Four days later

On some level, Izuku knew he was dreaming. There was some ethereal quality to his surroundings that just didn't fit the real world. But even so, he didn't really care.

The dream wasn't really…well, it wasn't really anything. There were scenes flitting by, but his consciousness didn't register them. There were things happening, but he couldn't see them. It was like he was floating effortlessly in empty space, surrounded by a gentle sea that cradled him.

It was a nice dream, if a little unlike the racier ones Nana liked to tease him about whenever she caught the tail ends of them in the mornings. But it couldn't last.

"Wake up!"

The voice came out of nowhere. Was it even right to call it a voice? It sounded like a chorus, a dozen voices and none all at once, communicating not with sound but with…something else. Izuku, being asleep, considered this problem lazily, unhurried and unbothered-

"WAKE UP!"

It was getting louder now, somehow. Izuku was distracted by something else, though; all of a sudden, his surroundings began to churn, swirling and shuddering as though in an earthquake. Dark things rose up out of nowhere, formless beasts that ripped and tore. Izuku felt an abstract kind of panic sweeping over him as he struggled in their grip. What were these things? Where were they coming from? They felt foreign, somehow, like they didn't belong to him. They dragged him down, down, he didn't know where-

"WAKE UP!"

With a desperate cry, Izuku shot upright, his eyes bolting open as he tore himself out of the dream and into the real world. Sweat tracked down his skin, his chest rising and falling as he took great gulps of air, convincing himself that he was real, he was alive, he was safe.

"What the hell was that?" he wondered, trying to put the pieces of his already-fading dream back together.

Then he heard Nana scream, and all else was forgotten.

Instantly, Izuku was scrambling, tearing off the blankets as he heard and saw his girlfriend thrashing wildly next to him. Heart-stopping fear coursed through him when he saw Nana, struggling to fight her way out of a tangle of sheets, her eyes still firmly shut. Whatever was happening, it was happening in her mind.

Izuku knelt over her, gripping her shoulders as she flailed. "Nana, wake up!" he said firmly, fighting off the panic that was creeping into his voice.

Nana didn't even seem to hear him; as he watched in mounting horror, she swung an arm wildly, crackling with the purple lightning of One For All. That power surged across her whole body in waves, jumping to the sheets, the bed itself, and to anything else in range. It was all Izuku could do to not get thrown backwards by the force of Nana's thrashing.

In a voice that was somehow lost in the haze of sleep-talking, and yet filled with agony so deep it hurt just to listen to, she cried, "I can't do this alone, Tomura…you said you would always be there!"

Izuku didn't even register the ripple of fear that shot down his spine; he was too focused on the girl he loved, weeping and fighting her own mind right in front of him. He realized that speaking aloud wasn't going to work, not when Nana was still trapped so firmly in her own dreams. Desperately, he opened the link, trying to pour feelings of comfort and safety into her, to chase away what could only be a terrible nightmare.

Instead, he was met by a wall of darkness so powerful, so familiar, that he recoiled, severing the link before it could overwhelm him, too.

Now, he realized what must have happened in his own dream; somehow, Nana's nightmares were bleeding through, overwhelming the link. Maybe she'd reached out for him, somehow, out of desperation.

But he didn't know how to reach her.

Beneath him, Nana was still in the grips of her terror; no matter how much he tried shaking her, or saying her name, or hammering desperately against their link to wake her, nothing worked. Static electricity ran rampant across her body, as her wild emotions activated One For All and let it loose.

Nana's screams turned to agonized sobs, and she rolled away from Izuku, curling into the fetal position as the darkness surrounding her seemed to intensify even further. He heard her sob, "Kotaro, I'm sorry…I'm so sorry, baby. Please, I can't…"

Izuku didn't know that name, but he couldn't let Nana suffer any longer. Panic threatened to overwhelm him, but that was nothing new. He fought it back, as something whispered in his mind, a voice he couldn't quite place.

It told him, "She's right in front of you. Save her."

Izuku leaned down further, gathering Nana into his arms as she cried and fought, her eyes still firmly shut. He ignored the glancing blows of her flailing limbs, and the crackling feeling of lightning dancing across her skin. He took a deep breath.

With force he didn't know he had, layers to his voice he didn't recognize, and power that came from the depths of his soul, he said, "NANA, WAKE UP!"

