Izuku couldn't believe what he was hearing. These villains wanted to kill All Might? That couldn't be done. All Might was stronger than anyone, he was the strongest hero that the world had ever known. No matter what Izuku's personal feelings towards him were, that fact hadn't changed. He couldn't be killed by these guys. Besides, he wasn't even here. Maybe they could convince these villains to leave, because their target wasn't even present. No, they'd probably just kill the class and their teachers before they left. In fact, that may be a backup plan, to kill everyone in the class to draw All Might out. That was bad, if so. No, he was in his own head again! Izuku had to stop overthinking things. They couldn't kill All Might, and they wouldn't kill his classmates, because they were all strong and he'd make sure they stayed alive. He wasn't about to go and lose the first group to accept him in his life. He'd die before that happened.

The mist man laughed at the silence that followed his question. It was a hearty laugh, one that seemed genuine, and it sent alarm bells ringing in Izuku's head at the insane calm this person seemed to feel. Who could feel calm when they'd just said they intended to kill the number one hero? Clearly, Izuku's suspicion from earlier was correct, and these guys weren't just any old villains.

"Ah, I apologise. We have not introduced ourselves yet, so it is of course understandable that you would not answer my question. My name is Kurogiri, of the Villain Alliance. You are Thirteen, the space hero, and Class-1A of UA's hero course, yes?" the mist man continued.

Izuku suddenly felt a surge of strength. It was as if his throat had been unimaginably tight and dry since he'd seen that floating villain, but now it felt as though he could breathe. His legs stopped shaking as he got an idea in his head about what to do with this misty villain, but it wasn't a good idea. No, it was downright terrible, and was more likely to get him gutted than it was to actually work, but Izuku's brain was operating on pure reflex, and he blurted it out before he could stop himself.

"No, we're Class B!" he said, his voice breaking.

The misty villain, apparently named Kurogiri, paused for a moment. His narrow, yellow, glowing eyes widened significantly, but then returned to their normal, thin state, as if he'd been momentarily surprised and then figured out the trick. There was a low, bassy laugh that reverberated throughout the group's bones, and a slight movement from Kurogiri that made Izuku flinch back from an anticipated attack. Uraraka kept her arm around his shoulders, which was nice of her, and Izuku in turn kept his hand firmly on her shoulder, the two of them holding onto each other for mutual support now, more than to get Izuku moving.

"A childish attempt at deception. No matter; I am simply meant to scatter you around the facility so that my comrades can finish you off. Now, die," Kurogiri said.

That was when his form began to shift. That was also when Thirteen broke through the group and stood in front, two fingers on each hand uncapped and thrust outward. Air suddenly began rushing toward them and into the abyss inside their suit, a cone of wind beginning to form in front of Thirteen. The mist surrounding Kurogiri began to be sucked in as well, the edges of his form evaporating and flying away from him. Izuku heard students cheer, but he could tell something was wrong. Kurogiri was staying completely still, not trying to get out of this attack at all. That meant he was confident he could withstand it, or he had a counter ready. It was at that moment that a patch of Kurogiri's dark mist almost solidified, like a circular plane of solid fog, and Izuku realised immediately what it must have been. Kurogiri had been the one to transport all the villains there, so he must have been able to form portals out of his mist. So where was the other one? Where was he attempting to warp to?

That question was answered with the beginnings of a portal beginning to manifest behind Thirteen's back. They were out in front, the students pushed back so that they could have space, so everybody saw and gasped out in shock. Izuku was the only one that didn't. Instead, he felt the sudden, overpowering urge to move. It was as if every nerve in his body was on fire, begging for motion, and he couldn't deny himself that need. Izuku saw what Kurogiri was trying to do. If it indeed worked like that, Thirteen was about to be ripped apart from their own Quirk. Izuku couldn't let that happen. He couldn't let one of his favourite heroes die while he could do something. Before, Izuku had begged himself to move but couldn't, but now, he couldn't slow down if he tried, slipping out of Uraraka's hold and breaking away from the group of his classmates. Izuku rushed across the ground, almost feeling as if he was pushed along by an unseen force at his back, and arrived at Thirteen just as the shadowy portal behind them took on a solid shape.

Izuku pushed Thirteen out of the way. They both went tumbling to the side, out of the way of the portal, but they weren't quite fast enough to get away unscathed. As they were moving out of the way of the portal, Izuku felt the pull of Thirteen's Quirk through the portal, and he realised that Kurogiri's attack would've proven fatal if Izuku hadn't intervened. Instead, it was only a part of Izuku's arm that crumbled away, first his costume sleeve, then his skin, then a bit of muscle, before the residual pull faded from when Thirteen's Quirk had been active just a second ago. The two of them fell to the ground to the side of the portal, Thirteen immediately scrambling up to see what had happened and Izuku clutching at his arm with tears in his eyes. He took a look at the outside of his forearm with hesitation, and almost threw up at the sight.

