Chapter Text
The rainy fall nights of Musutafu ran cold and drowsy on a dimly illuminated backstreet. The type of street no hero hopeful should be caught in, lest rumors of vigilantism begin to shift around in the underbelly of the free press.
It was the type of street that needed ten streetlamps lining its sidewalk for people to begin to buy into the illusion of safety, yet only three of the ten provided were flickering pathetically, the rest long given out. It was the type of street that had faded missing posters clinging to the aged and falling apart brick walls that divided the alley from the long-abandoned houses. An old residential area that built houses not to be bought, but rented to the desperate. After the area had failed to take off, the district began to act as nothing other than a hotbed for crime, and a shortcut that parents warned their kids not to take to and from school. It was the type of street where autumn rains would cling to the brick and concrete of the sidewalk for dear life. Festering until every step you took felt moist. A sickly wet that could sink into your feet through your shoes.
Every rain shower would force the crisp autumn mist into fumigating into the underdeveloped infrastructure, allowing the active liquids to flirt with the hidden stenches hiding in the stains the street had stockpiled from years of misuse.The stench of said stains than lying in wait to spring upon unlucky travelers like a bear trap, ramming into one's nose in a truly inescapable fashion. A stench of bile and vomit from past drunkards. Oil and cigarettes from the young thugs with bikes.
Copper, metallic life.
All with an undercut of fresh rain.
Streets like this should feel like home to Izuku Midoriya. He has lived, killed, and died on streets like these every night in his nightmares for the past two weeks. Living the same moment over and over again. A twisted memory dominating every hour of what little sleep he manages to find. Every morning he wakes up, and for a brief moment it feels like he had just lived through an entire lifetime. A Life of nothing but dancing with a death named Stain on a street just like this. He's seen his mind's rendition of that night during these past two weeks more than he has seen his own mother, and his mind is anything if not detailed. It’s been two weeks since one of his closest friends, Tenya Ida, tried his own hands at the vigilantism these streets are so used to.
Two weeks since he had failed. Maybe if he was just a little faster, a little stronger, it all could have gone differently. But as it stands, the recollection of his first official outing as the successor to All Might makes his heart sink into his chest like a rock of shame every time.
Pro Hero Native, dead from wounds that went too long without treatment. Hero in training Ida, loss of motor function in his left arm after getting impaled by the villain, (vigilante if the news is to be believed), Hero Killer Stain. The Hero Killer Himself? Still at large after a narrow escape he somehow pulled off during the aftermath of the battle, being surrounded by heroes doing nothing to deter him.
So yeah, Izuku was the living breathing definition of a failure. It felt like that truth had sewn itself into his heart, a cancer pushing against and bruising his ribs with every thrum of blood produced. He was a failure, and the worst part is, everyone wouldn’t stop saying he had done everything right.
When Aizawa-sensei had pulled him aside at the hospital, he had kneeled down to eye level, and placed a hand on his shoulder, stared into him deadpan and unflinching, and told him he had done good? That he was reckless for leaving Gran Torinos side, and yeah Izuku had known that. He told him that if it was any other circumstance he deserved to be expelled, and yeah of course he deserves to be expelled, he is still wondering why he isn’t. He told him that he was brave for being able to fight alone against a villain like that, smart for calling for backup, and he did good holding his own. He told him that he was proud of him for finally finding a way to use his quirk without hurting himself, that he would become an amazing hero one day, that in his eyes he already was one. Midoriya’s brain even tricked him into thinking Aizawa Sensei had punctuated those last statements with the smallest uptick of a smile.
By Aizawa standards, Midoriya had basically been wrapped in a hug and told that he was loved like a son. The weaker part of Izuku, the one that still craved the approval of an authority figure, it had crumbled at that. The weaker part of him had soaked up all the affection Aizawa had been scared into offering like a sponge. It just made it hurt that much more when he realized how little he deserved it.
Fifteen and already regaled as a hero. A survivor of the hero killer. A proclamation of the end goal of his twisted and blood-stained ideology. Every comforting look from Aizawa, every whisper of how whole and good he must be from the online hero forums he used to frequent, every arm waving stream of consciousness flowing out of Uraraka’s mouth filled to the brim with compliments, every quiet, soft, and understanding hug from his mother. They all felt the same. They felt like a sandpaper tongue lashing across an open wound in a back alley, paralyzing him so he could watch his friends bleed out.
Izuku had never felt more loved in his entire life. His mother had always loved him, but now, for the first time, she believes in him as well, trusts him. For the first time in his life, he has friends. Friends that he is starting to really truly believe care about him. Friends that he could maybe even trust. And while for both of their sakes he would never say it out loud, he had a father figure as well.
