39

The 'shell' slumped down against the wall, groggy.

"'Bout time." Toshinori was yawning. "You overloaded me wit'too much information." He was referring to all the night's studious talks.

It groaned at him, but had a smirk on it's face.

Aiwaza was alert and up, so was Bakugo, except Aiwaza had his normal unkempt, flat morning face on that all the Hero Classer's usually seen as he taught. Eraserhead had never been much of a morning person.

It was mid afternoon, so the awake ones would be in charge of monitoring the power that was the active portion inside the 'shell' now instead of the therapist.

Yagi was was acting almost dizzy, readying himself for sleep, gathering his pajamas, he had them under one arm and was mindlessly mulling around for random things, so tired he was nearly lost.

Eraser kept following him making sure he was grabbing everything he needed, and things that were actually necessary. So far, the hero professor already had taken a stapler from him and a handheld tablet explaining he was too worn out to do anymore work right now.

Disaster, now lazily sitting on the floor, leaned to the side, it's head on of one of the cots. "The shell is exhausted."

"You did that." Bakugo mumbled, grumpy, pulling on a clean shirt and athletic shorts.

Kasaya had said he'd be in the room through Christmas, but that hadn't been the case, since Disaster halted the merge process only at a day in, it was nearly Christmas Eve. Bakugo had already explained to his grandmother's in-home care nurse he wouldn't be there until after the holiday, unable to come due to 'circumstances at school' that was keeping him in the city, and unable to visit as early this year.

He didn't like that this year wasn't easy-peezy, but this time was different, and his circumstance he understood. It was a burden that he knew he didn't have to carry, but wanted to. As he'd thought on before, he hated that they had these yokes on them, wished they could just be kids and be free, but in the mean time, Katsuki openly lifted half of Saya's and Saya (as much as he thought he wasn't doing much) was doing the same for him.

But right now, Bakugo was carrying a bit more weight than Satoko. But he was fine with that. The weight; it shifted back and forth, and Saya had had his time already of carrying the heavier portion, by learning of his burden: drug addiction.

Saya was there for him, lifting him up, supporting his health, always aside him, always pushing him towards better goals everyday.

Bakugo would fight for the day that they could be freer together. How strong he wished for that. A lot of things had changed for Suki, and the way he viewed life had been so drastically altered. He had another person that needed him now, and while his grandmother needed him, she didn't really 'need' him. She couldn't even remember that it was a Christmas time, just that it was the next day, winter.

"Being tired feels like shit." It went on.

"No shit dumbass." Bakugo babbled at it again watching Eraser grab a notepad away from Toshnori and push the therapist gently from behind into a side room, following him in and shutting the metal door.

Apparently, Yagi had sleep issues as it was, and noises would make it to where he wouldn't sleep at all, and so he opted to set his cot up in an adjacent area.

"You." It spoke to the blonde teenager in that creepy, deep voice it had. "You ready?"

"What?" He was ignoring.

Aiwaza came back out of the room just as it said that one word, and looked around at the thing as he swiped a thumb across his phone, looking for any messages from the hospital about his sister. There were none. It was a good day. But... 'What th'hell was it goin' on about now?'

"He's waking up."

Bakugo's head snapped up and his whole body turning in tandum, dropping the sheets on the cot he was attempting to fold. "He... he's?"

"Yes. He's moving." I poked it's the skull. "Activity."

Katsuki was instantly on the floor, staying back, but right up in the face. His boyfriend's face, but knowing it wasn't him inside it right now, under that appealing surface was a total jackass at the moment. "What's he doin'?" It was demanding.

It opened the worn, full gray moons a bit larger. "Right now, he's wiggling the shell's toes." It yawned.

Bakugo watched fingers suddenly move.

"You're not? Doing... that?"

Disaster shook the head in a 'No'.

Eraserhead came over now too, overhearing, he was also up in the things face, coming up behind his son, placing a hand on his wide back. He stayed further back though, for obvious reasons on his part (not known to Suki of course).

