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He couldn't see much through the rain. It wasn't real rain, of course, just a technical design to enhance their performance not realising how the cool water soaked through their clothes sending a chill straight to his bones. But with the way some of the aliens were looking at him perhaps that was the intention after all.
Their eyes did nothing to hide their hunger, claws and tentacles gripping the side of the stage as if holding themselves back from lunging at and devouring him. Ripping him limb from limb, sucking out every last drop of blood and fighting each other for whatever was left of him. Perhaps his clothes as a trophy, to show their affiliation with contestant Number 2 of Round 6, the one with the exotic features and exploitable body.
He'd lost count of how many of them had touched some part of him: a hand around his neck when he stepped out of line, threatening to shock him through the metal collar that dug into his skin, or a hand running through his hair after being thrown onto a table and beaten until the glass was stained red like a reward for being obedient, taking his punishment like a good little pet. Hands on his arms and legs, injecting him with unknown substances labelled in a language he couldn't read, and of course his owner who led him around with a firm grip on his shoulder in case his valuable property to whom they had spent a lot of money to take hold of would lash out and run off...
He couldn't see much through the rain, the arena dark except for the stage lights shining almost unbearably down upon him and his competition. He didn't dare turn his head and see his face, to see how they dressed him up just like he was, anticipating the performance so they could vote for a winner. He thinks that they actually prefer watching the loser being shot dead than watching the round itself. A flash of his previous round appeared through the blurry rain, red staining his shoes dying the black leather a grotesque mauve crimson. Alien guts and shards of metal scattering the stage, some hitting the closest onlookers, the sounds of gunshots blasting through the ringing in his ears at the screams and cheers of the aliens at the violent, abrupt death.
Till.
Shoto hadn't spoken to him much. He didn't really speak much to anyone. But Till was known in the facility. The experiments that left scars scattered across his body, the wire attached to his collar ready to inject him with a tranquilliser at the slightest infraction of the rules, the constant glare in his eyes at the robots running the facility and his range of explicit vocabulary. He was familiar in a way Shoto couldn't recall...
But beyond that, Till was so gentle. He'd make flower crowns for the younger children, draw attention to himself when one of them accidentally broke the rules, would check on those he considered friends. When Shoto first arrived in the facility, the various drugs they had pumped him with still wearing off, Till had approached him first. Then the others followed: Sua, Mizi, Ivan, Luka, Hyuna. Korean heritage, all of them, and for the first time in his life in this situation worst of all, he mentally thanked his father for hiring tutors since childhood to verse him in a range of languages. Since starting UA he hadn't had time to continue his studying, but thankfully he retained enough to understand them.
They never forced him to speak, leaving him to his thoughts. Often they were haunting images of his kidnapping, of the torture he endured before being dragged here. Of those he left behind, but now their faces and voices were blurry, everything outside of this artificial world was. When the competition was announced for its 50th year and they were all chosen to participate, that was when Shoto stopped talking. His owner told him it was what he should do, to preserve his voice for the show, an unspoken command through the tightening of his collar and a hand pressed in warning against his back.
This lifetime of horror rewarded them with a little luck as they weren't against each other in their first rounds. Besides Sua and Mizi. Shoto tried not to watch, looking at the floor of his pod, ignoring the sprayed droplets of red falling down the glass door and the sound of Mizi's screaming breaking through the roar of the crowd.
The next time one of them faced each other was Mizi and Luka. Luka, who had won the year before but his owner thrived off of his pet's popularity bringing in money with interviews, brand deals or the alternative in this alien landscape, and of course private performances where Luka would return with a raspy voice and hollow eyes that so heavily contrasted the princely image given to him. Their stage was set up like a fantasy ball with chandeliers and fake stars draped above them. Again he didn't want to watch, but the aura emanating off of the stage broke through his reluctance, and he watched as Luka did something on a psychological level to break Mizi, her eyes glowing red as she attacked him. Hyuna had broken out of her pod to help, but was simply the first one to receive a rush of bullets to the chest, Mizi slumping on top of her as their blood stained Luka's outfit red...
He couldn't see much through the rain, but his dead friends watched him from the front row, their blood-stained bodies and hollow eyes staring into his soul, counting down the seconds until he would join them.
Raindrops hung off of his eyelids, seeping into the cracks in his lips, flowing through his veins as he stared vacantly into the rain. There was nothing beyond it, beyond this. No freedom, no peace, just torture and death and guilt he would forever bear like the collar on his neck, the chilled metal threatening to suffocate his throat. He watched as one of his hands lifted up to grab the microphone, pure white, so innocent, not knowing that each word that flowed from Shoto's lips paved the road to his death. This microphone would receive his last breath.
