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He opens his eyes to black. Not darkness, but simply black. Looking down at his body, it doesn’t make sense. He can see himself completely fine, in light that’s clear as day, but there’s no sun or lights overhead.
A familiar sound of crackling electricity gets him to stand up and turn around, where he once again sees the scarred villain he was facing. They hover there, arms crossed, still nothing more than a skull, ribcage, and burning plasma.
“Hi?” Koichi asks, tilting his head. The other turns his head, avoiding what would be eye contact if he had eyes.
Koichi takes a step forward, and sees no reaction. Slowly, he approaches the other, who gives no reaction. When they’re within arms reach, Koichi hesitantly pokes their lower arm, prepared to instantly draw back if he’s burnt. To his surprise, there is no warmth at all emitting from the blaze, and his hand simply slips through as if reaching into water.
“Thanks for the double confirmation, pest,” his enemy suddenly states. “Gotta love that.”
“Love what?” Koichi asks, confused.
“Knowing for a fact that I’m gone, and with you of all people.”
“Gone?”
“Dead. Deceased. Eliminated. Burnt-out.”
The statement hits Koichi like a brick.
“Wait, are you certain we’re dead? I kinda had an experience beforehand when you dropped that building on me. My mentor came and talked to me, and I came back.”
“If we weren’t dead, I would have fizzled out a good while ago.”
Koichi doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how turning into a being of plasma works, but he saw this guy fall out of the sky, no longer ablaze. There’s no reason to not trust him.
“Is Pop safe?” are the only words Koichi can bring himself to say.
“I would assume so, since I seemed to have kicked the bucket a few minutes before you did. Must have been my boss who got ya.”
“I’m dead?” Koichi stresses for the last time, just making sure the words being told to him are correct.
With that, energy crackles from the fingertips of the burning entity, which are immediately fired off straight through his chest. Not a single feeling comes with it.
“Oh,” he manages to choke out.
“You ain’t the only upset one, Crawler.”
“Who are you?” Koichi redirects, trying his best to distract himself from the situation at hand. It’s likely of no use, but he might as well try.
“Number 6, I think. No, that’s not it, not me. I’m Number 6. I’ve always been nothing more than th- dammit!” the other exclaims, clutching his forehead with one of his hands. “I don’t know. Call me 6, in that case.”
“So is there like, a reason we’re together in whatever the hell this is?”
“Why the fuck do you think I’d have an answer? I’m just as confused, and just as dead as you are.”
“Please stop saying that.”
“It’s true.”
“Can you turn back?” Koichi inquires. If he stays on the topic any longer, he’s afraid he might die again.
“Huh?”
“You were like, a monster before you blew yourself up? And before that, you were like me.”
“Oh,” 6 states. With that, the glow of the plasma fades as it shifts into dark blue flesh. Number 6’s newly formed tail quivers around his legs, and he turns his head to face Koichi.
There’s no face, just like before.
“Does that freak you out?” he asks.
“Um,” Koichi begins, trying to figure out a way to be polite about it.
“Don’t worry, you goddamn pest,” 6 declares, covering his face with one of his long and clawed hands. The color of his skin covering his face shifts to a human tone, and he drops the claw. With that, Koichi finds himself gazing back at a version of himself, with a scar that juts across the face and glowing golden eyes.
Number 6 makes a small growl and turns his back to Koichi.
“Wait, no, it’s not weird! I mean, it is weird, but I’m not like… upset, I guess? I’m not upset you took my face,” Koichi tells him.
“That’s nice,” 6 says quietly.
“So it’s all over now…” Koichi finds himself dragging on.
“Yup.”
“Towards the end, I didn’t think I was gonna. Y’know,” he tells 6 with a sigh.
“I didn’t think you would either - the people calling you a cockroach were damn right. The thing that had to kill you was All For One himself. I think All Might would have been impressed with someone like you - perhaps you’d have been his successor? But O’Clock chose you first, and I think you came out better thanks to that. You came out capable of kicking my ass.”
“What?” Koichi asks incredulously. All For One, the quirk stealing villain who’s been dead for two centuries? And Knuckleduster was no hero, unless…
“Fuck,” he realizes. It all makes so much sense now. “Knuckleduster was-”
“Nothing more than a man with a license and strong quirk. I chose the wrong person to admire, apparently. At least I didn’t go and pick Endeavor, or some Commission pawn. If I’d gotten Lady Nagant’s quirk, they’d almost certainly hunt me down for putting her out of commission. So I guess deciding to take Overclock wasn’t the worst choice possible.”
“I don’t get what you’re saying?” Koichi asks. “You picked your quirk from him?”
“Anyone but All Might, my boss had told me. He said I could be anyone outside of the number one hero. And I know, almost any kid would have picked somebody in the top 10, or some super fancy quirk. Looking back, I don’t think I knew why I picked super speed either.”
“And you’re implying you do now?”
“What does it matter to you?” 6 snipes back. “Learning these things has no importance anymore. If there’s anything that comes after death, then it’s not gonna let us remember any of this.”
“I guess it sounded like you needed someone to vent to,” Koichi replies with a shrug.
Number 6 gives what must be some kind of choked up sob, and begins to walk away, despite the two of them being trapped in an endless void. And Koichi finds himself following, desperate for some kind of closure to everything that had come upon him.
Number 6 stops as Koichi comes closer, and decides to face the vigilante again.
“We’re more similar than you would believe, Crawler,” he states.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Koichi tells him.
“All you ever wanted to be was a hero.”
“I guess.”
“That was all I ever wanted to be. That was my destiny, my happy ending, my identity. The people who got in my way were all eliminated, and without remorse. I didn’t care who I hurt.”
“I’m not like that.”
