These Stones We Skip

by miraimisu

Uraraka, as a newcomer to the most powerful guild in this forsaken village, had not only one, two; but three responsibilities: grow stronger until she was able to pin the world down, untangle the mystery that her past was and survive under the eyes of a crowd that watched over her as night chased the sun, the charade going on and on until the thread... suddenly snaps. [MEDIEVAL!AU]

11. Notoriety

[A/N]: This chapter is going to end in an absurd, delicious and ironic cliffhanger I hope nobody is expecting. And in case explanations are needed, I will provide at the end of this chapter. But for now, this is the end of the story. This is the true end of it, at least, and all i can say is you guys enjoy it. Also loving how collected I seem here whereas I'm freaking out on Tumblr hjdksla

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The weather had turned from pleasant to relentless and unforgiving, like that of a norse catastrophe as a harsh blizzard hit their horses and the bodies of the heroes. Bakugou winced under the storm, trying to cover his body with the tattered cape and the torn cloak he had borrowed from Uraraka's baggage, the small bag she had left behind.

Bakugou's jaw clenched at the vivid memory of finding her bed empty. It had brought back that sickening punch to the gut from the first time– although now, he had actually tasted the bitter honey of her lips before being so unfairly robbed of it.

He had slept so close to her, like a child falling asleep under the blessing of the moonlight. He had never been that content before. When his eyes finally drifted close, it felt like things were momentarily right in the world. He had started to believe in happiness again, and he had fallen asleep with the want and will to make things right between them once the battle was over.

Hell, he'd even consider waiting for her, even if she came back in pieces or he had to wait forever for her to make her way back to him. Her way back to his arms, where he had just found out was the place where she belonged.

Apparently somebody didn't think that way. He wanted to believe she had been kidnapped, otherwise she wouldn't leave so suddenly, she wouldn't leave him hanging, right? They had whispered their eternal vows to each other under the dim fickle light of a candle. He would have never thought she'd leave after such meaningful moment.

Bakugou was fighting the storm, as if thinking chasing the faraway clearings on the sky would take him to his lover's side. The blizzard was chasing after them, he could feel the temperatures were dipping fast as they grew slower due to the blizzard. For some reason, it felt like the world was freezing behind them, and that if they stopped their stride, this incoming catastrophe would kill them all.

"Guys, we're getting close!" urged Bakugou, sensing how the storm was starting to lose power behind them. His frown turned into a grin, looking ahead as he saw a clearing. "There's a clearing ahead, we might find shelter!"

Kirishima's horse galloped close to Bakugou's as the hunter shed a worried grimace of pain. Before Bakugou could ask, he heard something falling down loudly at their side, but his friend's worries concerned him much more. Midoriya, who was riding on Kirishima's horse, did check on that very quickly while his peer voiced his concerns.

"If we stop to sleep, the storm might eat us alive!" pressed Kirishima, pointing at the wild biting temperature that seemed to be after them. Bakugou growled in response. "What the hell is with this fucking weather, though!?"

Todoroki's horse galloped close. Asui was latched to his back. His voice was barely audible through the wind of the blizzard. "This storm isn't natural! This storm is advancing too fast to be normal, it will end up beating us one way or another!"

Midoriya's eyes connected with Bakugou's momentarily before the leader tapped Kirishima's shaking shoulder. "He is right. We might have a chance to survive if we find shelter in the forest, but we won't do anything running away from it. It hasn't stopped in hours."

Bakugou didn't like agreeing with the green dipshit, but at times like these, they were leaders before one sided enemies. "This fucking hell ain't gonna let up soon, and we won't survive by being cowards!"

As he said these words, the storm seemingly let up from behind them, making the team sigh out in relief. However, before they could chant in victory, trees were falling down again by their right, and suddenly, they were falling by their left as well. Asui peeped a curious eye to her back before shrieking in terror, feeling a chill drop down her spine and drench her in cold sweat.

Spikes of ice were ramming through the forest and closing the path behind their backs, cutting trees, animals and all they found at their wake with slices in the wind. The pressure was rising in the air as the horses slowed down momentarily as Asui realized the storm wasn't chasing them, but closing in around the clearing they were about to reach.

Bakugou realized her concern and looked behind for a second. Just at the sight of the big spikes of ice his eyes widened in tenfold, letting a disgruntled noise of shock out before urging his horse to run for his life. "Go faster! We're reaching the clearing, that's our last damn chance!"

The horses, panting and trying not to slip on the increasingly icy surface, galloped as fast as the wind, feeling this danger increase its speed and gain terrain. It was eating the world and freezing it, and all Todoroki could think of it was its possible relation to the timeline distortions, but the blizzard was clouding his mind and tunneling his thoughts into the image of the possible shelter ahead of them.

The sound of glass and ice tearing through the surface alarmed Asui, and she glanced back to see the ice breaking and freezing the ground in the blur of colors they were speeding through. The clearing was just a minute away, they had to make it! "The ice is gaining speed, it must be reaching its destination!"

Todoroki's thoughts were reeled back into the timeline issue before his eyes widened a notch and he gritted his teeth, hitting the horse once so it'd run to Bakugou's pace. "We gotta make it there! It's the only safe place, we'll be fine there!"

Of course, Bakugou had to interject, feeling Todoroki was trying to play leader. "What the fuck do you mean, smartass!?"

"If the creator of RampAge is the creator of the timeline disruptions, he must be located at the core of it all– that's where the spikes are going!"

It was only when the brazen leader saw how the spikes were circling close to the clearing that he realized Todoroki was right. Gasping hoarsely as trees continued to be seared asunder all around them, Bakugou took out his sword from his back and held it to his side.

A short, almost imperceptible flash of light blinded Asui, who was the only one who saw it thanks to her magical abilities. Instantly after, a shudder ran down her spine, the world slowing down to a soft velocity that left her utterly terrified. The closer they grew to the clearing, the stronger dread drenched her body.

"I have a bad feeling about this!" yelled Asui. She felt a spike almost land a nasty hit on Todoroki's horse. "A weird vibe is rippling out of that clearing! We need to be careful!"

They were just a few meters away, it was their last sprint to the goal. Bakugou grinned, at the challenge, but it was a forced smile to encourage his peers. He knew they were in deep shit if things had come to this. They were at the end of the rope, and the only difference between a safe land and free falling was the speed of their horses.

Among the strong wind, the blizzard and blood pumping into his ears, Bakugou heard the ice spikes were aiming for a last sprint too, making him urge his horse even more to the point the poor animal was at the verge of slipping on the icy ground. His grin started fading away to be replaced with a scowl of concern.

"Last sprint, everyone! Hold on tight, we're almost there!"

Their stride became chaotic, grunts and screams of effort accompassing the shattering of ice. They were biting their way to the warriors, devouring the ground at a faster cadence before one spike graced Bakugou's neck, yet its end shattered as the warriors reached the clearing and an invisible magic barrier beamed, vibrated and protected them from the ice barrier.

The horses tripped, fell defeated, and the warriors rolled to the ground with grunts of pain and exhaustion on the puffy snow. The horses remained motionless.

The spike avalanche had been blocked by the invisible shield, and its advance had been overall halted. It was coming clear that the core of the forest was the only safe place– maybe not only in their region, but all around the world. As the blizzard remained inside the safe clearing, slowly turning into gentle, eerie snow, the climate grew grimmer and grimmer with death looming over the sky. The clearing was completely silent.

Bakugou refused to back down, and he was convinced that if they gave the bastard behind all of this a beating they'd stop this madness and everything would make sense once more. And more importantly (and selfishly as well) he'd probably find where Uraraka was. He refused to believe she hadn't seen this catastrophe coming and had ended up buried under all the snow and ice.

It… was maybe a bit too hard to digest that maybe he had lost her again. In fact, he had been holding himself from thinking about it until now that they were in a crucial point of their most problematic challenge. As he let the predicament soak, he felt a hand on his bulky shoulder.

Bakugou had failed to realize he was slightly trembling at the picture of a frozen, wide-eyed and dead Uraraka, but Kirishima saw it crystal clear. While everyone got up from the snow, the hunter walked to his leader. "Everything will be fine, dude."

The snow fell slowly and silently around them, as if time was indeed slowing down to soon stop and never move again. Bakugou turned from his peers to face the big decrepit tower. It was only when he turned in that direction that he discovered the amplitude of a lake that extended all behind the tower, frozen solid and shimmering.

Bakugou wasn't one to appreciate art, but he was sure this place had once been beautiful.

The tower looked at the lake in its crumbling state. Part of the top floors were gone and now lay on the ground, vines sprouted from the thin windows that formed the spine of the high building. A twin structure had once been glued to this tower, yet it was mostly gone except some of the walls and the vines that had conquered the surface. As Bakugou took careful steps on the hill, he realized this was no clearing as he had previously thought.

The ice spikes had stopped all around the lake's ratio, where the core of the world truly resided. The lake was ice as far as the eyes could reach, and in the distance, he could make out the shape of more spikes and the trees that had been saved by this invisible barrier. Snow also fell as far as the eyes could reach.

Bakugou squinted a bit more, making his peers come to him as he stared off in silence. Midoriya stood at his side. "What's wrong?"

Bakugou's expression had turned into a scowl. "There's another big ass castle far away from here."

He was right. At the center of the lake, on a big rocky hill, stood a great big castle with spiky towers around the main building and a curvy path up, all littered with thin windows. Trees branched out to the sky, big and unaffected by the snow. The castle stood there, big and proud, in silence. The lake had frozen, but the castle had not.

In fact, the more time passed, the more Bakugou was intrigued about the castle. The little tower around them was in extreme decay and had withered as years had gone by. That fortress in the distance (way more stately than the Jirou lair) seemed unaffected. "Maybe…"

Midoriya wasn't as slow as Bakugou was being, and he was already planning a path to reach that hill. "That could be where that man is."

Yaoyorozu reached them soon after. "We could maybe walk the lake's width. It shouldn't be that hard to walk across." her eyes stared off into the distance, but Midoriya could tell her mind wasn't in the game.

Todoroki, having heard her soft words, walked closer and put a hand on her forearm. She nodded in response, knowing he was trying to support her. She had been crying by his side all night long, and his heart had never shattered that hard– tears running down her face, sobs tremoring through her body, and her tremoring never stopping until late past midnight.

He couldn't take seeing her this way. Maybe by taking down this phenomenal foe, she'd find peace and avenge her death. Todoroki just wanted her to be alright. "Did you have anything planned? You're probably already thinking of something, aren't you?"

Her eyes widened slightly. When the knight looked back at her male friend, a small twinkle had returned to her dull onyx eyes, and the confident smile also came back with it, her distress temporarily forgotten.

"We could simply walk by it or slide across the ice. It's probably more risky, but also a lot faster." the girl immediately yanked off a part of her armor, hissing at how the cold bit into her skin. "I can make a few makeshift sleds, and wing it with that. It's safer."

Bakugou seemed skeptical at this idea. "Fucking sleds? What is this, a snow holiday?"

Todoroki knew his friend wasn't in a spot to be opposed to, so he stepped between her and his leader. "Do you have any better ideas, Bakugou?"

Todoroki's tone was fierce like that of a lion and it actually made Bakugou take an unusual step back as if he was a sheep under his glare. In reality, the blond had no better ideas to counter this one with, and to be frank, it wasn't like they had all time in the world, and it wasn't that dumb, really.

It just felt absurd they'd end up crossing this hell of a big lake with some sort of child entertainment toys. In fact, just as he witnessed Yaoyorozu bend down to start creating them, he realized that the designs would end up being absurd.

His eyes caught a small glint in the distance and he was pulled away from that concern. It had probably just been a leaf catching fortunate small sunlight, the very few streaks that could come through the thick clouds, but it made the leader look forward to the fortress again.

Thinking of who could be there, so far away from his reach, fighting for her life and for the whole world's probably, made an unfamiliar shudder run down his spine.

He was certain he had never felt this empty, anxious and ricketing sensation before, and it made him wonder how smitten he had to be with that brat to worry so much over her.

Sensing his turmoil from metres afar, a familiar redhead walked the distance to meet him. Bakugou sensed him coming.

"Don't." he growled before the hunter could put his hand on his shoulder, like he always did. "I'm fucking fine. I don't need cheap comfort."

Kirishima, far from taking offense, laughed it off. "Huh, you sure devalue my comfort, leader dearest." the sarcasm didn't go unnoticed, and Bakugou glared at him. He was too tense to be joked with.

In fact, his fangs showed in a small threat, as if telling his friend to stop joking or he'd positively rip his head off. "Go to hell, Kirishima. I have no time to your chipper-ass jokes."

At his unyielding bitterness, Kirishima hopped on a rock that looked out at the lake. Judging by his intent in staring off at the fortress just as Bakugou was doing, he was either trying to or in the process of understanding what was going through Bakugou's head.

The redhead looked back at him, and somehow noticed something pink and soft was missing. It felt weird to now miss her by his side when they had hated each other for the longest time, but even now it was off-putting to see the leader so… alone. Maybe her presence brought life to his stance better than anything else, and now, all that was left of him was just the carcass of a leader.

Kirishima then stared off again into the distance. The gentle noise of the wood falling on the snow made the scene more lively than it actually was. In a world now overtaken by death, how could anything be happy now? How could a man who vowed to adore the hero of this world be happy when she was debating between death and life?

Unbeknownst to him, things were more complicated than that.

"Do you think she's there?"

Bakugou took little to answer. "I doubt she'd let herself be caught in that hell of a storm, or whatever that was." the blond, unsure of what else to say, looked around him. The spikes had finally ended their advance, and it seemed the invisible barrier would keep them safe in this haven.

She had to be there.

She just had to.

"Uraraka is a tough cookie. Though I wish she had said goodbye to us before leaving so badly." his giddy and encouraging expression seemed to sink at the memory of her being gone, and Bakugou took notice of this. "It kinda bums me."

See? This was why he sometimes hated that damn airhead, because she never noticed the effect she had on others. She never realized that her being gone actually made others sad, she never stopped and saw the tears she left behind. Instead, Bakugou had watched all of his peers shed tears for her, but unlike them, the leader had shed them in silence, kneeling by her bed and weeping as her silence only soaked him further.

It had been hell on earth, but she just went on with her life, skipping lives like a kid skipped stones on a lake. On a lake that could be this very same one, for that matter.

He wanted to call her selfish.

But he didn't find the heart to.

Bakugou's only response to this was a growl. "Just let it fucking be. We're getting her back. I know that woman like the back of my hand." his face sunk to a fierce scowl. "That woman… she ain't fragile. And she will survive this, don't even doubt her."

Usually, Bakugou's unwavering faith in her would lift his hopes. This time was different. The setting didn't let many hopes wiggle into the scene, and it didn't feel like there was any other way back from this mess. To Kirishima, humankind had failed to stop that timetravelling man in time, and even if they had, the current pessimism that clung to the air told him one thing, as if the gods were whispering them to him.

Humankind only repeats their mistakes.

Kirishima's voice cut through unexpectedly. "I can only hope she is."

That tiny phrase, put out so weakly, as if hanging desperately to a thread of hope put a dent in Bakugou's expectations. Before he could ask, Yaoyorozu slapped her hands to get rid of some nasty blisters. "The work's done!"

Bakugou and Kirishima (who had just stood up) looked back to see the sleds fall on the snow that was piling up on the ground. The sleds were simple, as expected considering their lack of time, but sturdy and tough. Somehow, the structures were very smoothly polished and Bakugou had no clue how she did that.

It was amazing to watch and he sometimes forgot his peers were actually very capable.

The red haired hunter scampered to his friends' side, purely awed by the creation, like the very impressionable kid he deep down was. It was entertaining to witness the man kneeling down and fuss over the object. "Woah! It looks so pretty! But… how many of us fit in one?"

That was an interesting question. The sleds were tough and sturdy, but rather small. There were a few of them scattered across the space they occupied, but Bakugou doubted they were even close to the amount they needed to cross the lake in due time.

In hindsight, Iida could cross the lake on his own despite his injuries from the day before. Asui could easily move around with her abilities and skate other lighter members across the ice pond. Bakugou and the rest would definitely need sleds, above all for people who were known for having two left feet. Namedly, Kaminari.

The blonde knew this so well he actually grabbed Kirishima and one of the sleds to push both down on the wooden transportation. Everyone saw this initiative and without wasting time, got in their sleds silently, some bickering for space and exploding some bits of the sled. Namedly, Bakugou with Midoriya on his back, who wouldn't stop fidgeting.

"Bakugou, sit a bit more forward, you're crushing me!"

He was too anxious to really care– anxious to meet the end of this journey, anxious to defeat that motherfucker who had taken the life of his parents and many more, anxious to take down the bastard who had dared take his lover away. If he could call her that, at least.

Thinking of her made a surge of energy bloom within him that drove him to take out his cursed sword and draw it to the skies of this corrupted world in defiance, looking forward at the castle, a soon-to-be deathbed for many. "We're going to take down that bastard, guys! Get your weapons out, war is about to break!"

The sleds slid into the lake pond and began to gain speed very fast. So much so, the gentle snow that danced in the air felt like ravid rain on their skin. The gray, grim and cold world that this planet had become passed by in blurs of death and silence. The only thing that echoed in that dead clearing was the sleek sliding of the warriors and the perduring whisper of danger.

