Aside from the Mystery Crew, Yaoyorozu, Iida, Ojiro, and Kirishima, as well as everyone who was apparently in the skybox when the world shattered, it seemed that All Might and Nedzu had also survived.

Izuku wasn't completely surprised about All Might, even if he was ridiculously happy about it. One for All was the weird kind of quirk that could probably keep someone from collapsing into quantum uncertainty.

Although it did mean that suddenly four more students knew about All Might's small form, even if they didn't know about One for All. They'd clearly been shocked, but not as much as anyone else might've been - considering the circumstances, it really wasn't the weirdest thing going on. At least Izuku knew they were all the type of person to keep that to themselves.

Nedzu was more of a surprise, however. The principal had waved it off, briefly mentioning some experiments that had once been performed on him, and Izuku had winced because considering how the US government had attempted to experiment on them, he figured that would've been awful enough that Nedzu wouldn't want to talk about it.

He was still kind of curious, though.

Of course, the curiosity was mostly drowned out by the anxiety. Considering everything that had just happened, they had to let everyone who'd made it know about Weirdmageddon.

Izuku sat on one of the couches in the skybox, Ochako holding his hand, Shouto on his other side leaning up against Mina (and Izuku was still marveling that they'd gotten Shouto back at all. They'd been so close to losing him to Cipher completely for a moment. Even now, with the charm, he still looked out of it), as Ford took the role of explaining the rift, Cipher, and Weirdmageddon to everyone. When he was finished, Oboro took over, hesitantly explaining how they'd "found Kurogiri after he escaped" and made him Oboro again.

Ford didn't mention the bubble, but Izuku knew that was going to have to come up soon. He still wasn't ready for it.

Iida, Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, and Ojiro looked horrified. All Might seemed pained. Nedzu listened quietly, expression unchanging. And Aizawa just watched them the entire time, looking steadily paler, but also more pissed off.

Finally, when Oboro finished, he spoke up, addressing the Mystery Crew. "And at no point during any of the past three weeks did you speak up about any of this. Not when you returned from Gravity Falls. Not when you found Kurogiri, or when Oboro came back. Not when you knew this Cipher would be an issue again."

Shouto flinched, curling in on himself, and Mina glared at their teacher.

Stan seemed to share her sentiment. "And what would you have done about it?" He countered. "Not like you'd have been able to help Shouto with this in the first place. The kids got us involved as soon as they could, which was the smart thing to do, because Poindexter actually knew how to help."

Aizawa didn't look happy, but still seemed to acknowledge this. "And with Oboro? When I told you four Kurogiri had broken out of prison, you still said nothing."

"And how were we supposed to know what you would do with that information? You threatened to expel us just for coming in last on a test on the first day of school." Ochako pointed out. "And what about anyone you might've told? We couldn't let Oboro just be shipped off to Tartarus again!"

"And what if the same people who created this whole "break in reality" mess found out what Shouto could do?" Mina added fiercely. "We already had government agents try to take us away and experiment on us back in Gravity Falls. We weren't going to deal with that again."

"Of course not. That's entirely reasonable." Izuku looked to Nedzu, and found their principal's eyes glittering something dangerous. Right. That would bring up some bad memories, wouldn't it? "And those in the commission who pushed for the anti-warp technology certainly won't be getting away with it - not if I have anything to say about it, which I will."

"But even then," All Might's voice wasn't at all accusatory, not like Aizawa's, but Izuku could hear the hurt there, and the guilt rose up in him once again. "You didn't even wish to tell us about the fact that you had survived an apocalypse? I understand why that would be hard to talk about, but is there something we did that made you trust all of us so little that you said nothing?"

Izuku could fear the tears coming. "We do trust you! It's not that, I swear, it's just after the bubble-"

He cut himself off, hands flying up to his mouth.

"The… bubble?" Kirishima asked, hesitantly.

For a moment, none of them spoke. Then Wendy sighed. "Yeah, okay. Long story short, Izuku was right next to Cipher when he broke into our reality, and he trapped him in this prison bubble. Eventually the rest of the kids, plus Soos and I, made it in to help free him. Turns out that inside the bubble was your school, and the trap was that the kids had supposedly made it home, with all the students and teachers and everyone. Course, we knew it was fake, but it was pretty realistic."

Soos continued the story. "We found Izuku and let him know that he and the other dudes hadn't actually made it home. Soon as he realized that, the illusion broke, the walls started bleeding, and all the fake students and teachers tried to murder us. We had to fight our way out."

