Chapter Text
“...stop this,” All Might shouted in the comms. “You’ll kill him!”
“He won’t die if it’s not dire—” Bakugo stopped as the building around them started to shake. The sudden earthquake made him pull the pin faster than intended. Izuku dodged. Barely. But that wasn’t the problem now. Cracks spread like spiderwebs through the walls, ceiling, and floor, splintering the concrete with a deafening groan. Izuku’s heart pounded against his ribs as dust rained down, stinging his eyes.
“Uraraka?” he called, and the only answer he gained was a sharp yelp alongside a huge thump sound from above.
The ceiling lurched. A thunderous crack split the air, and massive chunks of debris began to fall.
Izuku’s instincts screamed before his mind could catch up.
_-_-_
Toshinori heard the beginning of Bakugo’s response to his warning when the earthquake rattled the observation room.
It was in the fucking basement. Why was the observation room in the fucking basement? Like Toshinori understands the concept of limited space, sure—but if U.A. had a problem, it definitely wasn’t a lack of area. And even if it was putting any kind of commotion hall underground in a high-risk earthquake zone was just plain stupid. Even if the building was supposedly “earthquake-proof”.
As if anything built near the COMBAT TRAINING area could ever be completely safe.
Not that he had much time to dwell on that thought. The ceiling above him groaned, concrete dust falling like snow. He braced his shoulders, holding up a section of the collapsing roof to shield students clustered near him. His eyes darted to the screen — what he saw made him shiver. The Entrance Gate building wasn’t the only one coming down in Ground Beta.
“Son—” he whispered.
_-_-_
Izuku’s mind went black for a split second as the building groaned like a wounded predator.
Danger. Fall. Danger. Above. Move.
A massive chunk of concrete and steel plummeted toward him, and, as it had happened many times before, his body moved on its own. Protect. Hold. Make sure Kacchan and others are safe.
His arms shot up, palms slamming into falling mass.
“When you’re moving something that heavy, spread the weight across your whole body — or you’ll get seriously hurt, young man.” All Might’s voice echoed in his memory, a lesson from the days of clearing trash at Dagobah Beach.
He shifted his stance, spreading the strain through his arms, back, and legs. Stay steady. Stay strong. Green lightning flared around him without him even realising it. One For All was already roaring to life.
_-_-_
Bakugo stood on the edge of going catatonic. He’d nearly killed Izuku Deku. Hell, he had been ready to kill him. And now the damn nerd was the only reason he wasn’t crushed under the rubble — the same rubble he’d helped bring down.
Don’t get him wrong — he knew the earthquake had done its share of damage — but the building should’ve been standing long enough to evacuate, if not for the extra damage he caused. The damage which he saw was caused by villains on TV.
Fuck.
Through the cracks and gaping holes in the ceiling fell two limp figures, landing near the nerd who, for some fucking reason, was now glowing green.
It suits him… Looks like a quirk of a hero…
Then he came back to the situation around him, and it clicked.
The exercise.
Four Eyes.
And Round Cheeks.
Shit.
He staggered forward to check on them like Izuku would do, but Izuku’s Deku’s voice cut through the noise.
“Kacchan, get Uraraka and Iida out of there!”
Fucking nerd has the guts to order him? Fine — he’s got a quirk now.
Like it changed anything.
Little backbone wouldn’t hurt that bastard.
Who is responsible that he didn’t have it before?
Who beat it out of him if not you?
How the hell that happened could be addressed later. For now, he will just take those two out of there. WHICH HE ALREADY PLANNED TO DO!
No, you didn’t.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Izuku, because you would do that.
He will make sure to tell Izuku Deku later so this shitstain can’t look down at him any more than he already does.
He isn’t, you are.
But this isn’t the time.
“DON’T YOU DARE DIE HERE NERD, OR I WILL KILL YOU”, Bakugo yelled, bringing Uraraka into his hold. Yeah — he knows their names; not that he will ever let fucking extras know that.
It would make him feel weak.
Then he saw the cracks under Deku’s Izuku’s feet. “WATCH THE FU-” he started to shout when the floor lost its fight with gravity. And the nerd didn’t move.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Okay, not the time.
But he WILL get answers.
Even if you aren’t worth them.
For now, he needs to take Round Cheeks Uraraka out of here.
_-_-_
The quaker hadn’t stopped — just slowed. Momo was pressing her shoulder against the trembling wall, counting the cracks on the walls because that was what her brain chose to do instead of typical panic.
