When the Rabbit Hero had proposed that they hold their conversation somewhere better, this hadn't been what he'd had in mind.
Tokoyami found himself seated at a worn-down table in the dreariest corner of a nearby fast food restaurant that his strange new company had selected. To her credit, it was more comfortable than some of the hero or villain dominated spaces where he'd held similar conversations in the past. It was out of the way and inconspicuous, while remaining strictly neutral… despite being so openly public. But nobody was here now, with the echoes of their recent fight in the streets having driven whoever still populated this area deeper into hiding. Except for the disquieted employees that they'd ordered their food from.
It had been an impossibly long time since Tokoyami had last eaten out at an establishment like this. He was hesitant to linger anywhere for too long, and trips he made to the store were brief and rushed. Ever since a customer had remarked rudely on his avian appearance, he'd reminded himself to keep his hood up. It just wasn't something he was used to anymore. Hostility towards those with heteromorphic quirks were on the rise as a response to the PLF's actions, and the chain reaction left a bitter taste in his mouth. It seemed as though even in places where he wasn't immediately recognized, he was still being judged and watched keenly for mistakes.
So he kept an eye on the workers behind the counter, tired and impassive as they might've appeared. And he did not neglect his surveillance of the front door and accompanying windows, which could be so easily entered or broken at a moment's notice. He had to assume that Mirko had at least been strategic in selecting this table, away from prying eyes but well within viewing distance of this building's weak points. He listened for baleful whispers from within the cramped confines of the dining area, as well as vengeful roars of contempt that might erupt from outside. All the while, his fingers tapped ceaselessly on the worn surface of the table, always ready to press the trigger that would release his claws from their sheaths.
"Alright, lunch is served!" Mirko announced, plopping a tray of greasy food and cold drinks into the center of the table.
Tokoyami startled at the easy loudness with which the hero made herself known. For something so mundane, it sure as hell seemed as though she had a hard time remaining discreet. He thought perhaps that might be a given for higher ranking heroes that did well to draw attention to themselves and earn the admiration of the public. But that trait didn't seem to apply so much to other top heroes…
Tokoyami pulled his hood further down his head and tucked his beak down. "You could stand to be a bit quieter," he whispered, wishing only to disappear. "I thought this was going to be a more private conversation." It certainly didn't help that the Rabbit Hero was still in uniform, no doubt attracting even more unwanted eyes. The only change to her outfit was the addition of a light parka to cover her arms.
Her eyes glanced towards the cashier behind the counter, only to look back to Tokoyami with a toothy smile. "No worries; we won't be bothered here."
She grabbed a burger and basket of fries off the tray for herself, and after a moment gestured for Tokoyami to do the same when he failed to make a move.
He dragged some food his way and began picking at some fries. "Now. About the matter at hand."
"Right to business, are we?" she teased, earning a frown from Tokoyami.
"It's what we agreed to meet for," he reminded.
"Take it easy! At least gimme a sec to eat. Don't you ever slow down?"
Tokoyami glowered down into his chicken nuggets. Slowing down had never done him much good. But he obliged, if only at the hero's insistence.
They ate in silence for a minute, and Tokoyami used that time to continue gathering his thoughts in preparation for the inevitable conversation. Until, finally, Mirko took a long draught of her drink and leaned forward against the table.
"Now, then. I've been tracking that nomu on and off for the better part of a week. Anytime I get too close, it runs away on me, and I don't see it again for a while. Very elusive and hard to pin down. So you can imagine my surprise…" She looked Tokoyami up and down, and he sank further into his seat with a scowl. "...when it ended up going after you."
Tokoyami took a leveled breath to settle his frayed nerves. He closed his eyes, but saw only the outstretched talons of the nomu waiting for him there.
"You'll have to tell me what you know about it first before I disclose any information," he calmly insisted, setting his boundaries.
The pro hero merely shrugged, as if it made little difference to her. "Alright. This is a high-end nomu we – the group I was with, that is – ran into during our raid on Dr. Daruma's lab during the war. After evacuating the patients from the hospital that served as his front, we had to fight our way through some pretty tough monsters." She flashed him a toothy, perhaps mildly deranged smile. "My goal during that was to reach the doc as fast as possible, and those nomu guys were in my way. I tore through a bunch o' them, and they did the same right back to me," she explained, flicking her shredded right ear. "But the Crow nomu was a bit different. It would attack, but it didn't seem… out for blood? I don't think it wanted to fight me that much, and I never saw it working together with the other high-ends. I can't say if it followed orders very well, either, because it ran off the first chance it got. You know, instead of fighting to the bitter end like so many of the others." She held off on that note, gauging Tokoyami's reaction. He offered her very little, just as she had given him.
"All nomu have their own quirks to them," Tokoyami rumbled. "Is that really so strange?"
She leaned forward a little further, her voice low and smile gone. "What's strange is how that thing kinda resembles you."
Tokoyami scowled. "Then maybe you should get your eyes checked."
"I don't have to. There's enough eye-witness reports out there claiming that it is you that it's no longer an isolated incident," Mirko said.
His fists clenched against the table. "Has it hurt anyone?"
"Not yet," Mirko said. "Just property damage and a few scares is all – nothing that can't be swept under the rug. But it is still dangerous, and since it's one of the doctor's renegade experiments, that makes it a high priority target."
"So they put you on the case." Tokoyami didn't want to say anything, but… wasn't this far too soon for the hero? Before she'd put her parka on, he'd seen that the skin surrounding her new prosthetic arm had looked raw and angry. Countless scars that had yet to heal hatched her body, and even now she looked noticeably tired, despite the day having only just begun. Perhaps that was why a hero normally so energetic had insisted they slow down. "Are the heroes so short-handed that they couldn't offer you any help?"
Mirko crumpled up a burger wrapper as small as she could make it, thinking hard, before tossing it back onto the tray. "They're doing what they can out there," she whispered with surprising softness.
"Yes, I'm sure Hawks is far too busy with things like this," Tokoyami spat, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone.
"...He's not returning to hero work."
