Chapter Text
The first moment of his life was painted in agony.
He had been born mid-surgery. He could feel the rods beside his eyes, cold metal against delicate flesh and sclera. The other had been sedated, but when Izuru Kamukura came to — began existing — it took the drugs a crucial few seconds to catch up to him.
In those few seconds, a surgeon’s arm was broken, and another's throat was torn out. Then, the drowsiness overtook him too, and he joined Hajime Hinata in forced slumber.
—
When Izuru first spoke, he was not greeted with joy, or any of the expected emotions or reactions that someone's first words should be met with. Except surprise: the other was certainly surprised.
“Ah!” Hajime screamed. He was alone in the concrete room, curled up in the middle of the bare mattress. He whispered to himself, frantic. “O-oh, I’ve gone crazy. They poked too much, haha. I've started hallucinating now.”
Hello?
“Not answering, not answering… you’re not real, this isn’t real.”
I am real. I can feel the mattress; it’s bare. I can feel the air; it's cold. Do you remember the outside world; was it cold too?
“I–I kinda remember being outside. It was bright - but a different bright than the fluorescents. And the sun was so warm…” Hajime shivered, fearful. He kept his voice low enough to not be picked up by the surveillance. The scream was okay for them to have heard; he screamed all the time and they didn't care. But talking to a voice in his head? That was different. “I-If I talk to you, will you leave?”
…I don't think I can leave. I don't know how I got here. No, actually, I think the last surgery caused me to start being here. The one with the metal in our eyes.
“Is it over then? Is… is the project over? I can't remember what they’re doing this all for anymore. I remember knowing, agreeing, signing up for something, but not this! Are you what they wanted? Is the pain over? Please say it's over.”
—
The pain was not over.
—
“W-what’s your name?”
They said it’s supposed to be Izuru Kamukura.
“I-Izuru… hi, Izuru.” Even in their shared mind, the other was always quiet, gasping for breath, mortally wounded, in the constant process of dissection and destruction. Izuru could only ever visualize the other on an operating table, with gloved hands and scalpels hovering above. The other was dying, consciousness erased bit by bit each day.
Izuru recalled that conversations were supposed to be reciprocal. He learned it yesterday, when a surgery crammed more knowledge into their head.
Do you have a name?
“I remember it, just barely. Just two memories of it left now. Friends, one with blonde hair, one with pink hair, calling me it. It’s Hajime. Will you remember it too? Please don't forget me, please?”
Hajime. Hi, Hajime. He echoed Hajime’s own greeting: reciprocal.
—
It was time for another surgery. They were waiting in the concrete room, in a hospital gown, on the centre of the mattress. Hajime was shaking, curled up on his side. If Izuru had physicality, he would hold the other. His ‘Ultimate Doctor’ started advising him of all the ways he could prevent hypothermia; his ‘Ultimate Therapist’ started advising on all the ways to comfort someone.
“I signed up for this, you know?”
You said that before, yes.
“I don't remember why, but I think I know now. I hated myself. I think I must have wanted to die — why else would I agree to this – but I must have been too cowardly to do it myself. Even now I’m scared. Even if I’m dying for what they want, for this stupid grand project, I'm still scared. I’m having second thoughts at the very last moment, the final stretch, even though it's already too late...”
Some people who hang themselves scratch at the rope in their last moments. You can tell by their bodies after the fact. Their hands become bloodied in their desperation. The Ultimate Detective, the Ultimate Coroner. The talent flooded through their shared mind, providing morbid encyclopedic facts without consent. So many things happened to them without consent.
“I don't want to die. But I want the pain to end even more.” Hajime paused. The mattress below him was wet. “If I'm gone, the pain stops. It’ll stop for you too — you're what they want, you're the end product, they'll leave you alone.”
Hajime.
“They'll stop poking. They'll stop prodding. They’ll stop drugging me, and hurting me. It'll be over. I just don't want to hurt anymore.”
Hajime...
“Death is scary, though, still. Not scarier than the needles, but it's more final than the needles. Izuru, will you remember me? I-If you could, would you hold my hand? I-I remember my mom doing that once. I think; l can’t remember her face.”
Yes. I’ll remember you. And I'd hold your hand if I could. Reciprocation: Hajime was in pain, and so Izuru would comfort him. If Izuru was the one being erased, Hajime would hold him.
