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)

24. Three Uninvited Guests

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May 29th, 2020
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—1—

SHINRI, JAPAN

The day after Kaminari Denki made his six phone calls, Shigaraki Tomura began to hear voices.

The voices had been talking to him all day long. For awhile, Shigaraki thought they were coming from the moon. In the late afternoon, looking up from where he was hoeing in the garden, he could see the moon in the blue daytime sky, pale and small. A ghost-moon.

That, in fact, was why he believed it was the moon that was talking to him. Only a ghost-moon would talk in ghost-voices- the voices of his old friends, and the voices of those little kids who had played down in the Barrens so long ago. Those, and another voice... one he did not dare name.

Kurogiri spoke from the moon first, in that almost sophisticated draw of his; "They're coming back, Tomura. All of them. They're coming back to Irusu."

Then Twice spoke from the moon, perhaps from the dark side of the moon. "You're the only one, Tomura. The only one of us left. You'll have to get 'em for me and Giri- no little kids can blow us out like that. Why, I hit a ball one time in the Tetsutetsu's truck lot, and Chiyoko herself said that ball would have been out of Es con Field."

He hoed, looking up at the ghost-moon in the sky, and after awhile Umeda came over and hit him on the back of the neck and knocked him flat on his face.

"You're hoeing up the peas right along with the weeds, Tomura."

Shigaraki got up, brushing dirt off his face and out of his hair. There stood Umeda, a tall man in a white jacket and black pants, his hulking body all muscle. It was illegal for the guards (who were called "counsellors" here at Juniper Hill) to carry billyclubs, so a number of them- Umeda, Furuta, and Todoroki were the worst- carried rolls of 5¥ coins in their pockets. They almost always hit you with them in the same place, right in the back of the neck. There was no rule against coins. Coins were not considered a deadly weapon at Juniper Hill, an institution for the mentally insane which stood on the outskirts of Shinri near the Okuzaki town line.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Umeda," Shigaraki said, and offered a big grin which, splitting apart parts of his dry lips, showed off his yellowing teeth.

"Yeah, you're sorry," Umeda muttered darkly. "You'll be a lot sorrier if I catch you doing it again, Tomura."

"Yes sir, Mr. Umeda."

Umeda walked away, his black shoes leaving big brown tracks in the dirt of West Garden. Because Umeda's back was turned, Shigaraki took a moment to look around surreptitiously. They had been shooed out to hoe as soon as the clouds cleared, everyone from the Blue Ward- which was where they put you if you had once been very dangerous but were now considered only moderately dangerous. Actually, all the patients at Juniper Hill were considered moderately dangerous; it was a facility for the criminally insane. Shigaraki Tomura was here because he had been convicted of killing his father in the late fall of 2005- it had been a busy year for murder, 2005... a busy year indeed...

...Only of course it wasn't just his father they thought he had killed; if it had only been his father, Shigaraki would not have spent twelve years in Wakkanai Mental Health Facility, much of that time under physical and chemical restraint. No, not just his father; the authorities thought he had killed all of them- or at least most of them.

Following the verdict the Irusu Weekly News had published a front-page editorial titled "The End of Irusu's Long Night." In it they had recapped the salient points: the belt in Shigaraki's bureau that belonged to the missing Toga Himiko; the jumble of schoolbooks, some signed out to the missing Bubaigawara Jin (most commonly referred to as Twice) and some to the missing Kurogiri, both known friends of the Shigaraki boy, in Shigaraki's closet; most damning of all, the pair of panties found shoved behind Shigaraki's mattress, panties which had been identified by laundry-mark as having belonged to Hado Nejire, deceased.

Shigaraki Tomura, the News declared, had been the monster haunting Irusu in the summer of 2005.

But then the News had proclaimed the end of Irusu's long night on the front page of its December 6th edition, and even someone like Shigaraki knew that in Irusu night never ended.

They had bullied him with questions, had stood around him in a circle, had pointed fingers at him. Twice the Chief of Police had slapped him across the face and once a detective named Kumagai had punched him in the gut, telling him to fess up, and be quick.

"There's people outside and they aren't happy, Tomura," this Kumagai had said. "There hasn't been a lynching in Irusu for a long time, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be one."

He supposed they would have kept it up as long as necessary, not because any of them really believed the good citizens of Irusu were going to break into the Police station, carry Shigaraki out, and hang him from a Japanese Maple, but because they were desperate to close the books on that summer's blood and horror; they would have, but Shigaraki didn't make them. They wanted him to confess to everything, he understood after awhile. Shigaraki didn't mind. After the horror in the sewers, after what had happened to Twice and Kurogiri, he didn't seem to mind about anything. "Yes," he had said, "I did kill my father." This was true. "Yes, I killed Kurogiri and Jin." This was also true, at least in the sense that he had led them into the tunnels where they had been murdered. "Yes, I killed Himiko. Yes, Nejire. Yes Asui. Yes Katsuma. Yes one, yes all." Not true, but it didn't matter. Blame needed to be taken. Perhaps that was why he had been spared. And if he refused...

He understood about Toga's belt. He had won it from her playing seal one day in April, discovered the rhinestones were fake, and tossed it in his drawer. He understood about the books, too- hell, the three of them hung together nearly 24/7 and they cared no more for their summer textbooks than they had for their regular ones, which is to say, they cared for them about as much as a woodchuck cares for tap-dancing. There were probably as many of his books in their closets, and the cops probably knew it, too.

The panties... no, he didn't know how Hado Nejire's underwear had come to be stuffed in between his mattress and the wall...

...But he thought he knew who- or what- had taken care of it.

Best not to talk about such things.

Best to just shut up.

So they sent him to Wakkanai and finally, in 2017, they had transferred him to Juniper Hill, and he had only run into trouble once here and that was because at first no one understood. A guy had tried to turn off Shigaraki's nightlight. The nightlight was made to look like Calcifer from Howl's moving castle. Calcifer was protection after the sun went down. With no light, things could come in. The locks on the door and the wire mesh did not stop them. They came like mist. Things. They talked and laughed... and sometimes they clutched. Hairy things, smooth things, things with eyes. The sort of things that had really killed Kurogiri and Twice when the three of them had chased the kids into the tunnels under Irusu in August of 2005.

Looking around now, he saw the others from the Blue Ward. There was Chisaki Kai, who had murdered his mother, father, and two family friends one winter night in 2010 after becoming convinced they had come down with the plague... or something... his head was studiously bent, his shaggy hair blowing in the breeze, hands twitching strangely underneath his double-layered gloves. There was Nomu Shiba, and all they said in the papers about Nomu was that he had killed his mother during the summer of 2008, but what they hadn't said in the papers was that Nomu had tried a novel experiment in body-disposal: by the time the cops came Nomu had eaten more than half of her, including her brains. "They made me twice as smart," Nomu had confided to Shigaraki one night after lights-out.

In the row beyond Nomu, hoeing fanatically and singing the same line over and over, as always, was Komeada Yuji. Komeada had been a firebug- a pyromaniac. Now as he hoed he sang this line from the Doors over and over: "Try to set the night on fire, try to set the night on fire, try to set the night on fire, try to-"

It got on your nerves after awhile.

