~O~

He turned around, his back facing the door to the roof, and took a deep breath.

"Midoriya?"

Perhaps, he won't be able to protect them so easily.

Startled, the boy turned around. Only to see Asui standing behind him, confused.

Midoriya asked, "Asui!? What are you doing here?!"

"Call me Tsu," Asui replied, "Ochaco told me to check on you... You don't look good, ribbit?"

"A-Ah, um—!" Before Midoriya had the time to reply, he saw the frog girl drop to the ground unconscious, Toga standing behind her, smiling widely.

"Asui!!" Midoriya exclaimed, quickly picking up the girl in his arms, bridal style as he rushed to the elevator.

Change of plans, he had to protect his classmates first!!

Glancing back, he saw that the villains were nearing him, so he went ahead and pushed every button on two of the elevators multiple times before stepping into the middle one and going down himself with Asui in his arms.

Upon arriving on the tenth floor, instead of the fourth, the boy quickly rushed and placed Asui in an empty room. He then fled back and got the last elevator busy too.

Huffing, the boy took the stairs and went up again. Hopefully, the villains haven't found the staircase yet since it was way in the back. Once he arrived at the fifteenth floor again, he quickly tried to keep himself hidden from them and thankfully he did a good job at that. He also noticed that some of the villains weren't there.

'Oh God... they've already moved.' Midoriya thought, 'They probably think I'm still on the tenth floor... If they don't find me there, they will probably head up one by one before going down... Wait, I can use their gas bombs to knock them out. They are low in numbers here... There aren't any people staying here till the eleventh floor or so... I can use the AC vents to spread it. I don't see any gas masks either... It's worth a shot.'

Then, the green haired boy turned on his quirk and quickly shot up grabbing the bag that laid on the floor. With one swift motion, he brought out the gas bombs and holding in his breath, he used one right there when the villains turned to him.

Just as the gas spread, Midoriya took to the stairs again, the bag in one hand. For each floor he cleared, he threw in a gas bombs through the vents, easily opening each one of them. Now, stopping at the twelfth floor just as he heard a sound, Midoriya threw in the last three gas bombs through the vents. Again holding in his breath, he peeked in to see how many villains were there.

About five...

He's already taken out about six on the top floor and about nine on the others combined, so that makes twenty of them.

Floor twelve to fifteen cleared.

Turning back once more, he fled to the eleventh floor.

Oh how much Midoriya wished he hadn't stepped in the floor.

Sweat lined his forehead as he helplessly stared at the corpses there. They killed almost everyone on that floor. No wait, there were never this many people on one floor to begin with.

Did they...?

Did they use Kurogiri's quirk and warp every citizen in the building here to kill them off!?

Taking that there was no living person except him there, the villains already moved again. They were probably going down now.

Midoriya wasn't fast enough.

~O~

"Do you think splitting up was actually a good idea?" Kaminari asked. He, Jirou and Sero were on the eighth floor. The most disturbing part was that the usually lively hallways were dead empty.

"You heard those screams, didn't you. And look around, everyone's gone. There are probably villains in the building. We had to split up to search." Sero replied.

All of a sudden, Jirou held out her arm, signalling the other boys to keep it quiet. The other two understood that someone was coming their way.

So, they stopped and waited.

And waited.

And waited...

Nobody came. But Jirou could still hear the voices.

The lights went off.

Suddenly, she heard a loud yelp from Kaminari and Sero. And before Jirou could turn around to see, her vision blacked out.

The villains cleared the eighth floor and were now moving towards the seventh in search of Midoriya.

~O~

Midoriya rushed down the stairs and entered the tenth floor.

'Only Asui.' He thought.

Ninth floor...

'No one here!?'

Eighth floor...

'No one here either!?' He thought but then his eyes landed on his three unconscious classmates.

'Why are they here!? Did they all split up!? Oh crap, I have to hurry!' Midoriya mentally exclaimed before rushing downstairs again.

He arrived at the seventh floor only to meet with the same situation. Ashido and Shoji laid there unconscious.

'Judging by their speed... They're using Kurogiri to go on different floors. They must have already found everyone down there!' The green haired boy rushed down again but even though he considered the possibility that they already found his classmates, he still stopped and checked every floor he passed, just to be sure.

Only to learn that what he thought was right. His classmates split up. The villains split up. Everyone going down a floor in search of him. But Midoriya was up there.

Sixth floor; Aoyama, Hagakure and Mineta were out. No villains.

Fifth floor; Kacchan and Kirishima were out. Three knocked out villains. If the ash blonde was down, it meant they most likely have a quirk related to making people unconscious!

Fourth floor — were he wanted all of his classmates to stay — had only Yaoyorozu, Tokoyami and Ojiro. All three unconscious. Two knocked out villains.

Now, the boy rushed down full speed, not waiting to see who's out or not. He only stopped when he heard the villains talking on the other side. And when he did, he jumped out of the door and stepped in.

He was in the underground parking lot.

All on his own.

It was easy now. There was no one between them A wide area. Underground place. He could fight them without having to worry about anyone. He could win this!

"D-Deku...?"

Or not!

With a worried face, Midoriya turned around.

