Chapter Text
"One For All," Shigaraki hisses, teeth bared and skin cracking like a nightmare.
There’s blood, but Izuku doesn’t have time to look over Aizawa as he flings the group of pros holding him away from Shigaraki’s reach. He hadn’t had time to look over Gran Torino either.
Don’t think about that, he chides himself, blinking away tears. He can’t afford to have blurry vision right now.
Now that Aizawa’s out, Shigaraki is no longer interested in him, and goes straight for Izuku. He dodges, scrabbling to regain the tattered edges of his focus—he’s using Float, he trained for this—but Shigaraki is fast, and single-minded in his pursuit. The tendrils growing from Shigaraki’s body zigzag across the field like spider legs pushing any and all obstacles out of their way. Dust rises with every move they make, and that dust could have been a city, or it could have been a person—
A hand on Izuku’s shoulder throws him out of the way of the incoming tendrils, and more blood and dust fills Izuku’s vision—another body, another failure. Only this time it is worse, because he locks eyes with his savior and it’s Kacchan, rage and fire filling his eyes as always, but there is so much more that Izuku can see in his expression, so much they both want to say—but there’s no time, and now there may never be.
Izuku screams, voice ragged and furious and hurt, and shoots out Black Whip to try and hold Shigaraki down. It barrels out of his arm, angry and crackling, and winds around the man like a cobra. Shigaraki barely falters, stopping in his attack and jerking backwards with unexpected force that tugs Izuku forward. With no proper purchase in the air, he shoots towards Shigaraki, whose grin widens impossibly, tearing the skin of his lips. Black Whip snaps open instantly like a rubber band, letting him loose to try and change Izuku’s course. He lands on the ground hard, toppling front over back.
“Mine now,” he hears Shigaraki whisper, and the instant it takes for him to get his bearings and snap his gaze up, dizzy from rolling, is too long. Shigaraki is on him. He wraps his hands around Izuku's throat and shoves him onto his back, pinning him down. He says something else but Izuku can't hear him through his own thoughts wildly screaming I'm not dead I'm not dead why am I not dead why didn't he turn me to dust—
"Izuku Midoriya… you brought One For All. It’s finally in my reach."
What?
"Give it to me," he demands, red eyes glowing.
Izuku chokes, but not because of the hands on his throat, which are moving away, up to his temples to clutch at his head in what could almost be mistaken for a caress. Black Whip has retreated, and he can’t seem to reach it anymore. Something is pulling at his chest, at the breath in his lungs, at the glowing core that he has become more and more familiar with—
It’s One For All. The previous holders are screaming in his head and he can’t breathe—
This isn’t right. This isn’t Shigaraki’s quirk. He lifts his arms and grabs Shigaraki’s wrists, tries to pry his hands off, but he’s unrelenting, crazed grin gone now as he concentrates. He looks frustrated.
“You—can’t—take—it—" Izuku forces out. “One—For All—by force—you can’t—"
“Maybe Sensei couldn’t, but I’m better—”
Izuku’s quirk bursts around them in arcs of energy, lighting them with green and red sparks. He sees the familiar green currents across his arms, snapping and shuddering painfully, but there’s red too, across Shigaraki’s arms and back. They skitter over Izuku’s skin like the quirk is reaching for him as it’s pulled away. He can’t breathe, and there’s a painful pressure building and building in his lungs, in his head—
With a final pop, a searing wound tears through Izuku’s chest, like his ribs are breaking, and his heart is bursting—even though there’s no blood, no wound—there’s a gaping emptiness, scooped out of him like his insides are a meal for Shigaraki’s hungry grin—One For All is gone—
And then, so is he.
oOOo
The lights surrounding Shigaraki fizzle out and die, but Shoto can’t move. He watches the villain sit back slowly, face upturned and eyes closed. Midoriya isn’t moving. Shigaraki rises off of him, stumbles—he clutches at his head, stares down at his open palm. He is off balance. Shoto needs to do something now while he’s still getting his bearings. Move, move—
An explosion blooms across Shoto’s eyes as Bakugo flies out of his arms and blows Shigaraki away. Bakugo lands by Midoriya’s prone form, blood dripping from his own dangerous wounds. The palms of his hands are steaming, and he is crouched low, body and expression twisted into the prowling shape of an executioner—Bakugo is livid. He is moving.