You are the Yaoyorozu Heiress
“It’s f-fine — everyone, stay calm,” she said, through the word fine cracked apart in her throat. The classmates around her weren’t reassured, nor was she.
Damn it! Calm down, you are a recommended student with the highest score in yesterday's test.
You are Yaoyorozu
You should not panic
You should not show your emotions
All Might-sensei was literally holding up the ceiling. His arm trembled, not from weakness but from sheer effort, every muscle drawn tight even in that fragile form. That was the moment Momo Yaoyorozu realised that her teacher was, without rudeness, just old. Grey from dust hair, and highlighted by its wrinkles, showed it perfectly.
All Might was in UA forty years ago.
Her teacher is fifty-six.
Her teacher is nearly four times older than us.
Her teacher started teaching in the U.A.
It means there will be no more Symbol of Peace
It means Momo will enter the profession when there is chaos.
Will she be strong enough?
When she cannot even control her own emotions?
Momo’s mind was spiralling, but her body forced itself to move on its own — to act.
Metal.
Support structures.
Her mind caught that she could help. Her hands shook as the first steel beam materialised, landing beside All Might with a heavy clang, still radiating heat from its creation.
Wait, heat— not the time.
“I’ll— I’ll reinforce it! Please, sensei, just — just hold it steady for a second!” she stammered.
He gave her a brief nod —grim, grateful— and she created another beam, then another, trying to form a skeleton beneath the collapsing roof. Each one took more from her than the last. She didn’t even notice when Sato and Ojiro started helping her. Her heartbeat was outpacing her thoughts; her breathing stuttered between gasps.
She was pale, her cheeks sagged, and her weight dropped more than she should have allowed it. She started to shiver.
“It’s all right, Yaoyorozu-san,” someone whispered — Kaminari, maybe Jirou or Mina — but reassurance only made her chest tighten even more. Because it wasn’t all right.
The door between the observation room and staircase was half-buried beneath fallen concrete. She stared at it — the frame twisted inward, sealing shut like a wealded seam. The air felt smaller.
No way out.
Her mind raced, but it was worthless. She was worthless. She could make beans but not exits. And beside her, the Symbol of Peace started coughing blood.
“Everyone stay together — don’t move until I— until it’s clear,” she ordered, her voice trembling and weak in her underweight body. They calmed down a little. Maybe they trusted her. Maybe fear had made them freeze in place.
Will anybody be here soon enough to save us?
_-_-_
The world was quiet when he woke. Too quiet.
For half a second, Aizawa thought it was still early morning. Then the low, distant rumble reminded him that the quiet wasn’t peace—it was pressure, coiled beneath the earth like a growl waiting to break free.
He blinked grit from his eyes. The teacher’s lounge light flickered once, twice, then died. A pen rolled off the desk and clattered to the floor.
Earthquake.
He was moving before the thought finished forming, hair floating around his face, scarf already unfurling like it had a will of its own. The shaking hit a heartbeat later—violent, sudden, the kind that didn’t build up but simply was.
The world tilted. Ceiling tiles came down like dead leaves. His knee cracked against the desk as he caught his balance, one hand already slamming against the wall comm. Dead static.
His pulse spiked. Class 1-A.
The Battle Trial arena.
Basement observation room.
“Shit.”
He was running before the curse finished leaving his mouth. The corridor blurred into a haze of dust and stuttering light. The floor had split near the doorway, but he didn’t care. Someone shouted his name from the adjacent hall—Cementoss, calm even when the ground wasn’t.
“Eraser!” Cementoss called, jogging toward him, a concrete mask forming over his lower face. “You felt it too?”
“The Gate Building. Ground Beta. Basement level.” Aizawa’s tone was clipped, words sharp and surgical.
Cementoss didn’t hesitate. The concrete rippled beneath his feet, forming a solid path through the fractures. It wasn’t even a discussion—Aizawa followed, years of coordination turning reaction into motion.
The hall groaned again. Dust burned Aizawa’s eyes; his scarf flared outward, anchoring him as another tremor rolled through—a harsher aftershock.
The ceiling above them split open. Cementoss reacted first, raising a barrier that caught the debris mid-fall. Aizawa ducked under, barely breaking stride.
“Students first,” Cementoss said.
“I know.” Aizawa’s voice was low, strained, already fading as he sprinted.
He didn’t think about what ifs, Oboro, or how stable the structure was, OBORO, or whether he’d make it in time. OBORO Just them. His class. All Might.
If something had happened—
No. Don’t finish that thought.
