Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As Todoroki took the initiative and rang the doorbell to the Yaoyorozu estate, Izuku was sure he was the most nervous he'd ever been. 

He'd never been to a school dance before. 

But it wasn't for lack of trying. His high school had just never hosted one up until now. 

He didn't know why they had decided to, in all honesty. But upon the announcement, the excitement and curiosity that surrounded what had previously been a completely foreign event suddenly became all too real. 

At least he had the other guys with him, although none of them seemed as nervous as he did, except for maybe Kaminari. Since the girls were all getting ready together at Yaoyorozu's, the guys had figured they'd make things easier and just pick them all up together. 

Although having some of his closest friends there was a reassurance, Izuku also hoped he didn't make a fool of himself in front of them.

Especially her.

Upon entering the grand entryway, his eyes immediately found what they were seeking. 

She came down the grand staircase with the rest of the girls, though she timidly lagged behind the rest a few steps. Her hands were busy trying to keep her long dress out of the way of her feet, and naturally, her face was downcast as she carefully watched her step. 

When she reached the landing and lifted her face with a bright grin, he couldn't stop himself from taking in the sight of her. 

He knew she preferred lighter colors in her everyday wear, but he thought the deep navy of her gown suited her perfectly, too. It was a simple dress with a modest, lace bodice that cinched in at the waist before pooling out to brush against the floor, a thin line of rhinestones circling around her waist.

When she was right in front of him, he timidly spoke to her, halting her in her steps, "You-You l-look really nice, Uraraka."

"Thanks, Deku," the soft curls on her shoulders shifted as she tilted her head, a gentle smile on her face. "You look great, too!"

"Tsk, you don't have to compliment the nerd."

With a wry smile, she brushed past him, carefully pinning the white rose boutonnière in her grasp to the left side of her date's suit jacket. 

To Kacchan's suit jacket. Not his. 

In turn, Kacchan removed the corsage he'd brought with him from its plastic packaging, sliding the beaded bracelet attached to a bundle of small, white roses around her wrist. 

A light tugging at the front of his suit jacket made Izuku finally tear his eyes away.

He found Asui pining a boutonnière on the left side of his chest, a content and satisfied smile on her face when the flower remained secure as she pulled back. 

Guilt and shame immediately flooded his system. 

"You-You look really nice," he stuttered. And it wasn't just him being polite. She really did look nice, her silky dress a shade of green just a few shades lighter than her hair. 

Upon catching a glimpse of Ashido gushing over the corsage Kirishima had brought and hearing Jirou berating Kaminari for not standing still in tandem with the blond's pained yelp, Izuku realized they were the last couple to exchange flowers. He started scrambling to remove the corsage he'd brought from its packaging. His mom had helped him pick it out, and just like his hands had trembled with nervousness then, they shook as he slid it onto Asui's wrist. 

"Thanks, Midoriya," she only continued to look at him with that knowing smile on her face. 

He knew that Asui knew. She always knew. Everything. 

And yet she'd still been the one to ask him to be her date to the dance, as if she knew that he wouldn't be able to bare not being there; not knowing what Kacchan and Uraraka were doing and if Kacchan was being nice to her and opening doors for her and helping her not trip on her dress and making sure she was having fun and dancing with her.

Because Uraraka deserved to have a date that did all that. And Izuku wanted to be the one who did those things for her.

At first, he'd written off the idea of asking her as some far off fantasy, because there was no way he'd ever be able to muster the courage to do something so nerve-wracking. 

But, the closer the date got, the more excited the students had seemed to get. People in the hallways were always chattering about it, and there'd even been a few instances of other students passionately asking others to go in busy places like the library and cafeteria. 

It was only after he'd watched Todoroki, of all people, nonchalantly ask Yaoyorozu in front of their entire class that Izuku had even considered actually gearing himself up to ask Uraraka. He'd never do it in front of the whole class, much less the whole school like some of the other students had. But the thought was still there, almost constantly in the back of his head. 

In the end, he'd let himself get caught up in his doubts for too long. 

In his head, there was no way she hadn't been asked yet. Because Uraraka was Uraraka. So if he did end up asking her, he'd only make the girl feel bad for having to reject him. 

But then, just a week before the dance, he'd heard Bakugo being jokingly teased by his friends as they came into the locker room.

Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero were giving the blond various versions of 'dude, I can't believe you asked her' and 'doing it like that in the middle of the hallway was so manly' and 'didn't know you had a thing for her.' 

Izuku hadn't thought much of it other than: Kacchan asked someone? That's not like him...

At least, he hadn't thought much of it until he heard the nickname 'Pink Cheeks' thrown into the conversation.

His stomach jumped at hearing Kacchan's grunt of his nickname for Uraraka, but Izuku hadn't clearly heard the context under which it'd come up. They must've moved on to a different conversation, right?

Surely, it hadn't been her that Kacchan had asked. Because...there was absolutely no way, right? Didn't Kacchan and Uraraka regularly bicker and flip each other off whenever they saw one another in the hallways?

But then Iida and Todoroki had acted a little strange around him, like they were concerned and wary. They had greeted him cautiously when they came into the locker room, and casted worried glances his way when Uraraka came into the gym, giggling about something quietly with the other girls. 

His stomach was still unsettled. 

It wasn't until two days later when he'd overheard her telling Bakugo what color her dress would be that it really, really sunk in. 

They were going to the dance together. Kacchan and Uraraka were going on a date.

Izuku had never cursed himself so much in his life. 

Life had practically served him the opportunity on a silver platter, and he'd completely blown it.

Only one more month until graduation. Then they were off to different colleges, and who knew where their lives would take them after that. Their lives now were bogged down by final projects and tests, leaving little room for anything else. And once summer came, he knew Uraraka was off to her hometown, which was four hours away, for the short break in between graduation and their first semester. 

In other words, Izuku didn't see any hope of getting another chance. 

As he watched Uraraka slip her hand into the crook of Bakugo's offered elbow, the full realization of what he'd missed out on came crashing down onto his shoulders.

Izuku slumped down onto his camp chair in perfect time with Kirishima's and Kaminari's cheers of victory as Todoroki and Bakugo finally managed to light the kindling of their fire with a lighter.  

For the most part, the dance had been uneventful. 

They'd stuck together as a group most of the time, but when the slower songs had come on, they'd all naturally drifted off in their respective pairs for the duration of the soft melodies. 

Izuku was sure he would've sat there staring at Bakugo and Uraraka the whole song every time if it hadn't been for Asui's gentle pulling of his arms, leading one to her hip and taking his other hand in her own. 

"I...I'm sorry, Asui," he'd stuttered as she settled her other hand on his shoulder for the first slow dance. It wasn't like he was oblivious to how rude he was being. In fact, his guilt about how he couldn't bring himself to stop focusing on the others and focus on her only made him feel all the more horrible.

Here he was, trying to make sure Kacchan was being a perfect gentleman, when he was being far from chivalrous to his own date. 

"It's alright, Midoriya," she stated flatly. "I knew what I was getting into when I asked you to come."

"Why...why did you ask me?"

Her hand strayed from his shoulder for a moment as she pressed the tip of her finger to her bottom lip in that familiar fashion, humming in thought for a moment, "Probably for the same reason Bakugo asked Ochako."

His brows furrowed. 

She gave him that stare again, "Them being here together probably isn't exactly what you think it is."

She knew something. Of course she did, because she was Uraraka's best female friend. 

"What...what is it, then?" Izuku asked tentatively. 

"That's something you're going to have to ask Ochako yourself, Midoriya."

"Is something the matter, Midoriya?" 

Izuku yanked his thoughts back to the present when he heard Iida's voice from over his shoulder. 

As the student body president, Iida had opted not to take a date to the dance in order to be attentive to the rest of his class for the evening. Izuku had heard that the school staff had told him it would be fine for him to find a date and enjoy himself. But, apparently, after a long-winded speech from Iida about his duties and honor and all that, they'd given up trying to convince him.

Izuku was just glad that Iida hadn't kept up his professionalism for the entire night and was more than happy to join their group for a campfire in the forest afterwards. Izuku didn't think doing fires in a place like this was exactly legal, but Iida didn't need to know that. 

As his friend set up his camp chair right beside his own, Izuku glanced back towards where the girls were huddled around the trunks of Todoroki's and Kirishima's cars. The group of five, who were wearing casual clothes now, were preparing the crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate for the s'mores they were about to roast. 

"Midoriya?"

Izuku's gaze snapped back to Iida, and he realized he hadn't responded yet. 

What was wrong with him today? He'd been gearing himself up for this day ever since Asui had asked him, but still, he'd been a complete jerk to her and hadn't stopped zoning out and staring at Uraraka. There was a part of him that was doing it to make sure she was being treated like she deserved, but...there was just something…rattling in the air that was setting him off, too. Like he was on the cusp of a massive, irreversible deviation, and this was the last chance he'd have to cherish and appreciate things as they were now. 

He'd been feeling that way a lot lately. Graduation, the end to everyday life as he knew it, was just a month away, after all. 

But tonight, that familiar feeling was insufferable.

It was probably just his nervousness about graduation and dismay over missing his chance...right?

"I'm sorry, Iida," he finally replied with a sigh. He gave his friend the best smile he could muster, "Just tired."

"I understand," Iida gave him a curt nod. "This evening was a busy one, and it's already quite late."

"Only you would say that ten-thirty is late, Iida," he lightly teased with a small grin.

Just when Izuku had started to feel like himself again, there was a blinding flash behind him, and a high-pitched scream rang through the clearing. 

All of the boys' gazes whipped around as alarms blared. The doors of Todoroki's and Kirishima's cars were blown wide, their headlights turned to their brightest and their stereos blasting as they unintelligibly switched from station to station.

None of the girls were anywhere in sight. 

The feeling of wrong in Izuku's chest, the one that'd been clinging to him and setting him on edge ever since he'd stepped into the clearing, increased tenfold. Ice-cold dread and fear surged through his veins as he shot to his feet. 

What...what was happening? Where were the girls?

Kirishima was the first to recover from the shock of the sudden shift. He practically bolted to his car, utmost confusion overtaking his features as he leaned in to flip off the stereo and alarms. His hands fiddled around the right side of the dashboard near the steering wheel, but it seemed he couldn't find what he was looking for.  

By the time he'd pulled back, the rest of the boys had made their way over to the cars as well. 

Kirishima's hands dove into his pockets as he stood upright, his eyes going wide as he pulled out his keys, "The keys weren't even in the car…"

Izuku's gaze shot around the clearing, his breath quickening as he scanned every bush and tree for a sign of his missing friends. 

A light clink sounded out from his right, and he found Todoroki crouching beside him, plucking up whatever it was he'd hit with his foot. 

Another wave of cold flooded Izuku when Todoroki straightened out with his keys in his palm. Izuku vaguely remembered him tossing them to Yaoyorozu so she could open his trunk.

Kaminari seemed to have taken notice of that fact, too, "What the fuck is happening…?" 

His heart raging in his chest, Izuku's gaze shot all around the clearing, "Uraraka! Asui!"

The other boys echoed his calls.

"Jirou!"

"Mina! Yaomomo!"

Kaminari shouted hesitantly, "This...this better not be some sort of joke, you guys!"

"If it is, it ain't fucking funny!" Bakugo growled. 

Izuku strained his ears for the slightest hint of a reply, his eyes going wide when he heard one. 

A panicked whimper, and the sounds of a struggle...

That sounded like…

"Uraraka!" Izuku shot forward to catch her as she came stumbling out of the brush surrounding the clearing. He didn't make it in time, the girl barely managing to catch herself with her hands. 

Just as he slid to his knees beside her, she hurled. 

Izuku swore his heart stopped when her hands blindly grabbed onto him and she lifted her face. Red dribbled down her chin, a clear and chilling sign that she'd vomited blood. 

"Holy fuck, Uraraka!" Kaminari hissed. 

Kirishima was suddenly kneeling on her other side, one of his hands worriedly clutching onto her shoulder, "What happened?!"

Izuku knew the rest of the boys had gathered around, but he didn't pay their tense exchanges and questions any mind. His focus was solely on Uraraka and the way she seemed to look at him without really seeing him, her gaze somehow far off and not there.

Seriously, what the hell was going on?

Izuku flinched as there was a sudden sharp, screeching whistle. 

He barely noticed as Uraraka let out a panicked, pained whine and yanked her hands off of his arms to slam them over her ears. Izuku's own ears nearly burst with the sound, his head thrumming and throbbing more intensely with every second. He was certain he was screaming with the pain of it, but his own voice was inaudible beneath the sharp sound. 

Panic seized him again, even stronger this time. He couldn't hear his friends, though he knew they were surely screaming, too, if they were experiencing the same thing he was. He couldn't even feel Uraraka's head pressing into his chest nor the forest floor digging into his shins. 

After what felt like a few minutes, but was probably only a few seconds, everything flashed that same bright white from before.

And then...nothing.

Chapter Text

Water. 

He was...underwater, for some reason.

He felt nothing, only a vague thrumming in his extremities. He was so out of it, he couldn't even process the need to breathe. But it didn't matter. Something was jammed down his throat, forcing air into his lungs for him.

Faces peered down at him from above; from beyond the water's surface. Their features were blurry, and they only grew more distorted by the rippling of the water. 

And then, there was only pain. It cracked through him like a strike of lightning. 

This time, it was a flash of vibrant green that preceded his loss of consciousness.

Izuku emerged out of unconsciousness slowly. 

At first, all he had was a vague awareness. Then, that awareness solidified into a heavy feeling, like he was being pulled down, down, down into the ground. Next, he could feel his heartbeat in his head. 

The thrumming was what finally tugged him to dully waking. But it still took him a few moments of substantial effort to finally open his eyes. At first, all he could manage was a few flutters. But eventually, he was able to peel his eyelids back enough to see at least a fraction of his surroundings. 

Everything was blurry and so bright he actually winced. It took minutes for his eyes to adjust to the light and for his vision to finally become clear. 

His hearing was muddy, too, and it took just as long for it to return to normal.

When Izuku finally processed the pristine whiteness, the beeping of machines, and the slight incline of the bed he was in, his analytical mind quickly came to a conclusion: I'm...in a hospital? 

He hurried to figure out why he was here and what he last remembered, but that part of his brain was still fuzzy. 

Had there been some kind of accident? 

There were at least a few clues as to how badly he was injured, and Izuku thought examining them might spur his mind into remembrance. 

The sensation of oxygen flooding his system from the short tubes in and beneath his nose was clear, and actually somewhat pleasant. After some effort, he managed to tuck his chin in enough to see bandages running up and down the entirety of both of his arms. They spanned from his fingers to his elbows, leaving a small gap for an I.V. to be inserted into the inside of his elbow, before continuing on to disappear beneath the sleeves of his hospital gown. A blanket covered from his waist down, leaving the state of his legs up to his imagination. 

So...he wasn't trusted enough to breathe on his own. How long had he been unconscious? And what kind of wounds were his bandages hiding? They didn't seem thick enough or sturdy enough to denote broken bones, which was a relief. But the idea of having enough surface-level injuries that the entirety of his skin had to be wrapped was also terrifying. 

Before he could remember anything or come to a conclusion, the door across the room sharply swung open. 

Izuku expected a doctor or nurse, or maybe even a familiar face, like his mom. 

But instead, someone wearing a hazmat suit slid through the door. 

Confusion and white-hot panic raced through him. 

What was happening? What had happened to him for the person to need to wear a hazmat suit around him? What were they protecting themselves from?

The suit was beige, while the vizor was completely black, revealing only the slightest shadows of a human head behind the glass. 

Did...did hazmat suits normally have blacked-out visors like that?

The person came closer, and although Izuku couldn't see their features, it seemed like they didn't even cast him a glance as they went about checking his vitals on the machines at his bedside. 

Izuku stared at them in shocked, and somewhat frightened, silence. There were no mutterings of anything like, 'Oh, you're awake?' or even 'How are you feeling?'

Instead, they continued to ignore his presence. 

Had he simply tuned out the person's words when he'd been shocked by the hazmat suit? It wasn't entirely out of the question. He was still a bit drowsy, after all. 

Instead of waiting on whoever this person was to fill him in, Izuku decided to take the initiative. 

When he opened his mouth, spit dribbled down his chin. He couldn't maneuver his lips fast enough to stop it, nor could he even bring one of his hands to swipe the trail away, much less even twitch his fingers. 

If that and how he felt was any indication of how he looked, he must've resembled a miserable, drowsy mess. 

It took a few attempts and a few swallows to get his swollen, dry throat to drowsily croak out, "Wh-where...where...am I?"

The helmet shifted towards him.

If Izuku had been able to recoil at all, he would've. 

It almost didn't feel as if there was even a person in the suit with the way the visor cut off all expression and emotion. And when they spoke, the person's voice was just as emotionless, and clearly male as it carried through the suit, "A hospital."

Frustration bit at his insides, "But...wh...where?"

The man stared at him for a moment before whirling around and leaving the room, the door closing behind him with a sharp snap.

The interaction only left him with more questions. 

Izuku didn't get any more answers. 

He still didn't know where he was. He didn't know if his mom had been told that he was injured. He didn't know how much time had passed since whatever had happened to him happened. 

Most of the time, he was left completely alone. Men in hazmat suits would only come in every now and then. 

Sometimes they brought in liquid foods, which they hurriedly spooned into his mouth for him. Despite how uncertain he was about this place and what was happening, he didn't struggle as they fed him. If he wanted to break this mundane routine and start progressing towards getting better and getting some answers, he needed to eat. 

It wasn't like he could struggle much, anyways. It was all he could do to keep himself from choking as they spilled his food into his mouth, uncaring of whether or not he was ready for it or in the middle of taking a breath. 

And they always asked the same series of questions.

Has feeling returned to your extremities? Can you move them yet? Do you feel any internal changes? Is there any pain? 

Izuku could answer all of them easily with a quick 'no.' Feeling hadn't returned to his limbs, and even the tingly sensation had faded. Now, it was almost like his limbs weren't even there, which was an even more terrifying sensation. 

And why were they asking about internal changes? He couldn't feel anything internally either, but wasn't it within his rights to know exactly what injuries he had?

And why weren't they telling him what had happened to him in the first place? 

Now that quite some time had passed, his last memory before waking up here was more clear.

It'd been the night of the school dance, and he and his friends had gone to the forest for a campfire afterwards. The girls had all disappeared, but then Uraraka had stumbled out of the brush, spitting up blood. 

The last thing he remembered was a screeching whistle and bright flash.

What followed after that, he couldn't remember.

But his recollection of the event had sent only one thought rocketing through his head: Where are my friends?

They'd all been together. They'd all fallen victim to the same thing. 

So why hadn't he heard a single thing about them? Why hadn't he heard anything about what had happened?

Izuku had lost count of the days. There were no windows in his room, at least not any that lead to the outside. 

With nothing else to do, Izuku had thoroughly scrutinized every inch of his room. He was fairly certain the large mirror on the wall to his right was a one-way window. It was excessively large, and positioned so that it was perfectly level with his bed.

He couldn't see any reason why a hospital room would need a mirror so large. It being a one-way window instead of a mirror was still just a suspicion until he could confirm it. But the feeling he got from the mirror was edging him further and further towards believing his deduction, and it still sent shivers ricocheting up and down his spine.

They were watching him. Even when there was no one else in the room, there were eyes on him. He could feel it.

That was his second hint that something was up; that what he'd experienced was no minor, ordinary accident. 

After what felt like a little over a week had passed since he'd woke up, the seemingly endless and obnoxiously repetitive stream of being asked the same questions over and over experienced a hiccup.

The shift in that routine was preceded by a development in his condition. 

When he awoke in the morning, Izuku could move his fingers. And by the time he'd had his first suited visitor, he'd been able to lift his entire arm off of the bed. He couldn't lift it very high or hold it for very long, but it was more than he'd been able to do in days.

It seemed mobility was returning fast, though the feelings that accompanied weren't entirely normal. Moving felt similar to the sensation of shaking out a limb that had fallen asleep, with tiny pricks shooting up and down his arm. 

When the first suited man of the day had come in, he'd expected breakfast and that familiar string of questions. 

But instead, there were two people. And instead of breakfast, the first man's hands were clutching the push handles of a wheelchair. 

There was no string of questions, either. And, of course, they didn't provide any answers to Izuku's panicked questions as they grasped him, one sliding their hands beneath his armpits and the other gripping his feet. They hoisted him from the bed without exchanging a single word, setting him in the wheelchair, none too gently. 

Despite the panic, Izuku's brain was still doing what it did best: analyzing. 

He knew without a doubt now that they were watching him. That was the only thing that made sense to him. They'd seen that he could move, and now they were finally switching things up; changing the routine in order to move things further along. In what direction, he didn't know, but it was obvious that they had some sort of goal in all of this given their precision.

He kept up his analysis as they wheeled him from his room, his eyes jumping in every direction and soaking in every detail. 

The door to his room was one of many in the long, long hallway they wheeled him down. Everything was white or gray, from the tiles on the floor to the trim around the doors to the ceiling. Fluorescent lights lit their way, bouncing off the tile and setting the passage aglow with a faint foggy aura. 

Finally, they broke away from the long corridor, turning left into another hallway after Izuku had counted seven doors on the left wall in passing. 

This hallway looked the same as the last, but much shorter. 

It wasn't long before they turned again, and again, and Izuku's chest flared up as turn after turn, he was met with empty halls. 

There were no other workers in sight. No other patients. No windows on any of the doors or on any of the walls. No reception desks nor waiting rooms for visitors. There wasn't even anything on the walls. Only passages filled with door after door after door. 

This wasn't like any other hospital Izuku had ever been in. Hospitals were often bustling with activity, from doctors and nurses hurrying about to families and friends visiting patients. 

The entire place just felt wrong. 

The worker pushing him finally stopped before a seemingly unimportant door. As far as Izuku could see, there was nothing that set this door apart from the others. It was the same dull gray, and bore no special plaque or anything of the sort. 

As one of the workers behind him tugged open the door, he hoped to see his mother or one of his friends on the other side. 

His hopes quickly fell flat. 

They wasted no time in rolling him up to the table placed in the center of the room, and he quickly came face to face with another person in a hazmat suit with the same black visor. 

As soon as the door clicked shut following the exit of the other two workers, a voice carried through the suit of the person seated across from him, "Can you tell me your name?"

Izuku was still mentally noting down every detail. A man's voice. It was new and didn't belong to the cluster of voices from the people who cycled in and out of his room. It low, raspy, and gravelly. But the grit didn't seem to come from age. It was just the way the man talked.

After memorizing the information, Izuku snapped himself back to the present. 

It'd been a few moments since the question had been asked, but the man was seemingly patient and willing to wait for Izuku to be ready to answer. His silence was neither pressing nor tolerant. 

He was just...blank. 

The man, and his almost inhuman stillness, inexplicably unnerved Izuku. But, finally someone was asking him something other than that familiar sequence of questions. Maybe, he could finally get some answers of his own.

"Izuku Midoriya," he offered, his throat still a bit hoarse and swollen. 

Izuku also scratched off one of his questions. If they didn't know who he was, then there was no way his mom had been notified. He hoped she wasn't losing her mind with concern. But knowing her, the second he hadn't returned home on that night, she must've gone into a frenzy.

"And how old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"Where are you from?"

"Musutafu."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Uraraka spitting up blood.

The memory made Izuku want to hurl and sent shivers of fear and concern through his veins. 

He never wanted to see something like that again. And it was still killing him that he didn't have the slightest clue about his friends' wellbeings. 

Were they here, too? Were they in any pain? Were they as scared and confused as he was? 

He forced himself to focus on the conversation again, unable to bring himself to speak about the horrific sight of his best friend vomiting blood, "I was in the forest with my friends after the school dance. We were going to make s'mores, but then something..." he blanked on how to describe it, "...something happened. There was this...this whistle, and then a flash. That's the last thing I remember."

Izuku expected to be questioned more about that phenomenon. After all, it was far from natural, and it had to be what had left him in the state he was in. 

But for a moment, the questions stopped. 

As the man in front him typed the information into his laptop, or at least that was what the green haired boy assumed he was doing, Izuku gently requested, "I'd like to contact my mom, please."

The response was sharp and immediate, "I'm afraid I can't allow that."

It took Izuku a moment to recover from the backlash, and he coughed to clear his throat before confusedly questioning, "What? Why?"

"Tell me about the sensations you're experiencing. Are you in any pain?"

It was as if the man was ignoring him.

"I want to talk to my mom," he pressed again.

"Describe what you're feeling."

"Why won't you let me talk to her?"

"Are you in pain?"

Izuku's fingers squeaked against the leather pads on the armrests of the wheelchair as he gripped them, his teeth grinding together as he felt his desire to be polite all but fade. 

There was a part of him that flared up again at not getting any answers, but if the only way to get this guy to talk was to answer his questions, then he'd comply.

For now.

"No, I'm not in any pain," he reluctantly bristled. "All I feel is...tingles."

"'Tingles?'"

"Like...little pricks every time I move."

There was more typing on the man's end, "What are you able to move?"

"My hands and my arms, but just barely."

"Not your legs?"

Izuku shook his head.

"That will be all for today."

Izuku startled when the man suddenly slammed his laptop shut, and, as if on cue, another worker came through the door, gripping the back of his wheelchair.

"Wait!" Izuku protested as he was rolled away from the table and out the room, his hands weakly and fruitlessly trying to grip the wheels to stop them from taking him away, "Let me contact my mom! And where are my friends?! Tell me what happened to us!"

His cries fell on deaf ears, and he was taken back to his room to be left in his hospital bed, all alone once again. 

Another hiccup came a few days later, after Izuku had regained movement in his legs and established the new routine of wake up, eat, lay in bed or pace, go to get questioned about any changes by that man, back to the room, eat, lay in bed or pace, eat, lay in bed and stare at the ceiling until sleep comes. 

The sudden return of feeling in his legs had come as just as much of a shock as it had with his arms. But nothing could compare to the shock of relief and terror he felt upon the next development in his situation.

He'd just finished his dinner and sent the tray away with another worker in a hazmat suit when he'd heard it: distant, echoing sobs. 

The first was quiet and muffled, but it was enough to make Izuku shoot off of his bed. He stood as still as he could on his wobbly legs, listening for the sound again. 

It echoed more clearly this time, and with the next few, Izuku finally found its source. 

He hurriedly clambered to the ground next to his bed, leaning forward to place his head close to the vent in the wall as he timidly but desperately called, "He...hello…?"

The sounds of crying faded, a few sniffles echoing through the vent before he heard a soft, hoarse, "M...Midoriya?"

At the familiar voice, tears of relief flooded down Izuku's cheeks, "Iida?!" He clapped a hand over his mouth in an attempt to calm himself and ease his breathing, but he was still hurriedly sucking in breath as he choked out, "You-You have no idea how h-happy I am to hear-hear your voice."

Iida was here. Iida was here. For once, he finally had some shred of proof that his friends were okay. Finally, he knew that he wasn't alone anymore. 

"I...I'm happy to know you're here, too, Midoriya," he could hear Iida pause to breathe heavily for a few moments, "I've been...I'm very, very frightened."

Those words broke Izuku's brief, relieved reverie. Hearing his normally authoritative, confident, and sure friend sound so broken and admit such a thing nearly broke Izuku all over again. 

His voice quivered as he timidly and apprehensively asked, "Iida...what's happening? What's wrong?"

Iida didn't say anything for quite some time, but telltale sounds slipped through the vent every now and then. It was obvious that he was trying to stop himself from sobbing again, but he couldn't keep the tremble from his voice as he finally imparted the news.

Izuku's chest constricted and more tears spilled from his eyes when he finally heard it.

"Midoriya...I can't...I can't move my legs."

Izuku's rational and comforting side immediately kicked in at the devastating heartbreak in Iida's voice, "I...that's how I was at first, too. I couldn't feel my legs or arms for a few days, but I can move them now, so I'm sure-"

"It's been four weeks, Midoriya. I've...I've been in either a bed or a wheelchair ever since I woke up." 

Four weeks? Four weeks? Iida had been here and been awake for a month? That nearly tripled the amount of time Izuku had thought had passed since the night of the dance. 

If it'd been that long, his mom was definitely losing her mind. If it'd been that long, then figuring out what was going on seemed ten times more hopeless. 

What had happened to them? Why were their bodies like this? 

Iida was the captain and star of their school's track team. He had one of the fastest mile-runs of any high schooler in Japan. Subsequently, after graduation, he was set to attend a prestigious college on scholarship. Great things were expected of him, both academically and in athletics.

Whatever had happened to them had taken all of that away. 

Everything Iida said next fell on half-deaf ears, because part of Izuku couldn't bear to listen to it. 

"Every day, they…they take me to this room. They put me to sleep and when I wake up, everything aches and my legs burn, but then it fades and I can't feel them anymore. I can't move them. I haven't even been able to look at them since they wrap them up and strap me into the chair and the bed."

This was a nightmare. 

If Izuku thought the loneliness and being kept in the dark was unbearable, knowing what one of his friends was experiencing was at least a hundred times worse.

Every day, they were taking Iida and...doing things to him. He was suffering, and it wasn't because of whatever had happened in the forest. 

It was because of these people. The ones they were stuck with now. 

This...this was a nightmare. 

Iida was certainly suffering more than him by the sounds of it, but what about the rest of their friends? Were they in pain, too? What were the people here doing to them?

Izuku was terrified. 

In response to the emotion, his mind, which he'd trained to function by means of process and response, was flooded with the lessons he'd learned from his mother and through his childhood admiration for the superheroes in his comic books: When you're afraid, act tough. Face your fears with a smile. 

"It…" he swallowed, clearing throat before doing his best to keep his voice from faltering as he promised, "It'll be alright, Iida. We'll figure out what's going on. We'll get out of here."

While his words were mostly for his friend, they were for himself, too. 

They would get out here. They'd find their friends, and they'd all be able to go home. He'd get to hug his mom again.

He shifted so that he was sitting next to the vent instead of kneeling, leaning back against the wall and staring up at the ceiling as he worked up the courage to ask, "Do...do you know if any of the others are here?"

"I'm sorry, Midoriya," while Iida's voice was genuinely apologetic and still troubled, Izuku was proud and glad to note that it wasn't trembling with sobs anymore. "You're the only one I know of. I haven't seen or spoken to anyone else."

Cold, merciless disappointment and dread flooded his chest. Izuku was sure he was jumping to conclusions far too quickly, but the idea of still not having any clue where Uraraka, Kacchan, Todoroki, Asui, Kirishima, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, Mina, and Jirou were was too much for him to handle. 

He took a deep breath, doubly trying to convince both himself and Iida as he said, "I'm sure they're alright. They have to be alright." He clung to that hope as he swallowed, breathing out, "At the very least, I'm glad you're here, Iida."

They talked until Izuku fell asleep on the floor near the vent, finally feeling some slight sense of ease now that he knew a friend was nearby. 

If Iida was here, then there was hope for the rest of his friends. 

When he was led into the room for his next session of questioning the following morning, Izuku spouted his question before the man across from him could speak, "What are you doing to Iida?"

For once, the man didn't ignore his question by asking one of his own. Instead, he gave Izuku silence, almost as if he was waiting for the boy to continue.

Izuku was caught off guard at first by the shift in the man's demeanor. But he'd come with the determination to get answers clenched in his fists, so he took full advantage of the shift and pressed on, "Look, I know you've been watching me, so I know you heard us talking through the vents."

"The vents?" the man suddenly pitched in, seemingly interested and curious. 

"Yes," Izuku hissed, his week and a half of bottled up frustration spilling over again. "Can you stop pretending like you don't know anything? Just tell me what you're doing to me and my friends!"

When his efforts were rewarded with silence again, Izuku felt like he might combust if the man didn't start talking soon. 

But when the man finally spoke again, the feeling grew even worse.

There was something almost sly to his voice as he stated, "You're the only one here, Midoriya."

Izuku's breath caught in throat, denial, with hints of something akin to loathing,  dripping from his tone, "You're lying." 

The gall of this man. Izuku had talked to Iida just last night. They might not have been able to see each other, but Iida's voice had been clear as day. They'd known each other for years, and Izuku knew there was no way he'd been mistaken.

"None of your friends are here," the man insisted again. "We don't know where they are."

Confusion and anger and denial choked Izuku's throat, and all he could manage was a croaked, "...What?"

"Your friends were never found. They're still missing," the man's tone was frustratingly calm for the gravity of what he was saying. "You were the only one we found in that forest, Midoriya."

The same crushing fear from last night choked him for a moment before everything finally boiled over. His chair clamored to the floor as he shot to his feet and slammed his hands on the table, "Bullshit!" His mom definitely would have chastised him for his language, but he was frustrated and scared and just wanted to know where his friends were so they could go home. 

"I told you already," he choked out, "Iida and I talked to each other through the vents!"

"Really, Midoriya?" the judgement and sly tone had returned to the man's voice, "Through the vents?" When this man repeated the sentence, he made the idea sound ludicrous. "It seems you're in no condition to continue. You can go back to your room for the day."

Izuku had to be dragged from the room, kicking and screaming. He had never been one to lash out physically. That was always Kacchan's thing. But words obviously weren't getting him anywhere, and he was just so frustrated.

How dare that man try to so casually tell him his friends were missing when he'd talked to one of them just last night?  

Izuku knew he wasn't crazy. He couldn't have been imagining it. Iida had been there, and they'd cried together and talked until they'd fallen asleep. They'd promised to talk again tonight about how they were going to find their friends and get out of this place together. 

But that night and every night that followed, there was no response to Izuku's cries through the vent.

Chapter Text

Now, Izuku was suspicious of everything. Not just the mirror on the wall and the hazmat suits. 

He'd assumed his injuries had come from whatever had happened in the forest, but where did they really come from? Had these people caused them? Had they done things to him while he was unconscious, just like they'd done things to Iida? Was there something in the foods they were feeding him? What about the liquid dripping into his I.V.?

His mind was running wild, telling him to find answers, to fight to get out, or at least do something other than just uselessly existing in his hospital room. 

But he couldn't. 

The feelings surging through him, the ones strong enough to overcome any drive to fight back...Izuku wasn't used to them. 

In the wake of anger and desperation there was only...emptiness.

He'd certainly had his moments of distress before. His ever-incessant anxiety and being childhood friends with Kacchan made sure of that. But he'd somewhat learned to cope, even though he was still quick to tears more often than not. 

But the feeling now was far beyond anything else he'd felt before. It was some horrid and overwhelming concoction of worry, anger, confusion, doubt, and fear. It was just...absolute desolation.

He had fought back at first. With a drive that he was sure would make Kacchan proud, if it were even possible for Kacchan to correlate Izuku and a feeling of pride together.

The people in hazmat suits had had to wrestle him into his bed after his last questioning session, the one where he'd casuallly been told all of his friends were never found. They'd even restrained him to his bed for the night, securing straps around his wrists and ankles and over his midsection.

Even then, he'd kept struggling, the bandages around his wrists the only thing saving his skin from chafing against the thick, fabric cuffs. 

It'd taken a syringe full of what he assumed were sedatives into his I.V. drip to stop his grappling. 

But he'd still yelled after the suited people as they left the room, and kept on screaming until the drugs kicked in and he couldn't move anymore.

He'd called out for Iida, too, but his friend never answered.  

For what had to have been hours, Izuku had lied in his bed, resisting the pull of his forced drowsiness as he called out for his friend until his throat ached. 

Reassurance. That was all he desperately needed. Reassurance that his friends weren't missing. Reassurance that he hadn't imagined talking to Iida. Reassurance that he wasn't insane. 

Three weeks had gone by like that. He would call out, eventually bringing himself to tears, and there was never a reply. 

His mind had first jumped to the most logical conclusion: they'd just moved Iida to a different room. Whoever these people were hadn't liked the fact that they were talking, so they'd simply moved his friend into a room that cut off their communication through the vents.

Then, when the days kept passing without any changes or signs of his friend, worry had taken over. What if they were doing...things to Iida again, and his friend was more hurt than he'd been before? What if he was incapacitated? 

In regards to his friend's condition, that was the most severe possibility Izuku would let himself entertain. He wouldn't let himself think of anything worse. 

Then, after a few more days without a reply or any other signs of life...doubt crept in. 

He couldn't help but let his thoughts stray from what he had assumed to be true when all he could do was pace his tiny room or lie in bed. 

He hadn't been taken for questioning once since that day. For the first few days, they'd only removed his restraints to wrestle him to the bathroom and back. They'd only removed them permanently once he'd stopped fighting to be free every time someone walked through the door. But that hardly expanded his options for how to occupy his mind. 

Thus, the routine these people kept him under had changed once again. They still brought him three meals a day, but now they were coming in more often to inject things into his I.V., too. 

The new routine was having its effects on him. Never leaving the room was infuriating and crippling. Days were going by, and he still had no idea where he was or what had happened to him and his friends. 

After being endlessly faced with nothing but white hospital walls and floors for days on end, Izuku found that the things an idle mind could construct were truly astounding. 

Sometimes, he couldn't tell what was real and what was some situation his mind had conjured up. 

Every time the door opened, some deep, detached part of him sparked with the hope that it wouldn't be another person in a damn hazmat suit. And sometimes when he woke up, blinking his eyes to clear the fuzzy drowsiness, he'd envision that he was waking up in a real hospital bed with his mom, or maybe even Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki, by his bedside. 

He knew none of these things were real, but his mind clung to the very idea of them anyways. Despite his persevering pragmaticism, his mind kept conjuring the same images over and over again, so maybe he really was going insane. Maybe he hadn't really heard Iida through the vents that night.

The next time Izuku was led out of his room was twenty-four days after he'd been told his friends were missing. 

He'd counted them by the number of times the lights in his room had shut off for a few hours, which he'd always taken as a sign that it was time to go to bed. It was the closest semblance of nighttime that he had. 

After he'd had breakfast, a trio of people in hazmat suits came to retrieve him. He immediately recognized one of them as the man who was always in charge of questioning him.

The man stood at the foot of the hospital bed, quietly giving the other two orders as they finally pulled the needle of his I.V. out of his arm. 

Izuku numbly noted in his head that this guy's attitude hadn't changed at all since the last time they'd interacted. As always, he was still distant and callous. Definitely not the tone Izuku would've expected to be used with him when he'd apparently been through an event during which ten of his friends had gone missing. 

Even though they were somewhat ignoring him, or at least ignoring the fact that he was awake and aware, as his arm was sanitized and patched with gauze, Izuku didn't make a move to try and get past them. What was the point when he'd probably just get tackled and strapped back into his bed? 

Moving was a privilege he didn't want to have taken from him again. His reduced mobility and activity over the last month had surely resulted in his bones and muscles losing quite a bit of mass. It'd probably take him months to get his body back into the state it had been in before all of this.

He swung his legs off the side of the bed as he was instructed, and he allowed the two that'd removed his I.V. to each grab an arm and pull him to his feet. As they led him from the room, following after the other man, he still didn't put up any kind of protest. He didn't know what to do anymore other than go along with it. 

Izuku had assumed he was being taken to be questioned again, but he quickly found that they weren't leading him to the usual room. 

Instead, he was led further away from his room than he'd ever been, trudging down hallway after hallway. 

Strings of panic raced through him the longer they walked, finally making his blood race again after feeling hopeless for so long. This place was much bigger than he'd originally assumed. He felt like they'd been walking for at least ten minutes by now. 

And yet, he still hadn't seen any traces of the outside. There wasn't a single window or skylight, and he didn't hear even a single sound of airplanes flying overhead or wind nudging the building. 

There was just more hallways filled with door after door after door with nothing but silence on the other side. 

They finally reached their destination: a door that was made of heavy, thick metal instead of the usual wood. It rested at the dead-end of a hallway, spanning almost the entire wall. 

The suited man on his right released his arm in order to tug the massive door open, having to wrap both hands around the large handle. 

The man that maintained their grip on his left arm used it to shove Izuku forward and through the door once it was opened.

His bare feet met cold concrete. 

He swallowed heavily as his eyes drifted around the room. It was absolutely massive. Concrete closed him in on all sides, with metal rafters spanning the sweeping ceiling. It resembled something he imagined he would see in a prison, but the sheer size of it was almost incomprehensible. 

Once he was able to pull his focus from the far-off ceiling, more feelings of unease crept up on him. 

Everywhere else he'd been in this place was meticulously simplistic and well-ordered. But this room was a mess and nearly looked like it was falling apart. 

Jagged cavities rimmed with scorch marks were scattered about, almost as if chunks of the walls and ground had been blasted away. In other places, it looked as if the concrete was distorted and sloped, like it'd been melted.

The room's contents were only cause for more confusion. There was a massive water tank in the corner while various piles of other random objects were scattered about the room. An arrangement of metal poles on stands had been shoved against one of the walls, near various stacks of mismatched speaker systems. A pile of books took up a portion of the floor opposite from the tank, with other random objects peeking out from between the volumes.

The sight of all that together brought on another onslaught of disorientation and bewilderment. 

Izuku was shoved forward again, the tight grip on his arm leading him further into the room. He was dragged over to a punching bag he hadn't caught sight of before, the hands on his arm retreating once he was right in front of it. 

Izuku's eyes found the man who was usually in charge of questioning him, "What is this?"

"A test," the man answered simply, holding a tablet in his hand, presumably to take notes. "Punch the bag."

Izuku swallowed, slowly glancing between the man and the bag, "What happens when I do?"

"It's an ordinary punching bag, Midoriya. We just want to measure how much of your strength has returned."

Wasn't sending him straight to a punching bag after he'd been injured and then confined to a hospital room for a month a little extreme? Sure, he didn't necessarily feel run down anymore. But he hadn't really exerted himself much yet, either, so he couldn't be one-hundred percent positive he was completely fine. The repercussions of this sudden, intense activity could be bad. 

But speaking to this guy was giving him phantom aches of fury. He was using the same tone he'd used when he'd told Izuku his friends were missing. It was far from gentle and sensitive. Just cold and emotionless and almost conceited. 

When this man spoke to him, Izuku didn't feel like a human. All they cared about was his physical state and what he was capable of, and not the fact that he was pretty sure he was slowly going insane.

That treatment only bred agitation. 

So if they wanted him to punch the damn bag, then Izuku would punch the hell out of it. 

He was no stranger to punching bags. He was by no means known for his physicality, but a lot of his friends were athletes in some regard. They'd often dragged him along to the gym, and he hadn't minded. As long as he was spending time with his friends, he'd been content. 

He curled his fingers into his palm, wrapping his thumb over the middle of his index and middle fingers, like he'd learned from watching Kacchan. He mimicked the stance he always saw Kaccahn use, too, his legs bent and spread to keep himself sturdy. 

Then, he threw his right fist forward.

The moment his knuckles smashed the side of the bag, the impact ricocheted up his arm.

He heard the shattering a split second before he felt it. 

The pain was so intense, he almost missed the way his veins had seemed to glow red beneath his skin as green sparks of energy spiraled around his fist upon impact with the bag. 

Almost missed it

A scream burst from his mouth and he immediately fell to his knees, curling his upper body down in a poor attempt to cradle his quivering limb.

His eyes shot to his wrist and widened in horror. 

It wasn't just broken. It was completely shattered; all misshapen and jutting out in places where it shouldn't. The skin of his hand and lower arm was already turning a deep purple and swelling, too.

Somewhere past the pain, his heart managed to clench with panic and fear. 

What the hell had they done to him? What was in the mushy, liquid foods they were feeding him and the stuff they were pumping into him through his I.V.?

He wrenched his head upwards, the panic and pain reinvigorating him with the intent to scream at them for answers.

But the words died in his throat when he caught sight of what had happened to the subject of his punch. 

He'd been too overwhelmed with pain to pay attention to what had happened after his fist had shattered against the bag. But now, he found the bag was gone from in front of him. 

The chain holding the bag to the support had snapped. The bag was now a good ten meters across the room, lying on the floor beneath a massive crater in the wall and spilling sand from where it'd burst open. 

He'd sent a damn punching bag sailing across the room and snapped a metal chain. The bag had left a fucking crater in a concrete wall. 

All with one punch. 

A sharp pain, one that he almost didn't notice due to the screeching agony in his wrist, suddenly strung the back of his neck. 

Heaviness and sluggishness flooded his body, layering on top of the exhaustion that already clung to him. With the pain in his arm already threatening to steal his consciousness, whatever they'd injected was more than enough to send him slumping forward. 

It took everything he had in him not to land on his broken arm. He curled just enough to land on his left shoulder instead, his head smacking against the concrete the last thing he registered before black took over. 

Jolts of pain radiating from his shattered wrist yanked Izuku back into consciousness only a few minutes later. 

He wanted to scream as someone handled his wrist, none too gently, but all that escaped him was a dull moan. 

He was on his back now, clearly no longer on the concrete floor of that room. And that heavy feeling from when he'd first woken up in this place was back. Like he was being pulled down endlessly while his own heartbeat hammered in his head.

People were moving all around him. He could hear them, the rustling of their movements and the mutter of their voices as they softly spoke to one another. 

He fought to tear his eyes open to see where he was and what these people were doing. 

When he finally managed to get his eyelids to flutter, he scrunched them shut almost immediately again as he was assaulted by the bright lights on the ceiling. 

His head lulled to the right as he recoiled from the brightness, keeping his eyes clenched tightly shut for a few more moments before trying again. Someone was still messing with his wrist, and he needed to know what they were doing. 

With sluggishness still permeating his senses, he managed to open his eyes halfway again. His focus blearily drifted before settling on his bruised and swollen wrist.

It'd been laid out flat with his palm up, pinned apart from the rest of his body by straps and other restraints. There was a man sterilizing it with a damp cloth, his hands harshly raking up and down the purpled skin. 

Panic drove Izuku's eyes elsewhere, taking in everything he could about his surroundings. 

There was a tray with a scalpel and other medical tools resting on a cart, not too far away. He was in a room he didn't recognize, in another hospital bed, by the feel of it. 

Is this where they'd operated on Iida? Was he about to experience the same thing?

His bleary eyes landed on a man standing completely still about a meter away, a tablet in his grasp as he sat back near the wall, observing and documenting. 

Izuku knew exactly who it was. 

And, sure enough, the same deep, gritty voice filtered through the hazmat suit, "No need to look so scared. You'll be put to sleep again soon enough."

A small group of people were still moving all around the room, preparing for something. 

"W-what..." Izuku's voice came out weak and fractured, a product of how dry and cracked his lips and throat felt. He was pretty sure there were tears and snot and droll making a mess all over his face, but he couldn't do a thing to stop it. It took all of his willpower to fearfully huff, "What did...you do...do to me?"

He didn't receive an answer. 

His head was roughly grabbed and shifted so that he was staring at the ceiling again. Hands obscured his vision, reaching out over his face and passing things back and forth above him. 

A mask was secured over his face before he could process anything else, the gas flooding his mouth and nose stealing away his already unstable awareness. 

Izuku's bed rattled in tandem with the walls of his hospital room, jostling him into consciousness. 

He felt absolutely miserable, but his mind was quickly sharp with awareness. It wasn't long before he remembered exactly where he'd been before he'd been knocked out.

Despite the darkness of his room, he sought out his right arm immediately. He needed to know what they'd done to him. 

He found that his wrist was encased in a thick cast that ended just before his elbow, the wrapping even circling in a dome around his fingers and locking them into place. He could lift his arm, but could barely feel it. For all he knew, beneath the cast, much more could be wrong with his wrist than just his shattered bones. 

The bandages were completely gone from his left arm, too, he noticed after a moment. Confusion raced through him when he realized that the skin was perfectly clear. There wasn't even a trace of any lacerations or healing skin, so why had the bandages been there in the first place?

The walls rattled again.

Izuku painstakingly forced his torso upwards as yelling rang out from beyond the door, the noises quickly growing closer. 

What was happening? An earthquake?

The next tremor was preceded by a resounding boom. 

No...the shaking and rattling, though periodic, wasn't lasting long enough for it to be an earthquake. Whatever was causing the quakes wasn't natural given the booms and crashes. 

And from the sounds of it, it was coming this way.

Izuku swung his legs over his bed and shot to his feet as an eerie, orange glow slowly flared to life in the cracks around the door. The temperature in the room spiked, and the orange hues filtering under the door flickered and danced across the floor. 

A fire? 

But no, it couldn't be as simple as that. There was the shaking, and there were sounds other than just the roaring and sputtering of flames. There was a rumbling, always accompanied by a piercing, shrill hum and the crackling of something solid, but fragile.  

The shouting was directly outside his room now. Despite his morbid curiosity, Izuku stumbled backwards instead of forward, pressing himself flat against the wall furthest from the door.

He slid down the wall as his door harshly quivered in its frame, pulling his knees into his chest. 

Whatever was out there…it was moving fast; carving a path, and...he didn't want to get in its way. 

As quickly as it came, whatever was happening in the hall passed on. The orange glow around the door slowly flickered out into nothing, and the yelling faded to silence. The uncomfortable heat gave way to startling, chilling cold. 

Izuku stayed curled up against the wall for what felt like hours. He expected someone to come check on him, to make sure he hadn't been impacted by whatever had just happened. 

But no one came.

He stared at the door, a mental debate with himself raging in his head. 

What if now was his chance? If he couldn't make it out of this place entirely, at least he could maybe snoop around; find some answers or maybe even his friends. The door was always locked but...what if he could somehow repeat what he'd done before? He'd managed to leave a goddamn crater in a concrete wall, so surely he could break a lock. And if it cost him his hand, well...that was a small price to pay if it meant he could potentially get some answers about his friends.

Whatever had caused the rumbling was gone now, too. Or, at least the very least, it'd moved on to somewhere else. If it was still rampaging elsewhere, then it could be the distraction Izuku needed. 

He swallowed heavily, squeezing his eyes shut as he clenched his good hand into a fist and gave himself a mental pep-talk. 

Think of your friends, Izuku. You need answers, for both your sake and theirs. 

Keeping his good hand clenched, he pressed his back into the wall and used his legs to press himself up to his feet. 

The action made him dizzy, and he was once more reminded of how ill-fit he was to deal with this situation. But he wouldn’t let it stop him. 

Cautiously, he crept toward the door. He stood in front of it quietly for a few moments, listening for any noise. When he was met only with silence, he made his move. 

A sharp hiss burst from his lips and he yanked his hand back when the doorknob nearly burned his skin, not with heat, but with freezing cold. 

The shock didn't hinder his determination. It only spurred him on. 

Stepping quicker than before, he returned from his bed with his blanket, wrapping it over his left hand before he reached for the handle again. 

It was unlocked. Though the movement was jagged and stuttered, the handle twisted and the lock audibly unlatched, but the door wouldn’t move. 

Izuku swallowed, pulling on it with more force. Something slightly cracked and shifted on the other side of the door, but Izuku still tugged and tugged. 

He was getting out of this damn room, no matter what it took. 

He spread his legs further apart, bracing his bare feet against the tile floor and clinging onto the door with all his might as he leaned back with his full weight. 

Whatever was keeping the door closed gave under the force, and he stumbled back a few steps when it swung open. Despite his eagerness to run forward and finally get out of his room, he stilled almost immediately in confusion.

The outside of the door was glimmering. 

He cautiously took a few steps forward, resting his hand against the gleaming surface. 

It was cold. It was covered in ice. 

His breath stalled in his lungs as he slowly peered through the door and turned to the left, surveying the rest of the damage. 

Ice climbed up the entirety of the left wall of the hallway, eventually sloping into a line of water running down the center of the floor. The other side of the wet trail lapped at scorch marks that marred the right wall, the formerly pristine white surface distorted and burned away to reveal insulation. 

The only sound in the hallway was the dripping of water as the ice slowly melted away. 

Izuku stood frozen in the middle of the mess. How did something like this happen? 

His feet carried him forward, stumbling around the chunks of ice and making the water on the floor splash. While his mind grappled to comprehend and understand what he was seeing, his body did the thinking for him. Whatever had done this had moved in the direction opposite of where he was headed. He didn't want to follow its path, lest he end up getting scorched to death or encased in ice. That was probably where everyone else was, too, and he was determined to avoid getting caught again. 

He’d never been this way, either. The room he’d been taken to for questioning and the massive concrete room both rested in the other direction as well, and since he’d never seen any traces of the outside in that direction, he supposed he might have a higher chance of finding an exit if he went this way. 

The shock of what he was seeing slowly faded the longer he walked, the unease of not encountering anyone taking over in its place. Eventually, he broke away from the path of ice and scorch marks, deciding that wherever the thing that’d caused all this had come from wasn’t somewhere he wanted to be.

He walked for minutes on end, still entirely on his own on his trek. He’d encountered nothing of interest so far, just more gray doors and white hallways. He considered taking a peek inside some of the rooms he passed to see if he would be met with something helpful. But none of the doors stood out from the rest, and he didn’t want to risk peering in only to come face to face with any of the men in the hazmat suits. 

When he came to another corner, he pressed himself against the wall as he always had before. He twisted his body quietly, ready to bolt in the other direction if he was met with danger as he slowly peered around the corner. 

His eyes went wide at what he saw. 

There were people in this hallway...but they were all unconscious or worse, their limp bodies scattered across the floor. Two bodies were partially encased in the ice that curled around the opposite corner and up the left wall. Another body lay slumped against the right wall, their hazmat suit charred and melted to their frame, exposing their burned and blistered flesh. 

Despite the fact that he was sure these people harbored ill intent, Izuku hoped they were simply unconscious instead of dead. 

And had he somehow looped around and ended up at the other end of the path the cause of the ice and fire had taken? He must have, though he thought he’d done his best to head in one direction despite the twists and turns of the hallways. His nervousness must’ve hindered his tact more than he’d realized. 

His trail of thought stopped dead when he caught sight of where the path of scorch, water, and ice ended. 

It stopped dead just before a door that was made of glass instead of wood. 

Despite his trepidation, Izuku nearly forgot his fear and rushed forward as something akin to exhilaration flooded his system. This door was different; the only one of its kind that Izuku had seen so far, so it had to lead somewhere important. 

A small screen rested on the wall near the door, probably for security purposes. It was cracked, but the message flashing across it in red still read clear: SUBJECT OUT OF CONTAINMENT

Subject...as in ‘test subject?’ Izuku certainly felt like one, especially after what had happened earlier with the punching bag and operation room. 

Was this ‘subject’ someone like him? Was it one of his friends? 

All thoughts quickly fled as he finally processed what was beyond the glass door. 

It was a cylindrical tunnel, lit by a stripe of the same fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling here. It led off into darkness, it’s outlet unknown.

Izuku swallowed as he slowly pulled the door open by what remained of its handle, noting that was metal was freezing cold and broken at the lock. 

His senses were immediately met with the smell and taste of cold, crisp air. 

This tunnel led to the outside. He could feel it. 

So he ran.

His bare feet screamed with pain as they smacked against the harsh concrete of the tunnel, and he still couldn't feel his right hand, and the drugs pumping through his system prevented him from running at his full speed. 

But he kept going. If he got out of here, he could figure out what had happened. If he got out of here, he could find help and find out what had happened to his friends. He could see his mom again, and eat her food and hug her tighter than he ever had before. 

His lungs and legs burned with the sudden exertion, but he’d always had good endurance. Or it was just his incredibly high pain tolerance kicking in, but either way, he didn’t let anything stop him.

Not until he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. A tiny, dull pinpoint of light, that soon multiplied. 

Stars, the thought raced through him and brought a relieved, watery grin to his features as a few tears streaked down his cheeks, It’s the night sky. 

When his feet met dirt and brushed through piles of leaves, he finally let himself stumble to a stop. 

He spun in circles, hurriedly taking in the hole in the sloped mountainside he’d just emerged from and the trees surrounding him and the stars shining in the sky above him. 

He was outside, in the middle of a forest. 

He was free. 

Chapter Text

His feet were bleeding. Leaves and pieces of twigs were clinging to his soles because of it, and they only opened more fissures in his skin.

But Izuku didn't care. He didn't have time to care. He had to get away fast, before the men in the hazmat suits could come after him, if they had even realized he was gone after the chaos of what had happened earlier.

Izuku had already barreled about fifty meters down the mountainside, but that wasn't enough. He needed to get far, far away and then keep on going.

Honestly, he was a bit surprised he'd made it as far as he had. He hadn't thought he'd even make it anywhere of import while he'd been sneaking around the hospital, much less out of that tunnel and into the woods. But it seemed no one else was around. 

At least, that was how it seemed up until he heard it. 

A faint rumble and a high pitched hum were all the warning he got.

Izuku threw his body backwards on instinct. He just barely managed to avoid getting clipped by the solid mass that had just appeared out of nowhere in front of him, effectively cutting off his path. 

His balance was lost to his dodge, and as his body collided with the forest floor, he was blasted with a delayed burst of freezing air. Through the gust of his billowing bangs, his eyes shot to make sense of what had nearly trampled him. 

Just in front of where he'd been standing, there was now something that clearly hadn't been there only a few seconds ago. It was something like a wall, only a few meters in both height and length, and it was made of...ice?

Oh...Oh no.

His mind raced back over the images he'd seen in the hallway. Ice and scorch marks consuming the walls. Three bodies, one blistered and charred while the others were encased in ice. 

Whatever had caused all that was here, and Izuku knew he was next. 

A figure charged out of the darkness from where the chunk of ice had emerged.

Izuku desperately scrambled on his elbows and kicked against the ground with his bloodied feet to push himself away from the sprinting footfalls. He hopelessly flopped onto his stomach, the twigs and dry forest floor digging into his left forearm and scraping against his cast. 

A freezing hand clasped onto his shoulder, and a weight slammed down over his thighs.

"No!" Izuku cried as he was forcibly flipped onto his back again, a hand threading into the front of his hospital gown tugging his torso up again just as quickly.

Fire filled his vision. 

He clenched his eyes shut and threw his arms over his face in a hopeless attempt at protecting himself. 

It was hopeless though, wasn't it? What could he do against something, someone that could produce both fire and ice?

But, all at once, the anger and aggression faded from his assailant, the tension draining from the cold hand fisted in the front of his hospital gown. 

"Midoriya?"

He knew that voice. He knew that voice.

Izuku dropped his arms slowly, hesitantly peeking past his impromptu protective shield. 

The flames gathered in the hand only a short distance away from his face washed a set of familiar features in an orange glow.

Unbidden, tears flooded Izuku's eyes as he choked out, "T-Todoroki?"

His friend didn't look quite the same as the last time he'd seen him, though. His hair was now perfectly split down the middle. While the left side remained the fiery red it'd been before, the right side was an icy white, now resembling his mom's flowing locks. The red scar he'd received from his mother only served to make the fact that his iris was now a piercing blue on that side instead of its former slate gray more apparent by acting as a prominent contrast. In fact, it seemed everything about the boy stood in contrast now; blazing red on one side versus blueish gray on the other.

Now, Todoroki seemed to be a perfect blend of his parents, split right down the middle. Izuku highly doubted hair dye or contact lenses were at play, so...how did something like that happen?

That was a question for later, though. 

Izuku knew Todoroki wasn't one for physical affection, but he couldn't help himself. His arms flew around Todoroki's middle and latched on tight. He buried his head in the other boy's chest, smothering his face in Todoroki's hospital gown as he blubbered, "I thought...I thought I was the only one...They said...They-they said you guys were-" 

He couldn't bring himself to finish the lie he'd been fed. 

"I...I didn't know where anyone else was either," after the flames fizzled out, Todoroki gently and slowly placed an unnaturally warm hand on his back. 

Todoroki wasn't always the best at expressing things, but Izuku knew what he meant regardless. Todoroki had been worried, too, and now that concern was abated some fraction, the slight settling of his weight on Izuku's thighs giving him away. 

Todoroki waited for him to pull away first before finally pushing himself back to his feet and moving off of him. 

Lit only by the stars now, Izuku took in the changes in his friend's appearance once more, hurriedly scrubbing the tears from his cheeks with his good hand as he asked, "Todoroki...what happened to you?" 

"I...I don't understand it. At least not fully. But...just by thinking about it, fire comes from this hand," he flexed the fingers on his left hand and flames fluttered to life, dancing between his fingers, "and ice comes from the other."

Izuku's gaze shifted between his friend and the chunk of ice still stabbing into the air only a short distance away, "So...back in the hallway...that was you?"

"You saw?"

Izuku nodded, "I...you walked right past my door."

A grim realization wormed its way into Izuku's head as he processed everything.

All of the doors he'd snuck past...had any of them concealed his friends? Had he walked right by, completely oblivious to the fact that they were on the other side? Could he have found them and taken them with him?

He shook the horrid thoughts from his head, knowing no good would come from dwelling on them.

Izuku pushed himself to his bloodied feet, his intrigue with the flames sputtering in his friend's palm numbing him to the sting of the cuts on his soles, "It...it doesn't hurt?"

Todoroki shook his head, the flames sputtering out as he dropped his hand back to his side, "It did at first. And it took me a while to get control over it.

"As for the other physical changes," Todoroki quickly and unconsciously ran a hand through his hair, his eyes still on the forest floor, "Messing with people's bodies, with their genetic makeup...it seems like it can have some unprecedented effects."

Izuku didn't know how to respond. It seemed like Todoroki had had more time to process and think things through than he had. Izuku had only just discovered what'd been done to him a few hours ago, and he hadn't really thought about the implications fully. 

It wasn't as simple as their bodies being messed with. It was their genetic coding that was being screwed with; everything that physically made them who they were. 

Todoroki's voice pulled him out of his head, "What about you? What'd they do to you?"

Izuku followed Todoroki's gaze to his cast, lifting it as he softly admitted, "I...I'm not sure yet. Some sort of strength enhancement, maybe? It's only happened once, and I just...I absolutely obliterated a punching bag earlier. Shattered my wrist in the process, though."

"I see…" Todoroki nodded softly, backlit by the stars. "If your power is anything like mine, the backlash will become less severe over time."

That line caused another question to spur to the forefront of Izuku's mind. He had absolutely no idea how he'd done what he had earlier, but it seemed like Todoroki already had pretty good control over his...ability, or whatever one might call it, at least if what Izuku had seen in the hallway was anything to go by.

Already fearful of the answer he would receive, Izuku hesitantly asked, "Todoroki...how long were you in there?"

"Almost three months," Todoroki's voice was the same monotone calm it usually always was. 

But that admission, no matter how calm, sent Izuku's brain into overdrive again.

"Three...three months?" Izuku shakily breathed out, his good hand coming up to grip the side of his head, "I...I've only been awake for a month…" 

Iida had said he'd been awake for a month when they'd spoken through the vents, so that put him at about two months of consciousness now. And Todoroki had been awake for three months. Were they waking them up and experimenting on them one-by-one? Then...how long had it really been since that night in the forest?

Todoroki, clearly seeing the oncoming panic attack, hurried to shift Izuku's focus elsewhere. He lightly set a hand on the other boy's shoulder, causing him to startle a bit, "Midoriya, we'll figure out what's going on. For now, let's just hurry and get down the rest of this mountain, okay?"

"I...yeah…" Izuku took a few heavy breaths to calm himself, swallowing and nodding his head to finish shoving all those anxious thoughts aside. "Okay. Let's go."

They set off down the mountainside again, Izuku feeling overwhelmingly grateful that he wasn't alone anymore. 

But this was far from over. He still had nine friends left to find, and he wouldn't relax until he knew they were safe. 

"Todoroki...do you see that?" Izuku slowed to a halt as he caught sight of light filtering through the trees up ahead. It was too consistent to be from a fire, and had a yellowish color, obviously artificially produced. 

Warily, Todoroki slowly slid behind the cover of a large tree once they were closer, tugging Izuku behind the tree, too, by grabbing the collar of his hospital gown. He cautiously peeked past the tree, taking in the vague outlines that were just barely distinguishable from the shadows of the forest because of the light radiating from within, "Is that...a house?"

"Do we...Should we ask them for help?" Izuku thought aloud, running over their options and their integrity. "But, what if whoever's in there is part of this whole thing?"

Todoroki was silent for a few moments before admitting, "I...I don't know...We could at least try, though, right? And if things go south, I can-"

"Who's there?"

Izuku startled as the two words sharply pierced through the air. His head immediately whipped around to find the source, as did Todoroki's, but they were quickly blinded as the white beam of a flashlight settled upon them.

For a minute, Izuku's heart rate jumped as he suffered a momentary flashback of the bright white light that'd consumed him that night in the forest. 

But the feeling quickly faded. The beam of the flashlight was nowhere near as bright and all-encompassing as that had been. And Todoroki stood between him and whoever was holding the flashlight, partially concealing its luminosity. 

From the vague outline of the figure behind the flashlight, the same sharp voice called out again, "I asked you who you are."

As Todoroki stiffened next to him, Izuku floundered for words. Should they be honest? But what if this person, a guy by the sounds of it, was from that place in the mountain and he wanted to take them back?

Before Izuku could come to any sort of conclusion, Todoroki took a small step forward. 

Izuku panicked, but couldn't do anything. Especially not after Todoroki breathed out a soft, "Touya?"

Izuku's mind reeled, his hand lingering, frozen in the air from his hesitant and failed attempt at stopping his friend from approaching this guy. 

