While Shouta had drifted into a light doze during their wait, he's immediately awake and alert when he hears soft footsteps coming from the stairwell.

He tenses, not yet jumping to his feet but ready to leap into action if need be. Across from him Momo is similarly tense, one hand twitching towards her knife. Neither of them need to say anything to know they're both ready and willing to fight this potential threat together.

The footsteps reach the floor they're on, and stop just out of sight.

"...Knock knock?" a rasping voice asks, followed by two small knocks that sound against the doorframe to the stairwell.

Instantly recognizing the voice, Shouta sighs in relief and can't help but smirk. Right, he must've figured this is the right floor because of Shouta's capture weapon, which was visible from the doorway, though Shouta himself wasn't.

So Shouta replies, "Who's there?" obligingly.

"You," says the voice, and there's a flash of purple hair from the stairwell.

Momo relaxes back against the wall with a chuckle. "You, who?"

"Yoo-hoo to you, too!" Hitoshi chirps, finally entering the room with a little flair and a cheeky grin. He looks around the room until his eyes latch on Shouta, and some unknown emotion swirls through them before he approaches.

He stops a few feet in front of Shouta, thoroughly inspecting him with suspicious eyes.

Shouta has to suppress a frown at the uncharacteristic behavior, but he doesn't say anything yet. He simply waits patiently while his student stares, almost like he's looking for something.

Luckily he must pass whatever test is happening, as after a few more seconds Hitoshi relaxes and is smiling again.

"Dad-sensei," he greets, leaning down to gently bump his head against Shouta's.

"Hey, kid. Glad to see you in one piece," Shouta greets back, tilting his head to lean into the impromptu head-butt. Hitoshi must have noticed the dried blood like Momo did, since he was careful to avoid bumping that specific spot. "Mind hanging your scarf out the other side?" Shouta asks him. "Better visibility."

Once he's straightened up, Hitoshi nods and strides over to the other side of the room to do what Shouta asked. Hopefully now that they have two signals on opposite corners on the building, the rest of his students will be able to find them.

When Hitoshi's done doing that, he comes right back over and plops himself down on the floor to Shouta's right.

"You look like shit," Hitoshi rasps bluntly, and, yep, he's eyeing the dried blood on Shouta's brow.

"Thanks. I feel like shit, too," comes Shouta's dry reply. He leans his head back against the wall with a sigh, then winces. "Also... pretty sure I've got a concussion."

"Pretty sure, or sure sure?" Momo asks, squinting at him assessingly from her spot across the room. She gets up wobblily to sit on Shouta's other side and look at his head a little closer, adding, "Because if you're sure sure, we should probably do something about that."

"No need," Shouta tells her. He didn't mean to worry them. "It's just a small concussion, I've had worse. Just need to rest."

"If you insist..." Momo mumbles, then looks past him to Hitoshi. "And you?"

"Fine," Hitoshi responds, shrugging. "Oh, that reminds me—"

Shouta and Momo watch as Hitoshi pulls his backpack into his lap, pulling out... a smaller bag?

"Is that a first aid kit?" Momo asks.

"Hell yeah it is," Hitoshi says about as loud as he can—which for him, was no louder than a croak—grinning all the while. "I grabbed two, and also some food n' stuff, and—"

He reaches into his hoodie pocket this time, revealing a bundle of papers which he holds up for them to see. "Ta-daa~"

It's— "A newspaper," Shouta says, eyebrows raising at the sight.

Hitoshi's grin widens. "Sure is."

Shouta looks closer at the paper, eyes burning as he forces them to focus on the printed words. It's been a while since he had to read anything. Most of it looks like pointless drivel, nothing of interest to him expect for one thing.

The date on top.

If he remembers correctly, the new term of school should've just started within the past few days.

Yes, he remembers these dates well.

Today is Monday. The day before the press were due to break through UA's front gates, distracting them all from the true threat that had snuck in.

Monday; two days before the incident at the Unforeseen Simulation Joint.

Hitoshi's watching Shouta's expression intently, though he's clearly trying to hide his own excitement.

Shouta can't help his amused huff. "Good job, kid," he praises, ruffling his purple hair and making it even more of a mess than it already is. "This helps a lot." And it does; knowing the exact date they'd been sent back to is an incredible lead.

