When Reason Fails

by Mirrond

Izuku Midoriya, a student at the prestigious UA high school, accidentally stumbles upon the dark truth of the world. Now, with a life span measured in weeks (mostly due to his terminal deficiency of a self-preservation instinct), he must adapt to this new reality, where undead, monsters, eldritch abominations and supernatural yanderes are depressingly common.

25. Chapter 25

WanabeNecro - We all know that those two come in a package xd

Shahryar - 1) okay :D 2) Don't worry, Todoroki's are a Big Name, they wouldn't permit such behaviour. 3) nah, he'll be doing alright

Jpx0999 - The real question about Dad for One theory here is who All for One would be? After all, Yagi doesn't seem to have an archenemy.

Detrametal - Todoroki knows a LOT. Also 'parthenogenesis but with anxiety.' ? Now that's a curious mind image xd

(***)

FAAK: Okay, what did I miss

FAAK: please tell me that the supernatural equivalent of a fucking bag over your head worked, nerd

FireBroccoli: uhm

FireBroccoli: define worked

FAAK: … talk to me

FAAK: Or I'll ask Round Cheeks

Round Cheeks: They aren't that round!

Round Cheeks: Wait who changed my nickname?!

Astronomical: …

FireBroccoli: look you left your phone out in the open - and with the chat up - I just had to

FireBroccoli: I'm sorry

Astronomical: … it's okay

Astronomical: it actually came out funny, didn't it?

FireBroccoli: yes and I swear I didn't check anything other

Astronomical: I know! I trust you.

FAAK: counterargument

FAAK: could you just shut up about your little love drama

FAAK: Deku, elaborate

FireBroccoli: yeah yeah

FireBroccoli: you remember the part when my mother might have been a flesh suit worn by an aberrant?

FAAK: yes

FireBroccoli: Well turns out that there is a chance that my dad was a flesh suit worn by different aberrant, since when we deactivated the charm the 'other' influence surfaced and it made Toga almost run through the wall in fright.

FireBroccoli: You're free to laugh.

FAAK: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Astronomical: are you sure that agreeing to that was wise

FAAK: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

FireBroccoli: he would have laughed either way

FAAK: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

IzuSimp: is it about Izuchan being more alien or me running through a wall

FAAK: yes

FAAK: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

IzuSimp: oh makes sense

FireBroccoli: kaachaaaan

FAAK: Deku you little shit this is hilarious

FAAK: "So, what are you exactly?" "I'm half-eldritch abomination." "Oh, what's the other half?" "A more terrifying eldritch abomination."
FAAK: I'm fucking dying here

StayFrosty: This is funny to me as well.

FireBroccoli: Shootooo

StayFrosty: Yes?

FireBroccoli: stop

StayFrosty: no

FireBroccoli: ugh

FAAK: Deku being two eldritch abominations of different opposites, that somehow cancel each other into more or less normalcy, wearing a trenchcoat is both the most hilarious thing I ever heard about AND explains fucking everything

FireBroccoli: yeah yeah, laugh all you want

FireBroccoli: the problem is, they are VERY powerful influences AND unless we suppress both, it'll just make the remaining one lethal

FAAK: So you're still going to go around making random girls develop an overbearing desire to bear your eldritch offspring

FireBroccoli: STOP BRINGING THAT UP
FAAK: Tell that to the Pregnancy Fetishist during our next meeting

FireBroccoli: 4we4r30vf hgnpty;

IzuSimp: sorry I don't speak bottom

FAAK: Messy Hair go to horny jail

IzuSimp: no

FireBroccoli: OKAY OKAY JUST STOP THAT'S FUCKING SERIOUS

IzuSimp: ALL FUCKING IS SERIOUS! :D

FireBroccoli: u7e4wr hvgntileosrźć

FireBroccoli: you're buying me a new keyboard if that one breaks

FireBroccoli: we have something of a replacement measure, because apparently my charm MIGHT be focused on eye contact

FAAK: tell me it's not sunglasses

FireBroccoli: it's sunglasses

FAAK: god this is so lame

FireBroccoli: mood

(***)

"Ochako," Izuku says, startling her a little. It's morning, the day after the unfortunate 'incident' with the suppression necklace. She was preparing breakfast for them both in the kitchen annex.

Not wearing her maid uniform. Yeah, she looked absolutely super hot in it, but it was morning. They had less than an hour from waking up to leaving the apartment, and wasting a solid chunk of it on random changes of clothes felt dumb.

