Izuku's muscles won't listen to him. No matter how hard he screams at them to move, the most he can do is twitch his eyes and mouth. Todoroki, who'd arrived to help, who he'd called here, is just as frozen, and Iida is unable to stand. Nineteen ghosts line the walls of the alley, some yelling encouragement, others silently observing. Stain has them where he wants them, and if nothing changes, there'll soon be a few more ghosts in the alley.

A shiver runs down Izuku's spine as something in the air changes. A sense of overwhelming dread fills the air so deeply that it leaves him gasping for air. He's drowning under it; even Rei, in her angriest of fits, has never matched the atmosphere that now fills the alley.

And then the dead begin funneling in.

There are more ghosts than Izuku could hope to count. Many wear strange costumes; heroes or villains, Izuku assumes, or else just people with poor fashion taste. There's a wolf-like woman in blue armor stained red by the blood pouring from her neck. There's a man whose face is covered in bandages, with a large furry cape and sleeves that stretch past his hands; his head flickers in and out of sight, there one moment and gone the next. A man with red hair and no arms floats near a woman dressed in black and grey, a stereotypical ninja mask covering most of her head with a musical note carved into a metal plate on her forehead. Behind them is someone wearing a long black cloak and a ceramic animal mask. These people are the odd ones out, however. Most of the ghosts wear more normal, if old-fashioned, clothes, and are largely covered in ash and burn scars. A group of children in rags dart past him, behind them follow what looks like Buddhist monks that are soaked in blood.

He wishes he could look away from the parade of spirits marching past him, filling every inch of the space. In that moment, Stain's hold on Izuku breaks, but it hardly matters. The press of bodies against his keeps him trapped in place as well as Stain ever could.

The ghosts bring with them the quiet hum of voices that follows any large crowd, but even so one voice manages to make itself heard over the ruckus. "Excuse me?"

Panic makes Izuku choke on his tongue. He can't see what's going on through the crowd, can't see whose speaking, can't see Todoroki or Iida or even Rei anymore. He can't follow what's happening with Stain, and he can't tell who brought all these dead with them.

A man with sunglasses and a green vest jostles him as he floats past. He glances down, perhaps surprised that he can't pass through Izuku, but the movement of the crowd carries him away before he can say anything.

And then the masses part, and Izuku finally sees a living person. She looks plain, maybe mid-20's, brown hair held back in a braid, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.

Izuku's knees suddenly feel weak and, no longer surrounded by a press of ghosts, he collapses to the ground.

"Hey, it's ok," the woman says. "Whoever that guy was," and here she points over her shoulder, presumably in the direction of Stain, "I took care of him. You're safe now." She reaches out, her hand emanating a faint green glow, and Izuku flinches back. He drags himself across the ground, putting distance between himself and this woman.

She pulls back and he lets himself breathe again. "Alright, take a moment to calm down. Just keep breathing. I'll check on your friends first, then come back to take care of you."

Tongue still locked in place, unable to yell at his friends to run, or fight, or do anything, he can only silently wonder who this woman is, with kind eyes and kind hands and a kind voice, surrounded by more dead than any murderer he's ever seen.