Hitoshi visibly preens with the praise, leaning up into Shouta's palm with his eyes squeezed shut. But then he perks up, like he's just remembered something.

"I got these—" He switches to JSL, pausing to dig through his bag again to grab several bottles of water, followed by bags of jerky and granola bars. He pushes it all into a small pile on the floor in front of them. "I grabbed as much as I could. Dig in!"

And then he shoves one of the jerky bags into Shouta's hands.

Shouta looks down at it, blinking in surprise at just how brand new it looks. Which, right, if they're in the past that makes sense. He tears the bag open with shaking hands, and his whole mouth aches at the smell that hits him.

"Oh, Hitoshi," Momo breathes, eyes wide as Hitoshi hands her two granola bars and one of the bottles. It's obvious he's trying to hide a smirk, but it disappears with a look of shock when Momo lunges around Shouta to hugs the breath out of Hitoshi. "Thank you!"

He rubs the back of his neck when she lets him go, mumbling, "Yeah, yeah... Eat already, will ya?"

Momo does, biting down on one of the granola bars without even bothering to remove the wrapping.

When she starts to gulp down the water, Shouta forces himself to look away from his own food to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Slowly, or you'll make yourself sick," he tells her.

She looks disgruntled about it, but she does slow down, instead taking sips of the water in between bites of plastic and granola bar.

Satisfied that Momo wasn't going to make herself sick, Shouta turns his attention back to his own food, and swallows down the saliva that's pooling in his mouth. It only gets worse in the second the salty meat hits his tongue, and Shouta has to restrain himself from swallowing down the jerky without even chewing. He has more self-control than that, thankfully. The jerky is just so overwhelmingly flavorful, almost painfully so. His taste buds aren't used to so much seasoning anymore.

Breathing evenly and intentionally through his nose, Shouta bites into the meat and chews for as long as he can bear before finally letting himself swallow. Gods, he so fucking hungry his teeth ache.

While he and Momo eat, Hitoshi digs through the first aid kit he'd shown off earlier.

Much to Shouta's chagrin, his student cleans the blood from his temple with a sharp smelling alcohol wipe. It makes his nose scrunch up, but it's not quite enough to throw off his appetite.

They continue eating in silence.

When Momo's finished both her food and her entire bottle of water, she eyes the pile of remaining food, though she makes no move to take more for herself.

Hm.

Looking askance, Shouta plucks a few pieces of jerky left in his bag to place on her leg, doing the same thing to Hitoshi. He knows they want to protest, but a pointed look from him silences any complaints.

He hides a smirk with a sip of water when they begrudgingly eat the jerky.

The three of them freeze, however, when there's a brief shuffling sound from the roof above. Their eyes follow the soft sound of footsteps along the roof towards the stairwell with bated breath, then—

Ah, it's only Uraraka and Midoriya.

Hitoshi blinks, brows furrowed together as he stares down the two new arrivals. "...Did you come down from the roof?" he asks.

"Yeah, where else?" Ochako shrugs, as though entering a building from the roof—wasn't the door locked?—instead of from the ground floor was an everyday occurrence, and not highly suspicious. For her and Midoriya though, this was perfectly normal.

Ochako plops down on the floor next to Momo, and smiles as she leans into the other girl's side.

Izuku similarly moves forward, eyeing the pile of food, though he freezes in place with a wince when he catches Shouta's pointed gaze.

"Midoriya," says Shouta, able to stare his student down despite the fact he's still sitting on the floor. He has to suppress a grin to not ruin his serious expression, the urge to mess with his most problematic student stronger than ever.

"...Sensei." Izuku smiles sheepishly, though his voice remains hushed. Purposefully neutral.

He already knows exactly what he's 'in trouble' for.

"What have I said about being caught committing crimes?" Shouta asks him.

Izuku winces again. "...Not to?"

"Right," Shouta nods patiently. "And what did you do?"

"I got caught?"

Shouta raises one eyebrow. "Are you asking me, or telling me?"

"Telling you? No, I-I mean, I'm telling you." Izuku's the first to break eye contact, hunching his shoulders while he rubs the back of his neck. He finally sits down opposite to Shouta, keeping his head hung low. "Sorry, Dadzawa..."

