'I understand!' she exclaimed, visibly excited. 'The whole time- the whole time...'

'Young Okaido, please sit down with me again,' All Might requested with a friendly smile on his face.

'I'm sorry, I got very hyped.' She returned to her previous cross-legged position. 'I never wondered why do I feel pain in my entire body whenever I use my Quirk. It's so bad I can barely move, but now I know!' She grinned widely.

The Symbol of Peace brought his hands in front of his body in a defensive gesture. He raised the inner corners of his eyebrows and a slight smile appeared on his face.

'Young Okaido, please, calm down. Try it out first, before saying that you understand it. We still can't be sure if that's it, right?'

'Right,' she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, putting her palms on her knees. With closed eyes, she continued. 'So my theory is this: I was not actually mad at my enemies, but at myself. And this might have caused the pain in my body.'

'Let's try it!'

'But I, I don't know who to drain,' she admitted with a sad expression, opening her eyes.

'Try it on me,' All Might suggested.

She opened her mouth to argue, but the blond man stopped her.

'I will be fine!'

'Alright,' she inhaled.

Mariko closed her eyes again.

All Might is the villain. All Might is the villain. He killed a lot of people!

No, he saved a lot!

'I cannot get myself to be mad at you,' Mariko cried out, her eyes still closed.

'Then go with even smaller steps. Try using it the way you did previously, but try to stop after just one second,' All Might advised.

'OK.'

Hitoshi, who was practicing swinging and grabbing onto things with his Binding Cloth, was now paying a little bit more attention to All Might and Mariko, still throwing the binding weapon.

Okaido took a few deep breaths and shifted in place, correcting her posture.

'OK, I'm doing it,' she announced quietly, trying to prepare herself mentally for what was coming next.

The image of her fighting Shinso, immediately appeared in her brain. She heard Aizawa's voice, saw his disappointed face. She just didn't want to hurt anyone. That's why she stopped the kick.

That's just an excuse, I am worthless.

The aura exploded from her body, the green flame covering her eyes. In the exact same second, she felt pain. She forced herself to open her eyes, worried about the people around her.

'I am fine, don't worry,' All Might assured. 'Now, control it. Shut it down.'

Find something good. Find something good.

One second has passed.

Come on!

She gritted her teeth, the feeling of tiny, stinging needles penetrating every inch of the body. Two seconds passed.

You made Eri comfortable with her scars!

The aura and the flames disappeared and Mariko looked around her.

'Is it gone? Are you safe, All Might?'

'I am completely fine.'

'I failed to close it in one second,' she said, disappointed tone audible in her voice. She lowered her head.

'Don't pressure yourself too much. It's better to make smaller steps at a time, than huge leaps over a long period of time.'

'True,' she admitted.

'Did you feel the pain?'

'Yes. I will try to stop if faster this time.'

She closed her eyelids again, a feeling of resolve forming inside her heart.

'I can do this,' she said to herself.

Mariko focused her mind on the daily sparring duels with Mr. Aizawa. She saw his tired, emotionless face, as if fighting her didn't cause him any strain whatsoever. Then, the image shifted, and she reminded herself of him wrapping her hands in a bandage and then her leaving without a 'Thank you'.

The aura spread from the user and a slight feeling of fatigue washed over Shinso and All Might.

What good I did I do there?

She swallowed, feeling the pressure of time.

I apologized to him and I treat him with the respect he deserves.

She opened her eyes, her vision now clear.

'Was it a second?' she asked All Might, who showed her thumbs up.

'Yea!'

Mariko smiled slightly and rubbed her forearms. For the first time in years, she was making an actual progress. Her heart was beating fast, she was still scared, but now a lot more motivated.

'I will try to drain you again, if that's fine, sir?' she asked.

'Go ahead,' the tall man responded. 'Imagine me as a villain.'

'That's the toughest part,' she replied, closing her eyes again. 'If I can do it, I am still not sure what the effect might be, it might drain a lot faster than normally,' she expressed her concerns.

