MHA 2025!

Izuku

The heat was a living thing, clinging to me like a second skin. It wasn't the pleasant warmth of a summer day, but a feverish, insistent burn that pulsed beneath the surface of my skin. It had started yesterday morning, an uncomfortable thrum after the hot springs the other day, but this morning? This morning was a nightmare. I woke up drenched, a mess of tangled sheets and a body that felt…wrong. My muscles were coiled, my skin was flushed, and there was this insistent, throbbing ache that made me want to crawl out of my own skin. And then there was the more obvious problem, the one that made me want to bury myself under the blankets and never emerge.

I couldn't just not go to school. Not after everything. I was a hero in training, and I couldn't let my classmates, or worse, All Might, down. With a groan, I wrestled myself into my uniform, the constricting fabric feeling incredibly irritating against my overheated skin. My jacket, usually a comfort, was wrapped stubbornly around my waist, a futile attempt to hide the evidence of my internal turmoil.

The walk to class was hell. Each step was an effort, every whisper of air against my skin a taunt. The faces of my classmates blurred into indistinct shapes as I focused on keeping my head down and my breathing even, which was not easy with the inferno raging inside me. The lessons were a blur; I couldn't concentrate, my thoughts spiraling into a dizzying vortex of shame and discomfort. I felt like I was radiating heat, like I could spontaneously combust at any moment. At one point, Mina tried to get me to participate in a discussion, and my face burned an alarming shade of red that even I could feel.

Finally, mercifully, Aizawa-sensei noticed. His usually impassive gaze narrowed as he studied me, and he sent me to Recovery Girl with a curt, "You look like you're about to melt." I'd never been so grateful for his bluntness.

Her diagnosis was simple: "Sleep it off." I went back to the dorms, desperately hoping that unconsciousness would bring an end to this torment. But sleep, when it finally came, offered no respite. Instead, I was thrown into a vivid, disorienting dream. It was…intimate. Ochako was there, her smile warm, her touch electric. Then, the dream shifted, and Kacchan was there, his usual scowl replaced with something far more intense. The sensations were so real, so overwhelming that I woke up with a gasp, my heart pounding and my body on the precipice of something… I didn't even want to think about. The sheets were damp, my breathing ragged, and I felt like I was losing my mind.

I had to get out of here. I texted All Might, telling him I wouldn't make it to training, and then sent a brief message to my mom saying I was coming home for the weekend. I threw the essentials into a bag and practically sprinted for the train station.

When I got to the apartment, a strange, uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. My mom was there, but she looked…different. Her smile wasn't quite her usual warm, comforting one, but rather a soft, almost dreamy version. She tried to usher me back to the dorms, saying I didn't need to come home this weekend, but I brushed past her, needing to get my head straight.

And then I saw him.

He was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables with a familiar, easy confidence. My dad. Hizashi Midoriya. The man I'd only seen in old photos, the man who had been overseas "on a very important, very secret mission" for as long as I could remember. He looked older, his hair a little grayer, but the warmth of his smile was undeniable. He looked at me and smiled his whole face lighting up, "Izuku!" he said "You've gotten so big!"

My mom was watching him with a soft blush on her face, her gaze filled with a longing I had never seen before. What was going on? Then mom explained that he had finally been released and had come home. My head was spinning. It was like something out of a cheesy soap opera, and I had no idea how to process it, especially not with the gnawing urgency in my body.

"I… I'm going to go to my room," I stammered, my voice cracking. I couldn't handle this right now. I needed to get away from my smiling parents, from the warmth, from everything. I retreated to my room and slammed the door.

Desperation clawed at me, so I did the only thing I could think of, I called Shoto. He picked up on the third ring, his voice low and strained.

"Midoriya," he said, "is it…is it just me?"

There was a raw quality to his voice that I'd never heard before.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my heart beginning to pound in my chest.

"I…I feel…awful," he confessed, his usual stoicism gone. "Like I'm burning up from the inside. And…and the thoughts."

My blood ran cold. "Me too, Shoto. Me too. It started after the hot springs, but today…today was a nightmare."

A heavy silence fell between us, broken only by our ragged breaths. What was happening? Was this some kind of…quirk? Some bizarre, uncontrolled side effect? The heat was still there, but now, it was laced with a thread of fear. We were not just experiencing this, we were enduring it and it was only getting worse. The world I thought I knew was crumbling around me, and I had absolutely no idea what to do.