It’s not Oboro's situation again.
IT’S NOT
The air grew thicker as they neared the lower wing. Even more when they rushed towards Ground Beta, the Entrance Gate Building was nearly fully collapsed, same like the rest of the fence. No students in sight.
They are still in the basement.
He again was too slow.
“We need to stabilise before going in,” Cementoss warned.
“Then start stabilising,” Aizawa said, scarf snapping forward as he tore debris from the entrance.
And even as the building convulsed again—foundations crying out, air humming with collapse—he didn’t stop. Couldn’t.
Not yet.
NOT AGAIN.
_-_-_
Outside air hit like a slap—cold, sharp, full of dust and smoke. Bakugo stumbled into it, Uraraka limp against his shoulder. She was half-conscious, whispering something he couldn’t catch. Probably his name. Or—no. Probably Izuku’s. She had it bad for nerd Greenie.
He set her down against a cracked wall, hands trembling more than he wanted to admit. She was breathing. Good. Maybe concussed, but alive.
That should’ve been enough. Get her safe. Wait for backup. That’s what a sane person would do.
He wasn’t feeling particularly sane.
Inside, the building groaned again—like it was remembering to die. The aftershock slammed into him a moment later, throwing grit into his mouth. A cloud of dust burst from shattered windows, the sound hollow and wet like bone cracking.
“Kacchan, bring Uraraka and Iida out of there.”
That damn voice replayed in his skull—tinny, irritating, right.
“Tch. Damn nerd,” he hissed, jaw locking as he turned toward the gaping wound that used to be a hallway.
He ran back in.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the air grew thicker. Hotter. Every breath scraped his lungs raw. The corridor was half-collapsed, the ceiling sagging like it wanted to finish the job. Rubble hung above like jagged teeth waiting to bite down. Someone was coughing. Four eyes —steady but weak.
“Iida! Shout again!”
“Bakugo! Here!”
He found him pinned under a slab of concrete, only centimetres from disaster. Bakugo’s palms itched—sweat and nitroglycerin mixing into heat.
“Don’t move, dumbass—you’ll make it worse.”
He set off a small blast, just enough to tilt the debris aside. It worked—but the ceiling didn’t like it. Another crack shot across the concrete, deeper, louder, spidering through the room like lightning.
“Of course. Of fucking course.”
Iida tried to speak, still rational, still thinking. “The structural inte—”
“Shut up and crawl!” Bakugo barked, dragging him toward the exit. His muscles screamed, the floor lurched, and for one second—he thought maybe they’d make it.
Then came that sound.
Low. Guttural. Endless.
The rest of the unfallen ceiling gave way.
Time fractured.
Deku was still inside. Half buried under an arch, green lightning flickering weakly around him. He looked up just as the largest slab broke free—
—and then the air went black.
Black tendrils tore out of Deku’s arms—smoke twisted into muscle, slamming into the debris and holding it. The slabs hung midair, trembling but unmoving, like the world had forgotten gravity.
Bakugo froze.
“What the—”
The tendrils pulsed, alive, anchoring themselves into the walls. Dust spiralled in circles around them, weightless in the glow of that sickly green light.
Deku’s eyes shone faintly through the haze—too bright, too distant, not human enough.
Bakugo’s throat closed up. His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
What the hell are you?
A hero you never will be
He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. Not anymore. Or he already knew. But it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right.
He grabbed Iida tighter. “Move. Now!”
They ran, bolting beneath the floating wreckage, every instinct screaming that it would collapse. Once outside, Bakugo turned just in time to see one of the tendrils snap—metallic, shrieking like tearing steel.
Just above him.
He saved you.
Again.
Bakugo stared, chest heaving, hands still shaking. “What the hell was that, nerd…” he muttered. But it didn’t sound angry anymore. Just raw.
He saved them.
He saved you.
Again.
He’s supposed to be the weak one.
He’s supposed to lose so you can prove you’re right.
So why the fuck is he winning by dying for it?
He took a step back. His pulse refused to slow.
That thing—those shadows—they weren’t from explosions. Not from strength training. Not from any damn quirk U.A. had files on.
He wasn’t strong enough to stop it. He wasn’t even close. He was THE REASON it needed to be stopped.
You were ready to kill him.
And he was ready to die for everyone else.
You’re not a hero.
You’re just someone pretending until it feels real.
And it doesn’t.
You never were a hero.
Maybe never will be.
His hands clenched, nails biting into his palms until blood rose through the grit.
