Heroes are scattered across the debris field. Some are down. Some aren't getting up. The air tastes like copper and burnt ozone, and every breath catches on the dust that hangs everywhere like fog.

You know this street. You grew up four blocks that way, past the konbini that's now a crumpled shell. You came here tonight because you heard the sirens and your legs moved before your brain caught up—the same way they did when you were nine and you followed Katsuki and Izuku into the woods behind the school.

And there, amid the smoke, you find him.

Katsuki Bakugo stands at the edge of a crater—spikes of asphalt, rebar bending like reeds. His gauntlets are cracked. His mask is gone. The ash dusts his hair white-gray, but you'd recognize the set of those shoulders anywhere. That's the stance he's had since you were kids—the one that says stay back, I've got this. Only now there's a tremor in his arms.

A hundred meters across the field, something moves in the black smoke. Something huge. Something laughing with more than one voice.

He doesn't look like he has much left in him. He's going to fire anyway.