The fortress was getting close, and so was the dread clutching Bakugou's heart. He also noticed that, as the sleds began to slow down, the snow never let up. Within this changing weather, they should have seen it coming, but two minutes prior to their arrival, a harsh snow storm broke free and menaced to knock them off the beaten track.

However, Asui used her expert water magic knowledge to make vaporize most of the snow to the point steam was surrounding them, her hand raised in the air. "What a handful. This is anything but a discreet welcoming."

Before anyone could ask, Midoriya responded to their doubts as his sled touched land. "They– or him, whoever is in there, knows we are coming. Or at least they will be ready for people to enter their fortress."

"But… it seems like this region is done with." Todoroki wanted to dare say that the whole world was done with, yet he didn't want to sink his friends' morale. "How would they be expecting us when not even we should be alive?"

Bakugou looked back, as he had hopped on land before anybody else. His eyes met Midoriya's, and for once, the blonde understood.

"Things might be a bit more complicated than who they caught in their net. Something tells me nothing about this was unintentional. Something fishy is happening and I can't put my damn finger on it." growled the blond, his boots hissing against the dry, loose and sandy ground. The air was cold and smelt like metal, or gunpowder, he couldn't tell. Nothing about this place was normal, and nor was the fact that they were the only ones left alive, it seemed.

The blond decided not to dwell too much into it, and whipped his cape back to march up the sinuous hill. "Let's just keep on going. We'll explain on our way up."

---

Cobblestone had never felt so cold, Uraraka decided. She wasn't sure if this was a result of the intimidation clawing at her heart, or if it was a result of the foul weather that was unraveling outside. Her heart was buried under an overwhelming load of pressure that made every single source of feeling outside completely useless. Her tunnel focus was getting worse, she knew, and it would be a while until she got her mind sorted out again.

If ever, she added, mindful of the pair of eyes that observed every of her movements a few steps behind. Uraraka was being followed through the hallways like a lion followed a lost deer, and the extra unnecessary pressure made her sigh and look back to her workmate.

"Shinsou, I don't need to be babysat. I have lived here just as you have, I know my way around this place."

But they continued walking– or more like, he continued pushing her forward with his presence only.

"My old man told me to take you there. I got no clue what he wants from you, but I think the time has come to sort things out." she didn't need to be told that again. Uraraka was completely sure of what she was there for, but Shinsou had this awful habit of repeating himself over and over.

Uraraka walked tensely, her eyes trying to look behind her without moving her head. With another sigh, the pair just happened to walk by a big window when they heard a loud crash coming from afar. Her tunnel vision branched out to focus on this event, and she witnessed a whole barricade of spikes shattering against an invisible divide that shone like an aurora upon being hit.

The sorcerer's eyebrow sunk. "What… is that?"

Shinsou didn't seem surprised by this, but stopped and stared just as she did, watching the spike barrier fight against the limits of this safe den. "Looks like the planet's been overtaken already. We were hoping we would have a bit more time before this happened, so we gotta hurry."

Then… it was true? She could recall Bakugou's warnings on how the creator of RampAge had to be the one behind the timeline issue too, but until this very moment, she had always had doubts, or at least a minimal amount of skepticism. Seeing how events were unfolding, it only made sense to believe his words.

But if that spike barrier had swallowed the world, then it meant her comrades were most possible dead, too. As Shinsou pried her away from the window, her eyes started burning and soon enough, small tears littered the surface of her orbs, those molten caramel skies that was fighting the utter devastation from invading her heart. She could feel a bigger monster looming from above her, and she felt like she was trying to hold it back with a single pinky.

For some reason… she felt like this madness was her fault. She didn't voice out this concern, but Shinsou's unmoderated silence as he watched her shoulders shake proved her that she was beyond forgiving, for whatever she was about to do. For what she knew was about to happen.

The man who held the answer to all her questions was waiting for her, and she didn't know if she was ready for her fears to be confirmed. She didn't know if she was ready to take the risk and defeat the man who was– no, had already destroyed the world.

She was late. She had been too late. But maybe a small string of hope was being lain for her to take, and that was the only thing she was holding on to. Nothing was going on as she had expected: she had reached this lair when the world had been destroyed, her guildmates killed at the wake of destruction and the timelines messed up beyond salvation, very probably.

What was she there for? She had nothing to fight for, really. Even if her heart still clung to her guildmates' company, she knew of the underlying hate she felt for them. Hate was probably a strong word, but it was the closest tag she could attach to her guildmates. She loathed how she had always been an outsider, how she had always fought for them when nobody would ever stop and notice her. She knew she was admired, but that was all she was.

A totem.

She was a totem of power for them. Nothing more, nothing less. And they held the power to destroy her heart, she hated that vulnerability, above all the way their leader was toying with her and robbing her of a happiness she seeked.

Maybe she was frustrated at things she couldn't control, but humankind had only proved to be worth cleansing, and not relishing.

The only pain she felt was the pain of the remaining bits of her heart clinging to them, and the thought of what it could have been if Aizawa had not existed. Perhaps that was why she was so fueled to destroy him: because he was the reason of her miserable life.

Everything was wrong when he was alive, when she was hurting. So, if she destroyed him, things would be alright again, would they?

She didn't know. But that was the only logic guiding her through the tunnel, through the ultimate darkness before the dawn she knew awaited her. She didn't know this, but that dawn would take a long, long while to come back to her.

"We're almost there." he saw, again stating something she already knew. Their steps were the only sound filling the big place of the fortress, and the more they walked, the more she felt like something was out of place. A feeling of unease settled itself on her belly and she swore she felt a shudder run up her spine to only make her grip on reality stumble.

The moment of truth was coming close and she didn't know if she was ready.

Suddenly, Shinsou and her turned a sharp corner that gave way to the big, enormous and gigantic double doors that took all space of the wall. Uraraka felt like no more than an ant in comparison, and she wondered what could lay behind the closed doors. The sorcerer gulped, hands balled to fists.

Soon enough, Shinsou spoke again. "Well, here we are. Aizawa must be waiting in there." strangely, the man seemed… relieved? "Man, I never thought we'd reach the day this happened. But here you are. Here I am. I guess he did gather us all together in one place, hm?"

He walked past her, and Uraraka followed his stride with frowned eyes. "What do you mean?"

The other sorcerer remained silent. He pressed his hands against the hard wooden plank and with a surprisingly low amount of effort, the doors groaned as they began to open. The boy stepped back to let her enter first, but upon a bit of thought, he turned away. His ears had picked up a familiar noise far away from them and he needed to go check it out.

These two cats could kick each other's ass on their own.

Uraraka couldn't ask quick enough, for Shinsou was already walking away, waving his hand at her. "I need to check something out. I'll be back shortly." before leaving completely, Shinsou walked back a few steps. The doors were still slowly creaking open. "Try to be quick about it. Things are starting to feel weird in here."

He was right. The pressure inside this safe haven was somewhat starting to take a toll on her. When they had arrived to the area, right then untouched, something in the air seemed heavy. The air was breathed in heavily and exhaled with exhaustion. Something was clinging to their shoulders, a pressure, a fear, sitting in their stomach and waiting to detonate.

The more they stayed there, the more unsettling the air became. It was becoming heavier on their shoulders and emptier in their ears, silence never a welcome thing to hear for none of them. Only the creaking of the old doors wafted in her ears, and before long, the doors gave sight to the room.

Uraraka slowly walked in, her mind swimming as she reached the summit of the world, the center of the universe, the core of corruption. The room was grand and empty, made of bricks and stones, all gray. At the back of the room, a tough slate of stone in a different tone divided the surface of the wall in twain. Windows looked into the room from outside, shedding a neutral cloudy shimmer for the gods to enjoy.

That was it.

This was the end.

She walked at a decided yet somewhat slumbering pace. Her small heels clicked against the floor, filling the silence with her presence, yet the man at the back didn't turn around. Uraraka would have expected him to receive her not warmly, but at least with a lukewarm greeting. After all, after what he surely considered to be too long, she had finally reached a decision.

Her hatred for this kind of hypocrite kind, the still clingy feeling of affection to comrades that would just forget her… if the decision was done to satisfy her needs and solve this mundial problem, why did it pain her so much?

Oh, that's right. Because she was a fool and fell in love with a human. But she knew what she had to do.

"Master." she called, her eyes serious and her eyebrows knit in a light frown. He didn't budge, he just stared off, his back facing her. The leather of his black uniform only made him look more somber. "Aizawa. I've arrived."

Her tone was a notch deeper than intended and that made him turn around in curiosity. "You finally arrived. Or rather, you finally came back." he sounded like the chiding father Ochako once had. "I was wondering when you'd stop playing around and make a decision. I guess you already made up your mind, right?"

The brunette let out a long, long sigh.

"Yes, I have."

"That's good." the man almost smiled, but if he did, the gesture was hidden beneath the sandy scarf he had on all the time. "Thought you would become a scaredy cat and run away, but–"

Before he could articulate another word, a hard burning fist flashed and collided with the man's cheek at breakneck speed, and was sent meters behind, flying until he collided with the wall, grunting loudly. His collison woke up dust that Uraraka gladly walked through, a shadow covering her eyes as she cracked her knuckles. The everlasting promise of a good fight.

That had been a punch of sorrow, of hatred, because as much as she hated humankind, this world, and its fate, she also hated the man who had decided to destroy it and haunt the memory of a small boy, back in the day. It had been a hit of vengeance that only announced the beginning of the judging for his sins.

"I might have plans for this wrecked world you destroyed…" her hand was charged with a beaming surge of light. "But before that, I'm going to take care of you, master!"

---

Shinsou could hear the distant crash of fury in the background, but he didn't really mind it much. As implicated as he could seem, the sorcerer was aware that he wasn't much more than another pawn in his father's scheme. Sure, he did have a relevant role, but he wasn't really forced to give a shit about anything that happened in this world.

So, he didn't.

Instead, he obeyed what instinct told him, and that was to help Aizawa achieve his ultimate goal. He did resent his old man for his sins and for his messy upbringing, as well as how he had made his son feel like no more than a marionette. Still, he had trained him into the warrior he was now.

Even if Aizawa had probably raised his son to be his right hand in the present future, that didn't mean he felt any less indebted. Just for the bond that tied them and for his own curiosity for what Aizawa preached, he followed his command.

This twisted ideology was what drove him to slap his fighting gloves on and walk through the corridor that led to the lobby of this fortress. His dead eyes didn't see any ruckus, but he could feel a very explosive and irritated energy radiating from afar.

Hell, he could even picture that brazen leader walking in just as Shinsou walked calmly to the lobby. The sound of his footsteps were accompassed to the slight banter he felt ahead of him, but before he could dash in their direction and stop their invasion, he felt a light pressure on his shoulder.

It was none other than Edgar, Uraraka's pet, that had flown to him from an open window at his left. The sorcerer looked on his shoulder to look at the beast, which had become rather big over the last few weeks.

Looking at it, he had no clue why Uraraka insisted on calling it a beast. Edgar looked rather mild if he were to describe it. "Hey there, you." greeted Shinsou, stopping to nudge the eagle with his shoulder. The eagle nodded back. "What are you doing here, hm? It's not the time to ask for cookies."

The eagle tilted its head in confusion. It was a rare oddity that fairy had decided to bring the animal with her. The animal had remained always on a side of this fortress (or their missions), because as she said, she didn't want the little animal to be hurt if she went too far with her magic.

He could still hear her lovesick voice mumbling about how pretty that beast was, how fond of it she was. She could be a lone wolf just as he was, she said. She can kick ass without a pet, she said.

Well, that pet barely did any damage other than pecking, so she indeed could kick ass without this damn eagle.

"You should be encouraging your owner, she must be blowing my old man out of the water. If she isn't, I'd be sorely disappointed." stepping close to another window, Shinsou nudged his shoulder to make the creature fly away. Instead, it jumped off Shinsou's shoulder and perched on the small stone ledge.

Shinsou gave it a small glare.

"Go away, don't bother me. I'm not gonna give you food, and I don't need you to fight." he barked. As he walked past the window, he looked back to check if the eagle was still there, which it was. He let out a small 'hmph' of annoyance, but two steps after that, Edgar had disappeared.

Shinsou adjusted his gloves to his hands and tied his cloak tighter to his body. The smell of forest and ash greeted his nostrils, much to his chagrin. It was an irritatingly familiar scent he had gotten accustomed with while following that guild's tracks, and by now, he could identify it anywhere.

"Dumb kids. They're only here to make things harder for fairy." the man took a sharp dagger out of his left sleeve, it had a small hole at the end of the handle and he used it to spin the weapon with his finger, then play with it between his fingers. He licked his lips, as if he was about to taste a wonderful meal.

The weather outside somehow got even fouler, and he heard a typhoon threatening to break loose. With a clenching of his fist, the typhoon slowly disappeared, as he couldn't let any weather instability outside the barrier ruin this haven. After timelines had collapsed, the Earth had become a hopeless paramo with unstable weather and frozen waters.

It was possible even a hurricane would break through, but Shinsou would use his attention span to protect the barrier while his dad and Uraraka battled it out with their fists. Right now though, Shinsou had to take care of the smaller stakes in this situation, so he walked onwards to carry out his role in this bizarre story.

The man could already hear agitation behind the double big doors to the lobby, which he gave a push so they would give way to see his frame. Bakugou, who had apparently been advancing until right then, stopped in his tracks to see the elegant man surface from the shadows, touching his gloves like he expert assassin he was.

"My, you are finally here. I supposed you wouldn't last long without bothering us." cooed the sly boy, walking past the doors and being met with gasps of surprise. It was striking that nobody seemed to expect him to be there, except Bakugou who seemed to be putting the pieces together. "What's wrong, Bakugou? Aren't you happy to see me here?"

The blond was all but happy to see the man there, and growled accordingly. Shinsou wasn't at all appalled by his behavior. If anything, he was amused by how riled up the man was, and that was just by his own presence. He was easily irritated.

Of course, the leader had to scream at him. "You asshole! What the fuck have you been doing in here!? What's with that clusterfuck outside!?"

Deep inside, Shinsou had expected them to be there, contrary to what Uraraka expected. Maybe she'd be happy, no matter her resentment. Shinsou, if anything, was extremely vexed by how energetic they looked. Bakugou was positively fuming, and the rest didn't seem half as tired as he had expected them to be.

Well, shit. He was hoping the storm outside would be enough. Uraraka had, too.

"You guys are just too stubborn. Too bad fairy is busy now, otherwise maybe she'd be happy to see you. Or maybe she wouldn't." the mage pinched the bridge of his nose. "Who knows with that girl. But she's busy now."

Upon mentioning her name some faces lit up in realization that they had come not only for refuge, but also to find somebody. Before Bakugou could scream his lungs out again, Midoriya spoke first. "Where's Uraraka, Shinsou? Where have you guys taken her!?"

So the little green thing had some spunk as well, huh? That was a surprise. Shinsou almost scoffed and that made Bakugou grit his teeth more. He was livid at this man– how could he be so level-headed and look so arrogant when he had a whole guild against him? Bakugou had always loathed this man, and right now, seeing him in this bleak scenario as if he was the head of operations made his feelings somewhat validated.

But he wasn't there to spit on that dark mage.

He was there for somebody else. Somebody he had completely opposite feelings for. Shinsou wasn't giving answers though, he only looked at them with his dead, narrowed eyes as if their question didn't matter.

But it mattered. She mattered. Bakugou had probably taken a while to take her seriously, but his feelings were a reality and he wasn't going to lose her to some damn villains now.

"Where is she, Shinsou?" asked the leader, taking a step forward. His voice was menacingly calm and hoarse. He was not playing around.

Shinsou never answered, again. It was now when Bakugou started to think they had dared hurt her, because while she was extremely powerful and crazy strong, she was still mortal.

"I won't ask again." his tone turned to a lower hue. His calloused hand slowly travelled up to the handle of his cursed sword, one that could produce nasty wounds, wounds that would never be healed or disappear. "Where the hell is she, Shinsou?"

At least this time Shinsou gave a vocal response, maybe provoked by how feral the hunter's eyes turned, how he was frowning in a way that revealed an intention to commit a gruesome murder if he didn't talk, and fast. He was an impatient man, that leader, and when something he cherished was in danger, he would act fast and violently, in the spur of boiling anger.

What Shinsou hadn't expected to see was such fondness in his eyes hidden beneath the rubble of his anger, the passion to find and protect that silly bad rotten fairy. But when Shinsou spoke again, he was still as vague.

His eyes were closed, maybe to swallow his defeat at doubling over Bakugou's request. "I can't tell you, sorry. She's currently busy with my old man sorting things out."

They didn't know about Shinsou's genetic relationship with his father and thinking about it, tasting the news and then thoroughly spitting them, things such as his philosophy made so much more sense now. "Your father!?" exclaimed Yaoyorozu. "Are you saying the owner of this manor is… your father!?"

"What is that to you, though? This is none of your business." interjected the purple-haired man. With these words, he grabbed the ties of his cloak and tore the cloak apart from his body, revealing a familiar leather uniform with a scarf wrapped around his neck, and with a swipe of his arm, a black long rod appeared on his hand, waking up the wind.

