break me down (over and over)

by phaunts

Summary:

Previously titled “The Difference Between”
—
While shopping for supplies for U.A.'s upcoming forest lodge trip, Midoriya Izuku comes face to face with Shigaraki Tomura, who would love nothing more than to destroy All Might's world of justice and peace. What better way to destroy a hero than to destroy a person he's sworn to protect?
—
or,
the one where Uraraka fails to find Midoriya in the Kiyashi Ward shopping mall, and he is kidnapped by Shigaraki. Discovering that Midoriya is the new holder for One for All, the villains decide to force the boy to surrender his quirk, and his life quickly devolves into a living nightmare.

Chapter 1

“What do you think is the difference between the Hero Killer and I?”

Izuku Midoriya’s heart was racing a mile a minute, eyes darting around the square desperately looking for a familiar face, a hero, anyone willing to see what was happening right then. The boy silently pleaded for Uraraka to return, still unsure why the girl disappeared so suddenly into the throng of the Kiyashi Ward’s Saturday shopping crowd. He didn’t recall saying anything that embarrassing, at least not any more than usual.

The villain’s question tugged Izuku’s consciousness back to reality from the whirlwind of his jumbled thoughts, though he refused to make eye contact with the pale man, whose bony digits were currently wrapped threateningly around his throat. Izuku’s mission to find supplies for U.A.’s upcoming forest camp was forgotten; the boy instead fixated on how Shigaraki’s index finger was hovering dangerously close to Izuku’s skin. Even the slightest touch would mean the boy’s end, and Izuku struggled not to quake, fearing even a slight disturbance in their silent standoff would set Shigaraki off.

Unfortunately, Izuku had seen no one; despite the throngs of civilians pressing close from all sides, not a single soul seemed aware of the danger that literally sat in their midst. Izuku swallowed, his throat unnaturally dry, and Shigaraki’s hand tightened even more. Midoriya was on the brink of panic; one wrong move, and he and dozens of innocent lives would be lost in an instant. It all hinged on him, on not upsetting this man, the man that had haunted his nightmares ever since the USJ incident. A man that could disintegrate his skin in less than a minute, and even One For All would be powerless to stop it.

“Well?” the hooded man growled, patience growing thin.

“The difference?” Midoriya managed to choke out.

Calm down, Izuku, this is not the time for a panic attack. He scolded himself. Knowing lives other than his own were at stake, he forced his consciousness to still, and his mind quieted long enough for him to analyze his own thoughts, and an idea formed that had been brewing in his head since his run-in with the Hero Killer just weeks before.

“I-I don’t... understand you, nor a-accept your ways,” Izuku began, already feeling the displeasure of his unwanted companion darken the air around them, and the boy resisted the urge to flinch. “With the Hero Killer, I don’t accept him, but I can see where he is coming from.”

“We both started out admiring All Might, a-and although his methods were wrong, he strived towards an ideal and followed his path through to the end.”

Silence met Izuku, and stretched for so long that Izuku almost thought that the villain had forgotten about him, were it not for the man’s fingers still tightly wrapped around his throat, preventing his escape. In a moment, Shigaraki’s hand constricted like a vice grip, and Izuku lost the ability to breathe. The boy tried to gasp, but no air would come. On instinct, Izuku’s arms reached for his throat, which only tightened Shigaraki’s grip, spurred on by the boy’s sudden movement. In a panic now, Izuku looked into the face of the scraggly haired man, the sight that met him chilling him to the bone.

His pale assailant was grinning wickedly, yet his eyes had a far-off look about them.

“I think I get it now,” Shigaraki crooned, his voice deadly calm. “I understand why the Hero Killer pisses me off, and why you’re so annoying .”

Shigaraki looked down to meet the boy’s gaze, terrified green eyes locking with viperous red.

“It’s all about All Might ,” Shigaraki said, his smile even more hideous now that it was facing Izuku. “Of course... of course it all leads back to him!”

He laughed, an unhinged, barking yelp that reminded Izuku more of a hyena than a human, and the man shook his head, his unkempt gray hair nearly smacking Izuku in the face.

“The reason all these idiots,” Shigaraki gestured vaguely towards the throngs of passerby. “...can walk around grinning, not a care in the damn world, like there’s no one he can’t save... thank you, Midoriya!” He said, not an ounce of sincerity behind his words. “I’m glad we could have this little chat.”

The boy was on the verge of seeing stars; darkness stained the corners of Izuku’s vision. Shigaraki’s grip only increased as he talked, his excitement in this revelation making him forget where he was, what he was doing. His index finger, too, was lowering dangerously close to Izuku’s throat, and Izuku’s hands clawed even harder at the death grip Shigaraki had around him. Thankfully, Shigaraki relaxed slightly, and Izuku managed to take in a gulp of air before his assailant began anew.

“I do have a creed, an ideal ... I’ve had it all along!” Shigaraki exclaimed, seemingly unfazed by Izuku’s struggles. He stood up suddenly, forcing Izuku to do the same and, with more strength than the boy thought possible from the man’s skinny body, pushed him along into the crowd. Izuku’s head spun wildly, from the sudden change in position or lack of oxygen the boy was unsure, but nevertheless, he managed to stumble forward still on his feet. Shigaraki’s hand had a lighter touch now, but still curled around the boy’s neck, a warning should the boy think of disobedience.

“Head for that side alley next to the sunglasses shop, and if you so much as breathe funny I’ll kill you and every damn soul in this crowd,” the pale man hissed into Izuku’s ear. Izuku obeyed, pupils contracted in fear, and the boy felt his red sneakers tremulously making their way towards the aforementioned shop, about a block down from where they were now. The bright logos dotting the storefronts that Izuku has passed by not too long ago seemed almost foreboding in their cheeriness.

Shigaraki had his arm strewn lazily along Izuku’s shoulders, and from most angles they appeared to be just two friends huddled together in the busy shopping mall’s traffic. If anyone had looked closely enough, they could see the trembling in the young boy’s frame, fighting every instinct to run, to fight, to yell.

I can’t! Izuku screamed on the inside, willing his body to comply. The boy had no doubt the villain was telling the truth, and Izuku would never, ever forgive himself if his inability to control his emotions resulted in the death of an innocent. And so he walked, the whisper of death surprisingly gentle around his neck as the villain and his victim walked down the bustling street. Despite himself, Izuku desperately looked for escape routes, scanned the crowd for his friends, looked for anything, anything , that he could use to his advantage.

Before Izuku had time to react, however, he felt himself being shoved into the aforementioned side street, and for a moment Izuku saw his chance. If he could just activate his quirk for a second, sacrifice a finger, Izuku could send the villain flying and, hopefully, away from the crowds. The pros would be alerted almost immediately, he would think, and then--

Shigaraki slammed Izuku’s head into the wall, followed by a quick jab from Shigaraki’s knee; it sent the boy sprawling. Shigaraki chuckled to himself, amused by the groan Izuku let out while cradling his head, and in his pocket Shigaraki flipped the signal that would alert Kurogiri to his location. Like clockwork, a purple-black portal appeared before them, and Shiragaki grabbed hold of Izuku again by the scruff of his neck.

“My apologies Midoriya,” the man said, dripping with sarcasm before turning serious. “The creed I follow involves creating a world without All Might, and you.... you always seem to be getting in my way.”

Izuku, his head now a mess of swirling colors and cacophonous ringing, could barely get his bearings before being pushed headfirst into the almost familiar warp gate, full blown panic seizing. Shigaraki’s chuckle turned into a barking laugh, and the villain felt a wave of relief wash over him, his confidence in his wicked resolution renewed.

“I should have killed him to begin with,” Shigaraki said to the empty alley. “But this will do nicely.”

With an almost childlike giddiness he followed Izuku into the warp gate. Within seconds, the miasma of dark purples vanished, and the alley was empty again. The day at the Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall continued on, the only evidence of the events that had just transpired was a small dent in an alleyway wall.

 

---

Ochako Uraraka didn’t know what drove her through the crowds -- her feet seemed to overtake her thoughts -- and by the time she took control again, she found herself far away from the plaza where she’d left Izuku.

She didn’t know why she’d felt so embarrassed, looking back. Stupid Aoyama, she muttered, kicking herself internally while she imagined Izuku’s confused expression as she had sped away from him, his green eyes and freckled cheeks twisted up in bemusement. A wave of guilt rolled through her insides and settled in the pit of her stomach. Her friend didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

Because that’s what they were -- friends -- and Aoyama should stop messing with her before she decked him for his stupidity.

I should go apologize to Izuku, she thought, feeling sheepish as she retraced her steps through the shopping centre, absentmindedly peering into the glittering shop windows as she passed. She still had to find bug spray, at some point.

When she returned to the plaza where Izuku had been she found it empty of the mess of green hair she’d come to recognize so easily. In his absence was an abundance of screaming children and their harried mothers, a businessman talking loudly on his phone, and a slightly intimidating gang of middle schoolers. Uraraka sighed. Of course he was gone, Izuku had to find his own supplies for the forest trip, why would he wait?

The girl decided to go back to her shopping, and say sorry once their gang had met up once again.

Only, when Uraraka was reunited with her fellow classmates of 1-A, Izuku was nowhere to be found.

Strange; of all the traits Midoriya possessed, tardiness was not one of them.

“Has anyone seen Deku?” Uraraka cut into an animated conversation between Ashido and Kirishima, realization dawning on their faces simultaneously in an almost comical fashion.

“Hey, you’re right! I haven’t seen Izuku since we split up,” Kirishima exclaimed, his brow furrowing.

“Maybe he got distracted? This is a huge place after all,” Jirou quipped, ever the logical thinker.

Uraraka shook her head, looking down at her phone and the unread messages she had sent to her friend.

Where are you?

“He hasn’t responded to text messages since we split up,” she mumbled.

“He hasn’t replied back to my messages either,” Tokoyami piped up. “I found a pair of night goggles that I was sure Izuku would love a while ago with no reply. It’s not like him.”

Iida exchanged a worried gaze with her. “Should we explore the ward? He has to be around here somewhere.”

Uraraka glanced at the stretching shadows that threatened to cover the shopping square; the ward’s shopping district would be closing soon.

“Okay,” she replied. “Maybe he got lost. The streets do kind of seem to go on forever.”

The group split off into pairs, Iida with Jirou, Kirishima with Ashido, and Uraraka with Tokoyami.

“We’ll cover more ground this way!” Kirishima had said.

Only, after an hour and a half of searching, and the last remnants of sun draining from the sky, the group realized that Izuku was nowhere to be found, and called for a retreat.

“Maybe Midoriya’s phone died and he headed home already,” Iida said, but his face, usually so calm and reassuring, seemed to be clouded with uncertainty. A sinking feeling had settled into his ribcage, pulsing with his heartbeat, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of apprehension for his friend. The boy had never replied to Tokoyami and Uraraka’s texts, and the mall was achingly absent of their fluffy haired friend.

The rest of the group looked equally uneasy, but what more could they do? Reluctantly, the gang parted ways for the night, partially because of being kicked out of the ward by a roaming security officer, and Uraraka headed towards the train station with Iida in tow. She looked at her phone again, its backlight glowing harshly in the evening light.

Where are you?

Her words stared back at her, the bold, black letters seemed to grow bigger and bigger until they seemed to cover her whole screen and soon it was all she could see.

“Hey,” she felt a large hand on her shoulder, warm and strong and grounding. Uraraka blinked, her vision clearing, and she turned to look at Iida, who she could tell was trying to give her an encouraging gaze but the worry in his eyes betrayed his true thoughts.

“I’m sure Izuku is fine. I have faith he can take care of himself.”

Despite both of their obvious worry, Uraraka couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah, I’m sure he can,” she replied, trying to reassure Iida as much as she was trying to reassure herself.

The train ride home passed by without much incident or further conversation, the two companions lost in their own thoughts. Occasionally, Uraraka would look at her phone, her unread message staring her back in the face like a curse.

Where are you Where are you where are you whereareyouwhereareyou...

 

---

 

 

“Where are you?”

Inko Midoriya nearly choked on her worry as she peered out the window to her empty apartment for what felt like the fifth time in half as many minutes. Izuku, her beautiful, precious son, had said he’d be late getting home today, going shopping with his friends, but as the dingy old kitchen clock puttered along further and further into the evening, Inko was beginning to get more and more frantic. Her dozens of texts and calls were still unanswered, and by midnight, the woman was absolutely desperate.

Although he talked about them incessantly since starting at U.A., Inko didn’t have any of Izuku’s friends’ numbers, and, begging whatever deity existed that the school would have a late night phone operator, called the emergency line of U.A.

Come on, come on, she pleaded, and almost sobbed in relief when she heard a flat, monotone voice on the other end.

“This is Aizawa,” the drained tone in the voice doing nothing to stop Inko’s anxiety.

“Hello, y-yes hi, this is Inko Midoryia... Izuku’s mother? I-I’m sorry to call so late but Izuku never returned home from school... I-I think he said he was going shopping with friends after class but he’s not here and won’t answer his phone...” the woman paused to take a breath. “He wouldn’t have happened to make it back to school, could he? Could you contact some of his classmates?”

The tired voice on the other end sounded infinitely more awake now, Inko thought, as the man replied with a curt “one moment, Mrs. Midoriya,” and she sat in her too big kitchen, alone, with bated breath.

After what felt like a millennia, the man -- Aizawa? She wondered -- returned to the line, his drained inflection replaced with a steely, hard tone. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Midoriya, but of the other classmates I could contact, it seems that Izuku never returned to his peers after shopping in the Kiyashi ward.”

If Inko weren’t already sitting down, her legs would have given out from under her. Her vision seemed to narrow until she felt like she was in a tunnel, there wasn’t enough light in the damn kitchen she couldn’t see she couldn’t breathe oh god, oh god oh god oh god her baby --

“Mrs. Midoriya!” Aizawa’s voice cut across her hyperpnea, her panic momentarily derailed. “I know this is difficult, but I need you to listen to me, understand?”

Inko felt her head bobbing, then, realising she was on a phone, managed to croak out.

“Y-yes, I understand.”

“Good,” Aizawa breathed, his steeled timbre softening as he said, “now, Mrs. Midoriya, do you know how to file a missing person’s report?”

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Notes:

First of all, thank you to all of your kind comments! Your feedback has been so encouraging and I'm excited to continue this story!
Apologies for the wait, I think I'm going to shoot for weekly updates to this for the future.
Also, after outlining where I want to go with this story, I will be updating the archive warnings. tw for this chapter: slightly graphic descriptions of violence.

Izuku’s stomach lurched as he tumbled out of the warp gate, landing unceremoniously in a crumpled heap on hard wood. He fought a wave of nausea that threatened to steal his breakfast, closing his eyes and groaning in pain at the throbbing sensation in his head.

Shigaraki had held nothing back when he smashed the boy’s skull against the concrete wall of the alley. Every twinge and ache in Izuku’s muscles seemed to multiply themselves in his skull, their reverberations ricocheting off the sides of his consciousness, and Izuku kept his eyes tightly shut, afraid that the stimulus of color would be too much for his brain to process at the moment. Unfortunately, wherever he had landed, his presence had not gone unnoticed.

Izuku heard the loud clanking of glass shattering, and a muffled string of curses from a deep, disembodied voice. 

“What the hell--?”

Another thudding sound came from behind Izuku, heavier and accompanied by a half-crazed giggle that made his blood run cold.

“I’m back!” Shigaraki crowed almost triumphantly, and with a jolt, Izuku felt the now familiar grip of Shigaraki 's bony fingers around his forearm.

The boy’s instincts kicked in, and he struggled to rip his arm from his assailant’s grasp, forcing his eyes open finally despite the protests from his clanging skull.

“D-don’t touch me!” Izuku gasped, his vision blurring for a second as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of his surroundings.

Izuku found himself on the floor of what looked like a villain’s hideout from one of his cheesy All Might comic books from middle school. The small, brick-exposed room was lit by a single overhead bulb and the soft glow of underlights from the bar, where Izuku saw the familiar form of Kurogiri. The villain, constrained in a barista’s uniform, looked almost comical in his confusion. Opposite of the bar sat a lone flatscreen TV, balanced precariously on a short ledge in the exposed brick and contributed to the eerie glow of the room with its static-filled screen. Izuku caught a glimpse of a broken pint glass on the bar’s countertop in the glossy television’s reflection when a sharp pain blossomed across his cheek. Shigaraki’s nails raked across his face, the force of the blow sending Izuku back on the ground. Izuku involuntarily yelped, shutting his eyes as blood began to trickle down his forehead.

“Quiet, you,” Shigaraki hissed. “You’re beginning to piss me off.” And with that, Kurogiri’s initial shock at seeing the duo tumble out of his warp gate and onto his -- recently cleaned -- floor subsided. 

“Shigaraki!” Kurogiri barked, his echoing voice finally hardening enough to catch his companion’s attention.

“Just what do you think you’re doing, bringing him here?”

Shigaraki turned to Kurogiri, who had since moved from behind the bar to leaning heavily on a barstool, his arms crossed and glowing eyes narrowed in what Shigaraki could only guess was exasperation.

For a moment, Shigaraki felt like he was a child about to get scolded, which was a ridiculous thought, and the pale man stood up a little straighter. Kurogiri was not his boss, far from it, and Shigaraki refused to be chided by his underling. Especially when his goals, his fervor had been so renewed.

“I’ve come to a realization, Kurogiri. I’ve become too preoccupied with making a bigger impression than that.... Hero Killer,” Shigaraki practically spat Stain’s title from his mouth. “But I should have been keeping our ultimate goal in mind... destroying All Might and his influence on this world.” 

Shigaraki turned and gestured to Izuku, still smarting from the blow. “What is the point of a Symbol of Peace if he can’t even protect his own students... imagine it, Kurogiri!” Shigaraki continued excitedly. “I wonder what a dead U.A. brat would do to his image? This is what we should have accomplished at USJ!”

Kurogiri looked at Shigaraki , and couldn’t help the disgruntled wave of awe that dawned on him. The pale, lanky man was obnoxious in his man-child behavior, but Kurogiri couldn’t deny that Shigaraki's earnestness in destroying the hero society made him dangerously formidable.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught Kurogiri’s attention, and he turned to see the boy stand up on shaky feet, blood dripping from the angry gashes on his face on to the floor; there was something about the mix of pain and determination that swirled in his eyes that was almost admirable.

“Y-you’re not getting to All Might through me,” Midoriya shook like a leaf, his voice cracking like glass yet still filled with resolve. Subtly, the boy closed his right hand into a fist, readying himself for a blow. He didn’t know what they planned to do to him that would destroy All Might, but he wasn’t sticking around to find out. If he could only let One For All loose and get the heck out of there. There were no civilians around to hold him back, nothing for Shigaraki to hold over him.

Izuku pulled his arm back, readying his release of One for All, when Shigaraki, quicker than Izuku thought possible, grabbed him once again. A sharp, piercing pain shot up Izuku’s arm.

It was when Izuku witnessed his skin peeling back, exposing tendons and sinewy muscle that he started to scream.

“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to make demands, brat ,” Shigaraki spat, deaf to Izuku’s shrieks.

Pure, unadulterated terror overtook Izuku’s body as he struggled to escape the villain’s grasp, a small voice in the back of his head telling him fighting would most likely make things worse. But Izuku couldn’t hear his own thoughts, images of Aizawa’s destroyed elbow flooding his mind’s eye, visions of how close Tsuyu came to dying at the hands of the villain following soon after, taking precedent over whatever rational thoughts still resided in Midoriya’s brain.

“Wait, Tomura,” a startling crackle erupted from the fizzing television monitor, giving Shigaraki pause.

“Ah,” Shigaraki said absentmindedly, as if waking up from a daydream. “Sorry, I seem to be getting ahead of myself.”

He dropped Izuku’s arm just as the decay had crept up to the boy’s elbow and his pupils had constricted into pinpricks. Izuku slumped like a sack of potatoes, and he instinctively grabbed his now destroyed arm, pulling back almost immediately at the sensation of touching his own raw flesh. His arm felt like it was on fire, a thousand nerve endings screaming so intensely that Izuku felt like he was going blind from pain, and somewhere in his panicked and quickly fragmenting mind he analyzed all the possibilities this kind of damage this could mean.

As Izuku lay gasping on the floor, his breaths alternating between panicked sobs and horrified shrieks, Shigaraki turned towards the television.

“Yes, Sensei?”

“Capturing this boy has presented us with a... unique opportunity,” the voice crooned, silky smooth yet as sinister as a snake. “Send All Might a message. Let him know what happens when he interferes with the League of Villains.”

Through the haze of his pain, Izuku could see Shigaraki scratching the nape of his neck, his excitement growing.

“As you wish, Master,” Shigaraki replied, almost dizzy in his fervor.

He turned towards Izuku’s crumpled form, who impulsively curled his body inward, cradling his rotted arm protectively from Shigaraki's gaze. 

Izuku could feel himself slipping away, the hammering of his head from the initial assault along with the horror of witnessing his own skin fall of his forearm like tree bark was draining whatever strength remained in his body. As his vision became blotted in darkness, Izuku heard his captor’s muffled voice leak into his thoughts.

“Kurogiri, ready the chair,” Izuku could practically hear the smile in Shigaraki's voice as he let darkness overtake him. “We have work to do.”

 

---

 

After Uraraka had gotten the call from Aizawa that night, she couldn’t sleep.

Her mind was a war zone of emotions -- fear, horror, worry, and soul-crushing regret -- swirled around her brain like a tempest. Like she was stuck in some sort of time loop, the phone conversation she had had with her homeroom teacher replayed itself in her mind for hours as she lay in her bed.

Izuku Midoriya never came home, Aizawa’s words rang through her mind, and she felt like a deer in the headlights as they cut straight through her and settled like rocks in her gut.

Do you know where he is?

Hot tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to dispel them. Of course, she didn’t know where he was; despite their best efforts, she and her friends could find neither hide nor hair of Izuku. Their best wasn’t good enough, and now Izuku was gone.

Unable to stand thinking of her failures anymore, Uraraka sat up in her bed and decided to busy herself by getting ready for the day. For once, thinking about going to school gave her renewed energy as she hopped out of bed, hissing quietly as her toes brushed the cold linoleum flooring.

She glanced at her bedside clock -- 5:33 am -- and groaned. School wouldn’t start for another two hours. She guessed it would be better to be early; anything was better than sitting in her too empty apartment making herself go crazy with worry. After all, maybe this was all just a bad dream, and the boy with the mop of curly green hair and a dusting of freckles upon his cheeks would be exactly where he always was on Monday mornings. Izuku would sit at his desk jotting quick notes down in his battered notebook -- she had always wondered why the book had burn marks on it, and why Izuku never bothered to replace it -- while a nearby Bakugou would be terrorizing one of their classmates. She smiled at the thought, and before she knew it she had thrown on her school uniform, grabbed her keys, and was out the door.

The train car she took to school was desolate. She wasn’t surprised; not a lot of school or work commuters would be up at this time, and she took the rare moment of peace to try and keep her mind off of her missing friend, intensely studying the scenery outside the train window. With relief, the train arrived at her stop to U.A. more quickly than she’d ever experienced on a regular school day -- maybe she should take the early train more often -- and hopped off, making her way towards the tall, looming gates of the school that stood a couple of blocks down from the station. The morning was surprisingly chilly, despite the looming summer season, and Uraraka wished she had grabbed her scarf on the way out the door. 

Someone ahead of her had obviously thought to read about the weather beforehand; Uraraka saw a navy blue scarf flapping in the wind, and she immediately recognized the authoritative frame of its owner.

“Hey, Iida!” She called out, and clutching her backpack, she jogged to catch up to her friend.

As she approached, she could see his shoulders stiffen. His face turned towards hers, and the look of utter bereavement looked so out of place on his usually cordial features that it stopped her in her tracks.

“Are you okay?”

He blinked for a moment, as if he hadn’t heard heard her question.

“Uraraka,” he said slowly, rolling her name off his tongue as if he’d just woken up from a daze. “You’re up early.” Iida averted his eyes and cleared his throat.

“Apologies, my friend. My mind has been elsewhere all morning,” was his reply.

Uraraka eyes softened, her own worries that had plagued her all night returning with so much force she felt like it knocked the breath out of her.

“Is it Izuku?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Iida gave a small nod, and his shoulders hunched; for a moment the boy looked so small, even though he towered over Uraraka by at least a foot and had shoulders that seemed to go on forever. Uraraka couldn’t help but pull her friend into a hug. Iida went rigid again for a second, as if he wasn’t used to the contact. After a moment, he practically fell into her arms, as if it had been taking all of his effort just to stay upright. Uraraka’s heart twinged with empathy, and the two stood on the sidewalk for a moment, lost in their mutual feelings of remorse and regret.

“I got a call from Mr. Aizawa late last night,” Iida mumbled into Uraraka’s shoulder, his deep voiced muffled by the fabric of her sleeve. “Izuku... he’s gone.”

Uraraka nodded, pain welling up in her chest. It hurt to hear the words aloud; it hurt especially bad hearing the words coming out of Iida’s mouth. Her friend was always so filled with hope, with boundless optimism. If even the class president had accepted this reality---

She choked back a sob, hiccuping uncomfortably against her friend’s chest. “I know,” she said.

“Is it our fault?”

Uraraka hands began to shake. For hours, laying in her bed staring up at the ceiling, she had been asking herself the same question.

“Iida... I’m not sure.”

At those words, he tightened his grip around his friend, sorrow threatening to overtake his large frame, before something inside him seemed to solidify.

“-- Then we’re going to have to get him back. No matter what.”

Notes:

Constructive criticism is encouraged! I haven't written creatively in awhile and currently work full time so I'll take all the help I can get.

Chapter 3

Notes:

It's up a day earlier than expected! Enjoy.
Again, thank you all for you lovely comments! You are all so kind. <3
A special thank you to my lovely beta, bread, for helping me with this chapter!

Aizawa sighed as he collapsed onto the flimsy blue couch in U.A.’s teacher's lounge, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. He was tired, so so tired. Izuku Midoriya had been missing for over twelve hours now, and with each passing moment, the search for him became more and more frantic.

Despite it all, Aizawa ached to sleep in his own bed; his bones and brain felt like they were made out of molasses. When he had received the call from Inko Midoriya late last night, he was minutes from leaving his post on U.A.’s emergency phone line, a job he had taken a liking to due to the fact that it was quiet and gave him something to do in the evenings. In the past twenty-four hours, however, his late night duties had drastically shifted; between organizing efforts with the police, coordinating forces with the other teachers on duty to comb the school grounds, and scouring the Kiyashi Ward with a fine toothed comb, the man just wanted to get through the day without another disaster. He longed to crash for a couple of hours in the teacher’s lounge, catch a quick nap before the morning press caught wind that a U.A. student had gone missing. Soon the doors to U.A. would be crawling with reporters, and Aizawa was nearly at the end of his rope as it was. It wouldn’t go well.

All Might hadn't been on duty at the time of Inko’s call, yet curiously Aizawa managed to find him in the thick of the Kiyashi search party within hours of the news, divvying up responsibilities to the other volunteers and calling out for the boy louder than the cacophonous chorus of the others. His colleague... hadn't taken the news well. Aizawa had guessed at All Might's soft spot for Izuku from the start, but this... this was...

He had never seen All Might look more afraid before in his life.

Despite their differences, Aizawa respected All Might for his efforts and dedication to being a hero, though he’d rather strangle himself with his scarf than admit it to anybody. If only All Might wasn't so damned flashy.

But the look that Aizawa saw in his colleague's eyes the night before was no performance; All Might’s usual smile, which Aizawa had always found rather gaudy, had dissipated from his features, replaced with a harsh grimace. As the night went on, fissures began to crisscross underneath his cheery facade, and a harshness leaked out of his voice that Aizawa was not aware that the man possessed. By the time the light had returned from the horizon with no sign of Midoriya, All Might had become almost frantic. Present Mic and himself had to physically restrain him in order for him to no go bounding off all over the city in search for the boy.

But his three hours were nearly up; tendrils of smoky white escaped from his heroic form. He couldn't be seen in his weakened form while surrounded by police search parties, and Aizawa had been very close to using his own quirk on his colleague before he could convince him to return to U.A. But that had been hours ago, and Aizawa had no doubt that, after recuperating, All Might had returned to the search, and Aizawa could only hope that All Might could contain himself without his presence.

Homeroom with Class 1-A had gone rather roughly as well. As Aizawa had expected, Uraraka and Iida had filled in the rest of their classmates before he had arrived, and he was met with a wall of questions so potent with emotions that it had taken all of his willpower not to be swept away by it all. If it weren't for the help of Iida's authoritative voice, urging his peers to quiet down, he never would have been able to get in a word edgewise.

Yes, it was true Izuku Midoriya was missing. No, the school had made no progress in his search. No, students were not permitted to join the investigation. The whole affair was to be taken over by the police and the school. Students were not to be involved.

Uraraka had balked heavily at that, her eyes shining with indignation so uncharacteristic of her usual gregariousness. Katsuki Bakugou especially made a show of his displeasure, violently of course.

"You tell us that idiot Deku got himself fucking lost, and that's all you can say?" he had practically growled, a tempest of raw, angry spirit nestled behind gritted teeth.

"Bakugo --"

Bakugou bolted up from his seat, nitroglycerin pooling on his palms and with a flick, sparks jumped around his hands. He shook his head vigorously, oblivious to Aizawa’s warning.

"I’m going to kill that little shit myself!”

“Bakugo. Sit down. Now,” Aizawa’s voice had thinned into razors, spiked and pointed straight at the blond kid with such ferocity, Aoyama, who sat in the front row, physically flinched.

Bakugou hesitated for a moment, weighing the option of disobeying his homeroom teacher’s order as if it was a real choice. Thinking better of it, he sat back down, his animosity rolling off his shoulders in turbulent waves.

With ice in his voice and flint in his eyes, Aizawa managed to get his students to back down, but he could tell that Bakugou would not stay placated for long, and judging by the steel in Uraraka and Iida's expressions, neither would they.

Without question, the forest lodge trip was canceled indefinitely until the school could guarantee the facilities' capabilities of protecting its students. No one seemed too concerned about that; there were higher priorities now.

He dispatched those who had gone to the Kiyashi Ward to Nedzu's office to give the authorities any information they knew that might be useful, but Aizawa wasn't holding his breath. From his conversations with Iida and Uraraka the night before, it had sounded like Izuku had been alone when he'd disappeared.

Sending his homeroom off to their next class had filled him with unexpected relief, releasing a tension in his body that had his bones tangled in wires that he didn't even know he was holding in. With it also returned his mind-numbing exhaustion, a demon that had him fighting to keep his eyelids open and joints limber. Aizawa was just about to give in to his fatigue, settling his back against the stiff sofa, when the door flew open with a bang. He resisted the urge to groan. All Might was back.

Aizawa put his hand over his face for a moment -- being awake was killing his eyes -- before looking up to meet his colleague. From the looks of it, All Might had barely made it back in time; steam was coming off of the large man in a wondrous cloud, making the small lounge look more like a sauna than an office, and in a moment a skeleton of a man replaced where the number one hero once stood.

"Any luck?" Aizawa asked, not skipping a beat. Judging by All Might's grim expression, Aizawa wasn't too hopeful.

As expected, All Might shook his head, and without a word, flopped himself down on the couch next to Aizawa. He lowered his head into his hands, and let out a long sigh. His lungs rattled at the effort, and All Might promptly found himself in a coughing fit, flecks of blood covering the back of his hand as he attempted to muffle his convulsions. When they subsided, the hero seemed even smaller than after his transformation, exhaustion melting into his frame and aging his bones.

"There's no sign of him anywhere," All Might said, the weariness and worry in his voice almost palpable. Aizawa almost felt pity for him.

"Tsukauchi is currently working on getting the surveillance footage from the mall's security office; until then, there's a few search parties still out wandering some of the nearby boroughs. I... couldn't stay out any longer."

Aizawa grunted. That much was obvious.

"Have the media hounds caught wind yet?" Aizawa asked.

All Might gave a wry, strained smile. "Unfortunately. People began having questions when a search party took over the mall earlier this morning."

Aizawa sighed, his vision of napping the afternoon away dissipating with his breath.

"How did the other students take it?"

"Not... well," Aizawa admitted. "I'm going to have to talk to Uraraka and Bakugou later today. They don't seem to be content letting the investigation be handled by the pros."

All Might leaned back, resting his hands on the back of the couch as he took a more leisurely position. "I wouldn't either, if I were them."

Aizawa couldn't blame them for their feelings either. But they were his students, and what kind of teacher would he be --- what kind of hero would he be ---- if he let them join the search, only for something to happen to them too? U.A. couldn't take that kind of blow. Neither could he.

He himself was itching to be back out there; it was light out now, maybe there was something that he had missed while stumbling around in the dark in the initial investigation.

A raucous sound broke the lull of their conversation, and All Might scrambled to fish out his phone from his pocket. He muttered some apology for the loudness of his ringtone to Aizawa, before finally finding it. Eyes widening at the caller ID, All Might hastily answered.

"Tsukauchi? Did you find anything?"

Aizawa watched All Might's face carefully for a reaction as his colleague listened intently to his detective friend. In a moment, All Might's face paled, which looked haunting upon his gaunt face, and All Might stood up so abruptly that Aizawa almost fell off the couch as the cushions adjusted to the shift in weight.

"We have to head over to the police station," All Might said grimly after hanging up with the detective, turning to face Aizawa. The fear that had overtaken All Might's visage earlier was returning with force. "Izuku's been kidnapped."

Surprise wrapped itself around Aizawa’s insides, and then quickly contorted into horror, threatening to ruin his composure. For a moment, he could do nothing but look stunned, staring at All Might deadpan and blank-eyed.

After a beat, Aizawa’s eyes narrowed and his voice became taut. “Then we are wasting time standing here,” Aizawa said, his tone like scraping wires. “Let’s go.”

 

---

 

As soon as Toshinori could change into some better fitting clothes, the two called a taxi and made their way towards Tsukauchi’s precinct, Toshinori still in no shape to bound over to the station without his hero form. Not that Aizawa could have followed him if he had; his colleague looked almost half dead standing up. That was saying something, considering how Aizawa could barely make it through a normal day without tucking himself into a sleeping bag at some point. Now, as their taxi raced its way deeper into the city, Toshinori noticed that Aizawa hadn't said a word since the teacher's lounge, apparently deep in thought, and Toshinori didn't have the heart to break him from his reverie.

Toshinori himself felt like he had been in a constant state of turmoil since hearing the news of his proteges’ disappearance. After Aizawa had called Nedzu and the other professors, the principal had called Toshinori soon after, knowing the relationship between Midoriya and himself. Toshinori couldn't help but feel like he was responsible. Of course, he couldn't be there at all hours of the day keeping an eye on young Midoriya, but it was because of him that the kid had been thrust into the world of heroes, and with that world came the underlying muck and shadow that clouded the reality of the profession.

As the taxi began to slow mere blocks from the station, Toshinori tried to push down his self-loathing long enough to signal Aizawa of their approach, giving him a small nudge to jerk him out of his thoughts. Thanking the driver, Toshinori and Aizawa stepped out of the car and found themselves in front of a monolith of steel and marble that towered over the rest of the buildings on the street. Tsukauchi was waiting for them on the steps, a grim expression on his face. Toshinori's stomach dropped, and he quickly he made his way up the front steps of the precinct to his friend, leaving Aizawa to follow.

Tsukauchi nodded at their approach, and with a turn of his heel, led them into the building.

“Apologies for the abruptness of my call,” Tsukauchi said. “I figured you’d want to see the --- incident, for yourself.”

“It’s fine,” Toshinori waved him off, “I appreciate you calling me first.”

Despite his close relationship with his friend and the local police force, Toshinori had never quite felt at ease in the precinct. It was too clean, too polished for the amount of darkness their cells sometimes held within the walls and the evidence lockers, pieces of people's lives stuck in deep in the basement of the building that were never returned to the light. Toshinori resisted the urge to shudder as he practically jogged to catch up with his friend, who was picking up the pace as they neared his office.

Toshinori nodded to a pair of police officers as they passed, ignoring their stares. Although he was in his normal form, the sight of his emaciated figure and hollowed eyes was still a sight to behold for some, and Toshinori still would never get used to how different people looked at him when he wasn't in his hero form.

Toshinori nearly ran into Tsukauchi as they reached his office door, and he jerked himself out of his thoughts.

"Come in," Tsukauchi said to them kindly, though Toshinori could tell his voice was straining to stay light.

Aizawa and Toshinori obliged, and entered the detective’s small office. Tsukauchi's desk, while cluttered and covered in coffee stains, still seemed to host a somewhat chaotic orderliness; at the top of a pile sat a picture of young Midoriya, smiling in a school picture that he had taken at his first day of U.A. Toshinori's heart clenched at the sight, and he swallowed down a ball of guilt that had built at the back of his throat. On Tsukauchi's computer was a still of a blurry mall plaza -- the surveillance footage -- Toshinori guessed, and made himself comfortable in one of the leather chairs Tsukauchi had lined up against the wall for clients, carefully relocating a pile of the detective's notes and reports on to a nearby shelf as he did so.

"I'll play you the footage so you can see for yourself," Tsukauchi said as his two guests settled down.

Toshinori watched intently, unsure of how he could make out anything in the grainy video. The video began to roll, and suddenly, he saw a flash of green on the screen, a curly mop of hair so familiar even in the blurry footage. All Might’s eyes latched onto it, as if the power of his gaze could somehow coax his protege back to him.

A moment later, a shock of silver hair poked its way out of the crowd, dangerously close to Izuku. All Might sucked in a breath. Oh god---

Toshinori's eyes widened as the two figures approached the camera, and his blood ran cold. He recognized that form: the gray hair, the pale skin, the bony arms --

One of which was wrapped tightly around Izuku's throat, dragging him through the busy crowd.

"Shigaraki," Toshinori breathed, and Aizawa's stoic visage fell, a look of disgust crossing his features. Aizawa knew him well.

"Well," Aizawa muttered. Unconsciously, his fingers traced the scar below his right eye, a gift from his last tangle with the villain. “--- shit.”

"Tsukauchi," All Might's voice was like stone. "Bring me everything you have on Shigaraki from the USJ invasion."

"Already on it," his friend replied, his hand already dialing a number on his office phone. Toshinori and Aizawa exchanged a glance. If Shigaraki had taken Midoriya---

Toshinori nearly trembled at the thought of their last battle at USJ, how, if he had been there even seconds later, U.A. students, his students, would have died. Their investigation was on a time limit, and Toshinori felt cold, icy fear trickle up his spine and settle into his rotting lungs. He gripped the arms of Tsukauchi's chair until his knuckles were white. If they were already too late --

Toshinori would never forgive himself.

Notes:

Finally did some time with the adults! Next week: the plot ramps up again ~~

Chapter 4

Notes:

I apologize for the lateness, this chapter was a bitch to write. ^^; I'm still not entirely happy with it but,,, c'est la vie.
Archive warning applies heavily here. I mean it.
Chapter warning: graphic descriptions of gore

Inko Midoriya busied herself in her kitchen, straightening up her spices and dusting her cabinets with a fervor she hadn't felt in years. It was almost manic, how much house work she'd gotten done that day as she waited for news from the police about her son. Izuku, her precious boy -- it had barely been twenty-four hours since she had seen him. He had given her a bright smile as he’d left for school the previous day, lighting up the foyer of their apartment like the sun. The memory was so blinding it nearly left Inko smarting with tears.

I love you, mom , his voice echoed in her head. His words had ricocheted around her all night, and now it sounded more like a taunt to her frazzled mind than it did like actual words.

Stop that, Inko scolded her thoughts, forcing herself on her tiptoes as she dusted her top cabinet, her body teetering precariously on top of a step stool. She couldn't stop to think about him, or her worry would drown her alive and she wasn't sure if she could persuade herself to stay afloat.

The ringing of her doorbell nearly sent her crashing down to the floor. She quickly composed herself, stepping carefully off of the step stool as she made her way towards the front door. She wasn't expecting such a quick response from the investigation already. She glanced at her wall clock --  late afternoon -- she'd met with Detective Tsukauchi just that morning for an update on the search, which had been discouragingly fruitless. On her balls of her feet again, Inko peered through the front door's peephole to see her visitor.

That's strange, she thought as she gazed at her empty porch. The mail had already come by today, and she wasn't expecting any packages.

A nagging feeling began gnawing in the depths of her stomach, and she felt herself nervously fidgeting with the deadbolt on the door, finally wrestling it open with sweaty hands.

On her small porch lay an nondescript cardboard box, small and unmarked. Blood began pounding in Inko’s ears. She stepped out onto the porch, peering around at the nearby streets. She didn’t see a soul, aside from a neighbor at an adjacent apartment smoking on his balcony. Against her better judgment, she stooped to pick up the box, noting absently how light it was. She shook it slightly, and felt the thump as whatever lay inside hit the edge of the box.

Inko almost didn’t notice her phone vibrating in her pocket, until her ringtone broke its way past the fog in her mind. Giving one last look out into the street, Inko clutched the box to her chest and retreated back into her kitchen. She didn’t recognize the number, but it shared her area code. She answered.

“Hello?”

“Is this Inko Midoriya?” A low, yet somehow familiar voice questioned.

“That’s me,” she replied, climbing into one of her dining rooms chairs and setting the box down gently onto the table. It was held together rather haphazardly with tape, and she got up again to scrounge around for some scissors in a nearby drawer. She knew she put them around there somewhere...

“Ah, well uh, this is All Might. I apologize for the intrusion but it’s about Izuku--”

“All Might?” Inko yelped, nearly dropping her newly found scissors. The number one hero... was calling her? About her son?

Izuku had told her that All Might was one of his professors, but it still knocked her breath out of her chest to realize that she was speaking to him. He was actually real and didn’t just exist in the posters scattered across the walls of Izuku’s room.

At the moment, however, the idol of her son’s childhood sounded tired and almost... nervous speaking to her. She swallowed. Inko had had too many earth shattering phone calls in the past twenty-four hours. She was tired of having to brace herself for bad news. She steeled herself one last time as she went to work opening up the box that sat in front of her.

“W-what can I help you with?” She asked.

“Well, I am working with Detective Tsukauchi and I just wanted update you to tell you that we have evidence that Izuku was kidnapped. We are taking every effort to tracking him down as fast as--”

Inko gripped her phone harder. Her son--- kidnapped. She had suspected--- her Izuku wasn’t one to wander without telling her, and he wouldn’t have run away, he wasn’t like that -- but she had fought the intrusive thoughts like the plague, unwilling to let her mind wander into that dark pit. What that would mean for her boy, what that would mean for her.

That someone had targeted her child because she had been foolish enough to let him venture into this dangerous profession of heroism. Every time he wiggled his way further on his path, his body seemed to take more of a beating -- a scar here, a broken arm there. Hearing All Might tell her this... she struggled to keep her breathing steady. She stopped fiddling with the package for a moment, gripping the sides of her kitchen table as waves of emotion took over her body. Fear, anxiety, anger --- but she would not let them control her as they had when Aizawa had first given her the news. She couldn’t lose her cool now.

Her attention snapped back to the low-pitched voice leaking through her cell phone; All Might had been explaining Tsukauchi’s investigation strategy for the past five minutes, and she’d barely paid attention. Not that she wanted to know -- thinking about it would only tantalize her emotions even further.

“-- I’ll be leading all continuing search actions so if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to give me a call,” All Might finished, and Inko struggled to collect her thoughts.

“T-thank you, All Might... I appreciate you letting me know,” she stammered. She looked at the nondescript box in front of her -- she had finally gotten the tape off -- and the thought of opening it left her stomach sagging with dread. All she had to do was pop the cardboard lid up---

“I-I did receive a strange box just a little while ago,” she stuttered without thinking. “It doesn’t have an address on it, but my doorbell rang and it was the only thing left on my porch.”

“A box?” All Might sounded quizzical. Silence. Then, with a voice filled with such ice it left Inko feeling the frost through her phone’s mouthpiece. “Do not open that package, Mrs. Midoriya. I’ll be over---”

But Inko’s hands had already reached in before she could stop herself, and pushed up the cardboard lid, all too easily for the amount of horror its content held. Inko looked into the dark box and in a moment her heart stopped. All thoughts escaped her brain; all she could do was stare, dead eyed and frozen in horror.

The last thing All Might heard on the line before he heard the phone clatter on to the floor was Inko’s guttural scream.

 

---

 

Consciousness returned to Izuku in fragments. He felt like he was drifting in an ocean of ink, a tiny drifter in a sea of darkness. In an instant, a storm formed over the ocean, and pain crashed into him like a ship’s hull into a swell; it hit him at the base of his spine and proceeded to coat his body like a second skin and leached into his mind, slowing his thoughts to a crawl. The back of his head throbbed, the resulting headache percolating throughout his brain and welling up uncomfortably against his closed eyes. He reached to search the damage, only to realize he couldn't move.

Normally, Izuku would have panicked, were he in a better state of mind. But his bones felt like they weighed a hundred pounds, and his mind was as thick as cotton; his brain lazily processed that heavy, leather straps dug into his forearms and forehead, holding him upright in a sitting position. His legs too, were clamped tightly together, and Izuku recognized the static feeling that skittered across his body as poor circulation. He struggled to get a kink out of his neck, wincing slightly at the movement -- he felt like he hadn't moved in years. How long had he been out?

Izuku opened his eyes for a moment, his vision painfully out of focus. After a couple of blinks, he realized that he was alone.