Shoto snaps out of his shock and starts running towards them. The ice he made to keep Endeavor from overheating is melting, and the other pros are tending to Mr. Aizawa. They are frozen. They need to get Midoriya out of there, they have to hold Shigaraki back, they have to stop him before he hurts anyone else. As he gets closer, he hears Bakugo scream—
“Give it back!”
Shoto doesn’t know what he means, or what’s going on, but Shigaraki hasn’t gotten back up. He’s kneeling on the ground, clutching his head. He claws up and down his face, leaving red scratches. The air around him is charged in a way that feels familiar.
When he reaches them, Shoto falls to his knees by Midoriya. His hearts lodges itself in his throat—Midoriya’s eyes are open, but he’s still, and limp. He can’t be. Shoto holds a palm under his nose shakily, and the warm burst of air on his fingers sends relief running through him like a balm—he’s still breathing. He’s not bleeding, either. At least, not more than he already was. There don’t seem to be any life-threatening injuries on him. So, what did Shigaraki do?
A scrape on the ground by his side—he snaps his gaze up, temperature falling around him in preparation. Bakugo is inching closer to Shigaraki, his hackles raised, ready to jump at any sign of an attack.
“Give it back!” he repeats. He sounds desperate. Shoto can see the tremors running through his limbs, the blood coating his clothing. He is barely standing.
“What—” Shigaraki’s voice cuts through the air, grating and crazed and panicked. “What is this?” He covers his ears, eyes darting wildly.
Shoto glances at Bakugo to see if he understands what’s happening, but his classmate doesn’t take his eyes off his opponent.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” Shigaraki screams.
Then, as though summoned by his master’s distress, Gigantomachia appears. Bakugo is quick to fire off explosions at the titan, taking off after the beast in a flame of righteous fury, but he can’t do much against him in his injured state. There are other villains on Machia’s back. Shoto spots Dabi and his chest fills with dread at the sight of his manic grin.
Then, in the space of a minute, Shigaraki has been extracted by the former League of Villains, Dabi has outed himself as Touya Todoroki and set Endeavor and Hero Society’s reputation ablaze in one fell swoop, and pandemonium has erupted across the battlefield once more.
The last thing Shoto remembers is the ever-familiar smell of burnt flesh.
oOOo
Shouta comes to groggily, blinking grime out of his eyes. The lights above him are off, but the room is still too bright. It’s one of the tell-tale signs of a hospital room. Squinting hurts his facial muscles, and he can feel that there are a few bandages taped to his skin. At least his eyes seem to be okay this time around, he thinks.
His senses have obviously been dulled by some heavy medication. He sees the IV drip responsible when he turns his head, a long tube of clear liquid snaking around a metal pole and disappearing under the skin of his elbow. He should take stock. He tries to shift around experimentally and freezes immediately when a throbbing sensation shoots up his leg. Ow.
Taking a few deep breaths to ground himself, he pushes himself up into a seated position slowly, ignoring the dull throbbing pain for now. He’s off balance, tipping to the right. Once he is properly seated, he leans forward to clutch at his aching knee and—
There’s nothing.
His right knee is gone. His right calf. He pats blindly at the space where his right leg should be, tugging off the covers in panic. Under his hospital gown, peaking out like the gnarled edge of a broken tree branch—the stump of his thigh, wrapped in bandages.
His heart rate skyrockets as the memories flood back to him—the bullet in his leg, his knife, tearing through muscle fibre and tendons, his fingers slipping on too much blood—his stomach flips. He’s going to throw up. He scrambles to the edge of the bed with stilted motions—it throbs—he’s lighter, less than he’s supposed to be—and hacks up bile onto the linoleum. His stomach is empty. He didn’t eat much before the raid.
The raid.
There’s movement around him. Severed sounds he can’t make sense of.
What about the others? It was bad, so bad—and the kids had been there, right in the crosshairs. His ears are ringing, and his eyes are watering. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down as his eyes stare sightlessly at the meagre contents of his stomach.
“—head?”
Stunted voices.
“Eraserhead!”
A hand lands on his shoulder. He looks up. It’s a nurse.
