Hello, everyone!

Long time no see!

It's been really hard to write all of my stuff for the last year or so, personal drama, but this chapter was written with the encouragement of, and because of the help with motivation by, one of my mates, named Croc!


Hana's body followed behind the Curator, broom steady in its hands.

She watched, a prisoner in her own body, powerless to wrestle control of herself away from the Curator, as her Quirk was used to fill a container connected to a pressure hose. They were having visitors to wherever the fuck they were, 'potential allies', the Curator had called them.

And so her Quirk was being used as a backup plan in case shit went down. That was what Hana thought it was for, at least. The fact that the liquid she secreted was able to shut down people's Quirks on contact was the whole reason she had been abducted, after all.

"Zookeeper, hurry over to your post up on the balcony. You need to be ready to shut these people down if need be."

Hana watched as her body followed his order, walking quickly over to the stairs and moving to a balcony she hadn't seen before. Her body placed down the container filled with her Quirk's liquid and set up the pressure hose in a good spot to shoot from.

As her body stood unnaturally still, she used what limited control she had to move her head around, getting a good idea of the layout of the building. It had only happened once when his control over her had been very strained, but she had been able to break free once and tried to run away.

The beating she had gotten when she was recaptured had quickly disillusioned her to any more attempts, but the small spark of hope within her that just refused to be smothered still wanted to at least know if it was possible.

Unfortunately, the Curator was a cautious man, and the location that had been set up for their meeting with some other villains was an excellently defendable spot, especially with her upstairs with her hose, ready to muffle or even completely cancel the visitor's quirks with her own.

She heard the snap of fingers from below her, and her head immediately shifted. She looked down at the Curator, her vision slightly blurry at this distance without her glasses, but even so, she could tell he had a grin on her face. "Ready yourself, Zookeeper. Our guests are here."

She felt her body nod as she grabbed the end of the hose, crouching down behind the banister to stay out of sight from the doorway in front of them, peeking through a small gap so she could tell where the people were coming from, the loud THUDs of someone's boots echoing through the hall.

The first indication of their arrival, other than the noise, came from the heat. As the footsteps got louder, the temperature in the room skyrocketed, and finally, as a trio of people entered the room, she saw why.

A behemoth of a man, with what seemed like actual lava dripping from the stone-like protrusions coming out of his shoulders. It ran down his massive arms like water, before vanishing into more stones, which came out of the back of his wrists.

For such a dangerous-looking setup, none fell off of him and hit the ground. None even tried. Maybe he had some way of telekinetically controlling it, then? He also definitely had some crazy heat resistance, no matter his level of control.

Following him was what she could only describe as a kunoichi. With an open, very revealing top, coupled with a utility belt, short shorts, and goggles, the white-haired girl seemed super short in comparison to her teammate but was probably closer to her own height. She was blurrier than the rest, seeming to have some form of haze surrounding her… wait, no, that was dust.

'Some form of powder control, then?'

The final guy was the most… physically different from the rest, with his face forming into something similar to a duck bill, giant eyes, and oddly flat, orange fingers. But the thing that really caught her eye on him was the fact that she could see him playing with the air above one of his palms, the dust from his teammate getting caught in it.

'Ability to manipulate air or wind. If things go bad, his quirk needs to be nullified first.'

Hana winced as her brainwashing took her natural instinct to figure out how someone else's quirk worked, and spun it in a way that helped the Curator. She swore inside the small corner of her brain she was given, punching a metaphorical wall. Now that she had had that realisation, there was no way her brainwashed body would act on it.

The curators' brainwashing was an insidious thing like that. Not even the small corner of herself she existed in was safe from it.

As the Curator and Bearhead strode forward to meet the trio, the curator's arms wide and welcoming, showing that he was unarmed (as if he needed a weapon), Hana felt her body focus, preparing to dart out. She stayed focused, her body coiled and ready to go for almost ten, no, twenty minutes, while the villains below her had their talks.

Her hearing was always fuzzy when she was like this, outside of the Curator's own voice, so she didn't know what they discussed, and she never got the signal to attack, so when the trio left, grinning fiercely, she couldn't help but shudder at the thought that they had reached some sort of agreement.

Either way, as they left, and the curator snapped his fingers, she popped her head out from the banister and heard him speak.

"Come, Zookeeper. We have some preparations to make."

Hopping the banister, she landed in front of him and rolled to dissipate the force, before standing and saluting him. It was a fucking annoying thing that he had programmed into her, to salute him.

As she followed the Curator and Bearhead out of the building, she couldn't help but stare up at the sky, as an errant, oddly hopeful thought sparked through her.

'Are you around, Guardian Spirit Deku? Can you see me, sense that I need help?'

She tried to squash the feeling in her chest but found it oddly resilient, the niggling thoughts she had been having in the back of her mind flaring up as she stepped into a car with the two villains, driving to who-knows-where their real hideout was.

And so she was stuck, watching the sky, feeling the little hope she had left writhe as she felt herself calling out to the spirit, Deku or whatever, knowing that it was a one in a trillion chance that he could hear her and that her hopes were going to be dashed again. She could almost feel the heartbreak already…

Fuck. Having hope sucked balls.


'Are you around, Guardian Spirit Deku?'

Amongst a wave of noise, and a few prayers here and there… one jumped out to him as he floated above Denki and Ochako's school, feeling bored as they studied. It was apparently "test season" and they really needed to focus, so he had been left to his own devices.

