Chapter Text
Chizome comes to with a ringing in his ears, the sky above a dark haze, and gags on the acrid taste of smoke and fire.
His eyes water, and he curls over on himself as the air doesn't clear, each breath worse than the last. Chizome can't… can't think, can barely get his hands under himself to sit up, arms straining with sudden pain and dizziness. What was he doing? Wasn't he… in the plaza? Pleading with any one single person to just listen, to open their eyes to the world…?
Chizome squeezes his eyes shut, everything tilting dangerously. The day had been sunny and just on the bearable side of hot. Towards the evening it meant the crowds were thick and unassuming under Chizome's preying eyes, but then there was… a loud noise, an explosion . It shook the air, throwing all the sheep off their feet as something broke, a long shadow suddenly looming over the thoughtless masses and Chizome as a building just—
"G-Good, you're okay," wheezes a voice, and Chizome startles from his thoughts. "Can… Can you walk?"
He… knows that voice. How could he not? Heart racing, Chizome struggles to turn himself around, the movement jostling what can only be a broken leg, and nearly weeps.
All Might smiles up at him, blood in his teeth. Scant inches seperate them, where he's nearly half buried beneath broken concrete and leering rubar. Blood pools beneath him.
He… saved me?
For the first time in Chizome's life, ugly fear steals his breath away, gripping hold of his heart, and he desperately drags himself forward. "No, no, no," he hisses, hands reaching but not touching, hovering, unsure and afraid and awestruck and— "Are you stuck? Can't you get out?"
Of course he can, nothing can stop All Might, nothing would dare —
All Might's smile doesn't falter. "I can't," he says, and the pool of blood is getting wider. He seems tired. "I don't know if everyone is clear."
Damn them, he wants to snarl, damn me! Save yourself, the world needs you!
But Chizome doesn't because he knows he never would. He wouldn't be All Might if he did.
" You can't just... stay there," he returns, eyes scanning past All Might's cuts and scrapes and the jagged punctures, and spots the ruined flesh of his left side. He pulls frantically at the buttons of his shirt as he drags himself around, shucking it quickly before tucking it hard against the wound. All Might groans, deep in his chest. "You can't… You have to get up."
Chizome's hands grow wet and sticky, but All Might continues to smile at him, says, "It will be okay... why? Because you are here."
I am here, Chizome thinks, a high pitched whine filling his ears, and repeats aloud, "I am here."
Bright blue eyes go unfocused, and Chizome can't help but press a little harder. All Might shudders, blinking, and his smile flickers like a dimming flame, and. Chizome hates himself more than he ever has in that exact moment. All this blood and there's nothing he can do besides… besides be here.
I am here.
"Will you do something for me?" All Might whispers after a moment, and the arch of his muscles shrink down as he weakly lifts a hand to palm at his matted bangs. The concrete groans, and the man that looks up at Chizome for only a heartbeat is the man behind the hero, still just as blinding and beautiful. "I-It's a lot to ask, I'm sorry, but…"
Chizome bares his teeth, his vision blurring at the edges. "Anything," he says, coughs, and thinks he can just hear the shrill cry of sirens. "Just tell me."
And, he does. Haltingly, All Might tells him. Tells him as much as he can in struggling, wet breaths — such a familiar sound — as the blood slips past Chizome's soaked shirt. It feels like an eternity, a lifetime, when it can barely be a couple minutes, and it's not enough. There's more to be said, more that All Might clearly wants to say but the strength just isn't there.
But, he'll be fine. All Might is always fine, and this is just in case. Chizome is unworthy in every way, but this is just in case. He'll give this gift right back, and pretend he never heard a single word. He knew All Might was special, and this just proves it; he was chosen, a single perfect person out of the entire world.
"Can I trust you with this?" Yagi Toshinori murmurs, distant and almost sleepy, but still smiling.
"Yes," Chizome promises, nearly blind with tears, and swallows as once more All Might's body deflates, becomes Yagi. Dust flies but Chizome doesn't flinch, doesn't cry out when something heavy shifts and bounces hard off his shoulder. "Just hang on, All Might."
