Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chapter One: Those Eyes

"Is there anyone who hasn’t already been ruined? It’s the untouched corruption of a soul that frightens me the most."
—Osamu Dazai, Shayo

The moment Katsuki laid eyes on the man, he should’ve turned around and walked right back out through that old iron door. He should’ve left and never returned. But just like an insect caught in the gravity of a flame, he couldn't pull himself away.

Later, when he thought back on that day, he realized it wouldn't have been that hard to run—but then he’d remember those eyes, and that’s when he knew: from the very first second, he had already been doomed. Those large, green eyes, seemingly innocent yet possessed by sin. Like a green pool in the middle of a desert—you could never tell what creature lurked in its depths.

He remembered that day clearly. He thought about it almost daily, as if his mind had nothing else to occupy itself with. And honestly, lately, it didn’t.

It was Sunday, October 29, 2023. Halloween was near, and Saint Diego Psychiatric Hospital, like every year, had done little to celebrate beyond placing a single pumpkin at the entrance. Not that the lunatics and psychopaths needed Halloween. Who in their right mind would bother doing something festive for them?

Katsuki was sitting in the visitation room, trying to occupy himself with files he'd already read hundreds of times. His glasses had slipped slightly down his nose; he nudged them back up with the end of his black pen, eyes scanning the lines highlighted in red ink.

…Patient shows signs of narcissistic personality disorder...
…Impaled the neighbor’s cat alive...
…Eight years of chronic enuresis and related symptoms...
…Brain scans have revealed...
…Head trauma at age five, followed by…
…Episodes of temporary unconsciousness and short-term memory loss...
…Lack of demonstrated empathy...
…Detailed knowledge of human anatomy...
…IQ estimated at 170...
…Exceptional mathematical problem-solving skills...
…Innate musical talent...
…Diagnosed in the final stages of ASPD. Subject may be classified as a psychopath...

The blond man adjusted his glasses again just as the sound of the creaking, in-need-of-oil door echoed through the quiet visitation room. He quickly stuffed the papers beneath a gray folder, its surface worn from being handled too many times.

Soon came the clinking of chains from the other side—and then, he entered.

The man who had haunted Katsuki’s waking and sleeping thoughts for weeks. The man he would finally meet face-to-face. The man who, after this day, would change everything inside Katsuki forever.

There he was. Dressed in clean, gray loungewear. His curly hair was carefully arranged, and his large, green eyes—like two magical orbs—locked onto Katsuki’s with unblinking intensity. And oh... Katsuki should’ve run the moment he saw those eyes. It was obvious that something terrifying hid behind those long green streaks. He didn’t even need to speak—those eyes alone could seduce anyone.

His puffy, pink lips stretched into a smile just seconds after seeing Katsuki, and it sent shivers down the blond man’s spine. He looked at him like he’d already read him cover to cover—and found him as simple and laughable as a children’s book.

Katsuki snapped out of it, realizing they had been staring at each other for too long, each analyzing the other down to the last detail. The two guards—clearly assigned solely to this individual—escorted the curly-haired man to the metal table in the center of the room, right where Katsuki was standing. They locked his chains to a fixture on the table, positioned so he couldn't harm Katsuki, gave a curt nod, and exited, locking the door behind them.

Katsuki watched them leave before turning to finally sit across from Izuku. The man was gazing out the small window, where light poured generously over the table and a willow tree swayed its long branches in the breeze, occasionally tapping the reinforced glass.

"I'm glad they gave us this room. I like it," Izuku said.

Katsuki was taken aback by his voice. It was like it had been soaked in water—calm and measured, each word chosen with care, as if he'd tasted them for hours before speaking. It was confident, with a hint of mischief.

He turned his head—and Katsuki forgot how to breathe.

He’d heard plenty about this man’s beauty, but now that he was seeing him up close, with his own eyes, he could understand why so many had fallen under his spell.

His face was round and innocent, with a small, upturned nose. Pink lips, and cheeks adorned with soft brown freckles stretching delicately across his nose and toward his ears. His curls bounced slightly with every movement. And those eyes... those two green beasts, breathtaking yet ready to pounce.

Katsuki knew he shouldn’t feel like prey. He was the one in control here. But Izuku’s demeanor made it feel as though it was Katsuki who had been dragged in chains to this meeting.

The blond, not one to smile easily, held Izuku’s gaze for a long moment before subtly swallowing. Izuku was beautiful—and he knew it. That’s why he wasn’t doing anything except sizing Katsuki up. And Katsuki felt like he was about to enter a battlefield.

"I'm Bakugou. From today on, I’m your new case psychologist."

Izuku tilted his head slightly, adding an eerie innocence to his expression, and smiled.

"I’ve spoken to a lot of people over the years, Mr. Bakugou—but I can say with confidence, none of them were quite as attractive as you. It’s an honor to meet you!"

Katsuki struggled to suppress the smirk tugging at his lips. He picked up his black pen and said:

"Of course it is."

Izuku studied Katsuki’s face for a fraction of a second before laughing—a laugh so beautiful that it physically hurt.

"I already like you. Go ahead, ask your questions. I might even answer a few—just 'cause you’re hot!"

This wasn’t Katsuki’s first interview—not by a long shot. He had spoken to hundreds of mentally ill individuals, from mild cases to the completely deranged, and had always found ways to get the answers he needed. But for reasons he couldn’t yet define, today’s interview had him on edge.

Izuku had a playful demeanor, and it was already clear he was enjoying playing with Katsuki. But Katsuki wasn’t one to be toyed with.

"How about instead of answers, you start by telling me about yourself?"

Izuku raised one perfectly shaped brow and said:

"I’m sure there’s more about me written in that file than I’d ever tell you."

Katsuki made a show of pushing the file aside.

"That information’s all biased. Whoever compiled it did so under the assumption you’re a deranged killer. I need to hear things from you, in your words—without prior judgment."

He didn’t expect Izuku to laugh and shake his chained hands.

"Can you blame them? They caught me with, what, four bodies in my house? The ones they found, anyway. When the victim count goes past a hundred, it's hard to be seen as just another guy."

Katsuki shrugged, doing his best not to let his disgust show at how casually Izuku spoke of his victims. If Izuku noticed, he didn’t show it.

"That’s my method."

Izuku scanned Katsuki again with those wild, forest-like eyes before finally saying:

"You think too highly of yourself, Mr. Bakugou. For someone who came here to beg me for information, you sure are arrogant."

Katsuki narrowed his eyes, tapping the file with two fingers.

"Don’t get it twisted, Izuku. I already have everything I need. I just want to understand how you see things."

Izuku smirked, and Katsuki knew in that instant—he’d just made a mistake.

"And here I thought you were smart. I wasn’t talking about that information... You psychologists are all the same. You think because it was easy enough to get a degree, you’re better than everyone. But in the end, all of you—brains stuffed with hot air—end up sitting across from me, begging in a thousand different ways to tell you where the bodies are. But no, Mr. Bakugou... no. I don’t like your pride."

Katsuki clenched his fist under the table, fighting the anger rising in his chest.

"So what, you think it’s always all about you?"

"Of course it is. The people I killed. Where I hid them. My childhood. My mind. My method. My goal. Oh, Mr. Bakugou, I bet you’re all dying to know what my goal was."

Pleased with his victory, Izuku leaned back in his chair. He didn’t say another word for the rest of the session.

Katsuki learned, after that, how to speak to Izuku. For someone so beautiful and socially skilled, it wasn’t surprising he was used to admiration and reverence. But Izuku revealed a whole new level of narcissism Katsuki hadn’t yet encountered.

"I don’t remember when my father left us. I think I was less than two years old. Either way, I never really needed a bastard like him. He was the kind of man who saw every hole as a chance to fuck, so naturally, he left us. My mom raised me on her own. I remember she switched jobs a lot. For a while, she was a hairdresser. I was her model — she’d constantly cut my hair or put makeup on my face. When she realized that wasn’t working out, she tried baking, but she gave up on that too. Then she tried selling homemade food, but she couldn’t manage that either. In the end, to put food on the table, she had to start spreading her legs for different men. She worked from home. She used every makeup trick she knew, wore the skimpiest clothes possible, and stood in a specific spot to attract new customers. The regulars knew our address and came and went as they pleased. At some point, I started feeling like a few of them even had keys. Whenever she was with one of them, I’d try to cover my ears. It’s not a pleasant sound, you know… hearing your mother in the next room, doing what she has to for money — and sometimes, even seeing it. I remember burying my head between two pillows and humming my favorite song to myself… again and again, until I fell asleep. Later, when I got a little older, I’d spend the whole day wandering the streets and only come home to sleep, trying not to hear anything. After a while, I couldn’t even look at my mom. And even if I did… I couldn’t really see her anymore. It was like she’d buried herself somewhere deep inside — like she’d killed herself but kept her body around to make money with it. Sometimes they beat her… sometimes they gave her diseases… and in the end, one night, she died alone on a filthy mattress in the corner of the room. I lived with my mother’s corpse for a week and a half. I barricaded the door with whatever I could move, too afraid of the men who came day and night. Then I curled up in the corner and watched her body rot. I felt like I should’ve been scared… like my brain knew that any normal person would be terrified — especially a six-year-old who’d never seen anything beyond his filthy, poverty-stricken neighborhood. But I wasn’t scared. If anything, I was fascinated. Watching the changes in her body every minute was so mesmerizing that I was afraid to blink in case I missed something. Sometimes I touched her. Ran my fingers over her skin. Pressed my hand to her chest, waiting like someone expecting a magic trick — waiting to see if her heart would start beating again. Later I found out that what I did, as twisted as it was, was my brain’s fucked-up way of mourning. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to have a normal brain. But in the end, it was the neighbors who complained about the stench. Since the door was locked, they sent someone to check through the window, and that’s how the police and everyone else ended up there. That’s how I ended up in that city… the city that changed everything for me."

August 18th, 1998
Tokai City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

"That day, two people from the government brought me to Tokai. They said they’d contacted my father and he had agreed to take custody of me again. I didn’t care much about the details back then. I was just happy I didn’t have to stay in that orphanage anymore… It felt like a good idea. A fresh start. Maybe I could even make some friends. Maybe I could finally go to school…
But, you never really know when the worst thing in your life is going to happen — because if you did know, it wouldn’t be the worst thing, right?

Back then, Tokai didn’t have much of a population. Most of the men worked at the power plant — the same place my father had been working at for a few years. The pay wasn’t great, so from the moment I got out of the car, I knew I had to throw away any hopes of a better life.
My father’s house was near the beach. If I went out the back door and took twelve big steps, I’d reach the sea. That number bothered me… twelve wasn’t a multiple of five, so I’d always try to walk in a way that made it add up to ten instead. My bedroom window faced the ocean.