Bakugou's cape moved with the breeze and drew out his weapon, and so his comrades did the same. "We have come to retrieve her. We won't step back until we have her back, Shinsou." spoke Midoriya, stepping to stand at Bakugou's level. "Back off, and tell us where she is."

Bakugou's chin dipped down to intensify his glare. "We won't hesitate to beat your ass. I don't care if you are her companion, or if you and her are working together. Anybody that stands in our way, in my way, will get hurt."

Yes, because maybe if he pointed out his personal implication with the mission, perhaps Shinsou would let them pass and help them. He should have known better than to think the son of a worldwide menace would have that mercy.

"And why should I care?" of course, he didn't give a fuck and Bakugou cursed for ever letting himself show that vulnerable implication. "You have nothing to do here. All you'll do is hinder fairy's mission more than you already have."

Bakugou snarled at the man. "I don't care what her mission is! If we can help her, we will! She is a comrade in danger, of course we will come to help her out!"

It was shocking to see that companierism coming from a man so violent he growled like he snapped necks for a living, even more so when he recalled how Uraraka had felt about them, how she had spoken so vulnerably about her pain, that pain she beared like a cross and had carried all the way to here, to the center of the world.

In a way, Shinsou understood her feelings, and for some reason, seeing these uncaring bastards coming to only hinder her mission came across as horribly selfish, as if they were fulfilling some sort of social hero mission, or to just feel content with themselves but not seeing what she was truly about to do for them.

They would never see it, they would never see fairy as Shinsou saw her.

And this ignorance stirred an alien kind of anger inside of him. "You preach about helping, but you all are so fucking ignorant!" he barked back, scowling and tapping the ground with his staff. "Maybe it's time I teach you what a good sorcerer can do!"

The whole guild saw this as a blatant challenge, and they drew their swords and weapons out. Flames flickered in the distance, flasks danced in excitement and a huge blade from a blond was drawn in his direction.

"Come at us then, fucker!" Bakugou's eyes twinkled in excitement at the prospect of finally beating this fucker's ass. "It's time we sort this draw between us out, you piece of shit!"

Shinsou smirked and changed into his battling position. His eyes were gleaming as well, and thunder flashed in the distance. Yaoyorozu turned her head to the window of the lobby, dusty and wet. The weather was so similar to that dreadful day when Kyouka died she couldn't help but feel a shudder of dread run down her spine. Something in this battlefield was wrong.

Something in this place, in this world, was wrong.

"Heh, it's been a long time since I last had a good fight." the man crouched to his knees to slam a hand on the ground. "Let's see what you got, then!"

Before anybody could protest, a low rumble came from the ceiling, and small pebbles of rock fell on them before the whole ceiling came crashing down and began to fall down on the unsuspecting warriors. However, Midoriya did feel the rumble and had jumped up, his body enshrouded in dark red bolts to then kick the debris beck to its place, and with this new raw surge of power, the whole ceiling was destroyed and flown out of place, giving way for the rain to seep into the fortress.

When Midoroya landed down, he realized that Shinsou's and Bakugou's staredown had not ended yet. The battle had only been brewing until now. Rain matted down their hair, made the scene darker than it was supposed to be.

Midoriya wanted to speak, but Bakugou shut him up. "You…" his voice was hoarse, and the leader, now angered beyond forgiving, drew his weapon in front of his comrades, as if in a protective gesture to shield them away from this lunatic. "Take them to Uraraka. Look for her. This fucker only wants my balls to play with."

There were several gasps of disapproval echoing throughout the chamber. "But, Bakugou–!"

"Can it, Todoroki!" he bellowed, frowning. His eyes were beginning to brighten, his tongue darted out to lick his lips. "I will take care of this bastard! Uraraka is what matters now, I'll be fine! This fucker has no bite to his punch."

"You are losing your touch, Bakugou." mocked the dark mage, his fangs darting out. "The ending of this battle was predestined from the very beg–"

A shadow flashed behind him right before he could end his sentence. He only had time to look behind himself before a punch kicked him to the other end of the fortress, in a style so familiar Bakugou would have sworn it was her instead of Kirishima who had thrown the punch. The redhead watched the man fly proudly as he hit the faraway wall.

Shinsou grimaced as he supported himself and did a summersault to only skid against the floor, snarling in annoyance. He hadn't seen that one coming, and that alone was extremely frightening. Things were slowly starting to get out of Aizawa's control, or what the man had been able to predict all this time.

Fuck.

Kirishima gathered everyone to go down the door Shinsou had used earlier. "We'll look for her! Kick his ass, dude!" the redhead held out his fist with a grin. "We'll be waiting for ya! Don't take too long!"

As Shinsou started getting up, brushing dust off his garments, Bakugou walked the path to bump their fists together, grinning back. "Tch. Don't be a slowpoke and get the fuck outta here. If I find out Uraraka was killed off because of you all taking too long, I'll behead you."

Of course he probably didn't mean it, unless he did and Kirishima had a reason to be concerned. Just in case he did, he raced down the nearby hallway with his peers, leaving the doors open, and when the guild disappeared in the distance, Bakugou heard steps coming his way, prompting him to turn around with a deep scowl of hatred.

However, Shinsou had his own opinion about his last words. "Father wouldn't hurt Uraraka. He isn't as stupid as to hurt his tools. He needs her."

The blonde let his blade touch the ground. "Needs? What the fuck are you talking about now, you asshat? I'll kill you before you can see that bastard ever again, so save your ass licking for another life!"

Weirdly enough, Bakugou wasn't met with the typical reprimand, sass or hatred his insults were always met with. Instead, Shinsou looked at him with a disappointed dead stare, as if he was looking down on him. The feeling sparked a very familiar sort of contended anger within Bakugou.

"I thought you would have figured all of this out already. How stupid of me. After all this time, this far into this hell, I still have faith in arrogant fucks like you to be smart." he let his hand curl into a punch before him, and it was now wrapped in a thousand little white flames that cracked angrily against him. "You spared your friends from our fight, but all you have done is send them deeper into the coming pain. I will give you the honor of being truly spared…"

Bakugou couldn't help himself but grin wider at his high talking. His face was twisted into a mean mock. "Huh? What shit are ya sayin' now?" once more, he pointed the blade at him, and his expression plummeted to a very serious, hooded shady look. "You are the one who took Uraraka here… I will cut you into pieces, you scumbag."

"I am so confused. Why are you so smitten with her?" asked the mage, genuinely confused. "I might be sparing your life by ending it now but… in the end, if I fail to do so, the one who will take you down will be fairy herself, you dumbass."

The mage could barely end the sentence, for before he could spell the last syllable, a terrific explosion blew half of the room up, walls included, into absolute and utter ash, sans for the man that had protected himself yet ended up rolling out of the fortress and to the plains on top of the hill. Bakugou, far from giving up, gave him chase, jogging.

When he drew close to the body, he drew his blade out, making it gleam under the dying sun. Rain fell down on them like street lost dogs, like monsters still to be forsaken by the gods. But for now, the only important grudge was that between Shinsou and him.

"Are you gonna speak up?" he twisted his blade, his heart raw and his eyes ablaze. "Or am I gonna have to drag the words outta your tongue, freak?"

Shinsou, who had been deemed to be unconscious or severely hurt, chuckled. Bakugou wasn't surprised by this, yet how unfazed he seemed did irritate him a big deal.

"We'll see who has to drag words out, you brute barbarian."

---

Uraraka didn't know how much time had passed since their first punches, but it felt like ages. Hours, maybe even days. The mage spent all her energy throwing herself at her rival like a feral animal, only to be thrown back to her cage over and over again.

Her body and morale were full of dents; her rival, though, she was still aiming to carve a single wound on his leathered body.

Once more, Aizawa avoided one of her blows, and her sheer propulsion in the attack made her fly forward. The more time that passed, the less she was able to focus. With her last attempt, the man succeeded in drawing a cough out of her, which rung signs of alarm not within her, but within him.

"What's wrong, Uraraka? Feeling frustrated already?" his tone should be mocking, but he sounded surprised, borderline disappointed. He didn't sound tired, opposite to his rival who, frankly, knew she would be panting hard if she mustered the strength to speak. If she had any.

But her determination to win was bigger than her body. "I am not!" responded she. Uraraka took a second to get up. "I am just getting started!"

After a very telling grunt, her body flashed at a breakneck speed to stand behind him, at a very unnatural speed Aizawa knew very well, and she was able to kick him straight to a wall. The noise of the wall cracking felt satisfying to hear, so much so she even dared grin shakily.

Much to her disappointment, Aizawa walked out of the cloud of dust and the crevice without much of a scratch. Yes, this was a thing too: no matter how hard she kicked, he would always get up again without a single bruise.

The man wiped a chunk of dust off his shoulder. "And here I was, thinking you had a bit of spunk to you. But you're fast… too fast. I guess you're finally using what I taught you, huh?" his eyes narrowed in a mean, suspicious way. "You won't land a decent hit on me unless you mean it. What's on your mind now? I thought you came here to kill me."

Uraraka stood up straight. Her eyes held a serious almost chiding glance to them. "I am not here to destroy you immediately. I need answers. And for that, you need to be alive." she took a step forward. "What kind of pupil would I be, seeking bloodshed from my master? That's preposterous."

"But you're still going to spill the blood of your comrades for their sins in your own private judge, if you haven't already."

Her eyes narrowed, threatening him silently. "Shut up."

"Besides, don't lie to me. A part of you hates me as much as you hate all around you." Uraraka stared in silence, waiting for another hook to bait herself into. But if she died, he would too, and she wasn't backing off yet. "I can see it all in your eyes. Once everything comes to the revealing point, you'll kill me off. Or try to, at least."

Uraraka gritted her teeth. "I respect my master."

"You don't respect his decisions, though." of course she didn't, who the hell would? "You are one of the few people who can see the forest beyond one tree, but you are still fighting against it. You're like a scaredy cat that wiggles while being punished."

If she was frowning before now her face had contorted into a full scowl. However, a mild dash of confusion swam in her eyes. "Punishment? What are you babbling about now?"

Aizawa didn't seem appalled by her confusion. Now that she realized it, he hadn't been doing much ever since they started the fight. For somebody who was currently in process of obliterating humankind just like she was, he wasn't half as flashy and quirky as Uraraka would have expected. For some reason, his calm attitude, as if she was still a puppet for him to manipulate was unnerving to her, because she was there to actually fight that philosophy.

Deep in her heart, she knew something wasn't right and that an upper force was at play here.

"Do you think the gods above have forgiven you for your sins?" asked the man in black, making Uraraka's position grow more loose as she now switched to pure and genuine confusion. She seemed completely lost as to what he was talking about. "Humankind is bound to repeat its mistakes. You and Ochako… you two are one in the same. Two faces of the same rotting golden coin."

Her head instantly went back to her dreams, and it was weird to have those brought up when once upon a time she regarded them as something useless and just her mind playing tricks on her. Only when the Oracle and a few more brought them up to her did she start to find significance on them. Everyone insisted on them being the same person but… how? What did they even mean by that?

"I still have no idea what you are talking about!" exclaimed she through gritted teeth. "I am my own person! I came here with a mission, for all the pain this race has put me and this world through… for all the pain you have caused with your tricks, for the fate you have doomed this world to live!" she summoned her staff once more. "You don't deserve my forgiving– nobody really does, after all this time."

That small speech had been character-revealing for her, for her mission, for her desire to finally spare this cruel world of the fate Aizawa had put in it and get rid of the pain humankind had caused: the Jirous, the heartbreak, the corruption, the malice, the sadness… Uraraka, the cheerleader of a whole nation, had stopped believing in love, in happiness.

She had come here with a task, yet Aizawa had still more to say about her.

"The more time passes, the more you become like her. The more time you let pass, the more her hatred will consume you. The more time passes, the more the timelines begin to enmesh and memories, feelings and faces overlap. Did you think you are above all consequences of what you did that day, Ochako? You really are an airhead."

That adjective, one that had been used to often by a certain blond, it struck a chord in her.

"Shut up." whispered she, a shadow cast in her eyes. "Shut up already!"

"You don't get it yet, Ochako." her name was pronounced with a new sense of hatred that sent a chill up her spine and made her brain gorge with blood. "This world, this punishment… this is all your fault, for what you did that day! Your own personal hell!"

The conversation was getting heated to the point Uraraka's eyes gleamed with a white spark that Aizawa had been seeking all along. This was the point when his plan would be finally set into motion. Her hair was becoming brighter, her eyes were starting to lose their original color, it was a gorgeous display for his old eyes to enjoy.

"That's why… the only person who can destroy this and make it work again…" suddenly, a clinking noise was heard and Uraraka didn't see it coming until it was too late. "it has always been you!"

Uraraka hissed, irritated, ready to swing her staff and attack with all force. "What are you–"

Before Uraraka could muster another word, chains that bit like snakes tied to her wrists and ankles and chained her to the slate of stone at the end of the room, hitting her head on the concrete. The impact made her sight blurry, the steps of her master cloudy and she felt like she was floating but also drowning at the same time.

Her eyes started drooping.

"That's why…" Uraraka's eyes fluttered close. "you are also bound to repeat the same mistakes too, Ochako, and your punishment will never, ever stop."

---

"Wh-what is that!?"

"Who is that!?"

Another body fell to the ground, splashing mud to the feet of their attackant. A hard thunderstorm had broke loose above the battlefield that had become crimson red, muddy. A blade was inserted into another chest, and then withdrawn without any consideration. To Katsuki, everyone who went against him was faceless, and they'd remain that way.

In this war, there was no space or time for remorse and mercy. His deep wine eyes glowed in the dark rain, and the blond man glowered at the cowering soldiers.

"What the fuck are you doing standing there!?" bellowed Katsuki, his sword pointing at them in ire. "Fucking get out of here! This shit is a fucking nightmare!"

And yet, he was still working his way through the myriads of soldiers– soldiers from his nation. But something in his eyes told them he wasn't really looking into who he was attacking. His eyes were focused in a target that hadn't arrived to the battlefield yet, and his violent enthusiasm for that to happen was probably the most frightening thing to witness.

"Please, lord! You are attacking your own subordinates! We need them to win–"

"Shut it!" he yelled without any gentleness, because to him, they were just as faceless as the rest had been. If they stood in his way, they'd be a prey for his sword to slay. His head dipped forward, his grip around his weapon tightening. "Where the fuck is she?"

Some guards shrieked, and some refused to back down. A clap of thunder, then lightning. It flashed on Katsuki's blade and made it gleam, blood dripping down the edge. "Who are you talking about!?"

His teeth bare in the darkness of the storm. Rain matted down his hair and made a shadow loom over his eyes, his glare piercing through their mild spirits. "You know damn well!" he took a step back to get ready for another battle, predicting the same veredict as when he had asked to the now corpses behind him. "I won't ask again, where is she!? Where is the mage our dumbass of a leader jailed!?"

"Jailed!? He never jailed her, lord!"

"I don't give a fuck! Where is she!?"

Seeing his patience was wearing thin, the soldiers' swords quivered in their grip. Katsuki was unfazed by the rain, by the danger, by absolutely everything. "We don't know! As far as we know she was in a mission!"

Katsuki knowingly looked around him. Countless of bodies were sprawled around the battlefield unceremoniously, steam streaming out of their bodies that held a horrified expression, as if they had just seen a monster in play. He knew those attacks. He could smell her magic in the blood that soaked his boots.

"I know she's been here, don't fucking lie to me! We need to find her!" his voice was desperate, urgent, because he knew that the real menace in this war wasn't the backstory behind both parties, but the victim of their lies and their greed. If he didn't find her, knowing the power she held, she would make a terrible mistake.

He could feel her anger in the air permeating the rain like a blanket over a bed, an anger so irrational (it had been long ago) but also fucking rational (it hadn't been long enough) he knew she was going on a rampage now. Her powers were boundless, he knew, and it was extremely ironic that the power they tried to kidnap was suddenly releasing such hell upon Earth.

No… the energy around him was more than angered. It was raging, it was cold, and it was… deadly. It crept up his spine, under his clothes and seeped into his heart to freeze it into a sense of utter danger. He had this constant feeling something was coming from behind to kill him.

This was not the Ochako he had gotten to love. This was a hateful spirit seeking vengeance. And he knew that this storm was her doing. That the sea of broken bodies with several burns and seething bruises were her doing. He knew this chaos and destruction were her doing.

Fuck. He had always loved how badass she was, but this was not being badass, this was borderline atrocity. "We need to stop her! You gotta tell us where the hell she is!?"

Seeing the man was alone, of course they were skeptic. "Us? What the hell do you mean by–"

A sudden rain of arrows fell down on the unsuspecting guards that made them scream in horror as several dug into their armors and pierced their skin, drawing critical amounts of blood out. The crimson liquid sprayed around and enriched the mud that floated under their feet.

Familiar steps came from behind him, walking leisurely, and keeping her bow and arrow on her back. "They weren't gonna speak. Somebody had to do it."

"You could have been more fucking patient, alien girl." growled Katsuki. "Have you seen her? Where the hell has Kirishima gone?"

