With Mina by his side, moving faster with her acid than he'd ever seen before, Izuku blazed through the Underground like a bolt of lightning.
He wasn't wearing his hero costume, wasn't even supposed to be on active duty at that moment, but it didn't matter. There were people in danger, and he had the power to help.
All he had to do was reach them.
That would be easier said than done, and both Izuku and Mina knew it. They had started out on the second level, but the villain fight was taking place on the seventh. The enormous elevators that were the main method of public transport between the levels would take far too long to cover that distance-the Underground was simply too vast to be traversed quickly.
Mina pulled even with Izuku as they barreled down a street; he was swinging from stalactites with Black Whip, and she was running along the side of a long, low building as easily as most people ran down the road. If Izuku had had time to focus on that, he would have been even more amazed by the sheer versatility of Mina's quirk than he usually was.
For now, though, he only focused on her voice, somehow audible over the rush of wind and the blood pounding in his ears, as she said, "How are we going to get there in time? The seventh level is too far!"
Izuku swallowed. He still didn't know why Mina was coming-rushing into danger like this went against everything he knew about her. But he wasn't going to complain, or argue. He took a deep breath, running the calculations in his head. At last, he made his decision.
"Follow me!" he replied, shouting not out of panic, but out of sheer adrenaline and single-minded determination.
"Where?" Mina shouted back, somehow managing to keep up with his pace as Izuku swung in midair, turning sharply down another street. In the distance, at the dead center of the second level, a massive, circular stone pillar glimmered with neon light. It was the vital artery of the whole Underground; the Musutafu Elevators.
Izuku didn't say anything as they blazed through city blocks. If Mina could tell what he was thinking, she didn't seem inclined to share her thoughts. They reached the entrance of the Elevators in a blur of lightning and hissing acid.
Honestly, their name did the Elevators a disservice; rather than small metal cubicles that could fit perhaps seven or eight people at maximum, each individual lift was the size of a house, capable of carrying nearly the same number of people as an entire subway train of the type used in nearly every other city in Japan. With eight of these enormous, rapid-moving lifts arranged around a vast circular shaft wide enough to comfortably accommodate a couple of aircraft carriers, the Elevators were as much of an engineering marvel as the Underground itself. The stations on the first and second levels drew comparisons to Grand Central Station in New York, both in size and ornate design.
Not that Izuku or Mina cared. They tore through the busy nexus at top speed, drawing shouts and cries of alarm from those inside. Nobody tried to stop them, though; the flaring green lightning Izuku gave off was unmistakable, and many of the shouts turned into ones of awe and excitement, not outrage, as those waiting in the lines below realized who it was shooting overhead in the blink of an eye. Nobody paid attention to the cloaked, masked figure sliding through their midst or running along the walls almost as quickly as Izuku was moving.
The Elevator operators reacted to Izuku's sudden arrival with their legendary efficiency; even though he couldn't spare the breath to alert them to what he was doing, they already knew. After all, heroes did it all the time. The path ahead of him was cleared of people with incredible speed.
Izuku spotted an operator gesturing to him, pointing down a long, narrow hallway with a pair of enormous metal doors at the end, and flashed him a thumbs-up as he adjusted his course. Mina, quick on the uptake, did the same.
At last, they came to a screeching halt before the colossal doors, which were sealed shut. Beyond them, Izuku knew, was nothing but a yawning void, punctuated only by the screaming rush of the silver lifts arranged around the outside of the shaft. In the center, though, there was empty air, for exactly this purpose.
Panting a little in the few moments of strange hesitation they had been given, Mina shot Izuku a look. "You gonna explain to me what we're doing here, or is this going to be a fun little guessing game?" she demanded, eyeing the doors suspiciously.
Izuku may have been in a state of pure focus at that moment, but he still couldn't resist the grin that crept onto his face. "Ever ridden these elevators?" he asked.
"Sure," Mina answered with a shrug. "They're the fastest way to travel between the levels, especially if you just sneak in and ride on top of the lift. But they're still too slow."
"Second-fastest," Izuku corrected, ignoring Mina's admission that she hitchhiked on the Elevators in the interest of time.
Mina blinked. "Excuse me?" she asked
"They're the second-fastest way between the levels," Izuku explained, dropping into a crouch as the doors began to grind open with a long, low rumble. "The fastest is the shaft itself."
Mina stared at him for a second as the heavy doors continued to open slowly. Then, a smile slowly spread across her face; Izuku could see it shining in her eyes even through her mask.
"Let me get this straight," Mina said, crossing her arms. "We're about to throw ourselves into a pitch-black bottomless pit filled with objects moving at speeds high enough to splatter us like rotten tomatoes, without any protective equipment or safety tethers at all."
Izuku nodded.
"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" Mina asked. "That sounds like more fun than I've had in years!"
