AND WE'RE BACK. With a chapter which... pushes some things, doesn't push others. Sorry about that. But unfortunately it was kind of needed to explain a few things, and besides, we get to see more of Nedzu!
Y'all like Nedzu, right? Right.
Anyway ONWARDS.
Toshinori felt sick. He had felt sick for the past few days, ever since the incident at the USJ. Ever since he had lost himself to his anger and he'd…
His hands shook. The very thought of it made what was left of his stomach churn, which in turn made his insides feel flooded with bile and the bones ache under his skin. He looked thinner than usual, which he knew had pushed his practically skeletal form into panic mode. More than once he had been told he needed to see Chiyo, to have her check over him and make sure that his injuries weren't having some lingering effects.
He ignored them, of course. He was stubborn that way. He was also self-punishing to a degree that some may call excessive.
He was eating less, drinking less, even his hero work seemed less… infused than normal.
The nightmares weren't helping.
Every time he slept it was there. Nemesis. The grinning, blood-soaked maw, the horrific blue fire which flowed from the blasphemous lines across its body, and the eyes. God those eyes. Even thinking about them made his wounds ache. Even the greatest and most devastating of his injuries seemed to burn with fresh agony at just the thought of it.
He shoved it down. He was no coward, and he knew eventually it had to fade.
Eventually.
Toshinori paused as his hand came to rest on the handle of a door. Behind it was the teacher's meeting room. Today they were discussing the fate of Izuku Midoriya.
Izuku Midoriya. The boy whom All Might had murdered.
He had been told, of course, that he had come back to life. That he was recovering in the Dagobah hospital and was making remarkable progress considering the extreme extent of his wounds. He had been told that considering the circumstances, no one blamed him for acting as he did, for making sure the thing that Izuku had become hadn't hurt anyone else.
There would be no charges for anyone, Izuku included. He, after all, had not willingly become a monster to hurt others. He'd been attacked by psychotic villains, looking to murder him. His use of his quirk had been beyond his control.
In fact, Toshinori had been told he'd only used Nemesis to save the life of one of his classmates, young Tokoyami.
He had sacrificed himself to save another.
Toshinori had come to expect nothing less from Izuku. And yet, the price that had been paid…
Toshinori had murdered him. He'd murdered him. Perhaps not in cold blood, perhaps not even willingly, but he'd murdered him. No amount of therapy, no amount of conciliation about how 'everything would be fine' and 'the boy had lived' and 'the day had been saved' would make him feel any different. How could he? How could anyone resolve themselves to letting murder be an answer to a problem?
And yet it wouldn't be the first time Toshinori had killed someone.
The other time had been different though. That man, who was called only a man by the barest definition of the word, had been a true monster. A being of evil forged in the darkest depths of hell. A man who had wanted to enslave the entire world through the use of his terrible quirk.
A man to whom Toshinori had believed himself destined to fight, to defeat, to throw down forever.
All For One was dead. He had died when Toshinori had cracked his skull open with his bare hands and beat his brain to nothing more than grey meat on cold asphalt.
He would never forget the sight. The smell of tangy copper and raw meat. The feeling of brain matter and dripping blood on his fists. For as long as he lived, he would never forget it. It haunted his dreams even now, whenever he closed his eyes it was there, lingering like gritting, irritating sand.
Just as he would never forget the eyes of Nemesis, staring into his soul, bringing up every regret and fear he'd ever had and causing hot, boiling anger to burn under his skin. Anger that he thought he had kept under control until those last moments when he had smashed Nemesis into the earth as if trying to send it back to Hell where it belonged.
And then it had just faded away in a shower of ash. Faded until only Izuku remained.
A boy broken under the fists of his teacher.
The battle had taken much out of him. He now estimated that he now only had four hours within his All Might form, down from six. He had suffered wounds that had torn through him, wrecked his body, almost ruined him for good. It was only due to the miracle-working of Chiyo he had come through as well as he had.
It wasn't a high enough price to pay. He should have had One For All ripped from him for the great sin he had committed. He should hang up his boots and tell the world that All Might could not be a hero, not if he had to resort to killing children to keep the peace.
But he couldn't. He hadn't passed the quirk on yet, though he knew, now, he had to do it and do it soon. He had no choice. He couldn't go through another battle like that, it would surely be his last.