"I'm not sure. He said he was sure of a location she could be at, and ran off towards that. But this place…" her temple shed a bead of sweat that faded with the rain. The number of standing guards was starting to be outnumbered by the amount of dead ones. Soon enough, this battlefield would just become a sea of broken corpses.

Katsuki brushed some rain off his nose. If we follow the trail of bodies, we might find something. I just hope that enraged bitch hasn't hurt him." he refused to address that monster by her real name. It would mean admitting she had fallen too deep. "I'm sure she's close."

Mina nodded. "I'll follow you from behind."

Katsuki grabbed hold of his sword tighter, and with Ochako's sister, he rushed onwards. A thousand guards were met in the way to her, but he didn't care. He destroyed them. He destroyed absolutely all of them. He needed to find her.

He would find her.

---

Blades clashed on the hill.

"Hah!?" Bakugou made his weapon clash with Shinosu's dagger, and he made the mage jump back towards the lake. The hunter stared down at him from up the hill. "What bullshit are you saying now, huh!? Don't make me laugh!"

"You are incredibly foolish if you think fairy is an innocent lamb with no intentions here, barbarian." his voice was a bit strained, but not at all amused by his ignorance. "Uraraka has things to do here. She is still on a mission."

Bakugou chuckled. "Yeah, the mission of kicking your asses!"

The man jumped down the hill and charged his sword up to slice the man in half, but he backed off and skidded against the ice of the lake, staff drawn out and slightly crouched to avoid any of his explosions if they came. Bakugou growled as the man slid deeper into the lake, and he didn't doubt to throw himself to the ice with him, like a beast after its prey.

"I won't tell you again, fuckface!" snarled the leader, pointing his sword at him. The more Shinsou refused to tell him where she was, or teased him, or just was fucking vague and refused to give answers, the blond would get more and more angry. "Stay the fuck away from Uraraka and stop messing with her head! You have already done enough, you had her on your side for long enough!"

Shinsou was barely able to dodge his blade as it came slicing the air towards his head. The man moved his head a little and the blade struck into the ice feet behind the mage, creating a small crevice on the surface.

Bakugou mistook his silence for surprise, for Shinsou was still looking behind him at the sword in silence. "What's up, hah!? You thought your head was gonna fly off?"

"Heh." Bakugou was taken aback when Shinsou looked back with a mean smirk. "Uraraka told me you had softened a bit. I guess she didn't tame the beast completely."

The blond was jumping to him again, an explosion ready to blow him away. "Shut the fuck up, Shinsou!"

The attack failed, he was too ire-driven to really notice the slippery nature of the ice. Shinsou avoided his attack and Bakugou slid deeper into the lake, all the mage had to do was turn around and pounce on the leader, a spell ready on his staff.

However, Bakugou was always quicker. He sprung back to grab into his sword and use it to spin and kick the mage on the chest, sending the dark man rolling towards the hill with a loud grunt of pain. He remained motionless for the minute Bakugou took to reach him again, sword pointed at him. He had a wolfish grin imprinted on his arrogant, full-of-himself expression.

The mage coughed a bit, grabbing his chest.

"What's wrong, Shinsou? You're losing your touch, loser." in a fashion that was painfully familiar, he gave the man a kick on the forearm to roll him around, and the leader drove his blade into the dirt before looming over him, crouching by his side. "Fucking wimp. You are such an empty fucking bragger."

Shinsou looked, for once, aggravated by his words– or maybe, it wasn't his words, but the meaning behind them. "Shut the fuck up, Bakugou! Your hits are doing nothing on me!"

The blond took his sword out of the ground and put it against his pulse. "Stop fucking ignoring me, you brat! Tell me where the hell you have taken Uraraka, and where your fucking father is!"

"You are not the damn problem, get off from me!" if they hadn't been sworn enemies, Bakugou maybe would have complied, but he refused to let this bastard off the hook no matter what, and growled at his undeserved adamant request. "I said–"

"Shut the fuck up!" Shinsou coughed in response. "You deserve no–"

Bakugou barely saw it coming, but the man took his staff and cast a spell so quick around him Bakugou had no time to grab his sword, as he jumped off with a hand on the ground. Shinsou made no attempt to move from his place as the flames faded, only sat up, then stood up. He ignored the presence of Bakugou's sword.

"I am telling you to be quiet!" yelled Shinsou, still grabbing his chest. "Can't you feel it!? The timeline… it's beginning!"

Bakugou wanted to get an answer out of that guy, but before he could ask, the mage fell to his knees, hand on his staff still, coughing some more. The hunter tried to take a step forward, but suddenly, a ripple of pressure vibrated from within the castle and outwards, causing his head to spin and swim with a wince of pain. A certain blur clung to his eyesight when the wave was gone, and after that cleared up, Shinsou was gasping for air.

"This place is going to burn down to nothing soon… it's up to fairy now." gasped the man out. Bakugo walked to his side, staggering. "Things won't change unless she does something about it."

"Damn straight. She's gonna whoop your sorry asses for messing with this place."

A cruel chuckle rolled off Shinsou's lips.

"No." he chuckled again, an again, and soon, he was weakly laughing with a genuine smile. "Things don't work that way here. She might have told you that but… if I haven't been able to spare your life, then nothing will save you guys from this mess. She will no longer spare you."

"What do you mean, fuckmunch?"

Finally, after what seemed like decades, Shinsou gave in, and told Bakugou exactly what he needed to know. "Uraraka is in the chamber at the end of the hallway. Just go forward and you'll see two big doors. Whatever you see inside… don't let yourself be deceived. Not everything that shines is gold."

Bakugou sensed a dark energy from his words, and frowned just as dark. "What have you bastards done to her?"

"To Uraraka? Nothing she could have prevented. But she should be unharmed. You might reach her in time to stop her… I don't really care anymore." the mage turned his head to Bakugou, who was finally starting to think things through. He could hear the gears turning in his brain. "I did what I could. You should start moving before it's too late."

Bakugou didn't need to be told twice. He swiftly grabbed his sword and started running up the hill, his eyes trembling as he sensed something terrible was about to happen, and considering Shinsou's words, perhaps it was beyond his reach.

But first of all, the king needed to find her.

He would find her.

---

"Where could they have taken her!?" Kirishima ran frantically around the tangled hallways, opening doors to empty rooms and following his friends as they carefully trudged forward, yet also and not so subtly searched for their lost friend. Upon distant perspective, the fortress had looked huge, but still affordable to investigate.

Considering the amount of rooms that the fortress held inside, they were starting to reconsider their first impression. They opened doors to empty rooms. Some had shackles, and some had that and splashes of blood covering the ground.

Last door, Kirishima saw that and he tried to not think about it too hard, but the amount of blood had been so outrageous a chill had made his whole body shake. The world could be a greatly bright place, but small corners like these made him shrink to a chip.

Yaoyorozu had also just exited a room. "I have no clue where she is, but this place is too complicated. This is that man's lair, right? What would he even need so many rooms for?"

Kirishima gritted his teeth. "I have no idea… but he isn't playing chess with them, that's for sure." when he saw Midoriya and Todoroki were advancing through another big door, he followed them. "Uraraka must be somewhere here… we aren't discarding the possibility of her being kidnapped, right?"

"Uraraka can be pretty scary." mumbled Todoroki, advancing to a bigger hallway. Hallways were getting increasingly wider and shorter the more the went forward, making it feel like the stairs and rooms were just extras added to confuse people. Todoroki was sure this was the case, and was only focusing on the bigger doors. "I think she would have broken away if she had been chained down. But we don't know who this man is."

"Well, he sure doesn't hold himself back with architecture. This place is a mess." commented Asui, a finger on her chin as she inspected the place. "What are we even looking for? We ran off and left Bakugou to his luck but we don't even know what we're doing."

She was right. They had ridden on the positive, hopeful horse of victory but they had no clue as to where to ride it. They knew Uraraka was somewhere here, but they didn't even know if they should get her before they went for the man or they should defeat the man to get her back. They were trapped in a small labyrinth of straight corridors but convoluted objectives.

Mina was about to open a door when she heard small taps on the windowpane. The sight made her gasp in delight. "Edgar!" everyone turned to look at the archer as she opened the window and let the eagle perch on her arm, making her grin. "He can tell us where Uraraka has gone!"

The whole guild walked towards them, Midoriya fixated on talking to the bird that, as any other animal, just seemed confused as to where he was. "Edgar, you good boy. Where has your owner gone?"

Edgar cocked its head.

Mina nudged the animal with a pout. "Don't tell me you don't know where Uraraka is!"

Apparently, using the mage's name caused the eagle to finally understand. He flapped his wings and flew to the handle of a pair of smaller double doors to their right, and judging by his lack of movement, Edgar was waiting for them. He would guide them to the main room.

Excited to see finally some results, knowing Edgar was their last hope to find Uraraka as soon as possible, he immediately followed suit and opened the door to a room he was sure they had already been in. But that didn't stop him from believing in the animal, who was following them. "C'mon Edgar! Where to next?"

The animal did something akin to a nod and flew to the doors to their left, a way they knew they hadn't taken before. It just had felt too weird the way would just be a straight line without any mystery in the mix, yet Midoriya, the current leader, was trusting enough.

This time, it was Yaoyorozu who opened the door and the surprise was evident in her eyes. Unlike the paths they had seen before, the corridor was completely straight without any door to confuse the visitor, which was new. Perhaps the building was made to be confusing not because they wanted to confuse their visitors, but because of the horrific nature of the building.

Todoroki hesitantly walked ahead. "There seem to be no traps in here, just windows. Let Edgar lead the way."

As predicted, the eagle didn't find any other door that he could remember seeing, but what he did was fly for a bit and then land on the ledge of one of the windows, and deeming that the rest of the way was obvious, he hopped a few steps back before spreading his wings and flying out the window.

Mina was the only one to try and chase it, with Kaminari mildly worried something was waiting for them ahead, but the rest already knew where to go, and advanced with quick steps towards the medium door that waited at the end of the hallway. Before they reached the door, Asui had realized something pretty jarring.

"Have you guys realized… that the decor and the esthetic is incredibly similar to what the Jirous had?"

Midoriya gulped. "Yeah…" the very tense glances everyone shared among one another was telling enough: everyone had thought it, but perhaps it would have been better to let it be left unsaid.

Todoroki, who was walking first on the line, grabbed the handle of the door and twisted it. The metal let out a groan of protest. The door opened slowly with a creak, and when he saw how dark it was inside, he decided to open it more carefully and step in first. Midoriya sensed his worry, and also stepped carefully before the rest did.

The door swung open completely afterwards when they made sure there was no danger, yet the sight that awaited them intimidated the warriors like nothing else. A pair of gigantic double doors stared down at them, so big maybe even a ship would fit through them. They were just too damn big to not conceal something of great importance behind them.

"This must be it." stated Yaoyorozu. "Can you guys hear anything?"

Everybody made a small effort to hear through the doors, but all that welcomed them was silence.

"Not at all." said Kirishima, brows down in worry. "If Uraraka is going through the so-called fight of the century… it must be a damn silent one."

Midoriya tried to make any noise out of the silence, but the more time that passed, the tenser he felt. The thought that Uraraka could be bleeding to death in there, or being silently beaten to death… the leader gulped. It was then when he also wondered if Bakugou was alright.

God, if those two died he wouldn't know what to do with himself. But he still had faith in them. What he didn't have faith on was the twisted world their lives had become.

"We gotta get in." stated Midoriya, taking his sword out. "If we don't hurry, we could be too late. We have to kick the door open and be ready for whatever we see, so… on guard!"

Like a professional army getting ready to strike, the guild took out their weapons, looking at the door readily. Midoriya walked to the big doors, sword on hand, and stared at the big doors. A small bead of sweat ran down his temple, and he bit his lip. Many pictures entered his mind, many outcomes, but he knew only one would come true.

Silence. Just utter silence.

And then, he took a step forward and with a lighted up leg, he kicked the doors open with such a strength it picked up the dust between the rocks that formed the floor. They stormed open and bounced against the wall, hinges rattling. As the dust cleared, the warriors were surprisingly met with no welcome, just further silence.

For a split second, Midoriya thought they had been to late. That was, until he saw the image before him.

The familiar mage was hanging from chains on her arms, vines wrapped snugly around her middle like a tender embrace. Her head was lolled to a side, presumably unconscious, and her staff had been shattered on her feet. Her skin was tattered with dirt and wounds, her clothes slightly shredded, hair matted to her cheeks. The image was the opposite from desirable. It was worrisome.

Before long, a man walked in front of them. His stride was slow, almost too confident for a a man surrounded by powerful warriors. Behind him, the mage's body twitched lightly. "Oh, look who's come, finally. I thought you'd never show up."

Uraraka's eyes opened slightly, just a crack. Through the exhaustion and the drowsiness, through the cold feeling of the shackles finally binding her to the Earth and not letting her fly, she saw light. She saw green, like an evergreen forest. Then, she saw red, like that of a burning fire or a dying sun. Then other colors, the tones of a rainbow, staring back at a pitch of black she knew very well.

Judging by their expressions, nobody in that room knew the man that had finally tied her down after so many months of flying aimlessly. It was painfully ironic how, in the way they knew nothing about this man, Uraraka had known him for as long as she could remember.

She tried to grip the chains tied to her wrists. They felt colder than ice, harder than steel, silent as they bestowed a hard punishment on her now battered body. She could barely feel any of the pain he had inflicted on her, but she for sure knew that she needed to get those shackles off. It was natural.

Life had cursed her with a life of free wandering. It was only natural she would want to fly again.

"Who are you!?" she heard Midoriya bellow. The small slicing noise of his blade made it sound more menacing than she knew the leader to be. "What are you doing to our guild mate!? Let her go this instant!"

Funny. She wanted to chuckle. Funny how the only one to ever care about staying had been her at first, how the only one to ever want to join, to make nice with the leader– it had all been her. In the end, all she had gotten from this were stupid bonds as she stumbled to realize that all of this was a lie. Humanity was completely dirty and full of filth.

She gripped the shackles a bit tighter, making them cackle through the air, her teeth gritted as she recovered her strength. She couldn't stop flying just yet. She couldn't perch and peck. She had to keep on moving. Nobody or anything would ever stop her from carrying out her job.

The sound made them look at her, now. Even Aizawa turned around, amused by her recovery yet not at all surprised. Uraraka had inspired many expressions in him: satisfaction, anger, sadness, entertainment, victory, loss. But she still hadn't gotten him to taste what bitter fear would look like, what surprise felt like.

It was getting on her nerves.

"Oh, hey there, Ochako. Look at that, your friends just showed up." he said, as if entertaining a child. Uraraka frowned at him through her tousled bangs. "It's funny. Look at how excited they seem to be here."

The only thing that mattered there were not her friends. "Don't call me that! That's not my name!"

Aizawa, inevitably, didn't change his ways. Like she knew he wouldn't. "That's your name. It tastes weird. But it's like trying to coat a food in sugar: it will never stop tasting bitter no matter how much you push the real thing away. Your friends would have to find out one way or another." after that, he gave her his back once more, purposefully riling her up. Behind him, the chains clicked again. "I'm making you a favor."

Uraraka tried to tug at the chains, a small sound reverberating in her chest. She wasn't the most patient being when pressured, she was rushy, and needed things done. Midoriya observed her try to get rid of the chains and attempted to walk towards her. "Uraraka, what does he–?"

However, a clothed black arm in leather stopped his stride with the deadly stillness of a tomb. He looked at the kid somberly, not attempting to cause any fear, as if genuinely not wanting to put him in danger. "Don't, kid. Don't get close to her. You should have stayed behind and died with the ice. This is not your place to be."

Of course the suggestion of death struck a weird chord in him, and Midoriya jumped back with a defensive statement. The statement also made some eyebrows raise among peers who took out their weapons as well. "What do you even mean with that!? We're safe here, right?"

"I mean, are you?" Aizawa disdainfully looked back to the beast he had imprisoned, who was glaring at the scene as if threatening to not say anything, or else. He didn't seem to care, though, and being considered like a naïve, harmless creature by her own master made her completely furious. "I might have saved you from the storm outside, but there's something worse being brewed here."

"Of course there is!" yelled Todoroki from behind, taking a brave step forward. A part of him expected the man to knock him back with some sort of flashy move. Considering he had chained Uraraka down (by no means an easy feat) this man had to be powerful. Nothing but a blank stare came. "You are the man behind all of this, right? RampAge, the timelines… you must be Shinsou's father."

"Calling me father isn't completely accurate, that kid was always incredibly capricious. But that's not important right now." everyone drew a breath in at how lightly he was speaking, and how he wasn't even denying anything… yet also not attacking them? Was he arrogant, or was he careless? "You could say I am the one behind all of this, no matter what you mean by this, it's most likely my creation."

The way he used the word creation rung weird in her head, and judging by everyone's faces, it had the same effect on her peers as well.

"You're the one who orchestrated this!? Why are you doing this!? And… how even did you do it!?" asked Midoriya. He was desperate, he was clueless, and while he knew these weren't the questions one would ask… what questions would one ask, really? What questions could one ask to who had created one big mess of a timeline havoc? What was there even to be questioned, really?

