[A/N]: Transitional chapter

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"Talk to me."

Tenya had pressed the answer button on his intercom, only to be bombarded with an endless array of questions and scoldings.

"What on earth are you doing?
You never said anything about jumping head-first into danger!"

The shaky, intense voice of none other than Shoto emanated through the receiver.
Tenya bit his lip, a heavy weight of guilt weighing on his chest.

He was powering through the city streets, sprinting tens of metres with each passing second.

Amidst Kagayaki's ceaseless resistance and thrashes, Tenya had come close to tripping a few times--even losing his helmet in the struggle eventually. The villain was still quite weak in terms of physical capabilty, no match for Tenya's determination and far-exceeding strength.

"I could be asking you the same thing. This com is for agency use only."

Tenya tried his hardest to resist the urge to chatter his lips from the bitter cold of the evening, icy needles pricking at his rosy forehead and cheeks.

Shoto sighed, audibly distressed.

"Your agency forwarded my call. Aside from being sickeningly persistent, my name has its influences in your area of work. That being said, stop compromising your safety! That man is not stable."

Tenya sighed.

"I appreciate the gesture, but what do you suppose I do? Leave him here, on a highway thousands of innocent civilians?"

"Of course not! Why not just--I don't know..."

Tenya could hear his husband's frantic and laboured breathing as he struggled to compose himself.

Shoto inhaled deeply to do just that, exhaling with a comical huff.

"Just, please don't get hurt. For Kanna. For me. You have to live. You hear me?"

He tried to sound stern and solemn, but in the end, he couldn't help but crack a little under the worry and anxiety.

It broke Tenya's heart to hear Shoto like this, knowing that Shoto hasn't always been an expressive person. Recently, however, his emotional depth was sombre, limited to that of devastation and anguish.

Of course, he was also now able to express delight towards the positive aspects of their life, but there were only so many things he could be happy for as of now.

Tenya didn't want to die.

Not because he feared death, but because he worried what would become of Shoto if he were to have another heartbreak.

Raising Kanna? Being around friends and family? What if given his past and current lifestyle, he would react worse than Izuku did?

He couldn't even bear the thought.

Tenya smiled, although Shoto couldn't see it.

He smiled even though he was running with a literal ticking time bomb in tow through busy city streets.

He smiled, knowing that there was a chance he wouldn't make it out alive.

"Of course."

...

"Uraraka?"

The flickering picture of the television was the only illumination in the room, flashing across dull, expressionless features.

Asui was keeping Ochako company after she was relocated, staying at her bedside because she was worried that the overextension of her quirk would've had terrible drawbacks.

Physically, the brunette was basically unharmed, besides mild fatigue and weak movements.

Her emotional state was another story.

The feed that was shown live from Musutafu almost a half-hour ago, showed Izuku being eviscerated by a villain's quirk.

Ochako hadn't said a word since.

Asui had tried to acknowledge her pain; tried to console her and cry with her.

But Ochako didn't budge.

"Come on. Talk to me."
Asui gave Ochako's pale, icy hands a gentle squeeze.

Her form was frozen, stiff and unchanging. If it weren't for her steady pulse, Asui would've mistaken her for a corpse.

It was as if she were observing something.

It was as if...
She were waiting.
...

The air was dead silent.

The children, other strangers and even the lapping streams of pitch-black waters had stilled to a glassy, obsidian lake.

Izuku couldn't stop gaping.

Those burning, vermilion orbs that tore through his stubborn defences, struck him at his very core and instilled a painful, but simultaneously relieving ache from within his chest.

It felt as though their gazes had locked for ages--and Izuku didn't mind staying that way for an eternity if he could.

But of course, he wanted to hold Katsuki.

To touch him.

To confirm that he wasn't a figment of his imagination; That Katsuki was truly standing before him after all this time.

They were within each other's arms within a matter of seconds, the leadup and everything else seeming irrelevant to that single moment.

"I-It's really you,"

He finally exhaled in shallow breaths, as he audibly overflowed with a number of emotions.

Mainly overwhelming joy, solace, and intense bewilderment plagued his thoughts.

How was Katsuki still alive?

Had he been here the entire time?

If so, how were they going to get back?

Meanwhile, Katsuki wanted to ask what the hell he was doing here; to scold him for getting his clumsy ass to fall victim to that bastard's quirk.

"What...What the hell are you doing here?"

He choked out, struggling to process the feeling that weighed on his heart.

He was on the verge of joyful tears, while simultaneously devastated that the love of his life had faced the same fate he had.

"I was hit with the quirk. To be honest, I was hoping I'd end up wherever you were--even if it meant I'd have to follow you to death."

Katsuki rolled his eyes. Of course he would say something sappy like that, what a Deku.

"Don't say shit like that."

He strained a chuckle as he gently prodded at Izuku's shoulder, tears falling from his cheeks.

There was light air of banter that fell upon the atmosphere, as if they were never separated in the first place.

Izuku was afraid he wouldn't be able to let go, now loosening his grip on Katsuki just a little.

The blonde was leaner now; a lack of muscle mass from before.

He definitely struck Izuku as more effeminate at present, but he was still Katsuki.

He wasn't some delicate damsel that needed a bodyguard.

Izuku traced his now gloveless hand across Katsuki's lithe arm, seeing one or two scars that he knew weren't there before two years ago.

He had so many questions he wanted to ask.

How has he been?

What did he know about this place?

He slowly drew his gaze to Katsuki's, were he could drown his weakness--those troublesome, beautiful scarlet orbs.

This was the first step.

"Talk to me. Tell me what's been going on."

...

The bumper-to-bumper traffic wouldn't have been seen as so eventful, if it weren't for the sinister cloak of clouds that began to encircle the city.

Tenya had noticed it at some point.
That Kagayaki's quirk seemed to be influencing the change in the weather.

Whether it was because of his own volition, or his gradual loss of control, he didn't know.

Kagayaki had long slipped out of consciousness, but every now and then, a spark of static electricity would lash from his wrists, only signifying the quirk dampening cuffs' limit drawing nearer.

He'd finally arrived at a high bridge, a place where the aftermath if Kagayaki's outburst wouldn't reach active city life, but he had yet to evacuate the structure fully.

The bridge was constructed to withstand the mass hundreds of vehicles at once, but Tenya hadn't expected such a massive scale.

Over three-thousand cars stretched along the length of the bridge--and Tenya had to somehow get all of them to safety.

He set Kagayaki down at the center of the bridge; purely the furthest point from either side, and the risk at least seemed to be split 50/50.

The villain was dazed, sent into a shock-ridden frenzy that posed him as nonthreatening--for the time being.

His quirk itself was still an issue.

Tenya had hardly spared the sky a glance, preoccupied with evacuating the civilians that were still crowded the structure.

When he did look up, however, it was to his horror that grey storm clouds had materialised over the bridge, rotating ominously and dipping slightly in the middle to form twister.

Of course, couldn't just move Kagayaki in hopes that the absurd weather patterns would subside, but instead, he had to get the people out faster--somehow.

That was, until there was a peculiar rumble-followed by an eardrum-shattering blast that was coming from seemingly everywhere, yet there was no specific cause anywhere in sight.

Tenya whipped his head back to the sky, eyes widening at what they beheld.

The sky...Was shattering.