“You put those dreams ahead of your loved ones.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You could have kept running, kept on the defensive. You could have evaded me until All Might came soaring down from the sky and punched what was left of me into the atmosphere. Hell, you could have waited until my time was up. But no, Haimawari Koichi. You were so determined to play hero that you let yourself die.”
“Nobody else was going to do anything!” Koichi exclaims.
“How do you think Knuckleduster’s idiotic ass will feel, learning that you died fighting me? What about Soga and his friends, or any of the Pros you’ve befriended? What about your parents?”
“I-”
“What about Haneyama Kazuho?”
Kazuho.
She was safe, but now he’s gone. He saved her, he defended her, and now they’ll never get to talk again. He’ll never be able to tell her his feelings.
“See, pest? It’s that tunnel vision on that fantastical dream. You wanted to play hero so badly that you gave your life to do so. Wouldn’t you call that quite the unheroic act? A completely selfish move for you to make.”
“I was keeping everyone else safe!” Koichi yells. “I needed to! I needed to fight you!”
“I thought you didn’t want to fight me. You got that point across earlier in the night. What changed?”
“It was needed,” Koichi says, and realizes he might be in danger of crying.
“But it wasn’t,” 6 tells him. “You could have made it out, you could have gotten your reunion and future with Pop. You could have gone on to get a license, have a family of your own, could have made a real mark on the country. And you sacrificed all of that to take me out.”
“That’s what heroes do.”
“You’re right,” Number 6 states. “They leave the people they love behind to do whatever they find fun. But you’re different, because you care. I can see it in your eyes, the regret of what you’ve done. I don’t think I would see that in anyone else.”
“I fucked up,” Koichi mutters. “I really fucked up.”
“But who doesn’t?”
Koichi looks up, confused at the sudden change of tone.
“I had that same track of mind. Tunnel vision on being O’Clock’s successor, and killing everyone who got in my way. And guess what? We’re both dead thanks to that.”
“I’m an awful person.”
“But you aren’t. You would have killed me back at the hospital if you were.”
“I couldn’t take a life.”
“And that’s what makes you a real hero, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” Koichi tells both himself and 6.
“You had a good life,” 6 tells him, a solemn smile on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Koichi asks, noticing that 6’s snark has lost its bite.
“I have a question, Haimawari Koichi.”
“Yes?”
“What was it like to have people who loved you?”
Koichi freezes. The question is haunting, perhaps the worst thing he’s ever heard. That question would imply that Number 6 has never had anyone.
“Normal, I suppose? Everyone’s got their family, right?”
“Family,” 6 repeats. “It’s so familiar, yet foreign. My parents… yes, I had those. I miss them.”
“Did you not know?”
“I’m human?” 6 asks, aimed towards himself. He clicks his tongue twice, before whispering something that Koichi cannot hear.
“6, are you alright?”
“Nisenao. That was our name - my family name. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” 6 sputters. “I can’t remember my name. Goddammit,” he says, tears forming in his eyes.
“Would you like me to call you that?”
“It’s 6. 6, 6, 6. Number 6. I’m confusing myself,” 6 tells Koichi.
“Please, is there anything I can do to help you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Koichi quietly says. He approaches the other man, and slowly grabs onto his hand. He expects them to pull away, but they squeeze his hand tightly. Koichi looks next to him to catch 6 crying. With that, 6 falls to his knees, and begins bawling his eyes out.
Not even a villain deserves to feel this way. Koichi sits down next to 6, and rests a hand on his thigh. 6 looks up, and Koichi notices a change. His eyes are mismatched, with his left being purple, and his right being orange. Looking at the entirety of the other man, 6 has returned to being human. All the monster bits are gone, and he looks the same as he did when their battle began.
“Hey. I think you’re fine,” Koichi tells him. With that, 6 unexpectedly moves to sit at his side, and wraps his arms tightly around Koichi. The vigilante returns the embrace, resting his head on 6’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” 6 manages to say.
“Come here,” Koichi states. He pulls the villain onto his lap, and holds him tightly. Number 6 relaxes and melts into his hold.
“Kaega,” 6 states quietly. “Nisenao Kaega. That’s my name.”
“Kaega,” Koichi repeats. It’s a nice name to say aloud, he realizes.
“That’s me.”
With that, Number 6 - Kaega, as it truly is - rests a hand on top of Koichi’s.
“I’m sorry you had to die alone,” Koichi quietly says.
Kaega actually laughs in response, a stark contrast from how he’s been for the entirety of the previous conversation.
“I have you, Haimawari Koichi. I have you, hero.”
Being called that by Kazuho… it’s always given Koichi a feeling he can’t describe. But being called that by his enemy, the one he led to both of their deaths… he realizes she’s always been right. He is a hero, no matter what the law had to say about it.
“Whaddya think is gonna happen? I doubt you’re a supporter of the theory that we’re gonna be stuck here forever,” Kaega interrupts.
“Oh, I don’t really know.”
“Mmm, there’s a lot of chances. We could just vanish for good, or reincarnation could be a thing. Maybe we aren’t even really dead, although I have my doubts on that. Whatever comes next, would you mind staying? I haven’t had real company for eight years.”
“I don’t mind it at all,” Koichi says. He pulls Kaega close, and feels a warmth that wasn’t there before. Perhaps that means something, perhaps it doesn’t.
At the end of all things, he really did save everyone. His opponent curled up on his lap seals the deal, and confirms all his worries. Everything he’s done is worth it. Kazuho and the rest of them have a future now. One without him, but he’s fine with that. Because they’re safe.
Kaega nuzzles his head into the crook of Koichi’s neck, and purrs like a cat would. And with all his doubts aside, he can now think on the other’s questions. The conclusion he reaches isn’t anything at all, but it’s satisfying.
Whatever comes next, Koichi’s ready for.