I say it with most of my fics, that I liked to listen to music while typing and some just seem to fit with certain chapter and scenes.

Song: Enter One - Sol Seppy

I hadn't seen or heard from my brother in years. Just the mention of his name was enough to make me panic. I was older now, I hadn't had anything to do with him for over ten years, I was stronger and had a quirk too. I didn't have to fear him, but after years of abuse my body still reacted on it's own and it made me feel weaker than I ever had before.

It wasn't until I received a text from an unknown number Saturday night that I knew it. I knew it was him and I couldn't run from him anymore. After the accusations against me earlier this week and then being poisoned, I knew something was wrong, someone was after me, but as soon as I received that text all the pieces feel together and although I was scared, knowing that he had done something horrible to Uraraka made my blood boil and I marched out of the dorm and headed straight for the front gate. When I got there, he was already inside the walls. Of course, being almost genetically identical from me the security system would let him in. The only thing that separated us was our personalities and quirks. He had developed dad's fire, while I had gotten nothing.

He smirked at me in a way that sent a shiver down my spine and made my heart race when he emerged from the shadows of the inner wall, and it took everything I had to stop my legs from shaking and to stand firm as he approached. If he was anything like when we were kids, if I gave him an inch he would take a mile. He tried to taunt me, and I was glad that I didn't have a voice to reply with. No doubt it would have shaken.

"You have such good friends, Izuku" he hissed with pleasure as he walked circles around me like a vulture, "she trusted you so much. It was so easy to take advantage of her. She felt so good to touch" I gritted my teeth. I would have hit him right then and there before he could go on if he hadn't held my mum's life over my head. Our mum. I wouldn't have come at all if he hadn't sent me that text with that horrible image of mum beaten and bloody and crying. I would have told someone, I would have brought someone with me, I would have hit him. I would have hit him with everything I had in me if he didn't have mum.

But all I could do was glare and I hoped my glare was as intense as Kacchan's were. I could feel Kacchan's glare on me from across the room without having to even look over my shoulder and I hoped my eyes burned into him the same way.

He wouldn't shut up as he spilled the details of Uraraka's body and how she had resisted him and it stung, god it stung so much that she thought it was me, that I had done those things to her, that I would hurt her like that. And worse still, she could probably never look at me again because of him and the thought made my chest hurt. That's if she ever came back. Even if I caught my brother, even if I made him confess and she knew it wasn't me, I still looked just like him. He had taken her friendship from me and the trust of my friends and the faith of the school and my voice and mum. In the span of a week, he had come back and taken almost everything important to me. Almost. And what was left, I wanted to protect.

Finally, FINALLY, he stopped talking and studied me with a smile. He wanted to see me break, to cower and shake and cry, but I only glared back. After years of being the target of Kacchan's glares I prayed that I could have a shred of his confidence and strength right now and channeled it all into my eyes. If I could cut him down with a look, I would have. All those years of dealing with Kacchan's bullying had given me strength in its own way. If he was displeased by the lack of chinks in my armor, he didn't show it.

He pulled out his phone, touching the screen to make a call, on loud speaker. I heard my mums panicked voice calling my name, but I couldn't reply to her. I had no voice to call out to her and my distress must have shown. I took a step forward before stopping myself, but that was all he needed, and he ended the call with a pleased grin.

"You want to be a hero so bad; you should hurry up and save her." He spat with a grin, "time's almost up" I narrowed my eyes at him, but I the glare was gone. I just wanted to know what he wanted from me so bad that he would go this far. He picked up what I was asking with a single look and shoved his phone back in his pocket and held a hand out to me.

"Give me your phone and leave" he grinned. I looked at his hand questionably and then back at him. He reached into another pocket and waved an envelope at me.
"Follow these instructions and you'll find mum, but if you want it, give me your phone and leave now. No going back to your precious friends or packing a bag. It's her, or your friends. If you turn back around now I can end her with just one call" for once his expression wasn't a sneer and he watched me interested eyes.

