Chapter Text
"Who...where...?" Ochaco's voice cracked as she tried to push herself up on unsteady arms. Her head throbbed, the taste of copper thick in her mouth. The air smelled like burning plastic and wet earth. Around her, muffled groans and scattered voices cut through a haze of smoke.
A groan came from her left, someone shifting in the dirt, their movements slow, pained. "Hey," a rough voice muttered, "you okay?" She turned her head and saw a boy with wild blonde hair, his face streaked with soot. He glowed against the background faintly, like a dying lighter.
Ochaco blinked hard, fingers pressing into her temples as if she could push the dizziness out through sheer force. The world tilted, then steadied,enough to see the wreckage scattered across the beach like a child’s discarded toys. A plane wing jutted from the sand at a sickening angle, its metal skin peeled back in jagged teeth. Flames licked at the fuselage, sending black ribbons of smoke into the sky.
Movement,a twitch in the corner of her vision. She turned her head, wincing at the pull in her neck, and saw a figure pinned under a twisted sheet of metal. A hand scrabbled at the sand, fingers digging in uselessly.
"Yeah, I'm..." Ochaco swallowed hard, her throat dry as sandpaper. She pressed her palms into the damp sand, pushing herself up on trembling legs. The world swayed, but she locked her knees stubbornly. Smoke stung her eyes, blurring the figures scattered across the beach,some staggering upright, others still curled on the ground. The trapped figure under the wreckage twisted again, a muffled cry cutting through the crackle of flames.
She stumbled forward, her shoes slipping on the uneven ground. A tall boy dressed in all black with half-singed sleeves was already crouched near the debris, his hands braced against the metal sheet. Muscles strained in his arms as he heaved, teeth gritted,but the wreckage barely budged. Behind him, a girl with wild, tangled hair clutched at her own elbow, her wide eyes darting between the flames and the trapped stranger.
"Come on,we're gonna need as much help as we can get!" The voice was strained but urgent, cutting through the crackle of flames. Ochaco turned her head and saw a boy with messy green hair stumbling toward them, his freckled face streaked with ash. One of his sleeves was ripped at the elbow, revealing a forearm already purpling with bruises. He didn't hesitate,just dropped to his knees beside the tall boy straining against the wreckage, wedging his fingers under the metal sheet. "On three," he panted, shoulders tensing. "One,two..."
The metal groaned as they heaved together, muscles trembling with the effort. For a heartbeat, nothing moved,then, with a screech, the sheet shifted just enough for the trapped figure to twist free. A girl with pink hair rolled out, gasping, her dress singed at the hem. She coughed violently into her palm, then blinked up at them with watery red eyes. "Thanks," she rasped, voice raw.
The girl with pink hair curled forward, fingers clutching at the jagged piece of metal jutting from her side. Blood seeped between her knuckles, dripping onto the sand in dark, uneven splotches. Her breath came in shallow gasps, each inhale making her wince. Around her, voices blurred together,panicked, urgent,but none of them were familiar.
A boy with messy brown hair dropped to his knees beside her, his hands already unspooling thin strips of medical tape from the dispenser strapped to his forearm. His fingers shook slightly as he tore off a length, eyes darting between the wound and the wreckage still smoldering nearby. "Hold still," he muttered, though his voice lacked any real confidence. He pressed the tape awkwardly against her dress, trying to stabilize the debris.
"Alright,do we have everyone accounted for?" The boy with green hair called out, his voice hoarse but carrying over the hiss of dying flames. He stood slightly hunched, one hand pressed to his ribs, but his eyes scanned the beach urgently, taking in the scattered figures struggling upright.
Ochaco wiped her gritty palms against her torn dress, squinting through the smoke. A lanky boy with half-melted glasses was helping a girl with frog-like features to her feet near the waterline. Further down, someone with spiky red hair was hauling a limp figure over his shoulder,dark curls dangled lifelessly, and for a terrible second, Ochaco thought they were too late,until the dangling hand twitched.
The boy with half-melted glasses,one lens cracked like a spiderweb, the other miraculously intact,paused mid-step. He straightened slowly, as if remembering his own spine, and pushed the frames up his nose with deliberate precision. The gesture was oddly formal amidst the chaos, like someone refusing to let a hurricane ruin their tea party. "Actually," he said, voice crisp despite the rasp of smoke, "I found the passenger manifest." He tapped the singed clipboard tucked under his arm. "It should be helpful for keeping track of people."
Ochaco blinked at him. His sleeves were rolled neatly to the elbows despite the soot smeared across his forearms, and his tie,though crooked,was still knotted. Whoever this guy was, he’d apparently decided the apocalypse wasn’t a valid excuse for slouching.
