Chapter Text
Toshinori felt like he should sit down. These kids were all four or five, and he towered above them.
The solution had been a cruel one: Join a primary school class for Quirk training.
At this point, Toshinori was willing to do anything to get his Quirk under control, even if he felt widely out of place in this group of kids ten years younger than him, all only barely having any grasp on what their Quirks were.
More importantly though, their Quirks weren’t violent to the point of being able to kill them or the people around them yet. Sure they could injure, like the boy with the summoning a bee Quirk, which could sting, but not yet summon enough to do some serious damage like summoning an entire swarm of Japanese hornets to swarm someone and boil them to death.
Toshinori’s Quirk could kill, and he’d been lucky it hadn’t happened in his initial outburst. He’d been feeling keyed up for weeks, ready to fire off at a moment’s notice. He hadn’t had an outlet for his emotions like usual, and it was grating on his nerves. He needed to do something, but nothing he tried had worked, not even training to the point of exhaustion with what little he was able to do at home.
He really missed the thrill of the fight, of being in the ring against an opponent and having to focus on their facial expressions to determine what was going on and what they would do, the single-minded determination to fight them and come out on the other side victorious. It was a thrill unlike any other, and Toshinori missed it.
Instead, he was shoved into a class with four-year-olds. Very fragile, very small, four-year-olds.
It would’ve been safer to do this at UA. Toshinori wasn’t even sure there was enough space on the open field they were using for Quirk training to stand on one side and punch his Quirk to the other and not hit anything on the other side. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially not the fragile kids or the seemingly kind Quirk teacher.
The teacher stepped up, and with little prompting, the kids fell in line. Toshinori scrambled to stand next to one of the last kids, even though it felt incredibly out of place for him to be there. “Good afternoon class, welcome back to another lesson on Quirk training. Today we’ll have Yagi join us since he didn’t get any Quirk training when he was your age and still needs to learn the basics about Quirk safety.”
The kids all turned to him, and Toshinori waved at them. “Nice to meet you,” he said politely.
“Nice to meet you too, Yagi-senpai!” one of the more excitable kids said and waved back.
The teacher scraped her throat. “Today, we'll go over some important Quirk safety lessons with demonstrations, and then we'll go back to practicing what everyone learned last week.”
“Yes sensei!” the class said, and Toshinori was far too late to say it along with them, so he didn’t even try, giving a nod of his head instead to show he understood.
The teacher called on one of the kids to demonstrate their Quirk, talking through the way they should use their Quirk. It was a simple Quirk, straightforward to activate. Hold their breath and they’d grow in size the longer they held their breath. They could hold their breath a long time now, and grow quite a bit because of it, but it didn’t do anything besides that, so they practiced controlling the quickness of their growth for a little bit to see if willing themselves taller would make it work, but no dice.
A couple of other kids went after that, with a variety of Quirks, uses, and practices, with the teacher stressing how it had to be done safely no matter their Quirk or what they were using it for.
After the second kid, Toshinori was bored. He was bored, and the now-familiar static was back under his skin and he craved to do something because if he didn’t, he might just explode in a burst of yellow spirals. He was afraid it wouldn't be the first time he'd feel like that, nor the last.
“Yagi, why don’t you demonstrate your Quirk for us?” the teacher asked after what felt like an agonizing amount of time spent watching kids learn how to use their Quirks while the teacher droned on and on about Quirk safety.
Toshinori nodded, not showing he was thrown off of his groove by suddenly being called on as he stepped forward. “I’ll try, sensei,” he said. He had no idea if he actually could activate his Quirk. The only time he’d used it, it had been an accident. A very big, very painful accident.
“Can you tell the class what your Quirk is?” the teacher asked.
“Wave motion. I can convert stamina into energy and make yellow spirals with that energy,” Toshinori said.
One of the kids, the same kid that said hello to him earlier, blurted out, “Like the person that brought down that building on the TV?”
“I am that person that brought down that building. It was an accident, and the first time I’d used my Quirk, which is why I’m here,” Toshinori said.
“But you’re old. How come you haven’t used your Quirk before?” the same kid asked, fearlessly holding eye contact with Toshinori, nothing but curiosity in his look.
