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After he’d ended the fool, Tomura, he had walked out of the place and its smelly interior, breathing deeply once he’d been outside, and is now sitting outside at the table of a nearby cafe, calmly sipping tea, casually observing passing mortals and their habits, as if he hadn’t been one once.
He takes another sip, enjoying the hotness of the drink, the scalding of his tongue, despite it healing after seconds. He sighs, basking in the peace of his existence and simply waiting.
Luckily, he doesn’t wait long. After he’d finished his drink and began another, a raven lands on the back of the chair in front of him, cawing and tilting its head in that nervous, cautious way birds do. Izuku sips his drink, patient.
“My Lord,” it begins, in that raspy, hoarse voice of ravens, stepping closer, on the table. “The council summons you. I am to bring you there.”
“Summons me?” Izuku says, surprised. He hasn’t been summoned since the day he died, when his duties were explained. He’s had free reign since then. What possible reason could they have? He hasn’t messed with humans that much, apart from a few cases here and there.
“Indeed.” It bobs its head, twitches its wings. Izuku knows the raven will not take him without his agreement, and he takes a moment to contemplate. Maybe the raven knows the reason. Highly unlikely, but best to ask anyway.
“And do you know why, raven mine?” It twitches again in response, shifting its feet, making a gentle tap sound on the table.
“I do not, sir.” Izuku nods, sighs, and stands up. It would just be better to go and see what he was needed for. He stretches out a hand, and the raven jumps on it without hesitating. Soon, they are gone from the place, a lonely, half-drank cup left behind.
They appear in a hallway, of a sort. The interior is made of marble, with soft candles throwing dark shadows against the walls, giving the place both a welcoming and foreboding feel. The curtains, rugs and paintings decorated around all depicting dark but meaningful stories of their eons-long servitude to Fate, or Destiny, as some like to call it. Izuku just prefers to think of it as the force of the universe. A force unable to be named or characterised. Not quite something like a God, but close to it.
The raven takes flight, leaving slight indents on his fingers from where it had gripped him. It leads him down the hallway, where he emerges into a room with six other Reapers, all standing around a circle table with the Earth slowly spinning in the middle.
“Welcome, Reaper Izuku.” One of them says, but he is unable to recognise whose voice it is, or where it came from, only knowing it has a female quality.
He stands in front of the entrance, glancing at the globe floating on the table, crossing his arms behind his back. He is unafraid, for Reapers are all part of one network, but truthfully, he is a tad nervous. They must be the oldest Reapers of their group, and he wants to not look foolish.
“Hello,” he greets. “What is it I am here for?”
One of them steps forward, holding a miniature version of Japan in their palm. They are dressed in the same robes he is, though theirs are more… decorated; there are patterns - not visible unless you look - of their endeavours throughout their life. Something Izuku too will gain on his own robes, when he is older.
“There has been a miscommunication with Fate.” They say, bringing up the mini Japan to eye level. “You were told to end those who were key players of the mortal world in the country known as Japan. If I am correct, it was you who killed a man known as All for One, Kurogiri, and… Tomura, yes?”
Izuku pauses, unsure. “Yes, it was me.”
The Reaper continues. “Ah, how unfortunate. We apologise, but since these mortals were not yet meant to greet death, despite it being a misunderstanding, you are still to be punished according to the ancient laws. We have tried, and managed to lighten your sentence.”
Izuku’s throat catches. He blinks, confused and slightly defensive, unsure what to say.
“You will be unable to access parts of your powers; more specifically, the parts that allowed you invisibility and travel through impermeable surfaces, for two months.”
Izuku starts, stepping forward lightly. “But how am I to conduct my duties, then? Won’t I be seen by the humans?”
Another Reaper speaks up, voice kind and patient. “Not to worry, child. The mortals, if they are to see you, will soon forget your appearance and the events, if they witness. They are unable to perceive and hold the memories for long.”
Izuku pauses, feeling slightly indignant that he has to be punished, but at the same time understanding that it could’ve been much worse. He hesitates, then exhales, sighing. He nods.
He is brought back by his raven, arriving in a deserted alleyway. Izuku feels half nervous and half indifferent, knowing that he can now be perceived. Until now, he’d spent his time invisible, safe and silent. Despite it, he is lucky it is only for two months. Very light sentence, thankfully.
Izuku runs nervous hands down his robes, adjusts his scythe at his back, and draws a deep breath. Time to be visible again, he thinks, with a quiet chuckle.
He emerges out of the alleyway, setting a leisurely walk towards a park he knows is nearby. On the way, he only passes a couple individuals, all too busy to spare him more than a few moments’ glance. The sun is high overhead, the clouds sparse and thin, leaving the blue of the sky to show itself.
