It Takes a Village to Raise a Hero

Chapter Nine: Consequences

Notes: Lots of Dadzawa in this very long chapter, as a treat for that cliffhanger I made y'all face. If any of you read my Star Wars fic Charting the Stars, then you know I love a good cliffhanger moment. Sorry about that.

But also not really.

Warnings: The knife gets used some more and someone ends up getting cut pretty badly by it, lots of blood in this chapter (puddles, spatter, stains, etc.), hospitals, panic attacks, nightmares, very vague gore (like describing an event where it is apparent that someone is very badly hurt, but the injuries are not described), sexual jokes between married adults. 

---

It seemed to take a moment for the pain of losing most of the fingers on his hand to register for the villain, but once it did, he was predictably livid. He shouted incomprehensibly and reached with his good hand toward Izuku, who was already dodging and rolling up onto the plaza for the world's most deadly game of tag.

The villain still had one hand, and it was just as dangerous as the other one based on how he swung it toward Izuku repeatedly as they danced around each other. It was almost comforting, the way all of his anxiety melted away as he slashed out with the knife at non-vital areas and hopped backward around the USJ, always keeping his eyes on the villain. Izuku had moved without thinking earlier, and now he was running off of adrenaline and muscle memory.

It was a little bit exhilarating.

Izuku felt like he might be able to hold his own for a little bit, at least until the next time he slashed the knife across what should have been the tendons on the inside of the villain's elbow, but ended up being his own stomach. The warp gate villain had apparently decided to join the fight.

At the same time, that dangerous hand, bloody from having clutched at the one Izuku had cut apart, came down and rested on his face. He waited for it to start, for the agony of being torn into a thousand little pieces and the death that would surely follow, only nothing happened. They just stood there, Izuku with his own blood leaking from his body to mix with the villains on his knife and the floor, and a hand that spelled demise gripping his face so tightly he couldn't move his jaw to scream for someone, anyone to pull him out of this situation.

The villain let out a childish yell of frustration and threw Izuku to the side before whirling on Aizawa, who was still trapped under the Nomu, but now he had found a way to lift his head to stare in their direction with his quirk activated. At least, until the Nomu slammed his face back against the ground, and Aizawa didn't move again after that.

Izuku felt tears well up in his eyes that could have been from the pain in his abdomen where he had cut himself open or from the devastation that Aizawa couldn't move.

Whatever feeling it was ended up quickly overshadowed by fear when a large shadow fell over him, and he looked up to find the Nomu towering above him. Before either of them could advance, though, the doors to the USJ flew open.

Izuku's tears came back, this time from relief as the number one hero strode into the room announcing, "Everything is fine, because I am here!"

—

Shota was drifting, consciousness fading in and out like waves on a shoreline. He caught bits and pieces, the sounds of battle and his students' voices. He felt his injuries bloom with pain as someone dragged him haphazardly away from those sounds. But worst of all, when he managed to crack an eye open for just a second, he saw Midoriya.

The kid looked terrible, covered in blood and gripping the knife Shota had given him even as he was dragged from the fight by... Shota couldn't remember her name. He thought she might be one of Power Loader's kids, but maybe Nedzu had made him replace the student he expelled. That would be a shame, he was hoping to hold the spot for Midoriya.