“Breathe, Eraserhead,” she says. Her voice is low and calm. “Take a deep breath.”
“Where—”
“Breathe first,” she talks over him. “Follow mine,” she commands, and starts taking exaggerated breaths and holding them in before releasing. A pattern to follow. He tries his best. After a few minutes, it almost works.
“The others—” he tries again.
“We’re still gathering the other injured heroes. I’m sorry, I don’t know much,” her voice softens a little. She looks like she means it. “Please, just lie back. Your colleague was around earlier. I’m sure he’ll be back to fill you in.”
He lies back. She starts looking him over while an attendant comes in to wipe up the mess. They work quickly, efficiently, which isn’t unusual in a hospital, but there is an underlying tension in their movements that he picks up on.
He breathes in deeply, trying not to panic again.
A colleague, she said. Someone is still on their feet, at least.
The attendant rushes out when they are done. The nurse pats his arm, tells him to use the call button if anything goes wrong, and follows on their heels.
The room is suddenly quiet enough to hear his ragged breathing. He closes his eyes and forces himself to work through his last memories. They were still doing okay before he was taken out of the picture. Sure, they weren’t winning, but they were mostly unharmed, except for—Gran Torino. Heavily injured. That’s one death he should brace for. He hadn’t known the old man very well, but any death was one too many. There were already too many casualties from the decaying of the hospital. It isn’t difficult for Shouta to recall Crust’s dying smile as he pushed him out of harm’s way.
Deep breath.
He presses his fingers into his eyes. Even through his eyelids, the lights are too bright. His eyes sting, and they are swollen from keeping them open too long. His skin hurts. His leg throbs.
The other pros seemed to be doing fine. Endeavor and Ryukyu—injured, but still in fighting shape. Rock Lock and Manual—he owed them a lot for keeping him going when it mattered the most.
But the kids—the kids. He can’t say he isn’t proud of how well they fought. Of their teamwork. This was Bakugou and Midoriya, the most volatile duo of his students, and they fought alongside one another like they had done it for years. Of course, he is proud, but they shouldn’t have been there to begin with. It was bad enough worrying about the other pros every time Shigaraki nearly sunk his destructive claws into them. He choked every time his students avoided him by mere centimeters. He could tell Rock Lock and Manual felt the same, as he felt them tense up underneath his arms while keeping him upright.
The bigger issue was Shigaraki himself. The moment his students had arrived on scene, he was fixated, barely taking his eyes off them. He looked to be searching for something before, plowing through the hospital and nearly taking Endeavor out in his single-mindedness. But then Bakugou and Midoriya had arrived. It was something to question them about later. If they were still—
He cuts that thought off. Best not to get ahead of himself without having any of the information.
He presses his eyes in with the back of his forearm, trying to will his headache away, and lets himself breathe for a few minutes.
The medication keeps his senses floaty and far away, but he hears the hurried footsteps outside his room before their owner is in the doorway. When he opens his eyes, its to a familiar face.
“Shouta!”
It’s Hizashi.
He looks awful.
Shouta starts sitting up, mouth open to ask something—he isn’t sure what—but Hizashi cuts him off.
“No, no, don’t sit up! Lie back down, you idiot, you’re injured! God, Shouta, you don’t even understand how injured you are. It’s nuts out there, so many others are injured, too, and they just found Nemuri a couple of hours ago—she’s gonna be okay, she’s at a different hospital, but she hasn’t woken up yet, and I’ve just been twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone to wake up—”
“Hizashi—”
“Shit. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.” Hizashi crowds him, trying to gently push him back into the frankly uncomfortable pillows. “I should have been there, but I had that piece of shit doctor Garaki with me, and it was priority to get him to the authorities—”
“Listen—”
“And he was so smug about it too, that we were too late to keep Shigaraki from waking up. If I wasn’t such a professional, I would have broken his fucking jaw, Shouta, just thinking about the shit that he did to—to—to people—”
He is stressed, obviously. This could go on for a while. It’s a relief to see him so energetic though. A relief to know that Nemuri is alright, too.
“Hiza—” he tries again, but this time he chokes on his sandpaper throat and starts coughing. Every cough sends pain shooting through his leg and wrecks him.
