The Crow-Izuku Midoriya (Izumomo ver)

II: Rebirth

ONE YEAR LATER

A building gets torched, and all that is left is ashes. I used to think that was true about everything: families, friends, feelings. But now I know, sometimes, if love proves real for two people who are meant to be together, nothing can keep them apart.

Gently, Ochako set the bouquet of flowers down against the headstone of Momo Yaoyorozu, having walked to her grave and stopping to take a flower from each grave Ochako had passed to make her makeshift bouquet.

Then she took one more step forward to Izuku's, setting down a single white rose on his grave. All the short time she'd known Izuku and Momo, Ochako had noticed that Izuku had a morbid fascination with death, seeming to have fun with even the concept of it. Even his band's name, Hangman's Joke, seemed to be laughing in Death's face. Yet, all of those facets of his personality only made Izuku seem cooler in Ochako's eyes.

The fact that Izuku never seemed afraid of death, even in a city that was so full of it, also gave Ochako a small degree of comfort. And she remembered that Izuku said he only wanted one white rose on his grave if he should ever die, no matter how.

Her respects paid, Ochako rose to her feet, taking one last fond look at the graves of the two people who were more family than her mom. "Later", she said as she started walking away.

Just as she reached the cemetery gates, the cloudy overcast opened up to let out a heavy rainfall, but even that didn't bother Ochako. It rained pretty often in Japan lately.

It didn't seem to bother the bird, either - a large, black crow that flew directly over Ochako's head and caught her attention as it landed on Izuku's grave. Yet, the crow seemed fully concentrated on Izuku's grave in a very unnatural way. A derisive caw echoed from its beak, unsettling Ochako further.

"What are you, like the night watchman?"

The smart remark earned her a sharper, almost rude caw from the monstrous bird's beak, and Ochako firmly decided that that was enough for one day. Turning away, she kicked against the pavement as she mounted her skateboard, the wheels surfing over the rapidly-flooding streets, a car honking as it drove and turned just behind her.

But if Ochako had been paying attention for just a second longer, she would've seen something very unnatural indeed - the crow, almost knocking on Izuku's gravestone with the tip of its beak, as if expecting him to answer.

"You know that Lake Erie caught fire once from all the crap floating around in it?" Smoke billowed from F-Bird's mouth as he lifted the cigarette away from it, letting out a chuckle at how well his story seemed to line up with tonight. "I wish I could've seen that." He let out a loud whistle, after which the real noise began.

With wild whoops and abandon-filled shouts, his gang took bats and fists to the vintage arcade game cabinets that lined almost every wall of the first floor of the building. Yet F-Bird barely paid any attention to the noise as he hunched over a set of C4, setting the connected fuse to detonate in just less than five minutes.

It was a bit of a shame, F-Bird used to be all over games like this. But when your first job of murder hits and killing your childhood friend/rival, everything else seems to fly out the window, especially if you were working for someone like the boss. F-Bird had to admire his scheme - with the boss owning every building within the inner city, he didn't take kindly to people complaining about the conditions of housing when they were under his willful insurance. If they didn't clam up, he rescinded on the insurance and it was up to F-Bird to collect the bill with added expenses.