His eyes flew open. No mirrors. No twisted figures. Just the same old tent and his same new face. A nightmare, or at least it had ended as a nightmare. The start might have been someone's memory. He owed Kuma thanks next time he saw her, for stepping in to free him from his mental cage. Hopefully he would see her soon. He could use someone to talk to, or rather someone to talk to without dancing like a ballerina around every word.

It would have been nice to get a decent amount of sleep for once. No such luck. Well, back to his nightly wanderings. Wakiya did not stir as Izuho slipped out into the dark, weaving between the sparse trees.

It was impossible to avoid thinking forever, much as he might like to.

Best Jeanist was alive, so Tokoyami and Dark Shadow and Hawks and Dabi had all died over... absolutely nothing. There hadn't been any reason for anyone to be killed. There hadn't even been a reason for any of them to fight. Pointless. So utterly, crushingly, hopelessly pointless. Not that the rest of the world seemed to have a point, either.

Midnight and Hound Dog were dead for sure. Suneater had probably been killed. Monoma might have died, too. How many others? How many more? What could possibly have been worth all this? What did everybody want? This war couldn't really be what anybody wanted, could it? But somehow it got started and now nobody knew how to get it to stop. Sometimes reality was light as a feather. Sometimes the weight of every single breath he took, let alone the sum total of all the breaths taken by billions of living humans,was crushing. This was one of the later times.

Maybe he ought to have shot Nagant when he had the chance and got it all over with. He wasn't going to live through this war. What was the point of delaying the inevitable, facing day after day of this unfathomable horror just to die in the end without ever knowing peace again? Just living on the same planet with people like Sone, Nagant and Shigaraki was intolerable, as if he were being slowly roasted to death in the flames of their insatiable hatred and bloodlust. Not only were the flames agonizing, they were contagious.

It would be so easy to catch fire and burn up, become just like the people he despised. He'd rather

be dead. But he couldn't give up, because everyone was fighting the same war and what if everyone thought just like Izuku and then they all gave up? Then the PLF would win for sure. Izuku couldn't give up himself and expect other people to keep fighting. So he'd have to face the next day, and the next, and the next, and make sure he spent his life on something suitably important in the end. His life was the only thing of value he had, after all. He couldn't shortchange his allies by dying over something stupid. Even if the war were hopeless, and it might be, that was no reason not to fight as hard as he could until the very end.

Huh. Sone was coming to see him. What could she want at... three in the morning? "Well, well," Sone hummed, "what are you up to tonight, Switchblade?"

Izuku's heart skipped at least two beats. Had Stain somehow figured out who he was, connected it back to the spy's missing week and told the sergeant to confront him--but Izuho'd never been anywhere near Stain. This didn't make sense how could--because it wasn't Sone. It was False Flag. Probably. Almost certainly. But he couldn't afford to assume, no matter how sure he was. "Huh?" Fossa asked.

"I don't have time for games tonight," Sone whispered to him. "And it's not like you know the code phrases. You know who I am. I know who you are. When you interned with me I pretended to be you and wore knee-high boots." She just had to bring that up...

"And who else did you pretend to be?"

"Endeavour among others," she grinned. "I kindly refrained from slamming your head in my bathroom door."

Fossa sighed in relief, convinced. "False Flag," he stated quite unnecessarily. "The one and only."

Izuku looked carefully in all directions for spying eyes and then threw himself at her, pressing his face against her shoulder, not bothering to fight back tears. "You found me."

"Hm. It was easy," she sighed, patting his back, careful not to harm him with Sone's abundant natural weapons, "once I knew to look."

He'd tried not to let himself think about it too much, not ready to face a terrible truth when he lived a terrible lie every day. "Everyone thinks I'm dead, don't they?"

"Yeah. We thought... Nobody believed the bullshit the HPSC tried to shovel, of course, the bastards."

"What did the HPSC say happened to me?" Izuku asked, drawing back from her embrace as a flare of fury tore through him. It didn't last, though, smothered by the overwhelming relief of finally, finally, being found, of finally being himself after months of acting every moment of every day.