Toshinori sighed, letting the memories momentarily move from his thoughts and he pushed forward into the meeting room.
The others were already there, and already the room had the temperature of an ice box.
Toshinori said nothing as he took his chair, the plush back easing some of his aching muscles. He was covered in bandages that wrapped up along his arms, his neck, even across his forehead. His wounds were, mostly, ones he would recover from in time.
However, around his neck would be a burn scar that would never heal. He was glad his uniform tended to have high collars, he didn't want to have to explain that one to the press.
Aizawa somehow looked even worse, well, looked wasn't quite the right word. He seemed worse, though that would remain to be seen. Literally. He was wrapped so tightly in bandages from head to toe that only the flashes of his dark eyes could be seen from under the shadow of the gauze.
Beside him, Hizashi seemed to fret and worry over him in his own, odd way. He was trying to not make it obvious of course, but everyone could tell.
Nemuri glanced at Toshinori as he took his seat, and even flashed him a smile. Though it was a small smile, sad, held down by the knowledge of what they were going to discuss.
And at the head of all of them was Nedzu. Never had Toshinori seen him look so grave, so defeated. He looked smaller than ever before and even his fur has lost some of its usual luster.
The room was pregnant with the knowledge of what they had to do, the awfulness of what had happened and the heavy reality of the situation. Outside the world was cloudy, grey, though there was no rain. It made the world seem static as if time has stopped and only the room containing the five teachers remained.
"So," It was Aizawa who started, never one to be afraid to break the thick ice, "About the USJ."
"It wasn't his fault," Toshinori blurted out before he could even think about what he was saying, "He was- it wasn't- we can't blame him for what happened!"
Another long, eternally heavy second of silence passed.
"I mean," Toshinori let out a sigh which turned into a growl of irritation. He ran a hand through his hair as he rested a boney elbow on the table, "Izuku Midoryia. Please. Please don't punish him for what happened. It's my fault, I should have been there, I should have saved my energy and done my job. All of this is on me."
"Nobody is blaming anyone, though I must admit, I wished you had focused on your teaching, Toshinori," Nedzu's voice was strange. It was a cold knife resting on a cutting board. It was a pen waiting to sign a death warrant. It was patient, controlled, but deeply frustrated, though with himself or others Toshinori couldn't tell, "But we cannot talk about the what ifs. We must focus on what happened."
"What happened was that Izuku was attacked," Aizawa swiftly cut in, "He, along with all the other students were attacked. It's as simple as that."
"But the other students didn't lose control of their quirks. Not like he did," Nemuri commented, "We can't ignore that. We can't ignore what he did just because he was attacked."
"It wasn't under his control-"
"Just like last time?" Hizashi's voice was surprisingly low, "Is this going to happen every time he's pushed?"
"It wasn't. His. Fault." Aizawa replied sternly, hammering down each word as he spoke it, "We all know that. We can't point the finger at him just because he was attacked. Not to mention he only lost control because he was trying to save his classmates. From what the reports say, he took a blow meant for Fumikage Tokoyami. A blow which would have killed him."
"And we're not saying that wasn't heroic of him," Hizashi countered, "What we're saying is that twice now his quirk has lashed out and seriously hurt people once it's unleashed. Twice. And that's not to mention what he did to- to whatever that thing was they brought with them."
"The creature they called Legion," Nedzu almost mumbled to himself as he spoke. He reached forward and picked up a piece of paper on the desk in front of him as he quickly re-read the information. "It was a biological weapon. From what our reports say it contained the DNA of over six people and a dozen animals, even some plants and some components which simply defy explanation. It technically shouldn't have even been alive, how it functioned at all is beyond me."
"And Nemesis killed it," Hizashi leaned forward as he spoke, "No, more than that, from what some of the other students reported, it ate it."
There was a new silence that now rested on the room. A horrified, sickened silence. It was broken, however, by Toshinori.
"You know. A long time ago I met the boy, before he came to UA I mean," He linked his fingers together as he spoke, his eyes forward but unfocused, lost to memory, "He asked me if someone with an evil quirk could be a hero. I told him there are no such things as evil quirks, only evil hearts. But what I saw in the eyes of that thing Izuku became…"
He didn't want to finish his sentence, but his silence perhaps spoke louder than any words ever could. He had seen the Hell within Izuku. The monster that lived inside his blood. The creature called Nemesis which was no creature at all but something far worse.
