The day of Best Jeanist's funeral was tense. It started with a short shrill scream that had Shouto running through the house until he came to a stop in the kitchen. Izumi was crouched low, hands over her head. Shards of ice floated in the air inches from her, but what caught Shouto's eye were the splinters entrenched in the wall. Not pure ice, but what looked like an apple encased in it.
"Are you hurt?" asked Shouto, reaching out to lower Izumi's hands. She scrambled back before he could touch her, clutching her hands to her chest. The unfamiliar layout of the house was setting him on edge. Rather than going back home, they went to their Obaa-chan's house, hoping that Izumi would be more comfortable away from the city.
"I…I don't know what happened. I just touched it, and…." Trembling, Izumi trailed off, eyes wide with horror.
"It's your quirk…You shouldn't be going today," said Shouto, tightly. He was trying not to let his frustration show, to be patient the way Midoriya was, but Izumi was already shooting ahead and leaving the past behind.
He remembered catching Midoriya outside in the hallway after finishing the press conference his father forced on him.
"Midoriya?" Shouto paused in surprise, taking in the thick red rim around his eyes. Midoriya shot up, sleeve swiping across his face clearing the remainder of his tears. Guilt swirled tightly in Shouto's gut. "I'm sorry—"
"It's not you!" reassured Midoriya, shaking his head empathetically. "I was just thinking, and you know how I am. I think too much and then end up getting myself into trouble. It's not your fault!"
"Why were you crying? Izumi already said that she didn't blame you."
"It's nothing, Todoroki-kun."
"Yes, it is," insisted Shouto. He was growing frustrated with this resolve to pretend everything was fine. Izumi was doing it too. What did it matter how strong you appeared? Weren't heroes meant to help one another too? Weren't they human in the same way everyone else was?
"How is Izumi-chan?" asked Midoriya meekly.
Shouto thought back to the conversation he overheard between Izumi and Yaoyorozu. The sooner they went home, the better. He stayed up all night, waiting for Izumi's breathing to even out, but even in sleep, she was restless. And what hadn't she told him yet? "She'll need time…a lot of it. I don't know how to help," he admitted with a deep frown.
"I don't know Izumi-chan that well." Midoriya's hand curled around his chin, propping it up on his knee. His curls bounced lightly as he turned his full gaze on Shouto. "I think someone as kind as you just needs to be at her side. You don't need to solve what's on her mind for her, but maybe she needs someone to protect her from herself."
"From herself?"
"…like Kacchan. He's careful, despite how he acts on the outside, but when he's mad, he doesn't think. That's why he told me to…."
"To?"
"We got into a fight once. Well, it wasn't really fighting. In Junior High, he was a lot worse—a bully who seemed to hate me for simply breathing. One day, I mentioned that I wanted to go to U.A., and it was the wrong thing to say."
"It wasn't wrong."
"Foolish. It was foolish. I didn't have anything that made me a hero, and Kacchan knew it. He told me that if I was so desperate to be a hero then, I should—"
"—go take a swan dive off the roof," interrupted another voice. Bakugou's crimson stare was steady. Shouto marveled again at how well he was holding himself together despite the rumbling air that hung around him, ready to storm at any moment. "Talk about that shit when people aren't actually dying."
"Bakugou." Shouto's own temper rose and fell. "If you keep talking to Midoriya like that, then you can go home."
"Funny how it's always him that seems to give you a backbone. Can't do the same for—"
"Stop." It's Midoriya's voice, more forceable and stern than he's ever heard it before. "You're hurting, Kacchan, and we're easy targets, but don't say something you can't take back because there are bridges that you'll regret burning now."
"Don't act like you know a damn thing about how I feel."
"We would know if you spoke to us," said Shouto blandly. Behind his words were a fair bit of concern because Bakugou was bottling up his grief in favor of dealing with the most immediate issues—Yaoyorozu and Izumi. A ticking time bomb.
Bakugou didn't say anything, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket and wandering further down the hall toward the corner that led to Izumi's room. Shouto didn't really understand what went through his sister's head at times, but Bakugou was by far the strangest choice she'd made.
He remembered the day at the beach watching the strange attentiveness that Bakugou displayed around Izumi, seeming to react to her before she even opened her mouth. He knew that beneath the grumpiness and temper, Bakugou was a good person. Intelligent and diligent, careful despite the brutality of his quirk. Shouto wished that he would let go of the act and show them the same face he did Kirishima and Izumi.
"Did he really say that?" asked Shouto, staring at Midoriya intently.
"The thing about Kacchan is…if I had done it and he was there, he would've saved me. He's always been what victory looked like to me, and when he says he's going to be No. 1, you believe it. But this isn't about that." Midoriya looked at Shouto from the corner of his eye, skimming Shouto's neck where his tie hung loosely. "I saw you on T.V. earlier."
"You won't be in trouble. Endeavor thought it was best to kill the media attention early on, so the police don't feel the need to pursue it. He never does interviews, so I don't know why he wanted to start now." Idiot, thought Shouto scathingly. But, putting Endeavor in front of a camera succeeded in pulling the attention off them. His father took over, steering the conversation with blunt force toward Kamino Ward and away from him and Bakugou.
"You and the police don't really get along, Todoroki-kun."
"I don't see the point of getting in trouble for doing the right thing. That happened enough growing up. I don't need it from other people too."
"You looked like a real hero going after Izumi-chan. It must be nice to be saved by you."
Shouto stared at Midoriya in awe, but his appreciation for Midoriya's words fizzled out the moment he returned to his sister's room where she was changed out of her hospital gown, ready to go home.
Three days at home, and Izumi hadn't said a single word to anyone regarding the kidnapping or much of anything else. She stayed in her room, pretending to sleep or perhaps really sleeping. She ate little. Watched the news endlessly. And disappeared into the bathroom to dye a dress from Best Jeanist's collection pitch black.
Aizawa-sensei was coming to pick her up for the funeral. Shouto still thought that she shouldn't go, especially when it was clear his father was going.
"I shouldn't be doing a lot of things," muttered Izumi, climbing to her feet. Shouto stood with her,
"Nobody expects you to be there. You don't need to torture yourself when you're still hurting from what happened."
