So this is the one all y'all peeps have been biting at the bit for.
USJ.
I won't torment you any longer, get to reading my peeps!
Nedzu looked to the paper in his hand, his expression dark as he leaned back in his chair. On his desk sat a still steaming cup of earl grey tea, alongside the morning paper and a few of his work documents. The morning sunlight streamed through his vast panel windows, warm and welcoming and greeting the world with a joyous smile. Nedzu had already been at U.A. for several hours, of course, he always made it a point to arrive early, if just to make sure that his school was still standing.
And this was what he had found waiting for him.
It was Izuku Midoriya's quirk assessment file, as completed and submitted for his review by their contracted quirk assessor. He'd already read through it several times now, each time wishing he would find something different, something that wasn't so… worrying. Doctor Fukuro's assessment was of course, clear and analytical, much like the man himself.
Expulsion. Immediate, if possible.
Doctor Fukuro's final comments had been nothing but a long paragraph of how Izuku's quirk was something utterly wrong, utterly evil. How it wasn't a quirk at all but something more, something terrible that needed to be stopped now before it could become any more powerful. Nedzu had never known the man to ever use the term in his assessments before, and it troubled him.
The Principal sighed deeply as he tossed the folder back onto his desk and leaned back, a hand moving to his lips in thought as his black, beady eyes fixed on the document.
He shouldn't argue with the results. He should take them into serious consideration and perhaps make moves to take Izuku out of the hero course. Maybe not expulsion but certainly a reassignment into a class which wouldn't allow this quirk, this Nemesis, to grow in strength.
He should do that… but he wasn't going to. Because he had talked with the boy and he believed he had seen his soul laid bare before him.
The boy wasn't evil. He was scared, desperate, determined and utterly aware of what his quirk was capable of. What were the words he had used? He didn't want to let it win.
His mind drifted further back, back to when he was younger, when he had just been given the position of Headmaster at the school.
He remembered the other young man, he remembered his attitude, his cruelty, his dismissal of his other students… he remembered the blue fire he had used to end the careers of seven young heroes before they had even started.
That boy had been expelled, thrown out before Nedzu had even considered trying to help him, trying to reach out and find where such anger, such hate was coming from. It was a miracle his father had been talked out of saying anything publicly about their actions, though Hokori had sorted all of that out for him.
Hokori always did have a talent for making problems simply go away. But he would do, of course, it was part of their deal.
His eyes drifted over to the morning paper, the headline in bold black and white reading simply 'Mysterious Arsons Continue Through The Chibia Prefecture.'
Black eyes narrowed as he thought of all of that, and compared it to the situation now at hand. He couldn't do that again. He wouldn't do that again.
He hopped off his chair, taking his earl grey with him and walked over to the nearest panel window. It gave him a truly commanding view of the U.A. courtyard, where he could see the lines upon lines of marble-cut statues to their most valued heroes. All Might stood tallest of course, but there were others too. Glory Hammer, Bolt Thrower, Leviathan, and over a dozen more.
Nedzu hoped, deep inside, that one day a statue of Izuku Midoriya would be down there, tall and proud.
His eyes drifted across the courtyard where he spotted a bus, and before it, a few tiny people getting ready to go aboard. He smiled a little. Aizawa was taking his class on their first trip to the USJ today. The training would be good for all of them, rescue was an important aspect of being a hero, after all.
He wondered, as he sipped at his tea, which of the tiny dots was Izuku Midoriya. He wondered how he would do today, and what new lessons he would learn.
Nedzu turned back to the report on his desk and walked back over to it, scooping it up into his paws and looking over the white pages once more. His eyes locked down onto a single sentence which had struck him the moment he had read it and even now it struck him again.
'Izuku Midoriya does not have a quirk, but a demon inside him. He is evil, a villain in the making, and he cannot be allowed to continue at U.A.'
The tiny principal frowned at the words, then he shut the folder, opened a desk drawer, and shoved it inside before slamming the drawer shut with a sharp stab of anger.
Izuku was no demon. He was a child who needed guidance and direction. He was a student at his school and by God he would do everything in his power to help him become a hero.
He leaned back into his chair once again as he put a paw to his lips in thought, watching the soft curling steam rise from his earl grey tea. The newspaper rested just at its side, a picture of a burning building on its front page.
