Archive of Our Own

"I'm worried," Tsu said, one finger placed pensively on her mouth. "We sent ships to do reconnaissance last week, and they never returned. And now all four of you are going. There must be something bad."

Momo had been thinking much the same thing, if from a different angle. Ever since her class from Yuuei had moved into All Might's old tower and formed a single hero team, rankings had become a lot less important. Some significant part of the drama dropped out when the top twenty heroes all decided to share first place. Still, Midoriya, Bakugou, and Todoroki had been the most effective fighters back in high school. In her mind they were the top three heroes in the country.

So if the three of them had been summoned by the hero commission to investigate a quirk accident on this remote island, why had her presence been requested as well?

"I don't dare to get any closer," Tsu explained, "I have to think of my crew. We'll lower a smaller boat for you to take the rest of the way to the shore."

"We can probably just fly," Todoroki said.

Bakugou shook his head. "There's been no communication from that place for over a week. We don't know anything about what's going on. If there's some hostile force, then they'll see us from the air. We'd leave ourselves open"

"Besides," Midoriya added, "We can always start flying if we need to."

Tsu explained how to steer the smaller boat secured at the edge of her ship's deck. Then they were climbing in, watching as the ropes winched and lowered them down into the water. Tsu stood at the edge of her own deck, staring after them with as blank a face as she could manage.

Momo had only been confused on the way here, but watching Tsu's concern, she was beginning to grow truly worried.

Bakugou started the small engine in the back and began to steer them toward the island.

The wind whipped at Momo's face. It had been hot out over the past week, but today the temperature was a little cooler, and there were just enough clouds to keep the sunlight from beating down constantly without making the day gloomy. She could imagine herself on a roller coaster or out on a trip to the lake if it weren't for the familiar fabric of her hero costume and the intense looks on her friend's faces. 

"I think that's it," Midoriya said, pointing at a gray smudge on the horizon.

The engine stalled. 

Bakugou bent over it, trying to identify what had gone wrong. If this were a real holiday, he would have shouted and exploded something, but now his frustration was completely contained in the slight wrinkles in his brow.

"What happened?" Midoriya said. 

“Shut up," Bakugou responded, pulling the engine back on its hinge to rest sideways.The propeller had corroded, its wings so small now that Momo could barely make them out from the prow.

"There's a leak," Midoriya said, pointing down to the growing pool of water at the bottom of the boat. 

Todoroki reached out to freeze it, but jerked his hand back as soon as it made contact with the water. In one motion he brought it around to slam down on the outside edge of the boat. Ice spread from there to coat the side, blocking off the leak from the other direction. 

Midoriya started floating. Then he used blackwhip to pull the boat out of the water. Momo grabbed on to the prow as he began using One for All to propel them toward the island.

Leaning over, Momo put her hand on Todoroki's forearm. She needed to get his attention, or he wouldn't hear her over the wind. "What happened," she said, "What happened when you touched it?"

In response, Todoroki turned his hand over to reveal his palm. His fingers were pink—too pink, like he'd accidentally placed them on a hot stove. "You know," he said, "I did suggest we fly."

With a jolt, the boat crashed into the sand of the beach.

Midoriya sat up from the ground, brushing sand off of his costume. "Oh, sorry!" he said, "I was facing the wrong way to fire off One for All, and I didn't turn around in time to—"

"Do you know what a stealth mission is?" Bakugou interrupted.

Momo jumped down out of the boat. The beach was short, ending in thick forest, and the underbrush made it impossible to see more than a few feet forward.

"Isn't there supposed to be a town on this island?" Todoroki asked. He had opened one of the pouches at his side, and was bandaging up his hand. 

Bakugou nodded. "On the other side." 

"So why is the forest like that?" Midoriya said. There was still sand in his hair. "This island isn't that big, and the people have been here for some time. The trees should have been cut down and replanted piece by piece several times by now—they should have taken out the underbrush, put in trails and signs." 

"Maybe this is just a wild part," Todoroki said, climbing out of the boat to stand beside Momo. "We should walk down the beach, see if we can find any trails or the settlement itself." 