Shouta sighs with equal parts fondness and exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose. He ruffles Izuku's hair with his free hand. "I'm not mad—" he starts to say.

"Just disappointed?" Izuku finishes for him with a wet laugh, and leans into the touch. "In my defense, they attacked me first."

Ignoring the interruption, Shouta hums. "And Death Arms?"

Honestly, he doesn't understand why the pro-hero would've attempted to 'pursue' the teen, though he can unfortunately understand why the media made such a big deal out of it. Those vultures were always blowing things out of proportion if it meant they got more views. Maybe it was a slow day. That's the only good thing about living in an apocalypse; the press no longer existed.

Izuku fiddles with the tattered end of his cloak. "He recognized me, but I managed to get away, uh—obviously, o-or I wouldn't be here," he explains, quickly devolving into a mumble. "It wasn't even that bad! Sure, I br-broke Finger's nose by mistake, but Wings broke his own damn arm..."

"You broke someone's nose... by mistake?" Shouta asks, eyebrows raising in surprise.

Well, at least it wasn't his own nose.

Jolted from his mumbling, Izuku flails his hands for a couple seconds before he deflates and nods sheepishly. "I didn't even use a single percentage of my quirk, but I guess I still punched too hard..."

With a long-suffering sigh, Shouta holds a hand out and says, "Let me see your hand." Oh, he's well aware that Midoriya knows how to throw a proper punch—he's the one who taught him how, after all—but he doesn't doubt his Problem Child's ability to hurt himself.

Without protest, Izuku places his hand in Shouta's to let him examine it.

The knuckles are a little bruised, typical injuries for a hastily thrown punch. Nothing looks out of place, though.

"No broken bones this time, Problem Child. Good job," Shouta huffs, letting go of Izuku's hand before he shoves a pack of jerky and a water bottle at him. "Please refrain from getting into any more trouble, though. Don't make me expel you."

Izuku sits back with a nervous laugh, already digging into his food. "We're not in school anymore, Dadzawa," he says. "You can't expel me!"

Oh?

Shouta flashes a wide grin that's more teeth than strictly necessary. "You sure about that?"

"Not anymore I'm not!" Izuku responds loudly, eyes wide.

It gets some laughs out of the others, while Shouta just shakes his head. He lets Izuku get back to eating, listening with half an ear as his students all catch up.

Some minutes later, Shouta feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Like he's being watched. He shifts, keeping his posture purposefully relaxed while he subtly glances about the room. He can see that his students have noticed the same—or maybe they just noticed the change in his demeanor.

Shouta's just as quick to relax though when he spots the bit of blonde hair just barely peeking around the corner from inside the stairwell.

"I know you're there, Katsuki," Shouta calls out. "It's safe to come in."

There's a quiet 'tch' before Katsuki skulks into the room, looking as grumpy as ever.

He makes a beeline for Izuku.

"Found you, nerd," Katsuki grunts, grinning as he flops down against Izuku's side and snatches a piece of jerky from the bag. Before Izuku can even attempt to snatch it back, Katsuki's already stuffed it into his mouth and started chewing.

Izuku pulls the bag out of reach from Katsuki's thieving hands, grinning right back at him. "Kacchan!" he complains.

Seeing as the noise level was starting to rise with the addition of his students all chatting amongst themselves, Shouta excuses himself to move several feet away.

They aren't being that loud, but he'd like to avoid his headache getting any worse.

Actually, now that he knows at least some of his students are safe, and he's got a moment to think... he should probably take care of a few things while he has the chance. Before some utter nonsense distracts him again.

First things first, he does a quick look-over of his jumpsuit, noting the new rips and tears from his earlier escape. He'll have to repair those.

Shouta sets everything he'll need aside, pulling the items from his toolbelt.

The materials were all mostly scavenged, all except for the simple black thread which Yaoyorozu had managed to create some time ago. He has one sewing needle, bent and crooked and covered in a thin layer of rust, but it was still sharp enough to use. One of his smaller knives also gets set out, substituting the pair of scissors he doesn't have. Lastly, several swatches of fabric to be used as patches.

He sticks one end of the thread in his mouth while he holds the needle up with one hand, before pulling it out and holding it firmly between index finger and thumb.

