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i – lies
There’s four fingers pressed against the back of her neck.
“Why don’t we go somewhere to chat?”
Four fingers, and a fifth hovering like the last thread of a guillotine.
Izuku’s head spins. There’s no heroes in sight, and too many bystanders to try and fight—and how would Izuku do that anyway? Her support items are back at school. Here, Quirkless and alone, she’s truly defenseless.
Useless.
But she still has her mind. And, in a pinch, her mind has always been all she had left.
“T-That’s not a good idea” she stammers. “I didn’t come here alone. Our teachers are here, too, so—”
Suddenly, the hands tightens, and Izuku has to bite back a yelp.
“Don’t lie to me.”
It’s razor-sharp, and sticky sweet, and it sends a shiver down Izuku’s spine that she cannot hope to hide.
The villain’s pleased hum vibrates through her. When Shigaraki squeezes her throat again, less harsh but with a steel-grip nonetheless, the girl can’t help but swallow thickly.
“You can’t lie to me, Midoriya Izuku.” Two fingers press eloquently down the pulsing vein in her neck. Ta-thump, ta-thump, ta-thump, goes the rabbit-quick pulse of Izuku’s heart, directly against Shigaraki’s deadly fingertips. She has never felt so naked. “I’ll always know when you’re lying.”
And, as the villain steers her away towards a bench, the hero can feel the truth of those words sink into her gut like a promise.
ii – obsessive behavior
Weeks after the mall incident, she finds herself looking over her shoulder.
“Are you okay, Deku?” Uraraka asks one day, and Izuku doesn’t know what to tell her. That she’s this close to equipping herself with a rear-view mirror? That every husky laugh makes her head snap to attention like a dog whistle?
That not a day goes by where she doesn’t think about her?
Izuku is familiar with obsession. Obsession is the bad habit she’s never been able to shake. It’s why she’s enrolled into UA despite being Quirkless; why she takes every broken bone like a medal of valor. It’s how she bears the pain of Kacchan’s burns, even now. When she got her admittance letter, she’d finally felt vindicated: not a flaw, then, but a blessing.
Now, however, she wonders. Because her bones are starting to hurt long after they’ve been healed. Because it didn’t matter that she gritted her teeth through the burns: in the end, they would always leave a scar.
And, no matter how badly she tries, she cannot get Shigaraki’s voice out of her head.
I’m okay. The words are on the tip of her tongue.
They would be a lie. Not even a half-truth: a black, bold-faced lie.
I’ll always know when you’re lying.
But Uraraka’s fingers don’t spell destruction. Uraraka’s fingers are padded, and soft, and they don’t hold Izuku’s heart in a vice.
“I’m okay.”
Uraraka can’t tell when she’s lying.
She walks side by side with her friend and wonders, as a flash of white hair makes her pulse jump, if her blessing hasn’t always been a curse.
iii – kidnapping
They attacked the training camp. They knew where they were, and they attacked while they were all scattered: they attacked her class, and Kouta, and then…
“Kacchan” she coughs, blood dripping from her split lip. “Where’s Kacchan?” She twists her head around, even though it hurts hurts hurts and the blindfold makes it impossible to see—
“Close your eyes.”
It’s all the warning she gets, and then there’s dust clinging to her lashes, making its way in her throat as she sucks in a sudden breath. She coughs again and, this time, she can taste the blood on the back of her tongue.
But she can’t help it, because Izuku knows that voice.
She blinks her eyes open, and the blindfold is no longer there to shield her from a gaze as red as carnage.
“Where’s Kacchan?” she repeats, hating the way her voice sounds. Weak, and hoarse, and incapable of hiding anything.
Instead of replying, Shigaraki grabs her chin with two fingers and twists her head around. The motion is strangely careful. “Who?” she asks, and there’s a dangerous edge to her tone. As if Izuku’s answer could doom nations.
You can’t lie to me.
