Windows were covered in a delicate film of moisture layered with fog as droplets of water made their way down the windows, allowing soft beams of sunlight to seep into the lab, bringing momentary respites of warmth to the icy room. A glacial ambience sealed the air as Izuku, wrapped in a small brown blanket, trembled before the Langstroms. He gripped onto the blanket firmly, trying to find the long side of the blanket to cover his pale grey skin that seemed to glisten in the light as though he was covered in metal.
An inescapable, ominous sensation haunted Izuku's mind; it began to gnaw at his head and make its way to his heart, feeling his heartache in his chest. Everyone in the room could feel the thumping of his heart; each beat was reminiscent of the sound of a ball bouncing from wall to wall in a tiny room. Breathing heavily, Izuku looked up to the Langstroms, their faces filled with a worrisome apprehension. They looked at each other and then back to Izuku, their mouths opening, putting together sounds, but no words left their lips. They floundered to explain what was happening to Izuku, having no clue where to begin.
For only a single minute, the silence permeated the air around them as they looked at each other with worried glances. Each look was worth a million words, yet they all meant nothing simultaneously. Each word was written in an ever-changing lead. Every word was being rubbed out from the paper, leaving nothing but rubber shavings. Their faces told Izuku a lot yet conveyed so little. Each time he looked at them or tried to gauge their reactions, they swiftly changed expressions, much to his dismay.
Izuku furrowed his brow in a state of confusion mixed with despair, watching his trusted peers labour gruesomely, attempting to tell Izuku the horrific truth but failing to find the words to inform him about this critical revelation. Each gruelling second felt like hours as Kirk scratched the back of his head confusedly, looking at Francine with alarming desperation, his lips curling into a disconcerting frown filled with confusion.
A gaze bottling up a dark ocean of anxiety and grief in Franine's eyes looked back onto Kirk. Her eyes were glassy, and they seemed to crack up as though the ocean in her eyes was about to break forth and spill litres of tears. Her lip jerked frightfully up and down, trying to keep a smile on her face, but she was losing her composure rapidly, turning her head towards Izuku. She let out a single tear as she attempted to thrust a smile on her face, but it was all in vain. She fell to her knees, bawling her eyes out and crying loudly as if she had just witnessed a loved one shot down in front of her.
Kirk brought himself down to her level as he made an effort to console her. He peered at Izuku, he saw nothing but a dreadful horror on Izuku's face as he began to lose himself in the madness around him. Kirk realised he had to man up and explain to the painfully lost Izuku. He stood up, grabbed Francine and gathered all his will with an apprehensive yet determined expression on his face. Taking a deep breath before speaking, he said with a trembling voice. "I-I-We don't know how to tell you this, Izuku, but we think you're the Man-Bat."
Izuku's heart sank in his chest beneath an ocean depths worth of darkness, sinking into the ocean floor tied to an anchor of denial and disbelief. "No, no, no! It can't be true! Please tell me it isn't true!" Izuku roared from the top of his lungs as he vehemently detested Kirk's claims, his bloodshot eyes plagued by thousands of red rivers snaking their way to his irises as a never-ending waterfall of tears ran down his cheeks. "I'm afraid it's true, Izuku. You are the Man-Bat." Kirk struggled to tell Izuku; he knew he'd be confused and upset, but he had no other way to tell him and let him down easily.
Thousands of questions raced through Izuku's head at that moment; he hoped and prayed that everything he was experiencing was just a vivid nightmare. Just when Izuku thought he had cried as much as he could, his eyes seemed to unleash a never-ending torrent of tears shattering through his eyes. He refused to accept reality as nothing but an accursed nightmare, but no matter how hard he prayed or wished that this was all a dream that would be over soon, it never came, his thoughts swirled in his mind like a tornado picking up loose thoughts and ideas and spinning them around in a cacophony of madness.
Izuku's sniffles and sobs crowded the room as he continued to ball his eyes out. Kirk lowered himself to Izuku and looked into his eyes with assurance and grit. "Izuku, I promise you it will all be fine. We're working on a cure for you as fast as we can." Kirk spoke with great fortitude infused with boldness, promising Izuku to do everything he could to cure him. With that, Izuku wiped away his tears and hugged Kirk, surprised at his reaction. Kirk reciprocated and held Izuku tightly, comforting him in this time of need.
