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comicgeekscomicgeek · 3 years

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Their Hero Academia – Chapter 81: Turning a Corner

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

The instant Katsuki had asked to “borrow” Park for a bit, the Shiketsu students had erupted into chaos. Shida looked on the verge of panic, those extra limbs of hers twitching, while Tsuchikawa looked only slightly worried. Shinji looked nervously between him and Park, but ultimately settled into a kind of hard look that mixed protectiveness of his classmate with a trust in Katsuki.

Smart kid. Respectful too. Always used his Sir’s around Katsuki. Exuberant as his old man though, which meant he was best in small doses.

It wasn’t surprising that Tatsuma was the one who had a problem with it. The giant girl stepped between Katsuki and Park protectively. “With all due respect, sensei” she began, in the same way Katsuki had used countless times over the years, where no respect was actually intended, but the performative aspect of it was required, “I’m not sure I should allow you to be alone with my classmate.”

For fuck’s sake, what kind of monster did these kids think he was? And sure, he’d spent more than enough time threatening to blow Villains apart, or shove their heads up their asses, or take out enough of their teeth that they’d be drinking from a straw the rest of their lives, but he wasn’t some psycho who’d explode at the drop of a hat!

Just because he was known for having a temper and this little brat had beat the shit out of his daughter was no reason to think he was going to enact some kind of brutal revenge!

“Sticking by your friend’s a good quality to have,” he said, holding Tatsuma’s gaze and not backing down in the slightest. But neither did he put up any more of aggressive posture than he already was. He was here to build bridges, not burn them. “Your classmates are lucky to have you looking out for them. But I promise you, I’m not here to dish out punishment or anything like that. I just want to talk. We won’t even go far, in case you hear something that makes you want to come running.”

Tatsuma frowned, but dropped her challenging stance. She looked over at Park, her eyes seeming to ask what do you want to do?

And that was the scary thing, wasn’t it? Park hadn’t flinched, hadn’t budged. She’s shown no fear whatsoever. But she hadn’t shown any other kind of reaction either. It was as though she was just resigned to whatever happened to her. What the hell had they done to this girl? Who the hell had done this to this girl? Even with what he’d read in her file, it didn’t all add up to this.

“It will be fine,” Park said. “There’s nothing he can do to me.” That hasn’t already been done was left unsaid, but Katsuki heard it hanging in the air all the same.

He had worked with Heroes who fought traffickers and some of the worst scum the world had to offer, serial killers, rapists, and even cannibals. Some of them managed to find the balance separate themselves from the job and live at least something like a normal life. But some of them saw the worst and lost a part of themselves to it. Something inside them died. You could see it in their eyes.

Park’s eyes were the same.

***

Park followed quietly behind Katsuki, stopping when he did once they got closer to one of the compound’s utility sheds. She remained stoic, almost uncaring, but there was an element of readiness. He’d been on the receiving end of any number of lectures and chewing outs over the years. He knew what it looked like when you knew you were getting one of those. This wasn’t it.

It was the kind of readiness where you were prepared to, at a moment’s notice, either physically defend yourself or hold yourself to a dignity that would not give your attacker satisfaction. He had a brief flashback to being violently restrained and muzzled at his first Sports Festival.

“I am ready, seon seang nhim,” she stated in a neutral tone. She used the Korean phrase for “teacher,” which he vaguely recalled included not using the teacher’s name as it was considered disrespectful to show familiarity.

Katsuki frowned, briefly, but forced himself to keep a more professional expression. As much as part of him wanted to tear into this kid for beating his daughter, that wasn’t something an adult did to a child. It wasn’t something a teacher did either. Katsuki would have to ask the damned hobo how he’d kept himself from killing kids like him.

“Okay,” he said, carefully. His anger rose up in him, like a threating to spill out like a bomb, but he forced it back down. “I’m not going to lie to you. I’m mad as hell. And I’m not saying there wasn’t blame to go around. But I want to hear your side of things first, before anything else.”

“There is nothing to tell,” Park explained plainly. “The arrogant one had us fight each other to demonstrate a lack of practical martial training as some sort of lesson in not becoming arrogant with our quirks. I treated it as I would any fight in the line of duty.” She tilted her head back at where Hokori and the other Shikestsu students still were. “By the instructor’s own logic, I acted accordingly. If anything, I exercised restraint.” She said all this was stone cold logic, but the expression on her face indicated she didn’t expect him to accept that logic.

Park’s description of Boost-Rush as “the arrogant one” nearly had Katsuki laughing. If that wasn’t the truth!

“You get you’re a student, right?” he asked. He was trying not to be sarcastic, but some of that bled through. “There’s giving your all in training and there’s going all out in the field. And even with that, there’s proportionality of a threat.”

His own words came back to haunt him again, ringing in his ears. HE WON’T DIE IF HE DODGES!

That wasn’t who he was anymore. Not most days, anyway. He pushed that particularly unsettling memory down. “Is that how you do your training at Shiketsu?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “No, I learned that by simply surviving in the neighborhood my parents were dumped in when they fled the Humanist bigots back home. They didn’t realize they would be even less welcome here. Some were very explicit in their disdain of our presence.”

She was speaking calmly, but there was the barest hint of a murderous rage in her eyes, simmering and growing steadily, the lid barely holding it back.

Katsuki knew all about rage. His is irrational, a fire that flares up like one of his explosions and takes out everything that’s nearby. It’s a flashfire anger, lashing out at whatever upsets him, whatever perceived wrongs the universe or some specific individual has committed against him. It’s rarely as justified as he’d like to pretend it is.

On his good days, he’s tamed his. He learned to use it, fueling his actions in battle. Outside of that, the worst he usually gets these days is yelling. There’s times, like earlier with Boost-Rush, where he did lose his control, and unleashed his anger on someone through violence. But it’s not like before, not like when he was a child, where would sometimes vent his anger on Izuku for perceived slight of challenging his status as “top dog.”

He hadn’t been a rich kid, like Glasses or Ponytail or IcyHot. But he’d been remarkably well off as a kid. Nice neighborhood, never had to worry about anything. The struggles this kid or others like her had faced, he couldn’t have begun to imagine. And add being an immigrant on top of that…

“You had to fight just to survive,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

She stared at him for a moment, then lifted her shirt slightly above her waist. This revealed the scar of a deep gash.

“That was at the hands of Japanese motorcyclists who objected to a “chon” being in their neighborhood.” She turned and exposed her lower back, which revealed a series of jagged scars. “A Zainichi gang leader ran barbed wire over my back for “drawing the Japanese back on us.”

She then kicked off her shoe, leaned down and took the sock off, revealing her little toe was missing. “And that was some of my own “countrymen,” gangsters who wanted me to join them for “solidarity.” I refused. They beat me, then cut that off as a reminder not to be a “race traitor.” And none of that accounts for the casual racism and hate from the “polite aspects” of society. A police force that doesn’t care unless the public outside knows about it, along with no pros to look after my people when this country offered “sanctuary” to us, so yes, Teacher,” she said in Japanese this time, but without the implication of respect. “I have.”

With great effort, Katsuki kept himself under control as Park went through her litany of injuries and injustices. She was no older than Katsumi or the others, but in terms of life experience, may as well have already been an adult Pro-Hero for all the horrors she had seen. No wonder she was so ready to strike out during simple training exercises. The school of hard knocks had nothing on her.

