The first thing that Izuku had to do on Tuesday was go and get his arm and head healed. He'd not slept very well, that must have been why they told people not to sleep with a concussion. Per the instructions from the internet, he'd waited at least three hours before going to sleep, and Inko had been carefully monitoring him when he was asleep. Overall, it wasn't a very fun time, but he was about to get all patched up and, hopefully, have a normal day at school. Izuku knew that was asking for a lot after the disastrous day that was supposed to be orientation, and the clusterfuck that had been his actual first day, but a boy could dream, couldn't he? With the pleasant thought to quietly prepare himself for another shitshow like the battle trial, Izuku said goodbye to his mother and set off that morning toward UA to get healed and then inevitably need it once again by the end of the day.

On the train to UA, Izuku noticed that people were staring at him, and it made a shiver run down his spine. He was used to getting stares, but those stares were usually from his classmates, and those stares usually meant pain. No, these were complete strangers staring at Izuku, and it seemed to be some kind of respect, if not awe, in their eyes, not malice or anything negative. Izuku didn't know how to deal with that. It was absolutely because he was wearing UA's uniform, and he couldn't help but wonder if that's all they saw. Izuku wondered how they'd look at him if they knew his Quirk, his story. Would they still see the uniform, or would they see the boy wearing it? Izuku didn't know, and that tugged at his heart the whole ride to school.

He arrived at school an hour early, which was fine and not at all responsible for Izuku's wish to just skip school today, as opposed to seeing Bakugou after yesterday's whole fiasco. Trying to put that whole mess out of his mind, Izuku went right to Recovery Girl's nurse's office. It was a small space in the very centre of the school, so if anything went wrong, everyone knew where to go. Izuku hadn't needed to go there while conscious so far, so he still somehow got lost. When he did end up figuring out where to go, he came face to face with Recovery Girl, All Might in his true form and Aizawa, who seemed to have been silently waiting for him. He paused at the door, wondering why so many people were here for what should've been a quick healing. Luckily, he didn't have to ask, because Aizawa stood and began talking when he opened his mouth.

"Whenever something of this severity happens, an incident report has to be filed. Among other things, incident reports require statements from all involved parties. We got Bakugou's yesterday, but we still need yours. So, sit down and tell us exactly what happened," Aizawa said.

Izuku walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it, trying to think of where to begin. They likely only needed to know about the battle trial itself, not the whole mess before it, so he wouldn't talk about how just hearing All Might had sent him into a full-blown panic attack. He recalled the events of the day before in his head, running through what he remembered of the events for a moment as the room fell silent. Izuku then turned to the teachers and began.

"The battle trial started, and because I'd wasted my prep time, I dove in head first without much of a plan. I left Uraraka to deal with Iida, and gave her some advice about going for his legs," Izuku started.

"Why is that?" All Might asked.

"Why did I waste time, or why go for the legs?" Izuku asked back.

"The legs."

"Well, I reasoned that, while his legs are his most powerful weapon, they're also the part of him that would be the easiest to get with Uraraka's Quirk. Her Quirks relies on touch, and so I thought that her best bet would be to wait until Iida goes for a kick, and then catch him in it when he gets near her, specifically when he kicks, because all she has to do is touch him and he's weightless. And that did work, apparently, but he used it to his advantage by becoming a human pinball," Izuku explained.

"That's a good plan. It failed, but that was only because of things you couldn't control, and it did buy your team time. Not bad," Aizawa grumbled.

Izuku took a moment to stare at him, as that was just a compliment from the 'I'll expel you if you're not good enough' guy, but he shook himself out of it. He got back on his train of thought and continued with his statement.

"Anyway, I immediately began thinking of a plan for Bakugou. I had nothing but the environment around me, and so when we met in the staircase and we both froze, I Decimated a piece of the wall behind me and hid the remains in my hand to hide it from him. Then, when he came closer, I threw it in his face to blind him for a bit. It was cowardly, and not very heroic, but I couldn't think of anything else at the time," Izuku said.

"I wouldn't call that cowardly. I'd call that resourceful," All Might said, once again blowing Izuku away. What had gotten into them?

"I agree. Sometimes, when you're going up against someone with a more immediately useful Quirk than yours, you have to get creative, and you did just that. What next?" Aizawa said.

"Well, I tried to Decimate the landing above us so that it would fall and pin him, but I couldn't reach," Izuku tried his best not to flush from embarrassment at admitting he was short. "So, I did the next best thing. I ran up the stairs and Decimated them just enough to cause problems with the structural integrity, but not enough to destroy them outright. When Bakugou chased after me, it was his weight that caused the collapse. He fell and had to take a minute working up to a big enough blast to get him back up to the landing I'd left cleared for myself," Izuku continued.