There were a few patches where Thirteen's Quirk had gotten him good, splotches of torn up skin and ripped muscle. He hadn't been in the pull for long, and the damage wasn't too bad, but it hurt like hell, like a thousand tiny needles had come up from inside his arm and ripped through his flesh. His sleeve was entirely gone in that area, but he wasn't worried about that. Izuku held his hurt arm up to his chest and got to his feet unsteadily, with only one good arm to prop himself up with. He looked at Thirteen to make sure they were okay, and they looked unharmed. Izuku almost laughed at how insane what he'd just done was, but he didn't feel much like laughing when he saw how Thirteen trembled at the sight of his arm.

"Oh, kid, why'd you do that?" they asked, sounding like they were on the verge of tears.

Izuku felt it click in his head. This was what it felt like to be torn apart by their kind of Quirk. This was what it felt like to be disassembled and ripped open. This was what it felt like to be Decimated. Was this what his kindergarten teacher had felt in her last moments; what all those other children had felt as they'd died, or worse, lived through the pain? It was horrible, and he wanted it to stop, but that pain suddenly fell away as he realised that he'd now felt exactly what the victims of his Quirks had in their last moments alive. That realisation caused him to stop for a moment in silence. Izuku stared at his wounds, feeling an unknowable but all-encompassing anger, grief and sorrow well up in his chest. He couldn't do anything for a few seconds, but when he was able to do anything at all after the shock of it, a scream ripped out of his throat as he took in the feeling, the sight, the karma of his injuries. He looked back at Thirteen, who he could tell was shaking like a leaf under that bulky suit, and immediately began profusely apologising with tears rolling down his face.

"I saw what he was doing, and my body just moved. I couldn't control myself! I'm so sorry!" Izuku choked out.

Thirteen put their hands on his shoulders to silence him. Izuku stopped talking immediately and looked up into those static, white eyes. He couldn't glean any emotion from them, but he knew that Thirteen was probably feeling the same regret he was right about now. Izuku had known that Thirteen had to have hurt someone with their Quirk at least once, otherwise they wouldn't make a speech like the one they had. He'd known that, and he'd still leapt in without a care for what happened, because of the idea that he could save a pro hero. What an idiot he was. How big was his ego that he thought he could be a better hero than Thirteen?

"Hey, no pity parties. I'm gonna get you back to your classmates, and you're gonna get patched up after I kick this guy's butt. You understand me?" Thirteen said, interrupting Izuku's thoughts.

"Okay," he sighed.

"Okay. Now, when I say, you're gonna sprint to your classmates. Do you know anyone who has first-aid supplies?" Thirteen asked.

"I do," Izuku answered.

"Good. Get them to patch you up. Some disinfectant, gauze and bandages ought to do the trick," they said. Izuku noticed that Thirteen was sounding stronger now than they had before, likely due to that same 'battle mode' that Izuku had caught onto earlier.

Izuku just nodded, unsure of how much he trusted himself to talk without his voice being all over the place. The pain really was something else, and he'd probably be screaming right that second if he wasn't giving everything he had into not giving that away. The others didn't need to hear that. They'd see it soon enough, but the least Izuku could do in this situation was put on a brave face.

He got to his feet properly and looked around. Kurogiri had dismissed his portal, and hadn't moved from his spot near the door. It seemed that he was observing Izuku and Thirteen, trying to determine if his plan had worked. He was like a predator, with his gleaming eyes and gently waving aura of fog. Izuku subtly adjusted his stance so that he could break out into a sprint at a moment's notice, but made sure to face Kurogiri to not give away the plan. Thirteen stepped in front of him, and a few moments of silence played out. Well, relative silence, because Izuku could hear his classmates whispering among themselves about what he'd done and what it looked like from there. He could feel blood running down his arm and a quick look told him that the remains of his sleeve were soaked through with red, but he couldn't pay attention to the way his arm was throbbing with every beat of his heart. Not when Thirteen stepped forward and threw a hand back in a thumb's up, which was presumably the signal to rush back to his classmates.

That was what Izuku did, immediately pumping his feet against the ground in an attempt to get back to his classmates before Kurogiri could open a portal and take him away, or do any number of things that would be more than a little unpleasant. The ground passed beneath his feet in a blur as Thirteen called out something like an ultimate move, and the air got thick again. Izuku managed to get back to his class, a little slower than before but he managed it nonetheless. He fell to his knees in the middle of the group, and they crowded around him to get a look at the damage to his arm. Izuku began taking things out of the pockets and pouches on his costume, things like disinfectant spray, gauze wrappings, bandage rolls. He placed them all on the ground next to himself as he let himself fall to the ground, out of breath just from running back and forth.

