Aizawa snapped awake suddenly, mind racing and chest heaving.

He quickly scanned his surroundings, but found no identifiable threat in his apartment. Despite that, the panic didn't subside the way it normally would once he woke up from a nightmare, regardless of whether he remembered what the dream was about or not.

His cats meowed in annoyance at his sudden, jolting movements and got up to stretch before bouncing off of him. Aizawa groaned at the sudden jabs of each of their paws in his arm and legs, doing his best to calm himself down.

He saw… he saw the cats, the table, the chair… a pen, and his favorite coffee mug.

Had he really left that out last night?

He felt the way the couch stuck to him uncomfortably, he felt the slight stinging of the points where his cats had jumped off of him, his eyes burned uncomfortably, and he noticed how his hair made his neck itch where it touched.

Had he fallen asleep without putting in eyedrops again?

He heard the shuffling of his cats in the kitchen (those little shits), the soft creaking of the couch as he shifted into a more comfortable upright position, and the annoyingly persistent ticking of the clock.

What time was it?

He smelled the stupid air freshener that Hizashi had forced on him the last time he came over as well as the smell of the litterbox that he was supposed to clean today but never did.

Would it really matter though? If he was going to loop again, who cared about skipping it for just this one loop?

He tasted his disgusting morning breath that was a bit too close to stale coffee for his liking.

Yeah, he would be making himself fresh coffee once he figured out what just happened.

Aizawa took a deep breath and let his eyes flutter shut as he finished grounding himself from the first panic attack he'd had in months. He tried to figure out why he had gotten so panicked, but nothing came to mind. His initial assumption would be that it was a nightmare, as that was a common occurrence (much to his chagrin). But for some reason, he didn't feel like that was what happened.

Unless…

His eyes shot open, wide and terrified at the possibility that the loop had been broken and it was already the next day. If that was the case then going to the library was a big mistake that was going to backfire on both him and Bakugou horribly in the future and—oh fuck.

Bakugou.

If that was the case, then they hadn't met up like they had agreed. Did-did something happen? Fuck, he shouldn't have let Bakugou go off on his own like that, even if it was just to school. Sure, the kid hadn't wanted to share exactly what his hunch had been, but still. Aizawa should have done something. He was the pro hero in this situation, it was his responsibility and he might have just been kicked out of the loop by his own stupidity and left the kid all alone to deal with a time loop and a suicidal classmate.

Aizawa whipped around to check the clock on the wall, only to find that it read 21:37.

He breathed in relief. It was still afternoon… unless…

He quickly whipped out his phone to check the date and—sure enough, it was still the same date. But that still meant that Bakugou had missed their planned meeting by over an hour. The kid might have been a teenager, but from what Aizawa could tell, he was more dedicated and straight-laced than it first seemed.

If you ignored his admittance that he had bullied the kid that was now committing suicide like his life depended on it.

…

That was a horrible analogy, why did his brain do this?

Regardless, the pro hero couldn't just sit still and wait for the blonde with anger-issues to eventually turn up. Logically that was the best choice but—well, he was only a few loops in and he was far beyond the realm of acting logically.

Trying to fight the panic from rising up his chest and into his throat once more, he forced himself onto his feet and shuffled into the kitchen with his mug in hand.

He made a cup of extra-strong coffee, chugged it, smothered his asshole cats with love one more time, and walked right out the door with determination and the will to fight a god if he had to.

Takaki Yoshiko wasn't sure what to think when she spotted Bakugou and Midoriya-kun skipping class. She had woken up with an inexplicable feeling of dread and anxiety settled in her gut and making her nauseous.

This wasn't the first time she had woken up to such a feeling, as she had an anxiety disorder that she couldn't quite get over even with medicine and therapy. But this time? It was so much worse.

Yet this wasn't the first occurrence of this feeling either. It varied, sometimes, with how bad it got, which meant that sometimes she could push through it and make it through another miserable day at school. But on days like today? Definitely not possible.

So as many middle-schoolers do, she kept up the happy-go-lucky act in front of her dad—although she was mostly sure that he could see right through it—and headed out the door like normal. But instead of going to the horrible place that was Aldera Junior High, she made her way to a park that was on the way with plans to stay there for the rest of the day.

It took her completely by surprise when, hours later as she tiredly swung herself on the creaky swing-set, she saw Midoriya-kun leading Baka-gou in the direction of her house. At first, she was scared that the blonde had been looking for her and might have noticed her, but that fear faded away as she stared at them.