“Muscular” the hero breathes, and Shigaraki’s eyes harden.
She leaves the room without a word.
iv – blood
“What do you want with Kacchan?” she asks when she sees the woman again. She’s wearing the same clothes she had on when she left, but there’s a speck of blood on her cheek that wasn’t there before.
“Nothing” she says, pressing a glass of water to Izuku’s lips.
“Liar” Izuku growls, anger bubbling up again. She’s sick with worry, and it’s making her decision less and less smart. Her courage has always been at its best when she had someone to protect, but not her judgment. Never her judgement.
Shigaraki forces her mouth open.
“That’s a little unfair, don’t you think?” she says afterwards, as Izuku coughs and splutters. “I’ve never once lied to you.”
For a moment, Izuku is back at the mall. Back at that sick, one-sided game of Truth or Dare.
But this time, she’s going to dare.
“I saw you” she growls, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. “You were targeting Kacchan, you were—”
Suddenly, Shigaraki unstraps her left arm from the chair. She isn’t much of a threat without her support items, Izuku knows that—still, it gives her pause. It seems like an unnecessary risk.
Without grace, the villain snatches up her wrist, and presses Izuku’s fingers against her throat.
The gesture leaves Izuku speechless.
“I never wanted the Bakugou kid” she says, fixing her with her red stare. “I wanted you.”
Izuku’s breath catches.
The pulse beneath her fingers is calm. Steady. But it can’t be, because the words out of Shigaraki’s mouth don’t make a shred of sense.
“What?” she stammers.
“I don’t want Bakugou” the villain repeats, slower this time. Allowing for her words to fully sink in.
And it still makes no sense. Kacchan is better than her in any way: stronger, faster, more capable. It’s stupid to try and recruit any one of them, but the villains don’t know that. In their eyes, Kacchan should be the better asset; Kacchan should be the better pick, the most valuable hostage, the higher gain.
No one’s ever chosen her over Kacchan before.
“I want you” Shigaraki says, unblinking, and the villain’s pulse has never felt steadier.
v – makes me wanna die
“Why?” Izuku asks, voice barely above a whisper. Her fingers press a little harder against the villain’s neck—a stupid thing to do, but she has to be sure, she has to—but Shigaraki doesn’t seem to mind.
“How long do you think they’ll let you stay?” the villain asks. There is nothing of the usual mockery, of the volatility that follows Shigaraki Tomura like a second skin; right here, right now, her voice is as still as water. “How long do you think they’ll let you play hero?”
Her words hit Izuku like a bucket full of ice.
“I am a hero” she growls, not caring whether it gets her turned to ashes. “I will be a hero.”
She expects Shigaraki to smirk. To give her some scathing remark and make fun of her, like everyone else has done before.
“You’d be a great hero” the villain says instead, making Izuku blink. “But they won’t let you.”
You’d be a great hero.
It’s so strange. She keeps looking for a lie, but not once does the villain’s pulse hitch; not once does it quicken.
Meanwhile, Izuku’s pulse is a roar.
You’d be a great hero.
No one had ever told her that before.
“They won’t let you, because they don’t understand shit.”
“Stop” Izuku pleads, but Shigaraki doesn’t.
“They won’t let you, because they don’t see you.”
“Stop” she begs, tears prickling at her eyes.
“They won’t let you, because you’re Quirkless, and that is all they’ll ever see.”
“I said stop!” Izuku screams, yanking her hand away, and Shigaraki lets it fall.
She wants to say that’s not true, but then, her treacherous mind forces her through all the memories she’d tried her damnedest to forget.
Maybe you should take a swan dive off a roof—
You can’t be a hero without a Quirk.
—and pray you’ll be born with a Quirk in your next life!
The student with the lowest score will be expelled.
I’m sorry, Izuku. I’m so sorry!
She doesn’t realize she’s crying until there’s a thumb on her cheek.
