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The rasp of quick, panicked breaths fill the air. They come from a man - a boy really if anyone looked closely - unfurling himself as he wakes, seemingly from a nightmare. The stab of adrenaline that had put him on high alert when he woke was now fading as quickly as it arrived. The boy found that he wished it stuck around for longer. He was cold, hungry, every muscle in his body hurt and despite rubbing his eyes over and over again, the pitch darkness of the room did not budge. He tries to stand. The floor is smooth but uneven - and slightly damp. Cobbled. Like a prison cell, he observes.
He rolls his shoulders, working out the cramps from the unceremonious contortion that could only come from a loss of consciousness, and when the cramps refuse to abate, he switches to massaging. The boy stops momentarily at the feel of the odd fabric of his clothing and the strange patches stitched to his shoulders. He pats himself down, following the lines of the stitching, fingers grazing against what seems like a belt with pouches fastened to it. He takes a step, boots clanging against the side of the wall.
Are boots supposed to clang? The sound reverberates through the space and the inside of his already aching head. The boy places a hand on the wall and traces the perimeter of the room.
He has no clue where he is.
He also has no clue who he is.
00.0 - Darkness
The boy rolls his eyes and sighs. The realisation of not having his memories didn’t seem to terrify him as much as the cliche of amnesia irritated him.
“How would you know what’s an old cliche if you don’t remember anything? And what’s a new cliche? Unless it’s not the first time - but you wouldn’t know because it’s YOUR first time but not HIS-”
The irritation only worsens. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t seem like whoever he is was particularly easy-going.
So, he focuses on the sound of his steps and the whisper of his hand dragging across the walls instead, rounding all three corners and ending up back where he started from. What now, he thinks.
The boy’s hand raises to his face, his brow furrows and that incessantly exhausting voice in his head starts bombarding him with totally useless information like ‘this must be a habit that you have’ and ‘I’m hungry’ and ‘amnesia is odd, because how do I remember the word amnesia and what I should be looking for and what things are named when I shouldn’t remember anyth-’
“Please stop.” He finds himself saying aloud, even as he knows that the annoying inside voice he’s decided to dub as Ghostie is right. Why did he feel an odd sensation touching his bare skin to the walls, as if his hands were supposed to expect the feeling of gloves instead? Why did he feel as though the walls of a pitch-black cell were not supposed to be an obstacle for someone like him? Who was someone like him?
He wishes not for the first time since he woke that he knew his own name.
He sits. If he does manage to break a wall to escape, he will have four options to choose from, with no way to predict what’s on the other side. The idea of breaking a wall sounds ludicrous to him, but perhaps Ghostie has a point. Why else would he have nothing useful except clunky iron boots? Perhaps if he circled the room again, he could tap the walls and test for a weak spot. He knows it’s a long shot, but what other option is there?
00.1
Tapping on the walls did not work. Screaming at the wall in frustration ALSO did not work. In fact, it slowed him down considerably to have to wait for the echo to fade each time. The boy did not learn after the first scream, however as stomping angrily across the room DID work, it left the boy smug with pleasure at the small victory.
There is a single spot, almost dead center to the room that felt hollow. So that’s where he is now, debating whether he should continue stomping on the spot (which is not working at all for him) or if there’s an easier way to break through.
He considers his other option: jump as high as he possibly could and land with his weight on the hollow spot, but hesitation grounds him stemming from two reasons. The first is that it’s going to look so very stupid if he jumps and nothing happens, to which Ghostie pointed out that no one could see anyway so why the hang up. He had no mental comeback to that. The second is that if he does break through, there could be either nothing more than a small storage space, an indefinite drop to my death, or multiple dangerous enemies. Ghostie seemed to think enemies was the “expected” option, which of course, deeply unsettled him.
He decides that anything is better than this oppressively dark room. He makes his way back to the wall, takes a running start, and jumps.
The floor breaks through. He’s free!
00.3 - ????
The boy has died.
00.4
Not this fucking room again. What the hell happened???? The boy can hardly believe he’s back.
He feels the same way the first time he woke, except now there’s a gaping hole in the middle of the room, emanating an enchanting shade of Hell Red to illuminate the corners of his cobbled prison with molten light. He had been hoping for some hidden text or inscriptions, and definitely no convenient rope ladders leading up trapdoors in the roof with signs that said “WAY OUT!!!!”
He sighs. Putting his hands on his hips, he reluctantly paces the room again, grateful that at least his captors had allowed him the grace of keeping his boots on. That… and his belt! The boy starts emptying the pouches, trying to make sense of the contents in the dim light softly filling the room. A small notepad and pen, a first aid kit with bandages and painkillers, a couple of energy bars (he devours one), and a small plastic card with a face and a name on it.
He looks at a freckled face looking back at him, a wobbly smile and bright green eyes, and a mop of dark green curls covering half the picture. “Has this kid heard of a comb?” Ghostie pipes up. You’re not supposed to comb out curls, he retorts back.
He recognises the outfit in the photo is what he has on now - a green suit of some kind with orange and black stripes running down it, and white shoulder pads.
And next to his face…
Provisional Hero License
Name: Izuku Midoriya
Affiliation: UA High School. Second Year, Class 2A
Issued: 23/11/2015
Quirk: xxxxxxxxx
Hero Name: xxxxxxxxxx
Izuku.
Izuku….
Was that his name?
He sounds out the syllables. Izuku, then Midoriya. Midoriya feels familiar, like he had been saying it his whole life, but Izuku… he couldn’t help feeling as though the echo of his own voice was not the way he preferred hearing that word. That it lacked warmth, concern… and something else. He felt a tightness in his chest. Someone else was meant to say his first name, someone important, someone he felt certain should have been next to him, certain as his own two feet on the ground.
But then again, Izuku Midoriya had just died. “Certain” had no meaning here.
“What exactly is a license to be a hero, and why would that need a second code name?” he says to the room. The room thankfully stays silent.
And what is a ‘quirk’?
That, too, tugs at his fragmented memory, like an errant sleeve rolled up inside a jacket, frustratingly unreachable from the outside.
Izuku chases the thought to no avail as he gets down on his belly, crawling carefully towards the edge of the crumbling stone and peers through at the cause of his recent untimely death.
An exceptionally welcoming sight of a bed of spikes at least 2 meters tall each greets him. A shudder goes down Izuku’s spine - death by impalement. Not very pleasant. Izuku may not know much but he does know that humans aren’t supposed to be able to die and come back to life. He also knows that humans are not supposed to give off green lightning when they jump either, a fact the discovery of his own name momentarily pushed aside. Perhaps this was the unmentionable “quirk”. Izuku decided that he would worry after he’d figured this whole “dying” thing out.
The chamber below is large and circular, acrid stench of sulphur wafting upwards. Even if he managed to miraculously avoid the spikes, a dark body of water waits to embrace Izuku. If the wisps of vapour curling gently off the bubbling surface were any indication, it’s likely to be boiling sulphuric acid. Unlike Izuku’s current cell that was happy to let him frantically grope around in the semi darkness, which seems now a positively luxurious experience compared to what awaits him, the path forward is clearly lit. A small, suspiciously one-of-Izuku’s-feet long and two-of-Izuku’s-feet-wide ledge protrudes halfway up the wall under a white door with golden trim and a large arrow in the centre.
“Could be a red herring”, Izuku murmurs. ‘I don’t think herrings are red’, volunteers Ghostie. He tells it to shut up.
Izuku had noticed earlier that his boots had a perplexing spring mechanism in the toe, which resulted in a delayed boost when struck - a theory he had tested by the exceptionally scientific method of kicking the shit out of the wall and having to spiral his arms wildly to avoid falling backwards into the void.
If he could time the kick exactly right, Izuku theorizes he might be able to propel himself across the pit and land on that narrow ledge. The alternative is to sit here and starve, which seems like an objectively worse way to die than falling onto spikes. At least the spikes would be quick.
Izuku stands, takes a deep breath, and jumps for a second time that night.
“Or is it day, how would you know what time of day it is? You don’t even know where you ar-”
“SHUT UP” he bellowed as he fell.
00.8
That’s how he died that time, too distracted by Ghostie to time anything accurately. The spikes WERE quick, but he could have done without the gallows humour actually sending him to the gallows.
The third time he did manage to use one spike as a stepping off point to reach another but lost his footing and fell into the liquid. Spoiler alert: it was NOT water. Izuku was sick of being right.
The fourth time he ricocheted off more stones to give himself more room to jump. More green lightning flashed, and he was forced to acknowledge that he did in fact seem to possess a higher-than-average strength. After all, no growing boy should be able to turn stone that’s at least a foot thick into dust. He jumped, leaving a trail of verdant light behind him, and found a brief purchase at the very tip of a spike with his iron boot before flying through the air unhurt.
That was the good news. The bad news was that Izuku had found the wall coming towards him at an alarming speed and found nothing but every bone in his body to break the fall.
The fifth time everything went perfectly. Right up to the point where his head met the ledge.
Izuku was sick of dying over and over again. He never remembered the actual acute pain of death, just the fact that he died. He wasn’t so sure that he was the kind of person to have kept trying if he carried the memory of the physical battering his body was enduring. But that door was now taunting him, glowing ever brighter, the arrow glistening in the distance.
He could reach it. He had to.
Izuku looked through his fingers, tongue slightly askew as he mapped out a likely route. He would have to land on a further spike than he had been aiming for. He rubbed his hands against the sides of his thighs vigorously, drying the sheen of sweat. He felt nervous for the first time since he had started his escape attempts, anxiety rolling in waves in his lower abdomen. “What if this is your final attempt?” Ghostie voices unhelpfully.
Then he better make it count, Izuku thought with his jaw firmly set and his lips pressed into a thin line as he surveyed the rock around the gap he had created until he found what he was looking for. He wedged his fingers into the uneven and jagged surface of a particular cobblestone, and when it wouldn’t come loose, he pulled his feet under his shoulders and slowly lowered himself down.
