Chapter 9: Dark night. Bright day.
Himiko couldn't stop wheezing, she just couldn't. Don't get her wrong, she still felt terrible from her mess involving their finances, but to hear Izuku, the cinnamon roll, curse like a sailor for ten minutes straight, was just too much for the girl.
They even got back home! Thankfully the shift broke Izuku from his swear spree before anyone else heard him.
Everybody heard Himiko laughing until she ran out of breath and then laughed some more, and were all looking at her weirdly, but she couldn't bring herself to stop! To hear the ever-polite and awkward Izuku saying stuff that couldn't be repeated in public was just too much!
"Is she alright?" Inko's only answer was an embarrassed mumble from her son. The boy hadn't looked anyone in the eyes since they got back.
"Better laughing than crying." Toshinori tried to reach for a silver lining, and he wasn't wrong. Compared to their earliest expeditions to Yharnam, this one wasn't that bad!
Izuku didn't seem to agree with Himiko's opinion, "Can we please talk about something else?" He wasn't proud of his outburst; he wasn't proud of himself in general.
"Sure. I have good news! Melissa and David might have a prototype up and running by tomorrow, the day after at the latest." The good news made the teens perk up. Finally, progress!
"Yay, we won't need to scavenge money for that stupid key!" Himiko's cheer gained another round of stares.
"What key?"
Izuku decided to explain and not let the girl blame herself, "We need a special badge to open the gate to the district we need to go to next. The problem is, it's really expensive and we used all our money already." He kept it simple. No pointing fingers and no delving into how the Messengers' economy was built on spilled blood.
Even while going through multiple research sprees through the archive of the workshop, Izuku was still no closer to truly understanding Blood Echos. There was a certain logic, a grim one, in putting a value on things heads and attributing it to who killed them, bounty hunters were still a thing even in the modern age. Still, how the value of the bounty's blood was accounted for and tied to someone was a mystery to Izuku.
When the Doll performed the ceremony to make them stronger, both teens felt as if there was something over them that went in.
Urgh, just thinking about it gave Izuku a headache.
Inko didn't notice her son getting lost in thought, too busy revisiting memory lane. "Ah, it's just like you to splurge too much on something you want. Remember when you used all your allowance to get a new All Might poster the day you got it?"
The air got a little lighter, something they all desperately needed after everything.
Toshinori still had a question, "What did you get that left you both completely broke?"
"Izuku got a new sword. The old hammer wasn't being very useful, what with him breaking everything." Himiko poked some fun out of the boy before the chance slipped.
"Sorry."
"It's fine. You just needed something that wouldn't bring a building on our heads every time you swung it." She patted the boy's arm and the clearly visible muscle. His joke shirts were baggy, but they left Izuku's arms for show, and what a show it was with how his biceps were probably as big as Himiko's head. "Not that you need help with that. Not with these guns."
With her green bean successfully embarrassed, Himiko went back to laughing at his adorableness (which hid a foul mouth, and just the thought made her laugh harder).
"Leave the poor boy alone." Toshinori's attempt to defend him fell flat with how much the man was chuckling.
Thankfully, said poor boy was saved by the doorbell. The reprieve was brief, as all that awaited him was a letter.
A letter from his school principal. Izuku knew that each moment of his life that had that school or something related to it was anything but pleasant.
It couldn't be that bad compared with what he faced now, right?
Wrong.
"What?!" His shout instantly had Himiko at his side, gun in hand, and Toshinori not far behind.
"What happened? Are you okay?!" Himiko's voice didn't compute, Izuku's mind was too busy in the chaos that what he just read caused.
Did he really think he could be a hero?
Couldn't that damn school full of useless bastards stop stepping on his dream?!
"I'm expelled." His tone was low but the words still rang like a gunshot.
"What?! Let me see that!" Inko grabbed the letter from her son's numb hands and started to read it aloud.
"Midoriya Inko, we with this letter come to inform you, the legal guardian of Midoriya Izuku, that he is expelled from Aldera Middle School on grounds of multiple incidents started by him as the aggravating party. The last account includes threatening a student with a weapon!" The woman was completely frantic by the end. How could her son, her sweet boy, be accused of threatening someone?!
