Chapter 15

Midoriya Izuku has to be carried off the field. Shouto doesn't, but it's only by that much.

He vaguely recalls Midoriya kicking him in the face at some point. It must have happened, because why else would his left eye be swollen shut? He might have blamed the elbow, but no, the elbow was what smashed his nose. That's fun—the slightest gust of wind sends pain shooting through his entire face.

To say nothing of the fact that he feels incredibly lopsided at the moment. He's fine on the right, but the left side of his body is spotty with aches and pains. His left foot feels sprained, and he has to favor it to keep from falling over. He's at least eighty-percent sure his wrist is broken. The main reason he's still upright is that he's already icing his ribs on the left side.

This has been… something of a learning experience.

He's only recently started paying much attention to Midoriya, and his general impression of his classmate has thus far consisted of a short list of adjectives including but not limited to "excessively chatty," "way too cheerful," and "creepy beyond all reason."

Now, he can add "pretty goddamn vicious".

Oh, and his tongue is still bleeding. That's uncomfortable.

Shouto shoots another quick glance at Midoriya, and grinds his teeth against the lurching feeling in his stomach. As terrible as he feels, Midoriya looks worse. His classmate's left eye is still shut, crusted over with blood.

Midoriya catches him looking, and shows his teeth in another smile that would already be unsettling without the eye injury and streaks of dried blood. "Hey, Todoroki," he says, before he's carried off out of Shouto's hearing range. "Tell your dad I said—how's that for a disgraceful match?"

…He's still creepy.

Needless to say, Recovery Girl is fit to be tied.

"I have had it up to here with you!" The school's formidable nurse has worked herself into a tirade, and Izuku doesn't blame her. He's starting to lose count of how many broken bones she's had to fix on him. "Of all the reckless, empty-headed, foolish, careless stunts—"

"I'm not sorry," Izuku says.

That does nothing to help Recovery Girl's temper, and it's not meant to. It's the truth, and no amount of her scolding—whether it's aimed at him, or at a meek-looking Todoroki carefully rinsing his mouth with warm salt water by the sink—is going to change that.

"I didn't say I was happy about it," he admits. There's gauze plastered over his left eye and blood still congealing on much of his face. His hands are a mess, and his right arm is bleeding as well as broken. Izuku isn't sure if the ice tore into it, or he hit hard enough to literally explode his arm. He's trying not to think too hard about it. Recovery Girl's doing more than enough fussing and tongue-lashing for all three of them. (He half-expects Rei to get snippy with her for yelling at him, but so far all she's been doing is staring at the tiny old lady with wide eyes.) "But honestly I'd do it again. Except try harder, probably."

Recovery Girl glares daggers at him, and then leaves his side to finish tending to Todoroki. She's already fixed his eye—it's no longer swollen shut, though it still looks a bit purple.

"I think I'm fine," Todoroki says softly.

"Todoroki, I am really not in the mood."

"No, I mean your quirk uses my stamina, right?" Todoroki says. "I still have to fight, so—"

"If you expect me to send you back out there with hairline fractures in your wrist and your ribcage, then you have another think coming, young man," Recovery Girl snaps.

"Okay," Todoroki concedes. "But I still need all the stamina I can keep."

"Spare me from reckless boys who think I'm a miracle worker," Recovery Girl mutters. "Fine, I'll leave your nose alone, provided you at least let me splint it."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'd like to give that Present Mic a piece of my mind," Recovery Girl goes on as she carefully examines Todoroki's nose. "Egging you children on, making more work for me… Hold still—can you breathe normally?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. And as long as you aren't fighting, you might as well put your quirk to good use and ice this while you can." Todoroki winces as she fixes a small splint in place. "And speaking of your quirk—in the future, be more careful about how you use it on your classmates! A little harder, and you could have caused serious damage to Midoriya's eye—and believe me, eyes are tricky, especially when he already has a shattered arm to worry about."

Izuku sees Todoroki shrink in on himself, just a little, and speaks up. "It's not his fault—"

"Oh, believe me, I'm not finished scolding you, either," Recovery Girl grumbles. "There," she says to Todoroki. "That will do for now." She motions for him to leave. "Go on, now—I have at least thirty bones to rebuild in your classmate's arm."

Todoroki leaves without a word. On his way out he's nearly trampled when Uraraka, Iida, Tsuyu, and Mineta come barging in, but he manages to slip past them and out of sight.

