Chapter 58

Eventually Shouta comes to realize that he is not, in fact, paralyzed.

That was his first thought when he felt the villain's quirk take hold. It was an easy mistake to make; there he was with his body suspended in invisible concrete, helpless to resist as Overhaul's men surrounded him and took him prisoner. But eventually, it occurs to him that he can still move, and his body is still responding to commands from his brain. It's just doing it very, very slowly. His eyelids slide at a snail's pace when he blinks, and when he tries to struggle, he may as well be swimming through actual, liquid concrete. Luckily it seems to affect voluntary actions only; he's still breathing fairly normally, so he's not about to suffocate, and when his hand finally reaches the side of his throat, he finds his pulse rate normal as well.

This also answers his most pressing question: the villain holding him prisoner has to be Kurono Hari, one of Overhaul's closest lieutenants.

At the moment, Shouta lies in a small chamber molded from the tunnels by Mimic's quirk, immobilized with Kurono and a few henchmen standing guard over him. Kurono took his knife, and someone tied a blindfold over Shouta's eyes to keep him from using his quirk. Someone else kicked him in the ribs and stamped down hard on his right leg. It's hard to judge the pain when he can hardly move, but they're most likely broken. Luckily, the villain quickly bores of kicking someone incapable of even reacting, much less fighting back, and none of the others pick up where he left off.

They're waiting, he realizes. They have to wait. Mimic can only control so much of the tunnels, and the Trigger that allows him to do so will only last so long. There's only one exit to their hiding place, and beyond it, their way out is still swarming with heroes. They have to wait for their boss to clear the way for them.

Kurono is saying something to him, but Shouta checked out a few minutes ago. It's not anything useful; the young man is simply ranting about his leader's motives. You hear one grandiose speech about destroying the world to build it anew, and you've heard them all.

And so, Shouta lies still and waits, because there's literally nothing else he can do besides bide his time until opportunity or rescue arrives. He wonders idly if there are any ghosts in the room with them.

He hopes they know not to bother with him. They're far more help to Midoriya than they are to him.

"Hey." The ghost that speaks to him is one of Overhaul's former followers, the one that called Chuuza a turncoat. Chuuza herself is nowhere to be seen; either they tore her apart or she fled. "You can help us fight, can't you? You can make it so he sees us, and feels us." His eyes glitter eagerly. "Do it. Bring us all in, and we'll beat him to a pulp for you."

The ones in hearing range echo the speaker.

"Do it!"

"What're you just standing there for?"

"I've waited long enough! I want to make him hurt!"

Nemoto Shin is the first to charge, navigating the treacherous ground before Chisaki has released it from his quirk. He's nimble and quick enough to manage it, and Izuku holds himself balanced and ready because Nemoto's path is heading straight for him.

His fingers spark. All around him, the voices of the dead rise and fall. Many of them are still focused on Chuuza, but they're there. He could make them solid, real. He could bring out a small army against Nemoto, against Larceny and Overhaul. They want to fight; they've made that much clear ever since Izuku brought them into this.

But.

Chuuza is still fresh in his mind. The last he saw of her, she was spitting curses and lashing at the angry dead around her. With Chuuza gone, the spectral crowd stirs, and Izuku hesitates. The power reaches his fingertips and goes no further.

What if she isn't the only one?

His hesitation almost costs him. Izuku blinks and Nemoto is close—he can dodge, but he's between him and Eri—can he grab her first? Does he have time—?

A gray blur blocks his vision, and Izuku stumbles back as Nighteye meets Nemoto head-on. In the blink of an eye, the masked man is hurtling into the nearest wall. He's a lot less graceful in landing than Izuku remembers being.

"Focus." Nighteye's sharp voice brings him back to the present. "They'll try to separate us. Keep hold of her—as soon as there's an opening, you get out. Do you understand?"

Izuku lifts Eri onto his back. She settles there, arms locked around his shoulders, and doesn't make a sound. "I understand," he says.

Overhaul's hands touch down once more, and the ground shreds itself to pieces. Spikes and shrapnel hurtle straight at them. Izuku dodges the worst of it, but feels the sting as tiny shards of concrete hurtle at his face. Eri's arms tighten around him, and he drops her face into his shoulder, which tells him that she got stung, too.

"Sorry," he whispers to her. "Are you okay, Eri?"

"Mm-hm." It comes out as a whimper.

Another barrage of debris flew at them. "Hold on!" Izuku launched himself into the air, rebounding off the nearest wall to stay clear and slow his descent. Voices reached his ears from all around, ghosts calling out warnings to cover the angles he can't see himself. The geography changes again and again, spikes and valleys and hidden pits, but Izuku manages to keep up with each attack.

But that's all he can do, keep up. He can't win like this. He can't even escape, not with Eri on his back. Chisaki closed all the exits, Izuku can't break open a new one without exposing himself and Eri to attack. They're still trapped, and with their line of communication gone, they have no way of knowing whether help is coming.

Another voice reaches him from the wall: Nemoto is on his feet, his mocking tone ringing out over the voices of the dead. "So you're all talk after all," he taunts. "How did you cheat my quirk?"

"I told the truth," is ripped from Izuku's throat. "Believe me, that's a first for me, too."

Nemoto shakes his head, as if giving up on him, and turns his attention on Nighteye instead. Izuku can only spare them a brief glance and trust that Nighteye has it handled.

"I am getting tired of this," Chisaki says dryly. He's barely moved in the past few minutes. "Larceny."

Instinctively, Izuku latches on to Eri's arms. He isn't sure if Larceny's quirk works on living things as well as inanimate objects, but right now Eri is the most precious thing he's holding, and if the yakuzas get their hands on her then all is lost.

But Larceny doesn't activate his quirk, and Eri never leaves his back. Instead, Chisaki rips up the ground yet again, forcing Izuku on the defensive. Spikes and explosions burst from the ground and narrowly miss tearing into his face. It's worse than anything Bakugou has ever thrown at him, worse than Pixie-bob at her most ruthless; it's a hurricane of shrapnel that obscures his vision, forcing him down to base instinct just to stay on his feet and keep from being bludgeoned to death by flying rubble, or skewered on the tip of a spike. He can't see Nighteye anymore, can't hear him if the hero tries to call out to him. Even the ghosts feel beyond reach; the only one quick enough to stay close is Rei. With a burst of One For All he flings himself backward, wincing when shrapnel still grazes him. His ears ring with the tearing of concrete and his own pounding pulse. 

When he can hear again, the ghosts are screaming at him.

"Watch out!"

He raises his head, and meets Larceny's crazed smile as he stares down the barrel of a handgun.

His immediate thought is to shield Eri. The instinct to dodge comes too late.

A point on his shoulder stings, and One For All's lightning sputters into sparks. Panic shoots through Izuku, flooding his senses with a choking feeling of dread. Rei is screaming, nearly drowning out the nearest ghosts when they warn him.

"Quirk-erasing bullets—"

His body moves on its own, driven by instinct and desperation. He can almost feel it spreading through his veins, burning out the fire and lightning inside him and leaving him cold and empty. He reaches for One For All's vanishing embers, stokes the fire but it can vanish completely—

and pours it all into the nearest ghost he can touch.

Rei's black eyes meet his for a split second, blank with shock, before the green lightning fills her.

And then Izuku can't feel it anymore. The familiar hum of his inherited quirk, always floating just within reach whenever he needs it, is gone. Numb silence roots him to the spot where he stands.

Across the room, Larceny laughs wildly as he turns the gun toward Nighteye. Izuku is watching his face, and sees the moment his triumphant smile vanishes.

A writhing mass of darkness hits him and keeps going, hurling him across the demolished ground until their momentum finally runs out. Larceny lands flat on his back, and the wriggling dark shifts, contorts and settles into the Rei's shape. She's crouching over him, strings of black leading from the tips of her claw-like fingers to Larceny's eyes. Her dark hair twists into living shadows.

Inches away from his face, Rei opens her mouth wide enough to split her head in half, and screams.

Larceny's mouth opens wide, but he doesn't scream. He probably can't. It takes some time before he finally, mercifully falls unconscious.

Chisaki lunges, but before he can try to touch Rei, she vanishes. Izuku blinks, and finds her standing near him again, green sparks running across her body. The other ghosts are silent, staring at her in shock—but they're there.

One For All is gone, but he still—

One For All is gone—

"It's not gone," a familiar voice says, startling him. It's Magne—Magne from the League of Villains is here, watching the fight instead of following her former comrades. "I've been watching 'em. You just got hit with one of their temporary bullets. Survive this, and it'll come back. Eventually."

Izuku looks to her, raw with hope. After Chuuza, he isn't sure if he can trust another villain ghost so soon. And this is Magne, a member of the League, who has only ever hurt him and hurt his classmates and teachers. She hurt Pixie-bob. She helped kidnap him and Bakugou. She's part of the reason why Ragdoll lost her quirk.

The dead villain sneers a little. "What's that look for?" she asks. "I'm no sycophant like that bitch from before. You know damn well where my loyalties lie. He killed me, and I want him destroyed, simple as that."

"She's right," another ghost adds. "They only just developed the permanent bullets, and with the girl gone they couldn't make more. They won't waste the few they have arming an Expendable. If anyone's got them it's Chisaki himself."

"At least Nemoto's down," someone else says.

Izuku looks around, trying to pinpoint where he last saw Nemoto, and jumps when Nighteye seems to materialize next to him. There's blood on the hems of his sleeves.

"Where's Nemoto?" Izuku asks.

"Taken care of," Nighteye replies grimly. "Your quirk—"

"It's temporary," Izuku says. "I think. Only—" He hesitates, because Chisaki may still be in earshot. "Only the strength is gone." He feels sick to his stomach, admitting that to the man who didn't want him to inherit it in the first place.

