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Tenya is running.
All around are screams and explosions but Tenya doesn’t stop.
Part of him wants to– is already slowing down slightly to offer his help– but the greater part of him is focused on something far more important and continues to rush past them all. There are heroes around to deal with this disaster after all and Tenya will not receive an opportunity like this again.
He runs like his life depends on it, though he is certain that it does not.
No. It is not for the sake of his own life that he speeds through the chaotic streets of Hosu but for someone else. Someone who…
He fires up his quirk, assured of enough distance now to be unnoticeable and a small part of him jeers at the flagrant bout of illegal quirk use.
Tenya ignores it. He may be barred from the path of a hero after tonight but even that will not stop him.
Not now.
Not ever.
And then suddenly it's dark and silent as he comes to a deserted part of town. The only sounds left to break the stillness are his own harsh panting breaths and the low clanking of his armor as he races ever forward.
It’s that last thought that brings him to a brief pause. He could have sworn he’d long updated his armor to no longer make the noise with his movements… had he forgotten to oil the joints? That does not sound like him… Tenya would not make such a juvenile error now. He hasn’t forgotten about proper costume maintenance since–
There!
A darkened alleyway illuminated by a sole streetlamp and as he approaches the opening he can finally see his quarry.
Tenya immediately leaps forward, allowing the momentum of his run to carry him forward.
Stain releases his grip on Native– the older hero crumpling to the ground at his feet immediately– as the villain swings his long blade wide.
Tenya’s helmet is knocked clear of his head and Tenya himself is almost thrown to the ground from the force of the blow but… but he’d been prepared to lose the helmet, had known somehow that it would happen, and so as he falls he catches himself on his hands and springs back upwards leaving as much space between himself and the killer as possible.
Stain has not moved from his original position, blade still extended outward as he hums thoughtfully with a frown. “And who are you?”
In another life Tenya would have bothered to answer, to air out his grievances and hope for closure from his pain. But then again, in another life Tenya would already be flat on the ground by now. So he ignores the question and goes on the attack instead.
“Not bad not bad,” Stain laughs, mockery dripping from every syllable as he knocks Tenya’s kicks aside. “But you’ll have to do better than that!”
Tenya gulps, leaping clear of a strike and spinning in midair for a quirk-powered high kick aimed at the killer’s face.
This too is blocked easily with a laugh.
“So he thinks himself a hero huh? I’d recognize that costume anywhere.”
A swish of air as Stain suddenly swings his blade, slicing the sole of Tenya’s raised boot clean off.
Tenya stumbles back wide-eyed as his socked foot hits the alley floor.
“You’ve forgotten something little hero…” Stain pulls a knife and throws it pointedly with a gleeful, “shouldn’t you be protecting him?”
“Native!”
Even if he runs he won’t be fast enough– would have needed to move before the knife was thrown to make it in time.
His eyes shut reflexively to hide from his failure as he wishes with everything he has that the knife avoids hitting anything vital.
There is a muted thud of impact and a tight groan from a very familiar voice.
Tenya’s eyes snap open and he struggles to make sense of what he’s seeing.
Because somehow, impossibly, crouched over Native with a dark glare in his eyes and a knife in his arm, is Todoroki.
*
Shouto isn’t supposed to be here.
He knows that, though the thought feels a little distant. He’s supposed to be shadowing Endeavour, seeing how the Number Two Hero operates. Clenching his jaw at every offhand cruel comment and physically biting down on his tongue when his father is predictably cruel. It’s how the last three days have gone, and it should be how this one goes, too.
Instead, he peels away from his father’s side in the middle of his sentence, prompted by nothing but the gut feeling that something is wrong, oh so wrong , and he needs to be there to stop it.
He shouldn’t know what there is to stop, because he isn’t friends with Iida, not really. He just barely knows him by proxy of Midoriya. Unlike in some vague other life, his phone hasn’t pinged with any kind of message or location pin.