He hung there for a little, building momentum slowly at first, then faster as his body swayed back and forth, anchored only by a sliver of skin on his scarred hands. With a final push, he let go, gravity arching him gracefully across the large and eerily silent chamber, his right foot *ping-*ing clearly off one spike, his left off another. On and on he went, zig zagging back and forth the maze of tapered points until he was almost directly under the ledge on the shortest spike.
Izuku hits the spike almost horizontally, like a swimmer would before turning back for their final lap, and with unnerving precision climbs a path of spikes away from the ledge, the tips of his iron shoes balancing gracefully on the top of every precarious and deadly sharp spike. And at the tallest spike, furthest away from the ledge, Izuku channels the now familiar tingle under his skin, using the lightning’s strength to soar high in the air in a smooth arc before landing on the ledge on both his hands.
He stood on his hands, leaning his body against the door for support, panting heavily. It worked! Izuku had suspected that his iron boots would not fit on the ledge, and even if they did, he ran the risk of accidentally destroying the stone platform with his double burst spring mechanism.
He was just wondering how to get into the door with both hands occupied when his knee grazes at the arrow and the door opens with a sudden metallic cling and dumps him, once again, unceremoniously into an unknown room.
Attempt 1
01.0 - Mission
Izuku lands hard on his shoulder, rolling instinctively to distribute the impact. He blinks away the unbidden tears welling in his eyes from the brightness gleaming off the polished marble walls of this new, mercifully well-lit room. It’s smaller than the death chamber below and is lit by the same golden and white detailing along all the walls as the door he had grown accustomed to aiming for.
His breaths still come heavy as he surveys the room but all he is greeted with is a single pedestal in the center, with a small rectangular indentation on its surface. Izuku approaches cautiously, his iron boots clicking against the marble floor, curiosity slowly beginning to overtake wariness. This was after all the first room of this nightmarish endeavor that wasn’t trying to kill him, at least not yet.
He runs his fingers lightly over the slot, feeling nothing but smooth, burnished metal, coloured to match the pedestal underneath. Izuku pulls his license out, and after a moment’s pause, places it with his name and face up on the pedestal.
Nothing.
He waits, one minute, two minutes.
Izuku huffs, irritated. He tries again, this time with the information facing downwards and the obnoxiously large “HERO” nestled on top of a striped background looking up at him. A soft, pleasant *ping* fills the room. The pedestal hums, a low vibration that travels up through Izuku's fingertips and into his bones. The golden trim along the walls begins to pulse with light, growing brighter with each rhythmic beat, and suddenly a voice rings out clear and bright through the room.
[Welcome. Designation: Hero. Authorisation granted.
Izuku whirls his head around, searching for the source of the disembodied female voice.
“.... Hello?”
“Your help has been requested. A new mission awaits you, should you choose to accept. The mastermind has been found, forcing people into hiding and infringing on peace through sinister and unpleasant traps.”
“Slow down, what do you mean by ‘mastermind’? And what mission?”
[Unknown. Memory files not found. Your presence was detected by the system. Location: safe room. You are not under threat. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to eliminate the mastermind.]
The familiar feeling was back, the same tug at the edge of his thoughts, the same dull irritation. “You’ve heard this before, haven’t you?” Ghostie murmurs from the fog of his mind. “And it doesn’t mean what she says, does it?” Maybe this turn of phrase was the kind of thing heroes heard often, maybe he’s done this before. So why does it feel wrong?
“... How can I be your ONLY choice for this grand mission! I don’t know you. I don’t even know who I am! Did you do this to me? What happened to my memory? Where am I?” Urgency sharpened Izuku’s voice, heat prickling at the base of his neck.
[Unknown. You were chosen for your persistence, integrity, and prior experience. Selection confirmed upon activation of this control room. You are requested to rest before proceeding.]
Izuku was weary. The voice was soothing, inducing him into a lull. All he wanted was to curl up and sleep -
“How,” Ghostie interrupts, “do trapped people have a godlike, lifesaving, death-defying computer handing out missions?”
Good question. Izuku takes a wary step back. “If you can manipulate these rooms, why haven't you escaped? Why do you need me?”
[The system can manipulate passageways, guiding you to rest when you are weary, shortening your path to your goal. It cannot exit the network. The outer barrier is protected by the Guardian. He is quick, cunning, and highly lethal. Your mission is to strengthen your abilities and defeat him.]
Abilities.
“That power - what is it? What can I do? Is that what you mean by “quirk” on that card? Did you hide it from me?” Izuku takes the opportunity to wrench more answers.
Silence. The room flickers, processing. When the voice returns, it almost seems softer.
[Access to hero data is blocked. Prior parameters are unknown. Memory recovery: possible upon mission progress. Likelihood increases upon defeating the Guardian. Do you accept the mission?]
Izuku's frustration ebbs slightly. He takes a breath, forcing himself to think clearly despite the exhaustion weighing on every limb. "Fine," he says, his voice steadier now, "What do I need to do?"
The light filling the room steadies, back to its soothing glow.
[Proceed to the Guardian. The chambers will help or hinder you. Some contain foes. Some may contain gifts, others curses. The Guardian is tenacious, explosive, and will pursue victory at all costs. You must be prepared when you reach him. You must defeat him to complete the mission. When you are ready, you may continue.]
The lull returns as the room slowly darkens. Like a setting sun. Izuku shakes his head. “... Wait. How is it that I can die? Wait...”
[Sleep cycle initiated. Healing status: 12%]
Darkness again.
When Izuku woke, he thought the room was a trick - a hallucination - that he had actually died and returned to his cell of darkness. But the soft pallet under him and the warm blanket draped over his head eased him back to the present. He didn’t remember when the bed had appeared, or when he’d taken his boots off, or when the room had shifted to reveal an assortment of items.
Cold, clear water that sharpened his senses when he dunked his head in and took several long draughts. A crisp and refreshing apple. Hot, clear soup that burned his tongue and made him choke with unexpected comfort. His boots stood neat in the corner, his belt beside them, the energy bar he knew he remembered eating somehow restocked. And hanging from the ceiling, directly above the pedestal, was a mirror.
Izuku fastened his boots, clipped his belt, and stepped forward to the pedestal to retrieve his license card. His reflection stared back - freckled face, wild green curls, the same tired eyes as the photo. But the card… something was different. Izuku was sure that the back of his card was diagonally striped with orange bars, the word HERO emblazoned above it in block letters. The orange was gone, replaced by a full block of green to match his suit.
Was this a different card? Replaced while he slept? He flipped it over repeatedly, searching for anything amiss. But the information was still redacted, the mystery still infuriatingly baffling. What possible quirk could he have that required this?
He inserted it back in the slot, but unlike the night before (or day, he couldn’t tell anymore), neither the lights nor the disjointed voice returned. The whole thing rankled him, the restocked supplies, the room rearranging itself, the way the food and water left him thrumming with energy, like he could leap through a thousand spikes and survive.
“What choice do you have?” Ghostie sneered.
“What choice do I have?” Izuku echoed, circling the pedestal. He placed a single scarred hand on the arrow and stepped forward.
03.2
Izuku climbs.
He is on an endless circular staircase, going up and up for what seemed like hours. The stairs change every few flights - marble, like the room he had woken in, then creaking wood, then stone, then ladders, then glass, then ropes, and on and on.
The first chamber outside the room was uneventful, a long dirt path through a grassy plain that stretched as far as the eye could see under a sky so vast and so blue it looked ready to collapse. The illusion had only broken at the sight of a stone tower piercing the clouds, clouds concentrated only above the tower and nowhere else.
In front of the tower’s entrance sat a red box. Izuku opened it to find a pair of odd gloves with red banding that wrapped tightly up his forearms, ending in large, bulky, white and blue gloves with gold detailing. They fit snugly, too snugly to be ordinary. He suspected they were special just like his iron boots.
He had died twice since entering the tower. Each time, he had started back at the bottom of the staircase.
Ghostie had teased him endlessly the first time. He’d been testing the gloves - nothing had happened, nothing was happening, he’d snapped at Ghostie - until to his great misfortune, a flick of his fingers shattered the glass step beneath him. He fell with the splinters screaming into nothing.
The second death had been worse. The floor had simply vanished, replaced by a set of monkey bars. If Izuku was skeptical of this great evil mastermind, he was not anymore. Only evil could design something this irrational. He was getting tired of falling to his death.
At least I can keep track now. Izuku had discovered that each time he died, he a) ended up at the beginning of the room he died in and b) the back of his hero card showed more orange stripes and less block green. It explained the fatigue that had plagued his movements during that final, desperate attempt over the spikes.
He keeps climbing, hoping he’s close to the end.
03.4
One thing is for sure, Izuku is sick of this shit.
He’d spotted a trapdoor in the distance and had rushed towards it, right before an actual, literal bomb exploded in his face. What kind of sick and twisted person planted bombs? Izuku had been mulling over this whole “defeat-the-Guardian” nonsense, wondering if there was another way, but after four full climbs of this godforsaken tower, he was aching to punch someone.
This time he bypasses the bombs completely. He kicks a hole in the side of the tower and does that hand flick that doomed him in Death Two to smash a window right next to that door (which intriguingly was a smooth wall from the outside). Bracing himself, he kicks the arrow and propels forward.
He wants out. He wants to be home, wherever that is.
06.1
There’s someone there. Someone with pale, blonde hair.
Izuku had passed through two more chambers - though “passed through” hardly captured what he’d endured. Right after the staircase, a glowing orb of light floated in front of him, suffusing his torso with heat and energy. Since then, he had discovered he could shoot black ropes, tinged with the familiar green lightning. This had significantly improved his speed through a very dense jungle. The black whips were like second nature to him, his confidence boosting with every twist of the roping cords as he maneuvered through the thick foliage.
One jungle, a handful of completely avoidable deaths and some animal wrangling later, he was in a different region (this one pounded by torrential rain). His hero card was alarmingly orange. Fatigue weighed down his arms, even after he had tried to catch a few hours of sleep in these lands where time never moved. Izuku knew that if he didn’t do something soon, he would end up back in the control room again. He was so, so thirsty.