I remember the salty smell everywhere and the late summer sun burning my skin. My father and his wife were waiting at the door to greet me. Desiree… she was beautiful. I couldn’t blame my dad for leaving us for her. She wasn’t Japanese — her blonde hair and blue eyes made her look like a mythical creature in a small town like Tokai.
I understood it, in a way. With a freckled face and green eyes, I’d been made fun of my whole life. Still, my first impression of them wasn’t bad. I even felt… somewhat hopeful. But really — when had anything good in my life ever lasted?

The very next day, I found out what kind of hellhole I’d landed in. Tokai had a small population, and my alcoholic father with his gorgeous foreign wife was already the talk of the town. Then suddenly, a seven-year-old kid appeared out of nowhere — and that made everything worse. I knew right then to throw away the idea of a 'new life.'

That year, the government was doing a terrible job managing the plant, and my father and his coworkers hadn’t been paid in months. They were all angry — full of pent-up rage.
The day after I arrived, Desiree took me shopping because I didn’t have many clothes — the rags my mom had scrounged up for me were left behind at the orphanage.
I’ll never forget that day. Desiree held my hand tightly as we walked through the seaside market, eating ice cream. The weather was hot, and she was wearing a thin summer dress that clung to her body — her curves on full display. Wherever we went, men’s mouths hung open, their hungry eyes following us.
That was the first time I ever felt rage.
I wanted to claw out all those filthy eyes staring at her.

That night, when we got back home, my dad wasn’t gentle with her. He was angry that she’d spent money on 'a piece of shit.' But she just smiled at me and, before bed, gave me a giant piece of cotton candy. I didn’t even like sweets, but I remember swallowing every bit of it.

After that, Desiree and I grew closer and closer. My father would leave before dawn and sometimes wouldn’t come home at night, so before school started, we had the whole day to ourselves — to do all the things a child would want to do…
Even a strange child like me.
She’d tell me stories from her childhood in her soft Austrian accent. She made me sandwiches. We built sandcastles together. We swam for hours behind the house in the sea. She held my hand and taught me how to write. Unlike my mother, she never forgot to feed me.
You can imagine what that meant to a kid like me…
Attachment.
But not just normal affection — no. What happened between us was the beginning of a war between me and my father.

I could easily slip into the role of an innocent child, soaking up every ounce of Desiree’s love and attention. But my father…
He was just a washed-up alcoholic brute. The years had ruined his looks, his money was gone, and he had nothing left to offer. It didn’t take long for him to realize that the mistake he made seven years ago was now stealing all the love and affection from his beautiful wife.
That made him hate me more and more.
Sometimes, just showing up in front of him would set him off. Whatever he had nearby — usually a cheap beer bottle — he’d hurl it at me.
If he saw Desiree hugging me or being affectionate, he’d start acting out. Sometimes he’d fake being sick just to get more attention from her. Can you believe that?

My life in Tokai pretty much continued like that. It wasn’t perfect — my dad and I fought all the time — but honestly, it was still better than living with my mother.
Around that time, I started feeling… something inside me. A strange energy I didn’t understand yet. It kept growing. People always ask me:
When did it start? What made it come out? When did you first see it?
And I can only think of one thing…

That year was hot. Even autumn didn’t cool it down. Desiree had a habit of walking around the house in her underwear, and as a seven-year-old boy who used to fall asleep to the sound of his mother having sex with strange men, I started to feel things I didn’t understand.
My dad was working more than ever, and he had even less patience. It was like the heat had melted into his brain and stayed there. His temper got worse, and for a few weeks, his new hobby was chasing me.
If he caught me, he’d unleash all his frustration from the heat and work on me.
But I was small and fast, and I usually got away.
I’d run — find somewhere in town to distract myself — until he either forgot his anger… or got too drunk to move."

“At some point, those wanderings around town became something I truly enjoyed.
The town wasn’t big, but it had a long stretch of beach that seemed to run endlessly into the ocean.
If that disgusting power plant hadn’t polluted it, it might’ve even been considered beautiful.
A lot of my firsts happened there…
My first kiss.
My first time having sex.
My first kill.
In a way, you could say it was that town that woke me up to who I really was.

The start of school meant the start of a lot of other things too.
Up until then, the only people I really knew were my mother, Desiree, and my father.
Most of the other names I could recall belonged to the men who’d groan them out while screwing my mom.
That’s probably why collecting names — learning who people were — became my favorite game.
At school, I would spend hours just watching the other kids, staring at them, absorbing as much information as I could.
Eventually, I knew everything about everyone.

I knew Denki liked to mess with electrical gadgets when his parents weren’t paying attention.
I knew Ochako was so poor she wore her mother’s old clothes.
I knew our teacher went to the same sleazy bar every week just to lure some drunk guy into the back for a quick fuck, then ghost him before he could even remember her face.
I knew Principal Nezu liked to leave poisoned meat out for stray cats so he could watch them suffer.
I even knew who Desiree was sleeping with behind my father’s back.
I knew the shampoo brands each of the kids used.
And all of that… gave me a kind of power.
The power to control them — anytime I wanted.
That high, that rush of knowing everything, of holding it all in my hands…
It was so strong, sometimes I felt like my skin couldn’t contain me.

And it was there, while collecting people like that, that I met him. The one who changed everything inside me forever…”

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: Burn the Innocence

"Why is it that the answer to a lie told in the present lies buried in the past?"
— Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

That morning, Katsuki felt no urge to rush. He had spent the entire night wide awake, pouring over years’ worth of criminal profiles that various detectives had compiled on Midoriya Izuku. Now, splashing cold water on his face, he still had a few hours until their scheduled meeting.

As he stared at his pale, wet reflection in the mirror, the strange feeling from his last encounter with Izuku clawed deeper into his gut. A sickening sensation—like missing a step in the dark. That dreadful moment where you feel your body freefall and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

He curled his lips in a grimace and looked away from the mirror.

A few minutes later, the scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the apartment. In the stillness of dawn, Katsuki leaned against the kitchen counter, eyes fixed on the soft drift of clouds through the window. November had brought a crisp, dry cold to Tokyo, and somewhere in the cluttered background of his mind, he made a mental note to grab his jacket after seeing the thick gray clouds rolling in.

The coffee machine beeped softly, pulling him out of his troubled thoughts. Katsuki picked up his mug and walked back into his study, ready to sink once again into the brutal, almost unbelievable case files that painted a portrait of Midoriya Izuku.

That beautiful, deceptively sweet man who had somehow, with just one glance, managed to occupy the mind of Bakugou Katsuki—the man known for his unshakeable focus and discipline—like a persistent, haunting obsession.

November 10, 2023
Saint Diego Psychiatric Hospital, Tokyo

That day, when Katsuki saw Izuku through the glass, he wasn’t as tense as he had been during previous sessions. He’d left his notes at home, and his glasses sat on the table beside him. Rain, which had started a few hours earlier, continued to lash hard against the single window of the room. The weeping willow outside swayed in the wind, and Katsuki already knew Izuku was going to mention it.

The curly-haired man sat down calmly, flashing a charming smile at the two guards as they chained him to the table. They glared at him with the same hostility as always. Katsuki nearly chuckled at the audacity but instead bit the inside of his cheek and waited—as usual—for the guards to leave before speaking.

“Good evening, Mr. Bakugou. You're looking handsome today!”

Katsuki barely restrained an eye-roll and replied pointedly,
“Good evening, Izuku. You seem... chipper.”

Izuku gave a careless wave of his hand.
“Nothing major. My lawyer managed to convince them to give me my painting supplies back. I think the psychologists and the cops are hoping I’ll reveal where the bodies are hidden in my artwork.”

This time, Katsuki couldn’t hold back his smirk.
“So… are you actually going to show them?”

Izuku shrugged, speaking in that same blasé yet playfully cryptic tone.
“Who knows. Maybe I’ll sketch a couple of them. Or maybe I’ll throw them off and have them digging in the wrong places for a while. Anyway… did you bring what you promised?”

The blond man gave him a mock glare but said nothing. Instead, he reached into the bag hanging from the back of his chair and pulled out a small music player. With a press of a button, Beethoven’s piano melody began to float softly through the room.

A genuine smile—different from his usual sly, knowing grins—broke across Izuku’s face. As his eyes fluttered shut and his body began to gently sway with the rhythm, he mouthed something under his breath.

The mixture of rain, music, and the clean golden light that made Izuku’s face glow with almost angelic innocence caught Katsuki off guard.

Could something this beautiful… really have done those horrific things?

The contrast was so overwhelming it challenged every logical thread in Katsuki’s mind. Those bright green eyes, framed with thick curled lashes, looked like they’d only ever seen wonder—not blood. Katsuki analyzed every move this man made. And yet, it baffled him.

Izuku’s entire demeanor—his way of looking at the world—was so convincingly pure that Katsuki was sure any other man, unaware of his true identity, would see him as harmless. Not as someone who had once, with those very eyes and hands, sewn the lips of his victims shut while they were still alive.

Still… Katsuki was here to understand. To uncover what caused such a devastating fracture—what corrupted something so mesmerizingly beautiful and turned it into humanity’s most seductive trap.

He blinked, trying to shake off the scene like fumes from some hallucinogenic gas, and said,
“Alright… we’re short on time. Where were we?”

Izuku opened his eyes slowly, staring long and deep at the blond. After a pause—and a brief glance at the swaying willow outside, muttering something under his breath—he said,
“Tokai. That boy.”

Katsuki nodded in encouragement.
“Right… you said he was the one who changed everything. Who exactly were you talking about?”

Izuku smirked faintly, seemingly unaware of the cold shiver that slid down Katsuki’s spine.
“Oh Bakugou, I’m pretty sure you already know who I mean…”

Katsuki raised an eyebrow and shifted slightly in his seat.
“You know the deal. I want to hear everything from your own mouth.”

Izuku’s smile deepened. In that same soft, unnervingly melodic voice that somehow matched Beethoven’s rhythm, he said:

“Alright then… Like I said, that summer was scorching, and fall didn’t bring much relief either. I was just starting school for the first time, wearing new clothes for the first time. The whole world of school felt like a strange planet. For someone like me—whose favorite pastime was collecting dead bugs around the house—making friends didn’t come easily. But he… he came to me. He was the one who, with every word and gesture, tempted me closer to that line.”

He glanced at Katsuki’s curious face and added, with a glint of mischief:

“You know, Katsuki… he used to look at me a lot like you do.”

And what should’ve struck the blond man in that moment—but wouldn’t register for years—was that this was the instant he stopped being Mr. Bakugou and became Katsuki. A shift too subtle to catch… and never fully understood.

“Shouto was a very beautiful boy. That soft, fragrant hair always neatly combed… those expensive clothes… and his natural, almost painful innocence… Hmm… I remember the first time I saw him really well. It was still the first week of school, and most of the kids were already avoiding me—small town, and people had seen me around Desiree too much. As usual, I was sitting under the tree in the corner of the yard, watching everyone else, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he was watching me too… He was wearing a crisp white t-shirt and spotless shoes, and he looked at me like I was the strangest thing in the world. That day, and the days after, I kept catching him staring at me, but I ignored him. Still, every day he stood a little closer—until one day, he was right there under the tree beside me. Without me saying anything, he sat down on the ground and, just like me, stared at the other kids running around and playing. It was like he enjoyed trying to figure them out just as much as I did. There was something strange in his gaze—a kind of innocent naivety, but not completely untouched or pure, you know? With those two-toned eyes of his, he stared at me with dumb sincerity and the first thing he said was:
‘I have heterochromia.’