But he somehow just knows. This isn’t right. He needs to make it right.
So he runs, not getting more than a step or two away before a familiar hand, burning and strong, wraps around his upper arm and yanks him back.
“Shouto!” his father is furious, as he so often is, flames around his face flaring up, the blue behind them barely even visible in the haze. “What are you doing?”
Shouto can see some of his father’s sidekicks over his shoulder. They’ve been welcoming the whole time he was around, unbothered by the blatant nepotism at play and far nicer than he’d expected. They even go to the effort of frowning in discomfort when his father’s words to him are harsher than they probably should be in public.
But they’re scattering now, running towards the fire up ahead. The handful that stay close pause, and glance back, and see the hand on his arm, still clenched tight, still on fire-
And they go anyway. Family business is family business.
He tries to pull his arm free and fails, Endeavour’s flames heating up just that little bit more. It’s his left arm, so he can take it, but he wishes his father would let go anyway.
“One of my friends is in trouble,” he says, knowing it is a fact without any proof to back it up. He seems to have surprised his father, because his next attempt to tug his arm free succeeds, and Shouto stumbles back a little in his surprise.
His father scowls, and he knows without being told that this is a denial, a dismissal. He clenches his hands into fists. Why didn’t he just wait the extra few seconds until he was distracted-
That idea makes him pause. Distracted by what? There’s chaos, a few streets down from them, but they haven’t gotten there yet. There’s no reason to expect his father should be pulled away so easily.
Then a hero goes crashing through the side of a building, a noumu with wings sprouting from its back, and Endeavour’s attention is now entirely on it.
Shouto doesn’t hesitate; taking advantage of the moment to sprint away, feet carrying him far from fire and noumu and screaming. Towards back alleys and abandoned streets where if he’s right, he’ll find his friend.
For the second time in ten minutes, the thought screeches to an awkward halt in his mind. Is Iida his friend? The other boy is kind to everyone in their class, but that doesn’t necessarily give him the license to claim a friendship.
He shoves the thought away. It doesn’t matter. His classmate is in danger, and if Shouto can help him, he should.
It takes him only seven minutes from fleeing his father’s side to hunt Iida down. When he does, he stops dead for a moment, staring at Stain with abject horror, but absolutely no surprise.
“You’ve forgotten something little hero…” a voice creeps down the alley, reaching Shouto’s ears at the same moment he starts to run, heart pounding as the shape of a slumped over man becomes visible. “Shouldn’t you be protecting him?”
It’s only by virtue of some miracle of speed and timing that Shouto is able to skid in front of Native with half a second to spare. He doesn’t devote any attention to what part of his body is where, something he only realises was idiotic when the knife hits his arm.
He feels steel slide beneath skin, settling deep in the muscle, and can’t help but groan raggedly as his nerves spark and scream in pain.
He sucks a breath in between clenched teeth, and turns his gaze on Stain as anger starts to bubble up through his chest. No you don’t .
Stain grins at him, any surprise being wiped away in an instant.
“Another reckless child,” he mocks, drawing another set of blades from his clothes. “Worry not. I have more than enough of these for both of you.”
*
“Worry not. I have more than enough of these for both of you.”
It is more than an empty threat, Tenya knows this fact to be true intimately. Though he can’t exactly pinpoint how or why he does. All he knows is that the endless supply of blades must be avoided at all costs.
And if blood is drawn… that would be bad.
For all of them.
Todoroki must intuitively know this as well somehow for his first move before shifting to the offensive is to clench his fist, sending ice shooting up his arm and effectively trapping the knife and blood solidly beneath it.
It is a lucky break for them indeed that the knife had landed in his right arm as opposed to his left. Not only would he have been unable to freeze it so solidly on his left arm, but since his primary means of attacking with his ice remains using his right foot to send attacks across the ground, immobilizing his hand does not remove said half of his quirk from play.
