Chapter Sixteen
Essence-Dissecting Stare
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Izuku ran with purpose. The dunes flew past him as he homed in on his objective. Far ahead loomed the walls of the Demon City: Malfeas. It dominated the horizon. Walls and towers stretched out to engulf Izuku's vision, an abrupt conclusion to the eternal and endless sands. Even from this distance Izuku could make out movement. The walls seemed to be rotating slowly, shuddering outward as though to advance on the desert, swallow more space, continually annexing more and more land into the city itself. Gnawing, grinding, the peripheral noise of self-constructing stonework was constant, a distant hum that chewed on Izuku's hearing.
Beyond that wall a great crystal dome rose to dominate Izuku's vision, like a sunrise lit not by bright golden light but by myriad opal-fires contained in a perfect polished orb of diamond. As Izuku watched the gigantic sphere was joined by others, rising and detaching from the horizon as they orbited the great sphere, dancing around it in precise circles, even as smaller spheres orbited those in turn. The constant movement resembled a planetarium, but it was completely unlike any formation familiar to human history.
Once the last of the spheres finished ascending into their prescribed orbital patterns, the entire assembly moved towards Izuku. The array of crystals rushed towards him with all the menace of a meteor shower, threatening extinction, suffocation, fire, and darkness. Thousands of tiny whispering voices erupted from the onslaught even as the spheres continued their orbital dance, uttering names that Izuku knew better than to listen to.
Takeru had warned him. She Who Lives in Her Name was a dread deity. Just as deadly as her fellow Yozis. She may have given power up to Cecelyne, allowing the religious musings of her sister to determine the structure of demonic society, but the Whispering Flame and her myriad spheres were the Principle of Hierarchy. She may inspire less fear than Adorjan, but that was only because she was more discriminating in who and how she killed. She may serve and adore Malfeas, but the flame in her heart could never be confused for something as wholesome as love.
She burned with obsession. Her fires were flames of willpower.
Izuku immediately knew what he needed to do. Manifesting his dagger, he took hold of the smallest, newest chain in his heart. The weight on the end was much smaller and lighter than the others he had cut… was that yesterday? Today? Regardless, he could not allow the Whispering Flame to discover it, to learn the inner secrets of his rebellion. "Izuku…" he called through the chain linking him to his other half. "Take this from me and get ready."
Once Izuku cut the chain, his heart and memories twisted and altered, yet he still knew enough to pass the chain fragment along. He stopped running, holding perfectly still as he focused on his senses. He closed his eyes to the vision of Cecelyne's deserts, tuned out the walls of Malfeas and the impending threat of She Who Lives in Her Name… and felt the warm bath within the Chrysalis Grotesque. He reached out with his mind until he could make out the hand of his counterpart and placed the tiny weight in the hands of the other Izuku.
"Get ready." He told his other self.
"Be careful." Was the reply. "Everything rests on what you do next."
What was everything? Izuku struggled to remember but couldn't, not fully. That was for the best though, wasn't it? After all, he had done this to himself, so Izuku had to have a reason. All he knew with certainty was that he needed more power, in fact he needed the power of the Whispering Flame specifically. The safety of everyone he knew rested on his shoulders, even if he didn't understand the plan. Opening his eyes and shutting out the world of his birth, Izuku fully invested himself in the vision of the Yozis. He could not allow himself to be passive and reactionary. He needed to take the vision for his own, to wrest as much power as he could from these titanic beings even as they twisted his soul.
Opening his eyes, Izuku was shocked at how close the impactful storm of spheres was, how much ground they had covered in the sparse moments of his meditation. He had vastly underestimated the size of the Great Sphere. It was easily larger than a kilometer in diameter, surrounded by lesser and lesser spheres, like planets and their own moons all orbiting in a pattern of perfected circles that even Copernicus would marvel at. Before he could react, She Who Lives in Her Name was above him, her array of orbiting opal-fire spheres dancing madly far above his head. He craned his neck as he tried to get a better look, daring to open his third eye and gaze at the maddening display of light and power above him. Laser light fettered the spheres to each other, binding them all together through force of will rather than gravity.
Just as he marveled at the beauty of it, one of those lights turned on him, binding him inside and out before lifting him into his own orbit around the Great Sphere. The fire inside seemed to grow brighter as he approached or was rather dragged through the air. The force of will holding him seemed to grip him on his bones rather than maintain an external hold, threatening to rip him apart from the inside.
