"Hah...hah...hah..." Hina panted out, turning the speed of the treadmill up a few more notches before settling into the new, faster pace. Her feet stomped a quick rhythm against the machine, but it only sounded to her as dull thumps through her headphones, which blasted music at a painful volume. Really, she should worry about doing damage to her eardrums, but the beat reverberating through her skull was just perfect to keep her going.
The person on the treadmill beside her gave her a strange glance, but she ignored it, focused on not falling flat on her ass. Well, her work out was a bit more intense than the few other people currently in the gym with her this late at night, so she could only assume she was quite the spectacle to these people casually lifting weights while watching the tv set against the corner of the room. They clearly didn't train quite as hard as a pro hero did on a regular basis.
Her red hair swung from her pony tail which dangled down to her shoulders, swaying back and forth which each step. Now that she thought about it, maybe putting it in a bun would have been a better option, as it hair kept brushing against the back of her neck, irritating the skin just enough that she had to keep scratching at it annoyingly.
Her workout persisted for another ten minutes at the consistent speed of whatever the setting of 7 was on the treadmill. She wasn't quite sure how fast it calculating out to be, but it was definitely fast. Her eyes on the clock on the wall above the rest of the gym's machines, she waited until precisely 11 o'clock to press the 'End Workout' button on the screen and slow the treadmill's conveyor to a stop.
Hina took large gulps from her water bottle, shakily stepping off of the machine and walking over towards her stuff hanging on the wall. She felt like each step traversed more distance than it actually did, as if she were still running despite maintaining a casual walking speed.
Hauling her purse over her shoulder and hooking her water bottle around the chain, she held the door open for someone just entering the gym and pushed past them into the cooler night air.
It felt heavenly against her sweaty skin. She lifted her arms slightly, letting the air do its job and cool her from her intense work out. She imagined that her skin was blotchy and nearly as red as her hair. Yuck, she definitely needed a shower now that she felt the sweat begin to dry properly.
Turning in the direction of home, Hina pulled out her cell phone and checked to see if she had any new messages. Nothing new, and she'd already read the news before leaving home to head to the gym, so she didn't feel like surfing anymore of the web for the night. Instead, she just watched the people around her.
Several people glanced her way just before she passed them by, and it was at times like this that Hina wished she could use her quirk out in the open without consequence. No one would technically know even if she did, since no one ever felt her reaching out to their thoughts, but that would be riding the fine line between being a pro hero and stooping to the level of a creep peering into others' mind because of nothing but her innate curiosity. That thought had always stopped her from trying it.
For a telepath, she truly was clueless what everyone was thinking. What did she look like to them? Did any of them still recognize her as a pro at all? The younger children would probably have no idea, but the adults surely would know her face, or at least recognize her by the color of her hair. Perhaps not...
I've got no one to blame for that but myself. It's not like they forced me out of it or anything.
Hell, now that she thought about it, the last time she'd done solid hero work was nearly 5 years ago. Sure, she did a patrol every once in a blue moon-she didn't completely neglect her duties-but for the most part, she kept herself away from hero work because...
Because of her own pride, she supposed. Huh. What a pro hero she'd turned out to be. Hiding away from the public, not doing her job, just because of her brother. And she was the one teaching the next generation of heroes what was right and wrong? How pathetically ironic.
Reaching the end of the small avenue that the gym was located on, she swung a right and began her trek up the main street towards her home. Despite the darkness of the night sky, this area of the city was always alight with streetlights, advertisement signs, and car headlights. The higher-rise buildings still had a freckling of office lights on through the glass windows; office workers staying late to finish their jobs, or perhaps managers still on the grind for those night time opportunities. Who knew?
Between the break of two large buildings, she spotted the very top of the UA High School building, several streets away but still visible from this distance. She smiled, still feeling lucky that she had such an esteemed position and place of work. How she'd ever gotten that job still amazed her.
The shakiness in her legs had passed by now, replaced by a low ache that would persist until her muscles repaired themselves properly. At least she worked out enough that she likely wouldn't feel a painful soreness the following morning. That was a plus.
Just after the small 24 hours convenience store, she crossed a left and headed towards the area of town that was most prevalent with housing structures. Street lights still lit the corners of the streets, but the area wasn't bathed in illumination like the main road had. Pockets of darkness hung in alleyways between apartment buildings and small family-owned shops.
Hina did not worry about any criminals lurking in the shadows, as even if one happened to be there waiting to ambush her, she was confident in the ability for her to protect herself. Higher profile criminals generally didn't spend their nights waiting for unsuspecting people to walk by so they could take them by surprise, so anyone she encountered would probably be manageable to take down by herself.
