Swallowed By Darkness

Chapter 20

  A single ring exploded like an alarm in the middle of the night. At the speed of light the ringing phone was plucked from the night stand. On one end was the never sleeping hospital that was a little too noisy in the darkest hours of the night or you could call it the early morning, on the other end a young police officer overflowing with joy. He kissed his half-asleep wife on the forehead telling her he'll be back soon while pulling of the covers on his side of their bed.

With a simple goodbye he quickly slipped on his uniform, leaving his house and driving at the quickest speed he could until he reached the hospital. After all that time of waiting and worrying his friend All Might was finally awake. Tsukauchi was ready to be right by his side. He had waited all to long for his friend to wake up. He quickly breathed a sigh as relief started clouding his teary eyes.

"Ah! Tsukauchi? At this time? Why are you here?"

"Why do you think I'm here? Because someone collapsed and made me worry." He pulled up a chair and sat down. "You should have woken up sooner, you idiot. Do you know how much anxiety you gave me?" Tsukauchi embraced his friend.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." There was an awkward silence for a short moment. Before All Might spoke, "So how, long was I out?"

"Too long!" Tsukauchi let go adjusting his posture by leaning forward and placing his elbows on his legs and clasping his fingers together, "about a week."

"a week huh?" All Might looked off into the distance as if trying to find something he lost, or someone. He was oddly calm instead of being shocked at the long time. I suppose it was because it wasn't the first time he has lost days in a hospital.

"There was so much panic." Tsukauchi tightened his hands together trying to hide his emotions. " Crime rates shot up so we've been completely swamped. The heroes are working 24/7 and the villains are filling up the jails at an alarming rate. Faster than we can handle. Don't even get me started on the rumors!"

"Rumors?"

"Mostly stupid ones like, All Might is dead. All Might won't be coming back. The boy in the video is at fault. All Might is in this hospital so he's fine, and so on."

"Wait a moment. The boy in the video? Are they talking about Midoriya?"

"Yes, rumors about him have also been floating around. Not good ones I'm afraid."

"When are rumors ever good?"

"You have a point." Tsukauchi sighed again, "On the bright side of things, we've managed to keep Midoriya's identity a secret for now. Not to mention with the burst of crime you've been out of the media's eye. We'd like to keep it that way to. So to not draw any attention we'll need to keep your release quiet."

"That might be more than a little difficult." All Might chuckled.

"You're telling me." Tsukauchi relaxed his body and straightened his back to line yp with the chair, "Luckily Nezu will be coming in the morning to help me out. We'll get the okay to transfer you to U.A and keep the press out of it. We wouldn't want the story to flare up again."

"You're right about that."

There was a pause between the two.

"How is everyone else doing?"

"From what I've seen it's hit them hard."

"I see."

Once again the awkward silence returned and this time it didn't disappeared for a while. Tsukauchi could tell what All Might was thinking but he didn't want to say anything until he was asked. So he just sat there. The nurse came in a few minutes later to check in on them, after doing her routine she left them alone. More silence.

It was odd how still the night air was not even the open window was blowing wind. No crickets were singing, no sound of passing cars, not even footsteps in the hall. Just a lonely silence; eerie and uncomfortable.

"Tsukauchi." All Might finally worked up the courage to asked that dreaded question.

"Where is Midoriya?"

Tsukauchi shook his head, to ashamed to answer with words. A quiet, hollow night indeed.

******

Morning rolled around and the wheels to release All Might were in motion. Eraserhead canceled class that day to help with the preparations needed. Leaving much needed good news behind in U.A. The class of 1-A needed the good news the most.

To them they had just lost a valuable friend, what was worse was that it was his choice. No one forced him to do it. At least that's how it appeared. The other problem was that it happened so fast.

In the beginning after 1-A saw what happened devastation erupted. Kacchan tried to act as if he didn't care, but it was clear it was hard on him. Even if he didn't say so.

Uraraka took it really hard to. She began to blame herself. She would have nightmares and sleepless nights. Wandering if it was the last fight or something else that was the last staw. She even started to say what they all were thinking; "If only I noticed it sooner."

Iida would often try to act tough but ended up making ridiculous and clumsy blunders. One such instant was when he ran into a pole. Another was he left his glasses off, or pretended to read his textbook but it was upside-down.

Todoroki tried to mute the throbbing emotions. Kaminari would try to joke around and lighten up the mood. He was the type to laugh when he was in pain. Tsuyu would seem less interactive than usual. Toru refused to pull out her head phones. Saro began to fidgeting namely bouncing his knee up and down or making tapping noises. Kuta was eating more then he should. Shijo also started to try and keep busy. Each person in the class had their own way to try and cope.

The negativity was suffocating.

All Might's return it was a much-needed glimmer of hope. A ray of light in the darkness, just what they needed to turn the mood around. Because of this the class began to prepare a welcome back party. Of course Aizawa was unaware of the student's actions. Sato prepared sweets with the help of kaachan and a few others. Idia and Uraaka and Momo worked on decorating and everyone else helped with other mis. Tasks. The thought of a party was something they could all use and something that would cheer up All Might as well.