Chapter Text
Hair was important to many people. It could carry memories and shape someone’s view of themselves. Izuku used to be one of those people who cared about hair—he should’ve learned a long time ago that he can’t hold things near to his heart like other people can.
It hurt to cut off his hair. He tried to cut off as little as he could, and it still had to be cut up to his ears. Then it scratched against his ear so much that he had to cut off the ends around there as well. He hated having his hair short. Every time he looked at himself, he saw who he was when he first got free. By the time night came around, just about every mirror in his apartment had been smashed. Getting his anger out worked wonders.
He was pointedly ignoring the news. Just imagining the sheer volume of shit on there about him during his three day long involuntary nap made his head woozy. He had shouted at the number two hero for God’s sake—you really can’t get dumber than that.
He failed to save somebody. He must’ve known the day would come that he spectacularly failed to save a life and got someone killed — but it didn’t make him feel any better in that moment. Someone was dead — a child was dead. He didn’t even know their name.
Eraser was probably worried out of his mind, and Shinsou… He didn’t want to think about Shinsou. Izuku wasn’t scared to think about him; he just hated missing things. His friendship with Shinsou was something he was going to have to miss for a while. He knew about him now—about Fox. That was the line he needed to keep far away from anyone because that was the layer that would get people hurt. Would get him hurt.
So he had to not think about Shinsou. He didn’t think about Shinsou. Shinsou didn’t matter.
He ate about half the food he had gotten from that Denki kid before his brain decided it had enough energy to function properly again. Denki had been nicer than Izuku deserved—he felt awful about just running away from him—but making anymore relationships right now would only end in a train wreck. Everything he did ended in a train wreck.
Fox was really his only reprieve. A reprieve that he only had the charred remains left of. He dropped his head onto his worktable. A cold draft slithered in through the open window.
Fox was more than just an outfit. Fox was a part of him. The part of him that wanted to do good. To make up for every mistake he had made. His mother wouldn’t be proud of him if he bowed under the smallest amount of pressure—of hate towards him. He doesn’t even regret shouting at Endeavour. The thought of killing the guy still intrigued him.
Not everyone could be saved. He had tried his best. Endeavour was the one who was reckless and got him hurt, but Endeavour wouldn’t have even been fighting if it wasn’t for the nomu. Because of his own kind, this mess got made. Izuku was a monster. He’d gotten people killed before, but somehow this one just hurt more. Could it be because it was Fox who got someone killed? Fox who failed to save a child’s life. Fox who wasn’t good enough for once.
Izuku wanted Fox to be a paragon of the speck of good within him, and not even he could save him. He hated himself sometimes. Well, most of the time.
He hated himself for being a monster, for forgetting his mother’s face and for being such a fucking hypocrite.
He missed the time before all this mess. When Fox had saved everybody. Still, he couldn’t go back.
His mask was still intact. Charred on the edges, paint chipped off and cracked down the middle but still intact. Broken but not ruined. Just like him.
The streets had quieted down since the attack. A collective mourning mixed with the fear of the nomu’s return made the mood of the city become eerie and depressing. He didn’t even have to dodge and weave to get through the crowds of people as the crowds had dissipated into almost nothing. Izuku would’ve enjoyed it if he hadn’t known the circumstances that got them like that. The sound of a fading heartbeat still rang out in his ears.
Yet the sun shone anyway. Spring was coming, and not even death could stop the blooming. Izuku had always admired the permanent nature of the seasons. One will always come no matter what occurred in the last one. They’re their own being, independent from anything else on the earth. Unbothered by plague or famine—the trees still wilted and then grew again. The land always bounced back. One day, Izuku is going to come back from a mess even better than he went into it.
That day was not today.
Izuku was again smacked in the face with the reminder of how poor he was when he tried to replace the Fox coat. His favourite old lady wasn’t working that day, and the store was basically barren. He stole it without a second thought. Threw it on and walked out with a pair of cargo pants and a black shirt underneath it like he owned the place. Confidence is key in places where you have no right to be there. The few souls left inside the hell called a mall didn’t even glance at him as he walked out in clothes completely different from what he came in with. His unremarkable self saved him once again.
There was a man stood on a box outside the mall’s doors. He shouted through a megaphone, which hurt his ears when he got too close. His small field of vision had already burned up with the sun, and the man was too far away to make out anything about him visually. He could hear him though.