A majority of the houses at this time of night were dark, the occupants inside sleeping, so it gave her a very strange feeling of isolation walking home in the dark like this. The occasional passerby would break her illusion, but she could still imagine that the area was devoid of population sometimes.
She just happened to look up at the sky to try to see any stars that might be visible when a figure crouched on the corner of the roof of a building caught her eye. The man was slim, with a familiar length of floating ribbon around his profile, peering away from her direction down at the streets.
Hina smiled, activating her quirk and leaning against one of the buildings for a moment. "So, how goes the patrol tonight?"
She watched as he stiffened, then searched down below for her quickly. The faint dull yellow color of his protective goggles stared down at her.
"Uneventful. Boring."
"I'm sorry to hear that, though I don't think it would be right of me to wish that something happened just so you'd have something to do." Hina replied internally, amused by his monotone. "You could always call it a night and take some time to yourself, you know. Maybe get some more sleep or something."
"Skipping patrol isn't very hero-like."
She winced, feeling slightly guilty. He was hitting close to home with what she'd been thinking about earlier, but she shook it off and tried to let it go. "We're all human. You'll need sleep at some point to function at your best. Either on patrol or with teaching!"
"Contrary to what everyone seems to believe, I do sleep." He quipped back, and she felt a spark of annoyance accompanying his words. "It's the weekend anyway. My teaching shouldn't be affected. Nor be of your concern."
"I'm just trying to look out for you since, you know, you don't seem to do that for yourself." Hina smiled, making sure to push the fact that she was only teasing him into her thoughts. He already seemed a little annoyed. No need to make him actually angry because he misunderstood her intention.
It took him a few moments to answer. "Be careful walking home, Scarlet."
She pouted, unamused that he referred to her by her hero name and seemingly ended their conversation all at once. She pushed off the wall she'd been leaning against. "I can take care of myself. But hey, you could follow me home to make sure I get there. That'll really complete the whole stalker vibe you're currently giving out."
She saw two small dots of red, barely distinguishable through his goggles. The feeling of her quirk activation instantly shut itself off, and she chuckled to herself. Apparently he was done talking for the night and made sure it stayed that way.
"Ja ne!" She called up to him cheerfully, raising a hand in farewell as she resumed her walk home. He didn't reply, but after several seconds, she could feel the ability of her quirk return to her. She braved a glance back but noticed that he was no longer in the spot he'd been sitting before. He'd moved on somewhere else, no doubt looking for trouble in other areas of the city.
Save for his brief encounter with Hina a few hours before, Aizawa's patrol was very boring. Watching the dark streets for signs of movement that wouldn't come got old pretty quickly. Not even any small-time thieves or burglars tried anything that night in the areas he was looking over. That could only be a good thing, as it meant no one would get hurt or experience that small moment of terror that they would be the victims of a crime, but he surely did prefer having something to do sometimes.
The inactivity was making him tired, more so than usual, and he half wished he'd taken Hina's advice of calling off his patrol early. Sleep sounded pretty great right now. But he had a job to do. And damn him if he wasn't going to do it.
Having sat in one spot for half an hour now with no sign of activity, Aizawa straightened from his position on the corner of the roof and ran along the nearest phone line to choose a new area to keep watch over. It helped keep him awake at the very least as well.
Using his capture weapon to hoist himself up with ease, he settled on top of an advertisement sign, just thick enough to support himself on without risk of falling. This vantage point was much higher than the closer buildings and afforded him a clear view of the surrounding streets and a good portion of the surrounding city.
"We're all human."
With nothing else to focus on, he reflected back on his conversation with the red-headed teacher. Hina had seemed a bit...hurt by his words about skipping patrol. Maybe he'd just been imagining it...no, he had definitely gotten the impression that she lost just a smidge of her chipper attitude the moment she'd read his thoughts. Maybe some of her emotions had bled through when she hadn't intended them to.
He hadn't meant it in a insulting way, but she'd somehow taken it that way. He wondered why...Come to think of it, she didn't seem to patrol all that often. She rarely ever mentioned it, and most nights she spent grading papers at the school itself, much like him. But she always seemed to go straight home afterwards. Perhaps what he'd said had reminded her of her lack of patrolling. That seemed the most logical reason.
Hmm. Maybe she just needed a little push.
A flash of light on the other side of the city caught his attention, and he looked up just in time to see a small fireball rise into the sky before fading back into smoke. A low, dulled 'boom' echoed past him just a second later. An explosion. It wasn't exactly close by, but it would only take him a few minutes of traversing the streets to get there if he kept to the roofs and telephone lines.
