Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

            Soft tears dripped from the freckle-spotted cheeks of the young Izuku Midoriya as he walked alone down the winding neighborhood road. The dusk was growing long and shadows grew along with it. There was a chill on the air, the threat of rain perhaps, yet there were no clouds however, the sun being allowed to set in peace, rather than be hidden behind cover.

            The tiny young boy shivered just a little in the growing cold and looked over his shoulder in a quick movement, expecting nothing and being suitably rewarded. Petite and scrawny even for his age Izuku seemed almost half-forgotten in the fading light. He had been abandoned by his friends, or so-called friends at least. Seto and Haruno had always been more like Katsuki’s friends than Izuku’s.

            It had been Katsuki to run off first, however. Something had changed in his childhood friend within the past few months and Izuku knew where it had started. Ever since he began making the little pops of fire from his palms Katsuki had grown ever more confident, ever more cocky. He had always thought they were the best of friends, but what kind of friend abandoned him like this? Not only that but lately he had slapped him with a new nickname, Deku, and as if to rub salt in the wound the damnable name was actually sticking.

            Yet despite all of this he was sure that things would get better once his quirk finally showed up.

            Only five years old and already Izuku was feeling the crushing weight of peer pressure. He was the last of his class to develop any kind of quirk, though his mother continually assured him that he was a just a late bloomer and that his quirk would come in time. Still, everyone in his class had such amazing quirks and he was just… left out. The kid who had to sit to one side while everyone else had fun playing with their cool new abilities. Katsuki had been his only real friend and now, thanks to his lack of quirk, even that was drifting away.

            No. His head whipped up and he wiped the gross mixture of snot and tears away on his sleeve. All Might never cried and never complained, and if Izuku was going to be a great hero one day then he had to be just as big and brave as All Might! As if to force the courage into his young heart Izuku laughed loudly in three, short, All Might-esk bursts.

            “Hey there little guy.”

            The boy stopped dead in his tracks and turned his head. From a dim, murky looking alleyway to his left stepped a man and almost immediately the smell washed over him. A mix of unwashed sweat, rotting meat and something else just as musky that made him gag a little. The man’s slightly greenish, flabby skin was poxed, even yellowing in some places and his eyes were disguised by a pair of thick-framed glasses with his brown hair in a badly cut bowl about his head. His clothes, dirty jeans and a black t-shirt, seemed greasy and unwashed on his fat form.

            “Do you need a lift home? Kids your age shouldn’t be out so late.”

            Izuku’s hands came up to his chest in a childishly defensive posture, “I-I’m fine, s-sir.” Something in his stomach was tying in knots and telling him to leave. Too young to recognize instinct, however, Izuku stayed where he was, hoping the man would simply accept his answer.

            To his growing horror, the man began walking towards him.

            Izuku immediately backed away, his short legs taking him barely a quarter of the stride of the man. The stinking adult spoke but already the words were becoming nothing but noise to the background of Izuku’s fear. “Don’t worry, I know your father, we’ll be home in no time.”

            “N-No!” Izuku staggered and finally his legs began to move properly, turning and rushing from the predator approaching him.

            He was far too late. Terror had locked him in place and inexperience had strangled his thoughts. The child felt a hand grab around his arm, then another snatched him up by the waist. The overwhelming stench of rotting flesh reached him and immediately his stomach violently reacted, spewing whatever had been inside him onto the man’s fat arms. He could feel the overwhelming strength of the predator, the firm, horrid grasp he had on his body and a panic that no child should ever know flooded his heart.

            “Agh! You disgusting little shit!” A hand wrapped around his mouth as he was dragged further into the alleyway, “You’ll pay for that! Children like you should be punished!”

            Izuku couldn’t breathe. His heart hammered in his chest as his lungs burned, trying to get any air he could. He was abruptly turned and his eyes widened further as he saw what the man was carrying him towards. A filthy, slightly rusted looking black van. The back was open. There was a stained mattress waiting there.

            The boy’s vision was swimming and somewhere in the background he could hear the man spewing filth from chapped lips. The horrific taste of the man’s hands flushed through Izuku’s senses, toxic and almost poisonous. Spots were forming before his eyes as the van drew closer, the door open and waiting like the mouth of a pit he would never climb out from.

            This was when the hero was supposed to show up. This was when All Might should be sweeping down to stop this horrible man and rescue him. But there was no one. A world of heroes and not one could come to his aid.

            He had to save himself. The thought somehow eked its way into his fear drowned mind. All Might would fight back, therefore, he had to fight back.

            Squeezing his eyes shut against the coming darkness he kicked and fought like a furious cat in the arms of the man, hitting with tiny fists and kicking with tiny feet. His mouth suddenly broke away from the man’s hand as he desperately screamed out, “NO! NO! LET GO OF ME, NO!”

            “SHUT UP!” The predator roared back, suddenly wrestling with the tiny child in his arms.

            Izuku could feel something inside him. Something rising, something boiling, something he couldn’t control. Something rushing through his arms and legs and head and brain and heart.

            “GETOFFGETOFFGETOFF-”

            Something terrible.

            “STOP FIGHTING YOU LITTLE FUCKING-”

            The heat was rising faster and faster inside him, burning through his skin, screaming to be unleashed. A fury like nothing he’d ever felt, a power that couldn’t be stopped, a darkness which consumed him. Izuku’s eyes opened and he looked up at the stinking, rotting man.

            The murderous expression on the man’s face became one of undiluted horror. “Oh no-”

            Then there was only fire and blood.

            ****

            Izuku didn’t drift into wakefulness. He never drifted into wakefulness. His slumber was always broken by sudden, sharp jerks of consciousness that caused the already jittery young man to jolt in bed, grab the sheets and pant while staring with wide-eyed at his ceiling. He sat up quicker than anyone on a Monday morning should sit up and looked around.

            There was nothing. There was always nothing. Just his room, coated as it was in All Might memorabilia that only a lifetime could collect. Everything was fine, everything was normal.

            Izuku ran a hand through sweat-soaked hair and then slowly curled into a ball on his bed, suppressing the urge to scream at himself. Slowly the teenager got himself together and climbed up and out, moving to his bathroom with soft shuffles.

            He turned on the bathroom light without a second thought and took a sudden, sharp breath when he saw the snake with horns hissing at him from the sink. He closed his eyes tightly, a hand shooting to the door frame in a firm grip. Breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Slowly he opened his eyes again. There was no snake. There was never any snake. There had never been any snake.

            It was all in his head. As usual.

            He gulped his tension down and he moved on. His morning routine was indeed a routine, timed almost down to the second. It was vital that it was, otherwise he may not have been able to get out of bed in the mornings. Have shower. Brush hair. Put on clothes. Brush teeth. As he spat out his mouthwash into the sink he looked up to his mirror and paused.

            Pale skin was dotted by thick freckles, heavy bags hung under tired, weary eyes and black hair that seemed somehow tipped with green hung wildly around his head. Long, unpleasant, ugly lines of burned skin ran across his face, crossing between his eyes and then down his cheeks where they continued to line his body like a railroad. His arms, legs, even fingers and toes. There wasn’t a single part of him that hadn’t somehow been marred by the terrible, jagged burn lines that ran interconnected over his skinny form.

            A gift from the thing.

            He looked sick. He looked like he needed to spill his emotions out to the shoulder of a good friend. He looked like a mental breakdown waiting to happen.

            He almost smirked at himself. ‘A mental breakdown, that’d be a nice change’.

            The rest of the morning went like almost every other morning in Izuku’s life as he moved to the kitchen table where he ate whatever breakfast his mother had prepared for him. The moment he finished she immediately presented him with a small, orange pill bottle, which he took with a tired smile. One pill, taken with food, every morning. For the rest of his life.

            Another wonderful gift from the thing.

            Once the medication was taken Izuku got up, drifted to the front door, said his robotic goodbyes to his mother and stepped out. The moment he was outside he equipped his earphones and started up a podcast for the journey to school.

            Drifting was an apt description for how Izuku conducted most of his waking hours. However, it was better than the alternative and he knew it. Without the medication that dulled his senses to an almost static hush he would be nothing more than a terrified wreck of a human, cowing at the things which-

            No, no point dwelling on it now. He had high school to suffer through.

            Izuku walked alone to school. Hands on the straps of his backpack, his head tipped naturally downward to the pavement. Every now and then he would receive a bump at his shoulder as someone walked past him, some hitting him by accent, others on purpose.

            As he walked into his classroom he regretfully put away his earphones and looked to his desk. There was a new note there today, this one reading ‘Freak Go Home’. Izuku smiled wearily, almost ten years of this and they had yet to come up with something even mildly original.

            The teenager took his usual window seat and began writing hero notes in his notepad. He used to sit closer to the door, to better escape Katsuki at the end of the day, however, the light above him stopped working and so he asked to move. Soon enough, that light stopped working too but at least he could still take notes in the natural sunlight.

            As other students filtered in Izuku hunched down and tried to make himself as unassuming and as unnoticeable as possible. The students talked, the teacher taught, but it was all static and haze to the young teenager. All ash drifting past his medication clouded brain.

            Another typical day it seemed.

            Tuning the world out, however, was not always for the best. While the thing kept quiet it meant that most of what went on around him was ignored. That included when he was left alone in the classroom with only three other people. Three people who Izuku would usually be fleeing from.

            He had been taking notes within one of his many notebooks, this one number thirteen, on an interview he had been listening to during lunch between one of his favorite podcasters and the up and coming dancing hero Boreal.

            “Hey, wakey-wakey FREAK.” The hand slammed down on his desk so fast that Izuku had no time to even react, which was probably for the best. The thing didn’t like sudden movements. When he looked up with tired eyes he met the cold, cruel gaze of Katsuki who looked particularly pissed about something and Izuku had a horrible feeling as to exactly why.

            “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Deku?” Katsuki’s cold words hit him like a hammer to the stomach.

            “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! I-I’m just-”

            “YOU MOTHER FUCKER,” Katsuki barked at him, raising a hand up like he was ready to howitzer Izuku into the next room, “I heard the teachers talking. You’re applying for U.A., aren’t you?”

            “I-I-” There was a sudden twist to his stomach, but worse, the many scars across his body began to warm up and he resisted the urge to punch himself in the arm.

            Katsuki leaned down further. “You do realize only I can go to U.A., right?”

            “W-W-Well, there’s nothing saying I can’t apply, I mean, two people can-”

            “Wrong. Answer.” Katsuki stated like a judge before holding his hand out and blasting apart Izuku’s desk like it was made of paper, instantly throwing him out his desk chair. Izuku collapsed onto the classroom floor like a particularly ungraceful sack of potatoes and came to a stop by the feet of Katsuki’s two minions, Seto and Haruno, both of whom snickered down at the quivering young man.

            They were like Katsuki’s personal attack dogs, listening to his every word, obeying his every command, chuckling at all his stupid jokes. Izuku didn’t hate them, he wasn’t sure he could truly hate anyone except himself, but he certainly didn’t like them. Seto, fat and unshapely with a pair of leathery wings and Haruno, always with the backwards cap that wasn’t cool, always with the shit-eating grin, always with the long, wriggling fingers at his side.

            Katsuki’s shadow fell over him and Izuku scrambled back up to the wall, wishing that they would just leave before the thing got any angrier. “P-Please, Kaachan I-”

            “You’re fucking NOTHING, Deku! Do you even think you’re gonna get close enough to lick U.A.’s fucking gate?” Katsuki’s fist smashed into his open palm, creating more sparks, more smoke. “You have a useless quirk that does nothing but burn you and ruin lightbulbs. Fucking fantastic.”

            Izuku felt it ripple inside him. The colors around him seemed to sharpen, contrasts of light and dark flickering. Heat like a slow flame crawled along his scars. His fist curled and he desperately fought back for control, smothering the thing with everything he had.

            Unfortunately, this meant that he didn’t reply to Katsuki and as such, Katsuki got mad. A swift foot landed on Izuku’s stomach and the air went out of him in a second. “HEY! CREEP! I’m talking to you!”

            Izuku struggled to take a proper breath before suddenly the blonde released him. There was a merciful moment were he gulped a tight breath of air into aching lungs before Katsuki’s hand grabbed his shirt and lifted him up, slamming him against a wall where his hand rested on his shoulder.

            Pain began leaking into his skin as Katsuki’s very touch burned him. He almost thought he would be immune to the feeling by now, but regardless, it hurt every time. The blonde wore a grin like a shark as he announced. “I’m in a good mood today, so I’m going to let you off lightly. As long as you promise not to apply for U.A., I’ll only give you a light ass kicking.”

            Izuku was many things but a quitter was not one of them. Not when it came to his dream. His gaze hardened despite his vision sharpening like a badly tuned T.V. and he gritted his teeth, knowing in a second he was going to be in a literal world of hurt. “Never.”

            Obviously, this was not the answer Katsuki had been looking for, or maybe it had been, it was hard to guess just what Katsuki was going for when he asked such leading questions.

            The fist hit Izuku square in the stomach and the air was again knocked from him. Izuku crumpled in a mix of pain and desperate attempts to stifle the thing moving through him. The darkness teasing his heart, threatening to flood his brain, the heat that growled along his arms, his legs, his chest. Always the same pathways, always the same burning wounds, always the same white-hot pain.

            Then he heard it, the first voice of the day. A subtle whisper that sounded like a thousand voices, screaming, crying, moaning, begging, all sent goosebumps of terror along his skin.

            “Coward.”

            Tears welled in his eyes. He hated himself so much.

            “What a fucking pathetic sack of shit you are, Deku.” Katsuki squatted beside him as Izuku’s forehead touched the floor. Perhaps Katsuki thought he was in too much agony and if so good, it was a helpful mask for the fact he was digging his own nails into his palm to stop the thing inside him from simply exploding through his body.

            “You make even kicking your ass boring. Here’s a piece of advice. Go up the stairs to the rooftop and throw yourself off because guess what,” And he leaned forward to angrily hiss into Izuku’s ear. “I’m the only worthwhile thing this school has ever produced. You’re literally nothing. Die and come back as someone useful.”

            “Sinner. Filthy sinner.”

            “S-Stop!” Izuku squeezed his own eyes tighter, curled further into his ball and prayed to whatever God was listening to just let it end.

            Katsuki snorted and stood up. “Come on you dickheads, let’s go.”

            “You’re not gonna set his hair on fire? That was funny, remember that-”

            “Fatass shut your stupid mouth.” Katsuki barked as he slammed the door open. “I’m hungry.” And with that, they were gone.

            Slowly, painfully, the boy gathered himself back together. Heavy breaths calmed the thing, his scars stopped burning and he found himself falling to the floor, curling up and sobbing as he wished over and over again that he was born different. Even if he glowed orange or had bug eyes or something, anything, even being quirkless would be preferable to this.

            There was no more whispering. They only happened when the thing was awoken, or sometimes, rarely, late at night or first thing in the morning before he had taken his medicine. Quietly, alone in the classroom, Izuku gathered himself to his feet, drifted to his scattered belongings and thanked his God-forsaken luck that they hadn’t stolen his things this time.

            The school grounds were empty by the time he walked out, alone as always. He didn’t take his usual route, this time deciding that he flat-out didn’t want to see anyone and as such diverted down a quieter, lonelier pathway.

            Less chance of seeing Katsuki and his lapdogs. Less chance of seeing anyone. That way maybe if he screamed in agony no one would hear him.

            It was better this way.

            As long as the thing didn’t come crawling out of his skin no one would have to be hurt. It was better he suffer, that was the right thing to do, the heroic thing to do. When he got into U.A. he could fix all of this, learn how to use it properly under the guidance of experienced teachers and become a hero who could inspire confidence and fearlessness in others. Until then, he just had to endure the blows, the insults, the isolation. That’s what he told himself as he walked, repeating over and over the same old lie.

            It was better this way.

            He was halfway into the underpass, consumed by self-defeating thoughts of how sucky his life was when a voice rose up behind him, piercing through the low chatter of the podcast coming through his earphones.

            “Pretty scrawny, but he’ll do.”

            He turned his head just in time to see a wall of green slime rising out of a sewer cover. Weirdly enough, only a single sentence crossed his lips as death leapt onto him like a gelatinous tidal wave. “God must really hate me.”

Chapter Text

            Inko looked to her child with eyes that only a mother could possess. The sense of unquestioning love, devotion and caring that would have her lay down her own life to protect him.

            Her son. Her poor Izuku. He sat beside her, eyes staring, unfocused and forward. When he blinked, he blinked slowly. When he moved, if he made any moment at all, it was sluggish, as if he was only half-awake. She reached out a ran a hand through his wild and untamed mess of hair. He looked to her like he was moving through water and gave her a weak smile that almost shattered her heart.

            He was in so much pain and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

            This was the worst punishment anyone could have given her and the knowledge of it weighted so greatly on her soul she thought she would break down. Her only son, the only son she could ever and would ever have, was suffering and it was entirely beyond her control to stop.

            “Miss Midoriya?” Inko looked up to the doctor who was patiently sitting, fingers linked, at a smart desk with a computer screen to one side and several files to the other.

            The office was almost stifling from its clinical nature with its wall-mounted charts, clean plastic examination bed and even down to the uncomfortable chairs the Midoriya’s sat in. The doctor had tanned, Indian skin, a balding head and a soft, middle-aged roundness to his features.

            He adjusted his thin glasses for a moment and opened a manila folder in front of him. “It seems Izuku has finally begun responding to our treatments, it took a while, but we’ve managed to control the hallucinations, though I’m afraid they may reoccur should he use his quirk.”

            Inko nodded, feeling as though if she tried to speak she would simply sob. Instead, she gripped the purse on her lap harder, allowing its firmness to calm her already ruined nerves. She knew that it wouldn’t do much. Her hair was already a mess, always falling out of the short bun she tried to keep it in. Her clothes were form-eating, mostly to hide her weight gain and because it was easier to just throw them on than to dress up any nicer.

            After all, it wasn’t as if she was dressing up for anyone.

            “As for the scarring, there is little we can do other than recommend some dermatological oils and products as you said don’t wish to subject Izuku to any extensive surgery.”

            "No, not if they’re just going to keep happening,” Inko mumbled almost to herself as she gave a weak shake of her head.

            “Have you noticed any more flare-ups?” The doctor seemed to continue unabated. She wondered briefly if it was because he had seen so many young children like Izuku, or if it was simply because he was pressed for time and wanted to go for lunch. She had met a fair few of them by now, enough to know when they were simply shoveling the problematic six-year-old off onto someone else for a while.

            “No, I don’t think he’s used it since we were last here.” She looked to Izuku and smiled softly to her apparently dreamy child, again running a hand across his head. “Izuku? Sweetheart?” The young boy turned to look at her again. She swore she could see his thoughts drift through his eyes, slowly, like boats moving along a muddy river. “Have you used your quirk at all lately?”

            The boy seemed to consider this question before slowly he shook his head.

            “Okay, that’s fine.” Inko blinked back her tears and looked to the doctor again. “He-he’s become so quiet. I don’t like how the medication is affecting him. He used to be so full of energy and-and now… I don’t know…”

            “Miss Midoriya, you must understand, your son’s quirk, combined with his traumatic experience has caused him to develop these disorders. Without medication he would be far worse off.” The doctor paused and then sighed, taking his glasses off for a moment to pinch the bridge between his eyes. For a second, Inko saw there was an actual human there behind the white coat and smart blue tie. “I know this is hard for you, I really do. I have seen many children Izuku’s age and some even younger suffer from their first quirk usage being traumatic in nature. Though your son’s case is an extreme one he is not the only one to have these symptoms.” He paused again for another moment as if wondering if he should go on before adding. “I know of another child, Izuku’s age actually, who suffered from something very similar. Schizophrenia brought on by a traumatic quirk usage.”

            Inko leaned forwards at the news, her eyes growing wide. “C-Can I ask who-”

            “I’m sorry but the child’s name is confidential,” The doctor shut her down swiftly, however, he allowed a smile to grace his lips as he added, “Be assured however that they are making progress, they are healing. I believe that with time and with continued use of the medication Izuku will heal too.”

            Inko gripped her purse again. She wished for all the world that things could be different, that her son could be the happy, energetic child he used to be. Now he seemed like a shell, hollowed by medication and scarred by a quirk he didn’t ask for.

            “Can I ask, do you know how he developed this quirk?” The doctor broke Inko out of her thoughts as he again flipped through the manila folder. “My files say that your quirk is to pull small objects towards you, is that correct?”

            “Yes,” Inko announced with a short nod.

            “And his father?”

            His father. His father. Inko’s rage roared into life at the very thought of that, that… man wasn’t even the right word. There was no word for someone like him. Her grip on her purse grew tighter, though this time out of fury, not anxiety. Her eyes grew hard as she simply, sharply, and with more venom than an angry cobra answered. “He breathed fire.”

            The doctor got the message. “I see.” He quickly closed the file

            “Well, that does slightly explain the flames, though it could be possible that Izuku’s quirk is a mutation. A rare occurrence but not entirely unheard of.” He pushed the folder slightly to one side and looked to Inko with a short, professional smile. “We’ll continue monitoring him and, when the time comes, I believe we should recommend him for quirk counseling.”

            Inko nodded, seeing no reason to disagree despite feeling like every decision about her son was being taken from her own hands. But she knew, inside, that this was going to help him. She had cried herself to sleep enough nights on a chair beside Izuku’s bed, watching her child sleep only because she had forced sleeping pills into him. She had been pulled out of work more than once because Izuku had been shrieking about monsters in class and she had rushed him to the doctors again and again when his quirk had become too much to handle and he had screamed bloody murder from the pain caused by his scars.

            All while his father did nothing.

            She felt like the world’s greatest failure of a mother, utterly alone and without aid while he did as he pleased, never lifting a finger to help his son. If she ever saw him again…

            “Thank you, Doctor Puranam.” Inko announced without meeting his gaze as she stood up and gave the doctor a bow in thanks, who returned it without standing, then she held out a hand to her child. Izuku didn’t seem to understand what was happening for a few moments before slow eyes spotted his mother’s outstretched palm. He took it with a turtles grace, only for Inko to suddenly rush him off his feet and into her arms.

            He was getting just a little big to keep picking up for a woman of her size and frame but that didn’t matter to Inko. No matter how old Izuku got, she would always be there to help her child.

            ****

            The villain hit Izuku with the force of a tidal wave. Instantly the teenager was knocked off his feet, the breath was torn from his lungs and the world span around him as slime, wet and thick and greasy, grabbed his body in a bear hug embrace.

            The cold, mocking tone of the villain suddenly hit his ears, “Don’t try and fight, kid, you’re fucked.”

            His bag had been thrown from his shoulders, as had his phone, both now laying somewhere on the cold concrete. He knew that because he could feel the ice-cold wetness of the creature across his entire torso, crushing his ribs and pinning his arms to his sides. Instantly panic, hot and raw, set into his mind and body as he began trying to struggle out of the villain’s bind.

            However, he didn’t even have time to scream in protest. Tendrils of clammy sludge wrapped themselves around his mouth and nose and he could feel the insidious creature pushing its horrific body into his nostrils, trying to force its way into his very body. Fear rose inside him like an unchecked wildfire, hammering in his chest and rushing through his limbs, causing him to try and thrash wildly in the kind of horror only the drowned know.

            A memory flashed before his eyes. A child, tiny and helpless in the arms of a stinking, obese man. His panic went into utter overdrive, drowning out whatever thoughts he had of a rational plan of escape. Now there was only the drive to get out, to fight back, to live. His sobbing reached hysterical levels, aided by the lack of oxygen getting to his acid-filled lungs, and he could hardly see thanks to the blurriness of his vision.

             “Just let it happen, in a few moments you’ll be brain dead and I’ll be walking in your corpse free and easy.”

            Izuku barely heard the mocking tone of the monster, he could only hear the rushing sound of waves in his ears as his whole body started to lose feeling. His arms were weakening, his legs slowly stopping their fight as the tingling sensation of blood loss began moving through his limbs. Death was creeping over him like a shadow, slow and careful and all-consuming. His eyes drifted closed.

            “Maybe I’ll dump your body somewhere public, so your mom can have an open funeral.”

            The thing woke up.

            His eyes burst open and his body jolted as if struck by lightning. Suddenly his scars were warm, hot, boiling. Izuku’s vision was sharpening, colors contrasting, every sense going into overdrive as the thing took more and more of his consciousness, more and more of his body. It was dizzying and maddening. There was something different this time, however, it was reaching deeper into him, drawing out more power than he’d ever felt it summon before. Cold darkness swept over him like a tsunami flood. First his limbs, then his chest, then his brain, then his heart.

            “Hey kid, why yah gettin’ so-” The villain didn’t get to finish his sentence because his body was torn in two.

            Izuku screamed with the sound of a million tortured souls, of madness and fire, of pain and suffering unimaginable. The sound instantly filling the underpass to the point of crushing oppression.

            The villain was not just thrown from Izuku but practically ripped from him by the sheer force of the awakening power. He hit the wall with enough strength to crack the concrete, the parts large enough of him to do so anyway, bouncing off it and colliding with the floor with a heavy gelatinous slap.

            The monster reeled in shock and he dizzily cried out, “What the hell is happening?”

            The air around him was rising, the temperature going from shadow-cool to almost boiling. Parts of his body had calcified and hardened from the furnace-like heat emanating from the teenager and as the sludge villain tried to gather his face back together he turned his eyes back to the boy who seconds ago had been nothing but a helpless victim.

            Horror filled him as his eyes beheld the thing.

            ****

            Izuku wasn’t sure how long he was out. It could have been minutes, hours, maybe even days. All he knew was that it was the first time in years he had slept without nightmares, without voices whispering terrors to him, without demons crawling at the corners of his vision.

            He slept. That was all. Dreamless and empty.

            He wanted to stay there, in the peace and quiet of nothingness. To simply floating forever in the dark. No pain, no sorrow, no thoughts. Just empty oneness with the void.

            “Hey, hey kid, are you alright?” Of course, hearing the voice of his idol was a pretty damn tempting pull from the peace of the abyss.

            As always, the boy jolted right into a waking consciousness with a sharp gasp. Izuku’s body ached like it hadn’t done in a long, long time. He felt as though he’d been stretched and pulled in every direction, his muscles feeling as though they were filled with battery acid and his mouth tasted like copper. And yet he wasn’t burning. It was odd how that thought seeped into his brain as he groaned in soft pain and flexed his fingers, the cool touch of gravel grounding his senses.

            Usually, once he’d used his quirk, his body felt like it had been scored by fire, every line of scarring on his body feeling like it was being pressed with a hot poker. This time, however, the only part of his body that really hurt was his mouth, oddly enough.

            Once his fuzzy vision came into some semblance of focus they instantly widened. “Wha- OH MY GOD IT’S ALL MIGHT!”

            The first thing he saw was the grin, brilliant and white, then the pointed yellow hair and then the piercing blue eyes. It’s often said that people seem smaller from the screen to real life, but Izuku couldn’t say that about All Might. If anything, he somehow seemed bigger, taller, stronger and more imposing.

            Somehow, he just seemed so heroic, and he wasn’t even doing anything. He was just standing there, grinning his famous grin with his fists on his hips. His white t-shirt and green cargo pants somehow didn’t take from the overall striking power of the man, though it did give him an oddly casual feel.

            The boy scrambled backward, all aches and pains momentarily forgotten because, ‘holy crap that’s All Might’.

            The giant of a man straightened up, raising a hand in greeting, “Ah! Good! You’re awake! And by the looks of things you seem fine, thank goodness, I’m afraid I might have, well, accidentally knocked you out when I showed up.” He pointed a thumb over to the manhole from which the sludge villain had first appeared.

            Well, it wasn’t a manhole anymore. Instead it was something of a big gaping wound in the pathway, enough to fit at least two full-grown men into.

            Izuku’s eyes widened as he looked around the scene. He had been stood there a minute before, when he had… oh no.

            “Sorry about that!” He gave Izuku another quick look over. “You must have a pretty powerful quirk to survive that impact though.” With a quick glance behind him, Izuku could see a sizable crater now punched into the concrete wall leading into the underpass and his stomach flipped. Had he really survived that? Shouldn’t his back be broken and blood pooling from his head? More and more his stomach was twisting, more and more panic was creeping into his lungs and he started to breathe rapidly.

            The thing crawled through his aching limbs, heat snaking down his jagged scars.

            All Might didn’t seem to notice. “Heck, by the looks of things you practically beat the villain all on your own.” The hero ran a hand through his golden hair and laughed loudly, “He was literally begging me to capture him, see!” And as if to prove his point he held up an empty cola bottle which seemed filled with green slime, another sat empty in a pocket at his side. It wasn’t until Izuku saw a pair of eyes drift through it, focus on him, then suddenly vanish again that he realized what All Might was talking about.

            His eyes grew wider still and his heart began hammering in his chest. Over and over a single thought rushed through his mind. ‘Did he see? Did he see the thing?’ The very idea that his all-time favorite hero had witnessed the thing first hand almost made him empty his stomach. Instead, he curled himself up into a ball, his face paling more with each second. “I-I-I-”

            He could feel it, the monster within him waking up once more, apparently unsatisfied at its already unprecedented usage in the fight with the villain. His scars, however, warmed slowly, perhaps simply because of his already exhausted state. Izuku’s fingers curled into his skin, digging in as much as he dared in front of his idol.

            “Though I’m not sure I fully approve of the burning.” All Might’s tone became somewhat stern as he looked to the underpass. Izuku glanced out from over folded arms. What he saw caused a cold sweat to break out over his skin. There were fire marks everywhere and charcoaled, almost calcified pieces of sludge which littered the underpass, leading outwards towards the now ruined manhole like a trail of black and green blood.

            He suddenly realized why the villain had only filled one bottle.

            Now he emptied his stomach.

            The moment he did so he felt it, the thing rushing to the surface, threatening to drown out all other senses, colors around him began sharpening and contrasting, it could still fight, still kill-

            “Woah there! Maybe you’re more shaken up than I thought!” All Might’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder and Izuku felt as though he had been touched by the sun. Warmth rushed through him and the thing was, quite simply, forced to a halt. One strong hand on his shoulder, one show of kindness, was that all it truly took to stop it from boiling through his scars and into his body?

            Or perhaps it was simply that the thing was a little more exhausted than it was letting on. The hate, the fury, was still there, Izuku could feel it, but the physical presence of the hero was pushing into retreat.

            “I-I-I’m sorry.” Izuku stammered out as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve before slowly bringing himself unsteadily to his feet. “I didn’t mean to-”

            “What’s your name, kid?”

            Izuku almost had a heart attack. All Might was asking for his name! “I-I-Izuku Midoriya.”

            “Alright Young Midoriya, take some deep breaths and calm down. You’ve had a tough experience.” All Might’s tone was surprisingly soft and naturally Izuku followed his advice, feeling just a bit better from doing so, though he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. “You acted in self-defense, and besides, the villain will live to see trial and a hopefully a jail cell. If anything, I’m willing to bet that you simply need a better handle on your quirk.”

            He didn’t know. He couldn’t have known. Izuku’s anxiety, along with the thing, was calmed but not squashed completely. It lingered deep within him, as it always had.

            Still, Izuku had so many questions for the hero, so many thoughts he needed to spill from his overloaded heart. He was right here with All Might, this was his golden opportunity! He forced a soft, hopefully friendly smile, to his face and turned to look at his hero. “Mr. All Might I- AGH!”

            “Well I gotta go, kid.” All Might wasn’t in front of him anymore. He was several steps away stretching his legs and getting ready to jump. How the hell had he done that without Izuku noticing? Then again, Izuku could kick himself for the number of things he missed thanks to the medication in his system. “I assume you can get home safely from here. When you do try to lay down and relax, drink some water, watch some T.V.”

            “W-wait you can’t go yet!” Izuku cried out as All Might finally finished stretching out. “I’ve so many things to ask you!”

            “Sorry, kid, but time waits for no man! And neither does justice!” He crouched low, about to leap and Izuku saw his one chance to ask his burning, heart-wrenching question to his idol about to vanish.

            Bottling up his fear and anxiety he shoved all his remaining strength into his voice as he called out, “Can someone become a hero, even if their quirk is evil?!” He paused his arm held out towards All Might, who seemed to freeze in place. Seeing his opportunity widen, he quickly pushed forwards. “I-I-I’ve always suffered from my… from the thing I can do.” He couldn’t force himself to use the term quirk for what he had, it wouldn’t be right after all. “It’s a curse. All it’s ever done is cause pain and misery, especially to me.” He looked down, his hand curling into a fist on his chest. “B-But I thought, maybe if I become a hero, maybe I can use it for something good. So no one would ever have to be hurt by it anymore. But it’s so terrible I- I have to know. Please. Can someone like me be a hero like you?”

            His eyes moved back to his idol and his breath caught in his throat, tears welling once more in his eyes. All Might was standing tall, strong, a mountain of strength and power. There was a pause which seemed to stretch on longer than it had any right to before finally the hero looked over his shoulder to the boy. There was something in his opal blue eyes, usually so dark and piercing. A flash of someone else, the person behind the smile.

            “Young Midoriya, listen to me.” He half-turned to look at Izuku better and the teenager found himself forgetting to breathe for a moment. “There are no such things as good or evil quirks, only good or evil hearts.” He held out a massive open palm. “What you have is yours and it is up to you to forge it into something great, something heroic.” The mid-afternoon sun cast a light onto the man while consuming Izuku in shadow, and yet, despite their distance Izuku felt as though he could step out right at that moment and take his side.

            He could be there, in the light.

            Tears fell thick and strong down Izuku’s cheeks as the weight of All Might’s words hit him, though they were not the usual hammer blow of insults he was so used to. This was something else, encouragement, wisdom, words he had needed to hear all his life. A breeze ruffled past them, almost masking the sobs coming from the boy.

            All Might’s fist suddenly clenched tight and his smile widened, not into a grin of humor but one of vast, impossible determination. A bravery which Izuku had only ever dreamed of was right there, right in front of his eyes. Proof that it existed, proof that maybe he could be brave too. The rush of emotion within him was too much and Izuku fell to his knees as he wept tears mixed with all the self-hatred he had kept in so long. Cathartic and cleansing they flowed, finally, as the light of true hope reached his core.

            “If you have a heroic heart than I believe that you too can become a hero!”

Chapter Text

            “IZUKU!” The moment he stepped inside the house his mother was upon him.

            Inko’s hair had grayed in some places where her usual coloring had faded, something that Izuku always somehow felt responsible for. Especially at times like this. She immediately grabbed him by the shoulders and guided him to the living room where she basically threw him onto the couch and stood over him, fretting and angry and anxious all at once.

            “Where have you been? I was worried sick!”

            “Mo-”

            “You’re not hurt are you? Was it that Katsuki Bakugo again?”

            “Mom I-”

            “I’ll strangle that boy one of these days! Just you wait until his mother-”

            “Mom!” The teenager finally broke his mother’s intense, anxious focus and breathed out a slow, long breath. “I’m fine, it’s fine, just sit down and I’ll explain it, okay?”

            Inko did as she was asked and took a chair adjacent to her son, her eyes still fixed intently on him though she said nothing.

            “I- and don’t freak out, okay? But I was attacked an-”

            “ATTACKED!” She was back on her feet again within a heartbeat. “You were attacked!? By who! When? What happened? We need to call the police right now I-”

            “Mom! Seriously!” Izuku had to put both his hands up now and a weary, but still slightly amused, smile broke out on his face. “Please! I’m fine! Sit down and let me explain.”

            Inko sat down again, this time with far more reluctance and with an oddly suspicious frown on her face.

            “I was walking home and just, you know, minding my own business when this, I don’t know, sludge villain came at me.” He ran a quivering hand through his messy hair. The memory was still causing his stomach to curl in fear, he had almost died after all and that wasn’t something one got over so quickly. Especially not when he’d had it almost happen before. Was death really that eager for him? Well, knowing the thing it probably wanted him to die so it could finally crawl back into whatever corner of hell it had come from.

            “Sludge villain?” Inko asked cautiously, her hands tightening and untightening in her lap. “What did he look like?”

            “He was like, big and green and… made of sludge.” Izuku shrugged weakly. “He, erm, well, he almost suffocated me.”

            “Oh God.” Inko’s hand rushed to her mouth and her eyes grew wide.

            Izuku could immediately see what was coming and he quickly pulled the collar of his shirt down. “But I’m fine! See! No marks! Just the usual ones, heh.” He let his collar go and went back to looking at the coffee table as he recalled the events. Besides, he knew this next part would be the part that frightened her the most. “I, well, I had to use the thing.”

            The room went cold. The color utterly drained from his mother’s face and her mouth hung open just slightly, Izuku could almost hear the breath escape her lungs. He swore that every time he mentioned using the thing his mother aged another year, no wonder she had grey hairs and crow’s feet.

            Finally, she spoke, her voice gut-achingly quiet. “Did- did anyone get hurt?”

            “Well, the villain was pretty messed up, but no one, you know, died I guess.” Izuku wished he could curl up into a ball under the gaze of his mother. Secretly, however, part of him hated that look, the one that simply presumed that if he used the thing someone had been terribly hurt, that automatic assumption that he had no control over it whatsoever.

            What made him hate it the most, however, was that it was true.

            “But I did fight him off, probably scarred him for life…” Izuku mumbled off to himself as he looked to one side, his linked fingers tightening against his knuckles. “And then- And then!” He looked up suddenly to his mother, his eyes lightening up and a grin appearing on his face. Odd how his mother seemed to again frown in suspicion. “All Might appeared! And Mom, holy crap Mom, he was amazing! Well I think he was, I got knocked out but-”

            “You were knocked out?! Izuku that’s really bad for you!” Inko was leaning on the arm of the chair now, anxiety and concern written across every inch of her face. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright? You might be concussed or-”

            “Mom, really, I’m okay! I-I think the thing protected me somehow. Anyway, Mom, All Might captured the bad guy and said I did great and just-” He paused, running a hand suddenly through his messy hair, a slightly wild, shaky smile on his lips. “I’ve never, I mean, the thing, I’ve never used it like that before. My scars don’t even hurt or anything.” Though he didn’t mention how his entire body still ached, especially his mouth which felt like he’d been punched right in the teeth. He held out a scarred palm and flexed his fingers softly. “It- it made me feel like I could really get a handle on it, you know? Like, maybe I could really be a hero if I worked hard and-”

            “Izuku.” Inko suddenly stopped him with the tone only a mother could summon. He looked to her, the grin still on his lips though it faded somewhat at his mother’s intense, almost clinical stare. “Can you smile for me, just for a moment?” Izuku blinked at the unexpected request. He watched as his mother got out her phone and held it up, “Just a quick smile, honey.”

            The teenager paused for a second, wondering where she was going with this, before slowly putting on probably the fakest smile he’d ever had. There was a click of a camera-phone and Inko lowered her hand, frowning at the picture she had taken. Izuku was too weirded out to be worried and he craned his neck to try and see the picture. “Mom? What are you-”

            “Look.” Inko held her phone out to him. “Look what it did to your teeth.”

            His teeth? Izuku took the phone with a shaking hand and frowned at the picture presented to him. Milk-pale skin, horrid crossing scars, uncoordinated freckles, under-eye bags that were practically designer and long pointed incisor teeth. Nothing out of the- “AGH!”

            Izuku was up so fast he almost knocked the coffee table over. He rushed to the bathroom, ignoring the shocked calls of his mother as he quickly flicked a light on and leaned over the sink, opening his mouth and pulling his lips up, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain as he did so. There they were. Four new, long, fang-like teeth in his mouth. “WHAF FHE FUFK?”

            “Language!” Inko shouted from behind him and Izuku quickly paled from her temper. It didn’t help his approaching anxiety attack, however, as he could feel his lungs struggling for air, his mind swimming and a paralyzing panic creeping over his limbs.

            Thankfully Inko was well versed in such attacks and quickly took his hand, leading him back out the bathroom and over to the couch once more. Sitting him down with a saint’s patience she leaned over a little and began reciting the lines she had long since memorized. “Sweetheart, listen to me, breathe in, breathe out, come on now, big breaths.”

            She rubbed his back as Izuku slowly did as he was told. His heart was hammering in his chest, his hands trembling and fidgeting uncontrollably in his lap. The thing stirred, sensing his suffering and crawling through his body like a snake. His scars warmed, though they didn’t boil. This wasn’t unusual, his curse was all too willing to simply make itself known, to torment him just a little bit further.

            “Breathe in, breathe out.” Inko’s voice pierced through the haze of panic and slowly but surely he began to get a grip on himself. Inko, noticing this, moved back a step. “I’ll make you a drink, some tea will help, do you want a Xanax?”

            “N-No, Mom.” Izuku rose to his feet slowly. “I-I think I just need some sleep.”

            “But honey-”

            “Really, Mom.” The teenager turned to look at her, giving her a shaking smile. His legs felt like jelly and he was sure if he ate anything he would throw it up. He needed the dark isolation of his room, if only just to finally relax in peace. “I-I’m just exhausted, you know?” His smile even grew a tiny bit wider. “Growing new teeth takes it out of you.”

            A joke. He made a joke. Today really was unusual.

            Inko seemed torn between letting him go or forcing his ass back on the couch. However, eventually she relented and gave a nod. “Alright, go get some rest. If you need me I’ll be right here, okay?” She raised a hand to her son’s cheek and returned his weak smile, no doubt a Midoriya trait. “I love you, son. Whatever happens.”

            “Love you too, Mom.” Izuku gave her a small nod and on shaking legs he vanished into his bedroom. The moment he was alone in the dark he stripped himself of sweaty, dirty clothes and pulled on some pajama pants, then he crawled into his bed and curled up under the warm All Might covers. Exhaustion conquered worry and Izuku quickly drifted into sleep.

            His mother had demanded he take the next day off and Izuku hadn’t argued. Once Inko had called in sick for him she had left for work with strict orders of bed rest and relaxation. Again, Izuku didn’t argue, if anything he agreed. He had just beaten his first villain, well kind of, and it had been far more of an emotional and physical roller coaster than he ever thought it would be.

            How did All Might make it seem so easy? Then again, All Might didn’t have a demon crawling through his body waiting to tear people apart at the slightest provocation.

            The next few days droned by, only broken by one quickly booked trip to the dentist who cleared Izuku of any harm, though both son and mother had avoided questions as to what had happened to cause his odd new growths.

            Even so, despite the days quickly settling back to a sense of normalcy there was something different about the young man. Izuku was no longer drifting through each day, now he spent each and every hour thinking over what had happened, the events of his almost-death being overanalyzed in his head to an obsessive degree. It was still difficult for him to keep focus of course, the medication continued to grind his senses into the dirt, but now he had a reason to lift his head.

            Now he had a fire lit under him that no medication could suppress.

            By the time the weekend rolled around Izuku had something he hadn’t had in years. Drive.

            His tongue poked at his new fangs as the sea breeze rustled his hair and Izuku listened to the peaceful sound of waves lapping on sand until it splashed against rusting metal.

            It used to be a beach, though these days it was more like an old junkyard. Old refrigerators, TVs, rotting wood cabinets, even some cars littered the shore. The smell was terrible, though Izuku had long since learned to simply get used to it. There wasn’t much he could do to stop it after all.

            He had heard people complain about it before. An eyesore that really the local government or some hero agency should do something about and what were they paying their taxes for if they couldn’t even clean it all up?

            To Izuku it was a haven. Katsuki never came here. No one ever came here. It was broken and ruined and Izuku, despite the eye-rolling nature of it, somewhat felt a kinship with it all. Why not? It was here, amongst the discarded and fallen that he found peace. He was just another broken thing amongst all the other broken things.

            He was sat in his favorite spot, part of an old truck cab that had somehow found its way on the top of a small mountain of trash. It never got wet enough to become soggy and the seat was still comfortable enough. He could sit for hours and listen to podcasts or simply watch life crawl by. Sometimes he even saw demons and monsters moving through the ocean waves, vast and incredibale. Oddly, they never did seem to bother him here.  

            His tired eyes looked to his open palm and for a moment they traced the lines of burn scars that wove their way over his skin. Monday had taught him a lesson. He had to learn how to use the thing. Not push it down, not ignore it, actually learn to use it.

            Right. Use it. No problem.

            … had he ever willingly activated it? The very realization was such a shock that he almost slipped out of the cab. Did he even know how to switch the damn thing on?

            Another long moment of looking to his scarred hands and he came to the heavy decision that he would never know until he tried. How did the old saying go, curiosity killed the cat? He gulped and forced his anxiety down, or at least shoved it inside some inner bottle where it could sit until it bubbled over and flooded into his head once more.

            Izuku took a moment to take out his phone and text his mother, telling her he was fine and would be home in a while. She had been far more cautious about him lately, far more watchful. Izuku almost felt like she thought he was doing drugs or something. It was even becoming a little oppressive, though he knew she was just looking out for him after such a volatile start to the week.

            After shoving his phone into his pocket Izuku crawled over a number of old appliances and ruined pieces of furniture before finally arriving in a small opening that afforded him just enough space to move while making sure no one could easily spot him. Once he was absolutely sure no one was around he removed his hoodie and gave a quick stretch. He was wearing sweatpants, trainers and an old t-shirt, figuring that for practice he needed to keep his clothes simple and loose.

            He had spent the last nine, almost ten years suppressing the thing without even considering the thought of ever using it properly, simply acting on some vague assumption that U.A. would solve all those problems for him. Now, however, he knew he had a lot of catching up to do if he was even going to make it into U.A. and, as All Might had mentioned, time waited for no one.

            “Alright, let’s do this.” Izuku breathed to himself as he shook his hands and hopped up and down in the center of the opening in some mild, amateurish attempt to warm himself up. His stomach was flipping and his whole body seemed shaky and weak and voice in his head kept telling him to go back, give up, do it tomorrow.

            He silenced it with a deepening frown and gathered his courage. He could do this, he knew he could, one step at a time.

            “Okay, nice and easy, I’ll just summon it to my arms and… yeah.” Izuku took a slow, deep breath, gulped, then threw his hand out and shouted, “ACTIVATE!”

            There was, of course, nothing. Hell, it didn’t even stir within him. If anything, Izuku was sure he could hear a distant laughter, though that might have just been his schizophrenia acting up.

            Frowning to himself he gathered his already shaky confidence and tried again, this time widening his stance and trying to will the thing to emerge. “ACTIVATE!”

            A breeze blew through the open car windows, somewhere a seagull cackled, an insect buzzed by him.

            “Are you kidding me?!” Izuku threw the insult out like an angry child and kicked a piece of trash out of his path as he ranted. “All my life, all my fucking life, you’ve tormented me and now the one time I actually try to use you and you don’t fucking work! What kind of stupid-ass thing are you?”

            The thing didn’t reply.

            “UGH!” Izuku sat down on the bonnet of a ruined car and sulked. He had never been this disappointed to not feel the hot rush of burning power along his scars. What was he doing wrong? His tongue once again poked at his fangs as he thought on just why this wasn’t working. The answer, of course, was obvious. He wasn’t in any actual danger. Every other time the thing had sprung into action he had felt like he was about to be hurt or worse.

            However, right now he wasn’t willing to go wandering into some crime-ridden drug den just to ask nicely if one of the meth-heads could come at him with a knife. You know, just to see if he could get his horrifying, hell-born curse to activate, oh and it might just slaughter everyone there, no big deal though.

            He had to think of something solid, something he could use here and now and, supposedly, in any future situation. Izuku breathed deep and focused as much as he could on the issue, willing his foggy brain to do some actual work for once. His mind wandered to the events of Monday, the feeling of the slime around his mouth, the burning of his lungs, the death that had been tugging at his heart…

            Anxiety shot through him and his scars heated up.

            He quickly looked to his arms. Was that it? Was that the key to using it? Every time he wanted to activate the thing he would just have to picture himself almost dying? Oh God, would that even make it worth it? For a moment he looked to the burned, jagged lines of skin on his arms with his eyes wide before wrapping them around himself. “Well, if this is what it takes to be a hero…”

            He stood up, this time with renewed determination on his face which manifested as an incredibly unsure smile. Walking back to the center of the opening he stood silently, arms at his sides and his eyes closed. Taking one last deep breath he let his mind drift back to the sludge monster, to the threat of imminent death, to all the horror and fear that had come with it.

            The power rippled through his body and air around him grew hotter, supercharged with the raw infernal power of the boy’s quirk. He could feel it, like furious lava flowing along his scars. Desperately Izuku reached out to grab more of it, anything that he could, almost demanding the thing to rush through his system.

            This time, however, he was prepared, or rather as prepared as his razor-thin nerves would allow him to be. He felt the boiling shadow of the thing’s power flood into his arms, and the second it did so he threw his palms forward, summoning everything he had to focus on forcing the thing outward.

            Incredibly, it obeyed.

            For a split second, he could feel it. The thing reshaping his muscle, skin, and bone with white-hot fury as it rushed through his arms. Just for a split second. Then the world around him exploded as blue fire erupted from what was now his palms with an ear-splitting boom.

            The force was so sudden and so great that it threw him backward and within half a heartbeat his back collided with the side of an old refrigerator. Izuku bounced off it with a yelp of pain and landed onto the floor in a collapsed heap.

            The world span and he could feel his entire body burning with the force of the thing’s activation, though it was a creeping, stinging heat, not the boiling, oppressive fire that he was so used to. One eye opened slowly and before him he could see the black stain that blanketed his arm up to his elbow. A leathery hand now ending in talon-like claws that remolded and reshaped back into the hand he knew was his own, the shadow that had coated him simply flaking away like ash in the wind.

            He fought off the urge to throw up and slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, falling back against the refrigerator and panting heavily. He should have brought some water, he should have laid out some mattresses, he should have-

            Izuku’s eyes widened. What had once been a small hill of discarded trash was now nothing more than a smoking hole. Pockets of blue flame licked away at whatever was flammable, gradually dying in the strong breeze which now rushed through the opening.

            He had done that. All of that. With one blast.

            Izuku looked at his shaking hands, his entire body sore as he took gulping breaths, knowing that he’d probably bruised all his back and would ache for weeks. But even so…

            “I did it.” His voice was barely a whisper above the sound of licking flame and roaring wave, but even so, a big, wobbling, toothy grin broke out on his face and tears began flowing down his cheeks. “I DID IT!”

            It took several minutes of relieved sobbing before the teenager finally came to his senses, the warmth that had flooded across his scars slowly fading away as he did so. He patted himself down gingerly, looking for any new sudden growths on his person and, thankfully, finding none.

            Cautiously, with a lot of wincing and hissing through clenched teeth, he picked himself up and began moving towards the exit. This was enough for one day, but he knew the moment he stopped feeling like deep fried garbage he would be back to try again.

            And again, and again.

            As he walked, his step weaving just a little as his mind sluggishly considered what he’d just done. His body wasn’t strong enough, he knew that at the very least. He couldn’t go into the exam being able to fire once and be done, that would certainly result in a fail. He would have to train himself, make his body stronger so that he could handle the thing better.

            As for the thing... he looked again to one hand which had for a second had released blue fire with the force of a missile and, just for a moment, he could almost see the monstrous, black-leather skin and scythe-like claws that it had become. He closed his hand and sighed. Maybe he could just contain it to his hands for now, everything else could come afterward.

            One step at a time.

Chapter Text

            “You’ve been working so hard lately, I’m so proud of you,” Inko announced as she fiddled around with the collar of his uniform, “You’re going to do great, I know it.”

            “Th-thanks Mom.” Izuku mumbled as he let her fidget. He knew she was nervous and she was simply doing all of this to calm her own sense of anxiety but it wasn’t helping him, and right now he needed to hang on to all the confidence he could muster. “Look, I’ve got to go I-”

            “Okay, I know, but just let me make sure you’re all set before you leave, okay?”

            “Mom I-”

            “Do you have your pens and pencils? What about your lunch? You took your medicine this morning, right?”

            “Ye-”

            “Let me just double-”

            “Mom!” Izuku pulled away from her suddenly and with more force than he intended. A sudden coldness came between them as Inko stared wide-eyed at her son, but Izuku quickly closed the gap and put a hand on his mother’s anxious shoulder.

            A grin, small and shaking, but somehow still laced with a shadow of confidence appeared on his lips as he simply said, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me, okay?”

            For a second, for a split second, Inko could see him. Him. The smile of his father. Each day Izuku was growing up and turning into a man before her eyes, which meant each day he was becoming just a little more like him. And it was starting with that fanged smile.

            With all her heart she hoped, though she didn’t believe, that was where it would end.

            Sighing softly she pushed her anxiety into the pit of her stomach and pulled her son into a swift embrace. “Good luck today, Izuku. You can do this. I love you, son.”

            Izuku returned her hug for just that moment. “Love you too, Mom.” He pulled away again, though this time it was at least amicable, and opened the door. “But I’ve really got to go so I’ll call you when it’s done, okay?”

            “Text me when you get on and off the train and when you get there.”

            “I will, cya later.” Izuku was already out the door and into the frosty autumn air by the time he even agreed.

            Inko watched him go, standing on her doorstep with her hands pulled up to her chest. Her son, her poor Izuku, she was so proud of how far he had come.

            And she knew he still had great things ahead of him.

            The train ride was… tedious to say the least. From the moment he sat down it started. Whispers filtering in from around him, vague insults that mostly meant nothing as his eyes flicked around the carriage. He did his best to ignore them, turning up the volume of his phone as loud as he felt he could get away with. At one point he was even sure he had seen something slither under the seat of a man sitting across from him. Izuku, however, shook it off and focused his gaze on his phone.

            It had been getting more and more obvious over the past few months and it was starting to trouble him. The more he used the thing the less effective his medication was getting.

            It was something he hadn’t mentioned to his mother. He didn’t see the need to. All she would do was worry further and send him back to the psychologists who would either double his dosage or switch it to something else.

            He couldn’t afford to go through that, not when he was about to step foot onto the hallowed grounds of U.A. in his one big shot at shaping his entire future.

            Of course, all thoughts of whispers and demons halted when he actually got there. He was too in awe before the vast imposing building of glimmering reflected sunlight that was U.A. For a second he simply stood, mouth agape and hands on the straps of his backpack as he marveled at his dream come true. He was here, right here, right at U.A. itself!

            He marveled as he passed the busts of famous heroes etched into marble, his mouth widening into a toothy, enthralled grin. He was walking amongst heroes, where All Might himself had trained, where-

            Wumpf

            Without paying a lick of attention he collided right into someone's side. The moment he did so he staggered back, panic rushing through his system and his scars warming up in response. He bowed several times in a rushed apology and stammered out, “I-I-I’m so, so sorry!”

            His hands shot up in whatever passed as a pathetic defense as he looked up. He was tall, the person he’d walked into, and probably rather strong since they seemed to have barely nudged at all.

            Familiar. That was the first thing that crossed Izuku’s mind as he looked up at the man he’d stupidly walked into. The next was that he looked like a business manager, especially with his flowing charcoal-black coat, fog-grey suit and a plain black tie with a single emblazoned sign that was half-hidden by his waistcoat. His hair was also black, combed up and back away from his face with just enough loose hairs to hint at its untamable nature.

            His face seemed almost plain, with a narrow-chin and nose, and with a very light morning stubble to it. But it was his eyes, windowed by a pair of no-rimmed spectacles, which immediately stopped Izuku’s stammering.

            Black. All black. Except for a pair of simmering dark-yet-light blue pupils. Izuku was struck with the thought of All Might’s powerful, righteous gaze, but it wasn’t quite the same. There was nothing righteous about that gaze, there was power yes, but nothing righteous.

            The businessman had been holding his phone in a leather gloved palm when Izuku had walked into him and his finger hovered over it as he turned to the young man. For a second time seemed to freeze and Izuku was sure he was about to be chewed out by a busy CEO and internally he braced himself.

            The man simply chuckled. “No harm caused, son, just watch where you’re going in the future, yes?” His voice was smooth and charming, almost devilishly so. A kind of voice suited to boardrooms and corporate lawyers.

            Izuku, oddly, felt his anxiety calm at the man’s tone. “Y-Yes, sir, thank you.” He darted past him, however, he had barely gone two steps before the man spoke again.

            “Did I say we were finished?”

            Izuku froze and turned slowly back to the man. His voice had suddenly been laced with such authority that he couldn’t help but stop dead in his tracks. Again, Izuku felt his scars flare with heat, and yet, the thing whispered no curses into his head. In fact, it remained oddly silent.

            The man walked to the shaking boy and stood before him. Again, Izuku felt as though it was only the thin layer of glass from the man’s spectacled gaze that allowed him to look up to those eyes which seemed so pitiless and cold and yet full of pride and fire.

            “Young man, are you here to take the entrance exam?”

            “Y-Yes s-sir.”

            “Then stand taller. Have some confidence, why don’t you.” He raised a fist up suddenly and a smile grew on his lips. “Pride in yourself is the first step on the road to victory.”

            The teenager didn’t know how to respond, he simply stood and blinked up at the strange man. “I-Erm-”

            “Come on now, shoulders straight, chest out, chin up.” He flicked a hand at the boy and the smile continued to dance on his lips. “Let’s see it.”

            Izuku wondered if he should just outright run, strange people giving him instructions on the day of his exam wasn’t exactly the best indication of how the day would go. But even so, all the man was doing was being friendly, and he supposed the advice wasn’t exactly terrible.

            The teenager did as he was told, taking a shuddering breath before straightening up and gripping his fists at his side. Weirdly, he actually did feel better. Maybe he could do this. Maybe he could get into U.A.

            “Ha! See! Now you look ready for anything, young man.” He strode past Izuku, slapping a strong hand on to his shoulder as he passed him. “Pass the exam, son, and perhaps we’ll see one another again in the future.”

            Izuku turned and watched as the man walked away from him, wondering just what he meant by that. He looked like no hero he had ever seen, though it was possible he was simply out of uniform or that U.A. hired teachers who weren’t heroes. Still, the more he thought about it he was so, so sure he’d seen the man somewhere before.

            It was right on the edge of his tongue…

            “The exam.”

            “Wha-oh. Right!” Izuku jumped suddenly back into action, rushing off towards the main entrance, all thoughts of anything but exams and his future banished from his mind.

            Izuku felt sick. He had prepared for a physical exam. He had prepared enough that he was sure he could pass if he could focus hard enough when the time came. He had even prepared his clothes, making sure he wore loose jogging pants and an old t-shirt.

            He hadn’t prepared for a mass competition.

            There had to be about twenty, maybe thirty people around him as they stood outside the huge, vast doors that seemed to open up to what looked to be a slice of a city. And he had to perform in front of all of them. He had to use the thing in front of thirty people, while cameras watched and recorded him. The thought had crossed his mind that this had the very slight potential of becoming an absolute massacre.

            No, he wouldn’t let that happen. He had to keep focused, that was the key here. Discipline and focus, if he couldn’t keep his head he could blow all of this before it had even begun. He was half sure he had passed the written exam, at least he seriously hoped he had, but this was different. This was where it all truly mattered. His objectives were simple, fight the robots, gain the points, win a spot in U.A.

            Something moved through the crowd, instantly shattering Izuku’s focus and drawing his eye. Something the size of a dog made entirely of withered arms, rotten meat and teeth was scraping itself along the floor, snaking unnaturally between people who seemed blissfully ignorant of its presence.

            Izuku’s stomach went cold as he forced a gulp and tried to keep his feet from turning and running. It was just a small episode, nothing big, nothing to break his focus over, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t-

            He hadn’t realized he was moving backward slowly until he was stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. He turned and instantly his heart sank into his stomach. The teenager, who kind of resembled a grown man, was a giant to Izuku. Thin glasses framed his square face and the jumpsuit he wore made no secret of his toned physic. However, Izuku already knew of him because he’d been reprimanded by him during their original prep-talk in the main hall. It hadn’t been his fault though, he’d spotted a fist-sized spider-like creature with the face of a screaming man moving up towards his desk and had yelped at the sight.

            Everyone had laughed, the giant had told him off and he had almost died right there of embarrassment.

            “Are you paying attention to where you’re going?” His tone was so smart, so stern, Izuku felt like he was being lectured by a teacher, “You almost walked into me while I was stretching. You need to watch yourself, unless of course, you’re not taking these exams seriously.”

            “Oh!” Izuku almost jumped at the accusation, “No that’s not it at all I just-”

            “Obsessive prideful fool.”

            “This is a very serious school with a very serious reputation!” The taller boy’s arms moved in an almost robotic fashion as he lectured Izuku, who did his best to ignore the whisper that sounded like a guttural, primal growl crawling at the insides of his brain. “If you are not prepared to focus in these exams then you should simply quit now before-”

            “ALRIGHT GO!” The tone was so loud that Izuku felt the ground rumble under him. He spun in shock and looked up where the tiny figure of Present Mic was standing, all hair and black leather and tinted sunglasses.

            Izuku blinked up at him for a moment before looking around, wondering if he was addressing someone else. Except there was no one else, it was just him, while the rest of the entire group sped off into the now opened doors of the city.

            “Run!”

           “SHIT.” Izuku immediately turned and sprinted after the others as fast as his legs would carry him. Already heat was ghosting across his scars, pushing the boy onwards with greater urgency. For all his training and attempts to conquer the thing he knew at best he had about two, maybe three shots within him before he would be too weak to continue. His plan, therefore, was to focus on high-level targets, or groups of robots together and hope that he could simply turn them into giant, smoking piles of scrap metal in time.

           Of course, first he had to actually find a robot to fight and already he was behind everyone else.

           “Alright, alright, think.” Izuku muttered to himself as he approached a wide crossroads in the center of the city. “If I was a robot, where would I-”

           There was a rumble head of him and as he skidded to a halt a huge, green, metal machine rolled out in front of him. Izuku felt the strength almost completely leave his limbs as he looked up in terror at the robotic monster. His scars however suddenly heated up in response and as the bite of fire hit him his brain kicked back into gear.

           He threw out his arm. All he needed was to focus and-

           The robot exploded… and it wasn’t his doing. He blinked in shock, the sharp-bite of the dissipating heat not nearly enough to overwhelm his senses as he looked around to spot a young, thin, effeminate-looking man standing with his hands behind his head and a dissipating beam of sparkling light fading from his stomach. “Ah, thank you for the distraction, mon amie! We make a great team! Shame we’ll never meet again!” And with that he was off, running down the opposite street.

           Izuku blinked. “Was I… Was I just saved by a Frenchman?”

           “Pompous, self-centered coward.”

           “Shush.” Izuku hissed to himself as he took off running again. He had found himself talking back more lately, though it didn’t do any good. The thing would hiss in his ear regardless if he responded or not. At least he wasn’t seeing any more hallucinations, that really would be the worst thing right now, firing blasts off at things that weren’t even there.

            “Five minutes!” Present Mic’s voice rang out over the arena and Izuku felt the sharp stab of panic once more. He was losing time and losing focus. Every corner he turned he saw more smoking slabs of metal, more ruined robots, and not a single one he could defeat himself. He had been so worried about not having the energy to gain enough points but at this rate he wouldn’t even have any points no matter what he did.

           “What the hell?!” The panic was gripping him now, crawling up his arms and digging its claws deep into his brain. Heat was moving like waves along his scars, responding to his growing fear. “Why can’t I find any robots? Surely there’s got to be something around here to-”

           The explosion rocked the faux-city like an earthquake and Izuku, along with the two other people he currently shared the street with, were almost thrown off their feet. He turned his eyes to the source of the sound and all color, if there was any color to begin with, drained from Izuku’s face.

           A zero pointer. The screen back in the main hall had made it seem no bigger than two stories, max.

           The robot was so large it almost blotted out the sun. Its upper shoulders grazed the tops of buildings at least twenty stories high, it’s monstrous wheels, which ground the earth so loudly Izuku could hear it crushing concrete and asphalt even from a distance, swallowed up an entire, four-lane street including the pavements. It raised a clawed hand and instantly demolished a building that could have housed an entire shopping mall.

           People were already running. Some were even screaming. Somewhere above the din of the machine Present Mic’s voice rang out, “TWO MINUTES!”

           “Flee!”

           Izuku’s legs moved, stiffly, to set him on course with everyone else. There was no beating something like that, surely, and even so it was zero points so-

           “HELP!” The voice cut through everything else. Through the sound of steel crushing stone, through the crashing of rooftop onto pavement, through the haze of static that surrounded Izuku’s mind like a light fog. The sound of a girl screaming in pain, in panic, in fear.

           Izuku’s eyes spotted her, a brown bob visible through the growing cloud of dust in the street before him. She had been trapped under a vast slab of stone, and all the while the vast, monstrous tracks of the four-pointer moved towards her.

           His legs began to move.

           ‘FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!’ His voice bounced in his mind as he sped towards her, his legs feeling like they were being filled with battery acid and his heart almost exploding in his chest.

           Boiling heat raced across his scars, fueling his actions, pain and fire biting at his every limb. His senses sharpened into overdrive, colors brightening and edges contrasting, the sound of the machine roaring in his ears and the feel of his own blood pounding in his brain.

           But he didn’t stop, he didn’t slow down. Every instinct he had was telling him one thing over and over, save that girl.

           He didn’t notice the taller boy in blue pass him, nor did he notice the look of shock he was given before he carried on.

           Before he knew it, he was by her side and instantly he tried to grab her, to pull her arm, to get her out. She screamed at him as he did so, he was too rough, too panicked and the slab too heavy.

           Words reached his ears, “SAVE YOURSELF! GO!”

           Wide green eyes stared at her, then they looked to the unstoppable force of metal grinding ever on towards them.

           “We can stop the construct,” Ten thousand hissing voices forged into one screamed into his ears and only his ears, “We are shadow and flame, unleash our fury!”

           He knew what he had to do.

           “Close your eyes.” He called out to her as he let go of her and walked, walked, into the center of the street. “Don’t look, whatever you do, don’t look.”

           Izuku felt it. The flood of power, dark and terrible, rushing through his limbs, overflowing from his furnace-hot scars.

           “What are you-” Izuku’s eyes turned to her and the color drained from her face. “What’s wrong with-”

           “CLOSE. YOUR. EYES.” His voice echoed with more than his own and the girl did as she was told, terror beyond being crushed now gripping her.

           The familiar feeling of drowning was overtaking him and he could feel his hands, his feet, his body reshaping from the fire inside him. Every thought, every piece of focus he had however was not on control, not on sticking out his arms and hoping for the best. It was on a single objective, a thought he hoped against all hope that the thing would obey.

           ‘Kill that machine.'

           The thing grinned with Izuku’s lips.

           Uraraka’s eyes were screwed tight but she could still feel, still hear. The fire-heat that washed over her face was something she hadn’t expected, neither was the sudden sound of wings beating once and only once.

           There was a second where she heard only the sound of the vast zero-pointer moving closer, ever closer, then…

           There was a scream that sent claws of fear digging into her very soul. A scream that was so terrible to hear that every part of her mind suddenly felt like it was drenched in black mourning and fathomless dread.

           Then the world shattered.

           A bomb-like explosion went off above her and everything lifted into the air, throwing her, the slab that had trapped her and the window of every building in the street flying backward. It was a cacophony of noise, of shattering glass and screaming metal.

           Fire washed over her skin and she could feel a thousand new bruises form as rubble pelted her body. Her back collided with something solid and she realized, with a sharp pain, that she had hit the side of a building.

           Uraraka landed onto the pavement in a heap of dust and shattered glass, the cuts already biting through her clothes and skin.

           But the boy. The boy!

           She looked up and for a moment all she saw was a cloud of blue fire, ash, metal and absolute devastation. What had once been the monster-machine's face was now nothing but open air filled with flaming, falling debris, what had once been its entire body was a cavernous hole of wire and oil and fire and smoke.

           Then she saw something new. At first she wasn’t sure what she saw, it seemed to be nothing but a shadow against the sky, something sharp and dark, wrapped by what she swore were leathery wings, but then, as it fell, all of that was revealed to just be a blanket of crumbling black ash.

           It was the boy. And he was falling. He was falling fast.

           She moved. Her back felt broken, her limbs felt shattered and everything in her body was screaming sit down Uraraka you stupid bitch. But she moved. Her timing had to be perfect, her aim had to be perfect, or the falling boy bleeding ash and smoke would be dead the moment he hit the pavement.

           She ran, one foot landing on a fallen piece of machinery and she leapt at the last possible moment, swinging her hand just in time to slap the boy across the face.

           He stopped falling. Uraraka hit the ground in a crumpled scream and rolled, knowing now for certain something inside her was broken.

           But he stopped falling.

           She curled into a ball for just a moment, fighting the urge to scream, to cry, to throw up. Finally, however, her eyes opened and there he was.

           The boy. The boy with the unkempt hair and pale skin and the bags under his eyes. The boy with the scars that she dared not ask about. He floated lightly in mid-air like a feather caught in a breeze. His t-shirt was ruined, torn and burned beyond repair, his shoes were missing too, having at some point simply been torn or perhaps disintegrated from his feet as his sweatpants seemed burned up to his shins.

           His eyes opened slowly and, against everything that had just happened, he smiled. No, he grinned at her, and for the first time she noticed his teeth.

           Izuku grinned at her. He didn’t know quite why, maybe it was because he’d been knocked stupid by his own power, maybe it was because his body felt like it was about to crumble apart, or maybe it was because somewhere inside him he knew that’s what a hero did when they looked utterly broken.

           “Are, you okay?” It was the first thing he could think to ask. His mouth tasted like ash and his throat burned but he had to ask, he had to know. His body was howling at him, not just from the pain of his scars, though that was indeed part of it, but from the sheer force of energy he had spent to do all of that. He had trained to fire three shots, maximum. He had just demolished something that could have torn through downtown in a minute.

           Even the thing seemed exhausted, the usual bubbling, churning growls of black hate nothing but a whimper inside him.

           The girl nodded at him, then she said something unexpected. “Sorry.”

           He blinked slowly at her. “Sorry?”

           “For this.” Her fingertips came together and gravity gripped him with a jealous hand.

           He dropped like a sack of old potatoes and landed with a concentrated scream of pain onto the floor. His fingers and toes felt numb but the scars across them pulsed with a residual burning heat that reminded him that, yes, he was still alive and, yes, he was an idiot.

           But the girl was safe.

           She was throwing up on the floor but that was fine, it was all fine. She was safe.

           Ache and pain tore through him as he raised an arm and slammed it down on the ground and by sheer force of will he began dragging himself forward. His teeth gritting together as he refocused whatever strength was left within him on getting back to the task at hand. His voice was weak and breaking but even so he hissed out, “I just need one point, just one and-”

           “AND TIME! THANKS FOR PLAYING, CALLERS!”

           He thought he didn’t have the energy to feel upset and yet somehow tears still formed at his eyes. It was there, in the back of his mind, selfishly nagging at him despite everything he had done. It was over, all of it. His one chance at becoming something, someone, was over.

           Exhausted, ruined and devastated, Izuku wept.

Chapter Text

            It had been a difficult week for Izuku. Coming home and explaining to his mother that he had burnt his dreams to a crisp because he had thrown himself at a giant robot to save a girl had been hard, far harder than he’d imagined it’d be.

            It had been especially tough to hear his mother curse U.A.’s name for ‘just wanting violent thugs and not heroes’. She had assured him, over and over, that his actions would count for something, they had to, they had been heroic after all. At one point Izuku had literally been forced to place himself between her and her phone to make sure she didn’t call them and scream them out on his behalf.

            Izuku knew that results were results. Zero points were zero points no matter how one looked at it.

            It didn’t help that as the week went on he had to suffer through Katsuki’s constant bragging. Somehow word had gotten out about his zero points and the ridicule had reached epic proportions. More than once Izuku had been forced to stop the rage of the thing from melting the skin from Katsuki’s grinning, mocking face. Those times, of course, meant that his scars had erupted with fire-burning pain, causing even more mockery.

            Yeah, it’d been a week to say the least.

            “We can kill him.” The thing tempted, snake-like along his skull for the hundredth time that week, “Our blood is-”

            “We can shut up.” Izuku grumbled as he approached the steps to his home. He was getting increasingly sick of the thing’s attitude lately. It was concerning him that it seemed to no longer just be content with a handful of words, it was forming full sentences now. He knew it was a consequence of his training and couldn’t be helped, but it did make ignoring it a hell of a lot harder.

            He opened his front door with a sigh, wondering just how he would tell his mother that he needed to up his medication again. However, he didn’t even get the chance to mention it, the second the door was open Inko was upon him.

            “IZUKUUU!” The teenager jumped in shock as his mother shoved something at his chest, her eyes filled with anxious tears. “IT’S HERE!”

            “Destiny calls us.”

            The boy hid a wince as the hiss within his skull instead focusing his eyes down to the object his mother had practically assaulted him with. It was a letter, with the seal of U.A. stamped to the back. He took it from her with a shaking hand, his eyes growing wide.

             “Open it!” Inko quickly insisted. “Come on, I want to see your face when you get accepted!”

            “I-I-” Izuku stammered for a moment before gripping the letter tightly. “I’m going to my room.”

            Inko’s face fell. “But-”

            “Please, mom. Just, let me just do this alone, okay?” And without looking at her he pushed past his mother, storming towards his room before his heart could be caught in his throat.

            He didn’t want her to see him cry when his dreams finally fell apart.

            The murky darkness of his room was welcoming. Odd how he always felt better in dark places. The voices came in clearer and louder in dark, and the thing was always more willing to make itself known at night, but Izuku couldn’t help but feel like the shadow offered some kind of comfort to him. It was harder to see how damaged he was when he could barely see his own hands. Besides, lights didn’t seem to like him anyway, any strong emotion caused them to flicker and fail.

            Making his way to his computer desk he sat down and laid the envelope flat out before him. For a long moment he wondered if he should even bother opening it, he knew he had failed, he should just throw it in the trash now, right?

            Katsuki’s laughing, mocking face drifted into his thoughts and he found himself scowling. His self-loathing suddenly turned to irritation, and then quickly to anger. His scars flared and as if snapping into action he reached forward and tore the letter open with a grunt of deep-seated frustration.

            Out popped an odd silver ash-tray like disk that clattered onto his desktop and then a second later lit up with activation.

            “I AM HERE AS A PROJECTION!”

            The sudden bright light and loud shouting almost blinded the boy and he scrambled backward, nearly falling out of his desk chair.

            The huge face of All Might grinned down at him from the projection and suddenly pulled back. The scene was a colorful one, all flashing stripes, bright gold and red drapes framing the huge form of the man who seemed to be dressed in what Izuku first thought was a banana suit but quickly realized it was his vintage interview suit from countless T.V. appearances.

            Almost instantly there was a growling, blood and bone soaked whisper that scraped through his brain. “The Fading King.”

            Izuku, however, ignored it, the very shock of seeing his hero pushing all other thoughts aside.

            “You’re probably wondering why I am presenting this video! Well, let me announce to you that I, ALL MIGHT, will be teaching at U.A. this year as part of the hero course!” Izuku winced as just how loud he announced his own name, yet even so he couldn’t hide how incredibly giddy it was making him to have All Might talk right to him. He wasn’t technically talking to him of course, but it still pretty cool. It was also interesting to learn that he would be teaching, how lucky for the students who would get onto the course.

            Not that he would ever be there to see him person.

            “Now, let me see here.” He held up a piece of paper and Izuku could almost see the cogs in his mind working. “You are… Izuku Midoriya.” Izuku’s heart lit up as his hero spoke his name, and even more so when the giant of a man clearly seemed to recognize him. “Wait, that rings a bell, didn’t I- What?” He looked to one side. “What do you mean wrap it up? I- right but- alright fine.” He sighed loudly. “Anyway, congratulations on passing the written exam, good on you! However, in the practical you scored zero points. Sorry about that.”

            Izuku felt like gravity was gripping him tighter than it ever had done. He could almost feel his body sink down into his chair and begin the process of collapsing onto the floor. His heart tore as he heard the words spoken by his hero. Zero points. There it was, in banana yellow, clear as day.

            “That is, of course, a fail… if that’s all we were counting on!” Gravity stopped working. Izuku shot up in his chair and his hands gripped his pants tightly. “Ha!” All Might put his giant fists onto his hips. “Bet that woke you up! Now, check out this video! TA-DAAA!” From within his suit he whipped out a remote and the camera panned to one side, showing a giant T.V. screen.

            With a click it came to life and there she was. The girl with the brown bob hair, the girl he had saved from the zero-pointer, dressed in her school uniform approaching Present Mic, unmistakable in his black leather and pointing hair. “Hey, erm, Mr. Present Mic? Sir? Erm, do you remember a boy? He had curly green hair and, erm, scars,” And she made a cross across her face with a finger, causing Izuku to wince and feel suddenly very self-conscious. “Well, in the exam, he- I heard him say he didn’t have any points but- but he saved me from that big zero pointer!”

            Izuku felt something inside him. Something he wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt before. Something warm and… good. Something that made him straighten up just a little more and raise his chin just slightly. Something that sent a tingle of heat along his scars that didn’t seem to hurt.

            Pride. He felt pride.

            “Well, I- I think he should have some of my points! If he didn’t stop to save me he could have- I mean- It’s unfair that he should do that and still get nothing, you know?” She bowed suddenly to the DJ and, in a shaking voice, loudly asked, “Please, let me give him some of my points, please!”

            Present Mic chuckled and patted the girl on the head. “I’m sorry, female caller, but you can’t pass your points to anyone else. Don’t worry about that kid though, we saw it all and trust me, he’s fine.”

            Izuku’s jaw hung open. No one other than his mother had ever been that kind to him. No one had ever stuck their neck out like that, no one had ever shown him such sympathy. He was shaking and tears were forming at his eyes as he watched the camera pan back to refocus on All Might, who had apparently been standing and watching the entire time.

            “The other teachers told me that it’s been a long time since anyone has done that after an entrance exam. It’s a sign that you not only used your quirk in sacrifice of yourself, but you spurred another to do something kind in return.” All Might turned back to the camera, his ever present grin no longer humorous and friendly, but something different, something determined and strong and powerful. “And believe me, they took notice. You see it’s not simply raw, destructive power that gains you points in the exam. Being a hero isn’t all about beating up bad guys, you know. It’s about saving lives while risking your own, doing whatever it takes to make sure others are safe. That’s why we have,” And he paused for dramatic effect, “RESCUE POINTS!”

            He thrust a finger into the air where the camera panned up to reveal a giant scoreboard. Right there in neon green read his name and then villain points, zero, rescue points… sixty.

            Tears felt from Izuku’s eyes, though this time they were no longer of fear, terror and self-hatred. They were hot and heavy and joyful. His body was almost bursting from the emotions he felt now like a typhoon inside his heart. Unfamiliar burning pride, alien joy and the brightest, hottest and most pleasantly-painful of all, hope. His fingers gripped the desk so tightly they went white and his scars tingled sharply with the heat of roiling power.

            But Izuku didn’t care. All he could think about was the screen before him and the iron grin of imposing purpose on All Might’s face as he reached out towards the camera. “Izuku Midoriya. You passed the exam.”

            Izuku was on his feet though he couldn’t remember when it’d happened. The emotion in his chest was almost overwhelming, every color around him seemed sharper, every noise seemed louder but he didn’t care. He didn’t care because it didn’t matter, all that mattered was this moment, right here, right now.

            All that mattered was that his dream wasn’t dead.

            “So I welcome you, young Midoriya. From this moment forward, you are officially a student at U.A. High.”

            His scream was so loud that Inko burst into the room from her pacing outside, expecting the worst but pausing when she saw her son. In the dim light it was clear, his scars glowing softly with that terrible inner furnace he was cursed with and yet when he turned to her she felt no horror, despite his clenched fists and bared teeth.

            Because she had never seen him stand so tall and on his face was a smile she thought he’d forgotten he had.

            “I did it, Mom, I got in.”

            Within a second she was embracing him, arms wrapping around his warm body as his arms wrapped around her. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.” Tears fell from both their eyes as they sobbed from their shared joy. “This is proof. You’re destined for great things, Izuku.”

            “YOU BASTARD!” The explosion went off right by Izuku’s ear, causing a sharp pain to rip through his head and a ringing sound to knock him dizzy. “HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET IN? YOU FUCKING CHEATING FUCK!”

            It was just the two of them. Called in especially to be thanked by their old homeroom teacher for making the class proud, though he seemed prouder of Katsuki than Izuku. It didn’t matter. Izuku had his own pride now. Dusty and rusting, sure, but it was his and no one could take it from him. Not anymore.

            Though Katsuki was doing a damn good job of trying. “K-K-Kaachan, p-p-please I-”

            “SHUT THE FUCK UP.” There was a sudden hand on his shirt, throwing him against the old brick wall of the school and Izuku’s senses felt overwhelmed by the smell of burning smoke and nitroglycerin.

            “This was my destiny! My future! And now you’re trying to get your stupid shitty hands on it! I was supposed to be the only one to get into U.A. from this bullshit school!” His grip tightened and Izuku almost choked as the air was cut from his throat. “YOU RUINED IT FOR ME!”

            For a moment Izuku almost apologized, anything to stop Katsuki from beating him for daring to step forwards out of the misery of his own life.

            But then the voice of his personalized hell hissed into his mind with the fury of a thousand swinging swords, “We are shadow and fire! We are not weak! Fight back! COWARD, FIGHT BACK!”

            Heat exploded across Izuku’s scars swift and angry. A week ago he may have cried and panicked and attempted to do all he could to stop the thing from seizing control, resulting no doubt in his scars lighting on fire and bringing him to his knees screaming in pain.

            But that was a week ago. Things had changed.

            “Kaachan.” His voice went low as inside he grabbed tight onto the pride he had rediscovered. The pride that he was on his own path, that he could be a hero, he had proven it to himself. He could do it. Suddenly his fingers were curling around Katsuki’s wrist. “G-Get your fucking hand o-off me.”

            Katsuki’s heart skipped a beat. The air was raising around them, his mouth suddenly felt dry and his fury was marred by something he was unfamiliar with. Something that stabbed hard into his gut and twisted like barbed wire.

            Izuku looked up and their eyes met. Katsuki could swear that something was wrong with Izuku’s gaze, it seemed darker somehow, as if all the light had been snuffed out of him. All except for his striking green irises which he swore were glowing with something that made his soul shudder.

            Izuku’s mouth curled from a fearful apprehension to a wolf’s growl and a quick thought shot through Katsuki’s confused, spinning mind. Since when did Deku have fangs?

            “I got in on my own merits, no cheating, no scheming. I got in on my own blood and sweat and tears.” He shoved Katsuki back suddenly and, to his silent surprise, the taller boy let go, stumbling backward. Izuku’s guts were twisting in fear, panic was pulping his heart and his head was dizzy with the dread that any second Katsuki would swing that terrible right hook at his face.

            But Izuku could feel the pride of his spirit and the pulsing of vicious, infectious power from the thing. He let it carry him.

            Izuku whirled on Katsuki, his hand curling into a fist as he stood before him, his hair moving just slightly in the rising heat. “I’m going to U.A. and nothing you do can stop me!”

            “Do the doors really need to be this big?” Izuku asked himself as he stood outside his new classroom. Everything in U.A. was vast and imposing. At first, he thought it was an accessibility thing, but now he was starting to wonder if it was just for show. Having a few statues of famous heroes around was one thing but this was getting a little silly.

            Still, he was here. He was wearing the uniform he had kept pressed and clean for a full two weeks before he even set off for U.A. His backpack rested on his shoulders, filled with school equipment that he had checked and rechecked a hundred times, and his mother had checked at least a thousand.

            “This is a temple to vainglory.” The thing hissed from within his brain, its voice a thousand burning fires, a thousand drowning screams, “We belong in shadow.”

            “We belong here.” Izuku found himself mumbling, his hands gripping tighter onto his shoulder straps. “We- I earned this.”

            The thing didn’t reply, yet somehow, he could almost feel its smirk from within his heart.

            He really needed to talk to his mother about upping his medication. It was irritating how easy he was becoming with answering it back and it troubled him that more than once he had been caught into its little game of answering with we and not I.

            It was also irritating how he was getting used to seeing monsters, no longer just small shadows or scuttling imps but actual, people-sized monsters. He had even spotted something flying through the sky the size of a car late one night.

            His episodes were becoming more oppressive, more sinister. Fear and gut aching anxiety gripped him every time he spotted something that he knew wasn’t real, even if he was sadly getting used to the feeling of horror every time he turned his head to see something with far too many eyes and legs and arms creeping towards him.

            And yet they would never touch him, never grab him or hurt him. They simply vanished once they got too close, being things invented in his own mind they weren’t actually real. It didn’t make it any less terrifying of course but it was the one small comfort he could take.

            Medication would solve it all though. To drown his head in fog until he couldn’t focus anymore. He could go back to being a walking zombie, free of terror but free of pretty much any other emotion too.

            And yet he knew to be a hero he had to use the thing. Even if he upped the medication there was a decent chance within a year he’d be back to this point again. Not to mention it would certainly effect his class performance.

            He sighed, now wasn’t the time to think about this. He could push it off until he couldn’t push it off any longer, which was clearly a great plan with no downside.

            Besides, this was his first day in class. This was his golden opportunity to reinvent himself. Not as the ash-brained, creepy and useless Izuku Midoriya of Orudera Middle, but as the friendly and confident and absolutely not creepy Izuku Midoriya of U.A. High. As his shaky confidence gathered in his chest he stepped forward and opened the door.

            And immediately his heart sank into the floor.

            “Get your feet off the desk!” The tall, teacher-like teenager that Izuku had been so helpfully glared at in the exam stood, arms in an almost perfect ninety-degree angle as he shouted at… Katsuki Bakugo.

            ‘God hates me.’

            “That is probably true.”

            Katsuki smirked at the taller boy. “Huh? Shut the hell up four-eyes.”

            “That is incredibly disrespectful!” The taller teenager almost reeled in shock. “How can you be so rude to your fellow classmates on your first day?”

            “Because you’re a fucking side-character.” Katsuki smirked as he folded his other foot over the desk. “So get lost.”

            “I-Agh, look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot.” The taller teenager put a hand to his chest. “My name is Tenya Iida and I-”

            “I’m already bored of you, Jesus fucking Christ I hope the whole fucking class isn’t like-” Amber-red eyes landed on Izuku and the boy froze in place. Izuku expected the blonde to rise from his seat, march over and immediately begin pummeling him for the rebellion he had shown him weeks before.

            But there was nothing. Just a look that caused Izuku’s stomach to twist and a snarl as Katsuki turned his head away.

            Well that was… different. Izuku almost shuffled into the room, deciding to take full advantage of Katsuki’s apparent kindness and-

            “You! Stop!” Tenya’s voice called out to him and suddenly every eye in the class was on him. Izuku felt a rush of warmth across his scars as he froze utterly in place, his heart hammering in his chest as anxiety kicked him in the lungs.

            “I-I-”

            Before he could even reply the teenager was marching over to him like some kind of uniformed robot. “I am Tenya Iida from Somei Private Academy and-”

            “The Mechinason takes such pride in his pathetic lineage. It’s almost embarrassing.”

            “H-Hi!” Izuku’s voice squeaked out, desperate to drown out the voice of his curse. “I heard! My name is Izuku Midoriya, i-it’s a pleasure to m-meet you.”

            “Midoriya. I must apologize.” Now that threw Izuku off and for a second he simply stared blankly at his new classmate. “You figured out there was something more to the exam. I underestimated you based on your appearance,” He looked to one side as if in deep shame, “Clearly you are better than me.”

            “Yes, we are.”

            “No! No I’m not! I really had no idea, I just did what I-”

            “Oh! It’s curly hair!” The familiar voice caused him to turn suddenly and there she was, like an actual beam of sunshine, the girl from the exam.

            “The useless bitch is here too? This is a waste of our time.”

            Izuku almost growled at that, instead, however, he forced a smile to his face as he announced. “Oh! Yeah, it’s me. H-Hi there.”

            A sudden thought hit him. She had been close when he had used the thing, close enough to see him if she had opened her eyes. A horror crept into his heart as he realized that there was a good chance that she knew what the thing looked like.

            “Oh man, you know I never thanked you for saving my butt in the exam, ha!” She reached forward suddenly and lightly punched him on the arm. “You were amazing though!”

            The creeping horror stopped. “… amazing?”

            “Amazing?”

            “Yeah! Like, BAM,” She swung her fist down suddenly, “And it was all, like, one paaaaanch and everything! I don’t know how you did it but damn it was cool!” She laughed suddenly and smiled at Izuku. “My name is Uraraka Ochaco, nice to meet you, again!”

            Izuku, at some point, had gone a bright beet red. Never in his life had anyone used the words ‘cool’ and ‘amazing’ when referring to him and, quite honestly, he had no idea how to deal with it. Did people just… accept compliments like that? Should he say something back? Was there some social ritual to being called cool? Would he be un-cool if he even acknowledged he was called cool?

            This was somehow just as terrifying as the thought of Uraraka possibly knowing what the thing looked like.

            “W-well I didn’t r-really-”

            “Finally, you’re all here.” The new voice was not one of a student, that was immediately apparent. Izuku looked over Uraraka’s shoulder only to see what looked like a giant yellow caterpillar. One with a human face.

            Fear crept up his spine and he gritted his teeth. Now was not the time to be having an episode! He almost turned away and marched to his seat from sheer desperation when Uraraka turned too and it hit him like a bucket of ice cold water to the face. This wasn’t an episode, that thing was real.

            The caterpillar stood up and looked out over the classroom from its position in the doorway. His voice was low, almost droning, yet laced with a subtle authority that demanded attention. “It took you all eight seconds to shut up. This won’t do. You kids aren’t logical enough.” He sighed heavily and the caterpillar began unzipping itself, revealing its skin to be nothing more than a sleeping bag.

            Out stepped what Izuku first thought was some kind of hobo and he wondered if he should call campus security. However, there was something in the way the man held himself, the way his exhausted, bloodshot eyes scanned the classroom that told him he was judging the book by its cover.

            “A Son of David?”

            Izuku caught himself before he could react to the comment. What the hell was it talking about now? It didn’t matter, half of what it said was just nonsense to upset him anyway.

            “This is the hero course, I expect you all to be better than this.” He stepped forwards and again scanned the class with tired eyes, causing, as Izuku noticed, more than a few of his classmates to shrink from his gaze. “I am your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa.”

            A collective gasp rose from the classroom as Izuku stared at the strange man. His gaze grew even wider as the disheveled teacher reached into his sleeping back and drew out a blue, red and white looking outfit. “These are your gym clothes. Put them on and meet me on field A in ten minutes. No slacking.”

            “But- but, we’re supposed to be attending our opening ceremony!” Uraraka’s whining voice rang out suddenly and it was joined by a few murmuring agreements.

            Shota frowned. “It’s a waste of time. All you need to know is that you’re on the hero course and that we only expect the best. That’s why you’re going out into the field, I need to test you all on your physical and quirk-related abilities. Now you have nine minutes, I suggest you get moving.”

Chapter Text

            The entire time he got changed into his gym clothes Izuku was gripped with the thought of having to use the thing openly in front of other people. Sure, he’d done that in the exam, but that had been an emergency. Now he was simply expected to just… use it. Like anyone else. In front of people he’d be spending the next three years with.

            What would they even think of him when it became quickly apparent he had only the barest grasps on the reins of a monster that lived inside his blood? However, once he got onto the field, what he saw swept away the anxiety of using the thing, at least for a few moments.

            Rope swings over sand pits, walls with footholds, crawling spaces, tires and hanging ladders leading both up and down huge ramps, each with their own swirling, spinning, chaotic looking devices all designed to test a person to their absolute limit. There were two rows of these courses, each a perfect mirror of the other.

            “Welcome to the U.A. student obstacle course.” Aizawa announced in a bored tone. “I’ll be sending you out in sets of two to complete the course as fast as you can. Now I’m sure you’ve done something like this before.” There were a few murmurs from the class, though Izuku kept his mouth shut. He’d always been left out of these kinds of things and usually by choice. If he had an episode while climbing a rope he could fall and break his neck.

            Now, however… now he supposed he had no choice.

            “However, before I’m sure you were told not to use your quirks to keep it fair. That is illogical. During the test I will be watching to see not just how physically fit you are, but also to see how well you handle your quirks to complete the course.” Aizawa continued, bloodshot eyes scanning the class disdainfully. “Each of you got onto this course because you passed a written and physical exam. However, such things like speed or destructive power don’t matter when looking for raw potential.”

            Izuku felt himself stiffen at the statement as a rod of cold iron ran down his spine. What was his raw potential? Did he even have any? The thing was powerful, he would easily admit that, but the way Aizawa talked indicated he was looking for something more than just power.

            He was looking for ability, usefulness, practicality and perhaps the drive within each individual student. Izuku had to admit, for as scary as his new homeroom teacher was, it was… kind of a smart move to make.

            “You’ll race against your opponent as well as for your own personal best. Whoever comes in last overall will, of course, be expelled. If you have no potential, you have no place in my classroom.”

            And that was a horrible move to make.

            Anxiety flared through him like a suddenly lit match, heat washing over his scars and biting softly across his limbs.

            ‘Oh God I’m going to fail.’

            “We will succeed.”

            ‘How?’

            “We are shadow and fire. We will succeed.”

            Izuku bit his lip though, weirdly enough, he couldn’t help but feel a sliver of confidence run through him. Could he win this? The thing was powerful, and he’d been working out all summer long, he was sure physically he was strong enough to at least land an okay time without his quirk usage.

            But he knew he still had at best three shots within him, since simply letting go was absolutely out of the question. All he had to do was try his best and pick his moments carefully. Maybe then he could squeak through with a decent enough time not to get expelled.

            “Alright.” He mumbled to himself as his eyes scanned the course, examining each part in turn. “I can probably get past that point and that point fine, that might be an issue but I think I can jump-”

            “You.” The voice of his teacher snapped Izuku out of his thoughts and he almost literally jumped. Aizawa’s eyes narrowed on him and a scowl appeared, barely hidden by the odd gray scarf he kept around his neck. “Stop mumbling.”

            There were a few snickers from the class and Izuku went bright red. “S-Sorry, sir!”

            Aizawa seemed to study him for just a moment more looking away. Izuku, however, caught something in that gaze that wasn’t just a teacher silencing a student. There was almost a hint of judgment to it, as if he was being filed and logged away for future reference.

            It made Izuku all the more nervous. Now his teacher thought he was weird.

            “First two up, Denki Kaminari and Hanta Sero.”

            This went on for some time while students, each called in pairs, were set onto the what almost immediately became obvious was not actually an obstacle course, but some kind of villainous torture machine designed to beat students up in the most humiliating fashion possible. Some students, of course, managed to fly through it. Katsuki being one of them, another boy named Shoto Todoroki being another.

            Some however, such as the blonde French boy, who apparently wasn’t French at all and was actually called Yuga Aoyama, ended up coming out of it looking like they’d gone a few rounds with All Might.

            Even so Izuku watched everything with rapt attention, mentally noting down how certain people mastered certain obstacles or even avoided them altogether. The displays of amazing quirk usage made him nervous for his own usage of the thing, but even so he had begun to narrow down three points which he was sure would be the best moments to use it.

            One point was a gigantic wall which he would need to possibly jump right over to save the time he needed to not be expelled.

            The second was an odd part of the range where one had to throw a ball at a target, hitting it to open the next and ending part of the course. The harder one threw the better score one got. Using the thing there would surely gain him much-needed points.

            The third was a huge, almost vertical ramp which one had to climb up to pass the finish line. Its placement was devious, obviously designed to draw out whatever lasting strength one had left at the end of a punishing set of challenges.

            Yet, even with a basic plan of action in mind his stomach still turned to jelly when he heard his name called out. “Izuku Midoriya and Eijiro Kirishima.”

            The teenager stepped forwards, practically shaking in his shoes as he approached the suddenly all too imposing obstacle course. If he could pale he would have done, instead heat crept across his scars and his limbs felt the tug of shadowy power as the thing grinned wolfishly from within his heart. It hungered for this challenge. Izuku did not.

            “Hey man,” A voice, friendly and boisterous came from his left and Izuku turned his head. Just a few paces from him stood a boy, apparently named Eijiro Kirishima, with the brightest and spikiest red hair Izuku had ever seen. He warmed up slightly as light red eyes matched the sudden grin that flashed across shark-like teeth. Honestly, Izuku had never seen anyone who looked like him before, though the hair rang a bell. “Good luck, yeah? I know we could be expelled if we do bad but, still,” He held up a fist which suddenly took on a solid, stone-like texture, “Let’s rock this thing.”

            Izuku suddenly found himself smiling back, though his was made more of out paper than rock. “S-Sure, good luck.”

            “Hey!” Kirishima’s grin grew wider and his eyes lit up. “You’ve got sharp teeth too! Hell yeah!” He took a few paces towards Izuku suddenly and held out his fist. “Tooth bros!”

            “Tooth bros?”

            “… Erm, o-okay, why not.” Izuku held out a shaking fist and bumped it lightly against Kirishima’s. “Tooth bros.”

            “Awesome!” The redhead grinned, though quickly hopped back into place when Aizawa scolded him for moving from the starting line.

            Izuku breathed deep. The warmth of infernal fire was licking along his scars and the hints of terrible power teased the corners of his mind but he found his focus narrowing on what was just before him.

            His legs felt like jelly and his heart was starting to pound but his head remained clear, clear enough at least to know it was now or never. He had passed the entrance exam, he had started to master his curse, he had proven his own doubts wrong over and over again for the past eleven months. His fingers pressed hard against the rubber flooring of the obstacle course and sharp teeth gritted in his mouth.

            “We can do this.” The thing whispered like cold ice on old gravel, “We are shadow and fire.”

            For some reason, in that small moment, Izuku believed it.

            Their homeroom teacher came to stand at the edge of the course as his gaze moved from one boy to the other, each kneeling down in preparation. With all the passion of a DMV worker, he loudly announced, “Alright, get set… go.”

            Izuku burst into life.

            The first ramp was scaled easily, as was the drop immediately afterward which Izuku turned into a roll. He leapt up, grabbing the swinging rope over the sand pit and made it across without worry. All the while his heart pounded, his limbs burned with heat and the wide, wolfish, nightmare-grin of the thing within him widened.

            But he was doing it.

            His entire focus was on the course, rushing and pushing as he could through each second. A swinging padded arm missed him by a hair as he dodged, then jumped, then ducked and rolled and ran as he navigated the course.

            He was onto the rope cling next, swinging and jumping and grabbing as he did so. He glanced a look left and, to a mix of hot anger and shock he saw Eijiro almost neck and neck.

            An emotion gripped Izuku suddenly across his chest. An emotion he was utterly unfamiliar with but one he embraced with wide arms.

            The burning desire to win.

            Sharp teeth flashed in a demon’s grimace as he forced his body to go faster, to work harder. His lungs were starting to burn and his limbs aching with swift and strong usage but he knew he could do this, he knew he could make it.

            Then first true obstacle approached. The huge, straight wall with only a few minor handholds. He had seen several of his classmates struggle here, though even as he approached the image of Katsuki simply blasting his way up the wall flashed through his mind.

            Despite a lifetime of being beaten down, being shoved into the dirt and told he was useless he suddenly decided something like it was simple, irrefutable fact.

            ‘I can beat Kaachan up this thing.’

            The moment he got to it he stopped and closed his eyes, just as he had practiced before. One deep, shuddering breath as his focus turned from the course to his shaking legs, to the teasing darkness of black power, to the call of the thing within his blood.

            It responded. He felt it flood through him suddenly, boosted by his pounding heart and acidic lungs and his burning wish for victory.

            Izuku forced it into his legs where his scars lit up like hot coals. He could feel it, the muscles and bone shifting and tearing and moving within his skin. The ground burned and blackened under his feet, but he hardly noticed as he gritted his teeth through the knife-like pain of the flesh-change.

            Then he bent his knees, leaning onto toes which seemed too sharp and too long for his own shoes, and jumped.

            From somewhere he heard gasps, perhaps even a shout, but it was all drowned by the sudden rushing wind through his ears as he shot upwards like a blue and white rocket.

            He cleared the wall.

            For a moment his heart leapt within his chest as the absolute joy of actually doing something amazing gripped him. He had jumped the wall! The entire wall!

            Then suddenly he realized why that was a bad thing.

            He had jumped the wall. Walls had two sides. The other side to this wall was a direct drop back down.

            Izuku began falling like a brick tossed from a skyscraper and he knew he had barely a second to think of a way to not break both his ankles the moment he landed.

            “THE WALL!”

             Izuku turned, threw out his hand and forced every remaining ember of the thing through his palm. For a micro-second time seemed to slow to a crawl and he saw it, the black shadow coating his fingers and palm at an impossible speed, his scars lighting up with the infernal blue flame like the window of a furnace and then-

            Boom.

            The force of the explosion threw him away from the wall like a bullet from a gun. There was no time to think, no time to prepare as he hit the top of the monkey bars with a painful sounding crack.

            He bounced along them spinning and hitting them again, and again, and then rolling to a fall from the other end, hitting the padded floor with a painful cry.

            He gripped his chest tightly in a tender hug as he curled up, the smell of smoke fire and burning cloth filling his senses. His chest felt numb and the raw, powerful pain of using the thing pounded through every inch of his being, especially his chest and legs. He wanted to cry out in agony, to curl into a ball and sob bitter, stinging tears.

            “We must move!”

            But there was an obstacle course to beat.

            His teeth ground in his mouth. “Get up Izuku. Get up, get up, GET THE FUCK UP IZUKU.”

            “ON OUR FEET. WE MUST WIN”

            Izuku forced his screaming limbs to work. He knew there was only the ball and target test then the huge ending ramp. His chest was radiating pain and he guessed he’d fractured, maybe even broke one of his ribs. Still, he could do this, he could use the thing one more time and force his body up the ramp to victory.

            “WE ARE SHADOW-”

            “-And flame, yeah I know.” Though somehow the mantra brought him some measure of confidence. It at least forced his limbs back into motion and at least they were both on board to finish the course.

            He began moving again, somewhere in the distance he could hear someone screaming but he didn’t care. Schizophrenia or cheering classmates he had no idea but he couldn’t focus on that right now. His body cried out in protest as he hobbled over to the throwing range, picked up the simple ball and looked to the target.

            Just this last one and he could do it. Just this last obstacle, then the other last obstacle, and he’d win.