They were both were still on edge that the power could turn them into a pile of dirt and water in a snap, but it hadn't yet. That thought though was unsettling. They were trying extremely hard to think more on the fact that it was being manageable than it could go on a tangent and suddenly at will decide to kill them for whatever reason it wanted or had, turning them into basic elements.

At an odd angle, the body jerked itself into an arch in a second, and the right eye in a weird moment, had a strange foggy flicker go across it, and just as before, it started resizing.

A huge black center, then a moon, then half, like a tv screen that was nothing but fuzz trying to regain signal.

But then it was normal. One eye a human eye, one eye not a human eye.

The lips parted. A dry throated coughed, then suddenly, the right eye 'seen', and the whole body launched completely up on it's feet and full on sprinted; a dash down the hall.

But what the eye 'seen' was not Bakugo and Shota. It seen that it was trapped in a flooded river of red water, the rapids so high that it was choking.

The sprint wasn't something a regular marathoner or competitor would perform, but it was a drastically crazy swim happening in the mind, a struggle for life and death that resulted in the sprint looking something more like a body being infected by a parasite, a rot that ate at the brain, and caused it to go absolutely mad.

Arms flailed, wrists locking and unlocking, a gait that while running, rocked back and forth. The body gurgled as it ran, slamming into the walls, screams, exasperated breathing.

Kasaya was drowning!

"SHIT!" Aiwaza jolted and sprinted with Suki down the hall after it.

And the chase began.

Somehow they both knew this would happen!

The body launched around so quick, smashing into the walls, the form looked as if it'd been bombed in tear gas and that it'd leaked through the gas mask.

It was blind to its surroundings.

Struggling all the way down to the obstacle course area, that was where it halted and fell into the tile floor like a star burning out and falling from the sky.

Letting go to the rapids.

It screamed.

Writhing.

Panic.

Kasaya was worn in his mind. The river taking him, the deep water whooshing over his head, coated in a thick film of languid, metallic blood, like salt water, it sank in through his lips, forcing it's way inside his mouth, and he kept spitting out that iron taste on his tongue. He'd always despised that metal taste, Ashley had made him tortuously clamp his incisors down on so many!

On the ground, the body in front of them convulsed and drooled as they peeled around the corner.

Bakugo knew as soon as he heard the shrieking. "KASAYA!" It was Kasaya! It was him! Uttering curdling cries in his timbre that sounded distant and watery.

Eraserhead and him were sliding on their knees across the floor to the ill shape, their feet gave out before they made it there, they were so rushed.

"HElppppppppPpp!" Saya wailed, laying on his back, he began fighting the two holding him down, not knowing that what he was seeing was not reality. "I'M..." A gurgle. "Dro... wning! Blood!" The fighting was him flailing in the current, his toes slipping on slick rocks, his knees bashing heavy on boulders that were hidden under the rushing surface, his long hair kept swooshing over his face like a soaked sheet, and his nose would inhale nothing but the liquid. It burned going down his pipes.

His mind was too wild to think straight! Why'd he wake in this?! What was this?!

"HELP MEEeeEeee!" Choke. "hellpppp." A gurgle.

Spit foamed at the mouth. Bakugo was holding the head up so it wouldn't suffocate on the amount of spit it was salivating out. Katsuki was crying his eyes out. "Kasaya! Kasaya! I'm right here!" He started lightly smacking the cheek. "Wake up! It's not real! Wake up!"

"It's in... my..." A liquidy ripple. It tasted disgusting.

The form suddenly sat up and with the feet, it scooted crazily across the floor, his back crashing into the wall.

The water flipped him inside his head, like a giant arm going around his waist in the rapids, it yanked him backwards and under. No breath.

Aiwaza and Suki ran as the face was turning a tint of purple; they dropped again in front of the teen's figure.

"KASAYA! Can you hear me?! I'm here! I'm right here!" Bakugo was hot on the body's trail as it writhed all over the floor like it was possessed by the wall.

"SATOKO ARE YOU LISTENING TO US?!" Aiwaza screamed, shaking the ankles. "He's not breathing!" Aiwaza shook the teen's physical body by the shoulders now, the head lulling around like a baby's. "BREATH DAMN IT!" He smacked him across the face.

