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Shouta's capture scarf propelled him between pipes and buildings. All Might's bony arms were wrapped carefully around his neck in a position that might've been awkward if either of them wasn't on a one-track mind. He had to get to the center of the training ground before any of his students were hurt.
If they weren't already.
He remembered the flash of panic when shadowy green tendrils started flailing around, huge enough they could see them above the training grounds. The cameras were soon broken, and he might've written it off as collateral damage if it wasn't only the ones with eyes on their origin.
On Midoriya.
Dammit, Problem Child, what the hell happened?
It was probably not his fault; in the few seconds before the cameras were taken out, he'd seen the fear on his kid's student's face. It was a rare thing, to see Midoriya afraid.
The closer they got, the louder the sounds became. The screeching of metal, crashes and booms, incoherent words screamed from voices he knew.
They stopped at an alcove that hid them from view to assess the situation.
Midoriya was still being held aloft by the tendrils as they thrashed around, carrying him back and forth, looking vaguely like an eldritch spider. Uraraka was being carried in Ashido's arms away from the area, apparently unconscious. Shinsou — Shouta forced down the flare of panic at the sight of his student facing off against this nightmare — was yelling something at Midoriya.
His shoulders relaxed slightly. Shinsou's Quirk would stop Midoriya.
Midoriya yelled something in response, and the tendrils stilled in place. He hung limply in the air as Shinsou shouted commands that were now audible without all the noise, and Shouta frowned.
He's broken out of Shinsou's Quirk before, a niggling voice in his mind reminded him, just before Midoriya lifted his head.
He heard All Might suck in a sharp breath. From their vantage point, they could see his blank face, his eyes glowing an eerie green.
Shinsou faltered before shouting the order to stop the tendrils again. Midoriya didn't move.
Shouta got a very, very bad feeling right before everything went to shit.
"You cannot command us," Midoriya said, and perhaps the most concerning thing should've been his words, but that wasn't his voice. It was a chorus of them, old and young and powerful and wrong.
Shinsou took a step back, eyes going wide, and a tendril lashed out at him like lightning.
Shouta activated his Quirk on instinct.
The tendrils vanished. Midoriya fell to the ground, thankfully not too far of a distance. He shouldn't have any broken bones, at least.
He kept his Quirk up as he stared down at Midoriya, ensuring that it was over, even though he knew rationally his student's Quirk was erased the moment he'd looked at it.
This whole situation had left him feeling unsettled and not very rational.
"My boy…" All Might's voice came from beside him, soft and heavy in a way he'd never thought he'd hear from the former number one hero, from All Might.
Then Midoriya twitched.
A green spark danced off him. Shouta swore he hadn't blinked, but he forced his eyes open farther.
More sparks came as Midoriya began to writhe, mouth opening and closing in words they were too far away to hear. Shouta had no idea what was happening. He'd never been unable to erase a non-mutation Quirk before.
Then, Midoriya opened his mouth and screamed.
It wasn't his voice. It was the chorus of voices from earlier.
A green wave erupted from him, and Shouta barely had time to grab All Might's arm before it hit.
His ears were ringing when he came to. He opened his eyes to fuzzy vision and a vague memory of panic.
Instinctively, he squeezed his left hand. It was empty.
This made him sit up, blink the blur out of his eyes. When nothing told him it was too broken to move, he pushed himself to his feet and started looking for yellow.
Yellow? Yellow what?
He got a flash of something; hair, yellow and green next to each other, All Might—
Midoriya—
Shit.
He looked around for the first time. The pocket they'd been observing in seemed to have taken the brunt of the blast, but parts of it had still fallen apart. He was lucky he hadn't been caught under one.
"Yagi?" He called, winced, cleared his throat and tried again.
A cough answered him. He followed the sound, picking his way through debris. He tried not to think about Shinsou, Midoriya, the rest of the kids that had been out here. He didn't know how far the blast had reached, but he was certain every Pro on campus was coming to get them.
It took him far too long to make his way just a few feet. He heaved a sheet of metal off his colleague, crouching down next to him. No matter what All Might said about his health, it was hard to believe he wasn't… fragile, with how skeletal he looked.
All Might coughed again, pounding his chest. "Ahem. Thanks, Aizawa." Blood stained his hair, like rubies set in gold, and Shouta prepared to haul him to Recovery Girl.
"What happened? Where's Young Midoriya?" The steel in All Might's tone stopped him, and he forcibly reminded himself that this man had been the number one for over three decades, and that didn't just go away because his body was weaker now.