(Izuku was still wondering how exactly the 'skimpier' one looked, but Uraraka was clearly not ready for that and he wasn't pushing - at least she would make it clear that she wants him to push for it)

"Y-yes?" She blinks at him, as if nervous that she did something wrong.

"Do you want to go on a date with me this evening?" Izuku asks. Not exactly the smoothest way of saying it, but hey, as long as it works.

Uraraka's eyes grow wider.

"A d-date? With me?" She looks somewhat shocked by that. Izuku finds it somewhat weird that she's shocked about going on a date despite the two of them already being rather… intimately acquainted.

Multiple times.

Multiple times a day, in fact.

"I would ask 'well, with whom else', but…" Izuku jokes. Uraraka smiles at it slightly. "Look, that experiment made you faint, literally faint. I feel somewhat guilty about that, so I decided that I should amend that."

"You don't have to bother!" Uraraka is almost oddly defensive about it. "It's completely alright, and…"

She made the mistake of looking back at the food she was preparing while saying that. Izuku immediately sneaked behind her and hugged her (right after glancing over her shoulder to make sure that no knives were involved).

"D-Deku-kun?!" How is she so incredibly… nervous around him? She fell for him, they both know that she did and did so hard, so it's not like she didn't like this, just… was it because she was so in love that she was nervous over the threat of doing something wrong and losing him.

"Ochako, you've gotta be at least a bit selfish from time to time," Izuku whispers into her ear. She is blushing very intensely at his words."We're both supposed to enjoy our time together, you know?"

"I, uhm, I…" She looks to the side, a blush on her cheeks being absolutely adorable to witness up close. Izuku would have loved to kiss them right now, but that would certainly strangle all words out of her. "... I d-don't really l-like spending m-money too much, so…"

"How about this then?" Izuku replies. "You, me, couch, cuddles, a movie of your choice, and some snacks. This evening."

Oh, judging from the look on her face, she absolutely loves the idea.

Izuku isn't even planning anything kinky for the said evening unless she initiates it. C'mon, it's awesome, but cuddling on a couch with a nice movie is awesome too, right? She is supposed to be his girlfriend, not just someone to be used for sex, he is treating the difference extremely seriously.

(***)

Shoto Todoroki arrives at school a bit too early.

Or, well, he doesn't exactly arrive at school. He is living in the Black Course dorms, so he's permanently living on the UA grounds. So, rather than 'arrive at school' he wakes up, eats his breakfast while answering the messages on his phone in a way that doesn't start a regular war between the Four Warlords, then walks out of the dorms while skillfully dodging Mirio Togata's attempts at socialization.

Then he has about fifteen minutes of walking at a leisurely pace before he discovers that Bakugou Katsuki decided to intercept him before the agreed meeting spot. He is promptly dragged over to a bench in the school park and told to sit down on it.

He sees no reason to fight it out, so he follows the orders.

"We have thirty minutes before I have to go to not miss the morning classes, Library Freak," Bakugou announces while staring him down. He decided to stand in front of a sitting Shoto Todoroki, probably for some additional height to make him more intimidating or something like that. "I went on the dates you set me up for. Now fucking talk."

"What were the results?" Shoto asks. "They aren't telling me anything. Are you invited for another date?"

"Yes," Bakugou replies dryly.

"With Moe or Fuyumi?" Shoto asks again.

"Yes," Bakugou replies even drier.

Shoto stares at him in silence for at least ten seconds, before managing to speak.

"Should I start referring to you as my brother-in-law then?" He then asks and Bakugou starts shivering.

Shoto doesn't mention any variant of 'looks like Midoriya supernatural influence might have rubbed onto you as well to some degree', because this sounds like a top one way to start a fight in his present company.

"Never use those words again," Bakugou replies. Shoto doesn't react to that at all. "Now talk. What the fuck is Round Cheeks?"

"She's a stalker," Shoto replies.

"I fucking realized that much by now, Library Fr… wait." Bakugou realizes something mid-reply. "Wait. That's her 'species' name, not a fucking hobby."

"Correct." Shoto nods. "Have you ever heard of revenants?"

Bakugou Katsuki isn't a nerd. But he took to reading books about folklore and similar stuff after being Initiated. Just for some fucking context to the bullshit he was going to inevitably run into.

"A type of undead that's literally too angry or hateful at someone to die so they stay around to fucking haunt or straight up murder whoever pissed them off so much," Bakugou replies.

"Absolutely, and that's one more reason for you to start taking anger management classes," Shoto replies calmly. Bakugou flips him the bird. "Stalkers are undead born through a similar mechanism. Can you figure out the difference on your own?"

