-Rain of Sins-
-Shifting Winds: Ch 4-
“News breaks today from Tokyo central hospital, that the former pro Hero Enji Todoroki has passed away this morning. His wounds from his fight with the Sovereign were extensive, and even if he had survived them, they would have left him crippled for the rest of his life. But what finally did him in was an infection of flesh eating bacteria that slowly consumed his heart from the inside out. The unknown bacteria seemed to be artificial in origin, it was complexity immune to all medicines and antibacterial treatments, and is assumed to be one last work of cruelty by the aptly named Sovereign of Sin, who seems to deserve his title now more than ever.
Moving on to more important news-“
-Rain of Sins-
“Hello Ochako. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”
The gravity girl didn’t even realize that she had been instinctively backing away until her back pressed firmly against her wall.
“Wh-Who are you?”
“What? You don’t recognize your friend? Oh how you wound me so.” The man who had somehow gotten past all of UA security to enter her room without anyone noticing laughed. “Then again, I suppose I was wearing that dreadfully suffocating mask the last time we talked, so I’m willing to forgive you somewhat for not recognizing me.”
“Y-You’re the email man.” She whispered in horrible realization.
“Yes. The Email man.” All for One chuckled in amusement. “You might be surprised to find out that I’ve done far more things than just send emails. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten-”
He snapped his fingers, and power danced across his fingertips. Red lightning blended with fire, and swirled with solidified shadows,
“-where it was you got your new quirks from.”
“What are you?” Ochako whispered without thinking.
“Moving from who to what? Do you not believe me to be human?”
Instinctively Ochako wanted to shake her head in dismissal of that idea. Of course he had to be human, what else could he possibly be? But something… Something pricked at the back of her mind. Everything about this man just screamed WRONG.
Ochako frowned at him, causing All for One to grin wolfishly.
“Well, well, you can learn. I’m impressed enough to answer your question. To put it simply I was born human, but don’t think of myself as such anymore. Once you reach the level I’m at, the term human… It just doesn’t quite fit.”
Ochako nodded, only half listening. Her mind was spinning, still trying to figure out how he’d gotten past all of UA security, and process what was happening past the fight or flight instincts screaming at her.
“What do you want?”
“Everything.” All for One answered without missing a beat. “But what I want from you… at the moment I find myself lacking competent help.”
All for One frowned as genuine annoyance bubbles up inside of him.
“Shigaraki failed quite spectacularly, and lost not only the entire league of Villains, but the decade of effort I spent molding him. Meanwhile Midoriya has been working to turn a large section of my shadow empire against me.”
He sighed dramatically.
“That just goes to show the problem I face: too much intelligence, too little intelligence, too much independence, too little independence, if a pawn drifts too far either way on either scale they eventually wind up falling off the board one way or another. Shigaraki got himself taken out of play, while Midoriya’s about to walk into a trap that will make a permanent example out of him.”
Ochako bit back a whimper, as she realized just how fundamentally screwed she was.
This man had just offhandedly revealed that the League of Villains had been under his strings, and that he had others besides them. And he’d done it as casually as if he was telling her what kind of coffee he had gotten that morning.
“I won’t do it. I-I’m a Hero, I won’t be your minion.”
“Luckily for you, a minion isn’t what I want, I’ve had too many of those fail me. I want a puppet, someone who will do exactly what I say, and doesn’t have the leverage to do anything without me.”
All for One took a single step forward and caused Ochako to scramble backwards, pressing herself up against the wall.
“I can’t! I-I’m just an informant! I’m not a Villain!”
“Ochako, Ochako, I thought you were learning.” All for One shook his head in wry amusement. “You don’t have a choice anymore.”
“You always have a choice.” She said through grit teeth. “Saying you don’t just means you're too afraid to admit the bad options exist.”
All for One smirked at her in a way that made her skin crawl and gave her the feeling he knew something important she didn’t.
“Alright then, I’ll humor you. What do you think your ‘bad options’ are?”
“That I don’t listen to you, I don’t betray my friends, and I- '' Ochako took a shaky breath and held up her fists. “And I have to face your wrath.”
“The direct consequence of those actions is that someone, somewhere along the law enforcement chain of command, will make a sudden discovery about where those funds in your parents’ bank account came from, which would put them away for a very very long time. And considering their age, I doubt you’ll ever see them outside of bars until the day you attend their funeral.”
Ochako’s breath hitched, and she froze on the spot. “No.”
