Pantomath

Chapter 30:

Short-ish chapter this time, sorry.
-T.A.L.A.
Izuku Midoryia woke on his own bed besides another person who had curled so they were hugging him like one would a teddy bear. Faint chatter sounded from the kitchen which would have made the growing feeling of unease grow if he didn't recognize the voices as vaguely as familiar- in a good way. That didn't change the problem. He couldn't remember a single thing from... awhile back... what had he been doing? A stab of pain shot through his head.

    He calmed himself, this wasn't the first time this had happened, he just needed to keep calm and start at a recent, but still calm point and recall from there.

    Jin's lifeless, staring eyes flashed before his eyes.  He froze.

Jin limp in his hands as Katsuo, Suzie, and he struggled to move him from where Sare had teleported him.  Tears rose to his own eyes that stared uncomprehendingly at the wall before him.

Jin, the normal thick black tears (which would always accumulate whenever he felt a particularly strong emotion just below his eyes, seeping from his skin around where his dark eye bags were whenever he had to get up too early in the morning like blood from a wound), absent from their place, although very few people would notice that considering he always wore sunglasses, it was still a part that anyone from the bi-monthly group would notice right away. There was normally a small crust there because it was difficult to wash off.

  All the same the dried tear tracks were not there.

  He slowly turned around to see who lay beside him. Limp gray hair spread like a dark halo around a face completely free from the normal small expressions that would always run across his face behind the wolf like grins flashing in his minds eye.

    He was met with the familiar too- pale- for- anyone- else gray skin, blue tinted lips parted slightly to show a pitch black mouth and pointed layers of razor thin and sharp, white teeth. The eyelids were closed.

    But then...

    Hopelessness pressed down on him as he stood helplessly at the closed door facing the room a somewhat worn drawing notebook clutched in his hand as he watched over his friend from as close as he could bring himself to go.

  His eyes flicked back to where Jin lay, asleep, but not unnaturally so, a twitch of movement on their face betraying the difference even more so than the now closed eyes as he breathed evenly in and out.

   Shaking legs carried him over to the bedside so he could gently tap his forehead with the back of his fingernail and slide the notebook beneath the pillow. Tears unshed for once in his eyes as he stared down at him before backing away and fleeing the room.

    Deku pulled away, sliding so his back rested against the wall by the foot of the bed, his eyes never leaving the Jin beside him, careful not to wake him. If he was Jin, and the memories were fake, he'd cause the other to worry about him, but if it wasn't Jin...  The all too familiar figure moved closer to the spot his warmth once was curling up further into the blankets- Jin's temperature had always ran ungodly cold.

   He pressed himself further against the wall trying to think; what had happened next?

   Stain and Ingenium'a team.

   Going with Aire to visit Sare in preparation for the expected kidnapping. As long as someone he trusted was keeping an eye on her he could easily keep her out of danger.

   When nothing happened after some days dropping her off with Cogitatio so he could gather some... delicate...  information that he needed in the vain hope he could get a complete diagnosis and break down of Stain's quirk even as he tried to lay low from the fame he had accidentally gotten from Hosu.