This is always his least favorite part; eyes squinting in concentration as he repeatedly fails at threading the damn needle. It's not even that complicated of a task, but it's almost like the universe just has it out for him.

Shouta watches the pointed end of the thread turn sideways instead of going through, and scowls at it.

After yet more failed attempts, he manages to get the thread through the eye, but when he goes to tie it the needle slides right off and clatters to the floor. Fuck.

Finally, he succeeds in threading the needle and tying a knot.

Placing the thread and needle aside, Shouta rolls his shoulders, then unzips his jumpsuit. Underneath he has a thin black tank top, but not much else. For obvious reasons he keeps the bottom half on, bringing the top half around to lay on his lap so he can inspect it for damage. There's a nasty tear on one sleeve, and a few other holes here and there, but nothing that couldn't be fixed.

It is honestly a surprise that his jumpsuit has lasted this long, it's more patchwork than solid fabric at this point.

He works methodically, starting with the torn sleeve and sewing it closed, then tying about a dozen knots just to be certain it'll hold. Closing up the smaller holes and tears takes less time, since he can just slap a patch on those and call it a day.

His hands ache and cramp as he works, and there's several times where he needs to stop and shake out his hands until they stop throbbing. His back and neck weren't faring much better.

Shouta hears more of his students arrive while he works, the chatter in the room happy yet subdued.

When he looks up to see Tokoyami and Asui, he offers them a nod. They nod back, so Shouta turns his attention back to not accidentally stabbing his fingers. He doesn't want to risk this thing giving him tetanus.

Also, it hurt like hell, and he really doesn't need any more blood on his clothes.

"Aizawa-sensei?" Fumikage's voice pulls Shouta from his thoughts.

He looks up at his student with a questioning hum, absentmindedly tying off another knot in the thread.

Fumikage fidgets with his hands. "Would you be willing to mend our cloak for us?" he asks, head tilting to the side.

Shouta hums again, and nods. "Sure, just let me finish this and then I'll get started."

Of course he'd taught all of his students how to mend their own clothing—it's a good life skill to have, apocalypse or not—but he knows Tokoyami's hands had been badly burned, forcing his quirk to mutate in an attempt to fix the damage. It had left him with black feathers trailing up his forearms and those razor-sharp talons which he's become extremely proficient in fighting with, but it also meant he was now unable to properly grip a sewing needle. Midoriya too had trouble using his hands on the best of days.

That's okay, Shouta doesn't mind sewing for a bit longer than he'd originally anticipated.

Using his small knife to cut off the excess thread, Shouta tugs at the new seams to test their strength. Only once he's positive they'll hold does he pull his jumpsuit back on and zip it up, shivering now that the fabric's lost his accumulated body heat.

"...Alright. Hand it over," he says then, and holds out his hand.

Fumikage hands over the tattered cloak with a soft 'thank you, Sensei.' As he does so, Shouta realizes that his student is wearing something new.

"Is that... a Hawks jacket?" he asks.

It certainly looks like one, all bright colors and clean fabric.

"Ah— It is indeed..." Fumikage looks askance, like he's embarrassed about it. "Tsu and I thought that disguises might be beneficial."

...Huh. Now that he's thinking about it, it's true. The way they're currently dressed would certainly draw more attention to them than it would have before. He can see now too that Tsuyu had an All Might hoodie on.

He can assume his two students stole these clothes, and while he can condone stealing things like food, water, and medicine, it's more difficult to justify stealing clothing. Not impossible, since half the clothes they have now were scavenged anyway. But still. Where did they even get these, a store?

"D҉aaad̢~̢" Dark Shadow croons, breaking Shouta out of his thoughts when they stretch forward to lounge across his shoulders. "̛We͘ g̵o̴t ̧s̶o͏m̛e̷t͝h̴ing ҉fo̴r͟ y͝ou̡, to̕o͢~!͠"

Tilting his head to better see the sentient shadow—practically another one of his students—Shouta asks, "You did?"

They nod excitedly, and wriggle out of a shirt that he only just now notices they're wearing. It's held carefully, almost reverently, up for him to see. At the sight of it, Shouta feels his breath stutter to a stop, entire body going cold as though he'd been doused with a bucket of ice water.

It's an official 'Put Your Hands Up!' shirt.

