#because Teru isn't gonna *bite* him. or rip him limb from limb or remove chunks of him. he hates the idea of that

[brown-little-robin]

okay so @quirkle2 sent me an ask about the aftermath of the Teru vs. Mob fight, and I went and wrote out the whole fight in the ask. I'm moving it to this post so that I can answer the Actual Question in the Actual Ask like a normal person. anyway here you go

Teru's Series of Really Bad Decisions

or, How Mob Came Out Of the Teru vs. Mob Fight Completely Unscathed

So here's the thing. Mob's zombie disease colony is pretty invested in keeping its host alive, so even while the fight is happening, he's healing really fast. And despite his top-dog persona, Teru doesn't actually enjoy injuring people. (The sensation of touching another person bothers him—that's why most of his attacks are things like slaps or punches, where he's only in contact with people for a moment before the force of the blow shoves them away. He'll kill or torture people, but he subtly avoids extended contact with them while doing so. It makes him nervous to resort to hands-on violence, because that's how a zombie fights and for his own survival, Teru HAS to act like he's above zombie behavior.)

So it takes Teru a while to work himself up to the point of actually committing to injuring Mob. At first, Teru is just punching him in the chest and stomach, shoving him (he pushes him into the school swimming pool at one point and then has to pull him back out because Mob never learned to swim and is drowning. major L for Teru's pride), taunting him, using blunt force and watching in disbelief while the other boy just takes it and breathes through the pain. He expected Mob to hit back right away, and then Teru would use a bit more strength and intimidate his opponent so much that he'd admit Teru's strength is way beyond him and then they'd be on amicable terms. But that doesn't happen.

Also, Dimple isn't back yet in this AU, so the fight takes place mostly in silence, which weirds Teru out. He's used to fighting with people yelling and screaming around him, and hearing nothing but pained noises and a few confused questions out of his opponent really bothers Teru. He grabs Mob and shakes him, asking why won't you fight back??. He's definitely like Teru! he's got the misty eyes and he's breathing out miasma and he has the healing ability to jerk his arms free of the ropes he was tied with and have the raw rope-scrapes on his arms heal over a minute later, but he won't! fight! back!!

Meanwhile, as Teru is shaking him by the shirt-collars, Mob is having flashbacks to his life wandering as a zombie before the cure. He's remembering Dimple clearer than he ever has before, and he's embracing those memories for once, clinging to his guilt over (he suspects) killing his friend. And, remembering how nice Dimple was to him and Ritsu, how Dimple shared strawberries with them, how he would coax Mob out of the rain, how Dimple reached for Mob's face while Mob's teeth were closing in his arm—he stares at Teru with all the loathing he feels toward himself, for killing Dimple.

Teru says, "What's with that look?"

Mob says, "I was just wondering, why do you feel the need to hurt people who are just trying to live? Do you think you have to, because you're a zombie?"

And Teru, who tries not to think of himself as a zombie, goes, "What?"

"Oh, I was just thinking—there was someone I knew who was a pretty good guy—compared to you. And I hurt him."

That makes Teru drop Mob like a hot potato. He doesn't want to fight like a zombie but he has to get this hypocrite who hurt his own friend and refuses to fight him to DO something—and they happen to be in the home ec room, right by the gas-powered generator for the home ec equipment, so Teru causes a gas explosion on purpose and blocks the door with his body, trying to force Mob to fight his way out to avoid burning alive. That's how Teru ends up losing his perfect hair—he may be special but he's still got zombie disease, his pain receptors don't work right and Mob is coughing too hard in the smoke to warn Teru that the fire ran along the ceiling and got to Teru's hair. The fire is how Mob's clothes get singed. He's not seriously burned, at least not by the time Teru sees him next (Teru rushed to the swimming pool when he realized his hair was on fire), but he's shaken and coughing and smells like smoke.

They both stumble out of the burning school building. Mob has his Moment Of Realization and correctly guesses that Teru's life is completely empty; Teru's acting like this because he's trying to ignore that he's a zombie and has no real friends because everyone is scared of him, and Teru isn't making any effort to live like a person instead of a monster.

That's when Teru just straight-up strangles Mob, throwing away his determination not to fight like a zombie. Mob has already ruined Teru's untouchable appearance and likely condemned Teru to being shot by his own people for causing all this property damage. Teru's life as a human is over already, he thinks. Mob refuses to fight back, passes out, ???% appears, you know how it goes.

And get this: Mob's zombie disease colony has expended a lot of its energy already (consuming its own drones for sheer power) to heal Mob from the blows and the burns, so when ???% puts his body into high gear, the colony registers EMERGENCY CONDITIONS and starts replenishing its energy using anything available—the colony deploys its own disease drones into the entire surrounding area and consumes all of the miasma in the air and water and, STILL not having enough energy for this, dives into Teru's body and eats 90% of Teru's colony. This is the equivalent of ???% absorbing all of the energy in the atmosphere AND Teru's psychic powers, which always makes me hold my breath in canon.

Teru can see this happening, by the way. Like Mob, he can sense the presence of zombie disease in all forms. He senses Kageyama's disease colony suddenly exploding from his body and eating all of the colonies in the area. what a sight to behold.

Anyway, so, yeah, Mob then wakes up with his body fully healed, in front of a burning school building, sensing absolute emptiness all around him.

He can't fix the school building. Not in this au. All he can do is kneel down and cry. He failed to change. He thought he was better now, he thought that he was in control of himself now, but he did it again—he hurt someone on accident again.

And then Teru stumbles over to him with his hip still spasming from where ???% threw him by his leg and goes, "Kageyama, you were right... without our power, we have nothing..."

and Mob looks up to see people stirring around them, and Teru is alive, he didn't kill Teru, he didn't kill anyone, and he goes back to Salt with the Body Improvement Club in a kind of shell-shocked daze.