Chapter Text
Mikumo wakes up and is once again greeted by blackness. He can’t hear the serene beeping of his heart monitor over the pounding through his ears. His throat is constricting painfully around his ventilator. His fragile body, one that could level Yokohama in a matter of seconds if he so desired, is shaking uncontrollably. A thin, piercing wail cuts through his throat as uncomfortable and long repressed emotions threaten to escape a construction that would put the mythical Tartarus itself to shame.
The words keep echoing in his head. His baby brother’s voice sounded so real.
He’s had nightmares before. Nightmares where he rewatches Yoichi’s head explode during countless family dinners and midnight walks. Nightmares where his little brother blamed him for his murder, just like the second and the third had. There were even nightmares where he killed Yoichi.
But none of them felt as real as this one. Nothing had ever felt this real. The little ticks he had forgotten about over the 150 years since his passing came rushing back.
And then the dream ended so abruptly that it felt cruel.
He tries to push his sobs back into himself, trying desperately to ignore the continued agony of his tightening throat. His trembling hands curl into indignant fists. He clenches his teeth, and growls through them. He could not be upset, he could not be grieving over a dream.
He was fine most of the time. What made this one different? Why did this threaten to destroy him? Why did this hurt so much?
Why was this unraveling him?
Rage was always a more comfortable emotion for him than grief. He was always the most volatile when he was at his most vulnerable. It’s when he’s also made his worst mistakes. He raises his clenched fists.
He pushes off from his chair and screams. He drives his fist into an adjacent wall with the full, unaltered strength of his body. The pain grounds him in the moment, his mind somewhat clear. Soon, he will be able to look at this more critically of what it all could mean.
Right now, though, he has to plan a jailbreak.
When he comes to, Izuku first notices the stench of rotting food. He only blinks a few times before a fly buzzes directly into his ear, startling him off of whatever he was sleeping on and onto the hard concrete with a pained yelp. He groans as he moves to sit up, his sore muscles screaming in their unbridled hatred towards him.
Sighing, he looks to his left, spotting his original resting spot, the top of trash in a busted dumpster. What a place to pass out while practicing One for All so late into the night. Though, it wouldn’t be the worst place where he’s passed out.
Sighing again, he starts to stand up, brushing off the stray trash that tumbled down with him. His hand stops abruptly when he touches some slimy wet patch on his suit.
He cringes at the sight of a flesh colored substance that’s now smeared on his right hip. He stupidly brings his fingers up to his nose out of some morbid curiosity. The smell of decomposing meat takes his legs out from under him.
The smell of the cold room is filled with the corpses of children, their faces bloated and grey while their bodies are becoming mottled with maggots and flies that have started to take residence inside. The decomposing flesh has long turned green as their bones rot from the inside out.
He stares long enough to remember each of their faces and considers each one as a personal failure. He hears a faint and familiar voice behind him.
Only when the glint from tempered steel cuts through his vision does he even acknowledge him.
“What!?!” He snarls while taking a small step back, his hands clutching his escrima sticks a little tighter.
The figure walks into his peripheral, speaking in his quiet, earthshaking basso that somehow manages to shake Izuku to his core while also comfort him at the same time. “Kid, don’t be so hard on yourself about this.”
Izuku is silent, until he asks,“Why?”
The figure leans against the wall. “It’s not your fault that we didn’t get here in time, it’s their fault for letting them die. It’s the world's fault for even allowing this to happen.”
“You say this every time.” Izuku’s eyes lock with the lifeless stare of a child who couldn’t have been older than four. Their stomach was distended, but the face was sunken and the arms were only bone. They must have starved to death.
“I say it because it’s true, and because you’ve been asking the wrong question. The past is the past. It cannot change.”
“I know that.” Izuku’s hand starts to shake, his eye starts to twitch. He wants to turn back and kill them all, but it still wouldn’t bring them back. He still would never be able to save these kids from this. It was already far too late for that. “Then what can I do to stop it?”