Touya? As in Touya Todoroki? The oldest son that'd cut himself off from the lives of the Todoroki family and disappeared after he'd graduated? 

In response to the allegation, the man's form stiffened and he took a tense step forward, his voice rougher as he growled, "Who are you?"

"I...it's me, Shouto." 

After a moment of tense stillness, the beam of the flashlight slowly fell from their faces, granting Izuku the chance to look at this guy's features properly. 

It was hard to see many details with only the light of the stars and rising moon, and black hair wasn't something Izuku would've associated with the Todoroki family. But the piercing blue of his eyes was unmistakable, and practically screamed Enji Todoroki. 

The resemblance was undeniable now that he knew, but Izuku had to give props to Todoroki for recognizing his brother by his voice alone. Especially after it'd been...how many years since Shouto had seen him last? He said he'd been nine when his brother had abandoned the family, so that also made it nine years, then. 

Todoroki also seemed a bit off-put by the black hair, "You...you dyed your hair."

"So did you," Touya spat back. 

"I...yeah."

Izuku noted Todoroki's stance on the situation and decided to follow it. They weren't going to be open about everything, at least not yet, even though this was Todoroki's brother they were dealing with. Izuku didn't know how long they were going to be able to get by without spilling at least some of what had happened, but he supposed they were taking the route of 'don't tell unless asked.'

"Well it looks stupid as hell," Touya jabbed. 

Izuku flinched as the flashlight was suddenly pointed directly in his face for the first time, his good hand coming up in a poor attempt to shield his eyes from it's bright light.

"Oh, Broccoli Boy's here, too," Touya stated monotonously. 

"Broccoli Boy…?" Izuku repeated the insult in a mumble, a pout on his features. He threaded his fingers through his hair, noting that it was quite a bit longer than he usually preferred. Ever unruly, it had probably grown to be even more of a mess during his months in that place in the mountain. But he still felt like the broccoli insult was unnecessary, and it unpleasantly reminded him of how Kacchan had talked to him when they were younger. 

Behind his childish irritation, an alarm bell was going off in Izuku's head.

He'd only ever heard about Touya Todoroki. He'd never actually met him. Yet, from the way Touya talked, it'd definitely seemed like Touya recognized him. 

But before he could say anything on the matter, Touya spoke again.

There was clear annoyance lacing his words as he muttered, more to himself than the others, "Thought I might be seeing more of you idiots."

More…?

"What?" Izuku blurted before he could stop himself. 

Touya shifted his weight, fixing Izuku with a cold, bored stare, "Let's just say you two aren't the first to come knocking."

"What do you mean?" Todoroki pressed.

A heavy sigh slipped through Touya's lips before he sharply commanded, "Just come with me." Without another word, he walked past them, continuing off towards the house without glancing back to see if they were following. 

After only a few beats of stillness, Todoroki started to trail after his brother. 

Still apprehensive, Izuku lagged behind for a bit longer before stumbling to catch up. He leaned in as close to his friend as he could, grateful that they were quite a few steps behind the older Todoroki as he whispered, "Todoroki, I don't like this." 

The moonlight caught in Todoroki's mismatched irises as he gave him a questioning glance.

"Come on," Izuku started to explain, still keeping his voice low, "Your brother just happens to live in a house at the bottom of the same mountain we were trapped in? Your brother that you haven't seen in nine years?"

"I...I don't know what to think, Midoriya."

"And once the people from that place come looking for us, don't you think the first place they'll check is the house at the bottom of the mountain?" 

"Then we don't stay for long," Todoroki promised, keeping his voice low. "Just long enough to figure some things out. And if they come for us before then, we'll run away again." At Izuku's concerned stare, he quickly added, "I already managed to escape once, Midoriya. We'll be fine."

By the time they'd finished their exchange, they were on the dirt path that led up to the front steps of the house.

The outside of the house was nothing spectacular. And once Touya had unlocked the front door and waved for them to come inside, they found that the interior was similarly unimpressive. Or, at least, it had nothing on the lavish cabins Izuku had seen in films and on TV. But it wasn't decrepit, either. Just simple and composed of the essentials with only a few embellishments. 

The older Todoroki dumped his flashlight and keys on the table tucked to the side of the door before calling out into the seemingly empty house, "You guys can come out."

Izuku's confusion was quickly overwhelmed with exhilaration when a head of familiar red hair peeked out from the hallway leading further back into the house. 

A massive grin lit his features, "Kirishima!" 

Izuku barely had any time to prepare himself as the red headed boy turned into a blur and bolted to tackle both him and Todoroki in a bear hug, "You guys are safe!"

Despite the fact that Kirishima's arms were squishing him and Todoroki together and pushing Izuku's neck uncomfortably against his shoulder, Izuku couldn't help the short series of laughs that spilled from his lips. Relief was spilling through him again, and since his left arm was trapped between him and Todoroki, he carefully threw only his casted arm around Kirishima's middle, "I'm glad you're okay, too."

From the tickle at his ears, Izuku guessed Kirishima was happily ruffling Todoroki's newly split-colored hair, "Almost didn't recognize you with the new do."

Izuku turned his head as best he could, his smile widening when he saw how Todoroki's nose was crinkled in response to the affection. 

"Geez, Kirishima," a calm voice called with a quiver that spoke of barely contained relief and excitement, "Learn some restraint."

It was another voice Izuku recognized, and his gaze immediately sought out the source. 

He found her back by the entrance of the hallway, a bright grin breaking across his features, "Jirou!" 

She smiled back warmly and took a few steps closer to them, offering him and Todoroki a small wave. It was far from Kirishima's overzealous bear hug-tackle, but all too like her. 

His joy flickered for a moment when he noticed the way she kept tugging her short hair forward, as if to cover her ears. When she noticed he'd caught sight of the action, she quickly shifted her gaze to the side. 

Izuku had a creeping feeling that her reason for doing so was along the same lines as to why his arm was in a cast.

Kirishima finally pulled back, allowing Izuku to see that he had no visible changes, save for a tiny scar above his right eye. Well, that and his usually spiky hair was now limp against his forehead, but that was to be expected. Hair gel wasn't something Izuku thought they would give out to people in places like hospitals run by a bunch of men in hazmat suits, after all. Kirishima's hair had grown a bit, too, he realized upon further inspection, revealing his black roots.

Appearances and mannerisms aside, Izuku was just glad to see that they were alive. In just a few short hours, everything had taken such a drastic turn for the better. Not only was he free, but three of his friends were now by his side, still moving and breathing. 

And what a sight the four of them must've been. All in hospital gowns and loose cotton pants with goofy smiles plastered across their faces. Well, Kirishima and Izuku were the ones sporting the goofy grins, but Jirou was smiling openly, too, and with Todoroki, a small quirk of the lips was the most one could get. 

Izuku looked back to the hallway hopefully, hesitantly asking, "Is...is anyone else here?"

Kirishima's voice was solemn as he shook his head and stated, "Just the two of us and Uraraka, but she's…"

Izuku's heart leapt up into his throat, his eyes going wide, "Uraraka's here?" 

He knew he shouldn't be more excited over hearing of one friend's wellbeing over any other. But she was one of his best friends, along with Iida and Todoroki. And she'd been spitting up blood the last time he'd seen her. For a month, that'd been one of his only indications as to how his friends had been affected by whatever had happened in the forest.

Up until he'd spoken with Iida, when thinking of everyone else, it'd been fine for him to imagine that they were still as healthy and safe as they had been at the school dance. But it was hard to think about her and what condition she might be in when there'd been blood spilling down her chin the last time he'd seen her. 

"She's in the back room," Kirishima finished filling him in, already leading them back into the hallway. 

Izuku hurriedly followed after him, completely unaware of the bloody trail his feet were leaving on the hardwood. Todoroki and Jirou funneled in after them, too, while Touya stayed behind at the kitchen table, though Izuku was hardly paying any mind to the older Todoroki now that his mind had zeroed in on his friends. 

As he made his way to the door at the end of the hallway, Kirishima visibly scrambled to put the right words together. He rested a hand on the doorknob, a heavy sigh slipping through his lips before he solemnly admitted, "Just a fair warning, something's...she's hurt real bad, man."

"What do you mean?" Izuku hurriedly pressed. 

"Just...just see for yourself."

Without another word, Kirishima twisted the knob and pushed the door open. 

A dark bedroom rested on the other side, with a twin bed shoved into the corner while blankets and pillows shrouded the rest of the floor. He guessed Kirishima and Jirou had been sleeping on the hardwood for however long they'd been here. 

It was hard to see and make things out in the shadows of the room, but the faint light spilling through the now open door managed to light the form of a prone figure on the bed. 

Izuku slowly crept past Kirishima and into the room, being as quiet as he could to avoid stirring the sleeping girl in the bed.

The closer he got, the more it sunk in. 

It was really her. It was Uraraka. 

He knelt by the side of the bed, as close to her face as he was comfortable with. Even if she wasn't conscious, he never wanted to overstep her boundaries. That was why he resisted the urge to brush the limp strands of hair from her face so he could see her better. 

But, even in the darkness of the room and without brushing her hair away, he could make out the impacts of whatever she'd been through. 

There were deep, purplish circles under her eyes, and she'd very visibly lost quite a bit of weight since he'd seen her last. That fact alone sent anger sparking through his veins. The operations and forced isolation aside, the people in that place had always kept him well-fed. They'd even shoved it down his throat for him when he'd been too weak to move. And from the looks of it, his other three friends had been kept similarly well-nourished, too. 

So what made Uraraka any different that she'd been deprived of that same treatment? 

And what else had they done to her? There were thick bandages wrapped around the tops of all ten of her fingers, curving around the tips in a manner that reminded Izuku of the way his own cast formed a dome over his right hand. 

She'd been operated on, too. Izuku knew it. The signs were clear. 

But the thing that really sent him over the edge, the thing that finally made him audibly react was the trickle of blood that suddenly spilled from the corner of her partially open mouth, gravity pulling it down her cheek. 

At Izuku's sharp gasp, Jirou suddenly stepped forward. She was obviously prepared for the situation, a kleenex already in her grasp as she crouched at Izuku's side.

"She hasn't woken up at all," Jirou spoke softly as she gently dabbed the blood away. "Sometimes her eyes kinda flutter and she mumbles, but I don't think she's ever been fully awake." 

As she tossed the spoiled kleenex into an already nearly full waste basket, Izuku's stomach twisted into knots at the sight of the bloodied pile of crumpled tissues. Now that he was paying attention to it, he noticed a splattered mess of dried blood on the sheets, too, near her mouth. 

Just how often did this happen?

As if reading his mind, Kirishima stated, "She throws up blood about three to four times a day. Just...just like she did in the forest." 

Izuku's eyes stung with tears.

Seeing his best friend like this...it hurt. And the fact that she was still vomiting blood terrified him. He'd even placed the sight of red dripping down her chin at the top of his list of things he never wanted to see again.

But he knew it was a sight he'd have to learn to deal with, because he sure as hell wasn't leaving her, or any of their friends, any time soon. 

Now that the blood was taken care of, Izuku hurried to shift his focus from it. He examined the bandages around her fingertips more closely, trying to get a glance at any indication of what they concealed. 

There was really no way for him to even chance a guess at what they'd done to her. His and Todoroki's abilities were far too different for him to have any sort of realm from which to pull ideas from.

But maybe gathering a couple more cases could help.

He glanced between where Kirishima was still lingering in the doorway with Todoroki and Jirou, who was still close by. He was hesitant to press them on topics they were uncomfortable with, but they had to talk about all this sooner or later, right? 

So, he cleared his throat before softly questioning, "Um...those people...did they, you know...do things to you guys, too?"

A few beats of silence passed, in which Jirou averted her gaze and Kirishima stared back blankly. 

"I...yeah," the redhead swallowed heavily. "It's my skin. It just...gets really hard sometimes. Like a rock." He hurriedly waved his hands in front of himself as he pleaded, "Please don't make me show you though. I…I can't really control it, and I don't want to hurt you guys by accident. I've already ripped three blankets."

"It's fine, Kirishima," Todoroki assured quietly. 

Izuku gave him a nod to assure him, too, before slowly shifting his focus to Jirou. 

She was clearly more self-conscious about it, given the way she kept tugging her hair forward and still had her gaze turned elsewhere. 

"Jirou," Izuku started softly, "if you don't want to talk about it, it's fine."

After a few more moments, she took a deep breath, "I...It's fine. Can't hide it for forever, right? Just...don't be weirded out, okay?"

"They can handle it, Jirou," Kirishima quietly consoled from the doorway. "I think we've all witnessed some pretty bizarre stuff recently, so adding one more thing to that list doesn't mean anything."

"Right." With a slight tremble to her hands, she tucked her short hair behind her ears as she turned to face them. 

Izuku's eyes widened as he took them in.

At the lowest part of each earlobe, her skin continued downwards in a thin line. And at the very bottom, were those...earphone jacks? 

Jiro cleared her throat, her eyes turned downward, "I...I can kinda move them, but my hearing has been affected the most. That was actually how I figured out Kirishima was there, too. I could hear him yelling at them one day."

"Tell 'em about how you got us out," Kirishima urged, a proud grin creeping onto his features. 

He was obviously trying to make her feel better, and from the shy smile on her features, it was starting to work. 

"Oh...well," she cleared her throat again, "once I figured out Kirishima was there, I started working on an escape plan. I would listen to when people were outside my door and log it. After about a week, I figured out that that place runs like a clock. They were always walking by at the same times every day.

"So I planned to make a run for it when I knew the way was clear. I actually picked the lock with this," Izuku tried not to stare when she lifted one of the headphone jacks without using her hands, "I used my hearing to sneak around and track down Kirishima without getting caught. I let him out of his room, and then we ran."

"Wow," Izuku quietly breathed out. 

That was definitely cooler than his escape story. All his boiled down to was dumb luck and taking advantage of the mayhem Todoroki had caused. 

"As we were running out," Kirishima continued the recount, "we just happened to run into two guys wheeling Uraraka around in a hospital bed. I ended fighting 'em, and carried her out of there with us."

Izuku lost himself in thought for a moment. All of that had happened, and he hadn't heard any of it. Just how big was that place concealed in the mountain?

"We found the house just after we escaped," Jirou took over once again, her voice growing solemn. "We hesitated at first, but when we were in the forest, Ochako started vomiting blood, and we just wanted to get her some help." 

Izuku looked back to Uraraka, once more taking in her dark, slightly sunken features. He had a terrifying suspicion that there was something else going on with her other than just the aftereffects of the operations. Or, at the very least, the consequences of utilizing whatever they'd done to her seemed to be a lot more severe than anyone else's thus far. 

"My brother…" Todoroki started slowly, his voice low as to avoid being overheard by the man who was probably still just down the hallway, "Why'd he take you guys in?"

Jirou was gently running a hand through Uraraka's hair now, her gaze on the brown haired girl, "At first, we thought he was just some random guy who let us in because of how hurt Ochako was. But once things with her calmed down, we got the chance to talk more and found out who he was."

"Our faces are all over the news, I guess," Kirishima jutted in, peering at Todoroki, "He said he started paying attention once he found out you were one of the ones that went missing. He recognized us right away 'cause of that."

"And he hasn't contacted anyone?" Izuku's brows furrowed. "No police or anything?"

"Not that we know of," Jirou shook her head, the earphone jacks on her ears minutely swishing back and forth. "We haven't asked him to because...we don't know what to do. This whole situation is just...it's fucked."

Although Izuku probably would've preferred to say it with less vulgarity, he couldn't agree more. And he was just as confused as to what to do next. He wished more than anything that he had a plan, but there was nothing he could do other than take things in stride. 

He cleared his throat, "And...does he know about what's been done to us?"

Jirou shook her head again, "We haven't clearly told him, but...he's probably seen my ears a few times. It's hard to keep them hidden."

"It's alright, Jirou. You're doing the best you can," Kirishima sported his comforting grin again. "And it's not like all my torn blankets are doing much to help us be discrete..."

While rubbing the back of his neck, Kirishima looked back to Todoroki, "Your bro's not here most of the time, actually. But he brings us some food every time he comes back, and he said he's trying to get us some better clothes." 

"I'm sure that'll be changing now that Todoroki's here, though." At the questioning stares from his friends, Izuku quickly explained, "I mean, you guys haven't seen each other in nine years. He can't just ignore you being here like he did with these guys."

"Yeah…" Todoroki breathed out, giving a slight nod as he leaned back against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. "I have some questions for him, too, actually."

"So...until we figure stuff out, we wait it out here?" Kirishima glanced between the other three. 

In tandem with Todoroki's nod, Izuku agreed, "Yeah...I think we should see if we can figure anything out from Todoroki's brother. And then maybe try to reach out to our parents or something. But in the meantime, we stay here as long as we know it's safe."

Kirishima hummed in agreement, "Right."

As his friends all nodded with varying degrees of vigor, Izuku looked between them. He knew from the slight looks of determination on their faces that they were all thinking the same thing. 

They'd all been experimented on, and six of their friends were still missing. Even though they'd escaped the hospital, this was all far from over. 

Chapter Text

Nothing of import happened for a few hours.

With the rest of them deciding to settle in for the night, Todoroki had gone to talk to his older brother only to find that Touya had already passed out on the couch in the front room. He'd returned to their back room quietly and pensively, shutting off the light in the hallway and pulling the door shut behind him.

Since there was less space to go around now that there was five of them, Jirou had climbed into the bed on the other side of Uraraka, nestling herself between the unconscious girl and the wall. Todoroki had silently claimed the sliver of floor that ran between the bed’s footboard and a wooden dresser, while Kirishima had settled closer to the door.

That left Izuku on the floor directly next to the bed, with only a spare blanket wadded up in a bundle to serve as his pillow.

But unlike the other three, he wasn’t even attempting to get any sleep. All he’d done was shift from kneeling to sitting crisscross with his back against the side of the bed, his head released backwards to rest on the edge of the mattress.

He’d realized this chance for reprieve was incredibly important, but he knew sleep wouldn’t come.

He’d been operated on and had his body modified, and his friends had been through the same. Something was severely wrong with Uraraka now, too, and six of his friends were still unaccounted for, although he knew they were likely still stuck in that place in the mountain.

With all that weighing down on him and electrifying his mind and nerves, how could he possibly fall asleep?

And it seemed like he wasn’t the only one.

“Midoriya?”

Izuku startled at the sudden, soft call of his name.

“…Are you still awake?”

He settled his head back down onto the edge of the mattress after Kirishima’s gentle inquiry, softly breathing out, “Yeah.” 

A few beats of silence passed in the darkness before Kirishima lightly huffed, "You know...I broke the rules when I was getting Uraraka out of there."

Izuku’s brows furrowed, his eyes trained on the ceiling, though he couldn’t make out much with the curtain’s drawn over the window and blocking the moonlight, “What do you mean?”

"It’s a rule we have to follow on the wrestling team. I’m not supposed to fight outside of practice and competitions. But when I saw those guys pushing her around in the bed, I decked 'em so hard."

Despite his nerves and exhaustion, a small smile crept onto Izuku’s face at his friend’s expense. It was just like Kirishima to always be set on doing what was morally right and avoiding bringing anyone harm. 

“I don’t think you should worry about it too much, Kirishima,” he hummed, still trying to keep his voice low for the sake of those resting only a short distance away. “And I’m sure Uraraka would be grateful.”

"Oh, I don't regret it one bit,” Kirishima hurriedly refuted with a light huff, and Izuku could perfectly envision the small, proud quirk of his lips. 

The redhead paused for a moment as he gently cleared his throat, his voice a lot heavier as he continued in a whisper, “I was just thinking, you know...about life before all of this.”

Izuku thought about it, too. He’d thought about it a lot obviously, since there’d been little else to occupy his mind back in that place. 

He thought about his mom most. He missed waking up to and coming home to her warm meals everyday. Her crushing hugs and the way she’d kiss his cheeks and forehead used to make him embarrassed and he’d sometimes found it overbearing, but he’d give anything to have the comfort of her embrace now. 

He really missed going to school, too. Even if it was hard and oftentimes tiresome, he’d always enjoyed learning. He had a lot of respect for his teachers, and they’d driven him to work hard in return. The feelings of achievement had always made putting in the effort more than worth it, and being with his classmates and friends throughout it all only drove him to cherish it all the more. 

Back then, his biggest worries had been the fact that Uraraka was going to the school dance with Kacchan and whether or not he'd ever get a chance to tell her how he felt.

All of that felt like it was worlds away now. 

And it all seemed so stupid now that Uraraka was hurt and suffering on the bed behind him and Kacchan was still unaccounted for. Izuku had thought he’d felt miserable then, but now, he’d give anything to go back to the way things were before. At least then, he and his friends wouldn’t be in this, in Jirou’s words, “fucked” situation. 

Kirishima suddenly cleared his throat again, seemingly in an attempt to shake off the tension and weight he’d inadvertently caused to settle upon the room. Even though they weren’t saying anything, Izuku knew that Todoroki and Jirou were probably listening in as they lay still in the darkness. Their feelings were nearly palpable in the quiet, small space they were all tucked into, and Izuku swore he heard both of them let out a relieved breath when Kirishima inquired in a whisper, "How's your arm?"

Just like his friends, Izuku was grateful for the shift in topic and the chance to talk about something else. 

In all honesty, he hadn’t really given his arm much thought over the course of the past few hours. Escaping, running into Todoroki, and finding Kirishima, Jirou, and Uraraka here had completely distracted him from being concerned with it. 

He took a moment to think about it, experimentally shifting his cast-covered arm on his lap, "It feels...okay, I guess. Honestly, it doesn't hurt at all."

"When’d you do it?

"Only a few hours before I escaped, so…” Izuku hummed in thought, “...I guess it’s probably been about a day now. I’m not sure what time it was when I did it, but they had the time to knock me out and operate on me. I’m not sure how long I was unconscious, either.” 

"Must be some hell of a painkiller they gave you,” by the slight rustling sounds, Izuku guessed Kirishima was shifting to lie on his side. “When I broke my arm in middle school, it throbbed for days.” 

Izuku’s brows furrowed in thought. He’d never broken a bone before, so he didn’t have any experience to make a comparison with. He supposed he could attribute his lack of pain to his supposedly high pain tolerance, but he trusted Kirishima’s word, too. The redhead was a wrestler, so of course he had a lot of experience with pain. 

But if what he’d said was true, then why didn’t Izuku feel anything? It’d certainly screeched with pain in the moments after he’d first done it, and they’d obviously pumped him full of some sort of painkiller when they’d operated on him due to the numbness in the limb. But that feeling had long-since faded away. Now, there was just the discomfort of his wrist and hand being restrained from movement. 

And when he’d first woken up, his arms had been in bandages. But then, too, he hadn’t felt any pain. At first, because he couldn’t move either, he’d thought it was just some sort of residual numbness dulling his nerves.

But...what if it was something else? 

Izuku would’ve never foreseen what he knew they’d already done to him and his friends, so what if this was another novel discovery they’d made? 

He didn’t think pain-resistance was part of whatever they’d done to him. The agony he’d felt as his wrist shattered after he’d struck the punching bag was proof enough of that. But the fact that they’d supposedly changed his and his friends’ very genetic makeup, according to Todoroki, and all in unique ways meant that they were probably capable of an untold number of feats. 

And then, of course, there was also the fact that once they’d removed the bandages on his arms, there hadn’t been even the slightest trace of any wounds. 

So...maybe they had something that increased healing capabilities? And if that was true, then maybe the reason he didn’t feel any pain wasn’t because of any drug, but because his wrist simply wasn’t as injured anymore. 

As he swallowed heavily, Izuku dropped his gaze to where his arm was resting atop one of his legs. He could barely make out the stark white of the cast in the darkness, but he still eyed it inquisitively. He didn’t want to risk making his injury worse, but maybe it would be worth examining it more closely at a later time. 

Kirishima cleared his throat again, obviously feeling more than a little hesitant as he asked, “Does...does it have to do with what they, you know...What they did to you?” 

“Yeah,” Izuku answered earnestly. Kirishima and Jirou had told him about what’d been done to them, so it was only fair that he be completely honest about it, too. “Out of nowhere, they took me to this...training room, of sorts. They made me punch a punching bag, and my wrist shattered on impact. The chain of the bag snapped, though, and it, uh...it left a crater in the concrete wall.” 

Silence reigned for a few moments before Kirishima breathily whispered, “Wow…” 

Despite the darkness and resulting inability to see one another, Izuku still shriveled in slight embarrassment as if the whole world was staring at him. He rubbed the back of his head with his good hand, his eyes squeezed shut, “Yeah....There was a whole bunch of other stuff in that room they took me to. Speakers systems, a pool, some metal rod thingies...Who knows what else that room was used for...” 

“The speakers…”

Izuku’s eyes shot open when Jirou’s voice suddenly seeped into the air. So, she was still awake, after all. 

“...they were for me,” she finished softly. 

The brevity of her voice indicated she didn’t want to talk any more about it, so Izuku didn’t question her any further, despite his curiosity as to what exactly they’d had her do. 

His mind was quickly overcome with other thoughts, anyways, so it was easy for him to jump from that curiosity to another. Kirishima and Todoroki hadn’t made any comment on whether they’d been given tasks in that room, but he assumed they would’ve said so if they had been. Did that mean all of those other objects were clues as to what Uraraka and their still missing friends were now capable of? 

He raced to pluck the details of what he’d seen from his memory of the place, glad that he’d taken the time to memorize the peculiarities despite how confused and frightened he’d been. Apart from the speakers, there’d been the water tank, the metal rods, and the books, which had had other random objects nestled between them. The jagged cavities and smooth slopes that’d been scattered along the concrete walls had been bizarre as well. 

But all of that was just....too vague all on its own. And the newfound abilities he had to analyze thus far - his supposed super strength, Todoroki’s fire and ice, Kirishima’s hardening, and Jirou’s earphone jacks - were still too varied from one another for him to utilize them to make any sort of conjecture about what the others might be capable of.

Izuku desperately wished he could come to some sort of conclusion, though. Maybe then, he could make some semblance of exactly how and for what purpose he and his friends had been modified in the way that they were. 

It also wouldn't hurt to be prepared for what the rest of their friends' abilities were when they were reunited with them, too. And they would be reunited. Izuku would make sure of it.  

Although finding Todoroki, Kirishima, Jirou, and Uraraka alive had given him a stronger sense of hope for the conditions of his other friends, he was still worried for them. Who knew what the state of that place was now that they’d had five of their subjects escape...But his friends were still trapped there, likely being isolated, operated on, and enduring any number of other unknown horrors. And what if being forced to utilize the new powers they’d been given had severe backlashes like his did? Or what if they were in a similar state as Uraraka? 

It seemed like Kirishima might’ve been thinking along the same lines as him, slight hope floating in his otherwise solemn voice as he softly questioned, "Did...did you happen to see anyone else in that place?”

"I talked to Iida,” Izuku proclaimed, speaking a bit louder now that he knew Jirou, and likely Todoroki, too, was awake. He didn’t let the fears and falsities that’d been embedded in him by the man who’d always questioned him control him any longer. The discussion they’d had through the vent that night was real, and he wasn’t going to let doubt fester within him any longer, “I never actually saw him, but we had a conversation through the vents one night. They...they must've changed his room after that, because I was never able to talk to him again." 

In the wake of remembering and relaying all of that, Izuku was plagued by how broken Iida had sounded. His gaze returned to where his casted arm was settled in his lap, the fingers of his other hand scraping along the plaster as he solemnly mumbled, "I hope he's alright...I hope they're all alright."

“Yeah…” Kirishima softly breathed, "Me too."

“Ochako!” 

Jirou’s panicked shout startled the three boys out of the uneasy slumber they’d all eventually fallen into a few hours prior. 

Izuku shot from where he’d been curled up on the carpet, his head spinning from the sudden wakefulness and motion. With the early morning sun streaming through the cracks in the curtains as his only light, he hurled his bleary focus over the edge of the mattress in search of the brunette. 

Was she throwing up again? Oh god, he really hoped not. He didn’t want to see her suffering like that again. Just her looking as unwell as she did was hard enough. 

But...she wasn’t in the bed. Only Jirou was still tangled in the sheets, sitting up and staring at the ceiling with wide eyes. 

Izuku followed her gaze, his eyes similarly going wide. 

“Uraraka!” 

She was on the ceiling; resting against it as if it were the floor. 

And her brown eyes were open. Finally, she was awake. 

But her focus wasn’t any of those that rested below her. Instead, with bleary eyes, she was confusedly examining the tips of her fingers. 

Izuku mentally noted that the bandages were gone. She must’ve plucked them off on her own, before they’d all awoken to find her in her current state. 

But he only let himself think about that for a split second, because she was still on the ceiling, with her legs bent and her hair floating around her as if there was a soft breeze blowing by. And from the look on her face, Izuku knew that even though she was awake, she was still at least a bit out of it, if not just as confused as the rest of them were. 

He used the mattress to shove himself to his feet, still craning his neck upwards to look at her as he softly called again, “Uraraka?” 

She curled her fingers into her palms, and in doing so, cleared the path for him to get a completely unobstructed look at her face. 

In the back of his mind, he realized this was the first time he was making eye contact with his best friend in months. He fought off the urge to cry because, dammit, that really wasn’t what they needed right now. 

As she silently stared back at him, visibly trying to process and understand, the fact that she was still somewhat out of it only became more apparent. 

The longer her silence went on, the more concerned Izuku grew. Before he suffocated in it, he called out again, “Uraraka?” 

As if his call of her name had prompted her, her eyes drifted to Todoroki, who was standing now, too, by the foot of the bed, to Jirou, who still sat dumbstruck on the mattress, to Kirishima, who was kneeling and wide-eyed close to Izuku’s side. Finally, her gaze slowly drifted back to him as she breathed out, “Where...where are we?” 

Her voice was quiet and incredibly broken, as if she hadn’t talked in months.

It made Izuku’s chest clench. 

The fact that she also didn’t seem to be panicking about being on the ceiling was also throwing up some red flags in his mind. It was almost as if she didn’t realize that anything was amiss about the situation, or was just otherwise unbothered by it. 

Whether or not she cared about her position aside, they couldn’t just leave her up there. He was unsure of how he might even go about getting her down, but he had to start somewhere, right? 

So he raised his good arm, extending his hand out to her as he gently questioned, “Are...are you okay? Do you remember what happened?” 

“...I...I…” she stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before her gaze drifted to her own palms again. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth for a few silent beats before she met his gaze again with tear-filled eyes as she choked out, “I don’t...I don’t remember.” 

As she pressed the tips of her fingers together in embarrassment, words of comfort were already bubbling up Izuku’s throat. 

But then she fell, and the words in his throat gave way to a cry of her name. 

He was grateful he was right under her and able to wrap his arms under her own, no matter how much it hurt as she came down on top of him and sent both of them crashing to the floor. Kirisima lunged towards them, too, ending up catching Izuku more than Uraraka as they fell in a garbled lump of limbs. 

They hit the ground hard, with Kirishima taking the brunt of it. 

In the wake of it, there was a lot of heavy breathing as they all fought to get their breath back, and Izuku was barely even aware of the fact that Uraraka was splayed out on top of him as his head spun again following its impact with the floor. 

But then she violently lurched in his hold, and as he lifted his head and used his good hand to brush her hair out of her face, he saw that she’d gone incredibly pale. 

A gagging sound and another lurch were the only warnings he got before a small spurt of blood flew from her mouth and splattered against his chest. 

His eyes blew wide again, “Uraraka!” 

Jirou was the fastest to react, half hanging off the bed as she shoved the garbage can full of tissues in the girl’s face before she could spit any more blood onto the front of Izuku’s hospital gown. 

Izuku carefully sat up, still supporting Uraraka against him but shifting his hold on her so that she leaned sideways against his chest. She was still hunched over one of his arms, coughing into the garbage can Jirou held practically right against her mouth. 

What was probably no more than half a minute felt like an eternity as she jolted against him with her coughing, smaller dribbles and splatters of blood pattering into the trash can. 

Once Kirishima had recovered from the tumble, he’d kneeled beside them, reaching forward to rub Uraraka’s back. Todoroki wasn’t too far away either, kneeling by Izuku’s feet and watching on with his hands clenched into fists atop his knees. 

When it was finally over, Uraraka relaxed against him, her eyes fluttering and her breaths heavy. 

From his vantage point, Izuku couldn’t see her face. But he did see the tissues in Jirou’s hand come back red with blood as she dabbed at Uraraka’s chin. 

Uraraka relaxed further against him, and he didn’t know if she was still conscious or not. But, at the very least, she wasn’t spitting up blood anymore. 

He let his eyes fall shut in a nearly failed attempt to keep the tears at bay as some semblance of uneasy calm followed in the wake of her attack. 

Izuku didn’t know how much more of this he could take. 

Something was going on. 

Katsuki could practically fucking taste it in the air. 

The metal cuffs were still on him, just like they always were - trapping his hands in the metal cylinders that were chained to each side of his bed’s headboard. They were thick enough that they would take more than a few explosions to fully destroy, and he hadn’t actually managed to get that far before. It was the same story every time: after he would set off his first explosion, it was always only a few seconds before one or a few of those suited bastards were running in to sedate him. And when he woke up, there was always a fresh new set of cylinders locking him in. 

At first, he’d sneered and decided to just keep blasting through them. They had to run out of cuffs or sedatives eventually, right? 

But his hands had given out quicker than his drive. The blisters had come first, and then the open wounds. And now, it was almost like there wasn’t a time when they weren’t soaked with puss or blood. The fluids were awful for his explosions, which only made him more frustrated and desperate, which then, in turn, only made the injuries worse. 

That was why there were suited bastards constantly running in and out of his room - sedating him, changing his bandages, cuffing him back up, shoving food down his throat (half of which he spat right back onto their visor-covered faces), asking him all those stupid questions about his condition, then repeat. 

But...no one had come in to check on him or shove food down his throat for what had to have been almost a full day now. He hadn’t been knocked out and woken up with fresh, itchy bandages. He hadn’t been knocked out and woken up in that god awful concrete room where he’d always tried to blast his way through the walls before they shot him with a tranquilizer. 

If there was ever a good time to try and finally get these fucking cuffs off for good and then blast his way out of here, it was now. His skin was sure to blister and bleed even more than it already had, but he didn’t give a shit. His skin would heal, but the frustration and internal lacerations of being in this goddamn place even one day more wouldn’t.

With his teeth clenched so hard he was sure they actually made an audible grinding sound, he set off his first explosion. The metal of the cuffs only warped out of shape with the first burst. 

A few seconds of silence, and...nothing. No one ran in to sedate him. There wasn’t even a fucking peep beyond the door to his room.

His palms were already screaming at him to stop, but he blazed through the pain and set off another explosion. 

A few tiny chunks of metal flew off of the cuffs this time, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the ones that scratched across his face. 

Still nothing, so he set off another. And another. 

Five explosions in, and his right hand was finally free. One more explosion, and his left was free too. 

He pulled his hands into his chest as he sat up, clenching his jaw at how his palms were flayed open and bleeding. The bandages the bastards had woven over his hands were long lost to the explosions, but he didn’t think for even a second to find something else to wrap them with. 

He still had the doorknob to blast through, after all, and there were probably a ton of other extras to blaze through once he got out into the hallway. 

But, fucking finally, the taste of unease and agitation was quickly overcome by another on his tongue: freedom.

Chapter Text

A few months ago, Izuku would’ve been a red-faced, sheepish mess at the position he found himself in. But as he sat on the floor, leaning against the wall with Uraraka’s head in his lap and her body curled up on the floor next to him as she slept, he couldn’t find it in himself to be anything other than distraught. 

He was worried about her. He was worried about all of his friends, really, but the rest of them weren’t throwing up blood like she was. 

If his guess was correct, it’d been a little less than an hour since she’d fallen asleep again, her consciousness fleeing her in the wake of her episode. The rest of them hadn’t fallen back asleep after what’d happened though, despite their exhaustion. Jirou had stayed nearby with the trashcan and a package of tissues for a while before retreating back onto the bed. Todoroki had taken up residence on the wall opposite Izuku and Uraraka, while Kirishima had sat right next to the pair. 

Izuku had absolutely no idea what was wrong with her since he was by no means knowledgeable about anything even remotely medical. But regularly throwing up blood definitely wasn’t something to take lightly. What would happen if she tried to eat something? Would she even be able to keep it down? If this had been going on since that night in the forest, which he had a suspicion that it had been, then how had she even survived this long? Of course she’d lost a significant amount of weight, but it’d been at least three months going off of Todoroki’s experiences. If she’d gone that long throwing up blood a few times every day, then how was she not dead? 

Izuku was incredibly grateful that she wasn’t, obviously, but he was still concerned with why such was the case. It definitely had something to do with those people back in that place under the mountain, which probably meant more experimentation and modification and who knew what else. But if they’d gone through the trouble of keeping her alive, why hadn’t they just solved the problem permanently? Or had they been the ones to cause it in the first place? Did it have something to do with whatever they’d done to her; whatever had given her the ability to float? 

Izuku hated this. Breaking out of that place was supposed to enable him to finally get some answers, but he only had more questions. And, even worse, he was beginning to have second thoughts. 

If those people had been doing something to still provide Uraraka with the nutrients she needed, thus keeping her alive...was the fact that they’d taken her out of there going to kill her? 

It wasn’t like he was even considering taking her back there, but the risk meant they couldn’t stay here much longer. They had to get Uraraka to a hospital that could figure out what was wrong with her and come up with some way to help the rest of their friends get out of that place.

Izuku still didn’t know what options they had regarding the rest of their friends, though. When they didn’t know the risks, it wasn’t like they were raring to charge back in there and get everyone else out on their own. And of course he would’ve loved to tell the whole world what’d been done to them so justice could be served and the rest of his friends could be saved. 

But if they did that...what would their final outcome be? When they could do the things they could, they weren’t exactly human anymore, were they? What would the rest of their lives be like when they’d been changed in the ways that they were? Was it going to be a life full of unwanted attention from others when they found out about what they were capable of? 

He thought about Jirou in particular, who wouldn’t be able to hide the physical ramifications of what they’d been through. Uraraka, too, now had unnaturally thick pads on the tips of all ten fingers, a fact he’d observed after she’d fallen asleep again in the wake of vomiting earlier. And the only one who seemed to have any sort of control over the abilities they’d been given was Todoroki, so it was impossible to say that Izuku and Kirishima would be able to keep the entire thing a secret, too. 

But it wasn’t like they could just return home and keep their silence, either. Kirishima had said that Touya recognized their faces from the news, which meant they’d all officially been reported missing. Izuku had known that such would be the case, obviously. But now that meant they couldn’t return home peacefully and resume their lives without there being legal ramifications, especially if it’d been more than three months. They would need to come clean about where they’d been, at the very least, and it would be impossibly hard to talk about all that without everything else coming out. 

It was a lot to think about...but they had to make a decision soon. He wanted to help the rest of his friends out and get Uraraka help as soon as possible. 

Izuku couldn’t help but startle a little when the door to their little back room suddenly swung open. But he quickly settled back down when realized it was just Kirishima returning from the restroom. 

The redhead’s eyes immediately found where Todoroki was leaning against the wall across from Izuku and Uraraka, words rushing from his mouth, “Your brother’s awake.” 

A few beats of silence passed before Todoroki casted a glance at the others, all of whom were expectantly staring right back at him to see what he would do. 

Before he started, Todoroki softly cleared his throat, “I...I can wait to ask him about the personal stuff. I think figuring out all we can about what’s going on first is more important.” 

“Thanks, Todoroki,” Izuku smiled softly at his friend. 

He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Todoroki. Finding his brother after nine long years only to have to put off getting a chance to finally talk with him must’ve been an immense sacrifice. But he’d done it without much hesitation. 

It was times like these when Izuku was irrevocably grateful that his friends were the type of people they were. 

Izuku waited for Jirou to climb over him and Uraraka from where she’d been on the bed before gently resting his hand on Uraraka’s back, softly calling, “Uraraka? Uraraka?” 

It took her longer to wake up than he would’ve liked, but he was just glad she was waking up in the first place. He’d been worried she would fall back into a long slumber like she’d been in when he’d arrived. But, thank God, such was not the case; her eyelashes fluttering a few times before her eyes drifted open and dazedly found his face. 

By the time she was fully awake, Todoroki and Jirou were already out of the room. Kirishima was lagging behind at the door still, probably waiting to see if Izuku needed help. He wondered why for a moment before he remembered that his arm was still broken, and thus he probably wouldn’t be able to move Uraraka onto the bed on his own if the need arose. 

“Uraraka, we’re going to go out into the other room to talk to Todoroki’s brother,” Izuku gently informed her once he felt like he had enough of her attention. He remembered then that when she’d awoken earlier, she’d asked where they were. So he hurriedly filled her in, “We’re at his house. We’re going to talk to him about what happened and see if we can figure anything out from what’s been happening on the outside. Do you want to stay here, or come with?” 

Her brows furrowed, her head still resting heavily in his lap as she narrowed her eyes at him blearily, “About...about what happened?” 

“Yeah. You know...when we were in the forest and stuff.”

Uraraka only looked more confused, her eyes slowly widening the longer time went on. 

Panic was starting to creep into Izuku’s veins, too, “Uraraka...you do remember what happened, don't you? We were in the forest after the school dance. We...were just gonna roast some s’mores, but then there was the...that flash, or whatever it was. There were two of them, but you were still there after the first one...and you were spitting up blood…"

Her brows furrowed as she tried to remember, "I...I think I was…"

She was standing with the rest of the girls, hands quickly becoming coated with the crumbs of graham crackers as she broke them apart. She handed the newly made pairs off to Momo so she could stick pieces of chocolate between them before placing them on a plate they could carry over to the fire. 

While Tsu placed a marshmallow near each cracker-chocolate pair, Mina and Jirou were busy counting out roasting sticks. Ochako didn’t think that was a task that required both of them, but she wasn’t about to say anything about it. Especially when Mina was putting on quite the show of nearly bursting into tears from laughing so hard at herself for losing count for what had to be at least the fourth time amidst getting distracted by Kirishima and Kaminari’s failed attempts at starting a fire. 

Ochako couldn’t blame Mina for that, really. After a full week of school, homework, studying, and extracurricular activities followed by three hours of trying to be her happiest on a date with a guy she wasn’t romantically interested in, Ochako felt like she was having trouble remembering her own name.  

Cheers and victorious hollers from the boys filled the clearing from behind her as Bakugo and Todoroki finally managed to light some kindling. It wasn’t long before her and the other girls’ shadows were dancing on the backs of Todoroki’s and Kirishima’s cars amidst the orange glow of the fire. 

With all the crackers broken, she spun around to take a seat on the ledge of Todoroki’s trunk. It’d probably be a while before she and the rest of the girls joined their friends in the circle of camp chairs the boys had set up. The fire was still growing, and Momo was busying herself with arranging and beautifying their platter of ready-to-roast s’mores. Of course Ochako knew she could tell Momo that such a thing was wholly unnecessary given who they were with, but she’d been friends with Momo long enough to know that the girl would fuss about every last detail no matter what reassurances her friends gave her. 

So Ochako let her be, her eyes drifting back over to the fire and those encircling it. 

Todoroki and Bakugo were arguing about something, of course, because when were they not? Well, it was more like Bakugo was just one-sidedly barking at the other boy while Todoroki calmly stoked the fire with a stick, but that wasn’t all too surprising to Ochako, either. 

Kaminari and Kirishima, meanwhile, were joking around about something or other. They were probably teasing Bakugo, given the way the blond’s head whipped in their direction before he stomped over to them. That didn’t hinder the duo though, their laughter only growing louder so that even she could hear it from where she was sitting. 

The last pair of boys were seated closest to the cars with their backs to her. But their heads were turned as they spoke to one another, their side profiles backlit by the orange light of the growing fire. Deku’s shoulders visibly drooped as he let out a heavy sigh, mumbling a short phrase to Iida. 

Ochako’s lips pressed together into a pout as she took in how miserable he looked. 

It was all because of her...wasn’t it? 

Of course she’d noticed the way his eyes had followed after her and Bakugo every now and then. It wasn’t like he was being super subtle about it, after all. In fact, she’d say being subtle about anything wasn’t really part of Deku’s wide repertoire of knowledge and skills. Some might’ve said that was a weakness, but she, on the other hand, thought it was incredibly endearing. It was one of the things that made Deku who he was, so she wouldn’t want him to change it for the world.  

But his sincerity also meant it was blatantly obvious to her that something was up with him. And his focus on her throughout the night made it clear she was very much a part of the cause. 

Was it something she’d said? She didn’t remember saying anything that had the potential to put him down in such a way...In fact, now that she thought about it, they hadn’t really had a chance to talk to each other at all over the course of the night. 

Was it something from before the dance, then? He had been acting a little weird over the past week...

Whatever the cause was, she didn’t like the fact that there was something awkward and strained between them, especially if whatever it was had to do with why Deku looked so gloomy when he should’ve been enjoying himself.  

She had to talk to him. Now. 

There was no way she was going to let him be glum any longer. It was the night of their first (and last) school dance and probably one of the last nights they’d all be able to spend together like this. They should be cherishing and making the most of moments like this, and he wouldn’t be able to do that if he carried on like he was. 

With her lips pressed into a determined line, she pushed herself off of her perch on Todoroki’s car and started towards her best friends. 

When she was only a few steps away, his name started up her throat. 

But before it could escape her lips, Mina shrieked behind her. 

Everything went white, and it felt like her ear drums were ready to burst. For a few seconds, that was all she could process. 

Next thing she knew, she was on her side. Something prickly, maybe a bush, was digging into the arm she was lying on top of, and her stomach ached like someone had swung a bat at her midsection. 

More so than intention and conscious thought, panic and instinct were what drove her to her feet. It took her a few tries, her body first flopping onto the dirt from the bush she’d suddenly found herself in before she was finally able to push herself up. She stumbled back to the ground more than a few times, but hysteria kept her body going even when her mind was consumed by something else. 

All she could focus on was the pain. The more time passed, the stronger it got. It was like her very core had been shredded. Not even grabbing at her middle lessened the agony by even an ounce. 

It hurt. It hurt so bad.
 
She didn’t even have the mind to be confused about where she was or how she’d ended up there. 

"Uraraka!"

Her mindless, panicked stumbling suddenly found direction. 

Her vision was swimming, but amidst the dark shadows there was an orange, glowy figure that drew her in. Just as she broke the threshold, her feet tangled and back to the ground she went. Her palms slammed against the dirt as she caught herself on instinct, but she was numb to the sting of them, if there was any. 

The pain in her core drowned out almost all else.  

“Uraraka!”

Deku…

She thought she’d cried back to him just as loudly, but she couldn’t be sure if she’d even managed to say anything at all. Something else might’ve come pouring from her mouth instead, but she couldn't tell anymore. 

Nevertheless, she still blindly reached out to him, tangling her fingers in the fabric she felt. 

"Holy fuck, Uraraka!"

"What happened?!"

Was that...Kaminari and Kirishima? 

That's right. The rest of her friends were here, too. 

She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew that they needed to leave, and go get help. Something...something bad was going to happen if they didn't get out of here, right now, and-

The bright flash and piercing whistle. 

She slammed her hands over her ears, sobbing. 

It was back. It was too late for them, now. 

Before Izuku knew it, tears were streaming down Uraraka’s cheeks. 

Her face had gone white again in the wake of his reminders about where they’d been when they’d last seen each other. For a moment, he’d been worried she was about to throw up again. 

But instead, she’d broken down in sobs as she choked out, “I...I don’t know! I don’t know what happened.” 

“Uraraka,” Izuku hurriedly, but gently tried to abate her meltdown, softly setting a hand on her shoulder. 

Had she not been conscious at all back in that place? Was that why it seemed like now was the first instance in which she’d had the time to process what had happened in the forest? 

“I was with you and everyone else, but then I was somewhere else, and...and it hurt,” as her sobs grew louder, she brought her hands up to rub at her eyes. 

The moment her fingertips made contact with her face, the weight of her head in his lap suddenly grew lighter. 

The rest of her body followed suit. 

“Uraraka!” Izuku panicked, scrambling to overcome his shock and latching onto her wrist with his good hand before she could drift up and out his range. 

This again? What had triggered it? 

Kirishima hurried over from where he’d still been standing in the doorway, clasping one hand around her upper arm and throwing the other over lower back to prevent her from drifting any higher, “Uraraka?” 

She didn’t respond, still consumed with scrubbing the tears from her face and sobbing, though her whimpers were slowly dwindling. 

Once again, it was like she wasn’t even aware of the fact that she was floating. Or, if she was, she still wasn’t at all bothered by it. Did that mean she already knew what she could do and had had the time to get used to it? But then that meant she’d been awake back in that place in the mountain...So then why had she completely freaked out upon remembering what had happened in the forest? 

Izuku's thoughts were a jumbled, muddled mess. 

But the opportunity to possibly diminish some of that confusion was waiting for them in the other room, with Todoroki’s brother. 

Izuku tightened his grip on her wrist. 

They had to get her down again, but what had caused her to fall last time? 

His mind raced over the details, but honestly, he didn’t remember much. He’d been too overwhelmed with excitement that she was finally awake, confusion over why the hell she was on the ceiling, and horror as blood rushed from her mouth shortly after her fall...But in the beginning, she’d been confused, too, hadn’t she? And she’d apologized for it, and he’d been ready to tell her she didn’t have to feel sorry or embarrassed when she’d-

That was it!

Her hands...she’d pressed them together, with all five fingertips touching their counterparts on her other hand. That had to be it. That was why her fingertips had the pads now, too. And she’d touched her face just before she’d triggered...whatever this was again. The specifics of what exactly her ability was were still unclear until they could examine it more at a later time, but Izuku was confident that it was triggered by touch. 

As he came to his conclusion, he noticed that Uraraka had calmed down considerably. Her eyes were still clenched tightly shut as she took in deep breaths to calm herself, but her frame only quivered with the slightest of sniffles now instead of the panicked cries of before. 

And still, she didn’t seem at all freaked out by the fact that she was no longer touching the floor and was only tethered down by her two friends. 

Kirishima was looking back and forth between the two of them; to the girl in his arms with worry and to Izuku for guidance on what they were gonna do next. 

Izuku shoved aside his concerns and confusion about her lack of awareness of what she doing aside. He could think about that later, when there weren’t three people in the other room waiting on them. 

He tightened his grip on her wrist slightly again, inciting her to look at him as he gently, “Uraraka...can you press your hands together for me?” 

Kirishima’s brows furrowed in confusion and Uraraka confusedly asked, “What?” 

“Just...just trust me, okay?” Izuku softly beseeched. 

She stared at him with watery eyes in silence for a few moments before muttering, “...‘kay.” 

“Wait!” Izuku hurriedly cut her off when she moved to press her hands together, a thought popping into his head. He started pushing himself to his feet as best as he could with his casted arm, “Let’s get you over the bed first, okay?” 

She bit her lip as she nodded, turning her eyes away as she let Izuku and Kirishima gently push her over the bed and hover her a few inches above the mattress. 

Izuku let out a heavy sigh of relief as her body settled safely in the wake of pressing her hands together, the old springs softly screeching at her sudden weight. 

There was no vomiting this time, a fact which Izuku was grateful for. 

Katsuki had known that something was up. But things beyond his hospital room were far diverged from his expectations. 

He’d been prowling the halls for what had to have been at least half an hour now, but he hadn’t seen another soul.  

He hadn’t found a fucking exit, either. His plan had been to charge through as soon as he found it, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. Every turn just led him to another hallway filled with nothing but doors upon doors. The only change was the staircase he’d found about ten minutes back, but even that only took him to another level with the exact same layout. 

Maybe he could find another staircase? Getting closer to ground level surely meant getting closer to an exit, didn’t it? 

Or maybe he could try actually opening some of the doors he was stalking past. 

It didn’t seem like anyone was left in this place. If so, then surely he would’ve seen someone by now. So could there really be any harm in at least peeking inside? And if he did encounter anyone else behind the doors, he could just blast ‘em to hell anyways. His palms were still flayed and bleeding, but the damage would be worth it if he could possibly find some information about where he was, where the exit might be, and whatever the hell it was that they’d done to him. 

He gripped the knob of the nearest door, ignoring the sting of his palm against the cold metal as he twisted his wrist. 

Of course it was fucking locked. 

And so was the next. 

And the next. 

A growl slipped through his lips as he realized he’d have to blow his way through. 

Might as well just pick a random door and start blasting away then, right?

He gripped the knob of one of the locked doors with his left hand since it was the less damaged of the two, sending intent to his palms and tensing his hand in a way that was quickly becoming familiar. 

An explosion shattered the knob and its lock, the force sending the door hurtling inwards on its hinges to slam against the wall. 

A scream followed in the wake of his sudden charge into the room. 

Another growl bubbled up Katsuki’s throat as he realized that the room wasn’t vacant and he would have to deal with whoever it was once the smoke cleared enough for him to actually see his target. 

He froze the second he caught sight of them, his bleeding hand paused in midair. 

What the fuck? 

Was that some kind of...pink gremlin or something? It was cowering in the corner with its back to him, the only part of them visible apart from the back of their hospital gown being their wild pink hair and the short, white horns atop their head. 

It cast a quick glance at him over its shoulder, then did a double take. 

What the fuck?

Yellow irises amidst otherwise black eyes were the first thing he processed, the inhumanity of them shocking enough that initially, he didn't realize that face was one he recognized. 

“Bakugo?” 

Her soft, quivering call of his name snapped Katsuki out of it, his raised hand slowly falling back to his side. 

He’d been told that his friends were still missing; that he was the only one who’d been found in the forest that night. 

But now, it was obvious all of that was absolute bullshit. 

There was no time for nicknames, disbelief and confusion muddling his thoughts as he responded to her call of his name, “Mina?”

Uraraka had come with Izuku and Kirshima into the adjoined kitchen and living room space once she’d calmed down, the two boys helping her walk from their back room to claim the couch cushions beside Jirou. The brunette had quickly settled her head on Jirou’s lap, going back to picking at her fingertips again. Izuku thought that maybe he should tell her stop, not only because it was bad to pick at the still healing pads, but also because he still wasn’t completely sure about the particulars of how her ability was activated. Even if he was pretty positive about how she released her power, he figured it’d be best if she could avoid using it until they knew more about it. 

But he didn’t want to be the one to break the tense silence that’d been suffocating the living room ever since the three of them had entered. 

With the girls on the couch and Touya in the only other chair, staring at them all silently as they got settled, Izuku had joined Todoroki where he was leaning against one of the walls. Kirishima had backed up a bit to lean against the kitchen table, his arms crossing over his chest as his eyes drifted around the room. 

Todoroki finally took it upon himself to break the ice, asking one of the questions that was on all of their minds, “Touya...what’s the date?” 

“It’s the end of May,” the older Todoroki replied with a shrug, “Don’t really keep track of specific dates unless I need to.” 

Izuku took a deep breath, refusing to let himself freak out like he had in previous instances of hearing about how much time had gone by. And it wasn’t like hearing that it was the end of May was much of an extension to how much time he’d thought had passed from Todoroki’s experiences. 

The school dance had been in the middle of February. That meant three and half months had gone by, which was only about two more weeks than his previous estimation. 

Kirishima and Jirou, on the other hand, seemed a little more shocked from the information, both of their eyes going wide. 

Izuku wondered how long they’d each been awake then, since they clearly hadn’t thought that much time had passed. 

“Since there were so many of you gone without a trace, the story got pretty big,” Touya started without having to be asked, though he did so without an ounce of gentleness to show that he was being sensitive to the trauma they’d all clearly faced. “Everyone kept coming up with all these theories about it. Kidnappers and murderers were what most people talked about, but it was the lack of evidence that people really went and ran with.” 

Izuku didn’t like where this was going. 

It wasn’t what Touya was saying that was putting him on edge, but the way he was saying it. The lilts in his voice were only growing stronger the longer he went on, like he found the entire thing hysterical, when really, it should’ve been horrifying. And maybe Izuku only felt that way because he was one of said kids who'd gone missing. But how could anyone talk about all of this while sounding like they were about to break out into laughter at any moment, almost like they were struggling to tell a joke without laughing at it? 

Nevertheless, Touya carried on, “Some people came up with military conspiracy theories, claiming that you guys found something you shouldn’t have and were all taken out to cover it up. Others even suspected alien abduction.” 

When Touya finally did let out a single, breathy laugh at his last words, Izuku finally lost his hold over his thoughts, “Why are you so disinterested?” 

Touya’s sharp blue eyes snapped to him, all humor gone from his tone as he snarled, “What?” 

Izuku swallowed heavily under his fierce gaze, but he wasn’t going to back down. 

And maybe disinterested wasn’t the right word, but it was the closest one-word summary he could come up with to describe the way Touya was acting. 

“It’s like you don't even care,” Izuku started to explain. “Five kids who’ve been missing for three and a half months show up on your doorstep, one of whom is your little brother, and you haven’t called the cops. You haven’t even tried to talk to us.” 

The humor didn’t return to Touya’s expression, but there was something else in his eyes, something Izuku couldn’t describe, as he growled, “I’ll be honest with you. If it seems like I don’t care, it’s because I don’t care. Eleven stupid high schoolers who thought it’d be a good idea to go into a forest they aren’t supposed to be in wind up missing. If you ask me, you all got what was coming to you.” 

Before Izuku or anyone else could say more, Uraraka muttered out a soft, “Twelve.”

Touya’s eyes snapped to her this time, “What?” 

Uraraka was still busy examining her fingertips, seemingly completely unbothered by everyone’s gazes on her as she clarified, “There were twelve of us. Not eleven.” 

In the wake of her words, Izuku’s concern for her bubbled back to the surface and momentarily took precedence over his suspicions about Touya. 

What was she talking about? 

“Ochako,” Jirou spoke to the girl in her lap, her features cinched with worry, “there were only eleven of us in the forest that night.” 

Uraraka’s brows furrowed and her lips pressed together in a pout, her features muddled in thought as she counted on her fingers and mumbled, “Oh...I could’ve sworn there was someone else…”

Katsuki’s reunion with Mina hadn’t hindered his search of the rest of the place, and their group didn’t remain a duo for long. 

Ponytail Girl and Four Eyes were in rooms not far from each other. Neither of them had physically changed as drastically as Mina had, but the thick bandages around Four Eyes’ calves and his use of crutches hadn’t slipped Katsuki’s attention, no matter how disinterested he tried to come off.

They found Dunce Face in a random room in a different hallway. The idiot had immediately launched himself at Mina, the two of them clinging to one another as they sobbed about how much they’d missed everyone and how scared they’d been. After their overly-dramatic reunion, Dunce Face had latched onto Katsuki’s arm immediately, and the platinum blond responded in kind by shoving him to the floor.  

Then, they found the green haired girl that was always hanging out with Pink Cheeks. He’d never really thought of a proper nickname for her given that, other than hanging out with the Nerd and his squad, he supposed she’d never really done anything in particular to piss him off. He knew her real name, but like hell was gonna give her the honor of actually using it. 

The next person they found, in a room that was more like a cell then anything else, wasn’t someone Katsuki knew.

It wasn’t one of the other dumbasses who called themselves his friends. It wasn’t some bastard in a hazmat suit, either. 

It was some stranger with wild, purple hair, dark undereyes, and cuffed hands resting in his lap. A silver mouth guard akin to a muzzle was strapped around his head and covering his mouth, seemingly preventing him from speaking. 

His eyes were wholly disinterested as he stared up at the blond who’d just burst into his room, and that look alone sent Katsuki reeling. 

A snarl already on his lips, Katsuki wasted no time in spitting, “Who the fuck are you?” 

Chapter Text

Katsuki didn’t think he’d ever been so frustrated in his life. 

It didn’t make any sense. 

Where the fuck was everyone else? 

They’d cautiously combed every inch of this place, making maps and numbering doors just to be sure they weren’t doubling back and running around themselves in circles. Every room on all three levels of this place had been blown open and torn apart in their search, but all they’d found were empty hospital beds, storage closets, observation rooms full of beeping monitors and flashing lights, and untouched interrogation tables. There was that big concrete room, too, and another big metal door they hadn't been able to get open tucked into a corner. They’d also found a tunnel they were fairly certain was the way out of this place, but none of them were ready to venture into it just yet. 

Not until they figured out why there wasn’t a single hazmat-suited bastard to be found. Not until they figured out where the rest of their friends were. 

Midoriya, Uraraka, Todoroki, Kirishima, and Jirou were still missing. 

The rest of them had found all of the clothes they’d been wearing that night in the forest tucked into plastic bags and shoved into the corner of something akin to a storage closet. They hadn’t wasted much time changing back into them, although they weren’t exactly the cleanest. 

To Katsuki, anything was better than the shitty hospital gown and cotton pants he’d been wearing for the past two months. And to finally have some fucking socks and shoes was a blessing he was sure he would never take for granted again. 

The bags also contained the clothes of their missing friends. Katsuki recognized one of Deku’s shitty ‘t-shirt’ shirts immediately, and the pale yellow sweatshirt with the dirt splotches and dried blood splatters at the wrists had to have been what Cheeks was wearing that night. 

Their missing friends had been here once. Their clothes were proof enough of that, and Four Eyes said he’d even managed to talk to Deku once before they’d moved him to a different room.

But where were they now? And why weren’t there any of the suited bastards left? Had they vacated this place, taking the five who were missing with them? Then why had the rest of them been left behind? 

Like pretty much everything else that’d happened over these last few months, Katsuki couldn’t figure it out. They’d found a mess of water and scorch marks on the lowest level and near the tunnel, but that was their only hint that something out of the ordinary had happened, if any of this could even be considered ordinary. Even the logs in the observation rooms had been deleted or corrupted or something of the like. What mattered was that they were gone, leaving no trace of what'd been done to them, who'd been watching them, and what had happened to their missing friends. 

Four Eyes was taking it particularly hard with nearly his entire main friend group missing, but Katsuki thought he needed to suck it up. It wasn't like he was the only one with best friends unaccounted for.

Fucking Shitty Hair had better be alive. 

Their cell phones had been among the stash of their belongings, too. But they were all either dead or disabled, their stubbornly black screens making them about as useful as a stack of bricks. Katsuki had pocketed his anyway, figuring it couldn’t hurt to bring it along. If he could find some way to boot it back up, then maybe he could call for help or contact his parents or just figure out their fucking location as a starting point for where to go from here. 

He’d grabbed more bandages from the final hospital room they’d found, too, trying to be as discreet about it as possible as he wrapped up his burning palms now that he wouldn’t have to blow open any more doors. He was pretty damn sure he'd done a shit job of hiding of how hurt he was from the others though, a few hisses and muttered curses slipping from his lips as the bandages settled against his flayed and bleeding skin. No one said anything about it if they did notice though, and Katsuki thanked God for these idiots having some sense for once.

With the rest of the place cleared, they’d returned to the one thing they don't know what to do with. 

The guy with the wild purple hair. 

“He’s not in a hazmat suit, and he was locked up just like the rest of us,” Kaminari thought aloud as they made their way back to the cell-like room they’d found the guy in, “Doesn’t that mean he’s on our side?” 

Katsuki didn’t trust the idea one bit. Not when he had no idea who this guy was and where his loyalties lied. 

There was also the big fucking elephant in the room about what’d been done to them in this place. It wasn’t like they could really truly ignore it, because Mina’s skin and hair were fucking pink now for fuck’s sake, not to mention her eyes and horns. Kaminari had a new black streak in his hair as well, and Iida had those thick bandages around his calves and was using crutches. They’d all watched Katsuki blow up door lock after door lock, too. 

They hadn’t explicitly told each other exactly what’d been done to them yet, and who knew what this guy was capable of...And that was under the big assumption that he was one of the subjects like they were, and not one of the ones doing the experiments. Katsuki knew that assumption was probably the truth since the guy was restrained just like he'd been, but it wasn't like he was ready to release him when he didn't know jack squat about who he was. 

“We could at least take the muzzle off, couldn’t we?" With a quirk of her head, Asui put her pointer finger to her bottom lip, "Just so we could talk to him and see what he knows.” 

Katsuki tried to not get hung up on the way her voice sounded now, her words coming out slightly strained, like she was plugging her nose or something was sitting in the back of her throat. He also swore her eyes were somehow bigger than they'd been before, but he'd never been one to pay attention to shit like that, so he couldn't be sure.

"I think that'd be safe," Yaoyorozu nodded softly at Asui's idea, swiping her overgrown bangs out of her eyes for what had to be the hundredth time.  

Iida only hummed a bit in agreement as he ambled along with his supports, his head slightly hung. 

Katsuki didn't know what was wrong with him, whether it was his missing friends or the fact that he couldn't walk without crutches anymore, at least for the time being, and was somewhat slowing them down on their way back to the guy's cell. But Katsuki still thought it was time for him to fucking get over it, whatever it was. Moping and worrying and feeling guilty could come later, when they were in a space they knew was safe enough to be bothered with shit like that. 

Katsuki crossed his arms over his chest as he growled, "Well I don't fucking trust him."

