Chapter Text
The world did not end with a bang, nor did it end with a whimper.
In fact, it didn't technically 'end' at all.
Perhaps it would have been better if it did; if their world had been snuffed out before any of them could truly comprehend just how fucked they were.
But that's not what happened. No, instead the world just kept getting progressively worse and worse as time went on. Anyone who'd managed to survive was simply too damn stubborn to let to—too stubborn to lay down and die after everything they'd lost.
But in the end, they were all just dragging out the inevitable.
Society as they'd known it was nothing more than a distant memory, leaving those left behind to fend for themselves or to join one of the warring factions that still held on.
Things like 'heroes' or 'villains' no longer existed.
People roamed the streets like ghosts, using their quirks as they saw fit regardless of what damage it wrought. Those who had once been considered heroes were hunted down in cold blood, often simply due to being recognized—for their perceived failure in preventing the ruin of their world—or for attempting to save innocents as they had once been trained to do. More still were killed by the nomu, which roamed aimlessly and attacked any who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The prospects for any survivors that had managed to make it this far were grim.
How many buildings by now had been reduced to rubble? What were once safe havens now nothing more than piles of jagged, twisted debris, their former inhabitants entombed with none the wiser.
And if one did find themself buried alive, lucky enough to survive the initial collapse... how long before they realized no heroes were coming to save them?
That no one was coming to save any of them?
There really wasn't much left that was worth living for.
Yet here Aizawa Shouta is, still living despite everything. Still living despite the death of his husband, the deaths of his coworkers and friends, and of countless allies... even the deaths of his students. His daughter.
Still living despite the fact that he doesn't want to.
He wants to be reunited with the people he's lost, wants to hold them and close his eyes and feel like he's home again. He doesn't want to be constantly looking over his shoulder, knowing that death could be around any corner. He doesn't want to keep fighting, he wants to rest.
But as always, that is not an option for him.
All he can do is keep moving forward.
He keeps moving forward, even as it became more and more difficult to find enough food to fill his remaining student's bellies. Even as their enemies drew ever nearer; as every safe haven they managed to find was exposed, and they were forced once more to flee.
Even as he buries his fallen students one by one, not strong enough to keep them safe. To keep them alive.
He's failed them. Is failing them.
Past, present, and future... though there wasn't exactly much of a future left.
They've all lost so much.
Shouta his right leg; all of them their friends and families. Everything that had once been their entire world, gone just like that. Lost forever.
He sees it in his student's eyes, that growing dread, the fear that returned ever stronger with each passing death, knowing that any one of them could be next. The distrust, after they had been betrayed by one of their own. The hunger.
Hunger for food, for safety, for normalcy.
And Shouta tries to provide for them. He's trying, but with each passing day there is less and less to go around, and he doesn't know how much longer he can keep this up.
Day by day it feels like he loses a little more of himself. Some days he felt more animal than man—that same feral, ravenous look reflected in each of his student's eyes. None of them would ever say it to his face, but they knew he was failing them, too.
Shouta is so, so tired.
But he can't rest. Not yet.
There's still work to be done; so long as he has even a single child left in his care, he cannot rest.
Midoriya Izuku. Uraraka Ochako. Bakugou Katsuki. Yaoyorozu Momo. Tokoyami Fumikage. Asui Tsuyu. Shinsou Hitoshi. Hatsume Mei.
Eight students, the only ones still left alive.
In the beginning when everything had just gone to shit, it had been all twenty of his 2-A students along with a handful of stragglers from the other classes. The ones that had survived the raid on UA, that is. It was them, and Hizashi, Eri, Yagi...
Sadly, it hadn't lasted long.
Unbeknownst to any of them, there was a traitor in their midst. Mineta Minoru—one of the very students he was protecting, goddammit—had sold them out.
So many lives lost. So much potential... gone. Just like that.
Shouta couldn't understand it. He can't.
It seems like only yesterday that he'd first met this class, all wide-eyed curiosity and wonder. At the same time though, it felt like an eternity. By his estimation, they should have started their third and final year of UA by now.
They would have made incredible heroes, if they'd only gotten the chance.
Now, his students are barely recognizable from the naïve children that had once walked through those imposing classroom doors.
Flashy costumes were great and all for marketing, but they weren't so great when it came to staying hidden.
The bright colors of their hero costumes have long since been replaced by dull grays and blacks; functionality and stealth taking priority over aesthetics. Gone were the impractical, bulky designs of a typical limelight hero, even if some holdovers remained. Shouta would be damned before he told any of them to leave behind their mementos, like Midoriya's tattered yellow cape or the scrap of dark red cloth Bakugou kept tied to his belt.
Honestly, they all sort of look like they're imitating him. Shouta swears he could almost hear Hizashi's voice in his ear, high and lilting, teasing him over creating an army of mini-Eraserheads.
In a way, he supposes he has.
But so what if all his remaining students look like underground heroes? All that matters is that it keeps them alive—though Shouta will admit, at least to himself, that seeing them look and act like him always has a strange sort of pride warming in his chest.
Not that he'll ever be admitting that out loud to anyone.
