Ordinary Days
It was an ordinary day and a peaceful afternoon at the Mitsurugi Dojo. Having already completed her routine, Hoge had elected to rest at the side with a bottle of water. Her dojo uniform seemed just a bit disheveled from the intense sparing sessions, but her sweat had already been wiped off with the towel laying at her side. Looking to her left, she saw Chihiro and Sally lightly sparring. Sally had graduated from pure stance training to sparring, a sign that Chihiro approved of her muscle memory enough for her to start training unsupervised.
Sally and Chihiro were using the same basic stances, not unlike a full body game of rock-paper-scissors.
"YA! Grr... Hiiii-YA! Nnn... So close... HA! GOT Y- EH!?!" *THUNK* "OUCH!"
By the time Sally's practice sword had been thrust forward, Chihiro had already moved out of the way, exchanging the thrust for an overhead swing that landed square on Sally's head. Overall, Sally's movements were still a bit clunky and hesitant, enough to telegraph her next move to someone watching closely- although if Hoge hadn't practiced the same school of swordsmanship, it wouldn't be quite as easy to spot.
"...Don't just focus on my sword, Sally. Watch my entire body... Good, but now you stopped drawing strength from you hips..."
With a subtle smile, Hoge mused to herself: "(Hehe. I remember Chihiro telling me the exact same things in the spring. Seeing Chihiro's lessons from an outside angle, and seeing Sally going through the same progression I had is oddly soothing- is this the pride of the eldest disciple?)"
*BAM* *CLATTER*
With a sigh, Hoge turned a judging glare to her right, where Inigo and Junichi were doing some more... "freestyle" sparring. Inigo was smugly holding his practice sword in one hand without any semblance of a proper stance, his other arm held behind his back. Junichi had just rushed back to his feet after being knocked down.
"YOU BITCH! No way you hit that hard with that flimsy swing! You're using your damn quirk!"
*THUNK*
Barely changing his pose, Inigo waved his head back and forth smugly: "Tut-tut-tut. Your doubt hurts me, dear friend. But worry not! I, the master swordsman of the Ryukishi style will put you through the wringer!"
As Junichi pressed his practice sword down on Inigo's fruitlessly, wisps of green started to radiate from Inigo's sword, flowing onto Junichi's.
Inigo's smug expression turned stiff: "Eh? EH!? Gigan-buddy! Hold on! Why? NO, it was just a joke! AIYEEE!"
As the coating from Inigo's quirk flowed from his own sword and onto Junichi's, Inigo's theatrical stance immediately crumbled. Junichi had no intention of giving his aggravating opponent any opening to fix that. Hoge looked away from the sight of her boyfriend getting pummeled with the assistance of his own quirk, feeling a tinge of emotional fatigue to match her physical fatigue... Yet all the same she couldn't wipe the smile from her lips as she thought of Inigo's cheerful antics.
In spite of his current miserable display, Inigo was showing some improvement. His swordsmanship was still sloppy, owed to his overreliance on Gigan, but his defense was good and he'd became an expert at misdirection and mixing leg sweeps into his swordsmanship. Sally on the other hand lacked any kind of misdirection, but she was aggressive and had a surprising amount of strength behind her blows, proof that the time she spent diligently honing the basics didn't go to waste. Compared to the day Sally first visited the dojo and tried to swing the practice sword like a baseball bat, it was like night and day.
Hoge paused briefly, thinking back to the wildfire incident in the summer. The unbearable heat. The panic of suddenly encountering a villain in the woods... The feeling of shoving a blade into said villain's back.... And Chihiro's tearful whispers. 'But in the end I only put people in danger again...!'... 'Someone like me doesn't deserve to be with others...' That those were the last words Chihiro left behind before being rushed off to the nearest hospital was concerning to say the least. The current peaceful days made it all seem like a bad dream. Hoge couldn't help but remember the events that followed the incident...
After the wildfire, Hoge had spared no effort to figure out which of the nearby hospitals had Chihiro as a patient. Yet she couldn't find an answer. The hospital that Seiryu had rushed her to claimed to have transferred Chihiro elsewhere, but wouldn't comment on where, exactly, she had been transferred to. Uneasy from the string of unsettling events, Hoge spent half a day cleaning her apartment until it simply couldn't be cleaned anymore. From there her mind wandered to the dojo. After she, Orochi, and Sally had visited that day, the dojo hadn't been cleaned, had it? If their little hunting trip had gone as planned, perhaps everyone would have cleaned up later, but that chance hadn't come. Thankfully, Hoge herself barely had any injuries; just a few light light burns. Whatever smoke she inhaled was likely worse for her health than the burns. And thus she strapped on her shoes, loaded a bag with her favorite cleaning supplies, and set out for the Mitsurugi Dojo.