If Nighteye has anything to say about it, a low growl from Rei stops him short. He looks straight at her, seeing her. She's there, visible and solid and real. She looks back at him, considering. A tendril of black hair slithers free from the rest and curls up toward Nighteye. He eyes it cautiously, until he sees that the end of it is wrapped around Larceny's handgun.

"My patience is wearing thin." Chisaki's voice, muffled as it is by the mask, still reaches them easily. "Give me the girl."

"Are you really in a position to be making demands?" Nighteye asks. It's two against one, now. Three, if they count Rei. The look on Rei's face tells Izuku that she very much counts herself.

"Consider this," Chisaki says mildly. "Having her with you does not guarantee your safety. If I have to tear you both apart, and her along with you, then I will. I have a lot of practice putting her back together."

Izuku opens his mouth to tell him where he can stick his demands. Rei unhinges her jaw and cuts him off with a rattling shriek that reverberates in the marrow of his bones. To Chisaki's credit, he only hesitates a little before he lunges forward to turn the room against them once more.

A quirk-nullifying dart hits him right in the throat. His hands hit the ground, and nothing happens. Nighteye lowers the gun with a satisfied huff.

With an eerie calm, Chisaki pulls the dart out and tosses it aside. "I'm sure you think you're very clever, but the bullets in that gun are quite temporary. The permanent serum is in very short supply; I cannot trust just anyone with it, even among my own men."

"You're still out a quirk," Izuku retorts. "How long do you think you can last without it?" Nighteye reaches out as if to hold him back.

"The purpose of my quirk is to destroy and rebuild," Chisaki replies with a disinterested shrug. "It is, by its very nature, resistant to the temporary serum. It will be back shortly. How shortly? Well, you have no way of knowing that, I'm afraid."

"It's two minutes," a ghost says helpfully. "You have two minutes."

"Two minutes, good to know," Izuku says aloud, and the pregnant pause on Chisaki's end settles his nerves with satisfaction.

Chisaki considers him for a while. "I might take you along, when I retrieve that," he says, nodding toward Eri. "Something tells me I could learn a lot by studying you."

Rei lunges forward with a snarl, but Izuku stops her. She turns to him with a dark scowl, skull flashing behind her face.

"You should stay back," Nighteye tells him. "I can handle him without his quirk."

It's a lie. Chisaki without his quirk is still formidable, and there's no way of knowing whether Nighteye can take him down before the serum wears off. Two of them together might have a better chance, but…

One For All is gone. Izuku can feel that it's gone. He is strong enough from training, but the loss is clear. With One For All he had barely felt Eri's weight on his back, but now, especially with his wound from Toga…

"Rei," he says. "I have a job for you." Her scowl turns to a gentler frown, and then wide-eyed understanding when Izuku carefully lowers Eri to the ground. "Eri, this is Rei. She's my sister."

Eri is silent, staring at Rei with eyes as round as saucers. She steps forward at Izuku's encouraging nudge, and Rei's writhing shadows move to surround her protectively.

"Stay together," Izuku says to both of them. "Rei, if anything happens, get her out. And if you run out of… of strength… come back and tell me." He smiles bleakly. "Hopefully this won't take that long."

Rei nods, takes Eri's hand, and pulls her closer. Eri stares at her, then back at Izuku.

"I'll be right back," he tells her with another smile. "Don't worry, okay? This will all be over soon."

Does it count as lying if he doesn't know the truth?

The path to Tunnel 5N is a winding, circuitous maze that requires either a map or a very good memory. Thanks to the mess that Mimic left, it's even worse. In the area that he took control of, all rhyme and reason to the layout is gone, replaced with a hopeless snarl of tunnels and chambers.

Luckily, Mirio has never had to bother with all of that. When he's in costume, every path is a straight path.

A quick detour takes him to 4W, and he quite literally pokes his head into a chamber to find Ryukyu and her interns battling with the architecture. Uraraka launches Hadou into the air, Asui scales the shifting walls to catch her in her tongue and fling her into position, and finally an airborne Hadou unleashes a spiral blast into a bulge in the wall. The wall bursts open, and the body of Overhaul's henchman Mimic tumbles free. Ryukyu shifts smoothly from human to dragon form to snatch him up, only for the wall to bulge outward and catch him instead.

They seem to have things handled. Mirio leaves them to it, and continues on his way to find Overhaul in 5N. The further he gets from Mimic, the less twisted the tunnels become, until he's finally running straight down one, absolutely certain of the way to his destination.

So far he hasn't gotten word that Overhaul's location has changed, and his hopes are high. Underneath, the instinctual fear of facing Overhaul swims in his gut. For all his confidence, he doesn't relish the thought of fighting him alone. Obviously he'll do it if it means Eri never has to hurt again. He wasn't lying when he said he was best equipped for Overhaul's most formidable weapons. But it doesn't make him any less nervous.

There's something to be said about fear, though.

It keeps his senses sharp.

He turns his torso intangible because that's what his body tells him to do, and the knife passes harmlessly through his lower stomach. Without his quirk, the blade would have gutted him.

A second attack comes in the form of a stab to his neck, but by now he's spread his quirk to the entire upper half of his body. In a smooth, well-practiced move, he lets his arm turn solid again, grabs his attacker's wrist, and twists. The knife drops, only for another to appear in their other hand. A third knife-swing passes through his chest, and he releases them and drops back for room to breathe.

Toga Himiko stands across from him, barefoot and grinning so wide that her gums are showing. Her clothes are bloody and several sizes too large, as if she stole them off of a body. Mirio would rather not speculate.

The villain looks down at the knife in her hand, its blade dry, and her smile fades to a pout. "You have the worst quirk ever," she whines at him. 

Mirio smiles brightly. "Sorry to disappoint."

Her eyes glitter in what little light the tunnel offers. "That's okay," she says. "I just have to try harder. Don't I, Togata-senpaiiii?" She draws the sound out into a singsong lilt.

Mirio's eyes narrow. He knows why she knows his name; she heard it from Midoriya back when she and Compress tried to take Eri before. There's still something deeply uncomfortable about hearing her say it like that.

"Can you still bleed, senpai?" she asks, and her high-pitched cutesy tone could not sound more wrong coming from a girl with blood around her mouth and a knife in her hand. "Or if I cut you open, is there just air inside?"

Mirio weighs his options. He still has to get to Overhaul, before he moves on and they lose track of him again. But Toga Himiko is still dangerous, and the way she uses her quirk makes her even more so. There's a murderous yakuza leader in Tunnel 5N, but that doesn't change the fact that there's a serial killer standing right in front of him, and some of the blood on her knives belongs to Midoriya.

He can make this quick.

One hundred, one hundred and one, one hundred and two…

That's close enough for Nighteye's liking. "Less than twenty seconds," he calls to Midoriya. "Start moving away." Midoriya, infuriatingly, keeps attacking for a handful of seconds. He aims for soft spots, painful spots, and Nighteye doesn't need years of experience to see the fury building within Chisaki's every move. "Midoriya, now!"

The boy seems to ignore him as the seconds run out. Nighteye's heart is in his throat by the time he finally twists around behind Chisaki and drives a punishing blow into his lower back. Had he been using One For All, even at his low percentage, a hit like that would have destroyed the villain's kidney. It actually paralyzes Chisaki for all of two seconds, and Midoriya uses that to finally, finally get clear.

—nineteen, one hundred and twenty!

Nighteye fires again, and it hits. Chisaki manages to mold the ground beneath Nighteye into spikes before the serum takes hold again. Nighteye avoids the worst of it, but one of the spikes tears through his suit and gouges into his side. A flesh wound, but still a liability in a fight. For a moment, Chisaki's wild eyes lock with his. Even from the distance, Nighteye can hear his breath hissing in his mask, betraying his rage.

As soon as it's safe again, Midoriya continues his attack. He hasn't let up for a second, even though he has to be exhausted. Nighteye can see how much the boy has been holding back until this fight, because without One For all, he is vicious.

Tucking the handgun away, Nighteye ducks under a protruding spike and rushes to join them.

The fight reeks of desperation, and Nighteye can't be sure that any of it is Chisaki's. The villain is outnumbered and quirkless, but they are effectively quirkless as well. Midoriya still has his ghosts, and Nighteye can tell by the way he moves that he's getting boosts here and there from them. 

...thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six… 

Midoriya launches himself off of a ridge and drives a kick into Chisaki's chest, throwing him backward with a grunt of pain. The villain twists, narrowly avoiding a cluster of spikes left by his own quirk, when he could last use it.

Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three-forty-four…

Seeing his intern get that close to Chisaki still drives Nighteye's heart rate up, even as he moves in to get close himself. It's to his chagrin that he finds himself mimicking Midoriya's strategy. He aims for soft spots, pressure points, places he knows it will hurt. He aims for joints. He aims for organs. He aims low.

Only rookies and blowhards worry about looking classy when they fight. The heroes that stay alive are the ones that know that there's no such thing as a pretty fistfight. Whoever hits first and hits hardest has the best chance of winning.

The minutes run down in Nighteye's head, but Chisaki refuses to let up. It's a desperate fight on all sides, with Chisaki fighting to escape while Nighteye and Midoriya fight to stop him. They can't bring him down in this round either.

One-ten, one-eleven, one-thirteen—

"Get clear!" he shouts. "Now!" Midoriya is already backing off as the words leave his mouth, weaving and climbing through the spikes and ridges. Chisaki pursues him, more used to navigating the effects of his own quirk than the boy is. As Midoriya moves away, Nighteye fights his way closer.

The seconds run out. Nighteye aims and fires. The first shot misses, and he curses the wasted bullet. Chisaki moves closer, one hand deep in his pocket. His free hand touches a spike, and the ground ripples and molds itself like living clay. All at once, Nighteye is on the defensive as the ground turns against him. Another spike tears through his leg, and his vision goes gray with pain when he puts his weight on it. There's a shout as Midoriya tries to reach him, but another lethal wave from Chisaki's quirk stops him from getting close.

