do your best.

“Oh.  You arriv-”  He turned his head as he spoke, though cut himself off.  “You look awful.  You weren’t kidding about the training.”  Ever so honest, but that wasn’t the issue at hand.

“I’m fine, I really truly am.”  The boy waved it off as if it was no big deal, perhaps it wasn’t and he was just overthinking it, but, something was bothering him.

“You keep lying to me.”  Ok, blunt.  “Saying I’m a good person, I deserve so much more than I get, so on and so forth.  Why?  I’m not a good person…It’s not that I choose to be that way, I just.  Don’t know how to be any other way.”

Shadow had folded his hands on his lap, often glancing around to avoid eye contact with Izuku.  Maybe it was embarrassing for him to admit he was seeking help, but, it certainly was a start.  “Maybe.  If you’re up to it.  You could teach me how to be a better person…”  His words had trailed off to the point of being almost inaudible.

–– You sink into the sand, falling back on your elbows before lying on your back. It’s soft enough to be comfortable, but firm enough to put your spine back into place. He says you look awful, and you shrug. 

“Mm. Yeah, I know. It just means I’m going to sleep better tonight is all,” you say, closing your eyes, only to open them and blink when he accuses you of lying to him. You think he’s going to call you out on something, but instead he goes on about how he’s not a good person. 

This again? How many times are you going to have to tell him he’s a good person, and that he deserves to be happy? How many times before he believes you? 

"I wasn’t lying to you,” you say, sitting up, easy expression put to rest. Suddenly, you have more energy. Suddenly, sitting up doesn’t feel so hard. “The fact you’re even asking these things, or questioning what kind of person you are at all. That proves who you are, at least to me.” 

You stare out over the ocean, at the places where the spots of light dance with the shapes of shadows. The dusky blue grey shapes in the middle get lost, but they’re there, moving and changing. Holding it all together. 

“You did some bad things back home, didn’t you? You can tell me if I’m wrong, but it feels like you’re still holding on to who you used to be that you can’t see the person you are now,” you say, giving him the advice you could stand to hear, yourself. “But I can. Back when we met? You couldn’t follow through with threatening me on the train. And not too long ago, you put yourself in danger to help me. I didn’t tell you to do those things, Shadow. *You* decided to.” 

You don’t hold back. 

@bestowedquirk​

The realization had swept over him upon his arrival to the city.  He was terrible at being a half-decent person, hell, he was terrible at half-decent heroics.  All he knew were self-fulfilling self-sacrificial prophecies.  And that was no way to live, it grew tiresome.  For some reason, though, it had been bothering Shadow more and more lately, and he felt like he couldn’t take it.

Maybe.  He’d take that kid up on his offer.

To: Izuku Midoriya From: Shadow.

[txt]: you. [txt]: i dont knwo if you’re awake but if you are [txt]: meat me at the beech [txt]: inputting my messages into this tiny bo is hard [txt]: it’s semiimportant

After reading the string of messages he sent, he wasn’t exactly…Proud of how they turned out, Shadow wasn’t even sure if Deku would understand what Shadow meant.

So, on the boardwalk he would sit until his company arrived (hopefully).  If not, the ocean breeze was quite pleasant tonight.

– You’d been training until nightfall, all on your own in the Archimedes ward. You kept going until it felt like you couldn’t anymore, and collapsed for a while. It might not be entirely wise to sleep out in the open, but walking home seemed like it was impossible. Your phone buzzing beside your head is what keeps you from falling into a deep sleep. You check the texts blearily, and notice Shadow’s serious tone before you notice his spelling errors. While the latter makes you smile a tiny bit, you can’t help but be worried too. 

FROM: MIDORIYA, IZUKU TO: SHADOW 

༶ im on my way!!! please wait for me! ༶ i might be moving a little slow! did a ton of training today haha

–– You pick yourself up and wobble on sore legs. You’ve already run a lot. What’s a mile or two to the bus stop? You collapse on the seat unceremoniously, finding it even harder to get up when you finally arrive at the beach. But he’s there! You wave him down, giving him a big smile as you make your way over. 

