Light, noise, and pain were the only things he could remember. A jumble of dreams, nightmares, and reality, jumbled together into a giant mess. When he opened his eyes, everything felt out of place, as if he were still half in the dream. He could barely move his limbs, even opening his eyes had been difficult.

He tried to focus on his surroundings but even his brain seemed slow to respond. But after enough time he started to make sense of things. He was lying in a hospital bed, a variety of tubes and apparatuses surrounding him and in him. It was either sunrise or sunset, he wasn't sure and everything ached.

He closed his eyes and went immediately to sleep. When next he woke, he felt better, at the very least his ability to think wasn't as impaired. He took in his surroundings once more and didn't see much change in lighting from the last time he was cognizant. Then noticed the call button placed near his hand. He reached for it, and while he did manage to press it, it had been a challenge. He had never before felt so weak in his body.

Before long the door to his room opened and he recognized Dr. Mei, Dr. Okimi's right hand. She dragged a rolling stool over and started going over the various apparatuses that surrounded Izuku.

"Just give me a moment, just need to take some notes and then we get down to business." She said.

Izuku wasn't inclined to respond so he opted to stare at the ceiling instead. After a minute or two, Dr. Mei set the PDA aside and started to undo some of the apparatuses. The tube in his nose was removed, along with some pads that had been monitoring various details of his condition. When she was finished she sighed and looked at him.

"Now that that's over with, let's get to the heart of the matter. Three days ago you were near fatally wounded and suffered extreme blood loss. Frankly, you should have died given how long you were left without help, but here you are. While Dr. Okimi was able to heal your bodily wounds, her quirk can't replace the blood you lost so we had to give you a transfusion. You are otherwise fine, but you will feel weak for an extended period while your body works to replace the remaining blood. Naturally, you will be unable to work or engage in any physical activities during your recovery." Dr. Mei said at a measured pace, slow enough that he could follow along despite his mental sluggishness.

"Now, I imagine you have questions, but they would be better answered by someone more qualified. But if any of those questions are health-related, then I will gladly tell you what you want to know." Dr. Mei finished, smiling at him.

Izuku thought for a while, but between Mei's earlier statements and his own experiences, he couldn't think of any questions she would likely be able to answer. So he shook his head.

"Very well. I believe both your emergency contacts should be here sometime tomorrow, and they will be able to better brief you about everything I imagine." Mei said, standing up. She checked over a couple of things, then she was gone, leaving Izuku alone.

Izuku for his part just let himself sink into the bed and fall asleep again.

He awoke the next morning, hungry, and aching, but feeling mentally sound. After calling for a nurse he was able to get some food and water, and afterward, he was feeling much better. He still felt weak, but that wasn't likely to change anytime soon.

With nothing better to do, he looked around the hospital room and saw some relief that his phone was on a table nearby. It took a bit of time, but he did eventually manage to get it. He looked it over and saw a few spots where blood had dried on it, but it had been wiped down at some point. He tried turning it on and to his surprise, it booted up without issue. He'd gotten lucky with his phone at least.

As he logged into his phone, the wallpaper greeted him and he felt his stomach lurch. Ochako's bright smiling face stared back at him. He flashed back to himself, lying helpless on the ground as she was taken away and he turned the phone off. A slew of emotions roared to life inside him, and as rage and hatred flowed through him, the overwhelming sense of failure crushed everything else.

He had failed, failed not just himself, but Ochako. Because of his weakness, Ochako had been taken. His one great mission was to keep her safe, not to lose her as he had lost almost everything else in his life. The tears came as an unstoppable river that cascaded down his face. He shut his eyes, but the darkness only brought her face to mind, making him feel worse. Then he saw the lifeless face of his mother. Another failure.

Then Sasakura, Izuku hadn't been there for his final moments, but he remembered being handed the urn with his ashes. He hadn't done right by Sasakura, the man had taken him in when he had nowhere else to go, and Izuku hadn't even had the courtesy to say goodbye in person, just left him a note, fearful of seeing the disapproval and disappointment in Sasakura's eyes.

He curled up on the bed, his breathing ragged, and felt the weight of his failures crush him. He wanted to just curl up and die, a fitting punishment for a failure such as himself. Then, unbidden, he remembered another point of his life. Then, just like now, he had been crushed under the weight of his failure. When he focused on it, he could still see the rooftop, feel the wind on his face, and hear the distant sounds of urban life.
But even as he remembered that moment, he recalled what came next. The sight of Ahmya's tear-stained face and her angry screaming.

