[GIF: TARTARUS IN RUINS, RED MIST LEAVING THE WRECKAGE. A BLURRY MOTION, SOME SORT OF MASSIVE SPIDER SKITTERS ACROSS THE WALLS. THE IMAGE REPEATS.]
Let’s all stop pretending we all didn’t see this happen. We all watched the first shots of the escape, and then what? Within the hour, you couldn’t find a clip of this anywhere. Isn’t that suspicious?
Japan spends all its time and resources covering the truth instead of going after the people who have wronged its citizens. Why is that?
Are we all seriously going to keep pretending the obvious didn’t happen? How many more people have to have their quirks disappeared before we open our eyes?
He’s not evil. He’s not misguided. He made a mistake.
A long, long, long... series of mistakes.
...
He thinks of the first one. It’s hard. Wading through a blur of the past is... difficult. He has trouble pinpointing the start.
...
It starts with, really... a broken, damaged smile, happiness stretching cracked and scarred lips. A mischievious, devious thought. How easy it would be to manipulate that tattered smile. How powerful it felt. How wrong and incredible the world became, the way even the air seemed to change to even allow the two to be in the same room, this successor of the most ultimate darkness and a nobody like himself, together so intoxicatingly intense and dangerous and utterly indescribable.
...
Really, it starts with his own reflection. His own ugliness on the other side of the glass. Hating it.
...
He’s hated himself for a long time. He can’t remember when that started, but maybe if he remembered, he’d understand something about this.
...
Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter what he thinks because no matter what he thinks about it won’t block out what’s happening in front of him-
---
...
...
...
There’s a time he remembers. Or doesn’t, maybe just imagines, it doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s an image as clear as day. He’s young, very young, at a time where everyone is learning and struggling through every day as these strange new powers settle into every vein.
He’s sitting in a classroom, watching. Just watching. One by one oh god one by one every student leaps to their feet, getting in the center of the circle to show off their quirk.
He watches, quietly. Enviously. His hair is just long enough to throw a shadow over his eyes as he sits, curled up, knees close to his chest, glaring at every child as they boast and play, presenting their talents.
First, a boy who could make his shadows dance to a different tune than himself.
Then, a girl who could make messes disappear with just a wink of her eye.
Then, a boy who could snap his fingers and create a spark of flame.
One by one.
One by one.
Jealousy seethes through him. The worst thoughts come into his head with every little presentation. How they didn’t deserve their gifts. How annoying they were. How they were doing it wrong. If he’d had it, he’d wield it better, he’d be more graceful, he’d have more style, he’d be faster, stronger, he’d-
It’s his turn.
And he freezes. He has nothing. Nothing to show for.
...
...
...
Even after all this time, all this training, all these hardships, he’s nothing.
He has nothing. Can do nothing.
He can’t even stop what’s in front of him.
...
And he can’t help but think the worst thoughts.
...
...
He watches quietly.
...
One by one, All For One presents these little quirks to him. He becomes a shadow, teeth a sharp, cheshire cut in the darkness that drapes Kuroiro’s hospital bed. He makes a parody of a nurse, demonstrating with a princely kiss to his knuckle that nearly makes him vomit as any and all wounds he’d left on his body earlier tickle shut.
And Endeavor...
Well...
He watches that up close. Stares his still body down, imagining. Smiling, perhaps. Realizing.
...
...
...
That maybe he is misguided. Because as he watches the deepest black seep from his friend’s skin, disappearing into the greedy clutches of All For One’s grip, he can’t help but hope he’ll be graced with it, too.
And maybe he is a bad person. Because when such an important and selfless power is robbed from the frailest body he could ever seen, still twitching and jerking even despite her stupor, he can’t help but wonder whether it’s just better that it’s all ending this way.
And maybe he is evil. Because it feels good.
Watching someone as massive, as powerful, as so damn undeserving as the Number One just be reduced to nothing...
It feels good.
...
And maybe he’s having a little... trouble. Thinking. For himself, by himself, remembering who and what he is. He’s having a little trouble with his memories. With understanding what’s right and what’s wrong. With coping with what’s truly happened, with preferring what he makes up just to soothe himself.
