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Izuku Midoriya’s life took a turn off the metaphysical cliff. He started off luckier than most. Born with a quirk he had many more paths open to him than those who are quirkless. He has a caring mother and a cheerful character. But those who shine brightest like priceless jewels are a target for thieves. Thieves who wish to steal anything that is valuable.
When he was eight, Izuku was violently torn from his mother’s side when they were out on a bright sunny day. Inko had to go shopping and brought her son along, thinking it’d be a nice peaceful day.
Life is cruel, isn’t it? Society has a pretty façade but its sewn together by pain, a monstrous beast that thrives on the downfall of others.
A bunch of amateur villains hit the jackpot when they got offered a job to kidnap youths with powerful quirks. Izuku Midoriya had been admiring the loud sights and sounds of a busy day, happily eating ice cream melting from a cone when it happened. It’d be one of the last joys he’d experience.
People screamed and fell like a wave and before he could even begin to comprehend what was happening, a villain dressed in bulletproof armor swooped.
His mother screamed. It’s a soul-wrenching scream. Motherly rage gleams in her eyes, her face contorted into intense fear, blanched. She tries to fight back but there are too many villains, weak as they are. The memory burns itself into Izuku’s mind.
Her son’s cries send Inko into a fury and for a mere second the villains hesitate. They have seen death incarnate flash across her face. But remembering that they have the numbers and weapons they toss her and she crashes through a store window, in a rain of sharp glass.
Where are the heroes? Shouldn’t they be here already to save the day? But none come. None care about measly villains. The lower-ranked authorities will arrive too late, after the fight, after the villains have taken what they wanted.
That’s the last Izuku sees of his mother, bleeding from her side and desperately calling after her son. He’s carried into an armored car, with dark windows, and hauled away like a bag of money. The car drives at break-neck speeds, recklessly swerving by crowded sidewalks into the streets, vanishing into the busy traffic-jammed lanes of cars.
Izuku’s heart beats loudly in his ribcage as he shrinks back. Gun barrels are pointed at his face, no doubt ready to deliver a painful yet swift end to any rebelliousness. He wishes that he had Kaachan’s quirk, something to help him fight and escape his captors, but his quirk is useless. As the vehicle speeds away he hears the faint wail of sirens and he wonders if the heroes are finally doing something.
The car lurches down steep hills and the ride is tense and silent. Izuku Midoriya is no more. Living but yet a ghost. The villains laugh at his fear. They tell him he’s going to be in service for the greatest villain of their time: All For One.
Izuku has heard of him. That mysterious villain is All Might’s arch nemesis. Much like the boogeyman he plagues society’s everyday lives, causes violent mayhem, and works from the shadows. Because of All Might, people can rest easy, knowing that such a strong hero can save them from the worst disasters.
The green-haired boy unsuccessfully struggles to break free from his captors as they frog march him to an underground facility. He receives a merciless kick to his face and side. They hurl stinging insults at him and bring him to some medical office where people dressed in white lab coats go over his statistics.
“Does he have a combative quirk?” A scientist mutters coldly, as if he’s studying a specimen rather than a living, breathing human being.
“No. It’s some sort of foretelling quirk.”
“Ah, so he’ll be…” the lab tech scratched down some notes on a clipboard. “A useful spy. Put him in block S, please.”
Izuku is tossed carelessly into a concrete room surrounded by metal doors that shut with a hiss. He curls up and cries until he goes numb with sadness. After some time being struck by the horror of his new life, Izuku wipes tears away with an arm, sits up, and tries to observe his new surroundings.
“A hero won’t cry,” he mutters to himself. “They’d find a way out. And mom is probably wondering where I am. I gotta escape, see mom and Kaachan again!” Midoriya takes a few deep breathes, his face burning with long-gone tears, and places his palms on the floor.
His quirk is strange, a surreal picture of other people’s memories. It plays out like a theatrical in front of his eyes, the phantoms moving like stained glass windows glittering in sunlight. He can sense everything, from their thoughts to their slightest changes in expressions, a twitch of a smile or the humming of a knife being drawn, the explosive energy before a fight.
The rosy color drains from Izuku’s face when he sees the horror dash across his sight. So many dead, their mangled bodies weakly calling for help. Shouting, Izuku shuts his eyes and lifts his hands from the floor.