"I'd go to every single funeral if they let me, but they won't. I have to do something."
"Natsuo said that you donated—"
"Money's not enough to make up for the lives lost."
"You didn't kill them," said Shouto softly. "It's not you're fault. You probably helped save more people than you realize, so just stay home. Let's figure out how to control that—" Shouto pointed to the mess of ice, "—before we go back to school. I'll help you. Maybe Mom knows something about it too."
"I have to go."
"Is it because of Bakugou? He'll probably want you to stay home too."
"Did he say that?"
"He cares about you, doesn't he?"
"It's not because of Katsuki. Best Jeanist helped save me and died while doing it, so the very least I can do is show up at his funeral."
"Do you want me to come?"
"No, if you come, then this turns into a media show about how we're Endeavor's kids. I'm not going to disappear at a funeral surrounded by pro-heroes, and if I do, then maybe we should start reconsidering the whole hero thing."
Shouto flinched. Izumi deflated, pinching her nose tightly. Frost formed on her skin before melting a moment later. He didn't know what to make of the rising tension between him and his sister. It wasn't just him but everyone around her that seemed to draw her ire. Izumi crossed the kitchen, attempting to clear up the mess she'd made, but the more things she touched, the more the frost traveled.
Groaning in frustration, her hand rose to her hair, tugging harshly at the ends. "I can't stand this," she cried.
Absolute Zero—something that seemed scientifically impossible, but Izumi could now create at the touch of a hand, but the pressure building from her quirk and own turmoil exploded outward, shattering the objects she'd frozen.
"Sorry." She clutched the kitchen counter, shoulders curling inward. "I'm taking it out on all of you, but it's not your fault. It's just frustrating. I want to go back to how it was, but everything's falling apart, and I don't know—"
"What aren't you telling me?"
"What?"
"…you told Yaoyorozu that you didn't tell me something. What is it?"
"It's not important anymore."
"It is to me."
"I—I don't want to be a hero anymore. I'm not good at it. I never was—I was just good at pretending, and I did all of this out of spite and now…I don't want it anymore."
Iwao-san, his therapist, once told him that most people thought in complex webs and that anxiety came when the threads of that web tangled. Thoughts crossing over one another, vibrating something ominous along the remaining threads. Izumi was often like that. Dropping ideas as soon as she had a new one, worrying about everything and nothing, preparing for the inevitable day where her web would collapse.
Shouto thought that it was the breakneck speed with which Izumi moved through life, always running, that got her caught. But being a hero was the one thing that seemed to slow her down, that she enjoyed for the pure joy she from helping other people.
When they managed to take the morning trains together, quiet on his side, but a symphony of chatter on Izumi's as she spoke to the elementary school kids that got off the stop before them. Teaching them to tie their shoes, eagerly encouraging them to think about their own quirks as something fantastical, making promises to name her moves something cool and exciting. It was because of every criticism Izumi had of society that she wanted to make it better. And secretly, Shouto believed, that Izumi warmed up at the feeling of saving someone.
Maybe she was angry. She had every right to be. Countless times she'd thrown herself at the frontlines for everyone else, and the one time she needed them to do the same, they came too late. Endeavor went to All For One first and not to her.
Shouto wanted to ask his father if he remembered the day after his quirk manifested. Izumi sat in the training room clapping at every move Shouto made. Endeavor smiled, patting her on the back and said that it would be her turn next. How many chances had she given him to stop, to return back to the way it had been—never fully right, but better than the cruelness they faced daily.
Shouto was envious at times of the freedom that came with her anger. He never wanted the training or attention. He wanted to play with them and be a boy, not a tool. At one point, he suggested that Endeavor train Izumi instead of him, only to be met with Endeavor's scoff. Shouto was glad his father never listened because he still felt a bite of guilt for the words. Izumi was born to be a hero in a way that he wasn't. To put doubt in something that he so firmly believed was stunning and frightening.
Shouto opened his mouth, snapped it shut, and then caught her hand in his left, letting the warmth seep out. Izumi was freezing, and he thought that her quirk had never been more dangerous than it was now. He hated it for stealing her warmth away.
"You're still a hero. Even if you dropped out of U.A., even if you decided to never use your quirk again—to us, to me, you'll always be a hero."
He tried to meet her gaze, but Izumi was lost somewhere in her own head. A moment passed, and then her face cleared. His words went unanswered.
"I have to go get ready. Sensei's going to be here soon." Tugging her hand free, she left the kitchen, plans to eat all but gone. Beneath the surface, Shouto watched a sliver of fury crawl its way into her. The look he wore during the Sports Festival, that Iida had for his brother. Why was it on Izumi's face?
Denim. Izumi had never hated it more than she did today. Hours spent dying a dress she brought last year on a whim and never wore had turned it from a standard blue into a morbid black. She was never wearing denim again after today.
Sliding the front door open, she expected to be greeted with the sight of Aizawa-sensei, but at his side was All Might, mournfully wearing a black suit that seemed to just barely fit him. For a moment, she stood stock-still. Shouto froze and dropped the remote in his hand as he caught sight of All Might.
The dumb act she put on around him fell away, a sharpness crossing her features that suggested she knew his every secret. Izumi thought she might have—though she pretended not to notice when she visited over the summer, there was no hiding what her quirk told her. The thin, sickly man that was at school, Toshinori-san, was All Might.
Aizawa-sensei looked harder, rougher. With his eye-patch that was inches away from being a pirate cosplay, Aizawa-sensei could've passed for a One-Piece character. He was alive, which was the most important thing. "Sensei, how are you?" She pointedly ignored All Might's awkward shuffling.
Aizawa-sensei looked at her dully, "How do you think?"
"Same. We should start a club—Shot and Survived. I think Snipe-sensei might have some objections though."
In a tone so dry it could've started a forest fire, Aizawa-sensei said, "It's good to know your particular brand of humor survived the kidnapping."
"If I ever see those assholes again, I'm committing unalive toward them."
"I'll look the other way."
"Respect levels—" Izumi raised her hand over her head, "—beyond infinity. You're totally cool, sensei."