"That was also a good play. I did think it was a little odd that you'd waste time like that with the jump, but now it's easy to see it was a botched attack. Your move with the stairs was a good one, it shows the mastery of your Quirk I saw in the Quirk evaluations the other day. When you used your Quirk to bypass the testing mechanism, it showed me you were smart, and this is just reaffirming that. You knew just how much to apply your Quirk to get what you wanted, and that takes an intelligence that is rare in heroics," Aizawa said.

"If this is true, Young Midoriya, you have an incredible eye for strategy. I was going to address your demonstration in the battle trial, but hearing that you broke Aizawa's tests just confirms it. You should be immensely proud of yourself," All Might rambled.

Izuku saw what All Might was doing. He wasn't sure, but he suspected that Aizawa might've been doing it as well. They were compensating for what had happened. They had to be, there was no way they'd just flip like that and think he wouldn't notice. They were going on about how smart he was, so of course they knew he'd notice. Izuku stared at All Might, not acknowledging the praise, and levelled a blank look at him.

"Stop," he said shortly.

"Stop … what?" All Might asked.

"I don't need your praise to feel good about myself. I know that I'm capable. I know my own intelligence. Do you think I'm some fragile thing that can't hold myself together without constant praise? We may have gotten off on the wrong foot, but I don't want you to baby me. I've been short with you two in the past, but that's because you treated me like I wasn't capable, or like I didn't know what I was talking about. Just treat me like any other smart, able person and I'll be perfectly okay with that. All I want is to be like everyone else. Is that so hard?" Izuku said, but he lost steam by the end and his plea for normalcy ended up more like whining, and he hated it.

"Of course. I just—I meant—we … excuse me," All Might said, and got up to leave.

Aizawa watched All Might go with a strange expression on his face. It was a cross between confusion and disbelief, if Izuku was reading it right, and he had to fight to keep a smile off his face. It looked like All Might hadn't told the other teachers about their connection, but that was to be expected. How does one tell their coworkers that they let a fourteen year old learn national secrets that villains would kill for? They can't. That was why Izuku didn't particularly blame All Might for keeping it quiet, though he did still harbour that anger when thinking about that day.

"Do you want me to continue, or does he have to be here?" Izuku asked the still shocked Aizawa.

"Continue," the teacher said, finally taking his eyes off the door.

"Right. So, Bakugou mustered the strength to launch himself and got back up to the landing, and that's when I … froze. I completely gave up, I lost all control over my body and felt this overwhelming sense of dread wash over me like cold water. I'd felt it a few times before the trial, too, leading up to it, but that was the one that made me unravel. Bakugou just triggered something in me that I couldn't escape. He backed me into a corner, and that's when the match ended, but Bakugou wasn't finished. He used his Quirk and attacked me, even after he'd won, but when that didn't do it he tried his gauntlet to finish the job, and—" Izuku abruptly stopped talking to hide how his voice had started shaking. His hands, too, were trembling in his lap, and his cheeks felt slightly wet.

He couldn't describe how he'd felt at that moment. Terrified, scared and hurt, obviously, but there was an odd sense of calm that had overcome Izuku in that final moment, when everything had become so clear to him, almost like he'd been more aware than normal, more able to think when he'd accepted his situation. Is that what he had done? Laid down to die? He knew now that he'd seen it detonate that if Bakugou had been left to let that gauntlet blow at point-blank range, Izuku would've died. He would've been burnt to a crisp instantly. Had he known that at the moment? Yes, Izuku decided, he did. He'd felt it at that very instant before detonation that he was going to die, and he'd oddly come to terms with that, so why did it feel weird to still be here? Why did it feel weird to have lived? Izuku figured it was a different question for a different time, and put it out of his mind.

"Then, All Might saved me. He brought me here and called the exercise," Izuku concluded with a strained voice.

Aizawa was silent for a few moments. He looked like he was thinking, but Izuku couldn't figure out what. Recovery Girl, on the other hand, looked utterly shocked, as if she'd been slapped without warning. The two of them seemed to be taking this very seriously, which Izuku was both appreciative of and regretting in equal measure. He was glad that a teacher, a hero, was showing concern for him and reacting to Bakugou's vile actions in a way he deserved, but he was also kind of regretting talking about how he'd felt during the trial, because of what Aizawa asked next.

"Do you panic often?"

"Uh …" Izuku droned on. He didn't think he was ready for this talk. "Maybe?"

"I'll take that as a yes. Kid, what you're describing sounds like a panic attack. Have you ever been diagnosed with a panic disorder?" Aizawa asked.

"Well … not exactly. I … attended therapy when I was younger because of … something that happened when I was six. My … Quirk, it—it … it—" Izuku cut himself off again.

