Irusu (A BNHA x IT AU)

by Seroyonin

It started in the winter of 2004, after the death of Midoriya Izuku's little sister Eri, and it would end almost 16 years later, after Kaminari Denki made his six phone calls. After all, they had all promised that they'd come back. (An "IT" AU with *that* part removed) (Cross posted from Ao3) (Every trigger warning imaginable applies- seriously, proceed with caution)

9. Sero Hanta Falls

—1—

JUNE 13TH, 2005 / IRUSU, JAPAN

Sero hit the ground hard.

His back thudded harshly against the ground, just below a culvert pipe that he hadn't been able to see on top of the bridge. It was a good thing he landed below it, otherwise, he most likely would have broken his back.

Pain was exploding behind his eyes, his back aching horrifically- every bone felt as if it were on the brink of shattering, and Sero had to force himself to stand. His narrow chest heaved with the effort, and he stumbled a few steps backwards down the slope that lead into the barrens. He steadied himself by grabbing onto the thin trunk of a beech tree- but let out a surprised gasp as the soft earth beneath his feet gave away and he was sent sliding backwards down the steep hill.

He saw the top of the embankment speeding away from him cartoonishly fast- he could see Kurogiri and Twice on top of the bridge still, staring after him in shocked awe- and he had just enough time to wonder where Shigaraki was before his body, which had at some point flipped sideways, checked up against something with an agonizing force so great he nearly bit his tongue in half.

It was a fallen tree, and it had stopped Sero's decent into the barrens halfway down by checking his leg so hard it nearly snapped it in half.

Sero clawed his way up the slope a couple of feet, and pulled his leg free (letting out a quiet cry as he did so)- chest stuttering intensely, the water falling from the culvert ran over his hands in steady streams. His nerves felt like they were on fire.

There was a loud cry from above and Sero watched in horror as Shigaraki suddenly appeared, launching himself off of the bridge, and landing on the top of the hill. His knife was held between his teeth, his matted hair seeming wilder than ever as he began to make his way down to Sero by half running half jumping down the descent into the barrens.

"M gon' oo 'ill ooo, Ah-nuh!" He screamed through his knife, and Sero didn't need a translator to tell him Shigaraki was saying 'I'm going to kill you, Ana!'

"M gon' oo huckin 'ill ooo!"

With the same sense of "knowing" Sero had discovered on top of the bridge mere moments earlier, he suddenly knew what he had to do now. He managed to scramble to his feet before Shigaraki arrived, his knife now in his hand, and swinging at wildly in deadly whistles through the air. Sero was now peripherally aware that his left leg was bleeding much heavier then the carved letters on his hip were... but it was supporting him, and that meant it wasn't broken. At least, he hoped that that was what it meant.

Sero crouched slightly to keep his balance, and as Shigaraki's knife cut jaggedly across his forearm, (held up to cover his face) Sero stepped aside. He lost his balance as he did, but as he fell, he stuck out his shredded left leg. Shigaraki's shins struck it, and for a moment, all the color in Sero's world ceased as an agonizing wave of pain coursed through his scrawny body.

Through this black and white lens, Sero watched as Shigaraki seemed to fly- His arms were straight out in front of him, the way Superman held his arms out on the TV show. Only Superman always looked like flying was as natural as taking a bath or eating lunch on the back porch. Shigaraki looked like someone had shoved a hot poker up his ass. His mouth was opening and closing. A string of saliva was shooting back from one corner of it, and as Sero watched, it splatted against the lobe of Shigaraki's ear.

Then Shigaraki crashed back to earth. The knife flew out of his hand. He rolled over on one shoulder, landed on his back, and slid away into the bushes with his legs splayed into a V. There was a yell. A thud. And then silence.