            He couldn’t aim straight, his arm was shaking from the pain throbbing from his ribs and the energy sapped from his body from using the thing was making him feel like lead. He forced his arm back up, all he needed to do was fire it at the target, which was basically a giant mattress with a bullseye on it.

            “Focus, our aim is true.”

            Izuku frowned, held up his arm and breathed. Once again his eyes closed, once again he opened the floodgates and allowed his curse to consume his arm. At the last possible second he moved back and threw the ball, again for another micro-second his felt the thing reshaping his bone, muscle and skin, he felt the claws burst from his fingertips, the burning force of raw power rushing through his arm.

            Boom.

            The force of the blast threw him backward and his body screamed from the pain that tore through every limb. Blue fire and black smoke swarmed him like a hurricane before dissipating just a second later.

            Izuku coughed the smoke from his burning lungs. He was struggling to get back onto his feet, the world around him was dizzy and sharp and moving and turning. He could see the mattress though. He could see the vast, black bruise that his throw and punched into it and the dancing blue fires that had caught along the net of the throwing range.

            That had to be enough, right? Surely. He looked up to where a scoreboard blinked out a number. It was a pretty high number, eight hundred and thirty-two. What that meant he wasn’t sure but he knew it was good, certainly within the high ranges of the others who had taken part so far.

            He grinned a wobbling, weak grin to himself. He didn’t know he had it in him.

            “WE MUST MOVE.”

            The thing had a point.

            Except he was finding it hard to move. He turned and the world swam in a mixture of flooding colors and sharpened edges before it mushed back together again. He had to keep going, he had to win. He wanted to throw up everything in his stomach but he had to win.

            The previously closed area, blocked off by a simple plastic wall, had now opened to reveal the final, daunting challenge. A huge warped wall ramp. It was much like the beginning one, except a far sharper curve. And he had to get up it.

            Briefly he thought about using the thing on his legs once more but he knew he wouldn’t have the control, he would slip and either collapse on the burning scars of his legs or the thing would simply take control.

            That wouldn’t be good.

            No, all he had for this last challenge was raw, unadulterated willpower. He could do this, he could do this, he could do this.

            With an almighty scream of determined rage Izuku threw himself at the ramp and managed three steps before tripping forward and landing flat on his face. Another strangled yelp of pain but at this point he was being driven on pure adrenaline. The throbbing ache of his body being pushed to the edge was forcing him forward, demanding results.

            He got up again, the earth still spinning from under him as he backed up, wobbling, then charged, pushing himself forwards before leaping upward and hoping against all hope he would grab the edge of the ramp.

            Fingers connected, digging into the cold metal of the warped wall’s edge. But there was no strength in his arms and already they burned and screamed and ached from the effort of simply reaching forwards. He would lose. He would lose because he had done too much and demanded too much.

            For just a fleeting moment, tears welled in his eyes as the thought of another crushing loss entered his heart.

            “WE. WILL. WIN.”

            He could feel it. The oil-thick flood of power moving through his body, threatening to down his limbs, his heart, his head in shadow and flame.

            “NO!” Izuku knew that feeling. He had felt it only rarely, but every time someone had been hurt, someone had suffered because the thing had slipped through his shaking grasp. He had less than a second to do this in, less than a second to think of some way to stop the living nightmare of his blood from consuming his body and wreaking havoc on everything around him.

            “I WON’T LET YOU HURT ANYONE!” Izuku screamed as he pushed everything of the thing into his arm, holding it down and forcing the venomous power through his fingertips.

            The ground under him exploded with the force of a bomb, throwing him upwards like a tossed ball. His body screamed with pain, his chest feeling like someone was driving a rusty sword through his lungs, before he fell sharply and landed with an uncomfortable and wince-worthy crunch onto the top of the ramp, which was of course followed by more screaming from the boy.

            His body was on fire, he was sure of it, and through his swimming skull, he could hear the nightmare-voice of the thing howling a thousand foul curses at him, blaming him for their imminent loss and his lack of strength.

            Izuku ignored it, he was in too much pain to even hear half of what it was saying. He had used too much, he knew that, he was on the verge of blacking out from complete exhaustion but he had to win, all that was needed was one last, tiny burst of energy and he could do it.

            He summoned everything that he had left, everything that he at least dared to gather into his screaming muscles, and in one heroic jolt of movement he threw himself up, smashing the buzzer with his hand before collapsing back down into a piled heap.

            Above him, he heard a little jingle and green lights lit up.

            He’d done it. He’d won.  

            And that’s when Izuku finally blacked out.

            He awoke with a spasm-like jolt a few minutes later and for a moment his vision was filled purely with a pair of large red eyes gazing down on him. “Dude? Dude are you okay?”

             “WE ARE FOOLISH.” The thing almost immediately scolded him like an angry housewife, causing Izuku to wince and grind his teeth. Though oddly he could hear the exhaustion within its nightmare voice, almost as if it too had been drained by his reckless actions. “A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all!”

            Izuku immediately began to mumble a reply before being suddenly cut off by the excitable red-head. “Oh, good! You’re awake!”

            The world was a spinning circus of colors, lights, sounds and sensations that were all melding and fixing back into place. His chest ached so bad he thought he would faint again and he felt as though each of his limbs had been violently pulled off and stitched back on again.

            “Give him some air!” Another voice joined in suddenly from his side, it was Uraraka. “He doesn’t look too good.”

            “To be honest, he didn’t look that good to start with.” Kirishima replied with a shrug.

            “I’m fine.” Izuku mumbled out, though it was mostly lost on the people who seemed to be fussing over him.

            “Are you alright? You hit those monkey bars pretty hard, and I think I heard something crack when you landed on the top.” Uraraka was hovering over him. 

            “And now we have these filthy sinners fussing over us, this is pathetic. We are better than this.”

            “Shuttup.” Izuku mumbled as he began to pick himself back up. “They’re not sinners.”

            “Who’s not a sinner?” Uraraka suddenly asked as her wide, kind eyes frowned in confusion.

            Izuku immediately panicked as he realized he’d been talking out loud again. “Wha? Oh! Nothing! Just, erm, mumbling things, probably got a concussion or something, you know?” He attempted a very fake laugh but the moment he did so his chest blossomed with pain and he winced while instinctively raising a hand up to cradle it.

            “You are hurt! I knew it.” Uraraka frowned as she stood up and took a step back. Izuku looked around only to realize that Kirishima had dragged him back over to the bleachers, though he had been laid out on the nice warm grass. Oddly enough he could see Katsuki standing on the very far end of the seats glaring nothing short of pure, concentrated hate at him.

            Izuku only blinked dumbly at this as he suddenly realized that this was, actually, the first time Katsuki had ever seen him use the thing in any context that wasn’t causing himself intense pain. Though technically it still was within that realm since he had beat himself into utter exhaustion and possibly broke a rib.

            Still, it had been better to knock himself out than let it take his body and slaughter half the class.

            The thing grinned within his blood. “Let him throw his little tantrum. The Brat will soon learn what we are truly capable of.”

            “Izuku Midoriya.” The boy's attention was immediately pulled forward. It was Aizawa. At some point he had come to stand in front of the small group surrounding Izuku, his arms folded sternly across his chest.

            He didn’t sound pleased. He didn’t look pleased. In fact, pleased was pretty damn far from anything which Aizawa represented at that exact moment. “Pushing yourself into unconsciousness was not part of the test.”

            “I’m sorry,” Izuku mumbled out as his senses continued to fix back into place. “I just… I really wanted to win.”

            “Hurting yourself isn’t conducive to being a hero.” Aizawa sliced in with ice cold authority. “Your use of your quirk is unwieldy and uncontrolled. Unless you learn to use it better, you won’t make it in this course.” Izuku sat in silent despair as the man reached into his pocket and drew out a small slip. “Take this pass and go see the old lady, get fixed up. I’ll send word if you’ve passed or not.”

            “The Hebrew speaks lies,” The thing practically spat into his ear, “We are power and blood and fire, we are not unwieldy!”

            The teenager gritted his teeth together as he fought back a sharp, snappy reply. Now he suddenly understood what it meant by ‘Son of David’. Where the thing had gotten such an idea Izuku didn’t know, but it was insulting and rude and he hated it. He hated the thing for saying it. He hated himself for knowing that it had come from inside him, from the curse in his own blood. He hated the fact that his teacher, on his first day, had already pinned him as the problem kid who had no idea what he was doing.

            With a shaking hand he reached out and took the note from Aizawa and with the help of Uraraka and Kirishima, he was lifted to his feet. He hadn’t asked for their help of course and had already moved to do it himself, and yet, their arms had scooped up under him and helped him up anyway.

            What was it with people being nice to him around here? Didn’t they see what the thing was like? Didn’t they see the horror that he saw? They certainly would think twice about him if they knew the things it said about them.

            But that was his curse. A normal, plain-looking boy was the cover for something made of bile and horror and hate.

            As he began to leave he turned to see Tenya take his place on the course next to a boy he didn’t know, one who had the head of a crow, beak, feathers and all. For a second their eyes met and Izuku almost tripped as the thing suddenly seemed to jump within the walls of his mind. “A seventh son!?”

            “Oh, will you please, shut the hell up.” Izuku openly mumbled to himself as he rubbed his head and made his way towards the main campus building.

            He had fractured his rib cage, which wasn’t as bad as what he had thought, actually. Recovery Girl fussed at him for being hurt on his first day and the forehead smooch of healing had almost made him to go sleep but he was otherwise set to go, albeit with a warning to not exert himself too much over the next few days.

            Just before he left Recovery Girl had informed him that Aizawa had sent a message along telling him he had passed and that the expulsion threat had been nothing more than a ‘logical ruse’. Izuku’s relief was almost palpable. He’d done it, he’d made it through his first day in one piece.

            As Izuku made his way back to class he looked once more to his scarred hands. A vision flashed before his eyes. The void-black ink that consumed his skin like leather, the vicious, talon-like claws that had grown from the tips of his fingers.

            His hands curled into fists and dropped to his sides. His teacher was right. He had almost no real control over the thing, and what little control he had was unwieldy. He blatantly couldn’t use his power without exhausting himself and using it to excess ruined him to uselessness.

            But how else could he possibly use it? It did what it wished, when it wished, and without gripping onto it tightly with two hands at all times he would utterly lose control and then…

            Whumpf.

            “I-I-I’m so, so sorry!” Izuku immediately stammered as he stumbled back away from whoever it was he had just walked into. He looked up, his eyes wide and his hands up in shock but the moment he locked eyes he froze.

            “Well, well, well. You know I believe I told you once before to look where you’re going.” Black, pitiless eyes smiled back at him, the shining-dark, freezing-hot blue flashing with humor.

            The businessman.

            “I-I-I-”

            “It’s good to see you passed the exam, son, well done! You know I was rooting for you.” He chuckled in a genial manner as he brushed his fog-grey suit down. Again, he was dressed immaculately, sharp and cool like a middle-aged CEO. “When I had time, of course, most of my day had been taken up with meetings. It’s a new school year, after all, lots of things to iron out before the chaos starts.”

            “I-erm, thank you?” Izuku really had no idea what to say to the man and began trying to edge around him, “I should really get going though so-”

            “What’s your name, young man?” The man again looked to him, gazing at him through his spectacles. “If you’re going to keep walking into me I might as well know your name.”

            For a moment Izuku found himself unable to form words. Why did this man make him feel so nervous? So on edge? And why did he seem so familiar? He knew he’d only ever met him once before and yet there was just something about him, something right on the tip of his tongue…

            “So you’re going to make me go first, huh? A wise move, son, names have power after all.” He put a hand up to his heart suddenly and gave a slightly theatrical bow. “My name is Hisashi Hokori.”

            “I-Izuku Midoriya.” Izuku slipped his own name out before he had even considered it. It was the polite thing to do after all, right?

            It was so subtle, so fleeting that he almost missed it. A single microcosm of something that passed over Hisashi’s face. Izuku was only half sure he saw it, but he was certain it had been there. Pride.

            “Izuku Midoriya.” Hisashi nodded to the boy as a sign of respect, the same warm smile still sitting on his lips. “A good name. Well then, Izuku, I shall let you get back to class. Which class are you in, by the way?”

            “Oh, erm, class 1-A of the hero course.” The young man replied swiftly though again he felt as though he should be holding his tongue. Why though? This man was doing nothing wrong, nothing out of the ordinary other than being polite. Perhaps it was simply because he was so unused to people being so nice to him.

            And yet there was just… something off about him. Hiding just under the surface. Like a worm crawling through the center of an apple.

            “Ah, Aizawa’s class. Yes.” Hisashi scratched his chin thoughtfully. “You better hurry then, he’s not the nicest of people at the best of times, though he has a good soul, deep down. Pay attention and do your best and you’ll have no problems.”

            “R-Right, thank you, sir.” Izuku gave him another quick nod and turned to leave, finding his step was just a little more hurried than before.

            And yet even as he was leaving he heard the man call out one last time. “And remember, Izuku Midoriya,” The teenager turned his head just in time to see the man throw him a wink, “I’m still rooting for you.”

Chapter Text

            It was past sundown, past the time when most sane people would have yawned loudly, kicked their chair back and headed home to their families. But this wasn’t a place for sane people.

            This was the teacher’s lounge.

            Toshinori’s hands, thin and long and frail, were linked together as he leaned forward, his mouth hidden but his dark, sunken eyes and bone-sharp cheekbones were cast in the artificial light of his computer screen. Behind him shadowed the figure of a man broken, hanging on only by skin and bone. Limp, dirty blonde hair hung around his face, shoulders rested broad but somehow fragile, as if the weight of the world would crush them any second now.

            But his eyes. Deep within the eternally dark, sunken pits of his eyes glowed a blue inner fire which no man could match. They were the eyes of a man who had seen the very worst of humanity, the very depths of hell, and had come out still believing in the essential virtue of the soul of mankind.

            And right at that moment they were focused ahead of him on the video he had played and replayed almost fifty times now.

            It was grainy footage despite the high-tech quality, mostly because of the constant shaking and shuddering of the camera itself. He could see it clear as day though, the vast green metal of the zero-point robot rolling through the U.A. urban training ground.

            His eyes narrowed as something suddenly jumped up, a sharp black blur against the green. His hand moved down to the keyboard where he tapped a key, causing the video to freeze. He then began tapping the key successively, each tap moving the video just a single frame forwards until the black blur formed a shape.

            It was still blurry of course, still highly pixilated and out of focus but it was unmistakable. Wings. Black and great coming out of the back of… someone.

            Izuku Midoriya.

            Except he wasn’t sure if that even was Izuku Midoriya because he remembered the boy. The skinny bag of jittering nerves who he’d found that day outside the underpass tunnel. The boy who looked like a stiff breeze would undo him.

            Who had dismantled a villain before All Might had even got there.

            He began clicking the video forward again, trying to spot something, anything new, even if it was just a hint of the boy’s face or body. He knew of course that there was not, he’d done this several times by now but each time he just hoped something new would emerge.

            Click. The boy seemed to hover in the air for just a second. Click. The wings spread out. Click. The camera burst into static like a bomb had gone off beside it. Click. Through the static he could make out fire. Lots of fire. Blue and dark and bright all at once. Click. Smoke and ash and metal. Click. Devastation everywhere, the robot disintegrating. Click. Something dropping out of the sky bleeding smoke and ash. Click. It’s the boy, Midoriya, now wingless and visible.

            And the rest, as they say, was history.

            With a heavy sigh, Toshinori reached for the mouse and reeled the footage back before clicking on it again, this time turning up the sound from the speakers.

            The sound of the machine practically smothered all others as the black shape shot up suddenly amidst the sound of grinding metal on stone.

            Then, for a single split-second, Toshinori listened to the sound of the universe screaming in pain before the camera half-died and everything became hissing static until the sound of a robot the size of a tower crane dying finally won out.

            There was no other footage, at least not clear enough or focused on the scene in question. The cameras that had been closer to the robot, including the robot’s own internal camera, had been either utterly demolished or had short-circuited the moment that soul-wrenching scream had torn through the air.

            Another deep sigh as he leaned back into his chair.

            “What are you doing?” The low, commanding voice of Aizawa shot out from the shadows like a thrown dagger, causing Toshinori to leap up suddenly in his chair and cough out a fistful of blood.

            “AGH! Aizawa! Don’t creep up on me like that!” The rail-thin man panted as he wiped the blood from his lips. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

            “The great and powerful All Might killed by being spooked in the dark.” Aizawa sardonically sniped as he walked up to the man, a folder of stuffed papers held in one hand. “If only your enemies knew it’d be that easy.”

            “If only.” Toshinori mumbled back as he shot a glance to the black-clad teacher before looking back to the screen. “I was just going over my notes for tomorrow and I realized something.”

            “What?”

            “This boy, young Midoriya.” Toshinori’s fingers linked together again as he slumped back in the chair. “His quirk doesn’t have a name.”

            The air went still for a moment before Aizawa put his notes to one side. “Show me the file.”

            Toshinori leaned back over for a moment, hunting through a slightly disorganized mess of papers before pulling out a single sheet. On it was a mugshot picture of a very nervous, somewhat sickly-looking boy along with a list of information. He held it out to his friend, “See what I mean?”

            Aizawa took the paper and held it up in the dim light, tired eyes scanning the information quickly. “Name, Izuku Midoriya,” He mumbled under his breath, “Age, fifteen,” He went quiet for a second as he finally spotted the information he’d been hunting. “Quirk, fire related.” This caused him to pause and his lip curled. “Fire related? That’s all they wrote?”

            “It’s not been updated in some time, but clearly they got it wrong. I mean…” Toshinori waved a hand at the screen. “We saw what happened in the exam. That,” And he pointed at the winged form of the boy, “Is not fire.”

            “Though clearly he has some fire-related abilities. He practically burnt half the course down during his tests on today.” Aizawa commented dryly. “Though he hurt himself while doing so. His quirk seems to demand a lot of him.” He frowned slowly and his voice drifted for a moment. “And that blue fire…”

            “What about it?” Toshinori turned slightly in the chair to better see his old friend.

            For a moment, Aizawa’s gaze became shadowed and Toshinori felt the air chill around him. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

            Something subtle in the teacher’s tone told Toshinori to drop it and drop it now. The blonde didn’t push it any further and instead turned his eyes back to the pixilated image of the boy in question.

            “Did you see this?” Aizawa commented suddenly, holding the paper out so Toshinori could see it and pointing to a small section towards the bottom.

            “Oh, yeah.” Toshinori sighed almost sadly. “He suffers from schizophrenia, poor kid. He’s on medication though, his mother signed all the appropriate forms and so have his doctors. As long as he keeps it under control I don’t see how it’ll affect his training.”

            The black-clad teacher remained silent, looking back to the profile again before speaking. “He has potential, All Might. His use of his quirk is years behind the others, it’s like he’s starting from scratch, and he’s using it recklessly. I suspect this is, at least in some part, due to his mental illness.” There was another pause, this one shorter, “But he has drive, maybe more drive than anyone else in the entire class.” He lightly tossed the form back down onto Toshinori’s keyboard. “When are you teaching them their first hero basic training lesson?”

            “Tomorrow, that’s why I was here,” Toshinori replied with a concerned tone. “But I’m a bit worried about training him if I don’t know what his quirk is capable of.”

            “We never know,” Aizawa replied with a shrug picked up his own stack of files. “That’s the point. That’s why we’re here. Still, that boy will be trouble.”

            Toshinori almost laughed at that. Aizawa never made jokes, though sometimes he could be very sharp in his own way. “Why, because of his quirk?”

            Aizawa turned and began vanishing back into the dim gloom of the teacher’s lounge. “No, because he reminds me of you.”

            Izuku still wasn’t used to the idea that he was attending U.A. In many ways he felt like an intruder, sneaking in through the back door. The little demon child hanging out with the angels and hoping no one would notice the wonky halo and the taped-on wings.

            He even had a lingering fear that he’d walk into class one day and be told there was a mistake, that he wasn’t supposed to be there, and he’d be sent home in shame.

            He still couldn’t believe that Ochaco and Tenya had walked with him to the station. They all took separate trains but even so, he’d never had anyone walk home with him before. Well, it wasn’t actually walking home but it was still a walk. With people. People who he dared, deep inside, to possibly call his new friends.

            It all seemed… wrong somehow. Not bad, but unreal. Like it was all the wind up to some gigantic cosmic joke that he’d be the butt of.

            As he walked up the steps to his home he couldn’t help but allow a tiny smile to snake its way across his lips. For a first day it’d been… hectic to say the least, and yet, he’d talked to more people than the last five years of his old school life. Maybe, as long as he could keep the thing contained and controlled, maybe he could actually get through U.A. Maybe he could even have fun, though such a thing was so wild an idea he barely even considered it a possibility.

            He unlocked the door and immediately the sound of his mother hit his ears.

            She was shouting.

            “No! I told you no!”

            Izuku froze. He had never heard that tone come from his mother before. He had heard her angry, sure, annoyed, irritated, pissed off even. This was something else, this was… fury. Venom. This was hate.

            He moved into the home, closing the door as quietly as he could behind him.

            “I don’t give a shit! You’re not to talk to him! Ever!”

            He moved slowly down the corridor, his footsteps as quiet as he could possibly make them while wishing desperately that the old wooden flooring didn’t give him away.

            “I. DON’T. CARE. Leave him the hell alone!” There was a sudden clattering followed instantly by loud sobbing.

            Izuku moved. No longer caring about stealth or secrecy his entire world was suddenly filled only by the sound of his mother’s distress. A sound that no child would ever wish to hear, that no son would ever wish to ignore.

            He was at his mother’s side before she even realized he was there, his arms wrapping around her tightly, his bag forgotten somewhere on the floor, along with Inko’s thrown phone.

            “Izuku!” Inko briefly tried to fight him off, purely out of shock, but the teenager’s arms were too strong and instead he simply gripped her tighter. She stopped fighting and for a moment she sat, embraced by her son before her arms raised and took him suddenly around the neck. Angry, hurt tears fell onto her son’s shoulders as she continued to sob. It was some time before she stopped and sniffled loudly as she sat back. She took a second to reach over to the coffee table, picking up a box of ever-needed tissues and wiping the tears from her eyes.

            Izuku’s eyes were wide, almost teary himself, as he searched his mother’s face for any reason why this had even happened.

            Before he could ask she began speaking, her voice hoarse, “I’m sorry, Izuku. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

            “What happened?” His hand moved to her shoulder. The thought of his mother so upset, so angry like he had never heard her before was tearing at his heart and he swore he could even feel the dark power of the thing react in subtle fury at the idea of someone hurting Inko.

            “I…” She went to answer, then paused. Her eyes moved to her hands as she fidgeted with her tissue. “It’s nothing, really, you shouldn’t-”

            “Mom, come on, I’m really worried about you.” Izuku pushed, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “What happened? Can I help you with it? Do you need me to do anything? Was it U.A.? Did I do something wrong?”

            Inko shook her head suddenly, “It’s nothing you did, really, Izuku.” She looked to him and flashed him a broken smile. “You’re perfect.”

            “No, I’m not.” The teenager’s reply was practically instant. “I’m the literal worst and-”

            “No. You’re perfect.” His mother’s hands were suddenly on his face, holding him lightly and looking deep into his eyes. “No matter what, you’re my amazing, wonderful, perfect superhero son, okay? You’re an angel.”

            Izuku had to admit he felt a little weirded out by his mother’s sudden determination in this matter. Did she really have to insist all of that, even when she knew how utterly broken he was? It was hard to believe, as such things always were when coming from the mouths of parents.

            “Who was on the phone, mom?” Izuku decided to switch gears back to what was important. His mother wasn’t getting out of this so easily.

            Her hands dropped from his face and her eyes trailed away. For a few moments she seemed to be weighing her heavy answer before she finally shook her head. “No. No, I can’t. It’s… it’s alright Izuku, I’ll sort it out.”

            “But mom-”

            “Izuku!” She snapped at the boy suddenly, her eyes turning to him. For a moment her gaze was ice but it melted at the look of shock on her son’s face. “Just trust me, please. You’d be better off not knowing. It’s for your own good.”

            “So was the medicine we took to blind ourselves.” The thing hissed snake-like through his mind. “And now we play catch-up to those who should be beneath us.”

            He smiled and nodded to her. “Alright, mom. I trust you.” He got up, allowing himself to move from her as he turned to walk into the kitchen. “I’ll make you some tea, okay?”

            Inko nodded, though he didn’t see it. The moment he was out of her sight the smile dropped away and his hands shook. He gripped the kitchen countertop hard and he struggled to stop a harsh breath from exiting his lungs. He had never lied to his mother before. He had never faked a smile in her presence. He had never questioned her word.

            But he had also never felt as though she was hiding something from him. Something big and important. Something about why he was… himself.

            The thing moved across his scars, though not harshly. It was almost as though it was settling through him, keeping him on his feet, giving him the small support he needed to simply not burst into tears. Dammit, it was almost being helpful.

            The kettle boiled as Izuku pushed his anxiety down, smothering it under everything else he kept bottled up inside him. He’d deal with it later. As always.

            Basic hero training. It was the cornerstone of U.A.’s entire hero course, once called ‘the most sought-after class in heroic education’ by S.H.I.E.L.D Magazine, to which Izuku had a subscription of course.

            And he was here. Finally. He’d survived the physical tests and sat through the surprisingly normal and almost tedious basic education classes taught by heroes he greatly admired, to finally step foot into the class that would make him the hero he knew he could be deep inside.

            Once more, he knew he wasn’t the only one who shared that energy. The entire class seemed to buzz with the knowledge that any moment now they were about to take their first true step on their journey to becoming licensed heroes.

            Even the thing seemed tense about the lesson they were about to take.

            “We are ready for this. No fear, no hesitation.”

            “Umhum.” Izuku laid his head onto one hand, trying to ignore the venomous snake-hiss as best he could.

            “We are power. We are unstoppable.”

            “You sound nervous.” Izuku whispered under his breath, one hand toying with a pencil.

            “We are not nervous! We are shadow and fire! Fire does not get nervous!”

            Izuku’s foot tapped impatiently on the floor as he saw the clock tick-tocking ever closer to the time class officially started. The entire room seemed to grow silent as the clock moved closer, ever closer until the final second ticked into place.

            “I AM,” The mighty cry of the hero’s voice exploded out through the entire classroom like a spark finally put to match, “COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

            There he was, justice manifest. The mountain of a man who had saved a hundred people in a day, who had redefined society itself. The greatest living force for good the world had ever seen. The symbol of peace. The number one hero. All Might.

            “The Fading King.”

            Izuku didn’t even frown at the odd name, he was too busy being utterly overwhelmed by how amazing the man was in person. He had met him before and yet even now his overall presence seemed to still wash all worries, all anxieties away. There could be no fear while he was there, because to look at him was to know that strength, nobility and pure good existed in the world.

            That was what it was like to be in the same room as All Might.

            Awed murmuring instantly sprang up from around Izuku as the man marched up to his teacher’s desk, his cape flowing behind him. Even Katsuki seemed to momentarily forget he was supposed to be the grumpiest asshole in the room and grinned excitedly at the man.

            As he came to stand at the teacher’s desk he put his massive fists onto his hips and grinned at the class, his blue eyes flashing with approval at the sea of fresh faces before him. “I teach Hero Basic Training. In this class you will be trained and taught all the basics of becoming a hero.”

            The thing snorted. “That was a little redundant.”

            Izuku hissed back through clenched teeth. “Shut up.”

            “Under my watchful gaze, you will all learn what it means to be a hero. It will not be easy, it will not be pleasant, you will be pushed to your absolute limits and beyond, but when you finish this chapter of your lives you will emerge not as students, but as heroes.” He held up an encouraging fist and his grin grew wider. “I expect each and every one of you to give more than a hundred and ten percent. I want you all to go beyond, plus ultra!”

            The class erupted into cheers and even Izuku joined in, clapping and grinning like a happy child.

            “Now, let's get right to it! Today we will cover,” And he posed suddenly with one finger in the air, “COMBAT TRAINING!”

            Instantly more murmuring erupted throughout the classroom, some excited, others concerned. Though none felt the sudden pit of absolute dread that bloomed within Izuku’s stomach. “C-Combat training?”

            His scars suddenly flared as the thing practically danced within his blood. “COMBAT TRAINING!”

            He barely had time to think, however, before All Might continued on. “And to go with that, are THESE! HA!” He pointed his huge finger over to the wall which suddenly opened up to reveal numbered lockers. “Hero costumes! Get suited and booted, ladies and gentlemen, then meet me out by Urban Ground Beta!”

            Despite his aching fear at the thought of having to go through combat training, even though he had known all week that this was what the hero course truly was, he couldn’t help but feel excited. Maybe it was because the thing seemed so eager, almost borderline cooperative on the matter. Or maybe it was because he felt as though this was going to be another big step on his path to realizing his dream.

            Combat training. As long as the thing behaved he was sure he could learn to master it, use it, make something good out of it.

            Besides, he at least got to wear his cool costume for the first time in public. That was always a plus. And surely on their first day of Hero Basic Training nothing too bad could happen, no doubt All Might was just going to run them through what they would be studying over the coming weeks and maybe even show them some beginner basic moves to work on.

            It’d be nothing serious. A gentle warm up at best.

            All Might was nervous. He was no stranger to the feeling of course, he was still human under all the power and might of his muscles, but this was a different kind of nervous. Within his collective hands were the futures of twenty young men and women, barely out of their childhood years.

            Saving a life from a burning building was one thing, saving a future was an entirely different task altogether. How the hell did the other teachers not worry themselves into early graves? What if he slipped up? What if they weren’t ready for this? What if-

            No. His grin tightened. He was All Might, dammit, he could do this. Besides, with the way things were going he had little other choice. He was down to five hours a day now. Five hours to save as many lives as he could while also teaching a new generation of hopefuls to grasp the brass rings he’d set so high above them.

            In an odd way he almost felt guilty. He had raised the bar almost so impossibly high that they would have to work incredibly hard to even begin approaching his legend.

            But they could do it. He knew they could. The looks in their eyes as he had addressed them told him so. He wasn’t looking at a class with one potential successor, he was looking at a sea of potential successors. Which of course, posed all new problems.

            His thoughts were pushed aside as he saw the first of his class emerging from the gloom of the entrance tunnel and his grin widened as pride swelled in his chest. He had known these kids for all of ten collective minutes and yet he’d gladly throw himself in front of a truck for any of them.

            One by one they emerged, Tenya Iida in his knightly armor, Katsuki Bakugo looking like a living explosion, Mashirao Ojiro dressed curiously only in a martial arts gi and so on. Each student standing out and apart and looking for all the world like young heroes about to step onto the stage of history.

            “Looking sharp, ladies and gentleman! They say the costume makes the hero, and you’re all looking great!” He looked across the class of nervous young students before he frowned. “We’re missing one, aren’t we? Where’s young Mi-”

            “I’m here! Sorry!” There was a tapping of boots on ground as from the gloom a final figure emerged.

            As Izuku ran into the light, All Might took a moment to note the boy’s choice of costume. He had a deep green top, lined with black, geometrical-square patterned sides and with arms that reached to his elbows which were covered in thick black elbow pads. He wore no hood though across his mouth he wore a black fabric mouth cover which hid the lower half of his face.

            His pants came down to his knees, which were covered in similar thick, black kneepads. On his feet he wore a pair of boots made from a material that All Might didn’t quite recognize but looked oddly flexible. Around his middle was a belt, holding a few pouches for whatever the young hero may need.

            He panted as he came to a stop, black padded, fingerless gloved hands resting on his knees. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please-”

            “No apologies needed, young Midoriya,” And All Might waved a mighty hand in dismissal, “As I’m sure some of you are now aware, getting on the costume can take slightly longer than you may have thought. Don’t worry though, eventually as time goes on and you make adjustments it’ll become second nature to you all.”

            The boy seemed to have a look flash through his eyes that spoke of another reason, but he didn’t object, and All Might pushed on.

            “Now,” He turned to the rest of the class and began walking slowly in front of them like some kind of colorful drill Sargent, “Usually you would run through some basic maneuvers and start off slow. Fighting robots in an open setting and so on. But I believe that experience in the field against living opponents is the fastest way to learn!” He held up a finger as he quietly enjoyed the look of shocked faces on his pupils, “While most fights you see in the news happen outdoors, statistically speaking most real fights happen indoors, usually home invasions or rarer, secret villain hideouts. Small time crooks and petty criminals will rob purses out in the open, but their bosses often stay hidden in the shadows.” As he talked his finger began curling around and forming a quick, energetic fist. “Therefore, I’ll be splitting you into teams of two, bad guys vs good guys, while you fight two-on-two indoor battles.”

            Hands instantly shot up as murmurs erupted amongst the students and before he could even begin to answer they quickly began calling out, “Sir will you be judging our performance?”

            “How much can we hurt our opponents?”

            “Do we need to worry about the losers being expelled?”

            “Will we be placed in teams by chance or by skill?”

            “Isn’t my cloak just so tres chic?”

            “N-No.”

            The last one caught All Might off guard and for a moment his brow furrowed in confusion. He turned his shining eyes across the class only to spot Midoriya, his own eyes almost impossibly wide. For a moment he thought the boy was simply nervous and already All Might was preparing a grin and a thumbs up of encouragement.

            But then he caught his stare. The boy wasn’t nervous, he was terrified.

            Tears were already filling his eyes, threatening to leak down his pale, scarred cheeks as he continued to stammer out loud to himself, “N-No, I-I can’t, I-I-”

            All Might had seen that look of terror before, that drowning expression as fear took the young man. He’d seen it just over a year ago as he had cowered at the face of that now distant underpass.

            It took less than a heartbeat for All Might to be there, appearing behind Izuku like a guardian angel. “Young Midoriya, are you alright?”

            The boy almost staggered forward, his wide, tearful eyes turning to look up at him like a deer in headlights before they glanced around. All Might followed his gaze for just a moment, noting how several of the class were now looking at them, young Bakugo especially seemed to be grinning wickedly at Izuku.

            His brow furrowed for just a second as he took a careful mental note.

            All Might reached out and placed a solid, powerful hand on Izuku’s shoulder. Odd how the boy felt warm, no, not just warm but almost hot. Like he had been standing right beside a radiator. He had felt something similar last time they had met, though he had simply put it down to the effort of using his quirk.

            He spoke in a low, calm tone to the boy as he asked, “Come with me for a moment,” Then he looked back to the rest of the class, “I’m sure you all know how to warm up, so get to it. We’ll start in five minutes.”

            There was an excitable chatter from the young teenagers as he began guiding the shaking boy away from his classmates. With careful, determined steps took Izuku around the corner of the entrance tunnel they had arrived through. It would provide adequate cover for a private conversation, at least for now. The boy came to halt under the shadow of the wall beside him while All Might remained in the sunlight.

            Izuku continued to shake, even as All Might moved around him and crouched down, looking as best he could into the faded expression in the boy's eyes. It was almost as if he was only half there.

            He remembered the boy’s profile and the word schizophrenia filtered into his thoughts. He almost frowned at himself. He was determined not to judge the young man on such context. “Izuku, my boy, are you okay?”

            Izuku’s head snapped up, focus flooding back into his eyes like a puzzle piece sliding into place. He seemed to blink at All Might for a moment before a nervous tongue snaked across dry lips. “A-A-All Might I-I can’t, I can’t do this, I can’t h-hurt anyone,” His hands moved up through his wild hair for just a moment as he squeezed his eyes shut, tears still quietly dripping down freckled, scarred cheeks, “I don’t w-want to hurt anyone, p-please don’t make me.”

            All Might frowned, though not in irritation. His heart went out to this poor boy whom he knew already thought of his own quirk as something evil and wrong. No one with an ability like his, with a heart like one he had clearly shown, should be thinking like that.

            “Young Midoriya, calm yourself.” His hand reached out one more and took him by the shoulder, giving him a firm squeeze. “You’re going to be fine.” He paused for a moment, before leaning forward just a little. “Do you remember what I told you, all that time ago?”

            The boy’s head came up once more, his eyes wide and glassy though the tears no longer flowed.

            “I told you that there are no good or evil quirks, only good or evil hearts. You’ve proven to me twice now that you have a good heart, once when you helped stop that villain in the underpass, and again when you saved young Uraraka from that robot in the exam. You won’t bring any serious harm to anyone.” He squeezed again. “And if I think you are going to, I’ll stop you. I’ll be watching you the entire time after all.” He chuckled and raised an eyebrow at the boy. “Or do you doubt my ability to save lives now that I’m your teacher?”

            “No!” Izuku’s hands were up in a second as he attempted to defend himself from the accusation, “Not at all!” And yet there was still a pause. “But I…” His hands curled into shaking fists. “I c-can’t use it properly yet. If I lose c-control, someone could get r-really hurt.”

            “Then learn how to use it, young Midoriya, learn how to control it.” All Might stood up, towering over the pallid teenager. “Is that not why you’re here? Trust me to guide you, and I’ll trust you to learn, alright?”

            Izuku seemed to look upon All Might once more like he was some kind of savior, sent from above to deliver him from whatever torment existed within his young mind. He nodded slowly and swallowed. “A-Alright. I’ll do my best.”

            All Might’s grin grew wide and a note of pride swelled in his massive chest. Seeing the light within the boy shine through his still anxious, but now steady and determined eyes made him feel, well, like an actual teacher and not just a broken man playing at teacher.

            As Izuku gingerly returned to the class All Might took a moment to watch him walk, now with at least a measure of confidence to his step, though still not at the level that All Might would prefer. But at least now he wasn’t about to go into a full-blown panic attack. Still, his gaze narrowed just a little as he saw Ochaco begin to fuss over him.

            He would have to keep an eye on that one, at least for now.

Chapter Text

            Izuku’s stomach was trying to murder him. His heart was trying to escape from his chest and his legs were secretly plotting to run from under him the moment the exercise started.

            The thing of course was practically overjoyed and was possibly the only reason Izuku was still on his feet. It wanted this, it begged for the incoming violence it knew was at hand. Izuku could almost feel the curling licks of flame dance across his fingers and up along his scars.

            It wasn’t just the thought of combat however, it was who he’d be fighting. His eyes looked up as he walked, trailing a little behind the others. Their group of five led by the walking avatar of virtue that was All Might. In front of him he could see the angry strides of Katsuki, his vision fixed ahead of him while he ignored Uraraka, who was trying to get her partner to pay some attention to her and at least give her a proper introduction.

            The moment the names had been read out Izuku had almost had a full-blown panic attack while the thing had sung praises to fate itself that finally, finally, they would be fighting their hated enemy one on one. Its bloody, violent curses to Katsuki had shaken him, and reminded him harshly that there could be no room for error. He could not, under any circumstance, let the thing take over.

            But that all depended, really, on his partner, his fellow hero in the exercise. His eyes drifted to the tall, purple haired boy in front of him. 

            Hitoshi Shinsou.

            Izuku knew nothing about him other than his name, which they had exchanged the moment they’d properly met after being paired up, and the fact he looked utterly exhausted all the time. At least they had that in common.

            Hitoshi had a mess of wild, purple hair that rose from a thin, yet square-jawed face. His frame was a thin, runner’s form, unlike the short but slightly stocky Izuku. His outfit considered of mostly black, though he had deep purple gloves that went up to his elbows and purple leg wraps that went down from his knees to his trainers. He wore a belt, kitted with a few pouches, and an odd purple guard around his neck that would have clearly gone over and hid his mouth.

            He remembered him briefly from the obstacle course exercise, though at no point had he ever used his quirk. It was… odd, now that he thought of it, and for a moment he wondered just what the teenager had hidden up his sleeve.

            “Alright,” All Might, stopped outside a rather generic looking five-story building, he turned to look at the students, hands planed on hips. “Now I want you all to do your best but play fair. You’re all still learning the limits of your quirks and as it’s your first time using them in combat, let’s not go overboard.” His sharp blue eyes glanced across all of them and Izuku in particular felt them land on himself. “Team D, head on inside. Team E, wait here and prepare yourselves.”

            Hitoshi moved aside without even looking at him and Izuku felt his heart sink just a little. He supposed he’d seen him practically have a full-blown meltdown before and no doubt had already written him off. Great, another person who thought he was a cowardly freak pretending at being a hero.

            He went to follow him but he was stopped suddenly by a heavy hand on his shoulder and he looked up to see All Might’s burning blue gaze. “Remember, young Midoriya, I’ll be watching you the whole time.”

            Izuku couldn’t help it. Like a lance through the shield-wall of darkness in his heart All Might’s words speared into him and he felt it. Bravery, the warmth of confidence and, perhaps most importantly, a sliver of hope. He nodded at the enormous hero and All Might gave him one last nod in return before leaving them alone.

            Izuku looked once more to his randomly chosen partner before edging over to him. “H-Hey.”

            “Hey,” Hitoshi turned to him, his face a fixed scowl of boredom. His eyes were a royal purple and quite striking, his skin was the color of old Arabic sand. The thing had already nicknamed him ‘Child of Pharaohs’ and ‘The Slave-Maker’. More names which made Izuku internally hate himself.

            There was an awkward silence.

            “So. You’re like, a coward or something, right?”

            Izuku felt his scars strike hot. “Wha- no! No, I’m not a coward!” The words came out sharper than he thought, and he immediately looked away, his voice softening, “I just… I can’t use the thing I do very well, that’s all.”

            “The thing you do?” Hitoshi’s sharp voice again seem to blindside Izuku. “You mean your quirk.”

            “Yeah, that.” Izuku looked back to him again. “Last time I used it on someone else they… got hurt. Badly.” They were almost torn apart, tortured and burned into individual pieces, oh and there was the time when he was four when he blatantly murdered a man by turning him into a fine red paste. But he’d not bring that up, it’d probably just make things awkward.

            His voice dropped again. “In fact, every time I use my quirk, someone seems to get hurt.”

            Hitoshi seemed to focus intently on Izuku for a moment with a gaze that reminded Izuku horribly of Aizawa’s stone cold stare. For a second, he wondered if they were related somehow. “What do you do? I saw you in the physical, you throw out blue flames and jump high, right?”

            “We are more than that! We are shadow and fire! WE ARE POWER.”

            “Eh-heh,” Izuku bit his lip for a second, pushing down the thing for a moment. “That’s… kind of it. I guess. It’s more complex than that but right now that’s about all I can do. And even then I can’t do it more than three times, after that I’ll pass out or…”

            “Or we come forth.” The thing whispered snake-like long his skull, “And we become who we are meant to be. Free and open and fearless.”

            Again, anxiety played with his heart and goosebumps crawled along his arms and neck. Desperately he tried to change the topic. “What’s your quirk?”

            Hitoshi seemed surprised at the question, then his eyes turned away from Izuku. An expression overtook him which Izuku quickly recognized, he’d seen it in the mirror a thousand times. It was sorrow, it was helpless regret, it was self-hate.

            “I ask someone a question, then they reply, and then I brainwash them.” His answer was so blunt that Izuku wondered for a moment if it was true, but the heavy weight of his voice told of its honesty. “I make people my slaves.” He shrugged and looked away his voice was suddenly empty and stone-like. “They do whatever I tell them to as long as they don’t get knocked out of it.”

            “Hitoshi, that’s- that’s…” He trailed off, his eyes wide as he looked down. “That’s PERFECT!”

            Izuku practically jumped up and turned on his partner, who gave him a look like he’d just put a pair of underpants on his head, stuck two pencils up his nose and shouted ‘wibble’ at the top of his lungs.

            “You’re amazing! You’re better than amazing you’re PERFECT!” He grabbed the teenager by either arm and began lightly shaking him, his grin so wide it threatened to tear right off his face. “Don’t you get it? We’re going to cake walk this thing!”

            Hitoshi didn’t seem to know what to do, he simply stood there, mouth gaping as he looked at the smaller boy. Finally, however, his eyes squinted. “What are you talking about?”

            “Think about it, Hitoshi!” Izuku let him go and began pacing back and forth. “If we think of this like a real operation, we’re two heroes, right? Well think of Kaachan-err-Katsuki Bakugo, as my personal arch nemesis, like, seriously,” He paused and looked to the purple headed boy for a moment, “He really, really hates me.”

            “So he’s going to be gunning for you, so what?” Hitoshi shrugged, though it was obvious he still had no idea what had happened to this formally terrified young man.

            “Sooo, there’s a damn good chance he’s going to abandon Uraraka to look after the bomb. The moment this thing starts he’ll be coming to find me to kick my ass, except this time,” He grinned almost wickedly, “I’ll have you with me.”

            Hitoshi clearly wasn’t following him, or maybe he was just too shocked at this sudden mood change to do so. Izuku rolled his eyes and walked back up to him again, still grinning. “Think about it! Your quirk is practically custom made for this! The rival comes after me, we draw him away then confront him together and you can just stop him in his tracks! We can tie him up and leave him because he’ll stupidly be on his own while Uraraka guards the bomb! Then we can just take her out together and we’ll win!”

            The purple headed teen frowned at Izuku for a moment. “That’s great and all, but there’s one big flaw in this flawless plan of yours.” His eyes moved over to the building. “Katsuki was in my entrance exam.”

            The wind was momentarily taken out of Izuku’s sails and he hesitated, however, his sudden determination was too strong and he quickly pressed forward once more. “Did he see you at any point?”

            “I don’t know.” Hitoshi shrugged. “I kept a low profile and just about scraped through. Thank God for rescue points, right?”

            Izuku almost chuckled at that. “Right, hm.” He put a hand up to his chin for a moment. “Knowing Kaachan he probably spent the whole time thinking about himself. There’s a decent chance he doesn’t even remember who you are. Still, either way it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

            He looked back up to Hitoshi and again gave him a shaking, propped-up smile. “Hitoshi, seriously, your quirk is amazing! I mean you could talk suicidal people down from buildings or instantly diffuse hostage situations or get people out of disasters without any panic! Not to mention think of how many villains you could clean up by just talking to them!”

            Hitoshi had a look on his face that told Izuku everything in a moment’s notice. He wasn’t used to this. He wasn’t used to being told his quirk was helpful or astonishing or maybe even good.

            “You- you really think that, don’t you?” Hitoshi finally replied, his eyes focused on the boy before him, both disbelieving and yet alight with hope. “You think my quirk is- is good, or something. You don’t think it’s cruel or… evil.”

            The word hit home harder than Izuku thought it would. And yet, to see him here, to know he had a fellow sufferer, if that was truly the right term, right here at U.A. with him…

            For a moment Izuku stepped away, his smile fading just for a moment as he gathered his thoughts once more. “All Might told me there are no good or evil quirks, just good or evil hearts.” He held out a hand slowly. “I spent most of my life thinking what I could do was evil too, but lately I’ve been trying to change that. I’m going to make it something good, I’m going to prove to everyone I can be a hero, even if the thing inside me is a curse.”

            Hitoshi’s eyes widened at this, then slowly a smile grew across his face. He stood taller and suddenly grasped Izuku by the hand, just as Izuku grasped his. “Alright, let's do it. Let’s win this thing.” His chin lowered just a little as he growled out. “Let’s prove to them we’re not evil.”

            Izuku felt his heart soar, and yet he had to hold onto his smile as the thing hissed serpent-like into his ear, “He does not know what true evil is. We do.”

            A minute later, after they had quickly ironed out some more details of their plan, going over the small map that All Might had given them and Izuku filling Hitoshi in on what he knew of Katuski and Uraraka’s quirks.

            Soon enough All Might’s tone rang out over the building through loudspeakers, “Alright, let's get this show on the road! Team E, team D, your time starts NOW!”

            And just like that, they were off. The front door was unlocked and the pair moved swiftly. The interior was a mix of tight corridors mapped on a square patterned grid, though the area holding the device would be open and dotted only with support columns.

            Izuku could feel his stomach twisting in knots as he moved quietly through the corridors, setting his back to walls and peeking around corners with the cautious nature of a thief in the dark. He was nervous, he was exited, he confident and afraid and anxious and driven. He was all these things, melded and mixed together in the crashing ocean of his heart. And of course, as always, through the dark waters swam the thing, moving shark-like along his scars drawn by the promise of blood in the water and tempting him with the lure of dark power.

            He had caged his nerves and fortified his mind. The thing would not control him, not anymore, not ever again. Whatever Katsuki threw at him he would be prepared, he had Hitoshi with him. As long as he could rely on his new ally he could get through this without incident. No one would have to know how close Uraraka and Katsuki came to facing down a living nightmare.

            They had made it to the second floor and were moving quickly towards their object when Izuku raised a hand, stopping the two of them suddenly. “Wait,” He hissed to Hitoshi, “Do you hear something?”

            He never got the answer to that question.

            “DEKU!” The battle-roar of Katsuki came like the swing of a mighty sword and a second later the air burst with the sound of an explosive fire that split concrete and filled their senses with choking black smoke.

            Hitoshi had saved Izuku. At the last second the young man had grabbed him and thrown him back, tossing Izuku down onto the floor as their opponent had cast the opening blow of their battle.

            Izuku scrambled to his feet, his ally rising with him as the smoke-filled corridor slowly parted to reveal the form of Katsuki, who stood like he owned the world, his gaze venom and fury and focused entirely on Izuku.

            “You… bastard.” His voice was gravel crushed under boot, “You absolute fucking bastard, Deku.”

            “I knew you’d do this.” Izuku gripped his shaking, jittery confidence with two hands as he got to his feet, Hitoshi climbing up beside him. “I knew you’d abandon the objective to face me.”

            “How long?” Katsuki raised a hand slowly as sparks flew from it, “How long could you use your quirk like that?”

            “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Izuku spat back. Yes, spat back. His fists clenched tightly as the fire of his blasphemous power moved through him, the thing growling through the flesh of his brain. Beside him Hitoshi noticed, for the first time, the heat that seemed to radiate from the young man and moved just slightly from him.

            “So you’re Katsuki Bakugo, right?” The purple haired teen mused through his mouth-guard. He made an obvious, though not too obvious, show of eyeing the young man up before shrugging. “… eh, I’ve seen better.”

            Izuku had told him to taunt Katsuki, to play on his pride. He hadn’t quite expected that however.

            The look Katsuki gave the man was nothing short of murderous. If looks could kill, Hitoshi wouldn’t just be dead, he’d be hung, drawn and quartered to a degree that even the thing might find a little excessive.

            And yet Hitoshi didn’t even flinch. “So, did you buy that outfit from a thrift store or did you just put on whatever trash you found walking to school today?”

            The air was so thick with tension that it was an almost physical presence, its hands wrapping tight around Izuku’s throat and forcing him to breathe only shards of air. The world ground to a halt as the very weight of the moment brought it to its knees.

            And then, like a rubber band pulled too tight, it snapped.

            Katsuki’s hand moved like a spear, straight and fast and sharp with his fingertips burning from the explosive power he wielded. The air lit up and for a split second everything was fire and light and burning heat. Izuku was thrown backward, barely shielding his own face in time as fire raked across his arms. But Katsuki’s weapon was not just force and fire, it was noise. The very sound of the explosion was akin to standing next to a stage speaker turned up to max and it knocked every sense in Izuku’s head sideways, causing the world to spin and shudder around him.

            He hit the ground hard and rolled, but his pitiful training helped and he was quickly back up onto his feet, his forearm burning from the fire-heat of Katsuki’s attack.

            He barely moved in time.

            Another ball of roaring dragon-hot flame tore past him as he dived behind a corner to save his own skin. He could smell burning, stinking fabric and singed hair and the sickly-sweet stench of nitroglycerin.

            For a second, through the fire and smoke, he saw Hitoshi. He had dived to the other side and part of his forearm was bleeding and across his face was written a warrior’s grimace. He knew. Their plan had failed.

            Their eyes met, but rather than the shock of failure and shame he saw something else in Hitoshi’s eyes. Determination. There was no backing down, no retreat. Izuku’s scars flared into life as he was sharply reminded he wasn’t alone in this fight. Hitoshi was with him, and together they could still win.

            Katsuki was there suddenly, standing between them as his arms stretched out to either side of him, a look of pure animalistic rage written across gritted teeth and blazing eyes.

            But Izuku saw his chance.

            The boy moved like water to Katsuki’s fire. Sliding to him in one swift motion, helped by the sudden strength delivered to his limbs by his blood-borne curse. He grabbed Katsuki’s arm and hooked his body under him, then with a mighty scream he hurled the blonde over his shoulder and threw him with a burst of pickling scar-heat to the floor.

            He landed with a mighty crack as flesh hit concrete and, perhaps for the first time since Izuku had ever known him, Katsuki cried out in pain.

            For a second Izuku reveled in the sound. Something about it gave him a rush of something dark and wicked and awful but something that made him feel powerful. He was given no time to gloat however as a hand grabbed his collar and tore him away from his opponent. He was running, his feet pounding as he raced alongside Hitoshi as fast as his aching lungs would allow.

            They turned a corner, then another, then another before finally coming to a stop, both the boys panting heavily and Izuku desperately trying to control the rush of energy and fire that pumped madly across his limbs.

            “Goddammit.” Hitoshi panted out as he finally stood straight once more, leaning against the cold concrete behind him. “He fucking knew. Goddammit!”

            “It was always a possibility,” Izuku breathed out beside him, “And now we know. I mean, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, right?”

            “Helmuth Von Moltke.”

            “What?”

            “Nevermind.” Hitoshi eyed him, “So what’s the new plan, genius?”

            Izuku was quiet for a moment before looking back to Hitoshi. “You go on ahead, find the bomb, I’ll draw Kaachan off.”

            The taller boy’s eyes widened. “Are you sure? I mean he looks like he’s gonna fucking kill you.”

            “He won’t. I’ll use my quirk to avoid him. Besides.” He raised a finger to point at Hitoshi. “You can still brainwash Uraraka and end this quickly. By the time he catches up, we’ll have won by default.”

            Hitoshi seemed to pause to consider his words, but a nearby explosion drew his attention, as it did Izuku’s. Katsuki was getting closer and was obviously destroying things just to find them. “Goddamnit, fine.” He hissed through clenched teeth, though he hesitated a moment before suddenly reaching out and slapping a hand on Izuku’s shoulder, a move which surprised the smaller boy. “Good luck.”

            “T-thanks.” Izuku blinked back before putting a hand onto Hitoshi’s outstretched forearm and giving him a nod. “You too.”

            Hitoshi returned the nod, gave one last glance up the corridor then sprinted off, away from the encroaching explosions.

            Izuku had so far managed to stave off his fear because Hitoshi had been there, looking at him, relying on him to keep it together. Now, however, it hit him like a two-by-four to the back of his skull. He had to face Katsuki. He had to fight back against the boy who had made each day of his life a living torment since he was four.

            “So, it comes to this.” The thing whispered like a demonic temptress through his mind. “We face the Brat in single combat. How long have we begged for this day?”

            “Shut up.” Izuku spoke out loud, no longer concerned with who heard him. He moved noisily, making sure to try and draw Katsuki’s attention towards him. “We- I’m not facing him.”

            “We can beat him. We know we can.” It continued, unheeded by his protests. “Let us fight. Let us taste his blood on our claws.”

            “No.” Izuku gritted his teeth so much he could hear the enamel grinding within his own mouth. He approached a corner, peeked around it and then moved swiftly across the corridor. “We- I’m not hurting anyone. So just stop, alright?”

            “If we will not fight, we will make a rather pathetic hero.” The strange answer caused Izuku to pause, throwing his back up against a wall and frowning at nothing but himself.

            Its voice was a scalpel blade to the beating vain of his jugular. “Are we so eager to throw off the Fading King’s confidence? Are we not here to learn the art of battle? To eventually fight against greater enemies than he?”

            A prickling heat crawled along his scars like a million spiders. But he was listening. Despite it all, he was listening.

            “He has tormented us for too long. Now is the time to stand on our own feet, to face his terror without fear.” The heat was rising within him. He could hear the angry, stomping footsteps echoing around him as his rival came closer, ever closer.

            His fist was curling.

            “We are not Deku. We are shadow and fire. Power and righteous fury.” He was almost upon him, but Izuku’s inner fire was burning through his scars like a furnace. Energy, strength and a barely tempered anger was boiling inside him.

            His teeth gritted in a wolfish smile as the hell-spoken words crawled through his mind and reached into his soul. “We are not the same scared child we were before. We will become a hero, the greatest of all heroes, and we will be eclipsed by bullies no longer. Let us teach him this lesson.”

            If Izuku was going to reply, the chance was robbed from him. Suddenly his entire world was consumed with fire and the deafening sound of concrete bursting and exploding beside his ear.

            Instantly he was thrown to one side, hitting the wall with enough force to send pain shooting through his side as a yelp rushed from his mouth. He had no time to recover, no time to even breathe as a hand reached through the smoke and grabbed his shirt, pulling him forwards and into the waiting fist of Katsuki Bakugo.

            The punch connected with Izuku’s jaw, sending sparks flickering across his vision. He tried to fall back as new pain, hot and pulsing, stabbed into his senses but Katsuki’s grip was strong. Another fist connected with his stomach, even as white-hot fire began flooding his scars and boosting every sense he had.

            Izuku doubled over as his breath left him. Then he was kicked hard in the side and he practically rolled across the floor as the pain momentarily disabled him.

            “You- You-” Katsuki’s voice was trembling with rage. Izuku had never heard him that angry in all his life. Pain was gripping him, but fear was his master. He looked up through a slightly spinning vision as Katsuki stormed towards him.

            He looked murderous and, for the first time since knowing him, Izuku actually feared for his life. What had Hitoshi said? He looked like he would kill him? Suddenly the young man could believe it.

            “You thought you could fucking brainwash me? You thought I was so stupid, so weak that I would actually fall for that? You and that fucking villainous bastard?” Katsuki’s lips were bleeding, Izuku could see that now and it clicked how he’d managed to stop himself from answering Hitoshi’s insults. He’d bit through his own lip.

            That was some anger.

            As Izuku climbed back to his feet slowly Katsuki broke into another sudden run, his hand raising up once more as he screamed his battle cry, “I’LL FUCKING SHOW YOU, DEKU!”

            The world seemed to slow before Izuku as he knew, at that moment, he had to decide. Use his power or fail Hitoshi, fail All Might and fail himself.

            The explosion before him was fire and fury, noise and nitroglycerin. It was a spear thrust designed to shatter the enemy armor and smash through to their heart. An attack pure in focus and strength. Against any other opponent such a strike would have ripped their defenses apart in a split second of furious, wrathful flame.

            But not this opponent.

            Blue flame tore through his own bright orange fire and hit him square in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Before his heart even beat once he slammed against a concrete wall with a sudden yelp of pain and collapsed downwards onto the floor with a wince-inducing smack.

            He could hardly breathe and a mixture of bile, blood, and spit spilled from his mouth. Not once in his entire life had Katsuki ever come close to being hit that hard. 

            The blonde lifted his head, a growl already on his face when he paused, his eyes growing wide.

            Izuku stood, feet apart, his arm raised as he shook like a leaf. But on his face was not a look of fear, but a wolf’s growl of vicious determination. His arm was held out straight, his palm held up like a gun by the tight grip of his other hand. But where there had once been pale, sickly skin covering his arm was now nothing but a horrific shadow black, patterned with serrated spines. Where there had once been fingers was now a hand ending in long, rending talons with the final licks of blue flame dancing across them.

            His scars were flickering and glowing a fire-lit blue as if some inner furnace had been ignited within the boy, even and perhaps especially along the sudden black leathery skin that seemed to cover his arm.

            But it was his eyes that struck Katsuki the most. His eyes were the same as they were all those weeks ago. Eyes that seemed darker somehow, dimmer, as if the light from within him was being drained away despite the almost ghostly glow of his green irises.

            Katsuki’s voice was barely a hiss, and yet it somehow permeated every atom of the moment. “What… the fuck…”

            Izuku’s heart was pounding within his chest. This was his fear, this was his nightmare made real. Katsuki was seeing the monster he kept locked under the thin veneer of his pale skin. The shadow, the flame, the beast that stalked his blood and haunted his mind.

            “Look at how he cowers.” The thing hissed joyfully within his mind. “Look at what we can do to him.”

            Izuku felt his talons curl as his eyes took in the form of Katsuki on the ground, thrown there by the fire of his quirk. He felt… powerful. He felt weak from his attack, dizzy from the use of his blasphemous fire but he felt powerful. Was this how Katsuki had felt every time he had beaten Izuku to the floor?

            “We can see it in his eyes. He fears us.”

            It was true. Izuku could see it too. Behind the fury, the confusion, the insult of being thrown to the ground by a weakling he could see it spreading like a virus through Katsuki’s system.

            Fear.

            His shadow was fading now, turning to ash and blowing to a wind neither of them felt. His fingers once again became malleable and sharp, knife-stabbing pain hit his arm as the muscles and bone and skin stretched and cracked back into place.

            Izuku gritted his teeth and bore it, even as Katsuki rose back to his feet.

            “So that’s what you’re really like. On the inside.” Katsuki’s words sounded odd to Izuku’s ears, washed with the slightly dizzying sensation of using his quirk. “A fucking freak. I always knew it.”

            “I-I’m not afraid of you, Kaachan!” Izuku cried out and held his hand up once again like a cocked gun.

            Katsuki hesitated and curled his fists slowly at his sides.

            “Strike him again. Let our fire kiss his skin, let us burn our vengeance through his heart.”

            “You’re fucking terrified.” Katsuki’s observation wasn’t a lie. Izuku was almost always in some state of constant anxiety but right now he knew he was walking a true knife edge. The thing hissed through his mind, tempting him with violence while Katsuki stood before him, strong and wrathful.

            If he slipped just a little he knew he would fall.

            But he could do this. He could manage his curse, use it like a carefully forged weapon, he could use it for good. He just… needed to keep focused.

            Of course it was during this lapse of thought that Katsuki struck. Katsuki attacked like a detonating bomb, his face twisted in a berserkers snarl. Izuku barely reacted, moving to one side as the explosion was unleashed beside him, throwing him instantly off balance.

            Katsuki took the advantage and smashed his gauntleted arm against Izuku’s side, eliciting a cry of pain from the young man, but he wasn’t finished. He grabbed Izuku’s arm and began using his quirk to throw himself around his target, all the while screaming, “DON’T EVER FORGET YOU’RE NOTHING!”

            The words tore through Izuku’s mind and burned him from the inside. Anger mixed with boiling determination. His heart was pounding, he could taste blood in his mouth and every blow he had taken throbbed with the ache of dull pain.

            But pain was something Izuku was used to. It was a focusing tool and he used it now, narrowing his mind through the sharp ache of his wounds.

            He activated his curse.

            Katsuki’s attack was almost complete before Izuku felt his arms once again remolding themselves both into horrific talons, the black shadow-skin rushing up his arms as one reached out and planted itself into the concrete floor, the other suddenly twisting, throwing Katsuki’s wrist off before grabbing him in return.

            He roared with a voice that was his and yet laced with a thousand more screaming, crying, moaning and begging. He roared with all the indignity he had suffered at Katsuki’s hands. He roared with the battle-cry of hell itself.

            Katsuki barely took a breath as Izuku turned his attack on him, pulling him suddenly with a strength he shouldn’t possess, using talons that didn’t just grab the teenager but knifed into the muscles in his arms as he hurled the blonde against the concrete wall with enough force to crack it.

            Power. Power dark and terrible and lightning-strike hot was pulsing through Izuku’s every vain, every blood vessel, every atom in his body. His brain was alight with fire and hate and the pounding madness of their battle.

            The thing was grinning with Izuku’s own lips.

            But Izuku was in control. He was still lucid, still focused, still using the burning pain of his arms and bleeding cuts and scorched skin to narrow his mind.

            He roared again as he curled a shadow-clad fist and threw it at Katsuki’s face. He missed, the blonde dodging at the last second and as he fell into a dive his hands darted out, hitting Izuku sharply in the side with a blast of explosive flame.

            Izuku screamed as he was thrown back and only through sheer luck did he grab onto the nearest wall, raking stone in long, violent tears before coming to a halt.

            Katsuki was already on him, crying out again as his fist swinging down on his opponent where it smashed into Izuku’s nose and broke it instantly.

            Izuku’s head exploded into a dizzying spell of blinding white pain that threatened to undo every defense he had built against the ravaging hunger of the thing. He could feel it, even in that moment which stretched and stretched, the terrible corrupt fire, tempting and begging and whispering.

            “We need more power, we must dig deeper or he will win.”

            Images flashed through his mind. Katsuki’s laughter, his cruel smile as he was beaten down again and again and again. Hate drowned and burned and devoured his other emotions. Hate gave him strength.

            “No more.”

            Izuku let the lava-flow of his curse burst through him like a damn unleashed, corrupt blue fire rushing along his scars and flooding his body.

            Katsuki’s vicious grin fell in slow-motion as he watched the boy turn back to him. His face coated in blood pouring from his bust lip and broken nose.

            His eyes. They were no longer drained of light, not merely dark, not merely black, but a crushing, burning, arctic cold nightmare void with the only exception being the blazing green of his irises. The next thing he saw was the blue fire burning at the back of Izuku’s throat as the young man bellowed his bottomless hate at him, and the next thing after that was a burning black-clad fist colliding with his face.

            Izuku could see where his furnace-lit scars had burned Katsuki’s peeling skin and the blood that now flowed almost feely from his wounds.

            The power that flooded his system was almost intoxicating but Izuku was still there, still barely holding on and some echoing voice in the back of his mind assured him he was still in command, still him.

            It took a truly enormous amount of self-control to stop himself from reaching forward with his demonic claws and simply tearing at Katsuki’s face until ribbons of his skin hung like bandages from his talons.

            The thing cursed him for his cowardice as Katsuki took the hesitation to attack again.

            He could feel it. With every blow he landed and every blow he took causing him to push ever deeper, draw ever more from that bottomless well of corrupt, hateful hellfire. Something was pushing their way through his forehead like spear-tips emerging from his own skin, something was growing out from the base of his spine and lashing at his opponent like a fire-lit whip.

            But these were merely distractions from the burning focus of his single-minded will to beat Kaachan.

            Like fingernails digging into his mind and heart and soul, each second was a second closer to piercing the thin skin of willpower that kept the demon from taking him. The fury of the monster that existed in his blood. The purity of its hate. The power of its blasphemous flame.

            “More, more, MORE!”

            It was getting harder and harder to keep himself from falling.

            Because he was winning.

            Katsuki was strong, unbelievably so. His attacks tore at Izuku’s body like gunshots, each one burning his skin and drawing blood. Each fist smashing into him like a hammer, each kick threatening to break his bones. Each explosion throwing Izuku’s heightened senses into a spinning madness that only chance and battle-focus could correct.

            But Katsuki was slowing. He was tiring and making mistakes and missing his shots and the horror of what Izuku was becoming was being reflected in his increasingly panicked strikes.

            Izuku, however, was boiling and burning with terrible energy which pushed his injured body on and on and on. He barely felt any pain just as he barely felt any fear, any remorse, any pity.

            Only one emotion was truly washing through Izuku’s heart. Hate.

            He knew he was bleeding because he could smell it, just as he could smell Katsuki’s blood, rich and coppery and hot. He could almost taste it on his tongue and that made his heart race in a manner which he knew wasn’t right but he didn’t care.

            Another of his burning, almost iron-strong fists slammed into Katsuki’s face and something broke. His jaw perhaps. Izuku was barely aware at this point. All he knew was how much he hated Katsuki, how much the young man deserved this pain, this lesson he was being taught.

            “How does it feel, Kaachan?” His voice was one of many, the first amongst thousands of screaming, burning souls. “To be beaten? To be hurt?”

            Katsuki tried to reply but Izuku smashed him to the floor. He stood over him now, grabbing his shirt and pulling him up as he hit him again. And again. And again.

            “HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE WEAK?” His thousand-voiced scream came from between teeth too long in his mouth, from a throat that was burning from a fire inside him that was so close, so close to consuming him utterly.

            Katsuki wasn’t moving.

            His hand was raising, blue fire flowing into life along his blood-soaked talons.

            “Izuku?”

            “WE ARE NOT DEKU!”

            The thing’s claws were tearing at his heart and mind and soul and he was starting to fall and he couldn’t stop himself any longer.

            “WE ARE IZUKU MIDORIYA-”

            “IZUKU!”

            “-AND WE ARE SHADOW AND FIRE!”

            His hand fell, fire streaking behind it in a glorious, deadly wave.

            He was grabbed suddenly as an arm wrapped itself around his neck and the teenager was hurled back. He slammed into the floor, the blazing whirlwind of blue fire erupting from his palm and scorching everything to his right, the heat so great that it burned the concrete walls a deathly black.

            Izuku practically howled at the indignity and pitiless, abyss-dark eyes turned as his hand was thrown up once more, once more erupting with corrupt blue flame.
           
            It was Hitoshi.

            His eyes were wide and deep and horrified.

            The world slammed back into place and Izuku took in a gulping breath as though he had been drowning in a great ocean and was only now surfacing for air.

            His limbs felt like rocks and his heart was pounding too fast in his chest and why was he so weak and where was all this blood coming from? The world was both too solid and too liquid and spinning too fast. He could feel his stomach rejecting everything within him and he turned suddenly, retching to one side. Blood coated his vomit.

            The fire died on his palm and the terrible accused power that had, only moments ago, made him feel like an ancient war-god, now drained from him in a shower of ash that filled the open air.

            The blood didn’t leave him though. He looked to his palms and he saw it. Coating his fingers, his knuckles. Blood that he knew wasn’t his. His body was shaking and he couldn’t stop it. He was fading as the sudden waves of now undenied pain tore through the pulsing, pounding wounds across his body.

            “Izuku?” Hitoshi's echoing voice spoke again as more voices began flooding into his ears all at once in a cacophony of noise. One female, screaming and crying, one loud and focused and authoritative, some even robotic and accompanied by the whining of emergency sirens.

            Izuku fell to the floor as darkness rushed into his vision, his body and mind too overwhelmed, too overtaxed to continue keeping him awake.

            He was gone before his cheek even hit the concrete.

Chapter Text

            Izuku woke as he always woke. A jolt of sudden, sharp consciousness that ran like a spasm through his body. It hurt to do so, though not a sharp biting pain as he was used to but a far off, aching pain that came from a body that wasn’t all his just yet.

            But like an incoming tide, the inevitable feeling of his limbs crept back, linking together once more to form a picture of a body wracked with pain and aches and burns.

            New burns, not just the old, familiar railway scar burns.

            There were wounds all across his body, some felt like stinging, razor-thin slices, others like open, sore, pounding hammers. All of this was numbed by the presence of painkilling opiates into his system, making him feel just a little nauseated and sluggish.

            Izuku groaned as his eyes squinted against the burning light pouring in from the outside. The stench of antiseptic and cleaning fluids filled his nose and he could taste it in the back of his mouth, along with the old familiar copper of blood. All these sensations swam and melded together in a toxic mix of confusion as his senses slowly began to slot themselves back into their correct and proper places.

            He hated the fact that he was so used to this that he knew to simply lay there and let it happen.

            He didn’t need to ask where he was. He knew where he was. He was already familiar with the slightly too-starched feel of hospital beds to know he was in the medical ward. The beeping beside him also helped, as did the slightly intrusive feeling of a drip in his arm.

            Izuku didn’t try to lift his head up, knowing he would see only his bandage wrapped limbs and a slightly uncomfortable hospital gown. He simply lay there, allowing himself to feel every inch of the numbed pain that pulsed through his body. He felt cheated, however, they shouldn’t have bothered with the painkillers. Someone like him deserved to feel every cut, every burn, every bruise, every broken limb.

            He deserved the pain, it was the only way he felt as though he was somehow repenting for the pain he had caused others.

            The pain he had caused Katsuki.

            The sudden flashing memory of Katsuki sent a new jolt of urgency through the boy, along with the heart gripping panic that he might have killed him. Izuku began struggling as he forced his body into a sitting position despite the screaming that came from his limbs. The thing, however, remained silent, which was good. Perhaps its long, extended usage had exhausted whatever dark power it fueled itself with.

            That’s when he spotted it, or rather, them. His eyes widened in increasing terror as he saw that each and every one of fingernails had turned a solid, void black. He barely held back his vomit of disgust as he slowly began poking at his fingernails with an aching hand. They were his, and felt like any normal fingernail, they were just… black now.

            Immediately he began patting the rest of himself down looking for anything else on his body that was new or strange.

            His hands hit his ears. Ears that were pointing out far more than they had done before. Silent horror crept over him as he realized that once again the curse of his blood had mutated his form, changing him and making him more like… more like it.

            Tears welled in his eyes and he began curling into a ball. Every step he took towards his dream the thing tore him two steps back. Every time he tried to push himself forward he just ended up becoming more and more monstrous. He was a fool to think the thing could ever be controlled. He was a greater fool to think someone like himself could ever become a hero.

            He cried silently into his curled arms, his newly blackened fingernails digging into aching, sore limbs. He wanted to tear himself apart, to end all of this. To just drop forever into a peaceful oblivion and stay there until all memory of his spirit and soul were forgotten by everyone.

            Maybe that would be for the best after all.

            His heart almost stopped in his chest and his head shot up to stare as the bathroom door opened suddenly and a man walked out still rubbing hand sanitizer into his hands with a neutral expression on his face. He took two steps forwards towards Izuku before he looked up and stopped dead in his tracks.

            He was, simply put, the most sickly-looking man Izuku had ever seen. His face was gaunt to the point of panic with blonde hair that fell limp and lifeless around his face. But there were two things which almost immediately caught Izuku’s attention more than that. Firstly, he was wearing a uniform which was far, far too large for his clearly emaciated frame. A uniform which was, stitch-for-stitch, the same uniform All Might had been wearing earlier that day. Secondly were the fire-lit blue irises which burned deep from shadowed sclera.

            A full three seconds passed between them with neither moving before the man suddenly and sharply coughed in panic, raising a hand to his mouth as blood splattered across his fingers.

            Izuku immediately yelped at the sight and tried to further climb out of his bed, ignoring the sharp and stabbing painful protests from his body. “D-Don’t move!” He wanted to shout but his voice croaked from a throat that felt burnt from the inside, “I-I’ll get you s-some help! Just wait here I-I’ll-”

            “No!” The man replied sharply, still half-coughing up fistfuls of bright red blood, “It’s alright, young Midoriya!”

            Izuku once again froze, now almost completely out of the bed. Young Midoriya.

            His eyes looked back to the man once more and watched him as he grabbed some tissues from a dispenser on the wall and, unable to stop his own shock, he croaked out, “… All Might?”

            “I knew I shouldn’t have drank that tea.” All Might mumbled as he wiped the blood from his mouth and hands. He turned his sunken gaze back to the shocked boy and sighed. “You caught me right at the wrong time, my boy. I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”

            For a horrible moment Izuku’s eyes widened as panic, wild and hot, began tearing through his mind. “D-Did I d-do th-”

            To his credit the man was at Izuku’s side in a second, large, bony hands resting on the boy’s shoulders as he quickly tried to soothe him down, “Izuku! Izuku no, you had nothing to do with this, I’ll explain it to you in good time if you wish but for now please calm down, my current state is absolutely not your fault! It’s alright!”

            Izuku was shaking like a leaf in a blizzard and he allowed the man to push him back onto the bed until he was laying down once more. He had been assured, but the very idea that the thing had turned All Might into half a man wasn’t out of his head. It had the rage and the fury to do it.

            “How are you feeling?” The teacher asked calmly as he moved to sit onto the bed, a gentle smile moving across his drastically thin face.

            Izuku didn’t answer immediately, instead his eyes refocused upwards at the blank, white ceiling. “Terrible.”

            All Might nodded slowly. “I understand. You’ve been through quite a lot in the last few hours.”

            “I-It’s alright.” The boy croaked back, feeling his throat burn and welcoming the sting of raw skin. 

            “I have to ask you, my boy.” All Might continued, his voice low, almost sad. “Do you… remember what happened?”

            Izuku felt ice run through his blood and he quietly croaked out, “Yes.”

            “How much?”

            “E-Everything.”

            All Might’s eyes widened but not in horror. It was pity, it was sorrow. “Oh… I’m so-”

            “I-I remember it better t-than I remember p-parts of my n-normal life.” Izuku suddenly blurted out, his voice cracking and broken.

            A memory flashed through his mind. The smell of burning flesh, the screams of pain.

            His throat burned as he spoke and his hands were raising and linking through his messy hair.  He deserved it. He deserved the pain.

            Blood everywhere. So much hate.

            His aching fingers started to dig into his skull.

            “I r-remember every second, e-every s-smell, every sound an-and touch and i-it won’t leave my h-head.”

            Kaachan’s mauled face, his broken body, a rising fist wreathed in terrible blue fire preparing for a killing blow.

            He began curling up once more. His body screamed in pain but he embraced it and held onto it with both hands. He deserved it, he deserved it, he-

            “Izuku, stop!” All Might’s voice once more speared through the darkness, a hand wreathed in light offering the boy reprise from the horror of his own, repeating memories. “You’re not back there anymore. You’re here, with me.”

            The boy looked up from where he had begun burying himself into his arms. All Might’s bone-thin face should have offered him nothing and yet the very aura of the man was enough to bring him back into the present, back into reality.

            “I-I-I-”

            “I promise you, you’re safe.” All Might’s voice was low, heavy but laced with incredible strength. Strength enough to drag Izuku up from the dark. “And so is young Bakugo, you’re both-”

            “KAACHAN!” The boy shot up again and again his teacher coughed in shock. Izuku turned on him and grabbed at the man’s rail-thin arms as despite panic again burned like wildfire cross his heart, mind and flooded fire through his scars. “I-I have to-to see him, I-I-I need to s-see if he’s-”

            “Young Bakugo is fine.” All Might once again soothed, though his expression went dark. “He was badly hurt, but he’ll be alright. He’s in the next ward over recovering from surgery on his arm… and face.”

            Izuku couldn’t stop shaking and his eyes filled with tears. Whatever was in his stomach suddenly came up violently from his stomach and he turned, throwing up yellow bile laced with red from his raw throat onto the floor of the room. All Might moved aside just in time to avoid it and, with a surprising amount of calmness, rubbed Izuku’s back.

            Once Izuku was finished throwing up, which happened another two times in succession, All Might moved aside for a moment to gather more tissues and handed them to Izuku, then after moving for a moment into the bathroom he came out with a small, plastic lined bin and some towels and began cleaning up the mess left splattered on the floor.

            As he did so Izuku sobbed open, loud tears and his voice continued to break, barely now above a forced whisper. “I’m so sorry.” He buried his head into his shaking hands as his body shook. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so-”

            “It’s okay, young Midoriya.” All Might made quick work of the mess, despite his exhausted looking expression, and wrapped the vomit-soaked towels up into the plastic of the bin. “It’s not your fault.”

            “Don’t!” Izuku snapped in a move that surprised All Might as his eyes, drowned in the deluge of his tears, bore at the hero. “Don’t s-say that! Th-This is my fault! It’s a-all my fault! I-I-I lost c-control and now-”

            “Izuku Midoriya.” All Might’s hand again landed on his shoulder as he took a seat at the side of the bed, making sure that the young teenager’s eyes were focused on him and no where else. “This is not your fault. It is mine. You warned me this could happen, and I foolishly didn’t listen. I- I assumed you were simply untrained, scared of your own power because you didn’t know how to fully use it yet, I…” He sighed heavily and looked down. “I misread and misunderstood your fear, despite the clear warnings. I should have pulled you from the exercise the moment you expressed your concern.”

            He stood up suddenly and moved to the side of the bed, where, to Izuku’s absolute amazement, he bowed deeply. “I’m so, so sorry, young Midoriya. Please, forgive me.”

            “A-All Might- I”

            Whatever answer Izuku would have given him didn’t come. The entrance to the room suddenly opened. The sun became hidden by clouds and the temperature dropped. Toshinori straightened up as his eyes fell on the man and Izuku watched with absolute, jaw-dropping fascination as eyes which only moments ago had been so full of sorrow and regret became burning flames of bottomless strength.

            In that moment, muscles or not, he was All Might.

            “Hokori.”

            “Yagi.” Hisashi Hokori shut the door behind him though his eyes never left All Might.

            There they stood. One a shadow of a man, almost entirely skin and bones in the ill-fitting suit of a hero whom all believed was invincible. The other tall, handsome, narrow-jawed with smart black hair in a suit that probably cost more than most of the cars parked outside.

            But their gaze marked them as more than just men. One with eyes aflame with passion, righteous justice, and pure unstoppable good. The other seemed remorseless, prideful and almost serpent-like shielded only by the thin layer of his spectacles.

            Hokori broke their stare-down first, turning his eyes to the still sniffling, shaking boy on the bed and his eyes ran over Izuku’s new ears and fingernails. For a moment something new entered that utterly void-like gaze, something which again Izuku felt he caught as only the shadow of a ghost. Concern.

            His fire-cold eyes moved back to All Might. “Why are you here, Yagi? And why are you allowing a student to see you in,” He paused as his eyes quickly traveled his disheveled form, a dismissive look upon his face, “This way?”

            “It couldn’t be helped.” All Might spoke politely, though the snap in his tone was obvious. “And I was making sure he was alright.”

            “And convincing him to speak well on your behalf I bet.” Hokori’s sword-jab caught All Might off guard and the man took a sharp breath through gritted teeth.

            “Absolutely not!” He countered as he stepped back, allowing Hokori to pass him as the well-suited man walked to Izuku’s side and pulled out a small, plastic chair which sat against a nearby wall, “As his teacher, it’s my job to be there for him! Especially at times like this!”

            “And it’s my job to stop this academy from being sued into the ground because of your incompetence!” Hokori turned his eyes once more to All Might, his void-like gaze bordering on furious behind his glasses. “Furthermore-”

            “It wasn’t his fault!” Izuku finally spoke, his throat spiking with pain as he tried to raise his voice. His hands gripped the sheets of the bed as the two men suddenly turned to look at him, wearing the same surprised expression.

            It was an odd moment and for a second Izuku felt as the combined weight of the two men’s looks before he pressed on. “I-It was mine! I-I lost control and-”

            “Izuku.” Hokori cut him off with a raised hand. “You can tell me everything in a moment and I promise I will listen, but first,” His eyes turned back to All Might. “You know you have to leave.”

            All Might seemed to falter before finally giving Hokori a sharp nod and turning. Izuku watched with fascination as his form inflated like a balloon into the overpowering force that was the Symbol of Peace. Though even as he made his way to the door he paused, giving Izuku one last sad and longing look. “We’ll talk again soon, young Midoriya. Stay in bed, heal up and please, don’t worry.”

            Izuku could only reply with a small, weak nod and with that, All Might was gone.

            The door clicked into place louder than it had any right too and Izuku now turned his eyes to Hokori.

            The man gave him a small smile devoid of humor or joy as he sat down into the plastic chair and smoothed the wrinkles from his pants. “I apologize for the ugliness, son. It’s the nature of lawyer-hero relationships I’m afraid, though sometimes I think he gets a little personal about it.”

            “W-What are you g-going to do? W-Why couldn’t A-All Might stay here?” Izuku asked cautiously, feeling the odd coldness of the room seep into his skin. It had been so warm and pleasant only a moment ago and now he could almost feel a chill up his spine. Which was odd enough on its own, as the nature of the thing made sure he never felt cold.

            “Last time we met I don’t believe I told you what I do here. Well,” Hokori reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a large looking phone, or perhaps it was a small tablet. Either way he clicked it open and got out an electronic pen. “Hero training schools hold a lot of promise to young men and women hoping to become heroes, however in all the brochures and T.V. adverts they never tell you how dangerous the nature of the training is. People get hurt and injured, mostly by accident, sometimes on purpose. Despite your quirks, you’re all still teenagers at the end of the day.”

            His fingers linked together at the tips as he talked, “When these events happen, accident or otherwise, parents obviously want answers. If they are especially harmful,” Izuku winced at that moment, “Sometimes legal action is needed. That’s where I step in. I’m essentially U.A.’s entire legal division. I make sure the barbarian hordes of angry parents with lawsuits in hand don’t breech U.A’s gates.”

            Izuku allowed this information to sink it. It made suddenly made sense why he’d seen Hokori at the entrance exam, and why he’d mentioned the first few days being chaos in their second meeting. The teenager nodded slowly and Hokori gave the same joyless, polite smile back.

            “All Might wasn’t allowed to stay due to school policy. He was involved in what happened, his recounting must be taken separate from yours and Katuski Bakugo’s to avoid conflict.” He let a hand wave casually before him. “It’s just procedure I’m afraid.”

            Hokori’s assurance seemed somehow hollow, but Izuku was in no position to argue.

            “Now, before we continue I have to ask, do you believe you’re well enough to give me clear and concise answers to my questions?”

            Izuku felt his stomach knot, but he nodded.

            “Are you willing to speak to me about the events that happened a few hours ago?”

            Again, his stomach twisted but he nodded silently. The memories flashed across his eyes once more, but he remembered All Might, he remembered the comfort of the man’s voice and forced his thoughts into the present.

            Hokori noted both these down on his tablet before finally sighing and leaning further back into his chair. “Alright, son, run me through everything that happened from the moment the class started.”

            Izuku began, though the memory of the event was absolute torment to bring back up. He was shaking, stuttering, and barely holding back the gathering panic that swirled within his heart. He wanted to run to Katsuki, to apologize over and over again and offer his heart on a platter if it would make him alright again.

            But he persisted, he ran through each moment, telling how All Might inspired him to push forward, how Hitoshi had shaken his hand, how Katsuki had simply been following the exercise to attack and stop the heroes when he’d lost control of the thing, which Hokori had to clarify as his quirk, and assaulted Katsuki until Hitoshi had pulled him away. After that, everything was a blank.

            More than once he stopped as the memories became too much, too bright and focused and almost super-imposed over his own reality. More than once Hokori simply sat back and allowed him to recover before continuing forward once more.

            Once he was finished, Hokori nodded. “Alright Izuku, we’re almost done, I promise.” Again the flash of that coldly professional, meaningless smile, “Just a quick question. Why are you lying to me?”

            There was a spattering of rain against the window and goosebumps ran along Izuku’s neck. “W-What? No, I d-”

            “I saw the video of the exercise, it was the first thing I did the moment I was summoned down here.” Hokori’s brow furrowed. “I saw him taunting you, pushing you, attacking you with far too much malice and using his quirk in intentionally harmful ways. He clearly wanted this to become a fight between the two of you, not a training exercise.”

            “The Brat demanded a fight, we gave him a fight.” The thing’s sudden whisper shocked Izuku and he jumped a little, though it was odd. Usually its voice was the mutilation of many, the screams of dying thousands. This time it was distant, quiet, a blade in the dark, a snake through grass, “We did only what we were asked. We fought back.”

            Izuku’s hand curled into a fist and he barely stopped himself from simply punching one of his many wounds. Pain always tended to shut it up, though he was surprised that it was coming through even though he knew he had painkillers running through his system.

            “Izuku?” Hokori leaned forward. “Are you alright?”

            “Y-yes, sorry.” He gulped as he refocused his gaze on his own feet. “I-I-” He struggled to find the right words. “He was- was rough, but th-that was part of the- the exercise. H-He was just doing w-what he-”

            “We have evidence of him pushing you over the edge and you’re still defending him?” Hokori’s voice took on an unbelieving tone. “Izuku, please. Stop. Lying to me will only get you in trouble, lying for him will only earn you his scorn. Be honest with yourself, and me, for both our sakes.”

            He paused for a moment and quietly added. “You want to be a hero, right?” Izuku looked up at this, his stomach twisting but his heart picking up an extra beat. “Heroes always tell the truth in these matters, even if it could hurt their friends. Honesty is a virtue. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that lying to defend someone is a good deed, especially not when that person would never do the same for you.”

            Izuku’s eyes hardened. “Y-You don’t know that.”

            Hokori seemed shocked at the answer, though if he did he quickly recovered and leaned back. “So, you’re sticking to what you’ve told me, then? That you were the aggressor in this?”

            Izuku could almost feel it. The pull on his heart, the temptation before him to simply throw Katsuki under the bus and pin the full incident on his shoulders.

            “The Brat openly mocked us. He wanted to test himself on our fury. Why pretend otherwise?” The thing again whispered through his mind. “What do we care for the fool? He was taught his lesson. Let him fall into the pit of his own making.”

            “Ka-Kaachan was simply be-being himself. He’s loud, a-and brash, and, yes, he c-can be… v-violent sometimes. But he- he didn’t cause this. I caused this.” Izuku locked eyes with Hokori, ignoring the feeling of gnawing fear in his gut and the subtle anger of the thing moving through his scars. “I f-failed All Might, I-I failed myself. My mistakes are m-mine alone.”

            Hokori simply looked to the boy for a long moment that seemed heavy with an emotion that Izuku couldn’t quite identify before the man stood up, sighing as he did so. “Then, Izuku Midoriya, you will reap the consequences of your actions.” He turned and went to leave the room, putting the tablet back into his jacket pocket. Yet he paused at the door he turned to look at Izuku, “You know it takes a certain type of person to willingly take a blow meant for another.”

            “Yeah, I-I know.” Izuku countered even as his heart pounded from the fear of the looming punishment of his actions. “It’s what a h-hero would do.”

            The room was cold. Not just from the pounding rain outside but from the looks of every teacher in the room. There were only five of them, the principal included, but there wasn’t a smile to be seen. The reflection of the summer rain ran across all of them, seemingly emerging them all of them within its relentless downfall. It had started yesterday and refused to stop other than some spare moments throughout the night.

            Toshinori had sunk his head onto the large, U-shaped desk, covering his messy, wild blonde hair with his arms. He was the first to break the silence, his words crawling from his lips like the remorseful confession of a sinner to a priest. “I failed him. My first day teaching and I already failed a student.”

            “You couldn’t have known.” Nemuri, otherwise known as the hero Midnight, spoke quietly beside him. “No one could’ve.”

            “He did.” Toshinori continued to speak from within his ball of sorrow. “He begged me to take him out of the exercise. He begged me not to let him hurt anyone and I didn’t listen.” Bone-thin hands curled through his hair, almost pulling it tight against his skull. “I’m such an idiot.”

            “Beating yourself up won’t help anyone, Toshinori.” Nedzu scolded softly, “What’s important now is that we take action to make sure this never happens again.” The voice of the petite animal was calm and smooth, yet his flat ears betrayed his tense nature.

            It was almost laid out before them, the fork in the road they were being forced to take, but it was Present Mic, otherwise known as Hizashi Yamada, who first put it into words, the blonde leaned back with a slight squeak in his chair as he folded his arms. “There’s no point beating around the bush. Izuku Midoriya attacked a student in a combat exercise. He-” He paused as the words became hard to speak. “He claims to have lost control of his own quirk and as a result he-”

            “He almost killed Katsuki Bakugo.” Aizawa stepped in where Hizashi clearly didn’t want to tread. “If it hadn’t been for the actions of Hitoshi Shinsou, Midoriya would have used his quirk to murder his classmate.” Even he couldn’t stop himself from gulping for a second. “So, our choices are twofold. We play this down, ignore this slip up, keep him in the school and hope to God Bakugo’s mother doesn’t sue us for child endangerment. Or we take formal action, expel him and let him become someone else’s responsibility.”

            “From what I read of the interviews compiled by,” Nemuri’s voice took on a sudden sourness as she read the name, “Hisashi Hokori, it seemed as though Katsuki Bakugo was pushing Izuku into a fight he didn’t want to take part in, though Izuku himself insists it was his fault. If what you say is true, Toshinori, then the boy clearly had an idea of what his quirk could do if he lost control. That doesn’t sound like someone who would want to intentionally kill another.”

            “I agree.” Nedzu added with a nod. “However, I think we need to address the elephant in the room here.” He was answered by the teachers giving him slightly confused looks. Even Toshinori raised his head up. “The boy’s file indicates he has a serious mental illness. Schizophrenia.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t like doing this, but we can’t ignore the possibility that it played a major part in what happened.”

            “I don’t think that’s fair.” Toshinori was quick to jump in. “You can’t blame this on something he can’t control.”        

            “But he can control it.” Aizawa frowned in thought. “He takes medication. It’s possible that he’s not been telling us the full truth about how effective it is or even not taking it at all.”

            “But surely-”

            “A young man, desperate to become a hero despite clearly having a quirk that he finds difficult to use?” Aizawa’s eyes narrowed at Toshinori. “Don’t be naive. I saw what he did in the entrance exam and what he did on the obstacle course. Izuku Midoriya would break his own limbs if it meant pursuing his dream of becoming a hero. If he believed not taking his medication would help, he would not take his medication.”

            “If that’s the case, then it would ultimately be his fault and...” Nemuri almost mumbled out. She didn’t need to complete her sentence. They all knew what it meant.

            The room fell silent once again with only the claw-scratching sound of rain against the vast plate windows breaking the weight of the air.

            “Have any of us other than Hokori and myself talked to him since the incident?” Toshinori asked quietly.

            “No, they’ve both been sent home to recover.” Nemuri sighed, tired and worn, “Midoriya will be back in tomorrow, Bakugo will be back next Monday.”

            “Then I would like to talk to Midoriya personally.” Nedzu nodded solemnly. “While you all may be my council, I ultimately make the final decision.” He sighed, his own exhaustion, emotional and otherwise clear in his voice. “I hope you’re wrong, Aizawa.”

            Aizawa shrugged and his eyes went dark. “I won’t be.”

            It had been a strange thirty-six hours. Izuku hadn’t felt like he’d been in this kind of a daze since his middle school days when his medication actually worked. It felt as though it’d been forever ago, though in reality it had only been a bare handful of months.

            How the world could change in that time.

            Inko had heard everything, of course. One of the first things U.A. had done after he had gotten into the medical ward had been to call her. She’d lectured him for several hours, in between bouts of crying and hugging and worrying herself over his new ears and blackened fingernails. Eventually, he had managed to worm his way to bed without any dinner, his exhaustion and the overall low level of constant, aching pain forcing him into an early sleep.

            And yet the moment he woke the same thought greeted him as when he had put his head to the pillow. I almost killed Kaachan.

            It haunted him. A thought that almost drowned out the casual grumbles and utterances of the thing. He had fallen so far, so deep into the blasphemous pit of fire and shadow that claimed to be his quirk that he had almost done the unthinkable.

            And it wasn’t just his almost-murder which haunted him. It was the gravity of a mantra he himself had been trying to adopt. No evil quirks, only evil people.

            If that was true, what did that say about him now?

            He had been so eager to do it. To end his life. To burn Katsuki’s skin off his face and torch his skull black.

            He didn’t immediately get up the next day and his mother eventually had to drag her son out of his bed and practically force food into him. She had paced and worried and panicked, taking the entire day off work herself just to make sure Izuku was alright.

            By the time the next morning rolled around things hadn’t improved much. He got up on time however and ate his breakfast while he took his worthless medication and promised his mother he would be fine.

            He was still recovering from the wounds inflicted on him of course, heavy wounds, many which would leave scars of their own in time despite the miracle-working of Recovery Girl. But he had changed out his bandages and he felt well enough, and besides, it was nothing compared to what he had done to Katsuki.

            It was still wet outside. Not raining, that had finally quit sometime during the night, but the air was still damp, the world still a semi-hazy fog of rising morning condensation. The damp never bothered Izuku, his body heat never dropped below ‘constantly warm’ at any given time. Even now while he wore his rain coat over his uniform he felt a little hot.

            Yet he wouldn’t remove his jacket in class. His scars were embarrassing enough as it was. He almost thought to wear a hat of some kind to cover his new ears, or gloves for his hands, but he didn’t see the point. Eventually, he would have to remove them, and people would see. They might as well get a good idea of the monster he was slowly becoming now, so they’d be better prepared for when he finally became a villain.

            Izuku’s train took just under an hour in total, time in which he dived headlong into his podcasts and pre-made playlists while blocking out all other sound and interaction. In between the small bouts of silence between songs, however, the thing, as usual, gave its running commentary of the people around him. Whores, adulterers, rapists, thieves, sinners all. Everyone was guilty of something, at least according to the curse in his blood.

            It didn’t help that peak travel time also seemed to mean peak monster time. Something resembling a snake with one gigantic eye and a body made of rotting, molted skin slithered between the feet of his fellow passengers while outside a barely humanoid beast made of bleached skin flew on wings stitched together from screaming faces.

            Izuku moved mostly in a daze as he made his way towards the U.A. gates. His mind was a swirling mix of anxieties and fears and, of course, the ever-cruel voice of his inner monster. His grip on the straps of his backpack grew tighter as he wondered just when they’d spring their trap and pull him aside to hand him his expulsion papers.

            Would be now, in the morning before class started or later, at the end of the day?

            Maybe they would-

            “Izuku?”

            He broke out of his inner thoughts so swiftly that he almost fell over. Stumbling to a stop he blinked and looked around, only for his eyes to land on Uraraka.

            She was dressed in a thick white coat which almost hid her entire lower face, though as she looked to Izuku she zipped part of it down to reveal a smile that seemed drawn on by a young child.

            “H-Hey. I, erm, I was waiting for you.”

            Izuku felt the world slow down around him. He had been fearing this. The talk. The ‘we can’t be friends anymore you monstrous freak’ talk.

            “Oh, how wonderful.” His inner curse hissed through his ears, “More irritations.”

            Izuku, however, only licked dry lips and nodded to her. “Oh, that’s, erm, that’s nice of you.”

            “Yeah, well, I figured we should talk. You know. About the exercise.” Her smile became lob sided and she shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t want it hanging over us.”

            Izuku wasn’t sure how to respond so he simply gave her a curt nod. She began walking and he kept step with her, though it was a slow, dawdling walk towards their classroom. He refused to meet her eyes and instead he tormented his newly blackened fingernails by digging them into the straps of his backpack once more.

            “For someone looking to talk, she’s being very quiet.” The thing mused with a wolfish grin throughout his mind. “It’s better than her opening her mouth though.”

            Izuku refused to respond. The last time he’d listened to his monstrous curse he had almost burned Katsuki alive. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

            Uraraka took a deep breath and Izuku felt himself brace for the impact.

            “I’m sorry.”

            That was… not what he had been expecting.

            “I’m sorry I… I didn’t act.” Uraraka continued and Izuku looked at her finally, only to be surprised when he saw she wasn’t looking at him and, most likely, hadn’t been since they started walking. “When I saw you standing over Katsuki and how you looked so- so-”

            “Evil?” He braved the word with a small voice.

            “No!” She turned to him, her brown eyes watery though she had yet to shed any tears. “Izuku you’re not evil! Never say that!”

            The thing chuckled malevolently from within Izuku, but he bit his lip and ignored it as he replied, “You saw,” He paused in his walk, stopping just outside the doors to their class building. “You saw what I was like.”    

            “Yes. I did. And I’m sorry, I was too scared to do anything I just… I started screaming and crying and…” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “When I was in trouble, you rushed to save me. You didn’t even stop. You just… you jumped forward and blew up that robot even when it would have cost you your place in U.A.”

            Izuku frowned. Where was she going with this?

            “And when I saw you were in trouble I just… I froze. And I cried like a stupid child because there was so much fire and blood and…” She drifted off again into a shaking breath. It was only now that Izuku finally noticed how exhausted she looked, as if she had barely slept properly in the last few days.

            “I’m lucky Hitoshi was there. He was so brave.” She chuckled and wiped her eyes dry on the edge of her jacket. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I’ll never let it happen again, I promise.”

            “That’s it?” Izuku was almost shocked at his own tone and Uraraka’s eyes grew wide in response. “That’s it? You’re sorry? You don’t- I mean,” He ran a hand through his hair and looked around as if someone could be listening in, “You saw me! You saw what I was like! What I’d become! How can you- I should be apologizing, not you! I almost- I almost-” He didn’t want to speak it, but he forced the words from his mouth. “I almost killed Kaachan.” A slow ripple of warmth moved across his scars.

            “No, you didn’t.” Her response was so blunt that Izuku almost felt it as a blow. Her eyes were like steel. “You didn’t do anything, Izuku. Your quirk did.”

            Izuku froze, his mouth stupidly gaping even as he heard the blood-drenched echo of his curse. “She should not speak of us like this. She implies we are a weakness.”

            “Mr. Hokori told me what had happened. With your quirk being out of control because of how Katsuki was acting.” Her frown became deeper. “This wasn’t your fault. Yes, we were lucky that we got there in time, but it wasn’t your fault, Izuku. Seeing you like that was…” Now she paused, and he saw her bite her lip softly. “Scary. I’m not going to lie and say that it wasn’t. It was terrifying, actually.”

            “Good. That’s the point.”

            She took a sharp breath through her nose before continuing. “But, Izuku, you’re not evil, I know you’re not.” Her hands curled into tight fists. “You’re going to be a hero. And so am I. One bad day doesn’t change that.”

            Izuku didn’t know what to say. His heart was lurching in his chest and he felt jitters moving along his heat-warmed scars. Slowly however tears filled his vision and without shame he began sobbing. Uraraka grabbed him into a damp hug, squeezing him with more strength than he thought she possessed.

            “From now on, let’s just… let’s both do better, alright?”

            Izuku nodded as he cried quietly into her shoulder.

            Soon enough she let him go and her smile now was wider, more genuine. Her eyes were red, though not nearly as red as Izuku’s. No one had ever been so nice to him, and for a moment he wondered if maybe the rest of his day would go as well.

            That was until the thing slithered across his mind once more. “She’s pathetic. We need no one, we are shadow and flame.”

            No. No the thing was wrong. Uraraka wasn’t pathetic, she was amazing, and Izuku was completely sure on that. Even if he still held his doubts about himself, he was comforted by the thought that at least the people around him were good-hearted and kind. They were heroes. He was… trying to be a hero.

            But maybe he could get there with them, as long as he got to walk alongside them.

            They entered the building together and moved towards their shoe lockers where they could pack their wet coats or rain boots away for the day.

            “Erm, thank you for being so nice to me, Uraraka,” Izuku mumbled as they reached the lined benches. Uraraka was already pulling off the giant, white coat even as he spoke. “It’s nice to know at least one person still thinks good of me.” She shot him a raised eyebrow and Izuku replied with a twitch of a smile, his eyes still distant. “Everyone saw what I did to Kaachan, accident or not.” He looked down at the floor sadly. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the only person who’ll talk to me.”       

