absolution.

time's up.

Izuku wakes up, and the world feels off-kilter. He's—somewhere, sitting on something... When his fingers feel around a little, he finds he's on a mattress of sorts. Or a couch? When the fog in his head clears a little more and everything feels a little less underwater, Izuku looks at everything in front of him again. Yes, he's on a blue couch, his body covered by a blanket and at an uncomfortable angle that has him laying down more than anything, he's in Gran Torino's living room(?), and it smells like taiyaki and coffee.

Izuku scrunches his nose, recollecting his scattered memories and thinking back a little.

...Oh.

Oh, that's so embarrassing—

"No getting up for you, kid!" Gran Torino orders from somewhere to Izuku's side before he can even do anything besides flush. He startles, head whipping towards the noise, and it takes him a little longer to process that Gran Torino's eating. ...Again? Wasn't he getting lunch when he...

Izuku scrambles up only to get whacked lightly by the end of Gran Torino's cane. He winces but holds himself up determinedly, craning his neck to the side painfully with his eyes focusing on his mentor. His cheeks are still flaming, too, and God, all of this is no-good and bad and horrible. "How—How long was I o-out?" A few minutes, please?

"A day or two," Gran Torino says casually, and Izuku recoils like he's been physically struck, swallowing what probably would've been a quiet cry. That's so much time wasted! Izuku has to—he can't reach whatever limits Gran Torino wants to see at this rate, he—"villains don't wait," he'd said, but here they are, doing nothing because Izuku couldn't handle—

Gran Torino pushes his neck with his cane. Limply, Izuku lets his head fall, now staring up at the ceiling. With a burst of air, the hero's looking down at him, face darkened by shadows. "Health first, always," he states. "'Health' includes mental health, too. Think about it like this: what use are you if you do that—dissociation thing on the battlefield? What will you do if your mental state dips mid-fight? No use is what you'll be, 'specially when you're handling One for All and your limits. You need to be in the right headspace."

Mutely, Izuku nods, sighing silently when a tray of dango is set on his chest. He shifts himself so that his upper body's sitting up, biting into the skewered rice dumpling. Gran Torino hops off the couch and sets a glass of water on the table, too.

After Izuku gulps down some water, he slumps, feeling a sudden, faint heaviness weighing on him. This calmer atmosphere... Izuku can't handle it. There's nothing to focus on besides the remaining dango and water, but his mind is always running, always thinking, so it'll only be a matter of time until he thinks of All Mi—

"So wha-what's going to happen now?" Izuku blurts out, tucking away his rage and numbness. He's still wearing his costume so he picks at its sleeves, fingers trailing along its neon-green stripes. "I-I'm... Is this... a break? Are we n-not gonna be training today?"

Gran Torino, eating the last of his beloved taiyaki, pauses, chewing thoughtfully. "Well," he starts, partially distorted, "you'll be taking as long as you need to feel decent again. Then, afterwards... I guess you can train a little, keep it light." He swallows, drinks some water from his own glass. "Outside, there's an abandoned area down a few roads. So, we'll either go there or to the dump to figure out whatever you can truly do. But that's only when you've recovered!"

Izuku grimaces. "But I'm alri—"

In a burst of air, Gran Torino launches at him. Izuku flinches, hard, before clumsily pressing into the back of the couch to dodge. His hair stands on end, a sudden chill spreading near his shoulder from where Gran Torino aimed his sudden kick. That could've been dislocated, or worse, fractured.