“Hey. What’s up?” you ask, sitting down next to him in the sand.

Most days, Todoroki contemplated what he would get for dinner or how to tackle his studies for school, minus the quirk training aspect. That, he did separately. He wasn’t one to jump outside of the lines, considering his quirks were limited to the point he couldn’t really do anything if he tried. So for now, he sticks to a routine and tries his best to keep it. It gets harder and harder when all you want to do is sleep. 

While out and about, he hears a voice that stops him cold. Certainly his mind is playing tricks on him but lo and behold, the person behind it was here, before him.

 Midoriya. 

He turns, surprise clear on his face like day, but waits as the other crosses the street and closer to him. The people here managed to take him too? It was frustrating that he was left with conflicting emotions– on one hand, relieved to see the other unharmed but on the other, a gnawing concern over them being here when there was so much going on in their world when they left. There was no doubt in his mind that the other didn’t think of that too, but at the moment, Todoroki didn’t want to make that a concern. No, instead he wanted to return the favor with a calm look of his own.

“Midoriya…it’s good to see you too.” An admittance more sincere than he originally intended to be. The other had arrived and already he committed a crime? He wasn’t sure if that was some weird joke or if the other was serious, so his expression remains unreadable, his silence speaking for him.

“…if you had, shouldn’t you turn yourself in? You usually get so worked up you end up in tears.” Ah yes, ever so practical Todoroki. 

–– It’s a pretty rare treat, getting to see Todoroki blink twice at anything, much less anything outside of a fight. You watch his expression change as he sees you, and consequently your own expression lights up into a wide grin. You wonder if he’s just as excited to see you too, or if you just startled him while he was going about his day. You notice a furrow crease his brow as you hobble over, but it melts away pretty quick as you get closer. 

He tells you that it’s good to see you too as you get comfortable on your light post, and it makes you smile a bit before he inevitably ruffles your feathers. It doesn’t come as a surprise that he didn’t get your joke, but you didn’t expect him to pick on you for your tendency to get worked up. But you know he’s right. 

“That part was a joke!!! I mean, mostly a joke! I did actually commit a crime, but I got caught in the act,” you say, pausing as you realize you are absolutely not helping your case here whatsoever. You flush a bit, looking down. 

“I um. Apparently ripped a park bench off from its hinges, and threw it into the hole in the middle of the city. But the weird thing is, I don’t remember any of it. They’re letting me off with a warning, so long as I pay off the damages.”

You rub the back of your head. 

“I’m not sure why I would have done something like that, but if I did, I’m sure there was a good reason. So, you don’t have to worry. I’m not turning to a life of crime or anything.” 

You look up to him. 

“So um. What about you? Have you been doing okay here? I know it’s a lot to take in,” you say, eyebrows furrowing a bit. “Whatever brought us here limited my quirk. And Kacchan’s too. I think it’s the same for everyone.” 

You can’t see Todoroki taking that well. You bet it feels even worse for those of your classmates who have had quirks since they were little. It's like losing a part of yourself, in a way.

“Goddesses, you’re starting to sound like him.”  He groaned and leaned back on the bench.  This was bumming him out, but, he had to think about all the friends he still had that were here…He was certain Vio would come back, if you asked him.

“That you are.  I’m glad.”  Then he asked if it happens often.  Shadow wasn’t exactly equipped to answer that, so he would just tell Izuku what he knew.  “Well…Uh…There was this one other time we had to team up and beat monsters up.  But, it was really fun, honestly?”  Shadow recalled having access to all his magic, and sword beams.

“To be honest, that was probably the worst thing I’ve encountered in my residency here…”  Shadow folded his hands together, “It’s still better than home, though.”

–– You listen to what he has to say, but really, you feel like you’re out in the atmosphere somewhere. Despite this, you grab as much information as possible, and process it. So big events like this where things became chaotic were normal, and everyone was left to band for themselves? What made all of this happen? What was controlling those monsters? 