A building alight with brilliant blue fire.
He hoped he was right.
The bus rattled and Izuku was jostled sideways into Tenya, bonking his head suddenly against the cold metal armor of his friend's uniform.
"Oof- sorry," He mumbled and rubbed the side of his head gingerly with a gloved hand.
"No worries, Izuku." Tenya beamed down at him and raised a hand in dismissal. "I didn't expect this trip to be so bumpy."
"I know, right?" Uraraka said with a smile from Izuku's other side as the bus rattled again. She leaned forward as she spoke, her fingers gripping her seat, "I mean I know this place is a bit far out, but can't they smooth the roads over?"
"Turns out U.A. isn't all it's packed up to be." Hitoshi grinned across from them, his eyes closed and his hands linked behind his head against the window to which he leaned. "Their lesson plans are great, but the roads are too bumpy. Seven out of ten, would attend again."
"Hitoshi!" Tenya looked utterly appalled at the very suggestion that U.A. was not the greatest school of all time. "As your class president, I have to insist that you show more school spirit!"
"Maybe when you pay me." Hitoshi yawned loudly and crossed one leg over the other. "Presidents do that, right? Bribe people? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."
Tenya immediately went off on how he would only rule the classroom through ethics and high morals while the others laughed around him, Izuku included.
Tenya had won the class presidency vote two days ago, the same day as the incident with the alarm, along with Momo Yaoyorozu as their vice president. Tenya had, of course, had the vote of Izuku, Uraraka and Hitoshi and had etched out his victory over Shoto. Tenya had taken it all in stride and had, so far, lived up to the title by organizing almost everything that Aizawa hadn't bothered with.
Which actually made him very effective, at least in Izuku's eyes.
The green haired boy turned his head down the bus for a moment, noting how cool his fellow classmates looked in their hero outfits before landing on Katsuki.
Katsuki wore his gym clothes, his outfit had been mostly burned to cinders during their… incident. The blonde caught him staring and his snarl was like that of a rabid wolf. Shame flooded through Izuku and he turned his eyes down to his own gloved hands. While his own uniform had been damaged in their fight, it had been an easy fix compared to ruin he'd inflicted on Katsuki's.
Nemesis had helpfully suggested that they were probably having trouble getting the blood stains out.
His eyes moved up again and followed along the sight of grinning, laughing, chatting classmates before landing on Fumikage.
Their eyes met and this time Izuku didn't turn away. The bird-like boy watched him carefully before turning his eyes slowly to look out the window.
Yesterday's exercise was still weighing on him heavily. The words had bounced around his skull like a boomerang and had practically kept him awake for most of the night. Your kind. What had he meant by that? Did he believe Izuku to be some kind of demonic monster, or was it something else?
In all honesty, it was starting to get a little frustrating. More than a little, actually.
For the first time in his life he had someone right there, right fucking there, who could give him some damn answers about what the nature of his quirk was, what the things that haunted him truly were, and yet it was just his damn luck that the very same person had some bizarre, uncalled-for axe to grind with him.
Izuku half wanted to beg Fumikage to tell him what he knew, and half beat it out of him. That half was the Nemesis half.
"Ragged crow. Pathetic raven child." It spat from within his own mind. "He is nothing to us. We should set his feathered head on fire and we'll see how much he wants to talk then."
Izuku took a long breath in and back out of his nose. That was the seventh time today it'd suggested setting him on fire and it was beginning to get on his nerves.
"Hey, Izuku." He was bought back to reality suddenly by a flat-voiced croak coming from the seat adjacent to him. He blinked and turned to see the frog girl, Tsuyu, looking to him with a finger raised to her lips, "Can I ask you something?"
"Erm, okay? What do you want to know, Tsuyu?" Izuku had barely shared a handful of words with Tsuyu despite their training yesterday and he still felt awkward around anyone who wasn't in his immediate circle of friends.
A prickle of fire-heat moved along his scars as he quietly prided himself on actually having a circle of friends. It was a nice thought.
"Daughter of Dagon." Nemesis whispered softly through his ears. "Cold-blooded amphibian."
"Call me Tsu, and if you don't mind, can you tell me what the results of your quirk assessment were?"
