"Now, let's discuss what happened on the field trip." Hound Dog said. He was smiling, but barely. It was hard enough to smile in the first place with his head in the shape it was, but he put the effort into it.
"I was just reminded of a mission." Sanyu answered simply, "I completed the task and felt unwell afterwards. It's nothing serious, sir.". Inue nodded.
"Do you want to tell me about the mission? You don't have to talk about the field trip, just what it reminded you of." He asked. Sanyu took a deep, quiet breath.
"It was a code purple." He began. Inue knew what that meant, he had told him before. The end of the world, or something that will lead to it. "I was the only one capable of stopping it. I ended up in the Pacific ocean by myself.".
"By, 'by yourself' do you mean that there were no other heroes or no other people around?" Inue asked.
"No other people, sir." Sanyu clarified. "There was a blizzard and the government was actively tracking us down. There was no one I could approach for backup.".
"Being alone on the ocean during a blizzard would be terrifying. And very dangerous, I might add" The man said. Sanyu didn't nod. He didn't want to acknowledge that it was, even if he was clearly traumatized by the experience.
"It was a difficult and painful mission. I absorbed a lot of energy into my body, too much to expel. I might never be able to expel it all." He said.
"And when did this happen?" Inue asked, jotting something down on a loose piece of paper.
"10 months ago." He said. Inue looked pale, a little horrified.
The hero cleared his throat a little, psyching himself up. "Considering the time frame, is it alright for me to assume that this incident resulted in the loss of your left leg?" He asked.
Sanyu shook his head quickly. "No sir.". He hesitated before continuing, searching for the right words. "It was within the same month, but it happened first. I lost my leg because of the repercussions of the incident."
Inue looked at him and nodded, gesturing for him to continue. Sanyu swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling tight.
"That night before I left we were hiding in a bunker in Alaska. That was the last time I saw my friend alive." He stressed the word, feeling as though it didn't fit. "Lela Orujav.".
"Orujav Lela." Inue repeated to himself, correcting the name to the Japanese order. "I'm deeply sorry for your loss, Oyama." He said, his words full of nothing but genuine kindness.
But kindness couldn't bring her back. Kindness couldn't make it hurt any less.
"She died because I wasn't fast enough. She went looking for me, and the government found her." He said, his mouth getting ahead of his brain.
"It's not your fault." Inue said firmly. Sanyu stared at him.
"You don't know anything about this, sir. With all due respect you have no basis for your statement." He said, eyes hollow as he avoided eye contact.
"You did your best. That is all anyone can ever expect of you." He said simply.
There was a brief awkward silence. Sanyu refused to even consider that Lela's death wasn't his fault.
"It was beneficial before for you to speak about the person. We've done this before, when talking about people you miss from your world." The hero said, "Would you like to tell me about her?".
Sanyu's vision flashed with the image of a teenage girl, dark skin and eyes that twinkled in sunlight. An ever so slightly hooked nose and bright smile. He felt his throat close up and tears prick in his eyes at just thought. He schooled his face into a completely robotic, neutral expression.
"No." He said, so quietly, if Hound Dog didn't have enhanced senses he would never have heard it. Sanyu had never sounded so heartbroken before.
"Then we can talk about something else." The counselor said, "How much do you know about trauma and the way it affects our day to day lives?".
-------- ---------- --------- ---------- -------- ---------- ---------- -------
Aizawa was pretty sure Oyama hated him.
It wasn't a baseless assumption. Throughout hero training he would never look twice at All Might. He'd take the advice, apply it and go along with everyone else. When Aizawa helped out, Oyama wouldn't take his eyes off of him. Always watching and a million times tenser.
During class he had a similar level of vigilance. Like he was scared the man was going to do something.
The field trip had just made it worse. Aizawa thought it would be great for the kids to try something new, something hands on. They hadn't had a chance to really do a simulation since the USJ (which went pretty badly).
But what had started off fun had ended with Oyama's group completing the task perfectly followed by the boy passing out from anxiety on the way back.
The whole time he sat with Oyama, waiting for his guardian to appear, he wouldn't speak. That wasn't a problem for Aizawa, except when he needed to know who exactly he was expecting. A parent? Older sibling? Grandmother? He didn't know because Oyama wouldn't even nod at him.
