Triple Nightmare /Bakudekutodo

Chapter 27: The weight of expectations!

Midoriya POV:
When I woke up the next morning I was laying in a Bed. As I looked around I quickly realised it was John's bed. And he was laying right next to me. To my surprise he was awake. He was laying on his left side with his back against the wall watching me sleep."Hi". "Ah! I'm sorry I didn't mean to fall asleep in your bed!" I answered and quickly jumped to my feet. He giggled "Don't worry, I don't mind. On top of that this was the first night in a couple of months in wich I wasn't freezing!" Out of embarrassment I buried my face in my hands. "So, how are you feeling." I then asked. "A lot better actually" he answered. I leaned forward and touched his forehead. His fever went down. That's was good. But his body is probable still very weak. I looked at him and quickly realised his face had turned red. I pulled my hand back "Sorry". "N-No, your good". I looked over to the other beds. It seemed like everyone else was already up.
Wait.... WAIT! In that moment I realised it was already morning. Shit! John looked at me questioningly. I quickly grabbed my stuff and ran out the room. "Wait! Where are you going?!" I heard him shout after me. I was storming out the front door when I came to a sudden halt. A lot of people had gathered in front of the inn. Under them Elizabeth. As soon as she spotted me she ran over to me with a bright smile. "Look Midoriya! They all came here because they saw how nice the inn looked again!" She told me. "They asked me how I was able to do that and when they heard it was one boy alone they begged me to introduce you!" She continued. "I'm sorry Elizabeth." I said "But I really need to go again. You remember? I told you I had to meet back up with my friends by yesterday sun fall." Her smile relaxed. "Oh right, I remember now. I guess I had already forgotten you weren't from here. Sorry we kept you here so long." Then she bowed down and thanked me for all I had done. "I will try to convince the people I travel with and go up the mountain to check out your supply source. We might be able to get them to deliver again, okay?" "That is really not necessary sweetie! You have done enough" She gave me a warm smile. I felt bad leaving her behind like this but I really had to see Kacchan and Shoto again!

I was about to rush off when someone grabbed my arm. "Wait!" It was a young women accompanied by a man carrying a little girl. Behind them the crowd had gone silent and where now all looking at me. "Are you the one who helped dear Elizabeth so much? I heard you were even able to magically heal her oldest son!" Everyone waited exited for my answer. "Yeah, I guess that would be me" I answered. Everyone started to cheer and make little air jumps. "Please!" The women said "We will pay you all we have! Everyone of us! Just please help us get our town back to glory with your magic!" The crowd got silent once more and looked at me expectant. "It wasn't magic though" I carefully answered. "What else would it be?" A man in the crowd shouted. "Yeah, no way this house transformed back in just one day without magic!" Another women screamed. "Please son." The man with the girl said. "You are our last hope! Please help us!" I paused to consider it for a minute. It would probable take months to get this town to look even close to what it looked before again. And what if Kacchan and Shoto are still waiting? I can't help them, right? But I'm a hero! What should I do? If they really payed me I could keep my promise to the others. On the other side it would be quit unethical to take money from the poor, no? "I don't have that kind of time." I then said. "I am truly sorry. I can't bring back the town you lived in all those years back. The best I could do would take months and the most I can offer are some hours." I looked over to Elizabeth. She was smiling. Was this the right choice? "Well I can't bring back your town, but I may be able to help out a little bit" I dropped by bag. "I'll need a lot of help though. Everyone available." "Everyone here is to your service" the women said promising. "Fine." I said. "Firstly bring all the children and elders who can't help to the Phoenix Nest Inn." I looked over to Elizabeth once more. She nodded and said "I'll be taking care of them, we have enough space." "Also I need all of you to change into clothes you can work in!"

