Chapter 36: Familial Resemblance
Nurse's Office, Beacon Academy
"…should have stayed till she woke up."
"I already chewed him out about Blake without losing much ground, picking two fights with him in one day would be really pushing it."
"Still though…"
Voices began filtering in as Mura's eyes slowly flickered awake. Her whole body was panged by dull throbs from head to toe. Trying to rise up only evoked a whimper of pain, which instantly caught the voices attention.
"Mura! You're awake!" Luna exclaimed, rushing to her side.
"Try not to move, you hit the ground pretty hard," Leif explained, approaching from the other side.
"The ground…?" Mura questioned, unsure of what happened. A few seconds passed, and the memory of the events came rushing in. She had lost focus, and simply fell to the ground instead of finishing the blow on the dummy… but why hadn't she caught herself, landed safely? She still had Aura, otherwise the damage would have been far worse, which meant… her eyes went wide.
The man on the arch. His face.
"The nurse says you should be good to go in a few hours, so just try to-hey Mura!" Leif suddenly cried as she rose from the bed rapidly, pushing him out of the way. The arch. That man. She had to know.
"Wait, where are you going?" She heard Luna shout as the distance between the two expanded. They might follow her, but she didn't care. She had to know just what she saw. Every rational part of her brain screamed that she was wrong, but she had to be sure.
She had to know if it was him.
Sprinting down the hallway full tilt, she pushed past anyone who was unfortunate enough to be in her way. Out the double doors to the courtyard. Straight down the paths to towards the training field, stopping short at the base of the archway nearest to it. Glancing straight up, she saw the top was cloaked in shadows from the setting sun. While she lacked her shields and her Aura reserves were still too low to use her Semblance, Mura noted tiny grooves notched in the main pillar. Climbing it was then.
Despite her arms aching in protest, she kept moving skyward. Left arm, right arm, left arm, right arm. Her mind all the while racing over the same seconds of memory from earlier, trying to find anything she might have missed, anything to give more proof to her hopeless theory. Finally, she reached the top, shielding her eyes from the sunset's rays as she pulled herself up.
As she feared, yet expected, the top of the arch was empty.
'I know I saw him up here…well I saw someone up here'she corrected herself, trying to avoid becoming fixated on her baseless hopes. She saw the body herself years ago. There was no way it could be him, no matter how hard she wished. He was- a slight scuff of footsteps was heard behind her.
"Dad-" Mura let out turning abruptly, trying to contain a smile of happiness.
It fell flat instantly as her eyes locked eyes with the familiar person.
It was indeed the man she saw early today, but not the one she had hoped for desperately, though they bared plenty of resemblance. A middle aged man, greying hair with a scruffy beard, his face only now beginning to wrinkle, looked down at her. A face that could pass for her dad's at a distance but wouldn't fool anyone up close.
"Hello Mura," the man softly said, though the firm tone was easily heard layered underneath.
"Wh-why are you here? Did mom-" she managed to croak, her voice barely coming to her as her whole world began crumbling out from underneath her.
"I think you know why," the man took a step closer towards the shell-shocked Mura.
"I'm bringing you home."
Next update shouldn't be too long, about a month or two again is my goal :) If you really enjoyed the update, I'd would very very very very much appreciate it if you left a review with your feedback, my main reason for writing this story in the first place is to improve myself as a writer, so your feedback means the world to me, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. Regardless, I will always continue this story regardless of how many views/reviews/favorites/etc I get, so thank you so much for reading and I'll be back soon(ish) with a new update! :D