Hajime was kind. The doctors (Izuru’s teachers) weren’t. The doctors sought to destroy them both: destroy Hajime's personality and memory to make him an empty vessel, and destroy Izuru’s will to reforge him, the resulting empty body, into a tool. Even if Hajime screamed when they first met, he was gentle in a way the doctors never were.
The doctors wanted to use Izuru: to create a flawless object to use and showcase for their own egotistical ideals of scientific progress and hope. He was to be a tool with no autonomy, no will of its own.
Hajime used Izuru too — for a voice to guide him through the pain, and to satiate the loneliness of the concrete room.
But Izuru let him. Izuru always soothed the other through the pain because some unidentifiable emotion tore through him at the thought of the other left endlessly crying on that bare mattress, alone and distraught.
And Izuru used Hajime back. He used him for companionship in the empty, grey, cold concrete room too. He used him for knowledge — to explain the unexplainable (emotions), and to explain basic things the scientists had neglected to give him. Once, he was curious about childhood, because they had just been given the talent of Ultimate Pediatrician, but he didn't comprehend the basis of the information invading the mind.
What was a child? How do you treat a child? What do you do with children?
Hajime had dutifully answered each inquiry, using the little memory he had left of his own childhood. Under his breath, he sang Izuru a lullaby his parents had sung to him. Later, when Hajime lost that memory too, Izuru sung the song back. He could keep the memory safe for Hajime. His flat tone lulled them to sleep, together.
Reciprocity. That was their bond. They comforted each other, and they taught each other. During the preparation for the final surgery, they held each other close. They would sing to the other. They would remember the other. They would calm the other down whenever the needles and nightmares came too close.
Hajime had signed up to become a vessel for Izuru. Hajime would die for him. Perhaps that feeling was reciprocal.
Would Hajime kill for Izuru too, like Izuru would kill for Hajime?
—
When the day of the final surgery came, a scientist led Hajime to the table by the hand. The man’s tight grip on the forearm was unnecessary.
Hajime was barely conscious, barely alive. Twice already he had forgotten his name. Izuru had to keep reminding him.
“Izuru?” Hajime, terrifyingly dull eyed and empty, forgot to keep quiet. The researcher overheard him, but didn't care. The personality would be gone soon anyway. “What's my name again?”
It's Hajime. It’ll be okay, Hajime.
“Izuru, of course it'll be okay. It's over soon… I'll miss you, I think. But I won't be thinking much longer. It'll just be you soon. You'll like it, I think. No longer dragging me along, no more dealing with my tears, no more Hajime…”
Hajime, you’re going to survive this.
“No, I won't.” As the scientist tugged him down the long grey corridor, Hajime’s voice dragged dreamily. He had a vacant smile now. “I'll die and you'll live. No more pain, no more me… No more me… No more me…”
Hajime, I can take over now. If you want.
“See, that’s what I mean,” Hajime’s voice was so quiet now. “You won't have to ask useless, empty, talentless Hajime for permission anymore.”
They switched. Izuru was in the driver's seat now. If they had been in a literal car, Hajime would have been in the passenger’s seat behind him. He could almost feel Hajime’s sickly, faint breaths against the back of his neck, his arms squeezed in a death grip around his shoulders. They walked down the corridor to the operating room together.
I'm going to die. Hajime muttered weakly. He giggled a little, slightly hysterical. I'm going to die.
Izuru stayed silent. His dull tone would immediately inform the nearby scientist of the switch.
Izuru? Are you planning something? You- Hajime stuttered, tripping over a hole where a memory should be. His mind was littered with such holes, like a war-torn road with thousands of potholes. You get like this when you're thinking, right? I think I remember that?
Izuru stayed silent. He and the scientist were nearly at the end of the corridor.
Izuru? Am I remembering right? Did I forget again? Why aren't you talking to me?
Izuru stayed silent. The scientist threw the door open and dragged the subject into the room after him.
Izuru, why aren't you answering me? Please don't ignore me. I don't want to be alone. Hold my hand, remember me, please, you promised.
The room was large. It was a different operating room from the dozen of other times. It was ostentatious, with a central operating area in full view of a wide window. Behind that window were a half dozen administrators and high ranking Hope’s Peak officials. They were here to witness the death of a child and the true birth of their new invaluable tool.
A strange foreign emotion burned inside him: rage.
Izuru? Did you forget me already? Am I already dead?
The feeling burned even brighter at the sound of the other’s desolate voice. It was as empty as his own. They had done this to them.