"YOU HAVE ME!" Ahmya screamed, tears forming in her right eye and falling down her cheek before dripping onto his own. The void where her left eye should have been, all too apparent.

"You'll always have me..." she said, much quieter.

Then another scene wormed its way to the surface. Of a muddy forest, as he and Bakugo faced each other for the first time in almost ten years.

"I don't hate you. So... I think It's time we move on." He said, trying to show the genuineness of his offer on his face.

Bakugo turned to face him, his eyes wide, and he shook his head a couple of times as if unable to believe what he had heard; he looked up to the sky, dark and rainy. He brought his hands to his head and dragged them across his face. Bakugo took a deep breath and looked at him and Izuku could see the uncertainty in his body language but also the hope on his face.

"Yeah... it's time," Bakugo said, a tired smile forming on his face.

He wouldn't, couldn't forget those moments; moments where he realized he still had something left, and when he regained something he once thought lost forever. So while he might have lost Ochako, while the weight of his failure crushed him, he also clung to those moments, clung to what little hope he still had. He wasn't alone, not anymore. He had sworn to himself, that he would never let himself sink so low as he had that day on the rooftop. It kept the flame of hope alive inside him, and while it might keep him from breaking, it could do nothing to lessen the heart-rending pain he felt.

While he wrestled with his emotions, he didn't notice the door open and close.

"Izuku...?" came a soft voice from behind him.

He opened his eyes, and adrenaline shot through him at the sound of Ahmya's voice. He didn't move, just kept himself curled up and his back facing her. He didn't want to see her, not now, didn't want to show her his weakness.

"Izuku?" Ahmya said again, this time closer and he could hear her sit down in the chair next to his bed.

"please... just go..." he whispered, not trusting to voice to be any higher.

There was a long silence, then he heard Ahmya sigh.

"Izuku, look at me," she said softly.

He didn't move though, he just shut his eyes tight and wished she would leave.

As the silence dragged on, he heard Ahmya take a deep breath.

"TYUMOKU!" She suddenly barked out, loud and strong.

Immediately long-instilled conditioning from when he was in the QSU took over, his body immediately sat up and turned to face her, even as the tears continued to flow down his cheeks.

As he faced her, he got a glimpse of her short black hair, before he found himself being dragged forward by her. Her arms pulled him into a hug, his head resting on her chest as she clutched him tight.

"I'll always be here for you, always," she whispered.

Her words were an echo of what she had said on that rooftop so long ago, and he broke. What self-control he had, was shattered by those words. He let all of his emotions flow out into her embrace, while she held him tight, whispering reassurances to him. He wasn't sure how long he spent in her embrace, time seemed to blur, but the emotional outpouring exhausted him, and he eventually fell asleep in her arms.

When he awoke the next day, he was lying in his bed and Ahmya was nowhere to be seen. His eyes were red and puffy, but his mind felt clearer. His thoughts drifted to Ochako, but Ahmya had allowed him the cathartic release he had needed. He still felt his failure, still felt that despair that threatened to consume him, but now it was lessened. Now it was contained and from here he could focus again. He reached for his phone, which Ahmya had deposited on her seat, and sent her a quick message.

"Thanks for coming by, it helped a lot. Sorry we didn't get a chance to talk," he texted her.

"I'm glad I could help, I'll come by tomorrow and we can talk more then. By the way, one of the nurses let me know that Bakugo said he would be stopping by later today, and it's starting to get late," she texted back.

"Thanks for the heads up," he replied and then put his phone down.

He reached for a tissue and after cleaning himself up as best he could, started taking a series of deep breaths. Talking with Bakugo remained a bit awkward, even if they were on better terms now. Neither of them knew what to do about the other now that they had "made up". Ochako had tried to get the two of them to hang out a few times, but it had never worked as she probably hoped. They weren't really friends, not yet anyway, but it was getting there.

After he had centered his mind, he grabbed his phone once more and started responding to the backlog of messages that had come in over the last two days. Everyone from Ochako's friend group had messaged him, along with various teachers from UA, all asking about him. He noticed however that none of them mentioned Ochako.