Beyond Komeada was Nakao Juruo, who had raped over fifty women before being caught with his pants down in Sapporo's Odori Park. The ages of his victims ranged from three to eighty-one. Not very particular was Nakao Jurou. Beyond him but way back was Taketa Isamu, who spent as much time looking dreamily at his hoe as he did using it. Umeda, Todoroki, and Furuta had all tried the roll-of-coins-in-the-fist trick on Taketa to try and convince him he could move a bit faster, and one day Furuta had hit him maybe a little too hard because blood came not only from Taketa Isuma's nose but also from Taketa's ears and that night he had a convulsion. Not a big one; just a little one. But since then Taketa had drifted further and further into his own interior blackness and now he was a hopeless case, almost totally unplugged from the world. Beyond Taketa was-

"You want to pick it up or I'll give you some more help, Tomura!" Umeda bellowed, and Shigaraki began to hoe again. He didn't want any convulsions. He didn't want to end up like Taketa Isuma.

Soon the voices started in again. But this time they were the voices of the others, the voices of the kids that had gotten him into this in the first place, whispering down from the ghost-moon.

"You couldn't even catch a skinny-freak like me, Tomura," one of them whispered. "Didn't even use the right eating disorder to bully me with... Now I'm rich and you're hoeing peas. Ha-ha on you, asshole!"

"Tuh-Tuh-Tomura, you c-c-couldn't c-catch a c-c-cold! Read a-any g-g-good b-b-books since you've been in th-there? I ruh-ruh-wrote lots! I'm ruh-ruh-rich and y-you're in Juh-Juh-hooniper Hill! Ha-ha on you, you stupid asshole!"

"Shut up," Shigaraki whispered to the ghost-voices, hoeing faster, beginning to hoe up the new pea-plants along with the weeds. Sweat rolled down his cheeks like tears. "We could've taken you. We could've."

"We got you locked up, you asshole!" another voice laughed. "You chased me and couldn't catch me and I got rich, too! Way to-fucking-go, banana-heels!"

"Shut up," Shigaraki muttered, hoeing faster. "Just shut up!"

"Do you like how my father beats you, Tomura?" Another voice asked, dull and cold. "Because he used to beat me like that too... but I got away, and now I'm rich too, and you're stuck here with him. Forever. So ha-ha Tomura. Ha-Ha all OVER you-"

He hoed madly, weeds and dirt and pea-plants flying; the ghost-voices from the ghost-moon were very loud now, echoing and flying in his head, and Umeda was running toward him, bellowing, but Shigaraki could not hear. Because of the voices.

"Couldn't even get hold of a faggot like me, could you?" another jeering ghost-voice chimed in. "We killed you guys in that rockfight! We fucking killed you! Ha-ha, asshole! Ha-ha all over you!"

Then they were all babbling together, laughing at him, calling him banana-heels, asking him how he'd liked the shock-treatments they'd given him when he came up here to the Red Ward, asking him if he liked it here at Juh-Juh-hooniper Hill, asking and laughing, laughing and asking, and Shigaraki dropped his hoe and began to scream up at the ghost-moon in the blue sky and at first he was screaming in fury, and then the moon itself changed and became the face of the clown, its face a rotted pocked cheesy white, its eyes black holes, its red bloody grin turned up in a smile so obscenely ingenuous that it was insupportable, and so then Shigaraki began to scream- not in fury but in mortal terror and the voice of the clown spoke from the ghost-moon now and what it said was: "You have to go back, Tomura. You have to go back and finish the job. You have to go back to Irusu and kill them all. For Me. For-"

Then Umeda, who had been standing nearby and yelling at Shigaraki for almost two minutes (while the other inmates stood in their rows, hoes grasped in their hands like comic phalluses, their expressions not exactly interested but almost, yes, almost thoughtful, as if they understood that this was all a part of the mystery that had put them here, that Shigaraki Tomura's sudden attack of the screaming meemies in West Garden was interesting in some more than technical way), got tired of shouting and gave Shigaraki a real blast with his quarters, and Shigaraki went down like a ton of bricks, the voice of the clown following him down into that terrible whirlpool of darkness, chanting over and over again: "Kill them all, Tomura, kill them all, kill them all, kill them all."

—2—

Shigaraki Tomura lay awake.

The moon was down and he felt a sharp sense of gratitude for that. The moon was less ghostly at night, more real, and if he should see that dreadful clown-face in the sky, riding over the hills and fields and woods, he believed he would die of terror.

He lay on his side, staring at his nightlight intently. Calcifer had burned out; he had been replaced by No Face; and late last year No Face had been replaced by Pusheen. Shigaraki had measured out the years of his incarceration with burned-out nightlights instead of coffee-spoons.

At exactly 2:04 A.M. on the morning of May 30th, his nightlight went out. A little moan escaped him- 'no more... please...' Todoroki Enji was on the door of the Blue Ward tonight- Todoroki who was the worst of the lot. Worse even than Umeda, who had hit him so hard in the afternoon that Shigaraki could barely turn his head.

Sleeping around him were the other Blue Ward inmates. Komeada Yuji slept in elastic restraints. He had been allowed to watch an Emergency rerun on the wardroom TV when they came in from hoeing around six o'clock and had begun jerking off constantly and without let-up, screaming "Try to set the night on fire! Try to set the night on fire! Try to set the night on fire!" He had been sedated, and that was good for about four hours, and then he had started in again around eleven when the Elavil wore off, whipping his old dingus so hard it had started to bleed through his fingers, shrieking "Try to set the night on fire!" So they sedated him again and put him in restraints. Now he slept, his pinched little face as grave in the dim light as Aristotle's.

From around his bed Shigaraki could hear low snores and loud ones, grunts, an occasional moan. He could hear Nakao Juruo breathing; it was unmistakable even though Jurou slept five beds over. Rapid and faintly whistling, for some reason it always made Shigaraki think of a sewing machine. From beyond the door giving on the hall he could hear the faint sound of Todoroki Enji's TV. He knew that Todoroki would be watching the late movies on Channel 38, drinking a beer and eating his version of lunch. Mr. Todoroki favored sandwiches made out of chunky peanut-butter and Bermuda onions. When Shigaraki heard this he had shuddered and thought: 'And they say all the crazy people are locked up.'

This time the voice didn't come from the moon.

This time it came from under the bed.

Shigaraki recognized the voice at once. It was Kurogiri, whose head had been torn off somewhere beneath Irusu fifteen years ago. It had been torn off by the Frankenstein-monster. Shigaraki had seen it happen, and afterward he had seen the monster's eyes shift and had felt its watery yellow gaze on him. Yes, the Frankenstein-monster had killed Kurogiri and then it had killed Twice, but here was Kurogiri again, like the almost ghostly rerun of a black-and-white program from the Nifty Fifties.

And now that it had happened, now that the voice had come, Shigaraki found that he was calm and unafraid. Relieved, even.

"Tomura," Kurogiri said.

"Kurogiri!" Shigaraki cried. "What're you doing under there?"

Komeada snorted and muttered in his sleep. Nakao's neat nasal sewing-machine inhales and exhales paused for a moment. In the hall, the volume on Todoroki's small Sony was turned down and Shigaraki Tomura could sense him, head cocked back to one side, one hand on the TV's volume knob, the fingers of the other hand touching the cylinder which bulged in the righthand pocket of his pants- the roll of coins.

"You don't have to talk out loud, Tomura," Kurogiri said. "I can hear you if you just think. And they can't hear me at all."

"What do you want, Giri?" Shigaraki asked through his mind.

