Chapter Text
On Izuku's walk home, there is a stretch of rundown buildings by the trashed-up beach where, before he could remember, there used to be novelty and souvenir businesses. He uses this stretch of land to have some part of his commute away from the oppressive force of Kacchan's aura that Izuku's forced to endure most of the way to and from school. Though he supposes he does miss getting to see Kacchan walk with his usual carefully-constructed ease and envy that façade of ease as well. And only envy, because if Kacchan were to turn around for some reason or another and catch Izuku trying to adopt that ease, then he would be in for a world of hurt, haha!
So this abandoned boardwalk is something of a welcome break from his daily terrors, and he usually enjoys the quiet lapping of waves nearby, muffled as it is from the wall of trash between him and the beach. Which is why Izuku startles hard enough to tumble to the unkempt pavement when a strained voice greets him one day. When Izuku manages to get himself and his limbs together for a moment, he sees it's a woman in the doorway of one of those rundown businesses wringing her hands anxiously.
Though she appears to be dressed well in a floor length skirt and clean, pressed blouse, her hair hangs limp and oily from what probably used to be a bun or ponytail, and her eyes are bloodshot, lips bitten and sore-looking and maybe bleeding from stretching to smile. Izuku swallows nervously.
"Oh, young man," she says, tittering nervously. "I'm sorry for startling you. Why don't you come in and have some tea as an apology?" Izuku cringes a bit and scrambles for an excuse to get the fuck out of dodge.
"It's fine, really! I'm just clumsy," he, damnit, also titters nervously. The woman laughs, if you can call it that, along with him, both of them afraid to cut eye contact. "I need to get home! Uh, my mom! Right, she needs me home–"
The woman flails suddenly and stills just as quickly.
"I insist," she cries. "You must– ah, I–"
"I couldn't possibly impose, ma'am!" Izuku squeaks. He wants to run. The woman makes to reach for him, and, again, pulls back as if burned. Izuku should run.
"P-please," she… pleads. Izuku swallows again, throat dry this time. She continues, "Just… some tea…?"
I'm gonna die here, Izuku thinks and numbly allows the woman to guide him through the dilapidated doorway. There's a stuffy and decaying humid smell inside the building, and it's been gutted of all furniture and fixtures that could have hinted at what it used to be. There aren't even any chairs amidst the broken glass in puddles of… something Izuku doesn't care to think about too hard, so he has to stand just inside the doorway as the woman walks backward slowly to a book on the ground, careful to keep him in her sight.
"Please… I have…," she trails off, smiling even more strained and, perhaps, disturbing than before. Troubled, to put it lightly.
Izuku thinks of more synonyms to calm his racing heartbeat unsuccessfully and watches the woman bend and reach with a shaking hand down to ground.
"My…" she breathes. Oh, god, thinks Izuku. "My son…"
Oh god. Izuku doesn't even know what he wants to pray for.
"He doesn't need this–" her voice cracks harshly down the middle, leaving her croaking. She's crying and biting her lip, fully splitting it now. Her voice is quiet and teary now. "He doesn't need this anymore."
She holds it out and steps closer. Izuku freezes, hands up to do what? Hoping she will stop her approach.
"Take it."
"Ma'am, I don't…"
"Take it!"
Izuku squeaks again at her sudden shout. She scares herself too, because she gasps and covers her mouth with one hand, still holding the other out to Izuku.
"As a– Please…" She approaches faster and slams the damp-covered book onto his raised palms. "Get– Take this and leave me, please!"
Taken aback, Izuku stumbles over the threshold while the woman pushes him out with the book. She honestly tosses him out on his ass and throws the book after him then scrambles over him and runs through the abandoned buildings.
Izuku takes a few moments to get his breath back, looking after her, though she's long since gone. With a sigh, he turns his attention to the book thrust upon him.
Well, there's no point in wasting literature, no matter if it's drivel or a slog to get through. Maybe this will be interesting enough to keep instead of donating.
He'll just ignore everything that just happened, like he always does.
It never steered him wrong before.
Izuku unlocks the door to his and his mom's apartment, calling out a low greeting to empty air and knowing his mom is working right now since Wednesdays are double-shift days, and trudging through the entranceway. He stops for a snack he doesn't really want at the kitchen and takes it back to his room. He doesn't even bother changing out of his uniform; it honestly wouldn't be the first time he slept in it and then went to school in the same set the next day. Hey, sometimes he gets caught up in stuff! His brain is a busy place.
At his desk, he lays out the work he managed to salvage from Kacchan today and sets aside the untouched papers. One of the sheets due tomorrow has a big hole in the middle from Fingers, Kacchan's friend. It's missing a large chunk of the questions in that area, and he won't be able to answer them like that, even if he used a sheet of notebook paper to supplement space.
