The weeks leading up to the Culture Festival were full to the brim with studying, practice, looking after Eri and (unfortunately for me) the stray nightmare. It wasn't just me who was having nightmares, sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night to light knocking at my door. When I opened it, I would look down to see a pale-faced Eri shivering in her nightgown, ruby eyes blown wide with fear and relief. After the first night when this had happened, I had adopted a routine. One such night just happened to occur three days before the culture festival.

My mind swirled with turmoil and my stomach rolled with grief as I stared blankly at the mural of heroes behind my desk. My heart pounded erratically in my ears as I tried desperately to forget the horrid images which had been summoned by evil forces and forced into my dreams. Sometimes, even when I take my medication, the dreams break through and I am left shaking on my bed, my nails digging bloody crescents into my arm.

That night I'd had one of my worst nightmares in a long time. I was pursued relentlessly by the images of Hisashi pursuing me down a corridor, eyes crying blood and tongue lolling from his mouth, he had the overall look of a man crazed by bloodlust and fanciful delusions. I ran faster than the wind in my attempt to flee him, yet my efforts were in vain. My feet pounded against the floor and my arms pumped, still, I didn't move an inch.

The walls bled. Cries of anguish and torture echoed around the halls. The sound of people gargling and choking on their own blood as their throats were slit bombarded me. The crack and snap of bones haunted my very being. I cried out desperately for someone, anyone, to help me out of the hell I was being subjected to. What did I do to deserve such a harsh punishment?

The dream came to an end when the looming shadow of Overhaul dragged me into its shadowy depths and devoured me whole. Darkness consumed every sub-atomic part of me.

I snapped upwards in my bed with an aborted gasp which caused my throat to seize up and resulted in me choking on my own breath. I clawed around on my bedside table for the glass of water I kept there for situations exactly like the one I was in. Whilst it wasn't a common occurrence, I had choked upon startling out of nightmares before, and I knew that I would again at some point in the future.

My mind raced a mile a minute as I stared at my wall. I felt completely lost, as though my soul had been sucked out of me and cast aside. It was like there was no purpose in life anymore. Depression and paranoia settled over my mind, making my vision hazy and my already frantically beating heart speed up into a full force gallop. Scenarios and thoughts better left forgotten breached my mind. Every shadow was my enemy, flickering vestiges of Hisashi, Overhaul, Chronostasis, Shigaraki and All for One danced across my walls in a taunting tango. They laughed mockingly and jeered at me, announcing to the world just how weak and pathetic I was.

My chest tightened and my breathing came in staggered gasps as I desperately attempted to regain control of my body, but I couldn't. My chest imploded every other second and it pained me to breathe. I knew what was happening. I knew why the shadows were taunting me whilst my head spun due to asphyxiation. I knew what was happening, however, I couldn't pull myself out of the spiral. The panic attack was all-consuming. Like a boat at sea during a storm, waves crashed down upon me, depriving me of my basic need for air and safety.

Just when I felt like I was going to tip past the point of no return when ragged screams and heart-wrenching sobs would rack my body, a simple yet familiar three-beat knock pierced through my clouds of fear and turmoil. I knew the knock. I had known it from the first night Eri had slipped from her room and journeyed to mine. It seemed as though I wasn't the only one to have had a nightmare that night.

The knocking at the door continued as I sluggishly dragged myself off of my bed and stumbled over my feet to get to the door. My feet felt like they weighed a ton each and every step came down heavier than I had anticipated. Despite feeling as though I was about to kneel over and die, I somehow made it to the door and opened it.

As expected, Eri was stood before me in nothing but her pyjamas and a dressing gown. Her garnet eyes were wet with tears which had already painted streaks down her cheeks. Her hair was still in the fishtail plait that Mirio had done before she left that evening, but some strands of snowy hair had escaped the plait's confines and hung messily in her face. She looked so small, stood there with her arms wrapped around herself and silent tears streaming down her face. No matter what I had been going through before she had knocked on my door, I knew that I would push through to comfort Eri. I had promised to protect her, and while I may have only explicitly stated that it was for the duration of my mission, the promise extended far past that dreadful week. Eri was my sister now, nobody could tell me otherwise, she was part of the family I had been carefully building since I had escaped Hisashi.

"Eri, what happened this time?" I whispered gently as I knelt before the sobbing girl and brought her into my arms for a hug. Eri clung to my t-shirt desperately, her tears soaked the material.

"I-i had a nightmare about Overhaul and... you came to save me but he killed you! And I tried to help but I just made it worse and then he just kept killing everyone!" Eri wailed into my shoulder. Her entire body shook as she cried with all her might into my chest. Her small body quivered. It was painful to see her in such a bad state. I felt like I was failing her, but there really wasn't a lot I could do to get rid of her nightmares. It was just something which came along with the trauma she had experienced.

