The hideout smelled like antiseptic and rot.

Hours earlier, Endeavor had gotten the call mid-work study. Possible League activity. Abandoned warehouse district. Nomu involvement suspected.

Shoto moved through the corridor in silence. Ahead, his father’s flame carved shadows into the walls.

The sweep was clean. Room after room. Nothing. Abandoned.

They were here, Shoto thought. The equipment made that obvious. The smell made it obvious. But whatever the League had been doing in this building, they were long done with it.

“Clear,” Bakugo said from somewhere down the hall.

“Clear,” Midoriya echoed.

Shoto pushed open the door at the far end of the corridor and stopped walking.

The room was full of things he recognized from medical textbooks. Tanks. Monitors. Tubing coiled like something shed and left behind. His father stepped in beside him, and the flame at his shoulder threw orange light across the floor.

And found you.