- Fundamental Force - Male Reader x My Hero Academia

Chapter 22: Fever

[TWO WEEKS LATER]

[7:30 AM, U.A. High School]

[Y/N] shot up in bed, his heart thundering against his ribs. His senses, always sharp and attuned to danger screamed at him that something was wrong, terribly wrong. His eyes snapped open, darting all around the barren, dimly lit room, searching for a threat, a presence of some sort, anything that was out of place. His hand instinctively clenched the edge of the sheets, his body poised to fight...

The stillness was deafening. The air was heavy, but nothing stirred. No intruder. No imminent danger. Only the quiet, unnatural silence that clung to the walls of his fake house. This place, he thought bitterly, his suspicion refusing to die down. He had never trusted it. It wasn't real, just a hollow replica of a home, an attempt to make him pretend he was something he wasn't, a normal student. Normalcy was a lie. He knew it every second he spent inside the artificial prison.

The tension in his muscles remained, but the initial shock began to fade. Something else was off, but not in the way his instincts had warned him. A pulse of sharp pain surged behind his eyes, followed by a dull, persistent ache that ran through his skull. He winced, his hand going to his temple as the realisation hit. This wasn't some attack, it was something far more mundane.

He was sick.

"A fever..." He mumbled, his voice grumbly and hoarse.

The weight of the illness settled in like a slap in the face, dragging him down like lead. His nose was blocked, his throat burned, and the pounding in his head only seemed to grow more persistent with each and every breath. It was suffocating. He leaned back into the pillows beneath him, glaring up at the ceiling. His body felt sluggish, uncooperative, like every movement required twice the effort.

This is absurd. He was never sick. He could count on one hand the amount of times an illness had slowed him down in his entire life, but now? On this day, of all days? The irony wasn't lost on him, a bitter taste he couldn't shake. His eyes narrowed, gritted his teeth against the sudden nausea and massaged his temple, frustration simmering beneath the surface...

Then, as if on cue, it struck him.

The U.A. Sports Festival.

The memory of it snapped into place like a puzzle piece, one he had been avoiding. His hand drifted to the phone sitting atop his bedside table, and there it was, in clear, bold text. It wasn't just any ordinary day. It was the U.A. Sports Festival.

Of all days...

The frustration built in him, a slow, simmering anger. He never got sick. This should have been no different, but here he was, feverish, head pounding, when today of all days required him to be sharp. His vision blurred momentarily, and for a split second, he thought he felt the walls around him closing in.

The silence of the fake house felt suffocating. A hollow space, built for him to pretend, built for him to lie, but as the dull ache in his head throbbed harder the memories of the last two weeks clawed their way to the surface. The Sports Festival. He had only learned about it two weeks ago. The information had come casually, but it had settled in his mind like a splinter...

His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to that day in the training field in Uraraka. The scene came back in fragments. The cold bite of the wind against his skin on the training grounds. The faint hum of distant voices as students trained nearby. They weren't sparring, as some students probably were, her Quirk wasn't really built for combat. Instead, they pushed her ability to its upper limits, testing just how much weight she could lift, how far she could push herself without crumbling under the strain.