He was in the middle of composing a message to Kirishima when the door to his room opened. He looked up to see Bakugo stride into the room and close the door behind him. He walked over to the chair, grabbed it, and sat down in it. He leaned back in the chair, folded his arms, and looked Izuku over.

"So." He said with a stony expression. "What happened?"

"I would have thought you would have been briefed on it by now," Izuku said, mildly surprised.

"I've heard what happened," Bakugo emphasized. "It's been the top news story for the last few days across multiple countries. Those don't tell me what happened though, and I wanted to hear it from you before I did from a formal briefing."

Izuku looked away from Bakugo, staring down into his lap, at his hands.

"The woman who attacked us had a stealth ability of some kind, allowing her to blend into her surroundings but producing a heat haze effect as a side effect. I saw that haze move through the sky toward us and was able to get us out of the way of the initial attack." He fell silent then as he recalled the next moment, his hands clenching.

"I... couldn't do anything... One hit was enough to almost take me out of the fight entirely. No physical blow has hit me that hard before. When I managed to drag myself out of the rubble and get the people around me out of the way, I saw Ochako and the woman grappling in the air. They were even with me so I jumped on top of the woman's back and tried to stab her. Then her back exploded and her spines impaled me all over." Izuku said, his frustration growing.

"All I could do was watch, and bleed out while she took Ochako." He said bitterly.

"Aria is someone almost no one can fight straight on," Bakugo said.

"This always happens..." Izuku said quietly, his fingernails digging painfully into his palms as he clenched his hands ever tighter.

He had started to think, stupidly think, that maybe the worst of his life was behind him. That after the war, after Zeus, maybe, just maybe, that things would settle down, that he could relax for the first time in years. He could start to have a life with Ochako, a job that he would have loved to have as a child, and have more friends than he'd ever had before in his life. Like everything else in his life though, it was all falling apart. Like every time before, he had come up short, never strong enough to protect anything when it mattered. His blood boiled, he'd expelled his despair yesterday, and now all that remained was the rage and the hate. His hate for that woman and himself.

"Don't blame yourself for this," Bakugo warned.

"YOU HAVE A QUIRK! YOU COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING!" Izuku suddenly shouted.

There was a long silence following his outburst, the only noise being his agitated breathing. Then he let out an explosive sigh and pressed the palms of his hands to his brow, while his fingers gripped his hair.

"Sorry..." he mumbled.

"Save your anger for whoever's responsible for this," Bakugo said.

Izuku looked sidelong at Bakugo.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Aria isn't the reason why Ochako was taken; at least I don't think so," Bakugo said, glowering at Izuku, but Izuku wasn't sure that Bakugo saw him. His thoughts were elsewhere.

"Aria Lin was a normal woman, who was kidnapped by the League for her unique quirk. They wanted to produce Nomu faster using her, and while the League didn't succeed, Zeus was able to use her to make his hounds. Her entire body is a mess of mutations and surgical alterations, but I killed her during the lab raid. I don't know how the hell she is alive, but she has no reason by herself to target us, let alone Ochako. So I'm thinking that either this isn't Aria Lin or someone else is forcing her to do this." Bakugo said a foot taping as he spoke his thoughts aloud.

Izuku remembered seeing Aria's face, her eyes, and how dead she looked.

"I... I think you're right, I got a good look at her face before she escaped, and she looked... dead. No... not dead, more... empty, like there was nothing left inside of her." He said, releasing his grip on his hair as he focused.

"There was another thing too, she had trouble killing me. She suffered a spontaneous nosebleed, muscle spasms in the face, bloody tears, and weakness in her legs." He said, trying to piece it all together to form an answer that made sense.

"She was pretty fucked up in the head, but she never showed any physical problems like those," Bakugo said, eyes narrowed slightly in thought.

They each fell silent, both trying to figure something out, but eventually Bakugo growled in annoyance.

"Ahhh fuck it, not gonna figure anything out like this. I'll bring it up at the briefing though. Everyone's been called to it, so I imagine everyone will want to see you at some point after they arrive. Especially Mi-" Bakugo cut himself off before he said Mina's name, instead sighing.

"Look... you just focus on recovering your strength, I'll handle things in the meantime," Bakugo said, standing up and turning to leave.

As he reached the door, he paused and turned his head partway toward Izuku.

"Don't worry about Ochako, we'll get her back, I swear it." He said promised, before leaving the room.

