Chapter 9: Alone, no longer
Ochako watched the Tv as she prepared to get ready for school feeling extremely conflicted.
"Last Night, two more victims were added to the list of people murdered by notorious villain Bloody stain. The victims once again include villains, this time local duo 'Axis and Gambit' known for there a long list of burglaries and murders. They where both found dead in a back ally in Musutafu located near Takoba Municipal Beach Park. The murders line up with the timing of previous attacks however people are beginning to raise concerns about the rise in murders and whether they will continue to follow this new pattern from hear on. Mika Takanishi reports."
The screen switched to the main road with police cars littering the street behind them. A lady in a navy suit holding a microphone. Ochako recognized her as the lady who had shoved the same microphone in her face after the news of All Mights position teaching in UA was leaked.
"Yes, I'm here at the scene down at the edge of Musutafu city. Police were called to the scene an hour and a half ago in response to a distress call from the owner of a local jewelry shop which the villain duo Axis and Gambit were raiding. Upon arriving at the scene with Pro-Heros Death Arms and Air jet, they searched the surrounding area for the villains who had already left the building.
According to sources from the police, the two villains where both found dead down a back ally with all the stolen jewelry. The current state of the bodies of the villains is currently unknown however we've overheard conversations between police members stating the bodies of the pair have been left completely destroyed. Should we be scared of this new development and fear what lays ahead for this notorious villain, or is this 'Bloody Stain' the hero we needed all along? Back to you at the studio."
Ochako watched the report in anger and disgust.
The reports felt so much more real to her now. She knew who was behind it. She had the power to stop it. This unnecessary killing weather they were villains or not, it felt so wrong to allow people to be continuously killed. Every inch of her morals as a hero in training was screaming at her to do what she knew was right. Her hand itched to reach for the phone and call the police on her villainous classmate.
Yet the anger which raged thought her was demanding answers, demanding to know why someone who seemed to her the embodiment of what being a hero meant, kills people. She remembered the guilt-filled face, so pained and thought back to how defeated he looked when he had told her she could call the police on him without caring for about how it would affect his life. How sorrowful he looked when he turned away from her in shame.
. Izuku seemed to know what he was doing was wrong and seemingly always kept to attack Villains.
Vigilantes didn't kill the people they took down.
Midoriya was taking vigilantism to the extreme, warping its meaning to suit his needs and becoming the villain people saw his as.
She just couldn't wrap her head around it. Her mind flashed back to the nightmare scene. The blood-red eyes, the monstrous tentacles which flew around seemingly uncontrollably. The thick layer of bloodlust which quickly swept through the area.
Why did someone who seemed so good have to be so-
Ochako froze in realization, eyes opening wide. In hindsight, it all made sense... The police had stated that he had only been doing it for the last 11 months... Izuku had once said that he had surgery on his stomach 11 months ago, saying how it affected his stomach sometimes what he ate...
It all made much more sense. Ochako quickly frowned. It also brought more questions. What had happened to him all those months ago...?
With a new, firm determination. She grabbed her bag and marched out of her apartment towards
Ua.
She knew it was a horrifically stupid idea, but she was going to do whatever she could to get that information out of him. whether he liked it or not.
Only after she knew all the facts would she turn him over to the police.
Izuku was extremely surprised when he woke up to the sound of birds tweeting outside his window and not the entire of Japans police force raiding his house in riot gear with every pro-hero in the top ten rankings.
He was even more surprised when he made it the whole way to school without being arrested and sent straight to Tartarus. He felt as if he was still in a dream. Nothing was making sense and he was really confused and somewhat grateful.
Ochako hadn't told the police. That made a small smile form on his face before he frowned harshly.
Why hadn't she told the police, she was a hero-in-training she knew she was meant to report anything which was related to villains which could aid heros in capturing them.
If the heroes found out she knew who he was she would get into serious trouble and could be kicked out of the school or worse even arrested for withholding information about him. As much as he was grateful that she trusted him enough to not tell the police, but it made him feel worse about himself. Why did she have to trust him so much not to go to the police? Did she realize what she was doing or was she denying herself the truth?
Izuku could feel his eyes misting up as he walked into the school building. He didn't understand why. That thought kept replaying in his head as he walked thought the school entrance and made his waytowards his classroom.
Maybe they were waiting for him in class to corner him to try and prevent him from escaping.
Truth be told, if the heroes came to arrest him now, he knew he wouldn't hold up a fight. He knew he deserved all the pain and suffering he got after what he has done.