'I am ready,' she heard Aizawa's voice and forced herself not to look at him. She nodded and concentrated.

After a while, she said:

'My brain keeps jumping to me, to my own anger,' she admitted.

She narrowed her brows, wrapping her hands together and putting her index fingers on the tip of her nose. Mariko opened her mouth to say something, but just ended up hissing. She was having such a hard time.

'You can do this, Mariko,' she heard Shota.

Okaido opened her eyes and looked at the man, she then blinked and the green flames appeared, she stretched her left hand towards All Might, as if trying to reach him. Her forearm immediately covered with the same, black, fog-like, swirling effect and created a link between her and the blond man before her.

'How is it?' she asked.

'I am a bit sleepy. It's completely fine,' All Might admitted.

'I think it's the strength of the emotions, I cannot imagine you as a bad person, so I am fighting with your actual image in my brain, if that makes any sense,' Mariko informed.

'Can you walk in such state?' Shota asked, carefully observing the new student.

Okaido slowly stood up, keeping the link active. She took a few steps backwards. She was around ten meters away from All Might.

'Is it less powerful?'

'It feels the same.'

'Let's see,' Okaido kept walking backwards.

'Can you go faster?' Eraser asked, and Mariko sped up.

'It feels, it feels better?' she was very confused. 'It's almost like I am plugged to a charger, it's so hard to explain.'

Aizawa leaned forward and put his palm inside the link between Mariko and All Might. He felt nothing.

Toshinori coughed blood, scaring Mariko.

'OH!' she yelled from twenty meters away. 'Did it increase in power?'

'No, it's just my current health condition,' All Might assured.

Mariko kept going backwards. She was now around twenty five meters away.

'Is it really the same?'

'I think it started decreasing on the strength, it feels like tingling all over my body now.'

'So it might be the twenty meters range,' she said and dashed forward.

'Can you drain me?' Shinso asked, now completely interested in Mariko's Quirk.

'I've heard that you were supposed to be expelled?' she heard Hitoshi's voice from earlier.

Mariko made the exact same gesture with her right hand towards the violet-haired boy. The link of dark energy immediately fired from her arm, connecting with the boy's body.

'Ouch!' the boy exclaimed, his arms immediately dropping to the sides of his body. He hunched over and lowered his eyelids.

'Is it bad?' Mariko asked, concerned.

'It's like I would work out for a lot longer than I did.'

'The flames are bigger now,' Aizawa noticed, pointing his chin towards Mariko eyes.

She stood still, looking at her forearms.

'It's such a weird feeling,' she said loudly to be heard from twenty meters.

She rubbed her skin, curious of the weird energy floating around her arms. It didn't feel like anything specific, but it did react to the air movement just like a heavy gas would. Suddenly, as she continued standing in one place, her left radial bone cracked.

'AAAH!' she shouted both in pain and surprise and grabbed her forearm, feeling tears coming to her eyes.

She saw a flash of red and a second later Aizawa stood next to her. As the black-fog-like energy faded away, they noticed a big bruise covering the top of her left forearm; some of her skin around the bruise had slightly bleeding scuff marks.

'All Might, Shinso! Are you all fine?' Mariko hissed and looked at the two, holding her elbow with her right hand.

'She thinks of others first, huh?' All Might thought.

'Yea!' they both responded.

Aizawa gently took her arm in his hands and started securing it with his Binding Cloth to keep it in one place, not risking any further injuries. She looked into his eyes, seeing a frown on his face. He looked less cold, but a lot more concerned. When he finished, they made eye contact.

'Thank you. For everything,' she said, putting up a serious expression despite the pain. 'And sorry for ruining your nap, sir.' She grinned.

He closed his eyes, barely noticingly nodding. There was no scarf hiding his face, so for the first time ever, she actually saw his slight, but genuine smile.

