Mina had ripped out the saline from her at the hospital. She didn't need it, and she didn't want it in her veins anymore. The pain was gone, and she wanted to be able to stand up, to walk around, to try and formulate her thoughts. Walking, moving, they helped her when she needed to just think, to calm herself down, and consider what was going on around her. Pacing up and down the length of her room was the best that she could manage.
Wrapped up and wearing Izuku's jacket that Kirishima had delivered. Being surrounded by something that belonged to him, something that she associated with him, and even had traces of his scent. There was some sweat mixed in with that particular scent, but considering the things that Izuku had to do just to hone his own powers, it wasn't surprising. And Mina didn't care even the slightest bit about it. It was something familiar. It was something Izuku. It was something she latched onto.
Her belongings had been brought into the room by the nurse that was looking after her about twenty minutes ago, and with the bundle of stuff was her phone. Out of habit, she opened it up to check her messages and call history, and to see if there was anyone that was trying to get into contact with her.
The short answer was – Everyone. Just about everyone that she knew had been trying to see if she was okay.
At least two hundred messages were sent to her in the last half a day, which was, in all honesty, a pretty small number in comparison to what she was expecting. Friends, family, relatives, everyone was trying to make sure that she wasn't among the severely wounded.
Within those messages, there was a number of texts from her parents, along with about fifty missed calls from them. According to it, they wanted her to call them the second that she got the chance. They weren't going to be able to arrive to visit her, either today or the day after, since Micha had eventually been taken into police custody after trying to barge his way into the hospital and destroying a news reporters camera. Given his relation to Mina, the police seemed to be generally lenient towards him, but he was still being confined to a cell for the night. To top that off, the traffic between the stations to the hospital was ridiculously horrendous, due to the amount people in the media, or in the Hero industry trying to get to various places to deal with the situation. Police had to block off a lot of the press from the medical building, while also allowing genuine patients into the place.
The situation at Yuuei wasn't any better either, with what looked like a sea of reporters from a collective conclave of various sites and reporting networks all crowded outside demanding answers. It wasn't totally like she didn't get it. This was something that had affected Yuuei greatly – The world's number one school for training Heroes, the best on the planet, reduced to being unable to employ people who weren't even able to stop a kidnapping.
But still, she gritted her teeth just at the thought of them. "Vermin." She muttered underneath her own breath, unaware that she'd even said it until it escaped her lips. They didn't know what the attack was like. They didn't know the situation. They didn't have a clue. And while they were just trying to get a story out of it, two people were being held hostage. Two students were being held hostage, and they thought it was a good idea to try to harass the Heroes and stop them from doing their jobs?
She was quickly learning exactly where her brother's hatred of the media came from. It was pretty justifiable hatred, actually, now that she had come to experience it first-hand. While she hadn't had a particular problem with them beforehand, she now was starting to harbor a particular distaste for them.
It was endlessly frustrating. But her mind focusing was on other things. Namely Izuku, predictably enough.
Testing herself, she tried to generate a small amount of Acid from her right hand, to see if she had healed enough to start to activate her Quirk from her dominant hand once again. If she wanted to be able to contribute to the rescue, she was going to need to be at her absolute top condition. If she wasn't, then she needed to know where her limits were, and how to figure out ways around them.
Immediately, she was met with sharp, horrific pain. "Arrrrgh!" She hissed, and bit her upper lip to stifle her involuntary response. Her left hand shot straight over to her right wrist, clutching it tightly in an effort to stem the pain, if only a little bit. Every finger on her right hand shot up rigid in response to the agony.
Creating Acid in her dominant hand was a no-go. The doctors had mentioned as much, at least to Kirishima apparently, which he had relayed to her. Something about veins or arteries needing some time to heal, and that her acid would have a negative reaction should she attempt to use her Quirk in that particular area. On the bright side, she wasn't affected anywhere else. Just that particular hand.
Never had she thought that she was going to have to look for a bright side to having a knife shoved through her hand, but there it was.
So she was going to have to use her left hand if she wanted to use her Quirk at all for any form of efficient combat. Not exactly the best prospect…. But it was what she was left with, so it would have to do.
What real chance did they have at pulling off a rescue of any honest capacity? Even if they could use their Quirks to their hearts contents, it wasn't like they were going to realistically stand much chance against the Villains, was it?