Tenya skids out of the way of Stain’s next lunge, mind whirring with confusion as it occurs to him that until this very moment, he would never have thought himself an expert on Todoroki’s modus operandi.
And yet...
The knowledge had come to him unbidden as soon as he’d seen his friend ice the weapon to the wound.
He leaps upwards, quirk shooting him forward so he can latch onto the fire escape with his hands and flip himself upwards, booted foot knocking Stain’s weapon aside and what remains of the boot on his socked foot catching the villain’s nose.
Perhaps he’s simply more attuned to these things considering the numbed state of his own left arm after his fight with…
Wait…
“Too slow!”
Tenya kicks off the alley wall immediately, almost not enough to dodge the hit, but quickly aided by a blast of fire from Todoroki. He twists in midair to keep his brother’s attacker in his line of sight and can’t help but land awkwardly– the difference between the feel of his two feet throwing his balance off enough to make him stumble.
Tenya grits his teeth in irritation. Removing the sole of his remaining boot to even things out would be foolish and yet what choice remains to him? His feet are his main weapons and having them at less than full capacity is not optimal for a life-and-death battle like this.
If only there were some way to get Stain off his back for even a second so he could regroup with Todoroki for a temporary ice replacement. His sock might not be able to keep the cold out for long but at least he’d be able to move full force without worrying about sharp pebbles or broken bottles or tetanus just waiting to claim his unsuspecting vulnerable heel as he runs.
If only there were one more person here. Someone fast enough and strong enough to keep Stain on the defense just long enough for Tenya and Todoroki to catch their breath and make a plan.
But that thought is merely wishful thinking because aside from the still-paralyzed Native, there is only the two of them.
They shall simply have to hold out until another hero shows up.
Failure is not an option. Failure here means death.
Even with Tenya’s renewed determination he is not fast enough to dodge Stain’s next hit. But, as the blade enters his shoulder he quickly twists with it, jabbing his fingers harshly into Stain’s own shoulder to get the villain to release the weapon.
An ice wall cuts between the two of them immediately and Tenya falls backwards, painfully landing in a sitting position as he steadies the sword in his shoulder with his hands. Removing it would be detrimental, he knows this on a fundamental level, and yet leaving it in is severely debilitating as well. He will not be able to move as freely, both because of the blood as well as the constant jarring of the blade with his every movement.
His gloves soak through in a matter of seconds and Tenya’s eyes widen as he frantically runs through his options. There must be some way for them to–
“Cutting off your own field of vision like that? Rookie mistake!”
The ice wall shatters to pieces as Tenya gives in to his panic.
*
The pain in Shouto’s arm is splintered and persistent, spiralling into greater and greater intensity with each passing second. He wants to curl over the top of it and rest against the alley wall. But doing so would be stupid in a scenario like this.
He should cauterise it. Blood is flowing freely out from the skin around the blade, and showing no signs of slowing down. Pulling the knife out and melting the wound shut would mean he wouldn’t have to worry about bleeding so badly he got delirious or lightheaded.
But deep in his gut, he knows he can’t. Can’t let Stain get ahold of this knife again. Not because it will be another weapon back in his arsenal, but because…
The blood. That’s it. He can’t let Stain get any of his blood. So he grits his teeth and lets a layer of ice slide up and cover his arm, freezing the blood to his skin and fixing the knife in place.
It feels strange having the knife embedded in his right arm. Last time it was the other……
Last time?
Not for the first time that night, Shouto feels a little off-kilter. What last time is his subconscious even referring to? He’s never been stabbed before. Endeavour is a harsh teacher and always has been, but he’s never gone that far.
He shakes the thought off, even as his stomach turns unpleasantly and refuses to completely let it go.
