jiro stared down at the mob a thousand feet below, and felt himself shatter into a thousand pieces. He was a hollow whirlwind of disbelief, a seething ocean of agony and self-hatred.

"He…he can't be dead," he thought numbly. "Izuku can't be dead."

Ejiro had known Izuku for nearly twenty years. He'd watched him grow from a shaking, quirkless child who jumped at shadows into a man who carried the world on his back, and did so with ease. He'd been at Izuku's side as he became the greatest hero Japan had ever seen.

And he was gone. That shadowy monster had thrown him and the woman he loved down a fucking ravine, and Ejiro had been powerless. He'd been floating uselessly in the air far, far above the fight, unable to help, unable to do anything but watch. They'd all been useless.

Useless, useless, useless.

Ejiro looked over at Ochako, Izuku's other closest friend. There were tears in her eyes-but they were tears of rage. She looked ready to burn the world to the ground. Ejiro didn't blame her-he felt the same way. He wanted to destroy something. He wanted to make the fucking monsters pay.

They were as familiar with death as every hero was-more so, even. They'd both lost people in the war against the League, a war they'd been thrust into as children, unprepared and naive. Comrades, mentors, teachers, legends. All gone. They were hardened now, experienced; death still hurt, but not the same way those first cruel losses had. They couldn't; the heart could only take so much. But this loss, watching a man they both loved plummet to his death, unable to save him…it was different. It broke them. Everything they were, everything they believed…it crumbled, and became fuel for the fire that consumed them.

There was the sound of a gun being cocked. Ochako and Ejiro turned their heads to see that Momo had braced herself against a nearby stalactite, feet planted on the surface as she stuck out horizontally, looking down at the ground far below. There was a sniper rifle growing from her arm like a gruesome plant.

There was no fire in her eyes-Momo didn't hate that way. She hated cold, had rage like a flash-freeze that paralyzed every emotion, leaving only emotionless, deadly logic in its wake.

"Say the word," she snapped, eyes hard and her hands shaking, just a little. "Just say it, and I put a bullet through that monster's skull."

Ejiro had seen Momo during the war. She'd taken out villains from a kilometer away with the same sniper rifle she'd just created. Floating upside down on the ceiling of a massive cavern, aiming at a tiny target on the ground below, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of howling monsters? She couldn't possibly miss.

Momo dialed in the rifle's scope, and from the way she bared her teeth in a snarl, Ejiro knew that she had the man who had killed Izuku dead to rights. Her finger twitched on the trigger, but she didn't pull it. Not yet.

Ochako looked at Ejiro. He clenched his fists, gritting his teeth as fingers hardened and sharpened into claws. His brain screamed at him to say yes, to take revenge in the swiftest and most brutal way, to send Izuku's killer with him.

Part of him wondered if this was really right. Something in him, some buried corner of his mind, said that it wasn't manly, that more death would solve nothing. He couldn't find it in him to care.
Izuku had been the most sympathetic to mutants out of all the heroes Ejiro knew. He'd fallen in love with one. And now he was dead at their hands. And if they had a leader strong enough to beat Izuku in all his glory…

Ejiro would never allow the rise of another Shigaraki. He would never fight another war, let alone in his own fucking city. And right now, as he watched an army cheer the man who had killed Ejiro's best friend, all he could see was the man who Izuku had had to kill to save them all, laughing as he leveled cities full of people.

Ejiro nodded. "Do it," he whispered.

Momo raised the rifle.

A gloved hand landed on the barrel, forcing it down, and Momo looked up in surprise.

"Don't even fucking think about it," Bloodhound snapped, her voice stern and cold.

Ejiro stared at her, rage bubbling up in his chest. "What the hell are you doing?" he snapped. "This is our chance!"

Bloodhound turned her head, and Ejiro found himself staring into cold, empty green goggles that gave absolutely nothing away. He couldn't tell what Bloodhound was thinking at all, whether she shared his rage and horror and fear and grief or if she felt nothing at all.

"Your chance for what?" she asked stiffly.

Ejiro stared at her as if she was insane. "For revenge!" he roared. "To stop the monster who just killed the strongest hero in Japan!"

Bloodhound held Ejiro's gaze with that empty mask for an eternity. Then, she shook her head.

"No, kid," she told him. "Stand down. That's an order."

Ejiro clenched his fists tighter. "Why?" he demanded. "Momo can make that shot, easy. And we're a thousand feet up, they can't possibly reach us-"

"I see at least twenty people down there with wings, Red Riot," Bloodhound interrupted. "And we're floating here without half the maneuverability one flyer would have, let alone that many. You take that shot, and they'll tear us to pieces."

"Let them try," Ochako snarled. "We'll show them what top heroes are capable of."

Bloodhound snorted, somehow amused despite it all-or maybe just disgusted. "They know what a top hero is capable of, remember?" she said, jerking her thumb at the Chasm. "And they can beat it. You want to take the chance that the fucker who just beat Atlas is an outlier among his people? Because I can tell you the truth right now-he's not."

Ejiro felt something cold run down his spine at the tone of Bloodhound's voice. At first, he'd been enraged, thinking that she was indifferent to Atlas's death, that she didn't feel the same pain he, Ochako, and Momo felt so powerfully. But as she spoke, he realized something. She didn't feel the same sort of pain-because she'd felt it too many times before. There was a dullness to her voice, an ache that spoke to the exhaustion of feeling a familiar agony all over again.

Ejiro had thought that he knew death. He knew nothing compared to Bloodhound, who had been fighting these mutants for decades longer than Ejiro had even been alive. Her pain was old, her grief creaking with the weight of untold loss. She was being cold because she had to be, or else all that pain would break through the dam and she'd be worse than useless.

