Death Paradox 💥BAKUDEKU💥

Chapter 11

A/N: It's my birthday, so in light of that, ya'll get a double chapter this week!

Strength

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Chapter 11

The first thing to return was sound, not in sharp bursts or sudden clarity, but in layers, as if the world was slowly remembering how to exist around him.

Not the world-shaking kind. Nothing dramatic. Just... the low hum of a motor. The soft hiss of oxygen, or maybe pressure valves, shifting behind his head. A faint metallic rattle from somewhere underneath. The squeak of a wheel every time the floor dipped ever so slightly. It was faint, but rhythmic. Almost hypnotic, if not for the dread curling in his chest like barbed wire.

Izuku stayed still.

He didn't twitch. Didn't stir. Didn't so much as breathe deeper than necessary. His body knew better than to announce he was awake before he had any idea what kind of situation he was waking into, even when every instinct in him screamed to jolt upright, to fight, to run.

He let his thoughts ease into motion instead, careful and measured, running silent diagnostics on everything he could feel. The bed was moving. That much was clear. His body rocked in faint intervals, the vibrations rising through the mattress in predictable rhythm. His arms weren't restrained, not that he could tell. No bands cutting into his wrists, no tightness around his ankles or across his chest. There were still tubes connected—new IVs maybe, or monitors but nothing that would stop him if he needed to bolt.

Which, realistically, he probably would the first second he had the chance. But what threw him more was the fact that he was conscious at all. Garaki's sedative had hit him like a wrecking ball, sharp, fast, and absolute. The kind of compound that didn't wear off this soon unless something was wrong with the dose... or something was very different about the way his body was processing it.

His mind flicked briefly to the chemical profile he'd read earlier. Nitroglycerin-based biochemistry, increased metabolism, altered stress response. The way the inhibitors were designed to suppress combustion without compromising organ function. Maybe... maybe that metabolic acceleration was chewing through the sedative faster than intended. Or maybe it had interacted with the leftover Neurocalmine. Or maybe—hell—maybe fate was just getting lazy and decided he should be awake for whatever came next.

He didn't open his eyes right away. Not fully. Just a sliver. Just enough to gauge.

Cool, clinical light passed over him in steady intervals—long, rectangular ceiling panels moving overhead like slow strobe flashes. The walls were curved, sterile, faintly green. Not quite a hallway. A corridor? No. A tunnel. Something cylindrical and sealed. There was nothing like this in the blue prints Izuku remembers looking at.

The gurney turned slightly. Just enough for his view to shift, only slightly, but it was enough to see them.

Tubes.

Tanks.

Not the kind that held oxygen or coolant or whatever else he was used to in medical labs—no, these were massive. Cylindrical. Lined against the wall like sentinels. And filled with fluid thick enough to distort the shapes floating inside.

Shapes that were distinctly Nomu.

One of them drifted past, suspended in a vat labeled in some abbreviated code he didn't recognize. Its skin was black and stretched. Limbs swollen. Hair floated around its scalp like seaweed in slow motion. It didn't move, but its lidless eyes were open. Staring forward. Vacant.