On Monday, Izuku's life returned to relative normalcy. He had gone back to school after staying at home the entire week and had gotten an extra week's worth of homework to make up for what he had missed.

That was fine though. His new schedule was pretty open at the moment. He was still looking for someplace to train, but due to the realities of the situation, he had been forced to reorganize his training regiment.

If he really was going to train at someplace where he was so far away he needed someone to drive him there, he couldn't do his old regular routine of 3 hours training a day.

Instead, he would do a new, more concentrated amount of training. Since Saturday and Friday were the only days he could be assured someone could drive him, he needed to put all his training into those two days specifically.

He would spend the entire weekend training, putting himself to the absolute limit each time.

There was still around 250 days until the Hero School exams came around, but if you took those away and only took 2 days per week, his amount of training days suddenly got a lot tighter.

On one hand, it made him nervous, very nervous. On the other hand, he had gotten used to his training by now. He enjoyed his training. Well, maybe it was time to take it to the next level.

If nothing else, he had learned from his first bitter lesson.

At the moment though, it wasn't his future training that was on his mind. Nor was it his homework. No, at the moment, Izuku was doing something he'd gotten way too used to over the last month.

Rummaging through other people's trash.

More specifically, he was back at the beach where he had first unlocked his quirk, ripping the wheels of the old cars thrown here.

Logically, it was the only realistic option. He didn't have the cash for a punching bag, and his mom wouldn't begin her new job for over 4 months from now.

Even taking into consideration that this was training he could do at home instead of at whatever spot he would be training at, that was still over half the time he had left before the exams.

He couldn't wait that long. So, he had to get one another way. Youtube had thankfully told him how. A freestanding punching bag made out old car tires, some bolts, and screws to connect them together, and a ton of old bricks in the lowest and largest of the tires, to stabilize it with weight at the bottom.

It was an easy design to make, with the only thing he really needed to bring on his own was a screwdriver to use to punch holes for the screws(The guide had said to use a power drill, but he didn't have one, so superhuman strength and a metal stick would need to do.

He'd assemble it here, then carry the thing home. Later he'd go and find bricks for the bottom.

Thank god for the blessing that was youtube. Originally, he'd been thinking he'd have to scrounge the trash bin of gyms, hoping someone threw out a punching bag that wasn't too broken, that he could have repaired, but frankly, this was easier, cheaper, and didn't require him to install something to hold it.

Instead, he had a tower of tires, that he could easily replace if he did accidentally destroy them. Cheaper, easy to replace, and presumably effective for his goals of control over his punches.

He really needed to achieve that. Even if he hadn't learned his lesson from the whole log fiasco, he still was reminded about it every time he had done punching training. The way everything just broke under his hands anytime he put any weight behind his blows.

It was easier to adjust with his grip strength, but that was mainly just instinct. You got used to doing it subconsciously over time.

Punching? Not so much.

Whenever he would be fighting anyone in the future, unless they were superhumanly durable, he would need to hold back.

Over the course of the week, he'd spent home, he'd been looking up videos of All Might, the man who had originally inspired him into becoming a hero in the first place.

When he had been a little kid, All Might had always seen so cool to him. For good reason too, but it was only now, that he had strength of his own, that he really understood All Might's power.

All might was capable of easily knocking out pretty villain Izuku had ever seen him fight, and despite having what was probably the strongest super strength quirk in history, he still had a level of control where he could both easily knock down regular crooks with no problem and not horribly maim any of them.

He was amazing. Far beyond Izuku's level.

He had watched other heroes with strength quirks too, and it was the same in all of them. More than sheer power, it was control that defined their performance as heroes.

It was as Stick had said though. It didn't come naturally to him. He'd have to keep at it until it did. And that probably would take months and months of work.

I

The man from the woods was watching.

It was from a distance, but it could feel him. Strange man, the one who did not see. How could he watch without seeing? Did he possess powers of feeling emotions, as it did? Or was it echo based?

It did not know. But it was certain it could watch without seeing. It had seen the blind of this species. How they were always careful, slow, methodical. And the lack of knowing the beauty of sight.

That more than anything made this one stand out amongst all the rest. This race was built and dependant on sight, more than any of their other senses.

That was common amongst the peoples of the universe, but not universal.

The strange man stood out. He did not move carefully, nor slowly. He was methodical though.

It had helped the host.

It should be grateful for that, but the feeling of this man… There was something about him… Something it could not pinpoint. It did not feel like the rest of the race. Not the ones with power, anyway. Yet he had powers, it was certain of that.