The room was dimly lit, and there were no windows. The only sources of light came from a dingy overhead bulb and a flickering television that claimed the wall directly across from Izuku. The ground beneath the chair was made of a deep coffee-colored oak that hadn’t seen a can of wax in many years, judging by the rotting floorboards and multiple signs of water damage. Izuku could hear footsteps thudding from somewhere up above his head -- he must be somewhere underground.

He began to scan the room, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a glimpse of something raw and rotten. His eyes widened in horror; it was his right arm, or what was left of it. The fog from his mind cleared in an instant at the sight, and his stomach lurched, the feeling of hunger that had set into his bones very quickly melting away. It looked repulsive.

His epidermis from his wrist to his elbow was gone, stripped away to reveal subcutaneous tissue, veins, mangled muscle and tendons. The leather restraint on his ragged wrist looked gruesome, already half-stained with blood and flecks of viscera. His breath quickened, and he quickly averted his eyes to clear the grisly sight from his mind before his gag reflex could kick in.

The darkness of the room suddenly became suffocating, and it seemed to take on a life of its own, growing thicker and heavier the more Izuku's gaze darted around the space. The only entry and exit to the room was a solid metal door shrouded in gloom at the far side of the space, covered in locks and reinforced steel. His heart pounding in his ears, Izuku struggled to free himself from his bonds, and felt as the straps cut deeper into his exposed flesh. A small alarm echoed in his head, a primal survival instinct that seemed to grow as he struggled with his restraints.

Get out, getoutgetoutgetoutgetout , the alarm was screaming now --- He cried out in pain, but didn't slow, frenzy bubbling up in his chest cavity and threatening to spill into every crevice of his body. Izuku yelled out again, and was surprised to find his voice raw from overuse -- had he been screaming? For who? He couldn't remember ---

Who would even hear him -- who would even find him? The events of the past twenty-four hours flooded back fresh into his mind like a tidal wave, and his breath quickened again.

The mall. Shigaraki. The voice in the television. Shigaraki’s plan to use him to get to All Might... He had to get out of here, and get back to U.A.

Izuku’s mind began to race; his friends had no idea where he was at, his teacher's neither. His mom -- his mother ---

Oh, she was going to kill him, if the League of Villains didn't get to him first.

Izuku froze abruptly as he watched the locks begin to turn on the metal door, each click echoing deep inside his psyche like the ticking of a bomb. When Shigaraki stepped into the room, Izuku was set to burst, whether from fear or anger, he couldn’t tell.

"You're finally awake!" the villain chirped, aggressively upbeat. “I was beginning to wonder if I had damaged more than just your arm.”

Shigaraki looked much more intimidating back in his home environment; the ensemble of dismembered hands that had been absent at the Kiyashi Ward made a reappearance, the most jarring of which being the sickly, gray hand that covered the villain’s face. Shigaraki also held something shiny at his side Izuku realized, and with a jolt, felt a new bout of panic twist itself into his gut.

In the dim light, a large butcher knife glinted wickedly in Shigaraki's hand, its steel practically humming with bloodlust.

The villain noticed Izuku's growing horror, and a sly, wicked smile spread across his visage. His too perfect white teeth looked nightmarish in the gloomy room, and Izuku resisted the urge to shrink back against the chair that restrained him.

Shigaraki approached Izuku like a panther converging on its prey, filled with deadly confidence and cold refinement. As Izuku caught sight of his captor's pitiless red eyes behind shaggy silver hair and the dismembered hand that engulfed his profile, he couldn't help but feel like a lamb being brought to slaughter. He tore at his restraints as he approached, his eyes never breaking contact with Shigaraki's.

Despite being completely and utterly overwhelmed, Izuku did his best to give off his most threatening look, a demeanor that fell somewhat flat with the dried blood that caked the side of his face from Shigaraki's earlier swipe and the trembling that overtook his limbs.

Shigaraki practically barked in his face.

"I can't believe you're the kid that got in my way at USJ!" he said, leaning in far too close for Izuku's liking. "What a tough look! But where's all that violence from before? I recall you trying to smash my face in the last time we fought."

"L-let me go," Izuku rallied all the bravado he could muster, doing everything in his power to keep his voice steady. He fought to keep his fear out of his tone. "--and it won't have to come to that."

"Oh, I don't think that'll be necessary," Shigaraki's voice dripped with mirth, and he retreated slightly, assigning himself to slowly encircling Izuku in his chair like a vulture. Izuku couldn't help but feel like a piece of carrion. "Besides, Master gave me instructions to bring this game to the next level."

Izuku's heart pounded in his ears. "What do you mean--?"

"Tell me, Midoriya,” Shigaraki cut in. “How close are you to the legendary All Might?"

Izuku was taken aback for a moment. "H-he's one of my teachers... at U.A.---,” he replied tentatively, unsure of where the conversation was headed. “I-I don’t know much about him aside from what I’ve seen on television and in my classes.”

The lie landed awkwardly on Shigaraki’s ears, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "I watched your performance at the Sport's Festival, brat," he crooned, all too calm for a man wielding possibly the largest knife Izuku had ever seen in his life. "Your quirk... Master thinks it's awfully similar to a certain pro-hero... wouldn't you say?"

The implication made Izuku's blood freeze. "T-there's a lot of heroes with power-t-type quirks like All Might's---,” he stammered. He felt his palms sweating profusely, and his trembling became worse. The blood was roaring in his ears now, and Izuku almost missed Shigaraki’s reply over the noise.

“Oh really,” Shigaraki said, a statement rather than a question. He stopped pacing for a moment, and Izuku could feel his heart jump into his throat as Shigaraki grabbed the sides of the chair, snapping Izuku's head back against the chair’s headrest. His body was a symphony of panic now, his ears screaming and heart racing so fast he feared it would burst. "Why don't you give us a little display, then? Show us some of that power from the festival, wouldn't you?"

Izuku swallowed hard, his tongue scraping roughly against his parched throat. Despite himself, he laughed nervously, his pitch lilting with hysteria. "W-what would be gained by that? If you watched the festival you know my quirk would probably destroy the room."

Shigaraki did not share in Izuku’s laugh. “My master wants to confirm his suspicions for himself,” he said, gesturing to the TV on the far wall. “Besides,” he said as Izuku’s blood curdled. “This dump could do with a remodel anyway.”

“W-well how am I supposed to do that? I can’t exactly move very we--”

The knife fell before Izuku realized what was happening, slicing cleanly through the flesh of his good hand's middle finger. Izuku watched as his blood sprayed, felt it land lightly on his face with a shower of crimson red from the gaping hole that used to house his finger and pooled on the floor, watched as his finger fell to the dirtied wooden planks with an unceremonious thump . He vaguely wondered how sharp the knife must have been to cut so easily through his bone. Izuku's eyes were unblinking, unfeeling, as it slowly dawned on him what had just happened. There was no pain, not yet; Izuku stared numbly where his finger used to be as the glittering knife retreated from his line of sight.

"Given the correct motivation," Shigaraki began. "I think you'll give me what I want."

Then, Izuku screamed.

Pain seared itself into his cry, rising in volume as Izuku lost himself to the horror. His hand clenched itself tightly, his nerves reacting terribly to the loss of his appendage. His face was frozen in a terrible picture, his mouth curved in agony and his eyes leaked fresh tears, falling pitifully down his cheeks and streaking the blood on his face, new and old. He slammed his limbs against his restraints and his hands pulled relentlessly against the straps, energy crackling and straining at his joints.

No! A rational voice rang pierced through the veil of his agony. Don’t give in!

Izuku struggled to rein in One for All, its power humming right underneath the surface of his skin, aching to be released. A piece of advice some well-meaning teacher had given him back in his middle school days, when his bullying had been at its worst, rang through his head.

Don’t let them know how much it gets to you, they had said. Don’t fight back, and eventually they’ll lose interest .

Izuku absently recalled their advice not working, and somehow doubted that it would aid him with a force like Shigaraki, but nonetheless he resorted himself to closing off all thoughts of releasing One for All, focusing all of his brain power to fighting back the primal force of his borrowed quirk. Izuku bit the inside of his cheek in an attempt to stop his shrieking, hot tears still falling freely from his pain-clouded eyes. His choked cries only seemed to agitate Shigaraki, who hummed with annoyance and continued his circling of Izuku, stopping briefly to pick up Izuku’s severed finger.

“You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?” He reflected, studying the appendage as he held it up to the dingy light. “Usually after a blow like that, a person’s quirk would be triggered on instinct as a fight-or-flight response.” After his inspection, he nodded to himself, and called for Kurogiri.

The nebulous villain materialized in the room in a moment, showing no surprise at the bloody sight of Izuku strapped to the chair and Shigaraki holding out Izuku’s finger like a prized trophy.

“Kurogiri, wrap up this gift for All Might,” Shigaraki handed over his winnings, his eyes sliding over to meet Izuku’s tear-filled ones. “Or, better yet; I’m sure his family would like to know how much of a terrible sport this brat is being.”

Izuku felt like he was drowning, pain lapping at his consciousness again and fear enveloping him so tightly he was pretty sure his lungs had collapsed and filled with the inky blackness of the room. Shigaraki couldn’t send his --- that --- to All Might, much less his poor mother. He’d already sworn he wouldn’t let anyone worry about him again; if his mentor saw how he’d failed --

Izuku’s heart tightened as the image of his distraught mother overwhelmed his mind’s eye, and a guttural, strangled cry eked out from somewhere at the back of his throat.

“No... please don’t!” he choked. He promised himself he wouldn’t be a burden anymore; his mom and All Might -- the two people he valued so dearly -- couldn’t know. Izuku’s pleas fell on deaf ears, however, as Kurogiri merely nodded, not even bothering to glance over at Izuku’s frame racked with sobs.

“Are you sure, Shigaraki?,” Kurogiri said hesitantly. “This is bound to rile up some forces up there.”

Shigaraki chortled. “That is the purpose of our mission, Kurogiri. But maybe you’re right,” Shigaraki said, eyes still turned towards Izuku’s direction. He turned a foot towards his victim again, knife in hand. “Maybe one finger isn’t enough.”

Izuku’s breath hitched as Shigaraki started walking towards him again, the villain’s footsteps ringing entirely too loud in Izuku’s ears as his vision narrowed, darkness swallowing more and more of the already dim room, until it felt like they were the only two souls in the whole world. Izuku’s heart beat raced far beyond what his brain could handle, and then something deep inside Izuku snapped.

Without even thinking, Izuku strummed at the coursing energy that flowed through his veins, picking just the right chords to activate his power. He was an animal that had been backed into a corner and willing to do anything to get away from the predator that stalked him, a force of pure instinct.

In an instant, he felt One For All converge at the tip of his right index finger, survival instinct overriding his newfound control over his 5% limit. A burst of kinetic energy exploded forth from his hand, sending a raucous wave of wind pressure and sheer force hurtling towards Shigaraki and Kurogiri. The villains barely had time to react; Kurogiri managed to warp himself out of the blast, but Shigaraki was sent colliding with the back wall, his back snapping harshly against the brick. The floorboards in front of Izuku’s chair caved and sunk into the dirt underneath as the outburst of power devastated everything in Izuku’s path. The kickback from the blast sent Izuku sprawling backwards onto the floor, chair and all. Despite the force, his restraints didn’t budge, and Izuku’s head rammed into the back of his headrest, leaving his vision filled with stars.

The ceiling shook from the blast, broken chunks of lath and and debris sprinkling onto Izuku and littering the bloodstained floorboards. For a moment, as the dust settled, there was calm, as adrenaline cleared Izuku’s vision and coursed through Izuku’s veins as the fire of a caged animal still burned in his heart.

Even at the awkward angle of his landing, Izuku managed to get a clear picture of Shigaraki’s body slumped up against the wall, his head lolled haphazardly to one side and his arms limp and twisted at perilous angles. The adrenaline that soaked his body died in an instant, retreating into the depths only for cold, icy fear to come crawling out in its stead, slithering up his spine and piercing his heart with intense dread. Oh god had he hurt him did he kill him oh god---

His panic was assuaged when a shaky breath escaped Shigaraki’s throat, and the villain gave a wobbly cough. He blinked rapidly for a moment; at some point during the blast the dismembered hand that took over most of his face had come off. Shigaraki’s uncovered visage met Izuku’s gaze with something akin to surprise, unguarded and vulnerable, and -- Izuku thought -- an inkling of fear?

It was at that moment in time that the television, which had been silent throughout the whole ordeal, sparked to life, its screen badly damaged and sparks sputtering from the cracks in discordant patterns.

“So,” the deep voice from before crackled from the television’s now warped audio speakers. “Shigaraki’s observations were true.”

Izuku closed his eyes, a wave of shame crushing him. Tears sprung from his eyes once again; he had failed.

“You are the successor of One For All,” the voice continued. “And a child at that.”

A eerie chuckle escaped from the television, chilling Izuku to the bone.

“What a fool All Might is, choosing someone so young to already carry his burden. Or maybe -- not so foolish... youth are so easily manipulated.”

“W-who are you?” Izuku found his voice, tone hoarse and syllables tangled and twisted, knowing the answer even before the words left his mouth.

“I’m sure your own master has told you of me by now,” the voice rumbled. “I am the Symbol of Evil, or All For One.”

Izuku, despite knowing deep down, still felt his stomach drop. Behind the crackling television screen was the man that had nearly killed All Might --- was still killing All Might --- and all he could do was lay on the floor, useless and vulnerable as the most powerful villain in the world and his protege had him wrapped around their fingers.

“What do you want with me?” Izuku continued cautiously.

“Oh dear child, now that I know who you are, I’ve got bigger plans for you,” All For One boomed, his words sending Izuku into a tailspin. “You will transfer One For All to me.”

For a moment, Izuku was stunned, his thought process halting abruptly. Transfer One For All?

“Never,” Izuku said without thinking, but not a hint of hesitation found itself in his ragged voice. “I refuse.”

Izuku could practically hear the smirk in All For One’s voice as he said, “Then today is only beginning for you, Izuku Midoriya. And, soon enough, the end for All Might.”

Notes:

This chapter was partially late because I moved back into college. Updates will be sporadic until I get used to my new schedule, my apologies.
I occasionally post my progress on my tumblr, phaunts.tumblr.com.
As always, thanks for reading! I love each and every one of your comments, and I will try to get better about replying to them. <3

Chapter 5

Notes:

Apologies for the delay! I had a really hard time writing this chapter for some reason and rewrote it several times before I came up with something that I was somewhat happy with.

Enjoy! Thank you again for your comments and support!

Edit: I kinda forgot half of Izuku's injuries lol. Added more details.

Rain dripped down the hood of Uraraka’s parka, and she shook her head in irritation, droplets scattering all over the flyers she had spent an entire afternoon with Kirishima printing out. She scowled at the now slightly waterlogged pamphlets, as if it was their fault that they had gotten wet, and sighed. Uraraka had been standing under the awning of a bus stop near the Kiyashi Ward for nearly three hours, and felt like she was getting nowhere. Not that she was expecting much.

It had been a week since Izuku’s disappearance, and the pro heroes had made no progress in their search.

She glanced down at the flyer on top of her stack of papers. MISSING: IZUKU MIDORIYA, the title declared in strong bold font, followed by a picture of Izuku in his school uniform and a physical description of his person. The entire concept of the flyers was silly to Uraraka, given the intense media coverage of Izuku’s disappearance. Still, she continued to stand dutifully at the bus stop, shaking the paper at any stranger that happened to walk by. This was one of the only ways she was allowed to help, even if her insides were screaming and her conscience was begging her to throw the pamphlets into the air and find Izuku for herself.

Since his disappearance, the school week passed by Uraraka in a blur. When the final bell signaled to the student body that the weekend was beginning, she could barely recall a single one of her classes that she had sat in, much less what material they covered. Her mind was too preoccupied, partially out of worrying for her still missing friend, partially out of anger at her teachers’ insistence in acting like everything was normal, going through the motions of their academic classes and training sessions like nothing was horribly wrong.

Izuku’s empty desk had stood out like a missing piece in a puzzle. If Class 1-A was a body, Izuku was the heart, and the hole his absence left in the class was painful to watch. Occasionally Uraraka would catch her classmates turn to talk to Izuku, only for them to find emptiness in his place. She could see the flickers of sadness pass over her friend’s faces as they realized their mistake and slowly turned back around to converse with someone else.

Ever since his outburst on the day of Aizawa’s announcement, Bakugou’s behavior had only worsened. The hackles on the back of his neck seemed to be permanently raised, and even glancing in his direction would send him into a tirade of fury, one that Mr. Aizawa was slowly losing patience to correct. Angry, snappish, and brooding, he was almost impossible to deal with, both in the classroom and in training. His moves had become more brash, more needlessly aggressive, and Uraraka dreaded the day when she would have to spar with him again. Her skin still ached from their last scuffle two days ago, when the reckless use of his explosions had sent her to Recovery Girl’s office. Despite Recovery Girl’s quirk, the results of her fight had left her body feeling tight and sore.

A familiar shock of red hair coming towards her pulled Uraraka out of her thoughts, and she managed a small smile as Kirishima, Todoroki, and Iida rounded the street corner. Each was swaddled in a bulky rain jacket, identical flyers to her own peeking out of their coat pockets.

“Hey, Uraraka,” Kirishima called, “any luck?”

She shook her head, as she had done nearly every day that week. When it had become apparent that Aizawa wasn’t going to let them in on the official investigation no matter how much they begged and pleaded --- and after Todoroki was personally escorted back on campus by All Might after attempting to go out on his own -- they had decided that attempting to spread awareness was as close to helping as they were going to get. It was infuriating.

The boys looked slightly dejected at her words, but there was no surprise in their expressions.

“How are you feeling, Uraraka?” Iida asked.

Uraraka snorted. She recalled when she and the rest of her 1-A classmates that had gone to the shopping mall were herded into Nedzu’s office to give their statements to the police. Her statement brought the officers no new information; she hadn’t even been at the scene when Izuku had actually disappeared. She doubted that her friends could say anything different. It seemed like Izuku had simply vanished.

The police had assured her that they were doing everything they could to locate him, and although Uraraka believed them, she couldn’t help but feel anxious. The nervous energy that had been building inside her ever since she and Iida had spoken to each other on that early morning threatened to spill itself out at any moment. Yet, no matter how much she longed to go out there, the lack of support from Aizawa and the police force would mean she would be breaking the law. She’d be no better than a criminal, and despite her worry for Izuku, she couldn’t bring herself to sacrifice all she’d worked for to be a hero over her impulses.

“It’s frustrating, being able to do nothing but this ,” she sighed after collecting her thoughts. “I understand Mr. Aizawa and the police are just trying to do their jobs, but the fact that they're barring us from helping in any way is so aggravating.”

Kirishima hummed with agreement. “It’s crazy, right? I mean, we’ve all fought real, actual villains before!”

"I feel a little guilty," Todoroki said quietly, his eyes hyper focused on the cracks in the pavement, tracing them with his eyes as he spoke. "Logically, I know I probably wouldn't have been able to prevent anything from happening had I been at Kiyashi with you all, but still... I am sorry I wasn't present. I can't help but think of the 'what-ifs' had I been able to help--"

Kirishima gave Todoroki a clap on the back, the force of his enthusiasm knocking the wind from Todoroki's chest and left him wheezing. Kirishima didn't seem to notice.

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Todo!" He grinned, the dark clouds that marred his face temporarily lifting as he gave his friend a giant smile. "There's no sense in focusing on the past. We should be concentrating on what we can do for the future."

“I wish the future would happen sooner,” Uraraka huffed. “It’s been five days since Izuku has disappeared, and the investigation has barely made any progress except for--”

She swallowed briefly before continuing. “--except for finding Midoriya’s finger.”

The air itself seemed to still. Todoroki winced at its mention, and Kirishima’s grin slid off of his face, replaced with solemn sadness. Iida looked like someone had slapped him across the face.

Uraraka herself lowered her head, instinctively trying to hide the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes. She remembered when she saw the news reporting the incident, the camera zoomed in uncomfortably close to a shaken Inko Midoriya. Her eyes looked like they were a thousand miles away as the reporter asked her about the incident. With a wobbly voice, but with more strength than Uraraka felt she herself would have possessed, Ms. Midoriya detailed how she had found the mysterious package on her doorstep that had held the dismembered finger of her kidnapped son, and Uraraka’s heart wrenched with sympathy when the camera cut away suddenly as the woman’s voice came to an abrupt halt, the muffled sound of sobs eking through the microphones before the news quickly switched back to the reporter in the studio talking about the weather.

The report had caused an uproar in the public, harshly criticizing the heroes for allowing the kidnapping to happen in the first place. The faculty of U.A. had held a press conference in response, apologizing for their negligence and demonstrating that they were working diligently with the police force to bring Izuku home, with All Might himself giving a personal apology to Inko Midoriya for his inability to protect her son. The public, for the most part, was still not pleased.

As if in response, thunder rumbled overhead, and the rain came down even harder, causing the overhang of the bus stop to leak at the sheer volume of it all. Droplets were seeping through Uraraka’s parka now, and she pulled the jacket around her even tighter. She jumped as a flash of lightning arced across the sky, silently cursing herself for not getting something more waterproof.

Kirishima chuckled nervously as the group huddled together under the bus stop. “I hope this isn’t a bad omen,” he said after another boom shook the ground beneath their feet.

Todoroki looked grim, bicolored eyes narrowing at the oncoming storm. “For Midoriya’s sake,” he murmured, barely audible above the downpour. “I hope it isn’t.”

---

 

Thunder shook the walls, jerking Izuku from a restless sleep. He nearly snapped his neck in his haste to sit upright, his whole body coiling tight like a wire as he prepared himself for an attack. His eyes blindly scanned the corners of his prison for Shigaraki or one of his lackeys, his panicking brain convinced that any one of the dark shadows that hung in the air could be an enemy. All he was met with was darkness and the uncomfortably close echo of his rapid breathing. Despite himself, he kicked out at the nearest wall on instinct, and the thud of his foot on impossibly hard alloy rang loudly in his ears. No matter how hard he had tried to smash its walls, he barely left a mark on the cold, unfeeling metal of his prison. It was an uncomfortable feeling, knowing that there existed something inhuman that could be strong enough to hold the power of One For All. Although, if only he could harness all 100% of his power, then maybe ---

No, he scolded himself. It wasn’t worth it to maim himself trying to escape. There was no Recovery Girl here to mend his broken bones if he made a mistake, and he highly doubted Shigaraki would waste any time waiting for him to heal while he tried another one of his schemes on him...

Another rumble of thunder shook his dark prison, and Izuku couldn’t help but curl into himself, whimpering quietly. This past week had been hell.

Izuku learned very quickly that All For One could not forcibly transfer One For All back to his person. As Izuku had lain stunned on the floor from All For One’s revelations, Shigaraki was promptly tasked by his Teacher to force Izuku to submit his quirk by any means necessary. And by any means necessary, he really meant any means.

It didn’t take long until Izuku’s body was riddled with scars, ones that made his injuries from the sports festival look like mere scratches in comparison. The rot on his arm, a first of many gifts from Shigaraki, had just barely begun to heal, despite Izuku’s best efforts to keep the wound clean using strips of his t-shirt as bandages. And for each day of his imprisonment he received a new mark; now deep gashes crisscrossed his back like a backyard garden lattice, and a cut on his cheek from Shigaraki’s knife just yesterday was still struggling to close. Squinting too hard would force the wound open again, and dried blood streaked the sides of his face from his failed attempts to wipe it clean. His missing finger at least had been quickly cauterized (We can’t have you dying on us from infection, now can we? Was Shigaraki’s gleeful cry as Izuku screamed, the red hot iron scorching his skin and cementing the loss of his appendage with a final sizzling pop!), but was the least of his worries.

Now, in the dark recesses of his cage, Izuku traced the stump of his finger with his good hand, and couldn’t help but think about what All For One had said.

Today is only the beginning for you, Izuku Midoriya.

Izuku could only begin to imagine what the villain meant. He couldn’t help but feel like, despite the torture he had endured so far, he was being toyed with. Shigaraki would only continue to get more and more violent, until he and his master finally got what they wanted, or until he was dead. All Izuku could do was wait, his eyes seeing nothing but a pinprick of light from a hole at the top of his prison, for Shigaraki to come for him again and tear at his skin, gnaw at his bones, rip at his flesh as he lay there screaming, crying, begging for anyone to help, would anyone please help---

His rapid breaths had turned into full on hyperventilation, and all of the sudden Izuku felt like the walls were closing in and the shadows that hung in the air had become sentient, howling in his ears, snapping at his wild, unkempt tufts of hair and nipping at the frayed edges of his clothes. He closed his eyes tightly before they could seep into his very being, and Izuku rode through the waves of his panic attack. His heart was hammering so fast against his chest he was sure it would explode from at any moment. The shrieks of the storm did nothing to help, the loud reverberations of the thunder echoing throughout Izuku’s cage and rattling his ribs like the pounding of an ominous drum.

For a moment, the thought of giving in to Shigaraki’s demands nestled its way through Izuku’s racing thoughts. It would be too easy, he was sure; All Might had given him his power with a sampling of his hair and the promise of a better tomorrow. Izuku could give it away, for a chance to perhaps have a tomorrow.

The thought was quickly pushed back out of his mind as Izuku struggled to calm himself, counting backwards from ten, then forwards, then backwards again... 10, 9, 8, 7...

Soon, his heart rate slowed enough for his brain to come back to his body, a shivering mess of twisted nerves and shaking hands. His cheek wound had cracked open again, and Izuku felt the sting of his salty tears mixing with his blood as they raced down his face and dripped onto his disheveled t-shirt, which by now was more a tie-dye of crimson and dusty brown splotches than the white color it had held less than a week ago.

Why would I ever do that? Izuku thought. Why would I ever give up One For All?

For a moment, Izuku imagined a world where he gave in, where he rejected the gift his mentor had bestowed upon him. Logically, Shigaraki would most likely kill him anyway; his captor was not one for unnecessary kindness, and once Izuku had become useless, had become Quirkless again, he suspected there would be no more reason to keep him around.

And what would All For One do once he held possession of his quirk?

Izuku imagined what the final battle would look like between the man that now haunted his dreams and waking life alike, and All Might, his teacher, his mentor, the man he had looked up to since he was three years old. He saw only destruction, and an end to the peace that his world had come to rely on.

Giving up One For All would be a death sentence, not only for Izuku and All Might, but for the whole world. If his suffering meant that others could live, then Izuku was more than willing to take the fall.

Izuku held onto that thought, chanting it in his head like a mantra as he listened to the roar of thunder outside, its howls slowly fading into quivering mewls as night turned into morning, and a new day of torment began.

 

---

 

A loud banging from above woke Izuku from his dozing, and he fluttered back to consciousness, a new resolve to protect those he cared about cemented in his chest. He narrowed his eyes at the pinprick of light, where he was sure Shigaraki awaited him.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!” Izuku could hear Shigaraki’s taunting cry through his metal prison, and he gritted his teeth. Their... sessions --- as Izuku had taken to calling them --- were much worse when Shigaraki was in a jovial mood. He waited as his captor slowly worked through the locks and other measures that kept him trapped, and Izuku blinked back tears forming as his eyes adjusted to the influx of light. Momentarily blinded and overcome with the harshness of the fluorescent glow, Izuku barely noticed when Shigaraki bounded his hands and forced him out into the open.

Once he had adjusted to the light, Izuku saw a familiar evil glint in Shigaraki's gaze. It meant bad things were in store for Izuku, a sign that the villain had a new scheme to get Izuku to submit his quirk to Shigaraki's master. Izuku looked down at Shigaraki’s right arm strapped into a sling. Broken. A gift from Izuku from his forced display of One For All. Izuku briefly wondered if Shigaraki worked so hard to get him to break as some sort of personal revenge scheme. He was sure the villain didn’t appreciate getting thrown into a brick wall with the force of several hundred thousand newtons in front of his teacher. The boy’s heart began to sink, and the newfound confidence he had accumulated in the night slowly melted. In its place, a familiar fear of Shigaraki’s violent nature reared its ugly head.

“We have quite a bit in store for you today, Midoriya,” Shigaraki said gleefully, and practically dragged Izuku down the stairs of the platform above his prison, barely taking the time to let Izuku get his feet underneath him. “Teacher is getting impatient, so today, we’re going to be doing something a little different.”

Izuku stumbled as he followed. Shigaraki had bounded his hands tight, the thick metal cords cutting into his tender flesh and preventing him from using his fingers as a form of attack. Shigaraki had learned his lesson the first time.

“I’m not interested,” Izuku muttered, looking around swiftly at his surroundings to get his bearings again. He really didn’t care what the villain did to him, as long as it wasn’t happening to someone else. Shigaraki stopped briefly to cuff him over his ears, barking at Izuku to show some fucking respect, the dumb brat. Izuku merely glowered in response, too tired to fight but too bullheaded to leave well enough alone. He glanced back at the metal cube he had been pulled out of and sighed. Hours of isolation in a windowless can was leagues better than whatever Shigaraki had planned for him.

Sometime after Izuku’s initial interrogation at the villain’s hideaway, he had been transported to a large, abandoned warehouse in order to be properly “handled,” as All for One put it. Izuku’s prison was one of four identical metal containers placed in the center of the main room of the warehouse, surrounded by what Izuku guessed at one point had been industrial chemical vats. The metal containers were kept in a row and required a rather tall catwalk to get to. Three of them had no covering and instead showcased the goods lying within, immersed in fluid and connected to a plethora of wires and tubes. Nomus .

And, as Izuku was being dragged down from the catwalk, he noticed that one was missing.

“C-can you slow down a minute?” Izuku gasped as his vision began to spin. The sudden change from sitting for hours on end in a cramped box to walking at breakneck speeds was doing wonders to his vertigo. He also couldn’t remember the last time he’d had something to eat, noting his lightheadedness as well. This wasn’t going to turn out well for him.

A rough yank on his bounds was his answer, and Izuku face planted into the dirt at the bottom of the stairwell. He coughed as dust filled his lungs, and he struggled to catch his breath. A swift kick to the ribs had Izuku scrambling to his feet again, and the demented smile across Shigaraki’s face was gone, replaced by a terrifying scowl. Oh shit , Izuku thought. He had messed up now.

“Do you think this is some sort of game? ” Shigaraki asked him, rather ironically Izuku thought, considering Shigaraki’s penchant for game related puns. Still, Izuku kept his tongue in check, and merely glared at the villain, before looking at the ground again in a small act of defiance.

“Maybe you’re smarter than you look, brat,” Shigaraki snarled. “Because if you still didn’t have that quirk Teacher wants, I would have killed you a long, long time ago.”

So his suspicions about his survival were correct. Good to know.

“Regardless,” Shigaraki continued on, pulling on his wrist restraints to get them moving again. “That all ends today.”

“What are you talking about?” Izuku asked, tiredly. He was sure he had gone through every kind of torture one could endure and still have one’s whole mind still intact, or at least most of it. At this point, he wasn’t sure what else Shigaraki could even do to him. And it was all pointless anyway. There was no way Izuku was going to give up One for All, and let the villains hurt the people he loved and cared about.

Shigaraki grinned as he led Izuku through a set of double doors, revealing a massive wing of the abandoned factory, at least three times as large as the room that held Izuku’s prison. The ceiling of the warehouse seemed like it was a mile high, and though Izuku could see the dirt and rusty patches blanketing the interior structures of the room, the construction was still sturdy, and looked like it was being used for battle training, if the faint blood stains and conspicuous dents in the metal walls were anything to go by. The room stretched as wide as a soccer stadium and was empty, save for two figures at the opposite end of the space. Izuku squinted slightly to get a better look, and felt his blood run cold.

On the other side of the arena-like room, hunched over from the weight of its own body, was the missing Nomu, with Kurogiri standing guard. It bristled at the sight of Izuku, and let out a horrible shriek, an archaic and primal song that slithered down Izuku’s spine and shook him to his core. Izuku’s hands began to shake again as he looked into its gaze, its strangely familiar looking eyes. Familiar blue eyes--

A shock of blond hair stood out from the edges of it’s exposed brain, spiky and wild, and in a moment it clicked.

The Nomu looked like All Might .

“Today, you get to fight your hero, Midoriya!” Shigaraki crowed as Izuku’s knees began to shake and his pupils constricted into tiny green dots.

In that moment, the All Might Nomu locked eyes with him, and Izuku felt like his feet were glued to the floor. They were his eyes. T-they looked so much like his eyes. H-how did they-- What did they do to All Might?

The worst part was the look of pure hatred that dwelled within its gaze. The beast’s eyes shot bile and acid squarely through his heart, daggers which dug deeper into Izuku more than any knife Shigaraki drug through him ever could.

Notes:

I took some artistic liberties with how Nomus are created. Since they're genetically modified anyway, I'm sure it wouldn't be much of a stretch to add additional physical features to a Nomu, especially if they're to be used for intimidation (or messing with Izuku's brain). Poor kid.

Chapter 6

Notes:

Update 1/24/23: I’m back!

reviving this long dead fic for a small update. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish this fic, a part of me would really love to if i ever get the passion for mha again. I found this half written draft of a chapter in my files, and although it’s short, even after years i still really like it . I’m sorry this probably isn’t the update y’all would like, but it’s what i can provide right now.
be well.

Izuku’s eyes widened as the blond-haired Nomu’s laugh echoed throughout the warehouse. Even its maniacal laughter sounded like All Might, if All Might’s voice had been rewinded and distorted and thrown in a meat grinder. A second later the Nomu disappeared from its side of the arena, its incredible speed too much for Izuku’s tired eyes to follow. Izuku’s vision darkened with the bulk of the Nomu in front of him. The creature batted Izuku away from Shigaraki like a rag doll, and Izuku landed unceremoniously in the dirt, the air knocked out of Izuku’s lungs as he made contact with the dirt. He coughed roughly as the dirt filled his lungs and he tried not to blackout as the tendrils of his pain manifested into the darkening of his vision. Izuku was so tired. So, so tired.

 

He honestly didn’t know if he could survive a fight in his condition, much less with an all-powerful Nomu. A Nomu, who looked and sounded like his mentor and role-model. 

 

“What’s wrong, young Midoriya?” A mangled, garbled voice echoed into Izuku’s ears. It was All For One, no doubt watching his pathetic performance in the ring from wherever his television broadcasted from. “You look exhausted.”

 

No shit , Izuku wanted to shoot back at him. 

 

“You’re putting on a terrible show for your precious All Might,” the voice of All For One continued to croon. “And after all the effort we made to bring him here for you-- such a pity, isn’t it?”

 

“That’s not-- All Might--” Izuku strained to shoot back at him through gritted teeth. Slowly, Izuku attempted to get his feet underneath him and stand back up.

 

“It’s not?” All For One questioned in mock confusion. Another powerful punch from the Nomu sent Izuku flying across the arena, undoing all of his progress on getting back on his own two feet. 

 

“Sure hits like him, or so I’m told,” the garbled voice laughed, continuing to tease Izuku mercilessly, as Izuku tried and failed to keep down his stomach contents, which, after days of almost no food, consisted mostly of stomach bile. He didn’t have long before he was hit with another punch, this time more forceful than the last. And this time, Izuku didn’t bother trying to stand. The All Might Nomu laughed again, sounding more like a demented mockery of Izuku’s hero with every breath.

 

“Why does--- it look--- like that?” Izuku asked, his eyes following the Nomu as it paced around his body, apparently waiting for its next orders.

 

“Shigaraki tells me you are getting rather lonely in here. I figured the sight of a friendly face might cheer you up some,” All For One said. “Besides, I hear All Might has something to say to you.” 

 

Izuku eyes widened as the blond-haired Nomu stopped in front of him and very human words  fell from its monstrous avian mouth, along with a very human voice. 

 

The kidnapping of Izuku Midoriya is a burden I take all unto my own, the Nomu spoke in a familiar, deep tone. It was my job as a hero and as a teacher to protect young Midoriya, and I failed. 

 

Izuku eyes widened. How did the Nomu get All Might’s voice?

 

“Don’t you see?” All For One crooned. “It is All Might’s fault you’re in this mess. It is All Might who is responsible for your pain.”

 

The All Might Nomu’s eyes narrowed, and started to stalk closer towards Izuku. Izuku braced for impact once more, as the Nomu picked him up with its jaws, and threw Izuku’s body into the corrugated metal of the arena’s walls. Izuku yelped in pain as his back made contact with the rusty metal, the vibrations of the impact racing up and down his spine. 

 

“It is All Might who continues to be responsible for your pain.” 

 

Izuku bit his lip as he waited for the agony to subside long enough for him to be able to open his eyes. He felt the storming of the Nomu coming for him once more.

 

“Remember young Midoriya, I can stop all this pain for you.”

Smack.

 

“Just give me what I want, young one, and you won’t have to live like this anymore.”

 

Slice.

 

“All Might isn’t going to save you.” 

 

Thwump.

 

“Stop!” Izuku finally shrieked, as the All Might Nomu kicked his body into the center of the arena. “Enough!”

 

The Nomu hesitated, long enough for Izuku to scrape his battered and broken body off the ground -- Izuku winced as he felt his shoulder was popped out of place -- “I have something to say to you.” 

 

Silence.

 

“You win, All For One,” Izuku’s voice echoed throughout the ring. “You can have my quirk.”

 

Izuku heard Shigaraki whoop and holler at the other end of the warehouse, his maniacal laugh ricocheting off the sides of the building.

 

“Excellent, young Midoriya, I’m glad that you finally come to reaso--”

 

“However,” Izuku interrupted. “You’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead body, because I would rather eat shit from this bastard for a hundred years before I helped you hurt humanity any more than you already have.”

 

Now it was Izuku’s turn to maniacally laugh. 

 

“And if you think that that’s going to change, than you’re even more of an idiot than I thought,” Izuku taunted to the speakers in the room.

He turned back around just in time to meet the Nomu’s fist, and Izuku’s world went black.

 

---------------------------------------

 

It was my job as a hero and as a teacher to protect young Midoriya, and I failed. 

 

Those words have echoed in Toshinori’s head for the past week, each and every day, as he continued to patrol the city in search of his lost pupil. His own words seemed to weigh down his steps and drag his stride more than any training weight or backpack ever could. And as time marched on, his words rang more true, and that killed him inside more than the debilitating injury eating at his stomach. This wound was eating at his soul, and it was slowly destroying him.

 

Toshinori decided that maybe that was enough patrolling for now, as steam began to rise off his body. With a longing look towards the ward he was about to patrol, All Might bounded back towards U.A., cursing himself and his stupid time limit for its insolence. 

 

Toshinori could leap his way back to U.A. with his eyes closed at this point. Whenever he wasn’t teaching or stopping the occasional petty thief, he was out on the search for Young Midoriya, occasionally stopping by Tsukauchi’s office to see if the detective had gathered any more leads. So far, he had not. 

 

This only seemed to rile up the local and national news stations with every passing day with no leads. When Toshinori had finally given his public statement expressing his responsibility in failing to protect Midoriya, the media circus had gone wild. Toshinori had no doubt that every tabloid was probably dragging his name through the mud gleefully, happy to finally find a drop of grime in All Might’s otherwise pristine record.

 

I failed. I failed. I failed. Ifailed. Ifailed. Ifailed.IfailedIfailedIfailedIfailedIfailedIfailedIfailedI-

 

Stop! Toshinori scolded himself. Self-pity wasn’t going to bring back young Midoriya. He had to keep his head up, and remain hopeful. Midoriya was a strong boy. If anyone could last a week under Shigaraki’s control, it was him. He had to have some faith in his young pupil, to hold on until Toshinori could reach him. 

 

And he was going to reach him, dammit. Even if it was the last thing he would ever do.

 

With that thought, Toshinori bounded his way back onto U.A.’s grounds, and just in time too, as his body transformed unceremoniously back into his skeletal form. Instantaneously, Toshinori felt the tiredness that accompanied his natural form flood back into his bones, and he gave a rattling sigh. Now, he would have to wait until his body recharged before continuing the search. Waiting was the most agonizing part of this whole ordeal. Never before had he felt so useless...

Toshinori was shocked when the door leading to the teacher’s lounge suddenly opened up and a tired Aizawa filled its frame. It looked like he had been expecting Toshinori. 

“We need to talk,” Aizawa said, not an ounce of emotion in his voice.

Notes:

if for whatever reason you still follow this story and want to keep in contact with me, I’ve recently revived my tumblr and can be reached easily through there:
phaunts.tumblr.com

Chapter 7

Notes:

-crawls out of the gutter-
I’ve decided, after five years of being depressed and subsequently getting my shit together, i would like to revive this story. i hope people will still read it, lol

Sorry for the delay!

Let’s dive right back in to some psychological torture!

Cw: graphic description of wounds, psychological torment, general angst

The first sensation Izuku could feel was pain, and he was downright sick of pain being the first thing he woke up to. Sharp claws sank into his flesh and acid ate at the skin around his eyes. His bones vibrated with the impact of a rounding hammer and the mother of all earthquakes rumbling against his forehead. The sensational overload threatened to leak into the command center of his brain, and Izuku bit back a sound from deep inside him that could only be described as a guttural scream, only to find that even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t. His tongue felt like wet cement and his throat felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. 

Izuku opened his eyes, his lids heavy like concrete and his vision blurry. He blinked desperately, trying to rid his sight of double vision, finding that the right side of his face wouldn’t cooperate. It was swollen, his cheek doubled in size, and it made it hard to see out of his right eye. Heat fanned out from his jaw, snaking through the nerves and muscles in his face, and Izuku could sense that something was horribly wrong. His teeth were ever so slightly ajar from their usual alignment, and he could taste the dried blood that caked the insides of his mouth.

Finally, the double vision subsided long enough for Izuku to take inventory of the rest of his body and his surroundings. A harsh fluorescent light beamed from somewhere above him, and he realized with a start he was on an operating table, tissue-thin paper crinkling below his body as its metal surface stole whatever warmth his body generated. He shifted his head around to take it all in. 

Dull, eggshell-white walls mounted with drab, corporate-looking cupboards surrounded him. Scattered medical instruments dotted the countertops beneath the cupboards, some still in their packaging, some smeared with blood. A rolling cart carrying a small arsenal of medical supplies sat to his left; with it, a haphazard pile of bloody gauze sat precariously, threatening to spill onto the floor with the slightest nudge.

That can’t be sanitary, Izuku thought numbly. 

He shook his head, wincing as the movement threatened to tear his right cheek apart, trying to clear the thought from his mind. Focus. That was the least of his worries right now. A voice deep inside him screamed at him to move, to fight, to flee. He couldn’t quite remember what had happened to him that led him to ending up on an operating table, only that danger --- no, Shigaraki -- lurked nearby. He had to get out of there, while Shigaraki wasn’t around. Izuku tried to push himself off the table moving his hands underneath his body weight---

He should have known better. Of course, of course, his wrists were bound. Heavy nylon straps dug into his hip bones, into his wrists, into his ankles, tying his body down. Izuku was damn tired of waking up to his body being strung tight like butcher’s meat. In addition, his right arm was splinted, and ugly, yellowing bruises mottled his right forearm and bicep. Broken. His other arm, the one that had taken the brunt of Izuku’s first interaction with Shigaraki’s decay, was wrapped in bandages, pink splotches dotting the gauze like peonies.

His legs too, were covered in bruises and cuts, some surface level and shallow, others deep, red and angry, the sides of them puckered from the telltale signs of stitches. 

His entire body was battered and bruised, and he looked and felt like he had been run through a wood chipper. All he could do was wait, wait for Shigaraki to come back and subject Izuku to his latest twisted idea of entertainment. It was all he was good for.

Why should he expect anything else from Shigaraki? He wouldn’t have left Izuku alone without ensuring his little pet project was properly secured.

Of course, Izuku was never truly alone, not really. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a camera, hung high above the cabinets, trained on Izuku’s frail form. He did his best to give the camera a withering glare. With the mess his face was in, he wasn’t sure if his angry expression translated well. In fact, his eyes burned hot with unshed tears, childlike fear threatening to overtake Izuku’s fragile bravado. His fractured mind begged permission to shatter, to have a moment for the waterworks to escape. Izuku wouldn’t let it. To cry in front of Shigaraki once again would be letting him win, and Izuku would rather die than let that happen .

He suddenly remembered the fight that brought him here. He remembered boasting to Shigaraki, and to All For One, that he would never give them his quirk.

“ You’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead body, because I would rather eat shit from this bastard for a hundred years before I helped you hurt humanity any more than you already have, ” Izuku remembered boasting, then laughing uncontrollably, then having his whole world fade to black. He winced at the memory, recalling the sickening crunch that echoed in his ears before the lights went out. He was surprised that he woke up at all, all things considered. 

I guess as long as One for All resides in me, Shigaraki will keep me alive, Izuku thought bitterly.

No matter how painful that might be. No matter how much he may beg for the alternative.

A click at the door broke Izuku from his macabre train of thought. 

“Looks like you’re finally awake!” A gruff voice chirped from a squat, wiry-haired man’s body. He was dressed in a white lab coat and had round, wire-rimmed glasses with a kind smile plastered on his face. He looked deceivingly meek and unthreatening, like someone’s grandpa Izuku might pass by along the street. But Izuku knew better by now than to assume something so naive. The man shut the door behind him, twisting the lock quickly back into place, and turned around to face Izuku. 

“I’m Dr. Daruma Ujiko. Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the man gave a small bow, and all Izuku could do was stare, unsure of how to respond. His brain whirred like tires in mud at the jarring introduction and the jovial tone. This was the first time someone had treated him with anything resembling kindness in the past week and a half, and the boy couldn’t help how quickly he was set on edge. Izuku’s instincts told him to stay alert, his stomach churning and bile stewing.