Izuku snorted in agreement. "Hop on," he told her as the doors finally opened fully.
Mina froze. "Hold on," she replied, finally realizing why Izuku was crouched the way he was. "I'm not holding onto you. I can handle myself."
Now it was Izuku's turn to shoot her a look. "Mina," he said, "Even if I wasn't the only one of us who could float to avoid splattering at the bottom of the shaft, I'm also going to be moving much faster than you could if you were sliding down the side of the shaft with your acid."
Mina opened her mouth, then hesitated. She knew the logic was sound, she just didn't want to hold Izuku like that. Something in her threatened to make her blush at the thought. "Do I have to ride piggyback?" she whined.
"It's either that or being held in my arms," Izuku retorted. "I feel like you'd hate that one more."
Mina thought about it for a second, wondering why the offer was so conflicting. Then, she realized something. Fuck…the problem wasn't that she'd hate being carried by Izuku like that, was it? The issue was that she wasn't sure if she would hate it.
"Piggyback it is," she decided, hopping onto Izuku's back and wrapping her arms and legs around his torso while putting every thought she'd just had into the "Do Not Think About'' box. Thank God she was able to get back into the zone before that box exploded from being too overstuffed.
Glad that Mina couldn't see how he was now starting to blush, Izuku rose to his feet, striding to the edge of the shaft. Below, there was nothing but open void, a yawning abyss too deep to see into. The distant thrum of a lift rumbled through his feet, almost masking the thrill he got whenever he did this. Somehow, leaping into this bottomless pit never failed to get his adrenaline pumping. Every now and then, being a hero meant you got to do some fun shit.
"Here we go," Izuku said, leaping into the pit.
Mina couldn't help the whoop of excitement she let out as her stomach began to feel the effects of such an enormous drop. She was an adrenaline junkie, and she knew it. She may not get many opportunities to do things like this, but that just made it better. Sure, she was heading right into a massive fight between heroes and criminals for reasons she still couldn't really explain to herself, beside a man she was determined to ignore her increasingly conflicted feelings about, but dammit, this was fun.
Izuku tilted downwards, straightening out his body and slicing through the air at incredible speed. He turned slowly as he shot downwards, moving faster than any human was meant to move, loving every second of it. Shiny gray blurs-the lifts-shot past him in fractions of a second, like sentinels observing his progress. The rock walls were a blur, only enhancing the feeling of speed that overwhelmed everything else, turned even his biggest fears into distant worries, though only for a moment.
And then, all too soon, it was over. Izuku spotted the illuminated symbols on the wall of the shaft that marked the doorways for the seventh level. One of them was already open; the Elevator operators had done their jobs perfectly. Izuku twisted in midair, thrusting his hands out at the open gateway, and Black Whip answered. Tendrils shot out, hooking onto the open doorway, acting as anchors. Izuku pulled himself towards the doors, suddenly turning his momentum ninety degrees. The g-forces that the maneuver caused certainly weren't pleasant, but he handled them just fine. Mina, used to sudden, high-speed changes of direction, just yelled in excitement as Izuku used just a tiny boost from Float to send him sailing through the doors at speeds that turned everything into a blur. If the people in this station saw him, he couldn't tell; Izuku burst through into the seventh level with a joyful shout. Within seconds, he was swinging again, headed towards the location of the fight.
On his back, Mina leaned close to his ear and told him, "Okay, that was fucking awesome!"
Izuku couldn't help his grin. "I know, right?" he responded.
Mina was beaming despite the growing nerves in the pit of her stomach. She could almost forget that she was doing something almost as stupid as saving Izuku's life, all that time ago.
What was she doing, charging towards a hero fight? She had no business being here, had no reason to be following Atlas around like this. And yet…she'd moved without thinking, and even now, she didn't regret it. All she could do in the moment was absolutely refuse to be left behind.
By the time Mina had managed to get back into a better frame of mind, the sounds of a hero fight were audible. They were coming from a street right along the very edge of this cavern; small, dingy homes were crowded close together here, in the lowest, poorest areas of the Underground proper. Of course, by Depths standards, the people here were fabulously wealthy…but that wasn't saying much.
Izuku and Mina swooped down, ready to join in, but Izuku hesitated as he closed in. Seeing what Izuku had already seen, Mina leaned in close again and said, "Looks like you weren't needed, after all."
Izuku grunted, setting them down on a nearby rooftop. Sure enough, the fight seemed to be more or less wrapped up; several villains were down and handcuffed, with various bruises, cuts, and other injuries, with battered but victorious heroes standing over them. Two of the villains had no visible indications of their quirks, but the third was enormous, barely restrained and thrashing helplessly. His muscles bulged, his beady dark eyes filled with hate; his body was misshapen and lumpy, his sagging, scrunched skin an odd off-blue. In places, it seemed to be ripped, revealing red muscle beneath.
