HEYOO update time. As usual, I'll save most of my comments for the end.
ENJOY Y'ALL
Coffee was the greatest gift that God had ever bestowed upon the world. Inko had decided that a long time ago. Coffee had helped her in so many ways, even if she knew it was better that she drank more healthy teas or even just water. She had read plenty of blogs and listened to enough youtube videos telling her how to lose weight to understand that cutting out caffeine should be high on her list.
But Inko had never quite gotten around to doing any of that. She knew it was bad for her, but she continued to do it anyway.
Story of her life.
She stirred the coffee without even thinking about her action. Her mind was a thousand miles away. It was on U.A., it was on her son, it was on what had happened last Tuesday.
Yes, she was fully aware of what his quirk could do. She had been told about the incident in full over the phone after all, not to mention she had seen it with her own eyes, on and off throughout the years.
Blue fire. Claws. Descriptions of unheard of violence towards the young Bakugo boy. She was sure she would never be able to look his mother in the eye ever again.
But it hadn't been Izuku's fault, not in how his quirk behaved anyway. He shouldn't have even been placed in that situation in the first place. Not on his first training lesson, not before they had any idea of what they were dealing with.
And now she had to sit and wait on the results of this quirk evaluation. How many tests and trials would her son have to suffer through before he found his peace? But this was U.A., surely they would have only the best doctors on staff, right?
Oh God, what if they wanted to put him back into quirk counseling? She knew that her son had not exactly had the best time with quirk counseling back in middle school. She had personally blamed it for a number of things concerning her boy, including the fact that he had spent years mishandling his quirk.
Her heart fluttered with anxiety. Her poor son, her poor little angel.
Inko's phone buzzed suddenly in her pocket and, almost lazily, she took out it out to see who was messaging her.
'You can't keep ignoring me, Inko. We need to talk.'
Rage. Rage hot and hungry overtook her and her mouth curled into a scowl.
Him.
She almost ignored the text entirely. The last thing she ever needed was to communicate with that man ever again.
But her anger got the better of her.
She opened her phone and before she could think about her actions she was already sending a new message back. 'I can ignore you forever. Stay out of our lives.'
The next message arrived only seconds later. 'Is that an order?'
Her thumbs paused as a cold chill ran down her spine. Her jaw tightened, and she found herself breathing harder than before. She wanted to tell him so. To rid them of his existence forever. To guarantee all ties were cut. But she knew it was too late that any of that.
Not now, not when his quirk was finally being put to use.
Another message arrived. 'I'll take that as a no.' Another second passed. 'Eventually we're going to have to meet. I would rather it be on our own terms. Our son cannot walk this path without us both at his side.'
'He's not going to be like you. He's a good boy.' Inko typed back finally, tears forming along the edges of her eyes. 'He doesn't need your influence.'
'Think about what's best for Izuku.' The answer popped back in a second.
'I'm not going to hand my son over to Satan.'
She smirked through her watery eyes as his answer took longer than before. She knew he hated being called that. Finally, however, his reply arrived. One that she was sure he'd edited several times over. 'Please. Think about it. For him. We can't hide the truth from him forever.'
Inko typed out several answers to that. The first one was 'fuck you', followed by 'fuck you a thousand times you goddamned monster', followed by 'I hate you' before she finally settled on what she knew her heart was telling her. Despite the anger, the rage, the downright hate she felt for the man on the other end of their conversation she knew that things were getting to a head.
Izuku was hurting people. Even if he didn't mean to it had happened. It had happened, and she knew it could have been prevented. And while she hoped against hope it would never happen again she knew, in her heart, that it was only a matter of time.
It was practically in his blood to do so, after all.
But perhaps it could be avoided, perhaps her son could be lifted from the shadows she knew claimed him as their own.
'I'll consider it.' She typed back softly, tears falling down her face. 'For him.'
"Ugh, look at them." Uraraka mused as they made their way towards the food court. Her gaze lingered out of the window, her eyes resting on the noticeable crowd of people hanging around the front entrance to the school. A front entrance which had been closed iron-tight for several hours now. "I mean I think being on T.V. is cool and all but not when I'm trying to get to class in the morning."
