As Momo hadn't really participated in the fighting much, she was uninjured. Hitoshi was mostly uninjured as well, but they were keeping him in the hospital overnight for observation, just to make sure there wasn't anything wrong. Mashirao had to go home to reassure his sibling and parents, but Momo and Toru stayed with Hitoshi in the hospital.

"I saw you do something with that big villain," Toru whispered to Momo in the morning hours when no one was awake. "What was it?"

Momo opted for the truth. "I put a purple crystal into his waistband. I killed him." She was still working on coming to terms with the realization that she'd killed someone. For a second time. At least this villain was even worse than Stain.

"Oh."

Toru didn't continue, so Momo just leaned against her a bit more and closed her eyes.

"Will you tell anyone else?" Toru asked quietly a few minutes later.

"I don't know," Momo said, shaking her head. "Maybe. All Might might've seen me, but I just don't know."

"I wonder if UA teaches a class on that."

"On what?"

"On what to do if you kill someone, or are directly responsible for someone's death, even if it was an accident."

Momo opened her eyes to stare at her hands. "I mean probably, they ought to. It's probably in third year though. I don't think that's something people like to talk about. The simple fact that sometimes people die, and sometimes it's your fault."

"Yeah probably."

"I wonder if they'll put anything in place for the safety of the students."

"Dorms maybe."

"Hitoshi wouldn't like that much."

"We'd protect him." Toru shifted so her arm was around Momo's shoulders. "I think I heard somewhere that the first death is always the hardest so at least we got someone who's already had it to help everyone through theirs."

"Not sure that's a great thing for me, but the thoughtfulness is cute," Momo said wryly.

"It's what I'm here for," Toru joked. She sighed a moment later. "We'll do what we can to help when it does finally hit you, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Momo agreed, shifting to put her head in Toru's lap. "We should get some sleep, if possible."

"I thought that was what we were trying and failing to do before we ended up chatting," Toru said, huffing a small laugh.

"We'll just have to try harder," Momo said, making herself slightly more comfortable and pulling the blanket in her lap up over her shoulders. "I wish you luck,"

"You too," Toru replied, patting Momo's head before presumably laying back. "So are you going to continue sleeping perpendicular or are you going to get up here and sleep parallel to me."

"I'll come to cuddle," Momo said, giggling quietly, shifting around to lay next to Toru. "Night."

Morning brought a police officer to interview all of them. He gave them each the chance to say they wished to do it on their own. Only Momo agreed to it by herself. She recognized the officer as someone who hung around All Might a lot. If she remembered right, he had a lie-detecting quirk. He'd also been helping with the investigation of the League.

She nodded reassuringly to Toru when she left with the officer to a secluded room to do the interview. It looked like the one she'd met the adults with before they rescued Hitoshi.

"I'm Tsukauchi Naomasa, and I have a lie-detecting quirk that will be on throughout our session, alright?"

Momo nodded in agreement. She knew him and his quirk.

"Did you see the death of All for One ?"

"Yes."

"Did you see what happened?"

"I did it, so yes I know."

"What happened?"

Momo clenched her fists on her legs. "The purple crystals I can make disrupt quirks. I figured it would at least ensure he wouldn't hurt anyone until they had him secured. It disrupted all of his quirks and I suppose one or several of them were longevity quirks, that when disrupted stopped working and his age caught up to him."

"He disintegrated," Tsukauchi pointed out.

"He did. He's centuries old, bodies don't often survive that long."

Tsukauchi made an agreement noise and looked at a sheet of paper. "Alright, thank you for telling me. We'll keep it off any records, and rule it as an accident. It's the best we can do. If anyone asks, the purple crystal came out of nowhere and you don't know what it is."

Momo nodded her quiet agreement. "Thank you."

"Thank you for keeping All Might alive," he returned warmly, offering his hand. She shook it, and he stood up then left.

Momo stayed for a moment longer, then headed back to her friends.

Mashirao had arrived at some point and was sitting with Toru and Hitoshi on either side of him. Hitoshi had his tail in his lap, and from the floating hair, Momo guessed Toru was playing with his hair.

"Oh, you're back!" Toru chirped, the pieces of hair dropping as Toru jumped on Momo for a hug. Momo caught her, smiling somewhat weakly at the boys. Mashirao raised an eyebrow at her, although Hitoshi didn't seem to pick it up. Momo wasn't surprised, he wasn't great at picking up mild adjustments in facial emotions. He was better at body language.

The interview had only been about the rescue itself, not what happened while Hitoshi was in the villain's grasp, but Hitoshi just shook his head when asked.

'Later' he signed, glancing at the door. Ah, something he didn't want to say outright.

Someone did actually knock on the door, although it was Bakugo, looking oddly subdued when he looked in. "Ponytail, Invisible, Tail," he barked, nodding back out into the hallway. "We need to chat."

Momo blinked. They did? Didn't Bakugo have his own friends to deal with? And why not Hitoshi.

"You good here if we go with him for a bit Hitoshi?" Toru asked, probably looking at Hitoshi.

He nodded, then signed 'you go' to emphasize the point.

So they stood up and went out into the hall with Bakugo. His room had been right next door, and they went in.

"I already dismissed my idiots," Bakugo explained gruffly when they found a conspicuous lack of Bakugo's friend group. "The villains didn't muzzle either of us."

Ah. That...that explained a lot.

Bakugo scoffed, plopping down on the bed. "No matter what I yelled at them, no matter how many things I blew up or times I tried to blow them up, they didn't do anything, just left and only gave me food through pushing it through the door as fast as they could before closing the door again. No muzzles, no restraints, not even quirk restricting drugs, although the room was pretty thoroughly sealed."

"Was it because they didn't have any of that?" Mashirao asked cautiously.

Bakugo shook his head, hands popping. "They had a muzzle. They disintegrated it then lit the ashes on fire. Right in front of Silent. Some kind of show that they wouldn't muzzle him I guess. Doesn't matter."

Momo exchanged uncomfortable glances with Mashirao.

"We could see each other the entire time," Bakugo added. "We signed sometimes. He told me about that mess with the sports festival."

Momo grimaced at the mention of that incident. She'd tried to get Bakugo out of those restraints when he was so obviously panicked, she'd actually had a literal wire cutter ready to be formed, but the teachers kept her from doing anything with empty platitudes. It was like they couldn't see how panicked Bakugo was.

Bakugo sneered. "Don't think I'm thanking you for that save Ponytail, they would've cut me loose eventually anyway."

"Excuse me for cutting you loose from restraints that were giving you an obvious panic attack," Momo replied primly, mildly offended. This was also Bakugo, so she wasn't that offended.

"Whatever. I'm just telling you this because I know the teachers are going to be all concerned and stuff which is stupid, but they're going to ask and I'm going to tell." Bakugo growled deep in his throat, sounding almost like a rabid dog. "I don't care if I get an apology, heck, I don't even deserve an apology, but Silent does."

He scoffed before adding "they need to learn a lesson anyway. That wasn't right, and they need better behavior if villains were behaving better than they were."

He was right of course, and she could tell Mashirao and Toru had come to the same conclusion.

"This is just a warning anyway," Bakugo added, sneering. "We aren't friends. Tell Silent if you want or whatever. He's going to get an apology if I have to kill someone to do it."

"Let's not," Mashirao advised dryly.

Bakugo just scoffed again.

(A/N) And we get our first look at what will be the finale. The end is in sight. Because I'm maybe slightly evil like that, I won't be updating at all next month because of Nanowrimo. Updating will resume as normal in December. I'll see you December 7th, and with any luck, I'll be able to come and say I've finished writing this. Wish me luck.