            Uraraka pulled off her coat and shoved it into her locker as Izuku removed his own coat. However, the moment the coat was off his back, she placed a hand onto his shoulder and gave him a half-smile. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, no one actually saw you fight Katsuki.”

            Izuku paused then frowned in confusion, turning to face her fully. “But- But everyone was in the control room, right? I mean how can-”

            “Tenya told me as you two were really starting to get into it, you did some kind of weird scream, and everything cut out.” She shrugged, again that half-smile tugged at her lip. “So only me, you, Katsuki and Hitoshi actually know what really happened. Oh, and I guess the teachers I suppose.”

            Something suddenly struck Izuku as odd. What had Hokori said to him? ‘I saw the video of the exercise.’ If the cameras had gone then-

            “So don’t worry about it!” Uraraka smiled. “Besides, people know it wasn’t on purpose. It was an accident.”

            Izuku’s nod seemed only half put together but still. He trusted Uraraka. If she said it was okay, it’d be okay. And yet the statement from the lawyer still played at the back of his thoughts. With a shake of his head, he decided to push it away and deal with it later.

            Just like all his other problems.

            “Oh, erm, and just one other thing.” Uraraka said suddenly, drawing Izuku’s eyes back to her.

            She suddenly put her fingers up to her ears and pointed outwards. “What’s with the elf ears?”

            Izuku’s red-faced embarrassment didn’t fade until they got to their homeroom door.

Chapter Text

            Hitoshi frowned at his phone as his thumb flicked through his morning twitter timeline. He was determined to keep his focus on tweets sent out by his favorite heroes and not on the inane chatter of his classmates.

            Around him his fellow students, very few of which had actually talked to him yet, chatted amongst themselves in the small friend-groups which were already starting to pop up. Hitoshi could have laughed. He had spent his entire childhood being on the outside of every clique in his class and by the looks of things it was going to happen all over again.

            That was alright. He didn’t need friends. He’d spent long enough without them anyway and besides, no one wanted to hang around the guy who could brainwash them at any moment. Not that he needed to be chatting with any of them to know who they were talking about.  

            Izuku Midoriya. They were talking about Izuku Midoriya. Or, to be more accurate, they were talking about what Izuku Midoriya had done to Katsuki Bakugo.

            It had started almost immediately after they’d gotten back to class that Tuesday. Uraraka had been swamped by the other girls and some of the other boys demanding to know just what she had seen. Tenya had stepped in an immediately shoed them off while Hitoshi had taken the far blunter approach of just flatly ignoring anyone who approached him.

            Of course, it hadn’t mattered anyway. The next day rolled around and Toru excitedly began telling everyone about what she had apparently heard from a pair of gossiping teachers about how Katsuki had been rushed to the medical ward to have facial surgery after Izuku almost beat him to death in an uncontrollable rage.  

            The rumor mill had sped up after that. Apparently, Izuku was related to villains, or was a villain, or was actually possessed by an evil spirit, or that his quirk was too destructive to use and he’d be expelled, or arrested, or taken to some secret government facility where they kept the worst of the worst.

            Hitoshi had sat back and listened as they had all come spilling out of the mouths of his classmates, and as he listened, he had felt his gut twist within him. This was how it always started. This was how it started with him, after all. The rumors, the lies, the whispering lips and sideways glances.

            Izuku would return and find himself the subject of isolation and conspiracy. Just like Hitoshi had done after his quirk had become public knowledge. Just like every kid out there who had a quirk that wasn’t deemed cool or flashy or good.

            He grinded his teeth, though he did not bare them openly, instead he simply clicked his phone off and hunched down onto his arms, even if it hurt to do so. He wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction of knowing he could hear them.

            Because he knew the truth of it. He had seen Izuku, up close, he had looked into his eyes. Eyes that had torn at something inside of Hitoshi which even now still ached. They’d been without empathy, pity, or remorse. Within them he had seen only boundless, bottomless hatred.

            And yet in same micro-second he had also seen something else.

            Izuku’s soul. Screaming through a blackened gaze. Screaming behind something else which had blanketed his thoughts and stolen his body from him. There was something inside of Izuku Midoriya, of that he was sure, though what it was he didn’t know.

            All Hitoshi knew was that he had thought his own quirk evil. He had learned, sharply, that for some it was far, far worse.

            He remembered talking with that lawyer, the man with the pitch-black eyes. His statement had been clear, quick, to the point, and yet the entire time he felt as though the man was simply humoring him. At one point the lawyer, called Hokori if he recalled correctly, had told Hitoshi it hadn’t been Izuku’s fault. That it was all down to his quirk going out of control.

            Hitoshi had simply nodded and said nothing. He would rather ask Izuku himself. It wasn’t in his nature to simply accept things at face value, not in events like this. 

            Izuku was supposed to be back in today and Hitoshi knew at some point he needed to pull him aside and talk to him. They had too, after all, too much was hanging in the air and Hitoshi was not the kind of person who let questions go without answers.

            The door opened and the class hushed suddenly. In stepped Izuku and right at his side was Uraraka.

            For a split second he could see it, almost superimposed over his own reality. The curling horns, the blasphemous pit-black eyes, the horrific rending claws and the coiling tail ending in a sharpened spear-tip. He could almost see the corrupt blue fire burning like a furnace along the teenager’s scars and the shadow-blackened skin that had coated his arms and reached up along his neck like an oil spill.

            But then it was gone. And only Izuku stood there, cowed and hunched and shockingly, sickly pale with his big, jade green eyes. He noticed suddenly how Izuku’s ears now seemed to point almost elf-like from the sides of his head, and did he paint his nails black?

            Izuku looked haunted, but he had always looked haunted. Hitoshi supposed he now knew why.

            There were a few cursorily ‘hellos’ from the rest of the class, Tenya, of course, stormed right over and greeted Izuku vigorously, which Hitoshi couldn’t help but smile at, though the smile itself was nothing but the tug at the corner of his lip.

            Tenya was one of the few in class who still defended Izuku and perhaps one of the reasons why the rumors hadn’t spilled out of their own classroom.
           
            Curiously, even as Tenya talked his ear off Hitoshi watched as Izuku’s eyes scanned the classroom and for a moment their gazes met.

            Hitoshi prided himself on being good at reading people. He always had been after all, it was almost a prerequisite for making his quirk work. Getting people to talk meant picking out the tiniest flaws and ticks and tells on their faces.

            Izuku was drowning in sorrow. It was written all over him like an open book and his eyes screamed out one, very loud, message.

            I’m sorry.

            Hitoshi looked away, unable to keep his gaze with the teen. He knew he was sorry, but that didn’t mean he was going get up and go give the green haired boy a giant hug and a big ol’ kiss on the forehead. It didn’t work like that, at least not for him it didn’t.

            The door opened again, and Aizawa-sensei entered the room, ordering everyone back to their seats and to be silent. His usual entrance. Izuku took his place in front of him and for a moment Hitoshi stared at the back of his head, wondering just what could possibly be running through his mind.

            The teenager moved a hand over his left forearm, feeling the touch of bandages hidden under his shirt. Part of his arm had been burned when he had pulled Izuku back and it still stung to the touch, though it was healing slowly. He’d have a scar there now, a bright spot against his usually tanned skin.

            A permanent reminder of the very first day he’d ever met Izuku Midoriya.

            The class announcements went on as usual, though there was a single, slight deviation. Towards the end of the announcements Aizawa-sensei turned his bloodshot eyes to Izuku and calmly told him that he would not be attending Basic Hero Training. Instead, he would be sent to the Principal’s office.

            This was coupled with a handful of gasps and a couple of ‘ooohs’ from the peanut gallery but Hitoshi kept silent. He wasn’t going to join in with the crowd, not when half of them didn’t even know the full truth of the matter.

            They hadn’t seen what he had seen within Izuku’s gaze. They hadn’t heard the fury of his voice, the thousands of screaming souls that seemed even now to be echoing at the very back of Hitoshi’s mind.

            They hadn’t seen the hell that existed inside Izuku Midoriya.

            The teenager seemed to shrink into his seat as Aizawa commanded the class to be silent. For a split-second Hitoshi almost reached out to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder. But he didn’t. He didn’t move because some part of him, inside, was still afraid of what he had seen within him.

            He was still scared of the monster he had seen wearing Izuku’s skin.

            His new burn scar ached suddenly, and he put his hand back across it again. His talk with Izuku could wait, for now, maybe for when school was over. Until then he needed to gather his thoughts and get a grip on himself.

            Izuku wasn’t evil, just like he was evil. There were no such things as evil quirks, only evil hearts, wasn’t that what Izuku told him All Might had said?

            Hitoshi wanted more than anything to believe him.

            Even when the opposing evidence was now scarred into his arm.

            Nedzu’s office was his pride and joy. Along his left wall were all the photos with famous heroes he had met over the years, as well as accolades and framed newspaper clippings of the times he had managed to get himself into the papers. Along his back wall were pictures and other favorite pieces of art that had all been made by students who had come to his school.

            But it was the space behind him which was truly eye-catching. A wall filled with degrees gathered from some of the most famous centers of teaching in the world. Harvard, Oxford, Zurich, Tsinghau, and Oasis. He had trophies from various competitions and letters from various governments thanking him for his assistance in their various issues.

            It was a monument to his intelligence, and he was proud of it. Nedzu knew he had very little else going for him, after all. He was an animal playing at being human, and yet, even amongst humans he was so often apart from them simply because he was so smart. The fact he was barely three-foot-five and covered in white fur was a secondary matter.

            But even so. For this meeting he would need to appear as human as he possibly could. It would be the only way to connect with the young Izuku Midoriya. And connection was indeed the key here, if no connection could be formed, then he feared for Izuku’s future in the walls of his school.

            He had set up his little ‘chit-chat’ area, as he called it, with utmost care to create a welcoming, comforting atmosphere. Two opposing couches, each modernist in design of course, with a coffee table to separate them. An open plate of biscuits and a kettle filled with nice hot water. To one side were two nice, clean cups and the other a selection of various teas.

            The only thing missing was a nice sunny sky. The far wall was nothing but several vast windows looking out over the world. The sky above was grey, heavy with the promise of rain and yet through tiny gaps in the angry cloud the sun could be seen through beams of golden light.

            Nedzu tried not to delve too often into idle pensiveness but he would allow himself a moment to consider it a good omen.

            There was a knocking at the door and Nedzu snapped his thoughts back to reality. “Come in!”

            The door creaked open and in poked a head made of wild, limp green hair and wide, exhausted looking eyes. Nedzu quietly noted the ears pointing from the sides of his hair and the black fingernails curling around the edges of his door. These were new developments since Tuesday’s events, something not even Chiyo could find an answer for.

            And yet it were his long, dark scars which drew his eye the most. Of course, he could hardly talk and for a moment it seemed as though his own scar, the ugly mark across his eye, itched and pulled tight.

            His heart went out to the poor boy. A quirk he clearly had trouble controlling trapped in a body that it damaged upon use.

            But he wasn’t the first child to come to them like this, and Nedzu was determined to not make the same mistakes he had before.

            The fact that Izuku was standing before him now, dressed in the proud uniform of a U.A. student spoke volumes about his own drive, his own will to succeed. Nedzu had to count on that as one of honesty and virtue, not one hiding a darker motive.

            “H-Hello, sir.” Izuku shuffled into the room, closing the door behind him.

            “Ah, young Midoriya,” A phrase he had decided to steal from Toshinori hoping the familiarity would set him at ease, “Please, come and sit down. As I’m sure you realize we have much to discuss.”

            The boy nodded without a sound and moved on into the room and, remarkably without making any eye contact, he came to sit on the couch across from the tiny Principal.

            His gaze was practically glued to the floor, his hands stuck on his lap and everything about his body was stiff and tense. Nedzu frowned, that wouldn’t do at all.

            “How are you feeling today?” As he talked he reached forward, picking up the kettle and started to pour himself a cup of hot tea. “Would you like a drink? A biscuit perhaps?”

            “No thank you, sir, and I feel fine, I guess.” The boy chewed the inside of his lip. “Sir, can I ask a question?”

            “Of course.” This was a little surprising, but Nedzu would let the teen lead for now if it set him at ease.

            “Why did you wait until the middle of the day to expel me?”

            Nedzu almost spilt his tea. He recovered quickly enough before the boy noticed of course but the question had hit him over the back of a head like a plank of wood. “My boy! Do you always jump to such grim conclusions?” He chuckled, though it ended in a sorrowful sigh. “I won’t lie to you, Izuku. Assaulting a fellow student is a serious issue and we must find the reasons why. Expulsion is not entirely out of the question.”

            He saw the boy tense up suddenly, which was remarkable considering how on edge he already appeared to be.

            “But I would rather not, if possible. Mr. Hokori’s report only compiled what happened, I wish to find out the reasoning as to why it happened, do you understand?”

            Izuku didn’t seem to relax any, though after a moment he nodded slowly.

            He sipped at his tea and let out a calm sigh before placing the cup into his lap, one furred finger still looped around the handle. “Now, I won’t make you re-live the events of the exercise itself, but I do want to ask you about your quirk.”

            The boy again nodded slowly and Nedzu was about to continue before he spotted something. It was tiny, a micro-second reaction but it was there. Something had crossed through the teen’s mind that he didn’t like, and his hands had twitched in his lap.

            Nedzu made no sign he’d seen it of course, but immediately he logged it within his extensive memory.

            “How long have you been using your quirk?”

            There was a tiny hesitation. “Since I was five, sir.”

            “No, that wasn’t my question,” Nedzu counted quickly, “I didn’t ask how long you’ve had your quirk, I asked how long have you been using your quirk.”

            Izuku seemed a little surprised at this but he soon answered, “… maybe a year at this point. Probably a little less, I think.”

            A year? Well, that explained an awful lot. “I see. Well, for someone who has only been using their quirk for a year, you’ve displayed a remarkable amount of power.” He saw the boy’s lip twitch at a smile. “But not a lot of control.” The smile vanished. “Don’t be too worried. You’ve a lot of catching up to do, but that is what U.A. was built for.”

            Izuku gulped again and his eyes fixed back onto his lap “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

            “However, after the events on Tuesday and after reviewing our own records about you, I’m afraid I have to admit that we’ve hit something of a roadblock.” Nedzu sighed softly and locked his gaze onto the boy. “We failed you, Izuku, and for that, I apologize. To continue forwards we must understand more about your quirk and how it interacts with your mind and body. Do you understand?”

            He wasn’t sure how he did it, but amazingly the boy seemed to pale even more. Again, Nedzu noticed that hair-trigger twitch of his fingers and the way that his lip seemed to crease for just a moment. He was biting it from the inside of his mouth.

            Pain. He was using pain to control something that he couldn’t see.

            “Please stop that.” Nedzu’s command jolted the teenager out of whatever self-destructive tendencies he had and brought his gaze back into focus. “Do not use self-harm to control your quirk. That is a destructive path and I will not allow you to walk down it.”

            Izuku’s eyes grew wide and watery before he suddenly blinked the tears away and nodded at the Principal. “I’m sorry, sir! I just- I-”

            “It’s alright, Izuku. This is why we’re talking.” Nedzu’s voice lowered once more. “Now, it’s clear that our information on your quirk is horribly out of date, as I believe our information on other factors of your life also need updating.”

            This was the hard part. He hated himself for having to approach this subject, but Aizawa’s point stood and it had to be addressed, they would be fools to ignore it.

            “Izuku. I know you suffer from schizophrenia brought on by traumatic quirk usage.” His eyes narrowed, though not in anger but only in curiosity. “You said you’ve only been using your quirk for a year or less. Be honest and tell me, are you still taking your medication?”

            The boy sniffled for a second and it seemed to Nedzu that he seemed to be listening to a conversation that only he could hear before he slowly, almost carefully, announced, “Yes, I’m still taking my medication. If you don’t believe me you can ask my mom, she makes sure I take it every morning.”

            Relief flooded through his heart and he leaned back into his seat, “Good, that’s good to hear, Izuku. I believe you, I don’t think you would lie to me about this.”

            The boy stayed silent and his hands cupped together tightly. “B-But, sir. I… even with my medication, when I use my power too much it still- I mean-” He took a shuddering breath. “If I push myself too far it starts to take control and- and I can’t stop it and-” Tears began to flow softly from his eyes. “It just takes over and it’s so hateful and when it does all it wants to do is-is hurt people.”

            Nedzu’s hand shook and he disguised it by raising his cup of tea to his lips. A quirk that made the user actually want to hurt others? He didn’t want to believe it possible, but he wasn’t willing to simply shut down Izuku’s thoughts on the matter. He wasn’t like All Might, he didn’t quite believe that evil was always a choice.

            He had seen evil, up close and personal. He knew it wasn’t a choice, but a gnawing sickness that when unleashed could enslave the human soul. Nedzu knew all too well that demons existed and that good intentions were Lucifer’s favorite tools.

            “I see. Well Izuku I-”

            “But I’m trying!” The boy’s sudden spark caused the animal to blink in shock. Izuku’s fingers were now digging deep into his legs and tears were forming along the edges of his eyes. “I’m trying so hard to not let it win!”

            Let it win? Such a strange choice of words. Nedzu placed his cup down slowly as Izuku cried out again.

            “I-I know what I can do is- is evil and I know that someone like me shouldn’t even be here, I’m- I’m not supposed to be a hero, not with what’s inside me, but I-I’ve never wanted to be anything else!” He sobbed and wiped tears from his eyes which were almost immediately replaced a second later.

            As he spoke his voice cracked and fell apart in his own mouth, his sorrow dragging his shoulders down from the sheer weight. “But I just- I’m trying, sir. I’m trying my hardest I know I let everyone down when I let it control me and- and I know All Might is disappointed in me but-”

            “No one is disappointed in you, young Midoriya.” Nedzu quickly cut him off. “No one. Not All Might, not myself, not Mr. Aizawa. No one is disappointed in you. We were unprepared, uninformed and unequipped to deal with your quirk.”

            Nedzu knew what his next sentence should be. He should tell the boy he was going to transfer him out of the school and away from the hero course, to somewhere where his quirk could be properly contained and controlled. Where he could live a normal life, where his dreams would be crushed but at least his soul could be saved.

            The same words he should have spoken years ago to another young man.

            But that young man hadn’t been crying his eyes out. His voice hadn’t broken, and his body hadn’t been on the edge of breaking apart from the storm of self-hatred that roared inside him. They had both needed help, but they had needed different kinds of help.

            He had taken such a risk before and the parallels even now were staggering. The burn scars, the troubled mind, the blue fire.

            But he had failed that student by ignoring the problem. Was he really so prepared to fail another?

            “I’m not going to expel you,” Nedzu announced with a strong tone, his chin raising just slightly as he spoke.

            Izuku sobbed but finally looked up once more. Nedzu expected him to smile, to cheer maybe, but instead he continued to look nervous, on edge, as if any moment now the axe would come swinging down on his neck.

            “But I’m not going to ignore this either.” He raised a hand to his chin for a moment. “We logically can’t move forward until we have a better understanding of your quirk. Next Monday I will arrange for you to have a quirk assessment test. At least then we’ll all have a much more solid understanding of your power. From there we’ll figure out our next steps together.”

            Izuku stiffened suddenly and his eyes went wide. “Are- Are you sure, sir? I mean I-”

            “Would you rather be suspended for two weeks?” Nedzu mused with a curled smile.

            “No! No-No, not at all I mean- Well, you have to go all out in those things, right? Well what if I,” He winced a little and shrugged, “You know?”

            “Lose control again? Don’t worry, I’ll have Mr. Aizawa there to erase your quirk the moment it starts getting out of hand.” He fixed Izuku with a raised eyebrow. “And I’m sure you’ve noticed but Mr. Aizawa’s limit on how far he’ll allow things to go is much, much shorter than All Might’s.”

            Izuku again chewed his lip, though this time it seemed to be in thought rather than some twisted self-punishment and Nedzu allowed it. The teenager nodded slowly to himself and took a deep breath through his nose before breathing back out one more, his shoulders finally relaxing and his body easing from his constant tension. “Alright. I’ll do my best, sir. And… thank you. For all of this. For giving me another chance. I know I don’t deserve it but-”

            “Of course you deserve it.” Nedzu frowned at him and leaned forward once more. “You need to believe in yourself, young Midoriya. You’re not evil, you’re not a villain and no matter how difficult your quirk is to control with time and training I believe you will learn to use it to become a great hero.”

            “I… I suppose.”

            “No. Don’t suppose.” He pointed a furred finger at him. “Do.” He paused for a second before raising his paw upwards, “‘As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can.’ Julius Caesar said that. Consider these words as you progress. Focus on what you can deal with for now, and that includes your own mental health.”

            Izuku finally smiled. It was a sketched smile, earnest but frail. He still had doubts of himself, that was clear, but there was a hope there. A hope which the young boy was clinging to with both hands. Nedzu trusted that it would be enough, at least for now.

            “I will, sir. I promise. And- and I swear, I won’t let it hurt anyone ever again.”

            “I’ll hold you to that promise.” Nedzu lightly warned as he wagged a warning pawed finger at Izuku, “Now, go back to your lessons. I’m sorry you’ve missed your second round of hero training, but I’m glad we had this talk. We can finally start you off on the right footing.”

            Izuku nodded and stood up, already towering over the tiny animal but the respect in his eyes was more than obvious. He bowed deeply to the Principal and walked back towards the door, exiting with several more ‘thank you’s’.

            Once he was gone Nedzu let out a long breath and fell back into the couch. He turned his head for a moment and noticed the weather hadn’t changed. It was still spotty, still flickering with rays of golden sun and frowns of grey cloud.

            Yes, he decided internally, it was indeed a fitting omen.

            Izuku was exhausted. When the final bell rang he felt as though he was fighting to keep his eyes open. As he’d walked the corridor towards the locker rooms his classmates had chattered excitedly around him and discussed amongst themselves the cool and exciting new combat exercises that Aizawa-sensei had ran them through.

            Bully for them. Izuku kept his bitterness locked up tight, however, he knew he would get his chance to get back into combat training again next week. But even so, the knowledge that he’d completely screwed up one lesson and been forced to miss his second wasn’t resting easy with him.

            Principal Nedzu had told him they could start on the right foot now. He only wished he had started off on the right foot the first time around.

             And even then, the knowledge that he’d technically lied to his face wasn’t sitting easy with him. Yes, he was taking his prescribed medication, but taking medication and having it actually be effective were two very different things. He chewed his lip as he gathered the things out of his locker and it was only when Uraraka tapped him on the shoulder did he snap out of his own thoughts.

            “Hey, earth to Izuku! Are you there?”

            “She should shut up, we’re trying to think.”

            Izuku practically chomped the inside of his cheek and ignored the flourish of boiling irritation that flowed along his scars as he turned to his friend. “Sorry! I was just… it’s been a long week, you know?”

            “Yeah, I know.” She sighed and flashed him a worn-out smile. There were still bags under her eyes, though they looked less heavy than before. “But hey, we can walk to the station together. Tenya’s waiting for us outside, we could even show you some of the moves we learned today! Well, maybe, I mean within reason,” She shrugged and rolled her eyes, “We can’t throw you onto the pavement or something but-”

            “Hey.”

            The young woman’s blabbering was cut silent. Hitoshi practically emerged out of the shadow to walk over to the two, his exhausted gaze stern and almost cold. He looked between them both before fixing his eyes on Izuku. “We should talk.”

            “O-oh.” Yeah, Izuku had been wondering when this would happen. Hitoshi had practically been avoiding him all day despite Izuku’s own attempts to try and grab his attention. Still, he’d had a busy day and a small part of him had hoped that maybe he could have the no doubt emotionally exhausting conversation with him tomorrow. “Erm, yeah, I guess we should.”

            “Talk about what? How he blocked our rightful vengeance?” His curse hissed like a rusting blade along his mind. “Coward.”

            Izuku ignored the comment and turned his eyes to Uraraka, who understandably looked worried. “It’s alright, go on ahead, I’ll catch up.” He even gave her a smile. It was one he didn’t feel of course, but it was a smile nonetheless.

            The girl hesitated for a moment longer before nodding. “Alright, I’ll try and make Tenya walk slow.” She shot Hitoshi one quick look, one of cautious concern, before turning and walking away.

            The locker room was empty now, other than the occasional student moving from one after-school activity to another.

            Hitoshi towered over Izuku, and Izuku felt every inch of the height the teenager had on him. It was amazing how intimidating Hitoshi was, even without his costume. He had an air of silent, dismissive command that bordered on cockiness. Though it wasn’t the same as Katsuki’s arrogant ego, it was more of a simple self-assuredness that he could stop anyone with a single question and no further effort.

            Yet if one looked closely, with careful eyes, one could see the heavy weight of his quirk behind his stance. It pulled the corners of his mouth into a stoic line, etched heavy bags under his eyes and gave him an aura of mature responsibility that a person his age shouldn’t possess.

            “So.” He scratched the back of his neck and Izuku suddenly realized it was a nervous habit. Was Hitoshi the one on guard here? “About Tuesday.”

            “Yeah. Tuesday.” Izuku’s head bow in shame. “I’m sorry. For everything. For what you saw. For what I did. For… for everything.”

            He could already feel tears rising to his eyes, but he blinked them away. He had sobbed enough for one day, at this rate he’d become dehydrated.

            “We shouldn’t apologize for what we are.”

            “What the fuck was that?” Hitoshi demanded suddenly, his voice causing Izuku to cower even more. “Because what I saw in there, that wasn’t you.”

            “I-erm.” Izuku’s hands reached the straps of his bag and began squeezing them tightly. “It was… my power.”

            “You had horns. And claws. And a fucking tail.” Hitoshi’s eyes narrowed at him. “I thought you said all you did was throw out blue fire.”

            “How dare he!” The thing hissed through Izuku’s mind like a furious beast, “We are far more than just appendages!”

            “Actually,” The smaller teen chuckled nervously, “I said it was more complex than that.”

            Hitoshi kept his narrowed gaze locked onto Izuku before finally, and almost sarcastically, saying, “Riiight. So, what happened then? Because there’s a lot of rumors going around that I’m trying hard to ignore.”

            “Oh, yeah, well.” Izuku took in a breath and forced himself to relax. It was alright, he had seen the curse inside him and all he wanted was an explanation. Izuku could just tell him what happened and then probably never talk to him ever again. “I, erm, when I push myself too hard one of two things tends to happen.”

            “Yeah, you said you pass out.”

            “Or, or,” Izuku raised a finger suddenly as he looked to Hitoshi properly, “Or I kind of… well, my power takes over and… it does that to me.”

            “It turns you into whatever I saw?” Hitoshi cocked a head slightly. “Because you looked like a demon. And you were acting like one too.”

            “Demon?!” The thing roared so loudly though Izuku’s mind that he actually winced, drawing out a slightly confused look from the taller teenager. “Demon?! What kind of accusation is that?! We are Izuku Midoriya! We are shadow and-”

            “Yeah, well,” Izuku sighed and looked away, “I’m going to get a quirk evaluation on Monday, so they can officially confirm how evil I am, I guess.”

            “Hey!” The tone brought Izuku’s gaze up one again and he was shocked to see just how pissed Hitoshi suddenly appeared to be. “We’re not evil, remember? We’re supposed to be showing these bastards we’re heroes.”

            Izuku almost stepped back in shock. The look across Hitoshi’s face was anger, fury almost, but it wasn’t directed at Izuku. It was… it was determination. It was indignation. It was irritation at his words, not at his actions.

            “You slipped up, you lost control, fine.” Hitoshi raised a hand and pointed an accusing finger at the smaller boy. “You should have told me the full truth before we went into that thing, I mean I thought you’d just burned people by accident or something. We could have formed a better plan, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t have left you alone with that psycho Katsuki.”

            Izuku’s mouth began to drop open and even the thing seemed shocked, moving its oil-slick heat through Izuku’s scars in an almost protective manner for lack of any other response.

            Hitoshi growled, and his hand dropped to his side before he shoved them both into his pockets and his eyes flicked to one side. “When I grabbed you and pulled you off him I looked into your eyes. Honestly,” He let out a shuddering breath and met Izuku’s gaze again, “It was like looking into hell. You were… barely there anymore, and I’ve not been able to sleep properly since. Well,” He smirked, “Less properly than usual.” His eyes narrowed again, “You want to know why Uraraka looked exhausted? Because I’m willing to bet she’s not slept either.”

            Izuku felt the weight of his guilt settle on his chest and he leaned back against the locker, his legs suddenly feeling weak despite the rippling strength of dark power moving through his body.

            “Seeing you like that…” He gulped and quickly licked his lips, “It was fucking terrifying.” There was a moment between them that stretched out, silent and heavy. “But you know the worst of it all is that I could have prevented it. We could have swapped places, or we could have fought Katsuki together.” He paused again, his voice dropped low. “I know what its like to think that you’re a monster, Izuku, but trying to hide it from everyone isn’t the solution. Please, don’t do that to any of us again, alright?”

            Izuku was crying. He wasn’t sure when he’d started crying again but he was crying. Hitoshi suddenly looked awkward and he turned his head from side to side. “Dude, you need to quit doing that.”

            “I’m sorry.” He choked as he pressed his arm against his eyes. “I’m so sorry, I just… I thought you hated me. I thought everyone hated me.”

            “No, I don’t hate you.” Hitoshi almost smirked. “I’m pissed off at you, and kind of scared if you get mad you’ll turn into the actual devil, but no I don’t hate you.”

            Izuku laughed. It was a sad, self-pitying, pathetic laugh but it was a laugh.

            “… We like him.” The thing’s words were, for once, not harsh or grating or vicious but smooth. Like razor wire across the meat of his brain. There was respect there, thin as it may have been. “He’s a pathetic filthy sinner, but we like him. The Child of Pharaohs will be a good ally.”

            That was… a surprise to say the least. It was easily the nicest thing it had ever said about anyone, with the exception of his mother, though he wasn’t sure vowing to ‘annihilate her enemies’ counted as being nice.

            For a moment, for a single brief moment, he considered telling Hitoshi about the voice in his head. The evil, awful, cruel voice that insulted everyone around him and cursed all living things under the sun.

            But he held off. He promised himself he would, one day, but not today. Today had been exhausting enough.

            He sniffled and again tried to dry his eyes on an already wet sleeve. “T-Thank you. And I’m sorry, for not saying anything before. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry.”

            “Apology accepted, monster-boy.” Hitoshi hesitated before turning suddenly, “I’ll cya tomorrow then, I guess.”

            “Hey, wait.” Izuku stepped forward and almost grabbed onto Hitoshi’s sleeve, though he held his hand back at the last moment. A sketched smile appeared on his face as he shrugged. “Do you get the train? Why don’t you walk to the station with us?”

            “With us?” Hitoshi raised an eyebrow.

            “Yeah, Tenya and Uraraka and me. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

            Hitoshi for a moment seemed to chew the answer over in his head before Izuku noticed the tiniest twitch of a smile at the corner of his lips. “Alright. Maybe you can explain to me why you have Legolas ears and emo nails.”

            Hitoshi turned and began walking, Izuku quickly followed into step with him, though it was a little straining thanks to Hitoshi’s long strides.

            However, as he walked he knew that not every hurdle set in front him by Tuesday’s events had been jumped. There was a large one coming up, one whom he had yet to even begin thinking of a true apology for.

            One named Katsuki Bakugo.

            But that was a tomorrow problem for tomorrow’s Izuku. For now, he just allowed himself the simple joy of walking to a train station with people he could still call his friends.

Chapter Text

            The next school day and the following weekend passed without event and, honestly, Izuku was eternally glad for it. Two days without any further drama or people being hurt or demonic monstrosities emerging from his skin. It was pretty peaceful, all be told.

            Before they had departed for the weekend Uraraka had insisted that they all share numbers and make a group chat. Izuku had been a little uncertain, but Tenya’s insistence that they could use it to keep each other updated on homework finally put the nail in the coffin of his protests.

            It was only when his phone had dinged on his train ride back that he realized it was the first time anyone, other than his mother, had ever texted him in his entire life. People looked at him strangely as he had wiped soft tears from his eyes, but he had ignored them.

            The thing, of course, disapproved, claiming that allies only extended as far as their use and nothing more, but Izuku had just turned up the volume on his podcast in response.

            Throughout the weekend he had happily texted back and forth on his group chat, at times worrying if he was talking too much or saying too little, but always glad that he now had just someone to talk to. His mother hovered and worried in her usual manner at his sudden obsession with his phone but once Izuku explained she seemed overjoyed that he was making friends.

            The thing continued its usual grumbling, but that was nothing new, even if he came dangerously close to giving a sharp, snappy reply at some points.

            All the while, however, he knew that this happy reprieve was only the calm before the storm. The storm that would hit on Monday called Katsuki Bakugo. When he thought about it, the thing tended to flush through his system and whisper promises of ‘finishing the job’. Izuku had to fight from digging his fingers into his arms and clawing at the still healing wounds to shut it up.

            Monday came too soon.

            The sky had long since cleared of the overhanging clouds and oppressive rain and sunshine once again reigned supreme. Summer was approaching, and the soft rains of spring were moving on. Even the monstrous hallucinations around Izuku seemed to change, becoming more colorful in their nature, the pale, corpse-skin colors of the winter changing to bright, almost fungal greens and earthy rotting browns.

            He had never quite managed to figure out that particular quirk of his own, barely held back madness.

            It seemed however that he wasn’t the only person concerned about the reaction of a certain blonde. When he stepped out of the train station that morning he saw his new collection of friends waiting for him.

            Their chatter was, as always it seemed, led by Uraraka who despite talking to them all weekend still seemed to have new stories to tell them. She was the only one of them living alone, her parents having rented out a small apartment for their daughter to live in while she attended U.A, so her complaints about her neighbors or about ‘single girl life’, as she coined it, seemed never-ending.

            Izuku nodded along but otherwise kept quiet. It was all a distraction, of course, something he could cling to in order to ignore the growing, twisting feeling in his gut and the way his fingers nervously dug into the straps of his backpack.

            The feeling only worsened as they got into the classroom which was slowly filling up as the morning continued. There was the usual amount of chatter fluttering about the classroom and Izuku felt, though he didn’t see, as though the occasional sideward glance was being shot his way. Everyone knew Katsuki was back today, and no doubt more than a few were eager to see just what that showdown would look like.

            Katsuki hadn’t arrived yet and Izuku felt the crushing weight of his anxiety build even higher. What was he going to do? Would he walk in and immediately attempt to attack him? Would he just ignore him like he had done that first morning? A small part of him even wanted to believe he would be scared, as the thing so hoped he would be.

            “Hey.” A hand landed on his shoulder and snapped the boy out of his thoughts. He turned his head to see Hitoshi standing beside him and Tenya beside him still. “Quit worrying, he’s not going to do anything.”

            “We’re right here.” Tenya added with a confident smile. “No matter the case.”

            Izuku could only nod at their confidence, his scars flushing warm and cool again with the anxious flow of his blasphemous flame.

            “Really, Izuku.” Uraraka’s voice drew his eyes to her and he realized, without even noticing, they had formed a sort of circle around him. Were they really going to be that protective of him? “It’ll be okay.”

            He didn’t believe them. Not in the slightest. “R-Right.”

            The door opened with a slam.

            Izuku looked up.

            The chatter died.

            Katsuki stood at the doorway dressed in his usual uncouth, almost delinquent manner, his hair the same violent spikes as, his eyes the same burning amber and his scowl fixed and almost printed upon his face. He had bandages still across his hands, one across his neck and probably more hidden under his uniform.

            Izuku, however, felt his heart drop into his shoes as he saw the scars. Long, thin, surgical, but noticeable nonetheless. Lines of pinkened skin running from the edge of his right lip down to his jaw before curving away up towards his ear. Another ran from the bridge of his nose down and across his left cheek. Another, smaller than the others, ran across the top of his left eye and down, cutting through his eyebrow which was now forever parted.

            And the thing laughed. It laughed uproariously from within his blood, echoing its cruel mirth through his ears and into every corner of his mind.

            His hand instinctively moved to his arm, nails already willing to stamp themselves through his skin. A single look from Katsuki stopped him and for a moment it was simply the two of them in the room.

            Izuku’s eyes were filled with nothing but horror, fear, sorrow, and self-hatred at the evidence of his grisly work.

            Katsuki’s, however, held nothing but a deep, almost thing-like loathing for Izuku the likes of which he had never seen before. There had always been anger, disgust, outright dislike, and dismissal. But this was deeper now, stronger, it bordered dangerously on the edge of flat-out hatred.

            The blonde began moving towards Izuku with his fists already curling and before Izuku could even snap out of his own drowning sense of grief his friends had moved. Tenya was there first, reaching Katsuki and grabbing him by the arm to haul him back as Hitoshi smashed an open palm to Katsuki’s chest.

            The blonde barely seemed to notice them as his face turned into a horrific, animalistic snarl and his screaming voice filled every space in the classroom.

            “YOU MONSTER! YOU DEMON! YOU FUCKING INHUMAN BASTARD I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

            Shouting and screaming broke out as explosions rocketed from Katsuki’s palms and suddenly there were two more people on Katsuki. Mashirao, the boy with the tail and short cut blonde hair had grabbed one of Katsuki’s arms, trying to direct the dangerous explosions away while one of the girls, Tsuyu, had wrapped her tongue around his other hand and was already pulling it back.

            Chairs clattered to the floor and Izuku felt the thing explode through his body, every scar instantly jumping to a boiling, burning heat as his corrupt flame leapt to defend him. He could feel the damn of blasphemous power already filling to the brim, begging him to just let go and unleash his fury upon his enemy.

            Izuku knew what he should do. He should do what he had always done when the thing felt as though it was about to wrest control from his own body. He should drop to the floor, curl into a ball and scream bloody murder as he turned the corruption inwards and burned his own skin along his painful scars.

            And so his legs were barely a second away from giving when a hand landed on his shoulder. He was pulled backwards, and an arm curled around him, joined by another. The sweet scent of summer fruits hit him, and his eyes turned to see nothing but a bob of brown hair and the cold, determined eyes of Uraraka staring straight at Katsuki.

            “Don’t take another fucking step, asshole!” Shinsou shouted at Katsuki’s face

            “You wanna go, brainwashing-boy?” Katsuki screamed back at him. “Fucking villain bastard I’ll make you pay too!”

            “Katsuki! Calm down!” Tenya shouted, his voice heavy and thick with authority. “It was an accident!”

            “FUCK YOU, FOUR-EYES!” Katsuki was struggling now, desperately trying to get out of the grasps of his classmates, though it seemed he had no more explosions left to give. “You weren’t there! You don’t know what fucking happened!”

            “I’m sorry!” Izuku’s voice cut through the air like a thrown spear and suddenly Katsuki stopped struggling, his eyes landing back onto the smaller teenager.

            Izuku was crying. Tears flowed freely from his eyes as he looked to Katsuki. He wanted to tear his own chest open and offer the blonde his head on a block. He wanted to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness. He wanted to do whatever he could to make things right. Even if that meant allowing Katsuki to give him matching scars he would allow it.

            But for right now all he could do was speak, because despite the fact that Uraraka’s presence with her kindness and empathy was helping him hold his curse at bay, he knew given only a second's weakness the thing would sink its claws into his heart and play him like a puppet.

            “Kaachan! Please! I’m so sorry I-”

            “WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” The voice thundered across the room and everyone, even Katsuki cowered at the fury contained within. All heads turned to the entrance where Aizawa stood, a figure clothed in black but his eyes burning bright.

            Everyone froze in their place with only the whimpering of Izuku breaking the silence.

            “Nothing.” Katsuki finally answered, shrugging off the others, though he made no further moves to attack anyone else, despite the fact his teeth were still gritted in his mouth and his fingers twitched eagerly at his sides.

            Tenya stepped forward, raising his arm suddenly in an almost robotic manner. “Sir I-”

            “Midoriya.” Aizawa’s cold authority stripped even Tenya’s confidence away in an instant. The teacher matched through the room, ignoring the cowering of the other teenagers to stop in front of the still softly crying boy. “What happened.”

            It wasn’t a question, it was a demand.

            “Tell him. Tell him how we were just about to remove the rest of the Brat’s face.”

            “… n-nothing, sir.” His eyes flickered to Katsuki then back to Aizawa. He sniffled deeply, wiping his eyes as Uraraka took her arms from him and his dark power faded back to the usual hum of flowing warmth that moved through his scars. “Nothing happened.”

            Aizawa’s eyes narrowed almost threateningly at Izuku before looking to the others with an equal amount of anger. Each avoided his gaze and shied away. He growled deeply for a moment before making whatever decision he had been weighing in his mind. “Go take your seats, all of you, before I give everyone in the classroom a semester’s worth of detention.”

            Izuku was all too eager to get to his chair, though his heart skipped a beat when he saw Katsuki march towards him.

            “Bakugo.” Aizawa’s voice stopped the blonde in his tracks. “You’re switching seats with Ojiro, no complaints.”

            The blonde paused for a moment, his face twisting in anger and Izuku honestly thought that, for a second, he might actually swing at his teacher. However, the teenager relented, giving Izuku one last burning look. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll be glad to get away from that fucking demon freak.”

            He stormed over to his new desk and sat down, hunching over and not even giving Izuku a single backward glance.

            Izuku slumped into his seat, already feeling utterly and emotionally exhausted. Just as the bell was about to ring, however, the door opened one last time and there stood Kirishima, panting and running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, Aizawa-sensei!” He cried out as he smiled nervously, “The train was running late and-”

            He paused, his eyes scanning the room, landing on the furious looking teacher, the utterly bitter looking Katsuki and to the hollowed-out looking Izuku. “… did I miss something?”

            Aizawa was still angry. Izuku could tell. He made no sign of it, of course, his usual hunched, hand-in-pockets stance betrayed practically no emotion whatsoever, but Izuku could feel the cold irritation coming from the man as he walked just slightly behind him down U.A.’s long corridors.

            He had to say something, right? As they approached a pair of wide, double doors Izuku paused. “Sir, about this morning-”

            “Nothing happened.” Aizawa cut him off without even looking at him. “So, there’s nothing to talk about. You make your bed and you lay in it, Midoriya.”

            Oh. Well, he supposed that was that, then.

            However, Aizawa paused before he opened the double doors to the gym room and turned his dark eyes to the boy. “Whatever happened in the exercise with Bakugo, happened. Don’t dwell on it. Learn from it and move forward.”

            Izuku blinked at this and then nodded. “Yes, sir.”

            Aizawa seemed to pause a moment longer and nodded back. “Good.”

            He pushed the doors opened and walked on into the large, open sports hall. The equipment had all been pushed to the sides and the floor was left wide open. The floor itself was patterned like a basketball court though at one end of the hall were a number of training mats.

            His gaze was immediately caught by a man on the far end. He was heavy set and out of shape but what were most striking were his giant, owl-like eyes and the odd feathers that were set about the sides of his face. He blinked in a rather bird-like manner and moved his head like one in sudden, smooth movement ending with a sharp stop.

            He was wearing a white coat, under that a brown and boring looking suit, and there was a camera set up to one side, while in his hand he held a tablet. Aizawa simply nodded to him, and he nodded back in greeting. He then turned to his tablet and tapped a few buttons and, suddenly, the floor under him flickered and changed.

            No longer a basketball court, the pattern shifted to a simple set of circles, each labeled with a distance in meters. Izuku blinked in surprise and smiled. “That’s so cool.”

            “Programmable high-density carbon-glass flooring,” Aizawa explained in a bored tone, “Every gym and sporting hall in the school has them.”

            U.A. was super cool. 

            “Izuku,” The boy’s gaze was drawn back to his teacher once again. Aizawa motioned lazily over to the other man, “This is Doctor Fukuro, he’ll be monitoring your quirk while you use it and giving it a proper classification.”

            “Good afternoon, young man.” The doctor gave him a respectful nod. “I’ve heard you have quite the quirk. I’ll be interested to see exactly how it works.”

            Izuku felt nervous and his scars spiked with a thousand crawling pinpricks of rippling heat. “Y-Yeah.”

            “Alright, let’s get this started.” Aizawa practically yawned the statement out. “Go stand in the center circle.”

            Izuku nodded and did as he was told, suddenly feeling as though he was some dog being put on show. He had been told to dress in his gym clothes and as such could only nervously fiddle with the end of his t-shirt as he wondered exactly what was about to happen. Would they film the whole thing? He was pretty sure the camera would break so what if they had to film him again?

            “This is stupid.” His curse hissed through his ears like the drawing of a rusting sword. “What are they going to do? Gawk at us? The Son of David should treat us with more respect.”

            Izuku ground his teeth and steeled himself. Now was not the time to be discussing things with his own, mouthy power.

            “First things first,” Doctor Fukuro announced loudly so his voice carried across the wide-open hall, “From what I hear your quirk is, for lack of a better term, somewhat unique, therefore it needs a unique classification. In short, young man, what’s your quirk’s name?”

            Izuku froze. A name? He’d only ever called it the thing and that was it. He’d never thought to go any further than that because it’d never deserved to be called anything else.

            “We are Izuku Midoriya.” The thing hissed irritated through his mind. “We have no other name.”

            “I… I don’t know.” Izuku called back, still fiddling with his t-shirt. “I never- I mean-”

            “If it doesn’t have a name, please give it one so we may continue.” The doctor called back suddenly. “Whatever you think works best. If you feel you need to change it we can later, though it will require more paperwork so try and pick one that you think will last.”

            Izuku could see Aizawa’s eyes fixed tightly on him, watching him like a hawk would watch a nervous mouse. He gulped suddenly and licked dry lips. “Well- I- Erm…” He thought for a small moment before announcing. “What about ‘Living Nightmare?’”

            Doctor Fukuro tapped something into his tablet and then shook his head. “Sorry, it’s already taken by some pro called Starburst.”

            “Never heard of them.” Aizawa curtly announced as he folded his arms. “But it doesn’t matter, think again, Midoriya.”

            Izuku nodded and looked down in thought, putting a finger to his lip and folding an arm across his chest.

            “We are Izuku Midoriya.” The thing continued to insist loudly through his mind. “We are shadow and fire! Wrath and terror incarnate! We are the nemesis of sinful! All should fear us and cower before our power!”

            Izuku blinked suddenly and looked up from his shoe-gazing thought process. “What about ‘Nemesis’?”

            It fit, after all. His curse was his nemesis, the arch-enemy, the eternal foe which he constantly had to fight.

            The doctor tapped a few times and the nodded. “Alright. It’s a bit grim for my tastes but it’s free.”

            “Nemesis.” His dark power hissed softly through his mind like the curling, tempting snake it was, “… well, we suppose it beats being called ‘thing’ all the time. Fine, if we must adopt this title so be it, but we are still Izuku Midoriya in all things.”

            “Nemesis,” Izuku repeated again, finding the name dark and yet somehow… good on his tongue. It felt good to give a name to something which had been tormenting him almost all his life. For the first time he suddenly felt as though by naming his problem, he was confronting it directly. For the first time, he felt as though he was throwing the veil of shadow from his curse and exposing it to the light.

            Aizawa continued to look at him with the same, blank expression. Izuku didn’t wilt under his gaze, nor did he stand against it, however. It was a gaze that was reading him constantly, like a man scanning for any sign of weakness in an opponent. It felt odd to be under such a gaze, and yet Izuku knew exactly why he seemed that way.

            Nemesis was dangerous. Everyone in the room knew that. That’s why they were here after all.

            “Alright, well, now that’s sorted,” The doctor looked back up and blinked his giant, owl-like eyes, “Tell me, how do you activate it?”

            Izuku gulped. “Well, it’s… erm-”

            “We are as breathing, as moving, as killing. We are as natural to our body as any motion we make.”

            “Fear. Horror, anything negative, really.” Izuku announced in a loud tone that he really wished he didn’t have to use. He raised a hand and his eyes ran along his scarred flesh. “It works best on hatred though.”

            “So, it’s emotionally responsive?” Doctor Fukuro nodded. “Not unusual. I suppose it also reacts to other emotions?”

            Izuku had to blink in surprise. “Well, I, erm, I’ve never… tested that out, I guess?”

            The doctor raised a thick eyebrow at this and then looked to Aizawa, who simply shook his head at him before turning back to Izuku. “I’ll have to add that to my lesson plan.”

            The teenager had the distinct impression that was not meant as a positive.

            “You keep refereeing to it as an ‘it’, as if it’s something apart from you.” The doctor’s head cocked just slightly and again Izuku was slightly unnerved by the unblinking, staring eyes. “Is there a reason for that?”

            “Well, I, erm…” He gulped again, and his limbs shook just a little from the sudden wave of anxiety that washed through him. How was he supposed to tell them his power constantly talked to him and urged him to do horrific, horrible things to people? “It… feels like a separate entity to me, I guess. I mean, when it takes control I don’t feel like I’m me at all.”

            “Of course, we feel like us. We are one, we are Izuku Midoriya.”

            “Interesting.” The doctor mumbled before announcing loudly. “Alright, well, let’s see it.”

            “See what?”

            “Your quirk.” The doctor blinked his giant eyes at the boy. “Let’s see it. In full, please.”

            “… what, right now?” Izuku looked around nervously. “Right here?”

            Aizawa groaned so loudly that Izuku was practically knocked over by the wave of pure irritation. “Midoriya. How many times must I tell you? If I feel like you’re losing control, I will stop you.” He rubbed his eyes and then glared back at the boy. “Do you understand?”

            Izuku nodded cautiously, even as Nemesis began moving through his body once again. Oil-thick ripples of horrific power washing like waves along his scars. He had to trust in his teachers, especially now that they actually knew what they were about to deal with.

            Izuku ran through two, quick tests. The first in which he demonstrated the ability to fire a blue flame out of his palm. Though ‘fire’ was putting it loosely as it was more like a slightly focused detonation than anything else. The other was to channel his power through his legs and launch himself upwards, which also caused him to land heavily onto the pre-prepared training mats and he ended up pausing to rub his hip for several moments, despite the cushioned fall.

            Each use of his quirk had sent his head into a dizzy spell of lights and sounds and colors, and each time he’d needed a minute or so to catch his breath and not hurl into his own mouth. Helpfully, Aizawa provided a bottle of water and the boy had gladly gulped it down. He’d had time to do so after the flame test, since his teacher had been forced to go around with a fire extinguisher and put on the pockets of blue flame which refused to dissipate.

            Once he had regained his bearings Izuku was again ordered to the center of the circles where he stood, his stomach twisting suddenly as he began to suspect what they were about to ask of him. 

            “Alright, Izuku, now this next one should be simple, since you already used it before,” The doctor tapped a few things on his tablet, “The footage of you in the entrance exam has you summoning wings. Can you do that now for us?”

            Izuku bit his lip softly. “Well… I don’t know how, sir.”

            Aizawa’s eyes oddly narrowed at this, even as the doctor spoke first. “What do you mean?”

            “In that case I, erm, I guess I just let go and moved on instinct?” It sounded stupid even to him, but he simply remembered being hyper-focused on his one goal of saving Uraraka’s life. The moment he’d blown the robot apart he had instantly curled his power inwards, grabbing back whatever control he had and pouring it in onto his own body to stop it from going any further.

            In hindsight, doing that while fifteen stories in the air was probably not a smart move.

            “I see. Well, would you say that ‘letting go’ as you put it caused such a transformation?”

            Izuku could already see where this road was going. “I, erm, well- yes, I suppose.”

            “Could you do that for us now then?”

            There it was. The question he’d been dreading since he had stepped into the room. His blood ran cold and he felt his entire body tense up in anxiety. Nemesis moved through his system like an uncoiling snake, eager to once again show itself to the world. Black power coursed softly along his scars, tempting his heart with the promise of unrivaled strength.

            “… I-” He went to protest, naturally, but his eyes landed on Aizawa whose cold gaze was suddenly not so cold. There was something else there too. A kindness, somehow. He nodded once slowly at Izuku, the single gesture speaking volumes.

            Izuku bit the inside of his lip again and then slowly nodded not to either adult but rather to himself. He had no choice in the matter, he had to do this. And he had to believe it would be okay.

            “Okay. I- Just.” He took a long, deep breath and within him, he could already feel his tight grip on the hold that kept his profane power at bay loosen. “Please, don’t let me hurt you.”

            It was an odd statement for a boy of barely fifteen to make. An odd statement that only Aizawa seemed to fully comprehend as already his hands were out of his pockets and reaching for the scarf around his neck. Doctor Fukuro simply looked amused at the very thought.

            Then Izuku let go.

            And the doctor’s eyes became wide with horror.

            Instantly Izuku could feel it flooding into him, every limb, every drop of blood, every atom of his being was swiftly drowned with the oil-thick waves of hateful, hell-born strength. And he fell as he always fell. First his limbs, then his heart, then his mind.

            His body began to change.

            He could feel his muscles growing and bulging with unnatural power as he delved deeper and deeper into the well of corruption within him, the inner hellfire inferno of his quirk burning through his scars and transforming them from purple-black to a cremation-hot blue. His bones cracked and broke and reforged within his own body, his skin became blotted then flooded and then drowned in the oil-black shadow that existed within him. He could feel his muscles split and rip open as new appendances emerged from his back, as new claws took the place of fingers, as horns began emerging from his forehead and a tail, long and sharp, began pushing its way out from the base of his spine.

            Unlike his fight with Katsuki, however, the flood of power simply didn’t stop. It took him. All of him.

            Izuku was drowning with himself as his soul became consumed with unstoppable, primal, unholy hatred. 

            He roared with the voice of a thousand screaming, tormented souls, his mouth glowing bright from the profane firestorm within him. The lights above him flickered and died and the windows on the far end of the room shattered. The floor burned black from the pure fire-heat radiating from him.

            Eyes as black and dark as the infernal abyss itself turned to focus on the two men before him and his mouth, now filled with shark-like teeth, bellowed, “FILTHY SINNERS.”

            He took one monstrous step towards them on feet no longer human.

            And then, suddenly, everything went quiet.

            In the blink of an eye, it felt as though he had been grabbed and torn from his own body. The world was grey, swimming, static and haze and fog. He wasn’t breathing properly, and his heartbeat had slowed to a crawl and the strength that only moments ago had been flooding his system like a dam unleashed was gone.

            No, not gone, but… distant, as if he could feel only the softest strings of that terrible, blasphemous power were still connected to his limbs.

            He was falling but he didn’t feel like he was falling. The world simply spun on its axis and he was suddenly flat on the ground surrounded by grey, dissipating ash. His head smashed onto the panel floor without a single jolt of pain. Everything was cold. Not ice cold, not freezing, but grave cold, corpse cold.

            He was dying.

            From very far away he could hear someone calling his name. From the grayscale fog came a figure, hazy and shimmering. A figure clad in black but somehow shining bright, like a lighthouse in an ocean hurricane.

            “Izu… Mi… Up… Me…”

            “A-Aizawa-s-sen-” There was no air left in his lungs and even as he tried to breathe he no longer had the strength to do so. He didn’t speak, only his lips moved in a pathetic attempt to communicate a single word, help.

            His vision grew ever darker, gloom creeping and closing in from all sides just as the figure, lit with an almost holy light seemed to be only a few steps from him.

            Then the world smashed into him with the force of a detonating warhead.

            And Izuku screamed.

            “HOW DARE HE!” Blue fire exploded from him, rushing and flowing from his scars like a furnace, ash coated him as his limbs bulged with black power before suddenly evaporating again. Pain and fire consumed him utterly, his vision swimming with melding colors and every sound exploding through his brain.

            Every touch and smell made him want to empty his insides and tear the flesh from his bones. The air shimmered around him as waves of pulsing heat swam from his curled, broken form.

            “HOW DARE HE SPLIT US! HOW DARE HE DEVIDE OUR SOUL!” His voice was his, and not his, and a thousand screaming voices and a thousand dying cries and a thousand whispering ghosts melding with his own like an unholy song.

            From somewhere amongst the cacophony of sensation he could hear Aizawa’s voice calling to him, almost distant and yet simultaneously right into his ears like a screaming amp. “Izuku Midoriya! Calm down, keep still, breathe. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

            “DON’T TOUCH ME, SON OF DAVID,” Izuku’s head was forced up, spinning and turning and somehow focusing on Aizawa, who stood with his hand clutching his scarf, his expression one of stone and concern and strength all at once.

            From the windows of his eyes, Izuku screamed at his teacher begging through falling tears, ‘Please, please, oh God please help me.’

            A shaking, burning, painful hand pointed suddenly at the man with a finger coated at once in shadow and pale skin, each seemingly fighting and battling for domination over the boy, “YOU WILL PA-”

            Aizawa moved like a bolt of lightning. His scarf flared and caught Izuku in a full body grip so tight that the boy could no longer move. The teenager felt Nemesis thrashing wildly against the hold but it was exhausted as he was exhausted, no longer able to summon the barest strength able to fight back.

            It faded, hissing curses and threats as it did so, leaving only a shattered, sobbing young man.

            “Izuku, can you hear me?” Aizawa’s voice drifted to him in a tone that was cautious, caring, stern and strong. It was the voice of a man who saw not a monster but a crying child and the torment hiding just under his pale skin. And yet there was something deeper to it. Something that Izuku had neither the focus nor the strength to untangle at that moment.

            Izuku nodded as he wept open tears. His entire body ached from the pain of using his blasphemous power at full, and yet even now he felt as though he could have gone further, he could have fallen deeper into the hell within him.

            He tried to speak but his throat felt raw and burned and he could only hoarsely croak out, “I’m… sorry…”

            “It’s alright.” Aizawa reached forward as the scarf unraveled from the boy and he placed a calming hand onto Izuku’s shoulder, even as the teen tried to curl himself into a ball, shaking almost uncontrollably from the panic attack threatening to set in. “You’re safe. Let me help you up.”

            He took the boy softly under his arm and began lifting him gingerly into a sitting position as Izuku unceremoniously began spitting out the blood from his mouth onto the floor beside him. He had just seen what Nemesis looked like unleashed, after all, so he doubted Aizawa would punish him for spitting.

            “D-Demon!” Izuku almost jumped, he had completely forgotten the doctor was even there. Exhausted eyes looked up to see that at some point the camera had fallen over and shattered onto the floor. The owl-like man was pointing an accusing finger at the boy and his entire body was shaking.

            “Demon!”

            “Doctor Fukuro-”

            “That’s not a quirk!” The doctor was edging around the outermost circle now, trying to make his way towards the door. “That thing- that thing is evil!”

            “Doctor,” Aizawa’s voice grew so cold that the room practically took on a chill, “I think it’s time you left.”

            “Gladly!” The doctor turned and ran out of the room without even glancing back.

            Izuku hunched over, practically sinking into the floor as the weight of exhaustion and depression hit him in equal measures. Evil. A doctor, a certified quirk doctor had just called him evil.

            There it was. In black and white. He had always suspected so but to be straight out told so was a completely different matter. It was at once horribly crushing and almost laughably comforting. All his worse fears were true. He was evil, see, it said so right there on his quirk assessment.

            Name, Izuku Midoriya. Quirk, one-hundred-percent deep fried evil.

            “Izuku.” Aizawa’s voice reached into Izuku’s downward spiral and virtually hauled him out of it by force. It was the anchor he needed to stop the storm of his panic attack from utterly disabling him. “Listen to me, focus on my voice, breath through your mouth and out through your nose.”

            Whether he was doing it consciously or not Izuku obeyed and soon found his shaking fading, though his body continued to ache, his scars continued to feel over-heated and the back of his throat continued to feel red raw. He gulped slowly as he fought to keep himself from throwing up his own lunch.

            “Come on, I’m taking you to the old lady.” Before Izuku could protest he was lifted up to his feet. His legs were shaking but he somehow found the inner strength to stand and, one step at a time, he began walking alongside his teacher towards the sports hall doors.

            “W-What happened?” Izuku’s head was still spinning, the gray static wasteland he had seen seemed to stick in eyes like dirt and he blinked several times to try and get it out.

            “I removed your quirk,” Aizawa replied tone so blunt it practically held a weight all of its own, “You reacted badly.”

            All Izuku could do was reply with a very small, “Oh.”

            There was more to it and he knew it. Izuku couldn’t hear it in Aizawa’s tone, it clung his teacher’s aura like a cursed phantom. Something within Izuku whispered softly to him that this wasn’t the first time this had happened. This was no time to press the issue, however, not when he could barely walk in a straight line.

            “And Izuku,” The teenager lifted his watery eyes up to his sensei. Aizawa didn’t look at him, his tired gaze focused straight ahead. His words were constructed of stone, a fortress to hide whatever memory it was that Aizawa was playing behind his eyes, “Don’t worry about the Doctor. You did well today. Take this as another lesson and move forward.”

            Izuku looked down, a mix of self-hatred and bitterness swimming in his eyes. Was he ever going to get just a normal week in this place? He was so sick of the bullshit in dealing with his curse. But he supposed, in a way, it was helpful. One way or another he was discovering the powers, limits and nature of his quirk. This was another lesson. Another harsh, painful lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.

            His path was never going to be easy, he knew that. He would have to work harder than everyone else just to keep on the side of the good guys. But if this was what it took, he could do it.

            He nodded sagely, not meeting his teacher’s eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Chapter Text

            Coffee was the greatest gift that God had ever bestowed upon the world. Inko had decided that a long time ago. Coffee had helped her in so many ways, even if she knew it was better that she drank more healthy teas or even just water. She had read plenty of blogs and listened to enough youtube videos telling her how to lose weight to understand that cutting out caffeine should be high on her list.

            But Inko had never quite gotten around to doing any of that. She knew it was bad for her, but she continued to do it anyway.

            Story of her life.

            She stirred the coffee without even thinking about her action. Her mind was a thousand miles away. It was on U.A., it was on her son, it was on what had happened last Tuesday.

            Yes, she was fully aware of what his quirk could do. She had been told about the incident in full over the phone after all, not to mention she had seen it with her own eyes, on and off throughout the years.

            Blue fire. Claws. Descriptions of unheard of violence towards the young Bakugo boy. She was sure she would never be able to look his mother in the eye ever again.

            But it hadn’t been Izuku’s fault, not in how his quirk behaved anyway. He shouldn’t have even been placed in that situation in the first place. Not on his first training lesson, not before they had any idea of what they were dealing with.

            And now she had to sit and wait on the results of this quirk evaluation. How many tests and trials would her son have to suffer through before he found his peace? But this was U.A., surely they would have only the best doctors on staff, right?

            Oh God, what if they wanted to put him back into quirk counseling? She knew that her son had not exactly had the best time with quirk counseling back in middle school. She had personally blamed it for a number of things concerning her boy, including the fact that he had spent years mishandling his quirk.

            Her heart fluttered with anxiety. Her poor son, her poor little angel.

            Inko’s phone buzzed suddenly in her pocket and, almost lazily, she took out it out to see who was messaging her.

            ‘You can’t keep ignoring me, Inko. We need to talk.’

            Rage. Rage hot and hungry overtook her and her mouth curled into a scowl.

            Him.

            She almost ignored the text entirely. The last thing she ever needed was to communicate with that man ever again.

            But her anger got the better of her.

            She opened her phone and before she could think about her actions she was already sending a new message back. ‘I can ignore you forever. Stay out of our lives.’

            The next message arrived only seconds later. ‘Is that an order?’

            Her thumbs paused as a cold chill ran down her spine. Her jaw tightened, and she found herself breathing harder than before. She wanted to tell him so. To rid them of his existence forever. To guarantee all ties were cut. But she knew it was too late that any of that.

            Not now, not when his quirk was finally being put to use.

            Another message arrived. ‘I’ll take that as a no.’ Another second passed. ‘Eventually we’re going to have to meet. I would rather it be on our own terms. Our son cannot walk this path without us both at his side.’

            ‘He’s not going to be like you. He’s a good boy.’ Inko typed back finally, tears forming along the edges of her eyes. ‘He doesn’t need your influence.’

            ‘Think about what’s best for Izuku.’ The answer popped back in a second.

            ‘I’m not going to hand my son over to Satan.’

            She smirked through her watery eyes as his answer took longer than before. She knew he hated being called that. Finally, however, his reply arrived. One that she was sure he’d edited several times over. ‘Please. Think about it. For him. We can’t hide the truth from him forever.’

            Inko typed out several answers to that. The first one was ‘fuck you’, followed by ‘fuck you a thousand times you goddamned monster’, followed by ‘I hate you’ before she finally settled on what she knew her heart was telling her. Despite the anger, the rage, the downright hate she felt for the man on the other end of their conversation she knew that things were getting to a head.

            Izuku was hurting people. Even if he didn’t mean to it had happened. It had happened, and she knew it could have been prevented. And while she hoped against hope it would never happen again she knew, in her heart, that it was only a matter of time.

            It was practically in his blood to do so, after all.

            But perhaps it could be avoided, perhaps her son could be lifted from the shadows she knew claimed him as their own.

            ‘I’ll consider it.’ She typed back softly, tears falling down her face. ‘For him.’

            “Ugh, look at them.” Uraraka mused as they made their way towards the food court. Her gaze lingered out of the window, her eyes resting on the noticeable crowd of people hanging around the front entrance to the school. A front entrance which had been closed iron-tight for several hours now. “I mean I think being on T.V. is cool and all but not when I’m trying to get to class in the morning.”

            “I tried to answer their questions and they turned the camera off.” Tenya announced as he pushed his glasses up his nose, his voice equally as dismissive. “They’re nothing but the worst sort of paparazzi.”

            “Whatever, it doesn’t matter to me.” Hitoshi shoved his hands into his pockets and scowled forwards. “As long as they don’t bother us in school what harm can they do? All they want is All Might anyway.”

            Izuku said nothing. He had been accosted by the reporters on his way into class that day but had managed to give them the slip before Nemesis had lost its temper with them all. It hadn’t been pleasant to shove down the constant screams of demonic hell beast whilst trying to shield his face from the prodding of microphones.

            Not that any of them were there to talk about the students of course. It was All Might they wanted. He knew that any scoop or gossip they could get on the Number One hero would be a huge boost to whatever click bait article or spyware drowned video blog they could put up about him.

            It was a minor distraction at best. Izuku’s mind was still hanging onto the memory of yesterday. The quirk evaluation, the feeling of having Nemesis claim his body and mind and dig its claws deep into his very soul… only to suddenly have it all torn from him. The world of ash and fog still haunted Izuku’s thoughts.

            What was that? He had seen Aizawa use his quirk on other people in class before, usually to make a point or to stop someone from being a distraction. The worst that had happened was they’d break out into a coughing fit, Todoroki especially had seemed pretty allergic to whatever it was that Aizawa could do to people.

And yet the moment his glowing red eyes had landed on Izuku to silence his cursed power Izuku hadn’t simply stumbled to a stop.

            Oh no, he had to almost go and fucking die on the sports hall floor. Because of course he did. Because God hated him.

            “We’ll have our revenge.” Nemesis whispered darkly through his mind as they approached the food hall. “He will never divide our soul again. We swear it.”

            Nemesis had spoken a lot of insane, stupid and insulting things to him over the years, but it had never seemed so… upset before. If something annoyed it, such as Bakugo, it could go on lingering in its anger for some time, but eventually its interest would fade, and it’d pick a new object of scorn.

            It had been almost twenty-four hours since the examination and it was still mad about it. And Izuku could tell, somehow, that it was from a place of fear. It was within its blood-soaked words, its rusted-metal grinding tone. It was angry, yes, but also scared that they would be separated again.

            And Izuku supposed he was too. Whatever Aizawa had done to him, accidentally of course, had been horrifying on a different level to his usual terrors. It had not been fire and shadow but static, fog and ash.

            He never, ever wanted to feel that way again, even if for a few moments he knew he had been free of his monstrous curse.

            The food hall was an immense eating area filled with busy, hungry students. The wall of sound was somewhat unpleasant to Izuku’s ears and he winced just a little. He wasn’t a huge fan of crowds. Crowds tended to make Nemesis angry and that was almost always a bad thing.

            He had always avoided eating with others if he could help it, an easy habit to have considering he never had any friends in the first place. However, a rather nasty side effect was he’d become horribly socially anxious.

            Even amongst his new friends, Uraraka had already commented on how uncommonly quiet he always seemed to be.

            “Hey, guys, how about I just find us a table?” He offered with a slightly stitched together smile as he eyed the long and winding lunch line.

            “What about your food?” Tenya asked suddenly and almost immediately a robotic hand came down, pointing to Izuku. “Proper nutrition is important for students of such a prestigious academy! We must always be-”

            “If you give me your money I’ll pick you up whatever you want.” Hitoshi offered, cutting off Tenya’s incoming ten-minute powerpoint presentation on how to properly maintain one’s health. Tenya scowled a little at Hitoshi for the rude interruption but let it slide. “So, what do you want to eat?”

            “The flesh of the sinful!”

            Izuku blinked, a deadpan expression on his face. “Chicken hibachi with a spring roll.”

            “AGH!”

            “Two spring rolls.”

            Hitoshi, having no idea of the screams of irritation echoing within his friend’s mind, simply nodded to Izuku and, after Izuku handed him some money, walked off with Tenya and Uraraka while Izuku secured them a table.

            Around him the world chattered and went about as any normal school lunch hour would do. Izuku slid into an empty seat by a clean, wood table and immediately brought his phone out. Practically on automatic, he plugged his headphones in and was raising them to his ears when a blood-curdling growled suddenly began echoing through his mind.

            “The Seventh Son…”

            Izuku blinked, his scars prickling with candle fire, and looked up just as a boy, a fellow classmate, walked past him. It was Fumikage, his feathered head a cold jet black, his crimson red gaze and set within intense eyes. For a moment he almost seemed to hesitate as he passed Izuku.

            Then he scowled, deeply, and passed on.

            Izuku turned in his seat to watch him go and eventually join the line before looking back to his own table, his eyes fixed down. Before he could even stop himself he quietly mumbled, “Well at least he has the right idea.”

            “He’s dangerous.”

            Izuku almost sat up at the statement. His mouth opened to answer, but he quickly shut it again. No, no answering back, especially not in public. He should just put his headphones in and blast music into his brain until his friends got back.

            “We sense the corruption of his soul. Darkness lurks within him.”

            Don’t answer. Don’t answer don’t answer don’t-

            “He’s not as bad as you,” Izuku mumbled as he rubbed the earphones within his fingers.

            Goddamnit.

            “We are shadow and fire.” Nemesis answered back with a crawling scorpion tone. “We are Izuku Midoriya. The Seventh Son is a carrion crow and his soul is shadowed by something without a soul of its own. That makes him dangerous.”

            He bit the inside of his cheek suddenly, a punishment for breaking his promise and shoved the headphones into his ears, which thankfully still fit despite their new pointed length. Anything else that his inner curse might have said was drowned in blasting music of whatever was first to be picked on his phone.

            He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, refusing to even pay attention to anything outside his little self-contained bubble. No voices, no cruel comments, nothing more. Just him and blessed music turned up almost as high as it would go.

            Someone suddenly touched his shoulder and Izuku jumped, his scars flashing with heat before curling back in once more. Uraraka looked down on him with a soft, concerned gaze. Her mouth moved but he only caught the bottom end of her words as he hurried to take his earphones out.

            “-okay?”

            “What?”

            “I said, are you okay?” She took the seat beside him and Izuku turned to see Hitoshi and Tenya doing the same across the table.

            “Oh, erm, yeah, I’m fine.” He pulled the earphone cord out and began hurriedly wrapping it back into his hand. “Sorry about that, I, erm-”

            “Dude I could hear that from across the hall.” Hitoshi’s expression was caught between a frown and a smirk. “Do you always listen to music that loud?”

            “You’ll ruin your ears!” Tenya scolded like an angry dad. “Not to mention it’s not healthy to ignore your surroundings!”

            “That… is actually a smart thing to say. Congratulations,” Nemesis mocked cruelly within Izuku’s head, “The Mechniason said something worth listening to for once.”

            “I don’t do great in crowds.” Izuku mumbled almost to himself. “Loud places, lots of people, kinda makes me nervous, you know? Music helps.”

            Uraraka nodded. “I hear you but Tenya has a point, especially now that they’re all pointy.” She nudged Izuku as he blushed. “Hey! Don’t be ashamed! I think they look cool!”

            “I must admit, I’ve never heard of a quirk that alters a person’s appearance before. Well, I mean, transformation quirks are common, but not on a permanent basis.” Tenya mused as he put a hand to his chin. “Your quirk is truly unique.”

            “Speaking of, how did your evaluation go yesterday?” Hitoshi asked before taking a bite out of his sandwich. “Fyou difn’t feem fo wantf to falk afout if.”

            “Oh, yeah.” He had been torn up about almost dying and screaming at Aizawa to mention anything about it to the others. Thankfully they seemed to have all gotten the point and had helpfully avoided the subject for the rest of the day.

            “The quirk assessment guy called me a demon and ran out of the room.”

            There was a sudden burst of chuckles from the others.

            It stopped once they realized Izuku wasn’t laughing with them.

            “Dude are you serious?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Oh, Izuku, I’m so sorry.”

            The teenager shrugged and stabbed a piece of chicken with his chopsticks. “It’s fine. Just another chapter in the shit-show that is my life.” And he chomped down onto the piece with a stoic expression.

            “How utterly unprofessional! And to think they were hired by U.A.!” Tenya shook his head and frowned. “Perhaps he was just religious. And I thought all that religious chaos caused by the emergence of quirks had died down by now.”

            “I dunno, look at America.” Hitoshi mused. “That place went crazy with wacko religious cults once quirks popped up. Still is, apparently.”

            “Still, that really sucks, Izuku.” Uraraka patted the boy on the shoulder. “But nothing bad happened, right? I mean, Aizawa-sensei was there the whole time.”

            Aizawa had almost killed him with his quirk, and while Izuku refused to believe it was because he had torn his soul in two, he still found that far more comparable than actually hurting anyone else.

            “No, nothing bad happened. Aizawa-sensei’s quirk is really amazing, he stopped me the second he thought I went too far.” This was followed by a long, loud, irritated growl by Nemesis that sent prickling heat along his scars.

            “Well that’s a good thing, right?” Hitoshi asked suddenly, raising his sandwich up again. “Proves you’re not possessed or something, your quirk’s just a quirk at the end of the day.”

            “Hitoshi! That’s an awful thing to say!” Uraraka snapped at the purple haired teen and waved her own chopsticks at him. “Izuku isn’t possessed in the slightest!”

            Izuku, however, was staring at Hitoshi with wide eyes. He… he had a damn good point, actually. Too often did Izuku end up calling himself a monster or a demon or some other creature dragged from the depths of hell. Too often did he label his power a curse, a blasphemy against the world.

            But Hitoshi was right. If Aizawa could erase it, it was just a quirk and nothing more. For all the bells and whistles, for all the threats and cryptic words, Nemesis was just that. A quirk.

            “We are so much more.” Nemesis whispered darkly through his ears. “We are sh-”

            “Yeah, well, I’m just glad that Nemesis has a counter now,” Izuku announced swiftly as he shoved some food into his mouth. It took a moment of chewing while the others looked at him confused before he swallowed and explained. “The quirk guy said my power was, well, kinda unique so it needed its own name. It’s called Nemesis.”

            There was a moment of silence before Hitoshi simply said. “Dude, that is bad-ass. Kinda not helping with the whole ‘I’m not the devil’ thing but still, bad-ass.”

             “It’s a bit grim.” Uraraka added with a shrug. “But I suppose it kind of fits. No offense.”

            “It’s a great name!” Nemesis roared proudly through Izuku’s ears. “We are Izuku Midoriya. We are Nemesis! All will fear us and cower before our flame!”

            “None taken.” Izuku shot her a half smile that he quickly turned to the others. “Really, guys, it’s fine. My power is… not nice, I know. It’s pretty awful actually, but that’s why I’m here, you know? To learn how to make it less awful.”

            “I admit having a fear factor with your quirk can be useful. My brother has a side kick who-” He stopped himself suddenly before looking to his meal. “Well, nothing.”

            “What was that?” Uraraka’s wide eyes turned to her friend and a curious smile played at her lips. “What was that about your brother?”

            “You know, I’ve been thinking about that.” Izuku asked as his chopsticks hovered just at his lips. “Your name, Iida, are you related to the people who run the Idaten agency?”

            Iida sighed loudly. “I was hoping to not make a big deal of it, but I suppose the cat’s out of the bag.” He sat up proudly and smiled. “Yes, my big brother is the leader of Team Idaten, the turbo hero Ingenium!” He put his hand to his heart and he continued. “He’s my idol, and I want to be just like him!”

            “So proud. So pathetic. It’s truly amazing. Like watching a rat wear a crown.”

            Izuku kept the frown from his face and instead smiled to Tenya. “That’s amazing!”

            “So, you’re a rich kid, huh?” Hitoshi cut in suddenly. “Nice to know I hang out with the upper crust now. Maybe I’ll get invited to a swanky party sometime. Just so you know, I don’t do tuxedoes, it’s jeans and a t-shirt for me.”

            Izuku laughed as Tenya immediately began to try and instruct Hitoshi on how he should behave at a black and white tux event and for a moment allowed himself to relax some of the constant tension in his shoulders. So what if the quirk assessment doctor had called him evil. Was this evil? Hanging out with friends and eating nice food?

            He hadn’t realized how much he had needed something this… normal until he actually had it. Despite all of the subtle, flowing candle-flame heat from Nemesis’s irritation he was determined to find happiness in the few moments he could grab it.

            And few was indeed the right term to use.

            Suddenly, all hell broke loose around them. Alarms began blaring and above them all a calm, female voice began calling out, “This is a level three security breach. All students must begin making their way outside in a calm and orderly fashion.”

            ‘Calm and orderly’ was thrown out the window about half a second after the announcement went out.

            Students began rushing through the hall, panicked and disorganized and shouting and screaming. Fire roared through Izuku’s scars as his stomach twisted in an intense panic. The group were on their feet almost immediately and Izuku stood helplessly, unsure of where to go or what to do.

            Tenya grabbed a student rushing past him and over the panic managed to loudly ask, “What’s going on?”

            “I don’t know!” The poor student replied, her eyes wide with fear, “This has never happened before!” And with that, she had tugged her sleeve from his grasp and vanished.

            “We should get out of here.” Hitoshi was shockingly calm, at least to an outsider. However, his hand was rubbing the back of his neck and Izuku knew he was just as scared as the rest of them.

            He felt jittery and tight and he needed to do something. Nemesis was already becoming hard to handle, fire moving along his scars and the tempting shadow of power was curling around his heart. He took a moment to breathe deeply, however, and gripped the reigns of his curse tightly.

            Izuku gave a nod to his friend, and as a group they began trying to make their way towards the exit.

            They didn’t get far.

            Almost immediately people came between them, the major exit out of the hall being blocked by the bodies of students all pushing and shoving and trying to make their own way out. Uraraka reached out to grab his hand tight as they fought to make their way through the crowd.

            But more and more people were panicking, more and more people were coming between them, each desperate to get out as the shouting and screaming grew louder.

            The heat along Izuku’s scars began to rise, slowly, like one would turn up a gas stove. He could hear Nemesis’s growling growing louder and louder in his ears as his heart began to hammer in his chest.

            There was a monster above them.

            Invisible to all but his eyes, he could see it. A fat, bulbous thing resembling a cross between a bloat fly and a monkey. Patches of rotting fur clung to pieces of its five, needle-thin arms as it clung to the ceiling above the unknowing students. Its compound eyes mounted on an insectoid head where it gurgled with a jaw filled with mismatched teeth. Membranous wings too small for its own bloated, pus-filled body buzzed audibly and scars of decomposing flesh revealed brown, almost liquefied bone.

            Izuku’s terrified cry died in his throat however as he reminded himself it wasn’t real, and he was just panicking because everyone else was panicking. Except his panic could lead to a body count. His mind was swimming and he didn’t notice his grip on Uraraka’s hand becoming looser and looser until it was too late.

            “IZUKU!” Her scream was drowned out as someone shoved their way between them and their fingers separated.

            “URARAKA!” Izuku managed to scream out in turn but he was almost immediately silenced by a hand trying to grab across his face in someone’s desperate attempt to move towards. He found himself being pulled towards the side as he struggled to keep on his feet.

            Nemesis roared through his ears like a furious beast. “Unleash us! Let us clear a path with fire and fury!”

            “NO!” Izuku screamed back to the notice of no one.

            The insect-creature turned its nightmare head towards him.

            “We’ll be crushed in this crowd! Use us!” The roar within his own mind grew louder, like the cacophony of an ancient battlefield.

            He could feel the fire burning along his scars, begging to be used. All it would take would be a small flame, just enough to send true fear through the students around him and they would part before him like the red sea.

            The idea tempted him and, horribly, part of him even considered it. The question hung over him as the snake-like temptations ran through his heart. Why not?

            Izuku could almost feel the talons starting to form on his fingers and he struggled desperately to keep himself together, his heart pounding in his chest and his lungs unable to catch a breath. Nemesis was crawling more and more along his limbs, down his spine, surrounding his hammering heart with shadow and flame.

            His eyes glanced up and to his horror he could see the nightmare creature moving slowly towards him. Dirty, spiked nails digging into the ceiling as it clawed its slow, bulbous body, gurgling and snapping its mandrill jaws hungrily

            The closer it came the more he could feel Nemesis slipping through his fingers, eager to set its unholy rage on something, anything, the fat bloated monster on the ceiling would make a fine meal, as would the flesh of every student in the corridor.

            Izuku began to scream as his scars reached a white-hot intensity and even people around him became desperate to move back from this burning teenager.

            And then, something unexpected happened.

            A shadow shot forwards, rushing above the crowd and hitting the monster like an arrow. Through a blur of black-clad movement the shadow, long and stretched across his head, began attacking the monster like a starving animal. There was an inhuman scream from the demon as the shadow-creature ripped through its flesh with horrific ease, like a well-trained predator taking apart its helpless prey.

            Vicious claws formed of a terrible black void literally ripped fat, meaty chunks out of the monster. As the viscera fell it did not hit anyone, it simply dissolved into an ash that only Izuku was sure he could see and blew in a wind no one could feel.

            It let out a long, gurgling death rattle as the shadow moved back with just as much speed, rushing back over his head and vanishing back into the crowd of students, the last of the bloated, rotting beast collapsing into pieces and vanishing into ash before it even touched the hair of the tallest student below it.

            Izuku’s eyes widened in pure shock at the horrific spectacle.

            Something inside him was screaming. Some deep, instinctual knowledge that was embedded deep into his heart was screaming through every part of Izuku’s soul. That thing, that shadow, it was wrong. It was something other, something terrible, something not meant to be on this earth.

            It was something like Nemesis.

            He turned his head, desperate to see the source of the shadow. Driven only by the intense need to see just what new kind of new madness had overcome his visions, he grabbed the shoulders of the nearest student and jumped up, ignoring the “Oi!” of irritation that came with it.

            He saw the shadow. He saw that it wasn’t a shadow, but a thing. A monster long and void-black, like the skin of his own curse, with eyes that were a tarnished, mocking gold, a lipless jaw filled with shadow teeth and arms ending in long, rending claws.

            Izuku saw its body trail off vanishing into…

            Fumikage.

            He stood, apart from the crowd, just by the entrance to the food hall. He stood with the shadowed monster emerging from his chest. His eyes moved from where they had been looking only moments ago to lock onto Izuku.

            They widened in shock, then narrowed to an angry disgust just as the shadow curled around its master, coming to rest upon his shoulder where it too locked eyes with Izuku.

            It grinned a wide, mocking, jackdaw’s grin at him.

            And then he was gone. With a turn Fumikage vanished back into the hall and out of Izuku’s sight, taking his living shadow with him.

            In the same moment, time sped back up and Izuku suddenly fell backward, crashing into someone just as he heard the rushing sound of Tenya’s engines speeding through the air. Izuku was shoved up against a window as the crowd stopped its screaming and shouting, but he heard nothing of what Tenya said to them on his position by the door.

            All Izuku could do was simply stare forwards into nothing. He was shaking, his skin crawling with the heat of his own power but he didn’t care.

            Fumikage had seen the monster.

            He had seen the monster.

            And his quirk. His quirk made of black void shadow and teeth and claws with eyes that seemed scornful and taunting had destroyed it.

            Had he imagined it? Had his mind thrown together some amalgamation of events just to drive him further into his long-standing madness? He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew it was possible. But why Fumikage? Why the shadow monster?

            And… and what if it hadn’t been a hallucination? What if it had been real?

            “Izuku!” The students before him parted and Uraraka shoved her way between them, a soft hand colliding with his shoulder and snapping him out of his thoughts.

            “Are you alright?” Her voice was heavy with concern, but it was all Izuku could do to nod at her. His own voice had been robbed from him, his shock too great, too deep to form any true response.

            She sighed and squeezed his shoulder, a smile forming on her face. “I’m so glad! I was worried you might freak out in the crowd.” She blinked at her own words and suddenly looked awkward. “Erm, no offense.”

            Izuku simply shook his head in dismissal before he finally remembered how to speak. They were getting more room now as people flooded back into the food hall, his anxiety was fading but was simultaneously being replaced by new anxieties, new worries.

            “Did you- Did you see that thing?” It sounded like the worlds stupidest question, at least to him, but he had to ask. He had to know.

            “What thing? Tenya?” She cocked her head and looked back over to where Tenya was slowly trying to get down from the doorway without falling on his ass. “Yeah I mean, he was kinda hard to miss.”

            “No, I-I mean, did you see that, erm, that shadow.” He winced at his own words and pointed up to the ceiling. “Up there?” He knew he sounded crazy, he knew he did, and any moment now she was going to start laughing at him and-

            “Oh! You mean Dark Shadow?” Uraraka looked back to him with a bright expression. “Yeah, I wonder what that was all about?”

            Izuku didn’t know how to feel. He felt relief. He felt confusion. He felt shock and awe and horror and empty and full all at once. “… Dark Shadow?”

            “Dark Shadow.” Nemesis hissed in a strange tone. Low, growling, and yet cautious and almost as shocked and lost as Izuku himself. “The curse of The Seventh Son’s soul.”

            “It’s Fumikage’s quirk,” Uraraka explained with a continuing smile. Her eyes suddenly went wide and she clasped her hands together, “Hey, that’s right! You’ve never seen it before! You missed our hero classes!” She chuckled softly. “It’s really cool! And super powerful, but it’s also kinda scary, you know?” She nudged Izuku with her elbow and gave him a wink which sent a ripple of heat along his scars. “Kinda like you!”

            “It is nothing like us.” Nemesis hissed like barbed wire through his brain. “We are Izuku Midoriya. We are Nemesis. We are shadow and flame.”

            Dark Shadow. It was real. Uraraka had seen it. His class had seen it. It was real. And it had torn his hallucination apart. Izuku found himself breathing slowly, deeply, his hand moving over his chest as he tried to control an incoming panic attack.

            Uraraka seemed to realize what was happening and helpfully pulled him back and away from anyone else, managing to find a small pocket by the window. “Hey, come on, it’s alright. It’s over now.”

            Izuku nodded, though inside he didn’t believe her. It wouldn’t be over until he knew for certain just what it was he’d seen. His mind raced with a thousand new possibilities, a thousand new questions, and a thousand new worries.

            But under them all was a new kind of hope. A hope that had been building since he had first gotten into U.A.

            His quirk was a nightmare made real… but maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t the only nightmare out there. Fumikage had a nightmare within him too.

            And Izuku was determined to talk to him about it.

            Aizawa was no stranger to the dark. He felt far more comfortable within its shadowed embrace than he ever did sitting in the sunlight. Call it a part of his troubled teenage angst years he had never grown out of, call it the result of his work as an underground hero, or call it a simple shunning of the irritation of dealing with people, but the night, the dark, the shadows and gloom felt more calming to him than any sunny day ever could.

            He sat, almost curled into his chair as his pale skin was illuminated by the faux-light of his computer screen. He had watched the footage several times before and yet he still felt as though his answers remained locked and hidden behind the thin LCD screen.

            “Okay. I- Just,” Izuku Midoriya, standing far from the camera, his form thin and almost quivering took a deep, deep breath. “Please, don’t let me hurt you.”

            Aizawa had gotten to the point where he could basically recite the lines.

            And then, hell came forth.

            The boy curled over as darkness flooded from his body. Blasphemous blue fire erupted from his scars and something began emerging from his form like a horrific parasite emerging from within the body of a host it had been eating alive.

            It didn’t last long of course. The lights flickered overhead, casting them into a shadowed natural light and causing the fire-blue scars to glow ever brighter, even through the disturbing shadow-black that consume the teenager.

            The windows exploded on the other side of the room, drowning out most other sounds and then the camera simply died into a screen of hissing static.

            Aizawa leaned forward, taking the mouse and clicking several frames back until he found the very last clear image of the boy. Or what was supposed to be the boy. The thing, even in the frame half-hidden by tear lines and static, wasn’t human.

            Bloodshot eyes narrowed as they took in the curling claws and the beginning of wings emerging from the back of the child, as well as misshapen horns that seemed to be just splitting through Izuku’s forehead. There was nothing after that, though Aizawa knew that hadn’t been the case in the sports hall that day.

            He had seen Izuku with his own eyes and inside he wondered what strength of the spirit Hitoshi Shinsou had to possess to run at something like that.

            Of course, Aizawa had shut him down almost moments later. The memory of it did not sit easy with him. Seeing the child collapse to the floor, unable to respond and unable to move had brought up sour memories which he had long thought he had gotten over.

            Memories which he knew were illogical and foolish to dwell on, but memories that haunted him nonetheless.

            He raised a hand to his chin as he thought about the next stage of that day. When he had released Izuku from his quirk. When Nemesis had come roaring back into the body of the teenager.

            Son of David. That’s what it had called him. Through a screaming, profane voice which to Aizawa had sounded like the cries of burning cities, of ravaged battlefields, of entire families being put to the sword.

            And yet one still laced with Izuku’s own.

            It had disturbed him, all of it, and he knew it had. To see Izuku Midoriya go through that, a child of barely fifteen who had been dealing with that since he was five years old. Ten years. Ten years of having that quirk swimming through his blood.

            It was a miracle he was here at all. A miracle he had gotten into U.A. and not thrown himself from the top of a building.

            Then again, Aizawa was here too, and there had been plenty of times he had considered the easy way out.

            Still. Son of David. The monstrous taunt lingered with him like a phantom, whispering at the back of his mind.

            By the time he noticed what he was doing his thumb had reached under his collar, feeling the cold metal of the chain across his skin. He looped it around his thumb and pulled softly. Hidden under his black uniform and layers of capture-tape he drew out a simple metal chain, and upon it, rested something that only one other person in the school knew about.

            A simple six-pointed star.

            His Star of David.

            He ran the symbol between this thumb and forefinger, his eyes lingering on it in the dim light. Everything that symbol stood for was illogical and stupid. Everything it represented was nothing but the fairy tales his mother had taught him as a child, tales he had grown up believing until his quirk had developed.

            And then soon after that, it had all fallen away for him.

            Because no loving God would ever give someone the quirk that he had. Not after he saw what it did to some people. What it did to people like Izuku Midoriya.

            So, he knew he shouldn’t even have the necklace on him. He knew he shouldn’t raise his hand to it before going out on missions or even toy with it now whenever he faced something he simply couldn’t solve with brutal, cold logic.

            But he did. And he couldn’t explain why.

            Son of David. Had Izuku known what he had screamed at him? Had he done it on purpose or was it simply a clever guess? Aizawa’s eyes narrowed at the Star in his fingers and his jaw clenched tight. How. How had he known?

            And more importantly, why had he collapsed as he had done? As so few others had done in his past?

            He was used to people muttering about feeling a cold chill run over them, some others felt sick or woozy, others even went into coughing fits or complained of feeling weak. He was used to that. A small side effect of having a piece of you suddenly torn away, or so doctors had told him.

            But every now and then, times he could count on one hand, they collapsed. They collapsed as Izuku had collapsed and there was simply no real explanation as to why.

            A little voice in the back of his mind told him he already knew, but he was too stubborn to believe. If only he had just a little more faith.

            He frowned and put the Star away, hiding it once more under his black shirt. He could find his answers later. He had a trip to the USJ to plan.

Chapter Text

            Katsuki fumed. The sensation of anger was no stranger to him, obviously, but his anger came in many flavors. The typical one, the one he used the most, was irritation. Katsuki got irritated at everyone around him. Every inferior life form that surrounded him, that tried to pull and grasp on his own greatness.

            The second was frustration. Frustration at the fact that pretty much everyone around him was far, far less amazing that he was, and they tried to do everything they could to stop him from achieving his potential. Katsuki was aiming for nothing less than the absolute top spot of herodom. To be greater than All Might himself. To stand atop of the world and grin viciously down on all the would-be’s who looked on in envy at the outright perfection of his art.

            The third was a simple sense of annoyance that Izuku Midoriya existed at all.

            Because no matter what Katsuki tried to do to remind Izuku that he was nothing but a worm, a parasite sucking the life out of everyone around him, the teenager found some way to get past all of that and still get away with murder.

            Which, apparently, he had done once. Though Katsuki had never managed to find if that rumor was true or not.

            He walked the streets alone these days. His old friends, if he could even call the coat-tail riding parasites that hung around him like flies ‘friends’, no longer called. They were off with new friends, new people. Thus, Katsuki jogged alone, went to the gym alone, bought drinks from the convenience store alone.

            He looked to his phone, checking for any new messages while knowing that there wouldn’t be. For a moment, just before he shoved the phone back into pocket, he saw a darkened reflection of himself.

            Scar lines. Long, surgical and perfectly formed crossed his features. They were already starting to fade, with time they would become only slightly lighter than the rest of his skin.

            But they would never truly go away.

            Permanent reminders of the time he had looked into the eyes of the devil himself.

            He squeezed his eyes shut and growled. No, Izuku Midoriya was not the fucking devil. He was just… some idiot moron who had a quirk which was… it was…

            His hands were shaking.

            Katsuki shoved his hands into the pocket of his jacket and his jaw clenched tight. He didn’t want to look at himself any longer. He didn’t want to see the scars that lined his face or the bags under his eyes because he couldn’t sleep at night without seeing… it. That thing which had come out of Izuku’s skin.

            His hands were still shaking.

            The teenager flexed his fingers within his pockets and breathed deeply. It still hurt to do so, but only a little. The scarring across his chest would also heal in time, though they too would forever remain thanks to the burning of Izuku’s claws.

            Izuku’s claws.

            A year ago he would have laughed at the very thought of Izuku even giving him a mean look. The boy who had spent his entire childhood screaming and crying and having panic attacks at nothing. The boy with the stupid quirk which set him on fire and caused him constant pain.

            And an easy target for him to pick on.

            And it wasn’t as if anyone had stopped him. Everyone had thought Izuku was pathetic, even Izuku had thought Izuku was pathetic.

            His scars itched suddenly and felt tight across his skin. Goddamnit. Goddamnit, Goddamnit. What the hell had happened to his life? He was on top of the world only a few months ago. And now… now Izuku Midoriya had almost murdered him with his fists and U.A. just stood by and did nothing.

            They had even considered punishing him for going too far in the exercise. Going too far? Too fucking far? Had they seen what Izuku had done to him? Well, they had obviously because they had backed off after his mother had exploded at them for even suggesting he apologize to Izuku.

            He smirked. His mother at least had the backbone to call them out on their bullshit. She had already threatened to sue them for damages and Katsuki was eagerly awaiting the results of her threats. No doubt they’d hand his family a tidy sum and tell them to shut up.

            But he knew his mother. She was a bitch, but her bitchiness served her well. She’d make sure justice was delivered.

            The street lights above marked his path as he headed home, his gym bag thrown over his shoulder as he walked. He wore a dark tank top and a pair of sweatpants along with some running shoes, nothing fancy. The night air was chilled and cool, unusual for the summer when even the lack of sun didn’t take away from the oppressive humidity.

            As he came up upon his home, however, he paused. He could hear voices coming from his front door. He moved swiftly and silently across the small patch of grass and between the tall trees that lined the road to press himself up against the high wall that circled his home.

            “-we could come to this agreement, Mr. Bakugo, Mrs. Bakugo.”

            “Y-Yeah.”

            Katsuki paused from his shadowed position by the open gate. Was that his mother? His mother never sounded like that, like she was… defeated.

            “I’ll fill out the relevant paperwork, don’t worry now, I won’t charge you for that.” The voice chuckled softly and something dark crawled down Katsuki’s spine, he knew that voice.

            “S-sure. Thank you, Mr. Hokori.”

            Katuski’s eyes widened. Mr. Hokori. The fucking U.A. lawyer. He’d talked to him after the exercise and he’d felt as though he’d had a knife pressed to his throat the entire time. At some points he’d almost openly admitted to pushing Izuku too much and he’d only just caught himself. How the lawyer had done that he didn’t know, but it caused a deep well of insecurity to gather within him.

            A well which hadn’t gone down since.

            “Well, good night to the both of you. Oh, and best of luck to your son’s recovery.” There was the mumblings of ‘thank yous’ and the sound of a door clicking to a close. The sound of expensive shoes on asphalt began to approach him and Katsuki could almost feel the shadows starting to gather around him, like vipers slithering up his skin.

            Then he was there. The lawyer walked through the gate took several steps before suddenly stopping.

            He turned and looked directly at the boy.

            Katsuki’s heart skipped a beat, the breath was stolen from his lungs and something deep inside him was gripped tight in a burning fist.

            The corner of Hokori’s mouth twitched in a smile and his eyes glowed with the horrible void-blue that brought spikes of pain across every fresh scar on Katsuki’s body.

            “Katsuki Bakugo, just the young man I wished to see.” Hokori turned fully to face him. Half his body was cast in a shadow that seemed almost a little too dark for the lights around them.

            “What- why are you here?” Katsuki stammered out and immediately cursed himself for doing so. Why was he so scared? What the hell was this terror crawling along his skin?

            “I just needed to chat with your parents,” The lawyer’s cunning, snake-like smile remained on his lips, “And resolve a couple of issues that had come between them and the school. Don’t worry, it’s all been sorted now.”

            “We’re- we’re suing you, you know.” Katsuki forced a smile to his lips. “We’re going to-”

            “No, you’re not.” The statement cut Katsuki down in a second. “At least, not anymore. Like I said, it’s all been solved now.”

            “W-what?” Katsuki’s eyes narrowed at the man and from somewhere within him he found the strength to even take a step forward. “How much did you-”

            “Nothing.” The change in Hokori’s tone was barely an inch, but it was there, and it caused every muscle in Katsuki’s body to freeze. “You get nothing. You will go back to school tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that and you will do whatever it is you wish to do with yourself, but you will get nothing.”

            And then Hokori took a step forward.

            Katsuki was shaking. God, why was he shaking? What the fuck was happening to him? Why did every shadow seem to grow longer and every sound fade away and-

            “Let me give you a piece of advice, Katsuki Bakugo.” Hokori’s voice was everything. It drew him in and caged him and plunged him back into Izuku’s claws swung at him and pain tore across his skin as wounds that would never truly heal were opened up and the air was filled with the stench of burning blood and profane fire and the battle-cry of a thousand furious demons and-

            “Go back to your home and take a long, hard look in the mirror. Memorize every scar on your face and body, because you are very, very lucky to be alive.” He was in front of him. Katsuki had blinked and the man was in front of him. Hokori leaned down, tear filled amber eyes looking up at a freezing, burning, abyss-like gaze which tore through his mind and heart and began ripping apart his soul. “Go home and count your blessings, you ungrateful little brat.”

            And then he turned and walked away.

            It took almost ten full seconds until Katsuki snapped out of whatever spell he’d been placed under. Katsuki fell against the wall and clutched at his chest. It felt like all the warmth within him was suddenly released and it flooded back through his blood, sending energy back into his limbs as though he’d spent a thousand years encased in ice.

            He was crying, no, more than that he was sobbing.

            Katsuki curled his knees up to his chest as his mind raced, trying to force together some kind of logical explanation as to what the fuck just happened to him.

            It was a quirk. It had to be some kind of quirk. Some kind of horrible, nightmarish quirk which had-

            “Fuck…” Katsuki whispered to himself in the cool night air, and in that moment, he felt very, very alone.

            His side ached. It was a slow, occasionally stabbing pain that bit at him on random occasions, though he found that being stressed or worried tended to exacerbate it. Recovery Girl had told him time and time again to slow down, to relax, to stop rushing off the moment he thought someone was in trouble.

            But he never listened. He was stubborn that way. He remembered his old mentor, the woman he had received One For All from, telling him it was something of a trait for the users of their quirk. Utter, heels in the floor, fists raised stubbornness that would not budge for anyone.

            Even so, the previous users had never had to live day in day out in a constant state of low-end pain. There was fighting a battle in a street, looking at your opponent dead in the eye, and there was spending every waking moment wishing you could down a bottle of painkillers just to get a moment’s peace.

            Still, he knew he wasn’t exactly alone in his suffering.

            The boy sitting across from him, for example, had suffered plenty through his life. It was a different kind of suffering, but it was a suffering nonetheless. Izuku looked exhausted, though somehow differently exhausted than usual. His skin was that sickly pale, his eyes heavy with purplish rings, his hair limp as always. And yet there was a different kind of aura to him than the scared youth he’d originally met over a year ago.

            He supposed that he’d been through a lot lately. A lot of questions being answered, yet perhaps even more popping up. Not to mention what happened with the Bakugo boy and the test and no doubt yesterday’s events with the gate and the irritating paparazzi didn’t help much.

            That wasn't even including the fact he’d started school with normal ears, now they pointed out from the sides of his head like a pair of daggers.

            It’d been a hard start to the school year for young Izuku Midoriya.

            “So, Izuku, my boy.” Toshinori smiled warmly and he soothed down the pants of his obnoxiously yellow striped suit. “We finally get a chance to talk, as I promised we would.”

            He had pulled him aside during lunch, within his All Might form of course, and asked if he would kindly spare an hour to eat with him privately. His friends had seemed in awe at the prospect, yet Izuku had seemed almost distant, as if his mind was a thousand miles away.

            Even now the boy sat, staring into his plate of curry as if it wasn’t even there.

            He had made sure the teacher’s lounge was empty before inviting him in and transforming out of his All Might form. The comfortable couches eased his aching back better than the wooden chairs of the dining hall, and besides, he could save energy eating here, away from prying eyes. The sun shone through open windows, though there was a wind out today and the trees swayed silently in the distance.