Mina's eye roll was practically audible as she sighed, "Of course you don't."

He ignored how Kaminari almost slammed into his back when he screeched to a halt, whirling to face Mina with a snarl, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!"

"It’s just that this is our chance to finally figure something out!" Mina huffed, her hands clenched tightly into fists at her sides. “He’s already chained up anyways, so it’s not like he can go anywhere. What’s the harm in talking to him?” 

“What if it’s a trap?” 

Her newly yellow-colored irises performed an impressive roll, “And talking to him is somehow going to set it off?” 

“There’s no one else here, dude,” Kaminari joined Mina's cause with a shrug. “So he’s completely on his own if he is one of those guys, and I don’t see how he could do anything to us just by talking.” 

Of course Katsuki knew all of that was true, but something still felt incredibly suspicious about the whole thing; the fact that there were none of those hazmat-suited bastards left in this place and that purple haired guy was the only stranger here. 

They’d finally made it back to the room where the guy was still chained up. Yaoyorozu gingerly set her hand atop the door’s charred and warped doorknob, casting a look around at the rest of the group with a particularly long glance at Katsuki, "Well...majority rule, I guess?"

Katsuki’s glare deepened, bitter that he’d been outvoted five-to-one. But if these idiots wanted to take the risk, then fine. It wouldn’t be his fault if it back-fired. 

Yaoyorozu took his sharp huff as acquiescence. 

They’d left the guy chained up and locked in the same room they’d found him in, but it didn’t really seem like that was a necessity. When the door opened, it looked like he was sitting on the floor in the very same spot as before, his eyes rising to stare up at them with disinterest. 

He did finally shift a little when Yaoyorozu took a step towards him, bending his legs up into himself as if in an attempt to put more matter between himself and them. Katsuki didn't miss the way the guy’s eyes flashed cautiously, too. 

Yaoyorozu held her hands up in front of herself, pausing in her steps as she explained, "I'm only going to remove the mask so we can talk. I promise none of us want to hurt you."

The guy stayed frozen in his defensive pose, and Katsuki was about ready to drag Ponytail Girl out of there and tell the rest of them to give it up. 

But after a few beats, the guy finally relaxed, leaning his head forward slightly, but not far enough to obstruct his view of them. 

Yaoyorozu took that as an indication that the mask was secured at the back of his head, and she quickly finished walking over to him. She fiddled with the latch and the straps that criss crossed through his hair for a moment before something finally gave and the mask tumbled free. 

When the heavy metal clattered to the concrete floor, the guy sucked in a deep, relieved breath, shifting his bottom jaw around to loosen it up. 

Katsuki wasted no time, repeating the first thing he’d said to this guy, “Who are you?” 

Chains clinked as the guy lifted his still cuffed hands to rub at the skin where the mask had chaffed. When he spoke, his voice was deeper than Katsuki had been expecting, “Shinsou. I was taken just like the rest of you.” 

Katsuki’s eyes narrowed immediately, and it seemed Four Eyes shared his suspicions as he questioned, “And how do you know that? How did you know we were taken?”

Deep purple eyes shifted from person to person among the group of six friends, like he was analyzing just how much they trusted him and how safe he was in this space. His cuffs clinked again as his hands fell back into his lap, “I guess they gave me certain luxuries because I’m different from the rest of you. More useful.” 

Katsuki tsked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the doorframe, "Well you sure think real fucking highly of yourself."

Shinsou didn’t react to his jab, rubbing at his jaw again as he continued, "They were fairly open with me about what was going on. Tried to get me on their side, I guess." His voice dropped in volume, speaking more to himself as he muttered, "Like hell I would ever be on their side when they wouldn’t let me say a damn thing.”

“Why?” Asui tilted her head to the side, “What can you do?"

A few moments of silence passed as Shinsou looked around at all of them again, a debate clearly raging in his mind about whether or not to reveal his ability. It was about the only thing he could hold over them at this point, Katsuki supposed, but like hell he’d let things stay that way. The blond was ready to pound it out of him if Shinsou didn’t say something in the next five seconds. 

Luckily for Shinsou, he finally decided to let it slip, "Mind control."

Everyone in the room and the hallway tensed. 

Kaminari’s eyes went wide, "What?"

Mina’s voice filled with uncertainty, "That's not possible...right?"

Shinsou gave a lazy, one-shouldered shrug, "I didn't think so, either. And it didn’t work flawlessly at first - still doesn't actually, but they worked to improve it over time. They made me test it on one of your friends."

‘One of your friends.’ Not ‘one of you.’ That meant it was someone who wasn’t here. 

Desperation to finally get some information on their missing friends spiked back to the forefront of their minds. Almost simultaneously, Mina chirped a hopeful, "Who?" while Iida insisted, "Which one?"

"A girl,” Shinsou answered. “A girl with short, brown hair." 

Her name hit their minds all at once, but no one said it. Such a thing wasn’t necessary. They all knew who he was talking about. 

And immediately, Katsuki was once again ready to pound this guy’s nose in and demand to know what’d happened to Round Face after she’d supposedly been mind controlled. Hijacking someone’s mind surely had to really fuck with them, right? What were the repercussions of experiencing something like that? 

Asui beat him to the questioning, however, though it seemed like she either wasn’t thinking as deeply about what it meant when this guy said Uraraka had been mind controlled or was simply just more concerned with the present than the unchangeable past. Her voice was slightly choked, giving away her concern as she asked, "Where is she now?"

"Dunno,” Shinsou huffed. “They shoved me into this room when an alarm went off on their suits and I haven't seen anyone since. It's probably been more than a day now."

An alarm? That meant something bad had happened, didn't it? But did that mean something bad for their friends, or something bad for the suited bastards and thus something good for their friends? Had one if them managed to fuck things up for their captors and throw a wrench in their plans? 

While Katsuki hoped that was case, because the hazmat bastards fucking deserved it, he knew some sort of revolt, if that really was what had happened, wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Because even if the other five had fought back, they were gone now. Taken down. Stomped out. 

As much as those idiots bothered him, Katsuki really fucking hoped that he was wrong about all of that, and those five would be alive to annoy him another day. 

As the day dragged on into the evening, Izuku found himself seated in the hallway outside the door to their back room. Todoroki was across from him, leaning back against the opposite wall. Jirou and Kirishima were shut in their back room with the intent of trying to get some more sleep after the debacle that’d happened with Uraraka that morning had been a rude awakening. Uraraka had dazedly followed after them, leaning heavily on Jirou the whole way back into the room. 

None of them had been keen on making more conversation with Touya when it became obvious that he'd already told them all he was willing to, especially after he’d made it clear that he didn’t really care about them or what they’d been through. 

The exchange had given Izuku a few answers, but, like always as of late, he had a lot of new questions, too. For the moment, one remained more prominent than the rest: If Touya really didn’t give a shit about them or the fact that they’d been kidnapped, why had he taken them in instead of leaving them to fend for themselves in the forest?

Izuku had landed on somewhat of an answer, but it wasn’t one he was entirely content with: there was something in it for Touya. Instead of it being out of kindness or concern, there was an ulterior reason he’d taken them in. It was almost like he was trying to keep an eye on them or keep them here, and that was why he hadn’t called the cops yet either, like any sane person usually would. 

Was he involved with the people back in the mountain? Or was it something else entirely? 

Izuku didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out. 

Across from him, Todoroki gently cleared his throat before starting softly, “Midoriya...What Uraraka said earlier about there being twelve of us instead of eleven...Do you think that means anything?” 

Izuku hesitantly met his friend’s mismatched gaze, letting out a heavy sigh as he admitted, “I...I don’t know.” 

When it came to Uraraka, Izuku wanted to believe that her behavior was just a result of the trauma of what she’d been through in that place. But he couldn’t help but suspect there was more to it than that, because she wasn’t acting like herself at all. 

Not one smile. Not one laugh. Not one question about if he was okay or if their friends were okay, even though she was clearly the worst off out of all of them. Not one attempt at easing the concern he was sure was so obvious on his face by telling him that she was fine, even though she clearly wasn’t. 

That was the Uraraka Izuku knew. And it wasn’t like he thought she was someone else entirely now, but she wasn’t fully herself, either. 

“I think something’s really wrong with her, Todoroki,” Izuku whispered across the hallway. “More than just the physical stuff.”

Todoroki furrowed his brows, “Then...What do we do?” 

Izuku wished he had an answer. 

His chest was tight as he shook his head, “I don’t know. But...she really needs help. The rest of our friends still need our help, too.” 

Todoroki’s gaze fell back into his lap for a moment as he mulled it over, “Should...Should we go back? And try to break the rest of them out?” 

“That’s…” Izuku let out a heavy breath again, trying to keep his frustration at bay, “That’s too risky, isn’t it?” 

“They couldn’t stop me from leaving the first time. I bet I could do it again. We’d have Jirou and Kirishima there to help us, too. With Jirou’s hearing, we’d be able to track everyone down.” 

Izuku bit his lip. He didn't like the idea, but he wasn't sure what else they could do, either. And it didn't sound like Todoroki was going to be easily convinced to give up the prospect. 

And really, deep down, charging back in there was kind of exactly what Izuku wanted to do. He knew it wasn't the logical thing, and there was a small part of him that was absolutely terrified to go back into the place where he'd been imprisoned and experimented on. 

But emotionally, he yearned for justice. He wanted his friends back, and he wanted those people to pay for what they'd done. He wasn't thinking about hurting them and certainly not about killing them, but they definitely didn't deserve to get away with kidnapping and experimenting on eleven high schoolers. 

But if charging in there really was the route they were going to take, Izuku was well aware of the fact that he probably wouldn't play too big a part in the administering of that justice. 

He swallowed heavily as his gaze solemnly fell to the thick cast on his right forearm, “I...I don’t think I’d be much help, though.”

“Then you can stay here. With Uraraka,” Todoroki assured, none of his confidence or drive fading. 

Of course...Uraraka. Izuku hadn't even gotten around to thinking about what it'd be like for her. On a mission to break the rest of their friends out, Izuku would likely be ultimately useless or of very little help. But taking Uraraka back in there was putting both themselves and her at a bigger risk of something going wrong than Izuku was comfortable with. 

It seemed like Todoroki was reading his mind, “We both know it’d be hard to take her with us, but I don’t think we should leave her here on her own, either.” 

That was the only part of the plan Izuku fully agreed with. He didn't like the idea of his friends going back into that place, and he certainly didn't like not being able to go with them. 

But when he considered the situation and how desperately Uraraka needed help, it was the best plan he could come up with. 

"Okay," Izuku finally nodded. "But you better come back okay, Todoroki. All of you."

Izuku had joined Uraraka in the now dark back room when the others had left, with her lying down on the bed again and him sitting on the floor, leaning against the mattress. 

Unsurprisingly, Kirishima and Jirou had firmly agreed to accompany Todoroki back to that place with only the slightest flash of hesitance and fear. They'd left almost right away, their uncertainty on whether to wait until tomorrow morning to leave disappearing when Uraraka had another vomiting episode. 

The sooner they got the rest of their friends out, the sooner they could get Uraraka some help. 

Izuku agreed that Uraraka had to stay here and that she shouldn't be left alone, but part of him still wanted to be right there with Todoroki, Kirishima, and Jirou as they rescued the rest of their friends. 

He fiddled with the edge of his cast, mentally cursing it. There was still no pain in his wrist, only slight discomfort. He was pretty sure he was sweating like crazy beneath the plaster, too, but when it was so tight against his skin, it was hard to tell. 

Would it be stupid of him to take it off? The cast was bulky and awkward, but surely running around with a shattered wrist and hand was worse, right? 

But if his bones really weren’t broken anymore, which was a crazy thing to even comprehend, then being able to use both of his hands could prove invaluable if something happened. 

“Deku...what happened to your arm?”

Izuku jumped a little bit when Uraraka suddenly mumbled right next to his ear. He'd thought she was still passed out after her attack earlier, but he turned to find her with her chin propped on the mattress right behind him so she could peer over his shoulder. Her eyes were fixed on his cast, her brows furrowed slightly with concern. 

Izuku wasn't sure how to explain his broken wrist when he barely understood what had happened himself, but he did the best he could, “Well...the people in that place did...something to me. I shattered my wrist and fingers because of it.”

Uraraka processed the information in silence for a few moments before she confusedly muttered, “What...what place?” 

“That place in the mountain," Izuku hurriedly clarified, trying his best to jog her memory and keep his concern from taking over. "But...I guess you didn’t really see that it was in a mountain because you were unconscious when Kirishima and Jirou got you out of there.” 

With her chin still on the mattress, she quirked her head to the side, "I...I was there, too?"

"Yeah, you…" Izuku swallowed heavily as he finally shifted to face her fully. The hardwood of the floor dug into his knees through his thin cotton pants as he kneeled in front her, “Uraraka, do you...do you understand what’s happening?”

“I…" still lying her stomach, she thought for a moment before softly shaking her head as she propped herself up on her elbows. Her irises were troubled as she met his gaze, “Everything’s....fuzzy.” 

Izuku's heart clenched at the turmoil in her eyes. But at least she wasn't on the verge of another break down despite her confusion, and for that, he thought she was incredibly resilient. 

He figured he could he do his best to fill her in and get her back in touch with reality while he had the chance to do so gingerly and with care. 

Izuku gently cradled the back of her right hand with his good hand, situating it so that her palm was facing upwards in front of her on the mattress. Once her hand was settled, he lightly grazed the knuckles of her clenched fist, gently coaxing her to unfurl her fingers. He carefully ran the tip of his pointer finger over one of her new finger pads, just barely tracing the surface of the still pinkish, swollen skin, “What about these? Do you remember getting them? Do you know what you can do?” 

Her eyes followed his finger for a moment before she moved her other hand so that it rested beside her already open palm. She shifted her gaze between them both, "I think...I think it works like…" 

Before Izuku could shift away, her hand was gently pressing into his chest. 

His eyes went wide as a feeling he'd never experienced before took over. 

It was...something like riding a roller coaster, particularly those moments where the cart shot over steep crests and swirled through loops. But it wasn’t quite a lurch like it was then. It was more like motionlessness and a gentle sway, with absolutely no pull tugging him in any one direction. 

It was like the realization of a dream, with that one small push against his chest from Uraraka sending him weightlessly drifting across the room.  

It was like he was flying. Just like one of the heroes from his beloved comic books. And it was terrifying, because when he looked down, his feet were dangling about a meter off of the floor, but it was incredible, too. 

His back gently bumped against the far wall, the impact sending him lightly ricocheting off and hovering back towards the bed. Izuku was a slave to the natural laws at work on him, simultaneously too in awe to do anything to stop himself and too afraid of throwing himself off by awkwardly flailing around. 

As he drifted back towards the bed, Izuku felt like he finally understood. He'd already known that Uraraka's ability was triggered with a touch of her padded fingertips, but now he felt like he'd truly figured it out.

As he got closer to the bed, he realized Uraraka was floating now too, and she gently caught his wrists to keep them tethered together as his momentum met hers. 

He supposed he might've been flustered with the fact that they were practically holding hands if he hadn't been so in awe. But he was truly too blown away by the incomprehensible truth of what she could do to be bothered with being embarrassed as he started jabbering, “I...I think I understand, Uraraka! You can remove people’s gravity! That’s...that’s incredible!" 

And Izuku didn’t know if he should really think that way, because what she had been through to gain that ability was horrid and traumatizing. 

But the rest of them had modifications that were somewhat within the realm of possibility, he supposed. Creating ice and fire were something humans had long since understood and mastered. And when what'd been done to himself, Kirishima, and Jirou were boiled down to their simplest form, as far as he could tell, they were really just physical enhancements. 

But to have some sort of control over gravity, one of the strongest forces in the universe, one that humans hadn’t yet learned how to produce and manipulate, was extraordinary. 

As the word incredible burst from his lips, the smallest of smiles lightened her features, “You...you think so?” 

“Yeah!” 

To Izuku, that small smile was a thousand times more remarkable than her power over one of the laws of nature. Finally, it felt like she was really here, like the Uraraka he knew, the one he was irrevocably in love with, was back. 

But her smile was quickly lost to wide eyes and a sharp inhale, her face going pale like she was about to vomit again. 

Izuku’s eyes went wide and he gripped her hand tight, “Let us down, Uraraka! You remember how to, right?” 

She took another deep breath, her eyes slightly unfocused, “I...yeah.” 

With not a moment more spared on hesitance, she pressed the fingertips of each hand together, and they were both sent flopping the meter or so back down onto the bed. 

They both landed on their backs, with Uraraka crashing down on top of Izuku’s casted arm. It didn’t hurt too much, and he was too focused on her seemingly incoming episode to care. 

She curled towards him onto her side as she grappled with the nausea, a low groan slipping through her lips as she clenched her eyes shut. 

With his other arm still trapped beneath her, Izuku stretched his left hand over the mattress as best he could, blindly trying to find the garbage can he knew Jirou had left there. He found its rim with a clang of his hand against it, quickly grabbing onto it and holding it in front of Uraraka’s mouth to catch the oncoming spout of blood. 

But a few minutes passed, and nothing happened. 

Uraraka was still taking in slow, deep breaths, seemingly effectively taking control of the nausea and fighting it off. 

Izuku still faithfully held the trash can close by, “Uraraka...are you okay?” 

She hummed softly in affirmation, still breathing deeply as she flopped onto her back. She peeked one eye open at him, a faint smile ghosting across her features, “You know what? That...that was actually kind of fun.”

It took Izuku longer than he was proud of to realize that she meant the drifting around and not the almost throwing up. 

“Yeah,” he breathed back as he set the trash can on the floor again before lying back down, uncaring of the fact that his arm was still trapped beneath her neck. If anything, he was sure it was more uncomfortable for her than it was for him. To him, a plaster cast was far from being a comfortable pillow, but she didn’t seem to mind. 

For a few minutes, they just silently lied side by side, on a bed in one of their best friend’s brother’s houses in the middle of a forest that might not even be in Japan, for all they knew. And they were both hurt and changed in ways they didn’t understand, with trauma and fear and concern and their blood-covered hospital gowns to prove it. 

But, for a moment, Izuku was okay with all of that. This was the closest thing he’d had to peace in months, and there wasn’t anyone he’d rather be beside. 

With a slam of the door against the wall, the moment was shattered. 

Izuku was being yanked off of the bed before he could even sit up fully, the bright blue irises flashing in the dark letting him know the identity of his attacker. 

“Deku!” 

Uraraka cried his name as Touya dragged him to his feet by the back of his collar, the sudden lurch of his body making Izuku’s head spin. His good hand blindly and instinctively fisted in Touya’s shirt, but his weak and disoriented grip did nothing to save him as Touya shoved him as hard as he could into the nearest wall head-first. 

As his head smacked against the wall and the rest of his body crumpled to the floor after him, Izuku had a panic-driven flash of realization in the midst of his disorientation. He’d never been one to get in fights, but he’d seen Kacchan fight enough to know that Touya was trying to knock him out. 

The old mattress creaked as Uraraka barely managed to shove herself off of it. But she was still weak and hadn’t managed to walk on her own without the support of her friends yet. She stumbled, one of her hands outstretched towards Touya. 

From where he was still collapsed against the wall, Izuku dazedly realized she was trying to make Touya float, though he couldn’t tell if she was moving on instinct or actually had a plan in mind. But before her hand could make contact, or at least before all five fingertips could touch him, Touya side-stepped her outstretched arm, one of his hands lashing out in her direction. 

Izuku let out a cry as Touya’s fist collided with her temple. Her head whipped to the side, her body limply collapsing backwards onto the mattress. 

She didn’t move after that. 

“Uraraka!” 

Izuku knew he had to get back on his feet, but what chance did he have against someone who’s build was so much bulkier than his own? 

A hundred thoughts raced through his head in an instant. 

If he could do what he’d done to the punching bag again...Not to its full extent, because going at Touya in the same way he’d hit that punching bag would surely kill him. But if he could somehow enhance his strength just enough to get the upper hand, then he could escape with Uraraka and meet up with the rest of their friends. And he would probably end up shattering his only functioning hand, but that was a risk he was willing to take if it meant he could save Uraraka and himself from whatever Touya had in store. 

With a hoarse yell, he threw his left fist forward as he did his best to shove himself to his feet, aiming for the middle of Touya’s chest from below. 

It...didn’t work. 

His fist collided with Touya’s chest with none of the extra strength he’d had back in that concrete room. The force of his punch couldn’t even match the strength he’d had before he’d been kidnapped, the months he’d spent in that place wearing his body down. 

Touya only had to shift one foot backwards to regain his balance, and Izuku’s momentum made him follow in a stumble. 

As he desperately looked for an escape, Izuku found his gaze drawn to Touya’s face. There was no emotion there, and Izuku cursed the fact that this man was his friend’s brother and bore such a strong resemblance to Todoroki as one of Touya’s hand fisted in the hair on the side of his head, his other hand digging into Izuku's upper arm.

Izuku could do nothing as he was shoved head-first into the wall again, Touya’s direct, firmer grip on him leading his head to a much stronger impact with the wall this time. 

Izuku was unconscious before his body could even hit the floor. 

Chapter Text

It’d taken Todoroki, Kirishima, and Jirou almost all night to hike back up the mountain and find the entrance of the tunnel that led back into the facility in the mountain. During their initial escapes, they’d all been too frightened and hurried to bother with remembering where it was. But they’d found it again, tucked into a crevice that was partially masked by the surrounding foliage. 

Their bare feet were all suffering the consequences of hiking up the mountain without any shoes, though when they stopped to examine the damage, Kirishima’s souls were noticeably less roughed-up than Shouto’s and Jirou’s. Kirishima brushed off their questioning stares with a little sympathetic wince and a light shrug before starting back up the mountain ahead of them. 

It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Shouto remembered Kirishima had said he was somehow able to make his skin as hard as a rock, but didn’t have complete control over it yet. Shouto was curious to know more about how Kirishima triggered his ability, but didn’t ask. In terms of talking about what had been done to them and what they’d endured in that place, for now, it seemed they were still in the ‘don’t ask unless absolutely necessary’ phase of things. 

The lock on the door at the end of the tunnel was still broken when Shouto laid his hands against the glass to push the door open. 

In the hallway just inside, the walls were hashed with brown scorch marks and a few small puddles of water were still scattered about on the floor - remnants of Shouto’s initial escape from this place. 

In terms of a rescue plan...there was no plan. Not really. 

How could they possibly try to come up with a solid approach when they had no idea what was waiting for them? Shouto had probably seriously injured six of those guys in the hazmat suits when he'd escaped, so did that mean there were six less people to deal with, or would there be even more suited guys since they were probably on guard after losing five of their subjects? 

And since these people had been the ones to give them their abilities, could they take them away, too? If such a way existed, Shouto hoped it wasn’t instantaneous. It probably wouldn’t be, the more he thought about it, since it had taken these people months to finalize and perfect their abilities and their place within their bodies. 

Tranquilizers, though, were a different story. While Shouto was fairly confident in wielding his new powers, he highly doubted he’d be able to react fast enough to stop a bullet. He would just have to hope it wouldn’t come to that.

Shouto supposed Kirishima and Jirou probably shared the same basic, unspoken ideas floating around in his head: be on guard, watch each other’s backs, and try not to do anything stupid.

To the right of the door was where Shouto’s trail of fire and ice had scarred, so he figured going into uncharted territory would hold a higher chance of finding something new or someone they hadn’t found yet. But, then again, Midoriya had said that he’d been in one of the rooms Shouto had passed on his way out of the facility. So who was he to say one of their other friends couldn’t be over there, too? Really, either way was an equal shot. 

Something was drawing him to the left, though, and he’d never been one to go against his instincts. 

Without conferring with the others, Shouto started forward.

“Guys, wait up.” 

Shouto stilled, turning to find Jirou with one of her earphone jacks piercing the nearest wall. 

Her eyebrows were pinched together in concentration, her lips pressed into a thin line as she listened for something neither he nor Kirishima could hear. 

After a few more seconds, she pulled away, her earphone jack falling to rest on her shoulder, “I don’t hear anything. There’s no one close by, but I think we should still stay quiet.” 

“Right,” Kirishima hummed.

Todoroki nodded in affirmation as he started slowly down the hallway again with the other two at his back, raising his right hand in preparation - ice was better for defense, and using it was definitely way less terrifying a prospect than using his left side was. 

But the farther they ventured in, the more it seemed like he wouldn’t actually have to use his ability. 

It quickly became clear that something was different about this place. 

During their time here, not once had any of them ever seen past any of the doors that lined walls other than their own rooms, the rooms they had dubbed the ‘interrogation rooms,’ and that massive cement 'training room,' or whatever else one might call it. 

But now, all of the doors were blown wide open, and every single handle was warped and charred black. 

Even more unnerving was the fact that there didn’t seem to be a single soul left in this place. 

On one hand, that thought was a relief. It meant they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the people that had previously held them captive and modified their bodies against their will. 

But their friends...where were they? 

None of the rooms they’d passed thus far contained any traces of any of them. Though there was no telling how big this place was and how much more they had to search, Shouto was already growing frustrated. 

That’s why he was almost grateful when Jirou suddenly stopped him with a hand on his bicep, her voice piercing the air in a sharp whisper, “There’s someone up ahead.”  

“Let me go first,” Kirishima demanded with no room for objection, walking ahead of Shouto and Jirou before they could respond. Shouto made no move to retake his position at the front, figuring that with Kirishima’s ability, it was probably best for him to be their primary line of defense. 

Their bare feet turned out to be a positive in this situation, the lack of shoes making it much easier for them to creep down the hallway without making too much noise. 

They moved quietly enough that as they followed Jirou’s directions, Shouto and Kirishima could soon hear the sounds Jirou had heard earlier; the sounds of someone rummaging through one of the rooms up ahead. There were little clinking noises like glass tapping glass, the ruffling of fabrics, and the creaking of cupboard doors opening and closing.

One of the doors on the left of the hallway, only a few doors down from where they stood, swung further inwards as someone tugged it open from the inside before stepping out into the hallway.

They were greeted by pink. 

Who the hell was that? 

The pink person caught sight of the three of them only seconds after leaving the room, the items in their arms tumbling to the floor with a scream. But their horror was quickly overcome with a gasp, their hands flying to their mouth as they exclaimed, “Oh my god, Kiri!” 

The items in their arms clattered to the floor as they abandoned them in favor of bolting towards Kirishima and slamming into him with a bone-crushing hug. 

“Mina?” Kirishima ventured, his voice tense with disbelief as he slowly wrapped his arms around her in return. 

Shouto stilled. 

The closer he looked at her face, or at least the half he could see peeking over Kirishima’s shoulder...It really was Ashido. But she was...pink. How…? 

She took in a sharp gasp, her eyes, their whites now black, finding where he and Jirou stood behind Kirishima. A brilliant smile split her lips, “And Kyouka and Todoroki, too!” 

“What the fuck’s going on?!” 

Oh...it’d been a long, long time since Shouto had last heard that voice. 

Ashido finally released Kirishima from her affectionate choke hold, turning to look back over her shoulder and tugging Kirishima with her as she started back the way she’d come. In doing so, she opened up Shouto’s view of the rest of the hallway, or, more specially, who was standing in the hallway. 

The other five of his six previously missing friends were before him, peeking out or fully emerging from different doors at different distances down the corridor. 

And, thank God, they all seemed to be more or less okay, though some were more pink than others. 

Shouto’s focus quickly shot to Iida in particular, who was charging straight towards him. He didn’t miss the fact that Iida was using crutches, but more pressing was the fact that it seemed like Iida couldn’t move them fast enough for his own liking. He was too hurried to bother with placing them properly and moving them in sync with his steps, his legs nearly giving out on him a few times without the proper support.  

Shouto moved towards him in case he did end up tumbling towards the floor, but Iida eventually gave up on the crutches entirely. The aids clattered to the floor as he stumbled the last stretch and swung his arms around Shouto in a crushing embrace. 

Shouto tried to hug him back, but he literally couldn’t with the way Iida was unintentionally pinning his arms to his sides in his apparent attempt at squeezing him to death. 

As Shouto slowly suffocated, he looked over Iida’s shoulder at the rest of their friends. 

Yaoyorozu had swept Jirou into a tight hug, one which Jirou quickly pulled Asui into, too. 

Kirishima was being absolutely mauled by Kaminari and Ashido in their own version of a group hug. Bakugo was not too far from their group, halfway caught between pretending to not care with the way his hands were stuffed into his pockets and venting out his relief in his signature fashion: by screeching in Kirishima’s ear, “Where the fuck have you been?!” 

Shouto rolled his eyes. Bakugo was still Bakugo. 

It was nice though, admittedly, to be back with everyone like this. When he was younger, he never would’ve thought he’d belong to such a friend group, much less even have a single friend to begin with. 

He couldn’t say he regretted being dragged into this friendship one bit, though.  

But...it was getting increasingly hard to breathe. 

“Iida,” Shouto huffed, still standing stiffly in his friend’s embrace, “I can’t breathe.” 

“My apologies,” Iida pulled back immediately, removing his glasses to swipe at his eyes, “When we were unable to find you, I had assumed....” 

“There’s no need to apologize,” Shouto objected. 

Iida repositioned his glasses, his hopeful gaze scanning the hallway over Shouto's shoulder. His expression fell slightly when he didn't find what he was looking for, his gaze turning back to Shouto as he sought, “What about Uraraka and Midoriya?” 

Shouto didn't miss how nearly everyone's gaze snapped to him now that Iida had asked the question that was probably on all of their minds. Worry was present in every expression save for Kirishima's, Jirou's, and Bakugo's. The blond just looked pissed off. 

“They’re alive," Shouto stated without a moment of hesitation. After all that they'd been through, his friends deserved unabashed reassurance, "They’re safe.” 

A big chunk of the tension in the hallway vanished as quickly as a snap, and Kaminari actually let out an audible, relieved sigh. 

“Where are they?” Yaoyorozu inquired. 

“There’s a cabin at the bottom of the mountain. It’s safe there.” As an afterthought, Shouto added, “...I think. For now, at least.” 

“What do you mean?” 

It took Shouto a second to figure out who had asked. Asui's voice just sounded...different. Like...kind of choked off, somehow? 

Jirou answered for him, “It's a long story.” 

Everyone seemed to accept that, though there was an unspoken agreement lingering in the air: they would talk about everything later. 

“So...we can finally leave?” Mina questioned hopefully, her eyes scanning over the entire group. 

“But…” Kaminari muttered softly, “what about Shinso?” 

Kirishima’s brows furrowed, “Who?” 

“We found him in another room. We think he was...you know...experimented on...just like the rest of us,” Kaminari scratched at the back of his neck. “At least if he’s telling the truth, that is...” 

News of this stranger aside, Shouto was upset, though not surprised that all of his other friends had been experimented on as well. After meeting up with Midoriya, Kirishima, Jirou, and Uraraka and learning that they all had inhuman abilities just like him now, he’d assumed that such would be the case for the rest of his friends, too. But there had been a tiny part of him hoping that such wasn't the case. 

It was nice to get that fact out in the open without much hassle, though. And if Kaminari’s phrasing of ‘just like the rest of us’ was anything to go by, then he figured it was safe to assume his friends had already figured out that he, Jirou, and Kirishima had been modified, too, without him having to say anything. He and Jirou weren’t exactly looking like their usual selves, he supposed, and that was probably more than enough to give the fact away. 

Since it seemed like the six of them had been running around freely in this place, Shouto took the chance to abate some of his curiosities, “Have you guys been able to figure anything out about all of this?” 

Iida dejectedly shook his head, “We haven’t been able to find anything.” 

“There were no logs on any of the computers,” Yaoyorozu continued. “They’ve either been deleted or moved somewhere else. And besides Shinso, there’s no one else here. It’s like whoever was keeping us here just abandoned the place.” 

“There’s a door in the back that we haven’t been able to get open, though,” Mina interjected. “I bet it’s hiding something important.” 

“Can we just fucking leave already?” Bakugo bluntly cut the conversation short from where he’d leaned back against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. “Everyone’s alive. There’s no reason for us to stay here anymore.” 

“But, Bakugo-”

“We were fucking kidnapped,” the blond hissed. “It’s not our job to figure out who it was and why they did it. Leave it to the authorities.” 

Although Shouto was loath to admit it, he knew Bakugo was right. As much as they wanted answers, it wasn’t in their best interest to get them at the moment. Their best interest was getting the fuck out, once and for all. 

It seemed like everyone else agreed on that point. 

Kaminari cleared his throat, “We still didn’t decide what to do about Shinso, though.” 

“Well....we can’t just leave him,” Mina pressed the tips of her pointer fingers together in front of her chest and bit her bottom lip. 

“He seems alright,” Kaminari shrugged. “Why don’t we just let him out and take him with us?” 

Bakugo scoffed, shoving himself off of the wall, “See if you’re still saying that when he fucking mindbends your ass.” 

“I’m sorry,” Kirishima blunty interjected, his eyes wide as he held up a hand, “when he what?” 

“Shinso is capable of mind control,” Yaoyorozu explained. “Or...so he says, that is. He hasn’t shown us yet, but he said he was forced to use it on Ochako.” 

That took Shouto a while to process. Mind control? Such a thing wasn't possible...was it? 

But...it kind of made sense, at least on the front of explaining why Uraraka was in her present condition. The far off look in her eyes, her memory issues, and the way it seemed like she sometimes had trouble processing things...

Shouto shared a knowing look with Kirishima and Jirou, finding his understanding reflected in their eyes, “That...would actually explain a few things.” 

Iida’s brows furrowed in concern, “What do you mean?” 

“Uraraka’s just been a little...off, I guess,” Kirishima gave a little disheartened shrug. “She’s really out of it and hasn’t been acting like herself.”  

Whatever worry and tension had been relieved by them telling everyone Uraraka and Midoriya were back at the cabin returned twofold with that.  

“Then…” Yaoyorozu started slowly, pinching her chin between the side of her pointer finger and thumb as she thought things over, “we should definitely take Shinso with us. Maybe he’ll know of a way to make her better.” 

“Fat chance,” Bakugo growled sarcastically. 

“But it’s better than nothing,” Ashido bent down to pick up all of the things she’d accidentally dropped to the floor when she’d run to hug Kirishima, bundling up a few water bottles and blankets in her arms, “We were just putting together some stuff to make packs for when we finally left this place. It'll be sooner than we were planning, but we should be able to leave when we think we have enough put together.” 

“Oh,” Kaminari suddenly jumped in, “we found your guys’ clothes and phones, too!” 

“Oh, thank God,” Jirou let out a heavy breath, her shoulders visibly sagging with relief. “I was gonna make one of you carry me back down that mountain if I didn’t find any shoes in this place.” 

“I’d like to find some bandages, too,” Shouto crinkled his toes, clenching his jaw at how tender the bottoms of his feet still were.  

“There’s plenty of those lying around,” Asui supplied. “Pretty much any room you pick will probably have a roll somewhere.” 

Shouto sent a nod her way in thanks as Iida finally bent down to pick up his crutches from where he’d abandoned them a few minutes ago, “I’ll accompany you. I need a change of bandages myself.” 

Shouto wondered for what reason, and if it had anything to do with why he was using crutches. If so, Shouto assumed his injuries were on his legs, but Iida’s sweatpants were keeping the skin there hidden. He was still curious, but he kept his mouth shut...for now. 

Once he was changed, Shouto slipped one of the rolls of bandage wrappings he’d found into the pocket of his jacket for Midoriya. Shouto hadn’t missed the way the boy’s feet had trailed blood on the floor of his brother’s cabin, though Midoriya seemed to have forgotten about his injuries himself the second he’d seen how hurt Uraraka was. 

Things were going to get better from here on out, though, and Shouto was going to make sure Midoriya was being looked out for in the meantime - that they were all being looked out for.

All eleven of them were going to be together again, and they were finally going to get out of here and away from this nightmare. For good, this time. 

Izuku emerged out of unconsciousness blearily and with a pounding head, an occurrence which had become far too frequent as of late for his tastes. 

A dull yellow light on the ceiling above him greeted his eyes when he managed to flutter them open. It was a sight he was unfamiliar with, which was no shock really, when he remembered how he'd wound up unconscious. 

As he went to push himself up, Izuku became aware of a few things. 

His head really, really hurt. Having your head slammed into a wall twice in the span of one minute did that to a person, he supposed. 

He was lying in an unfamiliar bed, too. The soft give of a mattress beneath his hand was undeniable. 

And, most startling, was the fact that his cast was gone. His right palm met the scratchy sheets beneath him unimpeded. 

His eyes shot to inspect the appendage. The cast really was gone, but in its place was a thick, metal cuff. 

However, at first, Izuku didn’t pay any mind to the cuff. Because his wrist, his wrist that had been shattered not even two days ago, was seemingly perfectly fine as he looked down to it with wide eyes. There was some reddened and shiny scar-tissue marring his skin in jagged patches, but his arm was otherwise uninjured. No broken bones. No bruising. Not even any pain as he cocked his wrist around to test it for stiffness. 

At least not any internal pain. 

The only reason Izuku let out a little wince as he shifted his hand was the sharp, pinpoint sting of something on the inside of his wrist. 

He could tell that something on the inside of the cuff was piercing his skin. At about two inches wide, the sleek metal tightly circled all the way around his wrist and left absolutely no room for air to flow through. 

Izuku only tugged at the cuff and tried to slip the fingers of his other hand beneath for a few seconds before he let his hands fall back to the mattress. 

Would there ever again be anything in his life that actually made sense and didn't only make him more confused? Maybe it was a bit over-dramatic of him to think like that, but there was a bitter part of him that was beginning to think he should be numb to situations like this by now…Waking up in an unfamiliar place, with no clue as to what was going on, was becoming a norm he wasn't a fan of in the least. 

He couldn't let himself be distracted by his frustration just yet, though. There was still someone else he was supposed to be looking out for; someone else he would always look out for before himself. 

Izuku searched his surroundings for her, and he didn't end up having to look very far.

Uraraka was unconscious in the bed right next to his, lying on her back, but with her face turned towards him. He was relieved to note that while she didn’t exactly look okay, at least she didn’t look any worse than she had for the past few days. Her dark circles hadn’t faded one bit, even with all of the sleep she’d been getting, and there was still a sickly undertone to her skin that probably wouldn’t go away until they cured whatever was causing her to vomit as much as she did. 

Izuku wasted no time in swinging his legs over the side of his mattress and wobbly taking the few steps needed to stand at her bedside, his headache effecting his balance the slightest tinge. 

He didn’t know where they were now, but he was grateful that they were together this time around. They may have been taken against their will again, but, at the very least, he could still go to her. 

Izuku had to lightly catch himself on the edge of her mattress when his still-asleep legs almost buckled on his last step, “Uraraka?” 

She didn’t stir the first time, so he called her name again. 

A deep breath slowly whistled through her nose as she shifted slightly, burying her face in her pillow and wrinkling her eyes shut against the call to wake up. 

“Uraraka?” Izuku crouched down by her bed as well as he could, but his tired legs burned from the effort of holding himself up almost immediately. He did his best to gently lower himself to his knees instead, but ended up slouching onto his left knee hard enough that he’d probably have a little bruise. He didn’t let himself wince at the pain - he’d endured worse these past few days. 

“Uraraka, are you okay?” 

“Mmh...Deku?” Her eyes drowsily found him for a moment before she scrunched them shut again. She drew in another heavy breath, her fingers lightly tracing over her cheek as she slurred, “‘ma face hurts.”

That's right...she'd gotten backhanded. 

Izuku's lips pressed into a thin line as he caught sight of the subtle bruising on her cheekbone when she pulled her fingers away. Her skin wasn't too discolored, but her cheek was definitely swollen. 

His own head was still pounding, too, another reminder of exactly how he'd been knocked unconscious. 

But Izuku didn’t want to think about him; about the fact that the older brother of one of his best friends had turned on them for reasons he didn’t know. 

Uraraka did him the favor of taking his mind off it. Well...kind of. 

"Deku,” she mumbled, shifting her head on her pillow to look around, “Where are we?"

Izuku looked around at the room, taking in all of its details. Their beds weren't the only ones in the room. In total, what had to be about twenty beds lined two of the walls in the long, rectangular room. There were no windows, the only light coming from the yellowish-fixtures on the ceilings. There was only one door at one of the far ends of the room, and Izuku didn't have to try it out to know that it was locked. 

He didn't recognize a single thing, giving him no clues as to where they were. 

In the end, all he could do was let out a heavy sigh, "I don't know."

Though her lips pursed into a little pout, Uraraka didn't seem surprised by the answer. 

A few seconds of silence passed before Uraraka quietly muttered, "I hope everyone else is okay."

"Me too," Izuku hummed, his thoughts turning to his friends. 

Had Todoroki, Kirishima, and Jirou managed to get back into that place safely? Had they found everyone else? Were they able to get out again? What would happen when they returned to the cabin to find that he and Uraraka were gone? 

Uraraka seemed to be following that same line of thought. Her voice was small as she muttered, "Poor Todoroki...he's gonna be upset."

"...Yeah," Izuku shifted onto his hip and swung his legs out so he could sit crisscross on the floor, leaning back against the wall beside Uraraka's bed. He thought of moving back onto his own bed, the mattress of which was calling to him with a promise of comfort the floor couldn't hope to match. But he needed to be closer to Uraraka for just a moment longer, the phantom sensation of being physically ripped away from her still subconsciously haunting him even though a few hours had passed. 

Izuku knew full-well that Todoroki would probably blame himself for what had happened. When they'd parted ways, they'd both silently assumed that if anything were to happen to anybody, it would've been to the group that was venturing back into the mountain. The cabin was supposed to be safe. How could Shouto have known that the brother he hadn't seen in nine years would do something like this?

"We'll have to make sure that he knows its not his fault. Besides, we probably should've seen it coming with the way Touya was acting." Despite himself, Izuku let a little grin slip onto his features, "And splitting up is the oldest move in the 'Book of Stuff Idiots Do That Lead to Bad Things.'" 

Uraraka hummed a little laugh, and Izuku's heart fluttered. 

The feeling fell completely flat and mute when her eyes found his, though. They were pooling with unshed tears, their pupils subtly trembling. 

She was scared. 

And when looking at her, Izuku thought it was finally time that he acknowledged the fact that he was scared, too. 

Their freedom had been snatched from them again, and this time it was by someone who they were supposed to be able to trust. They’d come so close to escaping it all, only for it to latch its claws into them again and drag them back. 

Uraraka gently cleared her throat, blinking away her tears as she sought with a small voice, "No more splitting up now, though...right?"

"Of course not, Uraraka," Izuku didn’t even have to think about the words before they were out of his mouth, "I'm not gonna leave your side again."

Chapter Text

The front door of the cabin was locked when Shouto and the others returned to it after leaving the facility in the mountains. At first, it seemed like the locked door was no big deal. Of course Touya would keep the front door locked, just like nearly everyone else did.

But when Shouto knocked, too, there was no answer. 

He waited for more than a few minutes, just in case someone actually did end up coming to the door, before he assumed the worst. 

Kirishima, however, was more optimistic than Shouto was, "How about some of us go around the back and knock at the window?"

"Good idea," Iida nodded, though his crutches made it impractical for him to be part of the group that ventured to the back of the cabin. 

Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashido, and Asui volunteered to go instead. Shouto barely noticed that Shinso stalked off after them. 

Shouto wasn't patient enough to wait for them to make it there, though. At least not right now. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.

It was surprising how fast things became instinct sometimes. His right hand was on the handle without him having to really think about it. 

The eyes of everyone who had stayed behind were zeroed in on him and his hand as ice consumed the doorknob and lock. Their surprise, intrigue, and confusion were practically radiating off of them in waves. With a glance back, Shouto noticed that Bakugo was staring at his hand particularly hard, the blond shifting his weight between his feet as the ice-encased lock crackled. 

Though Shouto was sure his friends had questions, no one asked any. And even if they had, Shouto probably wouldn't have answered them. 

They didn't have time for that. Not right now. 

The frozen lock gave as Shouto tried the knob again, the metal clinking and snapping as he shoved the door inwards with his shoulder. 

Shouto fought off his momentum, stumbling to slow himself as the door gave out and he nearly tumbled inside the cabin. 
 
“Midoriya!” he didn't waste a second calling out for his friends. It was them he was concerned about, not his brother. “Midoriya! Uraraka!”

The front room and kitchen were empty, so he charged to the back room where the five of them had huddled together for the past few days. His steps followed the bloody footprints Midoriya had left behind a few days prior on their first night in the home. 

The door to the room was slightly ajar, its hinges creaking raucously as Shouto shoved it fully open. The room was lit only by the afternoon sun streaming through the window, though the light was significantly dulled by the scraggly curtains. 

But Shouto didn't need any better lighting than that to see the truth. 

Midoriya and Uraraka were gone. The back room was empty, the bloodied tissues in the garbage can and crumpled sheets serving as the only signs that they'd ever been here in the first place. 

Shouto was ready to deck himself in the face. Or maybe he'd ask Bakugo to do it, so he could guarantee that it would really hurt. And the blond would surely be angry enough to do so without having to be asked when the fact that Midoriya and Uraraka weren't here fully sunk in. 

He should've known that splitting up was a bad idea. He should've known that nothing good would result from leaving Midoriya and Uraraka on their own when they were injured. He should've known that Touya would pull something. 

And Shouto knew without a doubt that this was Touya's doing. The conversation they'd had with his brother earlier was proof enough that something was up with Touya. The way he had talked about their situation and around all of them wasn't normal in the slightest. It wasn't sane.

"Is that…" 

Shouto turned to find the rest of his friends, save for those who had volunteered to go around the back, either standing in the doorway or crowding into the small room. Bakugo was the only one who stayed back, lurking in the hall just beyond the threshold. 

Yaoyorozu was staring at the floor directly behind where Shouto stood, her eyes wide as she shakily finished, "...blood?"

Shouto's eyes dipped to follow her gaze, finding a reddish-brown splatter on the hardwood. 

He inhaled sharply with his building panic, a tight feeling claiming his chest as he shook his head, “We should’ve known something was wrong. All of it was too easy. Getting out of that place was too easy!” 

"Didn't you say Round Face has been throwing up blood?" Bakugo spat from where he was lingering behind the others. "It might just be hers."

Iida's voice trembled slightly, "But then where are they now?"

"They could've left on their own," Momo earnestly ventured, clenching one of her hands into a fist over her chest. "Maybe...maybe they had to leave for some reason. Like...it wasn't safe here anymore, or Midoriya decided to finally take Uraraka to the hospital."

God bless Yaoyorozu and her drive to try and find the brightside. But even for being the brightside, neither of the scenarios she'd listed were very favorable. The first implied that their friends, who were both injured, were on the run again, from his brother or the people from that place in the mountain or some other unknown enemy. The second meant Uraraka's situation had worsened to the point of Midoriya abandoning all of their uncertainties about reentering the world beyond the facility in the mountain. 

Shouto's head swiveled around, scanning the plain room for any clues. When he didn't find any, he shook his head, "No. Midoriya wouldn't have gone somewhere else without leaving something behind to tell us where he-"

"Be quiet!" Jirou suddenly interjected, her voice uncharacteristically loud. Everyone's attention jumped to her, finding her with her eyes squeezed shut and the middle and index fingers of her right hand pressed against her temple in concentration. 

In the silence that followed her outburst, Shouto realized that she was listening for something. Or to something. Shouto had a feeling that whatever it was wasn't something good. 

But Bakugo didn't know that, and he didn't know that he should probably keep quiet, too. He quickly grew impatient in the silence, "The fuck is-"

Jirou's eyes snapped open, a sharp inhale slipping through her lips, "Someone's coming!"

There wasn't even any time to process that, much less do anything about it.

"Fuck!" 

Everyone whipped around at Bakugo's sudden sneer, only to see the blond being tackled to the ground by a blurred figure.

Where the hell had the attacker come from? How had Bakugo not seen them coming in his peripherals? 

"Bakugo!"

Where he was wedged into the doorframe, crutches and all, Iida was the closest to Bakugo. 

But he couldn't move fast enough to help their downed friend. He couldn't move fast enough to run away as the person who'd taken Bakugo down swept their leg out to kick his own legs out from under him and send his crutches skidding out of his reach.  

As Iida tumbled to the floor, Shouto grabbed at Jirou's and Yaoyorozu’s shoulders, shoving the two girls behind him, "Get back!" He didn't know what Yaoyorozu could do yet, but he did know that stopping an attack would be a hell of a lot easier for him than it was for Jirou. 

The person who'd attacked Bakugo and Iida was still crouched on the floor. Though now that they were momentarily done with their offensives, Shouto finally got a good glimpse at them. 

It was a girl. A girl with blonde hair barely staying in her twin buns and a wicked smile so wide Shouto wondered if the skin of her cheeks was about to tear. 

She pounced towards him without another moment to spare, the flash of a knife streaking after her lunge.

Shouto's defense came about more out of instinct than anything strategic. He encased his right forearm in ice in seconds, flinging it up and in front of his face to block her attack. 

Her blade met his arm, and the ice guarding it made a splintering sound. His efforts didn't parry her attack entirely - he hadn't had the time to try and make the ice thicker, a knife wasn't too far off from an ice pick, and this girl was surprisingly strong. But, at least, instead of the blade slicing into his arm unhindered, his skin was merely grazed by the tip. 

While the girl froze, staring up at him with wide, dare he say delighted eyes, Shouto took the chance to be the one who acted first this time. 

He swung his still ice-encased arm in an arc, slamming the back of his fist into the girl's jaw. She let out a high pitch grunt and tumbled to the side, crashing into the dresser.

Now that she was out of his way, Shouto could see out into the hallway again. 

Bakugo and Iida were gone. 

In their place was a man in a top hat and yellow trench coat, crouching down to pluck something up off of the floor. When he straightened out, Shouto caught sight of a cluster of light blue marbles in the man's hand. 

Shouto didn't know why the thought occurred to him right at that moment, but it was then that he realized their friends who had gone around the back had never come knocking at the window. 

The blonde girl had finally recovered from being backhanded, one hand cradling her jaw and the other still brandishing her knife as she fixed him with a glare and growled, "That really hurt."

She stepped towards him, as if gearing up to charge at him again. 

A gritty voice from the hall halted her in her steps. 

"That's enough, Toga."

The final person to stalk into the room was none other than his older brother.

"Touya," Shouto spat, his eyes and brows hardening into a glare. "Where are Uraraka and Midoriya?"

Touya quirked a disinterested brow, his hands still lazily tucked into the pocket of his black hoodie, "Who?"

As if his left side was activating on its own, anger blazed through Shouto like a fire, "Don't pretend like you don't know who I'm talking about!" 

Yaoyorozu grabbed onto his sleeve, fearfully urging him to calm down as she quietly called, "Todoroki."

Shouto barely heard her, much less even registered what she was asking of him. 

His glare remained unwaveringly zeroed in on his brother - their enemy, "You've been involved in this whole thing the entire time, haven't you? You let us stay here because you wanted to keep us from getting away." 

"Todoroki," Jirou breathed quietly behind him, stealing his attention, "They're...they're gone."

He cast a glance over his shoulder at her, "What?"

"Everyone who was outside!" she hissed. "Bakugo and Iida, too. I don't hear them at all. Not their voices." Her voice dropped to a whisper that trembled slightly, "Not their breathing."

Shouto felt like his own breathing might just stop right then, too. 

They'd all been here just minutes ago. Iida and Bakugo had just been right there.

They weren't...they couldn't be… 

They were finally about to have everyone back together again, and everything had returned to hell. 

Touya, the man in the yellow trench coat, and the girl had started muttering in hushed tones to each other, but Shouto cut them off with a sharp demand, "Tell us what you did to them!" 

"Fuck, do you ever shut up?" Touya hissed. "I knew you were a brat, but I don't remember you being this much of a pest."

The crazed blonde girl shifted towards them, one of her large canines tugging at her bottom lip, "There's no need to get all bothered. The rest of you will be joining Izuku and Ochako-chan soon enough."

Shouto felt a shiver race down his spine. Hearing this girl, this absolute stranger, refer to his friends with such familiarity sickened him. 

"What?" she giggled, obviously having taken stock of how his features had curled. "I've been watching you all for a long, long time, but Izuku and Ochako-chan were my favorites. Shiggy wouldn't ever let me touch them, but when I got to help Dabi carry them down," the tip of her tongue darted out to drag along her bottom lip, "I could barely keep my hands off of 'em."

Shouto nearly pounced on her again at that. But Yaoyorozu's hand, which was still tightly gripping the fabric of his sleeve, held him back. 

"Where are they?" Jirou faltered, but anger quickly chased the cracks away from her voice, "Where are our friends?!"

She was rewarded with silence from the other three for a few moments.

When Touya finally spoke again, it wasn't an answer, but a name none of them recognized. 

"Kurogiri."

The floor disappeared beneath their feet. Or, least, that's what seemed to happen. 

All Shouto knew was that he was suddenly falling and there was darkness all around for an instant. 

Shouto heard Yaoyorozu's scream and Jirou's yelp as they fell with him, and their pained yells sounded out in chorus with his grunt as they all crashed to the ground together. 

Shouto didn't have any time to recover, the weight of another person slamming onto him from above. This landing was purposeful though, unlike his own. He could tell by the way Touya's knees landed on either side of him that his older brother was trying to pin him down, at least momentarily.  

One of Touya's hands shot upwards, clasping something around Shouto's left wrist before his brother was recovered enough to fight back. 

Something on the inside of the cuff pierced the soft flesh of Shouto's inner wrist, and a hundred feelings of wrong flooded into him. The constant burn of his left side and frigid chill of his right had become his new constant over the course of the last three months. 

But now, those sensations were gone.

There would be no fighting back using his abilities now. Shouto knew that they were gone, or at least they were as long as that cuff was around his wrist. 

But that didn't mean he didn't fight back using other means as Touya tried to drag him to his feet. He thrashed and thrashed against his brother's hold, one of his shoes nearly coming off as he kicked against the dirt floor. 

And he knew he wasn't the only one fighting back. He caught glimpses of the girls struggling against their own attackers, Jirou against the blonde girl and Yaoyorozu against the man in the trench coat. 

In the midst of his fight, Shouto hurriedly took in their environment in an attempt to figure out where they were. Walls of red brick encased them in a hallway, the dirt from the ground getting kicked up to make the air look even hazier than it already did in the light of the lamp hanging from the ceiling. 

"Stop fighting back!" 

Shouto barely registered blonde girl's screech, but when Jirou shrieked in a way he'd never heard from her before, he yanked against the arm Touya had thrown around his chest from behind to find her. 

Jirou had a knife sticking out of her shoulder, a string of her blood whipping through the air as the blonde yanked it out again. 

"Jirou!" Yaoyorozu cried out for her, but Shouto couldn't bring himself to even do that much. 

Touya took advantage of the lull in Shouto's struggling. He flung his free arm around his little brother's neck, squeezing tight as he started dragging his captive down the hallway. 

As if having his breathing restricted wasn't enough, Shouto's panic escalated further when he realized Yaoyorozu and Jirou were getting dragged off in the opposite direction. 

Yaoyrozu noticed, too, nearly tumbling to the ground and getting dragged along with how hard she fought back against the masked man's iron-tight grip as she shrieked, "Todoroki!"

Shouto wanted to call back, but the forearm pressing into his windpipe choked the sound off. 

He grabbed at Touya's arm and tried to pull it off, but his older brother's grip wouldn't budge. It was all Shouto could do to keep his own feet under him as he was dragged along.

Thank God their destination wasn't too far. 

Touya screeched to a stop at a seemingly ambiguous wooden door, shoving it open so hard Shouto thought the hinges sounded like they might snap. Touya shoved him inside, the knees of Shouto's jeans and the palms of his hands smearing with dirt as he scrambled to keep himself from face-planting. 

The door slammed shut behind him again, but he wasn't alone. Shouto could just barely hear Touya's footfalls over his own shaky breathing now that his airway was unrestricted. 

Shouto rubbed at his neck tenderly, taking a moment to steady his breathing again. Still kneeling, he whipped his focus around to find his older brother. 

Touya had dragged over a chair from somewhere in the room, positioning it so he could sit in it sideways as he leered down at his younger brother. He threw one of his arms over the chair's back, the other resting atop the top knee of his crossed legs. 

Shouto wanted to yell at him, but as he rubbed at his throat, his voice only came out in a whisper, "Tell me...Tell me what's going on, Touya.” 

Touya only cast the slightest glance up at him before going back to picking at his nails. His voice was as uncaring as it could be as he completely ignored his younger brother’s questions, “What’s the old man like these days?”

Shouto blinked slowly, “Father?” 

Why did he want to know about their father, in light of everything that was happening now? Or, by some forces Shouto really did not understand, was Touya just as desperate to finally talk about their family and what had happened and where Touya had been for the last nine years as Shouto was?

Although Shouto wasn't happy about having his questions regarding his friends ignored, it wasn't like this was a conversation he didn't want to have. Talking about their father wasn't exactly how he'd planned on starting things out, but it would probably lead to them talking about the things Shouto really wanted to know, like why Touya had left and cut his family off entirely 

And maybe if he played nice, Touya would return the favor and answer some of Shouto's own questions about what the hell was going on. Knowing Touya, the chances of that were astronomically low. 

But, then again, could he really claim to know Touya when they hadn't seen one another in nine years? Maybe Touya had softened up a little and lost some of the bitterness that Shouto suspected had driven him to leave…

Given the fact that Touya had literally just kidnapped all of them again, Shouto knew there was no chance in hell of that being the case. But, regardless, the thought still crossed his mind. He supposed maybe his friends' optimism was rubbing off on him after all these long years. 

“He’s not the same," Shouto finally answered. "He’s not...good, but...he’s gotten better.” 

“Really?” the older Todoroki quirked a brow curiously, eyes disbelieving and widened a fraction, “How so?” 

A few years ago, Shouto never would’ve dreamt that he’d be defending the man he had the misfortune of calling ‘father.’ 

But he meant what he’d said. Enji Todoroki had changed. Or, rather, he was changing. The reality didn’t always line up, but Shouto could tell well enough that the intent was there. He could recall every scene in which he’d paid witness to it.

“He buys mom her favorite flowers.” 

There was hardly a week that went by without a vase of autumn bellflowers serving as the centerpiece of the family table. 

“He asks Fuyumi to teach him how to make different dinners.” 

Most of them were failures, but seeing his dad splattered with different ingredients of varying consistencies made the mediocre meals worth it. 

“He watches sports on TV with Natsuo on the weekends.” 

Shouto was fairly certain his father didn’t know shit about baseball - and neither did he, actually - but that didn’t stop Enji from taking cues from Natsuo and yelling at the TV along with his son whenever someone made an unfavorable play.

“He comes to my swim meets.” 

The first time Enji had come to watch him compete, Shouto hadn’t even noticed until after he’d completed his first heat and let himself slip out of the ‘zone.’ It was Fuyumi’s cheering and calling of his name that’d first drawn his gaze to the stands on one of the long edges of the pool. As soon as he spotted his father seated right next to his sister and mother, with Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka a bit further down the bench, Shouto had nearly choked on the water he’d been chugging. Ever the reliable friend and teammate, Asui had slapped him on the back to kickstart him into coughing to clear his system. 

Enji Todoroki still had a long way to go to atone for the neglect and emotional and mental abuse he’d subjected his family to for years and years, if such a thing was even possible. Fuyumi was eager for their family to feel like a family again, but Shouto was resigned to just wait and see. And in relegating himself to watching from the sidelines, he’d been able to see that his father really was making an effort. There were relapses and mistakes made on all of their parts, not just Enji’s. But the progress was still clear.  

Shouto told Touya as much, “He’s not there yet, but he’s trying.”

Touya scoffed, rolling his eyes as he sarcastically droned, “Sounds like a real family man.” 

“Well," Shouto finally let some of his own bitterness about the situation seep into his tone, “having a son disappear from your life can really change a person.” 

After a few moments of reigning silence, Touya huffed out a sharp, breathy laugh. He uncrossed his legs, settling his elbows atop his knees and leaning forward. Something akin to excitement blazed in his blue irises, “Then why do you think we’re both here, baby brother?” 

Shouto didn't know what he was getting at, “What?” 

Touya chuckled again, but there was something darker in his voice, “Has the thought really not occurred to you?" He leaned even further forward, the smile disappearing from his face in an instant, "You get kidnapped, only to end up not even a mile away from your big brother, who you haven’t seen in almost ten years. Have you not thought about why, after all this time, we’ve been shoved back together?” 

The implications were finally dawning in Shouto's mind, “I don’t…” 

“It’s because of him,” Touya sneered.

Him. Their father. The same man who'd helped Shouto pick out a corsage to give to Yaoyorozu before the school dance.

There was no way. Touya was just messing with him; trying to get him to abandon and hate their family in the same way he did.

Shouto clenched his hands into fists atop his knees, “That’s bullshit, Touya.” 

“Did you really never think about it?" Touya spat back without missing a beat, "Where he would disappear to for weeks on end?” 

“He works for the government,” Shouto hissed, as if trying to reaffirm his own beliefs and tell his brother the truth; that he was wrong about what he was trying to entice Shouto into believing.  

“Of course he does,” Touya growled, leaning further forward in his chair. “But that doesn’t even begin to describe his work and who he’s involved with.” 

"Just stop, Touya-"

“I never meant to leave the family behind."

Shouto froze at Touya's sudden shift in tone and topic. 

He didn't fight to make Touya shut up anymore. 

This was something he wanted to hear. Something he needed to hear after nine long years of wondering why his big brother was suddenly gone. 

"I walked out, but I was always planning on coming back," Touya continued lowly, his voice dropping to even grittier levels. "But then I was snatched, right off of the street. And whose face greets me when I wake up?" Touya leaned back as he dropped the bomb, "Enji Todoroki.” 

Shouto's throat felt tight. It wasn't true. It wasn't.

“They cut me open and shoved stuff inside. They changed me. Reprogrammed me. And my body couldn’t take it.” Touya reached down to curl his fingers around the bottom hem of his sweatshirt, tugging the black fabric upwards to reveal his bare torso. 

Shouto's eyes went wide. 

Nearly all of the skin on Touya's chest and abdomen was purpled and wrinkled beyond even resembling skin. It was so horribly damaged that it was literally held to his still healthy skin by staples. The metal lines caught the light of the fixture on the ceiling as Touya's chest rose and fell with his breathing, his leathery skin tugging and pulling at the fasteners holding it to his body. 

The sight made Shouto feel disgusted, like he was about to throw up. 

He wanted to let out a sigh of relief Touya unfurled his fingers, letting the shirt fall back down. But he couldn't. The sight of his brother's gnarled skin would be etched into his memory for as long as he lived. 

Touya resumed his gruesome tale, “And I wasn’t the only one. There were a bunch of us runaways, and we were all made to be something we weren’t before.

“But we were all failures. Twisted and broken in some way, and wholly non-compliant.” Touya's sneer deepened, growing just as twisted as the purple skin across his chest, “But then they come back, years later, and say they’re ready to try again; that they’ve gotten rid of all the bad stuff."

Shouto was still paralyzed in disgust from the sight he'd paid witness to only moments ago. But he wasn't numb to the chill of ice-cold dread that dripped down his spine as Touya's lips quirked up at the corners in anticipation. 

He was finally reaching the climax of his story; the big reveal. 

"So they go back to Enji Todoroki, and whose names does he give?" Touya's smile grew even more cruel, "His own son’s, and all of his son’s best friends’, too.”

Chapter Text

Uraraka was throwing up again. 

For a moment, Izuku was just grateful that there was minimal blood this time. But the sight of her bile caused another thought to race across his mind: when was the time she'd eaten? Had she even had anything to drink recently, either? 

When was the last time he'd had something to eat or drink? Despite his concerns, he knew it was probably a good thing that his stomach was empty now, lest the sight and sound of her retching caused him to spill his guts, too. Izuku had never thought he'd be so squeamish, but he was fairly certain that the only reason he hadn't hurled yet was that his concern for Uraraka was overpowering his nausea. 

The fact that there was no garbage can or tissue box this time to aid with containing or cleaning up certainly didn't help make things any prettier. All they had was the jumbled pile of sheets Izuku had hurriedly grabbed from one of the extra beds.

From where she’d been kneeling over the makeshift, soiled clump, Uraraka suddenly slumped forward. 

Izuku had been kneeling at her side, holding her hair out of her face for her, and he hurried to help her catch herself before she could face plant into the mess. He wrapped his arms around her middle and gently cradled her against his chest to steady her as she heaved for breath. Keeping his movements slow and steady, Izuku shifted his weight onto his hip and swung his legs out from under him so he could settle more comfortably with his back against the bed. He knew that with how heavily Uraraka was still leaning her side into his chest, her lower half splayed out on one side of him, that they were both probably going to be stuck on the ground for a while.

With both of his arms wrapped around her shoulders, Izuku started to gently stroke her back with one of his thumbs. 

If he'd been unsure of what to do before, back when he'd been in the facility, then he was utterly and absolutely lost on what to do now. 

Taking care of Uraraka to the best of his ability…that was all he could do now.