There was no reply for a long time. Shigaraki thought that maybe Kurogiri had gone away. Outside the door the volume of Todoroki's TV went up again. Then there was a scratching noise from under the bed; the springs squealed slightly as a dark shadow pulled itself out from under. Kurogiri looked up at him and grinned. Shigaraki grinned back uneasily. Ole Giri was looking a little bit like the Frankenstein-monster himself these days. A scar like a hangrope tattoo circled his neck. Shigaraki thought maybe that was where his head had been sewed back on. His eyes were a weird gray-green color, and the corneas seemed to float on a watery viscous substance.

Kurogiri was still thirteen.

"I want the same thing you want," Kurogiri said. "I want to pay 'em back."

"Pay em back," Shigaraki repeated dreamily.

"But you'll have to get out of here to do it," Kurogiri said. "You'll have to go back to Irusu. I need you, Tomura. We all need you."

"They can't hurt You," Shigaraki said, understanding he was talking to more than just Kurogiri.

"They can't hurt Me if they only half-believe," Kurogiri said. "But there have been some distressing signs, Tomura. We didn't think they could beat us back then, either. But the bulimic kid got away from you in the Barrens. The bulimic kid and the smartmouth and that scar-faced cunt with a real bastard of a father got away from us that day after the movies. And the rockfight, when they saved the faggot-"

"-Don't talk about that!" Shigaraki shouted at Kurogiri, and for a moment all of the peremptory hardness that had made him their leader was in his voice. Then he cringed, thinking Kurogiri would hurt him- surely Ole Giri could do whatever he wanted, since he was a ghost- but Kurogiri only grinned.

"I can take care of them if they only half-believe," he said, "but you're alive, Tomura. You can get them no matter if they believe, half-believe, or don't believe at all. You can get them one by one or all at once. You can pay em back."

"Pay em back," Shigaraki repeated. Then he looked at Kurogiri doubtfully again. "...But I can't get out of here, Giri... There's wire on the windows and Todoroki's on the door tonight. Todoroki is the worst. Maybe tomorrow night..."

"Don't worry about Todoroki," Kurogiri said, standing up. Shigaraki saw he was still wearing the jeans he had been wearing that day, and that they were still splattered with drying sewer-muck and blood. "I'll take care of Todoroki Enji." Giri held out his hand.

...After a moment Shigaraki took it. He and Kurogiri walked toward the Blue Ward door and the sound of the TV. They were almost there when Nomu, who had eaten his mother's brains, woke up. His eyes widened as he saw Shigaraki's late-night visitor. It was his mother. Her slip was showing just a quarter-inch or so, as it always had. The top of her head was gone. Her eyes, horribly red, rolled toward him, and when she grinned, Nomu saw the lipstick smears on her yellow, horsy teeth as he always had. Nomu Shiba began to shriek. "No, Ma! No, Ma! No, Ma!"

The TV went off at once, and even before the others could begin to stir, Mr. Todoroki, who had only gotten crueler and meaner in time since his youngest son had left, was jerking the door open and saying, "Okay, get ready to catch your head on the rebound. I've had it!l

"No, Ma! No, Ma! Please, Ma! No, Ma-"

Todoroki came rushing in. First he saw Shigaraki, slouching in the middle of the hallway and looking quite ridiculous in his baggy khaki-colored jumper, his dry and cracking flesh and dying hair looking even more grotesque in the light spilling in from the corridor. Then he looked left and screamed out two lungfuls of silent spun glass. Standing by Shigaraki was his son, Shouto, as he had last saw him. He was sixteen, wearing a silver version of his Irusu High School Soccer jersey, and had that maddeningly blank expression on his face.

A cylinder of coins fell from Todoroki Enji's nerveless fingers and rolled across the floor and into the corner. Late the following day Komeada Yuji, who slept through the whole thing, would find them and hide them in his footlocker. The quarters bought him cigarettes-tailor-mades-for a month.

Todoroki Enji hitched in breath to scream again as It lurched toward him.

"I worry about you, Enji..." a growling voice that was not that of his son's whispered from teenaged Todoroki Shouto's mouth. He lurched forward unnaturally, into a sliver of light, and Enji saw with a wave of nauseous horror that boiling water was beginning to pour out of mismatched eyes like a sink's faucet. So hot that Enji could hear it sizzling against the imitation's skin as it burned more and more of it off his body. "...I worry about you a LOT..."

When Todoroki Enji finally met his excruciating end, the not-Shouto's smile was the largest he had ever seen.

—3—

HINODE, JAPAN

For the third time that day- that long, long day- Todoroki Natsuo picked up his cellphone.

He got further this time than he had on the first two occasions; this time he waited until the phone had been picked up on the other end and a spunky-sounding woman answered: "Cat and Cow Veterinary clinic: this is Todoroki Ami speaking, how may I help you?" before hanging up.

'Oh, you're doing fine, yes. By the eighth or ninth time you'll have mustered up enough guts to tell your wife what happened. Might even be able to call her cellphone instead of her work line...'

He went into the kitchen and fixed himself a weak Scotch-and-soda, although he knew it probably wasn't a good idea on top of the Darvon. He recalled a verse of some folk-song from the college bar parties of his youth- 'Got a headful of whiskey and a bellyful of gin / Doctor says it will kill me but he don't say when-' and laughed jaggedly. There was a mirror running along the top of the bar. He saw his reflection in it and stopped laughing abruptly.

'Who is that man?'

One eye swollen nearly shut.

'Who is that battered, bruised, thirty-one year old man being reflected back at me?'

Dried blood on his nose, chin, neck, staining the front of his T-shirt.

'Who is that battered man who can't even work up the courage to call his wife... to tell her to take off work and take Sayori to a hotel for the night... simply because he knows, rightfully so, that'd she'd ask him why?... and he doesn't think he can answer that... Not without freaking her out, anyway.'

Laddered gash up one cheek.

'Who is he, Nat?'

One arm in a sling.

'Who? Is it you? Can it be you?'

"Here he is... here I am... back where I started..." he sang tunelessly, wanting his voice to come out tough and cynical. It started out that way but warbled on the seventh syllable and cracked on the eighth. It was not a tough voice. It was a scared voice. He knew it; he had been scared before and had always gotten over it. He thought it would be a long time before he got over this, though.

The doctor who had treated him in one of the little cubicles just off Emergency Admitting at Tokyo General half an hour down the road had been young and not bad-looking. He had also been kind, which Natsuo had appreciated... he hadn't felt like dealing with one of those arrogant doctors that always thought they knew better then you did... Especially when they found out you were a semi-famous documentary filmmaker... those kinds of doctors always seemed to shut you down afterwards, as if all your credibility suddenly flew out the window when you had the audacity to admit that you didn't have a "conventional" job.

Doctors like that always reminded him of his father.

He frowned.

The Doctor's name had been Yuudai Kojima, and- though he had been kind- Natsuo didn't care for the fixed way he had looked at him. He had taken a small white paper cup to the room's sink, half-filled it with water, produced a pack of cigarettes from the drawer of his desk, and offered them to him.

"Aren't you supposed to be advocating against those things?"

Dr. Yuudai only shrugged: "You look like you could use one."

Natsuo had taken one and Yuudai had lit it for him. He had to chase the tip for a second or two with the match because Natsuo's hand was shaking. He tossed the match in a different paper cup. Fssss.