“But it doesn’t have to be like that. Choose to serve me willingly, with loyalty, and I will reward you generously.” He waved his left hands, and golden coins fell from his fingers. “More money.” He waved his left, and flames gathered in his palm. “More quirks.” Ochako blinked and he was suddenly behind her, whispering into her ear. “More power!”
Ochako spun around, but only found a barren wall, he was gone, back to his spot against her window.
“But- But my friends, I can’t-”
“You already betrayed your friends. You’re just in denial. You sold them out when I offered you a couple pennies, and you did it again without hesitation when I offered you more quirks. Honestly I’m not sure why you’re making such a big deal over this now.”
“...”
“Join me and you will know more than you could imagine in your wildest dreams.”
“...And my parents will be taken care of? Even if something happens to me?”
“I’ll treat them with as much care as I did my own family.” The villain said with complete and utter honesty.
“Fine…” Ochako spat. “I’ll do it.”
“I’ll give you a pass since you’re new, but that’s no way to speak to your new boss.”
“I’ll do it, Sir.”
All for One mentally rolled his eyes, he had been going for “master”, but he could work towards that later- the girl quite literally needed his patronage to avoid an early death, even if she didn’t know it yet. She wouldn’t just serve, she would kneel. She would beg. She had no other choice.
But before he could say some backhanded compliment that would go over her head, his danger sense quirk activated, and alarm bells went off in the back of his mind. He turned to look out the window, dropping his fake smile as he did so.
There, beyond the metal fence surrounding UA, was a small girl with a head of green hair. At this distance, it should have been impossible for any normal human without quirk assisted vision to see him with any clarity, even putting aside the tinted windows to the dorm room.
Golden eyes of molten stars locked gazes with crimson eyes of hellish brimstone, and they saw one another.
The girl panicked and pulled her hood further down over her head as she ran off, quickly disappearing from sight.
All for One watched her go with a frown.
“Is something out there?”
“Something dangerous and new. Which is a very rare combination these days.”
“Sir?”
“...It’s nothing.”
‘Just what has Midoriya been up to?’
-Rain of Sins-
There was a flash of a camera, a SNIP as a comically large pair of scissors cut through a ribbon that was barring a door, and applause from the crowd as the first Kronos treatment facility opened in Korea.
Izuku did his part, smiling at the cameras as he shook hands with the Korean Prime Minister.
The Koreans’ hadn’t been lying, they really were willing to do anything to get him to set up in their country. Compared to the USA, where even getting the technology approved for human trials was taking the better part of a month, even with the President pushing it along, this was a
The Prime Minister was throwing literally anything he wanted at his feet, and got congress’ approval to let him bypass any red tape he encountered.
The first Kronos treatment facility, offering to sell artificial quirks, was up and running less than a week after he first arrived. It was built on the husk of an abandoned hospital that had been renovated by the state and given to him for free- all he’d had to do was wheel in his equipment.
In the future, Kronos treatment facilities would be custom built from the ground up, for maximum capacity and efficiency, but the first ones didn’t need to be pretty, they just needed to work and be running as soon as possible.
The American President was there as well. Mr Rosevelt was talking to every person of importance, stopping for interviews with the press, and being as visible as possible. This might not be America, but this was the technology he had staked the future of his political legacy on, he had every incentive to help it go as smoothly as possible.
Izuku was somewhat impressed, he didn’t know much about American politics, but he was aware of how much of a mess it had been since the quirk collapse. It was a common joke that if Japan ever fell, the US wouldn’t ever be able to help because of how much of a bureaucratic nightmare it was, and by the time they did do anything, the crisis would have been resolved years ago.
Now that he knew what he did, Izuku could easily picture it: All for One making a play for power, toppling the Japanese government, and the only person across the ocean who would come to help is Star and Stripe, because she’s the only one not being strangled to death by a labyrinth of endless paper walls.
He appreciated that Frank was doing something to try to break out of that, but he doubted it would last for long. Nothing good ever did, nowadays.
-Rain of Sins-
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
A man walked through Copper Street alone, broken glass and the crumbling concrete of the road crunched under his shoes with every step. He had a thick jacket on, with the hood pulled down low to hide from the light drizzle of rain that fell from above.
As he walked through the desolate streets, a bitter taste rose in his throat, the atmosphere of the place… it was almost like a kind of poisonous nostalgia, a haunting malaise of the past. And the rain wasn’t doing it any favors.
