Pain, all-consuming pain was the first thing Izuku noticed as he regained consciousness followed quickly by the feeling of soft bedding under his body and the scent of what could only be his mother's cooking filling the air. He tried pushing himself into a seated position on the bed but quickly thought better of it and flopped back down as the movement caused his body to crumble back down on the bed from pain, it felt like his blood was boiling inside him or maybe trying to force its way out.

With his options now limited Izuku rolled over to stare at the wall, his thoughts bouncing around his head at what felt almost hurricane level speeds as he slowly tried to relax his breathing.

After what felt like hours but really was only minutes Izuku's breathing stabilised and he pushed himself up, so he was resting his back against the wall. The pain returned quickly but on a much lower level this time, he might not be moving around much but at least it was manageable right now.

Having nothing better to do he looked around his room to find anything that could distract him from the pain, but nothing seemed out of place or interesting, but the fact that he was alone in the room concerned him.

Artoria rarely left his side, what reason would she have since no one else could see her.

He tried to think of anything recent that might have upset her, but the attempt caused even more pain, entirely different this time however, it felt vaguely migraine-like except for the strange sensation dangling on the tip of his thoughts, like something was missing and the feeling of being submerged in an ocean of gold and hateful red eyes looking down on him as he drowned. Not really having the words to describe it Izuku grunted and decided that it felt like there was a crack in his skull when he tried to think.

He didn't have long to ponder his situation though as moments later his mother poked her head through the door frame, which he was only now realising that was missing the door.

The older woman pushed herself through the training equipment and stacks of notebooks to reach her sons bed, ruffling his green hair affectionately before placing a bowl of soup down on the bedside table for him and giving him stern instructions to make sure to drink it all to recover his strength before leaving him alone with his thoughts once again.

Izuku weakly picked up the bowl, his arms felt sluggish and heavy, but he managed to hold the bowl steady enough to drink while his thoughts bounced around.

His quirk was the main focus of his thoughts at the moment, after all he really didn't know a lot about it and what he did know Artoria had told him was just theory, neither of them had any way of knowing if they were correct in their thoughts or not.

"What I do know is some how my quirk acts as an anchor to her and somehow I am slowly learning to use her abilities." He mumbled out loud as he idly stirred his soup with a spoon. "Other than that, there's so much unknown to it, why her specifically. What is so special about her or I that my quirk linked us together."

The longer Izuku sat there playing with his soup and thinking the more Artoria's absence unsettled, she had never left his side since he awakened his quirk, his gut was screaming that something was wrong.

His thoughts and worries around Artoria's absence lit a fire of motivation under him, he must figure out where she had gone but first, he must be able to move out of the bed. Mentally psyching himself up he lifted the bow up and drank the last of his soup, placing it gently back down on the table before trying to stand up.

It hurt but he had felt worse many times during his training. He took a single step and the world started to spin for a moment, so he stood still and waited for it to pass. It took him almost twenty minutes, but he made it to the opposite wall before slowly moving back towards the bed, small progress.

It would be a few days until Izuku were able to move around with relative freedom and yet Artoria still hadn't returned and with no way of knowing what happened Izuku only had one path, keep moving forward and hope either she returned or he got some hint about his quirk that would allow him to reunite with his friend.

At the end of the week he got his results back from U.A he placed relatively average, but he did pass the exam. He did it, he's going to study at U.A!

His excitement however was swiftly popped as he realised that this would mean he had to update his quirk registration and he still had no idea what his quirk even was. After some consideration he decided that the simple answer would be to class it as a strength enhancing quirk and without Artoria around to bounce ideas off that will have to do.

Izuku found himself at the park he and Artoria had used to train and sat down under one of the taller trees and placed his head on the trunk, listening as heavy rain splattered the leaves in a relaxing sound. After staying in the house since the exam he was honestly just happy to be out finally, even if it was raining, he would be happy to sit here for hours.

And sit there he did, he sat under that tree until the sun started to set and the few stragglers in the park had gone home. Now that he was alone however it was time to do what he came here to do.

Izuku pushed himself to his feet, the wind blowing against his hair as he stood. With some trepidation he held out his hand and focused on calling his sword, if he was going to stand on his own feet at U.A and more importantly find Artoria, he needs to work harder than everyone else at the school, but as he stood there with his hand outstretched waiting for the sword to come he realised with a sinking feeling as though his stomach had turned to lead, the sword was not coming, there was not even a single spec of gold in the air and giving an anguished sob he dropped to the ground once more and stared up at the canopy of leaves as though they were mocking him.