It made his blood boil. Kids should get to be kids, not have to worry about gangs and their neighbors threatening their lives and bodies. He knew that things had improved some in the last few years, but the Hero Public Safety Commission was still playing a light hand with making inroads to minority neighborhoods. The really good Heroes went wherever they were needed, but they still played it light with actual Agencies. That this shit was still happening and no one was really doing anything about it..!

“You got dealt a shit hand,” he growled. “A kid, no, a woman your age, shouldn’t have had to deal with any of that. But you survived and showed them you’re tougher than anybody who tried to kick you down.”

He gestured around, broadly. “Most of the kids here, they grew up with pretty cushy lives.” He thought of Katsumi, when Eijiro had been beaten within an inch of his life. Of Sato and his kid, when they’d lost his wife. Of Izumi’s infected with a debilitating influence as a means to hurt her grandfather. Of the small, but still somehow too great a number of close calls, when Villains had tried to cross lines and come after their families. Of the myriad others who had to worry about whether or not mom or dad was coming home.

“Not always easy. And not without their own tragedies. But you’re operating from a whole different perspective. Not one they’d understand easily, and not one you’re obligated to explain to them.”

Katsuki continued. “I was an angry kid too. Ready to take on anything and everything that pissed me off. I had legitimate issues that were driving my anger. But I didn’t have real reasons for being angry. I invented them, lies I told myself about why it was okay to be so anger. But you, you have real reasons. And don’t let people tell you otherwise.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “But you’ve got to use that anger. Direct it at the right people. And the people at this camp aren’t it. Everybody’s here to get better. Everybody’s here because they want to be a Hero and help people.” He frowned. “And yeah, my kid was ready to pick a fight with your classmate. Or you. She knows she screwed up.”

It was a good thing he couldn’t share the details of this conversation with Katsumi. She’d have been pissed at him for admitting that, even if it was the truth. Or at least, an approximation of it. She knew it was a bad decision. Whether or not she’d internalized it as a screw up was a different question.

“I can’t change what happened to you, personally, or to your people or neighborhood. My job’s to help put you on the best path to being a Hero. And I can’t do that if you’re treating your fellow students or instructors like they’re the enemy.”

He’d managed to get through that without yelling once. Impressive. Maybe he was getting soft in his old age

She hadn’t gone to put her sock back on. Instead she’d listened to all of what he had to say. It was obvious she’d been expecting a variety of directions for this conversation to go: an angry lecture, threats, self-righteous condemnation, head-in-the-dirt denial, but hadn’t been prepared for acceptance or validation. Especially given his reputation for a short fuse and quick judgements. She’d paid attention to all of it, but had made no movements, nods, or sounds to indicate her stance.

When he finished, Park was quiet for a long time. Unknowingly she had begun to hold her cross in her hand, a thumb rubbing across the metal.

“I..I know, but..it’s so hard.” There was the tiniest of breaks in her voice, but she composed herself. She reached down to put her sock back on, probably distract herself from her conflicting feelings. “I’m used to seeing enemies on all sides.”

“It is,” he agreed. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Walking around with all that anger, even with plenty of therapy, it’s something I deal with every damn day. It’s something I’ve got to constantly be aware of, be on guard against. I find healthy outlets. Or, at least, mostly healthy ones.”

He thought back to some of the conversations he’d had with Eijiro over the years, questioning whether he was a good enough person to deserve love and family. Of long talks with Izuku, about all the wrongs he’d done to him. Of the making amends part of his therapy and the long time he’d spent grappling with realizing he’d been chasing after a goal without ever truly understanding what it meant.

“There’s days I don’t do that good of a job,” he said, finally. “The internet’s full of clips from times I lost it. But I don’t stop trying.”

Park had long since put her sock and shoe back on and was once more listening. She had resumed fiddling with her cross, but not quite as frantically as before.

“Outlets.” She spoke the word with a familiarity that indicated she had heard it multiple times before now. “My parents have tried to find such things for me. A friend of my father’s instructed me in Yongmudo since I was small. Such things have been known to instill discipline, peace of mind, and perhaps even an “outlet.” In truth it just gave me a means to start fighting back. I “want” peace, Teacher, but to strike at those who wronged you...feels very good.” She squeezed the cross, hard enough that he saw her knuckles turn white. She chuckled bitterly. “Probably what drew them to me to begin with.”

“Them?” he asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. Was someone using Park? It only took him a few seconds to connect the dots. He may have been a brawler at heart, but not for nothing did he have an investigative record second only to Tintin’s. “The Commission. Dammit, I thought Hawks had all those programs shut down!”

Park gave him a confused look. “I’m not sure what you mean, but yes, your Hero Commission. I had been rounded up more than once by police for getting in fights with local thugs, but nothing on my record. So I thought anyway. One day a Japanese man in a suit knocks on our door and asks to speak with me. He knows who I am, apparently from the police, and asks me “How would you like to take them down legally?”

She sighed, crossing her arms. “Of course I knew these were the bastards who left us without Heroes to protect us. The same ones who unleashed Ignition on Chinese civilians. All the same, they were also the only ones who could arrange Pro protection in the future. I love my family, my community...if it meant working with them, then I would do it. Our neighborhood is poor, purposely nondescript, no way for the big schools to notice. So they arranged for my name to end up on Shiketsu’s radar.”

She shook her head, a rue smile actually crossing her lips. She said some words in Korean, caught herself, then said, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I’ve only ever told my parents and Chie.”

“It must be my winning bedside manner,” he said, putting on a small smile of his own. He was still going to give that bird-brained Deputy Commissioner a piece of his mind, even if the programs didn’t sound quite the same. It was still predatory as hell.

“But that’s a good goal,” he said. “Sounds like you’re doing it for the right reasons.” Maybe a little revenge, but it still sounded to his ears like she wanted to help, to make a difference, more than she wanted to hurt. She was sticking up for people who didn’t have anyone else. Izuku’d like that. “So I’ll cut you a deal… You’ve got my permission to walk away from anything here, anytime you get too mad to function. But in exchange, you’ve got to talk to somebody after, and you’ve got to stop trying to beat the stuffing out of my students.”

Park looked visibly shocked, the first time her usual composure had completely cracked. She was clearly not used to Japanese people in authority being on her side. For the first time since the conversation had started, she finally seemed to show her age.

“Teacher,” she stops, realizing she was using Korean phrasing. “Sanada Sensei in Shiketsu has actually been trying to get me to see their counselor. I have refused every time.” She seemed to think for a moment. “Maybe I should reconsider that.”

At the mention of beating up his students, she closes her eyes. They seem to vibrate a bit, closing them had been a means of hiding intense emotions. A hand squeezed her cross tightly. There was the very smallest hint of wetness to her eyes, but it was brief. Park opened her eyes again.

“I can do that.”

***

Isamu gulped, not for the first time. Aizawa-sensei made him nervous on a good day, when he was just being his usual brooding self at Class 1-A. He made him even more nervous when he was giving him direct attention, like what was happening now. Like several other students, he’d been pulled aside for one-on-one, individualized or small group training.

