Shouto's eyes fluttered open and he tried to stand, but it hurt more than anything, so he decided to stay still.
"Shouto?"
He turned his head a bit and found himself staring into your eyes. "Y-Y/N...?"
You put your hands on his cheeks and he felt the warmth of life from your hold. He sighed and leaned into your touch, his eyes closing again.
"No, eyes open," you instructed with a tone equivalent to the one you used with children. Gentle. Calm.
There were times when you'd hold children close to you as you protected them and you tried to maintain a calm demeanour. At some point, it just turned to your default.
Now, however, you had never felt so much panic well up in you before.
Shouto's eyes remained open, tiredly, only because you told him to. "Where did..." His eyes strayed from your face and he saw things that couldn't even be considered corpses, not even to nomus.
One was burnt beyond recognition, small flames acting as remnants of your torture to it. It continued to twitch, but it couldn't move, not with a brain that was nothing more than ash.
Another was confined in spikes, each prong contorting it oddly, making its skin rip and its limbs bend every which way; blood trickled down the rock but it still continued to fight for life.
The remaining was the only one completely still, pinned to the ground by spikes of ice and rock.
His eyes widened just a bit before he felt your hand on his chest and he relaxed.
"Don't look," you said, taking his chin and gently making him face you again. Your tone had a backbone of guilt.
He tried to lift his hand to place it where he knew it comforted you—your shoulder, your cheeks, even your hand would suffice—but he couldn't move without being greeted with excruciating pain.
Your hands glowed and you began pressing against different parts of his body. Every time you asked if it hurt, he said yes.
A sigh left you, although it was more of a shudder. "I shouldn't have let them station you alone," you concluded.
"Y/N..."
"Using my name on duty is unprofessional." You made it seem like you hated it, but you didn't. You were more terrified of it. The name, the pure moment of desperation as they feel themselves slip, was the moment you hated the most in every story.
It meant someone would be lost.
"Please, Y/N, give me this moment."
You shook your head. "No. You'll get this moment later."
"Please..."
"No!" Your voice broke with that simple word and you shook your head harder. "Please don't use that tone. Don't use the same tone as them."
His lips parted a bit before he smiled and assured you with a deep, painful breath. "I just want to talk to you... while you... heal me."
After a slow realization that your healing wasn't doing anything, you finally nodded slowly and he spoke.
"Do you... remember when you started... drawing a picture of me?"
Your distraught expression fashioning furrowed brows and pursed lips relaxed and you nodded.
"I want... you to finish it... one day. You liked to draw, you said."
You hummed and nodded.
He continued staring at the sky. "I remember when I'd see you darting through the air above-head and I thought you were so enchanting."
You looked away from his wounds and at his face. It smiled, as if he were reminiscing about old times. "'Enchanting'?"
"Yes... I remember father would sometimes point you out and comment on how talented you were."
You stared at his smile and wished you had protected it far better than you actually did. With a gentle swat of the hair that covered his face, you came to admire his features, the brightness of his eyes that weren't there when you first met him.
Hopefully, when you looked at him, he saw the new hope that he instilled into your eyes.
"Shouto."
"Yes?"
"I love you... thank you for reminding me of that feeling, even if you didn't even mean to."
It was like that was the one thing he needed to hear as you watched his eyes closed slowly, a smile remaining on his face until it slipped. "Shouto?"
The lack of answer was the most horrifying silence you had ever been met with in your life.
"Shouto?" You gentle shook him. "Hey, we're not finished talking."
You placed your hands on his cheeks which felt cold to the touch, and you had never been so mortified by the absence of warmth before.
"Shouto, please. Please, don't... leave me here..." You breaths were shaky and quick as they kept getting caught in your throat.
"You said..." You saw how still he was despite your pleads and, for some reason, started getting louder. "You said we'd get married after this! You said that we'd grow up and be whatever we want to be! You wanted it to be the thing we were looking forward to! What am I supposed to look forward to after this?!"
As your volume increased, the ground began to quake, and it could be felt from kilometres away.
"Shouto!" You screamed one last time before you ultimately gave up and collapsed into his chest, unable to properly convey what you wanted to as your entire body trembled. "Please..."
You heard something behind you and you turned, eyes meeting the nomus you had defeated before.
Right... it was them... No. It was him.
"I'll be right back," you assured to Shouto. Some delusional part of your brain told you that he'd be waiting for you. You took off the whale earring from your belt and placed it over his chest.
You stood and walked past the immobilized nomus. With an aggressive swing of your arm, they were swallowed into the ground and your eyes glowed with a newfound rage.
And suddenly, the walls you created came crashing down and you began speeding forward in a swift, straight line, with only one target.
With your back on it, you hadn't realized the soft glow that the earring you had left had begun to emit.
