#initiation.arc

1.

Uraraka always looked crestfallen around him. She wore heartbreak on her sleeve. The way he was starting to loathe the way her gaze fell on him grew inside him rapidly, festering under the flutter in his chest as she got close. Being around her felt wrong, no matter how much he tried to fight that feeling, like something in the world had to rip itself open to allow it.

He wondered if she felt the same way. It was hard, trying to force an evil shadow over her visage. She was so sweet. Kind. Almost disgustingly so, reminiscent of a golden jar of honey that the most naive of bees had drowned inside. He hoped she wasn’t destroyed on the inside in the same way, but he wouldn’t have been surprised. They had to of wormed their way in somehow.

His thoughts were wandering. The files were in sight now. He grabbed hold of them, frowning, curious. What could be so important about them...? Why did they have to do this? Why?

Why?

2.

In the dark of the haunted house, he could hardly see the all-too familiar mist of Kurogiri’s power eat up the air as a void opened up against the wall. It made his heart stop to see, a flash of aching sparking up at the familiar sight that he’d dared to miss, all those nights.

The meeting was a brief one, one that made it for too easy to brush the entire incident off. He watched the files get passed off and disappear into the villainous black in front of him. He watched Uraraka nodding, face flushed yet pale, before ducking away into the shadowy hall away from them. He watched the void start to dissipate, then began to turn himself to follow, and then-- felt- a hand- grab onto the back of his collar and yank- a laugh, high-pitched and sharp and-

he watched, as the world around him suddenly disappeared as he was sucked into the black.

3.

His skin itched. Where he’d healed, his skin itched, stitching together until it was a clear canvas once more. Toga’s knife was sharp and quick through the demonstration, blood spilling fast before it was smothered away by new skin.

He felt like a freak, standing there, with all their eyes on him.

He could feel his eyes. And His eyes.

And, eventually, he lifted a hand, having seen enough.

...

4.

A white room.

5.

Bodies.

No.

4.

He was shoved into a white room. A strange room, half of the walls replaced with something glossy and reflective. He could see his own pale face, staring back at him.

He wasn’t alone.

5.

Blood.

No.

4.

This was supposed to teach him a lesson. He couldn’t remember what. It was all too fast, the instructions, the--

There was movement. All along the other side of the room there was movement. 

5.

Monsters.

No.

Childish, so childish.

4.

The room was filled with the gnashing of teeth. Flesh tearing. Blood, splattering onto the floor. It was indescribable. A mass, writhing yet still, gathered in the opposite corner.

He’d never had the misfortune to see one up close, not like this. He’d seen them on the news, read about them in articles, wondered, shuddered at the thought, but never like this--

5.

...

4.

The Noumu were--

5.

...

4.

The Noumu that were still moving were devouring each other. The victors of a struggle, now leisurely chewing and chewing on the defeated souls below them. Monoma shook, staring at them, trembling, feeling all the blood drain and drain from him until he felt cold and weak.

3.

“I want to see... what he can do.”

4.

When he started to scream, it echoed. It alerted them of his presence but he didn’t care, couldn’t care, scrambled back and scrabbled at the walls, clawing and clawing and pleading and begging--

“Don’t do this, don’t, don’t--”

The beasts were misshapen, brain exposed, wet with gore and loud as they started to shift, dull moans falling from them as they started to prowl forward, slow, leisurely, knowing, knowing they’ve won.

His shrieks got louder. “Let me out! Fucking let me out! Shigaraki!!”

5.

...

Someone had to care. Someone had to notice.

...

4.

“Toga!!” he tried. “Kurogiri!!”

Every utterance fell on deaf ears. When the closest approached all the more, he was flailing again, squeezed against the corner and cowering before he was frantically crawling away, just barely dodging slow swipes of big, meaty hands. “No, no, no--”

He was hitting the floor before he even realized. A successful swipe, something had caught to his back, battering it, he could feel that awful itch, healing, he was a freak, he was going to die--

1.

Why?

4.

Dodging felt useless when there was more than one, interested now, hungry, stalking forward. What was left of them started to crowd in like a pack, mouths drooling as they opened, he was trapped- trapped- trapped-

5. 

It seemed crazy. The image was stuck behind his eyelids, squeezed somewhere against his retinas. The way the mirrored walls, now smudged and smeared with bloody streaks of desperate nails, had just - opened. Parting, revealing the audience behind them. A panel had popped open in a way that was almost comical, a hand had reached out, he had just barely grasped it, desperate, needing--

The Noumu had reached him. Touched him. Grabbed him. 