"Did you finally tell those idiots to buzz off?" Himiko thought it was high time for Izuku to stand up for himself, she was even willing to help him get rid of the bodies.
"Whoa, whoa! Back up a little." Toshinori, while also very shocked, tried to be the voice of reason. What the letter said didn't sound like his successor, but taking Himiko's comment into account, the story had more to it. "What happened kid?"
Izuku turned slowly to face his hero, his head felt full of static-
All their fault!
It was like he was watching himself from afar as his body went through the motions of explaining what happened-
He should put them all down like the filth they are!
"I was trying to get back home. Ka- Bakugo tried to stop me, but when I didn't he started to set off his quirk. I was just so tired I reacted to the sound of explosives by holding him at gunpoint."
Himiko nodded, being the only one not shocked, "Makes sense. We learned it's always better to be ready to put some quicksilver rounds onto people threatening us." It only took one death for them to understand that being ready to shoot came before and after asking questions in any given situation.
Damn crazy Hunters, as if the beasts weren't bad enough.
A heavy, weary sigh escaped Toshinori, "Okay. Let's go in parts." He fixed both teens with a hard stare, "I understand this was an outlier, but you two need to be more careful, or you will end up hurting someone. Still, this is partly my fault for not getting you two hooked on online classes when this started." Fewer chances of things going sideways, and that would let the kids do things on their own time. Not only that, but it would put Himiko back on track to finish her education.
Oh well, hindsight was 20/20. "I'll make a couple calls, clear things up, and ask for some more help with this little misadventure. For now, sit tight and don't worry too much about it, I am here."
Izuku felt things clear up a bit, his head not feeling as blurry. It was alright. Things would be alright. All Might was there.
For how long?
—
Rappa was getting sick of doing busy work. First, he was sent to walk around and search for the girl, then he was sent to walk around and deliver messages as some damn courier. Don't those bastards have phones?!
Dammit, he just wanted to fight someone. Anyone. Now he had to go tell the bastard about what the other bastard wanted. What was it anyway?
He reached the hallway to Overhaul's lab, already bored out of his mind when he heard it. Someone was speaking. Rappa got closer slowly to try eavesdropping, mostly for the heck of it.
It was Overhaul, but he was talking too quietly for Rappa to hear. The brute used his footwork to walk closer to the lab's door with surprisingly silent steps, still trying to make out what was being said clearly. If not for the lack of other noises, Rappa doubted he would have heard it, but now close enough to the door, which was thankfully opened a crack, he started to make out the words.
"She's gone. I need to find her. I need to finish my research. The cure. I need to find the cure. I need to…" The mumbled words were all spoken slowly as if the person saying them was in a trance.
Rappa was having a bad feeling. The type that crawled over the spine and gave goosebumps. Something was very, very wrong.
He put his face to the open filet of the door and peeked inside. Overhaul was kneeling in the middle of the room, which looked as if a tornado had swept over it. There was blood on the ground, a red stain that masked the floor tiles.
Something moved. The blood seemed to gurgle as if boiling. Rappa felt his head hurt.
Something spoke. The voice coming as if underwater. Rappa's nose felt wet.
"...FinD heR…FInd tHe PaLE BlOod…FiND thE MaRkED OnE…"
Rappa turned and started to put distance between him and whatever the fuck that was. He saw enough horror movies to know where that was going, and he wasn't having any part in it, no sir.
He wanted to die in a good fight, not for some stupid cult shit. Rappa ripped his mask off and rubbed away the blood flowing from his nose with the back of his hand. Whatever mess those bastards were getting into, he wasn't sticking around to see.
—
"Any clues?"
"You asking that every five minutes doesn't help."
"Point."
"Can't you just go full murder hobo and take the wheels again?"
"Stop with the 'murder hobo' thing! I told you, I don't know how I did that!"
"Kids, kids, please focus."
"Sorry."
"...I have an idea."
"Oh shit."
"If we can't go to him, why don't we bring him here?"
"...I mean."
"That could work, but how would we achieve that?"
"Hear me out. When It pulls him, he's close to here. Close enough for us to try and… you know, yoink."
"Wouldn't It throw a tantrum if we do that?"
"Probably, but what other choice do we have?"
"Am I the only one pissed off that all our options are bad ones?"
"No, but we play with the cards we're handed."
