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The room doesn’t have a lot to look at during the day, that much he knows—but the night only plunges it deeper into an unrecognizable mess of blank walls and shadow. There’s no light from the hallway outside when the door sits flush against concrete, and the handle is just as locked as it was an hour ago when he’d tried it. For the fourth time.
One of these days, he muses to himself as he peers blindly around the room. One of these days they’re going to slip up.
The vague shape of a nightstand sticks out in the dark. There’s a lamp on it somewhere—a lamp and a trimly cut card with times stamped on it. The harsh indent of blocked letters rests beneath his fingers.
LIGHTS OUT: 8:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M.
He can’t see the clock over the doorway, can’t sense it beyond the faint ticking that fills the room. Still, he’s pretty sure it’s a bit later than that.
He flips the switch anyway.
Bright spots burst into his vision, blooming in and out of sight before he can reach for the nightstand again. A cheap pen and notepad sit atop a pile of paper, and balled-up notes roll off the edge as he grabs them. They’re nothing special, really, not like the notebooks he keeps at home. Just cheap amenities, like the place is some kind of hotel.
If they would just give him a key and a check-out time, that’d be great. Even so, he starts to write; and it’s almost nice, for a while. Even when this bed’s not his and this room’s not his and he’s not his, not like he used to be, back when he had nothing and there wasn’t the weight of more than one soul on his shoulders.
It’s nice until the steady thwap of rubber soles echoes down the hall, their hollow sound filling the air before fading out again. They step a steady cadence in the night, right beside the fitful beating of his heart as the steps don’t stop until they reach his door.
He reaches for the lamp, its light catching the band of metal on his wrist. It stops midway as the lock clicks and whirrs, mechanics sliding in and out of place before the door swings open.
A guard walks inside with one hand pulling the door closed behind him. Fingerless gloves, the boy notes as he watches the figure stroll towards him. Those must be standard issue here. If the locks are aura-triggered, then...
“There aren’t supposed to be lights after curfew.”
Another gloved hand pushes the guard’s cap out of the way. Cerulean eyes flit to the lamp beside the bed, still flickering steadily in the dark.
“I know, but I was just trying to—“ he starts, but there’s no chance to finish before the person snaps their fingers. All at once, the lamp beside him blinks out, sending his tiny island of light sinking into the shadowy ocean around him. The silhouette of the guard still stands tall against the glow from the doorway. Stands between him and that glow.
“…Was that a negation spell? How did you manage it without—“
“I don’t want to see that come on again. You were made aware of the rules of this facility beforehand.”
Back in the corner, the boy’s fingers curl around each other, sending a pulse of reassurance through the dark.
“Okay. Okay, I get it.”
He can barely make out the nod the guard gives him from across the room.
“Right. That’s good.” The man stares at him for a moment longer, head tilted slightly into the shadow of his shoulder before he finally turns around. The door cracks back open, and a beam of light splits the room in two. Rubber soles slide slickly against the tile as they go.
Come on.
A gloved hand latches onto the handle behind it.
Please.
The light thins as the door begins to slide closed again like a waning moon. The guard’s back is to him now, their body already turning down the hallway beyond as the last of their fingers leave the door. The glow shrinks until a single glowing thread remains on the floor, marking the narrow path between himself and out.
Please.
In that moment, the thought isn’t his own.
His arm twitches beneath the band, like it’s trying to shake off the static building within his body. A needling pressure builds behind his eyes as it pricks at his skin, pushing at the boundaries of his being. He squeezes them shut, wincing at the strain tugging at his nerves.
When his eyes open, the light is still there.
It’s hard to see beyond the spots swimming in his vision, but something else snakes along beside it, barely visible as it melts into the dark. The last of the inky tendril slips between the door and the wall, holding it open just before it would’ve clicked shut.
He holds his breath, listening for the echo of footsteps to come pounding back to his room. They never do. Still, it takes another minute or two before he can tear his eyes away from the door and focus on what’s propping it open.
A trail of aura bleeds across the floor, pooling from under his outstretched arm until it reaches the hall outside. As much as he squints, it just doesn’t want to be perceived. The tendril shifts in and out of the light, barely holding its place in existence.
It’s here, sitting mesmerized at the wonder in front of him, that he realizes he probably ought to move.
It takes a second to get up and going—his right arm twinges with the motion and lags behind the rest of his body as he pushes off of the bed. His aura swells around it, locking the limb in place with a pressure that makes his bones ache. A symptom of overuse, he knows that much. Even though he shouldn't have been able to use this power to begin with.
The suppression bands still sit heavy on his wrists, cold metal nipping at his skin. There’s no release, no great flood of power rushing back like a rising tide. Just the same muffled noise in the back of his mind, a conversation he can’t quite understand. Maybe it’s one he’s not meant to hear.
One voice had been clearer though, if only for a second. Just one word, and then...this. Whatever this was supposed to be. A miracle, maybe.
The boy steps towards the open door and peeks out between the wood and the wall. There are no more echoes, not anymore. No one there to see the face one thin stripe of light illuminates in the dark.
He takes one deep breath before stepping outside.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
The air still crackles, warmth radiating from Kaminari’s outstretched arm as his aura recedes back to his skin. His hands burn, and the faint smell of smoke lingers in the classroom.
When his eyes open, the light is gone.
What remains is a scorch mark on his classmate’s desk two rows over.
“Aw, come on! I didn’t even mean to do that!”
“Is that so?” Mr. Aizawa stands, wringing out the side of his sleeping bag. “Explain how your thermos got thrown onto me from across the room, then.”
“Dude, I swear.” Kaminari rolls his eyes, brushing a tuft of frazzled bangs out of his eyes. “I didn’t conjure it or anything. Spells just do that sometimes, y’know?”
“Not if they’re conjured properly . ” His teacher finally gives up on drying out the stain, instead tossing it over the back of his chair. “That’s the second time this week. Spells won’t do that if you focus your aura enough, so get it under control.”
“Geez,” Kaminari whistles quietly. “That’s harsh.” He leans back in his seat, arms folded behind his head.
“Not if he’s right.” Bakugo mutters from the desk in front of him.
“That’s easy for you to say, anyway. Your aura was probably way easy to get a handle on, huh?” Kaminari raises an eyebrow.
This time it’s Bakugo’s turn to roll his eyes.
“You wouldn’t know shit about that. Just forget it.”
Kaminari does not, in fact, forget it.
He knows he’s lagging behind, even if his training isn’t the only one to cause some collateral damage once in a while. Or twice in a while, in some cases, even though Aoyama really has gotten better at pointing his lasers in the right direction.
It still weighs on Kaminari though, some days heavier than others. And by the end of his last class, he knows where he needs to go.
He’s ventured pretty far from the main entrance, especially for a first year, but this is the fastest way to get to where he’s headed—even if that means dodging the flood of students rushing in the opposite direction. That doesn’t stop Kaminari from scanning the area though, just in case someone else is lingering nearby. Today, there’s no one. There never has been, not yet.
He takes one deep breath before stepping outside.
The first part of the walk is always boring. There’s not enough to focus on, just patch after patch of trimmed green grass with buildings lining the sides. But it’s not long before the sidewalk beneath his feet grows more cracked and uneven, weeds sprouting between the lines until they start to take over entirely. U.A.’s campus can only go so far before being swallowed up by the woods on the hillside; each year it becomes more of a losing battle.
As he walks further down the path, fallen logs and stones get harder to avoid—new plants have already started sprouting since the last time he’d come. If Kaminari’s being honest, it’s a little freaky how the woods back here always seem to be expanding, roots digging like hungry fingers into the earth and crawling their way towards campus. Either that, or the groundskeeper’s just having too much fun with enchantments.
As the sun starts to dip behind the treeline, it feels more like the former.
Even so, it’s like he can finally think here. He can hold his own conversation, not have to worry about slipping up or pissing someone off. It’s almost a habit now, coming out here when his brain’s been fried a little more than usual. It’s pretty great, even though he’s alone with only the woods to keep him company in the rising dusk.
