A Life Worth Living (Aizawa x OC)

32 - An Unwelcome Invitation

One week had already passed since Himari and Aizawa's first training together.

By now, the sparring session had become part of their daily routine. Every day after school they'd meet in the abandoned gym hall that nobody except from them ever seemed to use, the amount of time they spent in there being entirely dependent on the over-motivated brunette and Sunday being their only day off.

Their training sessions mainly consisted of continuous sparring. Aizawa had thoroughly assessed her, and as he had already expected – her technique was flawless. He couldn't think of anything to teach her.

It didn't take him long to figure out her primary weakness, her blind spot. Himari's moves were rational and highly analytical, but somewhere along the line her levelheadedness always went directly out the window, causing her to make precipitous decisions that eventually lead to her defeat.

Except from that, he could only criticize that she lacked endurance and strength, which lead him to believe that she truly hadn't been active since her retirement. In order to improve, all she had to do was regaining her former state of fitness, and apparently, this was exactly what she had intended to do by training with him.

However, Aizawa had absolutely no idea where her sudden and conspicuous motivational push was coming from.

She was still profoundly convinced she'd actually made him believe that she wasn't experienced. That's when the Erasure Hero first considered the possibility of Himari having a severe perceptual problem or simply suffering from incurable stupidity. Even a blind person would be able to see that she was trained in combat.

Most of the time, Aizawa saw himself forced to basically drag Himari out of the gym against her will like an obstinate donkey because her stubbornness didn't allow her to admit that she was close to dropping with exhaustion.

She was aching from head to toe, being awfully aware of all the muscles in her body whose existence she had failed to acknowledge until now.

Her current pathetic physical condition inevitably brought back memories about her time in Shiketsu High. Back then, she'd basically spent every minute of free time she'd had with training. She had been weak, her quirk not much of a help – or at least, she'd had no clue about how to take advantage of it.

The knowledge that she wouldn't stand a chance as a hero-...no, the knowledge that she wouldn't even be allowed to prove herself as a hero if she remained in her state of weakness had served as an incentive to keep going, to push herself further, and to exceed her own limits.

It had been necessary for her to reach her goal – becoming a hero and being able to help and protect others. Looking back at all these years of tiring effort, it had been worth it. That's something she was certain of, even though she had started to reassess the concept of heroes by now, making it hard for her to still agree with the public perception and representation of heroes.

In addition to her sore muscles, Himari was covered in bruises, sporting them in all sorts of different colours, almost resembling a colour palette, and sizes that ranged from a mole to extensive discolorations of her skin.

She had forced Aizawa to go all in, emphasizing that she wasn't a fragile doll. At first, he had been hesitant, but soon he had realized that discussing was not an option when the stubborn brunette had set her mind on something.

Nevertheless, his acknowledgement of her strength, him taking her seriously, didn't hinder a pang of guilt to surge up every time his eyes spotted a green or blue spot peeking out from underneath her clothes.

Himari already started to feel stronger again, contently taking note of the training's efficiency and secretly being thankful that she'd decided to take the opportunity to train with Aizawa. Undoubtedly, she benefited from this. Training completely on her own with a punching bag wasn't even comparable in the slightest.