Idol Hero | BNHA

Chapter 30

After Aries had taken Noriko back to her room, she changed out of her hero costume and unpacked some of her things. She did her nightly routine, taking a quick shower and brushing her teeth before going to sleep.

The next morning, Noriko woke up and was told to change into her hero costume by one of Aries's sidekicks - or assistants, Noriko wasn't quite sure. Then she was escorted to Aries's office, where the sheep hero was waiting for her. The sidekick-assistant was dismissed and Aries began explaining what they would be doing that day.

"I had time to plan out what we'd be doing over the course of the week. I decided that, since this is technically your first day, I'll be showing you what a normal day for me looks like." Aries said, straightening a small stack of papers before setting it to the side of her desk. She stood up and walked around the desk, motioning for Noriko to follow her as she walked out of the door. "Normally, I start the day by doing a quick check on everything. I ensure everything is running and attend any meetings I may have in the mornings. Although I don't have any today, which is a rare occurrence."

"Yeah," Noriko muttered, thinking about how rare it was for her to not have any form of meeting during the day. It had become more common since starting in the hero course, but most conversations with Ryu felt like meetings, which made up for the slight lack of real meetings.

Noriko followed Aries around the building and into another office, where she stopped briefly to talk to a woman Noriko discovered was like the co-manager of Aries's company. After that, Noriko trailed after Aries as she went around to a few other people before ending up in the training room.

"Normally, I'd go back to my office if I have nothing calling for my presence and work on anything I may need to. But I don't feel the need to bore you with sitting in my office and watching my work, so we'll do a bit of training instead." Aries said, crossing her arms. Then something in the air shifted and Noriko knew that she was in for on heck of a training session.

Aries told Noriko that they'd be working on her limits and training until lunch. Noriko nodded and Aries instructed her to create two animals of her choosing. Noriko created a ram and a lion, the temperature dropping a bit as the two animals stood looking up at Noriko. What Aries told her to do next took her by surprise.

"Now, I want you to have the two of them fight," Aries said. Noriko gave Aries a confused expression and Aries said, "Well, my quirk won't work well to help you improve, but I believe this will help you quite a bit. You'll be able to improve the durability of your ice while also learning to tolerate your ice being shattered. Whenever one does shatter, make a different ice creature and keep going."

Noriko swallowed nervously but had no choice other than to do what she was told. Noriko focused on the two ice animals before the two of them ran at each other. The lion bit its teeth into the ram, and the ram shoved it into the wall. Noriko winced as cracks appeared on the two ice creatures as they continued to fight.

Not even 5 minutes had passed before the ram shattered and Noriko felt her knees almost give up, though she managed to stay standing. Aries told her in a stern voice to create a new creature and an ice dragon materialized in front of the half-shattered lion. When the lion shattered, Noriko grit her teeth before creating a large eagle.

For what felt like forever, Noriko kept that up. She forced the two ice creatures to fight each other and created a new one whenever one shattered. Noriko felt like an hour had gone by, but knew it probably had barely only been 10 minutes. She could already see her breath and her body felt cold. She wanted to just let both of the creatures melt and wrap herself in a warm blanket - maybe go back to her temporary bed that she was sure had a heater in it that made her warm without feeling too hot. But she knew that she'd get yelled at if she did that and she was sure Aries wouldn't be fun when she was angry.

Noriko wasn't sure how much time had passed when Aries told her she could stop. The two ice creatures, now a bull and another lion, melted into puddles almost instantly and Noriko practically collapsed. She quickly curled into a ball before a cotton blanket was draped over her shoulders.

Aries let out a sigh, "You certainly have potential, but you need much more training. That wasn't even a full 20 minutes."

"It felt much longer than that," Noriko mumbled under her breath in a sour tone.

Though, Aries hadn't heard her and continued, "Once you're warmed up, you'll try again. You need to be able to tolerate using your quirk under harsh conditions for a while if you want to be a pro. By the time we're done, you'll probably feel like you're made of ice."

Noriko wrapped the blanket tighter around her body and let out a shaky breath that she could see. Aries and Mr. Aizawa would probably get along pretty well. Noriko thought as she rested her chin on her knees. Out of everything she thought this internship to be, she had not been expecting to be told she'd use her quirk so much she'd be numb from the cold.

About 10 minutes passed before Aries asked if she was ready to start again. Noriko was tempted to say no. To refuse to train anymore and call Ryu to tell him that this was too much for her and that she should just quit the hero course. But she knew she could never do that. So instead, she nodded and stood back up, letting the blanket fall to the ground as she took a deep breath and started again.

-Author Note-

If I'm being honest, I don't really like this chapter. These past two chapters were very short and gave me a lot of trouble when writing them. I think they were actually the cause of me taking breaks from this story.

But either way, here's this chapter. And since I missed an update last week and this chapter is kinda short, I'll post a second one today.

I hope you have a great day!

-Starlight