The Principle of Hierarchy did not waste time with introductions. She Who Lives in Her Name immediately probed into Izuku's mind, boring past his defenses. "You have divided your attention across two planes of existence? How? By what means are you accomplishing this?" the question was posed by thousands of whispering voices in the back of his brain, utilizing the sounds of familiar and unknown speech patterns, the sounds of family, friends, and strangers. Combined, the words burned him with cold emotionless calculation. The cacophony of whispers coalesced into one roar, directed by a singular purpose.
Pain shot through Izuku like blades running through his eyes before descending his spine. Free Will? Did Izuku possess it? Was that real? Could it stand against her onslaught?
Even as he struggled for words and wriggled in his captivity, Izuku could feel the lightning like tendrils of the Whispering Flame pore through his memories. He didn't know what was left there to find, or at least what might interest her. He knew from… somewhere… he couldn't recall anymore, but he knew that the prismatic lens of her vision would see past any lie. Honesty was required here, or at least technical honesty. "I use the powers and gifts of the Primordials. If there is a power that lets me do something unexpected, it derives from Adorjan or Cecelyne."
Opal fires danced before his eyes, his awakened essence-vision revealing a myriad of colors far beyond the human visual spectrum. Ultraviolet and infrared light bore into him with terrifying scrutiny. "You are an infantile being, not yet fully arisen from your Exaltation… you lack the essence required for Primordial methods of co-location. You also should not be awake enough to perform such feats. I shall restate my inquiry: what specific power allows you to perform these actions?"
His head hurt. It felt like a fist was gripping the base of Izuku's brain, rattling his spine in the process. He tried to suppress his own fear but knew that if she was not satisfied with the answers, mined from his thoughts, then she would kill him. "I don't know how I'm awake, Whispering Flame. I do however know the Charm that allows me to split my mind. It is called Divided Chakra Shintai." He gasped for air as the pressure on the back of his skull receded.
Lights danced across innumerable spheres. "Error. No such Charm by that name exists in the Primordial archives. Explain the function of this Charm to me. Do not spare details." The lights bore into him, staring him down.
The pressure on his skull increased several times over. Izuku feared that his bones would crack or worse. "I… cut through my chakras using the Heart Cutting Blade of Adorjan… and cast the cut away part into my own anima, the extrusion of my soul…" he hoped that this answer plus the images he was sharing would be enough. He could not allow himself to think… or else…
"Do not spare details." The whispering voices intoned, their collective will a shouting command of obedience. "Tell us the thought you wish to conceal from us."
The chain. It was too late. He spared one thought to protecting the secret of the chain and doing so was enough to render it obvious to the Great Sphere's innumerable senses. Izuku felt his heart and stomach lurch as the Whispering Flame sent arcs of energy down the chain itself, jolting him with electric sensations of her essence. Her probing mind-tendrils moved from him to examine the emotion-laden chain connected to his heart. "This is the umbilical-chain that feeds essence and life into your anima… but that does not explain how you have it active here and in your birth-world. The boundaries of time and space are not easily permeated. Tell us how you are accomplishing that…"
Izuku winced as a sense of utter failure overrode the pain he had endured so far. At least the truth would be useless, he consoled himself. "I don't know… I barely understand it myself."
No doubt her insatiable curiosity found his revelation frustrating. He honestly did not know. No amount of mind-probing would reveal the answer she wanted. "You will submit yourself to vivisection until we can derive the mechanism ourselves." It was not a request.
Vivisection?
"Atom by atom. Mote by mote. We will rend you apart and pore over every detail of your existence until all functionality is understood. Now: lower your mental and spiritual defenses. Doing so will reduce your… discomfort." The statements were hardly good bedside manner. Her dispassionate cruelty, her indifference to suffering, he had seen lesser forms of all these his whole life. He had seen such amoral thinking time and again as people around him accepted the world for what it was and did not dream of what it could be, accepted cruelty in the world but only if they themselves were not the target.
He grimaced a grin into existence, understanding that his own pain and suffering were sacrifices that she would oh-so-bravely make on his behalf. For science, perhaps. He however could offer up his pain for his own purposes. He dared not ask for guarantees of what came after. He wouldn't get any. He'd have to make guarantees for himself, even if his efforts provided nothing. "I submit to the vivisection."
Izuku braced for pain. He was prepared for agony, or at least that is what he told himself.
He was not prepared for the Whispering Flame.
Arcs of pure energy shot through him. He felt feverish burning, blistering, boiling. Crystals formed on his skin as he started to freeze, only for the energy and the fire to resume. Again and again, he felt the rapid heating and cooling of her efforts, interjected with scalpel-fine precision moments where she would cut deep into him with thousands of tiny needle-like extensions of her mind.
