Izuku, in his weakest moments, read Shoto's texts. He knew the boy's number by heart, so despite deleting his contact, he knew who sent the endless streams of messages. When tossing and turning resulted in little sleep and dark eyebags, he would bend his promises.

It was a technique Setsuna once taught him, years back. By swiping down on the message board, it would update and reload all prior histories. Then, it was a simple matter of disconnecting from the internet and half-swiping open the message. There was risk, however. By swiping open the message more than sixty percent, the phone would automatically send that data to the recipient once Izuku's phone reconnected to the internet—but you couldn't read any message with less than fifty-five percent screen availability. The sweet spot was tiny.

But, after the last few weeks, Izuku got rather good at finding it. He never once made a mistake. Even after consecutive training sessions with Nighteye and Aizawa, where his whole body ached and his mind felt foggy and far away, he did not fumble or miscalculate. Izuku made a promise, and even if he was bending it, he would not break it.

At least, until a little under an hour ago, when his phone buzzed in the locker room. Sneaking off to the bathroom, he half-swiped and skimmed whatever his old friend said. They started as unending questions, and Izuku ignored them; but as they grew less accusatory and more like self-reflections, he couldn't help himself. With shaking fingers and frayed nerves, Izuku hoped that the latest text might've calmed him; might've helped him remember fonder times. It did not.

He almost dropped his phone, with how bad his hand shook. Izuku managed to catch it before that, but the damage was done. The half-swipe opened up Shoto's messages entirely, and Izuku was put in a corner.

Did he ignore him? Did he pretend he didn't see? Shoto would see that Izuku saw, and the thought terrified him. An irrational fear overcame him, building until his chest nearly popped like a balloon.

Finally, after calming down, he reread the message. It was a challenge—or, at least, and acknowledgement, and a heads-up. It felt… weird, to say the least. Still, Izuku saw the message for what it was, and knew, in a deep, ignored part of himself, what to do. He'd accepted Shoto's challenge, and would be his Everest.

What a mistake on his part.

Izuku's vision flickered between what felt like total darkness and unending brightness. A left-handed punch, embers betwixt squeezed fingers, just barely missed his nose. A right-handed punch, crusted and hardened with an ice gauntlet, shearing the skin off his right ear tip. Left, right, left, right—Shoto's assault nearly blew his socks off.

Two months ago, Izuku had been firmly above Shoto in hand-to-hand and quirk efficiency. Their gap hadn't been sizable, but it had been clear. It wasn't a result of talent, but efforts and teachers. Their old spars went his way nearly every time. Now, however?

Shoto's forward foot pivoted inwards, and Izuku ducked, even before Danger Sense went off. A flaming roundhouse missed him by a mile—but in reacting so fast, Izuku hadn't noticed the ice growing beneath his feet. He slipped, and his unguarded ribs caught an ice-hardened palm strike.

Izuku's back hit the ground, shocking the breath from his lungs. With his vision dazed, he couldn't predict any attacks—but he could still feel the danger. When he heard ice groaning, he knew to roll aside. Barely avoiding a dull ice-hammer, Izuku tried taking a precious breath and failed. Instead, he hiccuped, and it was like a factory reset for the panic part of his brain. Frozen for a split second, he could do nothing as Shoto burned a boot-shaped hole in his shirt's stomach.

The kick was strong enough to make him want to double over and vomit, but Nighteye's constant drilling helped him reject his instincts. While the kick sent him stumbling, he managed to not fall. Instead, he embraced the space Shoto gave him. Patting away the lingering flames on his stomach, Izuku set his shoulders and consciously opened his lungs to fresh air once more. Quickly, he organized his thoughts and eased his worries. Stress exacerbated shocked lungs. Focus helped. Focus.

Details returned to his vision right on time. Shoto ran up an ice-staircase he made with each step and leapt off, his heel aiming for Izuku's face. Not making the same mistake twice, Izuku waited until the last second to dodge. Then, when his friend landed, Izuku swept his feet from under him. When Shoto hit the ground, however, Izuku's flow crunched and halted.

Flags—the things Izuku was here to steal—were peeking out of Shoto's pants. Should he dive for one? Should he use this chance to run and try a more unaware target? Should he try and pin Shoto and take him for all he was worth?

That hesitation was all it took. Shoto recovered a second later, forcing Izuku to backpedal with a punch that launched a fireball. Izuku tried to flip back, and was largely successful. While he avoided the fireball, however, he once again miscalculated his landing. The moment his feet left the ground, Shoto stomped, and the tiles below him took on a glassy texture. He slipped—but luck was on his side, for a brief moment, because the tile behind him suddenly rose and carried him safely out of Shoto's immediate range.