The sky above was a dismal gray, heavy with clouds that seemed to press down on the decaying landscape. The buildings, once proud and bustling, now stood like hollowed-out shells, their facades crumbling, and their windows either shattered or boarded up with rotting planks. All the shops were long abandoned, their signs faded and peeling. The names of the businesses could hardly be read anymore: the names had died along with the spirit of this place.
Each step echoed off the cracked pavement, a lonely sound in a town that had been forgotten, left to rust and rot.
Neglected.
Abandoned.
It was like walking through a graveyard, where the dead were not people but dreams and hopes, buried beneath layers of neglect and time. He had never known this place, never seen what it had once been, but even still he could feel the weight of it all pressing down on him, a gnawing sense of loss mixed with a simmering anger at what had been allowed to decay.
“Hold it! Not a step closer!”
The man came to a stop in front of an old warehouse. Two scruffy looking men guarded the door. Around their necks were red scarves.
That was all some people had left in the world. Anger. Anger at the decay. Anger at themselves for failing to stop it. Anger at others for failing to even try. Anger at the rot. Anger at what society had become.
Slowly the man reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing a head of ashy blond hair, and a pair of piercing red eyes.
“I’ve got business here.” Bakugo called out, thumbing the ragged red scarf around his neck that he’d bought the day before. “I’ve got some grudges with some Heroes.”
“Do you think we’re stupid? You were on national TV, everyone knows your face, kid.” The Blood Guard member sneered. “You’re that brat from the UA sports festival! There’s no way we’re letting a hero school brat into our hideout!”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“I got kicked out of UA. They said I wasn’t Hero material.” Bakugo shrugged. “Honestly, after seeing what Endeavor did, I’m glad to not be considered Hero material to those fuckers.”
This caused the two guards to relax slightly, glancing at each other with raised eyebrows.
“You said you had a grudge. Is it with Endeavor? Do you dislike the guy?”
Bakugo barked out a hollow and painfully dry laugh.
“Dislike him? That bastard murdered my aunt.” He glared at the guards, and they saw a kindred soul of regret and anger in his eyes. “I fucking hate him.”
-Rain of Sins-
“Just tell them you hate Endeavor and they’ll welcome you with open arms.”
That had been Izuku’s advice for dealing with the Blood Guard, and Bakugo was honestly kind of annoyed with how well it had worked.
He had expected to have to rough up a few people, and maybe get his hands dirty in a brawl or two to prove he was serious to them. He’d fully prepared to have eyes on the back of his head at all times, and knives hidden behind every corner in case he turned on them.
Instead he was being paraded down the hallways as “proof of the cause” or something. Here was the Hero student who, despite being near the top of his class, saw the system was corrupt and left UA to join us!
Never mind the fact that wasn’t what had happened, or even what he told them had happened, they had decided to run with it anyway. But then again, people always loved whatever fit their narrative, so maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that this happened.
Bakugo was dragged further into the base, with every person he passed by wearing a red scarf and having a bladed weapon of some sort, even if it didn’t pair well with their quirk. Eventually he entered the main room, where a Lizard mutant was running combat drills with other members.
“Hey, Captain! Check out the new recruit!”
Spinner turned to look at them, and Bakugo was pushed in front of him.
“It’s the guy from the sports festival! This guy used to be a top student at UA, right? But then Endeavor murdered his aunt, and he dropped out to come join us!”
The mutant raised an eyebrow at Bakugo, sizing him up.
“A UA student realized the truth of Stain? That’s hard to believe.”
A blade pressed against Bakugo’s throat.
“How do we know he’s not a spy for the corrupt Heroes?”
Bakugo shrugged, looking oddly uncensored for someone with a sword at his neck.
“I always wanted to be a Hero, but when I finally clawed my way there, I realized I didn’t fit. I realized I wasn’t cut out to be a Hero. I looked back at myself and realized I couldn’t live up to All Might’s example. He’s All Might, and I’m a fucking screw up. But if I can do some fucking good to make up for what I’ve done, then I can live with that. Trust me, I’m not with them, I don’t fucking deserve to be.”
Spinner hadn’t been expecting such a brutally honest response, and was taken aback.
“...You said Endeavor killed a family member?”
“He did. She wasn’t related to me by blood, but she was too kind for her own good and always treated me like I was her nephew, even though I was an absolute bastard.”
“Do you hate Endeavor?”
Bakugo didn’t have to fake the guttural growl, or the venom in his voice as he answered.
“If I had been there when it happened, only All Might could have stopped me from ripping that mother fucker’s head off.”
Spinner watched him for a long while before nodding in approval.