That was not the worst of it. He felt her presence coat the chain on his heart, her reach extending outward. Crystals formed on the chain, link by link, as her reach seemed to catalogue the purpose and meaning of each one as she reached through Izuku to his soul, to his birth world… to his only means of protecting everyone.
Fear gripped Izuku like never before in his life. Now that he understood the stakes, he had far more to worry about than his own life. If the Whispering Flame managed to probe the memories of his other self, to grab hold of the chain he had passed through the window of his soul… he himself did not remember what those memories were, but he knew to trust himself and his own secrecy. He struggled helplessly against the bonds of his captivity, the laser fine energies that held him. Screaming in pain, Izuku thrashed about helplessly, trying to figure out anything that he could do to avert this disaster.
The answer was not forthcoming... until Izuku remembered that he was not alone in this fight.
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Ochako watched as apartments and condos gave way to townhomes and then eventually to single family homes as they ventured farther from the heart of Musutafu. Technically they were already outside the legal city limits, but the buildings were nestled so close together that it was hard to tell. The main clue was that people out here had grass in their yards, small as those yards were.
Mt. Takao loomed in the distance. It wasn't the tallest mountain, just the closest. There was very little snow decorating the peak this time of year. It was a picture of subtle and serene beauty, cast in green by Izuku's anima, which tinted Ochako's vision of the world around them. Still, she was sobered by the thought that she and Izuku would soon be running up that mountain together, likely followed by a horde of demons.
Abruptly she felt all of Izuku's muscles tense up. This wasn't anything like the eager reaction he had when he diverted their course before. They had taken several short detours to hunt down packs of demons, each time offering needed relief to heroes or civilians nearby. Ochako grit her teeth while thinking about how flimsy this ceasefire was, how the demons continued to wander out to hurt anyone that even skirted the edge of their arbitrary and contradictory rules. The fighting had died down, but it had hardly stopped.
The demons were setting traps across the city, hunting their own kind while the hunted wore human disguises. No one could ignore that, certainly not heroes. It was sickening that any disruption to these hunts was breech enough to make the heroes into targets for violence yet again. The only blessing was that word of Izuku's revelation was spreading and fewer heroes were getting caught in the trap.
No wonder Izuku was so eager to hunt these monsters.
This tension she felt was nothing like that, though. She was startled when Izuku slowed down, a look of worry on his face, tightening his grip on her to save her from their own inertia. Ochako flinched as he turned to kick the gigantic shell higher into the air, preventing it from impacting into them. It arced over their heads only to crash down into the street nearby with a loud crunch, leaving a noticeable crater before bouncing.
Ochako deactivated her Quirk to help keep the thing under control, causing it to drop, settling into the fresh crater. She marveled at how durable the thing was. It had taken a lot of abuse over the… how long had this all being going on now? Still, there was not a single scratch on it.
Lights flickered from within the shell and down the chain linked to Izuku's heart. "She Who Lives in Her Name. Stop. Izuku. Stop. She will find out. Stop. She will kill me. Stop. Help. Stop." Izuku spoke the words out in a whisper, a disheartened breath. The disbelief and despair on his face wrenched at Ochako's heart.
She watched as he approached the shell, wondering if she was supposed to do or say anything. The lights flickered rapidly and were matched by lights from within Izuku's translucent body. Ochako marveled in silence as Izuku pressed an outstretched palm onto the surface of the Chrysalis, pressing until it permeated past the surface. He reached further and further inside, grasping for something she could not see and barely understood.
Finally, he took hold of something, a look of determined satisfaction on his face. "Be careful." He said. "Everything rests on what you do next." His statement caused Ochako to wonder at his relationship with his other self. They were the same person, right?
Izuku withdrew a tight fist from within the shell, holding a glowing gold chain with a similarly gilded weight on the end. The chain was smaller, both thinner and shorter, than the one that linked into Izuku's heart. He turned to offer the weight to her. At it's base, the weight would fit neatly into one of her palms, yet it was surprisingly heavy to her, requiring both hands just to hold it up.
"What is this?" she asked, unable to utter anything more eloquent while struggling with the weight.
"Memories that we cannot let the enemy have access to." He said, sighing as he contemplated something difficult. Before her eyes the translucent gold faded at her touch, transforming into dense yellow-on-white jade. It was suddenly far more solid and tangible. "If the Yozis reach those memories, then they will know that Izuku… that I intend to betray them. If that happens, they'll kill all of us… or worse."
Ochako suddenly felt like the weight was even heavier. Why was she holding something so important? "If this is in my hands… then…"
Izuku smiled softly at her. "Then it's not in our head for them to find. When the Yozis poke around, they won't find anything… too incriminating."