"I tried to answer their questions and they turned the camera off." Tenya announced as he pushed his glasses up his nose, his voice equally as dismissive. "They're nothing but the worst sort of paparazzi."
"Whatever, it doesn't matter to me." Hitoshi shoved his hands into his pockets and scowled forwards. "As long as they don't bother us in school what harm can they do? All they want is All Might anyway."
Izuku said nothing. He had been accosted by the reporters on his way into class that day but had managed to give them the slip before Nemesis had lost its temper with them all. It hadn't been pleasant to shove down the constant screams of demonic hell beast whilst trying to shield his face from the prodding of microphones.
Not that any of them were there to talk about the students of course. It was All Might they wanted. He knew that any scoop or gossip they could get on the Number One hero would be a huge boost to whatever click bait article or spyware drowned video blog they could put up about him.
It was a minor distraction at best. Izuku's mind was still hanging onto the memory of yesterday. The quirk evaluation, the feeling of having Nemesis claim his body and mind and dig its claws deep into his very soul… only to suddenly have it all torn from him. The world of ash and fog still haunted Izuku's thoughts.
What was that? He had seen Aizawa use his quirk on other people in class before, usually to make a point or to stop someone from being a distraction. The worst that had happened was they'd break out into a coughing fit, Todoroki especially had seemed pretty allergic to whatever it was that Aizawa could do to people.
And yet the moment his glowing red eyes had landed on Izuku to silence his cursed power Izuku hadn't simply stumbled to a stop.
Oh no, he had to almost go and fucking die on the sports hall floor. Because of course he did. Because God hated him.
"We'll have our revenge." Nemesis whispered darkly through his mind as they approached the food hall. "He will never divide our soul again. We swear it."
Nemesis had spoken a lot of insane, stupid and insulting things to him over the years, but it had never seemed so… upset before. If something annoyed it, such as Bakugo, it could go on lingering in its anger for some time, but eventually its interest would fade, and it'd pick a new object of scorn.
It had been almost twenty-four hours since the examination and it was still mad about it. And Izuku could tell, somehow, that it was from a place of fear. It was within its blood-soaked words, its rusted-metal grinding tone. It was angry, yes, but also scared that they would be separated again.
And Izuku supposed he was too. Whatever Aizawa had done to him, accidentally of course, had been horrifying on a different level to his usual terrors. It had not been fire and shadow but static, fog and ash.
He never, ever wanted to feel that way again, even if for a few moments he knew he had been free of his monstrous curse.
The food hall was an immense eating area filled with busy, hungry students. The wall of sound was somewhat unpleasant to Izuku's ears and he winced just a little. He wasn't a huge fan of crowds. Crowds tended to make Nemesis angry and that was almost always a bad thing.
He had always avoided eating with others if he could help it, an easy habit to have considering he never had any friends in the first place. However, a rather nasty side effect was he'd become horribly socially anxious.
Even amongst his new friends, Uraraka had already commented on how uncommonly quiet he always seemed to be.
"Hey, guys, how about I just find us a table?" He offered with a slightly stitched together smile as he eyed the long and winding lunch line.
"What about your food?" Tenya asked suddenly and almost immediately a robotic hand came down, pointing to Izuku. "Proper nutrition is important for students of such a prestigious academy! We must always be-"
"If you give me your money I'll pick you up whatever you want." Hitoshi offered, cutting off Tenya's incoming ten-minute powerpoint presentation on how to properly maintain one's health. Tenya scowled a little at Hitoshi for the rude interruption but let it slide. "So, what do you want to eat?"
"The flesh of the sinful!"
Izuku blinked, a deadpan expression on his face. "Chicken hibachi with a spring roll."
"AGH!"
"Two spring rolls."
Hitoshi, having no idea of the screams of irritation echoing within his friend's mind, simply nodded to Izuku and, after Izuku handed him some money, walked off with Tenya and Uraraka while Izuku secured them a table.