He gulped at the sudden question and almost fell back in his seat as the bus rocked again. "Wha- What do you mean?"
"Well, my quirk is Frog, I can do anything a frog can do, ribbit." She cocked her head to one side, her wide, glassy eyes boring into him with a surprising amount of focus. "Obviously we know what happened to Katsuki, ribbit, and we all know you took an assessment afterwards. So, if we're going to be learning together, I think it's wise to know what kind of quirk you have."
"Hey, leave him alone, he doesn't have to talk about it if he doesn't want." Hitoshi cut in suddenly, his lilac eyes focused to Tsuyu in a narrow gaze.
"No-no, it's alright." Izuku said with a waving of his hands, not wishing anyone to get testy. "I mean, you guys have to train with me, right? So, I suppose I should mention everything it does. Besides," His eyes moved to Uraraka for a moment. "I didn't talk about it before and it… well."
He didn't finish his sentence. He saw the look that passed through Uraraka's gaze and guilt stabbed into him like a pencil to the gut.
"I-erm, it's…" He thought for a moment before looking back to the frog-girl. "It's transformative, to a degree."
"It changed your ears, right? I'm guessing probably your teeth too, ribbit."
Tsuyu's bluntness again caught Izuku off-guard and he gave her a wobbling, nervous kind of smile. "R-Right." People had yet to really notice his fingernails. Maybe they just thought he painted them that way. "Erm, it only transforms me when I get mad. It's like… a shadow monster, thing, kind of, I think, but with fire."
"SHADOW MONSTER?"
"Oh, like Dark Shadow?" Kirishima butted in suddenly, leaning over the bar of his seat. He was sat just across from Hitoshi, next to Jiro who seemed more focused on her phone than anything else.
He grinned his toothy, sharp grin, looked over to Fumikage and called out, "Which is a super cool quirk, by the way!"
Fumikage looked back to the others and said nothing, however, his attention was now clearly drawn, and he kept his crimson eyes locked on Izuku. The teenager could practically feel their oppressive weight on his shoulders.
"We are not a shadow monster! We are Izuku Midoriya! We are Nemesis!"
"Well, I… guess?" Izuku didn't dare compare the monster that was Nemesis to Dark Shadow. For one Nemesis consumed him, utterly, while Dark Shadow seemed to act as an extension of Fumikage's will.
Secondly, Nemesis would rather obey a wet sock than listen to a word Izuku had to say, Dark Shadow, on the other hand, seemed willing to do anything Fumikage asked of it, even when it clearly got irritated.
How nice it must be to have a monster within you that actually listened to you.
"Izuku's quirk is a unique one, but in no way does that make him as any less than the rest of us," Tenya announced in a stern tone, his eyes traveling over their small group as he did so, "A troublesome quirk simply means he has to work harder, and we should all support his efforts."
"You've still not answered my question, ribbit." Tsuyu again raised a finger to her chin, her wide, unblinking eyes continuing to bore at Izuku. "What kind of quirk did they decide it was?"
"… It's called Nemesis." Izuku announced in a low tone, though, somehow, he was sure everyone on the bus heard it. "It's a mix, I think. To be honest, I still haven't gotten the results back yet."
His mother was actually getting rather angry about it. She had grumbled over last night's dinner about what the point of putting him through the test was if they weren't even going to tell them the results. Izuku had already decided he didn't really want to know, not when his new medical information would probably just have a giant 'EVIL' stamp across it.
Besides, for some reason she had been rather irritable lately. He hadn't had the proper time to ask her why.
"Nemesis? Dude that is bad-ass." Kirishima announced with obvious awe in this tone.
Hitoshi clicked his fingers and pointed to him. "See! He gets it."
"We are very bad-ass." Nemesis cackled proudly. "It's good to see our pathetic classmates showing us the respect we deserve."
"Well, you say that." Izuku piqued up once again. "But, you know, it's really difficult to control. Like I said, when I get too angry or let it take too much it…"
"Hey, don't worry about that, man." Kirishima shot Izuku another toothy smile. "It was an accident. If I see you losing control," He raised a fist and it suddenly hardened into rock, "I'll just knock you out!"
"Kirishima!" Uraraka said loudly, "That's mean!"
