In the dark it should be harder to see, harder to make sense of the details in his reflection, but somehow the darkness only highlighted every little hint, every imperfection. He padded bare foot across the ratty carpet and swung his head side to side, seeking out an exit or... an entrance perhaps. In a mirror broken like a pinwheel, a familiar, freckled face appeared--Izuku, with his soft features, unrefined and kind, innocent in appearance and in heart, smile warm as a campfire after a long trek through an unknown wilderness. Another corridor to the left--
A door? No, just a second mirror, this one spider-webbed through. Izuho gazed back at him, his features cut from marble, so sharp they might draw blood, hardened and beaten down, the warm flame of his smile smothered and smoldering. Izuho offered what warmth he could in that half- smile even as his eyes glittered with calculating intelllect.
Another corner, a darker corridor, still no doors. One more shattered mirror, this one a million little diamonds, a thousand imperfect facets reflecting the perfect predator. Fossa gazed back at him, elegant and so very genuine, like a masterwork marble statue. His smile was warm as Izuku's, his eyes as bright as Izuho's and all of it was but a mask for an iced and hollow heart.
A corner, a mirror... Kuma waited for him, wry compassion in her cleanly reflected face, not a single crack through her mirror. A corner... and he was back where he started. No doors. No windows. Just mirrors. The child, the man, the monster, and the woman who'd seen it all before.
One, two, three, four, And yet another corridor.
One, two, three, four, Mirror, mirror, never door--
He jolted awake with a snarl, knife already in his hand--
"Woah!" Nishida backed away. "It's only me, Mihara."
"Oh... oh... sorry," Izuho winced. "I'm--I--"
"It's alright," the man nodded sagely. "Have you seen Arashiro, though? It's getting very late."
It was late, wasn't it? It was nearly time for the two of them to get ready for work. "Wow, I really overslept," Izuho muttered. "No... I... haven't seen Arashiro since last night and who broke that glass?" he gestured to the shards on the floor.
"It wasn't broken when you went to sleep?" Nishida raised an eyebrow.
"No. Wow, I must have been really tired to sleep through that." What should the story be? The obvious one, keeping as close to the truth as possible. Should he tell it now? It seemed best. "Arashiro and I, we had a fight last night about... well, I guess it was about Wakiya even though it wasn't really about Wakiya and then I went to sleep and maybe she wanted to have some time alone? Was she mad enough to break the glass on purpose?"
"Maybe..."
"This isn't like her though but it's not like we've been, I mean we've never lost someone like this before."
Nishida sighed. "I know. Keep an eye on her, Mihara, and try not to fight with your friend, no matter how angry you may be. She's not responsible for what happened."
Oh the unbearable irony. "I know."
"And neither are you." And more irony coming. Izuho sighed. "I need a shower."
The water ran. Izuku did not step into the stream. Not yet. He stared down at the crumpled form of Arashiro trapped in her own personal little hell. How could... he had this same thought about Misaki, that it was beyond unethical, beyond cruel, to take an enemy prisoner this way as opposed to killing them outright when he could not guarantee a definite end to their torment. Why was it okay to do this to Arashiro when he cared about her whereas it wasn't okay to do it to Misaki when Izuku hated him?
It wasn't okay. Okay had nothing to do with it. Sometimes the rules of morality had to be tossed out the window when faced with the impossible. Fossa couldn't let Arashiro turn him in. Izuku couldn't let Fossa kill her. The only possible solution was to keep Arashiro a prisoner in a globe. That was it. That was what was possible. So the answer to "is it moral" (an obvious no) was irrelevant.
Fossa had made sure she was unconscious at least. As far as Izuku understood Kuma's quirk, Arashiro should be kept in perfect stasis, meaning if she went in to the globe unconscious she should stay that way, preventing the worst of the associated suffering. Maybe? Hopefully? And what did he do with her now? Pry up a floor board and hide her underneath it? Keep her on his person? This globe wasn't small enough to be easily concealed on him, which would be his preference as it would nearly guarantee that someone would find her and free her if Fossa were killed unexpectedly... wait... here was an idea. He had this softball he always carried around as cover for jumping up on the storage building that one time. Was it the right size? Yes... just barely. His knife made quick work of cutting the side open then he removed and replaced the current core. He'd have to sew the ball up carefully when he got the chance, but tape would do for now to seal Arashiro's globe inside. He could no longer afford to play with the ball, though, given what would happen if it were dropped. He'd have to remember that.
