Part 1 - Special Stage: Unlock your hidden potential! [Solo]

Music blasted through the speakers at the gym, echoing around the not very acoustically-controlled, long room. Dad said they were very rare songs from a very obscure old band from the like 60 years ago but the sound was very modern! The high tempo gave her a great deal of energy to burn, even after such a big Christmas dinner! Yes, Christmas dinner, you heard right! This was Christmas Day! Why was she in the gym on Christmas Day? Well... why not, right? It was a chance to burn off all that fat she'd gained from her big meal while also forging and shaping all the protein from the turkey and ham into muscle tissue!

So there she stood, in front of the wall mirror which... looking at the top of it, clearly needed a good clean. Maybe once she was done she'd help out by doing a bit of spring cleaning... in December! Never too early or late for spring, right? She shook her hips to the beat of the music, humming along she she lifted a pair of hand weights that seemed way too big for a girl of her size and yet with her Quirk, this was actually very, very easy. The trick was keeping them balanced, so her center of gravity was almost always very much in the center of her being.

One! Two! One! Two! First the right, then the left, then the right, then the left! She grinned as each movement of the weights seemed easier than the last, heart pumping like a mighty engine in her chest and her muscles rippling with electrical impulses as her Quirk activated, tensing like great steel cables! Sure she didn't look like it but she was strong, stronger than any girl of her build should be. And yet, when she remembered trying to do this at the start of the year, before she went to U.A., she swore this was so much harder back then! Was she getting stronger? Surely not, she didn't seem stronger and yet here she was, clearly having imperceptibly improved over the course of the 6-8 months of incremental training. Her grin only grew wider.

Just then, she tossed the hand weights into the air, dropping to her back, then rolling up onto her shoulders as the weights came down. She caught them on the soles of her feet, laughing happily as her sense of balance kept them from falling, using the momentum of the falling dumbbells to compress her legs, then shoot them back into the air. She started doing curls with her legs now, shuffling herself to the music as she worked out her legs with the weights.

"Now you're just showing off, kid!"

With a yelp, Kata startled and dropped the weights with a soft crash on the ground next to her, blinking as she sat up to see her father with a grin, in his pink fluffy sleeping gown and sipping a cup of coffee. "Geez it's... what, 7PM?" With a laugh, Kata did a kip-up maneuver, dancing between the balls of her feet to keep her Quirk active as she spoke, the large, muscular man in the doorway letting out an equally eager belly laugh. "Mmhm! I gotta use every moment I can to train, Dad!"

She could see, in that moment, just a little flash of how proud he was of her. His expression went from one of amusement to a melting, almost beaming look of pride in his young daughter! She was trying to hard... it felt good to see her Dad acknowledging that! "Alright tyke, barbell. Six hundred, let's go! I'll spot ya!" The fire in her eyes ignited again as her Dad spoke, Kata dashing to the nearest barbell bench and slotting the 300kg weights on either side. It was going to be a struggle considering she'd only ever been able to lift that much when she'd been at full power but with her Dad there... she felt compelled to try!

He took up his position over her, ready to catch the bar if she couldn't lift it or it slipped out of her grip. Luckily she was small, so with the extended height of the weights it was unlikely to actually hurt her, but better safe than sorry when it came to lifting weights, right? The look in both their eyes became intense as she gripped the metal bar, before lifting it off the rack. She could lift it! It was so much easier than before! Granted, she was still straining, especially with her Quirk not at maximum but... this was amazing! She really had gotten stronger! Grunting as she slowly lifted it up and down, she clenched her teeth, controlling her breathing to more efficiently pace her strength.

"Come on kid, faster! You wanna be a Hero, right!?" A deep breath, then a shout of determination! Her mind flashed back to that Red Horn fight, the hallucination of her father... the look of disappointment. She'd never let him make that face at her. Ever. She'd never disappoint him like that again! Not him, not Red Horn, not Kouta-kun, not Kirk, Yumi or Tetsuko-senpai! No one!



With an almighty roar, Kata stood, taking the barbell with her, beginning to squat low and deep with that immense weight on her shoulders. It hurt. It all hurt. But the pain didn't matter, not anymore. She'd break through any pain if it meant she could inspire others! If it meant she didn't have to disappoint the people who loved and believed in her! Go! Fight the pain! Fight the barriers! Fight!

She began squatting with the barbell, gritting her teeth and grunting at the immense pressure it was placing on her body. In the mirror she saw her father reach out for a moment in an attempt to stop her but the look on her face dissuaded him... he recognized that look, he'd had that during the training for his first Olympic Games! "Come on kid, you can do it! Don't be a pussy! Fight harder, meaner, better! HEROES NEVER LOSE!"



One hour.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Suddenly it was midnight and she looked up at the gym ceiling, her limbs stiff and aching, a clear Quirk burn out but... five hours of using her Quirk at it's full potential... how in the hell had she managed it? She wept. Not tears of pain or sadness but of joy. She could do it! She could be a Hero! With strength and determination like that, she could push herself past her limits! Her father seemed equally exhausted, sitting down on one of the barbell benches, laughing heartily with his now croaky voice, tears also pouring from his eyes as he sipped the last of his now very, very cold coffee. There was a moment of silence between them, the large man placing his mug next to him, before moving over to his daughter, pushing the barball lazily aside with his foot and lifting her into his arms, slowly but surely moving her upstairs.

"I'm proud of you."

She cried. A lot.

• Words: 1193 • Tag: @me •