Izuku and Ojiro walked furtively towards the central plaza and arrived into the middle of absolute chaos. The bodies of minor villains lay about like leaves fallen from a maple in a typhoon. Shards of shattered ice covered everything and everyone . Kacchan was swearing fiercely somewhere nearby, but Izuku couldn't spot him.
A black portal opened in front of Izuku's face and a pale hand reached towards him--Izuku put one of his throwing knives through the limb before he even comprehended what he was doing and, somewhere in the distance, the owner of the displaced hand screamed in agony, pulling away.
Izuku was going to go through a lot of knives this year, wasn't he? There went one already. "Watch out!" someone yelled, maybe Todoroki. Watch out for what?
"Holy shit!" Ojiro leapt away--a reflex matched by Izuku--as some sort of four meter tall beaked monstrosity appeared in front of him by magic. Izuku wasn't sure if he was the one who had sworn or if it had been Ojiro or someone else entirely, but it seemed an appropriate reaction. The thing was so fast, there was no way anyone without a speed enhancement could dodge the next blow--the roar of Todoroki's quirk filled the air and the villain thing tripped as ice assaulted its legs.
Izuku and Ojiro, without prompting, split up and sprinted in opposite directions, hoping to confound the villain (or was it an animal? Or some kind of machine? It was impossible to tell).
Izuku skidded to a halt as the misty villain who opened warp gates appeared in front of him. Behind him, Izuku heard ice shattering and Kacchan yelling--he must be trying to fight the monster. Staff held firmly in hand as he assessed his options, Izuku scanned the warper for potential weaknesses. "You!" The villain said.
"Me?" Izuku was having a flashback to his first encounter with Ojiro so many months ago. "Kurogiri!" a raspy voice cried and the warper abruptly vanished into one of his portals.
A terrified scream--Izuku pivoted to see the monster thing looming over a mostly incapacitated Katsuki. Todoroki was on the ground, too, but whether that was due to injury or hypothermia was
unclear. The greenette sprinted towards his friend without a moment's thought, a knife in each hand. He was too far away and didn't have the strength to land the first throw straight on target-- the blade cut through the thing's shoulder but didn't do more than cause it to pause for a moment, the wound sealing and ejecting the knife to the ground. That was an insane healing factor. The second throw went through an eye and Izuku had to fight against a surge of nausea because he had just stabbed something in the eye , he had just stabbed something in the eye on purpose . It wasn't clear whether the beast felt anything at all, but the knife in the eye was enough of a distraction to allow Katsuki to collect himself and get clear. The next blade landed in the attacker's exposed brain. It screeched but still didn't seem to be incapacitated.
Izuku had enough time to recognize that every last person who engaged this creature was going to die, right here right now, because it was relentless and unbreakable and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it-- when it vanished in a burst of wind. It took Izuku much longer than he would have liked to comprehend that the monster had disappeared not under its own power or as a result of a warp gate but because All Might had punched it.
Huh. Maybe they weren't all going to die? Where was Ojiro? "Ojiro?" Izuku called.
"Here!" the tailed boy replied instantly. Oh. He was right there, kneeling beside Todoroki, trying to help the other boy up. Todoroki did not look pleased by this development.
"Kacchan?" Izuku asked, running towards his old friend.
The blonde was already on his feet, or on all fours, really. "Excuse me," Katsuki said before tactfully hiding behind a bush to wretch. The brave blonde probably had a concussion. Izuku grimaced and turned his attention to the battle between All Might, the monster thing, the warper and a man wearing hands like they were going out of style--he really should have avoided that metaphor . The man covered in hands was the one who had tried to grab Izuku through the portal; it was obvious given the makeshift bandage on his palm. All Might continued to beat on the monster, but... didn't seem to be making much of a dent.
"It can hold its own against All Might," Ojiro said in horror.
"How are you guys not dead?" Izuku wondered, voice shaking. The idea of the greenette and Ojiro surviving a minute or so in combat involving that thing with support from the heavy hitters was plausible. Todoroki and Bakugou holding out before their arrival... that was incredible.
A gunshot rang out followed by a scream. Snipe... The other teachers had arrived, or at least some of them were here and more would shortly follow. The hand-wearing villain dived for the ground and, immediately, the warper removed the two of them from the battlefield. Teachers' voices echoed across the USJ and moments later All Might sent the last monster flying through the ceiling like a canon ball.
