Archive of Our Own

Beneath his fingertips, the lonely boy feels sand. 

The grains are light. Soft, like a pillow. 

It’s nothing close to the hardwood floors that he was used to feeling. Whether that meant being pinned to the ground by merciless peers and siblings, or when the boy, blessed with cottonmouth and labored breaths, hid underneath the bed so that the bogeyman couldn’t get him. He always tried to block out the noise of his parents’ ‘angry walking.’ A single thud or footstep and he’d freeze. Break into sweat whilst tears welled at his ducts and spilled over his cheeks. 

He hated those times, but his body and mind lacked the strength to fully fight back. For years, he’s been robbed of the feeling that’s he’s in charge of himself. His self-loathing fog merged with his distress, his body may not have been challenging his opponent but it likes to protect itself where it makes him react to the faintest trigger. Immobilization is at the root of his brain’s evils. He’d become shallow and zombielike. Disassociate, faint, or collapse. As the world can do what it pleased to him. 

Therefore, he hated himself more than his circumstances. 

A slow breeze caresses the boy’s face, tenderly sweeping green, curly bangs out of his forehead. It’s not the type of gentle that makes his belly churn or his toes curl. It doesn’t repulse him to the point where he’d whine in agony, squirm, or tilt his jaw away from panting, hot breaths. The torturous burn of undesired touch. 

No, the wind was nice.

It smelled nice too. Didn’t reek of cheap alcohol, smoke, and sweat. Otherwise, the boy would have puked already. There’s salt in the air that he pinpoints, such an ugly feat that he was familiar with. In forced taste, scent, or on himself - his skin came out extra pink and sensitive when scrubbing the physical evidence off. 

Except this was different. There’s a whiff of sour accents in the atmosphere that relaxes him in ways he can’t describe. 

Which reminded him. His eyes were closed. 

The lonely boy’s lids unfolded, fluttering open with ease. Free of any aches or sticky tears, he’s surprised at first. 

No greetings from his siblings, bullies, or fake parents bearing faces of scorn and disgust. Usually, waking up meant getting his nose and mouth shoved into toilet bowls with specks of fecal matter in the corners, alongside the sound of bubbling laughter. Occasionally, it’s an alarm clock in form of a dropping ice bucket. Again, with the giggles of his audience and offenders as his body underwent the most chilling temperatures. 

This time, it’s different. He sees something different. 

It’s just… the ocean. Dear, lovely water. 

Waves lick the shoreline, ripples of white sparkled at the edges. The sun peeked out from the horizon, the visible half creates an ombre of orange and pink in the cloudless sky. 

His world glimmers and the boy thinks he must be dreaming. 

Why is he here? 

“Izuku,” an unknown presence abruptly enters his bubble. 

Normally, Izuku would have dramatically cowered from any heard voices, especially one that low and authoritative. On darkened knees, the boy would apologize for something he had no fault in. Maybe plead desperately for mercy, because he was often too weak to handle anything more. Punches, insults. Everything. 

Everything hurt. 

Here, Izuku merely turns his head. So casually, carelessly. For some reason, Izuku wasn’t shot the signal. He didn’t need to scream for help, it’s a tragic adaptation his physical self came to. Was he that weak? Did he just stop caring? That didn’t mean he wasn’t a little afraid though. Those visceral pangs of what is safe, what is life sustaining, what is danger, continuously clash. 

A man was sitting down next to him. Elbows on knees, profile revealed as he looked out into the distance. Izuku knows that it wasn’t polite to stare. Many punishments would come as a result of doing so… but Izuku couldn’t help it. The pull was magnetic. If the man were to do something bad, then Izuku can’t be surprised. 

Izuku believes that if something bad happens to him, he deserves it. He always does. Why wouldn’t he? 

Mr. Unknown had tangled black hair, partly curly and unkempt. A long nose and tired eyes, bloodshot at the rims. Scruffy, exhausted, but young. He wore all black, adding to his ominous aura. Nonetheless, he’s a stranger. 

“Do you know where you are?” The man asked without peering at the boy. He sounds a bit bored, but Izuku’s lone side craved conversation. Attention. He was often wrong for wishing such thing. 

Izuku rakes over his surroundings. He’d have remembered such a pretty place if he’s been here before, so that takes out one option.

The boy takes notice of his own appearance. He’s seated criss-cross applesauce, wearing an old graphic t-shirt and loose basketball shorts. Oh, and his red, oversized boots. His favorite. It’s like seeing an old friend again. 

How lonely Izuku was, to find company and comfort in inanimate things. Izuku loved his analysis notebooks, his journals and diaries - but everybody hated them. So he began to also. 

Izuku realizes he left the man’s question hanging. He directs all energy to focus on providing what the man wanted. 

No, he has no idea what this place is. Maybe this was a fever dream? Drug-induced? Had Izuku finally gone insane? 

The boy shook his head. When his voice escaped his lips, Izuku cringed. He disliked how meek he sounds, but no matter how hard he tried to sound stronger, he couldn’t. Because he’s weak. 

“…I don’t know.” 

“Do you know who I am?” The raven turns to the boy, dark eyes locking onto the boy’s own. 

Izuku ducks his head, cheeks warm with slight embarrassment. He repeats quietly, even regretfully, “I don’t know.” 

“Do you know why you’re here?” 

Izuku kept his gaze down, hit with a sudden alarm that he may anger the man by having no ‘useful’ replies. Impending doom looms over the boy’s head, claws enclosing his skull and waiting for the perfect second to pop his head like a balloon if Izuku answers wrongly. He’s scared stiff, chronically afraid in his own body. Izuku is bombarded by warning signs and the gnawing, inner discomfort causes the boy to hope that he hasn’t lost the ability to shut down these sensations. 

The boy doesn’t know what to say. Why can’t he find the right words? Why did these questions have to he so hard? Why couldn’t Izuku ever be-

“Take a deep breath, Izuku,” the man says. Izuku, in his panicked state, glanced at the other through a misty lens. 

The man’s hooded eyes are soft, understanding maybe. One part of Izuku urges him not to fall for its tricks, the man doesn’t care. The bigger, idiotic part of Izuku’s broken soul has him easing at the sight. It might be fake but for once, someone looks like they care for him. It’s a sham, it’s deceiving, but he’s so alone. 

The boy’s guards are heightened like a feral, frightened animal, though his shields lower just a bit. Enough for Izuku to inhale deeply and let the air flow within his body. If any, it’s for the sake of obeying orders. Some will say he’s stupid for it, stupid for bending over to anybody like they automatically had authority over him. But that’s why Izuku is lonely. Isolated in the feeling that nobody will ever understand why he did, or didn’t, do the things he had to. 

“Good,” the man flatly praises, attentive to the young boy’s actions. “I’m going to need you to breathe just like that for the next few minutes.” 

He eerily reveals, “I’ll have to ask you more questions too. Are you alright with that?” 

Izuku is, indeed, inhaling and exhaling with strenuous effort. Attempting to be stable. The man’s expression settles, alike to Izuku’s many troubled caregivers, when realizing the boy is going to be a handful to handle. This makes Izuku’s bottom lip quiver. He’s so stupid. 

“I-I’m sorry,” the boy whispers pathetically. 

To which the man sighs, “I’m not mad.” He’s not smiling, but he adds more softly, “You’re not supposed to know me. Here, why don’t you ask me some things?” 

Izuku blinks at the suggestion. The raven can see his confusion plain as a day, “Ask me anything you’re curious about.” 

Curious… what is Izuku curious about? He’s curious about a lot of things, but he can’t necessarily ever utter them aloud. People hated his ramblings and his thoughts. Now, as he’s being put on spot, Izuku draws a blank. In shame, he hangs his head again and stares at his lap. 

That’s when he catches an odd display. 

Right upon his hands, as he interlaced his fingers and picked at his nails… The boy crinkles his brows. He was used to seeing his pale skin marred with red, purple, and yellow. Carpet burns, ash circles, vertical and horizontal lines, malicious nicknames written in ink. There was nothing. Not even his own inflictions that he neither loved or despised. 

So Izuku tries to scratch himself, digging deep into his flesh and tugging his index upwards. The action does not extract any blood. He attempts again and feels no physical pain. 

Izuku hesitantly mumbles, “W-why can’t I feel anything?” 

The man hums, pleased that the boy worked enough courage to speak, “You’re not supposed to.” 

Half of Izuku wonders if the same could be said if he poked his irises and gouged them out. Or if he jumped into the ocean and never raised his nose above the water. 

Izuku’s destructive, intrusive scenarios are cut short as Mr. Unknown inquires, “Do you want to know why you’re here?” 

In a second’s worth of contemplation, Izuku nods. The man says three words.

“You gave up.” 

A blinding light overtakes Izuku’s vision. Hijacking the beautiful beach’s scenery, replacing it with his red boots on the edge of a rooftop. Down below, thirty-five meters or more, pavement awaits. Students create a crowd. There’s a mixture of taunts and encouragement. Others speculate without saying anything, several leave without any plan to get involved. 

“Do it, Deku! Do it!” 

Izuku’s pulse is thrashing, inwardly screaming as perspiration builds up at his temples. Adrenaline, sickening adrenaline, dizzies the child. 

His emotions had always been too much. Too jumbled, too extreme. That’s why Izuku was a crybaby. A bully’s perfect punching bag and a teacher’s headache. An attention seeking liar, the problematic orphan who jealously blamed his amazing, perfect foster siblings for his shortcomings. His only use was being a compliant, slab of meat. 

“Jump!” 

Izuku was a burden. So stupid, so worthless. So fucking useless. If he died right now, no one will have to deal with his baggage. Everyone says he’s better off dead, Izuku doesn’t think they’re wrong. 

After all, he is quirkless. 

That’s why his birth parents gave him up. That’s why Izuku grew up wishing he could be better for them. If he came out a fire-breather with telekinesis, maybe then they’d love him. 

Maybe then, Izuku could’ve been a hero. 

All that money spent on action figures, posters, merchandise; wasted on a dream that couldn’t soar. How shameful. How pitiful for the small family, whose neighbors housed such talented, wonderful children. Oh, poor Midoriyas. Poor social workers, poor everybody except Deku. 

Why couldn’t he be someone else? Why couldn’t he be better? 

God, he feels so guilty. No wonder they all hate him. He hates himself too. 

“Jump!” 

The idea of dying has consumed Izuku for years on end, until it’s all he can ever think about. Every breath he takes, every step he struggles for, every crumb he relishes - if Izuku dies, everything would become effortless. Nothing would be tiring. Nothing would hurt. 

Yeah. Yeah, he’d like that. 

At school, home, on T.V. and online, Izuku would just see how joyful people were. How much they loved life. When Izuku realized that he wasn’t like any of them, he felt absolutely soul crushed with yearning envy, a hallow emptiness of deprecation, palpable fixation and exhaustion… 

It all became too much. Beyond his capacity to endure. 

Izuku realized he didn’t want to exist. 

“Jump!”

For once in his life, he can do something right. 

He can end it. 

Izuku didn’t feel fear when he stood tall. He felt like he had power. That he finally had control. Deku was on top of the world. 

He knew he was doing something right, the minute he leapt. It was the first anyone had supported him. They agreed with his actions, the world was happy. Their chorus of pure, unadulterated triumph enriched Izuku. The quirkless child was doing them a favor, he wouldn’t fail them ever again. 

The crowd cheered as the ground welcomed him with open, loving arms. 

