Chapter Text
Ryuko knew something was wrong when she saw the threads fraying on her beloved uniform. The life fibers that made up his body were dissolving in a glowing stream ever so slowly, and then with urgency in his weakening voice, Senketsu jerked the both of them back down to earth.
The air around them caught fire as they descended through the atmosphere, shooting down like a star. Her heart thundered in her head, blue eyes wide with panic as she gazed down at him, burning, burning, burning away into nothing- not again, not again, not like Dad!
“NO! Don’t do anything stupid, Senketsu!” She shouted against the roaring gale, tears beginning to bead at the edges of her eyes.
Her Kamui only gave a dismal chuckle. “This coming from you, Ryuko?”
“Senketsu!” Desperation choked her voice and clawed at her insides, throat and eyes tightening against both the wind and the pure emotion welling up.
Because she knew it, and he knew it, that he was dying. He was dying and didn’t want her to go with him, but if he went she would already be half dead. Senketsu was disintegrating in the greatest sacrifice anybody could make, but she was helpless to do anything about it.
Or was she? Couldn’t she do something? She had a flash of inspiration, a memory coming to the forefront of her mind with Harime Nui manipulating her life fibers. There was no reason Ryuko couldn’t do the same thing; her own fibers were still in top condition and able to do that crazy regeneration, so maybe….
His lapels were now burning, almost encroaching on his eyes. “I had a wonderful time knowing you...but you can’t wear a sailor uniform forever-” he stated, only to be violently cut off by the girl clinging to his dissolving form letting out a deep throated growl.
“NO!” Ryuko screamed into his face, her tears beading and flying upwards. “YOU IDIOT! YOU DON’T GET TO MAKE THAT CHOICE FOR ME, SENKETSU!”
For perhaps the first time, she consciously manipulated the fibers of her body. They came sluggishly at first, burning like hellfire in her veins, but she made them move through sheer, stubborn determination. They threaded through her fingertips and flowed into the uniform beneath her, wrapping around his own fibers to keep them in place as they felt her wish to regenerate Senketsu.
His eyes were wide now, yelling something, but Ryuko ignored it in favor of shoving all her focus into her task. But he was still being eaten away faster than she could repair him, and so in a split second decision, Ryuko flipped herself around and curled her form about her friend protectively.
The skin on her back almost immediately burst into burning and blistering with the intense heat, and she suppressed a scream with gritted teeth. Her nerves were ablaze with agony, but somehow she was able to stay conscious enough to keep going until she was sure Senketsu wasn’t unraveling anymore. He shook against her chest, and then she faintly realized he was sobbing.
“Ry-ryuko…”
Her own, pained tears flowed out of her eyes, clutching him to her chest. “You’re not just some expendable sailor uniform, you idiot! YOU’RE A PERSON AND MY BEST FRIEND! AND I’M GONNA WEAR YOU FOREVER, whether you like it or not! So you can take those words and shove it!”
Nobody else was going to die in front of her again. Not like Dad, or even Ragyo. Not today, at least.
Senketsu was still here, and it was going to stay that way.
And so they plunged through the atmosphere, their trajectory hurtling towards Honnouji. They left the layer that lit both of them aflame, puffy clouds shooting past with the rushing of the wind as they fell down to the stadium below.
“I’M COMING RYUKO!”
She gasped, eyes shooting open and teardrops scattering at the voice. Then the hard impact into soft arms, , pushing Satsuki violently back and not stopping, then-
“RYUKO!” “MATOI!” -everybody was there, working to bring them back safely, and then they crashed against the far wall of the ruined academy.
They were all nestled together, a family, laughing and crying, and the person who was closer to her heart than any other was still with her, hugging her tightly with his still mending sleeves. Looking down, both of his eyes were alight with wonder, happiness and hope for the future. Her vision was blurred with joyful tears sliding down her cheeks.
For once, the world felt right.
Unfortunately, the world didn’t exactly like what had just occurred. “Fate” dictated that Senketsu die in a blaze of glory, destined to be burned saving his partner. “Fate” had been brutally destroyed with this one act, and with the fabric of reality already taken a hit from the near-godlike power of Shinra-Koketsu and the Primordial Life Fiber, that fabric was now doing what Senketsu should have done.
The threads of spacetime dissolved around the anomaly, ripping through the seams of the universe. There, were, however, a few threads that were dislodged and carried away in the process.