"Ok, shh, I'm right here. See, I'm alive and well. How about we go downstairs so that we can get some hot chocolate, yeah? I'm gonna tell you a secret, ok? I had a nightmare as well, it wasn't very nice. Since we've both had a bad night, we should both get a treat, right?" I tried my best to present an easy-going and placating smile to Eri, yet I feared I may not have completely succeeded. Not with the way my voice was still husky from my silent sobbing and the way my hands still twitched slightly out of fear. Nevertheless, Eri nodded and took my hand so that we could both walk to the kitchen with the comfort of knowing we weren't alone.

When we arrived in the kitchen, I immediately set to work on making the two of us some hot chocolate. Eri sat patiently at the kitchen island, silently watching as I moved through the kitchen with fluid movements. I went through the motions of making the hot chocolate, heating the milk, adding the cocoa powder, pouring everything into the mugs fishing marshmallows from the back of the cupboard and adding cream to complete the sweet drink.

"Thank you, Izu," Eri whispered as I handed her a mug. I silently nodded and smiled at the small girl. She was no longer trembling from her nightmare, the warmth of the cup eased her stiff shoulders and pulled them down from her ears where they had been hunched. I took my seat next to Eri at the island and began drinking.

We remained that way, in a comforting silence full of unspoken reassurances, until both of our mugs were empty and nothing but the dark remnants of chocolate powder which hadn't dissolved probably lingered at the bottom. It seemed as though neither one of us wanted to talk about what was pressing down on our minds. I wouldn't tell Eri regardless, she was only a child, telling her about my nightmares may only inspire her's to be more ferocious and attack her more frequently.

"Izuku," Eri whispered into the silence of the night. I hummed in response, reluctant to break the spell which had descended upon us and cursed us with a heavy silence. "Can we watch something on the TV. I don't think I can go back to bed yet. My nightmare was really bad this time."

"Of course, Eri, but if we do, I would like it if you could to tell me a little bit about your dream. Ok? Also, you have to promise to tell Aikio-san as well next time you see her." I whispered. Eri looked down at her hands for a second with a contemplative look in her eyes. "I promise telling Aikio-san will help you. I tell Aoi-san all of my problems, and it helps me a lot." Aikio-san was Eri's new therapist. She was a play therapist, to be exact, helping Eri talk about everything that was on her mind. Eri spoke more freely when she was distracted by colouring in or building things with tiny blocks.

"Ok. But I'm only telling you a little bit, it was really scary," Eri said in a hushed voice.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," I hummed as Eri and I stood from the kitchen stools and moved onto the sofas, "If you don't want to tell me anything, I'm not going to force you to. What matters the most is that you are safe and that you are comfortable."

"Ok, thank you, Izuku. I might tell you about my nightmare a different day." Eri's eyes spoke of fear as she desperately tried to escape from her nightmare. I quickly turned on the channel and switched it to one of the children's channels which were always inexplicably on 24 hours a day.

"I like this one," Eri's voice was hushed, I barely heard her over the jaunty music which played from the TV. The opening to the show showed five girls, each of them clad in only one colour, as they danced through the city skyline, battling villains with a cute attitude and smiling faces.

"It looks interesting," I hummed as the episode began and I settled back to watch.

I tried to stay awake, but I was soon lulled to sleep by the residual warmth which lingered in my chest from the hot chocolate and the peppy voice of the pink team leader as she called out for her magical transformation.

"He's gonna have such a stiff neck when he wakes up..." a distant voice chuckled sympathetically.

"They look so adorable!" another voice squealed, though their voice echoed as if they were at the end of a tunnel.

"Shh... You're gonna wake them up," a stiffer, more emotionless voice intoned. I slowly began to recognise the people talking. Kyoka, Hagakure and Tokoyami. There were more voices filtering in, but I couldn't find it within myself to decipher their words.

After a minute more of these voices speaking, I finally decided that I might as well just wake up, they weren't going away anytime soon anyway. Slowly, I sat up from where I had slumped over and peeled my eyes open. Immediately, I was assaulted by bright sunlight which burned my eyes and made me grumble unhappily.

"That's what you get for sleeping on the sofa," Kacchan's voice snorted from somewhere behind me, "What the fuck are you even doing down here anyway, nerd?"

"Mmm..." I hummed, "Nightmares."

My mind was sluggish as I finally managed to push past the pain in my eyes and look around. It seemed that the slumbering bodies of Eri and me had (oddly) attracted an audience. Hagakure, Tokoyami, Shoto, Kyoka, Kacchan, Koda, Aoyama and Kiri all stood around us in a circle, gazing down. It was like they were partaking in some strange ritual where Eri and I were the sacrifices.

"Why are you surrounding us like this?" I asked sleepily, still not having completely shaken myself out of my daze.

