Deku was gone. When he didn't show up to school again, Bakugo was worried that something had happened again, but when he got home, he learned it was a lot worse than anything he could have predicted.
First of all, Deku had been arrested. That hadn't been made known to the public until he'd disappeared last night; they were calling it an escape. Second of all, the asshole that had killed Inko Midoriya had been rescued. He was sitting in his cell when purple mist surrounded him and he just disappeared. The scariest part was that Deku had disappeared the same way.
Escape? He'd been fucking kidnapped! Bakugo snarled, clenching his fist by his side. Well, know he knew why Deku hadn't wanted to be a hero anymore; he'd gotten fucking arrested for helping that girl Mina. Anyone would be bitter. Bakugo himself was reconsidering, but he couldn't give up on his goal. He'd become a hero no matter what stupid rules they made.
He had ten months before he would be a full time hero student at U.A., after he passed the entrance exam. Those months would be spent training his ass off, and—fuck needing a license—trying his damn best to find out what the fuck happened to Deku.
* * *
Mina was unresponsive. She stared at the T.V. in shock; what she was seeing couldn't be real, could it? Izuku Midoriya, the boy that had lost his mother saving her life, had gotten arrested for vigilantism and then kidnapped from the detention center by villains.
Her parents told her it wasn't her fault. She believed them, to an extent. She didn't choose to be targeted. But she had been, and she'd been completely helpless. She would have died if Izuku and his mother hadn't saved her. But, because they saved her, Inko Midoriya was dead, Izuku had gotten arrested, and now he'd been abducted by the same villain that rescued Kurata.
The police were framing it as an escape of an inmate convicted of assault and vigilantism, which just made everything worse. The villain had been right; somehow, by saving her, Izuku had broken the law. She hadn't even known! She owed him her life, and she hadn't even cared enough to find out he'd been arrested for what he'd done for her.
She was angry. At herself, mostly, but also at the world. At the society that thought it was fair to arrest people for saving lives. He'd just lost his mother! She wondered bitterly if she even wanted to be a hero anymore.
"I think you have a really bright future as a hero," Izuku told her. "My mom did too. Be a great one for us, okay?"
Mina took a deep breath, and then another, her eyes closed as she tried to get a hold of herself. She would do it. She would get into U.A. and become a hero, and she'd help save Izuku from whatever villains had taken him. Maybe it would make up for at least part of the trouble she'd caused him.
* * *
"Impressive. I would have thought he'd be a Nomu by now, but he's accepted every quirk I've given him without breaking. This last step will be more risky, though..."
"He's the perfect spy, don't you think? All Might is teaching at U.A. too. With all these quirks, he'll get in no problem..."
"...easily controlled. He has a strong will, but no one can resist that combination of brainwashing quirks..."
"Why, Tomura, you haven't grown a soft spot for him, have you? You know he's just a tool..."
"And that puts him in the same boat as us, doesn't it?"
Midoriya gasped as he sat up, an old bed creaking beneath him. Random bits and pieces of memories floated through his head, frustratingly out of reach. How long had he been with the League of Villains? His sense of time was as foggy as his memories, but judging by the familiarity of his surroundings, it had been a while. Weeks? Months? Not years, he was relatively certain.
"Definitely not years. If nothing else, our last memories of Kacchan wouldn't be so fresh if it had been that long," said a voice in his head brightly.
"It doesn't matter how long, it was too long for me," another voice said, this time dark and furious. "All I know is that it hurt, and I swear I'm going to kill him if it's the last thing I do."
"Hang on, am I crazy?" Midoriya thought. Were those voices himself? They felt familiar too, so maybe he'd been crazy for a while.
"We all are," the first voice said sadly. "It was the only way to cope. I couldn't survive the pain so I hid, but you're stronger than I am."
"Who are you?" Midoriya asked.
"I'm Izuku. You mostly go by Midoriya now," the bright voice said. "The other voice is less of a personality and more of an emotion. We call him Wrath."
Wrath didn't respond, so he must be telling himself the truth. He shook his head, getting up and looking around.
Tomura Shigaraki was leaning against his door frame. Midoriya felt happy to see him, although that made no sense. What could have happened to make him like his captor? He thought of Kurogiri with unexpected fondness as well. Did it have something to do with the vague mention of brainwashing quirks he could almost remember?
"I'm happy to see you. Why the hell am I happy to see you?" he asked. The bluntness was uncharacteristic, he realized. Maybe that was one of the differences between him and the Izuku in his head.
Tomura grinned. "Now that's a hell of a question, isn't it? Probably Stockholm syndrome."
Midoriya snorted. He was cracking jokes with his captors now? What on earth had happened to him? "It's like Beauty and the Beast," he found himself quipping back. "For more than one reason, it's pretty obvious that I'm the beauty."
That got a chuckle, but no response. "All For One wants to see you," Tomura said. "Come down to the bar."
Midoriya tensed. Whatever had transpired between him and some of the members of the League, his opinion and experiences with All For One were still very much negative. He couldn't remember anything specific about him, other than the pain. The pain that had apparently shattered his mind.
Still, he made himself follow Shigaraki down the stairs. The Izuku in his head pulled back, hiding from the encounter they were about to have. He wished he could do the same, but at the same time he couldn't back down. That was another striking difference from how he remembered himself being; the fiery rebelliousness that made him want to spit in All For One's face just as much as he wanted to cower away.
He entered the lobby, and he felt the temperature drop from All For One's presence. Oh, how he hated that man. "Welcome, young Midoriya. I see that your memories were successfully wiped. Now, let's make sure the rest of our work stayed intact. Tonight is your test. As an extra incentive to do your best for us, I've decided to allow you to perform tasks that you might not hate. For example, as long as you keep me happy, I will let you do vigilante hero work and fight against rival villain groups rather than against heroes. If you disappoint me with your results, you will be executing our prisoners until you can please me again. Do you understand?"
Midoriya found himself compulsively nodding his head, even though he'd like nothing more than to take the man's head off. He paused. That train of thought was unexpectedly violent.
"Well? You'd better get started. You can do whatever you want, but I need information on the Eight Precepts of Death by morning. Don't disappoint me." Midoriya found his feet carrying him through the door and into the night, and he realized what those brainwashing quirks he remembered were doing to him.
Every time All For One gave him an order, he was thrown into the backseat of his own body, and he was forced to obey.
The thought made him tremble with rage. So this was his test? The Eight Precepts of Death. Somehow, he remembered that they were a gang led by a man going by Overhaul, though he couldn't remember ever learning that information. The area they operated in had a significant overlap with the area that Nighteye's agency presided over, All Might's former assistant.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a window as he walked by, and he froze. He was... different. He had the same proportions, vaguely, but somehow—probably using a shapeshifting quirk—All For One had completely altered his face until he was unrecognizable. His hair was a dull brown, his eyes smaller, his mouth thinner. With a bit of effort, he was able to change his hair color to black, which meant the shifting was the result of a quirk that had been permanently given to Midoriya. Still, it was better not to show his real face for what he was about to do.
He can do whatever he wants, huh? He grinned. Oh, All For One was going to regret this.