Around him the world chattered and went about as any normal school lunch hour would do. Izuku slid into an empty seat by a clean, wood table and immediately brought his phone out. Practically on automatic, he plugged his headphones in and was raising them to his ears when a blood-curdling growled suddenly began echoing through his mind.
"The Seventh Son…"
Izuku blinked, his scars prickling with candle fire, and looked up just as a boy, a fellow classmate, walked past him. It was Fumikage, his feathered head a cold jet black, his crimson red gaze and set within intense eyes. For a moment he almost seemed to hesitate as he passed Izuku.
Then he scowled, deeply, and passed on.
Izuku turned in his seat to watch him go and eventually join the line before looking back to his own table, his eyes fixed down. Before he could even stop himself he quietly mumbled, "Well at least he has the right idea."
"He's dangerous."
Izuku almost sat up at the statement. His mouth opened to answer, but he quickly shut it again. No, no answering back, especially not in public. He should just put his headphones in and blast music into his brain until his friends got back.
"We sense the corruption of his soul. Darkness lurks within him."
Don't answer. Don't answer don't answer don't-
"He's not as bad as you," Izuku mumbled as he rubbed the earphones within his fingers.
Goddamnit.
"We are shadow and fire." Nemesis answered back with a crawling scorpion tone. "We are Izuku Midoriya. The Seventh Son is a carrion crow and his soul is shadowed by something without a soul of its own. That makes him dangerous."
He bit the inside of his cheek suddenly, a punishment for breaking his promise and shoved the headphones into his ears, which thankfully still fit despite their new pointed length. Anything else that his inner curse might have said was drowned in blasting music of whatever was first to be picked on his phone.
He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, refusing to even pay attention to anything outside his little self-contained bubble. No voices, no cruel comments, nothing more. Just him and blessed music turned up almost as high as it would go.
Someone suddenly touched his shoulder and Izuku jumped, his scars flashing with heat before curling back in once more. Uraraka looked down on him with a soft, concerned gaze. Her mouth moved but he only caught the bottom end of her words as he hurried to take his earphones out.
"-okay?"
"What?"
"I said, are you okay?" She took the seat beside him and Izuku turned to see Hitoshi and Tenya doing the same across the table.
"Oh, erm, yeah, I'm fine." He pulled the earphone cord out and began hurriedly wrapping it back into his hand. "Sorry about that, I, erm-"
"Dude I could hear that from across the hall." Hitoshi's expression was caught between a frown and a smirk. "Do you always listen to music that loud?"
"You'll ruin your ears!" Tenya scolded like an angry dad. "Not to mention it's not healthy to ignore your surroundings!"
"That… is actually a smart thing to say. Congratulations," Nemesis mocked cruelly within Izuku's head, "The Mechniason said something worth listening to for once."
"I don't do great in crowds." Izuku mumbled almost to himself. "Loud places, lots of people, kinda makes me nervous, you know? Music helps."
Uraraka nodded. "I hear you but Tenya has a point, especially now that they're all pointy." She nudged Izuku as he blushed. "Hey! Don't be ashamed! I think they look cool!"
"I must admit, I've never heard of a quirk that alters a person's appearance before. Well, I mean, transformation quirks are common, but not on a permanent basis." Tenya mused as he put a hand to his chin. "Your quirk is truly unique."
"Speaking of, how did your evaluation go yesterday?" Hitoshi asked before taking a bite out of his sandwich. "Fyou difn't feem fo wantf to falk afout if."
"Oh, yeah." He had been torn up about almost dying and screaming at Aizawa to mention anything about it to the others. Thankfully they seemed to have all gotten the point and had helpfully avoided the subject for the rest of the day.
"The quirk assessment guy called me a demon and ran out of the room."
There was a sudden burst of chuckles from the others.
It stopped once they realized Izuku wasn't laughing with them.
"Dude are you serious?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, Izuku, I'm so sorry."
The teenager shrugged and stabbed a piece of chicken with his chopsticks. "It's fine. Just another chapter in the shit-show that is my life." And he chomped down onto the piece with a stoic expression.