"Go to Eri!" It's an order, but Midoriya still hesitates. "Go to Eri, now!"

"He's not going anywhere," Chisaki informs him, and Nighteye realizes that the spikes around the boy have formed a cage.

Facing the villain alone, Nighteye wrestles with his fears. If they lose the child, then all of this is for nothing. If he can't handle this, then what chance does the child have? She has a ghost with her, but how long will that last when Midoriya has no more One For All to give?

As if in answer to his own thoughts, the ghost child Rei lets out an unearthly scream that reverberates through every inch of the cavern.

The scream makes Chisaki pause, giving Nighteye a split second of opportunity. He fires off two more shots, and to his surprise and relief they actually hit, one in the throat and the other right between the eyes. Nighteye lets out the breath he was holding. They have time again. Maybe more than two minutes, if two bullets hit him at once.

Chisaki halts, breath hissing in a deep sigh. He sounds tired—not weary, but irritated. His hand comes out of his pocket holding a syringe. 

Nighteye lunges forward, but it's useless and he knows it. There's too much distance between them, too many obstacles, too much breathing room on Chisaki's end to stop him from inserting the needle into his own arm.

For a moment there's nothing. And then, his body ripples.

Nighteye's heart turns to a leaden pit in his chest. Two bullets and Chisaki's quirk is still working, which can only mean that he just injected himself with—

"That's the first rule of creating a powerful weapon," Chisaki says serenely. Before their eyes, his face deconstructs and reconstructs itself. The bullets fall to the ground with a clatter. "Have contingencies in case it is used against you. It's a little tasteless, using Trigger. I'll freely admit that. But oh, does it make me strong."

Chisaki doesn't run through the severe terrain. He doesn't weave through the spikes, doesn't dodge around the obstacles he made with his own hands.

He flows through it.

His body splits into tributaries of flesh, sloughing like a viscous liquid through the gaps in the terrain and reforming on the other side, for no other apparent purpose than to travel in a straight line. Just looking at it makes the bile rise in Nighteye's throat.

"This has been very interesting," Chisaki says. "Goodbye."

He doesn't move, doesn't bend down to touch the ground, doesn't move his hands from his sides. A spike bursts from the ground on its own with a shriek of tearing concrete, and then the room is silent again. 

Nighteye blinks, and the pain he registers is so intense that he can't even make a sound. It's the sort of pain that ought to make him fall to the ground, but—very strange, he can't fall either. Why is he still standing when he hurts that much?

He looks down.

Oh, that's why.

His ears ring as Chisaki approaches him and puts a hand to his forehead. He should struggle, but he can't move. He can't even fall down, propped up as he is by the spike impaling him through the stomach.

"It hurts, doesn't it? I could stop the pain, you know. I could end it right now. But I won't—my mercy must be earned, and you haven't, I'm afraid."

Nighteye shuts his eyes as if waiting for death. In the darkness of his closed eyelids, he looks into Chisaki's future. His heart sinks low in his bloodstained chest, and does not rise again.

Of course. Of course it would be that way. He was a fool to ever think otherwise.

Chisaki walks away without killing him. Nighteye opens his tired eyes and resigns himself to watching the future play out a second time.

With every blow that misses, every swing of her knife that permeates his body harmlessly, the bloodlust in Toga Himiko's eyes mounts. Mirio can almost see foam flecking at her lips as she pulls them back in a grin that stretches from one side of her face to the other.

Mirio drops into the floor, shoots back out, and misses her again. It's not that she's predicting where he'll strike; she just won't stop moving. When he's underground, he's blind, deaf, and suffocating. He only has intuition and past experience to suggest to him where she might move.

But Toga Himiko seems to delight in defying expectations, and so every time Mirio bursts from beneath the ground to aim a blow at her, he finds her well out of reach.

This cycle happens about four times before Mirio switches tactics. She's using the same strategy Midoriya did, that time in the UA gym. It takes less energy for her to dodge than it does for Mirio to repeatedly use his quirk, so as long as she keeps moving and predicting him, she can gradually wear him down.

So Mirio pops up topside one last time, and attacks her head on.

He keeps one eye on the blade in her hand and one eye on the rest of her, so that he knows what parts of his body to turn permeable. He has to split his brain to do so, between dodging, countering, striking, and activating his quirk. One of the best skills he ever learned from Sir was how to multitask.

Gradually, Toga's movements grow more and more erratic. She's getting angry, losing her hold on her temper, and that means she's one step closer to losing. An angry combatant is a careless one.

With a scream of effort she swings her knife one last time, and instead of dodging or phasing through it, Mirio drops one last time, activating and releasing his quirk almost immediately. This skill of his has been compared to teleporting and warping before, and for a good reason; in the blink of an eye he's behind her and sending a punishing blow into her lower back.

Toga goes down choking on pain, and Mirio closes in.

She still fights madly, clawing and snapping with her knife and her bare hands, and it's a trial to stay solid enough to hold her while still phasing through her attacks.

"Stop—stop," he urges her, trying to wrest the knife from her hands. "It's over! You have to know it's over."

Her breath hisses in and out. She bares her teeth to the gums like a cornered dog, twisting and lashing out at any piece of him she can reach. He pins her roughly, hoping to slow her down by knocking the wind out of her. It works halfway; she gasps for breath but won't stop fighting him. He twists her wrist until the knife falls from her hand, and she screams more with fury than with pain.

"It's over," he tells her through gritted teeth. She tries to bite him, but her teeth close on nothing. She tries to kick him, and her foot passes through him harmlessly. He pins her down, arm twisted so she can't use it against him, and she pulls out another knife with the other arm and swings it toward his face. He makes his whole head intangible to avoid it, and goes blind and deaf for a split second. He's tired of this. He wants this to be over. He's not even supposed to be fighting Toga; she's already held him up long enough that Chisaki's probably left Tunnel 5N by now. He's worried about the other heroes, about Sir and Midoriya and Tamaki and Hadou and the younger interns. He's worried about Eri.

He releases his quirk with a gasp as he breathes through his nose and mouth again. Hearing and vision come back, and he looks down at the villain he has pinned to the concrete floor.

Midoriya stares up at him, eyes bright with fear and pain.

"Togata-senpai? You're hurting me."

It's not rational, not in the least. He knows what Toga's power is, and he knows it's her, but Midoriya's cracked, pained voice makes him freeze on instinct. The key to skill is experience, and Mirio has never had a friend's face used against him like this before.

His hesitation lasts only for a split second, but by the time it passes, there's already a knife beneath his ribs.

He punches her in the jaw before she can twist or pull it out. Her eyes roll up in her head, and she goes limp. As Mirio gingerly rises to his feet, Midoriya's face starts to melt off. In seconds, he's left with a naked and unconscious Toga.

Mirio hesitates. He's loathe to just leave her here, where she might wake up and continue making trouble. But he doesn't have a radio on him, and he has to go. Even if it's harder to fight while injured, he has to at least check to see if Overhaul is where he's supposed to be.

In the end, he tears a strip from his cape and binds Toga's hands behind her back. Her knives are gone; one is on the ground, and the other is in his body. If she had any more, then they've disappeared along with her clothes. 

He retrieves the dropped knife and carries on.

The room heaves again, threatening to swallow him whole. Izuku takes a desperate flying leap off of the ridge he's perched on. With One For All he could clear the immediate danger easily, but without it, the strength in his body just isn't enough. He throws a hand out, and several ghosts grab him and pull. Others boost him from behind, and the ghosts around him heave and drag him to safety. He scrambles over the pit as it surges up and closes beneath him, inches away from catching him like a giant, jagged mouth. Izuku tumbles to relative safety and keeps moving.

This isn't a fight anymore. He can't touch Chisaki, can't approach him, can't slow him down. He can't even get close enough to see if he has another quirk-suppression weapon. His hands and face are scraped and bleeding, his costume torn, his body bruised and aching, and that's just from fighting the environment. He hasn't gotten close to Chisaki since before—

Before—

Izuku races through the forest of concrete spikes as the ground trembles and pitches again. It throws him off his feet; he cracks his knees on the ground, stumbles upright, and keeps running. The ground bounces him again, and he rolls to a stop at the edge of a blood spatter. Izuku lifts his eyes to see Nighteye watching him, still held upright on the spike that punched clear through him.

His heart plummets when he sees the hero's face. He's seen enough ghosts to know what despair looks like. Many of them are gathered around Nighteye right now, clustered together as if waiting for one more of Chisaki's victims to join them. 

As Izuku picks himself up, he looks beyond Nighteye to find Rei with her arms around Eri, holding her close and surrounding her as best she can. His first instinct is dismay, because it can't be good for Eri to see Nighteye like this, but he can see why Rei brought her here.

For all that Chisaki has been tossing him around like a ragdoll, he's left the area around Nighteye more or less alone. If Nighteye were caught up in the turbulence, he wouldn't last long.

He's going to die either way, if they don't get help soon. Apparently Chisaki doesn't want that to happen too fast.

A threat of white-hot rage drifts into the fear roiling in his stomach. He fights against it, trying to drown it in forced calm. It's dangerous to get angry in a fight that he's already losing, but he's trying to think of a new plan, and there just isn't one. Their only hope is for Togata to find out Chisaki isn't in the other tunnel and come back to them. His only option is to stay alive and drag this out. He could send Rei to fetch him, but he's not sure he can keep Eri out of Chisaki's hands by himself.

"Does anyone know where Togata is?" he asks the ghosts around him. Blood runs down is face from a cut near his hairline, sticking in his eye.

There's murmuring among them. It may take some time for them to have an answer, and he doesn't have time.