"Deku that was so intense, what the heck!" Uraraka's voice pitches above the rest, though she's hanging behind the other three. Mika's wrapped in her arms, so she probably isn't sure a cat is allowed in Recovery Girl's medical ward.

"That was extremely reckless, Midoriya!" Iida adds. "What on earth were you thinking, continuing the fight in that condition?"

"Seriously," says Tsuyu. "You two ripped up the arena so bad they've called a break to do repairs."

"It was freaking scary!" Mineta pipes up.

But Recovery Girl is having none of it. "Out, all of you," she says imperiously. "I'll send him out when he's fit to be walking around again, but until then, I need all of you out."

His friends call out quick goodbyes before they're shooed from the room. The only one of his friends who's still with him is Rei, though she's keeping well away from any medical equipment. All-Might isn't here, though considering that both he and Todoroki got dragged in, that makes sense.

True to her word, she has to put him under while she fixes his arm. His dreams are unsettling and strange as always, and he wakes up groggy to find Rei in his face like a cat. Startled, he yelps, and feels Recovery Girl's hand on his shoulder.

"Don't move too much," she warns. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he says. "Weird dream." Blinking, he looks around and sees that the room is a touch more crowded than before. All-Might and Ms. Shimura came in at some point.

"That was… quite the show, my boy," All-Might sighs. He looks weary as he steps forward, giving Recovery Girl a generous berth. There's a browbeaten look on his face, and Izuku is abruptly aware of how he's probably spent the last few minutes.

"You missed it, shorty," Ms. Shimura says, confirming his guess. "She really chewed him out."

Izuku makes a noncommittal noise as he sits up and Recovery Girl helps him gingerly put on a shirt. He notes that his left eye is still bandaged.

"How do you feel, my boy?" All-Might asks him.

"Like I got hit by a train," Izuku answers. "But I derailed the first car in the process, so who's the real winner?" He winces as Recovery Girl fits a sling onto him. "I mean, it's the train, obviously, but at least there's a dent on the bumper. Is that the right word? Do trains have bumpers?"

"It's called the pilot," Ms. Shimura supplies helpfully. "Or the cowcatcher."

"Right, cowcatcher, that's it."

All-Might heaves a sigh. "I can't praise you for going so far, my boy," he says. "I don't want to see you destroying yourself anymore. Especially not in a mock fight."

With his good arm, he reaches up and gently touches the gauze on his face. "Didn't feel very 'mock'."

Recovery Girl lightly swats his hand away. "Your eye is fine," she assures him gruffly. "I didn't use my quirk on it because considering the state of the rest of you, I had to prioritize. It's going to scar, because that's what happens when you heal the slow way—and that's not the only thing." She points to his injured arm, and he looks. For the first time, he notices the scarring on his arm and hand. His fingers look slightly crooked. "There's only so much that my quirk can do. Your arm is still perfectly functional, but permanently warped." She glares at him, holding his gaze so that he can't look away. "Now you listen to me. I'm not going to be healing any more injuries like this, understand?" She glares at All-Might. "This isn't working for him. You will find another way for him to learn how to use that quirk."

All-Might nods.

Izuku is quiet as they leave. His arm still aches, and Rei is careful to avoid touching it.

"First part of the fight was pretty damn good, though," Ms. Shimura tells him. "It was nice to see that the past couple of weeks' training stuck." She pats his good shoulder. "You did good up to the part where you exploded your own arm. Really waled on that kid."

Izuku stops in the hallway. All-Might notices immediately and pauses with him.

"The fault is mine," All-Might says, before Izuku has the chance to speak. "True, you went too far, but if I were a better teacher, I would probably have found a way—"

"It's not just that," Izuku interrupts. "It's just…" His throat feels tight. Part of him wants to cry a little, but not so much that he's actually going to. "I feel bad for thinking this, but I just—sometimes I just wish I had a useful quirk for fighting. I mean, without One For All. Because then I could actually hold my own without…" He shoots an apologetic look at Rei. She looks sad, so he reaches over surreptitiously and gives her hand a squeeze. These are stupid, useless thoughts that he can't help having in his low moments, and truthfully he wouldn't trade her friendship for anything. But still.

"That isn't your fault."

"I know," Izuku says. "I know, and there's nothing I can do about it, I just…"

"Let me tell you something." All-Might's hand comes to rest on his shoulder. "Before I received One For All from my predecessor, I was also quirkless."

He twitches at the 'also', and slowly raises his head to look at All-Might. "Really?"

"Yes." All-Might smiles a little. "It wasn't as rare as it is now, but it still wasn't common."