It was a perfect moment to catch his breath. With his heart in his lungs and his lungs on fire, every ounce of blood felt molten. Shoto didn't let him relish it, however.

Shoto leapt high above him, propelled by a double helix of flames. Peaking, he suddenly launched a frosted boulder and threw his momentum sideways. With a second flame jet, he came hurtling towards Izuku from an awkward angle.

"This won't end like last time, Izuku!" Shoto said, screaming over his whistling flames. Having no other choice, Izuku abandoned his pillar and hit the ground running—right as Shoto's leading foot smashed the pistoning concrete tower like a stack of jenga blocks. Scorched, blackened pieces of concrete sprayed everywhere, just like when Monoma panicked earlier. Shielding his eyes from the debris, Izuku could only dodge as a second hail of ice followed his ragged sprint.

Air. Oxygen was his most vital resource, and under Shoto's assault, each breath was rare. Even when he did breathe, it came too hot or too cold to relax him. His molten blood leadened his legs, and with each passing second, he felt his energy drop further.

At last, Izuku blundered. Not paying attention, he stepped onto the division between one tile and another—and Cementoss, curse him, chose that moment exactly to make one go high and its neighbor go low. Mid-run, Izuku's momentum was destined to fling sideways, and he fell down the narrow pit, cracking his shoulder against the hard ground.

Pain crept through his arm like an electric shock, stunning him. Then, before he could recover and assess his damage, the tile sprung upwards, and Izuku found himself face-to-face with Shoto.

Or, at least, his glassy, ice-warped face. Shoto rose from his kneel, frost crusting his pants and arm, as a thick prison of ice crept over Izuku's tile and locked him in place. Placing his un-crusted hand against the wall, Shoto's hand went yellow-hot and melted a hole between them.

It was an awkward moment. Izuku hadn't written Shoto a letter, detailing his departure. He'd expected Setsuna to handle that. When the boy hadn't gone beyond blowing up his phone, Izuku thought she'd done it. Now, however, in this lull between fighting and action, Izuku didn't know how to feel. Shoto seemed… more confused, than anything.

The passing time accentuated every molecule of Izuku's stress. Every second he wasn't on the offense was another second he wasn't making any progress. Imprisoned, however, there was little he could do but fix his arm.

Clutching his bent elbow and cranking it overhead, Izuku more so heard the sickening pop than felt it. Rolling his shoulder, he nodded. Back in place. In pain, but in place

"Why?" Shoto asked, for the first time since finding him over Monoma's body. Other than his previous exclamation, their whole fight had been in uncustomary silence. In days past, they might've shot jibes at each other while Izuku dismantled Shoto slowly.

But here Izuku found himself, beaten down and imprisoned. Pinned, for all intents and purposes. If this'd been round three, the match would've gone to his friend.

Izuku pressed his open palm against the ice, testing its strength. It would hold out under any punch he could conjure up, now.

He opened his mouth, but the problem persisted. Like after swallowing sand or broken glass hidden in Halloween candy, Izuku's throat felt awful. No matter what words he tried to say, none felt good enough. It was all he could do to meet Shoto's eyes and tap his throat, shaking his head. Izuku hoped he understood. He did not.

"You're breathing like you've run a marathon, Izuku. Where is all your conditioning? Why didn't you fight back? I don't understand," Shoto said, his confused expression highlighted by the ring of ice surrounding his face. It reflected his expression in chunks—one chipped section was his eye, and another his nose, and two others seemed like extensions of his red-boiled scar. In the back of his mind, he was aware that from Shoto's perspective, Izuku's own expression must be reflected the same way. "It's not like you're still injured. I snooped around your records, and Recovery Girl completely cleared you."

Izuku swallowed down his saliva, and blinked away the tears that welled up in his eyes. Glaring at Shoto, it was all he could do to mouth the words. The razors in his throat made speaking feel impossible.

"Tell that to the pain," Izuku told him. Shoto's eyes widened by a fraction, and he took a step back. The refractions of his expression became disjointed—but Shoto's expression was anything but. "It still hurts as bad as when I earned it."

"Oh," he said, conflicted. He took another, hesitant step back, and the refractions faded entirely. Replacing them were bits of pink, freckles, and green hair. Izuku's eyes, broken into pieces, looked back at him as Shoto took another step back. "But you're… healed? How are you still competing, if it still hurts? Why on earth did she allow you to… Wait. Have you even told Recovery Girl?"