He thinks that the music had started but it was inaudible over the ringing in his ears. He watched as Till's blood began to coat his skin, climbing up his limbs and staining his new outfit. Somehow sound was able to escape his lips, but it sounded nothing like him, weak and breaking and so, so tired. His eyes remained unmoving from his friends, smiling and waving at him to join them. He wanted to, it was the only thing he had wished for since his life here began, he just had to wait for his score to go down and down and then that blessed bullet would pierce his heart and he could finally die.
"Until these falling stars are buried in the blur of time, on your icy lips read my soul, yes my soul, oh〜 "
It hurt to sing, to say a single syllable, but he had nothing left inside to give. These creatures who had taken everything from him but his name. He was not a human but a pet, his free will replaced with forced submission alongside an expiration date. This competition, entertainment through killing children and revelling in their cries, would be his saviour. His one act of rebellion to his owner, to his kidnappers, to all of them.
"Even if your cold words carve scars beneath my eyes, may they linger on your tongue. You can break me apart, notice my pain and mend me right now. To quiet my fears, I'll drown in you〜"
His voice broke through the rain, the ringing, his heartbeat climbing up his throat and into his skull. Shoto didn't want to look at him, didn't want to look at the one friend he had left, to allow himself to enjoy his beautiful voice. Beyond the hair that hid his eyes from view, the ones that the aliens enjoyed so much they created his whole image out of it, how exotic and desirable he was, he saw black dress shoes and white slacks. A laugh broke through his swollen lips, echoing into his microphone like a ghostly breath. He was dressed like he was going to a wedding, and through swollen eyes from the constant falling of tears he could see that he himself was dressed in black. Attending his own funeral.
"To this everlasting melody〜" His voice barely more than a whisper, his eyes drifting back to his friends, their haunting figures drifting closer. Sua's bloody hand rested atop the stage.
"Face to face, we dance〜" His voice was beautiful, responding to his weak call. He parted his lips to reply but no sound came out, his hand long having lost its grip on his microphone and hanging at his side.
He couldn't see much in the rain. His eyes unfocused, the rain pouring an unbearable weight atop him, fingertips turning purple. Somehow he knew the music kept going but no melody echoed in the air. In time with the rain beating on his back, the chants of rage from the aliens, those shiny black shoes came closer and a hand on his shoulder made him flinch, an icy breath melting into the rain.
Their final stage, their final performance, their final harmony came ever closer with the crescendo of the music, but all Shoto could focus on was that hand on his shoulder, another on his cheek turning his gaze upwards to look into pitch-black eyes, the only light in them Shoto's own ghastly reflection.
Shoto tried to speak his name, ask him why he too stopped singing when he could win, live until the next round, to return to his owner who was a thousand times better than most. But all he could manage was a weak whimper that was swallowed by soft lips pressing against his in a bruising kiss. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, just feel those lips kissing him over and over until his eyes fluttered and everything came into sharp focus.
"I- Ivan..."
Another kiss had his lips parting, but he didn't know if it was in a sigh or a gasp for breath. He latched on to the fragile warmth seeping into his throat, coating his tongue in a sickly sweet poison, and the corners of his lips twitched up when that poison latched onto his throat through two calloused hands. Thumbs pressing under his chin, fingernails digging into his collar, warm palms surrounding his neck.
He let his head fall back, the rain washing away his scorching tears, willing for that final breath to leave his lungs. Through the heavy haze of his mind it took him too long to realise the screams of the aliens had come closer, the clicking of guns aimed right at them, that Ivan's hands were holding his neck like Shoto was the most fragile thing in the universe.
A stumble in his grip had Shoto falling forward, pale hands gripping onto a flowing blouse, eyes shaking and heart clenched in pain. What... what was happening?
"Ivan..." he whispered against his friend's lips. "What-" He was cut off by the sound of a gunshot and he flinched. He was looking at Till's lifeless eyes staring up at him from the stage floor, of his owner using him for target practice to entertain his guests, of his kidnappers the day he-
Another kiss, and Shoto latched onto it with the little energy he had left. Salty tears, not just his own, fell onto his tongue.
"My god..." Ivan whispered before another gunshot, another stumble. But the look in his eyes was that of a devoted believer.