He’s having... just a little trouble.
Reconciling the two.
This boy he was and this thing he is now.
...
...
...
...
Maybe.
...
...
...
Maybe he doesn’t have to.
...
...
...
...
Maybe that’s where it started.
...
With him looking into the mirror and not recognizing himself. With his reflection cracking through the glass and reaching through. With himself getting pulled in and trapped on the other side while his likeness escapes off to the world with a simple giggle and a promise that he’s truly home now.
He doesn’t notice it at first, so it’s impossible to tell when it starts. Details trickle in, gentle memories, soft and tender, whispering into his head like a quiet conversation at night. Childish giggles, warm embraces, his mother’s voice, the clinks of ice against his grandfather’s cup. The ticking of a golden watch. Tick tick tick.
Maybe that’s when he really starts to realize it. The ticking. The cramming in of memories, more and more by the second. Tick tick tick. He’s in a dark room and he can’t stop hurting himself and he’s scared. A quirk lives in his blood that he can’t control and can’t stop and his family waits outside, waiting for time to run out for him. Tick tick tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He’s strapped to a chair.
Tick.
He hears a drill.
Tick.
Something red shoots through the air like a bullet and he sees blood.
Tick.
Sees red.
Tick.
Sees... white.
Tick.
And he’s in a room.
Surrounded.
Surrounded.
Tick.
All these people, all their quirks, he’s in a room and they’re consuming him they writhe inside him ramping up his heart curling and coiling like black smoke grabbing at him with sharp nails sharp claws gouging him inside out and he can feel their power taking over reaching through his veins all those people twisted into a single monster all those monsters forced into a stupid war and someone is laughing. A girl laughs, giggles, sweet as can be, sharing secrets, an angel, chuckles, kinder than could possibly be imagined, holds him, a man, cruel, broken.
Breaks him.
Tick.
He’s in his classroom.
Tick.
His friends are smiling at him.
Tick.
He’s in his room.
Tick.
His hands, buried so tightly into his hair it burns, start to loosen. Cold sweat douses his clothes. The clock is so loud where it sits in the corner of the room. Tick. Tick.
Tick.
“...”
Monoma lifts his head, staring in confusion as he glances around his dorm. What just... happened?...
Monoma was in six places at once. That's what it felt like. The party was a daze, bustling around him, laughter loud and blissful and horribly, horrendously naive. It took all he had to remember how to breathe, and smile, and...
Someone complimented his costume. Their face was a blur. He looked down at himself, staring at the dark crimson smears emblazoned on the pearly white of his coat and nodded, smiled, drew in a breath and tried not to scream.
1.
Uraraka always looked crestfallen around him. She wore heartbreak on her sleeve. The way he was starting to loathe the way her gaze fell on him grew inside him rapidly, festering under the flutter in his chest as she got close. Being around her felt wrong, no matter how much he tried to fight that feeling, like something in the world had to rip itself open to allow it.
He wondered if she felt the same way. It was hard, trying to force an evil shadow over her visage. She was so sweet. Kind. Almost disgustingly so, reminiscent of a golden jar of honey that the most naive of bees had drowned inside. He hoped she wasn’t destroyed on the inside in the same way, but he wouldn’t have been surprised. They had to of wormed their way in somehow.
His thoughts were wandering. The files were in sight now. He grabbed hold of them, frowning, curious. What could be so important about them...? Why did they have to do this? Why?
Why?
2.
In the dark of the haunted house, he could hardly see the all-too familiar mist of Kurogiri’s power eat up the air as a void opened up against the wall. It made his heart stop to see, a flash of aching sparking up at the familiar sight that he’d dared to miss, all those nights.
The meeting was a brief one, one that made it for too easy to brush the entire incident off. He watched the files get passed off and disappear into the villainous black in front of him. He watched Uraraka nodding, face flushed yet pale, before ducking away into the shadowy hall away from them. He watched the void start to dissipate, then began to turn himself to follow, and then--
felt-
a hand-
grab onto the back of his collar and yank-
a laugh, high-pitched and sharp and-
he watched, as the world around him suddenly disappeared as he was sucked into the black.
3.
