Ken has nightmares.
She pretends the whole never sleeping thing is just a funny quirk about her, that she likes staying up for hours when it's quiet and staring out into the window.
And she does like it!
But she doesn't do it because she likes it.
Sometimes, when she goes to sleep, she feels dead again.
Describing that feeling is hard, because humans aren't meant to...feel it. To consider it through their five senses, because you don't have a body anymore. You're—
You're nothing.
It isn't a floating black abyss. It's nothing. And you are nothing. And that feeling feels so terrible and final.
She woke up, after it, in a four year old's body and something else than what she was before, but when she sleeps it's just nothing. So much nothing she wakes up wanting to dry heave and tear herself out of her body.
She knows she wasn't supposed to come back.
Her consciousness, that is.
It had turned into something else after a few years as Kenzo and not who she was before, but the ties to where she should be remain. Things that die are meant to stay dead, no matter how attached she is to this new body and her new reality.
So yes. When she sleeps she vividly reimagines not existing, and when she's awake she strives to avoid sleeping.
"Why don't you tell me about your dreams, Yukimura-kun?"
Fuck.
Ken shrugs. "Same as anyone else, I suppose. One time I dreamt I was in Minecraft, though."
Dr. Okabe stares at her.
Ken stares back.
She should tell the truth, for her mental health.
...but which version of it?
"Bakugo-kun?" Okabe asks the blonde boy on the couch beside her.
"This is fucking stupid."
Good old Bakugo. She can always trust him to take the attention.
"Some say that dreams are the mind's way of working through what happens in the waking," Okabe says conversationally, tapping his bluejay beak. "I thought it would be interesting to talk about together."
Ken looks up at the ceiling, tracing the off white tiles with her eyes.
"I dream that I'm dead," Ken says, tone bland.
Her heart pounds.
Fuck. Great. That's going in the file. Do you want to be cleared for field work by the time you graduate? Dumbass.
Bakugo's head jerks beside her, presumably looking at her in his version of shock.
"Why do you think you dream that you're dead, Yukimura-kun?" Okabe says, tone still nothing but conversational.
Ken sighs, looking back down and taking in Okabe's bright plumage. "Because I don't want to die."
Therapy is going great.
"Thank you for your honesty, Yukimura-kun. How about you, Bakugo-kun?"
—
Katsuki stands outside the door of Dr. Okabe's office, staring at Yukimura.
She glances over at him, lifting an eyebrow.
"What?"
"You suicidal or some shit?"
The silence is choking.
"If I wanted to die," Yukimura says, tone so serious it takes him aback. "I would be dead. What, do you want me to pry into your inferiority complex?"
Katsuki sneers, shoulder checking her as he storms past her. "Fine! Fucking forget I asked!"
By the steps he hears behind him, she's following anyways. They live in the same dorm.
"You have no tact," Yukimura says behind him, like he cares. "Come on, Bakubaka, backing down when someone matches the heat?"
Katsuki stops in the middle of the hallway and turns suddenly on her, looming with his hands clawed, ready to explode.
" Do you wanna go, Raccoon Eyes?! "
Yukimura stares, face blank. She doesn't even flinch.
"Hm," She hums, idly, as if she's not being threatened. "You do realize fighting is a suspension worthy offense, right?"
"Do you think I give a fuck?"
Something in her expression twitches, and it almost makes Katsuki falter, and then it's gone.
"I'll spar with you, with teacher supervision, if you want," Yukimura says, before walking around him. "No quirks? I need the experience, and I think the only way you work through your trauma is hitting things."
Katsuki scoffs, forcing his burning hands into fists and trying not to remember choking in slime and metallic goop.
" Whatever . Tell Aizawa-sensei it's for therapy or some shit."
"I'll tell him you said that."
—
Aizawa Shota stares on at his student.
"Denied," He says, tired eyes dry and unblinking on the girl.
Yukimura grimaces.
"Bakugo is gonna get his fight with someone regardless, Sensei, and I'd prefer it be supervised. Are you sure we won't have any sparring in the next week at Hero Training?"
They have a little guest appearance with the big three on Friday, not that he can tell her that, but…
Ugh. He hates going back on his decisions. Why is it always one of those three. Between Yukimura, Bakugo, and Midoriya he's going to grow grey hairs before forty.
Probably especially Midoriya, with that haphazard quirk use.
Damnit, at least he can trust Yukimura to keep Bakugo from blowing up the school.