"Uh,sounds great. I'm Izuku, by the way," the boy with green hair panted, wiping his forearm across his soot-streaked forehead. He flashed a quick, nervous smile at Ochaco before turning back to the wreckage. His fingers twitched at his sides like he was itching to grab something.
Ochaco nodded. The ache in her skull scattered her thoughts like leaves in a storm. She flexed her fingers, testing the dull throb in her knuckles. "Ochaco," she offered before being intrupted by spikey hair angry looking blond.
"Deku? The fuck are 'you' doing here?" The blonde boy snarled, his voice cracking with something between fury and disbelief. He staggered forward, hissing through clenched teeth as his weight shifted onto what looked like a twisted ankle. His glare could've melted steel. "Don't tell me you stalked your way all the way out here,"
The green-haired boy,Izuku, Ochaco remembered,flinched like he'd been slapped. His hands flew up instinctively, palms out, though his fingers trembled. "K-Kacchan, I swear, I didn't even know you were," He cut himself off, swallowing hard.
"What the hell were 'you' doing on that plane, Deku?" The blonde boy,Kacchan,lunged forward, fingers twisting into Izuku's already torn collar. His knuckles whitened, dragging the smaller boy closer until their foreheads nearly knocked together. Smoke clung to his clothes, but the fury in his eyes burned hotter than the wreckage behind them. "Don't tell me you,"
"Boys. 'Boys'." A woman's voice sliced through the tension, sharp as the metal debris littering the sand. She stepped between them, one hand pressing flat against Kacchan's chest while the other caught Izuku's shoulder. Her button-down,once crisp, now missing half its buttons,strained dangerously across her bust, but her stance was all authority. "Save the pissing contest for when we're 'not' stranded on a godforsaken island," she snapped, her glare bouncing between them like a live wire.
The boy with half-melted glasses pushed his frames up his nose with meticulous precision, his posture straightening like a soldier reporting to command. "Well, actually," he interjected, his voice dry and precise despite the grit coating his collar, "we don't know if we're on an island yet. We still have to verify." His fingers tapped the singed clipboard absently, as if already drafting a survey plan in his head.
Ochaco blinked at him. Of all the things to focus on,while someone bled into the sand and flames licked at the wreckage,this kid was worried about 'geographical classification'?
As they continued bickering Ochaco's attention turned towards the twisted remains of luggage strewn across the sand like the guts of some giant beast. Her fingers twitched at her sides. She had always been like this, even as a kid: the kind of person who counted her coins before breakfast, who folded her socks into perfect thirds because 'waste not, want not' had been hammered into her skull before she could spell it.
She took a wobbly step forward, then another, ignoring the way her knees threatened to buckle. The others were still clustered around the injured girl or bickering like children, but Ochaco’s focus narrowed to the half-buried suitcase wedged between two jagged rocks. Its zipper had burst, spilling out a trail of fabric that flapped weakly in the salt-stained breeze.
The suitcase’s frayed edge fluttered in the wind like a wounded bird’s wing. Ochaco’s fingers twitched,not just from pain now, but from something deeper, older. That suitcase could hold anything: a first aid kit, bottled water, someone’s spare shirt to staunch the bleeding. Or maybe just socks. But socks mattered. Socks meant blisters avoided, meant walking further tomorrow. Meant surviving.
She didn’t realize she’d started moving until her toes hit the jagged rock beside the suitcase. The others were still shouting,some blonde kid with explosive gestures, the green-haired one flinching like a kicked puppy, a girl with pink skin trying to yank a shard of metal from her thigh. None of them noticed her crouching, fingers digging into the sand beside the burst zipper.
Ochaco barely registered the crunch of footsteps behind her,too busy yanking a miraculously intact first-aid kit from the suitcase's torn lining. She'd already piled up three water bottles, a half-melted protein bar, and someone's oversized hoodie (useful for bandages, or maybe as a sling). Her hands moved automatically, sorting without thinking: 'That's useful, that's trash, that might be useful later,'
"Pretty sizable pile you got there." The voice came from just over her shoulder,soft-spoken but steady, despite the rasp of smoke in it. "Need any help?"
She whipped around so fast her vision swam, nearly kneeing the boy with green hair in the chin. He flinched backward instinctively, hands flying up,not defensively, but like he was trying to prove he wasn't a threat. Up close, she could see the freckles dusted across his nose, the way his eyebrows pinched together in something that wasn't quite worry. More like... calculation. Like he was mentally cataloging her pile's contents the same way she had.
