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It’s winter.
It always seems to be winter, when the world goes quiet and snow deafens all sound into a white hush, that Izuku finds his mind settles into well-worn patterns. The world is silent, dampened and cold— but Izuku burns hot with an unknown fear.
The wood of the window frame isn’t pale with age, it is pale by nature he thinks. It’s warped in one corner, by swollen water and the dark blight of black mold growing steadily in its tread. The warmth of the interior, steadily maintained by the heaters of the dorm, Izuku’s own reluctance to deep clean his own room— the mold flourishes, dark and deadly in its own paradise.
Izuku wonders what it is like to flourish, to grow steadily and without inhibition in a place that isn’t meant for him. mold is admirable, in that way. it didn’t matter if it belonged or if it was foreign, if it was desired or loathed: it grew, unrepentant and unapologetic to the best of its ability. One could scoop it away, carve it out from wood and throw it in the cold— it would be back, inevitable and inescapable.
Izuku wants to be like black mold, to thrive and flourish and grow in the absence of favour, in the vacuum of a school meant to foster him and that is no longer a place he can be.
Izuku stares out into the winter-white hush of the world, mold forgotten in the window frame: he hopes they clean it, before they give this room to Shinsou. He knows that’s who will get it, when he is gone, when he is gone: there is no one else who deserves it more, an avenue to chasing his dreams when no other exists.
Izuku knows what it is to be stuck in that place, the to-and-fro of hopelessness and helpless hope, the endless swing of despair and desire. He thinks it poignant, and somewhat ironic, that after giving up so much to be where he stands… that izuku will walk away willingly.
It’s not like he has any better options, because around him, sleeping in their rooms and all too knowing of war, are children . He’s a child as well, but he is ages-old, has the imprint of lives not his own branded into his bones. He is a fusion of lives far older than he is, and Izuku realises with some horrific clarity that some days he doesn’t know who he is under the weight of so many lives, so many thoughts that aren’t his own.
And Izuku is alone in his room and he cannot think of what to do, where to go, what to do with the age-old, terrifying blankness of danger sense blaring in his mind. It tells him that all around him are dangers and weaknesses because he can only do so much when he has others to love and care for and lose .
Izuku realises in a rush of anger and pain and fear, that he will have abandoned them and they may never know why because Izuku doesn't know if he can do this.
It is winter and it is cold and it is wet: and he will freeze out there without the love of his friends, without the safety of his heroes and the fire of his convictions in himself. Izuku doesn't like the cold, and wants to stay warm, in the honesty and love of his home.
But there is a silver case on his bed, with the contents of a hero's life that Izuku doesn't think he’s ever going to live, not really.
Maybe it was too much to ever think he would be a hero, would be anything—
Izuku is going to do what all useless, terrified people do— he will run and he will fade because he is nothing more than a coward who cannot handle how weak he is, how easily the people around him will die.
Izuku is a coward, but he has to tell himself this is the only option.
But Izuku isn’t alone, not really.
He isn’t even really Izuku, not in the ways that matter.
The face that stares back at him from the glass is a reflection of someone who is not Izuku, not his face or his skin or his hands —
‘Izuku, you must stay calm.’
Izuku wants to tear Fumikage’s head off. Considering it’s now their head , he makes a valiant effort to not do so.
‘Why should I stay calm, Fumikage?’ It’s odd to hear his own thoughts answered, to talk to someone inside his own mind and have something other than his own voice respond. Just as weird as it is to look out through eyes that see so much more— there is something mind-boggling about the array of colours Izuku can see through Fumikage’s eyes.
‘We are both locked in this mortal frame together, Izuku. I, too, feel the anxious beat of our heart, and it is not helping us make rational choices here.’
God, Izuku usually enjoys the way Fumikage speaks: truly, he does. It’s elegant and refined, and wholly beautiful — but the vocabulary makes his… their head ache something fierce. ‘Fumikage, I don’t think you understand the situation here!’
Their body sighs: it feels odd for lungs to expand and deflate in such a way without Izuku meaning to. It is wholly odd, abnormal even, to feel a heart that beats faster than his own thumping away in his chest. This body is his but not, even as his mind struggles to find its place in its sinews.
‘You wish to leave Yuuei to prevent harm and devastation falling upon our comrades, and to keep this… power out of their hands, am I correct?’
Izuku hates that Fumikage is correct but still—
‘Yes, you are right but… you don’t have to come with me.’
Their body shifts, as Fumikage hums in their mind. ‘ You mean… to split?’
Izuku shrinks from the thought, from the bone-deep longing of the idea. He wants to be whole, to find his place in his body once more— Izuku wants to be home , even though his bones will ache. But—
‘I can’t ask that, for them to give up all of… this.’
They both know it, some joint thought that springs unbidden from their minds— that Dark Shadow has never felt the sun, and it is a cruelty for them to consider taking it away.
There’s a rustle from the bed, and Izuku watches with a gut-deep unease, a burning familiarity, as his own face stares back at him. “What’s going on, huh?”
It’s odd for Izuku to hear his voice like that, to see his face in emotions and flowing expressions that he has never seen in the mirror: it is his face but it looks like a mask. Dark Shadow might wear Izuku’s face, but he looks like a stranger to him.
“Nothing.” Fumikage’s voice rings out, but Izuku isn’t sure which of them actually speaks.
There’s a wary, tense silence— green eyes stare back at them, too narrow and cold on Izuku’s face. It isn’t really his face anymore, not in the ways that matter: Izuku wants to scream that it is his, his body and his voice please give it back —
But Izuku has always been far too willing to give up what is important to him, all too eager to sacrifice what he holds dearest to keep the people close to him safe. He’s used to not getting what he wants, with the fear and the anger and the ache of his bones an anchor to a world Izuku isn’t sure he’s ready to face anymore.
‘You are drifting from me.’
Izuku shakes their head, just enough to know it is moving. ‘I will not take this from them.’ He turns their head, to see the glimmer of snow-bright reflections in green eyes.
Dark Shadow stands beside them at the window, bare feet curling into the carpet below them— their fingers trail on the moisture-blighted wood like they have never felt it before. Dark Shadow’s hands alight on the windowpane glass, a soft noise of glee— their fingers marr the frost and they carve haphazard patterns. Dark Shadow looks like a child who has never seen winter, never felt the snow or the cold or the warmth of the kotatsu over chilly toes.
‘Dark Shadow hasn’t.’ Comes the answering thought, the deep gravitas of his mind-mate thoughts weary and sad.
Fumikage is right— Izuku knows he is right. Izuku’s tether grows thin, his only bond is the burn of Fumikage’s will and Izuku cannot hold on. This—
‘This isn’t my body.’ He says, into the winter-still of their mind.
‘Then please, return— the darkness beyond this fusion is not understood to us. That is your body— you must go, before I lose hold of you.’ Fumikage’s voice is a song of grief, a cataclysm of a hopeless hope.
Izuku watches Dark Shadow lean forward to lick the glass, face bright and wide with joy.
‘It’s not mine anymore.’
They both know Izuku will never take away hope from someone who needs it— not even now, as the snow falls in the winter hush and the sound of the world around them dampens.
Fumikage sighs, and unlatches the window so that a few stray flakes of snow float in— they begin to melt in the heat of the room but Dark Shadow laughs as he catches one on his tongue—
Izuku wonders what it’s like to fade.