"I don't know. I just woke up. I was going to look for him next." Shouta said, standing up. He held out a hand, knowing better than to bother asking if All Might was joining him.
His hand was thin, but his grip was strong as iron.
All Might settled onto his back once again as Shouta took hold of his capture scarf and they swung out to start searching the warzone that had been a training ground fifteen minutes ago.
Turned out, they didn't have to look far.
In the epicenter of the blast zone, Midoriya kneeled on the ground, tendrils flailing around him, though not as violently as before. His heart jumped into his throat when he saw some of them curled around the students who'd been in the exercise, in various states of wellness.
He dropped to the ground, All Might stepping to his side. He did a quick headcount and was relieved that at least all of them were present and accounted for, if not definitively safe.
He knew Midoriya would never hurt his fellow students, but this… this wasn't Midoriya.
Ashido and Uraraka were held the closest. Ashido looked like she was worried but doing her best to keep her spirits up. Uraraka was still unconscious, being practically cradled by the tendrils. Part of Midoriya was still in there, then.
Monoma was the farthest away, the tendrils more restraining than holding him. He recalled that Midoriya had been fighting him when they first appeared. The rest of the students had minor injuries but looked more concerned about the situation they were in.
He blinked, counted again. The relief disappeared.
Shinsou wasn't there.
All Might, like a man possessed, marched straight forward. Shouta reached out to stop him a moment too late. "Yagi!" He hissed, but the man ignored him.
Midoriya's head snapped up as he neared the tendrils. His eyes were still glowing an eerie green. "Young Midoriya, my boy," he called softly, without a trace of fear. Midoriya lifted an arm toward him, and a tendril shot forward.
Shouta reacted to protect his coworker. He activated his Quirk.
Midoriya's gaze snapped to him. It felt like it had an almost physical weight, like something ancient and beyond his comprehension. It felt wrong to be coming from his problem child.
The students in the tendrils were released, almost pushed away as Midoriya rose into the air like before. Shouta's Quirk didn't work at all this time.
"You cannot erase us!" The cacophony of voices shrieked as Midoriya's arm lifted to point at him, as if pulled by a string. "We will not be controlled. We are those who oppose him. We are those who have lived and fought and died to defeat him. We are those who evolved and became One For All. We are the death of All For One."
Midoriya's arm dropped. His gaze, though pure green light, sharpened. Shouta tasted ozone, felt the pressure in the air.
"Stop."
Shouta blinked.
The tendrils thrashed around more erratically. They never struck the students leading each other out of the danger zone, though Shouta was forced to take several steps back. A keening sound came out of Midoriya's mouth, a mixture of high and low voices. He curled over, and sparks began to fly off his limbs again.
"Young Midoriya!" All Might called, closer than before, reaching a hand up. A tendril whipped down at him, stopping inches away to curl around his arm and pull him in. He followed without hesitation, unafraid of the flying sparks or the possessed student hovering above.
"Eight!" The voices cried out, joy and sadness and desperation.
"I am here," he said softly, raising his other arm up as if to catch Midoriya. Surprisingly, the tendrils began to lower him. "You're safe, I promise. I am here." He continued, and despite not having his muscled form anymore, Shouta had no doubts that it was true. Anyone that dared try to harm Midoriya right now would be facing the wrath of the man who changed the weather with one punch, Quirk or not.
The tendrils finally lowered the sparking boy into All Might's arms. The man fell to his knees, cradling the kid, still partially wrapped in the tendril. The rest of them, still flailing around, began to calm. "Oh, my boy. I'm so sorry. This is my fault."
"Eight," the voices keened again, green electricity connecting to his skin but not leaving a mark.
"It's okay. He's safe now, I swear it. Leave him to me." All Might's voice was nearly too quiet for Shouta to hear. He wanted to ask who the man was talking to, but any reminder of his presence might set Midoriya off again. He had clearly been deemed a threat, as much as the idea made his chest tighten, and he needed to stay to the side and let All Might handle this. Act like the secret father all the teachers teased him about being.
The voices speaking from Midoriya's mouth didn't respond, but the tendrils pulled back into him and the sparks stopped. All Might heaved a sigh of relief, burying his head in curly green hair. He was speaking too softly for Shouta to hear now, and with the danger gone for the moment, he turned away from the interaction that felt too personal for him to witness and went to go find Shinsou, who had hopefully escaped from the blast and was hiding from the tendrils. He also needed to check on Uraraka and touch base with all his students, especially those who'd been involved.
After that, once Midoriya woke up, he and All Might and Shouta were going to have a long conversation about keeping important secrets from your homeroom teacher.