This had been the first cigarette Natsuo had smoked since Ami had gotten pregnant in 2014- and, god, he hadn't realized how much he'd missed the burn in his throat and lungs.

"A wonderful habit," Dr. Yuudai said. "Right?'

"Oral fixation," Natsuo replied.

Dr. Yuudai nodded and then there was silence. He kept looking at Natsuo. He got the feeling he was expecting him to cry, and it made Natsuo mad because he felt he might just do that. He hated to be emotionally preguessed, and most of all by someone he didn't even know.

"Who did this to you?" he asked at last.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Uh-huh." Dr. Yuudai looked at him.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you it was impolite to stare?"

Natsuo had wanted it to come out hard-edged, but it sounded like a plea: 'Stop looking at me, I know how I look, I saw.' This thought was followed by another, one he suspected his little brother Shouto must have had more than once; that the worst of the beating took place inside, where you were apt to suffer something that might be called interspiritual bleeding. He knew what he looked like, yes. Worse still, he knew what he felt like. He felt dull. He felt empty- he felt-

He felt blank.

It was a dismal feeling.

"I'll say this just once," Dr. Yuudai said. His voice was low and pleasant. "When I work E.R.- my turn in the barrel, you might say- I see maybe two dozen battered women a week. The interns treat two dozen more. And let me tell you, Mr. Todoroki... you look just like they do when they come in here... now, maybe you got yourself into a bar fight, or you slept with another man's wife, or something of that sort... but... well... there's a telephone right here on the desk. You can call the police, give them your name and address, tell them what happened and who did it. Then you can hang up and I'll take the bottle of bourbon I keep over there in the file cabinet- strictly for medicinal purposes, of course- and we'll have a drink on it. Because I happen to think, and this is just my personal opinion, that the only lower form of life than a person cruel enough to beat on their spouse and kids is a rat with syphilis."

Natsuo had smiled wanly. "I appreciate the offer," he said, "but I'll pass. For the time being."

"Uh-huh," he said. "But when you go home take a good look at yourself in the mirror, Mr. Todoroki. Whoever it was, they beat you up good."

He did cry then. He couldn't help it. But he didn't cry for himself- no... he cried for Shouto.

Akiyuki Koji had called around noon on May 29th... a mere eleven hours since Shouto, bloody and bruised, had shown up on Natsuo's doorstep, telling him he had left Koji and needed a plane ticket back to their hometown.

Natsuo had nearly thrown a party right then and there. He had never liked Koji, he had always known that piece of shit was an abuser... he'd even boycotted their wedding (something he, admittedly, somewhat regretted... he felt that the statement had been as powerful as intended but... Shouto had looked so devastated...)

The earliest flight out from Haneda Airport wasn't until 9am the next day... so, instead, Natsuo bought him both a bus ticket to Narita Airport and a plane ticket to Ashikawa (which left at 11:15 that night) From there, Shouto would rent a (pre-paid by Natsuo... Shouto had said he could do this himself, but Natsuo was worried Koji would track the bank statements or freeze the account) to drive into town.

Why Shouto wanted to go back to Irusu, Natsuo didn't really know. He had mentioned something about reconnecting with a few of his old friends... but try as he might, Natsuo couldn't pinpoint who these friends were. He had made the arrangements anyway, happy to get him far, far away from Akiyuki Koji.

Akiyuki had called Natsuo, wanting to know if he had been in touch with his little brother. He had sounded calm, reasonable, not the least bit upset. Natsuo told him he hadn't seen Shouto in almost two weeks. Akiyuki thanked him and hung up.

Around one the doorbell rang while he and his assistant, Handa Ayumi, were editing in his home office. He went to the door.

He and Handa had been expecting their producer, Funai Tsutomu, for an informal meeting about scheduling conflicts... which is why he had so stupidly opened that door without peering through the peephole... thinking back, he couldn't help but thank every deity he could think of that his wife and daughter hadn't been home then.

In Akiyuki Koji had come, and Natsuo had gotten just this far: "You get the hell out of h-" before Akiyuki's fist came flying out of nowhere, slamming into his right eye, closing it and sending a bolt of incredible agony through his head. He had gone reeling backward down the hallway, clutching at things to try and stay upright: a delicate one-rose vase (a wedding gift from Touya's wife, Kimi) that had gone smashing to the tiles, a coat-tree that had tumbled over. He fell over his own feet as Akiyuki closed the front door behind him and loomed over him.

"Get out of here!" Natsuo had screamed at him.

"As soon as you tell me where he is," Akiyuki said, walking down the hall toward him. Natsuo was dimly aware that Akiyuki didn't look very good- well, actually, terrible might have been a better word- and he felt a dim but ferocious gladness skyrocket through his being. Whatever Akiyuki had done to Shouto, it looked as if Shouto had given it back in spades. It had been enough to keep him off his feet for a good bit, anyhow- and the son of a bitch still didn't look as if he belonged anywhere but in a hospital.

But he also looked very mean, and very angry.

Natsuo scrambled to his feet and backed away, keeping his eyes on him as you might keep your eyes on a wild animal that had escaped its cage.

"I told you I haven't seen him and that was the truth," he said. "Now get out of my house before I call the police."

"You've seen him," Akiyuki said. His swollen lips were trying to grin. Natsuo saw that his teeth had a strange jagged look. Some of the front ones had been broken. "I call you, tell you I don't know where Sho is. You say you haven't seen him in two weeks. Never a single question. Never a discouraging word, even though I know damn well that you hate my guts. You think I don't know you, Natsuo? Do you really think I'm stupid enough to believe that if you truly hadn't seen him in two weeks, you wouldn't have the Public Security Agency pulling up every goddamn floorboard in my house? I'm not a fucking idiot. So where is he, you loud-mouth piece of shit? Tell me."

Natsuo turned then and ran for the end of the hall, wanting to get into the living room, rake the sliding opaque-screen doors closed on their recessed tracks, and turn the thumb-bolt. Natsuo got there ahead of Akiyuki -the bastard was limping, Shouto truly had done a goddamn number on him- but before he could slam the doors shut Akiyuki had inserted his body between. He gave one convulsive lunge and pushed through. Natsuo turned to run again; Akiyuki caught him by the collar of his jacket and he yanked so hard he tore the entire back of it straight down to his waist. 'Shouto made that jacket, you shit,' he thought incoherently, and then he was twisted around.

"Where is he?"

Natsuo brought his fist up in a devastating punch that rocked Akiyuki's head back and started the cut on the left side of his face bleeding again. Akiyuki grabbed Natsuo's hair and pulled his head forward into his fist. It felt to him for a moment as if his nose had exploded. He screamed, inhaled to scream again, and began to cough on his own blood. He was in utter terror now. He had not known there could be so much terror in all the wide world. The crazy son of a bitch was going to kill him.

He got Akiyuki hard in the chest, and was just out of his clutches when his fist looped into Natsuo's stomach, driving the air out of him and he could only gasp. He began to cough and gasp at the same time and for one terrifying moment he thought he was going to choke.

"Where is he, Natsuo?"

Natsuo shook his head. "Haven't... seen him," he gasped. "Police... you'll go to jail... asshole..." he, weakly, threw another staggered punch. It missed its mark, and got him in the shoulder instead. Akiyuki grunted. Natsuo groaned, it'd been a long time since he had to defend himself like this... he was out of practice.

