He soars high and plummets far into the deep. He feels everything and nothing, but Paul anchors Midoriya against him. He finds the shape of him and his calm. He doesn't dare try to delineate himself beyond this press. He traces the rest of the world--the room, the couch--from Paul instead. He follows Paul's breathing, so loud like everything else, but he can do nothing about his own shattered equilibrium. The old words of his mentor, echoed in Paul's, come back to him: Everything's all right. Why? Because I am here.

"You've saved me. Then grow..." he tries to invite Paul, who has been so kind to him, to that giving place. Midoriya doesn't feel himself go limp, eyes open and unseeing. In a swirling void, he's standing in a floating corner of a blown-apart room. He faces a semicircle of people seated in high-backed chairs. He's cold sober. Ephemeral swathes of the same inky smoke his Omen wears form half his body. He can't walk because he doesn't have legs. He struggles to speak because he doesn't have a mouth.

His voice is muffled and unintelligible at first. "I never thought I'd see you again..." he can be heard muttering in the waking world, soft and grieving. Then his voice turns brisk but respectful as he speaks with others: "It was an accident, but I did train for it... Uh, where does all that come out of, exactly? ...No records from that time..." And in a guttural urgency, "...is here... Destroys anything that..."

Minutes feel like hours. Then this ill-advised peak tapers off. Midoriya has a young, healthy metabolism. His eyes move and focus. He's no longer standing and cold. He's warm against another pulse and still riding on a spice wind. Giddiness, confusion, heartache, and a devastating burden crash onto him in waves. He can't tell one from the other. He takes a deep breath. His face is wet.