She didn't want much to do with All Might, but the thought of serving her father's rival tea filled her with such a deep satisfaction that she could forget all the heartache of the last few days.
"Green tea? Or white?" asked Izumi, ignoring the look that Aizawa-sensei sent her as she invited them inside. Was he lying about having Negation as a quirk? Maybe his real quirk was mind reading.
All Might cleared his throat, "I'm fine."
"We insist," said Shouto, looking stunned over the home visit.
An uncomfortable look arose on All Might's face. He bashfully ducked his head down, muttering
"Green," beneath his breath. Guilt and something else troubled him.
Good, thought Izumi with no small amount of resentment. For months, he ignored everyone else in their class in favor of Deku. The knowledge and skill that they might have picked up from him left stagnate by his utter lack of attention.
Izumi zipped into the kitchen, using her quirk to boil the water and a standard teabag. Like hell was she giving him the good stuff, which she reserved on the side for Aizawa-sensei. Back in the living room, her siblings and mother had joined Shouto. Izumi felt her hands shaking, frost inching across the bottom of the tray.
"We'll leave soon, but we came here with something else to discuss," began Aizawa-sensei, nodding in thanks as she set down a teacup in front of him. It would probably be insensitive to tell him that his missing eye made him look cooler. "U.A. is adopting a dorm system. Principal Nedzu revamped the entire security system. There's currently no safer place in all of Japan—he'd be happy to give you a tour. Yaoyorozu's parents and a handful of others wished for one as well."
"…dorms?" Shouto muttered softly. "We'd be staying all together? The whole class?"
"As well as all the other students."
Living with her classmates sounded like fun on paper, but Izumi remembered how easily friendships spoiled when you were forced together in close quarters. The ugliness emerged when everyone's terrible habits became known.
"It's not only safety that should concern all of you but throwing them into a new situation so soon after they've all been traumatized by villain attacks. You're a teacher!" Fuyumi shook her head firmly. "You should know how hard that change will be for them."
"I don't like dorms," said Izumi softly, but not really paying attention to the matter at hand. In truth, she didn't want to go back to U.A. and waste her days in a classroom.
Natsuo rubbed the back of his neck, "Last time wasn't the best experience."
"I'll be there." Shouto inhaled his tea calmly. "It won't be like last time. If someone bothers you, then I'll deal with it, but our class isn't like your old dormmates either."
"Will we be able to visit?"
"It'll be harder given our curriculum for the next semester, but we can arrange something with Principal Nedzu due to the circumstances."
"I'd like to tour the school before they need to come in, but it's Shouto and Izumi's choice more than it's mine. They're the ones who want to be heroes."
"If it's the only way to stay in the Hero Course, I'm okay with moving into dorms, but I won't go without Izumi."
Everyone's eyes caught on hers. Izumi smoothed out her dress, wondering if it was worth voicing the objections she held. Close quarters, shared bathrooms, a room that wasn't really hers, and the crippling doubt she held about going back to U.A. when Touya was constantly on her mind.
"Sensei." Izumi attempted to clear out the cotton in her throat. "I meant Aizawa-sensei…Can we talk? Alone? There's something I want to tell you."
"Of course."
Shouto stood, wanting to follow her as he'd been doing whenever she so much as moved over the last couple of days. Rei pulled him back down, shaking her head. Izumi led him down the hall toward the other side of the house that opened to the vast garden behind Obaa-chan's house. It was missing her koi-pond and the grandeur of the backyard they had at Endeavor's home, but the quaintness reminded Izumi of Edgeshot's agency.
Izumi took a seat at the edge of the house, letting her legs hang. Aizawa-sensei remained standing, observing her. "Recovery Girl told me that you were hit with a test drug."
"Quirk suppressant. It felt weird—not like your quirk, more like it was wiping the slate clean."
"Any side effects?"
"I don't think so."
"What did you want to say?"
"I don't think I should come back to the Hero Course." Izumi exhaled, fiddling with her thumbs. "I thought I knew what it meant to be a hero before all of this happened, but I don't. And the more I learn about the hero world and about villains, the more confused I get. Everyone's saying that I was brave and good and that I didn't deserve to be kidnapped, but what makes someone deserving of that? They just want to accept Endeavor again despite what he did—how is he any different? He hurt me, but they're all saying that it doesn't matter."
Aizawa-sensei sat stiffly, jaw rigid, but his eye was wide. He inhaled deeply, shoulders slumping as he bent over, resting his chin in his hand. "You've given this serious thought?"
Izumi nodded. Ever since she left the hospital, she felt like it was the right thing to do. "Shinsou's transferring to the hero-course. Logically, I can transfer to the General Studies course."
"That's the correct assumption."
"Can I?"
"Are you telling me because you want me to convince you to stay, or is this your final decision?"
"I don't know."
"Making someone into a hero is not what the hero course is about. You wouldn't have gotten in unless you already had the merits of being one, so if you're quitting just because it's hard, then I won't baby you into staying into the hero course. People die—heroes die. I learned that firsthand when I was just a year older than you. If you want to stop, then you can. I'd rather you live a long life where you're happy than a short one."
"But…" Aizawa-sensei's hand dropped onto the top of her head, patting it twice. "…if you want time to make sense of everything, then you can have that without leaving the hero course. All the time you want with all of us there to help you."
Izumi shook her head, "I'm selfish—too selfish to be a hero. If it's someone I love over a stranger, I'll pick the person I care about."
"When I was your age, I had a friend just as reckless and stupidly daring as each of you are. One morning on the way to school, I saw a kitten stuck in the rain, and I just walked past it. It's a lot of responsibility to save something because it doesn't stop with a rescue. You need to care afterward, too. Shirakumo came to school with the kitten in his hoodie, never giving a thought to anything but the fact that the kitten needed help. He died in our second year during a work-study. I didn't think I deserved to be a hero for a long time."
Stunned at the grief in her sensei's voice, Izumi struggled to find the proper response. "You do deserve to be one," she disagreed.
"I work Underground for a reason. I fight in the shadows bringing in villains by any means necessary. Rationally, it's inevitable that people get saved along the way, but that's not the kind of hero you'll be. Selfish or not—it takes a certain kind of bravery to want to save someone no matter the consequences. Heart has its place among heroes too, and if it doesn't, then force the world to change."