Dr. Ujiko waited for Izuku to respond, but when he was met with silence, he shrugged his shoulders and continued on, unfazed.

“It looks like my precious Nomu did quite a number on you this time. You’ll have to forgive them; they were just following orders,” the man said apologetically as he went around Izuku and inspected the bandages covering the boy’s jaw. Izuku winced as the doctor’s hand neared his face, but Ujiko didn’t seem to notice, or care. He peeled back the gauze and sighed.

“I told Master Shigaraki not to go too overboard, but he never listens to me. You were very close to losing your jaw,” Ujiko tutted. “The whole point of the All Might Nomu was to replicate the strength of All Might’s punch as closely as possible. You wouldn’t believe how many strength enhancing quirks we managed to stuff inside that thing. If that punch had landed a little closer to your brain, or your spine, you'd likely be dead! Then where would we be?”

Ujiko laughed breezily, like it was the funniest thing in the world, and Izuku’s battered mind struggled to keep up with the doctor’s words. He opened his mouth to reply, despite the sticky, cottony feeling that coated his windpipe and mouth. 

“What… a-are you… talking about?” Izuku wheezed. His voice sounded like gravel scraped across glass: sharp, scratchy and raw with disuse.

“Ah, do you not remember?” The doctor asked, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “That’s not good. I was sure that you hadn’t gotten a concussion.” 

Izuku coughed in response, a wheezing rattle that made his chest ache and brought a strange pressure behind his eyes. He groaned.

The doctor forced Izuku’s chin upward, a startling jerk that sent Izuku’s brain reeling. Ujiko took his fingers and pried the boy’s eyelids back, shining a bright light into his pupils. 

“Hmmm, no, I don’t see any signs of concussion,” the doctor confirmed, eyebrows still furrowed. “That’s good, that’s good. The experiment won’t go as well if you don’t have all your wits about you.”

Izuku blinked rapidly, his eyes smarting as his vision adjusted to normal light.

“Experiment?”

The doctor’s gaze twinkled mischievously. “I’d hate to ruin the surprise,” the man clapped. 

“You’ll figure it out soon enough. Just think of it as a change in tactics.”

He tucked the ophthalmoscope into his breast pocket and hurried to clear the bedside rolling table of its clutter. 

“The master exhausted his use of Nomus in-- encouraging -- you to give up your quirk. I should thank you, by the way. Your fights with the Nomus have been great learning opportunities to see what needs to be improved before we truly unleash them.”

“You… you created the Nomus?”

“Why, yes! I guess I should have put that in my introduction, no?”

“You made… that Nomu's voice sound like that? You made it look like that?” Izuku’s voice lilted upwards in pitch.

“What, like All Might? Pretty impressive, wasn’t it? I had such a struggle finding a test subject that looked visually similar enough to the man. Even when I did, I had to make a lot of changes.” Dr. Ujiko laughed jovially again, like he was discussing the weather with a friend. “Of course, I’m no artist, but I’m glad to know my creative vision was realized. Putting in some voice recordings of All Might into its brain was just icing on the cake.”

Izuku’s eyes widened, dumbfounded. He couldn’t understand why the doctor was telling him all of this information, much less treating it like it was yesterday’s news, like it was as obvious as the sky. Nothing was adding up, and there was one detail in particular that Izuku could not comprehend.

“What do you mean by ‘test subject’?”

“Hm?”

“Y-you said you struggled to find a test subject that looks like All Might. What do you mean by that?”

“Ah, I guess I did skim over that part. But is it not obvious, little hero?”

The man’s eyes darkened and a malicious glint wormed their way into his gaze.

“My Nomus come from human test subjects.” 

Izuku’s mind went numb and his stomach dropped down into the abyss. He wondered briefly if he was going to be sick.

“They’re the perfect soldiers, really. All the tenacity of a human being, none of the disobedience. They’ll listen to whoever I program them to listen to.”

Ujiko sighed disappointedly. “Master Shigaraki decided to use his to beat you within an inch of your life.”

The doctor busied himself with changing Izuku’s bandages on his face and checking the splint on his right arm. He tsked with disdain.

“I could think of better uses for my creations, but I guess it’s not my place to judge what the master does with his gifts.”

“How… how could you?” Izuku’s croaked.

“Hmmm, you’re right, I should be thankful the master let me have access to such opportunities in the first place!”

“ How could you use humans as your test subjects ?” Izuku growled, aghast. “They’re people!”

Dr. Ujiko raised his eyebrow at the distress in the boy’s voice before his gaze softened, and he patted the top of Izuku’s head as if he was placating a hyperactive dog. 

“Ah, my poor boy. I’m not sure I can explain it to you in a way you’d understand,” he spoke mournfully. “Science is a cruel mistress. In order to advance, we scientists must push the boundaries. To outsiders, it may be seen as barbaric.”

The doctor spoke with his hands, gesturing wildly as he talked. 

“However, I am a master of my craft. I seek knowledge above all else, and the Nomus are the next step in human evolution! They must be enhanced, stretched to their limit!”

He had now moved on to changing the bandages on Izuku’s missing finger, of which Izuku was grateful at least to no longer have bandages made out of strips of his shirt. Still, his skin crawled as Dr. Ujiko took Izuku’s hand in his, examining his wound for infection.

“You’re a monster,” Izuku realized, flinching when Ujiko grabbed a ream of fresh gauze and began bandaging the boy’s hand. 

The doctor’s eyes swam with mock hurt. 

“My dear boy, you wound me,” he exhaled dramatically. He cut the gauze once he was satisfied with the wrap around Izuku’s wrist, tugging it just a bit too tight, and then turned back towards one of the countertops nearest Izuku’s table. He pulled a drawer open and took out what appeared to be a headset similar to the VR gaming system Kirishima and Kaminari used to play with before Bakugo blew it up during a fit of rage quitting. He also took out a pair of electrodes, and that’s when Izuku began to panic.

“I suppose I don’t blame you for calling me a monster, though,” Ujiko mused sadly, bringing his new toys over to the bedside rolling cart and absentmindedly brushing off the pile of bloody gauze onto the floor to make room. On instinct, Izuku pulled against his restraints, trying in vain to put distance between him and whatever torture this doctor had concocted for him. The straps didn’t budge. Izuku felt his breath quicken as his eyes tunnel visioned onto the headset.

“A ‘monster’ is what my old colleagues called me as well. They couldn’t see my genius for what it was,” he looked at Izuku’s pale face with a twisted form of empathy. “I guess it would be too much to ask a teenage boy to understand. But maybe after some time, you will see it.”

He sighed while nestling the headset on top of Izuku’s head and securing the strap behind the boy’s ears, pulling matted, dirty green hair out of the way, making sure the straps stayed snug. Izuku’s vision turned to black as his eyes looked unseeing into a black screen, but he could still hear. His rapid breathing felt too hot and too close and too loud.

“Or maybe you won’t. It doesn’t really matter to me,” the man murmured through the headset speakers. “As long as I get to do as I please, to experiment how I please, I don’t particularly care what a test subject thinks of me.”

Izuku yelped as he felt the cool touch of the electrodes being pinned to his temples. 

“What are you doing?!” He cried, swinging his blind head around wildly.

“Now hold still, you brat,” the doctor grumbled, voice turning ugly and cold. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”

Ujiko forced Izuku’s head down back onto the table, grubby hands pushing forcefully against Izuku’s ravaged cheek as the man made a few more adjustments to the headset. Izuku cried out in pain, snapping his eyes shut as tears rapidly filled the viewfinders of the goggles.

“Almost done…. There, prefect,” Ujiko harrumphed triumphantly.

Izuku felt the pressure of the doctor’s hands on his face release, and nearly sobbed with relief. The pain that erupted from his swollen jaw at being touched felt similarly to being struck with a hundred roundhouse kicks. 

A new sensation trickled into his awareness however, and Izuku felt the hum of electricity whirring around his peripheral vision. 

The headset flickered to life and the artificial light caused the boy to squint his eyes. When he blinked away the double vision that had crawled back into his periphery, he found himself face to face with the eyes of his mother.

Izuku couldn’t help the gasp that escaped his lips.

“...Mom?” He whispered hoarsely.

He knew it had been only roughly two weeks since he had last seen his mother, but through all the torment Shigaraki had subjected him to, her image had become hazy in his mind. Looking into her kind green eyes now made his heart clench and a swell of emotion claw at the back of his throat. He wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, to feel her warm embrace on his skin. He wanted to feel something besides the cold, cold metal of his cage, besides the chafing of cuffs around his arms and legs, besides the fists that came to beat him until he could no longer walk on his own. On instinct, he tried reaching his incapacitated arm out in front, only to be reminded that his mother wasn’t there, that he was a prisoner, that he was a plaything for monsters worse than anything he could have concocted for his childhood games of heroes vs. villains.

The Inko Midoriya in his vision paid his inner turmoil no mind. She was sitting at the kitchen table of their home, a soft glow surrounding her, chatting on the phone with someone. Her mouth was moving, but Izuku heard no sound; the footage he was being shown seemed to be coming from somewhere outside their home. In front of her on the kitchen table, there laid a box.

As she continued to talk on the phone, an inkling of dread began to grow in Izuku’s heart. That box looked strangely familiar. Why was he being shown this?

He got his answer soon enough. 

As his mother opened the box on the counter, Izuku saw her eyes widen and pupils shrink into pinpricks. He saw fear leech life from her face. He heard her blood curdling scream, the only sound he heard besides his own shallow, panicked breaths, and he was overtaken by it in an instant. Listening to her wail, guttural terror coating her voice like a poison, tore at something deep inside Izuku, and he broke . 

His mom had seen his severed finger.

And the iron wall guarding his heart came tumbling down, his promise to keep his mom smiling crumbling with it.

Ugly, broken sobs eked from his bruised lungs, quiet at first, but grew in volume and ferocity until there was nothing Izuku could do to slow the onslaught of emotions that had been tucked away for far too long.

Izuku cried until his mother became nothing more than a swirl of colors in his vision and he shut his eyes, as if that were enough to banish the image of his mother’s face curdled from an internal agony he would never know. 

A sharp zap struck his temples and Izuku felt his brain short-circuit for a brief moment.

“Hey, keep your eyes open!” Dr. Ujiko barked from somewhere to Izuku’s left. “You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get this footage. Don’t be rude.”

“P-p-please,” Izuku begged through hiccuped breaths between his sobs. “P-p-please d-don’t make me.”

Zzzzzt!

The second shock was stronger than the first, and Izuku’s head shot backwards on instinct, the back of his skull making a dull thud on the metal operating table.

“No can do, kiddo. Gotta follow orders,” the doctor replied lightly. With a click, he rewinded the footage, and when Izuku forced his eyes open, he was subjected to another viewing of his mother’s horror.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Izuku wasn’t even sure if Dr. Ujiko was in the room anymore. All he knew was as soon as his mother’s screams subsided, the footage would start back at the beginning again, and when he closed his eyes for longer than it took to blink, his body was met with an electric shock that tore at his bones and ate away at his sanity. The only noise that rang in Izuku’s ears was the repeated echo of Inko Midoriya’s wailing. 

He couldn’t cover his ears to subdue the panicked cries. He couldn’t close his eyes to shield his heart from his mother’s terrified gaze.

In other words, he was in hell.

He was in hell, and he was powerless to do anything about it.

 

------------------------------

 

“We need to talk,” Aizawa said, not an ounce of emotion in his voice. 

Toshinori blinked in surprise. “Aizawa! What’s going on?”

He stepped forward, furrowing his brows. “Aren’t you supposed to have your homeroom right now?”

Aizawa didn’t answer him, but motioned for the man to follow him as he fully stepped outside the teacher’s lounge and promptly beelined down the hallway. Toshinori tripped over himself as he jogged to catch up.

“Nezu called me about an hour ago asking for the both of us. He wants us in his office as soon as possible,” Aizawa murmured as Toshinori caught up, matching his colleague’s hasty gait. “I tried reaching you, but you didn’t pick up.”

A tendril of guilt coiled in Toshinori’s gut. When he was out looking for Young Midoriya, he rarely looked at his phone.

“S-s-sorry about that,” Toshinori blushed.

Aizawa shrugged, outwardly indifferent, but Toshinori could sense the stiffness in his shoulders, indicating that the man was frustrated with him. 

“Whatever,” his colleague sighed. “As long as you’re here now, I guess.”

The two men turned a corner down the hallway and Aizawa led the way over towards the administrative wing of the building, a path that the two of them traveled often lately. This time felt different, however.

Aizawa was tense, and it wasn’t just because of Toshinori’s tardiness. He moved with a fervor that he hadn’t possessed since the early days of Izuku’s disappearance, and in his weakened state, Toshinori struggled to keep up.

“Aizawa, wait please, slow down,” Toshinori panted. “I’m not as spry as I used to be.”

His colleague obliged, but only in the technical sense of the word. Aizawa shortened his strides, yet his speed didn’t seem to change. They arrived at the front of Nezu’s door with Aizawa in a deep scowl and Toshinori covered in sweat. 

“Ah, you two,” Nezu greeted them at the door. “Please, come in.”

The principal widened the door for the two men to enter, and they filed inside. Principal Nezu shut the door behind them with a click.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Nezu began, “But I know how invested you both are in the Midoriya case.”

Aizawa grunted noncommittally, and Toshinori bowed his head in thanks.

“I’ll cut to the chase, gentlemen,” Nezu continued, walking around behind his desk and sliding into his chair. “I got some promising news from Tsukauchi’s office. ”

The principal clasped his hands together and leaned forward onto the desk. “We may have found the League of Villains’ warehouse.”

Toshinori felt his blood run cold. This was the breakthrough they had been waiting for, had been dreaming for. He spared a glance over to Aizawa, and was surprised to see the stunned bewilderment on his usually stoic colleague’s face. 

“How?” Aizawa demanded, planting his palms firmly on Nezu’s desk and leering over the smaller man. “All Might and I have been combing the wards for weeks with no sign of the boy or the League.”

Toshinori wasn’t quite as bold, but he crowded around Nezu’s desk as well, stomach twisting into knots.

“It was a stroke of luck,” Nezu relented. “One of the cops on Tsukauchi’s team was backcombing a security feed looking for evidence for a different crime. A string of burglaries in the southern industrial district in Yokohama.” 

Toshinori’s eyes widened. That district was far, and he had only been to the area a few times during his searches. He always thought that he had combed the area thoroughly, and his stomach sank at the implication. How close had he been to rescuing his protege, yet had overlooked something , some clue that could have ended the nightmare Toshinori fought the self-loathing that curled around his stomach.

“The detective discovered footage of a man with known connections to some of the League’s contacts entering a warehouse. He did some digging, and discovered the paperwork for the warehouse shows that it was decommissioned years ago. It should be unoccupied.” 

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed, listening intently.

“The geological survey of the area shows that the warehouse extends quite a bit underground. A perfect place to hide for a group of villains,” Nezu finished. “The police need to finish the preliminary investigation, but judging by the evidence gained so far, it’s very promising.”

“It’s more than promising,” Aizawa corrected. “It’s practically a bullseye.”

“I agree,” Toshinori interjected. “We don’t have time for the police to finish their report. That could take another week!”

Toshinori thumped his hands against his chest. “I know how Tsukauchi works. We’ve been friends for years. The man puts his heart and soul into his operations, but this-- this is different. If we wait for him to calculate every possible scenario, itt could be too late. We need to get young Midoriya out now. ”

Nezu held up his paws placatingly. “Now I know-- I know you’re incensed to go in there guns a-blazing,” He said. “But we need to be smart about this. This is potentially the lair for all of the League of Villains. If we go in there without a plan, people are going to die.”

Nezu stared directly at Toshinori. “Izuku Midoriya could be killed in the backlash of a raid.”

The protests on the tip of Toshinori’s tongue died before they could form into words. The man stuttered helplessly as he tried to think of a response. 

“B-But--- I-I-I--,” he flailed, trying and failing to find a reason that he could go rescue his protege that instant, time limit and police cooperation be damned. His shoulders slumped as he resignedly admitted defeat. 

“Hasn’t the boy suffered enough?”

Nezu’s eyes glinted with sympathy. “I know, Toshinori,” the principal mourned softly. “I’m very sorry.”

A firm grip rested its weight on Toshinori’s shoulders, warm and steadfast.
“I’m sure Midoriya appreciates your apologies,” Aizawa growled, standing tall next to Toshinori. “But every day that passes by without a rescue lowers his chances of coming out of Shigaraki’s grasp alive. And he’s been there for almost two weeks.”

Aizawa met the principal’s gaze head on. 

“The police have three days to get their shit together, or All Might and I are going in there, with or without their help.”

It wasn’t like Aizawa to be the hot-headed one in any given situation, and it took both Nezu and Toshinori by surprise.

“I understand your sentiments, Eraserhead, but surely you understand what’s at stake,” Nezu countered, after getting over his original shock.

“I do. And Midoriya’s safety is more important than whatever unnecessarily complicated plan the police can conjure up.”

“You know that’s not fair. Tsukauchi’s team is very capable and they cover every angle of their operations.”

“None of that matters if we’re too late!”

“You’ll be no good to the boy if you’re killed by being rash.”

Aizawa’s hackles rose. “Then you better hope that he’s not already dead when the police finally get their asses up and make a plan.” 

A stunned silence filled the room, the tension so thick it could be cut with a knife.

“I--” Nezu started, then closed his mouth with a sigh. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

The principal picked up his office phone and began to dial a number, his small hands trembling.

“This rescue mission needs to be worked around the clock until we can execute on it. Izuku Midoriya has had to wait for far too long.”

Aizawa leaned back, a self-satisfied smile drawn on his visage. “That’s more like it,” he sighed with relief.

Toshinori sighed too, the knots in his stomach unwinding themselves as the tension left his body.

They knew where to find Izuku.

They had a plan.

They were going to bring Izuku home. 

As Toshinori shut the door to Nezu’s office and followed behind Aizawa, the self-loathing that had snaked around the pit of his stomach reared its ugly head. 

What if there wasn’t enough left of Izuku to bring home?

What if he had missed his chance?

What if he was too late?

“Please, young Midoriya,” Toshinori whispered fervently. “Please, stay strong.”

“Please be okay.”

 

Notes:

fun fact: i had to look up what an ophthalmoscope was by googling ‘doctor bright light thingy’

Chapter 8

Notes:

Highly recommend listening to 3 Days’ Grace’s 2006 album, One-X, while reading this chapter.
Also, I know they’re in Japan, but Present Mic teaches American literature in his English classes because I Say So™.

Content warning: briefly mentioned suicidal ideation, more child abuse.
Get a new hobby, Shigaraki

Izuku was not okay. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

At some point, Dr. Ujiko had taken off the headset, but it hardly registered in the boy's brain. His bloodshot eyes stared unseeing at a corner of the operating room, green irises dull and glassy. Dried tear tracts stained his cheeks and the skin around his eyes were red and puffy. His body was still, painfully still, and if it weren’t for the slight rise and fall of his chest and the occasional shift in his eyelids, he could be mistaken for some kind of fucked-up looking life-sized doll.

At some point during the doctor’s experiment, Izuku had shut down. There was no other way to describe it; it was like something deep within the boy had died. His sobs had slowly quieted until whatever grief remained inside him eventually died before it reached his throat. He stopped trying to close his eyes, finally learning his lesson after the umpteenth zap to the head, but eventually his gaze took on a lifeless sheen, unable to process yet another viewing of his mother screaming in terror. The fight had been drained out of him, along with all the blood in his face, his visage pale and shaking.

This was the scene that met Shigaraki as he stepped into the operating room. The villain’s eyes widened at the sorry sight, and he produced a low whistle from his cracked lips. 

“You really outdid yourself this time, Ujiko,” he said, impressed. “We should’ve started with this from the beginning!”

Ujiko blushed from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Oh, nonsense, sir. We got some valuable insight from the Nomu trials, regardless.” 

Shigaraki grunted noncommittally. “I suppose so,” he grumbled, all the while sauntering up to the boy on the operating table, red eyes locked on to dull green. Izuku’s gaze hadn’t shifted from where it sat glued to the wall, and it was beginning to irk the villain. He grabbed the sides of Izuku’s cheeks, forcing the boy’s puffy, swollen face near his own. Izuku’s eyes trailed behind lazily, eventually locking on to Shigaraki, defeated. 

“Alright kid,” Shigaraki smirked. “You’ve had your fun. Now give me what I want.”

Izuku’s listless expression didn’t change. It didn’t appear that he’d registered Shigaraki’s voice at all; he continued to stare back at his captor dumbly. Shigaraki was starting to get angry.

“Do you still think this is some kind of game, brat?” He snarled, his grip on Izuku’s face tightening. His gnarled fingernails left angry indentations in the boy’s skin, which was already marked red from his earlier tears and injured jaw. The vice grip only elicited a slight wince from Izuku.

“I have no qualms cutting off another piece of you and shipping it to your mother’s front door. I can cut you up until there’s nothing left and make you listen to her screams all the while,” Shigaraki ranted. “Maybe I could pluck out an eye for next time, yeah? Or perhaps the whole arm? You won’t be needing them for much longer anyway.”

His beady eyes narrowed. “Or maybe-- maybe just watching from afar isn’t real enough for you,” he muttered. “Maybe I should bring her here to see you for herself. Hah, yes, maybe that’s it! A live show!”

He barked an ugly, self-congratulatory laugh.

“You’re a sick bastard, huh, Izuku Midoriya! You miss your mommy that much?”

The spittle from Shigaraki’s ranting flew onto Izuku’s face and finally, finally, the boy stirred. 

“P-please, S-s-shigaraki,” Izuku’s voice came out quiet, barely above a whisper. His vocal cords were shot; he didn’t remember begging Dr. Ujiko to stop the experiment, to stop the horrific footage from repeating over and over, to stop the images from searing themselves into his retinas, but it was the only explanation he could think as the cause for the gravel in his tone. Regardless, it hadn’t worked. 

“P-p-l-l-ease… l-leave her-r-r… out o-of t-t-this,” he stammered out with great effort.

Shigaraki laughed again, its ugly, cacophonous echo filling the small room with malice. 

“Ah,” he cooed. “So he can speak!”

Izuku ignored him. “T-this is between… y-you… you and me…”

A small spark flickered behind his pupils. “... and no one… no one else.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” the villain mused. “You brought your loved ones into this when you stayed defiant. I ask a very, very simple thing of you, Midoriya.”

Shigaraki’s fingernails dug just a little bit deeper into his skin. Beads of red pooled underneath the villain’s nail beds, eventually spilling freely down the boy’s chin and onto his neck.

“Give.”

Drip.

“Me.”

Drip.

“One for All.” 

Drip.

Blood pooled on the sides of Izuku’s neck onto the icy metal table, cascaded down from lazy streams. Phantom tears of pain lapped at the corners of his eyes, if he had any water left inside him to produce tears. Instead, his eyes burned with a hot, fiery fervor that the boy was starting to recognize as blind terror.

“I… I c-can’t,” Izuku’s voice cracked. “I… w-wont.”

“Still?” Shigaraki’s fingers released themselves from around his chin and trailed down, smearing blood while slowly encircling Izuku’s throat, one finger just barely hovering over his skin, just like he had done at the mall a lifetime ago. 

“And why is that?”

Izuku opened his mouth to respond, but something stopped him.

Why was he fighting so hard? He couldn’t quite remember.

Was there a reason for all this pain? Was there a reason for his suffering? Was there a reason he was silently begging Shigaraki to shove all five fingers down on his skin and end this already?

An image of his mother’s horrified face flashed across his mind’s eye, something that he never wanted to witness again but knew it would stick with him for as long as he lived. An image that he had to prevent from ever happening again.

“It doesn’t matter if I live or die,” Izuku finally choked out. “You’ll… you’ll destroy everyone regardless.”

Shigaraki hummed. He seemed bored with his answer.

“That is kind of the point, yes.”

“I-I-I told you… I-I’m not going to help you do that.”

“You know, this endless circle we keep going through is getting irritating,” Shigaraki cocked his head sideways, greasy silver hair falling forward into his face. His grip around Izuku’s throat tightened, and his pinky grazed the surface of his skin. Izuku could sense the rot bubbling to the surface, threatening to erupt, like a pimple begging to be popped. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing dangerously close to Shigaraki’s grasp.

“But I’m feeling generous today, brat,” Shigaraki sniffed, and released his hold on Izuku’s neck, leaving the boy to gasp for air as he paced the floor. “Not that you deserve it.”

Izuku couldn’t find it in his heart to feel grateful.

“I’ll cut you a deal,” the villain turned back towards Izuku. “I take back what I said. I’ll leave your mother alone for now, spare her the embarrassment of seeing what her pathetic excuse for a son has become. That one’s a freebie.”

Shigaraki leered over the boy on the operating table, enmity caked into every fiber of his being. “I’ll give you a final three days to rethink your decision. You help Dr. Ujiko here with his-- experimental VR concept-- in the meantime. Maybe that’ll help encourage you to change your mind. But at the end of the three days, if your answer is still no, I will bring your mother here. And instead of her watching you get chopped to bits, I get the pleasure of watching you beg for her life while she bleeds out in front of you.”

Shigaraki met Izuku’s gaze, malice and hatred reflected in each set of eyes. “A three-day extension, tax-free. Sounds fair?”

It did not sound fair. What kind of deal was that? 

I torture you for three days, and if you still don’t give me what I want, I kill your mother while you watch. 

Still, Izuku knew better than to expect fairness from Shigaraki by now. A garbled whine escaped the back of Izuku’s throat, barely perceptible at first, but slowly grew in volume. The blood pounded in the boy’s ears, roaring like crushing waves during a storm.

This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair. Izuku wanted to scream in the villain’s face. He wanted to shout every profane vocabulary word he knew, every curse he could remember from the times his mother took him to temple. He wanted to beg Shigaraki to change his mind, to grovel and plead at his feet. He wanted to cry. He wanted to die. He wanted to feel nothing at all.

Yet Shigaraki waited for an answer. It could only be one.

“Fine,” Izuku found himself responding. “Fine, whatever.”

What was he saying?

Izuku didn’t know how he could save his mother from this hell in a three day time period. By all stretches of the imagination, it was impossible. But it was all he had. A three day’s grace period for his mother’s life. He would figure out something. He had to. He had to.

A part of him had given up on rescue, and given up thinking that he was going to get out of this alive. So he begged whatever deity was out there, whatever cosmic energy there was in the universe that was overseeing his mess of a life, to use the karma he had left to keep his mom safe, and that she would never have to see him like this. 

“It’s a deal.”

Shigaraki smiled, joyless and full of animosity.

“It’s a deal,” he repeated.

With that, the villain turned his back on Izuku and stalked back towards the door, shouting one last command at Dr. Ujiko before his departure. 

“I suggest you start turning your experiment up to eleven, doctor,” he barked. “I’ll double your research budget if you can get him to crack before the three days are up.” 

Ujiko’s eyes twinkled. “Right away, sir!” He saluted, already busying himself with tweaking the headset for the next round. “You can count on me.”

Izuku’s eyes followed Shigaraki’s figure as the villain disappeared behind the door, watched as the lock clicked back into place, and didn’t stop looking at the door like a lifeline until the headset was shoved back over his tangled mane of hair and the familiar whine of electricity overtook his senses once again. He let his eyes glaze back over, let the numbness overtake his mind, and let the screams pull him back down into the abyss.

 

-------------------------------------------

Class 1-A let out a collective groan when Present Mic entered their homeroom bright and early that same morning. 

“Again?!” Mina Ashido whined, flopping her upper body over her desk dramatically. 

“Where’s Aizawa?” Kirishima demanded, unconsciously hovering a hand over Bakugou’s chest. He didn’t trust his classmate not to vault over his desk and tackle their now-commonplace substitute teacher as a means to vent his poorly regulated frustration.

Poor Present Mic held his hands up in surrender, his back flush against the chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall. 

“C’monnnnnn little listeners, I know I’m not as charming as your grumpy homeroom teacher,” he pleaded. “But I can’t be that bad, can I?”

“You are,” Tsuyu deadpanned. “Please don’t do another one-man rendition of Fiddler on the Roof. ”  

“Hey now,” Present Mic couldn’t hide the hurt in his voice. “I’ve been working on that one for years! And that was for our unit on musicals, anyway.”

“Everyone, quiet down!” Iida, as class rep, tried to be authoritative, but couldn’t quite manage to hide his own exasperation. “This is no way to show respect for our teacher and a pro hero!”

Uraraka scoffed to herself, head still horizontal on her desk. She hadn’t bothered to greet whatever teacher entered their homeroom that morning. She didn’t particularly care. Her eyes lazily followed the path of the pencil she had taken to flicking around her desk, watching as it fell back down to her awaiting fingers. School seemed kind of pointless to her nowadays. Why go to a hero school if she couldn’t even join the search to find her missing friend? She was sure Izuku needed a hero right about now.

She felt Iida’s eyes burn holes into the back of her head, but she ignored him, choosing instead to give her pencil a flick a little closer to the eraser side. It arced across her desk farther than she thought it would, clattering unceremoniously underneath Kirishima’s desk across the small aisleway that separated them. She didn’t bother to retrieve it.

Present Mic was still trying in vain to calm the rest of the classroom. It was obvious that Class 1-A had grown tired of the pro hero’s presence and his incessant cheery attitude for the past week and a half. Not when he nor any of the teachers would address the elephant in the room. Not when the desk of a particular green-haired classmate stood empty, collecting dust as the days went on. It was a losing battle, Present Mic was slowly coming to realize. He sighed, the plastic smile he taped over his tired lips fissuring. 

“I know, I know, I--- this isn’t an ideal situation for any of us,” the pro hero conceded. “I wish Eraserhead was here too.”

“--Don’t forget Izuku,” Uraraka muttered under her breath. Without a pencil to distract herself, she had reluctantly pulled her head off the surface of her desk and made dull eye contact with her substitute teacher. Present Mic hadn’t heard her, but he met her gaze nervously, and cleared his throat.

“A-a-and Midoriya,” he stuttered, remembering his audience. “You know that’s what I meant to say.”

Uraraka just stared back at her teacher dully.

Present Mic twisted his hands around each other, and with a huff, wiped the sweat that had collected on his palms on the sides of his leather pants, leaving dark streaks in their wake. 

“S-s-speaking of,” the pro hero cleared his throat again. “You might all get your wish sooner than you think. Eraserhead should be returning back to regular teaching duties in a few days.”

That definitely got the class to settle down. Eighteen youthful voices and eighteen pairs of eyes slowly trained themselves on their teacher at the front of the room, and Present Mic resisted the urge to swallow the uneasiness that had accumulated at the back of this dry throat. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say. Class 1-A knew the reason why Aizawa was absent so often. They knew what would have to change for them to get their homeroom teacher back.

“Does that mean they’ve found him?”

“Are you saying he’s okay?!” 

“Are the police giving up?” 

“He’s still alive… right?”

“N-now hold your horses, little listeners!” The teacher squeaked. “One at a time!”

“Where is he?” Uraraka’s unusually severe voice broke out of the muddle of cacophonous voices. “Where is Izuku?”

“It’s not one hundred percent confirmed yet,” Mic admitted. “But all the leads point to one place in particular. The heroes and the police should be making their moves shortly.”

“Why does Aizawa get to go, and we don’t?” Kirishima lamented, already knowing the answer before the words left his mouth. It was the same answer any one of them got any time they asked. 

“Because he’s a pro-hero, and you’re not.”

“Then why aren’t you helping?”

“Look, there’s got to be someone left behind to make sure you kids don’t get into trouble!” 

“You could take us with you!” Kaminari butted in cheekily, ignoring the ribbing he got from Ashido. “It would be a good experience for us.”

Present Mic sighed and ignored the urge to pinch the skin between his eyebrows. The conversation was going nowhere fast, and he could feel a headache coming on. 

“Look, nobody’s going anywhere, and no one’s leaving this classroom until you all turn to page sixty-two in your textbooks and give me a 500-word essay on American literary modernism!” He snapped, teacher-mode going into full effect. “This is due by the end of class!”

A wave of grumbling diffused throughout the classroom, but no one disobeyed. Slowly, reluctantly, the sound of papers shuffling and whispered requests for an extra pencil washed over the classroom, and a tenuous sense of calm enveloped Class 1-A. Present Mic let out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he’d been withholding, and settled down behind the lecturer’s desk at the front of the room. 

He made note of the cluttered paperwork scattered across Eraserhead’s desk, and clicked his tongue in exasperation. He knew his colleague had good reason to be preoccupied nowadays, but this was just sad. Present Mic decided to busy himself for the rest of class by organizing Aizawa’s desk, even managing to tackle some half-completed paperwork he noticed was already a week overdue. Before he knew it, the bell had rung and the class was quickly packing their things to scurry out the wide doors of 1-A. 

“Leave your essays on the corner of the desk here,” Present Mic called absentmindedly, preoccupied with forging Aizawa’s signature for a requisition for new chalk for the classroom. Since when have they ever needed to fill out requisitions for stuff like this? He thought. Present Mic always just stole chalk from the supply closet when no one was looking.

“I’ll try to have them graded by tomorrow.”

A haphazard pile of papers started to accumulate: one, two, six, nine, twelve, sixteen,  seventeen…

He frowned. He was still missing one. 

A shadow fell across his desk, and Present Mic looked up. It was Uraraka. 

Now it was her that looked nervous. She wrung her hands and struggled to make eye contact with her teacher.

A pang of sympathy rattled the pro hero’s chest. He knew the girl had taken her friend’s disappearance harder than most. Hearing news that the nightmare might be over soon was sure to stir some feelings.

“Yes, Uraraka?” He said, eyes softening. “How can I help you?”

She opened her mouth for a moment, before quickly shutting it again. It looked like she was afraid she would be struck down before she even spoke a word, and Present Mic got a sneaking suspicion of what she was about to ask.

“I know… I know students aren’t allowed to join the investigation,” she began softly, still not meeting Present Mic’s gaze. “I know that. That’s not what I’m asking.”

The teacher stayed silent, allowing the girl to collect her thoughts.

“I just…” She sighed. “I--” 

“You want to be there for the rescue mission,” Present Mic finished her sentence for her.

“I---I--- yeah,” she finally admitted, her breath escaping her lungs with a hiss. She hunched her shoulders forward, curling her arms around each other, and the pro hero fought the urge to wrap the girl in what looked like a much-needed hug. 

Instead, he placed a steady hand on her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting way. He scorched his chair backward, ignoring the high pitched scraping sound it made against the floor as he did so, and knelt down so that he was eye-level with Uraraka. He waited patiently for her to look back at him, ignoring the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. 

“I know how you must feel,” Present Mic murmured, talking so softly Uraraka had to strain her ears to listen. 

He continued. “I know what it’s like to want to help, but feeling powerless to do anything.”

A brief spark of anger flashed in her eyes. 

“I wouldn’t feel so powerless,” she muttered, “If you would just let me join the rescue mission.”

A few silent tears slipped down her cheeks, and she quickly moved her hands to brush them away. 

“Uraraka--”

“I can be useful, I promise!” She cried. “I can move piles of debris. I can help carry away any injured persons. I c-can even help with a-aerial surveillance!”

Uraraka smiled wanly through her tears. “Just p-please, give me a chance,” she begged. “P-please sir. I don’t know how else I can ask this.”

Present Mic’s heart was wrapped in a vice grip, and for once, he was at a loss for words.

He knew what he should say. He knew what Aizawa would say if he were here.

But Eraserhead wasn’t here. 

What was here, instead, was a crying girl, who desperately wanted to save her friend. It was something that he-- that Hizashi Yamada-- had wanted to do as well, a long, long time ago. It was something that he had never gotten the chance to do, had been too late to do.

He didn’t want Uraraka to live with the same sort of regret he did. 

“Okay,” he heard himself saying before he even really processed what that meant. 

“R-r-really?” Uraraka sounded like she couldn’t believe her ears. Hizashi felt the same shock as she did. 

“Really,” he repeated back, slowly meaning it more and more as he mulled the word over in his head. “Yes, I’ll let you go.”

His gaze steeled, the green in his irises hardening into emeralds. He squeezed her shoulder a little tighter.

“But you have to do. Exactly. As. I. Say. You got it?”

He made sure to give his best authoritative glare to show he was serious.

“That means no unsanctioned heroics. No jumping into danger without my say-so. Hell, no breathing in the wrong direction without my permission. Understand?”

Uraraka nodded her head so vigorously Hizashi was afraid she was going to snap her neck. 

“Yes sir, I got it. I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” she practically sobbed as she continued to nod her head.

“Does that mean we can come too?!?!?!” A bright voice, full of hope and sunshine clamored at the door to the classroom.

Hizashi whipped his head around, nearly snapping his own neck, and with a twist in his gut, saw that Kirishima, Iida, and Todoroki were crowded around a crack at the entrance of 1-A, practically piled on top of each other.

It was Kirishima’s voice that had broken the silence, and now his wide, toothy grin threatened to explode off his face. The others looked just as excited. Their eyes sparkled with a hope that he hadn’t seen in any of the kids of Class 1-A in weeks, and Hizashi couldn’t find it in himself to be the one to break their hearts. 

The headache was back now, in full force. The pro hero had the sudden urge to lay down on the sofa in the teacher’s lounge and drown himself in ibuprofen for a week.

“Oh my god,” Hizashi moaned, burying his face in his hands.

“Shota is going to kill me.”

 

Notes:

Note to teenagers: when you want something, go after the weak parent first.

Chapter 9

Notes:

I don’t know what police do & at this point i don’t care to know. apologies for all the investigative detective work inaccuracies.
Cw: sleep-deprived, guilt-ridden adults and emotional constipation

Somewhere deep in Musutafu’s police headquarters, Shota Aizawa let out a harsh sneeze.

“Bless you,” Tsukauchi responded absentmindedly, keeping his eyes focused on his computer screen. Aizawa didn’t mind. He mumbled a quiet thanks and blew his nose politely before hunkering back down. He couldn’t be distracted for long either. Aizawa and Toshinori were in battle mode.

They had both barricaded themselves into a corner of Tsukauchi’s office since Principal Nezu gave them the all clear to do so, pouring over geological surveys of the Southern Industrial District of Yokohama and the blueprints for one particular warehouse, previously owned by a now defunct international fishery: their primary target.

Both heroes were sustaining themselves solely on the shitty coffee from Tsukauchi’s ancient coffeemaker, the star of at least two manufacturing recalls that Tsukauchi had chosen to ignore, and adrenaline. Aside from a quick nap here and there, sleep had evaded both of them in the forty-eight hours since they had gotten their lead, but lethargy didn’t seem to be slowing them down. At least, not in a way that Toshinori could notice.

He lived alone, as did Tsukauchi, so it was no trouble for them to devote every waking moment to planning their rescue efforts for Midoriya, but he knew the same wasn’t true for Aizawa. Shortly after Nezu and Musutafu’s police chief gave them the all clear to start gathering resources, Toshinori caught Aizawa talking quietly into his cell phone near the precinct’s water cooler, telling Hizashi that “he probably wouldn’t be home for a few days.” 

It wasn’t uncommon for Aizawa to have some late nights working for U.A.; he was a voluntary after-hours call operator after all. The same was true for his involvement in the Midoriya case, but Toshinori couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. It was his negligence in protecting his protege that had caused Aizawa to be separated from his partner for days at a time and the bags under Aizawa’s eyes to deepen and darken to a degree that worried even strangers. 

Toshinori couldn’t help but recall the day before, when both he and Aizawa had taken a break to go grab some coffee down the street, finally sick of Tsukauchi’s potentially carcinogenic bean juice. He would never forget the girl at the cash register and how her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as they approached, raising a dainty hand to cover the shock on her face.

“Sir, are you feeling okay?” She had asked Aizawa as he pulled out a few crumpled bills to pay for his quadruple shot americano. 

“ Hm ?” He asked distractedly, fishing around in his pockets to find exact change. He took out an extra five hundred yen and held it out to her. She didn’t even look at it.

“ I don’t think you should be drinking coffee right now, sir,” she said hesitantly. “ When’s the last time you slept?”

“ How is that any of your business?” He replied, voice empty of emotion. He didn’t even seem irritated, which was the typical baseline state of the grumpy Class 1-A homeroom teacher.

“I-I-I suppose it’s not,” she stammered, and reluctantly took his change. After handing him his heart attack juice, she met Toshinori’s gaze next, and the similar look of pity shook him to his core. He was used to people looking at him strangely because of his natural form, but not Aizawa. Never Aizawa. 

He was the rock of the faculty at U.A. Nobody ever looked at Shota Aizawa with pity.

A flick of pain on his forehead jolted Toshinori out of his reverie. Speak of the devil.

It was Aizawa, holding out a finger to Toshinori’s forehead and looking him in the eyes, irritation inscribed through every taut line on his face. 

“Hey,” he rumbled, voice thin and tight. “Pay attention.”

“Did you just flick my forehead?” Toshinori rubbed his temple absentmindedly, a little embarrassed. 

A corner of Aizawa’s mouth twitched. “Maybe,” he droned disinterestedly, before his eyes quickly flickered downward towards the blueprints spread haphazardly in front of them. “Now tell me what you’ve found. It looks like you have something to say.”

“Right,” Toshinori said, recovering from his earlier bashfulness.

“This could be another potential escape route that we need to block off,” Toshinori pointed to one labeled exit on the warehouse’s main floor blueprint. He sipped on his lukewarm coffee absentmindedly, ignoring his instinct to grimace at its acidic taste and squeezing the styrofoam cup a little tighter.

He had been tasked with marking all potential weak points in the warehouse that the villains could weasel through in an escape attempt. There weren’t a lot; much of the building was designed with no windows, and the large cargo bays, once upon a time used for sorting and storing fish, had had their doors welded shut when the plant was shut down. There were only a few doors operational throughout the whole warehouse, which Toshinori saw as a blessing and a curse. It simplified their efforts in deciding where they could enter through, but it also meant if the villains knew they were coming, they could easily bottleneck the heroes and blockade themselves further in the facility. The heroes may be able to overcome a siege eventually, but who was to know if Midoriya would? 

There were so many unknowns, so many things that could go wrong. It was driving Toshinori crazy.

Regardless, Aizawa shook his head. 

“We checked out that area on the thermal image system already,” he sighed. “That part of the warehouse collapsed back when the company was still in business. They were too broke to fix it.”

“How do we know it hasn’t been fixed by the villains since then?” Toshinori challenged. 

“Because the thermal scan was taken this morning, Toshinori,” his colleague patiently explained. “That area has been covered in a mudslide since the early eighties. It’d take one hell of a bulldozer to move that much earth. As far as we know, the League of Villains doesn’t have anyone with that kind of quirk within their ranks. They most likely leave that wing of the warehouse alone.” 

Toshinori still looked skeptical, but he acquiesced to Aizawa’s judgment. There were bigger fish to fry.

“Did the thermal scan find anything promising about where young Midoriya is being kept?” Toshinori asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

Aizawa’s expression betrayed none of his emotions. “Potentially,” he replied, flipping over the blueprint in front of him. Toshinori peered down, noticing it displayed the large, sub-basement level of the facility. A wide open area had been highlighted in red marker, as well as a few cylindrical outliers towards the north end of the room. Aizawa pointed to these figures. 

“There are four of these large tanks kept in the basement of the facility. They were most likely used for storing fish once upon a time, but according to our scans, three of them are being used to house… something else. All very large, organic masses; all requiring a lot of wires.”

The way Aizawa said the last few words had Toshinori raising an eyebrow. Then, it dawned on him.

“Nomus?” Toshinori sighed. 

Aizawa nodded, almost imperceptibly. He pointed to the fourth cylinder, smaller and much more cube-like than the others, and said, “the heat signature coming from this tank is much smaller, and much less warm. The scans actually barely picked it up.” 

Toshinori didn’t want to think too hard about what a low heat signature might imply. He focused on the sense of relief that overcame him. “That could be Midoriya,” he breathed. 

Aizawa cocked his head. “We can hope,” he mused, “But that doesn’t erase the fact that there are three Nomus we need to account for in our attack. Not to mention, Shigaraki himself and whatever lackeys he managed to scrounge up to protect the facility.”

Toshinori’s heart sank just as quickly as it rose. 

“It’s not going to be an easy battle,” he surmised.

“No,” Aizawa confirmed. “No, it’s not.”

“And that’s why you have me!” Tsukauchi crowed from his corner of the room, his head barely visible over the pile of papers stacked high on his desk. A whir from his aging printer indicated the police detective was printing out yet another heat map for the heroes to study.

“I’m calling in all the favors I have in every department. We have heat map scans of the entire facility, taken multiple times a day,” he said, grabbing his latest print off the printer and tossing it over to Aizawa. Despite the air resistance, the hero managed to catch the paper in the air, suffering only minor paper cuts.

“I’ve got Tamakawa’s investigative psychologists developing a profile and schedule for most of the active heat signatures,” he continued. “The target in the small tank’s heat signature apparently gets escorted to another part of the facility daily, but returns back to the basement before midnight every night. None of the larger organic masses have been moved from the basement in the past two days, as far as we can tell.”

“Is there a certain time they usually move the small target from the basement?” Aizawa asked, and Toshinori couldn’t help but feel weird about his colleague’s wording. 

He knew they couldn’t know for sure if the small heat signature was Midoriya until they got visual confirmation, but calling it a ‘target’ just seemed so… cold. Detached from emotion.

