It's Thursday and I'm back with chapter 4! I literally just finished finals (mostly) so I'm half exhausted and half really excited to finally be done. Also I will be on vacation next week so let's hope I can post fanfiction from my phone or else you guys will have to wait a week for the next chapter, whoops. Enjoy!

The pain… it was almost unbearable.

Izuku sucked in a breath, unable to move from where he lay paralyzed.

His arm was on fire. He felt that if he moved it even the slightest, he'd set off a pain so bad that it would become irreversible. He shifted his head against the ground and was surprised when he felt something soft and crunchy beneath it. Slowly, his eyes flickered open, and they focused on the starking color of blue above him.

It all came rushing back.

Haashim, the desert, Todoroki, finding shelter… and his arm.

A moan broke the silence in the air, and it was a surprise to find that it was his own. Everything hurt. The pain was barely any better than yesterday, which was something he was not pleased to realize. He'd been hoping that he'd feel refreshed once he woke up, not worse.

Although he had no idea what time it was, he felt that it was time to get up anyway. It was only a little after sunrise which meant that it was time to move soon. Slowly sitting himself up, he groaned when his arm protested at the movement. A faint sheet of sand covered him and the taste of it lingered on his tongue. Spitting out whatever he could against the ground, he wiped the back of his hand against his mouth.

His throat felt scratchy and ached for the cool relief of water. After a moment of looking around, his eyes latched onto his backpack which slumped next to Todoroki's a few feet away. He rubbed his eyes before he started to stand, albeit wobbly. His weak legs trembled under his weight and his ankle throbbed. Wincing, he pinched his brow. This was going to be harder than he thought.

He put one foot forward. Okay, good so far. Just a few feet to go.

Another step, and then another. He was almost there, when suddenly-

"Arrgghh!"

His left ankle flared up in pain and before he knew it, he had collapsed in a twisted heap to the ground. His broken arm burned inside of its sling, drawing another cry.

From somewhere behind him, he heard something rustling against the sand. "M-Midoriya?" a low, sleepy voice asked. "Wait, Midoriya!"

Todoroki.

Footsteps pounded over a moment later, and it was barely afterward that hands grasped his shoulders. Izuku found himself being turned over from the sand before he met Todoroki's face.

"What happened?" Todoroki asked as he sat him up. "Are you hurt?"

"Uh, not exactly," Izuku grunted. "I was just t-trying to walk, but my ankle…"

"Is it worse than yesterday?"

Izuku bit his lip. "About the same."

Todoroki's frown only deepened. "You need to be careful, then. You could worsen it if you keep jostling around like that."

"I-it's fine!" Izuku stuttered. "I can walk. I just woke up a few minutes ago, I was only disoriented! I guess wasn't looking where I was going and tripped."

Sighing, Todoroki shook his head. "Either way, I still don't think we should move today. You have enough injuries as it is."

"What? No, I can do it!" Izuku bobbed his head. "Anyway, we should try and move to someplace less… exposed." He looked around the wide open area, which was currently soaking up the sun's rays with no shade to offer.

Oh. Right. There was nothing out here to hide under.

"Like where, Midoriya?" Todoroki pointed out. "We're in the desert. There's not going to be any options."

"You could always make an ice fort," Izuku joked.

Todoroki didn't blink. "It would melt within an hour, and making too much ice would drain my strength. No, finding a grove of desert trees would be our best bet… although I'm not sure if one would be this far out."

"Okay," Izuku said. "But we still have other choices. With the supplies we have, we could try to make a tent… or-or find a big dune to camp behind! Oh, and there's something else I remembered last night. The desert's gotten much more developed in the last hundred years, so there could also be a building somewhere out here!"

"With people?"

"Well… no. It's gotten a lot hotter out here, and most of the outposts were abandoned." Izuku fumbled with his fingers. "Still, there might be supplies there. If not anything else, it could be shade."

Todoroki quirked an eyebrow. "You sure know a lot about this place."

"I-I wanted to be prepared when we came here. The desert's really interesting!" He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Anyway, it could work. We could find shelter and wait there until the others find us! With your quirk, it'd be easy to send out a signal to let them know where we are."

Todoroki sighed. "It's still too much of a gamble to move right now. We could waste all of our energy and supplies just trying to get there. We're better off staying here and working on making some tents."

"But what if some kind of shelter is just a mile away?" Izuku argued. "We don't know how far out we are. The least we could do is try!"

Todoroki bit his lip. "I… I still don't know. I think we should wait here for a while longer until we heal."

"We don't have time to wait," Izuku pressed. "We could die before they even start looking in this area!"

"I know that. Let's just- let's eat breakfast now and talk it over more while we eat." Todoroki slowly rose from the ground before he offered Izuku a hand. After hesitating, Izuku took it and pulled himself up from the sand.

"Can you stand all right?" Todoroki asked.

Izuku nodded.

"Good."

In the provisions they counted last night, they counted a grand total of three granola bars and a bag of carrots. Not much to go on, but neither of them were very hungry to begin with because of the heat. They both split a granola bar which would, in all likelihood, be their only meal of the day.

While eating, Izuku began to talk again. "I've been thinking…" he started. "Yemen is south of the Arabian Desert, right? And we don't know which part of it we're in, but…" He pointed up at the sky. "If we travel south, we're bound to find some kind of town. The sun rises in the east…" He gestured to their left. "Which means that if we travel that way-" his finger moved to point straight ahead- "we'll find our way back."

