22 Neurologist (1)

After our class was sent back to school, I was ushered to the Nurse's Office to be inspected by Recovery Girl. Although I had already explained that I did not receive any damage in the fight against the villains, they still sent me to get checked to be safe.

I understood where they were coming from; optics wise, this did not look the best for the school. Having villains invade and attack students and one of those said students were forced to fight back to protect the rest – it was a PR nightmare. So the least they could do was make sure said student who fought back, namely me, was completely unharmed.

As Recovery Girl was inspecting my body, I commented, "Like I said, I didn't take a hit or anything. The only time I felt weak was when I overexerted myself near the end and my nose bled. But that's normal when I push my quirk too much."

The old lady gave me an odd look and went to look up my files, "Nose bleed? Does that happen often to you?"

"Not regularly. Only when I push myself and my quirk too much when I train." I answered, hoping to get this over and done with as soon as possible so I could get back to class.

"And how frequent is that? How much blood do you lose when it occurs?" She pushed.

"I mean, it happened a lot last year when I was training for U.A. But once I got in, I didn't have as much time to train so my nose did not bleed as often."

"When did this start? Has your nose been bleeding since you awakened your quirk?" Recovery Girl asked.

I was getting slightly frustrated by her persistence in this line of questioning. It was just a nose bleed; everyone gets them sometimes. But I remained respectful as I answered, "It was around… two years ago? I received a head injury back in middle school. A villain had attacked, and I was hit in the head by a brick or something. My nose started bleeding, like a lot, when I forced myself to use my quirk to stop the villain. But the hospital I went to after the incident told me I just had a concussion and there was nothing to worry about. So… y'know, it wasn't a big deal."

Recovery Girl did not look satisfied with the answer and after some moments of looking into my file, came up to me with a look of concern, "Your file tells me that you have a Psychokinesis quirk. Tell me, how do you control this quirk? With your mind?"

I nodded, slightly perturbed that she was suddenly being so serious, "Yeah, everything I do with my quirk is with my mind. Moving things, making barriers, flying, all that."

Her brow furrowed, "Hmm… I can't be sure of anything yet, but what I can say is that your nosebleeds aren't normal. It might be a point of concern. I will be recommending you to get a check up at a Neurologist, specifically an MRI scan. That should let us know just what is up with your quirk."

I frowned, "Is this really necessary?"

She turned to me with a serious expression, "Young man, I don't think you realize how serious this might be. People don't just bleed from their noses for no reason, and especially after receiving a head injury like the one you sustained. It is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to brain injuries, and early detection might be all the difference in the world during treatment."

Seeing her grave countenance, I could only helplessly agree.

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The next day, we went back to school as though everything was normal and as if the incident that had occurred just the day before did not happen.

My classmates were still buzzing with excitement, however, at everything that happened yesterday. The official statement we received from the school was deliberately lacking in information, which can be summarized as 'we are still investigating'. So we were left to our own imaginations regarding the whole thing.

We were still discussing the various facts of the matter when Aizawa entered the classroom. His left arm was in a sling and the left half of his face was bandaged up, making him look a mummy with only half his body wrapped up.

"Morning." He greeted as he headed to the teacher's podium. He looked remarkably better than the bloody mess like we last saw him, a testament to Recovery Girl's healing prowess.

"You're back already, Aizawa-sensei? Glad to see you're doing well!" Iida saluted with his hand up.

"My welfare isn't important. Because your fight is far from over." He began, looking over the class with his one uncovered eye.

"Fight?" I sat up straighter.

"Don't tell me…" I heard Izuku mutter.

"U.A.'s Sports Festival is fast approaching!" Aizawa declared, to varying degrees of disappointment and relief amongst the students.

"That's so ordinary!" They exclaimed in response.

"Sensei, is that really the best time for a sports festival? I mean, U.A. was just attacked by villains…" I spoke up in concern, seeing a few others nod their heads in agreement.

Aizawa blankly looked back, "It's necessary to demonstrate that U.A.'s crisis management protocols are sound… that's the thinking apparently. Compared to past years, this time there will be five times the police presence. Besides, U.A.'s Sports Festival is the greatest opportunity you will receive. It's not an event that can be cancelled over a few villains."