As he walked through the corridors his thoughts switched to what had happened the night before.
He had accidentally eaten two people... He had never done that before. He had always had control over what he had eaten before but last night was different. He hadn't had control over his own body.
One villain wasn't enough and he had lashed out at the second villain, killing them instantly, before devouring the second.
He didn't understand what was wrong. What was different. Why was he so much more hungry. What had chang-
Izuku paused as he slowly realized what had happened.
His eyes grew wide and his breath started to increase rapidly in speed.
"Well, one for all is a stockpile quirk which increases the power of any quirk which the user has before taking one for all."
He felt sick. Violently sick. Had his amount of food he needed increasing because of one for all? or did it increase because he had used his kagune to its max more than once. Now that he thought about it, using his quirk to its fullest extent twice in one day wasn't a sensible idea. He definitely felt the power increase from last time however the thought of having to eat more people to keep up with his increase in power made him feel horribly stressed and panicked.
luku twisted onto his feet as was about to walk towards the school toilets to have a panic attack in peace when he bumped into someone.
"O-ohh I'm sorr-"
"Midoriya, you really should exercise more spacial awareness in the future. Walking into people like that could cause unsuspecting people harm."
Izuku looked up to see lida waving his arms about in a robotic manner.
"We must continue on and get to class at least 10 minutes early."
Izuku breathed a sigh of relief for the distraction from his inner turmoil and was about to carry on walking to class behind lida when he caught the angry face of Ochako out the corner of his eye making all the guilt sadness and fear rise to the surface again at top speed, almost making him vomit again.
She must have seen through his mask to his inner turmoil as her eyebrows soften the stern look on her face.
The stood staring for each other for what felt like forever when Izuku spoke up with a tremoring voice, trying to hide the sorrow and guilt in his heart.
"Why..?"
"Why what? Shouldn't I be the one asking that?" She replied instantly, with a sharp angry voice making him flinch.
Izuku stayed silent for a moment before looking around the corridor before responding to her retort.
"Why didn't you call them. Why didn't you call the police."
Once again, her answer was instantaneous.
"Because i want answers."
Izuku looked at her in shock before slowly nodding at her in understanding. He watched as she walked off in front of her towards their classroom.
After a few minutes, they made it to the classroom, just in time to hear Kirishima and Mina talking about the most recent villain attack.
"Hey, Midoryia!" Kirishima called out happily with a sunny smile. " Did you hear about that villain attack again last night. The one called the Bloody stain. It attacked in the same place again, Musutafu- Hey? isn't that where you live...?"
As oblivious as he acted, Bakugou Katsuki knew something had more significant had changed in Deku that night when Akuma died. Whatever that something was Bakugou couldn't help but be a little bit curious.
When she died Bakugou couldn't help but pity
Deku. After the accident Deku had sort of shrunk into himself and sort of deflated. He didn't talk about being a hero anymore. He stopped talking to people altogether. The aggravating muttering stopped too.
It got to a point that Bakugou was starting to want him to start muttering about heroes again because of how wrong everything felt.
Another thing Bakugo had noticed about Deku was that he had stopped eating at lunch hat school and had started to isolate himself away from everyone in the library, where he just sat in the back of the room doing nothing but stare into space.
It got to a point that Deku was starting to look more like a dead man walking then human.
He grimaced at the thought, it had all started the day after he had told him to kill himself. Bakugou would deny it if you asked, but when he found out Deku was in the hospital he got extremely concerned. He had even thought that Deku had taken his words to heart and had actually jumped.
He surprised even himself when he realized he was more worried about Deku's well being than getting in trouble for suicide baiting. As much as he disliked the nerd he never really wanted him to actually kill himself.
He vowed to never say what he said to Deku ever again because seeing him walking around so lifelessly made guilt stab at him.
Thankfully, after joining UA (Which he was still pissed about, How the fuck did that bastard manage to grow a quirk out his ass? maybe it really was the near-death experience but he would never know.) Deku seemed to start behaving like his annoying old self again, making friends with round-cheeks and four eyes. Good, it annoyed him more looking at the zombie then the muttering mess of a human being.
However, when he saw Deku, looking like a dead man, walk through the door to their classroom with an extremely angry and pissed of round-cheeks he knew something more serious had gone on.
He just had to figure it out before anyone else did.