The fall was quick, insanely so, that his brain wasn’t fast enough to send the pain signals rippling throughout his being. Izuku didn’t feel the way his soft temples splattered when it connected with the firm cement, how his cheekbones and jaw cracked into disfigured, tiny pieces. Crushed with a thwack. His ribs disintegrated into mush and Izuku’s lifeless eyes ogled the feet of Aldera’s junior high students. Uniform soles drenched in his brain matter and tears. Dark, shining maroon with a sprinkle of pink. Amongst them, Kacchan stood with an unreadable expression. 

“Oh,” Izuku gasps when the sand reappears below. Reeled from the moment and resuming his spot on the peaceful, ethereal beach. 

He did it. 

He actually did it. 

The information processes and the man beside him patiently waits. It takes a minute. Because this meant that he’s dead. Izuku died, he actually did it. He’s… gone. The boy touches the beach’s grain, doodling circles with an idle finger. 

Was this heaven? No, no. He didn’t deserve paradise. Deku wasn’t going to heaven. His stigmatization wouldn’t allow such notion to become an established fact. 

Although this was okay too. More than okay. 

Upon this revelation, Izuku thinks he feels… sort of weightless. He’s uptight, high strung, scared. But he’s not biting his nails and dripping with anxiety-induced moisture. That had to be something.

Like magic, things weren’t as heavy in terms of paranoia or burden. It’s different. 

He’s dead. He’s free. 

Or he’s just fooling himself. 

Izuku turns to the mystery man, who’s been relatively kind to him. The boy’s standards are nonexistent, he’ll consider anyone kind if they haven’t cursed at him, beat his head, or demand relief. In hopes that the offer of having the green light to indulge in his curiosity, Izuku looks at the man for approval. The raven nods subtly. 

“…Wh-who are you?” Izuku asks timidly, “Are- are you dead too?” 

“I’m an imitation of a real, living human. A reaper taking form of whoever your subconscious chooses to see,” the tired man informs the boy. “In this case, my name is Aizawa Shouta.” 

Which comes to be a slight shock to the dead child.

“Huh… but, but I don’t know you?” Izuku cannot recall the raven’s face, no bells are rung and not once in his buried memories had such person occurred. Not a relative, a customer, a bully. The freckled boy gulps, “I- I’m choosing to see you?” 

“That’s right,” Aizawa confirms. 

Izuku scrunches his nose thoughtfully. He didn’t know his filter had dropped, for an involuntary “Why?” leaves him. 

His question is innocently honest, it brings an abrupt snort from the latter. Izuku’s breath hitches. He’s never to ask, never to tell. Now he’s disrespecting the man, and Izuku imagines the many ways the other can strike him. 

None of which manifested. Aizawa wasn’t smiling, it was closer to a smirk. He remarks, “I don’t know either, kid.” 

Izuku wants to reply, but out of habit, he zips his lips and waits for the man to continue dominating the conversation. It worked better that way. 

Aizawa takes the hint. What a strange reaper he was, having no business to be attentive to such pathetic little boy. The raven tells the dead child, “At some point, you will be thought of for the last time.” 

It’s a rather sad concept. For a human to live, then die and disappear like they were nothing… but that’s what Izuku was, right? That’s his fate. The young boy catches the train’s direction and follows it, sadly. 

“That w-would be soon, wouldn’t it?” Izuku mutters, bracing himself for the reality check. 

“It already happened,” Mr. Aizawa answers, and even if the lonely boy expects it, it does hurt. Izuku is hurt. 

He had to accept it. In life or death, Izuku was insignificant. That’s a reason why Izuku decided to end it all.

But to hear how unimportant he was thrown into his face in a factual matter made Izuku’s core ache. Unbearably so. Izuku unconsciously brings a hand up to this chest, right where his heart laid. He didn’t know whether it was beating or not, but it’s dull. Empty. 

Izuku is now, so hallow, “…I thought you said I’m n-not supposed to feel anything?” 

“You can’t feel the physical inflictions,” Aizawa elaborates. “It’s your soul that’s hurting. Like how you panicked.” 

“Oh…” Izuku wants to scratch his arms again, just to see if the reaper was lying. He probably was, because the deep, invisible pain was increasing by the millisecond. “Everyb-body forgot about me?” 

Aizawa tells him straight, “They choose not to remember.” 

The dead child blocks out those truths and instead, places his focus onto the ocean. The landscape was mocking him with its pretty colors and soothing waves. Yet, Izuku is dumbly entranced. He’s not supposed to have a headache, but he does. Somebody might as well hammer his head in. No, his conscious mind floats into the clouds. Too tired to bother dealing with his residue of helplessness. 

Izuku detaches from these overwhelming sensations. Redirecting his oversensitivity away from his numb, dead self, “I don’t matter.” 

“You don’t,” Aizawa easily says.

“But everyone else does,” Izuku reflects. 

“They do,” Aizawa agrees. 

Izuku bit his lip, “I deserve it.” 

Aizawa turns to Izuku, shooting him a very serious look, “Do you?” 

The dead child avoided the man’s eyes and the pretty sea. His pale, unscarred hand upon beige sand was the better choice. These fingers don’t belong to him. They’re supposed to be so crooked, skinned, and ugly. 

“I gave up,” those three words are heavy on Izuku’s tongue. It’s not disgusting or foul tasting. Bitter, but not terrible. Not for now. 

Aizawa pauses, staring at the boy. The one sentence that makes it out of the unheard graveyard was, “How old are you, Izuku?”

It is a simple, simple question. Not a trick one, nor malicious - but it was usually used in such context. 

Context in which strangers would dance in through the door, close it behind them. Izuku was petrified every time, too overwrought to make a run for it or to challenge his opponent. Whispers grazing the shell of his ear, tongues darting out to amplify the effect. 

“How old are you, honey?” 

It’s normal, isn’t it? Watch the ceiling move up and down, lay in a pool of fluid and muffle any sobs with pillow cases or socks. ‘Friends’ or ‘relatives’ reveling in the clammy experiences, ignorant to, or aroused by the dazed agony shining in the boy’s watery orbs. Izuku tried to count sheep in those encounters, anything to distract him. To disassociate. Sluggish, he’d be. He rarely clasped the remnants of spirit to roll out of bed, to put on his clothes, to rinse off and resume life, after these ordeals. He has long resigned to be compliant. 

The people at home or from family trees weren’t his only enemies. Izuku’s upperclassmen laughed at his dangling keychains, his pocket-sized stuffed animals and toy watches that were buckled on his wrist. 

“Christ, Deku! Are you five?” 

Izuku didn’t have a cellphone, nor could he decipher the time of day by the sun’s position. The tiny animal plushies were the boy’s only memorabilia of his birth parents, read: the ones that didn’t love him. Izuku’s teachers weren’t nurturing, caring figures either. They scolded the quirkless kid for crying in the hallway, for causing a scene and disrupting the school day’s routine of normality. 

One occasion, Izuku gathered enough tenacity to report his bullies’ beatings as a cause for his ‘problematic’ behavior. Maybe it was his rage of hopelessness that lit this fit of rebellion, he didn’t want to steer his anger of being mistreated into physical harm towards his classmates. He’d get reprimanded if he did and he’d probably screw things up worse. Don’t people advocate to fight back? Izuku only wanted to do something technically correct, but the outcome was negative. 

What would his teachers say? 

“You’re getting older, Izuku. What do you want us to do?” 

His neck heated up, abashed by their truths. 

Izuku wasn’t a helpless baby, he’s a teenager. The quirkless child can take care of himself, what could he possibly need besides sticking up for his own skin? 

So the freckled boy stopped asking for help, because everyone convinced him that he was at an age where he is perfectly responsible for what anyone would do to him and what he does in response. Izuku fought, he fought long and hard. 

He just got tired. 

Izuku replies passionlessly, “Old enough.” 

“Is that what they say?” Aizawa hits dead on the nail, ironically. 

The young boy mumbles, “It’s what they always say.” 

Aizawa tilts his head, “So tell me, then.” 

Would a reaper berate him? Hit him? Assault him? Then again, what was Izuku not used to? If any, he deserved it all. He asks for it. Izuku should be held accountable.

So the dead child bites like the bumbling, naive fool he was, “I’m fourteen.” 

Aizawa is composed, “Why’d you give up?” 

And Izuku is inclined to be honest, “I’m tired.” 

“Of what?” 

The quirkless boy sighs, “Everybody. Everything.” 

“Do you know what I can do?”

For the first time in the man’s presence, Izuku flinches. A primal action of his soul’s. It is caught by the reaper’s knowing eyes. 

Aizawa corrects himself, “I don’t mean it like that.” 

“They all mean it like that,” the boy shudders. He has to close his eyes for a second, pinching them shut. The darkness of his lids aren’t exactly comforting, but it’s better than seeing what the raven’s face might convey. Disgust, indifference. Anything bad. Izuku is gross. 

“Who’s all of them?” Never did Aizawa look away, hellbent on unsheathing these double-edged daggers out. 

Izuku fidgets anxiously, his fear of being betrayed, hated, and abandoned evoked a series of hair tugs and cuticle picking. There is no direct or sharp spasms that come from it. 

The young boy divulged, “Everyone.” 

The raven presses and triggers unwanted correlations, “You mean your parents? Your siblings? Classmates?” 

Izuku doesn’t say anything, but his muscles tense up. A silent ‘yes, yes, and yes’ to each suggestion and term, the young boy can match plenty of faces. Every one of them had expressions of ill-intent and dark exhilaration. Izuku shook his head, warding off the shadows. 

“You went through seven different housing systems,” Aizawa mentioned, and Izuku’s eyes opened on cue. Memories flooded in, his green orbs shone with dread and shame. “Am I correct?” 

The reaper examines closely as Izuku brings a hand up to rub the back of his neck. Green gaze avoiding the man’s. Izuku couldn’t label this specific emotion, the contradictions bring him to a swaying standstill in the middle of traffic. Any moment now and some car’s going to end his misery. Hopefully. 

“…Yes.”

“How did it feel?” Aizawa listened closely, Izuku’s nose bridge wrinkles. 

“…I-“ Izuku hesitates, and the hurt boy within decided to talk for him, “I didn’t even know… that- that they-”

“That your parents gave you up?”

Aizawa observes how Izuku sadly taps his knees. Stares away in the complete opposite direction - in the kind of way that indicated he was bashful over this, even if none of what happened to him was his fault; but Izuku didn’t know that. He brought these hardships onto himself. This belief emanated from deep inside of his emotional brain, it’s wired into him. 

“I was playing with Kacchan during recess- well, he- never mind,” Izuku didn’t want to get sidetracked in his recollection. His childhood friend wasn’t exactly a friend, but the boy considered him as one. It’s what being lonely does. “My teacher c-came and brought me to the principal’s office… they said- they said the police were coming to get me.” 

“What did you think was happening?” Aizawa doesn’t sound all too interested, but he’s studious. Perceptive. That alone has Izuku talking. Maybe the young boy wasn’t speaking nonsense. 

“I thought I was in trouble, or maybe they got hurt…”

The principal’s area was tied to delinquents and the commencement of consequences from the school authority, so Izuku was naturally trembling in fear. Were they mad at him? So mad, that they had to call the cops? He might’ve just turned six, but Izuku popped out an anxious baby. In the office, one of the teachers offered a few building blocks. Izuku didn’t know what was happening. 

Aizawa knows better than to let the boy get trapped in his mind so he instigates, “Then you learned…”

“…that I wasn’t going back home,” Izuku finishes for Mr. Aizawa. The sentence droops towards the end. Izuku used to wish that day was just a nightmare. He didn’t know his life onwards really was one, “They said I wasn’t going to live with my parents anymore- because it’s unsafe. I-I told them that I love m-my family, and that they’re the best.” 