A thought tugged at her, bothering her. "If he doesn't remember this… do you?"
Izuku shrugged. "Yes, but for me the memory is vague, like a secondhand retelling. That's the way it is for Exalted though: we have memories of lives we've never touched, or people we've never met. We can recall them, but we know we weren't there."
She marveled at him. "Memories of… you make it sound like you can remember past lives."
His smile seemed sad. "Exactly that. Too many."
Ochako was still confused. "But… I mean. Ok, you have memories of past lives, and you remember things that Izuku-in-there doesn't, at least not right now. None of that explains how I'm physically holding some of your memories."
The gold-hued blade manifested in Izuku's hand. "This. This knife lets me cut emotions and memories. I can choose whether those endure as physical objects… or whether they are lost forever. This is what the demons fear I can do to them. They're immortal, but they're not immune to being lobotomized."
Ochako gasped in shock at the thought. This whole time she thought Izuku was killing these things… but this was far worse, far crueler. He was taking their emotions and memories away. No weights, no chains, none of that manifested with those previous battles. That meant that whatever bits of their identity he cut from those demons were gone forever. She didn't want to feel pity for these monsters but had to admit that this felt sickening to her. Mentally disfiguring the enemy instead of killing them seemed like torture, not warfare. "That's… a terrible power. It's awful."
He nodded, validating her feelings of disgust. "It is. The first person I was forced to use this on… was myself." He gazed over to the shell resting near them. "I'm no longer completely sure what I had to cut out of my own head… I just know that whatever is left, I was willing to risk my life to keep."
She was shocked into silence. He was forced to cut into his own thoughts and feelings. Her mind boggled, rejecting any way she could even imagine this. She wanted to empathize, to reach out to him, but was at a complete loss. She had never heard of anything like this before, of a hostage forced to scar themselves at the whim of their captors, and even then, just so that their lives could be spared. That was the extent of her imagination. When she tried to reach beyond from physical injuries to the mental ones, her mind hit a wall. "I'm so sorry, Izuku." Was the best she could do as she floundered for something more meaningful to say. "That must have been terrible."
His sad smile never left his face. "It's just more motivation to make sure… for me to fight against these things so they can't reach the rest of you."
The rest of you, he said. Already she could see that he was holding himself apart from her and the remainder of humanity. He clearly no longer felt human. With everything he had been through and was still going through, as little as she understood of it, she could not blame him. However, she could disagree. "You're still one of us, you know. We're in this fight together, even if most of us are stubborn idiots."
A sharp exhale from his nose, the short-lived exhaust of a chuckle, was his reply. She could see, almost taste, the witty remark he was going to shoot back at her. She never would learn what he was going to reply with, as a sharp pulse of electrified power traveled along the chain and jolted Izuku into action.
Eyes wide with alarm, Izuku turned sharply at the keening sound of crystals stretching and growing along the links of his chain, extending out from the Chrysalis. They moved rapidly, coating the chain in ice-like crystals before dancing internally with their own opal-esque fires. Moving faster than Ochako could think, Izuku lashed out, cutting away at the chain before the crystals could reach out to touch his heart.
The consequences were harsh and immediate.
He stumbled, his grace and poise from before gone in an instant, and then fell to hit the ground. He tried at first to fall into a kneeling position but failed at even maintaining that.
Ochako cried with alarm, calling out his name as she rushed to his side. Momentarily forgotten, the memory-stone and the short chain attached to it clattered to the ground next to her. She quickly cradled his head into her lap, turning him to face up toward the sky. "Izuku, stay with me! What's happening?!"
"Kick the chain away…" he barely whispered to her, as though he had no strength. "It can't touch… the stone… or me…"
She batted it away with her hands, refusing to get up from her position as Izuku's support on the ground. The thing looked nothing like it did earlier. It was no longer a golden chain of light, but instead a crystalized mass, becoming rigid, inflexible, and alien to look at. Her Quirk ensured that it did not land anywhere nearby.
"Miss Uraraka?" the voice of Midnight rang out from within her earpiece. "What's happening over there?"
"I don't know… Iz… Midoriya collapsed!" Ochako tried to organize her thoughts better. "He cut the chain connecting him to the shell and then…" She watched with eye-glazing horror as the Izuku's luminous body faded a bit, growing darker and more transparent before her eyes. "He lost his strength… and it's like he's disappearing…"
Midnight comforted her from the other side of town, her voice the only thread connecting them. "Are you in a safe location? Can you get off the street and hide somewhere while we move to intercept? We can regroup and…"
"No." Izuku spoke up, barely a whisper, but to Ochako he might as well have shouted in her ear. Nothing was as important to her in that moment than the man laying, possibly dying, in her arms. "Demons will be heading this way soon. Uraraka… you should head north, out of their way. Cross the river… take the memory-stone with you."