One moment Ryuko was cradled in the arms of her sister and friends, also hugging Senketsu desperately to her chest, and then everything went to hell. There was an echoing noise, like something being ripped, and a bright light flooded the area.
“What the-” were the only words that escaped her mouth before an insane rush of air pulled the whole group down into the blinding abyss below.
There were screams and cries as the people were tossed and torn away from each other around her, intense whorls of SOMETHING sending them shooting in different directions, the only record of their existence the fading voices of the lost. Mako was the first of the people attached to Ryuko to slip, crying, “RYUKO-CHAN!” as she was shorn off of their group. The rest of the Mankanshokus willingly let go in order to pursue their daughter.
The Elite Four were next, with all of them whipped away by one of the stronger gusts of energy. Only Satsuki was left clinging to her sister, blue eyes narrowed in determination and what could have beenfaint terror. Ryuko clutched Senketsu tighter to her chest, her other arm the only thing anchoring her to the Kiryuin still.
“DON’T YOU DARE LET GO, SIS!” The girl shrieked, hand clamping to her sister’s fiercely.
There was a jerking. Satsuki’s pinky slipped. Then the next few followed in quick succession, making the grip finally falter. Her face twisted in panic.
“RYUKOOOOO!”
And then she was gone.
Ryuko’s eyes were wide, looking down at her hand in disbelief, which shook, then retreated to protecting her only remaining companion. As if to reassure herself Senketsu was still here, she glanced down briefly. At some point, it appeared that he’d passed out from either the stress on his body from earlier, or the current situation.
But finally, as if being the great climax, the worst of the turbulence occurred. The energies became bladelike, carving light lacerations into her flesh, and this in combination with the aforementioned turbulence made Ryuko almost completely lose her handle on Senketsu.
The only thing she held tight to was his scarf piece. The rest of the uniform was being ripped away, fabric tearing-
And then everything went dark as she finally passed out.
The low light of the morning is what wakes him this time, filtering through the cloth that served as his eyelids. With a low grumble, Senketsu’s wild orange, yellow and red eyes flicker open to the sight of Ryuko gripping his scarf hard around the middle. She’s softly snoring, cradled in the rumpled sheets and blankets around them. Her distinctive red lock of hair is plastered to her face in an awkward position, framing her sleepy, scowling expression.
She’s so cute when sleeping, he thinks fondly, but his mood sours slightly when she shifts, revealing light blue pajamas. That should be him on there, if it wasn’t for him being incomplete.
Phantom feeling still lingers in the places where the rest of his fabric should be. Curiously, even now, he can sometimes feel things brushing against those patches. Some strange, long distance bond between his fibers, perhaps?
At any rate, despite how adorable his friend was while sleeping, she still needed to get up, for life was calling.
“Ryuko…” he calls softly. She doesn’t stir. “Ryuko.” Still, she sleeps on, dead to the world except for the more pinched expression she carries. And then that expression twists violently into a pained, fearful one, and she begins writhing around a little, faint whimpers coming out of her.
The hand she holds him in is trembling a tad, tightening, and Senketsu lets out a light gasp from the pressure. His eyes narrow in worry, sighing as he realizes the situation.
So he does the only thing he really can do. “RYUKO! WAKE UP!”
She jerks abruptly with a frenzied gasp, releasing him in the brief moment of surprise and tumbling off the edge. A groan comes from the floor, and her groggy blue eyes and thoroughly ruffled black hair appears back over the horizon of the bed. She looks dazed, not quite reunited with reality.
“Senketsuuuu...did ya have to do that?” Ryuko mutters sleepily, rubbing at her crusted eyelids. “It’s way too earlyyyy…”
“You seemed to be caught in a nightmare. Again.”
The light snaps back into place behind her eyes, gaze sharpening and darkening slightly, likely at the memory. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Senketsu presses, still very concerned. The girl has a very bad habit of keeping these kinds of things to herself, and that couldn’t be healthy. He laments that he can’t force her to go see a therapist on his own, since regardless of how human he is in mind, Senketsu’s body is still that of cloth.
“Nah,” She dismisses too quickly. “I’m gonna just get ready. Also, uh,” she glances at the clock. “Why so early, anyway? You usually let me sleep in at least for another few hours, unless Nemuri shows up and does it for you.”
She wrinkles her nose at the thought of her legal guardian. The first time that happened, the pro hero had used a small foghorn that had almost shattered her eardrums. The woman truly was a sadist at heart.