“Damn it,” he whispered. “Damn it.”
He couldn’t even tell if it was anger or guilt anymore.
The air still reeked of smoke and ash and shame.
You need to fix this.
You can’t fix this.
Then get stronger.
Strong enough not to be the reason someone dies saving you.
He’s supposed to be your rival.
Not your reminder that you are everything you hate.
Bakugo exhaled sharply, shoulders tight.
Maybe I’m not ready to be a hero.
Not like this.
He turned away from the wreckage, lying down next to the classmates he rescued. The decision formed itself somewhere between his heartbeat and the ringing in his ears.
He’d back down. Just for a while. A year. Maybe longer.
He’d figure out what it actually meant to be a hero—
and whether he ever could be one.
_-_-_
The noise faded before the light did.
Or maybe it was the other way around.
Everything hurt—not sharp pain, just pressure, like the world had decided he was one of the support beams. His arms trembled beneath the weight of the debris still pressing down. The black tendrils had done what he couldn’t—reached farther, faster, steadier. He didn’t know how. He only knew the ceiling was still above him instead of on top of him.
His vision pulsed green, then white, then black around the edges. Blinking didn’t help. His body buzzed with static, the smell of ozone burning the back of his throat.
Someone shouted outside—Bakugo, probably—but the sound was muffled, distant, as if he were hearing it through water.
Move.
He tried, but his body refused. The tendrils didn’t—they writhed once, tightening, holding the fractured structure together like they’d made a promise without asking his permission.
And then—
Voices.
Soft. Overlapping. A low hum threads through the back of his skull.
He needs Fa Jin and Gear Shift, or One For All is dead!
He doesn’t deserve them
You want him to die?
The words weren’t in the air—they were in him. Layered and restless, echoing through his bones. He couldn’t count them—ten, twelve, more—it felt like a crowd whispering behind a wall.
Izuku’s breath hitched. “Wh… what…” The sound came out cracked and dry.
One voice broke through the noise—calmer, deeper, carrying weight and warmth, like a steady hand resting on his shoulder.
Focus on the present, Nine. The rest can wait.
He wanted to ask, Who are you?
But the building groaned again, and that was answer enough: Later.
He forced his eyes open. The green light flickered; the black tendrils quivered, starting to fade into smoke. His muscles screamed as if the air itself were cutting into them.
“Not yet,” he rasped, fingers digging into the fractured floor. One For All pulsed, lightning flaring bright enough to sear the air.
Just a little longer. Long enough for everyone to get out.
Dust fell in slow motion, soft against the roar in his ears. He could feel the power shredding through him—every spark a knife-edge against his nerves. His heartbeat crashed like thunder.
He didn’t notice the blood trailing from his nose, or the way cracks spread wider beneath his knees.
He just kept holding on but shivering. He didn’t see that others were already out. He didn’t see that with every shiver, his skin glowed more and more red.
_-_-_
For a moment, Momo thought the rumbling had stopped.
Then it came back—louder, deeper—and the entire room lurched sideways. Dust burst from the ceiling seams; the support poles she’d made groaned like the building was chewing through them.
“Everyone down!” she shouted, throwing her arms over her head as plaster chunks rained down. Someone screamed—Kaminari or Sero, she couldn’t tell—and in that instant she realised, with sick clarity, that the ceiling was still moving.
“All Might!”
He didn’t answer. He was still under the largest beam, one arm raised, bracing it as the floor trembled beneath him. Blood—real blood—ran from his temple, streaking down into the corner of his mouth.
Her body moved before her mind could catch up. Another pole—thicker this time. Then another. Her hands burned from overuse, skin raw and slick with sweat. She didn’t even know what she was making anymore—steel, titanium, anything her panic demanded.
Then the door—what used to be the door—shuddered from the outside. Concrete shifted. For one heartbeat, she thought it was another collapse.
Then came the voice.
“Stand back!” Cementoss.
The wall exploded inward in controlled precision—chunks of debris folding aside as smooth new concrete replaced them. The dust cleared enough for her to see two figures: Cementoss, mask tight across his face, and Aizawa-sensei, scarf whipping around him like a creature alive.
“Sensei!” she gasped, relief cracking through the fear for just a second.
“Everyone accounted for?” Aizawa’s tone was sharp, clipped, and professional. His eyes swept across the wrecked room—All Might’s position, her makeshift supports, and the terrified students pressed against the far wall.