Soos and Wendy were great. They made it sound like it wasn't Izuku's fault in the first place, just bad luck. Still, Izuku hunched in on himself as everyone turned to look at him.

"We know it wasn't actually any of you," Ochako offered, voice quiet and shaky. "It was just…"

"You still had versions of us try to kill you," Iida finished, horror written all over his face. "And you had to take them down to escape." Ochako flinched and avoided his eyes, but nodded.

Wendy looked at Izuku again, before sighing. "I shot a fake in the throat while we were escaping. The exploding boy. Saw him here at the festival and had to remind myself that I hadn't actually killed him."

Oh. Because of course that would haunt Wendy almost as much as killing the fake All Might haunted Izuku, even though she didn't know Kacchan. How had he not thought about that before?

"I… The fake All Might tried to kill us," Izuku finally whispered. "Um. I… I had to stop him." Ochako gripped his hand tightly.

All Might's face was awash with pain. "Young Midoriya…"

"You went through a lot." Aizawa no longer looked angry, just… tired and sad. "More than any UA student should go through, much less first years with only three days of training."

"It wasn't all bad," Mina assured him, smiling slightly. "Most of our stay in Gravity Falls was awesome, actually! And we met a ton of great people," She nodded towards Stan, Ford, Soos, and Wendy. "And we went on a lot of adventures! We might just be hero students here, but we really accomplished a lot, and saved a lot of people, and made a bunch of friends. Gravity Falls was great."

"We were so happy that we got to meet you dudes too," Soos said.

"Indeed? I'd love to hear more details about your time in Gravity Falls later." Nedzu clapped his hands together. "For now, however, we are still stuck in this Nightmare Realm, and every other student, hero, and civilian is out of commission. If there's a way to fix this, that should be our first priority!"

"Agreed." Ford sighed. "At this point, it looks like invoking the Axolotl is our only chance for both returning this stadium to its correct reality, and getting rid of Cipher for good. I have a few old allies here that I can reach out to, who can direct us towards a place where we can contact the Axolotl. After that, the trick will be figuring out how to get it to agree to help us."

"Um," Yaoyorozu started hesitantly. "If you don't mind me asking, what do axolotls have to do with any of this?"

Oh, right.

"I'm so sorry."

Mina winced. "Shouto, no, it wasn't your fault! We don't blame you!" He looked away, and she pressed forward. "We don't blame Izuku for Weirdmageddon. Do you blame him for that?"

"Of course not-"

"Then don't blame yourself for this. It's still Cipher's fault. And also the Hero Commission's fault, I guess, for apparently installing anti-warp tech so messed up that it literally tore a hole in reality."

"Mina's right," Ochako agreed. "You just… got caught in the crossfire. And we didn't know about how reality was tearing open, so there's no way you could've known that you shouldn't have used your flames in our fight."

Shouto's eyes flickered to Mina, then to the ground. "I should've left when you suggested it. If we had, this wouldn't have happened."

Mina could see Ochako and Izuku look at her curiously, but she shook her head. "Maybe, but you did say that it probably wouldn't have gotten better by that point anyways, didn't you? And again, you didn't know. None of us knew."

Izuku tried for a smile. "It's like Fuyumi said before, isn't it? Even when Cipher had almost completely taken over, you never hurt us. You saved our friends. Cipher would never have done that. So even during that whole mess, you still managed to fight him off."

Ochako waved an arm around. "And I don't know if you noticed, but you also kind of saved our entire world outside of this stadium! It would've cracked from the bad tech anyways, but you fixed it! That was incredible!"

"And once we find the Axolotl and clear the rest of this up, that makes two realities we've saved, doesn't it?" Mina pointed out, grinning. "Our record is looking pretty good so far."

A ghost of a smile passed across Shouto's face. He held the charm in his hands, before his fingers curled around it and the smile fell. "I also - I'm sorry for - you were trying to bring me back. You were all trying to help and I just…"

"Hey." Ochako nudged him gently. "Cipher knew us. He didn't know Fuyumi. Of course she was going to get through to you better. We're not mad, okay?"

"We're just happy she was able to get through to you, at least," Izuku agreed.

