A/N: I do not own BNHA. I'm just kicking around the sandbox a little.

Warnings: Some graphic injuries, and major wrenches on canon (which will slowly be revealed…) Hope you enjoy!

Shouto's patrol that day was actually pretty normal, before the street exploded.

It had been a Wednesday. What actually happened on Wednesdays except lame jokes about hump day? It was just the hill of the week, another day working for the weekend like that one song that Momo was always humming to.

Even villainy was lax on Wednesdays. So far, only an alligator-headed purse snatcher, a woman whose time glitching quirk had malfunctioned at an intersection, and a bubble of darkness fueled petty crime at the mall had been on his plate today. The last had been the most difficult, not because the villains had been hard to deal with (teenagers stealing TV's weren't really an ice barricade worthy occurrence) but because of the darkness itself, that stirred up memories best left forgotten.

But all in all, it had been as usual. A few fans had stopped him for autographs, as Shouto had come to expect with his position as the number nine hero. It had been awkward, but the distant thought of Gale hunting him down for being broody did the trick to make him grit his teeth and bare the interaction.

Other than that, all had seemed good.

A little too good, in hindsight.

Shouto had been taking his lunch on a nearby rooftop, visor lifted up as he surveyed the ground below from the relative peace of fourteen stories up. Shouto had never really been worried about heights- being able to instantly create a ramp of ice mid freefall curbed those kinds of fears. Eating his usual cold soba noodles had been peaceful, if anything, with the wind in his hair.

The kind of peaceful that gave him the gusto to casually call up Momo. Shouto was closer with her than he was even with his siblings, but he wasn't usually comfortable enough to strike up random conversation, during work no less. But if there was anyone he could call when he was feeling something close to good instead of bland and melancholic, it was her.

Besides. Boredom can be a pretty good motivator for social interaction. Remember, achingly normal Wednesday, anyone?

It was easy to find Momo in his contacts- only one other started with an 'M' on his phone, and it was only still there because Shouto hadn't built up the resolve to delete it. Hovering his finger over that whimsical red trashcan next to the icon always sent his stomach sinking into a gaping pit.

He didn't pay that defunct contact any mind today, though. After a tap on the icon of a green... was that a phone? Shouto had never seen one that looked like that in use- and a switch to speaker, Shouto was ready for his weekly quota of human interaction.

The ringtone of his call abruptly gave way after the first ring to the woman of the hour.

Despite the call picking up, Shouto patiently waited as numerous bangs and clangs, along with the occasional muffled swear, drifted across the line as Momo shoved aside her recent project in favour of the call. Momo never liked having her clutter in front of her when they talked. A distant beep echoed in his ear- another incoming text, which he really should look over as this phone was also directed with hero related notifications-

"Shouto, what's wrong?" Momo frantically asked from the other end.

Shouto took a sip from his juicebox as he surveyed the street below. No screams of anarchy and distress, or ominous columns of smoke, nor evil manacle laughter (it was astonishing how often that was actually a precursor to villain encounters). Probably fine to ignore the possible hero alert- it would be for a different patrol route. It was a Wednesday. Missing one text wouldn't lead to the end of the world.

"Nothing. Had time for a call," Shouto finally responded.

"…Oh. Oh! That's, good?" Momo hummed, and Shouto idly watched a solitary wisp of cloud lonely proceed across the great, blue expanse of the sky. "Well, what did you want to talk about?"

"Not sure," Shouto responded. "I suppose I wanted to know how you were doing. Did you find out the molecular composition to the insulator for Chargebolt's costume? Or have you been too busy filing the paperwork for your new house?"

Momo giggled on the other end. "Oh, Shouto, all business talk, as usual. Yes, I did figure it out- it took an hour long session at Lucky's buffet, but I cracked the case. My house, and the attached workshop, are all in order, and I will be paying off the final sum once I manage to finalize my next allotment of grant money. Business… as usual," Momo repeated again, but something seemed off with the way her words lilted.

Shouto pursed his lips, his eyes flicking down to zone out on the soba noodles settled on the left side of his lap. What had 'Interpersonal Workings- Making Real Connections'- said to do in times like these?

Ah! Of course. Shouto swallowed, and tentatively asked, "I see. And how is your relationship with-"

"NO!" Momo interrupted. "Ah, I mean, um. I didn't want to tell you over the phone, but…" Shouto heard Momo take a breath in, then carefully exhale. "We broke up. I couldn't stay with someone who was only with me for my body." Momo sighed. "I really thought… that it was something special that we had. That we were a team that shared interests, cared about each other, and supported each other as equals. But I couldn't take it anymore- the constant demands, the inattention… It hurts, Shouto, when you want to have a nice dinner outside of work, and all the other wants is you stripped and ready to-"

"I get it!" Shouto interrupted, wincing as he cut off Momo's rant. He carefully set his juicebox down and transferred his container of noodles to the right side of his lap, already able to feel the steam coming off his left half. "Not appreciating you beyond, ah… What you were… bodily capable of giving shows that- your relationship, lacked, the foundations of love, trust, and compromise, that are necessary to… to-"

Momo laughed. "Don't strain yourself, Shouto. I'm a big girl. You don't have to crack into your self-help books to categorize the problems with my dating life."