For the horrors and tribulations that lay ahead for Izuku, he knew that the Langstroms would be by his side. They were his light at the end of this dark tunnel he had lost himself to, guiding him to sweet salvation. Izuku experienced a comforting reassurance around the Langstroms, causing the cold to melt away from his bones, escaping through his skin, turning it from a pale grey to a lighter white skin tone with a red flush flooding his cheeks.
"Alright, Izuku, have you got everything?" Inko Midoriya asked her son worriedly, with a fearful look in her eyes. "Yes, Mum," Izuku grunted with a slight annoyance and exhausted tone. He knew his mother was just trying to look after him, and he knew she meant well, but ever since his disappearance, Inko Midoriya had become a bit more overbearing and paranoid. She had always struggled to look after him all on her own, and the recent event didn't do her any favours, nearly giving the poor woman a heart attack.
Inko grabbed at his cheeks, pulling them with her hands as she darted around Izuku, looking for any abnormalities or injuries caused by the Man-Bat. Izuku looked on with a tired yet displeased look. He had made a promise to the Langstroms not to tell anyone about their little secret, but he couldn't help but feel guilty about keeping their little secret. He felt ashamed of himself for not informing his mother but thought it was best to keep her safe. As Izuku prepared to leave for School, his mother rushed towards him to give him one last hug before heading off, tears welling up in her eyes and staining Izuku's jacket. Izuku looked down at his mother, sighing as he wrapped his arms around her.
A month had passed since anyone reported a sighting of the Man-Bat. Many believed the Man-Bat was just an urban legend that picked up traction and that they had nothing to worry about. While most believed that the Man-Bat had just gone into hiding, biding its time for an opportune moment to strike from the shadows, one such place that was filled with discussions of the Man-Bat was Izuku's Middle School.
The halls were buzzing with talk of the Man-Bat, students told stories of their supposed encounters with the Beast, and Izuku paid no mind to their stories, walking precariously across the yellowish-beige tiles of the school. His heart was racing in his chest; the beating sensation multiplied through his entire body. Reflections of the rising sun blinded Izuku as he walked to his homeroom class; the ringing of the bell was deafened by the ringing in his ears.
Students flooded the corridors, their all-black uniforms turning the beige-covered halls into a sea of darkness that Izuku found himself a castaway, as the ringing in his ears grew louder and louder. Izuku was swept away by the tide of students, bouncing around the school, wall to wall, as if he were trapped inside a pinball machine, being shot about in the halls wildly without warning or hesitation.
His heart thumped and beat harder and faster, feeling it pounding in his chest. Izuku's heart seemed to bleed violently within his chest, so powerful and so alarming it distracted him from the world around him. Making it to the homeroom, Izuku was steadfast in his studies, pulling out his books to catch up on work, writing down and memorising vital historical events in Japan. Izuku glued himself to his book; he began mumbling to himself. The teacher repeatedly called out his name, getting more annoyed and beginning to yell at Izuku for not listening.
When Izuku turned his head up to his teacher, a stabbing pain struck his head, a migraine so powerful it felt like a thousand needles penetrating his forehead and into his skull, injecting a devastating poison directly into his frontal lobe. Looking at his homeroom teacher, rubbing his hand against his head, apologising profusely for his recent behaviour. Izuku has been arriving late to his classes, and his grades have been slowly slipping for the past month.
Ever since his incident at the lab, Izuku had been struggling to balance school with the battery of tests Kirk had to perform on Izuku to find a possible cure to rid himself of the Man-Bat. It became a constant battle for control of his own life and to know who he truly was. The perpetual cycle of slipping into dreams in the middle of the day and the rampant physical changes of the night had ravaged his young mind, creating vast quantities of doubt and hysteria within it.
Apologising profusely yet exhaustively, his teacher let out a sigh of annoyance as he walked back to his desk, continuing to call out names on the roll. Izuku stared at his book with tired, bloodshot eyes covered in deep, winding red canyons. If one could simply take out his eyes, you'd swear you'd be able to peel them like hard-boiled eggs. The most minimal of tasks became grand mountains he had to scale with his bare hands; his mind wandered uncontrollably throughout the days he was awake, and every day was a challenge just to get out of bed.
Izuku's racing heart was beating so powerfully he could feel it bulge out of his chest and against his uniform, causing it to flap ever so lightly, unnoticeable to those around him, but to Izuku, he could see and feel his chest battle to contain his raging heart from exploding out in front of him and leaping onto his desk. Every second felt gruelling as the hands on the clock in the middle of the classroom seemed to stop and began counting backwards. The clicking of the clock reverberated through Izuku's ears, taunting him, mocking him, and trying to tell him something vastly important, but he didn't know what.