The array of green eyes began studying the ground. Izuku's nails dug into his palm of their own accord.

The tile beneath Shoto began to rise. He continued to meet Izuku's eyes, even as he began to look down on him. Izuku craned his neck to see him through the narrow hole.

"You… you're not telling the truth, are you?"

His throat burned. Every breath felt like drinking acid, like swallowing rusty swords, like every oxygen atom hated entering him and every carbon dioxide molecule hated leaving him. Each lung was a furnace from hell, his heart a venomous drum, his guts a melted puddle of brass. The refractions of his hair shifted red—and for a second, Izuku thought Shoto returned and closed the distance between them.

But the eyes were all wrong. The pink faded, alongside his freckles and cheeks. All became red—from flowing long hair, to hateful reddish brown eyes, to the raw muscle of flayed skin. Deformed nose, knotted forehead, rotted ears.

In pieces, he stared at Izuku. Like he always did, when he closed his eyes for too long.

"Maybe," Shoto said, after a long, empty pause, "I jumped the gun… I'll find someone else, Izuku. Don't stress yourself over me."

His sentiment was a slap. Each word was almost as sharp as the blades cutting at his insides. Surging forward, Izuku slapped the inside of his prison. He tried to cry out, to tell him to stop, but his throat betrayed him. Another slap followed as he tried to break free, but no matter how hard he punched, he couldn't do it. Shoto turned his back and disappeared over the tile's otherside.

Kicks came next. Then, Izuku used his shoulder like a battering ram. When that didn't work, he sprinted across his prison and kicked with both legs—but nothing worked.

Beneath his skin, he felt the willfulness of Blackwhip tingle like an itch. Voidlimb, Izuku told himself—Voidlimb could shatter this with a single punch.

He almost did it. Izuku began a careful process of gathering the energies where they belonged, of taming One for All and guiding it how he liked. Shrugging off his shirt's left shoulder, he willed his quirk to pool into his puckered nub and concentrated.

Obey me, Izuku prayed. Butterflies danced in his stomach as he worked up the nerve—but this was no time for anxiety. He needed to get free, now, and snatch some flags while he still had the time. Corralling some dregs of resolve, Izuku spread his feet shoulder-width apart and made his decision. With a single, massive push, he opened the floodgates.

Only for a painfully familiar voice to interrupt him.

"And with that calculated finish, we close out the second round of the second event!" Present Mic said, his voice a blend of eccentrism and intrigue. "This was a less dramatic round, but oh my lord, the tension! Take a fiver, folks, and regroup. I can feel something big coming!"

Izuku froze, mouth agape, as a single groping blackwhip twisted and thrashed around him like a caught crocodile. The round was already over? Through the hole Shoto left behind, he could hear the crowd's excited murmurs.

A thick water droplet splashed on his scalp, and Izuku remembered himself. Seizing the blackwhip in a chokehold, he muscled it into submission and dismissed it. Another water drop moistened his shoulder. Looking up, he saw that the ice roof was slickening in the morning sun—melting slowly.

Through that glistening, warped view, he could see the scoreboards.

Setsuna's team was still a brilliant cerulean blue. It seems, with his King's Flag, their lead had grown by leaps and bounds. That wasn't what made his stomach drop and his fingertips tingle, however.

His team was still on the scoreboard, thankfully—but he was in dead fourth. Just barely in the green. Shoto's team was the new second place, followed by Uraraka's third place. He only just barely edged out Monoma's fifth place—but only by a few seconds. With quick math, Izuku easily saw that Yoru's mission, like his own, had ended in disaster. They'd only gained a hundred and twenty points—from the single, normal flag shoved down Izuku's pants.

Though Shoto's prison smudged the exact numbers, Izuku still felt ill. He didn't need to see to know the unfortunate reality.

Without flags, his lead plummeted, and now, even the teams who'd failed to take a single flag were going to overtake him soon. Monoma's team was only beating the untouched teams by a tiny margin. His only saving grace were the three gutted teams, whose failure was probably permanent. Beating them, however, was no accomplishment.

Another drop on his nose made him go cross-eyed, interrupting his thought process. Bringing him back to the moment, it finally occurred to him that he was in an absolutely atrocious position.

Shoto wasn't going to come back and free him before round three began. That meant, until the prison melted or he broke it down, he would be stuck here. Another drop missed him by a hair.

Would five minutes be enough time to melt something so thick? Or would he be stuck here until round four?