Flag rolled her eyes. "The HPSC said you had a 'mental breakdown requiring immediate inpatient treatment,' whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Most of us knew they were lying through their ugly, rotting teeth but... well, things were going to hell and there was only so much of a fit that Nedzu and Nighteye could pitch. The HPSC refused to come clean about it for... weeks after the Angband raid. They said you'd 'escaped' from the hospital where you'd been taken." As they spoke, they made their way to deeper cover provided by some fluffy bushes. "Eventually the officials stonewalling Nedzu got ousted from their positions, real army officers taking over, raking through the muck you might say, and Nedzu didn't have any trouble getting the full story out of

them. I'm not sure... if you're aware just how many political prisoners there were at Angband."

Izuku shook his head. "I don't think I knew of anyone else, but that's not something anyone would bring up and I tried to keep to myself."

"Yeah. You don't ever say what you're in for, especially if it's the opposite of the general inmate population. Good call, Fossa... but there were more than a hundred people there for reasons pretty similar to yours. Only a handful of them survived, well, other than the ones who might have convinced the PLF to take them in... can't imagine you were the only person who had that idea. But all the survivors we know of were from one cell block except for one guy, a short range teleporter with manipulation skills rivaling yours." Huh. Must be some guy to earn Flag's admiration.

"Were Angband's disruptor beacons down during the raid?" Izuku wondered.

"Probably. Short range teleportation, like really short, only three-hundred meters or so, can sometimes work even when beacons are in effect so long as the beacon's a distance away, you're really tough, really desperate, and a bit crazy."

"I didn't realize that."

"Not many absolute impossibilities in this world... as we all learned at the Battle of UA." She shook her head, looking at the ground, stifling a distracting emotion. "Anyway, this one teleporter let us know what happened to the general population. We knew you weren't on the cell block that had lots of survivors... By the time we found out you'd been at Angband at all, it was obvious you must be dead. Otherwise you would have turned up already. What actually happened? How'd you make it out? Do you know if anyone else did?"

"The Face Fixer was there," Fossa whispered still more quietly, despite the overwhelming silence of this corner of camp by night. False Flag probably had some anti-eavesdropping support devices on her, but why take risks? "He gave disguises to anyone who asked. I got one from him, a number of others did too, including one of the guards. I convinced the PLF recruiter that I was an MLA fanatic. It... seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"The Face Fixer, well... I suppose that should have been obvious given your new nose." Fossa snorted. "Though there's plenty of other quirks and surgeries that can do the same, of course. Neither he nor anybody else he changed has turned up... I don't know if they didn't make it or if they decided to screw this shit and get out of the country."

"I don't think I'd blame them if they ran for it."

"Yeah. Me neither."

False Flag cocked her head, considering something. "I feel like I have to tell you, even though we really don't have much time. I'd never forgive myself, though, if I left you in the dark now." That was an ironic thing to say given that he could barely make out anything in the gloom.

"About...?"

"You really don't know what it means to be a Switchblade." "Destro's bodyguard--"

"No."

"Somebody Switcher was impersonating, but..." That question he'd meant to ask the morning of Gunga Mountain... he'd forgotten about it, all of his personal problems suddenly paling in comparison to the political and human rights disasters in progress around him. "But Switcher's dead. He died at Utapa, so how can he be in charge of Black Forest--"

"When we first met," Flag interrupted, "I thought you were Switcher."

"What? Why?" Izuku knew why Izuku thought Izuku was Switcher, but what could Flag have been thinking?

"Because you fought like him. Exactly like him. There was one signature twist you did, something I'd only ever known Switcher to do. It wasn't the only thing and you... you kept acting so suspicious like you were testing me for something. Once I was sure you were Switcher, I demanded you come clean about what the hell you wanted with me, but you weren't Switcher and you had no damn idea what I was talking about and then we were both so confused... I didn't know what you were afraid of and suddenly I was... I'm sure you know or can imagine by now what it's like when you're a spy and you think you understand the situation and then suddenly you don't. It's terrifying. You were a wildcard. You scared me too much for me to come straight out and say it. I should have. Should've done it anyway, would have saved us all so much trouble and there wasn't anything to fear, not back then anyway. Jumping at shadows, both of us..."

