You Mean a Lot to Me (If I Mean A Lot to You)
Izuku has always hated the smell of a hospital room. It wasn't something that he instinctively didn't like- there was once a time when he considered being a doctor. That dream didn't last long in the weight of student loans, threat of residency, and the competition that came with the field. It was hard enough for him to finish student teaching without taking out another loan.
Either way, the smell of the antiseptic, anti-bacterial and the assorted medicines is something that makes him nauseous. Not to mention the headache the soft beep of his heart monitor is causing. It's persistent, and he rages against it as best he can with his various limbs wrapped in casts.
He's not very successful with it in all fairness.
The monitor continues to beep at him.
He decides that it's probably a good thing- given that if it wasn't, then he wouldn't be alive to be thankful for the silence, but Izuku is weighing his options.
Surely, they have a mute setting on them, so that only an erratic heartbeat created noise.
He huffs, closing his eyes again and trying to concentrate on anything but the consistent beeping by his head.
He was in critical condition- at least bone wise. The doctors had called it a miracle that he only had some minor internal bleeding, but most of the bones on his left side- the bus side- had been crushed. He was two shy of a full set of ribs being broken- which explained why breathing hurt.
It truly was a miracle he was alive.
Well.
What normal people would call a miracle.
He assumed it had more to do with knowing Ochako.
"How's my favorite mortal?"
"Dying." Izuku wheezes, and his voice sounds crackly and weak, despite the oxygen line connected to his nose helping him breathe.
Still, he smiles, opening his eyes to find her floating above him. The lines holding his various casts aloft run straight through her- and it occurs to him only then that she can probably phase through whatever she likes.
What couldn't she do?
Fix him apparently.
Then again- there was probably repercussions and butterfly effects that transcended time and space and would shatter reality if she rewrote the timeline to keep him safe. She probably had weighed all the consequences and decided it would simply have to be something she allowed in order to preserve the timeline and not shatter existence.
"Sadly." She agrees with him, humming softly down at him. He feels the feather-light touch of her fingers combing through his hair. "But I think you were so brave- my dear Izuku."
He closes his eyes at the touch, feeling the crackle of power that resides just beneath the surface of her skin. It feels like raw lightning- just barely contained within her form. She brushes his hair to the side, cupping his cheek.
"Do you regret it?" She asks, and he whines when she pulls her hand away.
His cheek feels cold without it, his hair suddenly too heavy for his head without her fingers combing through it. He looks at her though, frowning at the question.
He feels her sadness.
It's not an emotion he's felt coming off of her before- it's different than the melancholy, or the bursting anger or uncertainty that he's felt. Those… those he knows.
This…
This weighs on him.
The bleed out of this emotion makes his eyes water and his already tight chest feel nearly impossible to breathe. It sticks to the back of his throat- like he'd been sobbing. Ochako wears sadness well.
Well enough he supposes.
Stardust drifts out of her eyes, shimmering fragments weeping out of her eyes, painting her skin with the dust of the universe. She looks so beautiful.
And she's not even trying.
The soft large knit green sweater she's wearing makes the planet that's slowly rotating in her eyes pop in just the right way. He wonders if it's a water planet- if the green he's seeing is just all the planets and the vibrancy of life or it's something different. Some strange composition of unknown creatures and organisms or cosmic dust that has rendered the planet green.
"Regret what?" He rasps.
A tear tickles at his eyes, and Ochako's thumb brushes it away. "Me."
It's a simple word but it seems all-encompassing. Because his life is mostly her.
It's both had to be, and it's become her. His days off are spent around the house or by her side, his mornings are tea shared with the eldritch entity, and his nights…
His nights he feels like she's there too. Hanging at the edge of his vision- not quite by his side but still in the room.
She's such a part of his life that he doesn't understand what he would or wouldn't regret without her. It's not as simple as a singular choice or a turn of events, it's the entirety of his life that would have changed and it's beyond his comprehension what would be different without her.
"Never."
He couldn't regret her. She's…
She's what he comes home to.
She's the person he wants to spend time with and talk to at the end of the day. And that feeling has been increasing more and more the longer they've talked.
She smiles at him- but it's a sad look before she replies, "Even if I've caused your death?"