Momo made a scoffing sound. "I find that hard to believe," she said, hiding her own grief behind the rifle still sighted on the bird-headed man below. "Surely none of them have any sort of formal training."

Bloodhound scoffed in turn. "Training," she snorted. "Only abovegrounders need training like you think of it, Creati. You need it because you're not used to fighting to kill, to using your quirk to its absolute limit because the alternative is death."

Momo narrowed her eyes. "I've been doing exactly that since I was fifteen, Bloodhound," she said darkly. "We all have."

Ochako nodded, and Ejiro followed a moment later, though he still found himself struggling to maintain his anger. Why? Why was his earth-shattering rage draining away as quickly as it had come? It wasn't gone, exactly, just…deeper, less immediate, less overwhelming. It could wait.

Was this what Bloodhound felt like?

"And they've been doing it since they were born, you idiots!" Bloodhound snapped, the calm facade she'd worn finally breaking, just a bit, revealing an endless expanse of fury behind it. "Every single mutant down there has been using their quirk, has been fighting for their life, every second of their life! They didn't have a choice! Not when the world doesn't give a fuck about them, not when everything and everyone is out to get them!"

As abruptly as she'd begun, Bloodhound fell silent again, visibly breathing hard. Once she'd recovered, she finished, "That down there is an army of the strongest, most seasoned, most experienced killers this country has seen in more than a hundred years. Any one of them is a match for an aboveground hero, and there are thousands of them down there. So put the fucking gun down, Creati, before we all end up like Atlas and his girlfriend."

Momo held Bloodhound's gaze for a long, frozen moment. Her finger tightened on the trigger…then slackened. Slowly, she lowered the rifle.

There were a few moments of terrible, hateful silence. Then, Bloodhound broke it with a low, bitter, half-hysterical chuckle.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Ejiro demanded.

Bloodhound didn't answer. She simply chuckled again, seemingly on the verge of breaking out into mad laughter. At last, she took a deep breath, and once more fixed Ejiro with that green-eyed mask.

"For forty fucking years, I've tried to stop this," she answered. "I knew that if the mutants ever united, if the gangs were ever forced to stop eating their own, if a charismatic leader made them into an army…it would come to this. They're just too powerful, too angry, too righteous. They can't possibly be contained down here. My life's work was keeping them divided, keeping them fractured. And now, every fear I ever had is coming true."

"Then let us stop it!" Ejiro said angrily. "Let Momo take out that leader!"

Bloodhound shook her head. "It's too late for that," she said. "It wouldn't change anything. There's only one option for us to take."

"And what's that?" Ochako asked, seemingly calmer than she had been. "Running away?"

Bloodhound turned to meet her eyes, then. "What else are we going to accomplish here?" she snapped. "This was a recon mission, remember? Well, we've learned more than we could have hoped to. That'll be meaningless if we don't return to the surface now."

Ochako seemed ready to argue, but before she could open her mouth, Ejiro nodded. He took a deep breath…and let reason take over again. He couldn't do anything for Izuku-not right now. He had to trust the little kernel in his gut, the tiny part of him that refused to believe the anger and grief as they howled in his blood, the part he didn't know how to put into words.

"What do we do when we get back, then?" he asked.

Bloodhound sighed. Though he couldn't see her face, Ejiro thought he knew what look she had in her eyes-the look of a woman who had seen conflict after conflict tear at her city, accepting that her purpose was to be the herald of a new one.

"We send word to the Hero Commission, the government, and every hero who will listen," she replied softly. "And we tell them that it's time for war."

With Ibara by his side, keeping him from collapsing from sheer exhaustion and the toll of fighting two legends back-to-back, Fumikage slowly led the Outcasts back home. He left Kamakiri and a decent-sized force behind to secure the Chasm, and prevent any betrayal from the Ten Kings-though after their public submission, he doubted he had much to fear on that front. The Kings were evil, soulless bastards, but even they had their honor-and they kept their word.

The mood as they traveled back was far different from the mournful, almost funeral-like atmosphere that had hung over the Outcasts earlier that day. Now, they were overjoyed, dancing and cheering the whole way back to Homeland. As they passed other settlements, the people watched them cautiously-until members of the Outcasts called out the good news. The elation, the cheering, spread like a wildfire after that, rippling out in every direction.

Word traveled fast, down here. Fumikage gave it a day, at most, until every man, woman, and child in the Depths found out what had happened at the Chasm.

Atlas was dead. The man who had been a terror and a scourge, had hunted them like animals, had been the boot on the throat of every mutant and the city, was gone.

Fumikage wondered if any of the legends that would spawn from today would mention the pink-skinned, golden-eyed woman who had stood up for Atlas when nobody else would, had put herself between the hero and his justice for love.

He doubted it.

Fumikage lost track of the number of people who came up to him to congratulate him, to hug him, or to stare at him, the man who had freed them all. But he did notice one absence from their ranks.

Mezou. Even as Kuroiro nearly smiled and Ibara looked at him like he was the God she'd once believed in, Fumikage never saw his brother, the first man who'd ever believed in his crazy dream of a better world. He and Tsu were somewhere in the crowd, he knew that.

They'd watched him throw Mina to her death. He knew that too.

Perhaps it was just as well that they hadn't appeared. Fumikage didn't think he'd be able to face them just then. Maybe he'd never be able to again.

As they neared Homeland, Fumikage hissed, making Ibara look at him with worry. Fumikage waved her off, then looked down at his hands, which were seething with shadow that refused to fade, pulsing in waves as it fought against his orders for it to vanish.

There was a dark chuckle in the back of Fumikage's head. Dark Shadow.

