Chapter Text
Bakugo Katsuki, with a bag slung over his shoulder and a hand tucked into the depths of his pants pocket, was bored of this routine. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary as he arrived half an hour early.
Deku had been gone for a week now, but Bakugo doesn’t question a thing. He never does; not when it comes to the nerd. It hadn’t really come as a surprise to Bakugo, after that little incident on the roof.
There was no need to be thinking such thoughts, though. The moment that day had passed, he had decided to forget, to push that incident out of his mind for he did not want to be burdened with the memory of coming back to an empty classroom, an open window with nothing down below.
That really was the last time he’d seen Deku, wasn’t it.
“Aghh, I don’t know,” he mumbles to no one, roughly messing with his hair as he slings the bookbag down on his desk.
The classroom is empty.
There is no tuff of green in front of him.
He takes his seat and leans back, eyes to the ceiling as he lets time fly by. Occasionally, the tips of his fingers crackle furiously.
“I really fucking hate this place, bunch of losers,” he mutters in the still air.
And he sighs once more, slouching in his chair as he sits alone in a quiet place.
There is quiet no more.
The door slides open with an echoing bang, enough to make it bounce back from its wall to the halfway mark. His eyes snap open, body lurching and head turning to look at whatever dared to interrupt his peace. His hands are popping loudly with sparks, dangerously so as to make himself look like a threat.
He is a threat.
Before anything else, his legs push forward to make him stand, the chair clacking loudly with the force.
His eyes are met with the lanky purple haired fucker that had socked him in the face on that day, and Bakugo’s mouth opens to yell. “THE FUCK YOU LOOKING AT, DIPSHIT?!” More sparks, more snarls, yet the boy makes no sign of retreat.
Instead, his sickeningly lavender eyes seemed to harden even more at the sight of Bakugo, stiff frame coming in faster, harder. The sound of his intruding footsteps sound menacing even to the blonde’s ears.
“You.”
There’s an edge to the boy’s words, so sharp and twisted that it makes Bakugo freeze in place, awaiting his sentence, an answer.
“ Me ,” the blonde mocks instead after half a second’s hesitation, but there is no time for haughty triumphant, because in the next moment, that bastard has his fist clenched around the collar of his shirt. The table screeches against the floor as Bakugo is pushed against it, it’s metal stilts dragging dark grey streaks along the tiles.
“You piece of shit !” Purple yells before there’s a throbbing pain in Bakugo’s groin.
He doubles over and snarls.
A punch, a kick, a knee up once more. Yet the blonde doesn’t know why he’s taking it all in when he could just fight back. Dominate. Why, he questioned.
Oh, yes.
Why?
And of course, Bakugo is repulsed. The hands that cowered against his crouched figure come out to dance with a threatening boom. “Who the hell do you think you are, Eyebags?!”
Flying catastrophic red, and still it’s as if Purple is blind to it all.
Blinded by rage.
Another advance, and it must’ve been because he was lost in such thoughts - thoughts filled with that burning lavender that brimmed with hatred from those wet irises - that Purple had actually landed another hit.
It was then that Bakugo noticed the boy was crying.
The blonde lurches and coughs from the force at his chest. Sparks die.
“NO, WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, BAKUGO KATSUKI?”
The school bell rings somewhere in the distance, the familiar test run.
And somehow, without Bakugo’s remembrance, the world around him blurs into a hazy sight, the edges of his vision dulled and white. It’s quiet.
Echoing footsteps.
His fingers twitch.
The creaking sound of rusted metal wrenching open.
A cool chill shivers down his back, yet Bakugo can’t help but think he’s caught in a cold sweat.
Then there’s darkness - just for a split second, but the blonde feels like this wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s pitch black, but he doesn’t fear the dark.
Then there’s screams.
He’s no longer in the classroom.
Bakugo’s not sure where he is anymore.
“KACCHAN!”
Deku.
His head is pounding, ears are ringing, yet somehow he knows this isn’t that purple bastard’s quirk. He stands alone in the endless black. There are no shadows, for how would there be such a thing when there is no light? Bakugo stands in the space of black.
The voice calls upon him again, shouting, “Ka- an …” but it’s cracking up, and he can’t hear it clearly as it drowns underneath the sea of torment.
Something touches his shoulder.
He jumps back, turning a full one-eighty, willing his hands to set aflame, but his quirk doesn’t work.
His quirk doesn’t work.
And there’s something in him that just screams the name of the one who had been deemed too weak to even breathe his air.
The silhouette of a boy standing far ahead of him flickers in and out of view. The light illuminating around his figure is the only brightness he sees.
