"Sasaki Ayano will be paired with Fujiyoshi Yuudai!"
Honestly, she couldn't say that she wasn't expecting that. It was quite obvious this would be the outcome, but that didn't mean she was no less annoyed with it.
By the looks of it, so was Fujiyoshi.
After all the pairings had been announced, Junk Master gave the rest of them some time to figure out what they wanted to do. In ten minutes, the class would be split up into either the Development Studio, supervised by Power Loader, or to one of the training grounds with Junk Master. Many chose to start their independent projects on the first part of the practical exam. Others took the opportunity to work with their partner on the second portion of the practical.
Currently, Ayano was flipping through some papers. Her and Fujiyoshi had been assigned to design a support item for Class 1-B's homeroom teacher, Blood Hero: Vlad King. She was looking through his file when Fujiyoshi decided to confront her.
He sat down directly in front of her, but it seemed as though she had no intention of addressing him. Eye twitching in annoyance, Fujiyoshi made a fake but obvious cough. The girl's eyes flickered up to him, acknowledging that she heard him, but they immediately returned to reading over the details of Vlad King's quirk.
As always, Fujiyoshi was irked when he realized that he would have to start the conversation yet again. "What? No rude comment or snide remark? Hmm?"
Ayano set down the papers, causing Fujiyoshi to smirk at his success in getting a rise out of her. "If anyone makes rude comments or snide remarks, it would be you." His smirk disappeared. "Well I would say that was rather rude of you." Was his retort.
She scoffed. "No. Not rude. Just a simple observation—a fact—in response to your question." He growled but quickly tried recomposing himself. "Look, I know neither of us wants to work with the other bu—" "I never said I did not want to work with you."
Fujiyoshi paused, regarding her with a careful eye. Her words were always quite straightforward and she always said them in a particular way. Not quite fast, but in a way that made people feel as though she didn't want to waste even a single breath or second. As if she wanted a better use of her time and was using it the most efficiently.
Unable to discern whether she was saying that sarcastically or not, Fujiyoshi decided to just ask her outright since it seemed that was usually the best way of dealing with her. "…I know you don't want to work with me." "I never said that." Ayano repeated.
"I know you're thinking it." He pushed again. "I have never thought that I did not want to work with you." Her response only confused him further.
"That doesn't make any sense! If you don't think that way, then why have you been so hostile to me!?" Ayano raised a single eyebrow. "I could ask you the same question." "I asked first." The girl closed her eyes in what he saw to be frustration. She was calmly evaluating the situation, growing more annoyed at his childish antics.
"You are correct in assuming that I have a mild dislike of you." Fujiyoshi mentally disagreed that it was only a 'mild' dislike. "However, that has no bearing on whether or not I would want to work with you. In fact, I have thought—on multiple occasions—that I would like for us to collaborate."
At his deeply furrowed brows of confusion, Ayano continued. "I do not like allowing my personal feelings to cloud my judgment. Although your attitude towards particular subjects is certainly less than desirable, it is obvious that I cannot say the same for your skills. I have seen your designs. I have seen your work. I have seen your ambitions. It is clear that you placed so high on the entrance exams for a reason."
Fujiyoshi leaned back, observing her again. This was not flattery. Far from it. Ayano was not the type. She was also definitely not the type to lie. Always so straight-laced and forthright. Again, she was just stating facts and observations.
"I will repeat that I have a mild dislike of you, so as not to cause any misunderstandings. However, it would be foolish to let those feelings prevent me from recognizing and acknowledging your talent. As such, I believe that it would be mutually beneficial for us to work with each other. I have always thought the notion to be rather interesting. Whether or not you feel the same is mostly your concern since you seem to be quite opposed to this union."
Her head turned towards Junk Master's voice. He was shouting that the ten minutes were up. The students that wanted to design future support items would go to the Development Studio and the students that wanted to test current support items would follow him to a training ground.
"You are incredibly skilled, Fujiyoshi-san. I hope that our clashing beliefs will not hinder the progress on our joint project." Ayano waited for a response. She didn't get one even after all of the other students had left. She stood up with her bag and left the classroom, about to go down the hallway with her classmates heading towards the Development Studio.
There was a tight grip on her wrist. Turning, she met the cold yet burning eyes of Fujiyoshi. "Training grounds." He commanded. Ayano's eyes slowly traveled from his vice-like grip to his strong gaze. It was evident that he would not take "No" for an answer, though it was never a question to begin with.
She silently followed him in the opposite direction of her original destination.
Upon reaching the training ground, the students split off to each do their own thing. Ayano followed Fujiyoshi to a more secluded and rocky area. The training ground was large like the rest of them, and there was no fear of their conversation being heard from the others. No fear of having curious onlookers or the watchful eyes of their homeroom teacher.
