It was Izuku's first day back at school after the USJ. Hound Dog had given him the greenlight to start going back to class yesterday, and he was on his way to class as he strolled down UA's halls. There was a small tightness in his chest as he neared 1A's classroom, but he could deal with it. He took a series of deep breaths to calm himself, but it didn't seem to be working. Currently, his mind was on two people that he'd have some trouble lookin in the eye, let alone having a proper conversation with, those being Uraraka and Aizawa. He wasn't sure how Uraraka was going to talk to him now that they were … something, and Izuku knew he needed to talk to Aizawa, but wasn't how he'd bring up what he wanted to say. He guessed that he'd stick around after class and ask to talk to him, but that'd be awkward, and if Uraraka started getting excited about lunch, then he didn't think he had the power to make her go alone. Izuku shook his head and reminded himself that she had other friends than him, friends like Iida and Asui and Ashido and Kirishima. It was probably good that they didn't spend every second together, since their situation was new, and Izuku didn't want to push either of them too far, too fast.
Those thoughts were banished as soon as he turned a corner and came face to face with a large, thin man in a baggy tan overcoat. The clunking of his legs rang out in the hall as Izuku realised that he had almost walked right into Ectoplasm. He kept himself from sucking in a breath as he remembered that he'd also wanted to talk to Ectoplasm about some things, mostly related to his prosthetic finger. He didn't know if right then and there was a good time for that conversation, so wondered if he should bring it up. Fortunately, Ectoplasm seemed to have more tact than he did.
"Good morning, Midoriya, glad to see you back. I heard about what you went through at the USJ, so if you ever need to talk to anybody about what it's like doing hero work with prosthetics, please come talk to me. I'd be happy to give you some tips about working with it, and not despite it," he said, almost as if he'd been waiting to.
Ectoplasm then walked off after Izuku gave him a silent nod. That was far easier than Izuku thought it would be, and he was briefly bewildered by how often he'd been thinking that as of late. This put a pep in his step as he made his way to class, pleasantly surprised at how things were turning out on his first day back after the storm of worry that had been swallowing him up for the last few days.
Izuku got to class a few minutes before it was set to begin. He stepped through the door and began walking towards his seat, but was quickly consumed by shock as multiple people spoke up and greeted him as he walked by. Ashido was the first to spot him, as she sat right at the front, and she saluted him with a mocking smirk on her face as he passed her. Kirishima was the second, who patted him on the back as he turned down the aisle of desks towards his own. As he sat down, he felt a tap on his back, and fought the urge to groan at whatever Mineta could've possibly wanted to talk to him about. He looked back and saw that it wasn't Mineta, and much to his surprise, Yaoyorozu had gotten up from her seat and approached, throwing a hesitant glance at Mineta as she passed him. Izuku frowned and turned around in his seat to face her, wondering what this was about. She was intimidatingly tall, which he'd notice before of course, but it was simply apparent now, even though Izuku was sitting down, just how much taller than him she was. Her sharp, grey eyes were staring down at him with a critical glint, and Izuku almost jumped when he looked up at her as she looked like a scolding teacher or a reproaching adult from his perspective.
"Hello, Midoriya. Are you well?" she asked, standing with her back perfectly straight. She looked tense, for some reason, but Izuku didn't want to psychoanalyse her or anything, knowing what it felt like to be read like that.
"Am I well? Yeah, I'm good. I think it's mostly thanks to you that I didn't get some major infection or something. I really owe you after what you did to help me at the USJ," Izuku said.
"Oh, no, I didn't mean to imply that I wanted compensation. I simply wanted to be certain that you were well," Yaoyorozu said, putting a hand over her chest as if she was offended.
"Ah, yeah, totally. Are you … well?" Izuku asked, hesitating to repeat her choice of words.
"I am. Thank you for asking," she said with a quick, practised smile.
"Thank you," he replied, giving a thumbs up in his uncertain panic of what to do with his own hands.
"Very well," Yaoyorozu said, as if she'd just acquiesced to someone. She then walked off, turning and stepping around a desk or two as she returned to her own seat.
Izuku wondered for a moment what that had been about, but just chalked up her odd choice of words as being a little awkward. He could relate to that. Yaoyorozu gave off the energy of someone who held themselves with a lot of confidence, but sometimes confidence was the thing that made someone difficult to talk to, as some people, Izuku being one of them, were kind of spooked by her brand of it. Luckily, maybe for both of them, the interaction was short and succinct, and neither of them had embarrassed themselves, or so it seemed. It wasn't anything that was going to slow Izuku's roll today, by any means, and he quickly put it out of his mind as Aizawa entered the room and ushered in the class's day of lessons.
