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They had made a terrible mistake. They should have listened to the teachers, to Iida. They never should have been here.
But it's too late for that now.
It had all seemed okay at first. They snuck off in their disguises, found the location, and watched as heroes stormed the building. Then things took a turn for the worse when he appeared. They tried to hide as the other heroes were beaten down and new villains warped in, but a stray blast clipped the wall and sent them scattering.
"Midoriya! Just hang on..." Ryumi slams into the ground next to her dying friend like a truck, further pulverizing the already destroyed cement blocks of what probably used to be a sidewalk in her haste.
She's a little beaten up herself, covered in soot and coughing intermittently from the heavy smoke in the disaster zone, while blood oozes from a few small cuts on her arms. But her own condition is the least of her worries right now.
She rips the trauma kit she's carrying open and sets to work, kneeling next to her friend and praying they aren't spotted. "You'll be okay. Don't worry Midoriya, you'll be okay... just keep fighting a bit longer." The words are half meant to convince herself. Midoriya is in bad shape - his clothes as well as the ruined pavement around him are soaked with his blood, his pulse is weak, and his breathing shallow. But this is, in a sense, her element. She focuses, thinks back on how she used to watch her father work cases like this.
The hopeless ones.
She bites her lip and starts packing gauze into a deep wound in his chest, holding the pressure with one hand as she reaches for more material with the other. The second package she tears open with her fangs so she doesn't have to release her hold.
"Ryu...mi..." Midoriya breathes, his voice rough and hoarse. His eyes are barely open and unfocused, he probably can only tell it's her from her distinctive winged silhouette.
"Yeah, it's me. Look, I'm going to get you stable and get you out of here, okay? The others were still okay when I left them, they're trying to make a distraction so Bakugo can run for it." The blood is still soaking the gauze almost as fast as she can shove it into the wound. "Sorry, I know I'm being a little rough here... time is against us right now."
"I know... I-I... I'm... I'm not going to make it..." He groans, coughing flecks of blood as he struggles to finish the sentence. A distant boom echoes over the field of rubble.
She shakes her head, still holding pressure on his chest wound. "Don't talk like that. You can do this, just a bit more time..." Bloodied fingers reach for the tourniquet in the kit and start unwinding it. It's a combat model, designed to be applied one-handed. Theoretically, on oneself, but the feature is equally useful now.
His gaze finds her face, and he seems to perceive the worry she's been trying so hard to keep out of her voice. "...Sorry, I can't..."
"No, no. I can still fix this... You're okay, Midoriya... you're okay." A little tremble creeps in. "This is going to hurt like hell, but it will save you..." She wraps the tourniquet around his arm near the shoulder, above the deep gash in his upper arm, and works to tighten and secure it. She can see the look of pain in his features twist as the device does its job, pinching off as much blood flow as possible. He might lose his arm, but he won't die.
...He won't, right?
She takes her eyes off him for a second as she searches for something else in the trauma kit. There's another flash in the distance. All Might is still fighting out there. Their other five classmates are still trying to escape. "Just... stay with me. I can still help you."
His arm grasps at hers, drawing her attention back. "You can..."
It's so cold. He's lost too much blood. Shock is setting in - the medical kind, not the emotion, though Ryumi is starting to feel the latter herself. His body is shutting down, trying to preserve only the vital organs.
"Please... Ryumi..." His grip on her arm is weak, numb. "You have to... take it."
"Take what? Whatever it is, you'll handle it yourself--" She keeps fishing for more supplies, one handed. Blood is starting to pool around her fingers as she holds pressure on his chest. The bleed just won't stop.
"My... quirk. If I die, it dies... with me. Kacchan..." His eyes close forcefully, like he's trying not to cry. "K-Kacchan should have it... but he's too far. I won't last..."
She bites her lip again, hard enough to draw a bit of blood. Delusions are never a good sign. His brain might already be dying... "Don't talk nonsense, Midoriya. You can't just give your quirk away, and I keep telling you you're going to be fine!" The edge of anger is more frustration with herself than him. It's not that she isn't prepared for the worst to happen to a patient of hers - but she isn't prepared for that patient to be a friend. Or for that friend to be the first one she's failed.
