Chapter Text
Contrary to popular belief, the end of the world didn’t start in bang. It wasn’t loud or violent, no, it was silent. A faint whisper, a quiet shuffling noise in the distance.
The end wasn’t loud, no.
But the screams that came next were.
It all started with Nakamura Hiroki. Patient Zero. Nakamura was a lonely unemployed man in his thirties. He lived alone in broken down apartment and didn’t talk to many people. Now, normally, no one would care about this information. Who cared about some poor man who lived on the outskirts of Musutafu? He wasn’t important. But then October 25th happened.
On October 25th, Nakamura got sick. That morning, the man woke up to a red rash growing on his neck. He didn’t think anything of it at first, just an allergic reaction to his pillow or something. So he continued on with his day.
At 12:00 PM he had a job interview with a new company. Nothing was out of normal other than a slight cough that the man had. The interview went well and Nakamura went home. That’s when things got worse.
Reportedly, around 4:30 PM, Nakamura started coughing up blood. Black blood. Instead of the logical conclusion of calling 119, Nakamura decided to ignore it. Money was tight. He couldn’t afford to waste a hospital trip, especially if it was probably nothing. However, the symptoms kept getting worse.
At around 7:45 PM, Nakamura decided to buy some medicine and left his apartment. On his way to the store, the man decided to take a shortcut down an alley. In the alley he made contact with a 23 year old woman, Suzuki Akiko. The woman reported that at the time of the incident, Nakamura’s eyes had looked cloudy and unfocused.
Suzuki went up to the sick man to check on him, concerned after seeing him stumbling. The man hadn’t seemed to notice her at first until she spoke to him. Nakamura lunged at her and bit her. He immediately passed out after. Suzuki called 119 and both victims were quickly taken to Musutafu General Hospital.
While at the hospital, Suzuki started developing a rash. The same as Nakamura had earlier that day. Not long after, 12 more people with similar symptoms were admitted to the hospital. The mysterious illness had spread. More and more patients filled the hospital. Soon the news was alerted and a warning went out to the people of Musutafu and the rest of Japan.
The doctors tried their best, but they couldn’t figure it out. The disease was incurable. Every one of those patients died that night. It only went downhill after that.
At exactly 4:00 AM, a janitor heard a shuffling noise coming from Nakamura’s hospital room. At first, she ignored it. Must’ve been the wind. Them she heard a bang. She jumped and turned to look at the door.
Bang!
There it was again.
Bang!
She creeped closer to the door.
Bang!
"H-Hello?” The janitor called out.
Silence.
Right as the janitor moved to turn around, the door crashed down and Nakamura pounced. The man was barely reminiscent of a human. He looked like a monster, snarling as he ripped the poor woman to shreds. Her screams woke up the other monsters in the hospital.
The hospital was quickly overwhelmed by the beasts. There was nothing to do as they were ripped to shreds and bitten. The hospital was destroyed. They woke up soon after, but they had changed. They were just as much monsters as their patients.
They were zombies.
It was a bright and sunny day when Izuku’s world ended.
Izuku went about his day normally. He got dressed for work before heading to the kitchen. He quietly made himself breakfast and sat at his kitchen counter. The apartment was silent as always.
Izuku lived alone. He knew it was weird for a 16 year old, but he had no other option. His dad had died when he was little, after being caught up in a villain attack on his way home from work. His mom had never been the same after that. It didn’t help that Izuku had was quirkless so she had to work extra hard to support them.
Eventually, the stress got to her. When Izuku came home from school one night, he found her laying in the tub, an empty bottle of pills in her hand. That had been last year.
Ever since that day, Izuku had been living alone. Well, he had basically been on his own since his dad’s death technically.
Apparently the one good thing about being quirkless was that no one batted an eye if you were obviously without an adult. They couldn’t care less about a waste of space that would die soon enough. It was hard, but he managed. He had gotten a job to pay the rent back when he was twelve, and luckily for him, their rent was still pretty cheap. His mother had also set aside enough money to pay the rent for the first year.
Speaking of his job, Izuku needed to head to work soon. He quickly scarfed down the rest of his food and grabbed his backpack. He exited his apartment and started his walk to the store.
“Izuku! Right on time!”
Izuku looked up as he entered the small grocery store. Tanaka Ritsu. She was a kind woman in her 40s. Izuku had met her shortly before his mother started to get worse. He had been desperate for a job, nearly every place had turned him down due to his quirk status. She had taken one look at him and handed him a broom. Izuku was truly grateful for her. She was the first person he’d met that hadn’t treated him differently because of his quirk status.
“Good morning, Tanaka-san!” He greeted as he went to the register. He’d been promoted to cashier when he was 13. He had caught on that Tanaka was paying him more than she should be, so she just promoted him to a higher paying position. Izuku knew that she still payed him more than he actually earned.
It was a pretty good business day, not too busy but not scarce. They had the tv droning on on the background while the customers shopped. Izuku had just finished bagging up an elderly lady’s items when the emergency alert started blaring. Izuku jumped and looked up at the tv. It had switched to the news channel.
“Alert! Alert! Alert!”
The screen flashed emergency lights before it changed to focus on a news anchor. The middle aged man looked anxious as he glanced around before putting on a fake smile for the camera.
