I awoke to the familiar musty stench of settled dirt and grime. The dust made it difficult to breathe and as a result I was forced to turn on my side, clutching my stomach, and endure one of my worse coughing fits.

After the coughing had subsided I sat up in bed, shaking slightly, and pulling the sheets up to my chin. I clasped my cold hands together, rubbing them with my thumb in attempts to bring back some form of warmth. However, the icy feeling seemed intent on keeping hold of it's grasp on my flesh, so instead I brought my hands to my face.

By feeling around I could tell that the swelling around my eyes had subsided a little since last night, but when I ran my thumb over my cheek I could still feel the dried trails of tears. And of something else. Bringing my hands back down to my lap I stared at the flakes of dried blood that had come off my face and stuck to my fingertips. The realization came that it wasn't my own, but I'd already cried plenty about that the previous night and now as I looked up at the ceiling with dry eyes I felt something more akin to apathy.

Scrapes and scars covered the concrete ceiling I gazed thoughtfully at. I wondered what it would be like to be covered in scrapes and scars. Looking back down at my hands I imagined them covered in my own blood, black and blue with gaping wounds and stinging cuts. But when I blinked and rubbed away the thin layer of dust with a pointer finger all I saw was smooth, untouched skin.

Toga used to beg to cut me all the time, and Dabi had threatened me more than once when I'd gotten on his nerves, but they all knew the consequences of action and what would happen if they drew even a single drop of my blood. They'd been warned. Chisaki had warned them.

Chisaki. That was a name that hadn't entered my thoughts in a long time. A name I'd forgotten, and would rather not remember any time soon. So instead of revisiting my past I went back to imagining my hands as cracked and mutilated as the walls of my little cell.

I blinked once again, slowly, but I didn't see the same smooth, unscathed skin as before. A long cut ran across the heel of my palm. Searching for the cause of the unexpected injury, my eyes landed on a thin piece of what looked like a sharp shard of rock. My brows knit together as the shard clinked to the ground, soundless, and time seemed to slow.

Then, with a single tilt of my head, the slowed, soundless time shattered and I was hit in the back with a screaming blow of hot air and sharp projectiles.

I laid on the ground clutching my ears for what felt like hours before the ringing finally began to subside. I began to hear voices from somewhere in the building. They were yelling and obviously distressed, some of them familiar and some not so much. I only caught a few words as my hearing had still not fully recovered from the blast, but I could hear my name repeated a few times. I decided to ignore the sounds and focus on my current predicament instead. I stretched out my fingers one by one, testing them. Then I slowly uncurled from where I'd hunched into myself and turned to look at where I'd been thrown from.

The wall behind me had collapsed -or more accurately- been completely blown away. I didn't have much time to wonder what had caused the explosion, or where it had come from, however, before I began to notice that the air had grown thick and a familiar sickly sweet stench had filled the room. I recognized the poisonous smell immediately and frantically began searching for the source.

Much of my flesh and bone contained a variation of magical properties. One of these phenomenons resided in my blood. Taken directly from my veins or off my skin it could act as a powerful healing potion. However, if it came into contact with any part of the outside world it would immediately turn into a deadly poison, effecting anyone close to me.

I counted one- two- eight bleeding scrapes across the back of my neck and shoulders. Nine if I counted the cut on my hand. And seeing as some of the blood had already soaked through my shirt, the entire room and majority of the hallway would be in danger.

Suddenly I heard voices resonating through the hallway outside my door.

"They said she's this way!" One of the unfamiliar voices shouted.

I panicked, "P-please! Don't come any closer!" I yelled, slamming closed the door that had been blown open in the explosion. I couldn't stand to witness any more death than I had the previous day, especially if it was caused by me, intentionally or unintentionally. Luckily they had sounded far away, but I still wasn't left with much time if they were indeed coming toward my room.

The first thing I did was ditch the shirt. As far as I could tell it was the only outside object that my blood had come into contact with, and therefore the biggest issue. I balled it up as tight as I could and wrapped tightly it in the sheets, then stuffing it underneath the mattress in hopes to contain the poison so it wouldn't affect the air around the clothing.

I then ripped up pieces of the lone pillowcase lying on my bed, using it to furiously wrap all bleeding cuts as tightly as I could. As I wound some of the fabric around my palm I began to notice the voices coming closer. I cursed, most of the deadly substance had been contained, so as a result the poisonous air had thinned, but things still weren't looking too good.