'Worth breaking my arm, to be honest,' she thought to herself, examining his handsome face.

'Mr. Aizawa, do you want me to help Okaido get to the Recovery Girl?' Hitoshi offered.

He confirmed with another movement of his head.

'We are done for now,' Aizawa added.

'Do you need an arm?' the boy suggested, turning his head towards the girl. 'No pun intended.'

'Ha! Nah, I'm fine. Thank you, though.'

They soon left the gym, heading straight to the school. Aizawa followed both of the students with his eyes, until they disappeared behind the entrance door. He slowly walked over to All Might.

'First time it was consciously used, huh?' Toshinori began. 'She did a good thing to reach to the UA for help.'

'Yea. Thanks for the help, All Might.'

'No problem.'

There was a moment of silence, during which both of the men stared at the entrance door.

'Young Okaido would be great for a joint training, don't you think?'

'If she won't break herself.' Aizawa grabbed the sleeping bag and slid his other hand in his pocket, ready to leave the building.

'So, is it your first time controlling the Quirk? How is it called?' Hitoshi asked.

'I call it 'Drain' and yes, it's the first time. It's not very fortunate, either,' she answered and pointed at her arm.

They walked next to each other in comfortable silence.

'How is yours called?' Mariko asked.

'It's Brainwash.'

'Oh, wait! You were at the sports festival! I remember watching you! That was so cool!' she exclaimed, memories coming back to her.

They chatted the rest of the way to the Recovery Girl's office. Shinso told her a little bit about his Quirk and training with Aizawa and how he fought Izuku Midoriya at the sports festival and got recognized by some of the heroes and classmates, for the first time in his life. Then, Mariko told him about how she was always perceived as a villain because of her draining ability. This led to Shinso sharing his experiences, which turned out to be very similar. Then, the boy let her examine the Binding Cloth that was Aizawa's special technique that he came up with himself. This made Mariko's jaw dropped.

'That's so impressive!' she said.

After that, they both shared their admiration towards Eraserhead and how his unconventional teaching methods pushed them both forward. Mariko told him a little bit more about her perspective on the Drain and how much her upbringing in the orphanage ended up affecting it.

For the first time ever, Mariko felt as if the interaction with another person might lead to a great friendship.

When they reached the Recovery Girl's office, Okaido almost forgot that her arm is quite badly injured. She sat at one of the school hospital beds and told the nurse what happened. The old lady listened to her, while treating her wounds, disinfecting them and wrapping them in a bandage. Then, she leaned forward and placed a kiss on Okaido's cheek, surprising her. A few seconds later, Mariko felt fatigued. Recovery Girl advised the new student to rest a lot and also informed that she saw similar injuries a few times and all of them were Deku's. The nurse then advised that this is caused by body not being able to handle the power it receives, and because Mariko's Quirk is an energy-gathering one, it just meant that she has to get stronger.

After the treatment, Hitoshi led Mariko to the teacher's dorm.

'I enjoyed talking to you, thanks for the company,' the woman said.

'Yea, I didn't plan to make any friends in here, to be honest, but you seem quite nice.' He put a hand behind his spiky, wavy hair.

'Hah, thanks.' She smiled at the boy. 'Catch ya later, yea?'

'Sure.'

She turned around and entered the dorm, as the general course student headed to his own room. There was no one in the common room, so she slowly climbed the stairs, her mind clouded with ideas about her hero costume, possible support items and the most important - her hero name.

Mariko was extremely proud of herself and was motivated like never before. Despite her injury, she ended up spending most of the day on working out, and replenishing her energy with a balanced high-protein diet and improving her flexibility, mobility, balance and strength. In the evening, she worked on her hero-related ideas.

The next morning, she woke up with very sore muscles. She wanted improvement and she wanted it as fast as she could. After all, she had so much work ahead of her.

