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Kirishima Eijirou awoke in a cool sort of stillness, one eye blinded by the thick, shiny skin of chemicals and disintegrating paint residue that floated gently on the surface of the water half-submerging it. Its unsubmerged eye rolled wildly, rapidly taking in cream-colored porcelain and a striped curtain.
A Bathroom.
It had encountered a few of these in various forms over the centuries. Eijirou struggled to think, trying to recall whose this may have been, but the very process of thinking seemed somehow dysfunctional. It was aware of its analysis, the way its previous shell had been soaked off. It was aware of its vulnerability, exposed like this with only enough energy remaining to look with that one clear eye, but the emotion and understanding it had grown accustomed to in its last assimilation seemed desperately out of reach. Raised voices came through its waterlogged ear, vitriol rippling through the water. Eijirou listened, waiting as it had always waited, searching for some sort of tether until— There.
That. That voice, musical and low, raspy from abuse, smoke, and anxious stomach acid was the reason for its awakening. It basked in the sound, a single finger twitching in the oily muck as water seeped into the jagged stone of its core. Sediment pooled and puddled on the textured bottom surface of the bath as warmth bloomed. It was small, only the very seed of emotion impregnating that disorienting coolness, but it was enough to know. To understand, even if it were only in the way a child grasps at life with fumbling fingers. A door slammed closed in the next room, and Eijirou could feel the source of that spark bobbing away. It sighed, bubbles distorting its own reflection in the water, and let itself fall dormant again. Already, that spark was growing bigger, flaring brighter with each passing moment. If it was going to find the source, it would have to conserve its energy. It was close, so incredibly close to creating itself anew. Eijirou was already accustomed to waiting. It could rest for a bit longer.
‘’✧‘’
Cars screamed their way down the streets of Kamino, lights passing and shattering across first floor shop windows in the early evening darkness. Dim grays and whites glanced off of trench coat collars and gleaming silver-plated watches, giving breath and life to the scattered bar-hoppers and theatergoers willing to be out on a weeknight. Eijirou worked to find a place among them, trying to pace its stilted steps to match the rest in its stolen-borrowed boots and tight jeans. It had liberated a few pieces during its daily excursion to its awakener’s apartment steps. It could only spend so long staring at the closed door, listening to the quiet sound of his breathing before it wanted to get closer, could only spend so many nights watching him sleep and dress without wanting to do so itself. It was only natural that it mirrored the awakener, Katsuki, as much as possible through this creeping process of becoming.
This night, “becoming” wasn’t the only thing creeping. Eijirou quickened its pace, following the pull of its paired flame down an alley and around a corner until it had an unobstructed view of the object of its need…
And so it watched the origin of its awakening. Studied him.
There were others there with him, one particularly lean fellow taking point in their accusation. The man, (Shigaraki, it read in the sputtering spark of Katsuki’s soul), spoke in concepts that were easy to understand, gesturing widely with cracked and scarred hands. Desire. Perfect Opposites. Sadism. Loss. Debt. A thought crystallized, then, emblazoning itself in the same glowing red of Katsuki’s spark across its consciousness. It knew these details. This was its doing. When it had first awoken, that catalyzing flare of lust-rage-narcissism had sent it to its feet, out the door to hunt. That boy had been… a miscalculation, but it felt like him, like their bond. He had been trailing after Katsuki on his route, watching and studying as Eijirou watched and studied. Katsuki’s job was to be observed and adored, but this one, this boy, had begun the process of analyzing. Analysis was the first step to matching, a rung on the ladder of becoming. Eijirou couldn’t stand for that. Its solitary regret was that it hadn’t chosen a more inconspicuous outfit, though it couldn’t repress the dull pinch of pride at having pulled off its imitation so successfully. Of course this group would think Eijirou and Katsuki were partners, anam cara, when it had dispatched that little analyst while wearing Katsuki’s jacket. It basked in that feeling for a moment, that pride dulled by layers of sediment and distance.
One of the group, a young girl with bloodlust in her veins, saw fit to strike out at Katsuki, a punch landing firmly in his stomach as the rest of the group moved closer. Eijirou immediately flew into motion, keeping its steps ghostly silent as it came close enough to interfere while still being cloaked in shadow behind an open door to one of the derelict buildings flanking the alley. This man was his, the ultimate culminating point of everything he was and would be, the next name it would wear as it worked to further its understanding until its borrowed fire faded once again. They were soul matched. They would share life, but one could not share that which did not exist. It would not, could not allow him to be damaged. Shigaraki pulled off one glove, drawing a clean line down the awakener’s jaw.