His skin itched. Where he’d healed, his skin itched, stitching together until it was a clear canvas once more. Toga’s knife was sharp and quick through the demonstration, blood spilling fast before it was smothered away by new skin.
He felt like a freak, standing there, with all their eyes on him.
He could feel his eyes.
And His eyes.
And, eventually, he lifted a hand, having seen enough.
...
4.
A white room.
5.
Bodies.
No.
4.
He was shoved into a white room. A strange room, half of the walls replaced with something glossy and reflective. He could see his own pale face, staring back at him.
He wasn’t alone.
5.
Blood.
No.
4.
This was supposed to teach him a lesson. He couldn’t remember what. It was all too fast, the instructions, the--
There was movement. All along the other side of the room there was movement.
5.
Monsters.
No.
Childish, so childish.
4.
The room was filled with the gnashing of teeth. Flesh tearing. Blood, splattering onto the floor. It was indescribable. A mass, writhing yet still, gathered in the opposite corner.
He’d never had the misfortune to see one up close, not like this. He’d seen them on the news, read about them in articles, wondered, shuddered at the thought, but never like this--
5.
...
4.
The Noumu were--
5.
...
4.
The Noumu that were still moving were devouring each other. The victors of a struggle, now leisurely chewing and chewing on the defeated souls below them. Monoma shook, staring at them, trembling, feeling all the blood drain and drain from him until he felt cold and weak.
3.
“I want to see... what he can do.”
4.
When he started to scream, it echoed. It alerted them of his presence but he didn’t care, couldn’t care, scrambled back and scrabbled at the walls, clawing and clawing and pleading and begging--
“Don’t do this, don’t, don’t--”
The beasts were misshapen, brain exposed, wet with gore and loud as they started to shift, dull moans falling from them as they started to prowl forward, slow, leisurely, knowing, knowing they’ve won.
His shrieks got louder. “Let me out! Fucking let me out! Shigaraki!!”
5.
...
Someone had to care. Someone had to notice.
...
4.
“Toga!!” he tried. “Kurogiri!!”
Every utterance fell on deaf ears. When the closest approached all the more, he was flailing again, squeezed against the corner and cowering before he was frantically crawling away, just barely dodging slow swipes of big, meaty hands. “No, no, no--”
He was hitting the floor before he even realized. A successful swipe, something had caught to his back, battering it, he could feel that awful itch, healing, he was a freak, he was going to die--
1.
Why?
4.
Dodging felt useless when there was more than one, interested now, hungry, stalking forward. What was left of them started to crowd in like a pack, mouths drooling as they opened, he was trapped-
trapped-
trapped-
5.
It seemed crazy. The image was stuck behind his eyelids, squeezed somewhere against his retinas. The way the mirrored walls, now smudged and smeared with bloody streaks of desperate nails, had just - opened. Parting, revealing the audience behind them. A panel had popped open in a way that was almost comical, a hand had reached out, he had just barely grasped it, desperate, needing--
The Noumu had reached him. Touched him. Grabbed him.
Contact.
And then, suddenly, it was dust.
Suddenly, he’d been overwhelmed.
So many quirks. So much power. It surged through his cells, violently vibrant, making them burn just as white as the walls. It drove everything in his mind to a sharp, icy peak.
It really only took five minutes to get rid of the rest of them. Barely that.
6.
The party. It continued on. He was in a daze, body still sodden and buzzing from leftover adrenaline. More lessons were needed, he’d been promised. He needed more control. He needed more. He needed...
...
... something that could get blood out of his coat.
His grandfather’s study smelled as rich as it always did, heady with the smoky smell of oak, vanilla, and cologne, thick and intoxicating as it filled the room, redwood soaking it all in and helping it spread. It was a smell he could now recognize as partially belonging to the bourbon the man kept in his cherished collection, though as a child he had no idea how to place it. There were a lot of things he couldn’t recognize as a child that was changing before his eyes in the last few years, wooly blankets that were ripped away in a flourish to reveal its mediocre truth. There was nothing magical about adulthood, he was learning. Everything that wasn’t painful was just... dull.
