He doesn't remember closing his eyes.

It's funny, in a way, because he also can't remember opening them either. He was just… here suddenly, but it wasn't like teleportation or anything else he had ever experienced before.

His surroundings are dark, and when he strains to listen, he can hear quiet whispers coming from nearby. He tries to move forwards, but he can't… where is his body? He looks down, and is startled to find that only his left hand is there, the rest wreathed in a strange smoke.

It doesn't make sense. He doesn't make sense; and then eight pairs of eyes turn and stare straight at him, and the whispering falls away to silence.

"Their souls are mixed up," someone murmurs.

"We can't interfere."

"But if it continues like this-"

"Who even is the real successor?" Someone else finishes.

Where am I? He wants to demand, but he has no voice, no way to communicate with these strangers.

The figures start to shift, parting in front of him, and suddenly he can see another figure swathed in black mist in a similar predicament on the other side of the eight people. They turn and meet his eyes, their right hand stretching out futilely to wave at him. He can't quite make out their face, but it looks familiar…

"Well, we can't just keep blocking One for All indefinitely. It has to go somewhere," a black-haired man spoke up.

"But one body is too weak, and the other's spirit-"

"-wasn't chosen to be the successor. Yes," a woman agreed. "But if it goes on like this, we're placing the boy in grave danger."

"So we're in agreement?"

"Yes," a chorus of voices agreed.

He struggles, but there is no way to fight against being nothing, so his hand stretches out towards the other person-

Tomura sits up in bed, his breath coming in short gasps. He drags a hand down his face, his head pulsing, and groans. He turns, looking out the window; it's early enough out that the sun has only just risen. If he hurries, he can make it out of the house before the mother even wakes up.

In the back of his mind he wonders why one of the figures nearest to him in that dream, a woman with black hair, seemed so familiar.

In the same instant, in a room cut off from the light, Izuku also jerks awake, his breath coming in short pants. "One for All," he whispers.

"Midoriya! Over here!"

Tomura resists the urge to sigh and turns, glancing at Kirishima, who is waving franticly at him. He almost goes with his first instinct to say fuck off, I don't want you near me, when Bakugou shoulder checks him, hefting one bag over his shoulder as he pauses and turns his head slightly to look at Tomura.

"Out of my way, fake," he sneers, getting onto the bus.

Tomura glowers after him, and Kirishima takes the opportunity to wander over to his side. "Whoah," he says. "What did you do to make Bakugou be in a worse mood than usual?"

"Nothing," Tomura mutters. "He's just being difficult." He clenches his hands, reminds himself that he needs to hold it together for a few more days, and then smiles. "So, excited for training?"

Kirishima stares at him, blinking. "Uh… yeah. Are you okay? You look like you're in pain."

"Deku! Kirishima!" A familiar voice shouts, and sure enough, the girl comes bouncing up to them, her bags not seeming to slow her down at all. "This is going to be great! I'm so pumped!"

"Heck yeah, Uraraka!" Kirishima says, and they fist bump. Tomura tries not to groan, and somewhat fails when even more NPCs saunter up to them in a parade of smug smiles and sunshine. There's at least four newcomers, one of them being Ingenium's loud brother.

"Okay everyone! It looks like a majority of class A is here, so start getting seating buddies to make sure everyone is accounted for! We load up in ten minutes!" He yells, chopping at people with his hand.

"Ochako, let's sit together," a girl with ridiculously large eyes asks her, one finger pressed to her lips.

"Sure, Tsuyu!" Uraraka says, turning away from Tomura. He crosses his arms, looking pointedly away. Ridiculous, acting like children who need people to hold their hand. He can sit alone, thank you very much.

A boy with yellow hair nods at Kirishima, who grins. "Hell yeah! This ride is gonna be great."

Ingenium's brother sidles up to Tomura, and before he can even say "hell no," the NPC opens his mouth. "Midoriya-kun, would you agree to be my seating comrade?"

Great. Now everyone's looking at them, and Tomura could swear he had seen Bakugou peeking out of one of the bus's windows to smirk at him a moment ago. "I'd love to," he says flatly.