As he spoke, One For All flashed through his body, too. Green lightning leaped from him to Nana, joining and then overwhelming purple in a heartbeat.

Slowly, agonizingly, Nana slumped in his arms, the heart-stopping terror slowly draining from both of them. Her eyes fluttered, and slowly opened.

And Izuku's fear came roaring back, because Nana's eyes were…blank. There was no relief in them, no lingering emotions from the terrifying nightmares…and worst of all, no recognition. For a moment, Nana looked at Izuku like he was a stranger.

"Wh-who are you?" she asked, mystified and scared and hopelessly lost. Izuku didn't know how to answer.

Before he could, Nana blinked, and her confusion vanished like morning mist. She recognized him again, judging by the way her expression changed, filling with love and relief and, most of all, vulnerability. Izuku didn't know what to say, not when the strongest woman he'd ever known was looking at him like she'd lost everything she'd ever been.

He still didn't know when Nana buried her face in his chest and started to sob.

Five minutes later, Izuku had finally found something he did know. He filled the kitchen in the common room with manic energy, moving on a level of automation that came with being far too familiar with how to heal from nightmares that left you shaking like a leaf in the wind, and how to do it for others, too.

Finishing up, he blew gently on a steaming mug of hot chocolate, carrying it towards one of the couches, where Nana huddled under a thick blanket, drawn tight around her body until she was practically cocooned in it. All the blankets in the world couldn't stop the constant shivers that shot through her, though, or the way she looked weaker and smaller than she ever had under them.

Izuku offered the mug to Nana, who accepted it quietly, a small smile of gratitude flashing across her pale, exhausted features. Izuku sat down next to her, a steady rock for her to lean against as she took a deep swig, careless of the heat.

At last, Nana set the mug down with shaking hands, and closed her eyes for a second. As soon as she did, they bolted open again, as though she feared that she might plunge right back into the darkness.

For a while, they just sat there, Izuku's arm around his girlfriend as she took deep, unsteady breaths. Neither of them said a word; they didn't need to.

At last, though, Izuku asked gently, "Nightmare?"
Nana nodded, her eyes distant as she raised her head to stare at the opposite wall, gathering her thoughts.

"Yeah," she replied eventually, "I-I think."

Wordlessly, Izuku's arm tightened around her shoulders, steadying her. "You wanna talk about it?"

Nana didn't respond. Instead, she exhaled shakily, looking away from Izuku as though scared to meet his eyes. She whispered, "I don't know if there's anything to talk about."

"Of course there is," Izuku insisted, his voice firm and certain, yet another thing for Nana to cling to in a desperate attempt to keep herself steady, "you woke up screaming in the middle of the night, Nana. You'll feel better if you talk about it."

"How do you know?" Nana countered petulantly, knowing and hating how childish she sounded in that moment. She fought the urge to cross her arms, and only succeeded because her body still felt weak and drained.

There was a moment of heavy quiet, as Izuku seemed to consider the best way to respond. At last, he spoke, his voice thick and weighed down with something that spoke to darkness Nana knew all too well.

"I took down the greatest supervillain Japan has ever seen barely a year into UA," he said, empty of boasting, full of scars that didn't blemish his skin one bit, "you think I'm any stranger to nightmares?"

Nana remained silent, her eyes darkened with a hundred thoughts that did nothing to address the yawning chasm of fear in her chest. Something inside her felt raw and exposed, like a faultline ready to crack her in half. The silence stretched on and on, not because of malice or anger, but because of fear, and because Nana couldn't quite accept the truth herself.

Izuku, bless his stubbornness, didn't care; he bulldozed through the weakness and the excuses Nana hated herself for, seeing only someone he loved in pain, and determined to heal them. Softly but firmly, he asked, "What was that nightmare about, Nana?"

For a second, it seemed like Nana was going to respond with silence again. But at last, her voice rose from the pile of blankets she'd wrapped herself in. It was weak and thin as she admitted, "I don't remember."

Izuku wasn't in the frame of mind or body to rock back on his heels, but the answer still left him reeling, scrambling for an answer. He began, "You mean, like it's fuzzy and confusing, or-"

"No. Izuku, I literally can't remember what it was," Nana interrupted, the words spilling out of her like a dam had been broken, "the first thing I remember again was…was looking into your eyes, and seeing my own fear."

