Everyone was laughing around him. It should have felt warm, but he knew there was something he was missing. Some reason why he felt so broken. His head was spinning, and it was hard to get a grip on himself. There was too much noise, the beeping of the monitors, the footsteps of nurses in the corridor, the smell of sterility, of alcohol gel and air freshener, and the faintest hint of blood...
"Did everyone from Class A come?"
The faces were all blurred in front of his eyes. He could see a blur of red spikes that he recognized as Kirishima, a curl of blonde that must have been Aoyama, and the stern presence of Iida.
Iida's voice spoke, seeming to break through the haze.
"No, Jiro and Hagakure are still unconscious from the villains' gas. Yaoyoruzu also got hit hard on the head and is hospitalized here. But everyone but those three came."
He blinked, and Uraraka's face came into view, round eyes wide with worry.
It didn't seem right.
"Fifteen of us," she said.
Then Todoroki said the words that made it all rush back.
"Because Bakugo's not here."
He was back in the forest, running towards Kacchan. The world was closing in. Every inch of his body was screaming, charged with electricity, but his mind was in a state of detached emptiness. He saw nothing, heard nothing, thought nothing, apart from the single goal he had etched into his brain.
Save Kacchan.
This had taken him blazing a path through the trees, fighting for the chance that Kacchan would still be there. No, he believed that Kacchan hadn't been taken yet, or else...he didn't know what he would do. His arms were broken beyond any injuries he'd sustained before, he couldn't fight.
It didn't matter, and when it came to the moment of truth, it never had. He'd save Kacchan, his body be damned, and he'd find a way to do it. Even if it meant breaking every bone in his body, he'd do it.
When he'd seen him just standing there behind Todoroki's wall of ice, as haughty and impulsive as ever, it was like a flame had rekindled in his heart. But they weren't safe yet, he had to remember that, he couldn't relax.
Surely, with the group of them now, there was no way they could be ambushed. His eyes kept flicking back behind him as if to check Kacchan was still there, like a child seeking reassurance that their parent was still there beside them. Or maybe more like the parent holding their child's hand as they crossed the road.
Kacchan would definitely not let him hold his hand.
He caught on very quickly, as well. "Look where you're going, or you'll fucking trip and ruin the only limbs you have left."
"Sorry, Kacchan." It was a fair point. Kacchan could look after himself. They had all five of them there around him, and they had a plan. There was no reason to worry.
Except there was.
Because the next time he'd looked back, and realized Kacchan wasn't behind them anymore, the flame in his chest that had been ignited burned black and spread through his body like wildfire, searing at the tips of his fingers as they formed a fist.
He saw the magician, crouching in the trees above them, and it was in that moment that he remembered understanding just how out of their league they were, how dangerous it was.
But right then, there had been room for nothing but anger. Give him back. Give Kacchan back. He's mine. Don't you dare touch him.
The rush of adrenaline was like a wave, gathering as he was propelled into the air by Tsuyu's tongue, sent flying at the man who had taken his classmate, friend, rival (he was far more than that). The wave peaked as he leapt, the full strength of Full Cowl surging into his limbs to launch him towards the pearly bead which contained the person who had given him the strength to be a hero.
But they'd lost. In the end, his body had failed him at the very moment he needed it most, and he'd failed. He couldn't save the one person most important to him.
If he'd still had a limb or fingers left to use, he might have been able to stop this. If he hadn't saved Kota...
Aizawa had been right. He broke himself and could only save one pitiful person before becoming completely useless.
Mr. Compress snapped his fingers, and Kacchan materialized, Dabi's hand crawling around his throat like a deadlock.
He could see every emotion in Kacchan's eyes as he'd leapt, time seeming to move in slow motion as they sunk back into the portal, and he had to reach him, he had to go faster, because Kacchan was disappearing. His neck, his hair, his jaw, it was all gone.
And then, Kacchan's eyes were all that was left. He had to reach him. Because of the way Kacchan's eyes were torn open in anger and frustration and even fear.
Someone was screaming Kacchan's name, it was roaring in his ears.
And through all the chaos, Kacchan's voice, strained and painful, grasped at his heart.
"Don't come, Deku."
The portal closed, and Izuku's broken body crashed into the dirt, hand still reaching out like he could still reach him if he just tried hard enough.
But he was gone.
The shriek he had let out contained everything he felt that day. All of it, all the broken frustration and hurt and pain, his failure and hatred for himself and the villains who had taken him away. He cursed it all, his weakness, his inability to save the person who had inspired him.
His throat was so raw. It had been him screaming Kacchan's name before, wasn't it? Who else would call out Kacchan? It wasthe name only he used.
He rose to his knees, then knelt on one knee, struggling to stand.
"Oi, Midoriya, don't overdo it-"
His limbs were so heavy. Each movement felt like he was dragging himself through mud.
Kacchan's last words to him echoed in his head like a mantra. They hadn't been spoken in the same explosive anger or bitterness Kacchan usually directed to him. It had unmistakably been a plea.
Don't come rescue me. I'll do this myself. I don't need you.
Maybe even, I don't want you to be hurt, if Izuku was being self-indulgent about it. Maybe the whole thing was self-indulgent in the first place. Wanting to save Kacchan, it was a selfish thing.
