chapter 19: hey, why did a window suddenly break?

Drowning, water, can't breathe—

"Help me, help me!"

A voice a voice (a child's voice)

I have to go (need to help want to help)

Swim, faster (ignore the chains)

Light, the light, why is there light (it's green it's green you know what that means)

…

(you'll make it worse)

…

(she can't get hurt)

…

Go.

Izuku yawned, rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to convince the drowsiness to leave. His last-minute training session with All Might the night before succeeded in exhausting him physically, but his anxiety about today prevented him from relaxing himself mentally.

Said anxiety was really a product of multiple factors. It wasn't his first villain fight, not by a long shot—Shigaraki, All For One, and Stain had made sure of that. However, this time was already different because he knew going into the fight that he was going to be fighting villains. There was going to be a plan. He was forced to deal with the fact that he was going to be fighting an organized villain group in just a few hours.

The freaky nightmare he just had hadn't helped matters either, but he didn't want to spend too much time analyzing that.

Oh yeah, and he had to deal with that fact while knowing that another wrong move could spell the difference between life and death for Eri—because of course, he had to have started this whole situation with the one wrong move of handing her back to Overhaul.

He could attribute most of his sleep loss over the past week to that one moment. The few times he was actually able to slip into a restless version of what one might call sleep, he was plagued by nightmares the whole time.

The only way to fix this, he knew, was to save her—because anyone he could save, he would save.

It was this mantra that Izuku repeated as he rushed through his morning routine, and after he was showered, dressed (in his hero suit, of course), and fed, he poured some tea in a small travel mug and headed out to meet up with Ochako, Yaomomo, Kirishima, and Tsu.

(He wouldn't tell Hitoshi this, but he hated coffee unless it was more sugar and cream than coffee, which wasn't healthy anyways. Yaomomo had been kind enough to introduce him to a variety of teas with just enough caffeine to wake him up in the mornings, for which he would be forever grateful.)

Already waiting outside was, of course, Yaomomo herself. Her hands were already wrapped around her own drink, though judging by the lack of steam in the chilly autumn air, she'd largely forgotten about it minutes ago.

"Mind if I join you?" Izuku walked over, gesturing at the empty spot on the bench. This seemed to snap her out of her reverie, as she jolted slightly before recomposing herself.

"Good morning, Midoriya—or should I say, Deku?" Though she was obviously holding back a yawn, that didn't stop the smirk from playing on her face. "Feel free to join me," she added as an afterthought.

"Thank you, Yaomomo—or rather, Creati," Izuku shot right back.

They shared a small smile, both knowing that their attempt at levity was nothing more than a distraction from what awaited them—although it was, at the very least, successful at slightly easing the tension.

"Did you manage to get any sleep?"

"Not much."

"I can sympathize."

Together they sat and sipped at their tea, words unnecessary to communicate what they both felt. Instead, they took solace in each other's silent company, the simple fact that they were not alone in this making all the difference.

Five minutes later, Tsu—Froppy, rather—stepped outside, taking a seat next to Izuku without a word. Together they sat, joined shortly afterwards by Ocha—no, it was Uravity—and then finally by Red Riot.

Even Kirishima, typically one of the most enthusiastic members of the class, couldn't muster up the willpower to act too energetic. He still smiled at them all, and it was as genuine as it could be, but it was lacking his regular spark—it was deadened, snuffed out, extinguished by the knowledge of what they would be doing today and what was at stake.

The monsters they would have to face.

And the price that a little girl would have to pay if they failed.

Steven was just finishing up his morning stretches in the common room when Denki came downstairs.

(He was trying to get back into some sort of consistent daily routine—Steven had woken up early to do his yoga, and Shoji had joined him for about thirty minutes. Bakugou was a silent presence as well, quietly making breakfast for himself.

He also wanted to center himself, especially because he was pretty sure he had invaded someone's dream on accident last night. The details were pretty murky, but it might have been Midoriya's? Given the green hue that he assumed was from dream-Midoriya's quirk…

Whatever. He didn't want to do that again.)

Steven was pretty sure he had Bakugou all figured out. Though the boy was prickly and gave off the impression to some that he didn't care for friends or companionship, Steven thought quite the opposite. Bakugou was a victim of perpetually keeping his guard up, and in those few moments that he'd witnessed him lowering it, he could see that Bakugou was incredibly protective of his friends—those that had managed to worm their way past his defenses, that is.

Because of that, Steven couldn't find it in himself to take Bakugou's explosively-tempered remarks too seriously, not after seeing the way he treated the rest of the band during rehearsal.

Why, if he were prone to poking fun, he'd say that Bakugou was actually quite soft on the inside.

(Of course, he wouldn't be saying that out loud, out of fear that Bakugou would find out and come after him.