"I... don't quite... get it..." or did he? Because he knew what she was going to say even as she said it.

"Switcher is a body-hopper, Fossa," a body-hopper who dreamed in horror of seeing a different face in every reflection, "and yes, his mortal frame is long dead. You remember that, huh?"

And it all made sense. All of it. All of the memories were Switcher's memories, except that could mean anyone's perspective. And Switcher had been his shoulder-sitter, borrowing him all week for one final grudge-match against All For One, one final quest for revenge against the monster who had killed his dearest friends and stolen one of their souls. "It explains everything," Izuku breathed. Well, when you factored in that War Dog's quirk had mixed his and Switcher's memories together like a blender it explained everything. Did Switcher end up with pieces of Izuku's past in his head? Or did the possessor always copy his hosts' memories like that? "Wait... what do you mean I remember that? How much do you know about... what's been happening to me?"

"Everything you ever told Aizawa, Nedzu or Bakugou I know," she replied. "What? He... Katsuki told you? I trusted him--I--"

Flag held up her hand. "You were dead. And it's not like he yelled about it to the whole world. Your mother, your teachers, though, he thought they deserved to understand." Izuku winced, chastised. It was his fault they had mourned him. He'd had several opportunities now to abandon his spy posting and rejoin the Chain lines. If he'd just gotten lost at the Battle of UA... but he couldn't do that. He'd come too far to back out now. "Switcher possessed you to get into a fight with All For One over what that son of a bitch had done with Tripswitch's quirk." Izuku nodded in confirmation. "You got chewed on by War Dog, throwing another possession quirk into the mix, and your memories got tangled. How much do you actually have? Muscle memory, clearly, some pretty complicated skills, but how much conscious memory? Bakugou wasn't totally clear about that."

"Lots," Izuku replied. "Dozens of battles. Hundreds of mundane events..." It seemed so obvious now. He should have figured it out a year ago. "Kind of embarrassing that I never figured out they were all the same person's point of view--"

"They wouldn't be," Flag cut him off again. "No Swtichblade is like any other. Switcher doesn't usually dominate somebody's personality, just mixes himself in, and sometimes he lets his hosts dominate him instead. All your spare memories are from Switcher, but they won't seem like the same person's perspective 'cause they aren't. Given you had no damn idea this was possible, you couldn't have been expected to figure it out on your own, not unless you got hella lucky hearing something in one of your inherited memories."

Izuku tipped his head back, staring at the stars through a gap in the leaves. "Still should've... Katsuki told me that Best Jeanist said Switcher's quirk description was completely wrong and I should've figured it out from that. Every time I saw Switcher himself in my dreams, he was either asleep or unconscious; it's so obvious in retrospect. I spent... months of my life scared to death that I might not be me, that I might be Switcher," Flag raised an eyebrow, "because I thought he was a changeling and I was remembering all these things and had all these skills and maybe it made more sense to think that I wasn't really me and then when I met you... you can understand why meeting another changeling from Black Forest made me suspect... all kinds of things... especially when you said you were sort of like Switcher's kid. It all seems so stupid now, irrelevant, nothing compared to what's happening to us, to the whole country ripping itself apart."

"What I meant when I said I was his child in a sense," Flag huffed, "is that I was a Switchblade, too, for quite a while. Sometimes he borrows people for as little as a day, those are the ones he chooses at random. I was... a volunteer with nowhere else to go. Practically made a career out of it for years, and Switcher later repaid me with a new life in Japan and a promise that he would always care for me like family. You can probably understand that." Yeah. He could.