"Excellent. Now it looks like everyone except Bakugou has a partner, which makes sense, as our class has an odd number… Yaoyorozu-san, did you see how many pairs total we have-"

"What? Some people in Class A need remedial lessons? Isn't that strange! And here I thought Class A was supposed to be superior to Class B, right? Huuuuuuh?" A voice interrupted, a boy shoving himself into the group congregating around Tomura.

"Oh great, Class B's also here," the kid with yellow hair said.

"Oh goodie," Tomura replies. His headache from this morning hasn't subsided, and between that and being surrounded by these noisy walking headaches, he's probably getting a migraine. "My head hurts; I'm getting on the bus already."

"Yes, good idea, Midoriya-kun! It seems like everyone is here." Ingenium's brother says. "Everyone, please queue in seating order! You should be with your partner to make this go as smoothly as possible!"

"Hey, watch it-" Tomura snaps as he gets shoved forwards, bodies pressing around him. He bites his lip, headless of the sudden tang of blood, and then suddenly he was sitting down in a seat as the bus started to move.

He sighs, closing his eyes in relief, and his head bobs a bit. He's tired, and it isn't like he has any mission objectives he can tackle at the moment, so maybe a save point wouldn't hurt-

"Do NOT stand on those seats please! That is a grave misconduct of behavior and is not suitable to do! No standing on the seats!"

Tomura jerks up, about to grab his offending "seating buddy" and show him exactly what he thinks of this ridiculous noise, when he catches sight of Bakugou openly staring at him from across the aisle. Registering Tomura's gaze, Bakugou smirks, tilting his head up. The message is clear: Just try it.

Tomura groans and slides down until his back is flat against the bottom of the seat, staring at the ceiling as the NPCs around him somehow become even more annoying.

"This isn't a rest stop," one of the students whispers as everyone takes in the mountains around them.

Tomura stretches, glancing at the Wild Wild Pussycats. The camp they pointed out is a fair distance away, but anything sounds better than a bus ride grinding friendship levels with the others right now. And it's a good sign; Sensei's requested target is also right here, so everything is still going according to plan.

The other students are panicking, scrambling back towards the bus in a blind panic. Bakugou is the only student who hasn't budged, standing next to Tomura with his arms crossed. One of the heroes slams her hands into the ground, and Tomura grits his teeth as suddenly he's free falling through the air.

A boulder starts to cross his path and Tomura flounders, reaching out to give it a forceful tap. Nothing happens, and Tomura's eyes widen as he gets clipped on the shoulder and is flung farther away from everyone else.

He hits the ground hard, his breath knocked out of him. What the fuck, he surmises. This is how they train heroes? This is extra, even for U.A.. The ground starts rumbling, and he shoves himself up and to the side just as a thick arm smashes into the spot he was just lying. A monster about the size of two Noumus put together towers over him, and Tomura glares back up at it in dismay.

His damn quirk is gone.

"Midoriya!" A voice calls, and Tomura glances to the side just in time to see the girl with pink skin racing towards him with the quiet, rock-like kid at her side. "Midoriya, move!"

He tries to stumble to his feet, but the monster turns, a leg swatting into his ribs and sending him skipping across the ground.

"Please calm down and fall back," the quiet kid calls at the monster, but it merely moves to attack him instead.

Tomura spits out some blood, his cheek aching from where he had bit down. His hands tighten their grip, digging into the dirt, and his face heats up from anger. He gets to his feet, swiping at the dirt left on his arms. "Oh no you fucking don't," he snaps, his hands suddenly thrumming with power.

He ignores the alarmed gasp of the quiet kid.

He ignores the girl that yells at him as he dashes past.

He ignores the other NPCs and Bakugou that had all come running, all skidding to a halt when he darts past them.

Because suddenly it is just him and this rush of power, and nothing has ever felt so good. Try this on for size, Tenth, a voice whispers. Tomura's eyes widen, and suddenly black tendrils erupt from his arm, shooting straight through the beast and pulverizing it into small chunks of rock that scatter into the wind. Tomura starts laughing, and he lands back onto the ground as he wavers and barely manages to stay upright. He gazes down at his hands, watching the black tendrils writhe in time with his emotions.

Well. Now this… this is kinda cool. Not expected, but definitely an upgrade to his situation. Destructive like his normal quirk, but with a reach. He can work with this.

