Chapter Text
Katsuki could feel Deku"s windpipe being crushed beneath his hands, but he wasn"t going to turn back now.
"K-Kacchan- please- I just- I just wanted all of us to be together again..." Izuku wheezed as his eyes started to roll back into his head. He had completely detached from reality, living in this sick, twisted fantasy where this was somehow the way to save everyone. His own view of death was so mutated that he wholeheartedly believed this was the best path for everyone to take.
"Don"t- Don"t call me that!!! You"re not Deku!!"
Even when Izuku could no longer speak, Katsuki continued to scream out in protest. "You"re not him! YOU"RE NOT HIM!" The face beneath stared blankly up at him, but the tiny gasps and twitches showed that the job was not finished yet.
Izuku"s head felt like it was going to explode and his lungs burned for relief. It was like someone was crushing his skull with a vice and he thought his eyes might burst from the pressure building up. His mind was a whirlwind of panic and fear but then he slowly started to sink into unconsciousness, only feeling the agony of his life being squeezed out of him.
Unable to speak, he weakly mouthed the words, "I"m sorry" before he lost consciousness. Katsuki couldn"t even process what he had tried to say, and even as the body beneath him grew still, his rage did not diminish. Loosening his grip on Izuku"s neck, he pulled his hands back, revealing the ugly purple bruises blooming on his throat. "Wake the fuck up, you coward! You don"t get to die quietly!" He snapped, grasping around the bruised neck once more, and without resistance from his victim, he pressed all of his weight down until he felt the trachea practically collapse between his palms.
The unconscious body twitched before blood started to bubble up past Izuku"s slightly parted lips. "DIE! DIE YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He screamed through the tears as he released his hold on his victim"s throat once more, raising his fists above his head and slamming them down to collide with the side of his face. He felt the bones in his jaw crack beneath the force of his fist as his knuckles split open, splattering blood over the newly mangled face of his childhood friend. "FUCK YOU, DEKU! FUCK. YOU!" All he could do was scream incoherent strings of curse words over and over again as he beat his fists against the still corpse of Izuku Midoriya.
***
"Kacchan?" Izuku"s higher pitched tone reaching Katsuki"s ears made him grimace slightly.
"Ugh, whaddya want, Deku?" The grumpy four year old retorted as he pulled back his hoodie to expose his head of unruly, fuzzy blonde hair that stuck up every which way.
"When do you think we"re gonna get our quirks?" The peppy younger boy chirped as he jumped in front of his friend to intersect his path.
"I don"t know, idiot. Could be any time this year."
Izuku paused for a moment, his lips curved down in a thoughtful expression. "What if we both get awesome quirks like All Might! Then we can both be heroes!"
"Whatever. I"m still gonna be a better hero than you."
The only response he got was a bright smile across Izuku"s freckled face.
***
"You said we"d both be heroes you idiot..." Looking down at the blood drenching his hands, he only came to his senses when he heard a quiet whimper from behind him.
"Kat...suki..." As soon as Ryuko’s quiet plea met his ears, he finally saw Izuku"s mangled body in it"s full horror before he squeezed his eyes shut and turned to rush to her side. She was curled up and squirming in pain as she clawed at her shirt to try and get some relief from the oppressive heat racing through her body.
"Ryuko, hey, I"ve got you! I"ve got you..." He stammered as he fell to his knees beside her, cupping her face in his bloodstained hands as he stared into her dulling eyes. Her skin was practically burning to the touch as the infection racked her weakened form.
"It hurts..."
"I know, baby, I know-" He choked on his words as tears spilled down his cheeks, gently brushing her dark brown hair away from where it was clinging to her sweat-glistened forehead. "It"ll be alright, I promise."
Clinging to his shirt, she looked up at him with teary eyes. "I don"t want to leave you alone! I-I love you, Katsuki! I can"t leave you..." Ryuko sobbed quietly, burying her face in his chest while he desperately tried to hold himself together. Here she was, in agonizing pain on the verge of turning and all she was thinking about was how he was going to be left all alone.
"Don"t think like that... please..."
"I love you..." With shaky hands, she reached up to touch his cheek, pulling him down to rest his forehead against hers. She wanted nothing more than to kiss him, but if she did, he would become infected too. "Don"t- don"t forget about me."
"NO. Don"t you dare talk like that! You"re not gonna die on me, you hear me? I won"t let you! I can"t- I can"t lose anyone else!"
"Katsuki, don"t let me turn... please..."
His eyes widened as he processed her request.
"I don"t wanna turn. I don"t wanna turn. I don"t wanna turn."
"Please, I can"t do that again!" He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the mental image of Hagakure"s corpse falling limply to the side, blood streaking from the shot dead between her closed eyes.
"I"m begging you...I don"t want to become one of them..." She pleaded, feeling her body grow weaker and weaker as her limbs began to twitch sporadically. Then there was the nosebleed. There wasn"t much time left. Her trembling hand grabbed his knife from its sheath and pressed the handle into his palm. "I love you, Katsuki... I don"t want you to remember me as a monster..."
"I love you too... I"m just- I"m not strong enough..." He shut his eyes tight, turning his head away slightly when he felt her hand on top of his closed fist holding the knife, the last tiny shred of her strength pushing it down to pierce her heart. He instantly let go of the knife when he realized what Ryuko had done. The stain of blood spread across her shirt like a flower in bloom, its petals stretching out even further when Katsuki hurriedly pulled the knife from her chest. "No no no no!" She wasn’t moving, silver eyes cloudy and staring blankly up at him.
