There was another hero collapsed in the alley, Native, semiconscious. Iida had been stabbed in the shoulder and was bleeding profusely--the acid-electric scent of iron thick in the air--but should be able to walk. "Can you stand?" Izuku whispered.

"I can't move at all," Iida replied, small voice quavering. "He has a paralysis quirk. Who is--who is chasing you, M-midoriya?" Izuku's stutter wasn't contagious was it?

"No one," Izuku whispered. "Stain thinks that a triple-S vigilante called War Dog is roaming the streets of Hosu tonight and I pretended she was chasing me." If Iida couldn't stand... Izuku couldn't move his class president and Native at the same time. The paralysis must be temporary. How temporary? Irrelevant. Izuku needed to keep his classmate from bleeding to death. He would have preferred to do that with Konno watching his back, but he would have to do it here, exposed, instead.

The greenette removed the armor from Iida's shoulder and began cutting swathes from his own undershirt (which was the only appropriate fabric he had available) to bandage the other hero student's shoulder. "I think... I can move my fingers," Iida said. "It's wearing off."

"Hasn't worn off for me," Native mumbled, apparently fully conscious again. "Are you injured?" Izuku asked the hero.

"Not... not seriously. Just a few cuts. He licked the knife, though."

"Oh, that makes perfect sense," the pieces came together. "He has a paralysis quirk activated by ingesting blood. The time of paralysis may depend on the quantity ingested or perhaps on the blood type." Not that it mattered, really. Izuku couldn't be the only one who had figured out what Stain's quirk was, right? The way False Flag had been talking about him, it was hard to believe that she didn't have a good idea of how the Hero Killer's quirk functioned. Why wasn't this common knowledge, then? Had the information just not filtered up to the frontline circles? Was it not as obvious to everyone else as it was to Izuku? Even Konno hadn't seemed to know, although he had quickly realized that letting the Hero Killer drink his blood was unacceptable... so maybe False Flag didn't know Stain's quirk either?

Iida, shoulder now securely bandaged, slowly sat up. "Help me move Native," Izuku said because his classmate was staring, disoriented, into space as if he had never seen a dingy alleyway before and didn't seem to know what to do.

"Right," the class president staggered to his feet, hissing in pain. Izuku slung one of Native's arms around his shoulder and Iida took the other with his good side, although the greenette made sure that the vast majority of Native's weight fell on his own shoulders. The students left the alley carry-dragging the hero between them.

Konno had, by then, managed to crawl about a quarter of the distance from his bench to Stain's chosen kill zone. "You're quite the actor, Midoriya. Undercover work just might suit you," the hero said, ceasing to crawl and instead choosing to lean against one of the larger trees in the park, using the trunk to guard his back. Izuku and Iida set Native down against the same tree and then the greenette forced his classmate to take a seat as well so that the three injured or paralyzed individuals surrounded the trunk. It looked like some kind of druid ritual and apparently Izuku was officiating, if "officiating druid ritual" could be translated to "holding two remaining knives in front of his face, scanning every direction in turn and hoping Stain didn't suddenly drop out of the tree branches on top of him."

Given how the evening had gone, Izuku really wouldn't be surprised if Stain suddenly fell on him. He wouldn't even be surprised if the real War Dog showed up about now. In fact, both of those things should happen. The Hero Killer should fall from a branch and land on Izuku and then War Dog should fall from a higher branch and land on Stain. The greenette looked up nervously. He couldn't see anything in the dark tangle of twigs and leaves...

Native stretched and got to his feet slowly. "I'm not really hurt. I'll--well, I'm not a match for Stain but if he comes back I promise I won't be useless this time." There was a short pause. "I don't think I know... any of your names?"

"Kesagiri Man," Konno introduced himself.

"Ah. Sorry. I haven't forgotten you, I swear, it's just... you always have that bag over your head."

Konno snorted. "That is the point of the bag."

"Iida Tenya," Izuku's classmate said softly. "UA First Year."

"Fossa," Izuku said, choosing to follow along with the trend of using his code rather than an alias or his true name. "Also a UA first year."

"And I am Native, although I think you all know that."

"We do," Konno said as yet another distant building went up in flames. "What were you doing out here, Native? This isn't a common haunt of frontliners, not at night anyway."