Izuku looked up, just in time to see a lazy cloud drift over the sun, darkening the world ever-so-slightly. There was a longer lull between drops.

Heaven forbid it—was he never going to get out? Yoru could probably break him out… but after round one, Izuku had a minor suspicion he might just choose to not.

Slowly, he fell to his knees, then crossed his legs. Several seconds passed before another droplet splashed him again. An even longer time passed before another.

His elbow itched, and on instinct, he tried scratching it. Only, his fingers phased through thin air, and Izuku realized the itch wasn't real. The phantom duped him again.

Izuku felt like a blank canvas in a paintstorm as his hand, ultimately, clutched his side, its mission failed. His elbow still itched like a thousand mosquito bites, but he could do nothing but squeeze his stomach and curl into himself.

You're not telling the truth, are you?

Was One for All worth it?

Five whispered something to him, but it was static to Izuku's ears. Distinct sounds faded. The crowd disappeared, alongside Present Mic and Midnight and his competitors. He was alone in his bubble.

Everything hurt.

But he had a job to do—an obligation to himself, everyone who ever trained him, Nedzu, god-damn Yoru Sashimi…

And All Might.

No matter what he did, he could not wrestle down his heartbeat, his adrenaline, or his anxiety. His body felt like it was sprinting, even as he sat perfectly still—but that was for the best. The battle wasn't even halfway over.

Izuku should be thankful. They didn't get breaks in the USJ. No one could call "time out!" and take a breather. There, things had gone from bad, to terrible, to worse like dominos. It was predictable in its unpredictability. Consistent. Order in chaos.

This, Izuku decided, was the dead opposite. Chaos in order. Everything was controlled—yet Izuku never felt so conflicted and awkward in his life.

He'd thought, in err, that picking off the small fry would be smart. A sharp, large fish in a little pond with distracted tadpoles should've been easy—but he'd relied on the other large fish squabbling with one another. Instead, one of the largest fish turned on him. Now Izuku was stuck in a fishbowl, little more dignified than a carnival prize.

Shoto bested him handedly. Izuku would've saluted him, if Shoto's retreat hadn't left him feeling so ashamed. He loved the guy, and knew he was talented—but Izuku losing like this was embarrassing, and they both knew it.

The worst part was the skinny rod poking into his knee. Shoto hadn't even bothered checking him for a flag—he'd fought him for the sake of it. Because he thought it'd be fun—because, he thought, in err, that it'd give him answers.

Answers Izuku didn't have for him.

Izuku accepted Shoto's challenge, but failed to live up to his friend's expectations. It was painful—but a different type of pain than the one he was already in. His throat didn't overshadow it, or distract him. They were individually sharp—additive, in total.

He'd broken another promise. The realization came at him fast and hard—a punch he'd never be able to avoid, Danger Sense or not.

If he didn't rectify it, then what was the point of making any promises in the first place? They were what constituted him—where other people were held together by atoms and dreams, Izuku remained standing on promises and grit. Like a card house, if just one of his many promises broke, then the whole building would crash. His very being would crash.

Maybe he shouldn't have made them in the first place. Maybe Shoto deserved better—maybe All Might did, wherever he was. Maybe everyone did.

He didn't know how long he sat like that, eyes screwed shut and curled around himself, but he awoke with a start.

Sound returned in a rush, starting with a buzzer. A splatter of rainbow paints marred his pristine canvas like a novice painter. Blues met yellows, and those greens turned ugly brown when they dribbled over purples. The world was vibrant and chaotic, and he had no choice but to participate.

Uncrossing his legs, he stood, and became aware that he was soaked. When he took a step, he made a small splash. The dome was still whole, but weaker. Thinner, if still objectively thick.

"I could cut the tension with a knife!" Present Mic said, cooing over his microphone like a doting father. His voice echoed in Izuku's prison, amplified. "But that isn't my job. Someone, down there—be it the living storm, Yoarashi, or the storm of living parts, Tokage—will have the honor. It could be our talented explosives expert, Bakugo, or the torch bearer, Todoroki—or, perhaps, it could be within the lesser classes… Who knows! Nobody does, not until I give the word. …Should I?"

The crowd's response was instantaneous.

"Yes!" They roared, and it was so.

Promises, Izuku decided, even if bent, must be kept. There was nothing more important.

Ignoring the searing pain lacing his throat, he took a deep, slow breath, and released a cloud of smokescreen. It oozed from his neck first, then his hands. His clothes ballooned outwards as his whole body began to generate smoke. Smoke leaked from his sleeves, neckline and waist band, and inch by inch, cube by cube, Shoto's prison grew full of green smoke.

