A palette of colors swirl in front of him. Blues, purples, oranges, greens, reds, yellows, and indigos connect with each other in a tight unison, a balance. What should be chaos is nothing short of beauty, and as he stares at the colors, the orange beckons him. It calls and with his scarred hands, he grasps for it. It's warm, curling around his fingers and it soothes him. He closes his eyes and breathes. The warmth around his hand disappears and soon, there's wind rushing around him.
When he opens his eyes again, there's a ground beneath him and wow, is that ground getting closer? Oh jeez, oh boy, he gasps as he realizes, he's falling. He's falling and he can't activate full cowl, because there's no land. And there's no Uraraka around to save him from colliding with the ground. The air swirls around him as he looks for something, anything. He wasn't going to die here. He couldn't die here. He hasn't even - he hasn't even passed on the mantle yet! One for All wasn't going to end here, with him. He just needed time.
As he descends, he can see that he wasn't even going to be given that. He could see it now. Midoriya Izuku, 17 years old, found dead splattered against the fucking ground. His mother would cry and Bakugou would try to fight his corpse. The landscape was quickly changing and it wasn't easy. There were trees, and more trees, coming into view. The air pressure against his eyes reminded him of the entrance exam. His eyes were tearing up, and if anyone asked - if he survived this, he means - then he would say it was because of the air pressure and not because he was really, really fucking scared. He didn't know how he could fix this. He called on Full Cowl, feeling its power thrum beneath his skin. Please, please. If he used Full Cowl, maybe, just maybe, he could soften the fall. But he would still break some bones and he didn't know which was worse, dying from bleeding out or dying from a deadly fall.
The latter, definitely the latter.
Before he could even accept his death and internally list off who was getting his stuff (you aren't getting shit, Bakugou. Fuck you.) a puff of purple began to swallow the trees, and he cringed. A Quirk? Perhaps an airborne quirk. Possibly poisonous, and could be related to the reason he was literally falling out of the sky. He could handle this. Totally. He fought Stain, he fought (kind of) the Noumu's, went against a Yakuza boss who could literally reconstruct body parts! He would be fine!
He would not be fine. Most definitely not. He figured, with all of the trees, he would be able to make some type of foothold out of them, but no, he managed to almost land in the one spot where there were no trees. No trees, no foothold, and he couldn't even see because of the purple smoke.
As he takes in his first inhale of the smoke, it dissipates, and circles his body, suspending him in midair. His green hair was centimeters from the ground, and he wants to cry. So badly. He sniffles, holding in his tears. He wasn't going to cry. He can feel the blood rush to his head as he stares at the little tiny ants on the forest floor. Was this a trap? Was this the work of a villain? It was easy to forget those things as he stares at the ants, doing their little jobs.
He was suspended by something he couldn't even see. There wasn't any type of rope or anything, so he couldn't even break it. Full Cowl wasn't going to be any good here, and he had already let it bleed out of his system when he had realized he wasn't going to be able to make a foothold. It was annoying to say the least. He didn't know how much time had passed since he was first caught and the thought that this was a hideout for villains made his blood run cold. He didn't have any of his gear, his hero costume. His phone might still be in his pocket, but after a fall like that, he would be surprised if it was still there.
Focusing on not crying, not freaking out, and remaining as Zen as much as he can, he hears leaves begin to crinkle near him. It's easy to tell from their almost simultaneously rhythmic and chaotic beats, it was obvious these were footsteps, footsteps of multiple people. It made him nervous. If this really was a villain hideout, he was completely useless. He might be able to fight his way out, maybe, but getting out of the forest without help from someone within the possible organization wasn't going to be easy, especially if the followers were loyal.
Voices follow the footsteps and there are multiple voices, just like he suspected. However, even as the voices got closer, he wasn't able to understand a single word that they were saying. It was a different language, and not one he could understand. He liked to think he was pretty good at English. He was a nerd and not getting a good grade in that class would sully his name as one. But this language wasn't English, wasn't like anything he would be able to recognize. He waits until he sees the feet of his captors and tries his best to put on a smile. It was hard with how his head with particularly numb from being upside down for so freaking long.
"H... Hello?" He cringes at the sound of his English. His accent was heavy and his L's were still hard to pronounce.
"Japanese?" Midoriya wasn't able to see who it came from, but the voice was surprisingly gentle. "Do you speak Japanese?" It took a moment for him to be able to realize the man had asked a question in Japanese.
"Yes! Oh, uh. Can you please let me down? I kind of got stuck here and I don't know where I am." His tongue felt heavy in his mouth and it was very, very hard to focus or think. "I had just finished my shift at the local hero agency, and was walking home when it got really dark and then there was some weird color-flame things and I think that someone used a warping quirk on me and then I was falling in the sky and somehow there was purple smoke so I thought there was a villain base near here and wow- I'm talking too much, sorry." He flushes pink as a soft chuckle meets his rambling.
In a split second, he lands fully on the ground, making a soft 'oof' sound as he lays in the grass. Now that he wasn't upside down and blood was finally flowing away from his head, he was able to get a good look of his supposed captors. The man in the front had a black cape, and looked... important? Regal? His kind smile, amber eyes, and fluffy brown hair made him feel like this wasn't normal. Made him feel like this wasn't something he was supposed to be allowed to see. The warmth that emitted from the man made everything weird, different. A cough pulled his attention from the man to those both behind and beside the man. It was easy to tell who the leader was. However, as much as he was used to seeing quirks, the group looked so strange. A man with silver hair, another child around his age with an afro, a man with purple hair- and none of them had any strange attributes that could reveal what their quirks were.
The leader leaned down in front of him, and Midoriya watched as the man's gloved hand reached out. "Won't you come with us?" There was something terrifying about how the gloves clinged to his hands in a perfect fit. It was terrifying how gentle the man's smile was, but his eyes spoke of danger and hurt. His hand places itself in the man's hand. The man may be terrifying, but the idea of staying in a forest he knew nothing of reminded too much of his first-year summer camp and he would rather not have a repeat, thank you very much.
"Juudaime! We can't show this boy where we live!" The silver-haired man scowled, glaring at Midoriya, but Midoriya hadn't spent most of his life dealing with glares for nothing. He held his ground. The man opened his mouth to say something, probably to insult him.
"Hayato." It was a simple command, a usage of a name, Midoriya guessed, and that was all it took.
The man helped Midoriya to his feet and smiled. "He's not a threat. Right?" Midoriya found himself shaking his head quickly. This wasn't what he was expecting. The man gave off the same feeling of danger that All for One had in the fight against All Might. There wasn't much he could do, besides agree.
What had he gotten himself into? A true problem child, indeed.