—
Toshinori had goofed up, he was mature enough to admit it. While he was running all over the place trying to help the kids with… everything really, he forgot the more mundane things that they also would need a hand with. No, Toshinori didn't forget, he just thought they weren't as important, and while prioritizing their safety was necessary, that wasn't an excuse.
He chose Izuku as his successor; it was Toshinori's duty to take care of him until the boy was ready to stand on his two feet and continue their legacy. That line of thought was what brought the hero to his old alma mater.
In the years that passed since his tenure, U.A. had changed much, but the corridor to the principal's office was much the same. Even the old prickle of anxiety that accompanied walking through it was there. Thankfully, Toshinori wasn't worried about bad grades or a fight with a classmate. Unfortunately, his discussion would be much grimmer.
"Come on, get a grip. Young Midoriya and Young Toga need something to help ground them and their education is a fundamental part of their future. They will get through this, so do your part!" With his little pep talk done, Toshinori stopped before the only door on the corridor and raised his hand to knock.
The door opened on its own before Toshinori could touch it.
"Come on in. I had been waiting for you."
The high pinch tone who uttered those words sent the man's previous confidence running for the hills. Still, too late to back down now. With a last gulp, Toshinori braved inside the room.
The office was pleasant, with the floor-to-ceiling windows illuminating the whole room naturally and warming up the wood planks of the floor. The furniture was also mostly wooden, with only the chairs at the desk having steel legs to account for people whose mutations left them on the heavier side. The book/trophy case that took the wall opposite the window was filled with old hard leather tomes and trinkets Toshinori couldn't identify.
But all those things took a backseat to the presence of the principal himself.
Sitting on his modified office chair was a being that left most of the world shocked and horrified in equal measure. What species of animal he was had turned into a gag after decades of no one finding the answer, but the bone-white pelt, cat-like tail, mouse-like head, and bear-like paws all were secondary. The characteristic that made it clear he wasn't human was the eyes.
The beady, pitch-black eyes that pierced into the soul while betraying the mind behind them knew too much. Those were a constant reminder that Nezu wasn't human, but something that one day decided to join society for some unfathomable reason that none but Nezu himself knew.
He had simply shown up one day, acquired Japanese citizenship the next, and managed to become the sole commanding force of the most prestigious school in Asia the following week.
Not only that. Nezu had arranged a meeting with Toshinori that same month and pledged his cooperation in the man's crusade against his nemesis. To this day, Toshinori hadn't the foggiest idea of how Nezu had figured it out, about both One For All and… All For One, but since the principal joined him, All Might hadn't lost a single battle in that war, until he won the war itself by ending that monster with his own hands.
When Toshinori finally asked Nezu why, why do all that, he only stated that he was waiting for someone.
Speaking of, "You knew I would come to you."
Nezu's facsimile of a smile still had too much teeth to it, and coupled with the situation it almost looked predatory. "But of course. I had in fact believed that you would have sought my aid days ago! However, I believe that enlisting David Shield and his progeny was also a valid option." The principal tilted his head to the side slightly, beady eyes gleaming.
That was one thing he hadn't missed about dealing with Nezu. The way the mysterious mammal(?) always knew everything, even what should have been impossible for him to know, gave Toshinori goosebumps.
"Yes. Well, I now need your help."
The smile widened just a tad, showing his fangs. "Wonderful! I already have everything prepared to assist our fledgling Hunters!"
Toshinori felt his blood run cold, just before he started to cough it up. "W-what?! How did you-?"
Nezu passed him a handkerchief and waited for Toshinori to recompose himself. When the hero stopped coughing, the principal stared right into his eyes, "Tell me, All Might, do you know where I got this?" He tapped the space right under his right eye.
Toshinori blinked, where had that scar come from? There had been only perfect fur covering Nezu's hide in that place only a moment ago. The man blinked a slight headache away and examined the mark, noting how it wasn't a clean cut. The edges of the scar were jagged, with the skin at the borders being red as if chaffed.
Of course, Nezu spoke before Toshinori could, the question having been only a lead to his next words, "I was young. Like any youngling, I simply didn't know best." The principal traced a short claw over the mark's edges, seemingly lost on another time and another place. "For all intends and purposes, I should have perished. Instead, I was saved by a Good Hunter."