As I finished up -all bleeding stopped and covered to the best of my abilities- I dashed over to the wall opposite my bed, where my only other change of clothes lay. It was a long sleeved, oversized, smelly, gray t-shirt identical to the one I'd just been wearing. I tossed it on and then backed into the corner, attempting to plan my escape from whoever was coming for me with what little time I had left.

The door flew open as a large figure appeared in the hallway. He looked vaguely familiar and I briefly wondered if I'd seen him on TV at some point. The man entered the room, scanning it for signs of life. I'd shrunk down to the floor in a useless attempt to hide my presence, but he spotted me nonetheless.

I could see the man's eyes widen beneath his mask when he took in my haggard and disheveled appearance. Still, he forced a broad smile as he locked eyes with me, exuding a air of safety and hope that I hadn't felt for so long. He quietly muttered orders to a second figure who appeared by the door,

"Lemillion, guard the door. Make sure no one followed us down here." The second figure nodded and receded from view. The large one then began to slowly approach me, "Hello there, my name is Taishiro Toyomitsu, but you can call me Fatgum. I'm a pro hero and me and my friend are here to save you." He paused, "Are you hurt?"

At the question I began to laugh airily, making his eyes widen in surprise. What a stupid thing to ask. First, the answer should have been obvious based on my appearance, and second, I didn't think anyone had ever cared to ask me that in the entirety of my life. Are you hurt. I repeated the words in my head again, beginning to contradict my my second thought as the large heroes' deep voiced words took form of a small girl's voice buried somewhere deep in my consciousness. I pushed her voice away, recognizing that the pain in it could only belong to one girl.

"No. I'm not hurt." I spoke harshly, my words laced with sarcasm. I didn't care if it was his job to ask me, after everything I'd endured nothing made me angrier than that question.

The man who called himself Fatgum blinked with a worried look on his face before shaking his head. As he took a step forward and began to approach me, my mutilated horn burned and my broken quirk tried to surface. I ignored it once again, deciding to trust more in my instincts than my quirk, and my instincts told me that despite his stupid question- or perhaps because of it- I could trust him, even if just for the moment. So I let him continue to approach me slowly, my eyes watching his every move carefully, prepared to strike if something went wrong. He then leaned down cautiously, extending his arms with a broad smile,

"I'm going to pick you up now, okay? We're going to get you out of here." Why was he smiling.

Brough back to reality as his words processed in my mind I scrambled away from him, frantically checking to make sure there wasn't any blood that I had missed. Even if the air had cleared, if the seemingly kind man so much as touched a drop of the shimmery and transparent substance he would be dead in minutes and I wasn't prepared to be the cause of any more deaths.

I stepped back, afraid that I had frightened the girl. The way she frantically checked her wounds and the insane look in her eyes worried me. She looked like a cornered animal. Unfortunately I couldn't spend much time trying to calm the kid down, seeing as there was still a fight going on back at the entrance.

I grunted before swooping down and gathering her up in my arms in one quick motion. Contrary to what I had hoped, this seemed to cause the young teen's panic to rise even more. I held her to my large stomach and patted her head in an attempt to soothe her.

"Hey Fat," My comrade's voice called for my attention. I wondered what was going through the boys head as he was staring so intensely at the girl thrashing in my arms. It was rare that Lemillion wasn't smiling, but he was obviously conflicted now. The new hero had begged the leader of his new agency, Hawks, to come to the recovery mission of Eri's supposed sister in his place, and now he had to see her so clearly beat up and abused, "We should get going. I think that Dabi guy just showed up and I'm not sure how long Eraser and the rest can hold everyone off." He finished, brows uncrunching and face relaxing unconvincingly.

"Right." In a final attempt to calm the squirming girl in my grasp, I hugged her tightly and stroked her long hair. Startled by the sudden comforting contact, she stopped moving long enough to speak, but her voice was still unstable and wavering,

"C-careful. It's- I'm d-dangerous." She murmured before the two heroes began retreating down the hallway.

"It'll be alright." The smaller, blonde hero smiled at her as we ran.

I had figured that if Fatgum wasn't dead yet then I probably didn't have any exposed blood at the moment, and that if I kept writhing around like I had been it might cause my wounds to bleed even more, so I decided to try and calm my nerves and stay still. However, it soon became apparent that all my efforts hadn't been completely successful, because by the time the two heroes -me still in the arms of Fatgum- arrived at the LOV's entrance they were both significantly less energized and I saw the smaller hero lift his hand to his head and wince a few times. I doubted they'd be conscious for much longer, but hoped that that was the extent of the poison's effect on them, since I had been mostly successful in containing it.