Izuho stepped out onto one of the new catwalks recently added to the patrol route through the lowest floor of the Citadel. Unfortunately, none of the portal machinery under construction had been damaged in the nomu escapes and fires. "Move it!" Shigaraki snarled as a lab tech tripped and nearly dropped a box of electrical equipment on their leader's foot.
"We're ready to test this system," Dr. Kyudai called, standing up to reveal the large, nomu-filled jar he tended to. A shadow shifted near the wall--oh. Stain was down there, too, lurking in a corner, keeping an eye on Shigaraki's back.
"Finally!" Shigaraki growled. "We're working as fast as--"
Izuho let the stairwell fire door crash closed behind him. It would have been nice to spy on that conversation, but he could only drag his feet so much without arousing suspicion.
He hurried through his patrol, hoping to arrive back in time to see the results of the subsystem testing and maybe puzzle out exactly what they meant to do with this equipment.
"Why isn't it working?" Shigaraki snarled as Fossa came back into earshot. The PLF's leader stood on a prominently painted "X" on an otherwise unimpressive piece of concrete, a strange pillar of wires and glass tubes suspended a meter or so above his head by heavy cables.
The doctor, probably repeating himself for the hundredth time, began, "you have to picture it in your mind, exactly the location, the circumstances, everything. You must know precisely what you are--"
"I know exactly what I want!" Shigaraki snarled. "I can see it perfectly clearly in my mind. I can see him there. I know what I'm after! Why isn't it manifesting?" Shigaraki gestured furiously to a dark television screen which, presumably, ought to be displaying the location Shigaraki was attempting to visualize. It showed nothing but vague static, and maybe a chair? So the portal's location was dictated by input directly from someone's brain... "Why isn't it working? I want it working now!"
"As do I, my friend," the doctor sighed, hanging his head tiredly. "It's coming along, though. Soon."
"Soon isn't good enough! You've seen the news from the north front!" Oh? What news from the north front? "That was definitely Lemillion." Lemillion was back! Excellent! "Even the high-ends have trouble with him and we lost a lot of resources to this sabotage. We need to finish things now. No more delays!"
"We are rushing and we are making swift progress," Kyudai assured. "Things aren't as dire as they appear. What happened here was an exception, not a norm, and you handled the situation just fine in the end. Soon--"
By the time Izuho returned to the floor again, the scientists had finished fiddling with their portal for the night and Shigaraki had taken Stain and left.
Fossa had to do something about this. Whatever they were planning to do with this machinery, they seemed convinced it would deal a decisive blow to the Chain. Letting Dark Shadow loose was a great victory, but it could be for nothing if this machine were as menacing as Shigaraki implied.
The spy managed to trip over and completely dislodge a hydraulic cable that had been haphazardly draped over one of the catwalks. To avoid suspicion, he called attention to the event immediately.
Unfortunately, the cable in question was of no importance, as the tech assured him repeatedly over his apologies. "It's all fine. You couldn't have damaged anything tripping over that. We wouldn't have left it there if it were really important."
Drat. The PLF lab techs had to choose now to become competent?
It had become so easy to pick out Izuho as the sole reflection to display to the world that day. He was hardly even acting anymore. This was just who he was for the moment.
Izuho didn't realize that Arashiro hadn't appeared for her shift. Sometimes they did not see each other at all over the course of a night depending on exactly how the rotation had been scheduled. It was... odd that she wasn't there when Izuho returned to his bunk after work, concerning, but not so concerning that he dared to trouble Sone and ask after his friend. It wasn't until Sone stepped into their room to speak to Izuho as he dressed the next afternoon that the gravity of the situation dawned.
"When was the last time you saw Arashiro?" she asked him.
"Um... last night, or I mean, right after the shift before last, sergeant. We had kind of a fight and then I went to bed and I didn't see her when I got up. It's pretty weird that I haven't seen her today but after... you know..." after what happened to Wakiya, perhaps some unusual behavior was to be expected. "It's still not like her," he rambled nervously.
"She didn't show up for her shift last night," Sone told him. "Nobody's seen her."
"Wait. Nobody? What? No. No she... that doesn't make any sense!"
The sergeant scowled. "No. It doesn't. Any idea where she might have gone? Any at all?"
Izuho racked his memory and shook his head. "I don't know, Sergeant Sone, I don't know. Oh god, please, not her too--what could have--she wouldn't just disappear like this! If she isn't back then--then--" then she was probably dead because why else wouldn't she be back? She wouldn't just leave him!