Shoto Todoroki considers it obvious. But Initiates… they enjoy testing each other. It tells you a lot about the other person. It really wasn't a hard test, especially for someone as intelligent as Bakugou.

It took him less than three seconds to figure it out. He saw Uraraka and Izuku, her obvious bond, interact often enough.

"It's not hatred, isn't it?" Bakugou asks. "It's love."

"Bingo," Todoroki replies calmly. "Whatever happened to her in Rozaryu, she was in love with Midoriya beforehand. Love strong enough to keep her in this world after passing just to stay with him."

That was… in Bakugou's mind it put so many things in perspective. How focused on Deku she was. How she did her best to become part of their cabal right after approaching Deku, of course, to get acquainted. How she didn't hesitate for a second to take a potentially killing blow for him in that forest.

"Revenants, I think, go too fucking far with their hatred and anger," Bakugou asks. "And I feel like 'stalker' is a fucking negative-sounding name."

Oh, he figured that out immediately. Shoto is slightly surprised, even if it confirms his assessment of the man in front of him. Bakugou Katsuki is going to go places unless Midoriya pulls him into something way out of his weight class.

"Because it is," Shoto admits. "A lot of stalkers, the majority of them in fact, go too far. Uraraka doesn't need to eat, drink or sleep. She is immune to physical discomforts - after all, how do you expect someone to feel pain when they are already dead? She has only a single need left in her life… and its name is Izuku Midoriya."

"She isn't some sort of fucking vampire, right?" Bakugou, once again, has a valid and logical reaction to something. "Because she sounds like some emotional fucking mosquito."

"Oh, no, she doesn't take anything from him." Todoroki is quick to reassure Bakugou. "She simply thrives off any degree of closeness with him, especially the emotional one. He doesn't lose anything in the process. The thing is, the more of it, the better and more satiated she feels, but there is no cap on that."

"So they go too far." Bakugou realizes it immediately. "Acting like literal stalkers, driving others away so they can have 'their' person just for themselves, and generally acting like fucking yanderes."

"Precisely." Todoroki nods. "Honestly speaking, Uraraka is the most high-functioning stalker I ever heard of. She is clearly alright with Midoriya finding more friends and acquaintances, she isn't trying to drive a wedge between him and the two of us, and the only person she is actively against is Toga, in which case it seems to be motivated entirely out of her fear that Toga is just playing with her food and is planning to hurt Izuku. The fact that she appears to have adapted to her existence to the point of sharing her bond with her is straight up fascinating to me."

A significant chunk of the life of more accomplished Initiates was about investigating things they found intriguing. That's how you learned more things.

An odd old man seen in a park that seems to have something 'magical' about him might be an old initiate that's looking for someone who would realize the truth and be found worthy of their collection of magical books. Some patterns in the activity of the local supernatural might be a hint toward a powerful artifact being buried somewhere. A series of murders in your area might be a work of something supernatural - and you might learn something from its corpse.

There was always a price to pay and risks to take. But if you wanted to become someone powerful, you couldn't shirk away from that.

And in Shoto Todoroki's opinion, Midoriya Izuku's sheer existence - and all his satellite mysteries, like Uraraka's uncharacteristically restrained behavior - screamed of mysteries to uncover.

"You knew all that, and you didn't try to do anything?" Bakugou now flips back to being angry at Shoto. He is used to that.

"High-functioning stalkers are beneficial," Todoroki replies calmly. "You saw that in the forest already. There is a chance that Midoriya would have died if Uraraka didn't take that hit for him. Her living with him is actually the best case scenario for the entire cabal, because if he is attacked at home then the attacker will have to literally step over her dead body to get to him. Because for her, he is literally the most important thing in the world, even more important than her own existence."

Bakugou is still digesting that information when Shoto starts speaking again.

"There was a time when some very unscrupulous Initiates attempted to create stalkers for themselves because of that," Todoroki says. "Especially from manipulated non-Initiates. But no one really does that anymore. Stalkers are close cousins of revenants, and…" He sighs lightly. "... discovering that your love was artificial, never really requited and what you two had between each other was false all along can easily twist love into hatred."

Even such love. Perhaps especially such love.

"And if she…" Bakugou's eyes narrow. "... stops being a 'high-functioning' stalker?"

Now, things were going to get tricky.

"Have you ever heard the term 'persistence hunting'?" Shoto asks.