It takes effort. A monumental amount of effort to flex the muscles in his cheeks and pull his lips up into a smile- but he does it for her. Because she needs to see him smile more than anything else right now.
"How can I regret having my best friend?"
Ochako huffs, rolling her eyes at him- an expression that he doesn't think possible until the green planet in her eye twirls and spins in the socket. He wonders if that just ruined the planet- but he doubts it.
"Do you know just how many times I've fallen in love with you? Izuku Midoriya?"
He shakes his head slightly, and she huffs again, combing her fingers through his hair. He feels the power underneath her skin and the restraint it takes for her to pull the bleed off of her emotions out of the atmosphere.
He still feels a tear trickle down his cheek, despite not feeling sad himself.
"Do you know I loved you the first time I saw you die?" Ochako says suddenly, "the first time I met you, you died for me."
He wants to laugh, but it hurts his lungs and when he starts to he wheezes out a noise that sounds like a sad balloon. She takes his hand, squeezing it softly until his breathing gets back under control.
"I wanted to save you." She tells him, "with every fiber of my being I wanted to."
He cocks an eyebrow at her, focusing on reminding his body that oxygen is supposed to go IN his body and not just OUT. His chest shutters and wheezes. Ochako's hand smooths the wrinkles of his hospital gown.
He closes his eyes and listens to the fluttering of pages as Ochako pulls a memory from her mind into reality. The flapping of paper in the wind and the rough thump as all the books and tombs of knowledge snap closed and one cracks open is a sound Izuku doesn't ever want to forget. It pulls him into the moment and reminds him that nothing is impossible to Ochako.
When he opens his eyes again it is to the sound of machine gun fire, the crash of artillery shells and the roar of fire, smoke and death around him. The sand is slick with blood under his hands, but Ochako pulls him up and steadies him without issue.
His next breathe is easy- his lungs mended in this memory for some reason, but immediately they're choked with ash and dust. He coughs and Ochako pulls him once again, out of the smoke and across the churned and torn sand.
"Whe-where are?" He tries to ask as another artillery shell thumps into the dirt next to them.
"The day I met you." Ochako replies easily, pulling him back across the sands.
This experience is different than the others, than the ghost of his life as a samurai, or even some of the others she'd shown him glimpses of before. Here it feels fresh and real and raw.
Hot lead chips through the air by his cheek as she pulls him, and he stumbles when an artillery shell ghosts through his chest and explodes behind him. He stumbles with the impact, but Ochako's grip is firm and steadying on him as she pulls him along.
"Where- where am I?" He asks.
"Dying." She assures- and he isn't sure if she's referring to his current bodily condition in his life, or in this one.
But she makes it known soon enough.
In a way.
The smoke and dust vanish from view and Izuku finally gets a clear look at the battlefield around them.
It's a beach, beaten and scorched from explosives and riddled with bullets. There are amphibious vehicles in the surf, ramps flattening out the sand that is slick with seawater and blood. Metal fragments dot the sand, and whatever isn't churned up and pockmarked by bullets, boots or bodies is black.
Someone screams- a single word that Izuku can't quite make out before the air reverberates and something slams into the ground in front of Izuku and Ochako. The sand plumes with the impact, a wave of it washing over and then through them.
It's a bomb.
Izuku blinks, then looks to Ochako.
She smiles at him, the green planet in her eyes looking strangely like a human pupil from a distance. Wordlessly she points, and Izuku has to turn his gaze from the ordinance at his feet to the tree line.
The jungle is on fire.
Which.
It probably didn't start on fire, and it likely won't end up totally ruined, but it's strange Izuku didn't notice it before. Despite the flames he can see men huddled underneath the burning leaves, gun barrels poking through the foliage and hot lead ripping through the air between the tree line and the beach.
"Where- where am I?" Izuku asks again.
"Fighting." Ochako informs helpfully, and she snaps her fingers and the battlefield shifts.
Time warps around them. The fighting goes back and forth. More of the jungle is burned as what looks like a tank with an armored wagon lands, flames spewing out of it's barrel instead of explosive shells. The invaders establish a foothold, a series of barricades and sandpiles as they rip ground way from the defending party.