Stars flickered in front of his eyes, and his body felt weak suddenly, as if it'd accepted what had happened before he fully had. Kacchan was gone, beyond his reach.
Like an exhale, his body collapsed, like a doll cut from its strings.
Memories flashed through his head as he fell.
An explosion of light as Kacchan burst through the wall of the battle stimulation, eyes burning with rage, and the weight of his body as he slammed Izuku onto the ground. Kacchan's suffocation and the desperate look in his eyes as he had been surrounded by the sludge of the villain. A burned notebook surrounded by feeding koi, and the weight of Izuku's sadness as he picked it out of the pond. And two boys, walking through the forest, smiles on their faces directed to each other, and a sense of nostalgic joy in the air.
And then, Kacchan's eyes, always his eyes, as he'd been dragged back into the portal.
That was the image that stayed in his mind as his vision faded, and the world turned to black.
The rest of the conversation went by in a blur. Kirishima insisted that they could still reach Kacchan, that he was not out of reach yet, but the movement hadn't been unopposed.
Izuku didn't really care – whatever it took to rescue Kacchan, he'd be willing to do. The question was whether they could really pull it off, after seeing the sheer difference in power between them and the villains.
It was only after they left that he could grasp the blankets around him and curl up like a baby beneath them, and let the tears welling in his eyes to flow freely onto the sheets, droplets hitting the white and staining it darker.
Not that he hadn't cried already. Not that he was ashamed of crying. It was just, there was something personal and deeply-rooted in his heart about his relationship with Kacchan that he didn't want everyone else to witness. It felt like something he had to work through alone.
His body shook, his fingernails digging into his palms, and it was as if the overwhelming pain that he had kept at bay came back all at once. Every bone in his body was screaming, screaming, and he couldn't tell if it was physical or emotional, everything hurt.
He had always understood that being a hero meant putting yourself in danger, but losing Kacchan had never been an option. Kacchan was so strong. He never shied in the face of adversity, always found a way to win.
But the villains had taken him.
It made him realize just how easy it was to lose something so important. In the blink of an eye, one unexpected battle, one of his fundamental reasons for fighting had disappeared.
If they went through with this rescue plan, it would mean putting everyone else in danger too. What if Uraraka was taken? Iida? Kirishima?
He understood the arguments against it, he really did, but Kacchan was simply…
He was…
Important. In a way no one else fully understood.
No matter how unpleasant he was, his incredibleness shone twice as bright. If All Might was the one he admired and held up as an idol, then Kacchan was the one who inspired him to act, the one Izuku chased after and strived to reach.
It was his unrelenting desire to win, the strategy and focus and raw power by which he won, the way he never wavered. He was the image of victory.
It was an accepted fact among Class 1A that he had an unusually strong attachment for someone who regularly shouted at and belittled him with ferocious contempt but to him, it wasn't odd at all.
There was a knock on the door, and Izuku poked his head out of the blankets in time to see the nurse walk in.
"I'm here with your medications," she said, emptying a handful of them into a small plastic pottle, and shoving a cup of water into his hands. She set the tray she was holding down. "And lunch. Swallow and eat up."
Izuku nodded, and obediently downed the cup of pills, with a gulp of water.
She watched him in the corner of her eye, as if not trusting he'd do it.
"You know," she said. "You should have left it to the heroes. I have a son like you. Wants to be a hero, and gets himself killed over it."
Her voice was stone cold, and he found himself unable to meet her eyes - she spoke with the grief of someone who had lost, and he was sure he'd doubt himself if he met them. He wondered briefly if he'd overheard them discussing the plan to save Kacchan.
"I'm…I'm sorry for being a burden."
She turned, her eyes narrowing. "You know, your mum came by earlier." Her eyes seemed to pierce right into his soul. "She's been in and out, completely distraught. She wouldn't believe me when I said Recovery Girl had it under control, and I don't blame her."
Remembering his mum's grief-stricken face after the Stain fight, tears rolling down her cheeks, telling him that she couldn't take this anymore, it was like a stab to the heart. That he'd made her worry this much again...and that he was planning to do it again.
But the guilt hadn't been enough to make him stop. He had hurt, he had wished it didn't have to be, he wished to ease her pain. But if he could turn back time, he'd choose to save Kota every time. And going forward, there was no way he wouldn't go to save Kacchan.
The nurse had already turned on her heel and left, leaving the door to slowly creak shut. It was quiet, only the beeping of the monitor and the slow hum of his laptop sitting on the bedside.
He was sure his mum would visit soon, and tell him how this was too much, how she couldn't bear to lose him. All Might and Aizawa would come to give him a talk about how they were going to deal with the situation, that they would find Bakugo, that it would just take time and he should just rest up in the meantime.
He was a hypocrite.
Save Kacchan, even if it could be at the expense of his own life. That was how selfish he was. But he couldn't take this, the loss, the fear that he might never see him again. He knew it was the same, that if he was captured or killed, it would be the same. That it could be his mum curling under the blankets and crying herself to sleep, that the same pain that had been encapsulated in his scream that night after it was all over, that was the pain she would feel.
He saved people because they needed help. That was his goal, his ideal. But for today, it would have to be tarnished with the weight of loss and grief.
Sorry Stain, but this is a personal mission. I'm not a hero only for others.
He needed Kacchan back.
Give Kacchan back.