I looked down at my red shoes in thought. After what he had done to Uraraka, I didn't want him anywhere near my friends, but unlike my mum, they could defend themselves. All it would take is for him to mess up and they would know. I thought of Kacchan. He had grown up with both of us. He had always been able to tell us apart. If anyone in class would notice the difference, it would be him and my brother had hated him so much for defending me that he would give himself away. He would want to taunt Kacchan, to hurt him if he could. But I believed in Kacchan. He would know. He was strong. He would win.

I lifted my gaze to fix on my brothers face who was still waiting with an empty hand outstretched. I pulled out my phone and slapped it down into his palm. He smiled and tucked it away, handing me the envelope.

"Happy hunting" he smirked, and I gave him one final look before I turned and left through the gates. I was placing everything I had with Kacchan. If anyone would notice. It was him.

The envelope my brother had given me had been more direct than I had first thought. All it contained was a simple note with an address and cash, which was useful considering I'd have to travel pretty far and had left my wallet back in my dorm room. I wasn't familiar with the area he had written, but I knew of the city at least so I would start there. Without my phone I couldn't just search up the address, but despite the time of the night I rushed to the nearest train station, studying the train lines before using some of the cash to buy a ticket and hopped on the next train that was heading in that direction. I was headed to Hakodate.

I had to catch various lines until I reached Tokyo and then some more to reach Omiya station. From there and that train would take me all the way across the water to the northern island, a few more changes and I was there. I had met my brother at UA around seven-thirty at night and I had spent the next seven or so hours on the trains. I was tired and with nothing to distract my mind, sleeping had seemed like a good idea, but when I tried, I couldn't. I couldn't relax or shut off my brain to rest. I had no idea what condition mum would be in when I found her, how severely injured she was or if whoever was holding her had been starving her.

When everything had happened on Tuesday and the officers had come to collect me, principle Nezu had negotiated with them to allow me to stay at the school until a hearing date was decided on. I appreciated the principle's efforts, but at the time I had just been in shock from what I was being accused off. Sexually assaulting another student. I knew I was innocent, but the looks the teachers gave me stung. I could tell they didn't want to believe it, but there was doubt there too, the possibility that it was true, and it made my chest hurt and insides turn. Mr. Aizawa had sent me back to gather my things to go to the principal's office with the officers to discuss things and I wanted to shrink when I walked back into that room. No one had heard a thing, but I felt like I could feel their eyes burning into me.

Kacchan had been the only one to speak to me, hissing to tell me what was wrong. It wasn't like him, but he must have seen it on my face, in my eyes, how distraught I was feeling. We had grown closer since coming to understand each other better the previous year and since he became involved in One For All's secret, but for him to notice so quickly and to ask about it, it made my chest ache in a different way. I appreciated him, but I wasn't allowed to say. I wanted to tell him not to worry about me, that I was okay, but the words were such a lie that I knew he wouldn't believe them for a second, so I just ended up closing my mouth again before I said anything and left when Mr. Aizawa called for me again. I had been told to not talk to any of the other students about the accusations.

I didn't go back to class that day, instead I had been taken to the nearest police station to get my mouth swabbed for samples and my finger prints taken and for me to run through my weekend leading up to Monday, but I couldn't recall Monday and they only narrowed their eyes at me. It all felt very….criminal and out of place. Midnight had come with me to the station to ensure that the police didn't do anything they shouldn't and to escort me back to school afterwards.

I tried to text Uraraka that night, wondering where she was, but she never replied, and I couldn't shake the weight in my gut.

The next day I tried to go about everything like normal, but the weight of the accusations weighed on me and some of my friends noticed my down mood. I had also noticed that Ashido kept looking my way and I did my best to ignore her, telling myself I was just overthinking things. By lunchtime, I didn't have the stomach to eat but Iida and Todoroki insisted I did, but after I swallowed a few bites, my throat felt weird, it tingled then quickly increased to a burn. I tried to call out, but only blood came up and it burned. I had been stripped of my own voice and more than the physical pain I had felt until Recovery Girl had eased it, it hurt me deep inside and I started to feel like the world was against me.