They walked past the park she was at without a second glance, and she breathed a sigh of relief. They were probably just… skipping school and doing something illegal.

Yeah.

That was normal for boys… right?

Yeah.

And so she let herself continue to swing all alone in the vacant park, distantly listening to the sounds of city traffic and ambulance sirens. She tried to push everything out of her head once more and let herself go numb and empty.

Except, she couldn't seem to do that. That scene was just so out of character for Midoriya-kun that she couldn't force the thought out of her head. Nothing made sense and she had to know. She started pumping her legs faster, going higher and higher in the air on the uncomfortable seat, as her anxiety rose and her paranoia spiked.

Finally, she reached her limit and launched herself off the swing at the apex of the motion.

That couldn't have been it. There was no way that they were skipping school just to skip. There was some other reason, something else in play that she couldn't let go.

After all, it was so out of character for Midoriya to be leading Bakugou anywhere, and Bakugou despite his bratty, delinquent appearance, was probably the most tight-laced kid in the class. Sure, he was a horrible bully, an aggressive asshole, and a narcissist, but he always yelled at his lackeys for smoking, harassing girls at arcades, and avoided skipping class like the plague. Hell, he had the best grades in their class.

So what the fuck was this? What the hell was going on?

Takaki wasn't sure she wanted to find out, but the feeling from that morning began bubbling up inside her again and she couldn't stop herself from walking the familiar path home. The anxiety built up the closer she got, the pit in her gut becoming heavier with every step she took.

At one point, she had to stop moving entirely to try and calm herself down. But with all the foot-traffic and loud noise pollution, nothing was helping. She found herself ducking into an alleyway, huddling behind a disgusting dumpster and covering her ears tightly as she willed the tears to go away.

If what she was worried about was true, she didn't want to—no—she couldn't face either of them. Bakugou had torn her into shreds, and she wasn't sure that she could ever recover.

She felt so horrible, so worthless in her existence, and she couldn't deal with the way that Midoriya occasionally shot her sad looks. She couldn't help but pity him, even though she should be grateful to him for diverting Bakugou's attention away from her not too long ago.

But instead she hid.

Now, though, she wanted to pretend that all of that was behind her—even though that couldn't have been further from the truth.

But if they were going to her house—if they were going to meet her dad—it wouldn't end well.

Takaki would never forget the look on her dad's face when he finally came home from his final business trip. The way he stared at her like she was some kind of kicked puppy that he had to avenge.

There was a reason that she had never given him any of the names of the people who had hurt her at school. After all, she was never sure of what her father's "business" consisted of, never knew his true profession.

And part of her? Part of her didn't want to know.

With his nonchalant attitude toward violence and his frequent mood swings, she was afraid.

Afraid that her father was something dangerous. And she knew that if he was—who was she kidding with the hypothetical—he was dangerous.

Especially with whatever his quirk was. He had never specified, yet she for some reason could always tell when he had used it. What for and on whom? She was never sure.

All she could remember was when he had come back home from one of his longer jobs, back when they had been poor and almost evicted from their tiny apartment, he had this look of disbelief on his face as he uttered the simple phrase, "Darling, I have a quirk…"

And after that, he was suddenly getting more jobs and completing them more rapidly than ever before. They had moved from their shitty apartment and he had been able to buy them a house in a well-off neighborhood. Suddenly, they were enjoying more meat, fresher food, better clothes, and for once she could sleep soundly without worrying about someone breaking in and doing something regrettable.

She was proud of her father's accomplishments, even if she wasn't entirely sure what they were.

But when Takaki made the mistake of proudly proclaiming that her father had a quirk at school... well... Bakugou sure as hell made her regret it. And now she had the feeling that her father would make Bakugou regret everything, and Midoriya—too good for this world, Midoriya—would be caught up in the cross-fire.

So, she forced herself to stand up, ignoring the way that her vision swam and her ears sounded empty. The red-head forced herself to leave her temporary safe-haven and start back towards her house. There was no way that it would end peacefully if they were going to her house. She hoped they weren't going to her house. She was scared of what she'd find when she made it to her house.

She wasn't sure how long she had been gone, at the park or in the alleyway, but the sun was on the opposite side of the sky and the foot-traffic had changed directions from her morning walk so it was easy to assume.

She hoped that school had already let out, or her father would be angry.

Takaki finally made it to her house, though her body felt like it wasn't hers and her senses were all unreliable and ambiguous. But unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, and the blurs of color she saw through her tears weren't reminiscent of Bakugou's blonde hair and the dark uniform of Aldera, her prediction had in fact come true.