Tokoyami sat up straighter in his chair, his next breath ripped from his throat at the declaration. And he couldn't be sure he heard that quite right.
Dark Shadow peered out from under his cloak, and Tokoyami tried to nudge his head back into the shadows where nobody would see him. The quirk didn't budge, so he quickly gave up.
"...What?" Tokoyami rasped in disbelief. "I know what I said, but… I didn't think he would just give up after all that. I thought… nothing would stop him from chasing his goals." Not even me.
Mirko sighed through her nose and leaned her head into her open palm, her elbow propped on the table. "Well… he did. And he hasn't been in touch with me since, if you were wondering. So I don't really have much more to say 'bout him. I think the Commission just wants to retain some of their old control, and he made a good scapegoat for a lot of things that went wrong during and after the war. So… yeah. I guess he's retired now."
Disappointment and anger simmered beneath his skin. How comfortable that faithless man must be to turn his back to the whole state of the world. How cowardly he was to hide from the masses and the title he'd built on blood on deceit.
But wasn't I the one who didn't want him to be a hero anymore?
Tokoyami dropped his head into his hands. He didn't know what he wanted anymore. He could not name the price of the sacrifices he'd made and the lives he'd saved and the lives he'd let slip.
"But I'm still kickin'!" Mirko reminded him in earnest, leaning back into her chair with a shift in demeanor. "Besides, I'm the one who faced that nomu first, so it's my responsibility to finish it off! And you're gonna help me. Because you know more about it than I do."
"That's a bold claim," Tokoyami rumbled. "But you… would be right about that. I should've known I'd have to face that thing, back when…"
Tokoyami trailed off as his thoughts drifted back to darker times, and he would've been content to leave the subject alone had he not had a fully invested audience of one.
"When…? Did you have to deal with this nomu before the war?" Mirko asked. She kept her tone politely curious, as if the answer wasn't so important, but her ears were turned entirely to him. He had her full attention.
Tokoyami thrummed his fingers nervously against the table. "Well, you saw the lab, didn't you? You made sure to wreak havoc there?"
She chuckled. "A funny way of putting it, but yeah." Then her smile faded. "Did you have some attachment to that place?"
Tokoyami stared down at the ring of condensation that his drink had formed on the table. "N…not really. I'm glad it's in ruins now."
"Were you kept there?"
"No." His answer was quiet but firm.
"So then what happened in that place?"
When Tokoyami looked back up into her calculating red eyes, he was suddenly reminded of who he was dealing with. He wilted in his seat, and for the first time considered that this was, perhaps, a bad, bad idea.
"I don't…" Tokoyami scrambled for words, and watched the way her ears drooped ever so slightly in disappointment. And yet her face remained just as intense. "I don't want anything I say to be used against me. Please understand."
They both slipped into sullen silence. Mirko's ears drooped in visible disappointment, and she began idly drawing patterns in the condensation left behind by her soda. Tokoyami pecked away at his food. He wasn't very hungry anymore.
When the hero next spoke up, it wasn't with the words he'd expected to hear. "Hey, so, I'm really glad I got to sit down with you. Because I also wanted to… apologize. Formally, that is. It's the least I can do, ya know?"
Tokoyami blinked slowly. That could mean anything. "...For what?"
Mirko fidgeted in her seat, and he got the impression that this wasn't the sort of thing that she was used to doing. "For, uh, getting to you too late. Back when… when the first high-end appeared on the scene, and it fought Hawks and Endeavor. I arrived in time to scare off Dabi, but I didn't see you until it was too late to do anything. And then you were just…" She threw up her hands in frustration. "Gone!"
Tokoyami remembered all too well. In the final dredges of that fight, after the nomu was defeated and the heroes were in the process of picking up the pieces, Tokoyami and Dabi had been on the scene. Countless people had seen Dabi. Almost nobody had known that Tokoyami was there.
Except Hawks, who'd tried so hard to stifle him. And, evidently, the Rabbit Hero. She had heard him through the flames. She'd looked up and seen him when nobody else had.
"I didn't think anyone cared," Tokoyami mumbled.
Regret passed momentarily across her face. Then she readjusted, and it was business as normal. "That was our first time encountering a high-end. There'd been a lot going on, and when I asked around later on… nobody else could confirm that you were there. Had you been fighting nomu in the streets during that time?"
Tokoyami nodded his head. "I wanted to help evacuate people. The nomu were in the way."
"And was that your first time seeing a high-end?"
He shook his head. His beak remained firmly shut, and he let the question hang in the air until the silence became unbearable. "...I fought Hood briefly, right before it was unleashed upon Fukuoka.
"On your own? Did you get hurt?"
The genuine concern in her voice caught him off guard, and he found the things he normally kept quiet about slipping from his mouth. "A bit," he admitted, ruefully tracing the faded scars hidden under his gauntlets. Under his arm, Dark Shadow nudged his head apologetically against him, and Tokoyami reached down to scratch his head. "It was nothing I couldn't handle… with a little help from my quirk."
"Did the villains make you fight a lot?" Mirko asked. The question felt a bit too sudden for his liking.
His feathers began to puff up ever so slightly, and he struggled to not sound so defensive. "You're getting off subject. What does that have to do with anything?" he snipped back.
Mirko took a moment to think, rephrasing her question. "My bad. High-ends. Did you fight any that the heroes don't know about? Do you have any idea what quirks or attack patterns the Crow nomu might have?" Her voice turned pleading. "I'm not trying to use anything against you – this is important, Tokoyami. So just for today, while we work together on this, can you tell me a bit about your experiences? Any little bit helps."
Dark Shadow laid his head in Tokoyami's lap, his claws curling over one side, and he relented that little bit more. "...Very well."
Tokoyami opened up about his experiences in the Doctor's underground lab. He spoke nothing of Dabi or Toga or Shigaraki – they didn't need anything to further incriminate them, regardless of what he had to say about them. Instead, he spoke of the Doctor's interest in him, as uncomfortable as that was, and how he'd been summoned to his lab for a test of sorts. He mentioned a crow he'd seen in one of the many test tubes, and how he'd seen what was likely many high-ends in their early stages of development.
