"That'll be all." A brunette wearing a black hat tied with a white ribbon sent the waitress away. The response was a simple bow before the waitress immediately left for the interior of the café.
It was a sunny but cold day. Typical of this time of year, early march. But spring was arriving early, the birds were singing, leaves had sprouted. A beautiful day. There were no clouds in the sky.
A small gust of air flew through the street.
It'll rain someday soon. Renko Usami thought to herself as she raised her eyes from the passing crowd to heavens above. Then she turned her arm around a little, taking a look at her electronic wristwatch. It sat exactly at 12:45.
She'll be late, wouldn't be the first time.
Renko Usami had completed her entrance examination for just yesterday and thought that it was pretty easy. Maribel always told her how tests have answers that you think you know, but you don't. But it was no reason for her not to be confident, all the answers just came naturally. Unlike Maribel, who usually managed to get by on her tests by anything ranging from 70% - 90%, Renko had the tendency to come near perfect. Her studying technique was very good and so was her mind. With her quirk being based around information, she had always hypothesized that her quirk gave her a boost in memory and perhaps in learning. But she could never find the evidence she needed to prove it, quirks were so mysterious that you could never quite understand what they do. That is why a lot of quirks are described very shallowly. Some people had their entire lives dictated by their quirk, down to subconscious behavior. Some people went into hibernation, some people became murderous.
On that topic, she too wondered how it went for Maribel with her exam. That quirk of hers was far more potent than Renko's, with the right application she could crush any physical object. Renko had taught her that, actually. Despite being a little dull on the theoretical side of things, Hearn was always very creative in practice. One of the things Renko loved so much about her.
Another wind came by and flowed throughout what hair that wasn't stuck into her hat. Then, the wind came unimpeded by any hat. What?
"Helloooo~ Renko." Came the voice of Maribel Hearn, she was standing just behind her. Renko turned around and faced her just when the wind settled.
A friendly smile spread across her face. "You're always so stealthy. How do you walk so silently, really?" She asked, snickering all the while.
Maribel was always a little secretive about how she did things, but when talking to Renko she wasn't like that at all. "I just place my heel down first and roll on it to my next step. I'm not sure why, but maybe it just transfers the momentum in a more balanced way? If I'm carrying a bag, it won't sway as much."
Renko pondered on it for a few moments and brought a hand up to her chin. "Not really feeling it for calculations, but it sounds like you're not putting all of the energy into the ground at the same moment. That's the difference from a normal step." She explained, moving her palm to the table after Maribel just stood there for a bit. "Ah... You can take a seat, you know."
"Right, right." She said and moved over to the empty chair on the other end of the round, glass table.
Usami giggled a little as she held out a hand to her friend. "My hat."
"You make me feel so dumb, you know." The golden eyed beauty muttered with a stupid, embarrassed look on her face. She held the hat up before handing it over to Renko, who put it on.
"Anyway... Did you hero exam go well? The written portion couldn't have been that hard." The would-be physicist inquired. Her hair blew just a little in the wind, but her hat saved her from any trouble. It was so that her friend had her own hat, too. A white mobcap, reminiscent of old European ones. It had become a bit of a trendy item in first world countries these last few decades. Of course, that's what she told me. I'm not much into fashion myself, even if I like to stylize my wear a little.
Maribel looked up at her and thought for a few moments, spacing about. "Hmm, I scored 62 points on the physical one. I'm not sure if my answers on the written ones were correct, but it really felt like I did fine."
The brunette raised her eyebrows for a moment and immediately blurted out what she thought. "What were you supposed to do during the physical exam anyway? Test your quirk on dummies, normal physical tests?"
"Huh? Well, we fought some robots who could fight back against us." Hearn replied after being caught a little off-guard.
Renko's eyes drifted to the sky. "That must've been dangerous. You're not hurt, are you?
"No, no. I'm not hurt." Maribel responded and waved at Renko as to dispel the notion. "You can't be a hero if you're helpless, no?"
"I guess that's true." The physicist smiled. "It's great that you're so confident now. If you weren't, I don't think you'd ever have gotten anywhere with your quirk." She gestured and pointed her index finger in Maribel's general direction.
Hearn exhaled and replied wholeheartedly, although with some embarrassment. "Don't pin all of that on me. You helped me out of that bad situation.."
Her friend waved a hand in Maribel's direction and sought to remove the praise of herself, thinking that she didn't deserve it. "It could have been anyone..."
A waiter came by with a tray, featuring a cup of coffee, tea and two biscuits. "I hope you'll enjoy it." She said and put it all on the table, the tea on Maribel's side and the coffee on Renko's side. They took one biscuit each. "Thank you." Renko said. The two girls bowed their heads as the waiter himself bowed, and then left, leaving the two to their conversation.
"As always, you know what I want." Maribel took a hold of her cup and held it for a couple of seconds. Renko knew this was to test how warm it was. "I'll let it cool for a bit." She concluded and put it back down. In the mean time, Usami had no problem starting on her cup of coffee.
They both smiled as their eyes wandered around the place. On the outskirts of the city, vegetation was pretty common, and with the sunlight of the day it had transformed the scene into a beautiful and calming visage.
