From across the street, the Endeavor's horrible cackled filled

the neighborhood night.

Xxx

Shoto Todoroki stood over the telephone in his apartment, his hand still on the receiver. He looked up. He had some sad news:

"She's gone."

Izuku had just come out of his bedroom."What?"

"Kuri." Shoto said. "She just broke up with her boyfriend, man. She's in love with somebody else."

"Who?" Izuku said eagerly.

Shoto shot him a look. "I wonder."

"What?" Izuku said innocently

"Get that innocent look off your face, you can't pull it off. Her boyfriend was a friend of mine. Don't be happy when you only cause pain."

The phone started to ring.

"Things just come to you, don't they, Golden Boy?" Shoto continued his tirade. "You don't even have to try, you just have to want it. The brains. The grades. This apartment, but all that wasn't enough, you had to have the girl too."

"You're way out of line, man," Izuku shot back. "you're paranoid. You don't know what you're talking about."

Shoto stared Izuku down for a long moment. The phone was still ringing.

"We're not finished." Shoto snatched up the phone. "Hello. Yeah? What?"

There was a long pause, then he turned to Izuku, his face ashen.

"Someone broke into your mom's house." Shoto said brokenly. "She... Zu, she's..."

Before he could finish his sentence-BANG! The front door of the apartment building flew open and Izuku raced outside to the curb, looking for a cab.

Izuku ran right out into traffic, desperate. It was morning rush hour, traffic was bumper to bumper, even if he could find a cab it wouldn't be able to move.

Izuku pounded the hood of a car in frustration, the driver shouted out the window, horns honked, chaos. Izuku took off, down a side street.

Izuku ducked into an alley and turned to his alternative mode of transportation. Still in his street clothes, he hurled himself at the side of a building and began to climb with BlackWhip, shrugging off the from his injured ankle.

Gaining the building's rooftop, Izuku slung out BlackWhip and took off across the city, not even bothering to strip down to his hero suit.

Izuku raced down a hospital corridor, checking room numbers. He reached the last one on the right, ducked inside, and saw-

-Inko, semi-conscious in a hospital bed. Two nurses were at

work on her, she looked rough. The Nurses looked up, saw Izuku and nodded to him to come over.

Izuku came up to the bed, took his mom's frail, papery hand.

She turned her head, saw him through milky blue eyes. Izuku's own eyes filled with tears.

"I'm sorry..." Izuku sobbed. "I should have been there with you... I should have been there..."

"Those eyes... the devil's eyes..." Inko whispered

"Whose eyes? Who was it?" Izuku asked.

"...horrible yellow eyes!"

With a frightened shudder at the memory, Inko rolled over and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Izuku's own eyes popped open. Oh, God. Surely she doesn't mean...