"How typical of you," he said, making Fumikage tense. Dark Shadow rarely actually spoke to him, nowadays. He tended to restrict himself to communicating emotions and such, rather than risk Fumikage's irritation. "Use me to fight your battles for you, then throw me away once you no longer have use for me."

Fumikage grit his teeth. "They're your battles, too, Dark Shadow," he told his quirk. "And how could I possibly throw you away. You're a part of me."

Once more, Dark Shadow chuckled. "Don't forget it, Fumi," he replied. As Fumikage once more growled at the use of the nickname, his quirk added, "Say…you gave me a lot of freedom, towards the end of your fight with Atlas."

"How else was I supposed to win?" Fumikage shot back. He was telling the truth; he had barely won that fight, even with Dark Shadow let further off his leash than he'd ever dared before. He'd had to reach into uncharted territory with his quirk, trading off more control for power than he'd wanted, and his body was still a mess of agony and damage from every single one of Atlas's blows.

Dark Shadow snorted. "You wouldn't have," he agreed. "But I'm just saying…I liked it."

A chill went down Fumikage's spine. "We have a deal, Dark Shadow," he said, knowing that there was no point trying to hide his fear. Dark Shadow would sense it either way.

"Of course we do," Dark Shadow replied, making Fumi sigh a little with relief. "I wonder, though…which one of us killed Mina, do you think? We both had enough control to do it, you know."

Fumikage froze. He fought down the bile in his throat. He…he couldn't answer that. He didn't know.

Damn Dark Shadow. He'd liked Mina, all those years ago. But he'd…changed, since then. Changed a lot. He was crueler now, less playful, more hateful.

It was all the damn darkness. Fumikage had spent too long in the Depths, too long marinating in the utter pitch-black of the stones that had never seen one drop of daylight. Even the lights of Homeland, as bright as any in the Depths, were no longer enough to stop him. The green sun Atlas had become wasn't enough. They were drops in the bucket compared to the ocean he'd been soaking in since he was born. What good was light when it was like dropping a match into a bottomless sea?

Finally, they reached Homeland, stepping into the city, only to find themselves surrounded by what felt like every mutant in the whole place. They were cheering, chanting Fumikage's name. The whole cavern seemed to be ringing with joy.

For a moment, Fumikage just…let himself bask in it. Let himself feel like he had won something that day, when he knew he'd lost far, far more than he'd gained. He let the cheering crowd of people, his people, intoxicate him.

This was what he'd wanted. This was what he'd promised them all. A brighter future. One where they weren't terrified of heroes coming in the night to drag away their family and friends. Where they could live somewhere that wasn't this dark, stinking pit underneath one of the abovegrounders' greatest cities. One where they were free.

A jolt of pain from his ribs shattered the moment, and Fumikage grunted as he clutched at them. Instantly, Ibara was at his side, her soft hands clutching his arm.

"You're going to the medics, right now," she told him. She couldn't stop smiling at him. It was the same awed smile she'd worn for so long around him, but…different, somehow. Tempered, maybe, by the commanding air she found somewhere inside her whenever she was dealing with a patient.

Fumikage shook his head. "No," he replied. "I can receive treatment in my own house."

Ibara frowned, and her grip on his arm tightened. "You're afraid of looking weak in front of them, aren't you?" she asked.

"Afraid, no," Fumikage responded. "Just…I'd rather not sour the celebrations."

Ibara looked plenty sour herself. She opened her mouth, probably to protest, but Fumikage raised his head and gave her a pleading look.

"Let them have it," he murmured. "Let them believe better of me."

Ibara pursed her lips, but eventually sighed. "Fine," she muttered. "But you owe me for that one."
"I owe you more than I can ever repay," Fumikage answered, too exhausted for anything but the truth. "Thank you, Ibara."
Suddenly, Kuroiro was standing by Fumikage's other side, as if he'd appeared from nowhere-which he had.

"They will likely expect a speech," he observed. "You have won a great victory today, Dark One."

Fumikage resisted the urge to sigh. Much like he'd eventually managed to get Ibara to stop calling him "Great Leader," he'd tried countless times to get Kuroiro to stop calling him such weird shit. Sadly, it never worked. He'd come to accept it as just another quirk of Kuroiro's personality-being raised by a cult of darkness-worshiping madmen didn't exactly produce normal people.

"I'll give them a speech," he replied. "But…later. For now, I need to rest, and they should enjoy the victory. We'll decide our next steps once I'm not about to keel over."

Kuroiro and Ibara nodded. With some effort, they managed to part the crowd enough to let them through. Fumikage looked back to watch the Outcasts who had come with him mingle into the crowd, hugging loved ones and celebrating with comrades. He suspected that the scene would soon become an enormous street party.

A street party that Fumikage suddenly couldn't see as anything but celebrating Mina's death.

Feeling sick to his stomach, Fumikage let Ibara and Kuroiro lead him into his private rooms, in a cave set into the wall of the cavern. He settled into the couch, and removed his jacket, allowing Ibara to tend to his wounds. For his part, Kuroiro sat on the couch beside them, as though unwilling to leave them, but unsure how close he would be allowed.

"What a motley collection we are," Fumikage thought darkly. He had the same knack for collecting damaged, brilliant people now that he'd had as a child, when he'd found his first family in alleys and caves amidst the endless struggle for survival.

That thought led to Mina again, and Fumikage forced it away savagely. He didn't dare look back. If he did, the grief and the self-loathing of what he'd become would destroy him.

Ibara spoke as she wrapped his bruised, broken ribs in a tight bandage. "You," she snapped, "Are the stupidest, most self-sacrificing idiot I've ever met. Fighting Atlas? Alone? What were you thinking?"