Sero sat, dazed, his leg throbbing. He stared wide-eyed at the mess of thick bushes Shigaraki had disappeared into, not knowing what to do from here. (Un)Luckily for him, it was about that time when Kurogiri and Twice began to chuck loose pieces of asphalt from the road at him and beginning to make their way from the bridge down the hill towards him themselves. They were moving more carefully than Shigaraki had, hence more slowly, but they would reach him in thirty seconds or less if he didn't do something.- He moaned. Would this bullshit never end?

Keeping his eye on them, he clambered over the downed tree and began to scramble down the embankment, panting harshly. He had a stitch in his side. His tongue hurt like hell. The bushes were now almost as tall as Sero himself. The randy green smell of stuff growing out of control filled his nose. He could hear running water somewhere close, chuckling over stones and rilling between them.

His feet slipped and here he went again, rolling and sliding, smashing the back of his hand against a jutting rock, shooting through a patch of thorns that hooked blue-gray puffs of cotton from his uniform jacket and little divots of meat from his hands and cheeks-

He came to a jarring halt, his legs submerged in cool water. He'd landed in a channel of the shibui stream. To his right, he could see the stream curve and disappear around a bend of thick vegetation, to his left he could see Shigaraki Tomura laying eerily still on his back in the middle of the water. His half-open eyes only showing whites and the blood trickling from his ear and mouth running towards Sero in wispy crimson ribbons.

'Oh my god, I've killed him-' Sero thought, panicking. 'I'm a murderer! Shit, shit, shit!'

Forgetting that Kurogiri and Twice were coming for him, Sero splashed up the stream towards Shigaraki. His school uniform was in tatters- holes poking through every piece of fabric and blood soaking through the rest. Sero was dimly aware that his own uniform wasn't much better, his jacket was hardly a jacket anymore, his khakis now more dark red then tan- (god, how was he ever supposed to get another one? His mother certainly wouldn't pay for it) and his body was just one giant ache. The deep cut on his arm still oozed with warm blood, small cuts and bruises littered him from head to toe, the etchings on his side throbbed and burned hot- but his ankle was the worst. It was already swollen inside his soaked high-top sneaker and he was favoring it so badly he was more lurching than walking towards Shigaraki.

He leaned over Shigaraki Tomura. Shigaraki's eyes popped wide open and he lunged for Sero's calf with one bloody and dry hand. His mouth worked, and though only a serious of half-noises came from his throat, Sero could make out what he was saying: "I'll kill you, you anorexic shit."

Shigaraki was trying to pull himself up, using Sero's leg as a pole. Sero pulled backward frantically. Shigaraki's hand slipped down, then off. Sero flew backward, whirling his arms, and fell backward for a record-breaking third time in the last four minutes. He also bit his tongue again. Water splashed up around him. A rainbow glimmered for an instant in front of Sero's eyes. Sero didn't give a fuck about the rainbow.

Shigaraki, after quite a bit of struggling, managed to get shakily to his feet. His light-blue hair was stained in crimson streaks, his matching crimson eyes glimmered dangerously in Sero's direction, his forever-dry lips pulled back in a snark.

And suddenly, Sero was angry. No, he was more than just angry- he was infuriated. He had just been walking down the street with his summer reading book under his arm, already feeling like shit while thinking about his mother, about to light another cigarette and calm down, bothering who? No one- no one at all- and now he was in the middle of a stream, school uniform destroyed, bleeding all over the place, and in all sorts of pain. His left ankle was maybe broken, badly sprained for sure, his arm was all cut up, his tongue was all cut up, and he even had Shigaraki goddamn Tomura's monogram partially scarred into his hip forever now- he'd been branded like cattle- and all because he hadn't let Shigaraki copy off an exam he almost failed himself?

But what pissed him off the most was the summer reading book. He had no idea where it was now, and the thought of Nemuri's disappointed look (the same look his mother always gave him) when he told her he had lost it was what really drove him to charge Shigaraki Tomura that summer afternoon. He stumbled forward, adrenaline flowing through him rapidly, and kicked Shigaraki square in the balls.