Edgeshot told her something similar once—that bearing the heart was heroic too. If Aizawa-sensei and everyone else could see something worthy in her, then she had to at least try. Despite her unstable emotions, her classmates were one of the best things about learning to be a hero. Maybe being around them would help her sort her head, but it felt like she was putting a costume on a mannequin.
But maybe it would do the opposite too and serve only to hurt them when Touya eventually sought his revenge. Izumi tucked the thought away. If it came down to her or her classmates, she'd face Touya alone. Unconvinced but not wanting to inform Aizawa-sensei of her turmoil, Izumi thanked him for his words and followed him back to her family.
"All Might-sensei usually talks more," said Izumi hesitantly.
"There's an apology that needs to be heard, and he's dramatic."
"I'm not mad at him. I was a little sad—he's the world's greatest hero, so I thought that maybe he would come, but he can't be everywhere." Chewing at her lip, Izumi asked, "He's sick, isn't he?"
Aizawa-sensei's eye darted away from her, informing her of the truth. "It's okay," said Izumi softly. "I got rescued in the end. Don't yell at Shouto or the others for it."
Aizawa-sensei scoffed, "If I don't, they'll do something far more foolish next time."
Izumi could hear her mother's voice, and Fuyumi's quietly speaking to All Might. Shouto's gaze burned on the side of her face. Izumi couldn't bring herself to meet it, too ashamed of her own weakness.
All Might was on his knees, pressing his forehead against the ground. Izumi stopped dead, shooting her mother a startled glance. Had she said something? Rei was surprisingly vocal when speaking to her teachers about letting her go to the funeral.
"I should've come—against all their advice and reasoning, I should've chosen the path of a hero and come no matter the price. Instead, you were left alone wondering if anyone would come, forced to face that monster on your own. I swore to never allow him to hurt anyone again and failed."
"Please get up," said Izumi, uncomfortable by the easy way All Might threw aside his pride to lower himself before her. The distress and grief in his voice painted him as genuinely sorry for not coming.
"I was wrong too when I said that you wouldn't—"
"Sensei, stop bowing and get up. I asked Momo to call my father because I knew he would come. He's too prideful to fail the same thing twice. You have a lot to live for and people who rely on you." Midoriya, mainly, but the rest of the world too. "You're a person too, so let me be mean and bitchy about it for a couple of weeks, and then I'll get over it."
All Might inhaled deeply and took his time standing, blue eyes twinkling with an inner brightness that reminded her of Midoriya. Saps, thought Izumi almost fondly.
Twisting her lips, she mused, "It's pretty old school to do a full bow like that."
All Might laughed heartily, clapping her on the back. Izumi shot a disgusted look over his shoulder. Slipping on a pair of thin black gloves, she waited by the door as her mother and teachers finished their whispered discussion.
"Don't stay too long," said Rei, smoothing out Izumi's hair as she slipped on a pair of flats. "And extend our condolences as well."
"We'll keep her safe," promised Aizawa-sensei.
The car ride into Tokyo was mostly silent. All Might-sensei attempted to make awkward small talk with her and Aizawa-sensei, but neither of them was in the mood to entertain him. Aizawa-sensei kept craning his head to look back at her. Once they arrived, All Might-sensei separated from them, not wanting to draw too much attention to her.
Best Jeanist's funeral was designated as a day of public mourning. Shops and schools closed down. The entire ward of Shibuya, where Best Jeanist's agency was located, closed off the streets allowing spectators to spill out and line the blocks up and down the agency with flowers and cards. The people he saved in the past stepped up one by one to speak in a public memorial set up by the Tokyo City government. One ward over, the protests outside her father's agency were still ongoing.
Katsuki was stuffed in a black suit, sweat pooling beneath his jacket as he stood under the hot summer sun, opening the door for the guests arriving at the funeral. He was one of five standing out on the front steps of the funeral parlor. None of the heroes gathered had an inkling that the silver-haired man was Edgeshot. The other three were all sidekicks that Bakugou frequently complained about.
Izumi watched her father climb the steps. Endeavor also ignored the unofficial memo that demanded they all turn up in jeans. Feeling both overdress and not, Izumi stopped alongside Aizawa-sensei, waiting for him to pass. The press, thankfully, had been banned from getting too close, but the click of cameras still sounded around them.
"Let's go," said Aizawa-sensei softly, once her father had passed. They climbed slowly, giving the crowd a chance to go inside. Izumi pulled away from Aizawa-sensei, walking to Edgeshot's lonely form.
Edgeshot's hand was firm on her shoulder as he greeted her with an impossibly kind smile, thanking her for coming. Greif compressed and packed tightly in his organs. Edgeshot was mourning without the mask and theatrics of heroism. He had come as a friend, a nameless man lost in the crowd, but Best Jeanist would've appreciated the gesture for the heart it showed.
"Hold your head up," said Edgeshot gently. "Nothing that happened was your fault."
Izumi thought that Best Jeanist might have told her the same thing. "It feels like it's my fault."
"It feels like it's mine too," admitted Edgeshot, mouth pressing together. "I could've done more. More people might have lived, or maybe I might have died too had I been there sooner. It's in the past now. We can only live and honor his memory."
"Are you doing alright?"
Edgeshot nodded, "If I faltered at the slightest pressure, then I wouldn't be a hero. Peace is something worth fighting for and to protect it no matter how much pain befalls me is my ninja way."
Izumi let out a watery laugh at the awkward reference. She offered the most formal condolences she knew. Edgeshot accepted them with a slight bow and sent her up the remaining steps where Katsuki spoke to Aizawa-sensei. Katsuki's ragged eyes darted toward her, and a sharp pain rose in Izumi's throat that stole away any warmth the day might have offered.
"You look like you're the one who died," said Katsuki bluntly, eyes tracing her carefully. "Can't sleep?"
"Not really. You probably haven't gotten much either."
"Stupid Hag's breathing down my neck about everything now. I fight with her, and she decides to start running for the Mom of the Year award."
"You fought with your mom?"