“You didn’t know back then,” Aizawa tells him the harsh truth, he’s not unkind about it. Nothing is more unkind than reality. “They gave up their parental rights, by pulling off impressions to make it seem that they are unfit to house a child.” 

Izuku exhales. He knows. 

He knows he’s unwanted. 

“The police said I couldn’t ever talk to them or see them… T-they drove me to a protection services place and I stayed in there for hours,” Izuku says, biting his lip. “It was scary.”

The young boy recalls how drenched his palms were, dripping as he perspired and bawled for his mother. Mucus dripping from his nostrils and getting wiped by his shirt collar, throat muddled with phlegm, “Suh- so scary.” 

“That must’ve been tough, going through that alone,” Aizawa mulls. 

Izuku brought his arms up, wrapping them around his torso in a soothing self-hug, “I couldn’t g-get my stuff at home, they said I had a new house and new parents that would buy me what I n-need.” 

It felt unreal. Entering an unfamiliar place where he was expected to sleep in, to have dinner in, to play in. A fridge with food he didn’t normally eat, a second floor and stairs he didn’t have before, a couch that was black instead of the grey at home. 

Home, Izuku didn’t have one. He never gained one after that life changing situation. 

He didn’t have siblings, so it was strange taking baths with other children that he didn’t know. They’re apparently his new brothers and sisters. Izuku was transferred to a new school, he never got to see Kacchan again, until junior high. But they never reconciled, for better or for worse. 

Izuku was so lost and confused. The environment was totally different, he would never smell his mother’s cooking ever again and he wouldn’t be able to see his father. No more hugs, lullabies, fake or not. Izuku was too young to realize what this theme would set for his entire life. Being naive and oblivious meant that he hoped his parents will return and pick him up. Take him back home and resume their normal lives. 

No one ever came back for him. Nobody wants him. 

“Did you like your new parents?” Aizawa knows this isn’t the case, but the reaper’s job is to make Izuku get this weight off his chest. It’s the least the man can do because in the boy’s life, he had everything taken away. The innocence of being a child, the drive of being human. 

Life took away Izuku’s life. 

Izuku didn’t love his ‘new parents.’ He itched for the day his real mom and dad saved him from these night terrors. A paralysis that he couldn’t wake from. It took ages for the boy to figure out that they didn’t want him. 

“My first two foster families were good to me,” Izuku states, contradicting his inner murmurs. 

Aizawa appears incredulous, seeing through the lie. Izuku will wholeheartedly say they were great, which wasn’t a healthy verdict. Programmed to be fundamentally loyal to his caregivers, Izuku desperately clung to his only sources of survival, even when they were his sources of utter pain. 

The first set of parents hadn’t physically harmed him. Izuku had a curfew and a multitude of rules to abide by. No soft drinks, no interacting with their biological kids, no running around the house. Six year old Izuku was told he had to obey, so he does. He still missed his birth parents even as the months passed indifferently. Who could blame him? 

They all did, actually. 

It’s hard to repair dams when they overflow with grief. Baby Izuku curled up with his knees against his chest, fetal position, and wished for his mother’s voice. Sobbing during late hours came with punishment, the bio-children would get really angry. (They were just as short-tempered as Kacchan). That’s when they made habit of forcing Izuku to suck on a binky or a pacifier. Up until he was seven, which was the age he got transported once again. 

The second family was stricter. Izuku and a few other foster children were assigned dishes and mopping duties. A rag-tag team of underage servants, whose hands were blistered and cut by wooden splinters. Izuku nibbled his lip, sniffling, when pricks of blood appeared at those lashes.

Their group of outsiders couldn’t eat without permission. Their choice of drink was tap water and their menus consisted of the stalest, most disappointing platters to get bestowed. Izuku was hungry for katsudon, his mother’s style of the dish. Another couple of memos were ‘Do not speak unless spoken to’ and ‘No playing with toys.’

Sharing toothbrushes made Izuku feel woozy, spit and saliva being exchanged with virtual strangers. But that’s what he and the other children had to do. Will they defy the adults? The adults who say they know everything? They are the hands that feed, so the children mustn’t bite it. Izuku used to attain mild comfort that he wasn’t the only one forced to do these unpleasant tasks, but the other foster children didn’t enjoy his company either. Nobody likes Deku. 

It’s hilarious as Izuku thinks about it, how even the outcasts didn’t welcome him. In these settings, bio-kids grouped together to gang up on the foster kids. Then in retaliation, the fosters would stick up for their own kin. In this case, his shunned siblings shunned Deku even more… What’s worse than being an orphan? Not having a quirk. And being both. 

Despite this, this set of foster kids did not hurt Izuku terribly. Or so baby Izuku surmised. Neither did their parents, so that’s okay. Izuku thinks it’s okay. 

Aizawa continues, “What changed?” 

“They thought I was dangerous to the kids,” the dead child dwells. 

“How so?” The tired man was so quick to follow up in reply. It’s unsettling. 

Izuku stiffens, he didn’t like remembering. The boy didn’t want to think about any of this. He’d rather detach from everything, he’d rather be nothing at all, “D-Do I have to talk about it?” 

“You’re here because for your whole life, no one has listened to you,” Aizawa sees Izuku drop his chin low. The reaper knew that he was hitting sore spots, “You might not like it, but you do want to talk about it.” 

The young boy can’t argue. He’s dead, so what did he have to lose? 

“…They found my diary and my journals.” 

“What were they about?” 

“About heroes… how I want a quirk. How I wished I could stop having bad dreams…” Izuku gulps, “how I want to die… and maybe, get a quirk in my next life.” 

Aizawa prompts, taking Izuku’s grave idealizations into somber consideration, “And they thought you were putting the others in danger?” 

“They thought I was a bad influence. The second said I might h-hurt the others.” 

“Do you remember the other four homes?”

Izuku switched around a lot. He never had a stable place or got adopted, perks of being a parent’s worst nightmare. It certainly decimated the boy’s self esteem. He’s a second hand item. A defective, failed product. An experiment of social hell that came out to be some horrific, sickening beast. 

“Deku’s a liar!” 

The workers grew tired of hearing how much of a problem child Izuku was. Deku couldn’t get along with the others, though he relentlessly tried. Plus, his waterworks were exasperating. The adults and children claimed that Izuku conjured folktales about his abuse to get attention. Any dangerous secret that Izuku revealed, in the optimism of getting help, was countered by conspiracy. Disbelief and invalidation. 

“Izuku, this behavior of yours is unacceptable. This is non-compliance, we would have no choice but to suspend you.” 

Teachers despised him and his flaws. Merciless in the action of calling Izuku out during class, especially for his tardiness and missing homework. Did they know his papers were torn to shreds? Or that he didn’t even have pencils? That he limped miles and miles to even reach the vicinity? Or did they just not care?

Izuku’s explanations were counted as ridiculous, arrogant excuses. That, and Izuku’s primary classmates had the tendency of calling him a skunk because the poor boy smelled of foul body odor. No one could fathom that he was forbidden showers or how he habited such awful living environment. The very smell of ‘trash’ and ‘poverty’ stuck to him everywhere he went.

“When we’re outside, don’t act like you know us!” 

Izuku’s quirklessness was downright embarrassing to his plentiful households. Even his siblings didn’t want to be caught walking to school with him. Isolation was the lonely boy’s only companion. It liked to bruise the kid too. Give him wet willies and insult him for every insecurity Izuku concealed. 

“Just shut up and be useful for once, Deku!” 

At his age, a lot of children were experimental with their quirks. Izuku was a test dummy. He’s gotten trapped in un-popping bubbles, turned into a lizard, talked backwards and made an unwilling imbecile out of himself for a week. If Izuku complained, he was selfish for not playing along. How dare he be upset? Izuku should be grateful that his siblings wanted to spend time with him. To interact with a quirkless delinquent. 

Those instances didn’t even cover Izuku’s uncategorized memories. From sleeping in sheds or basements in none but tightie-whities, witnessing foster parents fight and activate their quirks when they were hysterically drunk, or Deku getting shoved down the stairs by almost everyone he’d known.

All in all, Izuku remembers everything. He didn’t want to. He’s mortified by the idea of anyone knowing his full history. They’d learn about how much of a weakling he is. 

How could he be a hero if he can’t even stand up for himself? 

If he was quirkless? And unloved? 

Well, he’s dead. So it doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t matter. 

Izuku’s voice is understandably small, “Only a little.” 

Aizawa wears an expression akin to sympathy, the dead child doesn’t want to indulge. Nobody truly cares for him. Izuku knows. 

‘Six months after my death, I was thought of for the last time.’ 

And god, that shouldn’t have hurt. 

Aizawa brings up, “How about the last house?” 

Izuku is self-conscious as Mr. Aizawa visibly pays close attention. Lending open ears to a boy who never had the support. The realer rested his face in his hand and slouched. Leaning in. The dead child’s complexion goes pink. He’s not accustomed to this sort of care, but Izuku can’t help it when he gains comfort in the gesture. 

Though, his brain was cringing from having to reveal any of this. 

“I… I was ten when I got moved to the last one,” Izuku whispers. “I’m used to getting taken during class… It’s hard not to feel weird about it though.”

More often than not, a social worker would show up at Izuku’s classroom door in the middle of the school day. And in front of everybody, deliver him to another home. Humiliated, Izuku would scramble to gather his notebooks. Ears burning as snickers tickled the shells; whilst protection services paraded his single plastic bag, containing only a shirt and underwear, and announce that he’s moving. 

There were no goodbyes to be made, nobody to miss the quirkless child as he ventured off into hell for the nth time. 

“Hm. I can’t imagine,” Aizawa’s monotone delivery is almost apathetic. In spite of it, Izuku feels like he’s being heard. The reaper insists, “What was the house like?” 

“It wasn’t really b-big. But I guess it wasn’t so bad?” Izuku grimaces internally, “At least… n-not yet.” 

Characteristics of the home was the definition of wooden and shabby. Podunk. Crayon graffiti on faded wallpaper, a single fridge with molded cheese. Dinner tables with vile carvings, matching chairs of broken backboards. 

“How many siblings did you have?” 

Izuku was not excited to meet them, “Six brothers and five sisters.”

His new parents - a tall man with reading glasses and a bald spot, plus a sunburnt woman with an apron dress, gave him a tour. Pleasantly cooing at Izuku in front of the social worker. Their quirks are not physical manifestations, they looked ordinary. The freckled boy learned the hard way that the missus had a paralysis quirk, if one were to swallow her spit. The mister can create strong rope with his hair. 

“And your new parents welcomed you?” Aizawa carefully treads. Hitting each sensitive link but not pushing Izuku over the edge. Lord knows the kid already did that himself. 

The dead child refers to Mrs. and Mr. Akatani, “Auntie and Uncle said I was a perfect fit…” 

“Not ‘mom’ or ‘dad?’” Aizawa knew the reason, he’s a reaper. He knew everything there was about this poor boy; but as Aizawa brought up earlier, this is his job to make sure Izuku was heard. 

“No,” Izuku denied swiftly. “I- it feels weird to call them that.”

“Why were you a perfect fit?” 

“They said they had a lot of kids that felt the same way I did, so I won’t be alienated.” 

Troubled youth was what the Akatanis were citing. And equally troubled adults.

Aizawa unravels Izuku’s twisted knots of affliction, “So what happened?” 

Izuku swallowed the thick lump in his throat, it chokes him. He regrets bothering it. 

The quirkless boy possessed far too many compromising experiences than he can count. Major consequences for tiny misdemeanors, so he’ll only mentally list a few. Reveal aloud practically none. 

