"What was it you wanted to talk to us about, Kaori?"
The young girl turned as she stepped away from the railing that allowed one to look out over the U.A. grounds. Her eyes widened, however, when she came face-to-face with not just Kirishima and Mina, but other students in her class as well. Amongst the group were the likes of Yaoyorozu, Jirou, Kaminari, and even Sero.
"…Whose idea was it?" Kaori asked with a sullen tone.
Mina stepped forward with a small smile on her face. "It was mine to start, but when others overheard they started volunteering themselves rather than me asking. I thought it might help having more people to talk to. Each one of them said they wanted to show their appreciation in some way after getting to know you. Sero's just here because he's good at making jokes."
"Hey!"
"I…don't know if this is something a lot of people should know about…" Kaori started as she awkwardly looked off to the side for a few moments, her arms wrapped around each other as though she were trying to shelter herself away. That feeling was quickly shaken off though, as she gained a stern look on her face before turning back to the group. "...No. No more secrets. That's part of what got me into this mess in the first place."
Kaminari's face grew hesitant as Kaori's mood suddenly shifted. "I'm not so sure about this anymore, you guys. If it has her this torn up is it really such a good idea to get involved?"
"Stop being such a coward, Kaminari." Jirou reprimanded as she slapped the boy's head with one of her earphones. "We're some of the only people in the class that she's actually talked with more than a few words."
"Kaminari has a point, you guys." Kaori stated just as Jirou stopped speaking. "This…isn't exactly the nicest of details I'm about to give you. I won't dislike any of you for choosing to not hear what I'm about to say."
"We all want to give you a chance to get something off of your chest, Kaori." Yaoyorozu spoke up with a hand over her own chest and a sincere look on her face. "Out of everyone in our class you have one of the strongest desires to be a Hero, and it comes from a very meaningful place. If something is bothering you this much you should be allowed to get it out of your system."
"Besides," Kirishima chimed in. "How are you supposed to be able to focus on studying for the finals in a few weeks if you've got other things on your mind?"
"…You're right." Kaori said as a small smile graced her face before it slowly disappeared in favour of the continued unease she felt about what she was about to say. "But this isn't easy for me to talk about so…bear with me." Kaori steeled herself with a deep breath before facing the others with her full attention.
"You guys remember when I talked about what happened to my dad after everything that happened at the USJ a few weeks ago?" A series of nods gave way as she continued. "Well…I found out more details about it during my internship over the last week. It turns out that the Pro I interned with, Blink, used to work with him back when he was still alive. I'd supposedly even seen her a few times as a kid, but I must have repressed it after what happened because of what it was connected to."
"But…isn't that a good thing?" Kirishima asked with a curious tone. "You got to meet someone from your past, and it was one of the Top Heroes on top of that!"
Kaori's face brightened somewhat. "It is. I got to finally meet someone that knew more about my dad outside of his home life and when he wasn't working. I found out that he used to be a part of a team that went out and stopped villains as well as rescuing people like it was nothing. Each one of them had their strengths and weaknesses, but as a whole they evened each other out and covered each other's backs." Her face fell in the moments that followed. "At least…they used to."
The others all gave each other worried looks as Kaori began anew.
"There was a third member of their team, someone that had a powerful Telekinetic Quirk. But the three of them got into a serious argument after something big happened, and it ended up driving the team apart. They all ended up working alone after that for a year before things got worse. In the end…" A few tears fell from Kaori's eyes. "My dad was killed by someone he had trusted for years. Someone that had used to work alongside him stabbed him in the back and left him for dead. And I don't even know why. I don't even know his name because no one will tell me who he was." Looks of shock and horror met Kaori as she held her arms closer to her body as she turned around to prop herself on the railing once more. Her throat felt tight as she continued through the pain. "Now you know why I've been in such a bad mood today. I talked to my mom about it last night, and all she gave me was some crap about protecting me by not telling me. And I responded by shutting myself in my room as I heard her cry outside my door. I was so selfish that I dredged up every painful memory for her like my pain was more important, and it took me all day to figure that out. What kind of person does that?" Kaori's breath hitched as she felt a pair of gentle arms wrap around her from behind.
"Someone that's dealing with a lot of bad memories, that's what." Mina's voice came from behind her as Kaori leaned into the hug a bit before turning around to hug the pinkette back. This moment went over for a little while longer as others came in to join the hug, Kaori's heart slowly lifting as she realized just how much support she had.
"You guys have no idea how much this means to me." Kaori commented as the hug eventually broke and Yaoyorozu offered Kaori a tissue to help dry her eyes. "I didn't realize until now just how badly this was bothering me. And I've just kept it all bottled in for nearly a week. I must look like a mess right now."
"Are you kidding?" Sero exclaimed. "Just look at Kirishima! I'm pretty sure he's cried twice as hard as you!"
"They're tears of manly sorrow, Sero!" Kirishima shouted back. "They're nothing to be ashamed of!"
Kaori felt a laugh leave her without any restraint as the others looked to her with varying smiles.
