The hallway outside Alibaba's room was cramped with all the Phantom Thieves crowded into it. Izuku tried to ignore them, but they jostled and pushed him. They didn't mean to, but a tick made his eyebrow twitch. How was he supposed to talk to someone afraid of people when he was surrounded by people?

He knocked on the door. "Alibaba? Are you there?"

His phone instantly beeped.

What are they doing here?

"They wanted to check on you with me. They told me all about the deal they made with you and I told them who you are."

You did!? They did!?
And the result?

Izuku smiled. "Alibaba, I appreciate how much you care about me, but the reason why I'm gone more often isn't anyone's fault but my own. I've been overworking myself training for the UA entrance exams. I'm sorry it hurt you that I wasn't around—"

I wasn't hurt!

"Sure."

I wasn't!
That doesn't explain why they're here though.

"Is it weird to anyone else that he's just talking to the door?" Sakamoto whispered behind him. Izuku ignored it.

"I asked them to change your heart." His phone was silent. "You wanted me to get better, Ali—no, Futaba. Well, I want the same for you." Still silence. "You're going to die here if we don't do anything about it. Can you really say that you want to die in this room?"

Can they even do it? I'm not a criminal…
Is it even safe?

"Futaba-chan," Nijima said, pushing forward until she stood next to Izuku. "While I will admit, it's not completely safe, we can and are willing to change your heart. Will you please allow us to try?" Silence, then…

Okay.
Change my heart.
Please.

"Thank you, Futaba." Izuku smiled, turning to the Phantom Thieves. "How do we get there?"

"One more thing," Akira said. "Futaba-san, in order to access your cognition, we need a keyword from you. Could you tell us how you see this room?"

His phone buzzed.

Didn't Izuku already say it?
I'm going to die here.
This place is my tomb.

Izuku felt tears bud. "Tomb…"

"Keyword Accepted. Beginning Navigation." The robotic voice from yesterday said and the world distorted around them.

"Thank you, Futaba-chan!" Nijima called out just before they were sucked into the void of another dimension.

Izuku fell to the ground, his hands sinking into burning sand up to his wrists. The heat clung to him like a blanket and the sun scorched his unprotected arms, legs, and head. He blinked, and blinked again. Bakugou's Palace had been fantasic, yes, but this was… "Are we in a desert?"

"It's so hot…" Sakamoto groaned. "Aren't we supposed to be in her Palace? This doesn't look like any tomb I've ever seen."

Ann pointed to a glinting object on the horizon. "There! Doesn't that seem like pyramid?"

"So, it's probably the Palace."

"This must be a manifestation of how she sees the world," Mona said. "She must feel so isolated that even people right outside her door are miles away in reality."

Izuku's heart ached. But what ached more were his feet at the idea of walking all the way to the temple in this heat after all the workouts he did today. "How are we going to get there?"

"Oh, that's right! You've never seen me do this!" Morgana spread his arms out wide. "Morgana… transform!" He leapt into the air—

And transformed into a bus.

What?

What?

"Well, what do you think?" the bus asked.

Izuku closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You know what? The last two days have already been so weird, I'm just going to accept this."

Sakamoto patted his shoulder. "Probably for the best, shit's gonna get even weirder from now on."

They loaded onto the cat-bus and, with Nijima behind the wheel, took off across the desert. Despite the inishal respite from the heat, and even with the air conditioner blasting, it wasn't long before sweat slicked Izuku's skin. He pulled at his shirt to air it out.

Takamaki groaned. "This is taking forever," she whined, "Can't we roll down the windows?"

"Not unless you want hot air and sand to blast in," Nijima said, slumped over the steering wheel. Without a road or other cars, it wasn't dangerous as long as she kept going in the direction of the pyramid. If she ended up missing it, everyone would probably riot from having to stay longer in the bus.

"Maybe… we could play a game?" Izuku asked.

Akira replied, monotone, "I spy with my little eye…. Something beige."

"Is it sand?"

"Yep."

Izuku sighed. Outside the window, sand flew past, kicked up by the wheels. They weren't going very fast though, maybe 40 kilometers per hour. "Hey, Morgana, can you go any faster?"

"I'm going as fast as I can! I'm already using all my energy; this heat is hard for me too, you know!"

Izuku bit his lip. Energy, huh? Lifting his hand, Izuku called on his quirk. Energy sapped from his body, leaving him a shaking, exhausted mess, but he'd gotten used to operating at exhaustion. His power pooled in his hand, glowing white… and slapped his hand against the car door.

In less than a second, Morgana was going double speed. Everyone screamed as Izuku slumped against the cloth seat.

At least they'd get there faster.

Izuku's powers:

Izuku is the glass canon of the group: his almighty moves are very powerful, but cost a lot of SP, so he can only use a few moves before he runs out of energy. It's the same with his physical attacks: they're all group attacks, all high damage, but they leave him heavily damaged as a reference to when he uses One for All. He has moves that can boost the damage of teammates physical and magic attacks, but they don't work on him. He has no healing moves.

His saving grace is his snipe rifle. Not only does he have a lot of bullets, but if he snipes a shadow from a distance, it begins the battle early, counts as an ambush, and the enemies are only at half health.