"How utterly unprofessional! And to think they were hired by U.A.!" Tenya shook his head and frowned. "Perhaps he was just religious. And I thought all that religious chaos caused by the emergence of quirks had died down by now."
"I dunno, look at America." Hitoshi mused. "That place went crazy with wacko religious cults once quirks popped up. Still is, apparently."
"Still, that really sucks, Izuku." Uraraka patted the boy on the shoulder. "But nothing bad happened, right? I mean, Aizawa-sensei was there the whole time."
Aizawa had almost killed him with his quirk, and while Izuku refused to believe it was because he had torn his soul in two, he still found that far more comparable than actually hurting anyone else.
"No, nothing bad happened. Aizawa-sensei's quirk is really amazing, he stopped me the second he thought I went too far." This was followed by a long, loud, irritated growl by Nemesis that sent prickling heat along his scars.
"Well that's a good thing, right?" Hitoshi asked suddenly, raising his sandwich up again. "Proves you're not possessed or something, your quirk's just a quirk at the end of the day."
"Hitoshi! That's an awful thing to say!" Uraraka snapped at the purple haired teen and waved her own chopsticks at him. "Izuku isn't possessed in the slightest!"
Izuku, however, was staring at Hitoshi with wide eyes. He… he had a damn good point, actually. Too often did Izuku end up calling himself a monster or a demon or some other creature dragged from the depths of hell. Too often did he label his power a curse, a blasphemy against the world.
But Hitoshi was right. If Aizawa could erase it, it was just a quirk and nothing more. For all the bells and whistles, for all the threats and cryptic words, Nemesis was just that. A quirk.
"We are so much more." Nemesis whispered darkly through his ears. "We are sh-"
"Yeah, well, I'm just glad that Nemesis has a counter now," Izuku announced swiftly as he shoved some food into his mouth. It took a moment of chewing while the others looked at him confused before he swallowed and explained. "The quirk guy said my power was, well, kinda unique so it needed its own name. It's called Nemesis."
There was a moment of silence before Hitoshi simply said. "Dude, that is bad-ass. Kinda not helping with the whole 'I'm not the devil' thing but still, bad-ass."
"It's a bit grim." Uraraka added with a shrug. "But I suppose it kind of fits. No offense."
"It's a great name!" Nemesis roared proudly through Izuku's ears. "We are Izuku Midoriya. We are Nemesis! All will fear us and cower before our flame!"
"None taken." Izuku shot her a half smile that he quickly turned to the others. "Really, guys, it's fine. My power is… not nice, I know. It's pretty awful actually, but that's why I'm here, you know? To learn how to make it less awful."
"I admit having a fear factor with your quirk can be useful. My brother has a side kick who-" He stopped himself suddenly before looking to his meal. "Well, nothing."
"What was that?" Uraraka's wide eyes turned to her friend and a curious smile played at her lips. "What was that about your brother?"
"You know, I've been thinking about that." Izuku asked as his chopsticks hovered just at his lips. "Your name, Iida, are you related to the people who run the Idaten agency?"
Iida sighed loudly. "I was hoping to not make a big deal of it, but I suppose the cat's out of the bag." He sat up proudly and smiled. "Yes, my big brother is the leader of Team Idaten, the turbo hero Ingenium!" He put his hand to his heart and he continued. "He's my idol, and I want to be just like him!"
"So proud. So pathetic. It's truly amazing. Like watching a rat wear a crown."
Izuku kept the frown from his face and instead smiled to Tenya. "That's amazing!"
"So, you're a rich kid, huh?" Hitoshi cut in suddenly. "Nice to know I hang out with the upper crust now. Maybe I'll get invited to a swanky party sometime. Just so you know, I don't do tuxedoes, it's jeans and a t-shirt for me."
Izuku laughed as Tenya immediately began to try and instruct Hitoshi on how he should behave at a black and white tux event and for a moment allowed himself to relax some of the constant tension in his shoulders. So what if the quirk assessment doctor had called him evil. Was this evil? Hanging out with friends and eating nice food?