Yagi doesn't answer.
Chizome's heart skips a beat. "Help!" he roars, the hair a tickle as it goes down his throat, and presses as hard he can. The sirens are close. "Help!"
Help him.
Please.
Anyone but him. Anyone.
Please—
The sirens are all that he can hear, his screams running hoarse, and then it's all a blur.
From there to somewhere else. There is yelling and Chizome has to be pried away. He's all but slapped into a stretcher and the frantic hands of grim paramedics, bodies swarming like flies along the edges of his vision. He's strapped down, sedated, because he, he can't—
He maybe dreams despite that. In it, someone sighs, weary and wary, as Chizome's life spills across the floor in bright lashes of red, but—
But, of course, Chizome wakes up.
The sterile walls and stink of disinfectant place him firmly in the hospital. He blinks numbly at the ceiling instead of his lifted and casted leg, and breathes harshly through his nose. The monitor beeps unsatisfyingly as Chizome's heart rate ticks up, and he bites down ruthlessly on his bottom lip.
He… remembers, and almost wishes he didn't.
It's almost a tangible feeling, like there's something nestled up close and snug to the underside of his ribs, a throbbing knot of more more more waiting to unfurl. Chizome shudders, curling over into the bed as much as he can. He gasps into his pillow, and grabs at his chest, fingernails digging through the thin cloth of his gown and across old scars.
Not mine, not mine, not mine, Chizome thinks, a little desperately, and almost wants to dig past the skin and muscle and pull it right out.
He has to give it back. It's not his. It's not his, never will be and never can be and why does he have it when he needs to give it—
Someone clears their throat, the lights of the room brightening, and Chizome stutters to a still, the heart monitor racing.
"Sorry to… barge in like this, but I really need to speak with you, sir."
The voice doesn't say more for a long moment. Hatefully, Chizomes uses that to pull himself together, corralling all of his broken pieces into a jagged pile. It takes longer than he'd like before he can face the other way, a frown firmly in place.
"Who are you?" he spits, eyeing the man. An officer just by the slacks and tie, just off enough from a office worker, an extra depth to his eyes; the man's seen things but not what Chizome's seen. "What do you want?"
Brushing at his rumpled tie, he glances back behind him before stepping fully through the curtain. "Again, I must apologize, it's fairly urgent," the man says, eyes red rimmed. "I'm Officer Tsukauchi and… you were the last person with A-All Might, were you not?"
Chizome refuses to let that rattle him, to let his desperation show on his face as dread coils tight in his throat. "Yes," he murmurs, a little cowed regardless. "He's… fine, right?"
Tsukauchi's face crumbles just a little, and. And, that's it, that's all Chizome needs to know.
All Might is dead.
Hot and blistering rage wells at the unfairness of it all. If anyone should be dead it should be Chizome, and if not him literally anyone else would do, anyone but… anyone but —
"I… I’m… I was his friend outside work, and I need to know if he… gave you anything, or even told you anything," Tsukauchi stumbles, and exhales a shuddering breath. "If he did… I know about it, enough of it, if that means anything to you."
Not mine but mine, hisses a large and spiteful part of Chizome because even if they were friends… Tsukauchi is just another hazbin chewing at All Might's coattails, isn't he?
Just another ignorant cog in the whole infested system, and nothing more. He'd want to take it, wouldn't he? Because he's All Might's friend. Chizome was never meant to have it but All Might trusted him with it even if Chizome was the last person he probably should have ever trusted.
"What do you want from me?" he growls. This man and anything he wants to say or ask — it all means nothing to Chizome; he deserves nothing. "He… I was there. Until the end. He wasn't… alone."
I am here.
Tsukauchi squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment. "... Thank you," he manages, the barest trembling to his voice. "I-I know, again, this is very sudden but if you know anything or remember anything later, this is my card…"
He puts it on the little table beside Chizome's bed. "Sure," Chizome sneers, and briefly looks away, already discarding the idea.
There's an awkward pause before Tsukauchi clears his throat again. "We're… going to announce his passing soon, but we'll try to keep you out of it for your anonymity… If you could keep it to yourself for a little while, we'd a-appreciate it."
