Hoge Tries To Get Better

On the way towards the campus gates, Chihiro felt a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Mitsurugi-san." After saying just that much, Hoge lifted her hand away in the manner of one who tests stovetop heat by touch. Then she stepped around Chihiro so she could stand directly in the center of Chihiro's vision.

When Nyoro Hoge feels the rush of fight-or-flight, her Quirk goes into overdrive. Waves become muted when they come off her body, quieting the sounds she makes, dimming the light she reflects, and blurring her outline against the world. Right then, stopping a classmate in their routine to have a conversation, Hoge looked like she alone was standing in fog. By natural reflex, Chihiro tried to blink away the sight, but there was nothing wrong with her eyes. Even if what she was seeing was starting to cause a tension headache.

Hoge put a hand over her heart and exhaled in a slow, controlled way, and her edges became a little more defined. Still, she was clearly putting in more effort to be heard than matched the low volume of her voice.
"I need to ask you a favor, Mitsurugi-san. Or make a request, maybe." Chihiro noticed that Hoge was looking somewhere off to her left and not at Chihiro at all.
"Is this something you are asking me as class president?"
"No. It has nothing to do with that. I handle all of those things myself so I don't bother anybody."

Chihiro slightly cocked her head to one side. Hoge was speaking formally but not acting it. So she was bold enough to stop Chihiro from going home, but not to tell her why outright?

"I will help if I can and if it's appropriate. What are you asking of me, exactly?"

Hoge's head dropped forward and her bangs dangled as the blurry girl entered a bow.
"I need to be stronger. Please teach me."

Chihiro's eyes opened wider for a moment. It's true she didn't have any objections, but...

"Teach you how?"
"Yes, teach me how."
"No, I meant, please clarify what you want to be taught and to what degree."
Strangely, Hoge became a little more defined, even as her bow deepened. If she went any lower, she'd be close to touching Chihiro.
"You are one of the greatest martial artists I've seen, and probably more affordable than," there was a moment where Hoge had to compensate for her louder voice, "nevermind that. What I mean to say is, I heard you have a martial arts school. Please take me as a pupil. I can help however you'd like me to."

Hoge glanced up to read Chihiro's clouded expression and then looked fixedly at the ground again.
"If you deny my request, I will understand and cause no trouble. But I am behind on fighting compared to the other students and I..." Hoge paused to swallow, and for a few seconds, her words came out thick with the repressed quality of almost-crying. "I don't like it. If I am behind, then I should study, and if I am to hurry along, then I should study with the best I can."

After a beat, Hoge actually started to get down on her knees, obviously preparing to dogeza. Chihiro looked around for spectators in a sudden panic. No one was looking at Hoge, but a couple people seemed to be idly curious why the recognizable (and disreputable) Chihiro was just awkwardly standing near the school gate.
"Stop! Hold on, don't do that! Stand up!"

When Hoge looked up swiftly, Chihiro thought she could see a star briefly twinkle in Hoge's eyes and then disappear in a blink. As if to show her willingness to follow instruction, Hoge hopped up to her feet and stood at rigid attention. For the first time in their conversation, she was looking down at Chihiro and directly into her eyes.

"Please consider my request. I can't get any further doing exercises by myself and floundering in the Kendo club." Chihiro winced inwardly at the mention of such an inferior and amateur way to learn sword art. "I can't be a ninja with no arts, that's just a stalker with a grappling hook!"

"I've never done anything like that before! Please consider the position you're putting me in."
"You are knowledgable, and skilled, and I didn't want to say this but I did research on your family's school and it needs dedicated students, ones like me. A dojo with no pupils is just a ruin." Instantly realizing the insult implied by that, she hastened to add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that. Some of my favorite places are ruins."

Chihiro's normally placid face twisted and she looked up at the leaves blowing in the wind. She wanted to teach. She knew it was her duty, but it was also something she had always expected to start doing someday, and the thing about somedays is that they could become todays at any time. But it also felt big. Maybe too big. So far it had only been visitors sparring and being spare with her equipment, or adults who knew the school before everything went wrong.