The day after that, people started to whisper things about me. By lunch time, everyone in class had heard the circling rumors and I could feel their eyes on me. I had wanted to shrink away and disappear.

Friday and I didn't want to be at school anymore. Mum hadn't replied to any of my texts, the teachers shot me sympathetic or judgmental looks that stung and everyone at the school seemed to be staring at me or avoiding me.

Kacchan had come to see me earlier in the week, demanding answers and it had felt good when he had offered help. I hadn't expected it of him, and it made my chest ache that he was willing to try, yet I couldn't confide in him. Nodding answers for him was already pushing the boundaries. Friday he came again. It had stung when he had asked if the rumors were true but when I had shaken my head, I felt like he believed me and that was a relief. I had started to feel isolated and like I had a target on my back all week and when he reminded me in his own way that he was there for me. It almost broke me. He meant the world to me, and I couldn't tell him anything and I knew he hated that as much as I did.

And then Saturday, I received that text.

By early Sunday morning, before the sun had even started to rise, I had landed in Hakodate. Now I just had to find the address. I was tired form lack of sleep, but I didn't want to stop for a second. My mum was depending on me, and I couldn't waste a second. With no phone to guide me and no voice to talk with I approached anyone I could find on the streets at this hour and showed them the address. Those who weren't drunk or too annoyed by me, would give me some vague directions that I would follow until I felt I had gotten lost, and I would find someone else to ask.

By late morning, I had arrived at the address, an abandoned warehouse and I crept around it first, checking for villains and to see if I could spot my mum, but I saw and heard no one. Eventually I crept inside, but the place was empty, dark, close to collapse with rusted furniture and shelving pushed up against the walls. I searched the side rooms that I hadn't had a clear view of and in one of them was an office and on the desk, too clean to look like it belonged, was another white envelope. This one only contained a note with a different address and a message.

Better hurry.

I scrunched up the paper. He was sending me on a wild goose chase, and I hated it, with no other option that to play along with his stupid game while mum was locked away somewhere scared and hurting.

The next address was a town over.

Another envelope.

Another address.

Another message.

Time's running out.

And so it went on, always moving to the next town across, finding envelope after envelope after envelope. I stayed up through that next night too, trying to make good ground, but by the next day I had to find a place to sleep. I felt horrible and guilty for taking a break, but my legs were shaking, and my head felt heavy, and it was getting harder and harder to remember directions and I could start to feel myself swaying. I hadn't been eating. Too much in the need to find her and save her.

It was late afternoon when I found a cheap room that contained nothing other than a bed to collapse on and I didn't wake again till the next morning and I hated myself for it. I hadn't wanted to sleep so long, and I cursed at myself for wasting time. There was no time to stop and eat, I was already behind, and I shot out of the place to find the next address.

Luckily it was the final one. Or maybe unlucky would have been a better choice of words.

The last address was an abandoned apartment building, most of the buildings beside it either abandoned too or run down. There was a camp of homeless people nearby, huddling around their fires in the night but aside from them I didn't see anyone. I was tired and hungry and exhausted and didn't have it in me to be as cautious as I had been when checking over the previous addresses. I crept inside, heading to the fourth floor as the note directed. It was silent. Nothing indicating anyone was around. I crept down the hallway when I heard a voice ahead.

"Izuku!" I heard my mums voice cry out and I broke into a run, I skidded to a halt outside room 407 and I could hear her crying out from inside. I called back to her to let her know I was there. She sounded scared. I turned the door handle and rushed inside and then the smell hit me. I almost gagged on it, covering my nose. I went to open my mouth to call out to her, but I could see her right in front of me, in the center of the room sitting on a chair. Bound to it no doubt with her back to me. She called my name, and I lowered my hand, trying to ignore the smell as I rushed to her side, coming around to stand in front of her, calling to her and then I stopped.