"Of course I did." Bakugou appears faintly irritated by being looked down upon. "It's how human hunter-gatherers sometimes hunted. They just walked their prey to death, since we lack fur which makes dealing with overheating much easier, and that makes our stamina better."

"Precisely." Shoto nods. "Now apply the same mechanism to what you heard about Uraraka's needs."

"Oh, fuck." Bakugou says three seconds later. "She doesn't need to eat, she doesn't need to rest, that's… honestly a pain in the ass. But if she gets killed or badly injured… wait, she's an undead."

Oh, yeah. Getting Bakugou Katsuki to join their family is going to be VERY beneficial to it. He is really connecting the dots quickly. Add his speed of learning new magic, and…

"How do you kill…" Bakugou's eyes narrow down on him. "... something that's already dead?" And that was an extraordinarily good question to ask.

"Ask the worm thralls from that forest about that," Todoroki replies dryly. "There is always a way. The problem is that dealing with stalkers is extremely troublesome. Uraraka has already died twice since our first meeting. Toga murdered her in a fight right before your orientation assignments, and then whatever secondary influence Midoriya exuded yesterday made her heart stop."

"So it's the 'doesn't stay dead' variant." Bakugou doesn't even bother asking about the reason for the fight or mention what Midoriya's influence did. He just focuses on the main point. "What's the mechanism?"

"Toga tore her head off… among other injuries," Todoroki replies. The fact that Toga thought that he didn't notice what happened was amusing to him. "However, Midoriya expected to see her again the next day… so he did."

"That's fucking troublesome alright." Bakugou groans. "Are you telling me that she isn't going to stay dead unless the nerd wholeheartedly rejects her and decides that he never ever wants to see her again?"

"Precisely," Todoroki replies. "And it has to be truly wholehearted. There are cases of stalkers remanifesting decades after their apparent final deaths because their bond's memories of their… misbehavior ended up fading, and they felt something akin to a faint, stalker-themed nostalgia."

He sighs while leaning back on the bench a little.

"Stalkers are, combat-wise, nothing special." He says, Bakugou staring at him intently. "Unless they lose themselves to anger due to emotional starvation, rejection or you hit some love-related berserk button, they aren't more dangerous than a living human. But there is a big problem related to the persistence hunting thing I mentioned. I assume…" He has to give him some occasions to use his brain, it's helpful in the long term. "... that you can figure it out already."

"I do." Bakugou looks like he bit a sour lemon. "When a stalker wants to chase you off or eliminate you from their bond's life… how are you going to defend yourself from them?"

"Precisely." Shoto nods. "Stalkers aren't dangerous on their own, but the real problem is that they are hyper-persistent predators. That's the very reason why Toga decided to persuade her to share rather than fight over Midoriya. Having a stalker go after you is akin to being a Soulslike genre boss. You might be massive and deadly, and your enemy might be squishy and weak, but they are just going to keep coming back. Over and over again, until you finally run out of tricks or they get lucky."

"Why do I have a feeling that those 'unscrupulous asshole initiates' you mentioned didn't try to create stalkers only for defensive purposes," Bakugou asks dryly. Shoto shrugs - he is entirely correct in his suspicions. "So what you're saying is basically that we should leave nerd as is."

"There is no real way to pry her off him, unless she stops being high-functioning and makes him be afraid of her," Todoroki replies. "He can't even hide, because your stalkers always know how to find you, purely on an instinct. Personally speaking, I'm satisfied with being able to observe them."

"Fucking voyeur." Bakugou groans.

"You misunderstand," Todoroki replies, unfazed. "Uraraka's case is unique. To begin with, it's clear that due to Midoriya's partially supernatural nature she returned to life bonded to someone non-initiated. I was explicitly taught that this isn't possible."

"Wait a second." Bakugou realizes it as well. "How the hell did she 'ate' when he couldn't fucking see her?"

"She probably followed him around, invisible to you two." Todoroki calmly dishes out something dreadful. "But this couldn't sustain her for long. By the time Midoriya was initiated, she had undoubtedly degenerated into a state of complete starvation, becoming something… different but similar to a revenant. She most likely broke into his apartment the night after initiation without really knowing what she was doing."

Bakugou's gaze sharpens. Yeah, it's best not to dwell on this subject longer than necessary.

"The tragic part was that if she caught up to him, she would probably try to hug him rather than attack him." Todoroki continues calmly. "Which, seeing her state at the time, would have either killed him through fright or through physical injuries. Here we get to another unique element of her case - she shouldn't be able to recover from that state. But she did."