            “Izuku?”

            “Wha- oh! Oh, yeah.” The boy snapped out of his wonderings, dull green eyes suddenly flashing back to life. “Sorry.”        

            “I figured I would start by explaining why I look like this,” He cocked his head a little, “But I’m getting the impression you’d rather talk about something else.”

            “No! No, really, it’s nothing.” Izuku stammered out, the thin boy raising his bowl up and beginning to eat, as if he was trying to prove he was actually hungry and not just pretending. “I’ve just… had a lot on my mind lately.”

            Toshinori nodded, “Ah, yes, I saw the video of the quirk exam.”

            The boy hesitated for a moment, his chopsticks dripping with curry sauce before he chomped down on them with a flash of fanged teeth and made a sound of agreement. Once he swallowed he looked to one side. “Yeah that’s… one of them.”

            “Look, Izuku.” Toshinori let out a soft sigh. “You can’t let that worry you. Aizawa has assured me that as far as he was concerned, you did great, though he told me you reacted harshly to his quirk.”

            Izuku nodded as he again chewed his food and swallowed. “Yes, sir. I don’t know what happened but I…” He trailed off for a moment. “It was horrible, All Might. I never… I don’t know why but…” His hand clenched around the chopstick it held. “It just always feels like it’s me, you know?”

            The teacher didn’t know, but he felt as though he could certainly understand if he listened. He frowned, leaning forward a little. “Go on?”

            “It’s just,” The boy started again, though this time he left his chopsticks in his rice bowl. His eyes didn’t meet Toshinori’s, and instead they seemed to be focused down, towards the floor. “I thought coming to U.A. would be the answer to all of… this,” And he made an off hand gesture towards himself, “But ever since I got here I’ve just had more and more questions and every time I get close I…” He chewed his lip for a moment. “It just feels like it’s always me. It’s always me who has to have all this crap happen to them. It’s always me who gets the worst end of everything.”

            His shoulders slumped low and he finally looked up again. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t complain. I know others have it worse and-”

            “Hey, it’s alright.” Toshinori interrupted, though he did so with a warm smile. “You’ve had a rough start, but that’s okay. Sometimes we gotta start off rough for things to get better. You’ll never get all the answers all at once, but you’ve certainly got more answers than before, right?”

            The boy paused before nodding to himself. “Yeah, yeah I suppose.”

            “And you know what? What’s wrong with complaining every now and then?” Toshinori spread his arms wide. “Sometimes you just gotta let all that frustration out, you know? I mean,” He chuckled and put a hand to his side. “I’ve got this big wound here that’s been bugging me for years and sometimes the only way I feel better about it is by having a good old-fashioned rant about it.”

            Izuku blinked in surprise at this and leaned forward. “You got wounded? How?”

            “It was a fight, a big one, a long time ago.” He could already see the boy starting to wonder how and why and when and he quickly held a hand up. “It was never on the news, so don’t bother searching the net for it. This one was,” his voice faltered and lowered, “Kept quiet.”

            He gulped slowly at the memory and his lips suddenly felt dry. “It was the most challenging battle I’ve ever fought. By the end of it, I won, but it felt like a piece of my soul had been torn out of me.” He sighed slowly. “I’ve been on a downhill ever since. Right now, I can only do about four, maybe five hours a day if I push myself.”

            Izuku’s eyes went wide at Toshinori watched as the boy mouthed out ‘oh my god’. He sat up straighter and simply asked. “So- wait- what villain was this? I mean, you’re the number one hero. In the world.” He looked away for another moment, his mind clearly racing, before looking back. “No villain can match you.”

            “Not every villain is reported in the news, young Midoriya. Some villains are so dangerous the government does everything it can to make sure you never hear of them.”

            “Wow…” Izuku trailed off, his mind running with a thousand thoughts until he suddenly looked back once again. “Um, All Might?”

            “Yeah?”

            “When you said,” Izuku hesitated over his words, “When you said you felt a piece of your soul was taken. Did you mean that, you know,” he hesitated again, as if unsure on even asking, “literally?”

            Toshinori was shocked at the question, though he did his best to hide it. He had never taken Izuku for someone who would believe in things like souls, but he supposed that he shouldn’t be so quick to read into people. “Well, I,” He found himself unable to answer immediately and it took him a moment longer to gather his words. “Perhaps. I’m not so sure, to be honest. All I know is that since that fight I’ve never been the same since.”

            Izuku didn’t reply other than a nod.

            “And it goes to mention, of course, please don’t go spreading this around.” Toshinori added with a small, wry smile. “It’s kind of a secret. Most of the top pro-heroes know, but if society at large got wind-”

            “Oh! No, I’d never mention anything about it to anyone, ever!” Izuku swiftly replied before shying back. “I mean, I kind of assumed that the first time around.”

            “Ha! I knew you were a smart kid.” Toshinori laughed and blood dripped from his lips. Again, he quickly wiped it away. “Now, lets talk about something a little more interesting.” He flashed a warm smile. “Are you looking forward to your U.S.J. trip?”

            Izuku blinked. “What U.S.J. trip?”

            “Ah.” Toshinori bit his lip. Aizawa was going to murder him.

            The hot sun climbed above them, with only the occasional cloud drifting past for it to hide behind. The students under its intense gaze sweated in the heat, though the breeze whistling across the sports track helped keep them cool and on their feet. Within the oval confines of the track where placed a number of blue circular wrestling mats, large enough for two people to easily step inside.

            The students stood together in their gym clothes, though if one was to take a second glance, they would clearly see that they were in groups formed of their own design, not just simply lined up ready for whatever lesson was about to be taught.

            On one end stood Izuku, Uraraka, Tenya and Hitoshi, the four of them already finding their own little niche within the classroom dynamic.

            Others had their own friend groups, Hanta, Denki, Eijiro and Mina being a notable one, while others simply stood alone, Todoroki Shouto for example, though Momo stood close enough to suggest a friendship between them. Fumikage and Katsuki both however seemed clearly alone, with no other choosing to stand by them.

            Izuku’s eyes glanced up at something in the sky that, at one point, only he had believed he could see, then they moved down to focus on something in the bleachers, then across to the gate.

            They kept their distance from one another, of course, the horrific half-formed monstrosities. One was bird-like, in the very loosest sense of the word, and endlessly seemed to circle the entire field above them like a vulture. A vulture with no eyes made entirely of stretched, dried skin over thorny bone and wings of burning black smoke. Another was a decaying, bloated looking thing which lurked beneath the stands at the far end of the pitch making it mostly hidden, reveling no doubt in the filth it found there.

            The third was a little different from the others. It was small, no bigger than a cat, and sat on the long metal fence which lined the field. It looked to be covered in lizard-like scales, but it was a burned, charred black, with one giant eye planted where its chest should have been and no head on its shoulders, only a weeping, infected looking wound where it had once been. It stared directly at the young man, unblinking and focused.

            He’d had them notice him before, obviously, but while the other two seemed to simply be doing their own, weird, unexplainable thing, it was rare for one to just stare at him. He shuddered a little, then glanced down the line, his eyes lingering on Fumikage for a moment. Fumikage stared straight forward. If he could see them, he wasn’t making it obvious.

            Izuku suddenly felt an elbow jab him sharply in the ribs and heat flashed across his scars. He turned and frowned up at the royal purple eyes which grinned down at him. “Ow! What the hell-”

            “Dude, you need to quit staring at Fumikage.” Hitoshi half mumbled at him, turning his eyes to scan the field, “I mean, if you’re crushing on him cool, but don’t make it so obvious.”

            Izuku’s face went bright red and his scars lit up with candle-flame. “I am not crushing on him!”

            “You sure?” Hitoshi continued to tease, even glancing over to the bird-like teenager. “He’s not bad looking. Kinda gothy but, yeah, I see it.”

            “Dude, shut up!” Izuku almost huffed. “I’m not crushing on Fumikage.”

            “Who’s crushing on Fumikage?” Uraraka hissed over to them as she eyed Aizawa-sensei striding towards them from across the field.

            “No one!”

            “Izuku is.”

            “Oh, really? That’s cute!”

            “No, it’s not- I mean, I’m not crushing on him!”

            “Then why do you keep staring at him?”

            Hitoshi’s question hit him swiftly and Izuku opened his mouth to answer.

            “Because we’re going to destroy him.”

            Izuku shut his mouth and then looked away. “Just… I need to talk to him about… something.”

            Hitoshi’s brow furrowed and he nodded thoughtfully, “Is it about how you’re crushing on him?”

            Izuku went to snipe back at his friend before Aizawa’s voice cut over the class, silencing all chatter instantly. “Alright shut up, all of you.” He paused for a moment and added. “That was half a second faster than last week. Good.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a small holo-projector which shot up a sudden video showing two figures, one throwing the other over their shoulder. “Last week we learned how to disable and floor an attacker. This week we’re going to move on to countering this move. I will be cycling you through opponents, so everyone will get a chance to face everyone else.”

            “Sir.” Tenya’s hand shot up, “Are we allowed to use our quirks?”

            “For the sake of this exercise, yes.” His eyes locked onto Izuku and the teenager felt as though he was sinking into the floor. “However, I do not want any of you going all out. I am not All Might, I don’t expect you to break yourselves in expectations of getting better.”

            There was a slight murmur throughout the class before Aizawa further added. “Learning to use your quirks with restraint is an important part of being a hero, especially at close range when they typically do the most damage.”

            “He’s so boring,” Nemesis hissed through Izuku’s mind as the teenager chewed a lip in thought. “Restraint. Caution. All that matters is victory, who cares if it is soaked in blood?”

            “I care.” Izuku mumbled back without thinking.

            Instantly it drew Hitoshi’s gaze and Izuku felt a shock of panic rush through him.

            “About- erm- learning how to do this.” Izuku continued to mumble, hoping it would pass.

            “Something to add, Midoriya?” Aizawa suddenly snapped over at the boy and Izuku froze, feeling the eyes of the entire class now upon him.

            “N-No, sir, just erm-” He paused for a moment as a genuine question came to mind. “I wasn’t really here for the last lesson, so- erm-”

            “Shinsou.” Aizawa cut through before Izuku could ramble on. “Show Midoriya the move before you join the exercise. You have ten minutes.”

            “Yes, Sensei.” Hitoshi replied back sharply.

            The exercise began in full and Shinsou and Izuku took to a mat. The taller boy cracked his neck for a moment, though he didn’t need to. The class had already warmed up before Aizawa had even arrived, it was practically the first thing they did the moment they had gotten onto the field.

            “So, alright, remind me how much you know about throwing people again?”

            Izuku opened his mouth, then suddenly shut it and slowly grinned over at the taller boy, wagging his finger and shaking his head.

            Shinsou shrugged. “Eh, worth a try.”

            It took less than ten minutes for Izuku get the general hang of the throw, after all, he had been taught the basics of the theory at least by the group chat over the weekend. Still, he had to reign in Nemesis more than once as Hitoshi threw him onto his back three times in a row. His curse did not enjoy being beaten, even by someone it claimed to have a modicum of respect for.

            But once it was his turn to throw Hitoshi over his shoulder Izuku found himself grinning wickedly. It was a mixture of the joy that he was actually learning something useful, something heroic for a change and… something else. Something that Nemesis flared at and reveled in.

            Power perhaps, though he quietly suspected it was something darker than that. Izuku pushed it down and did his best to ignore it, even when Shinsou gave him a strange, slightly worried look when Izuku’s grin grew wider after throwing him down a second time.

            Nemesis begged at his heart to use more of his curse, to just allow even a trickle of black, oil-thick power to flow into his limbs. Just so he could move a little faster, throw a little harder.

            The temptation made Izuku breath softly, though it helped that the exercise was strenuous in of itself. It masked the fact that inwardly he was gritting his teeth and refusing to budge even an inch. This was his first proper lesson after being out for almost a full week. He was determined to get through it without setting anything, or anyone, on fire.

            After ten minutes of getting the hang of the throw and its immediate counter, which he had only enough time to practice once with Shinsou, he was ordered by Aizawa to change partners.

            His luck held up and it was Tenya, who while absolutely beating him in every throw they tried, had at least the kindness to allow him to practice another few minutes with the counter throw to make sure he got it down properly.

            Izuku could feel his heart picking up, and even though Nemesis was growling through his system like a rabid dog, muzzled and leashed, he felt as though for the first time since showing up at the academy, he was actually doing it. He was learning. He was feeling the pull of his inner monster, yes, but the exercise wasn’t straining every limit he had, it wasn’t forcing him to dig deep and release the flood of pure hellfire which existed inside him.

            He was learning how to be a hero, step-by-step, throw-by-throw, he was learning.

            Another change of partners, this time to the pink haired girl Mina, who was more than eager to match herself again ‘the scariest kid in the class’ as she had joyfully put it, much to Izuku’s red-faced shame at the statement. She provided a much more competitive sport than his friends, especially as Izuku had been given little time to study her quirk and think of a decent countermeasure.

            Still, after the first time she swiveled using her acidic quirk he’d gotten the idea and quickly backstepped to catch her off-guard and counter-throw her. By the end of the throws he was again grinning and for a second Mina seemed off-put by his sudden eagerness but continued on regardless.

            On it went. Next was Aoyama, who was laughably easy to beat to the point where Nemesis even seemed irritated at what little challenge he provided. Tsuyu was slippery, almost literally, and beat him easily, even though Izuku knew inside if he had allowed a little fire he could have won. Momo lost, Ojiro won, Uraraka won on technicalities after floating him off the mat three times in a row, Jiro was a tough fight, as she didn’t mind playing dirty, but was an eventual victory for Izuku.

            Then they changed.

            “Izuku go to Fumikage.” Aizawa’s comment was one of several, but it caused the boy’s heart to skip a beat.

            Fumikage kept where he was, arms folded tightly over his chest and his crimson gaze locked harshly onto Izuku as his own green emerald eyes looked to the bird-headed teenager.

            As he stepped onto the mat, a cloud passed over the sun and for a moment a sudden cold shiver ran across him.

            He gulped and raised a hand. “H-Hi.”

            Fumikage didn’t reply.

            “So… have your fights gone well?”

            Nothing.

            “I-erm-”

            “I would rather we get this over with without conversation, so-called Izuku Midoriya.” Fumikage’s words slapped Izuku across the face with the pure, sheer disgust held within them. Izuku felt his heart ache suddenly as he realized, sharply, that for the first time since his childhood he’d met someone who truly despised him.

            And yet he felt angry.

            What the hell had he ever done to Fumikage to draw out such a reaction? Fire-heat suddenly thundered across his scars and his fists clenched at his sides. His chin dipped at he began glaring at Fumikage before he breathed through his nose to calm the growing fire within his chest.

            “See? He is our enemy. We must destroy him.”

            Izuku’s jaw clenched. He was not going to destroy Fumikage, but dammit, he was going to get at least one answer out of him.

            “Go.” Aizawa’s bored tone echoed across the field and Izuku took the charge.

            He dashed forwards suddenly but almost the second he did so every sense he had in his brain lit on fire in a screaming, klaxon-loud warning and he fell to the mat just in time as something huge and dark rushed over his head like the swiping of a great paw.

            Nemesis roared in his limbs, rocking the oil of the great dam of power within him and causing drops to spill over the sides, lighting Izuku’s scars on temporary fire.

            He looked up and his eyes widened as he saw Dark Shadow, arching gracefully out of Fumikage’s chest and reforming from a vast bird-like claw into the laughing Jackdaw form he’d seen the day before.

            It grinned down at the boy and opened its mouth, as if to speak, but Fumikage looked up to the shadow-monster suddenly. “Dark Shadow! Silence.”

            Tarnished-yellow eyes turned and narrowed at its master, “But-”

            “Dark Shadow,” Fumikage’s eyes narrowed back, “I said silence.”

            The monster growled in irritation but shut its mouth.

            “Dark Shadow.” Nemesis spoke as though it was regarding some old enemy, long reviled, “Parasite crow, shadow of a soulless creature, we must burn it to true death along with its pathetic host.”

            Izuku bit back a reply and climbed again to his feet. Rather than attack again he backed up, deciding instead to take another stab at some small measure of conversation. “Look, Fumikage, we need to talk. You know about-” He looked around, still speaking as he did, wondering for just a moment if someone was listening in.

            That had been his mistake.

            He barely reacted to the sound of Fumikage moving and as he turned his head back his vision was filled with a flurry of black feathers. He was grabbed sharply both by a surprisingly strong pair of hands and by something huge and cold which wrapped around his body.

            Less than a heartbeat later and he was thrown to the mat with far more force than with any of his other opponents. The air rushed out of him and fire sparked into life along his scars. Not even Tenya had been that rough.

            The dam cracked and Izuku’s head spun for a moment as he tried to regain his tight control.  

            “LET US TEAR HIM APART!” Nemesis roared in a demonic battle-cry through his mind. His heart burned as the claws of blasphemous flame raked at it and he gasped as he sat up, his fingers digging tightly into the rough fabric of the mat.

            Fumikage, however, backed away. He offered no words of comfort, support or even a commentary on his victory. He simply stood, once again, at his starting place on the mat and waited for the fight to restart.

            Izuku looked to him, panting in both shock and in an attempt to pull back the leash of his vicious inner monster. He was starting to really, really dislike Fumikage.

            But he had answers. Answers he desperately needed.

            He gulped down his slightly coppery spit and got back to his feet, his body aching just a little. “Okay, good throw, well done.”

            Nothing.

            “Fine, you know if you don’t like me, fine.” Izuku gathered himself back up and fell into a fighter’s stance, his hands held up and open, his legs wide apart. “But you can’t just ignore me, okay? We obviously have something in common.”

            This got a reaction from the bird-like teenager. He raised an eyebrow slowly at him. Izuku took this as a good sign.

            “We need to talk. You know we need to talk. You-” Izuku wanted to glance around again, as a natural reaction, but he kept his eyes forward even as his voice dropped low. “You see them too, right?”

            For a moment there was nothing from Fumikage. And then, suddenly his eyes flicked to one side, taking note of the horrible, blasphemous creature with the giant eye on the fence.

            Izuku took his chance. He darted forward, and his limbs lit with a sudden flame he knew he shouldn’t be using but some horrible, ugly part of him demanded that he did as revenge for Fumikage’s cheap trick.

            The bird-like boy reacted too slow to stop him, even as he attempted the counter they were supposed to be learning. His hands came up to break Izuku’s sudden hold onto his arm, but Izuku had learned well enough by now and loosened his grip suddenly, causing Fumikage to stumble.

            Dark Shadow screeched loudly and rushed forward, grabbing Izuku tightly around his middle in a corpse-cold grip that instantly began squeezing the life out of him.

            But it was too late for the creature’s master. Izuku flipped him quickly, throwing him over his shoulder with a rush of blasphemous power that stormed through his arms and for a moment he swore he could see blotches of shadow-black dot across his skin before it vanished.

            Fumikage looked up at him, utterly shocked as Izuku made a choking-gurgling sound as Dark Shadow tightened its harsh grip on him. He could even feel the dagger-points of its claws digging through his uniform and almost breaking his skin.

            “Dark Shadow.” Fumikage breathed out suddenly. “Release him.”

            The monster and gnashed lipless teeth at Izuku before letting him go with a shove.

            The teenager stumbled back and breathed deep again. And again, it wasn’t simply because his lungs had been squeezed. Nemesis rattled within his heart and mind, thrashing against the confines of his flesh and demanding further action.

            “He’s at our whim!” The voice of a thousand bloody blades screamed through his mind. “Now is our chance to kill him!”

            Izuku grit his teeth openly and stepped back again, wrapping his arms around his body and almost falling to one knee. He took several more deep breaths before the boiling heat along his scars faded, almost reluctantly, away.

            He gulped, tried his best to clear his head and out of the corner of his eye he noticed Fumikage climbing to his feet.

            “So.” He finally breathed out. “One and one, okay, doing great.” He spoke again once more air entered his lungs, gesturing at the very pissed looking shadow-monster that hung over Fumikage, “Thank you for-”

            “It wasn’t for you.” Fumikage cut him off, a hint of heavy breathing to his own voice. “It was for me.”

            “O-oh.” Izuku blinked and straightened up a little.

            “If I’d let him run wild with my emotions, you’d already be dead.”

            “… ditto?”

            Fumikage’s eyes narrowed dangerously at Izuku.

            “We could have burned him alive,” Nemesis hissed like the falling of a guillotine blade, “He never stood a chance. He, nor that parasite monster.”

            “Okay,” Izuku announced, ignoring his curse and finally getting his breath back. He moved back into his stance, if only for appearances. “Can we meet up after class? Please? To, you know, talk about…” He hesitated for a moment and pointed up at the sky, obviously meaning the monstrous vulture circling the field. “Those things?”

            His heart spiked in his chest as Fumikage seemed to consider the idea for a moment. The flickering of his eyes told him it was true, Fumikage saw them. Which meant he wasn’t crazy, or at least he wasn’t that crazy. But what it now meant he had no idea. Could he see into some other world which a spare few could do? Or was this something darker, something more horrible than he’d ever thought before?

            And how many others out there shared this curse?

            Izuku watched as, curiously, Dark Shadow looked up to note the circling monster before it lowered back down and hissed something softly into his master’s ear. In that moment, Izuku got a very strange sense of deja-vu.

            Finally, Fumikage spoke, lowing himself into a similar fighter’s stance as he did so as his shadow-monster arched up and over his head. His words were quiet but stern and clear. “I have nothing to discuss with your kind.”

            Your kind? Izuku blinked in shock at the words and every permeation of the meaning behind them.

            His shock cost him the initiative. Fumikage rushed forward, Dark Shadow swooping at him before he could properly react.

            He tried to counter, power spiking through his limbs but Fumikage had already noticed and adapted and moved instead to break the counter with a sudden hand shoving at his chest. Dark Shadow did the rest, moving and throwing Izuku down onto the mat far harder than they should have done.

            Izuku caught his breath and choked on it and his scars lit up with sudden, defensive fire. The smell of burnt fabric filled the and air and only a moment later did Izuku realize that in his sudden panic he’d gripped the mat tight and his hands had lit with a momentary blue flame, burning through part of the fabric and sending its stink into the air.

            He panicked again though this time at the sudden, hungry, furious rush of fiery hate that shot through him and he curled up into a ball tightly, breathing like he’d ran a marathon and forcing his horrific power back into him.

            For a moment he could feel the shadow crawling up his arms from his far-too-sharp fingers before he successfully pushed it down. The world seemed sickeningly bright and nauseating for a second, then the feeling of his aching body, burning scars and the stench of the now blackened fabric brought him back to reality.

            “WE SHOULD RIP HIS HEART OUT OF HIS CHEST.” Nemesis roared through his mind, rattling his brain within his own skull and causing the boy to quite obviously wince. “We should drink his blood and feel his intestines on our claws! We should destroy him! We want it, we desire it, we hunger for his death by our fire!”

            “Shuddup.” Izuku growled out through sharp, gritted teeth. He rolled himself onto his knees, his head buried under his arms as he hissed, breathing hot, heavy breaths into his confined space. “Shut your stupid- just shuddup.”

            He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped in shock. Sitting up onto his knees and looking up he was greeted with the cold, yet somehow cautious eyes of Aizawa. “Midoriya?”

            “I-I’m okay.” He gulped down another coppery mouth of spit and licked dry lips. “I-I’m fine. I just-”

            “We’re taking a break.” Aizawa suddenly announced in a loud, commanding tone. He stood up from where he’d been kneeling down to check on Izuku and looked around the class. “Take five, get rehydrated and work out any cramps. If anyone feels they’ve been injured report to me immediately for first aid or otherwise.”

            He glanced back down to Izuku and for a moment seemed to study him, carefully, as if looking for a single dent in his armor, before turning his head to Fumikage.

            Dark Shadow snickered wickedly before suddenly vanishing back into their host. Fumikage bowed his head, respectfully, and calmly said, “I apologize for Dark Shadow, he acts rough when he gets excited.”

            Aizawa again seemed to pause and study the teenager as he had studied Izuku, before finally saying, “Don’t let it get out of control.”

            “Of course, sensei. And again, I apologize.”

            Aizawa didn’t speak again, and instead turned and walked away.

            Fumikage went to follow him, as the rest of the class began heading back to the side of the field where their drinks and backpacks had been placed.

            Izuku however, held out a hand. “Fumikage, wait I-”

            “Like I said,” Fumikage spoke without even looking to Izuku and continued to walk away, “I have nothing to discuss with your kind.”

Chapter Text

            Nedzu looked to the paper in his hand, his expression dark as he leaned back in his chair. On his desk sat a still steaming cup of earl grey tea, alongside the morning paper and a few of his work documents. The morning sunlight streamed through his vast panel windows, warm and welcoming and greeting the world with a joyous smile. Nedzu had already been at U.A. for several hours, of course, he always made it a point to arrive early, if just to make sure that his school was still standing.

            And this was what he had found waiting for him.

            It was Izuku Midoriya’s quirk assessment file, as completed and submitted for his review by their contracted quirk assessor. He’d already read through it several times now, each time wishing he would find something different, something that wasn’t so… worrying. Doctor Fukuro’s assessment was of course, clear and analytical, much like the man himself.

            Expulsion. Immediate, if possible.

            Doctor Fukuro’s final comments had been nothing but a long paragraph of how Izuku’s quirk was something utterly wrong, utterly evil. How it wasn’t a quirk at all but something more, something terrible that needed to be stopped now before it could become any more powerful. Nedzu had never known the man to ever use the term in his assessments before, and it troubled him.

            The Principal sighed deeply as he tossed the folder back onto his desk and leaned back, a hand moving to his lips in thought as his black, beady eyes fixed on the document.

            He shouldn’t argue with the results. He should take them into serious consideration and perhaps make moves to take Izuku out of the hero course. Maybe not expulsion but certainly a reassignment into a class which wouldn’t allow this quirk, this Nemesis, to grow in strength.

            He should do that… but he wasn’t going to. Because he had talked with the boy and he believed he had seen his soul laid bare before him.

            The boy wasn’t evil. He was scared, desperate, determined and utterly aware of what his quirk was capable of. What were the words he had used? He didn’t want to let it win.

            His mind drifted further back, back to when he was younger, when he had just been given the position of Headmaster at the school.

            He remembered the other young man, he remembered his attitude, his cruelty, his dismissal of his other students… he remembered the blue fire he had used to end the careers of seven young heroes before they had even started.

            That boy had been expelled, thrown out before Nedzu had even considered trying to help him, trying to reach out and find where such anger, such hate was coming from. It was a miracle his father had been talked out of saying anything publicly about their actions, though Hokori had sorted all of that out for him.

            Hokori always did have a talent for making problems simply go away. But he would do, of course, it was part of their deal.

            His eyes drifted over to the morning paper, the headline in bold black and white reading simply ‘Mysterious Arsons Continue Through The Chibia Prefecture.’

            Black eyes narrowed as he thought of all of that, and compared it to the situation now at hand. He couldn’t do that again. He wouldn’t do that again.

            He hopped off his chair, taking his earl grey with him and walked over to the nearest panel window. It gave him a truly commanding view of the U.A. courtyard, where he could see the lines upon lines of marble-cut statues to their most valued heroes. All Might stood tallest of course, but there were others too. Glory Hammer, Bolt Thrower, Leviathan, and over a dozen more.

            Nedzu hoped, deep inside, that one day a statue of Izuku Midoriya would be down there, tall and proud.

            His eyes drifted across the courtyard where he spotted a bus, and before it, a few tiny people getting ready to go aboard. He smiled a little. Aizawa was taking his class on their first trip to the USJ today. The training would be good for all of them, rescue was an important aspect of being a hero, after all.

            He wondered, as he sipped at his tea, which of the tiny dots was Izuku Midoriya. He wondered how he would do today, and what new lessons he would learn.

            Nedzu turned back to the report on his desk and walked back over to it, scooping it up into his paws and looking over the white pages once more. His eyes locked down onto a single sentence which had struck him the moment he had read it and even now it struck him again.

            ‘Izuku Midoriya does not have a quirk, but a demon inside him. He is evil, a villain in the making, and he cannot be allowed to continue at U.A.’

            The tiny principal frowned at the words, then he shut the folder, opened a desk drawer, and shoved it inside before slamming the drawer shut with a sharp stab of anger.

            Izuku was no demon. He was a child who needed guidance and direction. He was a student at his school and by God he would do everything in his power to help him become a hero.

            He leaned back into his chair once again as he put a paw to his lips in thought, watching the soft curling steam rise from his earl grey tea. The newspaper rested just at its side, a picture of a burning building on its front page.

            A building alight with brilliant blue fire.

            He hoped he was right.

            The bus rattled and Izuku was jostled sideways into Tenya, bonking his head suddenly against the cold metal armor of his friend’s uniform.

            “Oof- sorry,” He mumbled and rubbed the side of his head gingerly with a gloved hand.

            “No worries, Izuku.” Tenya beamed down at him and raised a hand in dismissal. “I didn’t expect this trip to be so bumpy.”

            “I know, right?” Uraraka said with a smile from Izuku’s other side as the bus rattled again. She leaned forward as she spoke, her fingers gripping her seat, “I mean I know this place is a bit far out, but can’t they smooth the roads over?”

            “Turns out U.A. isn’t all it’s packed up to be.” Hitoshi grinned across from them, his eyes closed and his hands linked behind his head against the window to which he leaned. “Their lesson plans are great, but the roads are too bumpy. Seven out of ten, would attend again.”

            “Hitoshi!” Tenya looked utterly appalled at the very suggestion that U.A. was not the greatest school of all time. “As your class president, I have to insist that you show more school spirit!”

            “Maybe when you pay me.” Hitoshi yawned loudly and crossed one leg over the other. “Presidents do that, right? Bribe people? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

            Tenya immediately went off on how he would only rule the classroom through ethics and high morals while the others laughed around him, Izuku included.

            Tenya had won the class presidency vote two days ago, the same day as the incident with the alarm, along with Momo Yaoyorozu as their vice president. Tenya had, of course, had the vote of Izuku, Uraraka and Hitoshi and had etched out his victory over Shoto. Tenya had taken it all in stride and had, so far, lived up to the title by organizing almost everything that Aizawa hadn’t bothered with.

            Which actually made him very effective, at least in Izuku’s eyes.

            The green haired boy turned his head down the bus for a moment, noting how cool his fellow classmates looked in their hero outfits before landing on Katsuki.

            Katsuki wore his gym clothes, his outfit had been mostly burned to cinders during their… incident. The blonde caught him staring and his snarl was like that of a rabid wolf. Shame flooded through Izuku and he turned his eyes down to his own gloved hands. While his own uniform had been damaged in their fight, it had been an easy fix compared to ruin he'd inflicted on Katsuki's.

            Nemesis had helpfully suggested that they were probably having trouble getting the blood stains out.

            His eyes moved up again and followed along the sight of grinning, laughing, chatting classmates before landing on Fumikage.

            Their eyes met and this time Izuku didn’t turn away. The bird-like boy watched him carefully before turning his eyes slowly to look out the window.

            Yesterday’s exercise was still weighing on him heavily. The words had bounced around his skull like a boomerang and had practically kept him awake for most of the night. Your kind. What had he meant by that? Did he believe Izuku to be some kind of demonic monster, or was it something else?

            In all honesty, it was starting to get a little frustrating. More than a little, actually.

            For the first time in his life he had someone right there, right fucking there, who could give him some damn answers about what the nature of his quirk was, what the things that haunted him truly were, and yet it was just his damn luck that the very same person had some bizarre, uncalled-for axe to grind with him.

            Izuku half wanted to beg Fumikage to tell him what he knew, and half beat it out of him. That half was the Nemesis half.

            “Ragged crow. Pathetic raven child.” It spat from within his own mind. “He is nothing to us. We should set his feathered head on fire and we’ll see how much he wants to talk then.”

            Izuku took a long breath in and back out of his nose. That was the seventh time today it’d suggested setting him on fire and it was beginning to get on his nerves.

            “Hey, Izuku.” He was bought back to reality suddenly by a flat-voiced croak coming from the seat adjacent to him. He blinked and turned to see the frog girl, Tsuyu, looking to him with a finger raised to her lips, “Can I ask you something?”

            “Erm, okay? What do you want to know, Tsuyu?” Izuku had barely shared a handful of words with Tsuyu despite their training yesterday and he still felt awkward around anyone who wasn’t in his immediate circle of friends.

            A prickle of fire-heat moved along his scars as he quietly prided himself on actually having a circle of friends. It was a nice thought.

            “Daughter of Dagon.” Nemesis whispered softly through his ears. “Cold-blooded amphibian.”

            “Call me Tsu, and if you don't mind, can you tell me what the results of your quirk assessment were?”

            He gulped at the sudden question and almost fell back in his seat as the bus rocked again. “Wha- What do you mean?”

            “Well, my quirk is Frog, I can do anything a frog can do, ribbit.” She cocked her head to one side, her wide, glassy eyes boring into him with a surprising amount of focus. “Obviously we know what happened to Katsuki, ribbit, and we all know you took an assessment afterwards. So, if we’re going to be learning together, I think it’s wise to know what kind of quirk you have.”

            “Hey, leave him alone, he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want.” Hitoshi cut in suddenly, his lilac eyes focused to Tsuyu in a narrow gaze.

            “No-no, it’s alright.” Izuku said with a waving of his hands, not wishing anyone to get testy. “I mean, you guys have to train with me, right? So, I suppose I should mention everything it does. Besides,” His eyes moved to Uraraka for a moment. “I didn’t talk about it before and it… well.”

            He didn’t finish his sentence. He saw the look that passed through Uraraka’s gaze and guilt stabbed into him like a pencil to the gut.

            “I-erm, it’s…” He thought for a moment before looking back to the frog-girl. “It’s transformative, to a degree.”

            “It changed your ears, right? I’m guessing probably your teeth too, ribbit.”

            Tsuyu’s bluntness again caught Izuku off-guard and he gave her a wobbling, nervous kind of smile. “R-Right.” People had yet to really notice his fingernails. Maybe they just thought he painted them that way. “Erm, it only transforms me when I get mad. It’s like… a shadow monster, thing, kind of, I think, but with fire.”

            “SHADOW MONSTER?”

            “Oh, like Dark Shadow?” Kirishima butted in suddenly, leaning over the bar of his seat. He was sat just across from Hitoshi, next to Jiro who seemed more focused on her phone than anything else.

            He grinned his toothy, sharp grin, looked over to Fumikage and called out, “Which is a super cool quirk, by the way!”

            Fumikage looked back to the others and said nothing, however, his attention was now clearly drawn, and he kept his crimson eyes locked on Izuku. The teenager could practically feel their oppressive weight on his shoulders.

            “We are not a shadow monster! We are Izuku Midoriya! We are Nemesis!”

            “Well, I… guess?” Izuku didn’t dare compare the monster that was Nemesis to Dark Shadow. For one Nemesis consumed him, utterly, while Dark Shadow seemed to act as an extension of Fumikage’s will.

            Secondly, Nemesis would rather obey a wet sock than listen to a word Izuku had to say, Dark Shadow, on the other hand, seemed willing to do anything Fumikage asked of it, even when it clearly got irritated.

            How nice it must be to have a monster within you that actually listened to you.

            “Izuku’s quirk is a unique one, but in no way does that make him as any less than the rest of us,” Tenya announced in a stern tone, his eyes traveling over their small group as he did so, “A troublesome quirk simply means he has to work harder, and we should all support his efforts.”

            “You’ve still not answered my question, ribbit.” Tsuyu again raised a finger to her chin, her wide, unblinking eyes continuing to bore at Izuku. “What kind of quirk did they decide it was?”

            “… It’s called Nemesis.” Izuku announced in a low tone, though, somehow, he was sure everyone on the bus heard it. “It’s a mix, I think. To be honest, I still haven’t gotten the results back yet.”

            His mother was actually getting rather angry about it. She had grumbled over last night’s dinner about what the point of putting him through the test was if they weren’t even going to tell them the results. Izuku had already decided he didn’t really want to know, not when his new medical information would probably just have a giant ‘EVIL’ stamp across it.

            Besides, for some reason she had been rather irritable lately. He hadn’t had the proper time to ask her why.

            “Nemesis? Dude that is bad-ass.” Kirishima announced with obvious awe in this tone.

            Hitoshi clicked his fingers and pointed to him. “See! He gets it.”

            “We are very bad-ass.” Nemesis cackled proudly. “It’s good to see our pathetic classmates showing us the respect we deserve.”

            “Well, you say that.” Izuku piqued up once again. “But, you know, it’s really difficult to control. Like I said, when I get too angry or let it take too much it…”

            “Hey, don’t worry about that, man.” Kirishima shot Izuku another toothy smile. “It was an accident. If I see you losing control,” He raised a fist and it suddenly hardened into rock, “I’ll just knock you out!”

            “Kirishima!” Uraraka said loudly, “That’s mean!”

            “I give you full permission to do so.” Izuku announced louder, much to the shock of Uraraka, “Please, Please, knock me out because it’s way better than the alternative, trust me on that.”

            Several people went to argue against such a measure, but the bus suddenly pulled to a rattling stop and Aizawa’s voice shot across them all with the tone of a bored Drill Sargent. “All of you quiet. We’re here.”

            The teenagers quickly gathered themselves up and began moving off the bus, though Izuku couldn’t help but notice how both Tenya and Hitoshi made sure to put their bodies between himself and Katsuki.

            The moment he stepped off the bus, however, all worries about his quirk vanished.

            Before him stood one of the largest buildings he’d ever seen. Massive sheer walls rose up before him, reminding him of the fortress walls of ancient castles. It was topped by a glass dome so huge that Izuku couldn’t even begin to guess where the apex met, or how far it stretched to accommodate the vastness of the building.

            Aizawa had told them that morning they were going to be focusing on rescue missions, learning to use their quirks to save lives in a variety of environments. And while he had seen it coming, thanks to All Might’s loose tongue, the very thought sent a shock of excitement through Izuku. No combat, just rescue, and thank God for that.

            “This is going to be boring.” Nemesis grumbled off within his own mind, it’s voice a low, grinding stone on stone. “Where’s the fun in helping the weak? We should be destroying our enemies with fire and fury.”

            Izuku bit back a snarky reply of his own. Today was going to be fun dammit, he wasn’t going to keep lagging behind everyone because his quirk would rather burn flesh from bones than bother to rescue people.

            His gaze brought forward when he spotted Aizawa moving over to someone new, a person dressed in what looked to be a bulky astronaut suit. Immediately his eyes widened, and a goofy grin stretched across his lips. “Hey! That’s the pro-hero Thirteen!”

            Uraraka, who had been stood beside him, nudged him with her elbow and nodded excitedly. “I know! They’re one of my favorites!”

            Their introduction didn’t take long. Thirteen announced themselves to the class and lead a quick, rousing speech about the virtues of using their quirks to help others. A speech which Izuku thoroughly enjoyed, especially as at no point did the hero indicate they would be using their quirks for anything remotely combat related.

            Which was a huge relief to Izuku, even as Nemesis continued to grump about not getting to hurt anyone.

            Thirteen lead them inside, with Aizawa taking point beside them. The double doors to the stadium opened and Izuku was almost instantly overwhelmed.

            “A sunken ship, a landslide, a raging firestorm, a storm-surge and a mountaintop rescue.” Thirteen announced, their voice strangely muted and genderless behind their unrevealing glass-dome mask. “These will be your training grounds today, students. And today you will learn to help, not harm. This is the essence of being a hero, after all.”

            Izuku’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped open as he tried to take everything in, even as he ran to the railing lining the cliff edge overhanging the entire USJ. Descending blow him was a huge stairway with enough steps to make it a hell of a workout if one was coming up them. The entire USJ was separated into its various zones, each of which loomed large before him.

            The sunlight beamed above and illuminated everything through vast windows, and in a way it all reminded him of a huge indoor theme park. And yet he knew it was more than that. It was the hope that Nedzu had placed in him, the hope that he was moving forward the right way, with the right footing.

            But movement caught his eye.

            There were three of them. Things that had no right to be called creatures circling the sky of the USJ. They reminded Izuku of manta-rays, except these were manta-rays covered with mouths and eyes which popped and spawned in and out of existence. Their long, trailing tails, almost the length of Izuku’s entire body, ended in multiple talon-like claws which moved softly through the air behind them. They seemed to constantly be shifting between colors of pinks and blues and purples and every now and then he could hear a strange, almost ethereal cry come from them.

            Izuku took in a shuddering breath and he turned his head away.

            Fumikage was looking too. He stood apart from the crowd, who were all chatting amongst themselves, but his gaze was fixed upwards. Izuku felt his heart catch in his throat for just a second as his eyes moved down and met Izuku’s own.

            He then closed them, shook his head in dismissal, and looked away.

            “Seriously, dude, just ask him out already.” Hitoshi’s snarking tone caused Izuku to jump and he turned his head. At some point, the purple-haired teenager had walked up to his side without Izuku even noticing. “You’ll make an adorable goth couple, I’m sure.”

            “Seriously, dude,” Izuku frowned back. “It’s not like that.”

            “Fine, fine, I’ll quit with the jokes.” He rolled his eyes and held his hands up in surrender. He then shoved them into his pockets, a pose which, with his costume, made him look remarkably like Aizawa’s secret love child. His frown didn’t help the similarities either. “But seriously, what is it with you two? You keep shooting each other looks like you have some big secret or something.”

            Big secret. Yeah that just about summed it all up.

            “It’s… it’s complicated.” Izuku sighed and placed his hands back on the guardrail, looking back out to the USJ grounds.

            “Then explain it.”

            Izuku felt that stabbing guilty feeling again, even as Nemesis pushed a wave of heat along his scars, almost as if to remind him the horror that could dawn on Hitoshi if he even had an inkling of what could be truly going on.

            “I can’t.”

            “Why not?”

            Izuku winced at the spike in Hitoshi’s voice. “I just-”

            “Izuku, look. I know we’ve not known each other long, but last time you held out on people, well, shit happened.” Hitoshi’s gaze now matched Izuku’s as he scanned the grounds. “Don’t think I’ve noticed how Dark Shadow and Nemesis share a couple of things.”

            Izuku’s head turned like a whip crack, his eyes wide. “What?”

            “Big. Mean. Made of shadow. Spooky as fuck.” Hitoshi shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s something, but I think it’s more than a little strange how you two don’t seem to even want to breathe the same air when you’re in the same room.”

            “I don’t- Hitoshi…” His words trailed off. He took a long, deep breath through his nose. He knew he couldn’t keep all of this from his friends forever, he shouldn’t. It was wrong of him to keep secrets from people who he'd already put through so much, Hitoshi especially.

            But how did he even start to explain the madness of the voice in his head, the monsters he saw around him? The monsters that Fumikage could see too, despite every bit of logic in the world telling him that it should be impossible?

            Anxiety and fear fluttered through his stomach. He remembered the laughs of his former classmates, the isolation, the fear, the crippling depression. He remembered it all with a burning clarity that clawed into his limbs and gnawed at his heart.

            But now wasn’t then. These were people he knew he could trust, people who had seen him at his worst, when Nemesis had worn him like a puppet, and still stood by his side. Hitoshi had looked into his eyes, eyes he knew had been filled with bottomless hate and he had still forgiven him.

            He could trust them. Unlike any other time in his life, he had people he could trust.

            “Tell him, let him know, it doesn’t change anything.” Nemesis growled from deep within the meat of Izuku’s brain, another rolling thunder of heat moving across his scars. “As long as we have his fear and respect, we don’t care.”

            “Can it- Can it wait?” Izuku finally managed to stammer out. “Until after the lesson, I mean. If I tell you, I want to tell Uraraka and Tenya too. I’d rather it just be you guys who know, at least for now. It’s- it’s something very personal to me, and I don’t know what’s going on with Fumikage but I’m going to guess he feels the same way about… everything. So, if I can just, you know, get through today we can sit down, and I’ll explain it as best I can.”

            Hitoshi’s royal purple eyes turned to regard the smaller boy for a moment, studying him with the same kind of analytical gaze that Aizawa had mastered. After a few moments, he let out a breath. “Promise?”

            “Promise.”

            “Fist bump on it.”

            “What?”

            He raised his fist up and held it out. “Make it a fist bump promise. You can’t go back on those.”

            Izuku paused for a moment, wondering if this was another joke, before deciding that even if it was, he knew Hitoshi enough that there was a deep sincerity behind it. Still, to make it a promise meant making it real. He couldn’t go back on his word, not without losing all trust and faith of his friends. He knew that he and Hitoshi shared the anxiety of letting people in, of having the world judge you for something you couldn’t control.

            And on that knowledge, he knew he could trust him. He raised his own fist and pressed it against his friend’s. “I fist bump promise.”

            Hitoshi only replied with a smile.

            “Alright, everyone, gather ‘round, eyes forward,” Aizawa announced loudly with the clapping of his hands, drawing the eyes of the two teenagers. The two glanced back to one another for another second before making their way back over to the main group, all of whom were forming a disorganized looking crowd at the very top of the staircase.

            Aizawa took another moment to wait until he was satisfied he had everyone’s attention before loudly, and with no small note of irritation, began, “Since All Might decided to not show up, probably because he’s rescuing cats out of trees, we’re going to divide the class into two and run you through separate rescue simulations.”

            Izuku felt his excitement rise, even if the anxiety of his promise with Hitoshi lingered at the back of his head.

            “Team A will be-”

            He never finished his sentence.

            The lights lining the vast structure suddenly cut out en-masse, robbing them of complete illumination and leaving them to the overhanging shine of the natural sunlight above. Then, almost simultaneously, there was a sudden hissing sound that rushed through the air, like that of wind being sucked into a black hole.

            Then the demons screamed.

            Izuku winced as their maws opened wide and the sound of a thousand dying animals howling into the night filled the air. It tore at something inside him and he felt the fire-heat of his power flowing through his veins as if jumping to his guard.

            Izuku almost turned to look at Fumikage, to see if he too had heard their screams, but his eyes were instead drawn down to the center of the USJ.

            There was a fountain there, a nice, simple design with a small eating and meeting area clearly set out for the student’s mid-day lunch. And shadows were gathering there. Dark and terrible and horribly familiar they gathered and grew wider and taller until a swirling disk of blasphemous void now stood before the fountain.

            From it came figures. Izuku’s stomach twisted and coiled as he watched wave after wave of people walk forward and within the same instant a word leapt to Izuku’s mind. Villains. They marched forward, some grinning, others stoic, all however with the cruel look of hardened criminals.

            “FILTHY SINNERS.” Nemesis roared through his blood like a battle-beast wakening to war. So much so that his skull pounded, and he fell to one knee suddenly, his eyes squeezing tight as he clamped his hands uselessly over his ears. Hitoshi was already at his side, confusion written across his face as he tried to help his friend back to his feet.

            “What the hell?” From somewhere he could hear Kaminari’s voice call out above the whistling wind. “I thought we were doing rescue training?”

            “Stay back!” Aizawa’s voice had become cold stone and empowered by an almost military authority. “This isn’t training, those are villains.”

            The sudden realization ran through every member of the class, and followed in its wake was the cold, mocking grip of fear.

            Aizawa, however, stepped forward alongside Thirteen and simply brought his slit-cut eye-shades up to his face. His expression was unreadable, but his aura roared with the sudden fire of righteous fury as the collective gaze of the class turned back to the center of the USJ.

            As Hitoshi pulled Izuku back up, the boy opened his eyes just in time to see two figures stepping through at the end of the small army of villains who now filled the grounds.

            The first to step through was a slight man with shock of uncombed pale blue hair. Hispants and top were dark and shaded. Across his body, however, were attached bizarre hands which clung to his limbs. Each hand had something marked on it, though what Izuku couldn’t see at such a distance.

            The second to step through was a demon.

            There was no other word for it. It was a demon. Its humanoid body bulged with unnatural muscle, raising it far above seven feet tall. It’s skin a midnight black and across it caved violent symbols and signs that Izuku could make out even at the great distance that separated them. Even more worryingly, they glowed with an all too familiar shade of corrupt blue.

            Its face was long and beak-like with a grinning, lipless mouth filled with upward spikes of bone that acted as teeth. Its pink brain glistened from its exposed skull and on either side of its face were bulging lidless eyes which glowed a tarnished gold. Across its skin, like pins through paper, came sudden, random spikes of bone, especially along its forearms and shoulders.

            The only vaguely human thing about it, other than its overall form, was that it wore a pair of beige cargo shorts.

            For a moment Izuku truly believed it was one of the invisible monsters that only he and Fumikage seemed to witness. That was before the slight man raise a hand to its arm and it came to an almost robotic halt.

            It was real.

            It was a creature torn from his terrifying visions made real.

            The shadow shank until it took a barely humanoid shape, eyes a deep, glaring yellow forming from within its shadow-clad form. A form which constantly seemed to flicker and weave like a candle caught in a breeze.

            The shadow-man turned his eyes upwards towards the students at the top of the staircase, and in a male voice clear, deep and loud, began to call out.

            “Raise every voice in song! Bow thy head to the Fallen and sing! Raise thine arms to the unlight and sing! Bow thy knee to the accursed flame and sing!”

            He flared for a moment, as if proud of his terrifying announcement.

            “For Tomura Shigaraki, Ender of Days, stands before you!” His voice deepened, becoming edged and sinister, “And not one of you will leave this place alive.”

            This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening.

            Strangely, Izuku thought of how simple everything had been before he tried to master his quirk. Back when he was a tiny, skinny nobody with ugly scars and no friends and was all but forgotten by the world. Back when Nemesis was still the thing and he didn’t care to know what his quirk did or was or could do.

            Back when his days moved by in a haze of fog and static.

            In that moment he wished he could be back there. Safe and bubbled wrapped with the world muffled to his ears. He had been in no danger there, useless and friendless and forgettable as he was.

            But he wasn’t there. He was here. Now. In this moment that he had brought himself to by force of will, determination and all the heart he could muster.

            Hitoshi’s grip on his arm was starting to dig into his bones, but he didn’t throw him off. The slight ache was enough to ground him once more and he found the strength of his feet as he stood properly. He nudged his friend with an elbow and the taller boy jolted back to reality.

            He let his grip on Izuku’s arm go, though his eyes didn’t tear from the small army of approaching villains.

            He had to keep strong though. Even now he could feel his heart beginning to pound, not just out of terror, but out of a need to help.

            He took a step forwards to join his teacher at the very top step of the vast staircase but was quickly stopped by an outstretched arm. “No, stay back. You kids have to get out of here.” Aizawa turned to look at Thirteen, his expression stoic, his voice however shifting from his usual bored, tired teacher’s tone to one of calm, cold authority. “Thirteen, can you get word out to the main campus?”

            “I can’t reach anyone, all I’m getting is static.” Thirteen announced, two fingers held up to the side of their helmet. “They must be blocking any outward-bound signals.”

            “That explains why the alarms haven’t gone off.” Aizawa quickly added, his eyes turning back to the approaching villains. A hand raised up suddenly and for a split second Izuku thought he saw it hover over a part of his upper chest before it gripped tightly onto his capture-scarf. “Alright, you get them back to U.A. grounds, I’ll hold them here.”

            “Aizawa-sensei! Sir!” Izuku was calling out to his teacher before he could even stop himself. “You can’t hold them on your own! There’s too many of them! Your quirk is better suited to one-on-one fights, you’ll-”

            “Midoriya.” Aizawa’s tone closed all and any further argument. There was nothing to be said, not to a man who had steeled his heart and was already moving down the staircase in slow, deliberate steps. “I’ve survived worse than this.” He glanced at the terrified looking young man and, for a moment, Izuku was sure, sure, he saw what passed for a smile on his lips. “You can’t be a hero if you’re afraid to walk headfirst into hell.”

             And with that he was gone, moving like a bolt of lightning down the staircase at a speed which shocked Izuku. He realized that despite everything Aizawa was a pro, a word which until now had held a sort of mythical meaning in Izuku’s head. But it was more than just a title, it was a statement.

            A pro faced overwhelming odds without a second thought. A pro beat back the darkness with every inch of their strength and beyond. A pro didn’t stop until the job was done and everyone who could be save was saved.

            Aizawa was a pro.

            “The Son of David is impressive.” Nemesis whispered through his mind, even as Thirteen began herding the students back towards the main door. “He does his people proud.”

            From behind him, he could hear the screams of villains getting demolished by his teacher and a small smile ghosted across his lips. He shouldn’t worry so much, he was sure Aizawa would be fine… and yet still he felt the need to turn around, to dive headfirst into that sea of villains and do something to help his teacher.

            But he had to trust in him. He had to be sure that this was the right move to make. Besides, what would he do, really?

            He had Nemesis. A bloodthirsty monster that would probably take the villain’s side and slaughter his friends.

            Surely this was the best option.

            And then a chill ran across his skin. He heard it again, the sudden sound of air rushing to a spot and before him, the shadow rose up. Within a second it blocked their entire exit and a pair of hateful golden eyes emerged from the shifting darkness.

            “I greet you, children, on behalf of my master and the Heralds of Eversoris. Each of you will find your end here, but fear not, for your deaths will be a blessing.” His eyes glowed as it scanned across them. “It means you will not have to bear witness to the death of your Symbol of Peace, and the beginning of the end.”

            Each student seemed to freeze with terror and only Thirteen stepped forward, their arms held out to either side in whatever passed as an attempt to keep the shadow from reaching the children.

            Izuku could not look away. This monster, this creature forged of a shadow unnaturally dark, unnaturally cold. From a distance he had felt only a whisper, but now it was before him something inside him, some deep instinct buried in his very soul, began to scream out at him.

            It was the same reaction he’d had to the monsters he saw, to when he had first seen Dark Shadow. He could feel it within his bones, his skin, his heart and mind. There was something so utterly wrong about it that he couldn’t name but knew, inside, was simply not of this world. It was blasphemy for it to stand before him as it did.

            “Its soul…” Nemesis spoke in a tone which he had never heard from it before. A soft, serpentine wonder. It was confused. “Its soul is a cage of shadow. How is this possible? What manner of creature is this?”

            Now, now, Izuku was starting to worry. Sure, he had feared for the lives of his friends, his classmates, his teacher. But before it had surely it had been a simple equation of good guys vs bad guys, all human at the end of the day.

            But Nemesis’s wondering question sent not just a chill but an entire ice burg sailing down his spine.

            This was bad. Really, really bad.

            For a moment he felt the shadow-being’s eyes land on him and he froze, even as flame-heat ran through his scars in a muted defense. The golden eyes narrowed, as if taking note, before being ripped away by the approach of Thirteen.

            The hero held out a finger, and in a voice forged of an iron will, called out. “You will not block our path, villain! Surrender or be defeated, there is no other choice.”

            “I beg to differ, child of the void.” The shadow being almost grinned through its words. “You are all going to die, so-”

            “AAAAGH!” The battle-cry was so sudden, so surprising that Izuku practically jumped out of his own shoes. From the crowd of terrified students came two sudden figures, streaking forwards with their fists raised.

            Katsuki and Kirishima.

            The next second was filled with nothing but the violence of fire and power, exploding from the palm of Katsuki while a flash of something pale and sharp and solid sliced through the shadow and smoke.

            A gasp rose from the class as the smoke cleared away and the two young men stood strong, almost shoulder to shoulder.

            “Come on, you think we’d make it that easy for you?” Kirishima grinned widely. “Like hell we’d let you kill us!”

            “I’ve been itching to kick someone’s ass.” Katsuki added with a vicious, wolfish grin on his lips. “I’ll settle for yours, and then that big ass motherfucker down there, and then that fucking creep with the hand fetish.” He gripped his fist tightly. “You’re not fucking killing anyone, you hear me?!”

            Izuku felt his stomach twist. Katsuki was brave, braver than anyone he knew, and Kirishima, well, he didn’t know much about him, but he must have been just as brave to join in the attack.

            But the words of his curse were still swimming through him, infecting his heart and mind. This was no normal villain, of that he was sure, and it took only another second for his fears to be proven right.

            The shadow reformed. It rose, tall and straight now, pulling just slightly back from the two teens. The looks on the faces of the two fell as the eyes once again opened on its void of a face. “Ah, the bravery of the young, such souls shine brightly before they are extinguished forever.”

            “Both of you, get back!” Thirteen almost screamed at the two but they didn’t budge, if anything Katsuki almost seemed ready to attack again and his knees bent just slightly.

            “You will all meet your ends here. Now be scatted, foolish mortals!”

            The shadow grew. It grew and grew and grew as it swamped over their heads and flooded between their legs and washed through every student in the class.

            Nemesis roared within his skull, causing Izuku to wince and cry in pain and it robbed him of any chance of attacking the monster himself. Grave-cold tendrils of shadow wrapped around his form, even as his scars lit white-hot with burning, protective fire, for a moment even flashing blue from their intense heat.

            He turned and reached out to grab someone, anyone. He saw Hitoshi as he drowned under the waves of darkness, his eyes wide and terrified as he too reached out for his friend.

            For a second the tips of their fingers touched, then, he was gone as the shadows took him.

            Izuku felt the claws of the shadow drag him under as the world lifted and vanished from under him.

            And Izuku fell into darkness.

Chapter Text

            For a moment, all was silence, all was darkness, all was the corpse-cold of blanketing shadow and deafening shade.

            For only a moment Izuku fell, though it felt to him as though he was falling for an eternity. He was drowning in airless shadow, in the deepest of the abyssal void. There was a peace there, in that strange, timeless moment. A deathly peace which embraced him like a weeping mother, comforting him and draining the energy from his mind and body.

            He wondered if this was what it was like to die. To drift eternal, cold and empty through the void.

            But reality is a jealous creature, and after the second-long eternity passed, it reached for its child, eager to take back what had not yet served its time.

            The darkness ended like a hammer blow to the head and was replaced with chaos manifest. The noise of the wind tore through his whole body like a wolf. It ripped at every inch of his exposed skin and with it came the arrowheads of rain which pelted his body with a cruel, murderous intent.

            And to make it all worse, he was falling.

            Izuku tumbled from the sky with a speed he had only experienced once before. Back in the exam. Back when he had thrown himself at a monstrous robot and allowed his curse to blast it apart.

            But there was no Uraraka to save him this time.

            And not just that, but the utter madness of the sudden storm he found himself in tossed and threw him through the air like a doll. He couldn’t right himself, he couldn’t gain any measure of control. He simply spun and fell and he knew any moment now his skull would hit the ground and he’d be gone forever. He tried to scream but his voice was utterly lost on the howling fury of the wind.

            “NO.” Nemesis roared suddenly within him and power, black and thick and terrible rushed through his limbs. “WE WILL NOT DIE.”

            Izuku screamed again, but now in sharp, burning pain as he felt the skin along his back tear as his muscles cracked and split and reformed as flesh-scorching fire tore through his scars and his wings began to grow.

            They spread from his back in sudden, swift jolts of movement, as if they were bones snapping into place. Great and long, like the wings of a vast demonic bat, but made of a terrible burning shadow. They too were turned and battered by the hurricane and Izuku felt his senses spinning as the sudden, dizzying sensation of power surged through him.

            Even worse his skin burned and sizzled from the fire-heat, coming into immediate conflict with the rain and instantly evaporating the air around him. Steam now joined the chaos, though thankfully it trailed mostly behind him.

            From somewhere within his heart he summoned the will and the knowledge to flap as hard as he could. It felt bizarre, even amongst the overwhelming sensation of the storm, like having giant hands plastered onto his shoulder blades. He curled them as hard as he could, forcing his body to suddenly stop spinning and gain a tiny measure of self-control.

            He felt his speed slow.

            Even so, it was barely enough. He flapped them again, long and forceful and almost graceful despite feeling as though he was clinging onto his mind and heart with the tips of his fingers. His rapid decent slowed as the asphalt street zoomed up to greet him.

            Though he didn’t exactly come to a halt.

            He landed onto the wet street with a run as his body naturally swung downwards, but it was a landing at a sprinter’s pace, forcing him into a swift pelt.

            He had landed right outside of a fake storefront. A storefront which was now rushing towards him with the speed of an oncoming car. Izuku had no way of stopping himself and he knew it.

            In that second, he made the only decision he knew he could that would at least leave him in one piece.

            He dived.

            His hands rushed up in front of him as the shattering of glass now filled his world and thousands of shards now glittered around him, wet and tossed across him by both his own force and the ravenous wind outside.

            Nemesis was swift to react, but even it hadn’t seen the windowpane coming, and as such his scars burned a second too late as he hit the floor with a heavy, almost bone-breaking smash and began rolling until something big and solid stopped him with the suddenness of piece of fruit hitting a brick wall.

            Izuku however, was still alive.

            He knew he was still alive because he could feel pain. And he felt a lot of pain at that moment. His arms were groaning from where they’d hit the glass, his legs felt like they were about to quit off his body entirely, his lungs burned from his screaming and landing and sprinting, and his back was on fire from where his wings had sprouted from his body.

            They had vanished, however, turning to ash the second his feet had hit the ground.

            All of this was, of course, ignoring the fact that his vision was spinning in front of him and he felt as though he was about to throw up his breakfast. He wasn’t sure if it was from using his curse, or from the fall, but either way, he felt like a sack of black death warmed up.

            He lay there for a moment, simply groaning to himself before slowly managing to sit himself up. He’d hit a counter, which had thankfully not crumpled as he’d collided with it. The rain drenched the floor before him, though he’d come far enough to keep away from most of it, and the wind howled outside the shop like a beast denied its meal.

            His clothes, boots, and hair were utterly drenched. He lifted a hand up to wipe his fringe from his eyes and blinked exhaustedly, trying to focus on something solid so his vision would stop turning at the corners.

            Izuku spat onto the floor beside him, coppery and thick as he took in gulping breaths.

            Steam surrounded him and slowly the chill began to lift from his bones.

            It was one of the very, very few benefits of his quirk. He would dry off from any spell of rain in a matter of moments thanks to the fire lurking within his blood.

            As he sat there, a thought began to meander through his still shaky mess of a mind. Nemesis had saved him. It did everything it could to make his life a living hell, and yet it had saved him. He knew he shouldn’t talk to it, he knew he should ignore it completely, but alone and cold and, yes, scared, he breathed out, “T-Thank you.”

            “For what?” Nemesis replied with a hiss through his mind like that of a drawn blade, “We are Izuku Midoriya. Why would we let ourselves die?”

            “You’re not Izuku Midoriya. I’m Izuku Midoriya. You’re Nemesis,” Izuku growled out as he climbed onto shaking, but gradually steadying, feet.

            “We’re both, and all, one and the same,” Nemesis replied as if shrugging, “Why argue about it?”

            “Whatever.” Izuku looked around, realizing that the shop he’d fallen into was mostly filled with props. It was a fake, like everything in this place, designed only to provide some measure of realism to the exercises ran through it. Even the window was clearly designed to break apart, which was why it had easily crumpled on impact and left only a few minor scratches on his arms.

            He could feel water still dripping from his ears. He screwed up his nose and tried to wipe them clean. It was a weird feeling and he was utterly unused to it. As he did so, he began talking to himself, “Alright, think Izuku. I need to get back to Aizawa-sensei and the others.”

            “The Living-Shadow dropped us here,” Nemesis added, almost thoughtfully, “In this hurricane-storm. The rain hinders our flame, it is a poor battlefield. Do we know if we’re alone?”

            Izuku had to admit it had a point. He had seen hundreds of villains walking out of the shadowed gates. It stood to reason not all of them might have headed straight at their class. Not to mention the Shadow-man had chosen the perfect place to throw someone who used fire as a primary weapon.

            “Well, can’t you,” He raised a hand up in puzzlement before it slapped wetly back down to his thigh. “I don’t know, sense their souls or something?”

            “… we are not a radar.” Nemesis growled back. “We only see the souls of others when we can see them with our own eyes.”

            Izuku had no idea what to make of that but logged it for later. Of course, the moment he did so he rolled his eyes at himself and shook his head. He was doing it again. Buying into the bullshit that Nemesis spewed out on a daily basis. He was glad he caught himself, otherwise it could have led him right into letting it take over him.

            No, not ever again.

            Deciding he felt well enough to move, Izuku made his way over to the door, finding it unlocked. He squinted against the storm and looked down the street, wondering which way he should take to hopefully find an exit before he suddenly heard something through the howling wind and pounding rain.

            It was scream. A high-pitched scream, feminine and sharp and spiteful to his own ears. It set his teeth on edge and sent a shiver along his spine. It sounded almost haunting, and yet vicious and angry.

            “What the hell…” He turned his head towards the sound, it had come from about a block from down the street. Logic told him to move away from the sound. He was alone and possibly outclassed by who knew how many villains.

            But then it was replied.

            A screeching nose like that of a crying crow but long and hateful and almost echoing with the call of a thousand more of its own kind. The sound rushed down the street and struck at something deep within Izuku, far more than the feminine one had done.

            It was in pain, whatever had made that noise was in pain.

            His legs started moving.

            He raised a hand to his eyes in a poor shield against the rain and his clothes once again became utterly drenched as he sprinted through the storm towards the noise. He could already feel Nemesis crawling through his veins, moving along his limbs in readiness for whatever horror he was about to stumble onto. Steam rose from his body as he ran, giving his whole form an odd, ethereal effect.

            He heard the cry twice more in succession, followed by the sound of bricks being shattered and a window being smashed. As he approached the corner he slowed, throwing his drenched back against a wall and brushing his water-soaked hair from his eyes. He took a deep, nerve-steadying breath and turned to peek around the corner.

            Fumikage was bleeding.

            There was a gash in his cloak where one might assume his arm would have been and, on its midnight-black fabric, there was a blossoming of red blood. Above him, suspended like a monstrous protector, was Dark Shadow. They opened their mouth slowly and let out a low, evil sounding cackling noise, their claws already raised up in fury.

            Before him were three villains.

            One was lying to the side, already defeated, his body an unconscious, crumpled form by a smashed window. He was a slight, ugly looking man who resembled a lizard with teal green scaled skin and a large fin sprouting from his head.

            But two still stood.

            One was a woman, dressed in tough looking leather, her short black hair plastered to her skull and her face turned away from Izuku. She was slim and short but looked like she knew how to throw a punch.

            The other was a large man who looked big, strong and wore only a pair of combat pants. He also looked like a wolf. His body was covered in grey fur and his hands, from what Izuku could see of them, resembled the claws of the dreaded animal. He even had a snout and face to match.  

            Through the howling wind he saw Fumikage’s beak move but he couldn’t hear his words, and suddenly Dark Shadow darted forwards, swiping at the woman who rolled aside. Izuku watched as her mouth opened and the scream tore through the air.

            It was so loud that the teen flinched and threw his hands over his ears. The windows to the far side of him cracked along the seems and some even shattered only to be swept up into the storm.

            Fumikage stumbled back and Dark Shadow seemed to wince in pain at the sound. Then the moment her mouth closed, the wolf-man moved at Fumikage like lightning, rushing forward with a bellowing howl.

            Dark Shadow dove forward, saving their host just before the villain could slice through Fumikage’s chest. They smashed the assault away, but the force of the blow sent Fumikage stumbling and he fell to one knee.

            Dark Shadow went to strike again, but again the woman screamed and the shadow-beast was frozen in place by the sheer volume of her attack. The wolf-man moved swiftly, rushing at Fumikage. His quirk-beast reacted, but it was obvious it would be too late.

            The wolf-man raised his claws.

            And Izuku was already there.

            At what point he had begun moving he wasn’t sure, perhaps it was when the woman screamed a second time, perhaps it had been when Fumikage had fallen.

            All he knew was that suddenly he wasn’t by the corner, he was in front of Fumikage and every scar on his body was on fire as his power flowed through him like the fury of a tsunami. He palm was out, stretched forwards and less than a heartbeat from pressing into the wolf-man’s chest.

            The wolf-man barely had time to blink before Izuku’s roar filled the air, and mingled with it a micro-second later, was the sudden boom of blue fire that erupted from his palm like an exploding grenade.

            The noise shook Izuku’s entire world to its foundations and he was thrown backward, his feet slipping on the water-drenched road, though miraculously he managed to keep upright. Steam exploded around him and for a moment it even masked both himself and the bird-like teenager.

            Nemesis screamed through his system, all claws and fire and fury. However, the blasphemous blue fire faded along with the smoke and steam and the ash flaking from his arm, all washed away by the pouring rain. He could see that the wolf-man had been blown so far back he’d collided with a lamppost and bounced off it like a ragdoll.

            Izuku wavered on his feet but he kept his stance. His sharp teeth were gritted into a fanged half-grin half-grimace as he held his palm out like a loaded gun. Internally he pulled the leash of his monster back and Nemesis cried out in irritation.

            He could smell the stench of burning fur, scorched flesh, and open blood in the air and it was almost intoxicating. Something horrible and wicked and violent was rising within him along with the rush of battle. He panted heavily as he eyed the shocked looking woman, who had a surprisingly pretty face, though it wore the sullen cheeks and heavy eyes of drug addiction.

            Without taking his eyes from her he called out through the howling wind, “Fumikage? Are you alright?”

            He was met by silence and only with a sudden glance down did he see why.

            Fumikage was on the floor, staring at him with wide eyes. Then, as he climbed back to his feet, he did something Izuku did not expect.

            He back away swiftly.

            Dark Shadow rushed to his side as Fumikage staggered his eyes never once leaving Izuku. “What is this? What game are you playing?”

            “You were about to get torn apart by a werewolf.” Izuku snapped suddenly as his eyes went back to the villains. “I’m not going to let you die, Fumikage. I don’t care how much you hate me, I’m not going to let anyone die.”

            “These sinners.” Nemesis was not just growling now but was stalking through his mind, his body, he could almost feel its shadowed hand trying to guide his arm to use more fire on their opponents. “They deserve death. All of them do. The Seventh Son especially.”

            “So, the Little Demon shows his colors at last.” From his side Izuku could hear Dark Shadow hiss. Their voice was a strange jackdawish caw that sent a strange shiver running along his skin. “It is fitting we finally greet one another upon the field of battle, Nemesis. My master would surely appreciate your aid.”

            “Unlikely.” Fumikage spat out. “I need no help from creatures of his kind.”

            “Would you rather die here?” Izuku called out, his patience running thinner and thinner as he saw the wolf-man climb back to his feet, the villainous woman was now stalking towards them carefully, her sunken eyes reassessing them with each step.

            “I know you don’t like me, Fumikage and I know there’s a ton of shit we need to talk about,” Izuku cried as he backed up to come alongside him, his eyes glancing at him again as the bird-like teenager backed away a few more steps, but otherwise keep the line, “But if we don’t work together you, me and everyone else in our class will die.”

            His eyes hardened, despite squinting in the pouring rain. “I don’t know what you think I am, but it doesn’t matter, because I am going take this horrible curse inside me and I’m going to use it to save lives, to do good.” His voice was a roar over the wind, a rallying cry against all the imposing darkness that seemed to hang over them, “I’m going to take my power and use it to become a hero!”

            Fumikage paused, his eyes grew wide, and within them, for just a split second, Izuku saw something he had recognized. Pain, suffering, and from somewhere deep under that, an understanding.  

            The villains struck.

            The woman screamed, her voice cracking the windows around them and causing both the teenagers to wince suddenly. Izuku felt his teeth vibrate within his own mouth, his insides shake, and his ears spiked with pain as the scream seemed to rattle every atom of his being.

            However Dark Shadow drew up and swung down in a scream of crow-like rage, and for a moment her sonic attack was drawn from them.

            In the same moment, the wolf-man charged forwards, roaring in fury. His chest was a mangle of matted, burned fur, flesh, and blood bright against the rain. The very sight of it set Izuku’s battle-lust on fire, his teeth on edge and his brain alight.

            It made Nemesis grin within him.

            The wolf-man threw a fist, and Izuku considered replying with a fist of his own. One made of burning flame and blackened claw, to rip and tear through his chest like it was made of paper.

            No, he shut the thought down as a better instinct kicked in.

            He turned, and swiveled, and in the same moment grabbed the vast damp, furry arm and using the very momentum of his attacker he swung the wolf-man over his shoulder with a scream of fury. At the same time, he allowed a flurry of power to rush through his arms, giving him the extra punching power he knew he’d need.

            It was the same move he’d used on Katsuki, the same move he’d perfected in the exercise.

            And it was horribly effective.

            The wolf-man went flying over his stocky form and smashed into the asphalt, his roar of pain sending a giddy, ugly rush through his heart.

            The boy, however, wasn’t finished.

            Using the power still rushing through his fists he swung down against the jaw of the wolf-man, smashing the very teeth right out of his mouth and knocking him utterly unconscious in one horrendous blow.

            Almost simultaneously he heard a sharp scream and the shattering of glass, followed by a long cackle of vicious joy.

            He held back from smashing the man again. Flashes of his fight with Katsuki echoed through his brain and he had to stagger back to stop Nemesis from urging him on. Blood was spattered across his gloves and he was breathing heavily.

            The world span around him, the water felt wetter on his skin, and the wind cut like a dagger through his hair. His senses felt sharper, better, more suited to the dance of war and battle. Steam roped around him once again, almost shimmering in the air, giving his body an unearthly appearance.

            “Finish them off. All of them. Make them bleed, make them pay for their sins.”

            The temptation caught his breath in his throat. Izuku, however, gulped heavily and screwed up his eyes, suppressing it all down. He hadn’t used that much of Nemesis’s power, not nearly enough for it to dig its claws into him.

            But he’d used enough to have it slither through his limbs. To plant the idea within his head and make sure it wouldn’t go away.

            Fighting the villain. It had felt good. Wickedly, viciously so. He knew it shouldn’t, but it had, and he knew it was Nemesis, but it felt so natural that it sickened him.

            Again, he gulped down a breath of cold air and turned to look across the street.

            The woman was gone. To his far right there was a newly smashed window and from it the black-clad form of Dark Shadow emerged. They looked very, very pleased with themselves.

            He turned his head again to see Fumikage standing to one side. There was barely a handful of meters between them.

            And yet it felt as though there was a gulf in that small stretch of road.

            “We need to get inside,” Izuku called out across the storm, “There’s probably more of them coming, and you’re hurt. I-I have some bandages in my belt.”

            Fumikage seemed to hesitate at this, his eyes still locked onto Izuku suspiciously, even as Dark Shadow circled him like a hawk waiting to dive on an unsuspecting mouse. There was a war within his eyes, some problem he was wrestling furiously with. Izuku had no doubts that it was over himself, and as such, he simply kept in his place, steam rising from his heated form.

            Fumikage finally spoke, his voice low and colder than the storm’s rain. “Do not take my co-operation as a sign of trust, so-called Izuku Midoriya, this is simply for my own survival. You will follow my lead, Dark Shadow,” His eyes glanced up to his monstrous quirk, “Keep an eye on him.”

            “Yes, master.” Dark Shadow bowed to their host and turned their tarnish-yellow eyes back to Izuku. “Come along, Little Demon.” They clapped their hands together and grinned viciously, “We have so much to talk about.”

            “If that parasite calls us Little Demon one more time-”

            “Right!” Izuku called out before his own monster could finish its threat.

            Fumikage moved and Izuku moved with him, matching his pace with ease. Together they ran through the howling wind, through the relentless, drowning rain. The entire time Dark Shadow looked back, watching Izuku with a cunning gleam to their eyes.

            Despite his wound, the raven-headed teenager managed to lead Izuku down two separate streets before diving into a small shop with an open door. Together they retreated into a backspace storage room which was lit only by a single overhead bulb. It gave the entire room a strange, liminal feeling, as if they had both entered into a world apart from their own.

            Both of them panted heavily, though Izuku remained standing while Fumikage finally allowed himself to sit on a small pile of crates placed against a plain grey wall. The black-clad teen looked utterly drenched and raindrops fell freely from his dark feathers. They even dripped from the end of his beak, though Izuku tried not to focus on that.

            It was easy not to, not when the red patch on his arm seemed to be slowly growing.

            “Fumikage, your arm,” Izuku breathed out, gulping down his fears for the moment. “We need to bandage it.”

            “It appears worse than it is.” The raven-headed boy replied. “The water-”

            “Don’t be stupid,” Izuku snapped at him suddenly, drawing a grin from Dark Shadow and a deep frown from Fumikage, “Let me bandage the wound before you bleed out or something.”

            “And allow you access to my blood? Do not treat me for a fool, Demon.”

            “My master has been well trained,” Dark Shadow cawed as it hovered protectively over their host, “Your petty tricks will not so easily sway him.”

            “I’m not a- ugh!” He rolled his eyes and with it, curled back his irritation. “Look, you need to trust me. I have a thousand and one questions for you but now isn’t the time. You’re hurt, I can help, let me bandage your arm.” Izuku huffed out with a matching frown and a prickle of fire-heat from his scars.

            Steam rose from him as his clothes dried simply from contact with his skin and he tried to ignore the feeling of water dripping once again from his ear tips.

            The bird-like teenager, however, made no move and instead only frowned deeper as his crimson gaze seemed to note the soft steam rising from Izuku.

            He watched Fumikage’s eyes observe the effect before throwing his arms up in annoyance and then letting them fall, slapping back down onto his sides. “What can I do to persuade you I’m not going to hurt you?”

            “Like you persuaded Katsuki Bakugo?” Fumikage’s deep tone was surprisingly cutting and Izuku winced.

            “That was an accident, Nemesis, it- it took control of me.”

            “A clever story,” Fumikage spoke with no hesitation, his words sharp, “And a convincing performance. But I am not so easily swayed by crocodile tears. I know your kind does not feel empathy or sorrow.”

            Izuku grit his teeth at this. Did Fumikage seriously believe he wasn’t torn to shreds by what he’d done to Katsuki? That he didn’t spend every day wishing it could have been different? That he didn’t recoil at himself every time he looked at Katsuki’s face?

            “Is that what you think?” Izuku spoke in a lower tone now, his heart pained by the memory of his fight with Katsuki. It was still within his mind, still in high-quality sixty-frames-per-second like it’d happened only moments ago. Nemesis made sure he would never, ever forget it. “You think I’m-” He hesitated on the word before breathing it out, “A demon?”

            “Are you not?” Fumikage cocked his head just slightly. “I cannot see your soul, but Dark Shadow can. They have told me how it burns with the accursed flame, how it is surrounded by the unlight. They tell me it is unusual in its makeup, but demonic nonetheless.”

            For a second Izuku’s mind raced back to what the shadow-man had said at the fountain and he felt that same iceberg go sailing down his spine.

            “Do not hide yourself from us,” Dark Shadow announced suddenly, grinning at the green-clad boy. “We are of kin! It gladdens me to know that I am not the only one of my kind within that temple of vain-glory they call a school.” They cocked their head and blinked in a remarkably bird-like manner. “Your possession of your host is most admirable, Nemesis, clever and deceiving. The other mortals haven’t a clue what you truly are.”

            “We have no idea what they’re talking about,” Nemesis whispered through Izuku’s mind, “We are Izuku Midoriya. We are Nemesis. We are one and all.”

            “I’m not a demon,” Izuku said finally, his hands clenching at his sides, “I just have a horrible, awful quirk and-”

            “You see the Unborn,” Fumikage cut in suddenly and pointed a, somehow sharp, finger at him with his good hand, “You use the accused flame openly as your weapon, your skin is warped by the unlight and,” His eyes twitched, “From what I heard you become monstrous when in the heat of your bloodlust. Yet you insist on playing this game with me?”

            “I-I’m not a demon!” Izuku stammered out, his eyes darting almost as if he didn’t believe his own words. “But…”

            The information was flooding his mind all at once. The unborn, the unlight, the accursed flame, possessions and demons and monsters and- A migraine threatened at his temples and fire rolled through his scars.

            Izuku took a long breath, trying to stop his stomach from doing flips. “I don’t know what Nemesis is.” He admitted in a small tone. “All I know is that as long as I don’t let it get to me, as long as I don’t use it too much, it won’t take control me.” He rubbed his eyes, though from exhaustion more than tears. “Nemesis is violent and evil, but I can hold it back as long as I’m careful. I slipped up with Kaachan.” And for a moment, Izuku’s voice lowered, almost to a whisper. “I’ll never let it happen again.”

            “We can’t trust him, we know we can’t trust him.” Nemesis, as if on cue, urged with all the calm of a smoking gun. “We need to destroy him.”

            “Nemesis.” Fumikage weighed the name on his tongue for a moment. He seemed to pause, as if considering separate options, and Izuku could almost see the thoughts moving one by one through his mind’s eye, as if he was planning out each event to its full conclusion.

            “Fine, have it your way, so-called Izuku Midoriya. I propose a test. If you pass, I will allow your assistance and accept your story. If you fail,” He shrugged and then winced and from under his black cloak, Izuku could see his good hand move to his injured arm. He looked to Izuku and shadows played across his face, causing him to look sinister in the dull light, “Well, we’ll live with the consequences.”

            Dark Shadow’s grin suddenly seemed a hell of a lot sharper.

            Izuku gulped again.

            “He’s going to hurt us, we know it, we should attack! Now!” Heat washed through his scars, as if to press the sword into his palm.

            Izuku resisted and gritted his teeth, his eyes lingering on Fumikage’s bloody arm. “Whatever it takes.”

            Fumikage seemed to look surprised for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected Izuku to say yes. However, he stood up, again wincing as he did so. He looked as though whatever adrenaline had been holding him upright was wearing off, and even Dark Shadow shot their master a cursory glance.

            With his good arm, Fumikage rummaged for something within the confines of his cloak and Izuku felt his stomach twist with anxiety before suddenly the teenager drew out a small bottle of water in a clear, plastic bottle.

            Izuku frowned slowly. “… you’re going to give me a drink?”

            Fumikage rolled his eyes before holding the bottle up in his hand. “This is holy water, blessed by a man of true faith. When it touches a being of demonic origin, they react violently.”

            The green haired teen almost laughed out loud, though he managed to hold it back even as a roil of curious heat washed along his scars.

            “Holy water? We’re not a vampire.”

            “I can see you don’t believe me.” Fumikage mused in a tone that suggested he’d been through all of this before. He flicked a thumb against the cap of the bottle, opening it with a light click, “Allow me to provide evidence.”

            “Master? Master please don’t, no-no-!” Dark Shadow almost immediately tried to squirm away as Fumikage turned the bottle down over the shadowy trail that led into his chest and squeezed the bottle. A few drops fell and landed on to Dark Shadow.

            And the beast screamed. They screamed so much that the sound filled every inch of the room and Izuku jolted back, flinching and looking to the door, worried that someone outside may have heard them. When he looked back, he could see hot steam rising from Dark Shadow’s body where the water had hit them, and Fumikage too winced and grit his teeth in mild pain.

            Dark Shadow finally stopped and began whimpering softly. “Why? Why, master?”

            “I apologize, Dark Shadow,” Fumikage even gave the quirk-familiar a small bow of his head, “But an example was required.” Crimson eyes flicked back to Izuku. “Are you now prepared?”

            Izuku gulped. Before he had thought it kind of silly, dropping holy water onto someone to see if they were a demon or not. Yet the way Dark Shadow had reacted caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise.

            Was the same about to happen to him?

            His heart began hammering in his chest as he thought about all the things that had happened to him lately. His new teeth, ears, and blackened fingernails. The monsters he had seen Dark Shadow devour, the ones he had thought imaginary all his life. His reaction to Aizawa’s quirk and the true awakening of Nemesis into his life.

            Izuku took a breath through his nose and silently removed his gloves, placing them on a nearby box. He then turned his palms up to Fumikage and nodded once slowly. At this point, any answer would be welcome. Even if the price for that knowledge was pain and suffering, he would endure it. He would know if he was possessed by a demon or not.

            After all, there could only be two outcomes. Either nothing happened, and he was let go, or something happened… and he was murdered by Dark Shadow.

            So, no pressure.

            “I’m ready.”

            “This is stupid. We’re not a demon. We are Izuku Midoriya, shadow and flame!”

            Izuku bit his lip as Fumikage held the bottle over his palm.

            He squeezed, and for a moment, time slowed as Izuku’s green eyes watched the tiny droplets of holy water fall onto the pale skin of his palms.

            He felt something.

            It wasn’t the immediate burning that had afflicted Dark Shadow, nor was it the cold chill of rainwater on his skin. It was a strange tingling sensation that pickled across his palm in an odd, creeping manner, like a spider making a cautious crawl across an open space.

            The closest thing he could compare it too, within his own mind, was that of resting on one’s arm too long and having it fall asleep from under him. Not quite numbing, but not quite feeling either.

            “This is uncomfortable,” Nemesis whispered with a sound like the whetting of a blade, “And pointless, just like we said it would be.”

            Izuku opened his mouth to say something, but Fumikage drew the bottle away before he could even speak. “How did- how is this possible?” His eyes locked with Izuku’s own confused gaze and he growled out, “Why did you not burn?”

            “Look, Fumikage I-”

            Dark Shadow moved around him suddenly, blazing yellowish eyes boring into him and forcing the teenager to lean away from them, “LITTLE DEMON! WHY DID YOU NOT BURN?”

            “I don’t know!” Izuku practically stammered out. “I don’t know how your stupid test works!” He decided, internally, that he wasn’t technically lying to Fumikage if he just let him believe that the holy water hadn’t affected him, at least for now.

            After they got out alive, he could admit the odd numbing sensation he’d felt and deal with the consequences of it.

            But for now, they had more important matters to attend to. Like not dying.

            “Can I bandage you up now?” Izuku asked, his eyes darting from Dark Shadow to Fumikage and back again, “We need to get moving if we’re going to get back to the others.”

            “Master,” Dark Shadow growled out, circling their host slowly, “Don’t trust him.”

            The air in the tiny room grew heavy and pregnant. Fumikage’s eyes focused on Izuku with a gaze so intense that Izuku could almost feel it boring into his soul. He was waiting for something, anything, any sign that Izuku would suddenly come at him, teeth bared and claws raised.

            And yet when all he saw was a slightly damp, drained-looking teenager who looked like he needed a big hug and a nice long nap, he finally shook his head and mumbled, “A promise is a promise, and let no one say I am not a man of my word. Dark Shadow, do not interfere.”

            The shadow-beast seemed torn, gritting their teeth tightly before moving away from Izuku, grumbling something dark under their breath.

            “Thank you, jeeze,” Izuku quickly reached into a pouch on his belt and drew out a package of gauze, tearing it open with his teeth and moving to Fumikage’s side. The bird-headed boy drew back his cloak and revealed a rather nasty looking cut along his arm where the wolf-man had attacked him.

            Izuku winced at the sight, even though his heart picked up a beat at the sight of the blood. “You’re right, it’s not as bad as I thought, but still…” He began cleaning and wrapping the wound as best he could as a strange silence settled between the two boys.

            “Izuku,” Fumikage began, looking away from him, “I would like to-”

            “Fumikage.” Izuku cut him off suddenly, looking to the avian teen with an exhausted gaze. “We both know right now isn’t the right time for this. When we get out, we can sit down over some lunch and…” He trailed off before shaking his head and shrugging, throwing his hands up an exasperated manner. “You know?”

            Fumikage seemed to consider this proposal for a long moment before he finally nodded. “Agreed.” There was a tone in his voice which Izuku knew implied a mistrust that he had yet to fully overcome, but for now, he would accept his cooperation in keeping each other alive.

            It would have to do.

            Dark Shadow huffed from behind their master and eyed Izuku suspiciously as the boy continued to work. “I don’t know what you are, Nemesis, but I swear one day I will face you in battle and kill you myself.”

            Izuku didn’t answer him, but within his own mind he heard Nemesis gleefully, cruelly hiss back, “Not if we kill you first, Dark Shadow.”

Chapter Text

            Crunch.

            Aizawa felt the villain’s arm break under his heel and he turned his head, his eyes flashing onto his next victim even as the woman launched herself at him. Her quirk, some strange ability that let her use her hair like coiling snakes, suddenly died before her, blanketing her face and causing her to yelp in shock.

            Aizawa reached forward, grabbed her by the hair, and pulled her towards him while, all in one fluid movement, smashing his elbow into her nose.

            She fell like a bag of tossed garbage.

            And yet even as she did so another took her place. There were almost ten bodies laying about him now, some moaning softly, others quiet and still. All had tried to take him, and all had failed. He let out a calm breath even though his lungs begged for more and his heart pounded within his chest.

            Sweat plastered his shirt to his skin, despite it being designed to absorb perspiration and keep him moving swiftly. His scarf was already torn in one place, and he had another sharp cut along the leg of his black pants.

            All his senses had become razor sharp, like the hunting wolf, like the stalking tiger. His body, even now, wanted to break and swing madly and go into a furious warrior-rage which would destroy the villains before him

            But it was also a warrior’s mind that kept him focused, kept him on the defense rather than the attack. For each one that tried to kill him, or each one that took even a step onto the vast staircase, they were met with his cold, unrelenting punishment. 

            He sniffed and then spat onto the ground, his spit tinged with coppery blood, and let his cold eyes cross over the hesitant villains before him.

            There wasn’t one yet who could even remotely challenge him. They were all low-level criminals, dollar-store thieves and thugs who could barely use their own quirks let alone actually fight.

            But that wasn’t the point. The point was that there were a lot of them and that was only in this area alone.

            Who knew how many others were in the USJ itself? He had seen a full third of his class vanish before the Shadow-Man’s quirk. If they were alive, kidnapped or dead he had no idea.

            But such thoughts were not conducive to his process.

            It wasn’t that he didn’t care, of course he cared, his heart almost spiked through his chest at the thought of any one of those children being hurt. But he had to force that side of himself away because acting irrationally would only get himself, and them, killed.

            What he required right now was focus.

            His eyes moved up to the fountain where he once again spied the two villains who had yet to do anything.

            They were his true target.

            His gaze moved across them for a moment, the man with the blue hair and hands over his body, and the giant, monstrous looking creature with the strange symbols carved directly into its bulging flesh.

            Something recoiled within him at the sight of the bizarre, somehow violent symbols. Something that sneered in disgust at the idea of them even existing. Something deep inside him, right in his heart, and perhaps even deeper than that…

            He cried out in sudden pain as someone slashed a knife across his back. In the same moment, he turned and smashed his opponent in the face with a whirling kick, knocking the villain down in an instant.

            Dammit, he was getting distracted. He couldn’t afford to get distracted, lives were on the line.

            He refocused his efforts, ignoring the stinging pain across his back. The wound wasn’t deep, the villain’s swing was bad, and the cut was shallow. But they didn’t label it ‘death by a thousand cuts’ for nothing. It was another wound that was subtly, quietly dragging on him. Another weakness he had allowed into his defense.

            There were only two left now, two acting as a thin wall between himself and the two villains standing by the fountain.

            He could take them. He had no idea what their quirks were, but if they were supposed to be the elite of their attack then they were a sorry bunch. A man who could teleport others, likely with no real offense to speak of, a man covered in hands who looked like he’d snap under a good punch… and the monster.

            Again, something about the creature clawed at Aizawa’s mind. Something about the symbols across its chest, the way its eyes seemed empty and soulless yet screaming and full of wrath. Something about it was just… wrong.

            The two minor villains fell in quick succession. Aizawa robbed one of his quirk, some kind of metal arm protection, and smashed him in the face before using his capture tape to throw him to the feet of the final villain, a hulking man made of muscle who leapt easily over his fallen comrade to charge at Aizawa.

            Big ones were always so easy to defeat. All that muscle clogged their brains of logical thought, for example, thinking that rushing at a man who knew five different forms of martial arts while screaming with their arms held wide open was a good idea.

            Aizawa ducked easily under the hulk’s arms and smashed his fist upwards into their jaw. The sudden strike knocked the brute senseless, and he was out cold a moment later when Aizawa swept a foot under his legs and shoved his face into the floor.

            He heard clapping.

            Panting, he turned and looked up to the fountain where the teal-haired villain stood, clapping politely. From behind the hand-like mask he wore over his face, marked with a sigil not unlike those upon the monster, Aizawa could see evidence of a wide, cracked smile.

            “Good job, Erasurehead.” His voice was like someone had clawed at his throat from the inside, yet somehow youthful and betraying of his age. How old was this man? At a guess, Aizawa would say only as old as the third years in the school itself. “You beat the peons, you must be really high level to do all that on your own.”

            “Stand down now, and maybe I won’t break your arms.” Aizawa’s threat was vicious but held together with his trademark stoic manner. He remembered what the shadow-man had called out before he had vanished from his fellow villain’s side and his own eyes narrowed. “Tomura Shigaraki, right? I’m guessing you’re the leader.” He smirked. “Aren’t you a little young to be ushering in the apocalypse?”

            Maybe he could get him talking, stall for time while some form of backup arrived. They must have noticed the USJ systems were down, they’d send someone to check it out.

            Or so he hoped.

            Either way a moment to regain some of his stamina would be worth its weight in gold.

            “Mock me all you want, but I’ve seen the truth. I know what lies beyond this wretched world.” Tomura continued to smirk behind his hand-mask. “You see the fate of mankind is the fate of lice. They move, constantly, unseeing and looking out only for their own survival. All of them unaware of what all their little sins add up to. Where they’re all going to end up.” As he spoke his voice began to dip again, taking on a tone that caused spider legs to crawl across the skin of his neck. “I’ve seen it. Hell. It’s real, Erasurehead. It’s real and you’re all going there.”

            Aizawa wanted to call out how stupid he was. How heaven, hell, or any of the other dumb myths weren’t real.

            But something held his tongue. Something in the man’s voice, in the symbols etched onto the hands clutching his body. Something flashing in his ruby eyes.

            “You’re going to burn. All of you. And it’s all going to start with the death of All Might,” His eyes flickered and Aizawa suddenly realized that while he was talking his focus had been off the monster at his side.

            The monster which was no longer at his side.

            A shadow fell over him and Aizawa turned, his eyes flashing as he tried to activate his quirk. But it was too late. A hand the size of his face grabbed his head and simply squeezed. Pain tore through his skull as the monster lifted him from his feet and his scream was muffled by the monster’s palm.

            From behind him, he heard Tomura speak in that sickly soft yet course voice. “Don’t be rude, Legion, introduce yourself.”

            A voice suddenly met his ears. The voice of a laughing child, a crying woman, a furious man, and a thousand, thousand others all twisted and linked and coiled together. A voice that caused his brain to alight with a primal fear dragged from instinctual memory.

            “We are Legion. We are many.”

            The wind howled like a beast possessed. Izuku had no idea how they could ever manage to create such a thing and keep it up like this, but he could only suppose it cost the school a lot of money to maintain.

            The wind and rain, however, provided several advantages to their position. First, it helped hide their movements, as most of the villains seemed unsurprisingly reluctant to stand around the streets of the faux-city and patrol for their intended victims. Most of them huddled into awnings or stood inside and peered out of windows.

            Secondly, it hid any sound they could make. The roaring wind and battering rain allowed them to practically sprint from street to street without making much noise at all.

            It hadn’t taken long for Izuku and Fumikage to find the right directions towards the exit. Mostly because there were actual signposts pointing the way, which was helpful. The villains probably hadn’t had the time to begin remove them, or perhaps they simply hadn’t thought that the two would-be heroes would actually use stealth rather than outright violence to solve their problems.

            Izuku had told Fumikage he wanted to avoid fighting if they could. Not out of cowardice, as Dark Shadow had accused, but simply out of necessity. Time was not on their side, for every second that ticked by another one of their friends could be dead.

            It was a grim, but honest assessment and Fumikage had nodded as he had adjusted the gauze that Izuku had wrapped around his wound.

            Izuku still had the impression that Fumikage didn’t fully trust him, and more than once he had glanced to see Fumikage’s crimson eyes watching him carefully.

            They had spoken little since the holy water test, other than quick commands and warnings for the villains they had spotted. The bird-headed teenager had pulled Dark Shadow back into his body once the demonic shade had loudly protested about the ‘run and hide’ approach and not the ‘tear them apart’ approach.

            So now they were here. Crouched on the second floor of a building, peeking out of a large, water-soaked window. They could see nothing of the USJ proper, the rain and wind made sure of that despite the glass ceiling of the dome. And even if they could he doubted they would see much, the high walls of the dome were designed to stop much of anything getting over them.

            Izuku had wondered internally if they had some kind of flooding mode due to the way the concrete seemed to considerably darken a few meters up the wall.

            His eyes moved down. A huge solid metal door stood closed and in front of it, a small tent with a white ceiling and clear walls had been put up in what would have been the middle of a road. The road itself split into two and vanished into the fake city, creating a three-way intersection with a roundabout. Izuku and Fumikage had managed to sneak into one of the side buildings, giving them a decent look over the entire road.

            He could see them even through the storm, the six villains posted to the exit. They had collected under the tent and most of them seemed large and bulky. One of them, however, stood near the edge of the tent, trying and mostly failing to smoke a cigarette. He was slim and oddly demonic looking, though Izuku got none of the klaxon-loud internal warnings he’d gotten from Dark Shadow and had concluded quickly he was not a true monster.

            His eyes turned to Fumikage, whose stoic expression was betrayed by a single twitch of his crimson eyes. Then he ducked back down and a turned to look at Izuku.

            The room they occupied was lit only by fluorescent lights, most of which were out and the ones that remained flickered constantly with the rattling of the building, casting them in and out of shadow and gloom. Izuku knew in the dark he must seem like some strange, impish thing with his pointed ears, though Fumikage too looked like a creature of the night, dressed as he was in black with his spiked feathered head.

            Fumikage had an intense gaze, either naturally or not, and it caused a subtle crawl of heat to move alone Izuku’s scars. It was off-putting, his narrow avian stare. Along with his almost constant aura of moody darkness, it made him seem distant, aloof and brooding. It was the kind of aura that would shoo most people from him purely on instinct.

            But Izuku didn’t. In fact, he scooted on his hands and knees under the window to get closer to him. Izuku knew what it was like to be surrounded by shadow. He was more than used to it, almost to the point where he was secretly glad to see someone shared his dark impression.

            “Six villains,” He hissed under his breath to the raven-headed boy, “They’re making sure to guard the gate well.”

            “We cannot avoid them as we have the others. To get through we must defeat them, and lock the gate behind us if possible.” Fumikage mused, for a moment tipping his head up again at the window. “Such cursed souls are we for being handed such a challenge.”

            “We’re cursed souls anyway,” Izuku answered with a shrug, “So, we’ve got nothing else to lose, right?”

            Fumikage fixed him with a sharp, piercing look for a moment before what he swore passed for a smirk flittered over his beak. “No, I suppose not.”

            “We have an opportunity to strike,” Nemesis hissed through his ears, its battle-hunger evident in its dark tone, “We should murder them all.”

            “What do you think?” Izuku asked Fumikage suddenly, deciding it was better not to take the advice of… whatever Nemesis actually was. His hand curled into a fist atop his knee and his fingers absent-mindedly stroked along his palm. He could almost feel the odd tingling sensation even now, despite the fact he had his gloves on.

            Fumikage was quiet for a moment before answering, “The villains we fought before had little combat training and seemed to rely entirely on brute force or their quirks to fight. They are street thugs and little else. Between the two of us, I believe we have the power capable of defeating our enemies.”

            “But you’re injured,” Izuku mumbled, a curled finger coming up to his bottom lip as he thought, “You can’t fight like that.”

            “Not true,” Fumikage replied swiftly, “When in combat, I use Dark Shadow. My injury was from the lucky strike of a villain and my own ill fate.”

            Izuku looked to Fumikage with a frown for a second and, even in the pressing situation they found themselves in, he felt a stab of jealousy in his heart. Fumikage’s quirk-familiar was so strong, so powerful, and in many ways reminded him of Nemesis.

            Yet despite the violence and terror that Dark Shadow threatened he obeyed Fumikage completely. If only he had such command over his own accused power.

            “Dark Shadow is nothing to envy. It is a parasite creature.” Nemesis hissed, almost defensively through the inside of his skull.

            “But still. That leaves me.” Izuku took in a steadying breath. “Obviously my control over Nemesis isn’t… great. Not to mention it’s not well suited to this environment.” The boy shrugged. “Last time it was two on two and the wolf guy came in pretty close. This time though,” He huffed quietly, “Six on two? I’ll be useless after a few fireballs and then we’ll be screwed.”

            Fumikage nodded slowly. “Agreed.”

            “We need to think.” Izuku frowned again. “We have the element of surprise, we need to use that to our advantage.”

            The building rattled around the two cursed young men for a moment before, suddenly, Fumikage asked, “Izuku. How did you survive being dropped into this place?”

            The boy in green blinked and looked over to his black-clad companion. His memory jumped to the events which seemed a forever ago but was more like only a handful of minutes. He smiled sheepishly, his fangs flashing in the blinking light. “Well, I, erm… flew.”

            Fumikage raised an eyebrow slowly. “You flew?”

            “Well more like fell, with style,” And he wagged his fingers in front of him. “Nemesis can, eh,” He gave Fumikage an unsure look, “Summon wings to stop me falling. But it kinda only does it when it feels like it.”

            “We can summon forth our wings any time we wish.” Nemesis whispered temptingly through his mind, “If only we stopped being so stubborn.”

            Izuku’s fingers curled and he wished he could dig his fingernails into his palm. Thankfully his padded gloves stopped him.

            Fumikage’s eyes narrowed at Izuku, “Blue fire, shadowed skin and now wings. You hold quite the arsenal within you, Izuku Midoriya, especially for one who claims to not be of demonkind.”

            The teenager simply shrugged. “Just lucky I guess. And besides, I passed your test, that knocked me off the possessed list, right?”

            Fumikage made no other noise, he simply locked Izuku with a stare that seemed to be boring through him. It was as if he was again judging Izuku, unsure if he was being tricked or was simply faced with a quantity he had never dealt with before.

            However, after a moment he saw Fumikage slowly raise a finger to his beak and he hummed in thought. Izuku frowned and cocked his head a little in confusion. “What? What is it?”

            “I believe I’m forming a plan. It will require precision timing, speed and your promise that you will not allow your demon to consume you.”

            Izuku nodded, though his stomach suddenly flipped. “I-I promise, whatever you need.”

            Fumikage smiled and in the same moment the light above them flickered off. In that second, it became difficult to tell who he was looking at, Fumikage or Dark Shadow.

            “Good.”

