RENEGADE [Izuku Midoriya x OC]

Chapter 29 - Broken

Noriko felt numb.

Through and through, from her fingertips to her brain to her toes and everything in between... all numb. All wrong. All unresponsive.

The last thing she remembered was being awoken in the middle of the night by Midnight, who broke into her dorm room to shake her awake, pain and devastation clear on her tragically beautiful face. Noriko followed her teacher blindly, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes as they stumbled through the dorm and out onto campus, speed-walking the five minutes to the main building with Nemuri's trembling hand on her shoulder, manicured nails digging into Nori's skin.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Noriko knew something was wrong.

She realized too late that Nozomi left in the middle of the night...

And never came back.

Her suspicions solidified into real, icy fear when she was led into a room where her parents waited across from Principal Nezu and Recovery Girl. All fell silent at the sound of the door, eyes averting.

Tension compounded as the door clicked shut.

Noriko's mouth went cavernous at the nausea building in her throat. "W-where's Nozomi?" she stammered, "Is... isn't she here with you? What is this?" When no one would meet her hot-teared eyes, Nori rounded on Midnight, and tugged on the sleeve of her silky robe. "Nemuri?"

Tears streamed down her homeroom teacher's cheeks, and Nemuri--despite her best efforts to put on a strong front for her favorite student--sobbed audibly, throwing her hand over her mouth to stifle her own, warranted emotions. She shook her head, eyes falling closed.

The worst options possible jumped to Noriko's mind: expulsion, injury, kidnapping, coma... but not a single cell of her body anticipated or prepared her for the cold words from her mother's mouth.

"Congratulations, you got what you've always wanted, Noriko," her mother sighed, staring at the long-cold mug of tea in her hands, "With Nozomi dead, we'll pay attention to you now. Happy?"

In no universe did any combination of her words make Noriko happy.

Without a word, Noriko raced from the room and into the empty halls.

Because maybe running could erase the truth. Just for a little while.

-

They buried Nozomi's ashes at the Ikeda family plot.

Or, to be more accurate, they planted her tree there.

The cemetery wasn't far from school, and UA allowed a half day for students and faculty to attend the ceremony. Noriko clutched the little pod with Nozomi's ashes and the tree starter to her chest, as if her love could bring her sister back by willing it so.

In some ways, it was a comfort to have so many students and teachers there with Noriko, grieving at her side... but in other ways, it felt invasive and wrong. How dare they cry? How dare they speak of fond memories? How dare they pretend to know Nozomi? To fathom her multifaceted life?

No one was closer to her than Noriko.

And she drowned in agony by just being awake, by breathing without her other half. They'd been together since creation... and now?

Now Noriko faced the horrible world alone.

Mina stood at her side throughout the funeral proceedings, holding Noriko's hand for stability more than anything. And while the warmth was nice--because Nori certainly wouldn't get any comfort or coddling from either of her parents--she really wished that a different hero was holding her hand. One with green curls and a blinding smile...

But then the guilt consumed her once more.

How could she think of Izuku when her sister was gone? When a gaping hole had been punched through her heart? When life as she knew it upended and reverted to something incomprehensible and terrifyingly lonely?

How could she hope for Izuku to prioritize her over the safety of Japan?

How dare she be so selfish.

-

Noriko tried to move on.

She tried to seek answers, happily took up a new, secret job with the Public Safety Commission at Nemuri's behest, and left Izuku a letter that she thought could fill the emptiness in her chest or bring them back together somehow. The end of the school year finished in the blink of an eye, finals blurring beneath Nori's tears.

But she did well enough to get the fuck out of UA and leave it all behind.

She didn't get to keep her promise to Nozomi though. Izuku didn't show up to her graduation. And neither did Mina. Noriko briefly considered kissing Mina, just for Nozomi's sake, if she'd shown up... but it was a non-issue. And only Nozomi would've thought it was funny anyway. So it became a moot point.

Then, just a few months after she graduated, just as she finished her special ops training and prepared to go undercover...

Her mother left a note. And Noriko attended yet another funeral.

Numb to the pain, Noriko didn't cry, much to her father's chagrin. She stood at her mother's grave, at Nozomi's tree, and felt nothing.

And as the crowd of funeral-goers began to dissipate, her father leaned over, never taking his eyes off of a vaguely familiar woman across the way. He hissed in his daughter's ear, "You're on your own, kid."

Standing alone at her sister's grave, Noriko watched as her father walked off, kissing the young woman on the lips before ruffling the hair of the two young children --with auburn hair not dissimilar to Noriko's, Nozomi's, and their father's, own--attached at the woman's hips.

If Noriko could feel anything, it would've been rage.

But she didn't. Couldn't. Instead, she kept this memory, closed her eyes with a deep, shaky breath, and saved the emotion for later. For when she could do something right with it.

Standing alone at her sister's grave, with one hand gently resting on Nozomi's sprouted sapling, Noriko vowed to make her pain mean something. To turn it into her fuel. To make sure that this never happened to anyone else ever again.

To put an end to whoever killed her sister.

Standing alone at her sister's grave, Noriko tucked her morals away.

Because she wouldn't need them where she was about to go.