Description: On Principal Brown's demand, Eve meets up with her new trainer, Hayato, as her alter ego Ashley. Certain that this is some kind of evaluation of her skills after she's been out of the field for so long, Eve intends to excel in any tasks given to her by Hayato, no matter the cost.
A few days ago, Eve, known as Ashley Rouge in Taiyo High, has been given specific orders to go meet up with a man named Hayato Nekketsu, who is meant to train and assess the skills of some agents in NESTS.
Eve knew it would come eventually. This was a test of skills, to see if she was worthy. A test to know whether or not it had been a good idea to let her on the field for so long for such an important operation! She had to do her very best, she knew the results of this would be important...
Ashley Rouge the cheerleader made her way to the sport fields at the end of the school day. She knew who was Hayato and had heard of him : a harsh teacher that was liked by his student but was known for his ruthless and relentless ways of training. That, alone, was frightening...
The meek girl makes her way there, arms folded behind her back, tip-toeing a bit on the spot, waiting there for the teacher to come.
Hayato might argue with being characterized as ruthless, but, well, not /all/ of the students love him. The students he works with directly tend to at the very least eventually develop a grudging respect, although outside observers can sometimes take a dim view of him. Most of the student athletes have a pretty positive view of him, though, and his path across the sports fields is far from subtle, accompanied as it is by shouted greetings from students out for training, and hearty shouts back from Hayato.
The teacher is stopped briefly by a couple students for a chat, though after a few moments he shakes his head and excuses himself before making his way over toward where Ashley is waiting. "Ah, Rouge-kun, hello! Glad to finally meet you one-on-one." He's certainly got a friendly enough smile on his face, though he is holding a bamboo sword and idly tapping it against his shoulder while he talks. "I'm sure you know that Principal Brown has asked me to help you out, and I intend to do that. But before we begin, I'd like to know what you're looking to get out of this training."
Once Ashley hears her name, the girl straightens herself up -- she almost seems to assume a stiff military like posture, arms straight by her side, head tilted backward and with shoulders high, "Yes, Hayato-sensei! It's.. It's an honor to be given special training and classes by you, I, huh..." The girl relaxes her posture some, glancing over to the bamboo sword warily.
Ashley bites her lips and she lowers her gaze, almost shamefully. She scratches the back of her head a bit, thinking on what has been lacking with her as of late. Self evaluations were the worst... It always felt like it was a trap question.
"Huh, hum... Well, I think Principal Brown wants me to work up my endurance... And toughness," Ashley says meekly.
Hayato rubs his jaw thoughtfully. "Endurance, is it? Well, we can work with that." He gives Ashley an appraising look as he speaks. For obvious reasons, "Principal Brown" didn't give Hayato the kind of detailed dossiers that NESTS assuredly has on the students Hayato is supposed to be training. They were presented as fairly capable, but that can have a pretty wide range. And while Hayato has no issues sparring with students, throwing a real punch at one (especially a girl) who hasn't demonstrated themselves to be a capable and willing fighter would... it would be a bad idea. Probably very bad.
The phys ed teacher looks up and down the field. "We can start by seeing just what you're capable of now, then. Do some stretches, limber up, and then we'll get going with some laps." And with that, Hayato starts following his own advice, starting out with stretching his legs. He keeps that up for a few moments without speaking, giving Ashley a chance to get started on her own.
Without any complaints, eager to prove herself, Ashley nods her head to Hayato, murmuring a quick, "Yes, Hayato sensei!" Before she gets to the warm-ups. Being a cheerleader, the girl was no stranger to stretching -- after all, they were the best way to prevent injuries during the acrobatics stunts they had to do.
Ashley follows Hayato's lead -- she stretches her legs, until she feels the burn, working her joints. She takes various position, stretching to the limit and then waits for a few moments, before stretching into other postures to work different joints. By the way she's stretching, as it would be expected of a cheerleader, she proves to be fairly flexible.
Once she's done, Ashley goes for a sprint to perform a few laps around the field. She runs at a pace that will allow her pulse to remain steady with the effort.
It seems Hayato wasn't just stretching by way of demonstration, since a few moments after Ashley takes off Hayato also breaks out into a sprint. It doesn't take him long to close a bit of distance between them, and then match Ashley's pace, holding a position a short distance behind her and off to one side. "If we're going to work on your endurance, establishing a baseline is a good way to start. So just keep this up for a while." Notably, Hayato has said nothing about a specific number of laps. He has no intention, at this point, of driving Ashley until she drops from exhaustion, but he DOES intend to keep her running until she's going to have real difficulty keeping it up.
The blonde girl is already breathing softly when Hayato catches up with her. She glances at her side, surprised to see him there and she keeps up. The girl speeds up a bit, if only because he's near her, not wanting to appear to go too slowly. Which might be a mistake, since it slowly drains her vigor and reserves for the longer run, "Okay...!" Ashley says.
With renewed determination, she tries to keep this up, her breathing growing heavier. The girl keeps this up for a long while -- she'll force herself to exhaustion and beyond unless Hayato stops her before that though, for the simple reason she's afraid of not performing well enough and disappointing Hayato, or worse, Principal Brown.
Her level of fatigue shows though, and after a while it might show it's growing more difficult but she keeps on forcing herself by the way she winces and seems more to focus innerly to keep n going.
