25

 Chapter 25: Chapter #24.5 | 2020 Halloween Special

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Hanzai-sha Goro had prepared for any number of things that could go wrong. He had to, drug dealing wasn't a safe profession by any means. Someone could threaten him for a fix, someone could decide to use the trigger that he sold them and try to take the rest of his stock by force. Hell, a sale could even turn out to be a setup.

That's why when he returned to the gang's warehouse, he immediately noticed that the guard, who should have been on duty, was missing. It's why Goro noticed that the door was ajar, and right then and there he should have walked away. His instincts screamed at him to run, to get away.

The door screeched, the sound of disjointed metal on metal, as he pushed it open, and his breath hitched as he looked down the hall. The guard laid against the wall, glassy eyes staring into him, questioning him. He wanted to gag as he took in the scene. Blood and grey matter dripped down the wall behind him and the scent of iron clung to the entryway. He'd been ambushed, clearly, didn't even fight back when the assailant had put a bullet through his forehead.

The lights flickered and the air hung heavy with the oppression of death. Goro stepped carefully now down the hallway. What once was neat and organized was chaotic and lawless, and much like the state of the building, he found his second fellow in worse shape than the guard had been. His elbow was snapped cleanly through his forearm and the wound still leaked crimson from the severed artery. The hole in the back of his head told him that it was an execution. Looking around, Goro spotted his associate's blade kicked just inside a side passage, the weapon bent uselessly now into little more than scrap metal.

His instincts screamed louder and louder as he made his way into the main storage of the warehouse. He knew he should turn around, should run away, should slip into the night and never come back. But some sick curiosity tugged him forward. Forward, through the escalating carnage of his peers. Forward, through the bodies and blood, past the men who'd had their legs broken as they tried to crawl away.

At some point, whoever, or hell, whatever, had done this had stopped using their weapon. The clean bullet holes were replaced by long gouges and deep lacerations. It wasn't the work of man any longer but that of a beast. Then Guro stepped into the main storage and the entire world shifted as he wretched and vomited his lunch onto the concrete, slick with the arterial blood of the rest of the gang.

Where the room would normally be lit by the bright overhead fluorescent lights, now the area was lit only by the flaming barrels they kept for when the power went out. The fire cast the room into deep, broad shadows, providing a stark contrast to the pieces of men strewn around. Some men laid, terror still in their eyes, with their throats torn from their bodies, their fingers curled around in desperation, trying in vain to stem the flow of their lives. Others had been luckier in that they had simply been bashed into the ground until their faces were unrecognizable. Lucky only because they would have been unconscious for their untimely demise.

But the thing that struck Guro the moment he had walked into the room, the thing that had first caught his attention and the very act that made even his hardened stomach lose its contents, was the body of their gang leader. The others had it easy. The others had gotten away clean. Hanging from the rafters was their leader, strung up by his own intestines, eyes bulging out of his head.

Then the purr echoed around the room. "Oh, so the fifth decided to come back home to play? Don't worry about your friends. You'll be joining them soon." There, sitting on the rafters, just above his boss' body, sat a man barely older than a boy. Yet, in the dark, the man's eyes glowed like viridian fire and the shadowed firelight glinted off of teeth too sharp to be human.

The man dropped to the ground with that horrifying smile on his face, while too black dress shoes made a disgusting sucking sound as he stepped forward in the pools of blood. A little off six feet tall, this demon strowed towards Guro, his smile perfectly calm and razor-sharp, wearing an outfit that should have reminded him of an old fashioned detective, with its high-rise pants, trench coat, and fedora. Now the outfit only made him see the devil himself.

Guro did the only sensible thing a man would do at this point. He pulled in a deep breath, screamed, and ran. The hallway was the same as it was before. Logically, he knew that. Yet the walls seemed, impossibly, to close in on him, to creep closer with every twist and turn of the warehouse halls. Logically, Guro knew that the rest of the gang was dead and that he was alone. He couldn't help but cry out for help, anyway, to scream his throat raw as he tore back towards the door. Couldn't help but see the grinning faces of corpses now where they had been pained and scared before.

Laughter trickled down the hallway toward him as the footsteps continued at an unconcerned, leisurely pace. Screeching filled the air as claws were dragged across metal support beams and the man whistled a happy, jaunty tune.

The doorway was there in front of him. Yet, curiously, it wasn't empty. A man stood there now, staring him down impassively, as if none of his screaming meant a thing to him. I need help. Surely this guy'll save me from the lunatic butcher behind- The last thing Guro saw was a flash of green and the glint of metal as his head rolled to a stop at the feet of the man at the door.

…

Dabi tsked as the drug dealer's head rolled towards him before stopping it with the sole of his combat boot. "Jesus Midoriya, what the hell did you do in there? I can smell the blood from all the way out here."

