Izuku's body immediately went into survival mode. His head whipped around, ignoring the massacre before him. "What was it?!"
"I didn't see it…" Yaoyorozu was wide-eyed, her face pale with shock.
The two were standing in a massive cavern, the ceiling so far above them that the darkness hid it from view. If there was anything with them in the room, they wouldn't be able to spot it. The only reason they had seen the dead bodies was that their gear was imbued with mana and had a slight glow for caverns just like this.
"W-Where'd the Gate go?" She asked.
Izuku gritted his teeth, trying to fight off the shudders running through his body.
There were two options here. Either the group had died to a trap, or they had died to something that was so fast, so nimble, that the human eye couldn't track it.
"We'd already be dead…" Izuku muttered, deciding neither option made sense, unless the trap was motion activated, but they had moved since the Gate closed, so that option was less likely as well.
He stumbled forwards, snatching up one of the fallen swords, a magic weapon, glowing with energy.
"Unless you've figured out how to create enchanted weapons with your Quirk, you should grab one of those."
"I-I'm a healer though…"
"Well you're still an A-Rank, four Ranks above me. If you swing hard enough with one of those swords you'd probably cut through a building. I might be able to cut a car in half. Big difference."
Yaoyorozu hesitantly scooped up one of the thinner swords, showing a clear hesitancy with the blade, her grip fumbling.
"Okay… okay okay…" Izuku tried to calm his breathing. "We just walk straight until we find a wall and then follow it to the boss room and hope that it reopens the portal when it dies. This is a D-Rank Gate, so even an A-Rank on their own should be able to handle it just fine. Right, Yaoyoro…zu?" He looked up from his pondering, to see the girl stifling sobs, her face, already white with terror, had somehow gotten even paler.
It wasn't just shock making her cry with fear. Her eyes were fixed behind Izuku… on something behind Izuku.
Like a metal neck rusted from air and salt water, Izuku's neck creaked around in slow jolting movements, his entire body alight with a sensation that stabbed at his very soul… Death.
In the darkness of the cavern, just a few feet above the ground was the giant face of a moving statue, with glowing eyes, and a horrific sadistic smile. There was no way to better describe it than "ungodly."
It was Izuku's turn for his throat to be choked with cries of fear as his gaze met the giants. A stone creature decorated with otherworldly adornments, it was nothing less than a royal executioner.
"Where… are its… feet…" Beset with such a horrific face, seemingly floating in mid-air, even Izuku's thoughts slowed to a crawl. But before he could comprehend the way the statute was positioned, he was plunged into darkness once more, the lights of the eyes going dark.
"Y-Y-Yao-Yao… Momo… b-back to back…" Izuku said, pressing his shoulder blades up against hers, feeling her tremble, or perhaps it was his own body shaking with fear.
It was true evil, revealing itself, only to hide once more, and make its victims guess at where their fate would come from.
TAP… TAP… TAP
Izuku couldn't feel his body anymore. So chill with fear it had gone numb. Directly above him, he heard the telltale click-clack of something walking on the ceiling. And in the darkness, he could ever so slightly make out a long spindly shape moving around.
DEATH
Izuku swung his sword to his right, instinct pushing his E-Rank senses to the absolute limit of human perception.
It was a good thing he had already gone numb, because whatever he hit was coming at him with the force of a planet. Izuku's last moment swing had prevented the two from being decapitated, but that didn't mean they were immune to amputation.
Izuku looked down at where he used to have a right arm, now just a bloodied stump connected to his shoulder.
He wanted to scream, not from pain, but from the irrevocable mental damage that came from reconciling the reality of losing a limb with the expectation that it still be in place stopped him. The scream caught in his throat, along with the trailing blood from the tongue he had practically bitten in half because of the stress.
In shock, and hopped up on adrenaline, he didn't feel any pain, a rare blessing amongst the tragedy. It was all that allowed him to grab Yaoyorozu's wrist with his remaining hand and take off running.
In what direction? What for? There was no plan. Izuku, and Yaoyorozu, had reverted to their basest of human instincts. Run, hide, escape danger. Human minds couldn't fathom the true hopelessness of an approaching death, so they ran, even knowing there was no escape.
TINK TINK TINK
The cavern ceiling echoed with the pitter-patter of the demon in the room, chasing them down like a mouse in front of a cat. It was faster than measure, it would never lose sight of them, it just knew they hated that noise, that they feared it. It was also… leading them.