“Shit, okay, okay—” Hizashi stops trying to push him back and instead supports him as he sits up. As his coughing fit passes, Shouta feels like he hasn’t breathed near enough in the past however long he’s been awake. “Are you okay?” Hizashi asks.
“I threw up earlier,” he grouses bitterly. “Did you bring water? The nurses were too busy.”
“Yeah, yeah. Here. Don’t push yourself.” Hizashi twists opens the cap of a plastic bottle that he must have just bought, and hands it to him. Shouta takes a few small sips, trying to get the taste of sick out of his mouth without overdoing it.
When he’s done, they sit in silence. Hizashi’s arm around his shoulders is tight. When Shouta glances at him, he’s looking at the flat part of the sheets where Shouta’s leg should be, and he has a murderous look on his face. Shouta doesn’t bring it up. He can’t think about it yet.
“You said Nemuri is okay?” he asks instead.
Hizashi shakes away his anger but doesn’t retreat from Shouta’s space.
“Yeah, she was pretty banged up, but she’ll be—she’ll be alright,” he answers, looking years older than he should. His hair is still greasy with gel, but it’s no longer holding its shape, and is instead tied back in a messy bun. He’s still wearing his hero outfit. Even the heavy speaker.
“And the others? The ones who fought Shigaraki with me?” Shouta demands.
Hizashi hesitates, looks away. Shouta stares resolutely. He’s grateful for the fuzziness the medication provides, now—it might make it easier not to be overwhelmed by whatever news Hizashi brings.
“Most of the pros who were there are going to be alright…” he starts. “But Gran Torino is… he’s still in surgery. They got him in at the same time as you, but they couldn’t do it all at once, you know. Plus, he’s way older than either of us. Recovery girl has been with him for quite a while—she’s been with everyone, really, running herself ragged, but I think she knows him personally, and well—it isn’t looking good.”
Shouta breathes deep and lets out a long sigh, leaning into Hizashi. He expected this. They don’t say anything for a while. Eventually, he works up the courage to ask what he really wants to know.
“…and the students?”
Hizashi tenses. No amount of medication would have been enough to stop the panic that suddenly blooms in Shouta. He pushes away from his friend, stiff and distressed.
“The students—” he begins, choking again. Hizashi urges him to take another drink.
“Bakugo and Todoroki are all right—”
“Todoroki was there, too?” his voice comes out a frightened whisper. Hizashi pauses.
“He saved your life, I think—”
His students are angels, but they are also a scourge on his soul. He couldn’t be prouder. But he registers what Hizashi hadn’t said, yet.
“…and Midoriya?”
Hizashi’s face falls into a grim mask.
“His injuries have been taken care of,” he speaks up before Shouta starts shaking him. “He wrecked a couple of his bones again,” he laughs humourlessly.
“…but?”
“…Shigaraki did something to him,” he hesitates, dragging out the explanation like he can’t believe it himself. “Bakugo says he took his quirk.”
His quirk?
You’ll never be a hero with a quirk like that, Shouta told Midoriya on the first day of class.
“And he hasn’t woken up since.”
oOOo
Katsuki is furious. That isn’t anything new. But this is the sort of fury he felt when the League of Villains had him, when they tied him up and “offered” him a place by their side—it’s stale and shot through with a heavy dose of terror.
He knows what he saw. Shigaraki had been searching for Deku. He had multiple quirks. He’d gone straight for him when they arrived on the scene.
Shigaraki took Deku’s quirk.
Dragged it out of him as painfully as possible, from what he saw.
So, what are they going to do about it? It’s simple, really. They’ll get it back. Easier said than done, maybe, and Katsuki won’t be able to do that on his own, so it all depends on how much All Might will be willing to tell the other pros. But there is no other option. He doesn’t want to see what Deku’s reaction will be when he wakes up. He can’t imagine how that would feel—to get a glimpse of the hero he could be, only to have it ripped away before they even finished their first year at U.A.
(He carefully doesn’t think about how satisfied this would have made him at the start of the year.)
Katsuki’s stomach flips, and he clenches his fists painfully. His stitches pull across his belly and back—three points of injury where Shigaraki impaled him. When he woke up the nurses checked his IV and told him Recovery Girl had visited briefly while he was unconscious. Priority was given to him and Icy-Hot as underage students before she moved on elsewhere. She wasn’t the only healer working, but her ability is one of the best.