The pain was indescribable, but promises must be kept. Spreading his fingers, the thick mass began to swirl around him. Morphing from a blob into a whirlpool, it began condensing and nestling into his palm.

"Alright, people, alright. Your demands are heard…" Present Mic said, letting the words linger on his lips as long as possible. "Let the third round… begin!"

No bigger than a baseball, Izuku's smokescreen was nowhere near his limits—nor anywhere close to finished. As he approximated the ideal size, he didn't stop its rotations.

Below his feet, the tiles began to groan, but did not move. Izuku's prison was still firm—firmer than he thought, he realized, as he saw the world outside.

Tiles peaked in seconds and descended just as quick. If they'd bubbled in the first round and bounced like a galloping horse in the second, the third round was where Izuku began questioning Cementoss's limits. The towers and pits, unpredictable without Danger Sense before, now flew and retracted like punches—faster, even, than Izuku could probably react.

It was clear to him that mobility types were at a huge advantage, once again—but if this upward trend continued, even flying-types might struggle.

The ice-covered ground below him cracked, and he knew he was out of time. If the dome wasn't gone before the tiles began to rise, he would be crushed. Danger Sense was a dull throb in the back of his mind—but Izuku felt odd. Like he was watching himself work—a ghost of himself. Superficial.

His smoke-ball flattened out into a frisbee. With long-practiced and hard-earned precision, Izuku let pieces grow outward from its circumference, making teeth—even as he began to spin the smoke faster and faster. It took every ounce of his concentration, but ultimately, when the teeth began to blur together, he guided the volatile mechanism to grind into the ice.

Shavings sprayed outward, some shocking him with their tiny kisses of frost—but he ignored them in favor of control. When making such an unnatural construct, he needed to manually move each piece, whilst keeping in mind the overall shape.

Though he was on a time limit, Izuku relished in the task's slow pace. Second by second, he altered the disk's curve. It was slow going, but skill intensive. He could spare thoughts—he could not linger over regrets.

It ended far too soon. When there was only a tiny, inch-wide connection between his cut and the ice prison, he dismissed the saw and let the smoke creep across his frame, reinforcing his body. With one slightly enhanced kick, he broke a circular doorway down and freed himself.

Instantly, his elevation changed. What would've been his welcome mat dropped two times his height, making him weightless for a half-second before pistoning him back up.

Izuku flew for a sweet split second before landing once more—but it was enough. Bracing his knees, he began riding the motion with relative comfort. Keeping his footing was harder than before… but he couldn't hesitate.

In that brief second airborne, he saw his target.

Seeking the little fish was cowardly—it wasn't an Everest's strategy. It wasn't who he was, what he wanted to be, or who people thought he was.

Flickering Danger Sense on and off, Izuku closed his eyes and let the information flood him. He saw the path—the way people grew scared of the tiles, the way Cementoss threw up and caught Izuku's competitors before they even realized—and he felt the fighting. Raw, mass-danger created Echolocation. Before, in the USJ, it caused debilitating anxiety, but here, the stakes weren't nearly so dire. He could focus—he could master it.

With a thin film of Smokescreen coating him, he began leaping from tile to tile, never letting himself linger. If he hesitated, their peaks would drop, he would fall, and he would lose time.

Time was not his friend, and he could not rely on it. He needed every bang for his buck.

In his haste, he leapt over several teams. Uraraka, Monoma, and Asui made their own moves below him, but Izuku paid them no mind. Only Monoma paused in his lurking—but Echolocation let Izuku know to give him a wide berth. It slowed his pathing, but avoiding him was still faster than wasting breath on a rematch.

Rivals fell behind as he sprinted right into the center, where Bakugo continued asserting his dominance over the greedy teams desiring his flags. Whips and tape and pot-shots flew his way, but he battered them all aside with explosive grace.

He was just as talented as Izuku ever thought he'd be.

Explosion was an incredible quirk. Even after Izuku discovered real power—that ocean in his gut, that future behind Nighteye's glasses, the woman across the sea—he still considered Explosion stellar. As an ability, it was only surpassed by its wielder.

Katsuki Bakugo moved with a dancer's grace and a boxer's fury. He was unstoppable like a freight train and fluid like a tiger. Waves of opponents crashed against him, but he cut through each like a warship's prow.

He was, debatably, the biggest fish in the biggest pond.

