Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

No, he was not dealing with this.

Izuku kneed Shigaraki in the crotch, forcing the lanky villain to drop him with a painful yelp. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Izuku put some range in between him and Shigaraki and began to analyze the situation.

Ok, so he was trapped in a room with no quirk, no gauntlets, and no way to call for help. On top of that, one of the most dangerous villains on the planet was only a few feet away from him. That wasn’t even mentioning the fact that he had no idea where he was.

The young hero wanted to laugh at how absurdly hopeless this situation was.

Seriously, why did the universe hate him so much?

Izuku didn’t get another chance to ponder that question as Shigaraki seemed to almost teleport in front of him with how fast he moved, sweeping his feet out from under him and sending him face-first to the ground. He instinctively called upon One for All to slow down the world around him, only for his suppressed power to once again refuse him. Off-balance, the older villain was easily able to straddle his back and push all his weight down on him. 

“Look, let’s just talk about this Izuku. If we fight we’ll both be-”

Shigaraki moved to grab onto Izuku’s arms and hook his feet around his legs as he talked, trying to lock him in place, only for the young hero to whip his elbow around and hit his opponent in the side. Though Tomura was more surprised than hurt, the far shorter quirk user latched onto his momentary advantage and forced the S-rank villain off of him.

Izuku immediately rolled away and jumped to his feet.

Crap, he really needed to deal with Shigaraki. All he needed was a moment to think and he could figure out how to escape. How could he incapacitate him th-

The young hero collapsed to his knees, convulsing painfully as a massive burst of electricity suddenly shot through his body. His body spasmed wildly on the ground, flopping all over the place uncontrollably. Distantly, he noted his opponent in a similar position only a few feet away. 

His nervous system was on fire, his entire body seeming to cry out in utter agony from the burning sensation. Izuku grit his teeth so hard that one started to crack as his muscles spasmed uncontrollably. His pitifully short life began to flash before his eyes as neurons pulsed uncontrollably within his body.

Going to die. Going to die. Going to die.

Memories of leaning against his mother as they watched the sunset on the horizon flashed through his mind. The smell of burning food from the kitchen stood out in particular, reminding him of the smoky scent of his own flesh.

Going to die. Going to die. Going to die.

He remembered the one and only time his dad had incorporated his fire quirk into their training. The intent at the time was to only slightly singe his hair with some hot smoke if he failed to dodge, but his father had gotten just a little too excited and released a plume of smoke that bordered on actual flame, searing his skin with light first degree burns. The pain had seemed awful at the time, his loud crying as his dad applied ice and applied burn salve being over-the-top. Izuku almost wanted to laugh as his skin almost seemed to be boiling from the sheer amount of volts being pumped into him. Or perhaps that was his blood was literally starting to evaporate at the heat? At this point, he honestly couldn’t tell the difference.

Going to die! Going to die! Going to die! 

All the times he had failed, all the times that trust had been misplaced in him, all the times where someone had put their faith in him only for him to fall short popped into his head as he spasmed more and more uncontrollably. Mom, Bakugou, All Might, Iida, and Mirio as well now had trusted him only for him to hurt them through his own incompetence. How fitting was it for him to fail and die here as well? 

GOING TO DIE! GOING TO DIE! GOI-

As suddenly as it started, the electricity stopped. His muscles continued to twitch and skin still smoked, but the volts themselves had halted. Agony still tore through his body, but he could at least think clearly

A banging sound rang out from the room’s only door.

“STOP CLAMORING AROUND IN THERE, OR I SWEAR THAT I’LL PUMP UP THE VOLTAGE NEXT TIME!”

Slowly, his body protesting in pain, Izuku pushed himself up into a sitting position, panting from the adrenaline still running through his body. His mind was a jumbled mess as it incoherently tried to figure out what had just occurred.

What- Wait, but- Why would- How did-

“I tried to warn you.”

Izuku turned his still rather bleary eyes to Shigaraki, who was glaring at him unhappily.

