Chapter Text
Day Eight – 25 Days Until Catalina's Rescue
Catalina
By Day Eight, the dark has learned my shape.
It presses into the hollow of my throat when I breathe. Pools behind my eyes when I blink. Wraps itself around my thoughts until I have to reach for each one deliberately, like pulling glass from my own skin.
They don't ask questions at first.
They let the silence do the work.
Hours—maybe days—pass with nothing but the faint hum of the speaker and the sound of my own breathing. I count heartbeats until the numbers blur. I count again. I lose track on purpose. Letting time slip is safer than letting it sharpen.
Then the lights come on.
Not bright. Not blinding.
Just enough to see.
Enough to remind me I'm still here.
The door opens, slow and deliberate, and footsteps enter the room. I don't look up. I've learned that giving them my eyes too soon is a mistake.
"Still holding out," a voice says lightly. Male. Familiar cadence. One of the regulars. "I admire consistency."
I say nothing.
Something slides across the floor toward me. It bumps gently against my knee.
A tablet.
"Thought you might like an update," he continues. "We believe in transparency."
I don't touch it.
He sighs, exaggerated. "Suit yourself."
The screen lights up on its own.
UA's campus fills the display—chaotic, cordoned off, crawling with pro heroes and police. Barriers. Search grids. Names scrolling fast enough to hurt my eyes.
Then—
Midoriya.
He's mid-fight, green lightning cracking violently around his limbs as he drives a villain into the pavement. The impact shatters concrete. I feel it in my teeth.
He doesn't stop.
Again.
Again.
Bones bend wrong. I can hear it even through the muted feed.
"Full Cowling at unsafe output," the man narrates pleasantly. "He's been very busy."
My chest tightens.
"Stop," I whisper.
The footage cuts to Bakugo next—explosions lighting up an alleyway as he tears through a group of low-level villains, his movements wild, uncontrolled, fury spilling everywhere it shouldn't.
"He's stopped listening to orders," the man says. "Funny thing about anger. It's so easy to aim."
My fingers curl against the floor.
"You're hurting them," I say, my voice shaking despite my best effort. "This is on you."
He chuckles. "Is it? Or is it on you for not cooperating?"
The screen goes dark.
The lights shut off.
The footsteps leave.
I sit there long after, heart pounding, the images burned behind my eyes.
This is new.
Not lies.
Truth—curated. Weaponized.
They're escalating.
So am I.
I press my palm to my chest and breathe through the ache.
Hold on, I think fiercely. Just hold on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Midoriya
I don't feel the breaks anymore when they happen.
That's the first thing that's wrong.
The second is that I notice the absence before I notice the damage—and some part of me catalogs that like useful data instead of a warning sign.
By Day Eight, my body has adapted to failure. Not healed—adapted. Learned how to reroute pain, how to shunt it somewhere quiet so my thoughts can stay linear. So I can keep moving. So I can keep asking the same question over and over and over again without my voice shaking.
It's efficient.
It's terrifying.
I tell myself I'll stop after this one.
I tell myself every time.
The villain doesn't see me until it's too late. They never do anymore. Full Cowling hums under my skin like a living thing, green lightning tracing familiar paths along my calves, my spine, my arms. I've stopped thinking about percentages. Stopped calculating output. I just let it rise until the world sharpens and everything else fades.
He's small-time. A trafficker. Gear, intel, favors. The kind of person who knows how to survive by knowing just enough and forgetting the rest.
I drop him in under a second.
The ground cracks when he hits it.
He wheezes, scrambling, fear flashing bright and animal in his eyes as I pin him there with my foot. My leg shakes. Not from effort, but from restraint. From how much force I'm not using.
Lightning snaps violently around my ankle, scorching the concrete.
"Catalina Sekai," I say.
My voice doesn't sound like mine anymore.
It's level. Flat. Like I'm reading a report.
"Where is she?"
"I—I don't—!" he gasps, hands scrabbling uselessly at my boot.
He's lying. Or he's terrified enough that it feels like lying. At this point, the difference barely registers.
I twist my ankle.
Just enough.
Bone snaps.
The sound is sharp. Wet. It cuts through the alley like glass shattering.
For a split second, something cold sluices through my chest. Revulsion, horror, a flicker of the boy I used to be who would have frozen at that noise.