“Heroes should protect, not hurt!” was shouted out to the ten people still walking around outside of the mall. It was getting late by now, so the number of stragglers had dropped rapidly. The man kept shouting regardless. “Endeavour has got to be held accountable!”
Izuku turned around after that and turned down his hearing—the scent of bleach becoming much more present. He was probably just an outlier. The anti-Endeavour movement had been small but persistent for years. From people who didn’t like his attitude to being downright appalled by his blatant apathy towards human lives and collateral damage. Endeavour wasn’t the kind of hero kids looked up to; he was the kind of hero villains feared.
He did well in making villains fear him. His arrest numbers and ranking over the years increased despite his bad image because of the people who enjoyed having someone like that to save them. The fans who would rate his moves in a battle and ignore how many people got injured because of his recklessness in using said move. Ignored the homes that were levelled and how much money was needed to rebuild because of how flashy he was. How powerful.
Endeavour was a man with too much power—his shouting at him probably did nothing but make Fox look pathetic.
Pathetic was the only thing he felt like as he walked by Dagoba Beach. He prayed, despite his better judgement, that Shinsou would be there. To shout at him or tell him to fuck off or any other perfectly reasonable reaction—he didn’t care. When he had gotten so dependant on other people, he didn’t know, or like.
Izuku has spent two years in solitude; he can live without the only surface-level friendship he had. It was surface level, for God's sake. He shouldn’t have cared about it this much.
There was no one on Dagoba Beach. The small pathway they made down to the ground hadn’t been touched. Their spot in the middle of the chaos was still empty. A ping-pong table was left with no one to play on it. The beach was abandoned. The sun continued to set beyond the ocean, and there wasn’t a soul to watch it on the sand with him.
It had been three days since Shinsou had seen him. Some people had to think he was dead. He got blasted with Endeavour’s fire and then he wasn’t seen again—it was a logical conclusion that he had died in a ditch somewhere. Did Eraser think he was dead?
He could go back to being dead.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. He had been so wrapped up in the forward momentum that he did not even think if doing it was worth it. The laugh of a boy left with the wind. What had Fox even done, anyway? Gotten people hurt and stressed them out? Fox had been hated since his inception, and Izuku had never slowed down to think that through. Was it even worth it to keep putting himself out in the open?
If he had gone through any other window than Denki’s, he could have gotten tortured. Or arrested and gotten found by his father. He got incredibly lucky—he won’t every time.
“Whatever you did with Endeavour—you saved my mom beforehand. So thanks.”
Izuku sighed and walked past the beach. He had done too much good to turn back now. Besides, Eraser would get annoyed at him if he up and left. The feeling after helping someone was quite addictive, as he had found out. He didn’t want to give it up, so he didn’t. He didn’t want to fall prey to inaction again.
His mask felt perfect on his face. Like it belonged there. No matter what—some part of Izuku’s soul clung to heroism and a dream to do good. At this time, however—his need to do good had to be balanced with his need to live. The grey space bar was as suffocating as ever.
His ears couldn’t pick up Giran’s voice yet, so he had to walk even further inside. A strong vodka smell attacked his nose again. The noise of music blasting drowned out the whispers of people in the dark corners. As well as the shouting downstairs that goes on in fights. Why that place even existed was beyond him.
Izuku tried to think he was being paranoid when he thought all eyes went to him. To his little mask. Izuku is a short guy walking into a bar—of course he is going to get stared at. Sure, the whispers seemed worse, but he’s also a very dramatic person.
Air got staler around the edges of the room. The taste of spilled alcohol and the smell of cigarette smoke were more potent at the back tables. The smell had likely wafted in through the stairs. Giran could be down there. Too bad he promised himself to never go there again. Never again.
He won a few fights, sure. It felt exhilarating, and all but the last fight he had still haunted his nightmares.
Last time, he got his arse handed to him. Absolutely lost that fight. He was an eleven-year-old trying to snake by and thought he could fight anybody with his father’s training. He most definitely couldn’t. In fact, he lost so badly people thought he was dead, and some shady people were going to sell his corpse. He ran away from there as fast as he could once his legs could work again. That event must have messed him up as he could never calm down fully inside the grey space. He was always on edge. A thought at the back of his head lingered that if he showed any vulnerability, he could get shipped off just as easily.