Ochaco hesitated. The boy's sleeves were ripped at the elbows, revealing forearms already bruising from whatever he'd done to help dig people out. His nails were cracked and dirty, but his fingers twitched like he wanted to reach for something,not her stuff, but maybe the scattered luggage further down the beach. Like he 'needed' to be useful.
Ochaco snorted, wiping soot from her cheek with the back of her wrist. "Haha, are 'you' the stalker?" She nudged the green-haired boy,Izuku,with her elbow, grinning when he nearly toppled sideways into the sand. His face went scarlet, his mouth opening and closing like a fish yanked from water.
"N-no! That was just... Kacchan," Izuku stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. His fingers caught on a tangle of singed curls, and he winced. "He's got a, uh... way with words, I guess. Old childhood friend." His voice trailed off into a mumble, eyes darting toward where the blonde boy was currently kicking a dented suitcase with his good foot, cursing violently at it like it had personally insulted his ancestors.
Ochaco blinked as the green-haired boy,Izuku,rambled on, his words tumbling out like a waterfall with no off switch. "He was just trying to say it's been a while since we've seen each other is all," he muttered, fingers twisting together nervously. His gaze flicked back toward the blonde boy,'Kacchan', apparently,who was now wrestling with a piece of wreckage like it owed him money. "That's just how he, uh, communicates. Affectionately."
Ochaco raised an eyebrow. If 'that' was affection, she'd hate to see what actual hostility looked like. The blonde boy had just hurled a chunk of metal into the trees with enough force to decapitate a small animal,if any had been foolish enough to stick around.
The crunch of footsteps on wet sand made Ochaco look up just as the boy with half-melted glasses stepped into her peripheral vision, clipboard clutched with surgical precision. His tie was still knotted despite the soot smeared across his collarbone, and his sleeves remained rolled to the elbows like this was some kind of bizarre fieldwork expedition instead of a plane crash.
"Names," he said flatly, tapping his pen against the singed passenger manifest. His cracked lens caught the fading sunlight, throwing a jagged reflection across his cheekbone. "For the record." His tone suggested this was the most logical next step,as if taking attendance somehow negated the fact that they were stranded, injured, and possibly being slowly roasted alive by the tropical sun.
Izuku startled so hard he nearly kneed the first-aid kit into the sand. "Oh! Uh, Midoriya Izuku," he blurted, one hand flying up in a jerky salute before he seemed to realize how ridiculous that looked and let it flop back to his side. His other hand twitched toward Ochaco like he might introduce her, but she shot him a look that clearly said 'I can speak for myself, thanks.'
"Uraraka Ochaco," she said, dusting sand off her knees as she stood. The boy,who still hadn't offered his own name,scribbled something down with a clinical efficiency that bordered on robotic. His pen paused mid-stroke when a particularly loud curse sliced through the air from Kacchan's direction.
"You're missing someone," Ochaco added, jerking her chin toward the blonde currently attempting to set a palm tree on fire with his glare alone. The boy with half-melted glasses didn't even glance up.
"Bakugou Katsuki," he recited, as if reading from an internal script. "Already accounted for." His pen scratched another note,something about "combative tendencies" underlined twice,before he snapped the clipboard shut with finality. "Todoroki Shouto," a guy with a rather nasty scar responded when prompted by the guy with glasses.
"Oh! Uh, right,and what's your name, by the way?" Izuku blurted, fingers twitching at his sides like he was physically restraining himself from grabbing the clipboard for verification. The boy with half-melted glasses blinked once, slowly, as if the question required translation from a dead language.
"Iida Tenya," he said, adjusting his cracked glasses with a precision that suggested he'd rehearsed this moment in front of a mirror. His pen hovered over the manifest, then added his own name with a flourish so crisp it nearly tore the paper. "Senior representative of UA Corp. Airlines. That's how I knew where the plane manifest was located. I knew it'd be useful.," he amended, gaze flickering toward the smoldering wreckage with the grim acceptance of a man watching his meticulously color-coded syllabus burn.
The pink-haired girl,Mina, she'd gasped out between coughs,wiggled her fingers at them from where she was propped against a piece of wreckage, her makeshift bandage already blooming red. "So," she rasped, her grin more of a wince, "are we voting on who gets eaten first, or,?"
A sharp 'thwack' cut her off as Bakugou hurled a rock into the trees. "Shut the 'fuck' up, Raccoon Eyes," he snarled, though his glare lacked its usual heat. His hands flexed at his sides like he wanted to strangle something, but all he did was kick at the sand.