“Open your mouth, genius. You’re wasting the free water.” Ghostie needles.
There was one benefit to standing around, mouth hanging open like a catatonic frog: his hero card had filled with green again. Izuku had slapped a palm to his forehead, of course, the energy bars were to help him restore his vitality! Hope swelled as he watched more than half the card turn green as he ate a bar.
He’d made it through that region too, hopping across stones floating on the flooding pond until he reached the opposite banks. That had earned him a gift that replenished more of his health, but this time there was a condition attached: forgo any further gifts in any further chambers to visit the final one next.
Win-win.
Now, he stood inside a moving bullet train carriage. The door on the far side glowed with an emblazoned red cross instead of the golden arrow he’d come to recognize. For the first time, he noticed he was not alone. Someone else was here.
The blonde head turned. A boy with the deepest scowl Izuku had ever seen appraised him, caution smoldering in his sanguine eyes. He was dressed completely in black, orange stripes crisscrossing the front of his cowled suit. He too had a utility belt on. Izuku felt those intense eyes taking in the same details about his own suit.
Izuku’s mouth was clammy. That stare kept him rooted in place, and even though every instinct in his body screamed at him to duck, hide, run, wave, something, his gut told him to stay still.
“Ya here to fight?” Finally, the boy asks.
“Um.” responds Izuku, eloquently.
“You deaf or something?” The boy stalks forward, disgust twisting his expression.
What to say, what to say? Ghostie urged a surprise attack while he’s distracted, but Izuku wanted to be absolutely certain. What if this wasn’t the Guardian? What if he was just someone else?
“Are you here to fight?” Izuku shoots back, ignoring Ghostie’s blistering observation that this is supposed to be the final chamber so who else would this be?
“Only if you try to leave.” The boy pauses, halfway down the carriage, nose upturned looking down at Izuku.
Okay well, that answers that, Izuku thinks. He glances left and right, hoping that he could catapult himself over the Guardian’s head into the opposite door without having to fight. “What’s it to you if I leave or not?” Izuku asks, buying himself time. “You don’t know anything about me.”
The boy's scowl deepens. “Why would I let scum like you lea- OI!!!!”
Izuku sails cleanly over, iron boots lightly grazing the peaks of the blonde’s spiky hair, only just slightly out of reach of the boy’s green-gloved hands making a desperate grab for his ankle. Success! He thinks, landing inches away from the door. He frantically rushes to press the glowing red “X” when a loud bang deafens him, and smoke fills his lungs. Izuku staggers backwards, only just making out the blurry outline of a giant grin splitting the face of the Guardian through his watering eyes.
“H-how did you -”
“You’re one to talk after that cowardly trick! You think you’re faster than me with those stupid little ropes of yours?” Bursts of light erupted from the green-gloved hands, popping in rapid succession as the boy crouched like a tiger, ready to pounce.
“They warned me you were quick, but this is unexpected”. Izuku coughs out, rubbing his eyes.
That catches his attention. “They? You’re with them? A coward and a sneak is all they can manage to send me? You’re going to die.”
“Quick, cunning, and highly lethal. Thought it was just a figure of speech, but I’d rather be a coward than a killing Guardian.” Izuku leaps backwards, putting distance between him and the boy.
“Guardian? That’s not my fucking name.” He thrusts forward, hands exploding in heat and light.
Bombs for hands? Izuku wonders if he can get something like that, or if like his green lightning, it only belongs to this force of rage. It’s cool, he thinks, as he rips the backs of seats with his bare hands to chuck at the Guardian, who pirouettes with ease, controlling the explosions with pin-point precision. Very cool.
“Don’t you think I deserve to know the name of the man actively trying to kill me?” A strange sense of pleasure jolted down Izuku’s spine seeing the boy’s face contort in irritation.
“An NPC like you that’s just gonna keep respawning doesn’t fucking deserve anything!!!” The boy launches a rapid-fire assault that has Izuku scrambling under the seats, his black ropes whirling around him.
“I’m not an NPC! I’m Izuku Midoriya, and you’re in my way!” Izuku flicks a chair at the Guardian, launching him hard against the windows. He’s not felt so alive since he woke up all those days ago in that cell.
“How can you be having fun at a time like this?” Ghostie screeches in his head. He’s not having fun. He’s not.
An almost maniacal laughter fills the air as another explosion rocks the carriage. Izuku braces himself against the opposite window.
“Well, I-zu-ku,” the voice drawls out, “I’m Katsuki Bakugou, and you are NOT getting through, ya hear?” Katsuki’s face reappears, hands outstretched.
Izuku barely sidesteps the thundering blast. A gush of wind rattled the moving train as debris and loose seat filling was sucked out of the splintering gash in the side of the carriage. Highly lethal. Izuku should not be having fun.
“Katsuki,” the word felt wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong on Izuku’s tongue. Izuku’s name on his tongue did not feel foreign at all though…quite the opposite. His name sounded normal. Right, even, from the other boy's lips. How was that possible? “We don’t have to fight! I’m just trying to help people!”.
“Shut your mouth! You’re just a liar, aren’t you? How many quirks do you have, huh? You’re unnatural!” Katsuki shouts back, a trail of explosions in his wake as he chases Izuku around the carriage, matching him turn for turn, step for step, green lightning and molten smoke leaving blinding trails from their deadly dance in the disintegrated carriage. Soon they were both going to be sucked out.
Izuku was absolutely, completely, totally not having fun. He almost didn’t register the entirety of the question - or the wild delight flooding his system at how fast this Katsuki was - before the next blast came.
“Road’s over,” Katsuki grinned, watching Izuku cornered inches away from the merciless suction of the train’s gash.
“Wait, did you say quirk? You have one? Why the hell would a villain like you have one too?” Izuku’s foot was slipping.
“The fuck did you call me? You’re the one siding with a deranged computer! You think you are some kind of hero?” Katsuki snapped his fingers. “You can’t even save yourself!”
The last thing Izuku saw was a path of explosions dizzying through the carriage, the string of dynamite sure to lead to exactly where he was. There was no way the train would survive, let alone him.
The last thing Izuku heard was the hoarse, staccato timbre of Katsuki’s voice, laughing and laughing, almost in time with the pop-pop-pop of the blasts cascading towards him.
“A literal trailblazer, huh?” Ghostie’s voice murmured amidst the cacophony.
The last thing Izuku did was to also laugh, laugh at the absurdity of the orange and grey enveloping this crazy magic train because of this crazy magic boy. But more than anything, Izuku is shocked to find himself relieved that he will be meeting Katsuki again, and that no matter what, he will find the challenge fun.
Attempt 2
01.0 - Save Point
[Welcome. Designation: Hero. Authorisation granted.]
The voice hums through the chamber as Izuku blinks awake. He’s back in the bed, the same basin of water, the same soup, the same apple waiting for him. He jolts upright, the memory of searing heat and thick smoke fading already.
“Katsuki… who are you?” Izuku mutters under his breath. Still sounds wrong, like that’s not his name. “You never told me that the Guardian had a quirk too, like me? Is he from UA too? Why would a hero fight me?” He glares at the room.
[Access blocked. Data cannot be retrieved. Mission parameters unchanged.]
“Answer me!”
Silence. Izuku sighs. “Right. Defeat the Guardian. Live happily ever after.”
He gets ready to make the long journey back to the train. His suit’s unscathed, his belt and boots still in the corner and to his mild surprise, his gloves too. So, I keep everything I gain between attempts. That’s handy. He checks that his hero card is green again, his stride broken abruptly when he spots something new.
Quirk: Blackwhip, xxxxxxxx
Blackwhip…?
Katsuki was right, then. He does have multiple quirks. Izuku had figured slowly as he had journeyed through the first time that this world was set up like a video game, though the memories of actually playing one eluded him, and had chalked up Blackwhip to be like an in-game power up. But if it’s listed as a quirk, something that’s his, and he’s not supposed to have more than one…
Then what the hell am I?
“Makes you wonder if he’s right about other things.” Ghostie says, uncharacteristically sombre.
02.0
Where’s the road?
Where’s the tower?
Where the hell’s his suit?
Izuku stands in a field of tall, swaying grass. And he was wearing a regular outfit, if you can call the front page of the Renaissance Scholar Weekly regular. Green vest, orange and brown satchel, chunky brown gloves, an actual cape and to top it all off, thigh high leather boots. In red.
He could still feel his lightning thrumming under his skin. His fingers still twitch with the power to carve a path through the gas with a single flick of his fingers. Blackwhip is mercifully still at reach, coiled and ready. So, what on earth is the point of the comically large broadsword strapped to his back?
Ahead, a curious stone structure awaits, glowing blue runic patterns etched on its surface.
“Are you supposed to be Link or something?” Ghostie questions.
“Don’t think my mission’s to rescue Zelda-” Izuku hears himself retort instinctively, the imagery of these people already fading, leaving him even more disoriented. His memory was clearly triggered by the temple ahead of him, he just wished he remembered more.
Shrine, not temple. As if the unbidden correction makes any difference to him.
05.0
The shrine had been filled with a short maze of gears, axles and moving platforms that lead directly to a slot in the wall that opened once he inserted his broadsword and twisted. The puzzle had been easy with Blackwhip making short work of navigation.
Outside, he ran into red imp-like creatures in a roomy cave. Goblins, apparently, according to the recesses of his mind that was content to offer up useless facts like this instead of the predicaments of his actual life, parents, school or mission.
He’d died once then taking a stray arrow, and had swung his broadsword in great arcs, his strength making easy work of the small motley crew. There he had found a chest with a compass and another glowing orb, this one injecting him with a lightness that left him untethered and grateful for the roof, lest he climb and floated forever. He was only glad that it was not another “gift” he had found after the first shrine’s that had him hopping on one foot for at least a mile before it wore off.
The compass had worked well. He’d found another shrine shortly after where he lifted heavy blocks into place and thwack-ed large, rolling metal balls with his air force from his hands (not before one had rolled backwards and crushed him then and there). That had led him to a crossroads blackened with soot, with singed leaves and broken branches in the bushes and trees surrounding it. He had waited there for an age, next to the body of a recently defeated golem, wandering through the shallow stream nearby, scratching his head as to what the puzzle was.