Contact.

And then, suddenly, it was dust.

Suddenly, he’d been overwhelmed.

So many quirks. So much power. It surged through his cells, violently vibrant, making them burn just as white as the walls. It drove everything in his mind to a sharp, icy peak.

It really only took five minutes to get rid of the rest of them. Barely that.

6.

The party. It continued on. He was in a daze, body still sodden and buzzing from leftover adrenaline. More lessons were needed, he’d been promised. He needed more control. He needed more. He needed...

...

Monoma frowned at the floor as he followed. Honestly, he was simultaneously relieved and frustrated at the thought of having to be alone with her at the moment. The nonsense with the League wasn't even in the forefront of his mind, he was still fixated on the complicated mess of emotion they were all stuck in. The fight he'd just left the scene of especially stuck with him. All of it... it was all just so much.

The sound of her heels were... incredibly loud, considering. Glancing up at her, he frowned, unable to keep it all in before they reached whatever destination she was aiming for. "... Uraraka, what is this about?" he asked tiredly, already exhausted. A small groan escaped her at that question. She couldn’t stop it. She had no idea how to answer his question. No idea how to tell him what she needed to tell him, how to try and break it to him easily cause this news would shock anyone; sweet little meek Ochaco working for the villains, if it wasn’t true the idea would be preposterous even to herself. Hell she didn’t even have an idea of where she was going! With that realization she stopped suddenly and spun around to face him. He was closer to her than she had anticipated, and she couldn’t help the blush that came to her cheeks as certain memories flooded her head. She opened her mouth trying to find the right words, but all that came out was, “I don’t know. I don’t know what to say to you, and I don’t know how to tell you what I need to tell you.” The realization that this was the most wholly open and honest she had been with someone in what seemed like ages hit her like a brick, and she could just hear the absolute sincerity in her own voice.

Monoma only gaped at her, blinking rapidly. How exactly was he supposed to respond to something like that...? He only stared at her for a long moment, studying her face, trying to come up with any sort of theory that could possibly explain what was happening.

"Just... don't worry about how... Just say it. Whatever comes into your head," he suggested quietly. "It can't be worse than anything else I've had to deal with this week." She can’t help the laugh that comes forth, it’s more from nerves, but it almost sounds spiteful. She hates it. She hates the way she feels when she’s in situations like this. When she doesn’t know what to do or say. It makes her feels so insignificant, so small and useless, so bad. The exact opposite of how a hero in training should feel. She spends a long moment thinking, racking her brain for anyway she can break this news to him. Any way to make it easier for him. Cause when he speaks to her so softly like that, so different from almost every other time she’s seen him. She can’t help but feel a twisting in her guts. She takes a deep shuddering breath before trying to speak again, “I need to confess something to you... something... big...” Monoma waited patiently in the silence as he watched her fight against her thoughts. It didn't surprise her that she continued to delay the inevitable, though he tried his best to keep his frustration back. "Okay," he replied softly, trying his best to coax the truth from her gently. "Whatever it is... I can handle it." She takes a deep breath, and sighs wishing the words she needed to say were as easy to expel as the air. Then in a voice almost no more than a whisper she lets out, “I know you’re working with the League...” before she can continue she again looses confidence and lets the rest of her sentence die in her mouth. Monoma freezes, thoughts fizzling into nothing. It was a painful thing, having every cell in his body just suddenly stop and squirm in horror. He should have known a day like this would happen, but--

"I..." All the blood leaving his face, he just shakes his head, a hand coming up to clutch at his heart. "I'm- I'm not--" he insists weakly, though he can feel panic rising up fast, trying to find a solution, trying to figure out how he could get out of this situation. He'd do whatever it took- beg her, pay her, hurt her-- She hasn’t been able to look at him through most of this conversation. But she looks up as he begins to stammer, sees the panic and fear in his eyes. Sees the same exact expression that meets her in the mirror from time to time. And her heart breaks. No one should have to feel like that, and she caused this. She rushes forward before she knows what she’s doing, her damn heels once again too loud. She brushes that thought off, right now it doesn’t matter. She grabs Monomas shoulders and forces him to look her in the face. “I’m not going to tell anyone!  Don’t worry. No ones ever going to find out about this, I promise.” She insists desperately.