The first thing she became aware of was the darkness pressing down on her. As her mind slowly put the pieces of information she was receiving together, she realized the darkness was from the blindfold on her. Next was the fact that she was bound to something. From her neck, down her torso, and along her arms and legs, she was securely bound and could hardly move at all. She tried to flex her hands and realized that they too were bound, with bands on her fingers preventing her from touching anything with the pads on her fingertips. She was also extremely warm, not so hot that it was uncomfortable but as if some thick blanket was stretched over her.

All of this she registered in the first few moments, then the smell and texture on her skin assailed her and she gagged. She had smelled the odor before, the smell of death and blood. As if a fresh corpse had been ripped open. Only her experience from the war allowed her to keep the rising bile down. She coughed and had to breathe through her mouth to help lessen the impact of the stench. The texture she felt though was just as horrid, and then she realized what she thought to be a blanket or something similar was fleshy. Like some cancerous growth had overtaken her limbs and waist, leaving her torso and head exposed.

She had to run through breathing exercises and everything else she knew to calm herself, her wealth of combat experience and overall numbness to horror finally allowed her to overcome her panic and focus her mind. She thought back to the last thing she remembered, that of Aria's huge clawed hand smashing into her head and spiking her into the ground, where she blacked out.

It was odd then, that she was still alive. Not only was Aria Lin alive, but she had been after her, just like she had been in their first encounter. Nothing about what had happened made sense to her, and so rather than trying to figure things out, she opted to instead try and free herself.

Which proved to be impossible.

For starters, she couldn't touch her restraints with her fingers, only the fleshy substance that encased her, which her quirk couldn't affect in the way she wanted. Her gravity armor also proved to be ineffective. Wherever the restraint pressed into her, the gravity couldn't create the thin layer between her skin and the restraints which not only were formfitting but might have even had some kind of adhesive on the underside to ensure it was airtight. She tried to push herself forward in an attempt to break the restraints, but careful testing showed she risked seriously injuring herself or worse in the attempt. The restraints were incredibly strong and if she did put everything she had into it, she'd probably rip her body into pieces while the non-restrained parts were protected by the gravity armor, and the restrained parts were not. Escaping, appeared to be impossible, at least for the moment.

Then she heard the sound of a door opening, with the tell-tale kerchunk of a push bar being used to open the door. Wherever she was, it was likely industrial. Then came the sounds of shoes thumping the floor, like heavy boots. Another clue to the nature of her location.

The footfalls came to a stop in front of her and hands reached around the back of her head and undid the blindfold. She blinked in pain are light greeted her and she grimaced. While her eyes adjusted she heard the figure rummaging around, moving things she couldn't identify with just sound. At one point though, she heard the distinct sound of a medicine bottle being knocked over, the pills inside rattling as the figure grunted in annoyance.

Finally, her eyes adjusted but she still couldn't see much, light was shining directly into her face, running her night vision and preventing her from seeing anything not directly in the light. She looked down and saw, as she suspected, that she was mostly encased in a cocoon of bloody flesh. She could only assume that this was the work of Aria, but how her quirk morphed to have this ability she couldn't imagine. Then the figure stepped into the light.

He was a man of average height, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, with well-worn work boots on his feet, and surgical gloves on his hands. What stood out though, was the oni-mask that he wore. It was rather simple in design, but where the eye holes would have been, were instead electrical lenses. Ochako guessed that if she could examine the mask more closely, it would be a well-made piece of technology, with all sorts of functions. She wouldn't be surprised if it was also a gas mask, judging by the audible artificial noise his breathing had.

"Good evening, I hope you aren't too uncomfortable." He said, his voice being altered by the mask.

Ochako didn't say anything, just stared ahead of her.

The man nodded as if he had expected nothing else.

"You are probably concerned about where you are. Well, rest assured that we are in a well-secured location. We need not worry about being interrupted." He said, reaching beyond the light, pulling up a chair, and taking a seat.

"You know, I've always wanted to meet you; well an Angel at any rate. Though, if my information is correct, they are all dead, save you. A shame, I could have used more of you." He said, with a sigh.

Still, she said nothing.

"It's quite all right. You don't need to say anything. You'll join me eventually anyway. The only question is..." He said, trailing off and reaching once more into the darkness and pulling a rolling table into view.

"How long your mind will last." He said ominously as he picked up an oxygen mask with an unmarked gas tank affixed to it.