Shedding Time

When Nagisa woke with blurred, slightly-whitened vision, he knew instantly the coming week was going to be hell.

Coming to class wasn't any better either because instantly, Okajima blurted out, "Holy crap, Nagisa! What happened to you?!"

Nagisa could hardly see with his vision being as powder white as it was, but he didn't really need his sight to navigate to his desk. Having a snake quirk, he still had an extra sense with his snakes' tongues. His snakes still had their infrared sight through their pits above their nose, but Nagisa could navigate just fine without it; at least they could taste the air and know more or less where everyone was.

Except it didn't really work for things without particular scents, which was proven when he bumped into Kayano's desk, a hand catching his when he stumbled. "Oof! S-sorry."

He recognized Kayano's gasp, recognized her soft hands. "Nagisa! Okajima's right, what happened to you?"

He heard shuffling from the class then, smelling the familiar scents of Midoriya, Karma and Isogai coming closer. "Geez, you look awful. You're skin's like death… Are you alright, Nagisa?" Isogai's voice cut through the white.

"Y-you're not ss-sick, are you?" Midoriya's voice.

A shadow passed over his eyes and he flinched away suddenly, blinking and flicking his gaze around frantically.

"Oh, damn, you can't see, can you?" Karma's voice.

The blue-haired boy's expression grew red from embarrassment, but he's sure the flush just made him look that much worse. His cracked lips pursed uncomfortably together and he slowly shook his head. "I'm… I'm fine, it's just- uh…"

He sensed Isogai moving and new hands clasped his and he was then guided to his seat. Sitting down, the boy swallowed. "I'm… shedding."

"What?" Isogai.

"Shedding?" Kayano.

"Oh." Midoriya.

"Gross!" Okajima.

" Ew." Nakamura.

"Heh, cool." Hazama.

His face darkened, a hand raising to cover his face. He should have stayed home today.

"Dude, how'd you even get to school?" Karma questioned.

"I, uh, have a walker for weeks like this. I pretty much just memorize my path every day in case this happens," Nagisa shrugged, slowly uncovering his face. He kept his white eyes lowered. It felt so uncomfortable. His body was being squished by the layer of dead skin, and his eyes felt irritated by his eye caps practically hanging off them. He hated these weeks. He couldn't even use his quirk during these times. Why couldn't his own snakes just shed? Why did it have to be him too? Ugh.

"Does it hurt?" Kayano's timid voice came in front of him.

The boy shook his head. "It's just a bit uncomfortable. I just feel a bit… sick, I guess. But not really? Uh… it's not, like, contagious or anything."

He heard Okajima let out a sigh of relief before a whap! And then his cry of, "Ouch! What was that for?"

"He's got a snake quirk, you idiot. Of course it's not contagious," Hazama sighed, voice slightly annoyed.

Nagisa smiled a bit. "It should pass by the end of the week. I just can't see right now. And, some of my skin might look really bad. Since I don't have scales all over my body, only some parts shed like the backs of my hands and my cheeks, so you might see me scraping skin off, but it doesn't hurt, and I put it all into a plastic bag so I don't weird you all out."

The short boy flinched with a gasp when he felt a different hand land on his shoulder, relaxing once he sensed it was only Kurahashi. "It's perfectly normal for snakes!" she explained giddily. "Beetles do it too, you know? Scales and exoskeletons don't grow like regular skin does. It's so cool to see someone other than Korosensei do that skin-peely-offy-thing!"

"Sh...Ss-shedding, K-Kura-chan," Midoriya muttered. Nagisa heard scribbling to his right. He must be taking notes on his quirk. The shorter boy smiled weakly at that prospect. He'll probably show it to him later.

"Why didn't you stay home, Nagisa?" Maehara's voice, laced with concern yet slight amusement. Nagisa turned to the direction of his voice, then shrugged, appearing sheepish.

"I'm under contract this year to not skip school unless I have an valid reason accepted by a doctor or the principal himself," he explained. "Since I'm not sick, I can't get a pass from the doctor to stay home, so." He shrugged again.

The door to the hall slid open, the smell of distinctly French pastries pressing into the class. Nagisa wrinkled his nose. Too sweet.

"Good morning, class!"

Everyone got to their desks and stood up, greeting their homeroom teacher before sitting down again. Nagisa kept his gaze down.

"Now, for attendance. Akabane Karma?"

"Here."

The list went on before he got to his name and Nagisa lifted his head slightly to call out, "Here."

"Alrighty, Suga— Nagisa?! What's wrong with your face?! Ohmygoodness, please don't tell me you've contracted some sort of terrible disease! Oh, my heart would break if anything were to happen to any of my students! What ails you, Nagisa?! Is i-"

"It's! Nothing!" Nagisa interrupted, a bit of laughter hanging off the end of his words. "I'm just shedding, Sensei."