Eijirou was in motion before the first pooling drop of red hit the ground. The first aggressor was easy enough to dispatch, falling limp and lifeless with a simple hit to the back of the head. Katsuki was still screaming, a beautiful sound even for his horror, and it made Eijirou want to strike faster, to kill them all as they had planned to destroy its own prize. Shigaraki turned slowly to face it, skin seeming lit from within by the golden street light overhead as the muscles in his neck jumped and twitched in irritation. Eijirou permanently silenced that traitorous tongue. Again, he took a deep breath, reveling in the garbled pleas and choking whimpers before that face, so twisted with righteous cruelty and malice, grew grey and silent at last. An eye for an eye, and the world goes blind. A face for a face… Well, it was of no consequence. Eijirou did not have a face of its own to lose, not truly, and Katsuki’s beauty was not the sort that could be marred by scar or scowl. Eijirou stepped closer to Shigaraki’s would-be victim, allowing the body to topple to the side without care of consequence. The man had scarred his awakener. Death had been the more merciful fate.
Finally, finally, it was face to face with the man who would give it purpose once more.
They spoke.
Katsuki seemed put off by its apathy, by the methodical dispatch of the man who would have killed him, but Eijirou paid it no mind. This reaction would only inform his future reactions. They would become indistinguishable, inseparable in every way, so a momentary disagreement would matter very little in the long run. It gathered more impressions, reading of a dual-natured childhood, a hero, the want to be held dear and made perfect from the flashing memories playing out across the flame flickering and flaring within Katsuki’s chest. They seemed to understand each other now, though Katsuki was more hesitant than Eijirou had anticipated. Perhaps the miscalculation in Shigaraki’s death was more severe than it realized. It directed Katsuki to leave through the same door it had hidden behind, bidding him farewell and waiting for a count of three before turning once more to the corpses littering the alley.
Kirishima Eijirou leered down at the slowly cooling thing that had dared to try to hold Katsuki accountable for Eijirou’s own doings. It raised its foot, stolen-borrowed boot reflecting the golden effulgence of that earlier noted streetlamp in the perfectly polished spikes across its toe, and slammed it down with a wet crunch. Eijirou delighted in that. Something was shifting, growing, a state pulling itself into being that was more than that old lust-apathy-narcissism-grief-rage-longing-inadequacy-hunger. Personhood was burgeoning within it, sketching itself into an elegant croquis, the foundational traits it sought and clung to. Eijirou was becoming something more, lighting up the way Katsuki did after taking down another lowlife weakling set on violent vengeance. It would need to investigate this further.
‘’✧‘’
Eijirou went about its business— or, perhaps, it went about Katsuki’s business— for a few weeks following the incident, indulging in tiny humanities between rescues. There was something about these interactions that excited it, whether they came in the form of bloodying its fists or sinking into the dull ache of its muscles after a well-fought battle. People saw it and assumed they knew it, chatting as if they were old friends or enemies without any further effort on its part. There were certainly benefits to its association with Katsuki. It purchased itself new clothing in the appropriate styles and materials, hunting down and terrorizing the only other man who knew of its existence. Eijirou was quickly gaining a reputation for the incident with Shigaraki, so much so that a handful of the man’s friends came knocking and sent Eijirou’s intestines sprawling with a point-blank gunshot. It was worthwhile, in the end, as they provided their life’s blood for its purposes, as well as granting it an excellent opportunity to return to Katsuki’s apartment. That in of itself was a gift worth suffering the pain for.
In its absence, Katsuki had seemingly come to care for it, appreciating the things that it could do. That appreciation was warm, gentle, and Eijirou couldn’t keep itself from telling Katsuki everything. Its nature, its hunger for blood, the not-machine nature of its calculated function… each dripped from its lips like the blood weeping from its still gaping wound. It knew nothing. It never would, only snatching at moments of clarity while the flames of other, borrowed-stolen souls remained lit within them. It could feel the echoes of that clarity now, lasting in its verbiage where it was neglected by its tone. They were healing, the both of them, in ways that were the same and different, and Eijirou kept a watchful gaze over Katsuki’s soul, reading again of rain, of drowning, of bodies sliding together with bruised threnodies and pleasure-struck melodies, of that pair of hands reaching down and picking his child self up as though he had always been enough, though this time those hands bore the sculpted shape and artificially crafted scars of its own. It couldn’t keep from kissing him at that, scar pressing to mirrored scar, ever so faintly chapped lips sliding against unnaturally smooth and plush ones.