He had people that were willing and ready to do nothing but wrap him in the sincere warmth of love, and it all made his stomach clench in pain. Waves of nausea rolling through his body with the warmth of their words. Every comforting look in their eyes reminding him why they were being sent his way.
He had become adored and respected by all for being all that is holy in the strained blood red eyes of a man who licks, slashes, and beats down Izuku and everyone he has ever cared about in his nightmares.
Such grand feelings of nostalgia carried Izuku to this alley tonight, like the stench of subpar street food on the wind, he was whisked away to the closest replica of his own personal nightmare alley. Or at least, the closest he could get to it without being in the real thing. He could sneak around unnoticed just fine for the most part. His mother never paid too much attention if he wasn’t in his bed at all hours of the day after all, so getting out of his house without word going back to U.A was no issue. But he didn’t trust a train ticket to the ever-specific area of Hosu would escape the notice of pro hero Eraserhead.
Why though? Why had been the ever-present question of Izuku's mind for months now. Why did one of his favorite heroes growing up insist on keeping such close tabs on him. In a constant state of uncertainty, he found his reality quite unbelievable at the best of times, and actively impossible to process at the rest of times.
He had been getting better though, working through the whys of things. Why did Ida and Uraraka pretend to be nice to him? Maybe he actually is capable of having friends. Why did Ashido and Hagakure greet him with friendly smiles when he walked into class, or well, greet him with postures that he had to assume meant the invisible girl was smiling at him? Maybe it wasn’t normal for unknown classmates to greet him with sneers and occasional beatings, maybe it was okay to want more. Why did Aizawa Sensei treat him like that? Well, he hadn’t quite worked that one out yet, but after working through a few whys regarding Kayama Sensei, he was beginning to figure out what teachers were like for most people. All smiles and reassurance, radiating comfort and care, even if he didn’t quite believe it yet.
Those whys are all beside the point however, those are not the whys Izuku had to decipher to figure out where he was tonight. In fact, when he thought about his mother’s hugs, when he thought about his classmates who, ever since USJ, had begun to marinate in an unspoken and complete trust between each other, when he thought about his ever-lethargic teacher that looked at each and every one of them with eyes that spoke to something deeper than just a student teacher relationship. When Izuku thought of all that, the why of why he was in this alley tonight made the nausea pooling in his stomach manifest itself physically, twisting and contouring inside him until he would beg god to expel his guts just so he didn’t have to feel it anymore.
The “why” of his current location, of all the whys he had to question over the past year, this one was so easy to answer. He would never speak it out loud, he would never speak it to himself in the quietest corners of his mind. The type of corners one has in their brain that are damp, and cold, and devoid of personality, but feel so much like yourself nothing feels safer. More like the honest truth. The answer to this why was a truth so simple and inherent, admitting it felt like confessing to being the source of original sin.
Izuku Midoriya wanted to die.
If it wasn’t for the way “Kacchan” melted off his tongue like oil and sludge. If it wasn’t for the way his mother welcomed him home with worry and love in her eyes, quick to offer a hug and a meal, smiling at him even when he couldn’t see it. If it wasn’t for those two things, Izuku would very much doubt he could remember a time before he didn’t want to die.
He would never act on it. Never. No matter what he always told himself, he would never act on it. Sure, ever since the first time the crackles and pops of young untrained explosions marked his skin, Ever since he heard “Deku” more than he heard “Midoriya”, Ever since he heard his mother cry over hospital bills, saw her tense as rumors hung around the family through their apartment building like the ghost of fire and flame, wondering how such a good mom could give birth to something like him, ever since all that he knew was defined by a hospital visit at the age of four. Given the choice, he would simply choose never to be.
But that wasn’t a choice. There was no simple consequence free button you could press. Every time these thoughts became too real, his mother’s tearful face invaded his mind and sobered him up real fast. He’d seen that face so many times. Every day when he came home with bruises and scorch marks he refused to elaborate on. So, it wasn’t a face that was particularly hard to imagine, it was a face that came to his memory easier than memories of her smiling. Which he was starting to think wasn’t exactly a good thing either, both as a fact and as a prevention method, but whatever worked.
He had come up with plans. He had justified it to himself so many times, but he would never go through with it. Still though, it was a fantasy he could pretend to kindle. Something too long for, even knowing he would never want it to come to pass. After all, the last time he let a fantasy burn in him for so long, nothing but good had come out of it, a perfect attendance record at U.A Proved that.