He’s startled when a guard barks his name and shoves a tray of food through a slot. It’s slop, a rice soup. Izuku stares at it miserably. The grotesque and gory images are still fresh in his mind and he waits until the slop goes lukewarm before taking a bite, his mouth decaying into a bitter frown at the taste.
In this place one must learn fast to survive. Izuku has been here for years, and fell into a laborious and tiring schedule. A breakfast of rice soup, a slab of hard bread, and then hours at School, after a round of science experiments, and then sent back to the cold and uninviting cell for another meal and rest.
At All For One’s School, there is no enriching learning. No books, no tests, no questions. It’s a wide concrete room without desks or chairs, only wide open space and burning lights. The students are forced to learn about sabotage, fighting, weapons, and cooperation. If anyone is dumb enough to protest they get beatings.
Izuku’s scaredy-cat nature places him in the lower ranks and he’s given halved rations. Only the callous and cruel live here. Survival of the fittest. If students continue to fail they are turned into Nomu. Izuku knows this because when the students aren’t sparing with each other they are forced to fight these human-turned-monsters. Many people who are stronger, quicker, and smarter than Izuku have died to these manmade monsters.
He’s thrown back into a cell, his body afire by beatings and a hard day’s work without break. Fresh tears film over his eyes and he cries uselessly, unable to move. His limbs are heavier than a Nomu’s muscular arms, weaker than tracing paper.
“Don’t cry…”
Izuku doesn’t even lift his head to see where the girl’s voice came from. But he listens. That’s the only thing he’s capable of. Observing. Maybe that’s the only reason All For One hasn’t turned him into a Nomu yet.
“Who…are…you?” Midoriya breathes, his chest and lungs in excruciating pain.
A girl drops down from the rafters in the high ceilings like a stealthy and nimble cat. Her golden eyes bore into Izuku’s crumpled form curiously. She too is covered in scrapes and blood from a day at School. Though she seems unbothered by it. Izuku remembers seeing glimpses of her in his classes but because of his weakened state, can’t remember much about her.
The blonde girl gives him a bright smile, her long fangs gleaming like knives in the agonizingly bright artificial light. “I’m Toga Himoko but you can call me Toga!”
Toga Himoko, the blood-sucker. She’s crazy. Even the guards are afraid of her. Izuku narrowed his eyes skeptically at her. Was Toga gonna kill him? There have been plenty of other students corpses found in their cells, withered husks, because she stole all their blood.
“You’re soooo cool! I like you, Izuku Midoriya!”
He stared at her, his eyes going cold and dark.
Her smile faltered and she leaned closer. “Do you remember me?”
Other than her being a menace to the guards, Izuku draws a blank.
Himoko sits next to him, her face bright pink, as she recalls how she fell for her savior. “You are the only person that showed me any kindness.” Toga arrived at the facility a year before Izuku. She didn’t like All For One or his annoying guards. They were angry that she had killed so many and they were beating her as some other guards were dragging Izuku back to his cell.
A heroic spirit still blazed strong in Izuku’s spirit. His limbs found energy in reserve and leaping to his feet, he took a blow for Himoko. It left his jaw and arm broken, but in doing so, saved Toga from being killed.
“You saved my life.” She put a hand to her heart. “You gave me a reason to keep living.” Himoko pushed some extra uneaten rations towards him. “I can survive on blood alone but you can’t, Izuku.”
He slowly sat up and his hand numbly grabbed the rations. His mouth chewed mechanically. The tasteless lump falls down his throat.
Himoko points to her big smile. “You gotta smile! You can’t let these bastards win. When you smile you take their power from them.”
Izuku nodded. “You’re right.”
“How come you haven’t escaped, Toga?” Izuku has given up on heroes ever saving them. He’s memorized tons of useful info but can’t manifest them in existence. Since he doesn’t have a combative quirk, he’s scoffed at by the other prisoners here. “You have a strong quirk.”
Her gaze darkens. Deep sorrow dyes her golden eyes. “I don’t have anything worth going back to. When the villains kidnapped me I was already an outcast because of my quirk. Why escape, when the other world isn’t much better than this one?”
Izuku stares at her empathetically. Down here in this world of concrete, blood, and screams, one almost forgets that a world above exists. Izuku misses his mother, Kaachan, the feeling of sun warming his skin, the taste of fresh air, and mouth-watering food.