He didn't discuss Shigaraki's condition at that time. Or the deal he'd made with Dr. Ujiko. And he certainly didn't bring up the proposition the Doctor had made of turning him into a nomu experiment – nor of his fear regarding that possibility. It was all too much.
But he did talk about the nomu that the Doctor had him fight, and how his own attack patterns and special moves were being scrutinized and carefully noted by the analytical man. After all, Dark Shadow had been a unique opportunity for him to study. And while he couldn't have Tokoyami himself, he could at least study him like a caged bird.
In which case, it'd only made sense that the Doctor's obsession had cultivated into a nomu made in Tokoyami's image.
It made him feel gross, but it was better than the alternative. He did not say that aloud. His woes and past worries were not meant for the hero's keen ears. They were hardly meant for people he trusted, either.
The Crow nomu was fast. And it could fly. And its beak and claws were dreadfully sharp and could grow and shrink in size as if they were made of shadows. The monster was small and nimble, too. Beyond that, he wasn't sure what abilities it might have, other than what was demonstrated to him in their brief exchange.
Truthfully, he wasn't sure if he was ready to face the monster again so soon. But he was prepared to put this responsibility over any uncertainties he might've possessed. After all, if this Crow was truly the result of Dr. Ujiko's obsessive interest in quirks, then Tokoyami must hold a fair amount of blame in its creation.
We have to destroy it, no matter what.
Dark Shadow bristled nervously beneath his hands.
When he had no more left to say, he stood up from his chair. It scraped against the floor, making him wince, and Mirko watched him closely.
"Thank you for the information, Tokoyami," she said. And she sounded so very much like a typical hero in that moment. She also sounded tired, and he could tell that she derived no enjoyment from the exchange. But even a hero as action-oriented as her had to take these moments to gain intel and beseech Tokoyami for the information he had, same as many had before her. And he could only assume that he'd given her more than enough to work with.
More than I'd intended…
Weren't we supposed to get info from her and not the other way around?
It couldn't be helped. If the Commission were wiser, they would've kept me around to wring more info out of, I'm sure. Though I suppose that was Hawks's job.
"Do you know what happens next?" Mirko asked, bracing her hands against the table and standing from her own chair. The start of a grin was beginning to stretch across her face again, and an inkling of worry made its way into Tokoyami's heart.
"You report your newest findings to the Commission?"
She shook her head sharply and stood to her full height, arms akimbo. "I'll worry 'bout that later. No, we're gonna take that Crow down!"
"You sound so sure of yourself," Tokoyami noted.
"Because I have you now!"
Tokoyami silently cursed himself. It had been what he'd agreed upon, in the aftermath of that frightening exchange. And it needed to be done. But it still gave him pause.
"You mean now? We're going to track it down this very instant?" Tokoyami could still feel the fear from his quirk when he'd been locked in a battle with the dreaded monster. Dark Shadow fidgeted under his cloak, and his nervousness seeped into Tokoyami like a venom.
"No time like the present!" Mirko announced, already making her way towards the exit. "We outta get out there while the trail is still hot!"
Tokoyami cast one last glance at the fast food employee at the counter. Her eyes were wide in alarm, but the moment Tokoyami looked at her, she averted her gaze and slipped into the back kitchen. How much did she hear?
Secrecy is dead these days anyway.
Tokoyami hurried after the hero. By now, the sun had risen a fair distance into the sky, and there were very few shadows to draw power from. He didn't yet know if the nomu crafted in his image operated in a similar fashion. According to Mirko, it didn't have a preference between night and day.
Although, given how panicked Dark Shadow had been during their recent exchange, perhaps it'd be best to seek the creature in broad daylight.
These musings were kept between him and his quirk as they fell into place at Mirko's side.
"So? Ya ready for some Crow hunting?"
Tokoyami's finger hovered habitually over the trigger for his gauntlets – a meager reassurance, he'd come to realize. "I may as well be, seeing how it won't go away without me."
"Great!" Mirko gave a mighty leap, landing herself on the balcony of the building beside them. Then another and another, climbing the building upwards at an admirable rate.
Familiar claws wrapped their way around his torso, much more carefully than before, and began to follow her on quiet wings. Despite the care, though, he could feel the way that bruises had begun to form beneath his ribs from where Dark Shadow had squeezed him too hard while fighting Crow. He imagined they would worsen before the day was over.
He alighted beside the Rabbit Hero on the roof of a tall building overlooking the city. Columns of smoke rose from several places, and many structures featured signs of destruction and hardship. And yet, it didn't seem loud up here. Not right now, as if the city was holding its breath in anticipation for the worse to happen. And it would, sure as anything. And he would be here for it, that much he knew. But he could not yet say if he would be enough.
Mirko turned sharply to him, her eyes lighting up. "Oh! Before I forget, we should exchange numbers! In case we get seperated, yeah?"
Tokoyami pulled out his phone with a grimace. "Do you even have a plan for this Crow debacle?"
Mirko's tattered ear twitched, and she none-to-carefully avoided his eyes as she added his number to her phone. "A-ah, well…! Hm, I kinda figured we could hit up the places where it's been going lately, and with you around, it would just… show up?" She flashed a pleading smile.
That is not a plan.
No, it is. It's just not a very good one.
Tokoyami tucked his phone away, and it felt a little heavier in his pocket. He knew what this was. "So you'll be using me as bait." It wasn't even worth questioning.
"No, no, no!" Mirko adamantly insisted. "I'll be right there with you the whole time, so you don't gotta worry! We're gonna take it down together. That's what I asked you for, isn't it?"
Tokoyami sighed, and he watched the way the hero's ears drooped momentarily in response. She could plainly see the ways in which he didn't trust her. But she didn't let that get to her. Instead, she bounced back readily.
"Okay, okay, well! I don't wanna make this unfair to you – I know I'm askin' for a lot here. So lemme ask – Tokoyami, what do you want from all this? There anything I can do to make it worth your while?"