“Ryuko,” the Kamui says in a more reprimanding tone, “it’s entrance exam day. Have you forgotten?”
She stops, eyes widening and mouth opening. “Crud! I don’t wanna be late!”
In a frantic five minutes, the girl hurriedly gets ready, throwing on a rumpled red tracksuit along with Senketsu, and grabs some toast quickly on her way out. She stalls slightly in the kitchen, a pang of loss in her chest at the sight of the empty room, but forces herself to tear her gaze away and rush out the door.
As she finally steps off the bus a half hour later, Ryuko lets out an aggravated and impatient sigh. Why can’t her apartment be closer to this place?
The campus of UA High is huge, and so it takes a good ten minutes to make her way to the building the exam is held in. The crowd flowing in are so diverse, with all the extra limbs, animal heads, or other features, it still makes Ryuko’s head spin just thinking about it.
Almost EVERYBODY has some kind of superpower, according to the records she’d studied for the test. A whopping 80% roam the world with the kind of powerful that could range from being functionally useless to so mind-bendingly strong they could take you out in under a second flat with pure brute force. That’s a far cry from the way Ryuko’s world operated, with the life fibers that gave powers like that hoarded and gathered under a select few.
In any case, she can’t underestimate anybody. Ryuko had learned that the hard way before.
Unfortunately, with Senketsu shredded as he is now, she’s back to being an almost normal human, aside from the boosted regeneration from the life fibers inside her body. But even so, it’s going to be more than enough to get through with flying colors. The written exam on the other hand…
Being dumped into this world only two months before the exams had led to so much cramming, Ryuko thought her head would explode. So much different history, social norms, and other things...ugh. She’s bad enough at those already, but now…
Probably sensing her slight anxiety from her stuttering heart, the aforementioned Kamui lightly squeezes around her neck reassuringly. “It will be fine, Ryuko. Just do your best.”
She’ll make it somehow. Gotta get that apprenticeship in any way possible, get that stupid hero license, and find everybody and everything that was scattered to the winds. Piece of cake. “Thanks, Senketsu,” she whispers. “I’ll remember that.”
And so she enters the building, confidence slowly returning.
Ryuko’s wide eyes scan the paper frantically, problems whirring by as her pencil marks them up. KAMI, this thing is freaking long! There are things from practically every subject here, and even though she studied specifically for this stupid exam, it is strikingly clear that even two months wasn’t enough time to prep for this.
‘What heroes assisted in ending the Japan-wide Quirk Civil War at the end of the Age of Strife?’
She feels her eye twitch, then glances at Senketsu pleadingly. " A little help? Cause it seems like my best isn’t gonna be enough for this," she hisses.
His visible eye squints, then flattens in a glare. " I may know all the answers, but I’m not going to help you cheat! This is supposed to gauge your abilities, not mine!"
With a low growl, Ryuko turns and stares back at the test, despair crashing down on her shoulders. Her eyes flicker back to his helplessly. " Please?"
Senketsu almost immediately caves, drooping a little.
A billion answers later, both hopefully-right random ones and the definite ones provided by a reluctant Senketsu, the written test is over and turned in, Ryuko internally screaming with relief. Soon enough, everyone makes their way to the auditorium for the briefing on the practical exam.
The place is filled to bursting with bustling students, and in the center of it all is a man beneath a spotlight. Violent spikes of blonde hair shoot off of his scalp, and beneath that he wears a pair of sunglasses, headphones, a leather biker outfit, along with some kind of neck-based stereo system.
“HEYYYYYYYYYYYYY LISTENERS, IT’S YOUR HOST FOR TODAY, PRESENT MIC!” the man yells for all to hear. “GIVE ME A HEYYYYY!”
No one speaks up at all, except for this one green haired kid that’s nervously stuttering under his breath. Senketsu lets out a light snort on Ryuko’s neck at the sight.
“UH, well, fine, don’t do that. BUT HEY EVERYONE! Thanks for coming today for the UA Entrance Exam: Practical Edition!” Present Mic tries to rev up the crowd again, but all he gets for his effort is a few half-hearted “Wooo…”s that are scattered around the room.
“SO. The practical is pitting you against mock villains in an urban setting! The goal is to get as many villain points as possible in the ten minute time limit! So here are the types you have to face!”
