Chapter Text
“Have any of you seen Bakugou?”
….
Kirishima threw the stick he’d picked up into the forest hard enough to hear it snap as it struck a tree.
The question had reverberated through the cabin as though Katsuki himself had set off the explosion. He’d probably just gone outside. It wasn’t worth worrying about. But the longer it was with no reappearance… He hadn’t been exaggerating the night before when he’d told Sensei how important the older boy was to keeping the class’s fears at bay.
He stalked the edge of the clearing, pausing to take out his frustration on yet another twig, the -whoosh- it made as he swung it through the air satisfying in a primal sort of way.
When Katsuki had failed to return, the tension caused by his absence had grown into something of a sense of dread. Several of them, all who could stand without getting dizzy or queasy or doubling over in pain, had all seemed to come to the same conclusion at once and spilled out of the cabin to look for him, dread and annoyance mingling as a search of the clearing proved fruitless. They had even ventured into the edge of the forest but no one had dared to go far enough in to risk losing sight of the cabin, and there had been no answer to their calls. At last Iida had shaken his head and herded everyone back towards their shelter.
Kirishima had stayed outside, walking the edge of the clearing again and again as though to find some clue that they’d missed. He needed to punch something. Sticks weren’t enough. Whether that something was Katsuki or if he just wanted the physical release of feeling the hit, he wasn’t certain. He stopped and buried his hands in his hair, grounding himself in the pressure of the strands tugging against his scalp. Ugh! Where are you, Bakubro?
Standing still as he was, compelling himself to breathe through the anxiety in a way he hadn’t needed to since middle school, he closed his eyes and reached out for a way to anchor himself against the turmoil, felt the way the cool breeze brushing his cheeks mingled with the warmth of the early dawning sun, smelled the damp earthy smell of grass washed by rain, listened to the birds taking up their morning chorus, and… wait - what was that?
Another sound whispering, blended with, almost hidden behind, the birdsong. He dropped his hands and listened close. Yes! It had to be! Water!
Looking again at his surroundings he noted that he was standing in a far corner of the clearing and off into the woods just here didn’t look quite so overgrown. A path?
Slowly, warily, looking back frequently to ensure that he wouldn’t lose his way, Kirishima made his way towards the sound. The murmuring became a rushing as he drew closer until, breaking through an opening between two large bushes, he found himself standing on a large flat stone overlooking a swollen mountain stream.
Thirst he’d been forcibly ignoring up to now struck with a vengeance, and he flung himself down onto the ground, scooping great gulps of water in his hands. Nothing had ever tasted so refreshing, and after he had drank his fill he lay for a moment revelling in the relief the water had brought, an odd thing when considering how wet they had all been yesterday. At last though he sat up. He needed to tell the others about this.
As he was standing up however something caught the corner of his eye. The small white button looked familiar and he confirmed by holding it up in comparison to the buttons on his own no longer white uniform shirt. Crouching back down for a closer inspection showed an impression in the ground where someone had set their foot down onto the soft shale instead of the larger slabs of rock and a little further down the stream he found another, even more clearly a footprint.
Of course. Kirishima shook his head. Of course. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. The stream would flow downhill and provide a path to follow. Eventually it would have to lead to a bridge or a town, someplace they could get help. It was just like his friend to see that and go looking for help, though it admittedly stung a little to think that he had been left behind.
Kirishima sighed and picked up a rock to chuck into the water as he pushed himself back to his feet. Oh well, it was too late to follow him now, though he hated to think of Katsuki making his way alone with a broken wrist. He can take care of himself, Ei. He reminded himself. He’s been mountain climbing since he was in kindergarten. Right now you’ve gotta take care of the rest of them.
The chorus of concern from his classmates and censure from Iida, he was met by upon returning to the cabin quickly changed to excitement when he revealed the existence of the stream, and they wasted no time in gathering up every water bottle they had. Yaomomo had offered to also make them some canteens or larger buckets, but she’d been overruled for now.
“I know you’re feeling better, but I’d prefer that you save your quirk for if we have a more pressing emergency,” Iida had told her, and she had reluctantly agreed. With Bakubro gone and Sensei and Shoto injured she was the only other one who they knew had much first aid knowledge. They couldn’t risk her becoming exhausted.
Tsuyu, Ochaco, and Izuku had followed him back to the stream to help fill the water bottles. Izuku had looked just as upset as he had when Kirishima showed him the footprints while the girls knelt at the edge of the water and took the opportunity to wash, but he had also come to the same conclusion that for now they needed to stay. They couldn’t abandon their wounded classmates.
The discovery of water had done a lot to raise the spirits of the class, and even Aizawa Sensei looked a bit more hopeful and lost some of that pinched look he’d had since last night though that may have also had something to do with the pain meds that Yaomomo was distributing to anyone who needed them.
Having found the stream however, Kirishima soon found himself wandering back outside the cabin now that they once again had little more to do other than sit around and wait for rescue. However sitting around had never really been his style. He needed something to do !