The entire way there, Ayano followed behind Fujiyoshi. She observed his broad shoulders and back, noticing for the first time that he had a rather good build. Yet, there seemed to be an aspect of loneliness accompanying that back.
When he finally stopped, so did she. He turned around to face her, his eyes still cold and burning like before. He walked a couple feet away, something in Ayano telling her not to follow him.
Fujiyoshi reached into his bag, pulling out a pair of oddly shaped gloves and strapping them on. Flexing his fingers to adjust to the gloves, he stared at Ayano.
"Fight me."
The girl's widened slightly, her eyebrows raising. He was looking right at her, but it also seemed like he wasn't looking at her at all. Again, it didn't seem like he would take "No" for an answer, seeing as it was never a question.
Ayano gently set her bag to the ground, calmly gauging the situation. "This is highly unnecessary. If you are angry with me because of my previous statements, you could simply explain it with words and not your fists."
"I'm not angry at you!"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Then what is the point of all this?" Fujiyoshi grit his teeth, debating on what to say. "I just…I just need to see something for myself!"
The brown-haired girl made no move for her bag. Even so, it didn't matter to him. He lunged at her, fully preparing to strike. Ayano dodged his fist, only doing the bare minimum of stepping to the side to do so.
She had completely dodged it, but she still felt that something was amiss. She realized what it was when something brushed along the length of her arm.
It was her hair.
Catching a few of the short strands, her mind raced. Had she miscalculated? No. That was impossible. Even if it was a small sidestep, she had still fully dodged him. He hadn't swung fast enough or with nearly enough force to cause the resulting wind to cut her hair. Not by a long shot. Then, what happened?
As she rolled the strands of hair between her fingers, she felt something odd at the end where it had been cut. Feeling around the left side of her head, she found the place where the hairs came from.
Her fingers touched upon the same singed feeling.
Fire? From where? From what Ayano knew of his quirk, he could produce small flames from his fingertips. He often used them in place of a soldering torch. He tried to punch her though. His hand was clenched, meaning his fingertips were tight against his palm. So where did the fire come from?
Ayano no longer had time to think with Fujiyoshi lunging at her again. She was so lost in thought that she barely dodged his second strike and it wasn't because she calculated it.
His fist made contact with the rocks behind her instead. The force pushed her off balance and she fell to her side. As she lay on the ground, propped up with one arm, she stared at the large indent in the crumbling rocks.
Her wide eyes searched his gloves. At each of the fingertips, there were holes. What she couldn't account for were the various small holes and tunnels on the back of his hand.
Fujiyoshi slowly turned towards her, throwing something in her direction. She caught it with one hand.
It was her bionic arm cover.
He must have retrieved it from her bag earlier, somehow without her noticing.
"You're going to need that if you want to fight me." She didn't want to fight him, but he was dead set on making it happen regardless of how she felt.
Ayano slowly stood up, slipping on the arm cover. The gears whirred, fastening itself to her arm. Following his movements, she flexed her fingers to adjust to the feeling of metal wrapping around them.
The two stood facing each other, eyes never leaving the other's. They waited, with bated breath, for some sort of cue. It came from the debris left by Fujiyoshi's earlier punch. One more chunk of the rock began to fall from the indent.
As soon as it hit the ground, they lunged at each other.
Junk Master was overseeing his students when he heard the sound of a bus pull up. He turned around to see Aizawa and Class 1-A coming off the bus.
"Yo, Aizawa! I'll just round up my kids and we'll be out of your hair real quick!" The scruffy man raised a hand as a form of greeting as well as to say 'It's fine.'
"We're a bit early anyways." Junk Master laughed sheepishly. "I hope you didn't mind the last time when Sasaki said all that." Aizawa shook his head. "She was right, and this is a shared space. Just because we're part of the hero course doesn't mean we have exclusive rights."
Junk Master was about to thank him when the ground shook beneath them. They were small tremors and not exactly like an earthquake, but it was enough to worry the two teachers. Possibly another villain attack? "Teacher!"
The man turned to some of his students. "Sasaki-chan and Fujiyoshi-kun…! They…They're fighting!" The kids managed through gasping breaths.
Junk Master's eyes widened. The two teachers looked at each other. If it was really Sasaki and Fujiyoshi, he might need assistance. Aizawa gave a short but decisive nod, understanding the predicament.
The two men ran in the direction of the tremors, but not without some unaccounted for additional help.
"Hey, Bakugou!" "Deku-kun!?"
Their fight was cautious at first. Almost overly so. Each one trying to gauge the other's strength and plan the next move. It quickly escalated though, their emotions playing heavily into the fight.