That active longing was such a catharsis though. It is what led him to stray cuts on his arms, and note taking atop the roofs of buildings while sitting much too close to the edge.
And that is the why of tonight.
As he looked around this midnight back alley, everything just fell into place. He barely had to squint to imagine the corpse of pro hero native lingering just at the edges of his vision, see the blood of his friends splatter liberally along the concrete. If asked, he wasn’t just remembering the stench of blood as plentiful as it was that night, he WAS smelling that copious copper dominating his nose. His cheek felt wet where Stains tongue had left its mark, and his spine spasms in the beginning stages of his paralysis.
It hurt, the phantom pains hurt more than wounds he had really received that night, yet he remained upright. He was still able to brush one of his hands through his hair, tightening until painful, because none of this was really happening, none of this was real. He was perfectly alone and unharmed tonight, but that didn’t stop his heart from beating a mile a minute, moving so fast it felt like it was straining itself, creating a pain so tight and visceral it felt like it wasn’t even moving.
Gone where the warm pumps of blood most living bodies where so used to, and here to stay was a tension so tight surely nothing could be moving inside of him. As if his organs were playing a pretend game of red light green light, and the light was as crimson as crimson comes. His heart could lie, his senses could lie, but reality couldn’t. None of this was real. He was okay, safe, unharmed, healthy.
That didn’t stop how much it hurt though, his body aching and frozen still at nothing but memories. The world’s worst waking sleep paralysis, and it was exactly what he was looking for, that feeling was the why of tonight. Right here and now, he knew no one knew where he was. If something happened, no one would come to help, and he was certainly in no state to survive a repeat of the last fight he ventured into, it would all be over. That thought, knowing he was in no shape to fight, especially not against someone like Stain, that this alley could eat him alive if it wanted to, knowing how close he was to the metaphorical edge while still knowing somewhere in the back of his mind, that the odds of true danger where low. For a brief moment, it let him feel at peace. His body and blood ran as cold as the October rain. His heart though stiff and stone, felt normal. He was so at peace he barely noticed his vision blurring with tears.
Izuku’s eardrums had long since filled with a pounding white noise that made the sides of his head feel smaller than what they needed to be in order to keep his brain goop in. A pressure pushing against him from the inside, like a coke bottle with a Mento and an intact cap.
The so called six sense people have, the sense that heroes must perfect somewhere between their first and third near death experience, (Izuku had lost track of how many he has had, the number was far beyond three long before he attended U.A.) The unease you feel when someone is looking at you when you don’t know it, the warning of the hairs on the back of your neck sticking up. This sense was long out of function for him tonight. His body had abandoned it in favor of not feeling much at all.
It was not a mistake on his bodies part, human bodies are quite smart like that, especially one as trained as Izukus. It was about risk mitigation, the stress his body would go through by being in this ally aware of everything that went bump, was simply more damaging than anyone following him could possibly be. And besides, that sweet feeling of ease he was chasing through means of putting himself in such a situation wouldn’t be possible without the dissociation his body was providing.
This is all to say, Izuku really should be paying more attention to that blurry vision of his. So distracted he was by the sweet catharsis of walking down the slick streets of memory lane, reminiscing on the frothy feeling of Stains saliva, the smooth slices of his sword. Reminiscing on a prior experience of being cut down by metal was so much more enticing than the flash of oh so real steel that just entered his peripheral vision. Hidden by the natural shadows of night, prowling beneath and behind rusted benches with homeless spikes on them. The blades from his memories and the steel dancing under tonights moonlight, both stalking him like a cat following a laser pointer, were both just as real as far as his mind was currently concerned. Both nothing more than reflections of metal that look like the hidden lakes in the forests you explored in your mind’s eye as a kid, ready to flow with his blood upon contact with the lake’s rocky shores.
Contact.
Contact and combat.
A brilliantly sharp knife tore through his viridian hoodie and into the side of his left arm. Deep enough to bleed well, but nothing serious. Not one to let his surprise catch him off guard any more than his lack of attention already had, his body came alive with green lighting. 5% of a 200 year old power was still 5% of an ancient power, a power that was capable of crashing over the gods of this earth like the waves upon moldable sand. As he was now, he was faster than anyone without a considerable speed quirk like Ida or Hawks. He was stronger too, a simple swing of his fist hitting like a lead pipe to the back of a head.
Even with all this, jumping back at his full speed, begging the fates to give him a just few seconds to gather his bearings, simply wasn’t enough. The knife followed him, just as fast as he was. The speed of the battle left Izuku too frazzled to figure out who was attacking him, he felt like such an idiot for getting caught in such a position. If he didn’t get his bearings soon, the wishes he had kept secret for so long were going to spill out of him true and plentiful until his body was cold and still.