In fact… what motives did he even have to do all of this? Motives to create RampAge, motives to mess with time, motives to chase after a colleague and kill an entire empire… and motives to actually chain down his subordinate, his pupil? What was going on inside that man's head to do all of this?

"I already said I did. And as to why…" he trailed off shortly, looking at the stormy sy outside. Heavy rain was closing in, a very nostalgic downpour, the original rain. It felt like the world was about to end that day. "you could say I have no motives. I am just spawn here, with no goal, no purpose, but to drive the shooting star in the right direction. It doesn't matter where the star goes. I always follow."

Uraraka expected no less of this man. He had been cornered by a powerful guild, a force she knew to be unstoppable, but he still talked big and didn't even flinch at the menacing tone they held. He probably knew how badly they could fight, and how many teeth they had under all that lamb hair. Something told her something was utterly wrong with this man.

Something was off.

"You need to fix this!" Midoriya now opted to plea instead of order, expecting a better result this time– or maybe, just expecting something. Instead, all he got was another silence, as if expecting him to define what this meant. He pointed at the window. "Look at what you've done! All life in this country, as far as the eyes can reach… it's all dead, now!"

"Country?" he sounded almost offended he'd narrow his magic to a corner of the world when in fact… "This whole planet is only a husk. It's the fate it deserves for raising a whole species of selfish, greedy humans. But don't worry, this is only a dream, a nightmare. You will wake up very soon."

Uraraka tried a hard tug at the chains. It didn't work. "Aizawa, stop confusing them! Your bullshit won't work on them!"

Aizawa looked back again, this time sort of irritated. Anyone would have expected him to strengthen whatever magic was holding her down, or make her weaker if her energy was the issue holding her back– but he didn't. In fact, he pointed out something that seemed utterly obvious. "Stop struggling, Uraraka."

Midoriya saw this, yet again, as an aggressive statement that made him get on guard once more. Yaoyorozu spoke up this time. "Let her go! She hasn't done anything to you! Why take her, out of all people!?"

Uraraka could only gulp at this, because it was never clear what her relationship with this big villain was. Now, at the end of the story, it was jarring to think their relationship had been secret all this time, and it coming to light now was horrible to contemplate. It was one of those things she expected to take with herself to the grave.

"She's a very rebellious pupil, you see." that pointed word made them blink in confusion, letting their gears work and put the pieces together. Shinsou, her collaboration with him, and where she had been all this time… she had always been here, in this fortress in the center of the universe. "And if she wants to get out, she can anytime she wants."

"Anytime… she wants? And, pupil?" Midoriya mouthed those words in a low voice that almost broke Uraraka's heart, who despite all her hatred and frustration, only wanted to explain herself and redeem herself– she hated this. "What is he talking about, Uraraka?"

She hated this feeling. She hated feeling guilty for seeking power, for wanting to find answers. His voice was vulnerable, trying to approach her, wanting answers with a question so innocent and blind she wanted to cry. They always pulled at their bonds to make her feel guilty, and it broke her heart to see herself so weak, so desperate to make people who hurt her happy. She hated them.

She hated them so much.

"Shut up." she murmured, her eyes shadowed by her hair. "Shut up!"

Aizawa turned from her to her peers. "She seems agitated... she always gets riled up by the truth. She was always rather fidgety and a bit volluble, but I sure never expected her to get this irritated." Uraraka audibly hissed at his almost chiding tone. Why was he looking down on her so much?

She tugged at the chains once more. "Shut up, just shut up already!" her voice was ragged with emotion, raw, with almost pure boiling ire contained inside of it and a familiar gleam of ferocity in her eyes that had never been there before. Aizawa could see that fickle fire start to thrive inside of her, and that was exactly what he seeked.

His plan, her punishment, her fate, was about to be set into motion. Midoriya, seeing that this man wasn't going to attack them, drew his sword in, slightly worried because he had never seen her so agitated. Uraraka was fierce and restless in the battlefield, but she wasn't as raging and biting as what Aizawa was making her to be. Or what those chains were making her to be, for that matter.

He tasted it in the air, he felt it in his bones– something was terribly wrong in that picture.

"Uraraka, what's going on!?" asked Kirishima, aware that if he took a step forward, he'd probably be stopped. "What is this man talking about?"

Aizawa, walking a few feet forward, chuckled. "It's funny you all think this is my fault. Am I in charge? Indeed. But this is not my fault. If anything, it's hers."

Unsurprisingly, a very hard yank of the chains was met with his statement. "Me!? How can it be me!? I didn't even know of this issue when I arrived to the village! You are making no damn sense, Aizawa!"

She saw every of her peers mouth his name, as if trying to remember if they had heard it somewhere. Nothing else came out of it.

"That's what you think, Uraraka. But that's not the matter now." he looked back to her friends, and shoved his hands in his pants. "You kids should be thanking me. As soon as I free her, which I won't, things will get ugly. I don't care if they get ugly for me. I won't die here, that's for sure."

Oh, he would. Uraraka would make sure he was buried ten feet below the ground, in a lead chest without a key to set him free. Demons like him, manipulative cunning masters like him should be burnt to ashes and blown away with the winds. Yet, there he stood, talking vague as if the world depended on it.

Perhaps it actually did.

Before the sorcerer could mumble another word of resentment, Aizawa spoke again. "Uraraka is out to get my blood. However, as soon as she has my head on a silver platter, she will point her staff at you and finally conclude the mission she was created for."

The accusation sounded so grossly unreal nobody believed him. Even if what he said was partly true, Uraraka couldn't help but feel elated her friends had so much faith in her. It was a shame, though, because I would make her task harder on the long run. "Stop saying such lies! Uraraka is our friend, she would never attack us!"

Those words… they were too much for her, because at this point in the story, they made no sense anymore. Too many mistakes had been made, the threads had been twisted too far, her faith had been pushed too far by one too many. She didn't want to hear that anymore.

Her fingers curled around the warming chains. "Shut it…"

Yaoyorozu took a step forward. "We know she did shady things in the past but… all she has done is help us! She would never do that, she would never betray our trust like this!" she wasn't met with any halting gesture from Aizawa, which encouraged her to continue. "She is not a villain, she loves us just as much as we love her!"

That word… love. The feeling of love. A feeling that she hadn't felt in so long.. a feeling she had longed for, a feeling she once felt for a certain blonde, and in another way for a group of smiling people. Time had passed, she had been told things weren't easy, that they were impossible when she had only wanted a home to belong.

Nobody in this world would give her a home.

All she could do then was make herself a home of her own, a little orange house in a gray field. "Shut up…"

"She is tiny, but she is badass!" said Kirishima, his tone laced with incredulity and hoping whatever mess they had gotten themselves into would come clearer if they got her to calm down. What did she have to do with… with this madness, with this hellhole, with this haven and with this man? He had insinuated she was his pupil, so could it be she…? "We think she's amazing! And we know her better than you!"

Oh, that was just utter bullshit. Even Aizawa almost grinned at this easily breakable notion. They were such fools. "Shut up…" she whimpered.

Please, don't make this more difficult.

Please, don't let our bond get in the middle of what's fair.

Please, don't let our bond break her resolve. Don't test me. Don't make me kneel down. Stop.

Stop making me feel weak.

Stop making me cry!

Before somebody could speak again, she grabbed both chains and tried to fling herself out of her restraints. "I said shut up!"

Everyone turned their eyes to the heaving figure at the back, who was panting and her grip on the chains was shaking, as if hesitating. Oh, that hesitation, that thunder before the storm. Whenever he head the chains rattle, Aizawa would almost shudder in pleasure. It always felt good when missions went as planned.

Because this life was just that: a mission.

He allowed Uraraka to speak. "You…" her voice was almost hoarse. "you guys have no idea about anything! Stop presuming everything you know about me, I'm… I'm tired of this!" her fingers rolled stronger around the metal chains, her hands almost hurting at the grind between the material and her skin. "Stop making me weak, stop making me doubt! I was fine on my own, I was… I was just fine!"

But even a few meters away from them, her in the light and them in the darkness, she knew she had always been alone.

Her shoulders trembled, and her voice was losing its ferocity in favor of a raw emotion that was trembling to be freed. "Stop making me hesitate... stop trying to make me forget about the oblivion, about the loneliness, about my broken heart… about my parents. About the war... "

The mention of war made Aizawa finally acknowledge her directly. "There you go. When you talk things out with your friends, things always become easier, don't they?" Uraraka raised her eyes to him to bare her teeth at that maniac, a bastard she wouldn't hesitate to kill the moment she found a way out. "I thought you'd never speak coherently again, Ochako."

"O...Ochako?" it was Kirishima's voice who came out and spoke. "Why is that name so familiar?"

Aizawa didn't show any reaction to this. "Maybe another time, another story. Maybe some other day, you'll hear the full story. But it's time her feelings came out… her true feelings."

Uraraka hadn't even watched her words, but this was the first time she felt like what she was saying was completely legitimate and genuine. However, she had heard of this phenomena. Her feelings… they weren't hers, but at the same time, they weren't. Perhaps not only things and people were being overlapped and enmeshed as timelines met and tangled.

Maybe, feelings got in the way, too. Something was starting to change within her.

Her body grew tense as her comrades' faces fell. Kirishima was particularly thoughtful, she could tell. For some reason, he was awfully familiar to her as well. Perhaps they were letting her tell the full story by herself.

Her head fell slightly. Despite her thoughts, despite the spiking emotions that were beating at a painful stacatto within her heart, she still decided to direct her spit towards Aizawa. "Stop talking. It's been enough."

"It clearly hasn't." because she hadn't snapped yet. The bomb within her hadn't detonated yet, and no matter the painful consequences, he was certain everything yet nothing would change. They'd go back to the beginning. She'd go back to the beginning. "You need to watch out for your words Uraraka… you could hurt somebody even further. More than what you're about to do."

Shut up.

Shut up.

Just shut up!

"RampAge was born for you to defeat him over and over again, an endless cycle that will never end. How many innocent people have to get hurt for you to put an end to this mess, Ochako?"

Her control was slowly slipping away. It would only take so much time before she finally gave up and fought the exhaustion to set herself free and get rid of that man just like she had set herself to do. Uraraka was about to tell him to stop talking, to stop pushing her further, because she knew she was under his control all the time and he was using her once more via provocation for his dark business.

It was very likely what she wanted to do was also what he wanted to do. And she'd die before becoming his indirect ally.

However, before she could even blink, she head the sound of a familiar big blade being drawn in Aizawa's direction. She raised her head to be met with blistering red eyes, trembling eyebrows, burning glare and his face shrunk to a face of pure and uncontained fury.

"Let her go this fucking instant, you dipshit." his voice was hoarse, possessive and fierce in a way that made Uraraka's heart flutter– and the rage within her, the hatred she felt for this burning affection throbbed within her like a canon being fired. But still, like she fool she was, she gasped in surprise, because that tone of his was new.

Bakugou could bite, but he never killed. It seemed like he'd go through with it, this time.

Aizawa wasn't at all scared by his blade, which looked scary as hell under the dim light of the storm outside. Thunder rolled in and struck with a flash of lightning. "I thought Shinsou would probably get rid of you before we did."

Bakugou gave him a wolfish smirk full of confidence, which only proved to her he didn't know who he was going against. Or, maybe he was even stronger than she anticipated, which would only make things worse. "He was pure talk and no bite. You could have trained your dog a bit better."

His words made her gulp at the implication. It seemed like Shinsou had been already taken care of, which represented the countdown to the victims that would lay here. Thinking about it, only a winner would prevail. Either Aizawa and the guild were spared and Uraraka won or the guild won and got rid of Aizawa and potentially her when they discovered her true intentions.

Or at least, they believed Aizawa when he spoke about her intentions. For some reason, knowing Aizawa was the direct villain here, there was no way he'd win. But she still wanted to make sure she was the one to bury him alive.

Aizawa only turned to her, ignoring Bakugou completely. "Everyone is here, Uraraka. As expected, we have gathered them all in one place. I think it's time you finally do what you're supposed to do."

His words resonated within her with a nostalgic echo she had never felt before, making her almost stagger in her decision. Her fury diluted into confusion and hesitation at what he meant. Her guildmates looked at him, then at her, probably in search of any reaction. What could she say, though, when everything had been said?

"This place is about to collapse. The time has finally come for you to decide what to do with all of this, Ochako." everytime he said that name, it felt like a small pang, a needle, was fired at her heart, which was swelling to burst. "Your hatred for these people is not yours, no matter what it feels like. You don't hate them, do you?"

Oh no. Her voice lowered to an almost inaudible whisper, her fingers rolled around the chains, feeling magic being released inside of her. "Shut up."

"Your heart is betraying your mind, your memories. It's all getting mixed. The time has come for you to do something, Ochako!" he yelled, instigating her hatred, her fierceness, her magic to start to thrive within her and sky-rocket at a staggering speed. The fire was starting to raise. "If you don't do something, you will never save them, Ochako! No matter the hatred, no matter the resentment…"

Don't say it.

She gripped the chains one last time.

Don't say it.

"No matter your feelings, if you don't save them and free them from the future pain… if you don't do it, the pain they'll feel later will be unmeasurable! You're the only one who can save them, you want to save them, no matter the resentment, no matter the hatred–!"

That was enough.

Before he could articulate another word, a familiar cling came from her side. Suddenly and at a flash speed, spikes of ice started covering the complicated cob of chains that tied her to the wall, freezing the metal restraints in place and making them weak to the touch. Uraraka glared at him one last time, fire in her eyes, before tugging at the chains and shattering them in pieces, wrapping her in a fog of flying shards of frozen metal.

Everyone was mesmerized but also horrified at the display of raw power. Their hearts beat one last time, throbbed as a warning of the display of dominance she was exercising. Her hair was getting lighter, her eyes were gleaming, and her clothes were becoming clearer, lighter as well.

Uraraka landed with a somber expression on the ground and directed a running chain of ice spikes towards the man that had caused her so much pain, towards the man that had put her in this place, and he was consumed by the frost a second later in a pillar of smooth ice. Still, through the translucent surface, Uraraka could distinguish an arrogant smile.

I'll be back. He would say. I always come back.

Nobody dared murmur a word as she summoned a surge of magic in her hand and made the big shard of ice containing the man blow up in pieces with a flash of blinding light. The impact made them all take a step back as wind picked up inside the fortress, and small embers of fire flew in the air and past her whitening hair.

When the fog cleared up, she was giving them her back. Uraraka stared at the small mound of ice that was left, and Aizawa was nowhere to be seen. She remained silent, and a clap of thunder echoed in the distance. The final battle, the real one, was about to begin.

It was time she purged this Earth of their mistakes, and at the same time, spared her friends from the destruction that was to ensue.

Kirishima stared at her, speechless. "Why… why hasn't that transformation dropped out?"

Midoriya could only reach one possible conclusion.

"That's because the enemy wasn't Aizawa." she slowly looked back at them from over her shoulder, frowning. "It's us."

The girl slowly turned around, coming face to face with her friends. An intricate seal appeared at her feet that made her hair get up and float around her, and her eyes only shone brighter. The world was about to come to an end.

"My master is dead... the world is disappearing, there is nothing left in this world for me to do." she whispered, eyes closed as she focused her magic under her feet. A light shine was settling around her body, like a glow, like a halo. "I will do what I was born to do! We will settle the fate of this world, together, tonight, in this final battle!"

She pointed her glowing hand at them with a fierce scowl.

"If you win, it shall remain… but if I do, I shall set this world free!"

Lighting struck as a new villain was born to their eyes.

---

The storm was only getting worse and worse. It was getting hard to walk in the battlefield, and not because of the few soldiers that still remained, but because of the foul weather that threatened to destroy the very lands they were walking on. Mina and Katsuki panted in the blizzard, eyes squinted, searching for the familiar figures of their friends.

Excepting one was actually an ally and the other… that was up to time to decide.

"I can't see a damn thing." rasped Katsuki out, gritting his teeth to advance through the mud, one step at a time. The wind barely let anyone walk, or even see for that matter. The ground was starting to gather a solid amount of muddy snow that would soon transition to sheer white.

It was also getting eerily cold, as well, and he could tell Mina was starting to suffer the consequences of that. The girl stopped to a halt, her hands covering her arms, shivering, because had they expected this weather and they would have used better gear. But nobody had. Why the hell would anybody host a war in the middle of a blizzard? It made no sense.

Katsuki could very well dare say the only people standing up the the battlefield were him, Mina and Kirishima, and very possibly Ochako. There was no way this blizzard was natural, and judging by how it was getting harsher, they were getting close to the eye of the hurricane.

What they didn't know was if they'd be met with sunny weather or a fierce thunderstorm. The battlefield had had enough thunder, very likely without her help. Bodies were becoming scarce as they trudged onwards, but the blood seeped towards the source of the storm like a magnet, or like a river naturally branching to the ocean. They were walking on ice, blood and mud.

The war had stopped long ago, and it had had no apparent winner. But unbeknownst to Katsuki and Mina, there was another hidden and darker wan threatening far out of their reach.

Mina almost fell to her knees. "Katsuki, we can't go any further! The blizzard is only becoming more and more intense! We can't go any further!" bellowed she through the wind, and in that moment, the blazzard fell a notch faster on them, making the blonde also stop to shake forming frost off his body. "We need to find shelter!"