"I give you full permission to do so." Izuku announced louder, much to the shock of Uraraka, "Please, Please, knock me out because it's way better than the alternative, trust me on that."
Several people went to argue against such a measure, but the bus suddenly pulled to a rattling stop and Aizawa's voice shot across them all with the tone of a bored Drill Sargent. "All of you quiet. We're here."
The teenagers quickly gathered themselves up and began moving off the bus, though Izuku couldn't help but notice how both Tenya and Hitoshi made sure to put their bodies between himself and Katsuki.
The moment he stepped off the bus, however, all worries about his quirk vanished.
Before him stood one of the largest buildings he'd ever seen. Massive sheer walls rose up before him, reminding him of the fortress walls of ancient castles. It was topped by a glass dome so huge that Izuku couldn't even begin to guess where the apex met, or how far it stretched to accommodate the vastness of the building.
Aizawa had told them that morning they were going to be focusing on rescue missions, learning to use their quirks to save lives in a variety of environments. And while he had seen it coming, thanks to All Might's loose tongue, the very thought sent a shock of excitement through Izuku. No combat, just rescue, and thank God for that.
"This is going to be boring." Nemesis grumbled off within his own mind, it's voice a low, grinding stone on stone. "Where's the fun in helping the weak? We should be destroying our enemies with fire and fury."
Izuku bit back a snarky reply of his own. Today was going to be fun dammit, he wasn't going to keep lagging behind everyone because his quirk would rather burn flesh from bones than bother to rescue people.
His gaze brought forward when he spotted Aizawa moving over to someone new, a person dressed in what looked to be a bulky astronaut suit. Immediately his eyes widened, and a goofy grin stretched across his lips. "Hey! That's the pro-hero Thirteen!"
Uraraka, who had been stood beside him, nudged him with her elbow and nodded excitedly. "I know! They're one of my favorites!"
Their introduction didn't take long. Thirteen announced themselves to the class and lead a quick, rousing speech about the virtues of using their quirks to help others. A speech which Izuku thoroughly enjoyed, especially as at no point did the hero indicate they would be using their quirks for anything remotely combat related.
Which was a huge relief to Izuku, even as Nemesis continued to grump about not getting to hurt anyone.
Thirteen lead them inside, with Aizawa taking point beside them. The double doors to the stadium opened and Izuku was almost instantly overwhelmed.
"A sunken ship, a landslide, a raging firestorm, a storm-surge and a mountaintop rescue." Thirteen announced, their voice strangely muted and genderless behind their unrevealing glass-dome mask. "These will be your training grounds today, students. And today you will learn to help, not harm. This is the essence of being a hero, after all."
Izuku's eyes widened and his mouth gaped open as he tried to take everything in, even as he ran to the railing lining the cliff edge overhanging the entire USJ. Descending blow him was a huge stairway with enough steps to make it a hell of a workout if one was coming up them. The entire USJ was separated into its various zones, each of which loomed large before him.
The sunlight beamed above and illuminated everything through vast windows, and in a way it all reminded him of a huge indoor theme park. And yet he knew it was more than that. It was the hope that Nedzu had placed in him, the hope that he was moving forward the right way, with the right footing.
But movement caught his eye.
There were three of them. Things that had no right to be called creatures circling the sky of the USJ. They reminded Izuku of manta-rays, except these were manta-rays covered with mouths and eyes which popped and spawned in and out of existence. Their long, trailing tails, almost the length of Izuku's entire body, ended in multiple talon-like claws which moved softly through the air behind them. They seemed to constantly be shifting between colors of pinks and blues and purples and every now and then he could hear a strange, almost ethereal cry come from them.
Izuku took in a shuddering breath and he turned his head away.
Fumikage was looking too. He stood apart from the crowd, who were all chatting amongst themselves, but his gaze was fixed upwards. Izuku felt his heart catch in his throat for just a second as his eyes moved down and met Izuku's own.
He then closed them, shook his head in dismissal, and looked away.
"Seriously, dude, just ask him out already." Hitoshi's snarking tone caused Izuku to jump and he turned his head. At some point, the purple-haired teenager had walked up to his side without Izuku even noticing. "You'll make an adorable goth couple, I'm sure."