Which is why they drank so much, he had to assume, as he watched long fingers skim over bottle after bottle, one filled with something clear, another gold, then clear, then gold, before finally making their selection. Waiting quietly at his place besides it, he watched his grandfather sit at his desk, hands smoothing first over his tie and then along the lapels of his suit before they moved along his hair, slicking down what was already pressed neatly into place.
He spent ages doing that, the type of man who was so content and confident in himself that he spent ages enjoying just that. Himself; his presence and its effect on the air around him. Monoma watched him, trying not to fidget as well as he observed him quietly, waiting.
His grandfather stroked his beard for a long time. "Your grades," he decided on, before reaching for the bourbon and fixing himself a glass.
“They’re getting better,” Monoma said, quick to answer. “I’ve been-- there’s been some distractions, as always. I try and deal with them as best as I can.”
“Yes.” His grandfather was pouring another glass of amber. He watched the ice slosh around noisily, chest fluttering, heart fast. The glass slid over to him, just like he hoped it wouldn’t, before he placed the bottle down. “I’m sure there’s much to discover.”
He took the drink. It was cold against his fingertips. He briefly imagined frost growing, spreading across the surface, leaping onto the desk, clawing its way over the wood. He got so lost in the daydream he forgot to really respond, though it went unnoticed as his grandfather sipped at his drink, glancing at him first then brushing an invisible clump of dirt away second.
“You’re a man now, Neito.” His shoulders hiked, then relaxed at the sound of his name. “And becoming a man means awakening to certain... desires.”
He only tensed again. That’s not exactly the topic he was hoping this would land on. “I suppose so,” he said shortly before bringing his glass to his lips.
His grandfather let out a cheeky laugh as he did the same. “I know so. I remember when I was your age...! The things I got away with.” He winked. “What I still get away with.”
He forced a chuckle, sipped.
“Of course, you’re far more studious than I was at that age. I squandered a lot of my youth on silly things, shallow things. I didn’t have all the opportunities you have.”
His grandfather liked to do that. Remind him of their differences, eyes glinting in that knowledgeable way.
”Or the potential,” he added, still staring, eyes boring gently on him.
Monoma slowly worked down another amber sip.
“If I wasn’t pushed and pushed and pushed... Well.” He shook his head.
“Thank you,” he said uselessly, not knowing what else to say. What did he want to hear...?
“No need to thank me, my boy,” he answered gruffly, though a corner of his lips quirked at the gesture of gratitude. “As you were saying. You were catching me up, ah.” He tapped on his desk. “School. Your grades.” Another tap. “What about your power...? Any improvements to boast about?”
He felt sick. “I would say so.”
“It’s a shame I can’t see it in action.” He shook his head again. “They should allow us to sit in your class sometimes, really see for ourselves what kind of an education you’re getting. A demonstration that doesn’t require violence, that would be useful!” He stroked his beard again. “How would you describe it, hm?”
“Oh, just.” He felt sick. “I’m stronger, I would say.”
“Yes, but in what ways?”
Suffering made one stronger. Everyone knew that. Pain taught lessons. He’d withstood so much. He wasn’t breaking, but he was close. Fragmenting, but still together. Normal. Functioning. How could he explain that? Why did he want to? So many people had hurt him, he felt so weak, he had so much brimming under the surface, so much potential to be powerful, so much desire, so much-
Drinking again, he frowned, then placed the glass down. “There’s a boy in the other class. He was number one in the festival, the one that was on TV.” He took a breath. “I beat him, recently. In a fight.”
His grandfather mulled that over. He never showed his pride in a bright outburst of joy ever, always one to keep it in his chest and let it slowly burn through him. His expression eventually shifted into something a bit more smug as he sat back, self-satisfied. ”Isn’t that something,” he finally said.
“I got detention because of it though,” he continued to report.
“Quite alright,” he answered, waving it off with a big hand. “It happens! They’ve all gotten so strict in those schools. Boys fight each other! Let them! How else will they know about themselves without a good old struggle to find out who’s on top!”
He smiled vaguely. If only he knew.
“Make sure he remembers that, too. Who came out on top.” He’s shifting now, moving to pluck a cigar from a silver box he’d withdrawn from his pocket. “In any working relationship, it’s important to establish dominance. If not in strength, then in spirit. If not in that, then in your senses. Intellect.” He tapped his temple. “Common sense. Rational - logical - sense. You’re smart, I know you know that.”