On auto-pilot, Shouta takes the shirt into his hands and just... stares at it.

"͜Do̧ ̷yo̵ú l̸ik͠e̶ it̷?́" he hears Dark Shadow ask.

Shouta doesn't trust his voice at the moment, so his only response is a shaky nod.

He loves it.

Unzipping his jumpsuit for a second time, Shouta pulls the new shirt on over his tank top and marvels at how soft it is. He can smell laundry detergent. This really is a thoughtful gift, even if it did make his heart twinge with grief. He'll treasure it.

Once the shirt is hidden underneath his jumpsuit, Shouta lets out a slow breath and makes eye contact with Dark Shadow.

"Thank you," he murmurs, smiling with a slow blink.

Dark Shadow lets out a staticky coo, and wriggles under Shouta's arm to nuzzle into the palm of his hand.

Shouta chuckles fondly, giving them a few pats before he picks Fumikage's cloak up again and places it in his lap. "Alright," he says with one last pat. "I've got to work on your brother's cloak now."

The only response he gets from Dark Shadow is a soft churr before they go back to Fumikage, his student sticking close by to watch Shouta work.

It's not too bad, just some rips near the bottom that Tokoyami obviously doesn't want getting worse.

He's only just finished up fixing the last rip and handed the cloak over for Fumikage to examine when he's nearly run over by Mei. She makes an immediate grab for his right leg with a manic gleam in her eyes, and Shouta, unfortunately used to her antics by now, begrudgingly allows her to take it with little more than a long-suffering sigh. At least she has the decency to leave his now empty boot within reach, and she doesn't attempt to remove his pants to get at the prosthetic... again.

It looks like she's covered in more grime than usual, her fingers leaving behind messy smears of grease and oil on his pants leg.

"No explosives," he grunts at her, more of a habit than anything at this point.

"No promises!" she chirps back, not even bothering to look up.

Sigh.

While he watches Mei start to take his leg apart, Shouta adjusts to sit in a more comfortable position and leans back against the wall. Might as well if he's gonna be here a while.

The commotion has caught the rest of his student's attention though, and they come over to investigate. It ends with them all settling down around him, and this time Shouta isn't even able to walk away to get some space. How wonderful.

It's fine though, because it means he can look his students over and make sure they're alright.

Fumikage's put his repaired cloak on over top of the Hawks jacket, snuggling into the fabric in relief. Izuku had gone to talk with Mei while she dismantles Shouta's prosthetic, and of course Katsuki was right behind him. Ochako, Momo, and Tsuyu were all huddled together, the first two girls complimenting a happy Tsuyu's hoodie. They'd brought the pile of food with them, so the last students to arrive were now grazing on what was left. Lastly, Hitoshi was leant back against the wall next to Shouta.

That's the point where Shouta realizes all of his students have come back to him safely, and a tension he hadn't known he'd been holding drains from his posture all at once.

All of his kids are here now. They all made it back safe and sound.

Now there's just one thing left to do.

"...Hitoshi," Shouta says, lolling his head to the side to catch Hitoshi's eye. "Could you bring our capture weapons in, kid?" He would've done it himself if he had two working legs, but this will have to do. It wasn't logical to leave the signals out now that they're all here.

Hitoshi nods, standing with a huff to collect their scarves.

"Meichan, did you notice anything weird outside, kero?" Shouta hears Tsuyu say.

Mei hums noncommittally. "Define 'weird' for me?" she says, raising one hand for a moment to mime the air quotes.

"Y'know, like... Have you seen anyone from the past?" Ochako chimes in, her chin resting on Tsuyu's shoulder. "I saw myself. It was... kinda creepy, honestly..."

She did?

Shouta shivers at the thought of running into another version of himself. Just one of him is bad enough, thanks. Hm... He'll have to ask his students about what all they saw after they'd been separated. Shouta knows he saw... well, maybe he should think of him as 'Present Mic' instead of as 'Hizashi', but he saw someone from the past, too.

"Nope, I haven't seen anyone from the past!" Mei answers Ochako, then laughs loudly like she'd just told a hilarious joke that none of them got. She tended to do that rather often though, so no one paid it much mind.

"You noticed what day tomorrow is, right, Dad?" Hitoshi asks as he returns with their scarves, the fabric bundled in his arms.