"...Ryuko?"
No response.
"Ryuko?!?"
The oranges and pinks painting the sky began to blend into a pale blue above, delicate wisps of clouds dancing overhead as the colors cast down onto her unmoving face. "Oh god... Oh god please no!!!" Cradling her in his arms, he quietly pleaded with whatever deity was out there that this was nothing but a horrible nightmare.
Tilting his head up to the marbled sky, a delirious smile spread across his lips. "Ryuko look... It"s the sunrise... It"s like when I first took you up here, right?" He looked back down at her, eyes bloodshot and rimmed by a red tint as he wept, the shaky smile on his face broken only by quiet sobs as he tried to rouse her from her "sleep." "Come on... wake up...." His fingertips brushed over her cheek, streaking thin red lines across her skin in its wake. Holding her against his chest, he buried his face in her hair, his sobs muffled as he cried out her name over and over again.
"DON"T LEAVE ME!!!"
Running his hands through her hair, he rested his forehead against hers, hunched over her dead body as tears fell from his eyes and cascaded down her cold cheeks. She was already beginning to lose her warmth, but he continued to cling to her, rocking slowly back and forth as he cried out for her to come back. "Don"t... don"t leave me all alone, Ryuko..."
Katsuki bolted straight up in bed, his entire body drenched in sweat as his tee shirt clung to him. "Goddammit..." He whispered into the empty room, wiping the tears from his eyes as his eyes scanned the many empty cots, each of them left untouched except for Ryuko’s. Fifty days. It had been fifty days since he"d lost everything and he still woke up screaming. It was like he could still feel the weight of her corpse in his arms.
The days after her death were a nightmare that he spent in complete silence. That was except for the enraged screams as he cut down the remaining walkers roaming the halls. Once they were all dead, it took him hours to drag them outside to set them ablaze. The scent of charred corpses burned his nostrils and he could practically taste it in the back of his throat. The ashes danced up into the pitch black sky like fireflies overhead, the smell of smoke permeating his clothes and skin so he smelt like death for hours after the deed was done.
That wasn"t nearly as bad as gathering the corpses of his friends for their burial. Most were mangled beyond recognition, but he still fell to his knees to collect their mutilated bodies. Tsuyu and Tokoyami"s remains were nearly indistinguishable from each other as their entrails blended into a horrifying display, so he resigned to bury them together. Jiro hadn"t made it down to the first floor, her bent and broken body lying at the bottom of a staircase from where she had tried to run away from her pursuers. Aizawa took longer to find, lying on the floor of a classroom in a pool of blood with his pale face contorted in pain as if he was frozen in time, defense wounds evident on his lower arms and blood under his fingernails.
Ryuko had been buried first, lying peacefully on her back covered in a tarp as he couldn"t bring himself to look at her lying cold and dead in the dirt. He stood beside her open grave for what felt like an eternity, the shovel clenched in his hand. Finally gathering the strength to cover her up for good, he moved to the next grave, looking down at the unmoving body of Shoto Todoroki. "...thank you...Shoto." He said quietly into the silent night air as he grabbed the first shovelful of dirt and dumped it onto the tarp-covered corpse.
He hadn"t even touched Midoriya"s body since he"d killed him, and the moment he saw the corpse once more, lying mangled on the rooftop and splayed on his back, disgust and fury gripped his entire body. The crows had gotten to him at this point and as he stared down at the nearly unrecognizable face below him, he gritted his teeth and walked back to the stairs.
"You don"t deserve to be buried with the rest of them..." He hissed, not looking back when he heard the flapping of wings as a crow swooped down to perch on Midoriya"s chest.
And so here he was, fifty days later, give or take. He"d lost count. Sometimes he"d sit down in the lobby and stare blankly at the concrete wall covered in tally marks, eyes lingering over the blank area beside the final, 148th tally.
His boots crunched on the broken glass as he walked aimlessly down the dark hallways still painted in russet brown bloodstains. The wind howled through the open windowpanes and ruffled his hair which had quickly become even more unruly and unkept, dirt and ash smeared across his face and arms. His crossbow was no longer strapped across his back. If something attacked him from the darkness and killed him, so be it. He didn"t have the courage to do it himself anyway.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw something laying on the floor among the glass and dead leaves that had been scattered across the tile. Creeping closer, he knelt down and reached out a hand to brush away the debris. His eyes widened when he saw the cover of a spiral notebook splattered in dried blood. Scrawled on the front in sharpie with familiar sloppy handwriting was "Ryuko." He picked it up with shaking hands and slowly let the cover fall open. His eyes scanned over her notes as tears pricked in his eyes, flipping through the pages of supply lists, errands, maps, doodles, and silly thoughts that had popped up in her head that she just needed to write down before she forgot.
Suddenly, a folded up piece of paper fell from where it was tucked between the pages, fluttering to the ground where Katsuki then picked it up. Carefully unfolding it, his lower lip began to tremble when he saw what was on it. It was the drawing Todoroki had given her. Unable to hold back anymore, he clutched the paper to his chest, curling up in a pathetic ball on the ground as he wept for everything he had lost.
The notebook lay open on the ground, the title of the page visible through the smudged ink.
"As of day 112..."