Todoroki blinked. "Yes, I suppose that's somewhat right."

"So, we'll move?"

The other boy held his gaze. "We're both still injured, you especially. I don't know if we can make it that far."

"I'm fine," Izuku insisted. "But are you?"

"Me? It's only my head. I've had worse than a concussion, Midoriya," Todoroki brushed off. "The main problem is your arm. I don't know how far you can walk with it like that."

"Far enough. Besides, I'll never know unless I try. So…" His eyes flickered nervously. "Are we going?"

For a long, tense minute, Todoroki didn't say anything. Izuku was almost sure he was going to say no again when the other boy nodded. "Okay. We'll try. But if either of us needs to stop-"

"Then we'll stop!" Izuku smiled, relieved he'd finally gotten through to his friend. "All right, we'll leave after we finish packing everything up!"

And then… they were going home.

The jeeps hadn't found anything.

Ochako knew she should have expected it, but still, the same despair from earlier filled her once again. It was a kind of depression she'd never felt before, and no matter what she did, she couldn't shake it off. Would they ever be able to find Izuku and Todoroki at this rate?

She'd gone to bed feeling hopeless and had woken up feeling not much better. The other girls and she shared a hotel room and she'd filled in them all last night over what they'd been confused about. All Aizawa had told the rest of the class was that Izuku and Todoroki were in the desert and they were sending out jeeps to look for them.

Breakfast was being held in the main lobby and, after getting ready, all of the girls made their way downstairs where they saw the boys already sitting in the dining room. Only a few had plates of food- it was clear that the rest weren't hungry,

Ochako spotted Iida sitting at a table with Tokoyami and Ojiro and she walked over before asking, "Have you seen Mr. Aizawa yet?"

Iida looked up from his breakfast, blinked, and then shook his head. "No, he slept in his own room last night. He hasn't come down yet."

"What about All Might?"

Iida was just opening his mouth to answer when suddenly Ochako heard a familiar voice from behind her.

"Good morning, kids… uh, yes, I'll talk more about that in a minute."

All Might.

She swerved around and was surprised to see Aizawa standing behind him. Both of the men looked tired as if they hadn't gone to bed until very late last night. She suspected that was the case. All Might and Aizawa made their way to the front of the room before All Might raised his hands, silencing everyone. Aizawa stepped forward next and then began to talk. "I know all of you must be worried about your missing classmates, but I assure you, we're doing everything in our power to find them."

"Is the helicopter coming today?" Ochako blurted out.

Aizawa closed his eyes and then gave a small shake of his head. "No. It will take a while to get one down here. It should be in tomorrow… most likely. Right now, it's hard to tell."

Most likely? That didn't sound promising.

"Still, we're going to send out the jeeps again and use whatever quirks we can find in this town that might be helpful in our search. There has to be someone who can help us. Although, it is a pretty small area."

"And… if you don't?" Kirishima asked carefully.

Aizawa grunted. "Then the helicopter will be our next best bet. Now, I know that we brought you all down here for quirk training, but right now we just can't afford to waste time teaching you. I will be going with the jeeps today and All Might will stay behind here at the hotel. You all will remain in this building until further orders. I'm sure you'll find something to occupy yourselves with."

"But… how are you sure that Midoriya and Todoroki are even alive?" Sero pressed. "That villain guy could have killed them!"

"Haashim mostly confirmed they were still alive, so I wouldn't be worrying about that." Aizawa pursed his lips. "Still, there is a great possibility that they're both injured and I'm not going to lie to you. Their injuries could be severe- maybe life-threatening. Even if we do find them, there's no guarantee they would last with their wounds so bad."

Ochako let out a whimper.

"However, the chance of that is very small and I don't want you to worry. Those two boys are very capable and I'm sure they'll find a way to survive until we find them."

"So when can we leave this place?" Bakugo asked gruffly. "I don't want to sit here while you guys look for Deku and Icy-Hot!"

"Bakugo!" Kirishima hissed.

"No, Bakugo raises a good question," Aizawa admitted. "If we don't find them within the week then we'll send you all back home. There's no point in keeping you here if you can't even train."

"No!" Ochako protested, and her face was filled with determination. "I'm not leaving until we find them!"

"Yeah, me too," Mina added. "I'd feel really bad if we just left them here!"

"I don't want to go without them either," Kaminari said.

Slowly, more and more of the class chimed in. It was clear that everyone wanted to support their missing classmates until they were found. However, Aizawa cut them all off with a warning gaze. "That decision is not up to you. You will all fly home when I tell you to- no one is staying behind."

The class quieted into disappointed silence.

"All right," All Might started. "Today, I want you all to stay in this hotel like Aizawa said. No one should be leaving it. We don't know if Haashim had any friends in town so it's better to play it safe. Tomorrow, if we still haven't found Young Midoriya and Todoroki, you will be allowed to go around town if you want to, but only for a short period of time. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," was the class's uncomfortable response.

"Now that all that's settled, I'll be going over to the jeeps now," Aizawa told them. "I'll be gone until dark. Any questions you have should be asked now because I won't be available for the rest of the day."

"Mr. Aizawa…" Iida paused.

"Yes, Iida?"

"Do you- I…" Iida blinked before he swiped the back of his hand across his watery eyes. Shocked, Ochako hadn't realized he was so upset over his missing friends. "Do you actually think you'll be able to find Todoroki and Midoriya?"

But, for once, Aizawa did not respond. It took all of Ochako's strength to keep from weeping.