The screen above him finally flickers to life, revealing a list of robot villain wannabes and their point value. Weird enough, one is depicted as an ‘environmental hazard’, worth exactly zero points. What’s the frickin’ point of that? All the other robots are going to make the environment hazardous enough as it was!
She has a feeling it was some psycho at the school that got off on terrifying almost-highschoolers into wetting their pants, or some other equally screwed up reason.
Nezu violently sneezes into his tea, spraying all over his lap. Letting out a light laugh, he rubs his nose. Perhaps his allergies are acting up again.
So after that fun little orientation, and some stuck up prick calling out the poor stuttering kid, they’re all bussed to the exam grounds. The gate opens, Present Mic spouts some more motivating lines, and the test finally starts. A flood of people rush forward, bashing in mock villains as soon as they are in sight in a myriad of ways.
A crazy haired blonde nearby made one explode in a glorious shower of sparks, while yet another one falls to a wave of electricity.
“Ready, Senketsu?” Ryuko grins, glancing down.
Her friend stretches out the ends of his scarf as far as he’s able. “Ready when you are, Ryuko.”
And so she dives into the fray, blood running hot with anticipation. She hasn’t had a good fight for months, and even Senketsu has been feeling the dearth in activity. But now, adrenaline surges in preparation for the upcoming battle.
With nary another thought, she activates the blood flow to her Kamui. Even incomplete, he ripples with power, synching up with her own fibers as a poor, but able substitute for his own for now. Senketsu’s fabric changes, stiffening up in places and lengthens over her right arm, the crimson red pseudo-metal flashing in the light of the afternoon sun. Familiar blades exude from the ends like a trio of claws.
“ Fuzen Senjin! ” (Partial Blade Flash!)
She flexes her hand and the claws extend and fuse together into a long, navy blue sword with red highlights, and with a grin, it lashes out. Ryuko’s blade plunges into a nearby three-pointer, cutting through the heavy armor with ease. Another approaches from behind, only to be beheaded and gutted in an equally savage manner.
It’s almost disappointing how easy they are to bust apart, after all the enemies they’ve faced together. And feels a little weird, too, given how almost every time, they’d gone through with the Scissor Blades, not just Senketsu’s strength.
A part of her sorely misses those life fiber weapons, and regrets losing them to the incident that sent them all here in the first place. At any rate, the mock enemies are easily dispatched with their teamwork.
Senketsu is helpful in pointing out areas that haven’t been decimated by other testers yet and in avoiding the weird hazard robots roaming around. So by the eight minute mark, Ryuko’s amassed a good deal of points already, though she hasn’t bothered keeping count.
“How many do we got?” she asks between kills.
“We’re nearing the forty point mark soon, so I think we’re doing very well for now,” Senketsu answers.
And then something explodes in the distance, the distinctive boom shattering her euphoric high and eardrums. Ryuko startles with a wince, blue eyes frantically darting around for the source of the noise. Then another ear-shattering sound goes off, nearer this time, and she sees the problem.
An explosion had hit the edge of a building a few meters away, and now it’s falling. The testers beneath the darkening shadow scatter to the winds, shouting and screaming, but a small shape is left.
Her legs move before she knows what’s happening, blood hot with urgency. She’s sprinting now, the fibers in her limbs enhancing every bound and step. With an outstretched arm, Ryuko yanks at the small girl seemingly immobilized in fright and hauls her up and over her head, going just fast enough-!
To almost miss the edge of the building as it finally comes down to earth like a meteor. Even so, her heel clips it as the concrete crashes down, sending the two sprawling to the fake street. A brief burst of pain is the only thing Ryuko feels before the injury rapidly heals over, leaving fresh skin and a blood-covered, tattered shoe.
She huffs, heart pounding, and Senketsu lets the blades retreat so she can bring the girl back to her feet. The kid is short, with ruffled brown hair in a messy bowl cut, and cringes from a few of the scrapes she got from the tumble. It’s almost scary how much she looks like Mako, if Mako had a darker shade of hair and the personality of a startled deer.
“A-aah,” she stutters, eyes still wide like a frightened rabbit. “S-sweet k-kami, I-I almost d-dddd-”
“Yeah, that sorta thing happens when you try out for a hero school,” Ryuko deadpanned. “Maybe you should go to the nurse lady-”
And then the girl fell over in a dead faint, skin chalk white and eyes swirling.
“-aaand she’s gone.”
“AND TIME IS UP!”