"Anyway, he owes you one hell of an explanation. You should have received some kind of message at the end, some kind of closure, regardless of what deal the two of you struck up when you joined him on this insane suicide mission." She shook her head. "I don't know what he was thinking. I don't know how he found out about what was happening with Hirano Niko and All For One in the first place. I don't know why he decided to go after the guy alone with one quirkless host. I don't know what deal you two had in place," Izuku looked aside, unable to hide his guilt. Of course she knew Izuku had agreed to his possession. Because it was obvious to her. There was simply no other possibility. It didn't matter now, did it? "I do know that what he did was incredibly stupid and he owes you big time. Seriously, he could have called me..."

"Yeah," Izuku rasped, choking on some invisible barrier in his throat. "War Dog seemed to think someone should have left me a note."

"He should have done at least that much. I've been trying for months to get in contact with him to scream at him but world leaders, you know? Busy. Even in the best of times. Which this isn't. He did come out at the beginning of the war and publicly condemn the PLF, which was a bigger political move than he's made openly since the end of the MLA war. I'll give him points for that."

"Huh. I only read PLF propaganda so I didn't hear about that."

"Yeah. They sure wouldn't want anybody to know the last living general of the MLA hates their guts. It was an honorable move and Switcher made a good speech. I'm still mad at him for this whole mess with you, though."

"He didn't mean for any of this to happen," Izuku shook his had. "I wasn't supposed to remember any of it. And maybe he did mean to leave me a note at the end and couldn't because of what happened with War Dog or with All For One afterwards..."

False Flag rolled her eyes. "Doesn't matter what he meant to do. I mean there's nothing he could possibly have been trying to do that could possibly in any reality be considered a decent, sane plan.

It was stupid and he really screwed you over. I found being a Switchblade to always be a disconcerting experience and Switcher didn't leave any extra memories or skills with me, never anything I hadn't experienced myself, other than the darts thing... Your head must be a mess, god, seeing all those awful scenes, knowing you can't do anything about it--sorry. Didn't mean to, rub it in."

Izuku grimaced and tried to shrug it off. He didn't have the energy to think about the miserable parts of the MLA war tonight. There was too much PLF War misery close at hand. "That's just... history, isn't it? History is full of good people who you can admire, feel kinship with, who lost and died and you can't change anything about it, no matter how much you want to. In the end, it's usually the cruelest people, the ones who like to hold others down to stomp on them, that come up on top. The losers are the ones to care about."

Flag exhaled slowly, as if Izuku's quasi-nihilistic rant had physically hurt her. "Well. We can at least do something about our own little patch of history, see to it that the trend is broken and some decent people make it through for once."

"Can we?" Izuku asked.

False Flag cocked her head, assessing him critically. He probably looked a mess, still dirty from the battle since standing in a four hour line for a shower the day before hadn't appealed. "You don't think we can win, do you?"

"The PLF got into the heart of Chain territory like it was easy. They have the nomus. They have that crazy doctor who's building all this support equipment that nobody can counter."

"I'd argue that thermobaric bomb countered it pretty well," Flag replied dryly.

"No, I don't think we can win." Fossa meant it, or maybe Izuku just couldn't bare to let himself hope anymore. "That's no reason not to fight, though. Just because it's hopeless... doesn't mean you shouldn't try." He'd thought like this when he psyched himself up to shoot Major Nagant, thought like the MLA at Utapa, knowing he would lose but determined to make a stand anyway. Izuku hadn't needed Switcher to teach him this lesson. He had never been one to give up just because something was impossible. Izuku shook his head. "It doesn't matter anyway. My squad is being transferred to the Citadel in just under three weeks. I have plans to do a lot of damage there, but I don't really expect to get away with it."

Flag sighed again, closing her eyes. "I suppose I can't fault you. I don't really expect to live to the end of the war, either, but... people who are convinced they're going to die are very good at finding ways to make it happen."

"I'm not going to throw my life away. When I die, it's going tomean something."