•••
"What the hell?!" Bakugou watched the walls come crashing down as quickly as they were built.
Midoriya frowned and he turned to Best Jeanist. "That... That doesn't mean that something happened to Y/N, right?"
For a moment, Shigaraki stopped in his attack.
"I don't know... Things she's created haven't suddenly collapsed when she falls asleep. I think they would've remained no matter the circumstances she finds herself in."
Shigaraki eyed the crumbled walls. He hadn't seen the things you had created crumble like that. They may return to their original form, they slowly deconstruct, but not crumble.
He recalled only one time that your creation had crumbled.
The first time you had witnessed a murder, right before your eyes.
All For One invited both Shigaraki and you to the nomu factory, and all Shigaraki could notice was your curious stares at the chambers that held the newly made ones.
You had made this building. It was the result of an experiment that the creepy doctor had wanted done. Did you not know what was within it?
You were led to a back room and Shigaraki felt you squeeze his hand, although it seemed like neither of you knew what was behind the door your father laid before you.
But your eyes were glowing, just like every other time your quirk activated.
"We have to fix that," All For One said. Just as he did, you winced and your eyes stopped glowing at the same time your free hand went to the wound on your shoulder.
All For One opened the door and you were met with a dark room, seemingly empty.
"Ah, right." With a snap of your father's fingers, something fell from the ceiling. Or rather, someone.
Both you and Shigaraki were startled by a corpse that suddenly fell, dangling from the ceiling like a light.
You were no longer simply holding Shigaraki's hand, but grabbing his arm, somehow more afraid of what was dead than a murderer who was alive.
"This is the room where the... unready nomus are kept. And I'd like to see..." All For One turned on the light and, not only was the ceiling a cruel mimicry of a slaughter house, but there was still a living person there, seated, arms chained to the ceiling.
Shigaraki felt you begin to tremble and a part of him wondered what you were expecting.
"My dear... I hope that one day I can tell you why I must do this." His arm outstretched and tendrils burst from his fingertips and plunged into the person's chest.
Blood splattered across the room and your expression was left in unmistakable horror.
"Now, I'd like you to see if you can do this." You father knelt in front of you and a small, portal-like shape appeared above his palm.
You shook your head. "I can't."
"Just try."
"I have the same quirk as mama... I can't."
"I would really like to see."
You slowly held out your hand and tried to mirror what your father was doing, but your eyes kept travelling to the dead body leaned against the wall and instead, the building began to shake.
Shigaraki looked up and saw cracked beginning to form in the walls and ceiling.
The building... it was crumbling.
Shigaraki stared off into the distance and tried to step forward, only to be wrapped by fibres and Midroiya's black whip.
"You're not going anywhere," Best Jeanist said.
He glared at the heroes holding him back, then noticed the look in Aizawa's eye.
Worry swelled in them.
Before anyone did much, there was a widespread message sent to each hero on the battlefield.
"All For One is rapidly making his way to the city where evacuees still remain! All heroes not assigned directly to a villain, go to his location!"
Aizawa gripped his scarf and began running off.
"Erasurehead?!"
"This is important!"
Aizawa went back to what Justin had told him before. A warning, about you.
"There's something about her quirk. A side affect, if you want to call it that."
"...What do you mean?"
"Quirks often correlate with a person's emotions. If someone were to temporarily copy it, I doubt that this correlation would also be copied. But to gain someone else's quirk..."
"What are you saying?"
"I've found that, in the rare occasion that Y/N does find herself feeling any sort of emotion, it is very... strong. She has had a crush on his 'Todoroki' character for a while now, and she makes it seem like he hung the stars. Heck, she probably proposed already. It seems as though, not only did she gain others' quirks, but also the emotional correlation."
"That meaning..."
"If she were to ever feel a strong emotion, she'd essentially be feeling that emotion for every person whose quirk she's gained."
Aizawa's brows knit together. "So she'd have four, five, even six people's emotions on her back?"
"All at the same time. Now, I don't know this for sure, but if it is true, this battle could possibly break her, and not just emotionally. It might activate all the quirks at once."
"That could kill her..."
"I know. Just, make sure she's okay."
Aizawa sped across the battlefield, trying to find that complicated student that he's held so close to him for so long.
Still, that 'so long' felt like no time at all. He was learning new things about you everyday, far more now than he had two, three, five years ago.
He didn't know if, right now, he should hold you closer or let you roam free and try and find your way. What he did know, however, is that there would be nothing that would keep him from protecting you.
Whatever hurt you in the past was all resurfacing now.
You had to face your father right before you, even though you tried to deny the nightmares that he still brings you.
You had to see those you care about in danger, even though it bring about a new worry that could never truly be uplifted.
You had unhealed wounds that refused to scar and be forgotten. He should've known that, thought about it before even thinking about letting you onto the battlefield.