Kaminari flexes his hands, warmth and static building beneath the pads of his fingers like a budding storm. Familiar threads of energy weave their way through his skin only to break off and spread, thinning into sharp bolts that dance along his arms. A few seconds later, and a flickering torch of lighting sits in his palm.
It’s simple magic, but it’s familiar. Almost easy, even if the sparks start to burn when he amps up the spell’s potency too high, but this light is nothing more than a gentle ripple as it guides him through the woods.
Honestly, the conjuration’s come a long way from when he first created it to help find his way to the bathroom in the dark. Not that he’d tell anyone that.
Kaminari raises his palm, illuminating the branches in his way. The glow makes them easy to dodge as the woods grow thicker, and he gets so busy scouting the area in front of him that he forgets to look down once in a while. Which means it’s only a matter of time before his shoe hooks under an ancient root in the dark, sending Kaminari tumbling over the edge of the path. One minute he’s airborne, and the next the ground is very, very close.
“Oh, shi—“
He lands face-first in a pile of leaves, the resounding crunch scaring off the birds perched on a nearby tree.
“Dammit.” Kaminari mutters into the dirt. He pushes himself up onto his elbows before swatting away the branches clinging to his uniform. And Bakugo’s always saying Iida has a stick up his ass. Kaminari wonders if he’d just gotten dangerously close to knowing what that felt like.
The rustling of the birds fades out, and a faint shuffling takes its place. The boy freezes, listening intently as the world stills around him.
Something sparks and flickers in the air—hints of a presence fade in and out, traces of an aura that are smothered by his senses. Like an aura too big for one body; it doesn’t even register at first, not before Kaminari can calm himself enough to focus.
He was never all that great at honing in on other people’s auras, even with the hours of practice Aizawa had shoved onto their schedules. Still, the student thinks he’d have an easier time picking out a needle in a haystack than identifying whatever’s passing behind those trees.
Somewhere nearby, a twig snaps.
A string of obscenities floods through his mind, some picked up from his classmates and others that he’s pretty sure he just made up on the spot. This cannot be happening, it can’t, because if he gets murdered in the woods right now it will officially be the worst day ever. And his last.
Footsteps tread feather-light across the leaves just as Kaminari’s trying to figure out what god to pray to. He can’t gather his focus enough to conjure up much of anything, and a handful of sad sparks burn out in his palm like a wet firecracker. The blood roaring in his ears all but drowns out the quiet murmur from above.
Slowly, Kaminari looks up from the dirt to see a pale hand reaching out in front of him. A pair of scuffed red sneakers stand behind it, their laces dragging in the mud. Wherever they'd been going, they must’ve been walking for a while.
Well. It’s good to know that he’d be able to identify the killer by his shoes. That’ll be real helpful when he’s six feet under, but Kaminari figures he should count his blessings while he still can. It might not be too late to earn a little extra karma and bump him up to a first-class ticket to the afterlife.
“Do you…need help?”
Does he need…oh.
He’s able to tilt his head up just enough to see the kid peering down at him. Green eyes flit nervously from Kaminari to the surrounding woods, like he’s the one expecting to get attacked any second.
It’s not enough to make Kaminari relax entirely, but he does sit up to wipe the dirt and—no, by the way, those are not tears—out of his eyes. From here, the other boy doesn’t look all that menacing anymore; a hundred yen says he’s probably the smaller of the two. A faded t-shirt and shorts take the place of a school uniform, and there’s a small pin stuck to his chest with a jumble of numbers that Kaminari can’t make out.
That, and even in the dark he can tell the kid is shaking. It’s then, as Kaminari tries to remember what the weather forecast for today was, that he realizes the other boy is waiting for him.
“Oh! Uh…thank you.”
Hesitantly, he reaches for the hand. The boy doesn’t even flinch as he pulls Kaminari back up with ease. Guess he’s stronger than he looks, Kaminari thinks as he dusts himself off.
An awkward silence settles into the air, broken only by the wind weaving through the leaves until the new kid speaks again.
“I should go. Sorry that you fell earlier.”
“Huh? Don’t worry about it.” Kaminari shrugs. “That was my bad. Thanks for helping me out, though.”
The other says nothing, only nodding once before turning around and stepping back into the tangle of trees. It might’ve been too dark to tell, but Kaminari swore he saw him smile.
Either way, he’ll definitely be getting a late start on the trek back towards campus. He makes it about ten steps before slamming a palm into his face.
For someone to go through the trouble of helping a screwup like him in the middle of nowhere…he should’ve at least gotten the guy’s name.
Kaminari’s chance comes a few days later, much to the surprise of both himself and the person now sitting against the tree next to him.
“This is weird. When you see some stranger in, I dunno, the train station, you don’t really expect to run into them again. I mean, that would be weird, right?”
The other boy nods—Deku, he said his name was, though their introductions had taken some prompting after Kaminari had shocked himself to make sure this wasn’t a homework-induced hallucination—and takes another bite of the energy bar in his hand. It was an offering of sorts, presented after Kaminari had found the thing half-melted in the pocket of his blazer. Deku had flushed a bright red before insisting they split it.
“I guess so.” Deku shrugs, drawing his knees up to his chin. “The woods are a big place, though. Anything can come and go. Maybe it’s not that weird after all.”
Admittedly, Kaminari hadn’t really planned on skipping lunch in the cafeteria to come out here. Lunch Rush’s cooking is loads better than this granola goop any day. But the woods had called to him, as it sometimes did, and the peace and quiet out here was looking better than the nervous energy of the classroom. They’d had a physics exam announced today—the day before they’re scheduled to take it. Kaminari shudders at the memory of Mr. Aizawa’s crooked grin as twenty teenagers simultaneously died a little inside.
“Sure, whatever.” Kaminari makes a face at his own food before pocketing it again. “You’ve gotta admit that it’s one heck of a coincidence, though. Are you always out here or what?”
“These days, yeah. I’m just…looking for something, that’s all.” He picks at the edge of the wrapper, tearing the corners as he speaks. “Clearly, I’m not that great of a detective.”
Kaminari leans his head against the trunk of the tree.
“Depends on what you’re looking for. Is it something super important?”
Deku turns to face him, a shadow casting itself over tired eyes. He nods once. It’s a heavy thing, like a hand had forced his head from above. Kaminari raises an eyebrow and straightens himself.
“Huh. If you say so.” Tension settles into his stomach along with the sudden urge to put some distance between them. That strange aura flickers into being again, bits and pieces lighting up before winking out again. There’s hardly any time to register before it disappears; the air feels thick in its wake, as if a ghost had passed through with the breeze.
“I…I think my lunch break is gonna be over soon,” Kaminari offers as he rubs the back of his neck. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing, yeah?”
He stands. The kid matches his movement.
“Before you go, can I ask you something?”
The blonde stops in his tracks. No way, man.
“Sure, anything.”
God damn it, Denki.
“You go to U.A., right?”
Kaminari looks over his shoulder to catch Deku’s eyes practically shine with anticipation.
“Yeah? Why?”
In that moment, it’s like the pin has been pulled on the world’s greatest word-vomit grenade. Deku paces back and forth, treading barren paths between the leaves. They rustle sharply beneath his feet as he speaks.
“That’s what I thought. Is it true that they have an aura barrier on campus a little ways from here? I can’t imagine the kind of incantation that would take. The teachers were probably responsible, right? Speaking of which—“ He slows himself, coming to a rest at the intersection of one of the paths. Barren dirt forms a frantic pattern around him. “You wouldn’t have seen All Might around, would you?”
The question catches Kaminari off guard with all the grace of a falling brick.
“I mean,” he starts, taking a few steps back toward the tree. “No, I guess not? I heard he was supposed to teach at U.A. this year. He never showed up on the first day, though. Mr. Aizawa always says the guy just flaked out.”
The pressure on Deku’s shoulders seems to settle back down, and he goes back to pacing, though his steps are slow and heavy this time around. “Right. I probably should’ve guessed.” He mutters under his breath. Kaminari barely catches it, but the words spark something else in his memory; he walks forward again, slowly, with one hand sheathed in his pocket.
“…That was supposed to be kept from the media though, wasn’t it? I thought only accepted students got the news that he’d be teaching there. At least, until he started on campus officially—but he never did.”
