The voice was gravelly, cracking under the weight of exhaustion. Bakugo stood a few yards away, his orange-and-black gauntlets cracked and useless. For once, there was no shouting. No "Extra." Just two boys standing in the wreckage of a world that expected them to be gods.
"I know," Bakugo replied, looking at the horizon where the sun was beginning to bleed over the skyline. "But the world looks different today, doesn't it?" The voice was gravelly, cracking under the weight
The dust in Jaku City didn’t settle; it hovered, a gray shroud over the skeleton of a skyscraper. No "Extra
"We aren't done," Izuku whispered, his eyes glowing with the fading embers of One For All. "We aren't done," Izuku whispered, his eyes glowing
He didn't run; he lunged. Because a hero doesn't wait for the pain to stop. A hero moves because they have to.
It did. The era of bright smiles and easy peace had ended in the roar of Shigaraki’s decay. As the sirens began to wail in the distance—the sound of rescue, or perhaps just a reminder of what was lost—Izuku straightened his back.
Izuku Midoriya leaned against a jagged piece of rebar, his breath coming in ragged, whistling hitches. His costume was less a uniform now and more a collection of scorched rags. Every inch of his body screamed, a choir of pain led by the throbbing ache in his arms.