When Katsuki breaks the surface of the water, it doesn't feel like crossing a threshold.
It feels like getting hit —not metaphorically, not spiritually, but physically , with the full-body violence of a car crash or a close-range explosion. Like being tackled by something vast and ancient. There's no grace. No clean cinematic metaphor of baptism or rebirth. No slow-motion drift. No poetic submersion.
It slaps him. Hard.
The cold doesn't greet him—it claims him. Brutal. Immediate. Unforgiving. It doesn't flow around him like a caress or soak into him like rain. It lunges. A creature made of teeth and muscle and memory, snapping shut around his ribs like it's been waiting. Waiting for him. Like it knows his name. It doesn't ask permission. It drags him under with the conviction of a beast that intends to keep him.
And Katsuki—he doesn't even have time to scream.
The second his skin touches the water, it's not just a chill—it's a fucking stab. A shock so sharp it cuts through the muscle memory of fight-or-flight and goes straight to the bone. It cleaves the air from his lungs in one vicious instant, shoving it out in a raw, soundless cough that never even sees the surface. His whole body locks. Seizes. Limbs stiffen like snapped wires. His heart punches against his ribs so hard it feels like it's trying to escape.
The cold hits first. Then the pain.
It's not just temperature—it's intent. The cold is alive. And it wants. It rips through him like it's got something to prove. Like it recognizes him. Like it remembers every scrap of warmth he's ever held onto and wants to punish him for it.
It tears through the last of the heat clinging to his body like it's personal. Like it knows. Like it's hunting something. Something buried in his chest—something soft and shameful and still flickering—and it's not going to stop until it finds it and snuffs it out.
His explosions—what's left of them, flickering and fragile and feeble—don't stand a chance. They go dark in an instant. Snuffed. Gone . That familiar warmth he's always carried in the pit of his belly, that second skin of heat and combustion—it shatters. Cracks like glass under a steel boot, brittle and pathetic, folding beneath the weight of the cold like it was never real to begin with.
He's in it now. Fully in it. And the impact— fuck .
It's not just the temperature that hurts. It's the force . The density of it. It hits like concrete. Like dropping from ten stories up into a fist made of water and winter and rage. It doesn't catch him—it slams him. Blunt trauma from every direction. His teeth clack together hard enough to bruise. His joints scream. His ribs crunch inward like the wind's been knocked out of them with a sledgehammer. His spine folds.
No air left to gasp. No air to scream. There's just the water. Just the cold. And the brutal, unforgiving silence of being swallowed whole.
And then— darkness . Not metaphor. Just the absolute, physical absence of light .
The river swallows him whole in one clean, merciless pull. No resistance. No warning. One moment he's suspended, limbs loose in the grip of shock, and the next— gone. The world above—whatever was left of it—vanishes behind him like a slammed door. No glint of sky. No flicker of reflection. No air. No shape. No surface. No up .
It's just black . A thick, wet black. The kind that clings. That holds . Endless. Choking. Pressing in from every direction. Nothing cuts through the murk. Not even the faintest trickle of daylight. Not even memory. There are no outlines. No shadows. No silhouettes.
Even his own hands disappear if he tries to look. Just blankness. Just void.
The water is murky. It's not even just water anymore. It's heavy with things that don't belong—city runoff and crushed leaves, rotting debris, flecks of dirt and stringy moss that curl and coil through the current like smoke in a house on fire. Tendrils of silt and decay wrap around his arms, his legs, dragging like fingers. Like hands.
It feels tangible . Thick enough to grab. Thick enough to drown in twice . And worst of all—everything down here is still . Utterly still. No darting fish. No shifting light. No signs of life.
Only him. Only him.
He's the only thing moving, thrashing, struggling. Which means whatever was down here—if anything was at all —has already stopped moving.
The pressure tightens like a noose.
And Katsuki—K atsuki can't see shit.
He can't see the riverbed. Can't see the surface. Can't see where the fuck he's going or what the hell is touching his ankle. Every frantic kick sends up clouds of debris that blind him further, choking out any chance he might've had at orienting himself. His eyes sting. His chest heaves uselessly.
He is nowhere. He is alone.
And for one suspended second—he's weightless .
Not just physically. Not just the slack drift of limbs in liquid space. But wholly, terrifyingly untethered . A breathless second of unbeing , carved out of the chaos like a held note in a collapsing symphony.
And in that second—everything slips . Direction. Purpose. Name. Self. It all peels away like skin under frostbite.
There's no sense of which way is up anymore. No surface. No gravity. No shape to the world around him. The current might be dragging him down, might be holding him in place, might be doing nothing at all —he can't tell. There's no visual anchor, no tactile truth. Only pressure and blur and that unrelenting cold.
The disorientation hits harder than the impact did. It's not just vertigo—it's existential .
He reaches. But he doesn't know for what. There's no thought behind the motion. No strategy. No instinct. Just muscle memory firing into a void. A hand thrown out in desperation, and he doesn't even know what he's trying to touch.
The cold tunnels inward. Not just into his skin—but into his sense of himself. Like it's not just freezing his limbs, but dissolving the architecture of who he is. He's unraveling.
He can't feel the edges of his own body anymore. Can't feel the pull of gravity. Can't feel his quirk, or his spine, or the pulse in his throat. He can't even feel angry.
And somewhere in the raw blank of his mind, a realization slips in—quiet and horrifying: He doesn't even know his own name. It's just— gone . Slipped loose like a thread in a frayed rope.