Kirishima skids to a stop next to him, closely followed by half of the class's NPCs. "Dude," he says. "What the heck was that?"

Izuku had gotten a grand total of maybe thirty minutes of sleep before he wakes up again.

He feels a bit nauseous, and he isn't sure that a lack of sleep is the sole cause for it.

One for All, he thinks, staring down at his- no, at Shigaraki's- hands. Somehow he's still connected, an echo of All Might's quirk, of his quirk, staying with him despite the body swap. He closes his eyes, picturing Shigaraki's wide red eyes staring at him in confusion from across the room. It must be a body swap, what with both of them there while the past holders spoke about it. It's true that Shigaraki's body had next to no muscles, however, and Izuku isn't sure that he even wants to try calling One for All with the possibility that he could cripple the body he's inhabiting. It would be Aizawa's biggest warning come to life, Izuku in the middle of a mess all alone and unable to do anything about it because his own quirk targeted his body. He sighs, rubbing his eyes. At least he has a confirmation that Shigaraki is in his own body. He doesn't know if that makes him feel any better, but it's information at least.

He tries the door; it's indeed locked. As there's nothing to do but go back to sleep, Izuku complies, curling back up with his hands laying palms-up in an attempt to cause as minimal damage as possible. He stays there like that, but now he's over concentrating and every breath has to be manually controlled. His clothes stick to him in the heat of summer, and his throat hurts from a lack of water. Any sleep he does get after that is tumultuous, with Izuku drifting in and out of nightmares of Shigaraki using One for All to hurt his friends and family while All for One towers behind Izuku, holding his arm and preventing him from going to help but making him watch all the same.

It must be a few hours before the door makes a loud clicking noise, and Izuku sits up just in time to see Kurogiri open the door.

"Ah, you're awake," he says. "How did you sleep?"

It isn't hard to act mean this time; Izuku is exhausted, and he has zero reason to hide it. He glares at Kurogiri and pushes past him, his head pounding. "Fantastic," he mutters.

Kurogiri silently follows him, and Izuku tries not to show just how frustrated he feels as he slinks all the way back to the kitchen where he had bumped into the fire villain the night before. He shoves the door open and enters, wrinkling his nose slightly as the smell of something burning hits him.

"Nooo, my perfect breakfast is burning," Toga whines, waving a knife through the air. "Twice, do something about it!"

The man in the full bodysuit- Twice- ducks under her swinging knife with his hands protectively raised. "I'm sure it'll still taste delicious," he tries pleading with her. There's a split second of a pause, and then he continues, his tone of voice completely different. "It would've tasted like shit anyways, so why bother?"

"Now now, Himiko, can you please sheathe your knife? We have no reason to get into an argument this early," the man with a mask and top hat says from where he sat at the table, a deck of cards in front of him.

Toga glances over, grinning. "Hehe, Mr. Compress said sheathe," she snickers.

The fire villain, his head resting on his folded arms on the table, loudly groans. "Are you wearing a high school girl's uniform or an elementary schooler's? Do I need to go find you one of their stupid yellow hats?"

Izuku pauses, taking in the scene for a long moment before he glances back at Kurogiri. He nods at him, and Izuku tries not to also groan as he slowly makes his way over next to where the flame villain is sitting. He drags out a chair with three fingers and sits down, a few of the villains glancing over in surprise.

"Shigaraki, you're… actually awake," Mr. Compress comments, his voice carefully devoid of any nuance.

"So?" Izuku asks defensively.

"So you're never awake at this hour, even if Kurogiri threatens to take away your favorite video games," Toga giggles, her cooking mishap and the other villain baiting her already forgotten. Whatever had once been in the pan is further abandoned, a black mess of… something just being left to continue being made into charcoal.

Izuku just grunts, reaching for one of the bags of cereal lying on the table. He doesn't know where a bowl is, and doesn't dare risk asking, so he just shoves his hand in to eat it dry. There's nothing; he hits cereal dust and the bottom of the bag. He frowns, and reaches for the other bag. Also empty.

"Do we have any food?" He asks. Chips were not dinner, no matter what Shigaraki's body had been living off of up to this point. Izuku has been on a diet consisting of a generous amount of protein for more than a year already, and mentally he's still used to eating in that manner.

