"Tch." Aizawa grumbled, as he wrapped up another criminal with his capture weapon. He jumped back, kneed his partner in the gut, before leaving their butts in the alleyway, tied up, and called for the police for pick up. Then he went home.
Yamada was sitting at the table, lying face first on the wood as he shakily sat up at the sound of the door opening.
"Uh... hi? Oh, Shouta. Welcome... home...?" Yamada sleepily raised his head, mumbling.
"Yeah." Aizawa grumbled, going to the kitchen and throwing some black coffee instant brew inside a cup, and dumped the hot water into it. He grabbed his cup and dumped himself onto the sofa, drinking angrily.
"Geez, you okay Shou?" Yamada asked.
"I don't care what the media says. It's a puddle of blood. A murderer can't kill someone and leave such a perfect puddle f blood. They wouldn't kill someone and drag the body away either without clearing up the mess, if they're trying to hide the evidence. Aldera has a high suicide rate, and they said the missing kid was quirkless! There was prejudice against him for sure! I'm pretty certain the poor kid was driven to suicide from bullying." Aizawa huffed.
Yamada did understand why Aizawa was upset. Aizawa had been subject to teasing before when he was younger for his quirk, being creepy and scary for taking quirks away and his glowing red eyes. Essentially bullying, but to a much lesser extent because everyone was scared of him.
"And there are no other stains, and I'm pretty sure a suicide victim is in no shape to somehow leave without leaving any traces, so some other person with a psychic or a teleportation quirk must have taken him or something." Aizawa grumbled.
"Hm... assuming that the two events are related." Yamada pointed out, "Midoriya Izuku could have been kidnapped, and didn't commit suicide, and someone thought it would be funny to dump blood on the ground."
He pat Aizawa on the shoulder, "Look, you need to sleep. I know you sympathise with him, but you worrying and not getting rest isn't going to do anyone any good. You have barely slept for a month since that thing happened."
-------------------
"I said to bring in dead body. So you decided to bring in a random kid wearing an Aldera Junior High uniform, that is all covered in blood?" Ujiko asked.
"Hey, he just happened to be there." Shigaraki replied.
"Does someone want to explain why I had to drag a bloody kid through my portal? It takes ages to clean it up." Kurogiri grumbled.
"I told you before, I wanted a freshly dead body. I want to experiment and run some tests on it. The data will be useful when Sensei eventually decides on a good combination of quirks for the Nomu."
"And... it seems like you're not doing that with the corpse?" Kurogiri raised an eyebrow.
"According to him... he's not as dead as we thought, apparently. He's alive, barely, somehow. I don't care." Shigaraki hissed.
"Well... he has two toe joints. Wait.. I know this kid. This will be so fun. I've never experimented on a quirkless kid before!" Ujiko rubbed his hands in glee, his eyes moving towards all the glinting surgical equipment on the table next to him. "I better check with Sensei first. He may have a quirk, even though his has two toe joints."
"Yeah yeah. Just fix him or whatever. I'm tired." Shigaraki walked out of the room.
-------------------
Midoriya woke up with a splitting headache. He was lying on some sort of cold, hard table, his hands and legs chained down. He didn't want to move anyways, his entire body ached. He tried to open his eyes, but his vision remained dark.
He tried to think how he got into this situation.
My name is Midoriya Izuku. I'm eleven. I went to Aldera High School. My unofficial older brother is Shinsou Hitoshi. He turned twelve two weeks ago. He has a brainwashing quirk. I'm quirkless. I jumped off a building.
He blinked. He knew he jumped off a building, not wanting to be a burden to anyone.
Wow. I can't even die right. I really am useless.
He remembered someone yelling his name, right before he hit the ground.
"IZU!"
He internally sighed. Someone had seen him.
He realised what that meant. There was only one person who called him Izu, and that was Shinsou.
No.... Shinsou had seen him. He had actually seem him jump off the roof and crash into the ground. Had seen him bleeding out on the ground as he died.
He wasn't suppose to see that. He wasn't supposed to even be there.
I should've jumped somewhere else. Gods, I can't even kill myself properly. And I ended up hurting Toshi...
He was shaken out of his thoughts when he heard a voice.
"Interesting. His skull was split open, broke a lot of bones, lost a lot of blood, and he's still alive! He should have died long before you even brought him in." A man's voice rang out. "I was so sure in my diagnosis before that he was quirkless... being seeing the extend of his injuries and he's still alive, maybe not after all!"
-------------------
It took some time for Midoriya to fully recover, even with healing quirks. His skull had been fixed completely, as well as his bones. But the boy still had a multitude of scars, scars that had been left by his classmates whenever they were particularly rough with him.
Midoriya didn't know how long it took for him to recover. He didn't care. He should have died. If these random people found him interesting to play with, at least he was being somewhat useful in entertaining someone.
And then they finally dragged him somewhere, to see someone.
Midoriya didn't know who he was supposed to meet with. The man with a hand on his face just dragged him along the long, dark, haunting hallways, and Midoriya following absently without knowing where they were going. They stopped, and Midoriya just looking at the man with scar tissue running over his entire face. He had no eyes that Midoriya could actually see, but Midoriya had no doubts the man was boring whatever eyes or senses he possessed at him, burrowing right into his soul.