He is no one. Just breathless panic and frozen blood and the crushing, formless dark.
His fingertips cut through the water—and something shifts . Not memory. Not yet. Not the clean, linear kind with words or images. What comes first is the feel of it. The knowing .
Muscle memory lights up like a detonated nerve.
The water drags against his fingers in that way it always has—silken at first, almost deceptive, before the pull tightens and the resistance claws up his forearm. The glide. The torque. The fine-tuned calibration of skin meeting current. It wraps around his hand, his wrist, his elbow like a thousand unseen threads, each one reminding his body of something his mind had boarded up long ago.
There's a split-second where his brain can't keep up.
And then—It hits him.
Like a recollection dragged screaming out of a locked box. Like the crack of lightning through a dead radio tower.
Suddenly he remembers —not as thoughts. Not as images. But as sensation. The burn of cold across his knuckles. The rush of water curling around his calves like wind around a missile. The weight shift of his core as he rotates into a pull. The precise angle of his wrists when he slices through resistance just right.
It doesn't feel like remembering something gentle. It feels like being punched in the chest by a forgotten self. It slams into him with the weight of a life he's supposed to have outgrown. A version of himself he killed on purpose, one match and a barrel of kerosene at a time.
A life of tiled locker rooms and buzzing halogens. Of crisp laps in marked lanes and harsh whistles and coaches barking times. Of bleach and bruises and early mornings and pressure mounting behind his eyes until it made his vision pulse. Of trying to be good . Trying to be faster . Trying to be enough .
But this—this isn't a pool. There are no clean blue lines to follow. No walls to kick off of. No checkered flags. No timing system. No applause. This is a river . Wild. Unforgiving. Furious. Thick with muck and rage.
It's not about precision anymore. It's not about perfect form. It's about survival . The water grabs at him with fingers made of leaves and silt and debris. It yanks at his legs like it wants him to stay. Like it's hungry. Like it knows he doesn't belong here anymore.
But his body doesn't listen. It remembers. His limbs snap into alignment without needing to be told. His legs kick. His arms sweep. His spine coils, hips roll, his core tightens around an ancient rhythm.
The rhythm comes back not like a memory—but like a possession. He doesn't guide it. He doesn't choose it. It takes him . Every stroke burns. Every kick costs. But still—his body moves .
He hasn't swum like this in years . Not with this kind of raw, animal desperation. Not since the last time it mattered. Not since he doused that part of himself in gasoline and walked away from the wreckage without looking back.
But it's still there. Etched into the tendons. Carved into the nerves. Like a ghost waiting beneath the skin. And now—it rises. Because he isn't swimming for medals anymore. Not for praise. Not for pride. Not for any goddamn trophy they can hang around his neck like a leash.
He's swimming to save . To reach. To pull something back from the edge of never coming home.
And it hurts. God, it hurts—The familiarity. The betrayal of his own body, remembering what he tried so hard to forget. The way it fits. Still. Perfectly. Like he never left. Like he never burned it down at all.
His lungs are already burning. Not a slow, creeping heat—but a violent, searing fire that blooms behind his ribs and climbs his throat like smoke in a sealed room. Each second beneath the surface stacks pressure onto his chest like stone slabs, heavier and heavier, until it feels like his ribcage is about to split from the weight.
His body starts to scream in its own language—not words. Instinct .
Get air. Get air. Get air.
And panic—pure, bright, animal panic—surges through him like a second current. Hot and wild and deafening. Louder than the roar of the river in his ears. Louder than the blood pounding behind his temples. Louder than thought.
The air he gulped before diving is already betraying him, already gone, crumbling inside his lungs like wet ash. His chest spasms with the urge to breathe—to inhale anything—but there's nothing here. Nothing but cold and pressure and grit and water.
He flings his arms outward, shoving through the murk with the graceless, desperate power of a cornered beast. His fingers rake through the current in wide, frantic arcs—searching. Begging. The water parts, swirls, slaps back—offering nothing. No resistance. No direction. No hand to grab. No body to hold.
His legs kick with too much force, panicked and uneven, stirring the riverbed into a frenzy. Clouds of mud burst upward in a choking bloom, thick and clinging, further strangling his already blotted vision.
He spins. Kicks. Twists again. Blinded. Reaching. Hands outstretched like a man feeling his way through fire.
He doesn't know which way is up anymore. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know where Todoroki is.
His pulse crashes in his eardrums like a war drum. The pressure behind his eyes builds—sharp, like something is swelling beneath his skull. A scream coils tight behind his teeth, writhing for release, but there's no air to carry it. Just the bite of water. Just silence and weight and the collapsing cage of his own body.
Fingers scrape—nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Where is he—? Where the fuck is he—?
The question doesn't come in words. It comes in staccato pulses. In every beat of his heart. In every flare of pain through his lungs. It echoes . Repeats. A bell toll inside his ribs.
Where is he where is he where is he—
The darkness around him pulses. The edges of his vision stutter, then flicker, curling in like burning paper. Each second drags like a chain. His limbs are lead now. His kicks grow sloppier, slower. The fire in his chest goes white-hot—then sharp. Not just need. Not just fear. But failure.
The scream behind his teeth tightens—desperate, wordless. He wants to bite. Wants to thrash. Wants to yell his name. But there's nothing to yell with. No air. Only water.