He also knew Izuku's greatest secret, and hated him for it.

Maybe that's why, ultimately, Izuku chose him over Setsuna. It was easier to be hated.

Every second counted. In his peripherals, he already saw how Monoma's team overtook him. Second-by-second, without any real flags, the rest followed. In a physically painful tick, three teams which had not once lost or gained a flag overtook his team. He wasn't just yellow, now—he was in the orange, teetering on red.

His stomach was a cauldron of anxiety, fear, anger, and resolution. Every second mattered. Every promise must be kept—even if he knew he couldn't.

"Hey! Katsuki!" Izuku screamed, his tender throat shredding itself in his enthusiasm, "give me a flag!"

Katsuki turned on a dime, his eyes wide saucers, as Izuku leapt high—higher than he could've, higher than he should've—and threw caution to the wind.

Please, Izuku whispered, squeezing his eyes shut, get me the flags.

Voidlimb burst from his nub milliseconds before he landed, seizing Katsuki in a giant fist before he could even blink. For a brief, poetic moment, Izuku stood face to face with a captured Katsuki, euphoric in his success.

But Blackwhip wasn't done. Not nearly.

It started as a pain throbbing deep in his chest, like a sentient tumor trying to squeeze between his organs. It was a cold pain—brain-freeze given thorns.

"Kid, you're not ready! Pull it back now, or it's going to—"

"Shut up!" Izuku screamed, each syllable overwhelmed by the banshee beneath—yet his cry was just one of dozens—hundreds—thousands.

Voidlimb didn't stop with his arm. Every inch of skin vanished, replaced by a surging tidal wave of unruly blackwhips. They spread like invasive roots, darting across the Stadium's grand stage. Izuku felt a heat in his mind meet an indescribable coldness, and he felt sparks.

One for All, uncommanded, mingled and melded together inside him, and when it was done, Izuku screamed. Echolocation gave Blackwhip everything it needed. Information raced up each limb, fast and hard and unwelcome, as one by one, a hundred blackwhips seized fifty students. It was unlike anything Danger Sense had ever shown him. Each message was tainted, every data fragment laced with an untamed desire for something Izuku couldn't comprehend. From the airborne, powerful Inasa, to the grounded, sturdy Honenuki, to the meek and naked Toru, Blackwhip captured them all, seizing their flags and their bodies.

And it hurt. It was too much. The pressure of each limb on Izuku's body was like nothing he'd ever experienced. Izuku sank to the ocean's floor. Everything popped and cracked, his eyes felt ready to bulge, and a heated stream of copper dribbled down his upper lip like a free flowing waterfall. He felt ready to implode.

Five screamed something, and the energy in his chest diverted—but it was still swirling, too excited, too powerful for him to control. He couldn't do anything—he was as helpless as a newborn lamb. A ship in the eye of a storm. Blackwhip was far stronger than he ever pictured—had he really once commanded something so wild?

Then, something slammed into his chest with a full-body tackle, a second blow lit his world on fire, and he became absently aware that he was airborne. The pressure crushing his whole body vanished.

It felt nice, for a second, before his head cracked against a wall and his world went dark.

[x]

"God—" Tokoyami said, crying out as he plummeted into a pit that hadn't been there half a second ago, "damnit!"

Before he could even get back on his feet, the dark walls vanished and his weight whiplashed. Launched into the sky, he could barely grab onto another tile before falling into a second pit. Scrambling over its already-sinking ledge, Tokoyami could only thank the heavens themselves that it didn't immediately buck him off.

As he sat there, however, catching his breath, his collar wrinkled.

"Fumi, this is embarrassing. Let me help you around," Darkshadow said. The quirk was potent, under Tokoyami's shirt, but without a normal cloak or long sleeves, his voice was a bit wispier than normal. Still, a weakened Darkshadow would've been a major boon. Of course, assuming he was trustworthy.

Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Yoarashi were his guardian angels for letting him join their team, but when they realized he wasn't willing to use Darkshadow. They'd told him to fly solo and pickpocket whoever he could. Without any particular skills or his quirk, it was essentially them telling him to bugger off.

Yoarashi chased after the King's Flag while he protected the bulk of their flags. As insurance, or more accurately, a way to make him feel useful, they'd also bequeathed him a flag.

"You already have a job, beast. Keep a good grip on that flag," Tokoyami muttered, feeling his life-partner's grip on the tiny pole slacken.

Rising on unsteady legs, Tokoyami shooed Darkshadow further down his shirt and assessed his surroundings.

