You may have noticed the lovely trigger warning at the top... well, I mean it. This has the potential to be rather upsetting to several of my readers, so be warned. I'll place three bolded asterisks * before and after the danger zone. If your interested, pleased stay tuned after the chapter for a small message on why I decided to make the decisions I did here.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Naoko gasped desperately as she approached the gates of UA; that morning had been one stressful thing after another, between almost losing her uniform and having to turn around when she forgot her lunch, Naoko was so close to being late that it wasn't funny. This, of course, led to her running about half the distance to school, not including the time on the train, which is why she was so desperately out of breath now.

The way her pulse beat relentlessly against her ears blocked out every vibration she would normally be able to feel without a problem; thankfully, she didn't really need to be able to sense vibrations to find her class. Though that didn't stop her from dissing herself the whole way there, 'Come on, Naoko, you do realize that heroes need stamina, right? Maybe if you spent less time studying unnecessary things and more time training your body, you would be more prepared for what's coming!'

As much as she wanted to argue with herself and stand up for her studying habits, she really didn't have a leg to stand on... Working on learning yet another language should take second place compared to her hero training now, even if she was better at learning languages than she was at any form of exercise.

Her heart rate slowly evened out, and she forced herself out of her inner world, so she could hopefully make it to class before the teacher. She heard that a lot of the homeroom teachers here could be strict about punctuality, and the last thing she wanted was to get on her teacher's bad side before she even- "Oof!"

Without warning, Naoko's foot snagged on something, and she got an up close and personal introduction with the tile floor. Though as much as that bothered her, feeling whatever had caused to trip squirm beneath her was so much worse. A gasp left her mouth, and she found herself sinking slightly into the floor as her quirk activated without her permission, liquefying the first few layers of tile before she could scramble away.

A hand grabbed her ankle, and she looked around to see what had grabbed her, only to be greeted by a man lying on the floor in a... sleeping bag? It took a minute for her to realize that this human caterpillar was actually speaking to her, trying to get her attention, "... Didn't you hear me? I said to calm down, I'm obviously not going to hurt you."

Naoko nodded and shifted so she was sitting up, taking in the amount of liquid that was covering both her and the caterpillar man, she pressed her hand to the top of the liquid and activated her quirk, turning the liquid tile into gas before focusing on the man in front of her. He looked familiar, but it took a second for her to remember why.

"Wait, you're Aizawa Shota, aren't you?" Naoko asked hesitantly, receiving only a nod in answer, "Well it's good to meet my new homeroom teacher, sorry about tripping over you, Eraser Head." She stood quickly, offering her hand to the man, but he simply shook his head.

"I see you've done your research." Aizawa said, adjusting his position so he was facing the girl directly, "Judging by that display, you must be Fujimura Naoko; I was one of the people who tried to convince our dear principal not to accept you." His words took the breath away from Naoko, yeah, she had known that many of the teachers were against her attending with her disadvantage, but she didn't think that she'd be faced with them so quickly. "You are going to be at a disadvantage to the others in almost every conceivable way, so if you want to keep up, I expect you to adapt, am I understood?"

She nodded hesitantly, "Yes sir..." Aizawa nodded and started rolling down the hall towards class 1-A, but Naoko felt that she couldn't just leave things there, "Sir," He stopped rolling, "I just... wanted to say that I wouldn't have applied to UA if I thought I wasn't up to the challenge; I know I need to adapt, though it might take me time, so please, push me as hard as you can."

There was no response to Naoko's proclamation, Aizawa simply continued rolling down the hall, but Naoko knew that he had heard her, so she followed along behind, praying to some unknown deity that good would come of this. Today would really be the key to her deciding how to proceed; hopefully, she would learn all the areas that needed improvement and start to develop a plan to overcome things... Not that she didn't already have two weaknesses blaring at her just because of this morning... Obviously, she needed all the help she could get with her endurance and overall athleticism, and her ability to detect other things around her needed lots of help; the only question was how to start.