There were whispers about him in the grey space. It wasn’t just his paranoia telling him that.
“He’s alive?” slipped into his hearing as he walked past a booth with a couple.
“How is it walking?” Snapped a drunk dude next to the bar.
“He doesn’t even look injured.” Laughed a girl, downing beer like it was her job.
Fox needed to leave. Giran wasn’t here, and if he got into trouble this early after his last incident, it wouldn’t be good. He sighed before turning towards the door.
“Oi, Fox!” a voice shouted from the bar. Behind the bar. Dabi had shouted at him. The roughness of his broken voice was still there—but it was more elated. Like someone had put him in a better mood than he had been in years. Fox turned away from the door and walked up to him. What was the worst that could happen? Izuku’s life was already a mess.
“Apple juice?” A glass was put into his hands before he could respond.
“What do you want?” Izuku asked, his nose scrunched up. Nothing is free around these places. Last time Giran had paid for it—he wasn’t here anymore. He was a Fox all on his own.
“Okay then, brat.” Dabi’s fake positivity was gone in a light. “Listen, I hate Endeavour, you hate Endeavour.” He patted the top of his mask as he spoke, and Izuku had to hold back the urge to bite his hand.
“Good observation.”
“Thank you—”
“That wasn’t a compliment.” If someone ever said you can’t sense a scowl, they were lying. There is something brutal in the way a person’s whole body language changed with their face. As pure annoyance seared through their bones and made it more and more obvious what was going on with their face even without sight.
“I’m trying to be nice to you right now,” Dabi whined.
“I’m trying to understand why.” Izuku drank the whole glass and then got it replaced with a full one. If Dabi wants to waste his time, then Fox is going to waste his apple juice.
“Listen, I have a pretty big reason to hate Endeavour.”
“Does that reason have to do with the burns on your skin?” Izuku attempted to press his finger against the part of Dabi’s arm that was singed. His finger could barely graze it before he dragged his arm back and out of reach.
The burns were awful. He could hear every tug of skin when he moved, every harsh pain as the exposed skin moved against the air. No one deserved to live like that.
“I’m quite a fan of someone who can make Endeavour look like that much of an arse.”
“Didn’t have to do much, actually.” Dabi snorted at him. Fox couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
“He is an arrogant dick, isn’t he?”
“That’s putting it lightly” Izuku felt more giddy whenever Dabi laughed at one of his jokes or smiled at his words.
“Trust me, I know.” Dabi’s smile tugged against the staples around his face, and the sound echoed into his ear. A squishy, uncomfortable sound that crawled up his skin.
“Is that all you wanted to say?” Izuku asked before finishing his second glass. His want of free food knew no bounds.
“You know, I like you Fox,” Dabi said as Izuku tried not to squirm out of his seat.
“So do quite a few people—the approval of Stain around these parts is nothing to scoff at.” Izuku scoffed in reply solely out of spite. “Very funny. All I’m saying is — if you need something, I might be obliged to let some information slip.” Dabi filled up his glass once again in a gesture he could only guess was goodwill. An olive branch between a vigilante and a bartender in a bar full of criminals. Truly not the worst friendship someone like Izuku could make.
“Convenient friends.” Izuku held up his glass for a toast.
“Friends of spite—more like.” Dabi tapped a glass of what he assumed from the smell was vodka against his.
“I liked mine more.”
“Drink your apple juice, brat.” Izuku laughed—a smile haunting his face. Truly wasn’t the worst friendship he could’ve made.
Izuku’s only other friends were a hero and a hero killer—so the competition was scarce. Shinsou would’ve been good competition, but…
Fox wasn’t going anywhere. Sure, the nomu incident had been a disaster for him, but disasters can always be learnt from. If the nomu were going to keep on coming back—then he needed to figure out a way to incapacitate them. Not kill them as that triggers their fail-safe and makes them melt. Something like his darts would work. Izuku knew more about the nomus than anyone else, so if he could test them against himself, he could find out a way to get them out of a fight completely. That could save more people than punching the nomu repeatedly with only a prayer would.
The only problem was where exactly he would get the chemicals. He did jobs for over a month straight to get enough money for them last time.
Izuku tapped Dabi’s arm when he had another moment not running around actually doing his job. “Would you happen to know where I could get some specific chemicals for cheap.”