A few minutes later, he makes it to the park, and with it being such a lovely day, quite a few families are out and about; children squealing, adults chatting, teenagers debating loudly over meaningless things. He gazes at them all as he finds a bench to sit, and relishes in the smell and sights of life. Here, he is unbothered - just another face among many.
However, it isn’t long before someone comes up to him. He contains his groan of frustration, knowing he can’t slink away and confuse them. He peeks out from under his hood, making sure the light doesn’t reflect in his eyes as to avoid spooking whoever it is, since they tend to have an almost toxic, greenish glow that is unsettling.
“Excuse me, sir?” says the man who stops in front of Izuku, who is still sitting on the bench. Izuku can tell this man is a police officer, not only from his uniform, but also from the way he glances behind Izuku once, nervously, unknowingly telling Izuku there is someone behind him. He keeps his body relaxed, untensed, and looks up with a smile.
“Hello–” he coughs once, forcing his voice to be that of a normal tone and pitch, without the shadows of death and afterlife clinging to it, then speaks again. “Hello, officer. Everything alright?”
He can see the man visibly startle when he speaks, but relax after hearing no more unnatural voices clinging to his own. Typical of mortals and their dismissal of those of which they do not understand.
“Sir, there were several reports of a suspicious character with a weapon sitting in this park and watching the children. I’m afraid the descriptions match your appearance, sir. Do you have a licence for your weapon?” the police officer says, glancing down at his tablet and tapping something on it. Izuku freezes, momentarily panicking, because shit. He hadn’t meant to come off as a creep. He’d simply been sitting and waiting for the next raven that would deliver his mission, lost in thought.
He shifts on the bench, the scythe at his back mirroring with his movement and drawing the police officer’s eyes towards it. Izuku pauses, swallows.
“I do have a licence,” he lies.
“Could I see it, sir?”
Izuku pretends to search through his pockets, hyper aware of both the officer’s gaze and whoever was behind him. After a few long moments of this, he sees the officer’s gaze snap behind him quickly, only once.
But it is all the warning he needs, for in the next second, he launches himself forward, away from both the bench and the man. Good thing that he did, as the place where he’d been sitting is now covered in vines of all sorts. He looks at the hero that’d just tried to apprehend him, and stifles his laugh at her frustrated expression.
Both the officer and hero pause, staring at him, unmoving. Izuku stares back, a mean, slow grin building on his lips as the tension rises. He doesn’t recognise the hero, which must mean she’s a fresh intern, or maybe someone very low on the rankings, after all, she was sent as backup to only check out a report about a ‘suspicious character’.
The tension suddenly snaps as the hero goes to lunge at him again, the vines, which look like plant stems more than anything, flying towards him. At the same time, the officer reaches for his talking device, rapidly reporting through it to whatever station he came from.
Izuku cackles, delighted and entertained. He flips backwards over the vines, putting some distance between him and the hero, and reaches for his scythe, cutting the next wave of plant stems without a thought. He goes to behead the hero, but stops himself at the last second, knowing that without the specifications of a raven, she is not to die yet. He draws back, watching as the plant hero trembles, cowed, but doesn’t back down. He can respect her for that, at least. Izuku chances a glance at the officer, and sees him rapidly tapping on the tablet and talking to his device. Izuku refuses to be disturbed any longer, so with a thought, he disappears from their sight, instead teleporting again in a busy shopping district, filled with the noise of carefree people going about their day.
He takes a second and wills his beloved scythe to become smaller, and puts it in his pocket. After that, he wanders around, looking at the displayed items in various shops.
Izuku doesn’t miss the lingering, perplexed glances at his choice of attire, knowing his black robes must look like a costume of some sort. With that, he resolves to at least try and fit in better, to spare their sensible minds, not that he cares too much. He enters the first clothing shop he comes across, picks out whatever is suitable; some baggy dark jeans with an equally blue, larger hoodie. He tries them in a nearby fitting room, pleased to see they fit appropriately, yet feeling partly irritated that he has to wear human clothes again to not attract too much attention. He loves his robes more than anything, and this whole punishment business is really inconvenient, but he won’t complain, since it’ll be over before he knows it.
With that, Izuku walks out of the store, robes safely tucked away in the same pocket as his scythe, safe and willed to the size of his fist. No one stops him on the way, either not realising he has not paid, or too busy to stop him. Either way, it does not bother him.