“Deku…” Uraraka mumbled against his chest, the fingers of both of her hands knotting in the right sleeve of his hospital gown. 

“Yeah?” he breathed back, just now noticing how dry his throat was. He was in desperate need of some water. 

Uraraka sniffled, unconsciously nuzzling a little bit closer to him in search of comfort, “...I want to go home.” 

Izuku gripped her tighter, gently resting his chin atop her head. He clenched his teeth together, desperately trying to fight off the rush of misery her words had brought back to the forefront of his mind. He wasn't sure he succeeded, his voice slightly choked as he muttered against her hair, “I do, too, Uraraka.”

He missed the friends who'd gotten snatched with him that night, but with whom he'd yet to be reunited. 

He missed the rest of his friends from school, too. 

But, most of all, he missed his mom.

He wanted to go home. 

But...going home didn't exactly guarantee that everything would go back to the way it was before. Even if the he, Uraraka, and the rest of their friends somehow managed to escape, what would await them once they got there? 

Everything else in their lives apart from their families and friends...what would they do about all that? They’d missed nearly everything that was considered important in their school lives. Final tests, scholarship ceremonies, and graduation. 

Everything they'd been looking forward to was just...gone. 

Izuku jolted when, for the first time, the lock on the door on the other side of the room unlatched. 

Being both as gentle and as quick as he could, he helped a tensed Uraraka sit up on her own so he could get to his feet. He left her tucked safely between their two beds while he moved into the aisle that ran down the center of the room. No one was going to get to Uraraka unless they took him on first. He wasn't going to let anybody separate them again. 

A deep breath slipped through his lips as he prepared himself for whoever came through the door, whether it be Touya or a person in a hazmat suit or a complete stranger.

What Izuku wasn't expecting was the face of a friend. Or, rather, friends.

Yaoyorozu lightly shrieked as she was shoved through the open door, barely managing to catch herself before she face-planted into the concrete. Jirou was thrown in right after, landing on her side nearly right on top of the other girl. 

The door slammed shut again so quickly that Izuku didn’t even manage to get a glimpse at who had shoved them inside. But he actually didn’t care too much about that at the moment. What he did about was his friends on the floor. 

"Jirou! Yaoyorozu!" He ran across the room to them immediately, his bare, still blood-crusted feet pounding against the floor. 

Yaoyorozu was the first to push herself up. But she barely cast him a glance, the tiniest hint of relief flashing across her face, before she whipped to face the girl still curled up on the ground beside her.

Izuku was close enough now to realize that something was wrong. Jirou hadn’t even tried to push herself up from the floor yet. His eyes went wide when he saw the blood spilling through the hand she had pressed against her shoulder, her features clenched in pain. 

"Midoriya, get me something to wrap it with!" Yaoyorozu hurriedly directed, her hands becoming splotched with blood as she helped Jirou keep pressure on the wound. 

Still wide-eyed, Izuku stood frozen for only a moment more before he overcame the fear and shock keeping his feet glued in place. He shot to the nearest bed, ripping off the top sheet and dragging it over. He knew that the entire thing would be way too big to wrap her arm in any way that was reasonable. So as he scrambled back over to the two girls on the floor, he tried to bite into one of the edges like he always saw people do on TV and in movies to create a tear in the threads so he could rip the fabric more easily. 

But after a few attempts of trying to tear the stubborn fabric with his teeth with no luck, he threw the sheet to the ground and spun right back around with a curse of, “Damn it!” He bolted back over to the bed and snatched the pillow, yanking the case off it as he hurried back to Jirou and Yaoyorozu for the second time. 

When he slid to his knees at Yaoyorozu’s side, he found that she had managed to push Jirou onto her back and coax Jirou’s blood covered hand away so she could get to the wound. She’d snatched the sheet he’d abandoned on the floor and was pressing it tightly to Jirou’s shoulder to soak up the blood, her eyebrows cinched tightly together as she worked.  

Jirou moaned painfully through her clenched teeth, sweat spilling down her forehead. 

Still with the pillow case in-hand, Izuku let out a heavy breath when he noticed that no blood was puddling on the floor beneath Jirou’s shoulder. At the very least, whatever had caused this wound hadn’t gone all of the way through. That made for an easier time at bandaging it, and less surface area that they had to try and keep clean with their basically non-existent supplies. 

No one moved or said a thing while they waited for the blood flow to slow. 

Izuku allowed himself a moment to take a deep breath. In reality, the probability of Jirou's life being threatened by the wound on her shoulder was minimal, lest infection came into play. From what he’d seen, there weren’t any chunks of flesh hanging off or anything like that. The wound was a fairly clean puncture. 

But they were still just kids. Blood and injury in any capacity was still foreign and traumatizing, even after all that they'd been through. 

“Yaoyorozu,” Izuku started slowly. “What hap-”

The words died in his throat when the lock unlatched and the door was thrown open again. 

There was a chorus of a squawk and a grunt as Kaminari and Kirishima were tossed into the room, both of them landing just short of where the other three were still huddled up on the floor. 

Izuku called their names, and both of their gazes shot up to find him and the girls beside him. 

“Jirou!” Kaminari hurriedly crawled over to her side, his eyes going wide at the blood soaking onto the sheet Yaoyorozu had pressed to the girl’s shoulder, “Oh my god! What happened?! Are you okay?!” 

“Just,” Jirou clenched her teeth, fighting off a pulse of pain before hurriedly spitting out in a rushed breath, “Just shut up for a second, okay?!” 

Still wide-eyed with worry, Kaminari sunk back into himself a little in guilt, bumping into Kirishima, who’d come to kneel beside him. 

Yaoyorozu closed her eyes and slightly pursed her lips, slowly exhaling to gather her bearings. She continued to apply pressure to the wound as she filled in the gaps for both Izuku and the other pair of boys, “We...When we returned to the cabin, we were attacked. I...I don’t know who they were, but they caught us off guard. Jirou was injured in the process.” 

Izuku ran over everything in his head. So Todoroki, Jirou, and Kirishima had succeeded? Had they needed to fight? Had they really managed to get everyone?

Apparently, Yaoyorozu’s details weren’t detailed enough for Kaminari either, his wide eyes still on Jirou’s bloodied shoulder as he sought the full story, “What happened?” 

“Took a fucking knife to the shoulder, that’s what!” Jirou lifted her head just to yell out an answer in exasperation. Her head knocked painfully against the concrete as she let her neck go limp again afterwards. She winced, clearly cursing herself out in her head as she clenched her teeth. 

Kaminari reached over to grab the pillow that Izuku had abandoned on the ground after he’d yanked its case off and timidly held it out to Jirou in a silent invitation. 

He received a cold glare from her in answer to his unasked question. But still, she lifted her head again so he could slide it beneath her. 

“Midoriya,” Yaoyorozu called softly, though Izuku still jolted at suddenly being addressed. She gestured to the pillow case in his hands with her head, “I’ll take that now.” 

“Right,” Izuku wasted no time in passing it over, freeing up his hands to help in whatever other way she might need him to. 

All three of the boys helping out was probably unnecessary, but they were all there and ready to aid in whatever way they could anyways. Kirishima moved the bloodied sheets out of the way as Izuku and Kaminari helped support Jirou as she lifted her shoulder off of the ground enough for Yaoyorozu to loop the scrunched up pillowcase beneath her arm.

Jirou hissed as Yaoyorozu pulled their makeshift wrapping tight, biting into her bottom lip as Yaoyorozu tied the loose edges in a knot over her shoulder to secure them. 

Everyone audibly let out a sigh of relief when Jirou relaxed back onto the floor.

“What about you two?” Yaoyorozu started slowly as she looked between Kirishima and Kaminari, wiping Jirou’s blood off of her hands using the remainder of the extra sheet Izuku had dragged over. “You went around the back of the cabin, but never returned.” 

Kaminari and Kirishima shared a long look, as if silently asking each other a question. 

“Well…” Kirishima started slowly, still glancing back at Kaminari every now and then to make sure they were on the same page, “I...don’t really remember.” 

“Me neither,” Kaminari gave a small shrug, rubbing at the back of his neck as if embarrassed, “One minute we were just about to make it to the window, and then...we were here.” 

“The second we woke up or regained awareness or whatever, some dude with a creepy mask was shoving this around my wrist,” Kirishima held up his right hand, the light catching in his thick metal cuff. His eyes hurriedly took account of the fact that they’d all been forced to wear one, and his brows crinkled in confusion as he examined his own, “I wonder what it’s for…” 

"It's a blocker."

Izuku turned over his shoulder, finding that Uraraka had quietly and timidly come to stand a few feet behind them. 

"Uraraka!" Kaminari shot to his feet, probably intent on tackling her in a hug, as he usually did whenever he'd been apart from one if his friends for a long time. But he hesitated and cut himself short, stumbling to a stop only a few steps away. 

Izuku took note of the worry and uncertainty in Kaminari's eyes. Had Todoroki, Jirou, and Kirishima told everyone else about Uraraka's poor condition? 

Izuku noticed that she had her cuffed wrist still held out in front of her, and he was reminded of the last thing she'd said. 

"Uraraka," he started curiously, "what do you mean?"

"I haven't been able to float anything since I woke up with it on," she started to explain, "not even on accident."

Izuku finally got what she meant by saying that the cuff was a 'blocker.' Somehow, it 'blocked' her abilities, and probably served a similar purpose for the rest of them. 

Having only used his abilities once, Izuku found himself incapable of sensing whether or not her theory held true for him, too. But he watched as Kirishima squeezed his eyes tightly shut, presumably trying to harden his skin. 

When nothing happened, the redhead let out a heavy huff, "I think you're right."

That confirmed it, then, didn't it? Touya and whoever else might be in on their second kidnapping were involved with whatever had been going on in that facility, at least at some level. How could they have known how to take away their abilities otherwise? 

This also meant that their situation had only grown more grim. There would be no storming out of here with a blaze of fire and ice this time. Whatever edge their abilities could have possibly given them was gone now. 

Bringing his focus out of his head, Izuku finally took notice of a slight change in Kirishima and Jirou's appearance since he'd seen them last.

“You found your clothes," he stated quietly, silently jealous in his head. He glanced down at his own apparel, swallowing heavily at the dried and crusty splotches of Uraraka's blood on the chest and sleeves of his hospital gown. There was a lot of dirt smudging his form, too, especially around the cuffs of his white cotton pants. Trekking through the forest that night had definitely taken its toll. 

“We found yours, too, but....” Kirishima's voice faded out as his eyes scanned the floor surrounding them. When he didn't find what he was looking for, he met Izuku's gaze with an apology on his eyes, "Looks like we lost 'em again, though…"

Izuku let out a heavy sigh, resigned to the fact that he and Uraraka would be the only ones left in hospital gowns, "It's fine, Kiri-" 

He was cut off again as the the lock on the door unlatched once more.  

Three familiar faces were thrown through the door this time before it was slammed shut again. 

Bakugo had barely hit the floor before he sprung back up to his feet, making Ashido squawk with how hard he shoved himself up after landing on her. But the blond paid her no mind, banging raucously on the door as he hissed, "Get back here, you fuckers!"

A relieved cry of 'Kacchan' was bubbling up Izuku's throat, but it died in his throat when someone else called out his own name. 

"Midoriya! Uraraka!"

Izuku's eyes shot back to the floor in front of the door, finding one of his best friends struggling to get to his feet. Happy, relieved tears immediately pooled in his eyes, "Iida!"

Izuku hurriedly shoved himself to his feet, too, but Uraraka made it to Iida first, having already been standing. She caught Iida under the arms as he stumbled while trying to stand, winding her arms around his back and smashing her face into his chest. Iida clutched at her back in return, though he kept one arm open for Izuku. 

Izuku ran into the opening gladly and threw one arm each around his two best friends. The tears finally spilled over as Uraraka wiggled one if her arms out from in between his and Iida's bodies so she wrap an arm around his waist. 

Before all of this, the kidnapping and experimentation, he'd been trying to be better about not crying so much. But he allowed himself this one small moment of happy tears. 

These were his people, and it never quite felt right when they weren't together. 

"'Chako chip! You're okay!" 

Still hugging his two best friends, Izuku twisted around to find the owner of the pair of arms that had squirmed their way around Uraraka's waist in their midst of their three-way hug. He knew who usually called Uraraka 'Chako Chip,' but the owner of the arms, the pink arms, quite frankly looked nothing like her usual self. 

"Ashido?" Izuku gasped incredulously with wide eyes. 

"Yes, I'm pink!" Ashido cried indignantly, still cuddling into Uraraka's back as she stomped her foot, "Now can we get over it?"

"Sorry," Izuku hurriedly apologized, shrinking back into himself. 

Uraraka disentangled her arms from the two boys, spinning around while still held tightly in Mina's embrace. Her hands found Ashido's fluffy hair, her cheeks puffing up in a little grin as she hummed, "You look so cute, though."

Even though she was pink, Ashido's little blush was still visible as she nuzzle her head against Uraraka's chest, "I missed you."

Uraraka wound her arms around Ashido's neck in return, squishing one of her cheeks against her newly pink friend's head, "I missed you, too."

Izuku was on the verge of smiling at the sight when: “Deku!”

Izuku jolted, his reverie torn by the snarl of his nickname. 

Bakugo was charging towards him and his friends, looking downright murderous, “You better tell us everything you know, or I’ll-”

“I probably don’t know anything more than you do!" Izuku held up his hands, waving them in front of himself in an attempt to stave off the blond's angry approach. 

And, ultimately, Bakugo did grind to a halt only a few steps away. His red eyes were narrowed, scrutinizing Izuku for any sign of deceit before he caved with a gravelly growl and turned his anger elsewhere, “That blonde bitch better watch her back, cause the next time I see her, I’m gonna be the one pouncing.” 

“Who?” Izuku sputtered, breathing in a heavy gulp of fresh air at having been spared his childhood frenemy's rampage.

“It’s not just Todoroki’s brother."

Izuku's gaze shot back to Jirou, finding that Yaoyorozu and Kaminari had helped her sit up, though she still leaned heavily on them both. 

"There were others," she continued grimly. "There were two more that we saw, but I wouldn't doubt that there's more of them."

Izuku bit the inside of his bottom lip. Their prospects of escape only continued to grow more grim. 

And why was Touya here? How had he even come to be involved in all of this in the first place? 

Thinking about what the answers to those questions might be left a bitter taste in Izuku's mouth. 

For the last time, the lock on the door unlatched again. 

Still only a few feet from the door, Bakugo charged towards it as it flung open, a flurry of screeched expletives flying from his mouth. But he wasn't quick enough to avoid colliding with Asui, who'd just been thrown into the room. The other person that'd been shoved through the door with her tumbled to the ground, much as the rest of them had. 

As Bakugo stumbled backwards with Asui half-held in his arms from how he'd instinctively caught her, the door slammed shut, leaving the group in silence once more. 

But the silence lasted only for a moment before it was shattered by a muffled sob. 

Asui's eyes were wide with panic as she hurriedly shoved herself away from Bakugo, who scoffed at being pushed back. Her hands quickly shot to the back of her head, and several gasps rang out when the reason for her fear became apparent. 

Izuku's eyes went wide at the silver muzzle strapped securely onto the bottom half of her face. 

In shoving herself away from Bakugo, she'd given herself a bit too much backward momentum. Her feet caught on Kaminari's legs and she tumbled backwards, unable to catch herself with her hands still busy at the back of her head. 

"Hey, hey," Kirishima hurriedly scooted over to her and tried to gently comfort her, sliding his hands around her shoulders to coax her into stillness, "It's fine. You're gonna be fine."

Claustrophobia was never something Izuku had suspected Asui might have given how laid back and unreactive she usually was. But he had to admit, if his mouth had been covered by an irremovable guard, he wouldn't be faring much better. 

Yaoyorozu's eyes were wide as she tried and failed to slide her fingers beneath the straps that ran tightly over Asui's hair, clearly failing in finding a way to remove the mouth guard, "Why would they do this?"

"It's because of her ability." 

Izuku's gaze shot to the stranger that'd been thrown into the room with Asui, finding a mess of purple hair and tired eyes still seated on the floor. 

The stranger held up his wrist, showing off a cuff identical to the ones on everyone else's wrists. His voice was low and borderline disinterested as he remarked, "It's not something they can take away with chemicals."

Distrust was the first of many emotions Izuku felt. 

He narrowed his eyes, "How do you know that? Who are you?"

"His name's Shinso," Kaminari supplied from where he was still sitting on the floor with Jirou leaning into his side. "He-"

"It's you," Uraraka gasped quietly, still half enveloped in Ashido's arms.

"What?" Bakugo hissed. 

Uraraka's gaze never left the purple haired boy, "He's number twelve."

For a moment, Izuku wondered what on earth she was talking about. 

But then, he remembered what she'd told Touya: that there'd been twelve of them who had been taken instead of just the eleven who had been in the forest that night. 

If this boy really had been taken and experimented on just like the rest of them, how the hell did Uraraka know about it? 

Izuku's gaze snapped back to the stranger and found that his purple eyes were resting on Uraraka now that she'd brought attention to herself. His voice came out in a drone, but he sounded nothing but sincere, "I'm sorry for what I did to you."

"What?" Izuku's eyes shot to Uraraka in search of answers to his worries. What had this guy done to her? Was he the reason she was hurt? Or the reason she was only just beginning to act like herself again? 

But when he found her, her head was slightly tilted to the side, confusion on her features as if she had no idea what he was talking about.  

Still at Uraraka's side, Ashido was the next person in Izuku's line of sight. He found that she was looking at Uraraka with worry, too, but not confusion. Instead, there was knowledge and understanding in her eyes. 

A quick glance around at everyone else, to where Kaminari and Jirou were side by side on the floor, to where Yaoyorozu and Kirishima still kneeled beside a timid Asui, to where Bakugo and Iida stood not too far off, confirmed Izuku's suspicions. He and Uraraka were the only ones that were confused. Everyone else seemed to know the details already. 

Before he could even begin to ask what the hell everyone knew that he and Uraraka didn't, Shinso spoke again. 

"Ah...so you remember me, but not what I did," he rubbed at the back of his neck, his eyes downcast, "That's another side effect, I guess."

"Side effect of what?" Izuku hissed, finally getting fed up with being left out of the loop. 

Everyone's eyes snapped to him, and Izuku looked between them all desperately. No one wanted to let him in on the secret though, apparently, with nearly everyone's eyes darting away again once he made eye contact. 

Kaminari was the one to finally bite the bullet, though he was obviously still hesitant to let the truth finally slip as he muttered, "Shinso can manipulate people's minds. They forced him to use it on Uraraka."

Izuku didn't miss the way Uraraka's eyes suddenly went wide. So, she really didn't remember a thing. And this guy was the reason why. 

"Assuming he's telling the truth, that is," Bakugou spat, his narrowed eyes bearing into the back of Shinso's head like lasers. 

That was all Izuku needed to hear to know that Bakugo didn't trust Shinso one bit. 

Izuku couldn't really blame his childhood friend, he supposed. 

He was confused. He was shocked and horrified. And wanted to be mad, too. He really did. But from what he could tell, Shinso was just as much a victim as the rest of them. 

It was almost impossible to notice it, but Izuku had always been more observant than most. At the crown of Shinso's head, amidst his mess of purple hair, there were a few, barely noticeable chunks of shorter hair. They were probably only an inch or inch and half long at most, indicating that it hadn't been too long since they'd been allowed to grow out. 

Izuku was reminded of a documentary they'd watched in health class a few years back on brain surgeries. Each patient had had at least a small strip of hair shaved from their scalps to clear the way for the surgery to be performed. 

It was an unfounded guess with very little supporting evidence. But Izuku didn't think it was too outrageous of him to assume that pulling off the feat of mind manipulation probably involved some sort of manipulation to the user's mind. Shinso probably hadn't been spared the operations and other experimentations that the rest of them had endured - that they all might have to endure again now that they were being held against their will once more. 

"So," Kirishima started slowly as he looked around at everyone, obviously having come to somewhat the same trail of thought that Izuku had, "it looks like we're back to square one again."

"But...at least we're all together this time!" Mina chirped with false positivity. The crinkle in her brows and slight tremble in her voice gave away her lack of confidence despite her own words. 

Izuku swallowed heavily. 

No. They weren't all together. And he could tell that Mina realized it too. 

Todoroki was still gone. 

When Todoroki finally did appear in the room, he wasn’t alone. Touya had a tight grip on the hood of his younger brother's jacket, using it to drag Shouto to stand in front of him. A flood of strangers came into the room after them, but, for the moment, Izuku's eyes were only for his friend. 

Todoroki's head was hung, his bangs covering his eyes and masking most of his expression. His mouth was lax, pulled neither into a grin, grimace, or frown. From what Izuku could see, his features were just...blank.

“Everyone on a bed," Touya spat as he glared at them where they'd all moved to huddle around the beds closest to the door. "Then, nobody moves.” 

As he spoke, he jolted his brother to the side, and Todoroki stumbled. The threat was clear: if they didn't comply, Todoroki would be the one to pay for it. 

How Touya planned to follow through with his threat was unclear. But none of them were willing to risk finding out. 

Although mostly hesitant and unsure, Izuku watched as his friends slowly disentangled themselves from each other. 

Kaminari made sure Jirou was able to sit up on her own before claiming the next bed over. Shinso moved slowly to the bed across the aisle from Jirou, silently taking the risk of sitting the closest to the group of strangers. Yaoyorozu, Mina, and Asui walked further back into the room together to settle on three beds there, their eyes on the group by the door all the while. Izuku helped Iida stand from where he'd been seated at the foot of Jirou's bed, supporting him on the trek to the bed on the other side of the one Uraraka had occupied earlier, strategically choosing it so that Uraraka would be sandwiched by them on either side. As they moved, Uraraka stuck close to Izuku's other side, lightly gripping his sleeve while she stared back at the captive Todoroki with worry shining in her eyes. 

And, all the while, Izuku mentally cursed himself, because why had they not thought to wait closer to the door, ready to pounce the moment it was opened? It was impossible to say whether or not such a plan could have succeeded, but they could have at least tried, right? 

Bakugo looked ready to pounce now, in fact. But a pointed glare from Touya and a mumbled plea from Kirishima had the blond begrudgingly complying with the order. The two settled on a pair of beds across the aisle from Iida's and Uraraka's. 

After helping Iida, Izuku made sure Uraraka was safely upon her bed before finally following through with the order himself. 

As he sat on the edge of the bed he'd first woken up in, Izuku never let his gaze stray too far from his captive friend. 

Why was Todoroki refusing to look up at them? In all their years of knowing one another, Izuku had never known Todoroki to act like this. He didn't look afraid, or even ashamed at being used against them or anything of the like. It was something deeper, something buried so far down that no traces were left on the surface. 

Izuku wasn't sure what it was. But he looked to the man holding his friend by the back of his neck and knew - something happened between the two brothers. 

"You."

Izuku jolted at the new, raspy voice that hissed through the air. 

From the huddle of strangers, a man stepped forward that looked very much like what Izuku thought the personification of death might look like. His white hair was scraggly and hung limply against his forehead and down to his jaw. His skin was nearly just as pale, and dry like crinkled paper. He was so thin Izuku wondered how he was even managing to stand, his black sweatshirt hanging on him like an old tent hung onto its support poles. 

The only part of him that had any vivacity was his crimson eyes. 

And they were zeroed in on Uraraka. 

"Turn her cuff off," the man hissed over his shoulder as he started down the aisle towards her. 

Izuku went into full on panic mode as the stranger stalked closer and closer. What did he want with Uraraka? Hadn't she already endured enough? Why did it seem like it was always her that suffered the most?

Before he knew it, the man was at the foot of Uraraka's bed, practically piercing her with his red gaze as he hissed, "Get up."

Izuku finally found his voice, shifting forward on his mattress, “Hey! Wait!” 

"Shut it," the white haired stranger spat, sharply jolting his head back towards the door, "or Half and Half gets a knife to leg."

Izuku's gaze shot back to Todoroki. Not much had changed about how Touya's hand was clamped down on his hood. But another stranger had stepped forward, a blonde girl that couldn't be much older than he was. Her grin was downright gleeful as she held a dagger against his friend's thigh. 

Swallowing heavily as his eyes began to burn, Izuku looked back to Uraraka. 

When he spun to face her, her eyes snapped to him from where she'd been staring at Todoroki, too. Her brows were furrowed and her irises were trembling.

But despite her obvious fear, she began to stand. 

Izuku had always known Uraraka to be brave, especially when it was for the sake of her friends. But her courage reached new heights as, with shaky legs, she moved around the foot of her bed and stood as tall as she could in front of the man. He dwarfed her in height, and the slightest hunch in his back only enhanced how severely he seemed to tower over her. 

Izuku wished desperately that he could think of something to do to help her or put a stop to whatever was going on. But with Todoroki's wellbeing at stake, he was figuratively pinned.

The man held out an empty metal canister that was no bigger than the average water bottle, practically shoving it in Uraraka's face, making her jump, as he hissed, “Use your quirk.” 

Uraraka quietly breathed out, “My...what?” 

“Your quirk," the man growled, quickly growing exasperated with anger. "Your fucking power or ability or whatever the hell you want to call it.” 

It clicked for Izuku immediately at that. A new bout of worry and panic set in, the threat looming over them all momentarily forgotten as he hurried to spare Uraraka from future pain, “She can’t! She’s hurt, and using it only makes it worse!” 

Crimson eyes flashed, the man sneering, "Toga."

Izuku stewed in confusion for a split second before understanding punched him in the chest, knocking all of the air out of him. 

Todoroki barely made a noise as the knife sliced through the leg of his pants, the blade carving into the skin of his thigh. He only grit his jaw against the pain, a sharp breath whistling through his teeth. 

Izuku thought he might've heard Yaoyorozu and maybe a few others call out his friend's name. But the sounds were lost in the murkiness his consciousness had become. The only thing he could focus on was the blood blooming to the surface of Todoroki's new wound and seeping into the fabric of his jeans. 

And Todoroki was just standing there and taking it, his eyes devotedly cast to the floor. 

Izuku knew that there was a major artery somewhere in the leg. He knew that they were lucky this time - a slice instead of a stab. Had the blade pierced deeper, tearing into that artery, Todoroki could've been bleeding out on the floor right now. 

"Use it."

Izuku's gaze whipped back to Uraraka and the white haired stranger. He was shoving the canister more persistently into her face, his eyes raging with impatience. 

With a quivering hand, Uraraka reached forward, wrapping her hand around the canister so that all five finger pads touched its surface. She sucked in a deep breath as she unfurled her grip again, the canister hovering right where she'd left it. It rotated slightly, having been drawn into motion by the friction of her fingers dragging across it as she'd released it from her grasp. 

The man huffed out something like a laugh, nudging the canister so that it floated towards the ceiling. 

Across the aisle, Izuku could see Bakugo and Kaminari staring at the floating canister with clenched jaws and wide eyes, no doubt in awe or shock at what Uraraka had just done. He didn’t doubt for a second that most of the other people in the room were doing the same. It wasn’t everyday that one saw objects completely defying gravity, after all. 

But Izuku only had eyes for Uraraka. 

Even though he couldn’t see most of her face, he could tell from how tense her back was that she was trying so, so hard to hold it together. 

But she could only last so long against the new habits her body had formed. 

It started with a muffled sputter, one hand flying to her mouth, and the other to her stomach. Then, it seemed like her resolve crumbled all at once. She crumpled to the floor as the first bout of heaving rolled upwards from her stomach, and Izuku wanted to burst into tears again at the telltale splatter of red against the white tile floors. She was mostly dry heaving, with only a few drops of blood spilling from her lips and spattering on the floor. 

But in Izuku’s mind, even that was too much to handle. 

And in his peripherals, he could see that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. On the other side of Uraraka’s empty bed, he could see Iida’s hands trembling as they fisted in his sheets. And across the aisle, Bakugo and Kirishima were on the edges of their mattresses, a snarl working its way onto the blond’s face. 

But that knife was still being held against Todoroki’s skin.  

“We're similar, you and me," the white haired stranger hummed, as if Uraraka wasn't on the floor in front of him, dry heaving with blood spilling down her chin. He only continued to stare at the still-floating canister as it bumped into the ceiling and began to drift downwards, "We can negate the things that can’t be seen; the very forces that hold one thing to another, whether it be things to the Earth,” he grabbed the cannister when it had finally floated back within his reach, “or atoms to atoms.” 

Izuku's heart just about stopped in his chest as the canister began to disintegrate, the fissures branching out from the tips of the man's fingers and devouring the metal whole until it began to break apart. Piece by piece it dissolved, fragments crumbling from the whole and drifting away through their air until there was nothing.

Izuku's hands began to tremble as his wide eyes found the white haired stranger's face again. 

This man was dangerous. 

And Uraraka was still on the floor right in front of him. 

The man glared down at her crumpled form for a moment before spinning to face the rest of the room, slowly turning to look at each of them in turn, “I see you haven’t thought about the possibilities of this new reality that’s been forced upon you."

Izuku was only half listening to what the man said. The other half of his focus was still on Uraraka. His legs positively burned with the need to run to where she was crumpled on the floor.  

But he couldn't. The stranger was still too close to where she was curled up on the floor. Even if Izuku lunged for her at top speed, the man would make it to her first. All he had to do was touch her, and then she'd be gone, just like that. 

Izuku wasn't going to let that happen. Not ever. 

So, as much as it pained him to leave Uraraka there on the floor, suffering by herself, Izuku sat still. 

But his eyes never left her, even as the white haired stranger continued to drawl, "Some of you even seem to be afraid of your quirks and their setbacks, but I can promise you…” the man finished dragging his gaze around the room, his eyes finally landing on Izuku as he breathed out, “they’re gifts." 

Izuku's stomach rolled. The mutations that'd been forced upon them, the very things that had shattered his wrist and sent blood spilling from Uraraka's mouth, were gifts? 

That was absolute bullshit, if Izuku had ever heard any. 

And Izuku wanted to tell this man as much, feeling a lot like he imagined Kacchan usually felt as a few curses crept up his tongue. But whatever insults he wanted to grind out stayed lodged deep in his throat. 

The white haired stranger was still right in front of Uraraka’s crumpled form. And he wasn’t just standing right next to her anymore. He was crouching down in front of her, staring at her curiously. 

For every inch the man leered closer to her, Izuku leaned further forward, shifting his weight more and more so that he could act if anything were to happen. And Izuku knew that Todoroki was still being held beneath the knife, and that should he act, his friend would pay for it. But he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing either. The two sides were tugging at him ceaselessly - stay still to save Todoroki or jump in to protect Uraraka. 

The decision was quickly made for him, his body moving before he had the chance to think as the white haired man suddenly snatched one of Uraraka’s wrists and yanked her upper body off of the floor. 

Izuku shot to his feet, and across the way, he saw Bakugo and Kirishima do the same. One of the girls screamed for her, the noise cutting above the other exclamations that rang out. 

In that split second after everyone’s initial reactions, the man yanked her wrist higher in warning.

When a few moments passed and Uraraka's wrist remained intact instead of those cracks traveling across her skin, Izuku, and probably the rest of his friends, too, realized that the man's middle finger was lifted with purpose. Izuku came to the split-second conclusion that the trigger for his 'quirk' wasn't unlike Uraraka's - all five fingertips were necessary. 

But Izuku could tell that even with only four scraggly fingers flexed around Uraraka's wrist, his grip was still bruising. With blood still drilling down from her lips, she sputtered out a little wince, her eyebrows cinched tightly together. 

Izuku's legs blazed with the need to surge forward and yank this stranger's grip off of her. The only thing keeping his feet glued in place was that middle finger, hovering dangerously above Uraraka's skin. 

The rest of his friends stilled in his peripherals, too, the warning terrifyingly clear: one step closer, and he'd quite literally turn Uraraka to dust. 

The man tilted Uraraka's hand back and forth, examining her finger pads closely as he hummed, “Imagine it...entire cities ripped right off the face of the earth.” Keeping his grip around Uraraka’s wrist, he turned, his eyes landing on Bakugo, “or even just decimated in the blink of an eye.” He kept his gaze moving between them all, landing on Yaoyorozu as he droned, “An endless artillery,” and landing on Shinso to finish, “Anyone you desire, following your every beck and call.” 

Izuku’s chest physically hurt with how hard his heart was pounding. 

Gaze on Uraraka’s captive wrist all the while, his mind raced. What on earth was this man after? To be talking about such levels of mass destruction...Izuku’s gaze shot between Bakugo and Yaoyorozu. What the hell were some of his friends capable of? 

“Some of you are more valuable to us than others,” the white haired man unfurled his fingers, staring cruelly down at Uraraka as she crashed back to the floor, only half-succeeding in catching herself. He ignored the screams and insults from the teens in the room as he spun around again, making sure to look at each of them in turn, “But, regardless, we have a proposition for all of you.” He slid his hands into the front pocket of his black sweatshirt as he demanded, “Join us...or die.” 

Chapter Text

The moment the door slammed shut after the white haired stranger and his group’s departure, Izuku bolted for Uraraka. He was the first to fall to his knees at her side, but Kirishima wasn't far behind. 

Iida tried to make it there right away, too, but his weakened legs sent him crashing to the floor in between his and Uraraka’s bed instead. But that wasn't near enough to deter him. He crawled the rest of the way there, and by the time he made it to Izuku’s side, pretty much everyone else had gathered around, too. 

Admittedly, Izuku wasn't paying anyone else much mind, though. In the midst of everyone’s concerned questioning and Bakugo’s hisses for ‘that fucking bastard to go to hell,’ Izuku's focus was devoted to helping Asui gently cradle Uraraka’s trembling form in an attempt to get her off of the floor. His heart lurched when he saw that the skin of her wrist was red and slightly puffy where that man’s fingers had wound around it. 

Izuku didn't waste any time on asking her if she was okay or not, because hearing her insist that she was fine when she so clearly wasn't would just be another chunk taken out of his chest. 

Uraraka clung to Asui's side unwaveringly. Even while Izuku and the green haired girl supported her as she shakily stood, her arms stayed tightly fastened around her friend’s waist. In the end, she ended up dragging Asui onto the mattress of her bed with her. 

Ashido quickly settled on Uraraka’s other side. She squirmed one of her hands into Uraraka’s tight grip to interlace their fingers, the fact that Uraraka’s cuff had been reactivated allowing her the comfort of her friend's hand without sending the pink girl floating to the ceiling. 

Izuku wanted to be there, too, with Uraraka wrapped up safely in his arms to ensure that that man never touched her again. 

But he recognized that he'd had plenty of time to be the one to offer Uraraka comfort. Now, it was Ashido's and Asui's turn to not only comfort the brunette, but to also be comforted by being able to hold her safely in their arms. 

Now that Uraraka was taken care as well as she could be at present, Izuku all but collapsed back onto his own bed, setting his elbows atop his knees as he leaned forward to rest his head in his hands. 

He wasn’t used to dealing with as much worry, fear, and anger as he’d felt while in the presence of that white haired man. And, realistically, he thought it was perfectly reasonable of him to hope that he never grew accustomed to situations like that. 

A warm hand settled on his shoulder, somehow simultaneously both gentle and firm in its manner. 

Izuku lifted his head from his hands, finding Kirishima sitting next to him with a warm, reassuring grin on his face.

Izuku wished he had the redhead’s resilience. Maybe then, he'd be able to do more for his friends. He supposed that that was part of what friends were for though - they helped make up for the things that were lacking. 

Now that he’d had a chance to breathe, Izuku took account of everyone else in the quiet, tense silence that’d consumed them. 

Iida had also managed to cram himself onto Uraraka’s mattress, even with the other three girls there. He was stiffly seated at the foot of the bed, barely taking up any space with how tightly his frame was coiled. 

Bakugo was still just beyond the foot of the brunette's bed, staring at the door on the far end of the room and unsurprisingly looking like he wanted to set fire to it. 

Kaminari and Jirou were close by, too. The girl reached out with her good arm to snag Kaminari’s wrist and hold him back as he nearly bowled right into the pile of girls on Uraraka’s bed with worry and relief scrunching his features. 

Shinso was lurking quietly on the outskirts of the huddle of friends, clearly not wanting to invade the sphere of familiarity. 

It took Izuku more than a moment to finally locate the last two of all his friends. They were the only two not in his immediate vicinity, and he didn't fully see them until Kaminari shifted slightly on his feet, moving out of Izuku's line of sight. 

Yaoyorozu was not too far from the door, crouching down next to where Todoroki was still half sprawled on the ground. He'd managed to save his face from slamming into the floor when his brother had shoved him forward before his exit, but he was still propped on his elbows with his legs outstretched across the floor to his side. 

To Izuku, it looked like Todoroki hadn't tried to stand up after being tossed further into the room, if he’d even moved at all. And it didn't take a genius to figure out the reason why. Or, at least, part of the reason why. 

Yaoyorozu's hands were on Todoroki's bloodied thigh, her fingers gently prying apart the slit in his jeans to get a better look at the wound that blonde girl had given him. She was speaking to him quietly, no doubt asking if he was okay or inquiring about what had happened while he’d been separated from the rest of them. 

From across the room and with red and white hair overshadowing his friend’s face, Izuku couldn't tell if Todoroki was actually responding or not. 

But it seemed as if Yaoyorozu was intent on helping him out regardless. She left Todoroki’s side for only a moment to snatch another pillow case from one of the nearby beds, using it as another makeshift bandage like she had for Jirou as she crouched back down to tie it tightly around the lacerated part of Todoroki’s thigh. 

With the way Yaoyorozu crawled to be closer to Todoroki’s upper half, Izuku guessed that she was trying to coax him into letting her help him stand. The way she somehow both gently and firmly grabbed one of his arms and slung it over her shoulder proved Izuku’s thought correct.

As Yaoyorozu supported Todoroki up onto his feet, the boy faltered slightly and stumbled into Yaoyorozu’s side. 

Izuku desperately wanted to ask Todoroki if he was okay and apologize for being the cause of the cut seeping blood into the denim of his jeans. But Izuku had a feeling that he'd just be blown off or wouldn't receive a response at all. 

Before Izuku could make a decision on what approach to take in regards to Todoroki, Kaminari finally broke the strained silence that'd consumed them. He cleared his throat before he hesitantly ventured, “So...if we don’t join them…” 

Izuku almost let his head fall forward into his hands again as he was reminded of the events of only a few moments ago. Well, reminded wasn't really the right word, because it wasn't like the thought had ever left his head. But now it was yanked back to the forefront, and demanding to be processed and dealt with. 

The rest of his friends were similarly unsettled, it seemed, the tension in the atmosphere cranking up a few notches. 

Even though the white haired stranger was gone, his ‘proposition’ still hung in the air, turning it stale.

“It’s not even a choice, right?” Mina questioned, her voice uncharacteristically small, “What they want to do is...it’s evil.” 

Izuku took a deep breath. 

In the simplest terms, what those people wanted was retribution and liberation. The white haired stranger had said he and his gang of strangers were all ‘strays’. Within them all was some form of hatred for society. And now that they'd all been given 'quirks,' as the man had called them, they were going to use their abilities to forcefully reestablish their statuses in the world; to no longer be treated like freaks or outcasts. 

Izuku couldn’t say that he and his friends shared the sentiment. These people had suffered untold misfortunes at the hands of society - their flaming hatred for it made that clear. And while Izuku felt pity and remorse for them, he couldn't say he agreed with their drive to topple all of society as they knew it. 

“Then…" Kirishima started slowly, his fingers curling into the edge of Izuku's mattress, "...what should we do?” 

“We figure out how to get out of here, I guess,” Izuku muttered without much thought. “Before they...before they…” 

He didn’t finish the thought - before they kill us or whatever else it is they’re planning to do if we don’t cooperate. 

The white haired stranger hadn't gone into too much detail when speaking on what would happen to them if they didn’t comply. But his utterance of ‘Join us, or die,’ didn’t leave too much up to the imagination. 

Izuku could tell that the rest of his friends were thinking about the same thing, but, like him, they’d much rather not think about it. 

Yaoyorozu was the one to push things along, steadfastly focusing on the positive prospect that they would actually make it out of here alive, “But what happens after that? We just...go home?” 

“What do you think?" Bakugo spat, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the footboard of the bed across from Uraraka's. "We report these fuckers and whoever else was involved with that shitty facility for everything that they’ve done and then we go back to life as normal.” 

There was a brief lull in the conversation before Jirou spoke with a slight choke in her voice, “But it's not as simple as that for some of us.” 

Izuku's focus shot to Ashido as she sniffled across from him. When he looked, he saw that she had unshed tears in her eyes, her lips pursed tightly and nose scrunched as she tried to keep it together. 

Izuku immediately felt his eyes burn for her sake. 

The thought was by no means one that hadn't occurred to him before. But seeing how it was quietly tearing his friends apart as they considered the new realities that they might face made it so much more brutal. 

They'd just been hanging out together after their high school dance. And now, their lives were just...gone. 

Life after all of this would be hard, but none of them would have it as hard as Ashido. With the way her body had been modified, it'd be impossible for her to blend in with the rest of humanity. When she looked as otherworldly as she did, would there be any facet of her life that could remain the same?

For Ashido, there was no ‘going back to life as normal.'

With tears brewing in the pink girl’s eyes, Bakugo seemed to realize his lapse. His eyes went wide for a moment before he yanked his focus away and to the side, his voice coming from deep within his chest as he grumbled, "Sorry." 

While it wasn't necessarily insincere, it hadn't been the most heartfelt apology, either. But, when it was coming from someone like Bakugo, the fact that he'd even apologized at all was nearly monumental. 

Ashido bit her lip for a moment before scrubbing at her face with the hand that wasn’t tightly clasped in Uraraka’s. She sniffled again before taking a deep breath and letting out an exasperated huff, "We'll figure all that out when we actually have to deal with it. Let's just focus on getting the hell out of here for now, okay?"

For once, Iida didn’t chastise her for her language. Instead, he gave a firm nod, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "I believe it would be useful if we were all aware of each others’ new abilities. We may be able to use our...our 'quirks' to aid our escape."

"Only if we get these damn cuffs off," Bakugo hissed, once more fruitlessly trying to shove his fingers beneath the cuff and tear it away from his skin. 

Kaminari cleared his throat again, glancing around at them all, “But what if those people are…listening in somehow? You know…like they have the room tapped, or something?” 

"Even if they are listening in…” Izuku thought aloud after considering the idea for a moment, “...I don't think talking about our abilities will do us any harm. I think they already know what we can do. That guy already knew about Uraraka's ability. And he didn’t just know about it. It was like he really understood it, too."

After a few moments of silent exchanges and shifting gazes, Kirishima gave a light shrug, “Fair enough. You mind starting us off, then?” 

“Oh, um…” Izuku stuttered when everyone's gazes snapped to him, and he rushed to come up with an explanation. He probably should've been ready to share right off the bat since he’d been the one to propose that it was safe to do so, but his mind hadn’t quite gotten that far yet. Though, when he’d only used his ability once before, he supposed that there really wasn’t much of an explanation he could give, “I’ve only used it once, but…it’s some sort of super strength I guess? But when I used it, I, um…I broke my arm, though.”

Bakugo tsked, “Of course yours would be something lame.” 

The blond's insult was lost in the background as Kirishima blurted, “Oh yeah, dude, what happened to your cast?” 

“I don’t know,” Izuku shrugged his shoulders slightly and held up his right arm for the boy at his side to see. “When I woke up here, it was gone. But,” he flexed his fingers and rotated his wrist around a few times to prove his point, “my wrist obviously isn’t broken anymore, so…” 

“...Weird,” Kirishima breathed out, his brows furrowed as he took in the gnarly scars knotting around Izuku’s wrist and hand.

After Izuku, they continued around the little circle they had formed. Kirishima explained his hardening next, and Jirou her earphone jacks. 

Then, the focus fell onto Kaminari. 

"Um, I'm not really sure how to describe it..." the blond rubbed the back of his neck, a tinge of an embarrassed blush on his cheeks. "Electricity manipulation? Or generation, maybe?" His hands plopped back to his sides as he shrugged, "You all know I failed physics. I have no idea how any of it works." 

“Idiot,” Bakugo hissed with a roll of his eyes.

With a dramatic gasp, Kaminari sputtered, “Like-Like you could do any better!” 

“I can!” 

“Prove it!” 

Bakugo’s lips pulled back in a sneer, once more ripping his gaze to the side as he ground out, “I blow shit up. My sweat works as some type of explosive, and then I ignite it with my palms. Ain't much more to it than that.” 

Izuku took a moment to quietly examine his childhood frenemy more closely. 

While Bakugo’s explanation may have started out as a jab towards Kaminari, at the end, it’d almost seemed as if his anger had faded and he was just trying to get it all over with as soon as possible; like he was trying to get the focus off of him. 

And that wasn’t like the Kacchan Izuku knew at all. 

Then, Izuku caught sight of something.

They were just barely visible with the way Bakugo was crossing his arms. But after a minute of looking closely, Izuku was able to pick out the edges of white bandages winding their way around Bakugo's palms and up his wrist for a few centimeters. Izuku wondered how he hadn't taken account of them earlier, but it seemed that his own 'quirk' wasn't the only one that did its owner's body harm. 

Almost in line with that thought, Iida was the next to share. 

Izuku braced himself for the worst. Out of everyone, it seemed that Iida had been physically harmed the most. He could barely stand, much less walk and move around. The truth of what those people had done to him was going to be hard to hear. 

With how his head was hung, Iida's glasses kept slipping down his nose. He pushed them back up for what to be at least the third time, clearing his throat and glancing around at them all, "Well...To be perfectly honest, I don't have the slightest clue about what I can do. All I know is that they...they embedded something in my legs. They weigh much more now than they did before."

Izuku’s gaze fell to the thick bandages wrapped around the bottom half of Iida’s legs, a few inches below his knees. Having heard what Iida said, Izuku supposed it made more sense for the bandages to be concealing something rather than just being wrapped as thickly as appeared to be. And now that Izuku examined the wrappings more closely, it was clear to him that they protruded much farther in the back than they did in the front. Whatever those people had embedded in Iida’s legs seemed to jut out from his calves, breaking the skin. 

Izuku wondered if Iida had momentarily removed the bandages in private before he’d been brought here to get a glance at the implants. But Izuku figured that he probably hadn’t since Iida hadn’t made any mention of what they were. Iida was too earnest to keep something like that concealed from them. 

Whatever they were, Izuku just hoped that Iida could recover from whatever this was. To go from one of the best high school track atheltes in all of Japan to barely being able to walk on his own would break him, if it hadn’t already. 

When it became apparent that that was all Iida had to say, the focus quietly shifted to the next person. 

Izuku's lips pressed into a grim line, "Asui…"

She curled into herself as everyone’s gaze fell upon her. The silver mouth guard that'd been secured around her head kept her from speaking, but her watery eyes spoke plenty about her thoughts and feelings.

At the look on her friend's face, Uraraka nuzzled more closely into where she was cuddled against Asui's side.

"She can do pretty much anything a frog can. That's the gist of it."

Izuku's focus whipped around, landing on Shinso, who still stood on the fringes of their huddle. 

While he was still apprehensive about this guy and his knowledge of what'd been done to them, Izuku decided to focus on the conversation at hand rather than jumping into an interrogation to figure out what else this guy knew, "What do you mean by that?"

"Camouflage, sticking to things, breathing underwater," Shinso nonchalantly listed. "Her tongue is a lot longer and a lot more dexterous now, too. That's why these guys put the muzzle on her."

Izuku's gaze shot back to Asui, and she answered his questioning gaze with a nod of confirmation. 

Shinso's explanation had been accurate. 

Izuku had hoped that in learning of his friends’ ‘quirks,’ some sort of trend in their abilities would arise that would clue him in as to why and how they’d all been modified in the ways that they were. 

But now, he was only more baffled confused. 

A glance around at everyone else told him that he wasn’t the only one. 

“You’re…a frog?” Kaminari sputtered with wide eyes.

Asui shyly curled into herself even further. 

A sharp smack rang out through the room as Jirou whapped Kaminari in the center of his chest with her good arm. 

Ashido exaggeratedly cleared her throat, obviously trying to take some of the attention off of Asui, "Well, since we all already know what ‘Chako Chip can do, I’ll go next."

Izuku didn't miss the small grin that Uraraka gave Ashido for sparing her the discomfort of having to provide an explanation. And he supposed that Ashido was right about everyone already having a good idea of what Uraraka was capable of. The display of about ten minutes prior had done plenty to show off the basics of her capabilities - and their downsides.

Ashido examined her own palm, "I can secrete some kind of acid from my skin. It doesn't hurt me, but it could dissolve some pretty hefty stuff when they had me try it out back in the facility."

As with everyone, Izuku hurriedly did an analysis of the facts of Ashido's case. He had no doubt that the reason she was currently pink was similar to the reason for half of Todoroki's hair being white now. In order to give her skin the ability to both withstand and produce acid, she'd been modified biologically and genetically. And although Izuku was sure that they'd all endured some level of genetic and biological manipulation, it was clear that none of them had more than Ashido. 

“What about you two?” Jirou sought with a glance over her shoulder.

Izuku turned to look behind him, too, finding that Yaoyorozu and Todoroki were now seated side by side on the bed next to his own. 

With a quick glance at Todoroki to make sure she wouldn't be cutting him off, Yaoyorozu shyly began to explain her own powers, "I can transform the lipids in my body into other objects. As long as I understand its structure and molecular composition, I can create anything."

Izuku’s brain stopped working for a few seconds. 

Kirishima's eyes were blown wide with amazement, "Like...anything?"

"Anything," Yaoyorozu confirmed with a small nod, her hands unconsciously fiddling with one another in her lap. "Well, anything so long as it isn't alive. Back in that place, they had a wide range of books for me to look through in order to gain a fundamental understanding of various things. Apart from organic material, I've yet to find that there's anything which I can't create. However, the bigger an object is, the longer it takes to make."

Again, Izuku was baffled. Transmuting matter from one form to another was utterly inconceivable. Though, he supposed that physics was still somewhat upheld by the fact that lipids served as the resource from which she created objects rather than her simply producing things out of thin air. 

And with Yaoyorozu's detailed explanation, Izuku realized that, apart from Iida, his friends seemed to be much farther along in becoming familiar with and making use of their abilities than he was. Some of them, like Bakugo and Yaoyorozu, even understood the underlying science of their 'quirks.'

But Izuku still had basically no idea what his 'quirk' really was or what the full extent of his new powers were. If he could get his damn cuff off, maybe he could fix that problem - not that he was eager to shatter his wrist again, though. He was just frustrated that he might be of little to no help in the long run. 

Something else Yaoyorozu had mentioned caused another thought to race through Izuku's head. 

The piles of books in that concrete room where he'd obliterated the punching bag had been for Yaoyorozu's use. The speakers had been for Jirou, as she'd confirmed back in the cabin a couple days ago. And now that Izuku knew about what the rest of his friends were capable of, he could fill in the remaining blanks. As for the pool...Izuku guessed that that was for Asui, at least if Shinso's explanation of what she could do held true. The metal rods were probably for Kaminari, given their conductive properties. The jagged cavities in the walls had probably been caused by Bakugo, given his explosive power and overall propensity for violence. And the way some of the concrete was unnaturally sloped in some places, like it had been melted...Ashido had probably been the cause of that, given her allusion to the 'hefty stuff' she'd been able to dissolve with her acid. 

"What about you, Todoroki?" Iida leaned to the side so he could see around Izuku and Kirishima in an attempt to make eye contact with his friend.

But Todoroki's head was still stubbornly hung, even as he answered, "I can make fire and ice. That's it."

For everyone else, the explanation was probably lacking and unsatisfactory, Izuku knew. But he'd already seen a wide breadth of Todoroki's power, and so long as Todoroki was finished with his explanation, Izuku was perfectly prepared to move on to another conversation, too, at least momentarily. 

The desire to reach out and apologize to his friend was flaring to life in his chest once more. And, this time, the importance of his friendship with Todoroki won out over his concerns about the chances of being ignored. 

“Todoroki,” Izuku finally called, his brows furrowed. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault you got hurt.” 

“It’s fine, Midoriya,” Todoroki muttered. “You were worried about Uraraka.” 

The way his apology had been brushed off left a bitter taste in Izuku's mouth. But at least he'd managed to get his friend to say something to him. 

Izuku could only guess that Todoroki was somehow blaming himself for them being captured again. Even though his brother's actions had been his own, it seemed like Todoroki was taking the blame for them upon himself. 

Izuku wouldn't let his friend get away with thinking like that any longer. 

But before he could give his friend any reassurances, Todoroki started digging around in the pockets of his jacket, “Here.” When he withdrew his hand and held it out to Izuku, a crumpled roll of bandages rested in his palm, "This is for you.” 

“For me?” Izuku tilted his head in confusion. The last time he had checked, Todoroki and Jirou were the ones with bloody wounds that needed wrappings, not him. 

“Your fucking feet are getting blood and gross shit all over the place, dumbass,” Bakugo grumbled.

“Oh…” Izuku bent forward and twisted his leg in an attempt to get a better look at the souls of his feet. With everything that had happened, his concern for his friends had overshadowed his own mindfulness of the injuries he’d gotten while running down that mountain barefoot in his escape. 

An embarrassed chuckle floated through Izuku's lips before he could stop it, his cheeks burning as he reached over to take the offered roll of bandages, "Thanks, Todoroki."

He received a tiny nod and a hum from Todoroki in acknowledgment of his thanks. 

Izuku turned back to examine the utter mess that was the souls of his feet. There was blood, both dried and free-flowing, with dirt, scraps of leaves, and other unknown substances caked into it. It was almost hard to tell where the actual lacerations were. But after some careful swiping with his fingertip, he was able to flick away most of the bigger chunks of gunk. He wished he had something to properly clean his wounds with, but as it was, there wasn't much else he could do. 

As he began to wrap the bandages around his feet, the conversation continued on around him. 

"So," Jirou let out a heavy sigh, "anyone have any ideas on how the hell we're gonna get out of this place?"

"Um," Mina hummed quietly, "do you guys mind if we take a break, or something?"

Izuku's gaze shot up from his feet in search for any sign as to why she had decreased her volume so suddenly. 

He froze when he followed her gaze to reason why. 

Uraraka was fast asleep against Asui's side, and the green haired girl looked about ready to drift off, too. 

With a snort, Bakugo huffed, "Round Face has the right idea. I've had enough of this shit." Without asking or receiving any sort of permission from any one else, the blond rounded the foot of his bed and unceremoniously plopped onto the creaky mattress. His breathing snoring was filtering into the air almost instantaneously.

Izuku didn't miss the way Kirishima, Kaminari, Jirou, and Ashido all performed some sort of eyeroll or exasperated sigh at Bakugo's expense. 

"So...maybe we should take some time to think things over and get some rest?" Kirishima whispered. "I think we could all use some sleep right now."

"Agreed," Iida affirmed with a sharp nod. "Getting adequate rest is essential for a healthy lifestyle."

Izuku wanted to laugh at how Iida-ish Iida had just been. It was almost like they were back home at one of their sleepovers again and not in some random room with no idea where they really were. 

God, he'd really missed his friends. 

And they all really did look exhausted, just like Kirishima had said. After various acknowledgements and mumbled forms of agreement, everyone's feet seemed to drag as they all returned to the beds they'd claimed before, save for Ashido and Asui, who remained snuggly cuddled with Uraraka in the brunette's bed. 

Izuku finished wrapping his feet before he wiggled into the sheets of his own bed, whispering 'goodnight' twice as he did so, once to Iida over the sleeping forms of the three girls in Uraraka's bed and once to Todoroki, who was still sitting with Yaoyorozu on the other bed right beside his own. 

Izuku's body ached with exhaustion, and despite all of his fears, he drifted off almost immediately. It'd been a long time since sleep came so easily, but now that he was in the presence of friends, peace and rest fell upon him more willingly. 

Tomorrow, or whenever it was when they all awoke again, they could focus on escaping. 

But for now, they would rest. 

That night, Izuku dreamed of a void.

He couldn't speak. He couldn't move beyond reaching out with his right hand. 

Eight faces stared back at him from the inky darkness, their features illuminated by an assortment of hues, but ultimately shrouded by the smoke that dictated all in the void. 

As their gazes bored into him from all directions, Izuku felt the weight of generations settle upon him.

Chapter Text

"Oi."

Izuku startled as his bed frame jolted, a breath zipping through his lips as he was jarred back into consciousness. He shot halfway up into a sitting position, an elbow and hand pressing into the mattress in support of his upper body. 

Positive that something was amiss, his gaze dashed across the room for any signs as to what was going on.

Bakugo was standing at the foot of his bed, no doubt the cause of his abrupt awakening. The blond's hands were tucked into his pockets as he stared Izuku down, a hint of a glare on his face. 

Izuku stole a few more glances around the room, noting that it seemed like he and Bakugo were the only ones awake. 

Izuku was about to question Bakugo on why he'd felt the need to kick his bed in the middle of the night, but paused when he saw the way his red eyes were narrowed. He could tell Bakugo hadn't woken him without cause, and it hadn't been just for the sake of being mean or annoying.  

"The fuck were you dreaming about?" Bakugo's voice was rugged, like he hadn't been out of sleep long himself. 

What really caught Izuku's attention, however, was the complete lack of bite and judgment in Bakugo's voice. While his words were harsh, his tone was far from its usual grating condescension.

Izuku turned his thoughts inward in search of an answer to Bakugo's question. 

Had he been making noise in his sleep, or something? It seemed like everyone else was still asleep, which led him to believe that if he had been making noise, he hadn't been too loud. 

But the more time he was given to come back to reality, the more he realized that he felt...off somehow. He was jittery, but that feeling was more internal—like his lungs themselves were quivering. His skin was cold, too, the sheen of sweat coating him turning frigid in the crisp air of the room that served as their cell. 

What had he been dreaming about? 

"I...I don't know," Izuku finally muttered in answer to Bakugo's question. 

His answer was honest: he really had no clue what his brain had conjured up in his sleep. Whatever it was had been lost to the haze that bridges the gap between unconsciousness and consciousness when one is yanked awake from a deep sleep. 

Bakugo was silent, glaring down at him in contemplation. 

Izuku pushed against the mattress to sit up fully, still caught off guard by both his sudden awakening and the way Bakugo was acting towards him. This was the first direct, one-on-one interaction they'd had since before all of this started. 

Izuku couldn't help but fall back into his analytic tendencies now that they were speaking without the distractions that came with the presence of others. A lifetime of knowing one another allowed Izuku to pick up on the subtle shifts in Bakugo's demeanor that had occurred during their months of separation. 

Bakugo was still obnoxiously himself. But Izuku could tell that during those few months in the facility, he had changed, and not just in regard to the new explosiveness of his palms. The fact that he wasn't making fun of Izuku for supposedly having a nightmare or talking in his sleep was proof enough of that. 

Did...Did Kacchan get nightmares, too? Izuku wouldn't blame him if he did. After all this, how could their sleep not be plagued with terrors? 

Kacchan had always seemed so beyond all that, though. He didn't get scared and he definitely didn't get nightmares. 'Vulnerable' was a thousand miles removed from the realm of words Izuku associated with his childhood frenemy. 

But with the way Bakugo was staring down at him—with the barest hints of understanding masked beneath the glare in his eyes—Izuku was starting to think he was wrong about all that. 

Katsuki shifted on his feet, his frame going slightly stiff as he grumbled, "You gonna go back to sleep?"

Izuku rubbed at his eyes. Exhaustion still dug its fingers into every inch of his body, but with how skittish he was feeling, he highly doubted rest would come easy. It was a miracle he'd even fallen asleep in the first place.

"Probably not," he answered with a sigh. 

"Then follow me." Bakugo jerked his head toward one of the quiet corners of the room, not giving Izuku the room to refuse or ask questions. 

It wasn't like Izuku had any reason to refuse anyway, though. 

As he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and peeled the rest of his body off of the bed, he cast a glance around at everyone else. 

Uraraka, Asui, and Ashido were all still tightly intertwined and sleeping on the bed to his left. A quick glance over the girls' sleeping forms revealed that Iida was still asleep, as well. To Izuku's right, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu were slumbering side by side on the same bed, not touching save for where Yaoyorzu's head was tucked into the junction of Todoroki's neck and shoulder. 

Izuku felt his cheeks burn for his friend's sake. 

There was no movement on the other side of the aisle, either, leading Izuku to believe that everyone in the beds there was still asleep, too. 

He quietly winced when his bed creaked as he stood.

But still, no one stirred. Everyone was truly exhausted then, it seemed. 

Izuku hoped this moment would last and everyone rested while they could. They definitely needed it. 

Izuku cringed again as he caught sight of the distinct sweatmark in the general shape of his body on his bed's cream colored sheets. 

His lips curled. 

Gross. 

Careful to tread lightly and keeping an eye on his friends' sleeping forms all the while, Izuku crept towards the quiet corner of the room.

Bakugo was already settled on the floor, between the last bed and the wall. 

Izuku did his best to gently plop down beside him, mindful of his bandaged feet and sore limbs. 

There were four or five beds between them and their next closest, sleeping friend, allowing them some leeway for a quiet conversation. 

The instant Izuku was seated, Katsuki hissed, "Spill it. I know you have a shitty plan already."

Izuku stared back at him in confused silence for a moment. "For...For getting out of here?"

Bakugo's eyes performed a magnificent roll, his jaw clenching. "Obviously, idiot."

"I…" Izuku curled into himself a little, giving a subtle shrug. "I don't have a plan." His words picked up speed. "I've just been so worried about everyone else and I'm still super confused about what's going on and I had to look after Uraraka and-"

"The fuck is up with her anyway?" Katsuki grumbled, obviously barely staving off his annoyance at Izuku's muttering fest. "All the vomiting and shit."

"I don't know." Izuku desperately wished that he did. God, did he wish to know what was harming her from the inside out. 

At least he'd finally gotten some answers regarding her odd behaviors and apparent memory loss. Knowing was almost as bad as not knowing, but, at the very least, Izuku now had somewhat of an idea of what had been done to her.

There was also a pinch of comfort to be found in the fact that whatever had happened between Shinso and Uraraka could have been much worse had Shinso picked a different side. Izuku didn't know the full capabilities of Shinso's supposed mind control, but just the thought of Uraraka as some sort of mindless puppet with no will of her own was enough to make him shudder. 

Izuku wished he could figure out how to help Uraraka begin to heal. Her dried blood was still staining the front of his hospital gown in a splatter, and he loathed the sight of it. 

"As far as I can tell, she throws up almost every time she uses her...her quirk." Izuku hesitated before adopting the terminology the white haired stranger had used. But as he said it, he found that the term 'quirk' was a lot less awkward than saying things like 'ability' or 'power.' 

He cleared his throat before he carried on with his trail of thought. "But she threw up blood in the forest, too, back when we were first taken. She didn't have her quirk then, so really...I don't know what's wrong with her."

Bakugo's gaze drifted, his glare settling on the wall in front of them as he hissed, "Fucking shitty, hazmatt-suited bastards." 

Izuku couldn't help but agree. All of his other confusions aside, it was at least clear that those people back in that facility were the ones who had started all of this. 

It made Izuku wonder again: Why had all of this been done? And why had it happened to them, of all people?

Izuku tucked those ponderings away once more for the same reason he always did: for now, there was no use dwelling on such things.

"I think we need to know what we're up against before we can make any solid plans to get out of here," Izuku muttered, bringing the conversation back around to its original topic. "It's obvious that that guy who hurt Uraraka has a quirk, and from the way he was talking, I think it's safe to assume everyone else here has a quirk, too."

Bakugo practically leapt into his reply, voraciously spitting, "That blond bitch that stabbed Half 'n Half-" 

Izuku paused at the unfamiliar nickname for a second. Bakugo was obviously talking about Todoroki, but Izuku hadn't expected him to dive right into patronizing them about their new attributes with no hesitation.

Izuku also knew, however, that that was just how Kacchan dealt with things. He compartmentalized his thoughts and feelings. The cavity that held his anger and frustration was bared wide at the surface now—as it usually was. His sympathy, protectiveness, and mindfulness were tucked away, buried a thousand miles beneath that gaping crater. 

"She can…fucking…" Bakugo's lips pulled tight against his teeth as he scrambled for a way to explain it, "...turn invisible, or some shit. She jumped me back at the cabin, and I didn't hear or see her coming."

Izuku felt a shock jolt through his spine.

Invisibility? How the hell were they supposed to fight against that?

"One of the other bastards…"

Bakugo's words—or rather, his lack of consistency in his words—pulled Izuku out of his momentary lag. It wasn't often that he saw Kacchan struggle to find what to say, but he couldn't really blame him, either. 

"He knocked us all out or some shit. I was on the floor of the cabin one moment, and then the next I was here. But it was like…" he huffed out a frustrated breath, "...like I'd been asleep. I could tell that time had gone by, but I don't remember anything happening."

"You were captured."

Izuku and Bakugo both flinched, whipping around when the low voice sounded out from the silence behind them. 

Todoroki stood on the other side of the bed they were leaning back against, his hands in fists at his sides.

