(I swear this schedule is fine, I'm totally fine, I'm not rushing to get this done before midnight, who me nahhhhhhh wrong dude)
Have I ever said how much I hate the dark? I really don't like it. It's just a bunch of blackness, like why? Why do you do this to me? Don't get me wrong, I'm not scared of the dark.
The only reason I would be is because I can't use my quirk in the dark. There aren't shadows in the dark, it's all dark so it's all the same. If there isn't light enough to make a shadow then I am practically useless other than my own fighting ability.
Shota and the pros had already figured this out, so they put me in a room and turned off all the lights. I wasn't exactly sure how that helped, since I've been standing there for over two hours having accomplished absolutely nothing.
I even tried slipping into the ground, but it never gave way to the airless cavern. After that, I just sat down and meditated.
"Oi, what the hell are you doing?" Shota peaked in after another hour, his eyes narrowed in on me. I glanced up, shrugging.
"I'm sitting. Sorry, I tried to do something but it's just darkness, not a shadow. I can't do anything with just plain darkness. It's a pain, but that's how it is." I explained. Shota paused at this new reveal (dude fr?) and then sighed.
"Fine, come on out. We'll come up with a better idea after lunch," He told me, so I stood and exited the room, following behind the black haired hero to the outside world.
The rest of the day went better, since I was given the task to make as many shadows as I could and have them fight each other even if I became incapacitated (paralyzed). I also had to do the airless cavern a few times, making me hold my breath until I almost passed out.
As a last ditch effort to at least make sure I was trying in the darkness, they put me in with Tokoyami in the cave. I got knocked out a few minutes into it, which really lowered my self confidence. And upped my respect of the bird, as a result.
"I honestly can't believe this," Katsuki grumbled as I helped him gather fire wood for dinner. "You really can't do shit after dark?"
"It's not like I can't, as long as there's light I should be able to do something at least," I sighed, picking up another branch. "From my experience, moon light shadows are less potent than those of the regular day ones that I usually use. I believe it's because the moon is just reflecting light, not actually shining any of its own. Reflected light isn't as strong, so neither is the shadow."
"What if I were to explode something in the dark? Or IcyHot make a fire?" The blonde suggested, glancinh at me.
"A continuous fire would work, but just one explosion wouldn't," I went on, "because even if I could produce a shadow, it would just return to being part of the darkness the second your light went out and we'd have to do it all over again." I explained. Suddenly, I started coughing.
"Kosuke?!" Katsuki dropped his fire wood, rushing over to me and trying to steady me. Rubbing my back, his eyes widened as blood came out of my mouth as well as it began to trail out of my nose. "Hang in there, what the hell happened to you to cause this?"
"S-side effect," I managed to get out through the coughs. It was from the training earlier. It always happened after I was paralyzed for more than usual. Not just my outer body is frozen in that time, my heart also stops and so does every other function in my body. I basically go into suspended animation for the time that I'm paralyzed.
My brain doesn't process what happened around me until the split second the paralysis stops, so all of that information at once gives me headaches a lot of the time. That's one of the reasons I don't like working on that particular aspect of my quirk, as well as the coughing up blood part that comes later in the day.
Don't ask me why it happens later than when my body turns back on, it just does and I don't know why other than it's warning me not to do what I was doing again.
After another minute retching and coughing my lungs out, I finally manage to calm it down to a stop. "Okay I'm good now."
"You're anything but okay! Your face in all bloody so you look like a deranged psycho," Katsuki pointed out, which made me snort.
"Then let's go scare everybody, shall we?"
"... Sure I guess."
~ time skip brought to you by the meme ~
When we returned to camp, we scared quite a few of our classmates, all of their screams of fear and the inquires of concern were hilarious. Iida screamed so high pitched he sounded like a girl from an opera, like literally.
After we had our fun, I was dragged away to get treated and to get changed since the blood got on my clothes. Like a lot of it. I haven't worked my quirk in that way in a while, especially that hard. I've never done it that much, and so the amount of blood I lost was definitely more than I usually would.
It didn't normally come out my nose, but there's a first for everything. Once I was cleaned up and cleared to go after being questioned about my opinion on the matter, I was allowed to go to bed early.
To say I passed out as soon as I closed my eyes is not an understatement. I had no idea I was so tired, but apparently quirk work really took it out of me.
That night, I slept like the dead. I almost joined them with the amount of blood I lost, but we're not gonna go there. Not yet, anyway.