Just as Izuku narrowed his eyes and leaned in further against his desk to get a proper look, he got hit in the back of his head with an apple core, looking up from his seat while he scratched the back of his hurting head, he saw that everyone was already leaving the bell having passed just a few moments ago. As the day progressed, Izuku was swathed and fraught with challenges. Staying awake in his classes might have been a mountain to scale with cuts and open wounds over his bare hands and feet as they filled with gravel and rock. His mind struggled to comprehend basic mathematical equations as they all seemed to mix into a soup of indistinguishable hieroglyphics layering on top of each other.
Lunch arrived for Izuku after what felt like hours of school. He struggled more than expected; it felt as though fish hooks were pulling the skin on his forehead in a dozen different directions. He placed his hand against his forehead in hopes of alleviating the pain. Although he had lost all appetite when he looked at the food in his lunchbox, his stomach gurgled and ached as if it had been drained of all its nutrients. Izuku grimaced as he felt a tingling sensation rise from his feet, through his legs, and into his lower back.
Moving his legs was torturous, filling his legs with a numbing yet tense feeling; pins and needles might have just been growing in his body any time he so much as shifted his foot. Closing his eyes, Izuku saw his legs floating in place before him within the void, but they weren't his whole legs. No, they seemed to be silhouettes of white noise that were his legs that seemed to defy Izuku's mind.
The room roared as the fire alarm went off. Izuku covered his ears; the sound was unbearable, and echoes flooded his skull as the pain seemed to grow stronger with each decibel. He lay in his seat writhing in pain, his ears just about ready to burst with geysers of blood in a single instant. A sharp pain grazed his wrist, and he was hoisted out of his seat and dragged away violently. His legs were shooting with pain, seeming quite stiff and unresponsive, having to hop like a frog to minimise the stinging sensation, but still, they shot with pain.
Izuku suddenly found himself face-first in a field of grass outside the school, his legs aching and stinging. Spitting out grass he got in his mouth, he turned his head to see none other than Bakugo looking at him with a scowl of pure vitriol, foam began overflowing from his mouth. He shook his head angrily and was mouthing off, but Izuku looked at him with confusion. The only sound he heard was a powerful ringing in his ears.
Seeing the ground around him, Izuku rose only to see students and faculty around him blur into a mosaic painting. He rubbed his stinging eyes; they felt as though they were shrivelling, as though someone poured salt and vinegar directly into his sockets. The pain was immeasurable, and no tears came to his rescue, only to feel what seemed like steam vapour escape his tear sockets. His heart began beating like a Jackrabbit while the scenery around him vanished rapidly, finding himself once more in a dark void. The sound was sparse; the only things keeping Izuku company were his thoughts and the ringing in his ears. Looking around, Izuku wandered and wondered why he was brought to this liminal space once more.
Walking around, Izuku sensed a malevolent presence watching over him; he felt as though he was a rabbit that had hopped its way into the wolf forest. He could feel something huge and predatory spy on him. A cold gust of air brushed against Izuku's hands and face as he marched onwards through the space of darkness when a faint screeching sound could be heard just beyond Izuku's line of sight, beckoning him to come closer to the edge of the nightmare.
Izuku's curiosity was piqued, but he stood still with fear, his fight-or-flight response taking hold. He slowly backed away when the sound of laughter of a voice hard and cold like steel with a low baritone rasp, commanding and intimidating, penetrated the air around him. Recognising the voice, Izuku stood frozen in place as it began to speak out, "Long time no see, Izuku. It's been ages since I last saw your petrified face." It spoke with a becoming air of smugness accompanied by mocking tones.
"What's the matter… Deku, don't you like me?" The voice asked smugly as Izuku stood still with fear, the only movement being his uncontrollable trembling spreading through his entire body. "You ok… Deku?" The voice said with a condescending attitude before bursting into a fit of laughter like an abominable amalgamation of a hyena and a kookaburra. Sweat began dripping from his forehead as he listened to the voice mocking him.
"Oooh, tough crowd, tough crowd indeed." The voice said in a dark and twisted, playful tone. Despite Izuku not being able to see where or who the voice was coming from, he still felt as though they were circling him, akin to a tiger ambushing a deer. "If that's not going to get a response out of you. Then I'm just gonna have to try a new target and see if that does a trick." Izuku felt his heart stop, and his eyes widened at the sound of those words. His mind was racing as he thought about someone close to him getting hurt.