Figures. Explains why his room seems to be so secluded too. Is Chizome in the Pro Hero ward?
"... Anything for All Might," Chizome allows, and Tsukauchi looks relieved by the admission.
"Thank you," he murmurs, bowing his head slightly, and takes his leave.
Chizome forcefully smooths his expression, and goes back to staring at the ceiling as the room descends back into near gloom. He's probably being watched, and Tsukauchi was probably waiting outside for any sign of Chizome being awake. They no doubt want his name, to know everything about him, but are being... lenient.
Please, would you do this for me?
He scowls at his leg, and wiggles the toes. It doesn't hurt as much as it should, but that just means he's already been seen by a healing quirk; his leg isn't broken anymore but bruised and sore and healing. Chizome's escaped worse, but at least this cast brace won't make it much harder.
He hopes it's night time, though, and even though it chafs being under such scrutiny, Chizome closes his eyes and waits. He'll give it a few hours and hope for the best. They'll be less hyper aware of him, but everything will settle just a little bit more; a risk he's more willing to take than being picked up before he even gets down a floor.
And, so, he waits. A nurse pokes their head in at some point, and fusses with his iv briefly before leaving back the way they came. Otherwise, only a few voices pass up and down the hall, but none linger or pass close enough for Chizome to actually understand. Nothing else really happens except that his own grief twists easily into hate.
I am here. I am here. I am here —
With a grimace, he opens his eyes and sits up. It doesn't take much to unhook the sling and slip his leg out of it. Chizome carefully pulls the needle out of the back of his hand after he swings around to face the side of the bed. The floor is cool against his feet, and he takes a single breath before snatching quickly at the monitor's leads dotted around his body.
It begins beeping unhappily almost immediately. Chizome bites back an irritated growl and gets to his feet, his leg protesting. He shuffles his way through the curtain and then out the door without stopping. His clothes were probably disposed of and anything that survived he can live without; everything important is tucked in a storm drain hopefully not too far from wherever the hell he is.
Chizome'd only been chasing rumors about a beta stage doping drug, something that had barely been whispered about on the streets, and if he could nip that in the bud, it would have been one less thing All Might would have to worry about if he could just… solve the problem before it really became one. He doesn't know this city, hadn't gotten to yet, and he won't get to now; the conspiracy surrounding the drug is so much bigger than he could have ever imagined . He can't be stopped here. He can't.
With a shake of his head, Chizome dislodges the obsessive spiral, and takes careful note of the hall. He really is in the Pro Hero ward, apparently, the floor dangerously quiet and near empty. Chizome picks up the first jacket he spies left out on a doctor's station and shrugs it on.
He barely manages to duck around the next corner before Tsukauchi and another older police officer storm past. Chizome clicks his tongue, and digs his hands into his hair, twisting the frizzing strands around into a ponytail. Maybe he ought to stop caring about that, about trying to look safer, softer, for this wool eyed world.
Please —
Chizome pilfers a set of blue scrubs and a mask from a supply closet, and takes the first elevator he finds, large and silver. He jabs the button for the lowest floor it can take him to; no one else calls it to a stop, and he gets off below even the lobby, where he can hear trucks being unloaded faintly through the halls.
It's easy enough to slip off a loading dock when the deliverers are busy with a stack of pallets and hit street level mere moments later. Dawn is near, the pale blue of morning sun just peeking from between the towering buildings. Chizome tucks his hands into the pockets of his stolen jacket, and walks the block up to the main street, his leg throbbing the entire way.
No one spares him much of a glance, still haunted by yesterday's destruction even if they don't… even if they don't know yet what they've truly lost. Chizome glances back at the hospital, and knows somewhere in there All Might must rest still and cold, and. He hates that. He wants to scream at the frightened fools scurrying around him, carrying on as if their lives matter at all and were anywhere near worth his . But, instead, Chizome just hunches his shoulders as he quickly cuts the corner; he doesn't look back again.
I am here. I am here. I am —
"And now you're nowhere at all," he murmurs, gripping the front of the jacket, and… gets lost like that.