“You’re getting good with your Quirk,” Aizawa said, flatly. “Your father must have taught you well.” Was it just his imagination or was there a little more warmth in his voice when he said that?

“As best he could, Sensei,” Isamu said quickly. “Though he never got good enough with it for Hero work.” Why would he say that?!

Aizawa gave him a flat look, one eyebrow slightly raised. “You really want to dance around this, kid? I know you know that I know. Maybe not everything, but enough. Your parents were pains in my ass, but they did good work. Especially the Sky Egg.”

This wasn’t a surprise. But it was a surprise to be talking about it so openly. Sure, he was the kid of a couple of Vigilantes, not Heroes like just about everyone else here. And sure, Aizawa had worked with his parents multiple times, as had Midnight. So it wasn’t like he really thought he was hiding anything. At least not from them. Deku had figured it out too. And there were probably more people he hadn’t figured out. But he hadn’t told any of his friends. He trusted them, didn’t think it would come back to bite him in the ass. It was just… something known but not talked about.

“Ah, thank you, Sensei.” That seemed like the proper response. And he didn’t even incur another round of foot in mouth disease. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

Aizawa gave him a look. “You’ll do no such thing.”

Isamu gulped.

“All of which means I’ve got a pretty good idea of what your Quirk’s capable of,” Aizawa went on. “Yours is like his. Almost identical, but subtly different if you know what you’re looking for. I’m surprised Deku didn’t figure it out, honestly. But since you think you’ve got an identical Quirk, you’re limiting yourself. He figured out ways to use his propulsion offensively and even for short bursts to launch himself, but you’ve already mastered all those tricks. I’ve even see you firing repulsion blasts without having to brace yourself. You don’t actually need three points of contact. And I’ve seen you launch yourself during training too and steer yourself once you’re in the air. So I want you to try something.”

There was, perhaps, a slightly maniac look in his teacher’s eyes. “You’re going to fly.”

Isamu gulped yet again and his eyes went wide. “Sensei?” He definitely couldn’t fly. He could use a repulsion burst to launch himself and steer a little in the air, even keep himself from too bad of a landing, but he definitely couldn’t fly. Could he?

Dad has said that he’d been able to slide through the air as a baby. He’d even been able to recover something like it with boosts through the air. But that was really just not falling, not flying. Wasn’t it?

He managed a nod. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try it. What do I need to do?”

“Unfortunately,” Aizawa said, “I’m not allowed to just push you off the roof of the compound. Sink or swim tactics work wonders.”

That was a joke, right? He had to be joking about that! Someone tell him Aizawa was joking!

His teacher’s expression betrayed no hint of emotion. “So instead, what I want you to do is concentrate your power on pushing against the ground under your feet and the air under your hands. You’ll need steady output from all four limbs to control it.”

Right. He could do that. He could do that. He could probably do that. He could possibly do that.

He took a deep breath and concentrated on his Quirk. Just like when he was sliding along. Energy out from his feet, energy out from his hands. Steady, smooth, power.

Nope! Not steady! Too much power flared from his feet and launched him into the air. Cursed laws of physics! Isamu cut his Quirk, but it was like trying to stop a bullet after it had already left the gun. His arms and legs flailed uselessly as he launched skyward, until gravity began to reassert itself and drag him back down. Aizawa wouldn’t just let him go splat, would he?

Boy, was that a stupid question.

So he had to save himself!

He scrunched up his eyes and concentrated on his Quirk again. Steady, consistent, power.

Isamu felt the energy flow from all his limbs again, the pressure fairly equal. Quickly, he realized he wasn’t falling. His eyes snapped open. His was only a few feet off the ground, but he was holding himself up in the air, unsteadily. Trails of blue-white energy from all his limbs filled the air. He kept his hands pointed carefully down, using them for stabilizing bursts while his feet provided the thrust.

“Whoa!” It was extremely unsteady. His head was already beginning to hurt from concentrating so hard. But he was doing it!

And just as easily as it had come about, his concentration wavered and his power faded. He hit the ground with a soft thump, landing on his butt. Isamu looked up to see Aizawa standing over him, offering a hand up, but also smirking knowingly. Isamu took it.

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Keep practicing that. I’ll send Ground Zero over later if you’re still having trouble. His explosive-powered flight is similar.”

He needed to get very good. Immediately.

And he really needed a conversation with his friends.

***

Kimiko was fuming. Lunch had ended and they hadn’t even been able to begin the big shipping operation! Even worse, it was entirely possible they wouldn’t get to do it at all! She hadn’t been able to tell what anyone was saying, but it sure looked like Koda and Aoyama had had a major heart-to-heart. And since it hadn’t ended with any slaps or either of them walking away in tears, it was probably good news!

Which was, in and of itself, a good thing. Koda definitely deserved all the happiness in the world. She was probably the sweetest person that Kimiko knew. And Aoyama was… not exactly a friend, but someone she was definitely friendly with. Even if he didn’t particularly like Takuma, he was good people under the fancy-pants attitude. Plus he loved listening to gossip and always had the best dirt on foreign celebrities. If they got together, it was a good thing!

But she didn’t know! And since she didn’t have her phone, she couldn’t even share her speculation! There was major league gossip going on and not only couldn’t she share it, but she didn’t even know the full story!

What was the world coming to?!

So many of Class 1-A was dating now! Midoriya was dating Sora Iida, Takuma was dating Tensei Iida, Mineta was dating Yoarashi, Shoji had his girlfriend Shiryoku from the Business Course, Kaminari was apparently dating Monoma (What? What was the story there?! Why didn’t she know any details?!), Haimawari was dating Tetsutetsu, Koda and Aoyama were a maybe, and she was dating Kenta!

So that left… Kirishima-Bakugo, Kocho, Tokoyami, and Shinso, right? Todoroki wasn’t interested in romance or sex, her loss, but Kimiko could respect boundaries. Sometimes. And she wasn’t even sure what kind of people Shinso was interested in. He was only about six months younger than most of them, but he sometimes seemed like a kid by comparison.

None of which was relevant to the task in front of her. Namely, personal medical training with the Metabolic Hero: Bioshock!

“Eri, ah, Doc Clock, sent me over files on everything she’s been teaching you,” Bioshock explained. “Including all the scores from your practice tests. She’s definitely proud of you.”

Kimiko felt a smile spread across her face. She’d actually really been applying herself to her medical studies. Schoolwork didn’t come easily to her, but this was definitely worth it.

“So, pop quiz,” Bioshock said. “Best way to treat a broken arm in the field?”

This one was easy. “If there’s bleeding, use a sterile dressing to stop it. If there’s no skin puncture, use my Quirk to assess the extent of the break. After either one, immobilize, construct a splint if possible. Once I’ve gotten them to safety, ice packs can help with the swelling.”

He nodded. “Good. And what’s the most important thing to keep an eye out for when doing search and rescue?”

She knew this one! “Structural stability and my own safety. Don’t want to make a problem worse and I can’t help anyone if I need someone to rescue me!”

Bioshock nodded again. “Good,” he said. “And where in the body would you find a squeedily spooch?”

Panic gripped Kimiko’s heart as she realized she didn’t know the answer to that. Squeedily spooch… squeedily spooch... what the heck was a squeedily spooch?!

