Bakugo had breakfast away from everyone else- plain rice with nori flakes and a glass of tea. No one bothered him, which bothered him. Why is everyone being so distant? Where's Kirishima or Kaminari? He wanted to know and as he was about to talk with them- er, interrupt their walk back to the dorms, he was pulled aside by Midnight Sensei.

"You have an appointment, remember?" She said, voice low, as she nodded off towards the end of the hallway.

Bakugo frowned. It was pointless to avoid counseling. Hell, if SHOTO TODOROKI could do it- why couldn't he?! He paused his thoughts for a second, as he followed Kayama down the hallway. Shit. Why couldn't he? By now she was a good couple of yards in front of him and he sidled up beside her, taking angry long steps to reach her first.

"You're giving me my book back, right?" Katsuki asked.

"Depends." Nemuri said, trying to give an answer that wouldn't promise anything.

They walked the rest of the way in silence and finally Bakugo stepped inside the office and took his regular seat. She pushed a large potted plant in front of the door this time. Hm. A challenge to slow down any escape attempts he might pull.

nightmares. lay on the table in front of him with Midnight's hand clamping it flush against the table's surface. Bakugo's attention snapped away from the multitude of potted plants around the office. She really liked plants.

"Are you giving it back to me?" Bakugo asked.

Kayama slid it off the table top and took a seat, running her thumbpad over the spine of the book. "That probably won't happen." She said, honestly. "I first want to ask permission to look inside."

Katsuki looked at his counselor, mistrust in his eyes. There were a few bad outcomes possible- if she looked inside and didn't like what she saw, she might just toss it… Regardless, he allowed it and watched as she read the pages that fell into deeper and deeper disregard for margins and lines.

The first line where she stopped her finger read something disturbing… KILL YOUR CLASS.

He didn't remember writing that. Was that something in his dissociations? He swallowed, facing it in reality- he didn't know. She snapped the book closed and stood. Bakugo swallowed. He was afraid to speak but willed the words out.

"Are you sending me to the hospital?" He asked, watching as she grabbed a pen and a tablet of lined yellow paper. She shook her head and held up a finger for silence before coming back to sit in front of him.

"Katsuki, do you remember writing that? What you meant?" Midnight asked, concern written on her face.

Bakugo looked at the floor in shame. No. He had no memory of it or even what it meant. When she handed over the pen and tapped on the paper, Katsuki began to understand. She was trying to get him to recreate it- the feeling- the nightmare.

The pen felt heavy in his hand. He weighed it by bouncing it in his palm a few times before he spun it around his thumb and caught it in a writing position. He tapped the point against the first line and closed his eyes. He saw Shigaraki's moronic face, twisted in evil delight when the hood first came off Bakugo's head. He opened his eyes and looked down.

Nothing.

"Don't worry about the paper for a minute." Midnight assured. "Just answer my questions to the best of your ability and capacity." She paused. "What did you see?"

"Tomura Shigaraki." Katsuki answered, voice low.

"What did you feel?"

Feel. That was where things went wrong. Sure, he could see anything he damn wanted to, but it was when he started to feel things that he got scared. That's usually when he would urinate in fear at night. It was the parts of the dreams where he could almost touch a vision in a flashback that scared him… because although he could almost many a time- he knew when he actually could… it was most likely real.

But it wasn't. Nothing was real. Kayama Sensei reminded him many times and so as she asked questions, he closed his eyes and let his pupils roll under the hood of his eyelids.

Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. His eyes were closed, but he knew that he was searching- and quickly. It became foggy and then it became so realistic, he could almost feel it. There he went, down, down, down, back and forth, looking. He found it.

"So, you're back with us. Hope your lungs are okay." Tomura said, snidly. "Chloroform. It's a bitch."

Bakugo refused to cough and so he gagged, bitter and acrid vomit in his mouth. He wanted to spit at Shigaraki, but he couldn't. He could only drool. The muscles in his face were mostly numb, still and his throat? Lost cause trying to speak. It burned like he had swallowed a live wire that was barbed with razor pointed edges. He threw up again in his mouth and swallowed it with painful force.

"Where am I?" He squeaked out.