"Shut up… both of you." She blurted the words out before thinking them through. "Midoriya… Izuku… stay with me!" she lightly slapped his face, dismayed at how soft it felt, like the forces holding him together were growing weaker by the moment. "Tell me what's happening to you!"
He gasped for air, but his chest refused to rise. "The chain… it's like an umbilical cord. Without it I have no connection to… him, to Izuku… I'm dying without it. Without that connection… my memories won't even get back to him…"
Wet tears fell onto his face. Ochako did not care that she was crying. She allowed the sadness and rage within her to roil and coalesce together. "Why?! Why would you cut something so important?!" her fist struck the ground near his head, bruising her knuckles on the asphalt.
He had the nerve to smile up at her weeping face. "I can't let the Yozis know… they can't get my memories… or his… we can't let that happen, or it's all over. They'll rewrite anything… they don't like… make me… a monster…"
She gasped, suppressing more tears. He did this, this stupid suicidal act… just to save… everyone. He knew that he was the last line of defense, and he did this to himself just so that the enemy couldn't turn him against humanity.
Ochako refused to give up on him. "Izuku… tell me how this works. Anything… I need to see if there's a way to help. You said your memories won't return… are you… the same person… and… is there a way to keep you going? I…" she wasn't sure just what to ask, and her breathing became rushing, ragged, panting breaths of panic.
"Hush…" he breathed. It looked like it was painful for him to take in air. "I'm… part of him. A feeling… like how… your love for your parents… is part of you… but when I die… that part will be lost."
Shaking her head, Ochako refused to accept this situation. "There has to be a way! You just need essence, right? That's what gives you power, life, right?"
Gritting her teeth, she moved her wrist to be within a hair's breadth from Izuku's mouth… and his elongated fangs. "Take as much essence as you need! All of me if that's what it takes! Just… don't die on me! Please… don't leave me alone here!"
The sensitive skin on her wrist felt his lips curl up into a short-lived smile, one that she couldn't see. "Not that kind of essence… I'm… not a vampire… but thanks…" he took another labored breath.
Ochako couldn't look down at him anymore, casting her gaze about as if looking for answers. Her mistake, her hope, had been a simple misunderstanding. She had misjudged the purpose of his elongated fangs, using them as flimsy evidence for an unspoken theory. Chi, the Japanese word that Izuku had used to explain the concept of essence, could also be used to describe blood. Ochako's mistake was to assume that the multiple meanings of the word were interchangeable. Chi could be many things, from invisible energy, to blood, to even breath…
Wait, breath?
"Do you need air? Would that help?" she looked down at his shining face, now dimmer and darker than ever before. His eyes and mouth were clearly visible, but the rest of his face was fading so quickly, she could barely make out his jawline.
"Air… anima… use essence to breathe…" he struggled, trying to answer her.
It was all the answer that she needed. Gently, she moved from underneath him, taking his head off her lap and settling him flat on the asphalt. His head and hair were heavy before, but now seemed achingly light, a feather of weightlessness. Kneeling over him, Ochako inhaled deeply, pressed her lips to his, and exhaled fresh air into him.
The soft glow that greeted her, the light in his eyes, was all the confirmation that she needed. Her actions did not restore him to his former strength. She had no plan beyond simply breathing life into him, as many times as was needed. This man had saved her father, and now Uraraka Ochako was going to save him. She was going to keep Midoriya Izuku alive.
She ignored her own discomfort, the dried blood soaked in her hair and clothes, the bruises on her knees and knuckles. Ochako tuned out her surroundings, the pleading silence of Midnight, the world on the other end of her ear wanting to understand what was happening. The anima banner around her, flooding the area with light, dimmed, but she paid it no mind. She repeated the action, losing count of her own breaths as she grew lightheaded, focusing on the task of keeping air in Izuku's lungs, doing everything she could just to keep him alive.
Her peripheral vision did however pick up a significant interruption.
It was tall, a wolf-like creature made of smoke and ash. Trailing plumes wandered off its skin as it strode forward defiantly into Izuku's light. The hound would easily stand as tall as Ochako's shoulder if she was standing. Kneeling next to Izuku, she was at an ideal height for it to sink its teeth into her flesh.
"Run…" Izuku barely whispered. "Please…"
Ignoring him, Ochako inhaled sharply and ducked down to breath hard into Izuku's lungs. She clamped her eyes shut, bracing for whatever came next.