Chapter Text
Today was the day. Emma and Izuku had planned for this. Everything was set. They were going to escape, and they were going to free everyone. Most everyone. Izuku looked at the house for the signal. He and Emma had made peace with the fact that they would be the only ones to escape, being by far the oldest of them They had said their goodbyes, and Emma was now in the house and all Izuku had to do was wait. He waited as Isabella walked back into the house. He kept waiting until the house was ablaze. He sprinted toward the meeting point. He stopped near the wall and saw the rope still there.
“Good,” he said to himself. It wasn’t long after that Emma arrived with blood coming from the side of her face. He had it in the same place, except he had only cut off the earlobe where the tracker was. He knew Emma was so apprehensive that she must’ve been shaking when it happened, so he didn’t mention that she had lopped her ear off. They’d have to patch it up a bit better than she had. The two looked back at the house quickly before beginning to scale the wall. They slowly but surely reached the top and looked outside to see forests for miles. They knew that escaping the house was only step one, but they lamented that they wouldn’t be getting a break anytime soon. Emma scratched the skin around the metal cuff on her left hand before they pulled up the rope and threw it over the other side.
“Izuku…Are you sure they’ll be okay?” Emma asked.
“...No…But I’d rather save most of them than have them all die.” Izuku said. Emma nodded sadly before they began to descend.
They had been walking for hours when fatigue began to set in. The adrenaline had run out a long time ago, and they got more and more tired as they pushed on. They were on the verge of collapse when Izuku finally spoke up.
“Maybe we should stop here for the night.”
“It’s not Nighttime Zu. We have to keep going.” She said, drearily. Izuku lightly pushed Emma to the side and she fell over onto the ground. “What the heck?!” She asked as she struggled to sit up.
“We’ve gotta rest or we won’t survive.” Izuku sat next to Emma and they sidled up to a tree and leaned against it. “We’re gonna make it…I know we will…” He said as both of them fell into a deep slumber.
The next few days were rainy. The two kids trudged forward for so long the days began to blend together. Weeks passed, but finally, they saw it. A break in the forest. They saw sand, which meant they were getting somewhere. They were excited and smiled at each other, but they were too tired to run, so they walked slowly toward the sand and before they made it there, they saw water. It was a beach. When they finally got there, they noticed something odd. The water…it was clear. It was clean. Izuku took a few steps forward and kneeled before cupping the water in his hands.
“Izuku, it’s not safe to drink seawater,” Emma said, walking up to him.
“Yeah, but,” he started before sipping the water. “This is not seawater.” Emma’s tired eyes widened.
“What does this mean?”
“It means we’re more trapped than we thought. But I think…” Izuku hummed, looking closely at the horizon. It wasn’t natural at all, and it was nebulous, so it wasn’t some sort of inescapable dome. He had a strange feeling. “Emma, I know you’ve trusted me so far, but I also know you’re tired. Tired of everything. But can you trust me one more time? Because I think this is the last obstacle we need to go through.” Izuku pleaded with her. She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Izuku, if you think I’m gonna stop trusting you now, of all times, then you don’t know me all that well.” Emma smiled, a tired look on her face. Izuku smiled back with a similar look of exhaustion.
“Alright. We’re gonna need to take off our shoes.” Izuku said, before proceeding to do so. Emma followed suit. “Now, please don’t get mad, but we’re gonna have to swim.”
“Swim? Do you see how far this water goes?”
“Emma, you’re smarter than me. Take a look out at the horizon.” She stared and saw a bit of distortion in the clouds that were scattered across the blue “sky.” It was fake.
“Is it a quirk or something?” She asked.
“I think so. And we might have to swim a long way to get to the edge. We don’t know if they’re looking for us, but we should assume they are.” He said. “We swam in the pool often enough. Are you ready to swim?” He asked. Emma looked down. “What?”
