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Izuku leans against the wall of a shoddy, run down apartment building, checking his watch one last time. The single streetlight above flickers, as if sensing the darkness pressing in around it. Izuku smiles, the light is weak, and it flickers occasionally, but it is still strong enough to cast a soft glow upon anything nearby, just like his prey.
Izuku glances up at the light as it flickers again. The lamp is battered and broken, hanging on by its last threads. At any given time, it could fade away. Flicker one last time. But yet it still holds strong, for now, just like his prey.
Izuku knows that, like his prey....
Tonight, the light will go out.
Ever since that day, six years ago, Izuku has been hunting the most elusive of targets. For the last six years, he has been finding every little dark corner, every hidden shadow, every mistake, civilian death, escaped villain. Everything little bit of wrong that was covered by a light so bright that it blinded people to the truth.
And tonight....
Tonight that fading light is going to be consumed by darkness. Never to be lit again.
In more ways than one.
Finally, his watch strikes midnight. Somewhere in the distance, a lonesome Bell rings.
His prey turns the corner and comes Into view.
Izuku knows he’s been seen immediately, after-all he has made no attempt to hide himself. Standing just on the edge of illumination from the street lamp, but yet still easily visible to anyone coming down the street.
His prey does not falter, does not even stop until they get to the other side of the circle of light cast by the lamp. They too stop at the edge of illumination. The dim light casts a soft shadow across their sharp features, such a stark difference from how they are normally portrayed.
Izuku knows that this view of his prey is more akin to the truth than what the media could ever do.
Standing here at the edge of light and darkness. Finally letting the light dim and the shadows they wished to hide be seen. Not that it was their choice though, Izuku did six years of research and digging, six years of compiling evidence, of scouring archives, both digital and physical. Six years of work… And now the darkness is ready to consume the light.
Izuku will give his prey credit, there is no fear in those electric blue eyes. Only determination.... and weary acceptance.
The silence between predator and prey stretches on, only broken by the buzzing of the slowly dying light. Together they stand, on the edge of darkness and light, just watching one another. Then his prey takes a breath, closes his eyes, and addresses his biggest failure in life, “Izuku.... My boy.”
Izuku scoffs, “even after everything, you still call me that.”
“Yes.” Toshinori says, “you are still my boy. It’s not too late. You can come with me, into the light. With some therapy and some hard work, you can be a hero.”
Izuku laughs. He laughs hard and long, “me! A hero?! HA! It’s much too late for that. I have no desire to be a hero, especially now. I have to give you credit, Yagi, you did a great job of hiding all your mistakes. But you couldn’t hide them from me.”
Much to Izuku's amusement, Toshinori’s face goes through a myriad of emotions in the span of a few seconds. Confusion, shock, despair, anger.... before settling in resigned acceptance. There’s a beat of silence before Toshinori speaks again, “ah. So, what are you going to do with what you know?”
Izuku grins, “what I’ve already done.” He corrects, “tell me. Does it hurt to work next to the father of your first attempt at a successor? The father of the child you left for dead in the middle of nowhere? You never though I would question exactly how you knew the quirk would shatter my bones when you first gave it to me. I did, and I went digging. I found out what happened to that young child with a drive to help, and now that and all your other failures are out in the open for all the world to see.”
Toshinori opens his mouth, as if to object, but he closes it before he says anything. He takes a shuddering breath, “so. This is your plan? Tear down my name? What I built?”
Izuku snorts, “what you built? It needs to be destroyed. You built a Society where nobody helps one another. They wait and rely on heros. They do more than that, really. This is a society where people thrive on seeing fights. They thrive on seeing people get hurt, just so that they can see heros come by and fight some more. The common person does nothing anymore, they do not help their neighbor, they don’t stand up for themselves or anyone else. A society full of heros is a society that is too meek and worthless to even help a child in distress. And yet, those same meek and worthless people can find it in themselves to push down and suppress people beneath them. You built a society that thrives on quirks, even if they never use them. And you didn’t think for a moment about those you left behind. You were quirkless yourself once, but I can see you forgot that. You forgot your roots, and as such what you built forgot about them too. The quirkless population. You know, most of them jumped aboard the ability to get back at the people who are hurting them? Did You know that in the last six years, over half of the new villains that the police have yet to capture are quirkless? I didn’t forget my roots, Yagi. I never will.”
Toshinori looks shocked, “you.... have....”
“Have been recruiting every quirkless person I can find? Yes. Yes I have. A lot of them carry grudges, you know. Some have chosen to keep going on their paths, and I respect that, I leave them alone. But a good 75% or so join me. Join the League, the Royals. Or they strike off on their own, after we give them a start. It’s really not that hard to inspire people to villainy when they’re abused, repressed, and neglected.”
“But,” Izuku continues, “that is not my plan for you. I haven’t come here to sway you to the dark side. If I was, I would have brought cookies. The dark side always has cookies, you know?”
Toshinori swallowed, the action very prominent and noticeable. Izuku’s grin sharpened, going from wild and crazy to dangerous and intelligent. Toshinori felt like he was dunked in an ice bath, shivers crawling up his spine and he fought to not shake. To maintain eye contact.