Time collapses around him. Unspools. Twists. Loses all shape. Could be ten seconds. Could be thirty. Could be forever. The river gives no answer. Just cold. And silence. And empty fucking hands.
Just as his vision starts to collapse—edges dimming. Black creeping in like smoke under a door. Just as the weight in his chest sharpens into a scream too big for his lungs to hold—too wet to release—gust as the fire in his muscles begins to flicker out—he feels.
Contact. Not pressure. Not current. Not a rock or a root or some drifting garbage. Something else. Something alive. It's faint. Fleeting. A whisper against his fingers. But it's real.
Not the brittle scrape of stone. Not the slick resistance of riverweed. Not the dead drag of something inanimate.
Human.
Skin. Soft. Warm.
The shock of it slams through Katsuki like a second impact. Like he's been hit by something inside his own body—a detonation behind the ribs that snaps him back into motion before thought can even catch up. His fingers twitch—jerk—seize—grasping, closing, clawing.
There. There—again.
His hand brushes the shape—then grabs. Hair. Longer than his own. Soaked, tangled, slippery as hell. It slides through his fingers like silk caught in a storm, threads of it wrapping around his knuckles, tangling, dragging.
He doesn't think. He doesn't need to. He grabs it. Fists it. Yanks himself forward, closing the last stretch of water between them with a sudden, vicious pull.
And then—There .
A shoulder. Solid. Human. Sinking. His palm slides across muscle, sleeve, wet fabric suctioned to skin. And then—a throat. A jaw.
That jaw. Sharp. Familiar. Tension built into the bone like it was carved to hold silence. He knows it.
Todoroki.
There's no question. No hesitation. No doubt. Katsuki feels it, down to the marrow.
This is him. This is Shouto. And he's not letting go.
No matter how little breath lives in his lungs. No matter how deep the cold lives in his bones. How much his muscles burn with every stroke.
He wraps his arms around the other boy in one swift, instinctive motion—no thought. No hesitation. No space for anything but action. It's not clean or clinical—it's raw. Automatic. A motion built not from training drills but from need. The kind of need that has claws.
His hands find purchase across Todoroki's chest, sliding along the soaked fabric until his fingers hook beneath one arm, anchoring him close. The grip is tight. Sure. Not practiced like a rescue maneuver, but lived. Like this is what his hands were made to do. Like this is what they've been waiting for.
He pulls him in—like a lifeline. And an anchor. And something he will not let go of.
His other hand presses flat over Todoroki's sternum, fingers splayed wide, holding him steady against his own body. It's a desperate mimicry of protection—like shielding him from the water itself. From the cold. From whatever the fuck might happen if he doesn't move now.
Todoroki doesn't respond. Doesn't stir. Doesn't resist.
He's heavy. Not just from muscle, but from soaking, dragging weight—like the river's trying to claim him, bone by bone. His shirt clings to him like a second skin, waterlogged and dense, dragging down like chains. His hair floats around his face in pale tendrils, drifting like it's already forgotten gravity.
But Katsuki doesn't feel the weight. Can't. Not with adrenaline turning his blood to jet fuel. Not with panic roaring in his ears like a battlefield. Not with urgency ripping through every tendon and nerve like an electrical current. The sheer primal drive to get to the surface—to breath—overwhelming.
He doesn't stop. Doesn't check for breath. Doesn't search for a pulse. Doesn't dare waste the second it would take to think. That part can come later. If there is a later. All that matters now is up.
So he moves.
He tightens his hold, Todoroki's deadweight body sealed to his own, and then—kicks. Legs piston downward in a powerful sweep, core bracing, chest expanding with purpose. His body snaps into motion with a violence that almost feels holy—like it's calling something old to the surface. Something he'd buried years ago, but never really lost.
It's not conscious. But burned into him. A ghost of forgotten training. A thousand laps. A hundred early mornings. The silent glide of chlorine water, the sound of his own breathing in his ears, the ache in his shoulders as he reached for some invisible standard—all of it, back now. Not because he wants it. But because it never really left.
He doesn't swim like someone fighting to survive. He swims like someone who once belonged to the water. Like someone who once made war with it—and won. Each stroke slices through the river's pull. Each kick drives him upward, refusing to be dragged down.
The surface could be far. Or maybe not far at all. He doesn't know. Can't let himself think about it.
His arms lock around Todoroki like a shield. Like a promise. Like if he holds tight enough, the river can't take him.
There is a kind of grace in it. But not the pretty kind. It's the grace of desperation. Of war. Of teeth bared and muscles burning and lungs begging for air he doesn't have time to miss.
He rockets upward—the current a blur. Todoroki a weight. A person. A pulse he refuses to believe is gone. And Katsuki holds him like something sacred. Like if he lets go, something in him dies too.
When they breach, it's not quiet. It's not graceful. It's not clean. It sounds like breaking glass—sharp, shattering, violent. The surface erupts above them, not parting but fracturing—a sudden roar as Katsuki's head tears through the river's skin like a bullet through ice.
The wind slams into him like a slap. The cold breeze rakes across his face, knives on skin. His cheeks sting, his lashes are heavy, eyes flooding from the sudden change in pressure and light.
And then— air . He gasps. Hard. A ragged, animal sound. The first breath feels like inhaling fire and riverbed silt all at once. It burns. Scrapes. His chest convulses around it like it might reject the gift. But he takes it anyway—greedy, desperate, alive. He chokes down another breath, then another, lungs expanding so fast it hurts. A hot, wet sting coils in his throat, but he doesn't cough. He doesn't stop.