“They likely installed the same things in your neck that they installed in mine, one of which apparently allows them to deliver electric shocks. Whenever you make too much noise or get annoying, they’ll light you up like a Christmas tree. I learned that not too long before you were dumped in here.”

Clearly having recovered quicker than he had, Shigaraki pushed himself to his feet and started walking over to him. Izuku tried to crawl backward away from the older villain, only to collapse onto his back with a hiss from sheer torment that suddenly shot through him once again, his body still trying to deal with the aftereffects of the electricity. He didn’t have the strength to defend himself, resigning himself to whatever fate Shigaraki would inflict on him.

To Izuku’s surprise though, the older villain simply laid down on his right side a few feet to the left of him. He seemed weirdly unaffected by the immense voltage he had just experienced, having seemingly recovered in almost no time at all. Whether that was a statement on how high Shigaraki’s pain tolerance was or how low his own was, Izuku couldn’t tell.

“So…..how’s it going?”

……

“I was just shocked, you asshole.”

Shigaraki chuckled nervously.

“Yeah, uh, that was a stupid question.”

For several minutes the two of them sat quietly, the only sounds being Izuku’s labored breathing.

“You’re not going to start fighting me again, are you?”

Izuku answered with a simple withering glare.

Shigaraki flinched and looked away, unable to meet his gaze.

“Sorry, that was another stupid question.”

The awkward silence returned, neither of them knowing what to do, albeit for very different reasons. One resisted the urge to shoot up and strangle the other, only being held back by his exhausted body and mangled thoughts. The other just had no idea what he should start talking about.

The older villain once again broke the silence.

“So, how have you been?”

Izuku gritted his teeth and forced down a groan.

“For goodness sake, just shut up!”

Shigaraki flinched at his harsh tone, still keeping his gaze on Izuku.

“Hey, I’m just trying to catch up with you. We haven’t talked for over a month.”

The young hero clenched his fist, trying once again to call upon One for All so he could punch the bastard next to him in the face. Just as before though, his connection with it was suppressed.

“I don’t care.”

Shigaraki smirked playfully.

“Come on, we’re friends, aren’t we? Let’s just talk for a bi-”

Izuku’s next words were filled with as much venom as he could muster.

“There is not a single chance in hell I would consider you my friend!”

The older villain winced, before letting a bit of frustration flow into his voice.

“Hey, there’s no need to be that hurtful. I know you’re probably a bit ticked off over the whole attempted kidnapping thing-”

The young hero would have thrown his hand into the air if he was physically able to.

“A BIT!”

Shigaraki shrugged, still lying down on his side.

“It’s not like I succeeded anyways, so you don’t really have a reason to be mad.”

Izuku pointed to his head weakly with his left hand, his body apparently having started to properly function again. 

“YOU SENT CRIMINALS AFTER MY FRIENDS WITH INTENT TO KILL, NEARLY KILLED MY TEACHER, GAVE ME A CONCUSSION, BROKE SEVERAL OF MY BONES, TRIED TO KIDNAP ME, AND PRETENDED TO BE MY FRIEND FOR MONTHS! HOW ARE NONE OF THOSE REASONS TO BE MAD?!”

The older villain just kind of sat there for a moment before he looked away and began to mumble to himself.

“Well, when you put it like that…..”

Shigaraki shook his head to clear it before looking back at Izuku.

“No, look, I was just trying to help you!”

The young hero resisted the urge to throw a blow at Shigaraki’s face.

“Help?! HELP! You took advantage of my loneliness in order to pretend to be my friend for months, only to betray me! My mom was terrified out of her mind, my dad was more paranoid than I had ever seen him before, and now I’m even more sure than ever that I deserve to be a pathetic piece of lonely trash!”

Izuku threw a glance at his fingertips, the root of his lifelong misery, before continuing in a hopeless voice.

“Honestly, I should’ve just expected something like that to be the truth when you came up to me out of nowhere. I just so desperately wanted to connect with someone other than mom or dad for the first time in years. I ignored every warning sign and took a shot in the dark only for the bullet ricochet and hit me in the chest. I really should’ve figured it out from the beginning.” 