Deku’s gaze skates over to him, eyes wide. His face takes on the look of a deer caught in the world’s largest pair of headlights.
“I—I can explain.” He stumbles backward, hands waving frantically in front of his chest.
“You’d probably better start doing that now. How did you even know I went to U.A., huh?”
Deku stills, hands dropping back down. He cocks his head to one side.
“You’re wearing the uniform.”
Kaminari stops cold and checks his shirt once, then twice. He looks back up and grimaces, face contorting into a concoction of embarrassment and grief.
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. But it doesn’t explain how you knew about All Might.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.” Deku folds his arms and leans against the back of the tree. He sighs, casting sideways glances for a minute or two before seemingly giving up. “But you’re not going to leave unless I say something, are you?”
Kaminari shakes his head.
“Okay. Just…walk with me, alright?”
Despite himself, Kaminari starts to miss that soggy heap of a granola bar.
They’ve been trudging along this path for who knows how long now, Deku hopping over every rotting log and stone with ease while Kaminari tries his hardest not to fall. Again. So far, it hasn’t been an easy task. Leaves thrash against his skin as he runs, and sticks scrape at his ankles in the dirt.
‘Walk’, my ass, he thinks bitterly as he checks his phone for the third time; there are ten minutes left in the day’s lunch period, if he’s counting correctly. Factoring in the travel time back to campus plus Deku’s detour leaves him…totally and massively screwed. In other words, twenty minutes late at least.
He may have survived the woods last time, but outliving whatever punishment Aizawa might serve him will probably prove a bit harder to do.
“Dude, ” He calls out breathlessly. “Where are we even going?”
“You’re still here?” Deku falters on a fallen branch, tossing a surprised glance over his shoulder that looks a little too genuine for Kaminari’s liking.
“Um, yes? Did you not think I was following you?” His face sinks into his hands, the sweat already slick against his skin. “You’ve gotta be joking right now. Please tell me you’re joking.”
Deku steps down from the branch and folds his hands innocuously behind his back.
“I may have, hypothetically, thought that you’d get tired and leave me alone. In my defense, that usually worked. Most of the time.” He smiles sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“You are so done.” Kaminari hunches over, hands gripping his knees. He'd be trying to catch his breath if it wasn’t running away from him too. “I swear, after this you’d better talk. ”
A rising wind forces the canopy of trees to heave and groan above them like a caving roof. The snapping of wood crackles faintly, a thousand pittering steps dancing among the leaves as their branches creak. Deku simply tilts his head in that same odd gesture from earlier.
“Why do you want to know so badly, anyway? What’s in it for you?” The boy taps his heel against the curve of the branch. “You followed me a pretty long way. ‘I mean, that would be weird, right?’”
“Listen.” Kaminari starts, his fingers resting on the bridge of his nose. The soft pat of raindrops thrums in cadence with his voice. “I don’t get what’s not clicking for you. A random kid camping out in the woods just…doesn’t paint a good picture. That’s not something people casually go and do. Unless that’s, like, your hobby or something, but you get what I mean.”
“…And what if I don’t?” Deku counters. His gaze shifts nervously before the words can even leave his mouth. Some kind of tell, obviously; an exasperated sigh drifts through the rising mist, and Kaminari throws an arm outward to gesture at the boy across from him.
“No offense, but you don’t exactly look like you planned to be out here.”
And it’s true—chilled air fills the hollow of their bones as autumn swells over the forest, bringing numbing wind. Deku’s mud-spattered shirt hangs loosely on his shoulders, torn at odd corners here and there as the pin hangs lopsided by his heart.
The pin.
“Did you…” The taller boy leans forward, squinting through the haze. The spell ignites in his palm almost unconsciously, and a crackle of electricity flashes in time with the lightning lacing through the clouds. It illuminates thick black numbers printed across the metal in a pattern he can’t make out. “…Come from somewhere?”
Deku stumbles back and folds his arms over his chest. A rumble rolls through the clouds like tumbling stones.
“Nowhere worth staying.”
“Holy crap, I was right.” Kaminari whispers. He lowers the blaze until the light catches on something else: two thin bands of metal latched onto the kid’s wrists. He’s seen those before, in a textbook or lecture or some fragmented snippet of Aizawa’s lessons.
Aura suppression cuffs?
Deku catches sight of the realization passing over Kaminari’s face, and he tenses like a wire’s been threaded through his body. His shoulders draw together as one hand latches onto the other, covering the band.
“Whoa, whoa—why do you even have those?” Kaminari yanks his arm back, extinguishing the spell with a flick of his wrist. “That’s the stuff they put on villains, you know that? So why—”
“Yes, okay? You were right. I didn’t choose to be out here. But I didn’t choose this, either.” Deku shakily thrusts a fist forward. “They slap these on anyone they bring in. What am I supposed to do? I mean, it’s not like they’d listen to me!”
He steps back, chest heaving. Puffs of condensation float through the air as his breath drifts like fog between them. Kaminari stands frozen in place, watching.
“...Are you serious?” His voice is too lilting and light, the kind of voice he saves for situations like this, when his patience and his wattage don’t exactly measure up to one another. Because really, this is all too much; there are a dozen other things he could be doing, each of them significantly more important to his GPA than listening to this stranger ramble in the middle of the woods. Hell, now that he thinks about it, he could just...leave. It wouldn’t take all that much to stun the kid with some offhand conjuration and make it out alright. A little morally reprehensible, maybe, but alright.
Still, though. Something about the tremor in Deku’s voice holds him there, at least for now.
“Listen man, you’re making zero sense right now. If it’s that big of a deal, I can call someone for you, but you shouldn’t stay here. Someone’s probably freaked that you haven’t come home yet.”
“I know that! You don’t think I would’ve called her if I still had my phone? Once I find him, I can go back. That’s all I’ve gotta do.”
Deku lifts his head, and a bloodless face pleads with the boy in front of him. Overcast eyes meet Kaminari’s, with shadows the color of storm clouds gathered beneath them. The beginnings of tears slip like the rain down his skin.
“So if you could just go, and pick another path, on another day, then you don’t have to see me again. You won’t have any more questions, and I won’t have to answer them. I won’t have to lie.”
Kaminari stares back, one hand gripping the opposite arm so that the knuckles burn white. The rain pounds steadily against the ground, and the sound remains unbroken until a sharp ping pierces through it. Kaminari instinctively reaches for his pocket. He fishes out his phone and taps a button; the time flashes across the screen as notifications start to stack onto one another. Raindrops drip onto the colors and warp the words in front of him.
Missed Call (12:15 P.M.)
RedRiot: Dude
Missed Call (12:21 P.M.)
RedRiot: Where are you
EarphoneJack: class started like 15 mins ago. aizawas probably gonna send out a search party
“Damn,” He curses under his breath. “I gotta go.” The phone slips back into his blazer. Kaminari straightens himself, gathering the last of his nerves. “I’m not gonna act like I know what’s going on. I don’t even know if you want my help. Just...take care of yourself, alright?”
He pauses just before turning to leave.
“And hey—” Kaminari adds. “I take this path all the time, you know? It’s kind of my thing. So if we happen to meet here again...then it’ll be like you said. That might not be so weird after all.”
Deku wipes a hand across his cheek. It doesn’t do much to dry the downpour around them.
“Yeah,” he nods, scrubbing at his eyes. “I guess not.”
As Kaminari walks away, the rain begins to slow.
“I thought you were a dead man yesterday for sure.” Kirishima grins as he pours another scoop of rice onto his tray. “Not that he was about to put the lesson on hold for you or anything, but Mr. Aizawa was pissed. I mean, you were soaked. ”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Kaminari groans, sliding his lunch along the counter. “I told him I got lost, what more is there to it? Not my fault this place is so big.”
“Yeah? What’d he say?”
Kaminari grimaces as he balances a plate of food.
“He said that if I was so worried about getting lost I could memorize a map of the campus for homework. And copy it. By hand.”
At least Kirishima has the decency to seem sympathetic. Bakugo just snorts from the front of the line, his silent laughter shaking the tray in his hands. Kaminari rolls his eyes, placing another dish on his already teetering pile.