In a flash, he was speeding off towards the scene of whatever was going on, feet thumping against the various roofs he ran along as he went. Whether the occupants inside heard or not he didn't quite care at the moment. Expertly he jumped from roof to phone lines, keeping his balance as he went.
The vibration of his cell phone caught his attention. Somehow he'd felt it even while on the move like this. He debated ignoring it, but figured it could be important. He pulled out the phone and saw a familiar number on the home screen.
"Eraserhead speaking." He answered in a clipped tone, focused more on not losing his footing along the phone lines than how he sounded right now. The calm yet insistent voice of the police commissioner came through, speaking quickly.
"I understand this is a late call, but we have a situation at Musutafu's maximum security prison. We are asking that any nearby heroes please respond immediately. Their security systems show that at least one exterior wall has been breached." He was seasoned enough not to panic when trying to get important information across, and only included the basics so as not to waste time.
"Already on the way."
The call disconnected and Aizawa stuffed his cell back in his pocket, intent on getting to the prison as quickly as possible.
He arrived to the sight of several prisoners filtering through the hole created by whatever explosion had gone off, with other heroes already fending off those trying to make a break for it in all the confusion. Inside could be heard the intense blare of the prison alarm. The whole area outside was cast in flickering red light from the quickly-spreading inferno.
Fire crews were on standby, ready to put out the flames as soon as the situation was taken care of. The cause of the blast or how it had all happened wasn't his concern right now, and he jumped into action, landing on the ground beside an unsuspecting prisoner.
"Ah!" He shouted, suddenly finding himself wrapped up in Aizawa's capture weapon and being pulled quickly to the side. But he didn't have time left to think further, as the pro hero's fist connected painfully against his face, knocking him unconscious in an instant. He tossed the criminal towards where the law enforcement were grouping, blocking off exits to those trying to escape, before moving on to the next person within his sight.
Several more weak criminals fell to his fast-paced fighting style, but one in particular wasn't as green. Muscular with a bald head, his eyes were hard and angry, and he didn't shy away from the pro as he shot his capture weapon out to him. The man dodged to the side and tried getting a kick in on Aizawa's exposed side. For someone so large, he was surprisingly fast, but Aizawa managed to use the momentum of his initial charge to shift himself out of the way.
"Remember me, Eraser?" The man asked gruffly, a twisted grin on his face. "You're the one who put me in here. Don't you recognize me?"
"Not particularly." He replied in a bored tone, this time sending two strands of his capture weapon out on both the left and right sides of him, intent on not giving him anywhere to go.
"Well, I've been waiting forever to face you again. I'm sure this will jog your memory!" He shouted, charging straight for the pro hero. His eyes widened as the man's hands changed into two sharp blades, aimed straight for him.
Ah, right. Slasher. Now he remembered.
Aizawa redirected his capture weapon to a fallen piece of the prison's exterior wall, and dragged in in front of him just in time to block the blades. They skittered off the stone, sending the man off balance, which gave him the opening he needed to send one of his ribbons towards the man's foot from behind. It wrapped around his ankle tightly, dangling him upside down several feet in the air before tossing him into the prison wall.
It left him dazed, but not out, and he pushed himself away from the cracked stone. Scowling his hate, Slasher opened his mouth to say something but was cut off when his entire body seized up and he collapsed on the ground in a heap.
Aizawa frowned, but upon closer inspection, his clothes had tightened around him, effectively trapping him within his own prison uniform. He couldn't move, but shouted out his anger loudly.
Best Jeanist stepped closer to Aizawa, watching the man on the ground squirm from within his clothes, but then turned to the other hero. "I believe that's the last of the ones outside."
Eraserhead looked around at the aftermath. Dozens of prisoners lay unconscious on the ground, or were being hauled away by the police. The pro heroes that had showed up all supervised, making sure the more powerful prisoners didn't try anything funny.
The fire department were blasting the flaming wreckage with gallons of water from the hoses. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a few heroes entering the open wall with a squad of policemen, hoping to stop further escapees from coming out.
"This will certainly cause a stir." Jeanist continued, watching everything settle as the break out was controlled. "The blast that destroyed this wall was very powerful, and there doesn't appear to be anything close by that could have caused it naturally."
Aizawa sighed, his capture weapon lazily curling itself around his neck once more. "I have a feeling this will be a lot more work for us down the line."
"Surely." Beat Jeanist agreed, giving his companion a glance. "Until the prison takes a census, there's no way to know just how many prisoners escaped before we arrived, or who we might be dealing with a second time."
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