His head whipped towards the hero. The question seemed as though it'd come from nowhere, and it was so unexpected that he could not so readily discern its sincerity. Were his desires actually something she wanted to hear? Would it matter if he has any wants at all?
But when he spoke, it was not to dismiss her. Instead, it was to spill forth the words that he'd been keeping to himself since being reintroduced to the smoldering remains of this society.
"I want to see the villains again," he rasped quietly. He stared down at his boots. "I need to speak with them."
What a truly odd thing to say. He could admit that to himself. And he would not fault any mixed reactions to the strange request.
But Mirko only dipped her head in slow understanding. "Okay… okay, I hear ya."
She does?
"You do?"
She scratched aimlessly behind one ear. "Well… yeah. I mean, you were with them a long time, right? Ya probably wanna know what they're up to since then. And… get some answers, right?"
It's not about vengeance, if that's what you think. But Tokoyami only dipped his head in agreement. "Right."
She perked up, and her red eyes glistened with a newfound intensity, as if there was nothing to hold her back anymore. "Right! So let's get a move on!"
Mirko took off, and he went with her. He followed her every leap, stopping every now and again to hear her explain the damage the nomu had done in each destination. They made a haphazard loop around the city, and the further along they went, the more Tokoyami realized that their travels were very close to what his own patrol pattern was like. He never went exactly the same way, of course – he didn't need to be so easily tracked by such foolish endeavors – but he did have certain locations that he made sure to frequent, if only in passing. The hideouts and camps of civilian groups and freedom fighters, high-targeted buildings like pharmacies and hospitals, and areas where small branches of PLF aligned people tended to gather. He kept his eyes on them all, and intervened in little exchanges if he thought he could get away with it without drawing too much attention.
Evidently, he must've been falling into the same pitfalls a hero would have by maintaining a consistent route, because the Crow had to have been following his trail for a while now.
How long? How long have I been this clueless?
If Mirko hadn't been here, would it have been worse? What happens if I have to face that thing alone?
The hours dragged by in their endless pursuit of a shadow. There'd been no visual reports from civilians of strange happenings in the area, but perhaps that was only because all this was normal now. At least Tokoyami could check in with the groups of people, and they would regard him with familiarity. Mirko was the first hero to witness him in his element like this. She kept her distance when he approached freedom fighters and vigilantes and low-ranking PLF idealists alike. The hero, even with her favorable reputation in the eyes of the public following the war, would not be so warmly received in these parts.
Tokoyami began to worry as the day continued to drag on with little sign of the nomu. Every so often, his feathers would begin to bristle, and the hair on his arms would rise, and he wouldn't know exactly why. Dark Shadow would stop flying, holding him captive in the middle of the sky, and look out to nothing. And when Tokoyami would ask what was wrong, he'd say it was nothing. It was a lot of what had been happening the past several days, with his quirk's strange shift in demeanor. Only more intense than before, now that they both knew what was waiting for them.
Mirko's presence did surprisingly little to keep his ever-growing worries at bay, despite her capabilities. She stopped their search with frustrating frequency to settle petty squabbles between villains in the street. Tokoyami couldn't help noting how it slowed them both down.
The Rabbit Hero grew tired the longer they patrolled.
He wasn't sure how long she'd been hunting Crow before encountering him, but they'd started the day very early, and the time spent moving around was beginning to impact her mobility. He could see it in the way she would stop on the roofs of buildings and suck in greedy breaths while leaning against railings. Up here, very few but him could witness the moments of weakness. It was a grim reminder that the hero, just like him and many others, were still recovering in the aftermath of the war.
He slowed down for her sake.
She waved him off. "Don't worry! I'm not gonna hold ya back!"
"...Of course."
He began lengthening the distance between the two of them. He wasn't even sure if she noticed this late in the day. Perhaps her senses had grown dull. More than likely, she shouldn't be working these long days so soon after the injuries she'd sustained but a few weeks ago.
Not that Tokoyami had fared much better.
The shadows grew deeper as the sun began to dip in the sky.
That omnipresent feeling of dread crept back up on him. Tokoyami cast a look over his shoulder to where Mirko was trailing after him. She was paused on a roof again, recovering. As he watched, he saw her head lift up suddenly and turn the other way, ears perked. Then she seemed to move away hastily, and Tokoyami considered doubling back. His phone buzzed, and he squinted at the message that popped up there:
"Villain brb"
Tokoyami stifled a groan. If she kept stopping to deal with every little thing, then they'd never catch up with the actual threat hanging over this city.
Tokoyami turned through the sky and headed to where Mirko was, only to watch her bound off the building and vanish into the streets below. With a frustrated growl, he started after her. So much for sticking together.
Dark Shadow's hold on him tightened, and Tokoyami's hands flew to the shadowy arms. His next breath came out a wheeze, and he scrabbled at the grip ensnaring him.
"Dark Shadow? Dark Shadow, stop! You need to—"
Dark Shadow whirled around with a resounding hiss, his sights set on the shadows beneath them. And Tokoyami followed his quirk's line of sight just in time to see an inky blur rushing up to meet them.
A strangled shout left Tokoyami's beak, only to be cut-off by an ensuing tangle of claws and wings.
Dark Shadow blazed to life around him, much larger than what could possibly fit in the dark safety of his cloak. Tokoyami felt himself drop several stories through the air as the two dark beasts collided, and he gripped onto his quirk like a lifeline.
Tokoyami yelled up at his quirk, eyes stretched wide in horror. Dark Shadow was still managing to keep them both aloft, but it was requiring a lot of concentration that he could not afford to spare. Currently, their exchange was a mess of thrashing talons and unholy shrieks that raked the twilight skies, and Tokoyami couldn't so readily discern whose belonged to whom. All he could feel was the otherworldly fear coming off his quirk in waves, so intense as to be suffocating, and Tokoyami could feel himself getting lost in the tumultuous sensation. Every swipe of claw and jab of beak from the nomu was something he felt his quirk sustain on a psychological level, and panic frothed in his chest like a torrent seeking to rip him asunder in much the same way that the nomu was doing to his quirk.