She nodded too fast. “Yes, the ones here—yes, but the exit was—”
“Blocked. I see it.” He crouched beside Cementoss, assessing angles with clinical precision. His tone stayed steady, but his breathing wasn’t—short, strained, like every word cost effort.
Cementoss raised both hands, reshaping the floor into a sloped path toward the breach. “I can stabilise this section for thirty seconds, maybe less. We need to move them now.”
Momo turned to her classmates. “Go! One at a time, stay low—don’t touch the walls!” Her voice cracked again, but no one argued this time.
Kaminari stumbled first, Jirou close behind, Shoji dragging a dazed Hagakure between them. The ground trembled; Cementoss grunted, forcing the slope to hold.
Momo helped the next pair through—but when she turned back, Aizawa hadn’t moved.
He was staring upward.
At first, she thought he was checking structural stability. Then she saw his face. His eyes weren’t sharp anymore—they were wide, unfocused, frozen on something above the cracked ceiling.
“All Might?” he whispered, but it didn’t sound like a question. It sounded like a memory, raw and jagged.
“Sensei?” Momo took a hesitant step forward.
Through the jagged tear in the ceiling, light flickered—green and black, weaving together like lightning tangled in smoke. For a split second, she saw it: Midoriya, arms raised, electricity crawling over him as shadow coiled around his body. Holding the collapsing structure up. Alone.
Aizawa froze.
“Kid—” His voice broke. She couldn’t tell if it was fear or déjà vu, tearing it apart. His scarf twitched once, then fell limp at his side.
Cementoss turned sharply, frowning. “Eraser?”
But Aizawa didn’t respond. His eyes were locked on the impossible sight above them—on a student bearing the weight of the building like a ghost of someone he’d already lost.
Momo’s stomach went cold. She didn’t understand how, but she understood enough.
“All Might!” she called, her voice cracking under the weight of everything it carried. “We have to move—now!”
The older hero nodded once—slow, grim, pain heavy in the motion. He adjusted his grip on the beam, muscles shaking in that fragile form.
“Get them out first,” he said, voice trembling but resolute.
_-_-_
For the first time since he’d inherited One For All, Toshinori Yagi didn’t know which sound to follow—the rumble of the collapsing building, the shouts through the comms, or the pulse in his own chest whispering his boy is in danger.
The emergency monitors in the control hall were flickering, half-dead from the quake. Static devoured most of the feeds, but one camera still clung to life—the one fixed on the west wing of the training building.
Through the trembling haze of dust and distortion, Toshinori saw it.
Green light.
Then black.
Then red.
Midoriya stood on what was left of the second floor, arms raised, every muscle shaking as if he were holding up the sky itself. Lightning crawled up his limbs, weaving with dark tendrils that anchored into the broken concrete. He was glowing—not radiant, not divine—burning, like a fuse seconds from the flame.
Toshinori’s stomach plummeted. “No—no, no, no—”
The monitors snapped to white static.
“All Might?” Cementoss’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears. They were already running—sprinting through the debris-choked corridor toward the lower entrance. Aizawa raced beside him, scarf slicing through the dust like a shadow with teeth. Behind them, Yaoyorozu and the others moved the remaining students out.
“He’s still inside!” Toshinori shouted, half to them, half to the ghosts of every failure he’d buried. “He’s still in there!”
The floor lurched under another aftershock, tiles fracturing, the ceiling weeping dust. Cementoss thrust both hands forward, reshaping the path as they ran, the concrete rising and steadying beneath their feet. Neither Toshinori nor Aizawa slowed.
When they reached the breach, sound hit before sight—a low, vibrating hum that crawled into their bones. The air itself felt alive. Unstable.
“Midoriya!” Toshinori’s voice cracked through the storm, thin and desperate. His lungs burned. His heart hammered so violently it felt like One For All was still inside him, begging to be used.
Above them, the building’s upper floors buckled inward—and the world erupted in light.
It wasn’t an explosion. It was a breath.
A massive exhale of power that tore through the air, flattening dust and ripping the sky in half. Toshinori threw up an arm, Aizawa’s scarf snapping outward to shield the students behind them.
When the air finally cleared, half the building was simply gone.
And Midoriya—
Midoriya was falling faster than it should have been possible.
For a heartbeat, Toshinori thought he’d lost consciousness. The boy was descending through the haze like a meteor, spirals of green and red light chasing him down.
He moved before thought returned. “IZUKU!”
Cementoss started to raise a wall, but Toshinori waved him off. “Don’t—he’ll—”
The boy didn’t hit the ground.
He stopped.
