It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

The katana is cold against Izuku's hands. His fingers tighten their grip against his own wishes.

He wants nothing more than to let go.

But what Izuku wants doesn't matter.

Even his own body defies him (it's not his).

But he can'tlet go (his body remembers, it remembers, it remembers what it had endured).

The hilt burns against his calloused palms like acid.

His limbs are locked in place and his muscles tense with the anticipation of pain. His skin sticky with sweat (but it feels more like his own blood), as everything inside of him, coils tightly in waiting. Somewhere in the back of his throat he can remember the taste of his own blood and vomit mixing together (his head tied to the table, the leather cuts into his throat, there's nowhere for the blood and vomit to go).

The skin of his cheek tingling with the phantom feeling of crumbling away to dust (you can't do something they don't like, didn't you learn your lesson last time?).

If he closes his eyes he could feel the bones that never healed right fracturing all over again, the skin of his abdomen being cut into, the flesh of his back being unraveled, the air against his exposed spine-

Izuku chokes while trying to swallow all the vomit crawling up his throat.

Vibrations roll up his arms in droves, traveling with the minute tremors down to his trembling wrists. His knees feel like jelly as he stands like a newborn doe fighting the urge to dry heave. He almost falls against the ground and shuts down right then and there. But it's tantalizing. So much more tantalizing to collapse here on the floor.

So tantalizingly easier than doing... doing this.

The sweat beading down his skin leaves trails of icefire, as he counts each beat of his heart.

Time has never traveled as slowly as it has before then at this moment.

As much as Izuku doesn't want to lose this last shred of his humanity, the last piece of good that separates him from them. He knows he is also weak (so, very, very weak).

This thing he calls a body is fragile; made of nothing more but skin and bones, and haphazardly cobbled together parts that don't belong together.

It's not a body that belongs to him (and it never will be again).

With each passing second he feels his bones creak under the weight of every session he had to endure, and every punishment he had survived.

(He will not survive another).

As he stands here with his chest closing in around his cowering heart, looking at the man kneeling before him in the eye. Watching the low burning fury in their golden-yellow eyes, and counting the drips of sweat rolling down his own skin, Izuku knows he is also scared (he can't, he can't go through that again,he can't,he just can't,he-).

He chokes.

Izuku could remember a time he sat on the cot in the back of his closet room. A time where he swore on the tally marks carved into the walls and made promises on the broken shards of decade-old pencils and overused notebooks.

He told himself he wouldn't let himself do this.

He would not become the villains that they were.

He would not let the pieces of their characters shove themselves into the cracks of his (Izuku's character is all he has left).

Sometimes under the harshest conditions, the only thing keeping him going had been the small things. The little promises of what he could keep and what parts of him belonged to himself. He stayed up night after night to tell himself he was not the amalgamation of what they shoved inside of him(but that's not the case anymore is it?).

Standing here with the cement smooth against his dirty feet and staring down a man Izuku told himself he had no qualms about killing before, he hesitates.

He should move, or just do something!

All for One won't wait forever.

(Izuku can't afford to make him mad.)

It's odd, looking at a man that had once loomed over him like a tower. The impossible stillness of Overhaul's body is unsettling, like a puppet with cut strings. Seeing him frozen on his knees, blood crusted into his face, grease slick against his hair, and dust scattered across him.

Izuku tastes something dying in the back of his throat.

He remembers the way Eri had looked at him that first time in the unlit hall. Her body trembling under his, eyes wide with surprise, and her fingers clutching against him like a lifeline.

When he remembers the way her tears hade made his shirt damp or the way she wakes up next to him with a jolt. Eri's fingers tightening around her own arms, clawing at something. Nails digging into her skin like she's searching for something, only to be surprised it's no longer there.

The way she jerks her head up with eyes glazed and not quite registering the world for a moment. Before she jerks backward, eyes snapping open and landing with a sudden focus on Izuku's face. She's surprised when she sees Izuku. Almost as if she hadn't expected to find him still there, by her side. The thought leaves him feeling hollow now, not the usual boiling rage.

He used to dream about this moment. Used to wonder if there would ever come a time and he could bend down to Eri's head and look her in the eye, and tell her Overhaul would never hold her captive again. That she would never have to fear waking up in a room with only a window's glimpse to the outside world.

That she would never be scared to go to sleep and wake up without him (he supposes, that she will have to now).

But here, at this moment? Standing over Overhaul only inches away from the man's face. Izuku doesn't feel that hot boiling fury that he thought he would, or the ice-cold wrath that made his knuckles turn white.

He only feels empty. Hesitation is the only thing keeping him from lifting that blade in a high arc and swinging it down.

Eri believes in this image of Izuku he is not sure he could have ever lived up to. When he recalls the image of her looking at him with something so beautiful; eyes sparkling with light, a small sigh escaping her lips as she watches the sunrise while running her fingers over grass.

The way admiration and appreciation seem to eclipse her eyes when she looks at him.

Eri believes in an Izuku that he doesn't believe ever could exist.

And maybe it's that thought that keeps the blade steady, or that small curling feeling inside his ribcage, or that wistful longing to at least hope that he could be that better image of himself. Perhaps it was that little boy in the back of his head with his face tucked into his knees rocking back and forth in a room with claustrophobic walls, whispering words that carried all the weight of his small aching heart.

(But he knows why. He knows why he tastes iron across his tongue. Why there are dark memories in the back of his mind clawing to be let into the forefront. Why he feels like keeling over and letting the earth swallow him whole. Why he so desperately clings to the small blessings in his life. If he were a stronger less selfish person maybe he could one day see her again, and tell her she would never have to worry about Overhaul again.)

Something in his gut claws its way to stand on all fours.

(Would she turn away in disgust knowing what he was?)

He lifts the blade.

(A selfish-)

All for One places his hands on Izuku's shoulders.

(-dirty,)

Izuku could feel it.

(-rotten,)

The rank stench of All for One's will, like a hot whisper ghosting over the back of his neck-

(-coward.)

Izuku lets go.

(He will not survive another.)

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

"Good morning sleeping beauty!" A high pitched voice giggles as Izuku blinks open his bleary eyes, "It's been a while since they've brought in another one!"

Waking up to the feeling of cold metal will never be a pleasant feeling Izuku decides while straining against the heaviness in his arms to sit up. However, it proves to be a futile effort after giving up and collapsing against the floor. The right side of his head throbs painfully as he rouses from unconsciousness (he can't help the feeling of disappointment). Pressing a heavy hand against his temples doesn't do much either.

"You smell funny." A girl's voice? His vision is spotty at best, and the dim lighting doesn't help as he tries to look through the haze for some indication of the other person "I wonder what you are."

Izuku faces the direction the voice came from.

The spots in his vision are still dancing but he could at least make out the way she scrunches her nose. The deep scars running along her face and the disproportionate wideness of her crooked smile make him feel unsettled.

"What?" He immediately regrets speaking. Damn, that hurts. He runs his tongue over his cracked lips in a sorry attempt to soothe them. He doesn't remember anything once he dropped the blade. Did they knock him out?

"Hi!" She giggles, some of her dirty blonde hair catches in her mouth, "It's nice to meet you!" She shoves her arm in through the gaps in between the bars and freezes her hand as far as it can go. It hangs there limply.

Izuku blinks. Once. Twice, and then three times until he realizes what she wants. His eyes hover on her hand for a moment before he tries to study her face.

Keyword: tries.

It's difficult to see much of anything through the darkness the only detail being the vacancy of her eyes and the lump of metal that catches his eye.

Something gleams under the low light just on the right side of her head. He can't make much of the design but just that it's medium-sized, maybe only half the width of his arms (but then he supposes his sticks for arms aren't a very good form of measurement). It's not sleek, but not quite bulky either. A headband? An odd accessory. How is it attached? It's only visible from one side of her head, but even only a glimpse makes his skin crawl. They never allowed anyone anything more to wear besides the plain white gown. He thumbs his own gown subconsciously, Izuku doesn't remember ever changing into it (the thought disturbs him a lot less than he thought it would).

The girl seemingly impatient uses her free hand to rattle the cages. The bars shake and tremble. Tremors spilling out from the shaking bars, the rolling high pitches of someone's screaming-

The world phases around him, the air tasting more like vomit and rot then stale chemicals. Walls grow taller, disappearing into some unforeseen horizon as the room stretches. Stacks upon stacks of cages, the darkness inside them morphing into loose silhouettes of something that had once been human. The cage door creaks open. Someone reaches through with their hands. Its fingers stretched wide, ready to encompass him but Izuku refuses, and in his defiance, he latches on to the bars and refuses to let go. He grips so tight his knuckles turn white, and they have to physically pry his fingers from the bars (he should have clung tighter, maybe they would have been irritated enough to kill him).

He blinks (he tries to pretend his pulse isn't galloping a 100 miles a minute).

Nothing but stale chemicals, in a room with only 7 other cages.

Izuku swallows down the taste of blood that tried to climb up his throat.

"Well come on then!" She shakes the bars of his cage again, the noise makes him hold back a wince (the cage doors were always loud).

Heeyes her hand again, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But after an incredibly tense and drawn-out moment, it becomes clear she wasn't going to give up on this.

Izuku hesitates, something about this girl sets him off the edge.