He couldn't see much in the rain, only the blur of Ivan's lips on his, of soldiers rushing towards them from all sides, the rain reflecting off their metal frames and burning his skin, of the hands clutching Ivan's blouse becoming drenched in blood. Warm, red-
"My universe..." Another kiss, but this one fell to his chin, lips ghosting his neck before Shoto was ice cold all over, Ivan slipping through his hands and landing with a heavy thud onto the stage floor. A pool of blood spread beneath him, he was unable to find where it came from. Ivan was soaked in red, so much blood just like Till and Hyuna and Mizi and Sua and-
Another gunshot, Ivan's body flinching and something like a laugh rang out. Shoto's knees gave out at the sight, and if he had the strength he would throw up at the feeling of warm blood soaking his clothes and his skin, drowning him, pulling him down to his grave. Ivan's eyes met his, and the ghost of a smile appeared on his lips before the light faded and he was dead.
He couldn't hear anything. Couldn't fell anything. Darkness surrounded him, sucking all life and air from around him. He could only stare into Ivan's empty eyes, Till's blood-splattered lips, Mizi's insides decorating the stage floor. His friends, they were everywhere, they were free, he wanted to join them...
He was saying something but he didn't know what. His lips were moving but his body was frozen still unable to look away from Ivan's dead eyes. Things flashed through the darkness, guns, green alien blood, faces somehow familiar but ghosts all the same. Perhaps there was someone calling his name. It was Ivan, or maybe his friends waving to him from just up ahead, or maybe-
Pain erupted in his body. It felt like injections, the countless needles they forced into him, the scalpels that sliced open his skin, prodding into his chest, his lungs, his head. The blood was everywhere now, falling from his lips and into his eyes, but still he kept looking at Ivan. If he looked away then they would all be gone, they would vanish and how could he follow them then?
The darkness was blasted away as the ringing in his ears became an unbearable piercing in his skull. He registered the chaos, aliens falling to the ground crushed under bullets and rubble, humans swarming the arena and thuds shaking the stage. With a shaky hand he grasped Ivan's limp wrist, sliding down to intertwine their fingers. It was Ivan, Till, Mizi-
"SHOTO!"
His friends were calling out to him, he was almost there, so close to death he could feel its warm embrace.
"SHOTO LOOK AT ME! WE'VE FOUND YOU!"
What happened to their voices? It didn't sound like his friends, and he knew their cries, their screams of pain, rare shrieks of laughter... What was happening?
Another shake and Shoto tilted dangerously to the side, another wave of pain piercing the side of his ribs. He stayed upright, he had to keep watching over Ivan, Ivan who had made sure the aliens killed him so Shoto could live even if he didn't want to. But it was okay now, he would watch over Ivan until his death and then they could-
"SHOTO! PLEASE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! WE'VE FOUND YOU!"
Something cold hit his knee, a sharp contrast to the sticky hot blood that drenched him, that bled under his skin and into his veins, that soaked his throat and filled his lungs. The cold felt familiar, a knife to his wrist, the collar on his neck, chains on his ankles...
A gun just within his reach.
Tightening his grip on Ivan's hand he reached out to grab the gun. His fingers barely brushed the handle and something like a sob escaped him. But that wasn't possible because he didn't have the strength for that, he was too dead for that. Another attempt, successfully lifting the heavy metal in his hand, staring down the barrel, caressing the trigger.
"YOUNG TODOROKI! PUT THE GUN DOWN! YOU ARE SAFE NOW!"
The gun was heavy. It had bullets in it. It felt like sin in his palm. Was this the gun that killed Ivan? Till? All of his friends? Did those bullets hold remorse, did its owner find a sick pleasure in the shrieks of innocent children slaughtered on this stage? He wanted to laugh, to shriek with joy, that finally he would end it all. This torturous existence, leaving it behind to join them.
He could see people climbing the enormous stage, racing towards him. They would detain him, inject him, beat him into a submissive pet to return to his owner. They would sell his body to whichever alien paid the most. No, no he couldn't do that anymore. He was so close to freedom.
He lifted the gun, Till kneeling on his right, Hyuna on his left, Mizi and Sua at his back, and Ivan's hand in his. He imagined a pulse in his wrist that matched the wild rhythm of his heart, the melody of their final duet, their last performance, their cure from this pain. The barrel pressed against his temple.
"TODOROKI WAIT! PLEASE JUST LOOK AT US! WE'RE HERE!"
He locked eyes with Ivan, held his hand tighter even as the river of blood threatened to part them. His final ode.
"To be engulfed in silence, in your gaze where I'm seen. Consume me〜"
His finger kissed the trigger, and then he was dead.