"I don't have any pity for drug peddlers that use their clients' debt as an excuse for child trafficking. Certainly not when they decide to move across the country from Kagoshima to set up three blocks away from an elementary school." Izuku's eyes hardened before he sighed and rubbed his face, smearing his bloody hands across his eyes.

"I will admit that I lost my temper a little bit when I found the cage of kids, though. Sorry for the extra work. Make sure they get out of the holding area without seeing the bodies, please. They don't need that added to this experience for them."

Dabi's face hardened when he heard about the kids, and though he didn't look forward to what his boss' temper had wrought, he wasn't quite sure he cared at the moment. "That's alright. Go ahead and get back to the dorms. You have the costume party, right? I'm sure they'll miss you if you're out any longer." Izuku gave Dabi a weary smile before stepping past him into the night air, while Dabi stepped into a nightmare.

…

The first one to greet Izuku at the door of the dorms was, unsurprisingly, a rather distraught looking Yaoyorozu. "There you are, Izuku! You're almost late! I was worried you'd somehow gotten yourself lost. You said you were going out for a short walk, not for a-" Momo cut herself off when she caught sight of the blood staining the edges of his coat, both at the wrists and the bottom, as well as the hemming of his pants. "W-What happened?!"

He'd cleaned up, of course. It wouldn't do to arrive at a class party looking as if he'd just come from a massacre, but a crime scene fit the look well. Izuku took in her appearance as he waved her concern away. Her black, silk cocktail dress clung to her curves, while her high heels put her taller than Midoriya for once. Elbow-length black gloves reached for him, while the concern in her eyes drew a stark contrast to the curled, billowing jet black hair occluding half of her face and the crimson lipstick that sat like blood on her lips.

"The blood makes the costume better. Makes me look fresh from a crime scene." Izuku smiled now, letting some of his madness leak through into his eyes and smile. "Now come on, dame. We have a soiree to attend." Izuku linked his arm with Momo, and she let the concern slip away as she purred. May as well play her part.

"Yes, darling. Let's do just that."

…

There are many things that go bump in the night, just as there are three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and the stupidity of one's casual acquaintances. Izuku and Momo walked back into the dorms to find Mina neck-deep in a bucket of ice water and apples. The shriek they'd heard upon entering the dorms came from their classmates not having informed the pinkette that the fog billowing out of the apple cauldron was actually because of the dry ice they'd placed in the bottom of it.

It was almost time for the festivities to begin, and the last of the guests would be arriving soon. Izuku couldn't help but smile as he observed the room. Everyone had gotten into the spirit of the season, from Mina in her kitty cat outfit, all the way to the usually stoic Shinso with his imitation Eraserhead goggles on his forehead and capture weapon settled haphazardly on his shoulders. Ojiro was wrapped in just enough bandages to show hints of the skeleton suit he had on underneath. Tenya had taken the time to meticulously paint himself into Frankenstein's monster and was doing his best to converse with the blushing Shoto.

It made sense, really. It was the first real Halloween he'd been able to take part in after getting away from his family, and he still wasn't used to the attention. Attention that he was getting a lot of because of his meticulously put together noble vampire costume.

The sound of Kyoka calling his name brought his attention above himself just in time to catch her as she hopped off the broom Ochako had been flying them around on. Kyoka was doing her best to play the sly demon succubus with Himiko, while Ochako had dressed in the purples and blacks of a witch.

Laughing, Izuku was going to ask what on earth she thought she was doing when he caught sight of Mei behind her. The blood drained from his face when he saw what she was wearing. Her costume was by far the scariest there. It was the only one that made Izuku feel very real fear. She had modeled it after her damned Roomba's.

Eijiro called out from the front of the room that their special guests had arrived, and some students lined up behind the couches, others behind the pumpkin carving tables. Kaminari and Sero had finally been caught by Mina, only to get dunked into the ice water themselves. The three stood by the bucket of freezing water, giggling their heads off. Pony and Setsuna turned from where they were conversing at the cocktail bar, clearly waiting for Midoriya to make his way over and take his position behind it. Asui climbed upside down into a visible area next to the dorm's stairs in her tracht dress, while Fumikage and Toru conversed at the foot of the stairs.

The chime of a clock, the toll of a bell, and two little girls stepped through the front door with Mirio and the rest of the Moonlit Industries group behind them. One girl was taller than the other, braver than the other. Gold eyes and blonde hair like her elder sister, she stepped through wearing a costume similar to Todoroki, though her fangs were all-natural when she smiled at the waiting group of students.

The other girl was still shy, still scared from her ordeal. Younger than Hiromi by only a year, the girl had red eyes with sleek, silver hair trailing across the deep black and silver plates that were a replication of Midoriya's hero costume. Izuku could see the curiosity in her eyes as she took in the room, and when her eyes finally landed on Izuku, her smile could have melted the white snow her hair reminded him of. As one, the students of 1-A gave a mighty cheer. "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

Notes:

Happy Halloween everyone!