"You never said." He's not sure if he's saying this to All-Might, or to Ms. Shimura. Did she even know? How long did she know All-Might before she died?

"You never asked." All-Might presses his shoulder gently. "So I can understand your frustration, my boy. And, in spite of your difficulties, you have a good start. I saw you at the beginning of the match—with or without your quirk, you put up a good fight."

Izuku grinds his teeth. "Yeah, but…"

"What's wrong, my boy?"

"Is… is it stupid that…" He curls his left hand into a fist. "That I didn't like how I was fighting?"

A pause. "How do you mean?"

"I mean, it felt—part of it felt good," Izuku admits. "Because that's the first time I've ever been in a straight fight where I felt like I was actually holding my own. But I had to get mean just to pull that off. I had to take advantage of things that I didn't want to." He points to his face. "That's how this happened. I said something to him that was—really just cruel. I knew it was going to hurt him and I said it anyway, and that's why he hit me like that. And that's why I have that stupid wish sometimes, because maybe then I wouldn't have to do stuff like that." He shakes his head. "And it didn't even work anyway. I wanted to win so bad. I wanted to beat him more than anything but I couldn't just…"

"You knew something was wrong," All-Might says. "And you couldn't leave it be."

"I can never leave it be," Izuku says softly.

"I saw. Toward the end, your goal changed," All-Might continues. "Didn't it? You wanted to help him."

"Someone had to." Izuku's voice comes out harsher than he intends. "Who else was gonna do it? Bakugou?" He grits his teeth until his head hurts. "And that's why I can't be sorry about how it turned out. Even if I wanted to win, even if you don't approve, even if it was a stupid thing to do and none of his problems had anything to do with me. Because—if you know something's wrong and you know you can do something about it, isn't it your responsibility to help?"

All-Might is quiet for a moment. "You know," he says at last. "I think you just summed up what it means to be a hero in one sentence." Izuku looks up to find All-Might shaking his head with a smile. "Butting in to problems that have nothing to do with you is a cornerstone of heroics. So… while I can scold you for being reckless, and for hurting yourself so badly in the process, I can't scold you for your reasons. I might have done the same in your place."

"Hey, beansprout?" Ms. Shimura adds. "When he says 'might have', he means 'definitely would have, in a heartbeat.' Just thought you should know."

Izuku smiles. His feelings on this whole mess are confusing and contradictory and hopelessly snarled, but at least he can smile when Ms. Shimura makes a joke.

They're almost to the stadium again when he hears Rei's warning hiss. He turns to find her stopped at the entrance to an adjoining hallway, glaring down it with her hair stirring as if in a breeze. White ghost light emanates from within her mouth.

He's nearby, she signs, and a familiar rumbling voice drifts down the hall. There's too much distance for Izuku to make out words, or feel the heavy pressure in his skull that he'd felt when that voice was shouting in his face. The angry one's yelling at him. He can't hear, but it still hurts him.

Movement flashes at one of the doorways in the connecting hall, and a familiar ghostly woman appears as if she's been thrown out. Suzuki looks about as disheveled as an incorporeal spirit projection can look.

"Okumura, stop it!" she calls into the room. "He hasn't done anything to you!"

"Midoriya?" All-Might's voice draws his attention, and he realizes he's stopped in the middle of the hallway, too. "Are you—?"

"I'll catch up," Izuku says. "You go on ahead, I'll be out in a bit. I just need to check something."

"Are you sure you—?"

"Yup." Izuku's already walking into the hallway, signing to Rei as he goes. Make sure he doesn't follow me.

He's not, is her answer. He's walking away.

"Kiddo, what do you think you're doing?" All-Might isn't following him, but Ms. Shimura is. "If this is about what I think this is about, keep in mind your arm's useless and this guy wall-slammed you less than an hour ago."

Rei snarls at this. Suzuki hears them coming and startles a little. Izuku doesn't blame her; it's hard not to startle when Rei's in a temper.

"It's—he's just—" Suzuki catches sight of Izuku's face, and her own face falls. "Oh." She wrings her hands. "You—you know the poor boy didn't mean it, don't you? He just…"

Izuku touches the gauze on his face and shrugs.

He steps past her to the doorway, and immediately Okumura's voice reverberates in his eardrums.

"—and maybe this whole fucking family's toxic. Your dad poisons everything he touches, doesn't he?"