I remember the way he looked at me, like he was waiting for me to either punch him or reward him. I had no idea how to respond, but then he added:
‘You have freckles.’ And I laughed.”

Katsuki hesitated for a second, then cut in:

“Did you guys become friends?”

Izuku looked thoughtful.

“Hmm… I don’t think friend quite describes what we had.”

“Love?”

“That might be a bit much—but something close… I mean, what do two seven-year-olds even know about love, right?”

“You never really know.”

Izuku’s pupils twitched slightly—something Katsuki wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t so sharp—and then he said:

“But yeah. We became friends that day. That’s when the long walks and forest wanderings started. We’d talk for hours and collect animal carcasses. You know… even someone like me could feel the miracle and power of that connection. It was like something tied us together from that day on, and something between us just… formed. It was strange—I’d never experienced anything like it, and every day with him was something new. His dad was the town sheriff, and his mom had left them years ago. Before she left, she’d burned Shoto and his older brother pretty badly. His sister raised him, and she really liked me. She’d always buy me chocolates, like she was trying to pay me for being friends with Shoto. She’d cook us amazing meals too.”

Katsuki gently bit at the skin of his lip, trying to control himself so he wouldn’t sound rushed.

“What about your dad? You said he didn’t like you at all. What did he think of Shoto?”

Izuku let out a mocking laugh, almost like he was putting on a show to highlight how obvious the answer was.

“Him? As long as I wasn’t getting in the way of him having sex with Desiree on every surface in the house, he didn’t care. In fact, he was glad I wasn’t hanging around, stealing attention from his half-naked girlfriend. Though I did piss him off now and then by messing with Desiree… Anyway, life had settled into a routine. I had a friend. I had a sort-of mother figure who looked after me and kept me fed. I was going to school. What more could I want? And I had Shoto—the boy who seemed to get more attached to me every single day, and I loved that. I could’ve told him to throw himself in front of a bus, and he wouldn’t have said no. He was like wax in my hands, and I was addicted to the feeling. He even wrote me a poem.”

Katsuki’s blond eyebrows shot up and disappeared behind his hair.

“He wrote you a poem?”

Izuku gave him a smug, victorious smirk, like he was proud and showing off.

“Yeah. I think we were in fifth grade. His Japanese literature was better than anyone’s. The things he wrote always got published in local magazines… He could’ve become the greatest writer in Japan. One day he came up to me, handed me a page written in his perfect handwriting, and left… I remember every single word.”

I want to flee from you—
You, draped in the black rot of a swamp,
Adorned with deceitful lotus blooms.
From the vibrant void buried in your silence,
I cradle a monstrous thought of you—
A thought sickened, festering, foul.

I want to consume you whole,
Like the twitching meat behind your ribs.
To drown you in my lungs.
Be still.
Let me infect you.
And then discard me.

Spit me out and try to fill the hollow I leave
With the poisoned filth inside you.
Scrub me out
Like I was never born, never bled into you.

But you know—
You know there’s something alive in that rot.
These green waters reek of decay,
And they call me into the black beyond.

Devour me.
Try to bury me.
But you’ll see—you can’t.
Because I am carved into you.
I always was.
And always will be."

"So I did what he asked. In July of 2004, Under a rock, I opened his chest. Took out his heart and ate it.
Filled the hollow space with stone.

He was right.
It couldn’t be filled..."

Chapter Text

Chapter Three: A Lonely, Hungry Little Kid

"Dead people usually know more about life than the living."
— Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker

---

November 20th, 2023
Saint Diego Psychiatric Hospital, Tokyo, Japan

Katsuki checked the watch on his wrist one last time before finally deciding to get up. Two and a half hours had passed since the time he was supposed to meet Izuku, and there was still no sign of the man. He had left his phone at the security desk by the entrance, so there was no way for him to know what had gone wrong. The nurses and guards hated Izuku so much that the two times Katsuki had asked them where the curly-haired man was, they’d done nothing but purse their lips at him in contempt.

His frustration written all over his face, he half-rose to grab the music player from the middle of the table when he heard the door open. His head snapped up involuntarily, and before he realized it, he smiled. But that smile vanished the second he saw Izuku’s condition.

The two guards chained Izuku to the table and chair, just as they always did, and—after shooting him their usual hateful, warning glares—left the room. The orange evening light filtered in through the drooping branches of the weeping willow outside, making the cuts and bruises on Izuku’s face look even darker.

Parts of his curly hair had been shaved down to make room for the ugly stitches. A large wound behind his eyebrow was covered with thick gauze and tape. Both of his lips were split and bloodied. Under his chin were claw marks, hastily closed with bandages as best as they could manage—and then... unmistakable bruises around his neck, the marks of someone’s hands trying to choke the life out of him. His right hand, as far as Katsuki could see past the cuff of the gray sweatshirt, was wrapped in a bloody bandage.

Katsuki didn’t know how he was supposed to react, or even what to say. His tongue started moving before his brain could catch up.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Izuku’s pain-glazed eyes squinted, and he shifted a little in the chair. He tried to adjust the metal cuff so it wouldn’t dig into his swollen wrist quite as much, then lifted his gaze to meet Katsuki’s again.

The strange thing was, none of it—not the blood, not the pain, not the wounds—seemed to have any effect on the way he looked at the world. That same mischievous, knowing glint still hovered there, as if nothing could ever truly extinguish it.

He held that gaze on the blond man for a long moment, then finally said:

“Let’s just say I’m not exactly anyone’s favorite person.”

Katsuki struggled to suppress the smirk twisting at his mouth. With his eyebrows raised, he shot Izuku a look of exaggerated disbelief.

“Really?”

Izuku furrowed his brows in return and let his gaze wander around the relatively empty interview room. Besides the table and the two chairs, there was nothing else there, and the sunlight now spilled over both of them.

It was as if they were made of light.

“People don’t like me, Katsuki. Who I am, the things I’ve done—they frighten them. And human nature has always been like this. When people are scared of something, they show it anger and hatred. Even when the problem is really their own.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, a faint trace of expectation lacing his tone as he answered this killer:

“You think it’s people’s fault they’re afraid of you? The man with a record of 143 confirmed murders?”

Izuku tilted his head, his voice carrying a note of almost genuine surprise.

“I thought you were going to interview me with an open mind—without prejudice!”

Katsuki considered that for a moment and chose his next words more carefully.

“You’re right. But I don’t recall you ever denying those murders.”

And it was true. In his confessions, Izuku had talked about every killing as if he were discussing Nobel Prizes or championship medals.

“A person who denies is either ashamed of what they did, or still has something left to lose. I am neither, Katsuki. I’m not ashamed, and there is nothing left I haven’t already lost.”

“So that’s what made you so reckless? That there was nothing left for you anymore?”

Izuku thought about it for a moment, and even as he spoke, it was obvious he was still turning it over in his mind.

“I wouldn’t say that… I’ve always been reckless. Always known, deep down, that even if I ended up in a place like this, I’d already inflicted enough damage to enjoy myself. Most of the ones I took pleasure in will never be found, Katsuki. They’ll always be mine.”

Katsuki stared into Izuku’s calm eyes, and a chill like falling into an icy river swept through him. It was as if the green monsters that Izuku’s very first victim had talked about were still in there, even hungrier than before.

“Like Shoto?”

A smile curved across Izuku’s mouth, a wicked line splitting his face. Pure malice.

“Shoto is still the most special piece in my collection. I used him exactly the way he asked me to—and then I hid him. There’s no way I’d ever let them drag him out of his tomb and slice him open on some cold autopsy table.”

Katsuki sucked in a long breath, adrenaline prickling through his chest. For whatever reason, Izuku had slipped into a different emotional state today, saying things he’d never told anyone, anywhere. That meant Katsuki had to tread carefully. He couldn’t let this fragile thread snap.

“So you buried him in Toka?”

Izuku’s smile deepened, and the malice flared like flames licked in boric acid, sparking green behind his eyes.

“Who said I buried him?”

Katsuki prayed the terrified sound he heard was only in his own head—that it hadn’t actually escaped his mouth. The fear rose in him like termites chewing through the core of a tree, dragging him back to a truth he’d been trying to forget.

The truth that the person sitting across from him was not an ordinary human being.

It took a long moment for him to gather himself. Finally, he leaned back against the stiff chair. His pen twitched between his fingers, and he bit the inside of his cheek. When at last the waves of emotion settled, he picked up the music player again and set it on the table, pressing the play button.

Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 began to drift through the room, and Izuku’s mouth curved into a new smile. One of those smiles he gave to music, marmalade, and plants. Katsuki could have written a whole book cataloging the man’s smiles. He had one for every moment, every mood, every thought. His expressions never repeated themselves, which made it impossible to guess what he was really thinking or feeling.

Katsuki took out his small notebook and flipped through it, then looked up.

“How about we go back?”

“Back?”

“Mm-hmm. Back to the incident that caused your brain trauma.”

December 8th, 1994
Tokyo — The Sanya Slums

The frozen air wrapped itself around Tokyo like a river made of water laced with shards of glass, driving everyone indoors. Inside Mrs. Midoriya’s tiny house, which had no heating and no trace of human warmth, it felt even colder than outside.

Although, no—it wasn’t empty.

In the corner of the only room, huddled in a ball of threadbare, filthy blankets whose original color was impossible to guess, crouched a little boy.

Five-year-old Izuku didn’t look like any other child. He was so thin his small frame looked younger than his age. His curly hair was matted and dirty, as if it hadn’t been brushed in ages. His cheeks lacked the healthy plumpness other children had, and his tiny hands—blistered from the cold—were wrapped tight around a half-eaten onigiri.

He had found this onigiri after hours of digging through trash bins outside people’s homes. The fact that it smelled a bit off, that someone else had clearly already bitten into it, didn’t stop him. He clutched it as though someone might snatch it away at any moment.

Even though he was starving, Izuku took only tiny bites, chewing each mouthful carefully. He knew he had to eat slowly, or he’d throw up—and that was something he refused to risk. Food was far too precious to waste like that.

By the time the onigiri was gone, he still felt so hungry it was as if he hadn’t eaten at all. Fighting off a wave of nausea, he pulled the thickest blanket tighter around himself and leaned back against the wall.

His mother wasn’t home. She was probably asleep right now in the warm bed of one of her clients—drunk off her head and doped up on Valium. Of course, it wasn’t unusual for her to forget she had a son. Even when she was home, she usually forgot about him. She’d do her business with the men on every surface of the house, never remembering there was a five-year-old hiding in a corner, pressing his hands over his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear.

A boy who hadn’t eaten anything but scraps he found himself in so long that malnutrition had kept his baby teeth from growing properly before they started falling out.