The it all comes tumbling forth from her lips, everything that has happened with her. It came spilling forth in an almost incomprehensible jumble and she could feel tears spilling from her eyes along with her words. How her family was desperate, how they borrowed money from the wrong people. How she had been approached and just couldn’t say no. How she had been feeding the League information since the beginning. How they paid her for her “work” keeping her family safe from the loan sharks. How she had been lying to everyone she considered a friend. How she tried to stay in the dark as best she could but that she had herd thing; bad thing; things pertaining to him. And then when it was all out in the open her voice finally broke and she couldn’t stop the sobs that wracked her body. She had been bundling up all of this for so long, so alone in all of this that now she finally let everything out in the open she couldn’t figure out how to stop and bottle it back up.

It was a lot. Too much. In an instant it was all too much, but it kept rushing forward, overwhelming him more and more and more, pushing him past shock, damn well past any sort of comprehension at all. He'd lied, when he said he could handle it. He'd been lying about so much for so long.

At some point, Monoma feels his knees go weak with it all. It takes everything he has to not just collapse from the despair that accompanies her story. At some point, he must have stumbled back a bit, because he finds his back against the wall, her hands still gripping onto him hard, keeping him in place. He's so tired. He feels so trapped in this. The knowledge that someone else was held in the same confines as himself... It was too much. It was just... so unfair.

"... I'm sorry..." he finally whispers when her words finally peter off into nothing.  "Fuck... I'm so sorry...." He almost wants to weep for her, for them both, but he's just... too exhausted to. She’s an absolute mess. She knows she is. And his soft apology is more than she can take in this emotionally raw state, it send her into another fit of broken sobs. She collapses into him gripping onto him like a lifeline. And deep down she knows that it’s not fair of her to dump all of this on him. Not fair of her to be so weak. But she is. It’s all she’s ever been. So she searches for any form of comfort she can wring out of him. Her arms slip from his shoulders and clutch desperately at his rumpled shirt as she buries her face into is chest and just continues to cry. She doesn’t know how long they stay like that. Doesn’t know how long it take for her eyes to finally dry up, but it eventually happens. Her breathing finally becomes close to something normal, and even though her whole body feels like it’s about to just slump to the floor she takes a step back from him. She can’t meet his eyes. She can’t even bring her head up to look in his general direction. Rubbing the final dregs of tears from her face she sniffles. “ I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to tell you all of that.” She tells him in a small raw voice. Uraraka pulling away has got to be one of the more painful parts of the night. When she'd been against him- when he was just holding her, curled down enough around so that his head could rest atop hers- It absolutely wasn't any semblance of safety, but it was something. Something to latch onto. Something to pretend, for a moment, that he could keep safe. Something that needed him in the world.

Everything spun in his head, faster and slower, slowing to a stop as she finally tore himself away. The sudden absence of body heat was cold and searing, like skin being ripped away to expose the gory remains to the air, and it took him a second too long to cope with that sudden, strange loss he felt.

"... It's okay," Monoma said again, voice faint and far away. "I... don't mind that you did..." She feels so lost. So naked in front of him; she had just barred all of her darkest truths to him, and now she didn’t know what to do. There was still so much that needed to be said. So much she should have explained better. All of it was swirling around in her mind, like the sea during a storm; powerful, devastating, chaotic, wild. She couldn’t calm her thoughts as they began to jumble together mixing in the worst ways. Compartmentalize and forget. Compartmentalize and forget. Compartmentalize and forget. she tries to focus on her manta, but even that’s not working now. The damn had broken and a single finger plugging up the hole wasn’t going to cut it anymore. His voice is the only thing that breaks through her revive. That soft faint voice that still sounds so foreign with out the acrid bite that it normally holds. That is what brings her back to the here and now. The validation he gives her stabs into her chest and twists suddenly, and if she had anymore tears to shed she was sure they would come again, but she was throughly used up. She was sure she had nothing more left to give. Right? The sudden ache she felt resting near her heart begged to differ. “Thank you.” Is all she whispered in her husk of a voice. It’s not the right words, but there aren’t right words to express her gratitude in this situation. They just don’t exist. Then she begins to feel the weight of the situation they are in again. Specifically the weight of her cellphone resting in her pocket. And she remembers the reason for all of this. She lifts her head to look in his direction, unable to bring herself to make eye contact, but it’s better than nothing she supposes. “There’s more. And again I’m sorry but I need your help with something. I need to get student files and bring copies of them to Toga, and it needs to happen tonight.” Monoma flinches. Just the sound of Toga's name was enough to force his mind deeper into itself, burrowing down where it was still dark and soft and safe from harm. Another task. Another little 'errand'. He'd been hoping, praying, that somehow, by some sort of miracle, that he'd be free of those. It'd been so long since... that had happened...

