1-800-BUGGELOO | video | un: rin

[offinventory]

[ Green = Midoriya | Blue = Murderbot | None = Locals ]

Beasts can be people. I had to see if there was a person in there. That's why I used a Moon Drop on the Bugge.

Waste of a Moon Drop... Just kill it like we all do, Deku. [ The voice comes from a grizzled Hunter with their hand on their hilt. ]

[ Midoriya isn't filming this. He and a group of farmers are the subject of this onlooker's stream. A few Hunters are interspersed with them, identifiable by the badges that match Midoriya's own. They know him by his Hero name, Deku. His green Hero gear is lightly stained with his own warmblood. He's bruised and exhausted, but anyone familiar with him knows that he'd be much more injured if he actually came off worse in a fight. ]

If there's a chance I can save someone without killing, I have to try.

These are my crops! The blood of the Bugge enriches them, don't you understand? I have to feed my children! [ A farmer brandishes their harvesting sickle. ]

I--I'm sorry. If you need help, I--Please, let me help. There has to be another way. There are other ways to make the soil better, just--we can figure this out together--

[ Several people in the crowd push forward, and Midoriya flinches with a step back in time with them. He can feel several stabs of alarm in his head. It evokes multiple memories of a group of people ganging up on him, and he's not good at using words to defend himself. He wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around his head and not look at them, but these are people he wants to protect. He has to face them. ]

Congratulations, you are being streamed live to DeerNet. Don't do anything you'd regret.

[ The voice is flat and even, near emotionless but with a slight edge to it. If anyone looks at their relic, it is streaming with a one second delay. ]

[ OOC: replies will come from Murderbot and Midoriya ]

Comments

[wannasmash]

He tells Paul what he just told Shigaraki, a terrible consideration and contingency he hadn't planned on thinking about at all today.

"Problem with Beasts is that they can't communicate their wishes. I'll tell you mine now. If I become a Beast, do that. Make sure I don't come near the city. Don't take risks. If you're not sure whether or not to kill me, ask Kacchan. He's capable of making a very quick decision even if he doesn't like it--the problem or the solution. And he said he wouldn't let me hurt anyone."

Midoriya and Bakugou seem like night and day, but on closer inspection, they're very similar. Midoriya keeps his word as seriously as an oath. He's never known Bakugou to break his either.

He bows his head, the tired line of his spine ready to fold if he's not careful. His voice becomes small and tremulous, some of the boy he still is slipping in and pushing the young Hero aside.

"I want to go home," he whimpers as if Paul is fully-sighted and equipped to take him there.

[terriblepurpose]

Seriousness transforms into the closing off that comes so quickly to Paul in the face of horror, but it only goes so far. It's his eyes that give him away the most as they collapse, flickering pointlessly like he might somehow look through nothing to see Midoriya if he wants to badly enough. Paul's fingers trace his cheekbones to sink into his hair as Midoriya bows his head, curling up after the dire weight of that request as if it took the last of his strength for this day to make it.

Paul cradles him as though it's true, his whimper sinking into the warm curve Paul makes of himself to hold it in.

"Anything you ask of me," he promises, in a murmur that comes thick past his heart tucked into his throat. He says it with all of the terrible gravity he can pledge himself with, his mouth half-against Midoriya's hair, binding himself to this pact without qualm or negotiation.

He will follow Midoriya's wishes. Keep him away from the city, don't take risks, ask Kacchan for his advice. Don't let him hurt anyone. Paul intends to follow each rule exactly, if it ever comes to that - and then Paul will bring him back to himself. He'd rather die than kill Midoriya, and since the rule that no one gets hurt extends to Paul by any fair interpretation of Midoriya's intent, it leaves rescue as the only option.

But first, it would have to come to that, and he has yet to see the thing that would break Midoriya's spirits so completely in all that they've been through side by side. So he puts it away from himself for now in favour of sliding his hand down to clasp Midoriya's, shifting away just far enough to fit them between their chest.

"And let's go home," he says, and if Midoriya will allow him, he'll lead him by the hand with the sea medallion around his neck gleaming with his singular desire to fulfill that simple, aching request. "Let me look after everything."