A few feet away, a young sidekick in a flashy blue and silver costume tripped over a piece of debris, dropping his communicator. He scrambled for it, his voice cracking with panic.

A massive hand clapped down on the sidekick's shoulder, making him yelp.

The sidekick scurried away. Fat Gum’s normally cheerful face was grim as he surveyed the scene, his gaze lingering on Aizawa’s hunched form before he turned to help lift a slab of concrete off a trapped civilian.

From the smoky periphery, two figures pushed through the crowd. Hizashi Yamada’s usually immaculate hair was disheveled, his speaker pieces askew. Nemuri Kayama was right behind him, her hero costume smudged with soot, her usual playful demeanor utterly absent.

She stopped him a few paces away, her eyes wide with horrified understanding. Mic’s breath hitched. He saw the blood. The pole. The unnatural stillness. The music box.

Aizawa didn’t look up at them. His entire world had narrowed to the point where his hands met your body, to the shallow, terrifying rhythm of your breath, to the faint, familiar song that was supposed to be playing in a warm living room tomorrow morning, not here in the freezing, bloody wreckage of a street.

His voice failed him. The snow fell, catching in his dark hair and on his lashes, melting against skin gone pale with a fear he hadn't felt since the USJ. The music box played on.