He nods shortly. His heart (wrong and twisted and wrong) beats fast in his chest as he straightens, frowning as he glances back. Files. Copies. Okay. Easy enough. Okay.

"Okay." Mouth thinning into a line, he looks back towards her, focused now on the task at hand like a switch had clicked his emotions off. "Where can we find them...? We should do it fast, before anyone starts looking for us. I already have people worried about me..." She takes a breath, trying to ground herself. She still can’t look directly at him, but she can hear the change in his demeanor. It’s like his personality had flipped, not to the arrogant ass he could normally be, but to something methodical, efficient and neat. And she feels that ache in her chest again and she can’t understand why. But she brushes this off, she could worry about that later. Now that her breakdown was over they needed to get this done. She needed to get this done. “There in the administration offices. One of the school councilors has everyone’s files. We need a few of the support course students charts.” She tells him her voice blank as she rattles off the information. "I see," he mumbles out shortly, already starting to move the second he heard the location. Moving on autopilot, Monoma takes her hand and starts to lead her to the offices in short, quick strides, wanting to get it all done and over with as fast as possible. Any thoughts on why the League could possibly need that sort of information was immediately pushed away in favor for what was in front of him.

"Hopefully we won't have to sneak in," he says, thinking out loud. "This is a good time to go, though. Everyone's distracted by the carnival.." He paused, thoughts switching gear. "Either through a window or through a vent, that's probably how we'll have to do it." As they begin to walk in the direction of the offices Monoma takes her hand. For some reason this little gesture cause heat to flood to her cheeks, and she prays that he won’t notice. Then her treacherous body that just would not listen to her around this boy decided to squeeze his hand gently in response. She shouldn’t be as embarrassed as she is seeing as she was literally just sobbing in his arms but she can’t help get a little flustered. They eventually made it to the offices and with the use of her quirk successfully got in and finished what they needed to. The whole ordeal was quick and quite and thankfully incident free. They worked well together not even needing to speak to know what the other wanted it seemed. Finally when it was over and they should have parted ways Ochaco couldn’t bring herself to leave him just yet. So she stood there silently a thick tension in the air.

Monoma wasn't looking at her at first. He was almost...upset, and mourning the fact that it was over so fast, now that it was done with. Without a task to devote all his attention to, he was left with nothing but the dark void of his thoughts.

... For a moment, he wonders how the files will get delivered. If Toga was going to come onto the campus in someone else's skin and retrieve them herself, or if Kurogiri was going to appear out of thin air and nab them himself. Silently, he hates the way his body almost craves the sight of them, almost as much as he rejects them. Maybe...

"... Maybe I should help you hand them over," he mumbles out, trying not to fidget. "Or... I don't know. Leaving you alone right now would feel wrong." He smiles sheepishly, nervous. "Maybe you feel the same...? I dunno... I don't mean to assume..." “Yes.” The word flies out of her mouth almost desperately. She very nearly wishes she could grab it and force it back in. It sounds too needy to her, almost like shes begging him not to go. And it hits her, she doesn’t want him to go. She doesn’t want him to leave her yet. Monoma is the only other person who even comes close to being in the same situation as her. He’s the only one who understands. And if she were a better person, if she was stronger she should let him go. But again the realization of just how weak and pathetic she is sucker punches her. She needs him. She had tasted the catharsis of confessing all of her sins and she knew there was no turning back. She knew that she would need to talk to someone about this again. And who else could she talk to but him. She clears her throat trying to gain some semblance of an easy demeanor. She fails miserably. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind the company. I always hate meeting up with them on my own. It would be nice to have you with me.” There's a certain level of relief in hearing that, though it feels a little damning at the same time. He's only allowing himself to be dragged in deeper, though, at the moment, he really can't find the will inside him to mind. For a second, he almost feels like a little kid again, shy, sheepish, wanting to take her hand and lead her off again, like they were going on a fun adventure instead of further down into the grave they've dug into themselves.