What did it mean?

No matter. For the moment, he was far away, he was no threat to them.

No, what worried it at the moment was the host. The host was fragile and thus depend on its power to succeed.

This was good. Usually. But it had not finalized the bond yet. They had overcome the critical point, but the final stage was still far away.

That was a problem.

As it was, their power was starting to manifest in strength and stabilizing, but it was not anywhere close to the level it should be after 40 days.

And then there was itself. It could manifest a form now, but it was not it's true form. It was not the second skin. It's… It's mark had not returned yet. It was all just black.

It did not think it would return in full before the bond finalized.

Unfortunately, there was… A deadline. It wasn't sure what he was counting down to, but its host had begun with the habit of writing a number on a tablet, then crossing out one or two numbers each sunrise, and replacing it with a new one.

It had not mastered any of the languages this species used yet, but I had easily realized the meaning of its numbers.

From what it had seen on the tablet on the wall, they had a bit over 250 cycles of the planet remaining, before the deadline was reached.

That should be enough time. Provided the host did not perish before they reached that point.

"So, a strength quirk eh?" David-san said in a jovial tone. "Never knew quirks could skip a generation."

"Skip a generation? What do you mean?"

"Oh right, Hisashi never told you much about your gramps, did he? Well, don't go dig deeper into that well Izuku, but Hisashi's old man had a strength quirk too."

Looking at him, it was kinda insane to Izuku that Davis-san was as old as his parents. The man looked like he was in his early twenties, which Izuku had always assumed was due to a quirk, like Miss Bakugou.

"Yeah, mo-My parents never really talk much about my grandparents. Not on Dad's side anyway."

Which was kinda an understatement. One of the few crystal clear memories Izuku had of his dad, had been when the older Midoriya had taken him aside and told him pretty sternly to Never ask about his grandfather. Ever.

"Anyway, it's not really a strength quirk per se. I… Kinda spawned this being of black liquid, and I draw power from it, which happens to include super strength."

"Really? Where is it then?"

"My shirt. It… It's fused into it right now."

"Huh. Yeah, that's not quite like the old bastard's quirk."

David was one of his father's oldest friends, but to Izuku he had always just been the apothecary owner they bought all their medicine from.

Which was kinda a shame, given he seemed like a pretty friendly guy.

Like his dad, David was an immigrant from America, in fact, according to his mom, they had moved here together before Hisashi met Inko.

In the very homogeneous Japan, David stood out from the crowd a lot. Dark brown skin which clearly showed he had ancestors from Africa, a massive 2 meters in height, and tattoos of a jaguar on his arms.

Though more common than it had been before the emergence of quirks, people of African descent were still pretty rare in Japan, the regular average height was nowhere near what David's was, and though the Yakuza had been relegated to the dustbin of history, the cultural dislike of tattoo's remained, making people who wore them pretty rare.

All in all, he looked pretty intimidating, but really, he was a swell guy. The fact he took time out of his schedule to drive Izuku for nearly two hours proved that.

"He just had a pretty straightforward strength quirk. I guess your powers are unrelated after all."

"Yeah, it sounds that way."

"Eh, nothing wrong with that. Just means you get to make your powers your own. So, what school you planning to try and enter into?"

"Yuei," Izuku answered without hesitation.

"Yuei… How strong is your quirk exactly? Like, can you lift a literal ton, or…"

"I can lift several hundred Kilo's no problem. On Monday I carried come sacks of bricks that collectively probably weighed around 300 kilos."

"Hm… not too bad then. Well, I hope you manage it. If you don't though, don't take it too hard. My brother tried to get into it. Got crushed in the entrance exam, and he was so distraught over it, he gave up hero prospect entirely."

That sounded… Kinda depressing.

"My point is, don't fret too much if you didn't manage to get into the top school. There are hundreds of hero schools in japan, anyone of them willing to take on people who didn't make it through Yuei's robot gauntlet."

Izuku blinked.

"Robot gauntlet?"

"Oh yeah, that's not really public info. Probably shouldn't be telling you about it." He paused for a moment. "Ah, but what the hell, why not. The entrance exam has two stages, the regular written part, and a physical one. The physical one is the one that makes sure so few appliers actually make it into Yuei."

"It's… Related to robots?"

"Yep. They throw you into a fake training city with this bunch of robots. The test is basically how many of those you can manage to destroy."

"How… how strong are these robots?"

