strangers. bnha

gone, shouto.

HE WAS THERE for two weeks, as Aizawa reminded him in the infirmary. Two weeks with the most dangerous active villains in Japan, and he barely remembered a thing. He frowned his brows trying to rack his mind, trying to recall a moment as it was on the tip of his tongue. Though, despite his efforts, nothing ever came aside from the few vague memories or sounds and smells (you're going to be our best soldier, Bakugou). But that was only a dream. It frustrated him more than anything else, not being able to remember was like having an itch impossible to scratch.

The day after Katsuki and Shouto's fight, Aizawa had brought in a quirk examiner that was partnered with UA through various connections after Recovery Girl had looked for the cause of his collapse. She checked his vitals swiftly, hesitated with a puzzled look as she reread the chart she held on a clipboard bigger than her own head, then went over the procedural check-up again for extra measure.

The little old woman didn't speak when she was focused, and her strict, rough exterior demanded silence from others (juxtaposed to Katsuki, whose chaotic aura only bred more chaos). She flipped through papers with bony fingers and adjusted her glasses, looked at one sheet, expressionless, and then compared it with another. She did this over and over as if trying to figure out the correlation between two unrelated points, dots that can't connect. Why won't they? she probably wondered, What's wrong with this boy? That didn't do Katsuki any favours stress-wise.

Aizawa stood not too far behind her, awaiting her results. He stood six feet tall and up straight when he meant business—not the kind of business when Kirishima and Kaminari, Sero and Mina are fooling around out by his desk and he lets his hair fly and red eyes show—business when something is out of order, when there's one student missing from the headcount after a field trip or when a fight breaks out and someone is bleeding. Aizawa could be intimidating at times like that, even with black bags under his dull eyes he'd look more alert than Hall Monitor Iida on a Friday at the last bell. The class knew to shut up and listen when he got serious with The Look.

Despite the lazy and careless personality he expressed (all at face value, as the students were unaware of. Unaware that his eye bags were from late nights grading papers at 9 PM. Sending Kaminari and Sero back to bed from fooling around in the courtyard at 10 PM. Going through UA and police reports for the latest incidents at 11 PM. Lassoing a sleeping Uraraka out of the night sky where she snored midair outside her open dorm window at 12 AM, sometimes again at 1 AM, the lock really needed to be fixed) he was still a professional and efficient hero and teacher, and still held an admirable maturity to him that demanded their respect.

When it came down to it Aizawa taught them how to be heroes, he may not teach them the easy way, or put it nicely with a pat on the back, but he helped them develop and improve swiftly. He prepared them for the real world and protected them with his life. He always came into this room with a concerned face, it was hard to notice, usually as straight as a poker player, but Katsuki could tell by how he watched the way Recovery Girl went back between two particular pages with masked confusion, the way her eyes dodged back and forth and she'd hesitate, he could see Aizawa didn't like it either. It meant things were a little more complicated than coming in for a cast wrapped around a twisted ankle or an ice pack for a forehead.

Finally, she looked up from the papers, focused on him, but she was talking to Aizawa really. "It's similar to regular exhaustion you would experience while straining your quirk beyond your limits, all the same as someone would during an intense workout," she said.

"Similar, but not the same?" Aizawa brought up. She hummed and adjusted her glasses again.

"Out of context, it would look like any other energy rush. Humans can't access one hundred percent of their physical strength capacity, for purposes of protecting the body. But if you find yourself in a life or death situation, or merely just push yourself hard enough, you may tap into that locked strength. In a moment of exhilaration, you can do what you would never be able to endure under normal circumstances." She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and shook her head with confusion, looking down at the data. "However, the crash of the rush can leave severe damages, sometimes permanent. But you don't suffer from any injuries, only fatigue, extreme at that. You should've broken several bones, pulled muscles in your arms at least, yet you haven't." She set the chart down on the bedside table.