Just then Momo heard footsteps, too small and hurried to be a human's. The leaves at the edge of the beach rustled, and a marten burst out toward them. Momo jumped out of the way, and was immediately a little embarrassed. Such a small creature was not a threat. It didn't even come all the way to where the four of them stood around the wreckage of their boat, instead turning to the side and meandering its way down the beach.

"So the water corrodes," Midoriya said, "That's got to be one person's quirk. They must have a pretty good range since it went all the way out too—"

A monkey stepped out onto the beach, tearing after the marten. The marten looked back, squealed, and redoubled its own speed, but it was too late. The monkey caught up and scooped it into its arms. For a terrible moment Momo thought the marten was going to be eaten—and then the monkey put it back down, turned around, and ran back toward the forest. As soon as its feet hit the ground, the marten took off in hot pursuit of the creature that had just been chasing it. 

Both of them disappeared back into the woods.

"Okay," Midoriya said, "That was kind of strange." 

"Do monkeys eat martens?" Momo said, "I thought some were omnivores—but I never really studied animals." 

"That one doesn't," Bakugou said. He was already striding down the beach. "What are you lot waiting for?" 

The sand stretched on the same, curving slightly along the edge of the coast. After about an hour they came to a creek, flowing out over the beach and into the ocean. Todoroki made a bridge of ice over it.

"Actually," Momo said, "I was wondering if we should just walk along the edge. The creek will keep us from losing our way in the woods, and if the settlement isn't on the coast, then we could go all the way around and never spot anything useful." 

"It might be helpful to look at the woods," Midoriya added, "Like I said, they're thicker than I expected. A second person's quirk could have done that." 

"Then the woods will try to kill us like the water did," Bakugou said. Momo couldn't tell if he actually disagreed with the idea, or if he just felt like he had to oppose Midoriya.

"There's been nothing on the beach," Todoroki said, "And something is wrong here. I'd rather go in and fix it than wait for something to happen."

The ground along the edge of the creek was free of plants for a few feet, just enough space for the four of them to walk single file. Momo could imagine the tide coming in and rushing up the bank, knocking down the thicker things that tried to grow along the edge. There were plenty of birds. Momo couldn't see them, but she could hear them calling to each other from different trees. She wondered if they were talking about her, warning each other of the humans intruding on their wilderness. 

The ground rustled. Momo jerked her head toward the noise. There was a bear, pounding toward them, doging around the trunks of trees. 

Todoroki shot ice out at it, but his injury must have thrown him off. The bear was not yet close enough to be encased. Instead its momentum carried it forward and into the growing spikes on the end of the ice shelf. Todoroki pulled his hand back, eyes widening, but it was too late. 

The bear hung there, suspended and bleeding. 

"What are you idiots doing?" Bakugou yelled back at them. Midoriya pushed past him, running back to Todoroki. 

"I messed up," Todoroki said, eyes fixed on the bear, "I just meant to catch him." 

"Bears don't normally charge like that," Momo said, "It may have been sick anyway." It may also have had cubs somewhere nearby, but looking at Todoroki's face, she didn't think it would be wise to mention that possibility.

"We have to kill it," Midoriya said.

Momo looked, and noticed for the first time that the bear was still alive. It stared at them silently over the crest of the ice.

Todoroki's right hand twitched, and Momo couldn't tell if it was still in pain, or if he had faltered in his intent to strike.

Either way, she knew what needed to be done. 

Drawing a gun out of her thigh, Momo walked up the edge of the ice until she was level at the bear. It didn't snap at her, or make any noise, but it did shift its head a little, raising its eyes to look into hers as she lined up her shot. Then she pulled the trigger. She had remembered to make a silencer, but the noise of it was still louder than she would have liked. Or maybe it was just her own heart, pounding too quickly inside, trying to convince her that she had made a mistake. But she knew she had done well. The bear would have suffered otherwise.

"We should bury it," Todoroki said, finally breaking the ringing in Momo's ears. He walked past her, dropping down on the other side of the ice block. Then he sent a thinner sheet of ice directly down into the ground on the other side. 