For some reason, what comfort that light should have brought the boy is not there.
He wishes it would disappear.
“-chan, break Hitosh- contr-!”
Snippets he hears, but Bakugo cannot piece them together. In the battlefield of demons and death in which he stands upon, he himself is the one who is called weak.
Still, he reaches out despite the vast distance between him and that light.
The world around him is chaotic. Menacing laughter, terror-filled screeches.
A bang of light and there is darkness no more.
Deku is gone, too.
For some reason, Bakugo’s heart leaps and he shouts, “DEKU!”, because something tells him that everything’s changed.
“If you want a quirk that badly, take a swan dive off the roof and pray that you get one in your next life.”
The look on Deku’s face that day is still ingrained in his mind; a look of indifference. The blonde wouldn’t have questioned it, since he knew that the boy never took his words seriously, never listened.
But.
What if he did?
A faraway voice, barely above a whisper. “Jump.”
The sound of a church’s choir singing, then of glass shattering.
And he’s back.
The first thing he feels is the chilling breeze of the wind blowing against him, and the warm rays of the sun shining down on his figure.
The first thing he sees is a bird’s eye view of the school below as he glares down at the courtyard.
Bakugo notices something.
He crouches at the ledge of a windowsill, one leg out on the deck. It’s a big drop down below. His head is throbbing, ears filled with static from the whiplash of before’s events.
His eyes burn.
Bakugo notices his eyes are leaking.
Bakugo also notices the quietly increasing manic laughter coming from behind.
He also notices the subtle hint of grief underneath the notes.
The thought chills him, and only now after what he had envisioned does he have an idea of just why there is such a mood.
He is being punished.
Punished by the gods, or whatever higher being may be tormenting him from above.
Slowly the blonde turns his head, hand gripping to the side of the open window’s hinges for balance, just in time to see Purple’s hands ever so slightly lower from his face. The boy is trembling.
Then Purple looks up, eyes distant yet seething as he glares upon Bakugo. “No… I’d rather not stoop to your level.”
There is no light in the boy’s eyes, as his arms finally fall to the side and his head droops down for a split second before coming back up to look the blonde in the eyes beyond fallen bangs.
“He’s dead,” is what he says. Simple, straight to the point, yet there is a cacophony of swelling emotions beneath. “Izuku’s dead.”
And Bakugo, though he knows he has no right to feel this way—not with how he’d treated him all these years—can only slump down dangerously against the window’s thin sill. He doesn’t want to believe that stubborn boy who had always followed him had finally hit the hay, but he can’t deny what he feels is true. It’s his fault, he knows.
“You killed him.”
He knows.
That day, the explosive teen is quiet in the face of a grieving father who lashes out. Together with Shinsou, as he took into account upon hearing so, he had skipped school to visit Deku.
Of course, Shinsou had been rather harsh in telling Bakugo he wasn’t welcome near Izuku, however lifeless he may be—who wouldn’t be, when the perpetrator of a loved one’s death wishes to pay their condolences? The blonde was never one to listen—maybe it was a matter of pride, pride in which he dared to hold even as the earth caved in.
“... What’s your relationship with Deku?” The blonde had said before, during the tense and long walk to the hospital.
Shinsou only clenched his fists and continued on. “He was my brother, shithead. Before you came in and ruined everything I had only ever dreamed of, everything I had just got .”
“Brother?” Then the blonde chuckles, but it’s filled with a sudden regret, or longing. “Deku doesn’t have a brother. When…”
When had their lives changed so much, that he hadn’t known of something as significant as this?
Thoughts of a fallen log and a stream below filter in, but he pushes them down, locking them back in that forgotten corner in the depths of his hell.
A scoff and the boy ahead ceases his pace. Bakugo halts, too.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever dingus. You didn’t fuckin’ know him as much as you thought.” Shinsou waves a hand in the air dismissively before turning. “Bet you didn’t know that Izuku had two fathers too, huh.”
Brows up.
Then Shinsou’s walking towards him, step by step, inch by inch, taking away the air between them that this arrogant Bakugo found it difficult to breathe.
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said, fingers lighting with booms. Yet the flames were weak, and even on such a cool day like this, the remnants of the wind had been enough to extinguish such puny things.
One step closer, then two then three until they're only a yard apart.
“Oh, but why would I lie to my dear brother’s childhood friend? To the one who screwed him over till death did him apart? You told him to jump, he said, ‘how low .’ You told him to fly, but you cut his wings.” Shinsou smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes; his eyes, that are underlined in black, white turned red.