"I... used to think that... too. Please, you have to... my power is still needed. All Might's power..." He begs, foggy eyes staring blankly up at her again. Her arm slips gradually from his fingers as he loses the strength to hold on. "...Please. You'll probably... handle it better than... than I did... anyway..."
Now she's sure he's hallucinating. "Midoriya, come back, just hang on." By now it's too late, and part of her knows it, but she isn't ready to quit. Accepting when it's over and you have to give up and move on is always the toughest part.
"Sorry... to force you." He mumbles, so low and raspy that she can barely hear. The glowing energy of his quirk snakes over his arm and in a burst of power he shouldn't still be able to pull off, he grasps her arm again and grazes his bloodied fingers over one of her open cuts. "...has to be done... sorry."
Infection prevention is, of course, the last thing on her mind while her friend is bleeding out in front of her - and she has no idea what he's doing. To her it seems a final spasm, not any directed effort.
"No, Midoriya. I'm sorry..." She watches his arm go limp, the power of his quirk fading. The faint rise of his chest ceases, and his eyes go dark.
He's really gone.
She's not sure how long she sits there sobbing into her bloodstained hands before someone finds her, but it's long enough for her eyes and throat to ache and burn.
"Ryumi? Are you okay? Did you find Midoriya?"
It's Shoto. He sounds worried, approaching slowly, like he's dreading what he'll find here.
Despite being impossibly relieved to know he's okay, she's still stuck, overwhelmed by what's just happened. "Midoriya..." is the only thing she manages to say, and she still nearly chokes on it.
Shoto finally steps close enough to see. Horror is scrawled on his features, eyes wide with the terrible realization, and his mouth hangs open. Midoriya had meant so much to both of them. To him, especially.
"No..." He runs to close the remaining distance, but the sight doesn't improve. Midoriya, his friend, someone who had helped him so much back then... and there he was, lying amid the debris in some forgotten corner of the battlefield, in a pool of his own blood.
And to complete this vision of misery, Ryumi has an empty look in her eyes as she kneels next to the body, shivering, her chest and arms spattered with blood and gore, face smeared with tears and streaks of blood off her hands. Even on their own, either half of the scene would've been unbearable, but both... He feels sick, and falls to his knees at her side.
Shaking, he works up the courage to stare at Midoriya's body. He can see how hard Ryumi fought for him in the scattered mess of used up medical supplies. But he can also see how utterly hopeless the effort was. So much blood...
A confused focus appears on Ryumi's face. "Midoriya...?"
Shoto takes her hand and squeezes it, as he tries and fails to push away tears. "He's... he's gone, Ryumi. I know you tried, but... he's gone."
With her other hand she reaches for something in front of her.
Midoriya is there. An image, indistinct and flickering, colors oversaturated, of how he was before all this happened. Hero gear in pristine condition, just the way she remembers it. He smiles at her, mouthing something.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
The image rests a hand on his heart, then takes it away to point at her.
Shoto, seeing none of this, only her apparently spellbound by something that doesn't exist, starts to panic. He first tries to shake her, and when that doesn't get her attention, he grabs onto her like he's afraid she might vanish any second. "Ryumi! Hey!"
She hears this, but it sounds distant. Like she's hearing it from miles away and through an ocean.
Midoriya looks away from her for just a second, to smile faintly at Shoto. He still can't see this, however. The image of Midoriya reaches for Ryumi's hand, and when they touch...
The familiar look of crackling energy that defined Midoriya's quirk pulses along Ryumi's arm as she snaps back to reality, the figment now gone. Her eyes go wide as panic and fear take hold and she almost wants to find a way to flee while leaving that arm behind.
Shoto is still clinging to her, and though the source of his worry changes after seeing the signs of Midoriya's quirk, he doesn't let go. "Ryumi..." He starts, cautiously. "What... what happened..? What was that?"