"Yeah, and I'll fucking do it again."
"About what?"
"Stupid shit." A sneer crossed his face for a flash, trapped in his own memory before he shook his head. "It's nothing."
"We should head inside." Aizawa-sensei folded his arms behind his back, meeting the stares of the other attendees calmly. Izumi nodded, parting with Katsuki reluctantly. She wanted to stay and ask how he was and to learn if his hurt felt anything like hers.
She didn't want to enter the building. All that was left was a body—one she had seen on the ground at Kamino Ward. There was nothing left of Best Jeanist here, but Izumi forced himself to turn and enter the building with Aizawa-sensei.
Grim faces watched her walk down the aisle. Midnight-sensei was seated somewhere in the middle of the mess, ghostly as she watched her Aizawa-sensei and her slip into the same aisle.
Midnight-sensei's hand patted her back as she took the seat next to her. There was a scar by her neck, jagged and an angry pink. Izumi thought about what might have happened if it had gone a few inches deeper and turned white. Aizawa-sensei left an empty chair between them for Katsuki to sit when he came inside. Izumi looked around curiously. The strange array of people chatting quietly, filling the air with foreign languages, reminded Izumi of a runway show. Everyone was wearing some form of denim. Each outfit was more extravagant than the next, making Aizawa-sensei's suit look horribly out of place.
"This is like Paris Fashion Week," said Izumi, watching as two models made their way into the aisle in front of them.
"A lot of people had to fly in, and given the security concerns, it probably took a while for them to arrange everything." Midnight-sensei ran her eyes over her. "Have you been relaxing? Recovery Girl is going to be upset if she sees those circles under your eyes."
"There's not really much not to do, and if I even try to get up, my mother is already there. I'm not much of a sleeper, so…."
Aizawa-sensei leaned forward, "Iwao-san's going to be moving on to Campus when the semester starts. She wanted to stop by before you left the hospital."
"That's nice of her," whispered Izumi.
Midnight-sensei's arm coiled around her shoulders, squeezing her in a warm embrace. "It's going to be alright. I know it doesn't feel like that right now, but it will be."
"There's no need for sentimental nothings," argued Aizawa-sensei. "What happened at the training camp won't happen again."
"Kinda hard to say shit like that when it happens every couple of weeks," said Katsuki sneering at a man who dared to mutter his name as he walked past. Collapsing into the spare seat, he slouched low. "Where's All Might? Busy again?"
"He's here, but he didn't want to take away the attention from the people mourning."
"You saw him?" asked Katsuki, voice tinged with surprise. "He really showed up after he left you for dead?"
"I'm not dead."
"You could be holding your own brain, and you'd say the same thing."
Midnight-sensei sent him a worried look, "Bakugou, did you want to speak with All Might?"
"What's there to fucking talking about?"
"It sounds like there's a lot," said Izumi dryly.
"There's not," he bit back.
"Could've fooled me. Maybe you should get Midoriya to ask him." She caught sight of Katsuki's face, distorted with pain. "I shouldn't have said that."
"We're at a damn funeral, how can—" He balled his fist, hitting his knee with a dull thud. "Fuck. Just ignore me."
"Katsuki?"
"I'm fucking angry."
"At what?"
"You for letting shit go all the time." Katsuki stared at her from the corner of his eye and softened slightly. "You're not angry, and it's making me fucking mad, but it's not at you."
Izumi crossed her ankles together, hands twisting fitfully in her lap. "I'm too exhausted to be angry."
"No, you're scared."
"Maybe."
Izumi saw very clearly how the people who cared about her all sacrificed something to protect her. She couldn't let the illusion of safety hide the fact that she was betraying each one of them by keeping Touya's secret.
To move forward, to truly honor Best Jeanist's sacrifice, Izumi had to admit to herself that Touya did not want to be saved. The weeping, strong-willed brother she remembered, the one she had so desperately wanted to be proud of her, was no longer there. She was making a mistake, probably the biggest of her life, but despite knowing that, Izumi still held hope that Touya or Dabi or whoever he was now was not out of reach.
Gloved hands clenched tightly in her lap; Izumi willed back her tears. The funeral went on forever, but in the blink of an eye, they're forced to their feet, flowers pressed into their hands and then walking past the coffin, which would become ashes in just a few hours' time. The flowers inside the coffin cover the body. Katsuki dropped his and walked past, tugging at his collar.
And just like that, it was over.
Best Jeanist was dead—had been dead for days now.
She tried to follow Katsuki into the crowd, but Aizawa-sensei was at her side when she looked away. "We shouldn't stay long."
Endeavor caught sight of her. Her father stood, uncomfortably avoiding the stares of the other heroes and attendees. How unfair it was that he was unblemished when every one of them was scarred from him. Izumi wondered if he knew, if he had seen Touya's desperation too and simply buried it because his son couldn't possibly be a villain. It was too much to ask for because Endeavor was blind to the things around him.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!" shouted Katsuki, making the two people stand next to him startle. "IT'S A DAMN FUNERAL, NOT A CIRCUS SHOW!" Katsuki's hand kept rising to the tie caught around his neck. The sound of a camera shutter went off as he stepped toward one of the jean-clad attendees.
"Exactly why you shouldn't be yelling," muttered the man.
"Say that again, and I'll pound you into the ground!"
Izumi slipped from Aizawa-sensei's side, hand circling Katsuki's wrist before he could act on his anger, pulling him out of the crowded hall. She didn't know where she was going as she opened the doors to the rooms in the hall, but upon spotting an empty one, she stepped inside.
Katsuki tugged at his tie, but he hadn't caught the knot, so it was tightening, increasing his panic. "It's hot. It's so fucking hot in this damn place."
Izumi moved, brushing his hands aside. Her quirk activated in tandem, swirling to cool the air in the room. Pulling off the tie, she undid the first two buttons of his shirt, letting him wretch the next ones open.
Katsuki couldn't breathe, each shuddering rasp coming out too quick and too shallow. He'd make himself pass out. Izumi guided him to the ground, knowing intimately how his panic made it impossible to think or feel anything beyond the overwhelming.