"Chased two jewel thieves out here... frontline I may be but I mostly go after small time criminals. I'm no Endeavour and I know it. I take pride in my work. I mean, I've saved the livelihoods of hundreds of small business owners over the years... Stain didn't see it that way. Said it was weakness... that he wouldn't tolerate it. He ambushed me when I cornered them and the thieves got away with their haul, of course. They had a good laugh about it."

"And was Iida interning with you?" Konno asked. "No, you said you didn't know his name." "No," Iida agreed. "I was supposed to--I was interning with Manual. I... we were separated."

Izuku could read between the lines and see exactly what had happened tonight. The look on Konno's face suggested the significance of Ingenium's injury at Stain's hand followed by Iida Tenya's actions in the last few hours was not lost on him. "You are so lucky Iida," Izuku shook his head.

Kesagiri man crossed his arms and began speaking very seriously to the student sitting on the other side of the tree. "Do you understand that you would be dead right now if your classmate were not an Oscar worthy actor?"

After a lengthy, awkward silence, Iida replied, "yes."

"Do you understand? Really? Do you know what it feels like to lose someone like that? What it's like to hear the telephone ring in the middle of the night, hear a detective tell you "I'm afraid I have some bad news?" Can you imagine that feeling of existential dread when you know what the voice at the end of the line is about to tell you? How it feels to beg the detective not to say it, even though you know perfectly well that will not change a thing, that the universe cannot be bargained with that way?" Izuku gulped, quite certain that his mentor was describing the death of one of his own dear friends, or its aftermath anyway. It was a grisly, soul-twisting depiction... and Iida probably needed to hear it. Izuku... he already understood what it meant to die, the hole it left in the lives of one's companions, the millions of potential futures abandoned to rot and ruin. Whole worlds end with you. "Can you imagine the pain you would have put your mother through? Your father? Your brother? You did him no favors by acting rashly on his behalf and your actions could well have cost Fossa his life as well had his ploy to rescue you failed."

"I know," Iida whispered. "I do know. I always knew but--I was just... I needed to stop him. I needed to take him down."

"Believe me when I say I know the feeling," Native said, his tone far gentler than Konno's, "and given that I would likely be dead myself now if you hadn't decided to pull this stunt, I'm somewhat biased on the subject, but you can't do this to yourself and your family, Iida. There are other ways to cope and at UA you are surrounded by people that understand and can help you. Your peers, your teachers, your school councilor, your own parents..."

"Use all resources available to you in your personal life just as you would use all resources available to you in battle," Konno concluded. "To do anything less is wasteful and foolish."

"I know Manual's number," Native said, "since we work together sometimes. He must be frantic looking for Iida, but I don't seem to a have a phone on me anymore."

"You can use mine. It's a burner, of course," Konno offered. Izuku had been lent a burner of his own for the night, but it seemed he didn't need to offer it.

"Voice mail," Native said before leaving a succinct message explaining the situation and location.

Iida, by now, looked absolutely miserable, eyes dark with pain and cheeks pale from blood loss. He didn't seem to be bleeding anymore, but that didn't mean he wasn't in shock. He'd lost a good deal more blood than Konno and was smaller besides. You were supposed to have people lie down when they were in shock then keep them warm and elevate the legs. The greenette helped Iida remove the rest of his torso armor, took off his jacket and wrapped it about the other student, then harassed the class president into lying down and resting his feet on a rock. "My brother is going to hang me upside down from the chandelier in the dining room." It was Iida saying this so Izuku had to assume he meant that literally, "and I'll deserve it."

Another explosion--this one much closer--stained the night sky ruby-red and the group fell silent in

favor of keeping a vigilant watch. At least ten tense minutes passed before a black SUV pulled up in the adjacent street. Aizawa stepped out of the vehicle. He narrowed his eyes. "I thought it was just you and Mi-Fossa, Kesagiri Man."

"The evening became more eventful after I called you," Konno said dryly.

"Iida, M--Fossa in the car now," Eraserhead told them sharply and the students scrambled to comply. Izuku helped his classmate into the back seat and, after deciding proper vehicle safety was likely the most important consideration, attached the seat belt for Iida rather than having him lay down.