Before Momo could ask what that was for, Midoriya had jumped past her. Grabbing the edge of the ice sheet, he activated his quirk and leveraged up a huge clump of dirt.

Getting the bear into the ensuing hole was a little tricker, but the whole process went much faster than it would have if Momo had made shovels. Midoriya did most of the burying, breaking off a piece of the ice sheet to push the dirt back over the bear in a mound and press it down. Momo was suddenly reminded of the nearby creek, of the tide that would come in and spread over this area. She hoped that the grave wouldn't just wash out whenever the water touched it.

"I shouldn't have done that," Todoroki said. His normal facial expressions were subtle, but they had all fallen out now, leaving him completely blank. 

"A bear was running toward you, and you reacted," Midoriya said, reaching into the pouch on his belt for a small water bottle. "None of us blame you for that." He unscrewed the lid and tilted his head back to take a big sip. Immediately, he spit it out on the ground. The water came out bloody.

Bakugou ran over to him, but before Momo could offer to help as well, Todoroki grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Pressing both hands together, he activated both sides of his quirk and caused a dribble of water to fall down onto her hand. It didn't burn. 

Momo made a cup for him, and while he filled it she ran over to examine Midoriya. He was still spitting blood

"It was fine on the beach," Bakugou said, and though his head did not turn she knew he was talking to her, "We all drank our own water on the beach, and nothing happened. It's changed since then." 

Momo nodded. "Whatever is doing this—the epicenter must be farther inland."  Then she made a water bottle, grabbed Midoriya's open hand, and wrapped his fingers around the plastic.

Todoroki walked up behind her, holding his cup of water. "Oh," he said, watching Midoriya wash out his mouth with Momo’s creation. "I forgot you could do that."

"I wasn't sure if it would help," Momo explained, "But your water didn't hurt me."

"It's changing," Bakugou said, "We should throw out the water we have. We don't know how long it takes to go wrong." 

Midoriya's mouth was bleeding along the edges where the water had touched. A bandage wouldn't have held there, so Momo made him a cloth to hold against it, and they continued on along the creek. None of them discussed turning back. The injuries they had sustained were not bad enough to require immediate attention, and they had not yet discovered anything useful.

As they came farther from the beach, the underbrush grew thicker, until they had to veer away from the edge and push a path through the plants themselves. Momo was glad that she was not first in line. Her costume had shifted dramatically over the years, but it still didn't offer nearly as much protection from briars as her friend's costumes did. She was also beginning to develop a headache. Maybe her neck muscles had pulled tight from the quiet tensity of the mission. Hopefully it wasn't mild dehydration. She didn't want to waste too much of her fat creating water.

Todoroki stopped ahead of her. Momo peered around him to see Bakugou looking back, holding up his arms. They were covered in cuts. 

"There aren't thorns," Bakugou insisted, "It's just the vines. The leaves—they're all sharp."

Momo reached out her hand, just touching her finger to the edge of a leaf growing off of a creeper near her head. She had touched many knives in her life. Most were not kept sharp enough to draw blood when you touched their edge without pressure. Most were not as sharp as this leaf.

Looking down, she saw the same shallow cuts on Bakugou’s arms painted along the edges of her own legs. Her friends had been trampling down the underbrush ahead of her, but there was too much for them to press it all down.

Todoroki nodded, "So it is a quirk." Then he winced, holding up his right hand. The bandages there were slightly discolored, bled through on the other side. His burned hand hadn't been bleeding before.

"Is it getting worse?" Momo asked. There might be some faint trace of water there, small enough to be negligible when they were farther away from the epicenter. 

Suddenly Bakugou was pushing past her, running back the way they had come. Momo spun to call after him. That's when she noticed that Midoriya wasn't behind her anymore.

They didn't have to run far. Midoriya was sitting in the middle of the trail they had taken, holding the cloth over his chin. It was soaked through. 

"I hate you," Bakugou said.

Midoriya didn't say anything. Momo was fairly certain he couldn't.

