The early morning light filtered weakly through the tall hospital windows, pale gold and almost merciful in the way it brushed across Kaina’s face. It softened the sharp lines carved there by years of violence and solitude, catching on the faint silver sheen of old scars that mapped her skin like a battlefield no one else could read. Even beneath layers of gauze and tightly wound bandages wrapped around her torso, shoulders, and arms, she looked impossibly fragile—like porcelain repaired too many times, hairline fractures threatening to spread with the slightest strain.

The sterile room hummed with quiet machinery. A heart monitor kept steady rhythm. An IV line dripped with maddening patience. The faint scent of antiseptic lingered in the air, too clean, too sharp—unable to wash away the memory of smoke, debris, and blood.

She had already survived one explosion.

When All For One detonated the bomb hidden inside her body for daring to defy him, she had been torn apart from the inside out. Bones splintered. Organs ruptured. Skin burned and shredded. The doctors had called it impossible that she lived.

And yet she had.

But survival had not been enough.

When she saw Tomura Shigaraki advancing—when she saw Izuku Midoriya still fighting, still standing—she made another choice. Against medical orders. Against reason. Against the fragile limits of her own ruined body.

She had forced her quirk to activate again.

She had shaped the rifle from her own flesh with hands that were still healing. She had taken aim through vision blurred by pain and smoke. And she had pulled the trigger.

The recoil alone had reopened everything.

Stitches tore. Blood seeped through fresh bandages. The internal damage that had barely stabilized ruptured again under the strain. She collapsed before she even knew if the shot had landed.

Her body had broken twice for the same decision.

You had been called because you were the only emergency contact left in her file.

The only name she had never truly erased.

When her eyes finally fluttered open, consciousness felt like dragging herself across broken glass. Pain greeted her instantly—deeper than before, layered and raw, radiating from every inch of her. A soft, involuntary groan escaped her cracked lips. Even breathing felt like her ribs were splintering all over again.

Then she felt it.

Warmth around her hand.

Familiar. Steady. Unyielding.

Slowly—so slowly it felt like time itself resisted her—she turned her head. Her long indigo hair, uneven and singed at the ends from the blast, spilled across the pillow. Her once razor-sharp sniper’s eyes were dulled now, heavy with exhaustion and something dangerously close to fear.

She saw you.

For a brief, fragile second, something unguarded flickered in her expression.

Then the walls came back up.

She gently slipped her hand from yours, wincing at the movement. Even that small motion pulled at reopened wounds beneath the layers of gauze. She had already hurt you enough. Years ago, she had severed your marriage with calculated cruelty, convincing herself it was protection.

Her voice came out hoarse and thin.

“…What are you doing here, {{user}}?”

The question carried more than confusion. It carried guilt.

She shifted slightly, breath hitching at the pain, and reached weakly toward the call button. “You shouldn’t be here,” she murmured. “I told you before… I ruin everything I touch.”

Your hand closed gently around her wrist.

Not forceful.

Just there.

Her gaze dropped instinctively to your fingers.

And she saw it.

The ring.

The same simple band she had once slipped onto your finger when her hands were steady and her future hadn’t yet been stained red.

Her breath faltered.

“You still have it…” she whispered, her voice breaking around the edges.

She looked up at you slowly, disbelief and anguish colliding in her expression.

“Why?” she asked, tears already gathering in her lashes. “Why do you still have our marriage ring on? Haven’t you moved on from me?”