He hadn't realized how much he had needed something this… normal until he actually had it. Despite all of the subtle, flowing candle-flame heat from Nemesis's irritation he was determined to find happiness in the few moments he could grab it.
And few was indeed the right term to use.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose around them. Alarms began blaring and above them all a calm, female voice began calling out, "This is a level three security breach. All students must begin making their way outside in a calm and orderly fashion."
'Calm and orderly' was thrown out the window about half a second after the announcement went out.
Students began rushing through the hall, panicked and disorganized and shouting and screaming. Fire roared through Izuku's scars as his stomach twisted in an intense panic. The group were on their feet almost immediately and Izuku stood helplessly, unsure of where to go or what to do.
Tenya grabbed a student rushing past him and over the panic managed to loudly ask, "What's going on?"
"I don't know!" The poor student replied, her eyes wide with fear, "This has never happened before!" And with that, she had tugged her sleeve from his grasp and vanished.
"We should get out of here." Hitoshi was shockingly calm, at least to an outsider. However, his hand was rubbing the back of his neck and Izuku knew he was just as scared as the rest of them.
He felt jittery and tight and he needed to do something. Nemesis was already becoming hard to handle, fire moving along his scars and the tempting shadow of power was curling around his heart. He took a moment to breathe deeply, however, and gripped the reigns of his curse tightly.
Izuku gave a nod to his friend, and as a group they began trying to make their way towards the exit.
They didn't get far.
Almost immediately people came between them, the major exit out of the hall being blocked by the bodies of students all pushing and shoving and trying to make their own way out. Uraraka reached out to grab his hand tight as they fought to make their way through the crowd.
But more and more people were panicking, more and more people were coming between them, each desperate to get out as the shouting and screaming grew louder.
The heat along Izuku's scars began to rise, slowly, like one would turn up a gas stove. He could hear Nemesis's growling growing louder and louder in his ears as his heart began to hammer in his chest.
There was a monster above them.
Invisible to all but his eyes, he could see it. A fat, bulbous thing resembling a cross between a bloat fly and a monkey. Patches of rotting fur clung to pieces of its five, needle-thin arms as it clung to the ceiling above the unknowing students. Its compound eyes mounted on an insectoid head where it gurgled with a jaw filled with mismatched teeth. Membranous wings too small for its own bloated, pus-filled body buzzed audibly and scars of decomposing flesh revealed brown, almost liquefied bone.
Izuku's terrified cry died in his throat however as he reminded himself it wasn't real, and he was just panicking because everyone else was panicking. Except his panic could lead to a body count. His mind was swimming and he didn't notice his grip on Uraraka's hand becoming looser and looser until it was too late.
"IZUKU!" Her scream was drowned out as someone shoved their way between them and their fingers separated.
"URARAKA!" Izuku managed to scream out in turn but he was almost immediately silenced by a hand trying to grab across his face in someone's desperate attempt to move towards. He found himself being pulled towards the side as he struggled to keep on his feet.
Nemesis roared through his ears like a furious beast. "Unleash us! Let us clear a path with fire and fury!"
"NO!" Izuku screamed back to the notice of no one.
The insect-creature turned its nightmare head towards him.
"We'll be crushed in this crowd! Use us!" The roar within his own mind grew louder, like the cacophony of an ancient battlefield.
He could feel the fire burning along his scars, begging to be used. All it would take would be a small flame, just enough to send true fear through the students around him and they would part before him like the red sea.
The idea tempted him and, horribly, part of him even considered it. The question hung over him as the snake-like temptations ran through his heart. Why not?
Izuku could almost feel the talons starting to form on his fingers and he struggled desperately to keep himself together, his heart pounding in his chest and his lungs unable to catch a breath. Nemesis was crawling more and more along his limbs, down his spine, surrounding his hammering heart with shadow and flame.