Suspended less than a meter above the rubble, his body jerked violently, held aloft by the last dying threads of energy. The tendrils snapped back into him with a wet, tearing sound, and the glow vanished.
Then he dropped the rest of the way.
Limp. Quiet.
A puff of dust rose around him—and fell just as quickly.
“IZUKU!” young Bakugo shouted, unable to stand after straining himself, still next to young Uraraka and young Iida.
For one long, impossible second, no one breathed.
Then Toshinori did. Barely.
He staggered forward, his legs unsteady, the afterimage of that red light burned into his vision. “Young Midoriya…”
He was already running before the words fully left his mouth.
Toshinori hit the rubble on his knees before he even realised he’d fallen. The dust was thick enough to taste—grit and iron on his tongue. He shoved debris aside with shaking hands, ignoring the burning in his lungs, until his fingers met fabric.
Green. Torn. Still warm.
“Midoriya.”
No response. The boy lay half on his side, arm twisted under him, freckles ghost-pale under the dirt. The faint glow from One For All had vanished entirely. For a horrifying second, Toshinori thought—
Then he saw it. The rise and fall of his chest. Shallow. Uneven. But there.
He exhaled, a broken, strangled sound somewhere between relief and disbelief. “You absolute fool… You brilliant, reckless boy.”
Cementoss and Aizawa reached him seconds later. The older man didn’t speak; he just started clearing what was left of the debris with trembling control. Toshinori gathered Izuku into his arms carefully—he weighed nothing. Too little for what he’d just done.
“He’s alive,” Toshinori said hoarsely, as if saying it might make it more true. “Severe quirk strain, maybe fractures, but—alive.”
Cementoss nodded, already forming a stable patch of ground around them. “Ambulance is en route. I’ll flag them in.”
Aizawa stood a few steps back, unmoving, eyes fixed upward on the gaping hole where the ceiling used to be. Toshinori opened his mouth to thank him, to tell him they’d made it—but something in the man’s face made the words die in his throat.
Aizawa’s breathing was shallow. His eyes weren’t tracking the scene anymore. They were somewhere else entirely.
_-_-_
It wasn’t the noise that broke him—it was the silence that followed.
The building was still groaning, settling, but everything else had gone quiet. The adrenaline drained all at once, leaving a ringing in his ears and a heaviness in his chest.
Midoriya. Holding the ceiling. Alone.
For a second, it wasn’t Midoriya anymore.
It was Oboro.
The dust in the air wasn’t dust; it was the collapse of that old building, the same scream of metal, the same sickening drop of helplessness. His throat tightened. His scarf hung loose at his sides.
He blinked hard, but the vision didn’t fade fast enough.
Toshinori’s voice cut through the echo. “He’s alive, Aizawa.”
He turned toward the sound like he’d been underwater and someone had called from the surface. Toshinori was kneeling, holding the boy, mall, battered, still breathing. The sight cracked something open. Relief hit hard and messy, tangled with the terror that hadn’t had time to settle before now.
He forced his voice steady. “Get Recovery Girl ready. And isolation—his quirk just… evolved.”
It wasn’t the right word, but it was the only one that fit.
He turned away before anyone could see his hands shaking.
Cementoss laid a solid bridge over the last unstable stretch of rubble, guiding the others out. Yaoyorozu was crying quietly near the doorway, dust streaking down her face. Aizawa’s instinct said go to her, reassure, command order—but his body wouldn’t move right.
The image replayed anyway: a student, half his age, bracing the world like it was nothing, while he froze and watched.
When the sirens finally cut through the air, he realised he’d been holding his breath since the building started to fall.
OMAKE
Two Days Later, USJ
The villain portal spat Shigaraki and his group into the middle of the training dome with its usual screech.
And then—silence.
No lights. No voices. No All Might.
The dome was dark. Half the lights were out, the rest flickered weakly, illuminating a cavern of untouched dust.
Kurogiri tilted his head. “It seems… abandoned.”
Shigaraki stared, shoulders twitching. “What do you mean by abandoned? This was supposed to be today!”
He stalked forward, kicking a loose rock across the floor. It clanged once, echoing into the emptiness.
“WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE HERO BRATS AND ALL MIGHT?!”
His voice bounced off the walls and died somewhere in the rafters.
Kurogiri sighed, already opening another warp. “Perhaps we should reschedule.”
Shigaraki froze, fists clenching. “This is the worst field trip ever.”
The warp swallowed them, leaving only the sound of the rock rolling to a stop.