By the time Hoge had arrived, she'd already felt a mild sense of regret. It was still the middle of summer, and with the way her body traps heat, she felt like she was boiling from the inside out. The dojo didn't have AC. Or even a fan for that matter. With her burns, Chihiro likely wouldn't be home for a few weeks anyway... Was this thankless task she foisted upon herself really worth the effort? Weighing the suffering she'd soon experience against the potential gratification of being thanked for being such a good friend a few weeks later... Hoge promptly decided that it was indeed worth it. With new-found vigor, she hefted open the sliding front door of the dojo!
"..." Hoge was immediately greeted with the sight of Chihiro, covered head to toe in bandages beneath her robes, kneeling down on the dojo floor, scrub brush in hand... It seemed the two girls were on a similar wavelength.
Not unlike a deer caught in someone's headlights, Chihiro awkwardly stared at Hoge before slowly resuming her cleaning: "...Um... Hi. Hoge..."
Without a single word, Hoge silently removed her shoes and stomped her way over to Chihiro. She lifted Chihiro up by her waist, hefting the shorter girl over her shoulder into a fireman carry. As her brush slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground with a dull clatter, Chihiro weakly protested: "Eh...!? H-Hoge... I wasn't done yet... Hoge... Wait... H-Hey... Hoge... The floor's still dirty... Hoge! The stains!"
Chihiro found herself forcefully tucked into her futon soon after. Hiding her maelstrom of emotions under a blurry poker face, Hoge bluntly ordered: "Don't you dare leave your bed, Chihiro."
Even as Chihiro silently pondered what she did to make Hoge angry, Hoge had quickly stomped her way out of Chihiro's bedroom: "(What fucking transfer? What fourth degree burns? Is medical care a joke in this country? Did Chihiro sneak out? Was she refused treatment?)" While she had finally learned of Chihiro's location, it only led to a dozen other questions, each making her angrier than the last. She had a mountain of things she wanted to ask the rogue patient... But first- cleaning. Compared to her questions, she had an even bigger mountain of frustrations, new and old, and she felt she needed to sort out her headspace before the interrogation.
Once the whole dojo and the house attached to it looked cleaner than it had in years, Hoge returned to Chihiro's room and was greeted with a pair of teary red eyes guiltily looking over. Hoge's cleaning session lasted a whole two hours, leaving Chihiro to stew in her futon and ponder what she had done to anger Hoge- perhaps the latter was even furious for the fight against Drekus? It would make sense. Hoge had every right to be angry about that.
Sensing the oddness in Chihiro's gaze, Hoge asked the question that felt the most immediately relevant: "Chihiro. Why did you leave the hospital?"
Chihiro's gaze turned from sad to confused: "...It's a little fuzzy, but I the doctor in charge said they lacked the proper safety measures for my quirk. After the doctor used his quirk, I was bandaged up and sent back home... I think they said that Shion could function as a home care provider."
"What the hell are those half-baked quacks thinking? Home care? Shion's a pharmacist, not a nurse! Cowards with no ethics! Is the Hippocratic Oath a joke!? What safety measures? I refuse to believe..." Armed the knowledge that the hospital was fully in the wrong, Hoge's frustrations exploded out into a rant on medical practices and moral philosophy.
Gathering her courage, Chihiro attempted to intercede on behalf of the hospital: "...Um... Hoge. I don't think the doctor was wrong. If I had let it slip and hurt someone... I..."
"Irrelevant! Completely and utterly irrelevant! Chihiro, modern hospitals are built to handle countless different kinds of quirks. Ointments that seal your pores shut! Special patient rooms with their own closed air duct systems! Medications to help suppress a quirk factor! In no world should any modern hospital be unable to handle your quirk! And for that matter, you shouldn't have let them send you home for such a flimsy reason!" Having lost the reigns on her frustration, Hoge ended up turning her rage towards Chihiro.
Chihiro accepted Hoge's rant without complaint; only showing off a bitter expression not unlike a small child taking medicine. She squeezed out one final, child-like protest: "...Being at the dojo is better. I can't relax at the place where mother and father died..."
Hoge's rage inflated at 'Being at the dojo is better,' only to immediately deflate at 'the place where mother and father died.' She thought to herself no wonder- it was the nearest hospital. Of course it'd be the same one and of course she wanted nothing to do with the place. With a sigh, Hoge sternly made her demands: "Regardless, you shouldn't be doing any kind of chores. Stay in bed. Don't leave for any reason except the bathroom. Since those no-good doctors can't do their jobs... then I'll do it for them..."
...