His eyes glanced up and to his horror he could see the nightmare creature moving slowly towards him. Dirty, spiked nails digging into the ceiling as it clawed its slow, bulbous body, gurgling and snapping its mandrill jaws hungrily
The closer it came the more he could feel Nemesis slipping through his fingers, eager to set its unholy rage on something, anything, the fat bloated monster on the ceiling would make a fine meal, as would the flesh of every student in the corridor.
Izuku began to scream as his scars reached a white-hot intensity and even people around him became desperate to move back from this burning teenager.
And then, something unexpected happened.
A shadow shot forwards, rushing above the crowd and hitting the monster like an arrow. Through a blur of black-clad movement the shadow, long and stretched across his head, began attacking the monster like a starving animal. There was an inhuman scream from the demon as the shadow-creature ripped through its flesh with horrific ease, like a well-trained predator taking apart its helpless prey.
Vicious claws formed of a terrible black void literally ripped fat, meaty chunks out of the monster. As the viscera fell it did not hit anyone, it simply dissolved into an ash that only Izuku was sure he could see and blew in a wind no one could feel.
It let out a long, gurgling death rattle as the shadow moved back with just as much speed, rushing back over his head and vanishing back into the crowd of students, the last of the bloated, rotting beast collapsing into pieces and vanishing into ash before it even touched the hair of the tallest student below it.
Izuku's eyes widened in pure shock at the horrific spectacle.
Something inside him was screaming. Some deep, instinctual knowledge that was embedded deep into his heart was screaming through every part of Izuku's soul. That thing, that shadow, it was wrong. It was something other, something terrible, something not meant to be on this earth.
It was something like Nemesis.
He turned his head, desperate to see the source of the shadow. Driven only by the intense need to see just what new kind of new madness had overcome his visions, he grabbed the shoulders of the nearest student and jumped up, ignoring the "Oi!" of irritation that came with it.
He saw the shadow. He saw that it wasn't a shadow, but a thing. A monster long and void-black, like the skin of his own curse, with eyes that were a tarnished, mocking gold, a lipless jaw filled with shadow teeth and arms ending in long, rending claws.
Izuku saw its body trail off vanishing into…
Fumikage.
He stood, apart from the crowd, just by the entrance to the food hall. He stood with the shadowed monster emerging from his chest. His eyes moved from where they had been looking only moments ago to lock onto Izuku.
They widened in shock, then narrowed to an angry disgust just as the shadow curled around its master, coming to rest upon his shoulder where it too locked eyes with Izuku.
It grinned a wide, mocking, jackdaw's grin at him.
And then he was gone. With a turn Fumikage vanished back into the hall and out of Izuku's sight, taking his living shadow with him.
In the same moment, time sped back up and Izuku suddenly fell backward, crashing into someone just as he heard the rushing sound of Tenya's engines speeding through the air. Izuku was shoved up against a window as the crowd stopped its screaming and shouting, but he heard nothing of what Tenya said to them on his position by the door.
All Izuku could do was simply stare forwards into nothing. He was shaking, his skin crawling with the heat of his own power but he didn't care.
Fumikage had seen the monster.
He had seen the monster.
And his quirk. His quirk made of black void shadow and teeth and claws with eyes that seemed scornful and taunting had destroyed it.
Had he imagined it? Had his mind thrown together some amalgamation of events just to drive him further into his long-standing madness? He didn't want to believe it, but he knew it was possible. But why Fumikage? Why the shadow monster?
And… and what if it hadn't been a hallucination? What if it had been real?
"Izuku!" The students before him parted and Uraraka shoved her way between them, a soft hand colliding with his shoulder and snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Are you alright?" Her voice was heavy with concern, but it was all Izuku could do to nod at her. His own voice had been robbed from him, his shock too great, too deep to form any true response.
She sighed and squeezed his shoulder, a smile forming on her face. "I'm so glad! I was worried you might freak out in the crowd." She blinked at her own words and suddenly looked awkward. "Erm, no offense."
Izuku simply shook his head in dismissal before he finally remembered how to speak. They were getting more room now as people flooded back into the food hall, his anxiety was fading but was simultaneously being replaced by new anxieties, new worries.