Slowly, very, very, slowly he carefully lifts his hand nears her.

A mistake.

The girl lunges forward her hand snapping up to life, the tips of her fingers had sunk into his delicate flesh with lightning-fast speed. "You're so slow!" Something sparks in her vacant blue eyes as she grins maniacally. The pressure around his hand lifts as she lets go, but not before one last jolt runs through as if something had been hooked into his flesh before being pulled out.

A sharp jolt of pain stabs right through his hand, he hadn't even had a chance to register what had happened, let alone react.

"What the hell-!" The words die in his throat, watching in muted horror as she brings her hand to her mouth and sucks her fingers dry of the blood, maintaining eye contact the whole time. He doesn't miss the way something had glinted at the end of her fingertips, something black, and curved.

She laughs.

Not just any laugh, a full-body laugh that has her jerking backward and her head rolling around. A laugh with the kind of annoying pitch that burns against your ears, and leaves you with frostbite at the same time.

She jerks her fingers out of her mouth with a loud pop.

Izuku thought it was impossible for her smile to get any wider. He thought wrong.

"Oh, I know what you are now." Izuku cradles his injured right hand towards his chest, drawing in harsh breaths. She falls still for a moment, her eyes boring into his like she's looking for something before pulling away with a satisfied hum.

"You're funny, number one." And then she drops against the floor of her cage and laughs, hysterically.

Number one? Izuku's mind jumps from question to question, who is she? What the hell happened to him, how did he get here? And what the fuck?

Like what the fuck.

Honestly, what the fuck? His head hurts, and now his hand hurts, and he does not have the mental capacity to deal with this.

His left hand is sticky with blood now, and the cold sweat building on his skin doesn't make him feel any more comfortable. Izuku tries not to dwell on what she said or the thoughts rampaging through his brain as he watches her drop to the ground jerkily as if her body wasn't made to move with human limbs.

She lets out a soft giggle that sounds almost... normal. Like the kind of laughter he used to hear when he could walk outside during assignments and he'd catch people loitering near cafes, or storefronts. His heart twinges at the reminder of the world outside, but he doesn't let his mind stray too close to the thought (he can't afford to).

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

It's been some time since their... interaction if one could call it that. The girl hasn't moved in a while simply sprawled across the floor of her cage quietly humming a tune that he could barely hear. It's a nice tune that makes pure, unadulterated exhaustion seep through his body that drops against the cage. Some of the tension slips but not all of it away once he realized that yeah, he's here again. Stuck here in another cage, perpetually waiting.

Waiting for the next thing he would have to suffer through, waiting for the next phase of his life, waiting, waiting, waiting, and waiting.

Maybe he should be a little more panicked or terrified at what they were going to do to him after the stunt he pulled.

But he's not.

Here he is staring at the ceiling of his cage with nothing but apathy and unwilling to sleep. Even as he curls into himself trying to get comfortable he doesn't let himself relax, not that the sharp throbbing pain in his bleeding hand would let him relax anyways.

It's a testament to how dark the room is when he closes his eyes and barely notices a difference. This place is awfully quiet the girl's humming aside. Only the steady hum of the AC to fill the silence. Which is bizarre now that he thinks about it because Izuku can't remember a time when he'd been in an air-conditioned room when he'd been held captive.

The warehouse they used to keep him in had never been quiet. There was always something. Some noise that kept the place occupied. Maybe the person in the cage next to him would shuffle around in the cramped cage, their bloodied gown rustling as they tried to get comfortable. A couple of rows away, somebody would be hacking with blood and spittle flying from their lips as they heaved out what little contents they had in their stomachs. The person right across from him would make a desperate whine in the back of their throat, body randomly spasming as their lungs cried for one last gulp of air before they collapsed. Body crumbling to the floor of their cage dying in a pile of their own vomit and piss.

It would be days until the body was removed for the next.

Has the girl next to him been in the warehouse?

She's gone deathly still in the past couple of minutes which somehow strikes him as odd. She doesn't seem to be the kind of girl to be still like that. Frozen on death's bed, as if her body could no longer cooperate with her.

Izuku doesn't like this.

He doesn't like being alone with his thoughts. He doesn't like how his mind always seems to take a turn towards the worse no matter how hard he tries to steer it away to something else. Everything he thinks always seems to lead to some deep rabbit hole. Even the strange, hazy-like apathy that's wrapped around him doesn't seem to want to shield him against the dark corners of his mind. But then again nothing does these days.

He's forgotten what it was like in his short time outside, and his long captivity under Shigaraki. He's forgotten what it was like to be trapped with nothing to keep him occupied but the hunger and the aches that never seem to want to disappear. The intervals between events felt always felt long and yet so short.

A long arduous wait for the next session, and yet when they pulled him from his cage the wait wasn't long enough.

Just at the base of the neck, his hair stands on end.

He's waiting. Waiting for an innumerable amount of things; his next mental spiral, the next checkup, the next surgery, the next planned schedule they have for him, the next punishment, the next training session, or the next phase.

The list goes on.

He can't bother to keep track anymore.

There's the girl in the cage next to his with unseeing eyes and hair as unkempt as his, making him feel like he's not supposed to be here. The tangled web of her hair and the painful stretching of her face when she smiles the smiles that don't fit leaves him feeling uncomfortable.

His left-hand aches dully now. He compartments the pain in with the rest.

Minutes tick by, or maybe hours. He's not sure, but he is fairly certain that the girl next to him isn't actually asleep as he originally thought. She's still, like a puppet. Her breathing is perfectly steady nothing about her seems to give it away. Must be some kind of innate intuition, but he guesses it doesn't really matter, not anymore at least.

(The small details like this used to matter, back then. When he hoped he could claw his way out, he doesn't have that hope anymore.)

At the very least, Izuku isn't the least bit surprised when she suddenly jerks up with her whole body launching upward so fast Izuku could feel the buffet of wind. Izuku glances at her with a tired eye. Her face is pressed against the bars of his cage with the hot fog of her breath barely visible in the darkness.

Yep, still weirdly creepy.

"You're not gonna talk to me?!" The skin on her face looks stretched to its limits, "Ask me anything?! You know you can ask me anything?!"

"No?" Izuku's injured hand twitches as he watches her with almost tense apprehension. There is a lot he wants to ask her like why she called him Number One, but the questions all die on the tip of his tongue. Something about her makes him nervous, a creeping feeling building in his gut that tells him he won't like the answers he may get.

She taps her fingers against the bars in response. Tilting her head left at an almost impossible angle as she pouts.

"Really?!" The girl drops her head, her face no longer in view, somehow that only unsettles him more, "What about my name?! Do you wanna know my name?!" She jerks up again, a smile stretching across her face.

She reaches out to grab him again. She's fast Izuku notes as he just barely manages to retract his legs back towards himself in time to catch the light of something just at the tip of her fingers. But whatever it is it vanishes as soon as her hands come to a standstill. Fingers flat against the floor of his cage and tapping in an almost steady rhythm if it weren't for the erratic changes in tempo.

Izuku's shoulders tense, as he keeps a wary eye.

He doesn't offer her a response.

"Ayame." She chirps anyways. "It's the only thing they let me keep."

Something about her voice feels cracked, like the broken glass of a picture frame.

Her smile only becomes more and more wrong the wider it gets like she doesn't quite know what to do with her mouth. It opens and closes like she wants to say something but, in the end, she's decided against it. Content to just keep it closed and hum a happy tune.

Her vacant eyes never leaving his as she seems to come to a standstill, her hands pressed flat on the floor of Izuku's cage.

Izuku is left staring at her eyes as she stares right through him.

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

Ayame likes to sing.

That's one thing Izuku has learned from being trapped here for however long. He has no idea how long he's been here which is not surprising. The only way to tell time is the occasional meal drops of nutrient bars but that must have been hours ago. Since Izuku's stomach is aching more painfully now.

The sad thing is that there's not even any water left from the bottle they dropped off to stave off the hunger pangs. He's spoiled himself being outside with Eri.

Eri.

His mouth twitches at the thought. Is she doing alright? They had been found by officers but are they the good ones? His heart goes cold as he lets his eyes fall closed.

He's not ready to explore that train of thought yet, instead choosing to block out the thought by picking up the small plastic bottle. It crinkles in his hands as he rolls it over while he lifts his head up to watch Ayame wave her fingers in the air to conduct an imaginary orchestra only she could hear.

Her eyes are closed in an almost serene expression as she hums.

Her voice carries a soft touch to it as it reaches for the high notes. She starts out quiet at first the notes only moving along leisurely with an almost joyful tinkling. Her mouth stretches into a smile, that's so unlike all the other ones he's seen before.

It looks right, like it fits on her face, and not stitched onto her skin.

She starts humming louder bringing her fingers closer towards the top of her cage so that she can almost brush the metal. Her arms move on time to the melody before they flourish when her singing starts to swell. Izuku could almost imagine the orchestra she was conducting; clashing of drums coming together to synchronize the rest of the instruments, the violins drawing out long beautiful notes to meld together with the flutes, the deeper tones of the cellos and violas as the song speeds up.

Notes leaping from one another in a beautifully fluid sound.

She has a beautiful voice.

Had it been a part of her quirk?

What had her life been like before she came here?