"Listen up, class, because I'm not going to repeat myself," Aizawa said as he stood at his podium. When he was satisfied with the ending of little conversations around the room, he continued. "You may have survived your first week, which was regrettably eventful, but your struggles are not over yet. You have the sports festival to worry about now, and you have two weeks to prepare. Do your best, or you'll fail miserably at getting the eyes of pros on your strengths at this early stage of your development."
Izuku felt a grin work itself onto his face as Aizawa spoke. This was what he was at UA for! He'd been waiting for the festival to come up on his own, and Izuku knew that it was in the first month of every school year, but it was already happening? That seemed a little crazy, especially after a massive breakin of villains into the school grounds, but that was just UA, as he'd learned. Things happened fast. A small core of excitement for the weeks to come sprouted in his chest as Izuku thought of all the ways he could maximise his training now that he had his goal to work towards. He'd probably have to talk to All Might or Aizawa about it, so he'd have to wait, but he'd waited years for this; hours or days suddenly felt like nothing.
Unfortunately, the rest of the morning classes weren't as exciting as the announcement of the sports festival. He had it going for him that he had not missed any schoolwork, since this was everyone's first day back; Hound Dog had merely cleared them to return on Friday, that didn't mean that classes were held. Izuku was able to keep up in his lessons, take notes on everything just the same as he had before, though he was a little distracted by the fact that there were eyes on him, and even more distracted by the fact that he didn't mind. He first noticed it during homeroom, when he went to check the time towards the back-half of the period and noticed out of the corner of his eye that Uraraka was looking at him from the other side of the room. He flicked his eyes over to her as he felt his face warm up, but when he looked at her properly, she was giving Aizawa all her focus, though Izuku could've sworn that her cheeks were a little rosier than usual. He felt a dopey grin slide onto his face, and he couldn't stop himself from seeing what was about to happen, yet he had no power over the situation whatsoever. Over the next few hours, it was as if the two of them were playing a game of cat and mouse with just their eyes, trying their best to catch each other staring at the other, and sometimes succeeding in the moments where they'd both send a side-glance at each other, and then get so red in the face that they could not bear meeting eyes again for the next half-hour. This game lasted all throughout their morning lessons, and though they only met eyes once or twice, Izuku thought that they'd held that eye contact for hours each time, and he'd barely gotten any notes down about the lessons. He'd have to catch up on that later.
When their morning classes ended and lunch began, Izuku got up from his chair and massaged his hands. Between taking notes and his thing with Uraraka, Izuku had almost slipped up a couple of times with the fine control over his hands that he was having to keep nowadays. He'd almost pressed all his fingertips upon his pencil when he'd noticed a mistake in his notes, and he'd almost laid his hand flat on his desk when he'd shifted his gaze hastily away from Uraraka one time. With all that concentration on how his hands moved, they were beginning to cramp up and become sore. He really needed to figure out exactly how his new Quirk limitations worked and commit it to memory, so he could stop devoting so much of his mind to it at any given time. He needed to figure out new gloves, or a new method of managing his hands, that allowed him to operate like he did. He could do it this afternoon in heroics class, but he'd have to get through lunch first. He could absolutely do that, probably.
He walked across the room and met Uraraka at her own desk, who looked up at him with bright eyes and an even brighter smile, making a smile of his own break out on his face without his choosing. He looked down at her, with the mere inches he had on her in verticality, and thought that distance did her a disservice. Seeing her now, Izuku felt all over again that she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and immediately the worry about his Quirk lifted and he felt as though he could enjoy his lunch without fretting about what was going on in a future he wasn't in yet.
The walk over to the lunchroom was awkward, but pleasant. Izuku didn't know what to say, feeling that he could say so much but not knowing where to begin, so he decided that he would keep quiet for the most part. Uraraka, though, did not seem to be held back by that same problem, and spoke as if nothing had changed between them.
"Hi, how are you?" she asked.
"Um, good. How are you?" Izuku asked as he fell into step beside her in the hallway.
"I'm great!" she said, injecting a bit of bounce into her steps. "I'm glad that everything worked out with you and Hound Dog!"
"Yeah, me too. I thought he was kinda mean when I saw him on the news as a kid, but he's actually super nice. I guess it's just a persona for the public," Izuku explained.
"Totally! You expect this big scary wolf but he's kinda like a puppy when you talk to him," Uraraka said with a laugh, gesturing with her hands as she spoke. Izuku laughed with her, feeling another smile appear on his face. "I was wondering, though; what did you and Yaoyorozu talk about this morning?"
"Oh, she asked if I was okay after the USJ," Izuku recalled.
"Right, she was the one who patched you up! I almost forgot," Uraraka chuckled.
"It feels like it was all so long ago, right?" Izuku asked.
"Mhmm, yeah," she said, though it didn't sound like she completely believed that. Izuku looked over at her and saw that she was staring ahead in thought about something. He couldn't immediately remember if he'd asked her or not, but even if he had, it was better if he did now.
