She opened her eyes expecting to see Eric and Aizawa, and she did see them. Except that Eric was a bit older and Aizawa's beard had grown in.

  "Morning sunshine." Eric smiled. "Planning to sleep your life away?"

She huffed, looking between the two of them.

  "You woke me up forever too early."

  "This is too much deja vu," Aizawa complained.

  "You're right," Nagisa agreed. "The last time this happened, Eric and I were younger, I was in handcuffs, and it was Choseki instead of Sasaki."

  "You're this close to getting those cuffs back."

She frowned at Aizawa's statement and looked around. No machines were hooked up to her or anything of the sort. She must've been here a while longer than she thought.

She looked at the two.

  "When can I leave?"

The men shared a glance, before Aizawa refocused his gaze on her again. Sighing, he ran a hand through his long hair.

  "When can I leav—"

  "—when a number of things have been sorted out." Aizawa glared. "Like you, the press, and the kid, for example."

Nagisa grunted. "The press?"

Her glare and the UA teacher's gaze on Eric made him a bit uncomfortable, he almost shrunk away.

  "I swear I was going to tell you."

  "Uh huh."

  "Sara is coming over," Aizawa informed, heading to the door. "After which we can work out what to do next."

Eric barely had time to follow after before Nagisa's second grunt stopped him in his tracks.

  "What is it, Eric?"

He hesitated. "You were crying... in your sleep."

Nagisa huffed and he pushed on.

  "You were thinking about—dreaming about— that evening, weren't you?"

  "Why...?" she whispered softly. "Why did you send them after us...? Why did you get her killed...?"

He sighed, replying honestly.

  "If I had known the order they were going to give on arrival, I would've stayed and helped you myself."

Her eyes narrowed.

  "Really?"

  "Yes."

  "Even if I was a killer?"

He sighed again. "Nagisa, I—"

He was interrupted by the door opening and revealing Sara with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. The three of them shared glances. Long, uncomfortable glances; having being related one way or another to the incident of five years ago.

Eric suddenly excused himself, leaving the room and leaving the two ladies to it. Nagisa watched him leave silently before looking at Sara holding up some clothes.

  "I just picked everything in my wardrobe that was your size, that's all," Sara explained. "We can head over to my apartment to get you properly cleaned up and rested—I know how you are with hospitals, after which we'll return here—"

  "How's Ushio?" Nagisa asked, interrupting her friend.

Sara clearly hesitated. Putting the clothes and bag down, she sat on a chair pulled up to the bed.

  "She woke up a couple of times, burned her bandages and blankets a couple of times. Complained about it being too bright..." Sara paused and looked at her friend. "She was asking for you."

The Pro Hero only hummed. Sara sighed, moving so that she sat on the bed.

  "Nagisa."

Silver hues met hers. She spread her arms, small smile sitting on her features as she waited. Nagisa huffed, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, falling forward into the embrace and letting the comfort of her friend engulf her.

☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

Her resting wasn't as pleasant as she had wanted it to be. Sara hadn't said anything on the way there or back, and Eric hadn't bothered trying to find her to talk when they'd returned. Oddly enough, she was grateful for that too. She had heard way to many sorries in the past and more than half were forced, so having no one speak, brought an of sense of peace to her.

So imagine her reaction when she went to check on Ushio, only to find her door and room flooded with nurses and the like, holding notepads, recorders and cameras.

  "What in heavens name..." she began to herself, but then decided to address them. "What the hell are you doing?!"

The disguised reporters didn't seem to hear her or even notice her. There must've been twice a dozen or so of them, squeezing into the small ward, trying to get to Ushio's bed.

Ushio, on the other hand, not feeling comfortable with all the flashes and white lights because of the Hassakai, had curled up into a ball under the covers. Despite her eyes being bandaged, and the added blanket layer over her face, she could still see the flashes, and in turn, she saw that ominous doctor's mask hovering over her face.

A cold gust of air hitting her body made her raise her hands to better shield her face, curling further up into the bed as she felt microphones and other things nudge her. She didn't like it. She didn't like the questions, the prying. It made her uncomfortable; her body heating up due to her quirk.

  "Excuse us, Ushio, is it true you worked as an assassin for Blackmark?"

  "How many people have you killed?"

  "Were one of the UA students your targets during your time here? Is that why you came to Japan?"

  "How do you think the authorities will judge you?"

  "Move out of the way—"

  "What was your involvement with the Hassakai?"

  "Can you explain a little on your quirk?"

  "What is your relationship wit—"

  "MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!"

A large blade— a bunch of them really— seemed to sprout of of thin air, planting themselves into the floor around the bed and shielding Ushio from the onslaught of reporters. A furious Nagisa stood between the blades and the dummy hospital staff, her clothes in tatters from producing that many great-swords at one go.

Her sudden appearance halted the madness, reporters stunned. But when Ushio seemed to rematerialise in the far corner of the room, arms bleeding from abruptly being disconnected from the IV bags, they surged forward, only to be stopped by one of the large swords digging a line through the floor between them and the the girl.

  "Miss Sabito, could you please explain—"

Gasps at the sudden cracking of glass and piercing of machines drew their attention to their cameras, microphones and various recorders that suddenly had little knives sticking out of them.

  "Hey!" one of the men yelled. "These are expensive!"

  "More expensive than a child's sanity?!" Nagisa yelled back, effectively shutting them up. "What is wrong with you?! You can't even be considered human acting the way you are."

  "Can you blame us if it's every reporters dream to get at least half a scoop on Blackmark?"

Her silver eyes snapped at the woman who spoke.

  "You want a scoop on Blackmark, I'll give you a scoop on Blackmark— at your forsaken press conference— NOW GET OUT!"

She turned to attend to Ushio, but some fool opened their mouth again.

  "You never appeared in the past, why would we take your word for it now?"

Nagisa huffed, a bitter, annoyed huff.

  "You take my word"— her back became an array of blades— "or you take my word. You have no other options."

  "And you will leave your writing materials with me," came Eric's voice as they silently filtered out, confused and handing him their things. "Thank you."

He closed the door, looking at Nagisa with an apologetic smile that she returned hesitantly, before his eyes widened.

  "Nagisa..." he warned.

Ushio had collapsed on the floor, hands fallen away from her face as a mixture of blood and energy pooled out of her mouth. Nagisa hurriedly lifted her onto her lap, hissing at the scalding heat of her body but not letting go.

  "Eric, get a real doctor in here!" she yelled. "Ushio... Ushio it's me— it's Nagisa..."

  "It hurts... much... so much."

It wasn't loud, but Nagisa could hear it, even if just barely.

What she could also barely feel was Ushio's close to nonexistent pulse.

  "Hey, stay with me... It's gonna be okay, Ushio... Just stay with me..."