He couldn't fight like this.
If he had to much longer, something was going to die here.
Land! Please, get us to the ground!
Tokoyami feared his desperate command would go unheard in the maelstrom of shadows. He could hardly make out what was happening, though he could feel every time that Dark Shadow was hit with a vicious blow.
Claws emerged from his quirk's body to grab at Tokoyami and hold him secure, so that he wasn't at risk of dropping him altogether. At the same time, Dark Shadow's second pair of claws were preoccupied fending off the attacks bombarding him. His eyes were tinted red and he screeched something desperate and unwell.
But he'd heard.
Dark Shadow made himself small, putting all his effort for control into compacting the stray shadows being rendered from his semi-corporeal form. Like a raven being tossed around in a hurricane, he twined his way through the nomu's grisly talons and rushed back to Tokoyami. With the distance between them shortened, he felt a sliver of relief. But that didn't diminish the all-encompassing feeling of danger that plagued his senses. The nomu, quick to pounce, trailed Dark Shadow with a sinister intensity. Its blazing yellow eyes were wide and trained entirely on Tokoyami and his quirk as they tumbled out of the sky like a bird with broken wings.
The ground rose up all too quickly, and for a second the visceral image of him colliding with the concrete came to mind. It might be better than being picked apart in the sky, never able to reach the earth. The frenzied wingflaps of Crow roared in his head, threatening its close proximity to them, and Dark Shadow's thoughts were screaming that they should do everything to evade it.
They pulled up at the very last moment, Dark Shadow taking Tokoyami in a firm grip and dragging him through the narrow alleyways. The sounds of wings and claws scraping against concrete walls dogged them, and they dare not look back as they surged forward as fast as they could.
They took corners without slowing, clipping trash cans and dumpsters in the process. Everything was a blur, and their only saving grace was that they hadn't run into an innocent bystander yet.
Would it be safer to return to the open skies?
It'll catch us.
Could they turn around and face their foe head-on?
It'll corner us.
Can't they just fight it?!
It'll devour us.
Stop!
Dark Shadow slowed ever so slightly. Whatever thoughts had been swirling in his quirk's thoughts seemed to have faltered, at least for a moment. And with a sinking feeling, Tokoyami braced himself for what would come next.
It'd only been the slightest lapse in speed on Dark Shadow's part. He couldn't be faulted for that – they needed to think this fight through rather than act on instinct. It wouldn't end well for either of them if they couldn't do that. But Tokoyami understood that there would be no good ending to this encounter, no matter what they did.
Talons took hold of his ankle, sinking through the leather of his boot and yanking. The force was nearly enough to rip Tokoyami right out of his quirk's arms, and Dark Shadow screeched in alarm as he clutched Tokoyami tighter and gave up on flight. His breath was promptly ripped from him, and the ache in his ribs flared in protest. But he begged his quirk to not let go.
They crashed onto the concrete ground.
Dark Shadow curled himself around Tokoyami, creating a defensive barrier between him and the hard earth as it skidded past them. Tokoyami, in turn, clung desperately to his quirk, feeling every tremor and bump as they tumbled across asphalt. All the while, the nomu's claws remained latched to him like a shackle, and he felt it pierce his skin. Perhaps it would drag him into the sky anyway.
When Tokoyami looked up, between the gaps in his quirk's coiled body, he could see that detestable thing clambering atop them, beak parted, eyes hungry.
Is this what people see when we fight them?
Tokoyami had never been so grateful to hit a wall in his life.
This one, thankfully, was cushioned by bags of overflowing garbage. It occurred to him that this might've been the only way to stop without slowing down any further.
While Dark Shadow soaked up the force of the impact, Tokoyami watched the body of the nomu crack against the wall above them.
The grip on him loosened, and Tokoyami kicked it square in the beak.
Wrenching himself free, they disentangled themselves from the debris that had scattered around them upon landing. He could hear the nomu's bones snapping back into place and undoing the damage that'd been done to it.
Regeneration.
How– how had Endeavor destroyed Hood?!
Shadows roved over his arms and danced on the edge of his vision, and he looked around to see that Dark Shadow was hovering over him protectively. But not like Black Ankh, where they worked in unison. His quirk was using itself like a shield.
Their backs were to a brick wall. The open sky was above them, where it heralded the oncoming night. The narrow streets continued to either side of them, but here the area had opened up enough to where they could just barely move around each other. It was no doubt a horrible place to initiate combat, but there was very little else to be done about it with such a relentless pursuer.
To turn his back to the monster again would be to seal his fate.
The Crow nomu detangled itself from the remains of the garbage heap and rose to its full height, clacking its beak all the while. Here on even ground, they could see that it was on the smaller side of nomu they've seen, but that didn't make it any less formidable. Tokoyami already knew that it was faster and harder to hit than its contemporaries. And they've handled plenty of similarly difficult opponents just fine in the past… but never had they caused Dark Shadow to be so openly distraught. It was enough to make Tokoyami believe that this thing would eat them, and derive some twisted sense of gratification in the process. As if its purpose would be fulfilled by tearing apart the quirk and its user that it was so intentionally modeled after.
Tokoyami readied his claws. In the growing darkness of the alley, he pulled his shadows close. And he waited, standing poised for the stillness of the night to shatter.
Crow let out a rattled hiss, and the edges of its mouth seemed to curl into a smile. It cocked its head to the side, inspecting them, and opened its beak.
"...Fight?"
For whatever reason, Tokoyami wasn't expecting it to speak. The last he'd seen of its development, it'd been carrion in a test tube. He didn't think it would have complicated vocal cords.
But corvids were natural mimics. And perhaps that was why the voice that left its ugly black beak sounded so much like his own.
What a cruel game the Doctor was playing. Even imprisoned, he was an expert puppeteer.
Dark Shadow bristled at the sound of his voice spilling from the wrong mouth. He could feel just how disturbed it made his quirk, and despite how much they both wanted to strike first against the monster… they hesitated.