Mariko quickly went downstairs, headphones plugged in her ears. She put on a very chill, soothing song that put her in just the right kind of trance. After that, she grabbed the cleaning stuff again and did the same thing as the day before - stretching as she took care of the chores as a part of her punishment from Mr. Aizawa.

Because of her hard work the previous day, there was a lot less surfaces for cleaning, so she finished much sooner.

She stood in front of the window, climbing her toes and slowly lowering her body to stand on her entire sole. Okaido glanced behind her, looking at the staircase, expecting Eraserhead to come down any moment now. A soft, dreamy expression appeared on her face as she reminded herself of his small smile. She tapped her fingers on the notebook she was holding behind her back. She recently wrote some nice things about the man inside the book.

And then, she got an idea. Every single day when she saw him in the morning, he would drink a cup of coffee.

'Could I make it before him walking into the kitchen?' she wondered.

Mariko dashed to the kitchen island, inspecting some of the kitchen cupboards, which she previously cleaned. In one of them, right below the induction plate mounted on the top of the counter, she had found a gorgeous, manual, wooden coffee grinder.

'No way!' she mouthed the words, her eyes opening wide with excitement.

She quickly stood up and followed her guts, trying to find some nice-quality coffee seeds. She had noticed that Aizawa usually used the pre-ground beans, but she assumed it was most likely because of his 'I don't really care' approach. He would definitely enjoy a cup of freshly ground up coffee - but he might not necessarily want to put the effort to make it himself.

'Ah!' she inhaled the smell after finding a bag of coffee beans.

She grabbed a cup from kitchen cupboard and then grabbed the electric kettle and poured some water inside of it. Then, she looked around the drawers and cupboards for a coffee dripper and filters - which she found a lot faster than the previous items.

'That's so convenient,' she whispered under her nose, pressing the button on electric kettle to boil the water.

She quickly milled the beans and put the dripper on top of the coffee cup. After that, she inserted the filter inside the dripper and filled it's bottom with freshly ground up seeds. The smell was heavenly.

When the water boiled, she slowly started pouring it into the filter, making circular motions with her arm. She made sure no milled coffee stuck to the sides of the filter - Mariko wanted the coffee to be pitch black, with a strong aroma.

After she finished, she smiled to herself and cleaned up after the brewing. Then, she transferred the mug to the table in the living room area. She awkwardly stood in front of it, not knowing what to do.

'Oh God!' She covered her mouth. 'How do I explain this?'

Unfortunately, she wasn't given a lot of time for coming up with any kind of strategy. The second the realization hit her, she heard Eri and Aizawa's voices at the top of the stairs.

'Do I drink it myself?' she thought, slightly panicking. 'No, it's way too strong for my liking.'

She heard the footsteps.

'Do I just throw it away? No, the smell is still here.'

'Is Mariko awake?' she heard Eri ask Shota.

'Oh my God, he will read through me, WHAT DO I DO?' she realized. 'I am so fucked!'

She quickly sat down, moving to the side of the sofa.

'I can still run away, it would be easier.'

'No I am a prisoner still, he would be mad.'

'I guess I need to face the consequences.'

As her conflict kept going on in her head, the child ran down the stairs and immediately looked at Mariko, quickly approaching her with a smile.

'Hi!' she greeted and sat next to Okaido.

'Hi! Did you sleep well?'

Shota joined the girls, sitting down at the other end of the couch. He eyed the cup of coffee, the heavenly smell teasing his caffeine-addict senses.

'Yes, and you?'

'Quite nice, I am sore after working out, though. But it's good! I need to get stronger.'

Eri grinned at the student and Mariko smiled back. After that, she looked above the girl and saw Aizawa, clearly interested in the mug placed on the table.

'How do I even say that?' she thought to herself.

'Good morning, Mr. Aizawa. It was black, no sugar, right?' she asked.

Shota tilted his head, looking at Mariko. His tired expression changed slightly, as he raised his eyebrows, a playful spark igniting his raven-black eyes.