The moon eye looked then and a growl sounded that was not Kasaya. Wretched. It pushed Aiwaza off with one hand.

Eraserhead fell back hard.

Then Kasaya's lips parted and rapid squeezes of oxygen came out. "He... help!" A cry gurgled to the surface. The right eye was spilling tears while left moon resorted to complacency again.

Disaster was letting the teen have the control over the body for now.

Possibly to work things out? They didn't know. That didn't matter!

What mattered was getting Satoko back!

"It's Bakugo! I'm right here!"

Suddenly the body took in a sharp inhale of oxygen, laying on it's back. He heard a muffled voice, but he knew who it was. "Baby! Save me!" It sharply screamed, flailing, slamming it's head into the floor multiple times.

Kasaya was taken under again, his back smashing along the river bottom.

Bakugo put the hands on the face, the left eye twitched a look at him, the right was all over the room, swirling inside the socket, like someone who had their whole balance thrown off; an astronaut that had just stepped out of a centripetal force machine.

"Concentrate!" Bakugo saw Aiwaza jump to hold down the body to keep its legs from kicking. "I'm right in front of you!"

He came up, lips just above the rushing surface. "It's deep! I c... can't touch th'bott...om!" Gurgles.

Damn that Disaster! He said he was swimming in a pool of blood! He didn't know it was this! How insane this was!

He was too concerned to be mad right now, otherwise he'd be fuming smoke again and ready to blow the thing apart, even though he wouldn't because it was a shared body at the moment.

"Where are you Kasaya! Tell me where you are!"

"I'm... a riv... er! I can't... out!" He responded to Suki's voice.

"You can! Just listen to my voice!"

"It le...!"

"What does it look like!? Are there any rocks!? Grab onto somethin'!" Bakugo went on. This river! What river was this? The river Styx in Hell? Is that what Diaster had done? Where he'd placed him?! Hell was him reliving everything! Hell was him in a bloody river getting ripped to bits!

He just wanted to help him to find the way!

Suddenly a smirk was on the navy haired one's face. Smug.

Bakugo shot a glare to the full mooned eye. "Let him go!" It was mean. He would be mean. This thing was screwing around putting visions in his head, like it always did! What a bastard!

And it was much worse now as Kasaya's body was not tipsy; Diaster not at bay.

It had this power!?

The smile increased. It whispered. "He's gotta fight for it."

Aiwaza looked up, this thing was... "Ruthless! Let him go damn it!" His heart was wrenching, beating out his chest.

Diasuta shook the body's head a 'No.' It wanted Kasaya to struggle. To push through the rapids he was in. It was his damn responsibility. If he didn't make it, he had no chance of managing him, the power. To control Disaster.

"Come on! You can do it! Can you see me?" Bakugo turned from the moon eye to the other.

"Nooo!" The smile left, a scared expression came over it.

"Concentrate! I'm here! What you're seeing isn't real! The blood and the river! It's not real!" His hands were all over the other's face; Bakugo was a disheveled mess at his boyfriend convulsing.

"Not real." Choking. "No'real. N't...eal." The mouth repeated. A gurgles. "No... real."

"That's right. It's not real. Keep sayin'it!"

"No... not real. Not real." Kasaya started seeing the river water start to move from a gushing uncontrollable rapid to more a smooth waterfall-like movement, trusting his man's voice to be truth. "Not real. Th... isn't real." This made him just push harder to keep his mouth above the surface, he started fighting the current again. The eye with the iris squeezed shut, full of tears.

"As soon as it's gone you'll see me." Bakugo hoped that was true, he didn't actually know. The arms began viciously flailing again.

"N... not real. Not real." It sputtered between the crazed movements. It was coming clearer, his voice.

Bakugo put his forehead on Kasaya's and rocked him gently in his arms, hanging onto the body for dear life. "That's it. What's real is me." He whispered.

"I miss you." Kasaya suddenly said coughing amongst spits. "You're voice is... not enough. Cn... can't."

"Then think of me." Bakugo whispered into that eye, to the ear on that side of the head. As long as there was a inkling of Kasaya inside this body, he'd fight for him. "I'm smiling at you right now."