“Ain’t that right, Kacchan.”
Bakugo stiffens, then the bastard opens his mouth again.
“Bet you didn’t know his mother died when he was, what, four?”
“Lies,” Bakugo hisses immediately. Nothing had changed back then. Deku’s face always remained bright—no child would be able to hide such grief like that.
His smile hadn’t started dying until later on into the years, though now that he recalls it, they had always seemed a little bit plastic after he had been diagnosed quirkless.
“Auntie Inko isn’t dead,” he scoffs even as his brain realizes how long it’s been since he’s seen her. “The old hag would have said something…”
A distant calling from below, just as always. Bakugo is four or so, but his temper is as haughty as ever.
“Katsuki! Your father and I are leaving for, uh-” the hag’s voice is hesitant; Mitsuki is never hesitant. Bakugo had brushed it off then.
“SHUT UP AND GO, LADY, I’LL BE FINE!” He calls from his room, loud and arrogant explosions banging through the walls in dismissal.
The click of the door and the house is empty.
Or those frequent checkups.
“Katsuki, how’s Izuku? Is he happy?” His mother would ask nonchalantly as she’d cook up some breakfast.
Bakugo would always groan at the mention of the nerd.
“Yeah, son,” Masaru looks up from his daily morning newspaper. “Why don’t you ever invite him over? I hope you’re treating him well?” A questioning lilt, egging him on, but he would never answer straight.
He’d scoff, “The loser’s fine, quit yapping.”
Then that would be the end of it.
He never questioned why they’d always bring such things up so often, nor would he acknowledge the hunger in their eyes, concern overflowing as they practically begged for answers.
He was smart. He knew he was, he was always striving for the top, always taking first place in everything, always will take first place in everything. Bakugo was sharp in noticing things, despite ignoring most things uncaringly regardless.
He should have looked closer.
He should have stopped.
“Hah,” Shinsou rolls his eyes and turns, walking on. “Finally letting reality set in?
The distance grows between the two once again.
Bakugo bites his lip, eyes furrowing together as his gaze turns to the ground. His feet are glued to the pavement, fists clenched and nails digging into the palm of his hands.
When Shinsou is far along ahead, the blonde’s teeth tear into plump flesh and draws blood. An angry tear rushes down his face.
Shameless.
He wipes it away and continues on.
The living must live on.
He decides he’s not worthy to feel the grief of losing a long lost friend.
Bakugo alas grumbles to himself, “...fucking murderer.”
His dream of becoming number one crumbles before him.
At the hospital, an hour later, the two fathers Shinsou had mentioned come across him amongst the room of freezers.
Their meeting is not pleasant, and Bakugo takes in all the harsh words. It, he knows for a fact, is nothing on him compared to the things he’s done to Deku dating back more than a decade from then.
The man who seemed quietest out of the two upon Bakugo’s entering the room lashed out the hardest. It seemed Shinsou and his presumed other father had been taken by surprise at that.
The blonde father, Yamada, he learns, even has to hold his husband back after he had begun coming after Bakugo.
One hit was all he got.
Somehow, he hoped for more if only to let the father have some form of revenge. Bakugo is a bully, but even he knows a parent’s greatest fear.
Deku’s death hadn’t hit him hard enough yet. Maybe because he’s never experienced anyone he directly knew’s death, or maybe he hasn’t come to terms with that stubborn fucker’s end. Bakugo didn’t know yet.
“Blacklisted.” Aizawa seethes as his husband drags his increasingly faint body away from Bakugo. “I’ve heard from Izuku, who still seemed to admire this Kacchan of his so much. You want to become a hero?”
The man’s speech is fueled with anger even through the snot of a runny nose. He scoffs, “A hero?! You imbecile! Murderer! You dare even think about such a thing with that rotten attitude of yours?”
Despite Yamada’s helpful actions, the man glares and says nothing to stop Aizawa’s verbal assault. Bakugo does not protest either.
“My son may have been quirkless, but he was better suited to be a hero than you, Bakugou Katsuki.”
Then the man straightens, height seeming to tower intimidatingly over Bakugo even though they’re a distance apart.
A license is shown, as well as an introductory. “Pro Hero: Eraserhead. As soon as I file this in, you will be blacklisted from all hero schools in Japan for suicide baiting and physical assault leading to such an outcome.”
The man’s previous emotions are hidden well, but not well enough. He’s suffering. One look around the cold room and it’s evident the other members are, too. Obviously.
Bakugo takes such a sentence silently. His quirk doesn’t flame in protest, face doesn’t crumble in haughty arrogance. No resistance.