Nana's voice cracked, and Izuku pulled her close, burying her fractures under a hug so all-encompassing that Nana clung to him like it was her last hope. Izuku's lips brushed against her ear, murmuring soft words, gentle words. She barely heard them, but they soothed something in her soul, gave her the strength to keep speaking when they finally broke apart.

"I think…I think it was a memory, not a nightmare," Nana confessed. How else could she explain the way her mind ached, the empty places where her life should have been stinging bitterly like wounds exposed to a cold wind?

"What makes you say that?" Izuku asked.

Nana explained, "I…I can't be sure. But I get nightmares too, you know…and this didn't feel like that. It felt worse."

Izuku was quiet for a moment, clearly absorbing this information. At last, he spoke, but it wasn't what Nana expected.

"I didn't know you had nightmares," he said, his voice carefully level, "how long have they been happening?"
Nana shifted uncomfortably; as much as she wished she could avoid this conversation, she knew she shouldn't. Quietly, she answered, "Almost since I woke up again."

"Why didn't I notice?" Izuku asked. Nana realized that there was guilt in his voice, and it tore at her heart.

She rushed to explain, "I…I hid them. They weren't that bad, usually, so I just…buried them. It's hard to notice things like dreams through the link, once they fade."

Izuku nodded once, and Nana understood; he wasn't happy, but he wouldn't make a big fuss about it. He understood why Nana didn't like to admit she wasn't invincible, why she buried all evidence of her pain and hoped nobody looked too close.

Nana added, "But…yeah. I know what nightmares feel like. This wasn't one of them. It was…stronger, more real somehow. I know that much."
"But you don't remember what it was about at all?" Izuku asked, as though he was reluctant to believe it.

Nana shook her head in frustration, her fists clenching and unclenching. "Not a thing," she confirmed, an angry edge to her voice, "it's like…it got wiped as soon as I woke up."

Izuku nodded slowly, but then another thought struck him. Cautiously, he began, ""You…you said a name in your sleep, while I was trying to wake you up. Two, actually. Do they…were they important to you?"

"I don't know," Nana answered helplessly, "I don't even know what I said. Like I said, all of that…it's just gone."

Suddenly, the sheer madness of the situation washed over her, sweeping everything else away like the tides. A hollow, bitter, angry laugh bubbled from Nana's throat, producing a sound like cracking glass.

Izuku watched numbly as Nana bent forwards, hands forming fists on her knees. "It's like a fucking joke," she snarled, though devoid of any real heat or venom, "right when I think that I'm fucking happy, this shit starts happening. For one fucking second, I'm whole, I have my memories back, or some of them, at least, and then…and then they're ripped away again, and they leave me with all the pain and no way to understand it. And that's the worst part."

"What is?" Izuku asked softly.

Nana let out a breath; it came out more like a hiss, of held-back agony and frustration, a brittle cover for fear and weakness. She finished, "I still know how it felt. Whatever happened, I still have every emotion I felt in those memories, whatever they were…just not anything that tells me why I felt that way."

"How…what kinds of emotions did you feel?" Izuku prompted, his easy tone reminding Nana all by itself that she didn't have to do this, that she could back out at any time.

She forged ahead anyway, because maybe putting it all into words would make the burden lighter. She replied, "Fear. Horror. Grief…so strong it felt like I was breaking into a thousand pieces. Emptiness. And…guilt. So much guilt. It's like…like I did something I hated myself for, that I knew would hurt everyone who cared about me."

Nana's words hung in the air, ominous and dark, clouding everything else. Nana could feel it inside, too, like a storm that scoured her whole being, making her feel sick to her stomach and hollowed-out. Izuku was looking at her with eyes so filled with love it scared her, even more than what was happening to her. Where was the pity? And…where was the awe, the admiration that Nana was so used to seeing in his eyes?

Izuku gathered her into his arms again, and it took all the strength in Nana's body not to melt bonelessly into the hug. Izuku held her gently, kindly, letting her cling to him as much as she needed to.

Nana whispered, "I'm sorry, babe. I'm letting you down."