Mina wasn't a strategist. She knew that when it came to making plans or anything like this, virtually everyone around her was a whole lot better than she was. She wasn't the smartest person in the world. She knew that. Her grades reflected that, and all she was going to be able to offer this rescue mission was her Quirk and her determination. These were things she was aware of, and things that didn't exactly leave her with a lot of self-esteem or confidence in herself for this mission….
But she was going. She wasn't going to just leave Izuku to the Villains. Even if the only thing that she was going to be able to do was be a decoy, she was going to contribute in some way.
Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to feel the warmth that came from Izuku's jacket. It was small, and it was soft… But the comfort was there. It was something she could focus on. Something she could hold onto… "Just hold on, Izu…"
It was dumb. She knew that it was kind of dumb if you looked at it a certain way. She and Izuku had only been together how long? Three months? Four or five at the most? So much had happened in such a short space of time that she honestly wasn't even sure how long it had been just off of the top of her head. Was feeling this level of care for someone that you only had a limited knowledge about, and only knew for a short time, something that was dumb? Was it over the top?...
Even if it was… She didn't care. Izuku meant everything to her. More than everything to her. More than having a Quirk. More than being a Hero.
More than even being alive herself. She adored him for every single part of him… If she'd ever made him think otherwise…
She had to go on this mission. She needed to rescue him. She needed to see him again, and completely open up to him, and say every single word that she was going to need to tell him just how much he meant to her.
Even if he didn't feel that way, to that degree, she needed to tell him that she did.
Shattering the relative calmness of her room in an instant, Mina's door was flung open, slamming against the very wall it was attached to. "Gaaah!" The pink girl jumped, shooting her eyes in the same direction, half expecting the Villains that had kidnapped her boyfriend to be charging right over to capture her as well.
It wasn't that though. It was the complete opposite.
It was Todoroki.
Still, his presence here freaked her out.
Wide eyes, mouth ajar, and with an expression that Mina couldn't even begin to place. It was rare to even see him making any kind of expression like this in the first place, which just made everything all that more unsettling. His breathing was raged, and he looked…. There wasn't really any way to describe his expression.
Other than outright disbelief.
There were seconds of total silence between the two of them, just acknowledging one another's presences, before he actually even spoke.
"Ashido!" He basically yelled, not even considering the fact he was inside a hospital, nor seeming to care. "You need to get outside, right now!"
Cold was the first thing that Izuku felt when he came to.
He was beyond freezing cold, but the area he was in wasn't made of ice. It was dark, and it felt like there was a huge icy chill that permanently was just there, against his skin, throughout his body, and reaching even his bones. A lot of him was just numb, and he wasn't sure that he felt much else. Only cold.
For the longest time, he just laid there, his eyes hardly even open, unmoving, only blinking a couple of times every minute. There was barely any real light in wherever he was, so all he knew was that he was stuck in a dark, frigid area. He attempted to move his arms, but felt only he smallest twang of pain from doing so, reminding him that yes, his arms were in fact, shattered beyond all measure. Was the cold that surrounded him numbing him from the worst of the pain that he should be feeling in this moment?
Mind and memory were lost to him, just for a short while, though it felt like an absolute eternity. When he regained the ability to re-conduct rational thought, he tried to retrace his steps. He remembered Bakugou getting kidnapped. And him jumping through the Warp Gate after him… He remembered landing on the other side of the gate, disorientated and confused, and then being slammed against a wall by the Villain who had that fire Quirk... After that, it all went blank.
Had that been what had knocked him out?
"Kacchan…" He grunted, something in his throat choking his words as he tried to make them escape his mouth. He squirmed, trying to get himself to sit upright, which he found far more troublesome than normal, since he had no unbroken arms to help him pick himself up. He remembered that, if nothing else. He remembered why he was here.
To rescue Bakugou. That was the only thing that was important right now.
"K-Kacchan…!"
"So you're finally fucking awake."
Izuku's eyes managed to shoot wide open, glancing throughout the darkness, trying to take advantage of the small glimmers of light that were present. Bakugou's voice? "Kacchan?! Kacchan, where are you?!"
"Here." To allow the green haired boy to figure out where he was, the Explosive teenager let off a very small spark within the palm of his left hand, which generated a small amount of light. It revealed a lot about him though.