Chizome walks, one painful foot in front of the other, and wraps his arms around himself. He doesn't know where he's going even though he should. Just… away, hopefully. Somewhere else. Anywhere but back there.
Away from the world that knows All Might is gone.
"Stendhal," cuts in a voice, and Chizome nearly doesn't stop, nearly ignores it, except.
No one should know that name yet.
No one alive, anyway.
He slows to a stop, the skin of his feet scraped raw, and looks back over his shoulder. At the mouth of the dark side street, a tall man in a tidy suit stares back at him, his glare severe behind his glasses. The tense line of his shoulders speaks volumes, the slick cut of yellow in his green hair even more so.
Chizome knows who this is.
"Come," Sir Nighteye says, turning, and it brooks no argument. "I must speak with you."
He could run. He might even be able to kill him. But. But. If he were here to drag Chizome back in handcuffs… this wouldn't be the way to do it, now would it?
He follows.
The man leads him far, the alley way twisting further into the block and away from the main street. It's a punishment for Chizome's bare feet, petty but smart. Sir Nighteye, the brains behind All Might. The sidekick, but a good one. There's not much known about him, but he's the only other Pro Hero Chizome could consider… truly tolerable. He must be by being so unknown, his only known trait of how diligent he is in his work. For All Might.
"You wouldn't give it to me, would you?" Sir Nighteye says suddenly, and draws to a stop at a crossroads. He faces Chizome, and his glowing eyes bore into him. "Not even if I begged."
"... Not even if you begged," Chizome agrees, stopping at a distance, and flexes his fingers around a wayward pen.
Sir Nighteye's frown deepens, and the grief is there, tightly buried. "And I cannot take it from you, no matter how much I would like to wring your neck and take on his burden," he continues, tucking his hands behind his back. "And somehow, some way, your future would still come to pass. I have… seen it, and it is grim."
Chizome schools his expression, unwilling to let the man see his surprise. The brains behind All Might has a future sight quirk? Then… Then why —
But the anger must show, and the other man falters, just a little. "My… quirk doesn't work like that," he admits softly, and. "I have to… choose, once per twenty four hours, and why… why would I ever dare to doubt the best of us all?"
You wouldn't, Chizome thinks, and as quick as it came, the rage scatters back into a bitter emptiness. I wouldn't.
They take a long moment to regard each other. Neither of them are worthy, and if Chizome knows that, then Sir Nighteye knows it too. They lack all of the qualities that All Might had in spades. All the things that made him something more, something grand and beautiful. The two of them are merely gawkers with dead stars in their eyes.
"... If you've seen my future, then you know what I am," Chizome hisses, disgusted with this flipped mirror of himself. "What I'm not afraid to be."
With the barest curl to his lip, Sir Nighteye smiles an unkind smile. "A murderer, an unasked for martyr; someone he never would have ever trusted were he not… dying..." he lists, voice trailing off. Chizome bares his teeth behind his mask. "... But, you are a man of conviction and ideals. No, you are not afraid, and you have no doubts about what will await you in the end. I can commend that, if only that."
Another quiet moment passes between them, and slowly they can hear the city beginning to truly awake around them. Soon, they'll wish they never opened their blind eyes.
Chizome shifts on his feet, the brace digging painfully. "Then what do you want? Since you know everything."
"I want what I can't have," he says, perfectly droll. "And I don't know everything; your lifetime cannot be observed in the measly hour I managed to observe you — you accomplish too much, poke your nose into so many things, no, I don't want anything from you that I can have… but you will stay in contact with me. I… will help you find the next successor in any way that I can."
Never one to not rise to a challenge, Chizome sneers, "And if I don't?"
Sir Nighteye eyes him with a bland look. "You will," he murmurs, cocking his head in the barest of an ill-mannered nod, and then walks away.
It takes a long moment for him to disappear up the dim street, and Chizome watches until he's gone from his sight. He stands there and contemplates who he is, what he wants and what he now must do. What All Might would do.
"Make the world a better place," Chizome mumbles, and he will do it too.
By cleansing this society of frauds and mistakes... one life at a time.