Chapter Six: NORMAL ENDING

Author's Note: This new ending diverges from last chapter right after Izuku talks to Tomura but before he arrives back home.

Izuku felt so relieved that Tomura had believed him. With his older brother helping get his father out of the house, everything was going according to plan.

As they walked toward the deserted mansion, his uncle asked, "What do you plan to tell your mother after you retrieve her pelt? Or should we let her touch it and get her memories back first?"

Izuku winced. "I have no idea what to tell her. I don't even know if she remembers being a selkie or not. It's tempting to just shove it into her hands…but that seems too shocking. If she doesn't remember, then how would she feel about being spontaneously transformed into a seal?"

"It would come as a nasty shock," his uncle agreed. "The only way to break any compulsions on her would be to give her back her pelt. But we need to at least warn her first."

Izuku didn't even want to think about that conversation, but it had to be done. "You're right. I'll give her a call."

Despite the late hour, his mother picked up on the first ring. "Izuku, I completely agree that your father was being unreasonable about your beach trip, but this has gone far enough. Please come home. He seems on the verge of a mental breakdown. I think he has some unresolved trauma about his brother's disappearance."

Izuku rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm actually walking home right now. Could you come out the back door and meet me?"

As he waited for his mother, Izuku tried to think of what to say.

Inko finally stepped out the door wearing a house robe and fuzzy bunny slippers. Her eyes widened upon seeing his uncle. "You…you look just like my husband's missing brother."

Izuku blurted out, "Do you know that you're a selkie?"

"Do I know that I'm what?" Inko asked.

Mother and son stared at each other in the nighttime stillness.

Inko rubbed her forehead. "Izuku, what nonsense are you talking about?"

"It's true," Izuku said desperately. "Dad took your pelt and used it to control you. Look, I took a video of my uncle transforming into a seal in case I needed to use it to convince Tomura."

Inko raised her hand to stop him from showing her. "Do you think I've never heard of special effects? I know how good you are at editing videos. Are you recording me right now? Is this a prank?" She looked around.

"Mom, do you remember your childhood? Do you remember your family?"

"Of course I do. My family died—in a storm? There were sharks, I think?" Inko started to look uncertain. "I was young then—no, I wasn't particularly young. Why can't I remember how it happened?"

"Because Dad made you forget," Izuku said grimly.

Inko put her hands on her hips. "I know you're fighting with your father right now, but you can't accuse him of ridiculous things."

His uncle barked.

Inko turned to stare at him. "Why are you talking to me about fish?"

"Seal language is very limited. Pretty much everything is about fish," his uncle said. "You understood what I said, didn't you?"

Inko frowned. "Of course I did. You said there were lots of fresh fish here."

"I barked at you, like a seal. And you understood."

Inko took a step backward. "Who are you, anyway? What are you wearing?" Her eyes raked the absurdly clashing colors of his clothes. "Are you actually my husband's brother?"

"I'm afraid so. We can't pick our relatives." His uncle smiled in a gentle way. "Would you like to touch my pelt? It won't transform you, but it might jog a memory." He opened his bag and held it out.

Inko stared at the white seal pelt like a man in a desert hallucinating an oasis. She wet her lips. Her hand started to creep forward. Then she spun around and fled with a cry.

As she ran into the house, Inko brushed past Tomura. He gazed after her with a frown. "Mom?" He whirled on Izuku. "What did you say to her?"

Izuku flinched, unsure why his big brother looked at him with such fury. "I tried to tell her the truth."

"Why would you do that?" Tomura snarled. "You've upset her!"

"I know, but she'll inevitably be upset when she finds out. It's a very upsetting situation." Defensiveness leaked into his tone. "What would you have done?"

"Whatever," Tomura mumbled, running a hand through his unruly hair.

His uncle stepped forward. "Nephew! You look so huggable."

Tomura held off the embrace with one hand. "Let's just get this over with."

A sour mood permeated the air as they walked down the hallway. Izuku tried to offer an olive branch. "I'm very grateful to you for helping us, big brother."

Tomura's shoulders slouched. He grunted.

They reached the basement door in silence. Tomura's hands shook as he unlocked it. His nervousness was contagious. Izuku started to wonder if his mother would even listen to him after he got their pelts back. What if she was calling his father's phone right now to tell him that their son had a mental breakdown?

Tomura led them down the stairs to the basement. The metal box sat on his father's desk.

"He must have accidentally left it out—" Tomura began.

Izuku raised a hand to cut him off. "Isn't this too easy?"

"What do you mean?" Tomura asked. "Shouldn't you be glad?"