He turned to her with a scowl, hands balled into fists. "Where the fuck are we supposed to find shelter!? There's nothing left here! The war, the blizzard… maybe it would have fucking been better if we were stabbed by some lousy guard." he hated to see this, but the realistic part of him wasn't seeing any realistic way out of this mess.

The war had left no survivors, or houses, or civilians to live with. It was safe to assume, again, that only the four old friends were the last standing, with one wrecking the little land they had left. Everywhere he looked at, there was devastation, and seeing how the storm was only getting worse, it felt like the war would never end.

He stopped walking, too, panting. But the blizzard was still falling harder, faster, stronger, no matter where they moved. The chaos seemed to reach as far as the eyes could see, temperatures dropping, houses being destroyed at the storm's wake, and as Katsuki felt the frost fall harder on his skin, that could only mean one thing.

"We aren't getting closer to her." rasped he out, clutching his chest at the strain of the walk through the wind. "She is getting closer to us."

Just in that moment, Katsuki and Mina heard something. It was incredibly faint, almost inaudible, but considering the lands had been silent ever since the last building fell down except for the wind, any noise of human presence was picked up easily.

Steps made the forming snow crunch. A figure was slowly, calmly walking towards them with a eerie pace. Mina and Katsuki waited, receiving the roar of the storm on their faces like a hungry dragon seeking food, seeking a prey. They grunted in discomfort, trying their hardest to stand still and wait to see what presented itself.

Squinting, Katsuki started to make out a silhouette. It was faded to grey, lurking in the middle of the blizzard and hidden by the falling hail, but he could distinguish its identity perfectly. Hands slouched on either side of her body, one could think that she wasn't doing anything to provoke this storm, but this hatred, this fierce wind… it could only be her doing.

She took a step out of the cloud of fog surrounding her body. "They fell for it." said her frail voice. "Humans can be so easily provoked, and the aliens… oh, they are incredibly foolish as well."

Suddenly, the winds changed direction and seemed to come from behind the pair of warriors and towards the figure. The winds spun in a whirl and took the hail with them, leaving only a heavy rainfall behind as Ochako walked slowly towards them on the snow, the blizzard slowly fading away.

Katsuki took a look at his surroundings without tearing his eyes away from her, lest she did something funny. There were no trees left. There were no houses left. There was nothing left other than the ruins of a civilization destroyed by the storm, by the greed, and by the sins of two nations seeking power. One could say the clash had ended the story, but…

All that there was left was snow that spread beyond reach. Snow, and her.

"Cover this land in white…" she took another step. The rain kept on falling. Her voice was almost a lullaby. "Wipe the impurities away…"

And then, she stopped. Her hands were still slack on either side of her body and it was just so fucking hard to think she had caused this mess, this massive destruction. But she had. He knew the taste of her powers, the reach of her magic. This blizzard had been what had ended the war. The storm had crushed both armies with a steel fist, one so silent and now so calm it was terribly jarring to witness.

They knew of the rage she held within her, the need for revenge. She had succeeded, hadn't she? Then, what was left to do?

Katsuki stood a few meters from her, as did Mina. Both stood there, waiting, stances relaxed as if they were to greet a friend. Her words held the weight of not a friend, but.. she didn't look like a friend anymore.

"Ochako." Katsuki pronounced her name carefully as if it had the power to destroy the world. "What are you doing…?"

Or rather: what had she done?

"I thought everyone would be gone by now… it would have been better if you guys stood back and watched, it would have saved you a lot of pain."

She slowly took out a small dagger with dry blood on the blade, which gleamed under a clap of thunder and the strike of lightning. Katsuki watched her wield the small weapon carefully, eyes wide like saucers, because he would have never expected her of all people, the sweet and innocent Nameless to finally put a sword to his neck.

It couldn't be.

"Ochako…" Mina whispered, her eyes incredulous as the girl pointed the dagger at them. "You… you can't!"

The girl's eyes gleamed with something dangerous, and with another clap of lighting, the spoke.

"It's over." she mumbled, her tone like a delicate cobweb of pure iron. "I will put this world to the disgraced end it deserves… and end things right here– all of us, gathered in one place."

---

Bakugou's blood ran cold when he heard Uraraka pronounce those words– what on earth was she talking about?

"Uraraka!" called he, teeth gritted as her emotions flowed relentlessly within her. She stared into his soul with a precision that only foreshadowed disgrace and pain. "What the fuck are you on about? Snap out of it!"

What the fuck was wrong with her? Everything was happening too fast and his mind was barely processing it all. Blood and adrenaline pumped in his veins and made his head throb, his heart soar and his eyes be terrified for her. He glanced around him quickly, and he didn't see the ferocity of a guild attacking an enemy.

No. Instead, he saw the mild hesitation of a guild that didn't want to be forced to attack a friend.

But Uraraka seemed to have other plans. "Shut up!" she screamed, her tone grave and authoritarian, like that of a general in battle– like that of a god facing humanity, somebody holding the threads together that was about to snap them loose.

Uraraka raised her hand in the air and a big, black and spiky staff appeared out of thin air, and whilst catching it, the magic heave of the object made slight wind wake up around them. She stared at them in blank decision, taking slow steps towards them, hair waving slightly around her.

She made the staff tap the ground and with that, a cackle of fearsome power dissipated into the ground. Kirishima tried to make her stop, but… "Uraraka, stop! You're not–!"

"Didn't you hear me!?" screamed she, stopping to grab the staff tighter. "I told you to be quiet!"

She pounded the staff on the ground and from it emanated a branching frost that made the air cold around her, and the biting ice made its way to each and every one of the members of the guild to the rhythm of invisible drums. The could taste the slight flavor of victory in the cold climate around her, because it was fated she would win.

She would purge the sin, the evil, and spare her companions from all the pain she was about to inflict. After all… Aizawa was right. Ochako could hate humankind as much as she wanted, but no matter what feelings Uraraka knew of, she didn't feel them with the fervor she had once believed.

She hated humankind. She hated evil, she hated corruption, and while Bakugou and Midnight had planted the seed for her plan, deep inside… it was still hard to inflict pain in people you had grown warm to. It was so unfair of them to exist in such rotten species, and in her state of rage, she couldn't make any decisions.

But she knew what she had to do.

She had to destroy.

She had to destroy them all, and spare them like that. In the middle of the violence, that's the least she owed them.

Uraraka shifted her eyes to see the ice quickly reaching some of the warriors and making them gasp in horror, but while it succeeded in grabbing a few, another bunch had cut the surge of ice into pieces with their weapons. The mage made a small hum at the failure of her quick plan, but didn't double down.

She stood there, observing their reactions. When they realized that some of their peers had been frozen – Iida, Tokoyami, Asui – was when their faces dropped in horror and then looked at Uraraka as if they hadn't expected it, and she also saw the hesitation that had been there before die.

It was now when they realized that Uraraka was far from joking, and that as Aizawa had said, she was their more fearsome enemy. The reality of it all was so jarring they needed to know why. Todoroki, seeing the horrified, betrayed expression left behind in Iida, frowned at her with that ferocity she was more used to see. "What have you done!? We are your friends, Uraraka!"

The line between enemies and friends was thinner than hair, she wanted to say. But perhaps they wouldn't understand that she was doing it for them, and also for herself.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a fury induced Midoriya charge at her with all his might, his ability kicking in as his body was lighted up in sparks. Without a single hint of doubt, she lighted her right arm in flames and decisively punched the man on the stomach, sending him flying to the wall.

Several screamed his name. Others were just utterly confused. As Uraraka looked over her shoulder as flames floated around her and died, she met Bakugou's eyes, those wine, trembling orbs of his that stared at her in disbelief, but also with a throbbing betrayal that fell cold on her body. Out of them all, he had never expected this turn of events, and Uraraka could see the lingering question in his eyes that his mouth couldn't speak.

Why?

She turned fully to them, her stance unwavering. "I won't lose. It's fated to happen this way again." her voice was quiet unlike anything her friends had ever heard from her. She looked so tiny, but the power in her eyes and her voice made her terrifyingly big. "This world was already destroyed before I came in. Humans, criminals, mages… it doesn't matter."

Her scowl fell deeper, and her eyes turned even clearer with a malice that had never been before– or, perhaps, it had been there and nobody had noticed, and it had been growing stronger and stronger after each and every dent into her faith.

Midnight's actions. Bakugou's heartbreak. Ochako's life. She hated humankind. She hated these people but… she also wanted to thank them for the journey. Not even these people could make her turn back on her decision, but she would take it on her own hands to kill them, get her revenge for the pain they had inflicted and at the same time, save them.

In a beautiful irony, she would save them from the pain. She would purge their species, but almost clement, she'd give them the honor of sparing their lives with a clean death. Nobody but her could remain alive.

"All races are just a manifestation of greed and evil." she spoke, somber. "You should thank me for ridding the Earth of the weight of such species. Perhaps, one day, we can meet again, and you'll thank me from taking you out of this helpless world of despair."

Stop.

Something throbbed within her, making her head pound, speaking through all the confusion in her heart, through the hatred and the love. Stop, it begged, sobbing deep inside of her, please, stop.

But she couldn't stop. These people… these people she still felt love for… they had misjudged her, they had… No, the voice sobbed, trembling within her, making her suddenly stop speaking and grow even colder, you're making a mistake! You… you don't hate!

But she did. Oh, she did. She tried to shake the voice away, gritting her teeth and growing even tenser and angrier as her feelings grew even more and more confusing, and her voice grew in intensity. "I won't back down ever again! This world is no more than a lie!" a seal shone under her feet, making her hair float again.

Bakugou took his sword out, and as she spoke, looked outside again. It didn't look like the world outside had a way to thaw itself out of its frozen shell, and perhaps it was indeed fated to remain that way. But he wouldn't back down without a fight– a fight to make her recover the old, tired heart he had fallen for, and get her to solve this mess.

In the end, he was wrong. They had been too late, and killing Aizawa had done little to nothing about the issue. "Uraraka, you gotta fucking listen to us! You are making a mistake!"

He was saying the same as that voice that was making her doubt and she wouldn't have that! "Shut up! You are the ones who have made too many mistakes! And I won't let this world suffer your sins any longer!"

The seal shone bright and then spread all across the room, making the Earth shake under her once more. Her body trembled once, and then, a wave of power rippled from within her as it pounded to be released, running through the air and making the warriors fall on their backs with grunts of pain. Uraraka then panted and clutched her chest.

Please, quivered a small, pitched voice, small and frightened, stop. You don't want to do this, there has to be a way out!

There is no way out, she knew. That hopeful fraction of her heart was not in charge, and knew nothing of the situation. She raised her hand in the air, fingers stuck together to summon a blaze of arrows pointed in their direction, her stare blank and lost in her own confusing maze of feelings.

Perhaps it was better if this whirlwind of emotions was put to rest before it took over her.

And for that, Uraraka needed to get rid of her enemies, her friends, the hinders on the road. Time was slowing down around her, as if warning her that she was running out of time. She wasn't giving them any time to react, and as soon as their bodies fell on the ground, she was attacking again.

She flung her arm in their direction, and the arrows pierced through the air to reach the warriors, making her turn her head at the horrid spectacle. She heard a familiar scream of pain, and then, a body falling to the ground, blonde hair being tainted with crimson.

Only a few left. When she turned back, her friends were looking at her as if she was… a monster, eyes trembling and shock written all over her features. Now they knew there was no way to stop her.

Clutching her staff to her chest, she walked forward again, and two of the five that were still alive dared charge towards her, half a body set in flames with a scream of anger, and another with daggers poking out of her body. But their fate was exactly the same.

In a flash, their bodies were thoroughly stabbed to the stomach with the blink of an eye, and as Uraraka walked towards the other three, their bodies fell to the ground like lifeless corpses, and while her heart winced at the noise, she felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The more people that died, the more space her resolve took in her heart. The more she killed, the more peaceful with her mission she felt.

"Their anger…" she took another step that splashed on the blood, voice lost in an echo. "is fated to die like a candle. It won't last much longer… This world is getting weaker and weaker."

Bakugou stared at the pool of blood around her, his body shaking at the sheer horror this naïve creature had caused. "Uraraka…" he whispered in disbelief. "why… how did you do that?"

Uraraka had no clear answer to that, as flashing through time and speed was like instinct to her. The twisted threads of her marionette body, the ones she had tangled to skillfully to confuse the gods above– they knew of no theory, just magic and death.

Bakugou looked too horrified and shocked to say anything else, as if he didn't want to admit that she had been the one to twist the threads of time further into this chaos. It couldn't be, could it? But… the ice magic, her inhuman speed; it all could mean one thing.

She stared in silence, and the little voice within her spoke no longer.

Bakugou's eyes were covered with his bangs. "You…" he grabbed his sword tighter, his shoulders shaking. "I should have fucking known!"

Uraraka stared at him with a blank expression, crowned with a frown of dismay. Perhaps he should have known but… her intentions weren't bad, were they? She had an ireful spirit squirming for release, and a small white flame within her puting it at ease, but with the little cackle of a match, it would set her body in flames.

She could feel the world becoming colder, number.

The time was coming to an end.

Bakugou was looking at her with a glare that would have made her run away some time ago, but not anymore. The voices of her ancestors were telling her to claim what was hers. This whole world was hers, right now. These people before her were not only hateful, sinful, nasty, evil, but they were also inferior to her.

For Uraraka, one thing was clear: if she knew something was possible, she would go all the way to the goal. In doing what she had set to do, not only would she punish them for their sins, but she would also save them and thank them for the happy memories she cherished.

Right? That was what she had to do, right?

No, you don't! screamed the weak voice within her, you can cease this! You're making the same mistake again!

Same mistake? She didn't pay attention to that.

Uraraka blinked her eyes into focus, aware of the metallic smell around her, the grunting of Todoroki and Yaoyorozu at either side of her body, on the ground. If they so desired, they could grab her ankle and push her to the ground. She knew they wouldn't, and if they did, it wouldn't matter, because she would still win.

Aizawa had once said there would never be any other destiny but for her to win, no matter what she did. In the wrong or in the right, she was invincible.

Maybe with her mission she'd also bring an end to her own existence. With all the pain carried within her, perhaps it'd be better to bury it with the debris of this nightmare than to release it and hurt her loved ones. Knowing her luck, knowing how destiny hated her, perhaps she would be left to writhe in the ruins of this world for eternities on end.

She wouldn't die, and she was fine with that. She'd use her energy, all her magic, to prune this place into oblivion, and maybe her body would take her somewhere else. Maybe, she could finally go home– to her parents, in a gray rainy lonely hill.

Curiously enough, she realized that the only ones left standing were Bakugou, Kirishima, and Mina.

Distant, treacherous and dark rain loomed over them.

Mina took a careful step towards her. She didn't know why she was alive, but she'd make good use of it. "U-Uraraka, please! You don't need to go on doing this!" her expression was pure panic and anguish washed into one. Her boots tapped on the ground. "C'mon, we can go home, okay?"

Home? What home did she know of? Uraraka wanted to laugh, but instead, she remained silent for a little, letting Mina come to her slowly, but not with the intention of letting herself be appeased– but with the intention of letting her bite into the bait.

Kirishima only realized this too late. "Mina, pull back! She is not herself, right now!"

The archer looked back for a second, and only looked at Uraraka again when she heard a small step coming in her direction. "You guys are incredibly stupid, sometimes. There's something you haven't realized just yet…"

Mina only stared. The solid color in her eyes told Uraraka that she had a blind faith in the golden heart of her dear mage. Humans like her could not see the good in her wrong actions, the good will in her heart. To them, to the good heroes, she was just a villain. And to her, the hero, they were the villains for pulling on her strings.

Who was the good one? Uraraka didn't know. She took a step in Mina's direction and raised her hand up in the air, a big black scythe falling on her hand, which she gave a spin in her hand and perched it on her shoulder, walking to her with a deepening frown. With a kick to the ground, she made the ground quake and the pink-haired girl fall to the floor on her back.

"What you guys don't know…" she loomed over Mina, a nostalgic bleak atmosphere wrapping around them. "Is that this is who I truly am!" she brought her scythe up, about to make a gruesome judgement, her unblinking eyes staring back at Mina's fearful, horrified ones. "And that this… I'm doing this for you, I'm going to save you!"

But every human was afraid of death, even the bravest ones. Death was a weird concept, one that made heads swim and tears leak, but Uraraka would show them what the true meaning of honor death was. They'd die without pain, and by the hands of somebody who loved them.

The girl was about to swing the scythe down. The small voice within her started trashing even more to a degree Uraraka's sight clouded momentarily and got to her head, and suddenly, came the voice of the terrified girl below her, reaching with a gentle hand into her heart and starting to tug at the threads of her complicated maze of a mind.

"Please, don't do this…!"

The scythe was swung down, and Mina screamed, tears of a forgotten family leaking out of her eyes, with a bellow that almost conquered the whole fortress, the whole country, the whole universe, and reached Uraraka like thunder and a drum.

"...sister!"

Uraraka's breath hitched and got stuck in her throat.

The scythe stopped.