Had she been stolen away from her home in the dead of night? Robbed from her parents in front of them? Or did she just wake up here with no recollection of how she got here like him?

Did she go through the same agonizing process that he did?

Despite how happy the song seems, there's something inherently sad about it. Or, well the way she sings it. Some of the notes she hums a little too long as if the notes are standing on the edge of something. Her voice a mere second away from teetering to the edge and falling into the unending abyss.

There's something inexplicably sad about her.

A tragic story that was written in the lines of her face, and the shadows across her skin. It makes his chest tighten with a cold feeling, but ache with sympathy too. He could only imagine what she must have gone through; what had they done to her to make her become like this? How did her eyes become nothing but an open door to her nonexistent soul? Open windows to a mind gone and shattered.

A person who could no longer endure what they had put her through.

How long?

How long until he becomes like her? How long can he survive this place, he had gotten lucky last time, didn't he? For some reason, they pulled him out to work for Shigaraki instead of letting him rot away like all the rest. Izuku got out of the warehouse out of sheer luck. If they hadn't pulled him out would he have ended up like all his neighbors? Glassy eyes staring at something far beyond the world as their breathing became more and more harsh until they finally gave up. Unable to bear the weight of what didn't belong to them.

If he was still there, would he have died like them too? Or die on the table because he could not find the will inside of him to survive?

How long does he have here? How long until the things they put inside would kill him? How long would he be able to survive on the table this time? How long does he have to wait for whatever punishment they must have planned for him?

Quietly, Izuku pushes himself up so he's sitting and draws his body closer himself.

His hand still throbs, but not badly enough that it stops him from opening his mouth.

His voice is muted as he speaks, "How long have you been here?"

He's not sure if she could even hear him, but she blinks a long slow blink before the smile on her face evaporates. Her pale skin flakes off from her cheeks as she rolls onto her side to move away from him.

But she doesn't turn away fast enough.

Izuku catches her face twisting into an emotion Izuku doesn't recognize (but he supposes he will eventually).

She doesn't grace him with a response.

Izuku doesn't ask again.

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

Surprisingly Ayame doesn't talk much. Despite their rocky... introduction would lead him to believe she's not really all that talkative. For the most part, all she does is hum and sing with the occasional interval of silence.

It's the opposite of what Izuku expected of her which was talking nonstop or trying to get him to join in on a conversation.

So he's surprised when he hears her talk to him, "Hey, Number 1?"

Izuku hesitates for a moment his right hand still tracing the scabs on his left before he lets it drop to the floor. He's unsure if answering this would lead to him getting injured again. Other attempts at holding some semblance of a conversation with Ayame have either lead to her trying to grab him through the bars, or having her just simply shutting down and turning away.

"Yeah?" He runs his tongue over his lips thankful that at least this time the guards dropped off a water bottle.

Ayame doesn't respond right away. She must be mulling over whatever was bothering her because her humming dies down enough that Izuku has to strain to hear it.

"You're the only one of us who's been outside other than Number 8." She says finally. Eyebrows furrowed a little bit as if she can't quite wrap her head around it. Hands reaching towards the ceiling of her cage fingers stretched to their limits as if she was trying to reach for something intangible.

Izuku frowns at the last part but doesn't comment. He's missing so much information but trying to wheedle anything from Ayame is like trying to pull out a loose tooth; difficult, painful, and wholly unsatisfying.

"I guess." He drops his head back against the cage bars, even if it is uncomfortable he doesn't want to move any closer to Ayame. Her erratic behavior still sets him on edge.

"Is the sky still blue?" Izuku blinks, his mouth hanging slightly open caught off guard and shocked into a stupor.

He snaps his mouth closed and turns away from Ayame's direction, and staring at the walkway that separates their row of cages from the one across from them. Cage Number 8 stares back at him bleakly, it's inhabitant missing but apparently must still be here under the thumb of All for One, somewhere.

It takes a while for him to muster the strength to respond. The cold metal that's pressed against his back seems to be sapping away his energy as he closes his eyes and lets out a quiet sigh.

He could imagine Eri outside right now.

Her silver hair finally cleaned out from all the grease and dirt it collected. Maybe tied in a neat little ponytail that would swing behind her, as she steps outside with the grass tickling her feet because she says it's her favorite thing ever. She told him it was better than the cold concrete back in her room, and the sun was so much brighter then she thought it was. He could imagine her body framed by the vibrant blue of the day and the edges of her face haloed by a white natural glow.

Maybe she'd reach out towards the sky like last time with her hair splayed around her on the grass while she traced over the shape of the clouds with her thumbs, and tells him what she thought they all looked like. Maybe she'll still look him in the eye with that same look of admiration, and still be able to believe in that image of him he tried to live up to.

"Yeah." He says quietly "It is."

He wonders if Eri still gets to see the sunrises she loves so much.

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

They're carting in something again Izuku notes dully as he watches the doors swing open with mild interest. Two guards keep the double doors open as he listens to the sound of wheels echo outside. It's probably a transport cage from the sound of it, light and scratchy.

A couple more beats pass as the cart gets closer until it comes into view as it gets pushed in.

The transport cage isn't empty (he feels cold).

A lone prone figure lies on the floor of it, their auburn hair a tangled mess as Izuku watches them park the transport cage in the center of the room. Their face is turned away from him.

Another one.

One who hasn't been through the suffering yet. They're not skinny enough to have gone through everything yet. There's also a distinct lack of scars on what visible skin he could see. Skin that was too tan to have lived a life inside this wretched place.

It makes him feel worse realizing he was going to watch this person deteriorate in this horrid place. Would they cry like the new ones in the warehouse? Would they come back from their first time on the table dead?

Another one.

There are so many.

So, so many.

Stacks upon stacks of cages flash through his mind, the countless bodies trapped inside never having to see the light of day ever again. Bodies stacked upon each other when they were being cleaned out. Faces slack-jawed, chunks of their flesh dropping off to the floor as they were carted by.

(He shouldn't be surprised.)

Ayame stirs to life from his left. Her bones cracking loudly as she shuffles onto her knees and scoots over to the front of her cage to get a better look at the newcomer. They're curled on their side in a fetus position. Backside facing Izuku.

"Oh, that's not Number 3," Ayame says out loud scratching at the floor outside her cage to get closer, "Whose this?" Izuku twitches at the mention of Number 3 but stays quiet, the guards are returning. Their footsteps echoing just outside the room, Ayame jerks her head towards the doorway her eyes widening just a fraction of a second before she's scrambling into the back of her cage. Legs flailing outwards as her palms slap against the cold metal to haul herself away from the main walkway.

Izuku hesitates for a moment before following her example.

One of the guards carries in a pair of keys and unlock the new captive's cage. The other one of hooks his hand into their shoulder and hauls them out, letting their long auburn hair splash against the ground while the last guard opens the cage across from Ayame.

Cage number seven if Izuku can count correctly.

They unceremoniously dump the captive into the cage before locking it. Their body hits the floor with a loud thud, falling flat into an uncomfortable position their left shoulder pressed into the ground, head rolling against the ground. Izuku winces in sympathy when he hears their chin smack against the metal.

The cage door closes with a loud crash (he's being pulled out, he doesn't want to go back there, he doesn't want to,he doesn't want tohedoesn'twa-).

His eyes snap back open, his breaths barely making past his lungs as his eyes scan the room rapidly.

The guards already left.

He slumps against the bars, the tension falling out of his limbs. A quiet sigh of relief escapes his lips as he gets his breathing back under control.

Ayame clambers back to the front of her cage and smooshes her face against it while clawing against the marble tile outside. The sound makes him cringe, his face contorting at the high pitched noise as she makes an attempt to get closer to the cage across from her. If she did the same thing when he was knocked out how did he even sleep through it?

"Hellloooooo! Wakey, wakey!" Ayame calls out. She slams her palms out on the walkway as loud as she can before she rams her head against the cage. Izuku tries not to wince at the noise. "This one is no fun, come on!"

"Ayame." He says tensely hands gripping his arms. She whips around so fast Izuku could almost hear her neck snap "Please stop that."

She breaks out into a wide grin again her head tilting as she retracts her arms back into her own cage, "I like it when you say that!" She beams.

"What?" Izuku stares at her blankly.

"You know, my name!" Ayame moves further into her cage so she's sitting right across from him. Dropping her chin onto her hands as she gives an almost pleasant smile, "Nobody here calls me that anymore," she laments, "not even the people I ask!"

Izuku's shoulder tenses as he watches her smile morph into a pout before she makes another lunge for him through the cage bars. The metal rattles from the sudden impact as Izuku draws his legs towards himself much more tightly.

He eyes her fingers wrapped around one of the bars"...And what do they usually call you?"

"TB-02." She states matter of factly staring at his face with wide eyes. "But do you wanna know a secret?" Her voice drops a couple of octaves as she lowers her own body, her mouth hidden behind her hands like she really was about to tell him something she shouldn't be.

Izuku glances away to the prone figure in cage seven.

Ayame unnerves him because if he looks too long at her face he'll see the person he might become in her round empty eyes. She's a reminder of the things he never wanted to be a witness of. An existing legacy of someone who couldn't bear the weight of what sits inside her; a reminder of what this place does to people like them.

Ayame was destroyed by this place.