"Are you okay after everything that happened?" he asked, trying to put a casual tone on a not-so-casual question.
Uraraka didn't immediately respond. She kept walking, so Izuku did as well, but the two of them were silent for a moment as she seemingly collected her thoughts. Izuku knew what it felt like to need a moment to think of what he wanted to say, and so gave her the time she needed. After a while, Uraraka took a deep breath in and simply uttered, "Maybe."
"Sorry for bringing it up," Izuku said.
"No, don't be!" Uraraka said, regaining some volume and energy. "I'm all good, y'know, Hound Dog cleared me and everything. I've just been thinking since the USJ and I feel like I want to do more."
"Like what?" Izuku asked.
"Like anything, y'know? Just sitting around and letting you do all the work in the USJ made me think about what I want outta this 'being a hero' thing," she said. Izuku remembered when Uraraka had told him about her motivation for becoming a hero, and it was something he admired; wanting a better life for the people you love was wonderful, but what else was there? "I think that, aside from helping my parents, maybe I do want to save people. Maybe I do want to make a positive impact. Watching you do everything you did in the USJ and not being able to do even a fraction as much was painful, and it made me think that maybe I should broaden my horizons when it comes to the kind of hero I wanna be, y'know?"
"Sure, yeah, that's great! What would that mean for you?" Izuku asked.
"Well, maybe I could put some effort into the combat side of hero training. It can't hurt," Uraraka said with a small, nervous smile.
"No, that's awesome. It's always good to have more options," Izuku said, smiling back.
They were both silent for a moment. Izuku kept walking, but he couldn't take his eyes away from Uraraka, and it looked as though she was in a similar predicament. The two of them simply smiled at each other with large, dopey grins. That was, until their hands briefly brushed together as they unintentionally drifted closer to each other. Izuku, almost savagely, ripped his hand away from hers and pulled it close to his chest, keeping it hovering in front of him as he gripped his wrist in his other hand. Uraraka, to her credit, did not react in a very outward way, simply letting the smile slip from her face as she drew her own hand away to look at it with a pale face. The two of them stopped walking as this happened, Izuku taking a few unconscious steps away from her.
"I'm so sorry! Did I—Did it—Are you—?" Izuku asked in a stream of words that blurred together.
"You're fine! I'm fine! Everything's okay!" Uraraka said, though the look in her eyes, as if she suddenly realised something, told Izuku that she knew just what he was thinking and that it was decidedly not fine.
"I'm such an idiot! Why would I let that happen?" Izuku said, more to himself than anything.
"Hey, don't say stuff like that. It's really okay! We all make mistakes," Uraraka said, letting her hand drop and moving to take a step forward toward Izuku.
"Making a mistake is different for me," Izuku said with a dark tone that overcame his voice.
Uraraka stopped moving toward, that small admission seemingly shocking her. She sighed, and her eyes searched Izuku's for something that he couldn't know. He was lost in his own thoughts, trying to figure out what to do, but he already knew. He had to go to Aizawa right that minute and figure out exactly how his Quirk had changed. He didn't know why he hadn't done it sooner, but he guessed that he'd been so pleased with himself after admitting his feelings to Uraraka that he'd put it off to bask in the feeling for longer. Now, he'd let himself slip up in the worst way possible, and if he was a little more distracted, she could've died. He suddenly wasn't as excited for lunch as he had been when he'd walked over to Uraraka a few minutes ago.
"I have to go and talk to Aizawa," he said, his eyes still locked on Uraraka's.
"Okay," she said. She stepped closer to Izuku, who tensed at the approach. She slowly, carefully, pushed his hands up by the wrists until he was holding his hands out to his sides in almost straight lines. Then, she wrapped her arms around his torso in an awkward hug, and it made Izuku's chest tighten to know that he couldn't reciprocate right now. The hug was over far too soon either way, but Izuku let Uraraka separate herself from him with a small frown on her face.
"I'll make sure I get this worked out," Izuku said, trying his best to stress how much he meant that through mere eye contact.
Izuku then took off down the hall, leaving Uraraka to join the rest of their friends in the lunchroom. He regretted leaving her, but this was something he needed to fix, a screwup he needed to correct as fast as possible. He'd wasted too much time being a lovesick boy, and he needed to take initiative and responsibility for his Quirk and the limitations it placed upon him. Izuku wanted nothing more than to be with Uraraka, to hold her hand, but he couldn't do that until he had mastered this new and improved version of his Quirk, and so he bolted down the halls, passing door after door after door, until he arrived at the staff room, where he thought Aizawa and All Might, the two people best in a position to help him, were most likely to be. He knocked on the door loudly with his fist, as he'd been keeping his hands completely furled up so that he couldn't even risk Decimating anything along the way, but it was maybe a bit louder than he'd intended, as even he winced at the loud rattling that rang out into the empty hallway at the sound of his arrival. After a few minutes of disgruntled muttering on the other side of the door, it slid open to reveal Aizawa, already using his Quirk to make his eyes glow an intimidating red.
