"Shit, I forgot my umbrella," Ayaka cursed while rummaging through her bag. Outside, the rain poured violently and showed no sign of stopping. Two choices presented themselves: either run at full speed and hope her notebook didn't get soaked, or go back into the school and look for an umbrella. Worst case, she could find a plastic bag to protect whatever might get wet.
Faced with this conundrum, she made what she thought was the smart decision. She took a large step into the rain before dashing at full speed toward home. At her current pace, it would take about twenty minutes to get there, more than enough time for everything she carried to be ruined.
Halfway through, however, she stopped at a convenience store to buy an umbrella.
Staring at the empty stand where umbrellas should have been, Ayaka let out a loud groan. "Maybe they have something I can use to protect my stuff." She asked the clerk for a plastic bag or anything similar, only to be further disappointed by the lack of even that. "God has forsaken me," she muttered with a deadpan expression.
To ease her frustration, she bought a hot cup of coffee from the machine and began sipping it inside the warm store. In the morning, Ayaka preferred black coffee, with the only addition being artificial sweeteners. But when treating it like a snack, she usually went for something sweeter, like a cappuccino or a chocolate blend.
As she squatted in the corner of the store drinking her coffee and eating an egg sandwich, a suspicious man walked in. He was about 1.7 meters tall with a medium build, and his clothes were old and tattered. Judging by appearance alone, he looked exactly like the sort of destitute lowlife one imagined when picturing a robber.
He approached the nervous clerk and pulled out a large kitchen knife, demanding money. In most cases, using a knife wasn't very smart in this world, since almost everyone had quirks. Relying on something like that instead of one's power was unusual.
Ayaka had been coming to this store for some time, so she knew a little about the clerk's quirk. From that, she realized he would be practically defenseless. He was short and scrawny, without any offensive or defensive ability. As the robbery unfolded, Ayaka weighed whether she should intervene.
The obvious answer for an aspiring hero was to help. And so, that was what she did. She was only two meters from the robber, and with her training it would take her little more than a second to reach him. But since he had already noticed her, it wouldn't be easy to take him down cleanly.
On the surface, Ayaka did not look intimidating. Though tall, standing at 1.80 meters, her muscle mass wasn't visible beneath her clothes, giving her a delicate, almost fragile appearance. In truth, Ayaka had practiced kudo her entire life, a Japanese martial art that was essentially a mix of kyokushin karate, judo and some other martial arts.
As she dashed forward, the man swung a surprisingly precise slash, tearing her soaked uniform but failing to connect with her body as she ducked at the last moment. Taking advantage of her lowered stance, Ayaka kicked his knee, instantly dropping him to the ground.
He was stunned for only a moment, but that was all she needed. She seized his wrist with a crushing grip, forcing him to drop the knife. Instantly afterward, Ayaka locked him in a chokehold, rendering him unconscious seconds later.
While the clerk called the police, he handed her some zip ties to restrain the robber. By the time officers arrived, Ayaka had finally finished her snacks uninterrupted. After giving her statement, she now waited for her father to pick her up at the precinct.
"Did you really need to call my father? I could've just walked home," Ayaka said to one of the officers. She would much rather ride in the car, but she knew how much her father worried about her. Ever since her mother's death, his concern for her safety had only deepened. The lecture she was about to receive was not something she looked forward to.
About five minutes later, her father arrived. Without saying much, they got into the car.
Inside, the silence felt heavy, making Ayaka anxious about what her father might be thinking. Not long after the vehicle started moving, he broke the ice. "I'm proud of you."
"Huh?" She stared at him in surprise. "You're proud? I was expecting to get scolded for doing something reckless like that."
Itsuki sighed before answering. "To be honest, I was planning on it. When I got the call from the police, I was worried sick. I thought you might have been hurt or worse. For a moment, I wondered how you could do something so reckless and wanted to tell you never to do it again. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how wrong that would be. I can't tell you to turn a blind eye when someone is in danger, to stop yourself from doing the right thing when you can. That's what it means to be a hero, isn't it? I can't force you to live the safe life I want for you. So instead, I should support you with everything I have, so you can live your dream."
Her father didn't know it, but his words meant more to Ayaka than he could ever imagine.
Ever since her mother died, her lifelong dream of attending U.A. had wavered. She constantly thought about how her father would feel if she threw herself into life-threatening situations, fighting villains, rescuing people. She knew he would be terrified of losing her, just as he had lost his wife. But his words erased those doubts, reigniting the uncontrollable flames in her heart.
Ayaka didn't realize tears were slipping down her cheeks. The worries that had plagued her for months were suddenly released in a flood of emotion. "Thank you," she whispered, turning toward the window so he wouldn't see her crying.
Once they got home, Ayaka spoke with her father a little more before retreating to her room, where she finally let her emotions flow freely.
For some reason, Ayaka always struggled to cry in front of others, even her own family. She avoided showing sadness or weakness, doing her best to keep those sides of herself hidden.
She knew putting up those walls wasn't healthy, but lowering them wasn't something she could do alone. She needed someone who could climb those walls and help her tear them down.
What Ayaka didn't know was that she had already met the person who would stay by her side and break every barrier she had built around herself.