He was directly opposite Izuku, only about seven meters separated the two of them from one another. For everything that had happened that Izuku remembered, the Explosion Quirk user looked relatively unharmed. Uncomfortable, yes, but he wasn't exactly hurt in any real way. What was most noticeable was how the Villains were preventing him from moving.
Restraining chains.
In reality, they were more likely to be cables, but it was difficult to tell. Whatever they were, they were attached to the walls, with cuffs around Bakugou's wrists, which prevented him from just outright running away. The solid makeup of those cables, which were probably made of steel and iron, and other durable materials that explosions just wouldn't be enough to tear apart. Along with that, he was in a chair of some kind, to which those restraints were connected to. They only covered his wrists, presumably to prevent him from using his Quirk freely.
Oddly for him, he looked calm, to a degree, anyway. He wasn't rocking and yelling and screaming, though he had probably realized that he wasn't going to be able to get out of this sort of situation by acting out. Maybe he was preserving his energy?
Regardless, Izuku felt what felt like a thousand tons being lifted off of his shoulders. The biggest fear that he had had was that his old childhood friend would have been killed or some other horrible thing would have happened to him. The Villains had clearly wanted him for some reason, what that reason was, Izuku had no idea, but he had assumed the worst in those split moments before he leapt into the Warp Gate. But he was okay.
That, right now, was the important thing, and the first thought that Izuku had in his mind. Bakugou was okay.
"Kacchan! You – Kof! Kof!" Without any sort of warning, Izuku then erupted into a series of nasty coughs that cut his sentence short, and knocked the air completely from his lungs. Being knocked unconscious for a while, Izuku's throat needed to readjust itself, and remove anything that had made its way in his mouth, be it dust or debris. It lasted only a few seconds, and then Izuku was able to articulate words again. "You're alright… I'm glad…"
"Fuck off." With as much venom as there normally was, but a lot more quiet than usual, Bakugou swore and cursed at Izuku in his usual fashion. Izuku could hear him growling, and, his eyes adjusting to the darkness somewhat, see the vicious glare that he was receiving from the explosive boy. "Why the fuck did you follow me? I told you to stay away!"
Any lingering doubts that Bakugou might have been hurt, hiding wounds and trying to act tough, were instantly dashed. Izuku could have honestly laughed, were they not in situation like this, that of everything right now, Bakugou's biggest concern was of his wounded pride. It was actually amusing that, instead of fearing whatever the Villains were going to do to the pair of them now, and he was currently more concerned about why Izuku had followed him.
Though looking around, trapped in mostly darkness with next to nothing else to focus on… Izuku couldn't necessarily blame him.
Still, to Izuku, that wasn't what they needed to be focused on. "Do you…. Know where we are?"
"A fucking cellar." The flat answer came from the blond haired boy, in a predictably angry fashion, before he let out a smaller sigh. "I don't know where. That Warping bastard sent us straight here, and then they shoved me into this chair."
"How… Long ago was that?"
"Half a day, maybe."
Half a day had passed since the attack on the campsite? Izuku blinked quite a few times, his mind starting to reconnect everything that had happened, organizing it all into place. Everything that had happened… Everything that had gone down…. Everyone he had left behind…
The one he left behind that he cared about so much…
"Mina…" He muttered to himself. She had to be with the others, right? If she had been taken, the she'd be here with the two of them. He knew that they had a list of some kind when they attacked. That Muscle Augmentation Quirk user had mentioned as such, but he didn't know who was on it.
Aside from himself.
Was Mina on it? And if so… Was she okay?...
…The more he thought about it though, the more he was reassured. The villains had all retreated into the Warp Gate when they showed up, and there wasn't anything that they could have done to endanger her before they left. The ones that they left behind, sure, but they all had been defeated, and if the others had taken them to be restrained, or beaten them like he had beaten Muscular, then there wouldn't be anything that they could have done to endanger anyone else. Plus, Mina's Quirk was strong, and she would be able to defend herself, even if these were real Villains. Izuku had a feeling he'd taken out one of the worst ones. The other Villains that he'd seen didn't have that outright destructive power, except for maybe that Fire Quirk user, and he was behind the warp gate when he'd leaped in. If she had been on the kill list, they had failed to actually kill her.