Instead—he adjusts.
His arms move with the precision of someone who's not afraid to break himself doing it. One arm loops tighter around Todoroki's back, pulling the deadweight of him in close—closer. The other cradles the back of his head, palm splayed over damp hair, fingers gripping gently but firmly, keeping his face above the waterline. He angles Todoroki's head against his shoulder, jaw resting against his collarbone, body curled into Katsuki's chest like a burden and a blessing all at once.
He doesn't let go. He won't .
His legs keep kicking—mechanical, rhythmic, relentless . His arms slice through the water, pulling them forward inch by inch. Every movement is a vow. Every breath a declaration: Not yet. Not him. Not today. Every kick is a refusal—to sink, to stop, to lose.
The current fights back, but it's nothing compared to before. His strokes carve through the resistance like they have teeth. His grip on Todoroki doesn't falter.
Then— shore . He sees it. It wavers at first, a smudge of shape and color. Then it sharpens—rocks, dirt, grass, the jagged outline of the embankment just ahead. Closer than expected.
It doesn't feel like luck. It feels like war. Like he won this . For one second—just one fleeting, half-choked, thunderously alive heartbeat—he looks up through the mist and grit in his eyes and thinks:
Thank fuck.
They hadn't landed far. The river hadn't pulled him away. Hadn't swallowed him whole. Hadn't kept him.
Katsuki found him . He found him. And no one—not the cold, not the dark, not the fucking river—was going to take him back.
He doesn't remember what happens next. Not clearly. Not in a way that fits into a sequence with edges and order and logic.
The in-between is a blur. Not empty—but smeared. Warped. A reel of movement and sound stripped of color, bent at the edges like a water-damaged filmstrip. It's a collage of sensation, not memory. Flashes of noise. Fragments of effort. Fleeting pulses of pain. None of it in focus. None of it linear.
Just—his breath: Sharp, wet. tearing. Fighting him with every inhale. His arms: burning, shaking, moving anyway. Todoroki—heavy against his chest. Slack in his arms. Too still.
There's water in his ears—muffling everything. Drowning the world in its own heartbeat. Water in his eyes—everything a haze of silver and gray and the dull glare of light off the surface. Water in his lungs, maybe—he doesn't know. It all feels the same now.
Pressure. Weight. Cold .
He's not moving so much as being moved. Dragged by current, by instinct, by sheer refusal.
One second, he's swimming—sort of. Clumsy strokes, slipping more than they hold. His body's half-drowned, half-driven, the line between survival and collapse fraying by the heartbeat.
He kicks. He claws. He presses Todoroki closer, like if he just holds him tighter, he'll keep him warm. Keep him safe. Keep him his.
It's not about form anymore. Not about speed. Not even about success. It's about need. Feral. Blazing. Unnegotiable. The need to reach the bank. The need to get him out. The need to drag Todoroki back from whatever fucking edge he's been hovering over since this started.
From the river. From himself.
And then—he's there . No transition. No triumph. No moment of clarity.
But the realization doesn't arrive gently. It doesn't come like breath returning, or the slow dawning of safety. It slams into him. A sudden, brutal crack of pain. His shoulder slams into something solid—hard and unyielding beneath the murk, hidden just below the waterline. The shock of it slices through the blur like a blade.
Stone. Not smooth. Not worn by time. Jagged. Unforgiving. A half-submerged rock juts out like the broken tooth of the rive. The sharp lip juts up beneath the waterline, invisible until it punches into him at full force. It catches him hard—right across the collarbone—a blunted edge that doesn't break skin but feels like it could've. The impact detonates in his chest like a mine going off.
Pain explodes through him—white-hot. Blinding. So immediate and pure it tears a gasp from his throat before his lungs can catch it. His whole left side jerks with it. His vision flickers. Stutters. Fades white at the edges, then snaps back like a flickering bulb. The heat ripples outward from the point of impact, a sick, searing pulse that streaks down his arm and across his chest, tracing lines of fire through muscle and bone. It fans out into his chest, crawling across the tendons like lightning through wet nerves. It's disorienting. Sickening.
For a heartbeat, he can't tell if he's screaming or just imagining it.
His vision stutters. Flickers. Cracks at the edges. The water goes sideways. The bank tilts. The world lurches. He feels like vomiting. Like sobbing. Like curling up into a ball and sleeping until someone else fixes things for once.
For a sickening moment, he's sure he's about to black out.
But he doesn't. He can't.
Instead, he let it anchor him. It's the only thing that registers in the swirl of motion and terror and exhaustion. The only signal loud enough to cut through the fog, through the screaming of his lungs, through the static of panic that's been roaring in his head since the second he dove under.
Because that pain—that horrible, sharp, blessing of a pain—is the only thing that registers. The only signal loud enough to cut through the fog, through the screaming of his lungs, through the static of panic that's been roaring in his head since the second he dove under. The only thing that drags him back into himself. It's an anchor. A jolt. A goddamn reminder:
He has a body. He has bones. He's here. He's not just panic and instinct anymore. Not just noise and motion and the crushing weight of Todoroki in his arms. He's real. He exists. He's still fighting.
And that—that means Todoroki is still here too.