Shigaraki uttered a horrid rusty scream that sent birds beating up from the trees. He stood spraddle-legged for a moment, hands clasping his crotch, staring unbelievingly at Sero. "Ug," he said in a small voice.

"Right," Sero said.

"Ung..." Shigaraki said again, in an even smaller voice.

"Right," Sero repeated.

Shigaraki sank slowly back to his knees (well, it was more like he folded), small spots of blood beginning to appear on the crotch of his Khaki's. "Ug..."

"Damn right," Sero said, before kicking him in the chest.

"Fuuu...ck..." Shigaraki groaned. He was now beginning to gain a little force, and Sero started to back away a step at a time. He was sickened by what he had done, but he was also filled with a kind of righteous, paralyzed fascination. "Ug!-my fuckin-ug-UG!-oh my fuckin-"

It was then, as the adrenaline was beginning to wear off and Shigaraki's wails were beginning to get louder, that a chunk of asphalt struck Sero against the cheek with such a deep, drilling pain that, until he felt warm blood flowing again, Sero thought he had been stung by a wasp.

He turned and saw the other two striding up the middle of the stream toward him. They each had a handful of a twisted mixture of water-rounded rocks and asphalt. Kurogiri pegged one and Sero heard it whistle past his ear. He ducked and another struck his right knee, making him yell with surprised hurt. A third bounced off his right cheekbone, and that eye filled with water.

He scrambled for the far bank and climbed it as fast as he could, grabbing onto protruding roots and hauling on handfuls of bushes. He made it to the top (one final stone struck the back of his left thigh as he pulled himself up) and took a quick look back over his shoulder.

Kurogiri was kneeling next to Shigaraki while twice stood half-a-dozen feet away chucking rocks and asphalt; one of the two the size of a baseball zoomed through the thick bushes and clipped Sero's shoulder. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, and turned to leave, he had seen enough; in fact, he had seen much more than enough. Worst of all, Shigaraki was getting up again, say what you want to about him but the guy could take a beating. Sero smashed his way through the bushes, stumbling towards what he hoped was west. If he got out of the barrens up by Shion Avenue, he could beg some change off someone and catch a bus home. Holding onto the thought of taking a long, cold, shower, once he got back home, he shoved his way through the thick brush.

Bushes sprang into his face. Sero pushed them aside. Thorns reached and clawed. He tried to ignore them. He came to a flat area of ground that was black and mucky. A thick stand of bamboo-like growth spread across it and a fetid smell rose from the earth. An ominous thought

(quicksand)

slipped across the foreground of his mind like a shadow as he looked at the sheen of standing water deeper into the grove of bamboo-stuff. He didn't want to go in there. Even if it wasn't quicksand, the mud would suck his high-tops off. He turned right instead, running along the front of the bamboo-grove and finally into a patch of real woods.

The trees, mostly beech, were thick, growing everywhere, battling each other for a little space and sun, but there was less undergrowth and he could move faster. He was no longer sure what direction he was moving in, but still thought he was a little ahead of the game. The Barrens was enclosed by Irusu on three sides and bounded by the half-finished turnpike extension on the fourth. Sooner or later he would come out somewhere.

His back and stomach throbbed painfully, so he stopped and lifted up the shredded remains of his shirt. He drew in a sharp whistle of air through his teeth, feeling a little sick. His stomach and chest were scraped up grotesquely, and he had a feeling his back was in a similar state.

Now he heard a low humming noise from ahead-it was one steady note just above the low range of his hearing. An adult, intent only on getting the hell out of there (the mosquitoes had found Sero now, and while nowhere near as big as sparrows, they were pretty big), would have ignored it, or simply not heard it at all. But Sero was a boy, and he was already getting over his fright. He swerved to his left and pushed through some low laurel bushes. Beyond them, sticking out of the ground, were the top three feet of a cement cylinder about four feet wide. It was capped with a vented iron manhole cover. The cover was stamped with the words IRUSU SEWER DEPT. The sound-this close it was more a drone than a hum-was coming from someplace deep inside.