Toshinori shrugged. He wasn’t about to share anything about that with some four-year-olds. They wouldn’t understand and he didn’t want to share. It was a secret for a reason, and it was better if it stayed that way. Kids weren't exactly known to be secretive, and he didn't want that information to fall in the wrong hands if they blabbered it on to their parents.
“Can you demonstrate your Quirk for us?” the teacher asked and waved to the small open field.
Toshinori furrowed his brow. “I don’t know how to activate my Quirk."
The teacher nodded in understanding. “Do what feels natural. Your Quirk is something inherent to you, so you’ll know what to do instinctively.”
Toshinori wanted to chuckle or scoff at how wrong she was. Nothing about his Quirk was natural. He didn’t have a Quirk four months ago, and developing one hadn’t been anything natural like she thought it was.
Using it wasn't natural either and had only happened because he'd been angry, and channeling all that anger into punching.
Right now, he felt like he would explode due to the lack of something to do. Deku had called it the increased stamina that came with the Quirk. Without a proper outlet, that need would only build and build. There was only one thing he knew for sure worked. “Punching something.”
“Excuse me?” the teacher asked.
Toshinori didn’t look at her, despite it not being polite. He hated to say this in front of a bunch of kids. “The only time I’ve activated my Quirk was when I was punching a boxing bag,” he explained. More like venting out frustration in the only way he knew was effective for him, but it would be best if he didn’t mention that.
“Would punching the air work?” the teacher asked. She was far too kind and patient for such a violent Quirk as Toshinori had. But she wasn’t what he needed. He needed someone that was rough, that forced him to do something like the senseis did in the dojo.
Toshinori shook his head. “No sensei, it won’t,” he said and sighed. He wished he could, but it would be ineffective, at best. His punches needed to land against something, and the air was not something it could safely land against without injuring himself by tearing muscles in his back to stop the punches when they didn’t land against anything solid, and he did not want to sit still for another moment. “If I could get a punching bag to punch against, I could get it to work."
The teacher got a pensive look on her face, and Toshinori wanted to punch himself in the face. Of course he wouldn’t get a punching bag, punching bags are what got him here in the first place, but at this point, he’d take punching against a tree to get his Quirk to work if he had to. He just wanted to do something, to move and practice and fight like he was used to for years now, and suddenly hadn’t been able to do for months, even if at that time the dojo he used to practice at had opened its doors again.
Hell Toshinori was even allowed back by his senseis and the students attending since they all liked him. And yet the same man did not like Toshinori and wanted to make his life hell, so just because his probation officer had it out for him, he couldn’t do what he truly loved.
And now he wouldn’t even be allowed to use his Quirk, because it had a specific activation method. At least at the moment.
The teacher seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. “How about you meditate instead? It’s a great way to focus, and really experience your body to start to unpack what you’re feeling and why you have this need to punch.”
Toshinori wanted to punch her. It was the first instinct he had and he quickly squandered it down because he had to stay on this woman’s good side, but he really, really wanted her to allow him to do his thing and do what worked. “But punching worked last time,” he said, and even to his own ears, he sounded lost and confused.
As part of his treatment plan, he was forced to attend group therapy, and they’d suggested trying meditating, and Toshinori, like the people-pleasing and obedient kid he was, had done so.
Afterward he’d wanted to get his blood pumping more, because silence was the absolute worst thing he could ever think of, and forcing him to sit in silence made his thoughts run wild and the buzzing under his skin more pronounced, and it had done nothing to rid him of whatever violent urges people liked to claim he had.
“It’s not a good habit to develop around the usage of your Quirk,” the teacher said. “So a much more productive method is to feel out your Quirk, reach deep inside of you to understand what part of you makes the spirals, and try to tug on that to see how it reacts. You’re mature enough that you should be able to do that.”
Toshinori wanted to scratch his skin off, but instead, he forced a smile and nodded politely. “Yes sensei. Where can I meditate?” he asked her. He needed to stay on her good side, so following along with whatever she was suggesting he’d do would yield him the best result. Not with his Quirk, but with the ‘not being seen as a violent and dangerous’ part of people’s opinions.
“On the other side of the field. You’ll be out of the way of the rest of the class,” the teacher said.