“Looks like someone else did your job for you,” said Ghostie.
A duck quacked at Izuku, as he sat and emptied the water from his boots and wrung his socks out. And that someone left breadcrumbs. He turned back to the path. Sure enough, footprints in the soot led south.
And that’s where Izuku ended up, at the end of the trail on the edge of a never-ending cliff, looking at a shrine on a floating rock dead ahead. He strapped his broadsword, walked a hundred meters back, and broke into a run. Lightning surged through his thighs and Izuku drank in the power, vaulting off the cliff at the last minute and just when the momentum he built threatened to plummet him to his death in the thick blanket of clouds below, he thrust Blackwhip out to coil around the shrine, and pulled himself to safety.
06.0
This shrine is different. Beneath him is a sea of blue light, lines and lines of it moving back and forth. Code. His hero card is still almost completely green, but Izuku somehow knew that even grazing that barrier would automatically mean Game Over. Timing, physics, certain death. Should he be having as much fun as he is?
He scans the walls of the shrine for the exit door over the platforms flickering in and out of existence and the puzzle switches he needs to activate when he spots it, the familiar sword slot under a gleaming red cro-
“Oh no,” Izuku says out loud.
“Back from the dead already?” Katsuki calls from above. He steps off a platform with irritating ease, cool and collected. Izuku found that he missed that grin of his.
“Was hoping you wouldn’t be,” Izuku says, before he can stop himself.
“Liar.” Ghostie snickers.
There’s a long pause. Izuku takes in the pelts of fur draped around Katsuki’s strong shoulders and waist, the dagger strapped to his thigh, the red cape flapping around him. The muscles on Katsuki’s exposed torso rippled, the sliver of skin between his laced-up jerkin straining as he unsheathed his sword in one fell motion. Izuku suppressed a shiver. Katsuki looked good. Too good.
“You lose a bet with a history museum or something?” Katsuki grins. He swings the sword around his head; explosions pattering down the side of the blade and decimates the platform in front of him.
Izuku doesn’t respond. He immediately drops off his platform, swinging across the shifting architecture under Katsuki.
“You’re like a rat, always scurrying around at my feet. Picked up another quirk, have you?” He hears Katsuki jeering at him as the platforms twist, drop and explode around him. They’re reading each other again - counter, sidestep, parry, drop. Izuku feels the familiar delight returning.
“That’s a neat trick with your sword. Do I have to thank you for these ridiculous outfits?” Izuku dares, kicking off a platform towards the first switch. The door was not going to open unless both were weighted down.
“Hah! As if I’d have given you those boots.”
“If you’re such a hero, why are you dressed like a barbarian?”
“If you’re such a hero, why are you dressed like a nerd?”
He hears Katsuki land behind him as he lifts the giant stone into place. But the kill shot never comes. Instead, to his great surprise, the weight of his broadsword disappears all of a sudden, then the pop-pop-pop of small explosions, then silence.
He drops the weight down and several platforms freeze in space. “You stole my sword!” Izuku exclaims, disbelief rooting him in place.
Katsuki doesn’t answer.
“Are you gonna stand there goggling at him or are you gonna get it back?” Izuku flinches, humiliation drenching his skin as he hops through the blue-lit platforms. The Guardian had gone totally silent. Izuku almost missed the explosions. The stillness from the other boy unnerved him.
He found the blonde inches away from the door, staring deeply into both swords in his hands. The other switch was recessed into the shrine’s wall just behind Katsuki. It was almost too easy to float high above the platforms and use Blackwhip to simultaneously manipulate a lever and slot a cube into the switch.
What the hell is he doing? Why won’t he stop me?
A soft ping from the door breaks Katsuki out of his reverie. The red cross was now softly throbbing. Izuku doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare breathe. Every platform in the shrine was fixed in place now, everything still and silent save for the infinite lines of code running far below.
“They gave you the same sword.” Katsuki finally breaks the silence.
“What?”
“It’s the same. The same as mine. I thought mine would be the only key.”
“Wait,” Izuku lands on a nearby platform. “How did you know it was a key? You’ve never seen me use it.”
Katsuki gives him a withering look. “Are you an idiot or something? Slot. Sword. Turn. Key.” He enunciates slowly.
Fair point. “So? What about it? We have the same sword.” Izuku was losing patience fast. He needed to get one back immediately whilst the other boy was distracted. He flicks a platform to his right, floats to the left and lands a kick on Katsuki’s left arm.
Katsuki lashes with the other, while Izuku jumps… and inserts the sword into the door. The pinging grows louder. Izuku can hear a roar in his ears, then…
Nothing.
Izuku whirls. Katsuki was sitting with his legs swinging off the edge of a platform, sword casually propped on his shoulder.
“You took my sword!” He shouts for the second time.
“Nope. That is yours. It’s not my problem if it doesn’t work.” Katsuki says, pointing to the one in the door.
“You knew this would happen, that’s why you wouldn’t fight me?” Izuku is incredulous. What the hell was the point of fighting if there was no way out?
“Tch. Maybe I should have killed you if I knew you were this stupid. How the hell did you of all people make it here too?” Disdain cuts through every word, but that’s not what sends Izuku’s stomach lurching and his head twisting.
“.... too. You - you had to cross different rooms to get here too? Why? Why would a Guardian need to get to the place that needs guarding? You’re just trying to trick -” Izuku’s interrupted by the gleam on Katsuki’s sword. The same sword as his. Another key.
“Finally figured it out? Yeah, genius. Why would this dumbass Guardian you keep going on about need a key?”
Izuku takes a wary step back as Katsuki joins him in front of the door. They size each other up, the first real interaction they’ve had since they met. He’s taller, he notices. And a lot more lithe than expected. Katsuki takes the sword already in the door out, and inserts his own in. The door doesn’t budge. They were both stuck here. Izuku had thought that the Guardian would have unfettered access to the outside world, that this mastermind that had trapped everyone here would have granted him that.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Izuku can hear Katsuki say, as he kicks the door with his full strength. His thoughts are like molasses; he can’t make sense of why he’s here if there’s no way out. Izuku ignores Katsuki’s shouts as he kicks, and kicks. Hairline fractures were now spreading through the ledge they were both standing in.
Katsuki growls. “If that’s how you’re gonna be, then fuck it. I ain’t losing.”
He parries Katsuki’s onslaught of rapid fire explosions first with his arms, then his cape, not needing to check his hero card to know that he was on fumes. He swings a platform backward with Blackwhip, forced to pause as the platform hits the wall too hard and shatters - along with the sword in the slot. Now what? He was running out of ideas. He flicks his fingers desperately in Katsuki’s direction, watching helplessly as the boy tries to grab his sword off the ledge as he flies back.
Katsuki grabs the edge of a platform and watches as his sword disintegrates instantly in the river of code below. The room did not like that. The river rapidly begins to expand, and he scrambles back to the ledge, untying his cape and letting it drop as a cluster of explosions follows his wake at the edges of the shrine.
“Now look at what you’ve done!” He screeches at Izuku.
“Me? You’re the one who attacked me while I was trying to find a way out just like you were!”
“Don’t look down on me. I wasn’t going to let you just get away with it.” Katsuki retorts.
“Look down on you? If I did look down on you, I’d be pushing you into this river just to defeat you. You’re incredible! Why would I look down on you?” The words tumble out of Izuku’s mouth to widening crimson eyes. They are so close to each other now, close enough for him to feel the heat radiating off Kacchan’s shoulde-. Wait, who?
“You’re not going to be my punching bag anymore, huh?” Katsuki’s voice is soft. Izuku doesn’t think he was even meant to hear that.
“We’ve… done this before, haven’t we?”
The fractures in the ledge widen, then crumble. Izuku leaps out, hand outstretched, trying to reach Katsuki before he falls. Why am I doing this? He shoots Blackwhip, ropes reaching towards the boy in blue, with the annoyingly loud voice, the incredible strength and confidence, the stupidly smooth torso. We’re gonna wake up fine.
His last thought before the sea of code swallows him is the expression on Katsuki’s face - not triumph, or rage, or even hurt. Just confusion.
Almost like recognition.
[Welcome. Designation: Hero. Authorisation granted.]
He wakes panting, hands still outstretched, tears wet on his cheeks.
For the first time since he woke, Izuku feels rage. Pure, white-hot, molten and unbridled rage.
Attempt 3
01.0 - Rage
Blackwhip erupts in all directions, instantly darkening the room in a vortex of spinning coils. Izuku drops to his knees, chest tight and sharp, hands clawing for purchase somewhere, anywhere. Katsuki was dead. He was falling, bloodied and bruised, red lines of code stabbing him in his shoulder, his torso, his hear-
“He wasn’t dead then, you know. Kacchan’s not dead now, either.” Izuku’s tears threaten to blind him, but at Ghostie’s words he can just barely make out Blackwhip, beginning to slowly retreat.
Kacchan. That’s how Izuku knew him, didn’t he? Here, he was Katsuki the Guardian but up there, they knew each other. They… at least he cared for him. They shouldn’t be fighting each other.
“Hey! HEY! I’m done with your mission, you hear me? You’ve got it all wrong, the Guardian isn’t working for whoever this villain is. I think - I think I know him.” His head turns to syrup again, trying to connect dots he can’t fully see, operating solely on the heat blossoming in his gut when he thinks of Katsuki. “He’s like me.”
Izuku knows he’s taking a risk advertising his thoughts so openly, but if the room was interested in killing him, it would have done so already.
[Incorrect input. The Guardian must be defeated to complete the mission.]
“No. Nuh-uh. I’m going to need more than that. I recognise him, there’s no way I could have kept up with him that long without knowing him. And I think, no, I’m sure he knows me too.”
Why else would the mere thought of seeing Katsuki again leave him breathless, anticipating another perfectly choreographed tourney. It was like discovering a lifelong dance partner by chance at a masquerade. Izuku felt his ears flush.