From behind, she looked fine, but now that I stood in front of her my heart stopped. Her skin was discolored, her eyes half open, her jaw slack, her face bruised and caked in blood. She was dead. She had been dead for days and I felt vomit rise in the back of my throat. I wanted to turn away, but I couldn't. My eyes watered. The smell made me want to run from the room, now that I knew what it was. I was frozen in place, torn between crying and screaming and vomiting and unable to do any of it. I heard her voice call my name out again and I glanced down to see a small speaker by the leg of the chair. I crushed it under my foot to silence it.

The door that I had swung wide open was slowly closing itself behind my mum's body tied to the chair. I looked down at the ground around us, dried blood covered it. This is where she had died. Where she had been killed. If only I had been faster. If I had gotten here sooner. If I hadn't stopped to rest. No. She had been dead before I had even left UA, her voice on my brothers phone just a recording. I closed my eyes tightly, scrunching up my face as tears overflowed. My body shook.

My brother had done this. Even if he hadn't been the one to kill her, he was a part of it. I clenched my fists beside me. My grief and sorrow being overwhelmed by another emotion. Anger. I was angry. It was the only thing that kept me from falling to my knees and breaking down into sobs. I felt like if my brother had been standing right before me I would have killed him. I would kill him. I would tear him apart for this. I knew that wasn't a heroic thing to think, but it gave me the surge I needed to make my body move. I wasn't going to leave my mum here like this. I stepped forward, swallowing back to fresh wave of nausea as I reached forward to untie her bound wrists. I would free her ankles next, but before I could even undo the first rope a thought crossed my mind that made me hesitate. If my brother wasn't working alone, where were the other villains. I had suspected an ambush, but no one had come out.

My eyes lifted past my mum to the door, almost closed and I saw it. A thread connecting the handle to a box on the ground by the door, a box that was too clean and new to belong in the room. My heart stopped. It was a trap. And the thread was getting tighter. I was torn. I knew I had to get out, but I didn't want to leave her behind, but there wasn't enough time. I grabbed at the chair and pulled, but it was chained to the ground. The door was almost shut and with one final pained look I turned.

There was a window opposite the door, and I jumped for it. The room filled with heat, and I felt fire lick at my skin before I crashed through the window, half propelled by the rush of hot air. I felt glass cut into me and then I was falling. My body ached and seared with pain, but all I could think about was mum, my poor mum, left behind in there alone. I hated it. I hated my brother. I hated myself.

The moment my body hit the ground my mouth opened in pain, but barely a sound came out as my burnt thigh made contact with gravel but there was no time to stay still, to lick my wounds or to mourn. I could hear it now, over the burning apartment fire, over the ring in my ears, I could hear voices calling out with cheers. They must have been hiding in the area behind the building or maybe they had just arrived, people stepped out from behind the half walls and fences and dumpsters, men and woman with bats and knives and machetes. I even glimpsed guns.

"Take him alive" I heard someone call out, but I couldn't pick out who in the gloom and they came forward, fanning out to cover my sides.

My body burned and ached and stung and my insides hurt even more. I scrabbled to my legs, stumbling as my left thigh screamed out, but I didn't feel I could fight. Everything hurt and there was at least twenty of them against me. If I didn't take the ones with the guns out first, I would be in trouble. Before I could decide to run or fight they were on me, and I was out of choices.

A man, smiling at the thought of hurting me, came forward, he swung his wooden baseball bat widely and I leaned back so it passed over me. He had gone to wide to bring it back before I came back forward and landed a green sparking punch to his middle. He was vaulted back, dropping his bat and crashed against a dumpster harshly.

A woman took his place, slashing at my quickly back and forth with a knife. I leapt back to create some distance, but someone had closed in behind me with a crowbar and they swung at the back of my head. My leg protested and I gritted my teeth, unable to smile like All Might this time as I ducked low to avoid it. The woman closed the distance again and I leapt back, forcing my back into the crowbar wielder with enough force to wind them. I took my weight on my right leg and swung around with a kick with my left, hitting the woman away. My leg shook when I put weight back on it. Three down. Seventeen or more to go.