Akiyuki jerked him to his feet and he felt something give in his shoulder. More pain, so strong it was sickening. He whirled Natsuo around, still holding onto his arm, and now he twisted his arm up behind him and Natsuo bit down on his lower lip, promising himself that he would not scream again.

"Where is he?"

Natsuo shook his head.

He jerked Natsuo's arm up again, jerked it so hard that he heard Akiyuki grunt. His warm breath puffed against his ear. Natsuo felt his closed right fist strike his own left shoulderblade and he screamed again as that thing in his shoulder gave some more.

"Where is he?"

"Ngh... know..."

"What?"

"I don't KNOW!"

Akiyuki let go of his arm and gave him a push. Natsuo collapsed to the floor, gasping, blood running out of his nose. There was an almost musical crash, and when he looked around, Akiyuki was bending over him. He had broken the top off another vase, this one of Waterford crystal, given to Ami by his mother. Akiyuki held the base. The jagged neck was only inches from his face. Natsuo stared at it, hypnotized.

"Let me tell you something," he said, the words coming out in little pants and blows of warm air, "you're going to tell me where he went or you're going to be picking your face up off the floor. You've got three seconds, maybe less. When I'm mad it seems like time goes a lot faster."

'My face?...' Natsuo thought incoherently. 'Fuck...'

Akiyuki pressed the sharp edge to Natsuo's cheek, and Natsuo hissed. He felt drops of blood begin to roll down his cheek like sticky tears.

"One."

Natsuo kept his mouth shut, smoldering eyes staring into Akiyuki's own freezing ones.

"Two." Akiyuki dragged the glass down the side of his cheek, Natsuo bit his lip to keep from crying out.

"Th-"

"HE WENT HOME!"

Natsuo and Akiyuki both jerked their heads to the left, startled. Standing in the doorway of Natsuo's home office, looking utterly horrified, was Natsuo's assistant Handa. She held a phone in one shaky hand, and with an earth-shattering revelation of horror, Natsuo could just make out his bank's logo running across the top of the Phone's screen.

"SHUT UP!" Natsuo bellowed. He managed to aim a harsh kick at Akiyuki's legs, but the man didn't budge, his eyes fixated on Handa. He thrashed, desperate, tears pinpricking behind his eyes for the first time. "DON'T YOU DARE!"

"His home town! Irusu! It's a place called Irusu, in Hokkaido!" She sobbed, trembling so intensely it looked as if her entire body were vibrating. "N-Natsuo told me this muh-morning..."

And to his horror, Natsuo realized he had: it had been an off-handed comment... Handa had asked him why he looked so tired... simple small talk between co-workers... 'Why?... Why would I have mentioned Irusu to her?... I barely remember the place myself...in fact... until Shouto said the name of it...'

...And then suddenly, Natsuo was overcome with a fury so great he was worried he might explode, he opened his mouth to scream at Handa again- but before he could get a single syllable out, Akiyuki jammed a wadded up section of table runner in his mouth- causing pain to explode behind his eyes and for black spots to dance in the corner of his vision.

"How did he go?"

"He... He took a b-b-bus to Narita. He was going to fly from there... a-and then r-rent a cuh-car... I know b-because I buh-buy all the equipment for our shoots and d-do all the f-financial s-stuff... s-so I have access to N-Natsuo's bank records... he bought the bus and plane tickets last night a-around 10pm... a-and scheduled a w-withdrawal for a car renting c-company... they grew up in Hokkaido... N-Natsuo's talked about it b-before... It's all r-right here..." she held out the phone to Akiyuki shakily.

"That shitty little whore!" Akiyuki cried, studying the bank statement. He straightening up. He walked around in a large, aimless semicircle, running his hands through his hair so that it stood up in crazy spikes and whorls. "That cunt, that whore, that goddamn slut!" He picked up a delicate glass sculpture of a lion- Natsuo had had it since he was fourteen- and threw it onto the tiled floor of Natsuo's kitchen, where it shattered into millions of pieces. Akiyuki came face to face with himself for a moment in the mirror over the bar and stood wide-eyed, as if looking at a ghost. Then he whirled on Natsuo again, yanking the table runner out of his mouth. He had taken something from the pocket of the sportcoat he was wearing, and Natsuo saw with a stupid kind of wonder that it was a manga volume. The cover was almost completely black, except for the red-foil letters which spelled out the title and a picture of several young people standing on a high bluff over a river. "Black Water Ridge."

"Who's this fuck?"

"Huh? What?"

"Midoriya. Midoriya Izuku." He shook the manga volume impatiently in front of his face, then suddenly slapped him with it. His cheek flared with pain and then dull red heat, like stove-coals. "Who is he?"

"A... A manga writer?... I assume?..."

"Did he grow up in that shitty hometown of yours?"

Natsuo opened his mouth, about to tell him that he didn't have any idea; that for as long as he could remember, his childhood had been an incomplete blur: but then, there was a flash- a memory so quick Natsuo barley realized it happened at all. He saw a boy, with forest green eyes, on the back of a bike way to big for him, and he remembered thinking to himself: 'That Midoriya kid's gonna kill himself on that bike.'

"Yes." He breathed, not completely realizing he was speaking out loud. "He did."

Akiyuki whacked him with the volume again. This time from the other side. He barely noticed.

"Yeah- okay." Akiyuki muttered, beginning to walk in that semi-circle again. "What about- what about..." he paused, closed his eyes, as if trying to remember something... After a few tense moments his eyes shot open and he snapped his fingers. "Denki!"

"..."

"Denki. Can you remember any Denki?"

And, just like before, a barely there memory shot through his mind. A short blonde boy following Shouto around like a puppy... cracking jokes that didn't land with his socially-inept little brother.

"...Maybe?... They were friends... I think... When they were children... he grew up in Irusu too..."

"What's his last name?" Akiyuki asked, starting to rummage through Natsuo's kitchen drawers- a few moments later he was able to produce an ink-pen. He clicked the tip erratically- his eyes reflecting insanity.

Without really knowing how, or why he was cooperating, Natsuo answered: "Kaminari."

Akiyuki jotted 'Kaminari Denki' down inside his copy of 'Black Water Ridge.'- directly under Midoriya Izuku's neatly printed name. Natsuo felt a pang of fear jump in his heart, but- something- kept him from fighting anymore... the same something, he presumed, that had provided him the memories of his long forgotten childhood.

Akiyuki pulled a barstool with spindly, graceful legs over to him, turned it around, and sat down on it. His carved-up mug looked down at Natsuo over the high back.

"Listen to me," he said. "You listen to your big bro, Koji. Can you do that, pig-fucker?"

Natsuo nodded, feeling pissed, guilty, and scared. He could taste blood, hot and coppery, in his throat. His shoulder was on fire. He hoped it was only dislocated and not broken... all the fight had drained out of him the moment Handa had given away Shouto's location. He'd never forgive her for that.

"If you call the police and tell them I was here, I'll deny it. You can't prove a fucking thing. That assistant of yours is so piss scared she won't back you, isn't that right, hun?"

Handa, who was still sobbing and shivering with snot running down her face, nodded. Natsuo cursed her in his mind.

"Thought so." Akiyuki smiled, before turning back towards Natsuo. "Of course... they might arrest me anyways, anything's possible, right?"

Now, Natsuo found himself nodding, as if his head was on a string.