"Seriously, dude," Izuku frowned back. "It's not like that."
"Fine, fine, I'll quit with the jokes." He rolled his eyes and held his hands up in surrender. He then shoved them into his pockets, a pose which, with his costume, made him look remarkably like Aizawa's secret love child. His frown didn't help the similarities either. "But seriously, what is it with you two? You keep shooting each other looks like you have some big secret or something."
Big secret. Yeah that just about summed it all up.
"It's… it's complicated." Izuku sighed and placed his hands back on the guardrail, looking back out to the USJ grounds.
"Then explain it."
Izuku felt that stabbing guilty feeling again, even as Nemesis pushed a wave of heat along his scars, almost as if to remind him the horror that could dawn on Hitoshi if he even had an inkling of what could be truly going on.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
Izuku winced at the spike in Hitoshi's voice. "I just-"
"Izuku, look. I know we've not known each other long, but last time you held out on people, well, shit happened." Hitoshi's gaze now matched Izuku's as he scanned the grounds. "Don't think I've noticed how Dark Shadow and Nemesis share a couple of things."
Izuku's head turned like a whip crack, his eyes wide. "What?"
"Big. Mean. Made of shadow. Spooky as fuck." Hitoshi shrugged. "I don't know, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's something, but I think it's more than a little strange how you two don't seem to even want to breathe the same air when you're in the same room."
"I don't- Hitoshi…" His words trailed off. He took a long, deep breath through his nose. He knew he couldn't keep all of this from his friends forever, he shouldn't. It was wrong of him to keep secrets from people who he'd already put through so much, Hitoshi especially.
But how did he even start to explain the madness of the voice in his head, the monsters he saw around him? The monsters that Fumikage could see too, despite every bit of logic in the world telling him that it should be impossible?
Anxiety and fear fluttered through his stomach. He remembered the laughs of his former classmates, the isolation, the fear, the crippling depression. He remembered it all with a burning clarity that clawed into his limbs and gnawed at his heart.
But now wasn't then. These were people he knew he could trust, people who had seen him at his worst, when Nemesis had worn him like a puppet, and still stood by his side. Hitoshi had looked into his eyes, eyes he knew had been filled with bottomless hate and he had still forgiven him.
He could trust them. Unlike any other time in his life, he had people he could trust.
"Tell him, let him know, it doesn't change anything." Nemesis growled from deep within the meat of Izuku's brain, another rolling thunder of heat moving across his scars. "As long as we have his fear and respect, we don't care."
"Can it- Can it wait?" Izuku finally managed to stammer out. "Until after the lesson, I mean. If I tell you, I want to tell Uraraka and Tenya too. I'd rather it just be you guys who know, at least for now. It's- it's something very personal to me, and I don't know what's going on with Fumikage but I'm going to guess he feels the same way about… everything. So, if I can just, you know, get through today we can sit down, and I'll explain it as best I can."
Hitoshi's royal purple eyes turned to regard the smaller boy for a moment, studying him with the same kind of analytical gaze that Aizawa had mastered. After a few moments, he let out a breath. "Promise?"
"Promise."
"Fist bump on it."
"What?"
He raised his fist up and held it out. "Make it a fist bump promise. You can't go back on those."
Izuku paused for a moment, wondering if this was another joke, before deciding that even if it was, he knew Hitoshi enough that there was a deep sincerity behind it. Still, to make it a promise meant making it real. He couldn't go back on his word, not without losing all trust and faith of his friends. He knew that he and Hitoshi shared the anxiety of letting people in, of having the world judge you for something you couldn't control.
And on that knowledge, he knew he could trust him. He raised his own fist and pressed it against his friend's. "I fist bump promise."
Hitoshi only replied with a smile.
"Alright, everyone, gather 'round, eyes forward," Aizawa announced loudly with the clapping of his hands, drawing the eyes of the two teenagers. The two glanced back to one another for another second before making their way back over to the main group, all of whom were forming a disorganized looking crowd at the very top of the staircase.
Aizawa took another moment to wait until he was satisfied he had everyone's attention before loudly, and with no small note of irritation, began, "Since All Might decided to not show up, probably because he's rescuing cats out of trees, we're going to divide the class into two and run you through separate rescue simulations."