It seemed dishonest to pretend Midoriya wasn’t the heart of the mission. He wasn’t just a target. Not to Toshinori. Not to anyone here. But at the end of the day, they were still operating on a hunch. A very likely hunch, but a hunch nonetheless.

Neither Aizawa nor Tsukauchi seemed to notice Toshinori’s internal battle with vocabulary. 

“It has varied the past two days, but early morning seems to be the most active time around the facility,” Tsukauchi answered. “Maybe that’s when most of the villains’ shift changes occur.”

“Probably the most chaotic part of the day,” Aizawa mused. 

“The perfect time to strike,” Toshinori realized. 

Tsukauchi nodded.

“That’s what Tamakawa’s personnel are saying,” he confirmed. “Oh! Almost forgot. The forensic photographers were kind enough to give us some visuals of the entrances as well.” 

Another toss. Another catch by Aizawa.

Toshinori peered over Aizawa’s shoulder to look at the pictures.

“These look very… clear,” Toshinori realized. “Are you sure the photographers weren’t spotted?”

“Come on, have a little faith, Toshinori,” Tsukauchi snorted. “We didn’t blow half the budget on long-range zoom lenses for nothing!”

Aizawa winced. “Good to know we’re spending our tax dollars well,” he muttered under his breath.

Tsukauchi ignored him.

“Anyways,” he continued. “I think we have almost everything we need for the mission tomorrow. I still need to hear back confirmation from a few more pro heroes, but for the most part, we’re ready to go.”

Toshinori was startled. “I can’t believe it’s been almost three days already,” he murmured. “It came up so fast.”

“Yeah,” Tsukauchi side-eyed him. “Maybe now, you two will finally go get some sleep.”

Aizawa snorted.

“Don’t need it.”

“Oh?” Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?” he countered, raising his own eyebrow to match. 

“Besides, I’m used to running on little sleep,” he finished, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning back in his chair.

Tsukauchi said nothing at first, narrowing his eyes as he searched Aizawa’s face for something, like he was a puzzle waiting to be solved.

“Tomorrow’s going to be a big day,” the detective began slowly, “You’re going to need every advantage you can take.”

Toshinori was just as alarmed. “There’s three Nomus, Aizawa,” he beseeched. “Back at USJ, it was all I could do just to go toe-to-toe with one.”

Aizawa’s eyes clouded over at that. He remembered the USJ incident well. He remembered how close the day had come to having a much more tragic outcome. 

“That’s true,” he reluctantly agreed. “But I don’t see how a few hours of shut eye is going to make much of a difference for me.”

Tsukauchi looked at him as if he’d grown an extra head. “Are… are you serious?” He asked, bewildered.

Toshinori studied Aizawa’s face as well, puzzled. His colleague was smart, logical. Surely he could see the irrationality in denying himself some much needed rest. Especially after the incident with the coffee shop barista.

“Can I talk to you outside, Aizawa?” Toshinori spoke finally. He gave a furtive glance to Tsukauchi, nodding almost imperceptibly. His friend returned the nod, and settled back down in his chair. 

“You are both dismissed for the day anyway,” Tsukauchi called as the two heroes exited his office. “See you bright and early tomorrow at the rendezvous point.”

He made brief eye contact with Aizawa. 

“Be ready.”

Aizawa narrowed his eyes in return, understanding he was being chastised. He scoffed, stalking out the door, while Toshinori apologized with one last glance over his shoulder before he locked the door to his friend’s office. He followed his colleague down the hallway, ignoring the stares they got as Aizawa continued to trudge along with waves of indignation rolling off his body. The office assistants scurried like roaches to get out of his way. Aizawa didn’t seem to notice.

When they were both in the elevator to go down to the ground floor, Toshinori finally got up the nerve to speak. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He tried.

“Not particularly,” Aizawa seethed, gritting his teeth in a hard line.

“Are you going to sleep tonight?”

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you care?” he replied coldly. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” Toshinori countered. “We’re friends.”

“We’re not friends,” Aizawa admonished. “We’re colleagues with a shared goal, nothing more.”

Toshinori was silent at that. He turned his gaze towards the elevator doors and from the corner of his eye, he watched the elevator car indicator slowly decrease. 

28… 27………. 26………………… 25…………………

Was he just imagining things, or was the elevator getting slower?

“I’m… sorry,” he heard a low rumble from beside him. He turned his head back towards Aizawa. 

The pro hero looked exhausted, the artificial light of the elevator car casting long, harried shadows over his deep under eye circles and gaunt cheekbones. Dark bruises blossomed in his under eyes and a haunted look burrowed deep within his pupils. In this light, he looked like a dead man walking.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, a little louder. “That was uncalled for. You were… you were just trying to be nice.”

“It’s okay,” Toshinori replied softly, and he meant it. He placed a firm hand on Aizawa’s shoulder, warm and steadfast. He gave it a slight squeeze, and he could have sworn he saw a small ghost of a smile cross his colleague’s lips before it fell back into his characteristic scowl.
“....I haven’t been sleeping well,” Aizawa admitted quietly. Toshinori gave a quiet, noncommittal grunt, but otherwise stayed silent, waiting. 

“I was… I was the operator on the line with Inko Midoriya when she reported that Izuku hadn’t come home that night,” he continued, his voice faint and far away. “I was the first person to know besides his mother that he was missing.”

He laughed to himself sardonically.

“At first I tried to tell myself that he had gotten on the wrong train— he’s always so absent-minded in class— and ended up in the wrong city and just… didn’t know how to get home.”

He ran an exasperated hand through greasy hair, and Toshinori wondered briefly when was the last time Aizawa had showered. 

“I was so stupid,” he muttered. “Naive. Maybe if I had been quicker to catch on, maybe he’d… maybe I’d—“

“Do you feel…. Responsible?” Toshinori asked quietly.

“Y-yes… maybe? I don’t… I don’t know,” Aizawa sighed, pinching the skin between his eyebrows. “It’s not rational.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Toshinori said. “Emotions aren’t always rational.”

Aizawa snorted. “You’re preaching to the choir,” he remarked snidely, but without malice. If anything, he just sounded tired. 

13………… 12………………….. 11………………….

The elevator had definitely slowed to a crawl. He wasn’t imagining it. Toshinori was going to have to have a talk with Tsukauchi about the elevator later.

“I know young Midoriya is not going to be upset with you if you show up tomorrow well-rested,” Toshinori tried again.

“I know that,” Aizawa growled, shoulders stiffening. 

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m a child.” 

“Then stop acting like one!” Toshinori snapped. “Punishing yourself because you feel guilty isn’t going to change anything.”

Toshinori curled his hands into fists.

“It’s not going to erase the fact that Midoriya was kidnapped. It’s not going to erase the fact that he’s been hurt.” 

Toshinori glared angrily into Aizawa’s hooded eyes. 

“We’re the adults here,” Toshinori challenged. “We need to be there for Young Midoriya when we get him out of that hell, and you can’t do that properly if you’re compromised by your exhaustion.”

Aizawa opened his mouth to retort.

“--And don’t you dare tell me you’re not tired,” Toshinori finished, venom in his voice. “I have eyes, Eraserhead.”

The pro hero glowered. “Maybe so, but it doesn’t matter. Why should I get to rest when the kid has done nothing but suffer for the past two weeks while we’ve been twiddling our thumbs looking in the wrong places?”

Something snapped deep inside Toshinori, something angry and dark he had been holding back for the past few weeks now.

“Shut up,” Toshinori snarled. “You’re just saying that to feel sorry for yourself.”

“What the hell do you know ? ” Aizawa challenged. “I’m his teacher . I’m supposed to look after him! To keep him safe!”

“So am I,” he countered. “He’s my responsibility as much as yours.”

“Oh, don’t pretend that we’re the same,” Aizawa growled menacingly. “You’re the strongest hero in the world. The Symbol of Peace . You have millions of adoring fans.”

Aizawa raised his right palm and pressed it to his chest. “Midoriya thinks the world of you. He worships the ground you walk on. Saving him is just another drop in the bucket for you, isn’t he? Just another adoring fan for you to stroke your ego with.”

Oh.

So that’s what Aizawa really thought of him. 

Toshinori tried to suppress the bubbling rage that threatened to blind him from the inside out.

“How. Dare . You,” he thundered murderously, stepping closer to Aizawa until they were inches apart.

Aizawa scoffed in his face.

“Listen, All Might,” Aizawa spat the hero's name like it was a curse. “I’ve been a teacher at U.A. for years. My students mean everything to me. ”

He grabbed at the front of Toshinori’s shirt and brought his face so close Toshinori could smell the cheap coffee that stained his breath. 

“I’ve watched fledgling heroes rise. I’ve watched them fall. I’ve watched students I taught die right in front of me. I’ll never forget any of them, and I’ll never forgive myself for each one that I failed.”

Toshinori could count every eyelash on Aizawa’s upper lids, they were so close.

“You’re a first-year teacher. You don’t get to latch on to one student and pretend you know what it’s like to experience loss. To experience pain. You don't know anything.”

If Toshinori weren’t so mad, he might’ve appreciated that this was the most emotion he had ever seen come out of his colleague in all the years he had known him. The haunted look at the back of his eyes had blossomed into an open, gaping wound that threatened to leak onto his cheeks, his hand stiff and shaking with anger at both Toshinori and maybe himself.

“Why,” Toshinori pushed Aizawa off of him and backed away into a corner of the elevator. “Why do you think you have a monopoly on caring for our students? On that boy?”

Toshinori could feel his body shaking with barely concealed rage. 

“Do you think you’re the only one that’s allowed to care? Do you think you’re the only one that’s allowed to feel guilty?!” Toshinori felt his voice crescendo into a scream, voice amplified by the cramped elevator car.

“I’m his mentor!”

He gripped the front of his own shirt tightly, wrinkling the cheap rayon, pain aching just beneath the surface of his skin. He curled into himself, bending under the weight of his own sins.

“I’m the one who gave the kid his damn quirk!”

Desperately, he reached for Aizawa’s scarf like a lifeline and brought the man down to his eye level.

“I put the fucking target on his back! Do you understand? ”

His last words bounced off the walls, amplifying the declaration straight into Aizawa’s heart.

“I damned that boy to hell!”

Ding!

The elevator doors opened, with Toshinori and Aizawa’s face-off in full view of the Musutafu Police Headquarters’s reception area. A gaggle of desk jockeys vying for the chance to claim the newly arrived elevator for themselves stopped in their tracks when they bore witness to the expressions on the men’s faces: Toshinori’s filled with white hot rage, and Aizawa’s bloodless and astonished.

“You… y-you… what?” Toshinori heard Aizawa breathe, voice barely above a whisper. “What… what are you talking about?”

Aizawa’s eyes were wide, pupils pinpricks at the center, the haunted gaze melting away, and the stunned expression made him look years younger. Toshinori swallowed a lump in his dry throat, his fury dying in an instant, only to be replaced by a small seed of dread.

“Let’s get off the elevator, first.”

Aizawa nodded mutely, barely registering when Toshinori grabbed his hand and dragged him out just before the desk jockeys descended on the open lift like piranhas on raw flesh. Toshinori paid no mind, nodding briefly to the front desk reception as they followed his path through the lobby with wide eyes. Toshinori didn’t let go until the two of them were past the security guards and safely outside the precinct, the heavy glass doors making a satisfying thump as they closed. The air was chilly with the rapidly approaching night, and Toshinori couldn’t hide the shiver that swept up his spine. Meanwhile, Aizawa whirled to face Toshinori, eyes wild and blazing. He’d recovered from his initial shock, it seemed.

“You,” Aizawa snarled, “start talking.”

Toshinori tried, at first, but no words fell out. There was so much to explain. Where did he even start? His shoulders crashed to the floor and suddenly he felt like he had aged another ten years in a matter of seconds.

“Let’s start walking towards my car,” he began, his feet already turning towards the parking lot. “You can crash on my couch tonight.”

Aizawa scowled, but nonetheless, he followed his colleague away from the front steps of the precinct. Toshinori, fully realizing what he had committed himself to, groaned internally, running a sweaty palm through his unkempt hair.

“You want me to pick up some more coffee? This is going to take some time to explain.”

Aizawa was quiet for a minute, the heat from their fight in the elevator still dissipating into the crisp evening air.

“As long as it’s not from Tsukauchi,” Aizawa muttered eventually. “I’m game.”

 

Notes:

when this is all over, aizawa and Hizashi are gonna have a serious talk about not letting their guilt rule over their decision-making abilities.
Thanks for reading!

Chapter 10

Notes:

Content warning: more guilty adults, unhealthy self-sacrificial attitudes, suicidal ideation, izuku fucking losing it

Izuku didn’t know what time it was when Ujiko removed the headset for the final time that day. He couldn’t tell if it was morning or night in the windowless operating room; the too-bright fluorescent lights made the harsh shadows stagnate regardless of the outside world. All he knew was that for the last half hour he had been constantly electrocuted, and not because he was trying to save himself or his eyes from the horrors concocted just for him; he was merely exhausted. 

He could feel the weight of the bags under his bloodshot eyes as he muffled a yawn, his mind begging for rest. He couldn’t resist; he dozed, unconcerned, while the doctor removed the straps binding him to the table. Ujiko deftly tightened the metallic rope Shigaraki was fond of using to drag the boy from place to place around his wrists. Izuku didn’t mind; he was almost looking forward to being back in the cramped, metal cube. At least he would be alone there. At least it would be quiet.

The only screams he would hear would be the echoes in his own mind. That, at least, he was used to, was predictable to him.

A sharp slap to his still swollen cheek broke him from his dozing. 

“Get up, brat,” the doctor said, irritated. “I’m not running a daycare, you know.”

Izuku reluctantly let his vision refocus back to the real world, relieved that when he opened his eyes he wasn’t greeted with more nightmares. It was hard to tell what was real and wasn’t nowadays, if Izuku was being honest with himself. He mumbled something incomprehensible in reply, which earned him another cuff around the ears and a reprimand to enunciate his words, before Ujiko handed off his restraints to one of Shigaraki’s lackeys. Izuku was yanked from the table in one swift movement and suddenly found himself being dragged along another windowless hallway, feet tripping desperately in an attempt to catch up with the rest of his body. When his feet finally managed to cooperate, he plodded behind his handler obediently like a well-trained school pony. He even had the shaggy mane to fit the part.

Truthfully, he simply knew better than to fight back. It was easier this way, less painful. Keeping himself docile would take him back to his cell more quickly, which gave him more time to attempt sleeping, which made the time pass more quickly. Time passing quickly meant less time spent thinking about his predicament, how he was forgetting what life was like before he was a hostage, before his waking life was full of pain and hunger and hurt. Izuku wished he could let time completely wash away the hurt in his bones and the now constant headaches clanging around in his skull. He wished he could lose himself to the numbness that enveloped him during his sessions with Dr. Ujiko, the only time besides sleep where his brain was truly silent. But alas, he was on borrowed time, and he had to be aware of when the clock ran out. 

By his best guess, it had been about two days since Shigaraki gave his ultimatum. He had roughly twenty four hours to think of a plan, or his mom was going to die, and it would be all his fault. 

Yet, Izuku had nothing. 

Somewhere along the way, his brilliant, tactical mind had shriveled up like a raisin left out in the summer heat. What replaced it was nothing more than his base instincts, his flight or fight response. 

After the first session with Dr. Ujiko, the footage and audio of his mom’s blood curdling scream had been bastardized into something much, much different. Much, much worse.

Now, Ujiko had expanded his sessions to include other scenarios. Izuku had not only witnessed his mother find his severed finger, but also watched her throat be slashed open like red velvet cake at Shigaraki’s hands, her blood washing over him like a fine perfume. In another session, he watched the light leave All Might’s eyes as another form of Izuku choked him to death. He even had to relive the fight between Aizawa and Shigaraki back at USJ, a lifetime ago, except this time, Shigaraki had the upper hand and Izuku was forced to witness his teacher’s body explode into a violent wave of blood and viscera. 

He wasn’t quite sure how Dr. Ujiko had gotten those videos. A part of his brain, the tactician that still lived inside him, knew they couldn’t be real; the blood was a little too bright, a little too shiny. All Might’s voice sounded a touch too digitized. Another part of him knew his mother would be kept alive until Shigaraki could execute her in front of him himself. 

But when his brain was too exhausted to think clearly, when he defaulted to his base instincts, a vessel of blood and nerves reacting to stimuli, the scenes looked so real, especially when they were repeated over and over again, for hours on end. It was enough to drive him insane, and Izuku couldn’t deny that as a real possibility.

When he was finally allowed to rest, alone in his metal cage, darkness enveloping his every sense, the images came back to him with a vengeance. It was all he could see behind his eyelids. His dead mother. His dead teachers. Blood all over his hands. His fault.

His fault.

His fault. 

The phantom screams that pierced his eardrums through the dark were even worse. They wouldn’t quiet no matter how tightly Izuku clasped his hands over his ears, no matter how hard he bashed his head against the sides of the metal cube, sobbing and begging the voices and screams to please stop, please leave me alone!

After the first full day of Dr. Ujiko’s treatment, Izuku experienced his first cube meltdown and he ended up bashing the side of his head against the wall so hard he knocked himself out cold. Sadly, it was the first dreamless sleep he experienced since his arrival at the warehouse. 

When Ujiko came to retrieve him the next day he found, for all intents and purposes, Izuku dead to the world, and the doctor promptly freaked out, assuming he had accidentally killed his master’s pet project. 

He had to eventually poke Izuku with a cattle prod to get him to stir, but the electric shock sent Izuku into such a panic that it was impossible to touch him without sending him into a screaming fit of unbridled terror. He finally came back to his senses a few hours later, a little more shaky, a little more pale, and his throat raw and cracked from screaming. 

The doctor was so incensed with rage at the inconvenience of having to wait a few hours to begin his torture that he made Izuku’s session run long, hours longer than it had ever been, until not even the threat of electric shocks to his temples could convince the boy to keep his eyes open. 

And that led him back to where he was now, back in his cage, back to the dark shadows and evil reflections that lurked in the abyss of his prison. As soon as he was dumped back into the holding cell, Izuku wasted no time burrowing his body as far as he could into a corner of the cube, his back completely flush with the cool metal so nothing, not even the disembodied spirits of his mother and teachers could sneak up behind him. Though he had barely managed to cling to consciousness on the operating table, being back in the cube made every fiber of his being surge with nervous energy. There was no way he could sleep now. Not when the darkness behind his eyelids meant giving them nightmares free reign of his body once more. 

Izuku clasped his hands tightly over his ears on instinct and began rocking back and forth on his heels. He couldn’t go to sleep anyway. He had to think of a plan. He had to think. He had to think, goddammit! He was running out of time!

No matter how far gone his mind was, he couldn’t forget his goal. 

Think.

Think…!

Think !!!

Hot tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and an incessant pressure gathered at the base of his skull as he let out a choked sob. His mind whirred, trying in vain to quell the panic and hopelessness that made a nest inside his stomach. A single tear slipped down his ruddy swollen cheek, then another, and another, until the tears formed a stream down his face. This time he let them fall, uninhibited; there was no point in hiding the truth from himself anymore. 

He had failed.

He couldn’t protect his mom like this. She was going to die. His gory visions were going to come true.

He was, quite possibly, the worst hero in the history of the entire world. 

He let the sobs crack open his internal storm wall and batter his frail body. He let the flood waters burst and roll down his face, mixing with the dried blood on his chin and the mucus pouring from his nose. He let his mind and body fall apart. He didn’t care. He didn’t care. He didn’t care.

Nothing mattered anymore.

There was nothing else he could do. What could he possibly do in this cage besides accepting his fate and letting his mom die in front of him?

Unless--

His mind stilled, and his sobs momentarily subsided.

Shigaraki wouldn’t murder his mother if Izuku was already dead , right?

Ah.

Inko Midoriya couldn’t be used as a bargaining chip if there was no one to bargain with. Slowly, an idea began to formulate itself in Izuku’s mind.

The chances were slim. He knew that. He knew that even if he died, he wouldn’t put it past Shigaraki to kidnap his mother anyway and kill her out of frustration. It was still a risk.

But it was his only chance in his current state, and Izuku had already accepted he wasn’t getting out of this hell alive. 

He knew he should have more faith in the heroes, more faith in All Might — his mentor, his teacher, his role model. Someone who had sworn by all rights to protect him.

Someone who he knew, with growing clarity, was only a man. When it became clear that after nearly two weeks, the heroes still had no idea where he was being held, the festering hope that rested in Izuku’s chest began to rot. He liked to think of himself as an optimistic person; hell, for the first fourteen years of his life, the only person who believed he could accomplish his lifelong dream of becoming a hero was himself. On the other hand, Izuku was also a strategist, and he knew when to cut his losses. Shigaraki’s deadline for his ultimatum was fast approaching, Izuku was running out of body parts for his captors to break, and, if he was being honest with himself, he was just plain exhausted. It was simpler to acknowledge that help wasn’t coming anytime soon. Izuku knew that, eventually, the heroes would find him, but he couldn’t bank on them coming in time to save him and his mother from their fate. Even the kindest people had limits, and Izuku was afraid he was about to discover his own.

 At the end of the day, it made his choice to seek an alternative escape quite easy. Granted, he would have to bank on Shigaraki being sadistic enough to only get his enjoyment out of seeing Izuku in pain; he doubted it would be much fun for Shigaraki to kill without an audience. Regardless, even a small chance was worth more to him than none, and if his life was already forfeit, he was going to pursue whatever plan would keep his mother out of harm’s way. It would be his last gift to her, and his final apology.

Sniffling, Izuku used the back of his wrist to wipe the blood, snot and tears from his face, ignoring the mucus and splotchy pink stains it left on the bandages that encircled his hand and wrist. He took a deep breath, trying to steady the rise and fall of his chest and stifle the hiccups threatening to spill from his lips. 

It was a plan. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one he had -- the only one he could possibly execute on his own. But how was he going to do it?

Izuku wracked his brain and scanned the obscure murk of his cube, his eyes never quite adjusting to the dark pitch well enough to decipher anything besides an inky black wall. He recalled Shigaraki boasting early on in his captivity about how he would make him regret being alive, and a part of Izuku hated that, from the outside looking in, he was proving the villain right. 

But he wasn’t doing this for Shigaraki, he reminded himself. He was doing this for his mother, and the rest of humanity. Izuku didn’t care if it was a cowardly solution. He didn’t care if he was doing this mostly because he couldn’t bear to watch his mother die. At the end of the day, One for All could not , under any circumstances, fall into the hands of All for One.

Which brought him back to the question: how was he going to end this?

He thought briefly of using One for All on himself, but quickly dismissed the idea. His power wasn’t meant to kill, after all, and he doubted the previous holders of his quirk would allow their strength to be used to assist in his suicide. The best case scenario using that method would be a concussion, and that would waste precious time until Shigaraki would come for him once again, not to mention preventing him from coming up with a better alternative. 

There was nothing to be utilized in his cage either; he had grown intimately familiar with his prison, and knew for a fact that nothing sharp protruded from the welds at its seams. Banging his head against the wall did nothing more than knock him out and contribute to brain damage he couldn’t afford to have. The only change in the cube’s landscape at all was the opposite corner that Izuku had been forced to use as an emergency bathroom, and he wasn’t going over there unless he absolutely had to. His nose crinkled at the thought, and he curled into himself even tighter, shutting his eyes and resting his head against his knees.

What other options were there?

The operating room.

Izuku’s eyes flew open and he bolted upright. Of course.

There was a knife that Ujiko would use sometimes, when he was angry enough and when Izuku was brave enough to give the doctor attitude, to create a little extra “motivation” for Izuku’s obedience. The combination of electric shocks to his temples and knife wounds to his already festering injuries were usually enough to cow Izuku into compliance, at least for an afternoon. There were a few times where Ujiko had become truly enraged, and Izuku could have sworn he’d made the doctor forget himself enough to strike a final blow. This time, he would make that his goal.

But how? It’s not like Dr. Ujiko or Shigaraki would give him free reign long enough for him to grab something. The only leverage he had at all was One for All, and last time he tried to use his power against Shigaraki, it hadn’t gone well for him.

And yet, he didn’t have a choice. It was the end of the road. He was out of options; he could either try to land a surprise attack on Shigaraki and Ujiko before they could react and end the hold the villains had over his life once and for all, or wait for Shigaraki to make good on his threats.

That was it then. Tomorrow. 

Tomorrow morning, he would end this, and he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that the only casualty in this entire mess would be him.

The thought enveloped him with a strange sense of peace, and finally, the exhaustion of the day overcame him. Izuku let out a deep sigh, allowing his pent up frustration and muted grief to leak out of his body into delicate wisps in the air. 

He laid down on his side, careful not to put unnecessary pressure on the plethora of bruises, cuts and burns that decorated his body as he curled himself into a rigid ball, hands still stiff around his ears on the off-chance the phantom screams came back to haunt him as he attempted to sleep. As his eyes gazed unseeing into the dark pit of his prison, his body slowly began to droop, bone-melting weariness winning against his gripping anxiety. He soon drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep, his second night of uninterrupted slumber since he fell into the hands of Shigaraki. 

As sweet, sweet unconsciousness overcame him, a soft smile graced his cracked lips, untouched by the grief and pain that dogged him in his waking life. It made him look so much younger than his short-lived fifteen years of age. Freckles dotted his cheeks like flowers in a field, his dimples still youthfully round despite his malnourishment. His eyebrows, usually knotted with discomfort, were uncharacteristically relaxed; in his waking hours, moving his badly damaged body meant having to fight the urge to keep his face in a permanent wince. Now, in sleep, his body was at peace, and Izuku allowed himself to relish in it for what would probably be the last time.

 

 -----------------------------------------------

 

By the time Toshinori finished explaining the intricacies of One for All and his relationship with young Midoriya, it was well past midnight and the pair had gone through at least a gallon of cold brew, collectively. 

Aizawa sat across from Toshinori on one of his ratty leather arm chairs while Toshinori rested precariously on his equally worn thrift shop sofa. Toshinori’s overhead light cast a weak, orange ambience over his living room, coating the heroes’ skin in a sickly yellow glow. Occasionally the light flickered, and Toshinori cursed himself for not changing the lightbulb before inviting a guest over. He may be okay living in a derelict bachelor’s den, but that didn’t mean everyone else was. 

Still, to his credit, Aizawa didn’t seem to notice, or care. His colleague sipped on his cold brew thoughtfully, his gaze clouded in deep thought. 

With a sigh, he set his cup down on the dated side table next to his chair and fixed his gaze on Toshinori. Somehow, he looked even more exhausted than he did when he’d first arrived, his chronically haunted demeanor burrowing itself deeper into his body’s frame. He rubbed his eyes using the base of his palms and let out a shuddering breath.

“Let me get this straight.”

Toshinori nodded expectantly.

“Your quirk is something called One for All, which stockpiles quirks and can be passed on to another person of your choosing.”

“Correct.”

“You chose Midoriya.”

He nodded.

“Your arch-nemesis is someone called All for One, who you believe is the shadow leader of the League of Villains.”

“Correct again.”

“The same League of Villains that Shigaraki controls.”

“Mmmhm.”

“The same League of Villains that has Midoriya right now.”

“The one and only.”

“So the man and organization that has been fated to fight with One for All, is currently in possession of the one power that could possibly defeat them?”

“… yes.”

“Do you think All for One knows that Midoriya has One for All?”

“At this point, most likely.”

Aizawa let out another shaky, rattling sigh, and buried his head in his hands. He grabbed onto the thin strands of his hair tightly and stared down at the floor through the gaps in his fingers. He looked so defeated.

“... Fuck, ” he cursed quietly.

Toshinori sipped his own coffee and silently agreed.

Aizawa propped his head back up on top of his palms, his skull seemingly too heavy to lift on his own. 

“Who else knows about this?” Aizawa questioned. “About your quirk? About… him?”

“Well, me of course,” Toshinori started. “Principal Nezu, Gran Torino…”

His eyes slid over to meet his colleague’s. 

“... and you.”

Aizawa blinked owlishly. “So four people in the entire world know what’s really at stake,” he surmised.

Toshinori let out a noncommittal grunt.

“And you don’t even have your quirk,” Aizawa realized with a start. “You’re just running on the fumes of what’s been left with you.”

Toshinori shifted uncomfortably at that. 

“... Correct,” he admitted.

Suddenly, the expression on Aizawa’s face hinted that he needed something stronger than coffee to get through the rest of their conversation.

For a moment, the duo sat silently staring at each other, the soft tick tick tick of Toshinori’s wall clock and the gurgle of the fridge’s ice maker serving as their soundscape. The words left unsaid hung in the air like smoke in a house fire.

Finally, Aizawa broke the silence.

“I-I…” He stuttered before grinding to an uncharacteristic halt. He swallowed the discomfort displayed on his face down his dry throat and tried again. “I owe you another apology.”

Toshinori startled in surprise, before slumping his shoulders forward.

“Please don’t,” Toshinori muttered quietly, unused to seeing this side of Aizawa. “You didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Aizawa mused. “None of what I said was true. I was tired and angry, and took it all out on you.”

He sighed, and looked into Toshinori’s face: really, really looked at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been fair to you. I-I… I haven’t been fair to you for a long time.”

Toshinori shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’t want Aizawa’s apology. He almost preferred grumpy Aizawa to this heart-on-his sleeve Aizawa. Much less disconcerting.

“You weren’t entirely incorrect earlier,” Toshinori admitted. “It’s true I haven’t experienced loss like you have. I’ve never seen a student of mine die.”

Toshinori’s eyes trailed over his colleague and examined him with a newfound respect that had worked itself into his heart overnight. He had always known Aizawa to be a strict, uncompromising man, but also a man of unmatched empathy and a true heart for his students. Now, he witnessed the sharp edges of grief that crowded the outline of his colleague’s shoulders and made their home within the folds of his dark undereye circles. Aizawa carried the burden of each of the students he believed he failed in his body, and despite the fact that Aizawa couldn’t be any older than thirty-five, the toll of his stockpiled guilt aged him by another decade.

Toshinori decided then and there he wasn’t going to follow in his colleague’s footsteps, and his eyes hardened. “But I don’t believe that I’m going to start now.”

Aizawa blinked, his face remaining blank despite the rise in his eyebrows.

“Midoriya is going to be okay,” he continued. “We have a plan. We have help from the entire police department and a plethora of other heroes. We have a time and a place to attack.”

Toshinori threw back his cup to down the rest of his coffee, only to realize it was empty. He set it down on his coffee table and folded his hands together in an awkward prayer.

“We have to put a little faith in Midoriya that he will hold on until we arrive.”

Aizawa opened his mouth slightly and looked like he wanted to argue, a dogged expression crossing over his face.

“ Please , Aizawa. He’s your student, after all, isn’t he?” Toshinori pointed out, refusing to let his colleague give in to doubt. “Even if you don’t have any faith in me, or even yourself, believe in him. You taught him well.”

The argument seemed to die on Aizawa’s lips. He sat back into the worn leather arm chair, and a small amount of tension that had coiled around his features seemed to loosen their grip.

“... I suppose,” was Aizawa’s eventual response.

“Good,” Toshinori chuffed with finality. 

With that, the quietly waning calm that Toshinori had been feinting for the past few hours left him. The uneasy smile and demeanor he had been struggling to hold onto slipped from his grasp, and suddenly he couldn’t seem to staple his smile to his visage any longer. He clasped his hands over his knees and slowly forced his body upward into a standing position. He grabbed his coffee cup from the table and gathered Aizawa’s as well, walking the dishes back towards the kitchen. 

“I think that’s enough for tonight. We only have a few hours before we need to be at the rendezvous point after all,” Toshinori called over his shoulder. Aizawa grunted in weary agreement.

“There’s some extra blankets under that ottoman to your right,”  Toshinori said as he set the coffee cups down in the sink, ignoring the already large pile of dishes cluttering its base. He’d deal with those later. 

“Feel free to make yourself at home.”

He balanced the cups precariously on top of a stack of grungy breakfast bowls, making sure not to upset the delicate ecosystem that already existed in his sink, and then backed away slowly, admiring his handiwork.

As he entered the living room again moments later, he witnessed Aizawa awkwardly gathering a bundle of wool blankets and spreading them over his couch. Aizawa nodded his thanks stiffly, as if the idea of taking kindness from Toshinori was still a new concept to him.

“I guess I’ll see you in a few hours,” he mumbled. 

Toshinori nodded in agreement. 

“Try to get some rest, Aizawa,” he spoke softly, before turning and heading down the hallway towards his own room. After the past 48 hours of planning, the emotional confrontation in the elevator with Aizawa, and explaining the intricacies of his quirk and All for One, Toshinori was completely exhausted. 

After setting at least twenty alarms -- there was no way he was going to leave his wake-up time to chance -- Toshinori finally allowed himself under the covers of his bed. Like Aizawa, sleep didn’t usually come easily to Toshinori.

To his exasperation, this night proved to be no exception, despite the exhaustion that weighed heavily in his bones and the hundred pound weights that made it impossible to keep his eyelids open. He tossed and turned in his bed, begging his mind to quiet, to no avail. He hissed in frustration. 

Of course this would happen. On the most important night of his life, on the most important night of his successor’s life--

A soft mess of green curl’s popped into his mind’s eye, along with a field of freckles and kind, emerald eyes hidden by youthful dimples. Midoriya. My poor boy, Toshinori thought, as guilt wrapped itself around his throat and he squeezed his hands so tightly around his blanket that his knuckles turned white. 

Now Toshinori, what did you just finish telling Aizawa? A gentle voice echoed in his mind. Believe in young Midoriya. He is alive. He’s a strong boy. Have some faith in your pupil. 

Toshinori curled around himself until he was practically in the fetal position, fists still tight around his blanket as he burrowed himself deeper into the comforter. 

It was one thing to reassure Aizawa that everything was going to be alright. Convincing someone else despite the odds, despite the mess that he himself had created in his failure to kill All For One all those years ago, was easy. It was another thing entirely to believe it for himself. 

I’m such a hypocrite, he scolded himself. A hypocrite and a liar.

He remembered when he took Midoriya aside into a teacher’s lounge and told him the truth about One For All. He remembered the look of determination on the boy’s face after he told his protege that one day, he would most likely have to fight the most dangerous villain in the history of Japan. 

“That’s okay, All Might!” Midoriya had chirped brightly. “ With you at my side, I’m sure I can accomplish anything.”

Toshinori remembered how he floundered, how his mouth opened and closed without a sound escaping it, like a fish out of water. 

Tell him, All Might. He recalled scolding himself. You have to tell him…

I probably won’t be by your side when that time comes.

Well, it turned out he was correct, but not in the way he imagined.

Toshinori believed by the time his protege would be facing his fated enemy, All Might would be long gone, either from death or retirement, and yet, here he was, in perfectly fine battle condition, but just as equally powerless to protect his boy from the man who would stop at nothing to kill the world that he and his predecessors had given everything to create. How had he failed to do something so simple?

It was like Aizawa said; he was the Symbol of Peace. If anything, Midoriya should be a drop in the bucket in the vast ocean of his feats. He’d saved hundreds, if not thousands of people -- strangers at that. His protege was right under his nose; he talked with the boy almost daily and was an active participant in his training and growth. It was the easiest thing in the world for him to be at Midoriya’s side.

And yet, when it had counted most, he wasn’t there. For two weeks, Midoriya had been at the mercy of villains, and Toshinori could only imagine what horrors he had been subjected to in that time period. Would the boy blame him? Would he hate him? 

Did he even believe someone was coming for him?

The wave of guilt that had gripped Toshinori’s throat earlier threatened to cut off air to his lungs now. He swallowed a sob that, if allowed to reach the surface, would never stop, and sat up in his bed. He forced the hot tears behind his eyes back into their tear ducts until it felt like his face was scalding at the effort. There was no way he was going to go to sleep now. 

So instead, Toshinori got himself out of bed, ignoring the lead in his bones and the migraine behind his eyes. He took to pacing his room, reading through Tsukauchi’s encoded message on his phone over and over and over until he was pretty sure he could recite the entire thing by heart. It was a simple text describing, in their predefined code that they established years ago, the location of their rendezvous point, what other personnel would be there, and what to expect. Toshinori already knew all of the details before he had ever left Tsukauchi’s office, but now, the pattern of the code helped to calm his guilt-addled mind and assuaged the waves of grief that crashed against the walls of his stomach.

When the first of his twenty alarms went off, Toshinori had finally managed to slow his heart rate down to a number that wouldn’t give his doctor an aneurysm. The heat behind his eyes had cooled to a temperature that didn’t threaten to spring tears at a moment’s notice and he heaved a sigh, exhausted, but calm enough to not melt into a nervous wreck in front of Aizawa.

A quiet knocking at his door jerked him out of his thoughts. He opened it to find Aizawa already dressed in his hero jumpsuit and capture weapon. The man eyed him cautiously.

“Everything alright?” He asked, voice even and neutral.

“As good as it’s gonna be for today,” Toshinori replied just as evenly, betraying no harsh emotions as he stepped aside so that Aizawa could enter his room if he desired. He turned toward his closet to grab the bag he’d packed the day before, stuffed with his hero costume and a radio, and slung it over his shoulders. 

“Are you ready to go?” He asked, turning back around to face his colleague. Aizawa remained where he was at the door frame to his room. He grunted his affirmation and gestured his chin towards Toshinori’s pack.

“Got everything you need?”

Toshinori nodded. “It’s time.”

Aizawa shot him a tense smile, though it looked more like a tight grimace.

“It’s time.”

His colleague looked marginally more well-rested than he had been a few hours before, but his under eye area still looked closer to bruises than shadows. Still, Toshinori would take the small improvement over the alternative. He doubted he looked much better.

After a quick lock-up of his apartment and shooting a quick text to Tsukauchi, the duo made their way towards the rendezvous point. It was a bit further than Aizawa could manage on foot, so the heroes opted to drive there in Toshinori’s car. If Toshinori was alone, he could simply bound over the rooftops in his hero form to the rendezvous point, but in all honesty, it was probably for the best. He figured, with his quietly growing nerves, it was best he wasn’t left alone. 

In the crisp morning air, Toshinori’s composure quickly melted away with the surge in his heart rate and an anxious hum replaced it, dancing in his veins and making the vestiges of One for All’s power course through his body. He drummed his fingers across the steering wheel restlessly and stepped on the gas, watching the familiar sights of his neighborhood bleed into a blurry stream of colors outside his window. He spared a glance at Aizawa in his passenger seat, a grim look set in his jaw and steel in his eyes. He was ready for battle.

And a battle it would be. Toshinori knew All For One wouldn’t give up Midoriya easily, but heroes didn’t give up, period, and he, nor any of his colleagues, were about to start a differing trend today. 

He would make it up to Midoriya. No matter what happened to his protégé over the past few weeks, he would set things right. Today, he would end this, and Toshinori prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that if there was to be a casualty in this whole mess, it would be him. It was only right; he had cheated death years before in what should have been his and All For One’s final battle. His life was forfeit anyway; if sacrificing himself meant Izuku Midoriya could go home safely, he’d gladly throw it away.

It would be his last gift to his protégé, and his final apology.

Notes:

Author’s note: I love parallels and making old men feel guilty for things outside their control.
Also, sorry izuku.
another side note: next chapter’s update will probably be slow: i’ve been working on it for about a month and it’s still not where i want it to be. Apologies for the delay!
In the meantime, thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed the new chapters. I’m glad I got the mojo back for this story because it’s something I’ve always intended on finishing, but in the past five years, my life had changed so dramatically I had basically no mental capacity for creativity. It means a lot to me that people continue to read my work.

Chapter 11

Summary:

Note: after 5 years, i have finally changed the name of this fic to something i think actually represents it.
Former name: The Difference Between
The former name was always meant to be a placeholder until i could think of something better. Here is my something better.

Notes:

This is a shorter chapter than normal. I had to split this chapter into two separate parts and it just felt more natural for this to be the cut-off point.
Normal chapter lengths will resume next week~
Also: I love Hizashi. He is so fun to write.

Hizashi Yamada hated this. He hated everything about this.

Here he was, 6am on a Friday morning, playing hooky from his teaching job while simultaneously kidnapping four teenage students to go help rescue a different kind of kidnapped teenage student.

When he called Tsukauchi the day before asking what he could do for the Midoriya rescue mission that would keep him in the rear guard, he begged the police detective to keep his involvement a secret from Aizawa. Tsukauchi seemed confused, but promised he didn’t want to get involved with whatever lover’s quarrel they must have been having.

They weren’t fighting, not exactly, but Hizashi knew that if Aizawa ever found out he’d gone behind his back to bring his students to the front lines of a rescue mission involving dangerous villains, their so-called “lover’s quarrel” was going to turn nuclear very quickly . He gripped the steering wheel to his borrowed Toyota Corona -- another thing he wasn’t going to tell Aizawa about -- so tightly his knuckles turned white. 

He was so dead. He was so dead dead dead dead!

“Mr. Present Mic?” Uraraka asked innocently from the front passenger’s seat. She leaned forward, trying to catch his eye. He didn’t dare move his gaze from the road. Knowing his luck, he’d accidentally kill them all in a freak car crash while being a distracted driver. That’d be just his luck, wouldn’t it?

He hated this. He hated everything about this.

“You don’t look so good, sir,” Uraraka tried again, forehead creased with concern. “Should we pull over for a bit?”

“I can drive!” Kirishima crowed from the back, hands gripping the headrest of Hizashi’s seat eagerly. “My mom taught me how to drive a stick last weekend.”

“ Absolutely not, ” Hizashi, Iida, and Todoroki admonished simultaneously. 

Kirishima’s face morphed into a childish pout, and he slumped back in his seat with his arms crossed.

“It was just a suggestion,” he moped quietly.

Hizashi felt Uraraka stifle a giggle beside him.

“I’m… I’m feeling fine, Uraraka,” he eventually responded. “Thanks for your concern.” 

His green eyes shifted sideways ever so slightly to the rearview mirror so he could look the children in the eye without looking too far from the road. 

“I’ll feel better once we’re there,” he sighed.

“You all know what your jobs are, right?”

The teenagers nodded. 

“Listen to everything you say, even if we don’t like it,” they droned in a rehearsed chorus. Hizashi didn’t miss how Kirishima rolled his eyes at the end, and how Iida sent a swift elbow to his classmate’s ribs, causing the red-haired boy to collapse in a cascade of giggles.

Todoroki sent them both a withering glare, and Uraraka’s eyes sparkled with amusement at the scene.

This is fine, Hizashi tried to assuage himself. They’re just kids, they’re nervous.

His knuckles tightened around the steering wheel again. 

This definitely wasn’t a mistake of any kind. Nope.

Everything would go according to plan. All Might and Eraserhead would lead the charge into the warehouse. With Musustafu’s Police Department and a plethora of other heroes recruited to the mission, they would easily incapacitate the Nomus and the scores of villains lurking inside. All Might would arrest Shigaraki and rescue Izuku Midoriya. Hizashi and the four students from Class 1-A would stay in the rear guard, providing support to the mission resource operators however they saw fit and helping to transport any injured persons to the awaiting ambulances. 

It was simple.

It was straightforward. 

It would work.

Another twenty minutes passed in relative silence, aside from Kirishima’s nervous heel-tapping and Todoroki fogging up the backseat window to doodle in the condensation. Uraraka and Iida were having a private conversation using only their eyebrows. Meanwhile, Hizashi tried desperately to bring his heart rate down to something that would make his smartwatch stop sending him notifications that it was time to take a break. 

They entered Yokohama’s southern industrial district more quickly than he was expecting, and soon he saw a few bobbing lights peeking in and out of the nearby woods.

It was time.

He shut off his brights, and slowed his car down to a crawl. 

The air was crisp when the five of them stepped out of the car, Hizashi’s breath forming a cloud in front of him. He shivered, zipping his collar high above his chin to keep out the chill. He dug his hands into his pockets and approached the shadowy backside of a familiar police detective. Tsukauchi turned swiftly when he recognized the sound of footsteps, softening his gaze when he made eye contact with Hizashi.

“I see why you didn’t want to tell Aizawa,” he said, eyes shifting quickly to sweep over the four Class 1-A students. The students were dressed plainly; Hizashi refused to allow them to bring their hero costumes. I don’t want to tempt any of you into thinking you’ll be dashing in to save the day, Hizashi had reasoned when Kirishima complained and the disappointment was obvious in Uraraka and Todoroki’s eyes. They were there strictly as support, rear guard only. They wouldn’t step a single foot into the warehouse, if Hizashi had anything to say about it.

The pro hero shrugged, grinning sheepishly. “I was held at gunpoint,” he sighed, only half kidding. Once tears were involved, Hizashi was practically helpless. Uraraka could have asked him to give up the country’s nuclear launch codes and Hizashi would have found a way to provide. Damn Uraraka. Had she known his weakness beforehand? Had they all known?

Ah, well. It was too late to have regrets now, he grimaced to himself, observing the nervous energy and hope that swam in the four students’ eyes. This was the situation he chose. He was going to accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

Tsukauchi chuckled lightly before turning back around towards one of his officers, who was kneeling on the grass, eyes glued to a laptop screen showing a heat map of the warehouse. Hizashi knew the building sat somewhere below them under the nest of darkness; in the pre-dawn hours, it was impossible to see anywhere below into the valley with the shadows of the forest canopy blocking their way.

“How’s it looking, Tamakawa?” Tsukauchi asked the feline officer, who was preoccupied murmuring to someone in his headset. He finished his conversation before nodding to Tsukauchi.