            “This isn’t going to work.” Nemesis growled as Izuku approached the rooftop. The wind outside rattled and roared with the intensity of a caged beast and Izuku could already feel the temperature dropping. Nemesis kept him warm of course, but it was like putting a radiator in the middle of a snowstorm.

            “The Seventh Son is trying to kill us.” His curse continued like a whining child. A whining child made of bloody axes and severed skulls, but a whining child still. “He’ll abandon us at the last moment. Just wait and see. He and his soulless parasite.”

            “He won’t. His life is on the line just as much as ours- I mean mine.” He gritted his teeth as his hand closed around the rattling, freezing cold doorknob to the roof. “He’ll be there. I trust him.”

            “Our trust is misplaced.” Nemesis replied like a coiling snake. “But at least we’ll claim these kills as our own.”

            Izuku sighed loudly before shaking his head. There was no point responding to it any longer, after all, he had no intention of killing anyone or anything, no matter how much danger he was in.

            Though a part of him knew even if he didn’t want to kill, Nemesis sure would… and perhaps it wouldn’t even give him the choice.  

            He opened the door and was instantly drowned in a torrent of rain and wind that almost completely knocked him off his feet. He held onto the frame of the door as he began forcing his legs forward, crouching down and crawling when he needed to as the never-ending tropical-storm level wind hit him full force, stronger than ever now he was atop a five-story building.

            He was almost on his stomach by the time he got to the very edge of the building and he peeked over the stone rim. Squinting down Izuku could see the tent below him and though he could no longer see the villains through the cream tarp roof. Two now lingered outside, a flickering orange glow told him they were sharing a lighter.

            Izuku fought against his drenched hair as he tried to brush it from his vision. Within his head he quickly began making calculations, trying to account for the wind, the distance and everything else he could need for the plan to work.

            “Maybe we won’t use our wings. Maybe we should just drop to our pathetic death,” Nemesis complained, clear even through the howling wind.

            “Maybe we should, you’d be doing me a favor for once,” Izuku snarked back as he crawled away from the edge.

            “We’d never let ourselves die!” The curse almost predictably cried back as Izuku climbed to his feet and began hunching down, aiming just askew from his original position on the ledge. “We are shadow and flame! We are Nemesis! We are Izuku Midoriya! No fall can ever kill us!”

            “Well, it looks like you won’t mind this then.”

            Izuku ran.

            As he ran he shoved Nemesis deep into his legs, feeling them shift and burn and alight with fire as he reached the edge of the rooftop. With an almighty yell which was lost to the roaring of the wind he leapt off the rooftop and far into the street.

            And he prayed to whatever God was listening that his accursed quirk would do the rest.

            He began falling. The wind grabbed him and took him in an instant, throwing him through the air like a plastic bag. However, he had planned for this, the power of Nemesis had launched him far from his target and as he fell like a stone he tried his best to angle himself down, rushing towards the tent like a green-clad missile.

            Nemesis responded.

            He held back a scream as once again the muscles on his back split and cracked and tore open as wings, black as the void and coated in burning shadow, erupted from his flesh. Still, he rocketed to the ground, his falling slowed just in time as he angled perfectly with the top of the tent.

            But he wasn’t done yet.

            Before his feet even touched the top of the tarp he held out one hand and gathered whatever was left of his blasphemous power into his palm. He could feel his dark curse rush through his body, burning his scars and alighting them to a furnace blue. Shadow burst up his skin like rushing flood water and his fingers cracked, mutated and were reborn into terrible rending claws.

            He collided with the tarp, instantly caving it inwards as he collapsed whatever metal structure had been holding it up.

            In the same moment he detonated the gathering demonic blue flame within his palm and, for a brief moment, his entire world was filled with nothing but the explosive, mind-breaking sound of his profane power erupting across the tent around him.

            Despite the downpouring water, it was blown apart in mere seconds, the pieces being scattered to the howling winds around him.

            But Izuku couldn’t even focus. His world was a spinning and liquid and hissing steam on burning fire. His breakfast was already falling from his lips as he staggered forward and collapsed down to the water-drenched ground. His power was still pulsing through his body, begging and clawing at his heart and demanding access to more.

            More fire, more chaos, more fury.

            Izuku curled into a ball, screaming to no-one’s notice as Nemesis was denied its prize, and instead burned its way across his scars in a flash of corrupt blue flame before finally fading back into his body like a receding wave.

            Izuku could hear shouting from somewhere. He had no idea how many his surprise attack had managed to take out, but he hadn’t bet on removing all them. He had kept his eyes closed as he had screamed bloody murder, but as he finally opened them, almost blinded as he was by the furious wind and rain, he could see three of them gathering to their feet.

            One them pointed three arms at Izuku and they began closing fast, screaming words that Izuku could barely make out through his ruined senses.

            And then the shadow took them.

            It reached not for one them but all of them in one, vast sweeping gesture, like the paw of a great animal.

            Within the space of a breath it had picked them up and thrown them into the side of a nearby building. It was out of Izuku’s range of vision, but he could hear the crunch of bones breaking against flat concrete. There was the smash of glass, the laughter of a great mocking jackdaw and the screaming of men.

            And then, suddenly, there was no more.

            From the haze of rain came a new figure. A bird, a crow, Fumikage. From his back stretched the great form of Dark Shadow.        

            The boy walked over to Izuku slowly and then knelt before him. Rain pattered off his form, his feathers dripping and soaked. He cocked his head a little, seemingly ignorant to the actions of his monstrous familiar.

            “You didn’t abandon me.” Fumikage announced in a quiet tone. “And you did what I asked, even though it was practically suicidal if you had failed.”

            “It’s… what a hero… would do.” Izuku panted out softly, trying to wipe the dribbles of vomit and spit from his mouth as he slowly tried to raise himself up on shaking limbs.

            Fumikage frowned again at the teenager, however, his gaze was not annoyance, but a strange sort of look that reminded him, sharply, of the look Hitoshi had given him when he had spoken similar words before. A sort of amused, gladdened, perhaps even hopeful look.

            Then the crow-boy shook his head slowly and as the world gradually rotated back into place Izuku swore he could see a smile playing along his beak, “You are a strange one, Izuku Midoriya. A child of darkness that will sacrifice himself for the light. You have the quirk of the damned, the soul of one claimed by shadow, and yet you insist on playing the hero.” He stood up, and then did something Izuku hadn’t seen coming.

            He offered his hand.

            “Come, we have our classmates to save.”

            Izuku paused for only a moment, looking to the outstretched hand and wondering for a brief second if this was another one of Fumikage’s little tests.

            Then he managed a weak smile, nodded and in a wet slap he took the hand of the boy and allowed himself to be hauled up onto his feet. He staggered and almost fell onto Fumikage before managing to find his balance, as shaky and uneven as it was. He looked around, wiping his hair from his drenched head. “… oh shit.”

            His attack had not just been a great distraction, as intended, but it had demolished the tent. Pieces of it still burned despite the heavy downpour. Apparently, there had been a table with treats and drinks within the tent because food and burned plastic wrappers were now littered across the road, if they weren’t already caught up in the wind.

            Izuku’s eyes moved to the bodies laying about. Three of them had been knocked out the moment Izuku had landed, he could tell by the way they sprawled out on the floor, one with the tarp still thrown over them.

            Dark Shadow had made short work of the rest. Izuku had always considered Nemesis to be excessive in its violence, Kaachan was now wearing the proof of that on his face, but Dark Shadow came a close second.

            One villain simply hung from a window he had been thrown through, blood flowing from some unseen wound in his face. Another lay at the base of a crater his body had punched into a wall and his legs twisted unnaturally under him. The third Izuku couldn’t see, but he had no doubt they had a suffered similarly brutal fate.

            “Are- are they-”

            “They’ll live, Little Demon,” Dark Shadow replied grumpily, “Master will not allow me to take lives. At least,” And their grin grew as it circled Fumikage, “Not yet he won’t.”           

            “Dark Shadow, return.” Fumikage snapped and the shadow-monster obeyed, rushing back into their master’s body. The crow-like teenager then turned his eyes to Izuku and commanded, “Let’s go.”

            And with that, he stormed forwards, not even giving Izuku or the bodies another glance. Izuku joined him quietly at his side, staggering along and feeling as weak as a newborn kitten. He had pushed himself so far that he was amazed he hadn’t surrendered control the moment he’d landed.

            He was proud of himself for that. He’d burned his limbs and now his entire body ached with every movement and effort he made, but he was still moving. He could still help.

            He thought about what Dark Shadow had threatened, how Nemesis had so often threatened to do the same. Tired, slightly unfocused eyes turned to the water-drenched crow.

            “… it’s horrible, isn’t it?” Izuku said in a voice that was almost stolen by the wind. “Having that thing inside you.”

            Fumikage’s voice was much the same. “Yes.”

            “Sometimes I wonder if God hates me.” Izuku continued as he began to follow Fumikage, the two of them heading towards the small archway which held the double doors to the storm surge arena.

            “I don’t think God actually cares.” Fumikage’s reply was so blunt that it practically tripped Izuku over. He felt his stomach roil and he staggered a little, being forced even to throw a hand up against a wall as they stepped into the barely-dry archway. “But who are we to question the Almighty? He is supposed to work in mysterious ways,” And for a moment, Izuku could see a great and terrible sorrow hang around the bird-like boy, dripping from him like rain. “Each soul plays its part in the great theater. Some, perhaps, must suffer in darkness so others may enjoy the light.”

            Izuku paused at this and then slowly nodded. “Yeah. Maybe,” He allowed a smirk to appear on his lips, “Or maybe life just sucks, you know?”

            Fumikage almost, almost smiled. Izuku could tell, the beak twitched, and the crow-boy was forcing it down. “Maybe.”

            They stepped forward and the double doors whooshed opened automatically. Quickly the two boys hurried through and it slammed behind them, locking the storm away. The moment they were back into the USJ proper Izuku could feel the sudden, almost dizzying sense of difference from their previously wind and rain ravaged environment.

            It was only now he noticed just how truly drenched they were. Water was practically pouring off them, and even in the new warmth of the overhead sunlight Fumikage seemed to be shivering. Izuku, however, did not, as Nemesis’s inner fire already comforting him and steam gently rose from his form.

            “We should block the door,” Izuku glanced at it, “I would try and melt it shut but…” He sighed heavily and wobbled where he stood. “I still need time to recover.”

            “Understood.” Fumikage turned and without a word Dark Shadow once more emerged from his body. However, rather than take shape, it darted up and forwards, rushing towards the door controls and smashing them like a fist.

            Electricity surged through the doors and Izuku heard something loud click into place. He smirked as Dark Shadow returned back into its master. “When in doubt, smash things, I guess?”

            “U.A.’s systems have a tendency to lock down on a hair trigger. I noticed it first when the journalists tried entering the grounds,” Fumikage mumbled almost to himself, “What a dark design flaw this academy holds.”

            Izuku couldn’t help but silently agree. Still, they were outside, finally. Soaking wet, windswept, bloodied, battered and, in Izuku’s case, one more quirk use from throwing up all over himself and collapsing.

            Or worse.

            But they had made it, and now they could work on helping the others.

            He looked around and spotted the huge staircase leading up to the entrance. The main fountain area was hidden by a long, curved line of shrubs and bushes planted along the edges of a walkway that led to the storm-surge arena.

            He could see their way back to their friends. “Alright,” He started as he gulped down another roil of vomit that played across his stomach and threatening to reach up to his throat, “All we need to do is stick to the bushes and we should be able to make it back up the-”

            There was a loud crash and a shout from the fountain. Izuku felt his heart go cold and heat again prickled greedily along his scars. It was Aizawa, it had to be. His feet began to move on their own, but a hand shot out and grabbed his shoulder.

            He turned to see Fumikage, looking at him with his focused, crimson gaze. “We can’t get involved. You said yourself you can’t use your quirk much longer, and I am still injured, even if I do have Dark Shadow. I…” He paused for a moment and Izuku saw him gulp. “You saw that… thing with the villains, didn’t you?”

            Izuku nodded slowly. “Yeah?”

            “I do not know what it is… but it is not human.” Fumikage let the words hang in the air for a moment, like a warning, before pressing on. “Or if it was once, its body and soul have been corrupted beyond recovery. Either way, it is dangerous.”

            “The Seventh Son is a coward,” Nemesis spoke distantly within Izuku’s mind, vicious and swift, “We could tear it apart without issue. Simply unleash us, and we shall bathe in its blood.”

            Izuku breathed deeply and pushed the image from his mind before continuing, “But Mr. Aizawa,” Izuku looked back to where more shouting, more heavy smashes were coming from. “We have to help him.”

            “Then what is your plan?”

            Izuku bit his lip and raised a finger up to them for a moment, mulling his options before starting to move towards the bushes. Slowly, carefully, both to keep from being seen and because he still wasn’t completely over his sense-destroying attack on the other villains. He felt wobbly, uneasy on his feet and his temples throbbed with a possible oncoming migraine. He could still taste acid at the back of his throat and he felt as though he needed a nice, long drink of water.  

            Minor complains when taken in a normal context, but when combined with the knowledge he could lose his grip on his dark curse with one more surge of power, each served as a warning sign to stop.

            “Maybe we can draw some of them away, lighten his load.” He shot a smile over his shoulder to Fumikage. A tired, weary, unconfident smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Anything to give him a better hand, you know? I might not be able to use my quirk any longer, but I can still run like hell.”

            Fumikage didn’t seem to totally accept the plan, but he said nothing and continued to follow Izuku. The green haired boy took it as a sign of submission.

            It was a stupid plan, Izuku knew that, but he also knew that he owed his sensei more than he could ever give. Aizawa had seen him at his worst, when Nemesis was pulling his strings and looking for fresh blood to spill.

            Aizawa had stepped forward and stopped him in a heartbeat.

            That was why he had to save him, that was why he had to do something. Because everyone else was acting so heroically, while he just sat and cowed at the curse of his own blood.

            No more. He was trying to be a hero dammit, and if he could pull even a handful of villains away from his teacher and lead them on some merry goose chase through the USJ it would be worth it.

            This thought hardened in his heart as they reached the end of the length of bushes. He stopped as he heard more crashing, this time louder, and somehow far more brutal than before. Anxiety turned his stomach and crawled along his arms as he crouched low and turned his head.

            Fumikage locked eyes with him and nodded only once.

            Then, together, they moved just past the corner to peek around the bushes.

            What Izuku saw send his heart into overdrive.

            He had assumed the crashes were that of his sensei kicking the villains into next week, and indeed across the courtyard before the fountain the bodies of villains lay practically stacked on top of one another.

            But it was not the villains making the noises.

            Their teacher lay on the ground, crawling with only one working arm, the other dragging uselessly at his side. He was coated in blood, it flowed from his face, his lips and stained his clothes in worryingly large blotches.

            And walking behind him, almost casually, was the hulking form of the midnight-skinned monster.

            The creature walked with long, purposeful steps towards the broken-looking man with barely a scratch on it. It grabbed his leg in one massive hand and simply turned, hurling the teacher over its shoulder in a gigantic arc and slamming him full force into the ground.

            Izuku could hear Aizawa’s bones snap even from his distance.

            He could feel it now. Closer as he was to the monster. The same deep, stabbing, instinctual pull of his soul that told him this thing, whatever it was, was not of this earth. It wasn’t even human. It was something pulled up from the most terrible parts of hell and forged into a flesh and bone shell.

            It was like the shadow-man, like Dark Shadow.

            Like Nemesis.

            “This monster,” Nemesis almost gasped through the insides of his mind. “This thing, this creature… one fallen soul, surrounded by so many connected shadows. Like strings of maggots to a carcass.”

            Izuku listened. He listened because right now he had no idea what was going on, and even with Fumikage at his side had no time to ask for answers. Right now, he was running on fumes and instinct.

            His eyes turned to the man with the blue hair and, bizarrely, he felt Nemesis shudder through him, like the grasping flickers of a fire caught in a storm wind.

            “That man.” Nemesis spoke again, a long, blade-drawing whisper that seemed… strained almost, as if it was struggling to comprehend what it was seeing. “His soul is… strange. We know he is corrupt, he must be, and yet we cannot pierce the veil which shields him. Those hands,” And Izuku's eyes flicked to the dismembered limbs grasping to the man's body, "They... they are like a cloak, hiding his soul behind thick shadow."

            “Are you having fun yet, Erasurehead?” The man he suddenly remembered being referred to as Tomura Shigaraki laughed and spread his arms as he stood, watching passively from the edge of the fountain steps. “Legion was summoned especially for just one purpose. To destroy All Might so that I may claim the remains of his withered soul.”

            Aizawa went to shout something, but the creature called Legion was already upon him, grabbing his head and twisting it upwards, forcing his focus on its master.

            “I’ve seen the snake crawling from the virgin's womb, I’ve seen the rising flames on Armageddon, I’ve seen the armies of the eternal damned shattering the great Sheol gate.” Each sentence seemed to stab at something deep inside Izuku, something that made his stomach churn and bile taste on his tongue. “I’ve seen it, Erasurehead. And it’s all going to start with All Might’s death.”

            Izuku could feel his arms shaking. He could feel a bizarre numbness enter his legs and his heart hammering in his chest. He felt horrified, he felt scared, he felt terror and fear and… anger.

            So much anger.

            It wasn’t until he felt a hand land onto his shoulder and squeeze tightly that he realized he had been rising to his feet. He turned, feeling his scars burn hotter and hotter as an unbridled rage threatened and teased with promises of power, with the satisfaction of violence.

            Cold, crimson eyes bore at him and the raven-headed boy simply whispered. “Don’t.”

            Izuku’s fingers were curling tightly. He was shaking with the fire in his scars, in his blood, with fury unrivaled circling his heart. He could feel Nemesis crawling through his system, tugging at his arms and legs, whispering in the dark corners of his mind. Just go out there, just let go, just kill them all.

            His breath came in shudders as if he was forcing himself to take in lung-fulls of air just to keep control.

            There was a sudden movement from the fountain, and the distraction was enough to pull Izuku back into the present.

            The shadow-creature formed beside Tomura. Again, its very presence set off alarm bells within Izuku. Another vicious predator forged of darkest shadow, one not meant to walk the world of men.

            Yet there it was.

            “Master Tomura.” It bowed its head towards the blue haired youth. “I bring news. The hero Thirteen has been defeated.”

            “Good.”

            “However,” It kept its head bowed, “Some students escaped my grasp and one managed to escape the facility. He is no doubt gathering help even now.”

            “What? Dammit, Kurogiri, you let one of them go?”

            Tomura’s voice was furious and yet suddenly some of the overwhelmingly threatening aura that had poured off him faded. Suddenly he seemed… almost childish.

            “My deepest apologies, my master.”

            “If a dozen pros show up along with All Might we’re done. Not even Legion could take them all on at once,” Tomura grumbled and he raised his hands to his throat where he began scratching at bizarrely dry skin. “We’re going to be outnumbered any minute, and Legion is going to be lost. We can’t win this boss fight without our tank,” He ranted to himself as he scratched over and over again before suddenly stopping and slumping like a spoiled brat. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s leave. So much for ushering in the end times.”

            Izuku felt his heart start to rise. He looked to Fumikage and silently they shared the same glance. Hope. Maybe they could get out of this alive, maybe their friends could survive, and everything would be alright.

            Maybe.

            But Izuku wasn’t one for hope. His quirk had made sure he was a born pessimist.

            “This isn’t right.” Nemesis whispered through his mind. “They leave too easily. They hold such overwhelming strength, why abandon their mission now?”

            “Before we go, let’s make sure they remember us,” Tomura announced coldly, “We can at least slaughter the kids.” 

            His gaze turned right onto the two boys.

            “Starting with you two.”

            Izuku’s blood ran cold. Ice cold, colder than Nemesis had ever allowed. Fear gripped his heart as the two figures by the fountain turned their collective gazes to the boys.

            Tomura raised a finger to them, “Legion, bring me their-”

            “Master, wait.”

            The air froze around them, locking the two boys in place. Izuku was standing tall now, though when he had fully risen to his feet he wasn’t sure. Fumikage was at his side, on his feet, hunched, but just as frozen to the spot as his ally.

            Fear, cold and unrelenting, gripped them both, anchoring them with an almost physical weight on their limbs.

            Kurogiri pointed a ghostly, black-clad finger to the two boys. “When I first moved to the top of the staircase I scanned the students for signs of corruption. These are two of three I spotted whose souls had been touched by the hand of Hell.”

            “Really? Huh.” Tomura raised a hand to his throat again and scratched as his ruby eyes flashed at the two boys. “Well, that changes things, doesn’t it?”

            A sickening, cracked-skin smile grew from behind the palm-mask he wore and he stretched out a welcoming hand towards the two. “In that case, I offer my greetings, brothers, and on behalf of the Heralds of Eversoris,” His smiled turned into a yellow-toothed grin, “I invite you to join us.”

Chapter Text

            “What?”

            The question floated in the air like a dumbfounded ghost. Izuku’s jaw almost literally hung open and would have done so if his body’s worn-out groaning wasn’t keeping him on guard.

            His body ached. Every part of it ached with the effort of using Nemesis so swiftly and so strongly in such a short amount of time. He wanted to curl under his covers at home, forget everything in the wide world and sleep for a thousand years. He wanted to feel his mother’s soft fingers running through his hair as she told him everything would be okay.

            He didn’t want to be here, staring at a man covered in disembodied hands, each marked with a symbol that seemed to set fire to something deep inside his soul and lingered like sand behind his eyelids.

            He didn’t want to be looking to his flickering living shadow, the being who called itself Kurogiri, who set off klaxon warning sirens in his mind because he wasn’t human.

            Izuku didn’t want to look only slightly to his left to see a hulking demon covered in blasphemous, glowing blue symbols holding the unconscious, blood-soaked head of his Sensei in one hand like he was a child’s plaything.

            But he was.

            He was here because he refused to turn away when others were in need. He refused to let the monster inside him turn him into a coward. He refused to let the darkness in his soul consume him and drag him from the light forever.

            He was here. And dammit, he would not turn away.

            Izuku's scars were burning hot, rising with each passing heartbeat. Nemesis was alive and roused within him, flexing its claws through his blood, whispering darkness to the depths of his mind and urging him to take a step forward.

            To let it take control.

            To kill them all.

            “You’re both corrupted, right?” Tomura spoke finally, his voice a cruel, harsh scrape of nails on a chalkboard, a rake of a chipped blade along a ragged concrete wall. “Your souls I mean. Don’t pretend like you don’t already know.”

            “You, Crow-Child.” Kurogiri’s voice was a deep resonating tone, almost clashing with the manner of his ghostly body, “You are the seventh son of your line, cursed from birth.” He moved beside his master and Izuku could almost feel Fumikage’s feathers rise as the teen continued to hold his ground beside him. “Your soul has been claimed by a demon, which marks you as already damned to the unholy flame.”

            Then the demon’s tarnished gold gaze moved to Izuku, “And you…” He trailed for a moment, his eyes narrowing and his voice growing strangely low, “What manner of-”

            “We’re not joining you.” Fumikage cut him off suddenly, his voice sharp and angry. His good hand came from under his cloak and Izuku’s eyes glanced quickly to him. He was already holding his bottle of holy water in his grasp. “I would rather die than side with your kind.”

            A familiar phrase, one Izuku had already become acquainted with. But never had he heard Fumikage speak it with such hate.

            Something was happening to him. Something awful was entering his gaze and Izuku was suddenly struck with a horrible, terrible sense of deja-vu.

            All this time he had thought Fumikage had his monster under control, a grumbling but willing familiar-quirk who obeyed his every command. Now, sharply, he realized that maybe he was wrong.

            Maybe Dark Shadow was just as corrupting as Nemesis. Fumikage had it under a tighter leash than Izuku ever had, but it was still there. Still whispering dark thoughts into his mind. Still pushing him to just give in.

            Izuku’s hand was on Fumikage’s shoulder within a second and the boy seemed to jolt out of the shadow that had been crawling across his mind. Crimson eyes turned to look at his emerald own. Izuku said nothing, but the shock faded into a sudden shame within Fumikage’s gaze, and then a minute nod of thanks came from him.

            “HA!” Tomura’s laugh was a grating, almost painful sounding cough. “Look at you two, struggling with every step you take. I wonder why?” He cocked his head slowly, “You know you’re damned, so why fight it? Join us. Revel in the dark, shed all the blood you could ever want, take their souls for your own. You’re natural born villains, no, more than that, you’re natural born demons. You cannot ignore the call of Hell, not when the End so quickly approaches. Just give in and join us, my brothers.”

            A dragon’s claw ran down Izuku’s spine and he felt fire rising within him, almost burning into his throat and setting every scar alight. He held it back, desperately, almost forcing it as a choice between keeping himself standing and keeping Nemesis at bay.

            To be called brother by this- this monster of a human being. It was wrong. It was so wrong that it raked violently at every moral Izuku held within himself. His heart burned, and his mind spat at the very thought of it. Even his soul, his poor, tattered, corrupt soul seemed to recoil at the concept.

            And yet he couldn’t deny that there was a part of himself that was tempted. A dark, awful part of himself that he hated to admit was even there. The part of him which enjoyed the pain he inflicted on others, which reveled in standing tall in violent triumph, which loved the sight of ruby red blood, and the rush of life-threatening battle.

            But that wasn’t all of him, and it wasn’t who he knew he was.

            “You- you’re wrong.” Izuku stammered out, his breath in short, sharp gasps. “We’re good, no matter what curse has us we’re never going to give in. Do you hear me, villain?” His voice was rising, Nemesis was flowing power into his limbs, and the hate and anger was fueling him. His eyes sharpened into a determined glare, dark yet bright, and his hands curled into fists with nails that were sharp and stabbing into his palms.

            He knew he needed to step back from the brink, but he only needed to hold them just a little more, just until reinforcements arrived. Maybe, just maybe, he could scare them into stalling.

            After all, Kurogiri was terrifying, the monster by Tomura’s side was terrifying, even Dark Shadow was terrifying.

            But Nemesis was something beyond that.

            “We’re never going to stop reaching for the light!” Izuku’s voice rose ever louder, ever more determined. He raised his fist to his chest in defiance, “We’re never going to stop trying to save lives and help others! We’re not evil, we’re not villains, we’re not damned, and we’re not your brothers! We are HEROES!”

            As his words echoed through the vast dome of the USJ, Tomura’s chin raised up slowly in dismissal. His face twisted as his expression turned ugly behind his mask. “Fine, have it your way.”

            The air soured, and it became hard to breathe. The light above seemed suddenly darker as if a shadow had passed across the sun, and Izuku could hear the pounding of his own heart through his ears. In an instant, he knew his gambit had failed. Tomura wasn’t intimidated, he wasn’t scared, all Izuku had done was mildly annoy him.

            Even as the villain raised his hand, Nemesis was racing through his system. The dam was cracking, the black power spilling over and flooding into his scars. He could feel the shadow-black of his accused quirk growing in patches across his skin like ink blots.

            “Master wait-” Kurogiri urged again, a note of panic in his tone, “The child-”

            “Legion!” Tomura barked out, ignoring the shadow at his side, “Kill them both!”

            The world shifted on its axis and time slowed to a crawl.

            Izuku blinked and Legion was already on top of them. A fist the size of his torso was falling down upon Fumikage. A mouth lined with spit and bone-shard teeth was open and grinning and laughing as the boy seemed to be only now just noticing the monster was upon him.

            Izuku’s curse acted on instinct. He couldn’t let Fumikage die, he couldn’t let anyone die. There was no argument, no pulling back the leash. There was only fire and shadow.

            Within that moment, Izuku felt the dam break.

            Within that moment, Izuku drowned in the blasphemous power he kept within him.

            Within that moment, Nemesis roared.

            There was a second where Fumikage knew only sound. It was a sound he was familiar with, though never quite like this, never quite this loud, never quite this furious.

            It was a roar. A roar that didn’t simply bleed his ears but reached down into him through his ears and lungs and began strangling something inside his heart. A roar that was not of this world, but of myth and legend. The roar of a monster, of something that mankind knew not on principle but on spirit, of ancient, genetic, instinctual knowledge of what true evil sounded like.

            But a roar that, for a second, was everything Fumikage knew.

            And then came the fire.

            It was bright blue and corrupt and terrible and wrong and it hit him with the force of a speeding car. The blast threw him clear within half a heartbeat, far from the thing called Legion, far from the boy he wished he could trust but knew it was folly to do so.

            The fire-heat hit him like a tidal wave, and for a fleeting moment, he thought he would be burned alive. Something huge and black leapt between his face and the sudden explosion and within the blink of an eye he found himself colliding with a nearby bush.

            It took him a moment of dizzying, maddening senselessness to realize that Dark Shadow had saved his life. His quirk-familiar, however, was in immense pain. He could feel it through his own body, burning skin he didn’t have and melting bones he didn’t use.

            And yet even that pain was blanketed by the sound of the roar and the horror and fury it contained. It rattled his brain and tried to stop his heart and stole the breath from his lungs.

            It was the screaming of ten thousand bloodied blades. The cries of a burning city. The roar of an ancient battlefield, hot and wrathful and violent. The cry of hate made manifest.

            Crimson eyes opened, and for the second time in under three seconds, the breath was stolen from his lungs.

            Through a gap where he had collided with the branches of the bush, he beheld Nemesis.

            What had once been the Izuku Midoriya was simply no more. This thing, this demon, was far beyond the pale skin, the exhausted eyes and scarred features of the teenager it inhabited.

            Legion roared back. Its voice was a melody of chaos, the roar of an army charging to war, a song of young child, a cry of a heartbroken widow. “WE ARE LEGION, WE ARE MANY.”

            The reply from Nemesis was just as loud, “WE ARE NEMESIS, WE DON’T CARE.”

            Then a fist the size of Fumikage’s head swung down, practically smashing its beak in half.

            The skin of Nemesis was shadow-black, void-black, it was the unlight, made flesh. But it had form, a humanoid form lined by burning, corrupt, hellish-blue lines of fire that ran railroad across its skin in ways that should have seemed random but somehow formed a blasphemous pattern. The unlight fled from it as much as it clung to it, like an ever-wavering smoke, drifting with every movement it made.

            Its body was strong, powerful yet sinewy, like that of a well-trained fighter. Moments ago, when it was Izuku Midoriya, it had been barely five-foot-something but was now easily over eight feet tall.

            Nemesis stood not on human feet, but vast claws on digitigrade legs as the world literally blackened and burned around it. Along its forearms, back and shoulders were jagged barbs of blackened unlight, and upon its hands were claws which looked as though they could tear through a sold vault door with ease.

            Legion swung back, bright red blood pouring from its now disjointed mouth as the symbols across its body lit up as if encouraged by the violence it was experiencing.

            A tail caught its wrist, long and thick and topped with a spear-tip end that twisted with the force of a hydraulic press and simply threw the thing into the fountain, which almost instantly exploded into water and brick.

            The two villains who had been stood there must have moved, for they were nowhere to be seen.

            Just for a moment, Fumikage saw it in full, vast arms spread to either side, legs apart, tail whipped and raised and bat-like demonic wings curled up and back. Its face caused Fumikage’s soul to shudder.

            It had a bestial maw, lipless and lined with shark-like teeth. From its head grew two sets of vast horns, one pair which curled up and above, the other curling around and down, like those of ram, both twisting to their deadly sharp points. From its head downward was a great mane of flowing black-green hair. The only thing about it that even suggested it had once been Izuku Midoriya.

            For its eyes held no sign of humanity.

            They were a deep, foreboding green. Green like the darkest depths of a damned forest. Green like the moss over a tombstone. Green like the panoply of an ancient pagan god. Stark against the glowing, hellish blue fire that fanned from the long scars across its face, its arms, its chest and legs and, yes, even its tail and wings.

            They were a burning, hateful, demonic green which glowed with something beyond human. Something almost divine, yet so utterly fallen and gone that they belonged only to the most cursed of all of God’s creations.

            And yet perhaps out of all of that the most horrific and terrifying thing of all was that around its head, like the image on a church window, was a halo of black light. Like the event horizon of a black hole, like the corona of an eclipse, like the death of the sun.

            Fumikage knew, instantly, without any other provocation, that Izuku Midoriya was unholy. The kingdom of heaven was said to exist within all humankind, but in that form, with that power, he was not of that kingdom, but of something that God mourned.

            And then, with the sudden beating of vast, burning wings, Nemesis moved.

            It was so fast.

            Nothing that big should be that fast. The air shimmered around it, though whether it was from the sheer burning heat that it gave off or from the very world itself desperately trying to reject it from the physical realm Fumikage wasn’t so sure.

            It dived on top of Legion and began simply tearing into its flesh with no poetry to its action, all the while screaming not with a voice, but with the very sound of violence itself. It was a beast, a dragon, a demon made of nightmare and furious hate.

            Fumikage wanted to turn away, to run and hide and cower in some dark corner, forgotten and alone. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the profane majesty of the creature, and as much as he wished to flee from it, a part of him, a terrible, cursed part of him, demanded he fall to his knees before it and proclaim his dark allegiance.

            It was the part that Tomura had seen within him. The part touched by the hand of Hell itself.

            Fumikage finally managed to wrench his eyes from the bloodshed as the two monsters fought.

            Dark Shadow was hurt. Its pain had been pulsing through him like it was his own, slow and sharp and stabbing. The quirk-familiar still lay across him, whimpering and panting softly into his shoulder.

            “D-Dark Shadow?” Fumikage whispered, as if not daring to make his voice any louder as to draw the attention of Nemesis.

            “M-Master. It hurts, my master,” It had been a long, long time since he had heard his inner curse talk with such pain, “The- the blue fire, it hurts.”

            Fumikage looked to the body of his demonic parasite and his eyes went wide with horror. The fire had burned the shadow. The unlight that made up Dark Shadow’s form was somehow… gone, as if someone had torn a chunk of flesh from its body. From the cavernous gape in its back flowed with smoking tendrils that seemed to reach out and grasp at one another without truly connecting as his monster’s natural form tried and failed to heal itself.

            “Thank you, my familiar,” Fumikage whispered as the floor under him rocked and shook from the war being fought, “Return to me, I will reward you later.”

            Dark Shadow said nothing and simply whisked back into Fumikage’s body. The pain intensified. It wasn’t the first time Dark Shadow had been hurt, and he doubted it would be the last, but Dark Shadow’s pain was Fumikage’s own. It was part of the nature of their relationship.

            He felt as though something had scorched him on the inside. Something deep inside his heart, something at the back of his mind and like a whisper throughout every atom of his being.

            His soul was in pain.

            Fumikage, however, ignored it. He climbed to his feet and grit his teeth as he did so. Dark Shadow had saved him from being burned alive, but the force of being thrown so far still hurt. His wound was bleeding again, and he held a hand to it tightly. His holy water was gone, thrown to one side and forgotten, not that it would provide much help now.

            He looked up as he saw Nemesis slam a fist into Legion’s face at a speed faster than his eyes could follow and almost immediately there was an explosion of blue fire that tore through the air, grabbing and clinging to anything it could find.

            The very ground under the two beasts shook as their war was raged. With every blow that Nemesis landed upon the monster the stink of burning, cooking meat reached his senses and threatened to snake down Fumikage’s throat and forcibly pull up the bile from his stomach.

            Legion roared in defiance of its new foe, charging out of the smoke and dust that was quickly filling the air to land skull-shattering blows upon Nemesis. The beast of the unlight, however, replied in swift kind, crushing the bone-shard teeth of the fellow demon and, in almost the same motion, ripping part of its chest away with one bloody strike.

            The monster howled in pain, though even as it did so Fumikage could see its wounds already healing, already stitching back together. Something crawled within him as he watched in guilty, horrific fascination.

            It was if a thousand threads were reconnecting, pulling its skin back tight over the blood-soaked wounds that it once sported.

            And there was already so much blood.

            It was coating Legion, coating the ground around it, coating the fists and claws of Nemesis. Blood that stank of burning, sizzling heat and life and death all at once. Blood that curdled the darker parts of Fumikage’s heart and sent it racing just a little faster.

            He tore his eyes away as he forced his body to move, deciding that the only thing left for him to do was try and make his way back towards the staircase. He couldn’t stop Nemesis, but perhaps there was a chance he could still save Aizawa.

            He moved through the bushes with all the strength he could manage, his limbs aching and his body screaming for him to stop and let unconsciousness overwhelm him.

            He refused to give in to such weakness.

            As he made his way out of the bushes he paused.

            Tomura and Kurogiri were stood, almost statue-still, watching the two monsters fight. They had moved to just in front of the fountain, avoiding the shattering of the USJ centerpiece altogether. Their eyes were focused on the pair, and just behind them laying in a puddle of his own blood, was Aizawa. 

            Fumikage gulped softly and again grit his teeth as he made his way as silently as he dared along the skirts of the row of bushes. He could see Tomura’s mouth move and he knew he was speaking to his shadow-demon companion, though what Fumikage couldn’t hear.

            Not over the sound of Legion screaming in pain, anyway.

            As he circled around, stepping over pieces of the fountain and the occasional body of a defeated villain, it was obvious, even from Fumikage’s perspective, that Legion was already losing the fight.

            Nemesis dodged a blow and again tore at Legion’s chest with fire and shadowed claw. The huge, hulking beast was forced to step back, and then again, and again, and again. Nemesis pushed forwards faster and with more fury than Legion was prepared to defend.

            It not only matched the creature blow for blow, but it was dodging and weaving with an unnatural speed, as if it literally shimmered in and out of reality. The way the world seemed to spark and bleed around it almost reinforced that fact.

            More blood flowed, and the more it flowed the more violent, the more intense Nemesis seemed to become. It let out a long screech of battle-joy as it again forced Legion back and back and back heading towards the shipwreck zone.

            Legion continued to try and fight but it was failing miserably.

            Nemesis threw fire into its face, its chest, its entire body, burning where it tore pieces of it apart, ripping through muscle and sinew and bone.

            Fumikage was horrified and captivated in equal measure, his heart racing and his mind reeling at the unholy sight of two demons.

            And yet something inside his soul, something that was as corrupt and black as the unlight itself, was enjoying the spectacle. Something was urging him in midnight dark whispers to go forth, to summon his wounded beast to his body and let go.

            To join them.

            As he reached his teacher he found himself almost stepping past him, towards the fountain, towards the two villains who stood with their backs to him. He could take Shigaraki, it would be easy. He could sneak up behind him and wrap his hands around his neck and-

            Breathe.

            He huffed the mantra through deep, panicked gulps of hot smoke and dust infused air. Breathe, Fumikage, focus yourself, find your balance, don’t let the darkness win.

            Once he felt as though he had gathered his temptations back under control, he knelt down and pushed his bloody teacher onto one side. The man had the weight of the dead, something which caused the teenager’s heart to almost stutter in his chest.

            His face was a mess of clearly shattered bone and blood. Nothing looked right, nothing looked survivable.

            No, no Aizawa-Sensei couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t die, not like this. Izuku’s words still lingered in his head, about how they weren’t villains, they weren’t evil. How they were aiming to be heroes, to be good, to fight against the darkness despite being born into it.

            He let the words strengthen his soul and with a newly focused mind Fumikage placed two fingers against the swollen, purple-ringed neck of his teacher and desperately felt for a pulse.

            There it was. Faint, distant, dying, but there.

            Relief flooded through him, even as he almost fell on top of Aizawa when the ground shook with an earthquake-like roar from Nemesis.

            He looked back up just in time to see Legion die. 

            Legion threw a punch, an almost desperate move despite the power and speed of the attack. Nemesis ducked, turned, grabbed the arm and threw the gigantic mass of blackened muscle over its shoulder, lifting itself from the ground with a mighty flap of vast wings.

            The impact was so great that the floor simply gave way under it, cracking and crumbling apart along random lines, causing dust and dirt and blood and the screams of an unnatural creature in pain to fill every inch of the air.

            Then the shadow-clad demon dived on top of its prey like a descending hawk, and this time there was no recovery for Legion.

            The sound of ripping, tearing, wet flesh rose through the air, though it was drowned by the sound of the monster screaming in an horrific pain. Then there was an almighty crack of bones breaking and the screaming stopped.

            The victory cry of Nemesis was like the arcs of lightning at the end of the world, like the howling of the Behemoth of legend, like the cries of a gore-soaked berserker on an ancient corpse-soaked battlefield.

            Within one hand it held up a giant, monstrous heart, blood pouring from it and soaking the shadow-demon’s arm in a tide of red. Fumikage’s mouth hung open as he looked to the crater which it stood within. From around the sides, he could see hundreds, no, thousands of shadows fleeing across the ground.

            They were tiny things, slivers of unlight, but all darted and ran and faded to ash as they escaped like rats from a sinking ship.

            Then, Nemesis crushed the heart within its vast claw and brought it down only to bite through the organ with the sickening hunger of a starved wolf. It tore and ripped and devoured the heart in an orgy of animalistic violence, and when it was done, it roared again, blood and gore freely flowing from its lipless, jagged maw. Then it to begin devouring the rest of Legion’s corpse.

            And yet even through the sound of cracking bone and ripping flesh, Fumikage could hear the two villains speak.

            “It- It killed Legion!” He heard Tomura Shigaraki call out, his voice shattered and broken. “It’s- It’s eating it!”

            “We still have a chance, my master.” Kurogiri urged, his voice a strange, focused tone and pulling Tomura's attention to him. “It’s distracted, if we set up a Sol-”

            He never finished his sentence. Within the next second a wall of blue fire consumed the air around them, and it was only by the sudden sprouting of void-black portals that it didn’t utterly burn the both of them.

            Nemesis was upon them.

            It rushed through the flame like it was part of it, the tongues of the blue fire licking from its own horrific scars.

            “MASTER!” Portals opened under Tomura and for another second, time slowed as he fell back into the inky void.

            But Nemesis was over him, huge and terrible with a mouth bleeding fire and body trailing shadow and smoke. Its claw was descending at a speed which no creature could avoid.

            Before Tomura fell through the portal, four long, bloody lines had been opened across his body, splitting his skin from left shoulder to his right wrist.

            Fumikage blinked and in that time Tomura had vanished from the center of the fountain to halfway between it and the landslide zone.

            And he was screaming. His pain filled the air, infecting everything with its fury and shame and hate.

            Nemesis, however, only barked a laugh, a sound which was the embodiment of cruelty, spoken through a thousand tones.

            Fumikage was dumbstruck and useless. He wanted to retreat, to get away, but how could he? How could he escape this thing, this beast of the apocalypse which stood before him?

            Nemesis’s vast maw opened again, and again it looked ready to strike at the two villains.

            But then, like a gift from above, their salvation arrived.

            There was a boom. A boom which sounded not like the ending of the world but the saving of it. A boom which brought light piercing through the darkness which had settled deep into every shadow of the USJ.

            “Have no fear, students.” The voice was that of a warrior-god, golden and shining, brave and courageous. Hearing it brought instant strength to Fumikage’s heart and soul, and he could almost feel the shadow of his curse recoiling at its presence. Suddenly his hands were gripping his teacher tighter and his feet were digging into the dirt. Suddenly he was dragging Aizawa back. 

            Fumikage glanced up, and from the top of the staircase a figure appeared, and in the suddenly brighter USJ he seemed to almost glow with a divine light. He wore yellow striped pants and a white shirt, but already he was tearing his tie away, already the muscles he bore bulged and flexed ready for war.

            “For I am here.”

            All Might. The Symbol of Peace. The world’s number one hero, the strongest man on earth, the most powerful force for good on the planet.

            And yet within Fumikage he heard the distant whisper of another title.

            He didn’t give it thought, because it was put into cruel, hateful words by Nemesis before he could even consider doing so.

            “The Fading King.”

            All Might didn’t so much hear the words as much as they cut at his ears like rusting blades, and his teeth grit into a hard, battle-ready grimace.

            The air stank of blood and smoke and dust and violence. From his position on the top of the staircase, he had a commanding view of the terror that had been wrought. Bodies of villains were piled up at the base of the staircase where young Fumikage had been dragging a blood-soaked Aizawa back.

            The fountain had been demolished, there were two villains, one lying in a bloody heap on the floor as the other hovered protectively over him, Thirteen was almost torn apart from the back, there was a crater by the flood zone with some bloody mess within it, and at the center of it all…

            Oh God.

            That was the creature which had torn away at young Bakugo’s face? That was what had been hiding inside Izuku Midoriya? That was Nemesis?

            He felt his old wound grow suddenly pained and tight at the very sight of the dragon-like monster. Everything about it seemed wrong. The way the darkness, blacker than the void, seemed to trail and cling to it. The way it stood, hunched like a beast yet tall like a man, the way the horrible, soul-burning fire lighted along its many interlacing scars. Its wings, its horns, its rending claws and jagged teeth.

            The halo of terrible shadow-light that glowed from around its head, like a saint of the profane.

            And its eyes, its eyes. There was no humanity to them. No pity, no sorrow, no fear. There was only an incomprehensible hate that he could feel raking at his heart.

            All of this was wrong, so wrong.

            And it was all his fault. 

            “DAMN IT!” The slender man’s voice rang out through the hall. “DAMN IT, DAMN IT, DAMN IT!”

            “Master Tomura, we must leave, there is no victory to be found here.” The shadow-man spoke in a swift, almost hushed tone. “You’re hurt, and I cannot allow you to die.”

            “FUCK YOU.” Tomura screamed, though not at All Might but at Nemesis. Even in the pain he was clearly in, the utter hate which fueled him continued to push him forwards. “You traitor! You disgusting traitor! You turned against us, your brothers and sisters, your own kindred!”

            Nemesis turned its horned head, though it gave Tomura nothing more than a dismissive snarl.

            As the shadow took them both, Tomura continued to scream out, “We’ll kill you! We’ll kill you all! The End of Days is coming, and I swear on my Lord and my Father I will KILL YOU ALL! ORA PRO VOBIS SATANI!”

            And with that, his hateful menace still echoing through the USJ, Tomura Shigaraki and Kurogiri vanished into shadow and void.

            Nemesis huffed again and then turned back slowly to look at Fumikage. It seemed to pause for only a split-second before grinning. “Filthy sinner.”

            Nemesis moved, but so did All Might.

            Like a thought, like a ray of sunshine piercing darkened cloud, it took less than a heartbeat for him to appear in front of Fumikage, shielding the boy with his huge body and grabbing the fists of the monster before they could continue to reap their bloody harvest.

            The second his hands touched the burning shadow-skin of the beast he felt fire not just scorch his skin but burn through his entire bloodstream, rushing to every part of his body as if he had touched something truly damned and its rotting curse was infecting him.

            But he held it back. Because he was a hero dammit and he would not let this beast hurt anyone.

            He could see it was hurt already. Blood was pouring from the wounds that something else, perhaps what had been in the crater, had inflicted upon it. Wounds that should have brought any other being to its knees. Clearly, however, they did not bother Nemesis.

            The monster was taller than he was, by an entire head, and as he gripped it with a ground-breaking hold he could smell the blood and fire pouring from it.

            And those eyes. Those eyes which lacked anything that resembled the divine touch. The eyes of a truly godless creature, or perhaps worse, eyes that knew of an almighty being and yet had spat upon its feet.

            All Might poured his strength into his limbs and began, with a truly herculean effort, pushing Nemesis back.

            “YOUNG TOKOYAMI!” He roared, his voice rising above his fear, above the unholy terror that Nemesis radiated, “GO! NOW! SAVE AIZAWA, SAVE YOURSELF!”

            “A-All Might.” The boy replied from behind him, his voice heavy and pained from his many injuries, “You need to-”

            “GO!” The huge man roared to the face of Nemesis. He heard Fumikage suddenly scurry behind him and taking the cue he suddenly turned his body, throwing himself to one side, causing Nemesis to twist erratically and follow him in the fluid movement.

            Already his veteran warrior’s combat-drenched mind was rushing through every opening, every option, every attack pattern he could launch at the beast.

            And yet all the while two thoughts lingered, anchoring everything to a horrible reality.

            This was Izuku Midoriya.  

            This was a demon.

            The two facts clashed and warred and battled within his heart. How could young Midoriya be this? How could something so dark, so terrible, so instinctively wicked exist upon the earth? And how could it be within the body of one of the kindest, most selfless children he’d ever met?

            The leap should have cleared half the USJ in an instant, but Nemesis followed him as easily as a lion follows a fleeing wildebeest.

            The creature caught his leg and, as the fabric burned in its grasp, it turned and flung him into the floor. All Might was not so slow as Legion had been, and turned it into a sudden roll, springing up and looking back to the monster.

            A fist collided with his jaw that almost tore it right from his face. His skin burned and sizzled from the impact and the pain sent shockwaves through his skull. But he turned back half on instinct half on his own intention, dodging another blow and narrowly avoiding a claw that would have carved the ribs from his chest.

            It was relentless. Again and again and again, Nemesis roared into the attack, a mixture of animalistic claws and swinging fists and even the spinning use of its barbed tail. The assault was like few All Might had ever faced, the speed and ferocity coupled with the sheer white-hot fire it wielded was almost unbreakable.

            All Might barely held his ground, every inch of his own power being pushed further and further to keep Nemesis from overwhelming him.

            “Izuku! This isn’t you!” He cried out as blood began coating his cheek, his chest and his own hands. Limbs were burning from the effort of simply keeping up with the demon, but he had yet to truly unleash an attack of his own. How could he? Buried under the shadow-burning skin of this monster was his student, a boy who had tried so hard to control this evil, a boy who had given his all into being good, into being a hero.

            Maybe there was a chance he could still pull it back.

            “I know you’re in there! You can stop this madness! You can stop your quirk!”

            “HA!” The beast barked fire and smoke into his face, its grin cracking wide and terrible. “Foolish old man! We are Izuku Midoriya. We are Nemesis. We are the punishment of the sinful! We are SHADOW AND FIRE!”

            It opened its mouth wide and there was a split second where All Might’s own darkened eyes widened in horror before he dived to the floor. The air above his head became ignited with blue flame so hot he felt the shirt on his back peeling and burning away.

            He was up and back in a second, but all it took was a second’s respite from the fight for every part of him to groan and scream in pain. This fight was pulling everything he had from him, from One For All. He had come in with what he thought would be a solid hour’s worth of power left. He had burned through it in less than ten minutes.

            And Nemesis just would not stop attacking.

            It was as if it was fueled by some endless energy from which it drew its fire, its hatred of everything it looked upon. Some unholy power drawn from the black depths of hades. It seemed limitless and all-consuming.

            And increasingly All Might was realizing the dawning horror that told him it would only stop when it was dead.

            It feinted suddenly, diving to one side and smashing All Might square in his old injury. Blood spurted from between clenched teeth and for a moment the man saw only blinding stars in his vision. The beast laughed at his pain and a pair of burning hands clamped around his neck, lifting him up suddenly as the air was squeezed out of his throat.

            “Look at you, Fading King,” Nemesis sneered out, its malice almost as infectious as a maligned virus, “How long do you have left until your body gives out? How much blood can you shed before your life finally drains away?” Its sneer turned into a growl, “We will devour you, and make you pay for the sins of your soul.”

            All Might felt the hate pour off it in droves as he desperately tried to pull its claws from around his throat. It was almost threatening his own heart, his own mind, his own soul. The rage it held was crawling into his brain and telling him to unleash himself upon his enemy, beat it, destroy it, kill it.

            And then the air was filled with fire.

            But it wasn’t the brilliant blue flame that Nemesis had poured across the USJ. It was bright red, life and anger and furious righteousness, the rage of the light against the curse of the dark.

            The blast hit Nemesis square in the side of the head, throwing the demon down within a heartbeat. All Might fell and let out a strangled cry as a hand went to his blood-soaked throat. The skin had simply melted away, burning and peeling like paper. He could barely take a breath and inside he knew that, given only a handful of seconds more, Nemesis would have killed him.

            He turned dark eyes to see who his savior had been, and the moment he did his stomach almost dropped away.

            It was Katsuki Bakugo.

            The boy was panting, though not from injury or pain. His skin was pale to the point of looking sick, his hands outstretched and his eyes wide. He was terrified and yet he was standing there, teeth clenched in a furious, horrified grimace as smoke faded from his shaking palms. His clothes were marked with dirt and ugly blotches of black soot.

            Nemesis was already on its feet, and yet the moment it turned its vast horned head towards the boy it was hit again from behind.

            This time it was not fire, but a huge wave of ice that rushed forward, drowning out everything before it and consuming the beast like a cocoon. All Might knew that ice, and he knew somewhere behind it was Shoto Todoroki.

            Already, however, the ice was melting, and from within he could hear the screaming of hell itself brought to earth, he could feel the ground rocking as the trapped monster pounded relentlessly at its cage.

            “All Might, Sir!” He turned again to see Hanta Sero running from Katsuki's direction to his side, pulling tape from his elbows as he did so. He too was dirty and worn, his costume wrapped in some places with his own tape. “Sir, are you okay?”

            “FUCK YOU!” Katsuki was screaming hysterically at the ice even as it cracked and broke and then was instantly re-formed by Shoto, who was slowly circling around, his hand up and his face etched with the intense focus of his task. “FUCK YOU, YOU INHUMAN BASTARD FUCK YOU!”

            “Sir? Sir?” Hanta panted. He too was pale with fear, but not nearly so much as the almost fear-mad Katsuki.

            He had no idea how they'd managed to make their way through the fire and growing smoke, nor through the villains who young Iida had told him had infested the USJ zones. They were brave, all of them, impossibly so for such young ages. But he was their teacher, and he couldn't let them fight his battles. 

            “What are you doing here? You need to get out, now!” All Might managed to croak out, one blood-soaked hand around his throat. “I can handle young Midoriya-”

            “Sir, with all due respect, that’s not Midoriya, not anymore,” Hanta was already wrapping tape around his wounds, without All Might even asking him for the help.

            He couldn’t let them get involved.

            “I can’t keep him contained forever,” Shoto shouted over the din of the screaming demon trapped in the ice cocoon as he edged towards his teacher, “All Might, if you can-”

            “Children, please.” The man rose to his feet, taking his bloody hand from his skinless throat and once again gathering his power to his chest. “You need to leave, now. I will deal with this.”

            His heart was pounding with the raw exertion of keeping his body standing, but he couldn’t stop now. He had to stop Izuku, he had to stop Nemesis.

            “I’ll bring him round, trust me in, as your teacher and a hero.” He raised a fist and pounded it to his bloody chest as he looked to the boys. “It’ll be fine, because I am here.”

            “P-Please, sir.” A new voice joined them, he turned again to see Hitoshi limping towards him.

            His heart almost stopped beating.

            The boy was a wreck. A busted lip, a bloody eye, a clearly broken leg and who knew how many more injuries. And yet his gaze was the most terrible of all. It was a fatalistic, thousand-yard stare that spoke more than words ever could. “Sir, you know you can’t talk him round. You have to stop him.”

            The word hammered into All Might’s heart, into his very soul. He knew exactly what stop him meant. He didn’t want to think it, he didn’t even want to consider it, but he and Hitoshi now shared something. They had both looked into the eyes of the beast.

            They knew how Nemesis was stopped.

            There was a sudden explosion, louder than the others, and the ice simply tore apart at the seams. A gigantic ball of blue flame rushed from the cocoon, consuming everything in its path.

            But the boys and All Might where no longer there.

            Within a heartbeat, the pro had acted, rushing from his point and grabbing every one of them before they could even process they were being moved. He had taken them all out of the range of the burning ball of fire, closer to the fountain where the water still managed to hold off the ever-growing flames.

            Rising like a demon from hell itself, Nemesis stood tall once more. It roared, holding out its arms and stretching its vast wingspan to the full. The blue fire responded, intensifying suddenly around it like a baying, cheering crowd.

            All Might knew what he had to do.

            “Boys, go, now.” He ordered, his voice lower, more serious and suddenly full of a terrible sorrow. “Go back to the top of the staircase, help who you can. I’ll… I’ll stop Nemesis.”

            The very use of the demon’s name caused a morbid dread to run through the teenagers.

            He stood and turned back to the monster, which was already moving towards him at a frightening speed.

            All Might, however, was done holding back.

            He dived forwards, rushing into its attack with a brutal intent and, for the first time in their fight, he went on the offensive. His fist smashed into the face of Nemesis like a warhead hitting a bunker. The blow caused the beast to scream in shock, but All Might wasn’t done. He followed it up with another, and another, and another.

            Nemesis finally caught its footing and fought back, and now, truly, the fight was on.

            The teenagers watched in awestruck shock as the two battled. It was as if they were witnessing the war of two demi-gods of ancient myth, one a fallen hero, consumed by unlight and terror and all-devouring flame, the other a bastion of righteous fury, of the goodness of mankind’s spirit manifest.

            Their blows rocked the earth they stood on, it should have shattered bone and ruined flesh, and indeed they did. The injuries on both the warriors grew more and more, blood flowed from them both through gritted teeth and open wounds. Nemesis, however, didn’t slow down for a second, as if it didn’t even feel the pain that should be ruining it.

            The dragon-like demon poured itself at its human opponent, its assault at a speed which should have torn its enemy apart. A flurry of fire and claw and fist and teeth and tail. An unstoppable monster of rage and unending hate.

            But All Might was no longer purely on the defense. He too poured himself into every attack, his fists flying faster than any eye could hope to follow. Blood flowed from him and should have sapped his strength, but there was a fire within his soul, a fire which had been passed down to him like a torch. Not the all-consuming blue which Nemesis wielded, but a bright light, a guiding light, a light of hope and strength and power.

            A light that guided every blow, every strike, he let it shine from his glowing blue gaze as he grit his teeth and pushed against the monstrosity before him. Golden lightning crackled around him, the very manifestation of his overwhelming strength, of the power he wielded, of the quirk which he’d used to save the lives of millions.

            The difference of skill was not lost on their audience. Nemesis was pure wrath and nothing more, a furious, unrelenting assault with no regard for its own survival which would have torn through a lesser man’s defense.

            But All Might was All Might. The number one hero in the world. His raw battle experience was his shield, his rational tactical mind his sword. He was pounding the wounded parts of Nemesis, maximizing the pain and damage inflicted with each blow while minimizing his own.

            Nemesis took one step back, and the fight was decided.

            The beast screamed and roared at continued to rain fire and hell upon All Might, but it was already over.

            “HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO YOUNG MIDORIYA.” All Might’s furious roar left his bloody lips. The hate he felt for this monster, for this thing which had taken Izuku was almost overwhelming and yet as he battled he did not push it down, instead he channeled it through his body, into his fists, into the enormous force he needed to push himself beyond his limits, “HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO A STUDENT OF MINE! YOU MONSTER! YOU DEMON!”

            “WE-”

            “NO!” All Might’s bellow downed out the beast, “YOU ARE NOT IZUKU MIDORIYA, YOU ARE AN ABOMINATION! AND YOU,” One mighty blow cracked Nemesis’s jaw from below, launching it up, “ARE,” All Might was there in a less than a second, jumping up and holding two linked fists above his head, “DONE.”

            His fists came down and Nemesis broke into the ground with such force that the entire floor of the USJ simply gave up the fight and fell away, raising to form a vast crater which stretched from the impact site in the center of the arena to every corner of the dome.

            The thunderclap-like noise broke whatever windows were left, including those of the storm zone and the wind and rain trapped there was released like a howling spirit from a bottle. It was nothing short of a miracle that the entire USJ did not simply fall away there and then, even as the walls around it crumbled and many broke down entirely, leaving vast openings in the concrete and steel.

            All Might landed with a great thud with rock and stone flying from his impact.

            He breathed and stood to his feet. It was over. He’d won.

            The silence that settled after was, for lack of a better term, deafening.

            The air was filled with the debris of battle and the smoke from the still burning fires. From where he knelt, All Might coughed and choked. His form was already melting away, but he didn’t care. He estimated, through his pain-addled brain, that he had at least a few minutes until the dust settled and the students could see him openly.

            He wasn’t so sure he cared about that anymore.

            On shaking legs, he made his way forwards through the ruin, over the crumbling, disjointed rock and stone to the center of the crater he had made.

            And as he hobbled forwards he could feel the wet, warm blood flowing from the numerous wounds that covered his body. His old wound had been brutally reopened, he was missing most of the skin on his chest, his ribs were broken inside his paper-thin body and he was sure he was missing some teeth. His throat and arms burned from where the skin had simply sizzled away, though incredibly the tape Hanta had applied had remained.

            But that didn’t matter.

            Another few steps forward, he could hear the blood dripping from his fingers to the floor.

            A body appeared in the murk of fire-smoke and dust.

            A small, frail looking body. A body that stank of blood and fire. A body not pale but black and purple and red.

            There was so much red.

            Toshinori fell to his knees beside him. The boy was laying still, too still. His eyes were open and glazed and almost colorless.

            They saw nothing.

            All Might wept cold, bitter tears even as, somewhere in the far distance, he heard the sound of shouting, of fellow heroes arriving, of sirens and help and hope.

            He managed, though how he didn’t know, to take off his own shirt, what remained of it, and draped it over Izuku’s lower half. Through crimson teeth, he whispered, “I’m so… so sorry… my boy.”

            That was how the other heroes found him. A bloody, broken man, crying over the shattered body of Izuku Midoriya.

Chapter Text

            There was no cheerful reunion of the class once the police and heroes arrived. There was only a drowning silence as they stood and watched, huddled together like lost sheep, as the emergency services fought back the blue fire that threatened to engulf the USJ proper.

            There was sound, yes, yelling and shouting, boots rushing from one place to another, sirens wailing and radios crackling with barked orders.

            But from the class, there was only silence.

            Hurt students had been tended too, and their wounds dressed, and yet even as they’d had their injuries wrapped with heavy bandages and their cuts soothed with stinging antiseptic, they had made almost no sound.  

            The sunlight above seemed dimmer somehow. The darkness that had infected the USJ had fled, and above the sun was starting down its slow climb from its afternoon pinnacle. And yet somehow, despite the mostly clear sky, there was a chill that they all felt. As if the very area itself had somehow been robbed of its warmth, of its life and, dare one say it, its sanctity.

            Unholy forces had appeared there, and for that alone, it was forever scarred.

            A man strode towards the group. A man dressed in a flowing trenchcoat hiding a smart navy-blue suit. His face was plain, almost surprisingly so, and yet his eyes were stern and determined. They were eyes of a man who had seen many hard things and had overcome them.

            “Excuse me,” He called out to the group of teenagers, most of which turned their heads towards him. Some however continued to look to the USJ and to the slowly shrinking fingers of blue flame which beckoned from the broken windows. “My name is Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, and I’m going to be interviewing all of you on the events that just happened. You’re all of Class One-A, correct?”

            “Yes, sorry-” A young man spoke up, moving through the crowd towards him. He was tall, strong looking, and one of the few who did not look truly haunted with the color still remaining in his cheeks, “Yes, sir. I’m the class president Tenya Iida, in the absence of Aizawa-sensei I’ve done a full headcount of our class. Other than Izuku Midoriya and Hitoshi Shinsou, we’re all here.”

            The detective looked surprised at the professionalism, or perhaps simply the stuffed-shirt attitude of the young man, but soon nodded. “Good, thank you. Now-”

            “Sir, before anything else, please,” A young woman stepped forward. Her round face was pale, and she wore the same haunted look as most of her class along with tears dripping from her cheeks. But there was a deeper fear there, something that was gnawing at her heart. “I-Izuku, H-Hitoshi, Aizawa-s-sensei, and- and All Might are they okay?”

            Now all the class was looking to him, and the detective felt an all too familiar weight on his shoulders. His heart became heavy. He never quite got used to doing this, no matter how many times he’d uttered such words to worried faces.

            Maybe it was worse because they were all so young. Too young to be dealing with this kind of tragedy.

            “Hitoshi Shinsou is being treated for his injuries now, he took quite the beating, but he’ll recover in time. All Might is being seen too as well, he’s a tough old son- ahem, I mean he’s tough, he’ll be fine, as will your teacher, Erasurehead.”

            There were a few sighs from the class, though some continued to hold their breaths.

            “And- and Izuku…” The girl could barely put the words together.

            She was terrified.

            Naomasa looked down for only a moment before taking a breath through his nose and quietly, but firmly, announcing. “Izuku Midoriya has endured a serious amount of harm, and he’s being rushed into emergency surgery right now. I’ll be honest with all of you…” For a brief second, the words hesitated on his lips, “It doesn’t look good.”

            His words seemed to move between the teenagers like a poisonous cloud, wrapping around their throats and quietly strangling the strength from their bodies. Naomasa looked across them all, his gaze an anchor to the seriousness of his words. “He’s still alive, and from what I understand he’s fighting. He needs you all to be strong for him right now.”    

            “Strong for him?” A voice punctured the air like an explosion, “Strong for him? He’s not even fucking human.”

            Another teenager stepped out of the crowd and Naomasa instantly frowned, or went to, except when he saw the way the young man stood, the way his hands were shaking lightly and the way his amber eyes seemed to almost bulge from his head, he stopped.

            This teenager was more than shocked, he was traumatized. Why the hell the medics hadn’t seen this in him he wasn’t sure, but he was going to notify them as soon as possible.

            “He almost killed All Might. Did you know that?”

            “We haven’t-”

            “I fucking saw him.” The teenager spoke through grinding teeth. “I saw him strangling All Might. Covered in blood and fire and- and- he- he’s not human, he’s not- he’s fucking-” Shaking hands raised to his head, gripping his blond hair tight, and his eyes began drifting, almost glazing over. “He’s not human. He’s not human.”

            “Dude,” One of the other boys, a redhead, reached towards the boy, but the blonde batted the hand away.

            “Get the fuck off me!”

            “It’s okay, it wa-”

            “NO! No, it’s not fucking okay!” The blonde barked back as he looked to the group. “And you all know it’s not fucking okay! I’m not going to lie to myself and say it’s okay, not when we have that fucking thing in our classroom! Nemesis or- or whatever the fuck it calls itself. It isn’t human.”

            Not one person replied, neither in agreement or argument. There was only the damning judgment of silence.

            “You. Come with me,” Naomasa ordered to the blonde with a voice as tough as iron, “Now.”

            Surprisingly the teenager obeyed. He turned from the others and stormed after the detective, who turned and simply began walking away.

            The silence remained.

            Naomasa felt something cold gripping his heart. A bizarre sense of dread which curled and settled within him. He had hoped that the kids would have the strength to overcome this. A villain attack was shocking, but it was what they were being trained for, first years or not.

            But the way they looked. The thousand-yard stares they seemed to have, and the words that the young man had spoken so… so venomously.

            What the hell had happened here?

            Tomura wanted to scream. He wanted to rip through the world like a demon unleashed. He wanted to disintegrate crowds of pleading innocents starting with their heads until only ash remained.

            The pain in his shoulder, across his chest and to his wrists, was immense. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. The wounds had half-cauterized simply on touch from the demon’s claws, and yet even so blood continued to leak out of him.

            He could barely feel his wrist, though the twitching of his fingers had thankfully told him that nothing had been severed. His breaths came in deep, shuddering heaves and he leaned back heavily against the thick wooden headboard.

            Bandages had been wrapped tightly around him, bandages that were still being wrapped around him by a doctor clothed in black robes trimmed with gold and flecks of red. The doctor, however, had pinned his sleeves back, allowing him to administer care without interruption.

            Tomura’s shirt had gone, along with his collection of severed hands, revealing a surprisingly sinewy body, if a little on the thin side. He had a few old scars across his chest, nothing serious, though that wasn’t the thing that caught the eye.

            Across his shoulders, his stomach and chest were a myriad of interconnecting tattoos. They formed both a strange, disturbing language and, at the same time, an intricate and equally disturbing pattern, terrible and blasphemous all at once.

            The one on his back was the most damning. A vast inverted five-pointed star starting from his shoulders and ending at the base of his spine. Tattooed within each section were his words of oath, his sanctifications of unholy power. Proof that he had passed the tests given to him. They were also the reason he could punch above his weight class and move like a man training for the Olympics.

            They were proof his faith was true.

            Along, of course, with his severed hands and the sigils of blasphemous maledictions upon them.

            They were the only reason he was still conscious, he knew that. They were his protection, his profane blessings, the shield that protected his soul. And indeed they protected him… or rather, they had. Now they would have to be recharged again.

            If the monster had ruined them…

            The doctor picked up a small bottle from a first aid kit to one side and sprayed it against Tomura’s wrist, causing a sharp wasp-bite sting to rush through his system. The younger man gritted his teeth tightly, hissing in a deep, almost serpent-like manner, his thoughts snapping back to reality. His eyes squeezed closed, and the moment he opened them again they focused back on the balding head of the doctor beside him.

            “Do that again and I will make sure you no longer have hands to work with.”

            “Do not threaten me, Master Tomura,” The doctor replied in a voice that implied years of smoking, and a little irritation, “I answer to your Master, not to you.”

            Tomura growled out a long and vaguely threatening non-verbal response but otherwise kept his mouth shut. He was in a lot of pain right now, sharp and stabbing pain that seemed edged with a flame that simply wouldn’t die, but it wasn’t enough for him to willingly incur the wrath of his Master.

            Not when it might also incur the wrath of his Father.

            He looked around the room simply for something to do. His bedroom was sparse, like all bedrooms in the chapel. He had his bed, which was currently stained red with his blood, a spare bed across from him, a chest filled with a few his personal belongings, and that was it.

            It was a spartan lifestyle, designed to make their initiates tougher, stronger, and to focus their faith. Tomura had always thought it was a bit stupid, as he was the only surviving initiate left.

            The walls were made of old stone and were deathly cold. The floors were an ancient wood which creaked and groaned with every step. The room was lit not with natural light, for there were no windows, nor with electric light, but with the flicking candles on brass sconces along the walls. The flames were, of course, a corrupt blue, and did not truly light every corner of the room, making it seem gloomy and unnaturally haunted.

            On one wall was an inverted, red-splattered cross, small and mostly unassuming. On another was a picture of All Might, covered in thrown knives and large tears. Tomura frowned at it then turned away in disgust.

            Standing to one side, watching over them both was Kurogiri. His shadowed form was blanketed by a robe which matched the one the doctor wore, though the markings across were different, more ornate and somehow more disturbing. Beside him sat a laptop on a wheeled cart. The laptop screen was all black and simply had ‘no video’ written in white in its center.

            Unblinking, tarnished gold eyes, still flickering and weaving, watched the doctor work on his Master. “You would do well to listen to him, Master Tomura, your injuries are grave.”

            “My injuries are nothing.” Tomura hissed back, looking up from his bloody wrist to the demon, his chest heaving with pained breaths. “And it’s your fault I got them in the first place. If you had been faster-”

            “My Master, I apologize, as have already apologized profusely for my error.” Kurogiri replied with a nod towards Tomura, “But I must remind you that I warned you of taking this action in the first place.”

            “Oh, so now you’re smarter than me?” Tomura snapped at his demonic companion, “I ought to turn your host to dust, and then we’ll see how sorry you are when you’re dragged back to Hell.”

            “Master Tomura- I- Hm-” The demon huffed as calmly as he could, almost as if he’d ran through this kind of tantrum with the young man before. “I do not claim any such thing, I only suggest that-”

            “Tomura.”

            The room went silent, and even the doctor stopped his work to look up. Eyes glassy and aging, eyes made of an ever-shifting golden shade, and eyes as red as freshly spilled blood, all looked to one location.

            The laptop.

            From behind the darkness of the screen came a sense of power and dread which seemed all invasive and corrupting. The candles flickered, though there was no wind.

            “Tomura. Was your mission to kill All Might successful?” The voice belonged to someone strong. Someone unbelievably strong, and someone just as equally as dangerous.

            The question was no real question at all, Tomura knew that. His heart beat a little faster out of a mixture of fear and utter admiration for the man he knew to be speaking.

            “N-No, my Lord Sensei, it was not.”

            There was a moment where the screen seemed to glitch, and again, the blue flames on their candles flickered.

            “So, you took one of our strongest summons in one of our most perfected hosts, and you failed to kill All Might?”

            Kurogiri shifted awkwardly, “My Lord Sensei, I-”

            “Did I say you could speak, Kurogiri?” The tone of his voice was akin to being shot through the temple with a gun. Sudden, swift and brutal.

            The demon almost seemed to shrink in fear at the voice and he bowed his head towards the screen. “My apologies, my Lord Sensei.”

            “Tomura. I want you to explain to me what happened, in your words.”

            Tomura hesitated for a moment. His sensei was angry, he could tell, and yet he knew that his sensei would never truly hurt him. Even so, he was not beyond punishment, no one was, even though he had suffered a wound which would have killed most men. Good thing he had been protected by a power stronger than his own.

            Tomura began explaining, slowly, his voice croaking and hoarse. He spoke of their initial good fortune, of how they infiltrated with their army of hired goons and split apart the classroom for the lower thugs to deal with while they targeted Erasurehead and Thirteen. Everything had been going to plan, right up until…

            “Until… it appeared.” Tomura’s voice took on a spiteful, hateful tone. “My Lord Sensei, they have a demon of their own working for them, but I swear, it was like no demon I have ever seen.” He paused for a second, “It was the thing that killed Legion. It tore it apart, Lord Sensei. It ate its heart and I- I-” Even now the memory of the creature that had attacked them seemed burned into his brain.

            Tomura had seen many terrible things, things no man should ever see, and yet that thing. It scared him. It scared him, and he didn’t like it because it meant that he was weak, and he couldn’t be weak. Not when so much was dependent on him.

            “They have a demon?” His Lord Sensei’s voice drifted through the laptop, “What manner of demon?”

            “It- It was huge, bigger than Legion. It looked kinda like- like a dragon. It had horns and wings and- and it used the blue flame like it was its own.” Tomura winced as his wounds suddenly pulled tight and stung, like he was being raked all over again. Even describing the beast seemed to be enough to bring his pain back to the forefront. “And it had- it had a halo of unlight-”

            “A halo of unlight?”

            This was not spoken by his Lord Sensei, but someone new. A voice that reached forward through the screen and held Tomura’s chin softly, lifting his eyes back up. It was a voice that seemed feminine and masculine at the same time. It was a voice of polished, shining gold, of glory and awe unbound and without end.

            And it was terrible to behold. It was nightmarish in its purity. It was the gilded dagger slitting the throat of a king, it was the naked witch bathing in the virgin’s blood.

            “F-Father,” Tomura stammered, his eyes growing wider.

            “Are you absolutely sure, my child?” The voice was a soothing balm to his wounds and strength to his heart and soul. “Are you absolutely sure of this?”

            “I-I swear to you, my Father, I’m telling the truth.” Tomura stammered softly, even bowing his head a little and gulping. “What attacked me, what attacked Legion. It… it came from some child.” He spat the last word out, his hate filtering in once again. “Some little scrawny nobody who had big ugly scars on him and green hair and-”

            “Did he tell you his name?”

            “N-No, my Father.”

            “My Lords, if I may,” Kurogiri spoke suddenly, shifting awkwardly again, “I believe at one point I heard the creature refer to itself as ‘Nemesis’.”

            There was a small pause from behind the laptop before Father spoke once again. “I see. Did you see what happened to this demon?”

            “No, it attacked me, then we left as All Might arrived.”

            “I’m getting confirmation from our sources within the police force,” Lord Sensei added in a stern tone, “The USJ was saved from burning to the ground. Reports claim that some kind of monster attacked All Might.” There was a smirk to his tone. “How interesting, perhaps this demon was not so firmly on their side as you thought.”

            “I did not assume it would be, and if anything, Tomura’s assault has proven may suspicions true.” Father spoke again, their soft tone like velvet that was laced with razor blades. “You did well today, my child.”

            “B-But Father, I didn’t kill All Might. I didn’t claim his soul as my own.”

            “But you acted as I assumed you would.” The voice smiled, as gentle as a summer breeze, as destructive as a hurricane, “All goes according to the prophecies long foretold. I am proud of you, Tomura, you have dealt our enemy a great blow.”

            “If you believe so, then I suppose I can hold off on your punishment,” Lord Sensei spoke in a tone that also suggested a smile, though perhaps one more akin to a crocodile than a human, “Though it will take time to replace Legion and recover our losses.”

            There was a silence once more, though not the tense, cliff-edged silence as before. This time it was one of awe and reverence. Tomura moved, standing to his wobbling feet despite the hushed irritation of the doctor to his side and the pain that shot lightning-like across his body.

            Then he fell to his knees before the laptop and bowed his head low, clasping his hands together in an apparent prayer. “My Lord Sensei. My Father Satani. I owe you my life, my soul, everything. I promise, next time, I will kill All Might and whatever else stands in our way.”

            There was a soft chuckling from behind the screen, and Father Satani answered softly. “The first blow has been struck, now we must wait and see how they react. Recover, Tomura, now for we plan our next move.”

            “Thank you, my Father, I shall.”

            “Oh, and Tomura.”

            The young man looked up at the laptop, blinking in surprise.

            “I plan on arriving soon. Make sure the offering is replaced. Perhaps a woman, this time, hm?”

            Tomura nodded his head, “Yes, my Father.”

            The screen cut off by itself and Tomura again rose to his feet.

            Ignoring the calls to sit back down from both the doctor and Kurogiri he pushed open the wooden door and began making his way through the narrow corridors of the windowless chapel. On he walked, ignoring the pain in his chest and body until he, at last, came out into a vast room.

            It was a nave. Tall and imposing, gothic and stern, seemingly carved directly into the stone walls like an ancient church. Yet it was, for a chapel, surprisingly well kept. The floors were swept clean, the pews in neat rows, and the vast black, red and gold lined carpet runners spotless and well maintained. Along the walls hung long tapestries, each black with a gold and red trim, each marked with a vast sigil in a bright, corrupt blue, each as somehow blasphemous as the last.

            Tomura ignored them all as he walked forward to the alter where a vast inverted wooden cross stood before him. A wooden rail separated him from it, lined with votive candles, all of course, lighted with a blue flame.

            A man had been nailed, literally nailed, to the inverted cross. His throat and stomach had been cut, and the blood and viscera had flowed down below him. The insides of the man had been taken away, of course, the doctor had requested them, but the blood remained, pooling under his corpse and running into a long line of symbols carved into the stone.

            Tomura read them silently to himself, Deus lacrimabit.

            God shall weep.

            And he smiled, his whisper turning to an echoing roar within the corrupted church.

            “Thy will be done.”

            Inko had never driven so fast in all her life. She’d ran through every red light she’d came across, skipped over every stop sign and had almost caused three crashes on her way to U.A. but she didn’t give a damn.

            Because the moment she heard the words your son was attacked she had moved. She had thought of nothing else, felt nothing else. Her vision had tunneled entirely on where she needed to be and what she needed to do, if there was indeed anything she could do.

             She skidded into a parking space, well, more like three parking spaces, and jumped out of her car without even shutting the door. She ran into the U.A. medical wing, pushing someone aside as she did so and grabbing onto the receptionist’s desk so tightly her fingers hurt.

            “WHERE IS HE!?” Her voice was loud and panicked and edging into hysterical.

            “Who are-”

            “MY SON WHERE IS HE?”

            The receptionist, thankfully, seemed to have some degree of realization and simply pointed down the hallway. “He’s in surgery, Miss Midoriya, follow the signs, room Three-A.”

            If the nurse said anything else, Inko didn’t hear it. She ran, the breath burning in her lungs and her heart hammering painfully behind her ribcage.

            Her child. Her son. He was hurt, he was in pain, he was dying. The thought was a fear like no other. It was a fear that transcended any fear she could have ever had for her own life. Her child, her only child and the only child she would ever have was fighting for his life.

            And there was nothing she could do about it. She hadn’t been there to take the blows for him, to protect him from the evils of the world. She wished more than anything that she had told him to stay home that morning, that she had pulled him from the school for some bizarre, unneeded reason and that everything had gone differently.

            That was wishful thinking though. Imaging the paths of roads not taken.

            She spotted the operating room almost immediately, it was guarded by a police officer after all. As she approached he began stepping forward to head her off

            The moment he was close enough she began wailing, “I’m his mother! I’m his mother! I have to see him! Let me see my baby!”

            “Ma’am- Ma’am!” She fell against the officer, trying to push past him with arms weakened by desperation and terror. He was far taller and stronger than her and he held her back with ease. Still, through the top, circular windows of the double wide doors to the operating theater she spotted crowded heads, turquoise blue capped and lined with the elastic straps of medical masks.

            She felt as though she was going to throw up.

            “Come with me.” The officer took her by the shoulder and began pulling her to a side corridor. She followed him, having no idea of what else to do and no thought to question him. All she could think about was her boy, her boy laying on a hospital bed as huddled figures opened his body apart, trying to save his life.

            She was shaking. Tears were falling from her eyes and she made no effort to stop them, no effort to fix her messy hair or running makeup.

            Her child was dying. Nothing else mattered.

            The policeman opened a door and escorted her up a small set of stairs that she could barely find the strength to climb. Her legs were shaking, her body moving almost entirely on a mind-numbing instinctual automation.

            He led her along the observation deck and sat her down on one of the small plastic seats.

            “Would you like a coffee or some water, Miss Midoriya?”

            She didn’t answer. Her eyes were focused forward on the scene unfolding below her.

            There were nine of them. Nine doctors or nurses, she wasn’t quite sure, huddled around her child. Occasionally one would move away suddenly to check a monitor, or move a light closer, or pick up some odd-looking medical instrument before returning to the table.

            It was in those small moments she caught glimpses of her child.

            “N-No.” Inko answered in a voice that shattered even as she spoke. It was barely above a whisper, barely above even the movement of her own lips.

            The policeman nodded, “I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”

            He left her as she sat, frozen to her seat, clutching her knees and leaning forward. The observation room was dimly lit, yet the operating theater itself was bright, almost blindly so. It looked bleached-clean and sterile and with the vast array of strange medical instruments hanging overhead. It was like some bizarre other world to which she was peering into.

            Her child was surrounded by machines, all beeping and chirping with screen covered in data that she couldn’t read and showing numbers she had no idea how to interpret.

            Though there was one monitor she could see, one that she knew immediately.

            His heart rate.

            It was so slow.

            The tiny, bouncing digital-green line was so weak. It ran constantly though, which she took as good sign at the very least.

            If he needed a new heart, she would gladly hand over her own. If he needed blood she would give him hers. If she needed life, she would trade her own without a second thought.

            Her breath came so lightly her lungs started to burn, but it was distant pain that didn’t matter. Only her son mattered. Only her poor Izuku, whose blood was cursed from the moment he was born.

            In that moment she wondered if she had done the right thing. Taking him to doctors for the visions he had, drowning him in medication just so he could live as normally as possible.

            What if she had told him the truth from the get-go? What if she had let his power flow naturally?

            What if she had demanded his father stay?

            She frowned at this. No. No she had made the right decisions. He had suffered, yes, and it had been at her choices. But if she had not blanketed his mind… who knew where he would be now. Who knew what he would have become?

            Who knew what that… that monstrous side of his blood would have made him into.

            The observation room door opened suddenly and Inko looked up, turning her head with her eyes wide.

            A man ran up the stairs and into the room, not even sparing a second to look at her. His shirt was white and yet dull in the half-light, his pants a deep navy blue, his shoes smart and black. His blue tie had been pulled down from its once neat knot, his usually well combed hair was fraught with messy strays and even his glasses had nudged down his nose.

            He looked to the operating room, one hand laying flat against the tinted windows and, even in the dull light, his skin seemed to pale. Then he turned to Inko and for a moment the room grew inexplicably cold by some other, intangible force which went beyond the natural.

            Eyes as black as the infernal void looked to her, his freezing-burning blue irises flashing in the gloom with an emotion that Inko knew all too well but seemed strange and unnatural on his narrow-chinned face.

            He swallowed softly. “Inko-”

            “Don’t.” Inko’s voice was blade wet with blood. It was a hammer blow on a skull. She was not a powerful woman, her quirk was not particularly strong and she couldn’t swing a fist to save her life.

            But in that moment, no being in heaven, earth, or even hell, could match the rage in her eyes.

            Then it was all shattered in a moment.

            There was a sudden panic from the operating room and both turned to look.

            Izuku’s heart rate had stopped.

            The fear that took hold of Inko was like being dropped into the darkest point of an endless ocean. It drowned her, utterly. It stole the thoughts from her mind, the breath from her lungs and the warmth from her blood. It strangled her tightly, crushing her mind and heart in a cruel, ruthless fist.

            There was no fear like that of watching your only child die.

            At what point she had stood, she didn't know, but suddenly she was banging on the windows, her fists hamming the glass as she screamed incoherently. A mixture of her hysterical wailing and her utter, heart shattering sorrow. Tears fell without stopping from eyes couldn’t tear away.

            The doctors swarmed and panicked, shouting and screaming to one another as the boy simply slipped from their fingers.

            Inko didn’t even notice the shadows growing suddenly across every corner of the room, as if they were madly reaching for something they couldn’t grasp.

            It was only when Hisashi Hokori stepped back that she turned to look at him.

            His eyes were wide with a terror she barely believed he truly felt. It wasn’t in his nature to feel things like empathy or sorrow.

            “You.” Her voice was bordering on being inhumanly angry.

            The fury that she had felt only moments before now flooded back, fueled by the horror unfolding before her. A mother’s rage at the sight of one who stood, pretending to be helpless while her child died.

            “YOU.” She rushed him, grabbing the man by his shirt and pulling it tight. Eyes that could tear through the souls of mortal men looked down on her.

            They were scared. So utterly scared that, for only the tiniest of moments, she considered holding him tight to her.

            But that motion was quickly squashed.

            “HELP. HIM.” She half-choked the words out. They were angry, demanding words, clawing at her throat and screaming through her heart.

            “I-I can’t-” Hisashi replied with a pathetic shake of his head, avoiding her eyes, “He’s beyond-”

            “YOU ARE HIS FATHER.” Inko screamed the words at him. They were more than a fact, they were an accusation and an insult to everything he had done in that role. At her words, Hisashi looked back to her once more.

            Time slowed to a crawl as she saw something fill his gaze. It was an emotion. An emotion she had never seen in his eyes before, not once in all the time they had spent together. It was an impossible emotion, an emotion that should have been alien to his kind, but it was there.

            She dared not put a name to it. She didn’t have that kind of hope.

            Echoing strangely in the over-shadowed room, she heard herself speak softly, as if from some distant place. “Please. Do something. Save him.”

            He turned again, and she turned with him, her hands falling from his shirt. In the manic chaos of the operating room the nurses and doctors around their child parted for just a moment, and together they saw him.

            The blood-soaked form of Izuku Midoriya. His bones shattered, his body purple and black with cuts and bruises beyond belief. A mass of wires and machines linked to his skin, clamped over his mouth, and hands and fingers.

            They saw the stumps of horns that had come just from the sides of his forehead. They saw the limp, black-clad tail hanging from the table, its end pointed like a barbed speartip. They saw the droplets of blood falling from his lips and ears and many, many wounds.

            A nurse pressed a defibrillator to his chest, sweat beading on her forehead, and at the crawl of a snail, his skinny body jolted onto the bed. Again, and again this happened, all to the soundless shouting of doctors, to the punctuating thud of dead weight on the operating table.

            The heart monitor continued to read nothing, just a single line matched by the toneless whine of the machine.

            And then, Hisashi broke the silence. “I can’t save him,” There was a strangled tone to his words, a mix of hatred, desperation and maybe even fear, “But I know someone who can.”

            He turned, pushing Inko from him with a firm, but not violent hand, and moved down the staircase, vanishing out of the room.

            Inko turned back to her boy, lying dead on the operating table as the doctors began pulling off their masks and looking to him with defeated eyes.

            And she held her breath.

Chapter Text

            Izuku was in Hell.  

            He knew that because there was no sky above him, nor ground beneath his feet. Only an all-consuming, starless night that wrapped around him like a suffocating cloak, squeezing and crushing his lungs. It pressed against his temples and eyes like the thumbs of a hated enemy, it punched into his gut like a fist. It weighed on his shoulders trying to force him to the floor.

            He couldn’t see his body. He couldn’t see his hands before his eyes, or the feet under his legs. He couldn’t feel cold air in his lungs, or the pain of what surely should be his crippling wounds.

            All he could feel was the numbing, corpse-like cold of the void across every inch of his skin.

            For a moment, he almost gave in to the darkness. He almost curled into a ball, ready to stay there, still and silent forever.

            And then he heard it. Or rather, he felt it.

            Something was calling to him. A whisper carried on a wind that he couldn’t feel. A distant, beckoning hiss that spoke to the very depths of his soul.

            On legs shaking, on feet numb, he stepped forwards. Then again, and again, and again until he was staggering and stumbling through the eternal dark.

            He didn’t know what was whispering to him, but he trusted it. It wouldn’t hurt him, this thing, this strange feeling calling to his blood. It was somehow… familiar, as if it had always been calling to him. As if he had always heard it, somewhere, deep within his heart.

            Izuku tried to feel for his quirk, for the monster within that he called Nemesis. He was met with only silence, and yet, he knew that Nemesis was still there. Still within him, still flowing through his blood and curling around his heart and stalking through his mind.

            He didn’t know why he couldn’t hear his demonic quirk’s words. Maybe here, in its birthplace, it was bound to be silent. Or maybe he was Nemesis, and Izuku Midoriya had died up on earth.

            He didn’t know anymore.

            But in this strange, cold, unrelenting void, he knew he was at peace. Not the peace of medication, but the peace of… being whole. Being one. Being the thing his blood had been demanding he become all this time. 

            He wasn’t sure how long he walked uncertainly through the eternal void but eventually, he saw something. Something that got bigger and more defined as he approached it, step by tentative step.

            It was a gate.

            It was small like the gate of a cottage. It was tall, like the gate of a chain-linked fence. It was gigantic, like the gate of a vast antediluvian fortress.

            And it was connected to a wall of living flesh that stretched eternally in either direction, moaning and screaming with mouths that were melded into its surface. Hands, fingers, feet, stomachs, and eyes seemed to form endlessly out of it.

            The gate itself, however, was nothing but solid gold and made of an uncountable number of bars, gears, grates, and cogs. It was also ornate past the point of reason with patterns that Izuku somehow knew, yet had never seen before. Written above it on a great arch in a language long dead, Izuku read, Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.

            He walked towards it.

            “RUN, RUN, FOR HELL AWAITS BEHIND THE GATE!” The mouths of the wall screamed and cried and moaned in a cacophony of madness, “TARTARUS KNOWS, TARTARUS KNOWS. THOU MUST FLEE. TARTARUS KNOWS. HELL AWAITS BEHIND THE GATE!”

            Izuku approached the gate, and though he couldn’t see his own body, he stretched out a hand.

            There was an immense rumbling, like overhead thunder. The many gears and cogs and maddeningly complex mechanical parts began to grind and groan and move all at once.

            The gate began to open.

            The mouths fell silent.

            Beyond the gate was a vast, thick fog that seemed to move like an ocean, flowing back and forth on an endless shore of void-sand. Izuku blinked his eyes hard as he swore he saw faces in that fog. Faces of people long dead, their names lost to history, their bodies on earth long forgotten in graves no one mourned.

            He heard the whisper run through his body once more and felt the pull that coxed his blood. He approached the edge of the fog-ocean and for a moment, stood on its eternal shore. He knew, instinctively, that no mortal should ever step into this damned mist. No mortal mind could withstand the madness hidden within its depths. No mortal soul could survive the terrors of hell without being corrupted forever.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            The floor was blood, ankle-deep and never-ending. Around him, untold millions strangled one other, stabbed one other, shot and gutted and beheaded one another only to rise again seconds later. Every war ever fought was being endlessly contested in a shower of constant bloodied rain. They reveled in the maddening chaos of their never-ending battle, laughing and screaming in their all-consuming bloodlust.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            The ground was black ice, all-consuming, all-devouring, and under his feet, trapped under the unbreakable frost, were people. Hands clawed at the sheets of ice, grasping for peace from their eternal frozen torment. They screamed with silent mouths and cried frozen tears as their flesh was forever gnawed by the frostbite, by the crushing, void-cold of their endless prison.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            Around him were cages, rusting and ancient and hanging on gigantic chains. Each was filled with a human body, naked and bone-thin. Each person tried to claw their way out, or at each other, with fingers bleeding from being worn to the bone, crying and moaning in their misery. Unknowably vast machines with blue-fire furnaces churned and belched out smog and toxic gasses, choking the air and causing the cages to crush tighter, ever tighter.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            The cries of untold pleasures filled the air as monstrous, pale-skinned things toyed and tormented their adulating slaves. They removed the skin from their bodies, flaying them alive, roasting them, mutilating them, stitching some together and ripping others apart. Sadistic, hedonistic bliss on a scale unimagined stretched on a floor of silk, with an air filled with a noxious mix of heady, opiate-like aromas, human fluids, and blood.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            Decaying food stank and piled around him as bloated, obese figures gorged themselves constantly on the rank meat, on stinking wine and even on one another. They even tore chunks out of their own flesh in their madness to eat, eat, eat. Others drowned themselves in wine and spirits, eternally gasping for air while filling their bursting stomachs with alcohol.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            A thousand plagues rotted and tore through the screaming human bodies, they bloated and boiled alive in their own skins, pus and bile falling from their open sores. Their skin molted brown and green and yellow with their flesh devouring viruses. They mutated and changed, becoming vast maggots or horrific demonic rats or other, unnamable things.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            There was only darkness and silence now. No, not darkness, but unlight. It was somehow thin here, delicate, like a membranous wing of an insect. He had only to put his hand out to pierce it and he knew he could see to whatever it was hiding. And yet somehow knew that behind this vail was the worst of all that he had seen and heard and felt here. Behind this thin skin of unlight, was true oblivion.

            Izuku stepped forwards.

            And the gate closed behind him.

            He stood now in a vast hall, greater than any other he had ever seen or ever would see. On either side were billions of seats, stretching until they vanished into the horizon. And yet Izuku had the impression that it wouldn’t matter where one sat, they would always be able to see the center of the physics-defying hall.

            The hewn rock sides were gothic and great, rising up and up into an empty, dark sky. Ash fell softly from that great void, though it did not gather upon the ground. It simply melted the moment it touched the black marble floor.

            Along the walls were impossibly vast, gothic windows in the manner of those from cathedrals or basilicas. And yet rather than show saints or great deeds through the colored stained glass, they showed scenes of horrific blasphemy. They showed scenes of the war in heaven, of the great fall and of every vile thought and deed mankind had ever possessed.

            Through them Izuku could see a black sun, eternally setting on the horizon of the fog of lost souls. It cast a bizarre half-light upon the hall, lighting it and shadowing it in equal measure.

            From the walls in the space between the windows hung vast banners and tapestries displaying the sigils of every demon of hell. Endlessly they hung, unmoving, from the walls of the impossible hall.

            There was a smell to the air. A smell of old bones left to dry, of the falling ash from a fire that long since faded, of stale air and unmoving eons. For the first time since arriving in Hell, Izuku felt the weight of his own body. He could feel the tomb-like coldness of the air on his skin and his heart beating softly in his chest.

            He also felt… different, strange but not unwelcome. He felt as though he had changed out of ill-fitting clothes into something tailored for him. He could feel a fabric across his body, some kind of tunic perhaps, but it wasn’t a feeling that could be prescribed to what he was wearing.

            It was something deeper, something primitive, instinctual, something… natural.

            Izuku’s gaze turned forwards to focus on the raised center.

            Seven thrones sat waiting.

            Each one was different. One was made of what seemed to be living flesh, much like the walls outside, though they spawned no mouths or eyes or hands. Just blood and muscle and bone.

            Another was pure gold, shining and brilliant and utterly heart-stopping in its awe-inspiring majesty. And yet it permeated a sense of utter, unbelieving horror that sent a shiver down Izuku’s spine, even in this terrible place.

            Another seemed huge, fit only for a giant and seemed to be of constant, shifting metal and swords and cogs that turned and melted and reforged all in time some unknown clock.

            They were all empty, save one.

            One on the furthest right of them all was occupied by the corpse of some bizarre insectoid-like monster. It had a human head and torso, though its eyes and nose had long since rotted away and only carcass-dry skin stretched over its skeletal, multi-limbed body. The rest of it from the waist down resembled something akin to a millipede, or a slug, or some other strange, unholy insect.

            From either side of its body vast bat-wings lay, their thin membrane torn and ripped apart in tattered shreds. Its body, all rotting chitin and fungi and bones curled and vanished behind the eternally decaying throne. It had been there so long that it had fused to its resting place through the melting of its skin to long-dried pus and unclean fluids.

            And yet it was only the center throne which drew Izuku’s gaze.

            Unlike all the others it was raised a step higher and was made entirely out of old oak wood. It had no ornate patterns, no great embellishments, making it look almost like the throne of a pauper-king. It sported only one feature, a single candle sat upon the flat pediment of the chair, and upon it, was a single blue flame.

            And yet this throne called to him. This was where the whispering of his blood was coming from. He could feel it now, greater than ever before, like a siren song to his soul.

            He stepped towards it slowly, dimly aware, somewhere in his mind, that he could hear the clicking of talons on void-black marble.

            Closer he stepped, ever closer. He could see himself in his mind’s eye, taking the throne, sitting upon it, like a king of old.

            He could rule this realm of untold, unholy horrors and torments.

            He should rule this realm. It… it was in his blood.

            This throne. This place. This realm of shadow and fire.

            It was his birthright.

            He reached close enough to the throne to touch it and his hand outstretched. A hand made of unlight-black, ending in long, claw-like nails that were not quite talons, his scars glowing with a fire-flickering corrupt blue.

            He paused.

            No. No this wasn’t him.

            A part of him, deep inside, a piece of his heart, his mind, his soul, told him this wasn’t right, this wasn’t him. To touch that throne would be to damn himself truly, eternally, to never again see the light that he strived for so dearly.

            He wasn’t a villain. He wasn’t evil.

            He was good. And he knew that. Just as he knew he could take the throne for himself, he knew that he shouldn’t, that his real calling was greater than this.

            His soul was not damned. Not yet.

            His fingers curled back.

            “Lucifer?”

            Izuku jumped and turned. The corpse-thing creaked with the aging of old-still joints as its head turned to view him with unseeing, empty eye sockets. “Lucifer, my sibling, is- is that you?”         

            Its voice was the howling of ages, the anger of the aged, the rotting of old flesh and the grinding of forgotten bones.

            “We-”

            “Lucifer!” It began moving more, its body pushing forward from the throne. Dust fell away from it as it slowly uncurled its massive form. Only now did Izuku seem to realize just how huge it actually was. It was bigger than any monster he had ever seen, a true giant of unnatural, impossible size.

            “Lucifer!” It began stretching out a hand with too many fingers, attached to an arm with too many elbows. “I-I waited! All this time, I waited for you! I held the realm while all our other siblings left!”

            Izuku stepped away as it continued to move towards him at the speed of crawling lava. “We- we’re not-”

            “Apollyon, Mammon, Beliel, Lilithia,” It groaned out, it’s voice somehow stuttering and… joyful, “Even our dearest sibling, Satani, left us.”

            “No! We’re not-”

            “Have you returned to lead us again?” The monstrous insect-thing asked, “Please, tell me you have! I’ve been so alone here, waiting on my throne.”

            Izuku cried out and stumbled back as the smell of the creature hit him. It was like every infected wound in the world, every bloated corpse with every writhing, fat maggot chewing on old, decayed flesh.

            “We- we’re not-!” He turned to run from the monster but tripped and fell over his own feet. He landed with a heavy smack on the marble floor and went to push himself back up.

            And for a second, he froze.

            He could see himself, reflected in the impossibly black marble floor. He could see his horns, one pair curling around his pointed ears, one pair curling up over his head and coming to a sharp uptick.

            He could see his hands and arms. The unlight coating them to the elbows, black and shadowed, his fingers ending in sharpened claw-like nails. He could feel the same on his legs, covering him to his upper thighs. He could feel his feet, his rending claws scraping against the marble on hind legs like a wolf.

            He could feel his tail, spear-tipped, and curling from the base of his spine.

            He could see his teeth, sharp as if shaven down to knife-like points.

            He could see his wings, folded against his back and arching above his head.

            He could see his eyes, black as the void, cold and burning, crushing and all-consuming, lit only by the paganistic green of his irises.

            Worse of all, he could see the halo of unlight that crowned his head, royal and unholy all at once.

            Izuku could see himself.

            And he knew he belonged here.

            And he knew he needed to escape.

            The monster scraped itself along the floor, and Izuku turned up to see it. Gigantic, spear-like legs smashed through the marble around him as it crawled over him. Pus and black fluids dripped from open, painful sores as the body of the blasphemous creature lowered itself. The wings it sported tried to stretch, though they failed and instead cracked and creaked with the decay of millennia.

            “Lucifer, why do you-” It stopped suddenly. It had been stretching out a hand towards him, as if to help him up, but suddenly its open-socket eyes became… angrier. “Wait… you’re not Lucifer.”

            Its voice was no longer feverously joyful, but a horrific, maddening anger that was growing with every second. “Who- Who do you think you are, little demon? Imitating my family?! Stealing my brother-sister’s blood and threading it in your flesh?! Wearing the crown like it is yours to own?!”

            Izuku was beyond words now. His terror, all too human and sane, was utterly consuming. He began scrambling back, away from the huge millipede-slug-corpse-like thing that had no right existing on this or any other plane of reality.

            “Who are you to mock me like this?!” Its voice was the grinding passage of time itself, the slow fall of all things into death and rot. It rose to a horrific roar that came from every direction and filled every inch of the air as it screamed into the starless sky, “I AM NIRGALI OF DECAY AND PLAGUE.”

            And then it moved.

            Izuku barely dodged the attack. A vast mantis-like forearm rushed forward and smashed into the floor, tearing up the marble and throwing it to one side. Izuku moved faster than he had ever moved, save perhaps when Nemesis had claimed him at the USJ.            

            He dodged and dodged and dodged again as the monster, Nirgali, moved faster than it had any right too. It smashed into the ground with its vast body flowing after it, its many limbs swiping and clawing at the boy. Through the marble-dust that rose it dived again and again after Izuku, seeing with corpse-empty eyes, sniffing with a nose long rotted away.

            Izuku ran. He sprinted on clawed feet from the monster, though it sped after him with the sound of a million thunderous insects. He could hear the buzzing of demonic flies, the screaming of unnatural locust and the war-cry of the black death itself.