"Nighteye?" It hurts to look at him. He's seen worse on ghosts, of course he's seen worse, but it's different when Nighteye is still alive and he can't just will those awful wounds away with a change in his mood. "If you use your quirk on me, could you tell me how long it'll take Togata to get back?"

The hero looks at him with dull eyes, and Izuku's heart sinks again. It's an optimistic question to ask, because it bears the assumption that he'll survive long enough for Togata's arrival to show up in his future.

"I'm sorry," Nighteye rasps. "I'm so sorry—before Chisaki left, I looked. I looked into his future." He breaks off with a wet cough, and a dark trickle down his chin reaches his collar to stain it deep red.

"You might as well tell me," Izuku says wearily. "According to you, it's not going to make a difference anyway."

For a moment, Nighteye hesitates. Then—"He kills you," he says, and every word sounds like an apology. "He takes Eri and kills you when you try to stop him from leaving with her. He escapes."

Ah.

Well, that was one of the things he expected.

"Oh," he says, and then, "Okay."

Chisaki approaches them at a leisurely pace. Izuku braces himself to start moving again. He has to draw him away before he gets close enough to reach Eri.

"This can stop at any time," the villain says, and Izuku contemplates spitting at him before he realizes that Chisaki isn't looking at him at all. "This doesn't have to continue, and you know that."

Caught between Rei's arms, surrounded by twisting shadows, Eri trembles under Chisaki's stare.

"Stop this pointless rebellion, do as you're told, and come back where you belong," Chisaki tells her. "Do that, and this will stop. I'll even put them back together for you, good as new."

"You will?" Eri's voice is small, but for now the room is still enough for the sound to carry.

"He won't," Izuku says loudly. "He's lying, Eri. Believe me, I know a liar when I see one."

"Such a hypocrite you are," Chisaki says to him. "You preach goodness and safety and freedom, while trapping her from doing what she truly wants." Rei's angry snarl almost cuts off his next words. "You claim to care about her, but you won't even allow her this one choice. Heroes like you really are a sickness."

The rage slithers upward in his chest, eager and hungry. "Yeah, sorry, it's terminal," he says. He looks at Chisaki's jacket, his pockets, even the folds of his shirt underneath, searching for the telltale shape of a handgun. "I've been trying to cough in your stupid face all day. Maybe you'll catch some basic decency." He doesn't see anything. Where is it?

Chisaki barely looks at him before his body partially liquifies again and flows straight to where Rei and Eri are standing.

Izuku yells, but his voice is drowned out when Rei's head splits in half at the jaw, her shadows go wild and half-swallow Eri in darkness, and Rei screams. Fear explodes outward from her like a wave of force, churning Izuku's insides until he almost throws up. He's not the only one who feels it; Chisaki's viscous form stops in its tracks and convulses violently in midair. It almost hurts to watch, like magnetic liquids meeting and reacting violently to each other.

Throwing caution to the wind, Izuku rushes toward them.

Hands catch him by the elbow and nearly wrench his shoulder pulling him back. "Pro-tip, kid, that's point for point how I bit it," Magne hisses close to his ear.

"I have to," Izuku chokes out. "I have to get Eri, or—they said Chisaki might have those bullets, and maybe—"

"Did you bother checking the other one first?" Magne asks. "Nemoto ain't an Expendable."

Izuku stops in his tracks.

"Sir, when you dealt with Nemoto, was he armed?" he asks.

"Handgun," Nighteye replies. "Dropped him before he could shoot. Ground changed before I could take it."

"I'll be right back," he says, and takes off in the direction the ghosts are pointing. Even without the help, even with the drastically changed landscape of the cavern, Izuku can still see the dark, limp shape of Nemoto's unconscious body. He's draped against a few spikes and pillars, lying at their base instead sticking on the ends. It seems that Chisaki took care not to kill him by accident; either he does care about some of his henchmen, or he was worried about damaging the gun and its special ammunition. It's fine either way: with Nemoto alive there's one less ghost loyal to Chisaki, and Izuku is just as capable of using the undamaged gun as anyone else.

He's less than halfway there when he drops.

He doesn't register it as pain, at least not at first. But all at once, a feeling of something is wrong washes over him, and in the blink of an eye he's on the ground like a downed deer. A split second later the pain hits him, blinding, white-hot and intense. He looks down and finds a long spire of concrete sticking straight through his thigh from back to front. Unlike Nighteye's, it was thin enough to snap off when he fell, and leaving a concrete spike about a half-meter long sticking through his leg like a javelin.

"Watch out!" Scattered, ragged warning cries reach him. Izuku rolls over on his back just in time to see Chisaki's shapeless form flowing swiftly toward him. He tries to scramble backward, but the torn-up ground and the spike in his leg slow him so severely that it hardly makes a difference.

Another rattling scream rings out, and a familiar mass of shadows overtakes Chisaki immediately. In an instant Rei is materializing over Izuku, placing herself firmly between him and the oncoming danger, and Izuku sees the villain's ploy.

"Rei, no! Go back!"

It's too late. The moment Rei starts taking shape over Izuku, the liquid flesh retreats at a rapid rate. Heedless of Izuku's screaming, Chisaki regains his shape and grabs Eri, who now stands alone and unprotected.

The terror freezes on her face. She doesn't fight him or run away. She just watches him with wide, unblinking eyes and goes very, very still.

"Oh, Eri," Izuku hears the villain say. "If only you hadn't been so much trouble. You might have saved them."

Chisaki turns his head just enough to meet Izuku's eyes, and lifts his hand.

The room goes wild again.

Ghosts buoy him up, dragging and tossing him away from the danger, lending him the speed he doesn't have. Izuku narrowly misses death more times than he can count, before the heaving finally abates. When it does, and the tearing and groaning of concrete finally goes quiet, he can hear Eri screaming. She isn't struggling or fighting, but she's digging her fingers into the arm Chisaki has around her, screaming bloody murder as her captor tries to kill him.

"Let this be a lesson to you. This is what happens when you spread your curse to others."

Izuku is sick and tired of hearing Chisaki's voice.

Something cold and hard is pressed into his hands. He looks down to find Rei, wide-eyed and shamefaced, manipulating his fingers to grip it. The sparks of One For All are beginning to fade from her form as she passes Nemoto's handgun into his grasp.

While Chisaki is looking at Eri instead of him, Izuku aims and fires.

It hits, and he knows it hits because Chisaki's form goes haywire again. It ripples like liquid, and for a moment it's almost as if he's lost control of his own shape. The arm holding Eri turns to sludge, only to solidify around her again, tighter this time.

(Izuku could swear, just for a moment, that her horn looks longer than it did before.)

Chisaki rounds on Izuku again as he limps closer, hands trembling around the handgun. His face melts and unmelts, before the bullet finally pops free of his shifting flesh and bounces harmlessly off the ground. "Nice try," he snarls, eyes burning with rage over the edge of the mask. "But the Trigger in my body can counter even the permanent serum. I'm powerful enough to destroy it before it destroys my quirk."

"Trigger won't last forever," Izuku retorts.

Chisaki's hand comes up again. "It will last long enough." The room trembles as he prepares to mold it again.

Something strange happens. There's a burst of something like light, and Izuku can't pinpoint the source at first. But he's distracted when Chisaki's body goes haywire again, as if he's been shot with another bullet. His form melts so severely that he drops Eri, and she tumbles to the ground but never, not even for a moment, stops touching him.

It's coming from her, Izuku realizes through the haze of pain and held-back fury. It's coming from her horn, which has grown from a tiny sprout to half the length of her hand.

And then Chisaki snaps back into shape, and Eri scrambles away from him. He doesn't go after her at first, because he's too busy trying to contort his body again, trying to wield his quirk from afar, but it just isn't working.

She rewound him. She sent him back to before he took Trigger—

Izuku is already running, somewhat. It's hard to run properly with his leg skewered, but a little adrenaline goes a long way.

Chisaki touches the ground and sends up a wall to block him, then lunges for Eri. He grabs her again, and this time she twists and screams. Ghosts shout warnings to Izuku, but he blocks them out. He crumpled once. He almost let someone take her once and it's not happening ever again.

He reaches for her, and she reaches back for him. He gets close enough to grasp her hand, then her shoulder, and drags her bodily out of Chisaki's arms when the villain's hand reaches out. Izuku moves on instinct alone, twisting away to shield Eri's body with his own. Chisaki touches his shoulder.

There's pain.

That's the first thing he registers, and for a moment or more it's all he can register: so much pain, crashing in all at once, that he can't fit anything else in his head. He pulls away when he finally remembers to do so. The touch vanishes and the pain vanishes with it.

And then there's rage.

There was so much pain within him, filling him up until he was bursting with it, that with it gone, there's a split second of sucking emptiness before his eyes fall on Chisaki, and he remembers that he is angry.

And suddenly, anger is all that he is.

His fist is flying into Chisaki's face before he can think of anything else. Cold satisfaction floods through the burning fury when it connects. He hits him again and feels bone give way under his knuckles. He hits and hits until he feels blood running over his knuckles, and his heart sings.

He might be screaming. He might be doing a lot of things. It's almost refreshing to find that he doesn't care, he doesn't care about what else is happening. There's no room for other concerns. There's no room for thought. There is only rage, and vengeance, and the overwhelming desire to hit him again, to make him bleed, to take Chisaki's throat in his hands and squeeze until he can tear the ghost right out of his body.

...Wait.

Wait, that's not right. There are other things to think about. There's Nighteye. There's Eri. Where's Eri? He was just holding her, wasn't she? Did Chisaki take her back?

Fear joins the anger. They churn together, just as all-consuming, but now diluting each other. Izuku blinks, his eyes clear, and he looks at Chisaki to find him empty-handed.

He's also standing still, staring at Izuku with—shock? Confusion? ...Fear?

That can't be right. Why would Chisaki be afraid of him?