She had hoped that she was wrong, but there the angry, blonde bully stood: right at her front door, Midoriya nowhere in sight. All of a sudden, everything snapped back into place. Her senses were clear and distinct and her body no longer felt like she was just a spectator.

But then she noticed the wretched expression on Bakugou's face as he slowly tried to turn away, and she crumbled.

Bakugou stood there, on the front porch just staring at the door for what could have been hours. He just felt so spaced out that nothing felt real and he absentmindedly wondered if this was all some kind of dream because of how unreal it felt.

He had gotten a lead and watched as it shattered right in front of him.

He had new information, yet had been slammed into a brick wall with the words "ALL YOUR FAULT" practically written all over it, a roadblock. This man was the source but nobody knew what exactly had happened to cause this… situation was too calm of a word.

The man didn't even seem to care about the effects of his quirk, about the way that Deku kept dying over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Maybe it was because he hadn't seen it happen in person, or maybe it was because the man was heartless. Bakugou couldn't understand, he couldn't-

Did that mean that there was nothing he could do? There was no way to stop it? The man was supposedly quirkless and his quirk wasn't registered, so nobody else would possibly know about it, much less believe it.

He had gotten damn lucky with Aizawa, but then he had gone and dragged him into this mess and forced him to watch as there was nothing they could do to help Midoriya. As a pro hero, it was probably just as miserable for the tired man to watch, unable to prevent just one death. And as logical as the man pretended to be, he was still a human with emotions and feelings.

And he had found the one lead to get them out of it and fucked it all up.

In one single conversation, everything that had been holding his hopes together had crumbled away, leaving the wounds in his soul wide open and gaping.

So Bakugou just continued to stand there, staring at the door with unseeing eyes like it was the doorway out of the time loop that had just been shut in front of his very face. And well, it was the way out.

But not anymore.

He just had to… just had to go find Deku… together they'd… they'd find a way out of this. Yeah. He just needed to tell Deku.. Deku was smart enough to figure out a solution that had been right in front of their faces the entire time.

Yeah.

That was it.

He dragged a leg to the side, but it was as heavy as lead, moving so unwillingly. It was deadweight, but he had to... had to tell Deku…

Unless Deku was already as dead as a doornail, and Bakugou was too late to make up for his mistake. He always seemed to be too late, and the one time he wasn't, it hadn't mattered in the end anyway.

Bakugou took a step away from the door, if it could even be called that.

As he prepared to take another, Deku's bloodied face appeared in his mind's eye. He froze, knees creaking.

A series of images flashed through his mind: Deku getting splattered against the train, his green hair that was covered in vomit and blood in the dark closet, the vacant look on his face after being blown up by Bakugou's own hand, his blood splattered on the pavement and limbs twisted unnaturally, and the shaky hands as he gripped a gun.

And Deku was probably going to do it all over again.

Bakugou let his hands fall to his sides, left to dangle as he stood there, slack-jawed and unmoving.

If Deku was going to die anyway…

He didn't want to be there to see it.

There was no longer any point. He should…

He should go find Aizawa.

Yeah.

What had he been doing all this time today?

He couldn't remember.

Had they even discussed it?

It didn't matter.

He just…

He wanted to sleep.

But he had to share… share what he found out.

Except when he forced himself to reopen his eyes (when had he closed them again?), he was met with a seemingly familiar blurry figure at the end of the block. Quickly blinking cleared up his vision, revealing a horrified expression that covered her features.

His hands shook as he looked at her, mind suddenly going blank. He felt like he was no longer in his body, his eyes weighty and slightly burning.

Midoriya wasn't sure how long he had sat there on the roof, tiredly swinging his legs and staring off into the distance. For once, his mind was calm and his urges placated. The wind felt soothing and loving as it brushed through his messy hair and kissed his numb face.

His arms and legs were cold, after a while the wind seemed to blow through his gakuran effortlessly.

He had thought that he'd finally understood what Kacchan had wanted from him, but it had been many hours and he had yet to see his friend.

No, who was Midoriya to claim that Bakugou was anything of his.

He had assumed, and that was the problem. That was always the problem. He didn't know anything but he always thought that he did.

If he ever wanted to be right, he needed to stop thinking.

And now that he has, the only thing he had left to follow was his feelings.

And his feelings were telling him to stand.

So he stood, slowly pulling his legs from in between the railing, and taking a step back. He climbed over the metal and took in a one last longing glance towards the ground.

One deep breath and he became one with the wind.