Kind heart Kind soul

Ch.7: Final Selection

That's Hitomi's mask.

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"And...there we are!"

Akio dramatically wiped the sweat off of his forehead before giving the girl in front of him a thumbs up while she inspected his work.

During the two years of her training, Hitomi's hair grew close to her waist.

Although he had seen people pull off fighting with hair up to their butts, he'd rather not take any chances with the girl in his current care.

It especially didn't help that due to her total lack of care for it, it was tangled and filled with knots. When she took it out of the ponytail she kept it in, her hair didn't even fall, it just stayed up as if gravity stopped working in it. That just reminded Akio about how gross children were.

Originally he was planning on chopping off all of it up to her ears but after some very adamant protesting and cursing from the red eyed girl he offered the alternate option of cutting her hair roughly up to her shoulders.

Luckily for his patience she was okay with it.

He continued to wait for the girl's review as she stared at the mirror in awe and if his eyes weren't deceiving him then there was a brightness to her demeanor.

His feelings were validated when Hitomi turned to give him a thumbs up. He wouldn't admit it, but seeing the difference between the girl two years ago compared to now made him feel immense pride.

If he wasn't such a soulless man he would cry.

"It's great. Thank you." Was the official response he got from her.

"Well what can I say, cutting hair is one of your teachers' many talents. Now stop gawking at your reflection and come let me tie it up."

With that, Hitomi dusted herself off and walked up to him backwards, allowing a red ribbon to be tied around her shorter, cleaner and combed out white hair.

"I can do this myself" The girl said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I'm aware of that but I want to do it right now," Akio said in an equal tone just to be immature.

Once he finished tying it in a knot and then patted his student on the shoulder, "There we go. You just need your gear then you can be off."

Hitomi brushed her fingers on her head to catch any strays before nodding in confirmation.

During the times where Hitomi wasn't training (after she cut the boulder), studying or mumbling nonsense Akio would learn that if he didn't look at her for certain periods of time she would completely disappear in his mind until she popped back up to him which would cause the man to get startled more than his pride would ever admit.

Akio watched as Hitomi gathered her temporary sword and slotted it into her pink hakama pants and put on her black haori that he had attached a hood to. From there she grabbed her black notebook and a pen that she securely tucked into her clothes.

He continued to observe the girl as she checked to ensure she had everything she needed before turning to him, "I'm ready. Goodbye."

The man raised his right eyebrow and crossed his arms, "Hold on, I think you're forgetting something."

"What?"

Akio walked over to the dining table and on top sat a mask, "This. It's a warding mask. I know this old guy that loves to give these to his students, so I borrowed the idea."

He handed it to her as she immediately put it on. It was a white rabbit mask with red patterns on it. The mask only covered her forehead to her nose and the most notable feature were the red flowers on the cheeks.