“By the way,” Kirishima nods to his classmate’s hoard. “What’s all the extra food for? Are you trying out a new training regimen?”
The blonde shrugs, lifting up the tray with all the care he can muster. It sways dangerously for a second before settling back down.
“Something like that.”
Kaminari’s already debating the benefits of installing a microwave in his locker as he pulls out the stack of containers stashed behind the textbooks. The food’s held up surprisingly well over the past few hours, and he can still feel a trace of warmth from the contents inside. Someday he’ll find time to thank Lunch Rush personally.
For now, though, the plastic boxes clink softly against each other as they’re placed inside his bag and zipped out of sight. Shouldering the weight along with his usual takeaway of homework isn’t the easiest thing he’s ever done, but it’s worth it. Even if the walk to the woods takes a little longer than usual.
“Hey,” He calls out as the winding trees around him start to look familiar, their faint shadows stretched by the sun bobbing along the horizon. Mud sticks to the bottoms of his shoes like a second sole. “You still around?”
No answer. Kaminari treads past the fallen branch from yesterday and eyes it warily. Fallen leaves are matted to it, the wood still slick with rain. In other words, it hasn’t been touched since yesterday.
“C’mon,” He mutters as he adjusts the pack on his shoulders. “Where are you hiding, huh?”
If the next ten minutes of searching are any indication, it’s somewhere pretty good.
Sure hope I didn’t scare him off, Kaminari thinks while shoving a hanging branch out of his face. He’s found the edge of a small stream by now and started following it absentmindedly through the forest. Either that, or he finally went home. Wherever home is.
‘Home’ turns out to be a small wooden lean-to that he spots out of the corner of his eye. It’s nearly camouflaged against the dozens of gnarled trees around it; something tells him that’s not a coincidence. Thin sticks are propped up against a wide trunk, and dead brush has been stuffed between the gaps. It’s not Boy Scout material, that’s for sure, but it seems to be working well enough.
“Oh. Hi.”
Kaminari jolts forward, and a few stray bolts spark and fizzle out in his shock. That familiar presence pricks at his skin before he turns to see Deku staring back at him. There’s a bundle of sticks cradled in his arms, and he shifts it to one so he can wave at Kaminari with the other.
“Don’t scare me like that!” He shakes his head, smoothing down the static in his hair. “I could’ve shocked you or something! I don’t need an electrocution on my record, got that?”
“Sorry.” Deku averts his eyes, but there’s a trace of a smile on his face. “Won’t do it again.”
He steps over to the shelter and sets his pile down, dusting off his hands.
“Hey, hold on a minute.” Kaminari shrugs off the backpack and unzips it. The containers come out in stacks, and he balances them on the log in a trembling tower of rice and vegetables. Deku edges closer to it, eyes wide.
“What’s all this for?”
“It’s like, uh…” Kaminari’s eyes dart back to the shelter. “A housewarming gift?”
“Thanks for that.” Deku laughs, one hand covering his mouth as his shoulders shake. “But really, where’d you get all this?”
“The cafeteria. Lunch Rush has the best cooking spells around. Not that he ever shares them.” Kaminari grins and crosses his arms over his chest. “Hopefully it’s not too cold.”
Deku gingerly picks one of the boxes up.
“I’ve heard all about him! Rumor has it he uses some kind of conjuration for his spices but he won’t tell anyone what—people have been trying to figure it out for years. I’ve taken some notes on it myself.”
“Whatever it is, I’m not complaining.” Kaminari slides a box towards himself and pops open the lid. The smell of soba fills the air. Deku hesitantly opens the box he’s holding—one of the smallest Kaminari had packed, the student notes. What is with this kid?
Silently, he nudges more of the food closer to Deku’s side of the log in a gesture he hopes is inconspicuous. Or at least inconspicuous-adjacent.
“Y’know, my friends almost gave me a hard time for smuggling all this food.” He elbows the boy next to him. “You’d like them though. Kirishima’s fun. Bakugo’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s alright. We’re friends, but I don’t think he knows it.” Kaminari winks, and Deku offers him a halfhearted smile in return,
“Yeah. Yeah, I bet it’s nice.”
It’s quiet after that, at least for a while. A flock of crows settles on the ground nearby, pecking at whatever food the two of them happen to drop. At some point, Kaminari sets aside some of his rice just to toss handfuls of it onto the leaves. The birds accept it eagerly.
“So,” Kaminari ventures. “How’s your search going?”
Deku’s smile fades the instant the words leave his mouth.
“All Might still isn’t back, is he?”
“What? No, but why—”
“Well, there’s your answer.” Deku sighs and lowers his head. “I said I wouldn’t go back until I found him, and that’s the way it’s staying. It’s not like I got out much without him around anyway. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing. ”
“ That’s why you’ve been out here alone this whole time?” Kaminari gapes. “That’s some hardcore dedication. I guess if he meant a lot to you, then it makes sense—”
“ —Means— ”
“—Means a lot, my bad, but still. This is a lot to put yourself through. Couldn’t you just wait for news somewhere that’s not, I don’t know, basically the woods from the Blair Witch Project?”
Deku shrugs and places his food beside him. He folds his hands in his lap, one thumb running over the other in a nervous rhythm.
“That’s probably not a good idea. I’m not the only one looking for him.” He raises one arm slightly; the band sits on his wrist, same as always. “They are too. The Commission. We had a, um...clash of interests.”
“The what ?” Kaminari stands up abruptly. “The Magic Public Safety Commission? That Commission? Why would they go after you? Do they honestly think a kid has anything to do with the Symbol of Peace being a no-show?” He shakily runs a hand through his hair. “Great. I’ve been having lunch with a government conspiracy. My parents are gonna kill me.”
Deku fidgets nervously on his side of the log. He stares intently at the ground, aimlessly counting leaves until he gathers up the courage to speak.
“...Yeah. The thing is, it has more to do with my aura than anything. You can’t really sense my presence much, not with these on, but...there’s more than one.” Deku raises an arm. “The bands can’t mask them all the way—I don’t think they’re made to handle this many auras at once—but I come off as a mess most of the time.” He waves a hand, tracing lazy circles in the air as he tries to think. “My power is just...weird. Like I’m in a room all by myself, but there’s a crowd on the other side of the door. Sometimes they get in; no one ever really knocks.”
There’s a sigh, long and faint, and the kid lets his hands fall back into his lap with a defeated pat.
“I should just call it what it is. Mutated. That’s what the guard said it was. I didn’t know anything about their disappearances, but,” he stills, wrapping his arms around his chest. “ Someone did. That’s what I’m trying to find out, soon as I get to see All Might again. For now, they’re just…here. With me.”
Both of them fall silent. Deku picks absentmindedly at the moss creeping along the log. Somewhere beyond them, a river tumbles over the rocks, and the shhhh of water drones as if it’s trying to hush the world around it.
“And they think that connects you to All Might? Seriously?” Kaminari scoffs suddenly. “As if auras can even be transferred like that. They’re out of their minds.”
Deku turns to him, a grave look etched into his face.
“Kaminari, I...have some news for you about that.”
Five minutes and one very complicated story later, Kaminari now harbors the biggest headache he’s probably ever had. Forget short-circuiting—it’s like someone’s just pulled the plug on his brain.
“So let me get this straight.” He ticks off each point on one hand. “After all that, you’re wanted by the Commission. For the murder of seven heroes who disappeared mysteriously over the last century, whose auras you now just happen to possess. And the Symbol of Peace. Am I forgetting anything?”
“Oh!” Deku holds up a finger. “Don’t forget the hair.”
“I think I’d rather forget it, thanks.” Nausea bubbles up in the pit of his stomach. “But if that’s all true, don’t you wanna find who’s really behind this?”
The smaller boy stands up and brushes the moss from his clothes. The leaves littering the ground crackle softly as he walks over to the shelter and gathers up the sticks one by one. For a while, there’s no response, and Deku won’t meet his eyes.
“That’s the thing. I was the best lead the Commission had, the last person All Might was seen with. No one knows who else could’ve taken him. Which means whoever it was—”
“—Is probably pretty freakin’ terrifying.” Kaminari adds as he offers another bundle of wood. “Yeah, I can guess that much.”