Shigaraki laughed. "With friends, I assure you. And I hope you'll be good for us because we went through oh so much trouble trying to get you."

Back in reality, Midnight was reading Bakugo's writing.

WhERe aM i?

She called out to the teen. "Katsuki. You're at school."

Bakugo heard it echo through his head and he looked for the sound. Tomura told him to ignore the voice, and afraid of the punishment, he did. He turned back to Shigaraki.

"Okay. So if you're my friends, why am I all chained up?" Katsuki forcibly whispered; voice hoarse.

"Because…" Came a voice from behind him. "We need to be able to trust you."

It sounded like that guy he had heard in dreams before.

"Shut it, Twice! I'm talking!" Tomura whined like a kid. Bakugo wanted to laugh, though it sickened him.

TwICe Is tALKiNg tO Me nOW.

"Twice?" Kayama asked. "Who's that?"

But it was no use. Katsuki had decided to block her out. There was no hearing her now.

Midnight looked at her clipboard. She had everyone's staff schedule. Someone had to wake the kid up. Damn it! She knew she needed Mic, but he was off today. He was probably with Aizawa. She grabbed her phone and called him.

Eraserhead and Present Mic came, pushing the door in forcefully. She had not moved the plant, but nonetheless, they slipped in through the crack and shut the door, quietly.

Yellow pages littered the desk. The pen's outer metal was red hot and the spot on the couch, where Bakugo was gripping was burning away, slowly. The teen was sweaty and covered in vomit.

dOn'T TelL ThEM tHaT

AlL mIGhT DeAD

THE kiDS arE tHE Target.

Mole IN ThE SsHoOl

TOMura ShiGaRAKi

Hizashi frowned and clicked off his hearing aids. He walked up to Bakugo and frowned, looking upon the kid with pity and pointed. Aizawa nodded.

"Now." He overpronounced and signed, for his Deaf husband. He didn't have his headphones on to assist him with his hearing. They had been… romantically occupied… as lovers sometimes are, when they got the call and now both had to get dressed and get to campus.

"WAKEEEEEEEEEEE UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!" Mic screamed before stepping back.

Aizawa pulled his hair out of his bun and with dilated and red eyes, stopped the combusting boy's quirk.

Bakugo came back and spat up the last of his drool before looking around and passing out.

With hearing aids clicked back on, Hizashi Yamada tied his hair up into a bun and talked with Nemuri.

"What happened? What is this?" He asked, looking over the papers with Midnight.

"His flashbacks, apparently." She said. "No one realized just how bad this kid's are."

Aizawa arrived back into the room with a fresh shirt and a cool rag and prepared to wake the boy. He placed the rag on the teen's forehead.

"Get up, kid, you've puked on yourself."

Bakugo opened his eyes and slowly blinked before changing. He stripped off his shirt and took the wet rag off of his forehead to wipe down his chest and abdomen. There was a lot of sweat behind his neck, too. Then he tried to stand.

"Not yet." Aizawa ordered, as Kayama Sensei helped him lay back down, lengthwise on the couch. They chucked the shirt and rag in a plastic bag and Mic left to go throw it in the staff laundry, back in the dormitories. Aizawa asked for a moment alone with his student. Sympathetically, Kayama left her own office for a moment to go and show the papers to Nezu.

"Why'd you send her away?" Katsuki asked, sitting up.

"Katsuki." Aizawa said, understandingly. "It's okay to cry."

"Now why the fu—" Bakugo began to object, but it was too late. He was already crying. He curled himself into a ball and let the sobs shake him. Shota placed a hand, awkwardly, on the boy's back and rubbed a small circle.

"It's okay to cry, problem student. It's okay. I'm going to make sure you know that it is perfectly fine. I can't promise you won't see them again, but I'll help take them down… or I'll die trying."

Bakugo lifted his head and shook it sadly, side-to-side. "No. No more hurting the ones I love. If someone's going to be the hero, it's going to be me."

Suddenly, Aizawa stiffened. "Don't let me hear something like that out of you ever again. Just cry. Just be scared. Just be here, okay, problem student?"

A nod. Another sniffle. Kayama came back in an unzipped her sleeve. Aizawa held his breath. And just like that- Bakugo was asleep.