So she had to be with the rest of the class. Maybe even back home.
Either way, she was safe.
He let himself sigh gently. Accounting for everything, there wasn't any way that Mina should be in any danger right now... "Thank God…"
While he wanted to then try standing up, to see if he could use One For All at all in this state, and, assuming he could, see if he could break down the bars that separated him and Bakugou, he fell down at the first hurdle – Which was actually getting up.
Now that he was reoriented, he quickly realized that, similarly to Bakugou, he was restrained. One set around his chest, and another around his feet – So he couldn't venture too far from the wall, or utilize his Quirk. Since his arms were broken, getting rid of the restraint around his chest was impossible, even if he could get rid of the ones around his feet. Combined with his own weakness and numbness…
Izuku could only grit his teeth. He wasn't going to be able to just escape like that, he knew. He should have expected that it wouldn't just be that easy, but he did, for a brief second, hope that it was the case. In this state, he wasn't even certain that he could activate One For All right now. Feeling that amount of power throughout his entire battered, broken body could quite easily knock him out.
"If you're so worried about Raccoon Eyes, why did you even follow me?!" This time, Bakugou did actually yell, in the true, loud, violent fashion that he had become well known for throughout all of Yuuei. Considering that it had been mostly quiet in the space they were now confined to, it seemed just that much louder. "I didn't need your fucking help, Deku! I would've been fucking fine on my own! I don't need your shitty fucking power here!"
"…Yeah, Kacchan. I know." The green haired boy sighed. He didn't really want to even get into a fight right now, and if he was being honest… He knew that Bakugou was right.
Battered, broken, and unsure if he was even able to utilize his own powers, on top of struggling to even stay conscious, Izuku wasn't going to be much help here. This wasn't a rescue anymore, as much as it was basically offering himself up for the Villains alongside their own target. What exactly was he going to do right now? How could he hope to help Bakugou in this state?...
It had been a spur. A decision that he had made in the heat of the moment. That was all that this had been. He had run in to help because in that moment, he thought that he could do something, without considering all the other possibilities… Though even if he had…
"…But getting involved where we're not wanted… That's what Heroes are supposed to do, isn't it?" Izuku knew that, even if he knew that this was all that would have awaited him, he wouldn't be able to just abandon Bakugou. Even if he hated the Explosion Quirk user, he wouldn't have it in him to just abandon someone who needed help. Even if he wouldn't be of any use… He couldn't just leave him alone like that.
Bakugou just scoffed. "A lot of fucking good that's done us, hasn't it?"
Given their situation… Izuku wouldn't deny that he wasn't wrong. This entire mess, getting himself captured along with him… It was a mistake. He couldn't do anything to help anyone anymore.
He was just a burden…
He wasn't helping anyone…
He was just… Someone that other people had to worry about…
"…Mina…" He softly spoke to himself. Just saying her name right now filled him with a bit of comfort, a feeling of warmth, and stability. He missed her. Right now, despite the terrible mess, and how he knew that he really should be focusing on the current situation that they found themselves in, and the immediate danger that both of them faced… All he could think about was Mina.
He missed her. He knew that outright. He missed her so much right now. He wanted to know where she was, how she was, if she was okay, if her wound had been treated, and if she was…If she was angry at him. If she cared about what was happening to him right now, or if, by ignoring her the way he had, by charging ahead into this mess…. For not being able to tell her how he felt about her like she clearly wanted….
Did she hate him now?
"…Mina's gonna be pissed with us if we get back…" He said aloud, not that he was really thinking about what he was saying. The words that were in his head just spilled out of his mouth, without any real restriction.
"You should've fucking stayed with her then. That loud mouthed bitch at least has more common fucking sense than you do."
"No argument here, Kacchan…" It almost brought a small smile to Izuku's lips.
Between the two of them, Mina was the sane one. The hyperactive tricky, but affectionate and adorable girl who dragged him everywhere and forced him into awkward situations… She was the sane one out of the two of them. He was more down to earth, while Mina was so far into the clouds that she practically was in the orbit of Saturn…. But she was, out of the two of them, the smarter one. She was smarter than him.
Because she knew when it was time to just stop.
She knew when things went too far. She knew when it became too much. And she had tried to stop him from pushing himself to the point of no return… She had tried to stop him….But he hadn't listened to her. She was smarter than he was… Because she understood Izuku better than he apparently understood himself and his limits.