Today, just like so many other days, Izuku was alone.

There was nothing to occupy him in that single, bare room. The curtainless window in the wall let in a bitter cold draft that his thin, ragged breathing couldn’t warm. The wallpaper had grown so filthy over the years that only faint shadows remained of its epiphyllum flowers. His mother’s clothes were scattered everywhere. The old mattress she used for her clients lay crumpled in a corner. Empty bottles littered the floor, and so much trash was piled everywhere that there was no way to walk without stepping on it.

On the wall hung a few faded posters—album covers of Five Nights in a Judo Arena, Abbey Road, and Please Please Me by the Beatles. Relics from the years when his mother had still been happy, when she’d worn pretty clothes, listened to music, and hadn’t forgotten to cook him meals. From long ago.

The curly-haired little boy shivered in the cold and clutched the blankets tighter. The room smelled foul, and he couldn’t tell where the stench came from. He didn’t have the strength to look for it, either. Maybe it was him. It was impossible to say. Everything here stank and was broken, faded of color.

Time passed. Maybe a minute. Maybe a whole day. When you were so hungry it felt like snakes were writhing inside your belly, it was hard to pay attention to anything else.

Izuku was drifting somewhere between sleep and waking when he heard the familiar sound of footsteps on the metal stairs outside. His half-awake mind didn’t know how to react, and before he could fully come to, someone was pounding hard on the door.

The boy jerked upright so fast the blankets fell away from his thin shoulders. Fear coiled through his spine, as sharp and undeniable as the ache in his muscles. He stood there, frozen, staring at the door in horror as though any second it might open its mouth and swallow his bony little body whole.

Izuku wasn’t a cowardly child. He didn’t fear poking dead animals with sticks, or the thick darkness that filled the corners of his room. He didn’t fear the grown men with their terrifying faces and the little fingers missing from their hands.

But the sound of that door terrified him.

His mouth already tasted like acid, and adrenaline was slicing through his body like razors.

Another few heavy knocks rattled the door, and Izuku knew that not opening it would only bring worse consequences than opening it. So, with trembling steps, he approached. Slowly, he turned the rusted old key—one of its teeth cracked—and heard the innocent little click of the lock giving way.

The door swung open just far enough for one of Izuku’s eyes to peek through the gap.

There, standing in the doorway, was a tall man dressed in filthy, mismatched clothes. His unshaven face was marked by several knife scars. His black, menacing eyes stared down at Izuku like a pair of cockroaches peering out from under his heavy brows. In a single motion, he shoved the door back.

Izuku, panicking, tried to hold it with all the strength he didn’t have. For a fraction of a second, the man’s hand paused.

“Step aside, you little runt. I’m here to see your mother.”

His coarse, rough voice sent a shiver down the small boy’s spine, but even now, terrified as he was, he frowned.

“My mom isn’t home.”

Maybe a five-year-old didn’t know that wasn’t the right answer to give a recently released ex-yakuza who had just smoked meth. Maybe he did know he should have lied, but he was too scared for anything but the truth to come to mind. Or maybe… he’d tried lying to his mother’s customers before, and it hadn’t gone well for him.

Whatever it was, the moment Izuku saw the man’s eyes, he understood what a huge mistake he’d made—and that it was too late to take it back.

“Oh yeah? And where’d she go?”

Panic finally seized him in earnest. Cold sweat soaked his pale skin, and his thin hands started to tremble.

“O… outside…”

The man shoved the door harder, trying to force his way in.

“You’re not lying to me, are you, little rat? You know Santa Claus doesn’t bring Christmas presents to liars.”

Izuku looked up at him with wide eyes and said innocently:

“But our house never had a chimney for Santa to drop presents through.”

“Hmm, that’s all right. Let me come in—I’ll build you a chimney myself.”

For one moment, a tiny sprout of hope bloomed in Izuku’s small heart—that maybe, just maybe, he would get Christmas presents like all the other children. But it died just as quickly.

Santa never came to filthy houses like theirs. Santa belonged to the rich, well-fed kids.

“No.”

The man cast an uneasy glance toward the neighbor’s door, then leaned in harder. His patience had clearly run out, because he growled in a low, strained voice:

“Move out of the way, you worthless little bastard…”

Izuku, tears welling in his eyes, clung to the door with both hands, refusing to let the monster into their home. Santa didn’t visit houses where monsters roamed. His mother had told him that.

Izuku’s frail strength was nothing against the man’s. A moment later, the boy was flung across the wreck of their living room. The man stepped in with a wide sneer plastered across his face and shut the door behind him.

“What a stubborn little shit. You don’t look like you’d have this much fight in you.”

In the blink of an eye, Izuku scrambled back onto his feet and glared at him.

“G…get… g-get out of our house…”

The man’s laughter echoed through the cramped room as he took a step closer.

“And what if I don’t? What if I decide to stay here forever and screw that whore of a mother of yours?”

Izuku’s jaw trembled from the sobs and fury choking him. He clenched his fists. Right then, he felt even smaller than before.

“Get out… get out…”

The man’s beady eyes trailed over Izuku’s tiny body, peeking out from under the ragged clothes. He bit the corner of his lip.

“How the hell did that bitch hide such a pretty little kid all this time? I’d have paid her extra for you.”

The boy didn’t understand what the monster in front of him meant. How could he? In his world, children were supposed to do nothing but try not to starve. What grown men could do to them was still beyond his comprehension.

The man stepped closer. Before Izuku—usually a fast little boy—could dart away, the man lunged. His hands closed around him as easily as lifting a scrap of cloth from the floor.

Blood rushed to Izuku’s head. He kicked and thrashed, screaming from the depths of his small lungs.

In a place like this, screams were never unusual, and almost no one ever dared to interfere in the neighborhood’s business. But Izuku was only five. He still believed in humanity.

He believed someone would save him—someone would never let a child die.

Someone had to.

Children were supposed to play… supposed to learn to write and read and laugh…

Children weren’t supposed to scream until their throats were raw in the hands of a forty-three-year-old man, terrified by something they didn’t even understand.

But no one came.

The man’s big hand, smelling of cigarettes, clamped down over Izuku’s small face, muffling his cries. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his hands clawed at the man’s forearm, desperate to break free. But he was too weak.

The man’s rancid breath spread across Izuku’s neck, worming its way inside him. One of his hands crept under the boy’s threadbare clothes, touching everything in its path. Every nerve in Izuku’s small body lit up, making him convulse with panic.

He couldn’t breathe anymore. He was powerless.

The world blurred and darkened before his eyes, the man’s muffled voice inside his head sounding like the groans of a real monster. He couldn’t understand what he was saying or even what he was doing.

Izuku was terrified, and his small body had no strength left to struggle.

Right in the midst of that horror and surrender, he suddenly remembered what he’d hidden in his clothes.

He didn’t know exactly what the man was doing to him. That big hand was moving somewhere between his legs, doing strange, horrible things, and he’d stopped paying attention to where Izuku’s own hands had gone.

That was why, when a sudden, searing pain erupted in his chest, he didn’t even realize where it had come from.

Like someone stung by a scorpion, the man reeled back and hurled Izuku away with all his strength.

He stumbled backward, staring in shock at the wide tear in his chest where the blade of a small knife was buried. Blood darkened the fabric fast, and an absurd whistling sound came from the wound with every breath.

“Ahhh… what the fuck did you do to me… you filthy little shit… ahhh…”

He didn’t stay to see Izuku slam into the old dresser, to see the boy’s head crack against its sharp edge.

He didn’t stay to watch the small knife—something Izuku had found months ago in a pile of garbage—fall from his hand and skitter away to vanish among the other trash on the floor.

Without even glancing back at the boy, the man turned, clamped his hand over the gaping wound, and staggered out of the house as fast as he could.

Izuku lay motionless, blood seeping from the split in his scalp and making his eyelids heavy.

His arms and legs settled against the floor like a withered plant.

The warmth of the blood pooling under his head couldn’t keep up with the cold quickly crawling over his body.

Izuku was cold.

Cold and hungry.

He was scared, and he hurt, but he laughed.

He laughed at the sound of the man’s furious screams echoing down the stairs.

And for a moment, he felt something almost like bliss.

He was happy he’d managed to leave a mark on a monster.

Chapter Text

Chapter4: Wicked Game

"Grass always grows tall and lush upon those earthen mounds where the dead rest. So vividly green."
Never Fall
Patricia McCormick

December 10, 2023

Detective Tsukauchi looked tired. His stubble was unshaven, and dark circles had formed beneath his eyes—marks that clearly belonged to a time far older than the past few days. Though his clothes were clean, they were wrinkled, suggesting he lived alone and had little time to care for himself. The scent of his body spray mingled with cheap mint toothpaste, lightly irritating Katsuki’s tired nerves.

The blonde man hadn’t been able to rest much since the news of two new bodies had been officially reported two nights ago. A long list of missing people from the past fifteen years had resurfaced on the desk, none of it short by any means. Most of the missing had disappeared before 2010, making it difficult to find their information in the national police database.

Katsuki was part of a thirteen-member criminal profiling team assigned by the government to identify the new bodies. He wasn’t happy about it at all. For someone like him, holding a psychology degree, there were better jobs available—especially since he had recently managed to extract valuable information from Izuku.

But no.

They had handed the task of re-interrogating Izuku to a new team—one whose psychological consultant was Katsuki’s old professor, known for being cautious enough not to let any information leak to other teams.
Izuku was now forbidden from meeting anyone indefinitely, and although Katsuki didn’t want to admit it to himself, he was more nervous than ever. He had grown accustomed to their meetings, which were progressing well. Now, with interrogators and psychologists working around the clock on Izuku, Katsuki didn’t know how much the relationship they had built could survive.

“Bakugo?”
Katsuki flinched slightly and raised his head to look at Tsukauchi. The man now appeared even more exhausted, his temples slightly swollen amid the early morning bustle of the department.

“Yes?”
Tsukauchi scratched his stubble and pointed to the monitor in front of him.
“This girl was added today. The tracking team says her timeline matches the Karasu hunting period. We need to check her out. By the way, did you hear they’re planning a press conference tomorrow?”

Katsuki frowned and lowered the coffee cup he’d raised to drink.
“What? Another damn press conference?”

“I don’t know. God knows what that bastard told them to make them want to hold one so quickly.”

“So they want to officially release case information? Just what we needed—more cases added to the copycats.”

Tsukauchi sighed and pointed to the image of a short-haired girl with a mouse-like face, staring innocently into the camera, unaware of the fate awaiting her.
“Better get back to work. The interrogation team wants the final list by the day after tomorrow.”