Then he screams.
And the sound does something terrible inside me.
It centers me.
I breathe in. Out. Count three heartbeats like All Might taught me when I was still small enough to believe control was something you learned once and kept forever.
One.
Two.
Three.
Not enough.
"Wrong answer," I say quietly.
I hate how calm I sound.
I hate that some part of me is proud of it.
He sobs then, words tumbling over each other in a useless rush. Names I already know, locations we've already cleared, secondhand rumors passed down like rot. He swears he doesn't know. He swears he would tell me if he did. He swears on people I doubt he loves.
None of it helps.
None of it brings her back.
My arm starts to shake.
I register the microfracture in my ulna before it gives way. The sensation is distant, almost academic, like noticing a typo in the corner of a page. When I slam my fist into the wall beside his head, the bone finally fails.
Pain blooms.
Bright. Hot. Real.
Good.
I cling to it like a lifeline because it reminds me that I'm still here. That I haven't fully slipped into whatever this version of me is becoming.
Dust rains down. The villain curls in on himself, crying, broken in more ways than one.
I release him abruptly and step back, chest heaving as the lightning sputters and fades, leaving my muscles trembling in its wake.
I can't.
I can't cross that line.
Not yet.
I stagger into the alley shadows and brace my hands on my knees, breathing hard, nausea roiling as adrenaline drains and leaves only the ache. My body is a map of damage I haven't let myself look at. Cracks layered over cracks. Stress fractures humming beneath my skin like fault lines.
Day Eight.
I wonder, briefly and dangerously, what Day Ten will cost me.
My mind keeps slipping sideways when I'm not careful. Keeps replaying images I don't actually have. Catalina alone in the dark. Catalina bleeding. Catalina hearing things she shouldn't have to hear. I don't know what they're doing to her, and the not knowing is worse than any certainty I could imagine.
Because my brain fills in the gaps.
Because it always assumes the worst.
"She would hate this," I think distantly.
Not the violence. Not entirely. She's never been naïve about what the world is capable of.
She'd hate what it's doing to me.
That thought hurts worse than the break in my arm. Worse than the fractures stacking quietly inside my legs. Worse than the fear that's starting to whisper that even if I find her....
...I might not recognize myself when I do.
I straighten anyway.
I always do.
Because stopping isn't an option. Because resting feels like betrayal. Because every second I'm not moving is another second she's alone.
And if the price of finding her is that I come apart piece by piece...
Then so be it.
I just hope there's enough of me left when this is over for her to forgive.
UA – Command Center
By Day Nine, it's no longer unofficial.
The word missing has been replaced with something heavier. Something that sits in the chest and refuses to move.
Aizawa stands at the front of the operations room, shoulders squared despite the dark circles carved deep beneath his eyes. His capture weapon hangs loose around his neck, forgotten for once, like even it is too tired to stay coiled tight. The lights hum overhead. Screens glow with maps and data. No one is sitting comfortably. No one is relaxed.
"We proceed under the assumption that Sekai Catalina has been abducted," he says flatly.
The words land like a verdict.
"This is now a full-scale operation."
No one argues.
No one even breathes differently.
Because they've all known it for days.
Screens shift. Maps expand outward in concentric rings. Search radii growing wider, uglier. Underground transit routes. Known villain hideouts. Places that don't exist on public records. Pro heroes move with quiet efficiency, fingers flying across keyboards, voices low and clipped. There's no panic here.
Just resolve.
And guilt.
Aizawa's gaze flicks over the room once, lingering on familiar faces—students trying not to look like students anymore. Pro heroes who have seen this outcome before and hate that they're seeing it again.
"Eraserhead," one hero says quietly. "We'll need warrants pushed through faster. If they've gone subterranean—"
"I know," Aizawa cuts in. "Already happening."
He pauses.
Then his eyes shift.
"All Might."
The room stills in a way that has nothing to do with authority and everything to do with reverence.
Toshinori straightens instinctively. He's not in costume. Not fully. Just the tall, gaunt man in a suit that hangs a little too loose these days. Still, the presence is there. The gravity.
"Yes," he says.
"There's... one more task," Aizawa says, and for the first time since this began, his voice tightens. Just a fraction. Enough that anyone paying attention feels it. "Her father needs to be informed."