"…So why then?"
When he looked up, Bakugou's face was calmer again. Still not totally calm and free from rage, but he was a damn sight more relaxed than Izuku had seen him in years. He wasn't glaring. He wasn't yelling. He was just sat there. Waiting for an answer.
Maybe it was because they didn't have anything else to do. Maybe it was because, given their situation, he wanted to know more about what was making his fellow prisoner tick. Or maybe it was because he was just tired of not knowing what the fuck was going on in Izuku's head. Whatever the reason…He was just waiting. Willing to talk. Willing to have an actual conversation with Izuku. Willing to let him vent. To talk.
He would listen now. For the first time in years… He was willing to let to his former friend talk.
"Huh?" It had caught Izuku completely off guard though. His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. For years, he had been conditioned never to really open his mouth around the aggressive blond. Normally, it would result in an explosion to the side of the face, and that was if he was lucky. While he wasn't as intimidated by him nowadays as he had been, he still very much was nervous when he had to be around him.
For him to just sit there and ask calmly about why he was here instead of with his girlfriend… Why he hadn't abandoned him…
It completely caught him off guard.
"You heard me." Were he able to right now, Bakugou would have shrugged. His eyes did trail away from Izuku though, looking more towards the ground. "Why go after me when your bitch was right there? You know she fucking hates me, which is fine, because I hate her. The fucking loudmouth needs to learn to mind her own business. When we get back, you know she's gonna give you shit for trying to help me. So why did you even fucking bother?"
He seemed confused. Genuinely confused, and unsure why Izuku had gone out of his way to try to help. Like he knew how he'd treated Izuku all this time. Like he understood. Like he couldn't get why Izuku would chose to save him over trying to maintain his relationship with Mina. Even if he didn't get it, or if he didn't care about Mina at all, he seemed to not know why Izuku cared about what happened to him.
"…Yeah. Mina's gonna give me hell, I know… She'd do it I did this to save anyone else, not just you…. But because it is you…" He'd never fully explained why he respected Bakugou to Mina. He'd never fully explained the extent of their relationship… To Mina, it must look like Izuku just…. He didn't even know how it would look to her. "… Yeah. She's going to be really mad…"
"Maybe she'll leave your dumb ass."
"….Maybe." At this point… Izuku wouldn't put it past her. Or blame her in the slightest.
He put her through hell. He couldn't explain why he respected the person who made his life hell. He couldn't convey how he felt for her, while she had no problems doing it at all. And he couldn't even give an answer as to why he couldn't give an answer. He couldn't even justify his silence. He couldn't…. He couldn't make her happy. He struggled to believe that he ever did make her smile sometimes, if at all.
Compared to her… Compared to anyone else…
There was nothing special about him. No reason for anyone to really care. Why Mina seemed to care about him so much… He still questioned it. He never stopped questioning it. He never knew why she loved him as much as she did…
But…
"So you're fine with that?"
"Of course I'm not!"
He suddenly yelled, surprising even himself with how loud he was. It was clear that it had caught Bakugou off guard as well, since his eyes show straight back towards his old friend, wider than he had previously been beforehand. It was one of the few times that Izuku had actually yelled like this in response to any sort of question, under any sort of circumstance that wasn't directly life threatening.
He had those thought in the back of his head. He'd always had them in the back of his head. Even when he'd been with her only a short while, he'd been thinking of these things in the deep, dark recesses of his mind. He hadn't thought about them because, he just didn't want to think about the possibilities. Those worries and feelings that… Maybe Mina would be better off without him. Maybe she would do better. Maybe she would be smart to cut things off with him…
But that didn't mean Izuku wanted her to go. That didn't mean that he wanted those things to happen. That didn't mean he was okay with that ever happening. He loved Mina. He loved her with everything that he had… Those feelings, those fears, those worries and those insecurities… They all just tumbled out now. The true extent of how he felt towards his girlfriend just came out, even without him really meaning for them to.
"I... Mina's… The best thing that's in my life right now. I didn't… Charge after you, not knowing that she wasn't going to be mad with me for it… I know that she won't be happy with me when… If, I see her again. I don't want her to… But I know that she might decide that she can't… Deal with what I put her through anymore. That would…" He choked on his words for a second, before he found himself speaking once more. "That'd… That'd kill me."