"Calm down," Sone snapped. Izuho took a deep breath and complied as best he could. "What time did you see her last?"
"Uh... two in the morning I think, sergeant." "And what was it you two argued about?"
Fossa had thought long and hard about this excuse, gone over and over it like Kuma had taught him until the fabricated memory was all but indistinguishable from the truth. "It was really stupid, uh, mostly about this time a few days ago when she spilled her drink on my newspaper and we didn't think anything of it at the time but then we were suddenly both just... blaming the other for it? Like it was a big deal."
"A spilled drink?" "Yes sir."
"Seriously? At two in the morning you argued about a spilled drink and Arashiro got so mad that she walked out?"
"Yes! Maybe? I know, it's dumb! It didn't make any sense, either, we were just both so... so mad... about Wakiya, especially since I was with him when..." Izuho trailed off, not wanting to turn his thoughts to his former tent-mate's final moments.
Sone grimaced. "Alright. Keep an eye out. If you hear from her or see her, let me know immediately."
He nodded. "If they find her will you please let me know, sergeant?"
Sone gave him a half-smile disturbingly reminiscent of the one Kuma had given him when Izuku dreamed of her standing in a mirror while the spy walked around and around a corridor full of shattered glass and shattered personalities. "Of course, Mihara."
Nothing can be infinitely strong. If you put enough pressure on it, even the fabric of space itself will tear. The resulting catastrophe is inescapable, with everything in the gravitational well dragged down and crushed to a point.
Izuku might be at the edge of imploding into a singularity now.
He'd really come to lean on her, hadn't he? Arashiro was always there, someone he took comfort and support from even as he offered it in return. They were like beams, ready to topple at the slightest breeze when standing straight up alone, but when together, leaning towards each other and meeting at a point, they formed a truss strong enough to build bridges. The fact that Arashiro hadn't known the half of the harrowing experiences through which she had supported Izuku was irrelevant. Now, his balancing partner gone, he flailed in the wind.
He would have turned to Wakiya to try to find another point of stability. Wakiya was more stable than ever now, by some measure of the word, but no more available for a conversation than Arashiro. Not that either of them would speak to him willingly even if they could.
Traitor. Murderer. Ruthless and cruel...
He was all of these things. So were Arashiro and Wakiya, of course... The soldiers of the PLF, the spies of the Chain, they did not make the war, but the war made them. They were not sculptors but they were sculptures, ugly, evil sculptures.
On his back on his bunk killing time as he waited for sleep, Izuku bounced his sewn up softball from hand to hand.
"When I first came here I promised myself I wouldn't make friends," Izuku mused aloud, speaking as if Arashiro could hear him even though he prayed that she could not, prayed that she remained unconscious, that he had not inflicted Hirano-style torture upon her. "I promised not to make friends because if I did it would make everything too hard. But I just couldn't help myself, could I? I always felt things too much, didn't I? I always want to help... doesn't matter who, but then you have to weigh it, don't you? Who matters at the end of the day? Do you matter? Do I matter? Does the country matter? It's all the same story over and over again. History. That's why it has 'story' in the word I guess. Same plot, same tragedies, only the characters switched around a little. This is just like any other war. There's been a hundred thousand wars before and there'll be a hundred thousand more to come. What does this one matter? It doesn't, does it? Not really. Doesn't matter who lives and who dies. Doesn't matter who wins and who loses because everybody loses. I won. I won so much. All I do is win, and I still lost."
"Are you alright, Mihara?" asked Nishida, stepping into the room just as the spy finished his unhinged rant.
"No, not really, but is anybody?" "What... do you mean?"
"The whole world has gone insane, hasn't it? I've killed so many people I can't remember the number anymore, let alone the faces. How can that possibly be? I used to put on a blanket cape and run around the house pretending to be All Might, you know. I was that kid."
A thin smile crossed Nishida's face for a moment. "My little one used to do something similar." "She was that kid. I was that kid," Izuku continued even though he shouldn't, "and now I've
become everything I ever despised because there's no other choice. I can't be the only one who looks at myself in a mirror and can't believe that the face looking back at me is still human. I keep expecting to see some kind of jungle cat in the mirror, with big sharp teeth ready to rip people's throats out."
Nishida gave him a Concerned Look with capital letters. "I think I may know what you mean, Mihara. Sometimes... it's difficult to understand how it came to this."