Shouto didn't seem so sure. "I guess. But you're all… you're like family to me too. And…" He turned to Mina. "It should've… there was something else, something I knew. I think? Some reason it should've worked. I don't remember anymore, but there was something else…"

"Don't worry about it." Mina was definitely curious as to what that something was, but not nearly curious enough to do something stupid like trying to push Shouto into remembering his mindset when he was Cipher. "How are your memories, by the way? Are they still…?"

Shouto gave a small shrug. "Bill's - Cipher's - stuff is still there, to an extent? But with the charm, it's like - I can sort them out from my actual memories. It's easy to tell that they're not mine. And I can better remember being me than I could without it. I just… even with the charm, I don't know how long that's going to last. Bill - I? - knew something. About my body not being able to contain this much chaos energy. It didn't really make sense to me before, because the most I'd ever used my flames on was with that Cthulhu monster, and Ochako did the same thing, didn't she? But then, fixing all those cracks in reality…"

Right. Mina had been trying not to think about that, because it sounded absolutely terrifying. "We'll find the Axolotl well before that happens. It won't get to that point." Her friend nodded slowly, and Mina leaned in to give him another hug. "It's gonna be okay."

"We've stopped Cipher before, even when the odds were impossible," Izuku said. "I think our chances are a lot better than they were during Weirdmageddon."

"Yeah."

They would fix this. They had to.

"...Shouta? Please don't be mad at them. They really did save me."

Shouta grimaced.

He… wasn't mad, not anymore. A part of him was still indignant, even after everything he heard, as he watched Ford and Nedzu discussing plans for hunting down what was apparently a cosmically powerful amphibian. Was still furious at being locked out of the loop, especially considering that Oboro was alive, and no one had even thought about telling him.

But he also understood. He still believed that his logical ruses and stern teaching methods were important, to prepare his students for just how harsh life as a hero could be. But he was also more than self aware enough to realize that in this case, they had backfired horribly. The problem quartet didn't trust him because they had no reason to trust him, so far.

Not many of his students ever came to him with their genuine problems, did they? He was able to prepare them for their potential futures as heroes, but now he was starting to see the downsides to his methods. He'd thought it was fine if his students disliked him, as long as they actually survived, but…

Oboro was here. He was right here, sitting next to Shouta, looking at him anxiously with yellow eyes that used to be blue. He was alive. He'd been alive, this whole time. Kurogiri hadn't been anything close to recognizable, at the USJ, nor when they'd captured him in order to try and find their missing students, but apparently Shouta's friend had been under there.

"I'm not mad at them for saving you," Shouta finally said, because how could he be? "I'm… mostly mad at myself. You were alive this whole time, for thirteen years, being experimented on and brainwashed, and I never knew."

Apparently, he'd failed to realize Oboro was still alive, all those years ago. Failed to realize that the body they'd cremated wasn't even his friend's.

God. If they fixed this - when they fixed this - how the hell was he going to tell Hizashi and Nemuri?

"It's not your fault!" Oboro insisted. "The guys who took me were really good at covering their tracks. And like I said, I only remember things before I was actually fully turned into Kurogiri, and I'm still seventeen, yeah? That means at least twelve out of those thirteen years, I was probably too far gone. So it's okay, I promise."

Shouta let out a small huff of disagreement, because nothing about what Oboro had gone through could ever be fine, but didn't voice those thoughts just yet.

"We're here now," He'd said, back in Gravity Falls, and Stan had scoffed.

"Yeah, now that the dust has settled and everything's fine." And he hadn't pressed on that, had he?

He'd failed Oboro. He'd gone to Gravity Falls, even for that short period of time, and had no idea just what had been going on with his students. They hadn't trusted him enough to tell him anything. Shouta was certainly beginning to think he'd failed them too.

Oboro nudged his side. "Hey, chin up, Shouta. I'm here now, aren't I? And this whole break in reality mess is something we can actually work on. We'll fix this."

They had to. The survival of Shouta's other friends, twelve of his students, and almost all of the entire stadium depended on it.

If this was meant to be another chance, then he wasn't going to waste it.

"Young Midoriya, I'm not angry." All Might's voice was gentle, and Izuku couldn't hear any lies in his statement. "Knowing what I know now, I understand why you didn't want to talk about this before. You went through something terrible." His mentor winced. "And partially at the hands of a fake version of myself."

Izuku bit his lip, eyes watery. "I should've known, though. Should've realized it was an illusion at first, at least. There were some things that didn't completely add up, but it was like there was this fog in my brain that made it so I didn't think about that stuff until everyone came to save me."

All Might's eyes widened. "Ah. Young Shinso's quirk?"