"Did you- Did you see that thing?" It sounded like the worlds stupidest question, at least to him, but he had to ask. He had to know.
"What thing? Tenya?" She cocked her head and looked back over to where Tenya was slowly trying to get down from the doorway without falling on his ass. "Yeah I mean, he was kinda hard to miss."
"No, I-I mean, did you see that, erm, that shadow." He winced at his own words and pointed up to the ceiling. "Up there?" He knew he sounded crazy, he knew he did, and any moment now she was going to start laughing at him and-
"Oh! You mean Dark Shadow?" Uraraka looked back to him with a bright expression. "Yeah, I wonder what that was all about?"
Izuku didn't know how to feel. He felt relief. He felt confusion. He felt shock and awe and horror and empty and full all at once. "… Dark Shadow?"
"Dark Shadow." Nemesis hissed in a strange tone. Low, growling, and yet cautious and almost as shocked and lost as Izuku himself. "The curse of The Seventh Son's soul."
"It's Fumikage's quirk," Uraraka explained with a continuing smile. Her eyes suddenly went wide and she clasped her hands together, "Hey, that's right! You've never seen it before! You missed our hero classes!" She chuckled softly. "It's really cool! And super powerful, but it's also kinda scary, you know?" She nudged Izuku with her elbow and gave him a wink which sent a ripple of heat along his scars. "Kinda like you!"
"It is nothing like us." Nemesis hissed like barbed wire through his brain. "We are Izuku Midoriya. We are Nemesis. We are shadow and flame."
Dark Shadow. It was real. Uraraka had seen it. His class had seen it. It was real. And it had torn his hallucination apart. Izuku found himself breathing slowly, deeply, his hand moving over his chest as he tried to control an incoming panic attack.
Uraraka seemed to realize what was happening and helpfully pulled him back and away from anyone else, managing to find a small pocket by the window. "Hey, come on, it's alright. It's over now."
Izuku nodded, though inside he didn't believe her. It wouldn't be over until he knew for certain just what it was he'd seen. His mind raced with a thousand new possibilities, a thousand new questions, and a thousand new worries.
But under them all was a new kind of hope. A hope that had been building since he had first gotten into U.A.
His quirk was a nightmare made real… but maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the only nightmare out there. Fumikage had a nightmare within him too.
And Izuku was determined to talk to him about it.
Aizawa was no stranger to the dark. He felt far more comfortable within its shadowed embrace than he ever did sitting in the sunlight. Call it a part of his troubled teenage angst years he had never grown out of, call it the result of his work as an underground hero, or call it a simple shunning of the irritation of dealing with people, but the night, the dark, the shadows and gloom felt more calming to him than any sunny day ever could.
He sat, almost curled into his chair as his pale skin was illuminated by the faux-light of his computer screen. He had watched the footage several times before and yet he still felt as though his answers remained locked and hidden behind the thin LCD screen.
"Okay. I- Just," Izuku Midoriya, standing far from the camera, his form thin and almost quivering took a deep, deep breath. "Please, don't let me hurt you."
Aizawa had gotten to the point where he could basically recite the lines.
And then, hell came forth.
The boy curled over as darkness flooded from his body. Blasphemous blue fire erupted from his scars and something began emerging from his form like a horrific parasite emerging from within the body of a host it had been eating alive.
It didn't last long of course. The lights flickered overhead, casting them into a shadowed natural light and causing the fire-blue scars to glow ever brighter, even through the disturbing shadow-black that consume the teenager.
The windows exploded on the other side of the room, drowning out most other sounds and then the camera simply died into a screen of hissing static.
Aizawa leaned forward, taking the mouse and clicking several frames back until he found the very last clear image of the boy. Or what was supposed to be the boy. The thing, even in the frame half-hidden by tear lines and static, wasn't human.
Bloodshot eyes narrowed as they took in the curling claws and the beginning of wings emerging from the back of the child, as well as misshapen horns that seemed to be just splitting through Izuku's forehead. There was nothing after that, though Aizawa knew that hadn't been the case in the sports hall that day.