"How did it come to this?" Izuku demanded. "So a bunch of people got locked up and the HPSC threw away the key. So the government was a bunch of corrupt scumbags. They're the government! They're always corrupt scumbags." He could just picture the entire MLA nodding along with that statement, maybe even drinking to it. "Why didn't we just vote in some new corrupt scumbags? How did we end up killing each other? I don't... I just don't get it anymore. How could anybody have thought this was a good idea?" He'd had these thoughts before, hadn't he? He'd even come up with an answer at least once, but here he was, thinking the same things over and over again in an endless cycle and somehow no answer was forthcoming to any of his questions.
"Once the steps down the road to war begin, it's like trying to hold back an avalanche," Nishida said quietly. "Neither side can stop escalating their responses as the opposition is radicalized by the attacks." Interesting to see that Nishida understood, intellectually, how he had been twisted by his daughter's fate.
"Where were all the reasonable people?" Izuho asked desperately. "Most of the people I ever knew were... not radical HPSC supporters and not PLF supporters! What happened to them? Aren't they supposed to be like the neutrons in an atom, making sure the thing doesn't blow to pieces? Why didn't they do their jobs?"
Nishida considered this. "I think they tried, Mihara but... sometimes there really isn't any solution to political problems that doesn't end in violence."
"I know, I know. But why did this have to be one of those times?" Izuho mumbled. "I wanted the HPSC gone, gone, gone, purged. I wanted them in the cells where they put me, don't get me wrong, I wanted them gone but..."
"I do understand," Nishida said softly. "I really do." "Sorry for dropping this on you," Izuho sighed.
"It's alright. I, at least, still have family to talk to, although the mail is rather slow. I know you don't. If you ever need an ear, mine are available, and Shimoda would listen, too, although I know she's perhaps a bit... too straight forward for this conversation." That was one way to phrase it. She would not appreciate hearing any of this.
"Thank you." "Of course."
Izuho got up, leaving Arashiro's disguised globe behind, and walked slowly towards the window. It was nearly a full moon. What would War Dog get up to this month?
"Arashiro is dead, isn't she?" Izuho asked, staring out at the flickering lights glittering across the Citadel's skyline.
"We don't know that," Nishida said, although his tone contradicted his words.
"She's either dead or a deserter, and where would you even desert from here?" Izuho shrugged. "There's nowhere to go... it's not like she's a teleporter. Her quirk makes tea. She..."
Nishida did not answer for a time then began very carefully. "I know you two were very close so perhaps... have you considered that she might not have been what she seemed, Mihara?"
"What?"
"She vanished a night after someone broke into a secure lab and released those monsters," Nishida pointed out, coming to the logical conclusion, the wonderful logical conclusion that Fossa had banked on and Izuku had not cared to hope for.
"She wasn't a traitor, if that's what you're implying," Izuho snapped.
Nishida shrugged, but his expression didn't change. "It can be hard to see the signs when you're so close to the situation."
"Or it can be easy to see that there aren't signs," Izuho shook his head. "She was not a traitor. She was not. I would have known. She was loyal. She was."
"Of course," Nishida dropped it with only a hint of the soothing condescension in his tone that one might use when addressing an incorrigible pet.
All Fossa did was win, win, win and still Izuku lost.
"I have this strange feeling," Izuku mused, still staring out the window as if the answers to all his questions, spoken and unspoken, might be hiding just beyond his sight. "I have a feeling that all of this is not going to matter soon." Everything has its breaking point... He had his. That machine in the basement must have one, too. That thing had to go. Whatever it was, it had to go, just like Wakiya and Arashiro and Nagant and Misaki. This time, however, he couldn't think of any clever trick to get away with it.
"What do you mean by that?" Nishida asked, with more capital Concern in his voice.
"I don't know. I feel like it will all be over soon, like this is the top of the mountain and after this it's downhill."
"In a good way, I hope."
"What do you mean by that?" Izuku hummed.
Fossa would not object to a good suicide run. Izuku had once promised Kuma he'd try to survive this war so he could remember hers. He would like to carry on her legacy in the same way he'd like Dark Shadow to carry on Tokoyami's... but as the familiar had made perfectly clear, sometimes it just couldn't be that way.
How many people actually got a happy ending? He couldn't think of anyone, not off the top of his head. Why should Izuku's ending be happy? Going out with a bang, a blaze of glory like Dark Shadow, was the most he hoped for.
He'd be more than satisfied with that and, honestly, it couldn't come soon enough.