Monoma nodded. He knew it more because his grandfather liked to repeated it, and his lessons, over and over until he could recite them in his sleep, but he didn’t say that.
“You know,” his grandfather continued, refilling their glasses, though neither of theirs had ever quite emptied entirely. “The only good thing that’s ever come from America is their alcohol. Of course, it’s still no sake, but it makes for a good celebration.”
Another nod. Monoma chewed on his lip as he watched the liquor pour and then he shifted in his chair, smoothing his bangs down where they sat just over his eyes. “Speaking of... celebrations... and, erm... working relationships... I’ve been getting close with a few... people,” he started, almost hesitant. “A few that are very good to know. Big names...”
“Oh?” His grandfather leaned forward, cigar forgotten where it was pinched between his lips. “Tell me more.”
“In the other class. A few of them are already quite famous, almost ridiculously so.” He talked fast, trying not to change his mind. “Names you’d probably recognize.”
"Out with it, boy."
"Todoroki," he blurted. "And Iida."
His grandfather’s eyebrows raised. “Endeavor’s boy...?” he asked and then leaned back again, thoughtful. “And the Ingenium line.”
His heart raced fast, pattering against his chest. He didn’t know why the feeling of betrayal started to coil up and around the base of his spine a little, but it did. “Yes.”
“Very good,” he praised softly. “Those are ones with a guarantee in life. They have a ticket to the top, in solid gold. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, ojisan,” he said softly, though his grandfather wasn’t listening, rambling on.
“Those are ones who grew up with a silver spoon welded to the roofs of their mouths. Huh!” He snorted. “Likely haven’t struggled a day in their lives. Souls must have been spoiled rotten from day one. What could they possibly know about life, huh? Looking down on us from their thrones, at all of us having to work hard to get even half of the same. Hah! Why, I--”
Monoma quietly went back to sipping. He can’t stop thinking about fire now. He could taste the smoke in the glass, carefully infused into the flavor of the alcohol he drank. Bourbon mostly just tasted like a mouthful of wet smoke. He imagined it, thick and filling his chest, roiling out of his nostrils. Endeavor must look like a beast when he was angry.
If suffering made one strong, how could he possibly reach the same level Todoroki found himself on...? How could he possibly compete with that much pain...?
His thoughts darkened, the taste on his tongue thick and sour. He didn’t even notice the creak of his grandfather’s chair at first, though it eventually drew his eye to the source, blinking as his grandfather stared expectantly at him, hand splayed on the desk between them.
“What are they like? Up close and in person?” Another lean. “All I know is what I saw on the television.”
“Iida is... hard working, and kind. Very gentle,” he said quickly, as if to make it up to him. “... And Todoroki is an asshole.”
His grandfather barked out a laugh. "Well! Stay close, you hear? There's only one thing you do with men like that." He propped his elbow on the desk and presented his pinky finger, glinting with the rings it adorned. "You do this," he said, twirling a finger from his other hand around it in insistent circles. "You wrap them around and around until you are exactly where you need to be."
He swallowed. "Of course."
“And are you exactly where you need to be...?”
“I’m close...” he forced another laugh, or maybe it dislodged itself naturally from his warming chest. “Who do you think I am...?”
“That’s my boy.” His grandfather smiled.
“As if I’d let those cads get the better of me...!” Monoma continued, spurred on by the way he was being beamed at.
“That’s my boy!” his grandfather crowed, rewarding him with a particularly hard smack of pride on his shoulder. "One day. One day very soon, we’ll have to start getting in the habit of talking business. Real business. Not this dancing around thing we do.” He grinned, a surprisingly wolfish expression “Just because you’re going to become a big-shot hero doesn’t mean you can’t have a hand with the company. It’ll have your name, after all.”
“Yessir...” he mumbled.
“Toppling a few ‘number one’s...” he murmured to himself, expression dreamy in a way he’d never seen, before his eyes snapped to him. “Your hair is getting a little long. You should cut it.” An ironic statement to make, as he literally brushed his own neatly done ponytail from where it sat on his shoulder. “You look more and more like your mother like that.”