“If you could make a list, I could ask some people I know.” Dabi filled up his glass for free for a fourth time, and he got more grateful for being friends of spite with the guy each time.
“I’ll get it to you.” Izuku nodded.
He would need to make a full list of all the ones he used last time. Probably in higher quantities to account for experimenting. Nomu anatomy was always strange—a nomu will almost always be on the edge of death. Kept on this side by only the dragging claws of quirks that their bodies can’t shut off. There would be a fine line between incapacitating a nomu and actually killing it. He just had to figure out the line.
Izuku was too deep in his thought to notice as a guy walked up to the bar beside him. Something about him just felt familiar. Too far away to be someone specific he knew but too close to be a complete stranger. Izuku doesn’t know many people—someone flying under his radar like this isn’t very common.
“Two beers.”
“Got it.”
Dabi left to actually do his job—the traitor—and Izuku was left wondering who the fuck the guy was. He wore glasses that every few minutes he cleaned methodically—it took about a minute for him to finish one frame.
Izuku wasn’t the only one who recognised the other, however.
“Hey, I know you.” The man shouted down at him. He looked up at the man and felt like the eyes he had gotten off himself by sitting there in silence came back full swing. “You robbed us!” That jogged his memory.
“Snail!” Izuku shouted out. He remembered him—he was the Shie Hassaki guy who took ten years in the filing room. His elation was almost immediately squashed as he got picked up off his feet by his collar. The collar of a coat that drowned his body on a good day.
Before Fox could figure out what to do, Dabi once again came to his rescue. “Hey no fighting in here, man!”
“He stole very important files from us.” Izuku’s body got shaken about in his hand.
“I don’t give a rat’s arse if he killed your mother. You don’t fight inside. Understood.”
Snail looked down at Fox. Back up at Dabi. Then scoffed as he dropped him back into his seat.
“You’re dead, Fox.” He whispered into Izuku’s ear. His head had been a steady stream of fucks since he first got grabbed. Izuku has done jobs for Giran before, and none of them have gone after him. Izuku didn’t know what to do if someone went after him. What if they figured out who he was? What if they found out about his father? What if they had someone like the Doctor? Izuku contemplated getting himself stabbed in the leg to stop his rapid breathing.
“I’d watch your words.” Izuku didn’t even notice when it happened. A man up in his face one moment—and a katana against the man’s neck the next.
If they were getting attention before—Stain’s arrival only increased it tenfold. Stain is a sort of omen around these parts. The hero killer, a man as feared as he is revered. His name gets whispered in the far corners whenever he kills another hero thought to be indestructible. For as many people becoming villains for love of the game—there was another person with emotional motives to push them into villainy. Stain’s morals called out to people. His culling of the ones meant to stop them—meant to be unbeatable—scared more people than they liked to admit. Even if you didn’t agree with Stain, or didn’t follow him, everyone knew not to piss him off.
“Hi Stain.” Izuku waved to the killer.
“Fox.” Stain nodded.
A smile came to his face without warning. Maybe being liked by someone so terrifying was getting to his head.
Snail was in a very different predicament. A katana at his neck, held by a man not afraid to cut. “Listen, man—”
“Hero killer” Stain corrected, his hand pushed the katana further into the man’s chest. With no change in his heartbeat, Stain watched as his knife ruptured the skin and droplets of blood pooled onto his katana.
“I don’t want any trouble.” Snail said, his heart raced underneath his skin. It was pounding hard enough to ring out in Izuku’s ears. He couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face at that. That was wrong—he knew it was wrong. Someone feared for their life, and he had smiled about it. Forcing his face into a frown did nothing for the righteous joy in his heart. Having seen someone who thought themselves so high and mighty crumble is just beautiful.
He really hated bullies. The Shie Hassaki had likely hurt hundreds if not thousands of people before—one of them deserved to have a little fear for their own safety. Even if he wouldn’t let Stain actually kill them.
“Then you’d do well to leave the Fox alone. I normally cull those less forward with their dark and evil ideals but just know my willingness to stain my soul for the good of the world has no limits.” Stain’s body barely moved as he spoke. The speech came out as second nature—like the words were just a part of him. His hands didn’t shake, and his heart rate didn’t increase one bit. Not a single part of him hesitated or feared as he threatened a man’s life. That was the part that scared Izuku.