The stage, once a simple, off-white diamond, was now a storming sea of wet concrete. It'd gained a grayish color, like unmixed cement—but it more reminded Tokoyami of historical paintings, having lost their luster. Terrible, dark waves devouring sea vessels, fog obscuring even the most brilliant lighthouse, nights with no stars came to mind. He couldn't see anyone, and with his ever-changing altitude, he couldn't figure out where he was.

His only point of reference was the unending barrage of pops, cracks, and explosions that Bakugo unleashed in the stage's center. He leaned into it, closing his eyes and approximating the distance. He wasn't close enough to actually see the blond monster, but he could hear him well. Very well.

With an anxious start, he realized he was too close. It was Yaoyorozu and Todoroki's only warning for him: steer clear of Bakugo. He'd apparently thrown a tantrum, and was in a foul mood.

Crack! Kra-koom!

Tokoyami winced, covering his ears as the explosions suddenly sounded even closer—or, maybe, they were just more powerful.

He didn't want to imagine why. Instead, he turned in their dead opposite direction and began his clumsy scramble all over again.

The tiles hated him. They dropped when he needed them to rise, and then rose when he thought they'd turn docile. His travel was a halting, embarrassing thing. Darkshadow wasn't wrong about that—but it was the best he could do. If he was going to move onto the next round, then he wouldn't be a freeloader. He'd, at the very least, retain the flag entrusted to him.

Before he could even cross three tiles, however, something even more heart-pounding than Bakugo's explosions tore through his ears. A scream—a terrible, pained thing, the kind only heard at the end of lives.

"Hey Katsuki, give me a flag!" Midoriya cried, and Tokoyami's blood ran cold. He'd never heard such raw desperation in his former friend's voice before. He'd seen Midoriya sad, stressed, and, to his great shame, afraid, but he'd never heard such him so fiercely desperate.

Frozen, it was all he could do to guard his face as, like Midoriya's scream, his world turned dark. A firework of darkness lit his horizon, almost like Midoriya's smoke quirk, but alive. A thick mass of dark tentacles sprouted outward and upward, growing like a giant, midnight-black spider lily.

"Dear gods…"

Then, all at once, the giant flower froze. For a brief second, nothing happened—but then, in robotic unison, every petal twisted and locked onto a target. Tokoyami didn't have time to duck and cover. In a heartbeat, a pair of sentient, void-black ropes closed their gap and slammed into Tokoyami's chest. He was pinned and wrapped before he knew it, with only his left arm and legs free to dangle. Thrashing in place, he couldn't even stop the second tentacle from shoving itself down his collar and ripping his shirt open—exposing Darkshadow to sunlight.

"No! Stop…" His life-partner whispered as the larger, angrier dark manifestation ripped the flag free. All across the stage, similar complaints and screams filled his ears. Darkshadow tried to reach out and retrieve it, but Tokoyami clawed through his partner's black, cloudy skin with his bare fingers, just barely holding him back.

"Stop! No, Darkshadow, don't!" He said, snarling as his quirk pushed and prodded against Tokoyami's will. "I'll handle it! Don't even think about breaking free—"

Then, like a bucket of ice water dunked all over him, he forgot everything that wasn't the cold.

Midoriya's scream, from dark flower's center, pierced through what felt like every thought Tokoyami'd ever had. Memories, opinions, desires, they all overlapped like post-it-notes with a tack pinning them against the wall. It was different from before—the desperation was different, a new flavor, a different type—

A familiar type.

Midoriya's quirk was still holding him, its grip tight, and the second whip was still holding the flag, but that was all. They weren't retracting, they weren't advancing, they just swayed there, writhing like bored snakes. Slowly, the one not holding Tokoyami began to drift. It exploded how the tiles rose and fell, flag-in-hand, like a toddler with a lollipop. Occasionally, it would jerk, as if some invisible force yanked its reigns, but it otherwise remained independently interested in the world.

He wasn't in control. Izuku wasn't in control—and he was trying, so hard, but whatever this was, whatever'd stole Tokoyami's flag and entrapped him, was not Izuku. His quirk had gone wild, and it was hurting not just Tokoyami, or their friends, but Izuku himself.

"Fumi, let me go get it! You told me to hold on tight, I'm sorry; let me fix things!"

Darkshadow strained against him, and an odd sorrow pressed against Tokoyami's lungs.

He stared between the black ropes holding him, the half-formed Darkshadow bucking against him, and the flag. His mind wandered, memories slipping past, as he recalled what it'd been like, to be one with Darkshadow. When their minds and wills merged. When they'd been more together than they'd ever been apart.