Besides, it's understandable that they'd begin to emulate him. He's still their teacher, after all. That hasn't stopped just because they're out of a school setting.
Surviving harsh conditions was as natural as breathing for Shouta, and he's been teaching his students all the tricks of the trade when it came to street smarts. Lessons on history and math had been replaced with learning how to survive; a last ditch attempt to cram all the useful knowledge he'd acquired over his underground career into their minds.
Before it was too late.
They needed to know how to remain silent and unseen in the face of danger, or how to protect themselves against an opponent that was bound and determined to hurt them—to kill them.
There was no school nurse here to kiss away their injuries, no bell to save them before things went too far. Their enemies weren't going to hold back just because they're fighting kids. They weren't going to stop.
But his students already knew that, they'd learned it on their third day of class when they saw Shouta get beaten to within an inch of his life.
Yes, they've all had to grow up much too fast... but they're still his students.
His kids.
With nothing else to keep him going Shouta lives and breathes for them; so long as even one of them is still alive, then he will do his damnedest to keep going. For them.
Which leads them to now.
He can't remember what the exact time or date is—they'd all lost track a long time ago—but based on the sun Shouta would guess it's around noon at the moment. Springtime.
The morning had started as it normally did these days: wake up, go out searching for supplies, avoid being detected, find a new shelter for the night, eat, sleep, repeat. All things considered, they'd actually been doing pretty good on that front.
Up until the 'avoid being detected' part, that is.
They'd only managed to scrounge up a few useful things so far when it happens; Izuku freezes in place where he'd been reaching to check inside a broken down car, his head cocked to the side. It's a familiar precursor to looming danger, and the rest of them are attuned enough to it that they all freeze, too.
For a tense second none of them move. They hardly even dare to breathe.
Then there's an unfamiliar shout, and a scuffle, and without even needing to exchange looks Shouta and his ragtag group of students are already on the move.
Katsuki and Izuku take the lead, clearing the path ahead and deciding which direction to run, respectively.
Shouta meanwhile immediately falls back so he's in the rear along with Fumikage and Dark Shadow, ensuring they all stayed together while also fending off any attacks from behind. The rest of the positions changed sporadically, though for the most part they stuck as close together as they could without tripping over one another.
Footsteps echo throughout the ruins.
They're being chased.
Shouta hears the first assailant's approach before he sees them. To his left.
With a flick of his wrists he lashes out, the collapsible crutches strapped to his forearms extending as he spins. He slams the length of one across the chest of his pursuer. It catches them off guard, if the wheeze of breath that's knocked from their lungs is any indication, and they promptly collapse to the ground.
Other than a cursory glance to ensure they're down for the count, Shouta doesn't let himself get distracted.
That wasn't the only person chasing them, after all.
To his right Dark Shadow looses a staticky shriek as they knock back the next to get too close, Shouta only just catching the blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't turn towards it; Fumikage and Dark Shadow can handle themselves.
Shouta's eyes narrow as he spots a handful of other people up ahead, on the tops of piles of rubble or in the open windows of the buildings bracketing the street they're stuck running through. He and his students are at a disadvantage; their enemies have the high ground.
But when hasn't that been the case these days?
Any that dare approach quickly find themselves beaten back, not expecting such sheer brutal efficiency from what they must have thought was an easy target; Shouta's students are anything but.
He's taught them well.
Something shifts then and Izuku abruptly changes course, lashing out with Black Whip just before a deafening 'crack!' cuts through the air like a gunshot. It stops them all dead in their tracks; Shouta catches himself with his crutches, a shock traveling up his arms as he jams the ends into the cracked earth to halt his forward momentum.
His eyes widen as he looks up, just in time to see half a building come crashing down in front of them, right onto the street where they would have been had Izuku not stopped short.
It stirs up a huge cloud of debris that rushes past them like a tidal wave, the ground heaving beneath their feet.
As the dust begins to settles, the true scale of what happened is revealed.
The path ahead was now completely blocked off by a mountain of debris, the twisted steel and brick too precarious to risk climbing over, not when they're still being pursued. It was too much for even Bakugou to safely blast through.
They're trapped.
Backed into a fucking corner.
Shouta whirls so he's stood between his students and the people chasing them, teeth bared. His elongated canines glint dangerously in the dust-hazy sunlight.
In the chaos of the building collapsing he finds they've been surrounded, two dozen or so people blocking the way back. They form a tight wall, more than half of them holding a weapon of some kind and all of them wearing desperate, hungry expressions. Already they're advancing, closing the distance between them in slow steps that are likely meant to intimidate.
The inhuman snarl that rumbles in Shouta's chest gives some of their attackers pause, uncertainty bleeding into their body language.
Good.
Behind him all of his students have already shifted into defensive stances, no words needing to be exchanged.
In an instant, they attack as one.
No hesitation.
Shouta retracts the crutch on his right arm to grab at his capture weapon, using the left to bat away the first person that comes at him. He can't throw himself into the throng; he's in no condition to take on so many people at once, even if he might have been able to once upon a time.
No, he needs to stay close to his students; to remain a united front.