Silence crashes down.
This isn't strategy.
This isn't logistics.
This is the human cost.
All Might doesn't hesitate. He nods once, slow and solemn. "I'll go."
No one questions it. No one offers to come along. This isn't a burden you share unless asked.
When he turns to leave, the weight he carries with him feels immeasurable.
Catalina Sekai's father lives in a quiet neighborhood.
That's the first thing All Might notices.
Tree-lined streets. Clean sidewalks. Houses that look like they belong to people who wake up early and go to bed at reasonable hours. A place where the world feels far away from villains and underground networks and blood on concrete.
The kind of place that shouldn't be touched by this.
He stands at the door longer than necessary, hand hovering inches from the bell. He's done this before. Too many times. Different faces. Different names. The same moment.
There is no good way to say this.
He rings anyway.
Footsteps approach. The door opens.
Sekai Masaru looks tired but not broken. Not yet. He's tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a worn sweatshirt and slacks like he hasn't bothered to change properly in days. His hair is unkempt. His eyes sharp.
They flick up.
Then widen.
"All Might?" he asks, disbelief threading through his voice.
Toshinori inclines his head. "May I come in, sir?"
Something in his tone must give it away.
Masaru's jaw tightens. He steps aside without another word.
The house smells faintly of coffee gone cold. There are framed photos on the walls. Catalina at different ages. Laughing. Training. Standing proud in a hero costume too big for her shoulders at the time. A child who grew into something formidable.
Masaru gestures toward the living room. Doesn't sit.
Neither does All Might.
For a moment, they stand there, two men on opposite sides of the same fear.
"Is she hurt?" Masaru asks bluntly.
All Might closes his eyes.
That's answer enough.
"She has been taken," he says carefully. "We are doing everything in our power to locate her."
Masaru exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. His hands clench at his sides.
"How long," he asks. Not why. Not how. He knows those answers already.
"Eight days," All Might says. "We confirmed yesterday."
Masaru turns away. Walks to the window. Presses a hand flat against the glass like he needs something solid to anchor him.
"She didn't call," he says quietly. "Didn't text. She always checks in. Even when she's busy. Even when she thinks she doesn't need to."
All Might nods. "She does."
Masaru laughs once. It's hollow. "Stubborn. Just like her mother."
Silence stretches.
"Is UA searching?" he asks finally.
"Yes," All Might says. "Every available pro hero. Class 1-A. The police. We have eyes everywhere."
Masaru turns back, eyes burning. "And the kids?"
All Might doesn't pretend not to understand. "They're... not handling it well."
Masaru swallows. "Any of them especially?"
All Might hesitates.
Then answers honestly. "Midoriya Izuku is pushing himself beyond safe limits. Bakugo Katsuki is barely being contained."
Masaru nods slowly. Like this fits something he already suspected.
"She matters to them," he says.
"Yes."
Masaru's voice drops. "She matters to me."
"I know," All Might says softly.
For the first time, Masaru's composure cracks. His shoulders sag. He drags a hand down his face, fingers trembling.
"I told her," he murmurs. "I told her this life would come for her eventually. That loving people made it worse."
All Might steps closer. "It also makes it survivable."
Masaru looks up sharply.
"She's strong," All Might continues. "Stronger than most adults I know. And she's not alone—even now."
Masaru's lips press together. His eyes shine, unshed.
"If you bring her back," he says hoarsely. "When you bring her back—"
All Might meets his gaze. Steel under gentleness. "We will."
Masaru nods once. Then again. Grips the back of the couch like it's the only thing keeping him upright.
All Might bows deeply before he leaves.
It's the deepest bow he's given in years.
Back at UA, the night feels heavier.
Bakugo paces like a caged animal, sparks snapping dangerously close to control. Midoriya sits hunched over a table, hands wrapped tight in bandages already stained through, eyes too bright, too hollow.
Aizawa watches them both and wonders how many people this kidnapping will break before it's over.
All Might returns quietly.
He doesn't say a word.
He doesn't have to.
Because now, there is no going back.
They will find Catalina Sekai.
Or the world will burn trying.
~~~~~~~~~
Catalina
By Day Ten, they stop pretending this is about information.