The eye squeezed harder.

Kasaya seen the water cease to small whirlpools, the jerking around was less, he was floating with the current. He felt his foot tap the bottom.

He imagined Katsuki eating General Tso's that night on the roof, devouring it. Then he seen him smoking his cigarette behind the bush with yellow flowers. He saw Bakugo, breathy, say 'Okay', as he'd asked if he could draw on him.

He was wading in neck deep water.

Bakugo seen the lips smile.

"It's not real is it?"

"No, it's not Saya. What's real is how I feel about you." Tears landed on the face under him.

"It's not real."

"No." Quiet. Things were calming, the arms were at the body's side, rocking back and forth. "Can you feel me touching you?"

Kasaya was still watching the river lowering, treading the blood, and he was able to move now. He felt a little tap of something on his ankle. He could breathe properly again.

"My leg."

Eraser looked up.

Bakugo turned. "Squeeze him hard."

Aiwaza nodded and did it.

"I feel it." The mouth smoothed. "I'm headin' t'the bank."

"How deep is it?"

"T'my chest now." Suki's voice was less muffled now.

He heard a grunt. Kasaya really was wading right now. That was a sound of physical labor.

Satoko felt the dirt of the shore go under his nails, suddenly his vision blurred and everything was weirdly white. Like tunnel vision, the whole landscape was miraculously gone, and what was coming to him was his eyes spinning, looking up at a pattern.

They jerked around.

So, he was right. His partner was right. None of that... it hadn't been real.

And what was this exactly? What was he looking at?

His mind was registering.

Bakugo seen the calm come over the torso; he heard a voice, one he was very used to. Kasaya's gentle tone asking a question. "Where are'you?"

"Here. Can y'see me?" He moved in a bit more over the eye.

"I see a'shadow, squ... ares."

Bakugo looked up. He was seeing the ceiling. He was back!

It was... a ceiling, the pattern was tiles!

He was really back! 'Shit.' He never wanted to go through this ever again, this was one of the worst hurts on his heart that he'd ever had. He thought he'd almost lost him to death last night, then this? This was just as painful.

"I can't'move." Saya said. His whole body numb.

"Let us help you up."

He heard it loud. Close. "Hah?"

Bakugo smirked. That 'Hah?' 'Yes.' This was his Saya Satoko. "Eraserhead and I."

"K." Saya mumbled, his sight slow as shit coming back. "Bu'I feel sick."

"We'll go slow."

The head lulled a tiny nod.

Satoko felt a hand under his back, gentle. It hoisted, and he suddenly was in a warm spot somehow, he couldn't control his neck, the skull just rolled around. He was unable to lift his arms.

"You've got to try t'move a little."

Eraserhead stayed back a bit from the head, completely aware that the sicko that bit him was still alert, just being quiet.

"Mmm. I feel so'tired."

"You can nap."

"I was... jus'asleep but my body is still..."

"Yeh." Should he tell him? "Uh. Diasuta took your body on a 30 mile run Toshinori said."

"Uh." Kasaya groaned into Bakugo's chest his eyes getting less blurry. "I've ran more than... that. Next time, tell him 50."

"Hopefully, there won't be a next time." Bakugo didn't chuckle at Kasaya's obvious sarcasm. But the fact that his sarcasm was popping up was a good sign.

Diasuta wanted to shout out to Bakugo for that comment, but it wanted to stay quiet for now. Like it said it would. It was truthful, honest to it's word.

"I think... I can see you."

Bakugo put a few fingers on the bottom of Kasaya's chin, tilting the head up looking into the eye with the iris in it, using his shirt's bottom to wipe at his lover's mouth, to get all the foam and spit off.

Suddenly, through a fog, the long-haired navy teen seen the silhouette of his man. "Ah." His body, he felt it chuckle. A smile.

"You were only under one night." A smirk back, wiping of the face.

"Felt too long." He said under the material as it was soft on his lips.

Bakugo knew Diasuta was getting a full on display of thier relationship now, as Kasaya was completely sober.

Katsuki gave no shits. He chucked back and got inside that ear. To whisper. "I'll fight for you forever. You know that?"

