One of the most dangerous things about evolving Quirks was the fact that they could turn on their own users.

Quirks were like muscles - Use it and it would stay in shape. Train it and it would get stronger. Practice with it and you'd be able to use it better. But this also applied to the downsides one could experience - Use them too often and you'd wear them out. Train them too much and you'd tear them. Practice too much and you could end up overworking them.

They weren't anything special, Quirks. In the past people seemed to think they were, and before Quirks became commonplace, people seemed to think of powers and people as being separate. There were a thousand comics where a person could lose their powers, and then get them returned to them, as though they were separated from the person who used them. None of this was the case.

A Quirk was an extension of the body.. A unique extension from person to person, but an extension nonetheless. They really were nothing more than that.

Just parts of the body.

That meant that they were as susceptible to outside influences as any other part of the body.

Mina had never seen a city be so quiet before. It was surreal. Musutafu was one of the most populated cities in Japan, only ten or twenty million less than Tokyo. But she knew Tokyo was much the same. Barely occupied streets, the few that did wander wore masks and gloves, and kept their distances from anyone that were often open for all twenty-four hours of the day had shut down. Some had even been closed permanently, unable to finance themselves under the face of the pandemic.

"It's quiet."

Glancing at her side, Mina noticed Izuku looking around at the mostly empty street. The sight was as foreign to him as it was to her.

A month, two months - It didn't matter. The sight of the city being as deserted as it was now was… Surreal. Like something out of a disaster movie.

"Yeah." Mina responded, simply. Her voice was a bit muffled because of the mask she was wearing around her mouth and nose, but she spoke loud enough that it didn't matter so much.

"...It's weird."

"...Yeah."

Part of Mina expected Izuku to start muttering like he would do when something about Quirks or heroes came up, like he had done throughout most of their first year. He didn't though. He was just silent. She could only assume that he found this as eerie as she did. Like saying a word would… Shatter what was in front of them somehow.

To call it creepy was an understatement.

Izuku had grown up around Musutafu. He had been to the city often, long before he ended up attending Yuuei. It occured to Mina that he might be handling this differently to her. To look at him was to see someone who didn't represent the person she knew back in the classrooms, or on the field before the virus. "You holding up alright?" She asked, tapping at his shoulder with the back of her hand.

For a moment, he looked startled, before he realized that he had zoned out. Mina couldn't see his lips or what expression the rest of his face was making, but his eyes opened up slightly as he returned to real time. "Y-Yeah." He nodded. "Just... " He made a vague motion with his hands at the scene in front of him. Mina understood well enough.

It was all so surreal to see.

Behind the two of them, Aizawa, Yaoyorozu, Monoma, Sero and Todoroki were all batched around, listening to… Something. Mina had honestly blocked it out. What she was looking at right now had her a bit more overwhelmed, even though she'd seen this same scene every day for a month now.

All of them volunteers, and all of them with Quirks that were considered useful and safe enough to be used without the risk of spreading further disease if one got infected. Sero and Todoroki both had range, Momo's creation Quirk was valuable, Monoma's Copy Quirk letting him duplicate whatever was needed - That and after two years at Yuuei, he was less of an insufferable bastard than he was in their first year - And Aizawa's Erasure was obviously valuable given the nature of what was going on.

Limits to how many Heroes and volunteers went out too. Mostly ones who were seen as either incredibly valuable, or those who had Quirks that would help limit to spread of the disease.

The fact Yuuei students were considered some of those most valuable volunteers said polenty about the state of the country right now.

All this because of a virus.

It wasn't like this was the first pandemic the world had been under. It wasn't even as if it was the first pandemic she herself had lived through. Nothing like this though. Certainly not for a disease that worked like this.

The name of the virus, Mina didn't remember. Not its official name anyway. She knew its nickname though. The "Quirk Virus"

What it did to people was something it was probably going to be impossible to forget.

It attacked the very Quirks of a person.

Forced them to activate without the consent of their user, against their will, and the sheer force of those activations seemed to vary from mild to severe - Sometimes it would just be a light activation, sometimes, it went well beyond the normal limits No one who was infected ever had any control over when their Quirks went wild.

And that meant, no one had control of when their Quirks would damage themselves either. Regular drawbacks still applied to those who were infected. That was part of what made the virus so scary. Being infected didn't only mean you lost control of your powers, it meant you had to suffer the worst of those drawbacks. It was all around a brutal and horrifying virus.

