Chapter Text
She had fallen asleep beside her work of art once again. The girl titled her head slowly to find the alarm clock conveniently placed at the other end of the table, the green numbers read "6:55." Even though she had five minutes left on the clock, Hatsume wasted no time. She fought her stiff back and quickly made for the shower, the outfit for the day was carefully laid out on of her bed, almost as if she had planned to not sleep there.
"Mei?" She heard a familiar voice call from downstairs as she moved across the dark hallway.
"I'm up!" the pink haired girl leaned over the rail.
The car came to a quick stop at the last traffic light, Hatsume rolled down the polarized window to get a better look at the colossal building to the right. This was a dream come true for the girl who had been dreaming of dominating the support tech industry for as long as she could remember. She kept the window down as the black midsize sedan drove through the main gates into the private property. The vehicle came to a complete stop and two seconds later a security officer was standing outside her door.
"Do you require any assistance Ms. Hatsume?" the security officer asked, Hatsume was pleasantly surprised that the officer was a nice lady.
"I'm alright, thank you," she bowed and made her way up the large granite steps.
She took a quick halt when she reached the top.
This was it, after fifteen failed prototypes and hundreds of sleepless nights, the heavy glass doors were finally open to her.
Once inside, she was mesmerized by the image in front of her. Pictures of Pro Heroes hung around the main lobby area like noble house banners, in the middle was a large statue of the white wings that represented the global enterprise. She caught sight of a few random signs as she made her way towards the check-in area.
"No-Smoking," and "No-Soliciting" stood out to her for some reason.
"This feels like I'm at the airport," she complained as she dug out her ID from her bag and handed it to the not-so-nice security officer behind the large black counter.
Everything about this building was spotless. White ceramic floors, spotless navy blue carpets, windows and table tops, it almost looked like no one visited the place. ever.
"This way," a young woman dressed in a gray suit guided her to the elevator.
"This is amazing!" Hatsume stared in awe through the clear glass on the back of the elevator. She held on tight to her briefcase, which had been labeled with an obnoxious neon orange slip that read "Inspected."
"Do everyone's bags get labeled like this at the entrance?" Hatsume knew the answer to the question, but she was unsure of what else to say.
"If you're carrying a purse, you'd get a wristband," the woman explained, "but since you brought in tech equipment, the labeling is different."
"Yeah..." she looked at her briefcase, "I was separated from this baby before."
The woman nodded.
The two women stepped off the elevator, onto a narrow hallway that connected to another circular hallway which extended all around the eleventh floor. They must have been on the floor directly beneath the wings outside. Hatsume would recognize this building anywhere, she knew that right beneath the wings was an outer ring, going around the entire building, her heart beat with excitement as she made the connection. One day she would work here, it was better if she knew every little detail about the place. She continued to follow her guide down the corridor passing multiple wooden doors labelled with an 11 followed by the alphabet. They stopped at 11M.
"Good luck Ms. Hatsume," the woman opened the door.
Hatsume stood in an empty classroom. She had been given instructions to come in at 8:30 and set up her presentation for 9am in room 11M, here she was at 8:45 with everything ready to go.
With fifteen minutes on the clock, the girl stepped outside the room and looked down over the railing, she could see the lobby area below, this place was definitely not for people who feared heights, the girl told herself.
Hatsume looked at the floors directly above and below her, everything looked the same except for an oddly dressed young girl standing diagonal to her on floor 10. The girl appeared to be around Hatusme's age, she had long green hair put together in a fancy braid, it would take Hatsume hours to achieve such hairdo. The stranger appeared to be looking at something in the distance. Upon closer examination she noticed the stranger fidgeting with some kind of gold pendant hanging from her neck. The girl wore a black high-low dress with black pumps and a black shawl, again, Hatsume would never be seen wearing such a thing, no one at U.A would. Suddenly the stranger turned towards Hatsume and made her way to what seemed to be another elevator, this time, Hatsume noticed the black headband with feathers on the girl's head, as well as the jade in the center of the pendant. she watched the girl disappear beneath her and returned to the classroom after concluding that about 10 minutes had passed.
"What?" Hatsume checked her watch against the clock in the classroom. "This can't be!"
Not only was the minute needle of the wall clock still on the 9, but the second count on Hatsume's digital watch had barely changed.