If you asked Inoue Orihime what she liked least about Midoriya Izuku, she would easily answer. It was how he changed when he used his Hollow powers.

His behavior didn't change at all… normally. He was still her friend, he would still get into fights for people he didn't know and go to war for people he did. But his aura did, his movements became more feral, hungry. His Reiatsu became cold, causing quite aches you didn't realize you had to spread through your body as it leaked out of the sealed hollow hole in his chest. If Izuku was a summer day, him with the mask on was a winter night.

And all of that was fine on its own, but Izuku could forget he had the mask on. "Ah… Izuku… mask…?"

"Huh?"

"You still have your mask on, Izuku," Tatsuki said.

"Oh," Izuku gripped the edge of the mask, tugging it. His skin stretched for a second, like the mask or his face didn't want to let go, then came off with a burst of black and green energy. The mask shattered as he tossed it aside, and Izuku's aura changed as his acidic yellow eyes turned green, "Sorry."

Orihime closed her eyes and leaned into Tatsuki. Just like that, the aches faded and became soothed by the warmth that radiated off Izuku. Tatsuki wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and finally spoke, "So, we're back in action?"

"Yeah," Izuku stopped shoveling food from the layout Inko had made onto a plate to spin a familiar bowie knife in one hand. In between the whirl, it vanished and he finally finished piling the food, putting it on the table. Once everyone had got their food, all a lot less than Izuku, he bowed, "I… I'm sorry."

"What…?"

"I haven't been the best friend to you all this past year," Izuku said, "I-I was so busy focusing on losing my powers-"

Before Orihime could open her mouth to deny it, before Tatsuki could… do whatever she was going to do, a heavy hand fell on Izuku's shoulder.

"You weren't the only one who wasn't the best friend," Chad said, the giant's voice soft, "I went and trained with Xcution when you needed me."

"...I've been training with All Might," Tatsuki sighed. The room fell silent, Orihime felt her jaw fall open.

"What…?" Izuku croaked.

"All Might," Tatsuki repeated, "I can't give all the details yet but… actually, screw it. I trust you guys to hell and back."

"Literally," Uryu said.

"All Might… can pass his Quirk onto someone. And he chose me," Tatsuki said, "So I've spent the last year focused on that, because… well, I kinda just assumed you'd get your powers back at some point, Izu, and didn't want to be left in the dust again."

"You weren't," Izuku started.

"I was," Tatsuki said, "I was barely able to keep up with Menoly with a Quirk Awakening… You guys, all of you, were just getting stronger and stronger without slowing down and I was left-"

"Looking at our back," Izuku said softly, "I guess we were left feeling the same."

"I think we all felt it at some point," Rukia said, "Izuku, you were like… this gathering storm. You unlocked Bankai within a year of getting your Zanpakuto, you gained a Hollow Mask, and…"

"This time felt like a period where we felt we could close the gap a bit," Uryu finished, "because we know you, and the minute you got your power back you'd go right back to trying to be stronger to protect us, Midoriya. And we don't want to just be protected. We're a team."

"...Did you all feel like that?" Orihime finally asked.

"Didn't you?" Tatsuki

"No," Orihime said, shaking her head, "I was fine where I was, getting stronger slowly but surely."

"But the point is that we could have been better friends during this time," Uryu said, "all of us. Don't blame yourself, Midoriya."

- X Rukia X-

"You're just saying that to keep me from blaming myself," Izuku sniffed around tears and a smile.

"I'm not," Rukia said, "I wasn't here for you, that's a fact."

And she had already got enough dirty looks from Inko for that to last a lifetime. She might not look it, but the Midoriya matriarch was surprisingly good at holding grudges when her family was in question. Sure it had only been a few days, but it was still uncomfortable. The Midoriya house had become like a home to her over the time she had lived in the human world, and suddenly finding herself partially unwelcome there hurt…

But yes, in hindsight, given how much Izuku had seemed to have been reenergized by her presence, a little less Bankai training and a little more actually checking in on Izuku in person. She had, of course, checked in on him from afar.

"Izuku," Rukia said, nodding at his food, "Eat. You burned a lot of reiryoku earlier."

