Have a good read
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A Day After The Race
Inside of a team room, the trio of Ego, North, and Charles were sitting around, doing their own things.
Ego was writing in his clipboard as usual, taking the time to glance up and look at North before going back to writing. His usual clothing was replaced by a blue suit and black jeans, the fluorescent light reflected off of his glass, bouncing it back to the wall.
Charles was trying to balance a pencil on his noise, his left eye was closed from the pencil falling on it. The rubber end was towering over his sight, blocking the ceiling light above him. The orange shirt shifted with each movement he made, his khakis shuffled against the chair as he shifted to the right slightly.
North was sitting on a chair, his face was filled with a slight grimace of annoyance. His eyes were locked onto his foot which was wrapped around by white bandages, the annoying words that Charles had written on it borrowed into his eyes.
The reason for North having bandages was due to the after effects of the race, his body was not used to the sudden changes in styles that it was unfamiliar with and the body part that took the brunt of the damage was his legs. The muscles inside were overwhelmed by the changes, his muscles had teared in his calves while his achilles was severely fatigued.
His foot had bruises forming on it from the pressure and strength that North had used, and the usage of Oguri's style had caused his hips to feel pain whenever he tried to bend.
They had been inside of the room for a while at this point, the reason North was even here was because Ego had called him over and when he arrived, Charles was already here as well.
The sound of a pencil rubbing against smooth wood eventually ended as the sound of Ego's voice cut the silence. "So, I have finished writing a report on your status during the race."
With Ego's words, both Charles and North looked over to him and saw him holding a piece of paper up. Charles was the closest, and could stand up, so he got up from his chair and looked at the paper.
[Speed A+, borderline S; Power A, possible A+; Stamina A, likely higher; Guts A-]
"Holy…That is a big jump." Charles spoke out, his voice showing the surprise he had.
"Let me see." North said.
Charles handed the paper over, letting North see the stats he had during the race. His eyes widened from the sudden jump.
Ego nodded his head, understanding their surprise. The jump wasn't small especially for what North had only touched. 'It would've been understandable if he had fully awakened the Zone but he didn't, only touched it.'
Keeping his thoughts to himself, he handed another piece of paper over to Charles, waving it in front of his face to get his attention.
"What's this?" Grabbing the paper, Charles quickly read the words on it. The paper was filled with information of the current status of North and how he would develop after he fully healed.
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{Injury status}
[Speed B-; Power C-; Stamina A-; Guts S-]
{After Injury, potential}
[Speed A+; Power A-; Stamina A; Guts S]
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Charles' eyes widened from shock, the level of this jump was far higher than he originally guessed, if he had to say something about the jump, it would be on the level of the average pre-awakened Zone user. Yet this was from someone who only touched it, not even scratching the surface.
Those stats would put him on the level of a G1 racer in Japan, his previous stats were only barely good enough to get a placement in a G2 race. With just this jump alone, if he were to fully awaken, his stats would let him be on the level of a racer that can define a generation.
With his guess, Oguri's lowest stat is an S-, and that was already a monster of a racer who also underwent an awakening.
'This is great.' Charles' face had a giant smirk soon appear on it but he quickly forced it away, making sure to keep his composer. Something that Ego caught.
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2 Weeks Later
"Remind me why I can't train?" The voice of North sounded out, he was sitting inside of Trainer Ego's office, watching as Ego filled out paper work.
Charles was somewhere else, doing whatever he was doing, leaving him alone with Ego. It has been a while since it was just them.
Ego, who was writing something, looked up from his paper work. "Because you need to learn how to use that skill you learned."
"?What do you mean?" North tilted his head slightly, his shoulder length hair bobbed to the right and his ears wiggled with confusion.
Ego sighed, the tiredness of paper leaving his body. "The skill you used during the race."
North squinted his eyes, his tail slightly florashed as he tried to remember. The feeling of death and the sudden strength were the things he mainly remembered but there was also the faint sense of being someone else.
"!" With a face that screamed that he remembered, North nodded his head. Ears bobbing up and down.
