Chapter Text
Before your body feeds the worms, watch your steps.
The forest has hidden screams like yours.
Dreams like yours.
You can not ask a corpse if it regrets.
All it can do is feed the forest floor until someone pays it any mind.
That is the way.
The way of a hero.
Tread carefully.
...
"Izuku."
Too slow.
His head in the hand of a Nomu.
Craaaack!
Too late.
Repeat.
"Izuku!" She tried to grab at him. He moved, looking confused.
"Fuck you, come here!" She grabbed at him with both hands, turning him so now he was on her side and she his.
Then, it happened.
Hakari's head in the large hand of a Nomu, a cocky grin on her features.
"Don't tell my sister. I'd rather she not know."
That was a message playing from a microphone chip that suddenly appeared in his ear.
As his eyes widened, the message playing, blood splattered across his face–he made the mistake of assuming he didn't need it since he seldom fell on his face–with a tooth now hitting his eyelid, he watched in pure horror as the body slumped to the floor, with the head having been crushed within the helmet.
The damage.
Oh, the damage to that helmet was a testament to his current state.
The Nomu casually walked away, assuming its job done. It was blind in the eyes, but seeing in other senses.
Maybe that's why it was so fast.
He picked her body up, the covered crushed head threatening to fall off completely at the neck.
The folding of the skull could only ever be seen when a newborn pops out if its mother's womb–triangular, but rather with the midsection of the cranium fully dessicated, especially on the cheekbones.
Surprisingly, she was still breathing.
Her suit was adjusting so she could breathe from the larynx directly as her body healed itself.
He walked, having been too scared to run lesst her head fell off–entirely possible, but the veterbral column kept it connected.
How crushing the skull caused that? The Nomu had pulled on her head as it was crushing the head, tearing apart tissues
...
To live is to understand your short-lived life.
To live is to change, for better and the worst.
However, the worst can always shape the rest of your life.
...
"Mrs Todoroki. Before I do this physical examination, tell me. Did he ever rape you? If so, was there a struggle?"
She paused, now looking up in horror as though the question pained her to answer.
She gave a quick nod, her breath coming in short and increasingly fast.
"He's not the best husband. Hell, he even bought his way into me marrying him, but still.
He hasn't—hadn't—hit me, ever. Not until sometime after Touya got his quirk. When it started hurting my son."
Her face lit up slightly at the memory, now looking down at her hands with a blanket gaze.
"Then he wanted more. Or maybe it was me. He was fine with either option, really, so long as his heir could be a hero. Then came Fuyumi and Natsuo. Then it really started.
Little by little, he'd get angry at me for coddling either one of my three children. Then he smacked me.
I didn't see Touya standing in the hallway until it was too late."
A hard swallow.
"He... he ran into the forest and from there we weren't able to find him past midnight.
The next day, a police officer came back with him, and I still remember the look of terror in his face when he saw his father again.
I still wonder if he saw the full interaction. Then again, I'll never be able to... ask him.."
At that, she started sniffling softly, placing her hands over her face.
"I'm a disappointment to my own son, aren't I? He hates me from the grave, I'm sure."
...
10 or so years before.
There stood an ever so curious Sanako, watching the older boy fight with the trees behind the orphanage after hours.
Quietly approaching, she tried to nudge him gently, only to get an elbow to the eye, to which she started crying.
Pausing his fighting, he turned to her, almost grabbing her face but remembering the splinters that poked out of his skin.
In a panic, his hands lit up in a small blue flame, covering his hands fully before panic fully set in and it stopped.
On one hand, she was now fascinated. On the other, she was still crying, with her small hands covering her left eye, and she was trembling on top of all of that.
That reminded him of his mother, and he covered his mouth with both of his eyes, hyperventilating.
She noticed, and gave him a hug.
To say he was surprised was an understatement.
He looked at her, and saw a scar running over the top of her head, covered discreetly by her barely bluish white hair.
The longer he stared, the more he seemed to space out. She'd solved his issue so quickly... with just a hug...? Maybe it was hard to understand, but that wasn't the priority.
He gently lifted her head up by the cheeks, now gently poking at her now closed eye, opening it to see if anything was wrong.
The most it was was red from the impact, and there wasn't much he could do.
He knelt on both knees, kissing her eye. "I'm sorry."
She was surprised, but smiled at it nonetheless.
"What were you doing just now? We're you playing with the trees?"
He paused, now staring back at the tree, still at the same place as always.
"Something you wouldn't understand just yet."
It had a wide stature, and the more he stared at it, the more it resembled him. With piercing blue eyes to match.
"I'll take you to your mother's grave, okay? I can't visit my mom right now, but I want you and your sister to have that opportunity, okay?"
She nodded slowly, now looking down in sorrow.
He sighed, hugging her and picking her up to walk back into the orphanage.
She didn't even seem to notice or care about his face, nor his body, especially since she was so willing to hug him like that without disgust of any kind at all.
He felt the prick of sorrow at the thought, almost not noticing that she was crying onto his shirt.
Upon further inspection as he continued walking, he'd realized she fell asleep.
"Ma... ma... Da... bi... ma... bi... ma..."
Incoherent, but he heard enough. He'd heard she had memory issues, which didn't have much of an effect on anything else other than speech.
"Are you trying to say mama?"
He nudged, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.
She'd eased up on clutching his shirt, and her face changed. "Mama... dabi..."
"Dabi?"
He stopped for a moment, eyes widening. Then a laugh. A soft one, since he didn't want to wake her. "Maybe that's what I'll call myself."
...
"He didn't hate you. That was the first time he ever saw his mother get attacked, and it was by his father. That probably made him run away to try and think of what might happen next.
Kids always overthink things."