Izuku cracked his side against a stone structure in the center of the room, grunting as he spilled over onto the ground and letting go of Yaoyorozu's hand.
He struggled to pull himself to his feet, noticing the ground was alight with magical blue flames. They circled the structure Izuku had bumped. An altar with mythical runic language carved into it. And past that, the flames made a meter-wide path, leading to a dark tunnel, an exit.
Just as he was about to get up and sprint for it, the all-too-familiar walk of the creature echoed in the cavern.
Dark legs, thin, but also the width of a human being, crept down the wall near the entrance. Spider-like and pointed, sharp enough to tear through human flesh with ease.
They continued down the wall until the statue's face returned, glowing with glee as it spotted its prey. But really, it wasn't a statue at all. It was a mask, connected to the dark spindly legs by a grotesque fleshy mass, like a bloodied and flayed neck.
The smile appeared to grow wider, gleeful in the predicament it presented. A predicament that Izuku didn't need an explanation to understand.
Growing weaker, and paler from blood loss by the second, his body began to… relax.
He climbed atop the altar, sitting cross-legged, his head hanging low as he grew weaker.
"Yao… yorozu…" He muttered. "Run…"
The spider-like creature began approaching, the legs striking the ground with enough force to split rock in half.
"Don't leave… the path…"
In other words, she'd have to walk right under the monster to reach the exit.
Izuku wasn't sure if she'd be able to, having been paralyzed with fear the entire time. But to her credit, she began to crawl forwards. On hands and knees, she inched forwards, bit by bit, scraping herself on the rough rock.
The spider creature was growing ever closer, but its gaze was not fixed on the girl crawling along beneath it.
Izuku's breathing was growing shallow. He was desperately attempting to stay conscious, to make sure he was a proper sacrifice so that Yaoyorozu could escape.
By the time the creature had reached him, it's face just a few inches from him, he was practically blacking out, and Yaoyorozu had barely made it halfway to the exit.
HEE HEE HEE
The bone chilling laugh was accompanied by a CRACK! as one of its limbs snapped to the side, moving with such speed that it was doubtful an S-Rank could track it.
It slammed into the side of Yaoyorozu, sending her rocketing off the path and slamming into the wall of the cavern with a sickening smack.
"Please… let her… go…"
The face made no acknowledgement of Izuku's pleading, only opening his mouth, wider than he should've, like a snake unhinging its jaw. And the entire time, that goddamned smile was still somehow as wide as ever.
"Fine…" Izuku let himself go, allowing the darkness to take over just before the giant mouth snapped shut around him. "Sorry mom…"
"Better… kill… Empress."
"Yessss…"
In the darkness Izuku writhed in pain, his entire body lighting up with what felt like powerful electric shocks. He screamed for all he was worth, but the sounds never left his lips. All he could hear were the two voices, their speech blotted out by the rushing blood in his ears.
"Hell…" Was all Izuku could think, this was his hell, his afterlife. An empty void of pain.
An empty void… aside from the throne of darkness standing before him. Its inky tendrils snapped through the air, whipping around as if looking for something. And at the step of the throne, was a single glowing gem of light. Pure and filled with life, it beckoned Izuku to a peaceful place, it beckoned him to an end.
"An end… is that what I want?" The faces of his loved ones flashed through his mind. "No… I haven't saved her yet… I promised I'd save her."
Izuku, still possessing only one arm, clawed his way through the pain, dragging at the darkness of the void to pull himself to the throne's base. He grabbed the jewel of life and light and cast it aside, instead grasping the armrest of the throne with an iron grip.
The throne stabbed into his arm, the tendrils inflicting even more pain, more pain than Izuku thought was ever possible. But he pulled himself to his feet, the darkness, still painful, was helping him along, dragging him into the seat of the throne, stabbing him, draining him all the way.
Izuku didn't stop, planting himself firmly atop the throne, gritting his teeth as the tentacles enveloped him, swallowing him in darkness, engulfing him with anguish. And then… it stopped.
"GAAAAAAH!" Izuku shot up, tears streaming from his eyes as they darted around, scanning for the monster that had swallowed him whole. All he saw was a hospital room.
Panting heavily, borderline hyperventilating, he looked to his right arm. It was there, it was moving. Izuku almost went to question if it had been a dream, but as doctors and nurses rushed in upon hearing his scream, he spotted something.
[Quest: Go Beyond Death has been completed.]
[Welcome Player.]