Yukimura must see the change of heart in his face, somehow, and almost loosens, always underlying tenseness falling away, just a bit.
"Don't get too excited, this is a one time reconsideration."
"Of course, Sensei. Appearances to keep."
"Get out of here, Yukimura," Shota says, sighing, waving her out of his classroom and onto one of the Hero Training gyms for the day. She needs the hand to hand experience anyways, and clearly Bakugo hasn't discovered more healthy coping mechanisms yet besides hit it out.
And he's proven right the second he starts pairing people off for quirkless hand to hand, ignoring mutations.
"Get ready to die, Raccoon Eyes!"
"You're real dramatic for second in the year, Bakubaka."
Aizawa observes most of the spars equally, Midoriya and Hagakure ending up a more interesting matchup thanks to Hagakure's new training routine centered on evasion and agility, and Midoriya's hard hitting tank based attacks. But keeps a special eye on his matched problem children for possible breakdowns.
Yukimura, despite her challenge aversion, took to martial arts far quicker than the average first year with minimal previous experience. ( Though he doubts it's none. Her natural instincts are street brawling tactics that he's far too familiar with. All he can hope is the little delinquent stopped those habits after joining UA. )
Bakugo, in contrast, has all the trappings of a student shoved into training the second they developed their powerful quirk and an interest in Heroics. He's good, just like he is in everything else he does. A prodigy.
But what they share is a heavy reliance on their quirks. Which makes for interesting viewing.
Yukimura dodges a heavy kick, grabbing for Bakugo's leg. Bakugo let's her, cussing, only to drag them both to the ground in what's really probably an illegal maneuver involving some mid air acrobatics he's so prone to when exploded high up in the air. Yukimura awkwardly jabs him in the nose, attempting to twist out from under his legs, insults spilling out all the while.
"What was that, second place at the sports festival?!" Bakugo shouts, trying to get her into an arm bar.
"I'll jab you right in the family jewels and end your bloodline here," Yukimura says back, in a faux pleasant voice. She manages to tumble out from under the boy in the process.
"Language," Shota calls, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "And no cheap shots in spars, Yukimura."
"Sorry for the inconvenience!" Yukimura and Bakugo are now playing a game of ' who can land a punch tackle on the other? '.
Shota turns, and sees Todoroki Shoto has finished his fight with Sato Rikido, and is staring contemplatively at the tumbling teens.
"Sensei, I call Yukimura next."
Shota can already feel the headache coming on.
—
Shota watches in real time when his student realizes how her opponent's quirk works.
Togata Mirio and his fellow "Big Three" members were a good choice to help teach the first years their power difference. How much they had to learn, and how thinking deeply about how to utilize their quirks could lead to great success.
As is, one of Shota's problem children stops, mid fight stance, looking at how her class's opponent shifts beneath the ground, and her face falling into one of bland despair.
"Sensei, can I sit this one out?" Yukimura Kenzo asks Shota, voice bland.
"Aw, are you scared firsty?" Mirio says, popping his head out of the ground in front of her. "It's okay, you should try anyways!" He declares, a thumbs up jutting out of the ground.
"No," Kenzo says, looking down at him. "I think I would limit my fellow students in this exercise."
Yes, with her pinpoint accurate metal manipulation, well, let's just say mirio may be less of an opponent to her than her classmates. Which is unfortunate, he'd make a good sparring partner for her.
Mirio tilts his head, then laughs. "We'll see!"
He shoots out of the ground, aiming a punch at the girl's abdomen, only to suddenly shoot away from her, Kenzo standing calmly in her gym uniform, barely phased, and the boy only stopping at the other side of the gym.
"Wait, how?" Tamaki Amajiki says, head whipping around from where he'd been facing the wall, staring at his fallen classmate.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Kenzo says, tugging at the collar of her jacket. "Yukimura Kenzo. My Quirk is Minor Metal Manipulation."
"He's naked and intangible," Tamaki says, eyebrows furrowed.
"Intangible doesn't mean it stops existing," Kenzo says with a sigh. "His body, I mean. I have no clue what it's doing but he's still got iron in his blood and I can still give it a little tug."
There's a long silence at her words.
" Nooooo! " Denki cries, whining. "Sensei nerf Ken, she's not saving enough for the rest of us."
"And with that , I wander back to sensei to spar without quirks," Kenzo says, trailing back to Shota, who stares in disapproval.
