He had been on borrowed time.

Old man sanchez had been the oldest survivor of the failed regime that was Los Muertes, in truth he was only 43, but Nova had turned him into a shallow husk of the man he was supposed to be; thin, aged limbs grasped at nothing, his lungs rattled with every breath that passed between his hollow cheeks. His eyes stared unblinkingly ahead, glazed over with pain.

It was all the man could feel now, the morphine drip helped, but Izuku knew it was a token comfort.

"How is he?" Santana asked from the door, refusing to look at the man that had helped them create venom, not wanting to see how bad he'd deteriorated over the course of a week.

"He won't last long," Izuku muttered, reaching out to hold the man's hand, he let out a sigh as he felt the hand try to squeeze his own, only to lose what strength it had, sliding limply onto the bed. "He's lasted the longest out of everyone…it's honestly amazing."

"No less amazing than being able to walk and talk without a slur." Santana scoffed, clenching his fist, "you're the only one who hasn't shown any adverse effects."

"Not many."

Santana glanced towards his friend, his shoulders falling a bit when he saw the shake in his hands, "how bad?"

"Doctors said my resistance to the drug is super human." izuku said, his voice sounded bitter, "only good thing about being quirkless i guess, I didn't have a quirk factor for the drug to latch onto, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect me…doc gave me thirty years, maybe. The Venom oddly enough helps, but it's not a cure…and it's got its own shelf life. I have maybe a decade of being able to safely use it before it starts affecting my health too."

Santana huffed out a plume of smoke, working to keep himself calm, "So that's it then?" he asked quietly, "that's how it ends?"

"No…" Izuku muttered. Slowly standing up, resting his hand on Sanchez's chest as the man breathed out his final breath. "But I got some things to think about, so i'm heading back to El Paso, my mother should still be there-"

"-you gonna pretend to be a normal kid or somethin?" Santana sneered, "you don't get to act like-"

"-no.'

Santana stopped talking as Izuku walked past him, the younger man was glaring ahead, every bit the Bane of Los Muertes as the people called him. "but whatever we do next, we're gonna do it right…until I can't do it anymore."

Izuku woke up to a burning sensation in his chest, his limbs felt heavy and weak, and a horrible migraine was making the runs through his head.

Briefly he wondered why he wasn't in his home, but it didn't take him long to remember that he had been at UA.

He slowly turned his head, wincing at the pain as he did so, looking about the too-clean infirmary illuminated by a setting sun.

"You awake sonny?" an aged voice asked, izuku turned his head once more to find Recovery girl sitting by his bed on the other side.

"Yeah," he croaked out, forcing his hand to come up to clutch his head, gritting his teeth at the needle-like pain that ran through his fingers, "I wish I wasn't."

"I was about to give you an IV for the pain, if you would…?"

Izuku presented his arm gratefully, sighing in relief once the drugs began to do their job, "Thank you." he mumbled, closing his eyes.

"Did you know?"

It was a simple question, one that Izuku hated answering, but he answered nonetheless, "yes." he muttered, keeping his eyes closed, "I've known since Los Muertes fell."

"And you spent your time starting fights instead of looking for a cure?" she asked, not harshly, and far more gently than Toshinori had when he'd found out.

"I looked," he said wearily, "I spent three years looking, and three years turning up with nothing, all the while the heroes around me acted little different than the gang members i'd crushed…" he sighed, opening his eyes to look at the old hero, who was patiently listening, "Nova puts the body under a lot of strain. It causes the cells to start degenerating at a rapid pace, I was lucky. I had a resistance to the drug due to being quirkless, it gave me decades instead of months. But my body is still breaking down."

"And there's nothing to help it?" she asked gently.

Izuku shook his head, "it's one of the reasons why I was willing to help." he muttered, "if I found a cure for this strain of Nova then…then maybe I'd be able to find a cure for myself."

"It's still possible." she said gently, looking to the entrance where Uravity had just entered, "but for now, rest. The excitement of the day overexerted your condition. I'm not authorizing any work until tomorrow morning at the earliest."

Izuku groaned, letting his head fall back as Recovery Girl left towards her office. A shuffling at the door had Izuku looking to the entrance of the infirmary, where Uravity was carefully walking towards him like he was a wounded animal.

"Hey," she greeted gently, "how are you feeling?"

"Like hammered shit." he said bluntly, "how are the trials going-" he cringed as a shoe suddenly impacted his head.

"I said no work!" Recovery girl snapped at him from her office, brandishing the other shoe threateningly.

"Got it." he grumbled, sharing a slightly scared look with Uravity, "how long have I been out?"

"Only a few hours." she said, fidgeting in her spot before sitting down in the chair recovery girl left behind, "you scared the shit out of us by the way."

"Sorry my chronic ailment was so inconvenient to you." Izuku said dryly, causing Uraraka to laugh.

"I'm not mad," she chuckled, "I just…well, it's wild to see you go from taking on guys three times your size, to seizing on the lab floor." she cringed a bit, but Izuku returned her chuckle.

