Rain hammered the ruined concrete like a thousand needles, cold and relentless. It soaked through Deku’s hair, his clothes, the blood already drying on his skin. The storm turned everything gray — except Shigaraki’s pale, cracked grin, and the bright crimson spreading beneath Bakugo’s still body on the shattered street behind him.

“Kacchan…”

His voice cracked, swallowed instantly by thunder.

Shigaraki’s footsteps squelched through puddles as he approached, each one deliberate, taunting.

“What’s wrong, Midoriya?” he rasped, his smile splitting wider. “You look like you’ve lost something important.”

Deku’s fingers curled so tightly his nails broke the skin of his palms.

Bakugo wasn’t breathing. He hadn’t been for minutes.

And Deku couldn’t afford to turn around again — not even to check.

Because Shigaraki was right here.

And if Deku hesitated, even once, even for a second— Everyone else would die too.

Lightning slashed across the sky, illuminating the battlefield in a violent, white glare.

Deku launched forward.

Not with One for All — not anymore — but with everything his body had left. Mud splashed beneath his feet as he sprinted, a raw, hoarse scream ripping from his throat.

Shigaraki met him head-on, his decayed fingertips grazing the air just inches from skin.

Deku dodged by millimeters, the rain washing blood from his eyelashes.

Every movement burned. His lungs felt like glass. But he refused to fall. Not here. Not now. Not with Bakugo lying behind him in the rain—

alone. silent. gone.

“Why keep fighting?” Shigaraki hissed, swiping again. “He’s not getting back up.”

“SHUT UP!” Deku snarled, slamming his shoulder into Shigaraki’s ribs.

The impact shuddered through both of them. “I won’t let you— I WON’T LET ANYONE—!”

Another flash of lightning.

Another crash of thunder.

Deku’s vision blurred — grief, rain, exhaustion mixing into a dizzy haze — but he pushed forward anyway. His body was shaking, soaked, broken, but he moved like a man possessed.

Because Bakugo would have moved.

Bakugo would have kept going.

Bakugo would have—

“Deku…”

A voice?

Or memory?

He couldn’t tell.

Shigaraki lunged again.

Deku barely ducked under the swipe, mud splattering across his cheek.

His knees buckled.

But he forced himself upright.

Slowly. Fiercely. Defiantly.

He spat blood into the rain and glared up at his enemy with eyes burning brighter than any lightning strike.

“This fight—” he said, breath trembling, voice breaking.

“—isn’t over.”