Stendhal crouches in front of him and ruffles his hair. “Finally! I’ve been waiting for months for you to get to that one!”
Izuku flinches.“And?”
Red eyes flash with excitement. “You change the world.”
Izuku scowls. “How the fu—”
“Language, kid.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” Izuku repeats back in Spanish, earning himself an eye roll.
“Through your actions in the present and in the future. Make a just world. That’s what I am doing.” He lifts up his mask and looks him right in the eye. “That’s what we are doing right now.”
Izuku rips off his tainted gloves, throwing them as far away from himself as he can. A harsh burn slowly builds up in his throat until he keels over retching the remains of last night’s taiyaki.
He wheezes a few times before his stomach heaves again despite the emptiness. He coughs, spitting when his mouth also starts to burn a bit from the remaining acid coming up.
His body trembles as he keeps trying to breathe, his throat spasming painfully. He gulps down air, holding himself up with his hands digging into the rough concrete. The pain makes his vision a little less blurry, but not by much.
He hears the people walking by the alley and across the busy street, talking loudly about something he never quite catches. He hears the cars rushing by, even the occasional honk.
Izuku raises his head to look up at the street, instantly meeting another person’s eyes before they scurry off.
Yeah, just walk away and leave me to die. Go ahead.
He averts his eyes back to the ground to focus on his breathing. He leans back on his feet as he takes a few more controlled breaths in, watching the clouds drifting overhead. He takes one more deep breath and shakily looks back to the dumpster. He spots a trash bag torn open with clear signs of burns from something that has cracked open the side of the dumpster, most likely the forgotten remains of a villain fight. A flesh colored fluid seeps out of it.
His legs shake as he stands up to inspect the bag.
He’s also startled that he doesn’t remember when he passed out, either. It’s just a blank void. He remembers jumping up and down the alley to get used to the heightened mobility One for All grants him now. One moment he’s leaping over a makeshift obstacle and the next he’s stirring awake from sleep.
Izuku activates One for All and jumps up to the ledge the broken dumpster has created with the wall behind it. Once situated, he turns and looks down.
He lets out a long breath when he spots the labelled packaging straining to hold in all the liquid surrounding the discolored meat. On the top of the pile are a few that are leaking out, leading to the putrid smell that almost matches the one from his costume. Lots of flies dart around the open ones, definitely happy to get their fill.
And then he notices the…
Oh god, are those used condoms?
And a few are right where he landed, ripped open and mixed with the meat juice...
There is a pun in here somewhere, I swear but...
He looks down at his costume mournfully as he thinks about his chances of getting to change before anyone notices him. Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
Izuku groans in resignation. Gran Torino is going to give me so much shit for this.
Tenya wakes up to incessant knocking at his bedroom door. He blinks the fog out of his eyes and squints at his clock on the wall. The time, 10:17 a.m., stares back at him.
He should be upset with not waking up before Nemuri came over to take him to the hospital, but he strangely feels pretty neutral to that.
Another loud barrage of knocking comes from his bedroom door before he hears a familiar voice.
“Tenya, please. Are you okay?” Nemuri’s voice sounds slightly garbled and shaky. “We’re really worried about you and—”
Tenya stares at the blurry ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes. “I’m fine, Nemuri.”
He hears the slight clack of her heels from shifting her weight. “You know, you don’t have to keep coming every day to the hospital if—”
“I said, I’m fine!” He shouts as his voice cracks on fine. As if his lie wasn’t transparent enough. “What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t come!?! What if I said you needed a break, that you shouldn’t come to see him!?!”
“Tenya...” Nemuri sounds like she put her hand on the doorknob, but it doesn’t turn.
“Speaking of which, you have so much on your shoulders right now. I don’t know how you can even function! At least you’re helping him. If anyone deserves a break, it’s you!”
“Tenya?”
