Chapter Cover- Corteny with her head laid into a table in utter defeat.
Ch.43- Can't believ-
"Glad you're back Cortney- I hope your recovery was well- Cortney! I've come up with a new super move." When free time rolls around, I'm bombarded by my classmates trying to fill me in on what happened while I was gone.
"Thank you, everyone, for worrying about me, but I need some room," I push everyone back, "But for right now, treat it as if I never left."
"She's right," Mom chimes, "You still have to come up with what you're doing at the school festival." She reminds us.
"Finally something normal," Peace barks out happy for something, not life-threatening for once.
"Let me remind you, this festival is for the other courses, not us, but everyone still needs to participate." Mom reminds us why we're still going on with it before grabbing herself a seat.
Me and Itsuka walk up to the podium, "Alright everyone, you heard her, we have to do this, so raise your hands if you have some suggestions." I see everyone's hands shoot up, "But let me add something… if anyone suggests something where only the girls dress, like a maid cafe, I'm punching you." I see a few of the boy's hands go down.
"Setsuna," I may regret asking her.
"Rule 63 maid cafe!" She suggests a devious smile forms on my face.
"What is that?" Tetsu asks.
"I'll explain, the boys will be shirtless while waiting tables, I'll put that at the top of the list," The boys break into a cold sweat at the one now being exposed.
"How about a training dojo?" Hiryu suggested.
"Weight lifts?"
"Ranch!" Everyone is firing off their suggestion.
Then Neito steps up, "I've been working on a play,"
"Oh, a play tells us," My girlish side is peaked, which freaks out Itsuka a bit, I cough into my hand, "Um, that's enough suggestions, let's leave it up to a vote, all for the play?" I see all the boys vote for the play, they outnumber us, "Play it then, ok, tell us the name of your play."
"Romeo, Juliet, & the Prisoner of Azkaban: The Return of the Kings," I fall to my side when I hear the name.
I jump back up to my feet, "Fuck no, I'm not about to deal with potential lawyers," Give it to the guy who copies quirk to not be able to come up with original names.
"I'll come up with a better title and Neito, let me look over your script," I add.
"Alright, tell me when you guys have finalized everything let me know, class, dismissed." Mom releases us, and later that night in our dorm, I'm in the common room with Neito looking over the script of the play, pointing out any flaws I see or getting rid of things that may not be possible for us to do. It seems well thought out.
"Alright Neito, you got my approval, I'll come up with a better name and you'll write a list of everything we need, props, costumes, materials, give me the list before the start of class tomorrow. If you need I'll be in my room." Neito nods and gets to work on the list for everything we'll need. As I make my way to my room, Tetsu catches me outside his door.
"Hey Tetsu," Everyone is still feeling worried about me, but it feels as though Tetsu is supporting everyone else plus his own since I told him he's the one who will always protect me yet he couldn't. He stands speechless with his arms crossed, "Tetsu… I can come in?" Tetsu moves out of the way of the door, I walk in and take a seat on his bed.
As I try to find the right words, Tetsu hugs me passionately, "I'm so glad you're okay," He whispers in my ear, "When I heard the news, I wanted to be there with you during your recovery, but everyone told me to stay here. Those two weeks were hell for me, I kept waiting for the day you would work through those doors." Damn, his blunt nature, how am I supposed to respond now?
I hug Tetsu, "I'm sorry for putting you through that experience," That's the only thing I could say, nothing would be able to fix the pain I caused, "I'm sorry." I echo one last time.
At that point, I get a text from sis telling me, Eri will be coming to the festival, so now I- no, we need to make this the best thing we can for her sake. Tetsu lets me go and I go to my room to work on names for the play.
The rest of the night, I spend coming up with names for our play. By the time I'm done and go to bed I've managed to come up with twenty different titles so we should be good. The next day, we decide our play will be called, "March of the era" a reference to how much this play borrows from, without just stealing titles. After getting Mom's approval we now have one month to get everything set up.
It was decided that me, Yui, Ibara, Setsuna, Pony, Peace, Jurota, Tetsu, Yo', Rin, Bondo, Neito, and Tetsu will actually be playing the play while everyone else helps in the back. I'm excited because I always wanted to be in a play, but none of the schools I went to had any, so this will be a first for me.
Kinoko said she can handle costumes, "Are you sure you can handle it, because you're taking up a lot, including making clothes for thirteen of us and you have a deadline of three weeks on top of that." I point out all the problems with Kinoko taking up the designer role.
She looks up at me with her Shiitake mushrooms eyes, "You can count on me, I'll be sure to have them for you guys!" Kinoko has grown a lot throughout the year, in the beginning, she could barely speak to any of us and couldn't look us in the face and now she's broken out from her shell is on her way to becoming a grand hero.