“It’ll be fine. I haven’t exactly made that much progress being a fugitive, clearly.” Deku jabs a thumb towards the pile of sticks. “Guess I’m setting up camp at this point.”
“You don’t say. And you’re sure you don’t need help with that?”
“I’d say not.” Deku shakes his head and stands, pasting on a bright smile. He marches back to the lean-to, hands resting on his hips. One arm arcs outward in a mock flourish. “Pretty good work, huh? It’s been standing on its own for a few hours now!”
And it does stand, in all its mediocre glory, for the three seconds before something lashes out from Deku’s hand and brushes against one of the branches at the base. It rolls out of place and sends a handful of others following suit, effectively caving in the right side of the shelter in record time. The faint clacking of sticks crashing into each other is the only sound between them.
Deku stands completely still with his arm frozen in midair. The tendril lingers on his hand for a moment longer, all fizzing energy and flickering aura before fading out again. The boy stares at it with a betrayal that burns beyond the worst of Aizawa’s glares at the broken lounge coffee machine.
“I’m…” Deku swallows. “I’m gonna go sit back down now.”
He walks over and takes a seat, scooting a bit farther away from Kaminari as he does so.
“Hey, don’t worry about it.” The other boy offers. “I can help you fix it later. My spells do that all the time, it’s no big deal.”
Deku perks up, eyes wide.
“Even though you go to U.A.?”
“Well, yeah. It’s a great place, don’t get me wrong, but it’s only our first year. I didn’t exactly expect to be perfect right away.” He holds out his hand, and a cluster of sparks light and fade out. “It’s nice to know I’m not the only one.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s it like there? At U.A., I mean.”
“Why do you ask?” Kaminari sits up straight.
“I was supposed to start there around the time you did. I didn’t end up going because of...y’know. Everything.”
“For real? Hold on—” Kaminari shrugs off his blazer and tosses it over. “Try this on for size, see how it looks!”
Deku catches it and holds it at arm’s length, his face flushing a bright pink. “Are you serious?”
“Why not? It’s freezing out here anyway. I don’t need it back until Monday, so hold onto it for me, alright?”
Hesitantly, Deku slips the blazer on. The tie takes a little longer, but he eventually manages it. Sort of.
“Hey, not bad!” Kaminari grins. “Just remember to fix the tie before you go back to classes.”
Deku beams back at him, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
“Sure thing.”
They’ve just started to pack away the last of the food when the faint sound of footsteps reaches their spot. Deku notices in an instant, sitting rigidly on the edge of his seat and listening intently for their approach. Even Kaminai’s a little unnerved—no one else has traveled out this far ever since he started coming here. Either someone’s stumbled across the place by accident, or they have a reason for heading here.
“Relax,” he shrugs, trying desperately to smooth out the shaking in his voice. “I’ll check it out. It’s probably nothing.” One hand reaches for the strap of his backpack, just in case. With the weight of the textbooks stuffed inside, plus the containers on top of them...well, it’d be nice to get a head start if something decides to come out and jump him. Not that he really trusts his aim.
The dead leaves beneath his sneakers seem dead-set on giving him away as he treads along the path, Kaminari tilting an ear towards the noise steadily coming his way.
“Alright, dumbass, you said you were sure he’s out here. So do you wanna admit we’re lost or what?”
You’re kidding me. Kaminari claps a hand over his mouth.
“No way,” Kirishima’s voice rings out. “I swear I know what I’m doing, okay? I’ve seen him take this trail, like, twice already. And besides, all these extra steps count as training!” Bakugo grumbles in response, and Kaminari watches him kick a stone as they get closer. He realizes a moment too late that the tree he’s crouched behind is about thirty centimeters short of actually covering him.
“You’ve got two seconds to get out here, got that?” Bakugo appears in the corner of his eye, both hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. “The hell are you hiding for, anyway?”
“Uh, nothing?” Kaminari shrugs and steps out onto the trail. “Just...practicing my camouflage. Yeah. That. Why are you here?”
“We came to see where you run off to every day!” Kirishima interjects. “I didn’t know you liked hiking so much. I’m kinda bummed you didn't invite me!”
Damn. Kaminari shoots a glance over his shoulder. From what he can see of the clearing, Deku’s already disappeared from where they’d been sitting. He probably heard all the voices and ran off.
Even so, it’s not like he can just bolt in front of his classmates, and a minute later he finds himself sandwiched between the two as they walk back towards campus. Conversation passes over him, something about that day’s physics test, (which he totally remembered to study for, thank you very much) and he’s almost lost himself in it before a familiar presence flickers past him.
Kaminari slows his pace just enough to let the others pass him by, Bakugo’s ongoing lecture on projectile motion letting him hang back without being noticed. There’s a beat of emptiness before the aura spikes the air again, leading him to the edge of the path. Honestly, Kaminari kind of wants to compliment himself on how his perception’s improved in the past few days.
There’s something waiting for him here, though, and he hesitantly leans forward to read the words scratched into the dirt.
Hey.
“…Are you here?” Kamnari whispers, praying for the rustle of the leaves to drown him out. A few seconds pass before an inky tendril appears, etching letters one by one.
Yes. Can’t come out.
“Why not?”
The last two words are scratched out, and puffs of dust float into the air. Two new ones replace them.
Can’t be seen.
“Oh. I mean, it might not be bad for you to actually meet them. They’re pretty chill. Not that I said anything, but I bet we could help you look if you just told them about—“
The whole sentence is wiped out in one sweeping arc. Pebbles skid along the ground in its wake. Kaminari waves the dust out of his eyes, coughing.
Sorry. The tendril motions frantically. Too much?
Kaminari nods, and it taps the first word again before continuing.
Forgot this.
The brush parts slightly, and Kaminari’s backpack is dropped onto the path. He can just barely spot a tuft of green among the auburn leaves as an eye blinks between them.
Later.
The branches rustle, and he’s gone. A new set of footsteps stir up in his wake.
“Hey, man!” Kirishima calls out, waving him forward. “What gives? You see something?”
“Nah.” Kaminari shouts back before shouldering the pack again. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”
Fog flows thickly through the air, threading its fingers through it and swallowing up the night. Kaminari’s usual spell burns through the mist closest to him, but he can still hardly see beyond the trees.
He kicks at the remnants of their last conversation as it lies etched in the dirt, all jagged lines and scratched-out letters.
“Where are you, man?” He mumbles to no one but himself. It’s a bit later than usual, he knows, but the weekend’s homework had kept him inside for most of the day already. He’d started walking at around dusk, and by now the sky’s deepened to the shade of clouded ink. Internally Kaminari swears that if he trips on one more rock, he’ll head home.
“Dude! If you’re just waiting around to spook me, it’s not worth it!” The words drift and die out in the silence.
The fog thins out once he finally makes it to their usual meeting spot, and as soon as he can make out the familiar space through the dark, Kaminari stops cold.
Wherever Deku could be waiting, it’s definitely not the shelter.
Any progress they’d managed to make repairing it lay scattered along the ground, broken sticks and stones littering the dirt in piles. The whole thing’s been trampled, more or less, and branches crack and splinter under his step.
“Shit.” he mutters breathlessly. Either the shadows are playing tricks on his eyes, or blackened lacerations are etched into the trees next to him. “Okay, I’m serious, Deku. Just come out already, would you?”
The person that emerges from the woods a moment later is not, in fact Deku.
Instead, a uniformed man walks out from between the branches and strides towards him, one hand tracing the brim of his hat. His cadence remains unbroken until they’re only a meter apart, and Kaminari can already feel the tension building in his muscles as they beg for him to run.
“Were you referring to this boy?” The man digs a slip of paper out of his pocket and flips it towards Kaminari. The glossy finish gives way to a snapshot of Deku’s face, the same metal pin still fastened to his shirt. His eyes have the uncanny look of someone being held at gunpoint; based on the guy holding the photo, Kaminari doesn’t put it past them.
“N-no, of course not.” The student waves it off. “I come out here all the time, and I’ve never seen a kid like that.”