Being deprived of the senses hardens one’s soul to mimic these very walls. But somehow, deep down, Izuku’s rebellious soul hasn’t gone out. A weak flame continues to burn. “The heroes have forgotten about us, and the world above is hell, but that doesn’t mean we should give up.”
Himoko lifts her head, shock on her features.
“Above, the world is constantly in motion. If I didn’t have such a useless quirk,” he stares at his hands spitefully as if he could change his quirk, something to help him fight his way out of the underground facility. “I could escape. I could change the world. A world where heroes and villains don’t exist, where peaceful people can spend their days without bloodshed and be carefree. I want to live. I don’t want to decay down here. I’m sick of these grey walls. Of the beatings. Of All For One’s war against heroes.”
The two give each other a look and without needing to say a thing, an emotion stronger than Bakugo’s explosions gleams there. We’re gonna escape. We’re gonna make it out of here.
Izuku has lost everything. All For One had gotten tired of his defiance and was insulted that Izuku used the same tricks he taught them to sabotage his plans. Midoriya is brought to the science labs in the facility and chained up. He’s going to become a Nomu, a tool to be used and quickly disposed of.
The scientists run tests; stab him with needles and serums that slowly sear away flesh and personality. Izuku’s screams collect with others like his suffering the same fate and create a soul-crushing chorus that floods the entire underground.
His quirk goes into overdrive. In the cells he could simply shut his eyes to blot out the visions but down here they are constantly moving around, driving his attention to the foreground. Thousands of people before him went under the same knife, got butchered, and sewn up into new bodies, the serums turning them into unthinking violent killing machines.
One man sticks out stronger than the others. The man smears across Izuku’s sight like greasepaint. Bright blue hair and thin frame. His name is Shirakumo Oboro. Like Izuku he dreamed of being a hero.
Shirakumo, Izuku’s heart hurt as he watched the man’s mind fray apart, his dreams torn and shredded like his body from surgical tools. How the scientists’ lips quirk into triumphant smiles when the man became a monster. Oboro’s screams rattle his bones and his courage.
Izuku slips in and out of consciousness. Oboro begs for his life, a weak shout of pain as he calls for his friends’ help. Izuku’s empathy is hewn away to begrudging anger. He wishes that the people from his past-seeing quirk would end –why can’t they shut up?!
Someone enters the room with a click of a door opening. It isn’t a scientist. For a second Izuku wondered if it was the grim reaper finally arriving to slice open his chest and violently tug free his soul, or something. The person has a coat like the grim reaper and he certainly looked like one.
“Huh, didn’t expect someone like you to last for this long. Color me surprised.” Dabi takes his time crossing the room, past rows and rows of equipment, wires, and machines to smile mockingly at Izuku. He jabs a finger at his face and laughs. “Are you still alive?”
“Why’d you come here?” Izuku wheezes. Talking is painful. The equipment hooked into him sinks in further when he does.
“For somebody so weak you’ve been a pain in the ass for All For One. He only really bitches about All Might so I was curious to see who it was.”
The playfulness dies from Dabi’s face and a more somber expression replaces it. “Why are you desperately clinging onto your humanity?” The unvoiced question follows, sharper than a syringe: wouldn’t it be better to just fall into the nothingness, instead of feeling so much pain?
Dabi raises an arm to Izuku’s forehead and his palm glows a light blue, the warmth melting away the icy coldness in the lab room. “I can end it now. You won’t feel any pain. You’ll be ash and won’t have to fight for All For One as a Nomu.”
Izuku smiles sadly but Dabi’s shocked to see a glimmer of defiance in his eyes. So there’s some kindness it Dabi’s shriveled, charred heart.
The man flinches at Izuku’s eyes boring into him and fires back, “I ain’t doing this for you. The less Nomu we gotta deal with the better.”
“Tear my eyes out,” Midoriya’s voice is hoarse.
Dabi falters.
“My quirk…I can sense visions by touching objects but my eyes…sometimes people’s memories are so strong that they appear out of the blue. They won’t stop screaming for help.”
Izuku laughs, insane giggles studded by strange overlaps of soberness. His smile is fractured, along with his bravery. He knows for a certainty he’ll die here and be reborn into a monster. A killing machine. Midoriya will keep his body but he’ll be gone.
