Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya floats in complete darkness. He does not remember how or even why he is here. There was pain briefly, something terrible, but now there is nothing. Not even his body as he thinks about moving his arm, even thinking is an arduous task due to some strange malaise encumbering him, an intense yet serene wave of peace. Heavy, yet weightless. Somber, yet graceful. A melancholic state of delirium that is drifting him ever more to an endless sleep.
He is dying.
But this is not how it was supposed to go! He is only fourteen! Bad luck has persisted after him his entire life! It is not fair! Someone needs to make this right! He needs to make this right!
He has to! He needs to become a hero! He would do anything to achieve that dream! To become the Greatest Hero of All Time!
"A hero...?"
A voice sizzles in his fading mind. A subtle itch in what he would assume to be the center of his skull, like a cigarette being burnt against his head, the whispering hiss coos again.
"You can become one... A hero."
Why? Who is this, what is it, and how is it even here?
"You can become a hero... But only if you agree to the terms. This is the offer."
What? An offer? Terms? There is a light then, ahead of him two lights. One is warm and welcoming, beckoning him to float close and accept oblivion, but there is another between the final rest and himself. A green flame surrounds a floating parchment with black ink writing. At first, he does not understand the words, but the characters change and shift into Japanese.
A contract is before him.
"Read it carefully, but quickly, for you are running out of time."
How can he take his time when his life is on the line!? Caught between panic and confusion, as the radiant light draws near with an intimidating choir, a melodious shouting that was once careful and kind, becomes wrathful and demanding. He will enter their domain whether he wants to or not.
And he does not want to.
"F-FINE! FINE! PLEASE! GET ME AWAY FROM...! THAT! I-I! I ACCEPT! I ACCEPT!!!"
His name is written in Katakana next to one in English in a glowing emerald signature at the bottom. The parchment burns and the holy army that comes for his soul withdraws, as he soon regains true feeling, his arms and legs returning to him.
Along with the boney metal shackles that bind his ankles and wrists. His waist and throat. Barbed chains and wretched claws sink into his being, dragging him back, taking him somewhere else. Somewhere worse.
"So it is written. So it shall be. We look forward to your future endeavors, our newest Hellspawn."
Another unfortunate victim. That is what the doctor called her son. A slip of the tongue that he quickly caught, but a part of her understood. Villains, natural disasters, kaiju and more are a constant in their lives. People die every day, every hour, every moment.
But this is her boy. Inko Midoriya's wide eyes fall on the peaceful expression on her son's face. They referred to him as it, as though he were just meat on a slab, as if he had not just given his life away so recklessly to save another.
The cruelty on top of cruelty continues, as his father cannot be present, their only child on a silver tray laid out on display. Still. Breathless. Lifeless.
"Izuku... P-Please... Wake up..."
She whispers between shuddering sobs. So caught in her dismay and grief that she had not heard the doctor speak to the nurse.
"He was caught in an explosion. Came in burnt to a crisp with his internal organs severely damaged. Who fixed the body up so... So effectively? A kind gesture for the mother to see the body like this instead but..."
They would fall into deathly silence when that very body sits up. Color returns to his flesh as he lets loose a blood curdling scream. He grabs at himself as if desperate to pat down flames licking at him, but calms himself after seeing his mother, her ghost white face agape at the impossible.
"... Uh-Uh... Ah! H-Hi mom...!"
He forces a smile. She steps back, away from him. He begins to fear for the worst until she crushes him in a bone shattering hug.
"IZUKU! YOU'RE ALIVE!"
"Agh! Y-Yeah! I was just...! I must have been so exhausted they thought I died... Or some-something...!"
A dream. Inko believed herself to be in a dream and if so, she would rather sleep forever then, because her greatest joy is still here.
Izuku also believes this to be some altered reality. That whatever nightmare he woke up from had been a figment of his imagination from his brush with death.
"(No. It wasn't.)"
He hears and snaps his head to the side.
"(I am within you. They can't hear me. Don't make a scene. I'll remain quiet until you get home.)"
"Izuku?"
His mom could hear his heartbeat intensify.
"What's wrong?! Did-Did I hurt you!? Oh my goodness I'm so sorry-!"
"No! No I-I'm... I'm sorry, Mom. I did something stupid and I... I almost paid the price for it."
She nods frowning, but her tearful eyes betray her false anger.
"You... You would be in so much trouble! You still might be!"