"What, Midoriya, could possibly be wrong enough that you need to knock that hard?" Aizawa asked as he refused to blink and cancel his Quirk. To be truthful, Izuku was glad it was Aizawa who had answered the door, and in this precise way, as he could release his hands from their iron grip and allow himself to relax and know that he was truly safe. Aizawa seemed to notice this and asked, "What is wrong with you?"
"I really need your help," Izuku panted, out of breath from running so fast. "My Quirk, it's changed and I don't know how! I mean, I've managed it so far, but I'm gonna mess up soon, and you know what messing up means for me!"
Aizawa looked down at Izuku as he caught his breath and held his head in his hands, free to do so under the effect of the teacher's Quirk. He puffed out a breath, and muttered, "Get your hands away from your face," giving Izuku time to save himself before Aizawa blinked, which he then did when Izuku was clear. He stepped forward into the hall and slid the door to the staff room closed behind him. "Urgent?" he asked.
"Desperately," Izuku sighed, still slightly out of breath.
"Come on, then," Aizawa said in a flat tone as he began walking down the hall in the opposite direction that Izuku had approached the staff room from.
Izuku followed close behind, and in a few more moments had regained the breath that had eluded him during his sprint for help. He tailed Aizawa down the hall and around a few different turns, all the while staying as silent as the man himself. Several minutes passed in complete and utter silence, apart from Izuku's initially laboured breathing, but as soon as they got outside, Izuku knew where they were going. They exited the main building within sight of the athletics field where they'd done their Quirk tests on their unofficial first day, the day they should have been attending orientation, but were instead already learning about their Quirks and their limitations. Izuku was silent still as Aizawa told him with a gesture to stay where he currently was, in the middle of the field, as the man departed and returned barely a minute later with a bucket, which was revealed to contain baseballs when Izuku peered inside—the same kind of baseballs they used during Aizawa's tests.
"Show me how your Quirk has changed with these," Aizawa said, setting the bucket down and stepping back with narrowed eyes.
"Okay," Izuku said, stepping forward and leaning down with his left hand out to grab a ball.
He paused, took a deep breath in, and then gripped it with his middle and pointer finger. He brought it up, out of the bucket, and held it up in the air as if to present a job well done to Aizawa. At Aizawa's questioning look, Izuku released his breath in a sigh.
"Before the USJ, I needed all five fingers to touch what I wanted to Decimate. That way, I could have any combination of fingers touching anything I wanted if I just left one finger off. However, now?" Izuku explained, and at the end placed his thumb onto the ball and watched it turn to ash in less than a second. He let the dust fall through his fingers, and straightened the three fingers used to destroy the ball to emphasise the contradiction to Aizawa. "It's faster, too. Before, I would've had enough time to throw it at least a dozen metres, but just now I could barely see my Quirk at work before it was ash. This is bad, for a number of reasons."
"Yes," Aizawa said, looking at Izuku's hand. "What about your right?"
Izuku nodded with a tension in his neck and shoulders. He bent down, picked up the ball with his thumb and middle finger, so that only one of his real fingers was touching it. Then, he brought his pointer finger down onto the ball, and it immediately blew away with the wind as it disintegrated before their very eyes with the use of just two fingers. Aizawa frowned, and Izuku sighed knowingly—he was probably thinking of how the two hands being different made things a little more complicated as far as muscle memorisation and training went, because Izuku had thought the same thing, and it was going to be tricky. Finally, Aizawa took a breath to speak after thinking to himself for a few moments.
"You're aware that the sports festival is coming up," Aizawa said, not a question but a statement.
"Yeah, I know. I need to get this under control before then. If I don't, I might kill someone," Izuku admitted.
"Or you'd have to sit out," Aizawa said, raising an eyebrow at Izuku's immediate leap to death.
"I can't!" Izuku suddenly snapped, his voice breaking.
"If you don't get yourself under control, you'll have to," Aizawa said simply.
"I will. I know I will, because I can't miss the sports festival," Izuku said, his voice hard-edged.
"Is that so?" Aizawa asked, an unsettling grin settling upon his face. "I'll be the judge of that."
Izuku felt a shiver go down his spine at that, but felt invigorated enough that he thought he could bear any training Aizawa could throw at him. He'd probably regret that thought, but he didn't care. He'd rather regret training than risk hurting the people he cared about. He wasn't going to hurt people anymore, he promised himself that he was done with that. Now just came the hard part, actually making that wish into a reality. Well, at least Aizawa wasn't the optimistic type that'd tell him he could do it with will alone. He'd need an unforgiving teacher for this unforgiving Quirk, and he was lucky he'd gotten Aizawa to agree.
Unfortunately, while it was necessary, this wasn't going to be fun.