"Maybe I'll start with, uhm… hmm, your mother?" The voice said in a smug tone. Izuku gritted his teeth just hearing that, clenching his fist, and he screamed, "Don't you dare touch her!" His eyes filled with anger as he heaved heavy breaths. "Well, would you look at that. It seems I've struck a nerve." The voice cackled with a booming echo reverberating in the void. "If you hurt her, I'll-" Izuku was cut off by a sudden burst of menacing laughter.
The laughter devolved into an insane cackle as Izuku stood his ground, trying to keep his guard up as he honed in on the cackles, "Tsk Tsk Tsk Deku, I'm not ever going to lay a finger on your mother." The voice continued in a disapproving yet humorous tone, leaving Izuku confused as he tried to gauge what the inanimate voice meant by such words. "Then what are you going to do?" Izuku said with a loud gulp, his anger wavering, replaced by fear and urgency in his voice.
"Why, I'm going to hurt her in the worst way possible… by telling her or rather showing her, the truth!" The voice jested, leaving Izuku breathless. The voice explained to Izuku that she'd be devastated to find out her son is the demonic Man-Bat, she'd be heartbroken to know her son is a violent beast, and she'd be scrutinised by the media if anyone else found out about his little secret, including the Langstroms. Who'd suffer prison time for harbouring a dangerous criminal such as himself, and their reputations would be tarnished because of Izuku's actions.
"No, no, NO, I won't let you!" Izuku screamed into the void with ferocity and venomous malice towards the voice's threats. "But you're already hurting her, Deku; she just doesn't know it yet." The voice said in a snarky voice. "You're hiding such an important detail from your mother." Izuku felt his muscles tense up as he thought about what the voice had said: "She's gonna find out about this sooner or later, and how do you think she'll react to this bombshell?" Izuku thought for a moment as he let his guard down, contemplating hiding something important as the Man-Bat from her.
Izuku slowly fluttered his eyes open as he found himself standing in the middle of the school oval, his legs tired and rigid as he looked around to see everyone heading back to their respective classes. Thinking to himself, wondering how long he was out or how long he had been standing, Izuku rushed back to his class as thoughts about telling his mother the truth whirred in the back of his head.
When the day came to an end, Izuku rushed to the school entrance at blinding speeds, making his way to MGRI to see the Langstroms. Izuku panted heavily like a dog in the summer heat as he ran across the concrete at a million miles an hour to the train station. With each step he took, he felt his heart beat faster than a Jaguar chasing its prey. Anxiety filled his mind as he ran across the city like a madman; there were 13.5 kilometres from Izuku's Middle School to MGRI. Izuku could feel his heart beat violently and harshly against his chest.
Each beating moment felt tortuous against Izuku's frail body, as if his heart was trying to escape, slamming itself against his muscles and arteries before landing with a sickening thud on the sidewalk for everyone to see. Pushing through the crowded Subway, apologising profusely to the people he pushed aside as he did so, but he had no time to stop as his train was about to depart.
Just before the doors of the train slid shut, Izuku made his way, bumping his shoulder against a skinny man with sharp angular features and long limbs, his hair blonde and wavy, with two long strands coming down from his hairline and framing his face that bore a perpetual scowl on his face causing him to drop his groceries. "Watch it, kid!" The skeletal man shouted before bending down to pick up his things, but Izuku had no time to apologise as the train had already started moving. Looking out the window, he felt bad for pushing the man aside and spilling his groceries. The skeletal man stood up with a bigger scowl on his face than before. He set his hollow and sunken-in eyes onto Izuku's, but as he did so, he felt a terrible chill run along his spine while an uncanny level of Deja Vu and recognition filled his senses.
He saw a demon in the young boy's eyes, a feeling of powerlessness and terror filled beyond the boy's understanding; he seemed to be struggling against something deep inside his soul. Looking back on the man, Izuku seemed to share a feeling of powerlessness and despair, but he didn't comprehend how or why he felt this when looking at a stranger. But as the train moved off, the skeletal man in the distance began to fade into the crowded station, becoming a spec of sand on the beach. Izuku felt like the stranger understood his plight and wanted to reach out a hand to help but couldn't.