He knew what this was. It was the same feeling he had when facing down All for One, both times. Both times he had been able to suppress these feelings, he had been able to pull up his power, his determination, his fire in order to melt away the ice that gripped him, to burn away his fear.
But this time, he couldn’t find anything to free him from the cold.
Toshinori swallowed, trying to force down the knot in his throat. He has faced down the greatest villain of all time, he has seen more disasters - both natural and man made - than anyone can count. He has been to hell and back multiple times throughout his life.
Yet, through all of that, he has never been as afraid as he is at this moment.
His only enemy is a 20 year old. The most dangerous thing about Izuku was not his quirk, but his mind. Toshinori knows this. He knows that help is swiftly coming, he hit the panic button on his phone the moment he saw his former protege.....
Why hasn’t help arrived yet? He can't even hear sirens in the distance.
It feels as though the two of them are separated from the rest of the world. Standing here together at the boundary between light and darkness.
Toshinori takes a breath, “I have a question of my own.” He says, waiting for Izuku to tilt his head and nod, “One for All. What have you done with it?”
Izuku shrugs, “I still have it.” He admits.
Toshinori does not know whether to feel relieved or fearful at that admission. He knows from the police reports, from his coworkers, that nobody has seen Izuku use a quirk in years. Toshinori was afraid that his protégé had passed it on, or was training some successor of his own, twisting another into villainy.
“Why?” The single word is spoken out into the air before Toshinori realizes it, and he swiftly adds on, “nobody has reported you using it in years.”
This time, Izuku does grin, “just because you don’t see me using it, doesn’t mean I’m not using it.” He says cryptically, “and, on the same note, They told me that I can’t use the rest of the power until I prove to them my reasoning.”
“Them?” Toshinori echos, confused.
“The previous users.” Izuku states simply, “I see them from time to time, in my dreams. They follow me, watch me, just like they did you. The only one I have left to convince is Seven. You would know her as Nana. Everyone else has accepted what I’m doing, though they don’t entirely agree on my methods. But they see what needs to be done.”
Toshinori takes a breath at this new information, and cold dread settles in his stomach. The ice that is chilling his spine creeps higher, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand.
He strains to hear for any noise, any sound that signals help might be near, might be arriving soon. But all he hears is the buzzing of the light above them.
The same light that has been flicking on and off every few seconds.
Toshinori is not sure which happened first. He is not given enough time to process both sensory inputs. He sees the flash of silver - a knife he thinks - at the same time the light above gives a sharp, fizzing pop!
Everything erupts into pain, sharp, intense, consuming everything he can touch, taste, see, hear, sense, it’s all just pain pain pain pain.
Then, just as swiftly as it came, the pain fades, and the darkness washes in. Likes waves in a beach, like the tide swiftly rising. The darkness washes over him… And then he opens his eyes
Toshinori barely gets to look around, he could see so clearly in the darkness, like it didn’t affect him at all. He could see the crumbling stonework of his apartment building, the beaten and now dead street lamp, the weary slumped shoulders of his former protege, the slowly growing pool of blood leaking from the body -
A hand covers his eyes swiftly, “don’t look.” A deep, masculine voice says behind him, slightly to his left, “for your own fucking sanity, don’t look.”
Toshinori is too stunned to respond. His mind is running a million miles an hour, and yet... he feels nothing? No anxiety, no racing heart, no shivers up his spine, not even any sweaty hands. Despite all the signs that he should be afraid, should be wary, should be something... he was oddly calm. At peace.
Toshinori hears wet footsteps. Like someone walking through a puddle. The person covering his eyes prods him forwards, to follow the receding footsteps.
There’s no pain in his movements. No screaming muscles, no tension, no creaking joints, no limp. He felt like he’s back in his teens, no, back when he was a kid. Back when walking came as easy as breathing, back before he abused and tortured his body in his pursuit of the top. His movements feel like he’s swimming, floating, like absolutely nothing - not even gravity - affected him.
There’s something nagging at him. There’s something wrong here. He’s missing some key information. Something had happened, he couldn’t grasp what. It keeps slipping away, like he was trying to hold water. There’s something he needs to know that.... he just didn’t. It bugs him.
It’s a long time - and yet it felt like no time at all - before the hand over his eyes removes itself. Toshinori blinks, they're walking down a different street, one he only faintly recognizes. Toshinori could see his former successor up ahead, a good pull up and over his moppet of hair, shoulders hunched up.
Toshinori looks to his left, and there’s a thin young man with white hair walking next to him. There’s something off about the man...
Toshinori looks to his left.... and sees Nana. His mentor just gives him a sad smile, one that doesn’t fully reach her eyes. It’s a smile Toshinori has only seen on her bad days, when the world was just a little too cruel for her to handle.
Toshinori’s eyes go wide, his mouth opens to speak, to say something, to ask one of the million questions that are filling every bit of his head...
Then everything clicks. Like how the last puzzle pieces fall into place, like how two magnets snap together. Like how a light clicks on when it’s button is pushed, everything he’s seeming makes so much sense, and all that he says is; “Oh. I’m dead.”