The several-mile stretch of cityscape was called the Ghost Quarter, because nobody lived there. It was a remnant from one of Japan’s earliest big-threat villains, named Seismic, whose ability to control earth and ground-matter was still one of the strongest recorded Elemental Quirks to ever exist. The Ghost Quarter was the site of the final battle to take him down. It had been hard and gruesome. A shudderingly high casualty number. The damage to the city itself had been astronomical.

Class 1-A had gone there as part of a unit on minimizing collateral damage. They had been hit by a very powerful Fear Inducer Quirk.

Go in. Find your students, one at a time. Knock them out by breaking a capsule of Midnight’s Somnambulist, which could last about a half hour away from her body. Send up a single, and another teacher would carefully pick their way to the sleeping kid and bring them to the base outside the Ghost Quarter while you moved on to the next one. Simple plan. A good plan, even.

On the list of things you never wanted to see in your life, Midoriya Izuku dangling his legs off the side of a building’s roof was in the top 10.

You stepped carefully, so carefully, closer to your student’s slumped back, heart in your throat. You noted Midoriya’s white-knuckled grip on the parapet wall he was perched on top of. You could not startle him.

Midoriya tilted his head, as if he was hearing something, but not steps. His eyes were horrifyingly blank. “It was nice, for a while,” he said, in a blank, conversational tone. As if he wasn’t a the edge of a fucking roof.

"What was nice?" You asked, taking another cautious step forward ‘Keep him talking, keep him talking.', you thought to yourself, needing to get closer

“Being worth something,” Said Midoriya, and you felt a crack fissure open, deep inside yourself.