Katsuki gasps—a raw, desperate, wheezing pull of air that feels like dragging broken glass through his throat. It tears through him, ragged and wet. He chokes. Coughs. His body convulses violently, shoulders heaving, ribs clenching so tight they feel like they might snap.
His knees give out. His elbows buckle. His balance breaks
He collapses into the shallows, water crashing up around him, slicking into his mouth and nose. And for a breathless second—just one—he nearly goes under again. The current pulls at his legs, vicious and cold, snapping around his ankles like it wants one last piece of him. But Katsuki—he doesn't let it.
He won't. Not now. Not with Todoroki in his arms. Not with his fingers still locked around wet fabric and unmoving limbs. Not with a heartbeat—real or imagined—still echoing against his ribs.
He clamps down on that pain. Holds it like a torch in the dark. Lets it hurt. Because pain means he's alive. And if he's alive, then Todoroki still has a fucking chance.
He surges forward with a sound that tears from somewhere deep—not his throat, not his chest, but from that raw, unraveling place just beneath his sternum where fear becomes something feral. It's not a word. Not even a shout. Just noise. Raw. Hoarse. Inhuman. A broken, blistered cry made of panic and effort and absolute, screaming refusal.
His fingers slam against the riverbank, scrambling for something solid—anything that will hold. The mud sucks at his hands like it's trying to keep him, greedy and wet and thick with rot. Stone slices at his palms—sharp, uncaring. Something jagged catches beneath his thumbnail and rips it clean back. He doesn't register the pain, not really. It gets folded into everything else.
Weeds wrap around his wrists. Roots snag his knuckles. Debris shifts beneath his grip, threatening to throw him back—back into the water, back into the dark. But he claws through it. He digs in. Like an animal. Like a soldier. Like someone whose entire life has come down to this one goddamn climb.
The world collapses around him until there's only one thing left: The weight in his arms. Him. The body dragging behind him like a second skin. Heavy. Limp. Terrifyingly still.
Todoroki.
Katsuki doesn't say his name. Doesn't dare. Like if he speaks it out loud, it'll make it real. He drags them both forward. Inch by inch.There's no grace left. No technique. No thought to form or balance or pain. Only brute strength. Only will.
He slams a knee into the muddy slope—finds a pocket of stability. Then pushes up with his opposite arm—the one that isn't screaming from where the rock struck it. Every tendon burns. Every joint protests. But he moves. And with a final, guttural cry—he hauls them both out of the water.
The river fights. Of course it does. It tugs at their legs, clings to the soaked fabric of their shirts like a jealous lover. But it loses. Katsuki wins.
They hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and dead weight, crashing into the bank like a shipwreck. Katsuki collapses onto his side in the muck. His ribs scream on impact, a sharp jab that explodes up his side. Something cracks—maybe bone, maybe just breath—but he barely registers it.
Todoroki lands on him. Partly. A heavy thud of soaked muscle and silence. His arm flops across Katsuki's stomach—loose, uncoordinated, wrong. His head lolls against Katsuki's shoulder, hair plastered in pale, cold clumps across his forehead and temple.
There's no sound. No cough. No sputter. No inhale. No twitch. Nothing. Just the weight. Dead weight.
Katsuki doesn't let go. He can't . It's not a choice. Not a hesitation. It's something deeper. Something wired into him now. Like his body doesn't believe it's allowed to stop. Like releasing his grip would be the same as giving up—and he can't do that. His arms remain locked around him, muscles trembling from exertion and cold and sheer, unspent terror.
His chest heaves with every breath, but his handsh is hands don't move. They stay curled tight in the fabric of Todoroki's shirt, fingers knotted in soaked cotton, twisted so deep they might as well be sewn there. White-knuckled. Shaking.
The material is slick beneath his grip—soaked through, heavy with river water, clinging like a second skin. He can feel Todoroki's ribs beneath it, the unnatural slackness in his frame. The wrongness of how he lies—off-balance, boneless, like a marionette with the strings cut.
The adrenaline hasn't ebbed—it just festers , crawling under his skin like fire, making his fingers lock tighter, tighter, tighter . His breath saws in and out of his lungs, rough and fast, like his body hasn't figured out it's not underwater anymore. His heart is still pounding like he's mid-battle. Like the war's still raging. Like there's something left to punch, to fight, to win .
But there's nothing now. Just the bank. The water receding. The stillness.
And for a moment—Katsuki can't move at all. For a heartbeat—maybe two—maybe ten—he's just there. Frozen. Crumpled. Pinned in place by the weight of everything that just happened and everything that still could. Gasping. Trembling. Crumpled in the muck with Todoroki's unmoving body sprawled against his own.
He doesn't even feel like a person. More like a collection of shattered reflexes and failing signals. His muscles are locked, not in tension, but in something worse. Something like collapse. Like his body isn't even his anymore. Just a husk—trembling, useless, spent.
He can't think. Can barely breathe.
Each gasp is a war. His lungs convulse, dragging in air like it's gravel, like every inhale scrapes bloody lines down his throat. Fire going in. Smoke coming out. Torn, ragged, useless gasps. His chest is too tight, wrapped in invisible wire. His throat burns raw, like he's screamed himself hoarse without ever making a sound. Every breath feels like swallowing glass—jagged and punishing. Too much and not enough.
He's suffocating on dry land .
And through all of it—his heart won't stop. It slams . Against bone. Against muscle. Against the inside of his ribs like it's trying to break out . Wild. Frantic. Uncontainable . The way it pounds makes him dizzy—makes his head lurch with each pulse, his vision swim in and out of clarity.
He's only aware of his body through the pain. Through the litany of damage now rising to the surface, inch by inch, as the adrenaline starts to bleed away. A mosaic of agony. Layered. Growing. Heavy. His arms are trembling, muscles twitching from overuse. His legs are numb—not just tired, but absent, like they've checked out entirely.
There's a gash across his palm—deep and stinging now that the shock's giving way. He doesn't know when it happened. Doesn't remember hitting anything sharp. Only that it's bleeding freely now, mixing with the mud and river water like ink in a ruined painting.
His collarbone pulses with pain, deep and rhythmic, a pounding drumbeat of damage that won't let him forget the rock. His spine aches . Each vertebra feels bruised, tender like it's been used to break a fall. His shoulders burn. His back screams. His muscles twist in on themselves, locked with exhaustion.
Everything hurts . From the impact. From the cold. From the fight. From the weight of Todoroki—dragged, hauled, kept above water through sheer will.
His skin is raw where the current struck him hardest, rubbed raw by the river's rage. His ribs are tight, sore with bruises he doesn't remember earning. His arms scream from holding too tight, too long. His legs won't hold him. Won't even try.
He's wrecked . There's no word softer than that. No metaphor tidy enough. Just the truth of it: He is ruined. Spent. Scraped out from the inside.
And beneath all the pain— Beneath the heat of it—there's the cold. Deeper than skin now. Deeper than bruises or waterlogged clothing. It's in his bones. His blood. A slow, creeping frost that sinks lower with every passing second.
It's not just chill. It's invasion. Not weather. Not temperature. Not something you shrug off with a hot shower or a dry towel. It's deeper. Meaner. Intentional. Something ancient and patient, crawling into the cracks of his body like it knows there's space now—space left behind by adrenaline and heat and hope.
It seeps beneath skin. Wraps itself around joints. Threads through marrow. Like it's trying to take root. To settle. To stay. To claim him.
And maybe—maybe Katsuki would've let it. Just for a second. Maybe he would've laid back in the mud and let the cold sink in, let the pain quiet, let everything fade, if only for a single fucking breath—if not for the weight. The weight still pressed across his chest. Still slumped against him. Still dragging him down in the only way that matters.
T odoroki.
Still silent. Still unmoving. Still in need of saving.
So Katsuki doesn't let himself sit for long. He can't . Because the moment—this tiny breathless bubble of suspended survival—it doesn't last. It never does. The silence cracks first. Then comes the weight—real weight. Not just Todoroki's body but the truth .
And it hits harder than the water did. Harder than the rock. Harder than the cold. Harder than anything has hit him in his entire fucking life.
None of it matters now. Not the bruises. Not the burning in his lungs. Not the ache in his arms or the ice in his spine. None of it fucking matters—
Because Todoroki isn't moving .
Not a twitch. Not a breath. Not a flinch. Not even the flicker of an eyelash. His body lies sprawled like a marionette dropped mid-performance. Pale. Sodden. Slack. His hair clings to his face in waterlogged strands. His lips are parted—just slightly—but no breath escapes them. No sound. No warmth. His chest doesn't rise.
Not even once .
Katsuki stares—eyes burning, throat raw, chest clenching so tightly it feels like his ribs might cave in . He watches for a sign. A flutter. A twitch. A shiver. Anything.
But Todoroki lies there like a stone statue left out in the rain. Unchanged. The wind drags across them both, slicing through wet clothes like knives—cold and cruel and indifferent. It brushes over Todoroki's skin and he doesn't flinch. Doesn't shiver. Doesn't even register it.
He doesn't react at all .
And that—that's when the fear starts to morph. From a distant siran—to screaming .
Katsuki's vision tunnels. The edges of the world don't just blur—they vanish. Everything outside the circle of his focus falls away in an instant. No sound. No cold. No river. No sky. Just him. That still, pale face. That waterlogged body. That silence. Everything collapses inward, and the center of it all is Todoroki—not breathing, not moving, not there.
And suddenly—Katsuki is moving. He doesn't remember making the choice. Doesn't remember pushing off the ground, doesn't remember rolling or scrambling or dragging his own ruined body upright. He's just—there. Over him. Kneeling in the mud so hard it feels like his bones are splintering on impact. A jagged bolt of pain rips up his spine as his knees slam down, rock biting through soaked denim, bruising him straight to the marrow.
But he doesn't feel it. Doesn't care.
His body is on autopilot, burning through the last scraps of energy like a fuse nearing its end. His hands move before thought can catch up—clumsy, shaking , but desperate in their precision. They find Todoroki's face, frozen and slack, skin cold enough to bite.
He cups his cheeks—thumbs smearing mud and blood and river silt without realizing—then tips his chin back with trembling fingers. The motion is too rough. Too fast. But gentle wouldn't help. He leans in—so close their foreheads nearly touch. So close he can feel the echo of his own breath against Todoroki's mouth but not Todoroki's.
He strains. Listens. Begging for something—anything. A flicker of air. A tremor of life. The whisper of a pulse. A twitch. A breath .
He hovers a hand over Todoroki's mouth, too afraid to press his fingers directly against it. Just enough to feel—nothing. No warmth. No exhale. No movement. His skin is cold. His face is slack. And his lips— fuck . His lips are blue. That awful shade. Gray-tinged. Waxy. Unnatural.
The kind Katsuki has only ever seen in first-aid manuals. In cautionary posters. In the worst-case scenario section of rescue training handouts. The kind that means: Too long. The kind that means: Too far gone.
And his heart—it stutters. Skips a beat. Then slams back into rhythm so hard it feels like something cracks inside his chest. It pounds against his ribs like it's trying to escape, like it wants to claw out of his body and run from this—from failure. But Katsuki doesn't let it.
He won't. Not now. Not yet.
His hands—numb and slick with river water and adrenaline and something close to grief—slam against Todoroki's chest. He can't remember the right spot. Can't remember the angles. The compression depth. The fucking count. It's all gone. Everything but the need to act.
So he just presses. Hard. Once. Twice. Again. His whole upper body driving into each motion like it's war. Because it is . Because Todoroki's chest isn't rising. And Katsuki can't let this be the last thing the other boy ever does.
The motion is jerky. Erratic. Not smooth, not trained, not what it's supposed to be. This isn't what they taught in drills or burned into him during first-aid lessons. This is raw. This is wrong. This is fucking desperate.
His palms slip against the soaked fabric of Todoroki's uniform, hands skidding over the waterlogged folds. He tries to adjust, tries to plant them firmly—heel over heel, straight arms, proper compression depth—but it all slips.
His fingers dig in too deep one second, splay out the next. His elbows tremble. His shoulders buckle under the effort. His arms shake with every push, his weight rocking forward too hard, then back too soon. Off rhythm. Off angle. Off balance.
The pressure might be doing nothing. Might be too shallow to matter—or worse—too deep, too wild, doing harm. He could be breaking ribs. He could be crushing what's left. He knows it's not right—knows he's not in control, that his form is useless, that panic has replaced memory.
But he doesn't stop. He can't stop. Because if he does—if he pauses even for one breath— Todoroki disappears . Forever. So Katsuki keeps going. Keeps pressing. Keeps slamming the heels of his hands into Todoroki's chest like he can beat life back into him.
Again. Again. Again.
Because Todoroki's still not breathing. And if Katsuki's hands are the only thing standing between him and death, then fuck precision. He'll give him everything. Even if it's broken. Even if it hurts. Even if it's all wrong.
His own breath comes in short, gasping bursts—not even full inhales anymore, just panicked sips of air that sear down his throat and rattle in his chest. Hot. Ragged. Shallow. Every inhale tastes like mud and blood and terror . Like silt and desperation. Like the dirt of the riverbank clawing into the back of his throat.
His lungs are screaming. His heart is thrashing. His hands won't stop shaking. They won't stop shaking. He can barely feel his fingers anymore—just the numb throb of effort and cold and fear, knuckles scraped raw, joints stiffening from the cold—but he doesn't slow.
And his mind—his mind is screaming. Not at Todoroki. Never at Todoroki, even when he wants to pretend it is. The scream is inward. A tearing, guttural, teeth-gritting roar of self-loathing that rattles around the inside of his skull like shrapnel. He's screaming at himself .
Because he should know this. He should know what to do. He should be better . All those drills. All those first-aid seminars. All those goddamn classroom sessions, repeating the same steps over and over until the instructors were hoarse and the students were bored. Chest compressions. Rescue breathing. Hand placement. Timing.
He'd gone through the motions. Of course he had. Pressed down on those stupid plastic torsos with their molded, featureless faces and their hollow, snapping ribcages. Watched the demo videos. Took the quizzes. Passed the tests.
But they didn't look like this. They didn't look like him . Didn't have Todoroki's pale skin. His soft, parted lips. His long red and white lashes, gone dark with water. His stillness. And they didn't matter . Not to him.
He remembers— fuck , he remembers scoffing. Rolling his eyes while Recovery Girl lectured. Slouching through the certification courses with his arms crossed and his jaw clenched. Calling it extra. Saying it was busywork. That someone else would always be there to handle it. Support staff. Medics. Rescue teams.
Kirishima, maybe—Kirishima was always the first to volunteer. Always ready. Always paying attention . Taking it seriously, like he was prepping to save the world one CPR dummy at a time.
Midoriya—definitely. That fuckin' nerd had probably memorized the entire Red Cross handbook and carried it around in his back pocket. He knew the ratios. The techniques. The theory . Could probably explain the science behind every step.
And Katsuki—he had laughed it off. Waved it away. Brushed past it like it was beneath him. He would be the one doing the fighting. The one making the first move. The one blowing through villains and winning, goddammit. He wasn't going to be the guy kneeling in the dirt, shaking, sobbing, begging someone to breathe again.
That wasn't his role. Wasn't his purpose. He wasn't meant for the quiet parts. The tender ones. The ones where you held on, where you didn't let go, where you tried to keep someone alive with your hands alone.
He was meant for the explosions. The fire. The glory. The important shit. That's what he told himself. Over and over.
So he didn't need to know CPR. Didn't need to care. Because this—this wasn't supposed to be him.
Not the one crouched in the mud, sobbing for air, with his fingers slipping on someone's chest and his heart beating too fast to count. Not the one scrambling. Not the one helpless. Not the one trying to do this quiet kind of saving—the kind that doesn't look heroic. The kind that's all silence and stillness and too fucking late.