Izuku wanders for a few hours, steadily growing more bored and indignant. He should’ve had a mission by now, he knows it. So why are none of his birds forthcoming? Perhaps they’d thought to let him acclimate to his new limitations? As if he hadn’t been a part of this world once. He knows how to navigate it while visible very well, thank you very much.
He looks up, taking in the colours of the sky painted by sunset, various reds and oranges and pinks. He turns to his right, recognising the familiar area he’s found himself in, and begins walking to the nearby cemetery he knows is around the corner, hands in his pockets.
He enters the familiar cemetery, ignoring the other countless, lifeless headstones all arranged in a strictly manner, all bearing long-forgotten names. The evening sunset paints the grey stones a warm, almost-welcoming hue, giving the place a more lively, if abandoned, feel.
He follows a familiar path; past the old woman’s grave, the young man’s who’d died from an illness, and the child’s who’d died in birth. Finally, he stops and gazes down at his own grave.
Izuku Midoriya.
Died at 13.
Beloved son.
Izuku stares at the familiar words, glances at the chip in the stone he knows is there, unsurprised to see nothing’s changed. Even the grass is the same. To be frank, he hadn’t come here in a long while.
He used to, when he’d been fresh out of death and new at Reaper work. He used to spend nearly all available time here, haunting, waiting, expecting.
Nobody ever came to visit.
Not even his mother.
Naturally, as all things do, he’d moved on. Only ever visited for old times’ sake. He wonders what he’s doing here now.
He doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t really need one.
Izuku’s thoughts are interrupted rather abruptly by the crunch of shoes on gravel, nearing him. He doesn’t look up, determined to ignore whatever stranger passes by.
“Who are you?” comes the sudden question from a man’s voice. Izuku lifts his head, and is shocked speechless into silence; for none other than Katsuki Fucking Bakugou stands in front of him – flowers held tightly in his grip, his other hand shoved into his pants as deep as it can go.
“What…?” he murmurs, uncertainty colouring both his tone and expression, for it made no sense for Katsuki to be here - not unless he’d lost a family member recently, maybe.
He can see his response causes Katsuki to frown, makes him look at Izuku closer.
But what he sees, he must not recognise. His mind cannot comprehend fully all the details.
“Do I know you? You seem familiar.”
“Ah… no. I’m just visiting.” Izuku ignores the pounding of his heart, and moves aside, makes more space so he isn’t solely standing in front of his grave. His stomach drops as he watches Katsuki place the flowers at his grave, but he doesn’t say anything. It answers his internal question though - the blond man (no longer a boy) came here to visit… Izuku.
“Were you a friend of his?” Katsuki asks.
He hesitates to answer. Doesn’t look up from his name carved in the stone. “No.”
Silence stretches. They both gaze down at the name. Distant seagulls sing. Grasshoppers ring in the grass. The wind gently flows through trees, creates a soothing noise.
“Were you?” Izuku asks quietly.
A moment’s beat. “I could’ve been.”
An honest, if hesitant, admission. Izuku refuses to think of what could’ve, should’ve, would’ve been. He refuses to feel. Time will pass.
He can move on.
Katsuki turns and leaves, the sound of his steps seeming to echo in Izuku’s empty ribcage, his skull.
He stays at his gravestone, now looking at the flowers placed there, obscuring part of his name. He doesn’t know what to feel.
A distant cawing has him slowly raising his head, a grin forming on his face. He can feel his imaginary heart beating, now faster and faster as the sound of wingbeats trails closer.
Unbidden, his hand raises. Predictably, a beautiful, black raven lands on his hand, twitching its head.
Izuku relishes in the spark of excitement, of bloodlust, he can feel welling up inside him. Dead or not, but he loves his job like one may love the sun. He simply cannot do without it. He straightens fully, turns and puts his back to his old self, rotting beneath the ground, beneath wood encasing and beneath the slab of a stone with his name upon it. The flowers begin to wilt to ashes.
He is better, now.
“My Lord,” the raven croaks. Izuku doesn’t correct it.
“Speak, my lovely.” He raises his other hand, pets the silky, iridescent feathers along its chest.
“A serial killer wreaking havoc along the docks, sir. Just killed his third victim. He is yours to deal with, my Lord.”
“Very well.” He replies, sudden glee inhabiting the previous empty space of his ribcage, his heart. All earlier melancholy and hesitance dissipates into the wind; like the seeds of a blown dandelion.
The raven takes flight into the sky, shining green and purple in the low glow of the evening sun. A stark contrast against the oranges and yellows of the sky.
Izuku walks, his scythe appears in his hand, shiny and sharp, happy to be used. He draws his hood up, and with a whisper of the wind, disappears from the graveyard, laughing.