The week after the entrance exam was about as mellow as it could be.
That's not to say the end of the exam wasn't a complete mess—being so close to getting crushed to death by a multi-ton robot was... scary. But Sage didn't let fear paralyse her and was able to push through and save Toru right at the last minute.
The only problem was the size of the cut she made wasn't large enough to fully fit two people, so in order to protect the unconscious and far more fragile Toru, Sage had put her directly under the hole.
As a result, she barely fit through the edge of the hole and the jagged metal edges tore deep wounds all across her back and arms, some spots digging so deep they found bone. Wounds which she was thankfully able to close before she died of blood loss, if only at the cost of leaving her too weak to escape the metal tomb she found herself in.
It was a painful experience but Sage was able to persevere through the fleeting agony.
Left with little to do, Sage had started slowly healing any wounds Toru had accrued, while at the same time reaching out and teleporting her clearly mystical sword away. She'd also discovered recently that it was more efficient for her to heal people over longer periods, that way it drained less energy.
After that, however, it was just a waiting game, one that lasted only a minute in real life but felt to Sage like a lifetime due to the sleeping girl cradled in her arms.
So close to the target of her newfound affection, Sage's heart beat like a drum in her chest as she awaited rescue.
Eventually though, the robot began to move once again as the number one hero—All Might—arrived to save them. Feeling the commotion around them, Toru had roused herself from her unconscious state but had kept her eyes closed and shifted closer to Sage.
Even now over a week later, the memory brought a happy smile to her face, but below happiness Sage couldn't help the uncertainty that brewed in her stomach. What was Toru's intent with the gesture?
So Sage chose the safe path and decided to take it slow, maybe that way she could get a better read on how Toru felt about her.
After getting freed from the rubble, everything passed in a blur as the two were rushed off to Recovery Girl's office for a check-up. At some point during all this, Nezu had dropped by to apologize before walking off just as quickly, all the while muttering under his breath about upgrading the campus's surveillance network.
Eventually, Sage was discharged after receiving a healing kiss from the school's resident healer. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to say goodbye to Toru, who had fallen asleep during her own treatment.
But in the end, all's well that ends well. Sage harboured no grudges against anyone but herself, so she returned home to await her results and complete her newest quest.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
At home Sage had spent the week doing what she normally did.
While she was in her female form, she continued to hone her fighting skills by constantly learning new martial arts. This week she was working on Wing Chun, a discipline she'd been perfecting over the past few weeks.
On the other hand, when he was in his male form, he continued to tinker with stuff in his lab. Just because he put the nanomachines on the shelf for now didn't mean he'd completely stopped doing what he loved.
Over this week he'd put the finishing touches on his design for humanoid robots that were capable of perfectly mimicking any martial arts or fighting style they saw while saving it for later or to mix with another style.
These came about mostly because Sage was running out of people he could spar at full strength and it had started getting boring. Sure there were a ton of people still stronger than him, but they either weren't as skilled or didn't want to fight him.
At the same time he'd also begun work on what he liked to call the invis-see-ble glasses, which in retrospect was a pretty cheesy name. The glasses though were anything but cheesy. To start with, he first installed ultraviolet, infrared and low wave radio emitters within the frame.
Then he added a small computer within the extra parts of the frame that operated a series of optical sensors and projected everything in sight onto the lens of the glasses.
They weren't quite finished yet, but he planned to test them on Toru and see if he could see her with them. He was naturally going to get her permission first though.
It only made sense that if he wanted to be friends with Toru that he be able to look her in the eyes, plus Sage figured it'd go a long way to winning her heart.
Returning to the present, Sage's sword traced elegant arcs through the open forest air as she worked on perfecting her precision and accuracy. While she trained, the faint, muffled sound of approaching footsteps reached her ears.
Smirking to herself, Sage spun her weapon—a long navy blue katana—in a fluid motion and sheathed it at her waist. Turning, her gaze immediately settled on Himiko, who froze mid-step before her shoulders sagged in defeat.