He wanted so much to believe there were no evil quirks.
But Nemesis existed.
But then, so did Izuku.
And yes, he had looked into the eyes of the beast and had seen the very flames of Hell itself looking back at him. He had seen horror and anger and wrath and hate without limit.
But he had seen Izuku there too. Screaming from within himself. Screaming and drowning and helpless to the chains that bound him to the monster inside his blood. A good soul trapped in an eternal battle with its evil shadow.
"We can't punish him. We just… we can't." Toshinori shook his head slowly and came back to reality, turning his freshly frozen ice-blue eyes to Nedzu. "I don't care what the rest of you think. Izuku Midoriya isn't evil, and I believe he can tame Nemesis. What he needs is love, understanding, and help."
"No one is claiming he is evil, Toshinori. I talked to the boy myself, remember?" Nedzu quickly countered before sighing and leaning back into his chair, "But I… he can't be a hero. I'm sorry, but he just can't. Not with that quirk. It's too volatile, too violent. I'm going to move him to general studies once he returns to class."
"You can't!" Toshinori shouted the words, but he was not the only one. Aizawa had called out too, slamming a hand down as he did so despite the wince that Hizashi gave him.
"This wasn't his fucking fault," Aizawa snapped at the tiny principal, his anger manifesting as a teeth-clenching growl stalking through his words, "He was barely getting on track again after what happened with Katsuki Bakugo. I taught him during that time and he was trying, damnit. I saw it. He can learn to control it, he just needs time."
"How much time? How many chances?" Nedzu quickly countered, "We can't risk what happened the last time we had a student like this."
"This isn't the same," Aizawa was on his feet now, and there was a darker fury to his tone.
Toshinori wasn't sure what was happening anymore, but he knew this had moved beyond the discussion about Izuku specifically. There was something between Nedzu and Aizawa. A ghost of the past, a failure that they both shared.
For a long, long moment, the world was still and quiet and tense. At any second the air could have torn apart with the anger from the two teachers, and each of the pro-heroes in the room felt themselves slowly moving their legs and arms to better leap up if a fight broke out.
Finally, however, Nedzu placed his paws calmly onto the table before him. His voice had returned to strange, knife-edge coldness of before. "Shouta. I understand your concern, I truly do. I believe in the goodness of the boy's heart, I believe in his drive, his passion. But sometimes we just have to face facts. We cannot sacrifice the safety of nineteen students just for the sake of one. You know this is the only logical path forward."
Everyone held their breath, consciously or not, as Aizawa, his expression hidden behind his many bandages, seemed to go as still as a marble statue.
Then, he simply kicked his chair back, literally, and stormed out of the room. Hizashi hesitated for a second before hurrying after him, calling out his name as he opened and shut the door behind him.
Toshinori let out a long, tired, weighted groan before also rising to his feet. "I want you to know I don't agree with this. Not for a second. You're making a mistake, Nedzu."
"I don't believe I am. This is for the greater good," Nedzu replied, his black eyes staring back at the fiery passionate blue of Toshinori's gaze. However, perhaps tellingly, he couldn't hold it and finally turned away.
Nedzu looked to the papers before him. They were all filled out, clean and proper, all that was left was for him to apply his signature and it'd be done.
Izuku Midoriya would be moved to the General Course.
He had been staring at the paper for almost ten minutes. Ten minutes while the wind picked up outside, howling and scraping its nails along the windows. The grey skies above had darkened, the clouds becoming angry and heavy. There was no rain, not yet, but the threat was imminent, like an axe raised above a waiting neck.
It'd be any second now.
'This is the right thing to do.'
The thought had punched its way through Nedzu's mind the moment he'd assessed the damage caused by the boy's quirk. And not just to the USJ, but to his fellow students. He had seen them, shambling through the halls as if haunted by demons, hollow-eyed and exhausted.
Hizashi had been teaching their class while Aizawa recovered, and he'd told Nedzu plainly that it was like the energy had been drained from the classroom. It was only as the week had progressed that any life had returned to them at all.
God, what a cursed quirk Nemesis was.