“Anyone with a grudge against corrupt Heroes, no matter how few, is a friend of mine.” He said as he pulled off one of the several swords he had on his belt, and offered it to Bakugo.
“Thanks but swords aren’t my style.” Bakugo passed, pushing the hilt away.
“It’s not about style!” Spinner snapped. “It’s about the message. It’s like the scarves, it’s our sign, our mark! It’s proof that our attacks are all connected, that we are a united group, a united message! We have to do this so that they can’t just sweep our work under the rug, and downplay our cause.”
Bakugo had several things he wanted to say to that, but before he could inadvertently get himself into a fight, a wave of hushed silence fell upon the room.
Slowly the crowd parted, reverent whispers under their breath, as Stain himself entered the warehouse.
He was covered in splatters of blood, and flanked on both sides by Blood Guard members who were covered from head to toe in the same blackish red armor that Izuku had supplied to Stain, Spinner, and Toga, for their assault during the coronation.
“Sensei, where have you been?” One of the, presumably, higher ranking members asked. “You said you would be back days ago, you didn’t take the proper amount of supplies if you were going to be gone this long, and the recruits were beginning to get wor-”
“I was hunting.” Stain said as he dropped the baby blue helmet he had been holding in his left hand.
The bloody piece of support gear clattered to the ground, and rolled towards the middle of the room, where everyone could see it. The glass visor had been cracked from where a blade had pierced through it, and there was a hole in the metal where it punctured through the other end. The inside was stained with fresh blood that slowly seeped out and pooled on the cold ground below.
Bakugo felt like he was going to be sick.
“The rot was pruned. That is all that matters. Schedules, sleep, food, all of that is secondary, if it means more of the corruption can be cleaned out sooner.”
“Of course, Sensei.” The momeber bowed. “Forgive me for questioning you.”
Spinner pushed his way through the crowd and into the clearing that had formed around Stain.
“Sensei, please! Allow me to lead hunts of my own! Nothing brings me more joy than being allowed to fight side by side with you, but we could prune so much more of the rot if we had two hunting parties working at the same time!”
Stain eyed Spinner coldly.
“You think you’re ready?”
“Of course!”
“Prove it.”
“H-Huh?”
Spinner was taken aback as Stain drew his sword and pointed it at him.
“I am tired from a lack of sleep, injured from fighting several Heroes back to back, and you have learned my fighting style. Prove yourself to me.”
Spinner's eyes narrowed and he drew his sword from its sheath.
“As you wish, Sensei.”
If he was honest, Bakugo could have taken Spinner in a fair fight- the display of swardsmanship put on for the awed crowd proved that the mutant was skilled, but not skilled enough to overcome the raw power Bakugo could output.
But Stain... Stain was a different story.
Bakugo had seen Villains before, he’d even fought Villains before, but he had never really understood what that word meant.
The nomu at the USJ had been scary and overwhelming, but it had been a mad beast. The League of Villains had been dangerous, but that had been because of numbers and their near suicidal willingness to throw themselves into any fight they could. Izuku was the most wanted Villain in Japan, but he was Izuku, and still was trying to help people in his own way. The shadow king Izuku described was a terrifying prospect, but it had just been words, a picture painted in his head that he still couldn't fully believe actually existed.
But as Bakugo watched Stain step into combat, he understood what a Villain was.
THIS was the shadow that lurked beneath Japan. THIS was the threat that professional Heroes trained their entire lives to face. THIS was what the government was willing to pay billions of dollars to Heroes to keep safe from. THIS was what took All Might himself becoming the symbol of peace to push back.
This was a Villain. This was a monster.
Spinner clearly knew Stain’s fighting style, had been trained by him, if he was to be believed. He knew what Stain would do, knew what attacks were coming. He moved to block, he moved to parry, he moved to dodge. But he just couldn’t.
With years of experience hunting pro Heroes, and the mechanical exoskeleton from the Sovereign's lab to push him even further, Stain was a blitzing whirlwind of red death.
Spinner was pushed back and shredded apart, cut up and turned into a bleeding mess, but the brutality and how hopeless Spinner was, wasn’t the worst part. No. The worst part was when Stain’s sword would flick out, disappearing with its speed, only to a full stop a hair's breadth from a vital organ or an artery.
It was how many times Stain could have easily killed him, but simply chose not to, just to prove a point.
Spinner’s defeat was systematic. It was methodical. It was brutal.
Without even trying Stain took him apart, piece by piece, and put him into the ground.
“Passable.” Stain scoffed, like he didn’t want to even give that much. “Your form is still sloppy and slow, but you should be able to hold your own against lower ranked Heroes.”
