章 12: Recovery

Disclaimer: I don't own My Hero Academia and Dark Souls, both belongs to their respective owners, Kohei Horikoshi and FromSoftware respectively.

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Izuku breathed in the air, his chest heaving up and down as he laid back on a surprisingly intact wall of a demolished building. Slabs of concrete dotted the landscape, some of which emitting smoke due to the acid cloud still not dissipating.

"Hehehe… Good day." Izuku grinned, his hands gripping the hem of his shirt before tearing it off. His head swerved from side to side, vision going blurry as he tried to stay awake.

As Izuku tried to apply a tourniquet around his dismembered leg, he lost his grip, the piece of cloth dropping to the ground.

"Oh come on…" Izuku clicked his tongue, his head tilting down slightly. "Fine, pyromancy it… pyromancy it is…"

Izuku summoned the energy from within and focused it on his right hand. He didn't want to cauterize the wound, but needs must when needs must. Heat began to gather around his fingertips, before ball of fire formed in his palm, hovering a few inches above.

"Hey! White hair! Are you there!" A voice caused him to lose focus for a moment, before he grit his teeth. This was going to hurt.

Without a moment's hesitation, he slammed the fire ball on his dismembered leg, a hiss escaping through Izuku's lips for but a second. Letting go of the energy, the ball of flames vanished, puffs of smoke floating through the air.

"White hair!" The voice was getting closer now. At least Izuku was able to prevent more of his blood from spilling onto the floor. "White hai- There you are! I was so worri- OH MY GOD!"

Izuku looked up and saw the horrified face of the brunette as she used a piece of rebar as a crutch for her sprained or broken ankle. Giving her a smile, Izuku waved her over.

"Hey. Glad to see you're safe…" Izuku exhaled weakly. He then motioned to his injury. "As you can see, I broke too much of a leg."

"Wha- What do you- YA LOST A LEG!" The brunette cried out, eyes dilated as she stared at the missing leg. "HOW ARE YA SO CALM!?"

"Eh, not the first time this happened." Izuku shrugged. The less said about his experiences in Lordran, the better. The poor girl probably couldn't take it.

The brunette how no way to retort, not after hearing that insane reply.

"Alright, make way. Make way!" A grumpy-sounding voice echoed through the wrecked landscape. "You there, cheeks. Sit down and… Sweet Buddha…"

Izuku glanced at the newcomer, a short and wrinkly female dressed in what he assumed was a modified nurse outfit with a lab coat. She also had a walking cane that looked like a giant syringe. It seemed too sturdy for his liking in what was supposed to be just a walking apparatus.

She was also wearing some sort of headgear with visors. Heroes and their costumes, confusing, but sometimes practical.

She was also speechless as her normally slit-thin eyes opened even just a little bit.

She quickly hobbled over towards the grievously injured teen. Well, as fast a wrinkly, old, human could.

"Shit. This is very bad." The old lady grit her teeth as she inspected the overall condition of Izuku. "I'm gonna have Nezu's hide for this. Mount it on my damn wall."

'Welp, it was nice knowing you, RAT GOD.' Izuku mentally saluted the imaginary vision of Nezu growing a pair of angelic wings slowly ascending to the heavens, before it burned and brought the RAT GOD into the earth below and deeper underground.

The granny brought out a phone from her pocket and dialed a number, her foot tapping the ground with a quick rhythm. It rang twice before it was picked up.

Izuku heard chatter coming from the phone for a moment, before it was cut off by the old wrinkled granny.

"I KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING THIS! GET THE MEDICAL BOTS HERE NOW OR SO HELP ME, I'LL HAVE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOUR ASSES MOUNTED ON MY DAMN FIREPLACE!" The shriek coming from the diminutive old lady came as a surprise to both Izuku and the brunette.

'Who knew she had a pair of lungs at her age.' Izuku mused with a slight smile. Inhaling deeply, he exhaled slowly, trying to slow the beating of his heart. Less blood loss that way, more chances of him remaining alive and not being a corpse again.

That said, Izuku was still curious whether he had only a single life left in this world since there were no bonfires, or will he still resurrect?

"-y… Hey, kid! Snap out of it! Wake up!" Izuku opened his eyes as he was literally shook by the old lady. "Good. I was this close to slapping you awake."

"… Is this how you treat your patients?" Izuku raised an eyebrow, already liking this old granny.

"Who's the medical expert here?" The granny harrumphed, closely inspecting the extent of Izuku's injury. "If you're energetic enough to snark back, then you're good enough to sit down, relax, and be a good boy."

Izuku abided by the granny's words. Why make her job harder? After all, Izuku had no idea how to manage this kind of injury. If this happened, he just yeeted himself off a high ledge or allowed a hollow to kill him.

Even an Estus Flask wouldn't be able to regenerate a lost leg. By Gwyn, Izuku missed that bottle. The first thing he'll do when he finds Patches is to get his Estus Flask back.

That is, if the bald man actually went into the first kiln to raid his corpse. Pretty sure that was in his M.O. Can't be too careful around that man.

"Hm, bruises on the arms." The granny continued her inspection on Izuku, his plain shirt ruined beyond recognition, showing some of the scars he got when in Lordran. "You have trouble breathing? Chest hurting?"

