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Yuga is used to weird things happening. He’s in the hero course, it’s inevitable. Weird things happen now and then when you’re in a class with 19 other teens with especially powerful quirks. So, something like Kaminari-kun blowing out the power or Koda-kun’s rabbit getting loose and chewing up wires in the dorm… that’s the sort of weird thing Yuga has come to expect.
This… this isn’t what he expected at all. Frozen in place in his bed, he couldn’t move anything. He was just… glued in place, staring at the ceiling. He can only vaguely see in the dark of his room, but he’s hit by the horrible realisation that there’s something in his room. A presence right beside his bed.
And then it becomes two presences. One of them he can’t make out even if he strains his eyes with focus, some humanoid presence that he can’t even begin to comprehend. The other he can see too much. A writhing mass of flesh and limbs and eyes, constantly moving with the occasional squelch that makes Yuga’s stomach churn.
“Ah, bonjour, hello- Parlez-vous Français?” He asks, voice shaking a little (at least he can speak… at least he could bargain-). No words, just a squelch as the mass crawls onto his bed. Yuga tries not to look at it, the constant writhing and changing limbs horrible to look at.
“Voulez-vous quelque chose?” He asks, trying to hide his growing nausea. His quirk trying to activate out of some unfortunate symptom of fight-or-flight only adds to the anxiety fueled nausea. He's answered only by the shlick of the mass, and it ambles and crawls closer. Yuga wishes he could run, something primal screaming nous devons partir, je veux partir, ce n’est pas bien!
It touches his forehead and Yuga can feel the horrible slimy touch applying just slightly too much pressure. He feels acid rise into his throat and he swallows it back down forcefully.
MY PARTNER WANTS FLESH AND LIMBS AND HANDS AND FEET AND EYES AND KIDNEYS. It says into his mind, it feels like one of the many thoughts in his head but wrong and twisted - off in some horrible, awful way. His eyes are drawn, almost against his will, to the something. It feels like it’s staring right in his eyes, and he wants to move his hand to hit it- to do something (he has the childish urge to hide under his covers) but he’s still trapped in his own body. Like the connection from his brain to his body has been severed, and he’s trapped in his own head.
But he can still feel, and the writhing mass of limbs twitching and pulsating is driving him mad and seeing it too makes it even worse. He screws his eyes closed, in some desperate move caused by the childish, primal idea of if I can’t see it, it can’t see me. He hears the rhythmic squelch of the mass getting closer, and feels it crawling up his chest and it gets close to his face and… and Yuga opens his eyes before he can think about it.
His vision was filled with meat and blood, arms and legs and heads, and wide eyes seeing everything and nothing, and gnashing mouths gnawing at the air with hunger and Yuga feels the same ravenous hunger. He’s so hungry, just like it. Hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry-
He opens his mouth to scream, before slamming his mouth shut with force. He gets the horrible feeling that if he kept it open, the thing would force its way through his open mouth and replace his organs, wearing him like a suit and puppeting his body. He imagines he’d become part of its endless collection of body parts and flesh. He can smell it. A foul, awful, horrible smell that Yuga knew somehow was the smell of death.
A noise drags his eyes away from the wretched mess that constantly writhed and twitched like it was in unimaginable agony. It’s the something, the imperceivable humanoid he can’t begin to gauge or interpret. It moves closer, maybe, reality flickering behind it like ribbons in the breeze-
It came closer still, a hand (could it be called a hand? It was the only word Yuga could use to describe it, but no words seemed to fit this something) reaching out and gently cupping his face in its cold clammy appendage.
Yuga starts to sob. He’s never wanted to be held by another living person as much as he does right now. He wants the warmth of another person, maybe a classmate, maybe his maman or an enemy he doesn’t care, he just wants this to stop. But he also wants to scream and shout, beg for someone to hear him- to save him- and he sobs harder.
The something wipes his tears away with its frigid, moisture-laden hand and it’s the most affection he’s had in a while (he loves UA, he really does- it’s all he’s ever dreamed of, but he wishes his classmates would notice him more… Even if it makes his role easier, Yuga wants someone to see him, he wants to be equal-) and Yuga can’t help but lean into it, and he feels horrible for it.
“What do you want from me?” He asks, voice choked up, “Take everything I have, if that’s what you want, just please leave me alone-“
The mass moves closer to his face again (when did it move down to the end of the bed?) and just… stares at him, like it knows. Like it’s staring into his soul. Yuga stares back. And the something grabs his head, turning it so he’s facing it and-
And Yuga sees it.
He sees everything. He sees nothing, too. The birth and death of everything, everything known and everything that will be known and things that will never- can never be known.
And Yuga realises he’s fictional. He is nothing more than an interpretation of a character from a show. Words on a page. Inherently derivative. He's nothing. And he screams, long and hard and full of grief. What was the point of everything? His troubles, his strife?
All for the entertainment of some unknowable thing. He screams and wails and sobs and begs for it to not be true, for this to be some twisted nightmare coming from too many horror movies and please, it can't be true, please, tell me it's all made up!
He can feel the eyes of this thing on him, the knowing gazes of the audience. And sure, some of them cry with him (but they’re not going to care, once they stop watching, it’s still entertainment for them) but some of them take pleasure in this. It's not fair.
They stare, and Yuga stares right back.