He swallowed. Just saying it… Just thinking about it hurt…. Yet…
"….But I couldn't just leave you here. Without even trying to help you fight off the Villains if we had the chance…I know how much it would hurt her… But I… I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I just abandoned you here. I wouldn't be able to face her… Or anyone else… And say with a straight face that I want to be a Hero, when I let someone I could have helped right in front of me just get taken by Villains."
Silence fell, for just five seconds.
"…You're a fucking dumbass, you know that Deku?"
"Yeah… I do."
A few more seconds of silence fell between the two of them. There wasn't really a lot more that could be said on the subject right now. Bakugou didn't understand Izuku, or why he was here. He didn't understand his former friend in the slightest. Sometimes Izuku struggled to understand himself.
Though he thought to himself… Why?
It applied to a lot of things that had happened throughout his life recently. Why was he here? Why had he charged after Kacchan like this? He knew why in his head, but what had pushed him that far physically? Why…
Why couldn't he have told Mina things? Why couldn't he had told her the true extent of his feelings? He didn't know what was making him think these things right now. Maybe, deep down, he felt like this was going to be where his journey ended. That he was going to die at the hands of these Villains, and his final few hours would be spent in regret and wallowing in the things that he wished that he had done. Telling Mina that he loved her… and just how much he loved her… That was one of them.
The more he thought about it, the more he found himself wondering why. He knew the reason. At least, the emotional reason. His fear of losing her, because of how he had been conditioned throughout a huge chunk of his life. His fear of speaking up about the things he wanted, because they were always torn from him when he spoke of them.
Quirks. Heroism. Even just friends. All gone when he tried to reach for them, or talk and ask for them. And he'd found someone so dear to him, that made him feel so special, so good about himself, and who he wanted to make feel the same… Someone who made him feel like he could do anything… Someone he truly loved with all his heart… Someone he didn't want to lose. He knew why he hadn't told her….
But he questioned why he hadn't ever fought past it. Again, he knew the reason…. But he regretted it so much. He regretted not looking Mina in her eyes, and saying it out loud to her. To let her know the full extent of his feelings. To let her know just what she meant to him. To let her know how much he loved her….
To let her know just how much he was willing to give up just to be with her.
To let her know just what he was willing to do for her.
To let her know… Just what she meant to his life. And how she'd changed it. And how she'd changed not only his priorities, but he outlook on living in this super powered society on the whole.
Even if it was selfish to think like that… To want her to stay with him…
Would he ever get that chance now? Or was it too late?...
"…How're your arms?" Breaking the brief silence, Bakugou opened up conversation with an inquiry about the physical state of Izuku.
Given that his arms had been broken for half a day, and he hadn't received any sort of medical treatment, Izuku was absolutely amazed that he hadn't received an infection yet. At least, no one he could feel. The numbness from the cold had left him with a very mild immunity to the pain, but it wasn't like that was going to last forever. He couldn't even feel his fingers as he tried to move them, feeling only a dull pain as he tried to flare signals from his brain, to no real effect.
"….I'm fine." He lied. He was as far as someone could get away from being 'Fine', but it was the only word that he had to hand.
"No, you're fucking not fine at all, are you. Your arms are fucked." It wasn't a particularly special observation, since anyone with a pair of working eyes would have been able to figure it out, even if they were in a room of near total darkness, but Izuku's lie had been just as obvious. It made him wonder why he'd even bothered trying to lie about his current state.
But still... "…There's not a lot we can do about that right now, Kacchan."
"…Just get some rest. You're no fucking use to me if you're in so much pain you can't even stand up."
As soon as those words left Bakugou's mouth though, for the first time since the pair of them had been locked in this particular room, a door opened.
Light shot straight down into the upper floor, and onto both of the Yuuei students, which blinded them both temporarily. Both of them hissed as their eyes were completely stung. Neither could shield their eyes, Izuku's arms being broken, and Bakugou's restrained, so they instead just turned away, and tightly closed them, trying to wait for a few moments until they readjusted.
The mere knowledge that a Villain was now in the room with them made both of them fight through their optical discomfort to try and figure out who they were dealing with right now.
"I thought I told you that the next time I saw you, it would be because I decided to kill you. I didn't actually expect to be seeing you again so soon."