The words seemed to tickle something in Toshinori's brain. Like the sudden feeling of missing a wordplay that you knew was there.
"Unlike others like his kin, that Hunter knew to differentiate between Beasts." Nezu continued his tale, not noticing (or pretending to) how the weird feeling hit Toshinori again. "He simply let me go while others like him would have put me down without remorse. For many years I asked myself why, and when I finally divined the reason… Ah, what a monumental occasion had that been." He stopped tracing his scar and linked his pawns, beady eyes, for the first time that Toshinori could remember, shining with something definitely human in them.
"For you see, young ones are the only ones truly innocent. They have yet to grow into something not, and that same development can lead to infinite possibilities. Denying the young a chance to realize those possibilities is the same as abandoning hope that something different, something better might exist."
Despite the emotional rollercoaster, which hadn't stopped yet, Toshinori felt himself nodding. "I understand, believe it or not. I also found someone that simply…simply makes me feel like things can get better even after I'm gone. That's why I need your help, to make sure him, both of them, can also look forward to something."
"Yes. Keeping marching on is made much easier when you feel you are marching on to something, an invaluable idea in an environment such as Yharnam."
Why wasn't he surprised? "I think you'll be more involved than I first thought."
A cackle escaped Nezu, mirth dancing through his eyes. "But of course. I commandeered this institution so I could offer young ones the same chance to develop to their full potential I was afforded, All Might. It would be ungrateful of me to not, as the idiom says, pay the favor forward. Especially when we account for how I could help turn such promising fledglings into Good Hunters themselves."
The feeling was so strong now that Toshinori had to hold the bridge of his nose. From how Nezu once again cackled, he not only knew why but also had deliberated done so for his own impish amusement.
Oh, the sacrifices he made for good causes. Still, if someone could help them figure out what the hell was going on and how to help the kids, Toshinori was okay with a couple headaches. Both physical and metaphorical
—
Nemuri Kayama, hero name Midnight, was many things. Hero, teacher, avid romantic, etc. However, she was not stupid. When Nezu calls for you, you drop everything and answer (after a second to panic appropriately).
Her boss was many things, many things that kept people awake at night in existential dread, but if he called for you specifically then one of two things happened. One, you fucked up and are about to become painfully aware of said fact. Two, something happened and he needs your particular set of skills to deal with it the best way possible.
Either way, you don't keep the rat(?) god waiting.
Nemuri stopped in front of the door, raising her hand to knock by habit alone, as she knew it would open on its own. No one knew how it did that, as the door and wall were checked multiple times and no one found anything to explain how it did that, much less how Nezu knew the exact moment to open it.
"Excuse me…" She trailed off, eyes widening at the sight of All Might, in all his muscular glory, sitting on a chair and nursing a cup of tea. Not only that, but by the way the man was massaging his temples he was probably also nursing a mean headache.
"Welcome, Midnight." Nezu greeted her by her hero name, so she wasn't in trouble, Yet. "Please take a seat. Tea?"
"Yes. Thank you." Nemuri didn't say how she liked her tea since Nezu knew. Both from all the times he served her and because Nezu knew was a universal constant. Deciding to use the chance, Nemuri turned to the hero beside her, "Can I ask what the number one hero of Japan is doing here?"
All Might gave her a strained smile, "I came to ask help from an…old friend? Let's go with that. But as Nezu is his usual self, I ended up with a bunch of questions and no answer to them."
"That's normal. No offense, sir."
The unidentified animal(?) brushed her concerns off, handing Nemuri her cup exactly the way she liked it. Nezu then pulled a folder and laid it on his desk, "To be clear, All Might, I only refuse to answer the questions you are not prepared to hear the answers. Back on topic, I called you here, Midnight, for among the staff, you are the one with most experience with shocked and traumatized victims."
Any good mood Nemuri had instantly evaporated. She took another sip of her tea, but it now tasted sour on her tongue, "And you have one such victim that you need my help with handling?"
"Two, in fact."
Dammit. Nemuri only had such a strong record with said cases because of her quirk, which could help sedate people without causing harm or adverse effects, but she hated using it to hurt people who were just scared. That led to her getting trained on how to deal with such situations without it (Nemuri asked a lot of favors from a lot of people to make that happen), so now her quirk was a last option that she scarcely had to rely on in such scenarios.
