A Tarnished Hero

Chapter 33: Harsh Tidings

The entire clean-up didn't take longer than thirty minutes. By the tail end of things, Izuku was working up a light sweat underneath his armor, while Katsuki was sweating heavily as he looked down on the corpses he had left on his wake.

The ash blond nearly vomited his guts out as the smell of guts, blood, and burnt flesh permeated through the area, Izuku already long used to the disgusting environment whenever a fight was all said and done. Dropping to his knees, Katsuki stared at his trembling hands, fully digesting the fact that he had just killed not one, not two, but multiple people in just a single sitting.

Now wasn't that a shock for Izuku. Here his tormentor was, horrified at the fact that he had just killed people, when in fact, just months ago baited him to commit suicide by jumping off a roof. Quite a change of scenery, if he must say so himself.

Approaching the ash blond, Izuku sheathed his greatsword – after cleaning it from the blood stains, he didn't want the inside of his sheathe to be dirty – and laid a hand on Katsuki's shoulder.

"First time for everything, huh?" Izuku said but didn't get a response from the ash blond. Sighing to himself, Izuku hoisted him up, Katsuki's knees buckling for a moment before he balanced himself. "Don't let it get to you too much. They'll be back in maybe a few days, probably about a week at minimum."

"... What?" Katsuki slowly twisted his neck to face Izuku, mouth hanging slightly ajar.

"Oh, right. I forgot to mention this." Izuku shrugged his shoulders. "Sometime in the distant past, Queen Marika the Eternal separated the Rune of Destined Death and hid it away... somewhere. Because of that, dying became... less of a permanent issue."

"... What the fuck?" Katsuki looked down at the unseeing eyes of one of the Raya Lucaria soldiers, his helmet blown away to who knows where while his brain matter oozed out of the cracked skull. "You mean to tell me that they aren't fucking dead?"

"Yep." Izuku popped the p. "Now come on, we still need to loot the place. Can't let the stuff they pile up go to waste, now can we?"

"Wh- You're gonna fuckin' loot the damn place too!?" Katsuki's voice was raised a few octaves higher. Izuku raised an eyebrow at the outburst, amusement clear on his face.

"Well, yes. They're gonna go to waste, otherwise." Izuku shrugged and grabbed the closest footman, checking his gear to see if they were worth taking or not. Izuku also managed to find some food that the soldiers had for the road. After all, more food is better than not having food. "They may be mentally degraded people, but they still need to eat. They hunt game regularly and restock their supplies by having one of them go back to Stormveil Castle to resupply. Dunno how that will last, but I doubt it'll end anytime soon."

"Plus, I don't care how much you've trained, you only have clothes, and I doubt a flimsy piece of cloth would fare better against the pointy edge of a steel blade."

"And you're just fine with wearing... a fucking dead man's clothing!?" Katsuki gaped, his red eyes trembling within its sockets. Snorting, Izuku pointed towards his current set of armor.

"I'm wearing one right now. It's been with me for months, and I take good care of it." Snuggling into it for good measure, he managed to hear Katsuki gag at the sight. Snickering to himself, Izuku stripped one of the more intact corpses, just leaving the bare essentials so as to not see a dead man in the buff, and tossed it towards Katsuki. "Here, wear this over your clothes. Barely got any blood on it, and is still in fine condition."

"Hell no! I ain't wearing something from a dead man!" Katsuki roared, disgust welling up within him as he stared at the breastplate that landed on the ground, dirt and grime staining its metal surface.