Sero put one eye to a vent hole but could see nothing. He could hear that drone, and water running down there someplace, but that was all. He took a breath, got a whiff of a sour smell that was both dank and shitty, and drew back with a wince. It was a sewer, that was all. Or maybe a combined sewer and drainage-tunnel-there were plenty of those in flood-conscious Irusu. No big deal. But it had given him a funny sort of chill. Part of it was seeing the handiwork of humans in all this overgrown jumble of wilderness, but he supposed another part of it was the shape of the thing itself-that concrete cylinder jutting out of the ground. Sero had read H. G. Wells's The Time Machine the year before (the Classics Comics version, not the book) This cylinder with its vented iron cap reminded him of the wells which lead down into the country of the slumped and horrible Morlocks.

He moved away from it quickly, trying to find west again. He got to a link clearing and turned until his shadow was as directly behind him as he could get it. Then he headed off in a straight line.

As he moved forward, he began to hear voices- kid's voices.

He stopped to listen, and that was when he heard snapping branches and other voices behind him. Those were perfectly recognizable. They belonged to Kurogiri, Twice, and the one and only Shigaraki Tomura.

The nightmare was not over yet, it seemed.

Sero looked around for a place to hide.

—2—

When he had heard the three of them behind him, coming after him still, Sero had come dangerously close to freezing up completely, like an animal caught in the headlamps of an oncoming truck. However, instead, his vision had begun to swim, and his knees had begun to go weak- and he awoke laying face down on the ground twenty-minutes later.

He had passed out.

He could still hear the kids- boys, he was pretty sure- voices from earlier as he pulled himself up weakly. His body, for the first time ever, felt heavy- and his arms and legs shook with the effort. He was light-headed, his mouth tasted like pennies, and he was cold.

He staggered woozily through the trees, his slight chest wheezing. He passed close enough to the boys to see their shadows but moved on- neither of them seeing nor hearing Sero as he went.

Eventually, he came to a narrow path, Sero considered it for a moment, then shook his head a little. He crossed it and plunged into the undergrowth again. He moved more slowly now, pushing bushes aside rather than stampeding through them. He was still moving roughly parallel to the stream the other kids had been playing beside. Even through the intervening bushes and trees he could see it was much wider than the one into which he and Shigaraki had fallen.

Here was another of those concrete cylinders, barely visible amid a snarl of blackberry creepers, humming quietly to itself. Beyond, an embankment dropped off to the stream, and here an old, gnarled elm tree leaned crookedly out over the water. Its roots, half-exposed by bank erosion, looked like a snarl of dirty hair.

Sero, vision shifting between cloudy and clear with each throb of his aching head (when had that started?), clambered on top of it- he felt numb. He worked his way in between the roots into a shallow cave underneath and laid against it- nearly drifting off into unconsciousness once more.

Kurogiri's voice drifted through the cloudy fog overtaking Sero's mind: "bet those two knotholes know where Ana went."

"Well, let's go find out," Shigaraki replied, and a few moments later Sero heard him roar: "What the fuck you kids doing here?"

There was some sort of reply, but Sero couldn't tell what it was: the kids were too far away, and this close the river was too loud. But he thought the kid sounded scared. Sero could sympathize.

Then Kurogiri had drawled out something that confused Sero Hanta immensely: "What a stupid baby dam."

Baby dam? Baby damn? Or maybe Kurogiri had said 'what a damn bunch of babies' and Sero had misheard him.

"Let's break it!" Twice proposed.

There were yells of protest followed by a scream of pain. Yes, Sero could sympathize. They hadn't been able to catch him (or at least not yet), but there was another bunch of kids for them to take out their mad on.

"Sure, break it," Shigaraki said.

Splashes. Yells. Big moronic gusts of laughter from Twice and a chuckle from Kurogiri. An agonized infuriated cry from one of the kids.

"Don't gimme any of your shit, you stuttering little freak," Shigaraki said. "I'm not taking any more shit from anybody else today."