"Not really." Izuku chuckled.

"Ribs are probably fine, need to check back in the clinic." The granny murmured as she continued her inspections. "Anywhere else hurting?"

"Other than my right leg, I'm as good as any." Izuku gave a shrug, not really minding the loss of his leg. He could fight one legged if the situation calls for it. It would suck, though.

"Hm… Cauterize is clean, but I'll have to apply some dressing." The granny frowned. "Where the hell are those bots? Nezu, I swear…"

And just as the granny was about to continue cursing the RAT GOD's name, the bots arrived bringing along a stretcher.

"Finally, get the kid and bring him to the clinic ASAP!" The medic bots obliged and as swiftly as they arrived, grabbed Izuku and gently placed him the stretcher before hauling ass. "As for you, girly."

The granny focused on the brunette who looked like a fish out of water, her face a bit green from the gore that happened to Izuku. She slowly hobbled over, the tip of her syringe walking stick making audible taps against the asphalt.

"Hm… Sprained ankle, shouldn't be too hard to fix." She reached into her lab coat's pocket and drew out a gummy bear. Suddenly, her lips began to stretch all the way towards the brunette's ankle and kissed it. Her lips retracted back to their original position a few moments later. "Take these, it'll help."

The brunette was not sure what happened, but the pain on her ankle was gone and that was all that mattered.

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"Nezu, I hope you have a way to resolve this… sensitive matter." Midnight glared at the rat, who was calmly sipping his tea as he monitored the room where Izuku was currently admitted.

"For once, I have to agree with Midnight here." Shota frowned as he looked at the screen with a very injured teen. "This is not a good picture. If those vultures find out…"

"Calm yourselves, all will be fine." Nezu grinned as he looked at his fellow teachers. "You would be surprised to learn the capabilities of this relatively young student."

"Relatively young?" Shota raised an eyebrow at the specific term used by the RAT GOD.

"You will all see soon enough." Nezu cackled as he continued observing the teen.

As this happened, Izuku lied on the bed, his face morphed into a slight frown.

'Hmm… How do I get my leg back without committing suicide?' Izuku pondered as his head leaned against the fluffy pillow. For a clinic, they had some very fluffy pillows and beds.

As he continued to search for answers, he counted the tiles on the ceiling. Once he counted all the tiles, he then went on to count all the lines. After that, since he still couldn't find an answer by searching through his mind and memories, he counted the tiles again, but this time, in reverse.

"This is useless." Izuku exhaled, head throbbing slightly at the mental ordeal he went through. Looking at his fully bandaged leg, he was a bit amused at how it looked like somebody wrapped it in toilet paper without leaving any gap or opening. "Oh well, might as well meditate."

His mentor always told him that meditating was a Pyromancers way to settle the energy within them, and after using his pyromancy against the 0-pointer, it was high time for Izuku to settle the raging inferno within his core.

Only, as he did so, he felt something else. Something deeper… Hotter… Stronger… It was powerful, blinding even. He felt it deep within his core, buried beneath all of the other energies and souls that laid restless within.

Curious, Izuku reached out for it. At first, there was nothing, but as he continued to grasp the source, he felt it. It was but a speck, tiny in the face of enormous opposition…

It was but an ember, amidst the roaring gale of the wind.

Grasping it, he felt it course through his veins, the heat singeing the sheets and pillows of the bed. Izuku gasped, feeling the primordial power course through him, like a tidal wave of pure magma rushed over him.

He burned. He burned as hot as the sun. And like a candle flickering in the wind, it was gone.

Sweat pooled down his body, the sheets of his bed soaked to the brim. It was also steaming slightly due to the heat he emitted earlier.

"What… What was that…?" Izuku had no words to describe it. In all his time in Lordran, that was a new sensation he felt. It felt like he was being cast upon the inferno with nothing but his naked body.

It was then he felt something familiar. Looking down, he saw that his right leg was no longer half of what it used to be. Instead, his right leg was back to being fully healed, the bandages that once wrapped around his knee fading into ash.

"That was weird…" Izuku breathed heavily, his heart still pounding from the sudden invasion of that… thing that nestled deep within his chest. "Well… Not the first time something weird happen…"

With his leg back, Izuku got up from the bed and jumped straight to his feet, pleased at the fact that his leg still works as intended.

"Okay, good so far." Izuku smirked as he performed jumping jacks and squats. Laughing aloud, he then practiced some kicks, one that any trained martial artists wouldn't be caught dead doing.

It was that horrendous.

"Legs feel fine. Body feels good. Head? Still has screws lose." Izuku chuckled. He knew he couldn't go back to being the Izuku of the old. That person was long gone, murdered by the inhabitants of Lordran. But sometimes, he couldn't help but be thankful. He wouldn't be where he was at currently if not for what happened to him.

A tragedy, sure, but even a tragedy as fucked up as his has a silver-lining.

As he continued his shadow boxing, his ears picked footsteps from outside. Not a second later, the door to the clinic opened and revealed the same granny that had the bots bring him here.

"Well sonny, I hop-" The old woman went silent as she stared at the teen jumping around with his legs. Plural being the key term. "… I'm too old for this shit…"