Izuku isn't sure who he's supposed to root for, only that it's chaos. In the minute that it takes for Ochako to reach the apparent 'spot' she wants to remember, Izuku has seen bodies ripped apart by machine gun fire, men crushed under tank treads, skin burn and charr as flames leap down the poor victims throats. It makes him sick to his stomach.
And then night falls.
Peaceful and sudden, the darkness consumes the firefight, and with the setting of the sun comes the subsiding of the battle.
She stops them there. The gloom of the rising moon illuminating a beach torn apart and ruined by blood, spent brass and fractured bone. She twirls around the unexploded ordnance, eyes combing the shadows as she watches something in the dark.
"I was new when I came upon you." She explains, leaning back against the bomb. "More of a thought or an entity- clinging to the previous definition of my corporal form- than I was what you see now."
He's still not sure what he's seeing now, other than the memories of what he should likely call an eldritch god. But Ochako hums and dances around the war and chaos so easily that he finds it hard to associate the violent scene around him with the soft gentle smile that has settled on her face.
"I suppose that's why I found myself so captivated by you." She confesses as the brushes rustle and the crunch of sand underneath boots breaks the silence.
Izuku isn't sure what he's expecting when he turns to the sound. He supposes he's expecting an animal, maybe a soldier or something, but it's not to be met by a mirror of himself. He freezes, breath caught in his lungs as he stares into shrouded emerald eyes.
And then his duplicate walks through him.
Izuku shivers but turns to follow his past self. The boy- because Izuku can see that this version of himself is young- his body lanky and thin- not quite filled out by adulthood and maturity. But even so there is a strength in his movements as he moves about the shadows of the battlefield.
His uniform is smeared with dirt and filth, and for a moment Izuku is scared. He isn't sure what of but- there is a pistol and a knife in this past version's hands, a slim backpack on his pack.
He stops by one of the bodies on the ground, eyes flashing across sands around him. There is no one else in the dirt, and so he holsters the knife, his hands moving across the body, up the chest to the neck. He bends down low, putting his ear to the casualty's lips.
"You went against orders so easily," Ochako muses, "striking out in the dead of night to retrieve the wounded and dead of your fallen comrades." She shifts, her feet lifting from the sand to instead float through the air and consider the young soldier.
He pulls away, his expression tight as he moves to the next body. And then the body after it, over and over across the bloodied sands.
One of the bodies is not a body however, and this Izuku pulls the backpack off lightning fast. The fasteners of the bag are ripped open, the contents neatly pulled out as he tends to the injuries on the man.
"You tried so hard for so many of them…" Ochako says softly, drifting through the air around the soldier turned medic.
The scene shifts, and Izuku experiences it in a blur of blood and guts. He sees it in first person, his fingers pressing wounds closed in the dead of night. He feels it in the rapid pulse of heartbeats fading into a soft thump before going still. He feels it as hands are scrubbed clean in sand and sea water before going back to get coated in wet sticky warm blood again.
The uniforms do not matter.
Izuku suspects they never did to him. They don't to him now.
Some are dark green, English words scrawled across them on the right breast in a little placard. A nametag.
Some of the names are easy for Izuku to understand- even with the frenzied work of shaky hands and the hurried packing of wounds that should have been treated hours before.
John.
Leo.
But there are harder ones mixed in as well- ones that Izuku knows he's only understanding because Ochako is granting him her ability- the ability to translate those foreign letters into names and words and people.
Kicklighter.
Scerbo.
McClaren.
But there are names that he recognizes, faces that he recognizes the familiar structure of all across the sands.
Kurosaki
Uzumaki
Kagami.
Yoshina
Names that- while he didn't know- he recognized their letters and that they were Japanese. That these were the bodies- or sometimes living people- of those that fought beside Izuku.
"You're saving them." One of those familiar names says, a weak hand grabbing his arm.
"Yes." This Izuku doesn't deny it, doesn't question it or rebuke it, instead there is a fiery look in his emerald eyes.
"They're killing us."
"That doesn't mean they aren't human too." Izuku replies softly, and with that he pulls away, on to the next body- the next name- the next person that needs saving.
"You tried so hard with all of them." Ochako whispers, floating up behind this Izuku, her hands dropping gently on his shoulders. "I don't think I could help myself. Falling for you. Your courage, your sense of justice, your desire to help those in need. It was breathtaking."