"Fuck," Bakugo hissed as his gaze sparked into a fiery glare. "Is stealth part of your shitty quirk, too?"

"I didn't want to wake the others," Todoroki quietly muttered. He carefully crawled onto the bed to close the distance between them for the sake of keeping quiet, the sheets getting tangled around one of his feet as he folded his legs to sit criss cross. 

Once he was settled, Izuku sought, "What do you mean they were captured?"

Todoroki swallowed, quietly clearing his throat. His words were directed more towards Bakugo even though Izuku had been the one to ask. "After that girl knocked you and Iida down, the two of you disappeared. There was another man where you'd just been. He had a bunch of marbles in his hand. I don't know how to explain it, but…"

"It's okay, Todoroki." Izuku gave him the best smile he could manage, which wasn't much more than a slight lift of the corners of his lips. "It doesn't seem like there's much these days that can be explained."

"...Right." Todoroki nodded after a few moments of silence. He cleared his throat again. "Midoriya, did you ever see any indication that my brother's house had any sort of basement? Any doors you never got a chance to see past or hatches on the floor?"

Izuku bit his lip as he thought for a moment. "I don't think so…" He shook his head firmly once he was sure. "No. I never saw anything like that. That back room we stayed in was already halfway underground anyway. The ground outside was only a few inches below the bottom of the window. I'd be surprised if there was anything more than a crawl space beneath that house."

Todoroki nodded his head in affirmation and agreement. "That confirms it then. There has to be someone with some kind of teleportation power, too."

Izuku hardly reacted beyond a single, slow blink. At this point, there was no need to be so surprised about what people were capable of.  

Todoroki wasted no time in sharing his line of thought. "Earlier, when Touya and the others attacked us in the cabin, it was like Yaoyorozu, Jirou, and I fell through the floor. We ended up here, but there was no hole in the ceiling. And like you said, there's no way that all of this," he gestured to the expanse of the room with a nod, but Izuku didn't doubt he was referring to the rest of this place, too, "is beneath that cabin. It was on too much of a slant to have something this big and all on the same level directly beneath it."

"So what you're saying is," Bakugo growled, his fists clenching atop his knees, "we might not even be anywhere near that shitty mountain anymore? We could be fucking anywhere?"

Izuku felt the mattress at his back shift as Todoroki stiffened. 

Todoroki's voice was even more mellow and weighted than usual as he muttered, "I...I don't know."

That fact seemed to impact Bakugo and Todoroki more than it did Izuku. He supposed it might be because it wasn't like they'd ever had much of a clue about where they were to begin with. Nothing had changed in that regard from their time back at the mountain until now. 

Maybe it was that lack of progress in determining where they were that Bakugo and Todoroki found so frustrating. 

Izuku lightly cleared his throat, shifting his position a little to ease the building discomfort in his lower back. "Do you...do you think that's how we got here in the first place? I mean, back in the woods when all this started. The girls just disappeared out of nowhere. It was like they'd been teleported."

Todoroki shook his head, "It was different. This was...dark...and smokey; the complete opposite of whatever happened back in the woods that night."

Izuku nodded in thought. The idea that'd been festering in the back of his mind grew stronger: while there was obviously a connection between where they were now and everything that had happened back in the mountain, Izuku didn't think that their current captors were responsible for their initial abduction. 

"My brother…" Todoroki started quietly after some consideration, "...he has one, too. A quirk. He's covered in burns." 

Something haunting was buried in Todoroki's gaze; a ghost of whatever he'd seen upon his brother's skin. It was hard for Izuku to imagine it, but whatever those burns looked like had to have been gruesome for them to plague Todoroki in such a way. 

"Well..." Izuku paused to sigh, his tongue darting out to relieve his drying lips. Really...when was the last time he'd had anything to drink? Now that his fear was momentarily taking a backseat and the adrenaline had worn off, his hunger and thirst were starting to bare their fangs. "At least we have somewhat of an idea of what we're up against."

"Doesn't mean shit if we can't get these damn cuffs off," Bakugo hissed as he glared at the cuff in question, trying and failing to once more dig his fingers into the tight recess between the metal and his skin. With the intensity of the heat in Bakugo's eyes, Izuku was surprised the cuff didn't melt off then and there. 

Sliding the cuffs off was obviously out of the question. With how the metal dug into their skin, Izuku highly doubted that even slipping something slick into the crevices would help ease their hands through the cuffs. 

Breaking them was almost out of the question, too. Izuku hadn't yet extensively surveyed the room they were being held in, but there didn't seem to be anything capable of smashing or prying the metal apart—at least, not without breaking somebody's hand, too, in the process.

But the thought of broken bones spurred another idea. 

Maybe...maybe if Izuku could use his quirk, he'd be able to break someone else's off. He'd been able to leave a goddamn crater in a concrete wall, so surely he'd be able to crumple a strip of metal. He'd probably be able to direct the forces around enough to avoid injuring whoever he was ripping the cuff off of, too, save for some chafing.

Of course, being able to use his quirk meant that he had to get his own cuff off. But that was at least a start, right?

"If I could get mine off," he lifted his cuffed wrist before his friends, "I could probably rip the rest of yours off, too. I think my quirk is strong enough."

Todoroki's brows furrowed. "But you said you broke your arm the last time you used it."

"If it means we get out of here, I don't really care how many bones I have to break."

Bakugo didn't let his pledge shine for even a moment. With a roll of eyes, he spat, "And how, exactly, do you plan on getting yours off?"

"I...well…"

"Knew you didn't have a plan. Did you think it'd just suddenly turn to dust or something, shit-for-brains?"

Instead of wallowing in the insult, Izuku's face lit up with a horrible idea. 

"What if...What if I could get that guy with the white hair to touch it?"

Silence reigned for a few moments, and with the way Bakugo and Todoroki froze, it almost seemed as if time itself ground to a halt at the audacity Izuku had to have to suggest such a thing. 

The tension snapped like a fraying thread, and Bakugo seemed to forget all about their sleeping friends as he spat, "If that bastard touches you, you're dust. You realize that, right?"

"It's worth it for everyone else." Izuku refused to back down, no matter how deadly the risk. Whether it be broken bones or turning to dust, he would face it all if it meant his friends could see the sky once more. 

He didn't give his friends another chance to try and dissuade him, his thoughts pouring from his mouth in a mutter, "Based on what I know about everyone else's quirks, I think it would be best if I focused on getting your guys' cuffs off first. You guys, and maybe Kaminari, seem like you'd be the best at keeping people away. I'm not sure how well Kaminari can control his quirk yet, though." 

With a pointed look at the bandages wound around Katsuki's palms, Izuku carried on, "And Kacchan, if your quirk hurts you too much, I think Todoroki could-"

"I can use it," Bakugo growled, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Like hell I'm leaving everything to fucking Icy Hot."

Todoroki didn't seem to care too much about the new nickname, so Izuku said nothing about it either. 

"Stick close to me, then," Izuku implored, knowing full well that there was about an eighty percent chance Bakugo wouldn't listen. All he could do was believe in the twenty percent chance that he would. "The next time that guy comes in, I'll go for it. And even if he does get me...I'll get your cuffs off before...you know..."

It seemed as if Todoroki and Bakugo didn't know how to respond. 

Izuku didn't blame them for it. 

Four months ago, the most dire thing they'd ever talked about was college exams. And it should have stayed that way. They were eighteen year old boys. School, dating, sports, friends, and college plans...that was what should have defined their every word. 

But now they were discussing matters of life and death. 

It was a strange thing to even think about, much less speak of. Izuku supposed everyone, at least once in their life, had thought about what it might be like to sacrifice themselves for the ones they loved. But those wonders were always explored with the comfort of knowing that such a thing would probably never come to pass. 

For Izuku, however, now that it might legitimately be his fate...he found that he didn't have a problem with it at all. 

Of course he wanted to make it out of here. He wanted to graduate. He wanted to cheer on his friends as they found their own paths and successes. He wanted to have more study nights and sleepovers with Iida and Todoroki. He wanted to eat mochi and stargaze with Uraraka as many times as he could (though he always spent more time admiring her than the intricacies of the universe). He wanted to hold his mom close once more and never let her go again. 

But if he couldn't guarantee that his friends would get to do all of the things they wanted to do after they got out of here, then his own wants and wishes didn't matter. 

To his mother, he would be irrevocably sorry. She would be devastated, if she wasn't already. 

He would have to ask Kacchan, Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki to apologize to her for him, and to tell her he loved more than he'd ever taken the time and care to say.  

Before Izuku pleaded for that favor, he had another matter to ask of his friends, one that they would have to face much sooner. "If...If he does get me...you guys have to look out for everyone, okay?" 

With the way Bakugo's fists clenched, Izuku half-expected him to hiss his usual, 'don't tell me what to do.' But instead, he was silent. 

It wasn't like Izuku thought that Todoroki and Bakugo didn't care for their friends. He knew how much they'd be willing to sacrifice to protect the others when it came down to it. 

But he also knew exactly how they could both be when the tides weren't in their favor: stubbornly independent and blind to everything else. 

"You have to look out for Uraraka, especially," he pressed, his gaze jumping between them. "You can't let her use her quirk."

The bed frame at their backs rattled as Bakugo's fist came down on the mattress with no mercy, only inches away from Todoroki's knee. "Get out of here, Icy Hot."

Todoroki's gaze found its way back to Bakugo slowly after he'd scanned it across the room to see if any of their friends had been rudely awakened by the clatter. "...What?"

"Go back to cuddling Ponytail or some shit. I don't want you here for this."

"But...we haven't talked about what we're going to do after Midoriya-"

"Leave."

Even for Todoroki, who rarely reacted to Bakugo's antics, the tone of the word left no room for argument. 

"...Okay."

Izuku shared a long look with Todoroki as he left them in their corner, both of their brows furrowed and hardly a lick of an understanding of Bakugo's reasoning between them. 

Once they were alone, Bakugo took more than a few moments to begin. Izuku thought that he actually kind of looked like he wanted to throw up. 

When he finally did speak, Bakugo's jaw was tightly clenched, his gaze locked on the wall in front of them. "You want to know why I asked Pink Cheeks to the dance?"

Yes, Izuku's mind automatically replied. The word didn't quite make it out of his mouth, though, his shock clamping down on his throat and holding his voice hostage. 

Izuku had quite literally lost sleep wondering how Bakugo, of all people, had ended up going to the dance with Uraraka. Why had he asked her in the first place? Why had she said yes? 

Those worries were a thousand miles away at this point, buried beneath the infinite pile of woe he was drowning in after what he'd been through this past month. Such thoughts were a waste of time when their lives were on the line. 

Never in a million years did Izuku think that Bakugo would be the one to bring it all back to the surface. 

Izuku never verbally answered. But the weight of Izuku's stare boring into him must have been enough of an answer for Bakugo. 

The start to Bakugo's recount was unexpected, to say the least. 

"I found her in the storage shed behind gym gamma after school one day, balling her eyes out and getting her snot and shit all over the practice jerseys. Thought she'd been fucking stabbed or something with the way she was sobbing."

Words failed Izuku. 

Uraraka was crying? Why?

And if Kacchan, the boy who'd claimed a first row seat to all of Izuku's blubbering meltdowns over the years, thought she was really crying hard, then it must've been bad. 

"Turns out she was just shitty about not being asked to the dance." Bakugo rolled his eyes, a scoff seeming working its way up his throat. "She's tough as fuck, so sometimes I forget she's still a fucking teenage girl."

Izuku would never claim to understand the relationship between Bakugo and Uraraka. It was...weird, to say the least. Izuku had long since accepted that he might never know its intricacies. All he knew was that it'd probably spawned out of Uraraka's good-naturedness and Bakugo's respect for those he thought had enough grit. But their respective relationships with Izuku, combined with Uraraka's protectiveness and Bakugo's stubbornness, added a thick coat of tension, ready to snap at a moment's notice. 

So, needless to say, the two of them going to the dance together had seemed like some weird, apocalyptic nightmare to Izuku. 

"She talked about you."

An uncomfortable heat began to flourish in Izuku's chest—the beginnings of guilt. His own self consciousness momentarily staved it off. 

Bakugo said Uraraka had talked about him, but there was no way she'd talked about him in the way Izuku thought—in the way he desperately dreamed of. 

Bakugo's next words sent Izuku's world teetering. 

"She didn't have the balls to ask you, and she wouldn't shut up about how you probably didn't give a shit about the dance."

Izuku's first response was to assume that Kacchan had fallen back into his malicious tendencies. Uraraka hadn't really been thinking of asking him, and Kacchan was just telling him that she had to wave it over his head and get his hopes up, only to have them stomped into the dirt later. 

But...Kacchan wasn't the same as he used to be. 

So...if Uraraka really had been thinking of asking him, then Kacchan had just revealed something he didn't really have the right to and that Uraraka probably never would've told him. 

And she thought he didn't care when he'd been stressing over it and fruitlessly scrambling to scrounge up the courage to ask her for weeks? When he'd barely been capable of looking her in the eyes for the whole month leading up to the dance? When he hadn't been able to bring himself to say more than a few words to her at a time after he'd found out she was going to the dance with Kacchan? 

If Izuku had felt awful about missing out on his chance before, he'd definitely be haunted by his lack of action for the rest of life now. Knowing that Uraraka wanted the same thing he did and that he hadn't done anything about it had carved a new little niche of regret in the back of his head—its new permanent dwelling. 

"That's why I asked her," Bakugo finished, his gaze still set on the wall. He was either entirely oblivious to Izuku's internal breakdown or simply didn't care. Nothing was going to stop him from continuing his downpour. "Figured I could make you finally realize how much of an idiot you are. Should've known not even doing that would get it through your thick skull."

Bakugo was lying. At least in part. Izuku could tell. He was masking his kindness and care with malice, as he usually did. He wouldn't have mentioned that he'd found Uraraka crying otherwise. The event had obviously stuck with him, and if all he'd wanted to do was wake Izuku up to the reality of the situation, he could've just found him and screamed some sense into him in true Bakugo fashion. But, instead, he'd made a promise with a crying girl in a storage shed, ensuring that no matter how things with Izuku went, she'd be able to go to the dance in the end. 

Bakugo still wouldn't meet Izuku's gaze. His want for avoidance grew even stronger before he carried on, turning his head even further away from Izuku's direction. "If she was that fucking devastated just because she thought wouldn't ask her to a dance...imagine what it'd be like if you died."

The reason Bakugo had brought up the dance was clear now. 

Although Izuku didn't like to assume his importance in others' lives, he knew his mother would be far from the only one who suffered the weight of losing him. But he had stopped himself from thinking about that side of things too much.

There might be no other way to get their cuffs off, and Izuku knew he was probably the one who stood the best chance at getting everyone else's cuffs off once his own was taken care of. In his mind, it had to be him. 

But his friends weren't willing to let him take that risk. He had no doubt that the rest of their group would share Bakugo and Todoroki's hesitation and aversion when they found out what Izuku was planning. 

The words that Uraraka had whispered to him the night before, when it'd been just the two of them, raced through Izuku's head. 

"No more splitting up now, though...right?"

He'd be breaking the promise he'd made to her. 

Tears burned in his eyes.

Izuku swore he'd been getting better about it, but...How could he not cry at all of this?

His throat was tight, but he still got the words out somehow. "But...we have to get these cuffs off somehow, Kacchan." 

"I know," Bakugo growled, his gaze finally whipping back to Izuku. "I know that and I don't have any fucking clue how else we'd get these damn things off, but-"

Rather than Bakugo suddenly facing him down, Izuku was more caught off guard when he suddenly cut his own rant short. 

Bakugo ripped his focus away once more. 

Izuku could barely hear him when he spoke again.  

"Just...don't die. Not for us. Not for Uraraka. Fucking live. Live for all of us, you shit."

Bakugo shoved himself off of the floor without sparing Izuku another glaze. 

Izuku's eyes followed him in the dim light as he hurriedly trudged back down the aisle and plopped into the edge of his bed. Izuku could see the tight line of his shoulders from all the way across the room. 

It seemed like coming up with a plan was forgotten, at least for the time being. 

Izuku supposed Bakugo was giving him the time to stew in everything he'd just dumped on him. 

But Izuku wasn't thinking about Uraraka or the dance anymore. He wasn't thinking about his plan or the sacrifice he might have to make. 

He was dumbfounded. 

After telling Izuku to die for the first three quarters of their lives, Kacchan had finally asked him to live.

Chapter Text

It came as no surprise to Izuku that when they all gathered around a few beds once more and he shared his plan for removing his cuff with the rest of his friends, it brought about an upheaval equal to Bakugo's and Todoroki's initial reactions.

"No way, man!" Kirishima haughtily protested, nearly stubbing his toe on a bed frame with how he hurriedly shuffled forward. "That's way too risky!"

"Yeah, what if he ends up touching you instead?" Kaminari's features were crinkled in horror, as if just imagining it was about to make him hurl. 

Izuku drew in a slow breath, his fingers curling into the edge of his mattress. "I've already thought about this, you guys." 

Ignoring how distraught his friends were at the very thought of him dying was harder than he'd thought it would be. He'd known all along that they'd react adversely, but the weight of their horrific opposition was almost more than he could take. 

Uraraka’s wide-eyed, silent, and terrified stare was especially taxing on his determination. 

Whatever mental scars were lingering from Shinso’s brainwashing had severely hampered her ability to keep up with and process every nuance of a conversation. But, of course, it had to be this that she understood without an ounce of confusion. 

He wished she didn’t. It would’ve been easier that way, for the both of them. Maybe then, it wouldn’t hurt as much if things went wrong and he really did end up disintegrating into dust. 

Rather than having to face his friend's terrified faces, Izuku cowarded into himself. His gaze fell to his lap, and he desperately wished his voice matched his resolution in firmness instead of shriveling quieter and quieter with each word. “You guys have to understand. I’ve been thinking and thinking about it, but I don’t know how else we’re going to get these things off. Unless anyone else has any ideas…then I have to do this.” 

Despite his determination, there was a small, irrefutable yearning in him for an alternative to risking his life like this. The reactions of his friends only fed into that urge and made it grow stronger. 

Izuku chanced a hopeful glimpse at Bakugo. Bakugo had had almost as much time to think of another way as Izuku, but it seemed as if he hadn’t been able to think of anything either. He was still closed off, standing a few beds down from their gathering and leaning against the footboard with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes averted. 

A glance around at the rest of his friends yielded similar results: a myriad of lost and frustrated expressions. 

That small part of Izuku that wanted an out died in a bitter and brutal end. Maybe it really was his fate to give his life for the sake of his friends. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go. 
 
"I mean, this doesn't really solve the problem, but if I somehow got my cuff off, I might be able to melt your cuffs. But…" Ashido shrugged lightly, her voice uncharacteristically lack-luster. "I'm not super confident that my acid wouldn't hurt you guys if I tried. I didn't really get a chance to test if it was harmful to people–not that I wanted to find out anyways, just in case it was. But…" She slumped down, her lips twisted in a pout. "I don't want to take any risks, given what I know it can do. I'm sorry I'm probably not gonna of any help."

Iida sharply nodded his head, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "That's a very valid concern, Ashido. It's understandable that you wouldn't want to take any risks."

"Yeah, don't worry about it." Kirishima echoed, giving his long-time friend a grin. 

“I think I might be able to do it,” Yaoyorozu nervously interjected, her hands clasped tightly into fists in her lap. “That is, if I had a paper clip or something of that sort.”

The solemn atmosphere in the room snapped as sharply as a record scratch. The space immediately went dead-still as every occupant's focus whipped to Yaoyorozu.

Izuku swore he heard Kaminari make some sort of choking sound. When he glanced around to see if everyone was as shocked as he was, he found that Jiro’s mouth was literally hanging open—a reaction he deemed appropriate. Iida looked particularly astonished, and even a little betrayed, obviously horrified at the thought of his partner in leading their class having such an unlawful ability. 

The only person in the room that didn't seem to be flabbergasted was Shinso. Instead, he was confusedly glancing around at everyone from his reclusive perch on a bed beyond the circle of friends, no doubt bewildered as to why everyone looked so stunned. 

Yaoyorozu looked between her friends with wide eyes, her shoulders riding up to her ears as she sunk into herself a little. “What?”  

"Yaomomo,” Ashido started slowly, explaining things on everyone’s behalf, “I never thought you of all people would know how to break out of a handcuff.” 

“I didn’t learn how to for nefarious purposes!” Yaoyorozu was aghast, like the very notion of them thinking she was some sort of delinquent was appalling. She took a steadying breath before explaining herself, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “I explained to you all before that in order to create something with my quirk, I need to truly understand its form, down to even the smallest details. 

“Back in the facility, those people made me study books about handcuffs, belts, vests, and other restraints so that I could recreate them.” Yaoyorozu’s gaze sank to her lap, her hands clenching into even tighter fists atop her knees. “The fact that they wanted me to be capable of producing such devices…it frightened me. So when I stumbled upon a section in one of those books about how to break out of a pair of handcuffs without the key, I memorized every word.” 

"That's amazing, Yaomomo!" Kirishima pumped a fist in the air, his grin bright and almost blinding. 

Jiro, who was sitting right beside Yaoyorozu, gave the other girl a playful nudge with her elbow. “You’re even more badass than I thought you were before.” 

Yaoyorozu's cheeks were positively ablaze, a wobbly, but grateful smile gracing her features in light of her friends' compliments. 

Izuku wished he could echo their praise, but something Yaoyorozu said wouldn't leave his mind. They'd wanted her to produce restraining devices? As with almost everything, it wasn't a fact that allowed for any concise and certain conclusions. But Izuku was beginning to get a sense that what they'd endured wasn't simply human experimentation for the sake of science and discovery. But, instead, it was a process driven by quite different goals. 

Yaoyorozu suddenly cleared her throat. She was obviously preparing to say something, so Izuku stuffed those thoughts in his box of things to be pondered at a later time—a compartment that had grown quite full as of late. 

Yaoyorozu's shy grin had faded, a trace of tension returning to the line of her shoulders. “But…I didn't see anything I could use when we searched the room for cameras and listening devices earlier. If I were to use my own quirk, I could make something…So we still haven't solved the problem of someone having to get their cuff off using another method."

"Well…if we can't think of anything other than using that guy's quirk, there are twelve of us," Kirishima chipped in. "There's no reason any one of us should have to face that guy alone when three or four of us could pin him down easily. It'd be easier to make sure he touches your cuff and not you if he was restrained, don't you think?"

"Tch. You think you need three or four?" Bakugo huffed. "Even Earphones could pin him down on her own. He's built like a fucking toothpick."

Jiro's eyebrows scrunched together, a question about what Bakugo was implying about her strength working its way up her tongue. 

"That won't work," Uraraka jumped in, shaking her head. "We need at least four people to pin him down." 

It only took Izuku a second to catch on to what she was getting at. It seemed Uraraka had come to the same conclusion he had about that man's quirk. 

The rest of their friends weren't as quick to the catch, though.

At their silent, curious stares, Uraraka stuttered to come up with an explanation for them. She nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze scanning over the pads on her fingertips. "Um…His quirk works the same way mine does, I think. When he grabbed my wrist earlier, he didn't use all five fingers. If his quirk really is like mine, then all five fingertips have to come in contact for it to activate."

"I noticed that he kept his middle finger up, too," Izuku hurried to support her theory. He felt somewhat proud that Uraraka seemed to be getting better, at least in terms of how present she was and in how she could grasp the situation. She'd been on the verge of passing out when that man had held her wrist captive earlier, but she'd still noticed how that fifth fingertip hovered above her skin instead of pressing into it.

Uraraka smiled at him in gratitude. She took a quick, but deep breath before she started talking again, clearly reinvigorated now that she had someone backing her ideas. "So if we get two people per hand, and each person grabs at least one finger, he shouldn't be able to use his quirk on us." She clenched both hands into fists, holding them close to her chest as she looked at her friends. "That way we can make sure everyone stays safe. Holding onto his fingers will make it easier to get him to touch Deku's cuff, too."

When she finished, it felt like everyone in the room collectively exhaled after not breathing for a long time. Though, in actuality, no one had been holding their breath. Uraraka's idea had brought about a new sense of hope, the air of uncertainty replaced by a firm loop of motivation. There were still risks to taking on the man with the disintegration quirk. But the feeling they might actually succeed and survive had skyrocketed compared to where it was before. 

"That's settled then," Kirishima nodded firmly. "We'll help Midoriya use that guy's quirk to get his cuff off, and then once he breaks Yaoyorozu's, the two of them can get the rest of us free."

Yaoyorozu gently cleared her throat. "But…We'll likely still be fending off our other captors while we remove our cuffs. I hope you all don’t mind me asking this, and I don’t want you to take offense…But is…Who should I focus on freeing first? Who's quirk would be the most helpful in defending us until we're all free?” 

Silence reigned as they all pondered the answer. 

Izuku wasn't fond of ranking his friends in terms of things like 'usefulness' and supposed 'value.' Their different strengths made them unrankable. Assigning them any kind of order repulsed him and made him feel like he'd be ignoring their unique strengths by placing one over the other. 

But he agreed with Yaoyorozu, too. They needed to be logical if they wanted things to proceed in a way that would result in the greatest chance of success. 

Izuku tensed as he realized most of his friends' gazes had wandered to him in the midst of their silence. He didn't know whether it was because they trusted his judgment or assumed he'd already thought about it given his proposed plan. But he gave them his answer nonetheless. 

He cleared his throat before beginning. “Once I get my cuff off, I’m actually going to try to get Todoroki’s off next. If he can throw up an ice wall to block off the rest of those…those…villains,” something about the word just felt right, “then he could buy us some valuable time to focus on getting everyone else free.”

"That shouldn't be a problem," Todoroki affirmed, accepting his role in the plan with a soft nod. "I don't know exactly what quirks they'll be throwing at us, but I'll focus on keeping the wall up for as long as I can."

Izuku was glad Todoroki was back to his usual self rather than how he'd acted after he'd first been brought to this room. Izuku still wasn't certain what had caused Todoroki's slump, but he was grateful Todoroki was willing to push it all aside to focus on their escape. 

Yaoyorozu seemed to agree with his pick for his first emancipation. She addressed Todoroki directly as she informed him of another idea she had for how his quirk could be used. "Some metals can become incredibly brittle when they're frozen. You might be capable of breaking the cuffs, too. But it depends on what these cuffs are made of and it'd require incredibly low temperatures."

"I don't know how cold I can go." Todoroki examined his right hand as he spoke, as if it would somehow offer up answers and reassurances. "But if I get a chance, I'll try it."

Originally, Izuku’s next pick was supposed to be Bakugo. But he found he had no qualms with altering his plans to best incorporate the things he continued to learn about his friends' abilities. 

“Once Todoroki is free and he’s bought us some time, I’ll get yours off, Yaoyorozu.” Having at least two people focused on getting everyone else’s cuffs off would undoubtedly speed up the process, though Izuku’s method was likely much quicker than her own. The sooner everyone was free, the sooner they could defend themselves against the tirade that was sure to come as soon as they started fighting back. 

Freeing Yaoyorozu so soon was also like insurance, in a way, Izuku supposed. This way, if he did end up falling victim to that man’s quirk, there would still be someone left behind who could likely get everyone else free from their cuffs. 

"I'm next. I don't care which one of you it is, just get this shitty thing off of me."

Bakugo left no room for argument. 

Izuku was surprised Kacchan hadn't said anything in protest earlier, after he'd reaffirmed that he'd be getting Todoroki's cuff off first. 

Despite what he'd promised when he'd first discussed his plans with Bakugo and Todoroki, Izuku found himself reexamining his plans now that he thought more about it. 

His chin found its familiar resting place between his forefinger and thumb, the middle knuckle of his index finger brushing against his bottom lip. “Explosions in close quarters can pose a lot of risks-”

“I can control them!”

“-especially if we’re underground, which I think we can all agree that we most likely are.” 

"I can control them," Bakugo hissed, each word enunciated with a sharp staccato. "If these fuckers get past Icy Hot's wall, I want to be the first to blow their fucking skulls in."

"Bakugo!" Iida chastised, appalled at the gruesome image.

Bakugo answered with a roll of his eyes. 

Izuku only let out a sigh, knowing that there would be no 'blowing their fucking skulls in' in actuality. Bakugo would beat the shit of them, no doubt, but no matter how much Bakugo threatened it, Izuku didn't think he was capable of murder. If he was, then surely Izuku, and probably Todoroki, too, would have been dead at least twelve times over by now. 

The thought of Bakugo facing down those villains still unsettled Izuku, though, but for an entirely different reason. Izuku didn't dare say a word about it, knowing it would stir up a fight none of them could handle at the moment. So he kept the thought to himself, silently staring at the bandages winding around Bakugo's palms. How serious were his injuries? What would happen if he used his quirk again? How much worse could his injuries get?

As much as those questions haunted him, Izuku wasn't sure he ever wanted to find out the answers. 

But he accepted Bakugo's insistence nonetheless, knowing it was another fight they couldn't handle right now. He let out a heavy sigh, glancing around at the rest of his friends, who'd mostly been sitting in silence. "After that…I'm not really sure who…or if it really even matters what order we go in. But…you guys can pitch in, too, you know. If you have any thoughts…"

After a few moments of silence, Iida cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose again. "This may upset the rhythm a little, but I don't mind being the last to be freed. I don't even know what my quirk is, much less how to use it." His hands were clenched tightly in his lap, giving away his frustration at his feelings of inaptitude. "I'm afraid my usefulness won't change, with or without the cuff."

Asui, who'd always been a quiet, firm supporter but was even more muted now with the guard covering her mouth, silently set her hand on Iida's shoulder in comfort. Izuku had never known her to be the most physically affectionate person. But it seemed she was using actions to make up for her forced silence. Her eyes conveyed the words she couldn't say, eventually giving Iida the reassurance he needed to not feel as if he was letting his friends down. 

Part of Izuku wanted to ask that Iida just take the bandages off to remove at least one of the unknowns from the equation. It was fear that was stopping him, Izuku supposed. For as important as his legs were to him, the thought of them being irreversibly mutilated was probably more than enough to smother any curiosity Iida felt at what had been done to him. 

"I kinda feel the same way." Jiro sighed. She didn't look as downtrodden as Iida, but the bitterness on her features made it more than apparent she was not at all pleased with feeling like she didn't have anything to contribute. "If I had some sort of speaker, it'd be a different story. But since we don't, I'm not sure how helpful I'll be when it comes to fighting. I may be able to help out when it comes to restraining people, though."

Izuku was absolutely dying to know what she meant by being able to fight if she had some sort of speaker, his mind running rampant with thoughts of what she could do. But he shoved his curiosity aside, knowing now wasn't the time. 

"I can be one of the last, too," Uraraka muttered.

From Izuku's vantage point, it was hard to tell whether she was staring at her fingertips again or where her own blood was crusted on the lap of her hospital gown. 

"I…I want to avoid using my quirk again if possible," she continued. "If I do use it and end up throwing up again, I'll probably just become more of a burden than a help."

Izuku ached to fulfill a similar role as Asui had for Iida. But the conversation moved on before he had the chance.

"I'll help Bakugo fight," Kirishima pledged, turning the tides of self deprecation. "Even without my quirk, I think I could hold my own pretty well."

"Me, too," Mina chipped in. An instant later, she threw up her hands as she back-pedaled a bit. "Well, not the whole 'without my quirk' thing. But I don't mind lending a hand in any way that I can, even if it means using my quirk."

Kaminari lifted a brow. "What happened to not wanting to find out if your acid could hurt people?"

"If it's these guys, I don't mind giving them a few burns." She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, her lips pressing into a determined pouted. "They hurt 'Chako Chip and Jiro, so they deserve what's coming to them."

Bakugo huffed, the beginnings of a malicious grin on his features. "Fuck yeah, they do."

Before Bakugo could get too riled up with his death threats, Kaminari claimed his own role. "I can help, too, I guess. You guys just…keep your distance from me when I tell you to. I don't have the best control over my quirk yet."

"Neither do I," Izuku muttered with a shy smile, seeking to comfort him. There was no need for any one of them to feel embarrassed about how little control they held over their quirks, especially when they were still so new. 

Kaminari gave him an appreciative hum before glancing over his shoulder. "What about you, Shinso?" 

The boy tensed as everyone's gazes whipped to him and his sphere of willing isolation was shattered. 

"If you could just brainwash them all," Kaminari curiously tilted his head, "it'd make getting out of here a cinch, wouldn't it?"

Shinso was quick to shut down the idea, not giving them even a second to get their hopes up. "I can only use it on one person at a time. And not for very long unless…unless I want to cause damage."

Izuku didn't miss the way Shinso's eyes jumped in Uraraka's direction for the briefest of seconds before shooting back to his lap. 

Izuku took a deep breath to calm the flash of anger that threatened to return to the surface at the reminder of what had occurred between Shinso and Uraraka. The only choice he had was to down the bitter pill that was the permanence of the past: what had happened couldn't be undone. Shinso had been forced to use his still-developing quirk on Uraraka. The tests she'd endured weren't without their side-effects, mostly in regard to her memory, it seemed. They could only hope Uraraka made a full recovery, though the extent of what had been done to her mind was still unknown. 

Shinso took a moment to collect his thoughts regarding his own role in their escape. He leaned forward, resting his elbows atop his knees and clasping his hands together. "I'll use it if an opportunity arises. But I'm not willing to push the limits of it if we get to that point. I don't know what impacts it could have, both on me and the person I'm using it on."

Bakugo huffed. "Tch. Like I give a shit if these fuckers end up with scrambled eggs for brains."

"Bakugo!" Iida chastised again. 

Following suit, Bakugo's eye roll was even more dramatic the second time around. 

"Thank you, Shinso." Izuku gave Shinso the best smile he could muster. Although it seemed like most of his friends had been amicable enough in their exchanges with Shinso, especially Kaminari, he figured it would be helpful if at least one of them expressed their gratitude outright. Shinso was willing to lend them his aid, after all, and they needed to be on good terms if they were going to work together. 

Bakugo didn't seem to share the sentiment, though, distrust dripping from his every word. "If you use that shit on any of us ever again, I'll rip your tongue out of your mouth myself."

For the third time, Iida admonished, "Bakugo!"

Before anyone else could say a word, Shinso finally abandoned his unbothered demeanor. He still wasn't nearly as riled up as Bakugo, but the complete laxity of his tone had given way to the beginnings of defensiveness. "I won't use it on you unless you give me a reason to."

A growl spilled through Bakugo's lips as he made to lunge at the outsider. 

Kirishima stopped him with a hand to his chest. "Leave him alone, man." 

"It's settled, then." Yaoyorozu hurried to press the conversation forward, diffusing the tension by circumnavigating it entirely. "We'll focus on getting everyone's cuffs off, and those who are freed first will defend and fight."

She was met with determined nods, a handful of affirmative hums, and even a couple fist bumps from the more enthused members of their group. 

Izuku prayed to whoever was listening that their plan worked. He didn't think any of hem could handle it if it didn't, whether that meant they remained in captivity or faced a much darker fate.  

After that point, their plan was...not much of a plan.

How could they possibly compose a plan when there was so much left unknown? They still didn't know exactly who they were up against, or how many villains there were, as they'd taken to calling them after Izuku had let the term slip earlier. They didn't know where they were, either. For all they knew, they might not even be in Japan anymore. 

But they did know waiting around in anxiety and solitude was not their eternity. Their captors would have to check in on them at some point or another, whether it was to finally give them their much needed food and water or hear their decision about whether they'd join the cause. 

Izuku hoped whenever someone did show face, it would be the man with the disintegrating quirk. He seemed to be the leader of sorts. Or, at the very least, he was someone of importance. He'd been in to see them once, so Izuku didn't think it was too unreasonable to pray for a second time. 

That man was key to the first step of their barely-put-together plan: getting Izuku's cuff off. They couldn't do anything until that happened. When they were up against people with quirks, the majority of which were unknown, they didn't think they'd have a chance unless they used their own powers. 

Regardless of who it was that walked through that door, they'd all decided it was then they'd make their move. Waiting it out wasn't an option anymore. Rescue didn’t seem to be on its way, and it'd been over three months since they'd truly tasted freedom. They were all desperate for it and more than willing to take the risks that came with fighting back against their captors. Their hunger, thirst, and another vomiting episode from Uraraka solidified their drive. 

Their collective motivation aside, there were still a few points of contention. Such was to be expected with a group this large, with their various personalities, strengths, and fears. 

If an opportunity arose in the midst of their escape, should one of them make a break for it and run for help? Splitting up hadn't gone well for them before, but if they could somehow get help from the outside, their chances of getting out of this mess could go up dramatically. In the end, it would come down to whether they decided to go down together or give those who could make it out on their own a chance. 

Izuku also knew if such a situation arose, there were those among his friends who were more than likely to throw themselves into the flames if it meant the others could escape. Even the depths of hell wouldn’t dissuade some of them from bounding towards sacrifice. While Izuku admired their bravery and devotion, he knew their escape would feel hollow and tainted if it was bought with the loss of precious lives.

But did he really have the right to say anything when potential sacrifice was a very real part of his own role in their plan?

Izuku was willing to acknowledge his own hypocrisy. But that didn't stop him from placing the lives of his friends over his own. 

After the conversation about their plan had sputtered to an end in the face of a stream of ideas met with objections and statements of risks and unknowns, they'd all gathered around the few beds closest to the door. Waiting for when it was time to make their move was all they could do now. At the very least, Izuku was grateful they were able to have a few more moments of rest. 

Once the pain and adrenaline from her shoulder wound had calmed, Jiro had informed them she still had her heightened sense of hearing. Similar to Asui's modifications, the augmentation of her listening seemed to be at least partially a product of a physical modification. Whatever chemicals the cuffs were pumping into them wasn't capable of taking away her refined sense in its entirety. Though her hearing wasn't as sharp as it would have been if the cuff wasn't hampering her ability to manipulate her jacks, she assured them she'd be able to hear when someone was coming. 

With that assurance, they'd all taken the opportunity to get a few more valuable moments of peace before they launched their escape. 

While his friends shared beds and conversed quietly to fill the time and distract themselves from their nervousness, Izuku had decided to settle by himself on the far reaches of the group. A bed stood between him and his closest friends, his decision to settle on the floor further cutting him off from the rest. 

Choosing to be alone was something he did unconsciously more than an intentional choice. It was the anxiety finally getting to him, he supposed. Shoving it down could only last for so long. 

Seclusion wasn't long for him though. A welcome presence slowly made her way around the foot of the bed he was leaning against.

As always, Uraraka melded with his space and timbre seamlessly—not invading or disturbing it, but resonating with it as a cherished visitor. 

She settled beside him, their sides close to touching, but still apart.

He appreciated it, how she always respected his boundaries like that. 

Uraraka didn't say anything, nor didn't she pressure him to.

The silence wasn't uncomfortable. It never was when he was with Uraraka. Well, maybe it had been in the beginning, when they were just starting to become friends during their first year of high school. But now, the quiet space was always filled with a sense of security. Words became unnecessary in the moments that were just for them, the silence cradled by a gentle presence that whispered: I demand nothing. Your presence alone is enough for me.

But as the moments passed on, Izuku grew less content with the silence. With Uraraka's warmth bleeding into him from his side, thoughts of what Kacchan had told him bubbled to the surface of his mind once more. 

It was a selfish thing, really, to want to ask her about what Kacchan had said right before they risked their lives to escape. She was already dealing with enough. It was hardly the time to have her feelings scraped raw.

But Izuku found himself leaning towards that selfish urge. If he really did end up losing his life in the hours to come, then he at least wanted to know the truth before he went. 

He could sense there was something bothering Uraraka now, too. She was picking at the pads on the tips of her fingers again, an action Izuku recognized as something that was quickly becoming a habit.

His own wants and wishes were shoved to the side, as they often were. Jiro could give the signal that the villains were on their way at any moment. With the impermanence of this time they had, a space for them to make exchanges that could possibly be final, he wanted to give her the chance to say what she wanted before the opportunity was gone. 

He took a deep, quivering breath. "Is…Is there something you want to talk about, Uraraka?"

A few moments passed as she contemplated how to start. 

"Deku…Are you…scared?"

Izuku hadn't been expecting that. Not at all. 

In the face of his oversight, he was left with no choice but to respond honestly and bluntly. With wide eyes, he held her gaze as he breathed out, "I'm terrified."

Uraraka's features overflowed with an outpouring of tenderness. "That's…understandable. And okay, too, I think."

"It's…it's not," Izuku refuted immediately. He shook his head, his eyes beginning to burn. In the presence of one of his greatest funds of strength, his weakness began to slip through. "Everyone's depending on me to do my part. If I don't, then we might not make it out of here. We might…we could die." Warmth poured down his cheeks in rivers of tears. No matter how hard he scrunched his features to stem the flow, they spilled without pause. 

Their presence only made his feelings of inadequacy flourish greater. "I'm supposed to be strong and…and brave for everyone else. But I don't feel very brave. Not at all."

Uraraka didn't immediately leap into spouting protests and reassurances. Instead, she let him shed his tears, waiting patiently until his breathing had calmed and his eyes had begun to clear before she asked for his attention. 

That was how she always was, never asking more of him than he could bear to give. 

Her hands were gentle as they took his newly scarred palm and coaxed it into a cradle. She moved slowly, making sure to watch him for any signs of discomfort. 

His trembling hand met her warm skin, the still tender, new pads on her fingers easing over his scars as she hummed, "I've always thought that the bravest people aren't the ones who march forward without any fear or hesitation. It's the ones who are terrified, but keep moving forward anyways. They're the people I admire most." She lifted her gaze to his. "You're one of the people I admire most, Deku."

Izuku could only stare back at her in reverence, his tears finally meeting their end. 

Despite his belief in his own shortcomings, she looked at him like he was whole and she could want nothing more. 

He hadn't thought it possible that he could fall even deeper in love with her. But here she was, proving him wrong time and time again. 

He had to know if what Kacchan had said was true. He had to know if she felt the same. 

He ripped his gaze away from hers, knowing he couldn't bring himself to look her in the eyes as he asked. But he allowed her to keep his hand in hers. 

He took a deep breath before he began, closing his eyes so as not to see the betrayal or hurt on her features at having her feelings exposed against her will. That was, if Kacchan's claims about her feelings were even true to begin with. 

"Uraraka…Kacchan…told me some things. He probably didn't have the right to, but…he told me about everything that led up to him asking you to the dance." When the movement of her fingertips against his skin halted but didn't retreat, he peeled his eyes open. He met her gaze slowly, finding that she was staring at him with wide eyes. "Did you…really want to go with me?"

He hoped she could hear the longing in his voice rather than perceiving his question as anything else. She didn't need to lie for fear of rejection or disgust, for she would be met with none. 

She clenched his hand tighter, a wobbly smile working its way onto her features. "Nothing would've made me happier."

For Izuku, it was like all of the air in the room vanished in an instant. His chest grew tight in both disbelief and elation, his heart pounding in his ears. 

Uraraka felt the same way he did, and he mourned all of the time they'd wasted that could have been spent on them as something more. 

Before he could return the sentiment, however, Uraraka's gaze fell to the floor. 

"But I was too afraid."

"Of…Of what?" Izuku didn't want to cut her off now that she'd begun. She'd played the role of listener for him more times than he could count, and he figured it was time to return the favor. He knew better than anyone that letting out one's feelings was the best way to work through them. 

And it didn't matter that Izuku had already heard Uraraka's supposed reasoning for not asking him from Kacchan. He wanted to hear it directly from her, too, so that he could fully understand what had led up to the moment Bakugo had found her crying in that storage shed. 

"I was afraid of…everything, I guess." She still would not meet his gaze. Rather than stroking his scars comfortingly, she'd taken to mindlessly fiddling with his fingers. "If I asked you, you might say no, and that would hurt more than anything. But you might say yes, too, and maybe you'd think I'd just asked you to go as friends. That would hurt a lot, too."

She sucked in a deep breath. "Or…maybe you'd say yes because you felt the same way I did and wanted us going together to mean something more." Her thumb ran lengthwise down his crooked index finger, her finger pad catching on his gnarled knuckles. "I wasn't…I wasn't ready for what that would mean for us or how it would change us and our friendship. Everything was already changing, with graduation and college, and I didn't think I was ready for more. I was afraid we wouldn't be able to figure things out before we ended up on different sides of the country, and in the process, we'd lose everything we ever had."

Izuku's eyes had traced her moments against his skin for a while. But sometime during her confession, his gaze had strayed to her face. It hurt him to see the remnants of fear in her features, and when combined with her words, it was almost enough to make him start crying again. 

Izuku's friends often teased him for his tendency to overthink everything, but maybe Uraraka was just as bad as him. 

That wasn't who they were. Even if their relationship never developed further, Izuku knew they'd never lose what they had. It may take different forms and span newer, wider distances. But the unparalleled warmth and familiarity of their friendship would always be there to welcome them back.

Izuku's sights returned to where his hand was clasped between hers, his eyes following the delicate touch of her fingertips once more. "Do you…do you still feel that way? Like trying wouldn't be worth the risk?"

Uraraka's fingers stilled as she considered her answer. "I…I don't remember everything that's happened to me these past three months. And I…I still just…don't understand a lot of things about what's going on. But…I think that I've already changed more than I ever thought I could. We've all changed. But we're all still friends. Even if we're not quite the same as we were before, the relationships we had haven't changed. It…kind of gives me hope, somehow."

Their gazes met once more, a shy smile taking over her features. "And it made me realize something. All those doubts I had before…they seem stupid now, don't they? After all this…"

Izuku could feel it throughout her every word: a quiet, hopeful plea for an answer. All the while, he'd waited for the right time to say it, leaving her in want of a response to her feelings. 

He entangled his fingers with hers, clasping her hand firmly, but fondly as he shyly gave her his reply, fighting off stutters with every syllable. "What if…What if I told you that I wanted to go to the dance with you, too? Not as friends, but…as something more?"

Uraraka inhaled sharply. She studied him quietly for a moment, as if in anticipation of waking up from a dream or having him take what he'd said back. When there came no such withdrawal, a grin brighter than the moon and all the stars in the sky graced her lips. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she choked out, "Nothing would make me happier."

Izuku didn't have even an instant to prepare before she launched herself at him, her arms flying around his neck. One of her knees slid between his legs, allowing her to get as close to him as possible. 

Izuku wrapped himself around her just as tightly, one of his arms winding around her waist while his other hand found its home threaded through the hair at the back of her head. He was embarrassed and overwhelmed, but he only clung tighter to her to keep himself from drowning in it. There was no time for those feelings. Not when they could both be dead by day's end. 

He overheard Ashido and Kaminari not-so-quietly gushing about them a few beds down, and Kirishima's subsequent hushs for them to stop. But still, he made no move to break away from her. 

In recent days, he'd held Uraraka closer than he ever had before. She'd collapsed against him time and time again, and he'd cradled her quivering form in fear of what was happening to her. 

But this…this felt different somehow. There was fear still present now, too, choking them in their uncertainties for the future. 

But there was so much else underscoring every breath that pressed their chests ever tighter together. 

He'd never been so certain that Uraraka felt the same way he did, their hearts beating against their chests in perfect tune. 

I've always wanted to hold you close like this.

That night, more than ever before, I wanted to wrap you in my arms and dance.

I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner.

When we go home, can we go dancing to make up for what we missed?

I want to do lots of other things with you, too. 

I'm sorry this took so long. 

Please…don't let this be the only chance we get to hold each other like this. 

Survive. 

You have to make it out of here, okay?

I think…I think I'm in love with you.

I don't think I could live if you weren't there, too. 

Izuku clenched his arms tighter around her, burying the bottom half of his face in her neck as his own tears threatened to spill over once more. He could feel Uraraka's chest quivering against his, her own quiet whimperings and sobs muffled against his neck. 

She was just as scared as he was. 

But like the people Uraraka admired—like the version of him she cherished—he would move forward. 

Freedom would be theirs once more. And in that freedom, they'd finally get the chance to explore and nourish this new side of their relationship that had just begun to bloom.

Izuku would make sure of it. 

Chapter Text

The door that marked the way to freedom had opened and slammed shut time and time again. Yet they hadn't once made any effort to attack those on the other side. 

That wouldn't be the case this time, though. 

Jirou had given them the signal: the villains were on their way.

Izuku was posed with the rest of his friends, pressed against the wall on either side of the door. Shinso and Kaminari were immediately at his back, with Kirishima and Jirou at the forefront of the huddle on the other side. They were the four who had volunteered to pin the man with the disintegration quirk so Izuku could get his cuff off, notably leaving Todoroki and Yaoyorozu free to fulfill their roles in the plan. 

That left Bakugo, Uraraka, Iida, Ashido, and Asui to deal with whoever else made it through the door before Todoroki could construct an ice wall. Iida, however, had reminded them all he likely wouldn't be of much help due to his newfound issues with mobility. Everyone had assured him whatever help he could provide, no matter how impactful, would still be much appreciated.

Of course Izuku was nervous—terrified, even, just as he'd told Uraraka. But with his friends at his side, he was also overwhelmed with fortitude, too. 

Izuku couldn't help but feel like they were going to succeed. If he'd had any choice in the matter, Izuku couldn't say that he would've picked anyone else to be at his side in this moment.

The tides were in their favor: when the latch on the door released and the knob turned, the man with the disintegration quirk was the first through the door. 

The moment of opportunity would slip from their grasp if they weren't fast enough. So Izuku wasted no time. 

He lunged forward, aiming his grip for the man's closest hand, which happened to be his left.

Izuku's fingers found their mark, wrapping around the man's index and middle fingers. 

Perfectly in time, another hand shot over Izuku's shoulder from his back, Kaminari's fingers strangling the man's pinky. 

That was as far as they made it before the white haired man began to react to their surprise attack. Rage flashed in his bright red irises and his free hand shot towards the pair of boys, on track to collide with Izuku's face. 

Izuku's mind moved a thousand miles a minute, instinct filling in the blanks his concious thoughts left behind. If he could grab the man's wrist, he might be able to spare himself contact with the deadly tips of his fingers. 

Izuku's left hand shot to fulfill the task, but as the white haired man tried to yank his captive hand free, both Izuku and Kaminari were tugged off balance. Kaminari slammed into Izuku's back, derailing Izuku's defensive move just a fraction. Izuku's hand met the white haired man's bicep instead.

Glimpses of the future flashed before Izuku's eyes. He may have succeeded in keeping the man's hand away from his face, but with mobility still in his elbow, it'd take only seconds for him to bend his arm and touch Izuku's forearm instead, all five of his fingertips reaching Izuku's skin unimpeded. 

Izuku's defense had failed. 

It was a good thing he wasn't the only one determined to keep this man's hands off of him. 

With a flash of red peeking over the man's shoulder, visions of his own demise faded from Izuku's mind. 

Kirishima's hand latched onto the ring and middle fingers of the man's right hand, stopping his fingertips from making contact with Izuku's forearm just inches away from Izuku's skin. 

Jirou's shorter stature forced her to round the man's side to get a good grip on him. But she jumped up to grab onto the man's pinky quick enough to prevent Kirishima from falling victim to his disintegrating touch. 

Izuku didn't waste any time feeling angry over how close Kirishima and Jirou had cut it. They'd had the door to go around, after all, whereas he and Kaminari had had a straight shot. 

As Kirishima and Jirou yanked the deadly hand backwards, Izuku swore he heard something snap. A sharp, wordless yell from the white haired man confirmed his suspicions: a bone had definitely been broken. 

The boy Izuku had been three and a half months ago might have felt guilty for the injury. But now, Izuku didn't spare a second for remorse. The bastard deserved it. 

Jirou's other hand joined Izuku's on the man's arm and they all knew their next move without having to discuss it. Jirou and Izuku shoved the man backwards while Kirishima stumbled out of the way to make room for him to be taken down. 

The man went down hard, the force almost jolting his fingers from their grasps. But they didn't let go. Even as Izuku was forced to his knees nearly right on top of the villain, he'd strangled his fingers in his grasp. Kaminari, too, kept his grip firm, unrelenting as he was pulled to the ground with Izuku given their shared hold on the man's left hand. Kirishima and Jirou were kneeling on the floor now, too, working together to pin the villain's entire right arm to the ground with their free hands and knees, keeping one hand each on his fingers. 

Uraraka's plan had worked. The man with the disintegration quirk was successfully pinned and unable to use his power. 

Now came the hard part: getting him to touch Izuku's cuff without letting him actually touch Izuku or anyone else. 

And, of course, they still had to deal with whoever else came through the door. 

The seconds they'd spent on taking the white haired villain down had seemed to happen in slow motion. But time was quickly speeding up again when one of the other villains called from beyond the door. 

"Shigaraki!"

A jolt of something akin to accomplishment raced through Izuku's frame. Finally, they had a name to put to the man with the disintegration quirk; a name they could use to help sort through whatever legal investigation would surely ensue when all of this was over. 

Their struggle with Shigaraki had only taken them a few steps away from the door. As such, the next events that occurred happened practically right on top of them.

In between his motions while trading out his position with Shinso, Izuku only caught flashes of what happened next.

The blonde girl, the one who had sliced Todoroki's leg, was the next villain to rush through the door. Her eyes were wide and on Shigaraki, completely unprepared for the attack coming from her left.

Uraraka launched herself at the blonde girl the instant she was within range, arms winding around her middle to pin her arms to her sides. 

Shinso fell to his knees and secured his grasp around Shigaraki's thumb, taking over Izuku's role in pinning the man down. 

Asui was right at Uraraka's back, charging forward to help Uraraka tackle the unprepared girl to the ground. 

Another villain rushed in right behind the blonde.

Izuku shifted closer to where Kirishima and Jirou were pinning Shigaraki's right hand to the floor, so he didn't get a good look at the newly arrived villain. All he saw out of the corner of his eye was a lot of green. 

Bakugo was there to confront the villain, his fist flying into their jaw before anyone really had the time to process what the villain looked like. 

Izuku knelt at Shigaraki's right hand, sharing brief looks and taking deep breaths in time with Kirishima and Jirou. The pair lifted Shigaraki's hand just enough for Izuku to slide his left hand underneath, palm up so he could force Shigaraki's hand to cup his cuff. 

Shigaraki was hissing insults and threats at them all the while, nearly feral in his attempts to rip his limbs free. But his strength was no match for that of the five teenagers, and none of them paid his verbal assault much mind. 

Bakugo froze in place as he finally took the time to process exactly who he had just punched. Or, rather, what. His eyes were wide as he stared at what he could only describe as a giant lizard. "What the fuck are you?" 

With a screech, Ashido threw herself at the lizard from behind, essentially locking herself in a piggyback and throwing her weight around to keep him from gaining any kind of stability to attack with. 

Izuku did his best to tune out the other scuffles happening around him despite his concern for his friends. At the very least, it seemed these three were the only villains they'd have to face. For now. The sounds of their fight would undoubtedly draw more people to the room eventually. 

Izuku had to get everyone else free before that happened. 

He kept his gaze zeroed in on Shigaraki's hand, mentally walking himself through the steps he needed to perform and the things he would need to keep in mind to insure that both he and his friends were kept safe from this guy's quirk. 

Izuku situated his cuff right above Shigaraki's open palm. 

"I'm ready! Go!!" 

At his cry, Jirou and Kirishima bent the fingers they were holding upwards, gripping them in a way that allowed the tips of Shigaraki's fingers to poke out and make contact with Izuku's cuff. Izuku focused on Shigaraki's thumb and index finger, squeezing Shigaraki's hand from below to force his fingers to curl towards the cuff. 

Shigaraki screeched wordlessly, probably equally due to his frustration at being overwhelmed and having his broken finger yanked around. But he couldn't fight against them. 

All five of Shigaraki's fingertips made contact. 

Izuku jolted as fissures branched out from the point of contact, a new fear suddenly flashing to life in his mind. What if the disintegration didn't stop at his cuff and the effect leaped over to devour his skin?

But as the cuff began to crumble and fall to the floor in tiny pieces, Izuku's wrist remained intact. 

It'd worked. He was free. 

A sensation Izuku hadn't even realized he'd lost returned to his limbs. It thrummed in his veins, new energy and strength surging through him and revitalizing him. 

A frustrated scream from the blonde girl as she struggled against Uraraka and Asui's pin reminded Izuku there was no time to waste on revelry. 

Jirou and Kirishima helped him yank Shigaraki's hand away before his fingertips could make contact with Izuku's newly exposed skin. 

Kirishima took the liberty of informing the rest of their friends, his blinding grin practically audible in his cry of, "It worked! Midoriya's free!"

Bakugo was at the lizard guy's front, grappling with him to aid Ashido in her attempts to knock him to the ground, "Then hurry the fuck up and get the rest of us out of these damn things!"

Izuku heard an exasperated sigh from his left in response to Bakugo's complaint. 

Todoroki was kneeling right at his side, ready to fulfill his role and similarly intent on not wasting even a second.  

Izuku's fingers wound around Todoroki's cuff as best he could, trying to dig the tips of his fingers between Todoroki's wrist and the metal to get some leverage on the inside of the cuff.  

While Izuku found his grip, a stream of thoughts raced through his head.

He obviously wasn't as practiced with his quirk as some of the others. He wasn't even certain of exactly what triggered it. The trigger didn't seem to be as precisely defined as Uraraka's was, nor was it something he'd developed exact control over like Todoroki had. He hadn't been able to activate it when he'd briefly fought against Touya before. 

Izuku realized that it might've been because, deep down, he knew he would've killed Touya if he'd hit him with the full force of his quirk. The fear of hurting Touya had stopped it from triggering, and the same fear was racing through Izuku now. 

He didn't want to hurt Todoroki. With where Izuku was directing his quirk, he knew it was highly unlikely that he'd do anything fatal. But that didn't mean there wasn't a chance of him shattering bones or even ripping Todoroki's hand right off.

Earlier, when thinking about his quirk and breaking Todoroki's cuff, Izuku had come to the conclusion that whatever triggered his quirk was inextricably entangled with his will. If the intent wasn't there, if it didn't embody every aspect of his existence, then his quirk wouldn't follow through. 

Izuku had to remind himself of how it had felt the first, and only, time he'd used his quirk. He had to remember how strongly his emotions had been coursing through him, defining his every action. 

But he didn't want to end up hurting himself either. His self-caused, quirk-induced injury had made him useless before, leaving him unable to accompany Todoroki, Kirishima, and Jirou back into the mountain on their trek to save their friends. 

He wouldn't let himself become useless again. That wasn't what 'Deku' meant anymore, just as Uraraka had taught him all those years ago.

He had to find the proper balance somewhere within himself. Just enough strength to get the cuff off, nothing more. And nothing less, either, lest he wanted to risk not breaking the cuff on the first try and having to waste more time with a second attempt. 

Repeating the phrase 'just enough' like a mantra, Izuku clenched his hand tight. 

His veins glowed red beneath his skin, a flash of green lighting zapping down his arm from his elbow to his hand.

The cuff shattered beneath his grip, the fractured metal thumping to the floor in two chunks. 

Izuku met Todoroki's wide-eyed gaze for a moment. 

Step two complete. 

Their gazes were ripped away from each other as they heard another scream. 

As Todoroki lunged towards the door to complete the next phase of their plan, Izuku allowed himself to take account of his friends. 

The scream had come from Ashido, bursting from her lips as the lizard thrashed his upper body forward and down. Subsequently, she was launched up and over him before slamming onto the floor on her back. 

Bakugo only narrowly managed to avoid being taken down by her flying form, nearly losing his footing as he stumbled out of the way. 

Kirishima, Jiro, Kaminari and Shinso were still pinning Shigaraki to the floor, the villain's thrashing entirely fruitless against their hold. 

Izuku's gaze turned to the last scuffle just as a glint of silver flashed through the air above Asui's head. 

The blonde girl had brought her knife with her again. And it was slicing through the air, heading right towards Asui. 

Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, and Asui were working together to keep the feral girl down, their focus seemingly having moved to her legs with her incessant kicking. None of them noticed the deadly metal making its descent. 

Izuku had to warn them, a scream working its way up his throat.

But Iida was there in an instant, throwing himself forward and wrapping his arms around the girl's forearm to cage it between his upper body and the floor.

The girl's knife was forced from her grip when her hand smacked against the ground, a sharp clang cutting through the cacophony of noises as the metal hit the floor. 

Izuku breathed out a sigh of relief.

He tore his focus back towards the door, marking Todoroki's progress. 

Bakugo was still facing down the lizard guy, but the villain didn't seem to have recovered from throwing Ashido over his head just yet. 

Izuku watched in awe, studying the instincts he'd always admired as Bakugo took advantage of the opportunity presented to him. 

While the lizard guy was still somewhat off-kilter, Bakugo planted his foot in the middle of the villain's chest, growling as he shoved him back through the doorway. 

Todoroki's ice wall went up a second later, a shrill, high-pitched hum accompanying the ice's climb up the doorframe. The ice's ascent ended with a smash against the ceiling, the entire doorway and a good portion of the walls surrounding it completely encapsulated in ice. 

The lizard, and the other villains, were effectively blocked out. 

Izuku kind of felt like crying for a second, because, holy shit, they'd actually done it. 

"Don't just sit there, Deku! Get moving!"

At Bakugo's hiss, Izuku jolted, realizing he was the only one doing nothing to help free everyone else or secure the two villains they still had to deal with. 

Todoroki was already kneeling at Shigaraki's side, ignoring the villain's insults as he calmly touched the ground. Todoroki's ice crackled as it formed, climbing over Shigaraki's chest and limbs until it encased both arms up to his wrists. Izuku spent a brief moment mentally praising Todoroki's decision to keep Shigaraki's hands free, lest he somehow found a way to use his quirk to disintegrate the ice keeping him captive. 

Kirishima and Shinso still stayed kneeling close by just in case the ice failed. 

Kaminari had immediately moved to the other tussle, substituting himself in for Yaoyorozu so she could get to Izuku to have her own cuff removed next, just as they had planned. 

Jirou was at Ashido's side, helping the other girl calm her breathing and regain her breath after the air had been knocked out of her lungs. 

Yaoyorozu fell to her knees in front of Izuku before he could do anything himself to close the distance between them. As she held her cuff out to him and he took it in his hand, he started mentally chanting the same mantra as he had before.

Just enough. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just enough.

Green and red glowed across his skin once more, the metal of Yaoyorozu's cuff giving beneath the inhuman strength of his hand. 

Immediately after, the sounds of shouting began on the other side of the ice wall. What was being said was indecipherable, but there was definitely more than just one or two voices in the mix.

The villains were gathering. 

Izuku and Yaoyorozu shared a wide eyed glance before they bolted in different directions, racing to start getting everyone else free. There was no way for them to know how much time they had left before the villains were upon them, but they had no reason to waste time, either. 

With a multi-colored cloud of light, a thin pin emerged from Yaoyorozu's forearm. She immediately began working on Kirishima's cuff, both of them trying to ignore Shigaraki's nearby thrashing against his ice prison. 

Bakugo practically shoved his cuff in Izuku's face, a silent, unarguable demand. 

Izuku swallowed as he prepared himself to perform his mantra one more time. 

Just enough. Nothing mo-

There was shouting behind him from the group still pinning the blonde villain. Todoroki had tried to trap her with ice as well, but those keeping her down insisted they could keep her detained and that he focus on trying to break the cuffs first.

When something slammed against the wall of ice currently keeping them safe, someone screamed that Todoroki should be maintaining the wall instead. 

Yaoyorozu was emphatic, too, an endless stream of panicked apologies slipping through her mouth for taking too long to release Kirishima from his cuff. 

Izuku was distantly reminded of the last time their school had had a fire drill and had forgotten to inform the teachers. Unsurprisingly, the calm, orderly, straight-lined exits they'd practiced were lost in the uproar of alarm and confusion. Everyone had been yelling and screaming, students' voices drowning out the teachers' calls for everyone to remain calm. Izuku remembered watching as Kaminari almost got trampled in the hallway, utmost terror flashing across his features before Kirishima and Sero hurriedly tugged him off of the floor. 

Now, most of the shouting was from Shigaraki and the blonde girl, but Bakugo certainly wasn't one to shy away from screeching right back at them. It was mainly the sense of panic that was reminiscent of that failed fire drill. 

Izuku's focus was broken. 

When the green lighting and red glow returned to his hand again, Bakugo's cuff wasn't the only thing that cracked.

Izuku inhaled so sharply his throat burned as his middle finger snapped, bending backwards at the bottom knuckle unnaturally. The skin of his finger was almost immediately purple, identical to when his quirk had shattered his bones before.

Izuku's other hand clenched around the wrist of his injured hand, his own way of keeping the finger stable and restraining himself from giving in to the urge to grab it.

Somehow, in his agony-riddled mind, Izuku realized Bakugo had gone completely still in front of him despite the fact that he'd finally been freed. 

Bakugo's eyes were wide with shock as he stared down at Izuku's crippled finger. 

Izuku wasn't so sure that Bakugo had ever been as easy to read as he was at that moment. 

Izuku decided to ignore the unbidden concern in Bakugo's gaze, deciding that it was something he'd have to unpack at a later time. 