He looks to Shouta with worried eyes as he hands the lighter one over.

Humming his thanks, Shouta nods and wraps his capture weapon securely around his shoulders before he levels his student with a grim expression. "I did," he says.

Their conversation catches the others attentions.

"What's tomorrow, kero?" Tsuyu asks.

"Do you remember the press break-in that happened on our second day of class?" Momo says before Shouta can, the girl glancing to the newspaper that's still laying on the floor back where they were sitting at before.

Ochako gives her friend an odd look. "Of course, it's kinda hard to forget something like that." She frowns then, suspicious. "...Why?"

Shouta clears his throat so all his students look to him, and he can gauge their reactions.

"It happens tomorrow," he tells them.

That certainly gets their attention.

He goes on; "It seems as though we've been sent back to the very start of your first year at UA." Shouta gestures to the newspaper, and watches as Katsuki snatches it up off the floor. The rest of the students except for Hitoshi, Momo, and Mei moves to huddle around Katsuki and read the paper over his shoulders.

Shouta frowns then, and brushes his fingers over the scar under his eye. "The attack on the USJ hasn't happened yet, either..."

"Can we make that not happen?" Ochako asks, hand raises as if this were a classroom and not a decrepit office space. "Like... is that a thing we can do, Sensei?"

...Huh. Shouta hadn't even thought about that.

Just the fact that they're here means the past has already technically been changed. He's pretty damn sure his own Hizashi hadn't run into a future version of Shouta last time around, or else he'd have heard about it back then, right?

"We... could," Shouta agrees uncertainly.

"Hey! Wait a damn second," Katsuki cuts in, crumpling the paper in his hands much to the chagrin of the others still reading. "What about all those shitty movies that say not to mess with the timeline or else you'll never be born?!"

"Kacchan, our past selves are already born," Izuku helpfully points out.

"And it's not like the future we came from was any good," mutters Momo with a shrug, and, "We'd be doing the world a favor by making sure it never happens."

"But what if we disappear?!" Katsuki throws his hands in the air—along with the newspaper—his voice raising for a moment before he winces, and continues in a still too-loud whisper, "I don't know about you, but I don't want to be erased from time!"

"No one's getting erased from time," Shouta cuts in, too tired to deal with the fight that's potentially brewing. He fixes them all with a glare. "Let's focus on one thing at a time here."

"Can our focus turn to acquiring more sustenance?" Fumikage asks, and some of the other students nod in agreement. "I am still hungry."

Shouta sighs. "...Yeah. Yeah, we can."

Finding more food is a good idea. Even though they'd just eaten the snacks Hitoshi brought, they never know when their next meal will be.

Part of Shouta wants to just walk into the closest grocery store and just take as much food as he can physically carry. His kids are starving, he's staring, and there's more food than any one person could possibly eat sitting right there in the open. Ready for the taking.

He knows that Hitoshi's already stolen some food. Just yesterday Shouta wouldn't have thought twice about it, but now that they're in the past it could become a problem.

Getting arrested would be less than ideal.

It's frustrating, though. Knowing that he's unable to go after the easiest and freshest source of food. Unable to feed his kids.

There's other places where they may be able to find edible food, at least. So many grocery stores and restaurants threw out the expired food that didn't sell, right? Not all of which needed to be cooked before they could eat it.

He doesn't care exactly what kind of food they may find, so long as it wasn't rotten.

It's worth a shot.

In the time it had taken for all of his students to get here, night had begun to fall.

That's good, there's safety in darkness. Less people walking the streets. It's not like they can stay here in this building, it was too... exposed.

As soon as Shouta is able to convince Hatsume to give him his leg back—after she's put it back together, obviously—they set off, trailing down the stairwell in a tidy line and out onto the street.

Shouta scents the air and tries to make sense of the mess of information he's met with. Honestly, he's so used to ignore the stench of death and decay. Without it there's so many more things he can smell; like gasoline, and car exhaust, and... flowers.

Then he smells what he's been looking for. Food. Something fried and warm.

While he'd been walking aimlessly before, now Shouta moves with purpose. Behind him, his students fall into position without a word.

But he can tell that they're excited, that they've sensed he's picked up on something good.