"It's not his fault! Like I told my friends, he didn't ask for a quirk that would remind me of all of that. And, even when we got out of the bubble and then we got home and I got to see the actual you again, and all I could think about was how the fake All Might tried to kill me and I killed the fake All Might with the quirk you gave me and I flinched and I'm so sorry-"

Massive hands closed around his own. "Young Midoriya," All Might began, voice deep and calming. "I don't blame you in the slightest. What you went through was horrific, and you never should've been put in that position, but when you were, you did what you needed to escape it. I'm not mad at you. I could never be mad at you for something like this."

The tears were flowing freely, now.

"It was my fault," Izuku whispered. "There was - there was this time traveler, Blendin. A while before Weirdmageddon, he promised us that if he found a way to help us get home, he'd let us know. He approached me when I had the rift in my bag by accident, and asked if I could hand it over to do some scans. It turns out he was possessed by Cipher. So it's my fault that I was trapped in the bubble in the first place."

All Might was silent for a moment. "I don't know much about this Cipher," He finally began, "But it sounds like he's been around for a very long time, with immense amounts of practice at tricking people. That you momentarily fell for it while he was possessing an ally is not a mark against you, especially considering how little training you had."

"O-Oh." And it was one thing to hear everyone else say it. But… "All Might…"

"Yagi." Izuku looked up. All Might gave him a smile. "My name is Yagi Toshinori. Frankly, I should've told you earlier, but now will have to do. I hope you'll forgive me."

Izuku's lip wobbled. He practically fell forward into a hug. All Might - Yagi - hugged him back just as tightly.

"There's one thing I can't help but notice," Nedzu said lightly. "Of all the people Todoroki saved, Endeavor was not one of them, despite him being in the stadium."

Fuyumi really should've expected this.

Next to the principal, Ford seemed to barely restrain himself from making a comment. Stan didn't bother, scoffing openly, while Wendy rolled her eyes.

Nedzu took this all in, before turning to Fuyumi. "Eraserhead brought up to me, a couple weeks ago, that he was worried about Todoroki. He told me that he suspected the boy was covering up bruises. And now, with this information, I'm seeing a rather interesting picture being painted here. I don't suppose you could explain any more to me?"

Fuyumi looked at Nedzu for a long moment, her heart racing in her chest. Then she sighed.

"I assume you know what quirk marriages are, Principal?"

Nedzu's expression became sharper. "I certainly do."

"Father… always wanted a child with the "perfect quirk", one strong enough to surpass All Might where he couldn't." Fuyumi paused, trying to formulate the words, because this was Principal Nedzu, and if there was anyone who could help her little brother legally escape… "That was why he married Mom in the first place. All of us… we were all considered failures, until Shouto, who got the best of both quirks. So Father… trained him, starting at age five, and ignored the rest of us."

"He hit you." Fuyumi paused to see Shouto walking towards them. He still looked rather out of it, a hand on his charm, but his eyes were focused and determined. "You can't ignore that part. He hit you too, recently."

It wasn't nearly as bad, Fuyumi wanted to argue, but she also didn't want to set a precedent for downplaying abuse when it came to her brother. So instead she held her arm out, and Shouto curled up beside her. Stan came over and put a comforting hand on Shouto's shoulder, which seemed to relax him further.

"Their pop's a real bastard," the man said casually.

"No kidding." Wendy still looked pissed. "We ran into him in the hallway briefly, and he acted like Fuyumi's existence was a nuisance, and talked about Shouto like he was a thing, rather than a person. Dude is fucked up."

"Izuku's mother, Midoriya Inko," Fuyumi remembered suddenly. "On the nights where Shouto stayed at her house, when things got too bad at home, she would take pictures of the injuries he came with. When this is over, we can get them."

"And we will," Nedzu agreed. "Now that these suspicions are confirmed, I have no intention of letting Endeavor hurt his children any longer - either of them." He gave Fuyumi a steady look, and she blinked. "In fact, after the USJ, I've been thinking about certain safety measures I would like to implement at UA. This has only increased the need for them. And when they are implemented, Todoroki will be out of the house for the time being, while we investigate Endeavor further."

Fuyumi shared a surprised look with Shouto, before turning back to Nedzu.

"We're listening."

"So… Gravity Falls?"

Ochako laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, it was… a bit different then we made it out to be, I know."