A little ways away, a blond hero with a smug look on his face was standing, surrounded by a crowd of adoring civilians. His costume was ornate, though scuffed and ripped here and there. He seemed to be basking in the attention from the people around him, ignoring the injuries his comrades had suffered.
"Never fear, civilians!" the hero crowed, soaking up the applause and thankful words from those he had saved. "As long as Magnificent is here to protect you, no villain will ever threaten you!"
Mina raised an eyebrow, turning to Izuku. "Magnificent?" she repeated incredulously. "Well, at least he's humble."
Izuku shook his head, but otherwise didn't reply. He hadn't moved yet; perhaps he was still trying to decide what to do. It was clear to both of them that they weren't needed here.
Neither of them noticed the deep, ominous cracks slowly beginning to spread across the ceiling above, just at the join where the cavern wall and the ceiling met.
"Then again, I'm talking to someone named Atlas," Mina continued thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "Maybe all you heroes are just full of yourselves. I mean, all your names just reek of self-importance."
"Some villains use aliases too," Izuku pointed out, though his eyes still didn't shift from the scene below. He seemed to be upset by something, though Mina wasn't entirely sure what. She was pissed about the scene below too, yes, but she doubted it was for the same reasons as Izuku.
"Yeah, the ones who are also full of themselves," Mina shot back. "I just don't see the point of using made-up names to sound cool. It just feels… fake. It's a good cover for what heroes actually do, though."
"And that is?" Izuku asked.
Mina gestured at the beaten villains. "Hurting anyone who doesn't fit in your pretty little world, that's what."
Izuku finally turned, raising an eyebrow. He asked, "Would you prefer villains be allowed to run rampant?"
"I would prefer if you stopped acting like everyone who commits a crime is irredeemable-or even in the wrong," Mina hissed, gritting her teeth. "Besides, you can't tell me that they deserve to be treated like that."
She once again pointed down at the scene below, where two of the villains weren't even moving, and the third was still struggling viciously, making life extremely difficult for the heroes trying to keep them in cuffs until the police arrived. As she watched, one of the heroes drove a fist into the struggling villain's gut, forcing him to double over in pain. Meanwhile, Magnificent continued hogging every bit of glory he could, soaking up the admiration and gratitude of the people he had saved. Mina was used to scenes like this, and it still left a bad taste in her mouth.
What she wasn't used to was Izuku sighing, then agreeing, "You're right."
Mina turned to stare at him, surprised. "Really?" she asked. "I thought you would be defending those heroes with every breath."
Izuku shook his head. "I know damn well there's plenty of rotten apples in this line of work," he admitted. "And I know how badly villains get treated sometimes. I'm not blind."
Mina blinked, but frustration was still boiling in her gut. There was too much in her memory for her to do anything else. "Maybe you aren't blind, and maybe you try to be better than these heroes," she said, "But the saying is, a rotten apple spoils the bunch."
Izuku sighed again, then turned away. Mina didn't feel bad for saying what she had said…even if she knew it probably wasn't the best time for it.
When he spoke again, Izuku seemed to agree. He told her, "You're wrong. Not about the saying, about our names."
Mina raised an eyebrow. "Hero names are a lie," she said. "You try to pretend you're better than the rest of us, that a nice costume and flashy powers make you more than human. But you aren't. You're as rotten as everyone else."
Izuku remained facing away from her, towards the sheer cliff that was the cavern wall.
Softly, he agreed, "You're right. We are human. But that doesn't make us rotten. It doesn't make anyone rotten. And our names…they aren't a lie. They're a reminder."
"What sort of reminder?" Mina asked, raising an eyebrow, arms crossed. She refused to let Izuku's soft, deep, lovely voice suck her in this time. She would not be convinced. Her whole life, she'd known that heroes were evil, and that just about everyone around her was, too. She didn't care much for the distinctions; they'd all kill you just as dead.
"A reminder that we can be more," Izuku answered, his voice achingly quiet, yet ringing with strength. "A promise to ourselves that we can live up to the things we aspire to be. A promise to the people who believe in us."
Mina barely managed to avoid scoffing. Typical soft abovegrounder speak. And yet…instead of dismissing Izuku's words out of hand, she found herself asking, "Is that how you got your name?"
Izuku looked back at her once more, and she found that he was smiling, just a little. "Not quite," he said cryptically.
Narrowing her eyes, Mina opened her mouth to reply. But before she could, there were screams from the street below, followed by a terrifying roar.
Instantly, Izuku and Mina's attention focused in on the scene below. Somehow, the enormous, ripped-up villain had thrown off both the heroes trying to restrain him, then managed to snap the quirk-suppressing cuffs right off his wrists. With an inhumanly loud shout, he charged forwards, neglecting his unconscious comrades, bloodshot eyes locked on his target.