Still though, while the jump back didn’t leave him with enough time to get good eyes on his attacker, it had left him with just enough time to put up a block for the knife that was following him. It was coming at him in a jabbing motion, aiming for his heart. He brought his arms up in a firm and close x-pattern over his chest. Instead of his heart, it punctured the middle of his right forearm.
The knife was lodged in him now. Letting instincts guide him, his desire to not let any opportunity pass by him, no matter how messy, sent his left fist flying at his opponent's gut while they took the time to get their knife back from out of him.
Blood was oozing out of his right arm, the knife lodged between bone like the sword Excalibur’s set in stone. He must have had a birthmark on his stone arm that cryptically read “may the blade go to whoever was faster than the fucking 200 year old super quirk what the fuck” and he just hadn’t noticed, because all his fist found was air. Somehow, even while dodging, his attacker had managed to remove the knife from him cleanly, and now a significant amount of blood was dripping out of his right arm. It left him woozy, and in his already razzle, dazzled, and “still not quite recovered from the dissociative episode he had just had” state, he felt his grasp on reality start to slip.
The out of body experience he was having before the fight was seeping back into him. He needed to focus up or else he wasn’t going to make it out of this. He had been flirting with the possibility of death since he was ten and was told to kill himself for the first time, but it had never felt so real before now. The morbid thought of his imminent demise flooded his brain with images of the roofs of buildings he had begun to frequent after school during middle school, the image of Aizawa crumpled under Nomus hand, the body of Native being slightly pushed and pulled around as he and stains blows caused the limp object to give off the appearance of having slight shudders. He thought of the eyes of his mother, and Kacchan, Uraraka and Ida, Tsu and Todoroki. The eyes of people, that for the first time in his life, would truly be sent hollow if he was to die.
Shit, the flood of thoughts lasted not even a second, but that was still time he desperately needed. If he didn’t get his head back in the fight he was done for. Luckily, he wouldn’t need to do anything to accomplish this goal, a stroke of uncharacteristic luck struck him hard, piercing right into his left shoulder and bringing him right back into a fighting mindset.
The luck disguised as a knife was lodged deep in the shoulder. Pain ran through him like electricity burning every nerve in his body. In that moment his eyes shot open and sharpened, the hollow glass they were before breaking into shards. All at once he became aware of everything. The misty humidity stiffening the air. The absolute silence of the ally, nothing but the humming electricity of flickering light posts and his rapid breathing. Whoever was attacking him wasn’t making a sound. The taste of saliva and coughed up mucus in his mouth, everything in his throat coming up all at once when the pain of getting stabbed in the arm pushed into him. The smell of bile and vomit from past drunkards, oil and cigarettes from the young thugs with bikes that roamed these streets.
The overpowering stench of liquid copper.
The stickiness of blood pooling on his arm and shoulder.
The burst of perception let him react faster than he had before, letting him swing his left arm around at 180 degrees, front to back. With 5% of one for all thrumming through his veins, at this range no human alive should be able to doge the blow. Even then, whoever was attacking him managed to pull the blade out of his shoulder, causing a brief stutter in his stance, and dodge the blow all in one motion. He found nothing but the feeling of green lighting brushing across someone's face.
Fully turned around, he was finally able to look at his attacker face to face. They were ten feet apart from each other, enough so neither could move without giving the other time to react, but not so far back that this fight had any chance to be over by simply getting a head start on running away. From what Izuku had picked up so far, that probably would never be on the table, from the way she was fighting she must have some speed quirk.
He was broken from his thoughts by noticing just how her eyes were moving across him. He was looking at her appraising an opponent, someone he had a chance of beating. She was looking at him like the cat that caught the canary, like she had him right where she wanted him and all that was left was getting what she came here for.
She was a girl his age, just a little bit shorter than him, around 5 foot 2 he estimated. Her hair was a blonde so light it was practically see through, cut short in a bob with buns sticking out from both sides. She was thin, to the point he would guess she was bordering on malnourished. Even then, he could see strength in her body, her muscles were lean and fading, but certainly there. She was dressed in a middle school outfit that was unfamiliar to him, it was ragged and filthy, tight and unfitting like she had grown out of it. Clearly it was the only pair of clothes she had owned for some time, covered in dirt and various stains. A few patches of something dried and the color of something light brown… Blood, it was dried blood. Given the attempted murder she was currently taken part in, he had no way to know if it was hers or someone elses. Her eyes were a striking yellow, wide with thin slits. A cat quirk then? It would explain the agility, but could a light cat mutation quirk really keep up with one for all? Perhaps it was augmented by something?