"Never say that again," Izuku hissed, so fierce and deep that Nana felt the rumble in his chest as much as she heard the words. The sudden intensity scared her, but it also comforted her, somehow, to know that Izuku was angry for her, not at her.

Seeing her falling silent, Izuku repeated, "Never say that you're letting me down because of something like this, Nana. You've never let me down, and I know you never will."

Nana protested, "How have I not let you down? I'm weak, Izuku. I feel like I'm going to-"

"Nana, you aren't weak because of what's happened to you," Izuku interrupted, his voice ringing with rock-solid belief that cut to the very core of Nana's soul, "you're strong for how you've survived it."

"But-" Nana began, only for Izuku to look her dead in the eye, his hand trailing up the back of her neck, his fingers stroking through her hair.

"You came back from the dead and changed my life forever," he said, softly, almost reverently, "you aren't weak. You've never been weak. Right now, you're afraid…and so am I. That's not weakness, not in the slightest."

Nana tried to find some rebuttal, some response that could justify the fragments her faith was splintering into…but she couldn't. And those fragments were healing, too, in their own way.

Izuku's words rang in Nana's ears as she took a deep breath. Wetting her lips, she confessed, "I…I feel like I'm splitting apart, Izuku. I don't know how I got here, I don't know who I was before. Hell, am I even Nana Shimura? How do I know I'm not some…some pale imitation, a ghost who thinks she's still alive?"

"Thinking like that won't get you anywhere, Nana," Izuku told her gently, "You're here, you're real. The things you feel are real."

Bluntly, Nana replied, "I know. That's what I'm afraid of."

The look on Izuku's face morphed again, filling with confusion and worry "Nana?" he asked, a thousand concerned questions packed into a single word.

Nana felt her armor cracking, falling away at last. As though an enormous weight was lifting off her chest with each admission of humanity, she whispered softly, "I'm scared, Izuku. I'm scared of what keeps happening to me. I'm scared of never getting my memories back…and I'm scared of getting them back, too."

"Why?" Izuku asked.

Nana's voice cracked and wavered with emotion as she explained, "Toshi and Sorahiko are keeping things from me, things about my past. I know that, and…and I told Toshi I don't mind. I still don't, because…whatever it is, it's putting him through so much pain. He's always been bad at hiding his feelings, and I can tell when something is tearing at his heart. I don't want him to relive things just because I got curious. But still, I'm terrified of what's being hidden from me. Who was I, before? How did I cause people who cared about me so much pain? What did I do, that I can still feel the agony it put me through?"

"I don't know. But it doesn't matter, Nana," Izuku told her, strong and sure to the end. Nana had never loved him more than she did in that moment…but that only made her next words harder.

"How can you be so sure?" she asked in a voice that trembled with terror at what the future might hold, "How can we be sure, that I won't…I don't know, lose all of these memories, too, and forget you? Or get everything back, and learn that I really did do something awful? What if you…what if you hate me for it? Or…what if this is all temporary, and I'm running out of time? What if you wake up one day, and I'm gone forever, because One For All called me back?"

As only a man who had beaten true evil could, Izuku squared his shoulders and said with so much determination Nana could feel it, "I won't let it."

"What can you do against it?" Nana asked, hopeless, but not quite resigned, not yet, "if One For All made this possible, brought me back…it can end that, end me, whenever it wants. You can't fight our own quirk, Izuku."

Izuku showed his true spirit then, the ability to have faith in goodness and kindness in the worst of circumstances, when everything seemed to go wrong. Unshakably, he told her, "One For All is good, you said it yourself…and I believe it. It brought you to me, after all. Nothing that did something so good would cause so much pain."

Nana wished she could believe it, she really did. But something held her back, some part of her scant remaining memory that would never let her forget… something. But Nana didn't care. She wrapped herself around Izuku, kissing him desperately, feeling him respond in kind as he guided her into a gentle, soft spot on the couch, a place where she could curl up and forget the ghosts that seemed to haunt her at every corner. A place where, just for tonight, she could let herself believe.

Ochako fought a yawn as she crept downstairs, careful to stay quiet and avoid waking anyone else up. It may be the middle of the night, but she was hungry, dammit. Surely Sato wouldn't notice if a few…or a few dozen…of his mocha went missing overnight. Right?