The school day proceeded just like it had before as if nothing had happened. Lessons continue on as planned and the only difference was the comforting and helpful speech give by Aizawa in homeroom telling them that if anyone felt like they needed to talk to the school counselor about the incident, they were all more then welcome too, in fact even encouraged.
That and the fact that Izuku could feel 3 burning stares shooting right at the back of his head from where he was sat lifting the hairs up on the back of his neck for the whole day, Which was, for better words, not the least bit worrying or distracting.
He continued on thought out the day with the same mask of happy smiles and bubbly attitude, even if he knew Uraraka was having none of it.
He inwardly sighed, the conversation after school was going to be long.
After school the walk to Midoriyas house was tense. The air between them full of uncertainty.
Yet ochako couldn't care less if she was walking into a trap.
She was angry. She had been treated like a fool and know she was going to get to the bottom of what Izukus quirk was and why the hell the killings had only started in this city 11 months ago.
Over the course of the school day, her mind had constantly been drifting off and thinking about Deku. The more she though about him the more she realized how mysterious he was.
She knew about his scar on his stomach. She knew he had trust issues and now she had been hit with this piece of insane information.
But other then that she felt as if she knew nothing.
Deku had always tried to keep his distance from people in their class. When ochako has first seen him she made it a goal of hers to save the boy who seemed so lost within himself yet so brave and self-sacrificing for everyone else.
Now she wasn't sure if she would do it again if she had the change. Even in the knowledge, she wouldn't find out about his true colors if she didn't.
When they arrived at his house he wordlessly opened the door and left it open as he walked in, not once turning around to look at her.
"My mother won't be home until late, so we don't have to worry about her overhearing our conversation.," he said with a sad voice, his tone had done a full 180 from when they were at school. His mask was perfect, nothing about him seemed out of place.
She assumed this was why no one had caught him yet of gotten his real identity. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.
"Do you want anything to drink or-"
"Why?"
Izuku stopped talking and stared at her.
"I'm the one asking the questions, what happens now in your future rests in my hands so why the hell do you have to be that monster"
Ochako watched him grimace from the other side of the room as she felt her eyes fill up with tears.
The pair remained silent as Midoriya seemed to be contemplating how to answer her questions. They stood facing each other at opposite ends of the room, neither daring to more both in fear and nervousness.
Finally, after a few minutes of thinking, he replied.
"The accident 11 months ago..." He began quietly as his eyes drifted off down to the floor. "The exploding building wasn't the cause of my stomach being destroyed. It was from my friend.
She attacked me with the aim of killing me.
Ochako felt her mouth drop in shock. That was the last thing she had expected. She remained silent and allowed him to carry on with his explanations.
Midoriya stood there and took a deep breath before looking up at her straight into her eyes.
"Up until 11 months ago I was quirkles-"
"What."
Ochakos shocked face morphed into a frown.
"I said I was quirkle-"
"I know what you said, that's not possibl-"
"Uraraka, Please shut it and let me explain myself fully first."
Ochako flinched back at the loud stern voice, a complete switch from the sad tone from only moments before. Midoriya took a deep breath, taking her silence as a sight to continue on.
"Up until 11 months ago, I was quirkless. About a moth before, my friend moved into the apartment next door to here. She told me when we first met that she was quirkless too."
He took a quick Shaky breath before carrying on.
"She lied. She always had a quirk from the start. It was a rare type of quirk. An extremely rare type of quirk which was thought to have been wiped out around the time of the first and second generation of quirk users called a ghoul quirk. This quirk requires the user to eat its body weight in human flesh e-everyday." His voice cracked as his emotions began to slip through his emotional mask.
"She attacked me because she wanted to eat me and tore out part of my stomach in the process. I ran away and got caught in that explosion saving me from her attack. I thought i was safe but I never was... That fucking doctor replaced my stomach with hers! And now I'm Stuck to suffer from the consequences for the rest of my life!"
She watched as his mouth began to salivate and saw tears leak from his previously lifeless eyes.
She didn't realize at the time that he wasn't the only one with tears pouring out of his eyes.
" Never choose for this to happen! Ochako! I NEVER WANTED THIS!" he was heavily breathing through his mouth.
Ochako raised her hands to her mouth and held her face in shock. She felt the tears run down her face as she realized the true depth of his words.
The strong pillar of support and strength she had grown to care for was crumbling away in front of her and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.
She watched motionlessly as Midoriya legs gave way as he crumbled upon himself. Streams to tears continued to pour down his face as sobs broke through his gasping mouth. He took a moment to calm himself enough to carry on speaking thought the sobs and gasps he was spluttering around.
