Chapter Text
Things are going badly, Shouta had a half-second to think to himself. Which was an understatement, but there wasn’t time to think about it any further. He was alright, all things considered; these villains clearly didn’t know who he was, and they weren’t particularly good fighters. The ones that did have some experience fell easily to his capture weapon. He’d almost worked his way through the crowd, but his eyes were burning fiercely, and he couldn’t help but blink again, and again.
No one had noticed, yet. So that was good.
Shouta may have been alright, but his students obviously were not. In the glimpses he’d managed to sneak in between attacks, he’d seen the crowd of students behind the teleporting villain thin out drastically. Where were they? Were they alright? Had he failed so badly at his number one priority, to protect, before he’d even gotten the chance to know them?
He gritted his teeth as he noticed another villain coming at him. Dodge, jump, flick out his capture weapon, slam them to the ground. There wasn’t time to be more careful. He couldn’t find it in himself to feel much remorse.
Two more. Jump, flick, bash them together, land on top of them, pull his weapon back.
The nearest villains were watching him warily, but not attacking yet. He took a moment to crouch down and breathe, noting that the hand-covered villain was running at him—it’d be another couple seconds before he reached Shouta, though. A shorter break than he’d like, but it would do. He tried to calm his breath.
He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. If he needed to, though, he’d push himself beyond his limits. His students needed him. He would find a way.
A quiet voice in the back of mind told him that if his students died, it would be easier if he did too. That kind of guilt, that kind of grief… he couldn’t do it.
He ignored that thought. If… well, whatever happened, he’d keep going. He’d keep going. With everything he had, he would fight. If that meant laying down his life, he would, but he didn’t want to put that guilt on his students, either. And, as of right now, he wanted to live. Perhaps that would change if he lost his students, but he didn’t know that was the case.
He’d pulled himself from that dark place before. If he ended up back there, he’d pull himself up again.
And then the hand-covered villain was almost there, and all those thoughts were pushed back down. He got to his feet, steadier than he’d thought he’d be, and lashed his capture weapon towards the villain. Shouta couldn’t tell what his quirk was, but he had at least a little time before he had to blink, and a little time was all he’d need.
The villain grabbed the end of his capture weapon, but that was alright—he moved like a trained fighter, but not a truly experienced one. Probably relied too much on his quirk. Most people did. He slammed his elbow into the villain’s gut, a solid hit. One more would probably take him down…
Things happened very quickly, after that. There was a hand on his elbow, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open another second, and something very, very bad was happening; he felt cold air on his skin and then there was no skin to feel cold, just muscle, exposed and raw, and he couldn’t feel the pain yet but soon he would, and would he even be able to fight, if that had stripped his muscles?
He had to. There was no other option. He would fight, and he would win.
The villain was talking to him, his voice so quiet and measured even as he turned Shouta’s skin to dust, and he kept talking, and Shouta grit his teeth and tried to tune him out, but no, this could be valuable, anything the villain said could help find him after this was over.
If Shouta was alive to see the turn of the hour, anyways.
He would be. There was no other option.
Pushing past the instinctual horror at his muscles being exposed, he punched the villain away and dodged back, and of course he couldn’t get a break. As three more villains came at him, four, five, he quickly found that he’d been right about not being able to move his arm. It just hung, useless and stinging, as he fought them off. But he could fight, still. That was all that mattered. That was all that mattered.
“That Quirk isn’t suited for fighting long fights against a large group, is it?” the hand-covered villain said as he pulled himself to his feet. Still that calm, quiet voice. It made Shouta’s skin prickle. “Isn’t this too different from your usual job?”
And, of course, the villain was right. He was too observant. Shouta needed to take him down, quickly.
“What you’re good at is a short fight after a surprise attack, right? Even so, you jumped right in to fight us. Was that to put your students at ease?” The villain sounded on the edge of laughter, and Shouta really wasn’t equipped for this, but his students were even less equipped… and the villain knew that, knew his weakness, and Shouta had to take him down.
More villains came at him and he spun, kicking them down, panting and feeling tremors run through his body, his eyes stinging and his elbow starting to burn, but his capture weapon was in his hand and he had to protect his students. Across from him, the hand villain sounded giddy, and shouldn’t he be upset that Shouta was taking out his minions?
“You’re so cool,” the villain said, and for a half-second he sounded like he could be one of Shouta’s students. “You’re so cool!”
And then there was a shadow looming over him, and dread started to swirl in his gut.
“By the way, hero,” the hand villain said almost conversationally, “I’m not the last boss.”
There was a sharp mouth full of teeth, and there was a hand coming towards him, and then there wasn’t much of anything at all.
His awareness faded in and out. His head felt like it had been bashed into rock repeatedly, because it had, and his vision was blurry and his thoughts ran too slow. The hand villain was talking but he didn’t catch any of it, and the villain holding him down kept holding him down. His already-injured arm felt numb, prickling with pins and needles and aching, and he felt his blinks getting longer and longer, and maybe he could just… go, maybe he’d done enough. Had given all he could for his students, and no one could ask for more than that, right?
But no, no, he had to keep going. Every second these two were distracted with him was another second that they weren’t going after the class. Another second for help to arrive. He didn’t let himself drift even as the villain above him twisted his arm behind his back, and he shifted just enough to turn his gaze up, and activated his Quirk, and—
And couldn’t stop himself from letting out a scream as the villain crushed his other arm. Like breaking a twig.
It was almost a relief, when the villain slammed his head into the ground again and he blacked out completely.
He came back to himself after… some amount of time. He couldn’t tell. Where was he? Why did he hurt so badly, what was happening?
He forced his eyes open just a sliver, and oh. There were his missing students. So close, just standing there, and the hand villain was reaching for—he couldn’t tell who it was, through his blurry eyes, but that was his student, his responsibility. He opened his eyes just a bit wider and activated his quirk.
He had a half-second to feel relief as he watched the hand villain turn back, and then his face was in the dirt again and all he could feel was nothing, and all he could think of was nothing, and all he could see was darkness.
On the edge of his consciousness, outside of real awareness, he heard All Might arrive, and he heard the hand villain speaking again.
“Kurogiri, get Eraserhead out of the way before he causes any more problems.”
And Shouta fell into something endless and dark and, if he had opened his eyes to see it, unspeakably beautiful.
—
In the USJ, a portal opened under Aizawa-sensei, and another opened fifty feet in the sky. Izuku couldn’t help but gasp, eyes wide as he braced himself to see his teacher mangled even further, fallen, dead.
But he… wasn’t. Nothing fell from the second portal.
Did they send him somewhere else? Where was he?
And then he watched All Might, and knew that his mentor probably had just a few minutes left, and only had room in his mind to worry about the person he might still be able to save.
—
Shouta was… somewhere. On the ground. A hard ground. Not his bed. Had he taken a nap? He felt so cold. Must’ve left his sleeping bag.
His eyes wouldn’t open. He was so cold. And tired. Something is wrong, he thought distantly. But it would be easier to let himself sleep. He was always so tired, he deserved a little rest, until his alarm went off.
“Hello?” someone said. In English. Huh, weird. A door creaked as it opened. “Oh! Oh. Shit. Um. Oh, God.” There were two fingers on his neck, which he didn’t like, no one should be near his neck. He tried to reach up, fight them off, but his arm was—it was—it wouldn’t move and it felt like fire and it was wrong, wrong, wrong, it hurt, it hurt, and he grit his teeth against it, he couldn’t be undefended right now, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.
He couldn’t move.
A weak wail left him unwillingly as someone picked him up and every inch of him flared in agony.
“Hey, it’s, uh, it’s alright, you’ll be alright,” someone said, but Shouta wasn’t in any state to understand.
Whatever would happen now would happen. He couldn’t do anything about it. He let himself fall back into nothingness, and did not feel anything more.