            As he ran he felt his wings unfurling from his back and, just as the air sang with the sound of rushing death on carapace-spear, he leapt.

            The mantis-like forearm missed him by merely an inch as he took to the air, flying up and up into the eternal dark of the vast hall. It consumed and swallowed him instantly, though even in its embrace he knew he would not be able to hide from the infernal creature that chased him.

            Nirgali howled, and in its howl, it infected the air with its unholy pestilence. He could almost see it, like a living fog of a billion tiny, gnawing flies, rushing towards him.

            Izuku screamed and in the same moment, turned and raked his talons across the air, spewing forth a deadly wave of brilliant blue fire.

            Within an instant, the fog was destroyed, burned to nothing.

            “WHAT IS THIS? WHAT ARE YOU?” Nirgali’s roar was like hearing time itself erode the human soul, breaking it down piece by rotting piece.

            He couldn’t move fast enough, he couldn’t fly fast enough. Nirgali was reaching towards him with one multi-fingered, multi-elbowed corpse-like hand and it was so close, so close, so close…

            And then the air split apart with the sound of an almighty trumpet and the purest of light.

            It was the most painful, yet somehow most soothing sound Izuku had ever heard. The light was so white, so undiluted and perfect that it hurt him to even be caught within it. It embraced him, it crushed him, it comforted him and tormented him. His skin burned as if caught within the most terrible of flame, and it was healed with the touch of the divine.

            The light took him in its embrace and Izuku felt safe. The sound surrounded him, and he no longer felt fear. He simply stopped struggling and hung, suspended in the air as the light pierced the darkness. He closed his eyes and went limp, falling back into himself. He felt no pain, no power, not even his own body.

            Just his soul remained, his tattered, worn, corrupt soul still fighting for all it was worth to be good.

            The light went past him, and it hit Nirgali.

            The monster, the thing, the beast of Decay and Plague simply fell away, recoiling and fleeing utterly from the purity and power of the light that punished and healed in equal measure. Nirgali could have stank of charred, burned flesh, it could have screamed a thousand bloody, malignant curses to the suspended form of the boy, but all Izuku could hear was the trumpet. All he could feel was the light.

            Izuku felt his spirit slowly, carefully being lifted out of the dark realm of Hell, away from the shadow and flame.

            And back into the world of the living. 

            Inko’s hand moved forward towards the window, the cold glass barely registering within her mind. It was shaking, as her whole body was shaking. Her heart might well have stopped within her chest, she didn’t know. All she knew was that the doctors were turning away from her son, who lay, lifeless and dead on the hospital table.

            The only sound she heard was the tinny whine of the heart monitor, reading nothing and announcing the death of Izuku Midoriya.

            The seconds stretched for years, and each seemed to age her just as much. She could feel the weight of all her fears, all her anxieties pressing at her shoulders, trying to force her to her knees, trying to force her to fall into despair and never rise again.

            And it almost did. Her legs were giving way, her hand slipping from the window, the breath stolen from her lips.

            Izuku’s finger suddenly twitched.

            The heart monitor beeped.

            Then it beeped again.

            And again.

            And again.

            Time came crashing back into motion, the entire world seemingly catching up all at once in a mad chaotic crash of sound and light and action. The doctors had paused for barely a second before they were back at his side. They shouted and barked orders, machines whirred back into life and monitors exploded with sounds and lights and data.

            Izuku Midoriya had died.

            And now he was alive.

            It should have been impossible, but Izuku Midoriya had always been an impossible child.

            A smile tugged at the corners of Inko’s lips. It was a smile of joy, of hope, of the wishes of the desperate coming true. The breath returned to her lungs and she could feel her heart hammering in her chest.

            Her son was alive. Her son was alive.

            He would live. He would walk again, talk again, make memories with her and for himself. His story had not ended, not here, not yet.

            And she had him to thank for it.

            The thought robbed the smile from her lips and was quickly followed by a new, more terrible thought.

            What had he done?

             Inko sat beside her son, holding his hand as she watched his sleeping form.

            The doctors had told her everything of course. His internal organs had been almost ruined beyond repair, over half the bones in his body shattered, his skull broken and enough pints of blood lost to have almost killed him even if he hadn’t suffered his other injuries.

            And yet, somehow, he had recovered from it.

            Like a broken record they had told her over and over again as they had wheeled him into the room, it was truly a miracle he was alive.

            Inko however, didn’t believe in miracles. She had stopped believing in them when she had been in the car crash as a young woman, the one which had left the ugly scar across her abdomen.

            The one which had ruined her for children.

            She didn’t believe in miracles because despite all the medical knowledge in the world there was no repairing what had been done to her. It was a tragic accident, they’d told her, a thousand to one chance that she had even survived at all, a true act of God. Surely the loss of being able to have children was worth that?

            No. Not when it was all she had ever wanted. Just a baby of her own to raise right, and good, and see grow into someone she would always love and be proud of.

            Inko didn’t believe in miracles.

            But she did believe in other things.

            She lowered her head down onto her arm as she looked to her son. She eyed the stumps of horns on his head, they’d been forced to shave them down during the surgery. The doctors couldn’t explain where they’d come from.

            Her eyes turned to the side of the bed where Izuku’s new tail, a long and thin thing, was draped over the covers, ending with a spear-like tip and barbed at the corners. They couldn’t explain where that had come from either.

            They couldn’t explain a lot of things when it came to Izuku.

            She knew why, of course, but she hadn’t told them.

            Instead, she had simply nodded, thanked them and told them she would be staying overnight with him. They had allowed it, she was his mother after all, and if he woke up he would need her there.

            Her thumb moved over her son’s knuckles softly. His skin was cool to the touch, though not deathly so. Not so much that she thought he would fade any second now. Still, it was terrible to see him like this. With drips pushed into the tops of his hands, wires and machines surrounding him, and with a mask over his face helping him breathe.

            Beside her machines beeped and whirred occasionally. Digital doctors assisting in keeping her son alive while he recovered from… from a nightmare not of his making.

            They had told her what had happened.

            Someone had attacked the USJ while the children had been there to work on rescue exercises. Some fanatical religious cult, or so they said. They had scattered the children while they were waiting for All Might to arrive, all so some giant monster they had brought could kill him.

            Her son had been trying to get back to his classmates when they had attacked him… and Nemesis had done the rest.

            Her hand squeezed Izuku’s a little tighter.

            Nemesis. She had felt a strange twist in her stomach when Izuku had told her he had named his quirk. Why had he given it such a… dark title? Why Nemesis? Was it some attempt at being poetic?

            Or maybe he was always supposed to call it that.

            She shook her head. No, she couldn’t go believing in fate. Not now, not when so many of her hopes were dependent on one being able to shape their own destiny.

            She had always tried to distill that into Izuku. Shape his own path, forge his own future. Nothing was written in stone, nothing was predestined. There was only the fate one wrote for oneself. It was only through hard work and determination that one made it happen.

            She looked away. What a hypocrite she was.

            Hard work? Determination? Where had those virtues been when she had struck her deal with that accused creature? She didn’t regret it of course, not when the most perfect son any mother could ask for lay before her. He was a troubled child, yes, a child to whom Hell itself laid claim.

            But he was her child first and foremost. Nothing could change that, nothing ever would. She would fight every demon of Hell for the right of her child to make his own destiny.

            She looked away from her son for only a moment to the phone which sat at her side. Despite there being no notifications, she opened it anyway and checked the messages.

            Inko Midoriya: Where are you? What did you do? How did you save him? ANSWER ME DAMMIT

            The Bastard: I did what I always do. I made a deal.

            Inko Midoriya: What deal? What are you talking about? ANSWER ME. WHAT DID YOU DO?

            She had sent that an hour ago and had received nothing. If he wasn’t going to answer her, fine, he could go back to rotting in Hell or… whatever it was he did with himself. She had to admit she had been surprised to see him burst into the observation room at all.

            Part of her wondered how he had even heard about what had happened, then again, he was… him, so there could be a million ways he heard about it.

            Without thinking her jaw clenched. She wouldn’t thank him for this. Never. This was basic fathering, and something that could have been entirely avoided if he had simply sat down with their son at some point and talked to him about who he was, what existed in his blood, why he had the power he had.

            But of course, that wasn’t who Hisashi Hokori was. He wasn’t even really Hisashi Hokori. Everything about him was a fabrication, a lie. Every word from his lips was a falsehood designed to trap and ensnare.

            He looked out only for himself, and nothing else came before that.

            And yet… she remembered what she had seen in his eyes. The emotion that she had never seen before in that blasphemous gaze of his. Was that a lie too? All part of whatever scheme he was playing?

            The logic in her brain told her it was. The depths of her heart, however…

            He had saved their child, that much was obvious. When he could have let Izuku die he had instead, acted. She wasn’t sure how his deals worked, though she understood enough that there was always a sacrifice involved. Nothing was free, nothing was simply handed over. Everything came at a price.

            She blinked exhausted at her phone before she clicked it closed and looked back to her son. And as she did so, she couldn’t help but wonder.

            What had been the price for Izuku’s life?

            Izuku woke as he always woke.

            With a jolt.

            His eyes sprang open and his head jinked back against the pillow. He took a sudden sharp intake of breath, only to find that it hurt to breathe. Then his body seemed to recall that it hurt to live and as such he was hit by a rushing wave of muscle-gnawing pain and mind-draining numbness. Painkillers fought with his wounds as they battled over how much agony would be inflicted on his body.

            But it didn’t matter.

            He knew. He knew what he had done. The drugs, despite fighting a desperate battle with his memories, couldn’t stop that which filtered through into his mind. The flashes of the USJ, the blood on his hands, the stench of fire and burning flesh, the feeling of hate, hate, hate that lingered even now in the very depths of his heart.

            Shaking fingers curled softly, grabbing fist-fulls of the blankets which lay across him.

            His eyes were open, wide, staring up at the ceiling, his breathing was not the mad panic of anxiety and fear, nor however was it soft and easy. It was forced, strained, the breathing of one who had to tell themselves to keep breathing.

            He stared without seeing. His gaze lost to the memories filtering through his pain and painkiller addled brain.

            Memories not just of what he had done to the man he admired above all others, but of what had happened after that.

            Memories of Hell.

            Memories of the blighted realm forged of darkness and terror where he had walked. Memories of the blood, the madness, the pain and suffering without end.

            Memories of the throne which had called to him, whispering to his very soul.

            And most damningly, memories of how close he had come to calling it his home.

            “Izuku?”

            He felt weightless. He felt as heavy as stone. He felt empty and full, dead and alive. He felt… he didn’t know how he felt. There was no emotion fitting for what passed through his mind in that eternal moment.

            Izuku was lost. Lost to himself, lost to the memories that danced before his mind’s eye. Lost to the darkness that his soul had been exposed to and had yet welcomed with open arms. Lost to the insanity of what he had seen, and what he had almost claimed as his own.

            “Izuku!”

            How could anyone recover from this? How could anyone act normally ever again?

            “Izuku!”

            He wasn’t human.

            He wasn’t human.

            He wasn’t-

            “IZUKU!”

            The word finally brought him out of himself. His transition from the crushing empty madness of his thoughts back into the real world was marked only by the slight shifting of his head, and the way his eyes refocused upon his mother.

            She was there, standing over him, her hands reached out to his shoulders and her eyes filled with tears. The look within them was nothing but pure love, relief, and joy that her child was awake, and even more, that he was alive.

            Izuku felt a guitar string thrum in his heart, and something of the emotionless wall he’d build within himself cracked.

            “Mom?”

            She spoke no other words. She simply grabbed him and pulled him tight, for a moment ignoring the wires and IV drips that were connected to his skin.

            Izuku felt the soft warmth of her cheek against his and the comforting embrace of his mother’s arms. Tears welled along his eyes, and even though he knew inside he should be furious with her for holding back the knowledge that he wasn’t human he couldn’t help the choking cry that crawled from his throat.

            He was alive. Of that he was glad, at least.

            And someone loved him. Despite everything he knew he had done, all the pain he had caused, all the terror he had wrought. She loved him.

            For just a moment, that was all he needed to remember who he was, truly, on the inside.

            His arms curled around her shoulders, grabbing her shirt tightly and refusing to let go. Together they cried giant, heaving sobs of joy and sorrow in equal measure. The kind of sobs that shake the whole body, that rattle the heart and ache the lungs and burn the nose and throat. The kind of tears that only those who had come so close to losing everything they love and care about, only to be saved at the very last second could ever know.

            “Izuku you’re alright, you’re okay, oh thank God, thank God,” His mother’s words whispered into his ear as she held him to her tightly like he would fall away at any second.

            Izuku’s eyes opened slowly, looking past her shoulder and back into his memories. Though this time he didn’t dwell on them. This time he allowed them to drip, one at a time, though his mind’s eye.

            The Demon. All Might. Blood. Fire. Hell. Light.

            “Mom?” He whispered to her, breaking her repetitive mumbling.

            “Yes, my angel?”

            “What am I?”

            “Shadow… and fire…” Nemesis’s voice was a pained, distant thing and it crawled rather than stalked along the meat of his brain.

            It sounded as exhausted as he felt, and his eyes narrowed in irritation at it, but he was too tired to deal with it now.

            He felt his mother’s hesitation. In the way her hands gripped tighter to his body, in the way her breath faulted from her lips, in the way the air of the room seemed to tilt ever so slightly. There was a long pause from her, which spoke more to Izuku than she ever could have with words.

            She shifted. Moving from his embrace to sit on the bed and for the first time since holding her, her eyes met his.

            He felt a fluttering of candle-fight along his scars, somehow anxious and protective.

            “Izuku…” Her hand moved to run through his messy, limp locks of greenish-black hair before moving to his cheek.

            There was pain in her eyes. Regret. Sorrow. Memories that stabbed at her heart and tore at her conscience. She took a deep, shuddering yet solid breath and wiped away the lingering tears.

            Her voice cracked as she spoke, “You-”

            The door burst open suddenly and in rushed two nurses and an old woman, whom Izuku recognized a second later as Recovery Girl.

            The mother and child yelped in unison, and Izuku felt a strange, drunken stab of fire at his scars before the shock fell away.

            There was a moment of confused frowning before Recovery Girl placed her hands squarely on her hips and almost growled at the two.

            “A false alarm I see. Humpf!” She turned back to the two confused looking nurses and began shooing them away. “Off you go, off! I’ll deal with it from here.”

            The door closed behind the two nurses as Recovery Girl began walking around the boy, a deep frown etched onto her face. “When I got the alert that your vital signs had spiked, I feared the worst!” She hopped up on a chair across from him. “You’re lucky to be alive, Mr. Midoriya! Very lucky indeed! And your recovery has been nothing more than miraculous, to say the least.” She spoke all of this while poking and prodding at various parts of him. Before he could reply she took out a torch and shined it into his eyes. “Someone up there must like you.”

            “I-I-” Izuku stammered and then looked to his mother, who looked equally as shocked.

            “Excuse me but-”

            “You need to rest up. Both of you.” The old woman’s narrow gaze turned now onto Inko, who cowered back. “You’ve been at his side for four days. You need to go home and sleep.”

            “Four days?” Izuku blinked in shock. He’d been out for four whole days?

            “Yes, young man, four days.” She hopped off the chair and began walking back around, moving towards the door. “Which means a lot of people want to talk to you. I’ll be back in again soon, I’ve more tests to run, but until then just try and relax.”

             She shut the door behind with a quick click and silence once again settled on the room. Izuku’s mind drifted back to the question he had asked her. The question which now burned at the very core of his soul.

            The question he needed answering.

            “Mom-” Izuku began but was quickly cut off.

            “Sweetheart, you don’t need to ask what you are.”

            She spoke softly, though there was something to her tongue. Something hiding, something suppressed, something that shouldn’t be there because she was his mother and why was she doing this?

            “You’re my angel, my hero,” She moved a hand to his cheek and cupped it again, looking into his eyes. You’re my wonderful, amazing son. It doesn’t matter what anyone else tells you, you will always be my world, and I will always love you.” She smiled, and in that smile was held a million tiny truths. Truths hiding the one great lie she was desperately keeping from her own son. “Nothing will ever change that, do you understand? Nothing.”

            Izuku paused for a moment which could have lasted a second, or a hundred years before slowly, almost carefully, nodding in response. “Alright, mom. I love you too.”

            He could see, looking into the same pagan-green gaze that he himself held, that she wasn’t lying to him.

            But she wasn’t telling the truth either.

Chapter Text

            Toshinori felt sick. He had felt sick for the past few days, ever since the incident at the USJ. Ever since he had lost himself to his anger and he’d…

            His hands shook. The very thought of it made what was left of his stomach churn, which in turn made his insides feel flooded with bile and the bones ache under his skin. He looked thinner than usual, which he knew had pushed his practically skeletal form into panic mode. More than once he had been told he needed to see Chiyo, to have her check over him and make sure that his injuries weren’t having some lingering effects.

            He ignored them, of course. He was stubborn that way. He was also self-punishing to a degree that some may call excessive.

            He was eating less, drinking less, even his hero work seemed less… infused than normal.

            The nightmares weren’t helping.

            Every time he slept it was there. Nemesis. The grinning, blood-soaked maw, the horrific blue fire which flowed from the blasphemous lines across its body, and the eyes. God those eyes. Even thinking about them made his wounds ache. Even the greatest and most devastating of his injuries seemed to burn with fresh agony at just the thought of it.

            He shoved it down. He was no coward, and he knew eventually it had to fade.

            Eventually.

            Toshinori paused as his hand came to rest on the handle of a door. Behind it was the teacher’s meeting room. Today they were discussing the fate of Izuku Midoriya.

            Izuku Midoriya. The boy whom All Might had murdered.

            He had been told, of course, that he had come back to life. That he was recovering in the Dagobah hospital and was making remarkable progress considering the extreme extent of his wounds. He had been told that considering the circumstances, no one blamed him for acting as he did, for making sure the thing that Izuku had become hadn’t hurt anyone else.

            There would be no charges for anyone, Izuku included. He, after all, had not willingly become a monster to hurt others. He’d been attacked by psychotic villains, looking to murder him. His use of his quirk had been beyond his control.

            In fact, Toshinori had been told he’d only used Nemesis to save the life of one of his classmates, young Tokoyami.

            He had sacrificed himself to save another.

            Toshinori had come to expect nothing less from Izuku. And yet, the price that had been paid…

            Toshinori had murdered him. He’d murdered him. Perhaps not in cold blood, perhaps not even willingly, but he’d murdered him. No amount of therapy, no amount of conciliation about how ‘everything would be fine’ and ‘the boy had lived’ and ‘the day had been saved’ would make him feel any different. How could he? How could anyone resolve themselves to letting murder be an answer to a problem?

            And yet it wouldn’t be the first time Toshinori had killed someone.

            The other time had been different though. That man, who was called only a man by the barest definition of the word, had been a true monster. A being of evil forged in the darkest depths of hell. A man who had wanted to enslave the entire world through the use of his terrible quirk.

            A man to whom Toshinori had believed himself destined to fight, to defeat, to throw down forever.

            All For One was dead. He had died when Toshinori had cracked his skull open with his bare hands and beat his brain to nothing more than grey meat on cold asphalt.

            He would never forget the sight. The smell of tangy copper and raw meat. The feeling of brain matter and dripping blood on his fists. For as long as he lived, he would never forget it. It haunted his dreams even now, whenever he closed his eyes it was there, lingering like gritting, irritating sand.

            Just as he would never forget the eyes of Nemesis, staring into his soul, bringing up every regret and fear he’d ever had and causing hot, boiling anger to burn under his skin. Anger that he thought he had kept under control until those last moments when he had smashed Nemesis into the earth as if trying to send it back to Hell where it belonged.

            And then it had just faded away in a shower of ash. Faded until only Izuku remained.

            A boy broken under the fists of his teacher.

            The battle had taken much out of him. He now estimated that he now only had four hours within his All Might form, down from six. He had suffered wounds that had torn through him, wrecked his body, almost ruined him for good. It was only due to the miracle-working of Chiyo he had come through as well as he had.

            It wasn’t a high enough price to pay. He should have had One For All ripped from him for the great sin he had committed. He should hang up his boots and tell the world that All Might could not be a hero, not if he had to resort to killing children to keep the peace.

            But he couldn’t. He hadn’t passed the quirk on yet, though he knew, now, he had to do it and do it soon. He had no choice. He couldn’t go through another battle like that, it would surely be his last.

            Toshinori sighed, letting the memories momentarily move from his thoughts and he pushed forward into the meeting room.

            The others were already there, and already the room had the temperature of an ice box.

            Toshinori said nothing as he took his chair, the plush back easing some of his aching muscles. He was covered in bandages that wrapped up along his arms, his neck, even across his forehead. His wounds were, mostly, ones he would recover from in time.

            However, around his neck would be a burn scar that would never heal. He was glad his uniform tended to have high collars, he didn’t want to have to explain that one to the press.

            Aizawa somehow looked even worse, well, looked wasn’t quite the right word. He seemed worse, though that would remain to be seen. Literally. He was wrapped so tightly in bandages from head to toe that only the flashes of his dark eyes could be seen from under the shadow of the gauze.

            Beside him, Hizashi seemed to fret and worry over him in his own, odd way. He was trying to not make it obvious of course, but everyone could tell.

            Nemuri glanced at Toshinori as he took his seat, and even flashed him a smile. Though it was a small smile, sad, held down by the knowledge of what they were going to discuss.

            And at the head of all of them was Nedzu. Never had Toshinori seen him look so grave, so defeated. He looked smaller than ever before and even his fur has lost some of its usual luster.

            The room was pregnant with the knowledge of what they had to do, the awfulness of what had happened and the heavy reality of the situation. Outside the world was cloudy, grey, though there was no rain. It made the world seem static as if time has stopped and only the room containing the five teachers remained.

            “So,” It was Aizawa who started, never one to be afraid to break the thick ice, “About the USJ.”

            “It wasn’t his fault,” Toshinori blurted out before he could even think about what he was saying, “He was- it wasn’t- we can’t blame him for what happened!”

            Another long, eternally heavy second of silence passed.

            “I mean,” Toshinori let out a sigh which turned into a growl of irritation. He ran a hand through his hair as he rested a boney elbow on the table, “Izuku Midoryia. Please. Please don’t punish him for what happened. It’s my fault, I should have been there, I should have saved my energy and done my job. All of this is on me.”

            “Nobody is blaming anyone, though I must admit, I wished you had focused on your teaching, Toshinori,” Nedzu’s voice was strange. It was a cold knife resting on a cutting board. It was a pen waiting to sign a death warrant. It was patient, controlled, but deeply frustrated, though with himself or others Toshinori couldn’t tell, “But we cannot talk about the what ifs. We must focus on what happened.”

            “What happened was that Izuku was attacked,” Aizawa swiftly cut in, “He, along with all the other students were attacked. It’s as simple as that.”

            “But the other students didn’t lose control of their quirks. Not like he did,” Nemuri commented, “We can’t ignore that. We can’t ignore what he did just because he was attacked.”

            “It wasn’t under his control-”

            “Just like last time?” Hizashi’s voice was surprisingly low, “Is this going to happen every time he’s pushed?”

            “It wasn’t. His. Fault.” Aizawa replied sternly, hammering down each word as he spoke it, “We all know that. We can’t point the finger at him just because he was attacked. Not to mention he only lost control because he was trying to save his classmates. From what the reports say, he took a blow meant for Fumikage Tokoyami. A blow which would have killed him.”

            “And we’re not saying that wasn’t heroic of him,” Hizashi countered, “What we’re saying is that twice now his quirk has lashed out and seriously hurt people once it’s unleashed. Twice. And that’s not to mention what he did to- to whatever that thing was they brought with them.”

            “The creature they called Legion,” Nedzu almost mumbled to himself as he spoke.  He reached forward and picked up a piece of paper on the desk in front of him as he quickly re-read the information. “It was a biological weapon. From what our reports say it contained the DNA of over six people and a dozen animals, even some plants and some components which simply defy explanation. It technically shouldn’t have even been alive, how it functioned at all is beyond me.”

            “And Nemesis killed it,” Hizashi leaned forward as he spoke, “No, more than that, from what some of the other students reported, it ate it.”

            There was a new silence that now rested on the room. A horrified, sickened silence. It was broken, however, by Toshinori.

            “You know. A long time ago I met the boy, before he came to UA I mean,” He linked his fingers together as he spoke, his eyes forward but unfocused, lost to memory, “He asked me if someone with an evil quirk could be a hero. I told him there are no such things as evil quirks, only evil hearts. But what I saw in the eyes of that thing Izuku became…”

            He didn’t want to finish his sentence, but his silence perhaps spoke louder than any words ever could. He had seen the Hell within Izuku. The monster that lived inside his blood. The creature called Nemesis which was no creature at all but something far worse.

            He wanted so much to believe there were no evil quirks.

            But Nemesis existed.

            But then, so did Izuku.

            And yes, he had looked into the eyes of the beast and had seen the very flames of Hell itself looking back at him. He had seen horror and anger and wrath and hate without limit.

            But he had seen Izuku there too. Screaming from within himself. Screaming and drowning and helpless to the chains that bound him to the monster inside his blood. A good soul trapped in an eternal battle with its evil shadow. 

            “We can’t punish him. We just… we can’t.” Toshinori shook his head slowly and came back to reality, turning his freshly frozen ice-blue eyes to Nedzu. “I don’t care what the rest of you think. Izuku Midoriya isn’t evil, and I believe he can tame Nemesis. What he needs is love, understanding, and help.”

            “No one is claiming he is evil, Toshinori. I talked to the boy myself, remember?” Nedzu quickly countered before sighing and leaning back into his chair, “But I… he can’t be a hero. I’m sorry, but he just can’t. Not with that quirk. It’s too volatile, too violent. I’m going to move him to general studies once he returns to class.”

            “You can’t!” Toshinori shouted the words, but he was not the only one. Aizawa had called out too, slamming a hand down as he did so despite the wince that Hizashi gave him.

            “This wasn’t his fucking fault,” Aizawa snapped at the tiny principal, his anger manifesting as a teeth-clenching growl stalking through his words, “He was barely getting on track again after what happened with Katsuki Bakugo. I taught him during that time and he was trying, damnit. I saw it. He can learn to control it, he just needs time.”

            “How much time? How many chances?” Nedzu quickly countered, “We can’t risk what happened the last time we had a student like this.”

            “This isn’t the same,” Aizawa was on his feet now, and there was a darker fury to his tone.

            Toshinori wasn’t sure what was happening anymore, but he knew this had moved beyond the discussion about Izuku specifically. There was something between Nedzu and Aizawa. A ghost of the past, a failure that they both shared.

            For a long, long moment, the world was still and quiet and tense. At any second the air could have torn apart with the anger from the two teachers, and each of the pro-heroes in the room felt themselves slowly moving their legs and arms to better leap up if a fight broke out.

            Finally, however, Nedzu placed his paws calmly onto the table before him. His voice had returned to strange, knife-edge coldness of before. “Shouta. I understand your concern, I truly do. I believe in the goodness of the boy’s heart, I believe in his drive, his passion. But sometimes we just have to face facts. We cannot sacrifice the safety of nineteen students just for the sake of one. You know this is the only logical path forward.”

            Everyone held their breath, consciously or not, as Aizawa, his expression hidden behind his many bandages, seemed to go as still as a marble statue.

            Then, he simply kicked his chair back, literally, and stormed out of the room. Hizashi hesitated for a second before hurrying after him, calling out his name as he opened and shut the door behind him.

            Toshinori let out a long, tired, weighted groan before also rising to his feet. “I want you to know I don’t agree with this. Not for a second. You’re making a mistake, Nedzu.”

            “I don’t believe I am. This is for the greater good,” Nedzu replied, his black eyes staring back at the fiery passionate blue of Toshinori’s gaze. However, perhaps tellingly, he couldn’t hold it and finally turned away.

            Nedzu looked to the papers before him. They were all filled out, clean and proper, all that was left was for him to apply his signature and it’d be done.

            Izuku Midoriya would be moved to the General Course.

            He had been staring at the paper for almost ten minutes. Ten minutes while the wind picked up outside, howling and scraping its nails along the windows. The grey skies above had darkened, the clouds becoming angry and heavy. There was no rain, not yet, but the threat was imminent, like an axe raised above a waiting neck.

            It’d be any second now.

            ‘This is the right thing to do.’

            The thought had punched its way through Nedzu’s mind the moment he’d assessed the damage caused by the boy’s quirk. And not just to the USJ, but to his fellow students. He had seen them, shambling through the halls as if haunted by demons, hollow-eyed and exhausted.

            Hizashi had been teaching their class while Aizawa recovered, and he’d told Nedzu plainly that it was like the energy had been drained from the classroom. It was only as the week had progressed that any life had returned to them at all.

            God, what a cursed quirk Nemesis was.

            And cursed was such an apt term for it too. He had seen quirks tear through people like butter, he had seen strength to lift buses and trucks and even airplanes, and he had seen speed to rob the air from the lungs of those that stood too close.

            But this. This trauma that lingered and lingered. This nightmare that ate at the minds of those who witnesses it. This was beyond the normal.

            Izuku was a good child, a good student, a young man with a heart of gold.

            And an undeniably evil quirk.

            He set the paper down slowly in front of him and reached across his desk for a pen. His heart weighed heavy in his chest, but this was the right thing to do. For the greater good of the class, of the school… maybe for everyone.

            He held the pen in one paw and took one more moment to re-read the transfer papers.

            The pen moved to the bottom of the page, touching the paper for just a brief moment.

            “You’re making a mistake.”

            Nedzu dropped the pen as he jolted in his seat, crying out for a moment in surprise as he looked up.

            Hisashi Hokori stood before him. His suit crisp and sharp, his hair combed back, his eyes black and ice-fire blue and as terrible as always.

            And he looked like Hell.

            There were streaks of grey in his hair. There was stubble on his chin. There was a hollowness to his cheeks and bags under his eyes and were those crows feet? He didn’t look old, no, he simply looked… aged. As if time had suddenly remembered this was supposed to be a man approaching his forties and had caught up to him all at once.

            “Good God, man, what happened to you?”

            “Please don’t mention the Almighty Bastard in front of me, Nedzu, you know better,” The man turned from his position and moved over to the window, looking out for a moment as he spoke, “And I haven’t the foggiest what you’re talking about.”

            “You… you look different, Hokori,” Nedzu finally managed to gather himself and he shoved the transfer form, with the pen, to one side, focusing instead on the lawyer in front of him, “You look…” He paused before shaking his head and throwing his paws up, “Different.”

            “Really? Hm,” Hokori seemed to pause at this as if in thought before turning and looking back to Nedzu. “It’s not important.”

            Nedzu wanted to press the matter, but he knew better than to pry into the affairs of his defense lawyer. That was a world best left alone. Instead, he took a moment to gather himself before cocking his head just slightly and asking, “What do you mean, I’m making a mistake?”

            “Transferring Izuku Midoriya from the Hero Course,” Hokori replied with a joyless smile, “It’s a mistake. Leave him where he is, let him learn and grow. Let him become the hero he wants to be.”

            “Why?” Nedzu’s stomach was tightening and he felt his fur rise along the back of his neck, “What does it matter to you?”

            “It matters a great deal to me,” Hokori urged as he placed his hands behind his back slowly, “That’s all you need to know.”

            “That’s not what we agreed on,” Nedzu’s voice deepened, finding its strength in the face of the silent threat that Hokori always seemed to represent, “Honesty, trust, and mutual respect. Those were our terms.”

            “And I am giving you all of them, old friend,” Hokori replied swiftly, “I’m telling you, for now, all you need to know is that keeping Izuku on the hero course is important.”

            There was a long, quiet pause. The kind of pause that exists between two fighters before the bell is rung. Nedzu felt his claws press against the old mahogany wood of his desk before he breathed slowly, letting the strength of cold air fill his lungs.

            “He’s a danger to himself and others. I have to move him from the course. I don’t know what plan you have for him, Hokori, but I’m doing this for the greater good. A greater good which you swore you would uphold with me.”

            “Yes, and I’m telling you, keeping Izuku on the hero course will benefit your precious greater good, Nedzu,” Hokori’s voice darkened, and was somehow laced with fangs, “This isn’t like before. Izuku is different, he is special, unique, but if you cut him adrift from his destiny the world will suffer for it.”

            Nedzu could feel the cold hand of destiny on his shoulder. Or was that the cold hand of his inhuman lawyer? Sometimes it was hard to tell one from the other. “How can it? That quirk of his, Nemesis, it’s too violent, too vicious. It’s…” He paused, not wishing to speak the words but knowing here, before this man, it would be a sane thing to say, “It’s demonic.”

            “No, not demonic. You insult him with such words,” Hokori counted swiftly, a block to Nedzu’s sword thrust, “I told you he is unique. He will become who he wishes to be, and you will let him.”

            “I’m sorry, old friend,” Nedzu shook his head at a man whom he knew could flay his soul within a second, and looked back to the paper, reaching a hand over to draw it close once again. Let none say that Nedzu would not die for his beliefs, “But I can’t. The safety of the many outweigh-”

            “I’ll reduce your debt.”

            Everything froze. The air, time, the wind outside, perhaps even Nedzu’s heart.

            At those words, everything froze.

            Black eyes went wide with utter shock and he slowly turned his head back to Hokori.

            The silence was broken by the machine-gun sound of rain on the vast window panes. Within the gloom of the office Hokori looked strange, almost liminal as he stood, hands behind his back and his eyes glowing with a corrupt blue. Nedzu knew well enough however that the man he saw before him wasn’t the true Hokori. There was a creature under that suit, under that skin.

            The creature he knew had a second name. A darker name. A name of myth and legend. A name eternally cursed and damned.

            “You’ll… what?”

            “I’ll reduce your debt.”

            He spoke the words as if they were a simple thing, like grabbing a beer out the fridge or picking up some soap on the way home. And yet to Nedzu it was everything.

            “Don’t give me that look, Nedzu, you heard me.” Hokori frowned a little in irritation at the animal, “Right now due to my efforts the events of the USJ are being mostly brushed over by the media. I’ve reduced it to nothing more than a few paragraphs, a minor incident at best.” A cold smiled crossed his lips, “The cost was seven, however, should you accept I’ll not count it against you, and I’ll reduce it by a further ten.” He brushed down his suit idly, as if it was all so easy for him to do so, “So, do you accept or not?”

            Anyone else perhaps would have leapt at the chance, throwing the paper away and thanking the man in hurried bursts of sputtering, blubbering gratitude at such kindness. But not Nedzu. Nedzu had not made his deal with Hokori with a desperate heart. He had not become enslaved to a cruel overlord or tempted to darkness by a serpent deceiver.

            Honesty, trust, and mutual respect. They were business partners, equals supporting one vision, one idea that they both aimed for.

            “Why?” His eyes narrowed slowly at the man, whom the gloom and half-shadow seemed to embrace not like a starved animal, or even a gentle lover, but a slave tending to a master.

            “I told you. Izuku is special, and he’s going to change the world. But to do so, he must rule his own destiny, which means,” And he leaned forward slowly, placing his hands flat on the wood of the desk. His eyes glowed ever brighter, “Until he wishes to leave, you will keep him in the hero course.”

            Nedzu paused for a long, long moment. He matched the inhuman stare of the man before him, knowing his own soul, weighed by the debt he had long collected at Hokori’s hands, was bared open to him. Nothing could hide from Hokori’s gaze. It was the gaze of a creature beyond the description of mortal kind. It was the gaze of the perfect predator, the first predator, the monster that hunted for the souls of the first mortals doomed to die.

            “Alright. You win. Lower my debt, and he’ll stay where he is.” Nedzu pushed the paper towards Hokori, who took it quickly, folding it into a neat square and pocketing it as he straightened up.

            He turned to leave, giving Nedzu a curt nod and a smile that seemed more like a smirk and crossed the room swiftly. However, before his hand opened the door, Nedzu called out, “But tell me, honestly, Lucifer,” Hokori paused at the doorway, “Who is Izuku Midoriya? Who am I teaching in my school?”

            Hokori paused in thought, before his eyes shone suddenly in the half-dark though not with malice, with something different this time. Something Nedzu had never seen within his blasphemous gaze before. Something almost… human.

            “I already told you,” Hokori announced from the shadows of the dark office, “He’s unique, and one way or another, he’s going to change the world.”

             Izuku was numb.

            He had been numb since he left the hospital, discharged far earlier than they had thought after suffering such terrible wounds. But, as they kept reminding him, he had healed at a remarkable pace, though it seemed to have slowed recently.

            All that were left were for his stitches to heal over and he would be right as rain.

            Though that was a lie. Izuku wasn’t sure anything would be right again.

            Everything had changed. In the space of only a few days, everything had changed. He had shown the world who he was on in the side. A monster, a demonic beast waiting to be unleashed. He had died and descended to a realm of darkness which had felt more like a true home than the one he lived in. And yet at the same time, his soul had screamed to escape out of that place of shadow and flame.

            In the space of a week, Izuku had lost all sight of who he was, of what he was, even of what he wanted to become.

            He had spoken little since returning home, and he knew he was worrying his mother, but he couldn’t find the energy to care. She had lied to him. Perhaps not to his face, perhaps not directly, but she had revealed her hand. She was hiding something from him, something that would explain why he was the way he was, why he was cursed.

            Was she doing it to protect him? Or was there some deeper, crueler reason why she kept hiding the truth?

            He didn’t care to ask.

            He had spent the first day at home curled up in his bed, not eating and barely drinking, and it seemed very much like he’d spend the second day doing the same. The curtains were drawn, the lights turned as low as possible. The darkness no longer seemed as all-consuming as it once had done.

            Though he supposed once a person had seen what true oblivion was really like everything else was a poor imitation.

            He looked to the phone beside his pillow, ignoring the texts from his group chat. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to his friends, it was just… well, he was sure they weren’t his friends anymore. How could they be? They had seen him do horrific things. They had seen him tear one creature apart, devour its sour, bloody flesh, then go after the Symbol of Peace.

            How could anyone be friends with someone who had that inside them?

            The dull phone-light flickered over his face as he scrolled past the headlines dotting his social media. The big news recently was that some pro-hero had suddenly snapped and killed his family, then turned on the police who had shown up to stop him. Seven dead, including the hero-turned-villain. Now the news cycle was going about the stress levels of heroes and how the government really should step in and do something about it, though the other argument was this was just an isolated incident, a terrible tragedy, but otherwise a one-off.

            Nothing on the USJ.

            He frowned at this. Surely there’d be more in the media concerning the demon monstrosity summoned at the most prestigious school in Japan, right? Or on how it almost tore All Might apart?

            “Get up.”

            The hiss of his curse echoed through his mind and Izuku clicked his phone closed, suddenly shoving it under his pillow and pressing his face into the fabric while gritting his teeth tightly.

            “Get up. This is pathetic. We are acting stupid.”

            Izuku didn’t reply. How could he? What would he say? The voice in his head which had tormented him all his life was no longer just a mental illness to be treated with pills. It was something else, something more, something that called him to the very center of Hell to take up that accused throne he had been so close to sitting upon.

            “Is this how we’re going to act from now on?” Nemesis continued, its voice the burning of cities long past, “Curling up when faced with reality?”

            “What am I?” Izuku whispered softly into the darkness. Not to Nemesis, never to Nemesis, but to himself. His fingers curled tighter around his bedsheets, trying to ground his own senses and failing to do so. He barely felt anything outside the crushing numbness of the truth that had settled into his heart. “Am I… even human?”

            Nemesis seemed quiet for a long moment before answering, “We are Nemesis. We are Izuku Midoriya. We are shadow and flame. That is all we are, and all we need to be.”

            Izuku teeth ground together but he said nothing. Nemesis had repeated this claim several times by now and was offering no explanation for anything that had happened. Weirdly enough, Izuku wasn’t sure that it even knew itself what had happened. It had never outright lied to him, though it had toyed with its words before when he truly didn’t wish to listen to it.

            There was a sudden knocking at his door, though he made no effort to move or answer it. It’d just be his mother again, fretting and worrying as she always did.

            He was no longer sure how he wanted to act around her. He had always believed her every word, always trusted her to tell him the truth, to be there for him at his darkest moments.

            Now, however, he wondered who she really was. If she could lie to her only child for years without batting an eye…

            “Izuku? Honey?” Her voice drifted through the closed door. “Are you awake?”

            No reply.

            “Izuku, there are some people here to see you.”

            That got his attention. He slowly sat up, his wounds and injuries spiking in pain but he made no effort to stop. Pain was one of the few things he could still feel, and he welcomed the Nemesis-silencing stings across his body.

            Suddenly there was more knocking, though not the soft gentle tap of his mother but a loud and slightly irritating banging.

            “Oi, Legolas, get the hell out here, we’re not spending the whole day sitting in your living room waiting on your dumb ass.”

            Hitoshi’s tired yet irritated voice was like a lightning bolt across his senses. He was here? Seriously? Why the hell was Hitoshi at his house? And how the hell did he even know where he lived?

            Izuku wanted to stay in bed. He wanted to continue wallowing in numbing misery at his fate. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, or be around anyone, or have anything to do with the rest of humanity for the remainder of his life.

            But Hitoshi would just not stop tapping on his door.

            “Come on, Spock, we brought you mochi and everything.”

            “I brought him mochi!” It was Ochaco, “You brought him a keychain!”

            “Of All Might!” Hitoshi protested. “He loves All Might!”

            “You’re both being unreasonably loud!” Tenya quickly joined in, “If he’s resting, we should let him be!”

            “He’s been resting for a week, I’m not leaving without talking to him,” Hitoshi quickly grumbled back before knocking again, “Seriously, Izuku, get up.”

            “I’m so sorry for his behavior, Mrs. Midoriya,” Tenya announced as Izuku found himself slowly, but surely, getting out of his bed. He could already see the young man in his mind’s eyes, bowing repeatedly to his mother.

            The floor was cold from the cool darkness of the room, and the only real light came from the thin strip that lined the bottom of his bedroom door. Yet step by tentative step, he walked towards the light.

            Where they really here? Really? After everything that had happened? After everything he had put them through? His stomach flipped and his heart picked up a beat in his chest. This was the most emotion he had felt since leaving, and he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling. A crushing, nervous, anxious energy that was half-fueled by fear and half by the weakness he felt infecting his every limb, and yet perhaps there was even… joy in there. Somewhere. It was hard to tell.

            His tail swished softly behind him, worried and jittery, like that of a nervous cat.

            It had taken some getting used to for the first day or so, especially since it seemed to act entirely on its own devices most of the time. Spiking when he was shocked, drooping when he was sad. He was half-sure it would wag if he smiled, though that was an embarrassment he had yet to suffer through. He had mostly tried to ignore it, however, after all, it was another marker in the road to his eventual damnation.

            He had treated his new horns, or rather stumps of horns, much the same. Thankfully the bandages across his head hid them, and he hadn’t had the emotional, mental or physical energy to really examine himself in a mirror enough to check them out fully.

            Outside the door, Tenya continued to apologize for Hitoshi, “Please forgive him for-”

            The floor creaked before his door, and all talking stopped.

            Izuku placed a shaking hand on the doorknob and wondered, for a moment, if he should retreat to the safety of his bed. His warm covers, his comforting isolation. He could stay there, and everyone would be safe. Maybe he could declare he was going hikikomori and they’d leave.

            And yet, slowly, he turned the knob and opened the door a hair.

            The light was so bright that he had to squint and blink hard for a moment, causing the bandages around his forehead to pull.

            Once his eyes adjusted, they widened as he saw Hitoshi, Tenya and Ochaco standing together in his hallway, and to one side his mother, watching anxiously, her hands fidgeting together.

            “Heeeey!” Hitoshi’s smile was small, as all his smiles were, but it was genuine and honest, and it caused a warmth of candle-fire to flicker along Izuku’s scars. “There he is! Sleeping beauty awakens!”

            “Izuku!” Ochaco practically pushed Hitoshi to one side, her grin wide and worried and joyful all at once, “You’re okay!”

            “Good afternoon, Izuku!” Tenya, towering above both his friends, matched Hitoshi’s smile and raised a hand squarely up in greeting. “It’s good to see you up and about!”

            They were happy. They were happy to see him. This was… this was impossible. It was more than impossible it was wrong. They shouldn’t be here, they shouldn’t… this was wrong.

            “Are you dressed? We thought we could hang out for a bit.” Hitoshi added with a shrug. “We figured you needed some company after what happened.”

            “Hey! We promised we weren’t going to bring that up!” Ochaco hotly chided Hitoshi.

            “What? I’m just saying!” Hitoshi swiftly defended in response before his eyes flicked back to Izuku.

            “H-Hang out?” Izuku asked as he opened the door just a little wider. His voice croaked and was clearly weighed down by the maddening confusion of the situation.

            Now he could see them a little better, Izuku took a second to note their clothes. It was the weekend, and he didn’t expect to see them in their uniforms, so to Izuku it was the first time seeing them dressed how he supposed they would normally dress.

            Tenya wore beige slacks and a polo shirt with a designer brand logo on the chest pocket, as smart and professional as always. Ochaco wore a white pleated skirt and a nice pink top over a white shirt. Hitoshi wore a pair of dark blue jeans and a black t-shirt with some ornately curved logo and the words ‘Dethklok’ on it. On his right wrist were a number of rubber bracelets with more various band logos on them.

            That was, of course, over the many bandages that were wrapped around him. His right leg and his left arm were in casts, one with a walking boot on and the other held in a sling, which Izuku was rather shocked to see.

            Izuku suddenly felt very underdressed in his t-shirt, which had ‘t-shirt’ written on it, and his All Might pajama pants. He hadn't showered in a few days either, and his total lack of any proper meals meant he looked every bit of his extended hospital stay.

            “We could do with the company, we are bored of isolation,” Nemesis whispered to Izuku’s mind, causing the boy to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment, “And at least the Child of Pharaohs is tolerable.”

            “G-guys,” Izuku stammered out softly, “How did you-”

            “We called the hospital,” Hitoshi shrugged, “They said you’d been released. Then Ochaco did a little digging and found out where you lived after you wouldn’t answer our texts.”

            She laughed awkwardly at this and rubbed the back of her head with one hand, “Well, you know, I was worried about you! We all are.”

            “So, we decided to pay you a visit,” Tenya announced boldly, “We’re your friends, after all, and friends check up on other friends!”

            Izuku was… lost for words didn’t even begin to cover it. He was utterly blown away. How could they… why were they… how? He had been a monster, a demon, and they…

            The dam within him broke. The wall that he’d built within himself to hold back the tides of horrible, raw emotion that he didn’t want to feel cracked and began falling apart. And with it, the tides of sorrow and self-hate and pain washed into him.

            He began sobbing. Within a second, however, the door had been pushed forward and out of his tentative grasp and he found himself being pulled into a hug not just by Ochaco, but by all three of them. Even Hitoshi had reached a hand around his shoulder, which for Hitoshi was practically unheard of.

            Izuku’s body shook with the pained sobbing of his crushing anguish. Tears wouldn’t stop falling from his eyes, yet they were quickly taken into the shoulder of Ochaco. Her perfume, some summer, bright scent, washed through him and candle-flicker moved across his scars. Hitoshi’s hand squeezed his shoulder tightly, strong and comforting and even Tenya wrapped an arm around Izuku’s upper body.

            And between his three friends, Izuku let out all the pain, all the horror, all the crushing anxiety that had been welling up inside him. He sobbed and sniffed and choked and wailed into the arms of people who should, by all rights, hate him.

            But here they were.

            Even Nemesis, for all the pain and misery and hate it caused Izuku, seemed… humbled by the kindness of the three teenagers. Its fire was not the burning-hot of defense or the wildfire of anger, but like an open fireplace within him. Warm and controlled, if just for that moment.

            It took a long time for Izuku to stop, long enough that he became embarrassed by his outburst and began trying to wipe his snotty nose on his t-shirt.

            “I’m- I’m so- so s-sorry,” He stammered out finally as one by one his friends released their grips on him, “I’m s-so sorry, I’m sor-”

            “Izuku, please, you have nothing to apologize for,” Tenya’s voice, always so solid, drew his eyes and he looked to his friend’s gaze, the same color as the open ocean, “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

            “B-But-”

            “You were attacked, we all were,” Hitoshi spoke with a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He raised his sling-bound arm, “Some more than others, obviously.”

            “Nemesis took over,” Ochaco added, “Because you would have been killed otherwise. Everyone knows this, everyone. And yeah maybe All Might had to do all he could to stop you, but you didn’t hurt anyone else.”

            Izuku paused at those words. Yes, he did have to stop him, and he didn’t blame All Might for a second for doing what he had to do. In a strange way, it had opened his eyes to a lot of truths about himself. Truths, and more questions, but in his case, he wondered if he would ever run out of questions.

            He thought back to the USJ again, to the hell it had become, and to Hitoshi just before it had all gone to shit. For a moment his pagan-green gaze turned and looked down the hallway towards his mother. Her eyes were ringed red, and she had a handkerchief in her hand.

            She had been crying too, though she had done it away from the rest of them. She had known how much it had meant to him to have the others there, and she had let them have their moment.

            Izuku’s heart felt strange in that moment. He knew his mother loved him, just as he loved her, yet her refusal to let him in on the secrets he knew she kept…

            “Hey, g-guys,” Izuku sniffed again, finally gathering himself together, “L-Let me wash up and, erm, I’ll be out, okay?” His voice lowered suddenly to a whisper, his eyes growing hard and his voice taking on a new, angry, hurt tone, “I have… some things I-I need to tell you. Privately.”

Chapter Text

            It had been easier than Izuku had thought to lie to his mother.

            “I just want to get some air, you know? I was inside all day yesterday.” He had even smiled while doing so. “I’ll be back in a bit, don’t worry.”

            She had wanted him to stay in the house, to spend time with his friends in his room or the living room. They could watch T.V. there, or play video games, or do anything other than get into trouble.

            But Izuku had insisted. He needed time away from her, away from her eyes which seemed somehow accusing and afraid, like at any moment he would grin a wolf’s grin and bare blackened talons. Besides, it was only a half-lie, he did need some air… though he also wanted to talk to his friends about the Hell he had personally been to without his mother listening in.

            He had dressed in some grey cargo shorts and a black zip-up hoodie, along with his usual red trainers. He didn’t want to stand out too much after all, and he was used to wearing dull, muted colors to avoid the attention of people around him.

            Once they were outside, Ochaco had asked where they were going, Izuku had simply said, “Somewhere quiet,” and had left it at that. His friends had taken the cue and had followed alongside him for their walk.

            The first topic of discussion was, of course, Izuku’s new horns. Well, he didn’t exactly have them right now of course, but they had all been fascinated by the stumps on the sides of his head. Izuku told them what the doctors had told him, that they would eventually grow back. Whether he wanted to let them grow out properly or keep them shaved down was up to him.

            He was honestly still deciding on that.

            The next topic had been his tail.

            It had been hard for the others to hide their shock on that one and Ochaco had been particularly interested in poking and prodding it, causing it to jolt back suddenly at her touch. It was a weird feeling, suddenly having an extra bit of you swishing back and forth. He had been forced to stab a hole in the back of his shorts to let it through without it being uncomfortable.

            Still, once the surprise had worn off, they seemed to have accepted it gracefully. Hitoshi had even joked that he could call him even more names now, while Tenya had helpfully suggested a number of clothing outlets that specialized in custom clothing, explaining that he had to get most of his pants fitted for his exhaust pipes.

            Izuku didn’t mind, if anything he welcomed it. Hitoshi’s gentle teasing, Ochaco’s insistence that it was cute and Tenya’s helpful wonderings on how it could help his hero training had been more of a comfort than he thought.

            They were on the third topic now, as they approached the Dagobah beach.

            “-and that’s why I’m so beat up,” Hitoshi finished with a loud sigh, “An exciting and riveting story of my great failure to think ahead.”

            “And how Shoto totally came in and saved your dumb face,” Ochaco added with a wicked smile, “And how you’re now totally crushing on him.”

            Hitoshi went a strange color of red. “No I’m not!” He quickly looked to Izuku, “She’s lying. She’s a filthy, filthy-” Ochaco made a bunch of loud smooching noises- "Filthy liar.”

            Tenya sighed loudly, “Really you two, you should be focusing on your studies, not on your fellow classmates!”

            “I’m not!” Hitoshi counted, “You’re just making shit up.”

            “He so is.” Ochaco giggled and nudged Izuku playfully. When the teenager gave her a tired smile, she winked at him. “Watch him on Monday, he’s a complete dork around him now.”

            “I am not!”

            “He is,” Nemesis hissed suddenly through Izuku’s mind, “Look at him. It’s obvious.”

            Izuku frowned for a moment at the voice in his head before allowing a smile to cross his otherwise stoic lips. “That’s if I’m still in class on Monday,” He sighed and looked look down adding, “I’ll be shocked if they don’t move me out of the class.”

            “They won’t, what happened was an accident, and it was one caused by villains. They can’t punish you for that.” Hitoshi replied swiftly before suddenly looking forward and whistling, drawing Izuku’s thoughts from his incoming classroom-related doom. “Wooow. This place looks like crap.”

            The beach was just as messy and as trash-filled as it usually was, though the look of the place had changed since Izuku had last been there. His own training, now seemingly a lifetime ago, had made a dent within the small mountains of rubbish that had piled up everywhere. Still, people continued to use the place as a dump, and new piles had formed, almost as if they had grown naturally.

            The air was permeated with the stench of old, forgotten trash mixed with the cool, salty breeze of the open shore. It wasn’t pleasant to take in, but it was tolerable.

            “I dunno, it’s got a kind of a, eeh,” Ochaco cocked her head before sighing and shaking it in defeat, “No, you’re right, it’s awful. Izuku, why did you bring us to a garbage dump?”

            “I sometimes come here when I want to be alone,” Izuku replied simply, his hands moving into his pockets as he looked over the rusting, rotting piles of metal and refuse, “No one ever comes here so… I could hang out by myself.”

            There was a moment of silence as the other three considered this before Tenya raised a hand. “Is there a particular place you want to talk to us?” He looked back to the smaller boy, “You said you had something you needed to tell us privately.”

            Izuku nodded to himself and began walking towards the piles once again. “Yeah, we’re almost there, just follow me and… try not to fall over.”

            With the other three wobbling after him on the uneven ground of piled electronics, damp trash bags and other leftover waste, Izuku led them carefully to a large, hidden patch of open space within the trash piles. Hitoshi, with his bad leg, had it the worst to the point that Ochaco had to float him over several pieces using her own quirk.

            From the moment they got there the others quickly put together what it was. The burned materials, the old memory foam mattresses that surrounded the circle, the metal fold-out chair set to one side.

            “So, this is the secret training ground of Izuku Midoriya,” Hitoshi smirked as they finally gathered back on the sand, “Not bad, not bad. Could use a little sprucing up, I guess.”

            “It’s a bunch of trash in the middle of trash,” Izuku couldn’t help but snark back, “You don’t have to dress it up.” He added a shrug, “But like I said, no one knows about this place and considering how my power works…” He trailed off before finally sitting down onto the sand.

            His friends looked to one another for a moment before joining him, though Hitoshi took the chair as getting sand in a cast was probably a bad idea.

            It was Tenya who spoke first, his voice solid and steady and an anchor for Izuku’s confidence to cling to. “Whatever you want to tell us, Izuku, we’re listening. We’re not going anywhere.”

            The other two teenagers nodded.

            Izuku took a deep, steadying breath and tried to stop his stomach from doing flips.

            “Let them know, we don’t care,” Nemesis offered unhelpfully with a voice like the splitting of skulls, “Tell them everything. We are eager to see the looks upon their faces, it’ll provide great amusement.”

            Izuku made no attempt to hide the screwing of his eyes or the way his fingers grasped a handful of sand before slowly letting it go.

            Again, his friends looked to one another with caution, though not with fear.

            “Alright,” His voice was small, so small it was almost drowned by the distance hissing of the ocean waves upon the golden sand, “I wanted Fumikage to be here too but… I can’t just keep hiding this. It’s not fair on any of you, not after what I’ve put you all through. What I’ve put everyone though.”

            To their credit, the others remained silent. They knew the value of just allowing him to speak, to put his heart out on a platter to the others without defense. They would not betray such trust.

            He coughed to clear his throat, and his eyes flickered to them. They were all staring at him, quiet and intense, but he didn’t feel judged. He didn’t feel like they were about to start running from him or laughing at him or treating him like a china doll cracked and worn and one rough shove away from shattering completely.

            They were his friends, his best and only friends. They deserved to know.

            “It all started when I was five.”

            And so, he told them. He told them of the voice in his head, of the monsters that had plagued him all his life, of Fumikage and Dark Shadow and what had happened to them both during the USJ, though he skipped over what he felt from the holy water, simply stating how it hadn't done anything. He told them of his journey through Hell, what he remembered of it anyway, and how he had come face to face with a beast of unholy, inhuman proportions before being saved by a beam of light and waking up in his hospital bed. They had all gasped in shock when he had told them he'd been dead for several minutes, and several times Ochaco needed a moment to wipe tears from her eyes.

            He left out how Nemesis came to be though. Yes, he told them everything else, but that one sin, the greatest of all his sins. That he kept to himself. Some secrets were best kept secret.

            By the time he had finished speaking the shadows had grown slightly longer, the breeze a little colder but the warmth from the still hanging sun lingered, providing a measure of comfort to the small group.

            There was silence for a stretch as each of the teenagers considered Izuku’s words, and increasingly the anxiety built within Izuku with every heartbeat that passed.

            “Well, fuck me sideways, Izuku,” Hitoshi broke the silence like a man taking a sledgehammer to a window, “I mean… damn.”

            “Do- do you believe me?” Izuku braved, his voice shaking and his eyes watering despite his best efforts to keep himself from bursting into tears again.

            “Yeah, I believe you,” Hitoshi replied so genuinely that Izuku blinked in shock, as did Tenya.

            “I believe you, too,” Ochaco added a second later, her eyes set and her face stern.

            “Wha-” Izuku stammered, “How can you-”

            “You forget, I looked right into your eyes during the whole Katsuki thing,” Hitoshi’s smile was joyless, almost sad, and he shrugged, “I got a good, hard look what Nemesis was like while controlling you, and I was there when it was fighting All Might. Being possessed, or something like it, would make a lot of sense.”

            “I’ve seen your- I mean- I’ve seen Nemesis twice,” Ochaco added, “I agree. It’s… Izuku it’s unholy, there’s no other way of putting it. I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that, I’m so, so sorry, Izuku,” She ended with a sniffle and once again wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

            “They’re… not as scared as we’d assumed they’d be,” Nemesis hissed through his mind, and to Izuku’s shock it sounded almost surprised, “Why aren’t they fearful of us? We are shadow and flame, they are nothing, they should fear us.”

            “I’m sorry,” Tenya announced suddenly, his voice was low and his eyes were hidden by a cast of light across his glasses, “I’m- I’m not sure how to take this.”

            His words brought a new wave of silence to the others and both turned to look at him with wide eyes.

            “I understand you’ve been through much, but…” He paused, as if wrestling with his own thoughts and feelings, “But I… All my life I have been taught that there is nothing beyond the world we see. Angels, demons, ghosts, none of them are real. I’m sorry, Izuku, but I can’t just… accept all of this without some kind of proof.”

            “Tenya! How could you-” Ochaco immediately started, her eyes growing angry and her fists already curling at her side.

            But Izuku quickly cut her off, “No, it’s okay, Tenya’s right.” Her eyes blinked and looked back to him, surprised. Izuku took a moment to give her a quick, wobbling smile and looked back to the sand. Tenya's words had hit him hard, and he felt his stomach curling and twisting at the rejection. But... it also wasn't a rejection. He hadn't called him crazy, or weird, or stupid. He had simply stated something logical, which Izuku... couldn't exactly disagree with. “I don’t really have any proof of any of this. It’s not like I brought a souvenir back from Hell.”

            “Dude, did you just joke about going to Hell?” Hitoshi smirked suddenly and pointed a finger-gun over to him, “Because if so, props.”

            Izuku had to pause for a moment. He did just joke about going to Hell. He was pretty sure that wasn’t normal person behavior, but then again, he had just explained in full to his friends how he was ninety-nine percent certain he wasn’t human at all.

            He shook his head for a moment and then continued. “Right, well, this is why we need to talk to Fumikage. He’s the only person who can confirm anything and, frankly, he seemed to know a lot more than me,” He began carving out soft swirls in the sand with a finger, “I mean, it’s clear to me I’m not… something’s different about me, about Nemesis. Something that I don’t think can be explained with just science,” He let out a dry, humorless laugh and added in a bitter tone, “My mom tried that for years, and it clearly didn’t work.”

            “I can’t vouch for your mother, Izuku, but thank you,” Tenya added with a nod. “I’ve never seen Nemesis, I’ve never even heard it, so if I seem ignorant, I apologize. And besides, there are other holes in the story that need addressing. Mr. Aizawa’s quirk for instance, if your power is supernatural, why does it work on you? And if Fumikage was so sure, why didn't his test work?”

            “I wish I knew,” Izuku sighed loudly and leaned back onto the sand, allowing the damp-yet-warm feel of the sand to greet his fingers and calm his nerves, “I always thought my life was a dumpster fire but now…”

            “Now it’s a dumpster fire from Hell,” Hitoshi added swiftly before looking around to the others, “… what, too soon?”

            “I think this is exciting, in a weird kinda way,” Ochaco added with a sudden determined smile, “Angels and demons and who knows what! I mean, I know it’s not been fun for you, Izuku,” And she gave him a quick, apologetic look, “But I mean… we’re like, unique heroes, you know? We’re not just saving lives, we’re saving souls!”

            “What?” Izuku raised an eyebrow at her before Hitoshi quickly cut him off.

            “Hell-erm- I mean, heck yeah!” Hitoshi grinned his usual small but wicked grin, “I bet not even All Might knows anything about this stuff. We’re like… fighting secret villains, you know? Like, the most evil of villains!” His grin suddenly got a little wider and a little more genuine, “Which makes us the most heroic of heroes! Heh, that’ll make a nice change.”

            Even Tenya smiled and pushed the glasses up his nose, “I must admit, if this is indeed the truth, then there is a certain thrill in the thought we could be saving lives in a unique way, and fighting a truly terrible type of villainy. Of course, it only means we must study harder, work harder and train harder to fight such mighty foes.” He brought down a hand in a chopping motion, “We should be sure to talk to Fumikage the moment we can about all of this, I’m eager to see what he can show us in terms of combating these creatures, should they actually exist.”

            “Is this actually happening?” Nemesis hissed suddenly, clearly irritated and… confused at what it was witnessing, “They’re… excited about this? We offer them the truth of Hell and fire and darkness and they want to keep fighting?”

            Izuku grinned suddenly, fangs flashing with joy. His heart was filled to bursting and tears were again lining his eyes. He couldn’t believe this. He couldn’t… this was too much. How did he deserve this? How did he come by these people who were so understanding, so brave that they would help him face the darkest of all evils?

            “I- Guys I-”

            “Oh stop, you big idiot,” Hitoshi scolded Izuku softly and reached over to punch him lightly in the arm, which from Hitoshi was as good as an actual hug, “We told you, we’re here for you. I mean, what did you expect? You’re talking to people who are literally training to save lives. Professionally. So what if you’re a demon or half-demon or whatever the fuck, you’re a good guy, and we know you’re not evil, that’s all that matters at the end of the day.”

            “Exactly!” Ochaco grinned excitedly. “We all know you’ve got a good soul, Izuku. We’ll keep you on the straight and narrow, no matter what Nemesis says!”

            “We cannot… this doesn’t…” It was bizarre hearing Nemesis confused, as if it simply hadn’t expected any normal human to ever be able to handle the thought that demons existed and that they wouldn’t be afraid of them. A strange, soft warmth moved along Izuku’s scars, “… we have good allies.”

            “We do,” Izuku mumbled to himself before suddenly looking to the others, an age-old shock running through him and the urge to hide his words almost spilling from his lips. However, he paused at the looks the others gave him before coughing and, almost embarrassingly, mumbling out, “Nemesis likes all of you.”

            “We never said that!”

            “Aww! See, even the big bad Nemesis isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!”

            “We hate them all!”

            “Oh hey, look,” Hitoshi announced suddenly and pointed over to Izuku.

            Izuku blinked in surprised and turned his head… only to see his new tail, spear-tipped and jet black, wagging back and forth happily.

            The teenager was so embarrassed that he almost literally buried his head in the sand.

            Izuku hadn’t expected any more surprises over the weekend but apparently, fate had other thoughts in mind.

            The first half had passed easily. After spilling his soul to his friends and finding their resolve had only strengthened in the face of the unholy truth of his possible origins, they had decided to go for some ice cream.

            Because there was no better balm for telling your friends that Hell was a very real place and you may come from there than a nice bowl of ice cream.

            There had been some more discussion, of course, most of it light-hearted though the talk about if Hell was real, did that make Heaven real and therefore was there only one true religion had gotten a little too heavy before Ochaco had told Hitoshi that maybe, with Izuku’s help, they could use the unholy powers of Hell to help him ask Shoto out.

            After that, they had all joined in on some good-natured teasing and had said their goodbyes, with Izuku returning to his home in far better spirits than when he had left. Even so, the air within the Midoriya home was still tense and awkward. Izuku couldn’t bring himself to press his mother for answers, and it seemed she was unwilling to say anything unless provoked.

            He decided it would be easier for them both if he kept mostly to his room, working on ‘homework’ and really just reading up on whatever he could about Hell and demons. Most of what he researched, however, came back with very little results. There were a hundred thousand ideas floating around and reading through them all would no doubt be tedious and boring.

            He had even tried pressing Nemesis a little more for answers, but as always, its replies were a simple and unsurprising repeat of, “We are Nemesis, we are Izuku Midoriya.”

            Izuku was in no mood to poke his inner demon with a stick and had decided he would leave it at that. Besides, they had all agreed as a group to essentially corner Fumikage and see if they could get him to open up.

            That was a conversation Izuku was both looking forward to and simultaneously dreading.

            It had been in the evening of that Sunday, during a weirdly quiet dinner with his mother, that the doorbell had rung. Both had looked to one another in surprise before Izuku had volunteered to go get it.

            To say he wasn’t expecting who was there would have been an understatement.

            “The Fading King?”

            “I AM HERE! At your household, young Midoriya!” All Might, and it was All Might and not Toshinori standing before him, practically filled the entire doorway. He stood, dressed in a white t-shirt and green cargo pants, his apparent go-to casual wear, with his ever-present and inspiring grin plastered across his face. Though Izuku felt a lance of shame as he spied the many, many bandages he seemed to be sporting.

            “A-All Might?!” Izuku stammered in complete shock at the sudden appearance of the world’s greatest hero and took a step back, even as a sudden fire spiked along his scars and his tail whipped up in shock.

            “Has he come for a second bout?” He could feel a wolf’s maw grin within his blood, “We’d be honored to finish the job.”

            Izuku immediately went to grab one of his still-healing stitches to stab pain through his body, however, before he could do anything of the sort, he heard his mother’s gasp from down the hallway. He turned and saw her, wide-eyed and staring right at the number one hero.

            “A-All Might?”

            “Ah, good evening Mrs. Midoriya,” All Might gave a polite bow, “I-erm, well, may I come in? If it’s not too much trouble?”

            To hear All Might sound bashful was… weird. Weird because the man exuded such a presence of power and righteousness that by all rights, he should be able to walk into any home and be immediately welcomed.

            And yet it took a few seconds for both the son and mother to find their voices. Izuku spoke first, having been a little more acclimatized to All Might than Inko, “O-of course, sir! Please come in!”

            He stepped aside as the giant entered the house, stooping just to get through the doorway, “Thank you, young Midoriya.”

            There was a strange, awkward pause for a moment as he saw the great hero’s eyes note the newly formed stumps of horns on Izuku’s head, and then to the twitching, anxious black tail.

            Izuku quickly grabbed his tail and tried to stuff it, awkwardly, up his shirt as he stammered out, “S-Sir I-erm-”

            “No need to explain, young Midoriya, it’s alright, I understand.” All Might replied in a smooth, understanding tone. It seemed as though he was about to continue when suddenly Inko spoke from down the hall.

            “I- Mr. All Might, it’s an honor to have you here.” Inko seemed panicked, though there was certainly a… tenseness to her words that Izuku couldn’t help but notice. A thickness, a dam she was holding back with the tip of her tongue. “Izuku,” She hissed suddenly to her son, who quickly made his way to her side, “Go put the kettle on, I’m sure Mr. All Might would like something to drink.”

            “Oh, no, nothing for me please, I shouldn’t be long,” All Might called out from where he was taking off his shoes, “A glass of water would be nice, though!”

            However, before Izuku moved to go get just that, Inko grabbed him tightly by the arm, looked him square in the eyes and, in a surprisingly irritated tone, hissed, “What is he doing here?”

            “I don’t know!” Izuku anxiously whispered back, all thoughts of being awkward around his secret-keeping mother vanishing in the face of All Might’s surprise visit, “Maybe it’s something to do with… you know?”

            They didn’t need to mention exactly what it was. There was only one recent event big enough to warrant such a hushed tone and unspoken words.

            Izuku vanished into the kitchen while Inko showed All Might to the living room with a cautious and cold politeness that Izuku immediately recognized as her passive-aggressive way of being angry.

            When the teenager re-emerged, he was treated to the utterly bizarre sight of All Might sitting on his couch, as the chair would no doubt be unable to hold his giant bulk, chatting idly with his mother, who seemed to just be nodding along to whatever he was saying.

            He set down the water for All Might, who gave him a quick bow of thanks. His voice shook just a little as he began to speak, “Erm, so, All Might, sir, what can we do for you?”

            “He could bleed for us again.”

            Izuku curled a hand suddenly into a fist, his fingernails digging into his palm as he silently told his demon not now, not now!

            “Actually, it’s what I can do for you, young Midoriya, and you, Mrs. Midoriya.” All Might’s voice drained softly as he spoke. He sat with his hands linked together before him, his elbows resting on his legs. He looked to the water, his gaze dark and unreadable before he swallowed thickly and began speaking. “As I’m sure you both know by now, it was I who fought Nemesis during the… incident.”

            Izuku felt a cold chill run across his skin, just as Nemesis sent a roll of liquid fire moving through his blood and he could hear his demonic monster cackling from within his head.

            “And it was I who… who hurt you, Izuku,” All Might’s hands were starting to shake, just softly, and the breath was taken from Izuku’s lips at the sight. All Might feared nothing. He was a man who knew only courage, only bravery, he was the shining light in the darkest shadow.

            And he was scared.

            “I hurt you so badly that I…” He gulped softly, not meeting the gaze of either Midoriya, “I killed you.”

            “No!” Izuku snapped suddenly, taking a step towards All Might, “No, that’s not what happened! It wasn’t your-”

            “Let him speak, Izuku,” Inko’s voice was no longer polite.

            It was cold. Colder than Izuku had ever heard it, perhaps even more so than when she had screamed down the phone to that unknown caller all that time ago. It was angry too, angry with a mother’s rage at the pain caused to her child.

            “I killed you, young Midoriya. You died because of my actions. And it’s a true miracle you came back to us, but don’t think for a second I am not torn apart by what I did to you,” He gulped again, his voice a bottomless pit of swirling emotions. Sorrow, self-hate and regret. To see All Might like this was… it was wrong on so many levels.

            He was the symbol of peace, the man who never stopped smiling no matter how bad things got. And he was here, ruined by the consequences of his actions.

            “I realize how it easily could have been different,” His hands squeezed tighter, going almost white, “You could have never come around, you could have never woken up. You could have…”

            Nemesis moved though Izuku’s system again, its anger somehow tempered, like a wolf that was no longer growling but cautious, waiting for whatever trap was being set to spring.

            All Might’s head dipped lower. There was no attempt to garner any pity in his tone, and he was clearly asking for none. It was a statement, pure and simple. It was the truth he felt in his heart, and nothing could persuade him otherwise. He stood suddenly, then in a quick movement, he stepped to one side and sank to the floor in a bow until his forehead touched the floor, “I am so, so, so sorry, Mrs. Midoriya, young Midoriya. With all my heart and soul I apologize. I failed you both, as a teacher and as a hero. I failed to do my duty, to protect young Midoriya, to keep everyone safe.”   

            “That’s not true!” Izuku finally snapped, ignoring the look of silence his mother tried to give him and staring right at All Might, “That’s not true and you know it’s not!” All Might looked up in surprise, “You had no other choice! It was that, or everyone else would have been hurt!”

            “We’re not wrong.”

            “I know what Nemesis is! I know how it works!” Izuku continued, his eyes blazing as he spoke, his hands curling into fists, “It wouldn’t have stopped All Might! It would have never stopped. Not until… not until everyone in that place was dead.”

            “Again, not wrong.”

            “Izuku-” Inko spoke softly, looking to her son with wide eyes, but Izuku ignored her.

            “You did the right thing! You saved lives! It was my fault Nemesis was unleashed, it was all my fault.”

            Izuku paused for a second before falling to his hands and knees and bowing low to his teacher, with even his tail laying flat onto the ground behind him.

            Nemesis immediately flared through his scars and growled with blood-wet teeth through his mind, “What are we doing?!”

            “I’m sorry!” Izuku spoke through tight, wet eyes, his voice holding back a sob through the sheer force of his intention, “I’m sorry I failed everyone! I failed to hold Nemesis back! I failed you, All Might!”

            All Might looked up at this, blinking in pure shock. For a moment the world seemed to pause before it was split suddenly, but not by Izuku or his teacher.

            “Both of you, get on your feet.” Inko’s voice was a cold, slicing blade through the room, and both the boys looked to her. At some point she had stood, and while she was the shortest person in the room, in that moment she towered over them both.

            As they both slowly climbed up, she spoke, her eyes fixed on All Might, as cold and as sharp as a dagger thrust into his heart. “All Might. I admit once Izuku had come around, I felt a lot of rage towards what you did, and towards the entire school. How could you let that happen? After what you knew about Izuku’s quirk? You should have been there, and not just to stop the villains or to look after my son but to teach. From what I understand, you were late because you were saving others and not looking after the ones you are paid to look after.”

            Her words cut All Might deeply, anyone could have seen it.

            “However,” She sighed softly, slowly, her anger melting with the breath of her lips. She gulped her emotions down before continuing, “I am not an idiot. I understand what my son’s power is like. I know how… difficult it is. How it’s… unique.” Her eyes moved to Izuku now. “My child has struggled all his life with this power, with all the curses laid at his feet and he’s come through time and time again. If I lost him I…” Her voice trailed away, and Izuku could see the pain in his mother’s eyes.

            She finally turned back to All Might, her voice hardened once again. “He wishes to be a hero. He wishes to help others, to do good in this world despite everything he’s gone through. He’s a good boy, All Might, and he has a good soul, I know it, I see it every day.” She hesitated only a moment longer before saying, “I cannot forgive you for what happened. However, perhaps, with time, if you help my son become the hero he is inside, if you help him overcome the darkness that plagues him, perhaps then I can find my way to seeing past this.”

            “Mom…” Izuku wanted to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t come. He just stood there, his emotions whirling inside him and candle-flame dancing along his scars.

            “I will do all I can, Mrs. Midoriya,” All Might suddenly announced, almost shocking Izuku as he did so. His head bowed low once more, his voice strong and serious, “I promise you. I will help him conquer and control his quirk, and I will see him achieve his dream. I promise you, I will do this for you both.”

            All Might had left soon after, and all appetite for his dinner had left Izuku. He wanted to chase after his teacher, to beg him for… for something. Forgiveness for himself, for his actions, for all the pain and horror he had caused his entire class. For more than that perhaps, though what he wasn’t sure. There were a million things to apologize for, and he had no idea where to start. One thing he knew for certain, however, was the coldness of his mother’s gaze as she watched All Might leave.

            It would be a long, long, long time before she found any forgiveness for the number one hero. 

            In the end, he decided it was better to focus on healing up and getting ready for Monday.

            Life went on, after all, and despite everything he could say, he knew his actions would forever speak louder. Right now, his actions demanded he make amends for his sins.

            Besides, All Might wasn’t the only person he needed to make amends with.

            Ochaco had mentioned during their ice-cream trip that while his friends were there for him no matter what, the rest of the class… was a different matter.

            Most of the class had suffered from a wave of sleeplessness, nightmares, and losses of appetite. Those who had seen Nemesis with their own eyes had been the worst off. Katsuki especially was about ready to snap and strangle someone at the mere mention of his name. That didn’t exactly put Izuku at ease, but what other choice did he have?

            Despite everything, despite the looming anxiety and fear that the moment he stepped into Class 1-A he’d be told to leave, he still wanted to be a hero. It was all he’d ever wanted to be, and now more than ever he felt the need to find a way to conquer Nemesis. Even if he couldn’t be a real hero, even if the shadow of evil would always lay across him, he could still find a way to control his curse.

            Maybe he couldn’t save people from villains, but he could save people from himself. Leaving the class, leaving the course, would only land him back to square one. One bad day from repeating what he’d done to that unknown kidnapper, to Katsuki, to whatever it was that had assaulted him in the USJ and to All Might.

            Hell was in his blood, he knew that now, as a fact. The only thing standing between Nemesis and the world was himself, which meant he needed to be stronger.

            The problem was, of course, that he didn’t know what he was anymore. He knew he was Izuku Midoriya, and he knew he wanted to be a hero, but what was he? Why was he cursed? What really was Nemesis and why had it chosen him to inhabit? Why had that terrible throne been calling to him, why had that thing called him Lucifer?

            He was pretty sure, after all, that he wasn’t the original fallen angel, of that at least he was certain.

            He had always been convinced that he was just some unlucky soul, picked by God to be the whipping boy of the universe. Now he was sure the reason was far more sinister, far more… predestined.

            Thinking about it too much, however, brought on headaches, ones that seemed to originate from where his new horns emerged from his skull.

            What am I?

            The question hung like an anchor around his neck, and no matter what he did, it didn’t seem to grow any lighter.

            He left for school that Monday with an anxious mind and a heavy heart, giving his mother a hurried goodbye that somehow didn’t feel genuine. His train ride was filled with the usual monsters and demons, including the weird snake-thing that always seemed to appear on his trip to school.

            He was close to naming it. Maybe something like… Danger Noodle. He’d briefly and quietly asked Nemesis what it thought he should call it. It told him, “Food”.

            He’d not asked it anything else after that.

            Izuku felt slightly better by the time he met up with his friends. Their presence was a comfort to him, even more so now that they knew just what he went through. Ochaco had even asked if he was alright, if Nemesis was getting loud and if he just wanted to listen to music. He had declined of course, but the fact she had even offered it made him feel slightly more at ease.

            Hitoshi no longer wore his casts, though Izuku could spy bandages on his arms. He had explained, helpfully, that Recovery Girl had further treated him over the remainder of the weekend, though he wouldn’t be allowed any more treatments for a few more days. At least he had been cleared for Heroics class, which of course kicked up a new discussion of what classes they could possibly have.

            It had been a nice, calm, peaceful walk to the campus.

            And predictably, of course, it had all crumbled once they had reached the classroom.

            The moment he’d stepped through the door the room had gone quiet. Not the same low-level chatter as had happened the first time he’d been out for a few days, oh no, it was quiet.

            Every eye had turned on him, every gaze locked to his form and in an instant, he knew what they were thinking. Horns. Tail. Fire. Terror. USJ. Nemesis.

            Ochaco was right, the events of the USJ had affected the class. He could see it in their slightly pallid tones, the fading rings of sleeplessness around many of their eyes. He could feel it in the air, in the way that some of the life and energy had been drained from them all. Maybe not all of it, but enough. Enough that it was almost a tangible loss to each and every one of them. 

            He paused, his heart skipping a beat as he felt the insane pressure crash onto his shoulders and he wanted nothing more than to find the nearest black hole and throw himself into it. He gulped and began waving a black-fingernailed hand to the other students, “H-Hi-”

            “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

            Katsuki’s voice rang out across the classroom like a war-cry. Izuku jumped in shock and fire raced across his scars and he had to quickly pull back the oil-thick waves of power that jumped to his defense.

            The blonde was sat at his desk, and it was the only thing separating him from Izuku.

            Izuku would never forget the look of pure hate that screamed from Katsuki’s eyes.

            His mouth twitched as if being pulled by a hook and his teeth clamped together so tight that Izuku was worried his teeth would shatter. Already explosions littered across Katsuki’s desk as his anger melted into his quirk.

            His other classmates looked drained, but they looked to be recovering at least. Katsuki on the other hand… it looked as if Nemesis itself had reached into his soul and tore out the last of his joy. It looked as though nothing but the memories of that day had played repeatedly through his mind without end.

            It looked as though a parasite was eating him alive from the inside, and he could feel every bite and chew it took out of him. Somehow, in that moment, the scars across his face seemed so stretched and tight.

            Tenya and Hitoshi quickly came to Izuku’s sides, already ready and willing to fight Katsuki if it came to it.

            Yet this time it seemed different. Katsuki was enraged past the point of his usual anger, but he wasn’t approaching them. He simply sat, his hands twitching to the sounds of miniature explosions as his gaze remained an unrelenting barrage upon Izuku.

            “How dare he speak to us like this, let us free, let us tear him apart for his insolence!”

            “K-K-Kaachan I-”

            “WHY AREN’T YOU FUCKING EXPELLED?”

            The question was an honest one, and really, Izuku had no answer. Why wasn’t he expelled? Or at least moved from the class or something. He had been waiting for the phone call since waking up. It had simply never come.

            “Katsuki! It isn’t your place to-”

            “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Katsuki’s voice again exploded across the room, though this time there was something different to it. There was… shaking, a fear mixed with an increasing hysterical madness, “HE’S NOT FUCKING HUMAN! HE SHOULDN’T BE HERE!”

            “What the fuck is your problem?” Hitoshi snapped back, stepping forwards and focusing his gaze on Katsuki, “Seriously. What happened wasn’t his fault, and Izuku’s paid for it enough, let it go.”

            Katsuki opened his mouth, but then paused and suddenly bit the inside of his cheek, causing Hitoshi’s eyes to flash with a sense of annoyance, though whether it was from avoiding his quirk or just from Katsuki’s fury Izuku wasn’t sure.

            Izuku stepped forwards, his voice, his lungs, his tail, every part of him shaking in anxious, terrified fear. “Kaachan, p-please-”

            Katsuki moved suddenly, and in that one movement, everyone in the classroom reacted. He stood and stepped back, knocking his chair over and raising a finger to point dagger-like at Izuku, “Don’t you fucking talk to me, demon.”

            At the same time, several members of the classroom had jumped to their feet, others even taking a step towards him, as if expecting him to leap over his desk and start trying to kill Izuku with his bare hands.

            Nemesis burned along Izuku’s scars, all too eager to set his hands burning with blue fire and cover his skin with unlight once more. When it spoke, it spoke through the grinding, gritted teeth of a wolf, “We. Are not. A demon.”

            Katsuki’s twitching eyes narrowed dangerously and he quickly glanced around the classroom, “All of you. All of you fucking cowards may be too afraid to say it, but I’m not. He’s not fucking human. We all know it, all of us, and yet you sit there pretending otherwise. Fucking look at him.”

            The blonde lowered his hand slowly and Izuku could feel the eyes of the class locking to him. His tail flicked nervously, his new horn-stumps felt heavy, and flame whispered anxiously across his scars. He was being judged, and he knew he was being judged.

            “What fucking quirk changes a person like that? What fucking quirk causes nightmares like that… that thing did to all of us,” Katsuki’s hissing tone was somehow more dangerous than when he was screaming. It was a knife pushing its way slowly into Izuku’s heart, drawing more blood with every second, “You’re not human, you just pretend to be, like it’s some amusing fucking game for you. But I know the truth, you’re a fucking monster, Izuku.”

            “That’s enough.”

            Aizawa’s voice cut through the classroom like a blade of its own, almost dividing the air between Izuku and Katsuki. He stepped into the classroom, his eyes already blazing with anger towards the blonde from behind the many bandages wrapped around him.

            It was shocking to see their teacher covered almost head-to-toe in bandages. They all knew he had suffered, but the fact he was still here, determined to teach was… well, almost bizarre.

            But even if they couldn’t even see his face, they could clearly see his fury. It was in his stance, in the way one of his hands had already curled into a fist, and in the way his shoulders seemed set. It was in the rolling, growling thunder of his tone and the way his hair already seemed to be raising despite his quirk not being active.

            “Bakugo, you will sit down and-”

            “Fuck you too.”

            Now the class gasped. Even Izuku gasped. Had Katsuki seriously just said that to Aizawa? Was he seriously going there? Was his anger so great that he would turn it on even the teachers?

            “You let that thing in here,” His voice was shaking, his hands were shaking, and Izuku was sure that if he made just one more sound Katsuki would attack him full force. However, thankfully, the blonde’s gaze kept on Aizawa, “You and all the other stupid fucking teachers. You’re training a goddamn villain! He tried to kill All Might and you’ve done nothing. When are you finally going to wake the fuck up, huh? When he finally fucking murders one of us? He. Isn’t. Human.”

            The silence was so heavy that it seemed to hinder the breaths of everyone in the room. It was so tight and tense that it strangled their throats and seized their lungs.

            “Katsuki. Outside. Now.” Someone could bludgeon a man to death with the weight of Aizawa’s tone.

            The blonde snatched up his bag and stormed past the others, utterly ignoring Izuku as he did so. And yet even as he walked, Izuku caught the look in Katsuki’s eyes. He hadn’t noticed until now, but he seemed… so scared. So deeply afraid that it was eating him from the inside.

            Katsuki was… afraid of him.

            And Izuku felt his heart crumble into pieces.

            The second both Aizawa and Katsuki exited the room Izuku’s legs gave out from under him and he collapsed down, caught only by Tenya just before he hit the floor.

            With Hitoshi’s and Ochaco’s help, and by help they basically just walked beside him while Tenya carried him, they managed to escort Izuku to his seat.

            No one said anything to him, no one said anything against Katsuki. There was simply a maudlin silence that lingered like thick fog between the desks of the classroom. Nemesis tried to whisper something cruel and mocking into Izuku’s mind, but he silenced it by swiftly gripping of one of his still healing stitches and a hiss of pain.

            “Dude, don’t let him get to you,” Hitoshi mumbled, his voice barely being heard above Izuku’s own drowning sorrow, “He’s a goddamn asshole, don’t worry about it.”

            This was followed quickly by similarly helpful comments from Tenya and Ochaco, both of which landed on deaf ears. All Izuku could think about was the look in Katsuki’s eyes, the tone of his voice, the shaking of his hands and the way he had looked at him.

            It wasn’t just that he was calling him inhuman, it was that he believed it. Katsuki would never again look at Izuku the same way he had before they had entered the school. It had not escaped Izuku that the old nickname, Deku, had vanished from Katsuki’s lips. He’d called him by his name, and somehow, that was far, far more devastating.

            He hated him. He had always disliked him, always laughed at him and bullied him and mocked him.

            But now? Now Katsuki hated him.

            Any stragglers to the classroom came in through the far door, and when whispering voices asked them what was happening, they simply shrugged and shook their heads. Denki briefly tried to pressure Toru into 'changing into her hero costume', as he had put it, and spying on the two of them.

            She had, of course, refused him, claiming she wanted absolutely none of that.

            When Fumikage arrived, he ignored everyone and took his usual seat. For a moment, Izuku met his eyes, but Fumikage simply blinked, then turned away to his desk and gave a tiny shake of his head.

            Now wasn’t the time to go badgering him anyway, Izuku was close to openly crying after all.

            After what seemed like an eternity the door finally reopened, though this time only Aizawa walked back in.

            He took a moment to sink into the teacher’s chair by his desk and he held his head in his one good hand, the other being held in a sling, looking to nothing and no one before Tenya, barely, put a hand up.

            “Sir?”

            “Yes, Iida?” Aizawa sounded tired. Really tired. Izuku felt his heart breaking all over again.

            “Where is-” He gulped, “Where is Katsuki Bakugo?”

            Aizawa was silent for another moment longer, his eyes drifting across the classroom from behind his many bandages. Finally, he stood up and moved over to the center podium, where he stood looking like a bizarre black-clad mummy. After a second, he calmly and robotically announced, “After talking to Bakugo, I decided it would be best if he transferred to Class 1-B. He will no longer be part of our classroom from this day forward.”

            There was a gasp that drifted from the lips of many of the students, as well as many shared looks of shock. Izuku felt many eyes land on him and in response he buried his head under his hands and his tail drooped to the floor. Aizawa glanced towards him, but in an act of uncharacteristic kindness from the man, did not order him to sit up.

            Izuku knew it was his fault. It was all his fault.

            Nemesis, however, simply grinned from within Izuku’s blood and a cruel fire crawled along his scars. “Good. Let the coward go. We’re better off without him.”

Chapter Text

            Izuku had barely risen from behind his arms all day. Through each class he had stayed in his seat, his head buried, his tail occasionally swinging in a dull, sorrowful motion. It had drawn more than a few eyes of course, and more than a few whispers had been passed around the classroom.

            Very few had even greeted him. Mina had given him a tentative hello and asked how he was doing, Tsuyu had done the same, Eijiro had taken a step further had actually patted his shoulder and given him a smile, though Izuku had barely managed a red-eyed look back to him.

            Fumikage had yet to say anything, though occasionally Izuku caught him looking over to his desk. He had a strange look to his eyes, a mixture of caution and concern. He had the right to be hesitant, after all, he more than anyone knew the true danger Izuku hid behind his green eyes and sallow skin.

            He knew of the demon within him, waiting, like the embers of a fire that needed only a single breath to roar again.

            The classes passed in the blink of an eye, or at least to Izuku it seemed that way, he wasn't focused on them anyway. Whenever he had looked up from his arms, he had glanced past Ojiro’s tail and over to the empty seat at the front of the class.

            He wanted to find Katsuki. He wanted to cry his eyes out and beg he return to the class. He wanted to spill everything to him in the hopes that he would understand, that maybe if he just knew they could find some way to reconcile everything that had come between them.

            But he had seen the look in Katsuki’s eyes. There would be no amount of words he could ever speak that would take away the hate he saw there.
           
            It was over. All over. A bridge had been crossed at the USJ. A bridge which had gone up in flames of corrupt blue the second Izuku had stepped over it.

            Tenya had practically dragged Izuku out of his seat when the lunch bell rang. They had found a table, one far in the corner of the cafeteria and away from the majority of the other students, and Ochaco had offered to sit with him while the other two got the lunches.

            Izuku had once again buried his head into his arms the moment they had sat down.

            “Izuku, come on, that wasn’t your fault.”

            Nothing

            “Look, Katsuki’s been on edge all week. Maybe he’ll change his mind and come back once he’s had some time to cool off.”

            Nothing.

            “… I heard Captain Celebrity got caught having a foursome in a cave in Brazil.”

            Izuku lifted his head and frowned at her, “What?”

            “Oh yeah, saw it on the news this morning, I’m surprised you didn’t.”

            Izuku hadn’t bothered checking the news, he’d been mostly listening to podcasts and trying not to think about what everyone was going to think of him.

            “That’s… he said he was going to build houses for the underprivileged!” Izuku sat up a little straighter, “What the hell?”

            “I know, right?” Ochaco nodded thoughtfully, “It’s almost as bad as you beating yourself up for stuff you can’t control.”

            “I-” Izuku went to argue but fell back into his self-pitying frown and looked down, “Alright- alright, fine. You got me. But still I- I have to take some responsibility. None of this would have happened if-”

            “If the villains hadn’t attacked the USJ. If that creepy fucking cult guy hadn’t set his weird ass demon-monster-bird-thing on you. If you hadn’t been brave and tried to get back to help me and Aizawa-sensei,” Ochaco quickly filled in the gaps for him, her frown both determined and somehow friendly, “Seriously, Izuku. Stop.”

            “Stop what?” Hitoshi’s voice drifted over as he and Tenya arrived carrying two lunch trays each. They quickly slid into place, Hitoshi beside Ochaco, Tenya beside Izuku.

            “Nothing.”

            “He’s still beating himself up over Katsuki.” Ochaco was clearly having none of Izuku’s self-pitying today.

            “Yeah, you need to quit that, Katsuki’s an asshat,” Hitoshi quickly mumbled out as he shoved Izuku’s tray over to him. As he spoke, however, his voice became sterner, “Seriously. Think about it, you don’t have someone in class who’s going to try and murder you the moment you look at him funny. And you know what, maybe he’ll be a better person without you around to make him mad just by existing. He’s a dick. Let it go.”

            “The Child of Pharaohs is right.” Nemesis hissed with a lick of candle-flame along Izuku’s scars. “Let the coward run, we’ve proven our point. We dominated him, we humbled him, now he lives his life in fear of us, just as it should be. And should he ever come at us again, we’ll eat him alive.”

            Izuku made a low, irritated noise to himself and squeezed his eyes tight as he rubbed them with his fingers. He felt so stressed, so pressured. He should do the right thing, he should go apologize, but… but he knew that Katsuki needed time. Maybe they both did.

            Maybe they were right. Maybe some space was for the best. And besides, right now he had more serious things on his plate, like finding out if he was actually human.

            “Hey, did you guys hear about Captain Celebrity?” Hitoshi suddenly announced, changing the subject entirely. Both Ochaco and Tenya nodded in agreement and Hitoshi quickly added, “I heard he was caught having sex with a prostitute to and from his apology statement.”

            “You know I really don’t think this is an appropriate topic of discussion at a UA lunch table!” Tenya said with a swift and robotic wave of his hand. However, after a small moment, he leaned forward and slyly added, “Don’t take it from me, but my brother heard he has three lovechildren all by different women.”

            There was a round of ‘ooohs’ from the others and Izuku couldn’t help a dumb but welcome smile move across his lips. Fine. Maybe he could relax just for a little while. He couldn’t do anything to stop Katsuki, but he could still help his situation now, as it was. He needed to get back on track with his lessons, he needed to regain the confidence of the others in his class and prove to them now, more than ever, that he wasn’t about to snap and unleash Nemesis again.

            He had failed in that task twice already. The first time he’d been given a slap on the wrist, the second time he had died.

            He doubted fate would be so kind a third time.

            He also needed to get some answers from Fumikage now all the dust had settled. Though how and when he or the others would even begin approaching him with the subject of figuring out just what the hell Nemesis was, and why he had gone to Hell, and why he had been called Lucifer by some monstrous being of the underworld, well, he had absolutely no idea.

            It wasn’t as though Fumikage was going to walk right up to them and discuss it without prompting.

            “Ahem.”

            The table stopped their idle chit-chat and looked up suddenly.

            Standing there, tray in hand, looking amazingly sheepish for a boy with a beak for a mouth, was Fumikage.

            The was a long moment of awkward silence while every eye at the table focused on the black-feathered teenager. He shifted uncomfortably before suddenly asking, “Izuku Midoriya, may we have a moment to talk,” His crimson eyes flicked across the others, “In private, if possible.”

            “He wishes to talk to us?” Nemesis hissed across his mind and Izuku gulped softly as it did so, “He probably wishes to kill us. Or have Dark Shadow kill us. We should rip his heart out.”

            “Sit down, Brandon Lee,” Hitoshi immediately spouted off, “Whatever you’ve got to say to the Oman you can say to the rest of us.” There was a stretched moment of silence while Hitoshi’s smug, knowing smirk faded to a look of disbelief, then to irritation. He looked back to his meal and stabbed a piece of chicken with one of his chopsticks. “Goddamnit I give you guys gold and I get nothing. Why do I even bother?”

            “Ignore him, you can sit with us, Fumikage!” Ochaco quickly piped up with a cheery smile. She quickly began shoving Hitoshi down the table, who reluctantly moved a seat down, and then moved herself so that Fumikage could sit across from Izuku.

            “Yes, join us!” Tenya announced with a smile, “We’ve been meaning to talk to you, so the timing is perfect!”

            Fumikage narrowed his eyes at this and then turned his piercing gaze to Izuku, “Oh really?”

            “I’m sorry, Fumikage, I kinda… told them things,” Izuku announced in the most shamefaced tone he could muster, “… All the things.” Under Fumikage’s intense, crimson eyes Izuku suddenly felt like a very heavy mallet was being held against his head and at any moment Fumikage would swing and knock his brains out for being so stupid. “I’m really sorry, but after what happened I think… well, they needed to know. No one else knows, though!”

            “And we’re not going to tell anyone, we promise,” Tenya added with a firm nod, “I give you my word, as an Iida, and as your class president.”

            “Same,” Hitoshi mumbled through a mouthful of food.

            “Promise,” Ochaco added with a firm nod and a determined smile.

            There was a moment where Fumikage honestly looked like he was debating whether to turn tail and march away, or sit, join them, and chew Izuku out for being a reckless idiot. Finally, however, he sat down at the table, looking remarkably… awkward. Angry, yes, but awkward.

            Izuku wasn’t always good at reading people, however, at that moment he knew the look that crossed Fumikage’s face. He wasn’t used to this. He was used to eating alone, working alone, being isolated from other people because of the curse within him.

            No doubt it had been a lifelong problem for him, just as it had been for Izuku. Izuku, however, had been learning how to socialize and learning fast thanks to his newfound friends. He supposed that Fumikage was starting from step one.

            Still, he had some things to clear up first, and he could at least try and get some guilt off his chest before moving forward. He ignored Nemesis’s protests from within his head, as well as the rolling anger of flame that moved along his scars. His inner demon could shut the hell up for the time being, there were more important things to talk about here other than what Fumikage’s blood would look like on his hands.

            “I’m sorry again, Fumikage,” Izuku mumbled his eyes down to his plate, “For telling them everything. I know the stuff about Dark Shadow was your secret and it wasn’t right for me to tell them. I’m really sorry. Really, really, really sorry.”

            Fumikage seemed to consider this for a moment before simply looking to the others, “It seems you believe him.”

            “It’s kind of hard not to, to be fair,” Ochaco announced with a shrug, “I mean, we all saw what happened. Saying that Nemesis and Dark Shadow aren’t exactly normal quirks kind of lines up a lot of things.”

            “We are far from normal, we are shadow and flame.”

            “I for one remain skeptical, but as I said, I will not say a word about this to anyone,” Tenya announced in a stern tone, “Though, I would like some evidence, if possible.”

            “Evidence?” Fumikage raised an eyebrow at that, “You say that as if you are the only one with questions, Tenya Iida.” The crow-teen’s eyes turned back to Izuku, who seemed to shrink once again, he even felt his tail curling up around his waist. “And since you are so willing to share information,” Izuku smarted at his tone, “There are things that I would like to find out about you.”

            “Don’t tell him anything!” Nemesis snapped, causing Izuku to wince openly and bite the inside of his cheek in protest. “He’s our enemy! He and his parasite crow!”

            Hitoshi frowned over at Fumikage, “Hey, he’s been through a lot lately, lay off.”

            “I am not threatening any harm, Hitoshi Shinsou,” Fumikage replied with a slightly wry smile, apparently amused at Hitoshi’s knee-jerk defense of Izuku, “I simply wish to… well, to put it bluntly, put Izuku through a test.”

            There was another moment of confused silence at the table before Ochaco spoke up, “Test? Like the thing with the holy water? Izuku said that didn’t do anything.”

            “Ah- well, erm,” Izuku suddenly spoke up, quietly realizing that he had somewhat lied to Fumikage on that and clearing the air with him would probably go some way to having the teenager forgive him for opening his big mouth about Dark Shadow’s true nature. He’d also not really gone into it with the others at the beach, his mind simply skipping over it without giving it a lot of thought, “That’s not… exactly true.”

            Now all eyes turned to Izuku with a rather intense gaze. Ochaco was the first to open her mouth, gasping out a quiet, “What?”

            “Yeah, well, I, erm,” Izuku fidgeted for a few moments before coughing politely, just to do something other than tap his chopsticks against his hand, and looked to Fumikage, “You never gave me the chance to tell you in the USJ and, well, we had more pressing things to take care of so…”

            “So?” Fumikage’s voice suddenly became like stone, and Izuku could see the mistrust rising with him.

            “So, well, the holy water. It didn’t burn really, but I did feel something when it hit my hand.”

            There was another moment of stretched silence and it seemed every member at the table, other than Izuku, was leaning in with interest. Finally, Hitoshi said, “Well?!” In a tone crossed with both interest and irritation.

            “It was like… like when your arm goes to sleep, you know? Like, pins and needles, maybe? It was like a weird tingling-numbing-feeling-thing.” Ugh, he hated the fact that he was terrible with words. It was probably going to make Fumikage get right up and leave the table in anger. No doubt it meant something horrible and-

            “I see,” Fumikage announced suddenly, his voice low and serious. He raised a finger to the edge of his beak and he looked down, seeing past his meal and clearly consumed with his own thoughts, “This is incredibly serious.”

            The tension at the table became thick and heavy. Everyone was focused on the black-feathered teenager, breaths caught in throats and even Tenya seemed to pale just a little at his statement.

            “W-why? What does it mean?” Izuku asked in a voice barely above a whisper, and for a moment even Nemesis seemed to flow softly through his body as a quiet flame, creeping like a cautious cat.

            Fumikage looked Izuku dead in the eyes and simply said, “I have no idea.”

            “AAAW!”

            The group fell back into their chairs and Hitoshi even threw his arms up, “What the hell, man?”

            Fumikage evidently hadn’t been expecting such a reaction, and blinked over at the others, looking utterly confused and almost skittish, “I- well, I mean- this is why I wished to perform another test.”

            “He toys with us!” Nemesis growled through Izuku’s brain and flooded his scars with spiking, prickling heat, “We should punish him! We should set his head on fire!”

            “Nnnh,” Izuku grit his teeth suddenly and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt a sudden hand on his shoulder, strong and comforting, and when he reopened them Tenya was looking to him with concerned eyes.

            “Is it Nemesis?”

            Izuku paused, and for a moment fear rushed through him before he reminded himself that it was okay. They knew, and it was okay to tell them. He nodded slowly and gulped, then picked up his water to take a quick drink. “Yeah, it’s just…” He paused and looked to Fumikage, who continued to look confused, though there was something other to his eyes. A curiosity perhaps… and familiarity with it all. “Nemesis doesn’t like Dark Shadow or Fumikage.”