Fumikage snorted a little, then immediately regretted it as the motion made Ibara smack him for moving. Ironic, how she looked at him with such admiration every other time, but treated him like the fool he was the moment he became her patient.

"It was necessary," he said quietly as Ibara continued dressing his wounds.

"That doesn't make it okay," Ibara snapped. "You could have died, Fumikage!"

"And instead, he won a victory that will make the whole Depths follow him," Kuroiro replied.

Fumikage didn't speak. Mina's golden eyes tore into him every time he thought of the fight, accusing, angry, betrayed. Righteous, even as she fell into the abyss.

Ibara sighed. "Be that as it may," she retorted, "He's still an idiot."

Kuroiro raised an eyebrow. "You should not speak of him that way," he said acidly.

Ibara crossed her arms. "Don't give me that shit," she told him. "I know you think he's an idiot, too."

Kuroiro looked at Fumikage, then back at Ibara.

"Yes," he admitted at last. "He is an idiot."

The look of victory on Ibara's face made Fumikage laugh. He clutched his ribs as they ached, but amused chuckles still leaked from his lips as Ibara's face shifted into a deadly glare.

"So help me God, if you break more ribs from laughing, I'll kill you myself," she threatened. Fumikage just chuckled again at that-at least until the few precious moments of freedom from Mina's eyes expired, and he fell silent again.

After that, neither Ibara nor Kuroiro said a word for a while. They simply sat there, Ibara resting her head on one of Fumikage's shoulders, and Kuroiro putting his hand on his other shoulder. For the first time in years, Fumikage didn't feel quite so alone.

"So," Ibara began eventually. "You've beaten Chojuro Kon, the Ten Kings, and Atlas himself. Now what?"

Fumikage closed his eyes, and sighed. "I…don't know," he admitted. "We…have some planning to do, I suppose."

Kuroiro looked thoughtful. "We should strike now," he said. "While the abovegrounders are confused and in shock over the death of Atlas. We could overrun the whole Underground before they got any sort of response together."

Fumikage nodded in acknowledgement of the point. "We could," he agreed. "But what we need to decide…is if that's what we want to do, I suppose. And besides…"

With a grunt of effort, Fumikage hauled himself to his feet. He walked across the room, to a low table with all manner of papers strewn across it. Maps, letters, lists…plans.

He braced himself on the table, hunching over it as his body screamed in protest at the movement.

Without turning, Fumikage said, "Something like this will have…fallout. A lot of it, and most of it will be things we can't predict or prepare for. I'd…like to see just what shape that fallout takes, before I commit to any decision."

There was noise outside the closed door. The guards who had stationed themselves seemed to be shouting. Fumikage felt something in his chest tighten.

Footsteps came next. Heavy, loud footsteps, as if made by a true giant. They were running.

Another shout, this one angrier, more violent. Ibara and Kuroiro leaped to their feet, staring at each other in shock and confusion.

Fumikage closed his eyes as the door was kicked open.

The limp, unconscious body of one of the guards landed hard on the threshold of the door. Mezou Shoji stepped over it, filling the frame with his bulk. His eyes were filled with bloody rage, the kind that couldn't be stopped, couldn't be tamed.

"FUMIKAGE!" he roared.

He charged, killing intent plain in his eyes. Kuroiro and Ibara stepped into his path, Kuroiro already raising his long knife, Ibara's hair shredding out of her ponytail and splaying into an army of thick, barbed vines.

It was never going to be anywhere close to enough to stop Mezou. In the blink of an eye, he was on Kuroiro. He grabbed the smaller man by the wrist and dragged him down into his rising knee. Kuroiro's head whipped back with a gasp, blood erupting from a broken nose as Mezou hurled him into the ground hard enough to make the room shake.

Before Kuroiro had even hit the ground, Mezou was rushing past him, eyes locked on Fumikage. He barely even acknowledged Ibara, just like he'd ignored Kuroiro. He simply backhanded her across the face so hard that she went flying into the wall with a crack. She collapsed to the ground, unmoving and bleeding, just like Kuroiro.

Fumikage had just managed to turn around to face the door when Mezou's enormous hand snapped shut around his throat like a vise. Mezou's momentum carried them backwards through the paper-covered table and into the wall, crushing the air from Fumikage's lungs as he dangled uselessly in the air, body twisting uselessly beneath him as Mezou crushed his throat.

Mezou leaned in close, bloody-minded rage filling his eyes.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now for what you just did, Fumi," he growled.

Fumikage gasped for air, though he knew it was useless. Mezou had him dead to rights.

When Fumikage didn't respond, Mezou growled again, rearing back to slam him into the wall again. Fumikage felt his ribs shriek all over again as he fought back panic, trying desperately to think of something to say.

There was nothing. There was nothing he could say. In all honesty…Mezou had every right to kill him.

Perhaps he'd even thank him for it.

"I'm waiting, Fumi," Mezou spat, jagged, terrifying teeth bared. "What do you have to say for yourself? You just killed Mina, you lying, two-faced monster!"

Fumikage blinked back tears-though whether they were from grief or lack of air, he had no idea. "I…know," he gasped out.

Mezou blinked, and Fumikage realized that he was crying, too. "You…you killed her, Fumi," he sobbed, grip tightening as Fumikage continued desperately fighting for air.

Fumikage closed his eyes. Dark Shadow thrashed in his chains, demanding to be let out, demanding to be allowed to tear Mezou apart. Fumikage crushed his voice with every bit of willpower he had.

"Well, are you gonna say something, brother?" Mezou hissed. "Is there anything you can come up with to justify throwing her off of a fucking cliff? Is there some way you can convince me not to choke the fucking life out of you right here?"

His fingers tightened. Fumikage blinked back more tears.

With the last of his air, he whispered, "No."