"I get it," Aizawa said, waving off Izuku's obligation to keep talking. "I read over your file after the Quirk evaluations, like you suggested. I know what happened, and so does Recovery Girl, so you don't have to say it. However, I have something I need to say. I hold that Quirk evaluation every year because I believe it sets a standard. It makes new students, who have their own expectations of what being a hero is, come to terms with the fact that it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Just because someone has a Quirk, doesn't mean they're cut out to be a hero, and just because someone is cut out to be a hero, doesn't mean they'll have an obviously useful Quirk. When I say 'do your best or you're out', I'm looking at their reactions to that, how they deal with adversity. The true test is not how well you can use your Quirk, it's how you react to and overcome a difficult task sprung on you without warning, and you passed that test. You didn't hesitate to call me out on it being unfair to others with less physical Quirks. You made it known that something was unfair and did your best to rectify that, and when you were faced with a physical challenge, you used your Quirk creatively to succeed, which is what I'm looking for. I don't care what Quirk you have, as long as you have the drive to become a hero, you deserve to be in my class. You have that drive. I'm sorry I couldn't say all that the other day, but I had meetings to attend."

Izuku couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was the first time that Izuku had challenged a teacher and that teacher had actually listened to what he'd said and done it. This was new territory for Izuku's brain, and he kept quiet as Aizawa spoke.

"The other thing I want to say is that I apologise for speaking so callously with you. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have said what I did about unfairness. You've seen your fair share, and so I'm sorry for my ignorance. The way I was acting during that test was the result of getting too comfortable as a teacher and a hero. I should've known it would come back to bite me sooner or later, since 'comfortable' means the same thing as 'complacency', which means the same thing as 'failure' when you're a hero. If the status quo remains the same for any meaningful length of time, it means that heroes aren't doing their jobs properly, as we're meant to guide people and inspire them to lead better lives. If I'm able to get comfortable, that means I've failed, and so I'm sorry. I've taken the time to read through the other students' files and I'll make sure that I don't bring up any traumas," Aizawa said. He gave Izuku a serious look that made a shiver run down his spine.

"Look, I didn't expect all that, just that you'd take into account what I said and do your best. You don't need to make it a big thing, just keep it in mind that you don't know us, and that you run the risk of saying or doing something that could majorly discourage a potential hero from saving a lot of lives one day. It just … didn't feel right to me, that's all," Izuku said, waving his good arm to dismiss the idea that Aizawa had to make a formal apology for it.

"Right. Now for the important part. What is your relationship with Bakugou?" Aizawa asked.

Izuku sighed. He knew this had been coming.

"It's not pretty. We were friends, once, but that was a decade ago, before our Quirks manifested. When he got his at four, he thought it was the best thing ever, and that it made him the best by proxy. The praise he got at school sent him over the edge into a complete egomaniac. He … honestly, he bullied me a little bit about my Quirk not coming in yet, but that was before it actually did. When my Quirk activated for the first time, it was …" Izuku paused. A hundred words came into his mind, but only one stuck. "... messy. Bakugou was the one to discover what had happened, and he's had this fixation on my Quirk and its less than heroic applications since. He's convinced that I'm a villain, and that I can't be allowed to become a hero, lest I unleash myself and hurt people, like is my true nature. He thinks that my Quirk is representative of this fundamental urge to kill in me, and because of that, his bullying turned into torture. For nine years he's put me down, beat me up and forced me to think about what happened that day, and it only got worse when we were put into an environment where fighting for real was encouraged, and we were given hypothetical roles that, in his mind, just confirmed what he'd always known. He was the hero, and I was the villain. I believe that sent him over the edge once again, and he went at me with all he had, even after the exercise clearly ended, and tried to … he tried to kill me," Izuku explained.

"You think he intended to kill you?" Aizawa asked with slightly wider eyes.

"Yes. When the exercise ended, he paused for a moment. It was like he was considering his next move. Then he blasted me. When I didn't go down on the first hit, he pulled the trigger on his gauntlet. He said … 'Don't blink, I want you to look at me when I kill you'. It's like he took some sick satisfaction from thinking he'd see the face I made when I died. No, that's absolutely what it was. Didn't you hear through the cameras? He was screaming the whole time about how he wanted to do it, so I'm not surprised that he ended up trying to follow through on what I now know weren't threats, but promises," Izuku said.

"We did hear, but All Might was hoping it was different. I heard him use that kind of language to psych himself up in the Quirk evaluations, but I thought it was all talk. Well, this changes things. He attacked outside of exercise conditions and with the intent to end your life. I think that calls for jail time. I'll tell the rat right away," Aizawa said, pulling out his phone and typing something into it.

"What, right now? Surely that'd disrupt things so early in the year," Izuku said.