Iida is on his feet before Shouto is, a lucky move as Stain lunges toward him. Shouto gets to his feet shakily, able to feel blood, sticky even while frozen, clinging unpleasantly to his skin. It turns his stomach, which only feels more unsettled as he watches Iida use the fire escape to propel himself through the air, momentarily stunned by the prowess his friend shows in battle, as if he were already perfectly attuned to this conflict, this alley-
He slams down on the thoughts with an almost violent intensity. Stop it, stop it -
Shouto comes back to himself just in time to see Stain grin maniacally, yelling some mockery as he reaches out with a blade to cut into Iida’s side. Shouto sends fire barrelling in between them, forcing the killer back and narrowly saving Iida from a dagger to the kidneys.
But his intervention isn’t enough, and mere moments later, he’s watching Iida’s shoulder be punctured, a sword sliding cleanly beneath his skin. His stomach rebels, and he forces an ice wall up, to push Stain back again. They need to stop, to regroup so they can figure out what to do.
Iida’s face is pale and drawn, blood pooling around the sword in his shoulder and dripping down the front of his armour. The sight makes Shouto’s breath stutter uncertainly in his lungs. His friend is hurt, and they have no way out of this. The flow of blood from the stab wound is too much, too quickly. Such a serious wound needs immediate care.
“Cutting off your own field of vision like that? Rookie mistake!”
The ice before them shatters, Shouto’s arm already lifting to blast more fire at Stain. The vigilante dodges under the orange glow, another knife in his hand, and this time bolts straight for Shouto, a dark gleam in his eyes that screams of danger more surely than any of his weapons do.
He feels the knife sink into the meat of his thigh this time, ripping up along the line of his femoral artery. Shouto feels the blood bubbling out, expelling itself in frantic bursts and, lacking another option, presses his flaming hand to Stain’s arm, the only part of him he can reach.
The hiss of fire on flesh is sickening, and Stain leaps back, ripping his arm free and leaving the blade behind. Shouto blesses small victories, even as his head spins. The next point of his body his searing hand goes is his own leg. He knows it might not be enough, that he could well bleed out right here from this injury, but in their current situation, it’s better than nothing.
They need backup. An extra set of hands to force the vigilante back, if only for long enough that Shouto can cauterise Iida’s shoulder wound.
He blasts another barrage of fire at Stain, trying to herd him away from Iida so they can at least get close enough to speak. He toys with the idea of sending his location out to his contacts. His father knows where he is, but someone else might be tempted to come help them. It’s a solid idea, after all, like most of Midoriya’s tend to be.
Midoriya. Midoriya?
A slice of pain rockets through Shouto’s head, the pain in his arm and leg almost faltering for a moment. This isn’t right…something here…
Midoriya should be here. That’s what he’s thinking. He should be here because he was here…
He was here last time.
It both makes no sense, and all the sense in the world. Shouto slides a hand down to the injury on his leg, which is bloody but not critically so. He would say the problem was blood loss, and accompanying delirium, but he’s been having these strange thoughts since before he’d gotten here.
He casts a look over to Iida, who is pale and bloodied and whose eyes are shining with panic.
We are not going to die here.
It’s a normal thought, a normal conviction.
It’s followed by a deeply abnormal one.
We are not going to die here because we didn’t die here before. We won, and we can win again.
Shouto straightens up, readying both halves of his quirk, as Stain’s face emerges from the dark, the whites of his eyes gleaming sickly.
He isn’t smiling anymore, but this time, Shouto is.
*
Tenya is no stranger to panic.
He’d been practically engulfed by it at the recommendation exams leading him to ultimately not make the cut and be forced to take the general entrance exam after. He’d felt that same level of crushing anxiety and self doubt at the USJ when he’d needed to leave everyone behind in order to engineer their rescue. And then again during the sports festival– albeit at a slightly lower level– when Hatsume had trapped him in her designs to be used as a glorified showpony until she saw fit to finally release him.
And then the worst of them all.
When he’d heard his brother had been attacked and almost died.
When he’d heard his brother would never walk again.
When he’d been given the mantle of Ingenium.
It's this last thought that serves to remind him of where he is and what he’s doing but even that is not enough to cut through the fear as his blood continues to rush from the wound.