He should, but his instincts had been screaming at him ever since he'd entered the house. Something seemed off about his big brother. Izuku couldn't bring himself to suspect his beloved brother, yet he found his mouth saying, "Don't touch that box."

His uncle raised his hands and stepped backward. "Why, is—?"

The vault door opened. Hisashi leapt out, reaching for the shoulder bag containing his uncle's pelt. But his uncle dodged.

Hisashi snarled in frustration. "Tomura!"

Tomura grabbed his uncle from behind. The older man fought against the grip. When Tomura tried to grab the pelt, his uncle smacked him in the chin with the bag. Tomura gasped in pain, then punched his uncle.

With no time to feel betrayed, Izuku ran to help.

But his father removed a white pelt with green spots from a box. "Stop."

Izuku's legs became heavy. He locked eyes with his father. The smug triumph in those red eyes spurred his defiance. He took another step.

A frying pan came flying through the air.

Hisashi tried to dodge, but it still struck him in the forehead.

Inko came running down the stairs, another frying pan in her hand and the fury of a Viking shieldmaiden in her eyes. "How dare you?" she hissed, advancing on her husband.

His face bearing the red mark, he wet his lips. "I know you're angry, but I'll buy you something extremely expensive to make up for it."

"I'll show you where to stuff your money." She swung, knocking the box from his hands. Two seal pelts spilled out.

"Tomura, get the pelts!" Hisashi cried.

Though Tomura tried to rise, his uncle grabbed him and dragged him back to the floor. As they grappled, his uncle cried, "Izuku, grab your pelt and get out of here!" Then he grabbed Tomura's collar and slammed their foreheads together.

Izuku ran and scooped the pelts into the box. He didn't touch his, not yet—he didn't want to be teleported to the sea without his mother and uncle.

Hisashi knocked the frying pan from Inko's hands. "Do you really want to go back to struggling to survive in a polluted and overfished ocean? You were happy with me."

"Because you didn't give me any choice but to be happy!" She wrapped her arms around him and held on.

"Does that matter?"

"Yes!" Tears filled her voice.

He struggled, trying to tug her off gently at first, then with increasing violence.

Inko shouted, "Izuku, put on your pelt!"

"Not without you," he cried. His hands shook on the box.

"I don't know how much longer I'll remember." Sweat poured down Inko's forehead as she clung to Hisashi with all her might. "Please, I want you at least to be free, my son."

"Don't!" Hisashi cried, trying to drag Inko along to reach Izuku. "It's not what you think. The sea destroys selkies. It steals their minds away and leaves only a seal. I saw it happen with my brother—he'd promise me to return, but he kept spending more and more time in the water, and he started forgetting things. Is it wrong to keep an addict from cocaine? I love you and your mother with all my heart. I know you love me too, so why else would you try to leave except that you've been bewitched?"

Looking down at his white-and-green pelt, Izuku hesitated. This was his beloved father, who'd kissed his knees when he skinned them and taught him to ride a bicycle, and he sounded so sincere. Dad actually believed what he was saying. Izuku could tell.

He thought about his uncle, who couldn't even remember his own name. Izuku had dreams of going to college, becoming an environmentalist, and saving the planet. He didn't want to end up in the same miserable state as his uncle.

More importantly, he couldn't leave without his mother and uncle, not even if they wanted him too.

But the white pelt with green freckles called to him. So beautiful. His ears filled with the rushing of the sea.

Without any conscious decision, his hand lifted and touched the pelt.

The last thing he heard was his father screaming before the world warped and faded away.

Izuku didn't know how many days he'd been swimming around the ocean.

He'd figured out hunting, at least. He didn't feel any aversion to raw fish in this form. But he'd gotten lost. He had no idea which direction to head in to find land.

Even if he could reach the beach, would it be safe? No doubt his father was looking for him.

Both his mother and his uncle had sacrificed themselves for his freedom. He couldn't throw that away, no matter how hard it was to live as a seal alone or how much he missed the comforts of his computer and phone. (How could he have left them like that? His hand had moved on its own. As much though Izuku still loved the ocean, he resented the hold his own magic seemed to have on his mind and how vulnerable it made him to anyone holding his pelt. In the legends, selkies who found their pelts were forced to abandon their families even if they didn't want to. That didn't justify what his father had done, but it did make him wonder if he'd traded one form of compulsion for another.)

Even though he suspected his mother and uncle would want him to stay away, even though he knew they'd be bait in a trap, he still had to go back for them.

If only he could find his way to land again.

As another fish swum past, his seal instincts demanded a chase. Izuku swam after, trying desperately to cling to his human mind.

