Training and Recovery

Yashiro and Rani entered the waiting room of the ICU and sat on the benches, waiting for Rando to wake up. Meanwhile, they discussed what had transpired that day.

"I didn't get a chance to say this but you saved our lives out there. Thank you. " Yashiro said, looking down at his feet. Sounding a bit down, he continued, "In fact, you both did. He's only there because I lost concentration and..."

She cut him off in a sharp and serious tone before he could finish.

"Don't be stupid" these words shocked him, as Rani usually didn't use insulting words, "No one could have anticipated him shooting a school kid , and if those bullets had hit you..." She looked down as she said this, "you probably would have died Shiro, Rando knew that. He probably wouldn't have been able to forgive himself knowing he could have done something to prevent you being hit. So you're wrong, he's only there because he was ready to be there in order to save his friend not because you messed up"

Yashiro smiled and held Rani's hand. "Thanks Rani, I appreciate that"

Before they could say anything else, they heard a noise from Rando's room.

They looked at each other and rushed in to the room to see Rando struggling to sit upright on his bed clutching his side.

He laughed as they walked in. "Hi guys, sorry I made you worry "

They were both happy to see that he was okay.

"How do you feel?" Yashiro asked, taking a seat in front of Rando while Rani sat on the bed.

"My sides and chest hurt but I'll live. That aside, how cool was that? We took down armed men and prevented a robbery, or a hostage situation from happening. Also Rani, nice entrance back there. You really saved our butts.

"Yeah, well we need to talk about that Rando, the thing is..." Yashiro said, before Rani cut him off abruptly.

"Yeah it was pretty cool" she said with a bright smile on her face, "and I did nothing really, I knocked both of you out in the process" she scratched her head as she said that.

Rando laughed. "Well, I would've abandoned control if I was in a dire situation too. Remember when the three of us first met?"

Rani thought back to the day they met and remembered Rando punching one of the men who attacked her while he was covered in steel. She smiled at the thought of this.

Yashiro realised Rando was trying to lighten to the mood by not making anyone feel guilty, so he avoided the apology speech he had mentally prepared.

He also noticed that was the same reason Rani cut him off when he was about to tell Rando that they were all in trouble for involving themselves with that robbery.

A few seconds later, a doctor came in to check Rando's condition. She was surprised to see him sitting upright and talking to his friends like his injuries were light.

"Hello, I'm your doctor, Masugi Soba. You shouldn't over exert yourself Mr Yukumi, your injuries are quite severe, you should be resting. Two of your ribs are broken and 2 others are fractured."

"Yeah, I was wondering why my sides hurt so much" he said, with a cheerful smile on his face. Masugi began to walk towards him to show him the x-rays of his chest that were done while he was asleep.

She handed it to him and he went silent for a few seconds after looking at how much damage he recieved.

"Hey doc." He said, with a more serious look on his face now "how long does it take a broken rib to heal?"

She sighed sympathetically before responding because she was aware that entrance exams for various institutions for powered kids were coming up. "It takes about 6 weeks for them to heal on their own. However in other cases with individuals who have powers, I've seen some recover in 4 weeks. Assuming they do not take any damage during the recovery period"

[the entrance exam is in about 3-4 weeks. That means I can't even train or get prepared. I also won't have fully recovered. Ah,this is a mess] he thought to himself before speaking, "isn't there anything I can do to speed up the recover process?"

"Firstly, don't wear tight clothing,it will hinder your breathing. I'm also going to prescribe some powerful pain killers for you. You should also avoid sports or exercises and training that could make breathing difficult for you, but even with all these, healing will still take a few weeks."

"Well there's not much I can do." He turned his attention to Rani and Yashiro, "All I can say is no matter what, we are all getting into the Academy. Also, Shiro, this is not your fault so stop looking so guilty."

After hearing all the doctor had said, Yashiro was unable to hide the guilty expression on his face but Rando's words brought him reassurance.

Rando spoke again,with a very determined smile on his face, "it's fine anyway. I like a challenge"

Masugi smiled, "Well I'm going to leave you three now, Rando I'll check on you later" After she said this, she walked out.

Rando chuckled, "Well, this is going to be interesting "

A few days later, after Doctor Masugi had made sure there weren't any complications of any kind with Rando's health, he was discharged.