His train of thought was broken off by a high pitched and pointed giggle coming from the girl. He looked her in the eyes and she returned his stare with an unnaturally wide smile. All of her teeth were visible and bared at him, the sight would have been intimidating if he wasn’t so focused on the fangs in her mouth. They were sharp and clearly inhuman, more signs of a mutation quirk. The fangs supported his cat quirk theory, but if the mutation was just affecting her eyes and teeth, what was she gaining from it? Tsu had an animal mutation, but her strength and mobility came from a mutation to her bone structure. It gave her an “unnatural” posture, nothing he could currently see could support an augmented skeleton. Not to mention, the fangs where cat like but the rest of her mouth wasn’t. Perhaps the fangs where separate from the cat mutation? What did they do then? Where was this speed coming from? Perhaps his earlier hypothesis of augmentation held water? But if that was the case, what could teeth possibly augment, maybe she had to eat something most humans couldn’t?
His train of thought was cut off by words creaking out of the girl's mouth, they were somehow reminiscent of both a whisper and a squeal.
“You’re muttering… Mr.Stain was right. You're soooo smart! We’ve just met and you’ve almost got my quirk all figured out! Its adorable! Your soooo cute!”
The “so” was drawled out long, and the exclamation of his supposed cuteness came out almost like a hiccup. She had punctuated her sentence by covering her face with her hands as if she was embarrassed and not at all concerned with how loose the knife was in her hands, and how close it resided to her mouth, ready to slip right on in. She brought her legs up and down in a pitter patter motion to get some sort of excitement or nerves out.
The resonance of her voice was light and bubbly, high pitched yet holding an even tone that gave the voice a sense of mettle. Her words came out sing-songy, Much like the girl herself. From an objective point of view, Izuku thought her voice was beautiful. Melodic and enchanting, in the same way the steady scrape of metal against a whetstone was beautiful, a grating natural thing possessing a thoughtlessly calculated rhythm. Stunning in a way that sent every hair on his body standing to attention in goosebumps.
Izuku found his voice through his muttering, it was cold and scared. Fearful and determined. “W-why are you doing this! You mentioned Stain, are you with him!” He tried to look confidant, but his blood lose made his smile shaky, and she was clearly staring at his eyes that where blown out in fear.
The thought of Stain sending someone else to finish the job didn’t add up in Izuku's mind. It didn’t align with what he knew about the man. He seemed like the type of person to take care of this sort of business personally. He also said that he considers himself and Todoroki real heroes. He hated to acknowledge it, but Stain had saved him, so why would someone with Stain come after him. Stain also didn’t seem like the person to keep companions. But this girl was talking like she knew him? Even though the thought of her being an extension of Stain was becoming more and more illogical. Yet the idea that Stain could be keeping tabs on him, It sent an ice cold fear down his spine, and he couldn’t help but shiver.
Izuku did what he always does when fear wrestled all his other emotions into submission, when hesitation and shaking took control of his body. He put his now bloodied arms up in the way Aizawa had taught him to in class. He swung his legs around to make his posture as thin as it could be while still being stable. He raised his eyes to meet the girls glowing yellow iris, and he held her stare unblinking. He fastened his lips with his best smile, right now the best smile he could muster was thin and tweaked at its edges. It just made the smile look a little smug, but that's okay, maybe he could convince himself of such confidence.
The girl didn't look away, she looked absolutely elated at the change in his demeanor. Her eyes went from a dim glow to a brilliant glimmer, her smile became inhumanly wide to the point it almost seemed like her face was ballooning in glee like a cartoon character. A near silent squeal left her open mouth that reminded him of a dog whistle. She seemed to be floating on whatever feeling his change had given her, she was practically on her tiptoes.
They held this staring contest for a few seconds, and then just as fast her everything else she had done tonight, her expressiveness shut close as her posture and face returned to normal. Looking as casual as she probably could with that smile and those eyes, she brought up one finger to her mouth and started to tap on it as if in thought. Her head was tilted, and her eyes were gazing up and to the right. Her body began a small and casual sway, the type someone who wasn’t used to standing still for so long took up while waiting for the train. She began to shake her head in tandem with the sway of her body, and let words slip from her mouth to the rhythm of the movement, slow and just a little breathy.
