After having my grimly thought soliloquy, I approached the fog door, gate? I don’t know… Anyway, ignoring that fact for a moment, I pushed my hand through the gate. My hand sunk through the fog, covering it up to my elbow. Once it reached my shoulder, the fog dissipated and my view became clear.

A rusted iron cage door came into view. Within that caged room, the same knight that helped me escape my prison was lying down face up.

“Oh! It’s that knight!” shouted Uraraka as she pointed at the screen.

“Is he trustworthy though?” Aizawa drawled as he observed the memory.

“Hey! Over here!” I called out, but he/she didn’t reply. The door was rusted shut, and rubble was making it impossible to access. I looked for a way in but found none. Leaving him/her for the moment, I move forward. A terrace greeted my view when I did so, the bonfire sitting at the dead center of the open area.

‘Wait, there was a rusted door over there earlier…’ I thought and continued. The right pathway led me to a staircase going either down, or up. I choose down since I know for a fact that the rusted door was sitting in that corner quietly.

An lo and behold, it was right there, and there was the bolt lock. I grabbed it, unlocked the door, and opened it, the fire from the bonfire looking like it was inviting me to join its warmth.

“…” everybody was silent when the rusted door that refused to budge earlier just easily opened like that… by turning a bolt lock that wasn’t even locked, to begin with…

“Logic?” Present Mic asked with a twitchy grin.

“None,” Izuku replied with an amused smirk.

I ignored the bonfire for the moment and continued upwards. I went up the staircase when suddenly, I felt a rumble, then a loud thud. I looked up the stairs and saw what any who watched the movie Indiana Jones knew of.

“Don’t tell me…” Kaminari said with dread. The same could be said for the others watching the memory.

The dreaded boulder… If it’s one thing you respect in that movie, it’s the boulder. Never fight the boulder…

“I knew it…” everybody collectively said with a sigh, while Izuku chuckled.

“You haven’t seen Sen’s Fortress yet,” Izuku’s words put a nasty thought into everybody present.

Pushing my body to its limits, I jumped to the right and hoped for the best. I tumbled down the stairs as I heard a loud smash from above, but that didn’t stop my tumble down.

“Ack! Gah! Argh!” agonized screams escaped my lips as my body felt pain every time I bumped into a rough stair ledge. Once I reached the bottom, my body felt very sore… very, very sore…

Everybody who watched Izuku tumble down the stairs like that winced.

“That’s gotta hurt like hell man,” Kaminari said with a sympathetic frown. The others nodded in agreement.

Izuku took it all in stride, waiting for their reactions to his first death.

“It… Hurts…” I complained with wheezing breaths. It wasn’t like the pain before when I ran from the monster, but it was still pain.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

And pain hurts, whether emotional or physical…

Bakugou winced at Izuku’s thought.

I slowly got up, careful not to put any more pressure on my body, and trudged up the stairs. Once up, I saw a huge hole from where the boulder probably crashed into. I head inside and saw the same knight sitting on a pile of rubble.

Everybody tensed, bar Izuku.

He noticed me, as seen by him/her tilting his head ever so slightly towards my visage. I heard him/her heave a sigh of relief when he saw that I wasn’t hostile.

Everybody relaxed, bar Izuku again…

“… Oh, you… You’re no Hollow, eh?” the knight started with a very obvious male voice. “Thank goodness… I’m done for, I’m afraid…”

“W-what do you mean d-done for…?” I asked, voice still shaky from my tumble down the stairs. The knight leaned his head against the pile of rubble in response.

“I’ll die soon, then lose my sanity…” he said solemnly, causing my breath to hitch. ‘Die? He’ll die? No! I need to help him!’

“Wait, what!?” most of the class 1-A yelled in shock. Death? He was there right? Wasn’t he just resting?

“The monster…” Momo said with a frown, getting the attention of the other students. “Maybe he fought that thing and lost…”

Everybody shuddered, except Izuku of course.

Before I could do so, he shifted his gaze towards me for the second time, this time though, I felt something drawing me into those helmet eye-sockets of his.