It’s not a new concept for households to withhold meals from children, that doesn’t make it fun or easy to tolerate. Izuku, in this family, was the odd one out. Bio-kids and foster were treated fairly and normally, all except the little quirkless kid. Dinner bells would ring, Izuku would appear at the table, and they’d assert that he wasn’t called. He never was. 

So the freckled boy would sneak food into his pillowcase at midnight. He was caught relatively early on. Izuku’d receive the belt or a fly swatter. A whip if Mr. Akatani’s mood was especially implacable. They didn’t change their rules and Izuku was still hungry. What he digested was barely enough to keep him awake during class. 

He’s eaten dog and cat food to get by before. The mock bacon strips, the dry biscuits and cookies. Wet tuna wasn’t something he’ll beg seconds for. Never did any of these treats taste as great as they looked, but it filled the throbbing void in his stomach. He was being as stealthy and as unsuspecting as he could, but the child was just that. A child. Bound to slip up and make mistakes. 

One occasion, Mrs. Akatani became peeved with Izuku’s so-called ‘hoarding’ habits. 

Wrists and ankles bound to pegs and rests by Mr. Akatani’s rope quirk, the boy was practically a criminal being held for interrogation. Izuku thrashed and kicked, only to feel a cold, wet spoon get pressed against his lips. Mrs. Akatani force fed the quirkless child baby food in front of the entire household. With tears rolling down his freckled cheeks, snot dripping from his nostrils, and saliva trickling down his chin, Izuku sobbed. 

He’ll never do it again, the boy promised. And Izuku stopped wanting to eat. Revolted by the sensation of thick, moldy clusters sliding down his neck or staining his collar. 

“…I didn’t like the f-food they gave me,” Izuku mildly puts it. Aizawa nods along. 

Ever since, Izuku was mocked with baby talk and babbling. It’s awful getting asked if he was hungry. If he wanted the spoon from ‘Mama.’ For his eleventh birthday, Izuku was gifted a bib. His siblings threatened to put him in a diaper next. His parents didn’t have any qualms with the jokes, or really, their future plans. They were exhilarated by the power they had over the kid. It avalanched from there on out. 

“They weren’t very nice to you,” Aizawa speculates. Izuku wants to laugh. 

“I used to get teased,” the dead child admits dryly. “For a lot of reasons…” 

Izuku had difficulty controlling his mutterings and ramblings when reading a fascinating book or theorizing over articles about hero fights in newspapers. This irritated his brothers. To shut the quirkless kid up without any force necessary, his siblings told their parents that Deku was hitting them. It’s obvious that Izuku can’t hold a candle to their physical strength, but who cares? It’s an excuse to appease any guilty pleasures. Izuku wasn’t given a minute to plead his case. Refuting the accusations worked against his favor. 

Thus, the quirkless boy wound up writing on paper that he will not lay a hand on his family members ever again. Letters sloppy, splotches of water came about from his dripping tears, it drenched his papers, but the boy wasn’t to halt in his action. The same exact sentence must be repeated hundreds and hundreds of times. By the end of the sessions, Izuku’s hands were swollen and cramped.

“That’s not very fair though,” Aizawa mused, but his own opinion isn’t important. It’s Izuku’s that needs to be brought out. “Do you consider those treatments fair?” 

Izuku wasn’t sure how to answer. He didn’t like them, that’s for sure. 

The quirkless child didn’t like getting his face shoved inside of the toilets. Drowning in piss with poop floating by his ears. Soft, brown blobs touching his forehead or his hairline. Izuku was vehemently grossed out, stomach contents churning and threatening to join the toilet bowl’s party. 

Izuku didn’t love getting locked up in the basement, where he’d live with cockroaches and spiderwebs. The freckled boy wasn’t a fan of suffocating in dust and the smell of rat poison. He hated the dark too, because he couldn’t tell if it was a broom tickling his leg or an army of insects. Antennas investigating every inch of his body. 

“I don’t know,” Izuku says. 

“Hm,” Aizawa grunts.

Izuku blinks, “What?”

“I don’t think they were fair to you,” Aizawa opines. “Not at all.” 

It takes Izuku by surprise. Was the reaper explicitly saying he was on the boy’s side? Impossible.

The kid shrugs, unconsciously playing with sand. 

Aizawa interjects, “You know, those games that your siblings would play… they’re not fair either.” 

Izuku freezes, finger hovering in mid-air. 

The reaper doesn’t stop there, “You realized it too.” 

He did. Izuku wished he didn’t. 

“I… I thought-“ Izuku sucks in a deep breath, swallowed it like a dying fish. “I-I thought they were being nice.” 

“They were manipulating you.” 

And that, they were. His siblings, coy and mischievous, sprinkled the quirkless boy with apologies and niceties, and being ever so kind, Izuku believed them. How great it was, to be asked to play with kids his age. 

His sisters dressed him up, Izuku didn’t have outward issues being their dolly. Bearing this equaled social interaction. His discomfort worsened to extreme amounts when they doused him in heavy makeup. Brushes smacking his cheekbones, pencils poking his eye balls. Arms numb from the lack of circulation, the princess gowns were tight and high above his knees. This wasn’t… fun. 

These ordeals were stretched and drawn out on purpose. The girls coerced the quirkless boy to go to the store in his ‘hooker’ costume. Make him pose for their socials, to exchange with their classmates and use it as blackmail. Izuku heard things like, “You’d make such an ugly girl!” Others called him cheap. He’s a sore sight. 

His sisters were so proud of their crafts, which resulted in them presenting the boy in front of the family. Like a freak in a circus. The Akatanis loved the fashion shows, basking in the pretend runways with amusement. Izuku never failed to break down, choruses of taunts giving him migraines and bride slippers crushing his toes, he wailed. His toddler self controlled these outbursts and the family deemed him overly sensitive. If Izuku couldn’t take a joke, he’d never survive in the real world. 

He was so weak. 

“I just… I just wanted them to- to like me,” Izuku sighed shakily. “I thought if I played along, they would! Because my b-brothers didn’t want to wear that stuff.”

“Did you?”

“No! I-“ Izuku balked, he’s mortified and feels so damn tiny, “I just wanted to spend time with them… b-but they hated me. They always hated me.” 

Aizawa, if he was a less stable man for it, would demand upper management to give this boy another chance. A true one. Except he knows that’s not how life and death works. Izuku was mistreated and shoved to the brink, that was the boy’s fate. The reaper can only be here with Izuku for a limited time, and that was his job. 

Aizawa examined how the sun’s rays outlined the boy’s profile. Even under the light, Izuku’s face was shadowed and creased with burden. Luggages that adolescents shouldn’t have even packed, “What about your brothers?” 

The dead child inhales. Shuddering. There’s tingles and electrifying sensations that thrum in areas of his body that were meant to be unsullied. 

“H-heroes- and villains…” Izuku swallowed his bile, “That’s… that’s what they said it was.” 

“Was it?”

Aizawa knows what it was. Izuku, unfortunately, learned what it was. Lived it. 

“N-no.” 

As activated by his brothers and cousins, Izuku thought it was harmless enough. He could take punches, the quirkless boy received burns and bruises all of his youth; but that’s how the newest form of gut-wrenching events started. How Izuku discovered that being a ‘hostage,’ helplessly waiting for a hero to rescue him wasn’t enjoyable. 

Were those playing the hostage role supposed to get their clothes ripped? Was it common to limp afterwards? Are those touches normal? It’s horrifying to get tied to one of the bunks. Siblings towering over his figure, as the quirkless boy was bewildered.

At one point, playing those games hurt so much that Izuku confided in his parents. Green, sticky, and panting, Mr. and Mrs. Akatani cooly observed the boy. Izuku explained the game rules and his positions. How the actions of his siblings made the quirkless child uncomfortable. That he might be ill. 

His parents told him to strip in the living room and show them proof. 

“So did you?” Aizawa never took his eyes off the dead child. The unbearable stories could not cease, it’s getting worse. And worse. 

“I had to,” Izuku wished to run his hands along the shoreline, but he had no strength. His willpower was seeping out, draining. The young boy’s head hurts. It hurts so much. “I wanted them to b-believe me.” 

The assaults are crystal clear. It’s awkward for the boy to stand in front of his foster parents, naked and shivering. Scrutiny sweeping him from top to bottom. Cold air nips at his exposed flesh, brushing the teeth wounds on his collarbones or chafed thighs. 

Izuku, with a weak mutter, described how after each game, it was difficult to sit. How he was usually left with a sore throat and a tired, aching jaw. And a belly ache. 

It hurts so much, he stressed. 

Their spit and discharge stunk so bad, when the rounds finished, Izuku would scurry to the window and vomit into the bushes. Ugly content, mixed with whites and clear substances. 

Yet, Mrs. and Mr. Akatani waved him off, “Boys will be boys.”

Izuku thought that’d be the end of it. He’ll just try to evade his siblings’ advances. 

Aizawa hums again, “Did that work?” 

Just like before, the dead child shakes his head negatively. 

Few days after his confession, his siblings left him be. Izuku did not trust it, but he submitted to the tranquility. It’s like a drug. In the peace, the boy relaxes just a bit. Nothing stretching his mouth, or searing fingers trailing upwards his legs. He’s in the safe zone, but not for long. 

It was one night when his parents invited a couple of friends for a cute, little dinner. Izuku was summoned to the living room and introduced to pairs of lovely people. Two women and two men. One cunning lady had crab claws, her companion bore luscious, purple hair. The larger male sported metal limbs, another had a pocket in his stomach, a kangaroo-like pouch, that can store an infinite amount of items. 

They were drinking, smiling, and joking amongst themselves. Izuku had no clue as to why his presence was bid, but the naive boy joined them on the couch. Putting on a brave front, doing his best to act like a kid without disfunction or mental ailment. Izuku was quite bashful over his own appearance, in disheveled clothes and whatnot, but they insisted they don’t mind. 

Izuku was oblivious to their unspoken motives. Nervous, yes, but the Akatani’s friends were charming and really cool to talk to. The quirkless boy was enraptured by their quirks, they blithely fed his curiosity. Plus, his foster parents were gassing him with praises of his academic skills and his kind nature. That was new. His starved, unloved self was delighted by the positive attention. 

Accepting beverages from them was supposed to be a casual doing, it just so happened that the one time he did it - it was spiked. 

Spiked with Mrs. Akatani’s paralysis spit. 

Izuku gulped down the drink. It was thicker than water, sweeter than soda but without the fizz. They watched him closely and clapped in dramatic applause when it was emptied. 

It took three minutes for her spit to take effect. 

The world spun and everybody’s faces doubled. Nausea hit him harder than his fake parents did. His eyes throbbed and it’s as if he’s stuck mid-sneeze. Mouth leaking with drool, a revolting feat, and his expression was blown to delirious levels. 

The young boy panicked, his limbs won’t listen to his bodily warnings. Ceiling warping and furniture shrinking or growing, he struggled to maintain composure. Stars flickered in his vision, thousands of numbers danced across in a furious frenzy. He violently shook, chest being rammed by an internal wrecking ball, and fear sinking its cruel fangs into his spine. Lowering him to the dirty carpet. 

Izuku bawled, fat waterfalls created pitiful streaks on his dotted baby face. He needed to go to the hospital, he was going to die. He couldn’t move. 

Aizawa’s question is muddled, like it had been released underwater. Were they in the ocean? Bubbles and foam hissed around the syllables, the concern of his tone. 

“Did they help you?”

Prisoned in a nightmare, the boy’s tongue couldn’t respond to Mr. Aizawa’s inquiry. He’s drowning. He’s drowning. 