“You’re wrong” she grits out regardless. But it’s weak, and pitiful, and when the thumb becomes a palm, Izuku can’t find it in herself to fight the urge to lean into the touch.
Because, deep down, she’s always known.
“Haven’t I told you already?” Shigaraki replies, a trace of humor in her voice. But, for once, it isn’t sharp. For once, it doesn’t make Izuku bleed.
“You can’t lie to me.”
vi – betrayal
It’s all over the news: the League of Villains takes Quirkless kid hostage, only to release her mere hours after the abduction. Supposedly, they’d been after the Sports Festival’s winner, Bakugou Katsuki, but they’d mistakenly grabbed her Quirkless classmate instead. With no use for her, they simply let her go.
The word Quirkless was repeated in almost every sentence.
It gets worse after that. Every news outlet is suddenly in an uproar over UA’s reckless behavior in allowing a Quirkless girl to become a student of the Hero Course.
Some even speculate she’s been turned. After all, why would a bunch of villains risk getting caught just to be kind?
When she’s called into Nezu’s office, and Aizawa is there, she doesn’t even flinch.
She’s been expecting this.
“Midoriya-san, please take a seat.”
And yet, it hurts.
It hurts hurts hurts, no matter how many kind words Nezu uses to tell her. No matter how uncomfortable her homeroom teacher looks. In fact, it’s worse. Nothing could make being expelled better, but the look on Aizawa’s face, the guilt, only drives the knife deeper.
What must her teacher be thinking right now?
That it’s better this way? Safer?
That he should’ve expelled her on the first day?
That he made a mistake not to?
Still, Izuku doesn’t cry. It surprises her most of all: she thought holding back the tears would be her worst fight yet. But it isn’t.
Even later, when she’s alone in the bathroom and wants nothing more than to cry herself hoarse, somehow, the tears won’t come.
And, as much as she knows her teachers mean well; as much as she knows their hands were tied by the press and the public and a thousand other things; despite understanding that it’s her fault, her fault, she never should’ve fooled herself, never should’ve come here—
Despite all of that, ugliness burns deep in her gut, and it tastes too much like betrayal to pretend it’s anything else.
On her way out, she brushes past Kacchan.
“Deku—”
She turns almost mechanically. It’s automatic: she’s been called Deku her whole life. It’s odd, realizing that no one else is going to call her that anymore.
“…I’m sorry.”
It’s agony to do it. It’s agony, and torture, and she does it anyway. Her last act as a hero.
“Don’t be” she says, mustering the most convincing smile she can. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
And, for once, she isn’t lying.
vii – sin to confess
There’s something Izuku hasn’t told the police. Something she managed to keep from detective Tsukauchi.
What about their hideout? Were you able to tell where you were?
She hadn’t been planning on it. Hadn’t meant to hold back anything. Didn’t think she even could.
But, surprisingly, she did.
She thought back to when she first woke up, blindfolded and strapped to a chair. Before Shigaraki came into the room. Before she took her blindfold off.
Before she let her go.
It’s unfortunate phrasing. If the detective had asked her, point-blank, Where is the League of Villains’ hideout?, she wouldn’t have been able to lie. She wouldn’t have been able to choose.
But she was, and so she did.
I wasn’t.
Now, as she makes her way to Kamino Ward under the steady pelt of rain, she feels her sin eating away at her heart. She should’ve told someone—should’ve told anyone.
Then, perhaps, she wouldn’t be here.
But Izuku has never been a good liar. And now, under the weight of Shigaraki’s blood-red gaze, she wishes nothing more than to confess.
You can’t lie to me.
“Do you still want me?” she asks, pathetic and trembling and as useless as she’s ever been.
When Shigaraki’s hand shoots out, Izuku squeezes her eyes shut. It’s a fitting ending: a loser and a traitor, falling to her own hubris.
But then her cheek hits something soft, and four fingers start carding gently through her hair, and the warmth from the bar seeps into her bones.
And, finally, the tears start falling.