Izuku died in a battle, didn't really see how, just one day he was gone.
That sent shoto and katsuki into a spiral. They started overworking themselves, well more than they already did. But in all those recent fights, izuku was protecting them; literally there. The boy never let himself rest. He even went and prepared stuff All Might liked to make sure he had those around and was okay.
And when asked about it, when someone asked him to rest, he just shrugged. "I'm too busy right now"
"You're dead!"
"Yeah, it's not like I was never gonna die" he gave that little smile and a scratch to his nape before locking in into whatever was infront of him
He had thought about it. He planned it. Even after he was gone, he was gonna protect everyone.
I dreamt of being chased by a snake, red-scaled and striped with white and yellow, tipped black on both ends. Wherever my skin met its fangs, the area around the wound grew inflamed. The pain lingered, throbbing with each heartbeat, and slowly spread.
The snake had the strength to topple furniture, shatter windows and doors, and launch itself up a great height. There was no recourse but to run and hide, yet no matter where I went, no sanctuary could be found. The snake was fast and its senses keen - it did not take long for it to catch me, and each struggle rewarded me with only a few precious minutes to flee, and ever more poison to circulate with my blood.
In an act of desperation I took the biggest step back in time I've ever done. One week - to before the snake found itself within the house. Perhaps I could prevent its entrance. The world around me shifted in pieces, a thousand reflections rippling into the past. Time froze, rearranged, and unfroze.
I was in the kitchen, opening the cupboards to find something for breakfast. My wounds had healed. Or rather, they weren't inflicted yet. All except for one - a gash on my right foot, throbbing faintly with each heartbeat. The snake was already inside, even if it had yet to take form.
Another step backwards. I struggled against time's currents. The present peeled away like rotten paint to reveal another week past. I was in the middle of a house party. Extra guests roamed around the house, unseen by everyone but me. A strange writhing presence seethed within them, slowly creeping outwards. Pulsing like a heartbeat. With a sharp gesture I cast the presence out.
so i had a dream where i was a very ruthless and cruel tyrant.
like near cartoonish levels of cruelty.
the most vivid scene was where i went to this town that had been housing a rebellion and they ambushed me. i put up a token resistance to deplete their resources, then allowed myself to be captured. while the chase was ongoing i and the disposable "guard" i brought along left explosives all over the place -- the gates, the plaza entrances, and civilian homes and their clinic. then when the leaders were discussing what to do with me, i had the explosives set off, and the troops i had hidden out of town rush in and corral everyone into the plaza. most exits were guarded, but i left some open on purpose for the final phase of the plan. loud, flashy attacks were set off to scatter the crowd, but as the exits were closed off, they had no choice but to squeeze into the narrow ones i left, and they crushed each other as they fled.
post eclipse dream: dreamed i was a demon king, with all of every word of that title entailed.
one of those dreams where upon waking up, reality loiters around for a few seconds before settling in. not particularly long, just A Lot.
tldr:
i ascended the throne after the boundaries between realms were broken down. i had arranged a meeting with an unremembered group - something about the prisoners kept in my dungeons. part of the plan was pressing them with a short-notice visit. another part of it was arriving earlier than anticipated. the second part was known only to a few. preparations were interrupted by invaders (*) who tried to break the prisoners out. i personally executed the ones who made an attempt on my life, then (with much willpower and restraint) detained the rest.
after a sweep of the castle (and a thorough screening of the prison guards), i altered my plans to include a few detours. dressing myself and my most trusted advisor and bodyguards in plainer garments, we passed through a human city to investigate if something was happening beyond our reach. several times i had to temper the urge to quell disrespect with force - my companions helped allay it, usually, though even they had their moments. our efforts weren't in vain. we found a whole entourage of demons gathering, confirming my suspicions that the earlier attack wasn't from a small, opportunistic group.
woke up still thinking what to do with the prisoners, the castle's security flaw, and possible information gap and leak.
two random cool things in the dream:
i had a 'room' - though it was shaped more like a corridor - with grand arches of windows on one side. every window showed not the other side of the wall, but different views of the realm i presided over.
(and boi was it a captivating view. valleys striped with green and orange blooms. cities built like crystal formations in caves, like the net of metal left after it has been eaten by rust. tendrils of shadows passing across the tumultuous spirals of red-black-blue-grey skies. rain forming archways that placed what it framed in an iridescent mist. and between them, my people, moving through their lives like grains across the scenery.)
(some windows displayed other realms, but in smaller snippets.)
the symbol of office was a ring, copper-like and framed with two black bands, worn on the middle finger of the left hand. between the bands, a skull molded from the metal took the centerpiece, surrounded by elaborate engravings. i had a crown, but it was not a physical one - more like a halo of fire than anything.
