Meet the New Class – Student Number 09 – Hayashi Fujiko

When she was young, Hayashi Fujiko dreamed of superheroes. People with amazing powers they used to save the helpless and rescue them from the big bad evil villain, who was always kidnapping the princess or hurting the innocent. It might have been the picture book of fairy tales she learned to read with, or it might have been the trio of Kamen Rider movies her father had watched with her since her birth, but by the time she started school she was already hooked. None of the other girls in her class liked that sort of thing, but she found, strangely enough, that most of the boys did.

At first, she was content to play the damsel in distress in their games, but after a few days of that she grew bored with being the one who was always in need of help. She wasn't a fan of the victim, after all; she loved heroes.

The boys wouldn't let her be a hero, however. After all, who had ever heard of a girl rushing in to save the day...? So six year old 'Fu-chan', as she was called by the others, threw her first punch in frustration and anger. It was a pitiful, haphazard thing, totally lacking in technique or power, but even so it was enough to knock her shocked target down.

As she stood over the crying boy, her tiny fists clenched, she had a startling revelation: she had power. She looked up at the stunned ring of boys, and they backed up a step; she raised her fist threateningly, and they turned and ran. Power...for the first time in her life, she had power...! Like...like a hero...! She smiled as a thrill ran through her. Nobody would dare pick on others with her around...!

Fujiko hopped down the steps to the playground, and the other kids already outside stood around looking at her uncertainly. Fujiko, for her part, climbed back up a step so she looked taller; already she had discovered how important it was to appear bigger than you were if you were intending to show other people who was boss.

For two weeks now, she had ruled the playground. After she hit that one boy, everybody always did what she said. Yesterday, when they wanted to play on the jungle gym but she wanted to play dodgeball, they had ended up playing dodgeball. Fujiko smiled serenely. This was how it should be!

"Does anybody have a cookie?" she asked. The kids looked guiltily at each other until one of them offered up his snack; Fujiko took the cookie and took a bite out of it. After a moment, she looked at it hesitantly and snapped it into two uneven parts; she gave the smaller part back to the kid she took the cookie from, and wandered over to the jungle gym, which she quickly climbed. She perched herself at the top and took another bite of the cookie as she looked out over her kingdom, which consisted of a couple dozen kids and various pieces of playground equipment. Her gaze sharpened as a kid approached the merry-go-round; he turned, saw her glaring at him, and shuffled away from it. This was good and right, in Fujiko's view...she had fallen off the merry-go-round on her first day at school; that thing was dangerous.

A moment later, the new kid who had transferred in a few days previous, a girly looking boy who had 'spunk', as Fujiko thought she had heard it called, climbed up the jungle gym and sat beside her.

"Whoa, you can see so far up here!" the new kid said.

Fujiko glanced over at him and nodded. "Yep! You can see almost all the way down the block!"

They sat there for a moment, then Fujiko broke the remains of the cookie in half and gave part of it to the new kid. "Here you go, Taro-kun!"

The new kid took the cookie and munched away happily.

A week passed, and nothing much changed on the playground. The new kid, Taro-kun, went along with whatever Fujiko wanted easily enough, Fujiko would share the snacks the other kids gave her, and soon the two of them became inseparable on the playground.

And then, one day...

"Gimme it!" Fujiko demanded.

Keiko-chan, a timid young girl who had never before dared to oppose Fujiko, stubbornly shook her head as she clutched her snack to her chest. "No! My mommy made it for me, not for you!"

Fujiko glared and held up her fist threateningly. "I'm warning you Keiko-chan! You'd better let me have it!"

Keiko flinched back, but stubbornly shook her head. So Fujiko hit her.

In Fujiko's mind, it just seemed the thing to do at the time. After all, wasn't Fujiko the protector of the playground? Didn't she stop the other kids from fighting? Didn't she keep them off the dangerous things like the merry-go-round or the monkey bars, from which she herself had fallen last week? Nobody picked on anybody when she was around; they wouldn't dare. She did a lot for the other kids so she should get something in return, right? She deserved something for all she did for them...! All of this ran through Fujiko's mind without her really noticing as she pried Keiko's prized snack container from her grip while the smaller girl cried.

'It's not like I'm gonna eat the whole thing, I'll give her some of it back...' she thought as she finally yanked the container away. She was totally unprepared for the hard shove from behind.