Even still, the moment Crow made a move in their direction, Dark Shadow responded in turn by rushing forward. And Tokoyami, damned as he was, went with him.
Shadows and jet-black flesh collided, clawing and grabbing at each other in a flurry of blows. Dark Shadow grew in size, and Tokoyami had to remind him to hold back. With how panicked his quirk had been acting against this nomu, control was essential here. If the fight was drawn out because of it, then so be it. But he wasn't about to attack recklessly in a mirror match he didn't fully understand.
The Crow nomu raked its talons across Dark Shadow's face, taking clumps of shadowy flesh with it. The quirk responded with a slash of his own, rending meat from bone. But it recovered far too quickly, keeping up its assault with relentless violence. Their space was too narrow for more ambitious moves like Covert Black-Op Arms or Twilight Spear – something like that would probably be too slow to land anyway – so they stuck with up-close attacks that whittled away at each other.
But the nomu kept recovering.
And Dark Shadow was not.
Dark Shadow was not meant to be a completely tangible being, composed of the lack of light as he was. And yet, everywhere Crow tore at him, the shadows remained frayed. Darkness didn't fill the holes left by claws as it was supposed to. Despite the cover of night, Dark Shadow was growing smaller. Through their link, Tokoyami could feel his growing frustration and fear. He was losing his shape, and his eyes were becoming increasingly tinged by red.
Aim for its eyes!
Tokoyami ducked beneath the brawling birds and raked his claws across Crow's face. The steel blades hitched against its eye sockets and scattered dark scarlet drops against the pavement. Crow gibbered something incoherent and stepped back to aim a bite at him. Tokoyami retreated back behind a wall of darkness, letting his quirk defend him, and watched in horror as the nomu snapped up a mouthful of shadows. It left a hole in Dark Shadow's body, through which Tokoyami could see that its eyes had already healed.
Clip its wings!
Dark Shadow snarled in the creature's face and took hold of both of its arms, wrestling it for dominance. He grew in size, dwarfing the nomu, and pushed down upon the abomination. Shadowy wings sprouted from the arms of the nomu, forming sharp feathers that shifted as if they had a mind of their own. Tokoyami hacked away at them, aiming to disarm it altogether. But the feathers reacted to his actions and flared out like quills, intent on impaling him on the spot. A memory of a red feather bearing down on him came to mind, and Tokoyami backpedaled with a screech of anger. Dark Shadow responded in turn, exploding in rage and engulfing the nomu in a sea of shadows.
Tokoyami was shoved roughly back from the warring beasts.
"Dark Shadow, wait!"
Amongst the turmoil, Tokoyami could only watch as countless black feathers ruptured through his quirk's already hole-riddled body. Dark Shadow writhed in anguish, tearing the holes larger, and Tokoyami wanted to scream at the sight. But his quirk wasn't disengaging. Wasn't fighting as precisely, either, his attacks sloppy and misguided through the haze of frustration. And the nomu, it didn't care nearly so much about the injuries it sustained, only wanting to push his quirk further.
Tokoyami wobbled on his feet. The screams of his quirk filled his thoughts and made it hard to think. Shadows gathered densely around him in a desperate attempt to fill the gaps being carved from his quirk, and they bolstered his body and made it bigger, but did nothing to patch the gaping wounds. For the first time in a long while, Tokoyami felt the darkness encroaching on his vision, threatening to blind him and numb him to the rest of the world. And he wasn't like that anymore. He'd trained to endure the worst, hadn't he?! All his strength, all his prowess and speed on the battlefield, every little thing that Dabi had drilled into him – it was about control.
Tokoyami crouched low to the ground, letting the shadows converge around him, beckoning them closer and feeling the darkness fall heavy on his shoulders. He took a breath of cold night air and closed his senses to the shrieks of maddened birds.
Ashes of Cremation.
The shadows exploded in a great wave with Tokoyami at its epicenter, engulfing the alley in inky tendrils. They curled and flickered like ghostly flames, pushing against everything in its path. Dark Shadow's form dissipated, turning to fuel for the attack as it spread across the small area in one rapid burst.
The body of the nomu was roughly shoved against the wall behind it, with no way to block the forceful attack. Its head slammed against the stone, and it dropped onto the pile of disturbed rubble, momentarily stunned.
Seeing his chance, Tokoyami surged forward. Beneath his cloak, Dark Shadow struggled to knit himself back together, drawing strength from the darkness and his close proximity to Tokoyami. But he'd done enough, at least for now. If Tokoyami couldn't do at least this much on his own, then why had he struggled so hard to get stronger in the first place?
Tokoyami threw himself upon Crow right as it was starting to get up, his small form knocking the creature back to the floor. Shadows trailed off of him, coiling around his limbs and serrating his claws. Perched atop the prone body of the nomu, Tokoyami tried to dismantle it once more.
He gouged its eyes.
He clipped its wings.
He buried his talons into its exposed brain. Over and over and over again, until it was a messy pulp in its skull.
He screamed down at the nomu as it thrashed beneath him, demanding that it stay down. But still the detestable thing protested its demise. Claws raked their way up his side, shallow but precise, and obsidian feathers erupted from it to stab through his limbs and riddle his cloak with tears.
Tokoyami and Dark Shadow feasted off the night, drawing power from it and fueling their attacks with hellbent determination.
Crow's movements grew feeble, and still it continued to regenerate. Tokoyami's shadow-encased arms were going numb, and he was dimly aware of the warmth in his side. He only knew he had to keep going, for as long as this thing continued to move.
It opened its beak, and Tokoyami tried so hard to close it. But still, it moved.
"D‐Dark Shadow, stop!" the monster pleaded in Tokoyami's voice.
Tokoyami's vision went red as anger burned inside him with a sudden intensity. "You are not me!" Tokoyami condemned, plunging his claws into the nomu's skull and twisting gruesomely. "And I'm nothing like you!"
But maybe I need to be.