Izuku sat down, spinning his chopsticks before, frankly pigging out. His head swung low and his hand became a blur as he shoveled a bowl of katsudon into his mouth so quickly they barely had time to breathe. This was a relatively open secret about Lieutenant rank Shinigami. When they ate, they ate. So long as their reiryoku wasn't "full", their body naturally broke down the reishi that made up the food in the time it took to swallow.

And Izuku's spar with Yoruichi, between Bankai, his Hollow mask, hakuda and shunpo, had expended more reiryoku than he would have used in the past. He was out of practice, and they needed to go Hollow hunting.

"So," Izuku grunted around a mouthful of rib, all decorum cast aside as he ate like a pig, "We're all going for UA?"

"Yeah," Rukia said, fishing out a package of transcripts for Aldara Middle School, "Kisuke pulled some strings on my end."

"Kinda unfair to the people who went to school," Izuku said, swallowing.

"I passed Shinigami academy," Rukia defended around her own mouthful of food.

"Didn't Byakuya pull strings for that too?" Izuku shot back.

"And he also held me back from getting seated," Rukia returned, a smile spreading across her face, "but guess who's a lieutenant now. Unlike you, Mr. Substitute."

"Anyways," Tatsuki coughed, drawing attention back from the friendly volley of debate, "I'm going for Heroics, obviously."

"Same," Chad said with a nod.

"Support," Uryu said, "Someone has to make sure your uniforms are in working order."

"I sent a request to Recovery Girl for an apprenticeship," Orihime said, smiling at them softly, "I'm just… I'm not cut out for being a combat hero like you all are. But healing injuries, that I can do."

- X Tatsuki X-

"So," Tatsuki watched Izuku lean forwards, a wide, almost shark-like grin on his face. The type that he normally only had when White had taken over, but his eyes were still bright green, "You know All Might now, Tatsuki?"

Ah, yes. The reminder that, unless they were with Captains, Izuku was easily the strongest person in the room… and also still a massive All Might fanboy. He was just better at keeping a lid on it if there was more important things to do.

"Yeah," Tatsuki said, "I… I actually was originally hoping for some advice for you, but… ok, seriously, this doesn't leave this room guys. Not for anything or anyone. Ok?"

Izuku nodded, sipping his drink. Everyone else agreed in their own ways.

"Yagi, that's All Might, is injured himself. Badly."

Izuku drink went off to the side, nearly hitting Uryu. Uryu himself didn't respond as he was busy suddenly choking on a dumpling. Orihime's head whipped towards Tatsuki and even Chad's eyes widened under his hair.

"What?" Rukia said, looking around at them all, "People get hurt. Head Captain Yamamoto lost an arm-"

"People get hurt," Izuku said, voice unusually grave as he grabbed a paper towel and began to clean his face, "Symbols don't. How bad is it, Tatsuki?"

"Orihime could heal it, if we could convince him to give it a chance," Tatsuki hedged.

"That doesn't leave much," Izuku said, touching the space just above the healed hole, right in his sternum, "Tatsuki, this doesn't leave this room, How. Badly. Is. He. Injured?

"..." Tatsuki looked around at them all, Uryu looking uncharacteristically flustered as he rubbed his chest, Chad leaning towards her, Orihime's hands already reaching towards the Shun Shun Rikka like she wanted to heal the man who wasn't even here. The man they had all grown up viewing as the strongest, "He's missing organs, a bunch of them, and the wound itself healed badly, he has this cracked scar tissue, about the size of, well, yours, Izuku. Lower left side, up towards his lungs."

Izuku gave a noise that sounded more like a growl than the sigh it was probably supposed to be. Falling back into his seat, he drew one of Gesshoku's blades and spun it around one finger, "How long ago?"

"Five years?" Tatsuki said.

"Toxic Chainsaw then," Izuku said, "That was the only fight he walked away from with any injuries that year. I'm surprised, he didn't look that bad."

Then it probably wasn't that fight...

"We need to prove to him that Shun Shun Rikka can heal it," Orihime said, voice determined.