The letter is finally here. After another few weeks of fruitless searching for anyone she knew, as well as the equally fruitless search for Senketsu’s pieces, her letter from UA is here.
She’s a bit hesitant at first for some reason, fingers trembling slightly with indecision over opening it, but they still when the voice of her Kamui speaks up. “Ryuko…” Senketsu says, voice uncharacteristically soft and carrying a tinge of excitement. “Open it! Quickly! I think I sense something inside…”
Momentarily, she blinks, confused why that would be the case, until she remembers one small, very important detail. The teen hastily rips it open on the side, her heart beginning to thunder as some small objects fall out of the envelope. One is a round item with a button in the very middle, obviously intended to be activated. And the other one…
A piece of dark navy fabric floats down as it exits.
Ryuko’s heart is in her throat, tears almost stinging the edges of her eyes. She picks it up delicately, as if it would disappear at any second. Here he is. Here’s proof that their search hasn’t been for nothing, that everyone is probably in this world too.
That her sister isn’t as lost as she might have feared.
“Senketsu!” She grins widely. “They found you!”
“A piece, you mean,” he swiftly corrects her, but his visible eye drifts down towards the fabric. “Could I-?”
“Of course!” Ryuko hands it up toward the Kamui, and upon contact, the piece disintegrates into the base life fibers, which are subsequently slurped up. His whole form glows, the very ends of his scarf growing just slightly larger with navy fabric appearing to lengthen the whole thing.
“Ah~!” Senketsu sighs in relief, eyes perking up happily. “I can’t wait until you can wear me properly again!”
“Same here. And we can do that all the faster once UA lets us help out and actually gives us their leads!” She grimaces, ruffling her hair slightly. “Freakin’ stupid vigilante laws, whatever. I’m still gonna wreck whoever has you, just like the last time this happened.”
“I know, and I’m grateful for that. But maybe check and see if they accepted you first.”
“Psh. Fine.” With a tap, the button is pressed and the message is projected into the air. A huge face appears, and her heart jumps back into her throat.
“Frick!” Ryuko falls backwards, chair tipping and sending her crashing to the floor. She grimaces, but looks back up at the hologram to see a large blonde man in a striped suit standing before the camera. She vaguely recognizes him from somewhere, but can’t remember.
“I AM HERE!” The buff man says, grinning. “That’s right, it’s me! All Might! I’ll be joining the UA faculty this year.”
Ohhh, right. The big number one hero, or something like that.
“And now that that announcement has been made,” the hero continues, “time to move on to the results of your exam, young...Ryuko Matoi? You received a passing score on the written exam, and as for your practical?”
All Might’s grin is blinding now, literal stars gleaming off of his teeth. “You attained the second highest score among all the testers, racking up over forty villain points. Now this next statement may be surprising, but there is a second scoring system in place you were not informed of.”
Ryuko grabs her chair and sits up straighter, Senketsu perking, both waiting in anticipation.
“There are rescue points from assisting other testers if they are in need, as it is one of the vital attitudes needed to become a hero! Young Matoi, you helped to rescue a young girl from a collapsing building, and so received twenty rescue points, adding up to sixty points in total!” All Might points towards the camera. “Ryuko Matoi, welcome to your hero academia! The new apprenticeship program is in your sights!”
It blinks off for a moment, and Ryuko realizes that she’s sharing the same grin as the hero now. “I can’t believe I actually passed a test-”
The projector flickers back to life, interrupting. In the frame sits a familiar bear/mouse/creature at a mahogany desk, a delightful smile painted across his muzzle. She defaults to a scowl at the sight of him.
Their first meeting had been anything but pleasant on her end, although it seems like the principal replaced the desk.
“Congratulations on getting into UA, Matoi-san,” Nezu states. “I hope to see our new program working well with you as the first student. As for the other contents of the envelope you received, I can assume your friend has reunited with his piece.”
“In fact, our new faculty, All Might, discovered it while performing some community service. At the local dump.”
Senketsu freezes up, eyes turning into pinpricks that dart to his reunited fibers. A light shudder of clear revulsion passes through his form. “Ryuko. You need to clean me after this.”
She sighs fondly at his reaction. “You are such a wuss. But I guess we gotta mark the occasion somehow.”
The bear/mouse doesn’t even apologize, only smiling slightly wider, teeth showing, as the camera blinks off.
And THAT sends shivers down her spine. Forget Ragyo. This guy is the real psychopath in disguise, giving baby eating faces like that.