"Offensively they're garbage. They look tough, but really, the only thing they're there for is testing the students' offensive powers. Whether you can break them or not."

"You… you know a lot about this test."

"My brother's perseptive Izuku-Kun. Really perceptive. Unfortunately, he didn't have the offensive power that Yuei demands of it's students. So he didn't make it."

Robots. Just… robots he had to destroy. That… didn't sound too bad. He could do that. Probably.

First, though he had to actually learn some control. Then he could work on pushing these powers to the limit.

"So… Your brother just gave up trying to be a hero?"

"Yeah, I guess seeing just how power was expected of him kinda broke his spirit. Now, he's planning on becoming a police officer. Not sure how he made that jump, but whatever. It's his choice. If he can manage it."

He sounded kinda bitter about his brother's choices.

"So… you don't think he'll manage it as a policeman?"

"I think it's stupid to try and run around fighting superhumans armed with only a gun when you couldn't manage it with your actual powers. It's kinda backwards like that. But whatever. It's his choice."

A short awkward pause followed. Izuku tried to break it.

"Thanks for driving me."

"You've said that 4 times now. You don't need to thank me Izuku-Kun. I'm just doing my friends a solid. It's what real men do. I don't need thanks for doing it."

Half an hour later, they finally reached their destination.

A random spot in the middle of nowhere, the only real marker being a large stone by the road.

"Se you at nine Izuku-Kun."

With a salute with his middle and index finger pointing out from his fist, David drove away.

21.00

He had roughly 11 hours to train. Here, quite far from any settlement, he should not have to worry about being discovered by random people.

The downside was of course that he needed someone to pick him up, as his only alternative was to run all the way back home. He could do that, but it would be quite a trip, and he would need to run all the way back home. He hadn't put his endurance to that kind of test before.

Well, maybe it was about time he did.

After making sure he still had this exact spot saved on his phone, then putting his phone away in his, backpack Izuku began to run. And he kept running for 4 hours straight.

I

Izuku's entire wardrobe was covered in sweat, and every breath he made felt like someone had jabbed a knife into both of his lungs.

It had been a long time since Izuku had just run himself ragged. Not since before he discovered his quirk. Back in his old training grounds, he had never actually managed to push his running capacity to the limit.

Oh, he had run fast, as fast as could manage to, but he had never actually put how long he could run to the absolute test before.

He should probably have stopped long before he did. But the adrenaline had been pumping through his veins, keeping him going, downplaying any pain or strain he might have felt as he pushed himself to beyond his limits.

His quirk, in turn, had done the same, Enjoyment of the moment ringing through his mind.

All had gone fine. So long as he kept running. Then he had stopped to take a break for lunch, and the adrenaline had worn off. Leaving him as he was now. Lying flat on his back, holding his burning lungs.

Every breath was pain. Knives in his sides gouging out his lungs.

It took roughly 15 minutes before his lungs went back to normal and the pain lessened into just a deep ache.

Okay, so another lesson learned. Adrenaline could keep him going through a lot of pain, but the moment it was gone, that pain would hit him like a truck.

At least… At least it wasn't an actual injury like with his foot. It hurt like hell itself, but he hadn't actually been damaged. Just a quick rest, some food and he would be back on his feet to train more.

He had to train more, far, far more. And when it came down to it, this was what training was all about, pushing oneself to the limit and beyond.

Next, he would do long jumps for 4 hours, and after that… Actually, he would do jumps for the rest of the day. The only way he was ever going to master landing, was if he jumped again and again and again until he instinctually mastered landing on his feet.

He would avoid any ravines though. He had discovered several, not too different than the one he had fallen down over a week ago.

This place in the wilderness was in many ways just the old training ground writ large. It was a massive forest, but whereas the old place had been clearly well-trodden and well-visited during day time, this place was true wilderness.

It was perfect for them to train and master what they could do.

And he would not make the same mistake as last time. Any mistake he made, he would learn from, and make sure not to repeat.

He would not have another horrible accident as a result of his own stupid decision.

And he was right. During the remainder of his time here, he would not suffer any major injuries as a result of mistakes in his training.

However, not all injuries came as a mistake on his own part. As the Izuku would learn on his 8th month of training here.

I

The winds were blowing hard, and cold. Though the frost was obvious, no snow covered the ground, a result of rain having cleared it away last week. All in all, it had been a miserable new year for pretty much everyone.

Not for him though.

Stick had been right when he said that even a small passive resistance to cold made all the difference in winter.