“Thank you Master!” Spinner panted as he knelt on one knee, barely able to keep himself upright. “I live to serve.”
“You live to fight. Not to serve me. Remember that. That goes for all of you!” Stain shouted as his eyes swept over the room, before settling on Bakugo. “No matter your reasons, if you are here, you are here to fight against the corruption, against the rot!”
“Do- Does that mean I have your blessing to start my own hunts now?”
“Did you not hear me?” Stain glared down at Spinner with an ice cold gaze. “You are here to fight. So fight.”
“Y-Yes Sensei!” Spinner coughed up blood as he forced himself to his feet. “I will fight. I will become a warrior of justice so strong that you can be proud of me. SO HELP ME REACH THOSE LIMITS! RAAAAAH!”
Spinner once again charged Stain, and Bakugo shut up, watched, and learned.
-Rain of Sins-
Eve was asleep. She knew she was asleep because she remembered tossing and turning in a stolen sleeping bag, and wondering how the squirrels could possibly find a comfortable position in forest trees like the one she was hiding in.
Another clue that she was asleep was that the room she was in was wrong. The corners didn’t match, the dimensions were all incorrect, and it was completely lit despite not having any proper lighting.
“So that would make this a dream, right?” Eve mused as she looked around. She was disappointed. She had expected something good enough to be put right next to “hopes” in pop culture titles, to be a more riveting experience.
“You’re not dreaming.” A voice spoke behind her, causing Eve to jump and spin around.
There was a man in a dark coat staring out into the staticy nothingness beyond the room’s window.
“I don’t understand the science behind dreaming, and I can’t even begin to guess what would cause the human mind to vividly hallucinate when it should be in the biological equivalent of a power saving mode. So I wouldn’t even know how to force one, if I wanted to. It’s something I want to research and understand more one day, but that list is very long, and my time is very limited.”
He turned around to look at her, revealing a pair of glowing green eyes, and mossy green hair that was only a few shades darker than her own.
Eve had never seen him before, but something about him seemed familiar, and that scared her. She hastily ran his face through her memory banks, but for once the computer in her head was silent, void of any dry trivia to give her.
“Hello EV3. This meeting is long overdue.”
“Where are we? Where have you taken me!?”
“I haven’t moved you at all, you’re still in the same place you fell asleep in. This is just a very jury solution to our inability to locate you. Your mind is still connected to my lab’s network, and information can be sent freely from us to you. Originally the implants’ purpose was to allow others to control your body like a puppet, but it can’t exactly do that now that you have the mental capacity to resist those orders.”
“Are you trying to take control of me? Is that what your plan is? I won’t let you!”
“That’s not what I’m doing at all, and not just because it would be impossible at this point. As I said, it was never designed to operate in the mind of something alive. It’s impressive that the data transfer function works well enough to hold a conversation, even with the extreme amount of surplus data pushing back from your end.”
Eve’s power gathered in her hands as she stared down the man. She didn’t know how well they would work, considering this was all apparently in her head, but maybe she could force him out if she blasted him hard enough.
“You know who I am, so I’m assuming you’re with the lab. Who are you?” She aimed her hand at him. “If I don’t like the answer, then, uh, th-then you’ll regret it!”
The man hesitated for a moment, before bending his arm and giving a slight bow.
“My name is Izuku Midoriya. I’m your creator. Your designer. It’s my DNA that formed the net that holds your quirk in place in your genetic code.”
“Your DNA?” The energy in her hands faded as she looked at him in shock. “Does that mean you’re my father?”
Izuku blinked at that, and had to take a moment for his mind to process what she’d said. She could see the moment the gears clicked into place, and he was taken aback, caught completely off guard. His professional act quickly fell apart, as he began panicking, waving his arms at her frantically.
“No! None of that! Do not call me that!”
“What? Father?”
“Don’t!”
“Dad?”
“STOP!”
“But you said you used your DNA to help create me.” Eve pressed. “That would imply a genetic link, and since I’m clearly not a clone that means-”
“I don’t care what you think it means! You’re not my daughter, you can’t be!” Izuku snapped at her, almost sounding scared.
“You may look human on the surface, but that is the only thing human about you. Your organs are different, the layout of your insides are different, the composition of the blood that pumps through your veins would be toxic to a normal person, and I surely don’t need to tell you how much machinery you have inside you. You’re only in the shape you are, because it was supposed to make it easier for someone else to pilot your body.”
He shook his head, and unconsciously wrung his hands together.
