing headache and shaky limbs, Hina was having a great time. It was fun to test herself against him, and without realizing it until now, she was slowly growing more confident with her quirk and her abilities. Knowing she could stand her own against the likes of Aizawa was doing more for her confidence than any sort of pep talk could.
Halfway through her water bottle, she looked up at the night, and heard the distance siren of a police vehicle. "Are you still patrolling tonight after our training?" She suddenly asked out of curiosity.
Aizawa nodded. "Yeah."
"Hopefully you won't be all worn out because of me right before you start." She said sheepishly, not wanting to be an inconvenience to him in any way. Nor did she want him getting hurt because he wasn't at his best. That would weigh heavily on her.
"Don't worry about it. I'll be fine." He replied evenly, expression calm as his eyes tracked the direction from where the siren was going. It faded away after a moment, too far to hear properly. "I actually forgot how much I like sparring before my patrols."
"You do?" She asked, turning towards him. "Why's that?"
Aizawa shrugged, setting the water bottle down beside him. "Mic and I used to spar all the time back in high school and after we got our provisional licenses. It reminds me of that, I guess. Training with him was one of the few things I enjoyed from UA."
"Nothing's stopping you from doing it again, you know." She pointed out, but he shook his head.
"We've both got jobs and responsibilities now. When he's not teaching, Mic's hosting his radio show. And when he's not doing that, I've got papers to grade and students to discipline." His eyes rolled a bit and she smiled. "We never seem to have time away from work to socialize."
Hina nodded thoughtfully. "Well, at least you're still close friends. And I'm pretty lucky then to be able to see you so much in my free time. And for having you agree to help me train my quirk in whatever time you do have to yourself."
"Like I said. I don't mind." He reminded her, and she tilted her head with a wider smile.
"You know, as much as I might complain in the heat of the moment, I do enjoy our training. It does way more for me than just going to the gym after work twice a week." She commented, briefly noticing that he had glanced down at her mouth when she'd smiled. It was over as soon as she'd noticed it.
Did she have something in her teeth? Covering it up with drinking from her bottle, he looked away and the moment had passed. While he wasn't looking, she ran her tongue over the front of her teeth, hoping nothing was plainly stuck there.
Her headache hadn't gone away-nor would it for several hours at the rate she'd been using her quirk-but she still felt physically rested enough to continue. She jumped up, taking one last swig of her water before wandering back over to their starting point. "Should we keep going?"
Aizawa nodded and straightened up, standing away from her as she got ready. The goggles were put back into place, blocking his eyes from her, but she didn't need to see them in order to connect. Her eyes flared a shade of glowing cyan, and Eraserhead's hair began floating upwards in response.
Instead of starting out with just one capture weapon, he sent both shooting forward on either side of her and she leapt backwards out of the way as they intersected. With a small grin, Scarlet Seer formulated an idea. The ends of the weapon retracted back to Eraserhead, and he grabbed a hold of one end, sending it directly at her with a powerful toss.
At the last moment, she sidestepped out of it's way, feeling the rush of air as it nearly brushed her body. But instead of keeping a far distance, she latched onto the cloth and yanked herself forward with it.
Eraserhead's expression changed to one of surprise as he was caught off balance. He stumbled forward, and Scarlet Seer charged forward, her quirk flashing out with full power during his moment of instability.
She delved into his mind, making sure to keep the majority of her consciousness back so she would still be aware of the battle. A soft gray color accompanied her, more of a feeling than an actual visual. Scarlet Seer shook her head, going straight for the center of his mind and willing an image of a massive tiger beside her to manifest itself. It was so clear within her own mind, but he didn't seem to react other than dodging the kick aimed at his midsection by ducking down.
Pressing her lips together, the telepath broke the deep connection when he reached to her wrists to subdue her. She broke free before he could get a decent grip and flipped backwards to give her some room. Her eyes flared again as he prepared another capture weapon attack.
"Come on..." She thought to herself, but ended up projecting it directly into his head. She saw his amused half-grin as he directed another attack her way with his weapon.
"Having a bit of trouble?" He asked, obviously amused by her frustration. At first she didn't have time to reply, focused on outmaneuvering the carbon-fiber cloths streaming past her.
"Shut up." Was her belated and short reply.
"I don't have all night." He added.
"Maybe if you'd zip it I could concentrate and this would be over with faster." Was her exasperated reply, busy evading his ribbons to take the edge out of her thoughts. She could audibly hear his huffed out breath of what she assumed to be laughter. Finding a small opening while Eraserhead prepared another attack, she tried yet another attempt at projecting an image.