Winter was a time Izuku had always been a fan off, but generally only if he was dressed in a heavy winters coat.

Now though, he was dressed in his usual attire for training. A set of training clothes so worn after months and months of training that they had any color anymore whatsoever.

The cold did not bother him. Which was good, because he only had a couple of more sessions left to train before it was time to see how far he'd come.

The specter of the Yuei entrance exams loomed through Izuku's mind, like a shadow from a tower.

He was mixed in how to feel about it. On one hand, he felt confident in his level of control. It had taken him well over a half year of training to really begin to master the simple act of control.

But it had all been worth it.

Punching especially had been a challenge, and he kept doing it every single day. But he had gotten control there too.

His mastery of what he could do did not worry Izuku.

The problem was his limits.

When he started out, Izuku had assumed that he could become stronger simply by training, really, really hard. It hadn't worked.

It wasn't before two months ago, that he had finally accepted it, after pushing himself to the absolute limit once again and comparing himself to how he had been starting out.

While the results were a bit different, that probably had more to do with the fact he had originally done the recordings while training in sand.

It made sense though. After all, his powers weren't a basic strength quirk. He got his powers from the being he had spawned.

He was an idiot for not realizing that sooner. No matter how hard he pushed his body, he wasn't going to increase his actual strength that way.

That wasn't how his powers worked.

The real problem was that he hadn't been able to find any other way to boost his strength.

His quirk for his part had grown more docile as of late. The actual emotions he sent into his mind had become much stronger, but the times he actually did had decreased to the point he could go days without feeling it.

He didn't understand it at all. If there was one true failure on his part, it was the fact he hadn't been able to figure out anything with the quirk himself. He had not been able to find a way to communicate with it, which was really bad.

Right now though, he didn't think about any of that. He just did a regular day of training. He justified it as keeping himself in shape until the entrance exams came, but the truth was that he didn't know what else to do.

So he trained, fine-tuning his control as best he could.

Like with the old forest, Izuku had learned a lot about this place in his time here.

He had learned the hills, the ravines, the rivers. He'd meet 4 bears in this place, none of whom he had had any problems outrunning, or see coming thanks to his quirk.

He'd also seen various oddities. People who had used their quirks to carve stuff into the rock, an old crashed plane overgrown with plant life, and a field that was strangely kept well cut at all times, and had a road leading to it.

Of these oddities, Izuku had wondered the least about the field with the trimmed grass. Mayhaps because it was the most mundane of the mysteries, he had just ignored it and assumed someone just kept it well-trimmed to use it for something.

He wasn't far off with that assumption.

It was as he was running past the small field, that someone teleported right into the middle of it.

Izuku froze and just stared at the person, a woman with long hair and upraised arms, her hands glowing with a purple light.

Izuku stared at her, the woman's back towards him as she muttered something he couldn't hear.

His eyes went down to her waist, where she had a holstered gun in her belt.

DANGER

He didn't need to feel his quirk scream the feelings of absolute danger and vulnerability into his mind, but it certainly didn't hurt in regards to him making his next decision. As he threw himself behind a tree, the last thing he saw of the field, was several other people materializing from nothing, in flashes of purple energy.

As he clung himself up against the wood, making sure no part of him stuck out, he began to breathe heavily, before forcing a hand over his mouth.

He didn't know who these people were, but carrying guns meant they were one of two broader categories. Either they were policemen or the national defense force. Or they were criminals. Which given they had just teleported into a field with a quirk user, was a pretty sure bet. Either way, he DID Not want to be discovered by them.

"They're late." An annoyed tone, deep and loud, spoke in English. Izuku wasn't well enough versed in the various forms of English to recognize the accent, but he had watched enough English movies to know it wasn't from the USA or England.

"Yeah, yeah, we know boss. This asshole's almost never at time."

This voice was way less deep, though it had the same unknown accent.

"Well, you guys know the drill."

To his horror, Izuku began to hear footsteps as the men began to walk around, and at least one guy was heading in his direction!

Panic, sheer panic gripped him for a moment. He had to run, to bolt, to move, if he stayed here he'd be discovered!

His quirk, suddenly and without warning, slid out from his shirt and began to quickly cover his entire body.

What the hell was it doing now? This time, somehow the black liquid did not actually hinder his sight. In fact, his eyes felt… well, weird was the best way to put it.

Still, this new shock did nothing to dampen his fears. At least not until he saw that the liquid began to turn him transparent.

Because that was a thing it could do.

What?