Somewhere closer to the home base of the Paranormal Liberation Front, hospitals are being flooded with the heroes from the second front of the raid, too. He has no clue how the rest of his classmates are doing. Or what may be happening out on the streets. Not that he can do anything about it without permission from Endeavor or Burnin’ or anyone else from the agency—not to mention his injuries.
Katsuki scowls and bounces his knee violently, unable to keep still. He stops with a swear when it aggravates his injuries. Icy-Hot glances up at him from one cot over. Bandages criss-cross all up and down his arms and face, covering burns courtesy of the League’s resident pyromaniac, who was apparently his dead brother, back from the grave to haunt Endeavor. What a shitshow.
He tried several times to ask about Deku, Aizawa, and the others, but he barely got any information out of the nurses before they were rushing off to help elsewhere. Apparently, Deku’s injuries are under control—he broke his bones again, the idiot, and had plenty of lacerations, but otherwise nothing life-threatening. Katsuki and Icy-Hot were told to let him rest, and to rest themselves.
Rest. Yeah, right. Katsuki’s bounces his knee up and down again, gritting his teeth against the pain. There was nothing restful about the hospital right now. Their group were some of the first heroes to arrive once the League had retreated, but the hospital they are in is already getting a ton of civilians injured in the wake of Gigantomachia’s traipse across cities. Not to mention, a lot of the evacuees of Jakku Hospital had been brought here—they are working at capacity. He can hear the frantic back-and-forth of the healthcare workers through the half-open door.
He can’t even call his parents to let them know he is all right.
He glances over at Icy-Hot and sees that he has sat up and is staring absently down at his lap. So, he’s checked out then. Katsuki swears again and feels like he is about to burst.
Then, suddenly—finally—the door swings open and Aizawa hobbles in angrily on two crutches with a stressed Present Mic pulling an IV drip behind him.
“Mr. Aizawa,” Katsuki says hoarsely, pushing himself up to a sitting position. Their homeroom teacher is balanced on one leg because the other one is gone. Todoroki slowly looks up, attention caught.
Aizawa looks them both over, eyes bloodshot but sharp.
“Bakugou, Todoroki—” he starts, and then stops. His face is a mix of anger and relief. It’s like he doesn’t know what to say. Mic hovers, uncharacteristically nervous. “…I’m glad you’re alright,” he finishes.
Neither of them answers. What can they say?
The longer he stands there, the more obvious it gets how tired their teacher is. It’s clear he hasn’t nearly recovered enough from his surgery yet, and it must have taken all of his strength just to get to their room. Present Mic quickly drags over a chair and urges him to sit down. Aizawa does so, gingerly, and without taking his eyes off of them.
“Wanna tell me what you were doing there?” he demands eventually.
Katsuki takes a deep breath, but Icy-Hot beats him to it.
“I saw Midoriya and Bakugou headed in your direction,” he explains, voice rasping. Then he thinks it over and adds, “…we came to help.”
“Deku took off and I followed,” Katsuki confirms.
“He looked sick,” Todoroki pipes up, meeting Katsuki’s eyes briefly.
The teachers listen intently, but don’t interrupt. It’s normal for Aizawa, but unsettling from Mic. Aizawa nods for Todoroki to continue.
“Right before they left, Midoriya looked sick, and he was staring over to where you all were like he knew you were there.”
Yeah. Katsuki noticed that too. That’s why he’s so sure that this has to do with his quirk. Whatever “upgrades” Shigaraki had now were related to that All For One guy.
Aizawa sighs heavily and goes to cradle his head in his hands, but he overbalances to one side and twitches back into place. Katsuki grits his teeth, angry, so angry.
“You three weren’t supposed to be there,” he says.
“Well, we were,” Katsuki says, not having the patience for this right now. “We probably shouldn’t have taken off without telling anyone, but we managed to help, didn’t we?” he challenges.
“If Shigaraki was targeting you, it would have been better to stay away,” Aizawa argues.
“He was coming right for us, so we were trying to keep him away from the evacuating civilians!” Katsuki growls.