Shouto sighed. "Thank god."

Momo giggled, but even Shouto could tell it was a front to hide what she really felt. It wasn't right. Momo, of all people, shouldn't have to go through something like this. She had suffered enough back in highschool, and deserved all the happiness and more now. Shouto hadn't known how to help back then- he had been too involved in the situation himself to help. Too hurt to save the dream of his best friend…

Maybe he could help make up for that terrible shortcoming now.

Shouto swallowed. "Want… me to, throw my weight around a little? Ninth ranked pro hero isn't anything to sneeze at. I can be pretty intimidating."

"Throw your… weight… HAH!" Momo dissolved into breathy giggles, snorting and hiccupping. Shouto smiled at the sound. "Sho, no. Just no. You're about as intimidating as bunny slippers on a regular day. Do you really think someone who brushes off Copycat of all people by throwing wrenches at him will be scared of you?"

"…Yeah, I guess you're right. Mei has no concept of fear."

Momo hummed. "It's something I really like about her. But… I can only stand being asked to drop my pants to make titanium alloy costume plating so many times, you know?"

"I know. Trust me- I know."

Momo squeaked. "You- you only walked in on us that one time, you prude -"

"Three times. Three times too many. And Mei was sans pants as well the other two times, if I recall correctly."

Momo made a sort of garbled sound, which Shouto likened to a dying whale mixed with something like a sex crazed guinea pig. He promptly told Momo about the similarity, which prompted more of the sound.

Momo finally reclaimed her voice, but Shouto could imagine the furious blush that likely had her tomato red. "You stop that! And, well, don't worry- you won't be running into a scene like that again. We're really done."

Shouto wasn't sure if he should be relieved- on one hand, his best friend was no longer in a relationship with someone more interested in the quirk than the person, which he knew from experience led only to suffering. On the other hand, she didn't seem too hot now either, despite finally seeing reason and 'escaping'.

"Momo…" he prodded.

"Anyways!" Momo interrupted again. She gave a light cough. "You should probably get back to your patrol- its only noon you slacker, what would Tsu- Tsuyu! Tsuyu say, hah…"

Shouto closed his eyes. He breathed in heavily, but the almost unearthed wound was thick from the kind of scarring that only time could provide. There was no blood to be spilled. "I guess you're right- I'll see you soon though, okay? Can't have you suffering a breakup on your lonesome-"

BOOM!

Shouto lurched backwards at the sudden sound. His ears rang, a nauseating sound resonating that transcended just inhibiting his hearing to the point he blinked dizzily against it.

"-TO? SHOUTO, WHAT WAS TH-"

BOOM!

Shouto was nearly knocked off his feet. He reached desperately for his belt of tools, and with some fumbling managed to find the ear protecting buds located to the left of his emergency heating packs. Before the next ear popping explosion could commence, Shouto quickly jammed the buds in either of his ears, and though the ringing didn't stop, he could tell the devices were working- he didn't feel like his brain would leak out of his ears as the next concussive blast tingled the hair on his arms.

Mei might have been a lousy girlfriend, but her inventions were top notch.

Shouto gave himself another moment to let the ringing abide slightly, then rushed to the edge of the roof, locking his pain behind the steel worthy barriers of his mind. He quickly surveyed the street below.

He couldn't see much- a cloud of dust and debris had been lifted up with the last three impacts. Glancing towards the fringes of the cloud of dust showed numerous civilians dazedly trying to get away. If Shouto had been this affected fourteen stories up, what had it been like on ground level?

Shouto wasted no time. He backed from the edge, then raced forwards to give himself a running leap. Headfirst , he began his freefall, a fourth blast sending dirt up to sting at his eyes. He reached a hand up to knock down the visor that he had pushed into his hair when he had started lunch, and having judged that two seconds had passed, sent his right arm down in a forceful arc and flipped to level his feet towards the ground. He slid along the tower of ice he had generated, his momentum carrying him as he made his ice form a ramp that he slid along to circle him around the dust cloud. He was eventually traveling horizontally with the remnants of the speed provided by his freefall.

The visor worked like a charm, blocking the dust from his eyes and allowing him to see with decent perception- more Hatsume-tech that proved its mettle time and again. The infrared scanners registered the people trapped within the cloud that Shouto would never have been able to pick out with just his eyes, and Shouto got to work speedily evacuating as many as he could. Save lives first, then worry about the origin of the incident.