"I don't... I don't know." She stares at her left arm, voice and body trembling uncontrollably as she starts to cry all over again. She pulls herself into a tight ball and presses closer to Shoto. "...I can't..."
He pulls Ryumi up to his chest, laying his head against hers. He can't think of anything encouraging to say, so he just holds onto her. They stay like this, unable and unwilling to move from the spot.
Eventually, the sound of rescue choppers fills the air. The fight must have ended and recovery efforts started. Shoto glances skyward a couple of times as the helicopters get close. He thinks that he should get out his phone, let the others know what's happened and where they are, but...
It ends up not mattering. A few minutes later a helicopter leaving ground zero passes close to them and stops a short distance away.
All Might, in his thin, nearly skeletal true form stumbles out of the helicopter. He's been bandaged heavily and is still clearly wounded badly enough that he shouldn't be running around like this. In fact, a medic trails behind after him yelling for the hero to stop.
An older man, small and wearing a yellow costume hobbles out as well. "Don't worry, I'll go fetch him..." He grumbles in his aged voice, dropping his cane to zip forward through the air.
"Kids!" All Might shouts, panting. "Are you alright - I..." His train of thought slides off a cliff when he sees the three of them, and he slows to a walk.
Shoto looks over his shoulder at the man, he thinks he looks familiar, but he isn't sure. "Who are you?"
All Might stops, his heart breaking at the scene before him. Young Todoroki's eyes are red from crying, and he has a protective distrust in his eyes. Of course he wouldn't recognize... only Midoriya had ever seen him like this. "It's... it's me, Todoroki. All Might. This... is how I really am. That fight, it took the last of my powers."
Shoto looks like he's considering it. A look of sorrow and shame comes over him as he seems to accept that the thin man really is All Might. "Sensei... Midoriya is..."
All Might takes a few steps closer and sees the full tragedy for the first time. He runs toward them as his sunken eyes go wide, tripping over the uneven ground and his own feet. "Oh god, no..."
He sees his precious student, his successor, this bright kid who had such a wonderful future ahead of him... dead on the broken pavement. All Might grabs his head and screams. Shoto looks down at Ryumi, still curled up against him, as she recoils from the sound.
When he stops yelling, his arms drop to his sides and he stares into the uncaring sky, overcast and blackened by smoke. Slowly, he looks back at the young boy, and reaches out with a trembling hand. There's a little flicker of power in his fingers, but no reaction from the body. Young Midoriya... that really was it then.
A silence falls over them, and the tiny older man, Gran Torino, watches from a distance away, shaking his head. He's not sure any of them will really recover from this. Not the kids, not UA, not society... Definitely not Toshinori. The boy never had lost that soft heart of his.
Shoto closes his eyes and braces himself to ask a question he fears the answer to. "All Might, sensei... You and Midoriya, you had a connection."
All Might turns to look at his other students. Young Todoroki's face is serious, and Arisato is cowering in a way he's never seen from her. He presses his lips together harshly. "Yes. We did." There's no sense hiding it now.
Shoto's features fill with concern as he looks from All Might down at the dragon girl in his arms. "Ryumi... She said Midoriya did something to her in his final moments..."
A light ignites in the teacher's eyes, a desperate spark of hope. He crawls over to the pair. "Arisato..."
She reluctantly meets his gaze, but only for a brief second, her eyes all shame and fear.
All Might reaches out to her. "Can I... see your hand, Arisato? Please."
Ryumi looks at Shoto, but does as she's asked, offering her shaking hand to their teacher.
The flicker of power revives in All Might's fingers as he takes the girl's hand, and a sad smile takes over his face as he sees it: the crawling, crackling power of One for All, snaking through her veins in response.
He lets go, sits back and looks at Midoriya's body. "Kid... You don't ever stop impressing me, you know?" He sighs, and puts a hand over his heart. Though he still aches for the boy's death, he can't help but be moved by his resolve. Even in the face of oblivion, he never abandoned his duty, he made sure that One for All would live on.
A moment passes, and the two kids look at him nervously. "Sorry..." He scoots himself closer and gives them both a big hug. "Arisato... we're going to have a lot to discuss."