The haze was getting thicker by the second, the dark area becoming a misty white. The air was enough to make one's eyes water, making the blurriness much worse than it already was.

The last thing Shoto had heard was a man's voice, one that seemed so far off and faint, although they were actually quite close. Shoto had wanted to jump after him, however, the prince didn't have time to react, because in an instant, Princess Camie was gone, and chances of spotting the rest of his group looked grim from his standpoint.

Shoto inhaled, "That's okay. We expected this. But the issue is... where the hell is Izuku?" He began to squint, looking around for the green haired boy. As they had planned out, Tenya had stated that Camie would accompany Shouto to watch for anything out of the ordinary, and if anything did manage to happen, the prince and the knight would regroup, sneaking their way into the prison untouched, if lucky.

Now, the haze had come as no surprise, especially to Shoto. No, he hadn't been here before, the valley had been closed off for years. Just the stories he had been told from his brother, and even sometimes his mother, he remembered tales of brave knights traversing the area. The only problem was that if he didn't find Izuku, then they couldn't continue on to find the prison.

He cupped his hands around his mouth, "Iz—" He paused. If he started to call out for him, then one of the two people guarding the area could easily catch onto their plan. Instead, he shut his mouth, starting to cover his forehead instead.

Shoto shifted his position. The expression on his face seemed a bit stressed out. No matter where he looked, the only thing he was sure he could see was that haze. Not the soft green hair, and certainly not any soothing viridian eyes.

Then, out of a moment of standing there feeling completely useless, he shook his head, until he snapped himself out of it. All he needed was a bit of concentration and calmness, then maybe, possibly, he would be able to navigate his way through the haze.

Guess I'll just have to go look for him the hard way. Hopefully he's alright.

He slowly inhaled, taking his first steps off to his right. He didn't know where he was going at all, but this really was the last direction he had seen Izuku in. In all hopes, he would still be there, unmoved, and, if he were lucky enough, safe. Now, that was way too much to ask for, because after ten full minutes of walking in that same direction, Shoto had realized something: the world seemed a bit distorted, and the distance he has originally seen from a large rock must have been long since passed at this point.

"You know, it isn't very wise to be walking around here you know." The same voice he had heard earlier suddenly resonated in his ears, causing the prince to jerk his head left and right. "No need for that, you won't be able to find me anyway. I could easily just be in your head, right?"

Shoto paused, reaching for his sword this time. The only response he received was a light sigh. "Now now, you can settle down, your majesty. Our king doesn't want you getting involved in battle quite yet. Please, if I may, I'll just direct you to where you need to go, yes?"

"And what if I'd prefer to find my way on my own?" His gaze narrowed, slowly grabbing onto the hilt.

"Simple: You'll get lost just like the rest of the knights who decided not to listen. Now, I understand that you have a place to be, so I'm willing to get you to Izuku Midoriya and the prison safely to retrieve Ochako Uraraka."

Shoto raised an eyebrow. The fact that everyone was so willing to help him this way, when clearly they were on the opposing side, seemed odd, suspicious even. "But why? For fuck's sake, you're the one that got me lost here in the first place."

"Tsk tsk tsk, he was right, you really are quite naive." His tongue was heard clicking, as well as some very subtle footsteps. "No one here controls the haze, why, it seems to have a mind of his own. You know, I only said that thing earlier to scare you, and it seems like it worked. You seem so on edge, and for what? The green haired knight Izuku Midoriya?"

"What would you know about him?" He drew his sword defensively, soon to just run in whichever direction and look for that dreaded voice.

"I know nothing, only what information has been fed to me, so stand down. You shouldn't be worried about me in the slightest, Tomura Shigaraki will possibly give you both a hard time thanks to the boy. Now, if you would just listen, Izuku Midoriya is two meters to the left of your current position. I know you want to go get him, so I will excuse you now. I have places to be."

"Two meters to the left... okay fine, but what about the prison?" He put the sword back into its sheath, feeling kind of dumb for trying to navigate on his own.

"Ah. Ten meters forward and six meters to the right from Izuku Midoriya's location. I'm sure you'll follow my instructions."

Shoto looked down at the rocky floor, remembering what Tenya told him after he had been quite reckless with following others and running on his own. However, it was too late to turn back now, he supposed. "How do I know you're not just setting me up?"

"Because this whole set up is for you to succeed for as long as we need you to. You won't start to fail until he feels it's right. As of now, your mission is to profess your love to Izuku Midoriya, your next mission will be determined once you have done so. You see?"

"Mission? What do you mean mission?"

"Don't ask me. I'm really not the one who's involved in most of this drama. It's your father who is, not me."

"My father? You mean King Endeavor...?"

"Why of course I mean King Endeavor, you don't have another father, now do you?" Shoto nodded. "See, he's the one who's put you in all this trouble in the first place. First the arranged marriage, then the mission. Now, you falling in love wasn't on the original agenda, you did that all on your own. It seems Izuku Midoriya did quite the number on your stone cold heart. That was an unfortunate loss on our side, but no matter, we had a backup plan, which is why you're here now, your majesty."

"Are you guys working with him?"

The man let out a light chuckle, just before his voice began to fade out, "That's something you'll have to figure out on your own. I believe that was my word limit for the day. I must say farewell, I wish you luck with the knight, you two make quite the cute couple."

"Wait a second I'm not done questioning you yet." He had said that, yet there wasn't a response that had come right after. He sighed, shaking his head before turning to his left.

Two meters. I guess it's worth a shot.