The crowd screamed as the mutant plowed through them, stampeding away as he made a beeline right for Magnificent. The blond hero cried out as a massive blue-skinned hand closed around him, carrying him along as the villain continued rushing forward at top speed, before finally slamming into the cavern wall, hard enough that the crack of shattering bone was audible to everyone watching.
With his body broken and twisted, Magnificent was choking up blood as the mutant squeezed tighter, smiling through torn-up lips, beady black eyes glinting with deadly intent.
"For the Outcasts!" he shouted, loud enough to be heard even by Izuku and Mina. "For the Boss!"
Izuku's blood ran cold, and Mina's eyes went wide. Impossible.
The mutant raised his fist, skin hanging loosely from his body, revealing gruesome rips and tears that exposed muscle, yet didn't seem to bother him at all. Before he could bring it down, though, something worse happened.
There was a loud, awful noise, like a gunshot mixed with the spine-chilling sound of grinding rock, like nails on a chalkboard, but a thousand times louder. Shaken by the mutant's charge, cracks shot up the wall and into the ceiling of the cavern.
And then the ceiling began to cave in.
Mina stumbled back in blind panic as rock and earth began to rain down. Instincts earned by long years of surviving in the Depths screamed at her, demanding that she run. She knew that death, as any underworlder did; tunnel collapses and cave-ins were common in the Depths. And they were an awful way to die; whether you were crushed by falling rocks, suffocated by earth, or left to bleed out or even starve to death under enormous weights you could never hope to move.
But even though Mina's heart shattered as she watched dozens of people die, her instincts dragged her in the opposite direction. Screams of terror filled the air as the ceiling crumpled, falling down in chunks the size of cars. There was nothing she could do for those poor souls now; all she could do, she thought, was get away, lest she join them.
"Come on, Izuku," she cried, knowing his heroic heart would balk at the thought of failing to help. "We need to-"
He was gone. Mina began to panic; where the hell had that moron gotten himself to? Then, she saw him, and her jaw dropped.
As soon as the first earth-shaking crack had erupted, Izuku had bolted, just like any underworlder worth their salt would. But where they ran away, Izuku ran towards the falling avalanche, leaping from the roof and towards the screaming crowd in an instant, a blur of green lightning and overwhelming power. He reached the edge of the cavern, where the ceiling was coming down, rock and dirt pouring down around him. Smaller rocks and clods of earth continued to pour down around him, some hitting the buildings across the street, crumpling and destroying. But then, with a mighty cracking noise, the true danger revealed itself.
A truly gargantuan piece of the ceiling tore itself free, plummeting towards the ground below. It spelled doom for every building and person nearby, hundreds of souls, some who didn't even know it was coming. It filled the air as it came crashing towards the ground, a two-hundred-foot-long piece of pure dense stone, as heavy as a mountain, as fast as a bullet.
And then, just before the boulder struck the ground, Izuku caught it.
Mina watched, dumbfounded, awed, and more than a little terrified, as the immense shard of rock struck Izuku's immensely broad shoulders and upraised palms, and instead of crushing him flat like it would have done to anyone else, it bounced, as if striking unyielding stone. Before it could move again, Izuku's arms snapped outwards, arms like pillars pinning the vast rock into place, balancing it across his back and hands. His body was a whirling storm of lightning, a dark form outlined by thunderous power. In the few feet of space between the ground and the falling sky, a new sun rose.
The sheer weight pressing down on Izuku was unimaginable; thousands of tons of earth bore down on the top of the jagged, titanic rock as more of the ceiling collapse was prevented from falling, held in place by one man. The roughly triangular boulder acted almost like a plug, holding even more debris back from collapsing. It strained every muscle in Izuku's body, just holding the thing; Mina could see every individual piece of him, stretched to the breaking point, pushed beyond the limits of human endurance, of sanity, of physics itself.
But still, Izuku held. The weight forced him down, hunching him over, dropping to him one knee. For a heart-stopping second, Mina thought it was too much, that it was all for nothing. She was convinced that that avalanche of deadly earth would crush Izuku, mock his desperate attempt to resist nature itself.
It so very nearly did. But it couldn't. Izuku grunted, then roared, crackling lightning lancing through his body, filling the air around him, and somehow, impossibly, he pushed. A thousand thousand tons of stone above him, and he pushed it up. The boulder rose, inch by agonizing inch, until it could rise no more. Izuku stood, hunched by the burden, pinned in place, unable to move…but he held. By sheer force of will, he reversed the collapse, stopped it in its tracks. Those who would have been crushed by the boulder didn't even try to flee; many of them couldn't, pinned by smaller rocks, or injured, or simply struck dumb by the sheer madness of what they were seeing. Mina could only stare in unashamed awe, along with the whole street. They stared, not at a hero, but at a man out of legend; Atlas, holding up the world.