Eijirou would become Katsuki’s partner, his soul-pair made perfect very soon, but this sort of acceptance, borderline love, was entirely unfamiliar to it. It felt a strange, stirring domesticity blooming within. Katsuki could stay here, be protected and safe, and It would assume all his duties and social obligations. Katsuki would never ask for these things, but Eijirou knew he wanted them anyway. It could read that longing in Katsuki’s very soul. There was another longing layered beneath it, longing for that inevitable cool, black stillness which came with death, and Eijirou quietly made plans to visit the Cemetery along with him. It still had things to learn, after all, and the photograph of Katsuki’s parents that was kept faced down on the mantle had raised a new sort of hungry sorrow within it. It wanted to know them. To offer its respects properly. To thank them for passing over their son into its hands. It stood, thinking quietly to itself. Perhaps it would have to acquire some flowers. Agrimony, it thought, with Flos Adonis, Begonia, Marigold, and French Willow. It was the least Eijirou could do.
‘’✧‘’
Eijirou arrived at the Cemetery on a misty Friday afternoon, dodging both the morning rain and the coming evening frost. Few people were out at 4pm on a Friday, and that was all the better. It took several moments for Eijirou to locate Katsuki’s father’s grave, and it wouldn’t do to be perceived as not having visited before. It placed its flowers gently beside the headstone, tweaking a few petals until the light hit them just so. It took a few steps back, gazing down at the weather-worn stone that marked a place that had so little objective significance. What was a grave, it thought, but a hole in the ground? What was a corpse but rotting flesh and worn-to-dust bone? Eijirou had, over the course of this and past lifetimes, become familiar with corpses. It had made several. That was a necessity of its existence, its need for blood and soul to function. There was something about this one, though, this pit of degrading human remains that moved Eijirou to feeling. Tears rolled down its cheeks, lukewarm and pink-tinged, and it let them. It was only a few moments later that Katsuki arrived with bare feet and bloodshot eyes. There was something to the firm set of his mouth, the absence in his gaze, that set Eijirou’s nerves on edge, so it waited in silence as he spoke to the headstone. It had started to rain, and the pattering droplets ran down both their clothes in dark rivulets. Finally, Katsuki came back into himself a little, turning to speak to Eijirou.
“What’s wrong?”
It fumbled for a reply, stuttering and stammering over his grief. Eijirou was sure it must have sounded disingenuous, the way he spoke of visiting the father’s grave, but the memories were just as much his as they were Katsuki’s. He had read them directly out of Katsuki’s soul, after all, and with them came the emotion that should have been attached. It would have been, without that cruel apathy Katsuki insisted on filtering the remembrances through. Eijirou had no need for such filters, however, so he experienced the glimpses of memory with all the emotion and pain that was innately packaged with them. He felt them truly, deeply, even more so than Katsuki did. They were his. That was what had made him human, had pushed out his inhumanity. His grief, his suffering… That breathed life into Eijirou-Who-Was-Nearly-Human. He would still get things wrong like, as Katsuki had bitingly told him, his would-be father in law’s hatred for flowers, but those were crimes of convention, rather than intuition.
Eijirou knew pain, and allowed himself to know it, and that made him more human than Katsuki could ever be. He treasured that, even in such mundane incidences as its inherited toothache. He was human, nearly, nearly, and soon Katsuki would never be alone again.
Kirishima Eijirou would be able to take a place at his side. That had been a dream of his, one that had carried him for so long as he could remember. He watched Katsuki turn, walk through traffic without care or notice paid to the asphalt cutting up his bare feet, and waited. Blood, spark, and soul. It all came down to blood, spark, and soul in the end. Eijirou had already claimed two, and it would only be a matter of time before he inherited the other. That was alright. The-Creature-Who-Could-Have-Been-Kirishima-Eijirou had plenty of time to wait.