Silence Destroyed (MHA)

Chapter 11- Confession

The air hummed with anticipation throughout the campus as the sports festival approached; it seemed like everyone was hyped up, everyone was making preparations... Well, everyone except Naoko.

Sports were something that Naoko found to be boring, at best; they were just a bunch of people running around doing things that didn't matter so they could win people's adoration, this was just another facet of things she hated about hero work. Why is entertaining the masses made an essential part of saving people nowadays?

While everyone else was practicing for the big event that was only a week away, Naoko was hiding up on the roof, her favorite spot, praying the robot Iida wouldn't realize that she was missing from the roster. With Aizawa mummified still, and major preparations for the midterms on hold until after the festival, Naoko had nothing to do... Well, almost nothing to do.

Ever since the USJ, Naoko refused to use her quirk around anyone, she knew she was capable of losing control on a fatal level now, which meant that she was capable of killing anyone she saw on a day to day basis. Because of that, Naoko had spent nearly all of her time that wasn't spent in school training herself, training different parts of her quirk that she hadn't even thought to work on before, like trying to liquify the air around her and extending the reach and endurance of her quirk field.

Her quirk field was akin to a rubber band, it could expand and move fairly well, but it could only go so far, and stay that way for so long before the strain was too much for Naoko. By working the more obscure aspects of her quirk, she was able to gain more control; hopefully enough to the point to where she wouldn't activate her quirk when her brain felt threatened, like panic attacks and nightmares.

Right now, Naoko's quirk was extended to its current limit, 20 feet in all directions, including up and down. It could go probably five times that when she was only sending it in one direction, but this was its max the way it was... Especially since sending it through the air took about twice the effort as it did through solids or liquids.

Naoko's training, which included using her quirk while exercising, had gotten to the point of almost being an obsession, she even snuck out for the past week after Hasame went to bed to practice more. She had only been to see Rei once since the USJ incident, and that was when she had been in the hospital.

Guilt abounded, and Naoko was at the point where she literally couldn't focus on anything but improving her quirk. Not the healthiest state of mind to be sure, but it did make sense, especially to Aizawa, who was the only person Naoko had mentioned this too. She had asked him about what she could do to train harder after yet another class that she had missed; it was a rather awkward conversation, seeing as how half of it was done through text to speech, but it was a huge help to Naoko. It was where she got the idea for this type of endurance training.

Aizawa was, understandably, upset about how scattered Naoko had been in his class, but it was hard for Naoko to miss the look of pity on his eyes as she spoke about getting better control over her quirk. She had almost forgotten that he had been the only person she knew that had seen her meltdown, so they both skirted around the topic, which Naoko was grateful for.

At some point, she would probably have to go into councilling to get a handle on the situation... All Might and Present Mic especially had been pushing her to go and Naoko refused so far. She knew what they would tell her after the few sessions that she had attended three years ago, perhaps that was a bit overconfident of her, but right now she couldn't bring herself to care'.

For now, all Naoko could do was push herself to her absolute limits and try to get more than two hours of sleep a night.

***

The hospital loomed before Naoko intimidatingly, it had been almost a month since she had come here, but after constant training and keeping her body on the edge of complete exhaustion, Naoko needed a break... and she could no longer justify her procrastination to stay away. Even Hasame had made a comment about how piqued Naoko looked all the time now.