“Teams B through D are in position,” the officer confirmed. “Once I get the all clear from All Might, the operation is ready to commence.”

Tsukauchi looked pleased, giving his officer an affirming, tense smile.

“Good. Update me when you’re ready to give the signal.”

Tamakawa looked deadly serious as he nodded in return, quickly shifting his feline eyes back towards the computer screen. Hizashi leaned forward a bit to get a better view.

From what he could tell, the screen showed a vague outline of a building bathed in the green light of a night vision camera. Neon orange-yellow blobs moved quickly around the outsides of the building, lithe as panthers and moving with the precision of a well-oiled military infantry. It was the hero teams.

Hizashi recognized the movement pattern of one of the orange blobs. Aizawa. His silhouette was dwarfed by another blob Hizashi could only guess was the form of All Might. As Tsukauchi debriefed the Class 1-A heroes of their role, Hizashi learned that Team A consisted of All Might, Eraserhead and Midnight, along with a small squadron of Musustafu policemen. Hizashi already knew what their main objective was, but as Tsukauchi explained further, Hizashi learned that the three other hero teams were to be used partially as distraction for Team A to move further into the facility without major hindrance, and partially to capture or arrest any League of Villain’s members or sympathizers within the facility. Ambulances, as well as prisoner transportation vehicles, stood at the ready nearby their location out of sight, but ready to spring into action once Tsukauchi or one of the heroes gave the word.

The other teams were being led by other heroes: Team B was led by Cementoss and Thirteen, Team C by Ectoplasm and Snipe, and Team D by Rock Lock and Best Jeanist. Each team had their own squadron of police officers, who were tasked with taking away any villains that the heroes managed to subdue. 

Back in the rear guard, Hizashi, the Class 1-A students, and a few other pro heroes maintained a defensive line, guarding Tsukauchi, Tamakawa, his investigative detectives, and medical personnel.

It was a formidable team that Tsukauchi, All Might and Aizawa managed to put together in only three short days. If Hizashi didn’t know better, he’d almost be impressed. Knowing how Aizawa and All Might worked, however, he knew that they were beating themselves up for not coming up with something more bulletproof. So much of the plan hinged on their intel about the building layout being what they expected, that Izuku Midoriya indeed was being kept in the basement of their hideout, and that the Nomus were where they were expected to be.

So much could go wrong, but it was too late for second guessing now.

Tamakawa’s ears flicked impatiently before turning back towards Tsukauchi and giving him a nod.

“It’s time.”

Tsukauchi spoke into his radio.

“Team A and B, move out! Teams C and D, guard the exit points and incapacitate any targets that come your way.”

A jumble of noise erupted from the tinny radio: verbal confirmations, along with the garbled voices of the heroes in charge calling their units forwards. Soon, the cacophony from the radio was mirrored by a rumble echoing through the trees. It shook the leaves that surrounded the rear guard, fluttering branches and sending flocks of birds into the air in a panic. 

It had begun. 

Distant explosions sounded from the valley down below, and Hizashi could see bursts of light emanate through the forest brush like fireflies on a summer night. Hizashi knew the explosions to be the detonators the heroes had placed earlier to serve as a distraction, allowing them time to slip into the facility while the villains recovered from the surprise attack. 

Still, his breath caught in his throat, eyes glued to Tamakawa’s screen as the shapes of Aizawa, All Might and Midnight pushed past the first wave of Shigaraki’s personnel and into the lair of the League of Villains. His heart twisted painfully as he watched Aizawa’s form knocked backward from the impact of some villain’s quirk before quickly righting himself and subduing his attacker. 

For a time, the rear guard and resource officers monitored the various scanners and sensors they placed around the facility, with officers calling other personnel from Teams C and D on the radio to gaps that appeared in the heroes’ assault. Heroes kept on stand-by tag-teamed who would go to retrieve injured personnel or escort ambulances to the scene down below. A few times Hizashi or one of his wards were tasked with helping and despite the ball of anxiety that sunk to the bottom of his stomach every time he watched one of the Class 1-A students depart, he couldn’t help but be a bit proud of the harsh line of determination that shone in each of their eyes as they carried out their tasks. Still, Hizashi could feel the burgeoning tension in the air as the hero teams fought their way further and further into the villain’s warehouse.

Uraraka and Kirishima gasped aloud at the same time Hizashi’s heart somersaulted when an explosion took out the side of the warehouse building, caving in the entrance where Teams A and B had entered. Where Aizawa had entered.

“No,” Hizashi heard himself whisper, seething air through his teeth. His fists clenched tighter, his knuckles turning white.

Shortly after, villains crawled out of the wreckage like maggots from an open wound, and Team C was there to meet them. 

“Vlad King. Edgeshot,” Tsukauchi called tersely for two of the stand-by pro heroes. “Move out and assist Team C. Don’t let anyone get away.” 

“Understood,” Vlad replied, already moving through the forest before Tsukauchi had finished speaking, Edgeshot disappearing through the branches of the trees. 

Drops of cold sweat beaded on the back of Hizashi’s neck and nausea roiled at the back of his throat. Tsukauchi must not have been expecting the villains to be so willing to bring down their own building to keep the heroes out. 

Hizashi’s hands balled into fists, and it was all he could do to keep his body from shaking.

Please, Aizawa. He begged his partner silently. Please be safe. Please don’t let anyone die today. 

Another explosion, this time from deeper within the warehouse. Hizashi swallowed the bile in his throat and he crowded closer to Tamakawa’s screen. This mission could not fail. It could not .

There was too much at stake, too many hearts on the line. 

“Go heroes,” Hizashi heard himself mumble under his breath like a prayer. “Go beyond.”

“Bring Izuku Midoriya home,” Tsukauchi prayed likewise. 

Notes:

Thank you for reading!
Next time: what the hell is going on down there?

Chapter 12

Notes:

a bit of a quicker update than normal; splitting up an existing chapter made this one much easier to edit.
please excuse the fight scenes. I don't know how to write action and I don't know what i'm doing, but i did try. for YOU!!

also: i've outlined the majority of the remaining chapters and. um. i'm going to be leaning heavily on that 'it gets worse before it gets better' tag. trust the process, please!!! :) and don't shoot the messenger, haha

cw: blood, guts, idk, you should know what you're getting into by now.

Also, I made a playlist because I can't help myself. Feel free to listen while you read!

The flames ate at the fringes of Aizawa’s frayed capture device and the hero tried not to choke on the ash wafting in the air. He blinked fervently, swatting at the remnants of sparks on his scarf and watched as they fizzled out in a puff of smoke. He begged his eyes to stop smarting so he could look through the smog, and counted five of Tsukauchi’s men sprawled across the floor in front of him, looking dazed but uninjured, as far as he could tell. A small blessing, given the situation.

“All Might! Midnight!” He called into the fog, coughing on a lungful of soot. “Where are you?”

“Over here!” A feminine voice warbled weakly through the gray, and Aizawa made his way towards the voice, limping on a twisted ankle.

He found his colleague buried under a small pile of broken concrete, her arm pinned under what used to be a ceiling support beam. He cursed under his breath as he dug desperately at the crumbling rock, trying to pull her from the rubble. His stomach sank to the floor as he realized her arm was fractured, as was her collarbone. 

She gazed up at him with a faltering smile, blood trailing from her mouth and leaking from a cut above her eye, staining her mask.

“How’s it look, teach?” She joked. Aizawa didn’t feel like laughing. 

“You’re hurt,” he replied. “Badly.”

He called it into his radio. “Midnight is out of commission. I need medical assistance at my location now .”

“ We’re on it, Eraserhead,” Cementoss’ voice came through shortly after. “Thirteen and I are en-route to your location.”

Tendrils of anxiety loosened around his jaw at the quick reply for help, but not for long. He quickly reevaluated the scene before him. 

The hallway they had come from was half collapsed, debris blocking the door frame closest to him. It would require Cementoss’ quirk to clear a way towards the exit.  The police members of his squadron were beginning to collect themselves from the dust and dirt, colleagues checking over one another for injuries. 

“Eraserhead, sir!” One of the police lieutenants ran up to him, faltering when he glimpsed Midnight’s injuries. Eraserhead turned his attention from splinting his friend’s arm to meet his gaze. 

“What.”

The lieutenant gulped. “Three of our officers suffered serious injuries in the collapse. They’ll need to be extracted along with Midnight.”

Of course. Just his luck.

Aizawa nodded grimly as he tightened the splint around Midnight’s arm, ignoring her hiss of pain. He reached for his earpiece to update Cementoss and Thirteen.

“Wait a minute,” Midnight seethed through her teeth, still reeling from Aizawa’s less-than-stellar bedside manner. “Where’s All Might?”

His stomach dropped. He had been so busy trying to stabilize Midnight he completely forgot about the big oaf. He did a quick visual search of the room once again, but the oversized blonde hadn’t materialized from the wreckage. He switched his earpiece’s channel to their squadron’s. 

“All Might, come in,” Aizawa growled. 

No response.

“ All Might ,” he tried again, raising his voice. “Report. This is not the time to go AWOL.” 

A shower of static was his only answer. He cursed loudly. 

“Eraserhead!”

Aizawa spun his head around quickly, relief washing over his face as he caught sight of Cementoss sloughing away the debris from their exit route. The broad, blocky man approached them quickly, worry steeped in his eyes as he took in the sight of the injured police officers and his colleague. Thirteen made their way towards the officers and began prepping them for extraction.

“Is everyone all right?” Cementoss asked.

“ No ,” Eraserhead and Midnight replied simultaneously. Cementoss flinched. 

“Right. Sorry,” he said as he knelt down to the two heroes. Aizawa moves to Midnight’s other side to give his colleague room to work. Carefully, Cementoss arranged himself so that he could take Midnight’s weight without exacerbating her injuries. It wasn’t difficult, given his size, but despite his efforts, Aizawa still caught the twinge in Midnight's Eyebrow as her injured arm caught against a pillar of concrete. He winced in sympathy. 

“Eraserhead, I’m going to have to ask to borrow your uninjured officers for help carrying everyone out of here,” Cementoss said. 

He pointed his chin over towards where Thirteen had spread the injured officers along three makeshift stretchers. 

“We had to leave our own squadron back with Rock Lock so that we could get here without delay.”

Aizawa watched Cementoss do a quick cursory glance over their surroundings, noting the absence of the third hero on their team.

“You should fall back with us for now,” he finished, voice tight.

“All Might isn’t answering his communicator,” Aizawa protested. “I need to go in deeper and find him.”

Cementoss hesitated. “It’s a risk for you to go in further without backup.”

Aizawa scoffed. “Well, that certainly didn’t stop All Might.”

His colleague looked like he wanted to argue, only to be stopped by an ugly glare from Midnight. Ordinarily a laid back hero, her look of frustration coupled with the blood running down her face made her look downright intimidating.

“Let him go,” she spat. “He’ll be fine. We’re wasting time.”

“But—“

“Midoriya is in there, right?” Midnight asked, face giving way to a thin smile. “All Might isn’t going to slow down if there's a kid that needs help. But he can’t do this one alone.”

Cementoss narrowed his eyes, but didn’t argue. 

“Be careful, Eraserhead,” he cautioned, before taking Midnight and turning back towards Thirteen to lead the way for the injured.

“As soon as we get the injured to safety, Thirteen and I will be back to support you.”

With a tense nod, Aizawa stood from his crouched position, ignoring the wave of vertigo that made the room spin. After checking to make sure his colleagues had everything under control, he began stumbling further down the hallway where he had last seen the Number One hero before the explosion turned his vision sideways. 

Where had the explosion even come from? Did Shigaraki cause this somehow? 

Where was All Might?

Aizawa tripped down the smoky hallway, leaning heavily on the wall as he did so and tried not to cough up a lung. Rubble and debris littered the floor and caved in to the adjacent rooms. Aizawa could see into a few of them; they looked like medical wards in a post-apocalyptic hospital.

Just what kind of facility was this?

Of what he remembered from the mission brief, he didn’t recall the heroes’ reconnaissance discovering anything like this. His stomach twisted with dread at the implications for his wayward student. 

“All Might!” he tried calling again. No response.

Cursing harshly, Aizawa pushed forward a little faster, strength returning to his legs and the pain from his twisted ankle fading as his body recovered from the shock of the explosion. Soon, he was running in the hallways, jumping over the bodies of unconscious villains as he went. The trails of blood that fell from their lips meant that their attacker was close by, which meant that Aizawa was on the right track. If All Might was going to turn this into a solo mission, at least he had the decency to leave a trail. 

Aizawa’s thoughts flickered back to the expression the top hero carried on his face earlier that morning. The few hours of rest had, surprisingly, managed to make Aizawa feel more energized, to his disgruntled relief, but the same wasn’t true for All Might. If anything, the quiet of the witching hours seemed to fill his colleague with more anxious dread, and Aizawa found their roles reversed, with him admonishing All Might to slow down while they were en-route to the rendezvous location, while they were entering the facility, while they were barreling into enemy territory. Aizawa and their squadron had struggled to keep up with All Might’s pace, too far behind to prevent All Might from doing anything stupid if he ran into trouble--

Oh.

Goddammit. 

“All Might, you bastard!” Aizawa bellowed, barreling now through the narrow hallway of the warehouse. Stupid, self-sacrificial hero. 

Of course he would do this, the soft-hearted buffoon. Of course he would have calmed his own panic by talking Aizawa down from his own; that was what he was trained for, what he was good at. But All Might was a bleeding heart at his core, he had confessed to his mindset to Aizawa himself:

I put the fucking target on his back! Do you understand?

I damned that boy to hell!

All Might had been hurting, and Aizawa was so trapped under his own mountain of guilt he didn’t bother to help All Might climb out from under his own. And now, Aizawa was witnessing the consequences.

The number one hero was speeding towards his own demise, and he welcomed it.

His yelling attracted a few small-time goons, who Aizawa was able to take down with ease and secure for later arrest. He quickened his pace, his irritation at All Might for rushing ahead without thinking had quickly melted into panic. 

Where the hell was he? As a matter of fact, where was Aizawa at, for that matter?

He got his answer soon enough.

An inhuman shriek echoed down the hallway, and Aizawa pushed himself forward, faster, faster , until the narrow walls opened up into a giant warehouse room with towering ceilings and bright overhead fluorescent lights and—

And a blond Nomu going hand to hand with the missing Number One hero.

The guttural shrieking started up again and Aizawa resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears. His eardrums rattled like they’d been ruptured and he felt the warmth of blood trickling down his neck from his earlobes. As it was, Aizawa’s instincts took over, sliding himself behind a pile of debris close to the hallway entrance that had sloughed off from the ceiling, probably dislodged from the last explosion from the floor above. Now somewhat protected, he took in the battle before him.

If All Might was bothered by the glass-shattering wails coming from his battle partner, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, his teeth clenched in a tight grimace, his fists seesawing so rapidly Aizawa had trouble following. The Nomu unfortunately kept up punch for punch with a ferocity that made Aizawa wince from the reverberations of their impact on All Might’s fists. The echo of their battle ricocheted off the rusted walls.

Thankfully, the room was mostly empty, save for the line of cylindrical tanks at the center of the room and the two combatants before him. There was a peculiar cube-shaped container next to the tanks, and a note from Tsukauchi’s debrief leapt forth in his mind. 

That was where Izuku Midoriya was most likely being kept prisoner.

Aizawa tensed himself like a coiled spring and devised pathways around the room that would take him to his target— to his student. He could skirt the side of the room, using the tanks as cover if the Nomu happened to notice him. There was a catwalk suspended above the tanks, and Aizawa could just make out the staircase that led to it about a hundred meters to his right. However, a grunt of pain from All Might temporarily stole his attention, and Aizawa noticed immediately something about All Might’s movements were off. Aizawa had witnessed enough battles in his life to know that All Might was fighting sloppy. Really sloppy. He was telegraphing; he kept his barrel of a chest much too open, his torso much too exposed. If he wasn’t careful—

At the same time Aizawa saw it, so did the Nomu. Aizawa’s eyes widened as the Nomu dodged what would have been a fatal blow for anyone else and aimed its fist straight for All Might’s old wound. With the amount of force behind that throw, Aizawa wasn’t sure All Might would bounce back from it. 

It was time for him to move. 

He activated his quirk, hair floating out of his vision and goggles quickly snapped into place over his eyes. He rolled out from behind his cover and darted forward, racing against time. With a flying leap, Aizawa flung his capture weapon like a lasso over the Nomu’s eyes and pulled. 

It was enough to get the creature off-balance and, coupled with Aizawa’s quirk, its fist landed harmlessly against All Might’s awaiting parry. The hero quickly retaliated, aiming a powerful hit at the creature’s now covered eyes and there was a sickening squelch as All Might’s fist met its target. Blood scattered across the warehouse floor in a tasteful arc, and the Nomu howled in pain, clutching the side of its now partially caved in skull. Aizawa recalled his capture weapon and landed softly at his ally’s side.

Despite being saved by him, All Might grunted in surprise, like he had just now registered Aizawa’s presence. “Eraserhead?”

“ You, ” Aizawa spat in a strange mix of anger, frustration, fear and relief. “Are a fucking moron.”

All Might paused, wiping the sweat from his brow and spitting blood from his mouth onto the dusty concrete, refusing to meet Aizawa’s eyes. At least he wasn’t denying his accusations.

“What the hell were you thinking , leaving your squadron behind like that after an explosion?” Aizawa hissed, letting his anger be the winning emotion for now.

“I wasn’t thinking,” All Might uttered, voice low and full of malaise, with just a sprinkle of guilt.

“This is not the time for you to lose your head, Number One,” Aizawa growled. “What happened to ‘being the adult’ here?” 

All Might flinched, but Aizawa didn’t feel too bad about it. What he did was stupid, selfish, dangerous, and, from what Aizawa had just witnessed, had almost cost Toshinori his life.

“You’re right, I didn’t take my own advice,” All Might ground out between his gritted teeth. “Can we discuss this later?”

“If we even make it that far,” Aizawa mocked. “I know what you’re doing. You told me not to pin this whole situation on myself, yet here you are doing the same thing. Trying to leave us behind so no one else gets hurt in this battle but you.”

“Now is really not the time, Eraser—“

“Is there ever going to be a good time, Number One? Maybe I should check back after you’ve sacrificed yourself for your guilt?”

“Look, I’m sorry—“

Aizawa opened his mouth to tell All Might exactly where he could stuff his apologies, when another ear-splitting roar drowned out all other sound in the warehouse. It was all Aizawa could do not to hold his head in his hands and groan in pain.

Instead, he swirled towards the direction of the sound, eyes widening at the sight that met him.

On top of one of the cylindrical fluid tanks, a bulging, dark mass crawled its way to the surface.

Dread slithered up Aizawa’s spine and latched itself around his throat. His eyes widened as the Nomu seemed to grow, its form so massive that it blotted out the light from half of the overhead fluorescents. He instinctively took a step back, readying his capture scarf for another skirmish. 

As its body fell unceremoniously out of its tank, Aizawa could finally take in its whole form. While the first Nomu looked like a bastardized version of All Might, down to the spiky hair and deep-set, ice blue eyes, this Nomu looked more like a wild beast. Its blocky head and narrow snout mimicked that of a wolf, but the spines along its back looked more akin to that of a dinosaur. Its legs, too, were reptilian in nature, and at its rear, carried a long, thick tail with a rounded mass that looked similar to a club on the end. What was most unsettling, however, was the scattering of yellow eyes that blanketed its neck like horrifying freckles. Aizawa counted over twenty pupils before the Nomu’s overwhelming presence locked itself onto All Might and Eraserhead.

Argument momentarily shelved, Eraserhead and All Might stood shoulder to shoulder as the creature lumbered its way closer to them, its chorus of eyes never wavering their gaze from the two of them. 

The All Might Nomu, seemingly recovered from its head injury, also began to stalk towards, walking in-step with its larger brother. Its teeth were pulled back into a tainted smile, made more horrifying by the blood dripping down its uneven forehead and settling into the crevices of its gums.

They may be evenly matched in numbers, but Aizawa could tell that, even with All Might on his side, it wouldn’t be hard to become overwhelmed. Especially knowing what he knew now. All Might was relying on the remnant power of a quirk that had long left him, and despite his still impressive strength and prowess, Aizawa knew for a fact it wasn’t limitless.

With a shaky breath, he reached for his earpiece. 

“Team A needs backup in the warehouse basement lev—“

Aizawa never got the chance to finish his request.

“Eraserhead, look out!” All Might warned as he pushed his colleague to the side, just as the All Might Nomu lunged. Its inhuman jaw closed around All Might’s shoulder into a vice grip and gave him a good shake before proceeding to toss him like a ragdoll towards the beast Nomu. 

Eraserhead fell unceremoniously on his back, the wind knocked out of him, but he rolled out of the way just before the All Might Nomu pivoted midair and barreled forward into the space he had just occupied. Like the Nomu at the USJ, the creatures here were fast, probably faster than their predecessor had been. Aizawa danced around each of the Nomu’s attacks, narrowly missing the creature taking a bite out of his side and a powerful swing to his head. He was immediately put on the defensive, with no signs of an opening to make a move against his attacker. Despite his quirk being active the whole encounter, it did nothing to slow the Nomu down.

Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, Aizawa could see All Might going toe to toe with the beast Nomu. It seemed to be going a little better than Aizawa’s own battle, with All Might managing to land a hit on the monster here and there before being forced back on the defensive. 

It was a battle of stamina for them both, a game of quirk chicken: whoever tired first would be the first to fall. 

All Might had super strength and the energy that came with being the Symbol of Peace, but Aizawa had neither, and despite the adrenaline from his many near-misses, he was quickly fatiguing from the constant onslaught of attacks. It was only a matter of time before he slipped up.

And slip up he did. As he landed from another airborne dodge, Aizawa felt his ankle buckle on the slippery surface of blood on concrete. He looked down, eyes widening at how much red was scattered across the ground, and the Nomu pounced. 

Aizawa felt the weight of the Nomu crush him, popping his shoulder out of its socket and cracking his ribs underneath the palm of the Nomu’s hand. He cried out instinctively, white hot pain coursing through his veins and making little black dots crowd the edges of his vision. The sensation was a painful reminder of his time at the USJ, and Aizawa went limp. 

Memories flashed before his eyes: his head getting smashed in, over and over onto the pavement, his arm being pulled so far backwards he could feel his bone fibers snap, his students watching on in horror, his problem child barreling toward him with rage and fear and determination swimming in his wide green eyes. 

Aizawa shut his own eyes to block out the images, to no avail. Those green eyes— they were why he was on this mission. He promised himself he would never be the cause of fear and panic in those eyes ever again, he promised himself he would protect his students properly from then on, and yet—

Here he was, in practically the same position again. Only this time, he had no problem child as his backup. 

Some pro hero he was, huh?

Enraged by his own feelings of inadequacy, Aizawa roared. By now, he knew his quirk wasn’t enough to handle the Nomu by himself, so he resorted to his most basic of tactics: he went for the throat. 

He sunk his teeth into the thick dark mass of the Nomu’s neck, tearing and pulling and gnawing until he could feel hot blood pouring onto his face and his ears were filled with the sounds of guttural caterwauling. The Nomu’s fists beat him down, and Aizawa could see stars, but he refused to let go. It wasn’t until the creature retreated, leaving a large chunk of its throat between Aizawa’s teeth, that he felt that he could breath. He quickly spit out the Nomu’s flesh, trying not to gag on the taste of its rancid blood. The creature continued screaming, unperturbed by Aizawa’s own retreat as the hero tried his best to inch away from the Nomu while it was distracted. 

The sound of rumbling concrete told him that the cavalry had arrived. A wave of gray rippled underneath him before centering itself around the All Might Nomu, and Aizawa watched as the creature became encased in concrete a meter thick, screeching in fury all the while, while strong hands pulled him to his feet. 

“Sorry for the delay,” Cementoss murmured apologetically, and Aizawa had never been so grateful to hear his colleague’s voice in his whole life.

“Better late than never,” he replied gruffly, wiping the excess of the Nomu’s blood from his face, and turned to meet his colleague’s gaze to silently show his thanks. Cementoss scanned Aizawa’s body carefully before resting his eyes on his shoulder.

“You’re hurt,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“My shoulder’s dislocated,” Aizawa sighed, already working on setting it himself. With a well-timed shove against his collarbone, he bit down a scream as his bones snapped back into the correct place. 

“Where’s Thirteen?” Aizawa asked once the pain faded from his vision.

Cementoss pointed a thumb over his shoulder, over to where All Might and the beast Nomu were entangled in a desperate battle. At the tail-end of the beast, undetected, Thirteen unleashed their quirk and watched as the Nomu’s body was sucked towards the hero.

As its tail began to disintegrate, the creature howled in pain and rage. Momentarily forgetting All Might, the beast Nomu whirled around to face Thirteen, but All Might wouldn’t let it forget about him for long. As it bared its canine fangs and poised its claws towards Thirteen, All Might brought a heavy fist down between its main eyes, crushing its face inwards much like he did to the All Might Nomu’s skull. The beast roared, blinded and immobilized by pain. It gave All Might enough time to get out of range as Thirteen sucked away the rest of the creature until it became nothing but dust. 

From the corner of the room, Aizawa could hear clapping. It was slow and methodical and, as Aizawa turned to search for the source of the noise, utterly unsettling. When he found the source, his blood ran cold.

Shigaraki Tomura stood at the entrance to a small side door, clapping despite the flecks of blood that splattered every time his palms met. The bloody mist softly coated his cheeks, the floor and the walls around him and he was smiling like a Cheshire cat, an empty thing depraved of mirth or happiness. His hair, his clothes— they were— 

He was covered in blood. 

Judging by the murder in his eyes and the baby-eating grin, it wasn’t his own. 

The man looked at All Might greedily, like a starving man might gaze upon a New Year’s Day feast. The bloodlust in his gaze was enough to make Aizawa take a step backwards involuntarily. 

The All Might Nomu, still encased in concrete, squawked happily underneath the prison, and suddenly its tomb crumbled around it. It eagerly scampered towards Shigaraki and curled itself around him like a kitten would a sunny windowsill. Despite the gouge in its neck and the bloody viscera it left on the floor in its wake, a low rumble emerged from its throat, clearly pleased to be near its master again. 

A look of self-satisfaction made its way to Shigaraki’s eyes as Aizawa’s stomach dropped to the floor.

“You must think you’re very clever, heroes ,” Shigaraki spat the last word out like a curse. “You come into my house uninvited, destroy my front door, and know exactly where to go to kill one of my Nomu’s. You must think you planned this operation so well.”

Aizawa, along with the rest of the heroes, stayed silent. He spared a glance at All Might, only to see white hot rage and fear flicker back and forth like an old television set on his colleague's face.

“Honestly, I’m a little disappointed,” he continued, a mock-pout on his lips. “I thought heroes were all about saving people. How cruel, to kill a mindless creature. Did it not look like it needed saving to you?” 

Shigaraki stepped further into the room, and Aizawa could see blood dripping out of his shoes as he walked, could practically hear the squelch as the villain took each step.

“Is that why it took you so long to find Midoriya?” He mocked. “Did no one bother to think he needed saving?”

“Keep his name out of your mouth,” All Might snapped angrily, his face warped into a bitter snarl and teeth bared like the beast Nomu. There was no sign of a smile on his lips; in fact, the man looked ready to kill , and Aizawa found the thought of that more terrifying than the villain standing in front of him .

Shigaraki cackled loudly, his cruel laugh echoing across the high ceiling. He laughed until small tears formed at the corners of his dry eyes, and he sighed wistfully as he wiped them away.

“You know, that’s really rich, coming from you,” Shigaraki finally replied. “ I’ve been the one caring for the boy for the past two weeks while you and the rest of your buddies have been dithering away doing god knows what.” 

The villain narrowed his eyes, his voice suddenly cold. 

“I think I have more of a right to his name than you do.”

At that, Aizawa’s blood boiled . Clenching his fists, he struggled to keep his voice calm.

“Give us the boy, Shigaraki,” he growled, proud that he managed to keep his tone relatively stable. “ Now.”

The villain pretended to think about his words, clutching his chin between his pointer finger and thumb while rolling his eyes.

“Mmm, no can do Eraser,” he decided, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. “Sorry, I wish I could help you.”

That was the end of the line for All Might. In a single bound, he flew from where he stood next to Thirteen and grabbed the front of Shigaraki's shirt, raising him high above his shoulders, effectively choking him. The All Might Nomu roared, but with a subtle wave of its master’s hand, it stood down, glaring death at All Might and the rest of the heroes. The sounds Shigaraki made were reminiscent of a garbage disposal, and, startled, Aizawa activated his quirk, silently cursing All Might again for his recklessness. 

Did the man want to die? He should have known he couldn't get anywhere close to Shigaraki without Aizawa’s help, unless he wanted to be reduced to dust.

“ Where. Is. He ,” All Might gritted out between clenched teeth, ignoring the looks from his fellow colleagues and the Nomu that almost killed him, attempting with a self-discipline Aizawa did not possess not to crush Shigaraki’s larynx out of rage.

Shigaraki didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he seemed downright amused at his current predicament and let out another cackle.

“Oh, you make this too easy, All Might,” Shigaraki cooed, throat raspy from the rough treatment but grinning like a madman nonetheless. 

All Might increased his grip on Shigaraki’s shirt, tightening the noose around the villain. He cackled again, but it came out as more of a wheeze.

“You’re… too… late!” He crowed jovially between labored breaths.

His smile grew even wider at the frozen horror that stained each of the heroes’ faces. All Might was as still as a statue, eyes blank and wide and his jaw suddenly slack. Unaware, he loosened the noose around Shigaraki’s neck, and the villain collapsed to the floor, still laughing.

“He’s dead!” He howled once he got his voice back. “Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead!”

“Izuku Midoriya is dead!”

Aizawa’s eyes widened until he was afraid his eyeballs might fall out of their sockets. 

Izuku couldn’t be… gone. They couldn’t be too late… not when Aizawa begged to go after him the moment they knew his location. Nezu had told them they needed extra time to prepare, to come up with a plan. Aizawa and All Might had fought him tooth and nail; they had waited long enough-- Midoriya had waited long enough. 

“No,” All Might whispered, eyes still unfocused and unseeing, but he lowered his hand from where he had held Shigaraki suspended in the air.

“You’re lying ,” Aizawa hissed, stepping closer to All Might, but never letting his gaze leave Shigaraki with his quirk activated. “You’re a liar.”

“Why on earth would we believe you?” He heard Cementoss— or maybe it was Thirteen?— cry from somewhere behind him.

Shigaraki shrugged, breath finally returned to his lungs. He stood up slowly, allowing his Nomu to circle him once again and with a swipe of its claws, forced All Might back towards Aizawa until the two heroes were once again side by side. The amusement had disappeared from Shigaraki’s eyes, replaced with bloodlust and a hunger for violence that begged for more. Even for all Aizawa’s years of experience dealing with villains, the horror that wrapped itself around his heart shook him to his core.

“I guess it doesn’t matter if you believe me or not,” the villain rasped. 

Shigaraki made eye contact with Aizawa, and his next words were something he would never forget. 

“All this blood?” Shigaraki gestured toward his dirty clothes, the scarlet dye in his hair, the rivers of red from his shoes. “It’s certainly not mine. At the end, Midoriya practically begged me to kill him.”

He chuckled to himself. “It was quite beautiful, watching his blood paint the floor. The red matched his green hair quite nicely.”

Tears sprang unbidden at the corners of Aizawa’s eyes, mixing with the sweat trailing from his brows and the sticky Nomu blood covering his face to leave haunting tracks across his face. Instinctively, Aizawa lunged forward, a guttural roar of anguish ripping from his throat as he pulled back a fist towards Shigaraki’s face.

All Might’s battle cry was equally painful and grievous as he joined Aizawa, only for both of their fists to meet the dark mass of the Nomu instead of Shigaraki. 

“If you want to see him so badly , my Nomus and I can arrange that for you quite easily,” Shigaraki’s muffled voice echoed throughout the room. Aizawa jerked his head upwards; against the fluorescent ceiling lights, he could see the outline of a dark, winged mass, a creature even larger than the beast Nomu that was dripping in formalin and menace. It growled, its vocal cords grating against one another like knives on glass. In its claws dangled Shigaraki, the bloodlust in his eyes never wavering. With a snap of his fingers, the Nomu tossed the villain onto its back, and Shigaraki settled himself at the base of its neck and shoulders like he was riding upon a prized stallion. With its master in tow, the creature landed on top of the tanks at the center of the room, crushing the catwalk above and sending a shockwave into the ground that sent Aizawa sprawling onto his back. It bared its rows of black, rotted teeth and shrieked its war cry.

“How about we play a little game, heroes?” Shigaraki offered over the sound of the All Might Nomu grabbing at Aizawa’s waist and the winged Nomu cackling in a voice that sounded strangely human.

“The team that sees Izuku Midoriya in the afterlife first, loses.”

Notes:

oh noooooo is shigaraki telling the truth??? find out next time :)

Chapter 13

Notes:

oh boy, i'm so sorry for the long wait.
My personal life has been absolutely crazy. Since February, I've gone on a three month medical leave from work due to severe ADHD burnout to where I couldn't leave my bed some days, I went on a solo trip to Japan, I finished my online masters degree, and I've tried to recover my mental health and reconnect with my friends and community. I thought I would finish this chapter on the plane ride to Japan, but ended up spending the arrival and departure flights sleeping on the plane. Oh well. I'm doing my best.
Thank you for your patience with me in finishing this fic. We are definitely in the home stretch! Originally this chapter was going to have another part, but this section got so long I decided to save the later scene for the next chapter. Which will come... eventually. I have some pretty big career things to figure out in the upcoming week/months, so personal projects will unfortunately have to take the back burner again. Thankfully, I estimate there will only be 3 more chapters for this fic. Which, contrary to popular belief, I PROMISE THIS STORY WILL END RIGHT!!!!
(Even tho I end this chapter with yet another cliffhanger that will probably make y'all mad at me again oops)

I'm not 100% satisfied with this chapter, but I've legitimately been working on it for 5 months and i am TIREDT so i'm just gonna post it!! Maybe someday i'll come back and edit this, who knows.

Anyway onto the content warnings!
CW: Izuku is at his lowest point
suicidal ideation, talk of ending one's own life, extremely negative self-talk, low self-esteem, worthlessness, graphic descriptions of gore

Morning came too soon for Izuku.

An ear-splintering bang ripped him from unconsciousness and, for a fleeting moment, he forgot where he was. His eyes shot open but gazed unseeing into a sea of pulsing black, hands grasping at nothing but cool air and slick metal. He would have panicked if not for a familiar cackle echoing from just beyond his reach, and he remembered.

Izuku was a prisoner, and his keeper had just arrived.

Tendrils of fear curled around his insides, and no amount of self-soothing and reassurances that it all ends today could assuage his hammering heartbeat as Shigaraki moved to open the seemingly endless locks to his cage.

“Rise and shiiiiiiiiine, sleepyhead!” the familiar muffled voice sung to him through the metal walls. The villain’s voice bounced off the enclosure and its closeness made Izuku’s skin crawl. He heard a click, then a strained grunt as metal churned against itself. With a final metallic whine, the door of his enclosure flung backwards and Izuku was thrust into harsh light. 

The dark sea of his prison retreated, hissing at the fluorescence that ate at its edges and Izuku found himself blind in an entirely new way. He startled, and desperately tried to orient himself in the sudden influx of bright stimulus. Blinking away the stars in his eyes, he shuffled himself back into the corner of his cage, worn sneakers squeaking against the smooth metal of the prison floor and bloodied hands clapping tightly over his ears. Instincts kicked in as he curled himself into a defensive ball, guarding all of his important organs from attack. As Shigaraki cackled on the catwalk above him, Izuku remained as taut as a wire, listening intently for signs of the villain’s approach.

“Oh, that is too good, Midoriya,” Shigaraki squawked. “You know I can still see you, right? You’re hilarious!”

Izuku’s heart thundered in his ears and he squeezed his tightly grasped hands even tighter, wrapping his fingers around the curls of his hair until he pulled at his roots.

It’s ok it’s alright he can’t hurt you for much longer he can’t he can’t he can’t— you have a plan, remember? And it’s going to work it has to work it has to—

He focused his racing mind on the harried air entering and leaving his nostrils, on the subtle shift in his heels as he curled into himself even more. It wasn’t enough to drown out the thud of Shigaraki’s boots getting closer, closer, closer. A harsh yank on his messy mop of hair forced him to lift his head from its hiding place.

“Ah, quit your mumbling,” the villain’s gravelly voice crooned, so close to Izuku that the boy could feel an uncomfortably warm breath tickle the nape of his neck. 

“It’s seriously pissing me off.”

Shigaraki yanked Izuku out of the cage by his matted locks and, with little fanfare, onto the catwalk with a single-armed pull before letting go. The boy crumpled onto the rusted metal grates, yelping in surprise and pain, but for the moment, he was free of his prison and his restraints. He laid there for a moment, dazed.

I’m free, he thought absentmindedly. I could run, if I wanted to.

Before Izuku could scrape enough coherent thoughts together to even entertain a half-baked plan of escape, he felt a knee drive itself into his lower back, and the sharp pain racing up the length of his spine put an end to any higher-ordered thinking. Izuku hissed as Shigaraki’s rough hands forced his elbows together, careful to leave at least one finger hovering dangerously close to his skin as a threat. As the villain expertly tied the familiar metal bindings back around the boy’s wrists and fingers, he left no wiggle room for an accidental or intentional release of One For All’s energy. Not that Izuku had the strength to wield his inherited quirk at that moment; it was all he could do to stay conscious as it was, with Shigaraki yanking on practically every single one of his injuries as he bound him in restraints.

It felt like an eon had passed when Shigaraki finally let out a hum of satisfaction, giving one last tug on the rope tied tightly around Izuku’s wrists.

“We’ve really come a long way, haven’t we, Midoriya?” The villain mused, stroking Izuku’s dirty green hair absentmindedly. The boy flinched at the touch, but Shigaraki continued, oblivious. He released his knee from Izuku’s back and got to his feet, pulling the boy upright with him as he did so. 

“Two weeks ago, I would’ve considered you one of my biggest threats,” he continued, a sly smile creeping onto his face as he watched how Izuku swayed on his feet, vertigo threatening to send him sprawling back onto the grating. 

“Now,” he smirked, “it looks like a strong breeze could rip you apart.”

Izuku paid his taunts no mind as he fought off the vertigo, shaking his head to clear the double vision. When his head finally settled, the boy realized Shigaraki was barking with laughter at him again, apparently amused at his lack of awareness. A warm flush crept up to his cheeks.

Embarrassment. He was an embarrassment. He lowered his head and let his bangs obscure his flash of frustration.

What would Bakugo do if he were in my place?

If Bakugo were here, he knew his classmate would tell Shigaraki to go to hell, accenting his declaration with every known curse in the Japanese language for good measure. He wouldn’t have been a laughingstock. Shigaraki wouldn’t have dared to even chuckle in Bakugo’s face. Meanwhile, Izuku was practically Shigaraki’s plaything.

How pathetic, he thought to himself. 

Maybe Izuku would fight back more if he had anything reminiscent of pride left. Pride, however, had been beaten out of him weeks ago. What did he have to be proud of? Being a hero? Some hero he was. Being the wielder of One For All? He had nothing to show for it aside from permanently warped bones in his arms and his current predicament.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic!

His captor paid no attention to the war plaguing Izuku, still chuckling to himself. He roughly nudged the boy down the catwalk while keeping a tight hold of Izuku’s bindings as he followed from slightly behind. 

“It’s so easy to mess with you it’s not even fun anymore,” Shigaraki sighed, his laughter finally subsiding. “If it wasn’t so fucking pathetic , I’d rub it in your stupid face, but your mopey-ass expression takes all the fun out of it.”

Izuku stayed quiet, ignoring the fact that Shigaraki was currently rubbing it in his face, and let the villain have fun at his expense. He told himself it didn't matter anyway as the last of his vertigo finally faded and his footsteps became less shaky. If all went according to plan, Izuku would be the one to have the last laugh; with his death, Shigaraki would no longer have anything to lord over him. A macabre, petty part of himself couldn’t wait to see the shock on Shigaraki’s face when he realized that in the end, he would have no power over Izuku, and a quiet smile crossed his face, one that he was quick to squander back into neutrality before Shigaraki could get a glimpse of his face.

The rest of their journey to Ujiko’s lab remained uneventful, though Izuku had underestimated how difficult walking had become; exhaustion and hunger made it difficult to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and his concentration was made worse by the sharp ache in his bruised ribs protesting every movement.  Shigaraki was likewise preoccupied with scratching the skin surrounding his cast and pushing Izuku along at the same time. From the outside looking in, their odd procession looked something akin to the blind leading the blind, and if the walk to Ujiko’s lab wasn’t a familiar trek for them both, they would have surely gotten lost in the labyrinth that was the underground hallways of the villain’s hideout.

The silence that echoed throughout the hallways gave Izuku time to reflect on the decision he had made the night before. Izuku was tired. He was so tired his very soul ached. He couldn’t deny the weight that had lifted off his chest when he had decided upon his plan in the moments before slumber. He remembered the sensation of having no more hurt, no more pain, no more guilt as he drifted off to sleep.

If that was what giving up felt like, it couldn’t be that bad, right?

He still longed to be a hero; Izuku couldn’t deny himself that fact. But fate had stacked the odds against him long before his capture, what with his naturally small and skinny frame, his softhearted nature that made him prone to easy tears, and, of course, his quirklessness diagnosis. And yet, he had never given up before. Ever.

Even in middle school, when his life had been a neverending hell of mindless classes and relentless bullying, he doggedly held onto his dream. After careless beatings and brutal smackdowns at the hands of his once-best-friend-turned-bully, he held onto hope. 

Even when Bakugo had told him to take a swan dive off the roof of the school building, Izuku had managed to remind himself that there were better days to come. 

Even when his hero, the man he had modeled his entire life around, told him on that fateful rooftop that he couldn’t become a hero, still Izuku believed he could help the world somehow. That he could achieve his dreams if he worked hard enough.

When he thought about it, it was a stroke of luck that he had been able to spot the fires that had led him to Bakugo, struggling against the hands of the sludge villain. It was another that All Might had witnessed Izuku’s body moving on its own to save his bully, and was inspired. It was coincidence, it was luck. 

In all likelihood, his hero dreams becoming reality shouldn’t have happened.

None of this should have come to pass, a voice in his head whispered as Izuku approached the familiar door to Ujiko’s lab. If anything, Izuku sacrificing his life for the chance of sparing his mother’s was his last chance to make his dream of being a hero a reality. In the end, Bakugo was right: he really was just a useless Deku.

“ Hopefully you’ll have better luck in your next life!” Bakugo’s words echoed in his ears as he and Shigaraki approached Ujiko’s lab. He listlessly studied the uninteresting gray metal door with chips in the paint and grime caked around the door handle as Shigaraki barked at the doctor to let them in.

Izuku had been fighting every day of his life to make his dreams a reality, and it had led him to this moment. For years, he had scrounged and groveled and clawed his way towards becoming a hero, and it had simply led to pain, for both himself and the people who cared about him.

What he had been doing was obviously not working. Maybe the smarter thing to do would be to stop struggling. Stop fighting. 

Visions of bloodied teachers and his dead-eyed mother made his eyes abruptly fill with tears. He shut them quickly, but not before salt stung the cuts on his cheeks and a stifled sob leaked out between his lips. 

This is for the best, he chanted to himself, over and over even as he felt his hands begin to shake in their bindings. 

Give up. Do everyone a favor, hero.

Izuku felt Shigaraki give into his frustration at being ignored by Ujiko and pushed past him, nearly knocking the boy to the ground. The villain kicked the door open in typical fare, which caused whatever paperwork Ujiko had in his hands to go flying. He heard the flutter of paper as it scattered across the lab and the doctor sputtered comically before eventually letting childish indignation creep into his voice. 

“Master Shigaraki, please,” the doctor whined plaintively. “I had just gotten the calculations together on this new simulation I wanted to try—“

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Shigaraki sighed, rolling his eyes as he yanked Izuku through the door frame and in front of him, displaying him in front of Ujiko like a prized pony. Izuku was forced to open his eyes again to prevent his face from colliding with the floor.

“Here’s your little lab rat. Make sure he squeals by the end of the day today; Sensei’s patience has finally run out.”

Izuku’s hands were shaking even harder as he struggled to stand up straight, a renewed sense of vertigo making it difficult to regain his balance. 

“N-no,” he stammered.

Shigaraki whirled around to face him, his dark eyes narrowed. A dangerous glint reflected in his irises as he growled. “What did you say, boy?”

Izuku swallowed, throat coated in sand and fear, yet there was no moisture to renew his throat. It remained parched and scratchy as he stood his ground.

“I s-said, no ,” he stuttered, eyes wide like dinner plates, fear visceral in his gaze. It took everything inside him not to crumble under the intensity of the venom in Shigaraki’s gaze. “I can’t do this anymore . ”

He could still call One for All, despite the past few weeks of dormancy. Sparks of electricity lapped greedily around the hum of his heart, feeding on his energy and sending waves of power into his legs. He concentrated his power around his calves and turned towards Dr. Ujiko.

“I don’t fucking care, brat,” Shigaraki snarled, yanking the rope in his hands and sending sparks of pain up Izuku’s arms. “You’re not leaving this room until you give up One for All to me. You know that.”

Ignoring the pain and adrenaline rushing through his body, Izuku took a small step towards the doctor.