"Ok." How long until he breaks? Cracking from the inside out, as the last pieces of himself morph into something he can no longer recognize. If he catches a glimpse of his reflection will he recognize the face that stares back?

Ayame pulls away, rocking back and forth with her hands clasped around her own feet. She seems to mull it over, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. "They used to call me Canary!"

Something glints at the tip of her fingers before there's a quiet little plip like a drop of liquid hitting the floor. A moment later, Izuku realizes its blood. From the small amount of light that filters in from the double door entrance, he could see the small shine of the red liquid, dribbling down her feet from where her long black curved nails had sunk into them.

Izuku jerks his head up back in surprise his eyes landing on her face.

The same vacant blue eyes and a too-large grin. She tilts her head to the left, her eyelids fluttering closed, "They used to call me Canary because I could sing." Then she goes still and laughs.

A full-body laugh that has her hands release their hold on her feet, and her head tilting backward. She snorts, and giggles before leaning forward slaming her forehead against the bars hard enough that Izuku could feel the vibrations from where he was sitting. She reaches into his cage again, her nails scraping against the metal floor almost desperately before she stops as suddenly as she had moved. "You know you remind me a lot about Number 8!"

"Number 8?" Izuku can't take his eyes off her face. Even with the details shadowed away from view, there's something about the way her smile is contorted now that seems so different from before.

(He realizes later that the smiles she gives felt wrong because they weren't happy smiles. They're twisted, laced with something she shouldn't have to have experienced.)

"He used to call me Ayame to." Her eyes are distant, arms hanging limply at her sides as she stares at a spot just to the right side of Izuku's head. "He doesn't call me that anymore." Almost absentmindedly she runs her hands over the metal headband on the side of her head as if she were in a trance. "You two are very alike." She breaks out into another wide smile her eyes shifting to his as if she were looking deep into his being.

"S'okay you'll meet him eventually! He's really nice! He's like you! He talks to me! Like you! Nobody ever talks to me anymore!" She laughs that empty eerie laugh her vacant blue eyes staring hard enough to make shivers wrack his body.

The right side of his head burns from her gaze.

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

The double doors swing open, white light floods the room again the metal cages reflect harshly.

Izuku's eyelids sting as he blearily blinks them open as he drops a hand against his eyes. Even in the safety of his hand the light still stings.

No matter how many visits the guards make the sting of the sudden brightness will never be something he could ever get used to.

Something's being carted in, the wheels scuffling against the marble tile as Izuku cranes his neck to watch their shadows stretch across the hallway outside from the small window on the door. It doesn't sound like a transport cage, whatever their carting in sounds too large and heavy to be one. There's low murmuring going on the walkway, but Izuku doesn't manage to get his eyes to adjust to the brightness fast enough, he only gets to see them leave. Their shadows vanishing down the hall along with their footsteps.

At first, he thinks maybe their back again to draw his blood for whatever reasons, but if that were the case then they wouldn't have left. His lips tug into a frown as he pushes himself into a sitting position after so long of lying still and drawing mindless figures in the air.

It's definitely not a normal transport cage. It's too large to be a regular transport cage.

The giant cage that sits in the middle of the room gleams, mysterious claw marks dug into the ceiling and floors of it. Ragged grooves crisscrossing across its bars. Leather restraints dangling off the top of the ceiling, the multitude of locks attached to its gate look worn as if something had tried to destroy it from inside the cage.

Izuku looks over to Ayame hoping maybe she could glean some information for him but something tells him that he'll find out soon enough. She's frozen still, eyes staring at the massive cage, mouth hanging slightly agape as her fingers began tensing and untensing almost rapidly.

She turns to face him.

"Goodbye, Number One." Something crawls against his skin, a chill settling in his bones, "Maybe I'll see you again."

When she smiles this time it feels just as empty as the cages.

There's a quiet little beeping noise emitting from the headband she wears. Izuku swallows thickly as he watches her blue eyes haze over with some sort of thick fog.

And then she starts screaming. Izuku scrambles back, back pressed flat against the metal. The beeping noise becomes louder, a bright neon yellow LED flashing obnoxiously from the band. She tilts her head to the right, her face drawn so tightly it looks painful. The tips of her fingers are growing longer, and longer, shifting into something black and curved.

Talons, he realizes now that he can see it. In one swift motion that registers too slow with Izuku she's lifted both of her hands and slammed the talons into the side of her head, screaming all the while. They've sunk into the side of her head, her eyes roll around wildly, blood dripping from the open wounds as she violently pulls. The sound of her skull cracking horribly and her flesh tearing loudly as she gurgles.

With dawning horror, he realizes she's trying to pull off the headband but it's not coming out.

He can't take his eyes off her.

Ayame starts laughing again her head tipped back as her shoulders shake almost hysterically. The noise she emits sounding trapped beneath a sob and a scream. Voice grating against Izuku's ears as throws herself against the cages over, and over, and over again.

Head slamming against the cages like she's trying to stop something. Each time she hits the metal it rings in time to her anguished screams (each time the metal rings Izuku is reminded).

Her talons scrape against the cage, her body thrashing wildly making so much noise Izuku didn't even hear the guards enter the room opening the cage in the middle.

She doesn't stop moving even lying on the floor in some kind of desperate laced agony she tries to pick herself back up slowly and awkward. Her fingers cracking as she struggles to push herself up on nothing but skin and bones. Each hollow crack of her body tears at his eardrums and leaves them bleeding for silence.

Izuku's blood thunders in his ears, as he listens to the bones in her body fracture (something inside of him claws under his skin).

He would have been convinced that she was crying, but she's not.

In what must have been in a fit of desperation she throws herself against his side of the cage and Izuku can see her completely. Something about her changes, like she's woken up from a long dream. Her blue eyes suddenly possess some sort of sharpness that pierces through Izuku's very soul as she lets out a choked noise that comes out like a half-scream and half-sob. Talons scratching against the floor, the metal scarring under her power as she reaches for him.

Her smile seems fractured this time the flesh across her cheeks rotting at an almost accelerated pace to accommodate for something that shouldn't be growing there (a beak he realizes). She makes one last lunge towards him and hooks her talons into his hands, an action laced with something akin to a kind of desperation that he's sure he's seen before (his mind flashes to Eri, the desperate way she had clung to him like a lifeline).

He doesn't dare move as if he's dazed into some sort of hypnotized paralysis the feeling of her dusty brown scales scratching against his skin feels too hot and yet too cold at the same time. Her scars become more prominent when she has scales he realizes. They no longer fade away into the color of her skin but turn an almost pale beige against the dusty colored canvas.

She claws at his arm her smile is gone now, her voice turning into a shrill unbearable pitch (he feels hot, something burning in the deepest part of his gut that screams from the place he's buried it).

This close to her with only the bars separating them, his eyes could trace everything about her. The smooth flat ridge of her nose, the perfectly arched shape of her blonde eyebrows, the prominence of her cheekbones, and the sudden brightness to her blue eyes.

She had been beautiful once, and she could still be beautiful if her hair could be washed and brushed, and the flesh of her cheeks was no longer there to reveal the rotting yellow teeth. Izuku is left to stare at her face as she lets go, disheveled dusty gold feathers popping from her skin, as her bones start cracking again. It's the only thing he can notice about her being this close; the feeling of missed opportunities and a life that could have been.

And then she stops; her body dropping the floor along with his now ruined hand.

The silhouette of her slumped form speaking a monstrous shape (he could feel it howl, it's maw opening wide ready to swallow him whole).

They haul her still changing body out from the cage, hooking something into the headband she wears as they lock her into the transport cage and carry her out (he tries to lie to himself).

He doesn't even notice the fresh blood spilling from his mauled arm (but he's always known).

The door swings shut behind them (he's always known what he was).

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

Number 7 shuffles in their cage across from him. From a glance up he could tell they haven't gotten up yet, just mindless shuffling signs of them waking up relatively soon.

It's been a while since they took out Ayame for who knows what (the yellow LED on her headband, the snapping of her bones, her flesh falling off to fit something that shouldn't be on her, the thing in his blood boils-).

Izuku watches them from the corner of his eye, his head resting on the floor staring at the ceiling of his cage. They move around groggily at first, head rolling around awkwardly as they tried to lift it. He could imagine their confusion as they press their palms flat against the cage floor to push themselves up into a sitting position. Their long hair spills out as they shift their weight to their legs instead of their arms, rubbing at their temples. They look around, seemingly confused.

It's at this point that Izuku starts to realize their shoulders are shaking, and they're making sharp little breaths.

At first, he doesn't think much of it until he realizes their breathing is only getting louder and much more rapid. Shoulders are shaking so much more badly, bordering on spasming. Her fingers are wrapped around her arms digging her nails into her flesh so visibly that if he concentrates hard enough he could make out her white knuckles.

He recognizes the labored panicked breathing.

Are they...?

Izuku snaps up into a sitting position his spine pops at the stiffness.

"Hey!" He ignores how rough his voice sounds, he hadn't had a meal drop yet.

They turn around their jet-black eyes searching the room, tears budding in the corners.

Her eyes freeze on his cage in surprise but that doesn't seem to shock her out of it.

He takes her in fully long auburn hair slightly wavy at the ends, a pair of small black horns curling on her head, and jet black eyes. Her quirk must be interesting, but he files that thought away for later.