"I can take him back," Bakugou said, turning back to face them, "You two go stop those villains. They can't make it off this island."

Momo nodded. She had a sudden vision of this water quirk used on a city, turning every tap into acid. She would give anything to prevent that future from becoming a reality. 

Midoriya stood up, looking like he wanted to protest, but he let Bakugou grab his arm and drag him back toward the beach. If he really disagreed with the plan, he would have told them somehow. As it was, Momo knew that Midoriya hated leaving any problem for someone else to deal with. It was a sign of his growth that he didn't offer any more resistance than he had. 

As their friends set off back toward the shore, the two of them set off back in the direction they had been heading, Todoroki in the lead. Momo kept her head up, peering into the distance for any sign of humanity. As unnerving as this place was, its beauty was captivating. The creek was crystal clear, and small flowers she couldn't identify trailed down along the edges, petals falling into the water. The birds were still calling, their voices louder now. The leaves of the trees were every shade of green, letting dappled light down to paint the forest floor.

Todoroki pointed, and she followed the line of his arm. Up ahead, the creek widened out into a small lake. Momo closed her eyes for a moment. She was rather fed up with water.

They crept forward toward the edge, and Todoroki pulled back some vines that were blocking the way so that Momo could see across to the other side. She caught her breath. There were cranes standing along the opposite shore, dipping their beaks down into the water and splashing it up onto their wings. Nearby, a stag stood on the shore, bending his neck down to drink deeply.

Todoroki snapped a twig off of a nearby tree and dipped it down into the pond. He drew it out again. Nothing had happened. 

Something moved in Momo's gut, the twinge of intuition she had learned not to ignore. She drew a pencil from her arm, leaned over, and dipped it into the water. When she drew it out, the wet part of the wood had been eaten away.

"So it just hates us specifically," Todoroki said. 

Momo blinked. There was something wrong with Todoroki's face, His skin was stark against his scar, against the red half of his hair. It was too pale, with an almost blue undertone. 

Momo had a headache. 

"What is it," he said.

"Does my skin look strange?" Momo said.

“Yeah,” Todoroki said, tilting his head to consider her, “I think—it looks a little off color.”

Momo nodded. “I think the air is wrong.”

“Can you make us filters? To put over our mouths?”

Momo shook her head. “I could filter out toxins, but I don’t know if that is what’s happening here. If the water changed its composition—what if there isn’t enough oxygen here at all? And if I make an oxygen tank, what if it changes the same as the water bottles were?”

"We should go back," Todoroki said, stepping away from the water. 

Momo didn't follow. They still had not found anything. And she could create from any part of herself. 

Todoroki noticed she hadn’t followed him and turned back. “Come.”

Momo shook her head, and from the inside of her lungs she pulled out air. She had studied its composition, though somehow this application of that knowledge had never occurred to her.

It was a strange sensation, not needing to breathe. 

"Momo," Todoroki said, "you can't breathe the air." 

"I won't need to," she said, "I can make it inside myself. I know—I am confident that I can do this."

Todoroki looked at her, searching for any uncertainty in her face. Finally he nodded. "I'll go back to the beach. If you're not there half an hour after that, then I'm coming to look for you." 

"I'll be there," she said. She had to be. She wouldn't become the reason her friend suffocated.

Turning, Momo began to make her way around the pond. She did not want to be watching when Todoroki disappeared behind the underbrush. She did not want to see the moment she was left truly alone.

It turned out that Momo did still need to breathe—but only out. Her body was still producing carbon dioxide, and that still needed to be expelled. It was a different rhythm, pushing the air out in small bursts. She had to consciously remember not to pull any in.

It was a lot more difficult to get through the sharp leaves on her own. She made a machete—she wasn't stupid enough to try pushing them away with her bare arms like Bakugou had. Still, she had been considering turning back when she saw it. As she came around the far side of the water, she looked to her right and saw an opening in the thick forest. A clearing. 

Momo pushed toward it and came upon a wide open space. There was a paved road ahead, surrounded by a few buildings—houses and a shop or two. A meadow surrounded them all, lush but well cared for. Beyond that, she could see the wide open sky, tinted with the beginnings of sunset.