"We have milk," Mr. Compress offers, laying his cards down on the table, spread upwards.

A scoff. "Nope, we were out last night," the guy with his face still pressed into the table mutters. "Someone left the empty carton in the fridge."

Silence; everyone eyes each other, and then Izuku stands up. "I'll go shopping." He forces himself to sound displeased, but underneath the hand he can't help but allow one side of his mouth to curl upwards ever so slightly.

"No need, Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri says. Izuku isn't sure if he's the worst villain here, or the most dangerous, but at the moment Izuku is really starting to not like his voice. "I can go get some and be back in five minutes. Wait here," and then he steps into a portal and is gone. Great.

"So, now what?" Toga asks, pulling out a chair next to Izuku and plopping down. "Oh, I know, Mr. Compress! Those cards, let's play!"

"These are for my magic tricks, not some game of-"

"That sounds like a great idea, deal me in," Twice agrees, also sitting down. "No, don't, I can't fucking stand playing cards," he adds as an afterthought.

Izuku opens his mouth, about to refuse, and then the black-haired villain lifts his head. "Ten bucks I can beat Shigaraki," he says, glancing over at Izuku before his eyes bounce away, a small grin appearing on his lips.

"Ohhhh, Dabi, are we making this a thing? Let's make it a thing!" Toga agrees, pulling out a wad of- was that blood?- dirty and crumpled bills and putting it in the middle. "Winner takes the pot!"

Izuku watches as everyone adds their money before Dabi looks at him again. "Well?" He asks, cracking his knuckles. "You wouldn't run away, would you, boss?"

Goddammit. There's no way someone like Shigaraki would say no now. Izuku was stuck playing cards with villains instead of trying to escape. Kurogiri, please get back soon, he thinks despairingly. Izuku fishes in his pockets, tosses some coins on the table, and sits back down.

"Fine," he mutters. "But just to make this clear, I'm going to be the one to win."

Behind them, the cooking pan catches on fire.

"That's fucking cheating! Take it back!"

"Oh? How is it cheating? I'm just going by the rules."

"Can both of you please shut up, it's my turn. Don't make me set the whole damn deck on fire."

Someway, somehow, in the five minutes Kurogiri has been gone, the whole situation has gone to shit. Toga and Mr. Compress are at each other's throats, and Shigaraki has somehow commandeered fifteen cards, which Dabi and Twice both seem to be complaining about. Kurogiri isn't sure what game they're playing, but something tells him that everyone was only supposed to have seven.

"I'm back," he announces, nudging aside some burnt cards to set the bags of groceries down on the table. There's a stench in the air, and when he looks around he can see the cooking pan Toga had been using is irreparably burnt.

Shigaraki reaches into the bag without looking up from his cards, and Kurogiri stifles the concern he has that he's going to ruin all of the groceries with a careless touch. But instead, Shigaraki pauses, calmly lays down his cards, his argument with Twice and Dabi forgotten in an instant, and starts going through everything.

"I can make us eggs," he says, getting up and grabbing oil and eggs from the bag.

"Nooo, you absolutely can't cook!" Toga whines, grabbing his sleeve. "You're just going to poison us so you can win! There's no other reason you'd offer!"

Shigaraki opens his mouth, hesitates, and then sighs. "Fine. But we both know you can't cook either."

The table erupts back into squabbling, and while normally Kurogiri would jump in and offer his services, today… today he is content just watching.

He leans against the wall, thinking, his eyes following Shigaraki as he gets flustered over something Dabi says and starts muttering to himself. There's some progress, he thinks, watching Toga and Shigaraki banter and somehow… get along. Well, if your definition of "get along" means not trying to kill each other every five minutes. Shigaraki is more receptive today to the new recruits, his body language still slightly closed off but still less of a "get out of my way freaks, I'm not talking" and more of a… cautious weariness. It's an improvement in terms of a leader's characteristics, and Kurogiri can't help but think back to his conversation with Sensei conversation the day before.

Sensei was right. It's not surprising, of course, as Sensei is always right, but… this Shigaraki?

Kurogiri can already imagine great things down the road for him.