She turns, glancing up into the sky, where a pink star glistens and sparks. It takes Izuku a moment to realize what he's looking at. The tiny little dot of light is eons away, but as he watches it descends, visibly arcing through the sky before settling beside the moon.
"Is… is that?"
"Oh, I saw you." Ochako assures, "from the moment of my birth I saw your strength of character- and it amazed me."
The soldier Izuku moves from one body to the next- his backpack empty now, hoisting them up onto his shoulder- sometimes carrying them bridal style. He starts with the ones that swear at him in his home tongue.
Izuku hears all the insults.
His fellow soldiers call him a coward, a disgrace for helping the enemy. They call him a traitor, even some antiquated insults like 'ronin' make an appearance. But mostly they just sling insults, even as strong arms hoist them up and steady legs carry them off the beach up into the forest.
He returns in the dark, his figure hunched as he picks up the next, one after the other and carries them into the burnt out forest.
"They spat at you." Ochako says, and a dozen memories flash through the space in front of Izuku's eyes. A dozen different men that his own hands had saved, all with rage in their eyes and a curse on their lips as they lob a glob of bloody saliva onto Izuku.
Sometimes it hits his chest, another stain on an already bloody uniform.
Other times it goes higher, hitting his cheek- his nose, his chin. These attacks are from the stronger, the healthier, or perhaps just the more enraged. They growl insults at him- furious that he was going back- that he was risking his own life for not just his comrades, but also the invaders.
"A life is a life."
Most of the time the bloody spittle falls short or slides off Izuku's boots.
It makes no difference to him.
He trudges back through the sand, boots squishing into the dirt over and over again as it transitions from fallen leaves to black ash to wet sands. Ochako trails behind, and Izuku watches them interact.
"You were so determined…" She whispers, wrapping her arms around the soldier's neck, hanging off his back. "So upset that your friend died- and you just… refused to let anyone else you could save suffer the same."
The memory is corrupted by splotches of black and red- like it doesn't belong to Ochako- and in it he sees a blonde bleeding into the dirt. Bullet holes ooze blood into the soil beneath him, and in the shaky flickering memory he sees his own hands frantically pulling at the bloodied shirt. There's nothing he can do, and that emotion is the most forefront in the memory.
"He was your best friend, and you just…" Ochako huffs, pressing a kiss into the soldier's neck before pulling away. "You couldn't take it. Couldn't stand the loss of life that was this war. Couldn't bear to think that more people, more of your friends, your comrades, were going to die all for something like this."
The soldier Izuku picks up another body- a man in green with a tourniquet on his leg. He cries out, and Izuku shushes him gently, hoisting him up higher onto his shoulder.
Words are exchanged, English and Japanese mismatched before the soldier Izuku simply points back towards the beach.
"Live." Izuku says to the wounded soldier, before taking a step forward, guiding the man along the beach towards the opposite camp.
"You wanted them all to live." Ochako whispers, and Izuku finds that he's floating beside her, watching a Japanese soldier carry a wounded American down the beach to a campsite that is not his own.
While the Japanese soldiers had been carried into the woods, the American Izuku carries down the beach, trudging one step after the other towards a tentatively constructed assembly of steel barricades and hastily dug foxholes.
"Halt!" A voice yells, and Izuku staggers forward another set of steps, pulling the wounded American in front of him and setting him down on the ground.
A gunshot thumps into the sand by Izuku's foot, and instead of responding to it- he simply turns, walking back out into the darkness. They linger for a moment, just long enough to watch the wounded American crawl across the sands toward his comrades.
"He saved my life." The man whispers as his comrades pick him up. "He… he " weak hands fumble across his uniform, gesturing down to his leg- bandaged and packed with gauze and closed roughly with a strip of cloth.
"What kinda…" One of them starts but trails off.
Then the scene shifts and they're back with this version of Izuku. He's picking up the next soldier, or trying to.
"Don't touch me you fucking-" The soldier sears as Izuku hoists him up, careful of the broken bones in the man's arm.
He flails at him with the other, before his hand lands on Izuku's sidearm.
The pistol is pulled free, the muzzle shoved into Izuku's shoulder. Both freeze, the wounded breathing hard, Izuku stock still.