“That goes for all of you!” His katana moved away from the man’s neck in an instant—who immediately took his opportunity to run away without another threat. “The Fox is under my protection! Understood!” Oh, there had to be something wrong with him. If there weren’t, he wouldn’t have felt so happy about a literal murderer who cared about him.
It was pure silence in the bar after he spoke. Only the crappy music overhead and the sound of heavy breaths filled the space. People were afraid of Stain—yet Stain liked him. He came to his rescue. He wanted to help Izuku.
Oh, his brain is fucked.
“You missed our training.” Stain stated, like their training times were anything but informal.
“Sorry, I was dying.” Izuku said for dramatic effect—a grin rife on his face. Stain snorted at his words before turning around without warning.
He only shouted for Fox to “come” when he was almost out of the door. Fox scrambled out of his seat and waved to Dabi before he followed him outside. If this were some convoluted murder plan, he would respect it.
“You know, thanks for doing that—” He got two words out before his legs were swiped out from under him. His head crashed against the floor and cut open part of his scalp. He laid there, with his head leaking blood onto the ground until it got itself stitched back up.
“Don’t mention it.” Stain deadpanned as his eyes bore into his head from above.
“What was that for?” Izuku whined as he got himself back on his feet. Stain’s head followed his every movement. Pierced into his limbs and looked for any sign of hesitation or fear or—what the man was looking for was unknown to Izuku.
“I was checking if you had gotten rusty.”
“It’s been three days.”
“Three days of bedrest, I presume,” Stain said, far too close to the actual truth.
He couldn’t very well tell him that he’d been unconscious for the past three days—that’s embarrassing—so he mumbled, “Not voluntarily.” Then elaborated after Stains’ silence got uncomfortable again. “It’s been a rough couple of days, okay.”
“Yes, that fake hero Endeavour seemed to do a number on you.” There was something degrading about Stain’s stare. He couldn’t see him, but he could feel the way his eyes were always on him. Like every move was being examined, tested, made to perfection. He couldn’t do anything wrong around Stain because he didn’t want to make himself seem useless.
“I made a mistake, I know.” Fox mumbled.
“The only mistake you made was not being willing to finish the job.” Izuku listened as Stain put his katana back into the sheath. It clanked against the entrance and rang out as it got to the bottom. He knew the threat of taking it back out was still there—he just truly didn’t care.
“Shouting at a hero will only do so much—I would cull Endeavour myself if ever given the opportunity.”
“I don’t like killing.” Fox said. He wasn’t going to kill anyone—he drew the line with himself there. No matter what happens with him and Stain, he won’t kill a soul. If that hurts him in the end, so what?
Yet someone still got killed because of him. He couldn’t save him, and his heart stopped. That wasn’t his father, and that wasn’t Izuku—that was Fox. His mask of good crumbled around him. Izuku was a monster—a nomu and the son of a killer. That fact had spread across his life and stained Fox with the same ink it stained everything else in his life.
“Yet you still talk to me.” Stain’s heart was interesting. A slow heart that never sped up no matter what. Or at least, it hasn’t yet. The man was a bastion of calm, and still all he felt around the man was unease and fear. Nothing will ever be good enough for him.
“I liked you more when you were defending me.” Izuku mumbled, his arms crossed against his chest.
“I like you more when you don’t deflect with sarcasm.” Stain countered.
Silence around Stain was never comfortable, not like it was around Shinsou or Eraser. Around Stain he always had to be ready for him to pounce. With Stain, he always had to be prepared to fight. His heart didn’t calm around Stain, yet it was happy around him. He flinched when Stain grabbed his sleeve, and he kept dragging him to sit next to him on a curb despite that. The same alleyway he had met Stain in was so close and felt incredibly far away at the same time.
Izuku felt like a different person from who he was when he first met Stain. A person with more experience, more relationships and less money. But he also felt like the same little kid he was when he got paralysed by Stain. As well as the same little kid he was when he ran away, or when his body first started dying, or when he got taken from his mother for the first time. Nothing about Izuku ever truly changed, and sometimes it feels like nothing will ever be the same as it used to be. Fox is one of the biggest changes, and it still feels like he’s been with Izuku his whole life.