Too busy remembering how the adults only cackled. Jested, sang, and did what they did. Taken advantage of in this state by multiple strangers, then consistently coerced into performing in such way for days on end; no matter how much he protested, fought, or attempted to get away - his plans failed. Izuku failed. He’s a failure, in all humane sense. 

This arrangement was perfect. Izuku is quirkless, unknown, and nobody will form a case for him. No one will believe him either. Izuku shouldn’t fight back. He’s shackled by obligation. He relied on his foster parents for survival. This is the price he must pay for being a waste of space in their household. He is rotten. He is deserving. He is a useless, worthless child that cannot grapple their authority. They are his caregivers. They are the only ones who will keep him alive. 

Izuku’s young mind was on overdrive. 

Was it worth being useful, if that’s what he amounted to? In ways that were vile, involuntary, and ugly? How can he be a hero if he was stricken with shameful, icy terror whenever his door was clicked and locked? If he can’t even manage to fight off his offenders? To gather the bravery to run away and free himself? 

With every received thrust and touch, the boy hated himself more. He was useless. 

So damn worthless. 

He wanted to die. 

There were so many reasons. So much lost hope. They were right. Everyone always was. He’s better off dead. He should die. He should just end it all. Just kill him-

“Izuku.”

The boy stills. Hyperventilating. 

There’s a beautiful beach in front of him. The sun’s reflections on the currents glisten like a cloudless, starry night sky. 

A large hand that plops itself onto the dead child’s shoulder had Izuku whirling. He doesn’t push it off, nor melt within. The young boy’s cheeks are dry, which was a good sign. Lest he start wailing in front of a reaper. 

Mr. Aizawa maintained the grip and Izuku found it to be soothing. Therapeutic. The man’s palm is warm, firm, and stable. 

Loving, even. 

Part of the boy’s soul didn’t want the raven to let go. Perhaps the reaper recognizes the want. 

Aizawa’s regard lingers. Heavily. 

The dead child didn’t know that Aizawa was well aware of Izuku’s life in its entirety. The man had seen it all in film strips and soul background. Everything that Izuku lived through, everything the quirkless boy has felt, present and prior, and everything he suppressed and buried. 

Aizawa steadily inserts, “I’ll ask again… do you know what I can do?” 

The poor boy says, “N-No… I don’t.”

“I can show you life,” the raven squeezes the kid’s shoulder once. Izuku doesn’t quite understand. “I can show you what your funeral was like, or how everyone is living right now.”

Aizawa adds, “After that, I can show you anything you want.” 

Izuku’s filter is dissipating, his inner child - destroyed by life, had shone in this state of death, “Like… like if I had a dog?” 

The reaper’s lips curl upwards at the spark in Izuku’s green eyes, “Yeah. Like that.” 

“Really?”

“Really,” Aizawa parroted. 

It was the blank expression that Aizawa permanently wore, that made Izuku smile weakly. It felt strange to be alright. But then, he’s dead. Izuku killed himself. He supposes the afterlife, whatever purgatory this is, makes one be this way. 

Aizawa releases Izuku from his grasp, “And you’ll get to see what life would’ve been like if you lived.” 

The boy felt cold without the physical assurance but he’s too scared to ask for more. 

“D-does everyone come here?” Izuku sees a seashell floating on one of the waves. “Um- you said that I was… forgotten. Does that mean people wait to go to the afterlife?” 

“No, most move on right away and don’t wait until they’re forgotten in the real world,” Aizawa clarifies. “There’s something anchoring your soul here.” 

The dead child is confused, “W-Why?”

“That’s for you to find out,” Aizawa simply bounces the query back. He leaves no space for the boy to wonder more, “For now, I’ll show you the basics.” 

The man stands up and Izuku raises his chin, eyes following. 

Aizawa then offers a palm to the sitting boy. Izuku gawks at it. 

The reaper’s facial features soften. 

“It’s going to be difficult to bear you look through all this,” Aizawa says. If he had the ability to smile, perhaps he would’ve done so just then. It’s heard in his sentiment instead. “But I’ll be here, kid.” 

Izuku blinks innocently, motionless as a breeze brushes them both. The freckled boy takes a breath in, bottom lip wobbling, and timidly slides his hand into the man’s grip.

The reaper hauls Izuku to his feet like the dead child was weightless. Probably true, he wasn’t anything anymore. Well, he was nothing to begin with. 

Aizawa wasn’t the friendliest person, didn’t look like it either. So it shocks the boy when the raven didn’t let go of his hand. Acknowledging Izuku’s need for an ounce of pure care. Comfort. Safety. 

As sheepish as the kid was, Izuku was grateful. He squeezes Mr. Aizawa’s palm as they began trekking alongside the beach’s shore. Hand-in-hand, like a true child taking a walk with his father. Izuku will daydream. He’s an idiot already, he can be idiotic right now. 

Izuku’s red boots sidle the outlines and forms of seashells, seaweed, and other pretty things.

They stroll for a few minutes, Izuku has never felt this much peace in his life. He didn’t even know the man, yet Izuku thinks that if he can explore the beach with Mr. Aizawa forever, he’d be content. But he knows he can’t force Aizawa to stay in his company, Izuku won’t wish his companionship upon his own enemies. 

“You ready?” Aizawa cranes his neck downwards to look at Izuku. 

The dead child honestly wasn’t, but he nods. Aizawa sets forth. Izuku is caught by surprise when the man maneuvers his palm to intertwine their fingers. Aizawa had to. What the kid was about to see was, for the lack of better term, soul crushing. His only way to keep Izuku grounded and prevent him from collapsing was to hold onto him. 

Izuku gasps inaudibly, creating O-shapes with his mouth and his oval lashes when the scenery melts away. Horizons becoming an unsoiled white, sand turning into invisible, solid flooring. A platform for the pair to overlook a world that Izuku was no longer a part of. 

It was Aldera Junior High. 

Beheld in a film of grey, Aizawa and Izuku stand behind an invisible wall. Observing. 

“This was a week after your death,” Aizawa states. Izuku follows his line of sight.

Gathered ahead were the school’s capacity of students and classmates of the dead boy. Inside of the cafeteria, an assembly took place. A funeral imitation, the principal spoke at the podium. The board of teachers lined up beside him. Above the stairs, a board where Izuku’s third-year picture was displayed - dark circles, a sunken, wobbly smile, the quirkless boy was ‘honored.’ 

“-Today, we begin the process of returning to a normal schedule in school. This will be hard for some of us to do, but staff is available to help us process our feelings. Death is a difficult issue for anyone to deal with.” 

The principal, Mr. Wakusei, articulates his speech loud and clear. In it, he weaves a show of emotion. Izuku knows it is not directed towards himself. The dead child can only feel comfort in the grip he had on Mr. Aizawa. The reaper squeezed his hand back. 

“Even though we may try to understand the reasons that has devastatingly pushed Midoriya Izuku into taking his own life, one thing that’s important to remember is that there is never just one reason for suicide. There are always many causes that lead to these outcomes, and without acknowledging them, we will never be able to figure out these preventions.”

Mr. Wakusei veered the topic, “That being said, while it is very important to be able to express our feelings about Izuku’s death, especially our loss and sadness; we have to make sure that every student here can recognize their own troubles and breaking points.” 

The students in that cafeteria are the only ones who matter. Nobody gave a fuck about the quirkless boy, and Izuku, being a broken bystander, can’t blame them. He can never. 

Mr. Wakusei’s voice is distant, “Crisis stations will be located throughout the school for students who wish to speak to a counselor-“ 

Izuku scans the teenagers, garnering their reactions. Similar to when the boy had dived off of the roof, some were apathetic. Others were picking their nails, yawning. There was a select few that were crying, that befuddles Izuku. 

Aizawa catches on, “Do you know them?” 

“No,” Izuku shook his head. The tiniest spark of hope arises. “A-are they sad? Over me?” 

The man stomps on the naive flame, “None of them care.” Aizawa reads the faces of those students and teachers. The failures of adults and society, “Not a single tear was wept with grief. They’re only reminded of their own problems.” 

Izuku should’ve known better. Of course. Who was he to be mourned over? Nobody. No one will cry over nothing. Kacchan was there, gazing at the quirkless boy’s portrait. He does not do anything. The blonde sits still, and his band of friends are snickering at a whispered joke. 

Defeated, the dead child utters, “That’s okay.” 

Izuku didn’t want to be here anymore. Aizawa switches the scenery. The invisible pair are inside of Izuku’s last foster household. Mr. Akatani is holding a black trash bag and Mrs. Akatani was sweeping the floor with a broom. Ceramic material and black dust was collected in a pan. 

“This is three weeks after your death.” 

Izuku’s siblings raced around the wooden floor. Chasing one another with fake weapons, others with their own quirk abilities. What stands out the most are his brothers throwing items into the garbage sack that Mr. Akatani stretched. 

“Those are my hero notebooks,” Izuku batted his lids, brows knitting as his hard work was tossed without remorse. Confused by this scene and ignorant of the worst implications, Izuku is dumb to ponder, “Are they putting my stuff in storage?” 

“They threw it away,” Aizawa bluntly tells. 

Izuku feels like he’s been kicked in the gut, “My family threw out all of my belongings?” 

“You weren’t their child,” the reaper says. 

Izuku purses his lips. Why does he keep trying to hope? The dead child wanted to die to escape from this hell. He’s still knee-deep in it. 

Aizawa breaks it down, “They cremated your body after you passed. Three weeks later, which is this here - the pot fell and broke when your siblings were throwing around a football.” 

As the gears click, Izuku discovers that Mrs. Akatani was raking his ashes. Him. That’s him on the ground, being cleaned away like the dirt and grime he was. She pours the waste into Mr. Akatani’s bag, it heaps up with everything that Izuku held dear to him. 

They threw it away. They threw him away. 

As the ghostly pair stood in the foster home’s living room where life is booming and the world spins, Aizawa feels Izuku’s palm go limp with brimming, unexplainable dejection. Aizawa tightens his hold with as much care as he can possibly assemble. Izuku’s world was falling apart. As if it hadn’t broke enough. 

The person that the reaper took form as wasn’t an overly emotional man, nothing too outgoing or gushy. But the reaper would like to think that if Aizawa ever met Izuku before he had taken his life, the quirkless boy’s fate would’ve changed. For the better. 

But Izuku was led to darkness. Reaper Aizawa has no choice but to brief, “They didn’t host funeral services. Your tombstone is in one of those memorial hubs and your locker in Aldera is empty. They reserved it for the time being, but most students use it as a personal storage.” 

Izuku breathes mechanically, he rips his eyes away from the sight before him. There’s a reason why he left this life. The dead child murmurs, “That’s okay.” 

Aizawa knows it isn’t. 

Next, Aizawa and Izuku are teleported to an area that’s unfamiliar to the boy. It’s a small apartment but bright with colorful decor and a type of liveliness that Izuku was estranged to. A low coffee table accommodated shiny coasters. There are knick knacks and homely collectibles on shelves, in addition to polished photo frames of a nameless man and another teenage male. The lampshade paints this cozy room in a warm yellow. 

Izuku doesn’t recognize this place, so the boy tilts his head up. Searching for clarity from Mr. Aizawa.

The man juts his chin forward and Izuku turns back to the sight. 

Only to feel his stomach swoop right down to his feet. 

Through the front door, in strolled a small, short but stout woman. Removing her shoes before stepping onto the rugs, her back faces the pair of ghosts as she hung her coat and bag on the rack. Izuku nearly buckled when the woman waltzed past the man and boy, green hair flying behind her. She plops onto the brown suede couch, snuggling against the arm rest and nabbing the remote. For bearing a long day of work, Inko powers on the T.V. Fingers clicking the buttons. 