"Yes, right now. I don't know how much of Bakugou's trash talk you let yourself believe, but he's wrong. You could be a great hero one day. None of us are gonna let a homicidal punk like him take that away. I know you don't want to be 'babied', or whatever, but what All Might said was true. Demonstrating that kind of battle strategy with basically no training means something special. You're rare, kid, so I want to see what you become. With your skillset, you'd be a miracle worker as an underground hero," Aizawa said, and stepped out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind him.

Izuku watched the door for a moment, feeling something in his chest burn. He refused to cry now, though, since Recovery Girl was still in the room with him and that'd be embarrassing. Izuku collected himself and turned to face her, to see that she was smiling slightly. She began to unwrap the sling from Izuku's arm, and he noticed that she was moving slower and more gently than usual. Was this because she knew about his issues? If so, then it left a bad taste in his mouth watching her change how she behaved because she thought he couldn't handle something.

"I think you've made an impact on that man, boy," she said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Izuku asked as Recovery Girl held his arm still without the sling.

"It's not often that Aizawa takes a liking to his students like he's done with you. An actual compliment is hard to come by for his best friends, much less a child. You're not even a week into term and you've already made him adjust himself. It's only toward the end of third year when students get brave enough to do that. Or dumb enough, take your pick," Recovery Girl scoffed, regaining some of her usual attitude.

"I think I'll pick brave," Izuku sighed.

"I thought so," she said, kissing his arm lightly as her Quirk took effect. A tingling, numb sensation spread up and down his arm, and in a few moments, she let go, allowing him to test out his full range of movement with his newly healed arm. "Say, do you still attend therapy?"

"No. When I was training for UA, I dropped it. It started eating up my schedule more and more until I had to give up my regular sessions if I wanted to get in. Why do you ask?" Izuku explained.

"It may do you some good to pick it back up. I'm sure you know how it can benefit you. Didn't they teach you any coping mechanisms or strategies to manage your mental health?" Recovery Girl continued, stepping away from Izuku and taking a seat in her desk chair.

"Sure, but it didn't fix anything. I never really got better, I just got better at feeling bad. What's the point if I'm still as anxious after a session as I was before?" Izuku asked as he put his uniform on properly, his sleeve having been hanging off the side due to his arm being in a sling.

Recovery Girl seemed to frown, though Izuku couldn't tell due to her small size and distance from him. She sighed, and took her visor off to look him in the eye unobscured.

"Do you remember what I said about my Quirk yesterday?" she asked.

"What? No, why would—" Izuku cut himself off as he suddenly did remember. "It doesn't just fix you. It helps you fix yourself."

"Exactly. Therapy isn't a miracle cure for your problems. It's a guide to be used to ease into the healing process, or just to give you someone to talk to after a tough week. It's someone to be there for you when you can't hold everything in anymore. Mental health isn't as simple as the dichotomy between 'better' and 'worse'. It's something to carefully manage, and therapy helps with that balance. You may never get better, because it isn't something to fix. It's you, and you can never fix a person, because people don't break. They may change, they may succumb to the deepest depths of depression, but I don't believe they break. They just become something else. From what I've seen, you have the drive and passion to become what you want to be, and I think resuming your sessions could help you with that. Just my thoughts, though. Not like I'm a professional or anything," Recovery Girl explained.

Izuku sat there for a few minutes, thinking about what Recovery Girl had said, and didn't really come to a conclusion on the matter. It had been a big decision to stop therapy, and he doubted it would be any smaller to resume it. His mother had made sure that it had been exactly what he wanted and nothing less, but what would she think if he came home talking about restarting? Would she think it wasn't worth it? Would she think he'd been wrong to stop it? Was he wrong to stop it? Izuku didn't really know, and he doubted he would find out sitting on that stupid crinkly paper on the hospital bed, so he stood and got going, waving a brief goodbye to Recovery Girl as he set off toward class.

Today had already been a dizzying display of just how things could be different at UA. Teachers taking his side, admitting they were wrong and owning up to mistakes? What was this wonderland? It certainly wasn't the real world. Izuku smiled slightly as he made his way toward the classroom, ready to see how the events of the past few days would influence this one, as well as the ones after that. The future, while not exactly bright, wasn't looking too bad if Bakugou was facing consequences for the years of torment he'd put Izuku through. It felt like justice, or karma. It felt good.

Author's Note: I've just published a new short story, the beginning of a horror series called 'The Fire in Jeremy Finn', which is available for free on Simily, which does pay me per view without taking anything from the viewers, so all you have to do is make a free account at Simily and give the story a read! I've also got other stories there, all horror focusing on a different theme. It'd help me out a lot to check them out, so thanks in advance!

/all-stories/dex_hopper04/the-fire-in-jeremy-finn-part-1/