31

 Chapter 31: Chapter #30 | Bound for Ruin

Notes:

Hello and welcome back everyone! I have a couple things to state before we get into this chapter! First of all I hope that everyone has had a good holiday season! As many of you may have guessed, I got caught in all of the erratic and craziness of the holidays and took a break/couldn't find time to write as I was spending the time with friends and family! That being said, we are back now to our scheduled programming and the chapters are once again coming.

Second, I have been asked a couple of times on where to view art/send art and the other good stuff. Anyone who creates something for the story or any other I do in the future is welcome to send it to me either at karrahazetail@hotmail.com or on Discord at KarraHazetail. You'll likely get a faster response from Discord. From there I'll create a gallery that will be accessible from the start notes from now on once I've started to receive things!

Once again, I hope that everyone had a good holiday season! Welcome to 2021, hopefully this year will be a whole lot better for everyone! Without further ado. Chapter 30 everyone!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Midoriya wanted to sigh when he saw the panic. He wanted to sigh when Uraraka's vitals spiked through the roof, and Midoriya most certainly wanted to sigh when he had to step forward and push the girl back into her bed. She had tried to sit up too quickly and gasped at the pain that lanced through her abdomen.

Gently, Midoriya kept his hand on Uraraka's shoulder but glanced at her parents briefly before looking her in and eyes and speaking softly. "What is the last thing you remember?"

Uraraka's brow scrunched in consternation. "What do you mean? I was squaring off against Iida in the training exercise. There was some big blast or something from, I'm assuming, Bakugo that shook the building. Professor Aizawa told us through the comms that the exercise was over and then… then.."

"Yes, well, that is already better than what we could have hoped for." Midoriya calmly pulled a stool over beside Uraraka's bedside before retrieving a penlight from a drawer. Sitting down, he began running through some basic tests.

"No, no. I've got it. Something happened, right? That's how I ended up here. What the. What happened." Uraraka hissed the last part out while shaking her head.

Midoriya did allow himself to sigh now. "What happened was All Might fucked up." Midoriya winced before turning to both of the girl's parents who had moved themselves to the other side of the bed. "Pardon my french."

Mrs. Ochako shook her head as if dismissing it while her husband's lips pulled back into a snarl. "He did fuck up."

Uraraka's head whipped around to her parents before it seemed the momentary distraction of her legs seemed to pass. The panic returned once more and she turned to Midoriya slowly, a look of dawning horror overtaking her features. Her throat was dry when she croaked out her question again. "W-What happened?"

Midoriya merely stared blankly at her. Where to even begin? She didn't need to know about Katsuki. No one needed to know about that other than the president when they were dealing with him after All Might. The disappointment of a man would undoubtedly try to put all of the blame on himself. Quick and clean, Midoriya decided. It was easier that way.

"After Aizawa ordered us out of the building, it collapsed. You were severely injured during the collapse and were only extricated some eight minutes after the collapse. At which point, you were rushed here and underwent extensive surgical intervention in order to stabilize you. During which," Midoriya winced and sighed again, because there was no good way to put this. "During which, the surgeons on staff were unfortunately unable to repair all of the damage."

The further Midoriya got into relaying the information, the less blood Uraraka was capable of keeping in her face. Her parents grimaced and held her hand. She couldn't help but hold onto them back, an anchor in her personal storm. "What are you saying, Midoriya?"

Midoriya closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself. To brace himself for what would come. "The compressive force during the collapse and the time it took to extricate you caused direct tissue damage while occluding venous outflow. With prolonged compression, the resultant cellular death le-"

"Midoriya, what are you SAYING?" Uraraka's parents jerked at the sudden outburst, and even the girl herself seemed shocked by it. She tried to stutter out an apology when Midoriya simply shook his head and waved it off. He'd been on the receiving end of far worse from trauma victims.

"While the medical staff here are some of the best in the country, of that I've made sure of, they were unable to repair much of the damage to your spine. Besides that, they also had to amputate your legs, and you flatlined twice. To be entirely honest, even the fact that you're awake already is a miracle of quirks and technology."

There it was. The air had stilled, and Uraraka's breath hitched in her throat. She'd practically stopped breathing. Her wide brown eyes widened even further, practically leaving them the size of dinner plates. The look on her face would have been comical were it not for the situation and the heart-wrenching sorrow and horror displayed there. "No. No no no n-"

The words turned into choked sobs as she clawed the light blanket off of her, as she saw her legs missing. Her right, from the knee down, and the left from further up her thigh. It's her parent's turn now. I can come back later. Silently, Midoriya signaled the doctor still standing by in the room out with him.

It wasn't until Midoriya got back to his office that he allowed the mask he'd carefully constructed to slip. It wasn't until then that he allowed himself to remember how much he hated dealing with collapse patients.

...

Nedzu found him sitting in his desk chair shortly after Midoriya had returned. Midoriya simply stared, frustrated, at his own hands while the president explained that they were needed back at the university. When Midoriya protested that he needed to be at the hospital in case something happened, Nedzu calmly explained that the doctors on staff were more than capable of handling anything that would arise at this stage.