“Noooooope!” she exclaimed with the pop of her P, “Stainy won’t let me work with him,” she articulated with an over exaggerated pout, “Even though I’ve told him I love him, I just can’t seem to get through to him! I’ve been following him for a while now, and when I saw what he said about you I just had to meet you! If he thought you were amazing than I absolutely needed to see you for myself!”
There was a sort of manic desperation in her voice as she said it. If his stab wounds hadn’t already communicated it, it would have screamed danger. This girl had opened their “meeting” by stabbing him. She clearly admired the serial killer that had recently dismantled his life, and she said she had been “Following him.” Most people would assume that had meant she was keeping up with the news surrounding him, but he had a feeling she meant that in a more literal sense. Yet, how casually she admitted to just wanting to meet him, made him slightly relax his posture, against all better judgment of course. His stance slacked and widened just a little, his arms lowered themselves barely, but they were no longer covering his face. A casual voice came out of his throat, something he might greet a friend with, more dominated by fear than before.
“W-what’s your n-name?”
Before he could even get the sentence out, she was on him again, covering the distance between them before his mind could catch up to the reactions of his body. Her now blood soaked blade lashed out at his face, taking opportunity on the opening he had inadvertently given her and dealing out a shallow cut to his freckled cheek.
Words flowed through the air at the same pace of her bodies movement, fast and calculated, carefree and enjoying this situation far to much. “You want to learn about me even now! Your better than I even imagined! Hey, hey. I want to learn more about you to okay! Everything, absolutely everything! I want to become you! Your so cute like this covered in the blood I freed from you! let me make you even cuter okay! You’re so nice you’ll let me right! let me be just like you!” Her words and movements where going so fast it was devolving into mania, his brain couldn’t grasp what she was asking of him and if he took the time to try instead of dodging, he was sure he would end up with a cut throat. Each slash swung with intent to kill.
She pulled back the knife along with her body, getting out his face yet keeping in his space. She reared her knife back and went in with a dip for a stab at his stomach, it was only One For All being pushed to his current limit and a little beyond that let him move back and to the side in time, making it so all she did was create another shallow cut along the left side of his abdomen and another tear in his hoodie, as opposed to a hole in his stomach.
The girl's knife was soaked in his blood, and at this point his clothes must have been in a similar state. Specks of red were found along her cheek and below, messing up her already disgusting uniform. She pulled back completely now, her smile doing nothing to contain the giggling she was clearly trying and failing to keep to herself. She was giving him room to breathe, but he needed more than a breath of air to get out of this. Izuku could feel himself becoming cold and lethargic as his body was making a mess of the ally. If he kept at this, the only thing that would remain of Izuku Midoryia was a new layer of dried blood on a forgotten backstreet in the city.
The girl spoke through her giggles, “Hey, hey, hey, you look AMAZING right now! You’re so cute cut and covered in blood like that! Show me more, okay? I was expecting this to take longer after everything Stain said about you, so make up for it with your blood for me okay~!”
What little break she was willing to hand to him with her monolouging is snatched away as fast as it was given, as she moves bent down and straight like a bullet. Crashing into him with the strength of a shooting star burning into the planets atmosphere, granting his one wish as it finds it mark. knife stretched out in front of her face, she sends it crashing right into his stomach. Not even caring to halt her momentum, she goes right into him along with the knife, sending all three of them onto to the brick sidewalk under them. His back crashing into and denting one of the last working streetlamps.
One last time he tried to fight it, push back against her to get her off, to move his body, to just try and get away. But he was simply out of juice, The strain of keeping One For All past his limits to keep up with her, alongside the blood loss, was just to much to keep going. He was done.
Izuku Midoriya lies on this street cold and dying, grateful to not be alone. All these years imagining a scenario like this, one that would end with him bloody and fading away, not one did he imagine someone else would be there with him. Even if that someone else was the reason for it in the first place. He currently has trouble being angry at This Girl, for what is she but a force of nature coming to grant a wish that had gone so long ignored.
He glances up at this angel of deliverance and sees her rearing back her knife far above her head. He never even felt her pull it out. Droplets of blood drip drop from the knife onto her nose and into where his neck meets his collar, the distance between the two locations not far at all. Her smile is full, and her teeth are gleaming down at him like the night sky.
His final thoughts are not of his mother or his friends, All Might or his hopeless dreams of being a hero. All they can linger on is this girl fading to black above him, and the passion he has devoted his life to. The passion he had once thrown himself into in hopes it could even an unfair playing field. The passion he has relied on for so long to keep him on par with his peers. The passion he focused on in his last hour, in hope it could give him an out of the fight he now knows he never had a way of winning. In his last moments, all the puzzle pieces fit together, and he realizes it was hopeless from the moment that passion had become a crutch years and years ago.