Mezou's eyes widened. His grip loosened, just a tiny bit. Fumikage greedily gulped down air, clearing spots from his vision. Mezou still didn't release him.

"There's nothing," Fumikage murmured, meeting Mezou's eyes. "No excuse, no justification. No reason not to do it. I…what would I say, Mezou? I know what I did. I know there's no redemption, not for me."

"On that, we agree," a new voice said. Soft, with a croaking quality to it that both Mezou and Fumikage knew well. They looked up to see Tsu standing in the doorway.

She stepped forward, into the shattered, destroyed room. As she passed Kuroiro's limp form, he groaned, eyes slowly opening. Tsu kicked him aside without even looking down, sending him into the wall and back into unconsciousness.

Mezou looked like he wasn't sure whether to continue being angry or apologize. He asked, "How did you find me so quickly?"

Tsu raised an eyebrow. "You were quiet the whole way back from the Chasm," she told her husband. "I know what you look like when you're about to explode. When I realized you'd slipped away, I knew exactly where you were going."

Mezou hung his head. Quietly, he asked, "Are you going to stop me, then?"

Tsu looked up at Fumi, still dangling helplessly from Mezou's fist. Her eyes were hard and deadly, just like Mezou's.

"No," she answered.

Mezou stared at her in surprise for a moment, then turned his attention back to Fumikage. He tightened his grip once more, and Fumikage gasped.

"Do you expect that to be enough?" Mezou demanded. "You're going to say the right thing, and that'll magically fix the fact that you killed Mina?"

Fumikage shook his head. "How could it?" he gasped.

Mezou growled, but didn't tighten his grip any further.
With the tiny trickle of air he was still getting, Fumikage said, "I'm…sorry, Mezou. Believe that, if you believe nothing else I say. It hurts so much, knowing that…that all she saw of me in six years was that."

"And yet, you still did it," Mezou spat.

Fumikage nodded. "I did," he whispered.

Before Mezou could respond, Tsu stepped up beside her husband. "What happened before that?" she asked Fumikage. "When you were talking to her?"

Fumikage closed her eyes, forcing himself to remember the agonizingly brief conversation with Mina. "She…she refused to let me kill Atlas," he replied. "She…said she loved him."

Mezou's eyes went wide, and his grip slackened completely. He stepped back out of sheer shock and disbelief, letting Fumikage fall to the ground, where he gasped desperately for air, clutching his throat.

"Impossible," Mezou whispered. "That-that's impossible. She can't-"

"That's what she said, Mezou," Fumikage whispered. "And…and I know that she meant it. She wouldn't have stepped in between me and him if she didn't…if she wasn't willing to die for him."

Mezou shook his head. "You're lying," he snapped. "You have to be lying. Mina wouldn't-"

"He's not lying, Mezou," Tsu said quietly, making both men whip their heads towards her. Tsu looked grief-stricken and guilty as she confirmed, "Mina loves… loved Atlas."

Mezou and Fumikage both looked at her with shock in their eyes. "How do you know?" Mezou demanded.

Tsu closed her eyes, as if preparing for something. Then, she admitted, "Because she told me so."

Once again, Mezou staggered. Fumikage was still kneeling on the ground, staring at Tsu.

"When?" Mezou asked.

"The day Fumi found us again," Tsu replied. "Before I came to rescue you, I was talking to Mina. She'd…come to me for advice."

"What did you tell her?" Fumi asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

Tsu sighed. "I told her to go for it," she said. "And…from the look of it, she did."

Mezou looked at her with horror. "He's a hero!" he said, packing as much venom into the word "hero" as any resident of the Depths.

Tsu met his gaze levelly. "And I don't give a fuck," she answered in a voice like steel. "I didn't fucking care then, and I don't fucking care now. You know that this war, this crusade you're on, has never been and will never be my crusade. Mina found someone she thought she could love, even after everything she's been through, all the pain, all the loss, all the things she did to herself to try and protect herself. I saw a chance for her to be really, truly happy, and I told her to seize it with both hands. I will not apologize for that. Ever."

Mezou looked like his heart was being ripped out. "Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered.

Tsu crossed her arms, though she still looked guilty. "I should've," she admitted. "But…I knew how you'd react. Like this. And…I was afraid of that. I was trying to figure out how to break the news to you in a way that wouldn't make you go try to kill the Number One Hero…but I guess it's too late for that."

Tsu gestured at Fumikage, and Mezou followed the gesture to glare once more at him. It was a weaker glare now, though.

"Why, Fumi?" Mezou whispered, hands clenched into fists. "Why did you do it?"

Fumi closed his eyes. Anger and hurt and grief and loathing built up in him, mingling into a toxic, deadly stew. And yet…when he opened his mouth, he could only muster hollow, broken, empty sadness.

"What else could I have done?" he asked. "Once she made her choice, once she betrayed us all for a hero she barely knew…what else was there?"

Mezou hesitated. He understood what the moment had been like for the Outcasts; he'd been there, after all, standing among them. He knew that Fumikage couldn't have, wouldn't have, backed down and let Atlas live once he'd had him beaten. There were too many years of resentment built up, too many parents and children and siblings and friends hauled off to aboveground prisons for the crimes of existing and trying to survive in a place so hostile to human life.

"You could have pushed her aside," Mezou whispered. "Killed Atlas, and brought her back with us. Let us explain everything."

Fumikage wanted to laugh, but it came out as a tired scoff. "Mina would have torn my throat out the second my back was turned. She never would've let it happen; you know how stubborn she is…she was. God himself couldn't have moved her once she was standing there," he replied. "And even if she didn't…she betrayed us all publicly, Mezou. In front of the Outcasts, the Ten Kings…everyone. She chose Atlas over all of us. She would've been killed the second I turned my back, and there's not a damn thing I could've done about it."