In the corner of his eye he sees Mei lunge forward to jab her homemade taser into one unlucky bastard's gut, dancing away just in time for Katsuki to send them flying with a well-timed explosion.
To his other side Ochako slaps anyone who dares get within reach, negating their gravity and allowing them to be thrown far from the fight by one of her classmates. That's mostly Tsuyu since she's the closest to Ochako at the moment, but occasionally Izuku would jump in with Black Whip and hurl another attacker off into the distance. But after the first unlucky few were released from Zero Gravity and disappeared somewhere beyond the rooftops, the rest learned to keep their distance.
The fight seemed to be going in their favor, but all of them knew better than to let their guards down for even a second.
Shouta doesn't show any mercy and neither do his students—mercy would get them killed, or worse. No, they fight with everything they've got, uncaring of the injuries they may inflict on their opponents.
The guilt could be dealt with later, once they're all safely out of harm's way.
Now was not the time to be getting distracted by things like guilt.
With a swift kick Shouta sends a man with a warthog mutation flying backward. He pivots on the spot, wrapping his capture weapon around a much larger person that he'd spotted charging for Momo.
He has to retract his other crutch so he can use both hands, grunting as he swings the bound man off into a cluster of their buddies. It knocks them all over, near where Hitoshi and Fumikage are fighting side-by-side, so Shouta leaves it to them while he moves on to the next opponent. He grits his teeth.
He's frustrated at having been caught in an ambush like this, yet at the same time he feels a sense of urgency to wrap this up quickly. It's not good to be out in the open like this; the noise from their fight was going to draw unwanted attention.
No sooner has he had that thought that everything goes to shit.
Izuku goes stiff, hissing something under his breath just before there's a flurry of movement up on top of the rubble to their backs, bits of debris raining down. All of them, ally and foe alike, turn their gazes to the hulking, misshapen figures that appear over the crest of the toppled building.
Nomu.
Fuck.
Shouta feels his pulse skyrocket, but he finds himself frozen in place as the nomu—a whole pack of the bastards—stare down at them, teeth bared and eyes bulging.
No one dares to move.
Shouta already knows they won't be getting out of this unscathed; this is worse case scenario, in the sights of multiple nomu and with their enemies at their backs. He can only hope that most of his kids will make it out of this alive.
Their best chance was to make a run for it, but as soon as they did the nomu would be on them. Even smaller ones like these wouldn't hesitate to rip them to shreds.
One of the nomu, drool dripping from its open mouth, takes a step forward.
Someone behind Shouta whimpers.
He doesn't smell the sudden spike of ozone, but he does, however, feel the shift in the air.
The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Someone yells his name, and Shouta braces himself to move, but there isn't enough time.
He's blindsided.
He feels it slam into his back, all static and burning ice. One of their opponent's quirks, his mind supplies. It hits him with enough force to throw him forward. He's flung into the students standing directly in front of him, Mei and Tsuyu, they and him being brought to the ground with startled cries.
Momo screams.
A nomu roars.
Shouta tries to scramble to his feet, to protect his kids, but the pain blooming from where he'd been hit keeps him on his knees.
All he can do is watch in detached horror as their opponents scramble to flee. As his students, faces struck with terror, pack in tight around him. As the nomu fling themselves forward from atop the rubble.
As some kind of energy arcs out in a dome from the burning, sizzling pain in his back, latching onto all eight of his students in an instant.
The light burns into his retinas, leaving behind phantom images of their terrified faces...
Before everything goes blindingly white.
He still hears it though when they start to scream, when the strangers start screaming too and the nomu begin to shriek. He still hears when the horrible sound of tearing flesh fills the air, panicked screams turned from fear to agony. Until it all bleeds together into one big crescendo of endless noise and Shouta can't tell the difference anymore. He thinks he might be screaming, too, but he can't be sure. Everything burns.
The whole world seems to tilt on its axis.
It feels like he's being pulled in every direction all at once, his whole body a live wire. He's not even sure which way is up or down anymore.
Shouta clings to the handful of fabric he's got a hold of, his only grounding point, unsure which student exactly he'd managed to grab onto or when he'd done it. Through the din he can hear their washed-out cries growing distant, like they're being pulled from him. Taken away.
He tries to hold on for dear life.
But the pull is too strong, and all too soon they're torn from his grasp.
Just like that, Shouta finds himself alone.
Everything around him has been reduced to a kaleidoscope of color and sound, nothing to orient himself with. No ground, no sky. No nothing.
Nothing but that endless light.
It penetrates past even his eyelids, squeezed shut as tight as he can get them, for every time he tried to peer one open he would be nearly overcome by nausea. He could barely feel the rest of his body beyond the burn of static.
All Shouta knows for sure is the prevailing sense of falling.
Time...
stretches.
He's not sure how long he spends free-falling through that endless white abyss, half convinced he's gonna hurl or pass out, but just when he begins to think it may never end—
It does.
There's no warning, no time to brace himself. The light and noise simply dissipate as though they'd never been there in the first place.
Shouta feels himself suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, afterimages dancing in his vision, before he's unceremoniously dropped onto the hard, unforgiving ground.
His head slams against something solid, and Aizawa Shouta knows no more.