As we entered the room it became apparent that Fatgum and the blonde boy he'd called Lemillion weren't the only heroes who had come, because I spotted a few engaged in combat with members of the League. I heard a loud cry of pain and then a disappointed 'hmph' following it as Toga jumped up to retrieve her knife from a pros' long, centipede-like limbs. "You didn't bleed at all, that's not very cute." She pouted, glaring at the dry blade of her knife, as he recovered and prepared to strike again.

I squirmed, wanting to go help defend the hero from Toga, but Lemillion put a hand out to stop me, "Try and keep quiet. We want to remain unnoticed while we figure out a way to get around the fight to the car." He explained. I begrudgingly obeyed. The young hero's smile must've been supposed to calm me down, but instead it unsettled me. I didn't understand what about this situation would make him think it was okay to smile. I didn't even really understand the situation.

I looked back to the fight while Fatgum and Lemillion's eyes scanned for a less hazardous escape route. Spinner lay sprawled over a table, with his tongue sticking out, seemingly knocked unconscious. On a normal day I might've laughed at the sight. This was not turning out to be a normal day.

There were only four other heroes and League members still standing; Dabi, Mister Compress, a man with glowing red eyes and a long white scarf, and a hero made entirely out of what appeared to be wood, with long branches extending from his shoulders where arms should've been. The two heroes were barely holding their own and had already been forced into a corner by Dabi.

"You should go help them." I whispered hoarsely, still not too used to using my voice. I tugged on the sleeve of the large hero as I pointed to the fight that their allies seemed dangerously close to losing. Both heroes shared a distressed look, obviously worried about their comrades, but they shook their heads,

"You're our priority for this mission. We need to get you to safety." Lemillion spoke. I was taken aback by his words. So, this really was a rescue mission? A rescue mission for... me? How did they know how to find me, how did they know that they needed to find me. The only people not in the LOV who even knew of my existence was the Shie Hassaikai, and I doubted anyone from there remembered or cared.

"This way." Fatgum gestured to his comrade with his free hand, causing me to resurface from my thoughts. The two were about to begin moving when I stopped them.

"Wait. P-put me down. Please." I said, earning two skeptical looks from the pros, "I promise I won't run away or anything, and I can walk fine." Fatgum seemed to think it over before sighing and placing me down on the ground. I felt much more comfortable back on my own two feet and with less risk of hurting the hero.

"Okay." They nodded to each other and the three of us began weaving our way through the small battle, trying to remain unseen.

Once we were outside I was able to tell by the rising sun that it was still early morning. Even in the small alleyway the wind was harsh and cold and I was suddenly reminded of how little clothing I had on as I rubbed my arms with my hands to try to warm up.

"Over here!" A voice called from a black mini-van parked at the end of the alley. We approached it and they told me to get inside. Unfortunately, I had few options but to trust them so I slipped into the vehicle, sitting down next to a beat up skinny middle aged man with crusty yellow hair and a weird jawline. He smelled like old cheese and blood and my quirk had so much trouble registering his confusing power stats that I began to develop a headache. It was almost fading, but felt like multiple people's stats in one. Ow. I frowned at him. He must've felt my gaze on him, because he looked away, clearly uncomfortable, and reached out to pat my head rather awkwardly. Were headpats the only way a hero knew to try and comfort someone? I wondered.

"Where's Eraser, Centipeder and Kamui?" The driver asked, a pretty adult woman with a very revealing and interesting choice in clothing. My broken horn had a hard time registering all the people in the car, so I couldn't gage her power level. Fatgum shook his head as he climbed shakily into the passenger's seat,

"They're stuck holding off the villains."

"Should we wait for them?" The man next to me asked, moving over to make room for a slow moving Lemillion.

"No, we have to get her to the hospital." Fatgum spoke worriedly. The black-haired driver turned to me as she noticed my presence for the first time,

"What's your name, hun?"

I paused for a moment before speaking, "(y/n)."

"Just (y/n)? No surname?" She questioned. I nodded once, grateful that she didn't question as she placed her hands back on the wheel with a 'hmm' and pulled out of the alleyway.