"Besides that, Midoriya, the board needs your testimony on what happened. We'll be handling All Might and Bakugo later today."

"What do you mean we?" Midoriya's voice was tense, strained.

"I mean, you'll be present for the meeting. I'd rather you not bug my office again. I only just got rid of the last of them." Nedzu said that as if he didn't figure there were at least another three he had yet to manage to discover.

"Gods damn it. Fine. Fuck. Fine." Midoriya clenched his fists along with his eyes, drawing a deep, steadying breath before he stood and stepped out of the room with the president. If Nedzu noticed the new hole in the wall, well, he couldn't blame his student for being a bit frustrated.

…

"I should go back in there and skin every one of them." Midoriya seethed. "First they dismiss the incident as 'just another training accident,' and then they dare try to foist the blame onto me just because I'm quirkless."

"Self-proclaimed, but yes, that is how things went." Nedzu responded with both platitudes and a carefully straight face. If he were honest with himself, he was just as angry as Midoriya. The board had tried to stonewall him at every turn.

All he had wanted was for their critically injured student to not have to worry about her hospital bills or the undoubted weeks of rehabilitation that would follow, should she choose to stay in the heroics course. He had gotten it in the end. The chimera knew how to get what he wanted from those idiots on the board, but it angered him to no end that they had tried to stop him from helping his own students.

"I could kill them all. I could make it look like a bloody accident. But no, you're here, and you would be the first person the police would talk to. That would lead to me." Midoriya's muttering was venomous as he glared down the, luckily, empty hallway.

"Midoriya, your muttering is turning dangerous, don't you think?" Midoriya looked sideways at the chimera sitting on his shoulder before huffing and gesturing wildly around the air.

"It's cathartic. Just because I can doesn't mean I wi-" As the two stepped into the teacher's lounge, Midoriya's eyes zeroed onto one person in specific, sitting on the couch, sipping tea as if nothing had happened. A low rumble began in the back of Midoriya's throat that he quickly cut off when he noticed both Aizawa and Snipe sliding into defensive postures in different corners of the room.

"Ah, that is my cue, I do believe. I need to put together the paperwork for later." The emphasis on the word from Nedzu did very little to assuage the tense atmosphere coming from Midoriya. "I do expect you will all behave while I'm gone?"

It wasn't a statement, and Midoriya knew it. It was a question mostly directed at himself, not that he could blame the rodent, considering he'd snarled at the man upon sighting him. "As long as All Might behaves himself, then I won't do a thing." It was a terse answer but one that he would have to accept. One that left Nedzu praying that the buffoon didn't do anything. Hopefully, his faculty could stop anything before it got out of hand.

"And you Toshinori?"

The big man jolted, china rattling in his hands, as he was addressed by the president. "Uh, of course." Nedzu's eyes narrowed on him. It was a nonanswer, and a nervous one at that, but it would have to do. Work was piling up, and if the look he was getting from Aizawa was any indication, then he couldn't put it off much longer.

…

The atmosphere was tense. That was the best word for the awkward situation the staff found themselves in. Initially, it had seemed to Toshinori that his student wouldn't make this harder. He was overjoyed when the boy sat down across from him and poured himself some of the tea. That joy dissipated quickly when the boy didn't say a word and merely stared at him as if he were a living piece of garbage.

Toshinori coughed. He was the number one hero, he could do this. "Young Midoriya, I need to apologize to you."

"Oh?" The single word had Aizawa reaching for his capture scarf. It was low, cold, and contained a hatred that chilled the professors to their bones. Snipe would have reached for his sidearm, were he still in the room. He'd had a class to see to, and while Kayama had come in after him, he couldn't help but wish for the deterrent of a firearm right now.

Another cough, nervous now. "Uh, yes. I need to apologize to you for putting you into a match against young Bakugo. I hadn't realized things were quite so bad between the two of you. I shouldn't have allowed that match to continue when I heard the personal nature of his grudge. I am thoroughly impressed by you, though. To be able to keep a level head through it all and perform rescue operations like that! Even going as far as to rescue your attacker, despite what you must have been feeling." Midoriya's eye twitched involuntarily at that. "I must ask, where ever did you learn to do all of that?"

The room was silent for a very long moment. Aizawa watched his student as he seemed to weigh his next words carefully, weighing whether he could twist anything that was said as Toshinori not behaving. The large man couldn't help but gulp as Midoriya stared him down with a look that could flay the skin off of anyone else.

"Military. Is that all you have to say, All Might?" Aizawa's eyes widened. Even that one word was more information than he'd been able to pry out of the boy after a year of working with him. Military? Was he with the military? The latest in the Urban Wars had ended barely thirty-five years prior. Had he been taught by a veteran of them? Kayama couldn't help but choke on her drink and snap around to look at Midoriya.

"Uh, yes?"

Midoriya smiled now, hard and dangerous, his eye still twitching. "Then I believe it is my turn to speak, no? First, the one you should be apologizing to is not me but your student, Uraraka Ochako, who was critically injured." Midoriya's words became harsh as he spit out the girl's name at the number one. "You can do whatever you'd like to me, you oaf, but you played a major part in crippling a young girl who wanted nothing more than to use her quirk to help people."