My plan was to split the town up into different groups. For example some who will keep carrying fresh water from the stream over to the town or others that were suppose to start cleaning the piles of trash of the streets. There were some who started to fix holes in the buildings and others who collected everything we could recycle. We started by cleaning up the surface of this town and fix what we could. We could worry about the deep clean later. Most of the time I was just running around checking if everyone had something to do or help were I could.
After a while me and a couple others decided to go over to the south wing and buy some supplies with the money we had at our disposal. While we were there I also quickly checked the spot me and the other two were suppose to meet back up at but neither Kacchan n'or Shoto were there. I tried to concentrate back on the task at hand. I have been quit busy the last days so I haven't felt it that strong but I did miss both of them a lot! I hope they are alright!
Once we were back a great Idea came to my mind. I asked some guys that weren't to busy to help me. Then we collected wood that was laying around as well as plastic bags and finally made a trip to the forest to get some fresh soil. Then we built little composts as well as raised beds. With some of the children I then planted a couple of the vegetables we had bought.
Then I got another Idea. I was able to get my hands on wool, fabric, needles and threads. So I walked over to the elderly who weren't able to physically work anymore and asked them if they could maybe fix some of the clothes we had collected or even make some new ones. They agreed. Before I could storm outside the inn again and find something new to do John stoped me. "Hey, don't you want to take a quick break?" He asked.

He and I found a quiet spot outside and sat down together to eat. "Thanks a lot" he broke the silence "I mean you are really amazing! Thanks a lot for helping not only my family but everyone else here as well. Both of us probable know that this won't magically change everything. The fishers will still bother us and who knows how long it will take us to run out of money and food again. We still have no doctors here and the south wing will continue throwing there garbage over our 'border'. But still, your help will ensure us a better live then we have right now. It may take a while till we will be happy again but just know that everyone is really thankful and that you have done so much for us! Thank you! I mean it, Thank you a lot!" I held my breath as he rose his head and looked at me again. I had never realised this before but he looked exactly like Ojiro. This feeling as though the hole world had stoped spinning filled my body. "Midoriya? Can you promise me something? Once you get out don't forget me, okay?" he asked. "What?" Out of reflex a tear escaped my eye and made its way down my chin. "The truth is I'm not who you think I am. It would be impossible. The only real people here are you and the other two. It is just like the notebook you found. It looked like yours but it wasn't. I look like your friend but I'm not. By taking care of the old cabin in the woods you were granted the diary that led you here and by helping these people you were granted the opportunity to talk to me." "Does that mean you know how we get out of here?" I asked. "I do, but I can merely give you a tip on how to find it just like the book did. The thing is you seem to have forgotten you are in someone's imagination. A world a human build. A human with flaws and misunderstanding. To be able to accomplish something like as big and realistic as this you have to cheat a little bit. If it was intentional or not, every human you've met, every place you have visited it all exists. The architect of this world has met the guy who bought your junk, he has met Elizabeth or the girl in your diary. The truth is there is no way out. Over the years this place has started to fall apart. Every exit has vanished into thin air. You won't make it back but he doesn't know his world is doomed. But the moment you cleaned up the cabin or the moment you decided to help us, you have fixed a part of what is left. It might not be enough but if you continue to rebuild this world to what it was all those years ago it will show itself. The exit. There are glitches you can use but each of you will only be able to abuse one of them. Like you are doing right now. You Izuku can see the world that ones existed through things that are dear to you or have become quite familiar over the years. That's why you need to keep your eyes open. Fix what is broken and find what was lost. That alone is the leftover way to get out. And once you talk to the real Ojiro please don't forget the John you met here, okay?" As he said his last sentence a surge of green light flooded the night sky and decorated it with the most beautiful northern lights I had ever seen. As I turned my gaze back at the person next to me instead of Ojiro John was sitting next to me again. "Wow! Aren't these lights beautiful! You normally can't see them from here." He said and smiled at me like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Like he had never said a single word, like he didn't know. I decided that it would probable be better to leave it at that and continued to admire the sky. 

Once both of us were done eating I went back to work and John back to bed. We worked untill the deep night sky slowly filled it self with orange light. Sadly you could barely see a difference to what we started with. But that was okay because I knew I was able to leave now and they'd be alright. They were able to do it on their own from the beginning they just needed a little bit motivation and the courage to try. I made one last round before I said goodbye and grabbed my stuff. Isabell and Fred were barely able to let me go and the same went for Elizabeth. Before I left the town all the people gathered once more and thanked me for my hard work. And no matter how hard I tried in the end I couldn't convince them to keep their money. At least I was able to talk some senses into them and instead of every person paying me one gold we agreed on one gold per family. In hole Silverbrook Village about 5000 people lived so in the north wing it was about 2500 people. Considering that one family consisted of about 3-5 members I earned 625 Gold in the end. I still thought it was too much but it would be of help for us three in the future so I was thankful. I waved one last time and then left the north wing and entered the south wing to meet up with Shoto and Kacchan again.

To be continued...