There was a splintering crack. The sound of running water downstream grew louder and roared briefly before quieting to its former placid chuckle. Sero suddenly understood. 'Baby dam', yes, that was what Kurogiri had said. The kids-two or three of them it had sounded like when he passed by-had been building a dam. Shigaraki and his friends had just kicked it apart. Sero even thought he knew who one of the kids was. The only "stuttering little freak" he knew from Irusu Elementary was Deku, (Midoriya Izuku was his real name, but no one really called him that) who was in the other fifth-grade classroom.

"You didn't have to do that!" a thin and fearful voice cried out, and Sero recognized that voice as well, although he could not immediately put a face with it. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I felt like it, wheezy!" Shigaraki hissed back. There was a thud. The thud was followed closely by a yell of pain.

"Shut up," Kurogiri growled menacingly. "Or I'll give you something to really yell about."

The other boy didn't make a sound.

"We're going," Shigaraki said, "but before we do, I want to know one thing. Have you guys seen a skinny kid in the last ten minutes or so? Tiny little anorexic freak? all bloody and cut up?"

There was a reply too brief to be anything but "no."

"You sure?" Twice asked. "You better be, mushmouth."

"I-I-I'm sh-sh-sure," Deku replied.

"Let's go," Shigaraki said. "He probably waded across back that way."

"Ta-ta, boys," Kurogiri called. "It was a real baby dam, believe me. You're better off without it."

Twice said something as well, but by then the three of them were too far ahead for Sero to make it out. In fact, Sero decided he didn't want to make it out. Ahead of him, one of the boys began to let out loud gasping breaths, and Sero could hear the other begin to comfort him. He had figured out by then that there were only two of them: Deku and the gasper.

His vision was beginning to swim again, and he was vaguely aware that he was about to lose consciousness once more. Sero could hear the throb of the drainage machinery coming through the earth-could even feel it: a low, steady vibration that went from the ground to the root he was leaning against and then into his back. He thought of the Morlocks again, of their naked flesh; he imagined it would smell like the dank and shitty air that had come up through the ventholes of that iron cap. He thought of their wells driven deep into the earth, wells with rusty ladders bolted to their sides. He slipped back into unconsciousness, and at some point, his thoughts became a dream.

Sero Hanta did not dream of Morlocks. Instead, he dreamed of the thing that had happened to him in January- the thing he had not quite been able to tell Chief Okumura.

—3—

JANUARY 16TH, 2005 / IRUSU, JAPAN

It had been about a week since they had returned to school after their winter break. Mrs. Fukui (Sero's grade 4 teacher) had asked for a volunteer to stay after class and help her clean up the classroom after an afternoon of science experiments. Sero, who had seen his mother down half a bottle of booze before he had even left for school that morning, raised his hand.

"Thank you, Hanta." Mrs. Fukui smiled, aiming a smile so fond at him that it nearly filled the gaping void in his chest labeled "maternal affection." He heard someone cough 'suck up' into their arm, but chose to ignore it.

It was the sort of Hokkaido winter that they had all grown accustomed too- snowy and so cold it was a little frightening. To make the ten-degree temperature worse, there was a strong wind to give the cold a bitter cutting edge.

Sero cleared off the soil-covered desks and wiped them down with a cleaner-soaked cloth afterward. Mrs. Fukui disposed of seedling bags and swept the floors. When they were both finished, Sero helped her carry the science textbooks down to the storage room- they wouldn't need them again this year.

Past the groaning radiator, and directly underneath the gym where the basketball team was practicing- the thumping of the ball, thundering of their feet, and squeaking of their shoes echoing loudly above Sero and Mrs. Fukui- the two of them slid the textbooks back where they belonged.

Little by little, the sounds of thumping balls, slamming doors, typing, and much more end-of-the-day noise began to cease until eventually all but the gentle bump of the books sliding into their slots and the gentle "swish swoosh" of the janitor's broom sweeping through the hall was the only thing that reached sero's ears.