She releases a held breath and smiles.
"We should go home."
"Yeah! I've got to get ready for sch-"
"Izuku wait!"
But he jumped off of the mortuary tray unaware of the lone sheet keeping him covered. His face beet red as he notices the doctor and nurse looking away.
"A-Ah! Can I... Please get something to wear...?"
Izuku lays in his bed staring at the ceiling. The rain eases him but fails to lull him asleep. The voice that had brought him back to life has yet to return. The day has been awkward for him and those who knew him, as they were preparing to help his mother with grieving until they saw him right by her side, many were happy while some were unnerved.
Has his Quirk finally been awakened? Did it really take dying to find his ability?
Lightning flashes an eerie shadow along his wall, thunder rumbles lowly barely hiding the chuckling of something sinister, forcing him to sit up in a jolt finding someone in his room. An obese man smaller than himself with strange makeup on his creased face. His clothes were old and ragged, unappealing and frankly inappropriate stains of filth with worn shoes that barely hid his oversized feet. Large hairy hands that could wrap around Izuku's head and three patches of hair, two on each side and one right at the top of his skull that stick out.
A most miserable looking clown of a human being with solid glowing red eyes in the darkness.
"Huh... No, no, something ain't right about this..."
He said in a language Izuku had studied but still barely understood: English.
"When was the last time we had a kid Spawn? Only a handful of times, like that little freak, Jack the Ripper was one of 'em but this ain't like that. No siree, this is somethin' new... Somethin' interestin'..."
Izuku stares at him, glancing away only to see if this intruder got in through the window, yet it remains locked and untouched. His door had not been opened. This creature is too big to fit through the vents. It is as though he merely appeared out of thin air.
"Plain looking sonuvagun. A bit on the freckled speckled side too, and that hair? Hoowee! Hey, Lil John! Can ya hear me? Can ya see me?"
"... I... I want you... To leave, please..."
The smile on this, creature, made his blood ice. His flesh breaks out into a cold sweat rolling down goosebump hills. Clearly the intruder enjoys the reaction as he steps closer, speaking in fluent Japanese, albeit in a mocking tone.
"Humans ain't supposed to see me unless I want them to. You must be the guy... But you're not how I imagined you'd look like. Are you... Hiding your identity or something, Spawn?"
"S-Spawn...? Who is-?"
Izuku starts to ask but shrieks when the Clown lunges at him. Bulky arms and coarse fingers rougher than sandpaper snatch him by his throat to silence him at once.
"Ah, ah, ah. Don't wanna get the mother involved into our funny business. Or maybe... You're into that kind of thing!"
The Clown begins strangling Izuku giggling in perverse delight. A splash of copper soon stains the bed sheets, the Clown stumbles back confused as he grips his open stomach by the now exposed entrails, he reacts in no pain but mild surprise.
"Whoa-ho! ~ That struck a nerve! Huh?"
He looks up at the boy and finds his face is different. Much different. Impertinent. Defiant. Confident. A foul glare and hate-filled eyes promise even greater harm, though it is Izuku's voice, the words are not his. In a firm venomous tone, he speaks back in English.
"Step the fuck back before I put that acne ridden smile on your wide ass, you ugly pig."
The Clown snickers stuffing his guts back into himself, the wound sewing itself up as flesh and sinew regrows rapidly, he reclines into a casual stance as if speaking with an old friend.
"So it is you...! I think I get it. Heaven did something on your way to Earth, didn't they? We were having issues on our end too, y'know! You arrived but you weren't whole... Yeah... They tried to destroy you before you arrived! That's a dirty ass trick!"
He snaps a finger gun at the possessed boy.
"I bet they did something to your physical form or whatever... But that didn't stop you, now did it? You're resourceful! Not many other Hellspawn would have been so quick to adapt like you did! Let alone use a child as a vessel!"
The spirit within Izuku remains silent. He looks down at his sheets huffing out of his nose.
"Better a child than the charred mummy look you were bound to have. Hey... You looking kinda down? Missing a few inches where it matters?"
The Clown laughs at his own foul jeer as he scratches his groin.
"Nah, it's the blood right? Go ahead! Clean it! You've got imaginative powers beyond comprehension now! My name's... Well, you can call me Clown for now... And I'm gonna be your new best mate until we finish business!"
It finally speaks again.
"And what business is that?"
The Clown raises his hands up.