"Izuku." Izuku says gently, his name spoken so softly, as he looks back at the soldier. "I'm trying to help."
The soldier doesn't understand, his eyes furrowed and glaring as he pushes the pistol deeper into Izuku's shoulder.
"Please."
"I wanted so badly to help you." Ochako whispers, and the moment freezes, slowing down as the soldier's finger tightens on the trigger. Izuku knows what's going to happen. He knows what the fervor of war does to men- what it does to children.
Neither of the two soldiers could be older than nineteen, neither of them showing stubble or age lines, both youthful and bright expressions. Ochako hangs off the American's shoulders now, floating above him.
He feels her rage suddenly, a throb in his chest as his heart burns. Liquid fire in his veins as she grabs the man's head.
It pops.
Like a grape in a press.
Bones and gray matter splatter together, the stump of his neck squirting blood for just a moment before the body drops to the ground. Ochako snarls, flicking the gore off her hands before looking back at him.
"But unfortunately…" She mutters, and the scene glitches back to the true memory- the soldier's head is still intact, and his finger tight on the trigger.
Izuku hears the bark and thunder of the pistol- the loudest sound in the dead of night. He hears the gasp of air from his soldier counterpart as the bullet rips through fabric, flesh, and then thumps into the sand.
The slide cycles, and the soldier blindly shoves the barrel into the wound, firing again as Izuku struggles, tightening his grip on the man.
"Stop!" Izuku shouts.
"Die!" The American replies.
"Stop! Please!" The gun goes off again, the barrel angled wrong, shooting through Izuku's already open wound and into the sand beyond.
There's a moment of struggle before Izuku pushes the man away. He lands wrong- on his broken arm- and screams in agony as the bones shift and scrape against each other. Izuku staggers back, then rushes forward, snatching the weapon from the man's grasp.
He holds it unsteadily, shaking as he steps away.
"He hurt you so so much." Ochako whispers, floating around her soldier. "Missed the femoral artery but tore through muscle and skin. Missed the bone but traumatized the muscle around your rotator cuff." She presses a hand against her soldier's chest. "And you almost broke."
Izuku watches in amazement as he holsters the pistol. He steps forward, left leg shaking and trembling as he approaches the man, panting and wheezing into the sand- holding his arm.
"Don't come near me you fuck!" The American snarls, but Izuku reaches down anyway, grabbing the man's legs. "Hey! You hear me, you bastard!" He kicks at Izuku, but with some unknown strength- Izuku catches his flailing legs and starts pulling.
The man yelps as Izuku marches forward- blood oozing down his chest and down his leg, back across the sands towards a group of men that owe him nothing. Ochako hums, a smile on her lips. Above them the pink star draws closer, descending down and lighting Izuku's path in a pale light. If the soldier notices, he doesn't stop to ponder in, forcing one foot in front of the other.
The American claws at the sand- unaware that the foreign man is dragging him to safety.
"Help!"
"Help!"
The camp appears, and the two men on guard level rifles at Izuku. They hesitate though, staring at him in uncertainty.
"Jackson?" One of them asks.
"Shoot this motherfucker! He's going to kill me!" The wounded man yells back at the guards.
There is silence, confusion permeating the area. And then Izuku simply drops the man's legs, turning and walking back down the beach.
"Shoot him!" Jackson yells, even as his comrades run to his side, the threat forgotten in exchange for the possibility of a lost comrade coming back to life.
"He saved you."
Instead of following Izuku back to the beach, they linger at the edge of the American camp. A few minutes pass, long enough for the guards to pull Jackson into the camp and a medic to suddenly join the two on guard.
"Is this a trap?" One of the guard's whispers to the other.
"You see that kid?" The other replies. "First guy he brought back, he was fine, now he's limping. I don't think he's doing this on orders."
"You sure he's a Jap?" The medic asks, "he could be one of ours."
"Nah. He's Jap." The second guard affirms.
The crunching of sand alerts the trio to Izuku's third approach, his steps uneven and uncertain as he carries a third body over his shoulder.
This American moans and groans in pain, eyes fluttering as Izuku staggers and struggles to bear the weight. The medic rushes forward before the guards can, easing the wounded man off Izuku's shoulders and to the ground.