“I have a thought. These clothes are rather heavy. The fact that we haven’t left them behind is mainly because of embarrassment.” She blushed a bit. “But if we ditch them, we may have a chance of swimming farther without using as much energy.” Izuku blushed as well. They were only eleven, but their hormones still had started appearing.
“Are you sure we can’t just rip them a bit off? I can take my shirt off, but…”
“Izuku, this is bigger than getting a little flustered! Do you think I wanna do this?! We can’t rip the clothes, they’re too thick!” Emma snapped at him. Izuku sighed, before beginning to unbutton his shirt.
“You’re right, you’re right. Please tell me that you have a bra or an undershirt,” He said. Emma nodded.
“Undershirt.” They took off their shirts, and Emma proceeded to take off her pants. Izuku looked away and Emma rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna get a glance eventually, get used to it, ‘cause once we get to the other side, we won’t have the clothes to put back on.” Izuku was more than flustered, but once his shirt was off, he took off his pants as well. “I know you’re the leader here, but I’m the brains. This is the best call I can think of, now let’s start swimming.” They began wading into the water before it was too high to stand. They began swimming, gaining speed as they got farther out. It was fortunate that the water was clean because they didn’t know how to keep the water out of their mouths entirely. They began to feel winded as they continued toward the far end of the water, which didn’t seem to be getting closer.
However, as they were getting closer and closer to accepting their fates, lamenting their failure, and even tearing up so that they could barely see, the sky changed. Apparently, it was nighttime, and the land was close. It was a long river, not an ocean, or even a lake. They reached land and lay down on the grass. They gasped for air as they looked back at where they came from, only to see a large lake. Insanely large, with no land in sight. It was cloaked, somehow, and they finally realized that they had escaped.
They looked at each other and smiled, before they giggled, turning into full-on laughter as their dazed minds celebrated their accomplishment. However, they began to fall asleep. They tried desperately to stave it off, but their exhaustion took hold and they fell into a deep sleep.
Izuku woke up in a room that was very foreign to him. It had white and grey walls, and he saw a bunch of machines. He felt something in his stomach, in his head, in his arms and legs. He knew something was up and sat up. He looked to his side and saw Emma sleeping peacefully in a strange bed. He looked at the bed he was in and saw it was basically a carbon copy.
He then looked at his hands and the feeling in him made sense. There was nothing on either of his wrists. The quirk inhibitors were gone. It was finally over, and the joy he felt was palpable. He began to sob, his tears flowing like a faucet, and he had the biggest grin. He flopped back on the bed.
“We’re free.”
Soon, someone came into the room, causing Izuku to jump and try to get up.
“Whoa, whoa!” The woman said. “It’s okay, you’re alright, no one’s gonna hurt you,” she said in a calming voice. He suddenly felt relaxed.
“What did you do?” He asked, a calm washing over him that he hadn’t felt since before…before they found the monsters.
“It’s my quirk. It is called Relaxation. It calms you down enough to focus on the current moment.”
“Well, I appreciate it. The past few days have been…hell.” He admitted.
“I bet. We have someone coming to visit you two, someone who just wants to get the details of what happened. No one's gonna take you away or hurt you, we just want to know why you washed up half naked on the side of a lake with advanced Quirk Inhibitor cuffs and marks on your wrists underneath. Ones that suggest you’ve never had them taken off.” Izuku nodded.
“We’ll tell you everything, but I wanna know…is Emma gonna be okay?” Izuku motioned over to the only person he had left. The woman smiled.
“Given that you woke up just fine, she should be awake soon as well.” Izuku breathed a sigh of relief. “You both are gonna be okay.” After the woman left, all Izuku could do was stare at his friend. Her peaceful face calmed him more than the nurse’s quirk ever could. Izuku took some time to think about their situation.
They were trapped for their whole life, and once they saw something outside the walls, they knew they had to escape. But he had to wonder, with so much area they had to cross, why didn’t they have people on the edge, ready to catch them? Was the whole thing just meant to discourage escapees, or…were they allowed to escape for some reason? It gave him a bad feeling. He thought about the inhibitors and the fact that they must’ve had trackers, even though they’d had trackers in their ears before. He thought about how easy it was to see that the illusion was just that.