This filled her thoughts until the two reached the classroom that was quite obviously 1-A; yeah, no need to guess here, a huge 1-A was emblazoned on the probably 15-foot-tall door. What? Were they expecting skinny giants to come for a visit?

In the doorway were three students who all were looking at the caterpillar man in something that looked like extreme shock.

"Is- is that our teacher?!" A tall, dark-haired teen cried out as the others just sat there staring; before they could notice her, Naoko grabbed out her earbuds and turned on the music she always had ready, so she could avoid any unnecessary conversation.

Stepping over Aizawa, she squeezed around the other students and into class, walking to a seat near one of the windows. Perhaps that was the cliché, 'lonely main character in an anime' spot, but looking out the window was infinitely better trying to figure out what the heck was going on during any activity that required students to participate.

She watched Aizawa-senpai get out of the sleeping bag with a small smile on her face; right now, her goal was to convince Aizawa that she could thrive here. If she could do that, then maybe, just maybe, she had a chance at convincing herself of the same thing; determination was something that she had plenty of... Conviction was a whole different playing field.

"Settle down, everyone," Aizawa said, looking completely done with the day, even though it just started; he looked around the room in disinterest, and Naoko assumed that he was waiting for people to do as he said. "It took you seven seconds to be ready to go; if any of you want to actually make it to the pro's, you're going to have to do better than that. This isn't social hour, so I expect you to act accordingly."

Naoko read what Aizawa was saying with ease and she thanked whatever deities were out there for that; if Present Mic was their teacher, there would need to be a lot of adjustment before she got anything out of homeroom.

Aizawa leaned down and pulled a box out of... somewhere before motioning to everyone, "Come get a uniform and meet me out by the track in ten minutes, you'll be taking a quirk apprehension test." Apparently, the other students were protesting, judging by the look on Aizawa's face, but Naoki had too much on her mind to try and decipher the situation right that moment.

As she waited for the others to start moving so she could leave without looking like a jerk, her finger dipped down into her backpack, finding a small package that she had accidentally left in there from last year. Rei-sama had been trying to convince Naoko to get rid of it for over a year now, but every time she felt like she was in a good place, she didn't think to take it out, and when she was in a bad place... Well, let's just say that she was grateful that she left it in her bag on those days.

People finally started to get up, so Naoko followed withdrawing her hand and trying to get the package from her mind, but it just wasn't working. It had already been a stressful day, she was just hoping that she could make it through the day before breaking.

***

As Naoko approached the track, her fingers drummed nervously against her leg, unconsciously typing a phrase in Morse code; S.O.S... S.O.S..." She would be a huge liar if she said she wasn't at least a little nervous; she had already discovered how her stamina was crap, if this was a bunch of exercises, she was done for.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she swung around, trying to figure out what was going on only to see a familiar looking blondie staring at her in concern, he was in the process of saying something, but due to her high state of agitation. She didn't pick up on in time.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" She asked, forcing herself to smile while still trying to place where she knew him from.

"I was asking if you were okay," His smile was gentle, and he gestured to her hand, "You were signaling S.O.S in Morse, so I just thought I'd ask!"

Confusion and disbelief were the two main things that Naoko was feeling right now, it was rare that she found anyone who knew Morse code, so this was more than a little odd, "You know Morse?"

"Yeah, a little" The blondie rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment, "It seemed like a cool thing to learn since my quirk is electricity and all that; I guess it's a little dorky..."

Naoko smiled and patted his shoulder, "Nah, I think it's cool; Morse code is a pretty unique form of communication. That's actually what my aunt and I text primarily in, sometimes I think she's forgotten how to speak Japanese!" It took a second for what he said a moment ago to sink in, but when it did, Naoko had to hold back a gasp, this was the guy she saved during the entrance exams! His quirk was electricity... Of course, it was!

The electricity guy laughed and offered her his hand, "The name's Kaminari Denki, what about you?"