"How?" Uryu said, adjusting his glasses, "Remove one of our limbs and have you heal it? If this injury is so bad that Recovery Girl can't heal it, why would they believe you can? No offense."

"We'll deal with it," Izuku swore, before standing up and sighing, "I have to go visit Nel."

"...Ok, back up, why'd that just come u- Injuries, right," Tatsuki said, "You sure that's safe, Izu? You'd be diving into Hueco Mundo."

"Grimmjow won't kill me if I'm not at my strongest," Izuku said with a shrug, before pulling out his Substitute Pass and pressing it into his chest. His body collapsed back into the chair as Izuku himself stepped around it, eyes sickly yellow. Rukia swallowed a substitute soul pill, standing up and joining Izuku.

"I'll go with him to make sure everything is alright," she said while Izuku stabbed the white blade of Gesshoku into the air, gouging a ragged hole that opened into the garganta. Both of them smiled, Izuku's an almost predatory thing, at the others, and then vanished into the void before it snapped shut.

"They just want time alone," Inko said, reminding everyone she was there suddenly, a phone in her hand.

"Who are you-?"

"Kisuke," Inko answered, putting the phone to her ear, "I'm not letting them just go off on their own."

- X Izuku X-

Izuku reached up as he and Rukia crossed the void towards the open moonlight, his left hand crossing his entire face to grip the air in front of his curls of hair. A mask of reishi formed and was jerked onto his face. Immediately, his Reitsu changed to a cooler form. Like spring mist.

"Why are you putting that on?" Rukia asked in between leaps that crossed meters in a second.

"It'll keep the Hollows away," Izuku said, planting his foot on the void and kicking off, the Garganta's exit already in sight. He returned Gesshoku to their sealed state as he went, sheathing the Zanpakuto on his hip, "Two Shinigami showing up in Hueco Mundo will cause any Hollow to be interested, but a Hollow and a Shinigami…"

"Right," Rukia nodded, before frowning, "I wonder how Ashido is doing."

"He survived?" Izuku asked.

"We sent a party to make sure," she said, "he refused to come back."

"What Squad was he part of again?"

"11."

Yeah, that scanned.

The breached into the desert of Hueco Mundo then, Izuku's foot grinding against the sand as they came to a stop. Closing his eyes, Izuku scanned for the familiar Reitsu of Nel, feeling Rukia doing the same.

"Something's changed," Izuku muttered, more to himself than to Rukia. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was changing about Hueco Mundo.

"Tier Harribel is ruling Las Noches," Rukia said, "She is- was- the third Espada."

"Then we should avoid there," Izuku said, not relishing his odds against an Espada stronger than Ulquiorra, "She'll destroy us."

"She's pacifistic, for a Hollow," Rukia said, and then paused, apparently realizing the backhandedness of the comment, "no offense."

"White likes to fight," Izuku hedged lightly. It didn't hurt to tell the truth, "How pacifist are we talking?"

"She hasn't fought any of the teams that entered Hueco Mundo except for one that attacked Las Noches," Rukia said, "but that team… they came back, barely."

"She was sending a message," Izuku finished.

"Exactly," Rukia nodded.

"That's-" Izuku froze as a familiar presence suddenly appeared behind them in a burst of Sodino, and he swung his arm into a guard stance, "Grimmjow…"

"Midoriya," the former Sexta Espada drawled.

"Rukia," Izuku said, turning towards the blue haired man and drawing his Zanpakuto, "go find Nel."

"You can't be seriously about to-"

"Yeah," Izuku said, stabbing towards Grimmjow and grunting as his sword ground against the Espada's Hierro. Grimmjow drew his own sword, swinging for Izuku. Izuku blocked the attack before sliding back, "I am. Get out of here. Please."

I don't want you to get hurt. Please…

"...Fine," Rukia said, "don't get hurt."

And then she was gone.

"Done talking with your girl, Midoriya?" Grimmjow said.

"I'm gonna warn you," Izuku said, "I'm out of practice."

"We'll see how far," Grimmjow said, "and I'll just settle for beating the shit out of you if you're too far. Grind, Pantera!"

"Bankai!" Right now… everything… felt right… "Kaiki Gesshoku!"