Todoroki's sitting in the waiting room, frowning listlessly at the wall. He doesn't look up when Izuku stands in the doorway, and Izuku doubts his classmate has noticed him. His nose is splinted, his face blotched purple with bruises, and he's staring off into the middle distance as a nightmare hovers over him and spits verbal poison at him.

"Even for a snot-nosed kid, you're pathetic," Okumura snarls. "You, different from him? Don't make me laugh. You run your mouth, and then ten minutes later you're throwing your weight around just like him. Hey—did you need to take out that one kid with a fucking iceberg, or did you do it just to show everybody how big and tough you are?" He leans in close, face twisting. "And how about that kid you punched? Maybe you'll leave him a pretty little scar just like yours."

The tickle of fear in Izuku's spine vanishes, consumed by white-hot anger.

Shouto's thoughts are dark.

It's unavoidable, sitting by himself in an empty room with no one to talk to, no distractions, nothing to drown out the chaos in his head. At this point he'd almost welcome another talk with his father. At least he knows to treat everything he hears from that bastard's mouth as trash. He can't do the same with the things that his own brain has to say about him.

He doesn't feel like he's in control anymore.

His mind ties itself in knots just trying to remember when he stopped feeling in control. His first thought is that it was right before he stopped thinking and nearly gouged out Midoriya's eye. Or was it before that, with the first punch Midoriya threw? Or maybe even earlier, when he lost control and hurled an iceberg at Sero.

Or maybe, he hasn't felt in control since… ever.

Maybe he's never been in control.

Maybe Endeavor poisons everything he touches, and Shouto's just been living with him long enough to absorb it.

He's pathetic. Different from his father? What a joke. After all his talk, after all his stupid vows and promises, he throws his weight around just like the old bastard. That fight with Sero—ha, "fight," that's a laugh. All he did was panic and lose his temper and take out his own frustration with his own problems out on someone who had nothing to do with them. How was that any different from what Endeavor was doing, dragging his family into his stupid rivalry?

And Midoriya.

He'd hit Midoriya, and that wasn't the issue; the issue was that he hadn't meant to. He hadn't planned on it. It'd just happened, his body just moved, because he was angry and terrified and Midoriya's words cut extra deep when he knew that he couldn't say his classmate was wrong.

Maybe he'll end up with a scar, just like me.

It's getting hard to breathe.

"Stop it."

Shouto starts, leaving a patch of ice on the table beneath his right hand. He looks up, caught off guard, to find Midoriya Izuku staring in his direction with the ugliest look of fury Shouto's ever seen on him. And considering the range of expressions he saw over the course of their fight, that's saying something. His spine crawls, and he's caught between squirming uncomfortably in the face of that piercing glare, and being unable to look away.

Midoriya's left eye is bandaged. It's not quite to the same extent that Shouto's once was, years ago, but it's enough to be unsettlingly familiar.

It's enough for Shouto to understand why Midoriya would look at him like that.

The crawling on his back turns to chills so cold they almost burn. His head aches with building pressure as he fidgets in his seat and finally manages to tear his eyes away. His broken nose sends twinges of pain through his skull.

"Stop what," he says.

For a moment, Midoriya doesn't answer him. There's a tension in the air, thick as ice, and Shouto has to clench his fists and force himself not to fidget.

What is he supposed to say? Sorry for almost gouging your eye out, I didn't like that you pointed out that my asshole father got me into this school and I was maybe making your hard work look pointless, my bad.

"You're moping," Midoriya says at last. "Which is fine. Nothing wrong with that." He pauses. "Unless it's about me. Is it?"

Shouto doesn't answer. He hopes that's enough of an answer by itself.

Another stretch of silence passes between them. Shouto keeps his eyes fixed on the table top, and doesn't look at Midoriya's face again.

"What do you want, Midoriya."

He doesn't even need to look at Midoriya's face; he can feel his classmate's eyes (or just one eye, now) burning a hole in the back of his head. "Just looking for my cat," he answers, after far too long a pause.

"Oh," Shouto says. "Well. It's not in here."

Midoriya lingers at the doorway a moment longer before answering. "I'll leave you alone," he says stiffly, and Shouto doesn't move again until Midoriya's footsteps are already fading away.

Okumura was angry enough that it made him strong. Izuku could tell, because it had taken both Rei and Ms. Shimura working together to drag him away from Todoroki. He could tell, because when they did, and when Okumura had lashed out at them and at Todoroki and anything that moved within his reach, Todoroki had felt it. He'd felt something, at least, and it looked like it had hurt.

It's a miracle that Izuku kept his temper as well as he did.