A cat mutation quirk might provide flexibility, but not speed to this degree. The eyes must be a secondary mutation. Secondary mutations aren’t talked about and rarely documented, but they are common enough and tend to be purely aesthetic, not running deep enough to alter muscle and bone formation. Then what IS her quirk? Having mutations at all means she has to have one. Not to consider the statically likelihood of not having one at her age, (he knows better than anyone, meeting someone his age like him is a hopeless wish, one not even The Girl could grant.)
His vision is fading yet it catches once more at her smile cutting into him. Time seems to slow and the luminescent streetlamp above them makes her visage blinding. Flickering her body in and out of sight, as if she was caught right under indecisive moonlight. In it he notices… her teeth are catlike. They are not cats teeth. That’s the quirk then. He has all the information he will get so think, it has to do with the theeth..Sharp teeth, an obsession with blood during a fight, a reliance on knives… just like him.. that must be it! A-
“Blood…”
Quirk! Rare and not talked about much, studied by scientists even less. Any information he has found on them has comes from uncredible or secondary sources. A fragment of quirk society people are all to willing to ignore… He knows how that feels. He tastes Iron as he lets a quick chuckle out.
So, if it’s a blood quirk than, what does it do…
It doesn’t matter does it?
He was paying attention and despite the splattering… she never took the time to ingest blood. Which means that everything that happened, she did on her own accord, her own merits. Every time she out sped All for One, it was-
“only her…”
A cold a sense of cruel irony set upon his corpse. His death so young because he of all people forgot what could be accomplished without a quirk. So obsessed with what finding out what her quirk could do, he forgot someone could do without one. If he wasn’t so focused during the fight on figuring out what was not there… than maybe… but…. rather not…
With his final thoughts lying on a deserved punishment, on this forgotten street in Musutafu. His eyes flutter shut before the knife makes impact once more. His vision goes dark as the previously working streetlamp cuts out with him.
Izuku Midoriya goes cold.
~~~
But he does not die.
His eyes flutter upon. He is in immense pain. His body is sticky and reeks of gore, but he is not dead. “The Girl” is still on top of him. Though she has put the knife away in favor of intently studying his face it seems. This is not helping with the pain, but the pain is keeping him from the immense embarrassment of having a girl on top of him… wait…. No… she just killed him… but he’s…
wait what’s happening?
Dying meant he didn’t have to piece together what this night was, and now that finding out was a reality he had to face, the thought of piecing together the insanity was overwhelming
“Don’t worry, Let’s just Talk.” The Girl says before he can gather himself, oh he had said that last bit out loud huh.
“You did,” she chuckles slow and low, “It was kind of adorable Izuku.”
Vision came back, with sound on its heels at a creeping pace. every sound was too loud, her voice was clipped and cold and he could hear the whistling of a gentle night breeze.
Touch came next, and it came with the speed of the flames of hell burning into him. Small sensations like the weight of the world. Specs of gravel and dirt that where hiding in the concrete sidewalk dug into his legs like daggers. And after tonight, no one was more qualified to make that comparison than him.
Wait had she said his name? Had she spoken it before now? She… really did know a lot about him huh. Instead of acknowledging the probable murderer sitting atop of him, he decides to focus on her voice in a practice of focusing back in on the reality his blood loss was still keeping from him.
Her voice had retained a steady lifeless rhythm, it’s a drastic change and he thinks he might prefer she dip back into the threatening mania she was in before, if only for the comfort of familiarity. It’s hard to get comfortable around a murderer who wont even let you get a read on their personality. But she seems to just want to talk now, so after Izuku supposes he can try. It would only be polite.
He coughs up a quarter pound of blood.
“Talk…abou..huh?”
Trying to get through a sentence makes him woozy, and he can feel his head start to sway down onto his shoulder. Luckily the girl gives repeated light yet forcefully slaps to his right cheek to keep him from going down.
“Hey now. Don’t konk out on me now okay. I want some questions answered.”
Wait…. This girl had just tried to kill him, is being nice really the best option here?
“My quirk… you think you figured it out right? Tell me what you think it is.”
I guess she hasn’t given to much of a reason NOT to be nice, and he thinks her voice sounded a tinge desperate asking whatever it is she just asked. But… shes a villain. Though the point of being a hero is helping those in need. He knows what people with blood quirks go through, the options society is desperate to give them, or not give them to be more apt. He is painfully familiar. She is definitely someone that could need help he thinks, so being nice is important. But than again… She herself admitted to being an avid fan of Stain, the entire reason she came to him is she sees his “perfect hero” in him. So, maybe fuck her actually. Being nice is for an Izuku with waaay more blood than he currently has in him.