Korosensei's voice sounded a bit pathetic as he responded with a simple: "Oh." Unfortunately, their Korosensei was an octopus of theatrics, so Nagisa wasn't all that surprised when the yellow creature suddenly zipped right in front of his desk and a tentacle touched his cheek. "How extraordinary! What an interesting discovery; It looks like I'm not the only one who sheds a new skin once in a while!"

("Yeah, but I don't shed my entire body off like you do. Or smell weird afterwards," Nagisa muttered while the teacher moved his face every which way, observing the greyer parts and his eyes.)

"Extraordinary! Simply a remarkable side-effect of a remarkable quirk. Tell me, do you shed all at once or is it a process such as those of a common snake?"

"Er… It… takes about a week or less for all my affected areas to shed completely, but more for my snakes themselves…"

"I see! It seems your eyes are also affected. You can't see well, can you? Well, Nagisa, meet me after class today! Midoriya, can you take extra notes for Nagisa today?"

"Y-yes!"

"Excellent! Well, back to role call. Sugaya Sosuke?"

"Present."

Nagisa squirmed, anxiety crawling in his stomach. It always unnerved him when he had to meet a teacher after school.

---

It was hard getting through class just by listening and paying attention, giving vocal responses whenever he was called on (Korosensei still held high expectations).

Lunch went by without incident, mostly just Midoriya asking Nagisa questions about his quirk and Karma being insufferable as always. Trying to spook him and ultimately failing when Nagisa wouldn't flinch after the first two attempts.

Classes came around and Karasuma tried to bench him from gym until his sight got better. To that, Nagisa simply pointed out that Chiba was doing just fine blind and this wasn't his first rodeo with being blind either. Gym went about as well as it usually did. Nagisa took delight in surprising his classmates with how well he could keep up even when blind.

Finally, the end of class came and Nagisa waited patiently for Korosensei in the class.

"So, what'd ya think Korosensei's gonna do?" Isogai questioned, sitting next to Nagisa.

The blind boy shrugged. "I dunno really."

"Maybe he's gonna put Nagisa in a snake cage until he finishes molting," Nakamura chuckled as he finished packing and turned to leave. "Well, good luck, Nagisa. See you guys later."

They all waved her off before Karma hummed to himself. Nagisa turned to his direction. "What're you thinking now?"

"Nothing, just wondering if octopi eat snakes. People eat snakes, right? Like in Africa?"

Midoriya made a shrugging sound. Nagisa heard a smacking sound beside Karma and he sensed Sugino was closer—did he hit Karma? The pig-tail boy hummed in amusement as Sugino chastised his friend, "Why are you seriously this morbid and weird?"

"Nnn-no, he has'a p-point," Midoriya chimed in.

"See? Midoriya agrees with me."

"So? Midoriya agrees with everything and I'm pretty sure you and Midoriya go out to find actual cryptids on weekends."

There was silence and Nagisa raised a brow, looking toward both boys as if their heat signatures would give him any sort of answer to that. Seriously, why weren't they saying anything? Then he heard Karma whisper, "Crap, he's onto us."

Then the hushed response, "Whu, ah, wh-what do we d-do?"

More silence, Karma's head turned looking in some direction he wasn't sure of and then he and Midoriya bolted from the building.

"Holy crap, they actually do hunt for cryptids," he heard Maehara mutter. Nagisa shook his head. If anything they were the cryptids, but what does he know? He's just a blind snake with two smaller snakes attached to his head. Go figure.

Isogai moved to perhaps speak, but was interrupted by Korosensei entering the room. "Nagisa! There you are! Alright, it's all prepared, please follow me! Er, well, boys, help him?"

"I mean, I have pit viper sight," he reminded his homeroom teacher and he jumped.

"Egad! You're right! Forgive me for forgetting. Anyway, come along, children!" With a sigh, he got up with his things and he sensed the curiosity rolling off the three other boys behind him, following along as well. Outside, Nagisa couldn't really distinguish anything but a red square… thing. The shape reminded him of an outside, but bigger.

"Uh, Sensei? What is that?" he heard Maehara ask.

"It's the new sauna!"

Nagisa blinked. "The new what?"

"So, I did some research, and the best way for a snake to shed is in humidity! That, and having scratch toys, and I know you probably pick at your scales already, but your poor little buddies probably don't have anything to scrub their own scales away."

Oh. Yeah, usually Nagisa's the one who peels their dead skin off. He usually just sits in a hot bath at home too.

He looked in Korosensei's direction. "Sensei, I… don't know what to say."

He heard his hands clap. "Say not a thing, Nagisa! I take pleasure in assisting my hardworking students in any way I can, and this surely will help your shedding process to go more smoothly, I can assure you." Man, that octopus sounded so proud of himself.

Nagisa chuckled a bit before nodding. "Alright. Thank you, Korosensei, I- I'll take this offer."

"Wonderful! Now, let's get you ready for the sauna!"