Tenya tries to get to his feet, to leave and get help, to help Todoroki, to rescue Native– but it is to no avail. He simply cannot muster the strength to push past the painful throbbing in his soldier and the accompanying gush of fresh blood as his every move jostles his precarious hold on the weapon still lodged in the wound.
The overly sharpened weapon.
That seems to cut even deeper with his every flinch and aborted attempt at motion.
Tenya blinks spots out of his eyes and comes back to himself sat heavily on the ground, too overwhelmed by the escalating pain and encroaching dizziness to plan his next move. He cannot ignore the rapidly spreading sticky wetness slicking up his gloves and steadily soaking into his undersuit even as he trembles in place. Rapid calculations flicker through his mind as he tries and fails to determine how much longer he can remain conscious with blood loss of this level.
He. He needs to get up. He needs to help Todoroki. He needs to–
There’s a sudden flash of fire before him, followed by a muted explosion that is utterly controlled as Todoroki slams his hands together– seemingly uncaring of the knife still in his right arm and the– when did he receive a second wound!?!
Steam billows from his classmate’s hands as he forces his two quirks together and it is enough to create an opening as it both obscures Stain’s vision while also keeping him back from the scalding mist swelling ever outward.
Tenya scrabbles to get closer, too fixated on the devastating amount of blood staining Todoroki’s pant leg to pay heed to his own injury. The ground beneath Todoroki is shiny and wet, the heat from his current attack melting the ice that had previously encased his right arm. Todoroki doesn’t seem to notice.
“Tenya!” he shouts. “Finish this!”
And Tenya jolts in place, quirk firing up beneath him reflexively.
Because…
Because…
Todoroki doesn’t call him that, hadn’t yet at this point in time.
But… that’s the key isn’t it.
He hadn’t back then.
But he does now.
Tenya’s head throbs more sharply than his shoulder now, pain flaring in it as he gets to his feet. But he knows now what’s happening, can see it all clearly for the first time since he’d realized he was running through the streets of Hosu again.
This battle has dragged on too long.
Native should have gotten up by now.
Todoroki and Tenya should have long fallen to blood loss.
And Midoriya should have–
No.
Izuku.
This is a distraction.
The pain in his head sharpens to debilitating levels and through his streaming eyes he can see Tod– Shouto double over clutching his own head as well, but Tenya refuses to falter or let it stop him because…
Because it’s been the three of them together since they graduated.
Because through the pained haze, the fog starts to lift and Tenya can clearly remember suiting up for patrol.
Because if Shouto and Tenya are trapped here in some illusion or nightmare realm… then who is backing up Izuku?
*
Shouto’s body is burning, burning , but he hardly notices. Hardly cares as he launches fire against Stain, as the wounds in his leg and arm scream with agony.
He doesn’t care because Tenya is on his feet again. Shouto grins, wider, more fiercely than he usually does.
And perhaps it’s stupid, perhaps it’s sad, because that is what truly drives it home.
Shouto never smiled much as a teenager. Too burdened by his past and present and bleak future to allow it to become a habit. But it isn’t the expression itself that feels unnatural to him right now, but more the viciousness in it.
Because he smiles much more frequently now. At his siblings, at his friends, at people on the street who come up to speak with him, ask for help or directions-
At people he saves. Because that is what he does. What he’s been doing for a while now.
Agony splits his head in two, and were Stain not hanging back, oddly cautious in a way he hasn’t been for the latter half of this fight, Shouto would have suspected his swords to be the cause.
But he turns his head, blinking away tears as his fire sputters and goes out, and sees Tenya doubled over with pain, too. They’re connected, experiencing the same blistering pain even without clear cause.
Normally Shouto would question it. Ten minutes ago, he would have. But the fog in his mind - which he hadn’t noticed in his singleminded focus on Stain - has started to clear. They are connected. Perhaps a side effect of having been so close together when…
When that thing hit them. A curved ray of pale light, emanating from a villain’s hands. His mind leads him gently back through his memories. To before the strange fade into this time long passed. Before the ray hit, when the villain had first set upon him.