She's looking at him, her chest expanding and shrinking in what looks to be an incredibly painful way.

With her full attention on him, Izuku realizes she is having a panic attack (he tries not to think about how he doesn't get them anymore, how his body has changed too much).

He has no idea what to do, okay fuck.

Shit.

Izuku shuts his eyes, okay think! Come on!

He thinks about his days as a child trapped in a small space with his heart-pounding painfully, tears building in his eyes as he thought he was about to die. A sinking feeling of a deep-rooted fear building in his chest as he clawed at his own skin when he realized he couldn't feel anything in his arms anymore. He remembers the sweat that had clung to him afterward. The throbbing pain in his chest and how much his abdomen had ached afterward.

Panic attacks always ruined the stitches (his innards almost spilling out onto the floor, one of his neighbors lifting their dead eyes to watch him keep an arm tight over his stomach before looking away, the budding horror and vomit clinging to the back of his throat as he tried to keep it down, the blood that pooled, the fear, his lungs craving for air).

Okay breathing. That's important, right? That's definitely important (hands clutched over his stomach, the stitches gone, he can't breathe,he can't breathe,heCAN'TBREATHE-).

"Okay, uh I need you to breathe with me okay? You can do that right?" She just stares at him, her shoulders trembling more and more and her breaths becoming shorter.

Okay well, she's still looking at him he can work with that.

"Uh okay I'm going to take a deep breath and you're going to take a deep breath with me okay?" He tries to keep the panicked edge out of his voice, he's never done this before. He drops his arms and tries to make an exaggerated example of taking a deep breath. At first, she doesn't seem to be making a move to copy him, just staring at him her breathing becoming more and more erratic.

So Izuku tries again, "Just-" he inhales moving his shoulders up as far as they could "-breathe." he exhales as deeply as he can. Making sure to motion with his hands to encourage her to follow.

She tries, some aborted motion with her shoulders moving up and her large inhale getting caught in her throat before Izuku repeats the motion again and she copies with a little more success.

Rinse and repeat.

With each breath, slowly but surely she seems to even out. Eventually, the tremors in her arms die out and her hands drop to her sides no longer digging her nails into her arms. She leans her whole body against the side of her cage and Izuku finally drops his shoulders once he realized how tense they had been.

Her face looks exhausted, dark bags resting under her dark eyes.

Izuku lets go of the panicked tension he hadn't realized he held. He's tired he realizes, but it's not really a realization. He's always tired.

"Th-thanks?" She winces while licking her dry lips, he can see the muscles on her neck tense. Izuku glances at her from the corner of his eyes as he moves to lie down, drained.

"Your welcome." He drops his hands against his chest and lets them rest there.

More silence. She still looks tense that much Izuku can tell from how she shifts around awkwardly her hands picking at her patient's gown.

"Do you know where we are?" She says suddenly.

He bites down on his bottom lip, fingers tapping against his bony chest debating on how he should respond, "A facility." From the lack of response, she must be giving him a look at his cryptic response though he can't be sure what kind of look. In the dim light, he can't make out the more nuanced details of her expression.

"What kind of facility?" Izuku turns his head to look at her fully now, even from the distance and the lack of light he can see the pristine condition of her skin. The fullness of her cheeks, and the almost naive look of her pupil-less eyes.

What is he supposed to tell her exactly?

It's the kind of facility that cuts you open, and tries to stuff something inside of you? It's the one where the basement is probably filled with people who have not seen the light of day in years? It's the kind of one that breaks a person, the one that treats them like nothing more but objects?

Izuku thinks of the naive look to her eyes, and how untouched she was by the people here.

She'll find out soon enough, but Izuku should warn her, right? Or would that make it worse? He knows for a fact that when he was still in the warehouse with the others he hadn't known what that first trip to the surgery room would entail and how horrific it would be.

But then again he's not sure if him knowing would have prepared him for it (nothing would).

"It's not..." Why is it so difficult finding the words, what should he tell her? "... a good place." From her silence, Izuku realizes that he needs to elaborate somehow.

It would be easier to show her he decides as he heaves himself up into a sitting position, his neck aching from all the cricks.

He crawls over to the front of his cage before hesitating.

Would she even be able to see? Izuku glances down to his own arms and runs a finger over one of the scars, the one that runs across his left arm from his shoulder down to his wrist. He got this from his first time (bright lights shining down, he's panicking, he's seen what they did to the others, he doesn't understand, why,why,WHY-).

It's more faded than the others, just a lighter shade than the rest.

He shuts his eyes, he doesn't really want to show them if he could help it. But he doesn't have any other way of explaining.

He slips his left arm through the bars and as far as he could reach. Hopefully, she can see and this can be over quickly.

He doesn't open his eyes until he hears her gasp, and sees her snap both hands to her mouth.

"Oh my god-" He can't tell what she's looking at, her jet-black eyes give away nothing but it doesn't really matter. At least she understands now, judging from how stiff her body has gone.

"Are you okay? What did they do to you?" He looks up at her again after bringing his arms back towards himself. Concern. There's concern in her voice. It makes him swallow down a lump (the way Eri held on tight to his hand, concern flickering in her wide eyes, quiet tears).

He should tell her.

Give her a warning of some kind, would that help? Would it prepare her for the table?

Would she sit in her cage when they parked her in the room with the table not knowing what awaited her only to see the person who came before her get cut into? Would she realize with a dawning realization she was next that she would be the next one on the table and panic? Would she try to break out from the cage in fear with a sob caught in her throat, and then realize she couldn't get out? Would she fight back desperately when they opened her cage and then realize that she couldn't do anything as they slammed her head against the bars to keep her from struggling until they strapped her in?

She deserves to know what waits for her (but it won't prepare her for it).

Izuku slides his head up to look at her.

He doesn't see her but sees the little boy in that too small cage that smelled like blood and death. He sees that boy with the round eyes, and a smattering of freckles desperately calling out for someone for just someone to please, please tell him what was happening! Only to never receive a response.

He sees that boy who had his fingers wrapped around the bars and shaking the gate trying to get it to open, only to scream and crawl back into his cage when they came.

He sees the boy who died a long time ago.

"They're going to take you." He says quietly.

"What?" Izuku slides his head up to look at her. There's tension on her face, her eyebrows drawn tight bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"They're going to take you to another room." He locks eyes with her, "And they're going to put you on a table and try to change you." His voice cracks at that last part.

She doesn't understand he realizes and there's no way for him to make her understand.

How do you explain it? This thing? This thing that resides in his blood and slumbers in his stomach. How do you explain how it feels to be strapped in leather too tight, and digging into your skin. How do you describe being cut open, your rib cage broken open so they could gain access to your heart?

How?

Is this why they didn't say anything?

Why his one of his neighbors, the one with the brown shaggy hair grown long through years of ill care looked at him with dead-soulless eyes, mouth partly open like he wanted to say something before shutting it and looking away.

Because there wasn't a way to explain it? To warn somebody about it?

It falls quiet again, neither of them saying anything for a long time.

Izuku doesn't really know what to ask or talk about and he's not feeling up to it. Not after Ayame, who would sometimes ask him about things that made his heart twist painfully as he stared into her face. Her empty eyes telling him there were so many things he wasn't ready to face.

She leans forward hands wrapped around the bars of her cage gently testing the gates to see if the material would give. "How long have you been here?"

Izuku could feel her stare from across the room. His eyes flicker from her face to the ceiling of his cage.

He understands now why Ayame didn't answer.

A tense silence hangs in the air as Izuku stays quiet choosing not to answer and instead stare at the ceiling of his cage again. Wondering how long her bright, and naive worldview would survive for.

She's stronger then him he muses, a lot less panicky than Izuku had been. A lot less desperate and cowardly. She radiates a sort of quiet calm determination underneath that apprehensive layer of fear. He can see it in the set line of her jaw and the way her fingers remain tight around the bars unmoving (she's different from all the new people).

If he had been like her would that have been enough to let him stay with Eri?

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

"What's your name?" She asks suddenly, Izuku keeps his eyes focused on the ceiling of his cage.

Eri asked him that too (he tries to ignore that tight feeling in his chest).

"Izuku." Speaking around the lump that's suddenly popped up in his throat (RA-01 bring him in-, Ra-01 appears to be-, RA-01 needs more-, RA-01,RA-01,RA-01RA-01RA-01-).

"I'm Tsukiyama," She sounds hoarse, tired even "But you can call me Fuyuki since we're both gonna be here a while it seems."

"It's nice to meet you." He half mumbles not expecting a response.

"You too." Her voice carries strongly despite the obvious dryness to her throat.

He's surprised she could hear him.

They lapse into silence again.

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

The nutrient bar tastes bland. Even the piece of stale old bread he'd stolen from the bakery had more flavor than this. He's a little disappointed that they didn't drop off a water bottle this time, but it's better than no meal drop at all.

Fuyuki hasn't touched her's yet, she's just been staring at it as if it could unlock all the secrets in the world.

Izuku gives her another sideways glance as he eats another piece letting it crumble in his mouth.

"Is this it?" She lifts the bar up towards the ceiling, studying it with what Izuku assumes must be the most intense expression he has ever seen on anybody he's met. But he guesses it's not really a high bar to cross.

