Level Zero - Villain!Bakugou Rehabilitation

16 || Troubled Thoughts

Yagi Toshinori's POV

Toshinori watched as a silent war waged between his three junior disciples.

His successor and the next generation's Symbol Of Peace, Midoriya Izuku, appeared to have frozen in time. His mouth fell open a little, hyperactive tear glands welling up and making his eyes shine. Midoriya's whole being seemed to cave in on itself, physically and mentally, as his shoulders drooped and his gaze fell to the floor.

Toshinori, having taken on a somewhat fatherly role for the boy, felt the intense need to walk forwards and smother Midoriya in hugs until his normal happy smile was back. Unfortunately, he knew it wasn't his place to intervene right now.

L/N's eyes seemed to glaze over, their mouth hardening into a pursed line, face falling into a cold but neutral mask. They looked to the wall, staring directly at one spot and yet not seeming to take anything in. This was unusual for them.

Toshinori knew L/N to be a bright, energetic and sharp pupil. But now they just stared off into space, looking lost in another place during a different time. To see them shut down like this only proved how close these three must have been before they all split apart.

His student kept all their feelings internal, putting up an iron clad facade to keep their thoughts private. Their reaction and coping mechanisms were the polar opposite of Midoriya's; while the boy openly showed how heartbroken and confused he was, L/N kept it all to themself, locking their emotions up in a personal bubble of confinement.

Toshinori had no doubt they were filing all their questions away, locking them in her mind, only to be pulled out when they were alone and in the right mindset to think them through properly. 

And then there was Ground Zero.

Staring smugly at his two childhood friends as they broke down, he watched from afar with a certain glint in his eyes. Toshinori recognised something though in those crimson pools, something he remembered from...

...From the man-child, Shigaraki. That quick lived sense of achievement, lighting up the luminescent scarlet of both the Villain's irises. A small burst of sick victory, so fast and short that one couldn't tell what it really was. Something that felt so good in those few brief seconds that it left one waiting for the next round, hung over and addicted.

This infection was only found in those who had been deprived, if Toshinori was thinking of the correct sociopathic terms. Deprived of care, love and warmth. It could be caused from two things, or a combination of both together, he knew.

Either if one was drowning in their own misery without knowing it, living in ignorance to their own darkness, and found a ruthlessly vicious humour from seeing people suffer the same way.

Or if they were feeling a loneliness so intense and acute that they hadn't noticed it shadowing them. If it had been there for so long that the person had become accustomed to it, and they'd suddenly had a moment when they realised that there was actually someone...

Or, in this case, two someone's, that did care about them. When the fog lifted for just a moment and they felt truly cared about.

Toshinori thought that Shigaraki and Bakugou both had a mix. But what the two really had in common was that they neither realised what was going on, or what was causing it to happen. Toshinori had just figured out the reason for the first, and now he knew the answers to the second too.

It was All For One's doing. This was the exact way the Villainous mastermind liked to toy with people, using their emotions and hanging them until they were drowning in the air like puppets on a string.