Chapter Text
You woke up to loud male voices echoing heavily against invisible walls. The sounds pierced your consciousness like hammer blows, and your face automatically winced. You wanted to cover your ears with your hands, to hide back into a saving oblivion, because you didn't even have the strength to listen to foreign words. And what use were they to you anyway?
Your body responded with a dull, exhausting pain, as if you had been working nonstop for hundreds of hours. The moment you tried to move your legs slightly, your joints were twisted by a rusty cramp — your knees were locked from long immobility and cold, feeling foreign, filled with heavy lead.
Stifling darkness reigned all around. You opened your eyelids slightly, but the picture did not change. Only somewhere far above, through the dense gloom, a thin thread-like strip of pale light barely glimmered. Suddenly, where that thread stretched, a sharp, deafening screech of metal on metal rang out — nearly deafening you. It turned out much louder and more unbearable than the previous rumble.
Your teeth grated from the sound. If physical sensations were anything to go by, someone was struggling immensely to lift heavy double doors. The metallic clanging of the shaft walls resonated in your subconscious with a sticky, animal terror, as if this wasn't just a cage, but a real trap. But a much more interesting question was: how do you even know such words? Your mind frantically latched onto this image, but there was not a single memory behind it. There was nothing behind them at all.
A sudden realization hit you harder than the cramp in your knees. The persistent desire to remember who you are, where your home is, who your parents are, elicited only a frightened gasp from your throat: your head was absolutely, deafeningly empty. The past had been erased, burned out to the very foundation, leaving only a name that beat like a bird inside your skull. But even it you were afraid to speak aloud.
Above, it rumbled again. A merciless strip of sunlight cut through the darkness, forcing you to squint to tears and panic-gather into a ball on the hard floor.
"Hey, look!" a ringing, surprised voice sounded from above. "It's a girl!"
The space overhead exploded with an unimaginable roar. Dozens of strange voices interrupted each other, bursting with chuckles, whistles, and shouts. The noise pressed on your temples, forcing you to press your back even harder into the cold corner of the lift. Your joints protested and ached from the sudden movement, but the fear of the unknown outweighed the physical pain.
"Shut the fuck up, all of you! Back away, now!" barked a rough, hoarse voice that sent shivers down your spine. This guy clearly didn't have much patience. Right overhead, a heavy jump was heard — someone leaped from the edge of the hatch right into the iron cage. The lift shuddered dully. You flinched, not daring to open your eyes. Only someone's irritated breathing and the rustle of coarse fabric could be heard.
"Hey, you alive down there?" he threw out, his tone reeking of mere malicious curiosity. "Get up, stop lying around."
"Katsuki, take it easy on her, she's scared," came a second voice, much stricter and more proper. "She needs help getting up."
"She'll get up herself, Tenya! She's not made of sugar," Katsuki snapped.
He unceremoniously grabbed your shoulder, pulling you upward with a jerk. The moment you tried to lean on your legs, a sharp, rusty ache pierced your numb knees, and your vision darkened for a moment. Your legs buckled treacherously.
A muffled exhale broke from your throat. Instinctively obeying the fear of falling in front of this crowd, your fingers frantically dug into someone's sleeve — simply to keep your balance and not collapse face-first into the dirt.
"Tch, you can barely stand," Katsuki glared down discontentedly, but didn't loosen his grip on your shoulder, holding you up.
An irritated thought frantically pulsed in your head: why is he so unbearably rude? Still, considering your own semi-conscious state, you should have thanked him just for the fact that this ash-haired, дерзкий guy didn't let you crash your nose into the metal.
You finally forced yourself to raise your head.
The sun struck your eyes, burning your retinas, but through the haze, fragments of images emerged: dozens of faces surrounding the edge of a concrete pit. Your vision blurred, but your brain feverishly clung to details — everyone around was teenagers about your age, bright hair flashed everywhere, strange facial features, and for some reason, no women were visible at all.
You shifted your gaze to the guy holding you: spiky ash-blonde hair, bright red eyes, and a heavily frowning brow. It became uncomfortable under his heavy gaze, and you immediately lowered your head.
"Whoa-oh! Holy shit, the Box delivered!" A curly purple mop popped out from the crowd above, suspiciously resembling a grape. The stranger's eyes gleamed oilily. "Guys, look, she's got curves! They finally heard my prayers, I'm calling dibs on the first ro..."
Disgust rose to your throat instantly. What kind of filth?! Even if the phrase didn't make it to the end, there was no doubt about its subtext. For a second, your brain tried to find excuses — saying, what if he didn't mean that, you shouldn't judge everyone on the spot? The previous disgust immediately turned into insecurity and shame for your own thoughts.
"Shut your dirty trap, Minoru, before I drive it into the back of your skull!" Katsuki barked from below, without even turning around.
Minoru shrank back instantly. This ash-haired guy was genuinely frightening, but right now that fear paradoxically brought relief. At least the threat wasn't coming from you. Maybe he was kind. Otherwise, why would this rude guy bother with you and help you get out of the Box?
A chuckle was heard from above, but the joker's face couldn't be discerned: the crowd was too huge, and figuring out who was who seemed like a separate challenge.
"Come on, a girl in the Glade — that's a historic moment! Maybe she brought us normal food? Or..."
"Denki, cut the chatter!" Tenya's thunderous voice instantly cut through the crowd's hum. He sharply waved his hand, assuming his invariable leadership pose. "Before us is a newcomer. She is disoriented and scared! Everyone step back three steps from the edge of the Box! Now!"
The crowd grumbled discontentedly, but this guy's authority worked — the guys reluctantly backed away. The so-called "captain" peered into the hatch, and his stern gaze behind the frames of his glasses (which he miraculously managed to keep) softened at the sight of you trembling, biting your lips until they bled.
You were mentally incredibly grateful to him for this, at least someone adequate. After those nasty jokes, you completely lost any desire to communicate with the rest of the crowd. There remained only a faint hope that there would be girls among the survivors — it would surely be easier and safer with them.
"Katsuki, pull her up here," Tenya commanded. "Izuku is already waiting in the med-lab."
Names flashed and immediately drowned in the panic-stricken roar: Katsuki — the sharp and terrifying savior; Tenya — the proper, collected leader. Against their backdrop, the rest of the crowd seemed like a solid threat. There remained only a faint hope that there would be girls among the survivors.
But even with all their weirdness, they looked a thousand times better than those two perverts. One was with a grape head, the sight of whom made you shudder, and the second allowed himself God knows what. You prayed with all your might that this mysterious Izuku would turn out to be just as normal and reliable a person as the dark-haired monitor.
"Tch, brought extra ballast for me to deal with," Katsuki hissed.
He grabbed you under the arms, easily, as if you were a feather, and pushed you up, then climbed out himself with feline agility. Dark sweat stains marked the straps of his leather vest. Without looking at you anymore, he turned and strode away, tossing on the go to someone: "Hey, shitty-hair..."
Jeez... Still a jerk. What normal person goes around giving people nicknames like that? Doesn't he care about other people's feelings at all?
The next moment, cold air burned your lungs, and you were caught by someone's soft, trembling, yet surprisingly gentle hands. You raised a clouded gaze and met the sympathetic green eyes of a guy who was silently receiving you from hostile darkness into the unknown. Next to the others, he seemed like a real angel — albeit a green-eyed angel who had saved you.