Izuku looks around, as if the concrete spikes can offer an answer, and finds Nighteye's face instead. The hero's expression is disturbingly similar to Chisaki's, but there's no fear in him. It's more like… 

What's the word for it? Why is everyone staring at him? He's fighting a villain. He's a hero. That's what he does. What's so shocking about that? Is there something on his face?

He looks down at himself, and it takes a moment to comprehend what he's seeing.

"Oh," he says when he finally does.

His arm's gone, that's a good place to start. The shoulder's gone with it, along with a good portion of his chest. That could explain why Chisaki looks afraid, why Nighteye looks shocked. Izuku's a little shocked himself, because he shouldn't be able to fight like this. Adrenaline is one thing, but… this… he shouldn't be able to move. How is he even still standing?

He looks at Chisaki again. Chisaki looks back. His eyes flicker to a point somewhere behind Izuku, and Izuku turns.

He's lying amid broken concrete and fallen spikes, crumpled up with his arm and shoulder and part of his chest missing. The ground beneath him is soaked with blood. Eri crouches by it, wide-eyed and mute with shock. Beyond her, Chisaki's army of vengeful ghosts gape openly. For once, they're all silent, every last soul, looking either at him or at the pitiful crumpled thing on the ground—which is also him.

That's his body, Izuku thinks. He's standing up and looking down at his body.

"...Oh."

He looks down at his hands, and wonders if they're pale beneath the gloves. He wonders if his eyes are white.

"...Okay."

He turns back to Chisaki. The rage is still there, churning and violent, but it's diluted with other things. Fear, yes. Dread. Determination. Hope, brought on by the sight of blood and bruising on Chisaki's face. He can touch him.

he wants to touch him, wants to hurt him, he hurt eri hurt nighteye hurt everyone, everyone in this room is dead because of HIM

The emotions are loud, louder than they've ever been before. They ought to be; without a body, they're all he has. They're all that he is. It's like a whirlwind inside of him, and if he isn't careful, he'll lose himself to the howling storm.

"So, that's a problem for later," he says out loud, and even his own voice sounds strange to him now. "I'm gonna beat the shit out of you now."

Chisaki breathes in through the mask, and Izuku slams into him before he can speak. The force of the blow sends him flying through the jagged terrain he made himself, and he only avoids shattered bones by destroying each spike and ridge as he crashes through them. When he comes to a halt at least, still battered and bleeding in spite of his efforts, Izuku is upon him, beating him back down with his one remaining fist. The taste of blood is sharp on his tongue, and the storm inside of him wants more.

Struggling upright, Chisaki slams his hand into Izuku's broken chest, but nothing happens. His quirk can't touch the things that ghosts are made of.

"How," Chisaki rasps. "How—I killed you."

Izuku spits the memory of blood. He thinks back to before Chisaki did what he did, before his body was torn apart and broken, and when he looks down again, his arm is good as new. 

"Looks like it," he says. "What's your plan now, Kai?"

He looks into Chisaki's eyes and sees fear bleeding through. Izuku's heart isn't doing much beating at the moment, but he still feels hope in it all the same.

Mirio races back and forth from one end of Tunnel 5N to the other, leaving dazed and unconscious villains in his wake. Quite a few that he comes upon are already incapacitated, and that just makes his job easier. He doesn't even need his usual underground tricks to take out the rest; bullets fly straight through him, and none of the villains seem to have a plan beyond shooting at him.

At one point, instinct takes over before common sense can rein it in, and he drops beneath the feet of a hulking pyrokinetic hopped up on Trigger. There's no getting around it; he can't predict flames well enough to slip through them, so he brute-forces his way through the fight and drops the man before he can burn the whole tunnel and everyone in it. Luckily, the Trigger effects are almost up, and unconsciousness snuffs out his quirk rather than sending it further out of control.

Mirio pauses, breathing hard, and curses himself when he spots a bloodied knife lying on the floor right where he dropped through. He forgot about Toga's knife; the blade was the only thing keeping his wound from bleeding faster.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tears another piece from his cape and stuffs it into the wound. It's not the best first-aid job, but it's the best he's going to get, and it won't fall out if he uses his quirk.

Running footsteps set him on edge, before he rounds a corner and almost collides with Ryukyu and her interns. Froppy has a bandage around her arm and Hadou looks half drained, but they're all still in one piece.

"Is Mimic taken care of?" he asks.

"He's been delivered to police custody," Ryukyu replies. "Anything to report?"

"Eraserhead has been captured," Mirio replies, and winces when Froppy and Uravity gasp. "And we had word that Overhaul was somewhere in Tunnel 5N, but I've searched back and forth and I haven't found anyone but yakuza footsoldiers. I ran into Toga Himiko, though. I don't have a radio on me, so I couldn't call it in, and I had to prioritize finding Overhaul." He winces. "If I'd known he was already gone I wouldn't have left her."

"I'll have someone retrieve her," Ryukyu assures him, and turns on her radio to do just that.

"It's all right, I can go back for her," Mirio says. "She was in the part of the tunnels that Mimic changed; I know where I left her and I can get back to her faster." He starts to turn back, then pauses. "Can you get in contact with Nighteye and Deku? They're guarding Eri, and they should know that Overhaul's still in the wind."

"We'll take care of it," Ryukyu assures him, and Mirio takes off through tunnels and walls, back the way he came.

He's already out of earshot when Ryukyu and her interns try to contact his mentor and kouhai, and get no response.

Eri curls up at the base of a concrete spike and makes herself as small as possible.

She doesn't make a sound, doesn't move even to cover her ears against the sound of the ground rumbling and ripping up. She doesn't cry. Her head hurts. Her skin feels hot. There's a buzzing underneath that makes her itch. She doesn't know what to do.

The blood on the ground almost reaches her feet. In the middle of it, Deku lies with his eyes closed as if he's only sleeping. Beyond him, the man that everyone calls Nighteye still hangs on a spike over his own patch of blood.

He's dying, and Deku is already dead on the ground. Eri knew this would happen. Chisaki told her it would happen. She always knows what's going to happen, when Chisaki is around. Chisaki gets mad and people die. Chisaki puts her in the chair, takes her apart, and puts her back together, Chisaki sends people to be nice to her, but no matter how soft they talk or how many toys they bring her, they still take her to Chisaki when he tells them to. That's what happens. She knows that.

But she doesn't know what's going to happen now. A lot of things have happened that have never happened before, ever since Deku first touched her. She's never spent so long with people who don't hurt her (shots don't count, Deku says). She's never heard anyone say that Chisaki is wrong and Chisaki is a liar. She's never fought and struggled and screamed before.

(She did it because he was a liar. She didn't fight him when he tried to take her again. She stayed still and let him touch her and pick her up, and he still turned around and tried to kill Deku again. He's a liar, and that means Deku was right, and that's why… that's why she…)

But most of all, she's never seen someone get back up after Chisaki killed them. Not without Chisaki putting them back together himself.

She's never seen anyone beat Chisaki before, either, and she hasn't seen that yet. Deku is still fighting, pale and grinning and scary, scarier than anything Eri has ever seen before, but he hasn't beaten Chisaki yet.

But. She's seen all the other never-befores now. So… what if…?

She doesn't know. 

Suddenly, Eri is cold again. That means she's here.

Rei is scary like Deku is scary—not at Eri but around her. Rei points her scary at other people.

"I'm sorry." Rei talks funny. Her voice is always like a whisper. Even when she screams so loud it hurts Eri's ears, there's still a husshh, hussshhh behind it.

"You should've stayed with him," Eri says. "You came back to protect me instead of him, and now he's dead."

Still fighting, but still dead. What will he happen when there's nothing left to fight? While he disappear?

Rei holds out her hands. The sparks inside of her are fading. Every now and then she disappears and reappears, as if her whole body is blinking.

"I'm running out," she says. "I can't stay like this. My little brother can't, either. We'll disappear soon."

Eri closes her eyes. Of course it doesn't matter in the end. Of course it couldn't last. Nighteye will die, and Deku and Rei will disappear, and Chisaki will take her back before Lemillion or anyone else finds them. Of course, of course, of course. Maybe Deku was wrong and she really is cursed. 

Cold hands hold hers, and she opens her eyes. Rei's eyes drip like she's crying, but it's all black instead of clear tears.

"Help him," she says. "Please?"

Eri stares at her, eyes wide. "I can't."

"You can." The hands squeeze, and the cold spreads from Eri's fingers all the way up her arms. "I saw you. The man who hurt you—he changed himself, and you put him back the way he was." More black stuff pours from her eyes, and a little from her mouth when she says, "Please? Please put my little brother back the way he was. I don't want him to die. I don't want to leave yet."

"I'll hurt him," Eri whispers. She remembers arms around her, holding her and lifting her until suddenly they were gone, and the warmth was gone, and everything was gone.

"He's already dead," Rei whispers, and then she's gone.

No more shadows, no more black eyes, no more cold hands. All that's left is blood and rocks and the pain in Eri's head, and the hot buzzing and prickling under her skin. It's all over her and inside her, it's growing and pushing, it wants out, out, out

She doesn't cry. She doesn't ask any more questions. There's no one to ask, and she already knows what the answers are.

Eri crawls through blood and dust and broken concrete.

Izuku aims another punch at Chisaki that passes through him, and he almost loses himself again. It's all he can do just to keep himself together. The pain is fresh in his mind, and when he thinks too much about it, his left arm forgets that it's allowed to be there. His mouth never quite loses the taste of blood.

He pulls himself together, more literally than usual, and his next blow connects.

Just a little longer, and Mirio will be here. That's all he needs to do: buy time. Just a little longer, and then he can fall apart. As soon as he's finished doing what needs to be done, then whatever happens will happen.