Flag shrugged helplessly. "That will have to do I guess. I would love to give you talk therapy about your insane excuse for a life and more advice about... well, maybe you don't need spy advice. You've made it this far... but we don't have the time. I will be back to see you before they ship you to the Citadel. The code phrase I'll give is 'I really do miss sailing in the harbor this time of year.' Your reply is, 'I've only been once, and I wish I'd remembered a heavier coat,' got it?" Sailing... coat... he nodded. "Anyway, we're already running late tonight and... strictly speaking I'm not here for you. I'm here to rescue one of your division's prisoners." Right. Because heaven forbid the universe give Izuku a minute to process anything.

Captives from the Battle of UA hadn't been shipped to prison camps yet, not given the chaos of the disorderly retreat. "What do you need from me?"

"Your quirk."

"Oh." Of course she knew about that. Everybody knew everything.

The master spy pulled a handful of glass pebbles out of her pocket. "I'm going to get into one of the cells." The cells in question were actually irreparably damaged armored trucks. "Switching disguises and the trip over there will probably take me about an hour. You're going to be in my pocket."

"Alright."

"I'm going to let you out, and then I'm going to leave with two people in my pocket."

"Brilliant." That was fiendishly clever. If they pulled this off correctly, nobody would see anything out of the ordinary. The rescue might not be noticed until morning.

"Presuming you can do that, right?"

"Yeah, probably. I've... never used my quirk on myself before, but I think I can do it. I've been practicing."

No further fanfare, Flag handed him the pebbles, pulled a felt sheet out of her messenger bag, and tossed it over him to douse the light from his quirk. Fossa crouched to the ground. Alright. Same emotions, just turn them inward now, that possessive desire, where was it, ah--gotcha--the world warped and twisted. Time and space curled around him like a smothering python.

There was no feeling. A voice echoed as if from across a broad canyon. "Perfect," a twisted reflection of a hand surrounded the horizon. He ought to feel intense vertigo and yet he felt no such thing, nothing at all. Dark outside... like plunging into a sea of smoke... False Flag must have pocketed him.

Dark and grey and without feeling... Nothing to do but think.

He methodically pieced together every vision he could remember, adding in context, finally understanding what had happened rather than just cataloguing events; how Switcher moved from general to general in the heat of a battle, lending his hand to hand skills when they were needed, passing along information and context to give his friends critical advantages; how Switcher stole the bodies of enemies for sabotage and slipped into the heart of enemy machinery to force spanners--literal or metaphorical--into the works; how Switcher and Tripswitch and Destro, together as school companions, built the earliest foundations of the MLA; how Switcher had lost his life at least twice over at Utapa, the life of his mortal body to an artillery strike and the life of his current host to All For One's hand before stumbling back to Epona who stared in bewilderment, unable to comprehend that it was Rafael Leon who stood before her when his body lay dead on the floor; how Switcher as Izuku had manipulated an oblivious All For One, later stealing Shigaraki's body and threatening suicide to force the Soulstealer into compliance with the terms of their new cease fire then slipping away to Black Forest.

There were plenty of blanks still. Izuku wasn't sure who it was that had hosted Switcher during that conversation with Bit Weasel where Destro had demanded "which one of you is Switcher?" and thus convinced Izuku many months ago that all his memories belonged to Bit Weasel. It had probably been Cloud Viper as he and Bit Weasel often argued, but it was hard to say for sure. It was likewise unclear whether Switcher had shared Kuma's death with her. It might explain quite a bit if it were the case. Perhaps Switcher had known precisely where to find his fallen friend because he had been there when she died. How did Switcher's quirk even function? Did he have to

touch someone with his current host body to possess them? Did he only have to look at someone to make the swap?

Thoughts raced and the dark, lonesomeness of his prison closed in. How long had he been here? It wasn't as if he were claustrophobic--that was a feeling, and he wasn't having those right now--why was this taking so long? Had something gone wrong? If Flag got caught, what would Fossa say had happened to him? Okay, here was an idea... she ordered him to do it and he didn't ask questions. She was his superior, after all. Why would he ask? Of course she had a good reason to demand he to globe himself in the middle of the night--calm down. It had probably only been a few minutes. Nothing had gone wrong. When you couldn't move or breathe or feel anything time passed slowly.