---

"Ochako, stop!"

She didn't. She wouldn't stop anymore.

Heavy gray rainfall fell on her shoulders like the tears of a little boy, making her even more aware of her surroundings, her senses sharper than ever before. She flashed through the battlefield to meet them and attempt to swipe them out of her view, her ire unstoppable, but they jumped away from her way quickly enough.

She panted, then chuckled shakily as she turned to them. "So I gotta stop now, huh? Why didn't anyone tell those greedy captains of yours to stop when they slaughtered my family, huh!? I bet even you two knew about this all along!"

She made a sharp turn that made rain momentarily stop, and then kick in their direction with the shape of a watery sharp blade that dissolved with a slice of Katsuki's sword. Ochako watched her magic fade and gave her dagger a few twirls, almost too calm, her eyes shadowed by a glare of unconcealed anger.

"Stop resisting." she ordered, staring them down, taking a step in their direction. Her eyes swept to the right, to the left, raindrops cackling on the bodies of falling warriors. She didn't know if that putrid metallic smell came from their armors or the blood under her feet, but it only made the scene the more suiting. This havoc, this victory…

Her plan was brimming with ecstasy. She was going to win and it felt so.. good.

"Sister, you don't know what you are saying!" screamed Mina, gritting her teeth as she grabbed an arrow and bow. At this, Ochako stopped in her tracks, and for a second, Mina's breath hitched, thinking she had made a dent in her plan. The alien girl pressed an arrow to the thread of her bow. "Don't make me do it!"

Katsuki looked at his comrade. Her hands… they were shaking. Her whole stance was, in fact, shaking– but Ochako didn't see this. The sad, nostalgic sound of rain was all around them, soaking their bodies, but never dampening their resolve. Ochako wouldn't bend down, and nor would they.

Ochako only frowned at her sister. At the girl she had grown up with. Glared at her as if she was a stranger, or worse, as if she was nothing more than an enemy. "Get out of my way, Mina. The quicker I do this, the faster I'll…"

She trailed off for some reason, because deep inside, she didn't really wish to harm them. But this world… it wasn't worth keeping around when it was inhabited by such monsters. Humans and aliens were painfully alike, and she didn't want any of it anymore. In her state of madly driven revenge, she blamed all her disgraces in every walking being she put her eyes on.

Sadly, that didn't exclude Katsuki, the man she loved, and Mina, the woman she once called a sister. They were her friends, but alas, they were monsters too.

Mina let out a small grunt of frustration and finally tensed the arrow. Ochako took another step further. "If you don't kill me, I'll kill you. And you know this, sister." she almost said the name with venom, for she wanted to provoke her to speed things up. "I will not stop. And you know this."

At this, both frowned at her, disappointed. Ochako's body was hemmed in with fog and a cold tetric rain, but it didn't stop them from seeing her true colors through the darkness that was plaguing her heart.

Mina let out a small scream and finally let go of the arrow, sending it soaring towards the girl in a wobbly attempt to kill her. The arrow sliced the air, flew through the rain, and was aimed straight towards Ochako. However, it only grazed her left ear and chopped a few hairs from her bangs off.

The arrow landed somewhere else. The rain only got fiercer, and as Ochako took another step in her direction, the fog followed her, soaring up like claws of a dragon climbing from a cliff.

Ochako stared harder at them, taking a step forward. "Your aim got weak, Mina. But don't worry… if we meet somewhere else, I'm sure you will thank me for this."

And with that, Ochako surged forward like a shooting star, charging power into one hand to knock Mina back with the power of a meteorite, and made the alien land a good distance away, knocked into the ruins of a house. Ochako skidded to a halt on the snowy, bloody mud, the thick white fog agitated and moving at her wake.

In order to finish her off, Ochako had planned to summon thunder and burn the remains to a crisp, but she heard the small steps coming in her direction and spun around in time to stop Katsuki's blade form beheading her, using her now iron-covered hand to grab his blade.

The girl turned around slowly, facing him with a deadpan glare as she grabbed the blade with her fingers, her grasp trembling as he made more force. "Hey, that's tricky." almost laughed he, but his ironic chuckle quickly turned into a frown as he saw she was not quitting it. "What the fuck is wrong with you!?"

She made a small noise, akin to a growl, and used her grip on the blade to give Katsuki a big kick on the stomach, making him land on the ground. She took careful steps in his direction, and the boy watched.

Her body was framed by the thick fog, twilight knocking in and shining above her through the stormy clouds. The background was gray, bleak with remaining mountains. An eternal weak gleam sticked to them as the moon bestowed a last chance to make things right. The rain was getting almost thundering at this point, and when Ochako was looming over him, it was soaking and digging into her shoulders.

The twinkle in her eyes he had once secretly fallen for was gone, and he could only think it had to be a hard burden to deal with, an empty heart like hers. He wished he didn't understand. "Ochako, what the hell… what do you plan after this, huh!? Can you fucking see what you have done!?"

She blinked at him as if she didn't understand. "This world was already destroyed before I came in. Humans, aliens… it doesn't matter. All races are just a manifestation of greed and evil." she stated, her voice dead, monotone, unlike anything he had ever heard before.

He was now sure of it.

She and him were the last ones standing.

And he knew: soon enough, the only one standing would be her. And he couldn't understand why.

"Shut the fuck up!" he quickly recovered from her kick and leaped up to try and kick her back, but the girl jumped out of reach before he could even graze her. "You're being nonsensical! What's the damn point in doing all of this, you fucking dumbass!? Just some petty revenge!?"

He watched her jump back and take his sword out again, holding it up. Her hand was slowly morphing into skin again and he felt like she was straight up insulting him. What point was she fucking trying to prove? That she was stronger? Was she actually mocking him and showing him she could be meaner than this?

Katsuki growled, because if there was something he could not stand was people mocking and looking down on him, and when Katsuki got angry, things weren't destined to end well.

Ochako promptly threw the weapon back at him, making Katsuki get more fired up. "It's not your business, Katsuki. None of this was ever anyone's business!" she exclaimed, wiping her cloak back to emphasize her point. She stared at him through the heavy rainfall and he could only catch his sword, observing her.

He dipped his head forward slightly, frowning. "You are just another fucking alien. I don't give a fuck what your skin color is, you're still another freak like them." he heard her hiss. "Look at what you have fucking done here! There's nothing left for you to walk on, you dumbass!"

Shut up.

Shut up!

"Stop talking already!" she put both her feet on the mud, walking to him, then getting into a fighting scene before dashing forward, taking to him in a flash, but he jumped out of her way faster, his quick reflexed coming into view. Upon landing again, he realized the ground was getting wetter and wetter.

Soon, they'd be fighting in a swamp. "Ochako, you're being ridiculous!" she came at him again, not giving it a rest, and when he successfully avoided her, she came to a halted skid and jumped up with a summersault, landing behind him and giving him a kick that sent him meters away.

His body rolled in the air and landed with a hard thud and a groan of pain. Katsuki had been walking, fighting the storm for… days, hours, he didn't know anymore– but he needed it to end. There was nothing left for him to fight, and even if he turned her to his side again, where would they even live at this point?

The moment Ochako got hang of the threads of this world, she had won. She had won before the war had even begun. Her storm had ended all living beings in this planet– the trees were naked, the soldiers were dead, and both fighting families had been rightfully obliterated.

Because in her head, if she couldn't have a home, nobody would.

In the distance, he heard the flash of thunder as a weapon was drawn. Splatters of steps were coming his way, wet and muddy, silenced by the fall of rain. He groaned a bit and opened his eyes. His cheek was laying against the mud, cold and wet. His hair was matted down, his eyes dulling, and a small sound rasping through his throat.

Her distant, cold and shadowed figure advanced through the cold mist, making her look more like the reaper she had become. Her body emerged from the steamy cocoon, and when he saw her again, she had a bigger, sharper and darker dagger in her dainty hand.

But this time, there was a difference,

Her shoulders were shaking.

She was crying. Her tears were masked by the rain, but her sobs were loud enough for his sharp ears to notice. He didn't move from his spot, his body slacked. There was nothing to fight for anymore.

And in a way, she seemed to be realizing this as well.

Her voice came in a wobbly whimper. "You're right." she said, standing next to him, her weapon trembling in her hand, her eyes never recovering their original doe. "There's nothing else to live for. Your kind destroyed it!"

No. Maybe his kind had threatened the patience of a chaos upbringer, but they never caused any pain to this land. Not in the scale she just had. He looked up, blinking weakly, trying to make their eyes connect so she would understand that, in the end, it didn't matter who had done what, or the cause. The world was finally done with.

She had won.

Ochako didn't seem happy about it.

"Why… why can't you just go away?" she asked, bringing a hand to her face to swat some hair away from her eyes, and held it there, lamenting, grieving. "All of this is your fault. Your kind– this place is better without you."

Katsuki coughed, his eyes blinking in and out of focus. "Does this world look better without humankind, Ochako? Does it fucking look any better without your pseudo-family running around?"

"Shut up." she stared at him, her lips almost pursed, her knees quivering and her eyebrows trembling, not knowing the answer to his questions. She didn't know what she would do, now.

Ochako took the risk of looking around, and was met with utter silence, other than the rain that fell around them. The sky was dark gray as far as the eye could reach, the moon no longer visible. The horizon only showed white mountains and black trees stripped from their leaves. There were no animals, no humans, no aliens to give this place the life it needed.

She looked up. There was no sun to look up to anymore, or no stars to hope for.

"I guess it's over, then." she said, soft, but no longer warm. "I won."

Thunder echoed in the distance repeatedly, as if to angrily answer to her question. Katsuki, lying on his stomach before her, couldn't bring himself to answer, just stare at her. He could see her spirit slowly breaking, her hands had a small tremor to them, and he was sure tears were leaking down her cheeks.

It was finally over.

Ochako looked down again, her expression appeased, but not satisfied. "Say, Katsuki." her voice came shaky, but not with ire– it was impatient wonder, as if he held the answer to a question she desperately needed a resolution for. "If you could change anything… what would it be?"

Underneath her, he chuckled. It was an easy question, yet it took him seconds to ponder if it was right to answer this way.

"Maybe your parents wouldn't have been killed, and we would have met casually. We would still be friends, and I would still cheer for you." he spoke softly in a tone she had never heard of him. As light was starting to flicker out of his eyes, she became even more and more restless. "Things were never right to begin with. I'm sure as hell this war would have happened one way or another."

Katsuki was right. But that wasn't the answer she was looking for, and as he grew weaker and weaker, she gritted her teeth harder in frustration.

But he wasn't done. Weakly, he attempted to roll over so his back was on the mud. His muscular arms were spread on the thick mud, letting the rain dampen his skin and clear the dirt off his body.

"I don't know why… I can't see this being over yet." in his last moments, his voice was ultimately soft and tender, almost wonderous like that of a child. That was when Ochako saw a red stain start soaking his right side, his skin breaking apart, and her fingers twitched to heal him. She didn't. "There might be a world beyond this one. Whoever is up there… you're being allowed to do a fuckton more than I think is reasonable."

Ochako stared at him hard. "What are you talking about?"

"You won't be left off the hook so easily… or maybe you will. What are you even gonna do now, Nameless?" that change of name made her breath hitch, because he was robbing her of a name he himself gave to her. "Are you happy, now?"

No.

She felt empty. She felt like the small seed of a revenge had destroyed everything within her– all her morals, all her abilities, all her feelings, all her memories, her love; everything. There was nothing else within her when she had let a vengeance take over her soul.

Now that the judging had been done, what was next?

She couldn't see beyond the horizon, literally and metaphorically. "I'm satisfied." but she was not happy. Looking at him, she shakily brought her dagger up, taking in a hard breath. "But my deed is not done, yet."

Katsuki stared at her blankly, his throat constricting, but not even then did he let her see through him, see the fear and the uncertainty. He only closed his eyes and sighed, knowing his brash act wouldn't take him anywhere. After all this fighting, he had realized he had been fighting against a wall all along.

A wall too hard for him to break through. Now that he was in his last hour, his final words, the final pages of his book, he found himself only wanting to see one thing:

he wanted to see her smile again.

"Ochako…" he coughed out, an uncanny crack forming in his voice at the emotion that flooded his throat, that made his heart shrink. "I… I wish we had met somewhere else. Maybe… we can meet again, someday."

Maybe they could. But in the meantime, she had a final quest to conquer.

"I know." her voice was ultimately weak, trembling with emotion that was sprouting through her veins like flowers in the bloom of a warm summer, all in this cold, dead world. "I wish things had been different as well, Katsuki."

And with that, she made the only respectable thing she could have done. She let the dagger fall straight into his stomach, piercing through his numb skin as he bled out into the mud, tearing his flesh apart with a gross, yet deaf noise that got lost in the rain. Blood splashed on her legs, on the wet mud, and she shook as his eyes fluttered close, his lips parted a thin trail of blood trailed down his jaw.

But she couldn't see this. Ochako didn't want to regret this, didn't want to regret killing her lover, she couldn't do this anymore.

Bringing herself to her knees, the mage covered the eyes of the man as his breaths got weaker, as his soul slowly left his body and the world seemed to spin to a slower and tender cadence, letting her, for once, breathe. But why could she finally breathe when all she held dearest had been lost to the storm of a revenge?

Ochako put her lips over his forehead, taking the dagger from his stomach, fingers winding through his hair tenderly, shakingly. Thick and rich blood dripped down the dagger, to his shirt, and she slowly positioned it over his faltering, swollen, prideful yet golden heart. And in her last moments of company, before she was plunged into a world of loneliness, Ochako smiled.

"I'm sorry," she grazed his chest with the sharp blade. "and I love you, Katsuki."

She finally pushed the dagger into his chest, through his skin, pursing her lips and not looking as she felt muscle meet her blade, fight the intrusion, but soon enough, Katsuki's body stopped fighting, and eventually, he died in her arms, blood soaking her body as it left his.

Ochako had finally won the war.

But the only one to celebrate it was her. There was nobody to clap for her.

She didn't have time to cry, because when she looked up, the thunderstorm was getting even harsher, even crueler, and was searching for a warm puppet to land on. However, Ochako knew what she had to do.

The rain only fell harder, the real, distant and nostalgic rain she had been looking for.

A bright seal appeared under her knees, streaking from under her body to run across the whole planet, a shining seal being formed and runes shining from under the muddy water, under the oceans, under the rocks, under the mountains– her magic reached the whole planet as thunder began to close in around her.

The deafening noise only ticked down to when the devas would finally punish her, but she wasn't going down without a fight.

Ochako let out a howl of pain and slammed her hands on the center of the seal, marking the center of the universe, the center of where the world was about to end, but also marking a new beginning. She pushed all her might into the spell, knowing it was time to bid this world, this existence, this timeline,a bitter farewell.

She would purge this world out of existence, and finally clean all impurities from this world.

Thunder struck from right above her, and the seal let out a blinding light of warning as Ochako's body heaved, whimpered, and finally released all her energy to purge this planet out of existence and clean all mistakes out of this land.

The last thing that was heard was thunder, rain, and a deafening scream of pain. And then, the world went black.

---

Ochako's eyes fluttered open to be met with more black. The rain was gone, and so were her wounds, the mud, and the body of her dead lover. Wind howled in the distance, played with her hair, but no world was to be seen.

This was what she had created. A world of nothingness where nothing was running anymore, a world without a time, without a land, without light. She had finally wiped the surface clean, and her quest was done.

But seeing this, she remembered Katsuki's words. Maybe, things weren't over for her yet. Her breath hitched, also remembering how she had been warned that there was always somebody higher than her watching, judging, deciding. Little did she know, she was about to meet the devas, then.

"You have finally arrived." spoke a clear, deep voice above her, a voice all too familiar, dead and echoing. She couldn't pinpoint where it came from, but the suffocating darkness and the deep voice made her feel infinitely small. It only made sense the voice came from above. "So, you finally did it. You just had to go against us, didn't you?"

Ochako didn't answer. Well, it was clear the devas wouldn't be happy about this resolution, after all she had just destroyed the world those gods seemed to be sovereign on. She had robbed them from marionettes to play with anymore, and she had destroyed time and space. What were both entities – her and the devas – supposed to do now? The game was over.

Or, at least, it was supposed to be over. In anticipation, she remained quiet. "You must think you are above all consequences if you thought it'd be over for you. You destroyed our lands, you destroyed your own loved ones– just for the sake of revenge."

A revenge they deserved, she wanted to say, a revenge they really deserved. But she couldn't find the words to say so. She tried to be daring in her glare to the heavens, but all that she was met with was the howl of the wind.

She had no effect here. Ochako held no power, this was the playground of the monsters under her bed and above her ceiling.

"You have made a severe mistake, Ochako." with those words, she suddenly felt air being pushed out of her lungs, and she was choking. "You cannot move on from this. We will let you taste the blood of your loved ones over and over again, and you won't be allowed to move on ever again. This will be your punishment."

Ochako gulped at the prospect, but she was almost curious as to what she would find. The world under her feet seemed to be becoming more unstable, hearing small cracks like glass fill her ears as the wind stopped howling, and instead, came in her direction.

"You will live the same nightmare over and over again, Ochako, and maybe then, you'll discover what's the right thing to do."