He doesn’t deserve such an important role in society when he’s one of the reasons why the system splits in twos.
Heroes and villains.
Bakugo Katsuki had always thought he’d be the best of the best, the number one hero who’d defeat the criminals in a quick boom. All his life, everyone’d told him he’d rocket through the ranks with such a quirk like his. He’d save the day, protect all the weak and useless from the oh so dangerous beings they called villains.
Instead, he used that god blessed quirk to ravage on those he should have protected.
He was the villain.
A metal box, one of many plastered to the wall. On it, the picture and information of a familiar face.
Nothing could change that fact.
He was one of the beings the him from mere hours before, who had passioned to become a hero with the promise of success, was destined to defeat.
Even in this universe, where he had been told the sun rose and set solely for him, where the weak lay on the path ahead for the purpose of keeping his cleats tidy, he was the villain.
That would never change, it seemed.
Day ?; The Inbetween
At first, when his eyes had finally lifted its heaving weight, Izuku only saw two colors.
On one side, a blood red. On the other, a blinding white. In the middle, they clash and tug at the reigns, fighting to overtake one another, swallow one whole.
A blink, but he decides to prolong the dark he sees beneath his lids, a throbbing headache piercing through his skull. The silence pounding at his ears disperses soon enough however, by a sound he cannot seem to make out just yet.
Scared, Izuku opens his eyes once again.
Black.
Darker than just a few moments ago, when he cowered behind thin flesh in his absentminded exhaustion. The light from the white he had seen faintly through his eyelids are gone now.
Nothing but black.
“H-Hello?” He questions into the static, not noticing the way he trembles alone. He who no longer feared the dark, he who basked in the glory of the night.
Wherever he was, Izuku knew that this was not day nor night.
His ears clog for a second and a half before everything returns louder, more deathly intended.
Yelling, screaming, cries, begs. Their pleads scratch at the innermost part of his head, bursting in volume enough to make him wince audibly and stumble back, holding onto the sides of his head.
“Please!” They tear at his drums , “Have mercy!”
“SAVE ME.”
There’s nothing here. Nothing there calling out to him, nothing he can see. But he can feel it. Feel whatever the hell is out there, near or far.
“SAVE US.”
He doesn’t know what it is.
“SAVE—“
He doesn’t like it.
“—yourself, o’ child of heaven and hell.” A small voice. Close, yet so meek in volume he cannot hear what it says beyond that.
Like that time—though he doesn’t clearly remember exactly what he’s thinking of in the middle of this chaos, it gets louder. The pleas, the screeching. Repeated words, depriviating, longing.
Everything is deafening.
He’s scared. He who has wandered amongst the dangers of the depths of the streets at night is scared, in this place with no clear floor or ceiling, no walls or corners to hide at. He is simply somewhere yet nowhere at all.
There’s a sudden pulling at his limbs, to which he jumps back at.
But it’s latched on tight, gripping with the intent to never let go.
“G-Get off!” Frantically, Izuku reaches to grab it. A hand, he feels. It’s lengthy fingers that his touch tells are thin and long, only skin and bone.
But there’s an end.
This hand is not attached to a body.
He’s the one who screams now. Loud and terror filled, horrified. He’s seen many things in his peculiar lifetime, or rather—lifetimes, but now he supposes it’s scarier when he cannot see a thing.
But he knows. Oh, how he knows.
The hands multiply over his body as more fingers curl around him anywhere they can reach.
And he can do nothing but stand still, wondering what was going on, where he was, how he got there.
As his eyes focus and adjust as much as they can in this place, he realizes he can see just the faintest outline of the beings. They really are just hands.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Beyond them is only the dark casting shadows of something that is not there. If anything, the confirmation seems to freak him out even more.
And in this dream-like, nightmarish place, in the next second there is light on the other side. Like a person who is deep in slumber, stuck in the depths of their mind, Izuku doesn’t question this.
The blinding white gives him a sense of comfort, but the hands do not disappear. He ignores them, along with the unforgiving noise of the black’s background.
Angelic voices intrude his hearing beside the demons, calming and mediating, but with each passing second the sound dulls.
Then everything intensifies.
The moans and curses grow frantic and desperate, those shadows clawing at his skin, tearing his flesh and then some. Izuku bites down on his lip and screams a long curse. Deeper, deeper, deeper, then bone is struck. There is no logic in this place, for a severed limb can have the strength of a thousand men and still he who had two full functioning duplicates could do nothing against it.
