"Danger doesn't lurk around every corner.

It's just hanging out,

waiting for fear and horror to show up."

-Unknown

He did nothing more than sit in place as the little members of his group shuffled out, intent on implementing the plan that they had been given as soon as possible. Or rather, 'general idea'. He wasn't going to take their little hands and slowly guide them through the process. They - the majority of them, anyway - weren't children, and the one who was a child could watch and learn how the group inevitably went about doing it. If  he really wanted it, he'd just have to take some initiative of his own, because even helping him this much irked him. And besides the obvious, he couldn't bother with it for an even more quintessential reason.  He still had the matters of All for One and Yuganda Itoku to settle in full. Perhaps with a bit of interest on top. After all, they had respectively ruined his life and himself, in ways that made the shenanigans of Bakugo and All Might look like pithy child's play.

And wasn't that a scary thing to consider when one of those individuals had bullied him within an inch of his life, and the other one effectively broke him?

It was but a minor crack, comparatively, that separated his heart in two. But still a crack nonetheless.

For anything to be worse than that, it only spoke of the absolute evil that had taken place.

All for One had taken his stained glass heart and broke and shattered and cracked it repeatedly, striking down again and again and again until there was nothing but tiny dust shards left. Then he started up his kiln and heated it up, reforging his amalgamation of a heart until it suited his deepest desires (but the damage was already soul deep, so while his heart was indeed forged again, - but so faulty and incomplete that it hurt each time he breathed - it was naught but a failed imitation of what had been). And if All for One shattered his heart, that man broke his spirit until almost nothing was left, and that little tiny bit left was just hanging on a string, one bad twist away from snapping.

So yes, it was fair to say that he had some higher priorities than ensuring some kind of societal injustice revolution.

(He had given and had so much taken from him that, for once, he couldn't offer up anything anymore.)

"Well then... Shall I sort out All for One's demise first?"

His voice absentmindedly bled out into the air, but the reply he received wasn't bad regardless.

(It was, admittedly, relieving to have the little lightning spirit back in his head, after a while of being separated and therefore, powerless. Not even mentioning the company and comfort of the spirit. Indeed, he had been alright in the end throughout their separation, but... it was close. There were moments when the world seemed to fall apart and he drowned in his own thoughts, so deep down under the sea that he couldn't even see a single speck of light. Needless to say a bad twist, a slight breeze probably would have snapped the one string of sanity that he had left. Rather than her combat ability, it was her ability to dull those thoughts and feelings and emotions with shots of serotonin and dopamine through her control over his brain that was truly essential to his existence. It was rather unfortunate that she couldn't control everything about him like a puppet, he honestly wouldn't mind at this point.)

{You've gotten in touch with Zero..? I thought that the whole 'raid the evil cafe!' thing failed...}

He threaded his spindly fingers together and stretched, yawn breaking through his voice.

"Haaaa-... Not quite, Gray. Some member was kind enough to give me his phone number on the bandages. I still remember it clearly, oddly enough."

{Oh-ho? You got his phone number? Could it be that, your spring of romance is finally arriving-!}

With dead eyes, he bonked the little lightning spirit that was hovering around his shoulder, paying no mind to the minor sting.

(But they weren't irritated or unkind ones, those eyes of his.)

{Ittei! Why did you hit me, that hurt!}

If a lightning spirit could even pout in the first place, Deku didn't know, but Gray sure was trying.

"Dabi is a bad influence on you, Gray. And you don't even have nerves, needless to say, pain receptors."

The little lightning spirit had nothing to say to that, so she just resumed her (spiritual) pouting.

Deku did little more than sitting still, but there was an element of peace to it that hadn't existed during the meeting with all of the villains, Aiko-san, and Bakugo. Some of the tension on his shoulders had fled, and the spider-web-crinkles in the middle of his brow had melted away. He seemed more relaxed than he had been in ages. Gray seemed to have noticed it as well, as she curled up beside him, electricity carefully controlled to be not too hot, but more of a gentle kind of warmth. He closed his eyes at the sensation, one that was reminiscent of human touch, but prickly and erratic. (He found that he didn't really mind it, since it was close enough and despite himself, he ached for that kind of thing. A simple hug, a hand to hold onto... It was something you weren't aware of how much you needed it until you got it.)

"Thank you, Gray. Really. I don't think I've said it before. I should have already-..."

He grew quiet, as his words gradually grew softer and softer until there was nothing left.

She did nothing but expand the heat, the sense of almost touch in a bastardization of a hug.

It worked just as well, as it turned out.

(Were he any other person, he would have cried, but all he could do was shiver and shake. But... It was okay. Nothing was ever enough, after all, but this was just the right amount of everything to be okay. He hadn't even been okay in so, so long, and his chest ached in place as that realization settled. He couldn't decide whether it was a good ache or not, but most of him was mostly alright, and he didn't treat it as any less than the blessing that it was. He had once tried to commit suicide because he was just mostly 'okay',  but now, it was a blessing. He wasn't sure how to feel about that, like most things, but it was okay.

And he loved that it was okay, for once.)

But in this instance, perhaps it wasn't the best that he became okay.

Okay meant vulnerable, after all.

He felt a spike of hostile intent that almost startled him out of his own skin as Gray flared true and genuine lightning in an arc around them, but that didn't do anything as the shadow stepped closer and closer, like a grandmaster thief running through an arena of lasers and traps, drawing ever near to the treasure, but the only problem, in this case, was that he was the treasure, and he wasn't ready-!

Bang.

He grit his teeth with an almost painful clatter as he watched, right before his very eyes, as a bullet swam through the thick molasses of the air, so slow that he could almost yawn, but his body wouldn't move. It was stuck there, in space and in time, and in death, if he didn't get a fucking move on. He twisted and twisted in the molasses-entrenched reality, limbs straining and straining because he couldn't take the hit in his head, he'd die instantly at this angle, he needed to turn, to move, but his body was still stuck in place-

But that was okay, he only needed to move his head a sliver more and-

The bullet scraped his cheek, digging into bone, but dear lord, he was alive throughout it all, and that was all that mattered.

He looked up, and-

"Well... Look at that, it seems you've gotten some survival instinct in ya after all, little Deku."

-found himself face to face with Zero.

AN: Well, there we have it, guys.

I considered having it just be dialogue again this chapter, because dialogue isn't inherently bad and the themes going around/the impact it has on the plot is a big one, but I decided for a change of pace, lol.

Hope you got a little stressed there, muahahaha.

(...sorry for the late-ish update, cough.)