And after that, her world faded into black again.

Next time she woke up, she was lying on mud in the middle of the rain.

---

"Sister?" an incredulous voice came from Kirishima, as if it wasn't his own, and she backpeddalled to lower the scythe down, which then faded from her hands as well as she started thoroughly at the archer.

Mina was puzzled by Uraraka's reaction, but she was even more surprised at the words that had just escaped her mouth. Vague notions of that being true fluttered in her memory, but it was barely stable. She couldn't recall those times ever happening, mostly because they didn't happen. At least, not to her.

But then why had Uraraka reacted that way? She was speechless.

Uraraka took a step back, then another. She held her head on her hand, and Bakugou almost heard a curse escape her lips before a concerned frown appeared in her round features. "So… what Aizawa said was true, huh."

"What Aizawa said?" asked Kirishima and Mina at the same time while the former helped her get up. Bakugou stood a bit closer to the mage, his eyes squinted in suspicion.

Uraraka heard a very familiar growl come from a window, and then, a familiar creature landed on her shoulder, nuzzling her cheek lovingly. She didn't reciprocate the gesture, only scratched under his beak.

"Aizawa explained to me that… timelines are fragile. The more they are tampered with, repeated… the weaker they become, the more things get mixed." with Mina's call, things were starting to vaguely come back to her, and the puzzle was beginning to make sense. Notion was returning to her heart and memory like a sunflower blooming in a meadow.

Still, they didn't understand. In a way, it was better if they didn't, and even if she was doomed to be misunderstood, to be hated by her actions, it was better if only she carried the cross. A hoarse voice interrupted her speech. "What do you even mean with that, Uraraka!?"

He drew out his sword, frowning at her with a disapproval that threatened to break her heart, yet didn't. She spoke once more, softer. "It means I'm running out of time. Words of love and tenderness won't save this world, you should know this!" a bright white seal appeared under her feet, giving off a blinding color that the warriors ignored, they stared at her even harder. "I am getting tired of this game! I'm getting tired of this, and I'm going to win this time!"

On her shoulder, Edgar cried out in approval, flapping its wings joyfully. Small pebbles of stone floated out of their restraints, Uraraka's hair floated once more with a small clap of wind, and Bakugou wasn't having this shit. "Whatever you are planning to do, we won't let you go through with it!"

Her hands were crossed before her. She could feel energy seeping into this circle, the center of the universe, the absolute core of all existence, right where she stood. Her magic was starting to absorb the energy of this planet as it died around her: the grass was turning gray, the trees were dying in their ice cages, the seas stopped rocking, the rain was beating down on this lifeless husk of a world as the light ran away from this place, leaving only mud and fog.

All energy was being focused in one place, one time. And the light kept on shining.

Uraraka looked up from her spell. "I don't think so. Only I shall remain here!" she nudged Edgar off her shoulder, and suddenly, her body started sparkling with unbound magic, spirals of uncontrollable power coming from the Earth and surrounding her as she called out a spell. "It's time I show you what a mage's worth!"

The sorcerer raised her hand up in the air and the surge of white hot magic struck up from the circle, knocking everyone to their backs as a blinding light covered the whole fortress, the battlefield, and then the whole region. A burning seal was imprinted in the stone and at this terrible surge of power coming from under her feet, Bakugou thought she would die.

But no. Of course she didn't die.

While the column of magic kept on giving, Uraraka sprinted out of it with her staff in hand, charging towards Kirishima, with a burning spear of magic that struck him on the shoulder, and then at a vertiginous speed kicked him on the stomach to send him flying through a falling wall.

Bakugou was only able to see her kicking him out of existence before her figure glitched through his vision and struck at Mina, this time deciding to send a surge of ice magic up from underneath the archer to kick her up in the air, break through the ceiling of the fortress only for Uraraka to fly up to meet her and give her a suplex kick so she would land on the ground again with a force that cracked the cobblestone.

The girl screamed out in pain and this made the leader finally react. Before Uraraka could dash behind him for the coup de grace, he reached for his giant sword to attempt to swipe her out of his surroundings, causing her to jump on his weapon while it sliced and try to strike from above this time.

The blonde leaped back, almost overwhelmed by her speed, and only stopped her when he made their weapons clash. Her staff had been switched with a dagger without him noticing. "Finally showing your true damn colors, huh!? I should have fucking known!"

She wished she could tell him his intentions had always been pure. Even now, they still were, to some extent. But why couldn't she find the words? Were they untrue? No. they weren't, right?

No, they are not! screamed the voice inside of her, wanting for this to end, but the more energy she drew from that circle, the weaker it became. In an attempt to draw even more energy to bend time to her liking, the sign on her hand beamed, and Bakugou noticed this.

He broke the clash to stab her hand and render it useless, but the moment he tried to do that, she jumped back and he immediately followed her with a explosion of his hands, growling, needing to get answers from her. He sliced the air with his weapon as she threw vines and ignited debris at him, which he cut with the sword of an expert swordsman.

A few feet away, Uraraka was panting, but she wiped the sweat off her cheek with a ferocity that very well reminded him of their first fight. If only they could go back to those times again.

"Uraraka, you gotta fucking stop! We can still save them if you help me– we can still save this!" he almost begged with a desperate yet livid voice that only led him to more vicious moves that led them to crash weapons once more. He was becoming frantic, and that was because he was beginning to see the severity of the situation.

When they met again, her eyes were shadowed by her hat, which had tatters of blood and frost on it.

He looked closely. There were small traces of tears in her eyes.

Thats right. They are right. We can save this… I don't hate humankind, do I?

He tried to kill her once more, like he always had. She leaped away, and he gave her chase, cutting through her attacks with the confidence of somebody who thought they could win, with the confidence of knowing they were doing the right thing.

These… these aren't my feelings.

They were Ochako's feelings.

She had a small moment of hesitation, a silent gasp, a blink, a second of stillness in which air reached her lungs to conjure another spell. And that's when he struck.

With a dizzying dash towards her, Bakugou successfully stabbed right through her body on the lower side of her abdomen– a place where she had had a very ugly scar from when she woke up in the rain, a scar from a cursed weapon–

It was then when the last piece clicked into place, and in the moment of utter pain, Uraraka finally understood.

This hit. In this familiar place… it can only be…!

Bakugou held the weapon there with a faltering grin, mustering all the courage he could to stop her, no matter his feelings, no matter the cost. "Hah, you fuckin surprised, dipshit?" the circle behind them vibrated, and her small engraving shone before a small trail of blood began to trial down his jaw. "Did you think I wouldn't fucking go through? Fucking stop already, Uraraka."

He expected her to finally give in to his power and accept defeat with this apparently mortal swipe, and he extracted his blade and swung it back to put an end t her life before feelings caught up with him– but something stopped him.

An iron fist stopped his blade with a trembling grip, and from below her hat, a fierce glare of challenge appeared as she clutched her abdomen in annoyance. "I don't think so."

She tightened her fist to the point the blade shattered, and with the momentum of his shock, she took advantage of his stillness to kick him on the ribs and send him to the ground, making him groan loudly in pain while she jumped back. Her figure was slightly hunched over as she looked at him, but as she stepped into the seal of light, she felt the pain grow numb.

"This is the end!" she screamed from the circle, and the light only grew in power as it consumed her and gave a few more pulses before it started fading. "I win!"

When the light cleared up, it gave view to a horribly pessimistic outlook. He looked up from the ground, sight blurry. His lover was hovering from the ground, rising only higher and higher as the building started to give in to the magic within it. Her cloak had become a long white dress with pink colors, her staff became pointy and what was wood was getting slowly dyed with white light.

Her hair was becoming white, her skin frail like porcelain. Her eyes fluttered open, blown wide and white like those of a mage that couldn't see anymore. The seal under her gave its last spurts of power as the fortress began to crumble down with loud noises deafened by his fading consciousness. Her frame brimmed with light as tears soaked her cheeks, for she was doing this for them.

The world was ending.

She would give them a shelter from the rain.

And then, Bakugou saw wings. Shining white wings sprouting out of her back like a majestic fairy. Her hair, the brightest of platinum, her hand open in his direction, eyes a clear as the full moon.

But, after all this time, it was still her.

Then, it all went black.

---

There was only black around her. The void to which she had plunged the world howled with the wind, giving it a sensation of wideness and solitude. There was no smell, no color, no noise. All that greeted her was the ungraspable infinity of solitude, the empty company of the people she had left behind.

"Why are you here?" echoed a voice from far, far away. "Why did you come back?"

The voice was met with silence from the sorcerer, who only stared forward into the black pitch. No words needed to be said. She had done what she had to, her mission had been completed. Then… why didn't she feel satisfied?

"Why did you come back to the world... you destroyed?" spoke this stranger, softly and unbelieving. The feeling of solitude only soared louder, threatening to take over her fake feeling of success, one that was fading away little by little. "There is nothing here for you."

Yet, she stared even further into the abyss, the wind only roaring around her and making her sick. She was afraid of even wondering where her people had gone– but here, they didn't exist, they never did– nothing ever existed. They had been long ago wiped out of existence, or maybe not even created.

She and the voice were the only ones standing in the whole universe, in this time, in this place. She had been tasked with cleaning the impurities in that world– and so, she did.

"There is nothing here for you to come back to." explained the voice, pitchy voice looming over her like a chiding parent. She could feel several eyes digging onto the back of her neck. "Wasn't this what you wanted?"

Once again, the voice was met with silence– yes, this was what she had wanted. All along, this had been her goal: healing the world from its unfixable wounds. Yet, despite her thoughts being anything but ill-intentioned... why had it ended up like this?

Was the future supposed to end up so bleak? Why did she feel… so sad, so lonely, and so, so empty?

"You got your wish, little one. You must now move on to another line – and never come back. You got what you wished for, didn't you?

No. The answer was a fat, straight rebuttal to her predicament. Moving to another timeline meant moving on to other possibilities, other options: in another time, Kirishima wouldn't welcome her in, Ashido wouldn't be there, Deku wouldn't guide her with Todoroki along the mazes. And Bakugou... her lips and heart twingled in delight.

It would be best for her to move on to a sane timeline. To just forget this nightmare ever existed. The adventure was over. There was nothing else left for her.

But her feet didn't move.

No matter how big that crowding fear was, or how the shake of her legs were menacing to pin her down against a hard decision in an unknown place, not a single fiber within her wavered. Instead, her feet tug on the ground, rebuilding her pride.

Her friend's weren't going to disappear while it depended on her. Even if they didn't know her next time. Even if they didn't exist anymore.

She won't move.

The silence in the area continued without a hitch. It was evident Uraraka had come back... but what for? She had destroyed that impure shelter of lies that the gods had built as her punishment… yet, she wanted it back? Why? It was impossible to understand.

"I... see." murmured the other, pondering casualties and the girl in that reality. "There must be something you have left behind... isn't that so?"

Before Uraraka could even do as much of a flinch, the voice retorted. "I don't understand why you are here, of all places. After all, this was the ending you wanted, wasn't it?"

The sorcerer couldn't find her voice. Yes, this was the ending she had thrived for– but not in this way. This wasn't how things were supposed to end. And there was no way to make it all fall into place without screwing it all up again.

"You did this yourself." there as a mean chuckle in the air. "Do you think you are above all absolute consequences?"

Of course she wasn't. And the voice knew this, too. There was this question lingering in the air, both knowing it could be asked but shouldn't be even mentioned. Not without making the same mistake again. The time continuum would only last for so long before it snapped and destroyed everything at its wake. The chances were running out.

The more they played this game, the frailer it became.

"There is nothing left for you here. There is nothing left for anyone here. Please, leave."

Still, she didn't budge. Uraraka would not move ever again. Even if it meant rotting there, reducing herself to bones and no skin, she'd prevail.

"Why are you so adamant on staying? This is what you wanted. This is what you fought for. This is what you are, now."

Wind whirled in the distance, making Uraraka feel all sorts of alone, miserable and guilty. It was slowly dawning on her that this loneliness, this guilt, this fate the gods had bestowed on her… perhaps the world she left behind hadn't been the punishment– but the remorse for destroying such fragile and small adventure. It was eating her alive.

Finally, it seemed like the deities above saw through her transparent silence.

"You... don't want to leave." stated the voice, matter-o'-factly. Air left her lungs as she felt herself being wrapped in darkness, sinking and drawing her in. Her reality was somehow distorted. "You want to fix this, again."

Yes, again.

"You always reach the same ending, no matter how hard you fight against it." moked the voice, completely aware of her steps that took the world to its demise. "Yet, you are still on the same boat, huh."

Of course she was. Fighting against this paradox had become her ethernal tombstone. The voice hovered over her in silence, waiting for her to make a move. Yet, her distorted feelings wouldn't let her string a vocal chord. This was not her place.

"Say," started it. "would you be willing to go back, to see and do everything you have left?" Uraraka's eyes shot up, darkness above her. "Perhaps you may find a way to make things right again."

Or you may not. The sentence was left unspoken, yet its meaning fully reached her. It didn't make her feel any less brave. Her will to live after this was more powerful than any paradox of any kind.

"Now, you will go back." spoke the voice with a soothingly calm trail of voice. "For the sake of another future– another ending, you will give me your past, your memories, and you'll go back."

This little part made her gulp, and her hands started quivering. However, she couldn't afford withdrawing when the lives of many were at stake. Her mouth remained shut, eyes determined to look up to the nonexisting sky.

The ghost of a smile graced her lips.

There would always be hope.

And where there was hope, there was life.

"So that's how it is."

---

Sounds of steps, spattering against the puddles marring the ground. The rain howled above the little girl who had found herself in the middle of a forest and was running for her dear life, fearing what thunderbolts and trees could do to her. Fire was a nasty thing to play with, above all in the darkness of such a rowdy night. Her brown, worn cloak was doing a poor attempt at protecting her from the foul water, only hindering her escape.

She had woken in the middle of the forest, mud caking her clothes and her staff almost forgotten meters beside her. Upon hearing the roar of rolling thunder, her feet had automatically started running towards the end of the forest, the lights of a village blaring against the bleak rainy weather. Grimacing, the sorcerer was on a race for her life, a sense of dread and danger hovering above her.

Maybe it was only the darkness making it seem like a hunter was after her– but she wouldn't be the brave one to stay and check. In her state, getting away from the mouth of fog, mud and darkness was the most logical answer.

So she ran. Faint memories prior to her wake started fleeting away with the sense of urgency to reach a point she didn't really know, but her instinct was carrying her straight towards the village barriers. The clinking of potions, scrolls and little other items in her bag sounded dim against the splash of her frantic steps, finding it hard to keep her ground against the slippery surface.

She ended up falling on the exit of the forest, the embers of the covered torches making her dirty skin shine. When all she had woken up to was a starry night full of water and mud, of course a source of light would come as a pleasant glimpse. Her hands met the creamy soil and propped her up, dainty feet carrying a dirty, wet, cloaked body all the way to the barrier.

In one way or another, she would make it to the barrier! She had to!

The only guard at the barrier immediately picked up the sound of her steps nearing the barrier, and deeming her to be suspicious enough to be interrogated; she was halted just before entering the village. "Hold on, woman! Show yourself– or else!"

His shiny, silver sword was drawn at her, but no fear crossed her roundy features. Rain clattered against the shiny blade, making it all drearier for her. Her shaking hand was replete of scars and cuts, feebly rising to reveal her face. She pulled the hem of the hood back a bit, enough for the lights to illuminate her pinky cheeks and chocolate irises. Despite her childish appearance, her expression was everything but naïve. A grim hint dropped of her shadowed eyes, splattered with pain.

Her breath hitched inside her throat, feeling weighed down by the heavy downpour. "I am a sorcerer, fellow soldier."

This time though, she took a small, deep and laboured breath.

"I am seeking refuge for the storm – and please do trust me, I mean no harm to this village!"

---

[A/N]: The plot is as it follows: Ochako's time is the let's say original timeline. In there, her parents are killed in order to get her power as a weapon of defense for both villages, but the alien party takes her and it makes rivalry for her bloom. When Ochako discovers this, she flees and goes to the opposite power and springs a war to lure everyone in and make them pay. She destroys the timeline and the gods, the devas above, punish her and make her live the same nightmare over and over.

That's where Uraraka comes in. She wakes up in the rain and goes to the guild, and the story flows as we have seen, with glimpses of the original timelines that become more vivid as time passes. The more time that passes, the more timelines lapse and merge, and the more dangerous it is to be there. Uraraka is prompted by her hate feelings to leave but that's basically her Ochako side speaking. In reality, by killing them, she will also spare them in the sense they wont see and suffer the natural destruction of the timeline. In the end, either the timeline or Uraraka would kill them. And for Uraraka, killing them, is in a both-sided way, giving in to her feelings in a catharsis and also saving them from being torn apart by the destruction of the timeline,

In that battle, Bakugou stabs her side. This links to her waking up wounded when the timeline (and the story)mrestarts, and it begins again. The story was always meant to be a loop.

So yeah.

It's not the ending of the story yet because I think it's pretty unsatisfying to leave it like this, so we'll see each other. But know that this, as it is, would be the original ending as how it was given birth. /rolls away singing purple rain