"There's nothing you can do for me, Kacchan." 

Something slammed against the ice wall again, a chunk of it flying to crash against one of the beds behind them. Todoroki sealed the hole in an instant, but there was no telling if the villains' next attack on the wall would be thwarted as easily. 

"Go," Izuku hissed to Bakugo through clenched teeth. 

Bakugo's lips curled into a snarl as he stomped away to stand beside where Todoroki was kneeling before the door, both on standby for when the villains inevitably broke through the wall. 

Izuku sucked in a breath through his teeth. His finger was pulsing and the pain of breaking his bones was just as intense as it had been the first time. 

But still, he couldn't afford to waste any time on his own pain. Half of his friends would still be left defenseless without their quirks if the villains managed to break through the wall in the next few moments. And since Yaoyorozu was still struggling to remove her first cuff, Izuku knew he was their best chance at giving everyone access to their quirks again. 

Kaminari was the next person on Izuku's list of people to break free since he had also volunteered to fight alongside Todoroki and Bakugo. 

Kaminari eyed Izuku's injury with wide eyes as Izuku kneeled beside him. "Midoriya. Your finger…"

"It's fine," Izuku insisted, doing his best to block out the pain and just not think about it. "Give me your cuff."

Hesitation kept Kaminari still for a moment longer before he extended his arm towards Izuku. 

It was a bit harder to get a steady grip on Kaminari's cuff since he was still helping pin the blonde villain down. And with Izuku's middle finger out of commission, his remaining fingers were forced to take on more stress. 

When his quirk flashed to life, the metal of the cuff crumpled and deformed, but didn't break. Kaminari yelped as some of the metal stabbed into the tender flesh of his inner wrist, blood seeping from beneath his cuff and dripping down his forearm.

But Kaminari's yelp was soon drowned out. With the fizzling of green lighting and flash of red beneath his skin, Izuku's index finger snapped in half. This time, he couldn't stop the scream from bursting out of his throat.

Everyone's gazes snapped to him, and even the villains seemed to give pause at his shriek. 

Dammit, Izuku hissed in his head. 

It wasn't supposed to be like this. His friends weren't supposed to be worried about him when there were other, more important things to focus on. He'd gotten Todoroki's and Yaoyorozu's cuffs off without incident, and he'd been so sure he could do so for everyone else. 

But now, he was weak, on the verge of being useless when it came to freeing his friends' quirks. 

Bakugo was obviously growing frustrated, too, his tone growing malicious. "The fuck is taking you so long, Ponytail?"

Tears were streaming down Yaoyorozu's cheeks. "It…It's not working! I…I was never able to practice before, and-"

"Just stay calm, Yaoyorozu," Kirishima encouraged warmly, holding his cuff still for her. 

"Yeah! You can do it, Yaomomo!" Ashido cried.

Another clatter against the wall. Another layer of ice climbing upwards. 

Izuku clenched his teeth against the pain, grabbing Kaminari's cuff with his uninjured hand and wrenching it off with a fizzle of his quirk before anyone could stop him. 

"Midoriya!" Kaminari protested. "Take it easy!"

"Got it!" Yaoyorozu cheered, Kirishima's cuff clattering to the ground afterwards. She immediately moved to work on Shinso's, a new sense of focus consuming her in the wake of her panic. 

Izuku wouldn't let the burden of getting everyone else free fall onto her shoulders alone, his injuries be damned. 

"Deku, don't hurt yourself!" Uraraka called after him as he left her huddle to work on Ashido's cuff next. 

Ashido barely had the time to process that she was the next to be freed, a sputter flying from her lips as he yanked her cuffed hand forwards. 

Just enough. Just enough. Just enough. 

Izuku used his left, uninjured hand again, the metal giving way beneath his fingers. 

Jiro was the next closest, so he turned to her. Her cuff came off just as easily, and if Izuku had had the mind to realize it, he might have noticed it was getting easier for him to activate his quirk. Keeping it under control enough to spare his bones was a different story, however. 

With Yaoyorozu working on Shinso's cuff, there were only three more people to be freed. 

Izuku returned to the huddle of his friends who were keeping the blonde girl pinned to the ground. Uraraka, Iida, and Asui were the only ones left. 

They were actually going to do it. They were going to have a fighting chance at getting out of here. 

"What is that?"

There was no time to spend on wondering about the cause of Kirishima's shout. 

Heat so strong it was nearly unbearable swathed over Izuku before he could see anything. The room filled with steam, the thick haze immediately making Izuku's hospital gown cling to his skin.

For a moment, it was hard to figure out exactly what had happened. 

But then a flash of vivid blue was flying through the air and suddenly Todoroki was missing from where he'd been kneeling in front of the door. 

Fear clotted Izuku's lungs when he realized that the ice wall had been broken. 

Touya had burned his way through, his hand still blazing with blue fire as he pinned his little brother beneath him. 

“You weren’t supposed to fight back," Touya sneered in Todoroki's face before leering at the rest of them. "What happened to the little bunch of teenagers who were scared shitless back in the cabin, huh?” 

Oh, they were all very much still scared shitless, as shown by how they all froze for more than a few seconds in the wake of witnessing the destructive power of Touya's quirk.

They just weren't going to let their fear consume them, as Touya and the other villains had probably assumed it would. Instead, it drove them forward. 

Touya wasn't the only one villain to immediately charge through the door. The lizard guy was back, this time brandishing a short sword in each hand. 

For the first time, Izuku saw Kirishima's quirk in action. 

As the lizard brought his right arm down in a wide arc, Bakugo moved to counter his attack, the palm of his hand glowing orange. But Kirishima beat him to the punch, diving in front of Bakugo with his right forearm raised. The lizard's sword clanged against Kirishima's defense, skidding along the hardened ridges in Kirishima's arm. 

Izuku would have loved to take the time to appreciate his friend's quirk further. But the other villains were on the move. 

The feral blonde girl took advantage of the distraction the commotion by the door had caused. 

She managed to free her right leg from the grasp of whoever had pinned it down. With a shriek, she thrusted her knee upwards. 

A sickening crack sounded out as her knee impacted the center of Uraraka's face. 

Uraraka shrieked, the force sending her toppling backwards and undoubtedly fracturing her nose. 

"Uraraka!" Izuku scrambled to get to her side, both to check over her injury and finally get her cuff off. But he had to go around the blond villain and everyone pinning her down to get there. 

As the blonde girl slammed her leg back down, she hooked it around the back of Kaminari's neck, strangling him between her knees and breaking his grip on her other leg. 

As Asui and Iida scrambled to keep and strengthen their hold on her while also freeing their friend, a wicked sneer took over the blonde's features. "Took you long enough, Dabi!"

Halfway to Uraraka, Izuku's brows furrowed. Did she mean…Touya?

There were more villains flooding into the room now, too. 

As he finally made it to Uraraka's side, Izuku caught glimpses of the brawls his friends had become entangled in. 

A guy with one arm and a top hat was lunging for Ashido. But Jirou's earphone jacks held him back, trapping his arm against his side as she shrieked, "Don't let him touch you!"

Kirishima and Bakugo were still locked in combat against the guy that looked like a lizard, with Kirishima focused on defense and Bakugo on offense. Even in his single glimpse of the fight, Izuku could tell Bakugo was doing his best to keep his explosions small so as not to hurt any of their friends or cause any damage that would have the ceiling toppling down on them. But as an unfortunate consequence, his smaller explosions didn't seem to be doing much against the lizard guy's thick skin. 

A guy in a full-body, gray and black jumpsuit was wrestling with both Yaoyorozu and Shinso on the floor, the mud-like substance pouring from the villain's hand signifying the activation of a quirk. With a clenched jaw, Izuku noted that Yaoyorzu had failed to remove Shinso's cuff before the villains had invaded. 

Touya still leered above Todoroki, pinning his younger brother to the ground. Instead of a full-on brawl, the brothers were only half-struggling against each other. Instead, their focus was locked in a muted conversation Izuku wished he could hear the details of. 

Above the chaos, it was hard for Izuku to tell what anyone was saying, whether it was his friends calling out warnings to one another or the villains spitting threats. 

He could only choose to focus on one thing, and for now, he chose Uraraka. 

He knelt before her as she curled on her side, her eyes clenched tightly shut and her hands pressed against where blood was spilling from her nose in droves. He wanted to help lessen her pain, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Not when he had no supplies and villains surrounded them, putting them and their friends in peril. 

There was one thing he could do for her though, and that was grant her access to her quirk. Deep down, he really didn't want to think about her using it again and sending herself into another vomiting episode. But, if she needed to, he wanted her to be able to protect herself. 

Izuku set his mangled right hand atop her head in an attempt at offering her comfort, his broken index and middle fingers pulsing with the pressure. He ignored the pain and found that it was actually getting easier to pretend he was just fine with the adrenaline coursing through him. 

"I'm here, Uraraka. I'm gonna get you free, okay?"

Her eyes stayed tightly shut, a whine slipping through her lips even as she nodded. 

Her hand trembled as she held it out to him. 

Izuku took a deep breath, clasping her cuff with his left hand. 

Just enough. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

The green lighting of his quirk was reflected in the metal of her cuff as it shattered, pieces of it falling to the floor. 

Uraraka was free. 

"Everyone get back! I'm gonna use my quirk!"

Izuku jolted at Kaminari's shout, turning with wide eyes to find that Asui and Iida hadn't managed to get Kaminari free from the headlock the blonde villain had him in with her legs. 

Even though Izuku still wasn't quite sure what Kaminari's quirk entailed, it wasn't like he was about to ignore his friend's warning. He grabbed Uraraka's upper body the best he could, pulling her against his chest as he clambered backwards. 

Asui nearly tumbled right into them as she scrambled back, too, with Iida hurriedly scooting away in the opposite direction. 

Izuku would have watched what happened next with Kaminari and the blonde villain if a shout from Iida hadn't distracted him.

Shigaraki was free. Izuku couldn't tell whether one of the other villains had released him or if the overwhelming heat from Touya's charge into the room had weakened his ice prison enough for him to break through. But how he'd gotten free didn't matter. He was on the loose now. And he was lunging right for Iida. 

Izuku knew that he wouldn't be able to make it there soon enough to save his friend.

Iida was alone and defenseless against the man who could disintegrate him with just a touch.

A hand firmly clutched onto Izuku's elbow. 

His gaze whipped around to find Asui staring at him with wide eyes, a silent, but urgent plea in her irises: Free me. 

There wasn't any time for Izuku to think about how he could remove the muzzle around Asui's face without injuring her. They were both desperate to save Iida as quickly as possible. 

Izuku's left hand found the metal clasp where the straps of the muzzle intersected at the back of her head, crushing it in his quirk-enhanced grip. As he ripped the muzzle from her face, the metal tore into her cheek, a thin stream of blood flying through the air after it. 

Asui's inhumanly long tongue lashed out a second later, swiping at Shigaraki's waist and sending him hurtling further into the room and far, far away from everyone else. 

Iida visibly let out a breath. "Thank you, Asui!"

"Of course, ribbit!"

Izuku allowed himself a millisecond pause. The ribbiting was definitely new. 

His gaze returned to the rest of the chaos in the room, completely lost on where to intervene and how to help his friends. 

Kaminari hadn't activated his quirk yet. Izuku wondered if it was because he couldn't concentrate enough with the villain choking him. Touya and Todoroki didn't seem to have moved, but Ashido and Jirou were dodging every which way to avoid the touch of the man in the top hat. Yaoyorozu was now struggling against the guy in the body suit alone, random objects, everything from rocks to books to staffs, erupting from her skin as she scrambled to fight him off. Whatever that gray mud had been before was gone. Somehow, there were two lizard guys now instead of one, both perfect replicas of the other. Kirishima was fighting one on his own while Shinso and Bakugo fought the other. 

Their initial successes aside, Izuku could tell his friends were struggling more than they had been before.

They were going to lose. 

It seemed Izuku wasn't the only one who thought so. 

As he ducked beneath a deadly slash of one of the lizards' swords, Shinso shouted above the chaos to his spontaneous battle partner. "We're gonna get overwhelmed! Get this fucking cuff off of me!"

Bakugo launched a small explosion to throw the villain backwards. "You'd fucking loose a hand!"

"I don't care!"

With his lips pulled back over his teeth in a snarl, Bakugo reached for Shinso's cuff.

Izuku's gaze was ripped from the exchange when he noticed another presence in the doorway. 

Another villain stood there, one that looked far more inhuman than the rest. His body itself was normal, but he didn't seem to have a physical head. A pillar of black smoke emerged from the collar of his suit instead. 

It was hard to tell with the way the villain's eyes, which were barely more than glowing streaks, were encapsulated in smoke. But Izuku recognized something he could almost describe as shock and recognition in the misty features of the villain. And, even more perplexing, he seemed to be staring right at Shinso. 

"Kurogiri!" Shigaraki shrieked at the newly arrived villain. "Don't just stand there! Do something!"

The villain didn't even flinch, his gaze so intense that even Shinso paused in his fight at the feeling of such a stare boring into him. 

As the two made eye contact, something seemed to snap within the villain. Izuku could only assume it was the villain's quirk being unleashed, a flood of black smoke consuming all. 

Izuku thought back to the conversation he'd had a few hours prior. This must've been the villain Todroki had talked about; the one with the teleportation quirk. 

Izuku feared what the quirk meant for him and his friends.

He could hear them calling out for each other in the darkness and he echoed their cries. He couldn't feel Uraraka against him anymore, and soon, even the feeling of the floor against his legs disappeared. 

His friends' voices suddenly went silent. 

And then, he was falling.

Chapter Text

Concrete.

When Izuku finally stopped falling, that was what he crashed against. 

The broken index and middle fingers of his right hand thrummed as he landed atop them. The entire right side of his body ached in the wake of his fall, but his half-shattered dominant hand was the loudest in its agonized screams.

Izuku clenched his teeth against the pain, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and brimming with burning tears.

The concrete was biting into the skin of his cheek as he groaned against it, but Izuku had absolutely no motivation to do anything about sparing himself of its discomfort. Panic roared in the back of his mind. Everything hurt and he was disoriented, with no clue as to what had just happened. The black smoke had come out of nowhere, and the feeling of the ground beneath his knees had disappeared just as quickly. He couldn't hear his friends anymore, and he'd been holding on to Uraraka just seconds ago, but now he couldn't feel her near him. 

He was hurt and confused and terrified, and he could feel himself beginning to shut down. He needed to open his eyes and figure out what happened and where his friends were. But his hammering heart and pounding body were telling him that maybe it'd be better to just keep his eyes shut. If he just stayed where he was and ignored what was around him, maybe he would stop feeling like he was about to have a heart attack.

Such a chance for reprieve was not to be granted to him, it seemed. 

A hissed curse at his back spurred his eyes into openness, his blood running cold. 

That voice did not belong to a friend.

"Those shits!"

Izuku's eyes shot open to find nothing but near darkness before him, a frigid jolt of fear racing through him. The last time he'd heard that voice, it'd been spewing insults at him from below, coming from the mouth of the very man who had unwillingly set Izuku free of the quirk-stealing cuff. 

Izuku may have somehow been separated from his friends, but that did not mean he'd been taken from the presence of his enemies. 

Shigaraki was nearby. Just a few feet or so behind Izuku, from the sound of it. 

Despite the pounding of his body, Izuku tried to shove himself upward. It didn't take him much thought to decide on a course of action. He had no hope in actually engaging with Shigaraki in any kind of physical skirmish when the man could literally disintegrate him with a single touch. 

That meant his best option was to run. 

If only his body would listen. He was all out of adrenaline, it seemed. His fear refused to provide him with the numbness and energy it had gifted to him before. 

He pressed his palms flat against the concrete in a desperate attempt to shove himself to his feet. His right hand shrieked in pain, and there was nothing Izuku could do to stop the yelp that slipped through his lips. 

Izuku clenched he'd his eyes shut and hoped against everything that he hadn't just invited in his own doom. 

"You!"

Panic flared brighter in Izuku's chest as his hopes were shattered. His pained cry had finally drawn Shigaraki's attention. 

Izuku flipped over onto his back, knowing it was better to see where Shigaraki's attack was coming from if he wanted to have any chance at stopping it. 

Shigaraki had once refrained from making them victims of his quirk; his middle finger had been purposefully raised above Uraraka's skin during their first encounter. 

Now, Shigaraki showed no such restraint. He emerged from the near-pitch black with a sneer tearing his cracked lips. With nothing lighting his form save for an eerie purple glow at his left, Shigaraki dove for Izuku's downed form, his fingers spread wide and his hands raised to go in for the kill. 

Izuku didn't know how he managed it. He supposed he got lucky; the darkness making it hard to tell an actual limb from a shadow and a couple of well-placed kicks and shoves kept Shigaraki's hands from making full contact with him even as the villain fell upon him. 

Izuki's flailing didn't stop Shigaraki from clambering up his form, nearly trapping Izuku in a full-on pin as his knees found ground on Izuku's legs and stomach. 

The few seconds their scuffle lasted seemed to stretch on for hours.

Izuku still fought blindly despite his fear and pain. There was no strength or coordination driving the way his hands barraged Shigaraki's shoulders, his legs kicking out just as desperately against the villain's weight. He didn't have the same type of fighting instincts that Kacchan seemed to have been born with, nor the careful training in restraint Kirishima had from wrestling. He wasn't calm and collected under pressure like Iida, and he didn't have the practiced use of his quirk like Todoroki did. In fact, using his quirk was the farthest thing from his mind. 

The only thing consuming his thoughts was a desperate plea.

Get away from me!

Get away! Get away! Get away!

In the midst of his struggles, Izuku's left, unbroken hand made full-palm contact with Shigaraki's front, his fingers splayed wide across the other man's chest. 

Izuku barely noticed it in his panicked flailing, but he could've sworn he saw the tips of his fingers glow pink against the black of Shigaraki's sweatshirt. 

Over the course of a few seconds, Shigaraki's weight disappeared from above him. The force of Izuku's shove to the villain's chest sent Shigaraki sprawling away. 

But Shigaraki didn't fall to the side. He floated up, as if he had no weight.

Izuku could only stare blankly at the villain drifting into the darkness above him, numb to Shigaraki's flailing and cursing. 

There was hardly any time for Izuku to process it. 

His stomach lurched, and suddenly, he was…somewhere else. 

But it wasn't the same type of seeming teleportation it had been before. There was no smoke or darkness or feeling of falling. Instead, one moment, Izuku was staring at Shigaraki's floating, thrashing form, and then he blinked and was somewhere completely different. There was a feeling of drawing back, as if he was pulled from the present to somewhere deep inside himself—almost like he was zoning out and getting lost within his own mind. 

Izuku's thoughts grappled with his reality, struggling to catch up. His head was beginning to ache, because what the hell was that? It was almost like…almost like he'd used Uraraka's quirk. But…how?

While he mentally floundered in trying to understand what the hell had just happened, the other half of his brain confronted his second consecutive shift in environment of the last few minutes. 

Izuku distantly recognized the place he was in now. He couldn't recall where he'd seen it before, but there was a deep-rooted part of his brain incessantly insisting that this wasn't his first time here. Perhaps…it'd been in a dream?

Somehow, Izuku knew his current location had once been barren, with a sand-like landscape sprawling off into the void-like nothingness in every direction. 

The sky was still completely black, as it had been before. But now, in place of the sprawling wasteland, flowers were in bloom. They grew from the ground in small, wild patches, white petals and green stems, leaves, and grass slowly overtaking the formerly barren land. But they weren't normal flowers. Or, maybe, it was just that this place wasn't a normal place. Slowly drifting back and forth as if underwater, the flowers were diffusing into white smoke at their tips, like the smoke itself was blooming as the flowers' petals.  

As far as he could see, Izuku was alone. 

Panic and confusion were Izuku's only companions, as they often were as of late. 

He tried to call out. For his friends. For anyone. But not even a breath escaped him. In fact, he couldn't even really feel his mouth, let alone get it to make a sound. He was nearly hysterical as he clawed at the lower half of his face, tears beginning to blur his vision. But instead of meeting skin, the tips of his fingers drifted through empty air.

The action finally made him conscious of the fact that the same emptiness consuming his mouth enveloped the rest of his body. All except for his right arm. He reached it forward, his eyes trailing from his broken and mangled fingers down his freckled arm to where it met his shoulder. Or, at least, where his shoulder was supposed to be. About halfway down his bicep, green smoke so dark it was almost black licked at his skin, shrouding his shoulder from view. He found that the same green smoke consumed the rest of his form, and the visual combined with the sensations he was feeling made him question if the rest of his body was even there beneath the smoke. 

"Deku?" 

Izuku would have choked on the sobs that surely would have been escaping him had he not been reduced to existing with only the upper half of his head and his right arm. 

That voice, thank God, was one he recognized and cherished. It didn't belong to a villain. It belonged to a friend–his very best friend. 

He spun to find her. He was more than relieved that even with his current smokey form, he could still do that much. 

Uraraka was directly behind him, standing amidst the flowers about three meters away. 

She looked different than the last time he'd seen her. It was as if ailment had never stolen her healthy curves, her eyes bright and shining without the weight and darkness that'd been clinging to her under eyes ever since they'd been reunited in Touya's house in the forest. Her blood-splattered hospital gown was gone, too. Instead, she wore the yellow sweatshirt, high-waisted denim shorts, and beat up white sneakers she'd been in at their campfire after the school dance. 

Had Izuku been in a more calm state of mind, he might've wondered why she looked as she did. But he was too relieved at having her here—at not being alone—to care beyond a fleeting thought. It didn't matter that he'd actually just been with her only a minute or so ago. With panic and fear and pain consuming his senses, any time he got to spend with her was like a gentle breeze on a hot summer night—always welcome, soothing, and exactly what he needed to feel alright again. 

Just like the swaying of the flowers, Uraraka's hair lightly drifted around her, brushing against the roundness of her cheeks. She smiled gently, albeit a bit bitterly, too, clasping her hands behind her back as she remarked, "We all got separated again."

Izuku tried to run to her, but he couldn't move. If his body really was there, beneath the smoke that shrouded him, then it was beyond his control. 

That truth made his heart ache. In the midst of their pain and fear these past few days, he'd at least been able to go to her. But here, even that simple comfort had been stolen from him.

As if she knew of his inner turmoil—and she probably did from the wideness of his eyes—Uraraka sought to comfort him. "But don't worry. We'll all find each other again. We always do."

Her words shot right through Izuku's doubts and fears, reminding him of the things he often forgot. 

His friends were strong. They would fight for each other and to survive until the bitter end. Though that thought left an unpleasant aftertaste, it did give Izuku the comfort of knowing that his friends wouldn't be defeated so easily. They'd survived everything that'd been thrown at them so far, and when Uraraka was granting him her assurances, Izuku couldn't help but believe that everyone would be okay in the end. Whatever it was that had separated them this time would not change the principles of their friendship. 

Uraraka's shoulders curled upwards, her smile turning even softer. "You used my quirk. I'm glad you could use it to save yourself." 

Izuku's eyes blew wide. So it was true…what had just happened with Shigaraki really was due to Uraraka's quirk. But…how? Why could he use it?

Izuku wanted nothing more than to ask her. He wanted to know why he could suddenly do the same things she could. He wanted to know where they were and why she was here, talking to him like this. He wanted to know who she was, too, because while she was very much the Uraraka he knew and loved, she was very obviously not the same Uraraka who he'd suffered with and confessed to just a few hours ago.

But the smoke cloaking his mouth muted his words, and any desire to question her died when he saw her eyes turn fearful and swim with the beginnings of tears. 

The tightness in his throat only grew more severe when he realized it was fear for him. 

"It's going to hurt when you wake up." The tears finally spilled over, running down her cheeks in two, thin lines. Uraraka sniffled, shaking her head. "You're going to want to release it right away, but you can't. You have to endure it and get as far away from Shigaraki as you can."

She took a half step forward, her voice growing louder across the distance between them. "You have to find me again, too. I'm somewhere nearby. I can sense it." Despite her tears, she smiled through them. "We'll take Shigaraki down together, okay?"

Izuku was still drowning in confusion. But, mostly, now he wanted to cry tears of some concoction of sorrow and gratitude. Her words only confirmed that even though he knew she wasn't the same Uraraka he'd spoken of his love to, she was still very much Uraraka in some shape and form. It was just like her to pledge her aid and determination even when she was afraid and hurt more than any of them could understand. 

Izuku clawed into the smoke around his mouth again, desperate to tell her that he would find her and protect her and that he loved her. But his words were destined to remain locked inside, the smoke refusing to give way. 

Subtle surprise overtook Uraraka's features before her bitter grin returned. "It looks like my time's up."

Her gaze drifted downward and Izuku traced after it. His eyes landed on her uplifted hands, horror seeping into him at the sight. 

The tips of her fingers were dispersing into pink-tinted smoke, just like the petals of the flowers brushing against her ankles. And the smoke didn't stop at just her fingertips. Soon after he caught sight of it, the dissipation began to spread, seeping down until the entirety of her hands had been consumed. 

The urge to run to her overtook him more strongly than it had before. 

Despite his panic, Uraraka was still calm, watching as more and more of her form drifted away into the void with a light smile. "You promised me you'd make it out of here alive, Deku."

Izuku wanted to scream for her, but he still couldn't speak. He wanted to run to her, but he still couldn't move. 

The smoke began to eat away at her feet, too, and soon, her legs were gone up to her mid thighs. 

And yet, she still smiled at him brightly. "Don't you dare go back on that promise, okay?"

Ever so slowly, Izuku regained feeling in his feet. It was like the more intangible Uraraka's form became, the greater control he gained of his own. His legs emerged from the darkness, though the dark green smoke still clung to him like a cloak as he surged forward. 

Uraraka's eyes crinkled mournfully at his desperation to get to her, her smile turning watery. "You still have to take me dancing, right?"

The smoke had consumed her almost entirely, everything but her chest and head drifting away into the void. 

Izuku's mouth finally broke free, his voice escaping him in a desperate cry. "Uraraka!"

She disappeared before he could reach her, the last traces of pink smoke disappearing before he even made it to where she'd once stood. 

Izuku nearly tumbled over, the union of the pain of her disappearance and the shakiness of his barely returned form almost bringing him to his knees. The flowers snapped and flattened beneath his stumbling feet, the disturbance sending up small plumes of smoke.

His gaze turned skyward, his heart clenching when he couldn't detect even the faintest wisps of pink smoke against the blackness of the void. 

Izuku wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and let himself lose consciousness in the midst of the flowers. But there was no chance for such reprieve, an immense pressure bearing down upon him in the wake of her departure. 

Uraraka was gone, but Izuku was not alone. 

Behind where Uraraka had once stood, off some distance in the neverending nothingness, seven other figures stood in the dark, their features indistinguishable amidst the vapors clinging to their forms. In an instant, their forms dissipated just as Uraraka's had, leaving Izuku face-to-face with nothing but a black void. 

A string of smoke, the same color as the dark green that'd clung to him, raced across his vision. 

In a blink, Izuku was back to being splayed across the concrete, Shigaraki's flailing form suspended in the air above him. 

The black of Shigaraki's hoodie and pants made it hard for Izuku to distinguish him from the rest of the darkness. If the skin of the villains cleaving hands and sneering face hadn't been so pale, Izuku had no doubt that he would have lost sight of Shigaraki with how far he'd drifted upwards. 

"What the fuck is this?" Shigaraki growled across the empty space between them, the horrid contortions in his features pulling the dried cracks in his skin wide. "What did you do? This isn't your quirk!"

Izuku was still shell shocked, lying dumbly on the concrete. Shigaraki was right. It wasn't his quirk. It was Uraraka's. 

Izuku still had no idea how, but he'd used Uraraka's quirk to make the villain float and then had a meeting with her in his head that had really only given him more questions instead of answers. 

She'd told him to run. She'd asked him to get far, far away and utilize the escape her quirk had given him. 

Izuku's mind turned to the present as quick as it could with how much he'd had to process in the last few minutes. His determination took hold of his body first. Uraraka had given him a chance to flee, and he would not betray her efforts. Whether or not the Uraraka he'd just spoken with was real or a dream or some other illusion his head had created, he would heed her words. He needed to get as far away from Shigaraki as possible before he allowed himself to release the zero-gravity quirk. 

Izuku shoved himself to his feet. 

After his resolve, his sense of pain returned to him second, appearing first in the form of his aching body and shattered right hand. Then, a wave of agony rippled outwards from his stomach. 

It only took Izuku two seconds to realize that his task was going to be a lot harder to achieve than he originally thought. 

He'd barely managed to stumble two steps, but already he wanted to fall back to his knees and spill his guts across the floor. 

Was this what Uraraka felt every time she used her quirk? If so, then holy hell, he really needed to make sure to spare her from using it again. He'd never been stabbed or anything remotely close, but he imagined that this was what it felt like: a deep, sharp pain that sent ripples of agony throughout his entire body. 

He would endure it, though. He had to, or else Shigaraki was going to kill him.

Izuku stumbled to the side, pressing a hand against his stomach and allowing himself a few moments to breathe. He leaned against a large, cylindrical container, the liquid inside the source of the purple glow that had set Shigaraki's features alight. 

Izuku didn't look more closely to see what was in the tube he was leaning against, his mind fighting to find a way to endure the pain in his stomach. Now wasn't the time for investigation anyways. Like Katsuki had said before, it wasn't their responsibility to figure out what had happened to them. Not yet, anyways. 

Right now, their only task was to survive and find their way home. 

Allowing himself a moment to breathe had helped immensely, and for once, Izuku was glad he'd seen Uraraka face the backlashes of her quirk so many times so that he knew how to handle them as well. His stomach still jolted and lurched, but he felt he could endure it, at least for a little while. 

Darkness was all around, with only the faintest lights and shadows setting objects apart from one another. Despite his innate fear of the unknown, Izuku set out to venture into the darkness. Anything was better than being stuck with the villain above his head. 

"Get back here!"

Shigaraki's snarls chased after him as Izuku ran into the shadows, with not a clue as to where he was or where was headed. 

Denki was alone when he came to. 

The prickly branches and twigs of a tree had broken his fall after the black smoke had dissipated from around him, their rough edges leaving gashes and scrapes all up and down his bare arms and face. The blood from his new cuts and scrapes joined the stream that'd been running down his right arm from when his cuff had jabbed into his skin after Midoriya's first attempt to break it had failed. There was probably blood running down his face, too, from the hit his head had taken during his fall, the same impact that had momentarily stolen his consciousness from him.

Denki stood from the brush he'd been passed out in slowly, his pounding head making it hard for him to come back to himself. With furrowed brows, he glanced around, confirming that he really was alone before taking a look down at himself. 

He was bleeding more than he'd ever bled before, but he was a bit numb to it, it seemed. The sight of red didn't faze him as much he'd once thought it would have. 

Instead, even at the sight of his own blood spilling from him, all he cared about was finding his friends. 

The sun streamed through the trees in angled rays, making the subtle fog in the forest he'd found himself in glow orange. It was either dusk or dawn then, he guessed. With how long they'd all been stuck in that room with no windows, it had been hard for him to maintain his sense of time. 

Had the circumstances been different, and had he been greeting the sun with friends after escaping from that place side-by-side, maybe he would have allowed himself to bask in finally being outside again. Kirishima would have definitely flung an arm over his shoulder, and Bakugo would have pretended not to care while hiding his own grin. Jirou would've looked nice in the sun, too, the natural light bringing out that purple sheen her hair had that was so hard to see in the dark. 

Denki wanted nothing more than to call out for his friends. He didn't like being alone. He never had, and now was certainly no exception.

But even he knew that calling out when there could be villains lurking close by was a bad idea. 

So instead, he wrapped his arms tightly around himself, trying and failing to fight off the terror of being alone. 

The smell of salt assaulted Shoto's senses so strongly that he nearly shoved his nose into his elbow to spare himself from it. 

Asui was right beside him, blood spilling from a slash on her cheek. He didn't know how she'd gotten it, but he had no doubt the absence of the muzzle was a factor. 

When the smoke had released him from its hold, he'd found himself on a beach. The reflections of the setting sun on the water had nearly blinded him in the wake of being consumed by the dark smoke. The sand was still warm beneath his hands, too, a stark contrast to the cold concrete his brother had just had him pinned against. 

He and Asui had been deposited nearly right next to each other, only a few meters of sand spanning the distance between them. They hadn't said a word to each other yet beyond a single croak of his name from Asui. Instead, they both chose to focus on figuring out where they were. 

Shouto knew what had just happened had been caused by the same smoke that had teleported him, Jirou, and Yaoyorozu into the underground structure that had become their prison. This time, though, it didn't seem as if he'd been given the comfort of staying with all of his friends after the teleportation, as he had the last time around. 

Now, it was just him and Asui, with everyone else being sent to a place, or places, he didn't know. 

After pushing himself to his feet, Shouto turned in a full circle. When he looked to the right and to the left, the beach was the only thing in sight. The sand wound and dipped into the sea for a distance on both sides before curling out of sight, the continuation of it concealed by trees on the left and a rocky cliff on the right. Behind them was a forest, and before them, the great expanse of the sea. 

Realization dawned on Shouto at once. 

"It's an island. We're on an island."

At his side, Asui let out a shaky sound so quiet Shouto thought he might be mistaken when, to him, it sounded like a terrified ribbit.

This new revelation as to where they were, and where they might have always been under the assumption that they hadn't been teleported too far, brought on a slew of rushing thoughts. 

Unlike his friends, Shouto was almost certain they were still in Japan, or at least close to it. Everyone they'd interacted with in these past few months—the people that had given them their quirks and the villains—had been Japanese. With that in mind, he knew they couldn't have been far from home.

But the question of why help had never come had lingered, and now the answer was beginning to make sense. He and his friends had been just outside of Tokyo when they'd gone missing. What reason did anyone have to search the nearly seven thousand islands off of the country's shores when searching the mainland was daunting enough? 

Rescue may not be far now, though, it seemed. But they would have to claim it with their own hands. 

Shouto's heart pounded in his chest. Without looking, he could sense that Asui's eyes had found the same sight from the way her body stilled at his side. 

Off in the distance, far enough away that they nearly blended in with the horizon, flashing lights danced against a darkened shadow. There was land on the other side of the water, its silhouette and artificial lights just barely becoming visible in the setting sun. 

"I can make it," Asui suddenly said. "It looks like there's a town over there, right? I can make it. I can get help."

Shouto had seldom seen Asui get so worked up about something. He'd even venture to say that she was more level-headed than he was, despite his reputation.

He could understand her plight, though. To finally have hope glimmering on the horizon after all of their tribulations…it had Shouto's heart pounding harder than it ever had before. 

Despite himself, reason went to war with that hope in his mind. "Asui, that's way too far."

She spun to face him, her voice growing almost blubbery as she insisted. "I don't have a national title in swimming for nothing. And after I got my quirk, my abilities in water have only improved.” 

Shouto wished he knew more about her quirk so he could reassure himself that she really would be fine if she set off against his warning. What was it that Shinso had said she could do? Shouto had only been half listening in when all of his friends had described their quirks, but he vaguely remembered something about a frog being thrown into the mix when the conversation's focus had shifted to Asui. 

"Just trust me on this, Todoroki-"

"Shouto!"

They both jolted at the sudden screech of his name. 

Shouto whirled around to find the source, his heart pounding even harder in his chest when he saw that Touya had broken out of the treeline and onto the beach. His older brother was almost too far away for Shouto to tell that it was him, but the blue flames licking at Touya's sides as he sprinted down the beach towards them made him unmistakable.

Shouto's mind was made up. The best thing in this moment was for Asui to be literally anywhere but here. 

He would have to trust she could make it, like she'd said. And he always trusted his friends—except Bakugo, on occasion. 

Shouto shoved her towards the water so hard that he almost fell into the soft waves right after her. "Go, Asui."

"But, Todoroki-"

"I said go!" He shoved her towards the sea again, a flash of guilt racing through him when she actually stumbled to the ground, water splashing up around her form as she just barely managed to save herself from face-planting. He wanted to apologize, but he knew he couldn't risk not seeing Touya's attack when it came. His brother was getting closer, and Shouto had no doubt that a plume of blue fire would be shooting towards him at any second. 

He could feel Asui's wide eyes on him as she looked back at him. "Will you be okay?"

“I’ll be fine!" He threw a desperate glance in her direction, and as her eyes widened even further with his yelling, he caught himself. He was doing a really shit job at making reassurances, wasn't he?

Shouto took a deep breath, trying to calm both himself and his friend. "He may have more firepower than I do, but I don’t need to use my fire to fight against him.” In a testament of his words, frost began to bloom on his right hand, the air around him growing foggy with the cold. 

Only the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shore filled the space for a few moments before Asui gave him her final parting words. “Don’t die, Todoroki.” 

Shouto didn't watch her go, but he took the splash at his back as a sign of her departure. 

He answered her in his mind instead of out loud: I'll sure as hell try not to.

Touya was finally within range, a burst of blue flame spitting from his hand.

Shouto met the blast with a wall of ice, the structure crackling and turning to steam as it met the fearsome heat. Shouto knelt down to press his hand to the ground, spawning more ice to strengthen his defenses. 

Shouto had known ever since he and Midoriya had stumbled upon his brother in the woods that somehow, it would end up being the two of them against each other in the end.

As the ice wall crackled and reformed over and over, the heat laid into it with greater and greater force. 

Neither brother was backing down. 

Izuku couldn't take it anymore. He'd held on for as long as he could and then held on for a few minutes longer. 

But he'd truly exhausted his resolve and could hold Uraraka's quirk no more. He fell to his knees, barely managing to press the tips of his fingers together in the same way she did to release her quirk before the contents of his stomach found their way up his throat. 

On his hands and knees, he heaved. It was mostly bile given that he hadn't eaten in days, but it was the process of throwing up that made him miserable, not the vomit itself. Tears were streaming down his cheeks unwillingly, forced out by the way his entire body was revolting against him and the fact that his heaving wouldn't pause to allow him to breathe for even a moment. Even after there was nothing left to force up his throat, his body lurched, trying again and again to empty itself even further despite his wishes. 

Almost a minute passed before the involuntary heaving finally stopped, a series of hacking coughs taking over him instead.  

The vomiting episode was followed by almost immediate physical relief, but a sense of fear closed in on him in the sudden absence of the clenching of his stomach. 

Shigaraki had been released from zero-gravity. 

Izuku could only hope that he'd made it far enough away. 

He'd lost track of time and space in his barely conscious mad dash to get away. He didn't think he'd even made it into a different room, which seemed nearly impossible with what had seemed to him like minutes of running. The space he was in now was still filled with the same large, glass tubes he'd been surrounded by during his tussle with Shigaraki.

There wasn't another second to waste. Izuku shakily pushed himself back up to his feet, doing his best to avoid the puddle of his own sickness. His body was weak and he wanted nothing more than to collapse back to the floor. But his mind knew that he couldn't afford to stop. He had to get away from Shigaraki and find Uraraka, just like he'd promised the version of her that lived in his head. He needed to find the rest of his friends, too, and make sure they were all okay in the wake of being separated. 

Izuku did his best to continue on in the direction he'd been running all this time, but his episode had disoriented him more than a little. It also didn't feel right that he hadn't found the end of this place yet. 

Now that there wasn't the curling of his stomach to distract him and cloud his vision, he began to actually look deep into the tubes of purple liquid around him. 

What he saw nearly made him stumble to a stop, but his feet continued onward even when he couldn't spare the mind to pay attention to where he was going. 

There were bodies within the glass cylinders. Human bodies. Or, at least, they looked like human bodies, in some kind of way. Other than their massive size and skin so pale it appeared nearly light gray, not one of them looked quite the same. Eyes bulged out of sockets. Scalps and skulls peeled back to reveal brain and muscle tissue. Lips and cheeks were absent, leaving rows of incisors, some of them deadly sharp, exposed. Wings spurted from some of their backs while others had an extra set or two of arms or legs. Some of them didn't have hands, their limbs instead ending with a pair of deadly blades or metal that looked like a drill. 

They were…monsters. Maybe they had been human once, but they certainly weren't anymore. 

Izuku's heart pounded, his desperation to find the end of this massive room ramping up even further than he'd thought was possible. The horror of where he was and everything that happened had just ascended at least another ten levels. 

Massive wires and cords stretched across the floor, reaching out to trip him. But every time he tumbled, his body pushed itself back up and kept going. He did his best to ignore the bodies in the cylinders, praying that the things inside them were dead or at least dormant. He didn't want to imagine what would happen if one of them were to wake up. 

Izuku's heart leapt when, finally, up ahead, the repetitive and horrifying sight that this room was had an inconsistency. 

There, in the middle of a tangle of wires, was a form so small it seemed to belong to a child. 

Izuku almost wanted to swerve to avoid the form. In the midst of all of these horrors, he couldn't help but feel that it wasn't in his best interest to investigate an unfamiliar, fallen form.

But there was also still that innate part of him that yearned to help those in need, especially if this really was a child collapsed before him. Even all that he'd endured had not snuffed it out. 

He found himself falling to his knees at the figure's side, doing his best to settle his weight atop the mass of tangled wires. 

Now that he was right beside the form, he realized that it didn't belong to a child. It was quite the opposite, actually. The person's hair was gray with age, their form shrunken and shriveled in a way that testified of the great length of time they'd spent living on the earth. 

It was an old lady, Izuku realized after gently taking hold of her shoulder to lay her on her back. And there was blood spilling from a gaping wound in the middle of her chest. 

"Are you okay?" The words slipped from him even though he knew they would receive no answer. Izuku momentarily forgot that there was a villain after him. He forgot about the monsters in the tubes and he forgot about the fact that he had no idea where he was. 

He cursed his own heart, because it began to ache for the old woman who he didn't know. 

Ever since he'd been told the lie that all of his friends were still missing after the event in the woods, death had been a lingering thought in the back of his mind. Now the horror of that thought was manifesting right before him in the form of the crumpled corpse of a stranger. 

A voice from the shadows echoed the thought Izuku was too optimistic to fully acknowledge. 

"She's dead."

Izuku's heart leapt in his chest again, his body jolting. His gaze whipped around to find the source of the voice. 

He knew that voice. And it sent phantom chills racing down his spine. 

It seemed he had finally found one of the boundaries of the massive room he'd ended up in, for the owner of the voice was collapsed into the apex of two concrete walls, his form half-seated, half-lying down with the wall propping up only the upper half of his torso. The man's head was limp against the wall, the corner behind him the only thing keeping it upright. 

The ice racing through Izuku's veins only chilled further when he saw that the man's arms were missing. The stumps were frayed and dried, not like his arms had been ripped or cut off, but almost like they were...disintegrating. 

This was Shigaraki's doing. 

"He killed her to make sure I wouldn't be able to heal myself," the man droned on, and Izuku's heart raced at the hauntingly familiar tones. 

Izuku's eyes traced the man's decaying stumps further up his arms, phantom panic and fear and pain sinking in even further as he took in the bloodied edges of the sleeves of the man's hazmat suit. The helmet of the suit was gone, leaving the man's piercing yellow eyes open to the air. 

"Shigaraki Tomura. The man who turns all he touches to dust." The bone-chillingly familiar voice of the man in the hazmat suit was muffled behind the cloth mask on the lower half of his face, and even weaker beneath it still. He was dying, with barely the strength enough to speak. "He was supposed to be dead, but then he shows up here a few hours ago for revenge. He left her corpse to torment me, I suppose."

Izuku's throat was dry, and he was hardly processing what was being said as his mind nearly ceased its functions in the midst of realizing exactly who this man was. But the words found their way out of his mouth somehow, though they were slow and barely audible. "She…had a healing quirk?" 

"An extraordinary one. You can thank her for the fact that you can still use your right hand."

The final piece of the ever-expanding puzzle clicked into place. 

Izuku sucked in this man's appearance with abandon. Finally, he had a face to pair with the deep, disinterested voice that had droned to him from behind the mask of a hazmat suit for weeks on end. 

Izuku knew now for certain...this was the man beneath the hazmat suit. The one with the laptop who'd questioned him and taken notes. The one who told him all of his friends were dead. The one who commanded him to punch the bag. The one who stood off to the side as Izuku's arm was split open on an operating table.

If Izuku had still been standing, he knew he would've fallen to his knees. 

Finally...he was face to face with the man who was behind it all. 

"Who…Who are you?" Izuku choked out.

The man weakly scoffed. "Does that really matter?"

The fear in Izuku's chest began to bubble up into anger, his eyes and throat burning. His knees scraped against the floor as he shifted to face the man head on, his voice growing louder with every word. “What happened that night in the forest? What did you do to us?” 

Izuku's voice cracked and broke, the tears finally starting their descent down his cheeks. They were tears of fury, a hot feeling taking the place of the cold dread that'd taken up residence in his lungs. He'd had enough of fear. He was sick of being afraid and of not knowing what had happened to them—what was happening to them still. 

The man took in a deep, ragged sigh. His eyes fell shut for a moment, and Izuku thought he was about to be ignored. 

But the man had simply been preparing himself or gathering his thoughts. When he started, his voice was rough and droning, even more so than Izuku had known it to be during his time in the faux-hospital. "Seventy years ago, in Qingqing City, a child was born that emitted light."

The man's words were far from an answer to his questions, but Izuku didn't stop him and demand he be more direct. Izuku could feel it: in the horror story that his and his friends' lives had become, this was the grand prologue. 

"Then, in Peru, three years later, a four year old girl discovered she could move things around using only her mind."

Izuku clung to every word, wondering if all of this really was true—which he was inclined to believe it was given what he was capable of himself—then why had he never heard of it?

"It was through these children that a new facet of humanity was revealed: the quirk factor; the next step of evolution."

Quirk factor? Humanity was…evolving? Izuku hadn't thought it possible, at least not to this extent. He'd always thought that with the current state of humanity, any threat to their existence would result in the evolution of technology rather than a grand evolution in biology. Such changes hadn't occurred in the genetic coding of humanity for thousands of years. 

"This knowledge was kept confidential to avoid massive panic. But, like always, where walls run high and thick, information always finds a way through.

"As a country, we didn't want to be left behind in this next step of humanity. And our research provided a path to even be at the forefront of it: these quirk factors were within most of humanity already, just lying dormant. So we began to see if we could force them to awaken."

Izuku almost felt as if he didn't need to hear the rest of the story. He knew well-enough where this prologue spilled into all he had endured and his own role in the grand scheme had already dawned on him. 

Human experimentation. He'd known for a while now that he and his friends were test subjects. But for whom was now more clear. They hadn't been kidnapped by some random lunatics with a crazy idea. They'd been taken by the government for the sake of a societal advancement that would completely turn the world asunder. 

Whether Izuku could bear to hear any more or not, the man in the hazmat suit continued his tale. "But then we discovered the reason these quirk factors were lying dormant. Their hosts’ bodies weren’t able to handle them yet. The containers were ill-fit. The quirk factor was there, but the body had not yet evolved enough to handle it. Despite our modifications, for years, we were still unable to create a compatible host."

Uraraka's heaving, blood-splattered mouth. Kacchan's bandaged palms. Shinso's random, shorter patch of hair that suggested his scalp had been shaved and cut into. Iida's bandaged calves and his stumbling form. And, finally, Izuku's own broken, shattered bones. 

These were the signs of just how 'ill-fit' their bodies were. The next phase in evolution had been forced upon them, and not without a toll.

Izuku's entire understanding of what had happened was shifting now, too. These quirks hadn't been given to them. They had been within them all along. And yet, even still, their bodies were rejecting them. 

The tears running down Izuku's cheeks were burning, but the rest of his form was frigidly cold. 

The man carried on without an ounce of pity for the boy falling to pieces in front of him. And why would he care? He never had, so why would that change even as he sat upon his deathbed? 

"But if we could somehow prepare the body for the quirk's manifestation, and give it a proper vessel, we could force the quirk to awaken. That's where you and your friends came into play."

Izuku shook his head slowly, sobs bubbling up as he choked out, "This…this isn't evolution. You didn't make us better. You hurt us. What you've done is killing us."

"A necessary sacrifice in the grand scheme of things," the man replied monotonously. "That which loses its ability to evolve faces extinction when faced with a changing environment. Our environment is changing at a rapid pace. If we want to survive, we must evolve."

Izuku only sobbed harder. 

The man continued his barrage. "We needed subjects, so we took you. Trying to take all of you at once using regular means would've been too much of a struggle. So we used a prototype for instant teleportation based on the quirk of one of the corpses we first conducted our experiments on.” 

"If this is evolution," Izuku muttered, his gaze falling to the blood splotched across the front of his hospital gown, "then why can't Uraraka use her quirk without throwing up blood? Why does she have to suffer to use what her body already has?" Izuku lifted his gaze to the man, fury burning behind his teary eyes. "I thought you said you were trying to make it so that using quirks didn't have any impacts on the body."

Even as he lay dying, the man was ever unbothered, just as he'd always been. "Our prototype for teleportation is fickle, and she stepped out of range. When it activated, it tore the lining in her stomach."

Izuku jolted. He couldn't imagine how much pain she must've endured when that had happened. And even still, that was before all of this, the human experimentation and the quirks, had even happened.

"We assumed the tear would be an easy fix, as it usually is. But then it turned out that nausea and vomiting were a backlash of using her quirk. The repeated vomiting kept her stomach from healing and only worsened her wound. We could no longer afford to have her trial run her quirk. Uraraka Ochako was ultimately deemed a failure of an experiment." 

Izuku felt like he was going to throw up again. 

A failure. Uraraka was her own person, with her own interests and talents and goals. But she'd been deemed a failure in an experiment she'd had no desire to play a role in. 

"That was why she was chosen as the target for Shinso's quirk trials. I'd rather sacrifice the mind of a girl who was going to die anyways than the mind of one of my own men."

Getting answers was doing nothing to set Izuku more at ease. He was only more heartbroken. More afraid of what the future held. More angry.

In the wake of what these people had done to Uraraka, would she ever be able to live a normal life again? The tear in her stomach was one matter, but the possibilities of what her mind had been put through while being subject to a still unknown and underdeveloped mind control quirk were horrifying. 

"Unfortunately," the man carried on, almost as if was just speaking aloud to himself instead of actually engaging in a conversation with Izuku, "she wasn't the only one whose quirk had severe consequences. Bakugo Katsuki's own explosions flayed his palms wide open. In the beginning, Kaminari Denki could barely generate one hundred volts without frying his own brain. Jirou Kyouka suffered extreme headaches for weeks on end after her earphone jacks had fully developed. Yaoyorozu Momo experienced fainting spells after prolonged use of her quirk without replenishing her body. Despite our modifications, we were unsuccessful in removing these consequences entirely."

Izuku shook his head. Despite how desperate he'd been for answers, he didn't want to hear anymore. He didn't want to be a part of this story any longer. 

But he didn't get to choose what he wanted or what happened next. That liberty had been taken from him three months ago in the forest after the school dance. 

The man in the hazmat suit pulled Izuku back in, his story winding even more complex. “But you…you were different. You had no quirk factor lying dormant in your genes.” 

Izuku lifted his head, the tear tracks on his cheeks growing cold. 

“But we couldn’t just let you go, and I’d hate to let a good test subject go to waste."

The pounding of Izuku's heart grew so strong that he felt like he might die. If the horrors of what he'd thought had happened to him and his friends didn't apply to him, then what was it that he had really endured?

"We performed a newer type of experiment on you, placing within you the quirk genes of eight others to test if we could transfer these abilities from one person to another.” 

Izuku stared down at his own quivering hands, almost fearful of the power that this man said lied beneath them.

It wasn't just Uraraka's quirk. There were seven other quirks lying within him. 

The seven smokey forms he'd seen in the void after Uraraka's had disappeared flashed before his mind's eye. 

"We were fortunate enough to find a quirk designed to pass quirks in the very first round of our experiments, before I was even a part of them. This quirk lies within you now, along with eight others that have been stockpiled over the course of many years. The other quirks within you belonged to those who have given their lives in pursuit of pushing Japan to the next phase of humanity before the rest of the world."

The man paused as he let out a choked cough. 

In the midst of the tangling, unraveling story, Izuku had almost forgotten that this man was dying. 

His voice grew more ragged and breathless, the black mask over his mouth and nose expanding and concaving with his labored breathing. "The Uraraka girl's quirk was too valuable to lose, so we transferred it to you as well, after observing that the quirks didn't take nearly the same amount of toll on your body as they did on their previous users. There was another before you, with an ability much the same. He was quirkless. We transferred quirk after quirk into him, but he could only hold up to seven of the same quirks you do before his body atrophied to the point of death."

Izuku's throat clenched. It wasn't just him and his friends. It didn't begin with the villains, either. There were dozens, possibly hundreds of people who had endured the same thing he and his friends were experiencing now. 

The story of what had happened to them didn't begin in the forest on the night of the school dance. It began before any of them had even been born—a legacy of countless lives being sacrificed to push humanity over the next cusp of their destiny. 

"The result of such experiments is what led to those monsters you saw on your way in here. In nearly every instance, the transferring of an unfamiliar quirk into the body has resulted in the body itself becoming warped and twisted. So why didn't yours? Perhaps you did have a quirk after all. Or maybe you're just lucky."

Izuku's quivering hands clenched into fists at the word. 

Lucky?

He was lucky to not have been turned into one of those monsters, distorted nearly to the point of no longer being human? He was lucky to have power he never desired forced upon him, the very same power that was killing one of his friends?

And this man spoke of all of them as if they were lucky. To him, they weren't test subjects suffering against their will. They were key players in bringing about the next phase of humanity and advancing their society to the forefront of the world. 

But these supposed modifications that were meant to grant them the use of their quirks had failed. Their quirks were killing them from the inside out.

It wasn't fair. None of them had asked for this. They were just kids. They were still in high school, for fuck's sake. But now they'd been turned into pawns in a bigger story than any of them had ever wanted to play a part in. 

Those thoughts and feelings finally boiled over. 

Izuku's throat was already raw from dehydration and his earlier vomiting episode. But he flayed his own flesh even further as he shrieked, "Why us?! Why did it have to be us?! We're just kids! We never did anything wrong! We just‐" Izuku choked on his own words, the sobs budding up again. "We just wanted to…to live our lives, and…and be happy."

Once more, Izuku thought of all that they'd lost. Everything that had once been within reach but had now slipped through their fingers. Graduation. College. Scholarships. Their dream jobs. Budding relationships. It'd all been right there, nearly in the palms of their hands.

But now, he didn't know if they'd ever be able to get any of it back. 

"It was because none of you had ever done anything wrong that you were the perfect candidates."

Izuku's breathing was ragged, his own lungs feeling like they were in knots and stealing his breath. "...Wh…What?"

"The study of quirk factors has been going on far longer than either you or I have been alive. But I came into this field with a purpose. I sought to spearhead a new study in how one's personality impacts their quirk and vice versa. I believed the two were inextricably intertwined, but I needed to diversify my pool of subjects to test my theory. No more street rats and criminals. I needed citizens who were the cream of the crop."

How all of these experiments had remained under wraps for so long was beginning to be clear. If a person who had been ostracized by society or who had no relations was taken, then was there really anyone to report that they had gone missing?

"One of our investors was happy to provide us with a list of recommendations: a man by the name of Todoroki Enji."

Izuku's heart had been pounding for minutes on end, but now he felt as if it might stop all together. 

No...no way.

"When he heard about our experiments," the man continued on as if his words weren't stabbing Izuku straight in the chest, "he offered his own son. When we asked for more recommendations, he gave us the names of his son's friends."

There was no way that was true. It couldn't be. 

Izuku had never known Todoroki Enji to be a particularly pleasant man to be around, persay. But even still, Izuku never would have imagined the man would offer up his own son and his son's friends to something this horrific.

But…that would explain why Touya was involved with all of this, too. Otherwise, the fact that Touya had shown up here, after nine years of being estranged from his family, was almost too extreme of a happening to be a coincidence. 

Was this why Todoroki had been so distant after his brother had pulled him aside before they'd all been reunited in that underground room? Was this why he'd hung his head and barely flinched as a blade was dug into his thigh?

Izuku's heart ached for his friend's sake. If Todoroki really was already aware of his father's supposed role in all of this, then his friend was no doubt blaming himself. 

"You were the perfect candidates. All of you attend the most prestigious private academy in the nation. Most of you display outstanding physical ability, as well." 

Where Izuku had once felt proud, he now only felt dread. These people had taken his friends' shining achievements and turned them into reasons for human experimentation. It was their successes that had brought all of this pain and suffering upon them. 

Izuku could practically hear the grin in the man's voice as he finished, "When he made his proposal, I couldn't resist."

Green lighting crackled around Izuku's fists. He was angry. More furious than he'd ever been before. He didn't know how to deal with it. 

Everything they'd been through…this man was to blame for it. It didn't matter that there were decades of other forces and people in play. It was this man's desires that had dragged them all into it, in the end. 

Never before had he wanted to hurt someone so strongly. This man deserved to have his limbs flayed and bleeding in the same way Kacchan's palms were. He deserved to have his ability to walk stolen from him in the same way he'd stolen it from Iida. He deserved to spit blood in the same way Uraraka had time and time again. 

For the first time in his life, Izuku wanted to make someone else suffer.  

"After hearing all that…"

Izuku wasn't surprised when Shigaraki's voice suddenly sounded out behind him. He didn't have the energy to be. 

"...has your mind changed? Will you join us or still refuse?"

The man in the hazmat suit was silent, and so he slipped from Izuku's mind. The man was already dying, anyway. He was no longer a threat. 

But Shigaraki was still very much alive, having found his way back to Izuku through the dark. 

A strange new sense of calm was flooding over Izuku in the wake of everything he'd learned. He supposed it was because he understood, now. He understood everything when for so long he'd been wandering the dark. 

He pushed himself to his feet slowly, his body aching to collapse back to the floor. He spun to face Shigaraki slowly, calm determination painting his features solid. 

"We don't have to do this, Shigaraki. This…this…" Izuku struggled to find the right word. "This revolution you're talking about isn't the only way. We can get out of here and we can go to the authorities and tell them what these people did to us. They'll be the ones to enact justice."

"The authorities?" Shigaraki scoffed. He stepped over the tangled, thick wires at his feet, advancing to where Izuku stood. "Where were the authorities when I was living on the street as a child, with no food and no home and no one to protect me from those who took advantage of me? Where were the authorities when I was dragged here and changed against my will and experimented on for years?" His voice dropped low. "Where are the authorities now, Midoriya Izuku, when you and your friends are suffering?"

Izuku didn't know how to respond. Not because his trust in the system had faded entirety—though it had certainly taken a massive blow in the wake of learning exactly who was behind these experiments—but because, for the first time, Izuku felt pity for Shigaraki. 

He understood everything better now. Not only what had happened to him and his friends, but what had happened to Shigaraki and the other villains, too. He understood where Shigaraki yearning for vengeance came from. He understood it, though he didn't agree. 

In the end, he, his friends, and the villains were all the same, weren't they? Unwilling victims in a ploy that'd been forced upon them by a greater power.

Their differences resided in what they would do now that they had been changed against their will.

Revolution was not the way. 

Despite it all, Izuku had not lost faith entirely in the world beyond this place. Touya had said that Izuku and his friends had been on the news. There were people out there looking for them. His mom was still out there, and so were Aunt Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru. And Uraraka's parents and Iida's. And Todoroki's mom and siblings. The rest of his friends' families, too. His other friends from school and all of their teachers...

They were all still out there, waiting for them to come home. Izuku had not lost faith in them, and he would not betray their faith in him, either.

"I…I'm sorry, Shigaraki. But I won't be like you." Izuku spread his feet wide, readying himself for a fight he had no idea if he even stood a chance at winning. But he had his quirk. Well…he had the others' quirks, which he barely understood. Uraraka's was somewhere in the midst, though, and that alone was enough to give him hope. 

Shigaraki's lip flinched at the corner, one of his hands tensing at his side. "Then I'm going to have to kill you."

Izuku swallowed, ignoring the throbbing of his broken fingers as he clenched his hands into fists. Green lighting raced across the surface of his skin. "I won't let you." 

He'd promised Uraraka and Kacchan that he wouldn't die, after all. And he wouldn't let the rest of his friends or his mom down, either.

With his own drive and the hopes of all his friends in his heart, Izuku lunged.

Chapter Text

When the smoke cleared, everyone was gone. Well, everyone except the mind control freak and the walking pillar of smoke. 

When he realized he was practically alone, Katsuki erupted, just like the explosions that burst from his palms. He whipped towards Shinso, his voice grating on his vocal cords. "The fuck did he do?"

Shinso flinched as Katsuki blew up on him, but his gaze didn't shift from the man of smoke and shadows, who'd collapsed to the floor just before them. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"You were staring right at each other when it happened!" Katsuki hissed. 

"I made eye contact with him and he…" Shinso minutely shook his head, his voice like a broken record as he tried to put what he'd seen into words. "...He fucking…glitched."

Katsuki glared at the mind control user for a few heaving breaths more before he scoffed. He ripped his gaze away and spun on the pillar of smoke passed out on the floor before them. "Half 'n Half mentioned something about a smoke teleportation quirk. I bet that was from this guy." His voice grew even more bitter and strained as he remarked, "That means everyone else is God knows where...Fuck." 

Katsuki had known there was a fat fucking chance of their escape plan succeeding. They'd known only a handful of things about what they were up against. They were tired, starved, thirsty, and some of them were hurt in ways that couldn't be ignored. 

And, at the end of it all, they were still just kids. It didn't matter that they had quirks now. Half of them didn't know how to make proper use of their powers, and even if they did, that didn't mean they felt confident enough to use them.

Katsuki was yanked out of his mulling as Shinso let out a sharp huff.

The other boy was crouched down, one of his hands threaded through his hair with his other elbow propped up on his knee. 

"Think there's any chance we could find whatever they use to control these?" He held up a fist, the dull light of the fluorescents catching in the metal of the quirk-suppressing cuff around his wrist. "Wherever your friends are, they'd have a better chance at fighting if they could use their quirks."

Katsuki clenched his jaw. 

Hell, forget about his friends not knowing how to make the most of their quirks. If they couldn't even use them in the first place, then it didn't matter how skilled they were with their newfound powers. 

He grabbed his head, his fingers winding through his hair and his voice escaping him a growl. "Dammit…I wasn't even paying attention to who still had theirs on."

Katsuki sucked in a sharp breath, trying to temper the frustration rising in his chest.

If there was anything he'd learned from this whole thing—that night in the forest, the kidnapping, and the glimpses he'd got of everyone fighting a few moments ago—it was that his friends weren't as useless as he liked to tell them they were. They were still idiots—without the slightest fraction of a doubt—but when he'd been alone in his hospital room, he'd been convinced they were all dead. But then they'd all turned up alive, some looking worse for wear, but breathing and ready to face down whatever they needed to in order to get out of this. And they just kept coming back, fighting and standing and refusing to be stamped out. 

Katsuki fucking loathed the fact they were all probably out there fighting while he was stuck here. It was like he was back in that hospital room, chained to his bed and unable to do anything other than thrash and scream. 

He refused to be useless. He refused to just sit here and stew when there was a fucking battle raging on without him. He might not be on the front lines, but if there was anything he could do to make some sort of contribution to the fight, he would do it. He would not sit back helplessly and let his friends win this battle without him. 

He started running back everything he remembered in his head, his frustration taking a backseat as he smothered it with the determination to make a move. "Someone turned Cheeks' quirk off when the shithead with the disintegrating quirk wanted her to use her quirk. It didn't look like any of 'em were holding something, so I bet it's small. Probably little enough to fit in someone's pocket."

Shinso stared back at him in silence before their gaze turned to the passed out villain in unison. He lied between them and the open door, his tall, smokey body sprawled out on the ground in a line. 

Katsuki's eyes slowly drifted back to Shinso. 

With the weight of his glare, Shinso's brows furrowed. "What? You want me to search him?"

"Well I sure as hell ain't touching him," Katsuki grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Besides, you're the one that set him off last time. If anyone deserves to get sucked up in a portal, it's you."

A few more beats of silence passed before Shinso relented with a huff, pushing himself to his feet with a mutter. "Fine. Not like I'm enjoying being stuck with you anyways."

Katsuki kept his distance as Shinso strode forward, body at the ready to make a run for it if this guy's quirk ran rampant again. If he hadn't been so weirded out by being left with the mind control freak and portal-wielding villain, maybe he would have realized how fucking idiotic of him it was to be ready to run. It wasn't like he could go anywhere, not with the villain between him and the door.

But he stood rigid regardless, hands fisted at his sides as Shinso crouched at the downed villain's side. 

Shinso's hand was halfway to patting the villain's pocket down when his lax posture suddenly tensed. "Shit, I…"

"What?" Katsuki stepped to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of what had caused the sudden shift.

"I…I know him. I know him, but he's…" Shinso sounded almost breathless, and it was the most emotion Katsuki had heard from him since they'd discovered him in that room back in the mountain. 

"He's what?" Katsuki hissed, so fed up with the lack of a clear response that he took a few rushed steps closer. He screeched to a halt when he caught sight of what Shinso was staring at. 