What was going on? Why were they let go? Was this some elaborate plan by the people who ran the ‘orphanage’ to capture more kids? What would be the purpose of letting the duo go? Were they just let go because they had enough of those monsters? His thoughts moved at a mile a minute, and he knew he couldn’t do anything about these things now, so he forced himself to a different train of thought.
The place was cloaked, so the heroes they heard about wouldn’t have known about the horrible place. No one could have known. So what were heroes like? How plentiful were they? Were they larger than life, like they imagined, or were they in it for the money like Ray thought- Izuku stopped his train of thought entirely. He hadn’t thought about Ray in months. The pain was too great.
All the memories flowed back into his head against his will and he couldn’t help it. He broke down, his friend coming back to mind and he cried, knowing he’d never see him again. And Norman.
“Oh god…” he placed his face in his hands and sobbed uncontrollably. He’d been strong for Emma, he had to be at the time. But now that he was safe, he thought about his brothers, and eventually, he let himself simply cry. Eventually, he fell asleep to memories of his happy childhood which, even though it turned out to be a farce, no one could take from him. Now that he was free, he’d protect what he had left. His Emma.
Izuku woke up and saw darkness out the window. He groaned as he sat up.
“Izuku!” He heard a melodious voice yell his name. He looked over to see Emma ripping the tubes and needles out of her arm and leaped over to him, hugging the life out of him.
“Emma! You’re awake!” He said, elated. She pulled away and flicked his head. “Ow!”
“I’m awake?! You’re the one who's been asleep since I woke up! You couldn’t stay awake long enough to be here with me while I waited for so long until I could talk to someone, who wasn’t you, but a nurse! She was nice, but I was scared!”
“I thought you deserved some sleep after all of this…” he admitted. He wiped some tears that still covered his face.
“Were you crying?”
“Yeah…something I’d blocked out just came to mind, and I cried until I was asleep.”
“What was it?” She asked, her head tilted.
“…if I say it, I’ll break down again.” Emma hugged him and rubbed his back.
“You’ve been strong for too long, ‘Zuku. You let me cry for so long, and you held it all in. I know who you’re talking about, but I think you need to say it. For your own good.” Emma’s embrace comforted him enough to say what was on his mind, and he got misty-eyed.
“Ray…and Norman. My big brothers!” Izuku let go once more and cried as Emma comforted him, just as he had done for her, months ago. Now that Emma had processed it correctly, it was his turn.
After crying for more than an hour, Izuku calmed down and Emma went back to her bed. Izuku told her his thoughts about their escape.
“I was thinking something similar. Someone big is behind Grace Field, and we need to give them every bit of info we have.” Emma agreed. Soon after their conversation, they sat in comfortable silence, having pushed the beds close together and hanging their hands between them, intertwined, not wanting to be separated. They were all each other had.
When the nurse came back, this time with a doctor, just as they were drifting off. The nurse cooed at the sight, and the doctor agreed it was cute, but they needed to be checked up on. The kids were fully awake when the checkup was done. Aside from having their quirk growth stunted, they were in mostly good health. A little dehydration that was already getting better was the only other problem. The doctor smiled under his large mustache, before telling them they would be good to go, had they anywhere to go. They would have to stay in the hospital until they had somewhere to live. An orphanage was mentioned, but they panicked. The conversation was dropped then and there. The doctor finally got to the main reason he was there.
“I want to preface this by saying you are not in trouble in any way, shape, or form. However, some police, a detective, and some heroes are here, just so we can figure out what happened and, if there’s a problem, figure out what to do.” The two began to be apprehensive. “As I said, you have done nothing wrong and you are not in trouble. Unless you have anything to confess.” He smirked and chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. They relaxed a bit before he left to get the detective and the heroes. Emma and Izuku squeezed each other’s hand, assuring that whatever happened, they’d get through it together.