"And 'I'm' Momo," said the girl whose buttons had popped at the bust, though she said it like she was announcing her presence at a board meeting rather than admitting she'd just lost half her shirt to physics. The remaining buttons strained valiantly against the fabric as she knelt beside Mina, her posture so straight it made Iida look slouchy by comparison. "I can assist with medical supplies,if you'll allow me." She gestured toward the first-aid kit Ochaco had salvaged with all the gravitas of a surgeon requesting a scalpel.
Ochaco blinked. The girl,Momo,hadn't even flinched when Bakugou's latest rock-throwing tantrum sent a flock of startled birds screaming into the sky. Her dark hair was tangled with leaves and what looked like a piece of fuselage wiring, but she carried herself like someone who'd crash-landed in a boardroom instead of a beach.
Everyone started introducing themselves until Bakugo started to grow impatient. "Well, how many people have you got, Four Eyes?" Bakugou snarled, kicking a chunk of debris aside as he stomped toward Iida. Sand sprayed in his wake, flecking the hem of Iida's already ruined dress pants. "Because I swear to 'fuck' if you missed someone,"
Iida adjusted his cracked glasses with a primness that bordered on performance art. "Thirty-seven passengers," he recited, tapping his clipboard. "Plus six crew members. Forty-three total." His pen jabbed toward the wreckage, where a woman in a half-burned flight attendant's blazer was helping a dazed-looking boy with purple hair sit up. "All accounted for. Though," his voice dipped into something almost apologetic, "the pilot and co-pilot didn't,"
"Yeah, no shit the cockpit got blasted somewhere else," Bakugou snarled. His voice cracked halfway through,half from smoke, half from raw fury,but his glare stayed. "Way to fucking state the obvious."
The redhead,Kirishima, if the shredded UA Airlines nametag still clinging to his ruined uniform was anything to go by,flinched like he'd been slapped. His hair, somehow still standing straight up despite the crash, caught the fading sunlight like a beacon. "I was just," He swallowed hard, rubbing at a nasty-looking gash on his forearm. "I saw it detach mid-air. Thought maybe we could, I dunno... look for it later?"
"Yeah, good idea," Deku muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as he scanned the tree line. His fingers trembled slightly,whether from exhaustion or lingering adrenaline, Ochaco couldn’t tell. "If the cockpit’s intact, there might be a radio or emergency beacon..." His voice trailed off, eyes narrowing at the dense foliage like he could will the wreckage into visibility.
Kirishima perked up, his chipped teeth flashing in a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "Right! And if we find the pilots,"
A shrieking sound tore through the jungle, sending a flurry of birds exploding from the foliage in a panicked riot of wings. The noise wasn't animal,not quite. It was something between metal shearing and a wounded scream, vibrating through the trees like a physical thing.
Bakugou's head snapped toward the sound, his fingers curling instinctively into fists. "The 'fuck' was that?" he snarled, though his voice lacked its usual bite. His shoulders tensed, the muscles in his neck standing out like cables as he took an involuntary step back,not fear, never fear, but the primal recoil of something unknown.
"Great. Just fucking great. We're stuck in the middle of nowhere with that crazy-ass shit," a wiry boy with deep scratches raking down his neck muttered angrily. His fingers dug into the fresh wounds as if trying to peel his own skin off. "Told my dad I didn't wanna go on this stupid vacation. Just wanted to stay home and game." His voice cracked on the last word, eyes darting toward the jungle where that unearthly shriek still echoed.
Iida adjusted his cracked glasses with meticulous precision, the singed clipboard held firmly in his grip. "Shigaraki Tomura from the psychiatric ward transport, correct?" he stated more than asked, his tone clinical despite the smudges of ash streaking his sleeves.
Tomura,pale, gaunt, with cracked lips and wild hair,flinched at the sound of his full name. His fingers twitched toward his neck but stopped midway, as if remembering he wasn't supposed to scratch. "The fuck?" His voice was raw, a mix of smoke and something darker. "How the hell do 'you' know that, Glasses?"
Iida tapped the manifest with his pen. "It was on the passenger list. Section 12B,specialized medical transport." His gaze didn't waver, even as Tomura's red-rimmed eyes bored into him. "It included you, Himiko Toga, Kurogiri, Dabi, and Twice." He paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, "All accounted for."
A sharp bark of laughter cut through the tension,Dabi, slumped against a piece of wreckage, his staples pulling at the burns along his jawline. "Wow. They really 'did' put all the crazies on one flight," he drawled, tilting his head back to stare at the sky. "Budget cuts or poetic fucking irony?"
Iida's fingers froze mid-page-turn, his brow furrowing as he stared at the torn edge of paper still clinging to the clipboard's spiral binding. "Though," he said slowly, "it also included a Level Two prisoner... but that page got ripped out." The words hung in the air like smoke, thick and unsettled.