When they came to another standstill, both of them catching their breath, Ayano spoke. "Who are you?" His head jerked up at the question.
"Who are you?" She repeated, but her question sounded more like a command this time. Her eyes darted over his body, examining his form, his posture, and all the scratches on him thus far.
"I don't know what you're asking." Fujiyoshi avoided looking directly at her analytical eyes. She narrowed them. "Normal people do not move like that. Normal people do not move like you do." She took slow and deliberate steps towards him, each one being punctuated with her words. "Who. Are. You?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." He was beginning to be backed into a corner. "Aren't you the one who says we need to be in top physical condition in order to test out our own creations?"
Ayano stopped directly in front of him, unable to walk any further as she forced his back up against the rocks. "Yes. I do say that, but does anybody really listen? We are not heroes. We are not in the Hero Course, so we do not undergo the same kind of training that they do. Why do you suppose so few of us made an impression in the Sports Festival?" In fact, she was the only one in the Support Department to have made it past the obstacle course.
She recalled all the things Fujiyoshi said in the past, all of his actions, his attitude towards heroes and villains. "You know, for someone who claims to hate heroes so much, you move and fight an awful lot like one." His jaw clenched and she saw the twitch in his brow. She hit upon something. Just what, she wasn't sure of yet, but it was something big enough to be a sore subject.
"Why did you not show these skills during the Sports Festival? And do not tell me it's because you couldn't. Nobody can make this much progress in such a short amount of time. We are in the same class. I see what you do. No amount of training in that time could lead to this." His jaw clenched tighter, his hands shaking slightly.
"Why? You could have easily made it through to the one-on-one tournament. Our fight just now proves it." Fujiyoshi's eyes were still trained to the ground. Ayano grabbed at his uniform's collar, forcing him to look at her. "You are the one always talking about finding the biggest client and making the most money. So, why did you throw away your chances at the Sports Festival?"
She wondered if this was how Bakugou felt when he got angry at her for placing quite low in the obstacle race. She had regretted it before, but now she was truly understanding his anger.
At his silence, Ayano shook him in hopes of jolting him into reality. "You do not hate heroes like you say, Fujiyoshi. Someone who hates heroes cannot make the kind of support items that you do."
"Did you even want to be part of the Support Department?" A flinch. "You have had training. Far more training than most of our classmates. If I did not know any better, I would have thought you were someone in the Hero Department. Someone who got accepted through recommendations, even."
"…Shut up…" He mumbled, but Ayano pushed further. "Who are you?" She asked once more. It was not a simple question, and there was no simple answer. There was so much more to that question. So many underlying things. It went so much further than that.
Who are you? Where did you come from? What brought you here? What made you like this? What is it that you want? Why are you hiding? What are you hiding from?
"I said shut up!" The boy crashed his head into hers, causing her grip on his collar to loosen. He took this chance to push her away.
Ayano dug her heels into the ground to avoid sliding backwards. The two glared at each other. They lunged forward, fully prepared for another brawl, but were stopped by the teachers. Ayano's arms were fiercely jerked back behind her. She felt the cool touch of metal wrapping around her wrists, restraining her arms with a handcuff like mechanism. Aizawa's cloths captured Fujiyoshi, his hair rising and giving everyone full view of his red eyes erasing the boy's quirk.
"Sasaki! Fujiyoshi! What is going on here?! The pairings for the exam weren't made without any reason! I paired you two together precisely because you're on such bad terms! You think fighting is goi—" Junk Master abruptly paused when he saw the look on Ayano's face.
She was looking straight at Fujiyoshi, never even stopping to acknowledge her teacher. There was a slight bit of emotion in her eyes, but it wasn't anger. It was confusion.
The man looked between his two students, realizing that this was caused by something other than just their bad relationship with each other.
He released Ayano from the handcuff device, understanding that this wasn't just another fight and that she was calm. Aizawa did the same for Fujiyoshi. She was still looking at him, but his head was turned down towards his feet.
Junk Master coughed loudly, gaining their attention. "I'm not going to ask what happened here, but I will not tolerate it happening again. From now until the Final Exam Period is over, you two are not to fight like this! If you break this rule, I will have to fail you both!"
It took a moment, but Ayano bowed to him. "Understood." She said begrudgingly and turned around to leave. "Sasaki!" Fujiyoshi's shout stopped her, forcing her to look at him again. "You don't know what you're talking about." He stalked away before she got a chance to respond.
Ayano begged to differ. She believed it was him who had no idea what he was talking about.
His words may be able to do so, but his eyes can't lie. There was a sadness in them. A deep pain.
The boy was lost. Completely and utterly lost.
And Ayano had every intention of finding out why.