"I know."

He lightly kissed the cheek on that side of the face. "Can I carry you to'a bed and lay you down?"

"Gently. Movement is making me sick." He now could see those eyes of Suki, they were coming through red. Red hot as always.

"I'm always gentle with you."

Before Suki picked him up, he pulled his necklace out of his pocket and latched it around Saya's neck. For once he came to enough, with how little his lover never took it off, he knew he'd be looking for it, and he didn't want to worry him that perhaps it had gotten lost.

Bakugo swiftly picked his man up. Kissing him once more on the cheek. He refused to the kiss the lips. As desperately as he wanted to, he couldn't. He wouldn't let Diasuta feel that. That was a secret for him and Satoko only.

Aiwaza followed behind them. Suki leading the way.

Bakugo would be the one that will have to keep Kasaya steady and to reality once he became For One's All, just like how Kasaya steadied Apollo not to blow up everything.

They were co-dependent, but not in a bad way.

Eraserhead knew it now. For sure. They leaned so much on each other that it was damn near insane. Any psychologist would call it insane, that they needed each other so hard that they couldn't go on without the other.

That it was bad on the people as singular individuals.

But sometimes...

When you just couldn't do things yourself. When you couldn't manage it... all you had were the people that surrounded you then to turn to.

And you were damn lucky if you had someone around you that gave an actual shit, that loved you as much as these two loved each other.

So, Professor Aiwaza didn't care.

Let the partnership be the partnership that it was.

It was a pure one.

As much as they were entangled in each other's tresses, it would be impossible to unweave them.

It was the type of relationship that even from a distance away, while they would ache and hurt that they couldn't feel the other's touch, hear the other's voice, they'd effected each other in such a way that they could still retain the strongest feelings.

Ones that weren't possible to fade.

Instinctual as breathing and sleeping.

But how better when it those activities happened when together.

Aiwaza smiled as Bakugo laid Satoko down on in his cot, positioning his body in it to be comfortable, laying the blanket up softly around the teen, then sat on the floor by the resting form, scooping up his hand in his own.

It reminded him so much of how he sat with his sister... who was in so much pain that they kept her drugged up on heavy medicine to relieve her. How she would be barely there and he would just sit there with her small, fragile hand, always cold, in his.

He started to tear.

Soon.

It would be soon.

Life.

It was leaving her body.

Each day seemed a stretch farther away than the last.

Tomorrow bringing nothing but a paler face.

"I'm going to go check on Toshinori." He had to escape for a minute. He had to be comforted himself right now.

Soon in separate rooms, Eraser and Apollo were sitting the same way with the men they were in love with the most; Shota quietly sobbing on Yagi's sleeping shoulder, sitting on the ground, holding his left hand, Bakugo scooted against Saya, brushing sweaty, long bangs away from the forehead as he held his hand.

"You'feelin' better?" Katsuki spoke after thirty minutes.

"Little." Saya's lips parted. "I'm afraid t'fall asleep."

"I understand." Whisper.

"I don'wanna see'anymore." A hush back.

"I helped get y'out once, I can'do it again."

"I believe that." Saya mumbled, a smirk. "You're amazing."

"Hn?" Bakugo put his chin on the chest, looking into the right eye with the iris, that was barely open. That misty gray eye. Ah. So beautiful. He peripherally shot a glance at the other eye, the moon'ed one was just as closed.

Disaster was tired too.

How could it be a quirk and be tired?

Bakugo guessed energy sometimes dispelled as well. It probably needed time to center the energy back and re-ionize or something. Charge back up?

He had no idea, but that was his best guess.

"Y'heard." Saya mumbled. "You're great to'me."

"I try t'be the best you'll ever have."

"You're th'only one." Whisper. The eye blinked lazily, the slit closing and opening.

That swelled Suki's heart. Hearing those words. Maybe it was as his dad told him. It wasn't about the physical words. It was about the feeling and actions behind what is actually said and presented.

Kasaya loved him. He knew it. He had to of.

"Go ahead and sleep. I'll watch over you."

"Y'won't let anythin' happen?"