Katsuki anxiously glanced at his watch and sat back down to get to work. It wasn’t an easy task. They had to trace the missing persons and compare the years of Izuku’s activity and the locations of the murders during their disappearance. If there was a spatial match, they had to verify the evidence and, if similar, open a search file.
For two days now, their lives had been consumed by this. They spent hours bent over, noses glued to old papers, hunting the trail of a killer infamous for being like a ghost. Time dragged slowly, and the busy department, now heavy with the smell of sweat and fatigue, was hardly suitable for Katsuki’s obsessive nature and mood. He preferred working in his own dimly lit office, calmly—not while elbows poked his side every five minutes and the murmur of detectives, cops, forensic psychologists, medical examiners, and profiling team members who had previously studied Izuku’s case drilled into his brain like a drill bit.

Besides, the thought of Izuku alone was powerful enough to disrupt Katsuki’s brain waves and completely break his focus. For reasons unknown, talking to several people at once was deeply unsettling for this profiler. He logically knew these thoughts were neither professional nor appropriate, but he couldn’t help glancing at the clock and hoping this was the last time they had to go through this process.

When lunchtime arrived, Katsuki glanced away from everyone’s eyes and toward the Criminal Affairs Department cafeteria, quietly declining Tsukauchi’s invitation to join them with a soft “no.” He had endured enough of them already and didn’t want to see their faces during lunch as well. Besides, he wanted to use this silence to focus and make progress on his work for at least an hour.

The Rina Takayomi case was more complicated than he had anticipated. The likelihood that this girl was one of Izuku’s victims was high. Her living conditions and the circumstances of her disappearance, along with the timing, were very similar, but on the other hand, the geographic location was off. He needed to find a connection point between them; otherwise, Rina would join the long list of victims whose fates would never be known.

Katsuki was in the middle of creating a time-location chart comparing Rina and Izuku’s whereabouts on those specific dates when he heard the door open and close. He glanced at his watch and realized it was still too early for others to return; plenty of lunch break time remained. He lifted his head, and his look of disgust at whoever disturbed his peace quickly turned into surprise.

Standing there at the door was Shota Aizawa — Katsuki’s mentor and the lead psychologist in the new interrogation team handling Midoriya Izuku.

His presence at that hour and place couldn’t mean anything good. Aizawa, as always, wore his usual somewhat untidy black clothes, his medium-length hair messily tied back. Since Katsuki last saw him, the wrinkles on his face had deepened, but his dark eyes still held nothing but the calculating stare that pierced through people’s minds like X-rays — just like when he used to intimidate his students.

The man scanned the empty space in the room, then crossed his arms over his chest. Katsuki stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to state his reason for coming. When nothing happened, still unsure what was about to unfold, he asked:
“Sensei?”

Aizawa didn’t answer. Instead, he released his arms from his chest and took a few steps forward. He picked up some scattered papers from one of the desks, glanced at them briefly, then let them fall back gently into place.
Outside the building, the weak winter sun hid beneath a thick layer of gray and black clouds, promising a stormy afternoon. The faint indoor light dimmed the room further, turning the space darker than before. Aizawa’s figure transformed into a large shadow, his penetrating eyes seeming to bore two large holes into Katsuki’s skull.

Aizawa shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets and finally said in a low, gravelly voice:
“Katsuki Bakugo... I should have expected this.”

He glanced at Katsuki’s puzzled and surprised face, then turned away. The desk lamp now absurdly made Katsuki feel like he was sitting under a spotlight. His palms began to sweat. He cleared his throat and said:
“I don’t understand what you mean.”

Aizawa smirked at his words.
“You’ve always been like this. You find a hole you don’t belong in and stubbornly pry until you figure it out. You always took on the hardest cases. At first, I laughed quietly to myself, thinking you’d realize this job wasn’t just about playing detective when you couldn’t handle them. But you managed. You got through every single one, and you looked me right in the eye like you knew exactly what I was thinking.”

He slid his hand across Tsukauchi’s desk and picked up the man’s special fountain pen, staring at it for a while. Katsuki said nothing. He remembered this Aizawa trait well. Like a chef selecting ingredients to mix into a potion, Aizawa liked to toy with his words and savor them. This was part of why he had become such a successful psychologist.

“I should have guessed that as soon as the Japanese Karasu—the nightmare haunting Japan’s past fifteen years, a phantom without even a shadow—was caught, you’d find your way. But still, when I heard you’d been personally meeting with Midoriya Izuku for weeks, I was genuinely surprised. Then I was told you actually added new information to the case... you really managed to pull new details out of that narcissistic psychopath! That’s truly impressive, Katsuki.”

Aizawa gave Katsuki another long look, then sat down in Tsukauchi’s chair. He interlaced his fingers and continued:
“But guess how much more surprised I was when this morning Midoriya defiantly told the interrogators—let me quote—‘I won’t say a word until Kacchan is here.’ Amazing, isn’t it?”

Aizawa’s eyes gleamed in the half-light of the day as he observed Katsuki’s surprise. Just like when he used to scan each student’s face in front of the board, reading their thoughts from the twitch of their eyelids. And well...
The blonde man was genuinely astonished. The fact that Izuku had actually made such a request was a little... more than a little strange. Every day, Katsuki found himself increasingly amazed and bewildered by this man. Like a book that changes its pages and story every night, no matter how many times you read it, it still remains new and always finds a way to surprise you.

Two days ago, he had woken to the news of two more of Izuku’s victims’ bodies being discovered. Apparently, hidden in his drawings were some codes in Sanskrit, which the police central forensic decryptors had accidentally cracked, leading them to a location. After excavation, they found two new bodies there. If Japanese society hadn’t yet been stunned by this man’s devilish nature, now they had undeniable proof.

The place where the bodies were found resembled a meticulously staged scene. It was as if it had been prepared years ago, and now that he was bored in the psychiatric hospital, he had decided to make headlines again.
According to forensic examination, these two bodies dated back at least ten years. DNA searches were futile. Forensics even checked dental records, but the identities of the two bodies remained unknown. Hence, teams were assigned to search for missing persons, in addition to the teams working on the crime scenes.

Katsuki still didn’t know much about the crime scene. He preferred to wait for his next meeting with Izuku and ask himself then. Hearing this from Aizawa, he absurdly felt that all these efforts were just excuses for Aizawa to play with him—something impossible to resist. Eight years ago, Izuku had no knowledge of Katsuki’s existence, but it wasn’t impossible that he had deliberately revealed the bodies now.

Over the years, Izuku had become a skilled poker player. Whenever he felt the newspapers and the public had forgotten him or if he wanted something, he would get their attention by revealing new bodies. The Japanese police force in recent years had essentially become Izuku Midoriya’s toys.

The most disgusting part of the story was that Izuku’s arrest only stopped his further killings, but now from inside his small room, he held far greater power and enjoyed it hundreds of times more. He played with grieving families. He repeatedly gave the police the names of some victims who definitely belonged to him but whose bodies had not yet been found, along with addresses. This gave them hope that the bodies’ locations would be found, but time and time again, they ended up chasing false leads. And they couldn’t afford to ignore his game each time—because maybe, just maybe, one of those times would be real, just like now.

Times like these made the victims’ families furious again, increasing pressure on the police department. They had all become pawns of a clever madman.

Katsuki looked at his mentor, a look that could have meant hundreds of things. Neither of them spoke a word, even as they left the building to head to the central police department.

It seemed Katsuki was miraculously getting everything he wanted, but he didn’t know whether to be happy or to fear deeply from within.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: The Driver

"Everyone ends up with the criminal they deserve."
— Amélie Nothomb, The Enemy’s Cosmetique

---

December 9, 2023 – 5:26 PM
Central Police Department of Japan, Serial Homicide Division

Katsuki wished he could erase the past few hours from his memory. Both his body and mind were exhausted, and the real work was only just beginning. What he truly needed was to get back to his room and sleep for forty-eight hours straight. Still, none of that showed on his face.

He sat with arms crossed, fists pressed together, his sharp gaze fixed on the monitor streaming the live feed from the interrogation room.

The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, his blond hair slightly messier than usual. The red-haired female technician in the surveillance room had been eyeing him from every possible angle, thinking he hadn’t noticed — and deep down, he felt a quiet sense of satisfaction at her gaze.

Izuku’s beauty had been haunting his mind so intensely these days that he’d almost forgotten the effect he himself had on women. With a mental kick, he forced his focus back to the screen.

Izuku sat on the metal chair bolted to the ground, at the table, exactly as the protocol dictated. But this wasn’t like those times Katsuki had visited him. No — this was the protocol reserved for a serial killer with one hundred and two confirmed murders, confined under maximum security.

Katsuki remembered watching years ago on TV when Izuku had first been captured and taken to court. They’d handled him like some untamable wild beast, yet the curly-haired man hadn’t struggled once. He’d never displayed an ounce of aggression. He’d answered every question with polite calmness, never forgetting to use “Sir” or “Madam” when addressing the judge or prosecutor.

If the evidence against him hadn’t been so overwhelming, he might have gotten away with it thanks to that disarming, almost seductive composure. Even now, he was so unnervingly calm that it was starting to get under Katsuki’s skin.

Even with his hands restrained in reverse and his body bound in a white confinement suit, a gag across his mouth, Izuku looked beautiful — and that was a painfully strange thing. The thought that this man had just revealed the locations of two more bodies, yet sat here with such unwavering serenity, made Katsuki’s stomach twist.

Behind him, Aizawa cleared his throat, pulling Katsuki’s attention away from the screen. As always, Aizawa looked exhausted, steam rising from the oversized mug of coffee in his hand. He stared at the monitor with his usual lethargic expression before speaking.

"He’s been like that since we brought him in. Like we’re prepping him for his Nobel Prize. He’s trying hard to keep himself under control, but he can’t help it — he’s practically dying of happiness."

Katsuki didn’t reply. He picked up his own half-cold coffee and took a small sip.

"You’re the last psychologist who’s spoken to him these past few months," Aizawa continued. "Tell me, Katsuki… what’s going through his head?"

The blond psychologist shoved his hands deep into his pockets, away from Aizawa’s calculating gaze that seemed to read every flicker of his expression. He stared at Izuku’s still frame on the monitor for a long moment before finally saying:

"Right now? He’s happy he’s outplayed everyone. He knows the identities of his victims, but he’s enjoying how desperately we’re scrambling to find them. I’d guess revealing those two bodies has to do with something that happened to him a few days ago in San Diego."

Aizawa raised an eyebrow, silently prompting him to continue.

"A group of inmates beat him up pretty badly. The authorities didn’t release the names of those who attacked him, and one of the guards erased the security footage — to make sure his lawyer couldn’t use it. They’re deliberately tormenting him. So now that he feels control slipping away again, he gave up the bodies… just to remind us who really holds the power. It’s retaliation."

Aizawa gave Izuku a look of sheer disgust.

"All this chaos just because he felt like people were forgetting his crimes. Psychopathic bastard. I bet he’s enjoying every second of this."

Katsuki shot his mentor a brief glance but swallowed back the words that had risen to his tongue.

"What I don’t get is why we still can’t confirm the victims’ identities. How is it possible for two people to leave no trace of existence?"

Aizawa turned fully toward him, but after a short look at Katsuki, he chuckled and turned back to the screens.

"Oh… you’ve got that look again."

