Wingless Bird

Trials

A buzzing alarm woke Hawks out of his restless slumber. He turned towards the blinking red numbers that read 6:30 a.m. and turned off the annoying sound. As he peeled himself up out of his bed, he walked out to the living room of his flat to see a wide awake Akari reading a practice exam book while juggling small pebbles in her hand. It's been about a year of intense studying and her final equivalency exam was upon us.

Hawks was confident she would pass. On the other hand, Akari's anxiety begged for attention. She felt like her life depended on this exam, and in a way it does. If she does well, she can go to most high schools. But if she does amazing, she has a chance to get into the top hero school in the nation: UA.

Hawks remembered the day they had the future talk. Ryder did a great job planning out Akari's life, a safe life in accounting or business somewhere where the only risk of injury was truly just a paper cut. But Akari made it clear, she wanted to be a pro hero. Ryder still protests gently at the idea of her daughter being a hero, but it has not become a hot topic, yet. Akari is determined to reach her own goal and pays no argument to her mother's idea of what her life should be like.

Like any young teen, she has big dreams and big destinations. Akari was aiming for the stars and then some. She knows what she wants, and right now she wants to be alert. She looked past her book and stared at Hawks as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Can you pour me one too?" Akari asked.

"Did you sleep at all?" Hawks said as he poured her a cup as well.

"Would you?" Akari said going back to her book, "there's so much to know and learn. I just feel like I don't know it all."

Hawks grabs the pebbles from midair and gave Akari her cup of coffee, "See, you don't need to know everything. The point is you won't know everything, this is an exam to test your test-taking strategies. Can you come up with the correct answer by knowing what answers are wrong."

"You just said it," Akari groaned as she threw her book to the couch to grab the mug, "I need to know what answers are wrong which is basically knowing which one is right."

Hawks knocked his knuckle to her forehead, "Come on kid, the world is bigger than wrong and right answers. Being a hero is just the same, you'll face circumstances where you won't know what to do, but you'll know what not to do. And thus, from knowing what not to do, you'll figure out your next course of action. Does that make sense?"

"In some back-ass backwards way," she sips on her coffee, "I guess it does."

"Now come on," Hawks points to her room, "go get ready. We need to be there early."

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The test took hours. Separated by subjects and each one had a new twisted form of difficulty. The students that took the test together had all walked out of the room with the same face. The test looked like it drained the life out of them. Akari met Hawks in the car and looked at him with exhausted eyes. Hawks asked even though the answer was clearly on her face, "so how did the test go?"

Akari leaned forward to lay her head on the dash, "I want to throw up, cry and sleep for a year. Can we not talk about it until we see my mom? I don't want to relive that memory more than once."

Hawks chuckled, "oh come on, it couldn't have been that bad?"

Akari shifted to lean on the car door instead, not even glancing at Hawks, "I said not until we can talk about it with my mom."

Ryder now living in a rehab facility 40 minutes out of the city. Her doctors recommended that she got away from the city smog and live somewhere peaceful. Akari thinks that it's nice out there and her mom can get some rest. But Akari also separately think that this is a way for her to die at peace. She glances at Hawks through her red hair, and wonders if he knows too. They've been visiting her more often recently and even though she seems to be doing better, something seems off.