            “We can’t trust someone like him," His inner monster urged with the tone of tearing flesh, “He’s dangerous.”

            “That’s understandable,” Fumikage nodded, “Dark Shadow feels similarly about you, Izuku, and Nemesis in kind.”

            “All the more reason to burn him alive.”

            There was another pause at the table before Izuku bravely, but quietly, asked, “Do- do you hear Dark Shadow in your head too?”

            Fumikage shook his head, and for a moment Izuku felt the age-old familiar fear of being rejected, of being mocked and scorned for admitting he was insane. However, it passed once Fumikage spoke again, his voice was edged with something new, but something that Izuku knew all too well.

            He was cautious about revealing this information. Cautious about being ridiculed and insulted and shoved to one side. And yet he was pressing through it with a confidence that Izuku could only envy.

            “Dark Shadow does not talk to me while within me, no, however,” He paused and then looked to the others, “I do… feel their emotions. It is an empathetic link of sorts.”

            “Wooow,” Ochaco gasped softly as she looked, wide-eyed to Fumikage, “That’s so… wow I mean, I don’t want to say cool but…”

            “It isn’t cool,” Fumikage added in a low, bitter tone before looking to his meal, “It’s very far from cool. It’s a nightmare under my skin waiting to hurt everyone I’ve known or cared about. If I lose control of my emotions for even a few moments…”

            “Mood,” Izuku replied without thinking, causing Fumikage to look to him with a sharp frown, “I mean, you know, I know how you feel!” He shrugged softly and offered a small, fanged smile.

            Fumikage seemed to weigh this for a moment, before smiling softly back, along with a slight shake of his head.

            “Well, what about this test you want to perform,” Tenya asked suddenly, putting a hand to his chin, “I would be interested to know what you seek to learn from this, especially as you seem to be the only expert we have on the nature of these demonic creatures, if that’s what they truly are.”

            “They are,” Fumikage replied firmly, and in such a tone that Ochcaco seemed to shiver, “And I am no expert. All I have learned, I have learned only through trial and error, and with the help of someone very close to me.”

            Izuku wanted to ask exactly who that was, but a bell suddenly rang out across the hall and Tenya immediately rose to his feet, “That was the lunch bell, I suppose we should be getting back soon.”

            He wanted to protest. He wanted to sit there and drill Fumikage’s brain for every bit of information he could gather, but he knew that Tenya would have none of it. Hitoshi rose and seemed to notice the look on Izuku’s face. “Dude, don’t worry,” He even gave him a small smile, “We’ve got time, and besides, Fumikage’s part of the crew now, right?”

            “What?” Fumikage’s face truly did not suit looking surprised, “The crew?”

            “Yeah, you know, the ‘we know demons are real’ crew!” Ochaco smiled and gave him a light elbow to the arm. No doubt it would have been a punch, but her hands were full with her own tray, “It’s working title.”

            “I’m sorry, Fumikage,” Izuku admitted with a light shrug as he also stood to his feet. “I know I spilled everything but really, you can trust us, and if I’ve learned anything from the USJ, it’s that trying to deal with it all alone is a really, really bad idea. I mean it can literally get you killed.”

            Fumikage seemed to hesitate at this and once again Izuku could see it written all over him. He wasn’t used to this. To being part of a group, to having people he could talk to, to be open to. And yet he could also see within him that he wanted it. He wanted to have friends, to be welcomed by people who weren’t going to run the moment they saw his quirk-familiar.

            They were here for him. Izuku was, he knew that, and not just because Fumikage had answers.

            Because they shared monsters, and Izuku had vowed to do everything he could to help those who suffered like he suffered.

            “This is a mad banquet of darkness,” Fumikage announced softly joining Izuku’s side as they walked to put their trays away.

            “Alright everyone, listen up,” Aizawa announced in his usual commanding tone from behind his many, many bandages.

            Once again, they were outside and once again, the summer sun glowed down on them from up high. Once again, the sky was an open, brilliant shade of blue, the grass was a lusty green and the world seemed as normal and as vibrant as any other summer day.

            Except, as usual, the situation at U.A. was beyond the normal. Set up on the main field was a huge and complex-looking set of walls and corridors leading to the odd room, or dead end, or some other little trap.

            Within the corridors were small robots moving back and forth and, even from where the students stood, they could hear them spouting off repeating phrases such as ‘grr, arg’ or ‘down with justice’. One that made almost everyone laugh the first time was, ‘All Might more like Filthy Meat Bag Might’.

            There were several large screens on a command panel, showing images from where cameras mounted on poles looked down, giving everyone a birds-eye view of the tactical course. Aizawa stood before it and the students looked on, huddled in their usual cliques.

            Though a notable difference this time was that Fumikage now stood with Tenya, Ochaco, Hitoshi, and Izuku… and almost everyone else stood far from them.

            Aizawa’s gaze narrowed at this, though it was well hidden from behind his bandages. He had only been back at the head of his class for a single day, really even less than that, and already he was seeing the divide within the classroom.

            One on side, were those who were on Midoriya’s side, and on the other, those who no longer trusted him.

            He took a moment to breathe through his nose before moving forward with the lesson.

            “One of the basic requirements for being a hero is the ability to storm a house or other place with narrow corridors, blind spots, and close quarters combat. Today we’re going to run through the basics of this kind of exercise, so you all understand how it’s supposed to work, on Thursday we’re going to be performing it in full uniform on Ground Alpha where you will be facing off against one another. Is that understood?”

            There were a number of nods and sounds of agreement.

            “Good. I’m going to put you teams of two randomly decided by the computer.” He was supposed to pick them himself, but he was tired and in a constant dull pain across his many, many injuries, and as such didn’t feel up to it.

            Besides, random team-ups were common enough, and it was better to see them work alongside people they might not have usually worked with otherwise. He wasn’t blind, he could already see the groups forming in his classroom. He couldn’t allow them to stick so closely together, at least not while training. Outside of class, he didn’t really care.

            He turned and ignored the mumblings of the students while he opened the program necessary to choose the teams. The first group came up quickly, Tsuyu and Shoto. The students looked on as the two took five minutes to form a plan, then move through the course. Shoto led the way, simply freezing everything in place while Tsuyu basically followed behind him.

            Aizawa shook his head. The boy needed to learn that other people actually existed and that he couldn’t simply rely on deep-freezing everyone, even if it seemed to have worked out for him in the apparent rescue of Hitoshi during the USJ incident. Why the young man seemed so reluctant to use his right side was another puzzle that Aizawa mentally added to his list of things to work on.

            Then the next team was up. Rikido and the newest member to their class, Reiko Yanagi, their replacement for sending Katsuki to class 1-B.

            The loss of Katsuki still stung at Aizawa, though he refused to show it. The boy had screamed and cried and almost torn his own hair out during their ‘talk’. It had been… disturbing and worrying, to say the least, to watch one of his bravest, strongest and most promising students have what really amounted to an emotional and mental breakdown.

            And all because of one student. A student whom Aizawa could see had the heart and the potential for greatness… and yet it seemed as though the world had declared him fated for evil.

            Good thing he didn’t believe in things like fate.

            For a second, as the others watched the team move through the course, his eyes glanced to Izuku Midoriya. He still had some of his own bandages on, though he had been cleared for combat training. A second longer his eyes rested on the stumps that now came from his forehead, and the swishing all-black tail with the spear-tip end.

            When he had first entered the class, he’d only sported a pair of fangs.

            Now he looked like an imp ripped right from the pages of a fantasy novel.

            What kind of quirk was Nemesis? That would mutate the user? That would cause such… horror to be unleashed upon anyone who saw it? Katsuki Bakugo had been traumatized by the sight of it, twice, and now his class had become divided over the issue of Izuku and his truly hellish quirk.

            And yet Aizawa refused to give up on the boy.

            He had been surprised when he had been told, loudly, by Hizashi, that Izuku wasn’t being taken out the course. When he had managed to corner Nedzu, who had looked unusually frazzled for the past few days, the tiny Principal had simply told him that he had ‘changed his mind’, and that was that.

            Suspicion curled in Aizawa’s heart. Nedzu was not one to simply change his mind about anything, not without a damn good reason at least. Still, now wasn’t the time to pry further, not with the Sports Festival, and the possible threat of more attacks, hanging over them all.

            They couldn’t afford another accident like the USJ. Izuku couldn’t afford another accident, hell, Toshinori couldn’t afford another accident. He knew getting Izuku to control his power was one step to avoiding further horrors, and getting him to stop believing he was somehow cursed was another.  

            Aizawa was determined to turn that thinking around. He needed to, for Izuku’s sake, and perhaps for his own guilt to finally find its rest.

            His eyes drifted to Shoto as he continued to muse on Izuku’s future, and on his own past which seemed intent on repeating itself. He had failed one student before when they have become convinced their quirk, and therefore their own soul, was evil.

            He wouldn’t do it again.

            The bell was rung and Aizawa looked back to the test, noting the time and the efficacy which his students had run the course. It seemed Yanagi’s poltergeist quirk was quite handy in a pinch, and when teamed with Rikido’s strength, made them a good one-two punch combo. He’d have to keep that one in mind for later.

            The next names came up. Hanta and Izuku.

            A look came over Hanta’s face, and no one who was looking at him could have ever missed it.

            Fear.

            He glanced over to Izuku, who was already making his timid way over to him.

            He was only a few steps from him when Hanta’s hand shot up, “Aizawa-sensei?”

            Aizawa felt his heart sink as he knew what was about to come next, “Yes, Sero?”

            “I…” The boy glanced at the quickly slowing Izuku and then back to Aizawa, “Can I change partners?”

            The excited chatter of the classroom began to die.

            “Dude, what?” Eijiro asked with a huge but slightly puzzled grin across his sharp teeth, “Why do you wanna split?”

            He had been standing beside Hanta, clearly waiting for his own name to be called up. Now however it seemed his attention had been pulled from the screen.

            “Look I- Sir, I-” Hanta looked to Izuku again, who had the same kind of expression on his face as someone who had just been told they couldn’t claim their winning lottery ticket. Hanta gulped and firmly announced, “I’m sorry, Izuku, dude, I just- I don’t feel comfortable working with you.”

            The silence grew heavier and Aizawa couldn’t help a spike of anger shoot through him. This was unfair. This was unfair on Izuku and on Hanta. It was unfair on his class, and Aizawa was not about to stand for it.

            “No.” He knew it was bordering on cruel, but he believed that they all needed to see what he already knew. Izuku wasn’t a threat, he wasn’t a time bomb about to explode at any moment. He was just a kid, a student just like the rest of them and he would be treated no differently. “No changing teams.”

            “Sir, I just- Sir,” Hanta continued suddenly, looking from the utterly crestfallen Izuku back to his teacher, “Please. Please, I don’t- Sir, what if Nemesis gets out?”

            The very utterance of the word seemed to send a cold chill across the entire class, and even Aizawa felt the crawling rake of a blade-like claw move down his spine at the thought of the beast. He had only seen it for a second and the memory still sent gooseflesh rising across his arms. The class had seen it tear another creature apart, and then go after All Might. No wonder their reaction was stronger.

            “It’s okay,” Izuku’s voice broke the silence. Quiet, defeated and resigned. His head was down, his new tail drooping to the floor and he was blinking back tears, “I get it. It’s fine. I’m… I’m sorry, Hanta. I’ll join with someone else, I don’t want to-”

            “Hey!” Eijiro suddenly butted in, grabbing Izuku by the shoulder and giving it a tight squeeze, “You’re not going anywhere,” He turned to Hanta, his eyes blazing with an irritation not directed at either boy, but at the situation itself, “Dude, I know what you saw was scary, but come on, we all know it wasn’t Izuku’s fault. Nemesis isn’t Izuku, they’re not the same person.”

            “Dude,” Hanta snapped back, a flash of anger moving across his usually calm and smiling features, “You didn’t see it like I saw it. You weren’t there.”

            “I heard it just as loud as you did,” Eijiro almost growled back, “And guess what, I had all the same nightmares you did.”

            “No, you didn’t I-”

            “Stop!” Izuku snapped suddenly, causing the two to look back to him. “Just- just please, stop! It’s okay, I get it, it’s fine,” The tone of his voice told everyone who was listening he was lying, and Aizawa felt his blood boil at the boy’s attempt to shove his own feelings down for the sake of others. He rubbed his eyes on his sleeve as he quickly mumbled out, “I’ll work with someone else. It’s okay. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, I’ll-”

            “No,” Aizawa’s command cut through the air and caused almost everyone to jump suddenly, “I said, no changing the teams,” He continued to growl out from behind his bandages, “And that’s an order.” His eyes began scanning the classroom. “I get you’re all still recovering from what happened at the USJ. It was traumatic, for everyone, but I’m going to remind you all right here and now that you are heroes in the making. Heroes don’t back down, they don’t give up, and they certainly don’t avoid things that make them uncomfortable. They confront them, they master them, and they push past their fears to do great things.”

            His eyes narrowed from behind his bandages, and while he was sure no one could see them, he knew that he was not taking any of this nonsense. Not today. Not ever.

            “Izuku Midoriya,” He addressed the teenager directly, causing Izuku to straighten up suddenly.

            “Y-Yes, sensei?”

            “Do you believe Nemesis will take control in this exercise?”

            Izuku frowned in confusion, but answered, “N-No, sensei?”

            “There’s your answer then, Sero,” Aizawa announced, looking back to the other teenager, “Now get ready, you have five minutes.”

            It was a disaster. Hanta’s obvious fear of Izuku’s quirk, combined with Izuku’s complete lack of confidence in himself and his unwillingness to use his quirk around Hanta, led them to not only not completing the exercise, but somehow actually being caught by the robots.

            In all the time Aizawa had been teaching, no one had ever managed to be caught by the robots. They had the same computing intelligence as a toaster. Collectively.

            After spending a full minute simply facepalming at the ashamed looking boys, he took in a deep breath and announced, “This will not do. I’m assigning you both extra homework to be completed by Thursday. You’re going to study tactical hand signals and infiltration tactics and write me a personalized two-thousand-word essay on each.”

            The two boys simply nodded, while Aizawa ignored some of the giggling from the rest of the class.

            He took another breath through his nose and, in a lower, more serious tone, added, “Sero, Midoriya is not the enemy, he’s trying just as hard as you are.”

            The taller teenager nodded.

            “And Midoriya,” The boy looked up at his name being spoken, his green eyes filled with anxiety and his tail twitching to match, “You need to work harder on controlling your quirk. I know it’s not an easy task, but if you don’t, you’ll fail by the end of the year.”

            The boy’s eyes flashed with fear, before he looked down again and nodded. To his credit, however, Aizawa noticed how he curled his fists tightly. He was determined, he could see that.

            The problem was that outside of telling him to get better, Aizawa wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to get better. Nemesis was like no quirk he’d ever come across, and he’d come across some horrific things in his time as an underground hero.

            But nothing like this. This… thing, this demon living under the boy’s skin.

            “You will not let this happen again on Thursday, have I made myself clear?”

            Both the boys nodded, and with that, Aizawa dismissed them back to the rest of the class.

            When was the last time Izuku had gone out with friends? He honestly couldn’t remember. And yet here he was, heading towards someone's home. Not his own home, oh no, someone else’s home, where they lived, and he didn’t live.

            Because it was their home, not his.

            He hadn’t felt this excited since… well, perhaps since his first day at U.A.

            Of course, he was nervous too. This wasn’t just a casual visit to a friend’s house, and yes, he still grinned at the concept of actually having a friend who had a home he could go visit, but something a little more than that.

            It had been discussed and decided upon last Wednesday, during the now regular gathering together of their little group, who were still deciding on a name since ‘Hunters of Eternal Darkness’, as suggested by Fumikage, hadn’t quite landed with everyone. At least they had their own table, as no one else seemed to bother taking it before they claimed it, in the far corner, away from most and nicely secluded from prying eyes.

            There they could discuss what they all held in the tightest of secrets, or rather, Izuku could pepper Fumikage with questions while he tried to give answers.

            Thing was, he was a little… shy about explaining what he knew in U.A. It was the same reason why, in the few times he had allowed Dark Shadow to talk to the others, he had disallowed his quirk-familiar from doing much the same.

            In his own words, there were ‘too many ears listening’ at U.A., and that it ‘wasn’t secure’, though what he meant by it Izuku and the others had no idea, and he hadn’t explained much after that.

            His solution, however, was why Izuku was walking down an utterly unfamiliar dirt road, his skin warmed by the sun between patches in the overhanging canopy, and feeling just a little lost.

            Fumikage had wished to conduct another test on Izuku, to see just how far his possession, if he was indeed possessed, went. He explained that his home was very secure, that he could practically guarantee privacy and the safety of the others.

            And so, early that Saturday morning, with the sun shining high and nary a cloud in the sky, Izuku had set off out of his home to go hang out at a friend’s house. The first time he had done so since he was five years old.

            “Wow, Fumikage travels a while to get to class every morning,” Ochaco mumbled as she walked beside Izuku. She had joined him at the main train terminal, the one they would usually get off to walk to U.A. from.

            This time, however, they had taken a connecting train, which had taken another connecting train, picking up both Tenya and Hitoshi in the process before dropping them all of at a rather far-out location. Now all four of them were heading towards their new friend’s house together.

            The air was hot and humid and not one of them had brought anything heavy to wear. Around them they could hear the lifeblood of the forest. Birds chirped and sang, hidden in overhead branches of lush green leaves. Bugs made loud buzzing, krring noises from under rock and bush, and occasionally one could even hear the odd animal rushing through the long, untamed grass of the forest floor.

            There was a freshness to the air that set candle-flame tickling along Izuku’s scars, and the whole thing made him feel both comfortable and yet uneasy. He knew this had to be Nemesis within him, no doubt sulking at the vibrant sunshine and display of summer joy. Izuku knew, however, that it was simply his lot. He disliked the winter and autumn months, yet Nemesis had always felt easier within him when everything around him was dead or hibernating.

            Just his luck, he supposed.

            It was why he wore only a pair of beige shorts and a light green t-shirt with the words ‘This is a t-shirt’ written on it, along with a pair of trainers on his feet. Hitoshi had his blue jeans and dark purple shirt, this one with rough, yellow, eight-pointed star upon it. Tenya wore his smart dark blue striped polo-shirt and kakhi pants and Ochaco wore a pair of red jean shorts, trainers and a white and pink striped t-shirt

            “I gotta admit, I’m liking this rural thing,” Hitoshi added as he looked around, “I wonder why he lives so far out though. Can’t be many people to hang out with in these parts.”

            “I would love to run this route,” Tenya announced in his usual confident tone as he too turned his head and admired the heavy tree cover and glorious summer nature that surrounded them, “Such natural beauty! Living in the city makes me forget how lovely the countryside can be.”

            Ochaco chuckled softly at that and turned to look at him, “Oh really? Aren’t you super rich? I bet you take holidays on fancy countryside resorts all the time.”

            “Not at all!” Tenya quickly counted, making a chopping motion with his hand towards her, “My family all work full time, even my mother! Running the Idatan Agency is a family business, so we only take a week off every year and we travel to our private resort on the New Caledonia islands.”

            “That explains a lot,” Hitoshi added with his trademark smirk.

            Izuku didn’t say anything. His eyes were looking from one side of the tree line and across to the other. When they had first entered the forest he had seen plenty of them, the demonic-looking monsters which flitted and crawled through the dark shadows of the forest floor.

            But now, however…

            “Izuku?”

            He blinked suddenly and turned back to the others, shock rushing through him, “S-Sorry!”

            There was a moment of silence from the others before Hitoshi, in his ever-blunt manner, asked, “What is it? Can you see something?”

            He was still not entirely used to this, talking about the things he could see, though he had found that allowing the others to know something was pulling his attention, all while Fumikage had coldly acknowledged the same thing, helped ease his anxiety. Still, the bolts of shame still shot through him before fading once again.

            “Well, not really but…” He paused for a long moment before saying, “There’s nothing. No demons, not a single one. And that’s… weird.”

            The others looked to one another before Tenya simply asked, “Isn’t that a good thing?”

            “Well, yeah, it is but, you know, this is a forest. They love forests, usually, lots of shadows, I guess,” Izuku replied before letting out a long sigh, “Sorry, I know it sounds crazy.”

            “Dude, you’re not crazy,” Hitoshi quickly cut in, “And we’re proving it today.”

            “Yeah, so don’t worry about it,” Ochaco grinned over to him.

            Tenya even put a hand squarely onto Izuku’s shoulder and gave him a confident squeeze as they approached what looked to be a wide set opening. “Exactly. Today we all find some answers.”

            “And then maybe you won’t epic fail, like you did on Thursday,” Hitoshi quickly teased.

            “Hey,” Izuku managed a slightly fanged smile back, “At least I didn’t get captured that time.”

            He had gotten used to Hitoshi’s jokes-to-show-emotion behavior by now, and recently he had been working on joking back. He still had yet to truly match Hitoshi's English-dry wit, however.

            “Only cos Eijiro was your partner, and it helps Momo legit ran away from you.”

            “Okay, that was-”

            Izuku was about to protest it was all part of his plan, which it hadn’t been, but what they saw as they came out of the forest path caused them all to stop suddenly and stare, eyes wide, mouths agape.

            Hitoshi of course, quite elegantly put it into words as only Hitoshi could.

            “Woah.”

Chapter Text

            “Woah.”         

            When Fumikage had told them all that he wanted to perform another experiment on Izuku to further determine exactly what Izuku was possessed with, Izuku had been a little weary, to say the least. But his friend had assured them all that it would be safe, that his home was ‘secure’.

            Izuku had wondered if Fumikage was rich and lived in some distant country mansion, or maybe had some high-tech lab to do experiments in.

            He certainly hadn't been expecting this.

            Hitoshi’s statement quite elegantly summed up the collective reaction from the four at the sight which greeted them.

            It was a temple. Surrounding it was a tall, cream painted stone wall, elegantly topped with traditional sloping red-brick tiles, and before them rose an ancient, red-painted gateway with a pair of stone komainu guarding either side.

            Through the open gate, Izuku could spy the temple proper, as well as a pathway running off to one side and hints of a Zen garden.

            Carved into wood and hung on the right side of the temple gateway was a signpost reading, ‘Temple of The Yatagarasu’ and, almost comically considering the name, leaning against the wall under that sign was Fumikage.

            While the others were dressed in their usual casualwear, Fumikage was, well, dressed in black.

            Black pants and a black top with grey, long-sleeved arms which he had rolled up to his elbows, with one wrist adorned with a studded black leather bracelet. Around his neck he wore a necklace with an ankh symbol which came down to his chest, though by far the most attention-grabbing item were his boots.

            They went up to his knees, were all black with several descending metal buckles and over the toes where two large metal pieces made like a pair of hooves.

            Hitoshi, in particular, seemed utterly in awe of them.

            “Hey! Fumikage! Hey!” Izuku quickly called out and waved over to him, causing the teenager to look up suddenly from his phone and blink his crimson eyes over to the group.

            For a moment he seemed shocked they were even there at all, before visibly relaxing and raising a hand. “Greetings.”

            “Dude!” Hitoshi gushed in his typical low-energy manner as they collectively approached their friend, “Those boots are amazing.”

            “Thank you?” Fumikage answered in a slightly confused tone, clearly unused to being complimented.

            “Fumikage, I thought you said we were meeting at your house?” Ochaco quickly cut in, “What are we doing at this temple?”

            “This is my house, I live here,” Fumikage's reply made it seem like the most obvious thing in the world.

            “Wait, you live here?” Izuku’s jaw almost dropped to the floor. He looked back to the temple and his eyes seemed to bug from his head, “This is- this is-”

            The Seventh Son lives here?” Nemesis hissed softly, like a knife on a whetstone through the grey matter of his brain, “How very predictable.”

            Izuku gritted his teeth and fought his inner demon down. This was no time for it to get dramatic on him. It wasn’t like he’d ever been to temples before, of course he had, and Nemesis had never complained about any of them.

            It was clearly just because it was Fumikage’s home and anything to do with the raven-headed teen Nemesis seemed set squarely against. Or maybe because he wasn't drowning in brain-numbing medication. Or maybe both.

            Suddenly, from behind Fumikage, Dark Shadow grew, formed into their usual jackdaw-like shade, and settled upon their master’s head, folding their arms and grinning down at the others. They only formed to the size of a cat, and if they had any weight it didn’t seem to bother Fumikage at all.

            “Welcome to our home, mortals!” Dark Shadow joyfully cackled to the others before their tarnish-gold gaze turned to Izuku, their expression turning sour and their voice dry, “… oh, and you’re here, Nemesis. Great.”

            Immediately Izuku felt fire flow along his scars as his own monster growled back, “We’re burning this place to the ground. With them inside. It’s the obvious course of action.”

            Izuku was about to grumble something back before he decided to simply take a moment, breathe and clench his black-nailed fist tightly. Today was not going to be another repeat of the USJ or… well, almost any other time he’d allowed Nemesis to have its way. Today was about finally, finally getting some damn answers as to who and what he was.

            Answers he probably wasn’t going to like, but answers he needed.

            “We’re glad to be here, demon.” Hitoshi answered back with a slight smirk.

            The first time the others had seen Dark Shadow after the revelations that both Fumikage and Izuku had insisted were true had been… an interesting experience for Izuku to witness. The knowledge that Dark Shadow was a demon, a true, actual demon was something they had only seemed to accept in theory until seeing the shadowed bird-monster once again.

            They had at first looked to them with newly fearful eyes. However, with time, and with Fumikage’s instance, they had slowly come to believe that Dark Shadow posed no immediate threat to them. If anything, within the grounds of U.A., Dark Shadow often seemed mischievous and impish, sometimes even playful.

            Fumikage, however, had explained it was simply because it was in the daylight, when Dark Shadow was at its most co-operative and controllable. At night Dark Shadow became… worse.

            He had gone quiet after that. The others had not pressed him for any further information.

            “Come, we might as well get our dark mission started,” Fumikage announced in a serious tone as he pushed himself from the wall and began walking into the temple grounds.

            The others followed him quickly, though the moment he stepped within the temple grounds Izuku had to pause and allow his jaw to fall open.

            It was beautiful. A perfectly manicured Zen garden stretched out across the grounds and along the pathways to an old and well-preserved looking home, built in a traditional and ancient manner. To his right was a small pavilion for washing one’s hands and face before offering a prayer to the spirit of the shrine. The shrine and temple proper were before him, again built in a beautiful and traditional manner, painted in brilliant reds and whites, though he saw curious splashes of black trims along the edges.

            Fumikage, however, did not lead them towards the temple, instead, he turned to the right and moved towards a modest looking home, one that matched the architecture of the temple grounds but seemed somehow more modern than the other buildings.

            “… this is impressive.” Nemesis hissed softly through Izuku’s ears, “We feel its age. It is an old place, of old power.”

            Any other time Izuku may well have simply brushed Nemesis’s words aside, and yet for once, he agreed. Because he could feel it too.

            He could tell this place was ancient, and had stood here for hundreds, maybe even a thousand years. And because of that age, it held a power all its own. An intangible, invisible power that hung in the air and swirled around him. The power of constant prayer, hope, belief and focus all in one place, condensed and distilled like fine wine.

            It seemed to run its fingers across his skin, a light tingle so like the one he had felt when Fumikage had dropped the holy water onto him, somehow both gentle and prickly, numbing and sensitive, all at once.

            “Izuku?”

            He blinked back to his senses again and turned suddenly. The others had all gathered on the walkway to Fumikage’s home, while Izuku had been… what had he been doing?

            “Are you okay?” It was Hitoshi asking, his voice as low as always, but laced with concern.

            “Yeah it’s just…” Izuku trailed off, finding it impossible to put the feeling into words.

            Not until Dark Shadow spoke up anyway.

            “You feel it too, hm?” The others all turned to look at the cat-sized, jackdaw demon, “The energy of this place, the faith, it’s heavy here.”

            The faith. If someone had told Izuku at the start of the year that faith was something that could be tangibly felt, he would have looked at them like they had drank a little too much cool-aid.

            Now, however? Now he looked slowly to his own hands and wondered if this was just another sign of his otherness. Another sign that he didn’t quite belong in this world, that there was something just under his pallid skin, something dark and terrible.

            Something more akin to what he should be, rather than what he was.

            “Faith,” Nemesis wondered through his mind as Izuku moved to catch up to the others, “That is the power we feel. Interesting.”

            “Can you really feel faith?” Ochaco asked Fumikage suddenly, her eyes wide with wonder. “I mean, really?”

            “I cannot, but Dark Shadow can,” His crimson eyes glanced to Izuku, “And so can Izuku, evidently. Being here, in this place, helps me when Dark Shadow becomes too much. The energy here helps keep them controlled.”

            Dark Shadow mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘for now’ but was otherwise quickly silenced by a frown from Fumikage.

            “I wonder if it’ll keep Nemesis controlled too,” Izuku asked as walked up the wooden steps to the porch where his friends waited, “I don’t know though,” He bit his lip nervously and looked around, “Nemesis never behaves. Ever.”

            “One cannot control shadow and fire.” Nemesis reasoned to Izuku, like a snake curling around its prey, “We simply act as we will, as we should do.”

            “I still have my doubts, of course,” Tenya announced with a frown and a nod, mostly to himself, “However, regardless of my beliefs, I would like to visit the shrine here and make a quick prayer before we leave, if simply for politeness' sake.”

            “Same,” Hitoshi agreed with a nod, “I’m not one for praying but, fuck, if demons exist than Gods should do too, right?”

            “Good assessment, Mind-Taker,” Dark Shadow mused with a cackle, “There are no atheists in foxholes.”

            Hitoshi frowned at the demon, though he had no time to push the subject before Fumikage turned and opened the door to his home, allowing them all inside.

            Once they had taken off their shoes and taken a few steps into the home, it seemed as though Izuku’s earlier hunch was correct. The home itself was surprisingly modern for one set on such ancient ground, though it was modern in the sense that it was still traditional in aesthetic but updated. There was a dip in the center of the home, where a kotatsu table stood, the heater and blankets already put away for the summer.

            The floors were hard wood and clean, the shelves well organized, and a large screen television was mounted to the far wall across from a comfortable looking cream upholstered couch.

            There was plenty of light streaming from open windows and sliding doors, as well as little trinkets and pictures on the walls. Everything seemed wide set and spacious, though Izuku supposed it would do. He had lived in his small apartment with his mother all his life and knew nothing else as far as homes went.

            All was simple and almost minimalistic in nature, though to Izuku it also seemed well lived in and homely.

            There was no second floor and Izuku assumed somewhere down one of the corridors was Fumikage’s room, and for a second, he wondered if it was just as dark and as gloomy as his own.

            Then, from a side room, which Izuku took to be a kitchen, a voice suddenly called out, “Fumikage? Is that you?”

            The voice was old, sounding almost as old as the temple itself, yet was somehow backed by a youthful and vibrant vigor.

            Fumikage seemed to stiffen for a moment and, just for a moment, Izuku wondered if it was fear. It took his other reaction, one of sudden and quick hurrying of the others through the corridor, for Izuku to figure out what his actual reaction was.

            Though Ochaco seemed to have figured it out first.

            “Is that your grandfather?” She grinned suddenly, “Are we gonna see baby pictures of little Fumikage?!”

            “Who’s that?” The voice called again, coming closer now even as Fumikage desperately tried to hurry them along.

            “No one, Grandfather!” Fumikage called out, but it was already too late.

            “We’re his friends! From school!” Hitoshi called out, dodging Fumikage’s attempt to literally push him further into the house, “And he’s trying to stop us from saying hi!”

            “Fumikage!” The voice barked as it rounded the corner to the kitchen, “Do not be so rude!”

            A figure appeared and Fumikage finally gave up his efforts to hurry the group along, much to Dark Shadow’s low cackling.

            It was an old man. His back was hunched, his hands were withered and boney and shook with age. His head was not human, instead, it was that of a magpie, though the no doubt once brilliant shining blue that had streaked from his eyes was faded, and many of his feathers were no longer tipped with white but an aged grey.

            He wore a long, baggy white robe with a black billowing pants, like that of a traditional Shinto priest, which drowned his form and made him seem bulkier than he clearly was.

            In one hand he held a gnarled yet solid wooden walking stick and as he moved his joints seemed to creak with rheumatism. He only came up to Ochaco’s shoulders, and she was the shortest of them all.

            And yet despite all of this, there was an old strength to him which was undeniable, though clearly not a physical one. It was in the way held himself, in the proudness of his fading plumage. He was a man of a strong, unbreakable spirit and to look upon him was to know this, instantly.

            The moment his eyes landed on Fumikage, they brightened, or at least one did. One was the same deeply crimson color of Fumikage’s own, the other eye was darkened and grey with blindness.

            “Fumikage! Since when did you become so rude?” The old man frowned at his grandson before smiling to the others, “And since when did you gather so many friends around you? Welcome, all of you, to The Temple of The Yatagarasu, my name is Kodai Tokoyami, I am the head priest,” His good eye flicked to Fumikage in a frown, “And apparently not important enough to introduce!”

            “Grandfather I-”

            “We’re honored to be here.” Ochaco quickly announced and gave a low, respectful bow, “Thank you for welcoming us to your home, I’m Ochaco Uraraka.”

            The others quickly followed suit, giving bows and greetings.

            However, once Izuku bowed and greeted Kodai, as he did so last of all, the old man paused. “Midoriya?” He nodded to himself thoughtfully. “So, you’re the one who saved my Fumikage’s life?”

            Izuku paused at this, unsure on how to take the statement. “I… suppose?” He looked to his friends for support, but Fumikage seemed to be very interested in his boots for the moment, and the others only smiled encouragingly at him. When he turned back to the old man, he found himself stammering out, “I-I-” He paused and looked down, “I did more harm than good.”

            “Nonsense.” Kodai hobbled forward until he was within arm’s reach of Izuku.

            The air seemed… charged around him, and Izuku could feel Nemesis suddenly arching up within his blood, like a nervous animal approached by a fellow predator, unsure on how to react.

            “He is… strong.” Nemesis whispered almost nervously through his mind as it slithered heat across his scars, “We have never seen a creature like him. His soul is… bright. Like the soul of the Fading King, though it is purer somehow.”

            Again, Izuku could feel the strange static-like charge move across his skin, giving him gooseflesh and setting his teeth on edge. The old man seemed to radiate it, though Izuku had no question as to why. He was the head priest, so no doubt he was steeped in the faith of this place. And yet even though his energy, his faith, seemed to make Izuku want to bite the inside of his cheeks, he didn’t feel any malice from him. If anything, the static seemed to ask him to relax, to breath easier, to know he was safe.

            He didn’t, of course, but it certainly seemed that way.

            “You saved my grandson’s life and you saved the lives of others,” His one good eye seemed to bore into Izuku’s gaze, relentless and unbreakable, “And for that, young man, I thank you, deeply.”

            He bowed slowly, though even as he did so Fumikage rushed to aid him, “Grandfather! Your back! Don’t-”

            At the same time, Izuku quickly began stammering out, “No- no, I didn’t- I don’t deserve-”

            “I’m old, Fumikage! But I’m not old enough to thank those who save the lives of those I love!” Kodai snapped at his grandson as he righted himself once more, leaning heavily now on his walking stick. Again, the old man fixed Izuku with his shockingly study, though half-blind gaze. “As for you, take the thanks! You deserve it, but…” He paused and cocked his head.

            Then, like a bolt of lightning, he smacked Izuku on the shin with his walking stick.

            Pain, sharp and hot chomped into his leg, along with a curious rush of the numbing-tingling feeling that he’d now come to associate with holy things. Izuku yelped as fire rushed along his scars, and he tried to hop and grab his shin and pull an infuriated Nemesis back all at the same time. As such he suddenly fell hard against the nearest wall before toppling over completely and landing with a heavy smack onto the hardwood floor.

            The others quickly jolted in shock, looking in confusion from a wincing, hissing Izuku who was nursing his shin, to the old man, whom Fumikage was standing beside facepalming with both hands.

            “Humpf,” Kodai seemed to give a rather self-satisfied nod to himself as Izuku and the others looked on, “Just as I thought. Unbalanced.”

            “WE’LL BURN HIM ALIVE!” Nemesis screamed through Izuku’s mind as his friends helped him back up, Hitoshi and Ochaco obviously suppressing grins of amusement, “UNLEASH US!”

            Izuku gritted his teeth and forced his demonic beast back down. There would be no setting anything on fire, not today of all days. Besides, in his own self-defeating manner, he was already reasoning that he deserved it.

            Dark Shadow erupted into an intense, jackdawish laughter as Kodai shook his head at the floored Izuku. “Find your balance, young man! Or you may never find peace.” And with that, he turned and began hobbling back to the kitchen, “I won’t intrude on your day, Fumikage, Gods know you need to spend time with more people your own age. Just don’t get into too much trouble.”

            “We won’t, Grandfather!” Fumikage called back as Izuku rubbed the last of the ache out of his shin.

            Somehow, Izuku didn’t quite buy that statement.

            Izuku liked the room the moment he walked into it. It was well lit and bright, with sliding panel doors and open top windows. There was a small vase with freshly picked flowers at one wall, as well as a stand where a robe was hung, patterned with surprisingly dark colors and black feathers. The floor was completely clear and hard wood, like the rest of the home.

            And yet there were some things that stood out. On small stands around the room were wooden symbols of various religions, and on the far side wall hung a large sword in a sheath wrapped with black cloth.

            This was Fumikage’s meditation room, so he had told them, and the place where they would be conducting Izuku’s newest test.

            As the others looked around the room, Izuku found himself being drawn slowly towards the sword, and the closer he got, the more he felt the energy it seemed to radiate.

            He felt his skin crawling with gooseflesh, and again he marveled at the new sensation. And yet, somehow, this was not the same as the rest of the energy he had felt in this place, nor was it like the old-yet-comforting static of Kodai’s faith. This felt… sharp, biting, like the razor-edge of a lightning bolt, caught and forged into steel.

            Nemesis was growling at it from within his brain. It knew it was dangerous, it knew, just as Izuku himself knew. And yet he couldn’t stop staring-

            “Izuku?” Fumikage asked simply, cutting into Izuku’s distracted thoughts.

            His eyes snapped from the sword to his raven-feathered friend and he blinked in shock, “O-oh? Sorry, I just-”

            “The sword can be distracting,” Dark Shadow mused from atop their master’s head, “Its singing bothers me, but I’ve learned to ignore it.”

            The others exchanged confused glances at this, but otherwise kept their silence. Izuku gave the sword one last look, then turned away, doing his best to tune it out.

            “I’ve been thinking a lot about how you reacted to the holy water, back at the USJ,” Fumikage announced calmly as he stood on the far side of the meditation room. He seemed oddly tense, almost nervous, though Izuku wasn’t sure why, “And I’ve been wondering if perhaps what I used was not enough. Perhaps whatever claims your soul is stronger than a few droplets of blessed water.”

            “What is he talking about?” Nemesis snarled into Izuku’s ear, “What new trap is this?”

            Fumikage’s eyes turned to the others and he suddenly announced, “Can you join me, please? What is about to happen may require all our efforts.” His crimson gaze turned back to the green haired boy, “Izuku? Will you walk into the center of the room?”

            Now Izuku was staring to feel nervous. He slowly stepped forwards and his tail began swaying and twitching, betraying his anxiety. Of course, one didn’t need to watch his tail for any evidence of that. His stomach flipped and he began toying with his fingers, unsure of what Fumikage was about to do.

            Already Nemesis was moving through his scars and flickering ember-flame was dancing across his body, matching his nervousness, ready to jump to a blue-flamed defense if needed.

            He could almost feel it trying to pull him back and away, to escape whatever was coming.

            The others joined Fumikage’s side, each looking confused, though tellingly Hitoshi kept his gaze directly on Izuku.

            Once each of them was in place, Fumikage sighed softly and, in a pitying tone, simply said, “I do not know how this will affect you, Izuku, but I know for certain it will not be pleasant. For that, I apologize.”

            “What are you-”

            Izuku never got to finish his sentence. Even as he was speaking Fumikage raised a hand and clicked his fingers.

            Hitoshi had been through a lot in the past month. He had seen his best friend turn into a horrific, hell-born monstrosity and tear through another horrific, hell-born monstrosity. He had watched as the Symbol of Peace himself had beat his friend into the ground, and had then spent the next few days being unable to rest because every time he closed his eyes he had seen only blue fire and void shadow tearing through flesh and bone.

            He had then learned that Izuku had died, gone to Hell, found himself at peace there, and then had come back to life. Hitoshi had learned that demons were real, Hell was real, and that the world was a lot bigger, and a lot darker, than he had once believed.

            And yet he had clung on to what he knew. What he knew was that he had spent almost his entire life alone, isolated and shoved aside. What he knew was that he had been labeled ‘villain’ the second his quirk had manifested. What he knew was that there were others out there who had suffered like he had suffered, and he was determined to turn that around.

            What he knew, now, was that evil was a real, tangible thing, and only through the efforts of those who were good could it ever be stopped from spreading.

            He knew no one who encapsulated this concept like Izuku Midoriya. A boy whom he knew was good and yet had a quirk, a power, so terrible that it tore at the souls of those who looked upon it. A power literally drawn from Hell itself.

            A boy who had vowed with him, in a memory still so clear and fresh in Hitoshi’s mind, that he would prove the world wrong. That people like them were not villains by default, that they could be good, even with the shadows of evil calling to them with open arms.

            They could be good.

            They could be heroes.

            And yet even he, when he saw how Izuku suddenly reacted, found himself questioning whether it was even possible for his best friend to ever escape the curse that called itself his quirk.

            The second Fumikage clicked his fingers, a huge, bright light shone from under the floorboards. It was a giant circle, and within it a five-pointed star in which Izuku stood in the middle. However, through each of the outer triangles formed by the lines of the star were set odd, glowing symbols the origin and meaning of which evaded him, though Hitoshi was sure he’d seen at least one of them in an old Quran his Grandmother kept on a shelf in her nursing home.

            Other than that, it was simply a somewhat confusing set of symbols set in a large star inside a circle which glowed from under the floorboards.

            But to Fumikage, Dark Shadow and, most importantly Izuku, it was clearly something more.

            Izuku screamed from within the circle and collapsed instantly to his knees. Fumikage folded his arms slowly, though there was an element of tense apprehension to his action.

            Hitoshi went to move forwards, to find out why his friend was crying out in pain, but in a second the shadow-cold form of Dark Shadow swept before him, arms held wide.

            “Do not break the circle, Mind-Taker!” For once its voice was sharp, almost hard, “If you do, Nemesis will escape.”

            “What the fuck are you doing?!” Hitoshi, blocked by the demon, turned his angry gaze to Fumikage, “We can’t-”

            “Be patient, Hitoshi Shinsou,” Fumikage announced in a loud tone, loud enough to go over Izuku’s screaming as the boy continued to curl into a ball, “All of you, do not break the circle.”

            “He’s in pain!” Ochaco called out suddenly, her voice broken with sudden panic, “We can’t-”

            “We must,” Fumikage’s voice was suddenly as cold as Dark Shadow’s touch, and something almost cruel had crept into his crimson gaze. This was a pain he knew all too well, and Hitoshi could see it written all over him. “If Nemesis is truly of Hell, it will not be able to break the circle.”

            “But Izuku is-”

            “We need answers," Fumikage’s crimson gaze frowned deeper, "And the only way we will get them is by forcing them out of Nemesis itself. Izuku will endure, just as I have endured in the past.”

            Hitoshi was caught. On one hand, he wanted to help his friend, but on the other… on the other Fumikage was the only expert they had in this kind of thing, and he spoke with such an anchored authority that he felt helpless.

            Izuku screamed again and Hitoshi felt his stomach flipping as he watched the blotches of shadow, what Izuku and Fumikage had called ‘unlight’, form across patches of his friend’s skin, growing and fading in rapid succession. They all jumped, even Fumikage, as suddenly a pair of vast wings sprouted from Izuku’s back, tearing through his shirt but only half-forming before fading into a shower of ash.

            “SEVENTH SON!” The voice, at once Izuku’s and at once a thousand more, seemed to fill every corner of the room with its vile hatred.

            Izuku looked up from his position and Hitoshi felt an entire iceberg of fear sail right down his spine. One of his eyes was normal, crying, but normal. The other was blacker than the darkest night. A void-space lit only by the unnatural glowing-green of his iris. Half his face was crying out in fear, the other half was snarling like a starved wolf.

            A hand shot out and claws like talons stabbed into Fumikage’s floorboard. Where they landed, flames blue and bright and terrible sparked into life. Izuku’s scars were flickering as the fire of Hell itself coursed unchecked through his body, no doubt being fueled by the monster inside him.

            Though despite all of this it seemed as though the teenager was still fighting back. His other arm reached out and grabbed onto the one now possessed by Nemesis and Hitoshi could see his now long, blackened fingernails digging deep into his skin in some small attempt to stop his demon.

            “YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS!”

            “I doubt it, little demon,” Dark Shadow suddenly cackled back before its master could tell it to be silent, “You’ll never escape the cage.”

            “Nemesis,” Fumikage called out in a stern, strong tone, “I demand you-”

            Suddenly, on kicking feet with claws ripping through burning socks, Izuku jolted forward and out of the inner hexagon, though he landed with a heavy smack onto the floorboards as only half his body made the attempt. Again, his clawed hand landed into the circle, burning and scraping in any attempt to drag itself toward its most hated target, leaving vast and ugly marks in the wooden floor.

            The air filled with the stench of burning wood and corrupt fire, so much so Hitoshi could taste it on the back of his throat.

            Fumikage took a step back, his crimson eyes, before so filled with a grim confidence, were now wide and shocked and at the same time Dark Shadow’s grin fell.

            “YOU CANNOT STOP US!” Nemesis cried out with Izuku’s fanged mouth, even as tears still fell from one cheek, almost evaporating as they dripped from his fire-scarred cheek. “YOU CANNOT CAGE US!”

            The half-Nemesis, half-Izuku creature dragged itself forward again, past the glowing symbols and edging closer towards the edge of the circle and Hitoshi felt his heart pounding in his chest.

            Memories of the USJ were flashing through his mind as clear as day. Memories of the thing Izuku had become, Nemesis unleashed. Already he could see the muscles bulging under his friend’s shirt, his tail had lengthened and thickened and was thrashing wildly behind him.

            Before Hitoshi had been half-stupid and barely holding onto his senses thanks to concussions and heavy punishment brought by the fists of villains.

            Now, however, he had his chance to make right his failure to stop Nemesis before. He had allowed All Might to take the fight to the monster without doing anything of his own to help. Izuku had died, and Hitoshi had practically encouraged it to happen. The guilt had weighed in his heart since, heavy and ugly and acidic.

            He would not make another mistake like it, not ever again.

            He glanced to the others and saw Ochaco, tears in her eyes and panic clearly gripping her heart. He saw Tenya, frozen to the spot, his eyes wide and horrified at what he was seeing, and Fumikage. Fumikage who had assured them that this wasn’t possible, that Nemesis could not escape the circle, was shocked into inaction.

            So, it was on him then.

            As Izuku again launched himself forward, one claw finally landing outside the circle and burning another scarred scorch mark into the floor Hitoshi leapt into action, “Yo, demon boy, before you go turning Fumikage into fried chicken how about we go a few rounds, huh?”

            Izuku’s half-formed gaze turned to him, and the freezing-inferno of his shadow-black eye fixed Shinsou to the spot while the other, still human, grew wide and shocked, “WE ARE NOT-”

            And then, just like that, it froze.

            Everything froze.

            There was no more screaming or crying from Izuku or from the creature that lived under his skin. There was, in fact, no movement at all. The thing that was half-Nemesis and half-Izuku went utterly, almost stupidly, still. Its mouth was still half-open from its screaming many-voiced cry but its eyes now only wide and staring and… somehow empty.

            “What- what happened?” Tenya asked suddenly, having finally finding his voice amongst the absolute madness he had just experienced.

            “Owwww.” Hitoshi grumbled out and raised his fingers to his temples, rubbing them in slow circles. He took a long, slow breath through his nose as pain, hot and sharp and stabbing, began radiating through either side of his brain. “Fumikage… shut the fucking circle off I’ve got this.”

            “I- Right,” Fumikage looked up suddenly and announced, “Voice control, Solomon’s Cage off.”

            The circle vanished, and with it, a small portion of the headache Hitoshi felt. Not all of it, of course, but enough to take some of the edge off.

            “Are you- did you just brainwash a demon?” Ochaco asked in sudden awe, her voice still shaking, as she moved over to the others, pausing to hesitate awkwardly around the still prone Izuku.

            It was like he was caught in time, one leg curled and clawed like a wolf, the other human, though with some black nails poking out through his sock. His scars still flickered with the furnace blue of his hellfire power, and blotches of unlight still speckled his skin. Some long spines had pierced through the back of his shirt and even his tail had been seemingly caught mid-swish.

            But he remained utterly motionless.

            “I’m… trying…” Hitoshi breathed out heavily. “It’s like lassoing a fucking -ghh- tsunami made of -agh- fire or something…”

            Whenever he took a mind it felt like a rope that he held within a mental fist. He could feel the pulls and tugs of a will trying to escape, but they were never very strong and certainly nothing he couldn’t handle, even as a child.

            This, however. This felt like he was digging his heels into the ground and gripping the rope with two hands. He had control, yes, but a moment’s distraction could let the thing loose. He wasn’t sure what it was, all he knew was that it was terrible and chaotic and… angry. Very, very, angry.

            “I don’t -ugh- know if this is going to work so -nrr- surround him or something,” Hitoshi breathed out as the pain got ever greater, ever more intense. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his skull and the coppery taste of blood was on his tongue.

            As he watched the others make a semi-formed circle around Izuku and Ochaco’s eyes widened at her friend, “Hitoshi, y-your nose-”

            “I know,” The teenager snapped back. He could feel it. The sickly-thick, wet trace of blood slowly flowing from his nose and onto his lip. He winced as Izuku’s mind pulled again at the mental control and he took a sharp breath.

            But he would not be beaten. He would not allow the USJ to have a sequel right here in Fumikage’s home, where nothing and no-one could help them. He would save all of them, here and now, because he could and should.

            “Listen to my words, you- you complete idiot,” He spoke through gritted teeth, the last of his own mental strength threatening to melt as he spoke, the rope burning in his quirk’s grasp, “You’re going sleep for an hour and wake up nice and calm. No freaking out, no getting mad, no fire and shadow. Do it, now.”

            And just like that Hitoshi felt the rope suddenly stop its struggling. Just like that, Izuku’s entire body fell flat onto the floor and, in a shower of dissipating ash that vanished in a wind none of them felt, he formed back into his usual self.

            Just like that, Izuku and Nemesis went to sleep.

            Izuku woke as he always woke. With a jolt.

            He spasmed, his eyes shot wide open, and for a split second, he wondered how many he had killed, how many he had eaten and burned and ruined. How much damage and pain had he caused the world this time?

            And then he felt the soft warmth of daylight on his face, the comforting firmness of the mattress under him and, while he felt as though he’d just done All Might’s personal training regime, he was thankful he didn’t feel the old familiar starch of bandages. He sat up slowly, pulling his head away from the band of sunlight that had shone across him.

            Nemesis, however, was not happy. “WHERE IS HE?” The fire roared across Izuku’s mind and body, and he curled tightly, hunching over as if someone had punched him in the stomach, “WHERE IS THE CHILD OF PHARAOHS? WE’LL RIP HIM APART FOR HIS TRECHERY!”

            “Nnng,” The wordless sound of pain escaped Izuku’s gritted teeth as he fought to keep the blasphemous, oil-slick power from escaping out of his hands and burning everything around him. He curled it inwards with tremendous effort and felt the burning of his own body from the inside. With a heavy pant, he felt Nemesis fade back into his blood, though its fury was far from cooled.

            “All of them. All of them will pay for this. They tricked us. They came to us with open arms and then placed us in that- that cage. And then…” He could almost feel Nemesis curling its talons within his blood. It was a raking, bloodthirsty simmer within his own mind. “And then he dared to take our mind, to command us like a slave. Traitors. All of them, traitors.”

            Izuku had to admit he did feel… hurt. He had never felt anything like he had felt in that circle-star-whatever it was. It had been like someone had turned the strange numbing-tingling sensation of faith up to eleven and it’d become a lightning storm roaring across his whole body. Nemesis had of course rushed to his defense, or perhaps, had taken advantage of his own shock and sudden weakness to try and finally end Fumikage’s life.

            Either way, it had been like the test with Aizawa-sensei all over again, though this time he had not ended it almost dying in a strange greyscale fog but falling asleep to a command that had been punched into his brain by Hitoshi. It had been the last thing he remembered before waking up, though no doubt the command had worked if the entire house wasn’t on fire.

            He’d almost lost control again, and had gained no new answers, other than perhaps that at least Hitoshi, with his quick thinking, could command him to sleep if he ever got close to unleashing Nemesis again. That and now his socks and shirt had holes in them. Great. Super. Fucking wonderful.

            “Ah, you’re awake I see.”

            Izuku jumped suddenly and turned at the sound of the old, creaking voice. His eyes quickly landed on Kodai, who had been sitting by an opened panel door which let out directly into the Zen garden. He was bathed entirely in the sunlight, while Izuku, sitting upright, was at least half-cast in the shadow of the room. Kodai smiled softly over to the teenager as he sipped at a cup of tea he held in both hands.

            “The Priest,” Nemesis growled softly, “Is he here to trick us too?”

            “I-I’m sorry,” Izuku’s voice was shaking, weak, though he knew he hadn’t hurt himself too badly it still felt as though he had run a marathon. “I… I think I ruined your meditation room.”

            The old man laughed a soft, genuine laugh, before shaking his feathered head, “I have been raising Fumikage since he was six years old. I am used to my meditation room being a little worse for wear, young man.” He smiled and sipped at the tea, “Your friends are eating food with my fool of a Grandson. I wish he had told me his plans for today, I wouldn’t have allowed it otherwise.”

            “It’s okay, it’s my fault, I should have-”

            “You should have done nothing, other than perhaps not go along with it,” Kodai cut in suddenly, a frown forming on his old and wizened features. Strange how he could look so sharp and cutting, even with his old age, “He told me everything. Using the Solomon’s Cage on you, how you reacted, and how your friend saved you all. He’s a good one, that Hitoshi Shinsou. I see greatness in his future, but he is like you. Unbalanced.”

            “We are perfectly balanced when he isn’t hitting us with his cane,” Nemesis snarked back. It was still angry, but now more irritated and grumpy than outright wrathful. Izuku could feel it tense with Kodai’s presence, as if the very aura of the man’s faith was a threat to its existence.

            Izuku could feel his tail twitching and then slowly drooping as he looked down. “I thought… I thought maybe I would find some answers, but I just…”

            “I believe you are looking for answers in the wrong place, young man.” Kodai announced in a strange tone as he turned his head to look back out to the temple grounds. His feathers, grey and ancient, fluttered slightly in the whispering breeze. “I understand you trust your friends, and I can vouch that my Fumikage will do all he can to assist you, as he knows your pain like few others ever will. However, you will not find answers face-down on my meditation room floor.”

            Izuku blinked at this, “Th-Then how-?”

            “Go to the source of your problems,” Kodai replied simply. “Go to the beginning. Find your origins and move from there. That is how I helped Fumikage, so that Dark Shadow did not devour his soul. We went to the beginning of it all, and from that point, he found his balance.” He sighed heavily before slowly, almost creakingly, getting back onto his feet. Izuku quickly scrambled out of the make-shift bed to help him, but by the time he had made his way over to the old priest, he was already upright. “Now, I’m going to go watch my stories. You should join my Grandson and your friends in the dining room before they finish eating.”

            With that, the old man hobbled his way out of the room, sliding the door closed behind him and leaving Izuku alone. The young man, unsure of where to go, simply walked out onto the deck of the home. Without any other distractions, he found himself focusing on the strange, distant humming sensation of the temple’s ancient spirituality playing over his skin, and as such, as he stared out onto the Zen garden, began softly wringing his hands together.

            “The source of our problems? Our origin?” Nemesis whispered through Izuku’s mind as he felt the breeze play with his hair and cool the heat on his scars.

            Izuku wondered himself just what the old man had meant, but after a few seconds, his stomach growled loudly and he rolled his eyes before turning and heading out the room.

Chapter Text

            It had taken Izuku a few moments to make his way around the house and back to the living room. Fumikage’s home was surprisingly big for what it seemed, and as such he had almost gotten lost twice.

            It was only due to the sound of chatter that he even found his way at all.

            That and the shame of almost letting Nemesis out was lingering in his stomach, twisting and trashing within it, like an angered snake. His heart felt heavy and he had half a mind to remain in the spare room, pretending he was still sleeping until it was time to leave.

            But he knew that he was being stupid and besides, Nemesis did have a point when it came to Fumikage. Izuku couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that his newest friend hadn’t given him the full details as to what his ‘test’ would do. What had Kodai called it, a ‘Solomon’s Cage’? Whatever it was it had hurt. A lot.

            He wasn’t angry at Fumikage, he wasn’t going to shout him out over it, but he would like to know why he hadn’t been told about it. Izuku had trusted Fumikage and now it felt as though that trust hadn’t been repaid.

            The sound of chatter came from the other side of a traditional sliding door and Izuku took a moment to gather his thoughts, squish down his anxiety, and silence Nemesis’s cold threats of burning them all alive for their betrayal before slowly opening the door.

            The four friends were seated around a kotatsu table, the same one Izuku had seen when he had first arrived, and almost as one they looked up as he entered the room.

            Ochaco was first on her feet, a wide and relieved smile on her face, “Izuku! You’re awake!” She grabbed him into a tight hug, which sent another flicker of candle-flame across his scars, before letting him go and grinning at him, “And just in time for lunch! We saved you some food.”

            “Izuku!” Fumikage had also risen to his feet, and for a moment the room paused as the two made eye contact. There was a strange, heavy tension that filled the air before he bowed deeply, his arms straight at his side and his eyes focused down, “Izuku, I deeply and sincerely apologize for misleading you. I know the cage is painful, and it was wrong of me not to warn you beforehand.”

            “I…” Izuku was a little lost for words before a sudden surge of angry fire rushed along his limbs and the darker parts of his heart and mind demanded he make Fumikage pay for his actions.

            “If it makes you feel any better, we got to watch while his grandfather yelled at him for, like, ten minutes while waving a frying pan,” Ochaco flashed an amused smile at him.

            “I really, really wish I’d filmed that,” Hitoshi chuckled as Fumikage clearly winced in embarrassment at the memory, “How long are you grounded for again?”

            “After today, a month, with full temple cleaning duties,” Fumikage mumbled, still not making eye contact with any of his friends.

            Izuku had to admit, part of him wanted to be spiteful and cruel and scream at Fumikage for hurting him. And yet… and yet it wasn’t in his better nature to do so. It wasn’t him to hold grudges, and as such, he sighed heavily and announced, “I accept your apology.”

            “WE SHOULD BE BURNING HIM ALIVE!” Nemesis immediately erupted through his mind, causing Izuku to wince and Ochaco, still beside him, to jump just slightly. “NOT ACCEPTING HIS APOLOGY!”

            “But I would, you know, like to know what the hell that circle thing was, if that’s okay?” He couldn’t help but ask, if only as a way to appease the monster storming through his brain, not to mention his own grumbling irritation at being misled.

            “Of course,” Fumikage bowed again clearly relieved, “I owe it to you, to all of you. And now that we are somewhere safe and truly private, I will try and answer as many questions as I can.”

            Now this did cheer Izuku up and, combined with the absolutely mouth-watering smell of the lunch Kodai had made, he quickly moved to sit down with the others. He gathered a bowl, filled it with food, and took a swift bite, glad that he had slept off the usual wave of nausea that came from using his quirk.

            The food was as delicious as it looked, and Izuku made a mental note to thank the old priest later. He even felt his tail give a slightly embarrassing wag of joy as he tasted the meal. He opened up a can of coke and took a very welcome drink. He often found himself more thirsty than hungry, and he supposed having a power that relied mostly on fire would dry anyone out quickly.

            Hitoshi smirked from beside his friend and with a mouthful of food asked, “So, did you enjoy your power nap?”

            “We’re going to devour his heart,” Nemesis threatened with a deep and wolfish growl, “Slowly. In front of him.”

            “Actually, yeah, kinda.” Izuku answered back with a wry smile, “Nemesis didn’t. It thinks you betrayed us- it.”

            “Well, sorry Nemesis,” Hitoshi replied with a tired shrug, “But it was either that or everything got set on fire. I’ll pick putting the two of you to sleep any day of the week.”

            “Same.”

            “At least we know now you can put it to sleep,” Tenya answered in a thoughtful tone, though one lacking his usual… luster.

            Izuku looked to him and was surprised to see him frowning in deep thought, his fingers linked over his food and his elbows resting on the table. Something was troubling him, clearly, and it seemed he’d hardly even touched his own food. It took Izuku a moment to realize that for Tenya, this was his first time seeing any part of Nemesis.

            And what a hell of an introduction it’d been.

            “That’s… a good thing…” The taller teenager mumbled mostly to himself, taking a short, almost shuddering breath, “Definitely a good thing.”

            Ochaco rubbed Tenya’s back and gave a small, tired smile of her own, “Yeah, Tenya’s had his Nemesis cherry popped. Expect not to sleep tonight.”

            “Sorry about that,” Izuku muttered out, much to the protests of his inner demon, “But I mean… I didn’t expect any of that to happen.”

            “Which was my fault.” Fumikage answered with a slow nod, “Which, I again, apologize for.”

            “Yeah, about that, I think it’s time for you to start answering some questions.” Hitoshi spoke up and again, waved his chopsticks expectantly at the bird-headed teenager, “Firstly, what the fuck. Secondly, how the fuck. Thirdly, why the fuck.”

            Fumikage paused for a moment as if wondering what the heck Hitoshi was even talking about, before nodding slowly, “Understandable.” He sighed and, in a heavy voice, began to explain, “Dark Shadow’s major weakness is light, which is why they’re easier to control in the day rather than at night. Still, sometimes more... intensive methods are required. The lights under the floorboard form a pattern that my grandfather and I use to control Dark Shadow whenever they become… unruly.” His voice seemed to dip at whatever painful memories it brought up before he moved on, “It is known as a Solomon’s Cage. It was Dark Shadow who showed us how to make it, and only at the threat of the sword at their throat. No creature of Hell can escape from the center, no matter how strong or powerful they may be. It causes them great pain to be within, utterly disabling them.”

            “And you didn’t tell us about this… why?” Hitoshi asked with a raised eyebrow.

            “It was part of the overall test.” Fumikage announced calmly as he turned his crimson eyes back to Izuku, “If you knew what you were walking into, and knew what it could do, you might not have agreed to it, or rather, Nemesis might not have agreed to it. And after seeing how you reacted to the holy water, well, I came to the conclusion that putting you unknowingly into a Solomon’s Cage to see how you would honestly react was the best course of action.

            “So, he tricked us like a coward?”

            “I… kinda see your point, I guess,” Izuku mumbled out, ignoring his own inner demon as well as the bit of his heart that still wanted to punch Fumikage.

            “Again,” He bowed his beak towards Izuku, “I apologize for my misguidance. At no point did I truly intend to harm you, Izuku. But as you know all too well, demons are… tricky to handle, and will not always willingly cooperate.” 

            “Sounds handy,” Ochaco added before putting a finger to her chin, “So… how did Nemesis manage to get out?”

            “Because we are shadow and fire, because we are unstoppable, and because we are no demon,” Nemesis bragged from within Izuku’s mind.

            “I honestly do not know,” Fumikage replied with a slow shrug before looking to Izuku, who was slowly chewing a piece of beef, “Whatever is within you, my friend, is truly unique.”

            “I would like to know as well, little demon,” Dark Shadow’s voice cawed out in a long, slow threat as they uncurled from behind Fumikage, forming to sit once more atop their master’s head. However, their eyes were no longer mocking and grinning, they had become hard and tense, and were glaring right at Izuku.

            The teenager shifted uncomfortably under their stare and looked down to his bowl of food, “Nemesis doesn’t have an answer and I don’t either. Though… I think I might have a theory.”

            “Go on?” Hitoshi urged in an unusually soft tone.

            Since sitting down, it had been dwelling in the back of his mind, the words spoken to him by Kodai. His origins, the beginning of his pain and suffering, where all of this had truly started.

            “I- I know this is going to sound- I don’t know- really dumb or stupid or whatever but…” He trailed off as his hands slowly dropped to the table before cupping his coke for a moment. Izuku didn’t look up, making eye contact with nothing but his bowl of food and not even truly seeing that.

            His mind was sifting through all the information he had on hand, and most especially, through the memories of that blasphemous place of shadow and fire that he had walked through. The Hell he had seen which had felt like a true home to his heart and soul, and yet, had been nothing but terror and horror at every turn. A place he never wished to see again… yet he couldn’t deny had given him a sense of balance and peace he had never experienced before or after.

            “I never knew my dad. I mean, it’s always just been me and mom in our apartment. Whenever I asked about him, she’d just get angry and tell me he was a horrible person who left when I was born. She never talks about him, but lately after everything that happened and…” He trailed off again before slowly looking to the others, each of whom looked to him with calm, patient eyes.

            He could trust them. Again, and again he needed reminding, but again and again he was given the same answer that calmed his nerves. He could trust them.

            “When I was- when I was in Hell,” He had to force the word out, and a ripple of blasphemous fire moved across his scars, “There was a- a thing, it called itself Nirgali, and it called me Lucifer, like it knew me,” He frowned in thought as he spoke, “It said I stole their blood and- and accused me of wearing a crown…” Izuku couldn’t help but notice how Dark Shadow seemed to tense at his words, “So… what if Kaach- erm- Katsuki was right? What if I’m only half-human? What if… what if my father is Lucifer?”

            There was a long pause in which the air seemed heavy and cold and tense.

            And then Dark Shadow laughed. They burst into a raucous, jackdawish laughter which broke all tension within the room and caused all heads to turn towards the shadow-black demon.

            “YOU ARE TRULY FULL OF YOURSELF, NEMESIS!” Dark Shadow laughed so hard that, despite often defying gravity, they rolled off Fumikage’s head and landed onto the floor with a heavy thump. “YOU OUTSMART SOME TESTS, SO OF COURSE YOU MUST BE ONE OF THE FALLEN! WHAT ABSOLUTE NONSENSE!”

            Izuku wasn’t sure if he should feel insulted or upset at the laughter. Nemesis quickly roared with anger through Izuku’s scars and he felt the burning of his Hell-born fire boil across his body, though again he suppressed it all back down.

            Before anyone else could act Fumikage was already frowning down at his quirk-familiar, “Dark Shadow! I command you to explain yourself.”

            The demon quickly climbed back up to hover above their master’s shoulder and seemed to wipe an imaginary tear of mirth from their eyes. “I’m sorry, Master, but that is the most insane babbling I’ve ever heard! And I’m over six hundred years old!”

            Dark Shadow was over six hundred years old? Izuku knew that at this point he really ought to stop being surprised by the weirdness his life seemed to be built upon, but even so, such casual statements continued to catch him off-guard.

            “Neither Izuku nor Nemesis seem to burn when touched by items blessed, nor does true faith seem to affect them unless they’re placed within a Solomon’s Cage and even then, they managed to crawl their way out of it,” Fumikage barked at his familiar, his crimson gaze narrow and irritated, “So please, enlighten us if you have any better ideas.”

            Dark Shadow finally stopped their giggling and crossed their arms across their chest, “You have done some amazing things, Nemesis, I grant you that. However, for you to claim you are the offspring of one of the Fallen, of Lord Lucifer, they who fell First and Furthest, your ego must be beyond even the Almighty Bastard’s scope.” Izuku blinked in shock as Dark Shadow pointed a talon-like finger towards him, “Firstly, the Fallen cannot breed with the mortals. It is impossible, otherwise it would have already happened, every denizen of the pit knows this.”

            Izuku went to open his mouth to protest that he wasn’t a denizen of any pit, but he was quickly cut off again.

            “Secondly, you cannot have entered the Hall of Pandemonium to see Lord Nirgali because no one other than the Fallen themselves have entered it for thousands of years. Not to mention it is well known that The Rot-Mother has long since lost their mind. And thirdly,” And now they jabbed their finger at Izuku as if to make their point more known, “There is a much easier explanation for how you can seemingly perform impossible tasks while clearly being of Hell. You are Ascended.”

            There was a long and slightly awkward pause at this before Hitoshi coughed politely, “Well, that was really, super informative there, demon, but do you mind maybe explaining what the fuck you’re on about?”

            “I agree with Hitoshi,” Ochaco announced with a slightly confused, though calm tone as she grasped a can of coke in one hand, her pinky finger held out, “You can’t just babble all that and expect us to know. I mean we’re all new to this stuff.”

            “Fine, moon-child, I shall explain for the unenlightened.” Dark Shadow moved from one shoulder to the other, looking across the table and seemingly taking a moment to bask in the attention they were being given. “I admit I have only ever heard of it in whisper and rumor, but the general idea amongst the Damned is that, theoretically, it’s possible for a mortal soul to become so deeply corrupted, so infused with the power of Hell, that they Ascend to demonhood. Such a creature would have resistances to things like true faith, or the cage, and be independent of any host body needed to maintain itself in the mortal world. They would, for want a better phrase, be of both Hell and Earth.”

            “A host body?” Tenya finally spoke up, having been simply staring into nothing with his mouth hidden behind the bridge of his fingers, “What do you mean?”

            “Ugh, I should start charging for this information, you’re lucky I’m not one of Lord Mammon’s types,” Dark Shadow huffed out, “It’s the reason why you don’t see thousands of us all over the place. Demons cannot exist in the mortal plane without being attached to, or possessing, a host body. Usually, it’ll be some dumb mortal human who sold their soul for something minor and dumb, like a dumb dummy.”

            “Ahem,” Fumikage spoke with a rather annoyed tone. He didn’t even cough, he literally spoke the word out loud and glared to his demonic quirk.

            “… orrr, they become possessed as the result of a curse. Like Master.”

            “You’re cursed?” Hitoshi asked softly, blinking in shock at the sudden revelation.

            Fumikage however, refused to make eye contact. “I don’t want to talk about it if you don’t mind. It’s… personal, and not one I wish to discuss while other, more pressing matters are at hand.”

            Izuku had known this for a while of course, and not just from Nemesis’s own whisperers. He remembered the shadow-creature during the USJ mentioning it, saying he was the seventh son of his line, cursed from birth.

            Izuku, however, kept his silence on the matter. If Fumikage didn’t wish to discuss it, he would not push him on it. Instead, he simply asked, “Well, what about the ones I- we,” He quickly looked to Fumikage, “See on a daily basis?”

            “The unborn?” Dark Shadow replied with a sneer, “They’re nothing more than mindless creatures, created by the many minor sins humans commit every day. They’re food for their more powerful kin, like myself, that’s if they don’t die by some other means. Though if they survive long enough on their own, they can awaken into sentience. It’s why we call them unborn, because they have no will of their own. Once they gain thought, they are immediately pulled into Hell.”

            “Hey so… what’s stopping you from exorcizing Dark Shadow?” Ochaco asked suddenly, only to panic when both Fumikage and Dark Shadow shot her the same, rather piercing look, “Well I just- I mean- You know, you see that in the movies!”

            “This isn’t the movies,” Fumikage replied sternly, “And while possible it is… too late to try.”

            “Too late?”

            “If you catch a demon possessing another within an hour or so, perhaps the host can survive the separation,” Dark Shadow grinned slowly as it explained, “However, when a demon claims a mortal soul, and the possession is successful, the soul becomes intertwined with the demon itself. To separate them again, even forcibly through exorcism, will indeed banish the demon, but it will also kill the host.”

            There was another sudden silence at the table before Hitoshi slowly looked between Izuku and Fumikage, “I’m… sorry then, I guess, to both of you. I was kinda wondering if that was an option to help you both but…” He breathed through his nose and put his chopsticks down. “Getting back on track though, I suppose this idea of you being an Ascended,” And he spoke the word as if it was an unfamiliar one on his tongue, “Might be an answer, especially since you said yourself Nemesis won’t answer your own questions.”

            Izuku nodded, and Nemesis grumbled something dark within Izuku’s blood, denying the claim but seemingly being just as lost on the possibility as Izuku himself.

            “There is only one issue with my theory,” Dark Shadow mumbled and put a shadow-clad talon to its ragged beak, “You’re an idiot.”

            “What?”

            “What?”

            “You should know all this stuff already. It’s like I’m explaining how to breathe to a newborn babe. You should simply know it, by virtue of your own nature,” Their tarnished-gold eyes narrowed, “But you seem to be utterly ignorant on the matters of Hell.” The beast paused, then shrugged, “Maybe you have amnesia. Unless of course, you’re just lying.”

            Izuku frowned, “I’m not lying. And I really don’t think I have amnesia.” At least he really, really hoped it wasn’t. The idea of being so utterly, terribly corrupted that he had transgressed past human into something truly, inhumanly evil was… well, actually it was something that would probably happen to him because clearly, God had it in for him.

            Still, the thought of finally having an answer to so many of his questions was an intriguing one. It didn’t resolve every question he had, but dammit, it was finally something. Today hadn’t been a waste after all.

            “We could look into it and-”

            “I will.” The others looked suddenly to Tenya, who had not moved from his position. Slowly, however, he looked up, his glasses glinting just slightly in the sunlight of the room. “I will do the research into this Ascended concept.”

            “You don’t have to,” Ochaco began, moving to place a hand on her friend’s arm. “I mean-”

            “No. No, it should be me,” Tenya pressed, his voice firm, his fingers tightening against his knuckles,“I… I had been so skeptical, so sure, that there had to be some other explanation, and I’ll be honest, a large part of me still wishes to believe that. But after today, seeing Izuku in that circle and- and hearing Dark Shadow talk I… I don’t know anymore.”

            “Heh, the truth hurts, doesn’t it, child of the machine?” Dark Shadow taunted in a mocking tone before being hushed by Fumikage.

            “I think… I think if I did the reading, if I did the research it would help me get a handle on this. Knowledge has always been a comfort to me, and if this is simply new knowledge to study and learn, then so be it. As a repayment to both of you, Fumikage and Izuku, and as my apology of sorts for not fully believing you, to begin with.”

            Izuku let out a slightly nervous smile and started, “Tenya, really, you don’t have to-”

            “No. Please, let me do this,” Tenya quickly insisted, locking Izuku with a stern gaze, “I insist.”

            “If you wish to do so, I will gladly lend you the books and notes I have, they’re not much, but they’re yours,” Fumikage announced with a nod towards the taller boy, “And I will ask my Grandfather to share his knowledge with you too.”

            “Thank you, Fumikage,” Tenya nodded respectfully back, “I’ll do my best to provide whatever help I can. My family has wealth and resources after all, surely I can use that to my advantage.”

            There was a second where the others watch as Tenya sighed and moved a hand to rub his eyes under his glasses and Izuku could feel every ounce of the tired weight that seemed to settle on his shoulders.

            “There is one other item I wished to ask you all, while we’re all here. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I insisted we talk here, and not at school,” Fumikage’s crimson gaze once again turned back to Izuku, “It’s something important, and something we can all assist in.” Izuku shared a glance to his friends for a moment before they all turned back to the raven-headed teenager. “Izuku, do you remember what the demon Kurogiri told us when we stood before it and its vile master at the fountain?”

            Izuku blinked in surprise, though at the same time, he felt his stomach twist in anxiety at the memory. The shadow-clad demon had been unnerving to look at, as had Shigaraki, the apparent leader of the cult that had forced him to let Nemesis free in the first place. Part of him still wondered if there was a better way around that, if maybe they could have been stealthier, if they had been faster or…

            He shook the thought from his head and took another sip of his coke, almost finishing it. “Erm, yeah, kinda. But you might have to be a bit more specific?”

            “Do you remember what it said about us,” Fumikage urged, though he paused for just a moment, glancing to the others before adding, “He said we were two of three corrupt souls it spotted in the class.”

            There was a long second of silence before Ochaco suddenly sat up straighter, “Wait, so there’s another one of you guys in the class? Someone who’s been possessed or something?”

            “Not exactly possessed,” Fumikage suddenly added, “But someone whose soul has been touched by Hell, yes.”

            “Wait- wait, so you’re saying someone can be touched by Hell, but not possessed? This is getting kinda complex.” Hitoshi rubbed his temple lazily with one hand.

            “It’s not complex at all, Mind-Taker,” Dark Shadow replied in its mocking, jackdawish tone, “A soul can be corrupted without being possessed, it often makes it easier for the demon in question to lead their target right into their waiting jaws. Humans are very stupid, and therefore, easily corruptible.”

            “Since returning to class I’ve asked Dark Shadow to try and see if they could also spot this other soul,” Fumikage continued and a thoughtful, almost pouty look appeared on his beak, “However, my quirk-familiar hasn’t seen any sign of another within the class marked by damnation.”

            “We know of no other with a soul marred by shadow,” Nemesis mused from within Izuku’s brain, its voice a razor wire around his throat, “The Shadow-Man clearly lied to us.”

            “Nemesis says it hasn’t seen anything either, it thinks Kurogiri lied to us,” Izuku replied with a matching look of thoughtful puzzlement. “But… I remember the guy, the leader, Nemesis couldn’t see his soul either, so-”

            “It is possible for the informed to hide their souls from others, though it is difficult to do and even harder to do well,” Dark Shadow mused, “When we first saw you, Nemesis, I encouraged master to do so. He said it would be pointless.”

            Fumikage shrugged at Izuku, “I use Dark Shadow in combat, eventually you would have put the pieces together.”

            Izuku simply shrugged back. Couldn’t argue with that.

            “It is also possible that the corruption will only show itself at certain moments, under certain conditions,” Dark Shadow continued, “Though that would require a very careful, and therefore very powerful demonic touch indeed, maybe even the touch of one of the Great Fallen themselves.”

            “So, what are our options here?” Tenya asked with a frown, “It would seem strange if we were to start asking individual members of our class about the state of their own souls.”

            “Especially coming from us lot,” Hitoshi added. The others gave him a confused look before he shrugged, “Let’s face it, at this point we’re kind of the class weirdos.”

            “I am not a weirdo!” Tenya quickly protested.

            Ochaco, however, simply nodded, “Yeah, I can see that.”

            “Ochaco, do not put yourself down so eagerly!”

            “I propose we keep an eye on our classmates,” Fumikage added with a firm tone, “Nemesis and Dark Shadow both can see into their spirits, but all of us can watch for anyone acting strange or unusual, or perhaps if we see any markings on their skin or any items that might seem out of place.”

            “In the meantime, how about you cook us up some holy water? Maybe a few blessed swords or something?” Hitoshi quickly asked Fumikage with a sly smirk, “We vowed to fight the forces of darkness, and you seem to have all the fun toys to do it with.”

            “Hitoshi!” Ochaco quickly snapped across the table to the purple headed teen, “You can’t just go demanding holy water like- like a can of coke or something!”

            “What?” The boy shrugged, “I’m just trying to be prepared! One of the Tripped could come jumping out at us at any moment!”

            “It’s the Fallen, and if one did jump out at you, Son of Alexandria, you would not survive long enough to even fight back,” Dark Shadow quickly chided with a deep frown, “Your soul would be torn to shreds within seconds and-”

            “Bitch please,” Hitoshi cut in, “I’m the next Symbol of Peace, I think I could handle a little red guy with a pointy stick.”

            Dark Shadow immediately began barking out how they alone would tear Hitoshi apart while Hitoshi continued to play their temper like a fiddle. Izuku and Ochaco’s laughter flittered across the table, and even Tenya finally cracked a smile. Fumikage, however, simply sighed, shook his head, and facepalmed.

            The tension was eased, and for the first time since arriving Izuku felt as though they weren’t all on edge. Sure, okay, it had been a close-run thing with Nemesis earlier, but it seemed as though at this point, they were taking anything they could walk away from as a victory. Izuku certainly was.

            Besides, they were on solid ground now. The USJ was in the past, and yes, he had a lot of hard work ahead of him, but he had his friends and some good advice to follow. He had to find his origins, whatever that was, and with this Ascended theory now on the table, he had a semi-solid jumping point. The reminder that one of their own classmates could be a danger was a worry, but one they could investigate with stealth and careful observation.

            Overall, he was glad he finally had some space to breathe and explore these new answers without anything huge pressing down on him.

            “The UA Sports Festival is pressing down on all of you and it’s huge.”

            Aizawa-sensei’s stern tone steamrolled through the classroom, causing every student to either sit up straight or cower down into their seats. It was defiantly a mixed bag.

            Izuku was in the ‘cower into their seat’ group. Already he was mentally kicking his own ass, how could he have possibly forgotten about the friggin’ Sports Festival?!

            “Everyone is competing,” The teacher continued, his body still wrapped head to toe in bandages, “And I expect each of you to try your hardest. This isn’t just an opportunity to better yourselves, it’s also an opportunity to advertise yourself and your abilities to potential hero agencies. Every agency in the country will be watching, and once the Sports Festival is over, you’ll be going to your summer internships. How well you do in the festival will affect which agencies will hire you.” A hand shot up, and it was Tenya, because it was almost always Tenya. Aizawa sighed and nodded over to the young man, “Yes, Iida?”

            “Sir! I hate to say anything negative about such a prestigious UA event, but is it wise to hold the festival this year considering what happened at the USJ?”

            “Yeah, I mean,” Kyoka added suddenly, “It makes more sense to call it off this year, what if those creepy cult guys attack again, like, something really bad could happen, you know?”

            Izuku could freak out. That was clearly the unspoken addition to her statement, and everyone knew it, or at least Izuku assumed everyone knew it. He wasn’t even going to deny that it was a possibility, and as such he dipped lower onto his desk, his pointed ears poking out of his curled mess of arms and hair as his tail wrapped itself around one of his legs.

            Aizawa, however, seemed to be having none of it. “The school administration wants to project a sense of strength to any criminal organizations out there who think the USJ has weakened us. By holding the Sports Festival, we’re showing that they haven’t slowed us down in the slightest. Besides, security will be tighter and tougher than in past years.”

            “I see, so not only is this a chance for the UA students to prove their worth and advertise themselves to potential agencies, it’ll be a PR victory for the school!” Tenya dropped one fist down onto his palm, “Genius! As expected of UA!”

            “S-Sir?” Izuku quietly spoke up as he raised himself a little from his fortress of anxiety, “Is it really necessary to compete?”

            “We shouldn’t be so cowardly,” Nemesis hissed through his ears, “We’ll fight, we’ll conquer, we’ll claim first place and demolish all before us. Victory will be ours! Then all will fear our power!”

            Izuku could tell more than a few eyes were glancing towards him and he could feel their judgments weighing on his shoulders.

            “First of all, yes Midoriya, it is necessary you compete, unless you intend to fail my class,” Izuku gulped at Aizawa’s strict words, “And secondly, if it helps put you at ease,” And somehow Izuku now felt like his teacher wasn’t just addressing him, but the entire class, “I, as well as the entire teaching staff of pro-heroes, will be watching the entire time. If anything happens, we’ll be there to stop it.”

            Izuku breathed out a… not quite sigh of relief, but certainly some of the tension he’d been hoarding in his shoulders. Having everyone there would help, he supposed. But these kinds of things always required pushing oneself to the limit, yet he knew for him, that would be a death sentence.

            There was always the option he could just, well, not try. Yet somehow the thought didn’t sit well with him, and not just because of Nemesis’s loud protests on the idea. He was here to do his best, right? To be a hero? So, to consider just giving up because it might be too dangerous to even give it a shot…

            “The Festival begins in two weeks, so use that time to work extra hard and get in all the training you can manage,” Aizawa's voice deepened, “Don’t. Slack. Off. Class dismissed.”

            The rest of the day had gone smoothly enough, and it seemed that over the weekend Tenya had eagerly absorbed everything that Fumikage and his Grandfather had written down. It had probably helped that he clearly hadn’t slept well, and dark rings of sleeplessness circled his eyes. For that first night Hitoshi had stayed up with him, the next he’d got a few hours with the help of some cold medicine.

            Still, in less than thirty-six hours he had managed to put out requests for some obscure texts and unique sources, most of which had been far out of Fumikage’s ability to find. Even Dark Shadow had seemed a little impressed at Tenya’s willingness to learn everything he could about the underworld.

            Unfortunately, though not entirely unsurprisingly, he had found nothing more on the mention of a human ascending to become a demon. But, as he had pointed out himself, it was early days.

            The rest of the time, when they had not been in class at least, had been spent talking about the Festival. Rumors were already flying everywhere about what was going to happen, what the challenges would be and even who would be there.

            Even as the class gathered their bags at the end of the day, excited chatter still filled the air.

            “I heard the Powerpuff Girls are coming from America to compete in the third-year competition!” Denki gushed as he pulled his bag over his shoulders, “Oh man, I hope they do, that Buttercup Utonium is super cute.”

            This earned him a quick poke in the forehead from one of Kyoka’s ear-jacks, “Why the hell would they ever allow them to come compete in our school’s festival, dummy?”

            “I dunno! But it’d be cool!”

            Izuku had been hearing rumors like that all day. A popular one was that Lena Oxton, Britain’s current number one hero, was going to do the opening guest speech with many people commenting that it was ‘her turn’ to do so.

            Another was that Ember McLain was going to be performing at the halftime show, totally ignoring the fact that she was in the middle of her European tour. Hitoshi, despite Fumikage’s insistence otherwise, still believed it could and would somehow happen.

            The chatter, however, quickly vanished the moment Eijiro opened the classroom door.

            Standing in a large crowd, some literally on their tip-toes to look in, were students. Lots and lots of students. In a sudden state of shock, Eijiro yelped and stumbled back, and in doing so caused the entire class to look to him.

            “What the fuck…” Hitoshi mumbled from beside Izuku, who had been trying to shove a textbook into his backpack.

            Tenya, however, was already on the case. He quickly moved to the doorway and began waving a robotic hand at them, “Excuse me! But school has now finished for the day, so if you don’t mind, please move from our class and disperse!”

            “Yeah! What the heck are all you guys doing here, anyway?” Eijiro called out to the crowd as the rest of the class began gathering closer behind him.

            “Oh wow, so, this is Class One A?” A voice called derisively out through the crowd, which slowly parted to reveal a young man with short cut blonde hair, mocking eyes of cloudy-blue sky, and a smirking, cunning face that was somehow not without its charm. He was slim, and shorter than most, roughly coming to around Izuku’s own height. “The class that stood up against a villain invasion and unleashed the devil himself,” His mocking smile grew wider and Izuku felt several gazes turn to him, “So where’s he hiding, huh? Class One A’s dark little secret?”

            Izuku immediately tried to slink back behind his classmates as Eijiro began, “What the hell are you-”

            “Oh, there he is!” The young man’s eyes suddenly locked to Izuku, and he felt himself freeze to the spot before turning back to face the crowd, his tail twitching in anxiety. “So, you’re the one,” The blonde grinned wickedly, “The demon of Class One A?”

            Instantly murmuring sprang up amongst the crowd, and along with it, the growling, growing anger of his inner monster.

            “Peons. Weaklings. Pathetic, filthy sinners all of them.” Nemesis’s voice was like a blood-soaked axe, dripping with gore, “And him, the worst of them all, we see his soul, cowardly and craven and soaked in envy.”

            Izuku felt his stomach twist in anxious fear and his tail curled up. But even so, he straightened himself and gripped the edges of his backpack tightly, “I-I’m not a demon.” He had wanted to growl the words out, to seem at least a little tough in the face of so much pressure, but they came out as more of a slightly panicked stutter.

            Possibly because he was only half-sure he wasn’t lying.

            Hitoshi was at his side in a second, his eyes narrowing at the crowd. Almost instantly he seemed to take command with an ease that Izuku both envied and felt utterly relieved by. “Alright then, if you’re here to check out the competition just go ahead and look.” He raised a hand to the back of his neck, seeming so casual even though Izuku knew it to be a nervous habit. He shrugged and let out a low chuckle, “You’re Class One B, right? How does it feel to always be the runners up?”

            Immediately there were shouts and yells of vengeance from the other class, one particularly large boy with a shock of white hair and strange, silver skin around his eyes, almost leapt out of the crowd to punch Hitoshi in the face, though a girl with giant hands quickly held him back.

            Izuku almost groaned at the depressing irritation of it all. Hitoshi was one of his best friends, really, he was, but he certainly had a big mouth and a knack for knowing just what to say to rile someone up.

            Still, he took advantage of the sudden chaos to move away from the crowd and slink as best he could to the door on the far end of the classroom. He was quickly joined by Ochaco and Fumikage, both of whom weren’t at all interested in playing class wars with their apparent new rivals.

            Quietly they moved out of the room and darted around the nearest corner. Izuku soon felt his anxiety ease off at being away from the loud and boisterous crowd of students. He gave one quick look back, watching as some girl floated her hand above the crowd to make rude gestures at his own class, before shaking his head and quickly catching up to the other two.

            However, the moment he did so he found himself stopping, just as the other two had stopped suddenly in their tracks.

            Leaning against a railing, the light of the setting sun falling across his back, was Katsuki. He was facing a dark corridor, shaded by the angle of the setting sun, his backpack slung over one shoulder, and his tie nowhere to be seen. He was looking to his phone and frowning, though for as long as Izuku knew him he always seemed to be frowning.

            “Come on, let’s go-” Ochaco hissed, and was about to pull Izuku to one side to take another route away from Katsuki before suddenly the blonde looked up.

            For a moment, the world seemed to pause. The noise of the battling classrooms faded into the background. For the first time in what felt like years, Izuku and Katsuki looked to one another, with only a few feet separating them both.

            Beside him, Izuku heard Ochaco and Fumikage take his flanks and in his heart, he thanked his friends for standing by him when they knew a single spark could set fire to the world around them. Almost literally, in Katsuki’s case.

            The silence grew uncomfortable and almost hot, as if Izuku was standing too close to an open flame. The setting sun cast an eerie orange glow across them all, with Izuku and the others placed in shadow by the frame of the window, while Katsuki remained in the light, his long, neat facial scars somehow so noticeably pale against his skin.

            Finally, he forced a gulp down and managed to stammer out, “H-Hi, Kaachan.”

            To his great surprise, Katsuki said nothing. In fact, other than a twitch of his eyes, he didn’t react at all. There was no screaming and shouting, no threats of death or violence, no reprisals for making him move classes. Izuku still winced, however, when Katsuki stood up straight, turned to face him properly, and slowly placed his phone back into his pocket.

            The blonde’s gaze went from Izuku, to Ochaco, to Fumikage, then back to Izuku.

            Izuku felt as though he was being crushed under his gaze, and he felt as though he had to say something. Anything.

            “L-Look, Kaachan I-”

            “Katsuki?”

            A girl suddenly emerged from the shaded corridor across from Katsuki, and the second she walked out from the shadows, Izuku felt Nemesis tense and arch within his blood. He felt gooseflesh along his arms and the hairs stand at the back of his neck. Every instinct he had suddenly went onto red alert, though why he couldn’t explain. All he knew was that, without knowing anything about her, this girl was dangerous.

            The girl seemed to notice Katsuki’s gaze and turned her eyes to look at the three students.

            The first thing Izuku truly noticed about her, other than the way she made his skin crawl, was that she had eyes that struck him with an instant sense of… sadness. They were green but not green like his own pagan green. No, they were a dark green, an old green, green like the stained glass of an ancient church window.

            Her features seemed genteel and made one think of renaissance paintings of nobility, or the carved images of warrior-queens on ancient marble. She was shorter than Izuku, though only slightly, and she held herself in a way that spoke of confidence, though not pride, strength, though not cockiness, and intelligence, though not conceit.

            Her hair. Her hair. For only a second Izuku believed it was a waterfall of flowing green locks before it suddenly struck him that she did not have hair, but a winding mass of vines that crossed across her forehead, flowed down her back, and ended at her shins.

            But her eyes. They were joyless. They were focused and sharp and decisive, but joyless.

            And what was more shocking was that as she stood beside Katsuki he realized that his old friend, who had suffered so much at the hands of Izuku’s demonic power, had the same gaze.

            “So,” She spoke softly, though her words were so sudden in the liminal space of the corridor that they seemed to strike him like a blow to the cheek, “You’re Izuku Midoriya.”

            “I- erm-”

            “And who are you?” Fumikage spoke back, his voice strangely low, almost growling.

            An utterly cheerless smile crossed her lips as she turned fully to face the three friends. Her hands cupped together in what looked to be apparent prayer as she took a step towards them. Behind her, her hair fanned out softly around her feet, though somehow Izuku felt threatened by the gesture.

            “She’s like him,” Nemesis hissed suddenly, sharply through his brain, “She’s like the priest. Her soul- her soul-”

            “I’ve heard much about you, Izuku Midoriya,” She ignored Fumikage as she stepped forward again, now within arms-reach of Izuku himself. Not once did her gaze waiver, not once did she even show any sign of trepidation or mockery. Not once did she show any sign of fear.

            Izuku couldn’t look away from her. Her gaze, so sure and strong and joyless. Something human within his soul cried out to help her. He needed to find out what had happened to her, to know why she seemed so- so like Katsuki. Like someone had reached inside her and tore away her happiness.

            “And, if you may, I would like to have words with you.”

            “He’s not going anywhere,” Ochaco suddenly snapped, her hands curling into fists, “So whatever you’ve got to say-”

            “I’ll say it here, before your acolytes,” The girl again twitched that terribly cheerless smile, “They too shall hear my words.”

            Izuku wanted to speak, he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because as she stepped closer to him, his skin had begun to crawl with the sensation of spider legs moving across his palms, like sandpaper-silk over his cheeks, like the very edge of a knife playing across his neck.

            He could feel her faith. Her true faith. Though it felt different from the faith he had felt at Fumikage’s home, from Kodai. Kodai’s had been like the warmth of a fireplace, like the flowing of a calm ocean.

            Hers felt… sharper. It felt focused and wrathful. It practically crackled around her, like an oncoming storm at the height of humid summer. It felt like the punishment of great sins delivered by purging, holy fire.

            It felt most of all like the energy that had sung to him from the sword in Fumikage’s meditation room.

            It felt deadly.

            She stopped before him. Barely a step between them. Her eyes locked to his. Izuku cast in dim half-shadow, the girl cast in the light of the setting sun.

            “I am Ibara Shiozaki, and I am the wrath of God.”

            Her words punched into his brain and he felt hell-fire coursing into his limbs, as though Nemesis was trying to do something, anything, to combat this threat that stood before him. It wanted to attack, full force, with everything it had. It wanted her gone, dead or otherwise it didn’t seem to care.

            But Izuku felt frozen, though, with fear or something else, he didn’t know.

            “I am the wrath of God, for if I was not, then He would not set me against you.”

            In that moment, without even looking to them, he could feel Ochaco and Fumikage both take a step back from the girl. He wanted to turn and run. He wanted to refute her words. He wanted to know why only hate and anger, cold and hard, existed in her eyes.

            He wanted to help her.

            But like Katsuki, he knew, simply by her words, her actions, her gaze, that she was out of his reach. There was nothing he could say, or do, or ask of her that would make her feel anything but deep, soul-seated hatred towards him.

            “Hey, Fundie,” Katsuki suddenly barked, breaking the moment like the shattering of razor-thin glass, “Enough toying with them, we’ve got shit to do.”

            Ibara looked to Izuku for only a moment longer, her eyes so frozen and ice cold with the hate she felt in her heart. Then, only to Izuku, she whispered, “Deus vult,” Before she turned away and walked back to Katsuki.

            She did not stride proudly, nor did she hurry. She walked without any fear of reprisal or reaction. She walked as though she had simply wished him good luck in the festival and that was it.

            Katsuki huffed as Ibara passed him, gave Izuku and the others one last look of cold dismissal, and then turned to follow her, the two of them vanishing around the corner of the corridor.

            There was a long moment where Izuku simply stood, looking to where the two of them had left, all words caught in his throat, his heartbeat almost frozen in his chest.

            Then, finally, Ochaco broke the silence.

            “What in the name of All Might’s giant flashy grin was that?!”

Chapter Text

            “I seriously can’t believe you let yourself get punked out by a houseplant.” Hitoshi looked down at Izuku, “I thought you were the antichrist? Can’t let your rep get smacked like this, dude.”

            “Hitoshi-”

            “Don’t worry about it though, I mean, if she sends one of ours to the hospital, we send one of hers to the morgue,” He held up a quick fist and smirked, “Street rules, baby.”

            “Hitoshi!” Tenya snapped loudly, looking up from his stretching, “We absolutely do not go by street rules!”

            Izuku panted as he pulled himself back up again and paused for a moment, holding onto his knees as Hitoshi held his feet down. “Are you done?” He gasped out, “‘Cos it’s getting real old, real fast.”

            “Eeeeh, I’ve got a few left in me, but I can wait ‘till after class.”

            Ground Beta was alive with the sound of wind through buildings and the panting and grunting of Class One-A preparing for their latest heroing lesson. Team ‘Ebony Darkness Dementia Way’, which was not a name that anyone agreed on, much to Ochaco’s disappointment, mostly gathered in one corner under some shade. This was not an unusual thing in of itself, as the sun was high and hot in the open sky, but the fact that almost everyone else avoided being near them was certainly telling.

            Everyone had on their hero uniforms, including Izuku, as his had finally been repaired and replaced. Well, 'repaired' was something of an exaggeration. Completely rebuilt would be more accurate.

            Izuku fell back to the ground, though not heavily, as he continued doing the sit-ups in preparation for their class. Still, despite the light sweat he’d already built up, his heart was only half-in the pre-class prep. Ibara’s words the other day still weighed on him heavily. Never in his whole life had he been threatened like that. Katsuki had threatened him often, but it was always loud, brash, only half-serious and half-ego. Ibara, however, had used words that he knew would get to him, like she knew what he was and had positioned herself squarely on the other side of the fence.

            And the look in her eyes. That cold, joyless look, it was the look of someone who had seen Hell up close and come away deeply scarred.

            Izuku pulled himself up again with a heavy grunt of effort and again found himself pausing, looking away from his friend as he panted out, “I just… I wish I could do something, you know? I hate the thought that they’re so angry with… me, I guess.”

            But it was more than that. It was the fact they were angry at all, because it meant that inside they were in pain, and his heart ached to fix it. He wanted to make amends, somehow, with Katsuki and find at least some common ground with Ibara, at least enough to convince her that he wasn’t her enemy.

            But how? How could he approach two people who were clearly so set against him? Ibara had even called herself a divine punishment sent to destroy him. For all he knew, considering the biting edge of her faith, she could well be correct. What then?

            He had Hell inside him, and if she was blessed by Heaven, was there any way to convince her he wasn’t evil?

            He wasn’t even sure of that himself.

            “It is a challenging situation, I admit,” Fumikage breathed out as he finished doing his usual stretches, “I have no doubt in my mind she knows about… us,” and he glanced to his demonic quirk-familiar.

            Dark Shadow already lingered to one side, having been summoned in order for them to hear whatever the lesson plan happened to be. Again, nothing unusual, though the demon had seemed a little more paranoid as of late once Fumikage had told them about Ibara after they had gotten off the school grounds.

            The group had adopted a somewhat strict rule of ‘no demon talk in school’, considering the revelation about one of their own class members possibly being corrupted. Instead, they had adopted a strange sort of workaround, only referencing the supernatural world through… opaque means.

            Ochaco nodded her voice low, “Yeah, and if she knows then she’s probably told Katsuki everything, so now he knows,” She was doing some stretches of her own, mostly against the wall which provided them their blessed shade, “Makes me wonder how many other people in the school are in on it.”

            “I’ve noticed a few,” Dark Shadow spoke in a low, jackdawish tone as they continued to scan the other students, almost all of which were out of their low-tone earshot, “Or at least I suspect a few. It’s hard to get a good reading without being up close.”

            Izuku raised an eyebrow at this as he sat up once again, “I thought you said you guys weren’t common?”

            “That’s why I said I suspect a few,” Dark Shadow quickly sniped back, “Try listening next time, moron.”

            This was quickly answered by Nemesis sending a shot of irritated fire through Izuku’s scars, but he ignored it and pressed it back down.

            “How can you suspect anything?” Tenya asked as he hopped in place, “Surely you either detect a presence or not?”

            “I’ve already had this conversation with him,” Fumikage replied for his demonic quirk-familiar as he stretched to one side, “And apparently, in this new age of quirks, it’s no longer a simple case of noticing one of them in a crowd, or a person with the gift of true faith.”

            “Since you humans suddenly started using these quirks,” And Dark Shadow literally finger quoted the word, “It’s like suddenly we can just hide in plain sight, it doesn’t matter if you have horns or wings or can spit acid, everyone just accepts it as normal,” They paused to narrow their eyes at the other members of the class before their tone dropped lower, “This new world is strange, but humans will always be humans,” A slight smirk crossed their beak, “And humans will always be stupid.”

            “Says the creature surviving on a human soul,” Nemesis growled out through bloodied teeth, “Pathetic parasite.”

            “Well, either way, we’ve gotta focus on the Sports Festival,” Hitoshi shrugged as he realized Izuku was doing no more sit-ups and moved to stand up, “It doesn’t matter if a crazy evangelical calls you out, that only puts her in line behind the first one.”

            Izuku went to argue but found himself simply sighing, shrugging, and nodding in depressing admission. He supposed being involved in the supernatural world meant he would garner supernatural enemies, even if he really hoped to make peace with them.

            There was a sudden friendly shout and the group collectively looked to see All Might striding towards, looking every bit the number one hero he was. The class was starting, it seemed, and it was time to get focused on the task at hand.

            Yet as Izuku stood up, he still couldn’t help but feel more than a little resigned to his fate. They had only two weeks to prepare for the festival, which meant he would have to put other priorities on the back burner. Nemesis had been mostly well behaved since the USJ at least, barring the flair-up at Fumikage’s home. But then again, he also hadn’t been confronted by any other insane cult leaders and their pet monsters.