You touch your throat where there’s a scar now. It takes you a few seconds too long to catch up to the conversation. You miss some important things, details, which it isn’t like you at all. 

“ . . . ” 

“Oh.”  Well.  He was taking this rather well.  “Nothing good ever happens to guys like me, so I can’t say I’m awfully surprised.

Then, he offers to be Shadow’s practicing mirror.  For some reason, that brings a rise of color to the boy’s cheeks.  He found himself covering his face, and glancing away.

“That would be really weird.  I’m going to save you the embarrassment.”  Speaking of saving.

“Are you holding up well?  I can’t imagine our last encounter meant you came out unscathed.”

– “I’m sorry, but you’re wrong,” you say, quiet at first. “You deserve good things, too, Shadow.”

You leave it at that. While you wish he wouldn’t talk about himself like that, you know it probably comes from somewhere. You won’t push him to tell you anything if he doesn’t want to, but you do wonder why he thinks you’d be embarrassed if you heard it.

He quickly switches the subject to you, and, you really, really wish he hadn’t. You don’t want to talk about or even think about what you’ve been through since you two parted ways. Your shoulders tense a bit, and your fingers tighten around the bench below you. 

“I’m still here,” you say, not sure how to go forward with that statement. “Does... this sort of thing happen a lot? Mass destruction, and people getting hurt?”

He scrambled to sit up, “I– don’t need this, thanks though!”  Cue him shoving it back to the other.

“I think my phone is broken…I can’t find my friend anywhere on the list.”  He pointed to his phone, “I wanted to apologize to him…But…It seems I can’t.”  His ears drooped slightly, clearly, this upset him more than he was leading on.

–– Oof! Your hoodie lightly bops you in the face, doing no damage to anything other than your ego as you look incredibly silly with it halfway draped over your head, a puff of hair sticking out. You shimmy back in, blinking as Shadow tells you what’s on his mind. 

Oh. You hesitate for a moment, deliberating on how to approach this.

“I’m sorry Shadow, but... he probably isn’t here anymore,” you say, quietly. “Everyone who ends up here is given a phone. So... unless there’s a way to be removed from the list, he’s probably gone back home. But! There’s nothing to say he can’t come back, maybe. Someday.”

You shift a bit, wishing you could tell him something different. But you won’t lie. Not if that’s going to hurt more, in the long run.

“This park bench is my home now.”

– You sit down, and put your coat incredibly thin hoodie over him. 

–– You cough up a bit of water, eyes just barely open as you hazily come to. You’d been pushed off into the the ocean not too long ago by one of those beasts, the cliff face you’d been backed up against having gave way under your feet. You can feel one of them here in the distance as well, the ground shaking from where heavy feet fall. 

You won’t survive if you stay still. If it finds you. But you’re just... so, so tired, and your arm is broken. You’ve been at this for days now. Running, saving, running, barely getting sleep. 

But there’s someone out there who’s having it worse. There’s someone out there who needs someone. If you give up now, you’ll never find them. You need to get up. You need to pull it together. 

You push yourself up with one arm, first to your knees, and then to your feet. You see a tall, lanky person up ahead. You wave to them, hoping to beckon them over without drawing attention to where both of you are. Two people surviving together is better than being alone, and you don’t think they realized the fact that the ground quaking is something that’s more dire than an earthquake. 

But before you can start making it over to them, something wraps around your leg from behind and pulls you down. And then another something joins, it, and then another. 

Tendrils. 

You look behind you, and there’s a beast under the otherwise crystalline waters. You’d left yourself open, and now you’re paying the price. The grip around your middle is the most painful, though. Your rib was already broken. It was already hard to breathe. 

You try to use One For All, pry it off, push it away. But it’s slick. Your hand slides off of it, and you’re left breathless, gripping at sand to try to get leverage. 

–– You have to take a minute to rest. You’ve managed to screw up one of your arms with an attack, and for some reason the rattle that happens when you inhale has gotten substantially worse. You hide in a building, an abandoned bar it looks like, and prop yourself up against a bathroom stall. You’re not going to stay long – just enough to find something to splint your arm with, and go. 