She is relaxed. Slackened in posture, content with her living situation. She’s okay. Izuku’s mother is okay while her own son was a dead, wretched soul. 

If it weren’t for Izuku’s red boots being planted behind an invisible wall, in the hands of death’s counselor, the young boy might’ve tried breaking the barrier. In his overwrought, innocent and guileless nature, Izuku would shut out everything this woman had subjected him to and embraced her. Anything to reunite with his mother, anything to be her son again. 

Izuku is stupid. He is weak. Which is why he couldn’t bring himself to hate his mother. He couldn’t hate his tormentors and abusers.

Only himself. 

“Inko and your father divorced. She was sent to rehab for a couple years. Midoriya Hisashi faced several drug possession charges, those that initially got you out of their custody,” Aizawa notes how shallow Izuku’s respirations got. He’s shell shocked, gaping at his mother. His real parent, living without another care in the world. 

Filling up like a landfill, Izuku is weighted down by the remains of his aching loneliness. One by one, these little insects swarm the young boy with misery. Breeding on him, multiplying by the minute. 

“Hisashi was released after three months, then he went off radar. His status is unknown, but they’ve been living separately, quietly since.” 

Izuku remembers how this woman used to cradle him. Rock him back and forth in her arms, sing him lullabies and tell him that he’ll grow to be a strong person. Wasn’t he her baby? Didn’t Inko coo at him with all of her sincerity? 

Then came the doctor’s appointment that ruined Izuku. His parents didn’t want such a defected child. Izuku is repulsing, he is a cockroach on sewage ground. If they ever discovered what Izuku did behind the bedroom doors of his foster households, they’ll be even more disgusted. Impossibly. Deku couldn’t defend himself. He was a used piece of scum. No wonder he got bullied, no wonder he was taken advantage of. 

Everyone was better off without him. 

As Inko flipped through the televised programs, her emerald eyes widen upon meeting her mirrored offspring. Izuku stays silent while the woman gawks at the student portrait, along with the b-rolls of a roof top and yellow police tape surrounding darkened cement. 

“-following the tragic suicide of middle school student, Midoriya Izuku, the campaign for mental health awareness arises in county school districts-“ 

Inko was baffled and Izuku anticipated any indication of sorrow. Any tears to trickle down her round cheeks. Hints of despair. Please. The woman was motionless, but it’s not the kind where somebody was in a traumatized daze. No, she’s unaffected emotionally. Izuku learns, terribly, that his mother was unaffected by his death. She’s more so surprised that Izuku still existed. 

Aizawa witnesses this moment of treachery. Grasping this woman’s child because the kid had no other lifeline. This wasn’t Izuku’s fault. 

The reaper cannot actually despise anyone, but this fake Aizawa may be feeling something very similar towards Inko. Towards every living being that imprinted their brands and marks in Izuku’s short life. The reaper cannot undo the destructive thoughts in Izuku’s head, any foul touch upon his body, or any heartache that he undergoes. This was life. This is the silent killer of the unheard children. 

The woman switched the channels once the apartment’s entrance was clicked open. Inko’s new beloveds greeted her and she briskly left the sofa, inquiring about their appetite. Next to her husband, who was a bulky man with a chiseled grin, a younger male of auburn long hair adorned a school uniform. 

It dawns in on Izuku. Pummels him. 

She had a stepson. 

Inko had a family. Izuku wasn’t a part of it. 

That broadcast on the T.V. meant nothing to the woman. She paid attention and gifted her energy to those that mattered most to her. 

Just like that, Inko forgot about Izuku. 

And Izuku was gutted. Fucking gutted. 

Aizawa lets this absorb. This bitter, bitter scene of this child’s mother showing love for another man and boy. Izuku was not on her mind. He wasn’t in her heart. The boy was worthless. None but a raincloud that drenches everybody in his way. Best to stay clear of him, best to get rid of him. 

Izuku’s figure started to shake in utmost torment. His turmoil grows as Inko suggests katsudon for dinner. The woman’s stepson cheers, his father does too. Inko’s eyes crinkled with elation, she loves her family. 

Tremors ride Izuku’s body like it loved, the quirkless child was betrayed. Again. 

Izuku becomes his six year old self and painfully stares at his mother. She is so happy, so damn happy. Without him. And Izuku, the poor child, wanted her back. He wanted her to want him, because she is his mother and he is her son. Shouldn’t they be together? Aren’t they a family? He’s waited for her for so long, only to be riddled with bullets in all crevices of his frail heart.

Inko clings to her late husband’s arm and delivers a peck to her stepson’s forehead. The kid smiles at her, she smiles back. 

Izuku wanted that. The quirkless boy wants that. 

The dead child’s voice isn’t audible, not for the world. But Aizawa hears him. He is the only one capable of doing so. Izuku’s fingers wound around the man’s, had gotten bone-shatteringly tight. 

“Wh-why-“ Izuku’s loving heart is traitorous. It hurts him the most, he’s been dealt the cruel hand of reality and it won’t stop slapping him. “Why didn’t she come back for me?” 

Anybody else, who was supposed to be the purest definition of nice and can lay fiction to save their loved one, would say to the dead child, ‘You’re better off without her.’ 

Aizawa was not that. And Izuku didn’t need any lies. He didn’t deserve to be led on wrongly. 

“She’s better off without you.” 

Izuku also hears, ‘She doesn’t love you.’ 

Aloud, the boy pretends. He has to, “Th-that’s o-okay.” 

It isn’t. 

Aizawa pities this boy’s luck. Before this sore affliction can carry on any longer, Izuku and Aizawa are transferred to the beach. No more did Izuku ever see his mother again, his school, or his foster home. The dead child belongs in the afterlife, for he’s welcomed by the beach. 

“That was the aftermath of your death. As you know, that was about six months ago,” Aizawa, in this entire time, had not let go of Izuku once. The boy’s small hand is engulfed in the man’s. It’s warm. The grasp is nurturing. Izuku’s single connection to humanity was this fake image of someone he didn’t know.

That’s okay though, because Izuku had no one. And he liked Mr. Aizawa. He was the only person listening, real or not. 

“Do you want to sit down for a while?” Aizawa considers. The reaper wasn’t in a rush, there was no other soul awaiting its closure at this moment. 

The dead child nodded dully. He had no strength. Izuku wanted to escape from this pain. 

Together, they sat on the sand. Still hand in hand. The boy went lax in his pose, spine curving as satisfied demons sat on him, Aizawa wanted to glare at them. Meanwhile, Izuku’s large eyes lost its light. He was the exact image of his last alive self, before jumping off the roof. Diving into the portal. The release of his world. 

Izuku thinks he made the right decision. What difference would it make if he was still alive? No one wants him, cares for him, or loves him. He is quirkless, useless, and worthless. 

Aizawa patiently waited for Izuku to let these revelations and facts soak into his soul. Imprint, embody, and settle. The freckled boy was shutting down, a mechanism he used when enduring a beating. A scolding. A rape, or the spit of life. 

“So they just… they moved on,” Izuku’s tone is thin. Brittle and tiny. 

“They did,” Aizawa responds frankly. “Those awareness campaigns weren’t centered around you. It’s just publicity.” 

Publicity. A fad. Izuku’s death was a stunt. 

The dead boy questions, “That’s a-all I missed?” 

“Your classmates tried out for U.A. Bakugou Katsuki was accepted into the hero course,” Aizawa announced. “Your siblings are going to shoot for other hero schools. Their quirks are fit for action.” 

They’re amazing. Everyone is.

And nobody will bat an eye for those who’ve wronged this quirkless abomination. Izuku robotically swallows down these giant pills, he got what was coming. The boy has no right to be unfairly sullen. 

“I’m glad,” Izuku proclaims, he doesn’t have the ability to be happy. So the boy is spouting the opposite of his words. “They all have such a good life.” Izuku avers, “It’s what they deserve.” 

“You didn’t deserve what happened to you,” Aizawa rebutted. Izuku can’t acknowledge his genuineness, he really shouldn’t. “But it is what it is.” 

“Wh-what now?” Izuku doesn’t think he can bear anything more. Aizawa senses this and presents him the veil of fantasy, because the kid’s essence was deprived of imagination. Children who are abused, lack the power to see that there may be hopeful outlooks to a situation. It’s understandable. They were never actually given one. 

“Do you want to see your life would’ve been like? If you stayed a bit longer?” 

The young boy should’ve said no, for the sake of his sanity. But his soul yearns. It pleads for a second chance. It’ll only hurt him in the end… What’s the news there? He’s dead. He’s hurt and broken already. Everything will hurt him in the end. 

Izuku isn’t surprised. Why should he be? 

“Okay,” Izuku signed his mind away. That’s that. He’ll meet this alternate universe of what could’ve been, if he were stronger. If he held onto that string of hope for days more. 

“You don’t need to walk for this one. Just look ahead,” Aizawa instructs. It’s make believe anyway, they won’t be overseeing the world in a glass box. They’ll watch Izuku’s better self like an audience to a movie. The falsity where happy endings are real. 

Izuku had no idea what to expect. He’s been taught the hard way to foresee the worst, because reality will be even more brutal. His anchor had been Aizawa, and this wasn’t even actual. How pathetic. Deku is pathetic. 

The sky was not the colors of pink and orange, but their theater seats remained as sand. A cosmic projector broadcasted a show of flickering scenes and circumstances. That of which, middle school Izuku was covered in bruises and his uniform was wrinkled. Tears streaming down his jaw, pooling on the roof top’s ground. Below, Aldera’s junior high students encourage the quirkless outcast to fall from the high stories. To die. 

The dead child is astonished to observe his pending suicide from a third-person point of view. Disconnected from his body, as this fake Izuku functions without his command and control. 

As opposed to jumping, Izuku shuts his eyes. Overcome by panic and the realness of death’s hanging consequences. In a tug of war, whether he wanted to suffer or to find paradise, Izuku chickens out. The freckled boy didn’t have the bravery to end his life, he peels from the ledge and falls to his knees, dry heaving. He couldn’t believe what he was about to attempt. This was extreme. This was last resort. 

The real Izuku was intrigued by this vision. Aizawa braces for the boy’s reaction to go downhill from here. 

On the way home from school, fake Izuku is scolding himself. He’s slapping his forehead, he’s berating his lack of power. Rambling in mania. Didn’t he want this? Didn’t he want to die? Why couldn’t he do one thing right? 

Dead Izuku remarks in his head, assuring himself, that he finally did it. He’s not prideful for his decision, Izuku isn’t exactly resting in peace right now… but it’ll do. He’s done something he desired. He achieved what he set out as a goal. A bullet point that’s been checked, a fulfilled tack on his bucket list.

In precisely the same minute that Izuku is wandering beneath a bridge and in a dim tunnel, the street’s sewage cover popped open. Out slithered a villain, a sludge of dark green mud. The predator preys upon the middle school student, he looms like a gigantic monster over the child. Noticing the shade that blankets his figure, Izuku pivoted on his heel and was paralyzed by his best pal. Terror. 

Fight or flight doesn’t process in the boy’s brain, only ‘freeze.’ Izuku can’t even consider running when the mass of liquid drenches him and enters through his mouth. The villain suffocates the quirkless boy with his intentions, “I’m just taking over your body.” 

Dead Izuku is horrified by this escalation, the fake Izuku is as well, but he doesn’t bother fighting the invasive tentacles of sludge. He does, however, cry. Fake Izuku is sobbing like the weakling he was. Salty, crocodile tears mixing with the villain’s fluid limbs. 