“I won’t be leaving this room,” he paused. “But I can’t give you what you want.”

It was all too easy to release the thrum of One for All onto Ujiko’s unsuspecting face.

Izuku felt his shin connect to the broad side of the doctor’s cheek with a satisfying smack , Ujiko’s face snapping in one direction, his glasses flying in another. He was out cold in an instant, and he slumped unceremoniously onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. 

It all happened so fast that Shigaraki barely had time to blink before he realized that his doctor was out like a light, and that his grip on Izuku’s bindings had become dangerously slack as he stood before the boy, dumbfounded at the sudden show of retaliation. Izuku noticed, though, and he took the opportunity . 

He jumped away far enough for the metal rope to slip through his captor’s grasp, before dashing forward once again into close quarters. His forehead made contact with Shigaraki’s face and Izuku heard the satisfying crunch of the villain’s nose caving in, blood bursting like a fire hydrant and the villain screeching bloody murder. Izuku sent another high kick towards his still reeling opponent and managed to topple Shigaraki to the ground with the villain clutching his nose, blood streaming through the gaps in his hands.

With Shigaraki distracted and with no one holding onto his restraints, Izuku worked on freeing himself. He felt the skin around his wrists tear and break, the metal surrounding them quickly becoming tinged with red as he desperately clawed his wrists free. He winced at the pain and the effort, but he felt relief as circulation returned to his fingers. He flexed his fingers a few times to get the blood flowing before leaping yet again for the knife he knew Dr. Ujiko kept in his lab coat breast pocket. His fingers circled around it, the cold metal sucking the heat from his body. The well-made hilt sat perfectly between his fingers, and the weight of it filled him with a glowing, burgeoning feeling of hope he hadn’t possessed in weeks. For a second, he hesitated in his resolve.

Run for it , a voice inside him, a calmer one than his panicked mind had produced when he first woke up, urged. You have maybe a few more seconds before Shigaraki comes to his senses. Run, run, run!

Izuku was still. The voice was right. He could make a break for it, get out and into the outside world. His weeks in captivity gave him some insight into how to navigate the maze of hallways in the underground lair. Maybe he would manage to lose Shigaraki in the ebb and flow of the hideout, and then the city’s alleys and streets. Most importantly, he could find help. There was still time; it wasn’t too late. Maybe he wouldn’t have to die after all.

I can’t, another part of him whispered, broken and ashamed. And he knew. Izuku was in no shape to run; his body was laden with festering wounds, broken ribs, and cracked bones. His muscles were eating themselves alive to make up for the utter lack of food he had consumed in his captivity, and his muscle mass had dwindled into nonexistence. He was weak, desperate and shaky from lack of sustenance. Even now, it took every ounce of his strength just to wield a measly amount of One For All for a few kicks and a headbutt. In a fair fight, he was fucked. He only got the jump on Shigaraki at all because the villain was ill-prepared, convinced the boy was his meek lapdog. 

Running was an option. Being caught was a certainty. Izuku knew his mother would suffer the punishment for it.

He really was so, so tired of fighting.

His resolve returned.

Izuku twisted the scalpel around so that the sharp glint of steel faced the soft flesh of his throat. 

Here goes everything, he thought. 

He plunged a line across his Adam’s apple and immediately felt wet blood trickle from the shaky incision. He willed himself to make the cut deeper, hands jittering and breath coming in short, quick gasps, but his hands refused to apply more pressure. In frustration, hot tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, and he shut them tightly to prevent any more from escaping.

Come on, you fucking coward, he begged himself. This is for mom, remember? Don’t you want to save her?

There has to be another way , the voice from before echoed in his mind. This can’t be your only option.

It is! He screamed internally. It is, it is, it is!

He dug the knife a little deeper into his jugular. 

This is for the best! I was never going to become a hero anyway!

In the heat of his internal battle, Izuku failed to hear Shigaraki’s approach. The villain was the face of death, his face covered in still dripping blood and nose bent at a forty-five degree angle. The expression on his face, however, was eerily calm. It betrayed no other emotion besides a thundercloud of cold, cold, hatred .

“What,” Shigaraki growled. “The fuck . Do you think you’re doing?”

He attempted to grab the knife from Izuku’s shaking fingers but the boy flinched back at the sound of Shigaraki’s voice. He opened his eyes, startled, but not surprised, and he felt a few hot tears escape the corners of his eyes and trail down his ruddy face.

“I’m done fighting you,” Izuku said, voice cracking. “But I told you a million times; I’m not giving you what you want. I’ll never give you what you want.”

Through wet eyes, he gave the villain a pained smile.

“I told you that you were going to have to pry One for All from my cold, dead body, didn’t I?”

Izuku’s knife was still, but blood still dripped from his throat and began to pool on the floor, drenching his sneakers in the process. 

Shigaraki looked at the boy silently, narrowing his eyes like he was trying to figure out a particularly difficult puzzle. Then, something dawned on him.

“Ah,” he concluded. “Of course. You think you’re being heroic.”

The cold hatred on his face melted into his typical Cheshire grin, amusement and malice dripping from his bared canines. 

“You actually think killing yourself is going to save her?”

Izuku’s eyes widened, the knife still lodged into the side of his throat. He stayed silent, looking back at Shigaraki in horror.

Shigaraki howled with glee. “Holy shit, you really do!”

The villain tossed his head back and gave a full belly laugh as Izuku realized his mistake, numbness overtaking his senses.

“Oh my fuck! You hero types are all the same.”

Shigaraki wiped a tear from his eye, finally controlling his guffaws long enough to compose himself.

“You’ll never understand,” He said as he threw his hands open wide, like he was trying to encapsulate the entire world in his grasp.

“I want this society to hurt! I want it to burn ! The fact that you underestimate that motive makes me want to hurt everyone you love even more!”

Izuku was screaming on the inside.

He had miscalculated. He had miscalculated badly .

Izuku’s grip on the knife loosened until it slipped completely and clattered onto the tile floor, skittering away as it did and scattering his blood into a lazy arc across the floor. 

“You thought just because you’d be dead, I’d leave your mommy alone? Have you met me, brat?”

Another snarl. “Let me spell it out for you again. You represent everything I hate about society. About All Might. Destroying you and everything you love brings me one step closer to toppling that society which has done nothing but bring pain.”

“If anything, what I’m doing is mercy . Now neither of you have to suffer living under the guise of a fake world.”

He smiled viciously. “And you have the gall to label me a villain .”

It really was all useless , Izuku thought to himself as his knees gave way, falling into a heap on the floor. He couldn’t imagine how he had miscalculated Shigaraki’s motivations so badly. He really was a terrible hero.

There was nothing he could do — there was never anything he could’ve done to keep his mother safe, aside from never coming into contact with Shigaraki in the first place.

In that moment, whatever remaining fight he had left evaporated, and Izuku fell completely and utterly into the emptiness inside himself. 

He had lost.

Shigaraki smiled even wider, stooping down to meet the boy at eye level. With the blood on his face and the broken nose, he looked downright terrifying, not that Izuku was present enough to notice. The boy stared blankly ahead, eyes dilated and a thousand miles away. Gently, Shigaraki used his pointer finger to guide Izuku’s chin to face him.

“You know, you may be annoying as hell, Izuku Midoriya, but you’re straightforward. Easy to figure out. Maybe in a different time, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

Izuku stared unseeing back at him, mind completely numb. 

“Maybe in another life, we could’ve been friends,” he said patronizingly, “and out of respect for our friendship, I’ll give you what you want.”

His hand tightened around Izuku’s chin. “You really want to die that badly?”

Through the numbness, Izuku felt Shigaraki’s fingers slowly encompass his throat, and Izuku found the touch gentle — soothing, even.

“I believe you when you say you won’t change your mind.”

A grunt from somewhere nearby captured his attention. It appeared Ujiko had recovered from Izuku’s attack.

“No, Master,” the man choked out, bleary-eyed and blind without his glasses, “Please, p-please reconsider! After all the work we’ve put into this boy, perhaps one more session— Imagine what All For One will say if you hurt his— if you killed his—“

Shigaraki turned so quickly Izuku’s half-aware brain couldn’t follow his movements, but he could hear the telltale sound of flesh-on-flesh as Shigaraki smacked Ujiko on his battered cheek, pleased with himself when the older man yelped in pain. 

“Shut up, Ujiko. You’re trying my patience.”

The doctor recovered quickly. “Shigaraki, I’m begging you! Let’s not be rash—“

Shigaraki turned back towards Izuku and without another word, closed his fingers around the boy’s throat, and Izuku found himself leaning into the touch. 

This is what I deserve, he decided. He was a lousy hero, getting himself caught, being unable to escape on his own, being unable to save his mom without relying on the mercy of a villain. 

All Might deserved a better successor. His mom deserved a better son. Everyone would be better off if he was dead.

Soon, all Izuku could feel was burning. The flesh under Shigaraki’s palm curled and decayed as Izuku’s pain receptors went haywire. It felt like a million tiny little ants were boring into his neck and gorging themselves on his blood, his skin, his nerves. He couldn’t remember when he started to scream.

The lights flickered overhead, and loose dirt fell through the ceiling tiles. Vibrations rumbled throughout the bunker’s foundations that felt like thunder had taken physical form and was galloping towards them. 

As he screamed, his hands betrayed him; shaking, bloodied fingers reached out for Shigaraki, giving one last attempt to wrestle free from the villain’s grip. Though his mind had given up, Izuku’s muscle memory had not.

To his surprise, Shigaraki’s grip loosened, and Izuku felt the pressure leave his neck.

His relief was short lived, however, when the villain’s fingers wrapped themselves around Izuku’s right forearm — the same forearm that Shigaraki had nearly rotted away the first day Izuku arrived, and squeezed with all five fingers touching.

Izuku couldn’t recall what he felt as he watched the entirety of his lower arm explode into a goulash of blood and viscera before disintegrating into dust. His screaming continued as he watched his blood coat his attacker from head to toe in scarlet, observed as it stained Shigaraki’s teeth as well as the floor surrounding him, the ceiling, the walls—-

“Midoriya, I don’t do take-backsies,” Shigaraki scolded gently, voice patronizing. “This is what you wanted, remember?”

Another rumble echoed ominously from above, and another cloud of dust escaped from underneath the ceiling tiles. 

Izuku watched the dust settle into the gore, like grains of sand stuck in paint. He looked at the stump where his arm used to be — his dominant arm , his mind supplied unhelpfully — and realized that Shigaraki must have just missed hitting an artery due to the distinct lack of arterial spray. That, and he hadn’t immediately passed out from blood loss; he figured adrenaline was the only thing keeping him conscious.

Shigaraki reached for Izuku’s throat again, and this time, Izuku supplied no resistance. He closed his eyes, raised his head, and waited for death to come. He could hear his own screams melting into miserable whimpers.

Each finger felt like lightning on his skin and he finally allowed himself to sob.

This is it, he realized. I’m going to die here.

Alone, coated in his own blood, whimpering like a dog as he let Shigaraki kill him. He never got to imagine how his hero career might end, much less conjecture that it would die before he had even gotten the chance to prove to himself and the world that he was here. He figured this was not the future All Might had imagined for him either when he gave him his quirk all those months ago.

A failure, he thought. You’re such a failure. 

Just before Shigaraki’s middle finger— the final finger— made contact with Izuku’s skin, a yell from the door frame interrupted him.

“Shigaraki, we’re being attacked by the heroes!” 

Shigaraki cursed, removing his hand from Izuku’s throat and standing up to greet his interloper. 

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” He snarled. “What do I hire you idiots for if you can’t keep out some third rate heroes?”

“Sir it’s—“ 

Another crash roared from above, and a rumble cracked the building’s foundations, splintering through the concrete like lightning.

“—It’s that fucker , All Might! He’s come with a whole squadron of other heroes. We’re getting overrun!”

Another crash, another boom.

“—Shit! He’s already made it into the basement level.”

“Has he now?” Shigaraki practically purred, and his eyes twinkled with something dangerous. The tips of his fingers ghosted just shy of Izuku’s skin for a moment before his entire hand fell away and began slinking towards the door like a panther approaching its kill. He ignored the boy as Izuku wilted unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Doctor,” he barked at Ujiko, who seemed to have recovered from taking Shigaraki’s punch to the cheek. “—get to the safe room. It seems like the heroes have arrived.”

“And you—“ he turned towards Izuku, and if the boy wasn’t delirious from pain he would have sworn he saw the villain’s gaze soften. “Die quietly. I have things to do”  

With that, Shigaraki left Izuku alone with nothing but blinding hot pain in what remained of his right arm and his ravaged throat for company.

It was agony. Shigaraki’s decay stopped just shy of Izuku’s esophagus so the boy could still breathe through his airway, but blood poured from the open wound on his neck in the perfect outline of a handprint and he could feel himself quickly slipping away. He struggled to stay conscious, but felt disconnected from his own body. His remaining hand felt like it belonged to someone else and the sticky strands of his own dark hair tickled the nape of his neck, registering as straw to his brain.

Blood gurgled at the back of his throat, and for a moment, Izuku couldn’t breathe. He spluttered on the floor like a fish out of water, writhing until he could finally muster the energy to retch the mass of cruor blocking his airway. He closed his eyes, exhausted from the effort.

Familiar hands grabbed the stump of his arm and forced him to sit up, but it did not bring him relief. Half-dead and delirious, Izuku struggled as much as he could against Dr. Ujiko, who desperately tried to prepare a tourniquet for the gushing blood leaking from the boy’s wound.

“Stay still, brat, I’m trying to save your life!” The villainous doctor barked, rushing to tighten the tourniquet around the boy’s stump. Izuku fought him every step of the way as hard as he could, which Ujiko barely seemed to notice.

“T-that idiot! All For One would never forgive him for destroying One for All before he—”

In one last attempt to free himself, Izuku threw his elbow directly into the man’s face, barely registering the string of curses from Ujiko as his bone connected to the man’s nose. He was blind from pain, from terror, from fear. All he knew was that Ujiko’s touch meant more pain, and even now, even as he waited for death, he knew he was tired of more pain. 

Mustering all the strength he had, Izuku managed to throw a weak punch with his remaining arm into Ujiko’s ribs, which mercifully managed to knock the doctor away. It packed no One For All fire behind it, but it was enough for Izuku to free himself. In blind terror, Izuku pushed himself against the nearest wall, his feet slick against his own blood splattered across the floor. 

Desperately, Izuku forced himself to his feet. His vision swayed horribly, and Izuku nearly passed out where he stood. Stubbornly, he clung to consciousness and limped forward, one step at a time, slowly but surely. He could hear the plop, plop, plop of lost blood with each movement, but he ignored it.

He reached the door frame and glimpsed out into the hallway. It was a scene out of a disaster movie; dust covered the tiled hallway and a screeching alarm bathed the corridor in red. Aside from the discordant screams of the alarms, however, Izuku saw no one and heard no one. Aside from the stunned doctor, it looked like Izuku was alone. 

Black ink ate at the edges of his vision as he curled his remaining arm around the doorframe to steady himself. He was dying. He knew that much, knew from the way his vision came in and out, from the constant stream of red that poured from the gaping wound on his throat. Whatever he wanted to do, he didn’t have long to do it. 

“—It’s that fucker , All Might!” The voice that interrupted his own execution echoed in Izuku’s slowly decaying mind.

“-- with a whole squadron of other heroes --”

Heroes…

All Might…

They were here.

If that was true, then there was a chance Izuku could set this whole debacle right. Maybe he could warn his mentor to send heroes to protect his mother before Shigaraki could leave the facility and finish what he started. Maybe he could give One for All back to All Might before he passed on. Then All Might could give his quirk to a true successor, someone who wasn’t as much of a fuck up as Izuku. 

A wave of vertigo nearly sent Izuku crashing to the floor, and he made a decision. He had to find All Might, and quickly. He could fix this, somehow. Surely the number one hero could set his mistakes right.

Another rumble from up above sent shivers up his spine, and Izuku turned his bloodied head towards its source. His weary mind had no idea where he was, no idea which way the heroes were, but he had neither the time nor brain capacity to debate with himself. He heard the rumbling, so he followed it.

He limped forward, and with each step, a river of red followed him. With each sickening splotch that met the floor, he felt his head become lighter, but he refused to let himself give in to the dark just yet.

Come on… he begged himself. Just a little longer.

A chunk of ceiling crumbled like chalk from above, narrowly colliding with Izuku’s head. The boy stumbled, but he carried on, steps shaking but determined. 

I’ve always… wanted to be a hero. He reiterated to himself. This is my last chance to make it happen.

Notes:

bro i made myself sad. You know it's angsty when you get the angst butterflies while you're writing!

Anyway pls don't hate me, update will come eventually, and please let me know if you enjoyed this chapter!
I treasure each and every comment, even the ones that say 'hey how dare u :')'

Friendly reminder, this story has a playlist!

Chapter 14

Notes:

Thank you for your patience!! This chapter isn’t as polished as my other chapters but it was such a pain for write I’m just shoving it out into the world so i don’t take another three months to update like last time 🤪

“What’s the status on Eraserhead?” Hizashi demanded, uncaring of the fact that he was hovering obnoxiously behind Tsukauchi. He leaned heavily on the police detective’s shoulder so he could get a better viewpoint of the blurry warehouse onscreen. There had been radio silence from his partner since Cementoss and Thirteen had delivered a small squadron of injured officers, plus Midnight, into the ambulances nearby. Hizashi had interrogated her briefly on what it was like down on the front lines, and what she told him didn’t assuage his worries. 

All Might had split up with Eraserhead and the rest of his squadron, so single minded in his goal of rescuing Midoriya that he had abandoned his team in the wake of an explosion. Hizashi seethed at that. It was unlike All Might to do something so rash, but to do so during such a dangerous operation-- it was borderline negligence.

Of course, Eraserhead had elected to go after him, and aside from one garbled message that Tsukauchi believed was the hero asking for backup, both he and All Might had been silent. Hizashi itched to be that backup, but he knew he couldn’t risk it. He knew that Tsukauchi and his officers were doing everything they could to keep on top of the situation, and he couldn’t afford to get in the way of their operations. He was an accessory as it was, merely tagging along to provide some measly sense of ground support for both the mission operators and the ragtag group of teenagers he had guilted himself into bringing along.

Cementoss and Thirteen said they were going in after them, Tsukauchi reassured him after the ambulance carrying Midnight bolted into the night, lights ablaze and sirens blaring. They’re good heroes. They’ll do their job.

Hizashi knew that. He knew that, and at the same time, he couldn’t stand being so close, so close to the situation, yet being unable to do anything to help. It was excruciating to experience, knowing his partner was going into the belly of the beast with an emotionally compromised Number One Hero as a battle partner and backup still a good distance away. Unfortunately for the personnel around him, he was going to make his disquietude everyone else’s problem.

Tsukauchi sighed. “Still no update, Present Mic,” he replied, voice strained. “You’re going to have to be patient. I’m sure they’re fine.” 

It was unconvincing, and both Hizashi and Tsukachi knew it. It was the fifth time he had answered the man’s same question in as many minutes, with the same result each time. The two men were nearing the end of their ropes, and the air was electric with the tension. 

The four UA students could sense the pressure, and became restless and jumpy. The other hero teams were slowly closing the perimeter of the operation and had less need for the Class 1-A students to escort criminals to transport vehicles or ambulances as the crowd thinned. The cacophony of Hizashi and Tsukauchi’s rising nerves and the children’s agitated idle hands made the den of the rescue operation practically unbearable.

“Sir!” One of the officers barked. “There’s an abnormal heat signature moving at the edge of the building in one of the underground floors.”

Tsukauchi’s head snapped towards the officer, grateful for anything to distract from the blonde helicopter over his shoulder.

“Elaborate,” he urged his officer. The man obliged.

“Sir!” The man continued. “It’s a small signature; could easily be a rat that got in the air ducts, but it’s moving steadily towards the last known locations of All Might and Eraserhead.”

Hizashi’s ears perked up at that. Something was targeting the heroes? He couldn’t have anything— or anyone, for that matter — interfere with their mission. He jumped on the chance.

“I'll go, “ he offered, the words out of his mouth before he could really process what it meant.

Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to speak, only for Ochako to hurriedly butt in.

“Us too!” She blurted, grabbing Iida and Todoroki’s hands to drag them into the conversation. Kirishima fell in close behind.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But—“

“Ill take them,” Hizashi said, matter-of-factly.

Both Tsukauchi and Ochako turned to look at the hero in astonishment.

“Are you sure, Present Mic?” Tsukauchi asked, perplexed. “I thought that you didn’t want the students anywhere near the operation.”

“They won’t be,” Hizashi said. “And they’ll be with me. I’ll keep them safe.”

He said it with a confidence he didn’t quite possess, but at the same time, had no choice but to fake. He needed to go in there, to make sure nothing would interfere with his partner’s mission. He also knew that he couldn’t keep the children out of trouble if they were separated. As much as he trusted Tsukauchi’s abilities as a leader, he knew that the 1-A students wouldn’t stand idly by in the background if he was headed towards the action. If he couldn’t trust the kids to not land headfirst into danger on their own, the least he could do was watch over them as they went together.

It wasn’t a promise he knew he could guarantee, especially after everything that had happened with Midoriya, but it was one he would fight to the death to keep. 

Tsukauchi seemed to sense the determination behind his declaration and argued no further, choosing instead to simply nod and turn back towards his officer.

“What is the closest entrance to the anomaly?” He asked.

The officer studied the heat map of the building once again, brow furrowed in concentration. 

“It looks like… it looks like the most direct route towards it is through the opposite side of the building. There’s an escape route that is currently being headed off by Rock Lock’s squadron. I’ll them him know that Present Mic is headed his way.”

Tsukauchi nodded his approval, and turned towards Present Mic and the 1-A students once more. 

“Be careful,” he warned, eyes lingering carefully on each of the children before landing on Hizashi. 

Don’t make me regret this, his unspoken plea begged, and Hizashi nodded in a way he hoped came across that he understood. 

For all of his impulses and split-second decision-making, Hizashi knew what was at stake, and he wasn’t going to allow more students to potentially fall victim to a villain.

“We will,” is what he said aloud, and with that, directed the children to follow close behind him. 

 

————

 

Toshinori felt like his world was shattering. The ground seemed to drop beneath him, sound melting away until he could hear nothing but the blood roaring through his eardrums. His fingers curled tightly around themselves until his knuckles turned white.

Izuku couldn’t be dead.

They couldn’t be too late, could they?

No. 

No no no no no no no.

That couldn’t be true, not if it was coming from Shigaraki. He was a villain after all; venom flowed freely from his wagging tongue and cruelty sparkled in his eyes like jewels.

Yet Toshinori couldn’t deny that the scarlet saturating the young villain’s clothing and visage couldn’t have all come from the blood oozing lazily from his broken nose.

Toshinori resisted the urge to vomit. He wasn’t prone to a weak stomach, not after forty years of hero work, but the thought of all that blood coming from his ward—it sickened him to his core. How could the boy have survived such blood loss? 

He knew the young man was strong, mentally and physically, but to withstand such violent and cruel treatment was a tall task for even a professional hero, and Midoriya was just a boy. Toshinori knew better than most that everyone -- and their bodies -- had a limit. 

The wild, manic look in Shigaraki’s eyes brought him no peace either; his expression looked more akin to a man that had fought a lion and won. A man victorious before the battle had truly begun. With a self-satisfied smirk, Shigaraki licked at the corners of his mouth like a cat who had just eaten the canary, and urged his winged Nomu into a low swoop aimed straight at All Might. The man dodged easily, but the wind pressure the Nomu’s mass created caught him off balance and nearly sent him colliding with the warehouse wall. 

Focus. Focus, All Might, dammit. He chanted to himself, shaking off the near miss and launching himself at the villain in a counterattack.

Don’t think right now. Focus on bringing Shigaraki down, and then you can go search for the boy.

He ignored the part of his brain that murmured or what’s left of him, and pulled back a fist, aiming it at the flying Nomu’s head. If he could send the creature earthbound, it would make it an easier task to take down its rider.

Yet, despite All Might’s inhuman speed, the Nomu seemed to detect the hero’s trajectory and abruptly switched directions. All Might’s fist met concrete.

It at least gave the hero a chance to see what battle conditions were like on the ground. Aizawa, Cementoss, and Thirteen were engaged with the blonde Nomu that All Might had first challenged when he barged into the front lines. 

Things weren’t going well: Thirteen was favoring their left leg and a large gash tinged pink ravaged the side of their costume, Aizawa was pinned to the ground by the creature’s inhuman claws, and Cementoss was trying in vain to free him. Its strength truly did rival All Might’s own, and if he was loathe to admit, might actually surpass his.

He at least had one advantage over the Nomu: his emotions. All Might was angry. Toshinori was angry. And afraid. And desperate.

Desperation made him quicker, more reckless, and adrenaline shot through his synapses like a firebolt. He launched himself at the Nomu, laser focused on forcing its weight off Aizawa and straight into the flight path of Shigaraki. His aim was true; like a missile, All Might’s fist met bestial flesh, felt it give under the pressure, and sent it flying. Aizawa spluttered and coughed beneath him as he adjusted to the lack of claws boring into his throat, but All Might paid him no mind. He watched as the blonde Nomu connected with its brethren in the air and the two tumbled straight to the ground. 

The impact of the winged Nomu hitting the ground sent shockwaves coursing through the underground structure, serrating into the concrete like veins. It crowed in anger, along with its master. The blonde creature beside it lay dormant and still, and All Might hoped it would stay that way.

Ignoring the instability under his feet, he refused to give the Nomu a chance to recover and rushed the creature once again. He was on the winged Nomu in a second, sending a barrage of punches so fast the human eye couldn’t track his fists. 

Die! He screamed internally, ignoring the dark, maligned blood that coated his fists and curses of fury from Shigaraki, who was pinned under the weight of his own Nomu.

Die! 

There was a crack of bone, but All Might wasn’t sure if it was from the Nomu’s skull or from his own fingers.

Die! 

“ Fuck you, you wretched hero!” Shigaraki screeched at him. His voice felt so close, but Toshinori felt blind from rage. All he could sense was the feeling of flesh against his fists as he rammed them again and again into the Nomu.

Die!

“All Might!” A voice from somewhere behind him yelled. 

“You’re going to kill him!”

No I’m not, All Might thought incredulously. The Nomu was refusing to yield to his wish.

Despite the power All Might knew he had, it didn’t seem to affect the creature more than a fly would irritate a horse. Instead, it swatted at him, and the impact transported All Might five feet deep into the opposite wall. 

Bile and blood roiled in the back of All Might’s throat, and he coughed. Scarlet flecks coated the cracked ground in front of him, and he spit a glob of hemoglobin into the dust.

He cursed as he felt more of the vestige of One for All’s strength leave him, thumbing at the blood trickling down the edge of his mouth. As All Might took a moment to recover, the winged Nomu righted itself onto its quadrupedal claws, Shigaraki still clinging to his back. 

As the rage retreated slightly from All Might’s vision, the hero could finally take in the course of the battle, and what he saw nearly released the bile at the back of his throat. 

Shigaraki looked like death warmed over. His right shoulder had been crushed, whether from being pinned by the Nomu or from a misdirected blow by All Might, he wasn’t sure, but regardless, the villain was clinging to the back of Nomu by a thread. Shigaraki’s legs hung uselessly from the sides of the Nomu’s back, also crushed, and the villain was slumped across the creature’s back, looking more dead than alive. The only sign that Shigaraki was even conscious was the glint of his hateful eyes glaring daggers back at All Might and a snarl curled around his infuriated visage. 

“All Might,” Shigaraki’s voice dripped with loathing. “I am going to fucking. Kill. You.”

Spitting out the last of the blood in his mouth, All Might readied himself into a fighting stance, every muscle in his body taut and coiled like a spring. He sensed the other heroes in the room do the same, each like a viper ready and waiting to strike.

It was at that moment that a voice All Might never thought he would hear again echoed throughout the cavernous warehouse. His blood froze, ice threatening to stop his heart.

“I must admit, All Might,” All For One crooned, “I’m surprised at you. Despite all these years, your technique hasn’t changed at all.”

Toshinori could feel all the blood drain from his face, and he suddenly felt faint. 

“You’re still as ruthless and violent as I remember. Is this how you’ve maintained being the ‘number one’ hero for so long? By pummeling your heroic opponents into pulp?”

“No,” Toshinori rasped. He gave into his nausea; he leaned forward and retched the contents of his destroyed stomach. 

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

“All Might!”

Aizawa, hobbling and broken, was at Toshinori’s side in a heartbeat, grasping him firmly by the shoulders as Toshinori let out another involuntary shudder. Bile puddled at his feet, but he ignored his own discomfort. The ghost of his arch nemesis haunting his ear drums was a much bigger threat at the moment.

“You’re dead,” he croaked, eyes facing the ground, body still queasy. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

He roved his eyes upwards, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of his enemy in the shadows and dark crevices of the walls.

“I killed you.”

All for One hummed through the sound system. 

“Not quite, I’m afraid,” he apologized with mock sympathy. 

Toshinori shook Aizawa from his shoulders and he stood to his full height, trying desperately to appear unintimidated. He hoped no one noticed the shaking in his knees and in his hands. 

“Come out then!” He roared at the ceiling, daring the unseen villain to approach. 

“Let’s settle this, once and for all, All for One,” he boasted, clenching his fists to steady the shaking. “Just you and me, how it was meant to be. There’s no need to bring children into this.”

“Ohhh, but there is, old friend ,” All for One spat sweetly, and Toshinori could imagine the sick, twisted smile that probably rested on his arch nemesis’s face. “Our last battle destroyed my body, as it destroyed yours. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be much of a fair fight. Besides, you think you’re the only one allowed to raise up a successor?”

Toshinori could feel the waves of confusion rolling off from Thirteen and Cementoss, but the villain’s declaration filled his throat with dread.

“You—“ the words died on the tip of Toshinori’s tongue. His worst fears, it seemed, were right. Shigaraki and the League of Villains— they were indeed a part of his rival’s plan of destructive revenge. Shigaraki was indeed, just a figurehead, a dark puppet channelling All for One’s cunning. Of course it was all connected. Of course, he was the cause of it. 

“Your quarrel is not with young Midoriya, All for One,” All Might tried again once his voice returned to him. “Give him back, and I swear I’ll let you do whatever you want with me.”

All for One laughed lightly. 

“Your promises mean very little to me, Number One,” he replied breezily. “Not with how you are now. You have nothing to offer me anymore.”

The Nomu seemed to agree. It shook its head, oblivious to the head wound All Might’s pounding fists left in its open cranium, and roared its guttural battle cry. It took a step forward, and with it, the concrete beneath its claws shuddered under their weight. Shigaraki continued his quest to kill All Might using just his eyes.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t destroy you,” All for One continued. “But not yet. Not today. I think we’ve done enough damage to each other for the time being.”

“Shigaraki!” All for One turned his attention over to his junior. “Return back to me. We’re done with this endeavor for now.”

Shigaraki let out a cry of shock. 

“But Master, I was so close—“

“ Don’t argue with me, boy,” All for One’s tone grew dark. “Return, at once.” 

Even if Shigaraki protested, his Nomu understood the meaning of those words. Its eyes glazed over as its primordial brain switched on to auto-pilot. Turning nimbly on its haunches in a way that shouldn’t have been possible for a creature of its size and breadth, it poised itself for takeoff. Alarm ping ponged throughout the gathered heroes and they all surged forward to stop the villain’s escape path. It was too late; with a single bound, the Nomu launched its oversized body through the ceiling, causing a cascade of heavy concrete and rebar to rain down from above. All Might’s vision was obstructed from the clouds of dust and debris and he quickly lost sight of them. Regardless, he bounded through the chaos and launched himself into the atmosphere above, searching desperately on the horizon for a sign of the direction the Nomu flew. He saw nothing. He felt like screaming until his throat was raw.

“‘kauchi— to— ‘ll Might — ‘erhead — come— come in— please!” A loud crackle sounded through All Might’s earpiece, and with a snap he remembered where he was. All Might’s hand went up and pressed into his earpiece.

“I’m… I’m here,” All Might replied hoarsely. He realized vaguely that he didn’t remember the last time he had checked in with Tsukauchi. “Shigaraki… he got away. We lost him,” he reported, unable to keep the bitterness out of his tone.

A wave of deep shame curled around his stomach, and it took everything in his power not to crush the earpiece out of frustration. He had failed to protect Midoriya yet again. 

“—We can deal with that later, All Might,” Tsukauchi seemed unconcerned, and Toshinori’s surprise at the police detective’s reaction caught him so off guard he almost missed what his friend said next. 

“Right now, I need you and Eraserhead to get to the basement level of the facility. Hiza—they’ve— we’ve called it in. We found him.”

Suddenly, All Might’s focus became razor sharp.

“Say that again, Tsukauchi,” All Might demanded, already redirecting himself back towards the gaping hole he had just jumped through. “Are you saying we found Midoriya?”

Tsukauchi was silent for a moment, before replying, “We found Midoriya, but All Might— just get there quickly. You don’t have much time.” 

Notes:

Author Challenge to not end a chapter on a cliffhanger: failed x3

Chapter 15

Notes:

And here it is, the longest chapter in the story by far.
Thank you for you patience. I hope you enjoy it.

Also, I just noticed that I'm posting this chapter a day shy of this fic's sixth anniversary. Absolutely insane.
Thanks for sticking around. <3

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Izuku leaned heavily against the wall as he listened to the sound of his blood leaking onto the floor. 

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Drip.

His eyelids were so heavy, like concrete doors, and it took as much effort to keep them open. He wondered briefly if they had always been like that.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Get moving, a voice inside him urged, calm, but desperate. Keep moving. Don’t stop.  

If Izuku didn’t know better, he swore he could feel a reassuring squeeze around his shoulders. He struggled to throw a glance behind him, and the attempt left him with a healthy bout of vertigo. He swayed uncertainly, like a newborn fawn with knobby legs and a too-big head. It took all of his energy to remain perpendicular to the floor.

Forward. Forward, Midoriya, the voice said again, more urgently this time. Izuku obliged. He braced against the wall even harder as he forced another step from his leaden feet. He dragged himself forward, painting a vibrant streak of scarlet across the wall as he did so.

The effort nearly took his breath away. He couldn’t help the whine of anguish that escaped his throat, more animal than human. He had to pause again to keep angry black dots from overtaking his vision. The tourniquet that Ujiko had hastily strapped to his rotted arm was doing its job; he wasn’t bleeding out, but the gaping wound on his neck still bled freely, coating the front of his shirt with a healthy wash of crimson and trailing down his stump of an arm. It was almost too much for his body, given the state of his injuries even before his desperate last altercation with Shigaraki.

The amount of blood he had lost since he had dragged his body from Ujiko’s experimental lab was dangerously high. By all accounts, he should have lost consciousness by now. He should be bleeding out onto the dirtied linoleum beneath him. And yet, something was still tethering him to his body. Something… or someone, wouldn’t let him give up, despite how desperately Izuku wanted to. 

I need to sit down, he thought. The wall was the only thing keeping him upright at this point, and it was becoming harder and harder to fight gravity. It would be so easy to unlock his knees. He wanted to rest. He deserved to rest. Hadn’t he gone far enough?

Not yet, not yet. You have to get to All Might, remember? The voice prodded him again. 

Forward. 

Forward. 

Forward.

“F-fr…wrd….” He slurred in agreement. Another ragged step. Another scarlet streak marking his path. Another whine of pain. 

That’s it, kid, the voice said encouragingly. One step at a time.

You’re doing great! It said again, in a curiously higher pitch.

He took another step forward.

You’re so close, a deep rumble murmured in his ears.

Izuku found the voice-- er, voices -- strange. The more fog clouded his brain, the louder and more distinct the voices became. They didn’t sound like his own, and he would know what his internal monologue sounded like: fifteen years of collecting quirk facts and observations for his notebook had made him an expert in talking to himself. 

These voices, however, sounded like they belonged to a plethora of different people. One sounded like a woman, strong yet light. Other times, another took on a lower pitch, almost a growl, and it reminded him of his teacher’s voice if Aizawa was twenty years older and a smoker. 

What was strangest of all was that it… that they sounded… familiar. Recognizable to him in a way that one might recognize their nose in a yellowed photograph of a grandparent or the lilt in their mother’s laugh. A chorus of ancestors guiding his path, perhaps? He knew he really must be close to the edge if he was starting to hear voices of the dead.

More words of encouragement from the voices continued to echo around him. He took another step, and gasped in pain, doubling over as he fought off the new wave of vertigo.

Nana, can’t you do anything for him? The gruff tone pleaded to an entity Izuku couldn’t see. 

What would you have me do, Banjo? The female voice -- Nana, he presumed -- said exasperatedly. I’m in the same boat as you. 

Toshinori’s your successor, isn’t he? Banjo argued. Can’t you lead him here or something? At this rate, the kid’s going to bleed out before the heroes can find him. 

You don’t think I would’ve tried something like that by now if I could?! Nana snapped angrily. Toshinori won’t listen to reason right now. He’s too blinded by rage.

Izuku would’ve flinched at the venom in her voice if he’d had the energy. Vaguely, he recognized the name Toshinori, but couldn’t place where he’d heard it. Still, it sounded so familiar, much like the voices themselves were. In the face of his internal companions’ strife, he managed another half-hearted step forward and somehow remained vertical.

Both of you, calm down, a third tone said sternly. This is meaningless. You’re going to distract him.

The two other voices grumbled from the reprimand. 

It’s not like he can hear us, Banjo huffed. 

The third entity seemed amused for a moment before replying, at the very least, he can sense your intentions, and the boy doesn’t need the vestiges of his own power at war with itself. 

That got Nana and Banjo to quiet down. 

Come on then, kid, Banjo prodded Izuku. Let’s get moving. 

Izuku felt his body lurch forward with a power he knew his muscles couldn’t have produced naturally. He leaned harder into the wall to keep his balance. A little too hard.

A remnant of his tattered shirt caught on one of the many jagged cracks that snaked across the length of the decrepit wall, jerking his shoulder sideways. He found himself off-kilter, his feet stumbling to correct the mistake, but it was too late. He was falling. 

A crash.

A lightning bolt of pain that raced across his body and stole his breath away.

Suddenly, Izuku couldn’t seem to fill his lungs with air, and he gasped like a fish out of water. He managed to cough, and he coughed hard, his lungs struggling to gain enough oxygen while also fighting the pressing weight of gravity on his diaphragm.

The voices seemed to swirl around him frantically, but he could no longer hear their individual cries. Still, he could sense their pushing and prodding and begging of him to get up, get up, get up, goddammit! 

His remaining hand scrambled to gain purchase, to force himself back up into a sitting position. Dirtied, grisled fingers clawed uselessly against the slick ground, wet with his own blood. It was no use. 

He gasped for air once again, fighting back a whimper as darkness skulked around the edges of his vision, circling him like a hyena around a lion’s kill. He knew it waited for him to stop his thrashing so it could gorge itself on his lifeless body. He could practically hear the gnashing of its too-white teeth and slobbering jaws as it tore into his warm flesh. Fear and instinct moved his body in a pathetic bid for freedom, caused by an incessant biological need to self-sustain, yet Izuku wanted nothing more than to let the darkness have its way with him.

I’m so tired, he cried silently. I want to rest.

You are the Ninth, the third voice intoned, calm against the cacophonous din of the rest of the amorphous cries in his mind.

You cannot let the darkness win.

Izuku wanted to argue, a rebuttal hot on his lips, when a cry interrupted him. This one came from a voice he recognized all too well, and all too corporeal.

“Midoriya?”

Izuku moved his mouth to reply, only to be met with empty air and frozen vocal chords. His throat refused to cooperate with his brain. Stubbornly, he reached forward, toward the voice. 

“Is that you?”

His mind fell into murk, and the darkness lunged.

Hizashi was doing his best to keep the panic and excitement of his charges to a minimum, but it was difficult, considering what he was working with. 

Kirishima insisted on running ahead, boasting that his quirk made him the most viable option to counteract any surprise attacks that came their way. Iida staunchly prohibited his classmate from doing so, maintaining that they should all stay together. Todoroki and Uraraka looked simultaneously sick to their stomachs and eager to help, which Hizashi supposed was the most reasonable reaction he could hope for.

In the end, the group decided on an arrow-like formation, with Kirishima in the lead, Uraraka and Iida in the middle, and Todoroki and Hizashi bringing up the rear. As a pro-hero, Hizashi presumed it was probably best for the long-range attackers to be at the back to clear the way for the students at the front, like archers defending the frontlines with well-placed arrows. 

Yet, their little ragtag group had seen neither hide nor hair of a single villain; it was like the area had been abandoned in favor of preventing the heroes from disturbing other parts of the lair. The only company they had was the occasional screech of the warehouse’s intruder alarm, along with red lights systematically staining the hallway with a wash of scarlet. He found that curious; most heroes would assume that meant there wasn’t much to defend in this zone: why waste manpower on unimportant objectives? However, Hizashi saw it as the villains trying to create a red herring. 

He’d seen it done before; years ago, a group of known human traffickers had laid out an impressive front for a police raid, only to have their leader slip out right underneath the authorities’ noses using an ill-guarded backroom. Perhaps Shigaraki had done something similar? 

It certainly seemed possible; luring the heroes away with the promise of Nomus and waves upon waves of lackeys had certainly done their job at clearing out these back rooms of heroes and villains alike. 

The only question was: what could they possibly be hiding here?

The group had briefly passed through the explosion that had taken out Midnight and a portion of Eraserhead’s initial squad. They managed to peek into the half-collapsed rooms that looked like medical offices from a nuclear fallout zone, and a shiver had raced up Hizashi’s spine at their discovery. He was relieved that young Midoriya hadn’t been in one of those rooms, but that didn’t negate the prospect that they could still find him in a similar predicament. Hizashi would put nothing past these… monsters. 

Shigaraki and his League were the same people that had created Nomus. Who knew what sort of atrocities Midoriya had suffered during his captivity? 

Kirishima stopped suddenly, so suddenly that Uraraka, preoccupied with scanning the nearby ceilings and walls for signs of attack, crashed straight into him. Iida, similarly distracted, followed suit shortly after, and soon the Class 1-A students had collapsed into a dogpile on the cracked linoleum floors. Hizashi barely stopped himself in time from joining them. 

“Kirishima!” Iida admonished. 

“What gives?” Uraraka poked her head up from the dog pile and growled with equal irritation. 

Hizashi, finally confident enough in his balance not to end up with his students on the floor, looked up, only to see an alarming sight. 

The red-haired boy, usually cheerful and shining, was instead pale and stone-faced. Slowly, he pointed a finger towards the opposite wall.

“L-l-look,” he stuttered, his earlier confidence from demanding leadership completely absent from his voice, replaced by a violent shake. 

Hizashi did. 

The blood subsequently drained from his face. 

On the wall was a bold brushstroke of bright red cruor, the streak still shiny and wet. Childlike handprints littered the wall as well, like accents above a stanza. A bloody song, disturbing and somber at the same time. 

Hizashi decided to take the lead. 

“Stay behind me,” he muttered to his charges, switching the voice box built into his costume into combat mode. Internally, his instinctual sirens were screaming like collapsing metal, warning him to turn around and go. 

He didn’t listen to the sirens. A smaller, quieter, knowing voice told him, you’re very close.

They followed the trail of blood, slowly. The macabre display had been the first sign that they weren’t alone, and in the face of actual villains potentially lurking behind each branch in the never-ending corridors, the students were dead quiet. If it were not for the screeching of the alarms on the walls and the muffled sounds of battle in the distance, the hallway would be filled with eerie silence. 

More and more debris started to fill the hallway: piles of partially collapsed ceiling tiles, half-crumbled walls, and medical gurneys were scattered about. The thunder of battle started to grow louder and periodically, the reverberations of the unseen fight would rain dust and aging caulk down onto their heads. The trail of blood started to become thicker, and more and more of it began to leak from the wall onto the floor, rendering the ground slick. Hizashi did his best not to slip in the mess, nor imagine how the sticky blood would cling to his clothes and skin like a parasite. Despite the clear signs of recent activity, there were still no signs of a person, or… body… anywhere.

It was just as well that at that moment, a debris pile just ahead of him seemed to crumble to the floor with a resounding thump .

Hizashi held a hand up, stopping the students in their tracks. He held his breath in his throat.

The lump ahead of him groaned, groggy with something akin to pain. A claw reached upward and slammed down unceremoniously onto the floor, splattering blood as it did so. Surrounded by pieces of a crumbling warehouse, Hizashi couldn’t quite make out if the source of the noise was human or animal or… something else, yet he couldn’t hide the hope that blossomed in his chest.

“Midoriya?” Hizashi blurted without thinking, his usual caution thrown to the wind in the midst of his discovery. 

The lump ignored him.

“Is that you?”

Hizashi watched as the claw raked through the sea of red, searching for… something, perhaps something to latch onto. A weapon , his instinct warned, and he was reminded that he was still in a battle zone, and he had four children behind him to protect. 

With a quick flick of his wrist, he signaled to his students to stay put, and thankfully, the teenagers listened. He supposed he should be grateful that, despite the horrific circumstances, the Class 1-A students had been true to their word of listening to him, no matter what. He knew if the situation was reversed, how hard it would be to hold himself back. Hizashi took another cautious step forward, then another, and another.