Dark Shadow dipped his head down over Tokoyami's, their vision overlapping for Black Ankh, and black flames flickered around them.
Tokoyami gasped for air. The night felt suffocating. He wished there was a light, if only so that he could have a fleeting glimpse of clarity. As it stood, he was so filled with rage and despair, and he loathed every moment that he had to keep fighting while this thing kept persisting, as if it, too, would continue to thrive so long as there was darkness to sustain it.
Dark Shadow hovered atop Tokoyami's head. His eyes were red and his flank flickered with barely contained shadows, as if begging to unleash Ragnarok. His black, wickedly hooked beak dipped within Tokoyami's peripheral, poised to strike. With a shuddered gasp, Tokoyami withdrew his clawed gauntlets.
"Guillotine."
Dark Shadow bore his massive head down upon Crow, mouth gaping wide, and clamped down onto the nomu's own. Tokoyami watched through his quirk's eyes; he felt the way its neck snapped like a twig in his beak. He tasted sludge-like blood bathe his tongue and retched from it.
When the monster stopped moving and his vision cleared, Tokoyami looked down at what remained.
From the torso up, it was no longer recognizable.
Dark Shadow spat something unsightly onto the ground behind an upturned dumpster.
Tokoyami backpedaled away from the nomu, his breath stuck halfway up his throat as he gasped for air. He could still taste it.
I'm so sorry.
It wanted to eat us.
Tokoyami leaned heavily against the furthest wall and emptied the contents of his stomach. He wiped the corner of his mouth shakily with his tattered cloak, cursing himself as he did so.
I can't…
Tokoyami stumbled away from the scene, leaving it behind as fast as he could. If he could forget about it entirely, he would. But the image of the desecrated body was burned into his mind.
He found his balance quickly enough, and began to run. Dark Shadow vanished from his side, making a place for himself in the center of his thoughts and going unnervingly quiet after the atrocities they'd enacted in the name of self-preservation. And sure, it wasn't the first time – and he knew it wouldn't be the last – but that didn't make the imagery any easier to process.
He turned a corner, nearly running into someone else, and instinctively raised his clawed hands defensively across his chest.
"Woah, hey, slow down there!"
Two hands grabbed hold of his wrists as he skidded abruptly to a halt – one gloved in white, the other built from cold machinery.
Tokoyami jerked at the touch, nearly slicing himself on the cheek in the process. Perhaps it was a good thing, then, that the grip on him remained firm, but never so much that it hurt.
"Tokoyami, kid, listen – oh, fuck! What happened—? You're covered in blood!"
Tokoyami managed to regain control of his breathing, enough so that he could stutter out a few words despite how fuzzy his mental state was.
"'S not m-mine…" Mostly.
"You're injured!"
And where were you? Tokoyami numbly sheathed the blades of his gauntlets, now that he wasn't in the midst of a fight, and took a small step back. Mirko released her hold of him, and they looked at each other.
In reality, that whole fight against Crow couldn't have lasted more than a couple minutes. It had happened so fast, and they'd flown so far in so short a time through labyrinthine alleyways in this desolate city. Mirko had allowed her heroic nature to get the better of her during a mission they'd agreed to work on together, and Tokoyami had been the one to suffer for it. He always was.
Whatever Mirko had wandered off to do, she hadn't come out entirely unscathed, either. She was limping, favoring one leg, so that at least explained why she'd been so slow to catch up. And yet Tokoyami couldn't help the stab of betrayal he felt, knowing that she should have been there. Things would've been different if she had. He just knew it.
"We need to get you to a hospital—"
"No!" Tokoyami snapped, tugging his shredded cloak around him to conceal the mess of blood. It was true what he'd said – physically, he hadn't been hurt too terribly. A few new scratches and shallow stabs would heal in due time. He did not want to go back to the hospital. He didn't want to go anywhere other than his dingy little hotel room. "Don't worry about me," Tokoyami sneered, glaring balefully at the hero. "I already did what you asked, alright? So you can stop pretending."
Mirko faltered. Her eyes stretched wide in surprise. "Tokoyami, what – you mean the nomu? Is it still after you? I can–"
"It's dead," he hissed. "I took care of it. So do what you want with the body – I left it about a block behind – but don't make it my problem anymore."
Her ears drooped. "Oh. Uh, gotcha. Can I at least… offer you a safe place to stay for the night?" She offered him a weak smile. "You look like shit. The least I can do is get you some bandages and a bed."
Tokoyami shook his head stiffly. His body ached in protest, and he could feel it condemning him for his pride and distrust. "No. I'm going home."
It's not home. But it's close enough.
He drew away from Mirko, and was grateful when she didn't try to close the space between them again.
"Is that it, then?" she challenged to his back. "You don't want any help? And there's nothing you wanna add?"
Tokoyami silently willed Dark Shadow to wrap his arms around his midriff. They slotted into place where the bruises had formed. "I'm going to lay low for a few days. Only contact me if absolutely necessary. I'd prefer if you didn't tell anyone of my involvement, but…" He cast a pointed look over his healing shoulder. "I understand that you can't guarantee such things."
And then he took to the skies, leaving the Rabbit Hero to deal with the mess he'd left in an alley somewhere. She didn't pursue him, and he was grateful for it. He didn't want to be around when the authorities investigated the scene of the nomu's downfall.
His flight was shaky at best. He ignored every sound from below as he passed overhead, only wanting to reach his dank little room and pass out on the couch.
Before long, his phone buzzed. And he knew it was bound to happen, but he'd dreaded it all the same.
Tokoyami alighted on a building with a shuttered breath – he'd come too close to dropping his phone mid-flight to risk that again – and opened the newest message from Mirko. She'd dealt with difficult nomu before. Surely she of all people knew that it was a grisly process. But that didn't make it any easier to face, and he feared what judgment might come of the mess he'd left behind.
Mirko: "hey I think I found the fight scene. There's blood and garbage everywhere but I dont see a body? You said you defeated that nomu right?"
Tokoyami tightened his grip on the small screen. His hands shook.
"Theres a trail. I think it got away."