All Might ducked his head now at the accusation. He had been planning on visiting the girl at the hospital to see how his student was doing, but he hadn't realized it was that bad. Crippled? Had things really gone that wrong?

"But you know what? Let's put that aside for a moment, shall we? Because you are a walking disaster of a teacher. I told you before that match ever began that it shouldn't happen. You ignored me. You allowed a first-year student to strap gods damned bombs to his wrists. You continued a match when it was clearly evident that your student was aggressive beyond the acceptable level. You continued the gods damned match when the aforementioned student threatened to kill his opponent. You have utterly failed even resembling a teacher."

Kayama sat wide-eyed at the breakdown of what had happened. Sure, she had heard there was an accident during training, but she couldn't have imagined something like this. Even Aizawa couldn't help but grimace at the kids' evaluation. He felt the same way. Midoriya turned his head now, coughing into his shoulder. Confused, he pressed a hand against his chest before continuing.

"For that matter, All Might, you aren't even a teacher! You're a hero that has taken the role of a teacher without ever learning how to properly fill the role. You don't have your teacher's license, you don't have a temp certification, and you don't even have field experience because the only damn sidekick or intern you've taken on is Nighteye, who has since turned into a hardened disaster since you ejected him from your life."

Midoriya was getting worked up now and seemed to be coughing along with the increase in agitation. Aizawa couldn't help but narrow his eyes in concern. Had the kid been injured worse than he let on? "Now, young Midoriya, that's hardly fair. Sir Nighteye is a fantastic hero. He's done just fine without me, and the reason we parted had nothing to do with his abilities as a hero."

"All Might, I don't have the time to even begin to cover the problems Nighteye and I have had since our first meeting, which also wasn't a pleasant one." Cough. "All Might the Pillar of Society. All Might the Protector of Humanity. All Might the Gods Damned Hero of Mankind."

"I don't think that those titles are very healthy for-"

"Fucking," cough, "exactly, All Might. You practically obsess over me for weeks. You try to push me into something," cough, "because I'm quirkless. Because you're so caught up in your own damn story. You're right, All Might. It isn't healthy, but that is exactly what you've created. We are the shepherds of our own consequences and," cough, "look at your damn consequences now."

Midoriya's eyes suddenly widened as he grabbed his chest and fell to the floor. Pain lanced through his entire body, his vision swimming. He coughed now, and when he did, it splattered blood across the floor of the lounge. The professors were on their feet he realized. Someone was yelling something. Then suddenly, his muscles locked down on him and his vision went black.

…

What on earth was happening? Where was he? The world around him seemed to pitch and shift as his chest burned. His veins burned. His muscles burned. Everything felt like it was on fire as he desperately tried to connect to his augments.

The world snapped into place, and he almost couldn't believe his eyes. Scratch that, he most certainly couldn't believe his eyes. What the fresh hell was going on? In front of Midoriya stood the tunnels of Installation Elysium, as pristine as they had been before he'd detonated the base's reactors. He couldn't ever mistake the hallways for anywhere else. He had walked them day in and day out with his comrades. The facility had been abandoned after the Armont Crisis had come to an end, according to its records, and had served as his home for years.

One of the doors joining the hallway to its facilities blew outwards off its hinges. Midoriya sprinted for one of the armory cabinets nearby on instinct, grabbing the rifle and its ammunition, before turning and sprinting back, despite his body screaming at him in protest. He'd just racked the weapon when an odd collection of people stumbled from the room.

"What the fuck, Shigaraki? I thought we were passing on to the successor. Why is everything here trying to kill us?"

"For that matter, who the fuck are we passing onto that they would come up with a military base in their mind?!"

"Shut up, you two. We need to get out of here. It's not binding properly. Anymore of this and we're going to ki-"

"Stop right there! Who are you people?" The group froze before slowly turning to the very tall kid holding a very large gun. One of the men, this one with dark hair and wearing a high collared jacket, tried stepping forward towards Midoriya when a loud roar ripped through the tunnel and a twenty-five millimeter round tore the man's leg off.

The man screamed. Midoriya winced. Fucking hell, I need my armor to fire this thing. His shoulder was once again dislocated, and with the fire seemingly flowing through his veins, it was feeling like he'd just shoved a hot skewer through it. "Woah there!" Midoriya's eyes snapped to the woman who spoke, and his eyes widened.

"Son of a bitch. You, I recognize." A beautiful fair-skinned woman with a mole under the right side of her lip. Jet black, shoulder-length hair rested atop her head, pulled back into a neat bun. "Shimura Nana. A hero during the Japanese Urbans, killed by-"

The woman watched the kid's eyes widen as he recited her information and then came to a realization, snarling, "All for One. That means." The pieces clicked together one after another. The man had said Shigaraki, not All for One, so the first of the other half. One for All. Shimura Nana was a One for All successor. "Oh, I'm going to kill him. That motherfucker dosed me."

Notes:

Bonus points to anyone who can guess how and why.