Izuku had been with them. They’d stopped in the midst of their morning patrols, meeting up to eat together as they so often did. Then he’d struck.
Shouto had seen his face right before he had. Waxen skin, like he’d spent too much time away from the sun. Dark hair combed back. And purple eyes. Those eyes-
The pain turns excruciating, and Shouto falls to his knees. The jolt doesn’t send any pain through the bad injuries in his leg, and despite everything, he huffs out a laugh. Of course they don’t hurt. False wounds certainly wouldn’t and shouldn’t.
The world around him tilts as he holds onto that image. Those eyes. He watches it spin, tipping further and further into the realm of obscurity. In front of him, Stain’s body flickers, like a line of static has passed through him.
Shouto bids him a silent farewell.
The ground is cold, not heated by flames. It’s wet, but not with blood, with the rain that had been thrashing the city all morning.
There is yelling, but the voice is not Tenya’s, nor his own.
He cracks his eyes open as reality crashes back.
Not Stain, not Hosu, not high school.
A loud crackling, like lightning ready to strike, sounds off next to his right ear, loud enough he flinches back in fear. But a moment later his vision clears, and he sees the lightning is green.
Izuku.
“Shouto! Are you okay?” his friend is leaning over him, stance protective, gaze flickering between Shouto and some unknown over his shoulder. His unasked question is answered just seconds later, when Izuku jolts, like he’s seen something, and yells, “Tenya!”
Relief courses through Shouto’s body as he forces himself up into a sitting position. Phantom pain slices across his arm, his leg, but a quick examination of both proves they’re unharmed. As is the rest of him, as a quick pat-down by Izuku reveals. Shouto glances around the scene, the chaos on the street, shaking his head.
“Shouto.”
Then Tenya is kneeling down in front of him, face pale but shining with relief, and Shouto can’t help the smile that escapes. He isn’t the boy of fifteen that had run headfirst after a nightmare. He’s the Tenya that Shouto knows, and has known, for years now. One he would trust with his life and more.
Izuku seems to realise that something more has happened, because he gives them an unidentifiable look, promises to keep the villain at bay, and rockets off, leaving them in relative privacy in the wrecked and abandoned street.
“You saw it all, too, didn’t you?” Tenya says, voice a maelstrom of wonder, confusion and guilt: the same combination it had held after their actual fight with Stain. Shouto nods, shifting so he can force himself to his feet. Tenya is quick to slide his hands around Shouto’s forearms, guiding him up so he doesn’t stumble.
“I did. How did he…?”
Tenya smiles, almost bashfully. “I remembered just a few moments ago. His quirk. He can lock people in a kind of dream-state. He’s used it for many of his crimes. I just didn’t expect that of all things to be where we were locked.”
Shouto nods, a booming sound from down the street reminding him that their friend is, in fact, still fighting the villain in question.
Tenya is still looking at his face, expression hard to decipher. “I’m glad you were there with me. Just now, but…the first time, as well. I don’t think I thanked you sufficiently back then.”
Shouto releases a small, breathy laugh, knocking his fist gently against the side of Tenya’s armour.
“You did,” he assures him. “I promise you did.”
A screeching sound - too high-pitched to come from Izuku - rings out across the street. Shouto raises an eyebrow.
Izuku is a hero who rarely needs backup, nowadays, but Shouto is feeling a little nostalgic. “We’d best go help him.”
Tenya smiles at him, soft and almost uncertain. “Yes, we ought to.” He seems hesitant, still, until Shouto returns his smile. Assuring him it was fine. Both then and now, he’d been happy to fight by Tenya’s side, to keep him safe.
He indicates the fight between Izuku and the villain with his head. “After you.”
Tenya smiles, engines warming up as he angles his body towards the fight. And for the third time that day, Shouto follows him happily into battle.