As expected, Rani and Yashiro were waiting for him outside the hospital when he left the building.

Rani waved at him with excitement written all over her face.

"Good to see you walking on your feet again" she said, and gave him a very light hug.

Yashiro bumped his fist against his and asked him how he felt.

"I feel slightly better but it still hurts a bit. On the plus side, my arms are fully healed now"

"Yeah and now we have two weeks of community service to look forward to" Yashiro said, jokingly. They had told Rando about what Detective Fuhira said a few days earlier.

"urgh" he groaned, "getting up early to clean the streets sounds so tiring. I'm not looking forward to this at all."

"Well at least it's only 2 weeks. Plus it's not like we won't be able to train" Rani added.

"Speaking of which, what's the plan Rando? It's not like we can train the normal way. What do you suggest we do?" Yashiro asked.

Rando scratched his head and thought for a few seconds before responding.

"Well I think we should do as little combat training as we can. Even though it didn't amount to much, we took part in the tournament which was purely combat based. So I think we should work on our fitness and better usage of our powers.

I can't really do anything else anyway."

"That's a good idea" said Rani and Yashiro nodded in agreement. "Yashiro and I can do a bit of sparring here and there but focusing on controlling or using our powers better sounds like a really good plan."

"Well, let the training commence" Yashiro said, triumphantly.

WEEK 1

Community service ran from 7:30am till 12pm. During that time, with an adult supervising them to make sure they did their jobs right, they cleaned and swept multiple streets.

By the end of it, they were always knackered. They always rested for a few hours and started training at 5pm. They decided to train in a secluded park where only a few people came to.

Rando decided that instead of covering his entire body in steel, he would cover a specific body part, which would mean the resulting steel form would be stronger because it was concentrated on a smaller part of his body.

Yashiro decided he would increase the size of his muscles on more than one body part. He was trying to do both arms at the same time.

Rani set a few targets in front of her some had circles drawn on them, indicating they were civilians and the rest had crosses on them, indicating they were her actual targets and she tried to divert a poisonous mist around the targets with circles on them whilst hitting the ones with crosses on them.

In the first 7 days, the trio made little progress in using their powers better or in Rani's case, controlling it.

Yashiro and Rani also did lengthy runs around the park, to improve their cardiovascular capabilities.

WEEK 2

The trio were glad that it was their final week of community service. During that time, detective Fuhira came to see them to thank them again, seeing as Rando wasn't there the first time he did so. It improved their morale and helped them to get through the week.

In terms of training, some progress had been made.

Rani initially set out 10 targets, randomly spread out between 5 circles, and 5 crosses. She was able to hit all the crosses now but she was still hitting two of the circled targets. Whereas in week one, she was missing some of the cross targets and hitting more circled targets.

Rando was able to cover one of his arms in more dense and powerful steel. However, Yashiro had not been able to increase the size of the muscles in more than one arm. In one of his attempts, he tore multiple muscles in his right arm and was unable to use it properly for a couple of days, which set him back even more. When this happened, Rando teased saying "I thought you didn't get injured anymore?"

WEEK 3

Community service had concluded and the trio now devoted most of their hours to training. Yashiro and Rani sparred everyday, without the use of their powers, while also trying to work on their control.

Rando paid a visit to Doctor Masugi for a check up and she told him his ribs were healing at a very fast rate and should be fully healed by the end of the next week. That wasn't what Rando wanted to hear but he was still grateful to hear and promised he wasn't going to do anything to aggravate the injuries.

He didn't make much progress in trying to cover his other arm in steel, but he kept trying. He was also now able to go on very light jogs and did so multiple times that week.

On the other hand, Yashiro had made really good progress. He was now able to increase the size of both arms simultaneously, though they weren't as big as when he did it on one particular body part, he was very happy with his progress.

Rani succeeded in hitting 5 targets while avoiding the other 5, so she increased the overall targets to 20, covering a much wider area. By the end of the week she was able to hit 10 crossed targets and only 2 circled ones. She was also pleased with how much progress she had made.

WEEK 4(The week of the examination)

They all decided to rest that week so their bodies would heal and they would be fully rested for when the day came. They were nervous because they didn't know what to expect from the examination.

However all the training they had been doing gave them a sense of accomplishment and determination to conquer anything the exam threw at them.