"Ok then Haruka. It's time for your first day of training." Komui said, sipping from a cup of coffee. "Reever, you can take over from here." The chief began to try and walk away.
"Are you kidding me? You're not even going to watch?" Reever yelled.
"What are you thinking? Of course I'm going to watch. From that chair over there and at a very safe distance from any possible harm. However that's all I plan on doing. Maybe I'll cheer a bit though." With one more sip of his coffee, Komui went over to sit in the chair he had mentioned to Reever.
"God damn that man." Reever muttered under his breath. Then he turned to Haruka. The girl was sitting patiently on the ground, cross legged. She was wearing a light gray tee-shirt and black shorts instead of her uniform, which was folded neatly in a pile off to the side and out of the way. Her long red hair was tied back into a pony tail. She looked up at Reever, waiting for her instructions. "What we are going to do is a basic test to see how physically fit you are, see how well you can use you're innocence, and also to build up a training plan for you. Got it?" Reever explained and waited for a response. When Haruka gave him a nod he continued. "We're going to start with stamina and speed. Run as many laps as you can around the training room."
Haruka stood up and went over to a line that marked the starting point. She stretched her legs for a minute. "Ready!" She cheered.
"Begin when you want." Reever said." "I'll be counting the laps." A few seconds later Haruka took off.
"She's pretty fast." Allen stated. He was sitting along the side of the training area with Lenalee, Lavi, Krory, Kanda, and Bookman.
"You're right. To be honest I'm a bit surprised." Lenalee commented.
"If I remember, 4 laps is equivalent to a mile, right?" Krory asked the group.
"Yeah. I wonder how far she'll go." Allen answered the vampire boy. "I can tell you this much though. I'm sure she'll beat my record."
"It's not like you have a high record Allen. You're pretty darn slow." Lavi teased. He chuckled a bit to himself.
"That's harsh Lavi." Allen strained to hold back an insult.
"Come on guys." Lenalee jumped in. "We're supposed to be watching Haruka." Once that little argument had been stopped, Lenalee looked at Kanda. The blue haired exorcist was leaning back against a column. "How do you think she's doing Kanda?"
The tall exorcist looked over to the young red headed girl. The only reason he was even there was because he wanted to take a few hits at a practice dummy. But once Haruka saw him, he couldn't leave. "She can go faster." He said calmly.
"You think so?" Lenalee wondered about it.
After a while more Haruka stopped running. She had completed 23 laps at a constant run. She was breathing a bit heavy and she had small beads of sweat on her face. But other than that she looked fine. After catching her breath, she waited for her next instructions."
"That was good for a kid." Reever told her. "Now then, moving on. Next we're going to try upper body. After that we'll do coordination. Then a break for lunch."
Haruka agreed then happily went off to complete both of the tests. She had a little trouble with weight lifting. In the end she was only able to lift 60 lbs., which was barely more than half her body weight. However, coordination was a breeze. She had a near perfect score on a test that the science department guys had designed.
"How about we go get lunch together Haruka?" Lenalee asked when Haruka was done.
"Um…sure." Haruka replied. "That sounds great."
"Can we tag along?" Lavi butted in. "You know what they say. The more the merrier."
"Haha. What do you say Haruka?" Lenalee giggled.
"It sounds like it would be fine." She smiled. Then she ran over to Kanda and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. "Can you come too Yu-chan?" She asked with a sparkle in her hazel eyes.
"Kanda looked down at the girl. "Tsk." He reluctantly got up from his spot and allowed Haruka to drag him to join the rest of the gang.
The group of exorcist all headed down to the cafeteria. Haruka still wasn't sure about what Jerry meant by 'you can have anything you want', so she made it a point to order something different every day. This time she happily sat at the table with several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a plate. She did her usual prayer before taking a large bite from the first sandwich.
"Lenalee, Allen, and Lavi were all leaning over a book that Lenalee had brought. They were all talking so easily about it, so Haruka assumed they had all read it before.
"What is that?" Haruka asked, jumping into the conversation.
"You mean the book?" It's just a funny story I brought back from a mission. "Lavi said matter of factly.
"Why don't you try it Haruka? I'm sure you'd like it." Lenalee smiled and handed the book to the younger girl. Haruka looked at the books cover before passing it back to Lenalee. "Not interested?" Lenalee asked.
Haruka shook her head." It's not that." She reassured. She didn't want Lenalee to be upset that she didn't try the book. "I can't read."
"WHAT?" All three of the exorcists screamed simultaneously.
"You're serious?" Allen asked, making sure they had all heard right.
"Yeah. I never learned." Haruka shrugged. "No one ever taught me, and I wasn't able to figure it out myself."
"So you can't read at all?" Lave asked. "Not even a little bit?"
"Well, not really." Haruka stated. "I know my name and Yu-chan's name. But that's it." Haruka began to feel uncomfortable because of all the stares. She tried to shrink back from them a bit.
"We'll have to teach you then." Lenalee said calmly. "You're going to need to know how to read in order to complete missions. But we can worry about that later." The green haired girl smiled and stood up. "Right now we need to get you back to that test."