"Hmm. Anyway! How are your dreams? No nightmares, right?" Renko started on a new topic, a personal one for Maribel. But staying true to herself, she wanted to see if she could help her friend with anything.
The hero examinee sighed. "The latest dream I had was pretty mysterious. But it wasn't ended by some monster or something strange. I was caught in a realm with a lot of doors that were just floating around. It was a very vivid experience. Though, now that I think about it, not once did I feel anxious. Also, I couldn't see any boundaries."
Renko balanced her chin on a finger and thought. "You couldn't see any boundaries? Huh... At least you weren't scared by anything. You still experience dreams like you usually do, but you don't have the bad ones." Then she adjusted her hat so she could see more. "But... Doors, huh? Did you go anywhere else in the dream?"
"No, just that place." Maribel scratched her cheek. "Well, what's good is that it never made me paranoid. I don't even remember how it ended." Finishing her introspection.
With a smile, the brunette took a sip of her coffee. "That's how good dreams usually go. You forget them a few moments after you wake up."
Hearn was a little clueless, but asked away. "So that might've been a 'normal' dream?"
"Maybe it is. Though, you still remembered it.."
Maribel nodded, she reached for her mug and held it. Feeling that it had cooled down a bit and took a sip. "Mhm. You know... Being a hero sounds kind of stressful." Renko gave her a glance, but didn't reply just yet as Maribel drank her tea again. Figuring that she hadn't said everything she has wanted yet. "Ah~... Also, I'm not sure if I'll live up to the image of a hero. I don't really feel honest or just about it at all." Sighing with disappointment.
"In what way?" Renko stopped drinking and gave her a curious look.
Maribel looked Renko in the eye and explained. "Well, I went to take the exam because people told me it was an opportunity. My quirk's pretty powerful and flashy, after all. I've been trying to justify it all to myself, but going there simply to develop my confidence and skill doesn't seem heroic. I feel unfit."
Renko pondered and then cleared her throat, gaining Maribel's attention."The heroes of today are law enforcement. Where bullets and body armor fail, quirks prevail. That's why the police only apprehend and arrest, as well as investigate cases." She moved both of her arm forward as to catch Maribel's attention using body language.
After a short pause, she ended her speech. "Some people might not think about it, but the reason heroes exist was due to demand. Which was naturally met by supply. Even if you don't think of yourself as heroic, people want you because you have potential for a job most are unfit for and they will pay you a lot to do it. That's why there's nothing wrong with becoming a hero just for money or to better yourself." Thereafter she would lower her arms. "I'm sure that's why your dad wants you to be a hero. Just do the job, and do it right."
Maribel looked dumbfounded for a moment, but delved into thought and came to a conclusion. "I guess I'll just have to agree..." She said, looking back at Renko.
Seeing that Hearn had no problem understanding her reasoning, she'd smile. "That's great. You're not as bad at thinking as you say you are. But you should take what I said to heart because it lies at the core of heroism as a job. While some people may say that you're not nice enough or inspiring enough, that's not a job requirement." Renko then threw her arms up for a moment. "Besides, if you're so worried about heroism, surrounding yourself with heroes seems like a great way to learn from their heroism."
"I mean, sure, but not all heroes are about heroism."
The brunette nodded. "That's a given, but they like good public reception. A lot of people will deliberately try to look as appealing as possible and bend themselves in order to gain popularity. Human society at work."
"Alright, alright. I get it." The blonde said and decided to shift topics, raising her hand. "By the way, I can open gaps at a one-kilometer distance, at the very least." She continued, lowering her hand and looked smug.
"Didn't you get sick when you tried that last time?" Renko asked, picking up her biscuit.
Maribel's look didn't falter and she explained further. "Only because I used it in succession with other gaps. If I'm fresh, I will only get a little nauseous." Meanwhile, Renko took a bite out of the biscuit.
Hearn just kind of looked at her friend as she chewed down the biscuit, amused. "That's got to be a great if you want to get somewhere, but you can't use it in public without a hero license. -That'd be a good reason to pursue heroism, yes?"
"I suppose so." Maribel said, drinking up the last of her tea. "I think we should finish up our litter chatter, then we could try more things with my quirk at home or something."
"That sounds exciting. Let's do it."
They both chugged down the rest of their hot drinks and found both of themselves freezing up for a second. A flame burnt in their throats, on their tongues. They went inside and asked for glasses of water and quickly drank it. With their predicament done away with, they paid up and left satisfied.
With only a few lights left on, Maribel's room looked pretty comfortable. The curtains were down while sunset went on outside.
Maribel's bedroom was pretty well kept, she had a desk empty of everything but an old desktop computer with a dusty screen beside it. Besides this, the floor was tidy, there were no littering pens or anything of the like. The white walls and the two windows behind her double bed offering her house a very simple, but appealing feeling. By the left wall was a shelf filled with various books, from manga all the way down to some old historical books and European literature. The other wall was decorated with old photos, mostly ones of Maribel and her father, some were of locations around Japan. Among them was Kyoto, Mt. Fuji, Mt. Hiei, many other places, photographed by herself, or her dad most likely. Renko remembered some of those trips, because she got to tag along on a few of them.