Tsu glared at him. "So it's okay that you killed her?" she asked icily. "Because someone would've done it anyway?"

Fumikage shook his head. "Of course not," he scoffed. "I killed her. Not them. Me. I don't get to escape any of that guilt, any of the blame. It's on my head, and my head alone."

A hollow, broken silence fell over the three of them. For a moment, Fumikage wondered if he should tell them the horrible truth-that he genuinely didn't know if he'd truly been the one to throw Mina into the Chasm. Dark Shadow had had more than enough latitude to influence him into doing it, to fill him with murderous rage until he couldn't have stoppped himself no matter how hard he fought. But in the end, that didn't matter. It was still Fumikage's fault. He was still the one who'd done it. So he kept his mouth shut.

Mezou roared with fury, whirling on his feet and slamming an enormous fist into the wall. The whole room shook as a cracked crater appeared in the smooth stone-a crater that widened as Mezou hit the same spot again, and then again.

After half a dozen punches, Mezou whirled again, rounding on Fumikage and marching up to him. Fumikage flinched as Mezou grabbed him-but it was by the shirt this time, rather than the neck.

Mezou hauled Fumikage upright, slamming him against the wall hard enough to make his broken ribs shriek all over again.

"Damn you," he growled. "Damn all of this."

Fumikage met his eyes. "I don't have an excuse, Mezou," he whispered. "I have no justification. If you decide to kill me…I understand. I…think I deserve it."

Mezou blinked, but his rage-filled eyes refused to change. For a long, frozen moment, Fumikage wondered if Mezou's face was the last one he'd ever see.

Then, Mezou let go of his shirt. "No," he said, heavy and harsh. "No, that's the easy way out."

Fumikage looked at him, confused. "What?" he asked.

Mezou fixed Fumikage with the most furious gaze he'd ever seen. "You don't get off that easily," he spat. "You don't get to die and leave the job you sacrificed Mina's life for unfinished, you hear me?"

Fumikage blinked. Mezou jabbed a finger into his chest, and hissed, "Here's your punishment. You're going to live, you piece of shit. You're going to fucking make it count, if you really believe all this shit is more important than Mina was. And if you win…then I'll decide if her life was worth burning down the world that put us all in this fucking situation where you didn't think you had a choice-and she didn't, either. You hear me?"

Fumikage nodded, staring at Mezou with a shocked expression on his face.

Mezou turned, meeting Tsu's eyes as he did. "I can't be around either of you right now," he growled, though with an undercurrent of softness. "I just…need to think."

Tsu nodded, and didn't move as Mezou stormed from the room, as tempestuous and abrupt as he'd entered it. After a few moments, she sighed, hanging her head. With one last regretful look at Fumikage, she, too, disappeared out the door, leaving Fumikage standing alone in the wreckage of his own decisions.

A while later-Fumikage had no idea how long it had been-Ibara finally stirred from unconsciousness. Groaning as she hauled herself to her feet, she took in the destruction with a shocked face. Then, she asked Fumikage, "What…what happened?"

Fumikage turned to look at her. His tears had already dried, and there was only raw determination on his face.

"The fallout," he whispered like a man not sure how he was still alive.

Izuku groaned as he came back to his senses. He was amazed to find he wasn't dead…or at least, he didn't think he was dead. Presumably, the great hereafter wouldn't start with everything hurting so much.

And oh, did he hurt. The wounds left by Fumikage's claws stung, the dull throb of broken bones ached like an old enemy.

The stone felt…odd under his skin. Rippled, maybe, almost like it had moved in response to his landing, and was now frozen again. Why was that?

Some corner of his mind was vaguely aware of the heat radiating from the stone itself, like a warm caress. How deep down was he?

Izuku's mind came to a screeching halt a moment later, when he realized that he didn't know where Mina was.

The realization that he couldn't hear her, couldn't see her, couldn't feel her, made Izuku scrabble onto his hands and knees, desperately searching. He found nothing, and his body screamed in agonized protest with each motion.

"M-Mina?" he whispered, the words disappearing into the dark. There was no light, nothing; it was the purest, deepest black he had ever seen. It was beyond description, beyond imagining; it was the abyss, the absence of light, the truest dark Izuku had ever seen.

Mina wasn't here. Her…her body wasn't either, though. And yet, Izuku had known Fumikage's intent the moment he'd grabbed Mina by the throat. She'd been thrown down here, just like he'd been. She was somewhere else in this…wherever they'd ended up. The bottom of the Chasm. A place so deep, nobody had ever returned from it.

Izuku felt tears welling up in his eyes, but not from the physical pain of his injuries. He'd seen his death approaching, seen it in Fumikage's eyes. And then…and then Mina had stepped in front of him, told him to stop. She'd stood up to the man who'd saved her, who'd been like a brother to her, all to save Izuku. And it had so nearly worked.

Instead, she might have died for him. Fumikage had hesitated…but he hadn't stopped. In the end, he'd thrown them both over the edge, into that endless abyss. And Izuku hadn't been able to keep Mina safe.

Izuku slammed a fist against the ground, tears dripping from his eyes. He wanted to sob, but each deep breath hurt; his ribs were a mess. Instead, what came out was a series of choking gasps, pitiful and useless. Like him.

He'd failed her. He'd broken his promise. Once again, they were separated. Once again, he hadn't been there for her when she fell.

"I-I'm so sorry, Mina," he gasped. "I…I failed. I let you get hurt again."

There was no response. That hurt more than anything Izuku could have ever told himself; once again, he was alone. Once again, there was nobody who cared. It was like being quirkless all over again.