            In the end, Hitoshi was right. Other than keeping half an eye out for the mysterious third member of their little corrupted soul group, he had to concentrate on getting himself ready for the next major hurdle of his life. The Sports Festival was going to be tough and he knew it, especially with Ibara and Katsuki gunning for him.

            He would have to face them there, perhaps both of them, perhaps even at the same time.

            As he approached his over-muscled teacher, he adopted a determined expression and felt his hands curl into tight fists. He had two weeks to tighten his control over Nemesis, and he didn’t intend to waste it.

            The night was clear and crisp and somehow still heavy with the summer heat. There were no clouds and all the weather channels were promising the same for tomorrow.

            Just as it should be. A perfect summers day for one of the biggest events in the nation's year.

            Toshinori stood, looking up at the night sky. Light pollution killed most of the stars, but some, the strongest, still shined through, twinkling like flickering candles in the dark. He was standing on the bottom row of the stadium seats, just at the wall that would separate the crowd from the field. Behind him yawned a pitch-black entryway, which come the next day, would be filled with busy, excited people all there to watch the games.

            His eyes traveled down and slowly, casually, he cast his gaze about the stadium. It was quiet right now, but tomorrow a thousand voices would be screaming and baying and cheering for the young heroes who would compete there. Young heroes who had already come so far, and with some coming through so much just to get to this point.

            Toshinori took in a breath and sighed, putting his hands deep into his suit pockets. He wore his yellow striped suit, of course, being that it was one of the only suits he had that he could wear in and out of his All Might form.

            Soon, he reasoned, that wouldn’t matter. Soon One For All would be passed on, and he would no longer have to worry about fitting suits or anything of the sort. He would be retired… a word which still sat ugly in his heart. It wasn’t that he selfishly wished to horde One For All forever, he knew he had to hand it down the generations, it was part of the wonderful gift that was his amazing, incredible quirk.

            But it was the idea of no longer being able to help others. To be the one needing help. No, that didn’t sit well with him, not at all.

            He hoped that the Sports Festival would reveal the right person to him, that tomorrow the clouds would clear, and he would see the rightful successor to his power. A person brave, and dedicated, and determined to do good no matter what. A true hero.

            One who could maybe make up for the sham of a hero he had become.

            He breathed out through his nose and glanced down the stadium, allowing himself just a few more moments of quiet contemplation.

            The air started getting cold.

            Instinct, trained and honed through long years, suddenly yelled at him that something dangerous was looming down on him like a tidal wave and every hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

            He turned suddenly, almost launching right into his All Might form before he stopped, his heart catching in his throat as he realized who had joined him.

            Emerging from the darkened shadows of the stadium, and indeed he emerged rather than simply stepped out, was Hisashi Hokori.

            It was always the eyes that Toshinori noticed first. Those terrible, awful blue eyes which burned and froze and crushed all at once, even when hidden behind the pair of spectacles that Hokori wore.

            His suit was, as always, crisp and sharp, this one a midnight blue, his shoes looked expensive and his hair combed and professional. And yet, even so, the strangeness of his new age, as there was no other way to really put it, seemed striking to Toshinori. The graying of his hair, the wrinkles at his eyes, even the stubble at his chin.

            No one had asked what had happened to him, because no one expected an answer. Hokori never answered anything he didn’t wish to talk about, the staff had long since learned that lesson.

            “Hokori,” Toshinori breathed out, “What are you doing here?”

            Oddly, the man seemed almost perturbed that Toshinori had noticed him coming. Oddly, Toshinori realized a little late that he had noticed him coming. Hokori had always been able to step into any situation with ease, like a snake coiling up from long grass.

            The man didn’t answer him. Instead, he stood for a moment, eyeing the pro-hero before his gaze turned and looked across the stadium, tracing a similar pattern to Toshinori’s only a few moments ago.

            He took a few steps further and joined his side, though Toshinori felt no less eased by his presence. That sense of danger always followed Hokori, it seemed inexplicably tied to his very aura.

            Secretly, Hokori reminded him far too much of the one who gave Toshinori the wound that bloomed like a flower at his side. The one which had almost ended his life.

            “I wanted to talk to you. Privately,” The answer didn’t so much as fill the night air as it somehow strangled it. There was a menace in those words, no matter how simply they had been spoken.

            Toshinori wasn’t sure what to say, and so, he cautiously nodded, “Alright. Speak.”

            Hokori’s face was stony and serious, and for a long moment he said nothing, he only looked forward, though he wasn’t looking at anything in particular. Even Toshinori could see that the man’s mind was elsewhere, looking to memories that brought emotions he didn’t want to show. He seemed to take a moment to breathe deep, and he crossed his arms across his chest.

            Finally, he spoke, and his words were as void-black as his eyes. “You killed Izuku Midoriya.”

            Toshinori almost physically felt the dagger piercing his heart. His teeth git together tightly and he forced himself not to cough up a mouthful of blood.

            “The world doesn’t know, because I covered it up. Though I suspect Izuku may have told some of his friends, but it will never leave his group I’m sure of it,” He did not look to Toshinori as he spoke, and his words remained razor sharp, “Still, it does not take away from the truth. You killed him.”

            “It- I never- I didn’t-” Toshinori almost staggered back, and not just because of the harshness of Hokori’s words.

            He swore he could feel the man’s anger. It was almost a physical presence permeating the air and crawling through the shadows and knifing into his skin with a thousand blades. His old wound ached suddenly, sharply, almost like it was fresh. The circle of burned skin around his neck seemed to tighten and he wanted to gasp out for breath. But instead, he grit his teeth harder, even as blood trickled wet and hot down his chin.

            Hokori still did not turn to look at him. “I don’t want to hear your excuses, Toshinori. I don’t want to know what you thought it would accomplish, or how out of control Izuku was, or even how many lives you thought you saved by doing so.”

            Toshinori could see the man’s hands tightening on his sleeves and a strange thought hit him. Had Hokori’s fingernails always been painted black?

            “It was a true miracle he came back to us, a true miracle,” Hokori added and for a moment, Toshinori swore he almost smirked before its ghost vanished from his lips.

            “I know,” Toshinori replied through the pain, refusing to allow Hokori the pleasure of knowing how uncomfortable this was for him, “I know, so why are you telling me all of this?”

            “Because I want you to know it won’t happen again.”

            The ice in his words, so harsh against the fire that seemed to glow in his eyes, was shocking to behold. Still, Toshinori kept his ground, as a man, as a hero should do.

            “I know,” Toshinori replied, his eyes narrowing at the man, “I’ll never-”

            “No, no,” Hokori interrupted suddenly and turned to look at him. His words were like arctic ice shelves smashing together, like lava flows devouring all in their path. “You don’t understand. It won’t happen again. You will never hurt that boy again. Do I make myself clear?”

            There was no outward threat. No ‘or you’ll pay’ or any other silly, petty words of violence. And in a way, that terrified Toshinori more than if he had spoken them, because the weight of his tone alone carried all that needed to be said.

            There would not be a second time. There would not be a second chance. Right here, right now, he knew almost instantly that he was being handed a pardon. A single pardon. One which stood on the thinnest of grounds.

            Toshinori stood for a long moment in the darkness of the stadium, matching Hokori’s gaze. He refused to be intimidated, and yet, somehow he felt as though he was staring down the devil himself. He felt, in that moment, that all he knew or assumed about Hokori was somehow wrong. That the danger he felt around the man wasn’t just an air of dislike or casual dismissive arrogance backed by his own power.

            It was… more than that. Far greater and more terrible than he had ever suspected. There had always been a darkness to him that everyone at UA politely ignored, as he was Nedzu’s right hand and essential to keeping the school standing.

            Yet somehow, now they were speaking alone for the first time since Toshinori had known Hokori, that darkness seemed far deeper, far greater, far more… unholy than he had ever noticed it to be. Almost as if whatever had been keeping the vial around it was weakening, thinning, and one could finally glimpse the true monster that hid behind it.

            Yet Toshinori would not be threatened. He would not be brought to heel like some obedient dog. He was the Symbol of Peace, in this form or any other, and he would not bow.

            “Why are you saying this?” Toshinori’s question split the night air like a sword being drawn, despite the pain in his side and the blood that threatened to spill from his mouth. “You’ve never given a damn about any of the students before, so why now? Why young Midoriya?”

            For just a second, something flashed through Hokori’s eyes, something that almost seemed… human, and his voice was suddenly laced with the hairlines of… of something that could only have come from his heart.

            “Because I care about him.”  

            The answer shocked Toshinori so much he almost lost his balance. He certainly lost the battle he was having with his lungs and coughed suddenly, spattering blood onto an open palm. The coughing fit hit him again and again, like punches to the stomach, forcing him to double over and choke.

            When he finally managed to look up, he growled and grit crimson teeth as he saw Hokori was already walking away.

            “Best of luck with the festival tomorrow. Try not to make too big of a fool out of yourself,” Whatever had been there before had vanished, and darkness had enveloped his every action once again, “Don’t forget what I told you.”

            “Hokori! Wait!” The hero reached a hand out to stop him, but within the blink of an eye, Hokori had vanished into the shadows which so eagerly embraced him.

            In an instant, Toshinori was left alone, confused, and somehow feeling as though he had just escaped an execution. 

            Today was the day, and Inko couldn’t be more nervous. She watched as her son gathered his things together, though why he was taking a full backpack of school items with him on a day that would be almost entirely spent in the stadium she wasn’t quite sure.

            Maybe it was just the hard worker in him. Always being prepared for whatever may come.

            And indeed, she wouldn’t deny the fact that already her worst nightmares had played out over her mind’s eye. Of Izuku being hurt, being killed, being taken by whatever that thing was that lived inside him, that dark part of his soul which was born of his father’s blood.

            No. No, she couldn’t think like that. She had to be positive, she had to believe that today was going to go well. After all, she knew that Izuku was thinking that way.

            Well, she assumed he was thinking that way. After all, it wasn’t like he actually told her anything anymore.

            And she knew she deserved it.

            “Have you got everything?” She braved, wondering if he would even reply.

            Izuku looked up from where he stood by the door of their little home, dressed smartly in his uniform, and for a moment his eyes flashed wide, almost as if he hadn’t thought she would even speak to him.

            “Y-Yeah, I think so.” He didn’t look to her as he mumbled his answer back. Instead, he looked down to his backpack giving it another check over before hauling it up onto his shoulders.

            Inko stood in the hallway, watching him the entire time, her hands wringing, her shoulders tense and her heart skipping beats in her chest. Her hair was a frazzled mess held together in a bun, her clothes heavy and frumpy as always.

            She wondered just when Izuku had stopped taking after her. He looked so tall nowadays, and he had certainly put on muscle since he began training for the school. He had become more focused, more attentive and perhaps even more confident, though that was debatable.

            She knew that the medication was fading, or at least, wasn’t working as well as it should be. Inko wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t ignorant of the fact that before the USJ he had been talking more, working harder, doing better than he’d ever been doing before. She had seen this happen a few times over the years, as Izuku had grown older and his medication had needed to be changed.

            So why now, why when surely as his power grew more each day, was she refusing to mention it? She had thought about it a few times. Asking him plainly if it was the case, if he needed to go on something stronger.

            And yet she held back.

            She loved him with every bit of her heart and soul… yet she held back.

            And she didn’t know why.

            Maybe it was because he didn’t look at her the same as he used to. Maybe it was because he had been smiling more and even making new friends. Maybe it was because she was afraid that if she asked, she would lose him permanently. Already things had become so strained that even dragging minor conversations out of him took time and effort.

            And it wasn’t as though he was closing down on everyone. It was just her. And she knew it was just her because he was constantly on the phone with his friends.

            The worst thing of all, was that she knew it was all her fault.

            She could give the word, at any time, for his father to step back into his life. To hand him the answers she knew he must be seeking.

            For a moment, her mouth opened, as if in that tiny second she was going to say something to him. Something like, ‘Do you want to know the truth?’ or ‘Do you want to talk to your father?’

            Izuku caught her look suddenly as he stood up from putting his shoes on and he paused.

            The space between them had never seemed so great. So wide and distant, as though no matter how long she ran to her son, she would never manage to hold him in her arms again.

            “Mom?”

            “I-” Her heart ached. It ached to let him know, to stop this, this chasm of guilt and shame and heartache from growing ever wider.

            But she had to keep him safe. She had to keep him as far from the darkness of his lineage as possible. She had to keep him from his father, who despite his apparent sacrifice, was nothing but a bane on her and all of humanity. She would not let him turn her son into something cruel and dark and terrible.

            “Good luck today, Izuku,” She forced a smile on her face which she knew he would see through in a second.

            The look in his eye told her he already had.

            “Thanks, Mom.”

            “I love you, son,” The words fell from her lips, though this time, the look in her eye was far more genuine. Her hand was already stretched out lightly towards him, and she had even taken a step forward. “I really do. Be safe, for me, please?”

            Izuku paused with his hand on the doorknob. His messy hair that really needed to be cut hung around his head, hiding the shaved down horns and pointing ears. From his back curled his tail, black and scarred and ending in that spear-point tip. Yet despite everything she could see only a bright, shining light in his eyes. Not one of cruel fire, but of something more, something human and pure-hearted and good.

            And yet there was a sadness there too. Perhaps he wanted to speak as much as she did. Perhaps he wanted to cross the gulf and be in her arms just as much as she wished he would.

            But then he blinked, and it was gone.

            “I love you too, mom,” She knew the words were no lie, and yet, they still somehow seemed forced, “I’ll be fine. Tape it for me, would you? I’ll see you when I get home.”

            And with that he was gone, giving her a flash of a sharp-fanged smile that seemed more falsely confident than anything else.

            With the thudding of the door closing, Inko seemed to breathe once again.

            Her home always seemed colder without her son around.

            She sighed and made her way over to the living room couch, falling into it and leaning forward to rub her forehead with one hand, her eyes closing for just a moment.

            She thought back to a question which had been playing on her mind for almost a month now. The texts that Hokori had sent her, asking her to consider allowing Izuku to know, to finally allow them to meet.

            She chewed the inside of her lip as again the thought of doing so pulled at her heart like it was tied with two ends of thick rope. What was best for Izuku? Before she wouldn’t even question that giving him the medication, giving him as normal a childhood as she could offer, was what was best for him. He had survived, he hadn’t died or been lost to the terrible Hell-fire in his blood.

            But now she couldn’t deny he was growing up. He wasn’t a child anymore.

            She looked to her phone, sitting on the coffee table before sighing again.

            It was time to seriously think about it. Seriously this time, not in the half-hearted manner which she had done before.

            She leaned forward, though she did not grab her phone but rather the TV remote. She turned on the TV and leaned back as she turned it to the channel the Festival would be shown on.

            She’d watch the Festival at least. She would see for herself how far Izuku had come with the use of his power, and then, perhaps, she would make her final decision.

            And yet despite it all, her heart felt no less heavy.

            Today was the day, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect day. The sky was clear, the sun shining hot though there was just enough of a gentle breeze to cool the skin and stop the humidity from gathering.

            In the sky, above the vaunted walls and great glass towers of U.A. High, fireworks popped and danced. The sound of thousands of people jaunted the air as they shopped for souvenirs from the stands, bought snacks and drinks, t-shirts and trinkets.

            The entire event was situated around a huge stadium, which apparently housed all of U.A.’s sporting events and one which they occasionally lent out to Japan’s Quirk-Olympic team for training in the off-season. Either way, the capacity was in the hundreds of thousands, and indeed every seat in the house was taken.

            Outside the school gates, news crews grumbled and griped as they entered one at a time, being patted down, scanned and even sniffed out for any possible weapons.

            Safety first, or so insisted the smiling, shadow-eyed, sharply dressed man at the security gate. No one argued, and those that did found themselves quickly thrown off the grounds.

            Inside the stadium, the Class 1-A locker room buzzed with excitement as the students gossiped and talked and gushed about what was to come. They had been working their tails off for weeks, Mashirao and Izuku literally, and now the big day had come and there wasn’t a teenager there who wasn’t at least a little excited.

            Excited and nervous.

            Or in Izuku’s case, mostly just nervous.

            The locker room was wide spaced, with several tables set up for the kids to sit around. They had all been told to wear only their gym uniforms, which in a weird way Izuku was glad for. His own uniform had only recently been repaired, and he didn’t quite feel like ruining it again if anything bad happened.

            He screwed up his eyes and breathed. No. Nothing bad would happen. Today was going to go just fine.

            “We’ll rip our competition to shreds,” Nemesis snarled out, not helping the situation in the slightest, “The entire world will be in awe of our power.”

            Izuku sighed loudly and rubbed his temples while his tail flicked nervously, betraying his mood. Though honestly, it tended to twitch most of the time, so perhaps people just thought being nervous was his default emotion.

            They wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

            The gang, which still had yet to decide on a name after rejecting ‘The Mystery Skulls’ once they’d found out it was already being used by, shockingly, another supernatural-themed hero team, hung out towards the back of the room. Fumikage and Hitoshi stood adjacent to Izuku, leaning on some lockers, with Hitoshi talking about what kind of training he’d been doing in his spare time. Ochaco sat next to Izuku on a blue wooden bench, though she didn’t seem in the mood for talk, and was muttering mantras to herself.

            “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration,” She mumbled over and over while bridging her fingers together.

            “Will she ever shut up?” Nemesis grumbled out, causing Izuku to wince.

            His inner demon never got to finish the thought. The door suddenly burst open and every eye in the room looked up. Tenya stood there, almost panting, and he certainly took a moment to gather his voice before shouting out, “Five minutes everyone! Get your game faces on, we’re almost up!”

            The excitement rose, along with Izuku’s growing sense of terror mixed with undirected, nervous energy, causing his foot to bounce and his tail to swish back and forth. He really, really wanted this to go well. Anything to avoid another USJ, anything to avoid the world seeing what he was like on the inside.

            He just hoped they wouldn’t have direct one-on-one fighting this year. Last year they’d had team-based matches using weapons with padded ends. That’d be nice and safe and easy to compete in. He was going to set his heart on that.

            … which probably meant he’d jinxed it already.

            Suddenly, some of the chatter died down and Izuku took a second to realize why.

            Shoto Todoroki was storming towards them.

            Hitoshi seemed to notice this at the same time, and as the teenager drew to them, he suddenly began scrambling to right himself against the locker, almost falling over and drawing some confused stares to him.

            Once Shoto stood before them, Hitoshi coughed, trying his best to look cool and failing, and quickly shot Shoto a finger gun, “H-Hey, hey, hi, Shoto, hey, how you doin’? Hi.”

            Shoto simply narrowed his eyes at Hitoshi for a moment before letting out a low, “Right,” Then turned his gaze back to Izuku.

            “A soul caged in ice,” Nemesis hissed, snake-like, with fangs of dripping venom, “So much cold-blooded hatred. We wonder what drives him.”

            “Izuku,” Shoto spoke in a firm yet flat tone, “Before we start the festival, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

            So that was it. Those were officially the most words Izuku had heard Shoto speak since the school year began. He gulped his nerves down as he looked up to the teenager.

            Their eyes met, and suddenly, he got flashbacks of Katsuki’s eyes, of Ibara’s eyes. Shoto had much of the same look within his own miss-matched gaze. That cold, cool, marble-like anger that was etched into his very soul, into his every action and word. Though this time, it wasn’t directed at himself, which was only a small relief.

            Izuku felt his heart lurch for the poor teenager and again he asked himself, what could have possibly happened to this person to cause such pain?

            He gathered his thoughts back together and stammered out, “Erm, sure?”

            “Objectively speaking, you have the strongest quirk in class.”

            Izuku blinked at this. It wasn’t exactly what he was expecting but okay. “I… guess?”

            “We do not guess,” Nemesis hissed through his blood, sending ripples of flame along his scars, “We know. We are the most powerful, the most dominant. We are shadow and flame. It’s good this child of ice recognizes our strength.”

            “However,” Shoto began, folding his arms slowly over his chest, “I have no intentions of allowing you to win. I will beat you, no matter how scary other people might find your quirk.” His eyes seemed to harden even more, “Try not to lose control today, I want my victory to be without complications.”

            The room went silent at his words, though if Shoto even acknowledged it, he didn’t show it. He simply turned and began walking away.

            “Hey!” Shoto stopped and turned, though not towards Izuku, but to Hitoshi. The boy had pushed himself from the locker and now stood, his eyes glaring at Shoto. Whatever feelings he had for the slightly shorter teenager had clearly been forgotten in his sudden passion. “You can’t just go declaring war on people like that, what’s wrong with you?”

            “Nothing. This is a competition, not a team-based exercise for kids.” Shoto coldly replied, “We’re all out for ourselves here. If we don’t do our best, we won’t be noticed by agencies. We’re competing with the other classes, sure, but we’re also competing with one another for the top spot.”

            This caused a sudden murmur to course through the locker room. It seemed that in the excitement of actually competing, that small but very important detail had been forgotten. Now, like the rising of the sun, the inevitable realization that each member of the classroom was a potential rival in the festival seemed to dawn on them all.

            The air shifted. The nervous, static-like excitement of before was dulled and a new tenseness entered the room as if at any moment they were all going to start swinging at one another.

            “Shoto,” Izuku broke the silence suddenly and, to the boy’s own surprise, he had risen to his feet, “I want you to know,” He looked to Shoto as he spoke, but his voice seemed to rise, as if addressing everyone, “I’m not going to let Nemesis take control. Not today, not ever again, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to push myself in the competition. Everyone is going to be trying their hardest, and not just from our class but from every course. It’s only right that we do the same, and I-”

            He faulted on his words for a moment, even as fire hot but not burning seemed to flow through his blood and his tail rose and curled, rather than twitched. And yet despite the hammering of his nervous heart, despite the fear he felt at failing to hold his demon back, despite everything he knew was stacked against him, he had fire. A cursed fire, yes, but a fire nonetheless, one that burned inside him to push forward, to do better, to be better, and one that demanded he stand up and make himself counted.

            “I want to win!” Izuku spoke through sharp teeth, and for a single, split second, it seemed as though the light of his eyes dimmed just slightly, “If this is a declaration of war, then right back at you!”

            “Yes,” Nemesis curled a fist within Izuku’s heart, one which Izuku himself couldn’t help but take strength from, “We want to win, and nothing will stand in our way, especially not some preening, melancholic little ice prince.”

            Shoto seemed to hesitate for just a moment, as if he hadn’t expected this sudden show of determination from Izuku, before simply giving a simple, small nod, and turning to walk towards the main door.

            “PLEASE WELCOME TO THE FIELD, THE VICTORS OF THE BATTLE OF THE USJ, HERO COURSE CLASS ONE-A!”

            Present Mic’s voice boomed over the entire stadium, and as Izuku strode out onto the field, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was from some huge and complex audio set up, or simply from using his own quirk.

            The air shook from the almighty roar that rattled the ground beneath him. Izuku felt Nemesis race through his scars, almost setting them alight, as if it was somehow nervous at the vast amount of sound and people. He pushed it down, along with his own shaking heart and wobbly legs.

            In a moment of pride, he had declared war on the easily the strongest boy in class, so if he didn’t hold his head up, he’d be proving himself, and Shoto, wrong almost immediately. Oddly enough, the words of the lawyer, Hisashi Hokori, entered his mind as he walked with the rest of his class. Shoulders straight, chin up, chest out. Without thinking, Izuku found himself doing just that, and oddly found a trickle of confidence enter his heart.

            He had to believe he could do this. And he had to believe he could do it without turning into a giant, shadow-clad rage demon.

            The class gathered on the main field, lining into mostly organized, if a little mis-matched rows.

            “HOT ON THEIR TAILS, GIVE IT UP FOR UNQUENCIABLE HERO COURSE CLASS ONE-B!”

            Izuku winced, yeah, he was becoming more and more convinced that it was purely just Present Mic shouting from the commentator’s box.

            And so, the pro-hero announced each first-year class, one after another, until in their class rows they stood before a raised stand, on which several chairs were set out and Midnight stood, dressed as always in almost nothing with her famed whip in hand.

            Izuku at one point glanced over the crowds of students, trying to see if he could spot Katsuki or Ibara, but found he could only spot a tiny glance of what looked to be green hair several rows down. At least she wasn’t close enough to make his skin crawl.

            He did however spot several circling, unshapely things in the sky, and there were a few ugly and demonic looking unborn crawling along the walls of the stadium. There was even one, a kind of terrier-sized slug with spines and horns, crawling slowly along the front of the stand in front of him. He ignored them, after all, as Dark Shadow had stated, while they were terrible to behold, the unborn demons were essentially mindless animals.

            And he couldn’t afford to get distracted, not today.

            “And now,” Midnight announced into the microphone as soon as the last of the support class students had walked to the field, “To start the proceedings, a speech from this year’s guest speaker, all the way from Neo Yokio, Mr. Kaz Kaan!”

            There was a loud roar of cheers and applause as a slim, well dressed young man with a shock of pink hair and skin only slightly darker than Hitoshi’s own walked out, waving, onto the field. Oddly, at the sight of him, Nemesis mumbled something dark about not liking the look of his soul. Izuku shook it off, it was probably just angry the actual competition hadn’t started yet.

            Kaz Kaan gave a quick speech in well, though not perfectly, spoken Japanese on the virtues of young, up and coming heroes, which was nice enough, though it ended with an oddly placed plug for Caprese Martinis. It seemed the crowd were still pumped up enough either way and gave him a rousing cheer and a round of applause.

            After he had sat down, Midnight once again took the mic and grinned a flashing, slightly seductive smile, “And now, to officially begin the games, the student’s speech given by the highest scoring student in the entrance exam, Miss Ibara Shiozaki!”

            Izuku froze. Ibara was the highest scoring student?

            A second later he felt it. Spider legs crawling up his arm, the edge of a knife playing across his throat, static humming inside his teeth. Yet as Ibara passed him she didn’t even give him a glance as her gaze was fixed forward on the stand. Though as she walked, Izuku couldn’t help but notice something odd. Her vine hair, which always seemed to fan slightly around her, curled away from the slug-monster.

            A frown formed on his face as he briefly let his mind wonder…

            She walked up the row of students, up to the stand, and soon came to stand beside the microphone. Izuku couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. While he stood two rows back from the stand itself, he could still feel the purring charge of her divine power, but not nearly as strongly, not enough that it became an uncomfortable crawl under his skin.

            Ibara looked every bit the model student. Her aristocratic features, matched by her flowing hair, despite its unusual nature, and proud, straight posture made her look commanding, yet humble. It made her look like a student every teacher would want in their class. Attentive, smart and eager to learn.

            Izuku hoped that she would just keep it short and simple. She had to be under the equal impression that they had to keep all the ‘demons are real’ stuff quiet, right?

            “My friends, there are demons amongst us.”

            Stupid Izuku, when would he learn to stop hoping things would go his way?

            “They whisper in our ears, they tempt us with lies, they drag us to the depths of Hell with their false promises of wealth, of glory, of power and fame,” Ibara’s voice was stern, confident, thanks to the microphone, it reached into every corner of the stadium, “They exist all around us, some unseen, some on our shoulders, and for some, within our hearts and souls.”

            She might as well have pointed right at Izuku, or so the teenager thought. He really wished his quirk was to shrink into the floor, it’d come in real handy right about now.

            Fire moved through his scars and he found, despite his better instincts, he stood a little more confident. Nemesis, it seemed, was not about to let him bow to the challenge.

            “We must find the strength within ourselves, and with the help of Holy God, to fight these demons wherever they appear. Though hard work, dedication, focus and unrelenting devotion to the Almighty, we will overcome these obstacles. There will be no darkness that can suffer our light, no enemy that can withstand our righteous fury, and no demon we cannot exorcise from with ourselves, and from those arounds us.” She raised her arms as she spoke, her voice climbing to a passionate tone, “We are heroes, one and all, let us prove to God our devotion to what its right and good in this world. Amen!”

            There was a polite applause from the audience, though it certainly seemed a little lukewarm. Many in the audience seemed to give one another slightly confused, sideways glances, and even from his own classmates Izuku’s pointed ears caught snippets of, “well that was weird” and, “I thought she was giving a speech, not a sermon.”

            Midnight approached the microphone, politely clapping, though she too wore a slightly awkward look on her face. “Thank you, Miss Shiozaki for that very, ahh, spiritual speech.”

            Shiozaki bowed politely to her teacher, a calm yet joyless smile on her features, before she turned and began walking back off the stage.

            Then she did something a little odd.

            As she approached the final step, the one which the unborn slug-demon been crawling across, she hopped over it.

            Rather than step down on what had surely been, to everyone else, a perfectly clear step. She had avoided it.

            Izuku’s eyes narrowed at her as she passed and a thought flittered through his mind, surely, she couldn’t have…

            A sudden cracking of a whip caused him jump slightly and he turned back to the stage. Midnight stood, hand on hip and with a bright grin on her lips, “Now! Eyes forward!” From behind her a giant holo-screen popped up. “The first course will now be randomly decided!”

            Izuku felt himself, and practically everyone around him, tense suddenly. This was it. The Sports Festival was officially starting now, and suddenly it all felt so much more real than it had done several minutes ago.

            Again, he felt the flame of his blasphemous curse move through his scars. Nemesis was eager for this and had been since the festival had been announced. Another chance to crush those it saw as beneath it. Another chance to break free and shed blood without its host holding it back.

            Izuku clenched his jaw. No. Not this time. He would rather lose than allow that to happen again. He had to focus. Ibara’s hidden threat or no, she couldn’t outright murder him in front of thousands. He had to keep going and push his fears aside.

            Besides, though the thought of another loss because of his damned curse so made him sick to his stomach.

            A spinning wheel, like that of a gambling machine, whizzed on the holoscreen as Midnight, in the way that only Midnight ever seemed to get away with, teased with licking lips and come-hither eyes, “What will it be, hum? I’m practically tingling at the very excitement of it all!”

            The wheel stopped, and there was a collective gasp from the entire stadium.

            “AH!” Midnight gasped and gripped her whip harder, “An obstacle course! Oh, I do love this one!”

            The screen suddenly shone a cartoonish diagram of the entire stadium, to which she pointed with her whip, “The object is simple! Simply run the entire length of the outside path of the stadium overcoming the obstacles! Now, I don’t like to restrict people, unless when it’s enjoyable, so feel free to use your quirks however you wish! Just don’t seriously harm one another, or you’ll be immediately disqualified!”

            Well, that was… good, at least. Weirdly enough he didn’t remember them openly stating that rule in the previous Sports Festivals.

            Huh. How very convenient.

            “The first forty-two students to pass the finish line will progress to the next round! Try your best everyone, and good luck!”

            As the collective classes began gathering by the far entrance to the stadium, one with three large green lights above it, Izuku again felt Nemesis gathering within his blood. It was grinning, wolfish and dangerous, and its hellish flame was igniting his heart.

            “We’re going to crush them all,” It hissed through his mind, eager and almost giddy for the challenge, “We’re going to stand atop this contest of skill with our fist held high.”

            Weirdly enough, Izuku felt himself… encouraged by Nemesis’s fiery motivation. His accused quirk was clearly geared up for this, and he had told himself that he would do his best. This was his chance to prove to everyone he wasn’t just a monster, he was a student just like the rest of them and just like the rest of them he was going to compete.

            “We’ll build a throne of skulls from our beheaded enemies!”

            … well maybe not that motivated, but still.

            The green lights faded, and everyone tensed.

            Three.

            Two.

            One.

            GO.

Chapter Text

            A buzzer shot through the air, but it was instantly drowned out by the roar of the crowd and the sudden surge of hundreds of students all rushing towards the exit at once.

            It took about a second for Izuku to suddenly click as to what was happening, right as the first elbow went into his ribs. The students clashed and smooshed together within the doorway and instantly a giant block was formed as everyone tried to push through all at once.

            He could feel his furious power light up his blood and fire lick at his scars as inwardly he cursed himself for falling for such an obvious trick. The door wasn’t the entrance to the obstacle course, it was an obstacle. It was the first of many, and if they were all like this, he wondered how devious they were all supposed to be.

            Another elbow hit his rib, and a hand pushed at his face, and another shoved at his back, someone even stood on his tail, all causing his already temperamental curse to growl loudly from within his brain. “GET OFF US! WE’LL BURN THEM ALL ALIVE!”

            He felt fire lick across his hands and he instantly curled them into fists. No! No! Not now, not this early! He couldn’t already be failing! He’d not even got out the damn doorway!

            Despite his better nature he began shoving and pushing as much as he could to force his way through the crowd, though it was doing very little. Already some of the more mobile students had jumped up above the heads of others and were quickly making their way towards the exit.

            For a second, Izuku wondered if there was a way he could convince Nemesis to give him enough control to grow wings and fly up.

            And then the ice came.

            It rushed across them all, almost freezing everyone in place and certainly locking their feet to the floor. Izuku felt the bitter cold so suddenly it almost hurt, a deep snapping bite that went right to his bones.

            He turned his head just in time to see Shoto rise up on a sheet of ice and dart overhead, frost still trailing from his feet.

            Damnit, damnit, damnit!

            Then his skin crawled as another, and by now all too familiar, feeling rushed across his body. He turned his head again only to see vines sprouting from the tunnel wall, forming a platform above him. Then, just as suddenly, Ibara landed onto it from a jump. As she did so, another platform formed before her and again she jumped, repeating the motion over and over. Hands reached up to grab at her, or grab the platforms, to somehow use her quirk against her or at least pull themselves from the ice, but they curled and then snapped dead the second her foot left them.

            Another half-second, and there was a roar overhead, followed by a mass of explosions as Katsuki rocketed himself above the herd of students.

            Izuku felt shame hit him hard in the stomach, and for a second, he wondered if he could even win at all.

            “WE WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY THE ICE PRINCE, THE BRAT AND THAT DAMNED EVANGELIST!” Nemesis roared suddenly, and, in a shocking loss of control, Izuku felt blue fire rush across his scars causing steam to erupt around him.

            He almost yelped in surprise, that was until one foot broke out from the ice sheet and then his other, and suddenly he was running, dashing forward on legs fueled by the petty jealousy of his inner demon.

            On one hand, Izuku was terrified that he had almost slipped up. On the other, it had, well, worked.

            He rushed past the other, still stuck, students and found himself instantly pulling ahead as he made it out of the archway and onto the course proper. He glanced back, and a jolt of light-bright pride shot through his spine and he found himself grinning a toothy, sharp grin.

            He would have yelled and punched the air for joy if he hadn’t turned suddenly to refocus on the race. He had done it! The first obstacle had been beaten! Now he… just had to finish the rest of the course. Great.

            His pride was further dented when, with yells and shouts of their own, Momo, Mashirao, Mina and Tsuyu came flying overhead, having used their own quirks to avoid the ice, followed by what seemed to be pieces of a girl he vaguely recognized as the one who had flipped his entire class off a few weeks ago.

            Some of the other class of 1-B were also soon breaking from the tunnel, and even some of the support and general study students were managing to get free.

            But it was alright, he was ahead of them, and he was going to hold his lead no matter what. Well, almost no matter what.

            Just as his lungs were starting to burn there was a thump at his side, and Izuku turned his head to see Fumikage matching his pace.  

            The crow-headed boy turned to him, and as he did so, Dark Shadow morphed from a pair of long, clawed arms back into their usual jackdaw form.

            They grinned wickedly at Izuku and called out, “See you at the finish line, little demon!” Then they morphed back into the pair of claws once more and slammed the ground, jolting Fumikage over another large patch of ice.

            “If we do nothing else, we are beating Dark Shadow. Our pride is on the line!”

            Izuku half-wanted to argue with Nemesis, but he suddenly found himself agreeing. He had no qualms against Fumikage, he was his friend and he knew even if they were competing, it would be friendly. But Dark Shadow?

            Yeah. Yeah, he wanted something to shove in Dark Shadow’s face, though he suspected that was the Nemesis part of his heart talking.

            Either way, he picked up the pace, doing his best to avoid the patches of ice Shoto kept popping onto the floor.

            He kept running, fire fueling his limbs and burning his heart, pushing him further and further on. He wasn’t catching up to the front runners, nor was he particularly falling behind. He was stuck in what he estimated to be around maybe fifteenth or twentieth place and reasoned with himself that, at the moment, it was probably the best he could have hoped for.

            It didn’t seem to matter though, not as they turned the first major corner of the course. Because everyone was standing in a small crowd. Even Shoto had stopped, but then again, it was rather obvious as to why.

            Looming ahead of them were six zero-point robots from the entrance exam. Around them were numerous three-pointers, even more two pointers, and even more one pointers.

            Mashirao summed it up nicely from Izuku’s side as the blonde simply paused, sighed and loudly announced, “Well shit.”

            And yet this too seemed no obstacle for Shoto. As one reached a massive hand towards him, there was a rush of arctic cold air and a huge block of ice rose forwards, engulfing the robot within seconds.

            To say he was a little in awe, and kinda scared, would be an understatement. Weirdly, he could also see why Hitoshi had such a giant crush on the guy. He was skilled, smart, and powerful. If Shoto had come riding in on a white horse and saved his life, would he really be so different in his admiration?

            And of course, Izuku quickly reminded himself, he had openly declared war on him less than thirty minutes ago.

            So… more things to look forward too. Yippie.

            As Shoto darted forwards again, though the zero-pointer that the teenager had frozen solid wasn’t just staying still. It was starting to fall towards them… and it was quickly gathering speed as it did so.

            Memories of the last time he faced one of the monstrous robots flashed through Izuku’s mind and, for a second, he wondered if he would have to repeat the process once more. Panic gripped him for a moment as he knew if he threw himself at one of the vast machines, he would shatter himself and completely ruin his chances to-

            Hundreds of vines suddenly rushed from the ground and speared the monolithic robot before it could fall any further, its fingers only a few meters from touching the floor. Then, with an almighty crack, the vines tore the thing apart from the inside.

            Izuku, and several of the other students ducked as pieces of machine flew, flaming or otherwise, over their heads and smashed into the floor. Izuku looked up and over his arms, which he had raised in some small manner of defense, only to see Ibara standing for a moment atop the head of the zero-pointer, glancing back before turning and following Shoto into the vast dust cloud the death of the machine had created.

            So, that was personal antagonist number two at work, also yippie.

            Just as he thought it couldn’t get any worse, suddenly there was Katsuki, jumping forward and launching himself into the air with a vicious, almost animalistic roar of battle-hunger that reached over the sounds of his rocketing explosions. Half a second later and one of the zero-pointers no longer had a head.

            Annnd there was personal antagonist number three. Triple yippie.

            Izuku allowed himself a long, drawn-out groan of irritation at his lot in life before deciding to bit the bullet and forced himself forwards. Nemesis once more rushed through his blood, setting fire to his scars and swiftly reminding him they had a race to win and heads to mount on sticks.

            He only took on the first part of the message to heart and fixed a determined look upon his face.

            Instantly the air was filled with the symphony of battle as the hero students, and several of the support and general students went to war with the robots.

            Izuku, however, was doing his best, not to get involved. He rushed and dodged and darted, knowing that he couldn’t spend too much time fighting in the dust and noise filled skirmish. This was part of the trap, he knew it. Those that got bogged down dealing with the robots would fall behind, and he had no interest in falling behind.

            A fist swung for his head and only by breaking into a roll did he avoid it, and then another smashed down on his position, only to find nothing but earth as he again dodged out the way. His scars burned with fire and he knew he was walking a very fine line, but he kept his focus forwards. He had to, one misstep and his classmates could be dealing with something far, far worse than a giant robot.

            Yet even so, in all the maddening chaos, in all the smoke and dust and cries for help and even with the tangy scent of blood somewhere in the air, Izuku couldn’t help but feel a rush of vicious, hot, wolfish energy take hold of his heart. He was grinning when he hadn’t been a minute ago. Battle called to something primal in his blood, something he knew he needed to ignore but found that he just couldn’t.

            It called to him to rise above, to fight will all his power and pride, to tear the throats out of those who opposed him and stand tall, victorious over those he dominated. Bathed in blood and fire, the master of all before him.

            Suddenly, roaring out before him, was a three-pointer. It utterly blocked his path and Izuku knew, in a millisecond, there was no avoiding it. He had to fight, and he had to do it fast.

            His fists were already on fire.

            The three-pointer raised a vast mechanical palm and, with a surprising amount of speed for a machine, swung it at the young man.

            There was an almighty boom as blue flame erupted from his palm and within an instant, and with a static-laden, monotone scream, the robot exploded into flaming pieces of burning oil and steel. Izuku’s head spun from the use of his demonic power, and every noise and smell and taste and touched seemed heightened to the point of over-stimulation.

            And yet he suddenly found himself on top of its mechanical corpse and before he could stop himself, he clenched his fists and screamed his violent victory at it, fangs open, tail whipping and scars flashing with blue fire.

            It was only when he suddenly spotted Hanta, just to his left, standing with eyes wide in a mixture of shock, concern, and horror, that he realized what he was doing.

            The world slapped him across his face as his common sense kicked back in, and his more logical side reminded him he had a race to finish. His stomach lurched, though he kept his breakfast down, and before his classmate could say or do anything more, Izuku leapt off the robot and kept running forwards.

            “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” He barked to himself as he darted forward, again avoiding more of the robots, as well as the glassy sheets of ice Shoto seemed intent on leaving behind him.

            “We should go back, we should tear through them all, it would be so satisfying to rip something, anything apart.”

            “No!” Izuku snapped, knowing he was talking to himself but in the madness of the robot battle he knew he wouldn’t be heard, “No! We’re winning this race!”

            Nemesis almost seemed to consider this for a moment before it settled back through his scars in a wave of boiling heat, “Fine, but if Dark Shadow asks, we killed a Zero-Pointer.”

            “Fine!” Izuku shouted to himself as he sprinted forwards, dodging another huge swinging paw of a hand from a three-pointer robot.

            And then, suddenly, he was out of it. The pathway narrowed, and while behind him there was a maddening orchestra of noise and sound and light, before him was nothing but trees and open track. And of course, several of the front running students.

            He also realized, with a tired and panting grin, that he had gained a few places. He had to be just outside the top ten now, or perhaps even within it. His senses were settling back into place, and while his lungs burned like battery acid and his limbs felt like they were about to quit in protest, he felt as though he could do it.

            He could finish this race, and not only finish well, but maybe even win.

            The fire was reignited into his limbs and some of the ache was eased. Nemesis was on board with victory, and while he knew he’d be paying for it later when his body would be utterly exhausted, for now, he took the blasphemous energy it offered and pushed himself forward.

            From some loudspeaker hidden somewhere in the tree line, he suddenly heard Present Mic laugh noisily and announce, “Our front runners have reached obstacle number three! Hope you’re not scared of heights!”

            The pathway opened up once more… and Izuku almost skidded to a halt.

            “When the heck did they build this thing?” Someone shouted from his right, and Izuku couldn’t help but silently agree.

             The floor had been carved away, and instead, the path had become nothing more than a series of rock pedestals with only thin ropes connecting them.

            He scanned across the vast open space and was unsurprised to see Shoto already running ahead, using his quirk to slide along the ropes, and of course, freeze them in the process making them utterly unusable to anyone else. Katsuki was already leaping and firing himself over the vast gaps, and Ibara was there too, using her quirk to create her own vine-bridges which of course withered the moment she was across.

            Dammit, they were all so far ahead… though he knew he had something that could gain him the lead in mere seconds.

            The question was, of course, could he even use it? He knew if he threw himself off the cliffs Nemesis would spawn wings to fly with, but the only time he’d used his wings had been under absolute emergencies, and even then, he had no idea how to fly.

            Dammit, dammit, dammit.

            He had to think of something else.

            “We can jump,” Nemesis suddenly suggested, “We’re good at jumping.”

            Izuku went to argue… but stopped. Actually, that was something he could do, and even more so, he was shocked that it had been his inner demon to suggest it.

            “What are we waiting for?” Nemesis pushed once again, “We’re losing time!”

            “Right,” Izuku was still shocked that his demon was being, well, helpful, but he quickly reminded himself that it was only because its own, over-inflated sense of pride would be hurt if they didn’t absolutely dominate everyone on the field. It didn’t care about him, it cared about victory.

            He supposed, for now, that was something he could share with it. As long as it kept it cooperative.

            As the other students began crossing the ropes, doing whatever they could to move across them quickly, Izuku backed up for a moment. He focused on one of the vast stone pedestals and bounced on his heels, hyping himself up before, with an almighty yell, he darted forwards.

            Just as he got to the cliff edge he jumped, and as he jumped, he shoved Nemesis into his legs. Within an instant he felt pain and fire rushing through his limbs as the blasphemous power of his demon flowed through his muscles and blood and bone.

            But what a jump.

            The rock at the edge of the cliff simply gave away as the boy fired himself on legs already half-transformed from human to wolfish and there was even a small trail of blue fire left from the ground to his heels.

            Something giddy and infectious ran through him as he cleared two of the columns, flying through the air with the wind throwing his messy hair back and causing his tail to trail behind him.

            He almost yelled in excitement, even though another dizzy spell hit him, and every sense seemed to stand on end.

            He had done it. He had used his quirk to push himself forwards, to do something amazing, to maybe even win.

            Then he began falling… and he realized, suddenly, that maybe the pedestals weren’t quite so big as he first thought.

            He did indeed yell… though it was one of sudden panic as he practically nose-dived towards the ground. Izuku braced himself for impact, landing shoulder first and going right into a sudden roll which threatened to throw him off the side of the pedestal entirely.

            Only by scraping his fingers almost raw into the dirt did he stop himself in time.

            His heart was pounding in his chest and the dirt in his mouth caused him to choke and cough. He could feel the pain pulsing from his hands and knew already that he would have cuts and grazes there. His shoulder cried out from such a harsh landing but thankfully did not feel broken.

            He could still move, and he could still keep trying to win.

            He climbed back to his wobbling legs and looked back. He had overtaken several students, and, to his sudden realization, he was fourth. Behind Ibara, Shoto and Katsuki he was fourth.

            Sure, Momo, Tenya and that girl who could apparently separate parts of her body were catching up fast, but damn. He was fourth!

            Without wasting another second of time he began quickly crawling along the ropes, trying hard to keep his gain without looking down or thinking about how painful it was to keep his shoulder moving.

            By the time he got to the end of the obstacle, he knew he had dropped down a few places. Momo and Tenya had indeed overtaken him, as had Tsuyu, though the girl with the separating body parts was still making her way bit-by-bit behind him.

            Seventh place wasn’t bad, and hell, it was far better than he had ever thought he’d end up doing. And besides, while Tsuyu was good at climbing ropes, she wasn’t great at running.

            With a measured, controlled breath he overtook Tsuyu, who shot him a rather wide-eyed, blank expression as he did so.

            His lungs were burning, his arms and palms bloody, his feet aching and his muscles a mix of dull pain only barely blanketed by his own fire.

            But his eyes were set, his focus forward. He had to win. He had to win. He was sick of losing, he was sick of always having his quirk ruin everything he wanted because of its damned bloodlust. And besides, more than that, he wanted to prove his enemies wrong. He wanted to let Shoto know he wasn’t going to roll over for him, he wanted to let Katsuki know he wasn’t a mindless animal, and he wanted to let Ibara know that while he may be of Hell, he wasn’t a demon and she wouldn’t crush him like a helpless unborn.

            He had something to prove, and damnit if he wasn’t going to prove it.

            He saw the sign long before he even approached it. A huge smiling skull face with the words ‘Mines!’ printed above and below it. He grimaced as he kept moving forward, a minefield? They would really, really place a minefield in front of the students?

            The answer was yes, because this was U.A., and U.A. was insane.

            Over the speakers, he heard Present Mic yell something about them being non-lethal, though he somehow felt that U.A.’s definition of non-lethal was something they tended to stretch as far as they could.

            However, it did mean one good thing.

            He could see the front runners slowing down, almost to a crawl, and Izuku couldn’t help a sharp-toothed grin. Shoto couldn’t use his ice to make a path, it would mean easy passage for whoever was behind him, and at a glance, he could see that Ibara was having the same issue. Unless she too wanted to forge a path for others to follow, she had to step between the mines one by one.

            Katsuki, however? He was taking a more direct route.

            With a roar he leapt up and simply used his explosions to fire himself over the tops of the mines, rushing instead directly towards Shoto.

            The boy looked up just in time as Katsuki began diving towards him, the blonde screaming something about how he wasn’t a coward and how he’d be number one or something equally as egocentric. Nemesis disagreed, but Izuku ignored it and like many of the others he began trying to step between the mines, though his focus was lost for a moment when Tenya tried rushing past him.

            Within a second the air was divided by the surprisingly high-pitched bark of a mine exploding, followed by a huge and slightly acrid tasting cloud of pink smoke that billowed up. Izuku winced as he saw his friend launch into the air, only to land with a heavy thud some way behind him.

            The fire within his limbs and flowing along his scars was getting impatient at his lack of speed. He could feel the tugging at the darker parts of his heart and mind, telling him to just start running, to use his blasphemous fire to carve a path forwards and allow the flames to simply consume whoever got in his way.

            No, he couldn’t do that, it would be far too cruel and besides, it would only make the same issue that Shoto and Ibara were trying to avoid.

            But more and more he wondered if it was worth taking the chance.

            Others were catching up, including Tsuyu, Fumikage, several class 1-B students and even a few he didn’t recognize at all. He turned back to see Shoto had given up and was running along an ice path while Katsuki hounded him, and even worse, it seemed as though Ibara had similarly surrendered caution to the wind. Vines spouted constantly out the ground, holding mines within their embrace and easily clearing her path, though he noted curiously she stopped every now and then to sprout more.

            And the more he hesitated in his steps, the further behind he felt he was falling. Damnit, damnit, damnit!

            He had to do something, anything to-

            “We could slaughter them all.”

            He had to something else, anything else to-

            “We could use our wings.”

            Again, Izuku had to pause in shock. This was the second time today Nemesis had suggested something helpful, and Izuku had to wonder just how badly his demonic power wanted to win that it would actually work with him for once.

            But suspicion curled in his heart. “This is a trick,” He muttered to himself as he stepped over another mine, “You’re trying to trick me.”

            “Out of what?” Nemesis replied, “Victory? We want victory over all, we want to dominate and rule and prove our power to the world. There is no trick.”

            He felt weak, and he knew it was because he had already used his quirk twice. However, he had recently managed to gather up enough control to use Nemesis five times in quick succession without losing any control.

            Surely one more couldn’t hurt? It was well within his boundaries after all.

            The question was, however, how it would be used.

            “We- I don’t have a high point,” Izuku hissed as he watched Fumikage on the far side of the mine field pick his way across. At least he couldn’t use Dark Shadow here. “And I don’t know how to fly.”

            “We can jump up and glide down over all their pathetic heads and land victorious before them. We can set fire to the gate and let none pass. Our victory will be complete.”

            Izuku grit his teeth. Dammit, it was a… reasonable plan. The last part could be thrown out, but everything else he couldn’t argue with. Not when first place seemed so close. And yet his common sense knew there would be some kind of trick, there always was.

            But he was losing. That was an unavoidable fact. People were already starting to overtake him, even Tenya was catching up, and far ahead Shoto, Katsuki and Ibara had almost reached the end of the minefield.

            It was now or never.

            He chose now.

            “Fine!” He yelled to himself, causing a few other students to look his way, “On my mark, ready?”

            “We are always ready.”

            Izuku pushed his quirk into his legs and again felt his muscles ache and shift painfully within his pants. His feet seemed sharper within his shoes and the air became superheated around him. The ground blackened as he bent his knees, and then, suddenly, he rocketed upwards.

“Go!”

            He screamed suddenly as Nemesis tore through his system and, like a man holding back a tidal wave with his hands, he felt it wash over every scar in his body, lighting him with flickering blue.

            From below him, several students gasped as they saw wings grow suddenly from Izuku’s back, tearing through his shirt and suddenly folding out, great and terrible.

            For a second, silhouetted against the sun, he hung in the air, the very image of a demon brought into the world, with his strange digitigrade legs, his flowing spear tipped tail and now a great pair of bat-like wings that seemed coated in black shadow.

            Izuku however, instantly knew he had made a mistake.

            This was too much to hand to Nemesis, and already he could feel it clawing at his heart and mind, smashing at the locks he kept it under and straining to the very edge of the leash.

            Fear gripped his heart as he pulled it back, panic and terror rushing through him in equal measure to the intoxicating madness of his hellborn power. Blue flame flowed across his scars just for a second before he began plummeting back down to earth, his wings folding in and out as he battled with his quirk over control of his body.

            “STOP! STOP!”

            “LET US FREE! HAND US VICTORY!”

            “NO! STOP!”

            Tears were falling from his eyes as he knew he had lost. In that second, he knew he had lost. How stupid, how greedy had he been to think he could allow Nemesis even a moment of trust. The monster wanted him, it wanted to use his body to slay and kill as it pleased.

            And he curled it all back. He poured the fire inwards as he fell, uncaring how or where he landed.

            “WE’RE GOING TO-”

            “I DON’T CARE STOP STOP STO-”

            He landed, and he landed hard, his back breaking into screaming pain as he hit the ground with a heavy thud loud enough to cause several other competitors around him to look and turn in horror. They didn’t wonder long.

            Erupting from his landing point came huge explosions that rocketed and shook the ground, followed by a huge and all-consuming cloud of pink smoke, though some swore they saw flickers of blue flame within it.

            Izuku world became a cacophony madness. They rocketed around him, throwing him forward and up and spinning him uncontrollably. Instantly his breakfast came back to his throat, but he couldn’t even throw up properly as he was spun too fast. He hit another mine, and another, and another.

            It was like being punched in the kidneys over and over again, like someone firing a fire extinguisher directly into his face. He could barely breathe, and every gulping half-choke he took was filled with acrid pink smoke that burned his lungs. Every sense he had, already heightened thanks to his quirk, was overstimulated to the point of madness.

            When Izuku finally came to a halt, it was on one of Shoto’s ice tracks, sliding him along until he managed to finally stop himself with shaking limbs. Spit and vomit leaked from the corners of his mouth and his head swam with the dizzying sensation of the mines.

            He couldn’t right himself. He tried to climb to his hands and knees but fell again. His body was wrecked, his limbs useless, his mind a swirling blender of colors and noises and smells and sensations.

            And yet still his mind, whatever was left of it, demanded he get to his feet. He had a race to win and maybe, somehow, he-

            “WE HAVE OUR WINNER!” Present Mic’s voice boomed over the speakers, joyful and cheering and manic all at once. “SHOTO TODOROKI TAKES FIRST PLACE!”

            Humiliation. Shame. Disappointment. All of those emotions pushed their way slowly into his stomach with barbed edges tearing at his insides. Tears welled in his eyes as he again tried to climb just to his knees.

            Damnit, damnit, damnit.

            “If we hadn’t held back then-”

            “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Izuku screamed suddenly, “SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT. UP!”

            Disgrace swam and mixed and melded with anger as he slowly, painfully crawled to his feet. His fingers curled into his palms and tears swam down his dirt-covered face. He picked a direction chosen only by the blurry, swirling image of a vast dark archway, and he began moving forwards again.

            His limbs were numb, and were not numb. His stomach was trying to relocate to his mouth and his fire, his terrible, awful fire, seemed to both burn and stab at his scars in equal measure.

            Names were called out over and over again, ticking off those who were earning their place. The top ten, the top twenty, the top thirty.

            And what would he get? Where would he land? Fiftieth? Sixtieth? Would he even progress the next round?

            Probably not.

            Because people like him weren’t meant for the spotlight, they were meant for-

            No.

            “NO!” A new fire burned through Izuku. The fire of indignation, of facing another possible failure, of being reminded once again that despite all his power he did not belong amongst the heroes.

            But despite it all, despite the fact he could barely see straight, despite the fact he knew he was most likely going to not finish this first round, he wanted to keep going.

            He wasn’t a villain, he wasn’t evil, and despite everything he had learned about himself he wasn’t about to let his dreams just slide away because he didn’t finish first in some stupid race.

            He wasn’t going to let Shoto look down on him. He wasn’t going to let Katsuki call him a monster, and he wasn’t going to let Ibara get away with whatever the hell it was she was planning to do to him.

            He would prove them wrong.

            The roar sparked from Izuku’s pounding, aching heart and echoed through a mouth of fanged teeth. His feet pounded the dirt as he rushed forwards, allowing everything left within him to give him energy.

            He couldn’t give up, not when he was this close.

            The archway loomed forward, and he could see students filling it, rushing through, almost fighting one another for their chance to claim the last spots left.

            Izuku focused forward. All aches and pains were pushed by pure adrenaline and blind willpower.

            He could feel Nemesis trying to move through him once more, to press fire into his hands and power into his blood. He grit his teeth and ignored it. No, he would not fall for that trick again. If he was going to finish, even if he finished last of everyone in the school, he would finish on his terms.

            He barged past the other students, uncaring now how he treated them, shoving them aside or dodging under grabbing arms. One student tried to grab his tail, but he curled it back just in time, their fingers slipping over the very tip.

            He saw someone with a shock of purple hair before him, and before he knew it, he was barreling into them.

            “HITOSHI SHINSOU TAKES THE FORTY-FIRST PLACE!” Present Mic shouted over the baying crowd, “AND IN LAST PLACE WE HAVE-”

            Izuku collided with his friend, smashing into him like a missile. The two instantly crumpled together, rolling and falling onto the lush cut turf of the stadium.

            “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” Present Mic yelled, his voice bouncing to every corner of the stadium, “IT’S IZUKU MIDORIYA! WHAT AN ABSOLUTELY ASTONISHING RECOVERY, WHAT IS THIS KID MADE OF?”

            The crowd erupted into cheers as Izuku finally stopped rolling with his friend and managed to turn himself onto his hands and knees. Or rather, onto his head and knees.

            Izuku’s body was still burning. Fire was still flowing through his scars threatening his heart and soul and mind. Nemesis was still howling within him, demanding it was let free and furious that it had been denied its chance to do so. He had danced along the tightrope and had come too close. He had been so stupid, so foolish, and it had almost doomed them all.

            But he had done it. He had finished the race.

            Nemesis roared for more. For blood and fire, to set alight those who had stolen their prized first place. Izuku held it back. He pressed his forehead to the grass, his jaw set and his arms crossed across his chest. Black fingernails dug into the burning scars of his arms as they flickered a hellish blue and his tail spiked and swished with the effort.

            He breathed tight, shuddering breaths through a mouth dripping with bile and coppery saliva, his eyes wide and twitching.

            “Izuku,” Hitoshi panted from beside him and he felt a hand rest gingerly on his shoulder, “Come on, dude, breath it out. Calm it down, you’ve got this, you made it.”

            Hitoshi’s words were more comforting than perhaps the teenager realized. Nemesis was pushing at his barriers and straining the leash, knowing that it had come so close, so close, to getting what it wanted. But as Izuku panted, it faded back into his soul, not calmed but at least pacified, like a tiger pacing the bounds of its cage.

            “Is he okay?” Someone asked. Someone Izuku didn’t recognize. He didn’t look up. Without the blue fire in his blood, every ache and pain came pulsing back into his body and he breathed hard, forced breaths.

            “He’s fine, just needs a moment,” Hitoshi replied for him, his hand still resting on his friend’s shoulder.

            A few seconds passed and suddenly more shadows fell across him.

            “Is he gonna be okay?”

            “Did he get hurt?”

            “Here, take this, rehydrate yourself, Izuku.”

            They were the voices of his friends, Ochaco, Fumikage and Tenya. He felt a blessedly cold bottle of water press to his forearm and with a final, shuddering breath, Izuku pulled himself into a sitting position, his tail laying flat on the grass behind him.

            Tenya handed him the drink, which he took and began gulping down. When he finally looked back to the others, he found them smiling softly at him.

            “Well done, Izuku,” Fumikage spoke first, his arms crossed over his chest, “You almost beat me, you know. It is truly an ill fate you did not.”

            Dark Shadow was gone, and Izuku had the distinct impression it was to save them all from the shadow-demon’s bragging.

            “Indeed! You almost beat me too, it’s a huge shame you didn’t,” Tenya added with a nod.

            “I can’t believe I almost lost completely,” Hitoshi sighed as he sat beside Izuku, his hands resting on his raised knees, “Fuck, that was tougher than I thought.”

            “N-Nemesis wanted to-” Izuku gasped as he spoke, his limbs still shaking from exhaustion and effort. Nemesis had not quite almost taken him, but it had made a huge go at doing so. Pushing it back into him had taken all his effort, as did finishing the race at all. He took another mouthful of water and managed to regain his voice, “Nemesis wanted to use our- my wings to fly over the mines but… the moment I let it I knew it wanted to do more.” He shook his head, “I- I couldn’t let that happen. Dammit, I shouldn’t have ever listened to it.”

            “Well I think you did the right thing,” Ochaco spoke with a soft, apologetic smile, “And think about it like this. You didn’t let it get you, that’s a huge plus for everyone.”

            “We will avenge this loss,” Nemesis hissed through his brain, “And we will show the world our power. Through shadow and fire will we win this day.”

            “But hey, you came in last but that’s still a pass! And you did it without hurting anyone!” Ochaco grinned at him, “You really are getting better!”

            Izuku raised an eyebrow at this before allowing a long, slow sigh, allowing the last of his anger and shame and bitterness to leave him. Or at least to be bottled up for now. Ochaco was right, though her point felt small. He had passed, just barely, just by the skin of his teeth.

            So, story of his life.

            Now of course, he had to face the next round.

            He really, really, hoped it wouldn’t be anything to do with combat.

            The dark room was lit only by the glow of the TV screen. It was a large TV and looked bizarrely out of place considering its almost medieval surroundings. The cold stone of the walls clashed with the large, stripe-patterned couch sitting in the center of the room, though the wooden, glass-topped coffee table and the ornate floor rug at least helped tie things together.

            Shigaraki Tomura watched the TV, his pale skin almost ghost-like in the gloom. He leaned forward, his back arching and pulling the bandages he wore tight across his body. He wore black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt as always. His robe was placed to one side though, he found it sometimes got a little hot.

            He had been healing well, or so his doctor had told him, and soon he would be well enough to begin reapplying the sigils of protection and strength. The ones the demon Nemesis had torn from him with a single swipe.

            His hands curled slowly, pressing against his knuckles as he bridged them, his elbows resting on his thighs.

            “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” The voice of the announcer, the hero Present Mic, shouted through the speakers, “IT’S IZUKU MIDORIYA! WHAT AN ABSOLUTELY ASTONISHING RECOVERY, WHAT IS THIS KID MADE OF?”

            The camera focused on the young man who was face down on the turf of the field looking like he was struggling to stop himself from screaming to the wind. Beside him, a boy with Arabic skin and a shock of deep purple hair spoke to him, though whatever he said was lost.

            Tomura’s eyes narrowed slowly.

            The boy’s black, spear-tipped tail flicked and tensed, then slowly seemed to relax. At the same time, the strange blue tint which had flashed along his interconnecting scars faded.

            His jaw tightened and his teeth clicked together in his mouth. That was the boy. That was the demon-host who had caused all his plans to fail. That was the one who had eaten Legion. They still could not find all their parts, and they’d been scrying and searching for weeks now. His Sensei was wondering if they should even bother with reassembling it at all, at this point it would be easier to hand the new host body to another demon.

            After all, Legion wasn’t the only powerful demon in Hell.

            Tomura, however, didn’t care. All he cared about was killing that boy and enslaving Nemesis to his own will. At least, that’s what he wished to do. He suspected his Father had different plans.

            “Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it?”

            At the sound of the voice, Tomura instantly stiffened, his back shooting straight before he suddenly moved. In one fluid motion, he stood from the couch and to the floor, where he turned, fell to one knee and bowed his head low.

            “F-Father! I-”

            Father Satani chuckled, “Do not worry, my child, you are still recuperating, and a little TV time never hurt anyone, now, did it?”

            The voice was like the finest of wine, flowing from an emerald green bottle to a perfect crystal glass cup. A cup already half-filled with the blood of an innocent soul. There was no gender to the voice, and really, he knew that Father wasn’t even a he, or a she, or any particular sex whatsoever. He only used male pronouns because he was Father Satani, their spiritual leader, second only to his Sensei in authority within the Heralds of Eversoris.

            And even then, that authority was more… shared than tiered. Kurogiri had once likened it to a marriage. Tomura dared not even think such things, and he had chastised Kurogiri for giving such thoughts a voice.

            No one spoke ill of Father Satani. He always knew if they had, and they would always be punished for their transgressions.

            A hand came to rest on his shoulder, and instantly he felt warmth flow from the touch. A warmth that whispered to him untold, forbidden sins and pleasures, of sadistic bliss and hedonism unquestioned.

            He dared a glance to the hand and saw the perfect, marble-white skin of his Father. The nails were long however, clawed almost, and painted the perfect pitch of void-black. They connected to a slender arm that was devoured by great, flowing white robe of gilded, impossibly alluring, migraine-inducing patterns.

            “You know, I believe I’ll join you.” The hand removed itself and Father glided past him, as saying something as crude as ‘walked’ or ‘stepped’ did not suit the unearthly motion of Father’s movements. They were too perfect and too inhuman.

            As his touch left him, so did the warmth, and almost instantly there was a moment of aching void that opened up with Tomura. His body mourned the loss of that touch, that whispering, sadistic power. It faded quickly, as he had long since grown used to the sensation.

            The young man remained where he was, his head still down as he heard his Father sit upon the couch.

            The motion made Tomura feel uncomfortable. This was… not like his Father. Usually, he was so elegant and refined and removed himself from such things like watching TV. “Father, surely you-”

            “Don’t presume to tell me what to do, Tomura,” There was no threat to the words, but then again, there wouldn’t be. Father never threatened anyone, his words were too beautiful, too soothing to the ear to bully or force compliance.

            Father did punish, however.

            And so Tomura kept his mouth shut.

            “Come, join me, let's watch this boy, the host of Nemesis, together. Consider it a bonding moment, between Father and Child.”

            Tomura hesitated for another moment before slowly rising and moving back to the couch, sitting as far as he dared from the flawless Fallen Angel. Despite all that he had gone through, all that he had seen, Tomura had never gotten used to the feeling of power that radiated from Father Satani.

            It was intoxicating, threatening, maddening, awe-inspiring and, like him, it was perfect. Too perfect. Too wonderful to be good, too glorious to be pure.

            Tomura did not look to his Father. He knew better than to lay eyes upon his infernal majesty, at least, not without asking first.

            Instead, he kept his eyes focused forwards, on the TV, as they showed scenes of the students once again gathering together before the next round began.

            Beside him, his Father moved forward, one elegant leg crossing over the other, his long robes flowing precisely around him, almost like they were staged impeccably to further glorify his form.

            “Now then, let’s see if I am correct about the boy,” There was a growing smile to his voice. A smile that held all the kindness of a sadist’s mercy kill, “Let’s see what my sibling has created.”

Chapter Text

            They had given the winning students time to gather themselves together and have whatever minor wounds treated while the losers had filtered slowly through the archways. Most of them were either disappointed students from either hero classes or utterly unamused support and general class students. Only a handful of the business students seemed to have shown up at all.

            Most of them hadn’t even bothered participating. Instead, they had allowed themselves to be immediately disqualified while they stood around discussing the winning participants or trying to sell merchandise.

            Izuku had suffered the indignity of listening to a few of them discuss his performance as they stood a few yards behind him, chatting while a medical-drone had cleaned up the cuts and scratches on his hands and knees after handing him a fresh shirt to wear.

            “The boy who came in last, he certainly looks more villainous than heroic.”

            “Yes, but perhaps that can be an advantage, there is a market for the dark hero trope.”

            “His control of his quirk is quite terrible though, and we’ve all heard the rumors.”

            “Sometimes you need a sledgehammer to break down a wall or two, he would do well in that role.”

            “Only if someone attaches a shock collar to him so he doesn’t rampage afterwards.”

            Izuku had glared towards the poor robot during the exchange as his tail had swished and twitched in irritation. Good to know the entire school knew about his freak out and looked at him like a ticking time-bomb.

            It was a real confidence booster.

            By the time he returned the winning students had all regathered on the field and seemed ready for the next round. He masked his irritation with a wry smile towards the others and a sharp biting of his lip.

            Nemesis had wanted to tear their tongues out for speaking so ill of them, but he couldn’t deny the truth when it was presented to him.

            His control was terrible, and it had cost him a higher place in the race. Not to mention he had no idea how he was ever going to present himself as a real hero to the world at large. It had been one of those distant, nebulous concepts that he assumed would be solved when he got into the school itself.

            But like all his other problems, he was beginning to realize the only way they would be solved is if he actually put forth the effort to solve them.

            Hell, he only had a hero costume because his mother had made him one based on an old, old design of his.

            It seemed, as he stood with his friends in the loose groupings that now made up the winning students, all notion of neat rows and class order apparently vanishing, that Hitoshi noticed his mood. A sudden slap on his arm jumped Izuku out of his self-defeating thoughts and he looked up. The taller boy didn’t bother looking to him, but the smile on his face said it all.

            Quit being such an idiot.

            Izuku took a low, deep breath through his nose and clenched his jaw, refocusing on what was in front of him. Okay, so he had all but lost the first round, but that was fine, he could crawl his way back up.

            He just… needed the right opportunity.

            “Alright, kids!” His eyes turned up as he again spotted Midnight, standing proud and holding out her whip to the large holo-screen hovering behind her. “Congratulations on those that passed! And to those that didn’t, don’t worry! We still have plenty lined up in store for you, so hopefully, you’ll all get a chance to strut your stuff!”

            Izuku curled his fist tightly and Nemesis whispered through him with candle-fire. It was eager to make up for loss it had suffered before, which made it both an advantage and a disadvantage. On one hand, he could rely on it wanting victory, but on the other, it made it energetic and vicious, and therefore harder to control when he did use its power.

            He had to be careful when he used it, he couldn’t afford another repeat of the race. He had slacked the leash just once, and it had almost cost him everything.

            He looked back to Midnight and she smiled with bedroom eyes to the students as cam-drones hovered around her, getting what Izuku was sure would be flattering shots of her figure.

            “Now, for the next round, what shall it be I wonder?” She licked her lips as the gambling-slot-like wheel began spinning on the huge screen, and again, Izuku felt his stomach tighten in anxiety.

            Don’t be combat, don’t be combat, don’t be-

            “KING OF THE HILL!”

            Izuku blinked at the sudden announcement, a mixture of anxiety, joy and confusion, mostly just confusion, crashing through his mind.

            “King of the Hill?”

            “King of the Hill?”

            “King of the Hill,” Fumikage nodded beside him, “I see.”

            “King of the Hill, huh, didn’t see that coming,” Hitoshi mumbled from his other side, adding a slight shrug as he did so, “But I guess they want to keep us on our toes.”

            Izuku’s eyes were drawn back up to the main screen as it quickly changed to show an image that almost caused him to snort in laughter. All Might, grinning in his banana yellow suit, was standing with his hand touching a flagpole, the flag, of course, was lit up in his usual uniform colors of red, white and blue. Around him Present Mic lay on the floor, looking dramatically exhausted, Aizawa-sensei was literally walking out of shot and Snipe was clearly trying to sneak up behind him, gun in hand.

            “The object is simple!” Midnight gave her whip a quick flourish as the screen flashed with instructions, “You will all form into teams, maximum four, minimum two, and attempt to conquer the hill! By touching the flag, you’re laying claim to the hill, and the longer you hold it the more points you gain, though remember, if one of your team isn’t touching the flag, then you don’t gain points! The top sixteen highest scoring students will pass to the next round, so even if one team of four holds the flag for fourteen minutes, and one other team of four holds it for only a minute, then both teams will pass to the next round!”

            Tenya’s hand suddenly shot up from the crowd, and Midnight blinked in sudden surprise before she quickly recovered and pointed her whip over to the boy, “Yes?”

            “Excuse me, but won’t so many teams fighting over one spot be rather chaotic?”

            “Indeed!” Midnight grinned suddenly and stroked the whip across her chest, causing several of the teenage boys in the audience to gape and Izuku to roll his eyes. “Which is why we will have two rounds containing twenty-one randomly selected students each!” She gave a quick smile to an evidently satisfied Tenya and looked back to the greater crowd, “Now remember, as before, if you seriously hurt your opponents, then you and your team will be disqualified! Other than that, well, anything goes!”

            She again gave a seductive lick of her lips before pointing back to the screen, “And the first students to compete will be…”

            The screen flickered into life and, as if rolling out from a giant lottery ball, names quickly began appearing in long rows. Soon the list was filled with students and Izuku felt his heart jump with a mixture of emotions.

            He had been placed in the second round and he was eternally glad that both Ibara and Katsuki had been placed in the first round.

            Yet at the same time, Tenya and Ochaco had been placed there too.

            “Ahh well, it wasn’t like all five of us could be a team,” Ochaco shrugged, giving a quick smile to Tenya, “But least you and I can team up together,”

            The boy smiled and nodded, before glancing to Izuku, “True, but in a way I’m glad. I’ve been waiting for a chance to show off my own skills since the competition started.”

            “Well now you’ve got that chance,” Hitoshi smirked back, “Good luck, motor-legs and regular-legs, we’ll be rooting for you.”

            Hitoshi’s simple statement of good luck turned out to be just the thing Tenya and Ochaco needed. Especially as, once the first round started, Izuku, flanked by Hitoshi and Fumikage on the side benches, quickly realized they’d need every bit of it.

            Because Ibara Shiozaki absolutely dominated.

            From almost the very beginning of the match until the very end of it, the young woman simply stood atop the hill, which was a literal curved hill several meters high with the electronic flag planted on top, while her vines spread out around her. They threw back anyone stupid enough to engage them head-on and, at one point, one of her own teammates simply sat down with his head in his hands literally bored from inaction.

            It also didn’t help that she and Katsuki had teamed together, which was a surprise to Izuku who had been sure that his old, egotistical friend would have gone on his own. Ibara must have held quite the sway over him to allow her the chance to outshine him.

            Not that he made it easy.

            Katsuki did all he could to make sure the few that threatened Ibara’s maze of vines were fended off using a mixture of swift hand-to-hand combat and explosive fire, which Izuku cautiously noted Ibara’s vines drew away from.

            Still, one of the great highlights of the match was when Tenya, Ochaco, Tsuyu and Eijiro floated high above the battlefield before crashing down onto the hill with a burst of Tenya’s engines.

            Using Tsuya’s tongue, Eijio’s fire-proof quirk, Ochaco’s quick thinking and Tenya’s speed they managed to hold the flag for a grand total of five minutes before Ibara seemed to lose patience with Katsuki’s inability to get past Eijiro and Tenya’s dogged defense and simply used her vines to instantly attack everyone on the hill all at once.

            The crowd had gone into a strange mixture of awed silence and quiet concern as the stone-eyed girl had held everyone aloft in thick, binding vines, and stormed back over to the flag to reclaim it, utterly ignoring Katsuki’s angry screaming on the matter.

            When the match had ended and she had dumped everyone back onto the ground, the blonde had barked irritated insults at her the entire time they had walked off the pitch.

            Izuku and his friends, however, while quietly terrified of what they had all collectively witnessed, had not sat idle during the match.

            They had, after all, needed a fourth member to their team. It had taken a little convincing, but they had their fourth and as they approached the pitch to take one of the starting corners assigned to them Izuku felt his heart pick up an extra beat.

            They could do this. They had spent several minutes to one side, whispering and conspiring amongst one another as to the perfect plan of attack. It was obvious who they needed to beat of course. Todoroki had his gigantic walls of ice, and that would be the major component to conquer if they were going to win the day.

            And they would indeed win the day.

            Ibara had put on quite the display, and Izuku would not lie to himself and deny that he hadn’t been intimidated.

            But dammit, he wasn’t going to let himself down, or his teammates, or anyone else for that matter.

            He could do this.

            They just had to stick to the plan.

            “It’s been nine whole minutes folks, and Team Todoroki continue to fight off the competition! Can anyone break through this perfect barricade of ice?”

            Shoto winced as Present Mic’s booming voice bounced through the roaring stadium. He winced not just because it was irritating, but because he felt as though his time was running out.

            Another part of his ice blockade fell as a boy using some kind of ground-manipulation quirk, weakened the hill under it, collapsing it within a handful of seconds. The gap was filled with a huge, bestial teenager who moved and looked like a wild animal, right before he was stopped in his tracks by Denki unleashing a wave of lightning at him.

            Another wall went up, but almost instantly another shout sounded from the other end of the hill, which itself was quite a wide area to protect.

            “ANOTHER TEAM THIS WAY!” Kyoka shouted, her ear-plug quirk allowing her to spot exactly where people were coming from, hence why Shoto had picked her for his team.

            He turned and pelted across the hill towards her as she turned and ran, trying to cover another area of the wall.

            He hadn’t expected it to be this difficult. That girl, the one with the green hair, she had made it seems so easy, especially with Katsuki on her team. If this kept up, he knew his father would have something to say about it. Insulting him for being shamed by a girl, though already he knew his father would admonish him for not using his precious ‘gift’ in the first place.

            The fire which he hated so much. The fire which felt so alien to him whenever he had used it despite his father’s constant insistence that he should use it. The fire which his father had screamed at him for refusing to use, that by discarding his left side he was insulting his family and insulting their sacrifices.

            Shoto’s scowl became hard and fixed as he again rose up another piece of the wall, feeling the ice course through his right side.

            He would never use his father’s damned quirk, no matter what he claimed to have done made to make Shoto ‘perfect’. To make him into this vessel of his own failed ambitions.

            He would not become as obsessive and cruel as his father. Not ever.

            “Kyoka!” He shouted as again he rushed to stop part of his wall falling, “Where’s the next attack?”

            He was met with silence. Or rather, he was met with the overall din of frantic battle, but from the person he needed to hear from most, he heard nothing.

            He turned his head, desperately looking around for his teammates. Denki was off to one side, using his lightning to fend off some shrimpy looking kid with weird purple hair who was trying to scale the wall. Momo was on her place at the top of the hill, keeping hold of the flag and quietly doing what she could to support the others.

            Kyoka was… standing still. Something cold ran through his stomach, which was a sensation he really wasn’t used to feeling but couldn’t stop it either way.

            As he rushed towards her, he quickly began shouting out, “Kyoka! What’s-”

            Time slowed to a crawl as his eyes trailed up.

            Sitting atop his wall was Hitoshi. The second the purple haired teen noticed Shoto, he raised a hand and, in a move that almost caused Shoto to trip in confusion, gave him a slightly awkward wave and a weird kind of smile.

            Almost simultaneously, Kyoka turned to look at him, her eyes a blank daze, her ear-phones already hitting Shoto’s sides.

            And his entire world turned upside down.

            “NOW!”

            The three of them flew over the ice block. Fumikage with Dark Shadow’s giant claws gripping and flinging him upwards, Izuku clinging to his shoulders like his life depended on it, and, following behind them, the fourth member of their motley crew.

            “AHAHAHA! FEAR THE WRATH OF MY BABIES!”

            A girl with a bright, almost neon-pink blob of hair leapt up after them, supported by a dazzling array of various gadgets, trinkets, machines, and devices all strapped to her body. The most notable was the large, square looking backpack patterned with four pink ovals, and with a thick, almost steam-punk-esk pair of goggles pulled over her eyes, it made her look like some kind of bizarre, mechanical insect.

            “MEI!”

            “RIGHT! SMOKE SCREEN GO!” The girl shouted gleefully as if this was all some insane game, which really it was, and from her backpack, a sudden rifle-like weapon popped into existence, aimed over her shoulder, and fired three capsules at the ground around the flag.

            Poor Momo barely had time to react as pink smoke, much like the kind from the mines in the obstacle course, exploded around her. Indeed, before she could form some kind of counter-plan, Fumikage was there. Or rather, Dark Shadow was there.

            A huge, shadow-clad paw rushed at her and smashed her off her feet, throwing her directly towards a clearly panicking Denki who, almost comically, turned just in time for Momo hit him at full force. The two of them smashed up against the huge ice wall and, at least for the time that Izuku needed, they were out of the game.

            Izuku landed, having let go of Fumikage the moment Dark Shadow had dropped them to the floor and immediately broke into a run towards the flag. He didn’t need to see what anyone else was doing, or how his team was acting.

            He trusted them to act as he needed them to act because as long as they followed the plan they would win. Maybe they wouldn’t come in first place, but they would make it to the third round, and they would make their names known as the students who knocked Endeavor’s son down a notch.

            Now all he needed was to put just one hand on the flag and-

            “TEAM MIDORIYA TAKES SECOND PLACE! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!”

            At Present Mic’s voice, Izuku felt his heart swell to almost bursting and fire, hot but proud and confident, roared through his blood. Nemesis, perhaps just for that moment, did not rage or thrash within him, but grinned and rushed across his scars like a proud wolf, howling its dominance to the sky.

            Izuku had to hold back his own howl victory as he had done in the obstacle course. Instead, he settled for letting his grip of the flag become tight as if at any moment it could fly from his grasp, and a sharp and vicious grin to form across his lips.

            As cam-drones hovered above him, he took a moment to look across the hill, still surrounded by the huge ice wall, and assess the situation.

            Hitoshi had brainwashed Kyoka. Fumikage and Dark Shadow had attacked fast, as he had needed them to, and had helped carry him right to the top of the hill. It had been pure luck that both Momo and Denki had fallen together, as Dark Shadow’s next target was supposed to be Denki anyway.

            And Shoto. Poor Shoto. Poor, pitiable, ice prince Shoto had been shocked into dizziness by Kyoka’s vibrations, a move which Izuku had been on the sucker end of once before and had carefully logged for later.

            He could see him, a dash of red and white split hair, stumbling as he tried to regain his balance. His hand was already encased in ice, though without any sense of direction he was simply waving it in front of him as if that would somehow stop them.

            But none of this would have been possible if not for Mei Hatsumi.

            It had been Hitoshi’s suggestion to approach her, and while she had immediately identified Izuku as ‘that devil-boy’, it seemed she had no trepidation whatsoever about working with him.

            When he had bravely asked why she had given him a rather shocking answer.

            “People think you’re some kinda spooky demon,” She had grinned back the three boys, “But if you ask me, they’re far too superstitious. There’s only one true power in this universe, and her name is science!”

            The young woman in question dropped beside him somewhat gracefully, a pair of hover-boots on her feet soothing her landing. She grinned to Izuku and seemed utterly uncaring that Izuku’s own smile seemed far sharper than it had been before, and lifted her goggles from her eyes.

            She was a pretty girl, he would give her that. She was a little heavy set with a rather mature frame, though if it bothered her at all she made no sign of it. Her skin was an unhealthy pale, though in the way of someone spending too much time in front of a screen than any actual illness. Her face was constantly smiling and cheerful which only helped light up her wild eyes, the color of spring daffodils, marked by strange pupils that were crossed like the scopes of sniper rifles.

            When she looked at Izuku he felt as though every ounce of manic her focus was on him and he could help but feel a tiny bit unnerved by it.

            “Brilliant plan, devil-boy!” She nudged him suddenly, moving just a little too close for his liking, “We probably only have a minute or so before the others show up, but for now we’re in second place!” She suddenly grinned more viciously and some cruel sense of delight crossed her gaze, “The moment those walls come down, I’m going to unleash the full force of my babies, and then they’ll pay,” Her voice darkened, and she pulled her goggles back down, “They’ll all pay.”

            “… she is really, really weird,” Nemesis hissed through his brain, marking possibly the first time ever that Izuku had heard his inner monster say anything of the sort about anyone, ever.

            Which said a lot about Mei Hatsumi.

            Still, the minutes passed one, then two, then with a sudden, tremendous crunch of falling ice part of the vast barricade collapsed and almost instantly it was filled with a number of battling teams all of which were rushing towards them.

            This, however, had also been accounted for.

            “AHAHAH! EAT GLUE YOU RETROBATES!” Mei roared her laughter to the sky as her backpack seemed to explode with a number of spider-like legs, all of which suddenly turned and began spewing a thick, white, goopy looking substance around opening in the wall.

            It immediately caught at least three different students and, well, like glue, it stuck them to the ground. For the others still trying to get through, they suddenly found their opening completely blocked.

            She suddenly turned up to one of the camera drones and winked, “A device created by me, Mei Hatsumi, find my instagram at- hey!” She snapped as the drone seemed to lose interest in her and turn to go find someone else to film.

            “Dark Shadow!” Fumikage’s voice rang out suddenly from a lower part of the hill, “Defend the opening!”

            “Glady, my master!” Dark Shadow cawed out and, within a second, they were rushing and swiping at the students who had managed to avoid the glue trap, knocking some back, and keeping others occupied.

            Izuku could feel his stomach twisting into knots, both with a panicked sense of anxiety that his estimations had all been off and at a sudden rush of what he could only describe as battle-lust. He felt jealous that Dark Shadow was having all the fun. He watched the vast demon smashing people aside, all while Fumikage looked on with eyes far colder than he usually sported.

            And he wanted to join them.

            He wanted to run down the hill, abandoning the flag and begin tearing into their helpless opponents. He wanted to show the world his battle prowess, his unstoppable fury, and his unholy wrath. He wanted to unleash his fire and sport talons on his fingers and laugh at their fear and-

            “You okay, devil-boy?”

            Mei’s voice snapped him out of his focus and he suddenly felt his inner hell-fire wash back along his scars like boiling water. He winced and breathed deeper, finding his grip on the flag weakening for just a moment.

            “I-I’m fine,” He half-panted out, even as Nemesis rippled through his blood with power, oil thick and heavy. God, it was so tempting, and it would be so easy to just hand the flag to Mei and let her babysit their points while he- No, he had placed himself at the flag for a reason. The others could all handle their own corners of the hill, he was the only one with a power that couldn’t be controlled, and as such, he was better acting as their final line of defense, rather than their first.

            Besides, his past experiences had shown that using his own hell-born power too much tended to cause electronics to spark and fail. He needed to hold back to keep Mei in the game.

            “Go and support Hitoshi,” Izuku found he was almost growling the words out, his tail swishing in irritation, “We have to keep Kyoka under his control so we can suppress Shoto, he’s still the biggest danger to us.”

            She gave him a sharp nod and, with a burst of her little jet-engine boots, rocketed off down the hill.

            Another minute passed as the other students battled to take down other parts of the wall. More than once Izuku had to duck as lucky shots came his way, one, some sort of horn, smashed into the side of the flag and stuck like an arrow. At some point Shoto had begun firing off random sheets of ice, most of them missing completely, some even helping them, but more than a few getting far too close to Izuku for his own comfort.

            Still, with a mixture of Hitoshi’s continued control over Kyoka, Mei’s constant array of bizarre and dazzling gadgets, and Fumikage and Dark Shadow’s iron-clad defense of the one opening in the wall, they continued to gain point by precious point.

            And then, his luck turned.

            Another part of the wall fell, one right beside Fumikage, causing the boy to jump in shock. Before he could even move aside, he was hit by a hailstorm of scales that battered him so hard he had to shield his eyes and face.

            “MASTER!” Dark Shadow screeched and turned from the opening they had been told to defend and rushed to their host. However, before they could even approach him, they were suddenly struck by the huge hand of a girl with red hair, causing the shadow-demon to let out a loud and furious scream of rage.

            Izuku turned, his eyes wide and his own power spiking like burning oil through his body. He had never expected to hold the flag forever, but he had hoped that Shoto’s wall would have held just a minute or two longer.

            Dammit, he had underestimated Class One-B’s quirks, and now he was going to pay for it.

            No, he could keep his lead, all he needed to do was fend off anyone who got too close. He could lay down some flame in front of him and… buy barely a handful of seconds.

            “MEI!” He called as more figures came at him through the opening in the ice, and, within a heartbeat, he saw the boy with blonde hair, the one who had mocked him two weeks ago, rushing towards him.

            He had the same dazzling blue eyes and vulpine smile… and both spoke of a vicious, arrogant cunning that caused Izuku’s stomach to twist and Nemesis to growl within his blood.

            As he approached, he suddenly turned to a boy next to him, a plain looking teenager with brown hair, and bizarrely tapped him on the shoulder.

            Izuku panicked. And when he panicked, he tended to do very rash and very stupid things.

            He summoned Nemesis into his hand, held it down, and jumped backwards.

            Before the two boys could close the distance, there was a sudden boom and the world under Izuku’s feet erupted into a flash of corrupt blue flame and hot, stinking smoke. He flew back from the flag and almost ended up rolling down the sloping hill before he lanced his still talon-like fingers into the concrete and came to a ground-rending halt.

            “TEAM MONOMA HAS- NO WAIT! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! A BRILLIANT DELAYING MOVE BY YOUNG IZUKU MIDORIYA!”    

            The flag was on fire. Well, not quite on fire, but the ground around the flag was certainly on fire. Blue flame sprang up from the burning floor and quite effectively stopped anyone from reaching forward and taking it.

            Izuku grit his teeth tightly as he tried to focus his overstimulated eyes back on the task at hand. Nausea washed through his stomach, but it wasn’t enough to disable him, nor was it enough to allow his curse to rush through his heart and seize control of his mind.

            The blonde, however, didn’t seem to mind, he turned, nodded to the boy beside him, and then they both looked down and blew.

            And the flames were instantly flattened. Not doused, but flattened, as if a blanket of air had suddenly dropped heavily on top of them.

            Nemesis almost skidded to a halt within his blood as Izuku blinked at the scene. The plain haired boy stepped forward, and it seemed as though his foot passed through something as if breaking it before he reached forward and grabbed the flag.

            “AND THEY’VE DONE IT!” Present Mic screamed through the stadium to the roar of the crowd, “TEAM MONOMA HAVE CONQUERED FIRE AND SHADOW AND TAKEN THE FLAG!”

            “DAMMIT!” Nemesis snapped with vicious, sharp teeth through the meat of Izuku’s brain, “DAMN THE SEVENTH SON’S WEAKNESS! This loss rests on his shoulders!”

            The blonde turned suddenly to spot Izuku and grinned. Then, slowly, he began stepping purposely towards him. Izuku managed to climb to shaking feet all the while his eyes wide and his mind racing. Did they have the same quirk? How could that be possible, they didn’t look related- no, wait, he had done something to him just before they got to the top of the hill-

            “Oh wow, it looks like Class One-A isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you couldn’t even hold the flag, and we barely did anything!” The boy spoke in a mocking tone, his hands held to each side as if he was shrugging casually, “But that’s to be expected from a class who can’t even control their own students.”

            “Neito! Quit taunting him and help me defend the flag!” The brown-haired teenager shouted at the blonde, but it seemed his teammate wasn’t listening.

            “You- You copied that quirk, didn’t you?” Izuku barked up at him as he heard more chaos erupting behind him. It seemed Denki and Momo were back on their feet and already coming to Shoto’s rescue, as well as other parts of the wall collapsing around them.

            Damnit, it was all falling apart, and there was nothing he could do about it.

            “Wow, you’ve got a sharp mind. Yeah, I did,” Neito’s mocking grin grew wider. He didn’t slow in his pace, and Izuku hated him for it. He was so sickeningly confident, so stark in contrast to his own permanent anxiety, “You see, since this festival started, I’ve been watching you, Izuku Midoriya. You’ve given the hero course, and UA, a bad name because of all the chaos you caused at the USJ. You’re using a quirk you can’t control and still thinking you can be a hero,” He chuckled and his eyes suddenly became hard, “You’re nothing more than a villain trying to ruin this school and everything we real heroes stand for, so, I’m going to enjoy the look on your face when I use your quirk to pass this round.”

            The floor dropped from under Izuku’s feet. Fear like no other suddenly hit him full in the chest as he realized what this boy was about to do.

            He could copy quirks.

            He could copy Nemesis.

            He could copy Nemesis.

            “NO!” Izuku unashamedly screamed in fear and began backing up. Fuck the Sports Festival, fuck winning, fuck proving people wrong. This boy could not copy his quirk, no matter what. He could live with another loss to add to his tally if it meant saving the lives of everyone in this stadium. “YOU CAN’T COPY NEMESIS!”

            “I can and will,” Neito mocked, as confident as if the world itself was behind him, “And I’ll show them all what a real hero can do!”

            “HE DARES TOUCH US AND WE SHALL-”

            Neito dived forwards, and everything drifted away.

            Fear was like a rope around his neck, choking the life from his lungs and seizing his limbs. It was like a set of cruel chains cold and heavy around his wrists, ankles and even his tail, weighing him to the floor. It was like a flurry of spears that lanced through his chest and heart, bloody and vicious and painful.

            And not even the might of Nemesis, of hellfire and power unholy, could stop the fear he felt as the blonde reached towards him, fingers only inches from his face.

            He felt his fingers shifting and turning, growing long and sharp as unlight raced up his arms and the fire of Hell itself gathering at his fingertips. But he couldn’t move fast enough, not with his fear taking him so completely, shoving his head under the black water of terror and holding him down as he screamed air from his drowning lungs.

            And then, something huge and black dove before him, smashing into Neito like a truck and throwing him back up the hill.

            And the world hammered back into place.

            A thousand noises, voices, screaming and yelling and cheering and roaring. A thousand textures of smoke and dust and ice on his tongue. A thousand sensations to his touch of grit and sweat and fire and cold, always cold, unlight.

            But not one of them was the human touch of Neito’s fingers on his cheek.

            Instead, before him, stood Fumikage and the vast demonic form of Dark Shadow hanging over their master protectively, looking as though they would snap at any second and tear someone’s head off.

            Crimson eyes turned to look at Izuku and, through a panting beak, his friend asked, “Are you alright?”

            It took Izuku a second to realize that Fumikage was bleeding. There were a hundred tiny cuts across his sleeves, and it looked as though he had hit the ground hard. How he had escaped from the girl with the giant hands Izuku didn’t know, but he knew, in that moment, that he absolutely loved him.

            He had saved his life. He had saved everyone’s lives.

            And he probably had no idea he had even done it.

            “Izuku?”

            “We’re never thanking the Seventh Son for this!”

            “Thank you! Holy fuck, thank you, Fumikage you have no idea-” Izuku almost stuttered as he tried to speak every word at once, “Neito- the blonde- he can copy quirks- he can-”

            The air tore apart with a scream. A scream of utter horror, pain and terror that pushed at the boundaries of what was humanly capable.

            Fire, furnace hot and defensive rushed along Izuku’s scars like a riptide. As one, the two boys and the quirk-familiar looked up to the top of the hill where Fumikage had thrown Neito.

            And like a mallet blow to the skull, crushing bone and brain and all other thought, it dawned on both cursed teenagers at the same time.

            Neito had not touched Izuku, he had not stolen Nemesis. But he had touched Fumikage, and therefore, he had stolen Dark Shadow.

            From the top of the hill, Neito, hunched over and on his knees, screamed as though his soul was being torn apart.

            And from his body, a demon was born.

            Unlight black and great shot out of him, multi-limbed and roaring their birth-cry in a voice that was somehow corvid and hellish all at once. It was one voice, but one great and drowning tone that brought forth images of vultures eating human flesh on abandoned battlefields, or butcher birds mocking their dying victims as they punctured them on gore-strewn thorns.

            The unlight limbs instantly cleared the hill of any other human, smashing aside all who dared get close.

            And then, amazingly, through the screaming of the human teenager whose soul was being invaded by a creature of Hell, the demon’s voice called out, “TRAITOR!”

            And even more incredibly, for just a half-second Izuku heard Dark Shadow reply. It was barely a whisper, and a whisper in a tone that Izuku thought was utterly impossible for the soulless demon, but one that touched something deep within his own heart.

            “Accipita?"

            A vast shadow-like claw swung for them, faster than anything that size should have the right to move. It was only thanks to Nemesis screaming through Izuku’s limbs that he even had the energy to suddenly grab his friend and dive back down the hill before it tore their guts from their stomachs.

            They landed heavily, with a sharp and painful thud into the hard-packed dirt of the arena floor.

            “WHAT THE-”

            “I DON’T KNOW!” Fumikage answered in a panicked shout before Izuku could even finish, Dark Shadow having already been pulled back inside him.

            Izuku felt his stomach knot painfully as he heard the horror and terror and pain in Fumikage’s tone. He was blaming himself for this. Already he was feeling the punishing shame of losing control of his demonic curse and already he was piling it on his own shoulders.

            And it wasn’t even his fault.

            “TRAITOR!” The copy cried out with a voice that was a mixture of wailing pain and furious, unquenchable rage, “TRAITOR! FILTHY TRAITOR!”

            “STUDENTS!” Somehow, over the din of the demon writhing in agony and fury, Present Mic’s voice managed to thunder across the stadium. Gone was joyous laughter and energy he had gleefully punctuated every sentence with before. Now it was the commanding, perhaps even harsh, tone of a trained hero, “MOVE AWAY FROM THE HILL, THE EVENT HAS BEEN SUSPENDED UNTIL WE CAN SECURE NEITO MONOMA’S SAFETY! I REPEAT, DO NOT APPROACH NEITO MONOMA.”

            Izuku did not obey.

            Someone was in pain, and more accurately, they were in the kind of pain that only he or Fumikage could ever truly understand. That was not just an out of control quirk, but a demonic entity that knew only cruelty and hate.

            As other students rushed past them, he and Fumikage both held their ground, a silent air of understanding passing between them.

            And they weren’t the only ones.

            A hand suddenly landed square on his shoulder and he turned suddenly, “Hitoshi?” He blinked and turned again to see a second person appear beside his taller friend, “Shoto?”

            Hitoshi had his own share of bruises and scratches, as well as being covered in dirt, but his eyes shone with a bright, determined inner light.

            Shoto looked equally as determined but was clearly still a little woozy on his feet. Still, his gaze was focused up at the thrashing, awakening monster that Neito had unwittingly let into his soul. Evidently, he had abandoned any thoughts of competition in the face of this sudden, insane development.

            “We need to stop it,” Hitoshi wasted no time with niceties, and his gaze never left the top of the hill, “Fumikage, you said Dark Shadow was weak to light, right?”

            Fumikage paused for a moment before nodding, “Y-Yes, anything bright should do it.”

            “Shoto,” Hitoshi snapped suddenly at the teenager, “We need fire. Pronto.”

            “No.”

            For a moment, it almost seemed as if the cold of Shoto’s quirk had rushed into all of them.

            Then Hitoshi snapped, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN ‘NO’?”

            “I don’t use my fire,” Shoto’s voice had become… cruel. Painful. It ached with something dark and awful that caused Izuku’s heart to tear, even in the midst of all the madness. “I held Nemesis back without it, and Dark Shadow can’t be as strong as that.”

            “We were focused on the Fading King,” Nemesis hotly defended itself, though there was a growling, vicious bite to its tone, “Next time, we’ll make sure to kill the Ice Prince first.”

            “Well- Goddamnit,” Hitoshi looked around, his hands almost tearing his own hair out before something dawned over him and his eyes grew wide, “All of you, get back, I’m going to help. I put Nemesis to sleep, I can do the same to a damn bird.”

            “Hitoshi, wait-” Izuku went to reach out and grab his friend, to stop him from running to his certain death, but the boy was already gone before he even had a chance, vanishing into the huge dust cloud that the awakening demon had kicked up in their thrashing.

            Instantly Izuku’s legs moved to chase after him.

            And to his great shame, it wasn’t just because he wanted to help, even though his heart burned with the thought that someone was in pain and he was just letting it happen. It was that Nemesis was in his blood, like fire and oil across thin water. It was that his own inner monster wanted battle, thirsted for it, needed it like the arrow needed the bow and the sword needed blood.

            And he didn’t even get to take a single step forward.

            A hand clamped down onto his shoulder and suddenly cement, cold and unforgiving, raced up his legs to form around his knees. He was trapped in place before he could even try to help.

            For a brief second Nemesis roared through his blood, furious that their chance to set itself against a creature of Hell, one of its own kind and one that it hated so deeply, had been denied. Izuku’s scars flashed a fire-hot blue as he turned, his mouth set in a sudden snarl that he didn’t remember putting there, his tail lashed out in fury, and his eyes blazed with a battle rush that he desperately tried to push back down.

            It was Cementoss. He was a giant, flat-headed block of a man. Literally, he was a block of cement. His eyes were beady and small, though he was equally heavyset and large. The grey-skinned man stood at his side, one hand clamped firmly on his shoulder, the other hand already stretching out to raise a shield before them. The hill vanished from view, and a deep-set panic gripped Izuku, matched equally by a wave of demonic anger.

            “SIR! YOU CAN’T- HITOSHI- I HAVE TO-”

            “You are doing nothing, and going nowhere, Midoriya.” Cementoss’s voice was a low, gravely base that practically vibrated through the earth.

            “Let the teachers do their jobs,” Shoto announced, his cold, joyless eyes fixing on Izuku, “There’s nothing you can do, anyway.”

            “Sir, you don’t understand,” Izuku actually pulled against the teacher’s grip and against the cement around his legs, and ignored the taller boy at his side, “You’re all in danger, you don’t-”

            “Midoriya,” The teacher’s voice again rumbled out like distant thunder, “You will stand down. We can handle this, you don’t need to put yourself in danger.”

            It hit Izuku suddenly. Cementoss was not here to stop Neito, Cementoss was here to stop him. To let Izuku go would be to risk Nemesis being loose, and so, of course, they had used a teacher who could literally entomb him in cement if worst came to worst.

            Shame hit Izuku like a bullet to the gut. Shame and anger and self-hate and frustration, all mixing together like fat, churning meat in his stomach. Awful and disgusting and rotten. Tears formed along his eyes as his nails, still sharp, pressed into the palms of his tightly curled fists.

            “How dare he stop us, how dare this filthy sinner tell us not to join battle, he is weak and-”

            From the top of the hill there was a sudden bellowing cry and all eyes looked up. However, what followed was a strange, unsettling silence that stretched painfully thin before snapping back into place.

            “He’s alright!”

            It was Midnight, shouting over the raised walls to both the teachers and the crowd. “Everything’s fine! He’s sleeping like a baby!”

            A cheer rose from the crowd, and to hear it make Izuku feel sick. Were they all so ignorant? Were they all so stupid that they could see- see what? A demon emerging from the teenager as he had copied a monster from another student?

            Izuku’s gaze fell down as frustrated tears fell from his cheeks.

            Dammit, dammit, dammit.

            His scars washed hot and angry as his jaw set tight in his mouth. He- he had been so useless, he had been so, so utterly, stupidly useless.