And at last, Mina had her answer. She knew why Izuku Midoriya had chosen his hero name.
Standing there, watching a man live up to his name, Mina truly understood what a hero was for the first time. A hero was someone who could do this, could listen to the laws of the universe dictate death and destruction, and refuse to accept it, and bend the world to their will.
At last, the collapse seemed stable; the key word being seemed. Mina knew from experience that it was probably close to collapsing still…but for the moment, Izuku had saved hundreds of people from the worst possible death she could imagine. But it wasn't enough. The jagged, misshapen boulder had managed to trap countless people beneath it, many of them stunned and hurt, unable to escape. They were alive, but only for as long as Izuku could hold out.
"He can't help them," Mina realized, "there isn't enough room under the boulder for them all to get out…and there's no way he can hold it forever."
Before Mina had even finished the thought, she was moving, leaping from the rooftop onto the shattered street below. She didn't know why, didn't know how she managed to move so quickly, or duck so precisely into a slide, acid already saturating the fabric of her undersuit to slot her through the impossibly narrow gap between the rock and the street beneath it. Her body moved without thinking.
But it moved, and then Mina was next to Izuku as he bore the weight of the world. She had to squint when she looked at him; she kept half-expecting to turn to ash just from being this close to him. But the lightning didn't touch her. It curled around her, washed over her like a warm caress, welcoming and gentle. It felt safe.
Izuku raised his head ever so slightly, still trembling under the weight of the boulder. He stared at her with an expression that might have been surprise.
"M-Mina?" he grunted, clearly distracted. "Why are you-"
"Never mind that," Mina interrupted, watching his momentary shift of attention cause a grinding wobble in the rock above them. "Save your breath. Tell me how I can help, Izuku."
Izuku hesitated; Mina wasn't sure why. He began, "Are you sure-"
Once again, Mina interrupted him. With more fervor in her voice than she recalled ever having before, she snapped, "Yes, I'm sure, Izuku. I won't let you do this alone. You can't do this alone."
Izuku chuckled, though it came out more as a dry huff; his face was very pale, with sweat leaving tracks in the gritty dust that was rapidly filling the air. "Okay," he decided. "Get the people trapped under here to safety, Mina. After that, I can…put this down."
Mina nodded. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't find the words. What could she possibly say to a man like this? What made her, a thief in way over her head, worthy to try and encourage Izuku while he single-handedly held up the sky? So instead, she turned, creeping through the low, dusty space under the boulder, looking for people who needed help.
After a few moments of fumbling in the near dark-the collapse had done something to knock out the nearby lights-Mina got frustrated. There was no time to think, no time to second-guess herself; she ripped off her mask and kept going. Her hood would have to keep her identity safe.
She found the first victim not long after that. A woman and her young daughter lay in the fetal position, curled up and trembling. At first, Mina thought they were just too scared to move; then, she saw the heavy rock that had landed on the woman's foot, pinning her to the ground.
The woman and her daughter watched Mina with wide eyes as she emerged from the thick, choking dust and laid a hand on the rubble trapping them.
"Are you a hero?" the young girl whispered, looking at Mina with wide eyes that weren't nearly as terrified as they should have been.
Mina hesitated, and she wasn't quite sure why. It didn't matter, and she knew it…but something in her balked at the idea of taking the awed shine from that girl's eyes.
So, instead, she lied, "Yes. Here, stand back a bit. I'm going to get you out of here, I promise."
Acid bubbled up through her gloves, hissing as it ate into the rock. It took less than a minute for the woman to be freed. There wasn't enough room for her to stand up all the way as Mina helped her and her daughter to her feet; when Mina gestured towards the thin slice of light that must be the edge of the collapse, they began to crawl towards it, shooting grateful looks back at Mina.
She turned, heading back into the center of the collapse, searching for others. It was hard, dirty, dangerous work; the unsteady boulder was creaking overhead, clearly unstable. It yearned to complete its fall, wanted nothing more than to crush them all to death, only barely held in check by Izuku's sheer defiance. He was a guiding star in the hazy madness Mina found herself in; the green light he gave off was like a lighthouse steering ships in the night, letting her orient herself.
Mina lost track of how long she spent beneath that damn boulder; her whole being was focused on the search, on helping every single person she possibly could. In some distant corner of her mind, she wondered if this was how heroes felt. She found people in all sorts of conditions; unhurt but stunned, reeling, lost, terrified, calm, horribly injured, and more. One by one, she steered them to the edge of the collapse, getting them to safety. She could hear sirens in the distance; she hoped that people outside were being evacuated.
As she kept searching, Mina came across something that made her stop in her tracks. As she worked to free a barely-conscious man from the rocks that had pinned him down, a raspy voice told her, "Make sure you don't jostle him too much."
