"First, pull out the strings!" They freed Bakugou from his strings. Izuku copied, pulling the strings from everybody else. "Then lie them against a rock or something." They leaned Bakugou against a wet box. "Then you back away and toss the Holy Water at them!" They tossed a vial at him.

"I'll just...pour it on them. If that works."

"Oh. That works too."

Izuku saw Bakugou grow back to his original height, the wood pattern and markings on him disappearing as he did. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked around.

"You! It was you again, wasn't it! You turned me into a puppet again!"

"Calm it, Bakugou. We can't turn people wood. Just trap them in strings."

After everyone else was freed, Izuku crossed his arms. "Alright, Super DimentOlive is named Shi now. I thought I should get that out of the way. Now, Shi, about Piper. Tell us everything."

They sighed. "We were friends with her when we were young. She was a bit of a prankster, and she loved to use us as practice. When we were sixteen, she was eighteen at the time, she gave us a love letter. We knew how much she loved watching romance shows and reading romance books. We misunderstood her letter as another joke and tried to beat her to the punch by laughing at her. But we found out it was real when she called a battle on us. She was winning. She had us trapped in strings. We set her strings on fire, hoping they would burn but..." Shi tapped their fingers together. "They just ended up setting the whole world on fire. It was a small dimension, but it was home. The dimension burned to the ground. We never saw Piper or Emerald, our other friend, again. We fled that world like a coward."

"That's sad," Ochaco sighed.

"She taught us how to use her strings, but we don't have the power of puppetization like she does. That's why you were never turned to wood until now, Bakugou. Her powers are dark magic, so using something pure like Holy Water stops it."

"So that's why you need a lot of it," Izuku realized. "But will it really heal the corruption from the Chaos Heart like you claimed?"

"It seems to be working so far. It's all a matter of time. It may be temporary, or it may be long-lasting. We don't know. This is just a test."

"Ah." Izuku looked around. "Where's Fawful?"

Shi looked around as well. "Oh. We didn't even notice he was gone. We wonder what he's doing."

A few hours later, Fawful returned with Inko at his side. Izuku had been worried about her ever since she had vanished. Tears filled his eyes and he rushed to embrace her.

"Izuku! I'm so glad to see you're safe!" She began crying as well.

The tear-filled reunion lasted for about a minute before Izuku let go of her. Olivia came closer to Inko, worry in her eyes.

"Did you see Olly? I haven't seen him for a while, and I'm worried for him."

Inko sighed sadly. "Oh, about that...Your brother took my place to free me."

"He what? So he's captured by Piper now?"

She nodded. "That was a brave thing he did. But she's going to kill everybody if she does get her hands on somebody named Dimentio."

Shi's hand begun shaking lightly. "No. She'll still kill them. She's crazy; worse than us."

"Your brother's practically a different person than when he arrived, and you should be proud of him."

Olivia tried to smile, but was still stricken with sadness. "I see. Thank you, Miss Midoriya." She sat down on the cold ground.

"Izuku? I-"

He was asleep.

"Oh, Izuku." She walked over to him. "You're so mature for your age. You always put others before you." She gently brushed his hair and pulled his rag covers up to warm him. "Sleep well, Izuku. I love you." She kissed his forehead, a small smile spreading across his face.

"He really loves you, huh?"

"Oh?" She gasped. "Oh, hello. You must be the Super DimentOlive person that teleported the world into that other dimension. My name is Inko Midoriya. I'm Izuku's mother."

"We know who you are." They hugged their knees. "Our name is Shi. Hi."

"Are you okay?" She seated herself next to them.

"We don't remember our mother. It's nice seeing someone enjoy what we don't have." They looked at Izuku resting peacefully. "A friend, a parental figure, a home to run away to...He has it all. And you're a good mother to him. We know that because he's a good person."

"What happened to her? If it's not too personal!"

"You're fine." They finally made eye contact with her. "She died when we were five. It might have been involved with our..." They covered their left eye. "We lost it to an Oni Eater when we were still a newborn. She protected us, but we still ended up losing our eye. She gave us hers."

"Sounds like she loved you a lot."

"But, we don't know her. How can we miss her? She was never there for us after she passed. Our father walked out on us before we were even born. At least, that's what she said. She said he was going to a better place that we couldn't follow him to yet."

Sadness washed over her. "Oh, Shi...It sounds like he might have died."

"Maybe. Or maybe he actually left because he didn't want to see the monster he created. We messed up to the point of no return." They wiped stray tears from their eyes. "We shouldn't be crying about this. We shouldn't feel bad for ourselves."

Inko placed a hand on their shoulder. "What happened between you and Puppetino? Don't worry, I won't tell if you don't want me to. And if it's too personal, I won't ask again."

"We hurt her. We destroyed our home. We didn't even get a chance to..."

"Take your time."

"She loved us with all of her heart. But we were immature. We laughed at her. We thought it was another one of her tricks. She loved to play tricks on us. But when we broke her heart, she called a battle to the death on us. We were just trying to make it up to her but...She-she..."

"It sounds like she wasn't a true friend, Shi."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's start at the beginning: Why did she become friends with you?"

"We were alone. It was after our mother died. She showed us all these tricks. On our tenth birthday, she gave us this mask as a gift. She managed to convince us to become a jester despite our crippling fear of stages."

"I see. Did you want to follow that dream?"

"Not at first. We just wanted to be welcomed. The Powerless and Oni Sprites hated each other and us Power Sprites equally. We never fit in anywhere. She told Em that he was too soft to follow the jester career because he would never make fun of anyone."

"Okay. What about the tricks? Were they ever funny?"

They considered it for a long moment. "No. She scared us with them. But she always laughed about it, so we laughed too. We started treating Em the same way..." They cowardly covered their face as tears began to form. "You're right. She was awful. She was the reason we're like this."

Inko pat their shoulder. "It's okay. I won't be upset if you cry. It'll relieve you of a lot of emotion, trust me."

Tears fell between their fingers.

Inko pat her lap. "Come here."

They flopped down into her lap and started sobbing.

"Are you feeling a little better now?"

They hiccuped and grabbed her arm. "Don't leave us again...mother..."

"Oh, I'm not your-"

They had fallen asleep.

"Oh, you poor thing. Your only friend treated you like trash, and now you have trust issues, huh? Don't worry, Shi. I know you can be strong. You can get past this and learn and grow from this. Have a good rest." She brushed their hat gently as their sobbing died down a bit. "I know you're a good person, I just need you to realize that. Goodnight, Shi."