That "more" ruined a life. It almost ended many—and he'd promised to never again repeat the mistake.

But, deep down, where he kept his fears and darkest secrets, he knew he'd liked it. He'd only hated what he'd done, not what he—they, were.

Tokoyami didn't know many things. He didn't know how to climb well, parkour, or how to fight, but he did know something about coexistence, and the fears that accompanied it.

He also knew Izuku Midoriya, and that this was probably his worst nightmare.

Tokoyami closed his eyes, and released his hold on Darkshadow. When he opened them, the world was new. The sun was a brilliant, dazzling force that made him keep his head down. Shadows disappeared entirely, and he almost lost his sense of depth with them. Most importantly, however, the dark tentacles sprouting from Midoriya took on a whole new appearance.

To his eyes, they were little more than fuzzy, green-black ropes with wills of their own. When his vision overlaid with Darkshadow's, however, they weren't even solid. Instead, holding his human body were bright, veridian arcs of energy, flashing brighter and duller like firing neuron synapses. They were lightning bolts—living, non-carbon creatures, with their outer appearance stripped away by Darkshadow's piercing vision. They were beautiful, in a wild, frightening way.

"Forget the flag!" He heard his mouth say twice, through both his ears and Darkshadow's. "And let's rescue Izuku!"

Glee—there was no better word—surged through Darkshadow, and through him, through Tokoyami, as he lifted all restraints. Though the sun was an offensive, oppressive force, the sheer excitement coursing through them overshadowed that fact.

Was Darkshadow truly so happy to be free? Was Tokoyami doing what Darkshadow'd done to him, in their darkest moments? Suppressing his base desires and smothering his will? Was that why adrenaline flooded them like a doberman off his collar?

Darkshadow, though thin and wispy, was still powerful. They bulldozed through black ropes, snapping them as they passed through them like a derailed train. The world became a blur in his peripherals, and together, they came upon the midnight spider lily's source.

Izuku was in agony, half-devoured by his own power when they arrived. Bakugo thrashed in a thick bundle beside him, just a single forearm free.

Without a word, they did the only thing they could; the one thing Izuku did for him. Took him head on.

Together, they slammed into Izuku, shoulder first. Half the ropes tore away in one giant shove, and the rest evaporated off the earth as Bakugo's singular free arm turned white-hot

The explosion's sheer brightness knocked Darkshadow out cold and sent Tokoyami's perspective slamming face-first back into his first-person vision—but when he regained his bearings, the tentacles withered and faded into nothing.

He sighed, relieved, then fell to his knees. Darkness took him as brightness took Darkshadow.

[x]

"No!" Setsuna said, screaming as Izuku's whips released her midsection. From this distance, she could do nothing—even as she grit her teeth and begged at her body to fly faster—to catch him and soften his fall.

Bakugo's explosion dislodged Izuku clean away from his quirk, launched him over the stage's edge, and slammed him head-first into the concrete ringing the stage. His body left a crack in the wall, right above where he ultimately slumped, unconscious.

His quirk dissipated to nothing, dismissed in his unconsciousness. Detouring for a split second, she opened her navel and pulled free all her team's flags. Flying past Kirishima, she threw them all—King's included—at him to hold while she went to Izuku. She broke into a hundred pieces, gaining so much speed and strength until she almost slammed face-pieces-first into her boy.

Reassembling in a split second, she immediately cradled him, checking his pulse and carefully brushing his hair away from the point of impact.

He wasn't visibly hurt that much. His impact left a coin-sized gash at the top right of his hairline. It'd scar, but it was tiny, and would hide behind his bangs. Despite that, however, she wasn't worried about his face.

Izuku might be concussed, or have a fractured skull. His fingers twitched, so she knew he wasn't paralyzed, but not-being-paralyzed was not comforting.

The crowd, which had been screaming in excitement only moments prior, had turned to an ugly silence.

Numb, she did nothing to stop the U.A. medics from dividing them and taking him away on a stretcher. In the back of her mind, she knew Present Mic was calling for a slightly early end to round three.

"Oh god… Izu… what happened?"

Then, she turned back to the stage, where the tiles were slowing to a stop. Without the flowing cement waves, she had a clear sight of him. He just stood there, silent and unmoving. Little more alive than a ghost.

Bakugo.

How much more damage could he do?

[x]

AN: It sucks how little passion I have left here and how little time I have for it. The combination is aids but I'm gonna keep it runnin

review!~