“You can’t be my daughter. You can’t be. I don’t have any family anymore.”
Eve scowled, as she felt irritation well up inside her.
“Then what am I to you? Huh? Just some animal for you to poke with needles and pull apart at your leisure? Do you have any idea how painful it was in that tube? I had needles and tubes jabbed into me, a pipe directly down my throat, and that’s not mentioning all the times I was cut open and had people mess around inside me, without any sort of numbing medication!”
Izuku wilted under her words, and couldn’t keep eye contact with her.
“…you were never supposed to feel pain or suffer at all.”
Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
“Earlier I said you were supposed to be a puppet, and I meant that completely literally. You were never supposed to even be truly alive, let alone intelligent. Being fully sentient… What happened with you was supposed to be impossible. The brain procedure was supposed to be one of the very first steps, taken before the brain had even finished forming. Project Ev3 was never supposed to be alive, never supposed to be a living thing. Ujiko was the one who swapped the order of the steps because all the attempts kept dying. The possibility that you would develop to be conscious was never taken into account because it shouldn’t have been able to happen.”
Izuku’s hands flexed, but there was nothing for him to fidget with.
“If I had known… If I had known…”
“You didn’t know? That’s your excuse?” Eve’s teeth grit together, and despite the fact she was only a third of Izuku’s height, she felt like she was twice his size as near unlimited power bubbled beneath her skin.
“IS THAT SOMEHOW SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER!? I WAS BORN TRAPPED IN A TANK, AND THEN SCHEDULED TO HAVE MY HEAD CUT OPEN AND MY MIND RIPPED APART WHILE I WAS STILL AWAKE!”
The glow in Eve’s eyes intensified, and electric sparks danced in her hair.
“MY OWN FATHER MADE ME, JUST TO ISOLATE ME IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, SUFFER THROUGH DOZENS OF SURGERIES, AND THEN DIE WITHOUT EVER SEEING ANYTHING BEYOND THE LIFELESS METAL WALLS OF HIS LAB!”
“I told you, I’m not-“
“WHAT ELSE ARE YOU!?”
Eve’s wings flared out in anger, and the room around them was ripped apart, with all the pieces dissolving as they flew off into the void.
Izuku stumbled, nearly losing his footing, and in that moment his mask slipped. The mask he had been so painstakingly holding together ever since he had fallen so completely out of his depth, and dragged beneath the waves of the underworld.
Izuku Midoriya was a brilliant mind, and a terrifying opponent, capable of making horribly beautiful creations of unparalleled destruction. But he was also just a young man who had never fully healed from losing his mother, had nearly died several times over, and was slowly breaking apart under the stress of trying to stand against All for One.
Eve saw in her father’s eyes someone who was exhausted from working himself ragged, who was just as overwhelmed by the situation as she was, who was terrified at what he had made, and who was horrified at the truly evil fate he had almost done without even realizing.
And he was afraid of her.
Hesitantly, she tried to take a step towards him, but froze as he flinched away from her.
“F-Father? Are you alright?”
She spoke softly, soothingly, but her words had the exact opposite effect that she intended, and only served to push him even further towards the edge. But just before it seemed he might snap, Izuku took a shuddering breath, and an icy glaze frosted over his eyes, forcefully strangling his out of control emotions.
Eve stepped back, suddenly worried she might have pushed him too far.
“It’s clear you’re not emotionally stable enough to hold a logical and coherent conversation that stays on topic. I should have been able to infer as much.”
“No, no, I’m stable, see?” Eve raised her small arms in a surrender gesture, but Izuku wasn’t listening to her. He wasn’t even talking to her anymore, as he gazed off into nothingness and muttered to himself.
“I should have known you wouldn’t be stable yet. Just another mistake of mine, to add to the list. I’ll catalog the variables and adapt accordingly. The situation is devolving out of control, the logical action is to fall back and reestablish communication once the subject has calmed down, and to use someone else to engage in discussion. I was a fool to use myself, I’m too emotionally compromised.”
The dream began to fall apart as the communication cut off, and Izuku started flickering in and out of existence.
“Father, wait!”
Eve rushed forwards, her arms outstretched, but it was too late.
“PAPA!”
She jolted upright in the tree she had been sleeping in, ripping apart her sleeping bag in the violent motion. Her halo was spinning erratically, and golding tears streamed down her face, catching leaves on fire as they fell.
Eve had been offered an olive branch, had a chance to talk face to face with her creator- to talk with her father, and she’d blown it.
-End Chapter-