The smoke on the left side of the villain's face was peeled back, pale skin and blue hair so bright it resembled the sky breaking through the darkness. In place of the glowing, yellow streaks of light like eyes, there was a very human eye, closed with sleep.

Shinso swallowed. His hand, still paused halfway reached out, had a gentle quiver. "He's one of my dad's best friends." He slowly turned over his shoulder to make eye contact with Katsuki. "But he's supposed to be dead. He died when I was nine."

Despite his distrust of Shinso, Katsuki could tell he wasn't lying. He looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack, his skin suddenly a lot paler and his irises quivering. 

It wasn't common for Katsuki to be speechless. But this new revelation was enough to have the words caught in his throat.

"That's what it was," Shinso muttered, his eyes wide as his thoughts escaped him in hurried whispers. "He…He must've recognized me, too, and that's what made his quirk go haywire."

Katsuki was still dumbfounded. Just when he'd thought things couldn't get anymore fucked up, someone who was supposed to be dead had appeared before them. 

If the dead were walking...what other horrors were waiting for them here?

Tenya hadn't meant to rouse a monster. 

He'd been spat at some sort of control panel when the black smoke had tossed him from its clutches, whatever amalgamation of buttons his body and face had mashed against somehow issuing the command for one of the glass tubes to begin draining itself of purple fluid. 

After cracking against the panel, he'd crashed to the floor, cradling his side. It hurt just to breathe, both his ribs and nose most likely broken and restricting his airways from two separate directions. When breathing was as hard as it was, the prospect of moving seemed impossible, not to mention the lingering numbness in his legs. Crumpled on the floor, he hadn't realized what was happening until it was too late. 

A dull thud against the concrete was his first indication that something very wrong was happening. A normal person didn't make that loud of a noise when they collided with the ground. 

Tenya's glasses had broken when he'd slammed against the panel, their remnants scattered to somewhere he couldn't see. The room he'd found himself in was nearly pitch black, too, lit only by these strange, glowing, purple pillars that Tenya couldn't quite make out. Their eerie glow cast ridges of light along a black silhouette, only the faintest glints of purple highlights illuminating the figure's other features. 

Tenya couldn't see many of the details. But the finer aspects didn't matter when whatever was standing before him was absolutely massive, proportioned far larger than any human he'd ever known to exist. 

That led him to one simple conclusion: whatever was before him was not human. 

It took a lumbering step forward. 

Tenya crawled backwards in turn, scrambling away with only barely functioning legs until his back hit the control board he'd originally been flung into. 

A breath so grating and deep it sounded like a howl slipped into the air, a hole where Tenya knew the thing's mouth must be opening wide. The glow of the purple cylinders caught on the surface of dozens of sharp, pointed teeth. 

Tenya had once prided himself on his ability to run, his speed and agility granting him a promising future in track. 

It had seemed as if all of that was stolen away when he'd awoken to find an extra bulk to his legs, heavy bandages barely soothing the feeling of broken skin. 

It'd been months since he'd stood on his own two feet without the aid of at least one crutch, much less walked on his own. 

But now, with adrenaline surging through him, his legs began to ache in a different way. They begged him to move, pushing him against the control panel so he could press against it with his back and use it as leverage to stand. 

Tenya's legs spoke for him. 

With this beast lurking before him, he had no choice but to run. 

Just when Denki was coming to accept the fact that he'd probably be spending the rest of his life running around this forest alone, he caught sight of someone standing amidst the foliage further down the humps and hills between the trees. 

He'd recognize that head of hair anywhere.

“Jirou!" He stumbled down the slope, fallen twigs and the forest brush nearly tripping him ten times over. He managed to stay on his feet somehow, though, probably out of desperation to get to his friend. 

He nearly crashed into her when he finally made it to her side, the words brushing from his lips in a panicked bumble. "You okay? You're not hurt, are you?” 

Standing still and barely casting a glance his way, she leaned down to brush some dirt off of her black jeans. "I'm fine."

Denki couldn't afford the mental and emotional output it took to be openly offended by the fact that she didn't seem to care he was there. Her indifference definitely did sting him a little, though. A smile or a hug would have been nice, as he was only barely restraining himself from tackling her to the ground in relief. She hadn't even moved to meet him when he'd called her name and started running towards her, clearly not as desperate to be reunited as he was. 

Maybe she was just still shaken up. They had just endured chaos in that room, after all, what with fighting for their lives and then being ripped to another location in the matter of only a few moments.

The thought had the flashes of what Denki had seen of everyone else' scuffles racing through his head, and worry spiked through him again. “I saw you fighting the dude in the top hat. He didn’t hurt you, did he?” 

Jirou rolled her eyes, something almost like a growl escaping her before she hissed, "I said I’m fine.” 

Denki flinched backwards. 

Wasn't she…a little snappier than usual? Not that it was completely out of the question for her to whack the back of his head or bare her teeth at him. Maybe it was the life or death circumstances of their current reality that were pulling out this side of her. 

Her sneer didn't deter him, though. He'd never been the best at picking up on the undertones of people's actions either, so he still fussed over her. “What about your shoulder? Your bandage came off!” 

Even though part of him was afraid she was going to bite his hand or something of that sort, he grabbed her by the bicep of her injured shoulder, gently tugging her towards him so he could check on the state of her wound. 

Except...it wasn't there.

Denki's brows furrowed, something heavy and cold settling in the pit of his stomach.

Not only was the bandage gone, but any signs of her wound had disappeared, too. There wasn't a drop of blood in sight, and her clothes weren't even torn from where the knife had plunged through them. 

Something about this wasn't right. 

Still bent over her, his gaze slowly drifted back to Jirou's face. 

Her features were pinched in annoyance, but not in the way he was used to seeing. There was something malicious underscoring the way her lips were pulled tight over her teeth.  

Denki had absolutely no clue what was going on. But it dawned on him in that moment that in some fucked up kind of way, this was somehow not Jirou. 

He yanked his hands off of the imposter, stumbling back from her a few steps. 

The fake Jirou narrowed her eyes. “I thought you were supposed to be stupid.” 

Denki got no warning before the fake lunged at him. 

“Jirou!” He let out a cry of the girl's name as she collided with him. At this point, he knew the girl throwing herself at him wasn't his friend. But it was still really fucking hard to ignore the fact that she was wearing his friend's face. 

The breath was knocked from his lungs as his back collided with the forest floor, more air bursting from his mouth as the girl crashed down on top of him. His vision went white with the lack of oxygen and he gasped, but his inhale got choked off as thin, but vice-like fingers wound around his throat. 

The girl's knees were on either side of him, the rest of her weight distributed between where she sat on his waist and where her hands strangled his neck. 

Denki's hands fumbled against hers, his legs kicking out and hips bucking in an attempt to throw her off. 

But she didn't budge. 

How the hell was she so strong?

With a manic grin that absolutely did not belong on Jirou's usually chill features, the girl trilled, "Sorry to crush your hopes like that. I'm usually better at mimicking the people I turn into, but, right now, I'm pissed and I don't have the time to waste on you."

If Denki had had any air left in his lungs, he would've screamed at the way Jirou's features suddenly began to melt. Her hair, skin, nose, eyes, and even her clothes began to turn to goop, plopping down onto him and the surrounding foliage in a messy puddle like mud. As the flesh-colored sludge fell, Jirou's visage completely disappeared, giving way to the face of the blonde girl with the messy twin buns. 

Denki's eyes were wide, his skin crawling at the feel of her quirk's byproduct oozing down the curve of his cheek.

What the hell kind of fucked up quirk did this girl have?

He didn't have the time to spare on thinking about it. After all, she was still fucking strangling him with one hand, her other hand pulling a knife out of God knows where. Denki distantly wondered if it was the same knife she'd used to slash Todoroki across the leg. 

The shine of the blade held high in the air above him set off another wave of panic. His gaze shot to his surroundings, desperate to find anything he could use to get out of this. There was nothing around but leaves and foliage, the forest surrounding them on all sides. None of his friends were in sight, which meant no one would be coming to–

Wait.

Hold up a goddamn second. 

There was nothing around. 

None of his friends were in sight.

Back in that room where he and his friends had been held captive, he'd restrained himself from using his quirk to avoid hurting them by accident. 

But with none of them here, he could finally let loose. It’d take him out of commission, but as long as the voltage was strong enough to take out this chick, too, then things would turn out okay, he figured. Both of them being unconscious and leaving their fate up to whoever woke up first was better than her fucking stabbing him in the next three seconds. 

Right now, he was fucking exhausted, but he felt like he could still pull it off. It'd been a few days since he'd used his quirk, too, and even when he'd had that cuff cutting his quirk off, he'd felt the energy within him building and building.

That energy drove him forward, giving him a few seconds of insane courage. The floundering of his hands ceased. He grabbed on tightly to the wrist of the hand still wrapped around his throat, his other hand flying straight to her face. 

Once he'd made full contact, he didn't hesitate. He let loose the fizzling chasm of electricity within him. 

Yellow lightning burst from his palms and the blonde girl screamed. 

Denki honestly felt kind of bad. But he didn't stop. He couldn't stop, his control of his quirk slipping with each passing second. Now that he'd opened the floodgates, the energy within him was running wild. The lines of electricity jumped from him to her like they were dancing between two coils, sparks and stray bolts leaping away to strike the trees and foliage around them. 

Back in the facility, when the hazmat-suited bastards had made him train his quirk using those metal poles in that concrete room, Denki had pushed his maximum output to one-point-three million volts.

He'd been exhausted before letting his quirk loose and his brain was growing even foggier now, but even in his quirk-induced haze, he knew letting off a charge of that voltage would kill this girl hundreds of times over. She'd quite literally be toast, and Denki didn't think he'd ever be able to mentally and emotionally come back from doing that to someone. 

That was supposed to be what separated him and his friends from these villains, right? Yes, they'd all been taken against their will. Yes, they'd been experimented on and given powers they'd never asked for. But that wouldn't drive Denki and his friends to revolt against the society that'd brought this about. There were still good people out there, people that would keep hope alive and seek justice and unity instead of death and domination. 

Denki would join them, if he could, and stand beside them as one who hadn't let the horrors of his past lead him to steal the lives of others. 

So, with his brain going haywire, he mentally scrambled with slippery hands to close the hatch to the torrent of electricity he'd let loose. 

The girl's screaming gave way to silence, and that was what finally gave him the strength he needed to reign it all back in. 

The tap to Denki's quirk was shut off, the cascade of electricity surging one last time before fizzling out entirely. 

The villain collapsed right on top of him, her body still seizing every few seconds with phantom jolts of his quirk. Denki didn't know enough about electrocution to say what kind of damage he'd done to her. Hell, he didn't know enough about his own quirk to say what kind of damage he'd done to himself. 

Back in the facility, after he'd pushed himself to his extreme, the guys in hazmat suits had always been there to patch him back up. He'd never felt groggy and disconnected for long, their methods ensuring he was quickly back in peak condition. 

This time was different. There was no food or I.V.s or hazmat suited scientists to patch him up. It was just him, his muddled brain, and an unconscious villain. He'd be joining her soon, it seemed. 

And, oh fuck, something was on fire. He could see the oranges and reds in his peripherals, the heat of it licking at his skin. It wasn't surprising considering he'd been surrounded by foliage and brush when he'd set off a rain of sparks. 

But it was terrifying because he couldn't fucking move and his head was pounding so hard he knew he was seconds away from passing out. The villain against his chest, her weight denying him his full lung capacity, wasn't helping either. 

Maybe the fire would help his friends find him. But it probably had to grow bigger before anyone took notice. By then…he'd probably be consumed by it. 

It was a fucking grim last thought to have, he knew. But it was all his drained mind afforded him before colors blurred together until his vision faded to nothingness. 

Fortunately, Kyouka had figured out how the magician guy's quirk worked. 

Unfortunately, the knowledge had come about by getting up close and personal with it. 

She couldn't help the shriek that flew from her lips as she skidded around another corner, the ground shaking beneath her as another concrete slab flew through the air where she'd just stood. 

Seriously, where the hell had this guy found all of these chunks of concrete to throw around? She knew he was carrying and throwing them using the marbles swiveling in the palm of his hand, but last time she'd checked, it was no simple feat to just acquire a massive fucking slab of concrete. 

The series of shinks that rang out from behind her let her know that he was re-compressing every slab he'd already thrown, clearing his own path and replenishing his supply. 

It really was a miracle Kyouka hadn't gotten crushed or had her head lopped off.

Up until now, she knew she'd survived purely on instinct and adrenaline. Her heightened hearing helped in that regard. The rustling of the villain's clothes, the zip of the marbles through the air, and the explosion of force as the compressed concrete was suddenly set free…they were all minute sounds, but her quirk enabled her to tune into them. Her brain subconsciously did all of the processing of those sounds for her, her only conscious thought being to fucking run.

Dexterity, too, probably played a factor in her ability to slip out of the way of the chunks hurtling towards her. She might not have been as strong as her friends—as Bakugo had just reminded everyone, the fucker—but she was nimble. Weaving through the hallways and any blockages in her path surprisingly came like second nature. 

But, most of all, Kyouka knew she was just plain lucky. 

She was lucky the villain chasing her had only one arm, meaning he had to juggle getting the marbles from his pocket, aiming and throwing them, and activating his quirk all with one hand.

She was lucky that, when the smoke cleared, she'd ended up right outside a familiar door; the very door to the room that had served as her prison for three long months while she'd endured operation after operation. 

She was lucky that, from there, she could trace her way along a familiar route, ending up at the only place that gave her a chance at fighting back against the one-armed villain at her heels. 

The concrete room with the speakers.

The second she'd processed the situation, she'd known the speakers were her only hope. As far as she was concerned, without them, her quirk was nearly useless when it came to fighting.  

There was just one more corner to turn around, and then it was that long stretch of hall that led right up to the large silver door. She'd never been one for prayers, but she pleaded with whatever powers were out there that the door was open. There would be no time for her to shove something that massive open on her own. If it wasn't open, she'd be running herself into a dead end. The villain would catch up to her, and she'd soon be no more than a red splatter beneath a slab of concrete. 

Just as she rounded that last corner, the shiny silver of the door coming into sight, there was the distinct sound of the magician's quirk activating: the breaking of glass and the rushing of air as something de-compressed. 

With the knowledge that something was hurtling towards her, she dodged to the side, nearly throwing herself into the wall. 

But it wasn't enough.

Something slammed into her already injured shoulder, a bone or two or three audibly shattering in the impact. 

Her vision went white and she screamed. 

The concrete had slammed into her from behind, the slab knocking her weight off kilter. She'd nearly slammed into the wall when she'd dodged, but now she sunk into it, her legs nearly giving out. Some distant part of her must've still been aware that there was danger nearby, her legs refusing to crumple because she knew that if she did, she wouldn't get back up. 

Oh God. Fuck. As if getting stabbed wasn't enough, now she couldn't move her arm. There was blood running down her skin now, too, from where the jagged edge of the concrete had ripped into her. 

Was this what Midoriya had felt like? She couldn't even touch her arm, much less breath without jostling the fragmented bones. Every subtle movement produced agony, her body aching for her to just hold still. 

But she couldn't. If she stayed still, a few shattered bones would be the least of her worries. 

Still leaning heavily into the wall, she glanced over her shoulder. 

The magician wasn't running after her anymore. He was walking slowly and pompously toward her, as if confident she wouldn't flee now that she was injured. To her, it seemed as if he believed he'd already won. 

The ignorant, stuck-up fuck. 

Kyouka wished he wasn't wearing that stupid mask so she could see the look on his face when she took off down the hall again. 

Her arm was screaming at her, but she clenched her teeth to fight through it, grabbing her forearm with her other hand in a shoddy attempt at stabilizing her arm. There'd be time for writhing in pain later, when this asshole was off her back. 

When she'd first caught sight of the silver door from the other end of the hallway, she'd mentally cursed. It'd looked like it was closed, its large metal latch locked tight. 

But now that she was about halfway down the hall, she saw that it was slightly ajar, the massive weight of it pushed only a fraction outwards. She hoped whatever margin it was open was enough for her to slip through. Now that one of her shoulders was busted, there'd be absolutely no way she'd be able to shove it open on her own. 

She heard the villain curse behind her as she reached the door. The slapping of his feet against the floor let her know he'd abandoned his calm swagger forward and would be upon her soon enough. 

Even after everything that had already gone her way, she'd still had a little bit of luck left, it seemed. The crack in the door was just wide enough to let her slip through and not a fraction wider. The villain behind her, with his larger build, wouldn't be able to squeeze through so easily. He'd have to deal with the door to follow after her, which would buy her some time. It might only slow him down for a few seconds, but she'd take anything she could get. 

Kyouka almost tumbled to her knees when she passed the threshold into the concrete room, but the sight of the jumbled collection of speakers on the far side of the space kept her on her feet. In the past, she'd been forcibly dragged their way, but now she bounded towards them freely. This wasn't a matter of testing her abilities anymore. This was about survival. 

When she reached the speakers, she fell to her knees, sliding behind them like they were a wall of cover. 

When another shink sounded out, her gaze shot upwards, just barely peeking over a set of speakers the size of her torso. The silver door was gone. Instead of wasting time on tugging it open for his wider frame, the magician had just taken a chunk out of it with his quirk, stepping through the hole he'd made with elegance unbefitting of the situation.

It was hard to tell when he was wearing a mask, but Kyouka was fairly certain he'd caught sight of her peeking over the wall of speakers by the way he froze. 

They stared at each other in silence. Kyouka assumed he was considering her the same way she was considering him. Who would make the next move? What was their next play?

The magician moved first. His hand swiped through the air, and with a flick of his fingers, he was suddenly pinching a marble between his forefinger and thumb. 

"I have one of your friends,” he taunted, his voice deep and grandiose. "The pink one, with the little horns."

Still clutching her injured arm, Kyouka tensed. 

She didn't think it was impossible for him to use his quirk to capture people. Once she'd figured out what the gist of his quirk was, she'd realized why Bakugo and Iida had seemingly disappeared back in the cabin. They hadn't just vanished or been swept away to somewhere else. They'd been captured, their forms trapped inside the little marbles this villain's quirk produced. 

The villain extended his arm out towards her across the great expanse of the room, the slow advance of his leather-booted feet echoing between the walls. "If you don't surrender now, you'll never get her back out."

Kyouka drew in a slow breath. 

She had to assume that this guy knew what her quirk was, on some level. The villain with the disintegrating quirk had known what Uraraka was capable of, after all. The magician probably knew what she would do to fight back. Claiming he had leverage was his way of gambling for his safety and her surrender. 

But Kyouka wasn't so sure this guy was telling the truth. When the black smoke had first exploded into the room, Mina had been behind her and out of this guy's reach. And when they'd arrived here, Kyouka hadn't caught the slightest glance of her friend. They'd started the chase in the blink of an eye. Unless he'd somehow captured Mina while they'd been tangled in the midst of the black smoke during transit, Kyouka figured he was lying. 

She was sure enough in her conclusion that she didn't waste anymore time. 

Her ear jacks were drawn to the aux inputs of two of the speakers before her like magnets. They slid into place with a click, the rapid pounding of Kyouka's heart traveling through them.

The villain stumbled backwards, but even he couldn't move faster than the speed of sound. 

Could enough sound vibration kill a person? Maybe, she figured, but she wouldn't dare push it that far. 

The speakers amplified the beating of her heart, sending sound waves so strong she could see them distorting the air. They hit the villain from an angle, sending him flying into the wall just beside the door.

Kyouka watched him from over the speakers, ready to pull the plug the instant this guy was unconscious. 

The initial smack against the wall had done it, though, it seemed. Even as more waves of sound slammed into him, his body sunk to the floor, his limp head dully thunking against the wall with every new pulse of sound. 

Kyouka gave it a few more seconds before she yanked her ear jacks from the speakers, cutting off the route her heartbeat had from her chest to the air. 

She let a few moments more pass before she slowly stood from behind the wall of speakers, fearful that she hadn't fully incapacitated him. 

But as she stood, she saw that the magician's mask had cracked, either when he'd smacked into the wall or crashed against the floor. A black ski mask still covered most of his features, but two holes left his eyes unconcealed. Even across the great expanse of the room, she could tell his eyes were shut, which meant he was out or at least faking it. 

Kyouka pressed her lips into a thin line. 

Well…what now?

She could just leave, but the possibility that this villain might not be down for long would leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

Was it too much to hope for some rope or a pair of handcuffs? Handcuffs probably wouldn't do too much when he only had one hand. But if she could find something to secure his hand and keep him from using his quirk and causing more havoc, then that'd be one less villain to worry about. This room was stacked with junk, so surely there had to be something within it that she could use. 

Her eyes scanned over every corner, from the massive water tank to the metal conducting poles to the stacks of books to the split open punching bag-

…Hold up. 

She remembered Yaomomo saying something about these people forcing her to memorize how to make various types of restraints. The messed up stacks of books was probably her best bet, then. As she found her way there, she tried to make a plan in her head. 

What would be the best way to restrain him? He'd probably be able to free himself from anything that gave his hand too much movement, so she figured just handcuffing him to something might not be enough. She'd have to make sure he couldn't just get out the instant he woke up. 

In the midst of the stacks of white pages, two brown stripes caught her attention. Her hands dove for them, paper crinkling and bending as her hands disappeared into the piles. Pushing through the pains of a few paper cuts, her fingers curled around straps of leather. 

She yanked the items she'd found free, examining the two thick belts clasped in her hands, with thick leather and reinforced buckles.

Kyouka grinned. 

Oh yeah. She could definitely make this work.

Momo had never been one for fights. At least, not in the physical sense. She was usually the one breaking up the scuffles her friends got into, using her words to make peace instead of her fists. 

Words wouldn't save her this time. 

After wandering the forest in solitude, she had quite literally stumbled into one of the villains, their forms colliding after a pack of loose dirt had sent her tumbling down a slope. 

It was the body-suited villain with some sort of duplication quirk. She'd figured out what he was capable of when she'd watched him produce a copy of the lizard man back in that underground room. 

He didn't seem to have the strength to do something like that again, though, or Momo figured he would've done it already. 

Well…it wasn't as if she was giving him much trouble as it was. Maybe he didn't think making another double was necessary to subdue her. He was just chasing after her as she stumbled away from him through the brush, half-heartedly swiping out at her every now and then. 

Momo was batting away every advance as best she could, a rock, staff, book, or even a matryoshka doll launching from her body with every swing. Her quirk was on auto-pilot, producing the items she'd first learned how to produce back in the facility. 

The villain seemed to find their fight hilarious. His chase was more of a skip than a run, his head bobbing along as trailed her. 

"Ya know, I was kinda hoping I'd get to fight you! You and I are the same, just like Shigaraki and Ms. Floaty!" He slid to a halt, extending a hand towards her as if offering it in friendship. "So let's be friends!" He suddenly struck a very different pose, his body going rigid as he pointed an accusatory finger her way, his voice dropping low. "I hate you! Go die in a ditch!"

Still stumbling away, Momo physically recoiled, more than a little confused and frightened by his sudden shifts in personality. She'd known each of these villains had to be at least a little mentally disturbed to be attempting what they were, but this man seemed to be actually insane and unhinged. 

She just hoped he kept it to his banter and half-hearted threats, lest there be something more dangerous lurking beneath the shifts in his persona. 

She ripped her gaze away from him and focused on where she was headed. Despite the terror of not knowing exactly how close he was behind her or if he was launching an attack her way, she knew she couldn't afford to stumble on anything in her path. 

She almost stumbled anyway, though, when she caught sight of a pillar of gray rising into the sky through the gaps of the tree tops. 

Momo's breath stilled in her lungs. 

There was a fire in the distance, smoke winding high and spindling into dark clouds. 

Her mind immediately went to Todoroki and his newfound ability to produce flames.

If he really was the source of the fire, did that mean he was fighting someone, too? Did he feel as helpless as she did? 

Probably not. He'd always been more reliable and cool-headed than she was. 

Momo clenched her jaw, still dodging past branches and jumping over roots. 

It was idiotic to go chasing forest fires. But as far as she could tell, it was her best bet at finding her friends. 

She took off towards the pillar of smoke in a heartbeat.  

The villain let out a hefty huff behind her. "Ah, she's still running away." And a breath later, "Get back here you bitch!"

Izuku didn't mean to break Shigaraki's face. It had just kind of…happened.

He'd underestimated the propulsion of his quirk, and suddenly he was soaring through the air at speeds that had probably previously been humanly impossible, his fist finding purchase right in the middle of Shigaraki's face.

In retrospect, he supposed he probably should've foreseen the damage a direct hit from his quirk would do. He'd made a goddamn crater in a concrete wall the first time he'd used his quirk, after all. 

But he'd been half-expecting the man to catch his fist and use his grip to turn him to dust, so he hadn't held back. If he was going to die, then he'd at least do his best to land a good hit and make things easier on his friends once Shigaraki found them.

And damn, what a hit it was. 

Shigaraki probably hadn't really seen him coming with how fast he'd moved, his body turning into a streak of red and green light as the power of generations launched him through the air.

His fist landed with a sickening crack, Shigaraki's nose and cheekbone shattering beneath the impact. 

Izuku's hand shattered, too, more from channeling the power of his quirk into his limb than from the actual collision. 

In the moment, he barely noticed the pain, though. He was more concerned with the glass cylinder his face was hurtling towards.

Soaring through the air, there was nothing Izuku could do to stop his momentum. So when Shigaraki went down, Izuku went hurdling over his head, smacking face first into one of the large, liquid-filled cylinders. He supposed he was lucky he'd hit one of the cylinders, the glass giving beneath the force of his body slamming into it. Had he smacked against one of the concrete walls instead, his neck probably would've snapped. 

The glass cut into him as it fractured when he hit the back side of the cylinder, too, the shards cutting further into him as he landed atop them on the concrete floor. The landing knocked the air from his lungs, his eyes wide and his chest heaving as he lay sprawled on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

After that one hit, Izuku almost felt like tapping out of the fight already. 

Reality really wasn't like the movies. 

A single punch hurt like a bitch on both ends, especially when it was a superpowered punch. 

Izuku didn't suddenly find himself capable of fighting, either, both in terms of skill and endurance. He was just a teenager who'd been fairly scrawny up until a year or so ago, and even now, he was nothing compared to the likes of Kacchan or Kirishima. He'd just spent three months wasting away in solitude, too, and that time had pretty much sapped away whatever strength he'd had. If it weren't for his quirk, he never would have stood the slightest chance at landing a hit.

Hell, even with his quirk, he could barely manage to get a hit in. Just using it once had left his wrist and already broken fingers aching, his right ankle feeling like jelly after he'd used it to propel himself through the air. 

He hoped Shigaraki was feeling the same way. 

Izuku wanted nothing more than to pass out on the ground where he lay, but he knew he couldn't afford to. Not yet, anyway. He had to make sure he'd at least knocked Shigaraki out first. 

So, against the aches and pains, Izuku curled onto his side, pressing his palms against broken glass to push himself up. The glass was ground into smaller shards beneath his weight, the pieces crackling under him. 

The light, tiny sound was underscored by a low growl from the distant recesses of the concrete room. 

Izuku froze, his eyes searching the darkness that cloaked the further depths of the space. 

Another growl creeped out from the shadows, echoing from far away and chilling Izuku's bones. 

There was…something there, awake in the deeper recesses of the room, growling and rumbling in ways that definitely did not belong to the likes of a human. 

Izuku thought of the monstrous forms he'd seen in the towering cylinders like the one he'd crashed through.

If one of those…things was awake, then this was the absolute last place he wanted to be. 

A rising head of white hair over the base of the cylinder he'd just crashed through was another indication to Izuku that it was time to leave. 

Gritting his teeth against the throbbing of every vein, Izuku quickened his struggle to his feet. 

Shigaraki's head was hung as he stood and stumbled, catching himself on the metal base of the cylinder Izuku had crashed through. As his grip made five-fingered contact, the metal splintered, chunks breaking into smaller pieces before disintegrating entirely. 

Izuku made it to his feet just as the metal base fully crumbled, the disintegrating support leaving Shigaraki to crash to the floor. 

Izuku stuttered in his steps, too, pain sprouting from his right ankle the moment he put any weight on it. He nearly toppled right back to the ground as he bit back a scream, clenching his jaw hard enough for his teeth to audibly grind against each other. 

Shit. Now that he'd had a bit more time to process how his body felt in the wake of using his quirk once more, he realized he might've broken a bone in his foot when he'd launched himself at Shigaraki earlier.

The only consolation in this situation was that Shigaraki seemed to be struggling to move just as much as he was, the villain still collapsed on his front on the floor and writhing. 

Izuku knew that now was his chance. Using his quirk against Shigaraki had been an inevitability before, and now that he'd done some damage, his mind turned towards running away again. 

He knew it wasn't the bravest or most heroic thing. But he didn't think anyone would blame him for running away, because how could he fight an enemy he couldn't get close to for fear that he'd be turned to dust? If he had a quirk that could be used from a distance like Todoroki's or Ashido's, then maybe he would've been emblazoned with the drive to fight. But the quirk he'd been given required him to get up close and personal, and at the cost of his bones, no less.

Considering all of that…he decided to run. He'd promised Kacchan and Uraraka he'd survive, after all. To Izuku, this seemed to be the only way to do so.  

So he began to run as best as he could, picking a direction and sticking to it. 

Shigaraki was currently down, but that didn't mean Izuku was any less anxious. He moved unsteadily and slower, his feet threatening to give out on him with every other step. His gait was more of a hobbling limp at best than a run, and the mammoth wires that snaked across the concrete floor only further hindered his escape.

A groan from Shigaraki echoed behind him, and Izuku risked a glance backwards. The villain was on one knee, a hand still pressed against his face as he tried to push himself to his feet with the other. 

Izuku's heart rocketed. 

Shigaraki may be disoriented and in agony with that punch, but he still had two fully functioning feet. Once Shigaraki came back to himself, he'd be on Izuku in an instant. 

Izuku continued forward, stumbling and hauling his aching body onwards with all the energy he had left. Even when his broken, increasingly numb foot caught on one of the winding wires, he tugged it free with a scream through clenched teeth, pushing his broken body to the furthest extent to escape. 

His determination was met with a new hope. 

All of the light in this massive room had come from the liquid-filled cylinders, their purple glows emanating out into the shadows. But up ahead, between the rows and rows of monster-filled tubes, Izuku saw a streak of yellow light. 

The closer he got, the clearer it became that the sliver of light was shining through a crack between the wall and a giant silver door not unlike the door that led to the concrete room where Izuku and his friends had had their quirks put to the test. 

The sight only strengthened one of Izuku's growing suspicions: he was back in the facility in the mountain. If he could get through that door, it probably led to the maze of hallways. He could lose Shigaraki there, or possibly hide in one of the many rooms that the halls contained. 

As his gaze zeroed in on the door and the possibilities of escape it warranted, Izuku's drive and adrenaline increased tenfold. Before he knew it, his palm was flat on the metal of the silver door, his arms and core straining as he pushed against it with all his body weight. 

The hinges emitted a raucous creak as the door swung open, the sudden bright lights from the door blinding him for a moment and masking what lay beyond. 

Before Izuku could tumble beyond the threshold, something snagged him from behind. 

Izuku swore his heart stopped beating. His eyes were wide as his gaze whipped over his shoulder. 

Shigaraki was there, his nose crooked, cheekbone swollen, and eye bloodshot to such an extent that the whites of his eye nearly blended in with his iris. The damage Izuku had done only embellished the monstrosity of Shigaraki's expression, his features pulled taut in a sneer. 

His hand was fisted in the sleeve of Izuku's gown. Even though the fabric was disintegrating in the villain's clutch, there'd been enough of a delay in his quirk's activation for him to use his grip to yank Izuku away from the door and back towards him. 

Izuku's breath stilled, time seeming to slow as he watched Shigaraki's other hand, the one with the two broken fingers, fly towards him, on track to press against his chest with all five fingers. 

He squeezed his eyes shut against his approaching end, his thoughts turning the things he wanted to think about in his final moments instead. 

Sorry, guys. I'm sorry, Uraraka. I'm sorry, mom. 

Before Shigaraki's palm could make contact, another hand wrapped around Izuku's upper arm from behind.

Izuku's eyes shot back open as he was yanked away from Shigaraki and his deadly fingertips. 

With Izuku's hospital gown fully disintegrated, there was nothing for Shigaraki to use to keep him captive in his grasp.

Izuku stared ahead, dumbfounded as he was pulled away from the man who had almost killed him. Whoever was yanking him backwards had to be ridiculously strong, their strength commanding his body around almost like he weighed nothing. 

…Wait. 

The hand on his arm tightened its grip, the pads on the tips of the fingers digging into his skin. 

As he was swung further backwards, he saw Uraraka's face rush by his own, blood still spilling from her nose and a new gash on the cushion of her cheek.

She pulled his weightless body out of harm's way, her other palm thrusting through the air in the same way Shigaraki's had only a few seconds prior. Instead of Shigaraki's hand meeting Izuku's chest, Uraraka's met the villain's, the force of her hand combined with the activation of her quirk sending Shigaraki soaring back into one of the liquid-filled cylinders. 

Some small part of Izuku that he didn't really want to acknowledge brimmed with satisfaction when Shigaraki hit the tube hard enough to fracture it. It served him right. Whether she'd intended to do so or not, Uraraka had exacted revenge for the way Shigaraki had treated her when they'd first met. 

Any semblance of fulfillment dissipated when Uraraka collapsed to her knees, still clinging tightly to his wrist with one hand while she leaned forward onto the other. 

Izuku hung in the air, suspended and unable to do much to even keep himself oriented the way he wanted as she panted next to him. 

"Deku, are you…"

"I'm okay!" Izuku answered before she'd even finished. 

His eyes widened as a sound like a mixture of a cough and a gag burst from her lips, a trickle of blood spilling down her chin. 

Uraraka sat back on her heels and, with a quivering hand, wiped the red steak from her skin. "Sorry, I…I was…"

"Don't apologize!" Izuku's panic hadn't quelled much with her arrival. His relief at having been reunited with her was overshadowed by the fact that she was here, exposed to the dangerous touch of Shigaraki like he was. If anything, his sense of panic had only increased tenfold.

Everything was made even worse by the fact that she was currently using her quirk on him. As he drifted, the words of the man behind all of this replayed in his head. He couldn't let Uraraka torture herself any longer. He'd used her quirk himself and faced the pain of it. But for her, it was worse, the tear in her stomach sending blood into her bile and causing her more agony. 

He needed to get her to release her quirk now. 

"You saved me!" He earnestly assured, reaching down to put his hand over top of where she was gripping him. "You saved me, Uraraka! So let me down!"

She wouldn't look his way, but she hurriedly shook her head. "Can't. Can't do just one of you. I'd have to release both of you. And he…He'll…" Her quivering irises found his. "We gotta run, Deku."

Izuku understood her plight. Running away from the villain was much easier if the villain couldn't chase after you. 

He knew that, and he wished he could let her save them because he knew she was damn well capable of it. But he couldn't. He couldn't sit back and float helplessly when he knew she was killing herself by using her quirk. 

She dizzily tried to get back to her feet, her stumbling renewing his protest. He tightened the grip he had on her hand. "Listen, Uraraka, there's a tear in your stomach and using your quirk only makes it worse!"

As she finally managed to stand once more, her eyes dazedly found his again. "...What?"

"You have to let both of us down!" He insisted, hanging onto her just as tightly as she was to him. When she was clearly already disoriented and feeling faint, he didn't think it was worth it to spend time explaining what the prototype for instant teleportation had done to the lining of her stomach. She probably wouldn't understand it when they were right in the thick of things, so he focused on pleading with her instead.

But, damn, no matter how out of it she was, she was still so stubborn. She was even worse than Kacchan and Todoroki sometimes, which was saying something. 

With stumbling steps, she started out into the hallway, dragging the Izuku with her as she passed the threshold of the big metal door. 

In her daze, she'd narrowed her focus. Her gaze was set before them. She wouldn't look at him, no matter how tightly he grabbed her hand. "Forest. Forest first. We can…we can lose him...in the trees…"

"Uraraka!" Izuku nearly started yanking on his own hair in frustration. 

A sudden, sharp grunt from behind them saved his scalp from the pain. 

Izuku looked down—or back? Being weightless was confusing—his eyes widening yet again. 

Izuku had managed to get fairly far the first time he'd used this trick on Shigaraki. Hell, he might've made it out of there had he not gotten distracted by the yellow-eyed man in the mask. 

This trick wouldn't work a second time, it seemed.

Shigaraki must've regained his senses following his impact with the cylinder, using his own weightlessness to his advantage to launch himself at them at a speed Uraraka couldn't beat. 

There was no time for Izuku to call out any warning. Shigaraki was on them in an instant. 

On instinct, Izuku kicked the villain upwards, a spike of pain racing up his leg as his broken foot collided with Shigaraki's chin. The villain went spinning towards the ceiling, the tips of a few of his fingers just barely skimming across Izuku's cotton pants. 

Izuku was too late in realizing that sending Shigaraki towards the ceiling had been a mistake.

Whether intentional or not, Shigaraki's hand slammed flat against the surface, all five tips of his fingers making contact. 

Izuku didn't let his gaze linger to watch what was coming next. He knew he had only seconds to act.

"Uraraka!"

He bent the arm she had in her grasp, bringing himself over her. He yanked his wrist from her tight grip and curled his arms and upper body protectively over her head, making it just in time for the first chunk to fall. 

With a dull roar and the sound of cracking, the ceiling rained down upon them. 

One moment, Tenya was fairly certain he was going to die, the monster at his back gaining ground.

The next, his calves began to burn. He'd been leaping over a bunch of the massive wires and cords that spanned the floor when it happened, the world suddenly a blur around him. 

As he flew through the air, propelled by a force he couldn't pinpoint, the burning in his legs became both an internal and external sensation. As his head whipped behind him in an attempt to figure out why he was suddenly flying through the air, he saw blue light in his peripherals. The bandages around his calves had caught fire, and he feared their heat. But they were reduced to ashes before their burn could do any harm.

As the bandages turned to dust, for the first time, Tenya caught sight of the mutation on his legs. Hollow metal bars extended out from his calves in four places on each side, the pipes glowing orange with the heat of the blue flame spouting from them. 

Tenya was dumbfounded, disturbed, and distraught all at once. 

He could do nothing as his quirk sent him flying through the air at speeds he'd never once hoped of reaching on his own legs.  

Katsuki's hands hovered over the keyboard, his eyes watching the 'status' indicator next to Four Eyes' name change to 'disengaged.'

With the immense weight of the fate of his friend in his hands, Katsuki found himself feeling uncertain, an emotion he wasn't used to dealing with. "You…You think that did it?"

When he and the mind control freak had first stumbled into what he could only describe as some sort of control room, the screen had displayed each of their names in columns and rows. There was something like a status bar beside every name, all except for Iida's and Shinso's flashing the words 'connection lost.' 

That was enough for Katsuki to decide there was some sort of tie between the display and the quirk-suppressing cuffs. It hadn't taken him long to begin fiddling with the controls, but he'd paused in his interfering the second the indicators beside Iida's and Shinso's names had changed to 'disengaged.' 

His eyes drifted to Shinso curiously. 

The other boy had his cuffed wrist lifted before him, scrutinizing it with furrowed brows. "It's hard to tell…unless I'm using it, I'm not really conscious of my quirk." With a sigh, he dropped his wrist back to his side. "The only way for me to know for sure would be to try using it."

Katsuki sneered, his frame tensing. "Don't even think about using that shit on me."

Shinso only rolled his eyes in response. 

Tenya knew that the force propelling him was his quirk, but that didn't mean he knew how to control it. The only feeling he had that was out of the usual was a sudden burning in his formerly numb calves, but that wasn't a feeling he could manipulate. It was just something that happened whether he wanted it to or not. Whatever semblance of control he might've had over it was lost in his frantic need to run away from the lumbering form chasing after him. 

All he could do was fold his body in tight—careful not to curl his lower legs too close to his thighs in fear of burning himself with the fire from his calves—and brace for what was inevitably on it's way. He knew that when this ended, it would likely be with him slamming against something and breaking his bones. 

He could barely bear to look towards where his own body was propelling him, the friction of the air against his eyes making them water. Everything was a blur, too, streaks of purple light and dark masses flying by before he could process what they were. The absence of his glasses certainly didn't help the matter. 

Even with the drag of the air, a shift in the sights of the room around him caught his eye and made his heart race quicker. Up ahead, the shadows suddenly gave way to a yellowish light, a square patch of brightness indicating an exit to the massive room. 

Tenya's stomach curled. The approach of a doorway meant there was also a wall up ahead. If his approach was aimed even slightly in the wrong direction, he would be on course to break his skull against the concrete, and then he would have died being of no help to his friends whatsoever. He would end this ordeal the same way he had spent almost every minute of it: weak and utterly useless; a failure of a friend and a class president. 

Tenya would not accept that outcome, not for his own pride, but for the sake of his friends. 

The square patch of light was getting bigger, the exit growing closer and closer with each passing moment. 

It was difficult to maneuver his body when Tenya had no experience with his quirk and the power of the propulsion of his calves was so great. But he managed to twist his hips just so, correcting the course of his body to aim him through the open door. 

The shift in his momentum came at just the right moment, with only seconds to spare. He curled into himself as far as he could, his head missing the top of the door by centimeters. 

There was no time to celebrate the little victory. 

He may have missed the wall, but his quirk still sent him crashing into something else beyond the door instead, bones cracking beneath the impact.

Chapter Text

When Momo found the source of the fire, she'd hoped to find Todoroki, or maybe Bakugo, with his palms burning orange. 

What she hadn't expected was to find Kaminari passed out on the forest floor beneath the blond villain and on fire. 

Well, the flames were just barely catching at his leg, consuming the bottom of Kaminari's pants and the villain's knee-high sock, but Momo knew it wouldn't take long for the flames to spread. 

Her feet carried her down the rest of the slope, her sneakers stumbling over twigs and nearly catching on roots. Her hair was yanked and skin scraped by branches and leaves reaching out to stop her, but she shoved them away with frenzied hands. 

She stuttered to a stop at the side of the collapsed pair, her eyes burning when she saw the blood spilling down Kaminari's temple—nearly in a mimicry of the sight on her own face—and the thick ring of red around his neck. 

"Kaminari!" Momo shrieked for her friend, and when he didn't even flinch, she almost stopped breathing. 

She didn't know what to do. She'd managed to somehow lose the villain with the duplication quirk, but he would catch up to her eventually. There was another villain here, too, and she could wake up at any second. The flames grew stronger around them, forming a wall of fire and smoke on one side. She already felt as if she couldn't breathe, but now the smoke was further robbing her of that function. 

Her brain, usually quick to process the facts and make a decision, was lost. 

Momo shrieked when a burning branch crashed to the ground nearby, sparks dancing through the air like fireflies. The burning flakes skittered across her frame, reddened and irritated skin raising in their wake. 

The pain set something off in her. 

She didn't have time to panic anymore. She didn't have time for confusion or fear. If she wasted another second, the flames would be upon them and then both she and Kaminari would be dead because of her idleness.

She'd fled here in the hopes of finding one of her friends so that she didn't have to face a villain all on her own. She'd succeeded in finding a friend, but this friend needed her. There was no room for her cowardice now. She had to save him. She had to do something to make up for how utterly useless she'd been in freeing her friends, leaving Midoriya to take the brunt of breaking the quirk-suppressing cuffs on his own. 

She crouched down at Kaminari's side, uncaring of how the twigs and brush of the forest floor dug into the skin of her knees. Now that she was closer, she realized how awful he looked. He was pale and clammy, his breathing labored, a struggle which was no doubt worsened by the smoke and collapsed villain atop him.  

Momo found his unconscious form brought out some sort of…brutality within her. Maybe it was the fact that she was class vice president and therefore responsible for her classmates or maybe it was because Bakugo had finally started rubbing off on her after three years of acquaintance. But a deep pit of rage swelled within her as she took in the state of her friend. 

She needed to get this villain off of him, and she didn't care if it meant sending the girl closer to the flames. Her hands were harsher than they needed to be as they dug into the villain's side, shoving with all her might to send the villain's form toppling off of her friend. As she pushed against the girl, Momo clenched her teeth and a scream rattled her skull from deep within her chest, her throat growing sore from the sound. 

Oh, if her parents could see her now, with blood spilling from her head and her teeth barred as she sent another girl rolling towards a wall of flames. She felt they might be proud of her though, despite the lengths to which she'd been forced to go.

As the villain toppled over and limply thumped to the ground on the other side of Kaminari, Momo forced the blanket she'd been making with her quirk from her thigh. Her fingers tangled within it before it could flutter to the ground, and she immediately set about using it to smother the flames consuming the bottom half of her friend's leg. 

When the flames went out and she pulled the blanket back to make sure there were no more burning embers, she gagged. She decided then that it was a good thing Kaminari was unconscious. Had he been awake, he would've been in absolute agony. Momo didn't think she'd ever seen an injury so gruesome as the burns marring his lower leg. 

Another branch fell, closer this time, and Momo jolted at the wave of heat it unleashed. It was another reminder that their time was limited. 

Momo thought for a moment that she might be able to create a wagon or sled of some sort to get Kaminari to safety. But she quickly realized she didn't have the time to produce anything that big, nor the lipids she needed to do so. It'd been days since she'd eaten anything substantial, and already, she felt as if she was going to pass out. She couldn't afford to spend any more of her energy on her quirk. 

That meant she'd have to carry him, which, for a moment, seemed almost as impossible. He was an eighteen year old boy who worked out with his best friends at least twice a week, and she was just Momo, who enjoyed spending her time drinking tea and reading books. 

She didn't think she was strong enough to do it. Had this been just a gym class or field day or Friday night of messing around with friends, then she would've been able to carry him with only breaking a little sweat. 

But this was a burning forest. The smoke, the heat, and the stress were wearing on her, as if she wasn't already exhausted and starving and thirsty and injured. He would be completely limp in her hold, too, unable to do a thing to aid her in easing her burden. 

The panic and hopelessness almost won out again. 

But the necessity of what she needed to do to save her friend overtook Momo once more. She would not leave him here to die. She would do whatever was required of her to save him. 

Hands trembling with exhaustion, she began to tug him onto her back.

Mina's quirk was harmful to people, they'd learned. 

Eijirou grit his teeth against the burning splatter of acid across his forearm. 

Dammit. It'd taken him all the effort he could afford to get her over her fear of accidentally hitting him with her quirk. He'd needed her to use it so she could help him in their fight with more than just her fists, so he'd promised her that she wouldn't hurt him. He'd swore she wouldn't have to worry about him getting splashed by any of the fallout. His hardened skin could handle it, he'd said. 

And that hadn't been lipservice. Eijirou had believed it. Back in the facility, the men in the hazmat suits had exposed his hardened skin to all kinds of stressors, the extremity of their trials growing as his quirk proved to make him resistant to all kinds of deadly materials. Sharp edges. A bullet. Kilograms, tonnes, megatonnes, and gigatonnes of force. 

He'd been exposed to chemicals he hadn't been able to identify with no injury, too, but it seemed whatever composed the acid of Mina's quirk was different. Maybe it was something entirely new, which was somehow both a terrifying and awe-inspiring thought all at once. 

Whatever it was, Eijirou's hardened skin wasn't immune to it. Or, at least, it wasn't after having become so worn down. 

His and Mina's fight with the lizard guy had started nearly the instant they'd been spat out of the smoky portal. There'd barely been enough time for him to make sure she hadn't been injured in the fall from the portal before the lizard had shoved himself to his feet with a groan.

Eijirou had figured it was better to get the first hit in instead of waiting for the villain to attack, so he'd swung his hardened fist down. 

The lizard had parried with his short sword and the exchange of blows had continued like that for what felt like hours to Eijirou. His skin felt like it was chipping off, leaving sensitive and raw edges that burned in the open air. 

After he'd finally convinced her to use her quirk from a distance instead of trying to get in close, Mina's acid had only made the sting worse. 

Eijirou would never forgive himself for letting his pain show on his features.

Mina probably wouldn't forgive herself, either. 

Eijirou knew how fragile she could be despite her charismatic exterior. He'd watched her crumple to the floor after screaming at some thug twice her size in the streets, balling her eyes out and clinging to her friends. For as brave as she could be, her open heart felt everything twice as strong, it seemed. 

The only consolation in this hell of a situation was that lizard guy was faring worse against Mina's quirk than Eijirou was. His scales seemed to protect him to a degree, but the acid was slipping into the spaces between them, reaching the sensitive flesh beneath. His movements had grown slow and sloppy, his range of motion obviously hampered by the pain of his scales shifting over his acid-burned skin. 

If there was anything Eijirou had learned from wrestling, it was that any moment of weakness—even the slightest falter—was an opportunity to take the opponent down. 

When the lizard guy's eyes closed in a grimace after he'd had to twist his upper body to dodge a splash of Mina's acid, Eijirou charged forward. 

He was crouched low as he closed the distance between them, his arms spread wide. His shoulder met the villain's stomach and he wrapped his arms around his middle, continuing the charge like a bull that'd seen red. It was only a matter of seconds before they toppled to the ground, and the villain let out a grunt as the air was forced from his lungs.

Eijirou maneuvered into a pin atop the villain on instinct alone, one knee digging into his gut while the other knee grounded him on the forest floor. He pressed his forearm against the lizard's collarbone, withholding a hiss as the residual acid on the villain's skin burned his hands. 

Mina hurriedly snatched the villain's sword from where it'd fallen in their tumble, holding it far from the lizard's grasp. 

Eijirou put more of his weight on the villain's chest, struggling to hide how exhausted he was as he pressed, "Are you gonna stay down?"

The villain, on the other hand, was doing nothing to hide how he heaved for air. His chest rose and fell against Eijirou's weight, his eyes closed and his voice slightly hoarse, "Look, I…I ain't into fighting kids. 'Specially when you're already as scared as you are." 

Eijirou's brows furrowed. Maybe he was just too compassionate and quick to believe in others, but it didn't sound as if this villain was being disingenuous. Eijirou wondered if he hadn't charged first, could they have avoided this fight altogether?

The villain huffed again, his head falling back against the forest floor. "We're just…trying to change things. This world—the world that made us like this…It ain't right."

Eijirou swallowed, his arm losing some of its strength against the villain's throat. 

"It's not," Mina affirmed. 

Eijirou's gaze shot her way at the tears he heard in her voice. Sure enough, her inhuman eyes were glossy in the last lights of day, a few tears tracking down the pink skin of her cheeks. 

Her voice almost cracked as she carried on. "It's not right and I'm mad, too. I want to cry my eyes out. I want to rip these stupid horns out of my skull. I want to scream until I lose my voice."

Eijirou felt like he might burst into tears, too. Even if he'd faced his own version of hell, the suffering of his friends would always be more heartbreaking to him. "Mina…"

"But I'm not-" She suddenly choked off, blinking a few times as tears continued to fall despite her obvious attempts to stop them. The quiver of her voice grew to strength after she rapidly wiped the wetness from her face, her shoulders straightening as her features hardened enough to rival Eijirou's quirk. "I would never, ever want to do anyone else harm because of what I've been through. That's not the way to fix all of this."

Damn right, Eijirou thought. He turned back to the villain beneath him, pushing down once more not to trap him, but with the intent to get through to him. "There's still good people out there; people that will help make things right."

"They'll hate you," the villain spat back weakly. His voice wasn't full of malice. Just defeat. "They'll treat us all like freaks." His eyes finally slipped open, his focus drifting over to Mina. "But me and you most of all. Look at us. At this point…we ain't human anymore."

Eijirou almost screamed at him to take it back. Mina was still human, no matter what she looked like. If this villain wanted to say otherwise, then he was no better than the people he claimed would shun him. 

But Mina started again before he could. And as she spoke, he was grateful she'd stopped him from lashing out. This villain needed to hear of hope from someone who was just like him, someone who'd had their appearance altered to something unlike anything humanity had ever seen.

"I…I know that, but…" Mina started softly, shifting on her feet. She took a deep breath, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. "The people that act like that and treat me that way don't matter. As long as I have people that'll stick by me even when my skin's pinker than a Sakura tree, I think I'll be okay." Her eyes found Eijirou's and her lips lifted in a little grin. "I know I'll be okay."

Eijirou was shocked, at first. Or maybe touched would be a better word. Either way, it took him more than a few seconds to coax his features into softly smiling back in reassurance. She had a lot of trust in him and the rest of their friends. She was relying on them to be her support system, her pillars to bolster her through whatever reaction awaited her upon her entry back into the world. 

Eijirou swore he wouldn't let her down. The rest of their friends wouldn't either, he knew. 

"I don't have any of that."

Eijirou's gaze turned downward again at the pitiful mutter that left the villain's lips. 

"Well…" Mina threw the villain's sword aside into the brush, crouching down next to his head. Eijirou let up on the villain as she did, making way for the two of them to hold eye contact. "I'm not about to promise we'll be besties or anything, and I still think you need to face the consequences of what you and your buddies did to us."

Mina's hardened expression melted away into something softer. "But…if we get any sort of say or power in all this, I'll make sure you're treated like a human throughout it all. Green skin and scales or not, you were born into this world no different from anyone else."

The villain stared at her in silence before he sighed with a chuckle. "Real reassuring from a girl with hair the color of bubblegum."

"Oi!" Eijirou huffed, one his hands grabbing the villain's shoulder again. "She's saying we'll look out for you, jerk!"

"I know," the villain assured. It was hard to tell when his features were so amphibian, but Eijirou swore the lizard might be smiling as he said, "You kids…You're not so bad after all. Maybe a little naive-"

It was Mina's turn to indignantly interject. "Hey!"

"But you're a good bunch of kiddos," the lizard finished. He sighed, his arms splayed wide as he stared up at the darkening sky. "Maybe it's naive of me to say this, but…I don't know." He shook his head. 

Eijirou and Mina both waited quietly with furrowed brows for him to finish. 

"I guess maybe the world isn't as fucked up as I thought, is what I want to say."

The villain's voice was deep and rough with exhaustion. But there was something else beneath the surface, something that sounded a hell of a lot like hope.

With the setting of the sun, the forest was growing dark. 

Momo shrieked through clenched teeth as her foot stumbled over an unexpected bump in the dirt of the forest floor, her right foot twisting sideways as a majority of her weight fell onto it. Her ankle righted itself on instinct before she tumbled over entirely, but the joint ached in the wake of how her ankle had unnaturally stretched. She tensed her whole body, hands clenching beneath Kaminari's knees as her likely sprained ankle bore both her own weight and the weight of the boy on her back. 

She braced, unable to do much but breathe for a few moments. 

She was tired. It'd been days since she'd eaten anything, and using her quirk earlier had drained what little energy she'd had. Her adrenaline was fading, the weight of the boy on her back threatening to drag her to the earth. 

If she fell, she didn't think she'd be able to get back up. As it was, she wasn't sure she'd be able to take even a single step more. 

Her sprained ankle wobbled. 

Something burst through the brush some distance behind her. 

"Oi!"

A shudder raced across every inch of Momo's skin at the echo of the voice carrying down the mountainside. 

No. Not now. She'd thought she had lost the body-suited villain a while back, before she'd found Kaminari and the blonde girl passed out near the flames of the growing forest fire. 

She glanced back as well as she could, Kaminari's limp arm on her shoulder cutting off her full line of sight. 

The light gray parts of the villain's bodysuit seemed to glow beneath the rising moon, lighting him up like a beacon in the dark forest. 

Momo's heart hammered harder when she realized there were now two of the body-suited villains, the arms of the unconscious blonde girl slung over their shoulders as they chased after her. 

Across such a distance and in the dark, it was hard to be certain, but Momo swore she could almost see his mask contort with an angered expression. "How dare you leave my friend to die?"

Her one saving grace—the only thing that gave her hope—was that with the drag of the unconscious villain, her pursuer seemed to be struggling to move forward just as she was.

Momo clutched tightly onto Kaminari once more, her mind and heart knowing she needed to move now if she wanted to maintain the distance between herself and the villain. Her body would protest with pain and fatigue and heaviness, but her resolve was unwavering. She could only hope against all hope that her will would somehow pave a way forward.  

What mattered most was the first step. That was all she needed, then she could acclimate to the pain and build momentum. 

As she braced for it, she thought of Iida, preparing for a sprint. If only she could call upon his speed, escape would be in her grasp in the matter of minutes. 

She dug her fingers even further into the flesh of Kaminari's legs, clenching her jaw as her injured ankle bore their weight when her other foot shifted forward.

The pain was manageable, she told herself. She could do it. She had to do it. For Kaminari. 

She took another stuttering step down the slope. And another. One step tumbled into the next, and soon she was sliding down the mountain, loose dirt and rocks giving way beneath her feet. Her stumble turned into a stride and then to something that almost resembled a jog. 

She was gaining momentum. 

But, unlike she'd hoped, the pain was not going away. 

Momo grit her teeth, screams slipping through the cracks as her eyes burned with tears. 

It hurt. She was obviously only making whatever damage she'd done to her injured ankle in her near tumble worse. She'd thought the ache would be something she could acclimate to and ignore once she got going, but the dull ache within her joint had grown into flaming agony. Never before had she felt such pain, her ankle shrieking beneath not only her own weight, but the weight of the friend on her back. 

It narrowed her mind and clouded her vision. She tried to force it out, devoting her eyes and thoughts to the trees and rocks and brush that lay before her. 

And it worked. For a while. 

But she didn't know how long she could keep it up. The pain was always there, gnawing at the corners of her mind. The villain was still at her back. She could hear him stumbling after her, muttering curses and threats and promises of a truce. 

There was suddenly something—or someone—coming at her from the front as well. She could barely make it out in the darkness, but there was a figure winding through the trees at her front, obviously charging towards her.

She couldn't handle another villain. She could barely keep herself and her friend safe from the one at their backs.

Momo couldn't stop her momentum, though. The slope and her exhaustion was dragging her down. It was all she could do to stay on her feet. 

She hoped that, by some miracle, her momentum would allow her slip right past them. There was only a small chance of it, given how they were on track to collide head-on. But when she could barely manage to avoid not tumbling to the ground, those little hopes and chances were all she had left to rely on. 

She was both motivated and made anxious by Kaminari's weight at her back. Her need to save him gave her strength and perseverance. If not for her need to save him, she probably would've slumped to the ground a long time ago. 

But she was scared for him, too. He was bloody and burnt and unconscious, and if he died here, at the hands of these villains, it would be her fault. 

She renewed the strength of her grip on him once more. 

The figure at her front was closer, their black clothes nearly blending in with the shadows of the darkening forest. The bright blond hair atop their head, though, was unmistakable. 

Momo's eyes went wide. 

"Ponytail!" Bakugo screeched, close enough now for her to see the fury in his red eyes as they zeroed in on the trio of villains behind her. "Get down!"

Momo finally gave in to the weight that'd been threatening to drag her down since this chase between her and the body-suited villain had started. Her body hit the dirt and skidded across it, stray rocks and brush nipping at her skin. She lost her grip on Kaminari, his limp body tumbling down the slope beside hers as Bakugo unleashed an explosion through the air above their heads. 

Between the triple assault of sensation from her ears ringing, her head throbbing, and her body skidding across rocks and other sharp edges, Momo was surprised she managed to remain conscious. There were a few moments where the world almost slipped away from her, but feeling and awareness never quite slipped from her fully. 

When friction finally brought her body to rest, she clutched at her head and just breathed for a few moments. There were too many alarms and aches firing off in her body for her to do anything else. It wasn't until the ringing in her ears finally subsided that she dared to open her eyes. 

Smoke and dirt drifted through the air before her, making it even harder to see in the dark night. 

Kaminari's prone form was just before her, his pale skin standing in stark contrast against the darkness of the dirt. He was still unconscious.

Knowing there could very well still be danger nearby, Momo shakily peeled her upper body off of the ground, intent on finding out what had become of Bakugo and the other villains. Her arms quivered as they supported her weight, but she ignored their trembling and turned her gaze upward. 

Bakugo was standing only a short distance up the slope, his right hand smoking as he ripped off the remnants of the bandages he'd had wrapped around his palms. His back was to her, his form illuminated by the decimated embers of the brush that'd gotten caught in his explosion. 

The double of the body-suited villain was gone, reduced to nothing but a splatter of mud slowly dripping down the base of a nearby tree. 

The blonde girl was slumped in a bush, still unconscious and showing no signs of waking. 

The original body-suited villain was slowly pushing himself to his knees, recovering from having been blown aside. Part of his mask was torn, the left, upper side of his face exposed and a chunk of wild, blonde hair popping out of the hole.

Momo's eyes went wide. It'd been easier to mentally refer to this man as a villain and justify her fear of him when she hadn't been able to see his face, almost as if she'd been ignoring the fact that a human was behind the mask. She felt guilty for the thoughts she had about him now that she could see part of his face, tears pooling in his eye and his irises quivering. 

Momo couldn't bring herself to move, and Bakugo stood still, too, uncertain as the body-suited villain slowly brought a hand to the hole in his mask. 

His voice was small, a far cry from the teasing and threatening tones he'd jumped between earlier. "I'm…I'm splitting. If I'm not wrapped up, I'll…I'll fall apart…"

Momo couldn't make sense of what he was trying to say. But, undeniably, his fragility flooded her with pity. 

Momo jumped when the bushes at her back rustled. But the urge to flee bled from her body when Shinso stepped up beside her, his eyes narrowed in on the kneeling villain. His voice was low as he commanded, "Don't move."

The villain startled, clutching his head with one hand while he began crawling away with the other. The tables had turned. Now, it was the villain who stared at them with fear as he tried to flee. "Stay…Stay back! Don't come-”

His voice dropped off, his visible eye going blank as his iris dulled, almost as if the life had been sucked right out of him. His efforts to run came to a halt, the tension draining from his frame. 

Momo was frozen in apprehension, confused and terrified at the possibilities of what this sudden shift in the villain's behavior meant. Had he finally snapped?

It wasn't until the next words left Shinso's mouth and the villain immediately followed them that she understood. 

"Go to sleep."

The villain immediately slumped down, both Momo and Shinso flinching at how hard his head hit the forest floor. 

Shinso had used his quirk. 

Momo looked to him slowly to find that he appeared somewhat guilty about it, his feelings no doubt magnified by the potential head trauma he'd just caused. 

Despite his obvious remorse, Momo still felt somewhat uneasy at seeing his quirk in action. 

She knew several of her friends had asked him to use it to assist them and it wasn't as if he had just used it for any sort of great evil. But it still felt…wrong, somehow, that such a power existed. Momo knew they were all lucky that Shinso was on their side and not the villains'. 

In her silent examination of Shinso, Momo hadn't realized Bakugo had moved to check on Kaminari. A subtle sigh slipped through his lips, the tension in his brows fading slightly when he realized his friend would make it. 

Momo flinched when Bakugo's focus suddenly jumped to her, his eyes narrowing when his gaze ran over where her legs were still partially sprawled out. "Shit, Ponytail. You came all the way down that mountain with your ankle looking like that?"

Momo drew her knees into her chest slowly, careful not to drag her injured foot against the ground too harshly. "I…I had to. I didn't have a choice. I had to get Kaminari somewhere safe."

Bakugo regarded her in silence for a moment with a clenched jaw before he huffed and stood once more, his attention turning back to the duo of unconscious villains. His frame was tense as he stood before them, glaring down at them with the ruthlessness he used to be known for before he'd softened up during their junior year. "Make some rope or something. Quick."

Momo knew what he was planning and shook her head, cautiously pushing herself up to her feet. "I…I don't think we should leave them here. There's a fire up the mountain. I'm sure you saw it."

Bakugo scoffed. "These fuckers can burn on earth and in hell for all I care."

Momo still heard him despite the way he averted his frame. She felt a bit like Iida as she scolded. "Bakugo!" 

"Just do whatever you want!" He turned his back on her fully as he began to trudge through the brush in the direction she'd just descended from. "I don't have time for this. I'm going back up the mountain."

"What?" Momo breathed in disbelief, stumbling after him for a few steps. "That's where the fire is!"

"And it's also where that place in the mountain is," he said, as if that was enough of an answer and an explanation on it's own. "I recognize the way the mountain slopes here. Dunce Face almost broke his foot when we were coming down it earlier."

Momo bit the inside of her bottom lip for a moment at the thought that she had just done exactly that. She took a deep breath to gather her strength and resolve, still trying to ignore the throbbing in her ankle as she took a step closer to Bakugo. "You're going back there? Why?"

"Because that's where Deku is," he answered without wasting a single second on silence. 

She couldn't fight against that, Momo knew. The relationship between Bakugo and Midoriya was…complicated. Even after having been their classmate and friend for nearly three years, she still didn't fully understand it's workings, and she didn't think she ever would. She'd somewhat learned to predict their interactions and decisions regarding one another, though. She knew that even if Bakugo was bleeding out, he'd drag himself up the mountain if that's what he needed to do to chase after Midoriya.  

Though her hopes of deterring Bakugo weren't high, Momo still wasn't sold on letting him run into a forest fire. "How do you know?"