There's a brief moment where the two acknowledge each other, and another when the medic's gaze hesitates on the blood on Izuku's shoulder and the growing stain on his trousers. But he turns back to his countryman, calling the guards over to help him carry the man back in.
Again they stay with the Americans, watching them carry this third man in and another pair join them at the edge of camp to watch.
Izuku arrives a fourth time, the body in his arms still. This time he drops to his knees, the body tumbling from his arms as the boy collapses. The medic rushes over, checking the pulse.
"Casualty. Must have died while he was getting here." The medic looks over at Izuku. "Thank you. We'll get his body back home."
They don't understand each other, the gap between English and Japanese too foreign for them to even grasp the basics of gratitude or thanks. Izuku simply staggers to his feet, limbs shaking as he forces himself back to his feet.
"Is he… is he okay?"
"Must have gotten hit in the head one too many times if he's bringing our guys back…"
"He's bleeding. Did you see the blood on his pants? Must be delusional…"
The medic is the one that interrupts them, "I think he just wants to save lives."
There is silence after that.
Because what else can be said when something like this happens? A rival soldier carrying the injured or soon-dead to the threshold of camp? Unheard of. Preposterous.
And yet Izuku appears with the fifth.
This time is different. He carries a knife in his hands, the knife from his belt. The blade is stained red as he walks, and at first the guards jerk their rifles up, but hesitate as the weapon slides free of Izuku's fingers.
The man on his back jerks, fists pounding into Izuku's side. With each blow to his small frame Izuku staggers, stumbling with legs that are threatening to give out with each hit.
"Let!" Another hit and Izuku staggers. "Me!" Something cracks with this hit and Izuku gasps, eyes wide as something shifts in his chest. A bone cracks, and the American on his back tumbles free, dropping into the sand next to him.
"Get another medic." The first medic says before he rushes out.
"Guys?" The newest retrieved soldier asks, looking from the approaching medic to Izuku's wheezing form. "You… you brought me… back?"
"Seems so." The medic agrees, pulling the man a little farther in.
He's missing a leg, amputated and cauterized by some unknown means, the stump charred and black. It's likely what saved his life- even if the pain is what left him out on the beach- unconscious and incapacitated.
"Stretcher!" The medic calls, moving from the American to the Japanese soldier that has already helped more than any thought he would have.
"Cracked rib." Ochako supplies, and the medic later confirms that. "But what sets you apart…" She trials off as her soldier wedges a hand underneath his chest, pushing himself back to his feet.
"You need to stop." The medic says, grabbing Izuku's shoulder. He shrugs it off, shaking his head.
"More." But the word is Japanese and unknown to the man. All the same Izuku trudges back across the sands, one hand wrapped around his chest, each breath wheezing in and out through gritted teeth.
"Is he even human?" Someone asks.
Ochako hums. "He is only human." She answers the question from the memory. "And that is what is so amazing about you."
The memory fast forwards around them, zipping through time as Izuku brings back man after man. Izuku counts eleven in total, and the crowd waiting for him grows with each man.
At first it's the two guards, but after the tenth it's a crowd of a dozen. Someone with stars on their shoulder and a gruff expression on his lip appears as Izuku staggers into the lamplight with the twelfth.
Before Izuku can even fully get into the light, the two initial guards have run forward, pulling the man off Izuku's back and carrying him the rest of the way into the camp. Izuku slumps, hands on his knees as he tries to breathe.
"Punctured lung." Ochako whispers into Izuku's ear as she floats by him. "You will not live long." And out of the corner of his eye he sees the glimmering liquid stardust of her tears.
It's unworldly seeing this version slowly drop to his knees, his hands rising to his chest, trying to steady his rapid breathing. It's so strange to see this soldier- this near exact replica of himself on the sand dying.
Then again. His own body is in a hospital, slowly dying as well.
He looks at Ochako. "This is how he dies… right?"
She shakes her head, eyes sad as she looks past him to her soldier. "No. No my sweet lovely mortal. You humans are cruel and mean. You are creatures of hate and instinct before you are creatures of love and forgiveness. And some… some people are forged in fires of rage and tempered by the atrocities of war instead of broken."