Content to have Chihiro's agreement on the matter, Hoge secretly confessed to herself that some part of her was looking forward to nursing her friend back to health... As for the legal scandal the hospital mysteriously suffered not long after the wildfire incident- that was surly their own fault and had nothing to do with Hoge's actions, nor did it have anything to do with Hoge asking Orochi for her cousin's contact information... Any hero would be upset after learning the teenager he'd just saved from a burning forest was sent home after the bare minimum in medical care. Hoge had merely... Performed her civic duty.
"Hoge." ... "Hoge?" ... "Hoge! Can you hear me?"
On hearing Chihiro's calls, Hoge slowly broke from her reverie: "(Mm? Oh. Is it my turn already?)"
Sally had finished learning from Chihiro for the day, freeing up the latter. That meant it was time for Hoge to step in as the dojo's eldest disciple: "Leave her to me Chihiro."
Seeing Hoge's calm and casual disdain, Sally sneered and pointed her practice sword at Hoge: "Just you watch! This time I'll beat you black and blue!"
"You should save that confidence for when you can actually beat me."
"Heh, that's what you said a month ago when I said I'd finally land a hit."
"Expectations increase with experience. You shouldn't rest on your laurels."
*Clatter*
"I should be saying that to you! Don't think you'll always be better at this just because you started earlier!"
*Clatter*
"I don't. I think I'll always be better because I put in more work."
*Clatter*
"Yeah, well I'm putting in more sweat!"
*Clatter*
"That just means you're wasting energy."
*Clatter*
"Screw you."
*Clatter*
"Hehe."
*Clattering intensifies*
...
As Hoge engaged Sally in a rather heated sparring session, she tried her best to ignore the ruckus unfolding behind her.
"Hey! Chihiro, save me! This brute here won't stop using a quirk while we spar!"
"Bull! Shit! It's your quirk and you're the one that started it!"
"Since you two want to want to spar with quirks, that's fine too. Both of you can come at me."
Inigo suddenly found himself caught in the cross fire of a high-speed Chihiro and a Gigan-armored Junichi, getting in more practice for his dodging ability than his swordsmanship. It wasn't until later that Gigan finally returned to him and the two began to cooperate that they turned the tables against the master of the dojo.
...
The five eventually concluded their sparring for the day. Sally was content at getting her one hit in for the day. Hoge felt her victory wasn't complete enough. Junichi managed to squeeze in some actually training once Inigo settled back down and took things seriously again. Chihiro happily kept an eye out for any mistakes between subbing in for anyone in need of a break, content that the dojo's training session was once again proceeding smoothly.
The only thing left to do was to prepare an after practice meal (hot pot) and wash up before the dojo's students would return home for the day. Neither were required actions, but it was something of a ritual. Sally had happily donated a small sack of potatoes. Junichi had prepared some bottled tea. Chihiro pulled some freshly butchered game meat from her cellar, while Inigo and Hoge respectively provided high quality tofu and fresh mushrooms. The pot slowly simmered as the five took turns in the bathroom, racing to finish their respective showers before the hot water ran out.
Between mouthfuls of hot pot, Hoge issued a reminder: "Chihiro, don't forget to get ready for tomorrow."
Chihiro in turn nodded along: "Got it. I won't."
Sally gave Hoge a side-eye: "Heading out for the weekend, are you? Don't teach Chihiro anything weird."
"The only one that does that is you, McCarthy-san. I swear. Lizard people? Really?"
"Hey! It's a real thing! I don't care if YOU don't believe me."
Seeing the usual argument flaring, Inigo cut in: "C'mon you two! Lighten up a little. Look- Chihiro's pouting"
Sally and Hoge glanced at Chihiro's expressionless face, then at each other, before dramatically turning their heads away from each other. "Tch. ...Fine." "I suppose you're right, Ini. It didn't matter anyway."
Chihiro placed her hands on either side of her face: "Wait. I'm not pouting... Am I?"
Meanwhile, Junichi joined in with a sigh: "Don't think about it to hard. This guy's just good at distracting people."
"What? Still salty that I, the great master of the Ryukishi style, swept your feet out while we were crossing blades?"
"No? It was actually a really good move. I should have seen it coming."
"Who are you and what have you done with my Joom?"
"...I hate you sometimes, you know that?"
"Love ya bro."
"Yeah, yeah."
Seeing the boys so civil in spite of their constant bickering, Hoge begrudgingly resumed her conversation with Sally: "Well, anyway. McCarthy-san, I did invite you to join too, but you declined. We're having a 1-D girls outing at a large shopping complex."
"Just call it a mall, you weirdo... And of course I said no. I remember now- you said it was early Sunday morning...... You bitch, you did it on purpose so I couldn't join!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Long since adjusted to their arguments, Chihiro murmured a small prayer before continuing her meal: "I hope these peaceful days continue."
After a somber pause, Inigo couldn't help but agree: "...Me too, Chihiro. Me too."