There stood the villains.

And they were holding Uraraka captive.

And the fact that she wasn't using her quirk to make them float to the ceiling simply meant that one of them — or possibly more — had quirk suppressing abilities.

"If you're done staring, are you gonna hand yourself over or do I have to kill her? I don't mind burning another one to death." Dabi said, tightening his grip around Uraraka, holding back her arms with one hand and the other emitting blue flames near her face. The brunette's eyes were telling him to back down.

"Don't you dare..." Midoriya growled, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Or else?" Dabi's hand was threateningly close to burning the brunette's face.

Without wasting another second, Midoriya activated One For All at the most he could and quickly shot off towards Dabi, grabbing his wrist right away from Uraraka as he kicked him in the shoulder, making him let go of the girl but also for his hand to erupt in bright blue flames, burning up the green haired boy before he had the time to jump out.

But once he did, he managed to stand up despite the immense pain from the stinging burns that covered half of his face and left arm along with half of his his torso.

He couldn't open his left eye at all!

However, Midoriya ignored his vision problem and immediately got back in action as he caught a glimpse of Uraraka fighting back as well as she could with her quirk being unusable.

Noticing one of the villains coming in towards him, he quickly jumped up and flipped on his shoulder to get behind him so he could land a hit without having to deal with his unknown quirk. And he was successful in doing so.

Though he was in the middle of taking down villains one after another, he noticed how one of his biggest concerns; Toga wasn't in his sight. But his concern wavered from Toga when he saw Dabi preparing an attack towards Uraraka, who wasn't looking in his direction. He then jumped in front of Uraraka, picking her up and rushing aside to escape Dabi's flames.

And that side was right next to the opened elevator in which he placed her down before getting up and pressing the button to the third floor — since that was the one he hadn't checked. He then stepped out.

"Deku, what are you—?!"

"Listen, I'm sorry for dragging you all into this, "Midoriya said, blood trickling down from behind his ear as he forced a smile, "But I need you to head up and find someone. Anyone. Your quirk will be back sometime soon. And be careful."

"But—!"

Before she could protest, the doors slid close and Midoriya was left alone.

He turned to face the villains.

"Now then..."

~O~

Uraraka hastily stepped into the third floor, not knowing what exactly to do.

"Iida!!"

She exclaimed just as she saw the boy lying face first on the floor, not moving. She ran up and crashed beside him to check on his condition.

He was unconscious. But thankfully he had no injuries.

Her mind was racing. Why were these villains here? What did they want from Deku? Why were they attacking? Where was everyone? How did they got here? Has nobody reported them yet? Was the rest of the class okay? Were they only after Deku? They weren't going to kill him, were they? She shouldn't have left his side! She should go back and help him—!

"Found you~!!" Came a feminine voice from behind.

"I—! Ugh!"

Uraraka dropped unconscious.

Toga smiled widely, "It was such a great game! I had so much fun!"

~O~

"Now then..."

Midoriya once again activated his quirk and got ready to shoot off on an angle he could get the most of them in one go. And unfortunately, he could get only three of them before the one with quirk suppressor made his quirk unusable, making him drop to the ground. His head felt unconditionally dizzy and his burnt eye wasn't helping him see his opponents clearly.

The next thing he knew was Dabi holding him down with his foot being slammed into the smaller boy's back.

He was scared. He was scared as hell. They weren't going to harm anyone else after killing him, right?! Would his classmates be safe?! They weren't going to attack anyone else, right!? Any normal person in this situation would be worried and scared about themselves but Midoriya's only concern was what would happen to the others once he's gone for good or the worse.

But, of course, he would never know.

"Good night."

And then,

'Please be safe...'

That was his last thought before a sharp pain coursed through his body.

His vision went completely blank.

He couldn't feel anything.

He died.

~O~

Now, Class-1-A stood frozen in the parking lot.

Eyes widening in realization as they stared at their green haired friend's corpse.

"Deku... Deku died... They killed him..." Uraraka silently sobbed.

"N-No... This can't be... I can't believe I-I accused him of murdering them..." Kirishima said, his voice cracking up.

"W-We couldn't help him..." Iida quickly placed his hand over his eyes, trying to stop the tears coming. But he failed.

"W-Wait!! Th-Then who was that we were seeing all this time!?" Kaminari exclaimed.

"A shared delusion...?" Yaoyorozu replied, tears brimming in her eyes. "That was just... Something our minds made..."

"The death threats... Everything... It was just our minds telling us to not leave without the whole truth..." Todoroki added, trying his best to hide the amount of sadness in his eyes.

That whole game was just their own brains playing with them. The hidden drill forcing them to find out what happened to Midoriya at all costs. No wonder the boy they were seeing this whole time gave them this awful gut churning feeling; feeling of defeat and despair. That whole aura that they experienced around the boy, or the boy's delusion was made of the memories they had forgotten.

Human mind doesn't forget anything. It's always there, but sometimes it's unreachable. Thus, they all knew it in the back of their heads that something dreadful has already happened.

And that something dreadful was the death of their friend.

They couldn't do anything when he was alive...

And they couldn't do anything now when he was gone.

They couldn't do anything but mourn...