A puppet with the strings slashed, Izuku sank to the ground. "I'm so glad I brought all my weapons," he heard himself say nonchalantly. "Does anyone have a shock blanket? Well, two because Todoroki needs one first and then I want the second one, or maybe Kacchan should get it." He still looked green.
"Here," said Midnight, crouching down to wrap a blanket around his shoulders. That was nice of her. When did she get here, though?
"Ah, thanks," Izuku said. "I'm not hurt, just kind of freaked out, so I'm a green triage tag. Go help the red and yellow tags."
"If you can, head back to the entrance, alright?"
"On my way," Izuku nodded. "Oh, I'm missing a bunch of daggers..." "I'll keep an eye out for them." Midnight gave him a wry half-smile.
Izuku wandered up the steps. He didn't see any sign of Aizawa or Thirteen... and the fact that there were students fighting against those heavy hitting villains didn't bode well for the condition of either teacher. Izuku couldn't imagine any member of UA's staff would have allowed Todoroki and Bakugou to fight some kind of immortal monstrosity if they could have prevented it. The phrase "over my dead body" came to mind. Izuku stomped on it. It had no business here. Izuku had no reason to think that anyone was dead. Everyone could be fine. Everything might be fine.
Several ambulances and police cars, and vehicles likely from hero agencies not associated with UA crowded the USJ's small parking lot. Most of Izuku's class seemed to be here huddled on the grass just outside the entrance to the building . He spotted Shouji, Uraraka, Sero, Asui, Iida... Maybe he should just count... twelve students out here. He knew where three others were... where were the rest? Izuku sat down heavily on a low landscaping barrier.
Snipe was speaking with Uraraka who had also chosen the landscaping barrier as a seat. "All the students are accounted for now," the cowboy hero told her. "Everyone's gonna' be fine, nothing Recovery Girl can't fix up no problem."
"What about Mr. Aizawa and Thirteen?" Uraraka asked plaintively, hugging her own blanket close.
"Both of them have been hospitalized," he said. "Don't think either of them's gonna' be permanently injured, but it's too soon t'say for sure."
"Oh," whispered Uraraka.
"Well, that's better than I expected," Izuku said. "I want to go home and sleep... for a really long time."
"Y'all will get that chance. School's canceled tomorrow while we find a way to keep that teleporting varmint out." Snipe sounded really put out, but "varmint" was a funny word and Izuku didn't know how to feel about this.
"Is there a way to block that kind of teleportation?" Izuku mused.
"At the very least we will be able to detect it," Powerloader pitched in. "You are Midoriya, correct?"
"Yes."
"Your mother is going to be be here within thirty minutes. She will be taking you and Bakugou home."
"Do I need to give a statement?" Izuku asked. This seemed like the kind of incident he would need to give a statement about.
"A detective will come by your house tomorrow to ask you some questions," Powerloader said.
"That makes sense," Izuku nodded. At that moment, Midnight stepped out of the USJ with a mostly unconscious Kacchan in a bridal carry. Recovery Girl's quirk must have taken a lot out of him. She set him down gingerly on the grass. Mineta, who was sitting with Asui and Kaminari,
shot Katsuki a look of pure, 200-proof jealousy.
"Really, kero?" Asui said quietly to their shortest classmate.
"Like you don't have a crush on any pro heroes," Mineta muttered back.
"That's beside the point, kero."
Izuku barely remembered the car ride home, the fussing and assurances. His mother forced him to eat something and shower before he trudged to bed. That was probably for the best.
He'd killed people before. It didn't feel quite like it had the first time he took a life, that cold-fire feeling of destroying part of his soul, but it was always horrible. A knife between an assailant's ribs--she was the only one of her apartment-mates who remembered to water the geraniums in the window box--a bullet through a skull--he called his mother every night at eight o'clock to tell her about his day, the parts he was allowed to talk about anyway --a body thrown from a balcony into traffic--his border collie waited patiently by the door for him to arrive home for dinner.
Izuku staggered to his feet, gagging against the sharp scent of iron in the air, against the crusty feeling of blood drying on his clothes and skin. "Arch?" he slurred out, jaw still smarting from a punch.