And cursed was such an apt term for it too. He had seen quirks tear through people like butter, he had seen strength to lift buses and trucks and even airplanes, and he had seen speed to rob the air from the lungs of those that stood too close.
But this. This trauma that lingered and lingered. This nightmare that ate at the minds of those who witnesses it. This was beyond the normal.
Izuku was a good child, a good student, a young man with a heart of gold.
And an undeniably evil quirk.
He set the paper down slowly in front of him and reached across his desk for a pen. His heart weighed heavy in his chest, but this was the right thing to do. For the greater good of the class, of the school… maybe for everyone.
He held the pen in one paw and took one more moment to re-read the transfer papers.
The pen moved to the bottom of the page, touching the paper for just a brief moment.
"You're making a mistake."
Nedzu dropped the pen as he jolted in his seat, crying out for a moment in surprise as he looked up.
Hisashi Hokori stood before him. His suit crisp and sharp, his hair combed back, his eyes black and ice-fire blue and as terrible as always.
And he looked like Hell.
There were streaks of grey in his hair. There was stubble on his chin. There was a hollowness to his cheeks and bags under his eyes and were those crows feet? He didn't look old, no, he simply looked… aged. As if time had suddenly remembered this was supposed to be a man approaching his forties and had caught up to him all at once.
"Good God, man, what happened to you?"
"Please don't mention the Almighty Bastard in front of me, Nedzu, you know better," The man turned from his position and moved over to the window, looking out for a moment as he spoke, "And I haven't the foggiest what you're talking about."
"You… you look different, Hokori," Nedzu finally managed to gather himself and he shoved the transfer form, with the pen, to one side, focusing instead on the lawyer in front of him, "You look…" He paused before shaking his head and throwing his paws up, "Different."
"Really? Hm," Hokori seemed to pause at this as if in thought before turning and looking back to Nedzu. "It's not important."
Nedzu wanted to press the matter, but he knew better than to pry into the affairs of his defense lawyer. That was a world best left alone. Instead, he took a moment to gather himself before cocking his head just slightly and asking, "What do you mean, I'm making a mistake?"
"Transferring Izuku Midoriya from the Hero Course," Hokori replied with a joyless smile, "It's a mistake. Leave him where he is, let him learn and grow. Let him become the hero he wants to be."
"Why?" Nedzu's stomach was tightening and he felt his fur rise along the back of his neck, "What does it matter to you?"
"It matters a great deal to me," Hokori urged as he placed his hands behind his back slowly, "That's all you need to know."
"That's not what we agreed on," Nedzu's voice deepened, finding its strength in the face of the silent threat that Hokori always seemed to represent, "Honesty, trust, and mutual respect. Those were our terms."
"And I am giving you all of them, old friend," Hokori replied swiftly, "I'm telling you, for now, all you need to know is that keeping Izuku on the hero course is important."
There was a long, quiet pause. The kind of pause that exists between two fighters before the bell is rung. Nedzu felt his claws press against the old mahogany wood of his desk before he breathed slowly, letting the strength of cold air fill his lungs.
"He's a danger to himself and others. I have to move him from the course. I don't know what plan you have for him, Hokori, but I'm doing this for the greater good. A greater good which you swore you would uphold with me."
"Yes, and I'm telling you, keeping Izuku on the hero course will benefit your precious greater good, Nedzu," Hokori's voice darkened, and was somehow laced with fangs, "This isn't like before. Izuku is different, he is special, unique, but if you cut him adrift from his destiny the world will suffer for it."
Nedzu could feel the cold hand of destiny on his shoulder. Or was that the cold hand of his inhuman lawyer? Sometimes it was hard to tell one from the other. "How can it? That quirk of his, Nemesis, it's too violent, too vicious. It's…" He paused, not wishing to speak the words but knowing here, before this man, it would be a sane thing to say, "It's demonic."
"No, not demonic. You insult him with such words," Hokori counted swiftly, a block to Nedzu's sword thrust, "I told you he is unique. He will become who he wishes to be, and you will let him."
"I'm sorry, old friend," Nedzu shook his head at a man whom he knew could flay his soul within a second, and looked back to the paper, reaching a hand over to draw it close once again. Let none say that Nedzu would not die for his beliefs, "But I can't. The safety of the many outweigh-"
"I'll reduce your debt."
Everything froze. The air, time, the wind outside, perhaps even Nedzu's heart.