Izuku felt his excitement rise, even if the anxiety of his promise with Hitoshi lingered at the back of his head.
"Team A will be-"
He never finished his sentence.
The lights lining the vast structure suddenly cut out en-masse, robbing them of complete illumination and leaving them to the overhanging shine of the natural sunlight above. Then, almost simultaneously, there was a sudden hissing sound that rushed through the air, like that of wind being sucked into a black hole.
Then the demons screamed.
Izuku winced as their maws opened wide and the sound of a thousand dying animals howling into the night filled the air. It tore at something inside him and he felt the fire-heat of his power flowing through his veins as if jumping to his guard.
Izuku almost turned to look at Fumikage, to see if he too had heard their screams, but his eyes were instead drawn down to the center of the USJ.
There was a fountain there, a nice, simple design with a small eating and meeting area clearly set out for the student's mid-day lunch. And shadows were gathering there. Dark and terrible and horribly familiar they gathered and grew wider and taller until a swirling disk of blasphemous void now stood before the fountain.
From it came figures. Izuku's stomach twisted and coiled as he watched wave after wave of people walk forward and within the same instant a word leapt to Izuku's mind. Villains. They marched forward, some grinning, others stoic, all however with the cruel look of hardened criminals.
"FILTHY SINNERS." Nemesis roared through his blood like a battle-beast wakening to war. So much so that his skull pounded, and he fell to one knee suddenly, his eyes squeezing tight as he clamped his hands uselessly over his ears. Hitoshi was already at his side, confusion written across his face as he tried to help his friend back to his feet.
"What the hell?" From somewhere he could hear Kaminari's voice call out above the whistling wind. "I thought we were doing rescue training?"
"Stay back!" Aizawa's voice had become cold stone and empowered by an almost military authority. "This isn't training, those are villains."
The sudden realization ran through every member of the class, and followed in its wake was the cold, mocking grip of fear.
Aizawa, however, stepped forward alongside Thirteen and simply brought his slit-cut eye-shades up to his face. His expression was unreadable, but his aura roared with the sudden fire of righteous fury as the collective gaze of the class turned back to the center of the USJ.
As Hitoshi pulled Izuku back up, the boy opened his eyes just in time to see two figures stepping through at the end of the small army of villains who now filled the grounds.
The first to step through was a slight man with shock of uncombed pale blue hair. Hispants and top were dark and shaded. Across his body, however, were attached bizarre hands which clung to his limbs. Each hand had something marked on it, though what Izuku couldn't see at such a distance.
The second to step through was a demon.
There was no other word for it. It was a demon. Its humanoid body bulged with unnatural muscle, raising it far above seven feet tall. It's skin a midnight black and across it caved violent symbols and signs that Izuku could make out even at the great distance that separated them. Even more worryingly, they glowed with an all too familiar shade of corrupt blue.
Its face was long and beak-like with a grinning, lipless mouth filled with upward spikes of bone that acted as teeth. Its pink brain glistened from its exposed skull and on either side of its face were bulging lidless eyes which glowed a tarnished gold. Across its skin, like pins through paper, came sudden, random spikes of bone, especially along its forearms and shoulders.
The only vaguely human thing about it, other than its overall form, was that it wore a pair of beige cargo shorts.
For a moment Izuku truly believed it was one of the invisible monsters that only he and Fumikage seemed to witness. That was before the slight man raise a hand to its arm and it came to an almost robotic halt.
It was real.
It was a creature torn from his terrifying visions made real.
The shadow shank until it took a barely humanoid shape, eyes a deep, glaring yellow forming from within its shadow-clad form. A form which constantly seemed to flicker and weave like a candle caught in a breeze.
The shadow-man turned his eyes upwards towards the students at the top of the staircase, and in a male voice clear, deep and loud, began to call out.
"Raise every voice in song! Bow thy head to the Fallen and sing! Raise thine arms to the unlight and sing! Bow thy knee to the accursed flame and sing!"
He flared for a moment, as if proud of his terrifying announcement.
"For Tomura Shigaraki, Ender of Days, stands before you!" His voice deepened, becoming edged and sinister, "And not one of you will leave this place alive."
This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening.