Tomura wrapped his arms around the grey seal with the black spot around her eye. This had to work. It had to. He'd already lost his little brother. He couldn't bear another disappointment. "Please, Hana, come back to me," he whispered.

The fur turned slack and slipped off. A naked young woman crouched inside a steel cage, water dripping from her black hair. "Where am I?" she asked. "Who…am I?"

Tomura wrapped her into a hug, headless of the water getting all over him. He placed a fuzzy robe over her shoulders. "You're Hana Shimura, my older sister. I'm Tenko…but I go by Tomura, now."

"Tenko." Her dark eyes locked onto him. "I don't remember a Hana, but I remember Tenko. My baby brother." She started crying. "I'm so sorry. I tried to find you, but I got lost. So very lost."

Tomura rocked her in his arms. He'd gotten taller than her, over the years. She looked so thin and fragile.

"I'm happy for you, Tomura," Hisashi said, but there was a cold, distant edge to his voice. It had been there ever since he'd lost his son to the ocean.

Tomura didn't blame him. He felt Izuku's loss keenly too, and he'd let his dad down. If only he'd warned Dad that Mom knew. If only he hadn't made Izuku suspicious. If only he'd knocked his uncle out faster. He'd replayed that night in his head a million times.

Hana looked up, rubbing her eyes in the dim basement light. "Who are you?"

"This is Hisashi Midoriya, my adopted father," Tomura said. "He saved you for me."

Hisashi knelt down on the carpeted floor next to Hana. "Will you do me a favor in return, my dear girl?"

She blinked up at him. "Of course. Anything."

His lips curled back into a dark smile. "My son is lost in his selkie form. But he's determined, and I know he'll come back here looking for his mother and his uncle. When he does, I want you to pretend to be my prisoner. Offer to help him retrieve their pelts. Then bring him to me."

Hana recoiled. "You stole your family's pelts? Like my father?"

Tomura shouted, "My new dad is nothing like that man! He's kind and loving."

Hisashi said, "My poor son has lost his senses. Just like how you forgot all about your promise to come back for your brother and left him to starve before I rescued him."

A tear trickled down Hana's cheek. "I didn't mean to, I swear."

"I know you didn't." Hisashi brushed away her tear. "The seal form steals a selkie's mind away. My son became lost in strange delusions, so I have to save him. It's what any loving father would do."

"Please, big sister," Tomura whispered. "I need to get my little brother back."

She straightened and wiped her face. "Then I'll help you."

"Thank you, dear girl." Hisashi caressed her cheek. "If you can return my son to me, then I'll welcome you into the family with him. We'll all be one big, happy family. Won't that be nice?"

His brilliantly red eyes burned.

Author's Note:

I deliberately left it open to interpretation how much of what Hisashi said was true. Let's just say that he genuinely believes what he said, but he's not a reliable narrator. He could have been a trustworthy human who helped his relatives maintain a balance between sea and land by keeping their pelts safe and returning them periodically, but he's too much of a possessive bastard.

The Normal Ending is in many ways another bad ending, except in the original bad ending Hisashi is happy, and in this ending absolutely no one is happy. I couldn't decide between everyone loses versus the villain wins for the bad ending, so I did both.

Theoretically, this ending has the potential to turn into a good ending or a bad ending depending on what happens next. Unfortunately, Izuku has the game rigged against him at nightmare level difficulty if he wants to try to rescue both his mother and uncle, while at the same time avoided the trap Hisashi has laid with Hana. Good luck, Izuku!

Tomura and Hana are probably the key to if this ending turns good or bad. Even though Hana is genuinely grateful to have been rescued, her craving for the sea will eventually come back. Then either: 1. Hana accepts her brother's insistence that she'll lose her mind again if she ever puts the pelt on and learns to live without it; or 2. Hana talks to Inko and the First and comes to realize selkies need both their land and sea forms to be happy. From the second option, another two possibilities open: 1. Hana persuades Tomura to see through Hisashi's manipulations and he sides with the selkies and becomes a human they can trust; or 2. Tomura agrees with his adopted father that selkies are like addicts who can't look after themselves and must be protected, so he vaults Hana.

Ultimately, Tomura's loyalties are likely to decide this battle. I wonder which side he'll pick in the end?

Fun fact: the direct translation of what the First barked at Inko is "Tasty fish here." It didn't make any sense but he didn't have many options. Seal language basically only has five phrases:

Tasty fish here.

Okay fish here.

No fish here.

Danger.

You have a sexy tail, let's mate.

The First didn't want to freak Inko out by either coming onto her or crying shark, so he had no choice except to talk to her about fish.

I'd like to end on a happy note, so the last chapter will be the Good Ending.