At those words, everything froze.
Black eyes went wide with utter shock and he slowly turned his head back to Hokori.
The silence was broken by the machine-gun sound of rain on the vast window panes. Within the gloom of the office Hokori looked strange, almost liminal as he stood, hands behind his back and his eyes glowing with a corrupt blue. Nedzu knew well enough however that the man he saw before him wasn't the true Hokori. There was a creature under that suit, under that skin.
The creature he knew had a second name. A darker name. A name of myth and legend. A name eternally cursed and damned.
"You'll… what?"
"I'll reduce your debt."
He spoke the words as if they were a simple thing, like grabbing a beer out the fridge or picking up some soap on the way home. And yet to Nedzu it was everything.
"Don't give me that look, Nedzu, you heard me." Hokori frowned a little in irritation at the animal, "Right now due to my efforts the events of the USJ are being mostly brushed over by the media. I've reduced it to nothing more than a few paragraphs, a minor incident at best." A cold smiled crossed his lips, "The cost was seven, however, should you accept I'll not count it against you, and I'll reduce it by a further ten." He brushed down his suit idly, as if it was all so easy for him to do so, "So, do you accept or not?"
Anyone else perhaps would have leapt at the chance, throwing the paper away and thanking the man in hurried bursts of sputtering, blubbering gratitude at such kindness. But not Nedzu. Nedzu had not made his deal with Hokori with a desperate heart. He had not become enslaved to a cruel overlord or tempted to darkness by a serpent deceiver.
Honesty, trust, and mutual respect. They were business partners, equals supporting one vision, one idea that they both aimed for.
"Why?" His eyes narrowed slowly at the man, whom the gloom and half-shadow seemed to embrace not like a starved animal, or even a gentle lover, but a slave tending to a master.
"I told you. Izuku is special, and he's going to change the world. But to do so, he must rule his own destiny, which means," And he leaned forward slowly, placing his hands flat on the wood of the desk. His eyes glowed ever brighter, "Until he wishes to leave, you will keep him in the hero course."
Nedzu paused for a long, long moment. He matched the inhuman stare of the man before him, knowing his own soul, weighed by the debt he had long collected at Hokori's hands, was bared open to him. Nothing could hide from Hokori's gaze. It was the gaze of a creature beyond the description of mortal kind. It was the gaze of the perfect predator, the first predator, the monster that hunted for the souls of the first mortals doomed to die.
"Alright. You win. Lower my debt, and he'll stay where he is." Nedzu pushed the paper towards Hokori, who took it quickly, folding it into a neat square and pocketing it as he straightened up.
He turned to leave, giving Nedzu a curt nod and a smile that seemed more like a smirk and crossed the room swiftly. However, before his hand opened the door, Nedzu called out, "But tell me, honestly, Lucifer," Hokori paused at the doorway, "Who is Izuku Midoriya? Who am I teaching in my school?"
Hokori paused in thought, before his eyes shone suddenly in the half-dark though not with malice, with something different this time. Something Nedzu had never seen within his blasphemous gaze before. Something almost… human.
"I already told you," Hokori announced from the shadows of the dark office, "He's unique, and one way or another, he's going to change the world."
Izuku was numb.
He had been numb since he left the hospital, discharged far earlier than they had thought after suffering such terrible wounds. But, as they kept reminding him, he had healed at a remarkable pace, though it seemed to have slowed recently.
All that were left were for his stitches to heal over and he would be right as rain.
Though that was a lie. Izuku wasn't sure anything would be right again.
Everything had changed. In the space of only a few days, everything had changed. He had shown the world who he was on in the side. A monster, a demonic beast waiting to be unleashed. He had died and descended to a realm of darkness which had felt more like a true home than the one he lived in. And yet at the same time, his soul had screamed to escape out of that place of shadow and flame.
In the space of a week, Izuku had lost all sight of who he was, of what he was, even of what he wanted to become.
He had spoken little since returning home, and he knew he was worrying his mother, but he couldn't find the energy to care. She had lied to him. Perhaps not to his face, perhaps not directly, but she had revealed her hand. She was hiding something from him, something that would explain why he was the way he was, why he was cursed.
Was she doing it to protect him? Or was there some deeper, crueler reason why she kept hiding the truth?