He knew any response from the system was pointless; he would traverse whatever lengths under whatever pretenses just to catch a glimpse of those scarlet eyes permanently etched with the promise of a challenge.
[Playing: footage snippets 03, 07, 11]
The back wall of the room lit up with projections of Katsuki in that black and orange suit fighting off intruders, Katsuki in his furs cutting off the rope bridge connecting the shrine to the cliff, Katsuki with goggles on his head and a long black coat taking a wrench to pipes hissing with steam.
“You’re gonna believe this shit? You were the first on the train,” his subconscious sneers, the voice hoarser and more taunting than before.
Great. Auditory hallucinations - exactly what you get when you focus more on how a black coat sits on someone than on what they’re doing.
“He cut the rope, huh?” he says, in a clipped voice. As if. As if someone like Katsuki would forget that Izuku wouldn’t need the bridge. As if he would take the coward’s route. If there was ever a bridge, Katsuki Bakugou would be standing dead-center, sword slung over his shoulder, yelling that you’re late and to hurry the fuck up already the moment Izuku appeared on the horizon.
[Mission parameters: defeat Katsuki Bakugou]
“Yeah, yeah.” Full name. No more pretense.
04.2
Izuku’s hair was curlier than ever. He’d exited into a sprawling city of copper and brass, powered by hot steam conduits that ran through every corridor, every corner like capillaries. There were more pressure gauges than lights, jutting out a hiss of steam now and then. He was sweating now in his grey shirt and breeches, his black vest and the two orange pouches strapped across his body uncomfortably tight as he searched and searched for Katsuki.
He was led into a balloon first, which promptly started deflating the second he stepped in. Izuku was left floundering at the helm, flipping tiny levers up and down and watching as filament bulbs flickered in and out ominously in their steel sconces. The problem had been a puncture in the balloon’s fabric. No problem. Blackwhip can take care of that, he had thought. But the balloon could not sustain its loss of pressure and crashed in a fiery explosion into the side of a billboard that said “ERASERHEADS MAGIC ERASER - NO MORE SPILLS OR STAINS!”
Katsuki could have kept the balloon afloat, he had thought.
“Wake up,” the man in an eyepatch on the billboard had said.
He’d ended up in the city power station next, the great and heaving coal furnaces t powering turbines as big as warehouses that ran the whole city towering over him. A cacophony of voices from the city’s workers just about drowned out the chugging, droning whooshes of the furnaces. Izuku had stopped - gawking at the first humans he’s seen since this nightmare began, eyes always scanning for any glimpse of pale blonde hair.
He thought he had found it at the electric substation, but it turned out to be a boy with spiky yellow hair with lightning arcing up and down his body as he transferred electricity from the turbines into individual battery cells. The boy had a muzzle on, and Izuku’s heart had broken when he met pleading, tearful eyes.
“I’ll get help, I’ll be back, I pro-” he was interrupted by the sight of another boy - tall, glasses, the same muzzle, steam pipes attached to his calves, hooked up to a conveyor belt machine that rattled and glowed as the boy ran and ran.
All around him were boys and girls his age feeding the machine of the city with their quirks, all of them muzzled or bound or dulled in some way. A girl, pulling nuts and bolts out of her skin, had clouded eyes. A boy with many arms pulling carts of coal for the great furnace. Others were breaking apart a mountain of coal, one with steel skin, another with spikes, yet another with drills for hands. A box of air trapping a whirling vortex of darkness. Pink skin filling bottles of acid.
Only one boy appeared lucid - his red and white hair flopped over alert eyes and a covered mouth, one blue and one grey, pointing him unmistakably to a door hidden in the recesses of the mezzanine above. Izuku took in the contraption around him, a sarcophagus that frosted on one side and glowed red hot on the other, bleeding him dry. The eyes darted again, urging him to leave.
Izuku reached the end of the hall, the distant, shadowed, pleading eyes tugging at every heart string until he was a catapult ready to spring. He had to save them. They could be system constructs designed to weaken him, or unknown citizens of this game city, or - it didn’t matter! He had to free them. He opened an office door at the end of the hall, hoping to find handcuff keys, only for the door to turn to a wall behind him.
He’d thrown himself against it with his strength, but the wall crackled with the same lines of blue code. No shortcuts. Got it.
Quelling the twisting rage deep in his bones, he had taken a deep breath and willed himself to move forward.
“Stay on task. Your friends can wait.” Friends. The rage built.
He’d found two gifts this time, one that infused him with reckless speed and power (his hero card had labelled it “Gearshift”), and the other was an ordinary metal pipe. What the hell. Izuku had examined the pipe over and over, looking for some clue, but there was none. He looped it through his belt loops and walked ahead, wondering what kind of quirk “Gearshift” was going to be.
Izuku had stepped one foot into the motley of pipework deep in the organs of the furnace when he felt two sharp slices across his cheek. A blonde man stepped into the swirling steam in front of him.
“Katsuki? We need to talk!” Izuku says, moving forward.
The man responds in a low voice. “Exactly what you can’t be doing, Izuku.” Izuku barely ducks the blades swinging at his neck, Blackwhip already responding to his barest instincts by yanking him out of sight. The man is quicker. Izuku sees red blot out the light above him. Golden eyes gleam above him as the sharp feathers from the man’s mechanical wings sink into his torso.
This was a totally different ball game. Izuku can barely dodge the hundreds of heat seeking feathers flying around him, leaving him with an assortment of shallow cuts that stung like a bitch in the hot steam and the dried salt on his skin. Every move of his is being anticipated, his speed blisteringly fast, but not enough to outrun the feathers that guarded every exit.
Izuku had turned his attention back towards the source - he’d introduced himself as Hawks - but a ghost would have had a stronger presence.
Izuku felt a click. Something had unlocked a higher tier of speed and strength. He barrels through the steel, hoping the burst of steam would blind Hawks long enough to let him pass through. Those wings aren’t real. The epiphany was unexpected but enough. Izuku threw his pipe, imbuing it with enough momentum to shatter the battery pack. Hawks had fallen, his red feathers pausing abruptly in mid-air, floating gently down around him.
Izuku triumphed. And then he suffocated.
05.0
Katsuki was single-minded in his current mission: destroy the machinery of the fucking city that kept him here. He was so focused on his task, emitting heat from his palms to weld the connections of pipes before wrenching the pressure gauges to be fixed on high, that he almost didn’t notice the explosion in the distance out of the substation outbuildings. Only that green idiot could make this much noise, he tuts, irritated.
He surveyed the extraordinary sight of the skyline from his rooftop perch. A city of balloons, clock towers, ropes and halogen lights, and now, writhing ropes and coils of black and green electric ropes. That stupid quirk of his. It had clearly exploded the windows of the warehouse.
Katsuki sighed. He was supposed to be this big, bad Guardian or whatever that vanquishes and bathes in the blood of his enemies. Sounded fucking cool. So why the hell was he in charge of cleaning up this supposed “hero’s” messes. He was a hero too! At least if that card in his pocket was of any indication. It had no use to him, not like it did for that freckled idiot. If he dies, he dies once and the whole region resets.
A balloon was coming in for landing, the owner of it tipping his hat to Katsuki in a cheery “ahoy!” that highly irked him. He assesses his options.
Izuku sits up groaning. What the hell had happened? He looked around at the wreckage, pipes rent in half, steel creaking, buckling under its own weight. His vision blurs. Flashes of sunlight filter through, despite the night sky above, and a teasing, taunting voice echoes between his ears.
“What kind of hero looks like a fucked up eldritch monster in the first place?” He hears above him, looking up to find Katsuki standing inside a hot air balloon, with a foot propped up on the edge of the basket, rope ladder extended downwards, and one hand erupting in heat keeping the entire thing afloat. Izuku gapes.
“Ya gonna stand there all day with your mouth hanging open, or are you gonna climb in and bask in my presence properly?”
“I’m not basking! I’m trying to quantify exactly how many crimes you must have committed to steal that balloon.” Izuku snaps back, jumping straight into the basket. Katsuki raises an eyebrow at him.
“You’re gonna talk to ME about crimes against the city? What the fuck happened here?”
“It’snothingidontwannatalk-”
“You KNOW I can’t stand it when you mumble.”
“IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, KACCHAN!”
The two boys stare each other down, a feat that’s proving quite difficult to achieve in a basket that’s barely a meter wide.
“You yell at that guy too?” Katsuki says, after a long silence. Neither was willing to be the first to acknowledge Izuku’s slip of tongue, or Katsuki’s lapse into memory, nor how normal that name felt despite the absurdity of their situation. Maybe even because of it.
“He wouldn’t shut up,” Izuku’s vision blurred again. He leaned back against the basket, allowing the cool air to ease his throbbing headache. He felt rather than saw Katsuki mirror his movement, switching hands and leaning back. Ever so adaptable, ever so dependable. “He kept going on and on about something he didn’t know in that black coat of his waving those clocks around.”
“Wrong guy. Wrong time. You need to get over it.” Ghostie whispers.
“Wait. No. Red wings and a white shirt. Blonde hair. Blue eyes and that crazy laugh. Wait. No no no no. Golden eyes. Tch.” Izuku shakes his head. “He blamed you for… something. Something that wasn’t your fault. Maybe?”
“Thanks, that cleared things up,” Katsuki whacks him with a coil of rope.
“I - I don’t know, okay? It just triggered something deep, something from before. Everything is so jumbled. I don’t even know how I died in the middle; I had this new quirk that was so fast, so wonderful to use and then it all just caught up with me.” Izuku pulls out his hero card and shows Katsuki. “See, it’s called Gearshift.”
Katsuki pulls out his own. “Don’t know why one of your quirks is blacked out because mine says Explosion clearly on it, but now do you believe me when I tell you I’m not a fucking villain?”
Izuku knew that already of course. Underneath all the bravado and bluster of the incredible boy next to him was a keen, analytical mind. Katsuki had spotted it first, just by noticing that they had the same sword key. Izuku felt shame creeping warm and fast up his neck for not noticing first.