Even then, even when she made sure to be able to get things done in the best way possible, every time a desperate person looked at her in fear still haunted her thoughts. Still, Nemuri was a hero, and helping people was her job, "How can I help."
"Before you discuss that, I need you to sign this." Nezu tapped the folder, then put a pen over it.
Nemuri grabbed both objects and started to read over the non-disclosure contract she knew Nezu handcrafted for her. It was very, very thorough, and Nemuri would be ruined if she broke it, but it was also extremely fair on its clauses, which was why she had no problem signing it like she did all the others. It wasn't the first time Nezu asked for her assistance as a hero, which was why Nemuri knew what to expect.
"Perfect!" Nezu gestured to All Might while putting away the signed contract.
"Seems like we're doing this." All Might let out a sigh- was he smoking? As in literal smoke started to come out from his skin. "I apologize for the scare I'm about to give you, but if you will work with us, this is necessary." And just like that, the monument that was All Might was gone.
In his place, a skeleton of a man nodded at her, "You might want to pick up your jaw."
Nemuri just noticed she was openly gapping. Her mouth closed with a click of teeth smashing together. "You- uh- I mean…"
"Take your time. We will probably be here for a while either way."
After ten minutes, which was a big indicator of how shocked she was, Nemuri calmed down enough to ask, "What happened to you?"
"You should have seen the other guy." All Might (that stick figure was All Might!) chuckled for a moment, but his semblance quickly fell. "I was involved in a battle five years ago that left me like this."
"Who could have done that to you? You're All Might!"
"He won't be a problem anymore." His tone was enough to pass the message, and Nemuri promptly dropped the subject. The man took a calming breath (it was shallow, too shallow) and proceeded to throw her world view on its head, "Since that incident, I had been able to work less and less as a hero thanks to the extension of my injuries. Being down a lung and your whole stomach does that to you."
Nemuri hid her shudder pretty well, but she still felt cold inside knowing the strongest hero in the world had been going for years with less than all necessary organs.
All Might kept speaking after a moment, so she probably didn't hide her discomfort that well. "As was the case, I had become a little sour with how things would end with me like this. I can only maintain my strong form for three hours, and soon the world will have to keep going without me."
The subject had suddenly become depressing and very real. A world without All Might was a thing Nemuri hadn't known, she and everyone in her generation had been born in the era of peace that All Might had singlehandedly created. For the first time since, since ever Nemuri got confronted with the fact that said era would end, and looking at the emaciated man beside her, it would end soon.
"Luckily for the world, I found someone to take my place."
To say she was getting dizzy with all the twists that conversation took would be an understatement. "You did?"
"Yes." All Might laughed, not his usually bombastic one, but a small and genuine thing that seemed so relatable. He looked her in the eyes, his sunken azure orbs getting a hopeful glint to them.
"Let me tell you a story of how a boy showed the greatest hero that there were people out there willing to do what's right even when the whole world is against them."
YOOOOOOOO! Done!
So, from this point onward I write this message on a… hard time for me. Feel free to stop reading it.
My aunt just passed away.
She was a second mother to me. She raised me, made me who I am today, and just… yeah. She was part of my world, and today that part… just isn't here anymore.
I'm not okay, but that's okay.
I'm not asking for your sympathy or your pity, I'm not asking anything really. I'm just telling you that today an amazing woman who made my world started her next big adventure.
This chapter honestly nailed the feeling down and I wrote it before all… this. Things are bad, they are uncertain, and they are and are gonna be hard for me and all my family. Even then, even with all of that, there's this feeling that things will be alright in the end. There's hope.
Now we continue, we keep living, and we march on.
So I'll just say, keep the good moments alive with you, and make as many of them as you can.
And for my aunt, here's my message to her.
Nena, obrigado por tudo que você fez, e tudo que você deixou pra gente. Eu amo muito você, todos nós amamos muito você, e nós vamos continuar amando você. Nós vamos seguir a vida, e no final, a gente se vê. Não se preocupe que o seu gordo vai continuar, e ele vai estar perto de todo mundo. Eu não vou dizer adeus, eu vou dizer um simples "até a próxima."
Thanks for everything. Bola8, out.