"Sure it is. And what I'd do is post bail and come right back here. They'd find your head on the kitchen table and your eyes in the fishbowl. Do you understand me? Are you getting your big bro, Koji?"

Handa sobbed louder. That string attached to Natsuo's head was still working; it bobbed up and down.

"Why?"

"What? I... I don't?..."

"Wake up, for fuck's sake! Why did Sho go back?"

"I don't know!" Natsuo nearly screamed exasperatedly. "I don't fucking know!"

Akiyuki wiggled the broken vase at him.

"I don't know," he repeated in a lower voice. "He didn't tell me."

He tossed the vase in the wastebasket and stood up. He shot a glance at Natsuo's hysterical (ex)assistant: "I'm gonna assume you don't know either?"

"N-no... I-I just know wuh-wuh-what I already t-told you. Uh-uh-honest."

Akiyuki nodded. And then he left without looking back, head down, a big shambling bear of a man.

Handa rushed after him and locked the door, looking as if she were mere moments from soiling herself. Natsuo got up slowly, hissing when his shoulder lurched, and walked into the kitchen, intending to lock that one too, but after a moments pause: "Handa?"

"Y-yes?..."

"Get out."

Sobbing, shaking, but without protest, she shuffled out the door. Natsuo didn't care if he was being harsh- he didn't fucking care. She had quite possibly just signed his little brother's death certificate, and he couldn't stand looking at her pathetic display a moment longer. He locked the door behind her.

He had limped upstairs (as fast as his aching belly would allow) and had locked the french doors which gave on the upstairs verandah- it was not beyond possibility that Akiyuki might decide to shimmy up one of the pillars and come in again that way. He was hurt, but he was also insane. He locked all the window's in Sayori's room as well. Just in case.

He went for his cellphone for the first time and had no more than dropped his hand on it before remembering what Akiyuki had said:

"What I'd do is post bail and come right back here... your head on the kitchen table and your eyes in the fishbowl."

He thought of Ami walking in on such a horrific scene... he thought of his six-year old daughter walking in on it... he jerked his hand off the phone.

He went into the bathroom then and looked at his busted nose, his black eye. He didn't weep; the shame and horror he felt were too deep for tears. 'Oh Shouto... I did the best I could...' he thought. 'But I couldn't stop him... couldn't protect you... I'm so sorry...'

There was Darvon and Valium in the medicine cabinet. He debated between them and finally swallowed one of each. Then he went to Tokyo General for treatment and met the famous Dr. Yuudai, and had his first cigarette in six years...

And from there home again, home again, jiggety-jog.

He got the idea to call his wife and ask her to take Sayori to a hotel for the first time when he walked back into their destroyed home. Ami had no more than said the name of the veterinary clinic before he hung up without a word.

He went to his bedroom window and looked out instead. The sun was low on the horizon. Ami would be clocking out and heading towards her mother's house to pick up Sayori in about an hour...

'...You can decide what to do about the cops and the girls later. The important thing now is to warn Shouto.'

'It would be a hell of a lot easier,' Natsuo thought, 'if you had told me where you were staying, Soba... though I suppose you didn't know yourself.'

He pulled out a pack of Paradise Peach cigarettes he'd stashed in the bedside table in case of an emergency. He shot one out of the pack, lit up, grimaced. He had last smoked from this pack around February of 2014, and boy, was this baby stale. He smoked it anyway, one eye half-lidded against the smoke, the other just half-lidded, period. Thanks to Akiyuki Koji.

Using his left hand laboriously- the son of a bitch had dislocated his good arm- he dialed the Hokkaido information center and asked for the name and number of every hotel and motel in Irusu.

"Sir, that's going to take awhile," the directory-assistance operator said dubiously.

"It's going to take even longer than that," Natsuo said. "I'm going to have to write with my stupid hand. My good one's on vacation."

"It's not customary for-"

"-Listen to me," Natsuo said, not unkindly. "I'm calling you from Hinode, and I'm trying to reach a guy -my little brother- who has just left his hu- spouse- and gone back to Irusu, where we grew up. His spouse knows where he went. His spouse got the information out of my assistant by beating the living shit out of me. This person's a psycho. My brother needs to know his spouse is coming."

There was a long pause, and then the directory-assistance operator said in a decidedly more human voice, "I think the number you really need is the Irusu Police Department."

"Fine. I'll take that, too. But he has to be warned," Natsuo said. "And... " He thought of Akiyuki's cut cheeks, the knot on his forehead, the one on his temple, his limp, his hideously swelled lips. "...And if he knows his spouse is coming, that may be enough."

There was another long pause.

"You there?" Natsuo asked.

"Main-Street Motel," the operator said, '643-8146. Ukiyo Park Inn, 648-4083. Kitsune Court-"

"Slow down a little, okay?" Natsuo asked, writing furiously. He looked for an ashtray, didn't see one, and mashed paradise out on the desk. "Okay, go on."

"The Canal-front view-"

—4—

He got half-lucky on his fifth call. Akiyuki Shouto was registered at the Shajima Hotel and Sauna. He was only half-lucky because Shouto wasn't answering his phone. He left his name and number and a message that Shouto should call him the instant he came back, or woke up, or whatever he was doing: no matter how late it was.

The desk clerk repeated the message. Natsuo went upstairs and took another Valium, and called his wife. She was still at her mother's, getting her ear talked off, and had proceeded to panic just as Natsuo had predicted she would. She ended up taking Sayori and her mother to a hotel outside the city limits.

Natsuo hung up, laid down and waited for sleep. Sleep didn't come. 'I'm sorry, Soba,' he thought, looking towards the red and black sky. 'Call soon, Shouto. Please call soon. And watch out for the crazy son of a bitch you married.'

—5—

The crazy son of a bitch Shouto had married did better on connections than Shouto had the day before because he flew out of Haneda Airport. During the flight he read and reread the brief note on the author at the end of "Black Water Ridge." It said that Midoriya Izuku was a native of Hokkaido and the author had quite a few other series (which were also available, the note added helpfully, in paperback editions. New chapters of his latest work appeared monthly in Young Jump Magazine). He and his wife, the voice actress Midoriya Ochako, lived in Kamakura... which meant they were less than an hour away from his and Shouto's own home in Harajuku... in fact, there was a possibility they had even passed each other on the street, seen each other in the market...

...Noticing that the paperback of volume 1 of Black Water Ridge had been issued in 2012, Akiyuki supposed the guy had written some of the other manga series since then.

Midoriya Ochako... he had heard her voice work in a movie, hadn't he? He rarely noticed voice actresses- Akiyuki's idea of a good flick was a live-action crime story, a chase story, or a monster picture- but if this babe was the one he was thinking of, he had noticed her especially because... well... there had been something different about her... when he had seen her name listed in the credits of some horror flick he'd watched one night on cable... it had seemed to glow, and dull the other's around it...

...He couldn't find much on Kaminari Denki... he found a couple of social media pages, and he was pretty sure he found the website for his mechanics business ('CHARGEBOLT: AUTO BODY & REPAIR: 2-for-1 OIL AND LUBE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY')... but that was about it. He frowned.

"The three of them used to play games together, huh?..." Akiyuki muttered under his breath, tapping the volume on his lap, trying to ignore the ache in his head and in his mouth.

'What sort of games had Midoriya and Kaminari played with Shouto when they were kids? Post-office? Spin-the-bottle?...'

'...Other games?'