"Now, now, have a bit of patience, pally! See, you're confused, which is expected, but we ain't friends. We're business associates. I already gave you your name back. You want more information? You'll have to do me a solid first, Spawn."
The spirit narrows Izuku's eyes.
"... A solid? Or a job?"
The Clown's stretched grin threatens to tear the flesh off his own face as it widens further.
"I knew you still had some of that kickass military grade style sass in you! There's a gang, bunch of nasty ruffians, up to absolutely no good that'll be targeting a bank not too far away from here! I don't know all the exact details-"
A lie so he can watch his new playmate squirm.
"-but I do know that these guys will kill a good few innocents just for a quick buck. Now... You can't just let that happen, could you?"
The spirit controlling him opens his mouth to answer, but he is pulled back, Izuku returns answering for them both.
"No! But I can't! Where are they-! A-Ah...!"
He stammers near the end looking at his bloodied hands and panicking. What did he do? He blacked out after being attacked, he heard murmurs and fading words of a conversation, but he could not ignore injustice when he heard it.
The Clown shrugs.
"It's your duty to find and deal with them. Kill Them. I'm just the messenger boy... I'll be keeping an eye on you."
The Clown chuckles as lightning flashes, a split second of truth reveals something that makes Izuku add another body fluid to his ruined sheets, the creature before him vanishing by the time darkness returns.
"(... Don't do that again.)"
"D-Don't take over my body like that again! What are you!?"
"(If I hadn't you would have let him kill us. I didn't bring you back just to die in your bed drenched in blood and piss.)"
Izuku grabs at his head panicking at the putrid odor. He can hear his mother approaching his room.
"Oh no, no, no! How are we supposed to clean this-?!"
His hands begin to glow a sickly green as the spirit regains control over him, waving his hand and thinking to himself.
"(Clean.)"
As if casting a spell, the mess and its malodorous scent vanish in an instant, only a small stain of sweat that remains under them as Inko opens the door.
"Izuku? Are you okay? I heard shouting..."
"... I had a nightmare... I'll be fine, mother."
Inko nods closing the door, but he was so formal with her, so stiff. It must have been an awful nightmare she thought. He did seemingly come back from the dead. A traumatic event for certain. She will do all that she can to help him through it while she still has her precious boy.
The spirit can feel her thoughts, not the exact words but the emotions, the intentions. It and Izuku find them reassuring, so soothing, it relieves one and makes the other sick.
"(You feel guilty about lying to her.)"
"I don't even know how I'd tell her the truth... I don't even know if this is real! I'm so confused right now!"
Izuku buries his face into his hands.
"This is all... Too much...!!!"
"(We'll figure this out... I would explain things if I could, but I'm... Unable. I can't think back any further than when you woke up. Something about a contract, that I still know about, something that keeps us together like this. We'll take this just one step at a time.")
He listens. He stifles and swallows the urge to sob. He died and accepted some kind of bargain to come back. He has newfound strength, new powers, but something he does not understand. Something too different from the Quirks he has come to know and desire.
He lowers his hands and nods.
"Okay... Okay... One step at a time. Someone or a group of people are going to rob a bank. We have to stop that!"
"(You have a police radio to follow crime?")
"I... I got something a bit better!"
He leaps out of bed and takes his smartphone. An app detailing events for citizens to avoid varying from disasters to large scale battle zones between heroes and villains.
"Using this, we'll be able to see most reported crimes happening!"
"(Then we don't need to wait in this room. We'll search. Now.)"
Izuku lifts his head up immediately apprehensive.
"B-But...! I have school tomorrow...!"
"(And are your grades and attendance worth the injustice done to others?)"
That is a low blow. It works, but it still hurts.
"... I-I... Maybe we can... Do a quick patrol... BUT! Only if we get one thing clear!"
"(I'm listening.)"
Izuku gulps and calms himself to speak with some measure of confidence.
"This is my body you're using, but I don't like that! I'm very grateful that you saved my life, but it's still mine, so we should at least work together and figure out how this is going to happen!"
There is an awkward pause. He can feel the spirit's emotion as though it were his own, contemplation, condescension, bemusement. Finally it answers.
"(I had a name... I died some time ago... But now I guess I'm this Spawn. I'll work with you, Izuku Midoriya, but if you freeze up or get us in a spot we could die? I take over. Until then... I'll just lay quiet within you.)"
It is not as reassuring as he would like. Preferably he would be without this entity, but it did save him, twice now. He would be more worried about it were there not one emotion that overwhelmed the rest.