Now—now here he is. Kneeling in the fucking dirt. Chest heaving. Soaked to the bone, his uniform clinging to him like dead weight, saturated with river water and sweat and blood. There's mud in his hands. Under his nails. Ground into the creases of his knuckles.
It's mixed with the blood from where he wiped at it with his slit palm—it's in his mouth, probably down his chin—and he can't even tell if it's all his, or if some of Todoroki's is in there too.
Doesn't matter. None of it fucking matters. Because he's pressing life into a body that isn't moving. Hands slipping over Todoroki's chest, over fabric that's too wet, too cold, too still. He doesn't know if he's doing it right. He doesn't know if it's working. If it's helping .
If it's already too late.
And Todoroki—Todoroki still isn't moving. Still limp. Still pale. Still blue.
And in that moment—in the dark, in the cold, with the river behind him like a threat that never left, and Todoroki's head lolling to the side, jaw slack, lips that awful shade of blue—Katsuki hates himself. Fucking hates himself.
Every heartbeat is a punch. Every breath is acid. Every second he's alive and Todoroki isn't breathing feels like a personal failure.
He hates every time he rolled his eyes during training. Every time he slouched in his chair and dismissed it as someone else's job. Every time he cracked a joke. Every time he scoffed. Every single second he told himself this wasn't for him.
That he didn't need to know CPR. That he wouldn't be the one on his knees in the mud, doing chest compressions with tears burning the corners of his eyes and dirt ground into his palms.
He thought he'd be the one throwing punches. The one winning. The one walking away from the wreckage with fire in his chest and a grin on his face.
Not this. Not this . Not the one fumbling, shaking, crying behind clenched teeth, desperate to fix something he was too proud to prepare for.
He hates that his hands are too slow. Too numb. Too unsteady. He hates that his weight is wrong, that his pressure is uneven, that he can't tell if he's helping or hurting.He hates that he's here at all—that he didn't listen. Didn't learn. Didn't fucking care until now.
He hates every second he ever wasted thinking this kind of saving was soft. Secondary. Unworthy of his time. Every breath he ever took that wasn't used to learn how to do this right. Because now—now Todoroki might die for it.
And Katsuki— Katsuki might be the one who let him.
And most of all—more than the cold, more than the ache in his spine or the burn in his lungs—Katsuki hates the silence. The silence between Todoroki's breaths. The silence that shouldn't be there. The space that stretches too long. Too wide. Too quiet.
It presses down on him with a weight worse than the river. There's no sound. No stir. No sign. Not even the whisper of a breath catching at the back of Todoroki's throat. Just the stillness. Stillness that feels like an answer.
The wrong one.
His hands won't stop shaking. Not from cold now, not just. But from terror . From the pounding of his heart. From the fury boiling behind his eyes.
He presses again. And again. And again . His palms slam into Todoroki's chest in uneven bursts, his elbows locking, shoulders screaming under the strain. His back's on fire—a livewire from the base of his spine to the blades of his shoulders. Muscles twitch and threaten to give out.
But he doesn't stop. He won't .
His entire body is failing—muscles shaking, lungs shredded, joints locking with every ragged motion. His vision pulses at the edges, dark spots flickering like static. His arms don't want to hold his weight anymore. His spine threatens to fold. His fingers are stiff and useless, his grip barely holding.
But he keeps moving. Because stopping isn't rest. Stopping is surrender . And Katsuki Bakugou does not fucking surrender. Because if he stops—if he lets the silence settle, lets it bloom wide and empty between them like it's allowed to stay—then Todoroki stays gone .
And Katsuki can't let that happen. So he moves. Again. Still. Always. He grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches. Clenches every muscle he has left like it'll keep his bones from flying apart.
And then—he does the only thing left to him—
He leans down.
Shaking. Burning. Desperate. The movement isn't clean. It isn't graceful. It's slow and shuddering , driven not by control but by instinct—the same kind of primal force that drags wounded animals back to their feet. His chest feels like it's caving in with the effort. Every rib aches. Every breath scrapes up his throat like it's been dipped in glass.
But still—he lowers himself. His hands frame Todoroki's face, clumsy and numb. Thumbs slipping against too-cold skin. Knuckles catching on the sharp edge of his jaw. And then—his mouth—Right there. Right against Todoroki's.
And everything inside Katsuki pauses. Not stops. Not hesitates. Just… folds in. Because this isn't how it was supposed to feel. Not cold. Not slack.
It's not anything like he imagined. It's like kissing a ghost.
There's no heat. No breath. No tension. No pull of lips, no gentle lean-in, no hand reaching back. Just— absence. Stillness so total it rings in his ears. A silence so heavy it pushes down on his shoulders like a physical weight. A wrongness so absolute it makes his stomach turn. And fear—not loud, panicked fear. But quiet. The kind that settles in the marrow. The kind that lives behind the eyes and doesn't need words.
Katsuki seals his mouth over Todoroki's. His eyes squeeze shut. And he breathes . Hard. Deep. Like it hurts. Because it does . Once. Twice. The exhale burns in his chest, scorches his throat on the way out, like giving Todoroki air is costing him part of his own.
He doesn't think. He can't. There's no room left in him for thoughts. No space for logic. No checklist. No memory of training. Just this narrow tunnel of action. Of do. Of move. Of save him.
Because thinking—thinking means feeling. And if he feels—if he lets even one flicker of what's clawing behind his ribs through—he'll break. And Todoroki can't afford for him to break. Not now. Not yet.