Strangely, Izuku thought of how simple everything had been before he tried to master his quirk. Back when he was a tiny, skinny nobody with ugly scars and no friends and was all but forgotten by the world. Back when Nemesis was still the thing and he didn't care to know what his quirk did or was or could do.
Back when his days moved by in a haze of fog and static.
In that moment he wished he could be back there. Safe and bubbled wrapped with the world muffled to his ears. He had been in no danger there, useless and friendless and forgettable as he was.
But he wasn't there. He was here. Now. In this moment that he had brought himself to by force of will, determination and all the heart he could muster.
Hitoshi's grip on his arm was starting to dig into his bones, but he didn't throw him off. The slight ache was enough to ground him once more and he found the strength of his feet as he stood properly. He nudged his friend with an elbow and the taller boy jolted back to reality.
He let his grip on Izuku's arm go, though his eyes didn't tear from the small army of approaching villains.
He had to keep strong though. Even now he could feel his heart beginning to pound, not just out of terror, but out of a need to help.
He took a step forwards to join his teacher at the very top step of the vast staircase but was quickly stopped by an outstretched arm. "No, stay back. You kids have to get out of here." Aizawa turned to look at Thirteen, his expression stoic, his voice however shifting from his usual bored, tired teacher's tone to one of calm, cold authority. "Thirteen, can you get word out to the main campus?"
"I can't reach anyone, all I'm getting is static." Thirteen announced, two fingers held up to the side of their helmet. "They must be blocking any outward-bound signals."
"That explains why the alarms haven't gone off." Aizawa quickly added, his eyes turning back to the approaching villains. A hand raised up suddenly and for a split second Izuku thought he saw it hover over a part of his upper chest before it gripped tightly onto his capture-scarf. "Alright, you get them back to U.A. grounds, I'll hold them here."
"Aizawa-sensei! Sir!" Izuku was calling out to his teacher before he could even stop himself. "You can't hold them on your own! There's too many of them! Your quirk is better suited to one-on-one fights, you'll-"
"Midoriya." Aizawa's tone closed all and any further argument. There was nothing to be said, not to a man who had steeled his heart and was already moving down the staircase in slow, deliberate steps. "I've survived worse than this." He glanced at the terrified looking young man and, for a moment, Izuku was sure, sure, he saw what passed for a smile on his lips. "You can't be a hero if you're afraid to walk headfirst into hell."
And with that he was gone, moving like a bolt of lightning down the staircase at a speed which shocked Izuku. He realized that despite everything Aizawa was a pro, a word which until now had held a sort of mythical meaning in Izuku's head. But it was more than just a title, it was a statement.
A pro faced overwhelming odds without a second thought. A pro beat back the darkness with every inch of their strength and beyond. A pro didn't stop until the job was done and everyone who could be save was saved.
Aizawa was a pro.
"The Son of David is impressive." Nemesis whispered through his mind, even as Thirteen began herding the students back towards the main door. "He does his people proud."
From behind him, he could hear the screams of villains getting demolished by his teacher and a small smile ghosted across his lips. He shouldn't worry so much, he was sure Aizawa would be fine… and yet still he felt the need to turn around, to dive headfirst into that sea of villains and do something to help his teacher.
But he had to trust in him. He had to be sure that this was the right move to make. Besides, what would he do, really?
He had Nemesis. A bloodthirsty monster that would probably take the villain's side and slaughter his friends.
Surely this was the best option.
And then a chill ran across his skin. He heard it again, the sudden sound of air rushing to a spot and before him, the shadow rose up. Within a second it blocked their entire exit and a pair of hateful golden eyes emerged from the shifting darkness.
"I greet you, children, on behalf of my master and the Heralds of Eversoris. Each of you will find your end here, but fear not, for your deaths will be a blessing." His eyes glowed as it scanned across them. "It means you will not have to bear witness to the death of your Symbol of Peace, and the beginning of the end."
Each student seemed to freeze with terror and only Thirteen stepped forward, their arms held out to either side in whatever passed as an attempt to keep the shadow from reaching the children.
Izuku could not look away. This monster, this creature forged of a shadow unnaturally dark, unnaturally cold. From a distance he had felt only a whisper, but now it was before him something inside him, some deep instinct buried in his very soul, began to scream out at him.