He'd let Denki be the one to voice those kinds of thoughts.)

Nevertheless, Steven was finishing up his stretches, and Denki entered the room, yawning as he rubbed away the last remnants of sleep. "Mornin'," he mumbled as he stumbled his way into the kitchen, digging through the cabinets until he found what he was looking for…

…A bag of shredded cheese?

He grabbed a fistful of cheese and shoved it into his mouth, and only then noticed that Steven was staring at him. "What'th the p'oblem?" he tried to speak around the mouthful of shredded cheese, mostly failing. He swallowed and continued to defend himself. "Come on, it's not like you haven't done it too!"

Steven vehemently disagreed with this assessment. Sure, Amethyst would do it—and she had, many times—but he at least had some standards.

"You're literally the only one in the class that would do that," Kyouka said derisively, although from her manner it seemed as if this was a common occurrence.

Denki rolled his eyes. "You guys just don't have taste buds." With that, he went back to shoving shredded, processed cheese product into his mouth. Steven decided that whatever didn't hurt him, he could ignore.

(Although it was really starting to hurt him mentally. Reminded him of Amethyst—which hurt in a different way.)

"Uh huh. Let's go with that," Kyouka said, injecting a bit more sarcasm than usual into that statement. She turned away so that only Steven could see the small that snuck its way onto her face. "What were you up to?"

Steven finally got up from his spot on the rug. "Just my morning stretches," he responded. "I haven't done them since I—well, since I got here."

They stewed in the awkward silence for a moment, underscored by the sound of Denki shoveling cheese into his mouth. Steven could see that Kyouka didn't know how to respond, so he decided to relieve the tension and break the silence for her sake. "It's been good to get back into it, though. I've forgotten how stiff my joints can get."

This was enough for Kyouka to crack a mischievous grin. "What, old age getting to you already?"

And though Steven knew he could be truthful and mention that no, it was actually due to the hundreds of breaks and fractures in his bones that he can still feel the effects of despite his body healing them instantaneously, he wouldn't. Because the kids had enough on their plate to worry about. Rather, like the normal and socially well-adjusted teenager he claimed to be, he kept up the joke.

"You say that as if I wouldn't destroy you in a spar."

"Oh, you're on. Next class, you and me."

Steven couldn't help himself from laughing. "Sounds good. Should I call Recovery Girl to let her know to be prepared for your upcoming visit?"

"Hm," Kyouka smirked. "You say that as if you wouldn't heal me immediately afterwards and apologize."

"How dare you. Remember that I'm technically your senpai."

"You probably don't even know what that word means!"

Clouds drifted across the sky, and as they covered the sun Deku couldn't help but feel that it was a bad omen.

Or maybe that was just his stress-induced stomachache.

Sir Nighteye spoke without breaking his stride. "You understand your roles." It was a statement, not a question.

"Sir," both Deku and Lemillion spoke at once in acknowledgement. He knew how serious this was—assuming everything went according to plan, he and Lemillion would be staying with Sir alongside a few others, with their goal being the safe recovery of Eri.

Brushing aside his growing discomfort, he vowed to stay close to Sir Nighteye and Lemillion—a seasoned hero and his prized pupil, who he could turn to for advice at any point.

Yes, he tried to convince himself, nothing will go wrong.

"Any updates?"

Steven looked up from his (UA-loaned) laptop at Kyouka's question. He was doing some light reading—mainly research into Japan's culture, some hero research, stuff along those lines—while they relaxed in the common room and waited for Momo to show up on the news. He flipped through a few channels, stopping for a few seconds on some interesting-looking anime before returning his focus to the task at hand.

"Nothing so far," Steven concluded with a sigh. "I'm not sure whether to be worried or relieved, honestly."

Kyouka tilted her head in confusion. "Huh?"

"Ooh, I know this one!" Denki shouted out from the rug he was laying on. "It's like, no news is good news, right? If they aren't on the news, that has to mean that everything is going smoothly—so Yaomomo and the rest should be fine!"

"Let's hope." Although, given last night's dream… he couldn't help but worry.

"Chisaki!"

Lemillion's scream heralded Deku's entrance—straight through the concrete walls of the underground complex, that is.

Time seemed to slow down for a brief moment. Deku analyzed the situation, at least for as long as he could allow himself to. Eri: protect. Lemillion: ally, injured—protect. Overhaul?

Villain.

The flow of time returned to normal, and Deku's fist collided with Overhaul's shoulder. Jade lightning wreathed his fist as it impacted with the villain, and Overhaul flew across the room and embedded himself in the concrete.

"Nighteye!" Eraserhead bellowed, following through the opening Deku created. "Grab the girl!"