“You jumped to try and save me. Why?” Katsuki questions.
“I don’t know. Why are you trying to fight the entire city by yourself?” Izuku parries. That earns him a scoff.
“I ain’t letting whatever this is control me. I was told by a very official looking letter that you were the vanguard of a group of people hell bent on taking over the rest of the world by stealing quirks, and that it was my duty to vanquish you. That losing my memories was the only way to make sure you and your system couldn’t steal mine and turn them against me. I bet they told you the same?”
Izuku was not expecting an answer. Especially not that one.
Interesting, they really did make him a Guardian. Izuku had been baited by something else entirely, bait that he would keep falling for over and over again, as long as he was alive. “No, they told me you were working for someone who wanted to trap everyone in this imaginary world, and that my memory was corrupted in the process, but because I was part of the construct, I could die and be reborn as many times as it took to escape and free everyone.”
“They played us like fucking fiddles. Do you have a plan, or can I blow this city up?” Katsuki’s scowl deepens, his lower lip jutting out slightly. Like a child. Izuku suppresses a smile.
“If we don’t actually damage the core structure, we’re just gonna end up having to do a whole different puzzle. They’re bleeding people like us dry down there,” Izuku points towards the two brick towers in the centre of the city housing the substations. “I think we should shut them down.”
A slow grin spreads across Katsuki’s chest. He ran his tongue over his teeth, and Izuku’s heart mirrored the line he drew. Katsuki gives him a shove on the shoulder, “There’s enough coal in there to leave a crater in the city. I didn’t know you had it in you, nerd. Between that and all the pressure gauges I messed with, this town is cooked.”
“All those people though-“
“Are not real. Maybe. Hopefully.”
“Ringing endorsement, thanks.” Izuku bites his lower lip. When he had banged that door in the office, it had protested in brilliant blue light. Kacch-, no Katsuki, he didn’t know him like that yet, was right. You can’t resurrect flesh and bone on a whim. Both of them were just packages of data in a giant server. And a server needed power.
Izuku turned to him and laid out his plan. Katsuki’s only response was that maniacal, barking, endearing laughter, eyes gleaming in acceptance of the insane challenge he set forth.
06.0
Everything’s on fire.
The plan was simple. Break in, blow up the furnace, and stop at least one turbine if not both. Katsuki was in charge of the blowing up, Izuku of the stopping.
Unfortunately, the plan worked too well. The moment the balloon was above the furnace, Katsuki had shot him a backwards glance, said “You call me Katsuki one more time and I’ll kill you myself. That’s not my name. Try keep up, Izuku,”, pulled his goggles down and jumped, black coat flapping in the wind behind him.
Yeah, yeah. I’m coming, Kacchan. Izuku soars through the air, a grin to match Katsuki’s, landing in the middle of both tracks leading to the furnace. He was making his way to the turbines when an almighty ‘BOOOOM!!!’ rocks the building to its foundations.
Katsuki was too early! He’d lit one of the coal carts on fire and had rocketed it directly into the furnace, overloading it completely. It had the opposite effect as hoped, because one of the turbines under Izuku’s feet was now spinning dangerously fast, filling the air with an acute hum that made his teeth rattle.
“You were supposed to STOP the furnace, not give it a boost!” Izuku yelled at Katsuki as he vaulted over the side of the railings.
“Obviously, I didn’t know that would happen!” Katsuki screamed back.
Workers were screaming, running in all directions, except those imprisoned for their quirks. Izuku watched as a few of the kids he saw earlier disintegrated, leaving not ash behind but fragments of blue code. Is that what he looked like too every time he died?
He couldn’t stop. Steam was starting to fill every corridor, condensing on the brass and copper that lined the entire building. He heard alarm bells ringing, first in the north, then west, then just a constant barrage of noise from all directions. Katsuki’s pressure gauges are exploding in rapid succession, the overload of steam cascading like dominoes. Automobiles were screeching to a halt, streetlamps were flickering and red filament bulbs overtook the skyline.
Izuku had bigger problems.
He reached the much too fast turbine and desperately reached out with Blackwhip to try to control the spin. All it did was send him flying off, Blackwhip wrapped around him like armour to protect his spine. He tried shooting air force in the opposite direction, but if it was doing anything it was not apparent to him.
“Stop the fucking turbine!” Katsuki was shouting at him while melting holes in the furnace walls. He’d ditched his coat and his cravat, his white shirt dripping with sweat.
“I would if you stopped the furnace!” Izuku was running out of options. If he used Gearshift, he estimated he had about 5 minutes before he died again. Who knows if the next region would give him this much access to the belly of the beast? But collapsing the basic infrastructure was not enough.
“You could be putting HIM in danger too.” An unhelpful reminder from his ever-irritating subconscious.
“I already am by doing nothing.” Izuku makes a decision.
5 minutes. He had plenty of time. He digs deep into his power, accessing 3rd, 4th, 5th gears. Izuku runs in tandem with the spinning turbine, dissolving into a glowing ring of green light. He feels the whoosh of the turbines threatening to peel his skin off his face, and just when he thought he couldn’t go any faster, the air stills. He had reached parallel velocity with the rotary blades.
4 minutes. Izuku breathes, and touches one of the blades, absorbing its kinetic energy with a sonic boom that shattered half the glass windows.
“What the f-,” Katsuki says, peering down at Izuku with barely concealed concern, who was now openly gasping for breath.
“Stop the other turbine! I don’t have a lot of time, but I can use this power and my strength to collapse the furnaces.” Katsuki leaps into action at Izuku’s words, grumbling at the wasted time, but there was no bite in his voice, just as there was no doubt in those green eyes.
Izuku shoots up and kicks an empty mine cart at the holes Katsuki had already created. The entire brick structure tumbles inwards, and an incredible heat sears everything in the room. Every breath burned, there was smoke filling his lungs, his ears were ringing. And still, Izuku continued. He was not going to fail Kacchan again.
He faintly caught a glimpse of Katsuki attempting to push the turbine against the grain, his hands blazing. The building was empty save for the two of them… or at least he thought when he sees the boy in the sarcophagus with the red and white hair.
3 minutes. Blackwhip rips the door to the sarcophagus open, and Izuku is already yelling at the boy to run as he ricocheted across the room to the top of the second furnace. He watches Katsuki, they have to time this right. Katsuki was managing to slow the turbine down. Izuku curls Blackwhip around both ends of the building's railings and builds tension before catapulting straight down. He lands with both feet into the furnace in 6th gear, and the furnace crashes all the way inwards to the second basement floor with Izuku inside it.
Flaming rods of steel, burning coal, debris, glass, anything and everything in the substation was falling too in a veil of deadly projectiles. The turbine grinds to a halt.
Katsuki staggers forward, searching for Izuku in the rubble. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he stayed alive and Izuku died, and just as he was about to start tearing the floors apart himself to get to the source code, Izuku appeared out of the smoke wrapped in Blackwhip. Katsuki is surprised at the relief flooding his system.
“Classic Izuku, always self sacrificial as shit.” he says, trying to hide the worry he felt hearing the ragged breaths and the rattling gasps coming out of the green-haired boy’s mouth.
“I have maybe a minute before this quirk chokes me to death,” Izuku forces a chuckle out. “Let’s make it count, Kacchan.”
“Get to the source code under the floors, I’ll give it a good dose of one of my Howitzers.” Katsuki says. More snippets of his memory were returning, and with it, more worry for Izuku. He can’t make sense of it yet, but he trusted his gut more than anything, and right now his gut was telling him to make sure Izuku didn’t choose a 5 minute lifespan in vain.
Izuku stomps, just like he did in that cave all those lifetimes ago, past the piping and cables and vents until the familiar river of blue lines opens. He hears Katsuki’s pop-pop-pop, looks up to see a blazing vortex descending, and grins. He was always a fan of theatrics. The code splinters, and with it, any pretext of the solidity of their environment. Streaks of blue ran through the brass, the flooring, even Katsuki’s face. They’d done it, they’d found a chink in the armour! Next region, they could even-
The code was trying to protect itself. He heard all the steam divert back into the room they were in, and the great groan of the turbine as it started again. He staggered forward, ready to use Gearshift one last time to stop the turbine if he had to, when two things happened. His foot sank into the line of code, and his back received a blow that sent him flying forward. He turns frantically to see Katsuki waist deep in the code, mouthing “we’re even now” before he dissolves, yet again.
Izuku’s fault, again. The code rot was spreading fast up his thighs. Izuku tries one last air flick, breaths coming out sharp and quick. He won’t make it, this will all be for nothing, and the system will never allow this to happen again.
He crawls. He can make it. He has to. He…
Everything’s on ice.
He wonders if this is a dying hallucination. The turbine is completely encased in a piercing, towering wall of ice that arched over his head. Izuku caught a blue eye glinting under white and red hair in the distance, frost extending from his right side. A nod from the boy, before Izuku too disappears, frost and code enveloping him.
Attempt 4
0?.?
[Welcome. Designation: Farmer. Authoris- auth- authorisation granted.]
No marble hall this time. Izuku wakes in a long grey cloak. He’s riding a giant ram, plush woolen blankets draped across its back, trudging through a wide field. Snow everywhere as far as the eye can see, yet he’s not cold at all. A snowflake lands next to him. A letter, all grayed out. Izuku blearily realizes the ram was plowing through the ashes of dead code, raining softly from the sky. So the gambit by the boy with ice worked? He sees a flash of colour coming closer. A wolf’s collar. A boy in a blue and red cloak stirs in his sleep on its back, ash gathering in his spiky blonde hair. Kacchan’s okay. Good…
Izuku sleeps.
[PRESS (A) TO TILL THE SOIL, (B) TO PLANT]
Izuku jolts awake to brilliant sunshine. The ram was gone, and so was the thick layer of ash, replaced instead by endless fields of tall corn. His cloak was also gone, replaced by coveralls and wellingtons with a good old-fashioned gardening belt. The system’s voice repeats, and Izuku glances around to see two flashing lights above plots of empty soil next to him. What?