She frowned as she realized he was struggling not to laugh. “Hey! That’s not fair!” Her arms waved wildly through the air as she voiced her displeasure. He was a teacher, so she couldn’t actually hit him like she would Kenta or Takuma, but… “There’s no such thing as a squeedily spooch! You can’t just make stuff up like that! What the heck is wrong with you?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!”

The Rookie held his composure for a moment longer, before breaking into laughter. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t laugh, but I just wanted to see what you’d do… Which reminds me, actually, I’ve got a theory about your Quirk…”

He was cut off as a shrill alarm cut through the air. Bioshock’s face instantly went serious as he looked around.

“Perimeter breach! Perimeter breach!” An electronic voice sounded in the space between alarms.

“Come with me,” Bioshock said. He was clearly trying not to let his worry show. “I’ll get you to the compound…”

If I can was left unsaid.

***

The second the alarms went off, the Rookies and teachers leapt into action, with a speed that would have impressed just about any Hero, forming a defensive circle around the U.A. students. Uncle Kacchan set off small explosions on his palms, working himself up into the agitated state needed to sweat and use his power to its fullest. Aizawa unraveled his capture cloth and lifted his goggles to cover his eyes. Super-Ball dropped into a fighting stance, lightly bouncing on the balls of his feet, his rubberized features set into grim determination.

Ravenous unleashed several of his Binging Balls, the chomping spheroids floating about him like small planets orbiting the sun. Small puffs of thrust flared from Boost-Rush’s arm pipes. Bezoar dropped to all fours, his canon emerging from his mouth as he swept the tree line. Aunt Mahoro pulled a small metal cylinder from her belt, which expanded into a staff.

Aunt Mahoro looked back, as though wanted to assure them that it was going to be okay. She waved a hand in their direction and the world went a hazy green. She had to have cast some kind of illusion over the twenty-odd students, probably making the training field look like they weren’t there at all. Most of them had been on the main grounds, working on their Quirks. The Shiketsu students, Ojiro, and about a dozen others had been elsewhere on the grounds, receiving their own training.

“We’ll stop or hold off whatever it is,” Toshi heard Aizawa say. Was he imaging it, or was his teacher’s voice shaking? “You’ve all got full permission to use your Quirks to escape or fight off anything that tries to stop that escape. The other Rookies are either on their way or protecting your classmates.

As it was, Toshi felt his heart racing in his chest. A quick glance around revealed a sharp divide in reactions. Some, like Kocho, along with members of Class 1-B like the bat-like Koumori and Kaniyashiki looked worried, but not overly frightened. They probably even wondered if this was just a test or one of Aizawa’s famous “logical ruses.” It was absolutely a reasonable reaction to the presence of danger. But they were all also Hero-students, quickly pushing past it to at least take up basic defensive stances, some of them calling up their Quirks.

The kids who had Hero parents reacted differently. There was fear first. They’d all been told the stories of what had happened during their parents’ first training camp. The injuries. The kidnapping. The fact that the League of Villains had nearly killed so many of them. Would have killed so many of them, if not for a lot of luck. Haimawari too, was reacting similarly. His experiences between the Internship and the incident on I-Island had stirred up a great deal of courage in his friend, but also shown him how bad things could get very quickly.

This was supposed to have been a safe place. The world was supposed to have been a safer place. The worst Villains had been faced and defeated. And yes, it still needed Heroes, still needed people to stand up and say “I am here!” in the fight against evil. But the past was not supposed to repeat like this.

Their parents had fought hard so that their lives would not be as filled with trauma.

Already, the Nomu incident has put a lie to that. Was it becoming even more of one? Some of them had been tested in that, scarred, made afraid. Some of them had been spared, aware of the terror but not a part of it.

The fears of the past rose up to claim them.

But beneath the fear was grim determination. Katsumi was already scowling, putting herself in front of Izumi. Asuka had deployed Frog-Shadow and she and Haimawari had both put themselves around Shota. The Twins looked ready to take off at a moment’s notice. Tetsutetsu had transformed her arms to metal. One by one, everyone was activating their Quirks. Even Kocho was extending her wings.

“I don’t need you to protect me, dammit!” Kaminari snapped, pushing Monoma so that she was standing shoulder to shoulder with him, instead of behind him.

Monoma himself looked very pale. If Toshi didn’t know better, he’d swear the other boy was shaking. He didn’t have any of his support items with him, Toshi realized. “I.. I was just trying to…”

“Look,” Kaminari said. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m a big girl.”

If ever there was a sign of how seriously his classmates were taking this, it was that Mineta did not make a joke about Kaminari’s statement. Even Sero was quiet. This was deadly serious.

“Do you think we are really under attack, Toshi?” Sora asked.

“Quit yapping, all of you!” Katsumi snapped, before he could answer. Toshi recognized her body language. Feet planted, knees slightly bent, arms out, fists clenched. She was spoiling for a fight. That was Katsumi all over. Always spoiling for a fight. After the beating she’d taken, he suspected she was looking for a target even more than usual. He hoped and prayed that she had the good sense to recognize the odds were very good they were outmatched.

“This is bad,” Fukidashi whispered. The animated girl’s face had gone blue and covered with hashlines. “The background music’s getting really scary!”

***

For just a moment, Katsuki was fifteen again. An arrogant, hot-headed kid with too much rage and an inferiority-superiority complex he won’t even begin to really unpack until he’s failed his Provisional License Exam, and won’t have finished unpacking until… Well, it’s a work in progress. But he’s back there, more than twenty-five years ago, thinking that Villains—murderers like Muscular and Dabi, master criminals like Mister Compress, deathrow inmates like Moonfish—don’t stand a chance against his barely trained ass.

He was wrong. So wrong. He was captured, perceived as a Villain, with All Might unable to properly fight because he was there. And then he had to live with the shame of having to be rescued. Of knowing that Izuku would stage a rescue for him, when he definitely wouldn’t have done the same. He’d have let those Villains have the “worthless Deku.”

The knowledge of how much of a shit child he was still fills him with shame.

But here and now, even broken and bowed, he will not allow the same thing to happen to his daughter and her classmates. He’d be cold and dead before he allowed that to happen.

“Just heard from the others,” Mahoro said. “Sandblast and Locksmith are with the Shiketsu students. Petal Princess and Lady Luminous are with the other students, and my brother and his student are hooking up with them. Everyone’s accounted for.”

Boost-Rush tapped the side of his helmet. “Getting data from the security feed…whatever it is, it’s coming up on us. It’s managed to evade or disable our entire security system.”

“Any chance it’s a false alarm?” Fujii asked. The rubberized Hero wasn’t joking. It was a genuine statement. “Nobody should know the students are here.”

“No one was supposed to know the first time either,” Aizawa snapped. “Don’t let your guard down.” Bakugo had to give the hobo credit. Even in his mid-fifties, he still looked more than ready to kick anyone’s ass who trifled with his “kids.”

“Not a chance,” Mahoro said. “Hatsume and Shield designed all of it. But if it’s not an attack on them, it’s an attack on us Rookies.”

Either way, it wasn’t good.

There was a rustling in the grass of the tree line and suddenly, something emerged. At first, he didn’t see anything, until he looked down.

“What the fuck?”

It was a… dog? A Shiba Inu, if he was any judge.

“What the fuck?”