Izuku didn't know how long he spent, crawling down there at the bottom of the world. It could have been seconds, it could have been days. Time was meaningless in that empty void; he could barely move, not when every action sent agony shooting through him.

And then something moved in the dark.

Izuku stared, barely reacting, as a lantern flickered into view, a tiny swinging ball of warm golden light. It barely illuminated anything, down this deep, but to Izuku, it was a sunrise. He reached for it, then hesitated. He didn't know who the lantern belonged to-or who was making the footsteps that he could hear echoing in the empty space, coming towards him.

A moment later, Izuku's hesitation cost him his chance to strike first. Instead, the light finally came close enough to cast its glow over him, revealing him to the one holding it, who turned out to be-

A man. A very old man with no visible mutations, his body warped and rickety under the weight of untold decades. For all the years that wrinkled his skin, though, the man bore his age with surprising grace; there was some underlying strength to his frame, some vitality that not even time could snuff out completely. He was bald, his expression set into an eternal grimace, shadows flickering in his eyes from the dim lamp he held in one hand. He was surprisingly solid in the way he walked across the stone; in a place of shadows and nightmares, he walked without a care in the world, as if the very rock itself trembled just a little each time he made contact with it.

"So, you're the one making all that noise," he murmured softly. "I could sense your impact from a mile off."

Barely able to even think about how weird that sentence was. Izuku found his voice. "Please, help me," he croaked. "I need to find someone."

The old man chuckled. "Kid, I hate to break it to you, but you're in no shape to find anyone," he told Izuku.

Izuku shook his head. "I'm…fine," he muttered. To prove it, he heaved himself upwards, forcing all his strength into the simple act of hauling himself to his unsteady, aching feet. The world swayed under him, but Izuku grit his teeth and staggered upright, slowly and painfully. At long last, he managed to stand, leaning on the cavern wall for support.

"See?" Izuku said, managing a bloody smile. "I'm-"

The old man raised an eyebrow. Without warning, Izuku felt something slam into his back. Not hard enough to do real damage-but then, it didn't need to. It sent Izuku stumbling forward, off-balance all over again. He collapsed back to the ground, groaning painfully.

The old man shook his head. He seemed amused. "Fine, my ass," he said. "Kid, you look like hell. What the hell did you do, jump down the Chasm?"

"Didn't jump…" Izuku muttered. "Got…thrown."

Painfully, and mostly out of spite, Izuku hauled himself upright all over again. The old man watched him skeptically, but didn't say a word. He also didn't do… whatever he'd done a second ago to knock Izuku down. Assuming he'd done it in the first place.

What the hell had that been, anyway?

Slowly, Izuku turned to look behind him, only to end up even more confused than he already was. A spire of rock had seemingly grown out of nowhere, shooting out in the perfect spot to knock him down. How had that…

Izuku turned around to stare at the old man. "Who are you?" he asked. "What are you doing down here? How did you find me?"

The old man rolled his eyes. "So many questions," he grunted, still not moving. He seemed to be sizing Izuku up.

At long last, the old man sighed. "Fine," he grumbled. "Guess it's hard to kick old habits. Come with me, kid."

Izuku hesitated. "You…didn't answer my question," he said.

The old man looked him in the eye. "Why do you care?" he asked.

Izuku refused to flinch under that steely gaze. "Because…because someone has to," he said, cautiously, uncertainly.

Something shifted in the old man's eyes, becoming harder, more guarded. Angrier. "You're a hero," he said. It wasn't a question.

Izuku nodded. Maybe that was stupid-he was still in the Depths, after all-but he couldn't lie, not now. Besides, he was fairly sure this old man wasn't going to murder him on sight.

The old man sighed. "Of course you are," he muttered. "We're always sticking our noses where they don't belong, aren't we?"

Izuku froze. After a long, aching pause, he asked, "We?"

Impossible. What was a hero doing down here?

The old man snorted. "What?" he asked. "Don't they still tell stories about me, up there above the ground? They were all too happy to do that, last time I checked."

Izuku couldn't breathe. The old man turned, the light spilling from his lantern revealing a sheer wall of black, featureless rock. There was no way out, nothing to show how he'd gotten into this place. The man reached out with one hand, stroking the stone for a long, frozen moment.

It responded to his touch, shifting like clay, splitting apart to reveal a long, low tunnel.

Izuku knew that quirk. It had been in his old notebooks-the early ones, where he'd copied entries from encyclopedias of famous heroes of the past.

The old man turned to face Izuku again. "Well? You coming or not?" he asked. "You need to get those wounds treated, and my patience ain't gonna last forever."

Izuku just stared, his exhausted, pain-addled brain finally pushed beyond rationality. "I-Impossible," he whispered, heart thudding in his chest. "Y-you're dead."

The old man raised an eyebrow. "That's the story," he agreed. "I'm afraid stories are usually nicer than reality, though."

Izuku was shaking, and not from the pain. "You're Craton," he said in a voice so far beyond disbelief it was childlike, timid and afraid. "But…how? How?"

In response, the dead god smiled. Izuku could feel the man's presence wash over him-solid and steady, utterly certain, with a quirk that had shaped the very world in ways so deep and intimate, nobody would ever know how deep they ran. His own words washed over him, making it feel ten times more real. Now that he'd spoken the truth, it battered at him, breaking things loose, shattering old ideas.

This was impossible. The stories…the stories.

A million questions bubbled up in Izuku's chest, but he forced them down. He wanted to laugh hysterically; he forced that down, too.

A sudden, terrifying thought entered his brain. If Craton had survived this long…had his enemy?