(he's dead, and One For All will die with him)

Chisaki keeps touching him, grabbing him, but it doesn't mean anything anymore. His quirk can't hurt him anymore, and even when Chisaki hits him the pain is distant, as if it only hurts because Izuku knows that it should. He's not feeling it, only remembering it.

Another punch turns to mist, and Chisaki's eyes glitter with frantic hope. "You can't keep this up forever," he says. "You're only prolonging the inevitable. And why should you care, anyway? I've already killed you."

The rage takes over again, and his arm and shoulder vanish before the next punch can land. He opens his mouth to answer, and all that comes out is blood and screaming.

"You've failed," Chisaki says, and his voice grinds like sand in the cracks of Izuku's control, irritating and constant and inescapable. "You haven't just died. You've died for nothing."

(One For All dies with him)

He screams again, just like Rei, like Tsubasa and the Noumu ghosts, like Okumura and Eri's father and Sachi on the beach and countless others. He screams because he's made of fear and despair and pain and helpless rage, and he can't even properly feel how much it hurts.

"Deku!"

The voice cuts through the storm, punching straight through the whirlwind until it reaches Izuku in the eye. Blood pours from his lips as he turns to follow it back to where Nighteye stands, still upright and clinging to life.

"He's goading you," Nighteye rasps. "Don't fall for your own trick."

Right. He's right.

Izuku struggles against the choking rage, fighting to tamp it down until he can think clearly again. Familiar cold hands clutch his arm, and the chill spreads through him, breathing life into the spark of focus buried under the anger. The cool determination amplifies, diluting the rage until he can finally bleed it off and pour the excess into a ruthless punch to Chisaki's stomach. 

The villain gags. Izuku hopes he's puking into that stupid mask.

He can feel himself flickering. Already he's used too much strength all at once; he'll run out before long, and what then?

A half-familiar voice breathes against his ear. "Don't be mad," Rei whispers. "I asked her to."

Before Izuku can ask her what she means, Chisaki's eyes flicker past him, and go wide. 

"No," he hisses. "No—"

Izuku feels a tug. 

It comes from somewhere in the pit of his stomach, like a hook caught in his core and slowly dragging him back. He turns, following the line of Chisaki's eyes.

Eri stares back at him from where she's crouched over his body, clutching his hand with both of hers. Her horn, now the width of her hand, lights up like a star.

Chisaki lunges for her, with Izuku close behind him. The world turns sideways and inside out, and then, just for a moment, it vanishes.

Reality slams back into him with the force of a bullet train. His senses drown him, his lungs are empty, and it's all he can do to open his mouth as wide as his jaws will allow and swallow down a desperate, starving breath. It's not nearly enough, so he takes another, and another. He can feel again. He can see and hear and smell and taste and breathe again. He didn't spend long without those things, only a few minutes at most, but it was easy, so easy to forget.

He lies there and breathes again, curls his fingers into fists. One hand, and then the other. He squeezes until the nails dig into his palms, and he breathes.

A hand comes hard across his face, shattering the stunned piece. His eyes clear, and Magne's angry face looms over his.

"Get up," she snaps. "We're not done here." Shadows creep in from all sides as Rei makes her displeasure known. Magne flinches but does not draw away. "Get up, little hero brat. You know damn well what we're owed."

"Please." Eri's father's face joins the villain's, wild with desperation. "You have to get up. He's taking her!"

Izuku is on his feet so fast that his vision goes dark for a moment. By the time it clears, Chisaki has reached the opposite wall with Eri in his grasp. It's the very wall that he made himself, to block off their escape route. With one touch, he tears it open.

Instinct tells him to rush forward and stop Chisaki himself, and it frightens him, how simple it would be to die again. It would take Chisaki no effort to destroy him again, and Izuku can't ask Eri to save him a second time.

His breaths still come in noisy gasps. The air down here is stale, but compared to the nothing of moments before, it's the sweetest that Izuku has ever tasted.

He takes in the darkness of the blood-strewn cavern. Nighteye. The ghosts. They fill the cave, scattered amid the pits and ridges and spikes that Chisaki left. Chuuza is not among them; he hasn't seen her since the battle began, and he will never truly knowwhat happened to her. 

None of them are watching him anymore. There's only one man drawing their eyes.

You know what we're owed.

There's only question left worth asking, in Izuku's mind: Did she go back far enough?

The answer comes in the lightning at his fingertips, spreading along his arms, overtaking his body until his veins course with power. It fills him up: five percent, then ten, then twenty and climbing until it can grow no further. He stands still, filled to the brim with every drop of power given to him. It knows what to do, and where it's needed. 

He lets it go.

The change is palpable in the air. Izuku knows this, because he sees Nighteye stir, and he watches Chisaki stumble and look back.

The cavern is crowded, and for the first time, Izuku isn't the only one who sees it.

Chisaki turns to run, but even he can't move faster than the dead. Ghosts fill the escape route, blocking him in, surrounding him. A mass of shadows weaves among them, and Rei tears Eri from the villain's grasp. The ghosts part to let them through, too focused on Chisaki to care about the little girl with the sparking horn. They see Chisaki looking at them, and their voices shake the concrete.

The cavern rocks again, the ground undulates like an ocean wave, but the dead are unmoved. "Get back!" Chisaki roars. "Get away from me! You're dead! Every single one of you is dead!"

Their voices ring out, some with fury, others with eager, mocking laughter.

"Look at him squirm!"

"Not so tough without all your little toadies, are you?"

"I can't believe was loyal to this slime. I served him and he threw me away like yesterday's trash."

"Who's the trash now, Chisaki?"

"You killed me! You destroyed everything I loved!"

"I never did anything to you! I didn't even know you!"

"A little girl! You did that to a little girl!"

"The only sick one here is you, villain."

"Street bastard!"

"Scum!"

"Monster!"

Izuku feels the whirlwind again, this time all around him instead of within. He's at the eye of the storm, watching as the rage gathers and builds. Blank eyes turn to him, eager and grateful for the power he's letting them borrow.

He doesn't shout, but it feels as if his voice reaches every corner of the cavern.

"Make him pay."

The storm swallows Chisaki whole.

"Hey, Tsuyu-chan," Ochako says, pausing in the middle of the tunnel. "Did you feel that?"

Reluctantly, Tsuyu stops to wait for her. "We have to keep moving," she says. "If we stop, then we're more likely to run into villains before we find Fatgum." Communications on the radio indicated that Fatgum's comm was either damaged or malfunctioning. Ryukyu sent them as messengers while she and Nejire-senpai went looking for Aizawa-sensei.

To her surprise, Ochako shakes her head and stays still. Her eyebrows are drawn together, and she seems to be listening.

Tsuyu takes her hand. "The tunnels have been shaking for a while," she says, more quietly. "It's probably Overhaul, so we need to hurry."

"I'm not talking about the shaking," Ochako insists. "It's not even shaking—Tsuyu, do you really not feel that?"

"Feel what—" Tsuyu's voice dies in her mouth.

It's not that she sees her breath. But there's a certain feeling she gets when she sees it without expecting it; a feeling of wrong and be careful that might have something to do with how the cold affects her. It's hard to explain, but it's the closest she can come to putting the feeling of that tunnel into words.

Tsuyu knows better than to ignore her senses when they tell her something is wrong. She squeezes Ochako's hand and steps closer, listening. There's nothing. She can't hear anything.

"I don't know," she says at last. "But we need to keep moving."

They continue on, without letting go of each other's hands. The feeling doesn't fade, and eventually Ochako stops again, this time at a cross section of tunnels.

"Ochako, come on," Tsuyu urges, and the feeling of not-right grows and grows until—

"Oh. Oh, thank goodness."

There are no footsteps, not even a disturbance in the air, just silence in one moment and a voice in the next. Tsuyu whirls around, tense and ready, only to stop short in confusion.

A woman stands about a stone's throw away, watching them from one of the connecting hallways. She's young-ish, maybe thirty, and the look on her face when she sees them is one of relief. At least, Tsuyu assumes she's looking at them. It's hard to tell when her eyes are empty white, without any visible irises or pupils.

Even stranger, the woman is soaking wet from head to toe.

She's not dressed like a hero, nor does she look anything like the yakuza footsoldiers they've been seeing all over the place. She looks like someone shoved her into a pool fully clothed.

Ochako has gone still.

"I'm so very sorry to bother you," the woman says. "I know you must be busy, but—please. He needs help."

The hero in Tsuyu latches onto that hard, but the rest of her can't let go of how odd this is. "Who are you?" she asks. "How did you get in here?"

"There really isn't time," the woman says, as more water rolls off of her in rivulets, forming…

Wait. It's not forming any puddles. The ground isn't even wet underneath her.

Confusion turns to suspicion. Is this an illusion? A distraction?

Ochako steps forward, and Tsuyu opens her mouth to warn her back when her friend speaks first, eyes fixed on the woman in the tunnel.

"You're one of Deku's friends," she says. "Aren't you?"

…What?

The woman smiles. "I'm so glad I found you. It would be a nightmare getting anyone else to listen to me."

"Is something wrong with Deku?" Ochako asks. "Is he in trouble?"

"It was touch and go for a moment," the woman says, grimacing. "But I think he's all right for now. No, it's Eraserhead. He's in a lot of trouble right now, and there isn't a lot of time, so please—"

"Lead the way," Ochako says.

Tsuyu stares at her, appalled. "Ochako."

"It's okay," Ochako says, already hurrying toward the woman even as Tsuyu tries to hold her back. "I'll—we'll explain later, but we have to hurry."

"She's not even there!" Tsuyu squeezes her hand, pulled forward unwillingly toward the danger. "Ochako, look at the water. It's dripping off her, but there's nothing on the ground! There's no one there!"

Instead of realizing the deception, Ochako doesn't even look surprised. She turns back and fixes Tsuyu with a pleading look. "Please just trust me?" she says. "We have to help Aizawa-sensei." To the woman she says, "Lead the way, hurry!"