Startled, Mina looked up to find the blond hair and gray eyes of Magnificent staring back at her. He nodded respectfully, though she couldn't quite return the favor; she was too busy staring. The man's body was a mess of injuries and broken bones; his limbs looked twisted, his skin was far too pale, and his costume was in tatters. And yet, he doggedly dragged himself forwards, grim determination in his eyes. He seemed unwilling to head to safety-not while there were still people in need of help. He reached forwards, helping clear away the last of the debris atop the man Mina was helping. Then, he told her, "I'll get him to safety. You keep looking."
Mina was so stunned to see the man, the only thing she could blurt out was, "W-what about the guy who-"
Understanding her meaning, Magnificent made a strange gesture that might have been a shrug, if his body wasn't so damaged. "He bolted as soon as the roof came down," the hero answered. "Last I saw, he was digging people out, too. Right now, saving lives is the priority."
With that, the horrifically injured hero, who must have been running on little more than adrenaline, began hauling the man towards the edge of the collapse. Mina watched him go, an odd feeling in her gut. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that nobody-hero or villain-was as simple as they appeared.
Mina kept working, kept pushing herself to find every last person she could. She used her quirk more than she had in years, pushing to the point where her gloves began to hiss and fall apart, and her fingers were stinging fiercely. She ignored it.
At last, she could find no more victims beneath the enormous boulder. Feeling exposed without her gloves or mask on, but unable to care, she crept back towards the center, where that steady green light still shone. As she got close, though, it flickered, and something in the pit of her stomach clenched.
Mina reached Izuku as quickly as she could, and found him on the verge of collapse. He'd held the boulder up for what must have been close to half an hour, and the strain was obvious on his face. He was pale and sweaty, his eyes were shut tightly, and he was shaking as he forced more and more power out of his body. And yet, he kept holding. He had pushed so far beyond what should have been humanly possible-so far beyond what even his immense strength should have been capable of-and yet he still stood.
Izuku barely reacted beyond a groan when Mina laid a hand on his arm. "Izuku," she told him, softly, gently. "You did it. We got everyone out. You can set it down now."
Izuku let out something that might have been a whine, or a gasp for air. After a second spent trying to gather his strength, he said, "Thank you, Mina. I knew you could do it."
Warmth surged in Mina's chest, and she couldn't help her smile as she answered, "You're the one who saved everyone. I didn't do much."
Izuku looked like he wanted to say something in response to that, but he knew better than to get into a back-and-forth in a situation that was still so dangerous. Looking around through settling dust, he saw the lights of emergency vehicles backing off; clearly, they had realized that the boulder could be allowed to settle now. Slowly, gingerly, Izuku shifted his feet, taking gradual steps toward the edge. Mina followed, still hushed by the scale of the creaking weight above them. Bit by bit, the far edge of the boulder dipped down toward the ground as Izuku got closer to the edge, shifting the weight gradually to avoid any surprises. Step after step let them creep closer and closer to freedom; Izuku didn't speak, and the only noises he made were strained grunts that showed just how taxing his feat had been.
At last, Izuku reached the edge, letting Mina duck past him. The boulder was mostly on the ground, now; he carefully lowered it down, shedding the last of the weight and allowing it to finally come to rest. The gradual descent allowed the rest of the collapse to settle harmlessly, preventing further damage.
As Izuku finally set down his burden, Mina studied the crowds being held back by the first responders. She saw the people she'd helped, many of them hurt; few seemed to even be watching them anymore, as emergency personnel swarmed the site, turning the whole street into a chaotic whirl of activity. She spotted Magnificent, being loaded into an ambulance-it seemed that his injuries had finally caught up with him. He didn't look smug or arrogant; he just looked exhausted, in pain, and grimly satisfied at a job well done despite it all. Mina saw the other heroes, also receiving treatment, or else still hard at work assisting first responders. She didn't see the villains-it seemed the mutant had slipped away with his comrades in the confusion. Mina had to admit, she felt pretty happy about that-well aside from the fact that the mutant villain had apparently tried to help in the aftermath of the collapse, she couldn't help but be thankful that a few people like her had had a happy ending today.
Mina finally turned, spotting Izuku standing beside the boulder he'd held for so long. There was no lightning around him, and he looked exhausted, coated in dust and sweat. Whatever superhuman aura he'd radiated as he stopped the sky from falling was gone-and yet, Mina still couldn't look away. She put a hand on his arm as he took long, deep breaths, swaying a little.
"Are you okay?" she asked, worried; Izuku looked like he might collapse at any second.
Izuku looked up, meeting her eyes, and the warmth in Mina's chest grew stronger. "Y-yeah, I'm fine," he muttered, still swaying; his arms slumped down to his sides, still shaking. "That was…heavy."