He didn't care to ask.
He had spent the first day at home curled up in his bed, not eating and barely drinking, and it seemed very much like he'd spend the second day doing the same. The curtains were drawn, the lights turned as low as possible. The darkness no longer seemed as all-consuming as it once had done.
Though he supposed once a person had seen what true oblivion was really like everything else was a poor imitation.
He looked to the phone beside his pillow, ignoring the texts from his group chat. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to his friends, it was just… well, he was sure they weren't his friends anymore. How could they be? They had seen him do horrific things. They had seen him tear one creature apart, devour its sour, bloody flesh, then go after the Symbol of Peace.
How could anyone be friends with someone who had that inside them?
The dull phone-light flickered over his face as he scrolled past the headlines dotting his social media. The big news recently was that some pro-hero had suddenly snapped and killed his family, then turned on the police who had shown up to stop him. Seven dead, including the hero-turned-villain. Now the news cycle was going about the stress levels of heroes and how the government really should step in and do something about it, though the other argument was this was just an isolated incident, a terrible tragedy, but otherwise a one-off.
Nothing on the USJ.
He frowned at this. Surely there'd be more in the media concerning the demon monstrosity summoned at the most prestigious school in Japan, right? Or on how it almost tore All Might apart?
"Get up."
The hiss of his curse echoed through his mind and Izuku clicked his phone closed, suddenly shoving it under his pillow and pressing his face into the fabric while gritting his teeth tightly.
"Get up. This is pathetic. We are acting stupid."
Izuku didn't reply. How could he? What would he say? The voice in his head which had tormented him all his life was no longer just a mental illness to be treated with pills. It was something else, something more, something that called him to the very center of Hell to take up that accused throne he had been so close to sitting upon.
"Is this how we're going to act from now on?" Nemesis continued, its voice the burning of cities long past, "Curling up when faced with reality?"
"What am I?" Izuku whispered softly into the darkness. Not to Nemesis, never to Nemesis, but to himself. His fingers curled tighter around his bedsheets, trying to ground his own senses and failing to do so. He barely felt anything outside the crushing numbness of the truth that had settled into his heart. "Am I… even human?"
Nemesis seemed quiet for a long moment before answering, "We are Nemesis. We are Izuku Midoriya. We are shadow and flame. That is all we are, and all we need to be."
Izuku teeth ground together but he said nothing. Nemesis had repeated this claim several times by now and was offering no explanation for anything that had happened. Weirdly enough, Izuku wasn't sure that it even knew itself what had happened. It had never outright lied to him, though it had toyed with its words before when he truly didn't wish to listen to it.
There was a sudden knocking at his door, though he made no effort to move or answer it. It'd just be his mother again, fretting and worrying as she always did.
He was no longer sure how he wanted to act around her. He had always believed her every word, always trusted her to tell him the truth, to be there for him at his darkest moments.
Now, however, he wondered who she really was. If she could lie to her only child for years without batting an eye…
"Izuku? Honey?" Her voice drifted through the closed door. "Are you awake?"
No reply.
"Izuku, there are some people here to see you."
That got his attention. He slowly sat up, his wounds and injuries spiking in pain but he made no effort to stop. Pain was one of the few things he could still feel, and he welcomed the Nemesis-silencing stings across his body.
Suddenly there was more knocking, though not the soft gentle tap of his mother but a loud and slightly irritating banging.
"Oi, Legolas, get the hell out here, we're not spending the whole day sitting in your living room waiting on your dumb ass."
Hitoshi's tired yet irritated voice was like a lightning bolt across his senses. He was here? Seriously? Why the hell was Hitoshi at his house? And how the hell did he even know where he lived?
Izuku wanted to stay in bed. He wanted to continue wallowing in numbing misery at his fate. He didn't want to talk to anyone, or be around anyone, or have anything to do with the rest of humanity for the remainder of his life.
But Hitoshi would just not stop tapping on his door.
"Come on, Spock, we brought you mochi and everything."
"I brought him mochi!" It was Ochaco, "You brought him a keychain!"
"Of All Might!" Hitoshi protested. "He loves All Might!"
"You're both being unreasonably loud!" Tenya quickly joined in, "If he's resting, we should let him be!"
"He's been resting for a week, I'm not leaving without talking to him," Hitoshi quickly grumbled back before knocking again, "Seriously, Izuku, get up."