"And we're all done." Mrs. Fukui smiled at him, and Sero smiled back happily.

Sero looked toward the book room's one narrow basement window and saw that the light was fading rapidly from the sky. It was four o'clock and dusk was at hand. Bone chilling wind blew across the icy jungle gym and skirled between the teetertotters, which were frozen solidly into the ground. Only the thaws of April would break those bitter winter-welds. He saw no one at all on Taiko Street. He looked a moment longer, expecting a car to roll through the Taiko- Shinrinyoku intersection, but none did. Everyone in Irusu save for himself and Mrs. Fukui might be dead or fled, at least from what he could see from here.

He looked toward her and saw, with a touch of real fright, that she was feeling almost exactly the same things he was feeling himself. He could tell by the look in her eyes. They were deep and thoughtful and far off, not the eyes of a schoolteacher in her forties but those of a child. Her hands were folded just below her chest, as if in prayer.

'I'm scared' Sero thought, 'and so is she- but of what?'

He didn't know, and then she looked at him and let out a nervous laugh. "I've kept you too late." She said, a touch of color flushing her cheeks- she was embarrassed- "I'm sorry, Hanta."

"It's ok." 'I didn't want to go home anyway.'

"If I had a car I'd give you a ride." She began, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. "My husband is going to be here around a quarter to five if you want to wait-"

"No, it's fine." Sero shrugged, not at all liking the idea of getting into her husbands car, and giving her a lazy smile. "I can walk."

"Maybe your mother could-"

Sero gave her a look. Mrs. Fukui winced a little, that embarrassed flush growing brighter.

"...right... well- Mr. Usui might still be here, I bet he'd give you a ride-"

"-I'll be alright. It's only a mile." Sero shrugged, smiling once again- they were climbing up the stairs now.

"A mile isn't far when it's nice, but I think it's about to start snowing." Mrs. Fukui worried, looking over Sero's small frame. She frowned deeper as they walked back into the classroom. "... oh, just- promise me you'll go in somewhere if you get too cold, alright Hanta?"

Sero gave her a mock salute. "You got it. I'll go into the 'Ori Road Trade'- they usually have a fire going in that giant stone fireplace on super cold days and will let you sit by it for a while if you buy somethin'... and I've got a couple of dollars." This was a lie.

Mrs. Fukui nodded, though she still didn't seem happy. Sero pulled on his backpack and headed for the door. "It just looks so cold out... please, please go inside The Trade if you need to..."

Sero saluted again, before blowing his ebony fringe out of his eyes. "You got it."

In the hallway, Mr. Tajima, the janitor said: "Be careful about the frostbite, kid."

Sero walked down the hall and towards the metal double-doored entrance slowly, zipping up his ratty, thin, yellow, and black hoodie (that he'd pulled out of his backpack) up as high as he could. He pushed open the freezing door, and stood on the snow-packed step for a moment, a deep chill cutting through the cheap fabric of his hoodie like it was nothing. Snowflakes floated down lazily from the sky- it had begun snowing just as Mrs. Fukui had predicted.

The wind blew steadily. The snap-hooks on the flagpole rope rattled a lonesome tattoo against the steel pole itself. That wind cut into the warm and unprepared flesh of Sero's face at once, numbing his cheeks.

"Be careful of the frostbite, kid."

Sero lifted his hood up and pulled the front of the hoodie up over his nose. He got moving almost at once.

At first, the bitter wind had been at his back and hadn't been that bad. But then, he'd had to turn left down the road that would become the bridge stretching over the Shibui stream and was almost knocked backward by the force. His eyes throbbed and the moisture in his nose froze. His legs were going numb. Several times he pulled his hands into his sleeves to warm them up. The wind whooped and screamed, sometimes sounding almost human.

All at once, Sero finally was able to understand how people could freeze to death.