"The nation's top heroes will all be watching… they will be there as scouts!" Momo remarked, more to herself than anyone else.

"They'll be there to hire us as sidekicks after we graduate." Denki said to Jiro, pointing at himself and smirking.

"And a lot of those sidekicks never manage to go solo. They're sidekicks forever. That'll be you, Kaminari, you dunce." She shot back mercilessly.

Ignoring the commotion coming from the class, Aizawa continued, "Naturally, you'll gain valuable experience and popularity if you're picked up a big-name hero. But your time is limited. The U.A. Sports Festival only happens once a year, so you've only got three chances to show the pros what you're made of. If you want a future as a pro-hero, then this is an event that you can't miss!"

His words lit a fire in many of us, myself included. A chance to shine on a big stage and declare to the world who you are… it was an opportunity to make ourselves known even before our debut.

Plus, if what mom told me was true, the internships that followed the U.A. sports festival would be the chance for all of us to be mentored by experienced pro-heroes. But to grab their attention would mean having to excel in the sports festival and stand out from among the rest.

Looks like this time, I can't afford to play the part of mister nice guy if I were to compete with the aspiring heroes-in-training.

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I headed over to the hospital that Recovery Girl recommended me to. It was a hospital in the city that specialized in quirk treatment, a rather luxurious one too – although my student insurance covered by U.A. meant that I didn't need to pay a single dime for it.

Even when I was waiting in the lobby outside the Neurologist office, I still thought it was all just a waste of my time. There were a hundred different things I could be doing right now. Like training for the Sports Festival. Instead, I had to come here and get my brain checked out cause my nose bled a couple times.

Well, maybe a little more than a couple times but seriously it was nothing!

I was told by the receptionist that U.A. had already sent over the relevant documents so before I even got to speak with any doctor, I was ushered to the Radiology department where an MRI scan was taken of my brain. That took a whole hour as well. Subsequently, I was ushered back to the Neurologist where I had to wait for another 2 hours before my name was called.

"Kurogami Yasuo. The doctor will see you now." The receptionist called out.

"Here." I responded before getting up from the uncomfortable bench in the discomforting waiting room that had glaring, fluorescent light bulbs and the distinct smell of a hospital.

I entered the doctor's office, greeted by the sight of a middle aged woman frowning at the folder in her hands. She looked a little familiar for some reason, but I could not place where I might have seen her before.

She looked up as she heard me coming in, "Kurogami Yasuo?" Seeing my nod, she continued, "Come in, have a seat."

I sat down on the chair next to her desk that she gestured to. Though I knew there was nothing wrong with me, I couldn't help but feel a sense of trepidation. Something about being in a hospital just made one feel anxious.

"My name is Masaki Yoshiko, and I am a Neurologist specializing in quirks related to the brain." The doctor began in what I construed as a soothing tone. "Have you been told why you were sent here for an MRI scan?"

I nodded, "Uhm, yeah? My nose bled during an… incident at U.A., and the nurse, Recovery Girl, learned that I had regular nose bleeds whenever I overtaxed myself. So she sent me here to get my brain checked out. Something about nose bleeds not being normal and such."

The expression on Doctor Yoshiko shifted slightly, though the woman had such an impassive look on her face that I couldn't tell what it was.

"I see. Before I share the results of the MRI scan with you, let me just double check some information we have received from U.A. Is that okay with you?" She asked.

"That's fine with me." I shrugged.

She smiled, "Very good. You first started experiencing nose bleeds two years ago. Could you elaborate more on what happened exactly?"

"Sure. I was in the soccer club in middle school, you see, and our soccer club had a match with another school. We won, and so we went to the nearby mall to celebrate. We were eating when a villain suddenly burst through the wall and a brick or something hit me in the head. The next few moments were a bit foggy, but I remember ending up on the floor and not knowing what was going on." I started explaining.

"Likely a concussion… ah, please continue." The doctor interrupted but gestured for me to carry on.

"When my senses started coming back to me, I saw a huge guy, a mutant-quirk type villain I first thought, screaming that he was going to kill the manager of the restaurant. And, you know, I just couldn't let that happen. The villain… well, he had his reasons for his actions, but I just knew that what he was doing was wrong, so I had to stop him. My quirk is Psychokinesis – y'know, moving things with my mind yeah?"