"Yeah." He's not great at tracking time, but his general assumption and learned experience have led him to believe it's only one nutrient bar per day.

"Oh." She doesn't really sound surprised like she kind of expected it. Her eyes hover over him, perceptive.

She drops her hands to the floor again and then blatantly stares at him. Izuku tenses and breaks off another piece of his own to swallow, he doesn't really enjoy how difficult it is to bite into.

She goes quiet for another long while "Do you want mine?"

His brain short-circuits, "What?"

"You should take mine." Her eyebrows furrow together, and she leans forward slips her hand through the cage bars and tosses the only meal she's allowed for a long way. It lands near his cage.

Izuku stares at it, the piece he had eaten stopping halfway in his throat making him choke. He coughs and hacks it down to his stomach.

The offending piece of sustenance sits close enough to his cage that if he reaches out and stretches his arm enough he could just barely pick it up and bring it back to himself. It sits there, looking at him. He stares at it dumbly.

An act of kindness his mind helpfully supplies him (Eri, the way she had looked at him when he had given her the piece of bread and given it back to him demanding that he eat it).

"Why?" He reaches out from the cage and strains his arm to pick it up.

She just shrugs, "You look like you need it."

He wraps his fingers around the bar firmly and manages to pull himself back into the cage.

He thumbs the nutrient bar turning to look at her. She seems fine, body relaxed, fingers tapping against her thighs. He gets the feeling she's looking at him even if he can't tell from her lack of pupils.

"I haven't done anything for you." His voice cracks again, his heart squeezes itself tight (he doesn't know this feeling).

She gives him a funny look like he's the one being weird, "You don't need to have done anything for me?"

He looks at her in full again; her tan unmarred skin, her auburn hair that could still look healthy and clean, the small black horns on her forehead that curl towards the back of her head, and her pitch-black eyes.

He thinks of her on the table.

He slips his arm back out the cage and tosses the bar back to her, "It's okay. I don't need it." He doesn't add the, 'You need it more then I do' and pretends his voice didn't just crack again. She just huffs and reaches through the bars off her cage again and picks it up, slinking into the back of her cage.

Izuku turns away and finishes the last of his own nutrient bar (the feeling doesn't disappear).

A couple of beats pass when he decides to lie down again and debate what he should draw in the air this time when something hits the bar of his cage. It clinks against the bars and falls against the ground with a soft thud making Izuku snap his head back up.

Fuyuki is sitting innocently in her own cage her face turned away.

When he moves forward to investigate he discovers it's a nutrient bar or half of it at least. When he looks up Fuyuki is looking at him with a pair of raised expectant brows and eating her half.

He stares at her blankly.

"What? You gonna wait for me to turn into a dying old woman to eat or what?" She snorts, Izuku could almost feel the eye roll she must be giving him if it wasn't so hard to tell.

He moves to pick it up, he shouldn't take this but his stomach still gnaws painfully as it has been doing he can't remember a time it hasn't.

Even if he wasn't hungry she still needs it more, she needs all her strength to survive her first time (the table sits in the middle, the machines surrounding it standing there coldly, they're moving the person off, it's his turn,it'shisturnitshisturnitshisturn-).

"Pinky promise me." Izuku's hand freezes he had been just about to toss it back at her, and insist that she takes it. She needs it more, she really does.

But he doesn't toss it back, not yet anyway, "What?"

"Pinky promise me you're gonna eat that and everything else I throw at you." It takes a few moments for her words to register, but even when they do register he can't quite wrap his mind around it. Because of the implication, that she plans on giving him more, more food. When she only has half and Izuku has had a whole bar, and this stuff comes only in long intervals.

"We can do the pinky promise like this, since well," She gestures around her, "we can't really reach each other." She lifts both her hands together and locks her pinkies together and then shakes them.

Izuku gives her another stare. She stares right back at him her gaze unwavering.

So he sets the nutrient bar on the floor and lifts both of his hands towards each other and locks his pinkies together just like she did, he looks up at her again and she gives him both an encouraging nod and smile. He shakes his hands together and then drops them (he thinks of Eri when he had given her the slice of bread back, and she had broken it in half for the both of them).

"That wasn't so bad." She hums a small smile tugging her lips, "When we get out of here we can have a proper pinky promise."

"Okay." Izuku only agrees because he's too stunned to do anything else as he breaks off a tiny piece of his half of a nutrient bar (his chest squeezes painfully, but it's a good painful he thinks).

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

True to her word every time they have a meal drop she breaks off half of her nutrient bar and tosses it at him. Sometimes it'll hit him smack in the face and he'll give her an annoyed look and she'll just bat her eyelids innocently while taking a loud snarky bite out of her half. Most of the time he'll toss it back at her his throw fueled by the cold power of vengeance, and miss his mark horribly.

That's usually how it ends up, them tossing each other half of the nutrient bar until one side gives up. Sometimes Izuku wins the argument and she'll take her half back and eat it begrudgingly, but other times she'll win and Izuku will eat it with the best-annoyed face he could muster.

She just laughs at his misery and calls him a sore loser.

What a jerk.

"What year is it?" Izuku stares at Ayame's still empty cage, he can still see the deep groove marks on the floor of her's. He doesn't have to look to know that Fuyuki has jerked up so fast she strained her muscles in her neck. Her stare is boring into the side of his face as he lets that tiny piece of information sink in.

He can imagine her bitting the bottom of her lip as he finds a new claw mark in Ayame's cage he hasn't noticed before.

"It's currently 2202." Oh.

His eyes squeeze shut almost painfully.

Oh.

Ten years.

It's been ten years.

He doesn't remember much, but he at least remembered the year it had been when he was taken.

Ten years of his life spent in this miserable hell hole under All for One.

"Do you want to know what month it is?" Fuyuki asks softly. Izuku just nods, keeping his eyes closed as he tries to keep his breathing in check.

"It's June." Her gown rustles as she seems to move towards the front of her cage, "The last time I checked it had been June 1st, the UA sports festivals are supposed to happen this month."

UA. The name rings a bell but no matter how much he thinks about it nothing comes up. He hates it when that happens, chunks of his memory missing no matter how hard he tries to fish it back.

"You know before I got caught I was actually going home from seeing a movie." She says it like a throwaway comment, her head staring at the cage next to hear. Izuku pries his eyes away from studying Ayame's cage. "It was kind of dumb, you know the movie. Some documentary about conspiracy theories about a villain who's been around since the dawn of quirks, but it was nice you know?" She hums and finally turns to look at him.

Izuku can't remember what a movie theatre looked like. "I went with my Mom, dad was kinda busy at work that day so we just went by ourselves, the movie sucked but mom made it better by making jokes about it. We talked over the narrator a lot." Her mouth quirks up into a smile at the memory. "I don't think the people who sat next to us liked us very much."

"Can you tell me what the movie theatre was like?" He looks away again, swallowing nervously trying to picture her at the place with her mother.

"It was horrible." Izuku looks at her kinda surprised, but as she describes it the uncomfortable seats and the horrible sound quality he could almost imagine the memory could have been good if the place was terrible. The scent of cheap store-bought popcorn and too sugary soda almost makes him almost smile too. She hadn't liked the place but her mom had made it enjoyable, a memory worth remembering.

If he had more time to spend with Eri and had managed to scrounge the money for a ticket would she have liked the movie theatre? He tries to imagine it- them sitting on the uncomfortable velvet chairs with speakers that apparently couldn't project loud enough even though they sat near one.

Maybe she would have. Maybe he could have made the experience enjoyable for her like Fuyuki's mother did for her.

"What was your mother like?" He asks quietly, did he have a mother? He must have, right? That woman with green hair in his dreams. Was that her?

"Oh, she was a total bitch." She snorts but her voice quickly turns fond, "She was strong, confident a little uptight about some things. Kept her maiden name which my grandparents didn't like, some bullshit about respecting her husband, but dad totally didn't mind. I think he liked that she kept her maiden name, Emiyo Fuijioka Tsukuyami something about her being strong-willed and independent." Fuyuki makes a disgusted face, "I didn't bother to hear the rest he was getting really lovey-dovey."

Did he have a father? He can't think of anyone being with the green-haired woman from his dreams but he must have, right? Maybe he had been busy but he would still have been a part of Izuku's life.

Fuyuki goes on to describe her day and then her life at school, and how she used to spend her weekends. Izuku could really imagine her life. The blue sky, the bustle of the crowds in the shopping district, her friends, and the taste of a mochi ice cream on a hot summer day. The frustration she felt at losing every game in the arcade against her best friend Samiyo who won at everything. He was totally cheating! Don't laugh at me I don't suck at video games!

He can imagine how she spent hours in her room stomach flat on her bright orange bed agonizing over homework and calling her friends to complain about her teachers.

He lets her fill the silence with stories.

It's nice.

Better than spending time alone with his thoughts trying hard not to think about things he doesn't want to remember.

"You know when we get out of here, I'd like to tell my mom something." She says casually, her fingers tracing the horns on her head almost absentmindedly as if remembering something that occurred a long time ago.

"What's that?" Izuku asks rolling onto his stomach and distinctly avoiding looking at Ayame's cage, and swallowing down a lump when she mentions getting out. She says that a lot and even if Izuku doesn't personally believe it he doesn't have the heart to tell her otherwise (if he let her say it enough maybe it would become true).