That voice, and those words… Izuku shuddered. He already knew exactly who it was.
"Tomura…. Shigaraki…"
He managed to fight through the blinding light, to see the Decay Quirk using Villain staring right at him, between two of the fingers that were covering the hand that was secured across his face. Izuku had known from the second he saw the Warp Gate that the League of Villains had been behind the attack. He'd known… But he hadn't wanted to admit it, or think that this was the case. He'd just wanted to hope, beyond all reason, that Shigaraki wasn't behind the attack.
But he was. Of course he was. Who else could have been behind this attack?
Despite his terrifying presence, and how he was quite capable of killing the pair of them just on his own whims, Shigaraki just looked between the two of them, like he was thinking up some sort of way to make the most out of having an additional hostage to the one that he had initially called to be taken.
Apparently, after a few moments, he had reached a decision.
"Tomura Shigaraki." Appearing out of nowhere, as his Quirk allowed him to do, the Villain whom possessed the Warping Quirk suddenly materialized next to the blue haired Villain, the glowing indicators of his eyes looking at his ally. "What are you…"
"Change of plans, Kurogiri. I think it's time we started a new game."
"Where?!"
There wasn't any way. This couldn't be what was happening right now. Mina's mind raced, going at around seven thousand miles an hour. She couldn't think straight, and all she could do was run, charge straight outside the hospital, and scan, desperate, in all directions. She needed to see this. To confirm it.
When Todoroki told her, she wanted to outright call him a liar. If there was one thing that she hadn't known the bi-hair colored boy of doing beforehand, it was making jokes. He wasn't that kind of person, but that was the only logical conclusion that she could come up with in her current mental state. She wanted to pin him against a wall and yell at him, demanding to know why he thought it was funny to be playing games with her like this. She wanted to scream at him, yell at him, and threaten him for trying to torment her like this.
She wanted to call out his lies…. But she could see the expression on his face.
He wasn't joking. And he was just as bewildered as she was. Todoroki, of all people, wasn't one to lie. He wasn't one to play games. And he wasn't one to say these kinds of things lightly.
If he was saying it, then it was either true, or he sincerely believed that it was true.
Within the second of realizing that the Half-Cold-Half-Hot Quirk user wasn't lying to her, Mina had charged straight out of the hospital building at full speed, damning any rules about not running in the corridors to the wind, needing to confirm it for herself. She needed to see it with her own eyes, and she needed to know what was going on right now. She needed answers.
And she needed to see if this was real/
There was no way it was.
This couldn't be true.
It couldn't be.
There just couldn't be… Just no way.
When she actually got outside, her head practically snap back and forth, looking in every conceivable direction.
Then, she finally found what Todoroki had told her about. About twenty meters away from her. Darkness also meant that it took her a short while to make out the figures while her eyes adjusted to the sudden change from the insides of the well-lit building, to the dimly lit street lights of night-time Tokyo.
It was true.
Right there, on the streets…
It was him.
"No way…" Mina silently said to herself. There was no way in hell…. She wanted to believe that she was dreaming, that she was having some sort of horrendous nightmare that just became worse and worse as the night went on. That she'd wake up next to Izuku soon, and cry her eyes and cling onto him for the next three days straight. That there was no way that this was happening.
It couldn't be happening. There was no way that this was true… There he was.
"No… Way…"
Bakugou.
Mina wanted her eyes to be lying to her. This made absolutely no sense at all. Hadn't the Villains been chasing after Bakugou originally? Wasn't that the entire reason that assault had occurred? Hadn't he always been their target? What was he doing here?... Had he escaped?
Had he managed to run from the clutches of the Villains? Had he somehow managed to overpower them and make his escape? What battles had he been in? He was battered and bloody, and probably just on his feet through sheer determination… But there he was.
Against all logic. Against all reason. Against everything that they were supposed to know about this entire mess… There he was. Alive.
And the worst part – He was alone.
Currently, Kirishima has thrown his arms around him, since he was the closest thing the Explosion Quirk user could even call a friend, a notion which the Hardening Quirk user apparently reciprocated. Bakugou just stood there, accepting it. Be it because he was too weak to move, or because he actually appreciated the hug that he wasn't returning, Mina didn't know, or even care about.
How had he gotten back?