It's about control.
I know it the moment the speaker crackles on again—before a single word is said—because the cadence is wrong. There's no interrogation rhythm anymore. No pause waiting for answers.
Just noise.
The voices hit me in layers, stacked and sharpened, threaded through with static that drills straight into my skull. They don't bother with full conversations now. They don't need to. They've learned fragments hurt more.
"She never trusted you."
A laugh cuts in—too familiar, too close to Bakugo's bark of amusement to be coincidence.
"She always thought she was better."
Another voice, quieter. Disappointed. Uraraka's tone, twisted just enough to make my chest ache.
"Do you know what he broke for you?"
My breath stutters.
I curl inward on instinct, arms wrapping around my knees, spine bowed like I can fold myself small enough to disappear into the concrete. My jaw clenches so hard it hurts. The ache radiates up into my temples.
Stop listening.
Stop listening.
Stop—
The sound doesn't come from the speaker this time.
The door opens.
Real footsteps. Close. Unavoidable.
I flinch despite myself.
Two of them step inside. No masks. No distortion. Just... people. Ordinary faces with ordinary eyes. That's deliberate. Monsters are easier to hate. This is supposed to feel worse.
One of them crouches in front of me, slow and casual, like he's approaching a stray animal that might bolt.
"You're resilient," he says, almost kindly. "I'll give you that."
I don't look at him.
"But resilience," he continues, "isn't the same as being unbreakable."
The other one stays standing. He rolls something between his fingers, letting it catch the dim light before I realize what it is.
A syringe.
Clear liquid. No label. No mercy.
My stomach twists.
"This is where most people realize cooperation is the kinder choice," the second man says. "UA patrol schedules. East sector. Midnight rotations. You know them."
I swallow. My throat feels raw, like I've been screaming without sound for days.
Slowly—so slowly my neck trembles with the effort—I lift my head.
My vision swims. My body won't stop shaking. My thoughts feel frayed, pulled too thin, stretched like wire ready to snap.
But underneath all of that—
There is something solid.
Something rooted.
"No," I say.
My voice is hoarse. Barely there. But it's mine.
The man in front of me sighs, like I've disappointed him. "That's unfortunate."
The needle bites into my arm.
Fire blooms under my skin, sharp and immediate. It spreads too fast—down my veins, into my chest, behind my eyes. My thoughts scatter like startled birds. The room tilts violently. My heartbeat skips, then stutters, then races like it's trying to escape my body.
I gasp.
Hands grip my shoulders, steadying me just enough that I can't fall away from them.
Voices press in from all sides now—real ones, close ones, layered over the echoes still ringing in my skull.
"Why do you think they're suffering?"
"Heroes break so easily."
"Say it, and it stops."
I press my forehead to the floor, the cold seeping into my skin, anchoring me to something real. Something unchanging.
I focus on that sensation. The chill. The texture of concrete. The rhythm of my breath—ragged, uneven, but still there.
"I won't," I whisper.
A hand tightens in my hair, forcing my head up just enough that I have to hear myself say it again.
"I won't."
The word feels heavier the second time. Stronger.
There's a curse—soft, irritated. Disappointment, not anger. That hurts worse than either.
They release me abruptly.
Footsteps retreat. The door shuts. The lock slides into place with a sound that echoes too loud in the small room.
Silence crashes down.
I'm left shaking, nauseous, my thoughts splintering at the edges, fragments threatening to drift away if I don't hold them tight.
So I let myself shake.
I let the fear exist—small, sharp, honest.
Then I start gathering the pieces.
Bakugo's fury—bright and unyielding.
Midoriya's quiet determination, cracking but never gone.
The warmth of hands pulling me back to myself in memories that feel like lifelines.
They want me small.
They want me compliant.
They want me hollowed out.
I won't give them that.
I breathe.
I endure.
And somewhere deep beneath the shaking, beneath the drugs and the darkness and the voices meant to hollow me out, my resolve sets like stone.
I am still here.
And that will have to be enough.
Midoriya
By Day Eleven, I'm limping.
It's not dramatic. There's no sharp, cinematic moment where something breaks and I collapse to the ground. It's subtler than that. Worse, maybe. A dull hitch in my step. A flare of pain every time I breathe too deeply. My body protesting in quiet, accumulating ways.