“I wish I was born quirkless. My life would’ve been harder but at least…I’d be me.”
Dabi lowers his hand. Izuku is smart and thanks to him, Dabi found a reason not to go out in a violent literal blazing rampage, and die to his self-destructive quirk. He, Izuku, Toga, and Shigaraki formed some sort of misfit family. Something that Dabi sorely missed and never thought he’d have again.
“If you escaped, what would you do? Up there, there’s nothing but suffering. It’s a sparkly illusion. But it’s the same down here. The heroes don’t give a shit about us. They kill Nomu without a second thought. Heroes get a comfy life while we die for an empty cause.”
“To smile again. That’s what I would escape for.”
“What?”
Dark anger clouds Izuku’s eyes. “All For One wishes to turn us into weapons and the heroes profit off of citizens being in danger, they only fight for the money and fame they get out of it. I’d make a better life for myself, to smile again, to feels the warm sun on my face. Then, I’d destroy them all. Villains and heroes.”
A long silence followed. Dabi felt something ignite in his chest. Hope? Something that stirred the long-gone rebellious spirit inside of his soul. He turned and looked behind his shoulder before leaving. “Survive, Deku. For a while longer.”
Somehow Izuku keeps his human form and is awakened by red lights and deafening alarms. Guards scream and he hears loud thump, thump, thumps collapse by the door. Blood leaks into the lab from under the door and he cranes his neck to get a better look.
The door is melted by blue flames and two figures rush in. Himoko licks blood from her knife, disguised as a guard, and cheerfully waves at Izuku. Shigaraki easily disintegrates the lab equipment and chains. Izuku’s body is gaunt and pale, weakened by the experiments.
Himoko’s disguise melts from her body and she grabs a wheelchair. She and Shigaraki help Izuku onto it while Dabi watches for any reinforcements.
“Won’t All For One hunt us down?” Izuku asked.
“He’s busy sending forces after All Might on the surface,” Shigaraki said.
“We can escape while they’re fighting each other.”
Dabi incinerated any guards trying to attack from one side while Himoko easily sliced and slayed from the other. They eventually fight their way out of the science facility and run into an elevator that will take them all the way up to the surface.
“This is it…we’re free,” Dabi looked up at the box sealing them in, the heavy box clanking loudly as it carried its passengers.
“But then what? It’s not like we got money or a place to live,” Shigaraki grumbled, scratching his neck worriedly.
“We can steal what we need, easy!” Himoko laughed.
Dabi sighed. They’d have to, to survive. “We promised each other we’d live a peaceful life.”
“Oh Dabi, what’s life without a little mayhem?”
The escapers ran into the shadowy night into the deepest parts of the city. Evading crowds and the ongoing fight of heroes and villains they found a new home. It’s an abandoned bar, leaning one its side and falling apart. Rot, cobwebs, and broken glass. Spray paint is drawn on slapdashedly like a drunken woman applying makeup.
Himoko’s eyes sparkled happily. “How about this place? Looks cozy doesn’t it?”
“You’re delusional,” Dabi said.
“I don’t know. It’ll take a lot of work but we can make it a home.” Shigaraki felt that the bar is scabby like him, so he felt pulled towards it.
Slowly, the bar is renovated into something sophisticated and new. The escapees established themselves as vigilantes, where Shigaraki proudly titled himself as their leader.
Daylight brings new beginnings and a fresh sweet wind. Izuku recovered most of his strength and sat down in a chair, closing his eyes peacefully. And though content, his freckled face is often absent of a smile.
The sights and sounds of the world are constantly buzzing and humming around Izuku, and so are the visions form his quirk, like wasps. Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himoko silently join him, and Izuku opens an eye when he notices them.
“We made this for you,” Himoko says. It’s a mask. One with a smile, but pained eyes. Izuku thanks them and stares at the gift in his hands. He rubs a thumb across the cool material and then with a hand, puts the mask on his face. His quirk dulls and he’s left in soothing darkness. No longer do Oboro or the other humans-turned-Nomus’ tortured screams or grotesque mutated forms walks past his eyesight.
The wind whips past, bringing adrenaline drumming in Izuku’s chest and the faint taste of blood. Everyone gazes at the sun sinking past earth’s crust. “It’s tonight, then?”
“Are our weapons and routes secured?”
“Yes.”
“Then we move at nightfall.”