'Oh?' he wrapped his arms on his chest, leaning backwards into the sofa's seat. 'That's for me?'

'Yea,' she answered and almost died, trying to keep her neutral expression.

'Look away, oh God, please, look away,' she started chanting in her brain as Aizawa held eye contact with her. 'Do I stare too much? Should I look away? Should I wait until he looks away?'

After a short moment, that seemed like an actual eternity, he reached for the mug and swirled the brewage inside of it, appreciating the smell.

'It might be still very hot, though,' she warned, as he brought the cup to his lips.

He glanced at her from above the mug and shrugged. The man swallowed and furrowed his brows. At first, she thought that she did something wrong.

'Mmm,' he made a low, deep noise of appreciation.

'I'M GONNA BITE MY HAND OFF!' she screamed in her mind, trying as best as she could to stay collected.

Mariko pressed her hands against her legs, trying to keep them from shaking.

'What's going on?' she asked herself.

She pulled her notebook and tried focusing her mind on it, but for some reason, she couldn't understand any word she was looking at.

'It's upside down,' she realized, extremely embarrassed, rotating the notebook.

'How is your arm?' Aizawa asked her, after taking another sip.

'It's almost fully healed.'

'Good.'

'What happened?' Eri asked.

Mariko told Eri the story of yesterday's events after the kid left the gym and as she finished the monologue, the woman saw a clear hint of excitement on child's face. Then, she also told Eri how she came up with a final hero costume design, ideas for possible utility items and a hero name, along with her goal.

The design of the costume looked very edgy, but not too over the top. It consisted of black, knee-high, steel-toed shoes on a small platform for additional amortization of kick or landing impacts. The pants would consist of a more loose and also skin-tight part. The slim fit part was supposed to be tucked in the tall shoes and the loose part would give a military-like vibe to the outfit. The pants were supposed to be made of durable, yet comfortable material and Mariko wanted them to have some loose, purely decorative straps and some short chains. Above the pants, there was a dark-green belt. The top of the costume consisted of a skin-tight, black T-shirt with a turtleneck, a long left sleeve that transformed into a fingerless glove and a short right sleeve. The last part of the costume was a dark green utility vest with a few pockets.

'This is where I plan to wear a support item.' She pointed at the sketch of bare forearm skin.

'It's so dark!' Eri said.

'Yea, I love black color,' Mariko admitted. 'Do you like it?'

'It looks cool. I wanna see it on you.'

'Hah, I will show you once I get it.'

'And name?'

'The guarding hero: Senchi!'

'Senchi?' Eri asked, bringing an index finger to her mouth.

'Like Senchineru. A sentinel to protect both the heroes and the civilians.'

Eri thought about it for a second, then grinned widely - a clear sign of her approval.

'Senchi!'

'Exactly,' Mariko smiled and stroked the kid's scalp.

Then, Okaido leaned forward and placed all of the pages with hero costume design before Eraserhead.

'Sorry that it took so long, sir.'

He didn't respond, examining the content of the pages.

'The stripes shouldn't be loose,' he suggested after taking another sip of coffee. 'You could trip on them, if you were to crouch and step on one. There is a low chance of this happening, but there still is, so rationally, I advise against that.'

'Alright.' She reached with her hand towards the page he was holding.

He gave her the piece of paper, their fingers brushing on the way.

She screamed internally, feeling warmth on her cheeks.

Mariko tilted her head, covering herself behind the curtain of her hair. She leaned towards the table, placing the page on a flat, hard surface. Then, she corrected the drawing and the description.

'They would be OK if they were attached, right?'

'Completely unnecessary,' he replied, inspecting the rest of the pages from above the mug.

'Appearance is never necessary, but it's cool,' she argued.

'Whatever,' he sighed.

After giving him the reviewed page back, she asked for the permission to leave the dorm for some jogging. He agreed without resistance.

As she left the dorm, she cursed under her breath, feeling a slight blush on her face.