Not just a dog, he realized. A dog wearing clothes. It had on a dog-version of a Shiketsu uniform, complete with a peaked cap that its ears were poking through, and a backpack.

“What the fuck?”

The dog looked around and seemed to smile. There was a strange, human intelligence to his eyes. Eyes that finally fell on Bakugo, the other teachers, and the Rookies.

“Hi!” the dog said. “I’m Hachi Inuzaki from Shiketsu! Sorry I missed the bus! It took me forever to get here!”

Katsuki felt like someone had just punched him in the face. Aizawa, Fujii, and the Rookies were equally dumbfounded.

“What,” he said, “and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck?”

#my hero academia #their hero academia #katsuki bakugo #toshi midoriya #kimiko ojiro #mahoro shimano #katsuma shimano #fan fiction #fan fic #my writing

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jojovelier · 4 years

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ShuYuka Week, Day 5

S.E.E.S. prepares to face their greatest challenge yet. But Minato might have bitten more than he could chew, and Yukari is not happy about it one bit.

Prompt: School/Tartarus

Rating: T (Some Violence)

Reaping The Reaper

Adamah Block, Dark Hour

Cling…Cling…Cling…Cling… The sound of rattling chains echoed across the room.

Despite the darkness, Minato could feel its presence slowly coming closer and closer, like a serial killer taking their time approaching their next victim, relishing in the fear as the victims dreaded the inevitable.

Minato clenched the handle of his sabre tightly, so tightly that he was sure that his fingernails would end up drawing blood from his skin. A bead of sweat trickled down his brow.

They were approaching the ‘promised day’, January 31st. The whole of S.E.E.S. was exploring the remainder of Tartarus, in preparation for the inevitable conflict against Nyx.

It was then Minato proposed to the group something that could gauge their limits, to see if they could overcome this final hurdle. If they couldn’t, then there’s no way they would be able to defeat Nyx. Everyone knew what their field commander was referring to. And it was terrifying to think about it. Normally, whenever they explored Tartarus, they would always go in teams of four with Minato leading the charge. This was so the rest could conserve energy and provide backup whenever one of them is in no condition to fight. But this was a different case. They needed all the effort they could muster. Everyone was vital for this battle.

Throughout their time exploring Tartarus, Yukari recalled the warnings of staying on a single floor for far too long. She remembered killing intent that she had felt once those chains started clinging.

Emerging from the shadows is a truly terrifying being. It was a colossus, towering over them. It was dressed in a tattered black robe decorated in chains that seemed to be hovering over its torso; a bloodstained burlap sack completely covered its head with the sole exception being an eyehole on the left side of its face which glowed a sinister golden light. In its hands held dual revolvers, the barrels alone were almost as long as its own body.

Yukari froze as she saw the approaching abomination. Throughout her time in S.E.E.S., she had faced down many of the shadows that lurked in Tartarus. But this…! This thing was on a completely different level from anything they had faced. Even the 12 Shadows felt like pleasant daydreams compared to it.

The monster, the Reaper, let out a demonic roar. But it was a sound that no Shadow she had ever encountered could make. It was filled with anger, hate, and above all, a wanton desire for death and destruction.

“Watch out!” Fuuka cried out. “It’s charging an attack!”

As if on cue, the Reaper had started with a Mind Charge, surrounding itself with a glowing aura. It pointed one of its revolvers at the ceiling, firing off a burst of purple energy.

Megidoloan…!

“Scatter!” Minato shouted, though it did not take much for the rest of S.E.E.S. to comply and all of them leapt out of the way as the energy orb crashed on the very spot they were standing on.

“Holy shitballs…!” Junpei could only gape in horror at the smouldering crater formed on the very spot they had previously stood on.

Minato gritted his teeth. This was going to be far more difficult than he had expected, even with Elizabeth’s warnings back in the Velvet Room.

He turned to Yukari. “Yukari! You and Ken-kun stay back and provide healing support! The rest of us will go on the offensive!”

“Are you serious?! I’m going in as well. Against that thing? You’ll need all the help you can get!” she protested.

Minato shook his head. He knew how stubborn Yukari could be, but now is not the time. Not against something like this. “You’re our main healer, Yukari. I need you to keep everyone alive, that’s what’s important!”

“No!” Yukari wasn’t having any of it. “I can still –”

However, she was soon cut off by a nearby explosion. The Reaper had fired another powerful almighty spell that had narrowly missed Junpei.

Minato firmly gripped Yukari’s shoulder. “I think your point is now moot! Look, if one of its attacks hit any of us, it’s over!”

Yukari bit her lip, but she knew that Minato was right. “Fine. But be careful, okay?”

Minato nodded and prepared to re-join the battle when Yukari called out to him. “Oh… and Minato?”

He turned around to look back at her, only for him to yanked by the hem of his blazer into a passionate kiss. As quickly as it happened, they both pulled apart.

“For luck.” Yukari simply said, flushed.

Despite being momentarily caught off guard by his girlfriend’s sudden kiss, Minato gave another nod before charging at the Reaper.

~.~

The battle dragged on for quite some time now. The entire floor had been reduced to smouldering ruins.

Even with its stats lowered, the Reaper was still a force to be reckoned with. It was able to use all the elemental spells, deliberately targeting the weaknesses of each one of them. Yukari found herself repeatedly using her healing spells just to keep the team alive even as she started to feel the fatigue kicking in. Even Ken had to join into the fray just for an extra hand. But no matter how much they threw at it, the Reaper still stood strong.

Nonetheless, the rest of S.E.E.S. gave as good as they got, managing to score good hits on the monster. At their head was Minato, sword in one hand and his evoker in the other, desperately trying to catch his breath.

“Michael!” Minato summoned a bronze-skinned angelic being. The archangel lunged forward and brought down its spear on the Reaper.

The Reaper, however, pulled backwards and narrowly dodged the blow. But the spear nonetheless managed to collide with one of its revolvers. As sparks flew from the clash of metal, the barrel of the revolver was sliced off clean like a hot knife does with butter. The sliced-off barrel clattered harmlessly to the floor.

The monster emitted what seemed to be a growl of frustration as it held up what was left of its revolver, glowering at Minato. It let out another violent cry, enveloping itself with the same aura as before.

“Watch out! It's charging up another spell!”

The blue-haired field commander of S.E.E.S. however had prepared a Mind Charge of his own, concentrating as much energy as possible into one final spell. His finger delicately hovered over the trigger of his evoker, biding his time. He had no other choice; he had to seize the opening just before the Reaper could fire its attack, it was kill or be killed.

The Reaper levelled its remaining revolver at Minato, its finger ready to pull the trigger. Minato tensed up and raised the evoker to his temple.

But its single eye then glanced sideways, to Minato’s horror, where Yukari was standing. However, she was too preoccupied healing Akihiko who had earlier been hit by an ice spell to notice the Reaper’s attention had now been focused on her instead.

Damn it! Minato cursed inwardly to himself. The monster somehow knew that Yukari was the one healing them. He had to act fast or else it’s too late.

“Yukari-chan!” Fuuka cried out. “It’s aiming at you!”

Yukari’s widened in horror as she saw the Reaper levelling its revolver at her. But Minato knew that even if she ran, the blast radius would still be large enough to hit her.