Katsuki finally tore his gaze away from Izuku’s infuriatingly composed face and glanced at Aizawa’s profile.

"What look?"

Aizawa smirked.

"The one you always get. 'I know the answer, but I’ll wait for the most dramatic moment to say it. That way everyone will see just how clever I am.' "

Katsuki rolled his eyes but didn’t comment. He could make guesses as to why the victims had no identities, but again—

Until he could speak directly to Izuku, he preferred to keep his mind open. Thoughts that are already aimed at a conclusion are hard to tame; they twist everything to fit themselves, and once they do, it’s nearly impossible to change them.

That’s why, when he sat across from Izuku, he tried to act like always.

The curly-haired man’s face softened behind the white restraint mask, and he smiled kindly.

Kindly?!!

Midoriya fucking Izuku had just shown him a friendly gesture?

With his heartbeat suddenly thundering, Katsuki pulled his chair a little closer and placed the music player on the table.

"Hi, Kacchan! I was worried they wouldn’t let me see you!"

Katsuki tried to swallow as subtly as possible and cast a quick glance at the camera from the corner of his eye. He pressed play, and the notes of Johann Strauss’ Blue Danube echoed absurdly against the cold, heavy walls of the interrogation room.

Izuku’s smile widened as he closed his eyes, letting the music wash over him. Through the layers of his white restraint suit, Katsuki could see his fingers moving, as if he were playing an invisible piano.

Oh.

He’d forgotten Izuku had talent for so many instruments. Maybe, if he hadn’t become a serial killer, his intelligence and dazzling skill could have stunned the world.

"Good evening, Izuku. How are you today?"

Even here, Katsuki could feel the weight of dozens of officers and high-ranking officials watching them, their eyes boring into his back—especially Aizawa Shouta’s sharp, observant gaze that felt like it was shooting through him from the cameras.

Sure, this was a formal interrogation and not one of his private interviews, but he wasn’t about to change his approach just to satisfy a bunch of mustached bureaucrats.

Izuku opened his eyes again and smiled even wider.

"Now that you’re here? I’m good."

The blond man steeled himself against Izuku’s dangerous charm—like a meteor caught in the pull of a planet’s gravity.

"Glad to hear it. I’m sure you realize this conversation isn’t like our usual sessions, right?"

Izuku leaned back against the chair, his voice relaxed and assured.

"Oh, of course. Our private talks are rarely this boring."

Katsuki bit the inside of his cheek to hide a smirk of victory, but he was almost certain Izuku, unlike the others watching behind the cameras, had noticed it anyway.

"Good. So, why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me the story behind these two bodies?"

Izuku’s neat brows furrowed slightly.

"Where’s the fun in that?"

Katsuki quickly smoothed the frown threatening his face and tightened his grip on the pen between his fingers. He hated how the restraints and layers wrapped around Izuku made reading his body language so difficult. He couldn’t easily see his face well enough to peel back the layers behind his words.

A bit disoriented, he answered more cautiously:

"I imagine you know you’ve sent the entire Japanese police force into a frenzy. I’d say that’s plenty of fun for you already."

Izuku let out a sharp, audible chuckle.

"Oh, this is only the beginning, Kacchan. They’re going to dance for me a lot more than this."

Katsuki paused. The question forming on his tongue was reckless, dangerous—but something in his gut told him if he asked it now, he might finally get an answer, or at least a fragment of one, to the millions of questions about this man that whirled like a storm in his mind.

"Why do you do this, Izuku?"

Izuku’s green eyes flashed, and Katsuki could swear he saw serpents stirring behind their rings. Malice seeped from his pale skin like the toxic sulfuric fumes of an awakening volcano.

He drew in a short breath and answered, his voice low and deliberate:

"Because the whole world should burn for what it did to me."

He cast a long, lingering glance at the camera, his eyes threatening every single person standing behind it—and they all felt it.

They feared him.

They feared the man chained to the ground, knowing he could drag them into a fire far worse than any physical pain.

The hair on the back of Katsuki’s neck bristled. He clenched his fists and stared deep into Izuku’s face, feeling a strange twist coil through his entire being.

It felt like floating on waters so salty they burned his skin. He looked at him and, for the thousandth time, asked himself:
Was Izuku truly the monster everyone saw, or just a hungry, lonely boy curled up in the corner of his filthy room, waiting for his mother to come home and feed him?

The world was cruel and rotten. It created people like Midoriya Izuku, and then—once their innocence had been stripped away—decided to punish them for what it had made them become. Katsuki hated admitting it, but the man’s past did explain some of his actions.
It didn’t justify them. But it explained them.

Izuku leaned forward slightly, studying the micro-changes in Katsuki’s face, then said in a tone so calm it was chilling:

"Tell me, Bakugou Katsuki… who do you think those two are? How could two people simply… not exist?"

Katsuki shifted uncomfortably, trying to sidestep the question.

"I was hoping you could tell me."

Izuku chuckled softly, a sound too light for the weight of the room.

"Oh, don’t insult me. They might be idiots… but you? You’re not one of them, Katsuki. You already know the answer. You’ve known it all along. But you kept your mouth shut, didn’t you?

His head tilted, eyes glinting like a predator amused with its prey.

"Do you want me to tell you why? Of course you do."

He leaned back with deliberate slowness, making the restraint chains creak, as if reminding everyone in the observation room that the cage didn’t change who truly held power here.

"You kept quiet because you wanted them to struggle for it. You wanted them to dance in circles while you stayed clean. If you fed them my way of thinking, you could keep your halo, avoid the little whispers about how much like me you really are."

Katsuki felt naked. Exposed. Like Izuku had peeled him open in front of an audience.

With just a handful of words, he had reached into the deepest, most hidden parts of him—and that knowledge shook Katsuki to his core.

"So tell me, Kacchan…" Izuku’s voice dropped, a quiet whisper that still filled the room. "Why don’t those two bodies have names?"

Katsuki tried to compose himself, but when he finally spoke, his voice betrayed the tremor running through him:

"Why should I tell you?"

Izuku’s smirk sharpened, dripping with taunting delight.

"Because if you do…" He leaned forward, chains clinking softly, eyes locking Katsuki in place. "I’ll give you the whole story. Every beautiful, bloody detail."

The offer was so intoxicating that Katsuki answered before he could stop himself:

"Illegal immigrants."

Izuku’s smirk stretched wider, almost triumphant. And in that moment, Katsuki felt impossibly more exposed than before—stripped bare under the gaze of the monster across from him.

.
.
.
.
.
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February 17, 2010

"Since I’d never finished school, finding a job was damn near impossible. I didn’t really have a place I could call home back then. No house, no real life—everything I owned was in my backpack. So I didn’t just search for work in one city. I’d hop on a bus, get off somewhere random, and look for a job there.

One night, in a bar in Kanazawa, I met a guy named Osamu. He wore glasses and it was clear he was attracted to men, but for some reason, he couldn’t express it freely. By playing a little with that, I managed to charm him, and he found me a job at the company he worked for as an accountant. It was a small passenger transport company, headquartered in an old, dusty house, but the owner had built a website that allowed people to rent cars and drivers anywhere in Japan. After signing a few checks and papers, they gave me a black Honda Life that saved my life. That car became my greatest friend. The car I worked with, chose my victims in, transported them, and even slept in for a while."

"By October 2011, I managed to get a small house for myself in Gifu. It was far from Kanazawa, but it was a city I often passed through on my routes and could store my things there. By then, my boss trusted me enough to not say anything if I was a day or two late. I did my job cleanly and caused no trouble, which was enough for them to leave me alone.

The first victim I picked from my passengers was a filthy bastard. I picked him up at Tokyo airport; he was going for a few job interviews in different cities. The money was good, and I ignored how he kept staring at the back of my neck from the back seat, or how after a while he moved to the front seat to grope me under some pretext. Seeing him disgusted me... reminded me of my trash of a father. I knew if I didn’t kill him, I’d never sleep peacefully again. So, when I dropped him off at the last stop in Yokohama, I stayed in town for a couple of days and watched him. At the right moment, in a bar where there were no cameras around, I caught him off guard and pretended to run into him by accident. He liked the flirting, so he didn’t suspect a thing when I told him to come with me. In an alley, while he was trying to kiss me with his filthy lips, I stabbed his lungs sixteen times, then threw him in the trunk of my car. For three days, I drove to Mito at regular intervals and after I finished my ritual, I dumped his corpse somewhere in a back alley."

"After that, I really got the hang of it. I’d drop them off at their destinations, wait a few days until no one suspected the driver who took them, then kill them and dump their bodies in another city. This way, it took the stupid cops forever to connect the dots, because the system wasn’t centralized, and finding a victim in one city meant nothing. Especially since my signature was on the scenes, making them even more confused.

On October 17, 2013, I picked up two girls from Akita port. Their names were Rosie and Lola—two Russian girls who had illegally fled from the port of Nakhodka, Russia, to live in Japan. They loved anime, and everything from their clothes to their phone cases screamed 'otaku.' It was clear they had no proper family to look for them. One of them explained to me in broken Japanese that they had worked together for three years to save up the smuggler’s fee and come to Japan. I was supposed to take them to Akihabara—the anime capital of Japan.

The first few days, I treated them with respect and tried to use the simplest Japanese words so they’d understand. I pretended to be interested in anime and finally gained their trust. They didn’t have to tell me they were illegal immigrants for me to know—no visa, no passport. No one was looking for them either, because their phones were always on, constantly taking pictures of everything. That’s why they didn’t realize I was taking them to a completely different city."

"I drove them all over Japan for four days to erase every trace of myself and make sure they had no family, then took them to Tokai. At first, they had no idea what was going on because I dropped them off on a cliff overlooking the city and a nuclear power plant. But after a few minutes, I saw Rosie—the girl who rarely spoke and usually scrutinized me with suspicious eyes—looking for a way on her map. That’s when I realized she was suspicious. Without hesitation, I grabbed Rosie and snapped her neck."

"The other one…" Izuku’s tone lowered, almost like he was reminiscing fondly. "She just stood there. Mouth open. Frozen. But when I was busy with the first girl, she screamed and ran. Poor thing. She didn’t realize those woods were mine. I grew up on those hills — spent my entire childhood and adolescence exploring them. She never had a chance."

"I caught her. Dragged her back to the car. I had gloves, a jacket… no matter how much she clawed, she couldn’t leave a trace on me. I tied her up and placed her on the ground so she could watch her friend’s body… watch the bone sticking out of her broken neck.

I kept her alive. Forced her to watch as I performed my ritual on Rosie. At first she screamed, struggled, begged in Russian… cried like a child. But when I poured her friend’s blood into her mouth…" Izuku’s lips curled into something resembling a smile, cold and alien. "…she went quiet. Silent. Just… watched as I dug their graves."

"Then it was her turn. And when I was done, she was still half-alive. I took their clothes, their belongings, and buried them. The second girl was still alive when the dirt started covering her. But I’d already removed her eyes — she couldn’t even see she was being buried. She tried to climb up… but she was too weak. When I was sure their graves couldn’t be found, I burned everything I’d taken from them and went home."