While keeping pace with Ashley, Hayato is also closely observing her. He notices when she starts to flag, but doesn't say anything then. Someone wanting to push themselves beyond their limits is generally a good thing, and he approves. When she keeps on going, though, a flicker of a frown does cross his face. Normally, by this level of distress a new student would, at the least, be trying to steal a glance at Hayato to see if he's interested in calling a stop. They don't generally keep going without any complaints right from the start. Once they know him and have developed a degree of trust and rapport, sure... He doesn't know what, exactly, is up, but his intuition is saying that something's not quite right here. And it had that to say during his chat with Principal Brown, too, which is all the more suspicious.
Any signs of that thought are quickly dismissed from Hayato's expression, though. He keeps up the pace a bit longer, trying to push Ashley hard, but not all the way up to her limit. "Okay, take a break!" He still sounds cheerful enough, and for his part looks rather less impacted by the exercise than Ashley was. There's definitely some heavier breathing, but he's not showing any signs of actual distress. "I'd say that gives us a pretty good baseline, and we can work from there." But, having let her exhaust herself a bit and perhaps dropped her guard, he continues... "But, Rogue-kun... I did ask what /you/ want to get out of this."
Ashley was a special girl though -- she has been through a lot more hardship than most teenagers have, and has been forced into testing and enduring pain. Running up laps to exhaustion? Compared to some of the medical testing and other experiment, it seemed like it was light suffering. By the looks if it, it doesn't feel like Ashley's going to ask or look back at him pleadingly for this to stop.
However, when she hears Hayato's voice over her shoulder, she slows down her pace to an halt. She knows the normal thing to do would be a walk, but she just needed to take a breather. She rests her hands on her knees, bending over some to try and catch her breath. Ashley tries to ask something, or say something, but it seems lost and incomprehensible in all her panting.
The physical exertion on her body was enough to dull her mental vigiliance some, "I," she takes a breath, "Just," In between each of her words, "Want to... Make you and principal Brown proud of me.." She says.
Well, it's not like Hayato hasn't heard variants on that before. And it can be a good thing, too. There's suspicion gnawing at Hayato, but he doesn't have anywhere near enough to go on, so for now he feels it's best to just take things at face value, but keep an eye on Ashley. "All you need to do for me to be proud is to try your best, regardless of what you accomplish. But I do intend to help you bring out the best effort you can." He flashes a toothy grin.
"Principal Brown has informed me that you're in particularly good health, and capable of standing up to a strenuous training regimen. So, if we're looking to improve your endurance, we'll go with high-itensity interval training. From what I've seen, I think you can handle it every day after school, and we'll see how that works out." Though Hayato has a sneaking suspicion that even if it did seem to be in her best interest to cut back after trying that for a bit, Ashley would object. "For now, you can keep resting up. We'll start with the real training tomorrow."
Still panting, Ashley nods her head a few times. This was what she did all the time -- give all she had, pushing herself to the limits in hope of having, in return, some form of acknowledge to her efforts. It had been the only rewards, the only thing she had been allowed to have most of her life and she clings to those moments preciously. For Hayato to offer her praises by only attempting her best was definately unsettling : doing her best wasn't enough most of the time, if it didn't come with the expected results or even better.
"Yes Hayato sensei... You can always expect me to do my best, no matter what..." The girl nods her head as Hayato tells her what were his plans about him. Eager to prove herself, Ashley shakes her head and she says, "We can start right now," She says, still recovering. She hides her fatigue and buffs her chest a bit, "I mean... If, huh, you want to... sir," Ashley says, averting her gaze from him, speaking in her soft docile soft, "I can take more," She admits.
Hayato gazes thoughtfully at Ashley for a few moments. "Trying to do too much, too fast, can do more harm than good. After that much running, though, you could use a bit of a cooldown. Do another lap, just at a walking pace this time, then some more stretches, and we'll see how things look after that." The teacher taps the shinai idly against his shoulder a few times. "Being able to reach down deep and pull out those extra reserveres... that's a great thing. It can make the difference between victory and defeat. But if you try to do that every day, well, you're just going to destroy yourself."
The blonde girl nods to Hayato's instructions, not complaining in the leash before she gets ready for another lap. She before she leaves for the last run though, she murmurs under her breath, "I would if I had too..." The intonation in her voice sounded like a docile and willing resignation.
She obeys and walks over for the final lap. It helps her recovering her breathing, and by the time she's done with the final lap, she seems to have fully recovered. Her cheeks are still a bit flushed from the strain she forced herself into but she seems relatively fine as she completes the lap with the same stretching exercices she did before her sprint.
Hayato nods approvingly as Ashley finishes her stretches. "Good. I'll expect you at the same time tomorrow. ...And don't worry, you'll have more than enough opportunity to prove that you're capable of pushing yourself to your limits." He grins for a moment, then pauses, looking at her thoughtfully. "Don't think that I'm taking it easy on you by not forcing you past your limit right from the get go. We will find what your limits are, and we will surpass them. We'll just do it without causing you any long-term damage in the process."
"Al... Alright," Ashley says, taking a moment to assess Hayato. The girl was a little unsettled by Hayato's answers, not too sure what to make out of it. Truth be told, in most of her evaluations, she was told whether or not she performed accordingly to expectations. She was clearly critized or praised depending on her performance.
Considering the only thing related to it was a 'good', Ashley's lips curl into a faint, not so confident smile, "See you tomorrow then..." She says with a wave of her head, waiting to see any sign of reprobation in Hayato toward her content expression. Seeing none though seems to make her shine a bit more though, beaming radiantly and buffing her chest proudly as she walks away.
Log created on 19:18:39 01/13/2015 by Eve, and last modified on 07:29:15 01/14/2015.