weary travelers.

SEARING SNOWFLAKES

Tomura Shigaraki is undeniably confused at the sight of the Hero Killer: Stain from the mouth of the alley. Before it fawns on him that he's in Hosu and that Ochako just sent him to his death bed on accident, didn't she?

(Was it even an accident? Did she even care about him― did she think he'd die as a monster on the news? No, she wouldn't, right? Right.

She was so warm when they first met, she didn't blink twice at his skin falling apart― or at his destructive quirk. Maybe—)

What was his life becoming if this was the type of thing he did on the daily?

Whatever, no turning back now. (Think, think, what would Izuku do?)

"Hey! Stop it!" He bites out, Tomura can feel the burn in his mouth—it aches and stings horribly.

The Hero Killer stops and cranes his head to look Tomura in the eyes. They're this awful color Tomura is familiar with—he saw them, once, in the mirror this morning. He was crying, maybe. Tomura isn't an idiot, a lot of death can and will occur if he doesn't keep his quirk in check. So his plan—vague as ever and only forming in bits and scratches—is to scare the hero killer with his quirk. All he needs to do is figure out how to stop Stain from killing him first. Or getting his blood (Izuku's obsession doesn't stop at heroes, it doesn't stop at anything, not really). The alley is too small for anyone to run away, and there is an unconscious hero on the ground, slumped to the ground. Oh, and the hero (Native, if he remembers Izuku's rambles are right in his memory) is bleeding to death.

It's kind of off putting, the way he doesn't feel anything at the sight. Just.. hollow. Like the panic is turned off. Tomura wonders, morbidly, if Native can even think straight.

"Are you a hero, too?" Stain asks. He says it like he's disgusted at the mere thought. It's kind of funny, really.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Tomura heaves out a laugh―without thinking, it's almost scary. Nails on a chalkboard, torn skin and dry eyes, his lips are bloodied and skinned. He grips his stomach and crinkles and tears at his neck. His teeth bare together and he chortles something in gasps and breezes. He can't stop himself, it fills his mind with cotton, he's choking on the trembling of his hands. He feels naked like this, like he's a freak show, but he doesn't care enough to stop. 

(His sister turns to ashes under his fingernails, sure, some hero.)

"Me―you think that―me?" He thinks that, now, he knows what pure, honest, shit-for-giggles horror feels like because Tomura could never be a hero. He is too selfish and too unkind and he's killed, he's killed people. He killed his sister and his mother and his bastard of a father, and his grandparents and his dog. He's killed people and all he's done since then is taken and taken and he's never gave a single thing. Heroes aren't selfish like he is. Heroes aren't fucking broken, like he is.

(He wonders if they'll turn him to ash of bury him in a casket  if they found him, if they knew who he was, like those old American movies Izuku pirates.)

"I'm confused at best and a murderer at worst, Stain. I'm too selfish to become a hero. It's unfortunate, really, how the world turns people inside out. You're selfless, you know? In a fucked up sense! Your ideals are twisted but you want to fix society. God, you would have made a great hero. A better hero than Endeavor and All Might and Best Jeanist. You also suck, though—so maybe not." His voice is bordering on giddy. The high pitch in his voice won't go away, maybe it's—well, he can't put a word to it. He doesn't really want to, because then it'll come from his mouth, spill out from the sides of his ears and leak from his eyes and nose—

Izuku was quiet when he was scared, mumbling apologies and pleas of mercy, his eyes were so carefully empty, he tried to hide. Tomura thinks it has something to do with the burn on his elbow and the secret he's hiding from everyone. It makes him sick.

"Heroes are corrupt―" Stain begins.

"Everything is corrupt!" Tomura hisses, he can taste something in his mouth. He holds it down, if  it came up, he'd have to put a name to it. "Welcome to Japan! This place sucks―you want freedom and liberty? Move to fucking—I don't know! Poland outlawed heroes! Switzerland is pretty fucking loose with quirk laws! You're making shit worse, instead of ducking saving people from natural disasters, heroes are over here trying to catch your ass!"  

Izuku Midoriya is kind and careful and he gives and gives and he gives. He asks for nothing and takes nothing when it's offered because he is so horribly selfless that it will kill him. Tomura hates that even someone as kind and careful and quiet as Izuku can have scars marring his skin. It isn't accidental, someone gave him those scars (they are starburst and explosions that lay patterned on his flesh, eating away at him until he is as much patchwork as Dabi), and Tomura knows that its real name isn't Kacchan. He is scared to ask Izuku, though. He doesn't want to trigger a panic attack like that time in the rain when he asked why Izuku's hands were covered in burn scars and eyes glossed with fear.

Izuku Midoriya is a hero, he is better than anyone of the pros on billboard signs and T.V. stands. Because Izuku saves the people the heroes don't know are hurting. 

(He is a saint in the body of a sinner, he's changing everyone around him, saving the ones at the bottom because he would never reach the top himself. He's setting himself on fire to keep the village that threw him out warm. He's too much, he's too kind, too little, too weak—but that's why they love him. Because he saved them all.)

"The world will always suffer from corruption, you destroyed this kid's brother's livelihood! No shit he was going after you!"

"You speak like you know pain," The Hero Killer snarls. "careful with that."

Tomura looks at him side eyed and crazed. He can feel his pupil thinning, can feel the skin f his lips ripping crudely.

"I watched my family die at my own hand," He looks down. He needs a fucking plan, stalling isn't going to last long. "and a boy with the saddest fucking eyes I've seen to date saved me. He was my hero—if he can do that, what gives you the right to make the world worse instead of better.."

Tomura seethes, outstretching a hand of hope to the murderer. He wonders if this is how Sensei felt, holding him all those years ago. Watching him destroy himself—Tomura wonders: was it funny?

Then—then.

Then, he blinks.

The Hero Killer is gone, he is soot and stained to the wall. Tomura doesn't know why his face is wet now. There is ash in his nose and blood on his hands, he wants to go home.

(That woman is our grandmother, Tenko.)

He thinks Izuku would be disappointed in him, he said he'd never kill again.

(He didn't want to, it made his face it and his eyes burn. It made his head spin and his chills start from his toes to his head in the worst way possible. Fuck, he hates crying.)

_

Himiko stares at the clouds―it smells so warm there. Like copper and coin.

A hero is dead, and Himiko is so, so hungry.