Spectating, the dead child wonders if his life is a complete joke. Was Izuku truly destined to die shamefully every time? 

That’s also precisely when Izuku’s fate was rewritten. Dead Izuku gasps. 

“Have no fear. You are safe,” a voice - the most mighty of them all, has reached the freckled boy’s thumping hysteria. “Now that I’m here, that is.” 

At the end of the tunnel, a silhouette eclipses the light. Izuku was floored. His jaw plopped on the sand, his heart was caught in his throat. 

All Might stood in all of his heroic glory. 

The horns and chirps of a hopeful, bright song pierces dead Izuku’s ears. Fake Izuku was unconscious in the prison of the villain’s quirk. But have no worry, like All Might said, because the quirkless boy was saved. Rescued by his idol, the very person Izuku wished to be. 

Aizawa glanced at the dead child. Izuku’s eyes nearly bulge out of his skin and the screen reflects off of his greens irises. The reaper isn’t particularly interested in All Might’s backstory or how the man turned down Izuku’s dream of becoming a hero. 

Absurdly, the boy ends up saving his classmate from that same villain in the late afternoon. The quirkless boy bolted into the trouble with suicidal motives - for the villain to finish him off instead of ‘Kacchan’, but Izuku is bathed in a different light by one witness.  

All Might decided that Midoriya Izuku can become a hero. 

It was a chaotic debacle in Aizawa’s honest opinion, because Izuku was a traumatized child who didn’t need the baggage of suddenly gaining a quirk and placing all of his self-worth in it, or for living up to a title that shouldn’t be bestowed upon someone of his age and background. 

Then again, this isn’t real. In actuality, Izuku didn’t become All Might’s successor. He’s dead. This hopeful, bright future didn’t exist. 

The dead child is mutely engulfed by these events, but the pit in his chest swirls like a void. It’s a black hole that eats him up. Gnaws at his essence and chews him until he’s a meatball of screwups. 

Of course, this fantasy wasn’t an easy journey. Fake Izuku continued enduring abuse of his household. He kept his personal life a secret from his mentor, it’s an ugly side of him that he doesn’t want All Might knowing. The man would probably stop training this tainted boy, and Izuku’s horrid days would repeat. Izuku managed to disguise his problems, his worship of the pillar of peace was far too great above his self-deprecation and self-pity.

The quirkless child had attained a quirk and he was going to become a hero. This was everything he longed for. 

Real Izuku is gone though. 

It’s fake. This is fake. 

Izuku did not attend U.A. with his childhood friend. Izuku didn’t actually meet Aizawa Shouta, or Eraserhead to most. The dead child inwardly guffaws when he puts two and two together, atop the first meeting when the man was burrowed in a yellow sleeping bag and fake Izuku was startled by his introduction. 

Mr. Aizawa was his homeroom teacher. He is a hero in real life. 

The first time the reaper is addressed, Izuku babbles in puzzlement, “Th-that’s you.” 

“This never happened,” Aizawa enforces, looking at his seat mate on the coastal grains. 

Izuku swallows thickly and his hand in Aizawa’s palm twitched, he knows this wasn’t real. His dreams never came true. His small moment of unadulterated fascination is disposed. 

“It would’ve been nice if you were my teacher,” the dead child bit the inside of his cheek. All’s left for him now is to dwell on the ifs, the could’ves, the almost. 

Aizawa mulls thoughtfully, “It might have been.” The reaper enlightens, “Your subconscious chose to see me instead of your mother, or All Might. You’d have too much agony. Around All Might, you’d only be star-struck.” 

“Y-you’re a-a peace inducing figure. Or something like that,” Izuku was disheartened to never have actually experienced this. Reaper Aizawa sighs. 

Granted, teacher Aizawa threatened to expel fake Izuku. That definitely frightened the kid and the dead boy thinks his punishments are fitting for the man’s personality. Even here in the afterlife, he was blunt and straight forward. The raven was not someone who liked to lead anybody on a futile ride. Fake Izuku proved him wrong. Deku was proving the dead child wrong as well.  

Fake Izuku was growing in a way the real Izuku couldn’t. 

Izuku gave up. Watching this movie wasn’t intriguing now. It’s casting dark, hideous thoughts into the dead child’s soul. He felt more like a failure than ever, but he is greatly conflicted. Izuku’s supposed to be better off dead. Why did he live in torment? Why did he have to endure all of that grief? And then realize that at the last, very last minute, things will be alright? 

Too bad, he never did realize. Real Izuku dove off the ledge and became one with the pavement like the discarded trash he was. 

Why was this happy ending fake? Why was Izuku so damn weak? Why couldn’t anybody give him a sign that this is what could’ve been? 

“Does this upset you?” The reaper sympathizes, aware of Izuku’s increasing distress. It’s fruitless. 

“I was going to become everything I wanted,” Izuku found himself saying, amidst the scenes that fake Izuku was surrounded by his classmates. These amazing kids with amazing quirks shared food with him, they smiled with him. Those teens were sincere. Izuku had friends. He belonged somewhere. “I didn't become any of them.”

The dead child doesn’t know how he can describe it - the pulsating venom that injects itself into his veins. It flows through his blood, the unsaturated torture that has marked him forever and killed him. The real Izuku was a pile of lost ashes in the junkyard. 

“I’m dead,” Izuku underlined. He killed himself because that’s what he was supposed to do. The boy’s shoulders rose to his ears, “None of this matters.” 

The reaper does not respond because on screen, Mr. Aizawa approached fake Izuku on one summer day. A time in which Izuku had a panic attack in the boy’s locker room. Normally, Izuku changed into his costume in the stalls. It’s to alleviate his fear of being ogled. The young boy was improving his skills of handling physical touch. Tolerating it. After all, he was training under All Might’s wing to become a hero. The next pillar of peace. He couldn’t shy away from sparring. He’s going to be a hero. He has to be fearless. 

It’s a pressuring job, but Izuku couldn’t ever disappoint his number one idol. All Might was pretty oblivious to fake Izuku’s struggles, he didn’t pry into Izuku’s home life because the kid didn’t like speaking of it. Izuku tried to heal, he tried to cope.

But Izuku is a child. Children shouldn’t have to cope.

Trauma does not vanish into thin air. Izuku embodied a cornered animal in a cage. The stall’s gates were bars without privacy. Above, his ‘relatives’ and ‘peers’ towered over him. Their cackles rang and rang, until Izuku broke into a fit of sobs. His wheezes and moans of fright has Izuku’s classmates scurrying. 

Class 1-A’s homeroom teacher was beckoned to the scene, a boy named Shoji reported the incident with panic. Izuku was excused from that training period and Mr. Aizawa took more than ten minutes trying to level Izuku’s hysterical sobs into quieter cries. He was bordering deliriousness, the man exerted all of his effort into coaxing Izuku that he was a part of their dimension. The boy was safe, he was safe with them.  

Mr. Aizawa worried over the problem child’s mental state. Izuku acted like those hostages that were kidnapped by villains and were imprisoned for their entire existence. (The truth wasn’t far from it.)  

Once fake Izuku was regaining consciousness over who he was and where he was at, Aizawa requested backup from Hound Dog to escort the boy to the counselor’s lounge. The freckled boy curled up on the couch, shivering. 

Eventually, Mr. Aizawa learned that Izuku was placed in foster care and held a history of complaints from his old teachers, social workers, and other malicious opinions. All of this was wrong, these were lies. The man dug. He is a teacher, his duty was to protect his students from harm. In or out of school. His knack for spotting red flags had him hearing sirens and alarms. 

Something was off about this kid.

It’s evident in Izuku’s skittish behavior, in his scars of physical infliction. Sure, the boy was reckless when it came to training but all those bruises couldn’t root from wrestling on blue mats alone. All Might had clear bias to this kid, so Izuku couldn’t be in complete danger, right? Fortunately, Aizawa was all about hunch. Following his gut, he rounds up the boy after homeroom. 

It took weeks to get Izuku to spill the smallest sliver of information. The dreaded type that implied he was not in a good living situation.

Dead Izuku was dumbfounded when his fake self blurted that he wanted to get out of his house. Even more, when Izuku started to weep openly and loudly at his teacher’s desk. Those tears were always backhanded, punched, yanked, kicked, squeezed, and burned out of him. His misery is a sign of weakness, it brings punishment. Izuku didn’t fear Mr. Aizawa, he’s found what his core sought for. A home. A safe place. 

“N-nobody has ever… listened to me before,” the dead boy comments. Gaping in awe as his fake self was unraveling into a pitiful mess. Apparently, his teacher’s assurance that Izuku’s troubles were his as well, was the freckled boy’s breaking point. 

“He would have,” reaper Aizawa noted. 

Mr. Aizawa didn’t emote much, but he placed a warm palm on top of Izuku’s scarred knuckles. His student sniveled and didn’t flinch away, this was a sacred moment of trust that the boy placed on his teacher. Adults failed him before, why would Eraserhead be different? 

Oh, but he was. 

Unlike any other adult in Izuku’s life, Mr. Aizawa fought for the boy. He was quick to believe Izuku, he was fast in taking action. 

The dead child is as winded as fake Izuku when Mr. Aizawa urges the boy to make a statement to the police. U.A. will press charges against his household, his school, and any juveniles he’ll name. What happened to Izuku was not his fault. This was not his baggage to carry. He wasn’t alone anymore. 

For once, Izuku was being treated like a human being. 

He mattered. People cared for him. 

It’s an odd blur, what happens next. Because Izuku couldn’t fathom a future where he received justice. Where his abusers were held accountable for their actions, and where Izuku was safe. 

Depictions of Deku’s journey; from participating in U.A.’s sports festival and earning an amazing score of his efforts, gaining a provisional license, to trekking a path of recovery, flash before them. 

Victories, pearly bright grins. The celebrations of false successes. 

That would never happen. This didn’t happen. 

Izuku is dead. 

He is not this ‘Deku’ that became a hero. He is not All Might’s successor. He is not Aizawa Shouta’s problem child. Izuku is not in the prestigious hero school. He is not the student that inspires his classmates to give their one hundred and ten percent. 

Izuku is nothing. 

This movie was unbearable. Incomprehensible. His depression gets ridden by the ignition of nasty temper. 

In a spark of overpowering frustration, the dead child is stabbed, skewered, and impaled by every single laugh that fake Izuku lets out. By every second that All Might praises his successor, for every rescue mission that ‘Deku’ embarks on. Hell, fake Izuku got adopted by none other than Mr. Aizawa. Izuku had friends, he had everything. 

This was the biggest prank in the world. The most stupid joke that’s ever punched Izuku square in the nose. 

Izuku didn’t want to see what his life would be like anymore. He wants out. His soul was howling in agony and anguish, his core values were hammered into mashed lies. 

This isn’t funny. This isn’t funny at all. 

At some point during this montage, Izuku’s hand wriggled out of reaper Aizawa’s grip. The dead child’s fists were curled and clenched, strained with jealousy and heartbreaking indignation. 

Everything he’s ever wanted in life was right there. 

Yet, it’s not. 

Izuku is dead. Those dreams never came true. 

The dead child springs onto his heels, he’s sprinting with his hand outstretched to the clouds. The happy projection is ripped from the sky. It cracks on the edges and rips on the corners, Izuku tears it from the atmosphere and throws it into the ocean. The orange horizon is back and his dreams sink in the sea of unheard misery. 

Izuku is dead. He is not a hero, he is no one. He is a victim to his mind and his mistakes. God, that’s fucking funny. Remember how he always says he deserves what he gets? Izuku guesses he really does. 