Well, Ochako didn't much care, honestly. If All Might himself had been standing between her and the fridge right now, she'd have attacked without hesitation.

She probably would have hesitated if it was his daughter, though. After all, Deku would be upset if she broke his girlfriend in her never-ending quest for delicious, delicious mocha.

Speak of the devil, were those voices she heard downstairs?

Ochako stuck her head through the doorway to the common room, just long enough to see Deku and Shimura huddled together on the couch. Shimura was wrapped in blankets, drinking what must have been hot chocolate, as Deku held her gently and spoke to her.

Ochako instantly understood what was going on: Nightmare Protocol. She'd done it herself before, and been on the receiving end; all of them had. None of them were free of nightmares these days, after everything that had happened, and all of them knew how to comfort a classmate with hot chocolate and blankets and gentle words, to bring them back from a place they'd never really leave behind entirely.

But Shimura needing it? That was new, and unexpected. Ochako knew better than to assume anyone was free of their own demons, or to think that she had it worse than anyone else, but still, she wouldn't have expected the strongest woman she'd ever met to be looking like a strong breeze might shatter her any second.

Ochako also knew better than to interrupt once someone was being calmed down like this, so she decided to simply wait behind the door for them to be done. Once Shimura was feeling better and Deku got her to go back to sleep (with him, a fact Ochako still found hilarious and a little bit confusing), she'd just waltz in and claim her delicious prize-

"I think…I think it was a memory, not a nightmare."

Ochako hadn't realized she was close enough to overhear anything. Oops. Unfortunately, she was kind of too close to leave now, she'd definitely be heard if she moved around. Well, hopefully Deku didn't decide to fuck the nightmares out of Shimura-or the memories, whatever that meant.

"I don't even know what I said. Like I said, all of that…it's just gone."

That was weird. What were they talking about? Forgetting dreams was one thing, but the way they were talking, it almost seemed more…sinister than that. Ochako jolted as a nearly hysterical laugh came from the other room. Damn, what had happened to Shimura?

"For one fucking second, I'm whole, I have my memories back, or some of them, at least, and then…and then they're ripped away again, and they leave me with all the pain and no way to understand it."

Ochako was getting more confused by the second. "Have my memories back?" Did Shimura have amnesia or something? But…that would be more obvious, right? And what was making the black-haired girl so angry about…whatever had happened to her?

It's like…like I did something I hated myself for, that I knew would hurt everyone who cared about me."

Okay, now Ochako was officially lost. What the fuck was going on? Why was Shimura talking this way? Emotions from her past? Lost time? What was going on? Ochako watched Shimura crack, spilling out vulnerability that only revealed the true depths of her strength. Deku, more caring and loving than anyone else Ochako had ever met, wrapped her in his arms, telling her truths that made Ochako admire both of them all the more.

"You came back from the dead and changed my life forever."

The words made Ochako's blood run cold. Deku might not have meant it literally…but it sounded like he did. And Shimura seemed to respond to it, and…and it made more sense than it had any right to. Ochako remembered Bakugo, showing her that article about Shimura dying thirty years ago…and pieces that should never have fit together snapped into place. Somewhere far away from the dawning realization, Ochako knew that she shouldn't be here, shouldn't be listening in on this…but it was too late.

"If One For All made this possible, brought me back…it can end that, end me, whenever it wants. You can't fight our own quirk, Izuku."

Ochako's mind may have been racing and distracted, but those words only added to her confusion. What was One For All? "Our" quirk? She'd known that Shimura and Deku's quirks often acted similarly, but…oh, who was she kidding? She was seriously considering the evidence on whether or not one of her friends was actually a resurrected hero from thirty years ago, nothing was impossible next to that! Ochako felt like she was going to go crazy…especially when she considered what the other part of Bakugo's theory was. If Shimura was actually some sort of Nomu, a threat to her friends…

Ochako didn't have evidence for that yet. Honestly, she still doubted that part. But even so…Ochako knew how many of her classmates' nightmares were from those monsters, those inhuman abominations stuffed full of stolen quirks and unleashed on innocent people. She didn't know what to do.

Ochako watched Shimura kiss her best friend like it was all she could think to do, and turned away. She raced upstairs, all thoughts of mocha forgotten.

She had a meeting to arrange.