Why was he here?
What was going on?
Where….
Her steps towards the two of them were slow, and shaky, as she felt of knees become weaker and weaker, and that feeling in her stomach that made her way to just crawl up into a corner and fester, mixed with absolute terror and apprehension. She knew already… She knew… But….
She was still drawn towards the boy she held nothing but hatred from. Because he was the one who could provide her with answers. Answers she already could tell, she wasn't going to like… But answers she needed to hear. Things she needed to know…
"Dude, you've got no idea how worried we were about you..." Kirishima honestly seemed to be on the verge of tears, a sight that was rare for him. The capture of his friends, and his inability to do anything for them had hit him particularly hard. Be it to his pride, or because he genuinely held Bakugou in such a high regard… Mina didn't know. She wasn't sure if she even wanted to know.
For his part, Bakugou didn't say a single word. He just stood there, and accepted what was happening to him, not even looking remotely in the direction of the dyed red-head. He didn't seem to show any sort of emotion in particular. No anger. No rage. Not even mild annoyance. And nothing on the opposite end of the spectrum either. No joy. No sadness. No regret. Nothing. He was a blank slate of flesh right now, without any way to show any sort of feeling at all. For someone who was normally emotionally constipated as it was, it wouldn't normally be anything of note… But he gave the impression of being empty. Like he didn't know what he was doing here.
Hell, no one knew what he was doing here. Or how he was even here. This felt like a mirage…. But it was real.
A single drop of blood from his forehead ran down over his left eye, which he didn't bother to remove. It almost looked like a tear of crimson had fallen from his equally red eye…
Tears being something Mina was on the verge of.
"…Where's Izuku?..."
Her question was what got Bakugou to finally notice her, his head slowly turning to look at her. He didn't say a word though. He just looked at her.
Like there weren't any words to say.
As Todoroki jogged up behind Mina, Kirishima suddenly let go of his friend, and allowed him to turn his body towards the pink girl who was questioning him. They just looked at one another, without any words exchanging between them. Mina, desperate for answers, and Bakugou, unable to give any. Anyone could feel that there was tension.
They all had the same question as Mina. No one else had asked it. No one else had been able to dare ask except for the person whom the answer meant to most to.
"H-Hey, guys, we should go inside." Kirishima suggested, wanting to disarm the tense atmosphere between the two. "We…. We gotta let the police and the Heroes know that – "
"Bakugou, where is Izuku?..."
"…" Silence. Complete silence was all that Bakugou gave in response. His eyes suddenly shifted, looking towards a crack that was in the pavement. Like he didn't know how to answer. Like he couldn't answer.
A multitude of things made Mina do what she did next.
Frustration.
Fear.
Anger.
Hate.
Sadness.
Desperation.
Apprehension.
All of it had combined into the young girls pained heart. Tears had already made their way into her eyes, and she couldn't hold them back anymore. It was too much. She needed to know. She was desperate to know. She needed to know what happened to the person that she loved.
Running towards the rediscovered Explosion Quirk user, Mina lunged, and grabbed him by the scruff of his tank top, the closest that she was going to get to being able to grab him by the collar. He had about four inches of height compared to her, but that didn't even remotely stop her from meeting him face to face, and screaming at him, tears already screeching down her cheeks.
"Where the fuck is he?!"
"How the fuck should I know?!"
Those were the first words that he had apparently spoken to anyone he had been found here, and they were crisp. They were loud. They were…. There was something about them, something that made everyone around him uneasy. Something no one was able to place.
"They just decided that they didn't fucking need me anymore, so they just fucking warped me over here! They wanted Deku's fucking special fucking Quirk instead of whatever the fuck they wanted with me!"
"Where?!"
"We were underground! I don't fucking know where!"
"You just left Izuku there?!"
"Oh yeah! I fucking left him in a separate cell against my will after I was forcibly warped here when they told me that I wasn't needed anymore. I REALLY FUCKING CHOSE TO LEAVE HIS WORTHLESS ASS BEHIND!"
Any and all strength finally left Mina's legs, and her grip on Bakugou's collar released. Instead, she just fell onto her knees, and once again, began to cry her eyes out.
Bakugou was back…
And Izuku was still gone. And now… He was completely on his own.
What was going on…
And why was Izuku still being held from her?...