The moving air burned like needles, but it was fresh and clean. White smoke jetted from his nose in neat little streams. He was just stepping onto the bridge now. A mere three blocks from his house- five blocks from Kaminari's. He debates on which one to head towards, but before he can reach a conclusion- he pauses.

On one side of the bridge was the steep drop into the barrens Sero would find himself sliding down nearly six months from now. On the other was a murky pond that one of the Shibui stream's channels ran into- which was currently frozen solid.

A figure was standing on the ice down there.

Sero stared at it and thought: There may be a man down there, but can he be wearing what it looks like he's wearing? It's impossible, isn't it?

The figure was dressed in what appeared to be a white-silver clown suit. It rippled around him in the polar wind. There were oversized orange shoes on his feet. They matched the pompom buttons which ran down the front of his suit. One hand grasped a bundle of strings which rose to a bright bunch of balloons, and when Sero observed that the balloons were floating in his direction, he felt unreality wash over him more strongly. He closed his eyes, rubbed them, opened them. The balloons still appeared to be floating toward him.

But... that was impossible- because Sero could clearly feel the wind pushing harshly against his back now as he stood, staring at the figure on the ice.

"Be careful of the frostbite, kid."

He had to be hallucinating, right? It was the only possible explanation. There could be a man down there on the ice; he supposed it was even technically possible he could be wearing a clown suit. But the balloons couldn't be floating toward Sero, into the wind. Yet that was just what they appeared to be doing.

"Hanta!" The clown called from the ice, but Sero could have sworn that the sound was coming from somewhere inside his head. "Want a balloon, Hanta?"

There was something so evil in that voice, so awful, that Sero wanted to run away as fast as he could, but his feet seemed as welded to this sidewalk as the teetertotters in the schoolyard were welded to the ground.

"They float, Hanta! They float! Wanna try one and see?"

The clown began walking along the ice toward the bridge where Sero stood. Sero watched him come, not moving; he watched as a bird watches an approaching snake. The balloons should have burst in the intense cold, but they did not; they floated above and ahead of the clown when they should have been streaming out behind him, they floated out towards the Barrens... where, some part of Sero's mind assured him, this creature had come from in the first place.

Now Sero noticed something else.

Although the last of the daylight had struck a rosy glow across the ice of the pond, the clown cast no shadow. None at all.

"You'll like it here, Hanta," the clown said. Now it was close enough so Sero could hear the 'dud-dud' sound its funny shoes made as they advanced over the uneven ice. "You'll like it here, I promise, all the boys and girls I meet like it here because it's like Pleasure Island in Pinocchio and Never-Never Land in Peter Pan; they never have to grow up and that's what all the kiddies want! So come on! See the sights, have a balloon, feed the elephants, ride the Chute-the-Chutes! Oh you'll like it and oh Hanta how you'll float -"

And in spite of his fear, Sero found that part of him did want a balloon. Who in all the world owned a balloon which would float into the wind? Who had even heard of such a thing? Yes... he wanted a balloon, and he wanted to see the clown's face, which was bent down toward the ice as if to keep it out of that killer wind.

What might have happened if the five o'clock whistle atop the Irusu Town Hall hadn't blown just then Sero didn't know... didn't want to know. The important thing was that it did blow, an ice-pick of sound drilling into the deep winter cold. And then the clown-

Elfen Lied.

The name of the anime burned through Sero's mind as his eyes widened in terror. 'Oh my god it's just like Elfen Lied-'

The clown's left hand severed itself from its body in a quick burst of blood. The things that had once been balloons were now decapitated heads, now rolling on the ice towards him instead of floating, the balloons strings still tied to their dripping necks. Moments later, the clown severed its own left arm telepathically in another bloody burst.

Though he had never been scared while watching the anime through the year before, Sero had had a particularly horrific dream about a month ago where he had been mutilated and murdered by Lucy- and had woken up sweaty and horrified- and now-

"We all float down here." The clown said it's face covered by a silver face shield, and Sero realized with a floozy sense of horror that it had reached the bridge. It reached its remaining arm up towards the bridge, and Sero felt his mouth go dry as it cut off its own pinky in another crimson splatter.