"Get back to it, Togata," Shota says, waving the befuddled golden retriever of a boy off, pointing to his remaining victims- er , students.
"Sensei, life is very hard for me," Kenzo says in greeting.
"How about I turn off your quirk and throw you back at Togata," Shota says, deadpan.
"I am so blessed, Aizawa-sensei. Really. Everyday I awake with joyous wonder at my luck," Kenzo switches, giving a blank faced thumbs up.
Shota sighs.
"This is a good problem to have, you realize?" Shota says, watching from the corner of his eye as Togata slams a fist into Sero. "How would you prevent me from turning off your quirk?"
Kenzo frowns.
"Blind you, but you've been training to prevent that for years, so make sure you've been secured to the ground with a couple hundred pounds of metal first," She says, shrugging.
"Can you sense where I am?" He asks.
Kenzo frowns, again, it's almost her default face at this point. "About as well as I can sense anyone else. You're like...how do I describe this, you're a mass of moving metal, so, yeah? If you mean from like, twelve blocks away, it gets a little dodgy if I don't know where specifically. Then again your usual outfit has a lot of metal fibers interwoven, I mean, a lot of superheroes do, and villians, so you'd be-"
"So yes," Shota interjects. "You could."
"Yeah," Kenzo agrees as Midoriya Izuku tries to hit Togata. "I could."
"From now on, I want you to pay attention to me and your fellow students, and see if you can start to recognize the differences," Shota hums. "That could be invaluable on the field."
Kenzo nods, looking back at her classmates getting their ass kicked. "Got it, Sensei."
He hopes she does, while he doesn't want her to think she's in charge of keeping her classmates safe, she is one of the most skilled of them yet, and these problem children need every tool at their disposal. Especially with the moves the League is making.
Aizawa grabs his eyedrops and applies them, just as Togata finishes slamming the last student.
—
"Soooo…"
Yukimura Kaito gets a glare from everyone in the room for his egregious sin of speaking , especially from that Dabi idiot, or staple face as he's dubbed him in his head. He doesn't know what shat in his cereal but he's not enjoying the energy directed at him.
"What, Metalhead?" Shigaraki asks, using a tone that probably implies he doesn't want to know.
"Why are you keeping me around again?" Kaito asks, scratching at his scruffy beard. "I mean, I get wanting to know how my dearest daughter's quirk works, buuuut…" He trails off, because while he's curious he's not going to imply he's not useful past that point. He has no interest in being turned to dust, or ash in Staple Face's case, who seems to be openly considering it right now.
"I have plans for you," Shigaraki says, ominously, not even looking at him. "And unfortunately for me, sometimes you have to grab subpar characters until you can get better ones."
Kaito feels like he should be offended, no, no he's pissed. His therapist said to not always act on his aggression though, and so he'll...manage it. Let's viscerally imagine hitting Shigaraki with his bat instead!
His bat he can't find. His bat that is probably with his shit family, who have obviously left their old family home.
Urghhh, manage your rage Kaito.
"May I ask what those plans are, boss? " Kaito says instead of doing something unwise, ever placid tone cheerful.
Damn, he doesn't make a good muzzled dog, authority isn't his...thing. His last boss was ten years ago, and he- well. Let's just say the guy had a lovely funeral. Closed casket, of course.
"None of your concern, shit stain, " Staple face hisses, the air around him getting hot.
"Keep your chill, Dabi," Shigaraki says, eyes narrowed at the man.
"Just let me burn him up a little, he'll still have arms to move metal with," Staple Face says, like he doesn't have metal all in his head. Kaito could move a finger and-
"No."
Shigaraki and Staple Face make long and meaningful eye contact.
"Tch." Staple Face looks away first. "If your kid doesn't gut you first, I will."
Ahhhh, that's it, the fuck doesn't like...more hands on parenting. Psh, Kenzo would never, she doesn't have it in her.
…
For a moment, he visualizes being on the floor, all the kitchen knives in the house hovering over him and Kenzo in her middle school uniform, about to stomp on his face.
...probably.
"Ken-chan isn't the gutting type, last letter she sent mentioned she had all As at her little hero school, isn't that nice?"
"She sent you letters?" The insane one, Toga Himiko asks, eyes wide.
"Yes, very dutiful daughter, a big fan of gloating," Kaito says with a false sense of pride in his voice. "She had a very good sense of humor, that girl."
Suddenly, the door opens in the warehouse they're in, and the plot thickens.
Kaito fucking hates Yakuza.