"Yeah, I'm here," Arch responded, staggering to his feet. "You are a terror."
"Thanks I guess. Now we need to get the hell out of here before they send more people to kill us."
"I feel kind of bad," Arch said, pulling his brief case out from beneath the bed. "This was a really nice hotel room." The case was, thankfully, undamaged. The hotel room wasn't that nice; Arch just had low standards, and the property damage wasn't really what Izuku was concerned about.
"Should we head back? We can't complete our mission, not now that everyone knows we're here."
Arch helped Izuku heave a fallen cabinet aside so that he could retrieve his own briefcase. "Maybe we can make them think we aborted the mission and carry through with it anyway. Doesn't matter now. Let's get out of here."
Izuku couldn't quite place where he was--it was almost as if he didn't have a body at all in this vision. It didn't matter much. There wasn't much to see at first--a concrete barrier riddled with holes and indents and smeared with dark stains. Four people marched solemnly to stand before the wall. Izuku couldn't see enough detail to determine if he knew any of them, couldn't even have said for certain if he was one of them . The last of the four, noticeably shorter than the others, was bawling--a young teen. Another was begging, "she's only fourteen. She didn't do anything wrong. She's not one of us. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Please! Let her go at least. Please! She's not one of us." The third was shaking violently and the fourth defiantly staring at the firing squad, head held high.
Please, please don't make him watch this. Please . He couldn't close his eyes, couldn't turn away.
The image faded and Izuku nearly drowned in relief...
The third vision-- or perhaps it was a continuation of one of the others-- was even vaguer, bloody and horrific and terrifying, saturated with the penetrating stench of death, pierced with steely, banshee screams. "No need to be shy. Let me see your pretty face. There we are. The fear of death becomes you."
Izuku woke hyperventilating, nauseous and exhausted and utterly uninterested in recording any of the details of those dreams; he would write down Arch's name and description but that was it. It was worse than if he hadn't slept at all.
Why the hell had that happened? He'd never... there had been some vaguely violent visions before but nothing like that. Nothing even vaguely like that . Assassinating assassins, firing squads, that voice... the fear of death becomes you . God he was not looking forward to sleeping ever again. Was this because of the USJ? All the built up fear and the echoes of violence calling to similar memories buried in his mind?
Izuku stumbled out of bed and wandered down the stairs. Breakfast... his mother had prepared his favorite and he forced himself to eat. He was not successful in hiding the occasional gag. "Sorry mom," he whispered to her. "I had really awful dreams last night," he whispered.
She hugged him lightly. "If you don't feel up to it, you don't have to eat for my sake," she told him softly.
"I was really worried about everyone," he said. "Ojiro and I, we took care of ourselves. I only have a few scratches... he fell on a bush, so he probably had some bruises and things..." Izuku felt one side of his mouth quirk upwards. "In retrospect, now that I know we were all okay, Ojiro flattening that poor bush is pretty funny." He didn't laugh outright, but felt the barest hint of a chuckle bubble through his voice. "And me almost flying into Cementoss's weird art is pretty funny, too, I guess."
"Laughter can be the best medicine sometimes," his mom told him, ruffling his hair. "I know... that you're going into a dangerous profession where this sort of thing happens, but I really wish it hadn't happened quite so soon."
"Yeah, me too," Izuku said hoarsely. "I think we're supposed to talk about these things before we actually have to deal with them."
"You should." She further mussed his disastrous hair. "Don't feel like you have to pretend for me, alright? You're allowed to be upset and frightened. I won't judge you for it."
"Thanks, mom," Izuku nuzzled against her shoulder.
It wasn't until that afternoon as Izuku tried to force himself to nap before the detective arrived to question him (praying he wouldn't be haunted by blood and gunfire) that he recalled Kurogiri shouting "you!"
"It was the same tone that Ojiro used when we first met," he mumbled to the ceiling, now wide
awake. He'd have to give up on the nap. "He knew me, or rather he recognized me. He didn't know me by name and he sure didn't seem happy to see me... When I was missing I was out being a vigilante, apparently, or that was what Ojiro saw so did I fight Kurogiri before?" That seemed the logical conclusion.
"Great. So there's someone who might be able to tell me more about where I was and what I was doing but he's a villain. Who I will hopefully never see again... but the police might see him?" There, at least, was some hope.