Pondering what the man could've possibly understood and how he knew so left a mark on Izuku's mind and left him fearing that it would come back to bite him later, but for now, it would only haunt him for the remainder of the train ride. Sitting on the rough, leathery train seats, Izuku was left to stir in his terror and an acute pang of guilt for the skeletal man. When he gazed upon the blonde man for the few split seconds he did, he felt a keen understanding, yet completely alien to the both of them.
Orange and crimson hues painted the cloudy sky as Izuku entered the MGRI building. Looking around, he noticed the remnants of what was once a prestigious structure, now broken and deteriorating. Construction tape and orange cones cordoned off certain areas of the building. Construction workers, carrying heavy equipment, moved with methodical purpose, filling the air with casual chatter as they enjoyed each other's company.
While the workers laboured with a sense of pride and camaraderie, Izuku looked dismayed. As he walked up the stairs, Izuku heard the workers boast loudly. The joy they shared was only tied by volume with the sounds of heavy construction equipment chipping away at the institute. Izuku longed to feel something about what those workers had, as life was finally taking a toll on Izuku's emotional resilience.
For too long, everyone told him time and again that he couldn't be a hero and that he should just give up. Bakugo had always been the one to remind Izuku the most in every waking moment of his life. He just wanted things to go back to simpler times when Bakugo was still his friend and to feel accepted. Reaching the top, Izuku was met with the sounds of Dr March in the next room arguing with Kirk.
The door swung open violently as Dr March fumed with anger. His face was red as a tomato, and he stomped out of the room, callously pushing Izuku aside while he mumbled to himself through gritted teeth. As Izuku gathered his bearings, Kirk placed his hand on Izuku's shoulder and apologised for Dr March's behaviour "I'm sorry, Izuku. Dr March and I heatedly discussed ethical testing on human subjects for his next tests." Kirk said, tired, with dark bags under his eyes, looking like he hadn't slept for a week straight.
Kirk told Izuku excitedly about how close he was to curing him, but Izuku didn't pay attention. His mind clouded by regret and guilt that stained his soul, while Kirk's words faded into obscurity. He thought about what would happen if he told his mother or anyone else about this secret, as the weight of keeping everyone safe from knowing the truth. When Kirk was about to ramble on just a bit longer to Izuku, he stopped and realised Izuku seemed disheartened. "Is something the matter, Izuku?" Kirk questioned anxiously, looking at Izuku with eyes of worry.
Izuku turned his head towards Kirk, and on cue, he fell to his knees while he began to bawl his eyes out. "I-I can't t-take it any-m-more!" Izuku said as tears cascaded to the floor. The soul-crushing pressure of keeping something this big a secret from everybody was finally starting to break him. "I k-keep having v-v-visions and n-nightmares… And there was this voice, and it said that it would hurt my mum." Kirk watched as the young boy he had taken under his wing and his care let him get hurt.
He felt terrible for letting the kid even experience something like this, which made his heart wilt away. He looked at the sobbing Izuku and lowered himself to his level, grabbing his face and wiping away the tears. "It's ok, Izuku. I promise everything will be fine. We are so close to making a cure for you." Kirk reassured Izuku, but as Izuku looked at him, his sobs continued to echo throughout the halls.
As Izuku calmed himself down, Kirk looked at him, asking him to repeat what it was he said about not taking it anymore. "I think it's getting worse. I've been having hallucinations and nightmares, and this voice's been taunting me." Izuku explained to Kirk the hallucinations and nightmares he'd been having. Each moment he explained his nightmares to Kirk caused his spine to experience a chill run up and down like the stroke of a brush as he detailed to him what he saw and heard.
Kirk brought Izuku to his feet, and he took him inside a room containing various vials, readings, and petrified dishes containing his blood under the lens of a microscope. Izuku sat himself in a chair while Kirk grabbed a syringe gun containing a yellow liquid. Izuku rolled up his sleeves, preparing himself for the syringe. After injecting the syringe into Izuku's arm, the yellow liquid began to vanish as it entered his bloodstream. "Alright, Izuku, that should fend off some of the Bat DNA. If you have any problems, inform Francine and me immediately." Kirk said sternly and exhaustedly.
As Izuku got up from his seat to leave, he pondered about the man at the subway and wondered how he could be dealing with something so familiar to his own current experiences but still be completely different. All from the glare, he stared back at it for those few seconds he looked at them and how he also seemed so familiar to someone else he knew.