The next few seconds flew by in a whirl. Nighteye rushed to meet Eri and Lemillion, while Deku leapt forward alongside his teacher. This was their chance to take down Overhaul, now that he'd been backed into a corner by Lemillion.

Well, if only it had been that simple.

Suddenly, Eraserhead pushed him out of the way, and Deku turned to see that one of the fallen Yakuza had woken up—Chronostasis, if the sharp, extended arrow-like lock of hair was anything to go by. But… oh.

Eraserhead had pushed him out of the way, only for himself to have been sliced by Chronostasis's arrow. Now he moved sluggishly, the effect of Chronostasis's quirk making him useless in combat.

But then, before he could focus on that problem, Deku heard Overhaul yell out to one of the Eight Bullets, and he whirled around fast enough to give himself whiplash—just in time for him to see the villain use his quirk on his subordinate and fuse with the injured man.

It was all happening too fast to process, and Deku didn't know what to do anymore. So, he did what he did best—analyze the situation and follow his instincts.

"Oh my god."

That was Ashido, he thought. He wasn't really paying much attention.

Steven's eyes were glued to the screen above him, intently observing the chaos that the news channel was broadcasting. He listened to the reporter until he heard her mention the location (Minato Ward), and then tuned her out as he typed out the name into his phone's search engine.

…Just in case.

He made careful note of where that was in relation to him, and only refocused on the news when he heard someone call out "Tsu!"

When he looked at the broadcast, Tsu, Uraraka, and Nejire were following behind a massive dragon-like creature (was this Ryukyu?), and Steven could tell that they weren't doing too hot. The footage wasn't incredibly detailed, but all three interns seemed to be covered in scratches and bruises.

He tuned out the noise of the class around him (because of course, they all came down to watch when the news started covering the ongoing raid), and after a moment added the reporter's voice to that list, in favor of focusing entirely on the visual coverage of the event.

Sir Nighteye was dead.

Sir Nighteye was dead, and if he wasn't dead yet then he was about to die—no one could survive with a massive stone spike piercing their torso.

But he couldn't do anything about that, there was no time to help him, or save him, or take him to the triage station because he needed to fight Overhaul—he needed to keep him distracted so that Eri could get away (and of course Lemillion was now quirkless because the bullets were perfected)—

Deku sounded confident when he spoke, but the reality was that for the most part he did it to reassure Eri and Lemillion (and for the other part, to reassure himself). He threw everything he had into fighting Overhaul, turning One for All up to twenty percent despite the pain it caused, and avoided thinking about the fact that Overhaul had literally absorbed a person not a few seconds earlier.

He dodged as best as he could, taking a few hits from the stone pillars that were constantly being formed. He needed to keep up the pressure as best as he could, because Deku was the only one standing between him and Eri.

That is, until he heard Eri's voice behind him.

"Eri, don't!"

Denki watched the news, his attention captivated by it for what was probably the first time in his life. For once, his brain has zero problems with processing everything that was happening on-screen.

The camera's focus was currently on Tsu and Uraraka's team, which meant that the only friends of his that hadn't been accounted for were Eijiro and Midoriya—they hadn't been on the broadcast at all, so he assumed that they were already in compound before the raid was picked up by the media.

Momo, thankfully, seemed fine for the few seconds that she had been visible while the camera had panned over the area. From the time the broadcast had started with Ryukyu's team's fight Momo had only shown up once, working the triage station. Now the camera was focused on the massive dragon hero, who was currently digging through the asphalt—her efforts were rewarded seconds later as a large area of asphalt collapsed inwards, revealing an underground area that looked like the aftermath of a war zone.

Spires of rock jutted out from the ground, resulting in the room looking like a forest of stone—as far as he could tell from the broadcast. The first thing he noticed after that were a few figures; some standing, some on the ground. His classmates gasped when they recognized one of the laying figures as their homeroom teacher, and there were even more noises of shock when they noticed that one of the others was currently impaled by one of the stone spikes.

Denki noticed Steven's complexion grow noticeably pinker but didn't comment on it. He assumed it was just a result of him worrying about Aizawa-sensei and the others.

Out of the three other figures, then he only recognized one of them— that being Deku. He had placed himself in between what looked to be a young child, and some sort of horrifying monster that he had to assume was a villain. It had four arms and an ornate face mask that looked like a massive bird beak.

Although the news crew wasn't able to capture the audio from so far away, it was obvious even from a distance that is a villain had noticed Ryukyu and her team blowing a hole through the roof. He gestured wildly at both the newcomers and Deku, and he approached Aizawa-sensei before anyone could stop him.

"What the hell is he doing," Kyouka muttered next to him. Her confusion didn't last long though, and she joined the chorus of worried yells for their teacher as they witnessed what could only be accurately described by one word—a nightmare.

