The air smelled faintly of sulfur. The snow was cascading down in patches almost like one big blanket. The one mama used to tuck him in with.
No. He thought snow was white...
The explosions coming south -was it south? He didn't know anymore. He felt like he couldn't even tell up from down- were eerily close to his location. He breathed in once and quietly coughed out the snow he inhaled -ash, he faintly realized. It's ash- It was all he could do to keep walking silently, endlessly.
Whoever said that heroes were at the top of the world, were liers. Dirty, mean, stinky, idiotic -that's not a nice word, his mother had once told him so, but little Ael could not bring himself to care - rude and- and... perhaps they were right. Wrong, but inherently right. Can someone be both?
As he watched a hero fall from the sky he realized, yes. Yes, heroes can both be at the top of the world and not. Ael realized something about those at the top. The higher you are...
The harder you fall.
He did not look to see the hero fall. A big cloud of dust went up, higher than the skyscraper next to it. Ael kept walking, sipently.
He thought the world was ending , in that little brief quiet moment when he stared up at the seemingly endless sky. He could barely see through the ash -snow- but what he did see he did not think was possible.
That hero. The one the world was relying -relied, past tense, he reminded himself- on. He had fallen the hardest of them all -All Might- his mother had told him -The strongest- she had whispered in awe. Ael did not- could not- understand. He tried. A last ditch attempt on the heroes side or something or other. He could not remember the word. Perhaps if he had looked to see him fall, would he have understood.
The sky was falling apart. Ael felt... something. Too much of something. It was blocking everything else out. The ground was shaking and Ael stumbled as he walked but he continued nonetheless. He saw more heroes -villains? The bad guys?- climb up to the sky, and watched as they too, fell.
Ael kept walking. A sound, reminiscent of a dying whal, reverberated throughout the barren wastelands. What was once Japan, now lay nothing but a pit.
Ael had to keep going.
He wondered why people kept falling. Why they were too weak to beat the man with white hair and a red cape -a poor imitation of a hero, but who was he to judge- Irony, he thinks the word is.
He was getting distracted.
A shot of something laser hot barely missed where he was standing.
Ael goes down.
He looks up to the sky and watches as the snow continues to fall. It was even thicker than it was minutes ago.
Ael's pale blue grey eyes did not look away.
There was another, falling.
-
"Aizawa-sensei! There was a leak within the missionary squad! They've been compromis- schhhhhhh." The radio cut off and an explosion, bigger than anything he has ever seen before, sounded out in the far distance. Aizawa cursed. It was the only thing he could do to keep the burn in his eyes at bay.
Midoriya was down.
There was no hope now.
-
Midoriya? Who was that? Was that him? Midoriya... Midoriya, Deku? No. Izuku?
An explosion. The fight. Right...
Izuku. That was his name.
Yes. He had to... get up.
"Ngh-" He couldn't get up. He had to get up. Why couldn'the get up-
"Hey mister." Deku- Midori- Izuku blinked. He was met with pale blue eyes. A child?
"Do you need help?" He tilted his head and Izuku would've found it cute if not for the building coming straight for them.
Shigaraki was still as energetic as he was at the beginning of all this, Izuku noticed.
No, focus.
How has the child not been evacuated by now?
He felt tears spring into his eyes but kept them in. The greatest mercy Izuku could spare this child was by distracting him from their incoming doom- no. Izuku was going to get them out. For the child. For this child...
If he used the last of his strength then- yes, it may just work. He grabbed the child without thinking a thought more and used the last of his strength to jump out of the way.
The building fell behind them with a defeaning boom but that was backround noise compared to the new pain Izuku felt from taking the brunt of the fall.
The child was fine though, so it was alright.
"Ugh..." He didn't think he could move anymore. "Mister..." The boy had repeated.
"Hm? You- You'll be alright kiddo." Izuku tried to go for an easygoing smile, buy wasn't sure if it came off as more of a grimace. It probably didn't look good either, what with all the blood. The child did not look bothered much by it. In fact, the kid just continued to stare.
"...mister."
"It's 'kay. It's all gon'a be o'ay." Izuku wasn't sure who he was trying to convince. He was starting to slur his words together now. He was dying, he knew. But this child did not have to know that.
"..." The child continued to stare with him omnipresent eyes.
Odd, he wondered what his quirk was-
'Tick...tick..tick'
Huh.
"Mama said to use this only if something bad ever happened."
...huh?
"I don't think you were supposed to go to sleep forever yet."
'Tick.tick..tick...tick'
It didn't sound like your normal conventional everyday clock. It was making ticking sounds but not like a clock would. Almost like someone was instead tapping against a window.
'Tick.tick....tick'
And it was... uneven?
"Mother says going to sleep forever means you never come back. So, next time don't go to sleep. K?" The kid lifted his hand -his tiny baby hand and omg there was a kid on this battlefield, who let a baby on this battlefield- and brought it down onto Izuku's chest, right over his heart.
'Tick..tick...tick.tick'
No, not tapping. Something clicking. Like a... gear?
"I'll be there with you, so try to find me so I can help too, okay?" The kid then lowered his eyes. Izuku got the vague sense that he was dissapointed. "Or don't. That is fine too. That is what the last mister did. But I'll have to help you either way, so I'll find you if you don't find me... okay?" At this he lifted his head back up to stare Izuku in the eyes.
Midoriya Izuku could only stare in shock. The child's pale greyish eyes were now shining a brilliant blue.
'Tick....tick.....tick.....'
Oh. Midoriya realized faintly.
'....tick....'
That wasn't a clock nor was it tapping.
"Don't worry. You'll be okay mister."
The child then scrunched up his face as if thinking really hard on something. "Mama said to be polite so... good luck." He said this with the most sad eyes Izuku has ever seen on a kid.
'...tick...'
That was the sound of something being wound up.
"And remember, don't sleep."
'...tick.'
Midoriya Izuku, Deku, student of Aizawa Shouta, beloved friend of class 1A, hero of Japan, destined to beat All For One, proclaimed brother of Shigaraki...
...knew no more.