"A different world with magic but no quirks is pretty crazy," Kirishima agreed. "Especially considering how good you guys are now with your quirks as well." He looked over towards where Wendy was sitting with Soos. "Hey, is that the hand-to-hand teacher you mentioned before? She doesn't look much older than us."

"That's her," Mina confirmed. "Wendy's a real badass. When all of this is over, you should ask her if she'll give you guys some lessons as well." Izuku, having returned from his own talk with All Might, nodded.

Ojiro nodded. "We'll definitely do that."

Shouto, back from speaking with Nedzu, winced slightly. "...Sorry for dragging you four into this."

"There is nothing to be sorry for!" Iida insisted. "You certainly aren't at fault for what happened, Todoroki."

"And besides, you didn't drag us into anything," Yaoyorozu pointed out. "You saved us from the fate that the rest of the stadium shared. Personally, I can't thank you enough, Todoroki."

Shouto stared at her wide-eyed. Mina nudged him gently, smiling. "Oh. Okay then."

Kirishima laughed. "What she said. Although now that we actually know, I would totally like to hear some actual Gravity Falls stories. It doesn't have to be apocalypse stuff!" He hastened to add. "But you haven't really talked about any of your adventures there before."

Ochako blinked, realizing Kirishima was right. They really hadn't mentioned much of anything to their classmates, besides using the skills and items they'd gained, had they?

Wait no, that wasn't entirely true. "Well, we did mention one, or rather two, of our adventures to Iida and Yaoyorozu," She admitted. "Although we kind of framed it as a hypothetical."

Iida blinked. "Wait, do you mean the time traveling scenario, with the pet who constantly got hurt? And the time traveler who challenged you to gladiatorial combat and tried to erase you from existence? That was real!?"

Izuku laughed. "Yeah. Up until the end there, the sports festival wasn't nearly as scary because at least it wasn't a literal death match. That minefield and the fall in the second event would've been totally lethal in Globnar."

"Now I want to hear this story as well," Ojiro admitted, looking torn between concern and amusement.

"If that's the case, what did you actually do about the time traveler?" Yaoyorozu wondered.

"We set him free," Mina admitted. "We all felt really bad about getting him arrested because we were messing around with time in the first place, even if those time police guys did tell us that we weren't in trouble because we literally couldn't have known the rules. Still dunno if it was a good idea or not - he kind of got possessed later and was part of the reason Weirdmageddon started."

"Ah."

"And the pet?" Iida asked. "Was that also real?"

Ochako brightened. "Yup, that's Waddles! He's a part-time pig, part-time bear now. He's staying in Gravity Falls with Pacifica, who's a friend we made over there, since none of our homes could or would take care of him. But he's great! When this is all over, we'll introduce you to him too."

"And Pacifica," Shouto added.

"Right. And Candy and Grenda! I'm sure they'd love to meet all of you."

Iida beamed. "Then we'll look forward to meeting them!"

"You have an idea of where we need to be heading?"

"I do," Ford confirmed. "There are some old friends and allies of mine currently here in the Nightmare Realm that I've managed to get into contact with. We'll be taking a ride with one of them in order to reach Jheselbraum, an Oracle who knows best about the goings on of the Axolotl." He scooped up a bunch of wristbands and passed them around to everyone. "These are dimensional translators. They'll help translate languages for you, and let you adapt to the Nightmare Realm's weirdness outside this stadium without actually letting the realm physically change you."

"Is it built on the same principle that the loci used to translate Japanese into English for us and English into Japanese for you when we cross through the portal between our worlds?" Izuku wondered, interested.

"I don't think so," Ford admitted. "That seems to be a skill all of the loci's own. You all became fluent in English the longer you stayed. These will only translate so long as you're wearing them."

"All Might, Soos, and I will stay behind," Nedzu told them cheerfully. "We'll monitor the stadium and let you know if anything changes here. If you encounter a threat that you cannot escape, Oboro will warp you back here." Oboro and Soos nodded along, clearly aware of their parts of the plan. "I do apologize for this unconventional end to the sports festival, but I hope you eight students will think of this as an exciting field trip!"

Mina squeezed Shouto's hand. "You ready?"

Shouto nodded. "Let's find this guy and finally end this."

Originally I'd planned to make this chapter and the next one a single chapter, but it really did take a while to get everyone on the same page, so it's now it's own chapter. And next time, we'll be going on a field trip to find that Axolotl!

I hope you enjoyed, and please don't forget to review, let me know what you think!