Viridescent

Chapter Thirty-One: New Game, New Rules

"Okay, let's see what we've got here."

Izuku remained still, sitting on the edge of his hospital bed with his legs dangling over the side. His bare torso was covered in bandages, but they were finally removing them to see how he'd recovered from his latest treatment the day before.

A little more than a week had passed since the Kamino incident, and Izuku was finally being given permission to go home after this last checkup. Honestly, he was eager to get out of the hospital. Staying in Recovery Girl's office for a few hours was one thing, but staying in the hospital for days was starting to drive him crazy.

He wanted out, even if he couldn't do a lot of moving for another two days or so.

All Might and Inko stood by him, watching as the doctor carefully removed the bandage over his stomach to check the injury caused by the pipe. Izuku glanced down as the bandage came off and bit his lip. It had scarred over, soft pink tissue covering a rough circle just under his ribcage; a deceptively small reminder of his brush with death.

The doctor carefully pressed his fingers against the scar and looked up at Izuku's face. "Any pain?"

"No," he shook his head. "It's a little sensitive, but it doesn't hurt."

"I see. Stay there, let me check the one on your back now."

He walked around the bed and leaned over to remove the matching scar on Izuku's back, repeating the process before questioning the teen once more. Again, the wound was sensitive to the touch, but it didn't cause him any pain.

"Okay," the doctor walked back around to his front, grabbing a clipboard and jotting a few notes down. "Your arms next. Stretch your right in front of you please."

Izuku did as he asked, wincing at the fresh scars lining his arm. He'd busted up both of his arms during his fight against Viper, but his right arm especially had been royally screwed up when he drove a punch into Viper's Pyroclasm. It was starting to look so patchy, he jokingly compared it to Dabi's ragged skin in his mind.

The doctor asked him to perform a few simple stretched, questioning if he had any pain or loss of feeling. Admittedly, clenching his fist still hurt a bit, but he hadn't lost any feeling in his arms. After testing his left arm, which hadn't been quite as seriously damaged, the doctor sighed and jotted down a few more notes.

"I'm going to be blunt with you," he told Izuku. "Over the last few months, you've put your arms through some pretty serious injuries. Recovery Girl was able to heal them to some extent, but this time, they were on a whole different level. Your right arm, especially. If you put it through that kind of damage perhaps two or three more times, you'll have to live without functioning arms."

Izuku stiffened. The doctor looked at him steadily. "I'm not sure exactly what you've been doing with your Quirk, but every time you generate such destructive force, it has an effect like setting off firecrackers in your arms. This time around, it wasn't just your bones and your muscles that were badly affected, but your ligaments. The damage they took deteriorated them severely, and as you know, your ligaments are what hold your joints together. You understand where I'm going with this, don't you?"

He nodded shakily, fully understanding what the man was warning him of. The doctor seemed satisfied that his message had gotten across and glanced back down at his clipboard. "Recovery Girl has already performed as much treatment as she could. She was totally pissed with you for this- sounds like you've already been on the short end of her temper a bunch of times. Whether you recover fully from this is going to depend on your rehab. You'll have to strengthen the damaged ligaments again through repeated use, even if it hurts. That's going to decide whether you return to your original condition or not."