"Yeah, they don't tell you the drawbacks of great power." he sighed, looking up at the ceiling, "hey, eri doesn't know, so please, try to keep it quiet? I don't want her worrying."

"Sure thing but…don't you think she should?"

"I got more than enough time to see her grow up." he rasped, "i'm not gonna worry her over something she can't control."

Uraraka looked like she wanted to argue, but nodded instead. "Nezu's currently watching over the trials, he said he won't mess with your formula's, but wants to make sure if a cure does come up then someones there to see it."

"Thank you," he mumbled, "I doubt this batch has anything that'll reach over 50% effectiveness, but if I can Isolate the compounds and build off the small successes, it should-" he stopped as Recovery Girl's other shoe slammed into his forehead.

"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT WORK!"

Izuku cringed, covering his head as she came stalking out of her office with her cane brandished. " Calmate bruja!" he yelped as she took a swing at him, narrowly missing his head. "Jesus, isn't hitting me bad for my health too?"

"Better for you than over exerting yourself." She griped, then pointed a finger at Uraraka, "and you, either don't talk about work or leave."

"Y-yes ma'am!" Uraraka when the old lady smacked her shin.

"Hmph, young heroes and vigilantes, all the same."

Izuku scoffed a bit as she walked away, "first time I've been called that since I was fourteen.'

"So you WERE a hero overseas." Uraraka cheered.

Izuku snorted, "yeah, I guess I was." he said, 'never official, but I put away my fair share before moving back here."

Uraraka hesitated, then carefully asked "so, why did you become a villain in Japan?"

Izuku mulled his words over for a few moments, "when I got home from Los Muertes, I spent the first months just reveling in being back with my mom…then I started seeing the small things that were happening around me. Small villain groups threatening poor village farmers, heroes not doing what heroes are supposed to; even town officials accepting bribes to look the other way on it all…well, my mother was working to get us back to Japan, but I had all the time in the world." he chuckled a bit,

"they called me the Bane of Los Muertes, a hero to the people who took out the cartel that was running the country…and i decided that there were others that needed a Bane in their lives."

"So you fought corruption."

"As much as I could as a thirteen year old with a band of former slaves." he said with a fond smile, "there were some who were considered too dangerous or too important to drug up, and when I called them up, they came. We wiped the villain groups out in a few months, the heroes were a bit harder; they had actual government backing, but when you're fighting a folk hero known for freeing people it's bad optics to keep backing the well known corrupt heroes. By the time my mother got the papers required to move back, we'd cleaned up the area around us and managed to snag some pardons for some of our actions against the heroes."

"And then you came here," Uraraka hummed.

"And then I came here," Izuku agreed with a nod of his head, "where the heroes are eight times more corrupt, and thrice as undeserving to be called such."

"Excuse-" Uraraka started with a bit of heat in her voice, but Izuku interjected.

"How many heroes showed their true colors when All For One returned?" he asked coldly, "how many of them abandoned their posts and joined the villains, how many are still out there now picking and choosing which people they save based on the optics they'll get for doing so?" he scoffed in disgust, "Japan's hero society was rotten, kept alive by a single selfless man who's retirement almost sent Japan into one of it's darkest periods on record; as it was, crimes still on the rise and the last of the league still hasn't been captured since Shiggy burned himself out"

Uraraka deflated a bit, "things have gotten better," she said quietly, "our graduating class has been working hard trying to clean up the mess left to us."

"But i'm not talking about right now." he said, "I'm talking about six years ago when I first got here. You know how many poor guys down on their luck got roughed up and thrown through a wall just because a hero needed some publicity? You know how many heroes we had to chase off from demanding protection money? Let me tell ya, I hit the ground running when I got here. The bank robberies were almost exclusively to draw them out, what glory hog could resist such a high publicity mark?" he shook his head, "tonto's rushed in, and I rushed em back out. Smile Man, Verdant, they were out of commission before Death arms could even get three blocks down." he shook his head, "i did that a couple more times before the USJ caught our radar, league of villains wanted heavy hitters and i wanted to know what their plans were."

"Was Diablo attacking Nomu a part of the plan?" Uraraka asked.

Izuku laughed, "It was a part of someone's plan, that's for sure." he mused, "i told Diablo to watch and observe, and only to engage if he had to. When Shigaraki tried using the Nomu to attack a couple of injured kids, Diablo decided that was a 'have to' engagement. He wasn't vibing with Shiggy either; so no skin off his back, and Shiggy's plans were definitely against what I wanted, so I wasn't too mad about the burned bridge."

"Probably for the best," she said lightly, "I don't know how things would've panned out if you'd been working for the League."

"Good thing we'd never find out," he mused, "I doubt i would've lasted long, too much of an oddity to not become a Nomu for the doctor and All For One, and i don't think Dabi would've gotten along with Diablo."

"There was a rumor going around that you were hooking up with Toga," Uraraka said slyly, laughing when he spluttered.