“As far out as you were, how would you even know that?” Aizawa yells, his eyes flashing red and his hair floating around his face. Then he shuts them tight and bends in half like he’s about to throw up.
“Shouta!” Mic steadies him. “Alright, guys, come on. I know tensions are high, but you’re all injured,” he says sternly, eyes swirling behind his glasses. “This is why I told you not to come so soon,” he whispers more quietly to Aizawa.
“Well, at least you still have your quirk,” Katsuki sighs, falling back into his pillows and letting them swallow him up. At least you didn’t lose a leg for nothing. He is so tired. He isn’t even angry at Mr. Aizawa, he just wants to take his frustrations out on something. Deku took off so Shigaraki wouldn’t attack him in the middle of a crowd of civilians—and he was right to do that, since the bastard ended up catching up to them instead of the other way around.
…but he can’t explain that to his teachers without explaining everything else about Deku’s quirk. It’s a line of dominos waiting for him to push the first one.
If they are going to get Deku’s quirk back, they’ll need help, but he doesn’t know how they’ll get that help without telling people.
“Unlike Midoriya?” Present Mic asks.
“What?” Todoroki wheezes, a hint of panic in his voice. Mic eyes him carefully before facing Katsuki again.
“The nurses said when they brought you in you were delirious—mumbling about Shigaraki taking Midoriya’s quirk,” he explains, matching Aizawa’s sharp stare.
Katsuki swallows, breath stuttering nervously, and eyes clenching shut. Screw this line of dominos. He grits his teeth and pushes the words out through them.
“He was… targeting Deku because he wanted his quirk...” He doesn’t want to look at them, doesn’t want to see his teachers’ expressions closing off into something calculating, or Icy-Hot’s look of dawning devastation. “And he got it. He got what he wanted.”
~oOOo~
Izuku floats.
His body feels weightless, calm and unfeeling, like when he lays down on the cold sands of Dagobah Beach after dark and just breathes. It makes him feel better to know the air and sands are clean, and that he accomplished this. He loses track of time. All Might scolded him the one time he found him like that, for being out late and not paying attention to his surroundings. It’s rare for Izuku’s thoughts to be so slow and relaxed.
He hasn’t had the chance to do that in a while. His life moves too fast these days.
It feels like it takes him hours to blink awake, but it doesn’t bother him much. He isn’t on Dagobah Beach. His surroundings are eerie, dark not because it is night, but because there is nothing around him but fog and an endless expanse of space. It is quiet and uncomfortable, and yet—familiar, the way a space in your dreams is—fake, imagined, and yet you feel as though you know it as well as any real home you’ve ever had.
The fog surrounds him, covering his body and mouth as it always does, and swirling around him in mesmerizing patterns. He reaches out with his one visible arm, the scars on his hand standing stark against his skin, and runs his fingers through it. It trembles, and winds between his crooked fingers like a caress. Izuku stares and stares and stares. He feels like he was hit with a heavy dose of Recovery Girl’s quirk.
Why is he here?
He tries to stand, blinking harshly to rid himself of the lethargic feeling that permeates his every pore. No. This is weird. He knows where he is—the Quirkspace occupied by One For All. It was never this heavy before. So why..?
“Please stop,” a gentle voice says.
Izuku startles, and it’s the biggest feeling he has had since waking here. He tries to look around, but he can’t move much. A cool hand covers his forehead, like his mother used to do when he was smaller and bedridden with a fever. His eyes fall shut, and he nearly returns to his earlier state of drowsiness, but he reels back and headbutts the palm gently to keep himself aware.
A soft laugh sounds from beside him, quiet as a whisper.
“I’m sorry,” the same voice says. “I don’t mean to scare you.”
Izuku looks, and he can see a shape now—a person, thin and washed out. Their skin is an unhealthy white, and their hair is pale and scraggly. When Izuku finally meets their eyes, they are a piercing red which sets alarm bells ringing in his head. It’s enough to finally break whatever languid spell he was under.
For the first time ever, the black fog surrounding his body dissipates, and he stands on his own two feet in this world. He slaps the hand away and jumps back.
The man, who had been smiling gently down at him before, drops his smile and his hand. He looks—sad, and tired. With the added distance, Izuku can see now that it isn’t Tomura Shigaraki like he thought at first. His skin is smoother, not dry or scratched, and the lines of his jaw and nose are slightly sharper. The tiredness around his eyes feels more like age than the mania in Shigaraki’s.