They watched, for there was nothing else they could do, as the teacher (that was slightly more than just a teacher to some) was unmade with just a touch, his body visibly merging with the villain's own. The monstrous figure stood after a moment, a second pair of eyes embedded just above the original ones—red eyes, that made Denki want to vomit as he ran through the implications.

He could hear the others muttering and talking about their mutual fear and distress, but he tuned them out as he turned towards Steven—Steven, who was older, more powerful, who would surely be able to put his fears to rest.

But Denki wasn't given a chance to speak, for Steven's glowing pink figure stopped him before he could get anything out. The older boy's face was twisted in some strange mix of anger and disgust, and Denki found himself dumbstruck as he glanced at him with eyes that seemed to be radioactive with the intensity of their glow.

In the space of a single blink, Steven was gone, and the shards of one of the massive windows along the front of their dorm were scattered across the UA lawn.

Deku really thought that the arrival of backup would be a good thing, that they were finally safe, and Overhaul would be taken down. He really thought that the nightmare would be over.

It was almost as if the universe had laughed at him, harshly correcting him—no, the nightmare was only just beginning.

He kept his arms tightly wrapped around Eri, to keep her from running towards Overhaul and giving herself up. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he blinked them away as quickly as he could. Now wasn't—now wasn't the time to have a breakdown. He needed to keep it together for Eri, for himself.

Eraserhead was gone, the only thing left being the extra body mass that made up Overhaul and the glowing red eyes that had emerged from his head in a sickening manner.

Deku tried activating One for All so that he could jump out of the hole, but he couldn't feel his quirk. That confirmed his theory, at least, that Overhaul was now able to use Erasure.

He communicated as much to the heroes above. Froppy's tongue quickly came down, as a way for him to escape and retreat.

Well, that wasn't happening. Overhaul was currently distracted, sure, getting used to his new body, but soon he'd regain focus and attack them—and he couldn't retreat, because that'd be putting everyone else in danger.

Instead, Deku allowed Froppy's tongue to wrap around Eri alone, and even as he muttered reassurances to her that she'd be safe with his friends, he paid careful attention for the moment…

There.

Overhaul's new pair of eyes were forced to blink, and with how new the quirk was to him, he didn't reactivate it. One for All surged, and Deku knew that that he had one chance to end it.

He launched himself forward at twenty-five percent, and into his arm he poured everything he had. Overhaul's unhinged ranting told him that the villain hardly had any grip left on reality—at this rate, he'd be absorbing people left and right, and no one would be able to stop him.

Deku screamed; out of anger, frustration, fear, a sense of justice; and as his haymaker landed on Overhaul's head with an explosion of force, his world flared pink.

Uravity, from her perch above the battlefield, watched in horror as Deku placed Eri in the grasp of Froppy's tongue and turned to face Overhaul. She wondered if she could go down to get him on her own, but she knew that she lacked the stamina to use her quirk on both herself and Deku.

For a moment, time moved in slow-motion, and she was helpless to do anything but watch and worry. Deku's charge forward seemed like an explosion, and so captivated was she that the streak of pink light across the sky escaped her notice until it landed in front of her.

She flinched at the impact, and then she realized that the thing had not landed in front of her—no, it landed a level below her, where Deku and Overhaul were fighting.

It took Uravity a moment to connect the dots, because the only thing—or person, rather—she associated with that specific shade of vibrant pink was none other than Steven Universe. She returned to the edge of the hole in the asphalt (as did everyone else with her) and scanned the disaster zone that used to be a basement for the newest arrival.

Except… something was off. There was no third figure. And, weirder still, one of the two people originally there wasn't anymore.

Dust billowed everywhere, obscuring the heroes' view of the area. The monster once known as Chisaki Kai laid under a pile of concrete chunks as he used his additional appendages to pick the debris off himself. Standing over him wasn't Deku—although the same height, at first glance, on closer examination this new figure was just slightly taller, and of a much stockier build.

Their silhouette was all that was visible thanks to the dust that had been kicked up, but one thing was clear from this angle.

That was not Izuku.

Before Uravity could say anything, though, the dust cleared and revealed someone who did, somehow, look remarkably similar to Deku. In fact, if it weren't for the brownish highlights in his hair, the new pink and green coloring to his costume, and the aura of all-consuming safety that she felt, she would have mistaken him for Deku.

He turned and looked at her. His eyes shone, like little pink diamonds given the energy of a thousand suns. She should have been scared. She should have questioned his appearance, wondered what happened to Deku and Steven (if that had been him after all…), but she didn't.

"Don't worry, everyone," his voice reverberated through her bones, with an intensity that belied the casual tone of voice. The reassuring smirk that followed imprinted itself in her brain, and for several months afterward she'd find herself thinking about it when she had trouble falling asleep.

"You're safe now, because I am here."

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