(They aren't important to Izuku. He figured that if their names weren't important to Kacchan, and they treated him so poorly, then Izuku shouldn't use their names either.)
He can afford to miss one homework assignment every once in a while. He tosses that one into his Mighty Trash can. Everything else looks good enough to Izuku so he starts on it.
And he's really making headway for a while, but…
UGGHHH
Homework, you know?
He looks off to the side and catches a glimpse of the book he… was gifted? Yes, gifted. It looks rather new, the binding barely cracked in the way that books that have only been opened a few times are, and even though he felt that it was damp on the outside cover earlier, the pages are flat and free of water damage. At least that's what he thinks from his view into the backpack.
If he leafs through it now and decides to donate it, he can drop it off tomorrow on his way to school. Though, he would have to miss out on the part of the route where he can watch Kacchan walk a few meters ahead of him for a few blocks until they get to school. Bummer.
Well that's only if he wants to donate it. Maybe he wants to keep it! It doesn't look like something he would pick up and read on his own, but…
Actually, he's not even sure what the title is, just that it belonged to someone's son and that someone didn't want it… desperately.
Izuku grimaces. Maybe there's something wrong with the book. Or it's full of anti-government propaganda. Or the pages are blank? Surely if it were someone's son's journal, that someone would want to keep it as a memento of her–uuh, of someone's son.
He's not afraid of books, so far at least, so Izuku tugs it out of his bag and sets it on top of his half-done work.
The cover feels woven, an almost jean-like material, stained dark, dark red, almost black in some places, but otherwise blank. It's dried off since he got it, and Izuku hardly spends a thought wondering if his textbooks absorbed anything unsavory before he opens the cover. Inside, there are markings he doesn't recognize, and Izuku kind of feels disappointed.
It's in a language he can't read.
Sighing, Izuku turns to a random page near the beginning hoping to see some pictures at least, just a few pages in, and a separate page of scrap paper flutters against the pages in his hand before settling on top of the page he turned to. This paper has Japanese on it. Automatically, Izuku reads it.
This page is about contact. Though the symbols here are new, some like 'contract' and 'blood' and 'speaking' are known.
From this, I think this passage means something like: 'To get into contact and form a contract, a connection must be made through blood.'
Blood? Is this a horror novel? Izuku glances back at the cover, and, yeah, still no title, not even on the spine. But it does appear that the previous owner was attempting to translate the book to Japanese.
Curious, Izuku flips the scrap piece of paper to find more writing, a bit messier than before. Someone's son must have been getting excited.
The process appears to be quite simple; one must first set a place for their correspondent to stand
as outlined on this page. It will act like the phone screen on a video call, and my blood will be the phone number.
Or the phone line? This metaphor is getting away from me.
I'm going to try it!
Izuku purses his lips. This… sounds like a wild story. Yeah, quite wild.
He spends a second or an hour staring… looking at his desk, a little lost, but he's fine. He spends a while.
What a wild afternoon.
Izuku stands with another sigh. He needs to take a leak.
At the sink, he sees how scraped his palms got when he fell on the ruined boardwalk and starts scrubbing at them, eyes down like always. Got to avoid his reflection. It never makes him feel good, so he just won't look. Unfortunately, his hands start bleeding when he washes the dirty scabs off.
Great. Now he has to look up to get to the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. Then he gets distracted by how pale he looks and smears blood all over the mirror. Immediately, he can see frustrated tears well up in his eyes. With a growl he wipes the mirror with his sleeve, hoping the black fabric won't show its stains off like his bath towel would. He makes it worse.
And now that he's crying, it'll take him forever to stop. But Mom will be upset if she comes home and the bathroom looks like a murder scene, so he cleans it up, bandages his hands, and tries to be quiet as he slumps back onto his chair.
His homework won't begrudge him a short break. Maybe it would, but he's taking a break anyway. He leans his head on one hand and looks at MiniMight. That always makes him feel better.
MiniMight is his favorite All Might toy– uuh, action figure. It's a bit scuffed from all the years Izuku and Kacchan would play heroes with it, but MiniMight's smile remains bright and unstained. It fills Izuku with joy.
“I am here!” he seems to say to Izuku. He blinks away tears and smiles at MiniMight absently until he hears his mom at their apartment door.
He quickly swipes his hand across his cheeks to maybe obscure the tear tracks there, and when he stands up too quickly, he trips a little and steadies himself quickly with a huff and a hand on the desk. He feels some page crease under his hand, but his mom is calling out now.
When he returns from greeting her and assuring her that he's working on his homework and that no thank you he already had an early dinner, his desk looks different, kind of. Well, more like there's an extra bit? Izuku freezes when they make eye contact.
There's a deer head standing next to MiniMight.