"I think I can theorize here." Bakugou sighs, surprising Todoroki. "Most people would be terrified by fucking something breaking into their house at night. But Deku is a fucking nightmare fetishist. He was terrified, but he was also curious, wondering what the hell was that and probably interested in seeing it again but once he was strong enough to fight it off and get a closer look."

Todoroki blinks at him a few times, runs some calculations in his head, and then comes to a decision.

"That… makes sense." He decides. The fact that Bakugou - even with his knowledge about 'his nerd' - managed to outthink him on that is actually surprising. Positively. "It's absolutely fascinating, and it also makes sense. It must have allowed her to recover her sense of self just enough to be able to pretend that she was a human for a short while. She used that fleeting moment of clarity to break into the UA and pretend to be a Candidate to get any sort of contact with Midoriya whatsoever and stop herself from declining once again."

"She pretended to be a WHAT?" Bakugou stares at him in shock. Oh, he didn't realize.

"She isn't treated by the faculty as a human being," Todoroki replies. "Yagi-sensei took pity on her and got her a school phone to help her interact with you, but that's all. Even her school uniform isn't really there, she is just a limited shapeshifter when stuff like that is involved. I believe that the policy for stalkers is that the points she earns as a part of her bond's cabal are counted as if her bond earned them."

For the faculty, that was no different than summoning something and sending it after your enemies.

"Well, that's one more point for the 'common human decency' when Yagi-sensei is involved," Bakugou replies dryly. He looks like he needs a moment to digest that. "Why the hell are you so into this mystery?"

"Knowledge is power." Todoroki shrugs. "And I'm currently observing a very unique case of a stalker."

"And?" Bakugou asks.

"You can't exactly write about most undead on the internet, because there are also undead on the internet and you don't want to draw their attention too much," Todoroki replies. "This means that the intel I'm obtaining here is mine alone, and something to trade for other intel in the future. Someone I know might have a dying acquaintance that he fears might become his stalker once they perish - if they know something I don't, I can trade the additional information on stalkers to them for said something. And, as I said, Uraraka is an incredibly unique case with a lot to learn from. Ever heard the term 'bestiary'?"

"Mostly as a list of mobs existing in some RPG game," Bakugou replies.

"Close enough." Todoroki shrugs. "Many powerful initiates end up writing down their experience with the supernatural entities. It warps the medium, but the result is a book that others might look through after their death as a part of their research before facing something. What I just learned from you, so a potential way of 'restoring' a lost stalker to sanity is something to make my own bestiary, if I write it, valuable and looked for. I'm just thinking far ahead."

Very far ahead. He is ambitious, but he prefers to play it… calmly. Be cool about it, even. Heh.

"Well, now the only question I have left is how the fuck am I supposed to tell Deku that he became an accidental necrophile," Bakugou replies. He is surprisingly reserved about it.

"It's not necrophilia," Todoroki replies steadfastly. "The term 'undead' isn't exactly a precise one. Worm thrall is an undead as if taken straight from a fantasy game. What Uraraka is, is better described as an 'entity with an altered state of mortality', though it's a mouthful. She might have died, but she speaks, moves, thinks, has normal body temperature, and can be killed, but only temporarily. Because her definition of 'life' and 'death' was irreversibly altered once she died in our meaning of the term."

"That changes an awful lot," Bakugou replies dryly.

"Well, if you want a better description…" Todoroki replies in kind. "... you could just say that your nerd's haunted."

This day at school is still very awkward, especially when he sees Round Cheeks hanging around Deku, looking extremely happy about something for some reason.

"So, a comedy?" Izuku asks. Uraraka nods furiously. "Sure, that sounds nice enough. And we have a selection of snacks ready, so… let's start!"

She ends up lying on the couch next to him, her head on his lap while her eyes are on the screen. He was playing idly with her hair from time to time. She seemed happy, overjoyed even. A lot of laughter, nothing particularly 18+ until the film ended.

Izuku loved having her next to him. She seemed to be loving that as well.

When the spicier part of the 'date' ended, Izuku decided to address something.

"Uhm, Ochako?" He asks. She looks at him questioningly. "Just so we're clear, I don't mean anything sexual here, but… I really feel bad about you sleeping on the futon, and… do you want to sleep with me, at least until I get to buy you your own bed?"

She bluescreens. Or, more like, redscreens. But eventually (while clearly trying to look at everything that wasn't his face) she agrees. Two hours later Izuku discovers that sleeping cuddled with someone is surprisingly comfortable.