"Fujimura Naoko, it's nice to meet you!" She smiled as best she could, and he returned it, much more genuinely than hers was; when she turned away to continue walking, she could tell that there was more he wanted to say, but she didn't have the mental capacity to catch what someone was saying and walk at the same time. Thankfully, she sensed the boy (Denki? Kendi? She wasn't able to tell), walk away from her, so she was able to walk undisturbed until they finally reached the track field where Aizawa was waiting for them.

"As I mentioned, today we will be having a quirk apprehension test, In the past, you've had to take your tests using only your physical prowess, but you are in UA now. Bakugou, you finished second in the practical exams, didn't you? What's the furthest you've thrown a ball?"

The kid in question (Naoko hated learning new names because unless it was a common name, she couldn't figure out how they were pronounced for anything.) stepped forward and said... something... Naoko may not have been able to read what he said, but anyone with eyes could see that there was a major chip on his shoulder when he said that.

Aizawa simply nodded then threw him an odd looking, mechanical ball, "I want you to see how far you can throw this with your quirk."

When Aizawa said that, the boys face twisted into a grin that could only be described as sadistic and he stepped pompously to the square and wound up. Despite being about twenty feet away, Naoko flinched slightly as she felt the pressure build up around him; when he released, a fireball exploded from his hand, and the ball was propelled away as though a rocket had been attached to it.

He stepped away and walked back to his place, bumping Naoko's shoulder as he went, but that was the furthest thing from Naoko's mind; no, what was front and center for Naoko, was what Aizawa said right after Baka... something walked away, "You will perform in a series of tests while using your quirk as you see fit and you'll receive a score for how well you perform in each test. To help make this as 'fun' as you were saying, whoever comes last in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential and will be expelled."

At this, Naoko was well and truly panicking, her quirk was beyond useful in so many situations, but she had just resolved to start working on her stamina, most everyone looked as though they had spent the summer working out, both their quirk and their bodies, but that hadn't been the case with Naoko. Sure, she learned some hand to hand combat well enough to be able to keep up and she had honed her quirk well, but her quirk didn't help with the physical end of things!

Her calm façade was up, so no one could really tell anything was wrong, but as she went to line up for the fifty-meter dash, she was saying words in her head that would certainly get her in trouble with both her aunt and Rei-sama. She was up against a guy who had spiky red hair; he introduced himself, but there was no way she could read his lips like that... She would just have to look at the class roster later and try to match up names to faces... Oh joy.

The redhead gave her a thumbs up, then started running. Wait, were they already signaled to go? Crap!

As she ran her mind flashed to all her training sessions with her quirk, she had enough control to not hurt herself, but that didn't mean her quirk could help her with stuff like this! She began running while trying to think of something, anything, she could do to improve her time; but running seemed to be short-circuiting her brain and she was left with nothing... She crossed the finish line at 8.06 seconds.... Probably the worst in the class.

Grip Strength

32.5 lbs

Long Jump

Don't ask.

Repeated Side Step

Oh, heavens help us all...

Toe Touch

I. Hate. My. Life.

Ball Throw

Not bad, 32 meters, a personal record for her.

Throughout the whole thing, Naoko kept a close eye on one boy who was doing exceptionally well; at first, she didn't even notice he was there, but as soon as she saw the ice and his white hair, she knew. Todoroki Shoto... It took all her self-control not to run up to him right there and tell him how his mother was doing, that Rei felt horrible about everything she did to him, but the look in Rei-sama's eyes when Naoko had asked if Rei wanted her to tell Shoto anything, stopped her.

She couldn't barge in here, she had to let things happen naturally, otherwise, she could just end up hurting everyone. She couldn't betray Rei-sama's trust like that.

Finally, all the tests were over, and Naoko was standing in front of Aizawa with everyone else in the class; right now, the best she was hoping for was not last place, but she honestly didn't know. Even the kid with fluffy green hair had something he did well at, and here she was... Mediocre to horrible at everything.