That was probably the issue, Chihiro decided in an instant. It felt like a lot because it meant that the school had to become something new. Even if it was a shrine to tragedy, that was comfortable to Chihiro. A person can get used to a certain kind of sadness and become happy with memories. With a bitter feeling in her chest, Chihiro opened her mouth to give Hoge a softened rejection, but the words wouldn't come out of her throat.

This isn't what her parents would want.

"You have to take this seriously."
"Yes!"
"You will have to work hard."
"Yes!"
"I will expect you to follow our code."
"Yes!"
"And wash floors."
"Yes?"
Well, that's what students were for, after all.
"How often did you want to come?"
"To wash floors?"
"To learn."
"Whenever you like, sensei!"

That word stuck in Chihiro like an arrow. It inspired an emotion too complex to be named, one that was good and bad in turns. Hoge stood in the pause of conversation and began to wilt, as the energy of this little achievement began to leave. She felt that she might have done something wrong. Chihiro was someone she admired but she was also someone she wanted to get closer to, and it was going to become impossible if she kept putting her foot in her mouth or hand Chihiro fresh bricks to build up emotional walls.

"Too much?"
"Mm?" Chihiro responded from the distant well of her inner thoughts. She looked around and saw the tree-lined path out of the school campus as if seeing it for the first time. The crowd of students was thinned out almost to disappearing, having streamed around the two girls like they were boulders in a brook.
"Should I go the other way? Chi-chan?"
"No," Chihiro flatly interjected.
"Ah. Yes. Right. Yes, of course, sorry."
Chihiro began to walk passed Hoge and head back home. "Please only call me sensei when I'm giving a lesson. You can call me Mits--... No, it's fine. Please call me Chihiro, Nyoro-san."
"Yes! Um, please call me Hoge. Or whatever you'd like." Hoge began to jog after Chihiro and they finally made it to the gate.

"If you have time, I would like to see what you already know, so I can understand what I will have to help you learn. And unlearn, most likely."
"I have time! I was just going to fold laundry for the Tennis Club."
"Eh? You're in the Tennis Club?"
"No...."
There was another long pause as the leaves rustled together overhead.

"Please lead the way, Chihiro."
"Right."
After she turned away, hands on the shoulder straps of her bag, Chihiro allowed her eyebrows to furrow. Just what have I agreed to?

After an uneventful walk (where Chihiro had to make special effort to check that Hoge was still there), the pair arrived at Mitsurugi Dojo and the stone marker at the start of the path.
"A home to those with the desire to learn, and the will to protect," Hoge recited off of the etched lettering.
"Mm."
"It's a good slogan for the Hero Era."
"Mm."
Hoge combed her short bob with her fingers and analyzed the scenery to distract herself from the awkward conversation. The word that came to mind while looking at all of the unmaintained plant growth was 'verdant.' Without giving it any particular thought, she walked onto the path ahead of Chihiro and kept swivelling her head back and forth to take everything in, as if memorizing it.

Chihiro walked in silence behind the fellow student making herself comfortable in Chihiro's home. Soon, they came out of the blinding forest of bamboo and into an open space dominated by a large, old, yet sturdy building with elegant detailing and a wooden sign - 'Mitsurugi Dojo' - hanging from above the sliding entrance doors.

Hoge took everything in, and paid special attention to the decoration at the edge of the sweeping traditional Japanese roof crowning the dojo. She pretended to ignore the side building with its peeling paint.

"It's a beautiful building. So unlike the Western apartment style dormitory where I live."
Chihiro lifted with pride. "It is elegant, isn't it? Back when Quirks first appeared and caused so much chaos, my ancestor decided that there needed to be a place where a better future could be shaped. He took everything he had in the world, and all the expertise he cultivated, and founded this dojo. My family has held to that purpose for generations. I'm proud of them, and proud to continue with this purpose."