It wasn't as if the Quirkless were any more immune to this either. They could still fall victim to the virus, only in their cases, it gave them a nasty fever. And they were still capable of infecting people who did possess Quirks. The Quirkless were lucky only in the sense that when their symptoms began to show, they weren't as likely to blow a hole in their houses.

Quirks could be affected by illness before - Mina remembered that when she had a cold when she was ten, whenever she sneezed, her Acid had sort of mixed into it, resulting in a few melted walls and furniture back at home. Her Quirk was fairly strong, all things considered, so whenever an illness messed with her Quirk, it tended to be a lot more dangerous. Not every sickness or illness affected a person's Quirk, but it was one she remembered rather distinctly.

What was going on now though, it was hard to shake the feeling she was living in a time that would go down in history.

The idea of losing control of her Quirk utterly, of unleashing it randomly, with power and intensity that she couldn't even normally put out - She wasn't even remotely ashamed to admit that idea was one she was afraid of. Nearly everyone she knew was afraid of it.

But she wanted to help.

And of course, Izuku did too.

He was one of the first people who jumped up to volunteer because of course he was. Of course he was going to jump at the first chance to help people. If Mina didn't know him better, she'd think he felt some sort of duty to help people. Part of him probably did.

That was just how he was. When someone needed help, it didn't matter if he knew them personally or not. He would help them. Three years she'd known him now, and for three years, if there was one thing he had been consistent on, it was that. It was something they had been able to bond over. Just… Wanting to help.

When it got down to it, that was what Mina felt most compelled to do as well. Just help people. However she could. Anyone who actually cared about being a Hero wanted that.

That was how she and Izuku had ended up being friends.

"Do you ever like, relax at all?" Mina asked, her arms folded and her eyebrow raised.

She hadn't meant anything by it. Certainly, she didn't mean it as an insult. It was more a product of consistent surprise and exasperation.

Izuku literally never stopped working.

"H - Huh?"

Her statement had admittedly come a bit out of the blue. It was another day of Hero training for 1A, and Izuku had been writing in another one of his Hero notes journal… Things, after being told to take a break by Aizawa, 'Before he passed out and got in everyone else's way'. He had then sat down and gotten right to work muttering to himself and quickly scribbling notes of some sort in his - It had to be his fifth one that Mina had seen - notebook.

He'd been sent here about ten minutes before Mina had found herself also ordered to take a break, and that had been what she had been intending to do - Take a break - until she saw that Izuku was active in some form.

It wasn't like his writing in notebooks was something people didn't know he did. Everyone was very much aware of his obsession with all things Hero related, and how much work he put into becoming a Hero.

To Mina though, it bordered on… Obsessive levels at this point.

Not that it was her place to judge, but it was just… Mindblowing to her. She just… Couldn't help but say something.

"I swear like, every time I see you you're either training your Quirk, training your brain, or writing in one of those notebooks." Mina explained a bit more, pointing at his notepad as she spoke. "I don't know if I've ever seen you relax outside of the Culture Festival… and even then you spent most of it looking after Eri."

Understandably, Mina supposed, Izuku looked at her with a mixture of confusion and an expression that told her he had no idea exactly what he was supposed to say in response to this.

"That kinda came outta nowhere huh?" Mina said, slinging an arm behind her head. "Sorry, it's just… I have no idea how you keep this up. I swear I haven't seen you stop since we started the year."

That seemed to make Izuku a bit more comfortable, like he wasn't being called out or something. "Er... " He paused for a second. "...I don't really have an answer. I just… Really like Heroes."

"I'm not giving you grief for it." Mina clarified, quickly. "I'm more impressed than anything. I just mean like, don't you ever just chill out?"

"I…" Izuku blinked. "I… Guess not? There always seems to be something productive I could be doing instead."

"Is that healthy?"

"...Probably not."

"Alright then." Mina clapped her hands in front of her, and stood upright. Izuku flinched, and she pulled a grin onto her face. "You and I are doing something to chill out after we're done here."

"W - Wait, what?" Izuku dropped his notebook at that, caught off guard once again.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop it." Mina said, smirking as Izuku realized she was teasing him. "You any good with video games?"

"I uh - I - I've played a few - "

"Good enough!" Once more she clapped her hands and grinned. "You're gonna stress yourself into oblivion if you don't take a break now and then. Clear your schedule, we're gonna actually chill for a bit once we're done here!"

Why Mina had made that 'offer', she didn't exactly know - It was a very impulsive choice on her part, even by her standards. Maybe it was because she saw that he needed a break, even if he wasn't willing to admit it to even himself. Maybe it was because she was bored and had no plans for after classes today either. Or maybe there was no reason behind it whatsoever and it was a completely impulsive decision her brain threw at her and convinced her was a good idea.