There, a restaurant dumpster.

It's well lit behind the well-worn building, and he can't see any cameras.

With a quick hand signal from Shouta, Dark Shadow surges forward and shatters the lightbulb overhead, plunging the area into darkness.

As soon as the light is gone, all nine of them move towards the dumpster.

Shouta climbs up first and hauls the lid open, making sure to secure it firmly against the building so it won't fall shut and hit any of them.

It may be garbage, but it smells considerably fresher than the stuff Shouta dug through this morning. In fact, there's even a bit of steam wafting up off of it.

Shouta turns to grin at his kids with a wry grin. "Wanna eat in, or go for takeout?"

That's a trick question, of course. They've got no way of bringing any of this with them, and even if they did, it'd go bad too fast for it to matter. It's not like they have a fridge waiting for them to store this in.

His students climb up around him, the dumpster big enough for them all to perch on the edge like giant raccoons.

Before them sits a veritable feast.

They're careful not to fall in for obvious reasons. It smells good now, but being covered in the stuff was a recipe for disaster... and many bad smells. They'd learned the hard way that fabric didn't tolerate being covered in grime all that well; cloth can rot just the same as anything else.

There's no washing machines or detergent in the apocalypse. No soap or showers, either.

What sits on the top of the pile is mostly just a lot of vegetable fried rice, but it's the best damn thing Shouta's tasted in a long, long while.

Considering they ate only a few hours ago, even if it was something small, Shouta knows his kids won't feel the need to gorge themselves now. Regardless, he makes sure to keep an eye on them all. Both to make sure they don't eat until they're sick, but also to ensure they all get enough.

He sees that Dark Shadow's nibbling at the food despite the fact they don't really need to eat, and they often avoided doing so in order to make their rations last longer. Mei seemed curious about everyone else's reactions, with her being the last one to take a small, experimental bite before she digs in just as ravenously as her classmates. The rest all eat by the handful, though he notes that Izuku grimaces whenever he gets any broccoli. He doesn't avoid eating it though, they were all too hungry to be picky eaters at this point.

Shouta actually has to remind himself to slow down, humming at the brief bursts of sweetness on his tongue as he bites down on bites of carrots and peas.

They're all startled by the back door to the restaurant squeaking open, a disgruntled-looking employee stumbling out with a full garbage bag slung over her shoulder.

She freezes when she spots the ten pairs of eyes watching her from atop the darkness covered dumpster.

No one moves.

Finally, she just sighs and shakes her head, ignoring their hisses and growls when she shuffles close enough to drop the bag next to the dumpster. "I don't get paid enough for this shit..." they hear her mutter as she walks away without bothering them.

"...Well, that went better than expected," Fumikage remarks, the way he tilts his head combined with how he's perched in a crouch very reminiscent of a curious bird. "Perhaps that is our cue to make our leave?"

Shouta grunts an affirmative, licking the extra bits of rice from his fingers while he hops down from the edge of the dumpster.

They can't go back to the abandoned office building.

It may have been a good vantage point and meetup spot, but now that they're all reunited that was no longer a necessity. Plus, the surrounding buildings weren't abandoned, and someone could notice their comings and goings. They wouldn't even be able to make a fire to keep warm for the same reason.

So, figuring out what to do next is simple; find a new hideout.

Easier said than done.

Shouta racks his brain for whatever relevant information remains, trying to recall where would be the best place for them to bunk down in.

He used to know all this. Used to know where and when was the worst of the crime, knew how to find it, how to avoid it. That was important knowledge for an underground hero. But he hasn't needed to know any of that in so long. Now, the facts are all skewed or out of date, he can't trust his own memory.

If he wants to intercept Shigaraki tomorrow, then someplace relatively close to UA would be ideal. Too close though and they would be running the risk of capture. The entire area surrounding the UA grounds was not only highly populated, but very, very secure. Protected. For good reason, but it made their job all the more difficult.

At least they all look similar enough to their past selves that they can remain mostly undetected. Well, once they've cleaned up a bit.

In the end, they managed to find a condemned house that's mostly stable. It may be in a somewhat bad neighborhood, but that meant that anyone who noticed them was a lot less likely to report them to the authorities.

Stomachs full and finally reunited, sleep for once comes easily.