The guard—he has to be one, if he’s from wherever Deku came—leans forward, his broad shoulders towering over Kaminari. A low rumble courses through their voice as he speaks.
“Then who were you calling out to just now?”
“No one.” Kaminari sucks in a shaky breath. “You must’ve heard wrong.”
Gloved hands fold the photo crisply in half and pocket it in one fluid motion. His eyes don’t leave him once as they do so.
“I disagree.” The guard intones. “If there’s something you’d like to share, I suggest you do it now. This is a serious matter, and the Commission would greatly appreciate your compliance.” There’s a hard edge to the words that threatens to cut through Kaminari’s courage like butter. The mist around them has thickened to an unbearable fog, and he nearly chokes on his own breath.
“I said you heard wrong.” he mutters. His fingers twitch at his side.
“Hm?” The guard leans forward, tilting an ear toward the boy in front of him.
“You’re wrong !” Kaminari shouts, a cloud of aura sparking around his hand as he swipes at the guard’s earpiece. Lightning lances across the side of the man’s face as the device crackles and sparks, breaking apart before it can even hit the ground. The guard pitches forward with one hand clawing at their ear.
Kaminari’s sneakers pound against the dirt as he books it through the woods, his arms pumping frantically with every step. The air nips at his throat and lungs and coats them in a burning sheet of ice. The sharp rustle of the grass beneath his feet is lost to the pulse beating a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
I’m so dead, he thinks faintly. I just attacked someone with my own two hands. I’m dead.
The trail in front of him becomes faded and blurry as tears swell in his eyes from the cold. The forest intertwines further the longer he runs; he’s headed deeper into the woods, he has to be, and it’s impossible to navigate without dodging the crooked branches that appear suddenly out of the mist.
It’s why he can’t see the shadow hurtling behind the trees until it wraps its arms around him, sending them both barreling through the dirt. Twigs whip at Kaminari as he falls, cutting into his skin and leaving a sting that spreads along his skin.
The wind is knocked out of him with a hollow thunk as their backs hit a trunk. Kaminari gasps for air, one hand clutching his aching chest. The other body uncurls from its place on the ground as it holds its head, wincing.
“Deku?”
“I’m so sorry,” The other boy whispers. “I didn’t want to do that, but you were running out there alone and it’s not safe for—”
“Slow down,” Kaminari coughs, holding up a palm to stop him. “I can’t hear you!”
“He found us.” Deku’s nails dig into his shoulders, rocking Kaminari back and forth as his eyes spark with fear. His aura flickers feverishly, its shimmering edges bleeding into the forest around them and bouncing eerie light off of their bleeding faces. “He—that man, the one who took All Might—he found me. He found us.”
“Shit, what?” Kaminari stands, balancing against the tree for support. “You’ve seen him? Where?”
Deku points a trembling finger back the way they came.
“Somewhere out there. It was dark, so I don’t know where exactly, but he was—”
A sharp crack splits the air behind them. Kaminari turns to see the hulking shadow of a man striding through the haze. A smaller blur trails alongside him.
“Ah,” a sardonic voice hums in the silence. “It seems I’ve found you already.” A broad hand tosses the smaller figure forward, and the guard from earlier staggers into view. His gaze darts frantically between the two boys.
“Would you kindly undo the cuffs on that one?” The hand motions to Deku, who shrinks back further into the dark. The guard hesitates a moment before nodding. Slowly, he peels off his gloves and steps closer.
“Wait.” Deku pleads. “I recognize you. Why would you…?”
His hand wraps around one of Deku’s wrists, and a glow begins to emanate from the guard’s palm. They mutter something under their breath before a faint click unlocks the band. It drops into the dirt, followed closely by the second one. Deku flinches back the second he’s freed, already rubbing his wrists.
The hand reappears from the shadow again as it lands heavily on the guard’s back.
“Thank you. I do hate to see someone deprived of such power. It’s simply not fair.”
A split second passes before obsidian blades burst through his chest, sending a spray of blood scattering through the fog. They retract with a nauseating squelch as the guard slides out of the man’s grip, keeling over slowly until he drops face-first onto the ground. Blood pools thickly in the grass and stains the dirt a sickening color.
“Oh my God.” Kaminari breathes, swallowing back the bile building in his throat. “Oh my God. ”
Distantly, he can hear Deku gagging weakly beside him.
Knives of hardened aura fade softly back into the shadow still standing before them. The voice seeps through the air again, low and rich.
“You have no idea how pleased I am to finally meet you.” There’s a beat of silence before a man steps forward, his face obscured by a polished mask. That same hand, now slick with blood, extends towards Deku’s own. “Your Commission had no clue what they were doing, restricting auras like yours. How unfortunate for them.”
“H-hold on.” Kaminari interjects. “What do you want with us?”
The man tilts his head.
“‘Us’ is a generous word. I’m not particularly interested in who you are. But,” He gestures to Deku again. “I have something your friend might want to see. I’m merely here to take him to it.” The man’s presence shifts, and a new aura takes the place of the first. Pressure builds around his body as the spell binds itself around his arm. The air seems to gravitate towards him, as if he were drawing it in by sheer force alone.
“In which case, there will be no need for you.”
Kaminari’s shoved out of the way before he can blink. Thick tendrils of Blackwhip curl around his middle, pushing him away from the man’s open palm. The spell tears through the path behind them in one fell swoop.
“Don’t!” Deku warns through clenched teeth. He clutches his arm as a writhing mass of aura erupts from it, flickering out of control. The suppression bands lie limply in the dirt, broken and spattered with blood. Another whip twitches erratically as it unfurls from his skin. The man clicks his tongue.
“Of course, you have no training. I’d expect nothing less from that fool.” He swats away the tendrils like flies even as they rip through the fabric of his suit with every motion. “It’s awfully unhealthy to suppress one’s power that long. Though I’m sure you see that now, don’t you?”
A garbled scream ekes its way out of Deku’s throat in response. His aura swells around him, locking each limb into place as a myriad of colors mix and blur in the dark. Flashes of green dance around him, dance through him, and Kaminari is hit by the strange and gripping fear that if he steps any closer they’ll go through him too.
The man casually adjusts the tubing along his mask even as another stray spell strikes the space next to him. It leaves a wisp of smoke in its wake.
“You all make my job unbearably easy.” He’s able to reach Deku in two long strides, neatly dodging the energy spiking the air.
“No.” Kaminari shouts, his voice hoarse. The more he tries to breathe, the less air reaches his lungs. “Don’t touch him.”
“And why not?” The figure points to the body twitching on the ground. “To leave him in his misery? That’s a bit cruel.”
“You have no right to talk about cruel.” It’s not like he’s in the headspace to quiet his nerves, not when a sallow corpse sinks into the grass just a few meters ahead of him. The acrid tang of blood plasters itself in this throat and nose, settling into his pores. But the spell still finds him, buried somewhere beyond his mind, and his aura spreads until it coats him like a second skin. A blanket of lighting laces itself along his body like a barrier.
Golden light glints against the mask that now turns to face him.
“Electricity-based. Not rare, but useful.” The man murmurs. His outstretched arm flexes, and just as Deku can move enough to claw at the person in front of him another pressurized blast sends him hurtling into the base of a nearby tree. He slumps into the dirt a second later, unconscious. His aura goes out along with him.
There’s no acknowledgement, no satisfactory pause as the man advances towards Kaminari. Just the broad shape of a palm hovering over the boy’s face in between one blink and another. The shock Kaminari’s barrier gives him doesn’t even seem to register.
“I’m sure Ujiko won’t mind the new addition too much.”
He’s out before he hits the ground.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅
Pain has nestled itself so deeply into his head that it makes his teeth ache, as if a live wire’s been laid from the base of his skull down his spine. It’s like someone’s carved out the inside of his head and filled it with moths, fluttering wildly and knocking against his nerves with every movement.
He’s almost grateful for how empty the room is—there’s nothing more to cloud his vision than what’s already around him. The stark white walls are enough to make him dizzy anyway. Those, and the blurred shape of the person in the room with him.