Tokoyami crumpled to his knees. The phone dropped to the pavement, adding another crack to the spiderweb of scratches. His fingers found purchase in his skull, grabbing fistfuls of feathers. In his head, he screamed something foul and unpleasant, mourning the loss of narrowly attained triumph. And Dark Shadow grieved with him. Despite everything, it wasn't over. At best, it was only pushed aside. If he was lucky, he'd at least scared it off for now. But that didn't make the pain hurt any less.
Sirens wailed in the distance, and he didn't stop to consider why. He let the city move around him, constantly in a state of flux while resisting whatever attempts at change a single person could accomplish. He'd been here before, standing atop a building with his back pressed to the cold cement facade, wondering how the hell he was going to move forward from this.
Maybe he never will.
Days have passed now. He'd bandaged his own wounds and washed his clothes of that mess. He'd slept and rested and mulled for countless hours since then. And still, every time he closed his eyes, he saw his claws, caked in shadows and blood, as they tore through layer upon layer of flesh. The gurgles of the creature he'd fought so hard to slay mingled with his own frantic cries, and in his memories he could no longer remember which was which. It felt as though a grave atrocity had been committed, and yet he hadn't done enough.
He felt in his stomach, which twinged hollowly, that he would have to do this again someday. That whatever repulsive connection he shared with that nomu wouldn't go away until one of them was dead.
"There you are!"
Mirko bounded up to his ledge from the building below, clearing the space between them with ease and landing nearby. If there was one thing he appreciated about her, it was that she always announced her presence. "I've been looking all over for you! You left the scene so quickly, I figured…" She looked him over, her initial excitement fading to abject worry. "Something was wrong. I hope you're healing alright, at least."
Tokoyami swallowed the bile in the back of his throat. The taste made him shudder, but with how his cloak – recently patched with more stitches and staples – was wrapped around him, he hoped she didn't notice.
"I'm fine."
He must've not sounded very convincing.
Mirko fidgeted where she stood, tapping her feet against the ground and scratching behind her tattered ear with a grimace on her face. "Hey, so, uh… I'm sorry. About dragging you into all… this." She waved her hand out over the city, as though she'd somehow forced all her responsibilities onto him.
Tokoyami blinked slowly. "It would've happened sooner rather than later. I'm not so bothered that I can't continue looking after myself." Another lie, but this one dropped from his beak more readily than the last.
"You shouldn't have to, though," Mirko insisted with a frustrated little stomp. A smile threatened the corner of Tokoyami's mouth, and he couldn't deny that he was relieved to see that she cared, even if he didn't fully understand why. "So just… if you ever need any help, let me know, okay? I owe you big time. For… for everything."
She glanced around cagily before stepping closer to him, and he let her approach. She produced a sealed manilla envelope from the inside pocket of her parka and passed it over to Tokoyami. He quickly stowed it out of sight, figuring it wasn't meant for the public eye, and gave her a questioning look.
"What are…?"
"Look. I know nothing I say or do will make up for what you went through," she began. The words seemed to struggle as they left her mouth, as if she weren't used to saying these sorts of things. Action had always been more of her language. "But I wanted – no, I had to do something to make it up to you. Because there was something that you still wanted, right?"
Tokoyami blanked. He couldn't remember what she could possibly be talking about. Why would he tell her anything? He gave her a confused look.
"The… the League," she clarified. And then it clicked, and Tokoyami felt the heat of embarrassment rise under his feathers.
"Th-that was just–!"
"You wanted to see them again, didn't you?" Mirko asked, confusion crossing clearly across her face.
Tokoyami hesitated. Until, finally, he gave a small nod. In truth, he hadn't expected anything to come from his admittance from the other day. All the details leading up to his exchange with the nomu were so hazy and half-formed.
That was enough for her. She pointed to the envelope hidden behind his cloak. "There's not a whole lot that just anyone can get ahold of, but I figured it'd be better than nothin'."
Tokoyami was surprised, and he let it show. Mirko didn't seem like the type to go sleuthing for classified intel in Commission records. "It sounds as if you'd gone looking for information like this before."
Mirko grimaced. "Yeah. Yeah, I did, after that fight with Hood. I was, uh – and don't be mad! – but I was looking through your files. 'Cause I wanted to find you. And… nobody else was, and I thought that was weird." Her eyes went wide, and her face twisted in disdain. "That was weird, right? Right?"
Tokoyami cringed away from her intense expression, and watered the seed of distrust he had for her. "Going into this team-up, you knew far more about me than you were willing to admit." Was it an accusation if it was blatantly true?
Her arms sagged at her side. Her brow remained furrowed, but it was accompanied by a pout. "I tried, okay? To find you. But that didn't really work out, and I know nothing I do can make it up to you. And… and the thing with the nomu, too. I wasn't there when you needed a hero."
You find more fault in yourself than most others that should bear that burden more, Tokoyami considered, taking careful note of her words.
She whirled around, clenching her one good hand to her head and tangling her fingers in the short strands of hair with a frustrated stomp. "So just… lemme help you out! At least in what little way I can! Do what you want with that info, but you didn't get it from me, got it? And… I'm gonna pull some strings for ya, see if I can get you set up with a visit. There's a few faces in prison right now that you might wanna see. I dunno… I dunno what you wanna talk to them about, but it's not my business." Before he was given a chance to respond, she turned to him, appearing so much more relieved than before, as if some deadweight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Anyway, thanks for working with me! I gotta bounce, but watch out for a text in the future. And if there's ever anything ya need, just give a shout. I'm just a hop and a skip away! I promise this time!"
Then she hopped backwards, off the side of the building, and was gone. Tokoyami cautiously approached the edge and, looking over the side, watched the white rabbit bound away into the city.
The newest scars he'd sustained from the nomu would likely linger for a long time to come. They always did, in one way or another. But with the weight of the envelope in his hands, it seemed as though he might have a direction. And that was something he'd been woefully without since the war. Mirko might never know just how much he needed this. And he could live with that, and every other scar he got as a result of going down this path.