Eraserhead and Native Helped Kesagiri Man into a the front passenger seat then Native slipped into the middle row and Aizawa accelerated into the street. "Hosu General is going to be completely overrun. We'll have better luck getting you seen to in a timely manner if we drive to a different city entirely, but driving two able bodied heroes out of Hosu when the situation is this dire would be inexcusable."

"You would be more of a help out there than me," Native told Eraserhead. "If you trust me with your keys--"

"Yes, yes. We'll work out the logistics of returning my car to me when the crisis is over." Street lights sped past in blurs, the burning parts of Hosu drawing rapidly closer. Police road blocks came into view. "It looks like this is as far as we get."

Eraserhead pulled over and handed the keys to Native. "Be careful, Eraserhead," Izuku implored his teacher nervously. "Stain was heading this way earlier and who knows what else is out there? There was something with wings."

Aizawa nodded, pulling lemon yellow goggles over his eyes. Did they have night vision built in? "I'll be fine, Fossa."

"Good luck," Kesagiri Man bade, Native and Iida seconding the well-wishing, then Eraserhead was gone and Native was turning the vehicle around.

Izuku had nothing more than bruises and shallow cuts, but no way to get back to his hotel (or back to his house for that matter) so he ended up sleeping away the last few hours of the waning night in an uncomfortable, green chair in an A.T. Memorial Hospital waiting room. Native had been called away by the police--it wasn't entirely clear what the purpose behind the summons had been--and now Izuku had Eraserhead's keys which he would give to Konno once his mentor woke up. Kesagiri Man and Iida would both likely be discharged the same day, but for now they were out like burnt light bulbs.

Izuku continued attempting to doze well into the morning, but kept starting awake at sudden sounds or the sense of another person in close proximity. On one occasion, he groggily said, "Iida, what are you doing up?" before he realized that it was his classmate's older brother who had strayed near him. "Oh. Sorry. Wrong Iida." They looked so similar it was as if they were twins and the younger one had been kept in suspended animation for many years.

Ingenium blinked at him. "You know my brother? Do you know what happened to him?"

Izuku nodded. "We're classmates. I came in with him." He held up Eraserhead's car keys as if that explained everything.

Ingenium furrowed his brow. "Why do you have Eraserhead's car keys?" "How do you know these are Eraserhead's car keys?"

"The cat ears," Iida said. Huh. The keys covers did have cat ears on them.

"So, Kesagiri Man called Eraserhead after Stain tried to kill us and another hero chased him away," Ingenium started. That was really inconsiderate given what had happened to his classmate's brother. Izuku shouldn't have started that way. "Sorry, I'm really tired... and uh, well, by the time Aizawa showed up I had chased Stain away from Native and from Iida, Iida Tenya I mean, and then Eraserhead wanted to go fight in whatever disaster was going on in Hosu so he gave Native his keys and then Native drove us here but then the police wanted to talk to him and so now I have Eraserhead's keys that I'm supposed to give to Kesagiri Man when he wakes up."

Iida Tensei stared at Izuku open mouthed. "W-what?" he demanded. "You chased... Stain away from my brother? Why was my brother even there is he--what happened? Is he hurt?"

"He'll be okay. He had a knife wound in his shoulder," Izuku replied, "and Kesagiri Man was stabbed in the leg. They should both be discharged today, though."

Ingenium's eyes darted back and forth rapidly as if he didn't know whether to sigh in relief or panic. Finally he asked, "are you alright?" Izuku nodded. "I... I didn't catch your name?"

"Fossa," the greenette replied, "is my code name."

"Okay. Okay this is... this is fine. Everything is fine," Ingenium repeated, clearly trying to

convince himself. "But you chased the Hero Killer away from his marks? How?"

"I pretended I was being chased by War Dog."

Ingenium blinked. "I... don't even know who that is."

He was frontline, so there was little reason to expect him to know. "Neither did I until last night, but Stain knew and that was what mattered."

The hero stood in silence for perhaps thirty seconds, eyes flicking even more rapidly from side to side as he filled in the blanks in the story. "I am going to hang him upside down from the chandelier," Iida Tensei hissed menacingly, then his whole demeanor changed, melting like a spring thaw, as he turned back to Izuku, "thank you, Fossa, for saving my brother's life. I owe you immeasurably."