The lump soon began to take shape, until it was fully within view, bathed intermittently with an eerie red from the flashing warning lights. Wobbly shapes became a mop of dirtied green hair, a grungy t-shirt that at one point had been white, and—

At the center of a sea of blood was a body. It was face down and thin gasps shuddered against its spine. The scarlet halo surrounding the body jumped between too stark and melding into skin at the blare of the intruder alarm. A cough wracked the body’s wan frame, and as it shuddered, Hizashi glimpsed a flash of freckles hidden behind the thicket of green hair. Behind his spike of overwhelming panic, his instincts kicked in.

“Iida!” He barked. “Get the med kit out!”

“Y-yes, Sensei!”

“Todoroki, Kirishima, guard our flanks. Make sure no one is coming down the hallway in either direction.”

“Yes sir!”

“Uraraka,” he called. “Help me move Midoriya onto his back.”

“O-okay, Present Mic!”

Kirishima, already moving into position at the end of the corridor, stumbled, looking back at Hizashi in horror. 

“ That’s Midoriya?!” He squeaked, disbelief and terror lacing his words. 

Hizashi didn’t bother with a reply; he was busy coaching Uraraka through turning Midoriya’s injured body, barking a little too harshly for her to keep the boy’s neck stable. Simultaneously, Hizashi kept his hands steady on Midoriya’s backside, keeping his spine in line with his neck as they rolled him over. 

Once that was done, professional protocol hijacking his nervous system, he put a hand to his earpiece.

“This is Present Mic, come in, Tsukauchi,” he began. 

There was an immediate response.

“This is Tsukauchi; report, Present Mic.”

“We’ve found the victim,” he replied numbly, watching Midoriya’s chest for the subtle rise and fall he knew should be there, had seen just moments before, only to be met with a tiny, shallow rasp. The boy’s half-closed eyes were vacant and glassy, and for one, terrifying moment, he thought, we’re too late. 

His hand clasped tightly around the earpiece. 

“And we need a medical team here now .”

There was a pause.

Then, “I’m on it, Present Mic. Keep me updated.”

Hizashi nodded violently, before realizing that Tsukauchi couldn’t see his face, and pushed past Uraraka to gather himself perpendicular to Midoriya’s body. She let him, her face frozen in numb horror at the sight of her friend so still and so quiet . Hizashi’s hands fluttered over the boy’s chest, suddenly overwhelmed at what he saw.

To say that Midoriya had been through hell was putting it very, very mildly. 

The boy was covered in blood; it dripped from his messy locks, saturated his shirt and splattered across his limbs and gaunt visage, like a water balloon filled with red paint had exploded in his face. His limbs —- god, he was missing a fucking arm! How could that have not been the first thing he noticed?

Hizashi sucked a breath through gritted teeth at the sight; it looked like his right arm had been — evaporated — from the elbow down. From the point of injury, the edges of his skin and prominent bone were tinged with black, a snapshot of horror from what he could only assume was Shigaraki’s quirk at work. At least someone— he was unsure of who it could possibly be— had put a tourniquet around Midoriya’s stump of an arm, rendering it stable for now.

His eyes searched for the source of the blood caked onto every inch of the boy, and his eyes widened at the horror that was Midoriya’s neck. 

In the perfect shape of a bony hand was Shigaraki’s true mark upon the boy: a handprint, pressed against his jugular, with gangly fingers snaking around his neck like beads of pearls. While not deep enough to hit an artery, the handprint was not shallow either, bleeding sluggishly along the edges down into his shirt and feeding the red halo that spread around him like an alchemist’s transmutation circle.

There was so much— so much wrong with the boy that all Hizashi’s overwhelmed brain could do was stare numbly down at his student, willing all of this to be some kind of fucked up dream that he couldn’t seem to wake up from.

Was this what Oboro looked like when he died?

A wad of gauze was shoved roughly into his unmoving hands, and Hizashi startled out of his ill-timed reverie. He turned, and Iida looked back at him in alarm.

“Sir?” He questioned slowly. “A-are you okay?”

Hizashi blinked. Realized where he was.

He was the teacher here: the adult. This was no time to shatter over past loss. Especially when Midoriya’s fate could still be changed.

He shook his head, whether in answer or to shake the demons from his head he wasn’t quite sure. Regardless, he moved his hands towards the gaping hand-shaped wound on Midoriya’s neck and started to stuff it full of gauze. 

“Tear off some more gauze for me, Iida,” was his verbal response, and a look of relief passed over the student’s features before he began to rapidly shred the roll of cotton from the med kit. The movement seemed to shake Uraraka from her own stupor, and she immediately jumped into action. 

“W-what should I do, Present Mic?” Her voice wobbled, desperately trying to pull herself together.

Hizashi’s gaze flitted up to Midoriya’s vacant gaze. He wasn’t sure if the boy even knew they were there, or if he was even conscious. A sinking feeling worked its way into his chest. Midoriya’s neck still bleeding was a good sign, in the sense that it meant blood was still moving, and his body had managed to squeeze out a strangled breath every now and then, but still—

“Try to see if you can get a pulse from him.”

Uraraka nodded rapidly, and went to work trying to find a pulse site. Since his neck was currently swamped in gauze, she moved herself so she had easy access to Midoriya’s— intact arm. She held his wrist, gentle yet firm, and started counting.

After a minute, she reported, “It’s really weak, but its there.” 

Hizashi let out a small sigh, relieved despite the circumstances.

Uraraka leaned forward and scrutinized the boy’s face. 

“Midoriya, can you hear me?” She pleaded.

No response. Another shallow rasp escaped his half-conscious body, greedily searching for oxygen.

She tapped his shoulder, not unkindly, and leaned closer. 

“Midoriya,” she stated, voice loud and almost shouting. “It’s me, Uraraka. I need to know if you can hear me.”

Finally, finally, Izuku took a full, greedy breath, and promptly choked on his own blood. 

“Shit,” Hizashi cursed, and quickly turned the boy over into the recovery position as he vomited blood and bile. The sounds of his mangled throat vying for air while simultaneously dry heaving were disturbing enough to make the pro hero want to do the same. 

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Midoriya finished purging everything vile thing left in his body, and he became eerily still once more.

“Hey kid,” He started gently. “Remember me? Present Mic?”

Izuku didn’t so much as twitch. His chest barely shifted, delicate as a butterfly’s wings, and his eyelashes fluttered like he was deciding whether it was worth the effort to use his eyes. After a beat, he let out a quiet groan as a response. Hizashi would take that as a win.

“We’re going to get you out of here, kid,” he soothed. “Just hold tight.”

He craned his neck toward the red-headed kid stationed just beyond the surrounding pile of debris. 

“Kirishima!” He called. “Radio Tsukauchi and tell him to hurry up with that medevac and— Midoriya, w-what are you—?”

“No,” Midoriya rasped, his voice crackling like he had a smoker's lungs. He had moved quickly, more quickly than Hizashi thought possible given his current state, and grasped at Hizashi’s arm. His grip was so weak Hizashi was certain a shiver could unhand him, yet the boy still managed to turn his head and spit the last of the blood from his mouth. His grip became desperate as he struggled to sit upright, using his teacher for leverage.

“Hey, hey, kiddo, don’t— don’t do that— let’s lay you back down, alright?”

Present Mic’s attempt to assuage the boy only made his clawing more desperate, overgrown fingernails biting into Hizashi’s skin so deeply he was surprised it didn’t draw blood. 

“Hey, Midoriya,” Uraraka rearranged herself so that he could see her. Her voice was gentle, if a little wobbly, and she kept her body language open and disarming.

“There’s a pile of ceiling tiles behind you; we can lean you up against those. Does that sound alright?” 

Midoriya’s eyes were downturned, so Hizashi couldn’t get a good read on the kid, but eventually, Midoriya gave a slow nod of reluctant approval and Hizashi and Uraraka worked to move him into a half-sitting, half-lying down position against the rubble. It was slow going, and judging from the staccatoed gasps of pain coming from Midoriya every time they jostled his body wrong, if was nothing short of a miracle Midoriya was staying conscious. Hizashi could see the patchwork of blood leaking through his neck wound bandages, and he hoped that his handiwork would hold until the medics arrived.

“You all… should leave,” Midoriya choked out once they had arranged him as comfortably as they could against the rubble, his eyes tightly shut to block out the pain. “Get out before…. Before Shigaraki comes back. Save… s-save yourself.” 

“Midoriya,” Iida gawked, horrified.  “You can’t possibly ask us to do that. You— y-you already weren’t responsive when we arrived. You’ll die.”

Hizashi heard a breath catch in Midoriya’s throat and a bone-breaking cough tumbled past the boy’s lips. They continued, and the boy’s body quaked as coughs ravaged his feeble frame. Fresh blood started to leak through his neck bandages with every new convulsion.

“I-I’m a-a-already a…a g-goner,” he heaved between bouts. “L-leave me. P-p-please.”

A flash of anger crossed Iida’s gaze, and he looked like he wanted to argue. Hizashi put a hand on his student’s shoulder and squeezed, while silently motioning him towards the med kit that had been tossed aside when his friend had regained consciousness. Iida backed away reluctantly.

“Listen, kid, we’re heroes; we can’t just leave you here,” Hizashi tried reasoning in Iida’s stead, keeping his tone light-hearted and jovial while Iida passed him more gauze. It looked like the bandages wouldn’t hold until help arrived after all; already they had become oversaturated with blood. He moved to cut away the existing bandages and replace them with fresh reams of cotton.

“You know this. Let us help you.”

At that, Izuku opened his eyes fully for the first time since they arrived and made eye contact with his teacher. What greeted him would haunt Hizashi for the rest of his life. 

Midoriya looked— broken . No, it was more than that. Midoriya looked completely and hopelessly empty , a shell of what was once bright and shining. Light seemed to dull as soon as it entered his pupils and there was no longer a sparkle in the boy’s jade-colored irises. He looked hunted, and if Hizashi looked too long, he could see the flicker of something sinister hiding in the shaded vestiges of Midoriya’s eyes. His lifeless expression was haunting to witness; the boy had seen too much, experienced too much. His gaze begged Hizashi to just let it all end. To make the hurt stop .

“If you— w-want to h-help— you s-should— protect— my-my mom,” he labored between shallow gasps and Hizashi’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces for the boy who only thought of the people he loved as he lay dying.

“What do you mean by that?”

There was a long pause, and Midoriya closed his eyes once more. From his sunken cheekbones to the pallid color etched into his skin, he looked like a corpse waiting for its turn to be paraded around a funeral home.

“S-s-shigaraki… wants… wanted… my q-quirk,” he eventually began. “He— he threatened me— threatened my m-mom’s l-life— to make me give it to him. I wouldn’t… I refused to give it to him. B-but he’s going to go after her— I know he is.” 

The boy’s eyes cracked open with a sliver and he gave a wan smile, devoid of humor, to the empty expanse behind Hizashi’s head. 

“Even after I took his… his b-bargaining piece away,” he murmured, voice uncharacteristically bitter.

Hizashi wrapped his hands around Midoriya’s remaining wrist and squeezed, desperate to understand. He wouldn’t let himself think about how small Midoriya’s hand was between his own, how young the boy was. He was still a kid. A child . He shouldn’t have to be made responsible for negotiating his mother’s life out of the hands of a maniac. The boy’s last line, he especially didn’t know how to interpret. He supposed he'd just start at the beginning.

“He… he wanted your quirk?” Hizashi echoed uncertainly. 

“That’s i-impossible. I— Midoriya, I-I don’t think— hey, stay with me, kid,” Hizashi warned as Midoriya’s eyes started to droop again. His single, tiny hand became lax in Hizashi’s grip. 

“Listen, you’re safe now. Shigaraki isn’t going to hurt you anymore. Your mom is under the watch of a whole squad of heroes. No one’s going to touch her,” promised Hizashi.

Meanwhile, Iida attempted with shaking hands to plaster gauze over Midoriya’s neck wound, the saturated bandages already carefully removed by Hizashi. The new dressings were promptly drowned in a fresh wave of scarlet.

“Tsukauchi says there was a delay, but there’s an ambulance incoming now,” Kirishima reported, finally finished with his conversation on the radio, and rushed over to keep Uraraka steady as she attempted to add a second tourniquet on to Midoriya’s stump, which had started to bleed through its first. Among the many terrible things that were happening, that was very much not a good sign.

“All Might is supposed to be making a pathway for it to get as close as possible.”

Hizashi nodded tensely. Time was becoming very, very precious.

Midoriya struggled to keep himself conscious; his hand became completely limp in Hizashi’s grasp, and despite Iida’s attempts to stabilize his neck while applying more gauze, his head kept lolling to the side.

“Stay awake for me, Midoriya,” Hizashi ordered, his heart rate spiking in alarm. “Help is almost here. I just need you to hold on a little longer.”

Izuku’s face became pinched, and tears leaked from the corners of his shut eyelids.

“Please… p-please… d-don’t make this h-harder than it… then it h-has to be,” the boy begged quietly, his voice so weak Hizashi barely caught it.

Before he had the time to formulate a response, a powerful explosion erupted from down the hallway like a herd of rhinoceroses had challenged a ten-foot-thick concrete wall to a joust and won. 

Todoroki, who had kept up his guard post the whole time, readied himself into a battle position before freezing in his tracks.

“It’s All Might!” He yelled at Hizashi and the other students. Hizashi almost sobbed with unabashed relief.

“All Might!” His student yelled, waving to get the other hero’s attention. “Hurry!”

In an instant All Might was there in front of them, faster than Hizashi could even blink, and he watched as a thousand emotions flickered across the Number One Hero’s face. Anger, exhaustion, hurt, fear, terror, panic— he was unraveling at the sight of Midoriya standing on the precipice of his own coffin. The other 1-A students scattered as All Might lowered himself to his knees and vacantly placed a hand on the boy’s head, as if just the heft of his paw could supply color back into Midoriya’s pale, gaunt face. He inched closer and Hizashi watched as the giant man cradled the boy’s head in his arms as gentle as a mother would her infant. His body shook like a leaf, and if a quiet tremor convulsed along the number one hero’s spine, Hizashi didn’t bother to acknowledge it.

“Oh, my boy,” All Might whispered, voice pregnant with grief. He ran a shaking hand through Izuku’s matted hair, and his fingers came away stained scarlet.

“My poor, poor boy.”

“A’... M’ght?” Midoriya stirred, voice weak but suddenly tinged with hope. Hizashi noticed with each half-enunciated word the boy uttered, the bandages around his neck became more soiled with red.

“D-don’t speak anymore, Midoriya, please,” Hizashi begged, scrambling to take over Iida’s job with a fresh ream of gauze he pulled out of his own personal med kit. The larger group med kit had run out.

“Just rest. All Might is going to get you out of here.”

Midoriya shook his head, causing another wave of blood to gush past his bandages. 

“I… ‘ave… to,” he choked, and Hizashi felt his heart shatter even further.

Shaking and desperate, Midoriya’s remaining hand reached for a curl from his sodden hair and he yanked, pulling out a few twisted strands. He held the hairs up to All Might like an offering, and the older hero tried not to shatter.

“‘re… t…’ake b-back… One for… All,” Midoriya uttered unsteadily, voice barely above a whisper. 

All Might looked horrified.

“ H’...urry,” the boy urged again when All Might remained frozen, pupils shrunken into pinpricks and shoulders rigid as stone. 

Hizashi furrowed his brows, confused. What was One for All ?

“Young Midoriya, no,” All Might choked back a sob. “That isn’t… this isn’t… I can’t—“

“ Pl’eese , ‘ll… M’ht,” Midoriya begged. His eyes were clouded and glassy, and Hizashi was unsure if the boy could even see who he’s talking to. It was obvious the boy was fading, and fading fast. 

“ No ,” All Might grasped the boy’s hand on his own and pushed the fistful of hair back towards Midoriya’s chest. 

“I gave my power to you, it’s yours ,” All Might stressed. “I don’t regret giving it to you, and I never will, my boy. So please, live .”

The boy closed his eyes mournfully, still bright from unshed tears, and didn’t respond. His mouth became still, as did this once-fluttering rib cage, and Hizashi could tell from the silence in the boy’s chest that Midoriya had stopped breathing.

“M-Midoriya?” All Might mewled plaintively, voice small and uncomprehending. “He-hey, s-stay with me, Young Midoriya.”

In response, Midoriya’s fist relaxed, and the strands of hair fell between the gaps in his fingers. They drifted lazily before nestling into the pool of scarlet that stained the tile and the hero’s soul. 

All Might realized.

All Might broke. 

The hero wept uncontrollably, shoulders hunched and shuddering. He hugged the boy’s chest to his head, and the boy’s head lolled easily across his thigh. 

“Hey, Young Midoriya, please… please wake up,” the number one hero begged uselessly, over and over, until Hizashi’s own tears blurred his vision of the scene before him into nothing more than a kaleidoscope of color.

Behind him, Hizashi could hear Uraraka collapsing on her knees, inconsolable, while Iida and Kirishima whispered soft words of comfort in her ears while muffling their own cries. Todoroki stood to the left of Hizashi, frozen in horror at the sight of his friend. Hizashi realized belatedly that his student had hardly seen Midoriya before he’d forced his student to keep watch, and felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. He hoped that he hadn’t stolen Todoroki’s chance of seeing his friend alive, one last time.

Like a ghost, Aizawa appeared from the same corridor All Might had come from and quietly took in the scene. His eyes landed briefly on Hizashi, surprise clouding his pupils momentarily, before resting his gaze on the sorry display that was All Might clutching Midoriya’s unresponsive body. He walked calmly, like a priest during the processionals of Mass, and gently but firmly coaxed All Might aside with a single touch. Reluctantly, the Number One hero shifted the boy until he laid flat against the floor and moved to give Aizawa room to work. Aizawa pulled back his sleeves; his hands were filthy from blood and dirt, but he paid them little mind as he started chest compressions.

“Iida,” he grunted. “You’re the fastest.”

Iida rattled and shook from his grief, but he managed to pull himself together well enough to extract himself from the mass of Uraraka and Kirishima.

“Y-yes… sensei?” He asked haltingly.

“I need you to direct the medics this way,”  Aizawa ordered, voice hard as he stressed the importance of his instructions. “We left them behind in order to search ahead more quickly.”

Iida hesitated, looking down morosely at Midoriya’s motionless body. 

“Go, now!” 

“Yes s-sir,” Iida choked out, before spinning on his heel towards the corridor Aizawa directed, and was gone.

The screeching alarms, previously easy to ignore in the aftermath of finding Midoriya, became all encompassing after Iida’s departure. Hizashi, the students, and All Might could do nothing but wait for help to arrive and watch as Aizawa attempted to bring life back into the fragile frame of Midoriya. 

The effects of his own battle against Shigaraki and his Nomus had taken their toll, however, and Aizawa couldn’t muffle the shriek of pain that escaped his lips after bearing down with a little too much weight on his recently dislocated shoulder.

“Here, Eraserhead,” All Might said almost robotically, “Let me.”

Gently, carefully tiptoeing around the boy’s body like Midoriya was merely sleeping and he didn’t want to wake him up, All Might slipped into Aizawa’s position and seamlessly continued the chest compressions. He was gentle, so, so gentle , and Hizashi wondered absently how much the hero had to hold back so as to not break the boy’s body completely. He also noticed the man’s refusal to look into his student’s unmoving face, probably for fear of shattering his mind completely from grief. Hizashi could prove no better.

In a whirlwind of chaos, Iida returned, the calvary in tow. Seeing the unmoving boy under the hero’s arms, the medics moved quickly. All Might and Aizawa were promptly shuffled aside and, with the precision and efficiency of a well-oiled machine, Hizashi watched as a medic expertly cut away at the remains of Midoriya’s tattered shirt while another set up a defibrillator. The AED whined terribly as it powered on and the other medic checked for Midoriya’s vitals. 

“He’s not breathing, but I feel a pulse!” The medic confirmed with her partner. 

“Understood!”

Together, they pushed the machine’s nodes to the boy’s chest and side, and, after a few moments away from the body, one medic gave the all clear with a shout. The ensuing shock seized Midoriya, and soon after, the medic’s partner continued with CPR.

Thirty more compressions.

Two breaths.

An agonizing wait.

“Shock advised,” the machine chirped.

Shortly after, another jolt grappled Midoriya’s body.

This time, a shuddering gasp stumbled out of the boy’s lungs, and the team of medics erupted into pandemonium.

“We have signs of life!”

“Get the patient on the stretcher, quickly! ”

“Move, move, move! ”

“Present Mic,” a low grunt tickled one of Hizashi’s ears. He startled, before turning and looking into the dark eyes of Aizawa. His partner studied him carefully from a hair’s breadth away, and betrayed no emotion besides the bone-deep exhaustion carved into every wrinkle on his forehead and each line that traced his frown.

Hizashi merely blinked in response. Aizawa sighed, averting his eyes.

“Help me get the students out of here.”

“Y-yes, of course,” was all Hizashi managed to stammer out before Aizawa stooped down to address Uraraka’s still blubbering form, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. His voice was quiet and smooth as he talked her down from her hysteria, not a single bump or stutter to show his own emotions at the scene he had just witnessed.

Hizashi tried to follow suit as he placed a hand on Kirishima’s shoulder, who watched, shell-shocked as the medics sprinted down the hallway with Midoriya toward the awaiting ambulance.

Eventually, Hizashi and Aizawa managed to corral their parade of traumatized children, plus All Might, and herded them all towards the exit. As they approached, Hizashi gazed at the terrifyingly large hole that All Might had blown into the side of the building in an effort to provide the medical team with direct access to Midoriya. It had definitely worked; they arrived at the gaping egress just in time to glimpse the ambulance ripping across the empty lot towards the hospital, its doors still swinging haphazardly as its lights and sirens illuminated the early morning sky.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then, everything was not.

There was much to be done; Aizawa, All Might, and Hizashi still needed to report to Tsukauchi, Uraraka needed a paper bag, Todoroki needed a shock blanket, All Might and Aizawa needed ambulances of their own, and everyone, Hizashi decided silently, needed to see a counselor.

They started with Tsukauchi.

Upon arrival back at the rendezvous point, the cat police officer — Hizashi vaguely recalled Tsukauchi calling him Tamakawa— placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and steered him towards a quieter area in the sea of organized chaos, forcing him to sit down on a nearby tree stump. Hizashi protested, insisting that he needed to speak with Tsukauchi immediately, only for the cat’s stern glare to quickly shut him down.

“We’ve gathered what we need for now from the medical team’s radio chatter,” Tamakawa said gravely. “It can wait.”

With that, the officer turned and strode back towards Tsukauchi, who was practically red in the face trying to bully All Might into an awaiting ambulance. Hizashi allowed himself to watch events unfold, quietly glad that someone else was in charge of making decisions.

“You know, I actually don’t care what you think you deserve,” Tsukauchi practically screamed at All Might’s blank visage. It was almost funny to watch, in a heartbreaking sort of way. “You get in the back of this goddamn ambulance, right now, or I swear to god I’ll--”

Hizashi winced, and snapped his attention elsewhere. That one seemed personal.

He settled on watching a police officer, kind-faced and round-cheeked, speak gently with Uraraka, Iida, and Kirishima. None of the students had a dry eye to spare; Uraraka was sobbing so hard she couldn't get a word past her stuttered breaths. Kirishima demonstrated a breathing exercise for her while fat tears rolled off his own face, leaving his cheeks as ruddy as his hair. Iida was brokenly recounting his experience to the police officer, who nodded her head along to his account in genuine concern. Nearby, an EMT wrapped a shock blanket around Todoroki’s shoulders while the kid stared straight ahead, numb, his pupils focused on something a thousand miles away.

Everywhere he looked, all Hizashi saw was a mess. A horrible, terrible, mess , and one that he had subjected his students to willingly.

He ripped off his glasses, suddenly overwhelmed by it all. He rubbed at his face violently before burying it in his hands, and resisted the urge to scream.

There was a rustling sound to his right — quiet and familiar — but he pretended not to hear.

“Hizashi,” a low rumble announced itself.

He sighed, feeling the noose tighten around his neck. 

“Yes, Aizawa?”

His partner settled silently beside him, graceful as a cat. Hizashi lifted his eyes just enough to watch as the man braced his back against the tree stump, as casual as could be, but Hizashi didn’t miss the wince of pain that crossed Aizawa’s face. It was a microexpression, visible for probably a fraction of a second, but he had been around the man too long; he knew all of his tells.

“Shouldn’t you be getting checked over by a medic?” He asked, despite knowing the answer.

Aizawa hummed noncommittally in reply. Instead of a verbal response, he produced two cigarettes from the cavernous folds of his capture weapon.

Hizashi raised an eyebrow. This wasn’t in their typical script. They had both quit smoking years ago, when they realized that the cigarettes didn’t actually do anything to fix the pain; they just kicked the proverbial can down the road and made patrolling as a hero a pain in the ass in the meantime. Like oil and water, cardio-intensive lifestyles and cigarette habits didn’t mix well.

Eventually, they both just got therapists instead, once they started making enough as heroes to cover the cost. It worked out to about the same, monetarily, as a cigarette habit, with arguably better results.

“You got a light?” asked Aizawa, tone even and unknowable.

Hizashi sighed. He produced a lighter — because he never knew when he’d need one — and lit the two cigarettes, passing one back to Aizawa before sucking a greedy lungful of nicotine for himself. They stayed like that for a while, side-by-side, watching the police run around like chickens with their heads cut off and witnessing their students grapple with the reality of their first rescue mission.

Eventually, Hizashi’s noose tightened.

“Hizashi,” Aizawa began again.

“Yes, Aizawa?” he replied.

“Why… are four of my students here?”

Hizashi sighed. He took another drag of his cigarette, holding it in as long as he possibly could before releasing, watching the ashy wisps dissipate into the starless sky. Dawn was probably about a half hour away, by his guess.

Aizawa mirrored his action with his own, and together the two of them watched the smoke twist and tangle before parting ways. A familiar song and dance, a tale as old as fire itself.

“Because I messed up,” he said finally. 

Aizawa nodded absently, and sucked in a lungful of nicotine as Hizashi’s platform gave away. 

“Yeah,” he exhaled, smoke curling around his five o’clock shadow like dragon’s breath. Judgment was absent from his voice; it was a statement of fact, and they both knew it.

“Do you think I fucked them up?” Hizashi scratched his neck absentmindedly, his nape suddenly sore. ”Like, permanently?”

Aizawa’s eyes flitted over to Uraraka, who had finally managed to get her breathing under control.

“Probably,” said Aizawa.

Another drag. Another exhale. A silent show of dancing mist that dissipated with the breeze.

“I think they’re going to be okay, though.”

Hizashi startled, glancing furtively over to his partner. Aizawa narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t think this is forgiveness,” he growled, shaking the crumbling ash off the butt of his cigarette. “I’m still mad at you.”

Hizashi put his hands up in mock surrender. 

“That’s deserved,” he agreed, cautiously. “You’re not usually so nice about it, though.”

His partner sighed, long-suffering and weary, before turning to face Hizashi, and really looked at him. Hizashi tried not to disintegrate under the intensity of Aizawa’s glare.

“I’m just glad,” Aizawa responded simply, before quickly averting his gaze. “I’m just… I’m really glad.”

“About what?”

Aizawa was silent. He didn’t even reach for his cigarette, and instead let it burn itself out before stamping out the butt with the heel of his boot. Moments passed wordlessly, and Hizashi assumed that was all he was going to get. 

“... I’m glad they’re safe,” was his eventual reply. “You… you kept them safe. We… we didn’t lose any more students today.”

Hizashi felt his heart wrench. He reached down and grasped onto his partner’s hand, squeezing it tightly. Aizawa returned his gesture in equal fervor.

“Do you think Midoriya’s going to be okay?”

Aizawa’s dark pupils dimmed, but he jutted his chin out stubbornly.

“He’ll be fine,” he murmured gruffly. “The kid’s too stubborn to die.”

“You… you didn’t get to talk to him, Aizawa,” Hizashi stammered. “He… he was in really bad shape. Mentally speaking.”

Hizashi didn’t mention the “physically speaking”. Aizawa was fully aware of Midoriya’s physical condition.

“I have faith in him,” Aizawa shrugged, unimpressed.

Hizashi couldn’t find it in himself to argue with that. Instead, he removed his hand from Aizawa’s and clasped his knees. With a grunt and a heave, he managed to pull himself into a standing position, and offered a hand down to his partner.

“Then let’s get these kids home,” he proposed with a tentative smile, a smile that Aizawa returned, subdued but resilient nonetheless. He grasped Hizashi’s hand, and Hizashi hauled his partner to his feet.

The glow of daybreak was beginning to crest the horizon now, and Hizashi had to shield his eyes to look into Aizawa’s face, now wreathed in the weak, golden halo of the sun. 

“Yeah,” the shadow of Aizawa’s face agreed, and Hizashi could hear the smile in his voice.

“Let’s get these kids home.”

Notes:

up next: the aftermath, and our story's conclusion/epilogue

please let me know what you think, & if you enjoyed.
also, i apologize for the probably inaccurate portrayal of CPR and other medical stuff.

have a great day!

Chapter 16: epilogue, part 1

Notes:

hello, welcome to the beginning of the end.
This chapter ended up being so long, I had to split it into two.
Don't worry, I will post the second part shortly after this one.

Please enjoy <3
You may have a sprinkle of hurt/comfort as your reward

In his dreams, Izuku ran. 

He felt braver there, stronger too. His clear mind, clever and unmarred by pain and injury, made him more capable of discerning the chinks in Shigaraki’s armor, less amused by the villain’s harsh tongue or harsh beatings. It was simple really, to slip beyond the villain’s grasp. 

In his dreams, Izuku managed to escape. His cage was an easy obstacle to shift through, slipping through the villain’s fingers like an eel, his shackles disintegrating and dirtied clothes melting into nothing, as he stotted away laughing. His clothes were replaced with the clean versions he had left his house with on that fateful day, free of blood and tears and weeks of pain. His body was light, lighter than air and he couldn’t help but smile as Shigaraki grasped at the empty air as he ran, quickly gaining speed and staying just out of reach of his captor’s bony grasp. His feet ate up the ground, no matter how much his captor spat at him, cursed him, or attempted to turn him into dust. If anything, it only increased his speed.

Soon, Izuku felt himself become weightless, and before he knew it Shigaraki was shrinking, becoming nothing more than a blip on the horizon.

In his dreams, Izuku sprouted wings.

The crisp air felt good on his sullied skin, tickling his face and nipping at his nose playfully. He giggled as he watched the earth fall beneath him and the heavens embrace him like a warm hug. He touched the clouds, and their moisture washed away the grime from his fingers like the cage had never happened, like the beatings and the experiments and the torture were nothing more than a bad dream. His eyes filled with wonder as he realized his stub of a finger had become whole and his right arm returned to his side. He rotated his wrist in awe, enthralled by the simple pleasure of extending and retracting his fingers through the cotton candy wisps surrounding him.

The clouds soon gave way and Izuku found himself on the edge of the world, a galaxy full of stars stretching as far as the eye could see. A kaleidoscope of color exploded across the cosmos, shifting from dazzling blue into deep purple before becoming lost in a swarm of bright pinks, reds, and yellows. Soon they began to merge into colors that Izuku had never seen before, an impossible collage of beauty displayed in the world’s grandest museum, with Izuku as its sole patron.

It was a dramatic performance, with great swells of color bursting just beyond the veil of the stars and the deaths of planets. Their demise supplied the exhibition’s soundtrack, their requiems so loud that Izuku felt his eardrums vibrate with the depths of their violence. 

But Izuku wasn’t afraid.

In his dreams, the universe was allowed to mourn, to rage. Her anger mirrored his own, and Izuku felt for the first time in a long time, like he could truly let go.

He felt himself scream more than he could hear it, his agony swallowed whole by the deafening oblivion of worlds. He was so small in comparison, but never had he felt so safe. 

The planets mourned with him in their death throes, their dirge harmonizing with his lament.

It was not to last.

As his celestial companions faded, so did his wings. The wind shifted, and Izuku felt himself begin to fall.

It started slowly at first, gentle and cautious, before quickly gaining speed. The beautiful chorus of colors that glistened before soon melded into a single, muddied blur. Planets became incomprehensible specks in the gunk, and galaxy dust was merely figments of his imagination. There was nothing beautiful left to see. When he hit terminal velocity, Izuku closed his eyes.

He ignored the wind, howling and screeching in his ears louder than even the deaths of the giants, even when the screeching began to coalesce into familiar voices.

Kid!

You’re not supposed to give up yet, kid!

Wake up, Midoriya!

“Izuku, dear,” said his mother.

“Wake up for me, please?”

With that, Izuku’s eyes flew open. 

He found himself lying in a field, a bright sprawling thing filled with grasses nearly as tall as he was, and impossibly lush. A bright blue sky stared him in the face, dotted with a few fluffy clouds wandering across their pasture. The glare from the sun hurt his eyes, and he raised a hand to guard his face. He noticed, peculiarly enough, one of his fingers was missing.

The wind shifted again, and Izuku felt the temperature in the air drop dramatically. The fluffy clouds melted into a threatening steel as a shadow crossed over his face.

It was a person, their face hidden in shadow against the glare of the sun.

With thunder echoing in the distance, the juxtaposition made Izuku’s skin crawl with dread. He attempted to retreat, to remove himself from the situation, yet he found his muscles uncooperative, unmoving, and still. He couldn’t get up even if he wanted to.

The shadow reached for him and Izuku braced himself. The tips of their fingers gently brushed over his face, ghosting across the small hairs on his cheeks as if they were afraid of hurting him, but Izuku couldn’t help but flinch. The person snatched their hand back, as quickly as if they’d been bitten. They retreated backward, just enough for Izuku to finally get a glimpse of their face. 

His stomach dropped. The cold air felt like ice on his skin.

“Mom?”

Inko Midoriya stared at him with eyes as wide as saucers, her irises looking as lost and forlorn as Izuku felt. Her eyes were glassy and too bright, and Izuku noticed the tear stains running down her gaunt cheeks, her face much thinner than he remembered.

He struggled to get his muscles to cooperate, his body straining against a million invisible chains.

Why was his mother crying?

“Mom, what’s going on?” He croaked, voice rough and hoarse.

She didn’t deign him with an answer, continuing to watch him silently like he was a wounded animal.

A memory popped into his head from when he was in elementary school. 

He was eight years old, and his mother had taken him to the Ueno Zoo to visit the exhibit of the giant panda, Ling Ling. Ling Ling had been one of Izuku’s major obsessions besides heroes at the time, and Izuku had been shocked to see Ling Ling’s exhibit empty when they arrived. The only sign that a panda had ever lived there was a large, framed sepia-toned portrait of the animal, along with small offerings of bamboo shoots and bouquets.

I’m sorry, Miss, one of the zookeepers had responded to his mother’s inquiry about the exhibit. Ling Ling passed away very suddenly in the early hours of the morning. There’s barely been enough time to get a statement out to the press.

What does ‘pass away’ mean, mama? Izuku had questioned.

He remembered her sorrowful face as she stooped down to meet his eyes.

She had wrapped him in a sudden warm hug, and Izuku remembered the smell of her shampoo enveloping him like a blanket. 

It means we won’t be able to visit Ling Ling anymore, my dear, she answered. He’s off in a better place now.

But why? Izuku whined, uncomprehending and upset. Did he do something wrong? Was Ling Ling bad?  

No baby, said Inko, pulling him away from her shoulder to shoot him a mournful smile. It was just his time.

His time? He asked, alarmed. Do I have to leave too? When’s my time?

His mother had laughed sadly, before tucking one of his unruly curls behind his ears fondly.

No, no, my love. Everyone has their time, but yours is not for a long time yet.

Izuku relaxed, but just by a hair. He could still see the alarming sadness behind his mother’s eyes. 

I won’t leave you, mama, he had declared confidently, desperate to comfort her. I promise.

She had smiled, before grabbing his soft hand and leading him toward the penguin exhibit. 

That’s very kind of you, my little hero.

Just as Izuku managed to haul himself into a sitting position, the once lush grass suddenly brittle beneath his fingers, another shadowy figure overtook his mother.

“Please Mrs. Midoriya, we need you to return to the waiting room,” the disembodied shadow coaxed with practiced patience.

His mom protested. 

“But--”

“I promise, as soon as his condition changes, you will be the first to know,” the shadow cut her off. 

A sagging door frame appeared behind her in the field of rotting grass, the heavy metal door wide open and leading nowhere.

His mother looked conflicted, glancing back and forth between the door and her son. Izuku tried desperately to meet her eyes, but recognition didn’t dawn on her face. 

It was like she was looking through him, not at him. 

“Mom,” Izuku said, alarmed. “I’m not going to leave you, I promise.”

He blinked, and the door had closed behind her. Suddenly his mother was gone.

So was the shadow.

So was the field.

All that remained was him.

He was standing now, and when he looked down at his chest, he was in his tattered, blood-soaked t-shirt once again, his right arm missing from the elbow down. Barefoot and in ripped jeans, he began to run. 

In his dreams, Izuku ran.

“Mom!” He yelled, tripping over himself as he scanned the empty horizon. 

He wasn’t even sure what there was to trip on; the grounds of his surroundings weren’t grass, dirt, linoleum, or any kind of manmade floor. He was at the bottom of the ocean and in the depths of space’s vacuum at the same time. Thunder impossibly rumbled, a little louder this time, rapidly approaching despite the lack of clouds or sky.

“MOM!” He screamed over the cacophony, streaks of lightning cracking overhead, lighting up the empty wasteland.

“Where are you!?”

He was alone. Completely, utterly alone.

Izuku tripped over himself once again, and this time, he couldn’t catch himself. The ground seemed to disappear into nothingness, and electricity coursed through the air past him and made the hairs on his arm stand on edge, mocking him. 

Something caught him before Izuku could tumble into the abyss forever, their hand holding on tightly to Izuku’s own. When Izuku turned, he was faced with eyes as green as his own, framed by a head of shaggy, overgrown white hair. A jolt of familiarity overcame him, despite the fact that Izuku knew he had never met this man before in his whole life. 

For a moment they remained there, two souls intertwined on the edge of obscurity.

“Who are you?” Izuku finally asked, feeling slightly embarrassed. He should know who this person was…

The man smiled amusedly as if he knew of Izuku’s internal struggle of face-blindness, but it was a kind smile. With a pull, Izuku was righted onto his own two feet as the ground seemed to reform beneath him. 

“My name is not important right now,” the man replied. “But you will know it when it is time.” 

That voice…

“It’s you,” Izuku breathed. “You’re one of the voices in my head.”

You are the Ninth, he remembered , calm against the cacophonous din in his mind.

You cannot let the darkness win.

The man didn’t respond, instead turning to walk in the opposite direction of where Izuku had been sprinting blindly.

“For now, you may call me the First,” he tossed over his shoulder and beckoned with his chin for Izuku to follow.

Puzzled, Izuku plodded along behind, noting absently that the storm seemed to settle with the arrival of the First, calming its thunder and replacing it with a strange mist that obscured the ground. The lightning too, dissipated into the air, leaving a vague sense of static electricity hovering around Izuku’s head.

The boy followed the mysterious man in silence, neither offering much in the way of conversation. The unreality of his situation finally began to dawn on Izuku, and after what seemed a lifetime of quiet, the boy cleared his throat.

“Um, where exactly am I?” Izuku asked hesitantly.

The First tossed an amused look toward Izuku and slowed his pace so that the two of them could walk side by side.

“It’s a bit complicated,” the man admitted. “We’re in your spirit, but also in your conscience, but more specifically, we’re inside One for All.”

Izuku shot him a quizzical look. 

“Inside--- inside One for All?”

“Yes,” the man said. 

“Think of One for All as kind of an— auxiliary battery. When your normal energy reserves run dry, your external drive kicks in. Keeps you running even when the big dogs are out of the race, y’know?”

Izuku furrowed his brow.

“Does that mean my normal body is, like, dead or something?”

The man cocked his head, eyes squinting. “Not quite; One for All still needs the main host to still be kicking to function. It’s like, when the main reserves get close to zero, One for All can jump in to help keep the body going until the main host can help sustain itself again.”

Izuku scratched the back of his head. 

“I think I get it. But what about when-”

“Ah, sorry kiddo,” the First chuckled good-naturedly. “I know you’re a curious sort, but this would take all day to explain, and we don’t have that kind of time.”

“Don’t have time?--”

“Yes,” replied the First. “I suspect that your doctors will start to worry you’ll become a vegetable if we don’t get you out of here soon enough.”

Now, Izuku was wholly confused, and he guessed it must have shown because the First began to chuckle once more.

“Tell me, what’s the last thing you remember, Midoriya?”

Izuku didn’t hesitate. 

“I was dying,” said Izuku. 

The man cocked his head to the side, like a dog trying to discern human commands.

He begrudgingly corrected himself.

“---I died.”

After a brief pause, the First nodded.

“Do you remember why?”

“To save my mom.”

The First cocked his eyebrow up until it disappeared behind his shaggy hair, and Izuku blew air through his nose in frustration.

“Okay, fine ,” he snapped. “Because I was weak. Because I was tired of fighting. Because I wanted it all to stop. Are you happy now?”

The man kept his expression even, his body language neutral.

“None of those are quite right either,” he responded, “But if you’re not ready to have that conversation yet, that’s alright.” 

Izuku narrowed his eyes in frustration and averted his face from the First’s piercing gaze. He wasn’t quite sure what the man wanted from him, and at this point, he was too agitated to care.

They kept walking in silence, the mist on the ground growing thicker and thicker. Izuku watched absentmindedly as the spirals danced around his feet as he moved through the low-hanging fog.

“Do you know why Toshi-- why All Might chose you to become the next wielder of One for All?” the First asked suddenly, and the abrupt change in conversation almost made Izuku trip over his feet again.

“Isn’t it because he saw me save Kacchan from that sludge villain?” he inquired, suddenly unsure, given the First’s pickiness with his answers. As he expected, the man tilted his head to the side once again.

“Technically,” the First acquiesced. “But that’s not the whole story.”

It was Izuku’s turn then, to cock his eyebrow.

“All Might chose you because he saw himself,” the First continued. “He saw a young kid who had experienced how cruel the world could be to those it deemed weaker, and still chose to be kind. He saw someone who would jump into danger to save another life without thinking, simply because they were another human being. It didn’t matter if that life was a hero or a villain.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku noticed something rising out of the shapeless wasteland, but his attention remained fixated on the expression on the First's face. 

“It’s one of All Might’s greatest character traits,” the man sighed, finally glancing down to meet Izuku’s matching green irises. “But it’s also his worst.”

The boy tried to bite down the immediate retort that bubbled up onto his tongue, and the First laughed.

“I knew you wouldn’t like that,” he chuckled before his expression sobered.

“But it’s true. All Might values himself so little , in the grand scheme of things, that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. As long as he saves a few people before he finally kicks it, to him, it would have been worth it.”

“That’s what a hero is for, though, isn’t it?” Izuku blurted out, indignant. “A hero is supposed to be willing to give up their life for others, right?”

The First didn’t chuckle at that, his face deadly serious.

“Death will always be a risk in the line of hero duty,” the man replied somberly, “but death should not be the goal.”

“I never said it was, ” Izuku snapped.

“What you and All Might share is a willingness to use your own death as a means to improving the lives of others, or what you believe is ‘improvement.’ That is not the same as being a hero.”

Izuku opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out. He couldn’t deny the truth in the First’s words, as much as he was loathe to admit. He scoffed.

“Since you’re so smart, then what do you think a hero is supposed to be?” He retorted.

“Heroes can be many things,” the First replied. “I know your definition includes being able to save others. You have a little bit of ‘I want to save the world’ in you; you are a carrier of One for All, after all.”

The ‘something’ rising out of the wasteland Izuku had once seen out of the corner of his eye was slowly forming into what looked like a door frame that looked eerily similar to the one that spirited away his mother. Wisps of shadow danced around the edges as they approached, but its aura didn’t appear malicious. If anything, the door seemed to beckon him, pulling him closer and closer like a lighthouse to a sailor, coaxing him homeward.

“I just want you to know,” the First finished as they approached the door, “that it’s okay to want to save everyone, as long as you factor yourself into that category.”

Izuku stopped just short of the door, looking strangely at the older man, while simultaneously ignoring the pull from the door on what felt like the essence of his very soul.

“I don’t think I understand,” Izuku admitted. “Don’t I have a duty to defeat All for One? Isn’t my destiny to fight? What if I have to sacrifice myself to achieve that?”

The shadowed door swung open, and its magnetic pull brought Izuku to his knees.

“I know you’re confused,” the First called over the roar of the wind trying its best to suck the boy into the abyss, “But I hope, with time, that it will make sense to you.”

The screeching of the wind was the only response the white-haired man received, with Izuku doing everything in his power not to be swept away. 

“We’re out of time, Ninth,” said the First, his voice barely reaching Izuku’s ears. “Tell ToshinoriI say ‘hello’ when you get back, alright?”

Before Izuku could even try to reply, the door slammed shut in the First’s face, and he was alone once more.

-------------------------------------------

When Izuku opened his eyes again, he found himself staring up at a starless grey. He blinked a few times, and his view shifted to a nondescript white ceiling with dim fluorescent lighting.

His vision was hazy and pulsing, and his head threatened to explode from the hammering behind his eyes. He groaned, fighting the wave of nausea that roiled against his esophagus. The smell of antiseptic didn’t help; the odor was overwhelming, and suddenly Izuku felt like he was right back in Ujiko’s lab--

With a niggling feeling at the back of his brain, Izuku opened his eyes again and realized that what he saw looked familiar. 

Eerily familiar.

No. No no no--

“No no no .” 