“I wish to ask something of you…” he begins, prompting me to stay quiet and listen, my previous thoughts are forgotten in lieu of listening closely. “You and I, we’re both undead… Hear me out, will you?”

“… Nani the fuck?” everybody, even the teachers had to say that out loud. Hell, even Nezu wasn’t exempt from that curveball.

My mind crashed… ‘Undead? As in, those zombies in the zombie movies I saw? Those undead?’

Shaking my head to rid of those thoughts, I focus on the words of the knight. He will die soon, and I have no other way to help… then…

“Typical Izuku…” Uraraka and some others who were saved by Izuku muttered under their breaths.

“A-all right… I’ll h-hear you o-out…” I stutter through shaky breaths. The knight nodded, probably smiling underneath that helmet of his.

“… Regrettably, I have failed in my mission… But perhaps you can keep the torch lit,” he reached for his satchel that was strapped to his side and began fumbling through it. “There is an old saying in my family… Thou who art Undead, art chosen… In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of the Ancient Lords… When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know…”

“… The plot thickens…” Kaminari joked, before getting stabbed by Jirou’s ear jacks.

“Kaminari, I swear, another bad joke, I’m sticking these in your ears,” Jirou threateningly levitated her earphone jacks and Kaminari shut up.

I stood there, speechless at his words. I was confused, racking my brain for anything to make me connect the dots, but nothing. Ancient Lords, Bell of Awakening, what the heck are those!?

“Well, now you know,” I snapped out of my thoughts when his voice entered my ears. “And I can die with hope in my heart… Oh, one more thing… Here, take this…”

He pulled his hand out of the satchel and in it, a vial of orange liquid. I took it from his hands, my arms slightly shaking from the pain earlier, but now more manageable.

“An Estus Flask, an Undead favorite… Oh, and this…” he gave me another item, a key this time. “Now, I must bid farewell… I would hate to harm you after death… So, go now… And thank you…”

After having said his piece, his head slumped down, unmoving. I stared at him… no… his corpse, in shock… Dead… just like that… no warning… in just a moment… he died…

“…”

Silence… The teachers gave a mental salute, while the teens were flabbergasted.

I touched his armor, but no movement… I cried…

“N-no… T-this isn’t happening… I-it’s a-all just a d-dream…” I slumped to my knees in defeat, continued to cry, and let the tears flow.

“I was wondering where his denial went…” Yagi muttered under his breath.

The others winced in sympathy at the teen. Who knew what they would’ve done in his situation.

A few minutes later, I got up and bowed towards the corpse.

“Thank you…”

A simple word of thanks towards the man who might’ve saved my life. I checked the vial of orange liquid, inspecting it closely.

“An Undead favorite… then…” I pursed my lips and opened the lid. I took a sip of it and felt my entire body burn. I coughed. It felt like my throat was on fire, my tongue like it was sizzling in boiling water, but a few seconds later, that was all gone and the pain subsided. Not just the pain from drinking the infernal abomination known as Estus, but from the rough drop from the stairs…

“… Recovery Girl will be pleased to hear about that vial, Midoriya Izuku,” Nezu said with his sly smile. Izuku chuckled in response.

“I don’t think Estus will work with humans,” Izuku replied with a bitter smile.

“Hm… Fair point.”

“Wow…”

One word was all I needed to describe the feeling. I felt fully rested like I was never in any pain, but the thought of Oscar’s death had me contemplating about stuff a teen shouldn’t.

While I was absorbed in thought, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I hissed and looked at the cause, and saw something sharp lodged inside it. I froze, and looked at the person… or thing… that stabbed me.

Everybody paled. That was a fatal blow, there was no chance of recovery. All of them looked at Izuku, but in response, he chuckled lightly and told them to look back at the screen.

‘It hurts… Can’t breathe…’ I pulled myself off the broken sword, blood gushing out of my chest wound. I tried to attack back, only to miss, and the ‘thing’ retaliated with more slashed, sending me down into a puddle of blood.

“I-is this w-where I d-die…?” I muttered with a shaky breath. I didn’t want to die. I don’t want to… I want to return… Back to home… Mom…

I forced my body to move, only for my vision to turn black after an excruciating pain hit the back of my head.