Screwed was a gross understatement with the look in Todoroki's eyes.

"What happened during the battle?" he asked calmly.

Izuku looked down at his lap, intertwining his fingers.

"Midoriya, look at me."

Wryly he looked up. Todoroki's gaze was unsettling.

"You ran off in the beginning to confront a boy with an explosion Quirk. When you returned, your mood seemed totally off. What's the deal with him?"

"He is.....Kacchan," Izuku mumbled, shrinking back, "Katsuki Bakugo, who I know since when I can remember.........I may or may not have destroyed his Quirk."

The pencil he was holding in his hand snapped. He went on, unable to actual stop since he had begun speaking.

"I didn't kill him, though, but I think I delivered him pretty near to Death's door, I don't know, it just felt good in that one moment, when he realised how living life as a Quirkless human was. I am not happy about it. It's not like I haven't destroyed Quirks before or have killed someone, but the case with Kacchan, it's just pulling me two ways. I am pretty sure he hates me anyways, so that's neither here, nor there. And then, Tomura, I am afraid, he isn't well, nothing is going right, I don't even know why I did that, what the heck am I doing, I—"

"Midoriya," Todoroki said, waving his hand in front of Izuku's face to snap him out of his muttering. His muttering was phenomenal, everyone knew that. He would go on for ages and won't stop.

Izuku looked at him, tears prickling at the edges of his eyes. He looked gentler as he gazed at Izuku, the stone cold look in his eyes softening, which only a few could see. Izuku considered himself lucky to be one of them.

"I get it, it's fine, Midoriya, you can feel this way," he said softly, cupping his face with one hand, "It's fine. Besides not sleeping for days on end would make anyone a mental wreck. It's okay, you can cry."

Izuku hung his head. Bits and pieces of memory flashed in his mind, all of pain, which actually made the tears start to fall. He felt cold and warm arms around him and buried his face in the crook of the other's neck, as he stroked his messy curls and kept on repeating the same words.

"It will be alright. I am here."

He only sobbed harder.

In another lifetime, he would have walked beside the hero who had made these words iconic.

Todoroki looked sadly at the messed up boy he held in his arms. Izuku hadn't realised exactly how hard he was holding him. He let him do it, however. He needed it, and it was the least he could do for someone who had saved him from a lifetime of pain.

Tomura Shigaraki shifted uneasily as the effects of the drugs wore off and the unpleasant dreams started to seep in, like blood pouring from a wound, like the perfect glass of sanity shattering as insanity crept in.

Had there ever been a time before the constant irritation against society?

Had there ever been a time before the constant urge to destroy everything in existence?

Bakugo was in the dark. Deku's words kept taunting him wherever he turned his head. No matter how much he ran, he could hear the words. They haunted his every step, until he fell down to one knee and covered his ears with his hands, trembling as the voices sounded crystal clear and much worse and much louder.

"SHUT TF UP," he yelled into the void, starting to tear up.

Mic marched right to Aizawa's bedside and sat there until his friend showed signs of recovering.

All Might beheld the wide world from his perch upon the rooftop. He was the Symbol of Peace. He should have been better, should have been faster.

What use was there of the Symbol of Peace if people kept getting hurt right under his nose?