To another side of him, the heavenly voices of the angels merge into a booming strike, the melody fastening, the light expanding. Its chorus seems almost rushed, and even with its silky tune, the pace is enough to force Izuku’s pulse to quicken, trying to catch up.
It’s exhausting.
At the same time, it’s scary. Like he’s a person escaping down long and darkly lit halls, etched with paranoia as he turns back to check at every half second, hearing the slimy gush of a monster that isn’t human scrambling behind, trying to catch up.
Though, it is not paranoia when they’re truly out to get you.
In the inbetween, the shades clash.
White and black, dark and light. Evil, and something that Izuku is not so sure to be purely good willed. If it was so, it would not make him feel this way—like he’s being separated from something dear to him as it pulls him along into the jungle of a deity’s unnecessary blessings.
He is overwhelmed.
Everything is too much for him, when he is stuck in this mindset, enough to tear out a pitiful screech from his throat as if begging these beings to stop.
His wish, of course, is not answered nor acknowledged.
His sound is drowned in the never ending noise. Who is winning? Good or bad, demons or angels, life or death.
What resides in the middle.
A crack, and then the lightest shade of green implores and expands. The grip on his body disappears like a burden being lifted, the cacophony of both sides stifling.
And it is quiet besides the roaring pounding of his heart.
“Huu,” Izuku releases a breath, and there enters the sound of the wind. The image of trees surrounds him, along with the calm of rushing water from afar. The green transforms into the sky.
Nature.
This one, at least, is beautiful.
Peace, bliss. Izuku feels lighter with a hazy mind—dizzy, but it’s like an untaking heaven now compared to earlier.
The scene in front of him looks like something pulled out of his head—blearily, he can see it. But it is just that. There are no distinct details. When Izuku tries to focus on a particular spot, like the leaves on the swaying trees, the image withers away.
He thinks nothing of it.
Only the sounds connect him to this place, in that, he still does not know.
Only the sounds.
That is, until the scenery changes and he’s back in that dark abyss once again.
But there is someone else—something human—trapped within this void with him.
An echo that rings faintly in his ear, its voice so distant yet so clear. “Jump,” he says.
Shinsou.
Izuku’s back straightens in alarm, head whipping to that fallen figure on the ground, watching as it stands.
Bakugo is the one trapped with him, only Bakugo. For some reason, he wishes his childhood friend was ridden from this horrible place.
A window materializes in front of them, the outside bringing light even to a place as unworthy as this.
Izuku wants to shut the curtains and stand in front of his long time bully, arms stretched wide in signal to stop.
But his legs won’t move. He looks down.
The shadows crawl at his feet, eating him up, holding him in place.
But he couldn’t care less right then, because the windows are unlatching by the blonde’s own hands, the glass panels swinging open and in the next moment, Bakugo’s foot is lifted as he readies to follow those orders.
And alas, even though his brother is not seen in this unforgiving void of black, Izuku knows the expression on his face.
“KACCHAN!” He yells, but the boy cannot hear him. “Kacchan!”
His brother’s face, he’s sure, is torn. Snotty, crazed, maniacal.
Unbelieving, unseeing.
And Izuku finally remembers why he’s here, how he’s gotten himself into this mess.
It had started with an, “I love you,” from his mother all the way back at that park, ended with another declaration of love from his Mama in the middle of a fallen city, her head crushed to bits as its flesh stuck to chunky concrete.
A new beginning, one where he vowed never to say such words to anyone ever again.
Yet from himself to the thin air in front of him, that second chance had expired the moment those same words left his lips.
And he regretted it as soon as the words were lost to the wind.
He had people running for him, realized that people cared. But it was too late, because he was a fucking dumbass (he wouldn’t sugarcoat it).
He reaches out and pulls himself from the prison on his feet, hand stretched enough that it strains at his shoulder. Izuku wants to yank the blonde away, but all he gets is a simple shoulder tap.
Even after all that, it’s futile. His hand phases through.
And he’s useless all over again.
The difference is—Bakugo sees light. He knows because of the silky dead of the boy’s eyes, knows because he’s experienced the effects of Shinsou’s quirk first hand.
Izuku sees dark.
Bakugo is in the land of the living.
From what he’s gathered, Izuku is dead.
He’s dead.
The thought is repulsing and horrifying. Rather than a thought, it’s a realization.
It turns his blood cold.
His mind shatters and cracks.
The despair of the dead, the church’s choir.
It’s all back. His mind is split in two once again.
The image of Bakugo fades away, along with the window and Izuku is left to the mercy of opposing ends.
Something in the distance—a white dot—appears. It is not clinging, like the white on his right. Instead, it is calmly alluring.