But made the 'offer' was. And to her surprise, it ended up becoming more regular than she ever expected it to become from then on.

It had been a report of someone who had been infected with the Quirk Virus, it turned out, and was near where they all were now. The police and Pandemic Response Division had already surrounded and cleared out the area, but no one could get close without this person losing control of their Quirk.

In these times, more desperate measures had to be taken, including things like tranquiliser guns, regardless of their legality in Japan. Those hadn't worked in this case either though. It was some sort of ranged response Quirk that reacted to reflex and awareness. The hope now was that Aizawa would be able to Erase their Quirk and put an end to the stalemate.

Arriving at the location and it looked almost like the scene of someone being held hostage. Police barriers were set up all around the place, pandemic response teams armed with rifles loaded with tranquilizer darts, ready to respond if something happened. Every street had been closed off, and Mina could see someone had already been injured by this guy.

"You seen him?" Sero asked, pointing towards the center of the crossroads, where the infected individual stood.

Mina looked. It was a male, they couldn't be older than sixteen, she guessed. His pants were torn from the knee down, as did his jacket, which was missing a right sleeve entirely. He wasn't injured himself though, at least if his skin was anything to go by. He was hugging himself and staring at the ground. Around him was a pile of rubble.

To say he looked horrified was an insult. Mortified might have been better. It wasn't like any of this was his fault…

...But he still needed to be handled.

"Heroes!" One of the Pandemic Response members noticed the squad of one Pro Hero and six Heroes-In-Training and made their way towards them. If it was a man or a woman, Mina couldn't tell for all the protective equipment they had on. They made their way towards the group, but kept a distance. Just in case.

"Is that them?" Aizawa asked, looking down the street to look at the infected person.

"Yes." The member responded. "We've been able to get in touch with their relatives since we last contacted you. We know what sort of Quirk we're working with now."

"What is it?" Izuku asked.

"It's called Auto Response." Explained the member. "Apparently it makes the user's response senses heightened, to the point they can't control it a lot of the time anyway. It also let them respond with some sort of appendage that came from their hands, but it was small. Kind of like a wasp's stinger in response to a threat."

"How has the virus affected them?" Aizawa asked.

The member shifted a bit. "It makes them a lot more…. Vicious. And brutal. The appendage seems to be able to extend a lot further and increases their strength."

That explained the damage to the area, Mina thought to herself.

"Why not hit them with a tranquilizer from here?" Todoroki asked.

"We've tried that." The member answered. "I mentioned his Quirk activated sometimes against it's users' will at the best of times, right? That seems to occur whenever we try to hit them with a tranq. Worst case is that that seems to trigger the virus more and they'll lash out."

"Okay." Aizawa nodded. The issues here were obvious at this point. He turned towards the infected person and took a few steps towards them. "I'll handle this, everyone else should stay here."

Aizawa's Quirk only worked if he was within a certain range of his target - It wasn't like he could sniper a person's Quirk away from a distance. He had to be in a lot closer than the distance between the infected and the police line. They had gone through this routine several times. Hold back, act as back up, provide help when and if needed, and then help everyone who needed help once the infected was dealt with.

The group watched as Aizawa made his way closer to the infected, slowly and cautiously, taking a careful step by step.

"D'you think he'll be alright?" Izuku asked, biting his lower lip as he spoke. "This guy sounds more dangerous than the last few."

"He'll be fine." Sero answered. He seemed to want to come across as confident, like he was trying to convince himself more than anything. "...I hope."

Everything changed in literally a second.

It happened so quickly Mina struggled to fully comprehend what happened at first. Aizawa had been approaching the infected carefully, step by step, trying to not attract their attention.

How they had noticed Aizawa, no one knew. Maybe a pebble or a footstep had alerted them. Maybe it was the nature of this person's Quirk. From the distance they were at, it was impossible to tell. But it was like a snap-motion flame.

One second Aizawa was fine.

The next, a sort of appendage had slammed him into the nearest wall.

There was a second where everyone just froze - Just watched - What happened. It was so fast it was impossible for anyone to even twitch before they realized what had happened.

All they realized was that when their brains caught up, Aizawa was slumping against a wall, unconscious.

"Aizawa!"

Movement was instant after that. Six third year students leaped into action immediately, with the primary purpose of rescuing their teacher from danger. Given the situation, it wasn't exactly the smartest situation from either a safety or a disease infection stance, but none of them were thinking in terms of logic - They were thinking that right now, they had to save their teacher. Moving like they had been trained Heroes.

