Chapter Text
PROLOGUE-ish:
Beast felt it when it happened.
Like someone’s cold fist had tightened over his very soul - if quirks even had them - and ripped it out of him in one violent jerk. Icy air hissed between his teeth, and his eyes widened as his balance momentarily floundered. He stumbled over his paws.
Just moments ago he was doing as his Master commanded, tearing apart criminals with his claws and teeth in his larger beast form, and now, a terrifying sense of emptiness opened up inside of him.
Had one of the criminals hit him? Was this the effect of one of their quirks?
But through the haze of Beast’s confusion, he noticed the criminals’ movements faltering. Their attack on him had stopped even though they still vastly outnumbered him and his Master, their attention drawn elsewhere.
Had Master willed him to disappear?
Why would Master-?
“Is he dead yet?” One of the men demanded. “Why the fuck is his quirk still active?”
It was then Beast’s gaze followed the eyes of the criminals around him to a lone figure lying in a pool of blood at the center of the room. The criminals had all stopped to stare at the body, as though waiting for something. Beast felt his strength returning shakily to him, and he prepared himself to continue attacking the petty criminals when it finally clicked.
The body lying at the center of the room was…
“Master?”
Around him, the criminals started at the sound of his voice.
Beast’s body lurched forwards in the grip of icy terror. Was his Master dying? No, no, no, no- Beast would know if his Master was dying. He would be feeling it and he felt nothing at this moment but his own fear. Had it ever gotten this far, this was the part where Master would have bounced back up and chastised him for being so sentimental. But as Beast watched, Master remained motionless, no hint of a repressed smile twitching at his lips. Nothing to soothe the panic rapidly flooding Beast's body.
“Wait, get back. It should disappear soon.” One of the criminals ordered as some of the men drew closer to him, weapons drawn.
Master was fine. Master was fine. Master was fine. Beast reasoned that if Master was dead, Beast would be too.
But as his claws shapeshifted into more fleshy human fingers to feel around a pulse that Beast shouldn’t have had to check to know, he grew confused. Why couldn’t he…
A serene expression adorned his Master’s face, one which Beast did not see often. Relaxed brows, mouth slightly parted as though he were merely drooling in his sleep. Beast may have usually found it funny but there was nothing funny about it now.
Not the way Master’s green stared sightlessly at the ceiling. And especially not the warm blood sticking to Beast’s palms as he drew his hand away from his Master’s neck. The wound that he had only just noticed spilling dark crimson out all over the floor. Beast was standing in it. It smelt of Master. Iron. Hot. Sticky. Familiar but never in this quantity.
And Beast knew with certainty.
Master was dead.
A cold sensation washed over him. Burned beneath his skin, with every ragged inhale, and screamed like a storm through his veins.
Master was dead. Master was dead. And Beast probably had only a few moments before he was gone too.
He didn’t think today would be the day but he had always known this day would come. He knew what he had to do.
With a tenderness and care he reserved for only one person, he laid Master’s head down to the floor, and with his other hand gently drew Master’s eyelids shut. “Sleep well, Master.” Beast whispered. A shaky smile ghosted over his lips. “I don’t know where quirks go when we’re gone, but I promise I’ll find you.”
Beast rose to his feet with a strange certainty. He had only one mission left to do for Master.
He whirled around and smiled at the petty criminals, the lowly thieves who thought they could cheat Master’s deal and get away with it. He watched their expressions change from wariness to fear as they realized he was still very much ready to fight and kill.
“Fudo you idiot, you didn’t kill Beast!”
“He’s literally dead, look at the bastard! There’s no way he’s surviving that.”
“Then why can I still see his quirk?”
“I don’t fucking know!”
The alleyway where the criminals had trapped Master and him was the perfect place for an ambush. But their element of surprise was over, and Beast had nothing left to lose.
In a few seconds his body had doubled in size, swelling with all his rage and all his sorrow. His weight pulled him onto all fours, thudding down on the concrete as his heavy tail, tipped with a bulbous hard end, whipped around to smash into the first surprised criminal.
The man didn't even have time to scream as his bones splintered and embedded themselves into concrete wall behind him, dead instantly.
The criminals yelled in response, exploding into action. Beast felt the effects of their quirks tingle over him. A pain emitting quirk, a fire quirk, an illusion quirk - all of which had little effect on him. Their quirks were designed to work against humans, not quirks themselves, and Beast almost felt sorry for their quirks to have such pitiful masters. But he did not dwell on his sympathy for long.
Beast destroyed them.
He painted the alleyway red with their blood and entrails, and when the last man died beneath Beast’s jaws, he spat out the monster’s throat and howled at the sky. An unnatural inhuman noise filled with all his emotions. Every memory shared with Master, every future one lost.
He screamed and screamed and waited for the end.
The sky grew dark and the clouds ripped asunder to release a torrent of cold hard rain. Night came and the stars twinkled into existence as a chilly wind tore through the alleyway. And still Beast protected his Master’s body from nature’s punishments.
And still, Beast had not vanished like most quirks after their masters died.
Carefully, he carried Master’s body from that filthy cockroach-festering alleyway, littered with the bodies of mangled monsters, and brought him in the dead of night to the nearby sea. Beast leapt from rooftop to rooftop, his powerful muscles carrying him far and fast. And when the citylights had died down, wings ripped out of his back and carried them high into the skies.
Master had always loved the ocean.
It was his place of reminiscence. It reminded him of a long-lost family.
Beast flew far out off the coasts of Japan with his Master tucked close to his chest - to where his heart would have been if quirks had them - and then finally, gently, gave him to the waves. With the rocks he tied to him, Beast watched Master sink into the deep fathomless blue, and thought to himself that no quirk should have to watch their Master die.
He did not understand why he was different.
Did not understand his purpose but to serve and love his Master.
He was an impossible wandering quirk. Fully conscious. Fully autonomous. With full control over his natural abilities.
But for the first time since Beast came into existence ten years ago when Master turned four years old, Beast was lost and alone.