As a man with a drawn gun walked past him, looking from left to right behind the trees, he did not see the now transparent Izuku, and just kept moving on.

Izuku began to breathe again.

As he held his hand up in front of his face, he saw that he wasn't truly invisible. The vague outline of his hand was still there, and it was really easy to see it as he moved. When he didn't move, however, it was really hard to see it.

"All clear, here!" The man who passed him yelled out, before going back towards the field.

To Izuku's dismay, he choose to stand right between his tree and the one to it's side.

He didn't look in Izuku' a direction though. Instead, he just looked out into the forest with a bored expression. The man was clearly not taking this seriously.

Izuku however, took the gun in his hand, very, very seriously.

The man was clearly American or European, with tanned skin, and a shaved head.

He wore a fine black business suit, though rather than fine shoes, he instead wore military boots.

"Fucking cold." He swore as he clearly visibly shivered. The man took out a cigarette from a sleeve and lit it up with a flame from his finger.

So, a fire quirk. Usually, Izuku would have speculated what he could do, but at the moment, the only thing he could focus on was keeping his breathing quiet, and praying to any deity that existed for this guy not to discover him.

And so it went for 20 minutes.

Izuku clinging up against a tree, praying not to be discovered, and the men around all finishing their search and taking up positions.

The men were clearly waiting for someone. Izuku could hear clear swearing about the guy who was late, and how cold it was.

These men hated the cold.

Finally, the sound of a car driving up the road.

The man by his tree tensed up, and turned to look into the field, and not into the woods.

If Izuku had been more confident, this would have been the moment to slowly, and carefully begin to walk away from the area.

This was the first time in his life the boy had faced mortal danger, however. Not too surprisingly, he made the choice to stay put, and desperately just wait it out and hope he wasn't noticed before they left.

He could hear the sound of a car stopping and people stepping out.

"Well you took your sweet-ass time getting here!"

"Eh, things came up. Anyhow, you got the goods?"

"Sure, 4 times the usual amount of trigger."

Drug dealers. These were drug dealers.

At that moment, Izuku realized that everything that made this place so great for his training, also made it great for criminal meetings. It was isolated, far from any city, and if something happened, no hero was going to show up.

If he was discovered, he'd have to either escape on his own, or he would die. Even if he did call the police, there was no way in hell anyone would get here in time.

There was the sound of some walking and rummaging around.

"Yeah, this is Trigger alright. And 4 times the regular amount."

"As we agreed. Now. The File."

"yeah, yeah, don't get your pants in a twist. Asuka?"

Some other sounds Izuku couldn't make out the origin from.

"You sure, you don't need help from us? We could help you out with the kidnapping you know."

Kidnapping? Who? He kinda hoped the man would say the unfortunate victim's name, but he didn't.

"We require no further assistance from your King of Evil. We are here to recover one of our own. No more, no less."

"If you say so, still I thi-" The sound of Izuku's phone went off.

Someone had chosen this moment to call him. Either his mom or one of their family friends.

For Izuku, the world froze. He could feel it as every single person there turned around to look towards the source of the sound.

The only man Izuku could see, the man between the trees, was staring dumbfoundedly at the source, clearly hearing it from Izuku's pocket, yet not seeing anything.

He hesitated for a moment.

That hesitation saved Izuku's life.

It was time to go.

Izuku sprung in a jump, away from the tree.

As he landed, the spot he had just been hiding at exploded into fire.

He didn't turn around to look through.

Instead, he began running. Running as fast as he had ever run in his entire life. He didn't understand the mechanics behind it, but as he began running, he saw the transparency violently fade, and the black liquid retreated to his jacket.

No time to think about that. Run.

The bullets began to fly. A slender tree at his side splintered from a gunshot ripping it in half. Something whizzed right over his head. His arm exploded in pain.

Izuku screamed, but he did not stop running. If he stopped running, he died.

Instead, he changed course to the left. Towards a ravine. Could they jump it? He could. He hoped. If they couldn't jump it, they were screwed with no way to cross other than the bridge 7 kilometers downstream.

The ravine was maybe one meter wider than the one back in the old forest, but it was much deeper and steeper.

You couldn't just climb up from it if you fell down. It was one of the reasons he had avoided it completely.

As he ran, he kept hearing the sounds of gunshots, and other sounds, sounds of fire, but they fell further and further behind.

The bullets stopped almost hitting him, thank God.

He ran for several minutes before the sight came. A ravine, dividing the west and east of this forest.

He sprung, but he didn't spring to the very edge. Instead, he crunched down a meter from the edge, then sprung.