He sees it.
He sees the end.
He sees the man push through the crowd, the belt of bullets rustling and jingling in the sands.
The soldiers are focused on him, too distracted by this strange Japanese man to see the man wrapped in bloody bandages coming through them.
"Fuck you!"
Ochako's favorite soldier looks up, emerald eyes bright as the soldier from before- Jackson- shoves the rest of the way through the crowd. A rifle in one hand- his other in a splint.
A sneer on his face as he shoves the weapon out, barrel dipping from weight as the man squeezes the trigger.
"Stand down soldier!" The officer yells, moving towards him.
His comrades are all moving towards him, frantic looks on their faces as the medic by Izuku's side dives out of the way. Jackson squeezes the trigger.
The tremor of rounds eats into the sand between him and Izuku. The recoil of the weapon pushes each round higher and higher, rushing across the sand towards Izuku.
"He saved you!" Someone shouts.
"He killed my best friend!" Izuku has a feeling that is a false statement- the concept of who and what and when twisted by the blur of war and destruction.
"You saved him." Ochako replies. "And this is how he repaid your kindness.
The bullets ripple across the sand- sending clouts of it into the air. And then a burst of blood, a track of devastation left behind before the bullets finally hit their mark. Hot lead screams through the air, spiraling across the atmosphere before penetrating wet fabric and slicing through delicate tissue.
Ochako's soldier shudders with each hit, jerking as the rounds rip through him- up and up and up before the recoil has pushed the barrel up into the sky.
Someone tackles the man.
The rolling thunder of the gun stops.
There is screaming.
The medic returns to Izuku's line of sight, watches the man frantically rip cloth and gauze out of his bag and shove it into wounds that are already too severe to clot and close. Weakly- Izuku swats at his hand, shaking his head.
It's too late.
He knows it.
They know it.
Ochako knows it.
The pink star in the sky bristles and sparks.
And with a scream that rattles Izuku's teeth- both the soldier and the present Izuku- she appears. A goddess of death and gravity exploding into existence with rage and hate her fuel.
The Americans stop, staring up as their eyes try to comprehend what is descending upon them. And after a moment, it becomes apparent that they cannot. Blood weeps from their eyes, many of them dropping to their knees in the sand.
Space warps around the glowing pink outline- stars and universes filling the entity as it drops from the atmosphere to the small little island. Gravity increases- Izuku can feel it in the shift and shuffle of his bones- even in the memory. The sand compresses and burns as the star grows closer. The waves slosh and splash- parting as the feet of this eldritch horror steps down from the heavens to smite their lowly mortal lives.
There's a flicker of light. A momentary blip as air compresses. And then a pinprick of darkness as everything jerks and lurches into it.
Izuku isn't sure if it's baffling or terrifying to watch limbs and bodies twist and snap- attempting to compress themselves into a space small enough to slide through what he assumes is a blackhole. Tent poles, tent tarps, gurneys and weapons all snap and crumble into the hole- ripping through soft tissue and flesh. Blood squirts out and disappears back into the void upon appearance.
"Anger did not fully encompass how I felt then." Ochako says, teeth gritted and heat in her voice that makes Izuku feel like his skin is drying out. "Pure rage could not touch on the fury I felt. I was on a warpath- a quest of destruction and conquest to destroy whatever pitiful entity deigned to decide that a man so pure and so honest should be punished so cruelly for being so kind."
"You…" Izuku hesitates, watching as the pinprick of darkness expands and the sand and water is ripped off the face of the planet. And only the body of the soldier- laid out on the ground and dying remains, frozen in space.
"Destroyed this universe." Ochako replies. "I told you about an eldritch that looped a universe? I annihilated this one."
And that's…
That's…
Izuku swallows as the black hole expands again, sucking away the ocean, peeling fish out of the waves and ripping trees out of the ground. Dirt and rock and gravel disappear into the infinite void and still the body of Ochako's favorite soldier remains.
"And when all was ripped away- all the cruelty of this world and this time, I held you so close and I decided that you- you were the one that I would follow and find. Because you were the one that loved life so much that you wished to save all of it." Ochako wraps her arms around him now, pressing her cheek into his shoulder and humming. "And I fell in love with you. Over and over again. Through every life in every universe I have found you in and through every iteration you have ever lived you have held that same affirmation and that same drive. "
He doesn't know how to handle that. But he smiles at her all the same in wonder and amazement.