Toshinori nodded. Separating him from the young kids was smart, and probably her plan from the beginning, which he didn’t blame her for. It would help him out, for sure, to not feel so looked at by all these little kids. “Yes sensei,” he said and made the trek over to the other side of the field so he could start his meditation and exercise patience.
He sat down, with his back to the class, and stared down at his hands. He was at the very least going to give this an honest shot. He wouldn't dismiss her outright and lie to her face. It’s not that he couldn’t, but he didn’t want to be dishonest. He’d rather try and fail than lie and say he tried when in truth he didn't.
So he closed his eyes, and focused on the feeling of the palms of his hands, where his Quirk had come from the first time. Just trying to focus on that and his breathing, keeping it slow and steady as he felt the palms of his hand, the gentle breeze against it from the warm but not yet unbearing hot summer air, and the sun’s shining rays on his hand palms from where they pointed at the sky.
It did not take long at all this time before the static feeling under his skin was back, crawling up the side of his neck and down his arms and legs, but instead of shaking it off, he focused on it, on the way it zoomed around under his skin, feeling like it wanted to get out. It felt almost tangible, if he just had to reach out he could grab the strands of static and mold it to his will, if only he dared to reach out and grasp it.
He reached out (or in) and tried to grasp it, grasp a hold of the strands of static under his skin, to see if there was some way he could control it, guide it, focus it, manipulate it in any way other than to simply feel and observe.
He tried. He really did, but there was nothing to grasp. He didn’t even know if that was his Quirk he was feeling, buzzing away under his skin or just his thorough lack of something to do and dispel it by moving around in a way he needed. Honestly, it could be either at this point and there was no way to know.
The static didn’t respond to him, just kept zapping over his skin randomly, so he tried to focus somewhere else. Inside of his gut, maybe. His Quirk wasn’t located there, but deep within him was as good a place to look, even if he was more grasping at straws at this point than anything concrete. He tried to focus inside of him, his heartbeat and his breaths circulating inside of him and focused on what he could feel there aside from that.
Not much. The answer was not much. Due to biology class, he’d learned you weren’t really meant to feel your gut and internal organs because you didn’t need to and didn’t have control over them anyway, so your brain tuned them out, and instead of that, there was a whole bunch of nothing. No Quirk, no static, no feeling at all.
Toshinori believed his Quirk wasn’t stored inside of him, at least not as literal as the teacher had described it. It was present, it had to be, but it wasn’t something he could feel (unless it was the static, but he couldn’t do anything with that right now other than feel its presence), but something he had to go fully tuned out towards and just do. Let it all out at the height of his feeling like you needed to let out a loud scream when you were angry or cry when you’re too sad or too happy.
But he couldn’t do that. He had to sit there and be painfully aware of the fact that all he wanted to do was move, get up and punch the tree he knew was a little to his right, and see what would happen if his fist finally connected with something hard and solid again, even if he knew it would hurt like a bitch.
At least he would feel something other than a poorly oppressed need to punch something and static under his skin that wouldn’t go away no matter what he did.
He’d tried, at least. That much he could tell the teacher. So he pushed his protesting limbs off of the ground until he was standing again, blinking a couple of times to get adjusted to the light again before wandering over to the teacher.
The teacher had divided the small kids up into groups of three or four to practice their Quirks while someone else was watching, with the teacher closeby to watch as well to make sure there were no accidents with kids this small.
Toshinori walked over to the teacher. “It didn’t work, sensei,” he told her once he was close enough for her to hear.
The teacher turned to him and furrowed her brow. “You didn’t try long enough.”
“If I try any longer I’m going to scream,” Toshinori said, because at this point, he really, really felt like screaming. Or crying. Or punching something. Or anything other than the constant need to escape his own skin because he wasn’t allowed to do anything of his own free will, lest he is branded a villain.
The teacher looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. “I said try again. Listen to my advice, you might actually learn something if you tried to apply what I told you.”
Toshinori ran a hand through his hair and tugged harshly on the strands to stop himself from actually screaming, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Why are you not allowing me to explore my Quirk in a way that I know already works instead of suggesting I try something I have tried and found didn’t work?”