And it’s right there . So close yet so far.
Desperate, he reaches out.
Runs.
No matter how fast he goes, or how hard he wills his legs to leap and bound
Static fills his ears now, the war around him fading into the background. He’s tired, even in this harsh experience of the afterlife—but he’s not as tired as how he would be if he were still there.
With Bakugo, or Shinsou and Aizawa and Yamada, or maybe even All Might who had so brutally beat him down.
And then with Shimura Nana, his Mama whom he had just briefly found after all those years of doubt.
He wishes.
He wishes, he wishes, he wishes and hopes, but that’s all he could do right now in this single player world made solely for him and him alone.
Izuku’s legs give in even though he knows he could keep going. His calves—they’re stuck to the ground.
He can’t move from this spot.
Panic engulfs him in waves, but the light of that thing ahead shines brighter.
The static beating at his ears fades away, and what replaces the noise is familiar to Izuku.
It’s daunting.
To others, it is nothing but the sweet calling of nature bouncing through the green filled trees, the sound of a peaceful background in a stroll through nature. Often, the sound blends and camouflages in the guise of its more peaceful cousins.
To Izuku, it is a reminder.
The cawing of a taunting animal, mocking and belittling as it watches one’s down bringing from above.
A bird, but not just any bird.
His head lifts swiftly at the realization, as the noise gets louder and closer and haughtier, and he’s still stuck, stuck, stuck in that same spot, limbs freezing up because he can feel some sort of bloodlust out to get him.
The dot was a dove, but now it’s a crow.
It’s wings are spread high and mighty as it soars, and Izuku’s legs are shaking, body bending back as he’s taped to the floor. His arms push to scramble back, but again it’s meaningless. Birds don’t scare him—he was a vigilante, a criminal walking a thin line—but this thing seemed like a monster, as it grew larger and wider as it zoomed in closer and closer. The radiance, the aura, it’s bloodlust, he could feel it in waves.
Everything about it was abnormal.
Finally he sags in defeat, eyes shutting as he waits for death to embrace him thrice now.
“I’m sorry,” Izuku mumbles, a sad smile overtaking his face. A humorless laugh bubbles up his throat and escapes through parted lips, and the boy who sits on his knees once again is reaching for his face, tugging gently at the tips of his hair.
“Awh, shit, I should’ve reached out to Naomasa at least once… or maybe Auntie Chiyo,” and he’s smiling for real now, at the thought, ignoring the regret of being too scared to do something as simple as that. “How would they have reacted…?”
And then his mind shifts to the two who took him in almost immediately after his great demise, along with the other addition they had taken under their wings. “You guys can protect yourself, I’m sure.”
His life circled around pro-heroes, and pro-heroes circled around him. Aspiring to be, or already achieved. Aizawa and Yamada, or Shinsou and Bakugo.
There must have been something wrong with Izuku, now he realizes, because even then or even now, he still doesn’t dislike his Kacchan. Even in the end of another lifetime, and even in the beginning of the old one when he thought the blonde had left him for dead.
He couldn’t bring himself to hate Bakugo, no matter how hard the dumb fool made him cry, no matter how many times he pushed him to the ground and shoved flames up his face.
Because compared to All For One, Kacchan was a harmless bug begging for attention.
The abnormal’s screes halt then, the bloodlusting aura dispersing in intervals. Izuku is left with only the sound of blood rushing to his ears.
“H, Hahh,” he breathes, eyes twitching with the force to keep shut, “...fuck.”
Cautiously, after a minute’s hesitation, he peeks an eye open.
“Caw!”
You know, Izuku finds he has a knack for making bad life decisions.
His heart leaps as he scrambles back once again, and this time his legs are allowed movement. Only it’s still too late.
The bird is in front of him, soaring at an arm's length away at his face. It’s mighty black wings preen and puff, spreading across his vision until all he can see in his peripherals is the feathery texture of shiny little daggers.
The crow’s eyes are an evil luster of bright red as it closes in, and to Izuku the bird smirks mischievously. The boy can almost taste the wave of death. He pales.
As if the crow in front of him speaks, a voice filters into his head.
“Run rabbit run.”
The sound of a guillotine dropping, and another chilling scree from this monster. Izuku braces himself.
And just like the second before a nightmare, right before tragedy would crash—
—he jolts.
And his head bangs against a solid surface.
His bones ache from the movement as he chokes on a wad of air.
There is crow no more.
All he sees is black, in this cramped place.
Only, the difference now—he knows. Day or night, even though he still can’t see a thing. Time is relative, and somehow he knows.