No time to switch Personas! Minato thought. He summoned Michael once again. The archangel charged at the Reaper and thrust its spear forward.

Jamming it right into the muzzle of the revolver.

Time seemed to stop at that moment. The barrel of the revolver suddenly contorted and ballooned with pure energy; had it not been for the dire situation they were in right now, it would have seemed comical.

And a mighty explosion immediately followed, engulfing both the Reaper and Michael. But that was not the end of it. The resulting shockwave spread across the entire floor. Everyone quickly braced themselves against the shockwave, but the overwhelming force quickly flung them backwards like leaves in a hurricane.

Yukari wheezed as she staggered back to her feet, leaning against one of the toppled pillars to support her exhausted body. She glanced around her; to her relief, the rest of S.E.E.S., despite being hit by the shockwave, were relatively unharmed as they got back up on their feet as well.

“Takeba!” Mitsuru called out to Yukari, coughing as she waved away the dust. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah!” she answered.

But her heart briefly stopped as someone was not among them. Minato…! Where is he?! He had been the closest to the explosion. As the dust cleared, Yukari squinted her eyes to where the explosion had occurred.

Yukari’s stomach lurched as she saw the sight before her. Minato lay motionless on the floor. His S.E.E.S. uniform is in tatters, either ripped from the force of the shockwave or singed by the explosion.

“Minato!” Yukari screamed out, desperately hoping that he would respond.

“Don’t worry! I can still feel his signal. It’s still strong!” Fuuka said. “But so is –”

He’s still alive… Thank God!

But her relief was short-lived as a figure emerged from the crater of the explosion. The Reaper was still alive. But it definitely did not come out of there unscathed. Its already tattered robes were completed charred, wisps of smoke indicating that it had been severely burned. Black shrapnel were pierced all over its body, probably fragments of its revolver. But the most obvious sign of injury was its arm, or rather, what’s left of it. Black ooze, which reminded Yukari of the shadows, dripped from the stump.

Another blood-curdling shriek came out from the Reaper before it lunged forward, remaining arm outstretched.

It charged towards Minato’s crumpled form, ready to grab and crush him in its grip.

Only to find an arrow pierced into its eye.

The Reaper shrieked as it halted its charge, clutching at the arrow embedded into its socket in a desperate attempt to yank it out to no avail.

“Get the hell away from him!” Yukari seethed in fury as she lowered her bow.

With her evoker in hand, she summoned Isis. A gust of green wind enveloped the Reaper, pushing it back away from Minato.

Glaring with an intensity to match Yukari’s own, Mitsuru declared as she fired her evoker, “You’ve done enough harm, monster! Artemisia!”

The green wind soon turned into a blizzard, encasing the Reaper in ice that left the monster unable to move.

With the force of a runaway freight train, the combined force of Athena and Trismegistus collided into the Reaper that pushed it back even further.

But the assault was not yet over. With a furious howl, Koromaru summoned Cerberus. The three-headed dog casted an Agidyne, fire bursting from where the Reaper stood. It flailed helplessly as its body became engulfed in flames.

It was then Minato staggered back to his feet. It had to take as much willpower as he could muster just to stand up. Despite his wounds and the throbbing of his head, however, his mind was still concentrated for that final spell he had been planning to unleash. With the Reaper preoccupied with the flames, now was the right time.

“Akihiko! Ken! Now!” Minato screamed as he pointed his evoker at his temple. Akihiko and Ken determinedly nodded as they stepped forward alongside Minato and summoned their Personas.

“ODIN!” Minato bellowed as he summoned the head of the Norse pantheon, Gungnir held proudly in his hand.

“Yaaaaah!” The three of them shouted as the combined forces of their personas prepared their final attack. A massive bolt of lightning, far bigger than the Reaper itself, crashed down on the monster like a bolt of divine retribution.

The smoke cleared. Minato gritted his teeth as he saw the monster lay crumpled at the centre of the crater. It was still alive, but its body was crackling with electricity, twitching helplessly and struggling to stagger back to its feet.

“It’s paralysed now! One final blow should do it!” Fuuka called out.

It was now or never.

“THANATOS!”

Minato had summoned his ace, his trump card, to deliver the coup de grace. The demon-like monster, with an ear-splitting howl, charged forward. In a split second, Thanatos had appeared in front of the Reaper, its glistening blade raised in the air before swinging the killing blow.

In a single stroke, Thanatos sliced into the Reaper’s neck and cleaved through the rest. The Black ooze sprayed like a freshly opened bottle of champagne as the Reaper’s head flew from the rest of its body. The severed head toppled to the floor, bouncing harmlessly like a basketball.

The body hadn’t even touched the floor before it evaporated into a wisp of black smoke along with its head. All that remained was a single bloodied button.

Thanatos let out a triumphant roar before fading away. Minato panted heavily, his body slouched forward as he lacked the strength to even stand up straight, more exhausted than he’d ever been. His body was too tired to even tremble. He had given everything he had, but in the end, they had done it. They had overcome the final hurdle.

As the wave of exhaustion overwhelmed him, Minato’s body fell backwards, but he was caught by Akihiko before he could hit the floor. “Hey!” He heard Akihiko’s voice call out to him. “Just hold on a bit longer.”

“Minato!” Yukari screamed. She along with the rest of S.E.E.S. ran towards them as Akihiko gently lowered his body to the floor, his free hand supporting Minato’s head.

Yukari put her hands to her mouth to suppress a scream as she saw Minato’s state. Blood, dirt and ash coated his uniform. The sleeves were completely burnt, exposing most of his arm which were similarly caked in dust. Blood dripped heavily from his temple as the result of an open gash there, and he was soaked in sweat.

Aigis rushed forward to Minato’s side, her scanning Minato’s form as she helped Akihiko support him. Her hands trembled as she held the back of Minato’s head.

“Minato-san is okay.” Aigis said. Despite her usual monotonous tone, Yukari could easily detect the quavering in the android’s voice. “He has sustained major bruising all over his body due to the shockwave, as well as some major cuts. But his condition is stable nonetheless…”

Thank God… Yukari choked as she suppressed the tears in her eyes.

“What are you doing, Yukari?!” Akihiko’s voice snapped her out of her funk. “We need to heal his wounds before he bleeds out!”

“R-Right!” Yukari nodded as she rushed to Minato’s side. Now was not the time for weakness.

Summoning Isis once again, Yukari cast a Diarahan spell, enveloping Minato in a divine glow as the cuts and burn marks slowly faded away. As the light finally dissipated, Minato’s eyes opened despite being hazed over by sweat. Slowly, his arms moved to help prop himself up.

Only to find a pair of arms wrap tightly around him.

“Yu-Yukari…! You’re crushing me!” Minato wheezed. He sometimes forgot that Yukari had surprisingly strong arms due to her use of the bow.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry!” Yukari yelped concernedly as she pulled away from Minato. But she quickly fumed and proceeded to swat Minato on the shoulder. “Wait! No, I’m not sorry! What the hell were you thinking?! You’ve could have gotten yourself killed!”

“She’s right, man!” Junpei chimed in, rubbing his eye. “What you did was batshit insane!”

Even Mitsuru joined in, giving Minato her signature icy glare, though her eyes seemed to mist up as well. “It was reckless! If you pull another stunt, I would have to revoke your position as field commander!”