"I just know, okay?" Bakugo shifted on his feet heavily, his features pinched into annoyance as he turned back around to face her. "It's like he's got some fucking…ping going off. That's how it's always been with the nerd."

Momo pressed her lips into a thin line. As class vice president—as his friend—she still didn't want to let him go. She knew she couldn't stop him, and it made her chest clench. 

Her voice was quiet; a gentle plea. "Bakugo."

"Find yourself a stick or something to walk with and let the mind control freak take Dunce Face down the mountain first. Then come back for these assholes if you're so worried about them." He turned his back on her, his voice almost a growl with how low he spoke. "I'm going to join the fight."

Izuku was roused by the sensation of something tugging at his arm, his head lolling to the side as his lower body dragged against the floor. 

Izuku had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. It could've been seconds, a minute, or even hours. Just like they had for nearly three months, the fluorescent lights of the facility droned on unchanging, robbing him of any sense of time.  

There was another tug from the vice grip around his wrist, his body dragging another foot or so across the floor. His shoulder ached at the strain, a dull moan slipping through his lips. 

The tugging at his arm suddenly ceased. 

Izuku tried to lift his gaze to look at whoever had his wrist in a chokehold, but his head hurt too much and, holy hell, the lights in this place were way too bright. 

Luckily enough, the person who'd taken on his weight was more than eager to respond to his waking. 

"Midoriya!"

Izuku blinked away the shapes floating through his field of vision, his eyes narrowing as worried, red eyes came into view. The lights were still glaring down at him with what felt like the light of a thousand suns and the face that slowly emerged from the blinding whiteness was missing one of its most defining features. But even without his glasses, Izuku would be able to recognize his friend anywhere. 

His name escaped Izuku in a tired hum. "Iida…"

Iida must've overestimated how awake Izuku was. He let Izuku's wrist slip from his grip, something like a squawk escaping him when Izuku crashed to the floor instead of holding himself up. "My apologies!"

Izuku, sprawled across the floor with his body heavy like lead, weakly waved a hand to dismiss his friend's concerns as he slurred, "...is fine."

In blatant honesty, Izuku was still too out of it to really care about being dropped. He just wanted to sleep. 

He knew he couldn't, though, but he was having a hard time remembering why. 

There was some shifting around at his side. Despite the soreness of his eyes, he opened them to find Iida kneeling beside him, carefully and gently sliding a limp body off of his shoulders. 

Izuku's brows furrowed. Was that…Uraraka?

The pieces slowly came flooding back in, but thinking too much about them made Izuku's head pound even harder. 

He remembered where he was and the situation he and his friends were in, but the exact details of what had led to the present were a little…fuzzy. 

As far as he could tell, he, Iida, and Uraraka weren't in any immediate danger. Given Iida's willingness to spare him a moment for rest, it seemed they could take some time to regroup. 

Izuku let his eyes fall shut once more, his brain settling on a thought that'd occurred to him subconsciously the instant he'd realized it was Iida who had been dragging him along. "You…You can stand."

Beside him, Iida let out something like a huff. Izuku didn't think he'd ever heard his friend sound so sardonic as he muttered, "I can do much more than just stand."

Izuku quirked an eye open curiously. 

Iida held his gaze with his lips pressed into a thin line. 

They stared at each other in silence for a moment before Iida shifted his weight onto one of his hips so he could partially extend one of his legs out to the side. 

Both of Izuku's eyes went wide as his eyes trailed down Iida's extended leg. "Oh my God…"

Iida had pipes extending out the backs of his calves, their metal catching the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. 

"I know," Iida remarked, his lips curling in distaste. "They're unsightly."

"What are they?"

"Some sort of…exhaust pipes, I suppose." Iida slumped down into himself. "My quirk is…I think there may be some sort of propulsion system in my legs."

Izuku studied them in silence for a moment, his thoughts lagging and struggling to catch up. 

"That's…cool. Weird, but…cool…I think." Izuku's barely functioning brain couldn't manage to put his thoughts into words. But…was it just some sort of insane coincidence that the kid who had one of the fastest mile runs of any high schooler in Japan was given a quirk that granted him speed?

Now that Izuku thought about it, a lot of his friend's quirks seemed to make sense when put into comparison with their personalities and interests. Kacchan's temper was explosive. Kirishima's resolve was unyielding. Todoroki was mostly cool-headed, but his ire could be just as fiery as Kacchan's when someone struck a nerve. Asui was the ace of their school's swim team. Jirou's greatest love was music and the art of sound. Uraraka had wanted nothing more than to float among the stars when she was a kid. 

Was the yellow-eyed man in the mask right, then? A person's quirk was innately tied to who they were as a person?

Izuku was pulled from his ponderings when Iida let out a little chuckle. "Midoriya, you never change." 

Izuku stared back at his friend blankly. Had he been muttering again? 

Embarrassment aside, it'd been nice to hear Iida laugh. It felt like it'd been ages since he'd heard such a sound from any of his friends, and it made him feel lighter than he'd felt in months. 

"Can you walk?" Iida inquired gently. "I haven't been able to make much progress carrying the two of you on my own."

Izuku's eyes drifted to where Iida had set Uraraka's unconscious form. How on earth had Iida managed to drag them both along? For how long had he taken on their weight? Iida was lucky Uraraka was relatively tiny, Izuku supposed. 

Regardless of what Iida had managed thus far and if he could continue on like he had while Izuku was unconscious, Izuku refused to be a burden any longer. 

Before he could be sure if he was even physically capable of carrying his own weight, he assured Iida, "Yeah, just…just give me a second." 

"Good." Iida nodded sharply. "There's…there's something I very much would prefer to not allow to catch up to us."

Whatever reprieve Izuku had been relishing slipped through his fingers at that. It seemed they weren't as safe as Izuku had been counting on. He had been hoping that the threat he'd faced in his last waking moment had disappeared.

Izuku took a deep breath as he stared at the ceiling, his mind slowly recalling how it had crashed down on him and Uraraka not too long ago. "What happened to Shigaraki? Did he get knocked out, too?"

It took Iida so long to respond that, for a moment, Izuku began to think that Iida didn't know. 

But Iida did speak up eventually, his voice strained as he breathed out, "I...I broke him."

Izuku nearly choked at Iida's choice of words. "What?"

Iida took a deep breath, distracting himself from thinking too much about his words as he began to gather Uraraka into his arms again. "When my quirk first activated, I couldn't control it. I crashed into him, just after the two of you had fallen unconscious, I think. I…" He froze with Uraraka's arm thrown over his shoulder, poised to stand but still crouched to the floor. "...I didn't want to get close enough to him to see if the impact had…If he was…"

"You don't have to finish," Izuku assured his friend, ignoring the pounding of his head as best he could as he finally curled his upper body off the floor. 

The concept of death was very real and present in this facility. It'd taunted Izuku ever since he'd been told his friends hadn't been found after that night in the forest. It lingered even still after the threat from Shigaraki. 

The thought that he or his friends might be the cause of someone's death had permeated the back of Izuku's mind, too. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge it, but he was a person of logic, first and foremost. When they'd all been given powers they could barely control—some with innately destructive properties—he knew it'd be naive to say that no one would get hurt as a result of their quirks just because they didn't want to cause anyone harm. One misfire of Kacchan's, Todoroki's, Kaminari's, or Mina's quirks. One fall onto the head or neck or from too tall a height after being released from Uraraka's power. One hit from his own quirk in the right place, and that would be it.

Whether they meant to or not, their quirks had the power to take lives. 

Izuku could only hope that such a situation had not come to be. If it had, then Izuku would be there to help his friend through it. But when they couldn't be sure about whether or not Shigaraki was dead, it wasn't worth devoting their attention to. For now, he decided to avert the conversation elsewhere. 

His gaze found the limp form of his other friend, her body slumped against Iida's side. He did his own scan of her form as he asked, "Is Uraraka okay?"

Iida seemed just as eager to move on from talking about death. His voice picked up again, shifting to hold Uraraka more securely to his side before he slowly stood. "She doesn't seem to be too badly injured. It looked like you took the brunt of the collapse."

Izuku huffed. Yeah…and it felt like it, too. If his body had been screaming at him before, then the volume was dialed up to a thousand now. 

If it'd spared Uraraka, though, Izuku knew it was worth it. As far as he could see, she'd only gained a handful of new scrapes and bruises along her arms. 

It seemed his attempt to shield her head with his body had worked, given her lack of new injuries and the aching in his back. He'd have a colorful map of bruises in a few hours, he was sure. 

Despite that pain, ever so slowly, he readied himself to stand. "Let's get out of here, okay?"

Izuku had barely managed to get his own feet beneath himself before he was stumbling into the wall, his broken wrist—which he'd forgotten about until that moment—thrumming with pain as he used it to catch himself against the surface. His shattered ankle—which he'd also forgotten about—threatened to give beneath his weight. 

But those two centers of pain, his wrist and his foot, couldn't hope to compare to the torrent in his head. He pressed a hand against his temple, his jaw clenched and lips pulled back in a hiss. 

Over the swelling of sensation in his skull, he barely heard Iida ask, "Are you sure you're alright?" 

"My foot and wrist are definitely broken," Izuku ground out through clenched teeth. "And I…I think I might have a concussion. These lights…my head…"

He'd definitely been hit in the back of the head by something. Being free of gravity had not spared him from its ruthlessness, it seemed, the broken chunks of ceiling crashing down upon him without mercy. His head throbbed, his back and arms screaming in the wake of being battered.

"Would you like to rest for a little longer?"

"No," Izuku immediately denied, taking deep breaths in an effort to soothe the pain. "No, we…we have to keep moving."

He heard Iida shuffle closer. "Midoriya-”

"It'll be okay." 

In truth, Izuku felt like he was lying to his friend. He didn't know how long he'd be able to stay on his own feet, and at this point, it didn't seem as if they would ever escape this hell. 

But Izuku was nothing if not unrelenting. His arm and leg may be shattered, but he had two of each, didn't he? He could still stand so long as he had some form of support. He could stay conscious so long as he had his friends to look out for. 

He swallowed, forcing himself to take another step forward, pressing his shoulder into the wall to use it as support. He pulled his lips into what he hoped was a smile and not a poorly concealed grimace. "See? I'll manage. We'll just…go slow. You take care of Uraraka and I'll take care of myself."

Iida stared back at him in silence, his features not shifting in the slightest. 

Izuku could tell his friend didn't believe him. But they didn't have much of a choice, did they? Izuku was well aware that this may be their only chance for escape, and Iida had made it sound as if they weren't out of danger just yet. As far as Izuku was concerned, they didn't have time for him to rest any longer. 

Not knowing what else to say, Izuku held Iida's gaze, silently pleading with his friend to just go along with it. 

After a few moments, Iida relented with a sigh. "Alright. But let me know when you need a break." 

"Thank you, Iida," Izuku hummed, bracing himself against the wall once more. 

With their resolve settled between them, they began the painstaking task of moving forward. 

From a distance, Shouto thought his fight with his older brother might be something to marvel at. He could envision the sight in his head: brilliant flames of orange and blue clashing in the darkness of night, their glow reflecting on the cresting peaks of the waves crashing into the shore. 

Even though he was the source of half of the spectacle and entangled in the very midst of those flames, Shouto could hardly believe the vision before him. Never before had he seen a sight so as unnatural as this, with flames curling away from both his own and his brother's skin, their heat turning the ice Shouto had made into steam. 

Touya's flames in particular were extraordinary, Shouto thought distantly. Their color was unlike anything he'd seen before, so vibrant and blue he might've been fooled into thinking they were cool to the touch. 

But Shouto knew the truth of those flames. What they represented was clear. They were Touya's rage and resent brought into physical form. Their fuel was the hatred Touya harbored for the man who had dragged both of them into this, the same man who brought them into the world: Todoroki Enji. 

Touya had taken the quirk he'd received through their father and turned it into a weapon to use against him. His flames would not be extinguished. They were unrelenting. Imperishable. 

Shouto had witnessed their ruthlessness firsthand; had felt their heat stinging against his skin. The air around them was scorching, and it burned Shouto's lungs as he desperately breathed it in. 

His fight with his brother felt like it was lasting ages. The sun had long since finished its descent into the horizon, the stars taking up residence in the inky sky in its wake. 

But even the darkness of the night could not mask the backlashes Touya's quirk was inflicting on his own body. As he swung his arm in an arc, his blue flames illuminated his face. Shouto's insides curled at the fresh burns spreading up his brother's jawline and chin. 

Despite the gruesomeness of the fresh burns, there wasn't a trace of pain or regret on Touya's features. Shouto searched for his brother's eyes through the flames, his heart clenching when he saw there was only single-minded persistence in his manic, blue irises.

Even the burning of his own skin would not make Touya cease. 

For the first time, Shouto understood what Touya had meant when he said Shouto had the stronger quirk. Touya's flames may be hotter and more far-reaching than Shouto's, but Shouto had been given ice to balance out the heat of the flames. If Touya continued on like this, the heat of his own flames would kill him. 

Shouto had to stop him before that happened. 

It'd been nine years since they'd last seen each other. To Shouto, Touya was nearly a stranger now, a distant memory that belonged to a brutal and lonely childhood. He remembered little more of Touya than seeing and hearing his brother from a distance: his hunched form sneaking out the front door and his hoarse, rage-filled voice arguing with their father.

When Touya had left the Todoroki home, Shouto had only been nine. At the time, he hadn't thought much of it. In truth, he'd barely even noticed a difference. Their family was already broken, and even as a child, Shouto had been too caught up in it all to be concerned with the disappearance of someone he barely saw. It wasn't until he was older and their family had begun to heal that he realized how big a wound Touya's absence had caused for his mother and siblings. 

Before all of this—the kidnapping, experimentation, and fighting—Shouto had thought about what he might say to his eldest brother if they ever happened to find each other again in the future. He'd never been able to decide whether he would blame his older brother for the emotional hurt he'd inflicted on their family when he left or sympathize with him.  

Now that they'd been brought together once more—though the circumstances of their reunion were something Shouto never could have foreseen—Shouto felt like he was regressing. The resilience and apathy he'd spent years building up was gone. Watching Touya suffer at the hands of the flames their father had given him brought out the screaming child within Shouto, the same child that'd pleaded for his father to stop beating his mother, to let him play with brother and sister. 

"Touya! Stop!" His voice ached with the volume he needed to cry out over the roaring of the flames. He couldn't be sure if his eyes burned because of the heat or because of the budding tears. "You're going to kill yourself!"

Touya lunged for him, blasting a stream of flames. "Don't act like you care!"

"I do!" Shouto barely managed to put up a wall of ice to fend off the piercing fire, his defense crackling and almost immediately evaporating into steam. "I care because you're my big brother!"

Throughout this ordeal, Touya had used their sibling status as a taunt. 

Now, Shouto was using it as a plea.

Shouto and Touya were practically strangers. 

But Shouto had felt that way about Fuyumi and Natsuo once, too. Despite their painful past, Shouto had managed to find genuine connection and care with two of his older siblings. They were bound by blood, but they'd become more than just their genetic connection as they'd gotten to know each other once the rigid separation of their younger years had faded. 

Shouto had begun to find reconciliation with his mother, too. The scars of the past wouldn't fade, but the future was undecided. Whatever waited for them, they'd work towards it together. 

Shouto didn't care if he and Touya were practically strangers, and they could address their father's role in all of this later. Touya was still a part of their broken family, and now that they were on the mend, Shouto felt Touya deserved to be a part of it still. Shouto knew his mom, Fuyumi, and Natsuo would feel the same way, too. 

Touya said nothing in response to Shouto's plea, his own flames ripping through him and towards Shouto without end. 

But as Shouto's own spurt of flames raced past Touya's face, the gleam of something wet sliding down Touya's cheeks caught Shouto's eye for an instant. It could have been puss or blood from the burns climbing across Touya's skin. But Shouto chose to cling to the small hope that Touya was just as overwhelmed by all of this as he was. 

That small chance, whether or not it was real, gave Shouto the final shove he needed to take himself further, to take a step beyond anything he'd done thus far. He knew taking that step would exhaust him, so he couldn't screw up. If he didn't really go for it, then he'd be his own undoing and Touya would end up killing them both.

With a deep breath—the air burning his lungs as it rushed down his throat—Shouto mentally prepared to push himself to his limits.

There was no way he'd be able to beat Touya when it came to firepower. Touya flames were, without question, far stronger. Shouto knew he'd have to rely on his ice alone. With the heat of both his own and Touya's flames, he'd have to go incredibly cold to actually do something worthwhile before his ice melted, colder than he'd ever gone before.

It was terrifying to be forced to rely on something he wasn't even sure he could pull off. But Shouto didn't have a choice. 

When Touya charged at him again, Shouto didn't use his ice to dodge the attack like he had the last hundred times. Instead, he tried to parry with his own flames while he swept his right hand low, ice sprouting on the sand as the tips of his fingers brushed against it. Touya's flames broke through his own and Shouto screamed through clenched teeth as the hotter flames curled against his skin.

Shouto did his best to ignore the scalding of his left forearm in favor of finishing off his attack. He could pass out later, when these next few moments had found their resolution. 

His right hand finished its arc, the ice that had been building on the sand shooting upwards as Shouto raised his palm skyward. 

Touya made a sound like a grunt as the ice collided with his middle, another pained noise escaping him as the ice continued its upward crawl and began to encase his body. 

It was hard for Shouto to push the attack to its full fruition, not only for the strain it put on his quirk and body, but for the obvious pain Touya was in as frigid ice dragged against his ragged skin and locked his body in place. Shouto had to cleave deep within himself for the strength to keep pressing forward. If seeing Touya in pain was going to bring out the screaming, terrified child within Shouto, then Shouto would take advantage of all the anger that he'd broiled in then, the same anger that'd consumed him before his friends had blown a hole in it and helped him find some semblance of peace. 

He yelled through grit teeth as he drove his right hand upward a few more inches, the ice following his command and encasing his brother up to his chin. 

Touya let out a wordless screech, his trapped hands glowing blue beneath their ice prison. 

Shouto slammed his right hand against the ice, immediately sealing the holes his brother's quirk had created. 

Touya shrieked again, the ice beginning to steam.

Shouto braced himself against the ice stronger, layers and layers of fresh ice spreading out from beneath his right palm.

Face-to-face like this, Shouto realized that Touya was crying. 

Shouto was fairly certain there were tears running down his own face, too, but his body had become too numb with the cold to feel them. 

Something shining, whether loose tears or flakes of frost, flew from Shouto's cheeks as he lurched. "Stop, Touya!" 

His plea overlapped with Touya's own screaming, but Shouto drove forward whether Touya had heard him or not. The entire glacier Shouto had created trembled as he created another layer of ice across it, his control of where the ice built up slipping the more he exhausted himself. 

When Shouto was nearly encased in ice himself, the pillars of it consuming his arms and jutting up near his face and shoulders, Touya finally relented, the blue glow of his flames within the glacier spurting out. He let out a frustrated scream, his splitting and bleeding lips pulled back across his teeth and dying them red with blood.

"Why won't you kill me?" Touya ground out, his voice hoarse from all of the screaming and crying and burning. The flames may have gone out now, but Touya's tears still fell. The lines they traced down his face were stained red with blood.

"You're still…my big brother," Shouto huffed, his own throat feeling raw. With just a little heat from his left hand, he managed to free his own arms from where he'd nearly entrapped them in ice. He stumbled backwards with the force it took to pull them free, but he managed to stay on his feet somehow. There was one last thing he needed to do before he'd let himself topple over. 

"Our father's the monster. Not me." No quirk was necessary for Shouto's final move. His right fist flew forward, slamming against Touya's jaw with all the force he could muster.

It wasn't the strongest punch Shouto had ever thrown, but it was enough. Touya's head whipped sideways, smacking against some of the ice that'd built up around his shoulders. His chin hit the ice at his chest as his neck went limp and his eyelids slipped closed. 

Shouto stayed still, staring at his brother for a moment to make sure he was really unconscious. 

After their fight, Touya's previously unmarred face was destroyed. The burns had finished their climb up his throat, consuming his jawline and lower lip. The skin beneath his eyes, too, was shiny and peeling away. The last punch Shouto had delivered certainly hadn't done anything to lessen the damage.

With how cold his body had become, Shouto didn't even feel the pain in his knuckles that throwing a punch usually left behind. In fact, he didn't feel much of anything. He was just cold. 

It was strange to collapse without feeling the impact of his body against the ground. He was only vaguely aware of how he fell, his focus instead on the vapor trails puffing out of his mouth and curling into the air. He'd have bruises on his knees and shoulder, no doubt, from how his body crumpled. 

Soon enough, he was looking at the horizon instead of his brother, his cheek mashed against the sand. With the setting of the sun, it was hard to make out. There was only a subtle divide between the starry sky and the black of the ocean. 

He hoped Asui had made it to land. It was so far away.

His hands were sprawled out in the sand before him, one looking burnt and raw while the other was coated in frost. 

Both of them were trembling. 

His eyes drifted to the horizon again, but when the line of it began to blur, Shouto let his eyes slip shut instead.  

Izuku was fairly certain they'd never make it out of this place. 

Iida swore he had somewhat of an idea of where they were and where they needed to go to get out. When his other friends had still been stuck here after Izuku, Todoroki, Uraraka, Kirishima, and Jirou had found their way to Touya's cabin, they'd apparently explored and drawn up a rough map of this place. 

Izuku wanted to believe in his friend. But it felt as if they'd been walking for hours and he'd seen nothing but hallways full of doors. The aching of his body and slowness of his pace certainly weren't contributing to how he processed the passing of time, but this was at least the seventh hallway they'd turned down, and nothing seemed to indicate they were getting any closer to the exit. Todoroki had left behind a trail of fire damage in his escape that led right to it, but none of that was in sight. 

It was just door after door after door after door. 

Iida wasn't saying much anymore. Izuku wasn't going to press about it, but he suspected whatever wave of adrenaline Iida had been riding since his quirk activated was fading. His steps had grown less steady and sure, his legs visibly shaking and his form growing progressively more and more hunched over beneath Uraraka's limp weight. It looked as if he was struggling to stay standing and moving just as Izuku was, so Izuku decided to keep quiet, too, to help his friend from becoming distracted. 

The only sounds in the hall were the scuffing of their feet, the occasional wince or grunt from both Izuku and Iida, and a few quiet groans and coughs from Uraraka.

Izuku hoped she would wake up soon. He was worried by the fact that she was still unconscious, and he couldn't deny that if she were to wake up and be capable of walking on her own, it would certainly lessen Iida's load, though Izuku was sure Iida would gladly offer to continue carrying her if needed. 

Izuku was about to suggest they take a break once they rounded the next corner. He didn't want to disrupt their momentum, and he knew it'd be hard to get moving again once he'd stopped. But he could barely catch his breath, and having even just five minutes of stillness might lessen the pounding of his head. 

But as they actually came around the next corner, any plans he had of rest slipped from his mind. 

His gaze slowly drifted upwards from where he'd been tracking his feet in his best attempt at staying upright, his side still slouched against the wall. He froze as soon as he caught sight of a hulking figure down the hall, their form a fuzzy shadow in the fluorescent lights droning overhead. 

Iida jolted to a stop right beside him, his next words escaping him in a whisper. "No…How did it catch up to us?"

Izuku swallowed, his heart palpitating. He wanted to turn right back around and run, but, for a moment, the fear of that hulking form was paralyzing. 

His words were entangled with quiet breaths, probably barely audible, but he couldn't manage to speak any louder. "Iida…What is that?"

"I somehow awakened it after I came out of the portal." Iida adjusted his grip on Uraraka—obviously preparing to keep her close for whatever happened next—and she groaned as she was jostled, her head lolling against her chest. "It came out of this cylinder filled with…with something purple when I fell onto some sort of control system."

Izuku's eyes widened. That hulking figure belonged to one of those things? 

He thought back to what the yellow eyed man in the mask had told him about the massive forms in the cylinders filled with purple liquid. They were the subjects of an experiment not unlike the one he'd endured; monsters created by having more than one quirk shoved into them. 

The thought that he could've ended up like that was a terrifying thought all on its own. 

But that was a nightmare that would have to torment his thoughts at another time. 

The hulking form shifted, a deep rumbling sounding as it inhaled and turned towards them. 

With the great span of the distance between them and the fuzziness of his vision, Izuku couldn't track the movement of the monster's irises or see if it even had any—all Izuku could see glowing splotches of yellow where its eyes should have been. But it was obvious the thing had sighted them, its oddly shaped head tilting as if in consideration. 

A few seconds passed in silence.

Then, the monster took in a grating exhale. 

In his peripherals, Izuku saw Iida visibly tense. "Midoriya…Run."

The quaking sound of the beast's footfall echoed down the hall as it took a step towards them. 

Izuku didn't need any sort of confirmation on whether this thing was hostile or not. He didn't want to risk anything by believing in the chance this thing wouldn't attack them. The instant it moved, Izuku whipped around as fast as he could. Iida did the same, the slapping of their feet against the tile bouncing between the walls of the hallway as they ran in the direction they'd just come from. 

With a noise like a screech sounding out from behind them, Izuku knew the monster was charging after them. 

Nothing about the situation placed the odds in their favor. 

Iida could barely run, his legs weakened by the months he'd been unable to walk and all of the modifications that'd come with his quirk. He visibly nearly toppled over a few times, one of his legs suddenly slipping out from under him at an odd angle and leaving him to scramble to stay on his feet. 

As if it weren't already hard enough for him to continue forward, Uraraka was still unconscious where she was clutched to his side. Despite how small she was in comparison to Iida's larger frame, Iida was still very visibly struggling with how her limp, added weight affected his center of balance. 

And even with the additional incentive of a monster at their heels, Izuku couldn't manage to push his speed past a hurried stumble. Before their encounter with the beast, he'd been using the wall as a pseudo-crutch to keep as much weight off of his broken ankle as possible. Now that he'd turned around, his injured foot was away from the wall and left to bear his weight without any support.

Izuku was already biting back screams with every step. He didn't know how much longer he could endure it. If they didn't find a way out of this chase quickly, he was certain his ankle would give out at any moment. 

Fleeing was barely working, but fighting didn't seem to be an option, either. The beast chasing after them was massive. There was no way any of them, or even all three of them together, stood a chance at overpowering it physically. 

And, if the yellow-eyed man in the mask was to be believed, it supposedly had numerous, unknown quirks at its disposal. 

Using their own quirks was out of the question as far as Izuku could tell. Izuku's body was broken in so many ways, and he didn't think his fractured form was in any state to make effective use of his quirk. Uraraka was out of commission, but even if she'd been conscious, Izuku wouldn't have asked her to use her quirk anyway. Iida had only just fully awakened his quirk, and Izuku didn't know enough about it to say if it could be used to do something to stop the monster. 

The situation seemed hopeless. 

But Izuku would not let his friends die here, especially these two, his very first genuine friends who'd been with him through thick and thin. His body was already more broken than it'd ever been before, but he'd rip his own limbs off if it meant they'd make it out of here alive. 

If he didn't want his friends to die, Izuku only saw one possible chance of success. 

He spoke around heaving gulps of air, calling out over the echo of their footfalls and the monster's grating screeches. "Iida! We…We aren't going to make it! I'll try to slow it down. Take Uraraka and run!"

In the midst of his staggering, Iida somehow managed to throw him a wide-eyed, aghast glance. "But Midoriya-"

"Please!" Izuku cut him off. His vision was already blurring, but things went even more out of focus as tears budded in his eyes. 

He didn't need perfect vision to see what was happening only a few steps in front of him: Iida was purposefully slowing himself down to avoid leaving Izuku behind. It was blatantly obvious in Iida's metered steps; the worried glances he threw over his shoulder to make sure Izuku was still following after him.

Iida was more than capable of making an escape, even while carrying Uraraka. But, instead, he'd chosen to match Izuku's pace and now they were just barely managing to keep a steady gap between them and the monster charging after them. 

But that gap was closing. It's screeching was growing closer, it's footfalls not so far off. 

It would be upon them soon. 

Izuku choked on a sob at the very thought of it. "I can't be the reason you guys get hurt! I can't be the one that causes one of you to die! Please, just go!"

Izuku almost tripped and fell right then with how hard he jolted as Iida whirled on him. "You must've really hit your head hard, Midoriya, if you think I'm going to leave you here on your own!"

Iida's eyes were blazing so intensely they were comparable to Kacchan's. With the way his friend's features were pulled taut, Izuku began to question whether he'd ever seen Iida truly get angry before this moment. 

"As your class president and best friend, I must ensure your safety!" 

Izuku shook his head. "Iida, please! Use your quirk and run!"

"I can't!" Iida screamed back at him so loudly Izuku knew his throat must be burning. "I don't know how!"

There was a rumbling from above them, dust sprinkling down from the ceiling. 

Izuku's steps stuttered, but, by some miracle, he managed to stay on his feet. 

There was something above them now, too? It wasn't another one of these things, was it? Or, hell, was it Shigaraki?

The next few moments occured too quickly for Izuku's muddled brain to keep up. 

Another boom sounded out from above. 

The ceiling audibly cracked. 

Izuku didn't remember falling, but, suddenly, Uraraka's unconscious form was pressed tightly against his side, Iida shielding them from above with his own body.

Iida flinched as small chunks pelted him, but most of the debris was blown away from them by another blast. 

Izuku probably should've been more terrified by the sudden collapse of the ceiling and unexplained blasts. But his brain was processing everything about five seconds behind real time, and the settling of the rubble was followed so quickly by a familiar grumble that any rising fear was abated before it could fully bloom.

"What the fuck is this thing?"

They were explosions, Izuku realized. Both the caving of the ceiling and the blast that saved them from being covered in the fallout were explosions. 

Iida pulled back from where he was shielding Izuku's and Uraraka's forms, the surprised cry that escaped him finally solidifying the slowly forming realization in Izuku's head. "Bakugo?"

Izuku strained to lift his pounding head off the floor, just barely managing to see past Iida's form. His swimming vision caught sight of his childhood friend's back as he stumbled to his feet after seemingly falling through the new hole in the ceiling above him—Izuku allowed himself a moment's pause at that. There was more than one floor to this place?  

Izuku jumped back to the present as Iida sharply chided. "You nearly brought the ceiling down on top of us!" 

"I heard you all yelling and screaming and the stairs would've taken too long!" Bakugo spat back. 

That was all the time they were allowed for catching up. 

As if to remind them of it's presence, the monster growled, dust and debris tumbling off of it's form as it recovered from where it'd been blasted into the wall. 

Running wasn't an option anymore. Izuku didn't think he'd be able to make it to his feet again, and by the looks of it, neither could Iida. 

But it looked as if fighting was back on the table. 

Izuku watched Bakugo's already bloodied and flayed palms begin to glow orange, and despite his concern that his friend was about to blow his own hands off, in the back of his mind, he was relieved. Finally, there was someone here who could do long range attacks and actually get some damage in. If they could take this thing down from a distance without having to get close to it, Izuku thought they might actually have a chance. 

But fighting long distance didn't seem to be Bakugo's plan. 

Bakugo swung his arms behind him, keeping his palms low and twisted towards the ground as he took off running directly at the monster.

"Kacchan!"

Izuku's shocked cry was drowned out by another pair of explosions, the blasts launching Bakugo through the air. 

Izuku had watched Bakugo in awe on many occasions before. But he truly did look like something else as he launched himself forward, his own explosions propelling him. 

The awe of the moment shattered when the monster raised its arm to meet Bakugo on his downward descent. Its giant hand snagged the front of his shirt and his whole form jerked to a sudden stop. 

Izuku instinctively tried to shoot to his feet and run to his friend's rescue. But before he could even flinch, Bakugo was on to his next move. His childhood friend's reaction time was nearly unmatched, after all. 

Before the monster could do anything with it's grip on Bakugo, whether it be squeeze the life out of him or throw him to some far end of the hallway, Bakugo grabbed onto it's massive wrist with both hands, the orange glow from beneath his grasp the only warning for what was coming next. 

Izuku and Iida both flinched as Bakugo set off another explosion, blood and bits of monster flesh splattering across the hall as the monster's forearm was blown off. Bakugo dropped to the floor, a stream of blood flowing down onto him from the monster's severed limb. 

Izuku wanted to scream, both in horror and in victory. 

Kacchan had just blown off the arm of something that was very obviously not human anymore, but it had once been. It was a victim of human experimentation, just like them. 

Despite the brutality and horror of it, he'd finally done some substantial damage. The blow he'd delivered could be what allowed them to escape. 

Izuku wished they'd had the time to celebrate that small victory. 

But losing it's arm did nothing to slow the monster. 

As if it hadn't just been dismembered, it reached down and snatched Bakugo by the upper arm. It's movements were nearly a blur as it yanked him from off the floor and swung him into the nearest wall. 

Bakugo's body made an awful sound as it collided with the wall. It happened so quickly that he could do nothing to soften the blow, nor could he catch himself as his body crashed to the floor. 

"Kacchan!"

Izuku had felt useless before. But now he felt as if, maybe, he really was deserving of the nickname Bakugo had forced upon him when they were kids. He was still splayed out on his back, barely able to move beyond lifting his head enough to see the events playing out down the hallway. 

Did this monster feel no pain? Could it even think? There didn't seem to be too much logic and reasoning going on behind its glowing, yellow eyes. There was just mindless, detached rage as it took a lumbering step after Bakugo's downed form.

Izuku let out the breath he'd unconsciously been holding as Bakugo moved, giving Izuku the little relief that he hadn't been taken out by that impact with the wall. But there was no time for more relief than a single breath. The monster was between them and Bakugo, it's advance pushing Bakugo further away from the rest of them. 

Bakugo scurried backwards on his back with a combination of crawling and kicking his feet against the floor, his bloodied hands leaving streaks on the tile. The air had obviously been knocked out of him, his voice hoarse as he yelled. "Get this thing's focus off me! I need another chance to get close! I need to get it's head and I don't have enough left in me for more than one explosion!"

Iida was on his feet in an instant, though his legs wobbled beneath him as he stood. "Hey! Over here, you fiend!" 

Izuku admired Iida's speed and lack of hesitance in jumping into the fight. 

Izuku wanted nothing more than to do the same. But he wouldn't be able to stand up again. His left ankle was absolutely destroyed and even seated, he could barely keep his vision straight. His adrenaline had already been spent, and, truly, it was a miracle he was even still conscious. 

As Iida began to charge towards the monster's back, Izuku put everything he had into at least getting himself sitting up. He still had no idea what he could do to help, but getting off of his back was probably a good first step. 

As he fought against the pounding of his head, he did his best to trace his friends' movements. 

Bakugo was still scrambling backwards, his features grit in obvious pain. 

Iida ducked around the monster's side and circled around to it's front, his arms wrapping around the thing's middle as he braced his feet against the floor. The pipes emerging from his calves began to glow blue. 

Izuku watched with rapt attention, though he was frustrated he could do nothing more. 

Or, at least that was the case until something gently knocked into him from behind.

"Deku…" 

With wide eyes, Izuku's focus whipped over his shoulder, his head and neck throbbing at the sharp movement. He found Uraraka struggling to sit up behind him, her arms shaking as she did so. 

Between them was a chunk of floating debris from the ceiling, just larger than their heads, but with plenty of rough edges and jutting pieces. 

Uraraka already looked to be on the verge of throwing up and Izuku immediately leapt to chastise her for using her quirk. "Uraraka-"

"Don't," she ground out sharply. Izuku was in love with this girl, but he'd never been more terrified of her than when she spat out. "Just fucking throw it." Still supporting herself with one arm, she gently shoved the floating debris towards him again.

Izuku was stalk-still as the chunk softly ricocheted off his shoulder, his eyes widening further as Uraraka's fiery gaze found his through the fringe of her bangs. She was on the verge of passing out again, but she was not going to be argued with. That much was clear. 

Swallowing heavily, Izuku curled his hand around the floating debris before it could drift out of his grasp. If Uraraka had already spent the energy to get this chunk floating, he would follow through with her motivation and make sure her efforts bore fruit. 

His dominant right hand was utterly demolished and lying limply at his side, which meant he'd have to use his left. He was far more uncoordinated with that hand, but he didn't think it would matter too much. With the combination of his and Uraraka's quirks, he didn't have to worry about crafting the perfect pitch. The monster's form was massive, so as long as he managed not to aim high enough for the chunk to soar over the monster's head, he knew they'd be able to land some type of hit. 

Iida was still locked in a grapple at the monster's front, blue flames spurting from his calves as he did his best to halt the monster's forward advance. With its back towards them, Izuku couldn't tell whether or not the monster had turned its focus from Bakugo to Iida, but he knew there was no time to waste. 

There was no room for half-heartedness, either. They were already on their last limbs, all of them on the verge of collapse. There was no reason for him to save up energy for later. As far as he was concerned, it was either take this monster down now or die by its hand. He'd rather break a few more bones than allow this thing to take his friends. 

As he wound up his throw, Izuku called upon his quirk, glowing, red lines running along the veins of his left arm as green lighting licked along his skin. Nothing—not even gravity—would slow down this attack. He and Uraraka may not be able to stand, but they would not flee from the fight. This was their way of striking back.

Izuku swung his arm forward, channeling his quirk all the way from his shoulder to his fingertips, ensuring that even his final moments of contact would pour extra power and strength into the debris' flight. The air warped around him, nearly throwing him backwards as the debris carved through the air. 

It didn't seem as if even a second had passed before the debris smashed against the back of the monster's head, tearing it's skin from it's flesh and knocking it's skull forward. 

The break in its stance allowed Iida to finally shove the beast over, his quirk aiding him in forcing the monster to tip backwards. Iida toppled over right on top of it, his quirk sputtering out as he crashed into the monster's chest. 

Another faint spurt of triumph raced through Izuku's veins now that they'd brought the monster down.

But, just like the last time, the feeling quickly faded. 

The monster swiped out with it's still whole arm, knocking Iida aside and sending him smacking into the wall just like Bakugo had. 

But as he was thrown aside, Bakugo rose in his stead. With a battlecry, he leapt upon the beast before Iida had even hit the floor, already posed to strike. He gripped onto his right forearm with his left hand, bracing his arm as his right palm began to glow. 

He dove forward, and the instant his palm made contact with the creature's face, he unleashed an explosion unlike any he'd set off before; a final consolidation of their fears and frustration and yearning to finally be free of this. 

The explosion was so bright, Izuku was forced to close his eyes. He was almost blown back by it, a wave of heat sweeping over him as his ears began to ring. 

Seconds or maybe minutes passed before Izuku was able to peel his eyes open again. His hearing had not yet returned to him, but with his swimming vision, he sought out the fate of the monster in the wake of the explosion. 

The beast was dead. Its form was headless and flayed open on the floor, blood pouring from the ragged, exposed flesh. 

Izuku was disgusted by the sight. He was horrified at what they'd done. 

But he was also unbearably relieved. 

With the monster dead, whatever curtain of fear had been minutely muddling his pain was pulled back. Now, both of his arms were shattered and turning purple. His head was still throbbing and white was growing on the edges of his vision. The sudden return of full, unadulterated sensation nearly stole his consciousness away right then. But he fought to at least take stock of his friends before he gave up on trying to not pass out. 

It was hard for Izuku to make any conclusions about Bakugo's state, but he wasn't moving. He'd crumpled to the headless monster's side, his limp body sprawled across the floor on it's back.

Iida had been knocked unconscious when he'd been cast aside, a new bloom of blood at his temple. 

Uraraka had collapsed back to the floor behind him, unmoving and face shadowed by her hair. 

Izuku wanted to take them away from this place, or at least run to them or call out their names. He'd do anything to know if they were still alive. 

But he could fight off the thrumming of his head no longer. 

As he felt himself being pulled down into the earth, he could only hope that this last attack hadn't been in vain; that he and his friends had truly fought for and won their long-sought freedom. 

It was getting hard to breathe. 

Shouto's chest was shuddering, shivers overtaking his entire form. It was almost like he had no control over his body, his mouth greedily gulping down air when it could in between the quaking of his frame. 

Shouto was passively experiencing it all, consciousness and unconsciousness consuming him in cycles. 

Shouto only got bits and pieces as the world carried on around him. 

Waves crashed against the shore. 

A breeze swept by, ruffling his air. 

The leaves of the trees rustled against one another. 

A sound like a distant roar pierced the air. 

After drifting for a few more minutes, voices broke through the haze of Shouto's barely conscious state.

"...the hell…here?"

"Is…ice?"

"...kid…alive?"

Shouto's mind was only able to latch on to a few words at a time, but their meaning escaped him. 

Suddenly, there was warmth. A hand on his arm, maybe, he thought. 

His eyes drifted open, his heavy lids allowing him to peer through only the slightest sliver. 

There was a man kneeling at his front, with wild blond hair and bright, golden eyes that pierced through the darkness of the night. With the way the galaxy painted the sky behind him, to Shouto, it almost looked like wings were sprouting from his back. 

At the fluttering of his eyelids, he was gifted with a soft, kind smile from the stranger. "Everything's gonna be alright, buddy."

Shouto had never been one to put much trust in strangers. After all this, he couldn't be sure he'd ever be willing to let himself trust anyone other than his friends again. 

But something about this stranger—about the sounds of distant helicopters and hurried voices nearby—brought about a feeling of peace and relief unlike anything Shouto had ever felt before.  

As some sort of blanket was laid over his shivering form, he finally let himself fall fully into unconsciousness. 

As the sky slipped from Shouto's vision, the stars fading into inky black, he could only hope that this man and whoever else was with him hadn't arrived too late to help the rest of his friends.

Izuku emerged out of unconsciousness slowly. 

It started as a vague awareness, but then evolved into a heavy feeling, like he was being dragged into a deep ocean. 

His head began to pound as he returned to the world, and it was the thrumming in his skull that finally tugged him to dully waking. 

In that moment, opening his eyes seemed like an impossible task. But, eventually, he was able to peel his eyelids back enough to see at least a fraction of his surroundings. 

Everything was blurry and bright. Something was beeping at his left. 

As his vision slowly came into focus, Izuku's chest clenched.

The beeping of the machine at his left grew faster. 

No. He…he couldn't be here again. 

He was in a hospital bed in a white room, all on his own. 

Oxygen was flooding his system from the short tubes in and beneath his nose.  

His arms were encased in thick casts, the rest of his body hidden from view by a cotton blanket. 

An I.V. had been inserted in his upper arm, near the fleshy part beneath his shoulder, dripping unknown fluids into his system. 

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move. 

It was just like when he'd first woken up in the facility. 

But he couldn't be back. There was no way he was back. The man behind all of this was dead, wasn't he?

Izuku couldn't remember his last moments of waking; whether they'd managed to actually get out or not. 

But he did remember that there had been others. It hadn't just been that yellow-eyed man. There'd been a whole staff of men in hazmat suits that Izuku had never learned the fate of. It'd seemed as if they'd all disappeared into thin air, but what if they'd returned? What if they'd found Izuku and his friends and dragged them back to carry on with their experiments? 

The door slid open, but Izuku didn't dare look up to see who had arrived. He didn't want to see that black, emotionless glass at the front of a hazmat suit. 

Instead, his focus was on his own body as he willed it to move. His body was broken, but he'd be damned if he didn't put up a fight. He knew the truth of this place now and he would not stand being subject to it's experiments for an instant longer. He'd rather break his body again and again, even if it's caused his own death, than be the helpless test subject he'd been forced to become. 

Izuku could barely feel his own limbs, but, by some miracle, he managed to lug one of the hefty casts around his arm to the side. He didn't make it far, his arm jolting to a stop. 

There was a fabric strap around his cast near his wrist, its buckle clinking as he tugged his arm against it again and again.

Izuku's breathing only grew quicker and his struggle more frenzied.

He was restrained. He was strapped to the bed, just like he had been for weeks on end within the facility. He really was back, and all of that fighting had been for nothing. He was going to suffer more at the hands of these people. His friends were going to suffer because he was useless and he couldn't save them. 

He yanked at his arms again and again, his vision beginning to blur. 

The beeping of the machine at his side had been overwhelmed by a flurry of voices all around him, but Izuku didn't care to listen to them. He didn't want to hear those droning, emotionless voices, asking him pointless questions and telling him that his friends were dead. 

A quivering hand cradled his tear-stained cheek. With its warmth, a single voice broke through the swarm. 

"Izuku! Izuku, baby, it's me!"

No. She wasn't really here. It was just a hallucination. Or someone with a mimicry quirk. He would not put it past these to be so cruel as to torture him in such a way. 

"Izuku, look at me, please!"

But, God, it sounded just like her, and she was audibly choking on her own tears. These people really were heartless, mimicking such heartache to torment him; to trick him into thinking he was safe just to get him to lower his walls so they could strike when he was most vulnerable. 

"Izuku!"

Hands—far too large and rough to be hers—on his shoulders shoved him back down, his head falling into the cradle of the pillow behind him. His gaze was forced upwards and a silhouette blocked the lights overhead, their face slowly coming into focus. 

Dark green hair framed a face that had become much thinner than he was used to. Tears streamed from green eyes, trailing down cheeks and making stains on the medical mask of the woman above him. 

"Mom…" Izuku breathed, hardly believing what he was seeing. A distant voice in the back of his head still cried that it wasn't true; that it wasn't really her. But even if it wasn't really her, Izuku couldn't help the sense of calm that washed over him at the sight of her. The urge to fight slowly seeped from Izuku's body, 

More tears swelled in her eyes as he called for her, her hand still quivering upon his cheek as she stroked his tear-stained freckles with her thumb. "It's me, sweetie." 

She was warm, the heat of her palm bleeding into his skin. She was reprieve personified, his emblem of protection and peace and love. 

With her caress, Izuku knew he'd found refuge. 

The beeping at his side began to slow, the other voices in the room calming and quieting. But that was all background noise. 

Izuku only had ears for the woman above him. 

His mother kept her palm against his skin, physically grounding him as she whispered gentle words of comfort. "You're safe now. You're safe."

Izuku laid on his bed motionlessly, the tears quietly flowing from his eyes as he stared up at his mother in a way he probably hadn't since he was a baby. He would never call her affection overbearing or embarrassing ever again. For the rest of his life, he would cherish her love, for he knew what it was like to be completely deprived of it. 

He wished his hands were free so he could comfort her in the same way she was comforting him. He could tell she was barely holding herself together, and it was for his sake. She was thinner than she had been when he'd said goodbye to her on the night of the dance, just after she'd fixed his tie and pinched his cheeks. Dark circles framed her eyes, the skin there extra puffy. Her face sported a few more wrinkles, a handful of gray hairs peeking through the deep green. 

Months without knowing whether or not her son was alive had not been kind to Inko Midoriya. 

But that was all over now. With her presence, Izuku knew he was safe. 

People moved all around him—doctors probably, he belatedly realized—but he didn't pay them any mind. 

Speaking more than a single word was hard earned, his throat feeling as if it'd been rubbed raw. He fought for it earnestly, though, desperate to know if his friends had been cradled in the same sanctuary as him. "Uraraka and Iida…and Kacchan and the others…"

"They're all here, too, baby," his mom answered immediately. Her hand moved to gently run through his hair, brushing past a tightly wrapped bandage as she traced from his cheek to his hairline. "They'll all be okay." 

Izuku had been crying for a while, almost since he'd first awoken. But the slow stream of tears quickly evolved as she delivered the news. His chest shuddered as the first sob escaped him, his eyes sliding shut. 

This didn't feel real. 

His mom, leaning over him and brushing a hand through his hair, didn't feel real. 

But it was real. There was denying the gentle weight and warmth of her palm against his skin. The relief of the near-constant aching of his body and soul couldn't be argued against. 

Their freedom had been won. 

Not long after he'd woken and calmed down, a doctor—a real, kind doctor and not a guy in a hazmat suit—had come to run a few short exams and brief Izuku on his injuries. 

Several of his fingers were broken, and his left ankle and both of his arms were shattered in numerous places. He had a concussion, too. They'd be monitoring that for a while, but otherwise, there wasn't much he could do but rest to let his body heal. Once his bones were stable, they'd start introducing physical therapy to his treatment, but that was weeks, if not months down the line. He'd really done some damage to himself, it seemed. The doctor said he hadn't seen anything like Izuku's injuries before. 

The doctor also told him been restrained to the bed for his own and the hospital staff's safety after numerous instances—none of which Izuku remembered—of panicked awakenings in which he'd reportedly nearly flung a nurse right out the window in his frenzied flailing. 

Izuku apologized profusely. 

The doctor assured him it was fine. Izuku's actions were understandable after all he'd been through, the doctor said. 

After that, Izuku was silent. 

He didn't know how much the people caring for him really knew about what had happened to him and friends. But he decided to keep his mouth shut about his quirk for the time being. He didn't know how to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about it. For now, he just wanted to rest.  

There would be no quirk-enhanced healing this time. The path to recovery would be long and slow-going. The doctor told Izuku his hands may never regain their full functionality with the extent of the damage he'd sustained. 

But that didn't even begin to address the damage that couldn't be seen with scopes, x-rays, and scans. 

Even with the knowledge that he was safe—even with his mother beside him, her warmth bleeding into his arm and her hand gently caressing his face—he couldn't stop shaking. His own body and mind would not allow him to breathe easily. He could only manage to swallow a few spoonfuls of liquid food at a time before he felt like throwing up. Sleep would not come easy for a while, he knew, if at all ever again. 

Izuku wanted to see his friends. 

His mom wasn't anything like those hazmat suited bastards. She would never, ever be so cruel as to lie to him about his friends' conditions, even if she thought it was better that he be kept in the dark for his own sake. 

That meant they truly were safe. They were alive.  

But there was still a part of him that ached to see them for himself. 

He hoped they'd be reunited soon. 

The sun was just cresting over the peaks of the mountains beyond the window when Izuku's mother stepped into the room a few days later. She crept im quietly at first, as if cautious that he may still be asleep. But when she saw he was wide awake and already propped up in his bed, her worried features melted into a gentle smile. "How are you feeling?"

Horrid, Izuku wanted to say. The pain of his injuries was dulled by whatever they were pumping into his I.V., but that didn't mean that the absence of pain was a pleasant feeling, either. It felt like he was growing further out of touch with his body by the day, unable to do much other than lift his head the slightest margin and wiggle the toes of his uninjured foot. 

But he knew he couldn't tell his mother any of that. She'd already worried about him enough for an entire lifetime, maybe two. 

So he chose a different answer, one that wasn't quite a lie. "I'm alright, mom. Just happy to finally be able to rest."

As if she still saw everything he tried to hide, her brows only furrowed despite his reassurances. Her hands settled on the rail at his bedside, gripping it worriedly. "Did you at least manage to get some sleep?"

Izuku stared at his mother in silence for a moment before he breathed out a soft, broken, "No."

His lack of true, genuine rest was exactly what was draining him so severely. 

It was the same story every time: Just when he thought he was finally drifting off, a wall would creak or voices from another room would whisper through the ceiling and floor. His eyes would shoot open at the sudden break of silence, and his mind would craft human shapes out of the shadows of the room. The shifting of the blanket across his skin would turn into the hands of men in hazmat suits running over him. He would swear he saw Shigaraki's crimson irises glowing in the darkness in the edges of his sight, only to turn his gaze and find nothing.

After everything he'd endured, would he ever be able to sleep soundly again? 

His mother's already damaged heart seemed to fracture even further for him. But she kept her budding tears at bay, her voice quivering, but hopeful as she spoke again. "I have something that might cheer you up. Are you feeling up to having some visitors?"

Izuku's brows furrowed, though he was grateful for the shift in topic. 

Who would even be allowed in to visit him? Didn't his mother say they were all in a private hospital, with access restricted to all but a few as he healed and everything was sorted? 

Izuku was eager to have something other than the quiet days of routine check-ups and stewing in his own head. "Who is it?"

His mother's smile widened. "Your friends, sweetie. They've all been pretty eager to see you."

With that, Izuku's heart soared. 

"Yes," he breathed, immediately trying to sit up and wiggle out of his bed. "Yes, I want to see them."

With a little laugh, halfway between amused and exasperated, his mother set a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down. "They'll come to you, sweetie." With one last pat to his arm, she turned to take her leave. "I'll be out in the hall. Take as much time as you need."

Inko had barely been gone from the room for a minute before the door was pushed open again. 

Izuku's heart rate jumped so fast it was probably unhealthy. But he couldn't be bothered with controlling his breathing when his friends' faces came into view. 

"Deku!" Uraraka flew through the door first and nearly crashed right into his bed.

"Uraraka!" Despite his mom's efforts in getting him to stay horizontal, Izuku fought to sit up so he could see his friends properly. 

Uraraka paused at his bedside for a moment in obvious hesitation, her eyes scanning over his injuries.

Izuku did the same, wincing at the awful bruising spreading across her face from beneath the plaster that'd been placed over her nose.

He didn't get a chance to say anything before Uraraka decided she could restrain herself no longer. She hitched a knee up onto his mattress to boost herself to his level and latched onto him as gently as she could, her arms winding around his neck.

With no way of wrapping his arms in their bulky casts around her, the only thing Izuku could do was nuzzle into the junction of her neck and shoulder. 

The last time they'd held one another like this had been within that underground room, in between the rows of beds and terrified out of their minds. Part of Izuku was still frightened, which was probably brought about by force of habit and an overwhelming uncertainty of what the future would look like. 

But, as always, Izuku knew that if there were people he cared about by his side, like Uraraka and his mom and the rest of his friends, then things would turn out alright. 

"Took you long enough to wake up." 

Still keeping his head nestled against Uraraka, Izuku opened his eyes and looked at everyone funneling into his room. 

As she took a seat on the foot of his bed, Jirou was giving him a smug grin. Izuku usually would've been embarrassed to be seen with Uraraka in such a way by his friends, but he was more focused on the sling Jirou's left arm was cradled in. Thick bandages covered her shoulder, with metal supports stretching across her chest. 

He wasn't the only one with broken bones, it seemed. And it wasn't just the two of them, either. 

Yaoyorozu had a slight limp to her step as she came to stand at Jirou's side, her walking boot making her steps uneven. Despite her injury, she smiled softly. "It's good to see you awake, Midoriya."

A hand clapped against his shoulder and he pulled back from Uraraka to see that Iida had made it to his bedside with the aid of a single crutch. "We were beginning to grow concerned you'd never awake."

As she plopped down on the couch beneath the window, Ashido let out a teasing laugh. "He really wasn't out for that long, Iida. You were just being dramatic." 

"We were all worried about you, man!"

Kirishima and Todoroki fell into place right behind Iida. Both were covered in bandages, but Todoroki was nearly drowning in them. They crisscrossed over his face and up his arms. Izuku wondered if it was even okay for him to be up and walking around, but if he was in pain, Todoroki didn't show it. He just smiled in that gentle way of his as they made eye contact, silently expressing his relief. 

As Izuku looked around at the friends who had gathered in his nearly too tiny room and those still coming through the door, a question slipped from his lips. "Was I the last one to wake up?"

"Of course you were," Bakugo chided as leaned against the armrest beside Ashido. He tried to fold his arms across his chest but barely managed to conceal a flinch when he pressed his bandaged palms against his own arms. He settled for tucking them into his pockets instead. "What'd you expect when you went and smashed all your bones into itty bitty pieces?" 

Izuku didn't have the time to feel ashamed. The last of his friends making their way into the room snagged his attention immediately, his eyes going wide at one of them wheeling the other in. 

Asui seemed to be relatively injury-free save for a patch on her cheek.

Kaminari, on the other hand, had nasty bruises working their way up his throat and he was in a wheelchair being around by Asui. 

Izuku's eyes were wide, his voice nearly a screech. "Kaminari? What happened?"

"Burned the shit out of my foot." Kaminari shrugged, nonchalant as if he wasn't talking about something that was detrimental to his own wellbeing. That was just the way Kaminari dealt with things, Izuku supposed. "I'm chair-bound 'til it heals up more, but I probably would've died if Yaomomo hadn't found me when she did. And man, wait 'til you hear about what Tsu did."

Izuku looked around at his friends—including Shinso, who settled in the door frame—the implications of their injuries finally settling in his mind.

The last time he'd seen his friends, they'd all looked worse for wear. But nearly everyone was sporting new injuries now, with bandages and bruises and scratches peeking out from beneath their hospital gowns. 

Izuku cleared his throat, unsure of how to broach the subject. "Did…Were you all fighting, too?"

At the time, he'd been too caught up with his, Uraraka's, Iida's, and Kacchan's battles against Shigaraki and that monster to spend much time thinking about what had happened to the rest of his friends. It made sense, though, that they'd gone through the same thing as him now that he'd had the time to think about it. 

"For the most part…" Kirishima answered with a sigh, "...yeah."

"And…we all won?" Izuku muttered in disbelief. He hadn't lost faith in his friends for a second, but that'd been a hell of a situation they'd been up against. "Those…Those villains aren't…they're not still out there, are they?"

"They've been taken into custody," Iida answered without delay. 

Izuku was grateful for his curt, immediate response. It immediately set Izuku at ease, so much so that he almost fell back down onto his pillow. "So…it's all finally over."

There was a moment of palpable reprieve, where everyone relished in that confirmation. Even Kacchan's lips formed something close to a small smile. 

"Well," Kaminari suddenly interjected, his face curled like he'd just tasted something sour, "not quite, cause we're still gonna be drowning in investigations and court cases and probably the media-"

Bakugo whapped him across the back of the head to shut him up, "No need to remind us, Dunce Face."

Izuku winced for his friend. 

Poor timing and lack of reading-the-room skills aside, Kaminari wasn't wrong. They had a long road ahead of them. They'd known that for a long time, even before they'd escaped. 

Todoroki suddenly cleared his throat, his focus on the floor. "I…I've been meaning to tell you all...My father's been arrested." 

It was almost like the room froze as those words permeated the air. No one moved. No one said a word. 

Todoroki carried on quietly, stopping to swallow and clear his throat every few words. "He, um…turned himself in, actually, just a few days after we were taken. He didn't know where we were, though. I guess…he wasn't as involved as Touya made it seem. I haven't been filled in on all of the details, though."

Izuku wasn't sure what to do. On one hand, he wanted to comfort Todoroki. This was hard on all of them, but Izuku couldn't imagine being in Todoroki's place. On the other hand, he was reminded of everything he knew that his friends probably didn't. To his knowledge, he was the only one to run into the yellow-eyed man in the mask and learn the truth of what'd been done to them. 

His friends deserved to be filled in, if they hadn't been already.

"Do…Have you guys been told about…about what really happened? Like…what our quirks really are?"

Uraraka nodded. She was still sitting on his bed, though she'd shifted to sit beside him so her back wasn't towards the rest of their friends. Her voice was small as she fiddled with the little bandages that'd been wrapped around the padded tips of her fingers. "We were filled in by the head detective on our case. About…everything."

Izuku listened quietly as his friends took turns recounting the story of the facility in the mountain, including its longevity and the discoveries that'd lead to its creation. He didn't feel like it was necessary to tell them he'd already been told all of this by the man who'd spearheaded their forced evolution, a man he learned was called Chisaki Kai. 

After more investigation, the authorities—or whoever it was that was conducting this case—had discovered that Chisaki had somewhat of a background in the more unethical experiments run by those with insatiable curiosity. 

Persecuting him hardly held any worth, though. 

He'd been found dead in the facility, his armless body crumpled in the corner of a room filled with the subjects of his own horrific experiments. 

It'd been Shigaraki's doing, Izuku knew. But Izuku didn't quite have the heart to say that yet. 

He'd thought about Shigaraki and the other villains a lot since waking up here. 

They'd all been tormented and tortured just as much as Izuku and his friends had. In fact, they'd actually probably suffered more in life given the implications Shigaraki had made about the struggles he'd faced before even being taken into the facility. They were victims just as much as Izuku and his friends were. 

But the thing that made them the 'villains' was their yearning for revenge, not just against the ones who had tortured them, but against the world. They'd been so dead set on killing Izuku and his friends because, if they did not join them, they were the only ones who could stop them from seizing that revenge. 

It was over now, though, Izuku reminded himself. He'd already been inflicted with trauma and enough nightmares to last him a lifetime. He didn't need to face those villains anymore, nor did he need to spend time feeling sympathy for them. They were too far gone for redemption. 

When everyone had said all they'd wanted to about what they'd been told and what they'd been through, silence settled for a moment. 

Kaminari cleared his throat to break it, scratching the back of his head. "So…what do we do now? Are we expected to just go back to school-"

"School is the last thing I want to think about right now." Asui let out a sad little ribbit, her features melting into a large frown. 

"Can't they just, like…" Kirishima waved his hands in front of himself as he tried to form the thoughts in his head into words, "...give us honorary diplomas or something? I mean, we've been through enough, haven't we?"

"Absolutely not!" Iida chastised with a downward chop of his hand through the air. "We need to complete our education with honesty and genuine effort in order to uphold the prestige of receiving a diploma!"

It'd been so long since Izuku had seen his friend do his characteristic hand chops that he almost cried while watching them. 

"If they try to get me anywhere near a textbook or a classroom anytime soon, I think I'll vomit." Jirou huffed, leaning back on her uninjured arm with her eyes pinched shut. 

Iida chopped his hand again. "You can't avoid school for the rest of your life!"

Izuku wanted to laugh at Iida's exasperation. A few months ago, he would have. It almost felt like they were back in that time, when they'd been normal teenagers cherishing their time together. 

That feeling was just an almost feeling, though. There was still a tense air hanging around them, keeping them from messing and joking around with another in that way that used to come all too easy. 

He wasn't the only one tuned in to it's presence, either. 

Uraraka's voice cut through the bantering of his friends. "Mina? You okay?"

Everyone's gazes zipped to the girl sitting quietly on the couch.

Ashido jolted at having the room's attention suddenly zeroed in on her, wiping the tears from her eyes in a frenzy. She hurried to explain herself regardless, sniffling and clearing her throat before she started. "It's just…You guys are all talking about what we're gonna do next, and…I know we've all thought about this before, but now that we're actually free, I'm having to really consider what my life's gonna be like from now on."

Yaoyorozu took a small step forward. "Do…Do you have any plans? Is there anything we can help you with?"

Ashido let out a heavy sigh, her shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. "It's not much of a plan, per say, but…I've been thinking I'm just gonna…own up to it, I guess?" She paused to take a deep breath, her voice much more sure when she started up again. "I mean, we're living in a time where what's beautiful is constantly being redefined, right? There's so many badass people out there who take control of their appearances and the bodies they were born with, even if they're not generally considered normal or beautiful, and turn it into something really cool and inspiring, ya know?

"And even though I'm…I'm pink and barely look human anymore…I want to do the same." Her voice gained momentum the longer she went on, and she finally mustered up the courage to lift her gaze from the floor. "I didn't choose to look like this, but I'll be damned if I let that stop me from living my life."

"Damn right," Katsuki instantly affirmed from where he was leaning against the armrest at her side. 

Kirishima stepped forward, too, a fist raised in declaration. "And we'll support you every step of the way."

As Izuku watched the rest of his friends jump in to share their reassurances and as he formed his own in his mind, his thoughts regarding the tense air between his group of friends began to shift. 

His friends all swarmed Mina and joined in as Kirishima pulled her into a bear hug.

Knowing he couldn't jump in when he could barely sit up on his own, Izuku looked towards Uraraka instead. She was still seated at his side, and her features were brighter than a full moon on a clear summer night as she laughed at even Bakugo and Shinso being pulled into the mass, the former spitting insults and the latter blushing profusely. 

As if she could sense his gaze, or as if she didn't want him to feel left out of the huddle, she set her hand over the rounded end of one of his casts, just over where his hand would be. 

Izuku wished they could hold hands properly. But, for now, this was more than enough.

It didn't matter that there was this dark, heavy thing looming over them. It didn't matter that their lives would probably never go back to the way they were before. They still had the drive and the closeness of now.

There was bound to be a barrage of press surrounding them. They'd probably deal with it for the rest of their lives. It seemed as if everything was being somewhat kept under wraps for the time being, but people would find out eventually. Some of their quirks couldn't be hidden. 

It was going to be a mess. But that didn't matter. 

His friends were here, standing side by side.They were all alive. 

They'd been changed against their will.

They'd faced a gang of villains.

But they'd won. They'd taken down a literal monster together. 

They'd survived. That was what mattered. 

People would undoubtedly ask how they'd done it. 

Izuku knew exactly how he would respond. The answer was actually rather plain and simple: it was because they'd stuck together. It was because they'd never given up hope.

The hope that they'd be able to get out one day.

The hope that they would be able to overcome their enemies. 

The hope that there were people on the outside who were desperately fighting to find them.

They'd survived because they kept such hopes alive in their hearts, constantly thinking of the friends who stood beside them and those who were fighting for them from the outside. Their strength had come from those whom they loved, and together, they'd accomplished their goal, just like they'd promised they would.

They'd always have the scars, both mental and physical. But instead of being painful reminders, Izuku saw them as testaments of their endurance and will that they could always carry with them.

While it'd only been a few days since they'd won their freedom, Izuku felt like a new life was opening up before them. And he was more than content spending it with friends like these at his side.