But as the prayer-that-wasn't-really-a-prayer hit his soul, he felt some… compulsion to go check it out, similar to the compulsion he had gotten when Denki, and then Ochako, had used the summoning circles to draw him to them, only weaker.

Still, it begged for him to investigate. And he wasn't doing anything else right now…

If he was corporeal, the wind would be rushing past his ears as Japan blurred underneath him, heading towards where the… it was weird calling it a prayer, as it didn't taste like one… maybe a hope? Or a request? Whatever he would end up calling it, he headed towards it like a bullet from a gun.

It took him out of the Saitama district, out of the Kanto region, even, and eventually, he found himself hovering over a place he hadn't really been before, the… Nara district? That sounded right. The Nara district of the Kinki region.

More specifically, he was hovering over a very dilapidated-looking warehouse, the person who had called out for him seemingly inside the building. Or below it, if his senses were correct.

Moving inside was easy as pie, his incorporeality meaning the walls were like air to him as he dived down, as was the floor, which was actually oddly thick, before eventually, he arrived in an open space.

And stopped in pure shock at what he was seeing.

The large basement was full of boxes, barrels, and drums, and every single one of them was marked with a symbol he was familiar with from his time spent hanging around a power plant, the one that signified 'extreme danger'.

Poking his head through the walls of one of the boxes showed that they were full of small grey bricks of… something, that looks slightly squishy… and even though they weren't full of it yet, Deku could sense that they were capable of creating a huge amount of power if sparked.

Were these some form of explosives? He'd heard about them from Ochako after witnessing her parent's company demolish a building. If they were… then this was bad news. If even a small amount could help take down one building… what could this many do?

But, the explosives were not his focus at the moment. His 'eyes' shifted to a door to the back of the basement, where the person calling for him was at the moment. He flew over to the door and passed through, finally coming face to face with her.

She was somehow calling for him, begging for his help… while silently scrolling on her phone? He floated around the room she was in, to make sure that he wasn't imagining it, but no, the 'prayer' was coming from her, even as she sat stony-faced, staring at the feed while she scrolled.

Hello? Can you hear me? You have been trying to get me here for a little while now, Is everything alright? Well, of course, everything isn't all right if you were calling for me to help you, and from everything outside the room I can guess it's not great here, but… wait. Can you hear me? Hello?

He was making a bet, due to the 'drawn-towards' feeling he had gotten when she had reached out to him, that she was unconsciously doing something similar to the ritual Denki and Ochako did, just with none of the barriers or protections set up… which would be dangerous if he had any plans to hurt her.

His bet seemed to be a good one, as her head snapped up to his voice, and he saw her squint in his direction, mumbly softly. "Is that… green?"

There was a moment where Deku just floated there, allowing her to gain her bearings, as she looked incredibly out of it after he had made himself known, but as she sat for a while, he could see realisation dawn on her face.

"G-g-guardian Spirit, D-deku?"

He felt his 'heart' sink at the sheer hope in her voice as she spoke his name, even with her stuttering, he could tell that she hadn't been expecting him to show up. Or maybe hadn't been meaning to call out for him at all. He was still getting used to the way communication worked with prayer-givers.

You're right, my name is Deku. You were… calling out to me, asking for my help. What is it you need me for? Other than being stuck underground with a large amount of bombs.

He had tried to make a joke to relieve some of her tension like he saw Denki sometimes do at school, but it didn't seem to work, the reminder of where she was and what was down here with her causing her to flinch.

"I need you to get me out of here, please. The Curator, he- Did you know that the hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards?"

Deku was stunned for a moment at the sudden and almost… violent-looking shift in the woman's demeanour and words, her face going from pleading and hopeful to a sickly sweet smile as she gave him an… animal fact?

Pardon?

The woman punched the wall behind her and stood up, her phone clattering to the ground. She looked back up to where he was floating, and he could see the strain in her eyes.

"Curator - Crocodiles can't stick their tongue out!"

Curator? Was that someone's name? He didn't really understand where she was going with this, but the sheer effort she was making to tell him made him understand that it was important.

"Brainwashed me - Otters hold hands while sleeping so they don't float away from each other!"

Deku gasped at that, but she ignored him, and with what looked like a final burst of willpower, he saw her clench her fists, her fingernails digging into her palm so hard Deku was almost worried she would start bleeding, but she didn't.

"Plans to bomb Might Tower!"

She seemed honestly surprised that she was able to get that part out without whatever was making her spew animal facts kicking in, but she was not the only one who was surprised. Deku couldn't help but glance over to the stockpile of bombs down here, and then back to the woman.

His mind had been made before he had even heard the last bit, but it was just the cherry on top of an already horrible situation.

I will help you, as much as I can. But first, what is your name?

The woman stared up at him, falling onto her butt and breathing deeply, as if she had just run a mile, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. "You're going to help me? Really?"

With a nod, Izuku floated down and placed his ghostly hand atop her head, the semi-ritual she was unconsciously doing, as well as the lack of protection, allowing him to actually feel her under his hand.

It was a startling feeling, as he had only moved down to try and comfort her with the visual of him patting her head, but there were more important things for now. Really, I promise.

The tears flowed from her eyes freely at that, and she leaned back up against the wall as Deku pulled away slightly. She smiled for the first time since he had arrived, a small thing, but hopeful nonetheless.

"M-my name is H-hana Aoi. Please, let me try my best to tell you what I know…"