Someone at the rear fired a shot. I didn't know which direction it came from. I only heard the sound of it a moment after pain flashed up my right arm. I didn't stop to look at the damage. The rest were closing in. I couldn't see who had the gun, so I changed tactics. I tried to run. I turned, focusing One For All in my legs. My left leg complained but I pushed through the pain as I pushed off of the ground and into the air. I heard another shot fired, but this time it missed, and I landed heavily and painfully on a building the next street over. The pain in my left leg took my breath away.

I could hear their voices rising up, telling each other to go after me, but I couldn't stop. I couldn't rest or drop to my knees and sob like my body wanted to do so badly, because those who had the quirks suitable to come after me did. One had feathered wings and horns, another could produce air from their palms, and another leapt from object to building on all fours. I pushed myself onwards, gritting my teeth against the pain. My eyes were still wet with tears, and I had to blink them away as I ran to the far side of the rooftop and launched myself from it. With One For All I could go faster and further to get away from them. There were less, I could turn and fight if I had to, but I didn't want that. I just wanted to get away and I did.

I ran. I ran for days. I couldn't stop. I couldn't rest. I couldn't eat. Police knew my face; I don't know why they were looking for me. As far as I knew, my brother had taken my place at the school so I didn't see why they would recognize me and come after me, so I ran from them too. I didn't know this area. I didn't know who those criminals worked for, and I didn't know what villains my brother had teamed up with. I didn't know who I could trust. Nowhere felt safe and if the police were after me, the hospital was out of the question. So I kept running until I couldn't anymore.

I was tired, my body was shaky. My left leg refused to move for me, and I was left dragging it along behind me as I crept through the alleys, trying to keep out of sight of everyone and anyone. My body felt hot and exhausted, and I thought I had a fever. It was hard for me to tell, but it was hard to focus, the world swimming around me. But I couldn't stop to rest. If I did, they would find me. I had multiple cuts and bruises and the bullet had grazed my upper right arm. It hadn't been deep, but it had bled a lot. My left thigh was the worst of it though. The fire had burned through the clothes and eaten away at the skin. The area was red with shades of purple and yellow under the surface and it never dried. Every movement I forced on my leg tore at it and made it bleed or weep anew. I wouldn't be surprised if it was infected.

Eventually I couldn't go any further and I finally let myself drop. It hurt, but only a gasping noise escaped my damaged throat. I was in an alley behind some shops, and I dragged myself into a space between some dumpsters so I wouldn't be visible from the street . I would have brought my knees up to my chest and held myself there if I dared to move my injured leg, but I didn't. All I could do was lean against the wall the dumpsters backed onto and shiver and pant and my eyes grew heavy. It had been so long since I had rested last. Days. And I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep going. So I closed my eyes and let darkness take me.

"Are you okay?"

A voice.

"Can you hear me?"

A woman's voice.

"Hang on, I'll call an ambulance"

A warm, caring voice.

I blinked my eyes open slowly to look. It was raining, I hadn't even noticed it. A young woman with short black hair held a phone to her ear under her umbrella and glanced around the alley before her blue eyes came back to me. She saw my heavy eyes on her and she leaned closer, bringing her umbrella forward to cover me.

"Yes? Hello, I need an ambulance" she spoke into the phone urgently. I blinked some more.

"Nnnnn" I made the noise. It hurt my throat to make the noise, but I couldn't go to the hospital. They would find me.

"What?" she asked, her concerned eyes on me.

"Nnnnn ooooh" I wheezed and shut my eyes tightly against the ache in my throat. It was the most noise I had made since eating the poison.

"Sorry, yes? The address? Hang on" she spoke to the phone and pulled it away from her for a moment, holding it to her chest.

"No ambulance?" she asked down to me with concern and I nodded slowly.

"You need one" she replied, and I moved my arms, to try to lift myself up to move. If she was going to call for help, then I needed to get away.
"Whoa, hang on" she told me as my palm slipped on the wet gritty cement and I fell back down to where I was. It wasn't far, but all my aches flared up and I gritted my teeth.

"Okay, okay" she said. She hung up the phone. I felt a wave of relief flood me when she put the phone away. I knew I should have still been on edge, but my body was so heavy that I couldn't make it move again and I let my eyes close again.