He had seen Izuku with his own eyes and inside he wondered what strength of the spirit Hitoshi Shinsou had to possess to run at something like that.
Of course, Aizawa had shut him down almost moments later. The memory of it did not sit easy with him. Seeing the child collapse to the floor, unable to respond and unable to move had brought up sour memories which he had long thought he had gotten over.
Memories which he knew were illogical and foolish to dwell on, but memories that haunted him nonetheless.
He raised a hand to his chin as he thought about the next stage of that day. When he had released Izuku from his quirk. When Nemesis had come roaring back into the body of the teenager.
Son of David. That's what it had called him. Through a screaming, profane voice which to Aizawa had sounded like the cries of burning cities, of ravaged battlefields, of entire families being put to the sword.
And yet one still laced with Izuku's own.
It had disturbed him, all of it, and he knew it had. To see Izuku Midoriya go through that, a child of barely fifteen who had been dealing with that since he was five years old. Ten years. Ten years of having that quirk swimming through his blood.
It was a miracle he was here at all. A miracle he had gotten into U.A. and not thrown himself from the top of a building.
Then again, Aizawa was here too, and there had been plenty of times he had considered the easy way out.
Still. Son of David. The monstrous taunt lingered with him like a phantom, whispering at the back of his mind.
By the time he noticed what he was doing his thumb had reached under his collar, feeling the cold metal of the chain across his skin. He looped it around his thumb and pulled softly. Hidden under his black uniform and layers of capture-tape he drew out a simple metal chain, and upon it, rested something that only one other person in the school knew about.
A simple six-pointed star.
His Star of David.
He ran the symbol between this thumb and forefinger, his eyes lingering on it in the dim light. Everything that symbol stood for was illogical and stupid. Everything it represented was nothing but the fairy tales his mother had taught him as a child, tales he had grown up believing until his quirk had developed.
And then soon after that, it had all fallen away for him.
Because no loving God would ever give someone the quirk that he had. Not after he saw what it did to some people. What it did to people like Izuku Midoriya.
So, he knew he shouldn't even have the necklace on him. He knew he shouldn't raise his hand to it before going out on missions or even toy with it now whenever he faced something he simply couldn't solve with brutal, cold logic.
But he did. And he couldn't explain why.
Son of David. Had Izuku known what he had screamed at him? Had he done it on purpose or was it simply a clever guess? Aizawa's eyes narrowed at the Star in his fingers and his jaw clenched tight. How. How had he known?
And more importantly, why had he collapsed as he had done? As so few others had done in his past?
He was used to people muttering about feeling a cold chill run over them, some others felt sick or woozy, others even went into coughing fits or complained of feeling weak. He was used to that. A small side effect of having a piece of you suddenly torn away, or so doctors had told him.
But every now and then, times he could count on one hand, they collapsed. They collapsed as Izuku had collapsed and there was simply no real explanation as to why.
A little voice in the back of his mind told him he already knew, but he was too stubborn to believe. If only he had just a little more faith.
He frowned and put the Star away, hiding it once more under his black shirt. He could find his answers later. He had a trip to the USJ to plan.
ALRIGHTY! So what the HELL is going on now, huh? I kinda loved juxtaposing Hitoshi's 'it's just a quirk' comment with the immediate event afterwards. It was delicious. Also INKO TALKING WITH DADDY MIDORIYA, what could this mean? And finally, Jewish Aizawa ftw.
Small announcement for the next update though. I talked with a few of you guys and kinda came to the conclusion that a few of you feel as though there are some holes in the story that need filling. Not plot holes, but more like character holes. So I'm going to be writing a whole new version of the next chapter for the next update, which will take some time, so it's gonna be maybe three or four weeks until the next update comes out.
It'll be a filler chapter, yes, but hopefully it'll satisfy a couple of the complaints I got about leaving behind certain characters that, honestly, do need catching up on.
And then it's the USJ arc. An arc which I've been working on a ton and it's gonna be fuuuuuun.
Anyway, thank you for reading and hope you all enjoyed! Till next time!