Tomura's head snapped up so fast his neck cracked. "Level 'what'?" His voice was suddenly sharper, less ragged,like a blade drawn from its sheath. His fingers twitched toward his throat again, but this time, they curled into fists instead. "Since when does UA Airlines transport prisoners?" The question wasn't directed at anyone, but his gaze flicked to Dabi, who'd gone unnaturally still against the wreckage.
Iida adjusted his cracked glasses with deliberate precision, the clipboard pressed firmly against his chest like a shield. "As a senior representative for UA Airlines," he said, voice clipped and official despite the soot smearing his collar, "we recently secured government contracts with local hospitals. A secure, fast, and reliable option to transport patients, personnel, and," His gaze flicked to Tomura, then away just as quickly. "'Special cases' cost-effectively."
Dabi's smirk twisted into something sharper, his staples pulling taut against his jaw. "Special cases," he echoed, dragging a finger through the ash on his thigh. "That's one way to say 'dumped in the economy section with the fucking peanuts.'"
Toga scoffed, her cracked lips twisting into a grin that showed too many teeth. "Secure... reliable..." She mimicked Iida's stiff cadence with a mocking lilt, kicking her bare feet against the sand. "You can't be 'serious'." Her laughter bubbled up, high and unhinged, as she gestured to the smoldering wreckage with a bloodied hand. "Unless 'reliable' means plummeting into the ocean like a fucking piñata."
Dabi snorted, picking at a loose staple on his collarbone. "Told you they'd cheap out on the hydraulics," he muttered, though his eyes flicked toward the tree line where that unearthly shriek had come from.
"Great," Sero drawled from where he was draped over a piece of wreckage like a discarded jacket, his arm dangling limply toward the sand. "So we've got a criminal, five certified nutjobs, whatever the hell just screamed in the jungle, the pilots are MIA, and we're all crash-landed in the middle of 'fucking nowhere'." He grinned weakly, his split lip cracking anew. "All in all, things couldn’t be more peachy."
A rustle of leaves made them all freeze. Not the scattered, panicked flutter of birds,this was slower. Deliberate. The sound of something 'brushing' against foliage. Bakugou's hands twitched at his sides, his palms sparking instinctively before fizzling out with a frustrated hiss. His quirk, like everyone else's, had flatlined since the crash.
The undergrowth exploded outward in a spray of shattered branches and flying leaves,not some monstrous creature, but a wild boar, its tusks gleaming like chipped ivory as it skidded to a stop in the sand. For a heartbeat, everyone froze,then Deku lunged forward, arms outstretched like he could wrestle the thing barehanded. "Guys, we gotta catch it for food!" he yelped, voice cracking with desperate urgency.
Bakugou's sneer was audible before he even spoke. "We're not 'that' strapped for food, Dunce Face," he snarled, kicking a half-crushed suitcase toward Deku's shins for emphasis. Inside, water bottles and protein bars spilled across the sand,meager, but enough to last a day or two. The boar snorted, beady eyes darting between them before it pivoted with startling speed and vanished back into the jungle.
"No, we 'should've' gone for it," Dabi snapped, his voice cracking like dry wood. His fingers dug into his own forearms, leaving crescent-shaped indents in the ash-streaked skin. "Why the 'fuck' would you stop him?" His glare swung toward Bakugou, the movement sharp enough to make his staples pull taut against his jawline.
Bakugou took a single step forward, his boots grinding into the sand like he was trying to pulverize the island itself. His hands flexed at his sides, sparks fizzling uselessly against his palms. "Let’s face it, crispy,we had no food, no weapons, jack 'shit', and you wanted me to send that idiot careening to his death over a fucking 'pig'?"
Dabi took a step forward, the sand crunching under his boots like broken glass. His smirk was sharp enough to draw blood as he leaned into Bakugou’s space, close enough that the stale stench of smoke clung to his words. "Yeah? And how much food do we gotta split with like thirty fucking people, huh?" His fingers twitched at his sides, nails digging into his palms. "Or are we all just gonna hold hands and starve together like some shitty survival drama?"
Bakugou didn’t back up an inch. His shoulders tensed, the muscles in his neck standing out like live wires. "You wanna play fucking ration master?" he snarled, kicking the nearest suitcase hard enough to send a protein bar skidding across the sand toward Dabi’s feet. "There’s your goddamn share. Enjoy the fucking crumbs."
Dabi snatched a fistful of protein bars from the spilled suitcase before anyone could react, his cracked lips twisting into a smirk as he shoved two into his pocket at once.