“I-I’m so glad you’re okay, Minato-kun!” Fuuka choked.

“Still…” Mitsuru frowned. “We shouldn’t stay here any longer before any more shadows appear. I doubt any of us, much less Arisato, are in any condition to continue fighting. And I believe we won’t be exploring Tartarus until we have sufficiently recovered.”

She was right. They had all been so caught up in the adrenaline of the fight that they had neglected to notice their current state. While still better off than Minato, they were completely caked in blood and dust, all battered and bruised.

The rest of S.E.E.S. nodded. Once they collected their trophy, the bloodied button, they prepared to depart to the nearest teleport terminal. Yukari volunteered to help Minato, slinging his arm over her shoulder so he could stand upright. Although his wounds were healed, he was still completely drained from the fighting and could barely stand on his own.

As they walked, Minato murmured something.

“Yukari…”

Yukari stopped and turned to look at her boyfriend, a sombre expression on his face. “Yes?” she asked concernedly.

“I’m sorry… for making you worried.” He said. “When the Reaper was about to attack you… I stopped thinking. All that came to my head was to protect you... If anyone, especially you, got hurt… or worse, I –”

“Damn it, Minato…” Yukari cut him off. Tears trickled down her face, but despite that a smile appeared on her face. “You don’t always have to be the hero. This isn’t something you should bear all by yourself. We’re your friends, and we’re girlfriend and boyfriend… we’re all in this together.”

“But still…” she continued; her gaze averted as her cheeks turned a rosy pink. “thanks.”

She leaned forward and planted a kiss on Minato’s cheek, causing him to flush as well. She huskily whispered into his ear. “Once you’re better, I’ll think of a way to repay you. Perhaps in a way you know best…”

Minato couldn’t help but chuckle at Yukari’s proposition. “If that’s your way of repaying me, then perhaps I should find more ways to save you.”

“Hey, this is just a one-time thing, okay? Don’t get yourself killed for something like that.” She scolded.

“Dude.” Junpei deadpanned, standing right behind the couple. “Can you both at least wait until we’ve reached the dorm? We’ve got a kid around here, after all.”

“Shut up, Stupei!”

#persona 3 #minato arisato #yukari takeba #shuyuka week

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melissatreglia · 5 years

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Did You Miss Me?: Darkiplier in 2018

For the most part, 2018 was a quiet year. In contrast with 2017, where we were gratified to see Dark's monochromatic visage throughout the year, 2018 carried playful hints and teasing of the elusive entity's presence but no confirmation. There were thumbnails and quick flashes that indicated He was continuing to pull strings, ensuring that His presence was felt but His face never really seen.

Throughout 2017, He'd show up during what us mere mortals consider major holidays or important events. Valentine's Day. Easter. Even Cinco de Mayo got a nod. And of course, the infamous Friday the 13th late in the year.

But 2018? He apparently decided to stay home in the void during our days of revelry, with the possible (though not confirmed) exception of the decidedly strange Fall in Love with Markiplier video for Valentine's Day. And for the TWO Friday the 13ths in 2018? He was a no-show. In 2017, He'd returned to shake things up in our safe little lives... and in 2018, He left us wanting more, like the skilled manipulative seducer He is.

Getting Over It, Part 8 included a thumbnail with Mark's dour expression and a suspiciously familiar colour scheme. The thumbnail for WATCH OUT!! had Mark reaching for us in a state of panic (which belied the contents of the video itself).

Try Not to Smile Challenge #3, while the smile-free serial killer laugh is creepy, it's not a Darkiplier moment. Though, him joking near the end of the video that people who didn’t smile at some point during the video are "soulless demons" does seem to be a Darkiplier reference of some kind (or maybe a Devilplier reference, since the Cuphead song was released just two months later)?

In Madison, when his game character watches a television that glitches and fades to static, Mark fearfully squeaks, "Darkiplier, is that You?!" While in the description for End My Suffering, just ten days later, Mark wailed, "What malevolent being did I piss off to be cursed like this!"

Brother Wake Up promised "I’ll try to help in whatever way I can but you have to wake up!" Which, while it fit perfectly with the title of the game, the description also fit pretty damn well into the channel lore too. And Umfend's description was likewise ominous: "You shouldn't have forgotten about me... I'll make you remember..."

Meanwhile, the title for the video of Welcome The The Game 2.0 doubles as a callback to an earlier Darkiplier moment: "Don't Play This Game". Horns of Fear did it one better, with the thumbnail featuring many eyes staring out at the viewer (again with an all-too-familiar colour scheme), while the title warned us "DON'T LOOK AWAY..."

In the Warframe playthrough late in the year, Mark's camera briefly freezes. But in 3 Scary Games #9, his camera freezes repeatedly before glitching back to normal, and he implies that "there's something else" messing with the camera. In 5 Nostalgic Games, when Mark gives the definition of ubiquitous and bares his teeth while saying "We're learning today!", the video suddenly glitches.

The thumbnail for Markiplier has fled the country had Mark lunging at the camera, his face completely darkened by shadow. And the thumbnail for 3.75 Scary Games blatantly toyed with the fandom with text shouting "DARKIPLIER?"

And the fanbaiting didn't stop there. More thumbnails that hinted at Dark included a hand bathed in blue light reaching out to the viewer for the fittingly titled The Devil Haunts Me, and a cartoon of Mark cowering away from Dark's furious glare for You're Perfect.

Markiplier's Tour: The Movie featured the improv teacher stating that Markiplier wasn't at the shows. "I don't know who that guy was, but it wasn't him." Even the Markiplier Animated short I've Got Boobs?! features a brief scene of a shadowy Darkiplier rising from a well and whispering something unintelligible.

For the most part however, the teasing came directly from out of Mark’s mouth.

In 3 Scary Games #5, Mark jokes that a ghost (clad in the classic white sheet and glitching somewhat) is Darkiplier. 3 Scary Games #13, the first (jokey) game called "Death Trips" features RGB text and Mark narrating in an echoing voice. In Midnight Shift, a game where Mark is memorably being chased by mannequins, he jokes that an RGB poster on a wall is "expricitly [sic] Darkiplier". In SCP Containment Breach #57, Mark jokes when he sees the intro screen of a pretty lady in 3D with an open third eye, "Look at this Darkiplier ass thing... it's like Celine, straight out of [Who Killed Markiplier?]".

In 3 FNAF Fan Games, he even chortles that the game has “Darkiplier letters.” In Devil Daggers, he scoffs, “A high-pitched ringing in the darkness. That’s always good.”

[Image captured by me, on June 3, 2018.]

Just before midsummer, I received a pleasant surprise. In Imscared: Steam Edition, Mark says "I gotta go get back into the Shadow Realm, the Upside Down." Which, personally, made me very happy at the time. Since I first became active on Tumblr in July 2017, I've been referring to Dark's void dimension as the Shadow Realm, while Mark has referred to it in the past as the Upside Down, making the link fairly clear in this statement. (Somehow, whether by happy accident or serendipity, my terminology and its proper context made its way to Mark. As a fan, I can't describe how pleased that made me, to know he might have actually seen something I’ve made.)

(But enough about me. I’m just an obsessive Darkiplier fangirl. So let’s get back to cataloging all the hinty goodness!)

