DEMONS [Fumikage Tokoyami x OC]

Chapter 6 - Come Little Children

Monday rolled around. A new week. A fresh start.

A new opportunity to fuck everything up.

Azami woke up late, her alarm screeching in her ear. It had been going off for twenty minutes, but through the haze of her dream, she'd been saving so many civilians that it hadn't registered how that siren sounded an awful lot like her alarm clock. She vaulted out of bed and scrambled to the bathroom, speed-washing her hair and screeching like a demon at anyone who got in her way. Hair dripping everywhere, Azami sprinted back to her room, clutching her towel closed, to change into her uniform.

She passed classmates already leaving for class, and cursed herself for being such a heavy sleeper. With a shove, she managed to get her dorm door open, and tripped going into her room, smashing her face on the corner of her desk. A string of curses slipped out, and it took all of Azami's concentration not to activate her quirk as she said them. She clutched her face in her hands as she hopped around her room, tugging on her skirt, some black tights, a pair of combat boots, and her white button up.

Gripping her tie and blazer in her one hand, she yanked her backpack out of her chair and her keys from her bedside table before racing out the door, not even brushing her hair or bothering to glance at the state of her face. Azami knotted her tie as she slid down the banisters, focusing on getting to class on time and not facing the wrath of Mr. Aizawa on her second week of real hero school.

She reached for her phone to check the time, realizing that she had left it behind in her room, charging next to her lamp. Another curse flew out of her mouth, and Azami pumped her legs, booking it out of the dorm and toward class. She wracked her brain for a quickening quote, the perfect word to make her speed up, but she couldn't think of a single thing... her brain was running on a handful of hours of sleep, no food, no tea, and a long night's worth of math homework. Bits of quadratic formulas chased each other around in her mind as campus blurred past.

When she finally made it to the class building, Azami slammed the door open and took the stairs by twos, full-out sprinting to Class 2-A. She flung the door open, and gasped for air, looking at her classmates with hope flickering in her chest.

"You're late," Mr. Aizawa muttered from the floor, wrapped in a vibrant yellow sleeping bag.

Azami bowed and slid the door shut behind her. "I'm sorry, sir," she mumbled to the floor, "I had a rough morning." She ran to her seat and slid on her blazer before plopping down.

Behind her, Momo gestured to her face and mouthed, "What happened?"

"I'll tell you later," Azami mouthed back, turning to face the front of the room, her planner and notebook at the ready.

Mr. Aizawa stood with a grunt, slipping out of his sleeping bag to stand at his podium. "Now that our class is all here, let's discuss this week's schedule," he grumbled, rattling off the changes to that week's teaching schedule. The class rapidly took notes on the teacher swaps and class reroutes, when Azami's gut twisted.

They were doing hero stuff all day.

"We want to make sure you all didn't get soft during winter break, so hero coursework is priority today. All Might is going to meet us at the USJ," Mr. Aizawa said with a yawn, "Go get changed. The bus is out front, leaving in twenty."

𝅘𝅥𝅯

Azami ended up next to Jiro on the bus ride, talking about music and concerts they'd been to. "I don't want to be rude, but," Jiro said, turning to look Azami head on, "Dude, what happened to your face?"

"Does it really look that bad?" Azami frowned, gingerly touching the bruise she could feel pulsing next to her eye. Stupid desk.

Jiro raised an eyebrow and said, "It looks like you got hit in the face with a softball."