Yui stretched, her body groaning in protest at the action as various bruises let themselves be known. Yamashi’s rocks might have been small, but they sure packed a punch, especially when she wasn’t wearing her hero suit. For simple one on one sparring sessions, she had her utility belt and taser staff and the boots from her costume. She brushed the dust off her gym uniform from where the stones had pegged her, trying to appear nonchalant enough for her opponent to drop his guard.
Dark brown eyes regarded her cautiously, clearly not trusting the antic after he’d tried to take advantage of her seemingly dropped guard, which had resulted in a loss on his end when she’d pinned him to the ground.
Yamashi moved to the edge of the ring, firing off stones in quick succession that Yui deflected with deft movements. Learning how to use a bo staff from Eraser had definitely been the right decision, instead of using it like a bat. She planted her staff in the ground, using it to propel herself forward through his attacks to get in close, almost getting a hit in at his throat before a spray of stone blinded her as he used an explosive eruption to catapult himself over her head. It was only instinct that had her dropping to avoid the arm covered in stone that took a swipe at her.
Yui rolled back to her feet, blinking dust from her vision as she kept her eyes on her opponent. She held the staff in a defensive position as she waited for his next move. You could have used a chip on him instead of using the staff. She growled at the voice in her head, it wasn’t like she could rely on her Quirk like the others, not without it trying to rebound on her.
“You like to go for the throat, don’t you Yamazawa?” She grit her teeth at Tomono’s voice, he really tried to push her buttons any chance he got, something about his voice just seemed to echo her thoughts at the worst time. Maybe because she broke his nose the second day of class.
“Yeah, she’s pretty bloodthirsty in a fight.” Naganuma grinned, his voice torn between sounding impressed and offput. “You don’t see a lot of girls fight that ballsy.”
At some point she froze, their words ringing in her head as a suffocating weight clenched in her chest, her throat feeling tight; was she too rough? Was her current way of fighting too much? Her arms lowered from the defensive position enough for one of Yamashi’s stones to glance off her temple, multiple colors exploding behind her eyelids as she took a step back, her staff clattering to the ground as a ringing started in her ears.
“Yam- are-okay?” A woman’s voice faded in and out of focus, Yui blinked hard, trying to clear her eyes from the swimming colors when someone was right in front of her, reaching toward her and she saw nails painted how her mother used to like, the memory breaching, and consuming her before dipping back beneath the depths of her subconscious.
Lungs burning as she pushed her body to move, she couldn’t get hit like that again or she’d be out and then her mother would make sure she knew exactly how displeased she was. Whatever pain she was in now would be nothing compared to that, and at home, there was no healing Quirk to make sure she didn’t get an infection or to mend broken bones. So when that hand reached out to her, only one thing was on her mind.
Yui growled as she pivoted, nails digging into soft flesh as she gripped his wrist and flipped him over her hip onto the ground, already raising a booted foot to slam onto his chest when two strong arms wrapped around her chest and pinned her arms down and pulled her back.
“What do you think you’re doing, Yui? You better not disappoint me.”
Miyu’s voice in her ear cooled her blood to ice, only spurring her to thrash against the person holding her, her heel slamming into a shin enough to make him spit out a curse.
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“Drop her and back away!” She stilled at the deep voice, the person reluctantly dropping her and backing up. That wasn’t normal...the fights didn’t stop until someone was unconscious...
“Problem child, you in there?”
Like a switch had been flipped, Gym came flooding back around her, only the smell of blood and sweat tickling phantoms of underground rings, her classmates staring at her with wide eyes and Aizawa and Nemuri slowly inching closer. Her hands started to shake before she clenched them, what the hell was that?
“Did you see her face? She looked like she was going to kill you.” Tomono put a hand on Yamashi’s shoulder, the normally stoic boy was a bit pale, watching her every move.
“What the hell was that, Yamazawa? You can’t just attack people like that!” Naganuma barked out, looking like he was going to step forward to defend his friend but was stopped by Shimizu and Hayashi, the girl healing his swelling shin.
“Enough! All of you go to the other end of the gym and keep sparring.” Aizawa ordered, Yui grit her teeth as she looked down at the floor. She couldn’t stand to see if her friends were looking at her like she was some kind of freak.
“Yui?” Her shoulder’s sagged at her father’s concerned tone, glancing up at him.
“I’m sorry...I don’t know what happened.” She tried not to let her voice tremble, she really did. He must be so disappointed...
“You got hit pretty hard. Let’s go to Recovery Girl.” He put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze to coax her to start walking. Great, she’s really going to hate seeing me at this rate... “I’m surprised it didn’t knock you out.”
“I have a pretty hard head.” She mumbled, waiting until they were alone in the hallway. “Aizawa...am I too vicious?”
He glanced at her as they walked, “Your fighting style needs to be polished up. You got this far, kiddo, and now we can work on refining your technique. There’s nothing wrong with going for weak points with the proper knowledge. You weren’t taught in a safe environment, so we just have to work on getting your body to understand that here, you aren’t in a life and death situation.”
Yui nodded slowly, “Right...” What if she slipped again? It’d felt so real, like she was a kid in the ring again, Miyu’s poison in her ears spurring her on. That clenched sensation fading in her chest, intensifying for a moment at the thought.
“Can you tell me why you’ve been avoiding using your Quirk?” She couldn’t help but stiffen at the question, of course he’d noticed... “You only used it on Hado the first day and haven’t used it since. I know you don’t like relying on it, but if you don’t use it, you can’t neglect a part of yourself like that.”
She nodded again, meeting concerned black eyes and feeling something in her gut twist in time with the pull in her chest. She had to be better than this, she’d already caused enough trouble. This was already her second visit to Recovery Girl, she hated seeing kids hurt, Yui didn’t want to aggravate the kind old woman with how much she complained about them getting injured. And Aizawa deserved so much more when he’s done so much for her and Izuku...
“I won’t let you down, Aizawa.”
----------------------------------------
Yui worried at her lip as she approached her classmates, already healed and feeling back to normal except for the guilt twisting around in her chest. Yamashi and Naganuma were standing with Hayashi and Tomono outside the gym, talking about the exercise, and laughing until Naganuma spotted her. His arms tensed as he took a step forward, like he was going to protect his friends.
Yui raised her hands in what she hoped was a non-threatening gesture, “I’m not here to fight. I just wanted to apologize for losing myself like that. I...how I was taught how to fight wasn’t...normal?” She winced a bit, was she just supposed to say she fought in illegal fighting rings or would that be too weird? “I’ll be training with Sensei to learn better control so it won’t happen again. I am really sorry I hurt you both-”
“You think your words will mean anything?” Naganuma asked, his arms crossed over his chest and his blue-green eyes dark as he stared down at her. “You’re going to show us by your actions that you’re someone we can trust to have our backs.”
She gulped, her throat tight as she met his gaze, “Okay...I’ll work hard and prove that you can trust me.”
“You’re going to prove you’re more than a beast?” Tomono scoffed, his amethyst eyes gleaming as they met teal, that suffocating feeling in her chest pulling harder on the air in her lungs. “Do you really think you’re capable of that?”
Don’t punch him, it would only prove he’s right. That voice sounded more like Izuku’s whispering in her head. “Yeah, I am.” She could do this, she could train with Aizawa at the gym he’d built in the basement when he was free, she could learn how to fight without falling back into the ways she had to. She could handle this.
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