Akiyuki tapped the book against his leg faster and felt his temples begin to throb.

When he arrived at Hakodate Airport, and canvassed the rental-car booths, the girls- some dressed in yellow, some in red, some in Irish green- looked at his blasted dangerous face nervously and told him (more nervously still) that they had no cars to rent, so sorry.

Akiyuki went to the newsstand and got a paper. He turned to the want-ads, oblivious to the looks he was getting from people passing by, and isolated three likelies. He hit paydirt on his second call.

"Paper says you've got a '02 LTD wagon. 145,000¥."

"Right, sure."

"I tell you what," Akiyuki said, touching the wallet in his jacket pocket. It was fat with cash- 625,000¥. "You bring it out to the airport and we'll do the deal right here. You give me the car and a bill of sale and your pink-slip. I'll give you cash money." The fellow with the LTD for sale paused and then said, "I'd have to take my plates off."

"Sure, fine."

"How will I know you, Mr-?"

"Mr. Bunko," Akiyuki said. He was looking at a sign across the terminal lobby that said BUNKO & SON'S SHISH-KABOB'S! "I'll be standing by the far door. You'll know me because my face doesn't look so hot. My partner and I went roller-skating yesterday and I took one hell of a fall. Things could be worse, I guess. I didn't break anything but my face."

"Gee, I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Bunko."

"I'll mend. You just get the car out here, my good man."

He hung up, walked across to the door, and stepped out into the warm fragrant May night.

The guy with the LTD showed up ten minutes later driving out of the late-spring dusk. He was only a kid. They did the deal; the kid scribbled him a bill of sale which Akiyuki stuffed indifferently into his overcoat pocket. He stood there and watched the kid take off the LTD's plates.

"Give you an extra thirty yen for the screwdriver," Akiyuki said when he was done.

The kid looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, shrugged, handed the screwdriver over, and took the 30¥ Akiyuki was holding out. 'None of my business,' the shrug said, and Akiyuki thought: 'How right you are, my good man.' Akiyuki saw him into a cab, then got behind the wheel of the Ford.

It was a piece of shit: transmission whiny, universal groany, body rattly, brakes slushy. None of it mattered. He drove around to the long-term parking lot, took a ticket, and drove in. He parked next to a Subaru that looked as if it had been there for awhile. He used the kid's screwdriver to remove the Subaru's plates and put them on the LTD. He hummed as he worked.

By 10:00 P.M. he was driving east on Route 2, Irusu punched into his GPS. He had discovered that the LTD's radio didn't work, so he drove in silence. That was all right. He had plenty to think about. All the wonderful things he was going to do to Shouto when he caught up with him, for instance.

He was sure in his heart, quite sure, that Shouto was close by.

And smoking.

'Oh my dear boy, you fucked with the wrong man when you fucked with Akiyuki Koji. And the question is this- what, exactly, are we to do with you?'

He pulled over to the side of the road at 3 am, and slept in his car. He was up and moving by daybreak.

The wagon bulled its way through the dense early morning fog, chasing its high beams, and by the time Akiyuki got to Ashikawa, he knew. He found a convenience store on the main drag that was still open. He went inside and bought a carton of Marlboro's. The proprietor wished him a good evening. Akiyuki wished him the same.

He tossed the carton on the seat and got moving again. He drove slowly on up Route 7, hunting for his turnoff. Here it was- Route 3, with a sign which read SHINRI 21 IRUSU 15.

He made the turn and got the Ford rolling faster. He glanced at the carton of cigarettes and smiled a little. In the green glow of the dashlights, his cut and lumpy face looked strange, ghoulish.

'Got some cigarettes for you, Sho,' Akiyuki thought as the wagon ran between stands of birch and beech, heading toward Irusu at a little better than sixty. 'Oh my yes. A whole carton. Just for you. And when I see you, dear, I'm going to make you eat every fucking one. And if this guy Midoriya or this other one, Kaminari, also need some education, we can arrange that, too. No problem, Sho. No problem at all.'

For the first time since the dirty bastard had bushwhacked him and run out, Akiyuki began to feel good.

—6—

TOKYO, JAPAN

Midoriya Ochako flew first class towards Hokkaido in a Japan airlines EMBRAER 170. She had left Tokyo at ten minutes to 9 that night, after a ridiculous stroke of luck, where she had discovered that the flight had been delayed due to weather. And, lo and behold, there had been one ticket, for first-class no less, still available for purchase.

The day had been a crazy nightmare. Fumio Aki, the man directing "Wilting Flowers," had of course wanted Izuku first thing. There had been some kind of last-minute notice sent by the NHK about a censoring issue and he wanted to know how Izuku wanted it to be framed, or some silly thing like that...

In the entertainment business Fumio's temper was fabled, and after hours of arguing. he had lost it. He told the NHK representative, a fat man whose BO was almost paralyzing, to go fuck himself. The union boss told Fumio he better watch his mouth or they wouldn't be airing "Wilting Flowers" at all. Then he had rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a baksheesh gesture that had driven Fumio crazy. The NHK rep. was big but soft; Fumio, who still played soccer every chance he got, was big and hard.

He threw the NHK rep. out, went back into his office to meditate, and then came out again twenty minutes later hollering for Izuku. He wanted the entire scene rewritten so that the moment could be scrubbed. Ochako had to tell Fumio that Izuku was no longer in Tokyo... that he wasn't even in Honshu...

"What? Fumio said. His mouth hung open. He was looking at Ochako as if he believed she had gone mad. "What are you telling me?"

"He's been called back home- that's what I'm telling you."

Fumio made as if to grab her and Ochako shrank back, a bit afraid. Fumio looked down at his hands, then put them in his pockets and only looked at her.

"I'm sorry, Aki," she said in a small voice. "really."

She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee from the Silex on Fumio's hotplate, noticing that her hands were trembling slightly. As she sat down she heard Fumio's amplified voice over the studio loudspeakers, telling everyone to go home; the work day was over. Ochako winced. That was the equivalent of taking a match to 5 million yen soaked in gasoline.

Fumio turned off the studio intercom, got up, poured his own cup of coffee. He sat down again and offered her his pack of Silk Cut cigarettes.

Ochako shook her head. "No thank you, I'm not a smoker."

Fumio took one, lit it, and squinted at her through the smoke. "This is serious, isn't it?"

"Yes," Ochako said, keeping her composure as best she could.

"What's happened?"

And because she genuinely liked Fumio and genuinely trusted him, Ochako told him everything she knew. Fumio listened intently, gravely. It didn't take long to tell; doors were still slamming and engines starting in the parking lot outside when she finished.

Fumio was silent for some time, looking out his window. Then he swung back to her. "He's had a nervous breakdown of some sort."

Ochako shook her head. "No. It wasn't like that... He... wasn't like that." She swallowed and added, "...Maybe you had to be there..."

Fumio smiled crookedly. "You must realize that grown men rarely feel compelled to honor promises they made as little boys. And you've read Izuku's work; you know how much of it is about childhood, and it's very good stuff indeed. Very much on the nail. The idea that he's forgotten everything that ever happened to him back then is absurd."

"The scars on his hands," Ochako said. "They were never there. Not until last night."

"Bullshit! You just didn't notice them until this morning."

She shrugged helplessly. "I'd've noticed."

She could see he didn't believe that, either.

