Chapter Text
The fallout of the Hosu incident wasn't that big, at least in the public eye. Yes, Stain's speech left the country in an uproar, HPSC was left scrambling to wipe the words from history, and the city was going to take some time to recuperate from the Noumu attack. That much was simply impossible to deny.
But that was all in the public eye. Anyone could see that much and draw their own conclusions.
Izuku Midoryia was in internal turmoil, however.
He was, to all intents and purposes, visibly not affected by what happened and put his signature smile on in front of his friends - if not to assure them that him, Iida-kun and Todoroki-kun were okay, then to perhaps try and fool himself into believing the same thing. It worked, for a little while. Maybe he was exhausted, maybe he just dove back into his usual life headfirst and it helped him stave off the inevitable for a few weeks. But as any unstable foundation, it was not a long-term solution, and eventually the shields and locks he'd put up around the whole situation would start to creak and weather.
Today was apparently the day where the first of the cracks made itself apparent to him. It was late in the evening and Izuku had already finished all his schoolwork and training for the day, now laying in his bed with tired green eyes burrowing into the ceiling. His mind started to wander back to those events, regurgitating and dissecting the Hero Killer's words and ideals like an animal in a biology lab. He's left falling down a thought spiral, his fingers itching to grab the nearest piece of paper and write down every single thought and idea he gets in return.
Izuku had originally discarded Stain's speech as something that had once been a valid concern turned delusional ramblings of a killer. But… Now that he was thinking about it, it was not all that delusional. Izuku was a hero fanboy through and through, but even he knew the current society painted over its issues like a cheap landlord using wall paint to hide a hole in the wall. Were there heroes that took up the mantle to gain fame and money, all the while averting their eyes whenever a situation wouldn't benefit them? Yes. Were there heroes that took their status and power to do what they wanted, with the law not coming back to bite them? Of course, there were. The current number Two was the prime example of how power and competitiveness could get to one's head to the point of madness, but Izuku knew somewhere in his heart that there were many more corrupted ones, plaguing the rankings like a slowly progressing lethal disease.
The rankings were another thing, and mostly something that Izuku had thought about himself. Were the rankings, in some way, necessary? Yes, they were. Were they also twisted and turned into a glorified publicity stunt, leaving heroes fighting for a spot in the top-100, just to be known and seen? Of course. Was it a flawed system that based itself largely on public approval rather than maybe something more constructive? Another yes. Izuku himself enjoyed dissecting the rankings and making his own lists based on different criteria, such that included property damage as a factor and counted the help they offered to society rather than the amount of people screaming their name.
Thinking about it left a sour taste in his mouth. Stain had been a deranged murderer, killing heroes in the name of the one person who would look at him in disgust for it, crowning himself as the judge, jury and executioner. But… He wasn't entirely wrong in his ideas, either. Stain was a man whose hope for hero society had left him. And even though Izuku strongly disagreed with his methods, it wasn't hard to see the reasons that broke him.
Izuku spent many hours thinking about everything. His mind only stopped to a screeching halt akin to that of a derailed train once he'd gotten too exhausted to think, and the boy turned to face away from the ceiling and sleep. He felt his skin itch uncomfortably, as if all the merchandise in his room had suddenly begun to judge him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
And so, time passed just like that. Izuku spent his time studying, hanging out with his friends as usual, all the while his mind grew heavier with each night spent on his thought spiral.
Izuku, also, couldn't look Tenya in the eyes anymore. It began as a slight feeling of shame, something he didn't quite register and understand at first. Izuku found ways to avoid the Iida boy, subtly but surely shortening their interactions. The shame turned into avoidance, avoidance turned to guilt bubbling under his skin. He felt a stab of distant pain and guilt whenever he had been close to Iida, feeling ashamed and disgusted by himself. He had grown to understand, maybe to even slightly respect Stain's ideologies, which in itself was a problem and a half, but that respect turned into white-hot shame around his classmate, an awful tinny voice in his head reminding him that he was agreeing with the man who had disabled Ingenium. Izuku knew that Tensei Iida didn't deserve what happened to him, just like none of Stain's victims deserved to be culled for their mistakes, and that sharp awareness made it ever so much worse to continue being Tenya's friend.
Izuku bit the inside of his cheek each time he wanted to cut the taller teen off, or confess to him about his newfound ideas. Tenya deserved the truth, he knew that much, but… Maybe Izuku was simply a coward. Maybe he had been too afraid of Iida's reaction, maybe it was something else. Either way, Izuku kept his mouth shut. If not to save his own ass out of a selfish reason, then to be someone who Tenya can trust- as much as he probably should not, nowadays- in these times. Tenya seemed to be back on his feet, but Izuku knew all too well what it was like to hide things from the world.
Sometimes, when Izuku was overwhelmed and overtaken by exhaustion, his mind wandered to the idea of confessing to a teacher. Aizawa-sensei, maybe. All Might wouldn't understand, and Izuku didn't want to horrify and worry his mentor any more than he already was. But then again, that was just the same reason he hadn't spoken to any teacher altogether. Aizawa-sensei seemed a better candidate for the conversation, even if just by virtue of being an underground hero. The man had been exposed to things that the limelight heroes either weren't thinking of or had put on the backburner of their brains.
Despite that, Izuku still didn't talk, not letting his stressed mind make him spill everything out like a high-pressure burst of water from a dam. Izuku was, once again, afraid. What would the faculty do if they learned someone in the school, in the Hero Course no less, agreed with the Hero Killer? The idea of being booted out of heroics, however distant and uncertain, was more terrifying than the prospect of keeping every thought and emotion sealed in the vault inside his mind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The more days passed, the more Izuku found himself agreeing with the villain's ideology. It nagged at him like a sore spot whenever he frequented a hero forum, reading about some corruption or other, any time he'd watched TV with his mother and saw a news report about a villain attack. It frequented his brain like a tidal wave, coming and going and slamming into him with the weight of the entire ocean.
No matter how resilient, how dedicated Izuku was, it only served to crack his resolve. Not just in how he'd been an unwavering fan of heroes and the hero society, but even in his own perception of what he was turning out to be. He still saw himself as someone striving to be the next pillar of hope, if not out of his own passion then out of an obligation to this world. He knew the peace wouldn't last forever, and who would be there if not for him when the fragile shell that keeps everything together starts to break? But… Even despite all of that, Izuku felt restless, uncertain. Could he turn a blind eye to everything? Could he truly be the hero he wanted, with the world's rotting framework as the foundation? How could he do that and not feel disgust building underneath his ribcage?
Izuku realized that this thought spiral had truly gotten to him. He couldn't just push onward, pretending like everything was just the same as before, acting and talking as if the last two weeks hadn't uprooted everything he knew and thought to be true. And Izuku could no longer justify his place in this part of the world, however long he had spent fighting for the spot. It was a sickening, painful realization, one he'd initially tried to throw aside. It hurt to think about these things, but eventually he came to terms with it. Someone would fill the space he had taken up, someone better-suited for true heroics. Someone not plagued by these ideas as he was.
Izuku made his choice, one night. He'd left his hero costume behind, the metal suitcase now abandoned to collect dust in the corner of his room. He only took the essentials, out of necessity more than anything. Clothes, his notebooks, something to eat and his wallet. Maybe his room would be a memory of what he'd once been? That would be nice. A reminder of a part of his life integral to his existence as a person. Izuku left in a hurry, not wanting to disturb his mother's gentle sleep.
And so, the hero Deku was dead. What would replace him… Izuku didn't know.