It was rather amusing in a way, she took first place in the entrance exams, but the instant something came up that didn't rely heavily on her quirk, she melted down and failed miserably. She stood there berating herself for several seconds before the results popped up. Her eyes scanned the list, moving lower when she didn't see her name until she came to the very bottom:

#19- Izuku Midoriya

#20 Naoko Fujimura

She had failed... Unless this was some stupid joke by Aizawa to make them work harder, then he would get his wish of her not being in the class.

A hand spinning her around pulled her attention from her sinking hopes and dreams, and to the exceptionally angry blond kid who seemed to have smoke coming out his ears, "Why'd you fail, you damn extra?!" He said, though it took a second for Naoko to read what he was saying because of the permanent scowl fixed to his face.

Her eyebrows slammed together at that, why did he care? "What do you mean?" She tried to pull herself from his firm grip, but as she did so, his palms heated up to painful levels to stop her.

"You're the one who got first place in the entrance exams, right? So why the hell did you fail this test? Are you trying to make me look bad?"

"What? No!" Unbeknownst to her, her voice had risen to a shout at this point, gaining the attention of most the class, "My quirk was well suited for the entrance exams, okay! I know I need to work harder and get better, you don't need to rub it in!"

Far from calming Bakahoe (Naoko had no clue how to pronounce it, so she decided to go with this for now) down, her answer seemed to incense him even more, "If you knew you needed to improve so much, then why did you apply for this school you fucking moron? It's for the best of the best, not for people who aren't going to try! Losing to you there makes me look fucking weak, so either you get better or I'll blast your ass to pieces!"

His words hit Naoko hard, everything he said was true, she was weak... Maybe she shouldn't have applied here if she was going to fail like this. Naoko felt herself crumbling, but she refused to break in front of everyone, so she did the next best thing. Wrenching her arm out of Bakahoe's grip, she dropped to a crouch and brushed her hand on the ground, activating her quirk and liquifying a pit below the irate boy.

Unfortunately, she couldn't see the surprised look on his face as the ground beneath him gave way and he fell waist deep into the weirdest puddle he had ever felt. Once he had reached the bottom, Naoko solidified the ground around him and stood up, keeping her eyes averted away from everyone, "I'm not weak, don't judge me like that. I... I'll get better, just you wait... I have to." Forcing herself to keep going, she turned to Aizawa, "So? I came in last, will I be expelled as you said? Or were you just telling us that to try and get us to work harder?"

Aizawa had the creepiest grin ever on his face as he stared at her before shrugging and falling back into his sleep-deprived look, "It was a logical deception, but I suppose you realized that. You'll be staying."

Naoko nodded before turning and walking away, leaving the whole class behind, gaping at her back.

*** Trigger Warning!!!***

Naoko headed through the halls, nearly running as she went, she needed to get away, and no matter how far she went, the words Bakahoe said followed her, making her want to scream, or tear at her hair, just something! She needed to do something to stop these stupid feelings.

She made her way to the classroom and snagged her bag, walking to the nearest restroom before locking herself in one of the stalls. She needed peace, and as much as she hated it, she had something that would give her that; she would just need to apologize to Rei-sama after this.

Within seconds, the package that had been in her bag was out and open; she slipped off the sweatbands that were always on her wrists and stared at the many silvery lines that streaked across her skin, one mark for every time she messed up, one mark for every inadequacy.

Shaking, she pulled the razor out of the package and brought it to her left wrist, bracing herself; it had been several months since she last cut, and the first one always stung the most. It was almost beautiful, the flash of silver across her pale skin, followed by the crimson blood; and even better? The panic that had been eating at her faded as she winced in pain.

Internally, she kept track as she cut, 'The fifty-meter dash,' slice, 'The long jump,' slice, 'The repeated sidestep,' slice, 'The toe touch,' Slice, 'Tripping over Aizawa,' slice, 'The truth behind Bakahoe's words...' Slice.