Fujiko lay sprawled in the dirt a moment, shocked as much by the pain in her knees and the palms of her hands as by the fact that someone had pushed her. She sat up and looked at the small rock embedded in the palm of her right hand for a moment, and started to sniffle as tears welled up. She became dimly aware of the other kids standing around staring, and finally gathered her wits enough to stand up, only to be shoved down again, harder this time. The other kids jumped, looking at her with wide eyes as she lay in the dirt, crying now as much from frustration and confusion as pain. She climbed up again, only to get shoved down a third time.

"Stop it!" she wailed as she got up on her hands and knees and looked at her tormentor.

Taro looked down at her, glaring his fiercest glare with his fists clenched. "No!" he said as she shoved her again. "You're mean, Fu-chan! Why'd you hit her? She didn't do anything!"

Fujiko looked blankly at Keiko, who had retrieved her snack container and held it against her chest with both hands. She tried to get up again, but Taro shoved her back down and she started to cry for real. "Suh-stop it, lemme up!"

"No!" Taro said, kicking dirt at her. The other kids had all gathered round by this point, watching in slack-jawed fascination as the girl who had tormented them since the beginning of school got shoved down yet again.

"Y-you're just a bully!" Fujiko wailed.

"Am not! You're the bully!" Taro shouted as he shoved her again.

Fujiko looked up at him through her tears as he stood over her, the afternoon sun squarely behind him and thought, for one horrible moment, that he actually looked a little cool.

"You lied!" he yelled. "You said you were a defender of justice, but you're just a big bully! I didn't know you were stealing all those snacks from the other kids; heroes don't steal! They don't go around hitting people just 'cuz they don't get their way either! Keitaro-nii told me that! He's a hero, not you!"

Fujiko flinched back, crying hard now. "No! I am a hero! I am!"

"No you're not!"

"Yes I am!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Uh huh!"

"A real man doesn't go around picking on other kids!" Taro shouted in his girly, childish voice as several teachers rushed out to separate them.

Fujiko jerked awake and shot a quick glance around the classroom as the other students began taking out their English books, and looked guiltily at Negi-sensei, who winked at her. She quickly focused on finding her textbook, wondering idly why she was dreaming about that embarrassing old memory at a time like this. She glanced out the window for a moment as she tried to wake herself up enough to organize her thoughts. Taro-kun...now that had been one smart kid; he had managed to set her straight in perhaps the only way that would have worked. She wouldn't admit it these days, not to anyone, but she still admired heroes and would love to be one herself, though she knew things weren't that easy out here in the real world. She wondered briefly what had happened to Taro-kun after that incident, but figured he must have been transferred out after that, because she didn't remember having seen him again after that day. She shook her head to clear it and tried to focus on the day's lesson.

Later that day, after school let out, Fujiko wandered outside at a sedate pace. One of the first years bumped into her and apologized, and Fujiko smiled at her and told her it was okay. She made her way to the train station and plopped down on a nearby bench and dropped her books next to her, and yawned. 'I must not be getting enough sleep lately...' she thought drowsily. A startled shout jerked her back to consciousness a moment later.

"Ow!"

"What's the matter, huh? You made me drop my books, pick 'em up!"

"N-no! You bumped into me on purpose so you could push me—ow! That hurt!"

"You think that hurt? Then let me open your eyes, kid! Or do you want to just come with me and my friends here?"

Fujiko was off the bench an instant later. She thought quickly as she approached the scene and took in the situation. A big guy, probably in the high school section of the boys' school, was threatening the younger girl who had bumped into Fujiko earlier and had just grabbed her by the wrist. Several of his friends were lurking around beside him, sending lecherous looks at the girl, who was obviously terrified.

Everything seemed to go extremely slow and Fujiko was moving before she even realized she had intended to; she deftly stepped between the big guy and the girl, knocked his arm away, and gave him a hard shove that sent him staggering back off balance. She grabbed one of his flailing arms and neatly flipped him to the ground, hard, and then his friends were coming at her. She flipped the first one onto the big guy, knocking him back to the ground before he could get up, punched the second guy hard in the nose, something he had obviously not been expecting, but before she could do anything else the third guy grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides, and used his superior size and strength to lift her off the ground where she couldn't get any leverage. She kicked at his legs as well as she could, but he had her bent backward far enough that she couldn't put any power into it when she actually managed to make contact. She realized she had bigger problems, though, when the big guy got back to his feet.