"What to do, then?" Fumio asked her, and she could only shake her head. Fumio lit another cigarette from the smoldering end of the first. "I can make it right with the NHK..." he said. "Not myself, maybe; right now he'd see me in hell before talking to me again... I'll send- uh- whats her face?... Miyazaki! Yeah, I'll send Miyazaki round to his office. She's a pouf, but she could talk the birds down from the tree... But what happens after? We've got four weeks of shooting left, and there goes your husband, off in Kyushu-"

"-Hokkaido."

He waved a hand. "Wherever. And how much good are you going to be without him, hm?"

"I-"

He leaned forward. "I like you, Ochako. I genuinely do. And I like Izuku- even in spite of this mess. You two are probably about as close to perfect as two people can get- And we can make do, I guess. If the script needs cobbling up, I can cobble it. I've done my share of that sort of shoemaking in my time, Christ knows... If he doesn't like the way it turns out, he'll have no one but himself to blame. I can do without Izuku, but I can't do without you. I can't have you running off to Hokkaido after your man, and I've got to have you putting out at full power. Can you do that?"

"I don't know."

"Nor do I. But I want you to think about something. We can keep things quiet for awhile, maybe for the rest of the shoot, if you'll stand up like a trouper and do your job. But if you take off, it can't be kept quiet. I can be pissy, but I'm not vindictive by nature and I'm not going to tell you that if you take off I'll see that you never work in the business again. But you should know that if you get a reputation for temperament, you might end up stuck with just that. I'm talking to you like I'm your father, I know. Do you resent it?"

"No," she said listlessly. In truth, she didn't care much one way or the other. Izuku was all she could think of. Fumio was a nice enough man, but Fumio didn't understand; in the last analysis, nice man or not, all he could think of was what this was going to do to his anime. He had not seen the look in Izuku's eyes... heard the fear in his voice... heard him stutter.

"Good." He stood up. "Come on over to the Another8 with me. We could both use a drink."

She shook her head, pushing strands of her hair behind her ears. "...A drink's the last thing I need... I'm gonna go home and think this whole thing out."

"I'll call for a cab," he said, already reaching for his phone.

"No." She delicately pushed his hand away from his cellphone. "Thank you... but no... I'll take the train."

He looked at her fixedly, "I believe you mean to go after him," Fumio said, "...and I'm telling you that it's a serious mistake, kid. He's having some sort of early on-set mid-life crises, but he'll come out of it soon. He'll shake it, and when he does he'll come back. If he'd wanted you along, he would have said so."

"I haven't decided anything," Ochako said, knowing that she had in fact decided everything; had decided a mere ten minutes after Izuku had shut that door behind him...

"Think about it a bit, at least." Fumio said. "Don't do something you'll regret later... you could end up making him resent you, you know."

('Ochako, if you follow me to Irusu, I will never forgive you.')

She took a shaky sip of her coffee, a chill going up her spine.

('Not in this lifetime, nor the next.')

She felt the weight of Fumio's personality and her husbands words bearing down on her, demanding that she give in, make the promise, do her job, wait passively for Izuku to come back... or to disappear again into that hole of the past from which he had come.

She stood, smoothing down her light-pink sweater. "I'll see you, Aki." She went home and called Japan Airways. She told the clerk she might be interested in reaching a small Hokkiado city called Irusu if it was at all possible. There had been silence while the woman consulted her computer terminal... and then the news, like a sign from heaven, that there had been a delay due to weather and there was still one ticket available for purchase.

"Shall I book the flight for you, ma'am?"

Ochako closed her eyes and saw Fumio's craggy, mostly kind, very earnest face, heard him saying: "Don't do something you'll regret later."

And then, once again, her husbands cold tone: "I'll never forgive you."

Fumio didn't want her to go; Izuku didn't want her to go; so why was her heart screaming at her that she had to go? She closed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on.

("...In this lifetime...")

'Ma'am? Are you there?"

("...Nor the next...")

"Book it," Ochako said, then hesitated. 'At least think about it a bit...' Maybe she should sleep on it; get some distance between herself and the craziness. She began to rummage in her purse for her Debit card. "It's for tonight, right?... if I change my mind I can cancel?..."

"Yes ma'am."

'I probably will' she thought, beginning to read out her Debit Card details. 'My head will clear in a couple of hours and I'll cancel.'

...But nothing had been clear by the time the sun began to set, and her heart clamored just as loudly for her to go. She had taken a nap, and her sleep had been a crazy tapestry of nightmares. So she had called Fumio, not because she wanted to but because she felt she owed him that. She had not gotten far- she was trying, in some stumbling way, to tell him how much she felt Izuku might need her- when there was a soft click at Fumio's end. He had hung up without saying a word after his initial hello.

But in a way, Ochako thought, that soft click said everything that needed to be said.

—7—

The plane landed at Hakodate Airport at 12:30 am. The other passengers had spent the entire flight looking at her with a kind of thoughtful curiosity, and Ochako had wondered if they recognized her and were wondering what she was doing here. She thought of telling them "I'm looking for my husband, that's why. He came back to a little town near here because one of his childhood friends called him and reminded him of a promise he couldn't quite remember. The call also reminded him that he hadn't thought of his dead sister in fifteen years. Oh yes: it also brought back his stutter... and some funny white scars on the palms of his hands."

'...And then,' she thought, 'the customs agent standing by in the jetway would whistle up the men in the white coats.'

She collected her single piece of luggage- it looked very lonely riding the carousel all by itself- and approached the rental-car booths as Akiyuki Koji had done a few hours earlier. Her luck was better than his; National Car Rental had a Hyundai.

The girl filled out the form and Ochako signed it.

"I thought it was you," the girl said, and then, timidly: "Might I please have your autograph?"

Ochako gave it, blushing bashfully, writing her name on the back of a rental form. She thought: 'Enjoy it while you can, If Fumio Aki is right, it won't be worth anything five years from now.'

"Tell your husband I'm looking forward to next months chapter."

"I will." Ochako smiled, 'If I ever see him again.' "it'll make his day... he always loves hearing feedback from the readers themselves."

The girl blushed a little, and then beamed. She looked positively starstruck. Ochako waved goodbye to her kindly, the rental cars keys jingling.

She punched Irusu into her Phone's GPS, tossed it into the passengers seat, and ten minutes later, pulled out of the parking lot headed towards Route 2.

...And as she drove, she realized that she was more frightened than she had ever been in her entire life.

—8—

MAY 30TH, 2020 / IRUSU, JAPAN

By one of those odd quirks of fate or coincidence which sometimes happen (and which, in truth, happened a lot more frequently in Irusu than anywhere else) Akiyuki Koji had taken a room at the Ukiyo Park Inn and Midoriya Ochako had taken a room at Kitsune Court; the two hotels were side by side, their parking lots divided only by a raised concrete sidewalk. And as it so happened, Ochako's rented Hyundai and Akiyuki's purchased LTD wagon were parked nose-to-nose, separated only by that walkway. Both slept now, Ochako quietly on her side, Akiyuki Koji on his back, snoring so heavily that his swollen lips flapped.

—9—

Shigaraki had spent that day hiding- hiding in the puckies beside Route 9. Sometimes he slept. Sometimes he lay watching police cruisers slide by like hunting dogs. While the Losers ate their reunion lunch, Shigaraki listened to voices from the moon.

And when dark fell, he went out to the verge of the road and stuck out his thumb.

After awhile, some fool came along and picked him up.