"She was totally right about the nail polish she recommended." She slips her hand as far from her cage to show him her perfectly painted orange nails, "This shit lasts forever." Izuku snorts, fighting back a smile.

"And I guess I'd tell her I love her too. That too, like a good, loving, caring daughter." She drawls leaning against the cage bar in an almost dramatic matter. What would he tell his mother if he saw her, or recognized her?

Izuku laughs at that and scrunches his nose at her, something light bubbling in his chest that makes him ignore the hunger pangs, "Somehow I doubt the fact that you are a 'good, loving, and caring daughter'." He makes sure to emphasize the quotation marks.

"Hey, where's your proof that I'm anything but, detective?"

"I don't need proof, you literally just called her a bitch not even 15 minutes ago." She places her hand over her chest and pretends to be the most offended person on the planet. Even giving out a small dainty gasp and making an affronted face to make it more believable.

"Lies!" She calls out, sticking her tongue out at him as she presses her hands over her ears childishly.

"It's the truth!" Fuyuki only cackles in response.

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

The time was bound to come.

When they came in with an empty transport cage.

They hadn't drawn Izuku's blood for a while now so he knows that the next time they opened those doors with wheels squeaking outside it would be for one of them (he hopes it's him, he can't imagine Fuyuki there on the table with them cutting into her, blood dripping down, head rolling back, dying on the table, unable to survive-).

He hoped maybe they were bringing Ayame back but he knows better.

She wasn't coming back, whatever they were doing to her or making her do she wouldn't be coming back for a long long time. After all, the 6 other cages wouldn't be empty if that wasn't the case.

They're both quiet when the guards unlock the gate to Izuku's cage and move to grab him.

For a brief moment, his mind does what it hasn't done in years, he thinks of fighting back. Clamping his teeth hard enough to taste their flesh through their cloth, and refusing to let go of the cage. But the thought vanishes.

He looks at Fuyuki, and he's glad that it's him and not her. He's not sure if he could handle seeing her coming back after that. She's been good to him. Giving him half of her nutrient bar when she shouldn't have, her cheeks were thinning from their roundness but he hadn't mentioned it to her. Unsure of how to approach her about the topic.

There are two guards that grab him, not the usual one.

He's proven to them before they need two, always.

They grab his shoulders roughly and shove him into the cramped transport cage as quickly as possible. His head smacks into the bars from the rough handling, the bars send tremors through the rest of the cage.

The gate slams closed and the lock clicks into place.

Izuku looks up, hands gripping the bar of the cage as he turns his head to get one last look at Fuyuki. She doesn't know she may never see him again. If he comes back would she see him like how he saw Ayame?

He doesn't want that, he doesn't want that.

But he can't do anything.

He can't do anything.

A stone sits heavy in his stomach as he finds Ayame's jet-black eyes, he's sure now that they are looking at him.

"Hey, you gotta come back okay whatever they do, you gotta come back, okay?" She whispers loudly. The double doors swing open. "You can't just leave me here to die of boredom okay?! That's a cruel way to die!" One of the guards writes on the clipboards they always carry with them when they move patients. "If you don't come back who else am I gonna throw these disgustingly bland bars at?!" Her breathing starts to become increasingly erratic, her hands are shaking along with her shoulders.

She's having a panic attack.

"Fuyuki you need to breathe." His voice is hoarse, tight with some feeling he doesn't recognize (be he knows he's felt it before, with Eri).

"I'll breathe when you come back!" She calls out, increasingly desperate, "Pinky promise me!"

"Shut up." One of the guards kicks at her cage, giving her a foul look, but she ignores him. Her hands still desperately clinging to the bars of her cage. Her eyes widening he can almost see her physically becoming paler due to stress.

Izuku closes his eyes, unable to look at her anymore.

He can't keep his promises, he's learned that already.

But he also knows Fuyuki is an optimist, saying that you should always have something to look forward to in the future. Even the small things like knowing tomorrow is a Saturday and you don't have to go to school, or the big things like how she would be attending the concert to her favorite band three months in the future.

Is it cruel?

To give her this promise knowing he could not keep it?

He knows that it's always so much worse to have something and then have it taken away.

But he also knows that it's something, just one small thing that he can give her because he can't give her anything else.

"Okay." He says, lacing his pinkies together and shaking them.

She gives him a shaky smile as they cart him out, her breathing still erratic and short but she's trying so hard to be strong (he should have been stronger when they took him from Eri, he never realized how comforting it was to see Fuyuki smile when he knows he marches towards death's door. He regrets leaving Eri like that, not even able to see her face as they pulled him away).

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

They park his cart exactly seven feet to the left of the table, just like every other session.

The world seems to spin, swaying under his feet the ground moving as if it were made of solid-liquid. The bars seem to bend at physically impossible angles as he clutches them for one last thing to anchor him.

Is it selfish? Selfish to wish he could die here and not have to watch Fuyuki deteriorate in this place? Selfish to wish that he wouldn't have to suffer through the things after this, or to realize at the thing he's going to become?

He wonders what Eri would think of him once she realizes what he was.

It must be selfish (he's always selfish).

The walls are the same sterile white, with cupboards and counters lining the walls. Papers and folders neatly stacked, tools thoroughly cleaned in the sink, metal objects sitting in plastic containers. The surgeons haven't arrived yet, but he knows that when they do they will open both doors and they will walk in an almost single-file line. At least two of them will be pulling on their plastic gloves, or adjusting their surgical masks.

He knows it will take at least 15 minutes for them to plug in all the machines and double-check the injections, and then another 5 minutes to go over the file of papers they keep on him.

20 minutes.

His mouth tastes like cotton.

20 minutes, maybe more if they come in late.

He knew it would happen. He has known it would happen. He's always known.

And yet, he's not prepared (he's never prepared).

Izuku leans his forehead against the cage bars, the metal feels cold. It's always cold. His knuckles turn white from gripping the bars so tightly, he sure he could hear them crack over the sound of the door opening and shuffling footsteps. There's more white noise as they move about and plug in all the machines, the electricity beginning to hum as the machines whirred to life. There's idle chatter, remarking something about the television and UA but he can't seem to get his mind to focus on it. Information like this was so important, maybe one of them would let loose what day of the week it was, or what they had planned tomorrow, maybe one of their friends was going on vacation and Izuku could skip a surgery if that friend happened to be a surgeon.

But he can't focus, he can't, he can't, he CAN'T!

His muscles coil tightly he can see the sewer grate at the bottom of the silver table it's rusted over, stained and ruined from years of blood dripping down on it. Two of the guard's click open his cage and grab him.

His breathing turns erratic, he shouldn't do that it's only more painful if he does that.

Why?

Why, why, why?

Why can't he get himself under control?

He's only going to make this worse, he's only going to make it worse, please, please stop. He needs to relax, it hurts more when they cut into tense muscles, his lungs hurt more if he breathes this fast when they become exposed to the open air.

Please, please he needs to stop.

The press him down onto the table, arms locking his in place as they are careful to avoid his legs. But even if he could fight back against the weight of their arms pressing against him he wouldn't. He can't seem to make his body do what he wants it to (it doesn't belong to him).

One of the surgeons has a taser ready he can see it in the corner of his eye.

The leather comes in tight, extra tight as they test the bonds, it's not a lesson they would ever forget (screaming, it hurts, it hurts moving with his stomach cut open, his wrists are bleeding from where he's worked himself free, his ears hurt the doctors are screaming he's pulled a scalpel from their hands and slammed it into their eyes, his nails digging into the nearest surgeon after that, his head hurts, his ears hurt, everything hurts-).

One of the surgeons lifts something curved. It's long, and curved almost elegant in design he notes as he spies the LED's embedded into it, the headband. The one Ayame was wearing, the one that lit up in her last moments with him.

There's three LED's if he looks close enough, green, yellow, and red. Ayame's had glowed yellow as she screamed, clawing at the flesh of her head as she tried to pull the headband off but it wouldn't come out no matter how hard she tried.

"Eito your quirk ready?" The one with the clipboard asks he's flipping through the paper as he studies the contents.

"Yeah." The coarse leather feels familiar as it digs into his skin again.

He pushes down the bile building in his throat as he tries so hard to keep calm and relax.

He's not- he's not, he's not he's not ready, he's not, he's not,no,nohe can't,hecan'the-he-he-

The doors open again they're carting in something else again, but Izuku remains still the leather strapped around his neck digs into the soft tissue of his skin. He couldn't' even look if he wanted to, the leather restraints prevent him. He swallows down the vomit that he can feel climbing up his throat, the lights are blinding he screws his eyes shut, but even behind his eyelids, he sees red, the light revealing the blood vessels in them.

"I-Izuku?!" It's Fuyuki. "Oh my- what the fuck are they-" He can barely hear her over the blood rushing in his ears.

It's him.

It's going to be through him that Fuyuki discovers what they do, and it'll be her on the table next. He was going to be the person she would vomit at, that would prevent her from eating nutrient bars for a week. It was going to be him that she could not look in the eye anymore, with her face contorting into horror each time she saw his face. Unable to disassociate the Izuku she saw with the one struggling on the table (he knows he did that with the neighbor across from him, dirty blond hair, red eyes).