A familiar shock of blonde hair sits slumped against the opposite wall. Deku’s tried calling his name once, twice, three times by now, at least. Each attempt leaves him alone with the faint ringing in his ears for company. There’s nothing shackling them in place, though, and after his third try Deku had stumbled over to drape the blazer across his shoulders. It probably wouldn’t help much, but it was something.
He just wishes he could’ve returned it under better circumstances. Maybe after he’d finally gotten one of his own.
There are two windows on opposite walls, both made with a glass thicker than any kind he’s seen before. From where Deku sits now, only slivers of white ceiling are visible from either spot. Chances are, there are more rooms like theirs nearby.
His hand travels to the back of his head again, checking for the specks of blood that had dotted the wall behind him when he first woke up. The last of it has dried for now, but the raised bump remains. At least he knows who to thank for that.
The sound of rustling catches his attention just as Deku lowers his arm.
“Holy hell,” Kaminari mutters thickly. “My head. ”
Relief floods through Deku’s chest in one exhilarating wave.
“Can you hear me? Are you okay?” He braces himself for another round of silence before his friend speaks.
“First, yes. Second...that’s questionable.” Amber eyes scan the room groggily before coming into focus. “Also questionable—where are we?”
“Not sure. There’s a couple of windows, but I haven’t checked them yet.” Deku staggers to his feet with one hand pressed against the wall. “Might as well try.”
His limbs are casted in concrete as he walks, and every step makes his muscles feel like fraying threads. Exhaustion burrows into his bones and weighs them down. The ebb and flow of nausea in the back of his throat surges, and Deku clutches his stomach to push it back.
A voice floats past him, a note of concern that he can’t quite make out. But the window is right there, just a couple of meters away. No use in stopping now—there’s no telling how much longer the two of them have here before someone inevitably shows up, whether it’s some new accomplice or worse, the man himself. If they’re going to get any sort of bearing on their surroundings, now is the time.
Even so, the walls seem almost superimposed on one another as he walks, blank slabs of space folding and unfolding in front of him until he’s been sealed away in a shrinking box of white. A half-formed memory passes through his mind, flashes of jade light against water and the skin of his arms pressed against sand. The phantom warmth of a hand on his back. Training at the beach—how long ago was that? It’s been weeks since he’s overexerted himself like this, at least. Weeks since he last saw—
Deku opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) to see the concrete floor just inches from his face.
“Hey, hey!” Kaminari’s voice breaks through the haze. “Jesus, can you hear me?”
“‘m fine. Probably just—” Deku swallows dryly. “Used too much power earlier. Or something like that. Just give me a second.”
“I’m not surprised. You scared the crap out of me out there. I thought I told you not to do that anymore.”
He lifts his head, searching for any trace of annoyance on Kaminari’s face. There isn’t any. Instead, the boy peers worriedly at him, the blazer still drawn up over his shoulders.
Deku sits up and folds his legs beneath him. He watches as Kaminari pats his shoulder before standing and walking over to the window nearest to them. He stands on tiptoe and peers through the glass, both hands resting on the wall in front of him.
“Nothing,” he reports after a minute or so. “It’s pretty high up, so I can only really see the walls and ceiling, but from what I can tell it looks empty.” A sigh is shared between them. He moves to the opposite wall and tilts his chin up just enough to see. A sharp gasp slips out before he can stop himself.
“What?” Deku rises shakily to his feet.
“There are people in there,” Kaminari whispers, his voice strained. “Two, I think. The man from earlier and someone else.”
Both stand at the window now, each keeping their eyes just above the sill. The man with the suit sits poised at the end of a table and mouths something to the space across from him. Deku recoils, lowering his face from the window in case they’d been spotted. It takes him a moment longer to notice that the man has no eyes.
The mask is gone, replaced with an oxygen mask fastened to his mouth. His face is a bizarre tapestry of scars and skin, papery and wrinkled, and his lips part to reveal an array of nauseatingly white teeth as he speaks. A muffled sound replies from the other end of the room. The man simply leans back and laughs.
“Are you sure that’s him?” Deku squints.
“Yeah. Look at his sleeves.” Sure enough, lacerations run deep through the fabric of the suit, and torn white sleeves peek through the edges. Patches of skin shift slightly underneath as the man gets up from his seat and dusts himself off. “One of your spells tore through it when he came after you.” Kaminari grins. “I sure hope it was expensive.”
A door clicks shut in the other room as a lock mechanism slides into place. The soft sound of a chair scraping against concrete hums through the walls, and a flicker of yellow retreats further back into the room. Kaminari steps away from the window and shoves his hands into his pockets.
“Who do you think he was talking to?” He shudders. “ That ‘Ujiko’ guy, maybe?”
“Who?” Deku tilts his head quizzically.
“...Nothing. So is there a way out of here or what?” He strides over to the door at the front of the room. To no one’s surprise, the handle doesn’t give. Locked from the outside, Deku thinks after they’ve both come within an inch of giving up and trying their luck with the window. But with this kind of model...either that, or it has some sort of trigger. At this rate it’d probably be faster to tunnel their way out with a spoon, if they even had one. He almost wants to kick himself for not pocketing the ones they’d used for their lunch.
A vent sits tucked in one of the upper corners, but it’s too small to even think of using for an escape. The rest of the room is sealed from floor to ceiling. Deku watches as Kaminari makes another circle around the place before slumping against one of the walls.
“What are we even supposed to do ?” He throws an arm across his face. “This guy must watch too many prison movies. Do we just wait around for that creep to come after us again?”
As if on cue, the lock lets out a high-pitched tone before sliding open behind them. Deku immediately presses himself against a wall, making himself as small as possible before the broad figure of the man steps into the room. Panic buzzes under his skin as the man’s mottled face turns silently, surveying the space in front of it. A stout man trundles in behind him and adjusts his glasses.
“So glad the both of you could join us.” That same low voice permeates the air between them. “You can refer to me as Sensei, though we won’t be on speaking terms for long.” A flick of the wrist sends the shorter one trodding forward, whatever half-smile he seems to be mustering obscured by his mustache. A gold tooth glints in the dim light.
“Pleased to meet you, really.” A gloved hand reaches for Kaminari’s and shakes it wildly. “Your type of aura is so versatile, you know. All kinds of conjurations—” The boy inches backward and tries unsuccessfully to pull his hand away.
“That’s quite enough, Ujiko.” Sensei intones. A hand beckons them both towards the door before he nods to Deku, a slight smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Naturally, you’ll be coming along as well.”
Why? Deku opens his mouth to speak, but the question dies on his tongue as Sensei turns his back to the room. Ujiko releases Kaminari’s arm only to gesture for them both to follow. Deku glances to the boy beside him, and tension tugs like a thread between them. The two men wait in the doorway, Sensei’s fingers drumming against the handle.
They each take one deep breath before stepping outside.
The frantic clutter of the next room is almost too overwhelming to take in all at once. Stacks of machinery whirr in Deku’s ears, strings of muted beeps and clicks draw his attention in a dozen different directions and prodding at the headache still lingering in the back of his skull. The place still seems to be bathed in a stark white—every room here is—but rows of silver equipment break up the monotony in teetering piles.
The man called Sensei has already settled into a chair at the back. It’s like the core of a giant machine; a concentrated flow of magic floods through mazes of tubing and feeds into the tears in his suit. The glow splashes a slew of colors onto the walls.
Ujiko had been sent away as soon as they’d arrived. To retrieve something, according to Sensei, and with each passing minute the air seems to thicken with dread.
“Maybe it’s not that bad,” Kaminari whispers as they stand beside the door. “It could mean a way out?”
“...Sure.” Deku nods absently. He can’t tear his eyes away from the figure sitting only a few paces ahead of them. Multiple auras, his mind echoes. Like me. I might carry the predecessors, but I can’t be the one who left them as they are. Could he have…?
The creak of the door sends a jolt down his spine, and they both step out of the way as Ujiko reappears. He shoulders his way inside, pausing only to glance behind him and gesture for the shape to follow.
It doesn’t even make two steps into the room before Deku’s heart drops to his stomach.
“Young Midoriya?”