"Seriously?! How do you hear me every single time?" Walking forward with an exaggerated pout, Himiko fished around in one of her pockets before producing a letter embossed with the UA logo, handing it to Sage, who stood perfectly still with a victorious smirk.
"Your footsteps are still too heavy," Sage said, consoling the vampire girl while tearing open the envelope. "But don't pout—you're definitely improving. You managed to get within four meters before I even sensed your presence."
Pouting harder, Himiko poked Sage in the shoulder.
"What do you even mean by I'm too loud?! I can walk up to literally anyone in this compound except you and your mum, tap them on the shoulder, and walk away and they'll never notice me! You're just an oddball."
Maintaining her smirk, Sage decided to end the conversation as a small holographic projector dropped into her palm. The device activated seconds later, projecting an image of All Might into the air.
"I AM HERE, AS A PROJECTION! That's right, I am the newest faculty member at the prestigious UA Academy, and soon to be your teacher!
Well done, young Durand! You have by far solidified your place above your peers, and for that you should be proud!"
The projection shifted to display All Might's signature smile before transitioning to a scoreboard of the top ten candidates. At the summit sat her name, with a total of 184 points—Sage had easily doubled the next closest score.
"Okay, I guess we're changing topics," Himiko said, studying the floating scoreboard. "So what are these villain and rescue points? You scored high in both, so you obviously did something right. Hmm... now that I think about it, you haven't really talked about the exam. Did something happen?"
Gazing at the scoreboard hovering before her, a genuine smile crossed Sage's face. With 94 villain points and 91 rescue points, she'd more than doubled second place's total.
"Nothing too significant happened," Sage replied with a slight defensive edge. "The villain points come from destroying robots, and rescue points from saving other examinees."
Noticing the slightly defensive edge to Sage's tone when asked about the exam, she chose to drop it for now. She'd heard Sage got hurt, but that was all.
Meanwhile, Sage was quickly distracted by the sound of the system chiming in her head. Turning around, she began slowly walking off while staring at the panel.
[Main Quest - Number One - Completed
Goal: You've chosen to join UA the home to this world's main story, now prove your worth and go plus ultra. Score first place in the entrance exam.
Reward: 2000xp, Unlock -Story Quests, Quirk - ???, Item - ???
Bonus Reward: Skill - ???]
[Congratulations! You have been awarded:
Quirk - Air Manipulation
Item - Refined Gorilla Arms
Skill - Giant Slayer]
'Air manipulation is quite useful—I think my male form can utilize that one. It's somewhat lacking on the offensive side.
Those Gorilla Arms, however... straight to the workshop with those. There's no way I'm amputating my hands for a bit more strength, but the technology could prove valuable.
Finally, Giant Slayer scales the area of my impacts with my target's size. Could be useful, though I seriously doubt I'll face anything large enough to make it worthwhile.'
Smiling contentedly at her rewards, Sage was jolted back to reality by Himiko's persistent poking at the back of her head.
"Hi Himiko, why are you still here?"
Sighing in mild annoyance, Himiko got over it pretty quickly. One thing she'd learned over her years knowing Sage was to be patient—the girl got distracted pretty easily when she wasn't occupied with something.
"You zoned out before I could tell you everything. Momo texted me earlier and asked if you want to join her and Izuku at the arcade to celebrate getting into UA." Thinking over the proposition for a little bit, Sage tilted her head in thought before perking up in excitement.
"That sounds awesome. Could I invite Toru? Actually maybe not... she might be busy."
Deflating at the end of her sentence, it looked to Himiko like Sage was just trying to find an excuse to backpedal. Still, she'd piqued Himiko's curiosity and now she wanted to know more.
"So... who's this Toru? You looked really happy when you mentioned inviting her, also how haven't I ever heard of her before?"