"Thanks. I'll be taking that." Dabi stuffed three more protein bars down his front pocket before anyone could blink,like a magician palming cards, if magicians had a penchant for arson and terrible life choices. The remaining bars tumbled onto the sand.
Kirishima lunged forward, his hands outstretched like he might physically wrestle the snacks back. "Dude, not cool! That's everyone's,"
Toga's giggle sliced through the tension like a knife through warm butter,sharp, effortless, and utterly without mercy. She moved before anyone could react, darting forward with the fluid grace of a feral cat pouncing on prey. Twice mirrored her instantly, their movements synchronized in a way that suggested years of shared chaos.
"Finders keepers!" Toga crowed, stuffing three bars into her torn dress pocket while simultaneously licking the wrapper of a fourth like it was candy.
"Losers weepers!" Twice barked in agreement, then immediately contradicted himself with a frantic, "Wait no that's terrible,give them back, you monsters!" His hands still scooped up the remaining bars with practiced efficiency, tucking them into his waistband despite his own protests.
Mina groaned from her makeshift bed of wreckage, her fingers twitching toward them weakly. "Seriously? We're 'bleeding' here," she rasped, though the effect was ruined when she coughed and accidentally spat out a fleck of ash that might've been a tooth.
"Damn well it's not like we got a fucking hospital here," Dabi muttered, tossing two protein bars at Tomura's chest with the same careless precision as someone flicking cigarette butts into an ashtray. Kurogiri caught his midair without looking, the motion eerily smooth despite the way his form flickered at the edges like a dying hologram. Tomura just let his hit his ribs and bounce into the sand, staring at them like they might be poisoned. His fingers twitched,not toward the food, but toward his throat, the old compulsion surfacing despite the raw, scraped state of his nails.
Kurogiri peeled the wrapper back with meticulous care, revealing a crumbled mess of oats and desperation. "Given the circumstances," he said, voice smooth as the static between radio stations, "this is likely the closest we'll get to a five-star meal." He took a bite, chewed twice, and swallowed like he was conducting a business transaction.
Iida stepped forward with the stiff precision of a malfunctioning robot, his cracked glasses glinting in the fading sunlight. "Tomura, Kurogiri, Dabi, Toga, and Twice,those rations must be redistributed equitably," he announced, his voice carrying the clipped authority of a man who'd never once in his life been punched in the mouth. His pen tapped against the clipboard like a metronome keeping time for impending disaster.
Dabi didn't even look up from peeling the wrapper off his fifth stolen protein bar. "Equitably," he repeated, rolling the word around his tongue like a rotten piece of fruit. "That's cute." His smirk widened as he took an exaggerated bite, chewing slowly while maintaining eye contact with Iida the way a wolf might stare down a particularly naive sheep.
Bakugou's palms sparked uselessly against the gathering dusk, the familiar explosions muted to nothing more than faint crackles of static. His fingers curled into fists anyway,habit, rage, the sheer fucking 'principle' of it,as he took a step forward, sand grinding beneath his boots like bones. "That's it," he snarled, voice low enough to strip paint. "Are you fucking losers looking for a fight, or what? 'Cause I'll fucking 'start' one if you don't give that shit back."
Dabi didn't flinch. He never did. Just tilted his head, the movement exaggerated by the staples pulling at his jawline, and smirked around a mouthful of stolen protein bar. "Ooooh," he drawled, crumbs tumbling down his front like confetti at the world's worst parade. "Scary." His fingers twitched toward his pockets,not to retrieve the rations, but to stuff another bar between his teeth with deliberate slowness. "Whatcha gonna do, Sparky? Bake me a fucking cake?"
Deku's fingers twitched at his sides, not toward the dwindling pile of protein bars but toward the treeline where the boar had vanished. His eyes had that look again,the one that meant his brain was whirring like an overheating engine. "Guys,'guys'," he said, voice cracking halfway through. He clapped his hands together, the sharp sound cutting through the squabbling like a gunshot. "Forget about food for five seconds. We need to 'find the cockpit'."
Bakugou's head snapped around so fast his neck popped. "The 'fuck' did you just,"
"If the main wreckage is here," Deku barreled on, already pivoting toward the jungle with the single-minded focus of a bloodhound, "then the cockpit can't be more than a kilometer away based on the angle of descent," His muttering dissolved into a stream of half-audible calculations, fingers sketching invisible vectors in the air as he stepped over a twisted seatbelt still buckled to nothing.
Kirishima blinked after him, then down at the protein bar wrapper crumpled in his fist. "...He's got a point," he admitted, scratching the back of his head. "Rescue teams look for black boxes first, right? That's gotta be priority."