A collective gasp rang out through the crowd of his classmates. Uraraka, Iida and Yaoyorozu were crowded around him, as friends and as those who knew how to use the stuff he'd pulled out, if he had to guess. Yaoyorozu started examining the wound on his arm, and frowned deeply as she did. Her delicate, gentle hands twisted his arm around to get a good look at the damage, and Izuku had to look away when her eyes flashed with horror at the searing wound. He managed to give her a look that hopefully conveyed his lack of patience right now, but she wouldn't meet his eye, wouldn't take her gaze away from the gouge in his arm.

"Yaoyorozu!" Izuku cried. She snapped her fearful eyes up to him, and he suddenly felt a great regret for shouting at her. He took a few deep breaths, and tried his best to calm himself with the great throbbing pain in his arm. "I'm sorry. Can you do this?" he asked.

"Yes. Of course," she said, her voice hard and clearly not how she'd normally speak, given the look in her eyes.

Yaoyorozu quickly got to work going through the steps of wound care. First, she ripped the remains of his sleeve off, somehow managing to remain polite while doing so. Yaoyorozu sprayed the disinfectant on the area. Izuku hadn't come into contact with anything that could contaminate or otherwise infect him, but it was safe to do it anyway. Next was the sterile gauze, which she wrapped halfway around his forearm and got Izuku to hold in place with his good hand. Then came the bandage wrappings, which snaked around his arm at least a dozen times before Yaoyorozu felt content leaving it. It was all topped off with a clip that pinned the bandage closed. Now it'd only come off if someone wanted it off. Izuku took a moment to look at his wrapped up arm, his sleeve cut off at the elbow now, and just caught his breath. It was a lot to take in, and he was still feeling a little dizzy. At that, he took a drink of water from his Recovery Girl-approved bottle.

"Are you okay?" Iida asked, putting a strong hand on Izuku's limp, hanging shoulder.

"Yeah. I should be good. How's Thirteen doing?" Izuku said, getting to his feet after sitting on the ground.

At that very moment, a sinister feeling spread through every single one of Izuku's senses. A vile thing was about to happen. Darkness clouded his vision, the air felt cold, and the pressure from before was back in an even more oppressing manner, as Kurogiri's mist spread in a sphere around them all. Izuku felt something similar to before, when he'd rushed out to help Thirteen. He looked around for the others, and saw Uraraka standing dangerously close to the mist, having taken steps back at the sight of his arm. Izuku caught her eye, saw her notice what was happening and take a sharp breath. It happened again, just like with Thirteen. He saw the look in her eye, the unrestrained fear and panic in Uraraka's eyes as she was nearly swallowed by the inky darkness and his body responded. It was like answering a call you didn't know how to decline.

Izuku didn't think about anything, didn't consider if it was safe, he didn't even hesitate to move with his arm in the state it was in. He simply took a few steps and spun around, throwing himself around Uraraka to shield her from whatever Kurogiri had in store for them. He couldn't hear over the rush of blood in his ears, but he was certain the warper said something. All Izuku could feel was the contact of his body and Uraraka's, and the way she clung to him in return, as her hands shook against him and she held him just as tightly as he held her. It was a moment of pure instinct, and then it was gone, as the two of them fell out of the mist.

Except, it was different. It was dark, but it was a different kind of dark than Kurogiri's shadow, and when Izuku's eyes adjusted to that, he realised that it was because they were somewhere else in the USJ. The two of them had been spat out onto the floor, still holding each other, out in the street of one of the other zones, probably the Conflagration Zone by the urban environment that was currently burning all around them. At least he'd managed to keep Uraraka safe enough, as they'd landed one on top of the other, with Izuku taking the brunt of the impact on the ground due to the spin he'd pulled off before they'd been transported. That also gave him a new problem, though.

Uraraka was on top of him. They were on the ground, and Uraraka was still holding him tightly as she laid on top of him. Of course, it was kind of his fault for jumping out at her. Izuku thought she was unconscious for a moment, due to the stillness of her body, but then she suddenly looked up at him, and he realised that he'd grabbed her at about the middle of her back, which meant that the way they were positioned was akin to their heights standing up, and he really wasn't that much taller than Uraraka. In fact, they were practically nose to nose as they looked at each other in that moment. At least one of them had some sense, as Uraraka quickly hopped up and backed back away with a deep redness on her face. Izuku silently cursed under his breath, as he should've been the first one to move, but he'd been caught off kilter and he wasn't thinking right. As he got to his feet as well, Izuku used his bad arm for leverage, and collapsed back onto the ground, face first this time, as it gave out right away.

