Work Text:
Izuku isn’t moving.
Well, actually, scratch that. His fingers are twitching and his chest spasms, as if trying to take in enough air, but he isn’t getting up, isn’t even trying to. Neito knows Izuku, knows how tenacious and driven (how self-sacrificing and reckless) his friend is. No matter how many times he falls down, he always gets back up again.
So why isn’t he getting up?
Neito certainly isn’t the only one who’s noticed Izuku lying on the ground--the loud thud that echoed through Gym Gamma had to have drawn almost everyone’s attention--but he is one of the quickest to react. He rushes to his friend’s side and before he can even think about it, he grabs at Izuku’s limp hand. He ignores how Izuku’s fingers don’t close around his as he copies his Quirk.
“Izuku, what’s wrong? What hurts?”
“N-nothing” Izuku gasps, barely audible in the comotion of their classmates. Neito thinks he hears Iida say something about finding a teacher or Recovery Girl, but he doesn’t care.
“Don’t lie to me. I know you have a high pain tolerance, but I can tell you’re hurting. Just tell me where.”
“No… no, I don’t think you understand.” Izuku’s eyes bore into his. He’s scared. It’s an emotion that Neito’s never seen on the other hero’s face. “I can’t feel anything.”
The words wash over Neito and it’s then that he takes full stock of the situation in front of him. Izuku’s neck… it doesn’t look quite right. It’s like his body is shifted to the side, only by a few centimeters, but it’s enough to indicate the seriousness of the situation.
“You’re- it’s going to be okay.” Neito swallows and god does he have to be so bad at this comforting thing? He puts free hand to Izuku’s cheek. Normally he’d try and rest his hand right where his curls meet the base of his neck, but, well, that isn’t really an option right now.
“Don’t move him!” Yaoyorozu instructs, kneeling beside him. “It could make it worse.”
“Worse?” Neito hisses. “How on earth could it get any worse than this?” Izuku’s face screws up and he internally curses. Yeah, he really needs to get better at being reassuring.
“He’s still conscious and more importantly he’s still breathing. As long as we keep him stable, he’s going to make it out of this just fine.”
“He can’t move. How is that fine?” Yaoyorozu hesitates before she speaks next, which says more than any words ever could.
“Recovery Girl will be able to fix this. For right now we need to focus on keeping him stable.” She stands back up. “ I haven’t had to make a portable gurney before, and my book is with my costume so just be patient, okay?”
Before Neito can reply, Yaoyorozu is running back into the girl’s locker room. He turns back to his friend and this time the expression he sees is one he’s unfortunately all too familiar with. It’s the look he saw in Izuku’s eyes when they confronted Muscular, the look he saw barging into his room during the summer, the look he saw quite a few times during their shared work study.
Izuku is ready to die.
“Neito, you and I both know that Recovery Girl isn’t going to be able to fix this. Speeding up my recovery process doesn’t help when there’s no recovery to accelerate. Her Quirk can’t work miracles. Mine on the other hand…”
“You and I both know you’re Quirk is anything but a miracle.”
Izuku chuckles. “Agree to disagree. But really, we don’t have time to argue right now. Yaoyorozu will be coming back any moment and-”
“And what? In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t think you’re in any position to be killing yourself right now.”
“I know. Which is why I need you to do it for me.” Neito swears the world stops in that moment because as much as he knows his friend, as many times as he’s seen him die, he never could have prepared himself for this type of request.
“What the hell? I can’t just- You want me to kill you?”
“It’s not really killing if I come back in the end, though.”
“I am not in the mood to rehash this conversation right now!”
“Me neither, so we can talk about it later.” Izuku shuts his eyes and takes in a big breath. Neito hates the way it makes the boy’s chest stutter. “If you don’t kill me now, I don’t know when the next reset point will be. For all we know, it could be after I fell. If that’s the case then… Neito, I can’t move. How can I be a hero and help people if I can’t move on my own?”
“I…” And he doesn’t have a response to that. The Commission has already tried to bar Izuku from hero work due to the fact he doesn’t have a (registered) Quirk. This would be the final nail in the coffin. Additionally, it might even set a precedent for disallowing Quirkless heroes in the future. Afterall, if a Quirkless hero could get so hurt while going through simple training, then how on earth could they handle themselves in the field?
He can’t do that to Izuku. He can’t make that the type of society his sister grows up in. He can’t let the damn Commission push for even more Quirkless discrimination than what already exists in the world. He steels his resolve and squeezes his friend’s hand one more time.
“How should I do it?”
“Snapping my neck might be the easiest at this point, considering half the work is already done for you.” The thought makes Neito a bit sick to his stomach, a fact Izuku seems to thankfully pick up on. “I also have one of my knives in my pocket.”
“I- Okay.” Neito rummages through the pants pocket of his friend’s gym uniform. “Isn’t bleeding out a pretty painful way to go, though?”
“Not at all. It’s probably one of my favorites.” And okay what the fuck that’s definitely something that Neito will be revisiting later after they loop back around. It’s also a thought he’s probably going to revisit in therapy once he can finally talk about Izuku’s insane Quirk without risking revealing information to the U.A. traitor.
“How do I…?”
“Place it on my throat and press down. You can think about it like cutting chicken or beef if that helps.”
“Full offense, but I don’t think that imagining my friend as meat when I kill him his going to be very helpful.”
“I was just giving some options. So the best and quickest way to do it is- oh shit Yaoyorozu’s coming! Hurry!”
“You still haven’t told me what to do!”
“Just cut into my neck! Multiple times if you have to!”
“I don’t want you to be in pain!” Neito can feel the tears well up in his eyes and his hand holding the knife shakes.
“I’ll be fine, but you need to go!” And it’s with that urging that Neito sets the knife to his friend’s throat. He presses it in, hesitantly at first but then he sees how Izuku bites his lip to keep himself from crying out. He’s hurting him more by drawing out the process. He needs to kill him as quickly as possible, for both of their sakes.
Neito makes about four cuts before he rewinds. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so grateful in his whole life.