"Sensei, the almost dead kid we brought in like... a month ago?" The hand man said.
"Ah. Thank you Tomura." The man said, and Midoriya felt him shift his attention to the hand man slightly. "This is Shigaraki Tomura. Tomura, Leave us be for a while, no?"
"Alright, Sensei." Shigaraki nodded, before leaving the room in a purple portal.
"Now. Come here."
Midoriya listened immediately. The man was strong, for sure. And it had been conditioned in his mind to do whatever he was told immediately. If his classmates told him to get their bags, he would get it without hesitation. Not doing so would result in even worse injuries.
The man placed his hand on Midoriya's forehead, and he felt some sort of force reach into him, seeping into his very being, poking and prodding as if it was looking for something.
The man hummed, and the feeling disappeared.
"Hmm. You really are quirkless."
Midoriya just stared at the man blankly.
Was he going to kill him for not having a quirk?
If so, great. He'd finally be dead, and not a burden to anyone anymore.
"So. You're clearly special, if you could survive your injuries while quirkless."
Midoriya just looked forward, blinking.
"Clearly, some things happened for you to end up splattered on your school grounds. Is there anyone you hate? Anyone that drove you to do that?"
He just looked at the man emotionlessly. He didn't know what to feel that the question.
Or more like he couldn't feel anything at all. Physically, yes, emotionally, no.
No one drove me to do that. They suggested it, I thought it was a good suggestion.
The man, seeing as he got no response, sighed, and stuck out his hand, "Join us. I can give you power to get back at those that hurt you. We can pull down this hero society from its roots."
Midoriya just shook his head. He didn't want to hurt anyone, really. Giving him power won't suddenly make him flare up in a rage. If he still had the capacity to get angry.
Pulling hero society down? He must be a villain.
The man's presence suddenly turned ominous, and his grin glinted in the dark, "Who said you were given a choice?"
He reached out again, pressing his hand hard onto Midoriya's face, and he yelped when he felt a jolt of pain. It felt like a foreign presence was forcing its way into his body, burning his veins and setting them on fire.
Stop! No!
"Something about you... makes this harder than it usually is."
He desperately pushed, tried to shove all the pain away, trying to find the source of it.
WHY DID IT HURT SO MUCH!?
"Stop resisting, kid. You're just making it hurt more." The man grinned, "Just accept the quirk, and work for me. Easy as that."
He's trying to give me a quirk? He's trying to force a quirk into me!? How did that even work!?
He was screeching internally in pain.
Did he want a quirk?
Before, maybe.
Now, not really. He didn't really care enough.
A quirk given by a villain? Hell no.
He summoned all his willpower, anything left that still lingered from his suicide attempt, and shove back. He pushed against the fire roaring in his gut, the electrifying feeling rushing through his veins, right into the source. He shoved back with everything he had, forcing the oppressing force out of his mind and body.
He fell to the ground, exhausted. He coughed out some blood, before closing his eyes, panting.
He dizzily looked up at them man, who just stared, without eyes somehow, at his own hand in wonder. The sides of his vision was starting to get blurry, and Midoriya could feel like he was on the verge of passing out.
"Interesting. No one has actually been able to prevent me from giving them a quirk. You really are one of a kind."
He could see the man's malicious grin stretch even wider, "I suppose it will be fun to see how much you can take before we can break you."
-------------------
Midoriya tried to remember.
It felt so hard, so painful, to remember.
They tried to make him forget, to force him to forget. They gave him a new name, Akatani Mikumo.
He felt only pain.
Midoriya refused to give in, to accept the new identity. He didn't want a new name. He wanted to be himself. Even if he was the useless, quirkless child that got bullied by everyone.
It hurt too much.
They wanted to break him, to use him.
Midoriya kept resisting.
He didn't want to be a villain. He didn't want to hurt anyone. He didn't listen. He didn't want to listen.
He could feel his arms disintegrating time and time again, pain shooting through his chests and limbs. His brain was hazy from all the pain, and he didn't know what was going on. The the dull throbbing of his ribs flared up every now and then, and he could feel the blood running out of his mouth.
They beat him to the brink of death, before healing him back to a hundred percent.
Rinse and repeat.
He wanted to die. To stop the pain.
He didn't want to die.
At least my suffering causes some entertainment.
Either way, it was a win for him.
Did he care whether they ended up killing him?
No.
He didn't know anything anymore.
He remembered a winged child, a boy who could manipulate gravity, a boy who could make his fingers longer, all of them picking on him for being quirkless.
That memory faded to dust.
He remembered a green haired woman, crying, locking herself in the room.
That memory disappeared.
He remembered a boy with fluffy purple hair, sitting beside him, laughing and playing with him, helping him when no one ever would.
Toshi.
He tried to cling on to that set of memories, the only good thing he had left, the only thing that kept him from breaking apart.
He remembered jumping off a building.
He remembered his name being yelled.
He remembered the soft, warm hand caressing his forehead, clearing the harsh buzzing of static in his ears, before his vision slipped to black.
I hurt him. I hurt Toshi.
I hurt him I hurt him I hurt him I hurt him I hurt him I hurt him I hurt him I hurt him I hurt him -
They told him he had died. Forced fake memories into his head. His worst nightmares.
Toshi was dead.
Whatever was left of him broke.