The edges of his vision blur and fuzz until the only thing he can see is the lanky figure in front of him, Ujiko already dwarfed in comparison to the man’s height. A gaunt face peers down at him, and before he can stop himself Deku is running. A hollow echo fills the room as his sneakers hit concrete, thrumming faster and faster until he nearly collapses into the man’s open arms.
“All Might?” he gasps. Burning pressure builds beneath his skin until it all releases with the tears flooding down his face. “Where were you—you were here ?”
Thin arms tighten around his back before All Might steps away, giving Deku a once-over as his brow furrows in concern. The hero’s face has grown more gaunt since the last time they’d seen each other, that much Deku can tell, but otherwise he seems unharmed. All Might seems to come to the same conclusion about him, and his shoulders sag in a sigh of relief.
“Yes—not that it was my idea.” He shoots an icy glare towards Sensei. “And here I thought you’d be satisfied once you caught the Symbol of Peace. Stooping a bit lower lately, are we?”
Sensei shrugs nonchalantly.
“Wait a minute,” Kaminari speaks up, visibly shaken. “Why are you calling that guy All Might? Is there something going on here that you guys aren’t telling me?”
Deku freezes and folds his hands behind his back. Meanwhile, whatever’s left of the color in All Might’s face drains completely.
“...Potentially.”
“Just as expected,” Sensei scoffs from his chair. “I’m surprised your own successor knows anything more than your name, All Might. Clearly, this other child has nothing to do with what we’re here to accomplish.” A hand waves briskly through the air, dismissing them. “Ujiko, you may start your work with him as soon as it suits you.”
“Hold on.”
Deku steps forward with one arm cast outward in front of Kaminari. It’s barely visible, but faint sparks of green lace around his skin as he does so. Exhaustion burns in his bones, trying desperately to snuff them out. But for his friend’s sake, they keep flickering.
“Let him stay. Please,” he adds, just in case the pleasantry might tip the scales in their favor. Sensei seems to consider it for a moment, one hand propped beneath his chin.
“I don’t see why he should. I finally have the last remnants of One For All at my disposal—can’t have anything getting in the way of that, can we?”
“How did you even manage to get All Might here?” Deku interjects. It’s not much in the way of stalling, but if he can’t get Sensei to gloat about his success, they run the risk of losing Kaminari.
“I realized, eventually, that I was sick of waiting for the right time. And for a man like him, who only has his strength for an hour or two per day…well, time is certainly of the essence, isn’t it?” The villain stands, and the tubing surrounding him snakes down to the floor. “Everyone has their routines. It’s not terribly hard to track which beaches one might visit on a daily basis.”
“After training,” Deku whispers. “So that’s where you targeted us.”
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies. But,” Sensei cracks the knuckles on his right fist. “We’ve wasted too much time here already. Let’s get on with it, hm? It can’t be much harder than the first seven auras I’ve taken.”
It’s a bluff. He knows it’s a bluff—Deku can hardly keep himself upright as his arms rise into a defensive stance. There’s no holding off this man for long, not with his power drained and All Might’s weakened form standing beside him. Sensei’s footsteps drill into the concrete and send a deep echo rippling through the air as he approaches.
The three of them are so focused on watching for the other’s spells that none of them notice as Kaminari slinks along the wall and reaches for a switch next to the door.
“In three seconds,” he hisses through clenched teeth as soon as he’s within earshot of Deku. “We run. ”
“Wha—”
There’s a flash of electricity and the slight smell of smoke as the lights go out.
A hand latches onto Deku’s wrist, and he’s pulled towards the door as soon as the room is plunged into darkness. A muffled shout permeates the shadows behind him, the strained sound of someone trying to cast something, but it’s all lost in the melee. Somewhere behind him, one of the stacks of equipment clatter to the ground.
And then suddenly he’s out, that same hand pulling him ahead while another shoves him through the doorway from behind. The change leaves Deku’s head spinning as blinding white walls rush to greet him again.
“Holy shit.” Kaminari’s voice rings out from somewhere above him. “That worked?”
“Not for long,” All Might warns as he ushers them onward. Thunderous steps grow closer on the other side of the door. “It was lucky that he didn’t think to disconnect himself from any of the machinery first. I don’t think he was expecting to face much opposition, but he won’t make that mistake again.”
The hall stretches endlessly before them, rows of identical doors melting into one continuous blur as they rush past. They have to slow every once in a while for All Might to catch his breath (though Deku would be lying if he said he didn’t need it too), but as soon as they regain their pace, the labyrinth of concrete and plaster only seems to grow longer. The faint clack of Sensei’s blades digging into the walls behind them doesn’t do much to ease the pressure.
Which is why it’s nothing short of a miracle when a metal entryway breaks up the pattern, its broad frame catching Deku’s eye just before their group passes it by. The sudden stop nearly sends them all crashing into one another.
“What gives?” Kaminari snaps as he jabs a thumb at the space behind them. “We don’t exactly have time for this.”
There’s no answer. Instead, Deku motions to the door, a glint of hope in his eyes. The lock fastened to the handle is a dated model, at least compared to the last rooms they’d seen. No aura recognition—just a rusted keyhole, nothing more.
“Thank God they haven’t done any renovations.” Kaminari laughs breathlessly. “One problem—I’m gonna guess none of us have a key.”
Both Deku and All Might shake their heads in sync. A beat of silence passes before the two boys turn slowly to face the hero next to them.
“So,” Kaminari whistles. “Mr. Number-One-Hero. If you’re really All Might, would you mind…?” He nods to the door with a halfhearted grin.
The man glances incredulously between them. Eventually he relents, one hand pressed to his forehead.
“You boys are hopeless,” he says, even as a smile tugs at his mouth. “I can’t guarantee I have much power left, but…”
The strength of his presence flares, if only for an instant, and a cloud of steam bursts into being before their eyes. All in all, he’s only able to reinforce one arm, but for now it’ll have to be enough. All Might grasps the handle, and in one swift motion it snaps off in his hand.
It takes all of their efforts to push the door inward as its chipped metal scrapes slowly against the floor. The sound of Sensei’s approach closes in on their hall, and Deku presses the weight against his shoulder further, fear slicking the skin of his palms. They’re so agonizingly close —the vague shape of a staircase peeks through bit by bit beyond the door. A way out, the only one they’ve seen since getting trapped here.
It finally gives way with one last heave, and Kaminari is the first to stumble through the entrance. Deku backs away just enough to let him move past. He can’t help but check one last time behind them, even as All Might taps his shoulder and urges him past the door.
There, thundering down the hall, is Sensei.
A mass of aura warps the fist hanging at his side, swaying alongside the familiar blades ricocheting against the walls. The distance between them is swallowed up in seconds.
Terror floods through Deku’s chest in a hot rush, and he’s already turning towards the door even as it begins to swing closed. Despite the dark on the other end, he can only just make out All Might reaching to hold it open, missing the shattered handle by a hair’s length.
The blade grazing the back of his shirt barely registers as his limbs buzz and tense with power. The last spell he can manage writhes beneath his skin, its touch barely there before it flashes into being. Every nerve in his body lights like a match; it takes all of Deku’s focus not to release the single tendril now caught between the door and the wall.
He draws back his arm, and the momentum pulls him through to the other side. A deafening clang fills the stairwell as the door slams shut.
The hall at the top of the stairwell is just as bright, and they all stagger through the next entrance blindly. Adrenaline pushes them ever-forward through this new facility, almost sending Deku crashing into the first person who passes by. Papers flutter into the air and litter the floor.
“Watch where you’re going!” The guard barks as she gathers up the last of her files. “No one else is even supposed to be working this shift—”
Dead silence follows as the woman raises her head, locking eyes with the boy now standing in front of her.
That uniform.
“Hey,” her eyes narrow as she looks him over. “You. I know you.” A communicator is pulled from her hip. A sharp crackle pierces the air as it’s turned on. “Your case has been screwing us over for days. And to think we’d find you back here—”
Both freeze as another person steps in between them, an icy stare piercing the tension.
“I assure you,” All Might intones, one hand set lightly on Deku’s shoulder as the other digs into the guard’s. “That you had the wrong man.”
“Yeah,” Kaminari starts forward with arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah, what—what he said.”