"But I'm just…" He shrugs, unsure what to even say to that. "I'm just me. I'm nothing special or interesting. I'm a little human, and you're this great big amazing cosmic…" he trails off as Ochako floats around him, pressing a kiss that is filled with fire and lightning and the eruption of new stars to his cheek.
"You are my favorite soldier, my most beloved fighter, my fearless Spartan, my infallible guard, my most prized captain, my brilliant bard, my sweetest poet, my gentle woodman. She nuzzles into his neck and he wraps his arms around her.
It's a strange feeling, pulling Ochako to his chest and feeling her body, at least the one she chooses to dwell in, close. It feels like lightning in a bottle, energy untamed bouncing around underneath frail skin. She kisses his cheek again, humming as she hugs him close.
"You're dying too, my sweet Izuku." She reminds him, but still they linger in the void created by the wrath of an eldritch god.
They drift through the all-consuming void, as the blackhole in her memory devours leagues of water and kilometers of soil and dirt and buildings whole. Izuku tries not to think about the lives this… instance… has consumed. How many individuals Ochako so easily snuffed out and deprived of life.
He finds it…
Not endearing.
But…
Comforting…
He supposes that's the word he would choose. Comforting to know that there is this all-powerful entity that watches over him- sees him and chooses to so readily compress her existence into the smallest possible form for him to comprehend. That out of every being present in space-time she has chosen him- and him consistently- to spend even a moment of her eternity with. To commit his singular existence into the expanse of her memory and to treasure each moment enough that she can perfectly recall each of his tiny momentary lives.
"I love you." He says with a smile.
And she laughs, but pulls away from him with stardust leaking from her eyes. "Oh Izuku."
The pages flip back and space rustles around them as Ochako releases them from the realm of her memories and back to the present. His chest compresses as his injuries return. He wheezes out another breath, the oxygen tube providing him with his next breath as his lungs refuse to inflate properly.
Someone squeezes his hand, both hands actually. He blinks, finding that instead of gazing into the void or the star filled eyes of the woman he's falling in love with over and over again- he's greeted by the cold clinical ceiling tiles of the hospital. He hums, which is a mistake because it is something other than breathing- and that in itself is hard enough.
His chest heaves, struggling to inflate and deal. His heart rate monitor panics beside him and he locks eyes with the person next to him.
And stills, surprise allowing him to calm enough as he recognizes the face in front of him.
"Mo-"He coughs, frowning before inhaling again. "Mom?"
Inko smiles down at him, her expression tight as she stares down at her baby boy. Beside her is Toshinori, holding her free hand and giving him a similarly tight expression.
"I love you." Inko says suddenly, and Izuku nods- unsure the cause of the sudden declaration.
"We love you." Toshinori adds, smiling, his face weathered and weary.
Again Izuku nods, frowning as he focuses on breathing.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
"I love you." Ochako whispers on the other side of him, squeezing his hand.
He looks at her, moving to speak and then frowning when he realizes he can't. He can't speak. Something.
Something's off.
He can't breathe. He can't…
He smiles, forces the expression because being in pain is not something that his mother can live through if it's his last expression.
So he mouths the words.
I love you.
A nurse rushes in, scrambling into the room to the oxygen tank.
I love you.
His mother is pushed to the side, the nurse leaning over but still he can feel her hand in his, Ochako's in his other.
I love you.
An oxygen mask is fitted to his face but he has a feeling it's not going to do any good. His ribs collapsed again. That must have been it. They punctured his lung. He's suffocating.
He was dying.
I love you.
He says it again, whispers it with silent lips. Makes it his last words as he squeezes his mom's hand once more. Holds Ochako's in his as he feels consciousness slipping from him.
He looks to her.
Into the eyes that contain galaxies and onto the water planet from earlier. And he watches in wonder as it weeps stardust, the planet shaking and trembling as liquid essence pools in the corners of Ochako's eyes.
I'll see you again. He tells her.
"I'll meet you there." She promises him.
The incessant beeping of the heart monitor jerks, then hums.
And finally stops.