“The only thing I can do to help him is be there for him, to be there with him. If I could do anything else to help him I would, but right now the only thing I can do is cheer him on!” Tenya smiles, but it feels way too sorrowful. “I can’t let him down, Nemuri! I...”
The silence is way too loud. Just loud enough to clearly hear the hushed sobbing from the other side of the door.
He bites his lip to hold back his own tears.
“I get it, Tenya, I do.” Nemuri sniffs. “Shouta is coming today, and I’ll try to talk him into letting you intern with me to help with the paperwork. You are really doing a good job of holding yourself together, you know. Tensei is really proud of you.”
Tenya’s heart clenches painfully.
“How about we take a small detour on the way to the hospital. We can get some ice cream if you want?”
He feels his face stretch into a small smile. “Yeah, that sounds alright.”
Nemuri then lets him get ready. He washes his body off pretty quickly and by the time he is finished, he can smell something being toasted from the kitchen through his door. While dressing and grabbing his coat from the closet, a stray thought passes through his mind and he ends up Woogling how to clear his search history on his laptop. He’s shocked at how simple it is.
Oddly though, 9chan didn’t appear in his history at all. Strange. Regardless, he doesn’t have the time to look any further into the subject. He grabs his phone, his backpack, and pulls his headphones off the charger. He slips the headphones into their proper case in his backpack and rushes into the kitchen.
“Ready to hit the road, Tenya?” Nemuri asks as he scarfs down a piece of toast with peanut butter he just now slathered on, “You shouldn't keep an old woman waiting, you know.”
Tenya almost falls for it. Instead, he rolls his eyes and opens the door for her as she grabs her coat.
“Always such a gentleman!” Nemuri grins while slipping into the coat.
Tenya laughs at this. The nostalgia of the familiar joke washes over him, its warmth a much welcomed comfort. Nemuri has been in the picture for as far back in time as he can remember. She’s just as much a part of his family as Tensei or his mother and father are. Out of everyone though, she seems to be the only one who gets it. Someone who understands this helplessness since she’s probably feeling just like him.
He moves over to his side of the car while Nemuri herself gets all settled in to drive. Looking in the rear view mirror, Nemuri hums for a moment as she backs out into the street.
“So...” Nemuri smiles as she starts down their usual route to the hospital. “Which ice cream place do you want to go to? There’s quite a few scattered around the way there, but our favorite one is a little off from our normal route. Do you want to try a new one or do you want me to get us to that one?”
“I think we know what we both need.”
Nemuri laughs as she turns on her blinker, “Favorite it is.”
Tenya forces a smile as he turns to look out the window.
In another city, a man wakes up, his silk pajamas soft against his skin as he starts to shift around the room with the mid morning light as his guide.
He takes multiple trips to his balcony. On the first trip, he brings his tea set. With the second, he brings napkins. For the third, he brings his breakfast, a slice of toast with strawberry jam. And with the fourth and final trip, he grabs the newspaper from his mail slot.
He sets the newspaper gently on the table before beginning his morning stretches while facing the buzzing city below. He twists and arches his upper body, cracking his neck, and back. He locks his fingers and pushes outward, leading to a satisfying but soft cascade of cracks. Now that he feels limber and comfortable, he pulls out his chair and takes a seat.
He takes out his lighter from his front pocket, and picks up a cigarette from his tea tray. After he lights it, he takes a long, satisfying puff. He savors the flavor, the way it burns his throat and lungs. As he exhales, the beautiful scent of the cigarette wafting in the air returns back to him before fading away in the wind.
It’s a shame how people don’t understand the joys of a cigarette anymore.
With his free hand, he pours his tea. Earl Grey, his favorite. He doesn’t add milk, or honey, or god forbid sugar because nothing needs to be added to Earl Grey for it to be delicious. People who can’t appreciate good tea for what it is shouldn’t be taken seriously. Creatures like Nedzu put sugar in Earl Grey. What glorified animals!
He takes a bite of his toast, and with a smile and a quiet mind, imagines Chizome Akaguro dead.