Mina snorted at the understatement. "That was…the most amazing thing I've ever seen, Izuku," she murmured, still in shock. Izuku smiled at her, but Mina barely noticed as she began to lose herself in her thoughts. Why was she being so honest? Somehow, every wall she'd built, every restraint she'd put on her emotions…they were all crumbling. Something about Izuku was shaking her to her core, turning her into a jumble of emotions she simply wasn't equipped to make sense of. And that scared her more than the collapse had.
In addition, alongside the wonder Mina felt at watching something so impossible firsthand, there was…something else. Something much darker, much sharper, eating at her like a starving animal. It wasn't aimed at Izuku-it was aimed at herself. It demanded to know why a man like this had dedicated her life to making sure people like her never saw the sun. Because if heroes really were real…
What did that make her?
Mina forced the thought away. Not here. She couldn't look weak, not now. Not in front of Izuku.
Her attempt to avoid her own mind was aided a moment later, when Izuku took a step away from the fallen boulder, only for it to turn into more of a stagger. Only Mina's hand wrapping around his shoulder, hauling him back, kept him from keeling over.
Mina stepped forwards too, making sure Izuku's weary shaking wouldn't make him fall. "Fine?" she repeated incredulously. "You look like you're about to pass out!"
Izuku hissed a little as he managed to take another step, leaning gratefully on Mina. She slowly guided him away from the pandemonium of the street. Nobody stopped them; in street clothes, without lightning sparking off his body or a smile on his face, Izuku wasn't noticeable enough to distract anyone from what they were doing. Maybe he would have normally stuck around to help-but Mina was right.
Grudgingly, Izuku admitted, "Okay, maybe I pushed it a little. At least I didn't break any bones this time."
"This time?" Mina hissed incredulously. "How often do you fucking break your bones?"
Izuku shrugged. "Not that much anymore," he replied. "But…in high school? A lot. Like, every week. I'm pretty sure the school nurse still holds a grudge."
Mina shook her head in disbelief, wondering if punching a man who had probably just strained every muscle in his body was a bad idea or not. She drew Izuku's arm around her shoulders, helping him walk. It was the most contact she'd ever had with him-and she didn't hate it. That also scared her.
What the fuck was going on with her?
With Mina's help, Izuku slowly made his way further down the street, away from the chaos around the site of the collapse. He didn't try to argue or go back-he knew he'd done all he could. Besides, he didn't want to risk Mina's safety by sticking around an area crawling with heroes.
They walked in surprisingly comfortable silence for a while, until Mina finally turned down a small alley, letting Izuku tenderly lower himself to the ground. With his back leaned against the alley wall and his legs splayed out in front of him, he let out a heavy sigh. Mina slipped down beside him, leaving barely any space between them. She seemed almost as exhausted as he was.
"Do you people do that every day?" she asked, still breathing deeply. "You're all insane."
Izuku turned to look at her with curious eyes. Mina had willingly followed him into a fight she had no stake in. Without even hesitating, she had thrown herself into danger to help other people, an act that must have gone against every instinct in her body. And she barely even seemed to care. Izuku wanted to know why.
He asked, "Mina…is it okay if I ask you something?"
Mina shrugged. "Shoot," she replied, not meeting his eyes.
Izuku hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. At last, he asked, "Why did you come with me?"
Mina didn't answer. Not at first, at least. It took several long minutes of silence before she leaned her head back against the stone and quietly admitted, "I don't know."
Izuku blinked. He hadn't been expecting that. He asked, "What do you mean by that?"
Mina turned to face him, gold eyes glittering oddly. Sharply, she told him, "It means that I don't know, Izuku. It's not like I usually follow heroes into insanely dangerous situations that I don't have any reason to be involved in."
"And yet, today you did," Izuku said.
Mina nodded as she agreed, "And today, I did."
She sighed, staring up at the rock above them. Outside, there were loud alarms and panicked voices as word of the collapse began to spread; in here, there was nothing but peaceful quiet. They were alone, in the middle of the city.
Eventually, Mina said, "I…really don't know what to tell you, Izuku. I honestly don't know why I came with you. Maybe I reacted to the thought that there was a cave-in or something. Or maybe it was just-"
Suddenly, Mina stopped, cutting herself off mid-sentence. She had been about to say, "Because I wanted to make sure you were safe." But something inside her balked at the thought of admitting that. It felt like…well, like she wasn't ready to say that yet. It suggested…something. Whatever it was, she was too scared to say the words out loud.
Seemingly oblivious to Mina's hesitation, Izuku smiled. "You know, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter why you did what you did," he told her. "Whatever the reason, you saved a lot of people today. So…thank you. Sincerely."
Mina felt herself blushing a little. "I barely did anything," she insisted. "You were the one who actually saved them. You caught the boulder."
Izuku shook his head. "And you were the one who helped people escape," he countered. "Without you, everything I did would have been for nothing. Those people owe their lives to you, Mina."