Sadness.
This ghost or demon, whatever it may be, it is an ocean of pure melancholy. This thing that resides within him, empowering him, protecting him, it feels dreadful. Guilty.
It's no happier regarding their situation either. It's possible that just like him, it had no choice in bonding with him, maybe it was just as desperate as he was.
"(Thinking on it won't help. Let's get to work.)"
"Hey, I just realized, this is more for you than it is for me..."
"(Is it? I thought you wanted to be a hero? A worthless, meek little brat barely capable of even passing his physical activities in school?)"
"I-I'm a great student! I'm pretty smart!"
"(Smart enough to get yourself killed in an altercation between heroes and villains.)"
He sucked his mouth. He thinks about their choices. He needs to think this through, play this by ear, he cannot get himself killed again.
"(You won't. I'll make sure of it.)"
"But we don't even know how these powers work or if there's a catch to them! It isn't like anything I've ever heard of outside of a fantasy novel or manga-!"
"(Then we practice. What better way to do so than in the field. We'll start small. Use that... Smart... Phone...?")
That caught Izuku off guard for a moment. Spawn had trouble even understanding the device in his hands despite their shared minds and memories.
"(Find small crimes and we'll deal with them. I'll grant you the power to deal with it.)"
"... You don't want to just take over my body and do it yourself?"
"(Something about this bad business and bullshit. I don't know if we're being set up for something more or something worse, so I think it is for the better that we lay low, and taking over someone's body who I don't know well enough will work. I barely know who I am. You're at the wheel until the action starts. Leave it to me when shit goes down.)"
Izuku is relieved at that. He was aware enough to see his hand tear open what was pretending to be human with ease.
"Just! No killing! Please..."
"(That will depend on the scum we find.)"
"Spawn-san! I mean it! I don't want to be a killer!"
It growls then falls silent, but he silently relents through their bond. Izuku sighs and gets dressed for the night. Going out the door is a no go. Their house has creaky floors and paper thin walls, even with his mom being somewhat of a heavy sleeper, she would know if he just left through the front.
The window however came as a far more favorable option.
"(Wait. Find a mirror first. We can't have you going out like this.)"
"Huh? But I'm dressed! I have a face mask ready and I'll grab a bandana from a convenience store. Isn't that enough?"
"(For a stroll down the park maybe. We need a proper mask or facial covering at the very least. Get us to a mirror and we'll make something.)"
"Will that work?"
"(If we can make bloodstains and piss vanish then we can make a disguise. We're testing these new abilities, aren't we?")
Spawn has a point. Izuku makes his way to the bathroom and stares himself down.
He looks awful. The same as usual but paler, sickly even, which aligns with his feelings right now.
"(Calm down. You're not alone in this. Let's just see what we can do...)"
"R-Right...! Just... Think... Something simple."
"(Something scary.)"
"N-No! Not scary! Heroic! Inspiring!"
"(Because we want these scumbags to feel inspired when we meet them.)"
"Ma-Maybe we can! Maybe we can talk then out of doing illegal things! That way they won't need to use violence!"
"(Are you a pacifist or something?)"
"I just think that if someone is doing bad things... They're probably doing it because they feel like they have to..."
"(And if they want to?)"
"Then we stop them! Not! Kill them! I don't care what that Clown said! There's got to be another way!"
The hidden voice grumbles and pouts, but he ends their triade there, the two focusing on their image in the mirror.
Izuku gasps then as he watches something red appear from behind him then wraps around his head. A mask that does exactly as he wants. It shifts shape and form, changes color and pattern, even the density and material.
He could make the perfect hero costume with this!
"(We are not wearing yellow and blue. The red can stay, and white might work, but I'm not wearing that. We're not wearing that.)"
It changes to a far more militaristic look. A standardized Marine soldier mixed with armor plating on the shoulders, chest and knees, his knuckles wearing hooked spikes and mask in the pattern of a terrifying skeleton grin.
"T-This is way too dark! We'll be called Villains no matter what wearing this! Change it now! NOW"
It turns into a spandex suit with stripes and bright patterns with beady eyes and large A-symbol on his chest where all the stripes meet.
"Isn't this much better?"
"(If you want to be the lead of a Pride Parade, it's perfect. Now stop acting like a fool. We're making a first impression here.)"
The two go back and forth constantly with no end to the arguing in sight...