It could've been mere minutes or a whole hour, but she waited patiently until the height of his panic passed, breathing evening out as the cool air steadied him. Katsuki leaned forward, head hanging low.
His muscles remained tense, flight or fight response trapped in a loop beneath his skin. She sat back, resting on her heels, as she watched him pick up the tie she tossed away and clutch it in his hands.
"They just kept talking about crap, and I didn't even hear them. I couldn't breathe—I thought that damn sludge monster attacked or some shit." Katsuki pressed his palms into his eyes, digging in. "I fucking complained all the time, but I didn't really give a damn about all his orders. I didn't want Best Jeanist to think I was some wimp who listened to every command they heard."
Izumi inched forward, resting her hands on his knees. She placed her hands hesitantly around his shoulders, waiting to see if he wanted to pull away, but Katsuki surprised her by holding her back tightly.
"It's alright to cry," murmured Izumi, running her hand through Katsuki's hair. Like a dam, his resolve to stay stoic cracked, and the heart-wrenching sobs he'd been swallowing down came rushing forth. His body shook in her hold. Izumi pressed his face into the curve of her neck, arms tightening around him as she maneuvered to hide him from view. Aizawa-sensei was nearby, so she didn't think anyone would wander inside, but she didn't want to risk it.
A thousand apologies circled in her mind, each one more useless than the last.
Best Jeanist was a name that Katsuki said with no small amount of hate, but slowly it turned into begrudging respect and near fondness. The first hero that Katsuki respected not for his strength but for the dignity and honesty Best Jeanist offered rather than meaningless praise. And now he was gone.
Izumi couldn't imagine what she'd feel like if Edgeshot died or if her pain was even a fraction of the grief Katsuki felt. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he cried, could feel his heart against her own knocking against his ribcage. "You'll make him proud. And no one's going to forget what he's done. And when you're the best damn hero in the country, we can come back and tell him that he was right in picking you."
Izumi remembered what Touya's funeral had been like. Stuffed into stiff black clothes, their first outing all together, Fuyumi's trembling hand clutching hers. The sky dark, muddled with grey clouds and a dim winter sun. Obaa-chan and Ojii-san. Endeavor unmoved even as they went through the ceremony. There were no bones to pick from the ashes because the fire had burned so hot that it left nothing but jawbone behind. The memory grounded her and made it possible to stand tall against the grief clouding the room. As cruel as it sounded, as much as Izumi hated herself for thinking it, there was no mystery about Best Jeanist's death. He would be remembered radiantly—a martyr dying for a heroic cause.
Somehow this disgusted her more. The public would never know that Best Jeanist's odd puns were not just a part of his hero persona, but part of him too. Or how he kept extra clothes at his agency that he made himself for his guests. That he preferred a specific brand of water because the PH-balance was the only one that didn't upset his stomach.
When Katsuki was done crying, he fell silent. Izumi remembered what Touya told her once when she was small: when she was quiet, it meant something was wrong, but Katsuki was not her. His silence didn't spell any ominous doom, but a whirlwind of emotions too strong to verbalize. His lips pressed against her throat, right where her pulse rested, and then he pulled back.
"Better?" she whispered.
Katsuki nodded, pulling her up slightly and against his side as he leaned his back against the wall. His hand rested on her back, thumb tracing a slow, lazy circle right over the scar that was hidden beneath the fabric.
"You had a panic attack. Have you had them before?"
"After I lost to Deku—the first battle training. How'd you know?"
"I used to have them too—not a lot or frequently, but sometimes my mind would just fly away, and I'd be left trying to stop every cell in my body from trying to do the same."
"On your own?" At her shrug, he leaned forward, a soft 'fuck' falling out of his mouth as his forehead pressed against hers. Everything slowed. His heart rate, her breathing—Izumi wanted to stay in their small bubble forever, but outside the doors was a world waiting to make something of them. To cast her as both a hero and a victim. To throw up the images of Katsuki, chained and snarling against his grief. Izumi hated it.
"If it happens again, focus on breathing. The more your mind runs, the longer it'll last, and when you're back to school—just find me if it's too much."
"What's with the gloves?"
Izumi tugged them off, having felt silly the whole time for wearing them, but it was both a necessary precaution and hiding the black dye that seeped into her skin. Stretching her fingers out, she showed Katsuki the inky stains. "They won't let me out, so I had Fuyumi buy me some dye. It felt a bit inappropriate to wear blue denim, even though Best Jeanist probably wouldn't have minded."
Katsuki moved as if to take her hand in his, but Izumi snatched it back before he could, remembering what happened when she reached for an apple that morning. Under the stress and pressure built by her quirk, it froze and then shattered, sending shards through the wall. An image of All For One's frozen hand flashed through her mind. "My quirk's been a bit unstable," she explained, holding her hands against her chest. "I could hurt you."
Katsuki frowned, reaching out anyway. He held his palm out, taking her hand in his. "It's no different than my sweat igniting near a fire." He raised her hand to his mouth, pressing a soft, sweet kiss against her palm. The gesture sent a jolt through her.
"We should…" Katsuki's head jerked toward the door. Yes, they should go back out, but Endeavor was out there, and the sight of him was making her sick.
"En—" Katsuki didn't know every little detail of her past, but the broad strokes. He didn't know how much this funeral reminded her of Touya's and how the knowledge that Touya was alive sat like a noose around her neck, tightening with every passing second. She lied to the police, to her family, to everyone around her—she didn't want to keep doing it. "Endeavor's here."
"Bastard," breathed out Katsuki. "Did he say anything to you?"
Izumi shook her head. "No, but he's got that look on his face. There's something I have to say to him anyway. Might as well get it over with."
"He doesn't deserve anything from you."
A knock on the door instantly had them separate. Katsuki fixed his shirt, leaving it slightly unbuttoned as Aizawa-sensei walked through the door. He gave them a dry look which softened as he spotted the raw redness around Katsuki's eyes.
"When you get home, rest." Aizawa-sensei clasped a hand on Katsuki's shoulder. "I won't lie to you and say that time makes it any easier to lose someone you cared for, but one day you'll be able to look back at your memories of him and be grateful for even the worst of them."
