"Yeah, you'll go far alright. Another month or so more, and you'll be ready for the next step."
The next step. Actual, real sparring with mom. The thought filled her with ecstatic and energetic excitement, but also with a bit of fear.
...
It had been quite a while since Mina had gotten used to real bruises from her training, but she did not relish it being a regular part of her week.
Her mom eyed her expression with an inquisitive look, though she still had a smile on her lips.
"You know, most young girls wouldn't be looking forward to bruises and black eyes."
"No pain no gain! I'll never make it as a hero if I'm Afraid of a bit of pain!"
Mina felt pretty good about herself as she said it. Then remembered what had just happened, and… well. Winched.
"Again. Something to work on." Mom said, clearly guessing what Mina had been thinking.
"Well… Yeah, but it's not the biggest hurdle to overcome right?"
"Well, that depends… It is not the hardest thing to overcome, no. Generally, you overcome it through experience. When you no longer fear something, you'll be able to not let your natural instincts rule you. I can train you to not flinch at pain in battle."
"Sweet!"
"But as for its importance… Well flinching in battle is one of the worst things that can happen in fights. In real life and death fights, it's usually guarantees that your opponents will get a free blow on you. That's bad enough, but there is also the fact that it has a nasty tendency to kill your rhythm dead in it's tracks."
Mina continued enjoying her soda and listened as her mom continued to talk, and explain about battle and fight strategy.
"Mentally speaking, flinching is a mistake. Your brain will know it's a mistake, and so, it kills whatever rhythm you build up. And when your internal rhythm goes, so does your momentum. You make one mistake, and then as you panic, you make another one, which can snowball like crazy, as you desperately try and regain what you had, which leads you to be way less able to-"
Her mom stiffened, as both mother and daughter heard the sound at the other side of the house from the gate being opened.
Who that was wasn't hard to guess, as only one person in the house had been out, and so there was only one person it could be.
Mina did not miss the look of supreme anger that flashed across her mom's face before she took a deep, deep breath to calm down.
She did not begin talking again until the sound of Ben opening the door to the house and closing it behind him was heard.
Her mom and her big brother were currently in what could charitably be called a feud, having had another shouting match no less than 2 days ago.
Before their falling out, Mina had only seen her mom truly, spectacularly MAD, only once in her life, when Mina had broken into her Mom's secret trophy room under the shed.
It had seemed like a harmless thing at the time.
That stunt had gotten her a tongue-lashing unlike any she'd seen directed at her since, and a grounding that had lasted half a year.
She had never wanted to see her mom that angry at her again.
Ben though… Her big bro had no problems standing up to their mother, even when she was red in the face and roaring at him.
One side of her frankly admired him for that. It was something she would never have dared to do. The larger part of her, however, just wanted them to bury the hatchet so they could be a happy family again, rather than all sounds dying the moment they entered a room where the other one was.
It had started about 3 months after he failed the hero entrance exam, with heavy disagreements about his future now that he'd given up on a hero career, and it had just escalated from there.
"As I was saying…" Her mom continued as if nothing had happened. "If you flinch in battle, it will often lead you to make another mistake on top of that. And then, that mistake will make you panic more, and you'll be even more likely to screw up, and so it goes in a loop."
"Right! Like when you're playing a game, and you can only afford one mistake to win, but you make one, then another one immediately after the first?"
Her mom actually laughed.
"Yeah… It's the exact same reaction in your brain, though quite a different battlefield."
Turning more serious, she said: "Anyhow, even if I train you out of flinching from pain, It's something you'll have to deal with someday. Experiencing something you have never seen before, and the hesitation that comes with going into unknown waters. When you get there, don't flail and splash about. If you do, you'll break under the stress, like..."
She stopped, suddenly looking very, very tired. It was an incredible shift, from her energetic, confident self, and in that moment, Mina suddenly remembered that, oh yeah, her mom was in her 50s.
She knew what she had been about to say though.
"Like Ben?"
Felicia hesitated just briefly, before finishing the sentence she had cut off.
"Yes. Just like Ben."
---
Mina had been in danger plenty of times. Even ignoring the stuff she'd dealt with after entering Yuei, there had been one time when she'd tricked a giant crazy man to leave when he was threatening her friends in Middle school.
There had also been a time when she'd been walking home, and a giant shootout had been happening at the police station beside her house, bullets flying everywhere.
She'd once had a scar from that, where a bullet had punched through her leg, but that had long since disappeared thanks to her healing factor.
And so, as the huge battle with the poor bastards the League was sending at them, she didn't feel panic. She, Izuku, and a street full of other, adult, pro heroes.
Given how they'd beaten the previous one around like it was nothing, this was not nearly as dangerous a situation as the last time she'd faced the League alongside Izuku.
In the moment before the storm, Mina felt a level of pity for the creatures.
She'd heard her father's speculation on the Nomu guy from the previous attack from the league.
He'd said that being equipped with a multitude of quirks as he had been, he must have been the ultimate result of a truly grotesque example of quirk breeding.
There was a reason why quirk marriages were so shunned in the modern world, and seeing the creatures ahead of her, she fully understood why.
With their exposed brains, their grotesquely misshapen bodies, and then there was that big guy…
His spine was on full display across his back, and Mina could see just how misshapen and WRONG it looked.
These poor souls had been bred forth by uncaring, monstrous people as shock troops, regardless of the fact that they would be completely incapable of living ordinary lives.
Then the big one, the one with the exposed spine, spoke.
"Who's the best here? The strongest?"
Mina's first thought was that she'd have to look out for this guy. Not only was he bigger, but he could also think, which probably made him the most dangerous.
It was a good assessment, but also completely wrong.
Then everyone made their move.
Mina saw one of them, a big muscular red, female one with… quite the figure, conjured spikes from her body, and with movement that instantly reminded her about Kraid from Metroid, she prepared to launch those spikes forward in an arc.
Mina immediately conjured up a wall of gray, gooey acid in front of her, then jumped back to put more distance between her and the wall, just in case it wasn't strong enough to stop the attack.
It was executed absolutely perfectly, and it turned out she'd been right to back off, as the spike shot through the acid wall, it's tip melted, but the massive, deadly speed was very much maintained.
She easily dodged the projectile though, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Izuku having done his own maneuvers to dodge the attack, just like she knew he would.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, a massive Tetsuo-like, monstrous arm shot forward and sent Izuku crashing through the buildings behind them.
"Midori!!!" Mina cried out.
She was moving to intercept the arm, to melt it to nothing, when she was forced to dodge backwards, the bird guy swooping in to try and grab her head in it's claws.
It missed, and Mina responded by kicking him in the head, so hard she heard a distinct snap of breaking bones. Not that it was needed, given the way the guy's head was 180 degrees the wrong way.
Not that this would stop him for long, as Mina knew from experience with his kin.
She then grabbed him, her acid-tipped fingers digging into his skin, and threw him right at the spike generating woman before he could regenerate.
In the short amount of time it had taken to do that though, the source of the giant, grotesque-looking arm, the big guy with the open spine, had somehow moved straight through the building he'd sent Izuku through, his hand immediately gone.
She was about to jump up and make her way through said hole to follow when she was stopped in her tracks by screams.
Not one, but several.
...
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