It was close. Damned close. He hit the edge, and as he feared it would, it crumbled beneath him. However, expecting this, he threw himself forward, managing to grab on to a tree root.

He gripped it tightly, then climbed up the tree before stepping down unto the ground.

A Gunbarrel materialized in front of his face, in a flash on purple light, along with the woman holding it.

He saw the motion of her fingers as she was pulling the trigger.

He wrenched his head to the right and felt his left ear explode in pain as the gunpowder burst aflame in the barrel and sent the bullet flying right by his ear, missing it with only 3 centimeters.

His left hand closed around the barrel and crushed it in his grip. He wrenched the thing from her grip, eliciting a groan of pain from the woman.

He thought he might have broken one of her fingers.

Rage flowed through his mind.

He socked her straight in the face.

The woman almost fell over the edge, but his hand, grasped her around the wrist and he flung her unto safer ground.

His breath came out in pained hisses, as he held an awkward combat stance expecting her to get back up.

She didn't.

He stared at her for a moment, then hurriedly went over to her to check in her. Had he killed her?

As he knelt over her his fear abated. No, she was alive, just unconscious. And with broken fingers.

He jumped back as her phone began to ring.

For a brief moment he just stared at it, then he made a decision.

He hastily pulled out her phone from her pocket. As he fumbled, he realized he had trouble moving his right hand. Strange. He had been able to form a fist seconds ago. Why did it feel so weird?

The arm was covered in the black substance of his quirk, as well as blood.

Don't think about it.

He took the phone, then as he began to run again, he declined the caller, a guy called "Hammerhead", and instead called up the police.

"Hello, this is the police." A polite tone answered.

"HI, I'M CALLING ABOUT A MEETING BETWEEN DRUG DEALERS IN ASHURA FOREST!"

The policeman tried to speak, but Izuku just continued.

"THEY ARE DEALING WITH TRIGGER, AND THEY ARE PLANNING TO KIDNAP SOMEONE, I DON'T KNOW WHO."

"Who is this?" The policeman asked in a confused tone.

Izuku didn't answer, instead, he just kept talking.

"THEY ARE WEST OF THE BIG RAVINE SPLITTING THE FOREST IN TWO. EXCEPT FOR ONE, SHE'S CURRENTLY UNCONSCIOUS ON THE EAST SIDE, BUT SHE'S A TELEPORTER, SO WHEN SHE WAKES BACK UP AGAIN SHE'LL JUST TELEPORT EVERYONE AWAY!"

"ONE OF THE GROUPS HAVE A CAR, BUT I DON'T THINK EVERYONE CAN FIT IN IT. IF YOU GO NOW, YOU CAN PROBABLY CATCH EVERYONE!"

"WHO-" Izuku hung up, then, fumbling out his own phone, he checked the map, making sure he was going the right way, he kept on running home.

I

It took him 5 hours to run the entire way home, his adrenaline keeping him going the entire way without any stops. The closest thing to a stop he made, was to slow down to send a message to David NOT to come to pick him up. And that he'd get home himself.

He hoped to God David listened to him.

This time, as he ran through the streets, he hadn't cared if anyone saw him as he ran through the city. Thankfully, when he finally reached Mustafa, night had fallen, so not many were out in the street.

He kept going all the way until he reached his own home, opened the door, and collapsed on the floor of the entrance.

As the pain sat into his burning lungs, and his eyes began to swim, Izuku noticed his mom wasn't home.

That meant she wasn't here to see him in pain for the next half hour as his lungs burned, his arm was still in horrible pain from having a hole shot in it, and his ear hurt as much as his foot had.

As he lay on the floor, the black mass, his other half, gently closed around his ear.

The pain in the arm did not abate, but thankfully, his ear felt like a calming soothing liquid entered into it dulling the pain. Which was pretty much what happened.

After his lungs stopped feeling like they had been poked with hot iron rods, he sat up.

At that moment, the only thing he wanted to do was lie down. Sleep. He almost let it happen, but he forced himself to stay awake, as he got back up onto his feet and into the living room.

He sat down on the couch in front of the TV and flipped up news channels. He was still watching the news with a tired and drained expression. Eventually, he did pull out his phone.

It felt like lead, though whether he was tired, or just afraid to call his mom, he didn't know. Either way, he took a deep breath, then clicked the green button.

He'd promised he'd do that after all.

Through his mind, his quirk sent only one emotion. The same it had been sending for hours now. Satisfaction.