She did not see any people. Somehow, she didn't find that surprising.

Momo stepped forward into the grass and immediately hopped back in pain. It was sharp, and it didn't bend back at her touch like the forest leaves had. She might as well have been incorporeal for all the effect her feet had on it, though it could still cut her. After taking a moment to assess the situation, she made platforms several inches tall and strapped them onto her shoes. When she stepped back away from the forest edge, the grass was not tall enough to touch her.

She made her way to the single street and began to walk through town, searching for the quirk user who had caused this. She hoped they were a villain—though that would be more inconvenient for her—because the other possibility was that this was a quirk manifestation. She did not want to think about what a quirk like this would do to a child. 

When she reached the end of the street, Momo turned back and searched more carefully in the alleys between the buildings. She had every right to break into the houses, seeing as this was an emergency and whoever had been living in them was definitely dead by now. Still, she was going to have to approach this carefully. She could no longer create whatever gadgets her whim fancied. 

Later on in high school, she had realized that the less she had to worry about running out of things she could create, the greater her flexibility and confidence in combat would be. So she had put on weight. It had been difficult actually, with her ridiculously high metabolism. She took pride in it—it was a work she had completed in order to help her in her heroism. Like all her classmates, she had shaped her body to be the thing she would need. It felt comfortable. It felt right.

It was disheartening, watching all that effort slip away as she used up her fat stores instead of breathing. 

So no, she could not create something to easily break into the houses with. If anything, she needed to think about turning back. 

Her searching brought her back to the other end of the road. That's when she saw him—a man, walking out of the forest. His face looked washed out. It was probably her mind playing tricks on her, but Momo almost thought she could see the patterns of the foliage behind him shining through his empty skin. 

Placing her hand on the gun still strapped to her side, Momo stepped away from the buildings so she would be easier to spot. "Hey!" she yelled, and then she inhaled on reflex. Then she coughed. The air was wrong.

The man jerked his head toward the noise. When he saw her, he changed course to come toward her, but he did not pick up his pace. 

Forcing herself not to keep inhaling, Momo made more air for herself and settled her spasming diaphragm. It was going to be very difficult to have a conversation.

"You should go," the man said, near enough to talk properly now. "I don't know how you're still alive.

"I'm the pro hero Creati," Momo said, careful only to breathe out this time, "I'm here to assess the situation. Has there been a quirk accident?"

"Yes," the man said, somber. He did not say whose quirk. Both of them knew.

"Has it ever done this before?" Momo asked, "Is there anything I could do to help you control it?"

"My quirk gives me what I want," the man said, and he gestured to the empty street ahead of him. "Will you walk with me? It's been lonely here."

Momo stepped back. "If it does what you want—why would you cause so much destruction? Why can't you will to turn it off?"

The man shook his head. "It's not that kind of wanting."

He started walking down the street, towards the sky full of sunset. Momo followed him, but she kept a little distance. She kept her hand on her gun.

"My wife was killed," the man said, "She was mugged. And I—I missed her. I wanted her to come back."

"But your quirk couldn’t raise the dead." 

"It could, That was the problem."

A fox darted out from one of the alleyways and ran up to the two of them. Momo jumped back, but the man knelt down and reached out his arm. The fox trotted up to him, tail wagging, and sniffed carefully at his open hand. Then he turned and walked over to Momo. 

Momo stepped away from him again. The animals here didn't act normal. From what she had read, strange behavior like this was often a sign of disease.

"You don't have to be afraid of them," the man said, "The animals don't hurt each other any more. They won't hurt you. They've forgotten how."

The fox looked up at her, and as if he sensed her hesitance, he turned and trotted back into another alleyway.

Momo blinked, trying to put this interaction from her mind. One thing at a time. "Your wife," she said, "What happened to your wife." 

"She came back," the man said, "But it wasn't right. And I don't mean in a moral way—I mean, her body was all wrong. It was still hurt. It wouldn't heal. She was in pain every day—she wanted to go back to being dead—and I didn't know how to let her. I couldn't stop wanting her near. I would never have done that to her—but I loved her. I loved her too much."