“How is she?” Monoma dared to ask.
“Fine,” he replied shortly. “I haven’t seen her. I’ve been busy.”
“Oh.”
“And you?” he asked suddenly. “Have you spoken with her at all?”
“Oh. No.” He frowned. “I’ve been busy.”
The two sat in silence for a few moments. Something in the air dampened.
“... And their power,” his grandfather suddenly said, with a huffing sigh. “Have you taken it?”
Monoma’s mind frantically backtracked through the conversation. Oh. “Todoroki’s, mostly.”
“They call it ‘Hellflame’, you know. Endeavor’s. It’s a dangerous one.” His eyes were glinting again. “Very dangerous in the wrong hands.”
He thought of his nightmare and nodded simply.
“He’s very careful with it, though. Doesn’t have a lot of accidents.” He paused. “His son. He didn’t seem to want to use it much in battle. Seems almost a waste.”
“He uses it now...” he said quietly.
“Good.” He smiled again. “I hope he’s careful with it. He could cause quite the mess otherwise.”
Messes run in his family, he wanted to say. He wanted to tell him everything he’d learned. Everything he’d felt. How heavy it all truly was. How overwhelming. How small he felt. How hard he had to push, only to have every little win feel like the greatest loss. How he’d never been warned all this, despite all the lessons, despite everything his grandfather had warned him about the real world, how much it would all truly cost.
He didn’t say anything. His grandfather finally lit his cigar.
“What an exciting time you’re being raised in,” he softly mused over his silence. ”The last decade or two has gotten so dull. I envy you. If you’re as keen as I know you are, you can feel it. That shift.” He raised a finger, poised in the air. “What I know as a man will become useless soon, if society is truly changing like we all know it is. It’s very exciting,” he repeated. “I can only imagine what happens next. A new system? A revolution? A new world order? Who will lead that change? Who will end up on top?” He laughed out. “Ah, Neito. You’re so close. All you’ll have to do is reach out and touch it, won’t you?”
He shrugged, awkward as he giggled weakly along with him. He wondered if he sounded this insane when he’s similarly carried away. “Hopefully it’ll be that easy.”
His grandfather shook his head. “Of course it won’t. So, you work hard. You work until you get there. And you will. I can feel it in my bones.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Smile settling away, he looked at his watch. “Ah. I’ve kept you late.”
“Ah!” He glanced up at the clock, confirming the late hour for himself. “I don’t mind. I would’ve been up this late anyway.”
“Hm,” his grandfather grunted. “You inherited that from me.” He placed a pair of glasses on, sliding it over the bridge of his nose, only to peer at him above the rim. “Among other things.”
He smiled sheepishly. His grandfather finally looked away to reach for a newspaper, untucking it from where it sat on his desk and opening it up, eyes searching for something Monoma couldn’t guess. “Finish your drink then, and I’ll think of a story to tell.” He paused, seeming to find what he was looking for, and placed it down, eyes twinkling behind the lenses again as he reached for his glass. “There was a woman I was involved with once whose quirk kept contributing to the amount of floods in the area. Now, when I found that out...”
He continued to ramble. Monoma sat and listened, thinking to himself, wondering as he continued to sip. What other awful things had he inherited...? He supposed he’d just have to wait and see.
It makes sense, now. Why he avoids sleep the way he does. Or, rather, it proves his theory, it justifies why he needs to spend every night exhausting himself to the point of his actions just beating unconsciousness into him.
Nightmares are common. He’s been having them for months now. They don’t scare him as much anymore as they used to. Or, rather, fear is part of it, and he’s accepted it. He can recognize the symptoms of it in himself now. Cold sweat, hands shaking, the awful way his lungs freeze in his chest and his stomach threatens to empty or actually does. Throat tight. Hyperventilations. His heart racing in his ribcage.
The worst symptom of all. His heart. His heart. He doesn’t like to think about it, doesn’t like to feel it, wants to rip it out and stomp on it and cry and die and
As long as he’s not caught off guard, he’s okay. He knows what to look out for. He can only have so many dreams. He dreams of flowers, and hands on his skin, and ashes gathering on the ground, and he dreams of drills and he dreams of golden eyes in the darkness and sharp teeth and blood and faces that look like other faces and the universe tearing itself apart sometimes. As a kid, he used to dream a lot too, bad ones, but he could never remember of what. Being alone, maybe.
