Hiroto stood in his room, looking at himself in a mirror. "Power Creep, huh?" he thought to himself. He looked down at his wrists, the support items from Hatsume attached to them. A smile grew on his face as he glanced at a few action figures he had scattered around the room. Suddenly, he struck a pose, shooting out some of the binding cables out of his gauntlet, targeting one of the figures on his shelf. The cable attached, and he quickly retracted it, sending the figure flying towards him . . . and into his head.
"Ow!" he hissed as he rubbed his head. He looked stealthily at the other figures around the room and quickly unleashed his cable out of both hands. "Thought you could get the drop on me, huh?" The cables latched on, and he quickly whipped his targets around in a circle. "No one sneaks up on Power Cree-!" He was cut off as the cables, which he did not retract into his gauntlets, began to circle around him, wrapping tightly around him until he found himself ensnared in his own support item. He hobbled around before falling unceremoniously to the floor.
Despite the fact that he was alone in his room, Hiroto could still feel the embarrassment heating up his cheeks. He struggled to get free of his confinements, but found it difficult to make any progress. He breathed deeply and relaxed. "Well, at least no one else is here to see me like this."
As if on cue, he heard a knock on his door. "Hiro-kun!" Hiroto tried to quickly squirm away into hiding, but the door to his room opened, and Terra walked in. Her eyes went wide as she took in the scene of her friend, lying on the floor, completely cocooned in his own cables. She tried to stifle her laughter, but that effort didn't last long as she was soon cackling hysterically, barely able to breathe.
"You know, it's rude to just barge into people's rooms uninvited," Hiroto said with a glare, his face red as he accepted his fate.
"I'm . . . sorry . . ." Terra said as she tried to catch her breath. "I was on my way over and I heard some noise, so I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to ask you something, but . . . I can see you're all tied up at the moment." She erupted into another fit of laughter as Hiroto just stared at her, completely unamused.
"Okay, you've had your fun. Think you can help get me out of this?"
"Sure, sure. One sec." Terra revved up and went to work, darting around the tangled mess of cables, finding the knots and untangling it from the outside in. What might have taken someone else 10 minutes took her 10 seconds. In no time, Hiroto was free of his bonds, standing on his feet.
"Thanks," he said sheepishly as he slowly retracted the cable into his gauntlets. "Guess I need to practice more with this stuff."
"Funny you should say that," Terra said with a twinkle in her eyes. "A few of us wanted to get some extra practice in, so we reserved one of the training gyms for the evening. I was swinging by to see if you wanted to join us!"
Hiroto thought for a second. He had planned on getting to bed early, the events of the day completely draining him mentally. However, he couldn't deny the reality that he needed to get in some extra training with his support items. "Who all is going to be there?"
"Let's see . . . Kage and Ryuki were super into the idea of training. A few of the others are trying to iron out some kinks with their Quirks . . ."
"What about Shion?" Hiroto asked, realising that this would be the make-or-break for him.
"Oh no," Terra replied. "She said she didn't need the practice, then laughed and slammed the door in my face."
"Well then, her loss." Hiroto smiled. "Yeah, I think I will join in, if for no other reason than to get better at these things." He held up his gauntlets.
YOU ARE READING
Hiro Rising
Fanfiction"A young boy sets out to prove that he has what it takes to be a hero on his own, but even in an era of peace, he's about to learn that, sometimes, having people by your side is the only way to succeed."