She nodded along, "Those are the patients we see the most as a quirk Neurologist."

"Right. So, I tried summoning up my 'Psychic Energy' as I call it to stop the villain. But my quirk just didn't respond. That was when I learned that if I sustained an injury to the head, it saps my control of my quirk. Anyways, so I laid on the floor, helplessly watching the villain go up to his target and hold him in his hand. And I thought to myself, I have to do something. I have to."

"So I force myself, really digging deep and forcing out every last shred of my willpower to wield my Psychic Energy. And I succeeded, barely. I remember a splitting headache – just a blinding pain. So much so that my vision started blurring again and there was a ringing sound in my ear. I felt my nose start gushing blood; odd but I didn't think much of it at the time. Well, it worked, and I was able to wrap my Psychic Energy around a chair and throw it at the villain."

I frowned as I reached the climax of the story, "Not that it did any good. Throwing the chair emptied me, and there was nothing else I could do except watch the villain crush the man in his hand… And that was that. The villain surrendered to the police soon after and I was sent to the hospital. They told me I suffered a concussion, nothing too severe, I just had to take a week off of school and rest at home."

The doctor had been writing in her notepad, a scribble of cursive distinct to doctors, "I see. When you went home, did you continue using your quirk during the week off?"

I smiled embarrassedly, "Honestly? well, yeah. You see, after that incident, it ignited a fire within me. I was determined to become a hero in the future so that I could prevent anything like that from happening again. And for that to happen, I concluded that I had to start training my quirk seriously. Thankfully my quirk could be trained at home without disturbing the rest of the neighbourhood, so that was really all I did for that week."

Her impassive face slipped into a frown, but she recovered quickly, "And did your nose bleed during that week?"

"Oh yeah, tons. But only when I exhausted myself, you know, really pushed my quirk to its limits. But that was something I needed to do for my quirk to grow stronger. When I was younger, the Quirk Assessment Centre told me that quirks are like a muscle. The more we abuse it, the stronger it got. So I was really just following that training philosophy." I answered with a shrug.

"Well, they're not wrong… And you reported that from then until your enrolment into U.A., you regularly trained and pushed yourself to the extent that your nose bled regularly. Is that accurate?" She asked while noting something down on her notepad, her writings inscrutable.

"Yes…? My nose bleeding meant that I had reached the limits of my quirk usage that day, which also meant I was growing stronger. So that was usually the cut-off point for me; training every day until my nose started bleeding and my head started aching. And I definitely could see the results. I felt my quirk strengthening with every passing day, so there was no reason for me to stop if I wanted to become a top hero."

Seeing that my recounting of events was over, the doctor fell into a momentary silence before speaking, "I understand. Kurogami-san, I will now share with you the MRI scan results. For now, please hold your questions off to the end after I've finished explaining everything."

I nodded mutely, the dread and anxiety returning with full force. For some reason, I had a bad feeling about what she was going to say.

She turned back to her computer and clicked on a few things before the results of my MRI scan showed up, displaying what I assumed to be a cross-section of my brain. It was black and white, and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be looking at.

"This is an MRI scan of your brain we took just hours ago." She began before pulling up another image of a cross-section of another brain next to my own, "And this is the MRI results of what can be considered a healthy brain… do you see the difference?"

I squinted my eyes, looking between the two images. The left was my brain and the other was a 'healthy brain'. And after a moment or two, I saw it.

"That's…" I pointed at a region of my brain in on the computer screen.

"Indeed, Kurogami-san. We have discovered a tumour in your brain." She responded grimly.

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A/N: As we near the end of the USJ arc and approach the Sports Festival arc, I would like to ask you guys for some suggestions for Yasuo's hero name. I'm not good at naming things, so I am opening it up to your creativity! If you find a suggestion you like, give it a like! I'll be asking this for the next few chapters and will collate the ones everyone likes most - then a few chapters before the hero name chapter I will open up a poll for you to vote! So head on over to the comment section and hand over your intellectual property, dear readers!

Remember to give a like to the names you like!