Katsuki jerked his head in a sharp nod, staring down at his shoes.
"Izumi." She straightened up, hands curling nervously behind her back. "Endeavor's waiting outside. If you don't want to speak to him, then don't. We'll take you back home."
"I don't think there's going to be a time when I'm the one seeking him out, but I'll speak to him."
Sullen and gloomy, Izumi's two-toned hair hung limply around her neck, deep violet circles under her eyes. She looked as if she spent her entire life empty of sunlight. Enji didn't know what he expected—not for her to look like a wraith, devoid of any happiness—and the sight of her came as such as shock to him that he hadn't realized she was walking toward him until her arm brushed by his. He jerked away from the cold radiating through her body.
"I didn't think you'd want to talk," he breathed out. "How are your injuries?
Her gaze was one of the few who could render him silent, and her face was blank—no, Enji thought, not blank. Calm, a deadly rage brewing in her pale eyes. "You owe your fans an answer. And the HPSC too—I bet they're shoving your reinstatement down your throat."
The HPSC called him at every hour whispering promises to make it all go away, to give him back his position as No. 2 and turn the media in his favor. Politicians in his jurisdiction broke their silence in support of him as if he was running for Prime Minister.
Endeavor cleared his throat, gruffly asking, "Do you want me to?"
"There's no point in asking what I want. They already picked you."
"I'll give another statement—"
"And make me look insane in front of the entire country? I'm just a teenage girl—it's not like what I say means anything to anyone."
"I kept all of you out of the media for this reason, but it's too late for that now." He remembered Izumi when she was young, too young to remember. Wobbling in the training room on shaky legs, laughing each time she fell before picking herself up again. Enji followed her, worried that she would hurt herself, but she hadn't stopped moving from her first step until now. "Did they hurt you when you were kidnapped?"
"Don't worry, you still hit harder." An amused smile crossed her lips as he flinched. "It wasn't that bad, despite what everyone's saying. I was passed out for most of it and then held a TedTalk about our troublesome relationship. They were very interested in our family drama."
"When you go back to school, practice your evasion tactics. I should've taught you when you—"
"You don't need to act like my father."
"I am your father whether you like it or not. If you want to keep your distance, you can, and I'll respect it, but we can't change the blood that ties us. Half of you is me."
"Like you ever cared."
"I always did."
Jaw clenching tight, he watched the anger ripple through her and then snuff out on its own as if whatever fire previously sustained it had died to mere embers. Izumi nursed a still calm, like the ocean moments before a storm hit. Enji was unnerved. "I get that you want to change. Touya's death, your ambition, Mom, Shouto. I'm sure it hurt you too. And you didn't know how to deal with it or what to say because it never mattered before. Heroes fight, so you fought. I get it. But you know what? You were an adult. If you were hurting, then you should've asked for help. You should've tried harder. Not waited fifteen years to get caught and forced to change."
"You're right."
"You asked me what I wanted at the final exam. I didn't have an answer then, but I do now. None of it really means anything to me, but don't let this be a lie. Be a better person for Shouto and Fuyumi's sake, because they still believe that you can be."
"I will be."
"The whole world's watching now. You can't afford to slip up again." A cold glint swirled in her eyes. It was a look that Enji had seen before on the most desperate of villains, the ones willing to die rather than be caught.
The last funeral they attended had been Touya's. He remembered the day vividly. Izumi's lack of tears, eyes blown wide the entire day as if she still couldn't believe that Touya was dead. He had felt the same way. Enji thought that if had shown them then how much pain his failure brought him, rather than holding it inside where it gnawed at him until he spent his energy training Shouto, neglecting Natsuo and Fuyumi, and turning his fury toward Izumi, maybe he would've been able to overcome all the filth that built up inside him. It was too late to return to the past.
Izumi turned her gaze upward, watching the clouds roll through the vast expanse of blue. It was too bright for a funeral. Izumi never looked more like Rei, like Touya. It worried him. The same haggard look that Rei wore in the weeks before she burned Shouto echoed across her face.
"…when are you going back to school?"
Her shoulder lifted and dipped minutely. "I might not go." She stuffed her gloved hands into the pockets of her dress. "I'll see you around, Todoroki Enji. Make sure you stay on top—for all of our sakes."
"Izumi…I'm sorry. About everything and forcing you to be alone for so much of it. Nothing I say will ever make up for it, but I'll spend my whole life atoning for it."
Her eyes dipped down from the clouds, hazy and distant. "Thanks for the apology."
She was leaving before he could say everything he wanted to. He wanted to ask her to stay and talk but couldn't find the words. What did she mean that she might not go back to U.A.? And why was she wearing gloves? Were her hands injured?
As he watched her leave, a whole crowd of people encompassing her as Aizawa guided her into a nondescript black car provided by U.A., Enji felt a trickle of fear slip down his spine. Not for himself but for Izumi. His conversations with Izumi often felt like a battle, but this one seemed to age her. Her gaze, dark and distant, carried the weight of someone faced with their own mortality.
Touya knew that everything would change. Three failed experiments, years of waiting for the perfect quirks to crop up and Endeavor got not one but two success stories. Shouto goes into training, and Touya watched enviously, wishing for the same attention from his father. They all wait with bated breath for Izumi's quirk to show itself. Weeks passed, and while Izumi's fear grew, Touya couldn't help but feel the sharp bit of satisfaction. He wanted his father to fail again, but Endeavor's failure manifested differently when her quirk came.
Todoroki Enji never defined what kind of strength he was looking for, but Touya knew that it was fire, and Izumi's quirk was the complete opposite. Water, the very antithesis of his father's power.
Touya didn't know how to feel. Fuyumi and Natsuo were failures from the start. Shouto and Izumi, locked away because of his mistake, were fed the story that they would be heroes as he was. Perhaps, envious of the attention Endeavor threw at them and angry at the neglect the rest of them suffer because of him.
Training to him had been a time where his father's full attention remained on him. They shared a special bond, and Touya never imagined that it would be severed as quickly or coldly as it had been. Every unspoken word told him that he was weak and would never serve a true purpose in life. Why else had he been born other than to be used?
