Filling what has been missing for so long, even if it is for but a second, is a dangerous act- it creates a longing that did not exist before, the absence of something is easier to accept when you have not been exposed to a solution that perfectly fits into that aching void.
Longing to fill an absence after a taste can quickly run out of control if not kept in line, Izuku knows this and he is sure in himself that he is fully in control and that one tiny taste of existence won't overtake him, it won't blur his vision for his goal.
Izuku longs for few things, death being at the top of his list and to be left alone is scoring fairly close. Pointless exercises in normality, in the completely mundane everyday that he is dead set on escaping from would always be the first thing that came to mind if anyone were to ever ask what he longed for, but it was a thought he would have to keep to himself to not be sent to therapy or seen as unnatural.
Everything in the universe exists, as is their nature most of those things savour their time and fear the empty beyond and in that sense Izuku is against nature itself, and in a further way defying death was defying existence itself- everything lived and then everything came to an end, it was the cycle for every thing in the universe as small as an ant or as large as a star, eventually everything died except for Izuku.
Considering all of that Izuku can barely consider himself existing anymore, nonexistence is a cold emptiness that aches in an odd twisting way and can only be filled in the most inhumane of ways.
He wonders if being immortal means he's 'alive' at all or just trapped in the empty in-between like the blank screen he's staring at after waking up post death perfectly conveys, he sits in the void and it doesn't feel so much like a taunt anymore that makes him want to tear it down, it's cold and empty but it almost feels fitting for him.
There are few things he's found that fill the gaping void in himself, killing a man, burning a body and to a much lesser extent holding the handgun he took.
It's heavier than he thought it'd be, it's seemingly always cold to the touch, a little hard to hold and it occupies a small space in his mind wherever he goes, not the object itself but what it could do- what he could do with it.
It gave him the slightest pleasurable chill down his spine, though nothing compared to the real thing it took the sharp edge off life for a couple minutes.
He's in the middle of one of these thoughts when Katsuki interrupts, he looks a little shaken and Izuku can only hope he isn't in the same state as last week- for once fate seemed to be on his side as all his actions seem jarring and human unlike the smooth auto pilot ones of the week before.
Mentally counting the days, a little muddles among the resets, he finds it's the day of the USJ trip and Katsuki being more shaken than usual probably means the information he passed on did something- though he'd never cared to ask what
"How did your trip go"
As most other questions directed at Katsuki it leaves little room to be avoided
"You haven't heard? Villains attacked USJ"
His voice sounds a little hollow, a little shaky but Izuku supposes that's growing more and more common as the resets pass
"What did they do?"
"Came in through some portal, they beat the life out of Aizawa and I think- I think they were trying to kill all might? I got transported away part way through"
Kill All Might? They must have some powerful quirks to even start to think of being able to do that- he'd agreed to help with his sole goal in mind without a real care for their cause, now he was thinking about it was it even possible to kill All Might with his quirk? He did have that scar he'd been shown one painful reset...
"Did they?"
"Did they kill All Might? Of course not he's All Might"
"Of course"
Obviously they'd failed, why had he even considered investing care in their cause for a second? Wanting to kill All Might was no new idea by a long shot and everyone who'd ever try had evidently failed, he didn't care himself if the hero icon lived or died so any consideration about investing care in the leagues motives was discarded- he associated with them for one thing and only one thing, to get rid of his quirk.
Sometimes Izuku had to remind himself that he wasn't a cruel person, that he simply doing what had to be done- ruthless was the word for it, it sounded violent and harsh but ruthlessness was not cruel. Ruthlessness was seeing a goal and then seeing the quickest way to get to that goal, he could wait years and develop quirk science so far that he could remove his own quirk without harming anybody but the prospect of waiting years had him turning to the much faster option, supplying villains with what they wanted and then getting his quirk removed.
It was quick, it was much simpler than any alternative he wracked his brain for.
He was comfortable in the fact that he did what had to be done, he stole the information that led to a teacher being gravely injured because he had to, he killed a man because there was no other way to both hand the information over and prove he wasn't some sort of UA spy, involving Katsuki and then him breaking down had to be done so he wouldn't be able to turn him in- the only thing worse than living his life out and never being able to die was that but in prison
The line between ruthlessness and cruelty is thin, often blurred and hard to distinguish but Izuku knows everything he's done was necessary, the road to a goal wasn't always clean and he was perfectly comfortable with that.
Being told to come to a location and upon arrival then being told to kill an innocent man to definitively prove he wasn't a spy was one of these necessary things. He was handed a gun and given one minute to do what he had to, if he refused he'd be deemed a spy at worst or uncommitted at best and probably be allowed to live- but Izuku did not want to be let go to live, his goal was death and whatever he did to achieve that was necessary not cruel
A gunshot is loud, it echoes around the small walls and makes his ears ring, it recoils and makes his wrist down tingle with the dull ache of whiplash.
The only sound in the room after the deafening shot is the gargle of blood, he'd been aiming for the mans head but it seemed he'd actually tore a hole in the right side of his neck, he looked down to the weapon still in his hand- he was getting used to the weighty feeling of it and after the shot it didn't seem so cold anymore, warm like a low set radiator in an almost comforting way.
Izuku looked to the scene he'd caused and again reassured himself that this was necessary, he was allowed to relax as death rolled over the person he'd shot, he was allowed to relish in the comfort of a warm gun and he was not cruel for doing so.
He didn't know why he kept on reassuring himself, but for whatever reason it made relaxing in the scene before him a little easier so he kept it up.
It's not the first time whilst looking at a corpse he thinks that maybe, just maybe this is what it feels like to exist, maybe this is how it feels for that aching abyss in himself to be filled.
The gun goes off loudly as it had before, it's much more obnoxious than his small knife and it feels different- the phantom ache in his skull when he resets is different, more widespread and a lot harsher than a tiny blade that usually leaves a thin and prominently dull throb, this is across half of his head and it feels like the aching that would come after being hit over the head with a baseball bat.
A simple curiosity satiated in a way that was certain to ache for the next hour or two, wondering how it felt to get shot in the head was a morbid curiosity but as he usually did with most others of its kind he fulfilled it.
Izuku decides he likes knives better than guns- cleaner, quieter and more personal than the blind deafening violence of a gun.
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Sorry this was later than usual by a couple days, I think I'm going to slow my update pace down a bit to a chapter every 4-5 days. I've mostly worked through what put my writing on hold for a bit and hopefully it won't crop up again, and if it does I hope I can work through it a bit faster to carry on doing what I love
As sadly seems to be required I shall reiterate that if this fic isn't for you feel free to review, the only thing I ask is that it is constructive because meaningless hate will be ignored