“I’m here to teach you in a way I think will benefit you, not a way you find benefiting, and I deemed you haven’t tried to meditate for long enough, so go back to the other side of the field and try again,” the teacher said and made a dismissive motion in Toshinori’s direction, even if her tone was perfectly polite.
Toshinori was clearly not going to convince her to allow him to do his thing. He gritted his teeth and forced his smile again. “Yes sensei, I will try to meditate again,” he said, giving her a choppy bow before walking back over to the other side of the field, but instead of sitting out in the sun, he moved over to the shade of the trees.
Like hell he was going to meditate. He’d tried, and if he hated anything, it was wasting his time yet again on something he already knew wouldn’t work. There was no reason for him to be here if he wasn’t allowed to actually use his Quirk.
So he would use his Quirk.
He stood in front of a thick tree just outside of the teacher’s line of sight, far enough away from the children so there was no chance of harming them.
And he slammed his fist straight in the bark of the big and old looking tree, the resounding smack so, so satisfying as the reverberation shot up his arm all the way to his shoulder, and his knuckle exploded in that sweet, sweet pain he’d been craving for weeks now.
Maybe he was addicted to violence, punching, or pain.
Toshinori didn’t stop to think about it too much, instead of forcing his other fist straight into the same tree, the same pain blossomed over the knuckle, scraping it up with the first punch from the rough bark against the soft skin.
Later, he’ll have to thoroughly clean it out and disinfect the area, but right now, he relished in the pain and the sting, forcing his first fist into the tree again, and then his other, and again and again until he had a steady, mindless rhythm of left-right-left-right going that was much more effective in helping his mind calm down and shut up than any meditation was ever going to do for him.
The rough scrape allowed him to focus on the rough punches he was landing against the bark, and just that spot he was scraping up, not hard enough to break the bones in his hand, but enough to tear open the skin of his knuckles and fingers. It allowed dull thuds to resonate through the tree, and it was nothing like fighting against someone or punching a boxing bag, but it was equally as satisfying.
It allowed him to release the months of pent-up frustration and anxiety, much more effectively than anything else would’ve been able to. He wasn’t even focused on his Quirk, just the rhythmic punching, the predictable pain that radiated from his hands every time they connected with the tree in front of him, the burn in his shoulders, and the breaths he forced himself to be regular.
He kept going, kept speeding up his punches, focused on getting more of that satisfying pain, faster than before, until his breath was screaming in his throat to be allowed out and the sweat was gushing down his back and soaking into his uniform, making his bangs stick to his forehead, and only then did he allow himself to stop, slowly slowing down until he let his arms hang limply at his side.
Fuck he was shot. There was a reason people needed warmups before forcing themselves through exercise because his shoulders were burning, having been forced to go from zero to one hundred far too quickly. His knuckles and fingers were starting to sting painfully from all the bark that had been forced into them, torn open painfully from the uneven surface. But that was all secondary to the absolute bliss he felt from being allowed to just punch, feeling the pain as if it was a real fight, and the absolute satisfaction from having gotten that out of his system.
He really needed to shower and treat his knuckles. He rolled his neck to get out the pain in his shoulders a little, before making his way over to the teacher once more, putting his hands in his pockets even if that made the burn on his open wound much worse. He had to keep her on her good side, and she didn’t need to know what he had actually been up to.
“Sensei?” he asked.
“What do you want this time?” the teacher asked and turned to look at Toshinori, and the disapproval was visible on her face once she spotted his sweaty appearance. “Did you go for a run or something? What happened to you?”
Toshinori didn’t like lying, but he liked being on her good side more. “Yes I did. I thought it might help me get out of my head better than meditating, while still being active, which seems to be an important factor for using my Quirk,” he said.
“Oh. Well scram then, you’re clearly not going to do anything useful today. Come back next week and we’ll see if this running tactic of yours has any more merit,” the teacher said, and Toshinori wanted to cry at how happy he was to hear her not shut him down immediately.
He bowed again. “Thank you, sensei, I’ll see you next week,” he said before quickly making his way off of the school grounds, not stopping by a bathroom at all. He needed to get home, first, and fast before his legs decided to completely give up on him.