"So you thought about trying to move your gaps while they were still active?" Renko reiterated from their walk to Maribel's house.
Maribel quickly told her about the purpose of her idea. "I thought it could help with nausea of using it repeatedly."
"And how do you think you're going to create this phenomenon?" The brunette asked only because she wanted her friend to have a spark of ingenuity. Letting herself do all the thinking for her friend is not a good thing, after all.
"When I see a boundary, it's hard to comprehend at first. When I imagine a boundary between locations, it forms into a string of certain length." Maribel scratched her chin and looked at Renko. "I've thought about imagining a field where I create two gaps. They are connected in a wormhole kind of way, and when I focus on one, I expand it. When my focus isn't there, the gap disappears like it usually does. It's a lot like when you make a hole in something, it's a lot easier to tear it up, that's why I think it'll save stamina." Then she blinked twice.
"Wait a moment..." Renko went up from the foot of the bed and scrambled around outside of Maribel's room for a moment. All that Maribel offered was a slightly tired look of confusion. When Renko returned, she had retrieved a red plastic bucket. "Better safe than sorry."
Maribel rolled her eyes and sighed, prompting her best friend to snicker. "Anyway, let's try this." Maribel outstretched her arms her iris turned purple, indicating that her boundary perception was becoming increasingly active. She had told Renko that she could see boundaries normally, but when creating gaps, this allowed her to perceive them in finer detail and in ways she normally couldn't. It was kind of ghostly, in Renko's opinion. Hearn's stance tightened as she suddenly punctured a hole in space to the left and to the right of her bed, these were both connected. They let all the light pass between the two locations and had a strange surrounding glow, but it was very hard to distinguish from the gap itself.
Maribel took a short breath and moved her right arm, the gap on the right began to expand across the wall. "Pfuh..." She let out, part of the gap imploded in on itself, leaving just the imperfect, fracture-looking warp expanding, disappearing and moving silently on her wall. It didn't seem like it was making any contact with any of her belongings, maybe her control had just gotten better.
"Looking great." Renko Usami cheerfully told her friend. This made Maribel feel more confident, and she made a stroke with her left hand in a much more reckless fashion, it flew across the room fluently in little more than a second, stopping next to the other gap.
The boundary manipulator mumbled, her eyes began to glow purple, beyond just changing the color of the iris. Based on her expression, she was completely confident in herself, which honestly wasn't very usual, not in regards to doing new stuff with her quirk. "I wonder if I can..." She mumbled to herself, the fractured gaps she had previously created healed and morphed into more coherent gaps.
"Woah... You look scary all of a sudden." Renko wondered out loud as she turned to look at her friend. It seemed that her friend paid her no mind.
Maribel looked away from the two gaps behind Renko and reached out to her left and created a refined gap, it looked like a simple cut in space. It was hard to see where it lead to as it was all dark inside of it. Maribel pulled back her arm, the familiar rustling of a plastic bag was heard as she pulled out a couple of cookies that she remembers that they made a week ago. It was kept shut with a knot. "I want to test how precise I can be. Let's bet on if I can grab one without opening it."
"Uh... O-oh! Yeah, I bet that you can't do it. If I win, I get the majority of the cookies. If I don't, you get seventy-five percen-" Usami was about to say, but her friend was too quick.
"Looks like I won!" Hearn let out in a teasing manner, smiling like a dummy at Renko as she waved around a cookie in between her fingers. The eyes returned to normal and with it, the two gaps she created earlier ceased and the one she made to get inside the plastic bag vanished alongside them.
They sat down, discussing her quirk, those eyes of hers. Maribel said that she thought it felt pretty strange now that she reflected on it, she suddenly felt a lot more alive and attained a clearer state of mind. Telling Renko that she felt a similar thing when she was going home yesterday. There was no sickness after doing these things, she felt at ease. It was an intriguing phenomenon, probably not the usual.
Maribel too, asked if Renko wanted to sleep over for the night, but she was preoccupied the next day. Her opinion was also that it'd be more interesting to do it on their free time after school had started, since they could learn from each other and see if Merry discovered anything new about her quirk. But they could meet next week, there was plenty of time until school would start. So they ate their cookies, said their goodbyes for the week and Renko went outside, going home.
It had been a week since the examination.
Maribel Hearn took the letter from U.A as she walked past the kitchen, in truth she wasn't very stressed about it, either she got in or she didn't. The consequences were just fated to happen, and it certainly wouldn't end her life. Honestly, she wanted to try opening it with her quirk, or grabbing the letter inside with it, but she wasn't sure that she had the finesse for that. Even if she could reach down into a cupboard from her room, it wasn't easy, not as easy was it was when her eyes were glowing. I've improved, that I can say.She thought.
Grabbing a knife from the cabinet drawer, she cut the letter open and retrieved the important message. Stretching it out before her, a happy smile graced her face as she read it. She turned her head back and yelled throughout the house. 72 points, B on the written test...
Maribel turned around and yelled towards the second floor of the house. "Dad, I got in!"