They reached the edge of the town again, but the man continued forward. He broke off from the road, following a dirt footpath into the meadow. Momo followed. She had to know.

"Eventually, her pain grew too great, and I stopped wanting her there. I wanted her dead again, and she died, and I hated myself for it. I hated the world for doing this to us. And the want that grew in me next—I thought I was doing well. After everything that had happened to me, I'd be justified for wanting my wife's murderers dead, right? For wanting other people to be hurt? But I did better than that. I didn't want revenge. Instead I wanted a good thing—I wanted a world where what had happened to me and my wife wouldn't happen to anyone anymore. A world where no one hurt anyone ever again. A world without evil."

The path was leading them up a hill. The farther they climbed, the more of the orange sky Momo could see. In the starker light, she was sure that her eyes did not deceive her. The man’s skin was transparent. She could see the shape of his bones.

The man sighed. “What I didn't realize is that humans can't exist in a world like that." 

Momo shook her head. There must be some mistake. "Your quirk isn't doing what you think. Humans are good—they have so much good in them. I see it every day." 

"Of course there is good in us," the man said, "But there is always that taint, that stain of wrong. Haven't you ever been jealous of someone else's good fortune? Haven't you ever manipulated someone to get your way? Ignored what someone needed because it seemed inconvenient?"

"That's insane," Momo said, "Of course everyone feels that way at times. You can't take perfection as your standard." 

"I wish," the man said, and his voice caught. He was crying. "I wish that were true. I wish I could make a lower standard—I wish I had never thought of a world like this. But I can't help it. I can't help the things I long for." 

They reached the top of the hill. There was a bench there, looking down on the beach below. Momo almost made a break for it. She could run along the beach until she found a place she could breathe. She needed to do that. Hadn't she found out all she could? 

"By the time I realized what had happened, everyone here was dead. But the animals—well, they weren't unaffected. They changed. They stopped eating each other. I watch them playing games sometimes, running and pouncing on each other, then jumping back and running away again. Yesterday I saw sea lions napping on the beach, and there were martens playing all around them. Some sat down and took a nap with them. It was—it was like nothing I could have conceived of. And I can't—I can't bring myself to regret this place."

Momo almost didn't hear the end of it. She was trying very hard to control her breath through the sudden burst of emotion that had come over her. She didn't want this man to be telling the truth.

She'd killed that bear. She didn't want to believe that it had never been attacking them. 

"I should be dead," the man said, "This place is killing me. But I don't—I don't want to die." He looked up at her, tears streaming over his cheeks. "I never want to leave this place. Despite everything—it is everything I wanted it to be. Please—I can never want it different. People will find it and be hurt. With every step the grass cuts my feet. You have to kill me."

Momo's breath caught. She wasn't sure if it was a sob, or if she had run out of air. Her hand was still clasped around the gun. 

"Please," the man said.

She didn't think about the movement—just pulled the gun out, brought up her other hand to stabilize it, and fired. 

The noise was shattering. The world broke away in shards.

Momo sat bold upright in bed. Immediately, hands caught her shoulders.

"You're fine,"' Kyouka said. Her form was silhouetted by the wide window behind. "You're in the hospital. You're fine."

Momo gripped the bar at the edge of her bed, knuckles white. Her wrist was smaller than she remembered, smaller than was comforting. And she was breathing too heavily, like she had just run for her life.

"You fixed it," Kyouka reassured her, "You fixed the quirk accident. Nobody will die there again. You need to lie back down."

Momo opened her mouth to respond, but the words would not quite come. She let herself be pushed back down onto the bed. She needed her focus to form her thoughts. 

"I've called a nurse already," Kyouka told her, "Are you feeling alright? Anything I should tell them?"

"It would kill us," Momo said, still reaching for the words to finish.

Kyouka's brow furrowed. "What would? The man you stopped?"

Momo swallowed. Her throat still felt dry. "What we want," she said, "What we need."