He took his chances, walking for what seemed like forever. That was until he heard very aggressive mumbling, coming up right in front of him. "Okay so if the haze has built up this much at this point then I believe that the nighttime is when the haze is the most dangerous and thick, so if my suspicions are correct, then in about a few hours, the fog should thicken in around three in the morning, making it way harder to navigate, but in this fog, it's perfect just to infiltrate the prison and make a sneak attack on whoever's guarding the complex, and then we make a distraction and then we save Uraraka-San just as planned, hopefully without any casualties, then, once we get her back, we can continue on to complete this mission, marry Shoto, and live happily ever after, and ignore King Endeavor because he doesn't know that obviously he's horrible for making Shoto sad so hopefully this mission turns out the way I want because then we can live together and be a happy family and..."

The words had been said way too fast for Shoto to comprehend, so he only stood there for a while, watching as Izuku rambled on about the mission's outcome for who knows how long. At some point he had stopped, seemingly in a small trance as he moved on from his mumbling to a small daydream.

The prince's mouth became upturned into a small smile, before he crouched down in front of the rock Izuku was sitting on. He whispered quietly, grabbing onto his arm to get his attention, "Hey, Izuku? What are you doing?"

This caused the knight to almost scream out of how startled he was, but thankfully enough for him, his hand flew to his mouth to prevent that. He looked off to the side, just before his eyes met with Shoto's heterochromatic ones. Izuku still had his hand over his mouth, blushing viciously with embarrassment, "N-nothing s-sorry I was just uh.. talking to myself..."

Shoto laughed silently, before he stood up and offered a hand to Izuku. "That's okay. I'm just glad I found you."

Izuku rubbed at the back of his head, just before taking the prince's hand and popping off form where he had been sitting. He started to pull at his fingers, his gaze directed upwards at the taller male, "So uh... you got any clues on how to find our way out of this mess??"

"Ten meters left and six meters right."

"Ten meters left and six meters right..." Izuku repeated it back naturally, before furrowing his eyebrows and getting kind of confused from that statement. "Meters?? Wait a minute, how many feet is that?"

Shoto paused, "Uh... I don't know... feet is such a pointless unit of measurement..."

The knight blinked, looking up, then down, and then left, and then finally right, before trying to process what was going on in his head. "Thirty-two, almost thirty-three feet?"

The prince still looked confused as to why the knight was trying to convert in his head, but nonetheless he tried to disregard it, sweat dropping as he listened to him. "I'm actually not sure... but that could be right..."

"And as for the six meters... uhhh nineteen to twenty feet?? That seems right..." He started to count on his fingers, although it was like he already knew these answers.

"Izuku... we should not be focusing on conversions right now. We need to save Uraraka, remember?" Truthfully, Shoto was kind of enjoying how cute it was seeing Izuku getting confused by minor details, but he knew that it couldn't be spared for a moment of their time.

The knight blinked, before laughing at his stupidity, "O-oh! R-right, sorry!!" His grip tightened around Shoto's hand, just before taking one step and pausing almost immediately. "Wait... ahahahaha I don't know how many steps that should be..."

Shoto smiled, before placing a small kiss on the side of Izuku's face. "You're too much. Come on, I'll lead you then, I guess." He started walking with that, already seeing the flustered look on Izuku's face out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey, Shoto, I know it's kind of weird but uh... you know... do those kisses mean anything? Like you've been uh... giving them to me and well... I mean not that I don't like them or anything! I mean wait not like that but uh... you know just..."

The prince was still mid step while he looked over at the smaller male, "Of course it means something. Now, why would I do something like that without a reason. Wouldn't that be like messing with your feelings? I wouldn't want that."

Izuku looked down, a light blush going over his cheeks, "Well... does that mean well um..."

"Does it mean what? Go on, you can say it."

"A-ah n-nevermind! We have important things to d-do anyway! How much further are we anyway? Like ten feet? Yeah, that seems right, although I still don't know how many meters that is, anyway, so I'm going to go on ahead and—" The greenette began to take three quick steps forward, pulling Shoto over with him.

"Izuku the building—" Shoto had started speaking, but it was far too late, because by the time those words had come across to him, they both had already ran into the prison face first at the exact same moment.

In unison, the two only let out a small "Ow...", just before rubbing at their heads and taking a step back from the cold bricks.

"Izuku... be careful..." Shoto rubbed at his face, leaving a smudge of dirt on his soft skin.

The knight laughed nervously, starting to bow at the dual colored male in apology. "Sorry I didn't mean to do that! I didn't know that it was right there, I should have waited for the go ahead!"

Some noises were heard from the inside of the cell, interrupting their conversation right in the middle. Both males looked at each other, nodding silently in understanding, just before pressing their backs against the stone complex.

They slid across, before they saw light shining right through a small window with cell bars. Neither one of them were tall enough to see through it, so Izuku tapped on Shoto's shoulder to grab his attention. Once he knew that both eyes were on him, he started making strange motions with his hands.

Seeing motions like that would be strange to any normal person, but thankfully Shoto knew what he meant. The prince grabbed the knight, hoisting him up onto his shoulders so that he was sitting on top of them. Shoto then tightly held onto his legs, being sure that he wouldn't fall off of him.

Izuku grabbed onto the bars on the window, just before looking into the cell that it was connected to. He saw a familiar tuft of brown hair, sitting at the corner, and twirling around her pink hat. He was about to say something about the female, opening his mouth to whisper out to Shoto. That was until he saw a figure approach the cell with a tray of food that was slid towards her.

The first thing he noticed was that white hair. Then he saw those piercing crimson eyes with a far off look of hate. Then, finally, that unsettling wrinkled skin and unmoisturized lips. He recognized that face anywhere.

"T-Tomura Shigaraki...?"

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