"I don't know why," Hagakure said in a peppy tone, I watched as her clothes raised slightly in a shrug before she skipped away and towards Ojiro, presumably pecking him on the cheek if I had to guess. It was hard to understand what was going on when it came to the things Hagakure did.

"I'm going to take her back to her room now," I mumbled as I scooped Eri up and started carrying her towards my parents' living space. Everyone quickly found other things to do than watch me and Eri sleep. I don't know what was so fascinating, but it was kind of creepy.

I walked through the newly renovated area which Papa and Dad lived in, passing the empty living room and kitchen before silently pushing open Eri's bedroom door. In the room opposite, I could hear Papa snoring away and the sound of shifting material as Dad moved around in his sleep. I had no idea how anyone managed to sleep in the same area as him, I had to use earplugs when he first started sleeping at our house.

I pushed the door to Eri's room open with my foot and carried the fragile girl into her room. I smiled as I looked over at the blackboard wall and saw a childish drawing which Eri had cleared laboured over. In the drawing, there was a smaller figure who could be nobody but Eri with her long white hair and wide red eyes stood between a green-haired person and a considerably taller man wearing a red cape. It brought a happy tear to my eye and a fluttering feeling in my heart to see that Eri trusted us so much and seemingly held Mirio and me in such high esteem.

With tender care, I placed Eri gently in her bed and looked down at her with a smile on my face. Despite the fact that I had seen my friends as creepy for staring at me and Eri whilst we slept, I was doing the exact same. I knew I was a hypocrite. But seeing Eri's cheek squashed into her pillow and her youthful face devoid of all of the worries she'd had unjustly thrust upon her at such a young age.

"Zuku, that you bud?" The tired voice of my Papa filtered from the doorway. I hadn't even realised that he had stopped snoring.

"Yeah. Hey, Papa?" I began.

"Yeah, bud?" Papa said. I stood up from the end of Eri's bed and walked towards the doorway, gesturing towards the front room, silently suggesting we go there to speak. Papa nodded in understanding and led the way towards the sofas, still clad in his canary yellow pyjamas.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Papa asked with an inquisitive tilt of his head.

"Papa... Can you legally change my name again? I... I don't want to go by Aizawa-Midoriya anymore." I whispered, " Midoriya wasn't even my mum's maiden name, it's his name. I don't want... I don't want to have to use his surname when I'm filling out forms or... introducing myself. It feels disgusting and wrong. I hate it more than words can describe." Is shuddered as I spoke, tears started beading in my eyes.

"Of course we can change your name, Little Listener. Shota and I will do anything to make sure you're comfortable. Even if you wanted to change your given name, that's fine." Papa assured me. He placed a hand on my shoulder and waited for a second to see if I would react negatively. Seeing that I didn't he pulled me into a gentle hug, making his arms just lose enough for me to pull away if I wanted to.

"I wouldn't change my given name. My mum gave me that name. It's the only part of my name which really came from her." I whispered into my Papa's chest.

We sat there, engaged in a loving hug, for a few minutes more. Soon enough, we were pulling away and falling into casual conversation. I liked that about talking with Papa. We could go from talking about a serious thing one second to goofing around the next, it made me feel at ease and safe. He may share a name with the monster from my dreams, but he didn't share a single quality with that human abomination.

The remaining three days leading up to the culture festival passed seemingly in a flash. It wasn't long before I was stood backstage in black jeans, a forest green 'The Juveniles' t-shirt, a plaid shirt tied around my waist and my hair styled messily. I could hear people slowly flooding into the hall, their loud voices creating a cacophony of noise which did nothing to soothe my frayed nerves.

"Why do you look so nervous, nerd?" Kacchan's voice asked abrasively as he swaggered around the corner and came to stand in front of me, twirling his drumsticks between his fingers.

" Well, Katsuki, if you hadn't noticed, we're about to play in front of a lot more people than we usually would. Not to mention this time we have dancers so we can't mess up otherwise we'll put them off. I have every right to be nervous and it's insane that you aren't" I snarled, my voice was pitched higher from stress and nerves.

"Damn, Izuku," Kaminari laughed as he passed us by. I ignored him and simply resumed my pacing.

"It's ok, Love. We all know that once you're on stage with your guitar in hand you'll be nothing but perfection." Shoto hummed as he passed me by and pecked me on the cheek. I blushed and stumbled to a stop where I stood. I didn't have time to resume my pacing. It was time for us to go on stage and sway public opinion on class 1A. 

Thank you milliejonas0 for this artwork.

Also thank you CurtainCall4All for your art as well.

I love both of them so much and it makes me so happy to see that people want to recreate my art and take inspiration from my story. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. There's only one full chapter and the epilogue left. Have a wonderful day wherever you are.