"No." Bakugo kissed the cheek. "I'll make sure and save you."

"Bu'we'll save toge... together hn?"

Bakugo knew he was referencing their goals together.

Become heroes. End the Connely's. Save people stuck under them.

But it was more now.

It was UA. It was Japan.

The world, and the world's citizens.

The people.

As much as Bakugo hated them, he loved Kasaya more.

And with what had happened to him, he could not allow another single person be tortured that way.

How fucking grotesque! Vile!

He could not have it.

Because in their tortured eyes, in their broken state, chained, drugged, and beaten... all he's see was Saya in shackles, covered in blood, whipped.

He could not do because their eyes no matter the color would morph to Kasaya's eyes.

He could not do it because their form would transform to his.

The Connely's will reach their end.

The League of Villians will fall.

The people will be free.

Bakugo would save the world for him.

He would make it a better place, just to have more time to spend with him, so they could live out their days in relative peace and gentleness.

Being a hero would be a bumpy road, but after this huge mountain, nothing would ever be hard, too difficult to manage.

He was selfish over their relationship, so selfish that it changed the way he wanted to live life.

His morals.

Bakugo had a reason to 'want' to save people now.

It was all because of him.

"Yeh. We'll save everything. Y'know, the world."

"Th'world?" Saya swallowed, hearing his man's deep voice get muffled again, drifting into a dreary, but comfortable sleep.

"Mhm." He throated into his chest.

"It's b... bad."

"It is."

"Then." Hushedly it came. "... I'll fight."

Suki glanced up.

Saya and Disaster were both nearing the clouds in the head.

He put a hand on the face.

Satoko accepted. It was more than his personal vendetta. It was... everything else as well. Before he passed out, he recognized it. It connected. Aiwaza had kept saying how scared he was, and on his own quietly, he'd deduced that things were going to shit, and that the crime was taking over.

Kasaya Satoko made a choice.

With Suki and his role model's aid today, some confidence instilled that he very well might withstand this.

He'd gathered a week and a half ago that the Connely's were just a stepping stone... one into a much deeper, darker world.

The Connely's had to be connected to the League.

It was the only thing that made sense to Kasaya.

It shivered him.

But it was true.

All crime connects back to the LOA somehow.

How ugly he felt that he was then a pawn for the villains.

Not just the villainous Americans he was latched onto against his will.

But the actual 'villains' the public feared, the organization which from the shadow loomed over the entire sky.

"I'll... do it." Saya mumbled.

"Me too. F'you."

"For... us. Saves us."

"Hn?"

"Savin' them." He meant the people of the world. "It'll... save us."

"From who'we used t'be?"

"Yeh. An'who we'll... we'll never be... again."

With that, the eyes closed and the body breathed deep; asleep.

Bakugo laid his head back down on the chest listening to the heart beat.

So, that was the route they were taking. He'd take it with him.

Sometimes heroes did become heroes because they felt they owed it to the world.

But that wasn't them.

Bakugo knew it. He knew Kasaya knew it.

They'd been terrible people.

But for them? Peering into the eyes of those who were helpless and trapped?

It was because they'd both seen it before of themselves, in themselves.

The pain. The suffering.

When Kasaya said 'It'll save us', he meant it'll right their minds.

They didn't owe the world anything.

They had been just two people caught up in horrible circumstance.

But this gave them the opportunity to fully heal themselves.

So that they could continue.

Kasaya was ushering that they be pure in resolve.

Bakugo smirked. It'd be impossible to go back now. "Always keepin' me'on my toes." He kissed the hand. "But I'm becoming light on my own." He sighed and put Kasaya's palm on his face. "All you did was start the change."

He recognized that he was the one that followed through.

He was the one that let the man into his life and from there began to revolve.

He admitted without meeting Kasaya, he would just be the same person as he was before.

Funny. He was accepting of change, but never change within himself.

But now he was.

His fire kept the wheel turning.

And now it was just walking towards that edge together into the warmth, and doing what's right and fair.

Their 'saving' would end.

And they would be just 'saved'. New.

Nothing inside them for the ones they fight for would exist except the purity to simply save them.

To simply save them.