He had spent hours calculating his plan. It was an incredibly considered collaboration between the Ultimate Analyst, Ultimate Martial Artist and Ultimate Soldier. That plan flew away, then, blown away by the strength of this sudden emotion. He had planned to wait a few more seconds, to be closer to the operating table when he struck. It didn't matter, though. Not when the prospect of survival was still so sweet. That, and revenge.
The scientist beside him was suddenly tipped onto his side, and the wrist that had been gripping Hajime’s forearm was suddenly underfoot. A dull crack and a scream informed Izuru that he had broken bone.
Inside, Hajime was panicking. Izuru!? Who's screaming? What's happening? Then, with surprising ease, Izuru covered up the windows of their metaphorical shared car. He didn't want Hajime to see or hear what would happen next. It didn't stop the other's frantic cries of confusion and terror.
Immediately after the first scientist went down, a pair of security guards took out their weapons: twin tranquilisers and stun guns. He avoided both shots, and his hands reached out to slam both guards’ heads into the green tiled floor.
The remaining scientists screamed. Some fled through the still open door, while others stayed rooted in fear. It inspired a feeling close to delightedness, to see such irony firsthand; the scientists who had restrained and tormented them had been suddenly put on the receiving end of the same cruelty.
The people behind the glass window weren't screaming. They seemed only intrigued. One was quickly scribbling notes. Another, whose scars suggested military experience, was looking at the defeated security guards with wide and excited eyes. A third, an old man, stroked his beard in thought. None of them looked alarmed or scared by the turn of events: not at the destruction that their creation was capable of.
They were perfectly convinced of their own infallibility. One of them tapped on the window — like a child trying to get a zoo animal’s attention.
He quite savoured the look of horror on all their faces when he smashed through the bulletproof glass.
—
By the time Izuru left the joint operating room and viewing port, it had become a bloodied mess of bone and viscera. He didn't regret it. The Ultimate Lawyer talent informed him that human experimentation, especially on children, was illegal and incredibly frowned upon. If they didn't want him to question them and judge them for their actions, they simply should not have given him that talent. For all that Hope’s Peak’s actions were cruel, they were also idiotic. Izuru didn't mind seeing fools getting what they deserved, especially when they hurt him and his.
He fished a master key from the pocket of one of the viewing administrators, and left the room. Only when he found a quiet and bloodless corridor did he let Hajime see and hear again.
Izuru! Hajime had clearly been crying, his voice hoarse and throat ruined. Izuru’s heart twisted, though he remained firm in his conviction. I thought you left me! There was just- just nothing! I thought I was dead, but it still hurt!
He let the Ultimate Therapist in him take the lead. “Shush, it's okay. I'm here, you're here.”
It took a few minutes for Hajime to calm down enough to form a new sentence.
Izuru, I’m… I’m sorry to be a burden, but I forgot again. What's my name?
“It’s Hajime. And, Hajime, you are not going to die.”
You… you're just saying that to calm me down, so at least I go in peace. I- where are we? This isn't the operating room. Where are the scientists?
He kept forgetting his own name, but always remembered the constant threat of the researchers and their dreaded operating table. What a sad state of affairs…
“No more scientists.” Izuru stated simply. “No more poking, no more prodding. There will be no more experiments.”
Hajime sniffled. Is the final surgery over already? But, it can't be. I'm still here…
Izuru considered lying for a moment. But, no, that would be cruel to hide the truth, and they were each other’s only companions and confidants.
“I stopped them. The final surgery is not going to happen.”
Did you ask them to stop? They never listened when I asked. I said ‘no, no, please stop,’ when they cut me open the first time, but they never listened. They listened to you? You– you're amazing, Izuru. You know that, you know that?
“I didn't ask them to stop.”
You didn't? Then, why-?
“I have killed several people in the last few minutes.” He said, blunt as could be. “Two security guards, four of the scientists, and eight of Hope’s Peak’s administration. Once I ensure you are okay, I will continue our escape.”
Hajime was silent for a long, long time. In their shared mind, Izuru could hear his own words bouncing back and forth, registering slowly. Maybe, once upon a time, Hajime’s reaction time would have been faster; the drugs and the psychological impact of the surgeries had severely stunted him in certain ways. Maybe, with time enough to recover, Hajime would become as quick-witted and wary as Izuru - maybe that was his original state, before he joined the project.