"Part of the job," Izuku said, echoing False Flag's words. "You don't owe me anything."

Ingenium considered him for a moment. "Can I at least buy you breakfast? Brunch? You look exhausted and famished."

Izuku opened his mouth to refuse, because he didn't decide to become a hero for free food, and then closed it. In Ingenium's position, Izuku, too, would want to feed the exhausted hero student he found in a hospital waiting room and, well... the greenette was really hungry now that he thought about it and what small amount of cash he'd had on him the night before had been lost when Stain

cleaved open one of the pockets on his pants. Izuku hadn't realized that had happened until long after they arrived at the hospital. Stain had missed opening his leg by centimeters. "Yes. Yes I would really appreciate some breakfast, thank you."

Ingenium steered him down to the cafeteria, paid for all the food Izuku wanted to shove on a tray-- and a number of things that the hero decided to shove on the tray despite the greenette showing no interest in them--then left to ask after his brother. Hospital food was supposed to be bad, right? This stuff seemed fine, nothing to write home about but nothing to scoff at, either. Izuku ended up finishing all of the available food before trudging back to his waiting room to doze some more.

They knew they would loose at Utapa. The only people who were here now were the ones that would rather die than surrender, people who had nothing left to loose and nothing left to gain, people who were too angry to ever lay down their arms, people who had a point to make.

Izuku was all of those things. Everything and everyone he had left to lose was fighting in this battle. Everything he despised was embodied by the enemy, by the unspeakably stupid deal with a devil that the government had made. The world would see him, his final message written here in blood, if it were (and it probably would be) the last thing he did!

Chris was by his side and then the world blurred by in a collage of dozens of blows and hundreds of bullets. He couldn't tell the munitions explosions from detonations caused by meta abilities. Assault vehicles, civilian buildings, and fortifications burned like torches. Soldiers bled in rivers.

Chris wasn't with him anymore and the sun had gone down, so hours must have passed. The vicious cracks of gunfire continued, often harbingers of hoarse screams, parched and smoke-raw throats straining to cry out one final time. Glassy eyes stared up at him from a pool of crusty, rusting scarlet. He knew her well, one of the permanent residents of the Mandar bunker. A sweet heart, abused and exiled all of her life and still so... sunny. You never once heard her complain. The temperature in a room always seemed to stabilize when she appeared. One death is a tragedy, but there were enough dead together on this field, vultures and ravens picking at their flesh, to be a statistic. Izuku sank down and closed his subordinate's eyes, her cold, clammy skin making his own crawl as if covered already by maggots.

"You seem to have lost track off your leader, Switchblade." That voice...

"Monster," Izuku snarled, turning towards the speaker...

"Is it because you're using one of theirs? Would it have worked on you?"

"Would you deny me the rights you seek for your own kin? The right to be myself, unmolested by the fears of the rabble?"

"No need to be shy. Let me see your pretty face. There we are. The fear of death becomes you."

Would it have been more bearable if the ground were warm? No, likely not. Warm or cool, nothing could have made it better, laying here on his side, wondering if he had the strength left to lift a finger. It didn't hurt anymore; this wound transcended pain. Transcended life. Would likely transcend death soon enough.

A final message in blood--"you have doomed yourselves. You may have won this battle, but the wolf in a prim suit you accepted into your fold will sink his teeth into each and every one of you and drink your blood and souls like strawberry shakes. You will lose the war as surely as we did."

Izuku started awake, flailing hands and feet, gasping for air. He should have figured he would see something horrible like that. After the USJ his dreams overflowed with blood and violence. He had only been dozing thirty minutes and now he couldn't bear the idea of sleeping again, not after that gruesome view of the final battlefield of the MLA War. The greenette groaned and rubbed his eyes before picking up some sports magazine from one of the waiting room tables and beginning to randomly browse articles. He couldn't focus on them, though.

"Monster"... Deal with a devil... what? What had the Japanese government done at Utapa? It was too blurry... he couldn't remember clearly who had dealt Bit Weasel the injury she'd believed to be mortal, but that voice... he'd heard it before, maybe just in another dream. It was a horrifying voice. Even Stain's chilling, fanatical drawl didn't invoke that kind of terror in those who heard him speak.