God, those poor people in Hirano's basement. They were there for years, hopeless years. It must have felt like an eternity in hell to them. Hirano... maybe he really did deserve his fate worse than death. Switcher had the right idea bringing the monster back for All For One to chew up.

The world twisted and disintegrated, reforming in a dizzying instant as if he had been hurled through an infinite set of mirrors and then slammed face first into a warm lagoon. The dizziness settled into a warm, fuzzy feeling, as if he were filled from head to toe with a delicious, bubbly drink. Carbonated nectar had replaced his blood.

On his hands and knees, Izuku inspected the scuffed, metal floor of what had once been an armored car for transporting bills to and from banks and was now a grim prison cell. "I don't care!" someone was hissing venomously, "what you are. Shapeshifter, changeling, alien, shapeshifting alien, whatever. I'll never tell you anything and I'll never build anything for you!" Huh. She sure sounded mad. Wonder what was up with her...

"Shhh," False Flag hummed to the hissing girl. "We're not here to hurt you."

"Wow, you sure seem mad," Izuku giggled.

"What is wrong with you?" the angry girl--wait.

"Hatsume!" Izuku squealed and flung himself at her, careful not to pull her into an uncomfortable position given the shackles and cuffs that bound her to a bare bench.

"What the--get off me!" she squirmed away from him. "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

Izuku blinked. "We went to--"

"Shh," Flag cut him off. "Whether you believe it or not, we're here to break you out. Nedzu sent us."

"They kidnapped you during the Battle of UA?" Izuku asked, not really expecting an answer. He'd forgotten how Monoma seemed high on the power when he had globed himself. Fortunately, False Flag didn't seem caught off guard by Fossa's inebriated state. Clearly she'd interrogated Monoma about the nuances of the ability before coming to see him... or already heard from Switcher years ago.The former option would imply that Monoma was definitely still alive, though, so hopefully it was that one... He should have asked when he had the chance, but maybe he hadn't asked because he didn't really want to know. It wasn't as if he could hear good news, was it? Either someone was not dead yet--neutral news--or someone was dead--terrible news--and there wasn't anything he could do about it either way.

"I--" He could see that Hatsume couldn't quite believe in the possibility of rescue, that she was

afraid to hope because if she let herself hope the fear and the despair would break her when things went wrong. She must be running low on bravery, and who could blame her? The PLF would torture her for information, threaten to murder other prisoners to force her to create machines for them, or turn her into a nomu and make her a puppet if she proved troublesome. She might be a wild-hearted, mad scientist with more metaphorical than physical quirks, but she was far from naive. She knew the hell she was in for. "Are you really here to help?"

"Yeah," Flag confirmed. Huh. She was pretending to be a major, one of the highest ranking MPs in the division. "You hurt?"

"I... I have a broken ankle, and they hit me some but I'm not really hurt. They... want me in good condition so I can get right to work," she spat. Izuku narrowed his eyes, inspecting her more carefully. Hatsume had no shoes or socks and from the way her clothes were haphazardly arranged, she'd been strip searched before they locked her up, probably at the hands of other women. That the PLF committed sex crimes was not in doubt, but they were not committed openly, at least not in Geten's division. General Geten put his foot down on that hard, with perpetrators ending up in the same prison camps as Chain operatives... and in the general population at that. It was unclear if it was really Geten behind those policies or if he were caving to demands from Major Nagant whose murderous hatred of rapists was something of a legend by now.

Flag carefully inspected Hatsume's ankle, then briefly made sure the support student had not hidden any critical injuries. "Alright. You're going to be put in suspended animation for the trip back to UA. We'll debrief you there." Hatsume nodded. "Do your thing," Flag gestured to Izuku.

The master spy handed Fossa another handful of pebbles and Izuku smiled hesitantly at Hatsume as he prepared to globe her straight out of her cuffs. "It was really nice to see you again. I've missed you a lot." He really had.

"Who are you?" Hatsume asked, utterly bewildered.

"Somebody that you used to know," he answered, too wise to give a name even in this altered state

of mind. "Maybe you'll know me again someday, if I'm really lucky."