Bakugou's hands sparked against the twilight air,nothing more than static fizzling at his fingertips, but the fury behind them burned hotter than the wreckage smoldering behind them. "Think you're so much 'fucking' smarter Deku,always got some brilliant plan, huh?" He kicked a chunk of debris hard enough to send it skittering across the sand toward Izuku's shins. "How long till rescue? A day? A week? How the fuck are we supposed to survive when self-righteous 'assholes' hoard the goddamn food?"
Izuku flinched but didn't back down, his fingers twitching at his sides like he was mentally calculating trajectories even now. "Kacchan, I,"
"No. Don't fucking 'start', nerd." Bakugou's voice cracked like split timber,half smoke, half something raw beneath. His palm slammed into Deku's chest hard enough to send him stumbling back a step, sand spraying from his heels. "Don't you 'dare' look down on me like I'm some idiot who doesn't get it." His fingers curled into the front of Deku's shirt, singed fabric straining under white-knuckled grip. Up close, Deku could see the way Bakugou's pupils dilated,not with anger, but with something closer to vertigo. Like the ground had dropped out beneath him mid-sentence.
The words hit Deku like a physical blow,not because they were loud, but because they weren't. Bakugou's voice came out cracked and quiet, sandpaper-rough from smoke and something deeper, older. Ten years of jagged history packed into a single sentence, hurled across the space between them like a grenade with the pin already pulled.
Deku's breath stuttered. His fingers twitched,not to push Bakugou away, but to grip his wrist, to 'anchor' him like he had when they were six and Kacchan's quirk first erupted in sparks too big for his small hands. But the moment stretched too thin, snapped. Bakugou recoiled first, shoving him backward with enough force to send Deku stumbling into the sand. His palms hit the ground hard, grains embedding themselves in fresh scrapes.
Deku's voice came out in a whisper, raw and cracked like his palms against the sand. "Y-you can't seriously think that,that I look down on you, Kacchan." His fingers curled into the gritty shore, grains embedding under broken nails. The words spilled out before he could shape them properly, tumbling like rocks down a cliffside. "I 'could never'. You," His breath hitched, lungs burning worse than his scraped knees. "You've always been,"
"Shut 'up'." Bakugou's hands sparked uselessly again, the phantom heat of explosions that wouldn't come. His shoulders hunched like a cornered animal's, tendons standing stark under ash-streaked skin. "Don't,don't fucking 'pity' me, you goddamn nerd."
"Guys..." Ochaco's voice cut through the squabbling, sharp with concern. She pointed toward the tree line where the shadows were growing thicker, her finger trembling slightly. "The people from the psychiatric transport,they just took off with half the supplies."
The group went silent. Even Bakugou's snarling protests died in his throat as everyone turned to follow her gesture. Sure enough, the last flicker of Dabi's singed coat vanished into the foliage, Toga's manic giggle lingering in the air like the echo of a gunshot. Twice's frantic muttering,"Go go go! No wait, bad idea," faded into the rustle of palm fronds. Only Kurogiri remained, his mist-like form flickering at the edges as he lingered near the wreckage, watching them with unreadable, glowing eyes.
Bakugou stomped toward Kurogiri before anyone could stop him, sand kicking up in angry plumes behind his boots. His hands twitched at his sides, fingers curling like he wanted to strangle something,preferably Dabi's smug, stolen-rations face. "Where the 'fuck' did your circus of rejects go?" he snarled, looming over the mist-man with all the subtlety of a lit grenade.
Kurogiri didn't flinch. His glowing eyes flickered like dying embers, the smoke of his form shifting lazily despite Bakugou's proximity. "They departed," he said simply, voice smooth as radio static between stations. His collar remained impossibly crisp despite the crash, the fabric untouched by soot or sweat.
Bakugou's fingers twitched with the urge to throttle Kurogiri's smoky collar,if such a thing were even possible. "Depart my 'ass'," he snarled, leaning in close enough that the mist-man's form dissipated slightly around his face, reforming behind him like water around a stone. "You think I'm fucking blind? Where'd they 'go'?"
Kurogiri's glowing eyes flickered with something almost like amusement. "The jungle," he said, as if commenting on the weather. His hands,if they could be called that,folded neatly behind his back in a gesture that screamed 'butler' more than 'potentially dangerous fugitive'. "They expressed concerns about... ration distribution."