His wandering led him around to the old shed behind the cabin to peek in through the small window. Some old farm tools and broken crates took up most of the space, but back in the corner… Huh? That tarp looked a lot newer than anything else in there and the crates he could see poking out from under the edge of it appeared to be in much better condition than the ones near the door. Maybe there was something useful inside there after all?
The door was locked, but the lock looked old. Maybe he could break it? Iida would probably object, probably say something about not causing unnecessary property damage or something, but then they’d already broken into the cabin itself and other than that very interesting looking tarp it didn’t seem like anyone had been here in at least a decade...so it was probably fine, right?
He didn’t take any more time considering the moral implications, especially when there was the off chance that maybe he could find something to help his friends. By hardening his hand to give better leverage and thus use his arm almost like a crowbar he was able to pop the lock open though he splintered part of the door in the process.
The inside of the shed smelled just a musty as the inside of the cabin had the night before, light shining in from the open door making dust particles dance in the light. There were old cobwebs over everything, and he found himself sputtering as one strung across the room caught in his mouth before he realized that it was there.
“Kirishima?”
He jumped and turned around, not expecting anyone to be behind him. “Oh, hey, Uraraka.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to see if you were okay? You seemed pretty stressed out that Bakugou was gone - though I’m sure that he’ll be back with help in no time.”
Kirishima rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah, I think I’m good. Just wasn’t really expecting him to disappear like that, you know?”
Ochaco nodded in understanding, then probably sensing that he didn’t really want to talk about that right now, changed the subject. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, um, I just wanted to see if there was anything in here that we could use? I mean it’s most likely just a bunch of old junk if no one ever bothered to haul it out of here, but you never know, yeah?”
Ochaco’s eyes lit up. “Cool! It’s like a treasure hunt! What first? Do you know what any of this stuff out in the open is?”
Kirishima grinned. She got it. “I think most of this stuff is just for gardening, but that tarp kind of looks like it might be newer. Wanna see what’s underneath?”
Ochaco tilted her head. “Huh, you’re right. That does look pretty new. I wonder what it’s doing out here?”
Together they each grabbed hold of a corner of the tarp and flipped it back. The lack of a dust cloud when they did so was more than a little disconcerting, but then how long exactly did it take for dust to build up?
As expected based on what he had seen from the window these crates were indeed newer than the others. They weren’t all the same size. Some were large enough that Tsuyu could probably have fit inside them while others were no bigger than shoeboxes. Most of them looked like the file boxes that Mom hauled records home in when she worked weekends. Some of them had dates stamped on the outside, the newest of which seemed to be about two months ago. The two students’ eyes met across the pile when they saw that one. If someone had been here that recently…? Was this place really as deserted as it had first appeared? Suddenly this old cabin didn’t feel quite so safe any longer.
What could be in here that warranted leaving it in a shed in such an out of the way place?
“Uraraka, maybe you should stand behind me just in case?” For some reason the idea of just not opening the boxes never occurred to either of them. Of course they were going to. You couldn’t just abandon a treasure hunt. Who knew if the box might be boobytraped or something though? Better safe than sorry.
Ochaco nodded and did as he suggested. Kirishima braced himself for whatever they were about to find… and opened the first box.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to find when they pried open the lid of the first box, but papers weren’t exactly it. “Well that was anticlimactic. Just a bunch of old files. I wonder what they're doing out here?”
Ochaco moved back around him and lifted the first manila file off the stack and flipped it open. “Oh…”
“What is it?”
“Take a look for yourself.” She held out the file to him.
His eyes grew wide as he took in the photo of the smiling girl with soft white wings and blue curls and the page of text accompanying it. “This is a police report.”
His classmate nodded. “Missing persons.”
“It says here that she went missing five years ago.”
“What’s it doing here?”
“It’s got a stamp on it that says discarded - maybe she was found?”
“No. Even when they find someone I don’t think they throw the file out.”
“What else is in there?”
‘What else’ proved to be more of the same. The entire box was full of missing persons reports, every one of them marked “discarded”.
By the time they got through the third box, this one full of bank statements and expense ledgers that they could only barely understand, alongside yet more missing persons cases, they were both starting to get seriously freaked out.
“Kirishima, I don’t think that we were supposed to see any of these.”
“Yeah, we definitely need to tell Sensei. This is weird.”
Quickly and carefully they repacked the boxes, trying to make sure that everything went back exactly where they had found it, but in the process Ochaco knocked the lid off of one of the other boxes they hadn’t gone through yet - and when she did so, she gasped.
“What is it?” He came around the pile to look at where she was pointing, one hand over her mouth.
“We were just there…“ she whispered.
On top of the box’s contents was a very familiar looking brochure proclaiming “Delphi Resort and Conference Center” and next to it a file bearing the logo of the International Junior Heroics Conference.