Imagine his shock when the no.3 hero Hawks showed up announcing that he was Oyama's uncle.
And since then Oyama wouldn't even make eye contact, just give him a 100 yard stare.
So it came as quite a shock when the boy approached him to-of all things-apologize for the field trip incident.
"Kid, that's not your fault. The whole class was worried about you, myself included." He explained, "There's no apology necessary. I would like to know if I can avoid this in the future though.".
Oyama fidgeted in place, but looked reassured by his teacher's words. "Hound Dog spoke to me earlier today about P-T-S-D." He said the letters slowly, like he was trying to remember them.
Aizawa's eyes widened a bit in shock but quickly turned understanding. It made a lot of sense, considering Oyama's overall demeanor and reaction to the fieldtrip. "That would make a lot of sense. Have you narrowed down what the trigger was?" He asked.
The boy nodded. "Yes sir. It was the deep water." He answered simply. He looked slightly nervous, like he expected Aizawa to ask him more.
The teacher just nodded. "Alright. You won't have to deal with that again until you've worked on it with Hound Dog first." He said, "Thank you for telling me.". Oyama nodded again, seeming shocked at the casual reaction and quickly left.
Aizawa shook his head and smiled ever so slightly. Problem children. All of them.
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"So do you have to do the final exam or are you excused 'cause you came late?" Midoriya asked, twiddling a pencil around in his hand.
Oyama didn't actually know, so he shrugged. "I'm fairly sure I'm excused from most academic subjects but I may be participating in the heroics test.".
The green haired boy perked up at that. "I can't wait! I'm super nervous, but I think we'll do okay.".
"Speaking of 'okay' are anyone else's marks not okay?" Ashido asked, draping herself across Midoriya's desk dramatically.
"Yeah." Kaminari said, "Me too." Sero added, "I was too busy to study.".
"This English test is going to kick my ass." Kirishima groaned.
"I could help you all study." Yaoyorozu suggested shyly. Sanyu remembered that she was top of the class. "My mother would be delighted if I had friends over.".
"That would be great!" "Hell yeah!" "I could use the help.".
A chorus of agreement rang out throughout the class. Midoriya and Uraraka seemed interested, but Iida's marks were already high enough he didn't need to worry. Sanyu didn't really know about his marks, he'd only been there a month.
"The only thing I can't help you with is English." The girl explained, "I try my best but I'm just not that good.".
"I'm fluent." Sanyu blurted out, unable to stop himself. They needed help. And he needed to 'get himself out there' like Keigo had said.
The class gawked at him. "Really?!" Kaminari asked, shocked.
"I lived in the U.S for three years. I thought my accent would give me away." He said, glossing over the fact he basically forgot all of Japanese in the process of learning English.
"We just thought you spoke in a dialect." Uraraka explained. A few people nodded in agreement.
"I have a dialect too. Do I sound..." He hesitated for a second, "Strange?".
"No!" "Absolutely not!" "It's really hot-I mean cute.". The class rushed out all kinds of responses and Sanyu could feel his cheeks heating up.
"If you're willing to help us out I'd be thankful to host you. This Saturday maybe?" Yaoyorozu suggested. Sanyu nodded.
The boy supposed he would be going to a group study session for the first time ever. Which was fun when you had negative social skills.
Oh boy.
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Look at Sanyu, having fun and making friends! He's finally opening up a little bit!
I was thinking about Sanyu and the whole language thing while writing this and I realized that you might need some background as to the whole 'I haven't spoken Japanese in 2 years' and the 'I got my powers 3 years ago' thing.
One of the main villain's in Sanyu's world is Japanese so they spoke it once together when he was 13 during a fight. We'll talk more about villains and stuff later but I just wanted to fill in that little plot whole by saying that I actually did plan this 😅
Also Sanyu got fluent shockingly quickly. This is because the day after he woke up with his powers he was collected by the Six to be taken to a safehouse before the government could get to him and no one else in the Six is Japanese. He was kinda forced to learn or continue to be confused by everything.
God why am I so mean to my protagonists?
Anyways stay tuned!