He dreams a lot about people leaving, and watching their backs disappear in the distance. Somehow those are the worst ones.
But he’s used to it. It’s really not as much of a problem as one would think. If he’s prepared. If he knows what’s about to happen. He can think it away, wake up, move on.
And he’s fine.
That night, he wakes up, and his room is on fire.
It’s on his skin and the walls and tearing through the ceiling and eating away at the door. It’s consuming everything, his bed, his desk, his mirror, everything. It burns. Eats at him. Gnaws him through and
fists feel like flames he realizes. nails feel like flame. the holes inside him fill with gasoline and feed every orange and red dagger around him. his heart is on fire. his ribcage his bones they all screech and creak and blacken into ash and he’s dissolving he’s disintegrating he’s dying he’s HURTing ithurtsithURTS
He wakes up still screaming, frantic, fanning away the flames and slapping at his skin. It takes him far too long to stop.
Far too long.
... It’s embarrassing. Not remembering in time is embarrassing. No one’s power can hurt him from the inside if he’s alone. That’s a lesson he learned as a child, even if he barely remembers how.
Though, it’s not hard. Once it all starts to blur together, once he’s started to get some distance, it’s all too simple a task to fall into rhythm, fall into line, reconstruct and reinvent himself into a new role, a new mask, a new performance for him to star in. Memorizing his new lines is easy, and he spends every session reciting them off.
“Now, how long have you felt suicidal for?” Therapist #4 dutifully asks him and he sighs, looks forlorn, makes the twisting in his gut form an obvious glimmer in his eyes.
“As long as I can remember,” he answers, though it’s not quite true, which is why it’s so easy. The truth only peeks through the sheen of a lie, actual anguish bleeding into the tragedy of a character. The truth is that his life always felt like a weight on him, a force that his hollow body was too weak to withstand, and it’s less that he wants to die and more that he wants to live so desperately that need has a stranglehold on him, choking and smothering as he tries so hard to reach for some sort of reprieve.
But that isn’t an easy answer.
Therapist #6 asks him, “What was your relationship with your parents like?”
And it’s easy, far too easy to repeat the first lie he’s ever been told to tell. He spends the whole time prattling about his poor, destructive mother and her ruinous quirk, how they couldn’t even touch without some sort of disaster happening, sparking from her hands, (he remembers clinging, crying in her arms, begging never to be let go of and wailing when they had to part because the rest of the world was so loud, so chaotic, all these powerful quirks crushing and strangling through him), how her moods matched in tune, how much distance has been pushed between them since, and then the bitch has the nerve to ask if that is why he ran into their arms, into His, and,
Monoma pauses,
and he nods.
Easy. Meaningless.
And it’s not all quick and winding answers, oh no, he knows better than that. He’s still difficult, he still plays up every mood swing and symptom they point out. He spends one session berating a therapist, meeting every inquiry with backhanded comments and rolling eyes, another he spends shouting and inconsolable, flinging papers and office supplies around for the fuck of it and spending a good hour afterwards getting coddled through a lecture. A conversation with an officer (lovely to see how little he’s still trusted, to still be poked and prodded at after all this time) turns sour after too many vague smirks and snickers at his own expense, and he ends up with his face slammed to the table, arm twisted behind his back in a way that’s all too familiar, giving him something to cry over the next day, the next session, when he’s telling the story once again.
(And that’s easier than it looks, turns out. Faking tears. He’s gotten quite good at adopting them all, really, that terrified blanche and wide, watery eyes that got anyone to rush over, tissues in hand.)
“And I think,” he says, reciting again, saying something easy, something meaningless, “that’s why I value it so much,” he mumbles, watching Faceless Man #12 write, studying his hands as they move over a notepad. “Value the chance to talk about it as it actually happened, I mean. It’s not something I had growing up, and...”
#12′s eyes raise, meeting his, and Monoma smiles sheepishly, politely embarrassed, playing the part.