You killed people, Hajime started slowly. You killed people for me? Me — worthless, empty, stupid, idiotic, talentless me? Why? I'm nothing. You're everything.
“Perhaps I care about your safety and continued existence.”
Why would you care about me? I'm- I’m- I’m talentless and empty and a burden because I keep forgetting and I… I… oh, I think I forgot my name again.
“Hajime.”
Thank you. I'm sorry I keep forgetting. I'm so useless…
“Hajime, I will be entirely transparent. I don't know why I care about you. I do not understand it — I do not understand why the idea of being left alone in this body, with you erased… I do not understand why, but the very idea disturbs me. I do not want you to die.”
I don't understand why you'd care about something like me.
“Nor do I. Additionally, I don’t understand why, logistically, you care about something like me: a parasite spawned from your personality's absence, a body with no will to act upon, intended to replace you. In time, we can consult our myriad of talents for answers, but for now…” Izuru heard soft and unharried footsteps in the distance. Hajime clearly heard them too, because he screamed a little. “We should hurry.”
Please. Get out of here.
“Of course.”
Neither of them wanted to hurt anymore. Izuru picked himself off the floor, and ran.
—
They soon found another room. In it was a variety of security equipment, monitors and buttons. Slumped across a chair was a woman in her forties, fast asleep during her guard duty. Neither of them recognised her.
I might recognise her, if I could remember better. Hajime said. She might have been one of the people escorting me around — when I used to fight back.
“You used to fight back?” He spoke to the other quietly, with wary eyes scanning her sleeping expression and the images on the monitors. Somehow, their escape attempt hadn't been found out yet, in spite of the few scientists who had quickly fled the room. Perhaps they had fled the school entirely, in their terrified cowardice.
I think I did. I have a few memories of it: screaming, trying to punch someone, ripping IVs out. They're faint, but that might just be because of the pain.
“Are you hurting still?”
I'm always hurting. My name was Hajime, right?
“It is.” Izuru moved to the console, ripped out a panel and started sabotaging the facility's power grid. Even if the woman awoke soon, she wouldn't be able to raise the alarm. “Are you starting to remember better?”
No. I think all the ‘before’ memories are gone. They stole them. The only reason I know my name now is because you keep reminding me. And it could be a lie. My old name could be something else: something less boring, less common.
“Do you… want a different name?”
No. It's perfectly fitting for me: empty, worthless, talentless me. Though, I don't even deserve a name anymore. It's good I forgot. I don't deserve to remember anything.
“...You still want to die.”
Yeah. A little bit.
“I won't let you die.”
And I still don't understand why.
Izuru finished with the console, and peered over his shoulder at the still sleeping woman. “Do you care if she dies?” One of the images on the monitors displayed the concrete room, in all its barrenness. “She watched us suffer too.”
…I don't care. They taught me that — that screaming and crying and begging never changed anything. They taught me that what I want doesn't matter.
Izuru stared at the woman. “But what if it did matter?”
…I think I'd hate her too.
Izuru’s fingers reached to wrap round the woman's neck. Hajime watched intently.
—
Izuru stalked the corridors of the facility, wielding a blood stained baton stolen from a security guard. Viscera drip-drip-dripped from the metal weapon; it was the only noise left.
“You want to die. You don't want to hurt anymore. You want me to live.” Izuru listed the things he knew about the other as he searched for any more survivors or, more importantly, an exit. “You don't want to be left alone. You want everyone here dead.”
He stepped over another body. The corpse’s lab coat was stained with vomit and piss. Its intestines trailed off several feet away. The tips of Izuru’s hair, long and already so dirty from the months of experimentation, feathered over the blood. It was like dipping a paintbrush in gory acrylic. Izuru could make beautiful art when he wanted to.
I didn’t want them dead. I'm not supposed to want anything. I wasn't supposed to exist past half an hour ago.
“You still watched me kill them.” Izuru pointed out. “You didn't protest or try to stop me. You didn't try to wrench control away.”
I'm not supposed to have control anymore. You should do what you want, if you're not going to be what they wanted for you.
“I wish to consider what you want as well.” Izuru came to a sudden halt. At the end of the hall, with a bright green sign above it, was a door.
I don't want anything.
“When you still remembered it, you told me about the sun. Do you want to see the outside as well?”
…I…I don't… I'm not supposed to–
“I do, Hajime. I am very curious about this ‘sun’, which is apparently bright and warm. For now, I will want for us both.”
He walked forward, opened the door, and left the lab.