Breathing heavily, Naoko gently set the razor down on the back of the toilet, watching the blood drip slowly into the bowl from three neat slices on each wrist. Now that the panic was gone, guilt filled her instead; she knew that she shouldn't have done that, she promised Rei-sama that she wouldn't rely on that again, but here she was, failing miserably. A sob rose to her lips but was smothered before it could come out, she wasn't in a safe place, she wouldn't allow herself to cry.

Carefully, she reached over and grabbed a wad of toilet paper, doing her best to not drip blood on her clothes, and set it firmly on her wrists. She winced again at the feeling of the rough material against her sensitive skin, but continued, pulling out a roll of bandages from her bag and carefully wrapping up her injuries. Afterward, all that remained was the task of cleaning up the evidence and gently placing the razor back into its package.

***Trigger Warning Over!***

It was a bit of a process, but nothing she couldn't handle; slipping her sweatbands back into place and making sure they completely covered her wrists, she stood and left the stall, freezing slightly at the sight of a short brunette standing at the sink. Had she heard anything?

The girl must have been in her class, because the instant her eyes met with Naoko's in the mirror, she beamed widely and spun around, "You were the one who sunk Bakahoe into the ground aren't you?"

Shyly, Naoko nodded but said nothing, "Oh, that was so cool! I love your quirk! My name's Uraraka Ochaco, what's yours?"

All Naoko could do was blink in shock... What was happening? "Fujimura Naoko," Naoko mumbled this, forcing a small smile onto her face and walking to a sink, hoping to cut off any conversation just by not looking at the girl.

Naoko's tactic worked for a little bit, but before long, the girl (Naoko had the urge to call her Kocha, the polish word for love, for no perceivable reason besides not knowing how to pronounce her name) placed her hand on Naoko's shoulder, pulling Naoko's attention back to her.

"Hey, are you doing okay?" Ochaco's face was filled to the brim with concern, something that Naoko had no use for, "You seemed pretty upset when you left earlier, and you're still in your gym clothes... Can I help you with anything?"

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to Naoko that she was still in her gym clothes, she was far too preoccupied after class to change, but it didn't even cross her mind that that was something she needed to do until now. She should probably change before going to see Rei-sama...

"Oh, um..." Naoko said, trying to figure out what to say to appease the girl before her, something along the lines of, 'I was just really upset by what that boy said, so I came in here and cut my wrists to feel a bit better,' probably wouldn't go over well... "Sorry if I scared you, I just needed some time to think about what that kid told me, that's all."

Ochaco nodded and smiled once again, "I understand. Sorry, I didn't mean to jump you with questions, it just happened! I should probably let you go now so you can change, but it was good to meet you, and I hope we become friends!"

With that, the vibrant girl was gone, and Naoko was staring at where she had been, trying to figure out what in the world just happened. Slowly, she made her way to the changing rooms, which were thankfully empty, and changed, making sure that both her wrists and ears were completely covered before she left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, listen, I am in no way trying to romanticize cutting, I understand that many people struggle with the desire to self harm, I've had family who have hurt themselves badly because of this, which is part of why I wanted to write a character who struggles with it, yet only sees it as a minor issue, which is why she will make light of it at times.

I have never felt the desire to cut, so I can't completely understand, however, I do get the fact that this is something that affects people psychologically, physically, and in other ways as well. I've struggled with depression for years, so what I do understand is the desire to find a release, the pain a person can feel when it's all kept bottled up inside.

Naoko has been through horrific crap, so for her to not have mental scars would be weird, and right now she has this mindset of, 'it helps me, so how can it really be all that bad?' Healing is a long process, and Naoko's still stuck on the first phase. It is my hope that as the story goes on, we will see her healing process progress as she learns to let others help her.

Please don't assume I agree with cutting, because I don't. It is heartbreaking to be an outsider looking in when someone close to you has made the decision to self-harm. Jusst know that You Are Loved, and at the very least you have one place where your thoughts and beliefs are respected and cared about. Here.

-klypso01