"I'm so sorry for his behavior, Mrs. Midoriya," Tenya announced as Izuku found himself slowly, but surely, getting out of his bed. He could already see the young man in his mind's eyes, bowing repeatedly to his mother.
The floor was cold from the cool darkness of the room, and the only real light came from the thin strip that lined the bottom of his bedroom door. Yet step by tentative step, he walked towards the light.
Where they really here? Really? After everything that had happened? After everything he had put them through? His stomach flipped and his heart picked up a beat in his chest. This was the most emotion he had felt since leaving, and he wasn't even sure what he was feeling. A crushing, nervous, anxious energy that was half-fueled by fear and half by the weakness he felt infecting his every limb, and yet perhaps there was even… joy in there. Somewhere. It was hard to tell.
His tail swished softly behind him, worried and jittery, like that of a nervous cat.
It had taken some getting used to for the first day or so, especially since it seemed to act entirely on its own devices most of the time. Spiking when he was shocked, drooping when he was sad. He was half-sure it would wag if he smiled, though that was an embarrassment he had yet to suffer through. He had mostly tried to ignore it, however, after all, it was another marker in the road to his eventual damnation.
He had treated his new horns, or rather stumps of horns, much the same. Thankfully the bandages across his head hid them, and he hadn't had the emotional, mental or physical energy to really examine himself in a mirror enough to check them out fully.
Outside the door, Tenya continued to apologize for Hitoshi, "Please forgive him for-"
The floor creaked before his door, and all talking stopped.
Izuku placed a shaking hand on the doorknob and wondered, for a moment, if he should retreat to the safety of his bed. His warm covers, his comforting isolation. He could stay there, and everyone would be safe. Maybe he could declare he was going hikikomori and they'd leave.
And yet, slowly, he turned the knob and opened the door a hair.
The light was so bright that he had to squint and blink hard for a moment, causing the bandages around his forehead to pull.
Once his eyes adjusted, they widened as he saw Hitoshi, Tenya and Ochaco standing together in his hallway, and to one side his mother, watching anxiously, her hands fidgeting together.
"Heeeey!" Hitoshi's smile was small, as all his smiles were, but it was genuine and honest, and it caused a warmth of candle-fire to flicker along Izuku's scars. "There he is! Sleeping beauty awakens!"
"Izuku!" Ochaco practically pushed Hitoshi to one side, her grin wide and worried and joyful all at once, "You're okay!"
"Good afternoon, Izuku!" Tenya, towering above both his friends, matched Hitoshi's smile and raised a hand squarely up in greeting. "It's good to see you up and about!"
They were happy. They were happy to see him. This was… this was impossible. It was more than impossible it was wrong. They shouldn't be here, they shouldn't… this was wrong.
"Are you dressed? We thought we could hang out for a bit." Hitoshi added with a shrug. "We figured you needed some company after what happened."
"Hey! We promised we weren't going to bring that up!" Ochaco hotly chided Hitoshi.
"What? I'm just saying!" Hitoshi swiftly defended in response before his eyes flicked back to Izuku.
"H-Hang out?" Izuku asked as he opened the door just a little wider. His voice croaked and was clearly weighed down by the maddening confusion of the situation.
Now he could see them a little better, Izuku took a second to note their clothes. It was the weekend, and he didn't expect to see them in their uniforms, so to Izuku it was the first time seeing them dressed how he supposed they would normally dress.
Tenya wore beige slacks and a polo shirt with a designer brand logo on the chest pocket, as smart and professional as always. Ochaco wore a white pleated skirt and a nice pink top over a white shirt. Hitoshi wore a pair of dark blue jeans and a black t-shirt with some ornately curved logo and the words 'Dethklok' on it. On his right wrist were a number of rubber bracelets with more various band logos on them.
That was, of course, over the many bandages that were wrapped around him. His right leg and his left arm were in casts, one with a walking boot on and the other held in a sling, which Izuku was rather shocked to see.
Izuku suddenly felt very underdressed in his t-shirt, which had 't-shirt' written on it, and his All Might pajama pants. He hadn't showered in a few days either, and his total lack of any proper meals meant he looked every bit of his extended hospital stay.