She stared at him, head slightly tilted. "I do know you," she whispered. "I... no, no way--Midoriya .

You're dead." Crap. He glanced at False Flag nervously.

The master spy shrugged. "We'll get her a memory block if we need to."

"You're dead. You died in a... PLF raid on an HPSC prison... how...?"

"After the war," Izuku replied, "when it doesn't matter anymore, I'll tell you." On the off chance he survived, he'd owe everyone an explanation.

"We mourned you," Hatsume stared at him, clearly not sure if she should be ecstatic, furious, or just... bewildered. "After you and Tokoyami nobody was the same--Monoma cried for days." Monoma? What? Izuku and the blonde were friends but they'd only known each other well for a matter of weeks, and since when did Hatsume and Monoma know each other at all? "They confirmed your death just after Monoma found out his parents were killed." Oh. Oh god. The elder Monomas were both quirkless... and the PLF was fond of murdering quirkless people, weren't they? Why hadn't the Monomas moved to UA? Maybe they had important jobs that didn't allow it? Or maybe they had moved and were killed at work or out shopping or something.

"I..." Izuku choked. "If I don't survive the war, will you tell Monoma I'm sorry, and I've always been grateful for what he taught me?"

"I... yeah," Hatsume whispered.

"Much as I'd like to let you guys works some issues out, we're on the clock," False Flag interrupted.

"Right. Goodbye, Hatsume." "Goodbye, Midoriya Izuku."

He reached for her possessively, pebbles in hand. It got easier every time. He barely needed to concentrate now. Izuku handed Hatsume's snow globe to False Flag. "Now you," the master spy nodded to him, and the student turned his power on himself.

It was every bit as disorienting as the first time. The long moments as False Flag carried him... somewhere... were just as terrifying. The release from his prison was every bit as much of a chaotic mess, and now he felt even dizzier and bubblier. "Is that a word? Bubblier?" Izuku asked curiously, waving his fingers in front of his face. "Huh. I have a bunch of snakes, don't I?"

"You do not," False Flag sighed, crouching down beside him and leaning him against a tree so he wouldn't tip over. "Promise me you won't use this power on yourself unless you absolutely have to."

"Uh... huh?" Izuku blinked.

"You're really happy right now. You haven't been happy in a long time. That's a great way to get addicted to something. I don't want to see you go down that road, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah... never used it on myself before and, honestly, it kind of feels nice but I hate being dizzy... hate losing control, too... scary... won't do it again unless I have to."

"Alright. Good."

"It was nice to hear my name, when she said it," Izuku hummed. "Lost my face, my home, my class, family... my name, too... I missed hearing it... do you ever miss yours? Do you have a real name?" he squinted, trying to make out her expression in the gloom.

False Flag huffed, amused. "Yeah. Yeah I do have a name, and I miss it sometimes myself. It's Samara, Samara Keenan." She ruffled his hair. "Good luck, Midoriya Izuku," she whispered in his ear.

"Good luck. And goodbye, Samara Keenan." Samara disappeared into the dark.

Izuku closed his eyes.

"Mihara?.

"Hm?" Izuho drifted awake. "Huh," he blinked in the glare of early morning's light. Arashiro gazed down at him. "You look..."

"Terrible?"

"Yeah. Have you showered since the battle?"

"Uh..." It was too embarrassing to admit it to her, even given how hard it was to get a turn in the scant bathing facilities.

"And how did you end up sleeping against a tree?"

"I wander around at night. You know that," Izuho stretched, getting to his feet. "And I took a rest here for a minute and, well... I guess I got some sleep for once?" Arashiro gave a tiny laugh. She looked... incredibly unhappy, although she had at least showered since the battle. "Are you okay?"

"Um, well... we'll see," she said hoarsely. "I guess the spy hunts are making me nervous. Come to breakfast with me?"

Right. The spy hunts... and he'd just been off doing incredibly risky spy things. Great timing. "Yeah. Breakfast... sure."