He remembers this man. He has met him once before. Here, when he saw his memories of his brother, All For One.
“You’re… the First,” Izuku whispers, breathless. His voice is so quiet, but in the silence around them, it feels too loud. He is surprised it comes out at all in this space.
Where are all the other vestiges of One For All?
“That I am,” replies the man, a bit of relief entering his features now that Izuku recognizes him.
“What’s going on?” Izuku asks, voice still hushed. “Where are the others? Why am I here? What happened?” Now that he has banished the unnatural calm from before, his thoughts are spinning again, taking him in a million directions all at once.
“So many questions,” the First hums. “There’s no need. The fight is over for now, and we just need to wait in here for a while.”
Something about the controlled tone of his voice gets the alarm bells going again in the back of Izuku’s mind. Something isn’t right. He tears his eyes away from the First’s captivating stare, and finally notices the black fog—though it had left his body, it still swirls in circles around the two of them, almost like a dome, or a cocoon.
“Why are we in here?” he asks, voice edging on panic.
“Izuku,” the First soothes. “It’s alright, we’re safe in here.”
“Safe from what?” Izuku retorts. “What’s out there?” He steps towards the fog and watches it part around him, like it had when he finally stood free of it. It’s an odd feeling, like he is parting a curtain in his own head, or in his chest maybe. It is his quirk, too, now. Perhaps this is just another thing he needs to learn to control.
He wills the fog away and steps out into the same space he usually sees in his dreams—but warped. The sky, if it can be called that, is black, saturated with the same fog he has grown familiar with. But there are white cliffs scattered around, piercing upwards through the ground, breaking off in places and melting together in others, like a surrealist portrait. They are smooth and white like porcelain, unlike any dirt or rocky cliffs he has seen. Closer to the ground, he sees smaller bits poking out, like stalagmites in a cave. He walks forward, shocked and awed in equal measures, and feels the spectre of the First Holder follow close behind.
“What happened here?” Izuku asks, wide-eyed.
He hears a sigh.
“Our quirk isn’t supposed to work this way,” the First answers solemnly. “It can’t just be forced to fit into a slot like my brother wants.”
“Your brother—?” Izuku gasps, memories flooding back.
The evacuation of the city, the clawing sense of danger in his chest, taking off to protect the civilians from the incoming monster, the monster who was searching for him, chasing him, catching him—
“He—S-Shigaraki—he—how could—” Izuku stutters, fully panicking now. He looks at the First, wanting, needing to know if what he remembers is true.
The First presses his mouth into a thin line, eyes sad and desperate. Izuku gasps a frightened breath, and then runs forward towards the cliffs, unthinking. He doesn’t know where he is going, but he needs to see, he needs proof, he needs to be sure.
As he approaches the broken cliffs, growing up and out and breaking and melting before they can reach their full splendour, he sees the smaller ridges he had thought were stalagmites. He is close enough now to see what they really are, and his eyes are drawn to them like a moth to a flame. He traces their shapes over and over, the arch of the wrist, the hollow of the palms, the crook of the fingers, clawing into the air like they were trying to grasp at something too far out of reach—
Greys hands reach out from the ground around him, covering the plains like they used to cover Shigaraki.
He comes to a stop, suddenly surrounded by them. What seemed stationary before was now obviously shifting. The hands were grasping at the air, crawling towards him while still rooted to the ground. The sky darkens, casting shadows over everything. Izuku tries to take a deep breath, tremors running through him.
“Izuku—” he hears the First’s voice, but it’s so far away, swallowed by the creeping fog around him.
Lightning explodes overhead, turning everything green, and casting long terrifying shadows across the field of hands and cliffs. The first crack of thunder deafens Izuku, who covers his ears in distress. There is a howling in the distance, though he doesn’t feel any wind. He is panicking, panicking. Where did the First go?
One of the hands is close enough to brush his ankle, and he startles, kicking out—the hand shatters, crumbles into dust, and the sky rolls with more green lightning. The dust snaps Izuku’s last thread of calm, and he closes his eyes tight and runs, going further into the storm.