Too much disjointed information... Stain had said possessed Izuku called himself "Switchblade." Izuku had not encountered that term before so he would have to look it up. For now he would take Stain's word that it meant Destro's bodyguard... the man who nearly killed Bit Weasel at Utapa had called her a Switchblade, too, and she was supposed to be with Chris but lost track of him in the chaos... and probably never saw him again. Destro probably didn't realize she survived. Or had she survived? Did the fact that Izuku remembered suffering through this injury necessarily mean that Bit Weasel lived? Probably, but given that he still had no idea how he had obtained these memories, he couldn't be sure. Hopefully she lived to escape to the Rebel Isles.

Alright, putting the dream about the last stand of the MLA aside for the moment, the person who possessed Izuku had saved someone from a robber in front of Ojiro and then got into a knife fight with Stain over casually taking lives... What were the chances that Kurogiri recognized Izuku because Izuku's body thief had tried to foil some League of Villains plot? There had been a time when the greenette truly dreaded learning the full story of his kidnapping but now... whoever was controlling him seemed to have some kind of respectable moral code. If he had been used to kill someone... well, he certainly couldn't rule it out but if it had happened then there would have been a very good reason for it-- not that that justified anything, but it--well, Izuku didn't think he had to worry about discovering that he had, say, run down a child with a stolen car or thrown a bag of kittens into a river.

"Fossa?" Ingenium was back. "You alright?"

"Y-yeah," Izuku sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Nasty dream, that's all. Is Iida--my Iida, I mean the other Iida, the not you Iida--why did I say that you know what I mean--how is he?"

Iida Tensei sighed and took a seat in a chair beside Izuku. "Might have some nerve damage. Our parents should be here soon... I couldn't get word to them until about an hour ago..." he shook his head. "This months has been... hard on everyone in our family. I've had plenty of nightmares

about Stain, too."

"It wasn't about Stain," Izuku felt the need to clarify for some reason, "but it... followed on his theme, I guess." Eager to change the subject, Izuku instead asked, "are you really going to hang your brother from the chandelier?"

"Yes," said Ingenium flatly, "by his ankles." Izuku couldn't help but smile. What would it have been like to grow up with a sibling? When they were very young, he and Kacchan might as well have been brothers and then... then Izuku had no one for a very long time. What would life have been like if there had been another young Midoriya? It would've depended heavily on whether that sibling had a quirk. This train of thought wasn't headed anywhere good. Time to get off.

At that moment, Konno walked into the waiting room. Izuku stood up to greet him. "Good afternoon, Fossa," the hero nodded to him. Kesagiri Man moved with a slight limp, but a healing quirk must have taken care of the worst of the damage. "Ah, hello Ingenium."

"Kesagiri," Iida Tensei nodded to him. "I've already thanked your intern, but I suppose I owe you thanks as well."

"The only thing I did was make the arrangements that ended with Fossa being in the right place at the right time," Konno said. "Is your brother well?"

Ingenium nodded. "He should be."

"Glad to hear it. Alright, Fossa, let's head out before the police have the chance to accost us. We will likely both have to speak with them, but I would like a night to rest and recuperate before that eventuality and I presume you would prefer that as well."

Izuku nodded gratefully. They bid their farewells and departed, taking Aizawa's car as, "there is no reason for us to take the train when we have a vehicle available which would otherwise be wasting space in the hospital's parking lot. I will call Eraserhead and arrange to return his car to him as soon as possible."

Izuku, who really wanted to be alone for awhile, assured Konno that he was fine and did not want to talk about the experience anymore for the time being. After a number of probing questions to assure himself that the greenette was really fine and could be left alone, Konno dropped Izuku off at his hotel. "If you need to talk, if you need someone to come see you, if you need someone to bring you food because you do not feel up to arranging to get some yourself call me. Even if it is three in the morning, call me. Alright?"

"Alright." Izuku nodded.

"You are going to be an amazing hero, Fossa. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Your performance last night was phenomenal." Izuku hid his blush and mumbled thanks as he leapt from the car. He had, fortunately, not lost his room key the night before. It had not been in the pocket Stain slashed open.

The greenette hurried back to his room, threw himself flat on the bed and stayed there wondering how his life had come to this until it occurred to him that he could have a shower now.