"Thank you," the pale woman says, and vanishes before their eyes. She reappears further down the tunnel, waiting for them.

Ochako runs after her without a moment's hesitation, and Tsuyu has no choice but to follow.

Shouta knows that something has changed when the sound of pacing stops. There's a rumble in the distance before silence falls again. For a moment, Shouta can barely even hear the villains breathing. There's a new note of tension in the air, like a subsonic hum that Shouta's ears can just barely pick up.

"Something's wrong," Kurono says tightly. The men with him stir uneasily.

"Should we leave?" one of them asks.

"Shut up," Kurono snaps. "You know your orders. We wait for a signal from Chisaki."

"Okay," is the subdued reply. "I mean, you were the one who just said something was wrong, so…" He falls silent at another barked order.

Shouta wishes he could see. Not moving is bad enough, but he loathes the blindness. He hates not knowing what is coming.

"We could ask," someone else suggests cautiously. "In case the situation has changed, and he's too occupied to inform us of any new orders."

"If he's occupied then I'm not going to interrupt him with your inane questions." The tension hasn't left Kurono's voice. He's nervous, and too young and inexperienced to hide it properly. "He's not to be disturbed until he has the girl in hand and the heroes guarding her are dead. We'll hear back once he's done with them."

Protective fury burns low and hot in Shouta's chest. Four of his students are out there. He should be helping them, not trapped and blind and surrounded by villains.

There were a dozen different ways to avoid this. Kurono had been aiming his quirk at Midoriya; if Aizawa hadn't taken the hit for him, then he could have taken the villain on himself and erased its effects. Hell, he could have pulled the kid out of the way instead of jumping between them like some boneheaded rookie.

Damn hindsight.

He waits, counting the seconds as they tick by. He's lost count of how long he's been here. He has no idea whether Kurono's quirk has some kind of limit, timed or otherwise. He doesn't know where he is in relation to any possible escape routes, or if any escape routes even exist. He can pinpoint the locations of the villains around him, but they keep shifting and pacing.

From the quiet, a crackle and squeal reaches Shouta's ears. It's the sound of a comm dying. Kurono fumbles it, demands an explanation over it. There's no reply.

The silence that follows is suffocating.

"Something's wrong," he repeats. "Damn it. He shouldn't be taking this long. The heroes should have been staining the walls by now!" He curses, kicks something in frustration. "Fine. Fine. We're leaving. We'll regroup with Chisaki outside."

"Should we take Eraserhead?"

A pause. "No," Kurono says. "He'll slow us down, and if anything has happened to Kai—which I highly doubt, but one can't be too safe—he'll be more trouble than he's worth." 

He sighs, harsh and angry. Shouta indulges the faint hope that he'll be left here for one of his allies to find.

But no, of course not. The rasp of a blade—his own knife that Kurono took—reveals the villain's intentions.

"Oh well," Kurono says. "One less carrier to spread the sickness."

And then the temperature drops.

Or, it doesn't. The room doesn't feel any colder. Shouta's body just thinks it does, because every hair on his arms and the back of his neck is standing on end. Above him, Kurono goes still.

"Hey, buddy. I wouldn't do that if I were you."

It's the voice of a kid, still cracking and uneven in the midst of dropping in pitch. A teenager, but not one of his kids, nor Togata, nor Amajiki. His heart sinks when he doesn't recognize the voice. Yakuzas recruit kids when they can, and for an invasion like this, that requires a lot of cannon fodder…

"Who the hell are—" Kurono barks out, before one of his own underlings cuts him off.

"His head!" The tone leaps up in pitch. "What happened to his fucking head?"

Gasps. Shuffling, as if they're drawing away. Are they retreating from a kid?

"Oh, this?" the kid says, cheerful and glib. "Got stabbed. I wouldn't worry about it. You should probably worry more about your own selves. The others are busy tearing up your boss, but they might break off, get bored. After that, they're coming straight for you."

"What are you talking about?" Kurono demands. "Tearing up—that's impossible. Anyone who gets close to Kai is as good as dead."

There's a beat.

The boy laughs. It's a full belly-laugh, the kind that makes you double up and wheeze for breath. By the time the brief fit passes, Shouta can almost hear Kurono seething.

"I mean," the kid says, still giggling. "You're not wrong. Right on the money, actually. Smart guy, I'll give you that."

Realization blooms. Shouta would freeze in place if he weren't already held still.

"What is that supposed to mean?" one of the villains mutters.

"How about this, smart guy?" the boy continues. "Remember Officer Shigeyama? ...No? C'mon, it's not every day you break into a guy's house, club his wife to death while he watches, and slit his throat. Do you really not remember? 'Cause he does, and so does his wife."

Another thick, heavy silence. "Who are you?" Kurono asks, and either he can't hide the shaking in his voice, or he isn't trying anymore.

"Just some guy," the kid answers. "Don't worry about me, I'm not gonna touch you, because you're not my problem yet."

"Yet?"

"Just walk away," the boy says. "Go ahead, I won't stop you. I've even given you a warning, right? About the Shigeyamas. Just put the knife down and walk away, and we won't have any problems. Okay? 'Cause if that knife touches Eraserhead…"

There's another pause, and when the boy speaks next, his tone has shifted to a wavelength that vibrates in the bone marrow.

"You're really not gonna like what happens next."

One of the villains swears and stumbles back.

"Oh, really?" Kurono retorts, calling the bluff. "What's gonna happen next, kid? What are you going to do?"

A few moments pass in silence again, stretching longer than the others. Shouta waits, still frozen and helpless, until some kind of verdict is reached.

"Oh, sorry," the kid breaks the silence. "Did you want an answer to that, or was it rhetorical?"

Kurono growls impatiently under his breath.

"Because the answer to that is…" The kid stops talking again, humming to himself as if in thought. Realization strikes again as Shouta abruptly understand what he's doing. "...mmm, not much, actually. Mostly nothing. Like, standing? And talking. Pretty much what I've been doing all ready, standing and talking."

"Do you think this is a joke?" Kurono barks.

"Just gonna keep doing what I'm already doing," the kid says gleefully.

"What?"

"Distracting yooouu."

A shoe scrapes on the concrete, and the Shouta reads the disturbance in the air. Kurono is lunging closer, away from the kid and toward Shouta's body, knife raised. Suddenly the villain grunts, struggling against something.

"Let go, you stupid brat—!"

Something long and flexible whips around him like a lasso and yanks, dragging him to the side. A knife blade strikes the spot where he was just lying, seconds before a nearby villain yelps in surprise. Shouta can hear blows land, but he can't tell who's doing the hitting. More villains cry out, their voices traveling upward.

"Thanks, Mrs. Kitayama!" the boy calls out. "Good timing."

"You're very welcome, Narita-kun!""

Shouta is set down gently and released, The blindfold is snatched off, just in time to see Uraraka drop back and join Asui in standing over him. Kurono is the only villain left standing; three others are trapped on the ceiling, and the rest are lying in dazed heaps on the ground.

He spares a moment to be peeved. His students just took down five villains in an enclosed space, and he missed it.

Uraraka looks back at him. "Are you okay, sensei?" she asks. Over her shoulder, the arrow-shaped mutation on Kurono's head lashes out, heading straight for her. Shouta can't even open his mouth to warn her. He strains to activate his quirk, but in his slowed-down state, it takes agonizingly long for the heat to build behind his eyes.

The arrow never reaches her.

The empty space between Kurono and Uraraka is suddenly occupied. A woman and a teenager seem to blink into existence, and instead of reaching Uraraka, the arrow hits the boy instead.

"Huh." The boy looks down at the spot where the arrow struck. His speed of movement is noticeably normal. "That was a weird tickle."

Kurono's eyes bulge. He strikes again and again, but the boy and woman are unfazed.

The heat reaches its peak, his eyeballs itch, and Shouta finally, finally unleashes his quirk.

He's on his feet the moment the arrow stops moving, his muscles screaming after being locked in place for so long. His student moves faster. Asui's tongue coils and twists around the now-inert lock of mutated hair. She yanks down, and Kurono's head bounces off the concrete like a basketball.

"Oof." The boy hisses with sympathy. "Shigeyamas aren't gonna be happy you stole their thunder."

Asui doesn't answer him. She looks at him briefly, then turns to Uraraka with the beginnings of a thousand-yard stare. 

"He has a hole in his head," she says faintly.

"Yep," Uraraka says in a high voice.

"I can fit my whole finger in it!" the boy says proudly. "Wanna see?"

"That won't be necessary," Asui croaks, turning green.

Shouta lets the conversations watch over him as he finishes zip-tying the downed villains. They can be retrieved later. 

He doesn't know the boy. He knows the injury from crime scene photographs: a perfectly round puncture wound in the side of the head, deep enough to be instantly fatal. He never had the chance to meet the boy. He knew that already. 

But the woman he knows. He swam away with her son in his arms before he could watch her die. Now she stands before him, dripping wet as if she just crawled out of the bay that drowned her.

She sees him staring and smiles, a little sadly. "Let's leave that for later, shall we?" she says.

"Where's Midoriya?" he asks.

"Follow us!" Narita chimes in. "We'll take you to them. I mean, it didn't look like he needed much help when we last saw him—"

"He will," Kitayama says. "Let's hurry."

"Sensei?' Asui looks from one face to the next, hopelessly lost. "Ochako—what's going on?"

"Let's get to Deku first," Ochako tells her. "He can explain it best."

"But—"

"I did mean hurry," Kitayama calls to them. "There's not much time."

That puts an end to questions.

The cavern is unrecognizable.

Every now and then, the ground ripples with violent change. Izuku hasn't seen Chisaki in quite some time, but he can see the results of his panic. The jagged landscape has been torn to shreds, and not all of it reformed. Concrete tosses and turns like the ocean in a storm, giving away each moment the ghosts let him touch the ground. It isn't much.