The dead child is seeing red. Not his desolate black, his gloomy grey. Hot, burning white destroys Izuku from the inside. It corrupts him, the inferno roars until all Izuku was is just a despairing, furious train wreck. Carbon monoxide blows off Izuku’s bottle cap, the young boy is suffering. He feels so sick, he’s going to rip out his heart and stomp on it. He’s going to claw himself, he’s going to dive into the water.

He hates this. He hates himself. 

So why did that other Izuku live? Why was living the right choice? 

The reaper calls out for the boy, “Izuku-“ 

“Why?!” Izuku interrupts the sitting man with a choked shrill. Aizawa blankly meets Izuku’s eyes, whose green orbs are so hopeless. So heartbroken and forlorn. 

Izuku is aware the reaper doesn’t fully care. The Aizawa that’s with Izuku right now is only an impersonator. The one person that’s listening to Izuku isn’t actually there. The thought is a sword that slashes Izuku until his guts spill. His intestines, flesh, everything. 

“Wuh-why me?” The dead child questions wretchedly, his hands are stressfully weaving through his curls. Combing with nails scratching his scalp, hard enough that it would’ve drawn blood. He wishes it did. 

Izuku’s legs moved on its own, the young boy was pacing back and forth on the shore line. Aizawa hasn’t stood up, he’s observing this unimportant child shout at the world. Aizawa won’t stop Izuku from burning ablaze at the sea’s mercy. This is what the poor boy needed. 

“If that’s what was suh-supposed to happen- why didn’t anyone t-tell me?“ Izuku’s arms flailed, he wants to sock himself. He wants to punch the sand, anything. He’s slipping, and Izuku was searching the clouds for an answer. “Why couldn’t I- I don’t know, get a sign? Or s-something to tell me that there’s more?” 

There is only silence in return. Izuku violently lashes out and succumbs to his eruption. Molten lead pours out of his ears, his nostrils, between his teeth. The boy received no warnings, he didn’t mean to lose it like this - but Izuku was so hurt. He can’t even cry. His eyes aren’t watering, his tears won’t fall. They can’t produce. 

“I want it back- I-I dreamt for so long. I dreamed of becoming a hero b-but I couldn’t…” Izuku is quirkless. He’s quirkless and his alternate life would’ve given him exactly that. “And now you’re telling me I would’ve become one?” 

Izuku was convulsing, his ragged breaths turned into crippling squalls. The young boy would never speak this way in real life, but his soul’s bellows has been suppressed for so long. Izuku’s rage was a hand grenade with a pulled pin, and there was nowhere for the weapon to go. Izuku has shed all his tears when he was alive. 

Now, he’s left with a raw, aching wound, “It was always fuh-fucking nothing... there’s nothing. There’s n-nothing for me- there’s still nothing.” 

Izuku grieves. He grieves and grieves until he explodes. Ruptured was his heart, bursting was his soul. Izuku’s expression tightened, as if all of his facial muscles were holding in his emotions and it could only escape through verbal utterance. His words are amplified with the loudest cry of torture, Izuku snapped. 

“Why do I always fuck everything up?!” Izuku screamed out into the ocean. His voice echoes, heard by the sun and by the faux seagulls. His clenched knuckles are quavering, his jaw is shut tight. Steam blows from the gaps of his fangs and his chest, enveloped in agony, houses a decaying heart. A rotting soul and a perishing resolve. 

Izuku is dead. He killed himself. This isn’t a real beach. Izuku is gone. He’s gone and it’s because of him. Izuku brought this onto himself. Everything he did always worked against his favor. 

The young boy’s joints cracked, the bone of his knees thudded against the sand. Collapsing onto the grain, Izuku whines. He’s whining like a toddler who lost his favorite toy. 

“Wuh-why…?” Izuku croaked in a dying squeal, he gazes at the bright, magnificent sun with heavy, drooping eyes. Kneeling before the universe. There is no reason gifted, the quirkless child was nothing. Therefore, he receives nothing. 

Unable to take its blinding rays, Izuku folds into himself. His body drops onto the ground and he curls into a fetal position, alike all those years ago. He’s whimpering, eyes yanked shut and arms wound around his legs. Hugging himself, the boy can only blame one person for his life and death. 

“Why i-is it always m-my fault?” Izuku repeats in a crestfallen whisper, he clings to his shadow. Gasps in his ragged pantings, “Wuh-why is it a-always my fault?” 

Aizawa does not scoop up the melting boy, he does not move from his position. The reaper works on directives of a broken person’s souls desires. Izuku’s inner child and trauma was eating away his guards, mauling its way into the surface. This pain that the dead child was experiencing was an illusory sensation. A reflection of what lays within.

Izuku sobbed, he sniffled and groused. No water escaped his ducts, no cuts were made on his arms as he scratched his skin. Rendered too far gone, Izuku is overloaded. He’s in shock. It is painful. It is scary. His emotions and thoughts are scattered, the boy is dizzy. He’s hanging upside down, intaking water through his lungs, swallowing swords and getting his eyes penetrated with nails. 

His soul and conscious processing inevitably shuts down. 

Izuku powers down completely. 

When life leaves his limbs, Izuku is laying like jelly upon the sand. Absently following sight of waves licking the grains beside his nails. 

He is exhausted. 

There’s a distinct, alienating distance between Izuku and the world. When he was alive, he saw no tangible future. Lost at a sea with rough waters, trying to tread the whirlpools completely alone and without any signs of rescue; Izuku ran out of energy. One, tiny wave was enough to sink Izuku under. 

That’s where he is now. Falling in the biggest, darkest pit where he can’t see the bottom. He couldn’t stop it, because once he was in, he couldn’t find the way out. 

Izuku remembers that there is a reaper behind him. Sitting silently. The dead child doesn’t want to look at him, afraid of the boredom that may be woven into his expression, but he can’t be too selfish. He’s wasting Mr. Aizawa’s time. 

With a rasp, he apologizes, “I’m s-sorry.” 

Aizawa tells the boy, “It’s fine.” 

Izuku thinks it isn’t, but relaying that message from his brain and down to his soul is taxing. The act of thinking is tiring. He’s constantly wading through treacle with no end in sight. An iron fist pushes Izuku down into this awful tunnel. His inner child wishes to be normal. Izuku doesn’t know who he is anymore. 

This is why he chose death. 

To stop everything. To numb it all. To be nothing. 

“Did you want to see anything else?” Aizawa asks seriously, “Like if you had a dog?” 

“N-no,” Izuku didn’t wish to see more. 

Aizawa doesn’t push him to.

Many of the souls that the reaper met liked to wind down from breakdowns by fantasizing or living their delusions. But the lonely boy was a simple human.

Izuku was unloved and worthless. If he continued on with life, he would’ve become loved and full of worth. Now that the boy has seen his wishes fulfilled, Aizawa supposes Izuku doesn’t have anything left to ponder. And that’s okay. Izuku really was finished.

“What do you want now?” 

“I- I want out,” Izuku mumbled. “I d-don’t want any more.” 

The reaper hums. He guesses this soul’s time was up. 

“Mr. Aiz-Aizawa?” Izuku gulps. The beautiful sky hovers over the lonely boy. “Is the afterlife good?” 

“Do you feel that heaviness in your chest?” The reaper sees the subtle movement of Izuku’s head. A faint nod. Aizawa divulges, “You won’t feel that anymore. Nothing bad will happen. You don’t need to worry about being on edge or anything of the kind.” 

The reaper promises, “You’ll be safe.” 

Izuku likes the sound of that. For being stuck on a treadmill all of his life, galloping without a break. Bolting without any fuel or water, he’s worked so hard to keep up… but he never got anywhere. He never got help. Izuku was so tired, struggling for this never-ending test of willpower and endurance that he didn’t sign up for.

“Nothing at a-all?” Izuku didn’t reach the light. That’s okay, if darkness will love him more. 

“Nothing,” Aizawa reassures. 

“I see…” Izuku is hoarse, his breath weakens. His phantom heartbeat slows down, “It really does sound nice.” 

There’s just one more thing on Izuku’s mind. The dead child knows he is unlovable, unworthy. He is everything bad that everyone avoided… but he wants to feel loved once more. It’s all he wants now. This was his wish before his essence expired. 

“Even if this isn’t real… can you- can y-you hold me?” Izuku asks, but he also fears Aizawa’s rejection. The boy’s starved self was begging, bending into an even tighter ball in case the man will abandon him. “Just- one last time.” 

Aizawa stands from his spot on the beach, without hesitation or any bad motive, “Of course.” 

In the real world, Izuku was a child who wanted to go home. But anywhere he went, he was told he’s already there. There was nowhere else to go. Nobody to fall back on. Nothing to look forward to. 

After everything he’s survived, Izuku became a ghost going through the motions of life. He felt no ambition, no happiness. His smallest dreams were ants being crushed underneath the toes of society, of people, and the world. 

On the hairline of that shore, Izuku is carefully grabbed by the shoulders. The reaper has to pull the boy up into a sitting position, gentle hands untwisting Izuku from his defensive pose. The freckled boy feels no danger, this must be the closest thing to safety he’s ever experienced. 

The man awaits approval from Izuku, to draw him in. The dead child doesn’t resist as Aizawa wraps two arms around Izuku’s body. Pulling him close. Face pressed against the reaper’s chest, Izuku nestled into this fake home. Cheeks squished against the feigned wall, the boy tilts his jaw to the left and exhales. 

Izuku’s heart and soul, the pieces of him that cry for eternity, become so quiet in Aizawa’s embrace. The reaper’s arms are heavy across Izuku’s frame, but it’s comforting in a way that it stabilizes the dead boy’s quivering figure. One of the man’s hands massaged crooked shapes in Izuku’s scalp, weaving through the curls and pushing upon pressure points. Another rubbed the space between the kid’s shoulder blades. 

The dead child slowly relaxes, until his bones aren’t solid anymore and his resolve is complete. His own hands fist into the black material of the reaper’s shirt. Anchoring him. Securing him. The sand beneath the pair is their cushion, their pillows of sincerity. Aizawa holds Izuku strongly, but not where it can break him. It’s a shield to convey that nobody will ever hurt him ever again. 

Izuku is cradled lovingly, so convincingly, that his inner child accepts his demise. That Izuku is loved by something and by someone, that he was more than nothing for at least ten seconds of his existence. 

Soon enough, this hug didn’t feel human. It’s becoming a state of bliss and peace. 

Aizawa can sense the dead child’s essence bridge into the clouds. 

“Izuku?” 

The quirkless, lonely child murmurs, “Y-yeah?” 

Aizawa whispers, “Rest well.” 

Izuku tries to smile, but he knows he’s over. 

It’s all over. 

The tired, unhappy boy was slowly killed by life. In the bruises that won’t ever heal, Izuku’s last pleas were heard. 

He’s thrown his final fit. He’s ached his final bellyache. The smoke of his burning soul chokes him, until Izuku surrenders and becomes one with his ashes. 

Before him, there’s a pretty house with a pretty garden. Deku will rest there, he’ll be well in endless, pleasant sleep. He won’t wake up ever again. Never to hear an alarm, never to receive anymore surprises. 

He’s out of here. 

In the man’s arms, Izuku disappears. 

Deku was not the name of any hero. It was simply an engraving on a flowerless tombstone. 

The world never saw him again. 

The reaper retracted their arms and switched back to their true form. A black shadow of nothing, they get back onto their heels and walk on that beach. Waiting for the next tortured soul to arrive. Aizawa Shouta was a regular human in the regular world. A beloved teacher and an honorable, underground hero, who was unaware of the dead boy, and lived without any further burden. 

In the handshake of death, there is only silence. 

That’s all that some people ask for.