' citius altius forties '

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"Weak!"

Kaede clicks her tongue in distaste, glares at the man in front of her.

"That punch has the force of only half of your original punches as a child," he deduced and she feels something acrid crawling up the walls of her stomach and scorching her from within.

Following with a forceful punch, in which if compared to Kaede's would be a supernova explosion, she barely manages to avoid .

A breath escapes carnation lips and she takes three steps back, assesses the situation and when Kohaku moves to impale her with that knife of his, Kaede ducks.

The knife misses her by a hairdsbreath and fringes of raven hair fall to the ground, but she doesn't even mind, Kaede immediately uses her right foot to hit his right knee and makes him fall to his feet face-first.

Kohaku, unfortunately, regains his balance and hits Kaede's face with a punch that she swore broke a couple of bones.

Wincing in pain, the teen doesn't notice another onslaught of attacks attempting to hit her. First, a kick to the gut. Second, an elbow to the chest that sends saliva escaping her mouth and then, an uppercut that sends her unconscious.

"Definitely weak," she hears Kohaku murmur as she collapses into a world of pain.

The world blurs and her failures catch up to her and in the seventh attempt to defeat Kohaku, her jaw breaks.

Fast forward to the twenty-fourth attempt and it's extremely embarrassing for a girl such as her, whose tiny ten year old self was stronger than the current. And it's already the twenty-fourth attempt, but Kohaku isn't breaking at all. It hurts her body, all those broken bones, scratches and stabs. But what's experiencing more pain is her pride.

Eleventh attempt, Dabi decided to watch the training and when he saw how weak she was, how easily overpowered she was, he made it a point to criticize her entire existence to bits.

"You can't even beat an old man," he said, following with derisive laughter and that laughter followed by another scornful statement. "What's more is that he's not even using his quirk."

And on the beginning of the thirteenth attempt. "Looks like the floor will be shiny later," he said. "You know 'cause old man Kohaku's going to wipe the floor with you."

Dabi disappeared on the fifteenth attempt, after receiving another mission from Tomura and the fact that she can't even defend herself from stupid barbs hurt.

"No time for fleeting dalliance!" Kohaku screams, grabs her by the elbow and hits her against the floor resulting in a reverberating thud! that echoes across the room, points a knife at her throat. "Keep your guard up at all times!"

Incessant screams of pain escape her lips as she's punched back and forth and she counts fifteen in all before she goes back to that realm of unconsciousness again.

"This is not progressing at all," Kohaku notes at her wheezing form, lying on the ground as her mouth begged for air. "Your last chance will begin tomorrow and if you don't manage to defeat me, we'll go back to the basics."

Boot pressed onto her face, cold azure eyes and lips formed into a straight line. That was how the twenty fifth attempt ended. Basic- the word stung so much.

When she was training at U.A., she had only improved endurance towards her quirk and a couple of attacks mixed with the Gust quirk which wasn't hers at all. Now, back to reality with her quirk that wasn't helpful at all, Kaede is weak.

"One hundred laps around in this five hundred meter obstacle course," Kohaku orders as he sits on one of those white garden chairs sipping an ice tea. "Try not to faint like a princess, please."

That irked her, but Kaede decided against that anger. She should channel that rage towards the laps instead.

After finishing the stretches, Kaede took in a deep breath and with the whistle signaling the beginning, Kaede ran.

Leaping over obstacles, ducking underneath objects chucked onto her and swerving on dangerous turns that would lead her to pits full of mud. Kaede's legs ran at a brisk pace and keeping her breath steady, she completed one lap after another.

During the fifty seventh lap, her pace slowed. Her pride wouldn't have allowed it, but it was ten times better than fainting like a prissy pink princess. She doesn't have anything against princesses, but she had qualms with fainting so she continues. Sweat trickled from her body and underneath the afternoon sun, she could feel her pale skin turning darker and a sunburn was obviously in its way.

Jumping over another obstacle, Kaede wiped the sweat off her palms with her forehead and when the part with the swinging tires came, she ducked repeatedly and escaped them with a reaction time that would have made her child self envious.

There is a painful burn in her legs, but she pushes it all away and finishes the fifty seventh lap.

"Remove that smile off of your face, Kaede," Kohaku orders with a grunt, eating fried eel over ice and the palatable scent incites envy. "You have forty-five laps to finish."

"Forty three!" she corrects, but at her peripheral vision, she could see the older man shrugging and putting on branded wayfarers.

In the end, Kaede tripped during the sixty eighth lap and got her head hit with a tire so she collapsed.

"That endurance was praiseworthy," Kohaku announced when he visited Kaede on the infirmary, bandages covering her face and ointments deposited unto her skin to alleviate the sunburns.

"I suppose it was the only thing that managed to progress during your times as a ringer," he said, dismissed the nurse who finished placing all the ointments. "Your reaction time is contantly improving, but that power makes me think of a baby. A frail, obnoxious baby."