“He had gotten somebody killed—a kid I was trying to save. It—it was my fault as much as his — but I needed to blame someone, so I let myself get blinded by anger.” Izuku stuttered. His hands clenched into fists on the cold, wet sidewalk they were sat on. The wind had picked up around them, and he could feel it against his newly bared neck.
“Is that what you think?” Stain didn’t mention his stutter. He didn’t mention any of Izuku’s faults. Leaving it up to the boy to figure out which parts of himself he hated from the vague comments he made.
“Stop being cryptic.” Izuku snapped at him.
“Endeavour does not care for life. He deserved to be culled.” Stain barely reacted to him. A soft laugh that made his spine straighten out was all he got. Most of the time he just got a held too long stare.
“I got someone killed.” Izuku mumbled.
“Did you? Or did you just fail to save them?”
Coming here was a mistake. Stain’s breathing was soft and timed to perfection. No notice of panic or stress in there. Izuku was the opposite. He tried his best to hide it.
Whether Stain noticed would be a mystery to him forever as he kept on speaking without a care to Fox’s condition. “Endeavour is an incredibly violent foe—you can’t blame yourself for his kills.” His words were muffled by the sound of his katana as it once again clanked against the opening of its sheath as it exited. “Just as you can’t blame yourself for mine.”
There was a katana against his throat as he listened to Stain, and that didn’t even affect him compared to his words. “Nothing you say to me can stop me, Fox. No speech, or friendship or gesture of goodwill will change my mission. Nothing you do will stop me.”
Izuku’s stomach was a mess. Some parts of him wanted to help Stain. Stop his killing and shape him into some sort of good person. A louder part of him didn’t even care. Stain was a murderer—that was a fact he had accepted and internalised easier than he expected. In the grand scheme of his life, Stain simply wasn’t as awful as others. Just as deprivation can make something better when you get it back, being given too much of something can make you numb to it.
Stain’s murders didn’t matter because Izuku had been at fault for deaths before. His actions didn’t count because he wasn’t as bad. Izuku was well and truly a hypocrite. He hated himself for it and yet kept on doing it.
Izuku was a criminal. Had been for years. If he clung on to any sense of morality beyond no murder, it would only hurt him in the end. He stole, fought and got people hurt. He wasn’t a hero and never would be. His mother would hate so much about him.
He could shout at a hero because they got someone killed, but somehow as he sat next to a murderer he wanted to do nothing but make sure Stain liked him. Stain didn’t pretend—maybe that was what he liked the most about him. No matter what happened, Stain was still Stain. A murderer and maybe a cannibal with iron-clad morals. He hated people who lied more. People who pretended to be heroes while not even squirming in his father’s grip.
“I could fight you.” Izuku argued while pushing the katana closer to his throat.
“You could also lose.”
“There’s still a chance.”
“There’s always a chance of anything, Fox.” Stain tapped his katana against his collarbone, letting the metal sit lazily against his skin.
“I’m not going to fight you.” Izuku felt as the katana cut against the bone. A small sting, not even comparable to anything he had experienced in the past three days and sent a shiver through his bloodstream, regardless.
“A shame.”
“You want me to fight you?”
“I want to get killed by a proper hero.” Fox pushed away the katana to let his cut heal itself. His collar being used as a good disguise over it. Stain had to know by now that Izuku had some sort of healing ability with the amount of times he’s stabbed him and it stopped bleeding within a minute. Somehow, that hadn’t terrified him to his core. Stain just didn’t seem like the type of person to go tell his father. Or tell anyone really. For all of his faults, Stain is nothing but loyal to his morals—no matter how different his own morals were to the man, he likes someone who isn’t a hypocrite.
“Real heroes shouldn’t kill people,” Izuku said while wiping his own blood onto the curb.
“There are always circumstances, Fox.”
“Like taking one life to save millions?”
“Morals are a fickle thing.” God does Izuku know that. There was a small hope in him that if Stain ever tried to kill someone in front of him, he would be appalled and disgusted. Ready to fight for a life like he does whenever he puts on his mask.
There was a bigger part of him that feared that he would just stand there and watch. That his relationship with Stain would override any rational thinking and make him just be complacent. Izuku couldn’t live with himself if he did that.