She forced her way in through his head, this time using her own consciousness to try forcing the image of a pack of wild wolves rushing towards him from behind her. No reaction. Damn it, what was she doing wrong?
She pushed harder, trying to figure out what she needed to change in order to get the end result she was looking for. She saw him wince with pain and immediately pulled back, worried she had hurt him somehow. Her moment of concern cost her, however.
She felt one of the ends of his capture weapon wrap around her ankle, and she was hauled into the air by the appendage. Her connection was broken as she tried scrambling for purchase on the ground but found none, and the cloth secured itself around the top of the lamp post, dangling her there around eye level. She swung with some force, letting her arms limply dangle down towards the ground. Aizawa approached casually, stopping her swinging with a hand.
"Ok, now you're just teasing me..." She said, then frowned with worry. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
He took his goggles off and shook his head. "Just a bit of pressure. No damage done."
"Ok, good..." She sighed out, having been terrified that she'd done some sort of irreversible damage she hadn't intended. It was moments like this when using her quirk made her nervous. Then, she crossed her arms with a pout, thinking about their session. "Egging me on like that didn't really help the matter, you know."
He shrugged, obviously amused. "Heroes deal with taunting all the time. You'll have to get used to it."
Hina's eyes narrowed, and her arms remained crossed. He was right, of course. But how she wished to knock the smugness from his eyes. He was enjoying the teasing a bit too much right now. She shook her head, wishing that she could make him at least eat his words.
She thought it funny, imagining herself with snakes for hair and cat-like yellow eyes and turning him to stone like medusa. What she didn't anticipate was his self-satisfied grin fading and him stepping backwards with wide eyes.
"What did you just see?" She asked hurriedly, growing excited with this new and unexpected development.
"Snakes and yellow eyes." He said, still staring at her strangely.
Hina's expression turned inward, trying to think back to what she'd done without intending to to even project an image in the first place. It had felt so natural, the way she'd connected to his mind that she hadn't even realized she'd done it. She tried imagining herself with sparkly, blue hair, and his expression changed again, raising an eyebrow at how ridiculous she looked.
"What? Blue isn't a good look for me?" She asked with a laugh.
"I prefer the red." He shook his head. "It definitely seems like you figured it out, though."
Hina smiled excitedly. "This whole time I've been trying to just force an image into your mind's center, but it only caused you pressure. But when I send it to a certain part of your psyche, the one where memories are stored, then it seems to work. I'm not sure what the difference is, but apparently that's all there is to it."
"I see..." He trailed off, watching curiously as her face morphed into a lion, then a bear, before finally All Might. Still upside down, she gave his signature thumbs up and smiled.
"Plus Ultra!" She joked, managing to alter her voice to sound exactly like him. Rolling his eyes, he began releasing the capture weapon from the lamp post.
"I'd say that's enough for now." He remarked, reaching out to grab her arm and ease her down from her predicament so she didn't fall onto her face as soon as the capture weapon unfurled.
Her feet settled themselves gently on the ground, guided both by Aizawa's grip and the capture weapon being manipulated to not just immediately drop her. She brushed herself off, adjusting her hair before looking at him with a smile. "Thank you."
The sound of hissing made him look down, and where his capture weapon had been just a moment ago was now a coil of a handful of snakes. He stiffened out of reflex, staring into the beady eyes of the scaled creatures now circling his neck.
He glanced back up at her to see her smile still in place, but now taking on a more predatory quality. "That's for all the teasing, by the way."
"Noted." He said, eyes returning to the still-hissing reptiles. He knew full well they weren't real, but they looked and sounded that way. If they bit him, would he actually feel the pain accompanying it? He wasn't too eager to find out. "Can we put the snakes away now?"
Hina laughed sweetly, and the hissing stopped. All that was around his neck now was his capture weapon, back to normal. His body relaxed and she stooped to grab her bag from the ground. Slinging it over her shoulder, she sauntered past him.
"This migraine is killing me, so...I think we should end it here. My quirk's had enough." He nodded, and she raised a hand in farewell behind her. "Thanks for the training, Aizawa."
He hummed, watching her go. When she disappeared inside the school building, he looked towards the city and, using his capture weapon to latch onto the nearest tree, propelled himself onto the phone lines to run towards the city to begin his patrol.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