Izuku floats high in the air. There’s nothing, no one, except these two plots of land next to him. Everything is eerily perfect, all the stalks of corn the exact same length, the clouds above him spaced out at the same intervals. He listens. Even the wind seemed to blow in a pattern. He descends, briefly contemplating blowing out the entire countryside just to hit the source code again. Curiosity won in the end, and after rummaging in his garden belt and finding two poker chips with A and B on their sides, he throws down A, then B.
The sky abruptly turns orange, then black, then pink, then noon again. Izuku looks down to see a fully grown carrot harvest.
“A farming sim? Are you fucking kidding me?” he hears Katsuki’s voice say in the distance. Izuku ignores the glowing [PRESS (A) TO HARVEST] button and forces a way through the corn.
“You saved my life! Why did you do that? I only had thirty seconds left,” Izuku blurts.
Katsuki doesn’t turn to look at him. “Told you to keep up with me, s’not my fault you went and put your foot in the wrong place. Besides, I told you to call it even. Now are they seriously asking us to sow seeds?”
Izuku bites his tongue, wanting to argue further but Katsuki’s stance is rigid, unwelcoming. “S-sorry. I should have watched where I was going.” He mutters out. Katsuki ignores him, crouching in the soil.
“I did what they said, a day passed in game, but it was barely 30 seconds for me, and then you appeared.” He tries again.
Katsuki stands, throws his chips down, and watches as the skies swivel and a crop of turnips erupted at his feet. He removes his gardening gloves and harvests each turnip by hand, ignoring the same glowing sign above his head. Izuku watches him, confusion etched across his face.
“Let’s fuck shit up again.” Katsuki smirks, as he hurls a turnip like a grenade. Miraculously, it explodes like one. “My sweat’s on them.”
Of course Explosion can do something like this, it’s always been such a powerful quirk. Izuku shakes his head, half exasperated, half nodding.
They take off in opposite directions, Izuku digging Blackwhip deep into the ground and uprooting multiple rows of corn at a time, Katsuki flying across the fields dropping miniature beads of his sweat on the rows like the world’s most lethal crop duster and igniting it all at once.
The air smelled of popcorn. The sky hasn’t stopped changing colours since they started, trying its hardest to regrow the corn.
When Izuku estimates that 100 cycles have passed, almost an hour in their time, he notices the pattern of orange, pink, black and blue was getting jumbled up. Stalks of corn were now beginning to flicker in transparent blue letters. Just as he hears Katsuki crow out “It’s working,” all the stalks of corn disappear simultaneously, and instead bags of white powder dot the fields. Fertiliser.
He hears Katsuki fly with his full body explosions towards him too late, sees the ammonium nitrate label on the bags too late, and registers the white powder turning to mist in the air sent flying when Blackwhip exploded through the soil too late.
Katsuki lands in front of him as a tsunami of explosions rocketed in the air behind him. He’s laughing. “Ammonium nitrate is explosive, stupid Deku.” he chokes out, doubled over.
Izuku’s laughing too. “I know. They got us again, Dynamight.”
“I did this. Hahahaha. But we got them first.” He says, delirious with laughter.
They sit there, jubilance in their voices, ecstasy in their eyes, laughing like the old friends they now know they are as the world unspools and resets around them once again.
Attempt 5
x$%^£4.@/
A light rain was falling. Pink, red, orange and blue flashed across a dense jungle of telephone lines, neon streetlights, and 24/7 street vendors. Izuku was back in his original green suit and iron boots. He crouched on the railing of a balcony, a network of washing lines stretched out beneath him, all fighting for space in this urban canopy. He sprinted through the narrow alleyways, adding green to the medley of neon colours effervescent in the night air.
He was searching for Smokescreen. His hero card wasn’t redacted anymore, not since Kacchan had called him his hero name. He suspected the same applied to him. His memory was still fuzzy on how they got into this game mechanic, but as far as Izuku knew, he had all his memories up to the date printed on his hero license. He still had One For All, it was still fading slowly even as he limited himself to only one or two quirks at a time. There was no way for him to expend so much of the ember out there, but he’d have gladly done it if it meant saving a life. The part that was still fuzzy to him was Kacchan, who was in no condition whatsoever to be flailing around both arms willy-nilly. And yet, he also knew Kacchan to be okay. How could both realities be true?
He leaps over rooftops, iron clinking against iron, wind whistling through his puffy orange jacket. Orange was Kacchan’s colour. Izuku wanted nothing more than to be enveloped in it. To have gone from fighting Katsuki, to reluctantly helping each other, then dying for each other multiple times, then smiling together again over the last few days in this world… he wishes he could say that it was an unfamiliar journey. Izuku was past feeling responsible for Kacchan’s injuries, but there was plenty else he was responsible for.
“Finally remembered me, have you?” Izuku slips, crashing into a web of laundry lines laden with washing, hands, feet, and neck catching on every line until he stops, floating an inch from the ground. He shakes off the bra coiled around his ankle.
“Tomura Shigaraki. I… didn’t know that was your voice and not my own.”
“I’m dead. Because of you. Sure, I’m not your voice. Let’s go with that.”
“I’ll fix everything. I will!”
“Is that right? In that case… do your best. Hero.” Tomura’s voice rasps and fades, snickering.
Izuku continues running.
Izuku looks at the skyline. Cyberpunk. If cyberpunk was supposed to have entire buildings glitch in and out of view, or the sky was supposed to have wisps of blue code floating through from disintegrating constructs. He closes his eyes and focuses. Maybe the other quirks can guide him. The vestiges stay silent. They have done since that day.
He sighs. If he can’t find Smokescreen then at least he was going to find Kacchan. Knowing him, he’d want to be right in the middle of all the action. The code unraveling must be the reason why nothing impeded his path, unlike in a real cyberpunk game. Finally, a break.
Izuku swings through the buildings, somersaulting to where the code glitch was the worst and sure enough, there’s Kacchan in the city park. He was back in his hero suit too but with a green bomber instead, his mask pulled up into his hair.
“Where the hell have you been?” Katsuki demands.
“I was looking for Smokescreen! I thought it could come in handy.” Izuku protests. Katsuki looked good in that shade of green - the same green as the darkest parts of Izuku’s hair. He catches the box Katsuki throws at him. Of course Kacchan found HIS quirk faster than he could.
“It’s either Fa Jin, or Smokescreen isn’t it?” Katsuki asks. Izuku shouldn’t have been impressed that he had reached the same conclusion that there was no point looking for Danger Sense. No self-respecting evil overlord would have handed that over so easily. It would have either pinged all the time in this fabricated reality, or would have not identified Kacchan as a danger and given everything away.
“It was in the jacket pocket. Looks like we got switched.” Katsuki nods towards Izuku’s jacket, but makes no move to get his orange jacket back. Izuku had no intention of parting with it, especially as the crop style of his own green jacket perfectly accentuated Kacchan’s lean frame.
“What would I do without you,” he teases, as the light of Smokescreen suffuses him.
“Perish and die probably,” Katsuki rolls his eyes at him, corners of his mouth upturned.
“I wonder if Shouto and the rest of them are alright.”
“Huh? Why wouldn’t they be? Isn’t it just us in here?” Katsuki says, leaning against the iron railings and propping his feet up on the back of a park bench. Izuku mirrors him, closer to him than he probably should have.
“I didn’t stop that turbine in the end, it was Shouto. He was trapped too, but he seemed to sort of recognise me? I don’t know, I didn’t get to speak to him exactly. It was much more of an eye contact thing. I would have thought they were all constructs, all our friends, but why would they help if they’re just there to make us miserable.”
“Or, maybe you’re overthinking it as usual and half-and-half isn’t here, and your mind hallucinated it as your own code in here disintegrated.”
“But the ice was real! Why would a construct help me?” Izuku is interrupted by Katsuki.
“Why did one fight you? Hawks is on our side too, right? Just realised I saw the wings,” he clarifies, seeing Izuku’s expression. “The point is that there’s no way to tell what the hell’s happening unless we get out, and there’s no way to get out until this entire construct breaks apart.” Katsuki’s eyes shone, purple and red and blue all at once.
“So what, we ignore the fact that our memories are being farmed like LSD corn - stop giggling - and there’s nothing to do but enjoy the show?” Izuku finds that hard to believe.
“Hell no. The fuck? If I got your quirk in my pockets, you must have my grenades. They’re the only thing missing from my gear.” Katsuki jumps up.
Sure enough, Izuku found hand grenades in almost every pocket of the countless zippers of the orange bomber jacket. No wonder it was so heavy. He bounced one in his palms, fingers itching to pull the trigger. “Can I interest you in a nice bomb?”
“You know me too well, creep.” Kacchan says, as he throws grenades in every direction.
“Mm. Shame actually, this is a pretty cool world. I was really hoping for Blade Runner style action, fighting off futuristic agents on flying bikes with neon laser guns.” Izuku said smiling, as explosions circled their small park.
“Ah crap! Is it too late to reverse this? Fucking fertiliser attacked us instead of Tron dudes? When am I gonna get the chance to shoot laser guns?”
“We keep exploding, Kacchan. We’re never gonna get the chance.” Izuku laughed at the tch escaping Katsuki’s pouted lips. Dying itself was painless, so Izuku wasn’t afraid of it. But he wanted one more moment here, under a canopy of light, brushing shoulders with the only person in his entire world, their connection refracting through iridescent digital space.
CODE DRIFT
[Re-initialising. Rebooting. Rebooting. Reboot failed.]
[Begin recursion.]
Flashes of different games whirl around Izuku and Katsuki, their minds pulled between the solid truth of their identity as heroes and childhood friends, and their in-game character personas.
Izuku cuts his finger, drops of cherry red dotting the pristine worktop. He watches as head chef Katsuki wordlessly hands him a bandaid, chopping ingredients finely.
Katsuki is riding a massive dragon, hollering as the dragon’s flames singe the fur around his bare shoulders. He looks up at the green dragon roaring, its rider turning back to stick a tongue out at him. He wasn’t going to lose this race.