"Pero loca obsesionada con la sangre," he grumbled, running a hand through his hair, "you know she tried to stab me in my sleep like three times?"

"Wait, you actually dated her!?" Uraraka exclaimed, laughing as Izuku groaned.

"She acted like your typical highschooler when you first met her." Izuku grumbled, "and it wasn't until we actually had a date night and went back to her place that i realized just how crazy she was…god but i miss her." he sighed dreamily.

"Yeah," Uraraka sighed alongside him, then winced when he looked at her sharply, his grin practically predatory as Uraraka blushed.

"Sounds like i'm not the only one Vampirella bit." he waggled his eyebrows and Uraraka couldn't help herself as she laughed.

"We never went that far." she laughed, scratching the back of her head bashfully, "when she got captured she was held in the psyche ward for a while. I did a work study there to get some experience and we…I don't know, connected? I visited her until Dabi broke her and twice out…" her smile fell as she seemed to get lost in memories,

"I thought she would've stayed…at least for me."

Izuku smiled sadly, "She split with me after I told her about my intention to go straight." he said, making URaraka look up, "I tried to convince her she didn't have to be a villain, she told me in no uncertain terms to fuck off."

Uraraka scoffed, "guess we both have a type huh?"

"Yeah, Blonde, bubbly, crazy, knows how to use a knife." he grinned as Uraraka started laughing again. "Wonder what she's up to these days."

"Knowing her? I'm gonna go with 'stabbing someone'." Uraraka chortled, and Izuku chuckled.

"She accidentally got Diablo one morning when he didn't knock." he mused, "i think he got a tattoo for it."

"Where is he by the way?" Uraraka questioned, "I figured he'd of been back by now."

"He's checking in with some of our old contacts." Izuku said, "seeing if anyone we know is the one making these moves."

"Will he be okay doing that on his own?" she asked worriedly.

"He won't be on his own," he reassured, "and knowing him, he's already on a lead.

WVWVW

It was no good.

"Fourth spot we've been to boss." Zombie muttered, looking around the wrecked apartment, blood splattered on the walls and yet another familiar body left in the living room. "It's Santos too, he's not an easy mark."

"Fourth spot, third body found tonight." Trogg agreed, stepping out from the back rooms, "his bedrooms have been tossed too, doesn't look like anything was taken, but I can't be sure."

"Bird's falcon's see anything?" Santana asked from where he was kneeling by Santos, the large man had several lacerations across his chest and arms; with the last one being a deep, biting wound in his neck that had done him in.

Santana closed his eyes before standing up.

"Nothing that's useful." Zombie said as they walked out of the room, Trogg pulling his phone out to call the police and report Santos' death, "what the hell is happening that Santos of all people was swept up in it? He got out before all of us. Good job with some low level heroes agency; it makes no sense."

"What makes no sense is there's been no sign of forced entry." Trogg said, "you'd think we'd see a broken door frame, or a smashed window, but nothing. Whoever did this? Santos knew him, and knew him well enough to let him into the apartment."

"It was the same with the other two right? Santiago and Gomez?"

"Yeah, Gomez looked like he got turned into a paste, but no signs of forced entry."

"And the Rat was nowhere to be found," Zombie stated, "that can't be a surprise."

"Either he's apart of it, or he was smart enough not to get got." Trogg offered, "rata's always been a flake, but he's not one to betray people."

"So what do we do? Go looking for a rat?"

"Nothing else for it." Diablo muttered, as they stepped out into the street, his ears pricked when he caught the sight of a group of men lounging against the wall of the building a few feet away, he side eyed them for a bit before heading off down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets.

The men began following them.

"Diablo." Trogg started warningly.

"I see em." Diablo muttered back, Zombie glanced back as Trogg slipped some brass knuckles on through his pockets.

He heard the click of a safety being flicked off and Santana moved, ducking and turning to launch flames at the ground between the two groups as Zombie whirled about and launched a knife into the hand of the man who'd tried to shoot Santana, meanwhile Trogg was busting through a fence, "lets go!" he shouted, taking off down the formerly blocked alleyway, Zombie and DIablo following, their pursuers following a few moments later, only to duck back as a few bullets whizzed past and flames engulfed the pseudo-entrance.

"You think they're the ones who killed Santos?" Trogg asked, keeping his gun trained on the alley entrance while Diablo flicked some cinders off his jacket sleeve.

"Nah, they probably got sent when they noticed we were following their trail." Santana sneered, looking to the sky as a falcon flew by, giving three cries before it wheeled away, "Federales are comin', we gotta go."

'What about them?" Zombie asked, idly twirling a knife between his fingers.

Santana scoffed, "they follow we torch em, but boss said no risks. This is a risk." with a grunt he turned and kept walking down the alley, he could hear the heroes shouting, more than likely detaining the thugs who'd thought they could get the jump on them.

If they were good they'd find them again, until then Santana wouldn't risk going back to jail until he was sure he was torching the right guys.

And he was sure if he found the Rat he would lead him to the right guys.