"I can't take it anymore...Always battling with myself and my morals...I've spent my whole life wanting to be a hero but now I'm forced to be the villain I don't want to be to stay alive. I don't want to be a villain and I never wanted to be...never wanted to hurt anyone...
Midoriya took a sharp deep breath in through his nose, sounding like loud sniff, making his out-breath ragged. He was still on the floor staring at the ground. Ochako couldn't See his face but hearing the pain in his voice was enough to bring a new wave of sorrow over her.
"I'm so sick and tired of it all and I don't know what to do anymore. I wanted to force myself to only eat human food but all it does is make me so ill and weak...I can't force myself to not eat human flesh but I'm so scared I might kill someone innocent...I don't even know if I can die from starvation at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't. "
Ochako brought her hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs coming from her mouth. She couldn't believe the walls he had around were so strong but so easy to break to. It brought another sob to her mouth as she sniffed thought her nose at the sight of her hero becoming so vulnerable in front of her.
So human.
"I'm going insane and I don't know what to do. I'm being forced to live in a world where I don't belong"
So terribly human.
"It's like you said I'm a monster... and I'll never be human..
Ochako relaunched her self across the room and latched her self into his tiny fame. Midoriya didn't even notice she was there until she began to speak through her wet cries and sniffles.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry for causing you so much more suffering and pain. your human...! I swear, your human!" She cried guilty.
Ochako held him tightly. Burring her face into his hair. She didn't know what she could do so she chose to try and comfort him the best way she could. Yet a dark voice was nagging in the back of her mind leaving her feeling a horribly sickening in the gut. She knew, however horrible it sounded and however horrible to answer maybe, that she needed to find out the answer no matter the cost if she was to help the vulnerable boy in front of
her.
The voice burning a single question into her skull begging the question.
"Deku... h-have you ever thought about killing your self
She felt him tense in her arms making her stomach drop and her tears pour harder down her face.
He stayed silent for a while before answering.
"Yes... Everyday."
The confirmation was enough to tip her over the edge as she let out an estranged gasping sob, unconsciously pulling the boy tighter Into her grasp.
No words could describe the feeling in the pit of her stomach. Everything had finally felt into place.
The fears. The lies. The self-loathing. The self-sacrifice. The accident. The scar.
At this moment she truly understood how strong Izuku Midoriya was. Mentally and physically.
Through thick and thin he had fought for what he thought was right. To bring justice to those who deserved it. To save those in need.
But no one had been there to save him...
For 11 months he had lived in fear of everyone around him. In fear of the people who were supposed to protect him. In fear of his mother who could be hurt but him unwillingly at any moment. In fear everyone and everything.
Ochako took a deep ragged breath and brought her tears under control, allowing her to see.
"It's going to be ok. You're not alone anymore. We will work this out together because whether you want me to or not I want to help you. I'm going to save you."
Midoriya froze and looked up from where his head was and stared into her eyes in disbelief, a steady stream of tears still pouring out his eyes. Ochako looked down at his face and calmed her nerves enough to bring a wobbly but genuine smile to her
face.
"It's going to be ok.. because I am here...!"
Static filtered through the intercom as the tv screen glowed darkly.
"How have you been following our little subject.
Girl." A dark voice bled through.
The sounds on an innocent's girls giggle replied.
"Well, I knew you said it was someone in my class however I never expected it to be him. I was surprised when kurogiri dropped me with them but You're always full of surprises. Sensei."
The girlish giggle was heard again.
The dark voice paid no attention to the girls' childish antics.
"You must follow him. Become his friend if you must but keep track of his growth and how he uses his quirk in lessons. It's a shame those villains didn't listen closely enough to the orders given out. I guess that's what you can expect from a group of low lying thugs that Shigaraki quickly grabbed together. With that boys quirk fully harnessing he will be unstoppable.
"Of course sensei. However, I have some concerns.'
"Concerns?"
"He was seen by one of our classmates. This could cause problems. Should I eliminate her?"
"No, they are already suspicious of your class.
Killing them will only bring more unnecessary attention to him. For now, leave them be. We'll eliminate them in the future."
"Yes sensei"
The static from the tv stopped at the machine switched its self off.
The girl in the chair opposite slouched back and shifted her fluffy rabbit slippers on her feet onto the seat of the chair before a smirk slithered onto her face.
"Well well, Midoriya Izuku. It seems soon we will be spending lots more time together..
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone