What did not go away was his shaking, which remained.
And making matters worse, while his shaking went away, this time rather than feeling just fine, he felt a sense of… Numbness set in.
...
"Sit." She commanded, as she pulled forth a chair and placed it by the side of the door entrance.
"I-" "Sit down." She said in a tone that clearly did not broker arguments.
He sat down.
Recovery girl took his hand in hers and held it up inspecting it, and the shaking.
"What's wrong with him? He looks like he was electrocuted. Hard." Black Cat piped in.
At that, Mina piped up, and with a clear force of will, she forced herself not to hurl as she turned from the bucket she was currently using to look at Izuku.
She looked… Really, really sick. The normally bright pink skin had taken on a much paler shade on her face, and around her lips, she once again still had the obvious traces of having just vomited that she had when Izuku had last seen her.
Recovery girl sighed.
"He probably was I'm guessing, but this isn't that. This is that crazy Girl's pain inducer. I've treated her several times after she tested that thing, I recognize the symptoms."
She shook her head.
"I still can't believe they actually greenlit that monstrosity for this tournament. They're all insane about pushing the kids to the absolute limits."
"A pain inducer? That's… a bit more drastic results than most pain quirks I've seen."
"Eren isn't based on a pain-inducing quirk. It's a monstrosity of a device that directly stimulates the human body's pain receptors. All of them. At once. Several thousand folds."
For a moment there was complete silence.
It was Mina who broke the silence.
"And they LET her use that thing?" She croaked in a voice absolutely filled with anger. Then, she winced, and once more buried her face in the bucket.
"I agree. That seems like something that should have been banned from this tournament. Not to mention the government will never greenlight a patent for something like that. That's just begging to have it turned to a torture device."
"Yes, that was my opinion on the matter as well. However, I'm not the one who decides that. That said, it could have been worse. The original device had an effect that lasted for 20 seconds. To get it greenlit, she had to change it to last only 4 seconds."
"It… Felt like hours." Izuku croaked.
"Yes… I am very familiar with the effects from Mei's notes. That insane girl always ends up in my office, at least twice a week. If it's not pain inducers, it's bloody electrocution and all other kinds of nonsense."
She glanced at said girl.
"I'd say she thought she's immortal, but that's basically the opposite of what her problem is. In any case…"
She let go of Izuku's wrist and walked over to the door.
"If you didn't have a healing factor, I would forbid you from partaking in another match in this tournament. Eren's effects aren't something that you can just shrug off with a bout of healing. The shaking afterwards is a mental effect, not a wound. The good news is that it will pass in time. The unfortunate part is that for most folks that takes a day or two. But since you have a healing factor, it might be different. We'll see. In any case, I'll go talk to Aizawa and have the next match postponed by half an hour. I'll take a look at you in the next 30 minutes, and decide whether you're fit to fight it. If not, then second place is as far as you'll go."
It took Izuku a few seconds after she had closed the door behind her, to fully understand what she had just said at the end.
"Second… place?"
"Mina is NOT going to fight her next round." Black Cat said in a decisive tone, and just like the other older lady who had just left the room, the tone brokered no arguments on the matter.
"As amazing as recovery girl is at treating wounds, the problem with her powers are that they just speed up the body's natural healing process. Which, when you have a poisonous substance in your veins isn't all that relevant. The poison itself isn't affected by the quirk, and it's gonna take a while before it's naturally run it's course."
Izuku felt a massive pang of worry at that, but Black Cat cut him off before he could ask the worried question that had just sprung to his mind.
"It's not a deadly poison. Mina will be fine. You on the other hand… Well, since Mina isn't gonna fight the next round, the next round would be the finale. You against the ravenous marvel."
That… Seemed a weird way to refer to Uraraka, but Izuku was far too numb at the realization that he would have to face Uraraka in combat. As he was now. Shaking and numb.
His body might be in physical condition to fight Uraraka, but he sure didn't feel like it. At all.
The fact he was in the same room as Black cat, commonly regarded as one of the most beautiful pro heroes of Japan, and at her peak, the most successful Heroine in Japanese history, and was neither all that aware of either fact at the moment, was also a pretty good indicator of just how numb he was to the world around him right now.
Instead, he just leaned back and tried to mentally get ready for the next match.
Black Cat didn't say anything until Izuku finally realized something.
"Wait… Where is Iida?"
"Oh, him. He woke up sometime during your bout with our lady octopus."
Well, that was something at least.
For the next 10 minutes silence ruled the infirmary, as Mina finally managed to leave behind the bucket and sit down in a chair beside Izuku, Todoroki kept his sullen silence, Mei remained unconscious. Finally, however, Black cat got up and announced she was going to go pick up Mina's things and would be back in a short while.
When the door closed behind her, Izuku looked numbly after it.
Izuku was well aware of the inspiration that Mei had used for Eren, the agony matrix Darkseid had used against Superman in the final episode of Justice league unlimited.
He was able to comprehend just what kind of horrid pain the man of steel had undergone in that episode now, but there was one huge difference between that and reality.
As Recovery girl had said, you didn't just immediately walk off this kind of attack after it stopped.
It had been… Horrifying. If there was a hell, then surely this was what awaited any poor soul who went there.
Around the 15 minutes mark, Mina finally began talking again.
"You… Feeling any better Midori?"
"No… Not really… You?"
"I can't feel my arm anymore… and the rest feels like… I'm boiling at a low simmer..."
Izuku looked over at her, and now that he really managed to focus on her, it astonished him just how badly Mina looked. The normally cheerful and energetic cutie looked really haggard, her eyes seemed pretty glazed over, and one of the sleeves of the black shirt she had changed into after getting cleaned up was covered in vomit.
Izuku looked much better, but his entire body was shaking, and his eyes had trouble focusing on anything. As he looked at Mina, she went in and out of focus several times, before his eyes finally managed to really focus on the longhaired, pink girl.
"You… Do you… Think you'll fight Uraraka?"
He considered. Then raised his hand up in front of his face, taking in how it shook and wobbled, along with the numbness.
He could lie, but… he didn't like lying. Much less to people he liked.
"I want to… But… I don't think recovery girl will allow me... Not like I'm Now… "
Mina gave a forced chuckle.
"Seems we're in the same boat… Wouldn't have thought that. I was sure… us or Uraraka would win… But she didn't even have to fight either of us…"
"Yeah…"
...
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