Shouto couldn't hear much of anything thanks to the earpieces, but he could see the mouths flapping of the people he evacuated from the wreckage. Their lips parted in what was likely thanks as tears streamed down faces that blurred together as he saved another, and another, and another, depositing them outside the blast zone with (likely loud, because he really couldn't hear) instructions to head as far away as possible.

Shouto had only been guiding out people for less than three minutes (enough time that thirty more people were free) and it seemed like the work wouldn't end. Where were the other heroes?!

Another Boom! Sent Shouto nearly off balance- the woman in his arms silently (to him) screamed, and clamped her hands over her ears. He set her against an ice pillar that he created, and used it to give her a shove along one of the escape 'slides' he had made of ice. He turned back into the dust, waving his right hand with purpose to shove people out of the fray.

He didn't expect to be nearly bulldozed over.

It was Shouto's hard earned reflexes that saved him. He nimbly sidestepped as a large figure crashed to the ground right where he had been, and after a harsh blink, Shouto could see the figure's silhouette- and the impression of a bright, ragged red cape, even through all the dust. He pressed closer to see who had been sent crashing to the ground, already feeding frost to his right hand- a costume might not mean an ally.

Villains wore capes too.

He came up beside the person in a flash of ice, who was now apparent to be a man. Shouto's body tingled slightly as the mesh of his costume regulated the temperature of his right side as he sent an arc of ice around him and the man- it wouldn't do for fleeing civilians to stumble upon a possible battle. The man on the ground coughed, and Shouto pushed up his visor again to see with his own two eyes who lay before him. He almost wished he hadn't.

Blood leaked profusely from the edge of the man's mouth. His blonde hair was thick with dust, but shined oddly, glimmering a faint red that sent Shouto's heart plummeting into his stomach, and a cut nestled somewhere it the man's hairline sent a steady trickle of blood down to pool against the squinted shut lid of his left eye. The man had an arm shielded protectively over his stomach, and with good reason. Because hanging out, oozing, from beneath the confines of his arm, like snakes spilling from the gaping maw of their nest- were the man's intestines.

The man coughed, and wrenched his eyes open to meet Shouto's own. He reached with his other arm, and Shouto felt sick to see the unnatural way it bent to the side at the elbow. Shouto finally lurched forwards- possible villain or not, medical attention was a must- when the man weakly smiled.

It was then that Shouto's chest clenched, and his palms began to feel clammy, limp. He had been a pro hero for over five years, and never before had he seen something as chilling as that bloody smile. Because the pieces finally clicked. Teeth and identity were revealed simultaneously. Lying in front of him, half dead…

Was none other than the number one pro hero, Le Million.

Le Million coughed, and despite the immense pain he was likely in, used his 'good' arm to pull Shouto towards him by the sleeve. Shouto couldn't help it, but the first thing that popped into his head, was weren't you on vacation?

He resisted asking that, though. He dazedly reminded himself that telling a dying man he should be sun tanning was not conducive to a proper conversation.

Shouto's hero reflexes jerked to attention. His hand snapped to his belt- ready to unwind the condensed bandages covered in a secretion from a quirk which would suction it to the wound- but Le Million, with more strength than any regular man despite being only half alive, wrenched at his arm. Shouto was forced to stumble down so his right knee collided with rubble next to Le Million.

Le Million's oddly black eyes met his head on, wide and deranged as the man tried to maintain his signature smile despite the blood dyeing his teeth a gruesome red. The smile of hope, now mimicked eerily into this smile of nightmares. Shouto processed again that he should be staunching the bleeding, and, y'know, stopping Le Million from dying, and was reaching forwards to at least clasp his hands over the man's stomach when the number one hero suddenly choked.

Le Million's lips fervently began to move.

Shouto wrenched a hand up, his left, scrabbling at his ear to rip out a bud-

"-n't hold them off for long- blew up damn well half a block trying to get her- us- out," Le Million gurgled, and Shouto tried to hear as much as he could with his one free ear. "Don't trust them, T'roki, it's all corrupt, he's always been everywhere- the heroes, the police, they can't be trusted-" Le Million coughed again, then babbled desperately, nearly incoherent. "nah un, 'ust nah un, 'ot to 'eep 'er safe, Shouto, you have to keep her safe- the legacy is hers, she took up the torch-"

Le Million suddenly moved so fast Shouto didn't have time to react. One second, Shouto was being held onto desperately by a dying man, and the next thing he knew he was being shoved to the side. A flash of black flesh- a fist- reaching through the smog of dust-

Met by another fist.

The impact sent Shouto crashing to the ground. A slip of his right foot allowed him to ground himself with ice, and with hardly a thought he was springing back into the fray.

Le Million hit the ground again- Shouto nearly lost his footing as the shockwave of impact surged through the ground- but this time, when the enshrouded enemy struck, Shouto was ready.