Izuku hadn't watched Rei haul Okumura out of the room with Ms. Shimura's help, but he wouldn't have needed to. Okumura is making enough of a racket to lead him right to them. All he has to do is follow the screams of rage and the trail of blinking lights.

The hallway is empty of life when he catches up to them. Rei's gone all eldritch-horror again, writhing with darkness and terror and ghost lights and twisting tendrils of black hair. The fluorescent panels nearest to them are more like strobe lights as they face off. Ms. Shimura keeps well back, with Suzuki hiding behind her.

If Okumura was in a mood before, then he's boiling mad now. Tangling with Rei slows him down, but he still throws himself toward Izuku, trying to claw at him while Rei bites at his heels. "How dare you." Izuku keeps walking forward.

"Midoriya," Ms. Shimura mutters, but Izuku doesn't stop until he's almost nose to nose with Okumura and hissing his own venom in the poltergeist's distorted face.

"How dare you."

Izuku can get mad, too. He can get so mad that his eyes get hot and his heart goes stony and his voice gets cold, colder, and even colder.

"I don't care what you have against Endeavor," he says, and his voice doesn't shake. He's too angry to be anything but dead-still and calm. "I don't care what he did to you, or how he hurt you." His voice lowers, harsh and quiet but as steady as a headman's axe. "I don't care if he spat in your face in murdered you in cold blood. Don't you ever use me as an excuse to hurt one of my classmates."

"You'd side with that bastard's brat?" Okumura snarls. The fear does its best to creep up Izuku's back, but his anger turns his insides to ice, and the cold makes him numb.

"He has nothing to do with your grudge," Izuku spits back. "Our match had nothing to do with your grudge. So don't you dare use it to bully him."

Okumura gives a wordless growl.

"Why do you hate him so much?" Izuku demands. "Endeavor. What did he do? How did he cause your death?"

At first, the furious ghost doesn't answer beyond more twisted screaming. Izuku waits until he gets some of that rage out of his system. He's a patient person, and after a minute or so, it pays off.

"They had us cornered," Okumura replies, his voice choked and raspy. "The police had us cornered. What we did was stupid, and we knew it. We knew it." His voice changes. The shadows settle. His face settles. For a moment, Izuku sees a man—he's young, even younger than Aizawa-sensei. He looks less angry than frustrated. Sad. "We were desperate. We were tired. We were…" He stiffens and twists, as if the memory causes him physical pain. Maybe it does. "We were scared. We wanted to stop. We were ready to stop. We were ready to give up, turn ourselves in." His voice catches, and he steels himself again. The shadows gather around him once more, and his face flickers and melts back into a nightmare. "And then he showed up."

"Endeavor," Izuku says softly.

"It took too long for him. He got impatient. He broke the standoff, and everyone spooked. He turned it into a shootout. I ran away, and someone shot me in the back." His form flickers, and for an instant Izuku can see the hole in his chest where the bullet punched right through. "I don't know who shot me. Maybe it was some cop. Maybe it was one of my buddies. But I don't care. I'm dead because of him."

"But not because of Todoroki," Izuku says flatly. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair to you. You should've had the chance to surrender, and he was wrong to take that away from you. But Todoroki had nothing to do with what happened to you."

"Like father, like son. It'll happen again. The bastard raised his brat to hurt people."

"I don't believe that," Izuku retorts. "And even if that was true, it's none of your business what he does. It has nothing to do with you, and you have no right to talk about him like that when you're mad at Endeavor for taking away your second chance." He is angry still, and he lets it burn in his eyes while his mouth stretches into a smile that shows all his teeth. "Leave him alone, or I'll make you sorry you didn't move on the second you died."

A growl rumbles deep within the poltergeist, and he vanishes the moment Izuku blinks.

On instinct, he checks his surroundings. His classmates thus far have been more tolerant than the ones in his previous schools, but the last thing he wants is for someone to walk in on him spitting threats into empty air.

The hallway around him is devoid of life.

Izuku takes a deep breath, and lets it out again.

"Holy shit, kid," Ms. Shimura whispers.

"That was…" Suzuki's voice trails off.

"Ballsy," Ms. Shimura finishes for her.

Izuku rubs his face with his good hand, careful not to disturb the bandaging over his eye. He feels tired. "I'm going out to the bleachers," he says. Maybe Uraraka or Iida won't mind if he dozes off on one of their shoulders.

Or maybe the excitement of the matches will wake him back up, or at least distract him from everything and let him forget for a while how heavy the dead can be.