I don't remember when my ribs cracked.
I keep replaying the last few days in my head, trying to isolate the moment. Was it the third interrogation in the warehouse near Kamino, when I misjudged my footing and took a hit I should have dodged? Or the alley two nights ago, when I overclocked Full Cowling just to get there faster and felt something give with a wet, internal pop I refused to acknowledge?
There are too many fights now. Too many faces that blur together. Too many moments where I told myself just one more, just a little further, just don't stop.
I make it halfway across the courtyard before Aizawa stops me.
His capture weapon snaps out with a practiced flick, wrapping around my wrist and halting me mid-step. Not hard. Not aggressive. Just... final.
"Midoriya," he says quietly.
I turn too fast, pain spiking white-hot through my side. I bite it back. I won't give my body the satisfaction of a reaction.
"You're done," he says.
The words land heavier than any punch.
"I'm close," I say immediately, the argument already lined up and waiting. "There's a pattern forming. The way the low-level routes shifted after Day Seven, the way the informants keep referencing underground transfers near the river—if I just have a little more time—"
"You're self-destructing," Aizawa cuts in, voice still low, still controlled, but sharper now. "And you're not helping her like this."
I freeze.
Not because he's wrong.
Because part of me knows he isn't.
I force myself to look at him. Really look this time, instead of seeing him as another obstacle between me and motion.
He looks terrible.
His eyes are rimmed red, not from lack of sleep alone but from the strain of holding everything together. His shoulders are tight, his posture rigid in that way that tells me he's been carrying too much responsibility for too long and refusing to set any of it down. There's fear there, too—carefully contained, but unmistakable.
He's afraid for her.
And he's still here. Still standing. Still thinking.
"I can't stop," I say, quieter now. Not defiant. Just honest. "If I stop moving, I'll start thinking. And if I start thinking—"
You might break, finishes the part of my mind I don't say out loud.
Aizawa studies me for a long moment. His gaze flicks down—just once—to my uneven stance, the way my weight favors one side, the faint tremor in my hand I didn't even realize was there.
Then he sighs.
It's a tired sound. Not angry. Not disappointed.
Resigned.
"Then don't do it alone," he says.
I blink.
He releases the capture weapon and turns away before I can respond, already lifting his comm. "All units, update your search parameters. We're widening the net. I want coordinated sweeps, not solo engagements."
As he walks off, issuing orders with that steady, grounded authority only he seems capable of maintaining right now, something inside my chest loosens.
Just a little.
Hope flickers. Small and fragile and terrifying because of how badly I want to believe in it.
I lean against the nearest wall once he's gone, finally letting myself breathe through the pain instead of around it. My ribs protest. My legs shake.
But I'm still standing.
I think of her.
And somewhere far away—
Catalina
When the lights come on again, I'm still here.
The brightness makes my eyes burn. I squeeze them shut, then force them open anyway, refusing to let my body dictate terms. My limbs feel heavy. My head throbs in a slow, relentless rhythm that matches my pulse.
I'm shaking.
I'm exhausted.
I'm afraid.
But I'm not broken.
I take inventory the way I've learned to: fingers still move. Breath still comes. Thoughts still connect, even if the edges feel worn thin. They've taken time from me. Comfort. Control over my own body.
They haven't taken me.
Not yet.
I sit with my back against the wall, knees pulled close, breathing carefully around the ache in my ribs. Every inhale hurts. Every exhale feels like a small victory.
They wanted screams. Confession. Collapse.
They didn't get it.
I think of them. Not the voices they play, not the lies they sharpen and throw at me like blades, but the truth beneath it all.
Bakugo's fury, incandescent and relentless, burning through anything that tries to cage it.
Midoriya's stubborn heart, cracking under the strain but still beating, still pushing forward even when it costs him.
The warmth of hands, laughter, presence. Tethers I can feel even here, even now.
They are looking for me.
I don't know how close they are. I don't know how much damage it's costing them to keep going.
But I know this: as long as I can still think their names, as long as I can still feel that pull toward something better than this room—
I can survive.
Day Eleven ends with silence.
No voices. No footsteps. Just the quiet hum of the building settling around me.
I cling to it like a promise.
Tomorrow will come.
And so will they.