He’s so deep in thought that it took him a moment to come back when Stain dropped his katana in Izuku’s lap. “What are you doing?” He asked, his hands shifting to pick it back up. The thing was much heavier than he expected it to be. It shifted out of his grip if he didn’t put his entire weight into moving it one way.
“Have a good night, Fox. Try not to die.” Stain didn’t even look back. Didn’t let him reply or give him his massive, very sharp knife back. He’s gone before Izuku can get himself onto his feet, and his katana is left behind. The handle is colder than he expected. Its ridges didn’t exactly fit into his hand, and it was incredibly heavy.
Next time he sees that man, he’s telling him his presents suck.
Dragging it back to his apartment was a challenge in itself — nevermind how suspicious it was to run around at night with a sword. He did not want to have to tell Stain that he had to ditch his katana because he almost got arrested ten minutes after getting it.
His arms started to cry out a few blocks away from his building. He wanted to take a break, but the end was too close to give up his momentum. When he finally got himself up the stairs, his door didn’t even get locked before he fell onto the floor.
After a much needed rest, he decided not to sleep on a floor again. He dropped the katana onto his bench and then took off his mask and blindfold to just stare at it. Staring is not an activity he does often.
There were bloodstains wrapped around the sharp side of the blade—mostly long dried up. It took him about ten minutes to wipe them off before he moved onto the rust around the hilt. The blade hadn’t been kept in the best condition. It wasn’t something pretty to be babied or cased. In his hands was the weapon Stain had likely used for murder. He should’ve thrown it out the window—even thought about it for a while.
Izuku has quite a few weapons in his apartment that he doesn’t use. A stun gun he made at twelve, a drill he got in a tool set he stole, and the quirk-powered rope he stole alongside his hammer that he had decided not to use until he mastered it. Too many things could go wrong if he didn’t. His katana could just go with them—hidden away in drawers until he got them out when he was desperate.
The katana got placed under the couch he slept on. Uncovered and unkept. Away and out of sight.
Maybe one day he would get the courage to take it out and get rid of it forever. That just wasn’t the day.
Maybe the princess and the pea had the right idea as he couldn’t get sleep to overcome his eyes that night. His head knew he was sleeping in the pillow fort he slept in every night, but his brain also knew that the weapon was right underneath him.
What if Izuku died? The question came to him in the dead of night and refused to leave. He wanted to figure out how to incapacitate nomus, but what if he found out how to kill even the strongest of them? A way to circumvent his regeneration. Would he take it?
If he were being honest with himself, he probably would. He would try to take it another day at a time and keep on living for his mother, but eventually everything would catch up to him in the dead of night. A simple thought he had years ago — that the world would be better without him — would tumble into his heart.
His death would take all his knowledge about Nomus with it. The only people who know as much as he does are his father and the doctor. Maybe his papa. Definitely not his brother — he never cared about them beyond what they could do. Eraser and the other heroes would be at even more of a disadvantage. They wouldn’t even understand what was coming.
Izuku sat up and moved to his desk in distinct silence. The siren call of the katana under his bed got muffled with the sound of him pulling out a new notebook. He opened it to the first page and just wrote.
It was jumbled and distorted. He went from one topic to another with barely any connection to get everything down. There were things written down that didn’t even correlate to the nomus but were things that he needed off his chest. From how much he hated himself to him getting his mother killed and how much he missed his papa. Stain came up a few times. He steered away from mentioning his being a nomu, but his father was a repeated topic. He didn’t call him father in the book.
“All for one” Even whispering the name into the dead of night felt like a crime against nature. Like he could hear it miles away and come get him as he slept. Writing it down brought less fear to his brain. One page just had his name written over and over again like a maniac.
He wrote down anything he could remember about the doctor’s experiments and about his findings. Multiple pages were experiments done to him were edited into the third person. Edited away from being about him like the book didn’t have so many of his feelings just word vomited onto a page. Tear stains polluted those pages, and yet he kept on writing.
When he finally felt he was done with only three pages left in the book, he took a marker and wrote in big letters, “If Fox is gone — give to Eraserhead.” The journal was moved under his couch next to the katana. Two of the most incriminating things he had in his apartment were in the same place.
If someone were to snoop around in his apartment, they could find them both easily.
Izuku barely even cared.
If someone got into his apartment despite his existence, then it could just be the perfect conditions to give the journal to Eraserhead, anyway.