“Hello, Musutafu, this is not a drill. The mysterious disease that took the city by storm only a few days prior has another factor. Those who died have been reanimated and are attacking.”
“The city has been sent into a widespread panic. No one is to go towards the hospital, the undead have already escaped the hospital. You will be turned with only a bite. Everyone is advised to get as far away from the city as possible. Heroes are already headed on the scene.”
There was a faint banging off screen and the news anchor jumped up. He backed away against the wall.
“Good luck, everyone.”
A crash followed by screams sounded from right behind the camera. The news anchor stared in horror at something just beyond the screen. The last thing seen was a blur and the anchorman’s screams as the undead descended upon him as the livestream cut off.
Izuku stood frozen behind the register. This couldn’t be real. This had to be a nightmare. He met eyes with Tanaka and quickly grabbed his backpack. The pair quickly ushered the lingering customers out of the store.
Outside was chaos, people were running and screaming. Little kids were crying as frantic parents ushered them into cars. It was awful.
Then, he heard it, the faint groaning. He turned and looked down the street. It was like something out of a horror movie. There was a group of them, the undead. Zombies.
Izuku’s muscles locked up in fear. It was one thing to hear about it on the news, but seeing it in person? There was no mistaking it. This was the end of the world.
Izuku grabbed the nearest person, a young child of only eight years old, and sprinted. There was no time to find a train or a car. They had to get out of this city. UA was safe, right? They could go there!
Only problem was, UA was about an half an hour away by car. It’d take hours to get there on foot. Izuku looked around for the child’s parents. The couple was waiting by their car. Izuku nearly sagged in relief as he brought their kid over. There wasn’t any room for him, but at least the kid would be safe.
Izuku looked around. The streets were too crowded. He’d be picked off too easily or trampled in the crowd. Instead, Izuku took to the rooftops. He had experience running from bullies and the quirkless hate groups. This wouldn’t be that much different.
Izuku pushed himself as hard as he could. He surveyed the crowd as he ran, keeping an eye out for Tanaka, but the blue haired woman was nowhere to be seen.
Izuku’s legs were getting tired, but he was almost there. Maybe it was the adrenaline or just the fear fueling him, but somehow he’d run all the way across the city in who knows how much time. He could practically see the building in the distance. They’d be safe.
But it seemed that the universe loved playing sick jokes on him because a huge cement wall was formed just as the crowd reached the outskirts.
The barrier was about as tall as a skyscraper and completely surrounded the whole city. There was no hope of escaping. Not without risk of death.
Izuku’s heart dropped and the crowd screamed in confusion and anger. Izuku’s mind filled with horror.
The heroes locked them in. They were trapped.
They were all going to die.
Shouta was teaching his homeroom when the alert went off.
It was a just a normal day. There were no signs anything was going to happen. Kaminari and Mina were cracking their usual jokes, Bakugou was screaming as usual.
Shouta was glad they could bounce back that quickly from the trauma of the USJ. Shouta wasn’t stupid, he knew it was a miracle he survived. He still had no idea how he had. He only remembered a flash of green before he’d been knocked out.
But that was beside the point. Shouta was just glad his class had made it through. He was growing somewhat attached to them.
Shouta was about to tell the class to settle down when the alarm went off.
Alert! Alert! Alert!
The whole class stilled and pulled out their phones. Under normal circumstances, Shouta would’ve reprimanded them but that wasn’t the case here. Something had obviously gone horribly wrong. So instead of snapping at the students, Shouta took out his own phone, pulling up the Staff Chat.
Code Red.
UA was going on lockdown.
Shouta quickly herded his students out of the classroom and back to the dorms. He waited until they were all safely in the common room before he answered any questions.
”Alright, listen up, in one or two hours UA will be going on lockdown. Tell your families to either come here or get to the nearest hero school.” Shouta announced once everyone settled.
For the next hour Shouta watched over his class as they called or reunited with their families. Civilians were being let in to UA for protection. With all the gyms there was more than enough room for the city.
There was something weird going on with Bakugou. He was still looking at his phone and asking around for something long after his parents had arrived.
Was there someone else he was looking for?
Shouta didn’t have time to dwell on it because their two hours were up. Thankfully, everyone’s families were here—Well not Endeavor but who cared about him?—it would have been so much worse if someone had been left behind.
UA went on full lockdown and Cementoss put up the wall. Bakugou stilled, and Shouta had a feeling things were about to go terribly wrong. He was proven right moments later when the angry blonde burst from the room, explosions popping from his hands.
Shouta chased after him. The kid ran all the way to the exit. He wouldn’t be able to get out without the code, but that stop him from trying to blowup the door. Shouta canceled out his quirk and wrapped his capture scarf around the kid when Bakugou decided to start punching the door instead.
”Bakugou! Kid, Calm down! What’s going on?”
“I can’t!”
Shouta froze at the kids tone. Bakugou stopped struggling against him. His shoulders slumped and he fell forward defeated.
”He’s out there! He’s all alone out there! You trapped him! He’s going to die!”
Shouta was at a loss for words as the normally abrasive teen broke down into tears.
“He’s going to die! Do you hear me? He’s going to fucking die and it’s all your fault! All of you! How can you call yourselves heroes?!”
His student dropped to his knees, the life drained out of him. It was horrific.
“I never got to apologize…”
Those were the last words Bakugou said for a long time.