It was the same reaction he'd had to the monsters he saw, to when he had first seen Dark Shadow. He could feel it within his bones, his skin, his heart and mind. There was something so utterly wrong about it that he couldn't name but knew, inside, was simply not of this world. It was blasphemy for it to stand before him as it did.
"Its soul…" Nemesis spoke in a tone which he had never heard from it before. A soft, serpentine wonder. It was confused. "Its soul is a cage of shadow. How is this possible? What manner of creature is this?"
Now, now, Izuku was starting to worry. Sure, he had feared for the lives of his friends, his classmates, his teacher. But before it had surely it had been a simple equation of good guys vs bad guys, all human at the end of the day.
But Nemesis's wondering question sent not just a chill but an entire ice burg sailing down his spine.
This was bad. Really, really bad.
For a moment he felt the shadow-being's eyes land on him and he froze, even as flame-heat ran through his scars in a muted defense. The golden eyes narrowed, as if taking note, before being ripped away by the approach of Thirteen.
The hero held out a finger, and in a voice forged of an iron will, called out. "You will not block our path, villain! Surrender or be defeated, there is no other choice."
"I beg to differ, child of the void." The shadow being almost grinned through its words. "You are all going to die, so-"
"AAAAGH!" The battle-cry was so sudden, so surprising that Izuku practically jumped out of his own shoes. From the crowd of terrified students came two sudden figures, streaking forwards with their fists raised.
Katsuki and Kirishima.
The next second was filled with nothing but the violence of fire and power, exploding from the palm of Katsuki while a flash of something pale and sharp and solid sliced through the shadow and smoke.
A gasp rose from the class as the smoke cleared away and the two young men stood strong, almost shoulder to shoulder.
"Come on, you think we'd make it that easy for you?" Kirishima grinned widely. "Like hell we'd let you kill us!"
"I've been itching to kick someone's ass." Katsuki added with a vicious, wolfish grin on his lips. "I'll settle for yours, and then that big ass motherfucker down there, and then that fucking creep with the hand fetish." He gripped his fist tightly. "You're not fucking killing anyone, you hear me?!"
Izuku felt his stomach twist. Katsuki was brave, braver than anyone he knew, and Kirishima, well, he didn't know much about him, but he must have been just as brave to join in the attack.
But the words of his curse were still swimming through him, infecting his heart and mind. This was no normal villain, of that he was sure, and it took only another second for his fears to be proven right.
The shadow reformed. It rose, tall and straight now, pulling just slightly back from the two teens. The looks on the faces of the two fell as the eyes once again opened on its void of a face. "Ah, the bravery of the young, such souls shine brightly before they are extinguished forever."
"Both of you, get back!" Thirteen almost screamed at the two but they didn't budge, if anything Katsuki almost seemed ready to attack again and his knees bent just slightly.
"You will all meet your ends here. Now be scatted, foolish mortals!"
The shadow grew. It grew and grew and grew as it swamped over their heads and flooded between their legs and washed through every student in the class.
Nemesis roared within his skull, causing Izuku to wince and cry in pain and it robbed him of any chance of attacking the monster himself. Grave-cold tendrils of shadow wrapped around his form, even as his scars lit white-hot with burning, protective fire, for a moment even flashing blue from their intense heat.
He turned and reached out to grab someone, anyone. He saw Hitoshi as he drowned under the waves of darkness, his eyes wide and terrified as he too reached out for his friend.
For a second the tips of their fingers touched, then, he was gone as the shadows took him.
Izuku felt the claws of the shadow drag him under as the world lifted and vanished from under him.
And Izuku fell into darkness.
So, excited yet?
I have to take a moment to apologize for the bus scene. It was boring and drawn out and didn't do much of anything, and honestly I tried to think of ways to replace it with something better but ugh. I couldn't think of anything and the things I did write out simply didn't... fit.
So in the end it was kept, against my better judgment. Still, the rest of it (Nedzu especially) I like, and the next chapter we take a swift turn into the different once again which I'm always more comfortable writing. The next chapter is written out (as is the one after that) but I still may push it to three weeks not two for the update just so I can really nail down... certain moments.
Anyways, thank you for reading and cya next update!