"Alright then, if you're confident you can do it then I'll leave to you, just be sure to ask for help, we're in this together. If we want this to be the best thing ever, it'll take all we got!" I give a quick speech to everyone telling them to do their best.
When Saturday rolls around, we focus all our effort on the play, I'm outside the dorms sitting on steps, learning my lines while on standby for if the others need help while making the props. I see Lisa walking up to our dorm while holding Eri's hands, also there Mirio. It's good to see Eri wearing actual clothes and not hospital gowns, she's now wearing a white dress shirt with a frilled collar and a plain red pinafore held up by two large, golden buttons. Under this, she wearing gray tights and a large set of tan boots, and a small dark red messenger bag on her right shoulder, plus a little floral pattern decorating one of its sides.
"Hey Cortney," Sis is approached by everyone.
"Cortney never told us you had a daughter," Yo' infers based on their similarities and receives a kick to the side from me as his prize.
"That's Eri, the girl was helping during my time out." I correct him, but I'm not against the idea as that would mean I would be an aunt, "Showing Eri around U.A, sis?" I ask.
"Yep," She confirms my theory.
Tetsu runs up to greet Eri, "Hey there, Tetsutetsu," Eri backs away and grips Lisa's pants.
"She's shy." Lisa clarifies Eri's behavior, "And been through a lot." She adds as well.
"Want to come with us, Cortney?" I look back at my classmates.
"Go with them we'll be good without you." Tetsu pushes me to go with them, but Pony tells me something.
"Cortney, why are you still here, did you forget you entered the beauty pageant?"
"WHAT!?" I retort, I never entered the beauty pageant, I rush to the room where it's happening and kick open the door, "WHOOO DID IT!? WHO SIGNED ME UP!?" Everyone in the room turns around to face me.
"That would be me." Peace answers, "And for why, this is revenge for the sports festival." I almost forgot about the cheer outfits, so much happened between that.
"Well, I'm dropping out then," I tell Peace.
"Too late, once you're entered, you can't drop out." Peace tells me before striking a pose.
"I hate you."
Meanwhile
Ms. Tan is coming out from the Development Studio, after helping out the students and putting out a fire from another one of Mei Hatsume's inventions and runs into Himiko.
"Ms. Tan, I'm so glad to have run into you, would you please teach me how to use a Kusarigama chain like you?" She bows in a desperate plea.
"Could you at least tell why all of a sudden?" Ms. Tan questions back.
Himiko picks up her head, "During the work studies, I learned that I offer nothing in terms of ranged combat, I can't be an asset to people and can't rely on Momo always being around to supply me knives." She answers, Ms. Tan pulls out her chain and starts to slowly spin it.
"It took me years and a lot of pain before I mastered it, even for someone like you, it'll take a lot of time." Ms. Tan advises Himiko to look for other options.
"I'm willing to go through the pain." Himiko counters.
"Fine, switch to your gym uniform and meet me in the field." Ms. Tan stops trying to argue and just decides to teach Himiko.
After swapping clothes, Ms. Tan hands Himiko a replica of her chain with a fake blade so she can't hurt herself badly and takes a spot under a tree, saying nothing else, "Um, Ms. Tan."
"I want to see what you do as someone who never used a chain weapon, so I can judge you properly," tells Himiko, she looks at the weapon in her hands and grips it tightly, spinning the blade around, picking up momentum once the blade has picked up enough speed, Himiko attempts to throw her weapon but once it leaves her hand, the blade is sent high into the air and falls straight back down on Himiko's head, she covers her head to protect herself, but Ms. Tan throws a branch from the nearby tree to knock the blade away safety.
Himiko looks back at Ms. Tan, she's not impressed at her first go with her new weapon, she picks up Himiko's blade, "Stand back." Himiko switches places with and mimics what she did expect with the handle of a master behind it. As the blade is spun around, handles her weapon with subtle adjustments with her body and fingers, the blade almost seems to gain sentience as it starts to move independent of Ms. Tan, attacking from different angles, Himiko watches from her spot and observes so she can pick up some of her tricks.
The little show is ended with grabbing the branch from earlier with her blade and turning the branch to sawdust with a flurry of swings from her training blade, "Sorry, got a little carried there," she apologizes for forgetting that she was supposed to be training someone and thought she was alone.
Himiko took a seat, showing how long she was at it, before standing back up, "It's fine, I learned a lot from watching you, I see I have a lot to learn from you. By the way, what do you call your fighting style?" She asks out of curiosity.
"Black Mamba." She replies, "Unfortunately, I have to call it a day for now as I have to look over."
"That's fine, I'll stay here because I want to get used to handling my new weapon." Himiko says and hands the training weapon back to her before leaving satisfied that she got to help another student, and also hopeful that she doesn't turn out like her.
Writer: The story closes for this chapter. I hope everyone is staying safe in this dangerous time, sorry for having this chapter take so long, I don't know why but March took all my creativity, I couldn't think of anything really.