Oh wait! She was saying something right now! He can’t believe he wasn’t paying attention! He should ask some questions so they can have that conversation she wanted.
“Who… you??? I’m okay..?”
Izuku does not remember what he just said.
“You… your… who?”
Izuku does not remember what he just said.
“I… I’m good. I can…. Cat?”
Izuku does no-
The girl cuts him off, Izuku is enraptured with her voice this time around, now that he has a slightly firmer grasp on his blood light mind.
She gives him a small pout. Its small but he thinks its more expressive than anything else her face has shown tonight.
“You’re not going to be working tonight huh. Sorry, I got carried away. I just wanted to see if you where everything Stain said you were. If you could…. Never mind! This is just an excuse to talk again later!”
The girl jumps up off him and claps her hands together in what he has to assume is excitement. She looks down into his emerald eyes and scrunches up her own amber ones. Izuku does not think she finds whatever she was looking for.
“You ARE interesting though at the very least, I want to talk again if you’ll let me, you will, won’t you?” She reaches down and pulls him up by his uninjured arm. The second he is on his feet he stumbles weightlessly into her. Without a thought she grasps his shoulders than lets go as soon as he finds purchase in them, allowing him to stand on his own though doe legged and shaking.
She pulls a phone out of her pocket and starts typing something into… wait that’s HIS phone, when did she get that??? How did she unlock it???
“Here! Now you have my number, you’ll meet me here tomorrow, won’t you?” She hands back his phone and as their hands touch, she holds his in place. She fixes him with a gently questioning look, but the way her hand grips into his, he knows she is looking for an answer.
Izuku takes a minute to understand what she’s asking, and when he does, he slowly nods. The movement sends a sharp pain down his spine and causes the wounds in his stomach to tighten and pulse. His grip on reality is still fragile, but the pain is one a hell of a wake up call.
Before he can make use of his new found focus to provide an answer. She lets go of his hand and takes three steps back giving him plenty of space. Her face tilts downwards but her eyes never leave him.
“You will… Won’t you?”
For the first time tonight, she sounds uncertain. Her words pitter patter out so slow and pathetic, it sounds like she is lying in wait to say… or do… something else.
Izuku gives her question fair consideration. Fairer than his health should allow. Fairer than the situation should warrant. He considers the way in which her words trail off and wonders if he has much of a choice. More than that, he takes a moment to look over his body and wounds. Every place he was cut now holds a faint sting accompanied by clean cloth and bandages. His stomach even has stitches.
He should be dead, but he isn’t. His wounds are treated, and he doesn’t know the girl’s name. He’s scared to ask, and words are hard to get out right now anyways. An energy sink he can’t afford if he wants to make it home. He keeps his health in mind when he answers, he keeps in mind a burning curiosity that overrides any type of logic he might have. It burns in him with the same type of heat he feels whenever he thinks about being a hero. This girl is a villain, clearly an experienced one. He is a hero, one without a lick of experience he would put any value in.
He nods his head.
His lip’s part barley as if he wants to speak, but changes his mind as his vocal cords remind him of the strain they need to operate.
The girl looks surprised, maybe a little sad, but slowly like she has just been given something otherworldly and precious. She nods her head back.
“Good… good.” Her voice is neither cold nor obsessed, Izuku thinks this one is her own. “I’ll see you than, that’s a promise.”
She regains her confidence and just like that she’s off, running down the street presumably the same way she followed him in, all while looking behind and waving at him before she dips around a corner and out of sight.
The street is silent now, nothing but the wind and the painting of his breath. His heart is thumping in his chest like an earthquake but he doesn’t have the blood to feel it all.
He doesn’t know what time it is, only that he still has school in the morning. He takes a minute to really feel his body again. Feel attached to his mind. Feel how much pain he’s really in.
The next thing that comes back to him is a reminder of how far of a walk it is to get back home. So, he begins to walk.
His body creaks as he feels the stitches and bandages stretch, accommodating the new strain on his wounds. But it’s not his first time.
Not his first time having to stumble his way back home with wounds bad enough for either a visit to the emergency room or the morgue depending on his luck. Not his first time spending the time walking back figuring out how hard it will be to hide them the next day.
He's in shock, he concludes. Not able to truly process what has taken place. His mind voting to ignore it and push the realizations down to a later date. With lava in his stomach and a dessert in his throat. He limps back home with one last thought.
Its feels nice to have someone else patch him up.