You hear movement in the building and pause. There’s a broken bottle on the ground, so you take it by the handle. The truth is, you’re trying to conserve your attacks as best as you can. Whatever managed to bring you and your friends here also managed to limit your quirks, and now you’re playing like you’re on a chess board with limited moves. Everything counts. You can’t take a single step for granted. 

So you take your makeshift weapon, and turn a corner, only to see a… horned lady? And you’re pointing a piece of glass at her. You hide it behind your back sheepishly, laughing a bit nervously. 

–– You've been cornered, and all of your uses of One For All have been used up by this point. There's only one way away from this thing, and it's by going off a cliff. It's a sharp drop into the ocean, and who knows what creatures are lurking down there, visible or otherwise. With the beast closing in on you, you don’t have a lot of time to think about it. 

You hold your breath, jump, and then the world flips upside down as you take the free fall. 

–– You brace yourself for impact as you throw yourself in front of the claw about to go down on this person, unbeknownst to him. It's on your side, which means he can't see the jaws about to clamp down on him! Shielding yourself with the car door you've been carrying around, you watch the teeth of the beast start to make indents in the metal. 

“Run! You need to get out of here!”- you scream, starting to buckle at the knees. “Don't worry about me. I'll be okay, I promise!”

You say this, but the creatures from your world are strong. Even powering up your arms and your legs to hold it off isn't enough, you can tell. Another crunch, and there’s a tooth through metal, pointing right between your eyes. If it gives any more you’re done for.

–– You’ve been fighting for so long now, you’re sure you’re at your limit. In some ways, you’ve been past your limits for a while now, barely managing to keep your head above water. You’ve gotten a few people to safety. And while you’re grateful for that, it’s not enough. There are still people in trouble, and this has to stop.  

 You prop yourself up on an angled piece of concrete that had broken off, trying to get your breathing steady before you throw yourself back into things. But it hurts to breathe in, and really, at this point all you want to do is sleep. 

You start to drift off, but the sound of metal clanging wakes you up. There’s a person nearby with a sword, fighting for his life against monsters you can’t see. You struggle to your feet, grabbing hold of the makeshift weapon you’ve been using. A gutted car door. 

“Watch out!!!” you give him warning at the last second, aiming for the blank space in your reality. You’ve had a bit of practice with how this all works. Anything you can see, he can’t, and vice versa. It just means you have to communicate is all. 

Whatever it is, it has to be big from the way he was craning his head to see it. You use All For One to put in the force it will probably take to even dent this thing. But after the impact it’s just… you feel light headed. Really light headed. 

❝Established first time on October 13th 2019 after an excessive decrease in concentration and dedication to studies.❞

❝Note it down Midoriya.❞ 

“Right!" – you start jotting it down in one of the composition books from your bag, taking this news completely seriously. 

“Wait... does that include people outside the hero course? What if they were already dating someone? They don’t have to break up, do they?” That sounds like it would really hurt, and you don’t think that’s fair. Maybe this rule is actually pretty flawed. You can understand why, but... 

“It wasn’t as long as you’re probably assuming. I may look like this, but my activation time is little more than five years.” Barring any times she had her memories reset, but she wasn’t about to let a human know that was impossible. “I don’t expect to understand everything right away, I’ve already been trying for over a year, but I’m not sure emotional growth is something that can be explained anyways. If it was I might have an easier time learning.”

“Regardless I appreciate your offer. It must be difficult to extend help to someone you don’t even know.”

–– You listen as she replies to you, so as a matter of factly. It isn’t until she mentions her activation time that it actually hits you that you’re talking to a robot, or android of some sort. There was something different in how she talked, but it was just so... slight. You have a lot of questions, but you think right now is an inappropriate time for them. 

“Oh! I don’t mind! I mean, sure it can be a little nerve wracking, and I’m not always sure if I’m being helpful or just annoying but! Well, I think talking to people is something worth doing,” you say, looking down at your feet. “At least, that’s what I’d want. Feeling alone when things are difficult always seems to make things heavier.”