The noise that they made attracted the attention of the infected individual. He turned to see six Heroes-in-training rushing towards him. And that activated his Quirk.

Immediately, all hell was let loose, and the scene became indistinguishable from that of a villain battle. Todoroki unleashed a wall of ice, designed to protect the group from any oncoming attacks from the infected individual, which came just in time to protect from an incoming appendage attack. The ice was able to hold the attack back, but it did crack it once impact was made. Yaoyorozu began to spawn traps designed to ensnare the infected should they get through the line of ice, and Monoma, having copied Yaoyorozu's Quirk, did much the same.

Sero, Mina, and Izuku moved as quickly as they could to where Aizawa had slumped against the side of the building. Pulling him out of harm's way with Sero's Tape had been too dangerous an option - They didn't know the extent of his injuries.

Getting up close, it was clear that having done so would have been a terrible idea.

He was absolutely out cold. Blood was leaking from his lips, and just looking at him, Mina was almost certain his ribcage was utterly was like he'd been hit by a truck.

"Is he alright?!" Izuku asked, trying to figure out what came next - Should they move him, or leave him where he was until they could get someone with actual medical training here? Would the pandemic responders be trained for physical injuries like this? Was this the sort of training they had? Mina could already see the gears in his head turning. She didn't think he expected an actual answer though - How would she be able to tell him, after all?

Above them, ice fell in chunks as another appendage slammed against the ice with immense force. Several threatened to land right on top of them.

Mina immediately moved to act - Making her acid as thick as she could to stop her own acid from falling back down onto everyone below, she made an Acid Veil and swatted at the ice with as high a concentration of acid as she was willing to risk. It was effective, fortunately, at breaking up the ice and leaving whatever was left as chunks that would cause no real damage.

"Nice work, Ashido!" Sero yelled over the sounds of a battle on the other side of ice. He moved his arm from in front of his face as he stopped using it as a shield. "What're we gonna do about Aizawa?"

Not wanting to harm someone who had no real control over their actions, Todoroki attempted to force back the infected by creating a canyon of ice to block off their exits on the other streets, and attempted to freeze them in place. The infected's Quirk made them leap away from this attempt.

"He's too badly injured to move right now, I think!" Izuku said, inspecting him closer and seeing the full extent of the damage. "We need to get someone with medical training here, quickly!"

"Are the pandemic guys gonna have this sort of training?!" Mina yelled, another crack of some sort happening over the wall.

"Don't think we've got much choice!" Sero said, waving over towards some of the pandemic response members, trying to get their attention. "Hey, over here!"

Distracted briefly by the fight going on, it took the workers a while to notice the three of them. Once one of them did notice though, several of them quickly made their way towards the three of them, medical supplies in hand, a stretcher at the ready. Two came armed with weapons, just in case the infected made a move through this direction.

One of them seemed to have real medical training, and looked to inspect Aizawa more closely. The expression they made sent shivers down the spines of Izuku, Mina, and Sero.

"He's suffered trauma. Broken bones and internal bleeding." The responder said quickly. "We need to treat him here before we move him, otherwise his internal issues could end up getting worse - "

In that moment though, another crack and shake hit the ice wall, which sent shockwaves throughout the air that everyone felt throughout their guts. More ice broke, quickly replaced by Todoroki.

But it was noticeably thinner than it was before. Was he running low on steam? Just how strongly was this Quirk being enhanced by the Quirk Virus that it was giving todoroki a run for his money?

Was he even going to be alright if he kept this up?

Those thoughts ran through Mina's head as she heard another crack. They must have been running through Izuku's head too.

Because he stood up.

She knew what he was doing. What he was planning to do. This was Izuku. What else could he be planning on doing? She knew what he planned to do.

He saw her. Their eyes met.

He hesitated.

Then he moved.

So I got asked to be part of a quarentine collab fic - And this is the story I decided to write for it - I'ma be honest with'cha lads - I made this up ENTIRELY as I went along because it had a deadline, so this is what i came up with. Obviously the virus here is a stand in for the Coronavirus, and I wanted to make a story that showed the other side of a quarentine - Being seperated from someone you know and care about while they have the Virus. So this is what came out.

There are two chapters to reckless - The next part will be coming out tomorrow, and we'll get to see how Mina deals with the situation. hopefully ya'll enjoy and I'll hopefully see you here tomorrow. If you wanna see the collab, the easies tway to find it if you're not on Ao3 is to go to my Ao3 account, and search for the fic "The UA Quarantine Collection". I'll see you guys tomorrow - See ya!