"Oh shut up," she groaned, covering her eyes with her shoulders. "My head rings and your voice is not exactly pleasant."

Through brief glances, she sees him rolling her eyes. "But you sure have grown up, Kaede. Mentally. I do not see the same desire for prolonged agony. It's like you want to win this time. In the most perfect way possible."

She doesn't say anything.

"Intellectually, I suppose it is passable," he said. "Not as smart as Tomoe was, but greater compared to Tomura Shigaraki. It is a feat to pass second and third year of middle school without even taking classes for elementary."

"The credit belongs to sensei," she answered, and she wouldn't say it, but if you looked at it in an objective point of view, it was nothing much. She ended up being declassed during second year. Sure, that was part of the plan, but she wouldn't have succeeded if it weren't for her persona being dumb. And thirteenth in a class with mostly mediocre overall grades was nothing to boast of.

In the end, she only strived in murder and it was apparent that she was terrible at that now. She wouldn't have won against Dabi in the bar if it weren't for dirty tactics and the rush of adrenaline and rage.

"We're starting training again tomorrow," he said, probably signaling his departure and Kaede didn't bother reacting. She'd have to be stronger and she needed rest to fulfill that. "I'm expecting better results."

Breakfast was a heavy thing, almost all proteins with eel wrapped in caul fat partnered with a sizzling sauce and fluffy mashed potatoes. Partnered with two bottles of 500ml water and an apple.

She would become stronger.

That was a promise.

And Kaede never broke her promises.

This time, Kohaku had taken an umbrella with him, the gigantic ones you used in beaches, partnered with a mat and coconut juice. There was also a tiny pool next to him and Kaede wanted to drown him in it.

Sound of the whistle, a great breeze blowing grass and strands of her choppy ponytail away. And she ran.

This time, she ran slower, focusing on her reaction time and jumping power. Balance was also needed and because of the conservation of energy, Kaede was still up and running at the sixty-seventh lap.

Ducking from another wheel, she felt that surge of pride. She was going to surpass her previous record and when she tripped again, Kaede still managed to stand up, escape the tires and jump over the obstacles. Her knees were scraped, but compared to yesterday, the sun didn't burn her as much. (Full credits to sunblock and that nurse who worked under the doctor with the pathetic healing quirk.)

"Run Kaede!" Kohaku yelled, none of the lax in the form he wore earlier. "Run! It's three thirteen in the afternoon, already!"

This was the seventy-second lap, so taking in a deep breath and ignoring the miniscule trickles of blood on her knee, Kaede sped up. The obstacles were almost easy after running around them for one hundred and forty times (adding yesterday's of course), and before they could be seen, she'd already known what would happen.

Reaching eighty-eight, she let a smile break on her face. All the sweat was being wiped by the heel of her hand and when she jumped over three obstacles again, she counted eighty nine.

If she managed to calculate precisely from what Kohaku told her earlier, it was probably four fifty-five now.

Tripping over an obstacle again, Kaede rolled on the ground and cursed. Standing up, running again, but by the ninety-first lap, she slowed down and stopped.

Faster, stronger, higher than everyone else.

"That was progress," Kohaku told her as they ate dinner on the infirmary- hamburger steak finished up with an ample amount of sauce and steamed vegetables. "But please finish the course this time. It's going to be the third day tomorrow and we have other basic exercises to finish."

Kaede nodded, clenched the chopsticks in her hand. "I know," she whispered. "I'll succeed tomorrow."

And she did. Three twenty-four in the afternoon, underneath a partially cloudy sky full of the promises of rain, Mizuki Kaede finished the lap.

Chest heaving up and down, the smallest of smiles on her face. "I did it," she whispered as she curled her legs underneath her and tucked them in the lagoon green lazy Sunday shirt she wore. "I did it."

Kaede fell asleep to the sound of rain.

━ × ━

Ultimately, they conducted punching exercises on the fourth and fifth day, finished karate lessons after five days (it was just a matter of reacquainting Kaede with moves she'd known since she was a child). Roundhouse, sidekick, stompt to the throat, and heart.

The world rotated and revolved again, and training continued to flash through blood red eyes punctuated with brief lessons regarding the human physiology and late night secret training regarding her alleged ability to control time (after two weeks, she'd seen the slightest changes to the glass shard and about five grainy sand on her palms, but that was it).

Toga Himiko returned from her infiltration mission on Shiketsu High and managed to retrieve Midoriya's blood and after that, Kaede exited the room and headed to the training coliseum finding Dabi sparring with Spinner. The briefest taunts were thrown and she resumed her activity with the punching bag, imagining Dabi's face.

It continued on like that, and with blood red eyes which weren't flames but ice instead, Kaede stood in the alleyway of the familiar town, two hundred and fifteen meters away from the Noodle House, ready for another mission.

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