Darkness elsewhere, around him.
Day has fallen, night has risen.
Izuku has overcome the inbetween--the inbetween where time is not proportionate, but the universe has not let the boy rest just yet.
Midoriya Izuku, not once in his life since the day he turned four, has never been given the moment to rest. Every passing second, every breath he’d breathed before.
He was always on edge.
On the other side of wherever he’d been thrown in, above him, there are both the loud sounds of sorrowful sobs, and the quiet of grieving sniffles. To Izuku, everything is significantly more muffled. Right now, he couldn’t care less.
He hated this situation even more now, as he finally realizes where he is, what’s happening.
A child’s worst nightmare.
And maybe—maybe it’s because he knows where he is, or how far down he knows he’s been lowered. Knowing, in this situation, is far more scary than it could have been had he been ignorant.
A thump showers against his short ceiling on the other side—just a momentary rhythm, as something rains down on his lid—and Izuku’s arms crossed at his chest untangle to push hastily at the walls confining him.
Reality really sets in right then.
More thumping, more of the earth is showered upon this case.
Right now, he couldn’t do a thing.
His throat is dry, cracking as he opens his mouth to yell. Hastily he rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth, praying for salivitation, but he feels like choking.
“Hu-k,” Izuku’s throat closes. “ K-Kuuh .” His limbs feel like noodles and his body is cold even in the temperature of this place.
He’s sore.
This body is weak, but the injuries it had sustained seem to have healed quite a bit. Enough, but Izuku knows scars are inevitable.
Just like last time.
His side aches with a phantom memory.
His head throbs.
Izuku tries pushing at the lid above him harder, but his arms are sagging to his chest. His shoulders burn with effort.
A silent scream, his body feels like it’s being torn in two.
He’s panting.
He’s sticky with sweat, but oh lord, it feels like he’s caught in a blizzard. Colder than the feeling of the ghosts, colder than the feeling of Tohru by his side, a feeling he can’t seem to remember as time had ticked and tocked.
(He doesn’t notice the other side has gone deathly silent.)
(He doesn’t notice the thrumping of dirt falling over him has ceased.)
His breath quickens quietly, a revived heart beating nearly just as loud as before in that dark abyss. A scared smile spreads across his face, and before he knows it silent tears leak down the sides of his cheeks.
It’s dark.
Hot.
Humid.
Suffocating.
He’s hyperventilating.
The walls are closing in.
He’s squished in this tight space.
He’s kicking, but he’s weak.
He’s punching, but his body cannot lift any longer.
Alone.
Abandoned.
He can’t breathe.
He can’t see.
He’s not dead.
HE’S NOT DEAD. HE’S ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE AL IVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE, DON’T LEAVE ME, NOT ALONE NOT ALONE NOT DEAD NOT DEAD I’M ALIVE I’M ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE NOTDEADNOTDEADNOTDEADNOTDEADNOTDEAD—
I’m not dead.
He’s not dead.
Not anymore.
(A coffin. The boy who has risen from the dead is stuck in a coffin six feet under.)
(The small gathering of people above--only his family of three, a detective, the Iida brothers, a devastated aunt with a whip, and two not-so welcomed guests--can only stare at the rattling coffin for a few more seconds before a desperate father with black hair leaps into the ground below.)
(At a quirkless boy’s funeral, one cannot expect much visitors. Perhaps that was best in the long run.)
Saliva.
“...ah, ah, ah,” Izuku manages to whisper, but his mouth still feels patchy, like there’s a wad of paper stuck somewhere in his throat.
“ H-Hah, hAH!”
He screams, but it’s still too quiet, too weak. The boy’s on 2% and his battery is draining fast.
A latch comes undone.
Then there’s air.
Then there’s light.
And then—
The walls cave in.
—black.
____________________
Day 9 Hour 17:18:59
July 13, 20XX; 3 Days After Izuku’s Death
The funeral is in two days, on Izuku’s birthday.
It’s too soon, Aizawa knows. But the boy came into this world that day fifteen years ago, died that same day once before. Now history’s repeating itself, yet this time there is no replay, no respawn, no miraculous revival.
Was it that bad to hope?
No, rather--he should just be thankful it happened the first time. Aizawa got the chance to raise a son, no matter how many secrets that son held. All these years he’d been hiding the bruises, the pain, the responsibility he felt the need to have as he even took on a dangerous task all to protect his hero fathers.
He lived in anguish, Aizawa realized too late.
But at least he lived.
Still instead, the boy chose to end his own life because of fuckers like them.