They won't last forever, of course. Izuku can already feel it ebbing, as One For All leaves its dozens of temporary vessels and returns to him. The ghosts are solid enough to touch, to hurt, but not quite strong enough to kill on their own.

It's not for lack of trying.

Screams ring out as the dead begin to wane, and Izuku blocks out the noise and keeps pressure on the terrible wound in Nighteye's stomach. One particularly violent ripple had freed him from the spike through his stomach, and on the one hand it left Izuku free to drag him to safety, but on the other, the blood flows faster without the spike holding it in.

"It's getting quieter," Nighteye says. 

Izuku can barely hear him. "Not to me."

"You need to leave," Nighteye tells him. "Take Eri—get out, before they all vanish."

"Can't," Izuku says. "Who else is gonna plug this hole?"

"Deku—"

"No."

"That's an order," Nighteye rasps.

"Just think," Izuku replies. "If you live through this, you can put it in my eval."

Nighteye coughs, turning his head to split blood onto the broken concrete. "Stubborn brat. I'm already dead."

"I think I know a dead person when I see one."

As if on cue, the familiar prickle of watching eyes runs up his spine. He feels the ghost behind him before he hears them, before Nighteye's bleary eyes flicker past him, and well before the hero gasps out a warning. Without moving anything but his head, Izuku looks up to find Magne standing over him, sparks fading from her body.

She holds her hand out to the side, the handgun loaded with permanent quirk-erasers dangling idly from her fingers.

"Much as I'd like to stick around for my pound of flesh," she says. "I have some people to talk to before I lose my chance. Something tells me you're not gonna give me another one." Izuku's eyes are fixed on the gun, and she smiles and tosses it away. It clatters to the ground no less than ten meters away, well out of reach. "Have fun." Without another word, she vanishes.

"You should stop her," Nighteye urges. "She'll go straight to the League."

"I know."

"If they find out about what you can do—"

"I know." His vision blurs with tears. "But I can't move." Another ripple comes, quicker than the last. The edge of it nearly reaches them before it stops.

"If you don't leave me," Nighteye tells him, "We'll both be dead."

A scream rings out, high and clear and familiar enough to turn Izuku's head. Chisaki, breaking free of the remaining ghosts, bends the ground beneath him to fling himself toward Eri. The girl is on the ground, curled up and clutching her head as her horn continues to spark and glow. Rei crouches over her, unhinges her jaw and shrieks in defiance, but there aren't enough solid ghosts to hold Chisaki back anymore.

They're all too far away to reach, and they won't come back for more power from Izuku. They're in a frenzy, they won't listen—

"Deku!"

Izuku chokes down a sob. One of Chisaki's ground-destroying ripples took down the barrier blocking off the rest of the tunnels, and standing in the jagged doorway is Uraraka. The cavern shakes, but she stays on her feet and reaches him at a dead run. She's not alone; Tsuyu is with her, and it should bother him that Tsuyu is there when a handful of ghosts are still visible, but there's just no room left in him to worry about it.

"I have to go," he says. "Here—keep pressure on, I have to—"

"Go," she tells him, slipping easily into his place. "Hurry."

"We called for help," Tsuyu says faintly. "And Aizawa's right behind us…"

Power ripples through him again. It's less than before, but still he pours it into every ghost he passes, until he can feel himself scraping at the dregs. It won't last long, but it doesn't have to. Help is on the way. Every second he can buy is worthwhile.

Chisaki disappears into the mob again, screaming as they claw at him. Izuku runs past him to where Eri huddles on the ground, horn blazing like a star. Rei is trying to tend to her, but nothing works. Eri's face is blank with terror. She looks like she's about to pass out.

Arms catch Izuku around the middle, pulling him up short. He struggles, exhausted but still determined. "Let me go, I have to—"

"Don't," Eri's father tells him. "Don't touch her, or you'll end up like me."

Izuku goes still, frustrated. "But—"

"I'll get her," the ghost says. "She can't hurt me anymore."

Rei bares her teeth at his approach, but moves aside when she realizes who it is. Eri's father gathers her up in his arms. If she realizes what is happening, or who is carrying her, she doesn't show it.

The ghost takes a moment to hold her close, eyes shut as he touches his daughter for the first time in years.

More of One For All slips away from the ghosts, and the moment is cut short when Chisaki breaks free again. Izuku pours his last drops of energy into the ghosts close enough to get in his way. The edges of his vision go dark, but he stays on his feet and follows Rei, Eri, and her silent father back to the others.

They reach them just as Aizawa come through the opening, limping on a leg that Narita warns him is broken. His teacher stops short and stares for a moment, at the howling mob of the dead, the concrete floor and walls that come alive from time to time, and the pitiful group huddled at the edge of it all. A moment later, he joins them as well.

"Do I want to know?" he asks over the noise.

"You erase quirks, don't you?" Eri's father asks, still cradling her gently. "Please, something's wrong and she can't turn it off. She's burning up—I think it's hurting her."

It's as simple as flipping a switch. The glow in Eri's horn vanishes, and it shrinks down to a tiny nub on her forehead. Her eyes slip shut, and she goes limp in her father's arms. 

He quickly passes her to Izuku. "Sorry. I think I'm fading, and I don't want to drop her—" The sparks of One For All vanish as soon as the words are out.

One by one the ghosts in the room lose their borrowed power, their solidity. They keep tearing at him, until it becomes clear that they can no longer touch him.

The fight is going to continue. They have a better chance with Aizawa here, but his leg is broken. Izuku wants desperately to get up, but the strength has gone from his legs and the tunnel vision won't go away. One For All is back in its proper vessel, but his energy is just gone.

When it all dies down, Chisaki is kneeling in the middle of the crowd, shoulders heaving as he breathes. His jacket is gone, torn from his body along with the mask, which now lies discarded and out of reach. His face is scratched and gouged, blood drips from his nose and mouth, and one eye keeps squinting and shutting. His throat is dark with bruises, all in the shape of grasping hands and fingers.

But he's still alive, still awake, still looking at them with murder in his eyes.

Izuku strains to get up, but a hand lands heavy on his shoulder.

"Don't get up, Midoriya-chan," Tsuyu tells him. "Help is coming, and if it comes to it, we can fight him instead."

Izuku swallows the lump in his throat. It's part relief and part guilt for feeling relieved. He shouldn't want to make someone fight for him, especially if they can't afford to. Uraraka is busy with Nighteye. Even if she weren't, she and Tsuyu are contact fighters, and there's no worse way to fight against Chisaki. But there's no other way, because Aizawa can barely walk and Izuku has nothing left to give the ghosts.

He's so tired.

Chisaki climbs to his feet. There's no smugness left, no more calm, easy arrogance and certainty of victory. All that's left is base rage.

He lunges toward them, slamming his hand to a concrete ridge. Aizawa's eyes flash red, and nothing happens. Chisaki ducks behind the ridge, out of Aizawa's line of sight. In an instant, a wave of concrete spikes ripples toward them.

There's a blur of red and gold, shooting past them with the sound of a cape snapping, before it vanishes into the ground. The pillar hiding Chisaki shatters, and the wave of spikes halts close enough for Izuku to reach out and touch the tip of one. Chisaki goes flying out from behind his cover, doubled up and choking from a blow to the stomach.

Togata stands between him and the rest of them, and chances a look over his shoulder. His face is a mask of cold fury. Izuku has never seen him look like that before.

"Is everyone all right?" His voice doesn't shake. He is deathly, eerily calm.

Izuku is tired. Eri weighs far too little for a girl her age, but even she feels heavy to him now. Everything hurts. His face feels sticky and crusty with blood or tears or both. He doesn't even have the energy to lie.

"No." His voice breaks.

Togata's eyes burn with anger before he turns back to the villain, and in spite of the festering guilt and helplessness stirring in his gut. Izuku swallows a sob of relief. Someone else is fighting now. He doesn't have to get up anymore.

It's the single most vicious fight that Izuku has ever witnessed. Togata sends a bone-shattering punch into Chisaki's jaw, and Chisaki's lethal hands pass through him again and again. It's almost laughable, how little the villain can do against him. Except…

Togata is fast and skilled, avoiding death every time Chisaki reaches for him, but Chisaki only needs to get lucky once.

At their feet, dark metal glints in the scant light of the cavern.

"Togata!" Izuku yells, after he sends Chisaki flying back with a kick. Togata looks. Izuku raises one leaden arm and spells out a message with his hand.

In that moment of distraction, the villain doesn't try to kill him again. His eyes fall upon Izuku, with Eri limp and unconscious in his arms, and he makes one last break for them. Concrete obstacles part to make way for him, and he reaches out with wild, hungry eyes.

Aizawa's eyes glow red, and Chisaki's hand is harmless by the time his fingertips reach Izuku's face. A shot rings out, and the villain goes rigid.

He turns, and finds Togata staring down the barrel of the handgun, as steady as a statue.

Togata squeezes the trigger again, and again, over and over until it clicks emptily in his hand, and every drop of Chisaki's own final weapon is coursing through his body.

Tsuyu's tongue wraps around Chisaki's neck and pulls him to the ground, and when Chisaki puts up a fight, she leaps on top of him and knocks him cold with a vicious punch to the base of his skull. In the silence that follows, Izuku can hear the distant rumble of footsteps.

"Friendlies are on the way," a ghost says helpfully.

"Oh, good," Izuku whispers. "Can somebody take Eri?" Aizawa is helping Tsuyu secure Chisaki. Uraraka is busy tending to Nighteye.

Togata drops the handgun. For a moment he pauses, eyes fixed on Nighteye as sickening fear creeps over his face. But the moment passes, and he kneels to take Eri from him. "I've got her."

"Good," Izuku says. "Because I'm about to—"

He knows nothing more.