Thankfully, the walk home was a short one, and Toshinori burst through the door far before he realized that his mother was home already. She usually wasn’t home this early on a workday. “Hey mom!” he said cheerfully as he toed off his shoes and put on house slippers. Hopefully, she wasn’t going to question him, or his absolutely busted-up hands, even though he knew she would the moment she laid eyes on him.
There was nothing for him to do other than walk further into the living room and just accept the fact that he wasn’t going to get out from under at least a disapproving stare. “How was work?” he asked as he looked her over.
Nana was already wearing her home clothes, a simple pair of sweatpants and a shirt, hair in a messy bun out of her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she forced a smile upon noticing Toshinori regardless. “Hey kiddo! How was your Quirk training?”
Toshinori smiled in return. “It was fine,” he said, forcing his tone to be neutral even if that was not the slightest what he was feeling. “The teacher made me meditate to focus on my Quirk. I’m going to just freshen up a little before dinner,” he said and tried to walk to the bathroom.
“What about your knuckles?” Nana asked, her tone almost sharp even if she was still smiling. That was a very dangerous tone, Toshinori had learned. It wasn’t quite angry yet, but it was definitely a warning that he better explain what was going on.
Toshinori looked down, finally taking in his busted-up knuckles for the first time, and he shrugged. They were really rough, with the green tree bark visibly coated within the red of the torn-open knuckles. The stinging was getting worse as well, but he really, really couldn’t focus on that. “Just getting some frustration out,” he said and quickly tried to walk away so his mother wouldn’t ask any more questions he wouldn’t have an answer to. He didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Toshinori,” Nana said and got up from the couch to walk over to Toshinori’s side, taking his hand carefully in hers. “Did you attack a tree?”
Toshinori sighed and let his mother smear out some of the blood over his skin to study the wounds better. “Yes. I know I shouldn’t, but I’ve been sitting still for months now. I need to get my blood pumping and nothing else worked.”
“Let’s get you fixed up,” his mother said and gently tugged him over to the bathroom, sitting him down on the edge of the tub and getting out the first aid kit and a handful of paper towels. “I’m going to pat the skin to clean it. I have to get this bark out so it won’t get infected.”
Toshinori didn’t oppose, just let her treat his hands quietly, allowing her to wrap them up carefully after cleaning the wounds as thoroughly as she could without wincing even once. “Are you angry at me?” he asked softly and fiddled with his fingers on the hand she’d already bandaged as she worked on his other hand. He couldn’t read her mood. She was so focused on the work ahead of her, that he could do nothing but stare at her face while she worked.
Nana briefly glanced up at Toshinori and furrowed her brow. “Of course not. You’ve relied on adrenaline to get your emotions out, and since you haven’t been able to fight, you can’t do that anymore. I understand that perfectly well.”
Toshinori furrowed his brow as he stared down at his injured hands, now neatly wrapped up thanks to his mother. “My probation officer said that makes me a criminal, and the teacher scoffed in my face when I suggested punching something to make my Quirk work.”
“What you need to do to express yourself isn’t any of their problem,” Nana said and pulled Toshinori in a bone-crushing hug.
Toshinori wrapped his arms around his mother in return and held her close. “Then why am I not allowed to go back to the dojo?” he asked softly as he squished his face in her shoulder. He just wanted everything to go back to how it had been, how it was comfortable for him, so he could focus on the things that had changed, namely his new Quirk.
But before she spoke up he knew why not, no matter what she said. It was up to the probation officer to schedule Toshinori’s life, and not Toshinori himself because he was clearly incapable of such a thing, if you asked the man.
“Because some people don’t see it the way I see, and they don’t agree with you having the hobbies you do,” Nana said, and Toshinori knew that, and he wanted to cry because of it. He just wanted to do the things he found fun, without someone demanding he’d give it up just because it was a little more violent than taking a run.
Toshinori pulled away from his mother and wiped the unshed tears from his eyes. “I’m going to my room to do homework,” he said. Even though he couldn’t do any physical practice, Deku still sent him over intellectual and thoughtful questions as homework that he was supposed to finish quickly, so he did have enough to keep him busy and on top of his intellectual game. It would most likely take up the rest of the evening to finish, especially with his fucked-up hands, but he’d make it work.