Izumi doesn't react the way he does. As quickly as she's tossed aside, so was any affection she might have held for Endeavor. What Izumi wanted and demanded was Shouto. The first time Endeavor hit Izumi, it came as a surprise to Endeavor, to him, to everyone but precious little Shouto, who stood and pulled her away.
And just like that, the shadows in their home grew. What started with Izumi extended to Rei. Their fights turned explosive, and his father became a wolf stalking at the door, sinking his teeth into whoever crossed his path.
A night in his room, Fuyumi and Natsuo pressed against his sides. "Who told you to touch it?!" shouted Enji from the next room. The thudding of knuckles, "Don't touch her," Rei's quiet shuffling as she brought Izumi with her, snapping at Enji to leave, the door thrown open and shut.
And still, Touya thought: We'll be okay, if he sees how strong I am. He'll know it worked, and he can stop this. We'll go back to how it was before.
Saturday afternoons playing soccer in the courtyard, laughter in the air, the old cook watching them with the doors thrown open. Natsuo and Izumi playing tricks on Fuyumi, her teary eyes asking him to get back at them. Squeals of fear as he catches a beetle and tries stuffing it down their shirts. Brief pockets of something that seemed like happiness, but Touya was never fully there.
In his mind, he was still an object. Something essential like a chair or table, but easily replaced. Endeavor created them, but he had never wantedthem. Izumi, he thought, understood this best.
Fire hurt. It seated its way into the skin, burning with hunger until it eventually died from its own consumption. Burning Izumi was an accident. One that replayed in his mind over and over again, because he had seen her fear and ignored it.
Endeavor's fist rose when he saw Izumi's seared skin. His frown. The hand lowering, cold and empty eyes staring at him but not seeing. Never seeing. "Go to your mother." And Touya did, running through the house until he found Rei sitting with Shouto in his room. Shouto's mismatched eyes, wide and curious and excited. His heartbeat echoed in his ears.
Endeavor didn't yell at him for it. Rei did.
What was a parent but a fragmented mirror, a life reflected?
He remembered Endeavor once coming into his room while he was sleeping. Standing at the doorway, the light behind him illuminating his bulking silhouette. Say something. Please, just say something. The door shut, leaving nothing but shadows behind.
There were signs of his father's suffering too. The heavy steps that followed when the constant fight seemed to drag him down. The pinched expression when he caught sight of Touya's burns. The tired look in his eyes that grew by the day. But, Touya wanted to say, he chose this life. This path. He took his hands and molded it for them, so why was his suffering more important than theirs. Why didn't he see how they hurt?
They had been born into Endeavor's war as his soldiers. That was their monstrous origin. To possess a heartbeat that was never theirs, to draw blood and fight for his sake.
Dabi was twenty-three now. Twenty-three and waiting for his name to show up on the news, on every billboard and newspaper in the country. But, as the days tick by, he grew less and less sure of Izumi's plot. She didn't forgive or forget. She moved on, quietly cutting out the nasty bits like a gardener pruning a tree.
So, what kind of game was she playing?
Shouto and Izumi's little boyfriend were comically amusing, but again Endeavor rushed to their defense, taking the brunt force of the media's ire for himself, coming across as a father and hero at the same time. It was lovely, sneered Dabi, to see him care so much.
Dabi could hear the other men scuffling around the alleyway, breaking him from his thoughts.
The stale scent of beer and alcohol mixed with garbage—it's so stereotypically villainous, so damn dumb, that he couldn't help his eye roll. Thing One and Thing Two, a pair of low-level villains, spent the last couple of days throwing their weight behind the idea that they could easily join the League. Dabi wasn't interested in prolonging their bullshit story.
"They have the whole TMA on lockdown. You can't breathe without a hero over your shoulder. Besides, it's pretty pathetic to get your ass handed to you by two girls—so much for the League of Villains…."
"Todoroki and her rich friend? Hot piece of—"
"Scum like you really should have our names in your mouths," said Dabi, rolling his shoulders as he walked forward. "It's bad for business."
Thing One stuttered out a reply, "…we were just fooling around. We don't want any trouble."
"Spreading lies about the League, calling us pathetic…from two drunkards sleeping at the end of an alley, it's a bit hypocritical."
"The whole country's looking for you." Thing Two stood, taking a solid stance. "Heroes are crawling everywhere now."
"They're not looking for me." Dabi smiled widely, "They're looking for the League, which means I can let loose for a bit."
The two men shared a look. Dabi can read their idiotic plan in their gaze before they act on it.
Dabi moved first, hand shooting out, covering the two men in flames. The fire seared into their skin with a sickening popping sound as their flesh blistered and cracked beneath the heat. The burnt flesh, the charr of ash made him sick, but Dabi buried it somewhere he couldn't find it and watched as the fire grew.
"Pathetic," he whispered, kicking the burnt bodies away from him once the screaming stopped. Lady Nagant warned him against killing, but he found that the woman was wrong once he had done it. It was not the act of murder that changed you, but the ease with which one turned into two, into three.
With each death, he remembered Izumi's arms coming around him, tears staining his shirt, 'are you okay' in the forest, the lack of fight in her the moment she figured it out, hand never rising to hurt him even though his was already caught in the act.
"Toga," he said into his phone, once he'd dumped the bodies somewhere for the cops to find. "I need you to do me a favor—off the books."
"I'll do it if you buy me new clothes!" He could hear some sniggering in the background. Most likely, Twice was somewhere nearby. Dabi rolled his tongue against his cheek before sighing.
"Don't tell Twice either."
"Twice! He told me not to tell you, so close your ears!"
"I need you to deliver something. I'll come to drop it off in a couple of days, but no one can see you."
"That'll be easy. I want something cute—that t-shirt Tsuyu-chan was wearing was cute! Maybe some overalls? It's almost autumn."
"Just send me a picture."
"You're the best!" Toga hung up promptly, leaving Dabi staring at his phone in wonder. Teenage girls were in a whole alternate universe he would never understand.
END CHAPTER
Notes: We're going to the dorms next chapter and I literally can't wait... Also, I owe some people responses to their PMs, I'll get to it later. I had a bit of a relapse from my surgery and wasn't feeling well all week :((