Izuku rolls his sleeves up, putting out a cigarette with his shoe. Stubble darkens his jaw, night darkens the streets. He’s having no luck with the canvassing and the trail’s getting colder by the second. His partner, Katsuki, has found a lead. Thank god. Shoving his hands into his trench, he follows, the long night awaiting them yet again on their quest for answers.
Katsuki wields a sick scythe, skulls decorating every inch of his outfit. He’s wearing a black robe, he gongs into a clouded field with gleaming golden warriors, making quick work of the NPCs. He hears himself scolding Izuku for this asinine mission against the god of the dead, who scoffs at him with burning feet and red laurels in his hair, thighs glistening in the egregiously short red tunic. Determination burns across Izuku’s face, Twin Fists shining as he runs off. Katsuki burns to chase after him. So, he does.
Izuku’s wearing a grey suit, with a matching grey boater hat. He’s at a cocktail bar; this date has to go well. He’s supposed to find a beautiful woman in a red dress and a diamond necklace and kiss her on the hand, but his eyes are on the handsome fighter pilot in the brown leather jacket and the aviators on his head. Izuku buys him a drink, and Kacchan pushes his glasses up, mumbling something about being able to buy his own drink, and that he doesn’t care for the charity of Izuku in his dumb suit. His ears are red. Blue lines already appear in the fractures of the wall, and Izuku feels bold. He follows the burning heat in his gut. He pulls the fighter pilot close, smoothing out invisible lint, excruciatingly slow as he looks directly in his eyes. He gave Kacchan a thousand chances to call him a name, hit him, shove him, run, anything. But all Katsuki can do is turn scarlet as Izuku kisses him, soft and slow, deep and deliberate, and explodes into fireworks as the drift catches up to him.
Lines of blue code orbit around them. Through them. They cycle through game after game, they’re dice, pieces, cars, wrestlers, plants and zombies. Lines of green and orange code wrap tightly around each other, constant and determined against the onslaught of decay. They spin, faster and faster, unraveling bit by bit, unsure where one starts and the other ends as they become twisted, swirling and intertwined.
[Welcome. System Error. Hero. Hero Error. Welco-]
They’re back there. Panic fills Izuku’s lungs as he watches Mirio telling him that Kacchan was fine, that he was going to make it, that it was his choice to make. Kacchan on the grass, gray and lifeless, the All Might card bloodied and battered next to him. He can’t breathe, he doesn’t want to breathe. The storm rages around them on the floating graveyard of UA High School, Shigaraki jeering and taunting him.
No, no no no no no no. This can’t be happening. Izuku stands, copying the same movements as he did that time, Blackwhip muzzling him, electric tears blinding him. He tenses, ready to fight when a hand lands on his shoulders.
“Kacchan…? Wha-” Izuku glances back. Katsuki was still lying there, hole in his heart but a healthy and whole version of him was right here.
“I told you, I’d handle whatever you couldn’t. I can handle him.” Clusters of explosions float around him.
“I don’t want you to die!” Izuku pleads. Why can’t Kacchan understand that this is the fight he almost doesn’t come back from?
“Don’t be a fucking idiot! It’s not like it hurts!”
It does. It will.
“I can’t let you keep sacrificing yourself like this for me!”
“Izuku!” Katsuki grabs him by the shoulders. “Snap out of it - he’s not real. Someone’s gotta get rid of this code monster, if you’re hell bent on reliving being a martyr!”
Izuku only knew how to be a martyr. He only knew how to cut an arm off to feed someone else. Katsuki was the one, blazing through like Achilles, shining and golden and glorious, who wrenched all the reins in one hand and slashed through with the other. Izuku was done taking, he had taken his quirk, he’d taken his time, he’d even taken the scars off Katsuki’s body, every single one in his name.
“You always did think too much. It’s in the past, Izuku. I’m alive. No memory can kill me again.” Katsuki says, matter of fact, as he shot explosions at Shigaraki, who was now morphing into AFO, then All Might, then Aizawa, then Izuku himself.
“He will.” Izuku whispers.
“And you did the only thing you could do then? What are you going to do now?” Katsuki barked.
Izuku’s muzzle loosened. This was not real. Kacchan was right next to him, they both made it out. He still blamed himself, that was never going to go away, but he wasn’t going to make up for it by letting someone else down again. He readied himself, an anchor of grass where the two of them stood back to back as the vortex took on a thousand faces around them.
“Sorry. They knew how to get me. I wish… Why isn’t your own near-death affecting YOU as much?” Izuku mutters from the smokescreen shroud enveloping them.
“Because dying wasn’t the hard part, dumbass. That part was easy. It’s choosing how I wanted to live that almost fucking killed me. Do you wanna sit here all day yapping your head off or do you wanna be free?” Katsuki released an onslaught of artillery fire, jetting off into the code drift, the sound of his laughter interspersed with Howitzer Cluster.
Izuku charged up One For All to 100%, spinning counter to the code vortex, leaving behind a wake of ash. And when a single, white pedestal with a slot for a hero card materialised out of the roaring vortex, he didn't think twice before clasping Katsuki’s arm. He took his momentum on to shatter the podium with a good old-fashioned “Detroit Smash”. No missions, no code, no prompts. The vortex collapses on itself, leaving behind a portal and Izuku stretches a hand back out without looking backwards, pulling Kacchan in with him as the portal shuts around them.
Yeah, Izuku thought, I do want to be free. With you.
Aftermath
For once, waking didn’t feel like falling. Darkness surrounded Izuku, broken only by intermittent blue light. Oh, right. He was at that server farm, chasing down a lead on a villain called Reset, who was targeting high profile individuals and holding their memories and identities ransom. How could he have forgotten that?
Next to him, Katsuki groans. “When I’m done with this guy, he’s gonna only see sunlight in his fucking dreams.”
The suit beeped. Backup was on the way apparently, considering both of them had not answered their comms in more than an hour. It was hard to believe that everything they both endured over what felt like weeks was not even a day back in the real world.
“How’d you know ammonium nitrate was explosive, Kacchan?” Izuku asked, rolling out his shoulders. He was getting used to the power suit but lying down unconscious in it? Not recommended.
“THAT’S your question? I know shit about explosives, okay? Let’s start with how you thought it was plausible I was a villain.”
“You did kill us both the first time.”
“Did we or did we not BOTH explode together each time? In fact, you got 30 whole seconds extra, Izuku. And see, no Half-and-Half with us, just like I told you!.”
Izuku chuckles, tying up the knots around Reset firmly as Katsuki shoves an oil rag from his belt into his mouth.
“Let’s see how he likes it when I plug HIM in, huh” Katsuki stood, with the neural connectors poised over Reset’s head.
“I don’t think that’s very becoming of the Number 5 pro hero Dynamight.” Izuku chuckles.
“You wanted to quit being a hero and stay a teacher until like a month ago. Don’t tell me what to do!” Katsuki grumbled, putting the connectors away regardless, and electing to whack Reset on the head instead to knock him out. He eyed Izuku. “You had almost all your quirks back. How’d that feel?”
“The suit is perfect, if that’s what you’re worried about. It was nice to feel my old power again even if it was for a short while. But they don’t make me who I am.”
Katsuki’s expression softened. “And you’re… okay?”
Izuku pondered the question. He had reacted like he was 16 again, finding his closest person in the world’s body like that, and the same panic had filled him. His first instinct was to say yes, that he was totally fine. But totally fine 25 year old teachers/heroes didn’t constantly replay the death of their loved ones, nor the failure of not saving someone he promised he would, over and over again in their heads.
“I’ll be okay. I took a lot onto my shoulders all alone, and always saw myself as a burden on you, on everyone else. But this suit is showing me that I don’t have to live a lie just to think I’m doing the right thing. It won’t bring Tenko back, but…OFA is gone, but so is the version of me that needed it, and the version of me that had the power to end someone with it. I’m not shirking, I want to teach, I want to save too, I just…” Izuku wasn’t really sure where he was going with this, how to live beyond the guilt, but Katsuki nodded.
“You should choose to live your life. Not pretend that you’ve chosen something you burdened yourself with. You want to save everybody. You inspire everybody. But that was you, not a bunch of old dead people’s quirks.”
Izuku nodded, finger tracing the lines of the suit. He liked being a teacher, but he wanted to do it all. He wanted to live up to be the hero that made all those promises to Tenko Shimura, he wanted to be a hero, not just a vessel for One For All. “I know. It was just being back there.”
“I know you know. I’ve told you this before. As long as you also know you’ve never been alone. And to really stop overthinking things.”
Izuku met his eyes, affording Kacchan a small, soft smile. Katsuki held them, the memories of all they’ve been through together cushioned between them. He didn’t remember much towards the end, but just enough - and he needed to know. Izuku broke the silence first, mouth slightly dry. “Did you have a favourite? In there, I mean.”
“The sword. That thing emitted explosions, it was so fucking cool. And there was a dragon at some point? Always wanted one. You?”
Izuku was about to answer earnestly that his favourite was actually the blissful sleep he had in that fur lined cloak on that giant ram, which he’s not entirely sure had happened at all, when he caught Kacchan fidgeting. Not just the usual hands in pockets skulking either, he looked nervous? Was that…
“Oh, I don’t know, I think my favourite was those aviators.” He says, before he lost his courage, delight flooding his nerves as he glimpses Katsuki’s ears turn from orange to scarlet to crimson, and his throat bob up and down. Liar.
Katsuki cleared his throat once, twice. “I don’t remember that one… you should get your eyes checked out.”
“Really, you sure? Hm. You have that lecture for my students that you promised me.” Izuku said, allowing his grin to widen, never breaking eye contact. He loved seeing Katsuki like this, flushed, out of control, flustered. He could get used to this.
Katsuki stormed off, his face losing the battle with the flush, shouting “I need space from your nerd ass! I’m going to bed. Find someone else for your lecture!”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Kacchan.” So the door has an arrow then, not a red cross. Izuku laughed. Maybe he’ll wear his grey suit to class tomorrow.