Izuku, using his good arm this time, got up and stood against the wall of the alley they'd been warped to. He looked over at Uraraka, but she seemed caught in her own head, looking at him with a distant thoughtfulness in her eyes that made Izuku hesitate. She seemed to break out of that quickly, though, and looked down at his arm with a furrowed brow.

"Is your arm okay? That can't have been good for it," she asked, pointing to it lazily.

"Uh, yeah. It should be fine if I don't put too much pressure on it," Izuku said hurriedly, glad for the change of topic.

The two of them stood in the alley in silence. Izuku was waging war on himself internally, wondering what he should do about the situation. Should he apologise for what happened when they landed, should he ignore it and start moving toward the exit, should he just sit tight and wait for help, what? Eventually, he decided to clear the air between himself and Uraraka, so that their teamwork wouldn't be impaired if they came across villains while on the move to safety, because even if it was a training environment that wouldn't hurt them with Thirteen's supervision, Izuku could feel the heat from the flames and could tell that this place was actually on fire, not just a hologram or whatever bullshit tech UA could pull out of nowhere.

"Uraraka—" "I'm—"

Izuku and Uraraka both tried to speak at the same time. They cut themselves off immediately, waiting for the other to speak, but instead just broke out into laughter. God, they were so awkward that they couldn't even talk to each other during an actual villain attack. They needed to get it together, but it was just so funny in their frazzled states that they stood there for a while, getting this jittery anxiety out of their systems in the form of manic laughter at their own stupidity. They laughed, and laughed, and Izuku couldn't remember the last time he laughed. It was nice. Uraraka had a nice sounding laugh, it was airy and light, like her. After some time, Izuku stopped laughing and just looked at her keep cackling like she'd just heard the funniest thing in the world. In the low light, and in that costume, Izuku felt his heart skip a beat. She was beautiful. He let himself feel flushed in the face for a moment as he considered just confessing how he felt right then and there, but something stopped him. He recalled his conversation with Kaminari earlier that afternoon. Izuku had taken more than one chance today, so he could take one more.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked, but it was lost under the crackling of the fires and her laughter.

"What?" Uraraka asked, still giggling. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What?" she added, her sporadic bursts of laughter finally dying down for good. She looked at him with a warmth in her eyes that made Izuku want to ask again, but also made him want to run away and never admit that he was hopeless when it came to her. Uraraka didn't really know the kind of power she had over him, did she? Izuku steeled his nerves and took a deep breath in.

"Do you—"

"There!" a new voice yelled, low and gruff.

Izuku and Uraraka both snapped their gazes upwards, finding a man with a visor over his eyes, green lenses tinting his eyes to be a kind of poison green. He had long arms and disproportionately large hands, with them hanging down past his knees and his hands being about the size ded to comfortably hold two watermelons in one hand. He was looking down at them from the roof of the building Izuku was leaning on for support, and gesturing with one of his unnervingly large hands behind him, likely to signal some friends that he'd found them. Izuku knew this was a villain, and pushed off the wall to get ready for a fight. He looked back at Uraraka to find her doing the same thing.

A group of men, all thin and lanky and taller than them threw themselves off the edge. The first was that guy with the massive hands, second was a man with two gleaming daggers, goggles and a face mask similar to Izuku's, the third was a man wrapped in bandages, similar to a mummy, and the fourth was what looked like a one-eyed man with the horns of a bull. They all landed deep in the alley, shrouded by shadow and darkness. Izuku recognised these four, because they were a villain group that had recently been on the news for a string of armed robberies and murder. They'd been terrorising their neck of the woods for weeks, and now they were here? This was bad. They weren't very powerful, but they were apparently slippery, and knew how to use their Quirks well. Uraraka was better at utility, and Izuku refused to use his Quirk on them, so how could they fight them? Izuku tried to think, but no single thought could rise above the panic in his chest. It was all the thoughts at once, which made his head hurt, or none at all, which just made him feel how fast his heart was beating all the more.

A gentle hand came down on Izuku's shoulder, and he looked over to see Uraraka smiling. It was a wobbly, fake smile, but it was a smile. She looked him in the eyes with a sharp expression, which only made his heart beat faster, and gave him a shaky thumb's up.

"Let's win this and get back to our classmates, yeah? Plus Ultra," Uraraka said, giving his shoulder a light squeeze of affirmation.

Well, if Uraraka was going to put her faith in him, how could he possibly give up now? He needed a plan, and quick, but he knew how to stall for time. He retracted his glove's mechanism on his good hand and pressed all five of his fingers onto the side of the building.

This was going to get intense.