It's an action figure sized… something standing and moving on its own, just kind of turning empty eye sockets onto everything in Izuku's room once it decides he's not worth looking at anymore. Izuku called it a deer head but it's more like a skull with the antlers jutting out past long dark hair that he thinks is attached to the skull judging by how the hair… doesn't fall off. He could be wrong. But other than its head and hands, it's featureless.
And he means featureless.
It doesn't have anything else on its body, just a reddish flesh colour that makes Izuku feel like he's choking down raw meat on a vaguely bipedal shape that maybe could walk, but what he can see of the legs are bent oddly. Like a shitty Halloween decoration draped with old meat. With a wigged deer skull on top.
Izuku's skin crawls when it turns to him again.
“So, what do you want,” says a raspy, whispering voice. The jaw opens but doesn't flap, so to speak, with the words. Like it's talking from a speaker inside the skull.
Maybe he passed out in the bathroom…
“For you, Little Boy,” it whispers. “I can do anything.”
Izuku's back straightens lightning quick.
“How?” he asks despite his caution.
(He has caution, definitely. He has a ton of it!)
The thing, creature? Is it perhaps someone in disguise? Was there a device in the book that Izuku didn't notice when he started flipping through? It looks quite solid. If it's speaking, couldn't this be someone's quirk? Some sort of projection or illusion-making quirk? It's pretty good, even if looking at it makes Izuku feel sick. He leans closer as it tilts its head at him.
“...You didn't read the book?” it asks. Izuku blinks and pulls himself out of his thoughts of how fascinating it is. It looks so real! Oh, it–
“Uh, a little?” Izuku glances down at his desk for the book, and the creature appears to be coming from the book! Is this a quirked item? Is there such a thing? Usually, a quirk user would touch something, and the effect wouldn't be delayed. That lady! Is this her quirk? Projections? Or her son's–
“I will explain it to you,” it says quickly. Probably to stop him from running off into his thoughts again, oops! Izuku puts his hands over his mouth. It nods at him and continues at a slower pace. “Good. I have answered your call and have come to make a deal with you. I have the power to do anything you wish, but only once.”
Only once? One wish…
Izuku blinks. There would be a lot of things he could wish for. His mother's happiness. His father coming to live with them again. Being friends with Kacchan again.
…A quirk.
Izuku's stomach roils. Then he realizes this is too good to be true. He rallies himself.
“How do I know you aren't lying? That you aren't some– someone trying to–” Izuku swallows and clenches his jaw to stop it from chattering against his will. He says lowly, “That you aren't just here to play a joke on me.” Some joke it would be. Just like all the other ones.
“Do you want it to stop?” The creature whispers. It feels like that voice is slithering into his brain through his ears. Izuku shudders. “I can make that happen.”
“How can I believe you,” Izuku says to the floor. The thing hums but it sounds like it's in a car driving on a really bumpy road.
…It's laughing.
“You can't know. You can only wish,” it says. Its voice is sounding rougher by the second, like it isn't used to talking. It hasn't moved anything but its head since Izuku has seen it. “And make a contract with me. I can do anything for you.”
The inside of Izuku's skull feels itchy, and he feels like his skin is about fall off. Anything at all? It's not like a tiny thing like this could make Izuku's dreams come true.
Izuku's dream. His dream of getting into the hero course of U.A High School and learning to be a hero with all the other hero hopefuls that he hopes he can someday call his peers. To stand equal to Kacchan and the other kids with quirks, with his neighbors, his classmates, the freak at the corner store that asks him to take his shoes and socks off for some money (ah, maybe not him. But at least he has a quirk.), the librarian, his teachers, his mom!
And to be a hero. One who can smile and save people and reassure them that–
“That can be arranged,” the creature hisses, pleased. At least he thinks so–
“What! What can be arranged? Huh?!” Izuku exclaims, heedless of his mom in the kitchen probably wondering what he's yelling about (and the neighbors next door who never stop– whatever it is that keeps Izuku up late at night but then issue a noise complaint when he wants to play some music to do homework to on the weekends).
“I will guide you,” the thing says. The empty sockets of its eyes are gaining a small pinprick of white. “And We will achieve your dream. And in exchange…”
“I said my dream out loud?!”
“I will gain your soul.”
Oh, that doesn't sound good.
Izuku and the creature make eye contact, and this time, he feels more than just dread. His muscles seize and tighten under his skin. It feels like even muscles he didn't know existed are cramping up all at once. He can't breathe, and the world's colour bleeds out until all he can see is grainy black and white crawling over the surface of his eyeballs. Distantly, he hears his door slam closed when he falls back into it. Then he feels something new.
At first it's a zing! of feeling in his extremities that rapidly burns its way up to his body. When it reaches his head, he feels several harsh zaps behind his eyes that almost make him convulse each time. Finally, he sort of slumps into the door, which doesn't hold him up. He's sliding quickly to the floor, and he's unconscious before he gets there.