(*) a menagerie that consisted of a cactus, an oversized caterpillar, a faceless green fox (who is, surprise! a shapeshifter), and what could only be described as a 'slime creature, except it's made of mold instead of gelatin'.
other things:
i had attendants and guards, which is still a weird thing to process.
the whole magic castle too.
there's a set of public royal guards, and another set of hidden royal guards who are posted with other staff, the crowd, or just outright hidden from everyone's sight. then there's the third subset of personal guards, which are either publicly by my side or discreetly following me.
fashion apparently included a pair of mismatched earrings - a snarling face on the left, and a disk with what seemed to be a detailed star map engraved on it on the right.
the demon realm itself is alive in some sense and part of being king of that is not being overwhelmed by it.
another person falls to the floor. another body torn to shreds by a man gone feral. 'zombies', i hear them being called. those people are wrong, but it's perhaps the closest approximation to what they are.
the grocery is in chaos. shelves have been toppled, products strewn on the floor and trampled. i spot a group about to sneak out through the stairs. that won't do. i push a loaded shopping cart down from above. it lands on top of them. the clattering attracts the attention of the 'zombies'. concussed and injured, the group stand no chance against the hoard that descends on them.
a SWAT team rushes in and guns down several 'zombies' too soon for my liking. i let myself be swept up in the rescue operation. they shepherd the survivors into one group and escort us to the parking lot.
with a wave of my hand, the seams of the world loosen. pale, hungry hands snake through the gap. i push it towards some of the military men. the hands wrap around them - not physically, not even in any visible way, but they tense all the same. i clench my fist and the hands clench theirs, crushing within them the men's consciousness, their sense of self. blood rushes to their faces, turning it splotchy and red. their eyes bulge and veins burst as they try to resist. they fail. the hands take over, filling the hole that destruction left behind with rabid hunger.
i twist my wrist. they're tied to me, under my complete control.
the carnage they wrought is beautiful.
silence descends with the night. i've integrated myself into another group, much larger this time. they have taken an entire building floor as their base. as the night went on, bloody and full of bile, their base shrinks to a handful of rooms. a few brave souls venture out to locate wanderers, but fewer come back as themselves.
a middle-aged man implements a reinforcement to the door that impresses even me. it's a system of levers, made using discarded objects like plastic mop handles, that allows the door to be locked and barred from a distance.
he has defended only one door. there is a second one, kept hidden from their eyes and forgotten within their minds.
his door holds out for three consecutive attacks, but breaks when an 'infected' one transforms from inside. i watch him closely. he accepts this defeat with neither grace nor dignity. he gives no warning when another 'zombie' comes, does not help defend, does not try again to repair what was broken. he has taken everyone's lives as the price for his injured pride.
i make sure his death is the least painless.
a 'zombie' grabs him, pins him to the wall, and opens its mouth wide. wider than physically possible. its jaws break, and from its throat thick ropes of tiny, snake-like hands slithered out and into his mouth. he twitches even as he is thrown to the floor with half of his body eaten from the outside in.
the glamor on the other door holds. the 'zombies' flood in.
i dreamed of journeying north, to obtain something precious (that may not be physical). i made a home and left it at dawn, then pushed through a night so dark i could hardly see. i navigated a maze of rivers, then won a race of three.
the journey led to a library, which was but a short stop along the way. they let no one borrow any books, unless it was what they truly needed. i felt a call, felt that there was something inside for me, but everywhere i looked i came up empty: a drawer with nothing inside, a book devoid of writing, a binder yet to be filled, and a box wrapped in white cloth that contained only its lining. the supervising librarian left me with some suggestions on where to look, and, thoughtful, i drummed on a desk. it purred and chittered and hopped in excitement. the librarian had to stop me, as the desks tended to destroy what they held and what was around them in that state.
(i made sure to ration the pets i gave instead. if i could bring the desks with me, i would.)
in the end, i took nothing and was given nothing. (a lie - even failures bring with it a story and a lesson.) the librarian showed me a different side, where people were free to borrow whatever caught their eye. still, none appealed. the tug, the magnetic song that i sought for, simply wasn't there.
I murdered a person in broad daylight. Cameras caught no identifying features, and the crowd made for an easy getaway. A magnificently timed operation, if I say so myself, but it had two major flaws:
I still needed to show up in the general area on a regular basis. Even if I hadn't been attending the classes I was signed up for, I still had to keep up appearances.
There was one detective who accepted neither the "traffic accident" nor "purse-snatching incident gone wrong" conclusions, and they had been hanging around my haunts.
That detective looked down on the now-cleaned crime scene from a cafe veranda. Taking on the unaffected airs of a daily commuter, I ducked into the same building's so-called basement entrance - an unusual entrance that opened below street level. Minimizing my presence on the streets seemed like a smart idea - who knew just where the detective's suspicions lay, and what other eyes they had set?. Carefully, I navigated through the various buildings and malls to position myself several streets away.
The route led me to a historic church, about to host a mass. There were high-profile guests: important government officials, both local and foreign, ambassadors, and a few celebrities. Armed and armored men surrounded the place in rigid rows, flinty eyes trailing after every passerby. The hands of one man who had been watching me loiter twitched towards the trigger of his rifle. I took it as a sign to attend the mass.
A brawl broke out in the middle of the ceremony. The presiding priest himself stepped down in an attempt to break it up, but he too got caught in. Gunshots fired from the pews. The guards outside poured in and opened fire, but there was no logic, no reason in who they targeted. The guests, the laypeople, even each other - none were safe. Bullets razed the sanctuary from inside, staining wood and glass and defiling hallowed objects with blood.
It was pandemonium, a senseless, horrific tragedy.
And it was exhilarating to behold.
Somehow, I got through the slaughter unscathed. The others who were still standing put on cloaks and hoods - white and silver, glimmering with stars - and finished off those who managed to cling on to their lives.
I was handed a cloak. I put it on. The cloaked people painted and rearranged the church to suit their needs. More blood on the walls, corpses dripping red high on the ceiling. Crucifix bent and twisted into a bizarre sigil.
