47

Chapter 24

Waking up was almost painful. As if every sense I'd managed to cut off in sleep seemed to slam into me like a train. I was left lying there, silently whining as I lazily struggled to open my eyes without them immediately closing on their own accord with how heavily they had grown.

I tried to raise my arms except it was no use. One was clothed so tightly and heavily I couldn't even lift it an inch. On the other hand, the opposite arm was being held down by a green mop of hair.

I groaned as a pounding sensation grew in the front of my right temple as if on cue to remind me how much of an idiot I had been earlier. This only seemed to cause Izuku to stir.

"Goodmorning," He lazily smiled. I stared back at him, furrowing my brows in a state of confusion.

"You're drooling." I chuckled. He quickly turned away to rub his mouth clean, his face burning. "What are you doing here?"

"All Might gave me a teacher's pass to stay until you woke up."

"Why's my arm wrapped?"

"I believe..." -a short woman dressed in a white lab coat rolled over to my cot in a chair- "All Might told you using One For All too much too early would do this." She scolded me, raising her eyebrows as she dropped her chin to try and intimidate me. Almost as if she didn't realize she wasn't even half the size of the rest of us.

That was certainly one way of letting me know she knew we had One For All.

"Well I-" She lowered her chin even more and suddenly my face began to heat up like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And that's exactly what I was.

"You remind me an awful lot of him. That All Might- he never knows when to stop" She shook her head, using the bed to kick herself back to the table.

"I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or not."

"It depends on when you ask me. As of now, no. It's not a compliment."

I turned to Izuku, finding him softly touching the fingertips left exposed from my cast. "I was supposed to be the only one who got hurt," he whispered.

"I can't just come straight out of the gate swinging with no repercussions. I had One For All enacted that entire fight and it was draining just trying to control it. I was bound to break something, I'm just glad it was my arm."

"I'd avoid Kacchan if I were you."

"What's he going to do? Yell at me?" I snickered.

"All Might had to drag him off of you. He's mad you stopped him. Why did you-"

"I want a rematch."

"A rematch?" He turned to see if whom I could only assume was Recovery Girl, was listening.

"Why wouldn't you hit me?"

"I'm not going to hit a-"

"A girl? You're not going to hit a girl?

"It's not that you're a girl." He glanced away, sweating as he struggled to keep eye contact with me.

"You realize now that we have the same quirk we're kind of tethered together. What's gonna happen when we're in the line of work and someone hits me so hard I can't even get back up?"

"I wouldn't let that happen." He glared at me as if I'd said something stupid but the way he still held onto my fingertips told me he was really only trying to seem angry.

"You can't stop everything."

"I can try."

"You're being stupid." We fell silent, the exchange of glares finishing out the conversation before I had meant for it to.