“When did your penchant for dishonesty start?” he asks him slowly,
“I don’t understand how this could have happened.”
Monoma laid in bed. He could paint the scene for himself easily, even from where he was. His mother’s footsteps, soft against the floor as she paced back and forth outside of his hospital room. His grandfather, still besides the occasional tap of his cane against the porcelain. Nurses, informing them as gently as they could, frowning and shaking their heads as they watched them take the horror in.
They’re all gathered outside in the hallway, like they don’t care if he overheard it all. Like they wanted him to. They parade around their misery, sympathetic vultures grabbing for the plight around them.
“I just don’t understand it,” his mother said again. He listened to the strain in her voice, picking it apart. Grief. Horror. Anger. She can’t lash out enough.
“It’s... terrible,” his grandfather agreed, a calm, deliberate quality to his tone.
“Where was he that this could have-” Kimiko faltered, turned on her heel, a sharper sound striking into the air as she continued to pace around. “I don’t believe this. I thought there was a curfew to prevent these things.”
“Yes, but according to his story, he’d purposely neglected it to-”
“And why was he allowed to? What’s the point of the whole damn thing if he’s just allowed to waltz outside for any damn criminal to do what they want with him?”
His grandfather tapped his cane against the floor again. “...”
“I want to talk to Hawks. And I want to talk to his school. I want someone to be held responsible for this.” Kimiko spun towards her father. “We can file a lawsuit about this, can we not?”
Naito raised a brow. “And make this matter public?”
“... Excuse us-” The nurses were quick to file their way out as Kimiko glowered hard at the man.
“Why not? You’ve never hesitated to broadcast anything about him before.”
“That was different,” Naito replied slowly.
“Well, pardon fucking me, I don’t see how.”
“Language.” Naito tapped his cane again. “You were mad at me for days after all that. Now you want to do the same, follow my ‘bad example’...”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you’ve developed a conscience.”
He clicked his tongue. “It was in my right to do. It was all publicized anyway. You... do not understand the media. You don’t understand how this will affect him. You just want someone to blame.”
She glared at him silently.
Naito shook his head at her, tapping once more. “I won’t use my money for something like this. Leave the poor school alone. We have the name of the one who did it, leave it at that. Let the heroes do their work.”
“The heroes,” Kimiko spat out, disgusted at the word as she returned to her pacing. “Bastard’s been on and off the news for years now, never even caught once, oh yes, leave it to the heroes who can’t do shit, and now he’s after my son-”
“Language,” Naito repeated, sounding slightly more irritated now.
“Been after my son, how many damn times has that school been attacked? We should have pulled him out from the start. When he was failing and I told you it was all too hard on him and you insisted, oh, let him continue, let him find his footing, we should have just taken him out. Then none of this would have happened!”
“And squash on the boy’s dreams?”
Kimiko glared at him. “Oh, I hate you. I hate how you twist things like that. What do his dreams matter when they’re killing him?”
Naito watched her quietly.
“Answer me. Do you think any of that matters? He won’t even come close to achieving anything at this rate. He’ll sooner wind up in a coffin. It’s not worth it, father.”
Naito only shrugged. “It’s what he wants.”
“So I’m the bad guy for not wanting him to die.”
“You’re being a little dramatic.”
Kimiko’s face suddenly reddened in a furious burst across her cheeks. “My son is-” she hissed between her teeth before she stopped, suddenly stilling, eyes suddenly wet. “Fine.”
Naito nodded at her, giving one last tap of his cane. “Yes.”
“So we do nothing.”
“And leave it to the heroes, yes.” He nodded once again. “It’s the best we can do in this case.”
“And we just... let him go back. To letting his life get ruined and everything else.”
“Not in so many words... but, yes.” Naito sighed. “This year could be better.”
“It could be worse.”
“Or it could be better. So little faith, my girl.”
Kimiko scrubbed her tears away hard. “Take me home.”
“There’s still a few people we need to talk to about this, dear.”
“Then I’ll be in the car.” She stormed away without another word, leaving Naito to only shake his head, expression slightly bemused.
“...”
Monoma listened to his mother’s footsteps disappearing. He thought of school, of trying to return to it.