"Told you he was funny." Mina gave a knowing smirk as Kaori casually gave the girl a soft punch to the shoulder with a roll of her eyes.
Kaori took a deep breath as she stood outside the door to her home, a weight settled in her gut as she dreaded how her next conversation might go. But after the talk she'd had at U.A., this was something she needed to do, if only to try and amend what she had done the night before. It was with that thought in mind that she carefully opened the door and stepped into the hallway before removing her shoes and walking towards the living area where she would wait for her mother to get home.
To her surprise, she didn't have to wait at all as she came face-to-face with her mother hard at work in the kitchen.
"Mom?" Kaori gave the older woman a confused look. "What are you doing home so soon? I thought you would still be at work."
"I was," Her mother responded calmly. "But they noticed that I seemed to be distracted and told me to take a sick day since I've so rarely taken one and was ahead of my work today anyways. So I came home and tried to find a way to pass the time until you got home. It ended up resulting in me baking to pass the rest of the time I waited though…I might have let it get away from me a little bit."
Kaori's eyes moved to the other parts of the kitchen where her mother wasn't currently working. They then widened as she noticed all of the baked goods that sat on their counter, with a large majority of it being mochi.
"Mom, you could run a bake sale with this much stuff! Why would you make so much?! Especially the mochi?! I'm gonna get fat with this much tempting me!"
"I realized that as I was passing the time that I needed to apologize to you for what happened yesterday. And you've always been more willing to listen when you've got some of your favorite snack waiting."
"Mom, I…" Kaori was at a loss for words as she looked over the dirty kitchen and all of the things that her mother had prepared. Her only eventual response was to step closer to her mother and wrap her arms tightly around her and rest her head on her chest despite all of the baking ingredients that currently coated her apron. She then turned her face after a few moments to look her mother in the eye as she stepped back, flour and sugar coating one side of her uniform as well as her hair – though that one was harder to tell at a glance. "I'm sorry."
Her mother looked at her with confusion. "What for? I'm the one that held back the truth from you all these years. You had every right to be angry at me."
"Maybe I did. But it didn't mean you deserved me acting the way I did. I could have been angry but been a little nicer about it. I realized today, after talking with some friends, that I was being selfish when I should have considered what I had forced you to remember. It wasn't fair of me to just pile all of that on you the way I did."
Her mother simply looked at her and blinked for a few seconds before a warm smile graced her face and she reached out to hug her once more, to which Kaori happily obliged. The two stayed like that for a few moments before they broke apart with smiles on their faces.
"Well, it seems that both of us made some mistakes recently." Her mother started as Kaori nodded plainly. "But that doesn't change the fact that I still worry about you. You're taking up the same kind of work that got your father killed by someone he trusted."
"I know, mom. And I know that we'll likely have disagreements about stuff in the future. Hopefully they won't be as bad as this one."
"Me too, honey. Me too."
As Kaori leaned in to hug her mother once more, she knew that not everything was how she wanted it to be. There was still the matter of the name that she was still being denied. She knew that one day the question would come up again. But until then...she just wanted to enjoy the safe feeling within her mother's arms, much like the feeling she had shared with some of her classmates earlier that day. No matter what happened, she knew that she would always have someone there to support her in their own way.
As the weeks leading up to the exams passed, everyone grew more and more anxious until some were fit to burst. And in some way, a few of them seemed to when the exams were just around the corner. In the end, Kaori ended up joining others in her class in some tutoring sessions with Yaoyorozu to brush up on the different subjects prior to their tests. Being ranked 12 out of 20 in terms of her grades, Kaori knew she would need to brush up a bit and do better in the written course due to her talents lying more in the physical aspects rather than mental. Not to say that she was an idiot, but she knew she could do better.
As the tests came and went, everyone eventually came to be standing outside of U.A. in their Hero costumes in front of a large amount of the school's teachers. As everyone thought that the upcoming practical would be against robots, this seemed more than a little odd to many of them.
"Recent events have forced us to change how we approach the exams! As such, all of you will be paired up to face…the faculty of U.A."
Following that exclamation, everyone was gradually paired off against a different teacher. As it came down to a few of them yet to be assigned, Kaori felt herself perk up as she heard her name called. Despite preferring to hear her first name, she knew that people like the teachers would often use her last name instead.
"Kirishima will be paired up with Nomi to go up against Cementoss."
Sometimes, Kaori wondered if the universe just enjoyed putting obstacles in people's way when they were trying to do better. But she never thought that it would wind up being so literal in this case.
Bit of an exposition dump/time-skip this time around. But, despite how it may look not everything is necessarily resolved. While there have been some apologies for the ways people acted, that doesn't mean everything is suddenly sunshine and roses. I wouldn't consider this one of my better chapters by any stretch of the imagination. But that's just how things go. But for now, you'll all have to wait around a couple weeks to see just how the fights go before things transition towards the Training Camp side of things. I can't WAIT to really crack open the tension over the next number of updates.