Sero felt the remaining fingers tug the hem of his pants, and saw his own terrified expression reflected back to him in the visor cut into the shield- and this was enough to shock him into action. He yanked free of the creatures grasp and pounded the rest of the way across the bridge with the shriek of the five o'clock whistle in his ears; it had to of been a hallucination- had to of been- The clown simply could not have come so far during the whistle's ten-or fifteen-second blast.

His fear was not a hallucination.

Neither were the hot tears he felt beginning to drip down his face and freeze almost at once against his face. He ran, boots thudding on the sidewalk, and behind him, he could hear the clown climbing up onto the bridge- he could hear the whistle of the wind being cut in half by the metal face shield, he could hear the splattering of blood and wet ripping noise as something else was removed from its body. He could smell the thick musk of iron wafting through the air, so strong that it made him nauseous- this wasn't happening. This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening.

But then he reached the corner of his own street, bones aching, cheeks frozen from the tears- when he, at last, looked over his shoulder, the street was empty. The old wooden bridge with its sun-bleached rails was also empty- and Sero had a feeling that if he were to look out across the pond, he wouldn't see the creature there either. No, that creature, if it hadn't been a hallucination, would be in the barrens- watching, awaiting its next victim.

Sero hurried home, looking behind him every couple of steps, before finally reaching his door and locking it behind him. His mother was passed out on the couch, and despite his terror, he made sure to turn her over on her side and put a pillow behind her back- and unconscious move at this point- shakily clambering into his bed and lying there for who knows how long- desperately trying to forget what he had just seen.

—4—

JUNE 13TH, 2005 / IRUSU, JAPAN

Sero Hanta came to with a gasp, the memory of the clown fresh on his mind for the first time in quite a while.

Ha panicked, momentarily forgetting where he was and why, and scrambled towards the first glimmer of light he saw. He crawled out into afternoon sunlight and the babble of the stream, and everything fell into place again. It was summer, not winter. The creature had not dragged him down into the bowels of whatever it had crawled out of- he was just simply hiding from Shigaraki and his gang.

He had been out just long enough to stiffen up. Sero stretched his aching muscles, and limped his way down to the stream, wincing with every step. There seemed to be dried or drying up blood on every inch of his skin, and his ankle was more swollen than ever-

'The dam-building kids will be gone already,' he consoled himself. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out, but even if it had only been half an hour, the encounter with Shigaraki and his friends would have convinced Deku and his pal that some other place-like Timbuktu, maybe-would be better for their health.

Sero plugged grimly along, knowing if Shigaraki came back now he would not stand a chance of outrunning them. He hardly cared.

He rounded an elbow-bend in the stream and cried out as he fell what must have been the million goddamn time at this point. He pushed himself up with a great deal of effort, water running over his body, stinging his open wounds. Sero was seriously considering just giving up and laying there until the curfew hit when-

"Heh-heh-hey!"

Sero drifted his eyes over tiredly, a dull ache throbbing behind them.

The dam-builders were still there. One of them was indeed Deku. He was kneeling beside the other boy, who was propped against the stream-bank in a sitting position. This other kid's head was thrown so far back that his adam's apple stood out like a triangular plug. There was dried blood around his nose, on his chin, and painted along his neck in a couple of streams. He had something white clasped loosely in one hand.

Deku was staring at Sero wide-eyed- he looked pale. Sero saw with dismay that something was very wrong with the boy propped up on the bank; Deku was obviously scared to death. He thought miserably: 'Won't this day ever end?'

"I wonder if yuh-yuh-you could help m-m-me," Deku said. "H-His In-In-In- Inha- hay- hay-ler is eh-hempty. I think he m-might be-"

His face froze, turned red with frustration. He dug at the word, stuttering like a machine-gun. It took almost thirty seconds worth of "d-d-d-d" before Sero realized Deku was trying to say the other kid might be dying.