Seeing that North finally remembered, Ego let out a small breath. "I noticed that during the race, you seemed to be falling in and out of the things you copied. When you copied Storm Sea, you noticeably struggled with maintaining it due to it being wildly different from the style you use, and there was the moment when you decided to copy different parts of different styles and put it into one which caused your body to be overloaded with strain."
Ego grabbed the bottled water in his desk, taking a sip from it to parch his drying throat. "What I am planning for you to do instead of training, is for you to learn different styles and how they work so you have a wider basis of information on how to use your body and how well you can copy something."
North thought about the reasoning, remembering the strain that he felt after the race. He had to take painkillers so that he could even perform in the after race concert, which now that he thought about it, he didn't have a personal race wear and was just using the standardized uniform.
Thoughts for another time, he thought to himself as he shrugged to himself. He eventually noticed that Ego was looking at with confusion, his eyes slightly widened with embarrassment as he finally got back to reality.
"Alright, it sounds good." North said, agreeing with Ego's plan.
'This kid..' Ego just softly rolled his eyes before going back to working on the paper work he had. Sometimes he wished that he didn't choose this profession and had gone into soccer/football instead.
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"Hey Oguri." A slightly boyish yet undeniable female voice called out to the Ashen gray Uma. The source of the voice was the silver haired Fujimasa March who was sitting on the bench belonging to the park, her white shirt was faintly covered by the open sky blue jacket. Her legs were crossed as she stared at the Ashen Gray Uma, her heterochromatic eyes shining from the soft light of the sun.
"What is it March?" Oguri turned her head, letting March see the chipmunk cheeks of hers. Her hands were being occupied by 4 different flavors of soft served icecream, each having a chunk missing from the top. Her lips that would've been softly red were instead covered with the different colored flavors.
Oguri was wearing a plain set of clothing, a white shirt with black shorts on top of her leggings. It was reminiscent of what she wore when she first met Kitahara Joe, just thinking about those times made her feel warm from the memories.
March was looking at Oguri with a slight exasperated and tired look, her eyelids softly falling as she left out a sigh. The sight of her rival eating and when she races were a constant contrasting reminder of how racing can affect someone. She continued to look at her, Oguri just staring back as well, her voice being stuck in her mind.
Oguri just watched with a confused stare, taking another bite of the ice cream as she watched March sigh, the breath being just as tired as she was. Oguri had been training with March before deciding to take a break, Oguri was quick to find a cart that was giving out ice cream.
"Have you seen the latest race of Hayate?" March's voice quickly stopped the staring contest they were having, Oguri just softly nodded before she fully took in the words March had said.
"Yeah, why?" Oguri asked, she knew what March was going to speak about but she wanted to hear what March thought.
"He seemed to have grasped something." March's voice became somewhat soft, the usual sternance in her voice letting up whenever she was talking about North. "It seemed to be similar to that state you had during your last race against Tamamo-san."
"Yeah…." Oguri's voice trailed off, the memories of the race entered her mind. The adrenaline and happiness during the race still were strong despite the time that had passed.
She thought about the race, how she felt, how she was told she looked. The memories slightly harmonized with the sight of North in the race, then there was the faint purple that she saw from the T.V..
"But it's not the same." Oguri continued, despite the similarities, there was a distinct difference between her and him. The feeling that she got and when she saw the others when they awakened their Zone was far stronger than what she was getting from North, yet there was the feeling of faint danger that she was feeling in her gut, something was telling her that North could get dangerous.
"Indeed, even if I hadn't awakened the Zone, I can tell that it is different from you." March said, her eyes glancing up in the sky.
Oguri's eyes looked away from the ice cream in her hand, looking at March's distant gaze. "But the feeling is making me excited."
Oguri's voice caught March's attention, the sound of excitement in her voice was extremely strong. As March looked over to Oguri, she saw Oguri with a glint in her eyes and a slightly sadistic smile.
March looked at her, a slight smile appeared on her own face, nodding her head with the same excitement Oguri was giving her.
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I hope that you guys enjoyed the last part, and the reason for why he only slightly touched the Zone will become important later
Also his copying ability has to be trained.
Have a good day