“Why?”
“I’m sorry, Aizawa-kun, I should have considered my words-”
“NO, WHY DID YOU SAY THAT TO HIM?!” Then Aizawa’s on the man in a split second, a fistful of the older’s shirt in his hand as he pulls him down to eye level. He seethes, hissing his words out with clenched teeth, “ Why would you say that to him in the first place. HE WAS A CHILD, FOR FUCK’S SAKE. HE HAD DREAMS.”
The only thing Yagi Toshinori could do was stand with pursed lips.
( “Dreams he couldn’t reach,” Yagi wanted to say, but now after all these years, after having met a hooded quirkless boy with a mask that clung to his face for dear life only to cover a fourth of his features, he realizes the same fate does not apply to all quirkless children.
“Quirkless does not mean weak, Izuku, I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again. Get up and attack me!” At a training session in Nana’s overly spacious garage, he’d said that to a six year old child. Not once had he thought that his brother was weak, but something changed the moment he saw that scene on TV.)
(But Izuku and this child were two different people.)
“... and because of your bloated ego, my son can’t even try anymore.” The last of this father’s spoken grief.
And all Yagi can say is, “I’m sorry.”
And he truly is.
But apologies do nothing in situations like these.
Aizawa sighs before shoving the taller blonde away as he unclenches his curled fists. “I would report this to the higher ups, but from experience, I know a lowly underground hero like me won’t be able to take much legal action over big old Number One.” He shakes his hands sarcastically, but even Yagi sees the way his hands restrain themselves from punching him.
“His funeral’s in two days,” Aizawa says as he turns his back towards the man. “Personally I don’t want you to come, along with that Bakugo, but I know my son enough to know he’d want you two around. Especially his idol, All Might.”
The emphasized word makes Yagi’s heart sag even further, sunken eyes lowering and frown straightening to a line.
“Izuku was a child that held too much sympathy.”
“Izuku…?”
A scoff, “You couldn’t even catch his name?” And at that he only frowns, for the only word he had been given was the last name Midoriya.
“My son, Midoriya Aizawa-Yamada Izuku. He’s the boy you mercilessly slayed,” Aizawa twists his head to look back at the blonde once more. “He’s also ‘Shimura’ Shichi, the vigilante we’d been chasing for years now.”
The vigilante with an additional name, the one Naomasa had befriended, as well as the one notorious for slipping away.
“Shimura… Izuku,” Yagi takes and pieces. His eyes peek out a little wider at the connection, but there’s nothing more there.
He remembers a tuft of green peeking out from beneath the boy’s hood on that windy day.
No, it wouldn’t make sense.
They were two different people.
In this cruel world, they were both dead.
It was just a coincidence.
They were one in the same.
Aizawa breathes in. “Tsukauchi should have told you this already, what the hell. Get out .”
The door shuts behind him.
____________________
Day 11 Hour 21:32:11
July 15, 20XX, Day of the Funeral; 9:32PM
A miracle happens in the setting of the sun.
A shaking coffin, muffled cries. The first to snap out of their dazed shock is Aizawa, who hastily jumps to unlatch the lid of the confining box.
He cries.
The boy’s eyes are open for only a second before his eyes roll into the back of his head.
Aizawa panicked. Yamada, who had been the second to recover, yells out a cry and falls to his knees those six feet above.
The black haired hero checks the dead boy’s pulse.
It beats.
The child is so cold, his skin white as snow. His freckles are like bright stars in the night sky in contrast to the paleness.
The father’s hands shake as he picks up his revived son. Tears fall onto the boy’s cheeks, adding onto his own, and Aizawa can do nothing but hesitantly laugh as he holds the boy to his chest for a second.
A miracle has happened.
(A man holds a bouquet of roses in his hands with four fingers on top of a building nearby. How coincidental that the boy he’d gone to visit shares the cemetery with this type of event transpiring.)
(It was that boy’s birthday today, his deceased little brother. Of course he’d visit. A bonus he’d imagined to have to spit on his mother’s grave next to his beloved.)
(Instead, this happens.)
(He cannot believe his eyes, as a boy is pulled fresh from the grave. A respawn. But the boy’s looks.)
(Shigaraki Tomura would never forget his dear brother’s face, no matter how aged it’d be. He just needed a good shot, a good look at the face and he’d know.)
(He’d know.)
(“... Zuku?”)
The man with ash black hair turns, and the boy’s face is more in view.
(His eyes do not lie.)
(“Kurogiri.”)
(Yes, young master.”)
(“Change of plans. We’ve got a new mission.”)