"I am gonna kill you, you little-"

Fortunately, Fujiko didn't get to find out what he was going to say next, because Urashima Taro, a girl from her class she had thought of previously as little better than a bully, leaped into the scene with a flying kick that knocked him sprawling. The guy holding Fujiko released her to face the new threat, and Fujiko wasted no time, driving her elbow into his stomach hard and throwing him to the ground even harder. Meanwhile, Taro had punched one of the other guys in the stomach hard enough to make him collapse, clutching at his midsection, which left one final guy. He took one look at Taro and Fujiko glaring at him, and ran away screaming like a little girl.

Taro sighed and turned to look at Fujiko. "Geez Fu-chan, what are you thinking? Taking on four guys at once? You're lucky I was nearby and saw what happened."

Fujiko gave her an odd look. "What did you call me?"

Taro blinked at her, confused. "...Fujiko-san?" She looked a little disturbed, herself.

"..."

"Oh thank you thank you thank you!" the girl Fujiko had saved gushed as she ran up to the two girls from her hiding place. "You two saved me! You're my heroes!"

Fujiko blushed heavily and turned away. "It...it was nothing...anyone would have...I mean..."

Taro, for her part, just grinned and shook her head. "Nah, a lot of people would've just looked away. You did it a stupid way, but you did save her from those guys, Fujiko. Good job!" she said, slapping her on the back. "I've got other stuff to do, see ya in class," she said, walking away.

Fujiko looked from Taro's departing back to the girl she had saved and back, and couldn't help but think that Taro looked a little cool.

Hayashi Fujiko

Born - 11/15/1994

Height - 5'2"

Judo Club

Likes – Training, protecting the weak, justice

Dislikes – Bullies, studying

Roommate – Karakuri Chachamaru, who is almost never there

Little Known Facts -

Titles: Student Number 9

Close Friends: No one in particular

Enemies: Kobayashi Ayumi

Notes: Hayashi Fujiko...something about that name made me instantly think 'martial artist'. And, since I already had users of several high impact martial arts, why not one focusing on a different type? And so Hayashi Fujiko became a member of the Judo Club. I'm not really sure where the whole hero thing came from; it was there in her personality before I realized it. As for the character, she is completely original, not based on any other character from anything. I'm sure there are similar characters out there (superhero-wannabe martial artist? Of course!), but Fujiko was created in my mind in the same way I create characters for my original stories, as are most of the other members of the new class. Physically, Fujiko is quite short at 5'2". She has messy orange hair (anime colors, remember) and light brown eyes. She's a very active person, a tomboy, and is actually quite attractive though it may be hard to tell through her usual looks.

Appearances: First Appearance- chap 3 (New Beginnings 3), Chapter 7 (Club Visits)

Kamo's Negi Love Chart

Motherly - 5

Sisterly - 2

Friendship - 5

Crush - 17

Love - 3

H – 16 (GAH! No! A hero can't look at her teacher that way! Nonono...!)

Kamo's Comments: *lecherous grin* "Check out that H stat...! Go for it aniki!"

Haruna's Stat Chart

Friendliness - 18

Courage - 20

Attractiveness - 17

Intelligence - 13

Athleticism - 12

Instincts - 13

Anger - 12

Loner - 10

Outgoing - 15

Popularity – 15

Attributes – Athletic girl, tomboy, short hair, friendly, JUSTICE

Haruna's Comments: "Wow this girl's got a real hero complex...! She's not too bad either; the Judo Club says she's one of their better members. Apparently the only reason she's not their best is because she doesn't give her all in matches; they say she's afraid of hurting her opponents...a noble sentiment, but stupid. Yeah, this girl's like a knight in shining armor, just looking for a princess to save. Heh... Ah, youth."

Comments From The Rest

Gotokuji: "Hayashi? Yeah, she's a good kid. She stumbled across me getting my butt kicked in an ambush and jumped right in. We were outnumbered so badly that we still ended up losing, but at least she tried. I'm thinking about getting a friend of mine to offer to train her; I don't want to see her get hurt."

Ku Fei: "Hayashi Fujiko...She is good, but inexperienced. She still needs time to grow."