Iida's clipboard snapped shut with a crack like a gunshot, cutting through the tension thicker than jungle humidity. His glasses,still miraculously intact despite being cracked down the middle,caught the fading light as he adjusted them with deliberate precision. "This line of questioning is unproductive," he declared, voice carrying the weight of a gavel. His gaze swept over them all,Bakugou still vibrating with barely-contained fury, Deku's scraped palms pressed into the sand, Ochaco's fingers twitching toward vanished supplies,before landing squarely on Kurogiri's flickering form. "We have three immediate priorities: locate the cockpit per Midoriya's suggestion, secure sustainable food and water sources as Bakugou emphasized, and establish shelter before nightfall."
Bakugou's scoff was halfway to a snarl. "Oh, fuck off with your fucking bullet points, Glasses,"
"Splitting into three teams would maximize efficiency," Iida barreled on, ignoring Bakugou's twitching eye. He flipped the clipboard around to reveal a crude but methodical diagram,names scrawled in boxes with arrows pointing to 'COCKPIT TEAM', 'FOOD TEAM', and 'SHELTER TEAM'. The paper trembled slightly in his grip; the only tell that his clinical detachment might be paper-thin. "Midoriya, you'll lead the cockpit search given your trajectory analysis. Bakugou, you have the most survival experience,food gathering falls to you. And Yaoyorozu," His pen tapped the girl with the popped buttons. "Your structural knowledge makes you ideal for shelter construction."
Deku's head snapped up so fast sand scattered from his hair. "K-Kacchan can't go alone,"
"I'm 'what'?" Bakugou's voice cracked like split kindling. His palms sparked uselessly against the gathering dusk, the static fizzle barely audible over the distant screech of jungle birds. "You think I need a fucking 'babysitter'?"
Todoroki, silent until now, stepped forward with the quiet inevitability of a glacier calving. "I'll go with Bakugou." His mismatched eyes flicked toward the tree line where Dabi had vanished. "I've tracked game before."
"Me too," volunteered Ochaco, brushing sand off her knees as she stepped forward. The fading light caught the makeshift sling she'd fashioned from part of her uniform sleeve,already frayed at the edges from use. "I picked up a few things in my travels." She didn't specify which travels; the way her fingers lingered near the compass hanging from her belt loop suggested it wasn't the kind of journey you took selfies during.
Bakugou's scoff was half a snarl. "Like 'fuck' you're,"
Ochaco fixed him with a stern look,not the wide-eyed disapproval of someone trying to play at authority, but the unflinching stare of a woman who'd hauled freight crates heavier than Bakugou's ego. Sand gritted under her boots as she stepped forward, close enough that Bakugou had to tilt his head slightly to maintain eye contact. "You're not invincible," she said, voice low enough that only their makeshift trio could hear. "Not here. Not without your quirk." Her fingers twitched toward her own wrists where the gravity nullification bracelets sat dead and silent. "None of us are."
Bakugou's nostrils flared. For a heartbeat, his gaze flickered,not with anger, but something closer to recognition. Like he'd just noticed the calluses on her palms matching his own. Then his lip curled, and he spat to the side, the globule landing inches from Ochaco's boot. "'Fine'. Whatever," he growled, shoving past her toward the tree line. His shoulders stayed rigid, but his footsteps lacked their usual earth-shaking force. A concession, however minute.
The jungle swallowed Bakugou’s retreating form whole, vines snaking around his silhouette like the island itself was pulling him deeper. Ochaco exchanged a glance with Todoroki,silent, weighted,before they moved as one, vanishing into the green after him. The last thing Deku saw was Ochaco’s fingers brushing the compass at her hip, her knuckles white around it like a prayer.
Then the trees closed behind them, and they were gone.
Deku exhaled sharply through his nose, fingers twitching at his sides like he wanted to reach after them. His muttering started up again, half-formed theories about wind patterns and debris fields spilling out as he turned toward the wreckage-strewn beach. Iida was already herding the shelter team,Momo, Sero, Mina with her makeshift crutch,toward a cluster of palm trees where the sand gave way to firmer ground. His clipboard gestures were sharp, efficient, like he could organize the chaos into submission if he just moved fast enough.
Kaminari sidled up beside Deku, his usual grin strained at the edges. “So,” he drawled, kicking a twisted seatbelt out of their path. “We’re the lucky bastards trekking into Murder Jungle Part Two, huh?” His voice cracked on the last word, the bravado thin as rice paper.
Deku didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the treeline where Bakugou had vanished, his fingers sketching invisible trajectories in the air. The jungle loomed,a wall of green so dense it seemed to breathe. Somewhere beyond it, the cockpit waited. Somewhere else, Bakugo was stalking through the undergrowth with a temper shorter than their dwindling water supply. And elsewhere five people hording half the supplies had treked into the very same jungle that housed whatever creature that had let out those mosterous shireks.