Lance after lance of ice speared into the swirling cloud of dust- all missed. An ominous flash of black was the only hint of the enemy, before Shouto managed to wrench a layer of ice in front of himself. Just in time- it shattered upon impact from the sneering, deranged creature, its black skin heaving with pulsing muscles.

Le Million was there in a blink. In a series of moves that were almost too fast for Shouto to keep track of, the number one pro hero and his foe exchanged fists like darting lightning, never striking the same place twice, but each combatant anticipating the next hit regardless in a show of incredible battle prowess. Shouto lurched in a breath, and scanned for an opportunity to strike that wouldn't injure Le Million further, but none were forthcoming.

Not that the blonde hero would have likely cared- he seemed heedless of his injuries, his smile still fixed in place, though it trembled every time his fist, his foot, his head, made contact with his foe.

The villain had had enough. They suddenly snapped a leg towards the ground, shaking the rubble to displace Le Million's footing. With this new opportunity presented, the creature backhanded Le Million from the fray, off somewhere into the abyss of dust, past the massive walls of ice Shouto had erected earlier at the cost of misty breath- but likely the only reason no civilians were tangled in the conflict.

The villain recovered nearly immediately, and having disposed of Le Million, wrenched on a pivoting foot that gouged the ground, snarling as its bare, black toes bit into the dust, a breath from lunging for Shouto's neck-

Just in time for a glacier to swallow it whole.

Shouto panted from the undertaking, his lips involuntarily shuddering as a shiver wracked his frame. All the ice he had used to push civilians from the fray was catching up to him, on top of his own mimicry of the Wall of China. Hopefully his wouldn't fall to a madman with a gravity quirk. He kept his gaze focused on the encased creature. For a moment, his left side began to heat, the vapours of frost in the air evaporating-

Before instantly cooling. Shouto's suit kicked in instead, moderating the effects of his attack on his own body.

Shouto squinted at the creature. It was eerily familiar. But… It couldn't be. That horrific death shop of horrors had been blown straight to hell in a fiery explosion five years ago- red and blue flames coalescing as Shouto had watched a man of fire burn-

SNAP.

Shouto wrenched himself from the past in a mental jerk that came with practice.

CRACK.

A hairline fracture split along the ice holding the creature. Shouto's right hand lifted, ice erupting in its wake to refortify the prison, but it was too late- either because he was too slow, or the creature was too fast, he didn't know. The ice shattered. A shard speared in Shouto's direction, and already having committed to the slide of ice emerging from his right side, he was unable to shift and dodge completely.

A line of fire ignited along his left cheekbone. The burn made Shouto reflexively spasm, because he wouldn't let his damn left side ignite. The only one who had ever made him cave in to that hellish quirk was an outlier, and Shouto wouldn't lose to the legacy of fire-

No- the stinging of his cheek wasn't fire, but the result of vicious shrapnel-

The creature grinned gruesomely (oh shit it was free-) lunging forwards, fist extended as Shouto threw up his right hand-

Fist met fist. An explosion, not of fire but of shear pressure from the force of the equal and opposite blasts- hurtled outwards, throwing Shouto to the ground again.

He didn't have time to land gracefully like last time. His temple smacked against a piece of rubble as he fell, and suddenly his head felt light- was it supposed to feel light? Maybe it was, maybe regular people felt breezy like this all the time, and Shouto didn't cause he was broken, a spinning top with an uneven weighting that couldn't spin, filled half full with something like death and something like betrayal, a darkness all his own, a darkness born from fire and flame, that made Shouto the kind of person that couldn't even save his friend from-

Focus. It was just a head injury.

Shouto dazedly tilted his head up. The dust was beginning to clear. A black… something lay in a heap, (the villain, the goddamn villain, pull yourself together-) innards exploded out behind it from some incredible force.

Le Million lay opposite from it, crumpled on the ground like Shouto currently was. Seeping copious amounts of red though, just like the black mound.

Why? Whispered in Shouto's head. Le Million should have phased- both now and throughout the battle. Why didn't he phase?-

The last conscious image Shouto was able to make out before the heavy intoxication of dreamless sleep claimed him was the single, solitary figure crouched in front of Le Million. A black figure, so achingly familiar, edged with green around the edges. Taking something from Le Million's body with gentle hands, then getting up- and walking, casually, into the dwindling cloud of dust.

Him, Shouto realized.

Dekuless.

But by the time that thought registered, Shouto was already unconscious.

A/N: So! Thanks for reading the first chapter. I already have this story mostly planned (I'm so excited for the ending its killing me) and it looks like it'll be, I dunno, about twenty chapters? I think I'll be able to get a chapter out every month (or hopefully sooner), but cause of uni, I'm crossing my fingers... Either way, I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you liked, and who you'd like to see