Izuku tilted his head, studying Katsuki, as if savoring the tension his words created.

"Burying isn’t really part of my method, you know. Normally… I design my bodies for you cops. Like art exhibitions. But this time? I still prepared their little tomb for you. Took pictures of everything. Left them in a box next to the girls so you could see exactly what they endured before they died. Their eyes and tongues too — preserved in alcohol, waiting for you to find them. But…" He chuckled softly. "I doubt you’re smart enough to solve the little puzzle I left in their graves to locate the rest of their parts."

"Killing those two girls… it was like winning a prize for a contest I didn’t even enter. Who would’ve thought two lonely, illegal little immigrants would fall right into my lap? Opening them up… was delightful. Sometimes…" He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as if reliving it. "…if I stay very still, I can still feel the heat of their blood… taste the texture of their flesh."

"Rosie and Lola… I wanted them to surprise you the way they surprised me."

Then he opened his eyes and smiled innocently like he had been telling a sweet story from his childhood...

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: Requiem

"I, too, was not spared from that infectious rot seeping from the body of existence."
— Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North

It had been weeks since the discovery of the Russian girls’ bodies. Tokyo, caught in the grip of a fresh wave of cold, shivered under its weight, leaving sidewalks and trees frozen stiff. You could hardly spot a bird—other than the black crows, their button-like eyes drilling straight into the depths of people’s souls. In the early mornings, with noses flushed red, people bent over their cars with steaming jugs of water, trying to free windshields from their icy shell.

The subways were crowded, and even the collective breathing of dozens of people failed to add any warmth to the air despite the heating systems struggling at full force.

A few days earlier, Katsuki had happily tucked the cardboard boxes of case files under his arm and decided to continue the work from the warmth and comfort of his own home. His recent breakthroughs—new information on the case, and his successful interview with Izuku regarding the latest bodies—had earned him broader access to forensic reports and profiler notes from the higher-ups.

The head of the Japanese database, upon seeing Katsuki’s official clearance pressed against the smeared glass, had scrunched his face as if the blond man had just flashed him a handful of dung. When he passed the heavy box through the narrow slot, he made sure to yank his thin, wrinkled hands back with as much hostility as possible, silently wishing Katsuki would lose his balance.

But Katsuki had straightened up with ease, offering him a crooked smirk, and left the damp, aging building without a word of thanks. Now he sat comfortably at his coffee table between the couch and the TV stand, chewing neatly cut fruit and vegetables while reading a report—pretending they were French fries. This case required patience, long hours, and a calm mind… though with a hint of irritation, Katsuki had noticed he’d gained at least a couple of pounds over the past months. So instead of giving in to his cravings for takeout, he’d made himself fried rice with vegetables.

After dinner, he had rewarded himself with a cold beer and an episode of his favorite show, before returning to work.

Midoriya Izuku—in his prime—had left at least one body somewhere in Japan almost every week, and the recently discovered ones were only a fraction of the truth. Katsuki knew full well the real number was far higher, and that many of the murders might never be confirmed or denied—often out of nothing but Izuku’s sheer malice.

That was why the official trial date kept being pushed back, and with every new body unearthed, the government was under increasing pressure to prove to the public that the body count had finally stopped growing.

Katsuki picked up a raw broccoli floret with distaste, staring at it for a moment… Izuku sometimes looked like broccoli—his hair growing longer by the day, the curls so maddeningly touchable that people’s hands would itch to reach out. Since their last interview at the police station, Katsuki hadn’t visited him. Nor did he plan to, not anytime soon.

There was a stretch of Izuku’s life that baffled him—the hazy gap between his arrival in Tokai and his first known murder. His confessions about that time were maddeningly vague, and Katsuki knew the man loved to toy with the tiniest details, the kind that could change everything. Katsuki knew there was something Izuku had never admitted anywhere, and he was hunting for its shadow.

Yes, Izuku had shown signs of psychopathy throughout his childhood. But there had always been a line he didn’t cross. He might have watched people in secret, but until Shoto’s murder, he had never shown direct violence.

There was no way a child with such high intelligence and flawless self-control would have crossed that line without one final push. This unspoken truth sat in front of Katsuki like a sealed, heavy package—he could see it, but couldn’t tear it open to see what was inside. He was certain it connected to Izuku’s father, but Hisashi Midoriya was dead, and apart from Izuku’s own words, there was no other path to the truth.

And beyond all that, a killer’s first victim is often like a guidebook to their soul and motives. Izuku had hidden his “guidebook” somewhere so deep that no one had managed to find it after all these years. Which meant Katsuki was forced to go to the second victim.

The murder of Melissa Shield was one of the most talked-about and complex criminal cases in Japan in the past two decades. Officially, she was the first identified victim of Midoriya Izuku, complete with his signature. The crime scene analysis had gone—quite literally—nowhere.

For years, the police had no clue—not even a whisper—about the killer. Until bodies began surfacing across the streets of Japan, each missing their eyes and tongues, no one had any idea what had happened to this girl.

At 5 p.m. on March 9, 2005, a seventy-five-year-old woman named Ryoko Shinya called the local police in the small city of Shizuoka with a bizarre report. Mrs. Shinya had been walking her dog when it suddenly bolted, barking furiously, into one of those filthy, ancient alleyways that people instinctively avoid—the kind that stirs a primal fear in the gut.

After following the dog for a short distance, she found it huddled in a corner, barking at the wall at the very end of the dead-end alley. Mrs. Shinya, her steps trembling, inched forward. And when she finally reached her dog and saw what it had been barking at—she collapsed to the ground, screaming.

There, fixed against the wall, was the body of a girl—fourteen or fifteen years old—impaled by long, black metal rods in such a way that her body formed the shape of a massive cross. Both eyes and her tongue had been ripped from their sockets, and she was completely naked.

Photographs from the scene showed no blood on the wounds, which meant the victim’s body had been entirely drained of blood before being impaled. And since not a single trace of blood was found anywhere in the alley, it was clear that the killing had happened elsewhere. The scene was staged—deliberately.

The investigation revealed that the girl, originally American, had been living in Tokyo for several years with her father. Her disappearance had been reported two days earlier to the Ibaraki Prefectural Police, who were actively searching for her. Apparently, she and her father had been on an extended trip around Japan. The last time Melissa was seen was when she said goodbye to her father, planning to go cycling through the Shizuoka forests. She never returned.

The investigation began immediately, and Melissa’s death caused an uproar in the media. Years passed, yet no one could say for certain who had murdered her in such a brutal fashion.

For a small city like Shizuoka, the scene was unprecedented. There were no signs of beating or blunt-force trauma on the body. Likewise, no drugs or sedatives were found in her system, ruling out the possibility that she’d been subdued chemically. The absence of physical struggle suggested that the killer had been able to get her to the place of execution without resistance, and only then killed her.

The cause of death was severe arterial lacerations leading to massive blood loss—meaning the killer had used a weapon, later identified as a hunting knife, to sever her arteries. After suspending her upside down—while she was still alive—he had waited for her to bleed out.

Both wrists, the carotid artery, and the main femoral arteries had been slashed. Forensic analysis placed her time of death between 9 p.m. and midnight—roughly four hours after her disappearance. The autopsy report itself became another point of grim fascination in the news for months.

Apparently, the killer had hung Melissa upside down by her ankles, just like slaughtered livestock, to drain her completely. An average adult woman carries roughly 4.7 liters of blood—but given the depth and breadth of the wounds, the full draining of her body would have taken hours. Hours that spoke volumes about the killer’s patience, his unflinching composure, and the premeditation behind the act. Her body bore no trace of the killer’s blood, which meant she had been meticulously cleaned before being transported to the display site.

Neither her clothes, her personal belongings, nor her missing eyes and tongue were ever recovered—indicating the killer had taken them. The savagery of the murder stood in sharp contrast to the precision with which it had been carried out.

And then there was the position of the body—a detail that stirred endless debate. It would have taken the killer hours to mount a body of that weight and size against the wall in such a way. Yet no witnesses ever came forward to say they’d seen anyone in the alley that night.

Atsuhiro Sako was one of the first to create a criminal profile for the mysterious killer. According to him, the killer was male, with significant physical strength. The lack of any evidence of beating or sexual assault suggested that he bore no personal grudge against the victim. He likely possessed a high degree of self-control, remarkable confidence, and access to an untraceable vehicle.

Childhood trauma and a sadistic urge to harm others were among the definitive psychological traits considered for the killer at that stage. It was clear he possessed an advanced mind and an exceptionally high IQ. In the end, Atsuhiro Sako had emphasized one point: the killer had either murdered before… or would inevitably murder again in the future.

Something that would, in time, be proven true.

---

December 27, 2023

After several weeks, the cold wave finally began to loosen its grip on Tokyo, leaving behind a dark, rain-swept sky. Katsuki, still feeling drained despite the nicotine patches plastered to his skin and his third cup of coffee, pulled up the collar of his black trench coat before stepping out of the car. He made sure to leave his phone locked in the dashboard.

A massive flash of lightning lit up the heavens, casting a jagged shadow over the entrance to the St. Diego Psychiatric Hospital. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath Katsuki’s eyes as he locked his car and moved quickly through the pounding rain toward the entrance.

Passing through the barbed-wire fence, he caught sight—out of the corner of his eye—of an old Mazda parked not too far away. A faint thread of smoke drifted from its exhaust, the engine clearly running, but its tinted windows allowed no glimpse of the inside.

The blond gave it one more sharp, suspicious glance before heading in, making a mental note to check whether it was still there when he returned. Cars didn’t just show up in this area. The government had built St. Diego deliberately far from easy access, and it didn’t even appear on most maps. There was a fair chance some stubborn journalist—one of the same bloodhounds who had forced him to keep his phone switched off for the past several days—had tracked him here.

Inside, the air reeked of mildew and sickness, and Katsuki was already regretting being there. Sachiko, the mouse-faced girl with thinning light hair who manned the reception desk, was—unsurprisingly—sick again. Her name tag was pinned crookedly to her wrinkled uniform. As always, she dragged the process out far longer than necessary, and Katsuki made sure to take the small visitor’s pass from her without letting their hands touch. The last thing he needed was to catch a heavy cold.

Beneath the flickering security cameras, he looped the old, black ribbon of the visitor tag around his neck, keeping his notepad tucked close, and stepped forward so the perpetually scowling guard could perform a body check. After that came the metal detector gates—he slipped off his wristwatch preemptively, unwilling to hear the piercing beep-beep like last time.

The St. Diego Psychiatric Hospital was a relic from World War II—once Tokyo’s wartime radio communications center. After the war, it had been abandoned for years, left damp and rotting, until disease and mold had seeped deep into its walls. Even now, after extensive repairs, you could feel their presence clinging to the building like a ghost.