He could hear his voice crack, though it sounded distant and muffled even to his ears.

This can’t be happening, this isn’t happening--

Izuku felt himself panic, trying in vain to slow his rapidly increasing heart rate.

In his nightmares, Izuku never left Shigaraki’s facility.

His vision narrowed, and his eyes scrambled to take every inch of his surroundings. It was difficult with his pounding headache and double vision, but he could vaguely make out the clinical white cabinets hung across the wall, the same as Ujiko’s experimentation room, albeit less rundown and sagging. That could mean Shigaraki moved him into another wing of the facility, one that was slightly more renovated than the area he had been kept in.

His gaze flew down towards himself, his arm searching for the latest gaping wound. Instead, he found his body clothed in a fresh mint green hospital gown and an IV drip snaking out from his remaining inside elbow. The multitudes of gashes and half-healed scars scattered across his front were covered in bandages, and his amputated arm was tightly wrapped with gauze, barely visible outside of his sleeve. His lower half was covered by a thin blanket, and it slowly dawned on Izuku that he was in a hospital bed, not a surgical table.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t strapped down to anything, his appendages free to move. He stared at his untied wrist dumbfounded.

Maybe Ujiko underestimated when I would wake up again, he thought to himself. Or maybe, if I would wake up again.

Now that he thought about it— this was the best medical care he had received while in captivity— gods if he’d known this was how he could get a clean set of clothes and bandages, maybe he would’ve tried escaping much earlier.

Then again, the reality of his last interaction with Shigaraki and how narrowly he’d avoided death led his thoughts down a dark path, and he quickly shook his head to clear it. His brain protested at the rough jerking motion.

Something at the corner of his eye stirred at his movement, and Izuku froze in his tracks.

I must be drugged, he realized with growing alarm. How else did I miss the fact that something else was in the room?

Despite the fluorescent lights, the light they provided was dim and did little to provide Izuku’s drug-addled brain with recognizable shapes. His eyes traced the room, looking for the source of the sound. Then he saw it.

A dark shape sat hunched opposite his bed, half-draped over the side of a chair, half-supported by the wall. With alarm, he realized that the shape was a person, and a lot closer to him than he realized.

A bodyguard, perhaps?

The person gave a small sigh, and Izuku held his breath in his throat, quiet as a mouse. The shape still swam in his vision, and he blinked rapidly to try and focus his eyes.

I need to leave, he commanded himself, the panic returning. He knew he needed to escape, as his mind went into overdrive and the room appeared to be closing in on him. He felt his breathing become short and ragged, and a cold, nervous sweat broke out on his forehead.

Slowly, he scooted his legs away from the person until his knees were under his chin, and he looked for a way to remove the IV from his arm.

He didn’t have another arm to help remove the tape keeping the needle secured to his skin, so he resorted to using his teeth. It took a bit of finagling, and Izuku cursed at himself when it took over four tries to finally get the needle dislodged from his forearm. 

That’s when all hell broke loose.

If Izuku had been in the right state of mind, he would have realized that by removing the needle from his arm, the attached heart monitor would have no data to report and flatline, triggering one of the loudest, most grating alarms known to mankind. 

It terrified him, but not enough for him to abort his mission. With a quick swing of his legs, he was at the edge of the bed and prepared to make a last-ditch run for it.

If he’d been able to think further, he would have realized that he was in no position to hold his own body weight. He collapsed onto the cold linoleum tile like a sack of potatoes, legs tangled and lungs vying for breath. He could sense the person near the foot of his bed jolt awake, and before he could register how to get himself off of the floor, felt cold hands clamping down on his shoulders tightly. 

He couldn’t help but scream.

“Don’t touch me!” He shrieked. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

The hands retreated like they had been burned, and Izuku scrambled blindly away from his captor. His back rammed against the heart monitor stand, but he paid no mind, refusing to relax until his back was against the wall despite the pain racing up his spine.

The blood in his ears was roaring, and combined with the shrill wailing of the heart monitor, he couldn’t hear anything over the sounds of his own panic. Through unfocused shapes in his vision, he could see the person take a step closer to him, and he growled.

“Stay back,” he snarled, wincing at the fear dripping from his tone. He sounded pathetic, more feral animal than human. He even bared his teeth like one, but he couldn’t help it.

He narrowed his eyes at his captor, blinking rapidly yet again to try and get his eyes to focus. The double vision was unbearable, but eventually, his vision settled enough for him to see the outline of the person.

“Izuku,” he heard a warbled, female voice speak calmly to him from the fuzzy human outline. 

“Izuku, just breathe, baby. Deep breaths, okay?”

His blood froze. He recognized that voice. He blinked furiously and rubbed his wrist against his eyes. When his perception finally settled, he started to see faint details that he couldn’t before.

A green bob haircut. A familiar pink cardigan.

The same sad green eyes that he knew matched his own. 

“That’s better, love,” Inko smiled tightly, the wrinkles around her eyes strained. “See, it’s just me! It’s your mother.”

It was her . In the flesh. 

Real. Not a Ujiko-made fabrication. Real.

Izuku felt his hand begin to shake and the blood drain from his face. 

“How… how did you get here?” He asked, terrified and relieved all at once.

His mom… was alive. He wanted to cry and scream and yell at her all at the same time.

Her face pinched with concern. 

“W-what do you mean, baby?”

Izuku’s heart started to race again. 

“Izuku, sweetie? No, no, there’s no need to hyperventilate--”

Shigaraki had made good on his threat. Izuku hadn’t given the villain what he wanted, and he knew the consequences of what that meant for his mother.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“You actually think killing yourself is going to save her?”

Shigaraki had brought her here for one final goodbye before he ripped her to shreds right in front of him, just as he’d promised.

This was a trap.

“Y-you n-need to get out of… out of here,” Izuku managed to choke out past his panic. He was quickly becoming lightheaded. 

“H-He’s going to come back any minute n-now. I know h-he is.”

Inko Midoriya furrowed her brows, watching her son as he attempted to use the wall as leverage to stand with shaky legs. Then, she realized.

“Oh Izuku, honey,” she cooed softly, her tone pitiful and heartbroken.

“Shigaraki isn’t here. You're in the hospital, sweetie. You’re safe now.”

Izuku shook his head so hard he nearly vomited.

“N-n-o you don’t understand Mom,” he pleaded. “I-I don’t know what you’ve been told but… but it’s not safe here. Nowhere is safe from him .”

At that moment, Izuku’s knees decided to buckle underneath him, and he unceremoniously slid down the wall into a heap on the floor. Inko reached towards him to help, and Izuku, despite himself, flinched hard. The guilt nearly ate him alive when he saw the hurt in her eyes as she retreated backward.

“I promise baby, you’re not with that… that monster anymore,” she spat, hurt morphing into anger. Izuku watched as she clenched her fists at her side, shoulders tense in a way he had never seen before from his mother. 

“The doctors will be here any minute now, and they can explain everything to you. I promise, everything is going to be alr--”

Just before she could finish her sentence, the door to Izuku’s room busted open violently.

“No!” He screeched, panicking and irrational, reaching for the subtle hum of One for All just underneath his skin.

Only, nothing happened. His left arm was outstretched in a closed fist, but no waves of power emanated from his punch. His mind whirred.

Huh?

Izuku remained frozen, staring at his fist in steadily growing horror as a small gaggle of medical personnel poured into the room. He scrambled further against the wall and willed himself to shrink as small as possible, though he knew it was impossible to hide.

What happened? Did-- did Shigaraki manage to take One for All from… from me? 

The number of people in the room grew from two to five, the newcomers containing two nurses and a physician, and suddenly Izuku felt three sets of eyes rest upon him. His hackles rose as they approached. 

“Get back!” He shrieked, and he tried once again to summon One for All with a swift kick in the physician’s direction. His only response was a whoosh of empty air, and it only upset him further. His hand gripped his hair tightly as he curled into himself, protecting his weak side and vital organs from attack.

Sensing that Izuku was on the verge of a meltdown, the nurses halted, and the physician stooped down until she was at eye level with the boy. 

The woman seemed innocuous on the outside, thin and gray-haired with a face full of wrinkles and laugh lines. She stretched a wrinkled hand in Izuku’s direction, placating and non-threatening.

“Midoriya,” the doctor began calmly, “my name is Dr. Togasaki.”

Izuku shuffled his feet, gripping his hair so tightly his knuckles turned white. He hoped she wouldn’t hit him too badly before Shigaraki arrived.

“You’re in Musutafu General Hospital. You are safe here.”

Izuku eyed her warily behind his curtain of shaggy hair.

“If that’s true,” Izuku spat, eyes flitting between hers and his mother’s face in bewilderment, “why did you take my quirk?”

A look of confusion passed over Togasaki’s face, then understanding.

“Ah, you’re talking about your quirk inhibitor.”

She glanced at his wrist, and Izuku did as well. For the first time, he noticed a thin gray band encircling his arm, half hidden by a plethora of other medical bracelets. 

“It was just a precaution,” she continued. “We had no idea what kind of mental state you’d be in when you awoke, and we wanted to limit any potential damage to yourself and others.”

“Take it off,” Izuku demanded, frustrated once again with the fact that he had only one arm and couldn’t pry it off himself.

“Take it off! I don’t need it.”

The doctor hesitated. 

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, young man.”

To her credit, she did seem genuinely apologetic, but it made Izuku bristle.

“Then let me go! Let me and my mom leave! If you’re not a villain, you can’t keep me here.”

“Midoriya,” the doctor kept her voice low and even, “I promise, you are not being held captive here, but you cannot leave yet. You’ve gone through something very traumatic, and your body has suffered a lot. It needs time to recover.”

Before he could growl out a response, the door flew open with a large, blonde blur.

“All Might, sir, now isn’t really the best time--” One of the nurses tried to assuage the new intruder.

“What happened?” A panicked, familiar voice yelped. “I saw the code blue for young Midoriya and rushed here as fast as I could—“

All Might met Izuku’s gaze, and the whole world seemed to stop.  

“Young… Midoriya?”

Ice blue eyes locked onto baffled green, and Izuku’s surroundings seemed to melt away as he took in the sight of his mentor.

It was weird to see All Might’s heroic face tear-stained and ruddy, and even weirder to see the flash of sorrow that overtook his mentor’s visage as he studied the way Izuku had shrunk himself into the corner beside the hospital bed.

“ All Might ?” Izuku asked incredulously, even more confused than before. He loosened his grip on his hair, his arm becoming slack.

What on earth was All Might doing in Shigaraki’s lair, and working with his doctors nonetheless? 

For a horrible moment, Izuku thought that maybe this whole thing was another one of Ujiko’s fabrications, another horrible conjuration meant to inflict as much pain on Izuku as possible. But… no ; usually when All Might showed up during those sessions, the plot always turned bloody, with either Shigaraki or Izuku himself causing the hero’s violent demise. So far, nothing had exploded into viscera, and no one was dying.

Suddenly, nothing made sense.

“What are you doing here? Where’s Shigaraki?” Izuku pressed, his mind straining to comprehend.

All Might shook his head.

“I don’t know. I’m so sorry, my boy,” All Might exclaimed, eyes wide and still unbelieving what he was witnessing. 

“Shigaraki escaped shortly before we could rescue you. The police and I have been looking though — nonstop —  since you’ve been rescued.” 

“Shigaraki… escaped ?” 

To Izuku, those words didn’t make much sense stacked together.

“I was… r-rescued… you said I was rescued ?”

Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in his shattered mind.

“Shigaraki’s… not here,” Izuku realized.

All Might nodded, slowly stepping closer to the boy. 

“The doctor… she’s not lying? We’re really in Musutafu?”

“No, she’s not lying.”

“This is real, then.”

“Yes, my boy,” All Might promised. “This is real.”

Another step closer, and the truth finally dawned on him.

“This is real,” Izuku pressed again, his hand and voice shaking like leaves in a thunderstorm. He clasped his palm to his mouth before a sob could escape.

“Yes,” All Might sounded as choked up as Izuku felt. Somewhere behind the hero, he could hear his mother start to weep.

He didn’t know when he had started crying, but fat, wet tears streamed down his face, and suddenly he could barely breathe beyond his stuttering whimpers.

“Please… please don’t lie to me, All Might---” He sobbed. “Please--”

Suddenly, All Might was right in front of him, and Izuku practically fell into his arms. As afraid as he was of this all being some elaborate prank, of all this unraveling, he needed reassurance from his hero more desperately.

His mentor enveloped him, wrapping him in a warm hug that Izuku couldn’t help but melt into as he let his sorrow overtake him.

“I could never lie to you, young Midoriya,” All Might choked past his own tears, stroking Izuku’s back gently as the boy grieved. 

“Never. You’re safe here. I promise, on my life , that you are safe.”

Izuku curled deeper into the crook of All Might’s neck, trying to block out the world as his tiny frame was wracked with sobs.

“I thought… I thought I was going to die there—“

“I know,” All Might hugged him tighter. “And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry we didn’t get there sooner. You didn’t deserve that, son. You didn’t deserve any of it, you understand me? Not a moment of it.”

They stayed like that for a while, All Might curled around the small, broken boy on the floor. He felt his mother join them shortly after, the smell of her shampoo careening him into another inescapable bout of wailing. It was cathartic, their tears joining together for who knows how long until the trio managed to exhaust themselves.

Eventually, once they had all calmed down enough, Dr. Togasaki managed to convince Izuku to make his way onto the bed again and reconnect to his IV.

“You’re in no shape to be off of your medications just yet, young man.” The doctor softly reprimanded.

Izuku had no energy to protest, his crying sapping all the energy he had left. With the help of All Might and his mother, he managed to scramble back into a somewhat comfortable position on the hospital bed.

He barely noticed when one of the nurses reinserted the IV into his inner elbow, his eyelids already becoming heavy, but his heart started to race again when he saw All Might turn towards the door. 

“Don’t… leave,” he murmured, fingers twitching towards his mentor. The man hesitated, glancing furtively between the boy and his mother.

“It’s alright, All Might,” his mother reassured, nestled in a chair on the boy’s right side. “It’s obvious you make Izuku feel safe.” 

All Might relented.

“Okay, just for a little while then,” he said as he tucked himself onto a comically small stool to Izuku’s left. The giant man towered over him, even sitting down, and Izuku would have laughed if his body hadn’t suddenly taken on the form of sinking concrete.

He felt his mother situate the blankets snugly around his body. 

“We’ll be here when you wake up, baby,” she whispered. “Get some rest.”

Izuku was only too willing to oblige, and he quickly fell into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter 17: epilogue, part 2

Notes:

as promised, here is part 2 <3

content warning: unintentional self-harm

The next time he woke up, the room seemed brighter. 

His headache had subsided, as well as his double vision, and he noticed for the first time the small window to his right that gave him a view of Musutafu’s skyline. 

For a moment, Izuku was captivated. It was night, and the lights of the city's skyscrapers glittered like jewels, with car headlights leaking out of the city's highways like a slow, oozing river. A tiny part of himself, the part that had resigned to being Shigaraki’s plaything forever, believed he’d never get to see the city again, and his eyes involuntarily welled up with tears at the sight. 

He flicked his gaze down toward his mother, the lights from the city illuminating her silhouette like a halo. She had curled up in the space where his right arm would have been, half sitting in her chair and half slumped onto his bed, and in her sleep, she looked almost peaceful, if he ignored the dark circles under her eyes and the streaks of gray in her unkempt hair that betrayed her stress. He wondered briefly when was the last time she had slept in her own bed.

As a matter of fact, Izuku had no idea how long it’d been since he’d been rescued. Had it been days? Weeks? He vaguely remembered the First saying something about his doctors being worried about the length of time he’d been unconscious before sending him to the waking world. He thought about asking his mother after she awoke when he heard a soft growl to his left. 

He snapped his head sharply, but it was only All Might snoring, shoulders slumped and head leaning back onto the heart monitor stand for support. He was in his skeletal form, drool dribbling past his bony chin and pooling into a puddle on the floor. His clothes were too big on him, his tie askew, and Izuku wondered suddenly if his mother knew of All Might’s secret. 

He glanced furtively at his right side, but his mom was fast asleep, her breathing even. Still, he didn’t want to be the reason for All Might’s secret to be revealed if he wasn’t ready.

“All Might,” he hissed as quietly as he could, “hey, All Might!”

There was no response; despite his uncomfortable-looking position, the man was dead to the world. 

Izuku moved his left hand and gave his mentor a poke in the thigh. 

That got him moving. 

“Huh— wha?” All Might startled awake, nearly toppling off the stool in his haste. 

“What’s goin’ on— ow,” the man said as he cracked the top of his skull on the bottom of the heart monitor’s screen. As he rubbed the back of his head, face twisted and eyes wincing in pain, Izuku had to fight to hold back his laughter. 

“Sorry,” he whispered as All Might got his bearings. “I didn’t know you’d be so loud.”

At the sound of Izuku’s voice, All Might immediately calmed. 

“No no, I should be the one apologizing,” the man murmured, still rubbing his head, but turned to face his student. “Did I wake you, young Midoriya? I’ve been told I have a habit of snoring.”

“No no nothing like that,” Izuku reassured him. “It’s just—“

He glanced at his mother again, still comatose despite the noise. She sighed contentedly in her sleep, and if anything, looked even more at peace. Izuku was sure she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon. 

“—you’re in your natural form,” the boy continued, “and my mom is here, and I just thought—“ 

His eyes made their way back up to All Might’s knowing gaze. “Is that alright?”

All Might’s eyes gave away nothing, even as he gave a long-suffering sigh. 

“Young Midoriya, even when you have every right to be selfish, you still think of everyone but yourself,” the man said wearily. 

He moved to pat the top of Izuku’s head, but watching the boy tense at his approach, decided not to. His hands returned to sit idle in his lap, his gaze flickering uncertainly between himself and Izuku’s face.

“Yes, it’s alright. We’ve had a lot to discuss while you were in and out of surgeries, she and I. It’s been a long week, and Mrs. Midoriya is now very much aware of the nature of our relationship, and the nature of One for All.”

“A week?” Izuku asked incredulously. “Is that how long I’ve been out of it?”

All Might said nothing at first, just gave a pained smile as he studied Izuku’s face like it was something precious. 

“A week is a small price to pay,” the man said softly. “There were a few times where we almost lost you.” 

A chill ran up Izuku’s spine, and he shuddered. 

“What do you mean?” He asked, feeling suddenly out of the loop. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” All Might warned. “Maybe it’s best to wait for your mother—“

“No,” Izuku interrupted. “No, I don't… I don’t want to make her relive it. I don’t want to hurt her.”

He knew how hard it must have been for his mother. He was her only child, he knew how hard it was for her to watch him hurt himself during the school’s Sports Festival. He could only imagine what it must have been like to not know if he was alive or dead for weeks on end, even in the hospital. He didn’t want her to have to relive that pain for him.

All Might must have thought the same thing because he didn’t push the subject.

“Alright then,” he acquiesced. “Well, what’s the last thing you remember, young Midoriya?”

Izuku thought back to his conversation with the First.

“I… I died, didn’t I?” He admitted. 

All Might’s eyes had a faraway look in them. 

“Yes,” he confirmed. “You stopped breathing for the first time in my arms, after offering to give your quirk back to me.”

His faraway eyes flickered back towards him. 

“We’ll need to talk about that at some point, young man.”

Izuku squirmed under his mentor’s gaze, suddenly uncomfortable. As if the whole conversation about him dying wasn’t uncomfortable. 

“Y-you said ‘for the first time’?” Izuku questioned, desperate to get the conversation back on track. “Meaning, there was another time I… died?”

All Might looked ready to argue, seeing the way Izuku dodged the conversation, but sighed instead. He ended up telling Izuku of the first few days of his hospital stay.

Izuku’s arrival battered the doors of Musutafu General like a typhoon, his medical rescuers bursting into the ER with the ambulance sirens still blaring and a trail of frazzled heroes in their wake. The reports claimed that the medics were screaming for a surgeon and fighting to keep Izuku breathing. His lungs had given out at least once on the ambulance ride over. 

It didn’t take long to stabilize Izuku once he arrived in the intensive care unit, but soon, his breathing issues became the least of their worries over the alarm of infection. Cuts, gashes, and bruises littered nearly every inch of his body, and his internal injuries consisted of multiple fractured ribs and a burgeoning infection spreading from his mangled arm. 

It was soon obvious they would need surgery to amputate the rest of the problematic arm, and it was during the emergency procedure that Izuku’s breathing stopped for a third time. His initial blood loss from his time in Shigaraki’s care was unable to withstand the additional loss from the surgery and without the use of multiple medical quirks, Izuku would have bled out on the operating table.

To put it lightly: it was nothing short of a miracle that Izuku Midoriya was still alive.

“You gave us quite a few scares, Young Midoriya,” All Might finished with a tired sigh. “I’m just glad that… that you’re with us.”

Izuku's stomach twisted into knots, and he felt horribly guilty.

“I’m sorry I gave you such a scare, sir.”

All Might looked at him sharply. 

“Midoriya, do not start apologizing,” he said sternly. “In no way, shape, or form is any of this your fault.”

Izuku shrunk back at the man’s intensity.

“I know, but—“ he stuttered, his shoulders hitched up towards his ears.

“I could’ve—I should’ve escaped on my own… if only I’d been faster, or-or smarter, or more clever I— I could’ve gotten myself out and spared you all the mess—“

“Izuku Midoriya,” All Might growled, eyes narrowed into slits. Izuku couldn’t help but shrink down into his sheets.

“You were held captive by a madman. A man that nearly killed me, and would do anything to harm those associated with One for All. Nothing in your situation was your responsibility.”

“I know, but—“

“I mean it.”

“But—“

“No buts.”

“But I should have been able to, alright!?” Izuku shot back, voice raised. “I’m the new wielder of One for All. I should’ve been able to figure out an escape plan. I should’ve been able to handle a villain like Shigaraki. I’m— I’m such a— such a—“

“Such a what?” All Might challenged. “A failure ? Midoriya, you’re a child. A child who is my responsibility to teach, protect, and nurture. If anyone is a failure, young man, it is me. This is. Not. Your. Fault.”

Izuku hung his head in anger, hot tears pricking at his eyelashes.

“I still think you should take One for All back,” he murmured under his breath, and All Might breathed so sharply he sounded like he’d been slapped.

For a moment the room was quiet, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The only sounds Izuku could hear were his mom’s steady breathing and his shuttering attempts to hold back his tears. 

“Izuku,” All Might started again, and Izuku was so startled to hear his first name come out of his mentor’s mouth that he jerked his head up to meet his gaze. The look on All Might’s face was gentle, so full of fondness that it was hard to look at him when Izuku felt so unworthy. 

“When I chose you to be my successor, I didn’t want faster, or smarter, or more clever—“

The man’s eyes began to water. 

“I wanted my successor to be you. I saw what you could be, and I knew I didn’t want it to be anything like me. You have the heart to overcome so much of what I could not.”

His shoulders shook as he spoke, and he had to pause to collect himself before he continued.

“I have had many regrets in my life, son, but you are not one of them. There’s not a single person on earth more worthy of the quirk One for All than you, my boy.” 

Izuku felt his hot tears scald his face, and he hurried to wipe them away. 

“You are worthy, Izuku Midoriya,” All Might said simply. “I hope that someday, you will give yourself an inch of the kindness you give others, and see that you are worthy of goodness as well.”

Izuku nodded, only because he was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to stop the tears. Instead, he leaned backward into the stacked pillows of his bed, unable to think of a proper response.

“Get some rest, young Midoriya,” All Might whispered into the quiet. “Good night.” 

Izuku cried himself quietly back to sleep. When he awoke, All Might was gone.

-----------------------------------------------

“He’s been closely involved with the case to find Shigaraki, sweetheart,” his mother placated gently when Izuku nearly had a panic attack at the hero’s absence. “I’m sure he’ll be back to visit soon.” 

That didn’t stop Izuku from fretting in bed for most of the morning. It didn’t help that he had nothing to do during the day, given how hard it was to use his left hand to hold a book or play card games with his mother while there was still a needle in his upper arm. Inko and Izuku ended up spending most of the day talking. She relayed the story of his rescue at some point, along with the help that many of the heroes provided her in his absence. Izuku was glad to hear that after everything he’d been through, at least his mother hadn’t been left alone. A part of him hoped that, in the case where he hadn’t survived, they would have continued to make sure she was okay. The way that his mother described a certain bunny-themed hero -- did his mom have a crush on Mirko? -- Izuku felt assured that at least one hero would keep an eye on her.

His evening was slightly more eventful. A couple of nurses came to change out his bandages and serve dinner, and Izuku got to see the state of his amputated stump for the first time.

The stitches, he discovered, still looked nasty, but were thankfully free of irritation or infection. His doctor claimed it was a miracle, given the condition in which they’d found him. 

“The orthopedic surgeons here are unmatched,” one of the nurses bragged. “When the time comes, you should be able to attach a prosthetic here with no issue. You’re a UA student, aren’t you, Midoriya? I think I saw ya on the news last semester… Sports Festival, right? Man, you were mighty fierce out there. ‘Prosthetic might have trouble keeping up with ya, but I’m sure UA’s got its own killer support course pumping out some cool hero-specific models.”

Izuku nodded stiffly at the conversation. He wasn’t quite comfortable discussing what to do about his arm. The grief at losing an appendage still felt fresh. Izuku wasn’t even sure it had quite hit him yet.

The nurse seemed to sense his melancholy and quickly switched up the conversation. 

“Your neck wound is healing quite nicely, kid. I know that one was giving your doctors a lot of grief, considering how… large the wound is. You’re a trooper, you know that?”

“Can I see what it looks like?” Izuku rasped, his chin still tilted upwards as another nurse finished wrapping Shigaraki’s handprint with a fresh layer of gauze. He had yet to look into a mirror since he’d woken up, and as much as he was uncertain about taking stock of his appearance, he couldn’t deny that he was curious, too.

The nurse hesitated.

“Ah, I-I don’t know about that one, sport. This one ain’t so pretty to look at yet, and it might come as a shock to ya. Have you-- have you talked to your ma about that one?”

“Yes,” Izuku replied mutinously, glancing over to his mother, who was glowering at him from her nook next to the window. “She says I’m not ready yet.”

“Ah, y-yes,” The nurse laughed nervously, hand behind his head and glancing furtively between the mother and son. “Well, I’ll defer to her judgment on that one, then.” 

The rest of their visit went smoothly, and, in the absence of anything else to do, Izuku reluctantly went to sleep shortly after.

It was not a peaceful slumber that night; Izuku woke up multiple times throughout in a cold sweat, heart racing and on the verge of a panic attack before his mother would eventually soothe him and convince him to give sleep another try.

He woke up at nearly noon even more exhausted than the day before. Luckily, his mother seemed more perky than him, despite her equally interrupted sleep.

“I heard you’ll have some other visitors today if you’re willing,” she exclaimed excitedly to him over breakfast.

Izuku hesitated. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours for him, he wasn’t sure how much more excitement he could handle. Then again, he wasn’t sure if he could survive another lethargic day of recounting stories from his mother and avoiding awkward conversations with the nurses.

When the door to his room opened to show the four bright faces of his classmates, his sullen-faced homeroom teacher, and his partner close behind, his anxiety melted away. He was quickly overcome with emotion as his friends surrounded his bedside. His mom smiled as she stepped out of the room.

“Have fun with your friends, sweetheart. I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need anything,” she said on her way out.

“Wow, that’s your mom, Midoriya?” Kirishima gawked after his mom closed the door. “She looks just like you! You could be twins!”

“Don’t let her hear you, Kirishima,” Izuku chuckled, surprised that the sound left his mouth. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. It made him feel lighter, and he decided he liked the sensation. 

“She’s always saying that she’s young at heart.”

Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki were much more quiet. If anything, they looked almost awkward, shuffling side-to-side in the hastily-acquired stools one of the nurses had managed to find in a storage closet. Finally, Uraraka broke the silence.

“How have you been feeling, Midoriya?” She asked politely. 

Izuku shrugged, wincing as the motion tugged one of the stitches in his neck at a weird angle. 

“As good as I can manage,” he sighed. “I know I’ve only been awake for a few days, but I swear if they feed me any more pushy pea paste, I might die.”

Iida physically flinched.

“Heyyyy Midoriya,” Kirishima laughed nervously. “It might be a bit too soon to joke about yourself like that. You know, given the whole… ah…”

Izuku would have kicked himself if he could. 

“Oh, yeah, r-right,” he stammered, cheeks flushing bright red. “I’m sorry.”

“N-no, don’t worry, you don’t have anything to apologize about,” Uraraka quickly recanted. “I-I-It’s just… um…”

“Midoriya,” Iida interrupted, his hand pinching his nose bridge tightly. “I’m not sure how much you’ve been told, but it was us four who were the first to find you in that warehouse.”

Izuku felt his face go white. 

“W-what?” he gasped. “W-why-- h-how, you guys shouldn’t have been anywhere near Shigaraki! Are you crazy?! Who let you--”

Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku saw Aizawa elbow Present Mic in the side hard enough to make the man choke on his own spit. 

“I-It doesn’t matter, Midoriya,” Present Mic broke in. “What matters is that you’re safe. Right guys?”

Uraraka and Iida exchanged knowing glances.

“It was my idea, Midoriya,” Uraraka said. “It was-- I just felt so guilty , you know? I mean, if I had been quicker about finding you at the mall that day, maybe nothing would have happened. Maybe you wouldn’t have been taken at all.”

Izuku winced as the waves of her guilt crashed into him like a hurricane into a lighthouse. He realized that this must have been what All Might felt when Izuku talked about his own harbored feelings of responsibility.

“I just wanted to feel like I made a difference.” She shuddered. 

“I didn’t know… how real it was going to be. And I dragged the rest of these guys along with me.”

“It was a joint effort, Uraraka,” Todoroki chimed in, “You didn’t force us to do anything we didn’t want to do.”

Izuku gripped the side of his sheets in his fist.

“I don’t remember much of that time,” he admitted, “but from what I do remember, it was not… I mean, you guys saw me—”

He lowered his head in shame.
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

 Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku watched as Aizawa heaved himself off the wall he’d been leaning on with a heavy sigh. 

“Alright, that’s enough of that,” his teacher murmured, placing a placating hand on Uraraka’s shoulder. 

“Nobody in this room is to blame for what happened. The only one at fault, in all of this, is Shigaraki.”

The man nearly growled the villain’s name, and the angry glint in his teacher’s eyes was unnerving, even for Izuku.

The conversation quickly became more tame after that. Eventually, Todoroki and Kirishima managed to lug a giant card in through the door that looked like a unicorn had regurgitated on a large sheet of paper. According to his friends, all of Class 1-A had signed the card -- even Bakugo -- and wrote their well wishes for him. Izuku couldn’t stop the waterworks, in true Midoriya fashion.

“You guys didn’t have to do that,” he laughed wetly while reading Bakugo’s open threat to stop dicking around and get better, nerd . 

“We wanted to, Midoriya!” Kirishima beamed, handing the boy a tissue from his bedside table. “You’re our friend.”

A broad warmth blossomed in Izuku’s chest. He hadn’t remembered the last time he’d had people his age care about him, not since he and Bakugo’s friendship became… strained … in middle school. It was a good feeling. 

The visit couldn’t last forever, and before long, Izuku could feel his bones becoming heavy. After his third yawn in as many minutes, Aizawa got the hint.

“Alright, problem children,” the man rumbled fondly. “Let’s give the kid some time to rest.”

His four classmates were reluctant, shuffling their feet as they made their way toward the door, and Izuku shot them a drowsy wave.

“Oh, ah, Mr. Aizawa?” Izuku called just before the man closed the door behind him. His teacher paused.

“I uh, had something to tell you, sir,” Izuku said, suddenly shy. “I-If you’re not in any rush.”

Aizawa poked his scruffy head back through the doorframe and sighed.

“What’s up, kid?” He replied, sidling back into the room like an elder cat. The man looked like he could use a good night’s sleep as well. He sat on one of the stools surrounding Izuku’s bedside and gave the boy a curious look.

Izuku looked down at his sheets again, suddenly interested in a loose thread at the corner of his thin blanket. 

“My mom told me that you were a big help to her in the beginning when I first went… missing,” Izuku started. “She also told me that you fought for me a lot when the police seemed to be taking their time with the investigation.”

Aizawa went deadly still. 

“So I guess I just wanted to say thank you, Mr. Aizawa,” Izuku managed to look up and give the man a hesitant smile. “Thanks for helping my mom, and keeping her sane. I know she can be a bit of a worrywart, and we’re not the easiest family to handle at times s-so, uh, thank you. For not giving up on us. O-on me.”

Aizawa just stared at him, eyes wide and expression blank. Unnerved, Izuku went back to picking at the loose thread in his blanket.

“A-anyway, that’s all I w-wanted to say,” he stuttered quickly, a flush rising to his face. “I know you’re a busy man.”

A pause.

“Izuku Midoriya,” Aizawa’s deep voice almost startled him into unraveling the whole blanket corner, and Izuku met his teacher’s eyes in surprise.

“I will never be too busy to take care of my students,” he said, “And I would never give up on you.”

Izuku averted his eyes quickly, a heated flush spreading all over his face. 

“R-right.”

“I mean it,” the man continued. “I know my demeanor may say otherwise, but there’s nothing on earth I wouldn’t do to take care of you and every other student in Class A.”

The warm, fuzzy feeling in Izuku’s chest came back, and he smiled faintly.

“Okay, sensei,” he said softly, “Thank you.”

Izuku could feel his teacher’s eyes watching him carefully for a while, before eventually rising to his full stature and turning towards the door.

“You take care, kid,” Aizawa said over his shoulder. “Get some rest. I expect you’ll be back to being a pain in my ass soon enough, so enjoy it while it lasts.”

Izuku giggled under his breath as he watched his door click shut, the siren song of sleep suddenly too tantalizing to ignore. 

“I will, sensei,” he whispered to an empty room, before letting the darkness overtake him in a soft, gentle wave.

------------------------------------

The next two weeks passed by quickly for Izuku. Sometimes his friends would visit, with Aizawa and Present Mic stopping by occasionally on their own to check in. All Might dropped by as frequently as he could, though he never said much about what his search for Shigaraki was like.

“It’s nothing for you to concern yourself about, my boy,” All Might would say lightly, while simultaneously sporting a tense line in his jaw. “You just worry about your recovery.” 

His recovery had become increasingly more difficult, due to the frequency with which Izuku would wake from nightmares, terrified of himself and everyone around him. Sometimes it would take hours to calm him down. Other times, he failed to recognize his own mother or the nurses, convinced they were secretly Shigaraki’s minions.

“Don’t touch me!” He would shriek at anyone who came near him. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me!”

Painful too, was his extreme aversion to physical contact. When the nurses were sometimes forced to sedate him, he could cower from their touch like he had been scalded by hot oil. Even gentle touches from his mother would cause him to tense or flinch, and eventually, his mother stopped trying; she instead would try and get his attention by tapping nearby objects or using her voice to get his attention.

He wasn’t ready to explain why he reacted that way. A part of himself wondered if he ever would, or if he even understood what was happening. Most of his sessions with the hospital psychiatrist consisted of him staring blankly at a wall while the therapist asked him questions he couldn’t even begin to formulate an answer to.

Eventually, through trials and tribulations, medications helped to numb the intensity of Izuku’s nightmares, though he would still find himself particularly jumpy and irritable after waking up. His nurses, at least, considered it a vast improvement.

Eventually, the stitches from his stump and various other gashes were removed, as was the IV drop that had been his constant companion during his hospital stay since he had woken up. They also removed his quirk inhibitor cuff, much to Izuke’s glee.

“Finally,” he sighed with relief, rotating his forearm and wiggling his fingers. 

With his amputated arm healing nicely and at low risk for complications, his gashes mending, and broken ribs becoming bruised ribs, there was little reason to keep him in the hospital. 

The day Aizawa dropped him and his mother off at their apartment, Izuku was alight with excitement. He had been in the hospital for over three weeks, and it had been over a month since he had been home. He practically raced up the stairs that led to the two-bedroom apartment he and his mother shared, taking the steps two at a time and trying hard not to trip over the bag of groceries he held in his left hand. He was unaware of the look that Inko and his teacher shared as they watched the boy scamper towards the apartment.

“Did you want to stick around for dinner, Mr. Aizawa?” Inko asked, arms full of groceries. “Izuku is supposed to remove the rest of his neck bandages this evening. He got the last of his stitches taken out yesterday. I think I-- he, would appreciate the extra support.”

“I’m honored by the invitation, Mrs. Midoriya,” Aizawa said gratefully, shutting the car door after making certain he’d grabbed everything the family needed from the hospital. “But I’m sure Midoriya will be fine. He’s handled the amputation quite well, considering.”

Izuku’s mother looked unsure. “He’s a positive kid,” she stated, “and a missing arm could be brushed off as an accident if a nosy stranger asked him about it. A scar in the shape of a handprint, however…”

Her eyes clouded over, her brows furrowing. “That’s a lot harder to explain without delving into some uncomfortable memories. Not to mention, he’s going to have to confront it every time he looks in the mirror.”

Aizawa sighed, understanding in his eyes. 

“Poor kid,” he surmised.

“Mom! Mr. Aizawa! Hurry up!” Izuku barked, dancing between each foot at the top of the stairs with the bag of groceries in his hands just narrowly toppling over. 

“The ice cream is starting to melt!” 

“Coming, dear!” His mother called after him, a smile in her voice, before turning back toward Aizawa.

“The offer still stands, if you want it,” she said.

“...Sure,” Aizawa acquiesced. “I’ll tag along. Thank you, Mrs. Midoriya.”

It didn’t take long to get the groceries in order once they stepped inside the Midoriya abode. Izuku worked on opening all of the windows in the house, airing out the stale air. Inko hardly managed to make it home to check on the apartment since her son was admitted to the hospital. Instead, when she did manage to work, she simply left straight from Izuku’s hospital bed, only occasionally going to the apartment to grab a fresh change of clothes or to shower. It would do them both good to finally have a night of home-cooked food.

In the kitchen, Izuku could hear his mother and teacher chatting peacefully as Aizawa chopped vegetables and Inko manned the stove. It was domestic and calming, and Izuku sighed contendedly. 

Maybe things could return to normal after all.

He moved on to the bathroom. A small hopper window bordered the height of the far wall, and Izuku had to balance on top of the toilet to open it. He stood on his tiptoes, straining despite the extra height. Being malnourished for two weeks had done him no favors in the growth department.

Almost… got it…. he mused to himself, struggling to tilt the window pane towards himself.

A touch too far. 

Izuku lost his balance, and he unceremoniously slipped off the porcelain lid and into the wall.

Smack!

“Izuku, honey? You okay in there?” His mother called, her voice muffled through the wall.

“Ah, yeah, Mom! I’m alright!” Izuku yelled back, his face still smarting from making full impact on the cheap plaster. 

Ouch, he muttered to himself. Something itched at the corner of his jaw and neck. 

What gives---?

Izuku struggled to his feet, wincing at the pain in his shoulder and his bruised ribs. He really should’ve been more careful; he didn’t want to end back up in the hospital any time soon. He turned towards the mirror to get a better look at the damage. 

At first, he was startled. 

Is this the first time I’ve looked at myself in over a month? Izuku thought.

A hollow-eyed, underweight teenager stared back at him in answer. He swallowed and watched as the boy’s emaciated Adam’s apple bobbed in response through the bandages. His clothes hung looser on him than he remembered, almost baggy, and his hair had become so overgrown it looked more like shrubbery than his mane. 

His eye bags seemed permanently etched in his skin and it gave him the appearance of looking half-dead coupled with his sallow skin and hollowed cheekbones. His freckles stood out starkly from the pallid ivory of his face.

Finally, he noticed a small piece of his neck bandage had caught on a loose nail on the wall, and the bandage was half-ripped from the top down.

Well, Izuku thought drily. Good thing these were coming off today anyway.

He picked at the bandage, and the first few wraps came undone. A smattering of milky pink scar tissue peeked out between them.

His gaze shifted towards the door; he knew his mother was worried about his reaction but--

It couldn’t be that bad, right? He thought as he pulled the rest of the bandages away, curiosity getting the better of him. It couldn’t look as bad as the rest of his appearance did, anyway.

As the last of the bandages fell away, Izuku sucked in a breath, and his vision narrowed in on his neck.

It wasn’t just bad. It was worse.

Because of his eavesdropping in the hospital when he pretended to be asleep, Izuku knew that the wound’s shape had made it next to impossible for the doctors to stitch it closed perfectly. His mother was warned it would heal into a gnarly scar, one that he knew would be a challenge to ignore. It would be a glaring, ugly reminder of what he’d been through.

And it was.

“It’s hideous, ” Izuku hissed, his fingers tracing the puckered pink edges of its outline. He ignored the primal instinct to scratch it, to rip it, to claw it off his body. 

The image in the mirror became watery, and Izuku rapidly blinked his tears away.

“No, goddammit,” he choked, “stop it.”

He was so tired of crying.

“T-this isn’t that bad,” he lied to himself, forcing his reflection to smile with teeth bared. His reflection returned his pained grin, his features as sharp as daggers. “This is fine. I’ve been through worse. This is nothing.”

“Izuku, sweetie, dinner’s ready!” His mother called from down the hall.

“This is fine,” he repeated. “This is fine.”

He remembered how each finger felt like lightning on his skin, how blood gurgled at the back of his throat, and how no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t draw a single breath.

He remembered how much he’d wanted to die in that moment.

His mother opened the door.

“Izuku, dear, what are you--”

“Is everything alright, kid?”

“Oh my god.”

“Quick, get his hand away from--”

Izuku shuddered through another sob, blinking away his tears to no avail. The mirror remained a blur. His mother snatched at his hand, tearing it away from his throat, and he flinched.

“Mom,” he croaked. “Please don’t touch me.”

“I had to, Izuku,” she replied tightly. “Look at what you’re doing to yourself!”

Izuku wrestled his hand away from her, wiping away his tears with the back of his wrist, and was surprised when it came away with fresh blood.

“W-wha--”

With clear vision, Izuku could take in and see the damage. Blood congealed deep in the beds of his fingernails, and sharp, clawlike streaks ripped into the edges of his neck wound, dredging up fresh blood from his still-tender scar. From an outside perspective, it could have appeared like he’d been attacked by an angry animal, but a fresh wave of guilt tore a hole in Izuku’s insides. Suddenly nauseous, Izuku leaned back until his shoulders met the wall, and he slowly sunk to the floor.

“I-Izuku?”

“I’ll go call the hospital, and see what they recommend we should do,” he heard Aizawa yell from down the hall, walking hastily. Izuku ignored him. 

He felt nothing.

He felt numb.

Godammit, why couldn’t he feel anything?

His mother crouched beside him, hands hovering worriedly.

“Baby, what happened?” he could hear his mother try to keep the panic out of her voice, her eyes blown wide with alarm. “Talk to me, Izuku.”

Izuku couldn’t even look at her. He merely shook his head and stared down at his fingers, studying the way the blood looked like bright nail polish splattered on his hands.

“Mom,” he spoke shakily, his voice still ragged from crying. “I’m never going to be the same after this, am I?”

Inko eyed her son warily.

“You’re going to be okay, Izuku,” she pressed. “I promise, you’re not going through this alone.”

“I know, Mom, but--” his voice cracked. “It’s going to be different from now on, isn’t it?” 

His mother was silent.

“Yes, son,” she murmured, “We’re going to have to do things a little differently now.”

“This is real.”

“Yes, Izuku,” Inko confirmed. “This is real.”

The boy nodded his head in quiet acceptance.

“Okay.”

He felt his arms move on their own, around his mother’s sides, and tucked his head into a spot between her neck and shoulder. The same place he used to hide in as a young child when he was desperate for comfort.

He felt Inko’s arms tighten around him, holding him close. For a moment, he felt the rage of a thousand planets, the dirges of a legion of stars, and felt their violent song deep in his bones. It terrified him, and yet at the same time, he had never felt safer.

He caught a whiff of her shampoo -- cloves and cinnamon -- and like a spell had been broken and struck him back down to earth, Izuku crumbled.

It was then that he realized he had hugged his mother for the first time in over a month.

Notes:

and there you have it! the end of this six-year-long journey.
this story is one that I had always hoped to come back to one day, and I'm very glad that I did. this is the first (and only) piece of writing work I have ever completed in its entirety that was solely for me, and not a grade. so, yay me <3

I know this ending probably wasn't as sweet as some of you were wanting. a sweet ending wouldn't have worked for me; izuku had gone through too much to have had anything other than a bittersweet ending.

a sequel has been in the scope since the beginning of the mapping out of the story, and something that I am interested in coming back to someday, but whether you would start seeing anything like that within the next 6 months to the next few years is up for debate. whether that will be another big multi-fic, or a series of heavily coupled one-shots, I'm still unsure. I'm a big boring adult now and my capacity to plan & execute on writing plans is greatly diminished if you couldn't tell by the multi-month waits between updates, even when I did regularly start to post again.

i appreciate all of you for reading my creation, especially my regular commenters; y'all really got me through some tough spots.

that said, this last part was scantily edited, so if you see any glaring mistakes, please let me know.

if you would like to keep tabs on me outside of writing, I guess my most active social media right now is TikTok, lol. feel free to chat with me, I'm @pherrata on tt!
If you would like to keep tabs on any updates to the story, please subscribe to the series I made for this story: hope tattooed on my throat.

If you'd like to know what Izuku's face looks like by the end of the story, I drew a little sketch here.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of hope tattooed on my throat