"We could do with the company, we are bored of isolation," Nemesis whispered to Izuku's mind, causing the boy to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment, "And at least the Child of Pharaohs is tolerable."
"G-guys," Izuku stammered out softly, "How did you-"
"We called the hospital," Hitoshi shrugged, "They said you'd been released. Then Ochaco did a little digging and found out where you lived after you wouldn't answer our texts."
She laughed awkwardly at this and rubbed the back of her head with one hand, "Well, you know, I was worried about you! We all are."
"So, we decided to pay you a visit," Tenya announced boldly, "We're your friends, after all, and friends check up on other friends!"
Izuku was… lost for words didn't even begin to cover it. He was utterly blown away. How could they… why were they… how? He had been a monster, a demon, and they…
The dam within him broke. The wall that he'd built within himself to hold back the tides of horrible, raw emotion that he didn't want to feel cracked and began falling apart. And with it, the tides of sorrow and self-hate and pain washed into him.
He began sobbing. Within a second, however, the door had been pushed forward and out of his tentative grasp and he found himself being pulled into a hug not just by Ochaco, but by all three of them. Even Hitoshi had reached a hand around his shoulder, which for Hitoshi was practically unheard of.
Izuku's body shook with the pained sobbing of his crushing anguish. Tears wouldn't stop falling from his eyes, yet they were quickly taken into the shoulder of Ochaco. Her perfume, some summer, bright scent, washed through him and candle-flicker moved across his scars. Hitoshi's hand squeezed his shoulder tightly, strong and comforting and even Tenya wrapped an arm around Izuku's upper body.
And between his three friends, Izuku let out all the pain, all the horror, all the crushing anxiety that had been welling up inside him. He sobbed and sniffed and choked and wailed into the arms of people who should, by all rights, hate him.
But here they were.
Even Nemesis, for all the pain and misery and hate it caused Izuku, seemed… humbled by the kindness of the three teenagers. Its fire was not the burning-hot of defense or the wildfire of anger, but like an open fireplace within him. Warm and controlled, if just for that moment.
It took a long time for Izuku to stop, long enough that he became embarrassed by his outburst and began trying to wipe his snotty nose on his t-shirt.
"I'm- I'm so- so s-sorry," He stammered out finally as one by one his friends released their grips on him, "I'm s-so sorry, I'm sor-"
"Izuku, please, you have nothing to apologize for," Tenya's voice, always so solid, drew his eyes and he looked to his friend's gaze, the same color as the open ocean, "What happened wasn't your fault."
"B-But-"
"You were attacked, we all were," Hitoshi spoke with a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He raised his sling-bound arm, "Some more than others, obviously."
"Nemesis took over," Ochaco added, "Because you would have been killed otherwise. Everyone knows this, everyone. And yeah maybe All Might had to do all he could to stop you, but you didn't hurt anyone else."
Izuku paused at those words. Yes, he did have to stop him, and he didn't blame All Might for a second for doing what he had to do. In a strange way, it had opened his eyes to a lot of truths about himself. Truths, and more questions, but in his case, he wondered if he would ever run out of questions.
He thought back to the USJ again, to the hell it had become, and to Hitoshi just before it had all gone to shit. For a moment his pagan-green gaze turned and looked down the hallway towards his mother. Her eyes were ringed red, and she had a handkerchief in her hand.
She had been crying too, though she had done it away from the rest of them. She had known how much it had meant to him to have the others there, and she had let them have their moment.
Izuku's heart felt strange in that moment. He knew his mother loved him, just as he loved her, yet her refusal to let him in on the secrets he knew she kept…
"Hey, g-guys," Izuku sniffed again, finally gathering himself together, "L-Let me wash up and, erm, I'll be out, okay?" His voice lowered suddenly to a whisper, his eyes growing hard and his voice taking on a new, angry, hurt tone, "I have… some things I-I need to tell you. Privately."
SO ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE BAG.
I'd also like to take a moment to apologize for last chapter and the uncalled for break. Holidays kinda swamped me and everything was... well, it was the holidays. Also I didn't answer a whole lot of comments and I'm sorry for that too.
Anyway next chapter is super fun. It has drama, people apologizing, all kinds of things. Kinda wish I'd found a way to combine this chapter and the next one, but the writing gods have spoken so. Yeah.
Till next time dear peeps!