The hospital was four stories tall, with a winding metal staircase, and every twenty meters the wards were divided by new steel barriers. There were three main wards, each separated from the others by an open-air stone bridge—bridges that, on a day like this, Katsuki assumed would be nothing more than large pools of rainwater.

The walls were bare—no paintings, no color—just endless, empty gray. Over time, even the faces of the staff seemed to have taken on the same hue. They all looked tired, sullen, and harsh, and Katsuki preferred to avoid speaking to any of them unless absolutely necessary.

The first ward was reserved for patients whose conditions were less severe—unstable teenagers too violent for juvenile correction centers, people suffering from severe trauma and unable to care for themselves, and those under watch for depression, addiction, or suicide attempts.

Ward B was larger and better equipped, housing those with more serious conditions: individuals with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dissociative identities, or severe hallucinations. The shared rooms for all three wards were located here, along with the recovery section, hospital bay, group therapy and art rooms, and the psychologists’ offices surrounding the dormitories.

And beyond that was the Special Wing—a place that felt more like a small military outpost. This was where the most dangerous human beings in Japan were kept. Ten rooms stood spaced along a wide corridor, each with a small camera feeding directly to the guard station and the on-duty physician. Muscular, hard-eyed guards stood everywhere, armed with close-combat weapons. Katsuki knew that, in the event of any escape attempt, they had full authorization to act with lethal force.

The ones kept here were the kind who would never again earn the right to walk among society—people no one wanted to be near.
Their numbers were small enough to be… manageable.

The man who had eaten five people.
The pedophile who drove a school bus.
The woman who’d made soup out of her husband’s body parts.
The child who slit open a classmate’s belly, filled it with stones, then stitched it closed.
The lunatic who burned down an animation studio, killing thirty-six people.
The old woman who hunted young girls and skinned them alive.
And finally… Midoriya Izuku. The “Karasu” of Japan.
The footprintless phantom who had kept the police dancing for years—
and who now carried a body count of one hundred and fifty.

Katsuki passed the reinforced hallway of the high-security cells, letting his gaze briefly skim the wall of Midoriya’s room before heading up to the third floor—where he had a meeting with Midoriya’s psychiatrist.

Chisaki Kai’s office sat beneath the massive arched roof on the top floor, with a 360-degree view of the compound. Before knocking, Katsuki loosened the last button of his shirt, then stepped inside when Chisaki’s deep voice called from within.

Chisaki was a hard, uncompromising man. Short brown hair, amber eyes ringed with lines that only made him look sterner, harsher.
He sat behind a wide wooden desk, watching Katsuki with a stretched, deliberate smile.

When the blond man entered, Chisaki rose from his seat. Katsuki, knowing all too well about the man’s obsessive cleanliness, didn’t offer his hand—only a curt nod.

“Mr. Kai.”

Gloved hands gestured toward one of the chairs opposite the desk.

“Katsuki. Good to see you. Sit… make yourself comfortable.”

Katsuki gave a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes and took the seat with the best view of the man. He set a stack of papers on the desk, breathing in the clean, orderly atmosphere.
Bookshelves lined the walls, while the glass ceiling and walls displayed a dark, rain-lashed sky. A fire burned hotly in the corner, and on the desk a white candle flickered—scented with lemon and mint.

Kai sat back down, forcing another smile.

“If I said I wasn’t surprised by your call, I’d be lying. I know you’re a busy man, so your request to meet—here of all places—caught me off guard.”

The blond exhaled slowly, now slightly more at ease.

“I didn’t want to take up your time outside work hours, Mr. Kai. I think you can guess what I’m here to talk about.”

This time, Kai’s smile felt more genuine. He tilted his head toward the monitor on his desk, as if inviting Katsuki to see for himself.

“I’m guessing it’s about the famous Karasu… am I right?”

Katsuki suspected the live feed from the security cameras was open in front of him, so he simply gave a brief nod.

“My interview with Mr. Midoriya last week wasn’t exactly pleasant.”

He ignored the flicker of triumph on Kai’s face.

“Unfortunately, he wasn’t focused enough to talk—barely coherent, in fact. When I spoke to the nurse, she said he’d been prescribed a new dosage of medication. That’s why I wanted to talk. No disrespect, Mr. Kai, but you’re aware what Olanzapine is generally prescribed for, aren’t you?”

Kai laughed, loud and sharp.

“Ah… there’s that infamous sharp tongue I’ve heard about. I was wondering when you’d start trying to cut me down. Of course I know what conditions it’s used for.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes but restrained himself from outright mocking the man’s self-importance. He took a short breath and let just enough disdain drip into his tone.

“Then perhaps you can tell me why Midoriya Izuku would need such a high dose, given that we both know he’s never once displayed symptoms of bipolar disorder?”

Kai hesitated, then dropped his voice a few octaves.

“If I didn’t know you better, Katsuki, I’d almost think you were worried about that bastard.”

Katsuki made no attempt to soften his voice in response to Kai’s thinly veiled threat—one that made his loyalties abundantly clear. Instead, he kept steady, controlled.

“Mr. Kai, I’m sure you’re aware two more bodies have been found recently. I have direct authorization from Central to conduct these interviews.The patient couldn’t talk about the past, or the locations of the bodies he’d hidden, when he could barely even control his own saliva. Moreover, I believe I explicitly stated in the letter I delivered to your secretary weeks ago that any medications the suspect was taking should be directly overseen by the lead psychologist of the case—which, as far as I remember, wasn’t you, but Mr. Aizawa and myself. So I’ll ask again… on what authority did you feed such high doses of psychotropic drugs to a suspect under interrogation?”

Kai pressed his lips into a thin line, abandoning any pretense. A subtle frown formed as he said,

“The last time I checked, your academic background ended at psychology, Mr. Bakugo—not psychiatry. Prescribing medication isn’t within your scope. And since the administration of these lunatics has been entrusted to me, I decide who receives what dose. On top of that, I monitor the suspect twenty-four-seven… perhaps if you’d paid closer attention during your so-called interview sessions, you’d have noticed that the suspect has recently displayed manic-depressive symptoms. Additionally, his body has slowed, and he experiences constant restlessness and delusions, naturally…”

Katsuki’s anger boiled in his throat like acid. He furrowed his brow deeper and nearly growled,

“All of that is because you, without consulting me or the on-duty psychiatrist, prescribed him an illogical dose of Quetiapine and Risperidone. I’m curious to know—when did his schizophrenia begin? Because, as far as I remember, none of his psychiatrists in the past five years ever mentioned it. If I didn’t know you better, Kai, I’d think you’re trying to erase the patient’s rationality with chemical poison.”

“The patient is no ordinary human, Katsuki… he has severe ASPD. His mother suffered from bipolar disorder. And all these years of killings and carnage… all of that can induce both mania and schizophrenia.”

“That’s true—but not overnight!”

Kai slammed his hand on the desk, his anger audible.

“I am the one who decides what medication he takes, at what dose. I determine which symptoms manifest and what’s necessary for him to reach sufficient rationality for trial.”

Katsuki’s face twisted in response; his voice rose as he countered,

“Don’t play dumb, Kai. This patient isn’t some simple psychiatric case—he’s under intense psychological interrogation! I can’t understand his motives for the murders when he can barely lift his head! Your actions are illegal, and you know it. Consider this a warning: if the patient hasn’t returned to his previous stability by next week’s interview, you’ll have to answer to someone other than me.”

Kai narrowed his eyebrows, growling,

“Previous stability? That bastard used to pull people’s eyes out! He’s a cannibal! Do you understand? Do you understand what cannibalism means? You think he’s a good man just because he sits in front of you and spreads his legs? His first murder was at ten years old… there’s no humanity left in him. And you… you’re looking for previous stability?”

“That’s my problem, not yours. His medications are to be cut off today. Otherwise, it’s not just your job you’ll lose, Kai.”

Kai, now standing fully and leaning threateningly toward Katsuki, growled,

“You… you’re threatening me?”

Katsuki, without realizing it, gave a smile reminiscent of Izuku’s and replied in a low, calm voice,

“Yes.”

The man’s bright eyes widened, and Katsuki considered his silence sufficient—he knew that next week, when he returned to see Izuku, the patient would be alert and awake. Free, at least temporarily, from the mind-numbing pills meant to erase his intelligence and cunning.

Without another glance at Kai—who now seemed frozen in place, watching Katsuki with furious eyes—he rose, grabbed his belongings from the desk, and said,

“Good day, Chisaki.”

Ignoring the man still standing there, the heavy waves of his anger exhaled steadily as he left the room.
He descended the metal stairs at a slow, controlled pace, finally emerging from the suffocating confines of Saint Diego Psychiatric Hospital. The rain had stopped, leaving the air thick with the scent of damp earth. Black clouds still twisted above like a roaring ocean, threatening another violent downpour.

As Katsuki exited the building, he spotted the same old, beaten black Mazda parked across the street—but this time, two men stood in front of it.

Katsuki, fully aware that whoever these two men were, they had business with him and were waiting, slipped his hands into his pockets, wrapping them around his pocket knife, and started walking toward them. Just as he had expected, the two men leaning against the car straightened up as he approached.

One of them had messy black hair and most of his face was burned. Katsuki’s stomach twisted as he realized that the layers of skin, which from a distance looked purple, were actually raw flesh. His hands, visible as far as the long sleeves of his tattered clothing allowed, were burnt and mangled in the same way. His eyes were bright blue, alert, scanning Katsuki from head to toe. As Katsuki moved closer, he noticed the numerous piercings on his body—rings through his nose, eyebrows, and ears—and every patch of unburned skin was covered in intricate tattoos.

But the man standing beside him was different.
He was neat and well-groomed. His blonde hair was carefully cut and styled, and around his amber, elongated eyes, a precise eyeliner traced a striking line. His clothes were tidy, and his beige jacket looked expensive. Like the other man, he wore piercings, but his were limited to small, ruby-red earrings.

Despite their stark differences, they held each other’s hands tightly, both appearing tense and concerned. The blonde man stepped forward when he noticed Katsuki’s suspicious gaze and, with a clear yet anxious voice, said:

“Mr. Bakugo… we’re not reporters…”

Katsuki opened his mouth to sarcastically reply ‘Oh really?’ but the black-haired man stepped forward too, without letting go of the other’s hand, and said:

“There’s something important we need to talk to you about… I’m Toya… Toya Todoroki.”

Chapter Text

Um… well
First of all Hi!

I am deeply sorry about the delay. I live in Iran so…
Yep.
We had Protests for a couple of weeks and then fucking war… hehe
I was kinda busy dodging the missiles :)
But anyway.
I really did want to update but the internet is kinda out of reach for us.

Just wanted to say hi and you know… ensure you that the work isn't abandoned.

I have at least five chapters written and ready but I can't upload them.

Please don't forget About ‘Bleed Into Me’

I’ll be back soon. (if I don't die in this war. One of the missiles hit our street, and we kinda flied. Power went out and all of that scary shit. Tbh I have no hope anymore but what can I do… )

I got carried away.
Thanks for waiting.
See you later… or won't.