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It's cold.
It's so cold, and weirdly floaty.
Denki's brain definitely hasn't caught up to the situation yet.
Because it's cold, floaty, and Denki is not supposed to be underwater right now.
The last thing he knew was that mist villain — Kurogiri? he thinks he heard someone call them — hounding them at the USJ entrance had swished a hand and then Denki was falling.
Falling through the ground, through inky blackness, through the harsh surface tension of a body of water.
Denki is underwater. Oh. That's not good.
His sort-of-panicky-sort-of-calm brain grinds all thoughts to a stop when a rapidly approaching shark head enters his field of vision. It's blurry, since Denki isn't used to being submerged and his eyes haven't adjusted to it, but the unmistakable shape of large sharp teeth is enough to make him shriek.
A stream of bubbles shoots out of his mouth, giving the water room to flow back down Denki's throat where it can choke him. He has to fight the urge to cough, some part of him knowing distantly that it would only make this whole thing worse.
Some kind of pressure wraps itself around his waist, and Denki doesn't have the time to react before he's being hauled up over a railing and onto a flat — if tilted — surface. The frog girl from class, Asui, is gently rubbing a hand along her tongue with a mildly pinched expression.
Denki catches on quickly, and he's struggling to his feet in seconds so that he can apologise for shocking her while she was rescuing his dumb ass.
She cuts him off with a slurred reprimand and a 'kero', the tip of her tongue still exposed to the air after she retracts it most of the way.
Asui tells him to call her Tsuyu. She tells Denki that he didn't shock her on purpose, so she forgives him. Denki doesn't believe her, but even an idiot like him understands that right now isn't the time to be arguing.
They somehow come up with a plan that works together. Denki will charge the water and make it so the villains hunting them can't reach, then Tsuyu will jump them both to the safety of shore a little ways away.
The landing is rough, but they're both alive and that's what matters.
Battles wage all around them. All Might even shows up near the end and forces the villains into retreating.
Denki collapses once everyone is outside. His head feels fuzzy and his lungs feel tight in his chest. Something is wrong, and Denki has the sudden realisation that maybe he should've brought up that he breathed in more water than is medically advised.
Tsuyu is at his side in a second, only a blobby froggy shape as his vision blurs with tears and exertion. She sounds calm and collected when she calls out for a paramedic. Denki doesn't know how she's doing that.
Tsuyu is going to be such a good hero, Denki just knows it.