By this point, you’re probably wondering, “Okay, so all those hints are decent. But where the hell is Dark in all of this?!” But that’s the point, my friends: He was there the whole time. In brief flashes of imagery, in hints and innuendo. Unseen, but his presence clearly felt as our expectations were played with by our channel host.

We expected a wild ride at the beginning, when Mark made two brief livestreams on January 5th, wandering through the theatre he was slated to play for the You’re Welcome Tour.

The first of the two, “What’s Going In?!”, he showed us the back area of the Paramount Theatre, using only improvised narration and acting to build an atmosphere of dread. He claimed the theatre was haunted, and that he could smell “the scent of death”, ultimately vowing to protect those who would be visiting the theatre to see him that night. He also declares the EXIT a trap, before being pursued by an unseen entity.

The drama continued with “...” (a title that is impossible to find using Youtube’s search options), that begins with an eerie quiet. Tyler eventually finds Mark’s dropped phone. He asks the viewers where Mark is, before going on a search. He’s eventually attacked from behind and the stream cuts off, leaving those who weren’t at the show that night to wonder how the matter resolved.

In Simulacra, there's a brief flash of Mark in his Big Mood outfit with text saying "WAKE UP". When the simulacra changes the colour of the cellphone's display and begins to speak in a calm, creepy voice, Mark reflexively responds, "Darkiplier?" and sounding unnerved at the mention of "behind your black mirrors", then being stunned as the screen appears to crack.

At the end of Simulacra, he gives an uncharacteristically downbeat speech, declaring that "We're all just digital copies of ourselves, idealized in a digital form. And maybe that's the way that life is just supposed to be. Maybe we should all just roll over and accept it, because there's nothing that we can do to change our fates, after all. And who's to say that it's not better for us just to wear the masks that are our digital personas, and live our lives as those? Maybe that is for the best."

The How To Make Slime video goes from harmlessly silly and takes a twist for the stabby. Mark declares "In order to appease the Dark Gods..." then he instructs the viewer to slice their palm and "whisper the words of power." The words in question? "They shall rise. They shall consume. All will be lost when they rise from the darkness of the ocean. Madness opens up to everything." When the making of the slime is concluded, he adds that "We all get to enjoy three years of peace before the Dark Gods consume us all."

I have no idea what that means, but I’m pretty sure it may involve Cthulhu chomping on my kidneys. (Then again, Darkiplier is a Lovecraftian monstrosity Himself. So, if it’s Him who’s one of the Dark Gods? He can have a kidney from me if He’s really that hungry. Kidneys are a redundant system anyway, so you really only need one.)

April Fool’s Day brought us the gag gift of The Official Markiplier Rock, with a suspiciously deep voice informing us that the rock is available in white. Additionally, the video warned to alert the SCP Foundation if the rock appears to start talking! (What? My rock has been talking to me since I got it, and there’s nothing wrong with me!)

Baldi’s Basics: Secret Ending featured an explanation about attaining the secret ending, with Mark’s otherwise normal voice echoing slightly with subtle white noise effects. (Hmmm...)

In December, for the charity livestream and archived in a video called Santa Spills The Tea, a Santa Claus that sounded suspiciously like Wilford Warfstache declared that Dark, the master manipulator and Big Bad of Mark’s channel, was a “sweetheart! He shouts a lot, but he’s just a big ol’ pussy. He can’t even possibly… he didn’t hurt anybody! He didn’t kill one person! If there’s anybody who’s on my naughty li— uh, on my list of people who’ve been bad, he’s the only one not on it.” (And mind you, in 2017′s Markiplier TV, Wilford sang a little ditty about how he killed Santa Claus and the kids wouldn’t be getting any presents that year. And Dark still convinced us to shoot someone in A Date With Markiplier, while apparently feigning regret. But heck, use your own judgement.)

Mark also dropped one heck of a hint of things to come in, of all places, Markiplier Tries Korean Beauty Products. There, the descriptive intro to the following year’s DAMIEN animated feature can be heard at one point. “Snow blankets the field, a pristine meadow of untouched white. No animals call. No birds cry. Only the steady rustling of wind through dead trees accented by the impact of his axe. A crack-like thunder rings out as the ancient pine finally succumbs to his murderous assault. The old giant crashes into the ground. Dami-”

Wilford Motherloving Warfstache was, of course, focused on the mustachioed entity. But there were elements to the short film that felt like Darkiplier was watching along with us. Particularly the VHS-style glitch at the end of the film.

Of course, there were only three videos that year that potentially contained Darkiplier himself.

One candidate is Fall in Love with Markiplier. Yes, the name on the title is Mark’s... but is it really him? The entirety of the film is a fourteen minute staring contest with Mark, as he lovingly (and somehow also creepily) gazes at the viewer in different settings -- by the ocean, at a dog park, and in a bubble bath. The only spoken words are in the intro, over the strains of the music from A Date with Markiplier: “It’s scientifically proven that you can fall in love with someone simply by maintaining eye-contact for an extended period of time. So now, you can fall in love with Markiplier all over again in these three locations. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

The second candidate is World’s 5th Quietest Let’s Play, released just 5 days prior to the Let’s Have a Romantic Staring Contest video. Unlike the previously mentioned video, there’s more going on this time around. The game to be played quietly this time around is Bennett Foddy’s infamous rage-inducing creation “Getting Over It”.

He threatens the developer with the words, “You will see the inside of your entrails, when I drag them out of your abdomen and show them to you.” (Ah, how romantic.) He goes even further than that, saying soon after, “This is a representation of My sins... You will be purged in the fires of absolution, along with all of your ilk. I will burn the heretics that you are harbouring inside of your soul... I will destroy you.” (Now there’s the smite-happy Hellgod we all love!)

But He doesn’t stop there, snarling under His breath, “You will burn in the fires of My own hell! And I will choose your pain to last eternity!” However, He is ultimately defeated by the game, departing our company with “Alas, I leave you now, to slumber amongst the ancients.” (Aww, poor guy needs a hug. And I know just who’s ready to snuggle with Him...)

But the last of the video to potentially contain Darkiplier is... the four-hour long play through of Hearts & Heroes. Is it canon Dark? No, probably not. It’s a fan game, though the words of dialogue are acted out by Mark himself. But rather than simply recounting key phrases for you, here’s the Boss Battle between Mark’s team and Dark, edited by the lovely icedpinkpeebles (Mark’s goofy character names and all!):

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So, what does all of this ultimately mean? Why did Darkiplier fade into the background in 2018? And, most importantly, what is He up to now?

The truth is I don’t know any more than you do. I can only guess.

But I can tell you this: We don’t know Darkiplier as well as we all think we do. Many of us (including me) fully expected Dark to raise hell following the events of the jokey Darkiplier vs Antisepticeye video in 2017 (because He did mention how He hates being mocked!). And while we did get more Dark at the end of that year, it was in the form of an origin story.

Whatever Dark’s planning, we’re not going to see it coming. Because He’s playing a long game. And when you’re immortal like He is, you have all the time in the world to get what you want. Be it for love or revenge, Darkiplier remains a force to be reckoned with.

But here we are, in the eye of the storm. Only time will tell before the final wrath of the hurricane makes landfall.

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