"W-wait," he gasped. "Is…did you win? Or, or is Faultline still…"

Craton raised a hand, and Izuku fell silent. The man who had carved the Underground looked him in the eye. "There's a lot of things you don't know, kid," he told Izuku. "And you'll never learn any of them dying in this shitty hole in the ground. Now, are you coming, or not?"

Izuku swallowed heavily, and nodded. "I'm coming," he replied, voice shaky and disbelieving.

Craton nodded, and turned to head into the tunnel. Izuku followed slowly, walking in the footsteps of a legend-a legend who should have been dead for eighty years.

Even as she languished somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, Mina could hear the sound.

It was a strange sound, one she couldn't quite place. It sounded a bit like sandpaper, and a bit like the patter of raindrops on the windows of Izuku's apartment, a noise that had left her jumpy and nervous the first time she'd heard it. It was an endless rustling, a sort of dry, hollow scraping.

In the end, the sound was probably why she woke up. She did so slowly and painfully, groaning as her body ached.

A moment later, her eyes snapped open the rest of the way, her whole body tensing as things flooded back into her memory.

The cheering armies. Fumikage, somehow alive again. Izuku losing. Standing between him and the first person she'd ever trusted.

Falling into the Chasm.

The sob that escaped her lips was involuntary. She looked around wildly, desperately hoping to see Izuku, alive and well and whole.

There was nothing. Nothing at all. She was huddled against the wall of the strangest cavern she'd ever seen. It wasn't the right shape. Most caverns either had the squared-off corners of an artificially carved space, or the jagged, eroded corners and crevices of a naturally occurring cave. This one was perfectly rounded, and the walls were rough to the touch, long lines running horizontally along the whole length of the room-for it was a room, albeit empty-as if something had scraped and rubbed them into shape, carving them with thousands upon thousands of tiny chisels.

Mina rose to her feet, looking around frantically. How the fuck was she alive, anyway? She'd fallen into the fucking Chasm, for fuck's sake! How was she not even hurt?

Well, physically. Every second she thought about Fumi, or about the fact that Izuku wasn't here with her, she felt herself shattering into smaller and smaller pieces.

She forced herself to stop thinking about it, retreating into the mindset that had preserved her for six hopeless, agonizing years. Survival first. Think about your pathetic, monstrous life and your inability to save anyone you loved…at some point. Later. Maybe later. Ideally never.

Mina vaguely remembered a rough-but-soft sensation, almost like landing in arms made of sandpaper, just before she'd stopped feeling anything, bracing for the end. Had…something caught her, somehow? She couldn't think of any other way she could have survived falling into the Chasm.

The sound was back, louder now. It was almost like a waterfall, except Mina was pretty sure that waterfalls didn't get louder as you stayed in one place, not moving at all.

"Hello?" she called out, nervously. Acid formed in her palms. Just in case.

There was no light in the room; Mina could barely see her hand in front of her face. But when something moved on the other side of the room, she caught just enough of it to yelp in fear.

The sound got louder and louder. Whatever it was moved again; it didn't look human. It was almost a wave motion, really.

"Oh, stop whimpering," a voice suddenly called out, making Mina jump. "I'm trying to find the damn switch in here."

Mina blinked. Who the fuck was that? Their voice sounded…inhuman. Rough, as if whatever was speaking didn't have human vocal cords, but was trying to approximate them.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light. Mina yelled, squeezing her eyes shut at the sudden brightness.

"Damn, you are pathetic," the voice chuckled. "Or maybe you're just a bit stressed out after almost dying in the armpit of the universe."

"Yeah," Mina hissed, slowly forcing her eyes open, one hand shielding herself from the brightness of the lightbulbs strung across the ceiling of the cavern. "How about we go with the second one? Also, can we stop with this cryptic shit already? I'm really not in the mood."

"Wow, someone's pissy," the voice observed.

"Someone just got thrown down a fucking bottomless pit, asshole," Mina shot back. Then, more softly, she added, "Are…you the one who saved me?"

The voice snorted. "For certain definitions of "saved," they replied.

Well, that was ominous. With a hiss, Mina finally opened her eyes. Time to see who her savior was.

Her jaw dropped.

The sound she'd been hearing was sand. An unimaginable amount of sand, scraping against the stone walls of the tunnel as more and more of it poured out into the room Mina was standing in from a hole near the top of the ceiling.

The sand started whirling in a circle, flowing back to a central point in the middle of the small, round room that it had apparently carved from the earth itself. As Mina watched, the sand coalesced into a figure.

A figure that made her gasp in shock, and scramble backwards, her heart skipping a beat as fear and disbelief mingled in her brain.

It was a seven-foot-fall woman of whirling, shrieking sand, her body in eternal motion, like she was a sandstorm trapped in the shape of a person. She had feline yellow eyes, and a catlike snarl on her face that bared pointed stone fangs. Her burly, oversized arms ended not in hands, but in enormous three-fingered talons, all in the yellow-brown of densely packed sand. A presence emanated from her that made Mina tremble, knowing that this wasn't a human, but a legend, something closer to a demigod, a myth, a bedtime story to frighten naughty children.

Mina knew this woman. She'd seen that face before, in a statue of gleaming bronze, surrounded by trees that bloomed beneath the ground, on the first level of the Musutafu Underground-only the statue proved to be a poor likeness after all. It had utterly failed to capture the inhumanity of the creature in front of her. This wasn't a person, twisted into an odd shape but still recognizably human. This was a force of nature.

Faultline.

The woman-the demon-looked at her with an expression so inhuman, it could have been anything from a disgusted sneer to a reassuring smile. She bared her teeth-which oddly seemed mostly human, aside from those gleaming stone fangs.

"Hello there, little mutant," she said in a voice like the howling desert wind, her words rasping like sandpaper through her throat. "What are you doing down here?"