She walked forward then, opening a door to allow Hoge inside. "Dear guest, welcome to the Mitsurugi Dojo."

Hoge trepiditiously looked at Chihiro, and then at what she could see of the interior. It was just as elegant and traditional as the outside, filled with red accents and tatami mats. It smelled of dry grass, firm wood, and a trace of sweat layered through decades. The girls took off their shoes and Chihiro picked out her favorite bokutō by habit right from the rack by the entrance. Then she watched Hoge just stand there.

"You will need a sword."
"I didn't bring one."
This girl. Best to be direct.
"You may use one of ours. Pick whichever one you like, and return it when we're done."

Hoge went to the same rack as Chihiro and looked over the bokken. After silently mulling over every choice, she pulled out her phone and began rapidly looking between different websites and performing internet searches. Just as Chihiro was about to say something, Hoge flipped her phone in her hand with surprising dexterity, turning the screen off mid-spin, and disappeared it into her pocket again in one fluid movement. Then she jerkily, but decisively, selected one of the better maintained and comfortable wooden swords about the size of a one-handed ō-wakizashi. It was shorter than Chihiro's.

With a gesture, Chihiro directed Hoge to the center of the dojo, passed the encircling pillars and lanterns. As she entered into this space, Hoge began to trick the eye again, showing her nerves by being harder to see. Chihiro thought that maybe starting the lesson properly could calm Hoge down and let this strange day become more productive.

"I'd like you to show me your posture, any stances you know, and maybe we can move on to something more interesting depending." Hoge nodded and took in a slow inhale, and as she breathed out it was like she was starting to breathe out the lack of definition as well. She controlled her breath a second time and slid her feet and rolled her shoulders into a passable natural posture. The rigid back and loose arms looked out of place on the normally folded-inward Hoge.

Chihiro immediately went over and began tapping certain muscles and grabbing onto Hoge and twisting her about, posing her like a mannequin. The whole time, she described what should be aligned, and why, in minute detail. Instead of fading out, or worse, becoming overwhelmed by the flood of words, Hoge instead began humming affirmations that she was listening and took on a focused look like the gears in her mind were smoothly racing. Her Quirk even became fully suppressed as she focused on her own body, keeping it under control, and the theories behind it all.

Privately, Chihiro was impressed. Hoge was clearly a complete amateur with some bad habits formed from lax instruction and too much reading. But she was also a responsive learner and was easier to handle with a problem to work on. The two went on like that for a while, posing and being reposed, questions and explanations volleying between them at a rapid pace. Soon enough, it was time for Hoge to leave so that both students could focus on dinner and the other little chores that made up their solitary lives.

And besides, Chihiro still had coursework to do. But still, before she had to become a Hero Student, she made time just once more to be a teacher.

"You think too much when you move and it gets in your way. You should work on that, and on the forms I showed you. I'd like to see how you've improved next time."
"Next time? There will be a next time? You're sure?"
"Yes. I'm not sure I remember how to say this, but, you are welcome to become my student. Something like that."
Hoge blushed across her entire body and nodded, then bowed, then bowed a second time very quickly. "Thank you. I'm happy about this. I'll work hard and I won't let you down."
Even Chihiro smiled, a little bit.
"I expect so. When you leave let's go back to being classmates, though. We only have to be teacher and student in here."
Hoge tugged at the bottom of her blazer and clearly said something in response, though between the gloom paling over her and the silence that came out, Chihiro couldn't figure out what it was meant to be. Chihiro tilted her head questioningly at Hoge. She looked frustrated and pulled down hard on her clothes, leaning forward a bit, and yelled with all her might - managing slightly above normal speaking volume in this quiet shared space.
"Can we instead be friends?"

Outside, a sōzu gently poured out a stream of water shimmering in the evening light and fell against a smooth stone. Donk.