Blushing furiously, Sage made an exaggerated zipping motion across her lips before turning to walk away. The action only intensified Himiko's curiosity, as she sidled up to Sage's side with a playful nudge and a mischievous grin.
"Come on, spill! You can't drop a name like that and walk away blushing like someone just confessed their undying love. Wait..." Her grin widened. "Do you have a crush on this Toru?"
Sage stopped abruptly, turning to face Himiko with an even deeper blush colouring her features.
"I don't know!" she blurted out. "I met her at the entrance exam and she made my heart race, and then I started feeling all these emotions and I have no idea what to do with any of them!"
Having expelled everything in a single breath, she dropped her gaze to the ground, absently kicking at a protruding root.
Himiko though, upon seeing this reaction, realized she'd need to help her friend. It was very obvious she had a crush just from the few seconds she'd talked about her, and Himiko didn't want her oldest friend to have her heart broken.
"How about you tell me more about Toru?"
Looking at Himiko for a few seconds, Sage eventually sighed and started recounting everything from the start.
"...and I'm just not sure what to do now! On the one hand I want to get to know her better, but on the other I'm worried about her not liking me and that I was just misinterpreting everything.
So I want to just take it slowly, I'll get to know her some more and see how it goes from there."
Listening to Sage's explanation, Himiko realized just how infatuated she was, so after a few minutes of silent thought she decided the best way of figuring out what's going on with the two of them is to meet Toru.
"You should definitely invite her to join us tonight. You said you had her number right? Just send her a message."
Reaching into her pocket, Sage fished out her phone and unlocked it before stopping. Eventually, after a few seconds of staring at the phone, she held it out to Himiko with pleading eyes.
"...I don't know what to say, could you please help me?"
Chuckling at the pout her friend wore, Himiko took the offered phone and glanced down at the screen, her eyes widening slightly.
When Sage said she wasn't sure how Toru felt, Himiko was expecting them to have exchanged maybe one or two messages, but on the phone she saw hundreds of back and forth messages going back over the last week.
Reading through a few messages, she became increasingly certain the two were perfect for each other. She also noted that Sage had marked Toru's contact with two heart emojis flanking her name, which she thought was pretty cute.
Still respecting Sage's privacy, she stamped down her curiosity before typing out a message, 'Do you want to come to a party tonight?'.
Offering the phone back to Sage, she glanced at it before tossing it up into the air and crouching on the balls of her feet.
"I can't do this! Please tell me what she says, Himiko."
Catching the phone with a sigh, Himiko glanced down at the screen expecting it to take a few more minutes before there's a reply, but was surprised to already see one.
"Toru says: Sure thing I would love to, could you send me the details?"
Spinning in a blur of motion, Sage leaped to her feet with a happy smile on her face before plucking the phone from Himiko. Exasperated, Himiko let the phone go and stepped past the exuberant fox girl.
"I've got to go get a few more things ready, don't spend too long out here."
Leaving without saying another word, Himiko made her way inside to text Momo and catch her up on everything.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Later that day, after spending multiple hours stressing over her outfits, Sage had finally come to a decision.
Walking over to the wall-mounted mirror, she double-checked her outfit. Starting at the bottom, she had a pair of black leather boots with 3cm heels that went up over her calves and stopped just below her knees.
Then above that she wore a crimson red dress that draped down to her knees and had delicate white highlights across specific seams that caught the light and emphasized the shape of the dress and the one wearing it. Finally, she wore the band of restoration as a choker—the ruby-like gem worked well to highlight her dress better than a necklace ever could.
Smiling at her reflection, she fixed up her hair one last time before turning to the door.
'I hope Toru likes my outfit.'
{A/N: Urghhhhhhh, I've been sick for the last few days on top of having classes. You can expect chapters on the weekend when I'm not too busy, but weekdays? That will always be inconsistent.
In other words I went through at least 4 different versions of this chapter trying to get it right.}