Mina looked away. Something about the way Izuku said her name was…it felt bright, in a way she barely knew. Her fists clenched in her lap, clutching big handfuls of her cloak.
"I…thank you, Izuku," she eventually muttered, trying desperately to maintain control of the storm raging in her mind. What was wrong with her? Why did she feel like this?
A moment later, Izuku sighed, only for it to turn into a desperate yawn. Mina could see the exhaustion in every line of his body. She felt it too, though not nearly as bad.
"You know what?" Izuku yawned. "I think I'm just gonna…nap for a while. Yeah…that sounds nice…"
A moment later, Izuku's body seemed to relax, his head lolling to the side. Mina realized he'd finally passed out. Honestly, she couldn't blame him, not after what he'd done.
She didn't feel like moving quite yet, not while she was still tired, too. So for a while, she just lay there, enjoying the quiet, basking in the safety she still felt whenever she was near Izuku. Why was that, anyway? Being around him was probably more dangerous for a thief like her than being in the Depths. And yet, here she was, sure that as long as she was near him, all was right in the world.
Mina was jarred from her thoughts by a rumbling sound. She whipped her head around, searching for the source of the noise; eventually, she found it in Izuku's pocket. Pulling out his phone, she found the screen glowing, displaying a text from someone named…Ejiro? Oh, right, that was what Izuku called Red Riot.
"Where are you, bro?" the text read. A moment later, the phone dinged again, and another text popped up. This one said, "I saw the news about that cave-in on the seventh level. Was it your fault?" Finally, after more time passed without a response, the third and final text arrived: "Alright, that's it. Where are you?"
Mina thought for a moment. Honestly, it was probably a bad idea for Izuku to be taking a nap in some random alley. It would be better if his friend came and got him. After a moment of fiddling on Izuku's phone, she figured out how to send their location to Ejiro. The phone dinged one last time. Confident that Izuku's friend had seen it, she reached back down to give Izuku's phone back. As she did so, she couldn't help but admire his peaceful, sleeping face. Even covered in dirt and grime, he was easy on the eyes. Cute freckles, deep, soothing eyes, lips she idly imagined kissing-wait a second.
Oh. Oh no.
That was what all these weird feelings were. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Mina bolted to her feet, eyes wide as heat suddenly flooded her. Things came together in an instant. Her willingness to touch him. Her blushing. The odd warmth she felt around him, the way he managed to bypass years of self-control with ease, the way she wanted to keep him safe-
"I'm crushing on the Number One Hero," Mina realized numbly. "I'm so fucking doomed."
Mina could feel her heartbeat picking up. Her mouth was going dry. How the fuck had this happened? More importantly, how had she not realized until the single worst possible moment? Sure, she'd never actually had a crush before, let alone fallen in love, but still.
Mina barely even spared a thought for whether Izuku might return it. Of course he wouldn't. He was a living legend, the Number One Hero, one of the most famous men in the entire country. And she was, well, nobody. Worse, a mutant nobody. She had no right to him, and no interest, either. Absolutely not. Anyone who loved Izuku would have to navigate a world of fame and glamor, of press attention and a constant spotlight on every action. Mina was a fucking criminal. No way in hell would he be interested in someone as unsuited for him as Mina was. Besides, she was hard, angry, and jaded as hell, and she knew it. Why would someone like Izuku be interested in her? She didn't even look human!
And yet…some part of Mina's brain spat at every objection she could come up with. Something in her didn't care if it was impossible, refused to accept reality. It chose him, and damn the rest of it.
That was the part that scared her the most, because she knew she might not be able to argue against it.
Refusing to look at Izuku at all now, Mina took a few shaky steps away, leaving his phone resting on his chest. She brushed away the guilt of running away; she was a thief, it was what she did. She ran away from everything, eventually. She needed to leave now, before this got any worse.
But somehow, she knew it wouldn't work. She would be drawn back, sooner or later. She would find him again. Mina had gotten the tiniest taste of what it might be like to not be alone, and now she was an addict. Hadn't her actions today proven that? When Izuku had tried to leave her, to return to his world, where heroes were good and people cared, she had come anyway. She had willingly charged into a hero fight, because of him.
Despite it all, though, Mina realized that she didn't actually know what to do. She had zero experience with crushes and relationships and all the rest of it. She'd barely given it any thought for years; romance wasn't exactly a pressing issue while you were fighting to survive.
So, there was only one thing to do. She would run away from one person, right back to someone she'd abandoned a long time ago. She needed advice, or support, or…or something. She really, really needed to get her shit together…and there was only one person Mina knew who actually had their shit together.
Mina turned her back on Izuku, and took a running start at the opposite wall. Her hands stung a little as acid coated them, but she couldn't bother caring. She scaled the wall in seconds, and rapidly began sprinting away. She had to get back to the Depths, now.
She really, really needed to talk to Tsu.