"Is that-" He can hear her quiet gasp and the panicked edge to it "-that's a drill what-"

To his right the electric whirr of something moving sounds, Izuku bites the inside of his cheek. Something in his throat catches itself on his tongue. Something cold washes over him.

This will be the time that breaks him.

Ayame's face flashes by, her face twisted into something ever-smiling, unseeing eyes and a mind broken. He knows why now that for all her agony, desperation, and hidden strength, why she couldn't remove the headband.

It doesn't matter that Fuyuki will be here and he will be the one that shows her what this place is. It doesn't matter that if he comes back and she makes it through her session that he will not be the same just like Ayame.

It doesn't change anything.

It's okay.

Eri is out there, and she's safe no longer in the hands of the man that had locked her up and tormented her. She's out there with the good authorities (he has to believe they are the good authorities, he has to). She won't need to see him again, she won't need to see his disgusting face and be in his vile presence, she won't ever have to know what he was and what he was going to become (the admiration, the way she held onto him, she believed in him, the version of him he could never be).

Izuku's chest tightens.

He'll never see her again.

He'll have to know in his last moments Fuyuki was here, and she would suffer right after him, in this, horrible, wretched, fucking place.

"Oh my god what-" One of the surgeons places their hand on his head with a steady nearly painful grip, and tilt his head so his right side is more accessible.

He goes deaf after that, from the blood pumping in his ears.

He's always known his fate.

He's known it since that day he realized the injections were different, he's known it since that day they took him to work for Shigaraki. He's known it since they took him back to the facility, he's known it since his body began humming with livewire energy and reciting the commands of someone else's schedule.

He's known it.

And he knows it now when he feels a buffet of wind blow across the right side of his face, and the surgeon's grip on his head tightens. They're talking but Izuku doesn't know what they're talking about.

He just knows he can't afford to lie to himself anymore.

He only knows that when they line up the needles on his skin, and they go through something inside of him stands. It stands on all four, it's lips peeled back in a snarl drawing strength from whatever they put in him. Electric pain coursing through him when they make the cut across his abdomen for the next line of injections, but he doesn't scream.

He bites it down (he tastes blood).

Because it's okay.

It's going to be okay.

It's going to be over after this, nothing will matter.

It's okay.

It's okay.

It's going to be okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.

It's going to be okay, It's okay, it's okay.

It's okay, it's okay, it's okay it's-

And he screams (sweet little white lies he never quite believed).

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.

"Put him under." The right side of his head buzzes with a dull-ache.

His brain feels sluggish some sort of thick swampy fog that he can't quite cut through seems to hover over his mind.

A needle is being injected into him. A spot on his right arm stings before the needle is removed as the needle leaves he feels languid. Awareness dampening more.

Something's changed.

Even as he feels like his brain is starting exploding out of his head and that he doesn't' quite exist on this plane of existence he knows something's different. But the thought escapes him. He can't quite think, there's too much. Too much going on. Too much noise, too much feeling.

Cold slithers up his legs, and wraps around his feet, slipping between his toes and climbing up his thighs.

He needs to open his eyes, he needs to know what's happening. But the urgency doesn't seem to quite register with him as he fights to try and get the signals from his brain to his eyes, but it doesn't quite work. His eyelids feel heavy. Everything is heavy, his bones, his skin, and this body.

There are sounds, a flurry of them. Metal on metal, somebody is scribbling something onto paper, a person typing something on a computer, distant thundering and the steady beeping of a heart rate machine.

Where is he? His mind is still hazy, but it's working through the fog now which he kind of regrets because along with consciousness comes his greater awareness for pain. Debilitating pain. Pain that is pounding away at the right side of his head, throbbing and pulsing. Sinking its fangs into his flesh like he was a feast.

He can't, he can't think where is he-

The steady beeping becomes incessant. Loud. It rings against his ears, it makes it worse. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, please stop it hurts, please stop pleaseplease-

"He's destabilizing, we need to put him in now!" More beeping, why can't it stop? More clamoring noises piling on top of each other nearly drowning each other out, he can barely hear anything over the noise.

"Of all the times the heroes choose to raid, they choose now!"

He opens his eyes, only to let them fall closed again. The migraine behind them screams pressing against his consciousness relentlessly.

"Fuck, Sensi is going to kill us if there's anything wrong with the project." Something buzzes just under his skin. He knows that feeling. But it shouldn't be like this. It's supposed to be buried, not here, not at the forefront clawing against the tomb he has it encased in.

The cold feeling crawls up to his torso before surging up to his neck. An uncomfortable pressure starts closing in around his chest. He finally gets his eyelids open. He gets to see them, or at least a blur of colors. His eyes aren't functioning correctly as he watches almost lazily one of the white blobs hurriedly rushing over to him, something clatters to the ground.

"Just hurry up and get it in with the others!" It's too bright, it stings his eyes. They flutter closed.

"We're missing one! We can't just leave-" Something shakes, trembling the thing he's surrounded by.

Somebody's pressing their hand against his head and pushing-

"Who cares-!" And then he's cold.

The chill washes over his face. His closed eyelids tighten against the foreign feeling as he hears something close with a muffled click. After that everything seems to just become something outside his little bubble of cold bitter nothingness.

In the darkness with the only thing to tell him of the world outside are the occasional tremors.

Something hooks its claws into his mind.

The body wears thin. He can feel the hot lava of pain budding at his fingertips and circling his feet like sharks as his bones start cracking against the rapid change of his own muscles.

Whatever they injected into him must be wearing out by now he thinks idly, his heart beginning to accelerate. The weight of something that is not him pressing against his lungs and dragging him down into unknown depths.

Cold.

He's cold all over now.

Thoughts in a disarray. He can't organize them.

Can't breathe.

Something's going through his nose and it's notair,it'snotair,it'snotair-

It's water.

Water that's wrapped around him like a viper. Ice-cold liquid wrapped around his feet, curling around his neck, latching into the space between his fingers, and burying itself deep in his lungs. It burns against his skin, sears like fire and fills his lungs. Forcing him to open his mouth (he needs to breathe,heneedstobreathe,heneedstobreatheheneedsto-).

But it can't be water, he thinks distantly as it enters through his mouth and strangles him from the inside out. It tastes too much like blood to be water.

It burns through his body as the liquid surrounding him invades his body forcing whatever that was buzzing in his blood to rears its ugly head, maw opening wide, clawing through his stomach to taste the wine.

Eventually, the vibrations stop, and Izuku can feel his consciousness slipping.

It's quiet, and yet not quite. Distinct noises ringing against his right ear that doesn't seem to want to go away, even though nothing should be making noise here in this little bubble of darkness.

Ah, he's slipping again. His mind becomes slippery, difficult to form a coherent thought even as he comes to a quiet realization. He's glad he let go of Eri in that last moment. Thankful for the person who gripped her in their arms and didn't let go because he's sure if they did let go Eri would have followed him here.

He can't imagine her being here.

She's not here with him. Somehow that thought comforts him more than anything else even as his chest constricts around his rapidly beating heart.

There's nothing else keeping him tethered.

It's okay then, he can let go.

It's over now.

This would be his life now. Another cog in the machine. Another tool to be used and abused.

And you know somehow the thought doesn't make him feel the same ice-cold terror it used to.

It's just apathy now. A strange dull apathy that wraps around him like a safety blanket as he feels the liquid take hold, skin cracking, bones fracturing, pain splitting him in half like the hard glinting scalpels.

It howls in his ears.

Perhaps there had been a time when Izuku had been happy: all smiles and glowing innocence. Blurred memories of sitting on a couch with a woman he can't even remember. Laughing, and smiling at a TV with a far too small screen and scratchy speakers. Swinging his feet at the edge of the couch as he bounced up and down excitedly chattering about something. Each of those vignettes slips away like sand.

He can't breathe through the water but that's okay. The beast crawls from his insides and forces itself outside.

This body can't handle that.

Ribcages snapping apart and remending to form something else. Sides burning as they split open to accommodate for something that shouldn't be there.

It stands on all fours.

But the pain morphs away. Morphing into nothing more but another drop in the barrel. Merging together until he can no longer tell anything apart. Everything burns, and burns, and burns until he's no longer able to tell apart his individual fingers.

He's left feeling numb even as he thinks of Ayame: the beeping of her yellow LED, her body stuck in the limbo of laughing and screaming in agony. The choked sobs that never quite came out as sobs. Vacant blue eyes that never quite seem to look at him.

Maybe he should be feeling something, he deserves it after all. He's a selfish, dirty, rotten coward who makes promises he can't keep.

But maybe it's better this way. To become numb-minded, and ignorant of his humanity. After all, the longer he clings to his humanity the longer it takes for the water to drown him: and drowning?

Drowning is the worst way to go.

Lips peeled back.

And after everything he's been through he'd at least like to go quietly.

So he lets go.

He lets go of the tension that's coiled in his muscles. Lets go of the lifeline he's clung to all these years and lets the thing they put into him surge upwards.

Fangs glinting. Head rearing, its guttural noises reverberating all across the body that doesn't belong to him.

He lets it climb out from where he's buried it.

The liquid floods him.

But he's not drowning.

Not anymore.

The body they've given him won't allow for that.

It snarls, jaw unhinged, and swallows him whole.

It's okay, it's over now. You can stop fighting.