The young hero let out a harsh and mirthless laugh.

“After all, who would actually want to be friends with a monstrous person like me?”

Shigaraki tried to speak up.

“I do-”

Izuku forced down his emotions. Distantly he noted that he was being weirdly more volatile and open than usual in his rage, but he pinned it on the intense pain and his inability to fully think straight.

“Can you just shut up already?! Stop lying to my face! I’m not going to be tricked so easily twice!”

The older villain, finally losing his cool, yelled out a response.

“Well, fine! I guess we’ll both just sit here in silence until we die!”

The young hero rolled onto his side, facing away from Shigaraki.

“SOUNDS GOOD TO ME!”

The S-class villain turned over, deliberately making sure not to face Izuku. A much more permanent feeling silence filled the room once again, as both of them stewed in their tumultuous emotions.

*****

Tenko dragged himself across the dusted ground, his eyes were bloodshot and lips were incredibly parched. His skin was a pallor gray as if the child was little more than a corpse. Wounds and scars littered his entire body, some clearly infected from lack of proper medical treatment.

“Wa-ter…...I nee-”

The young child hacked out a cloud of dust.

“-d water.”

As far as the eye could see, only dust surrounded the poor boy. The wasteland was as desolate and colorless as his skin, the sheer nothingness of it driving home his isolation.

After a few more milliseconds of dragging himself, Tenko collapsed to the ground unable to continue anymore. His body was frail and weak, he could no longer go on. This was where he was going to die.

As the young boy closed his eyes to finally go on to his eternal rest, sudden, light pressure on his head forced him awake.

Puzzled, Tenko reached up and snatched something off his head with four of his fingers, bringing it around to his barely raised face to see it.

The object was a card, a peculiar image depicted in its art. A man hung upside down, being held up in the air by a bright yellow rope. It looked rather uncomfortable, but the solemn expression on the man’s face seemed to indicate that this was being done of his own accord. He did not look happy or unhappy, merely accepting of what must be done. The roman numerals for the number twelve were written above the hung man.

There was something familiar about the man to Tenko. His white hair was long enough to hang to past his shoulders if he had been right-side-up and his eyes were that of someone who had lived a life of cruelty. His muscles were toned and far more pronounced than his lithe frame would suggest. His face had a jagged scar down the center, one that almost seemed to split his head in half. Peculiarly, Tenko felt like he had seen him somewhere before, he just wasn’t sure wher-

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Another object bounced off Tenko’s head, landing with a small thud in front of him. Curious, the boy moved the card to the side so he could get a better look at the thing in front of him.

The child recoiled in shock and fear, his heart beginning to pound rapidly. He dry heaved into the dust below him.

Before him lay a grey, severed hand. It was barely bigger than his own, with the nails painted a distinctive hot pink. Tenko recognized those nails.

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Tenko tore at his own skin, massive chunks peeling off in his panic-induced state.

Hana’s nails were that exact color. Hana’s hand was exactly that size. Hana’s hands were that smooth. 

Memories of his massacre, of the sheer devastation he had unleashed, tore his mind apart. His sister’s cries as he grabbed her, his mother’s beautiful eyes as desperately trying to comfort him even as she turned to little more than ash, his father’s face disappearing under his fingertips, and everything else came flooding back. He wondered how he had ever forgotten it.

Sobbing incoherently, Tenko grabbed the severed appendage in front of him and placed it against his forehead.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Another thud sounded next to him, and then another. More came soon after, landing all around Tenko until, in total, nine more thuds had surrounded the boy.

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Slowly and fearfully, the child looked around, repulsed to see nine more hands surrounding his barely functioning body. He mumbled to himself as his gaze shifted from one appendage to the next.

“Mama…...grandpa…...grandma…...Hana…...father…..”

Tenko recognized every pair of hands, each unmistakably being the hand of one of his family members. They almost seemed to stare at him, reminding him of his sins, of the people he’d hurt.

The boy gently put down his sister’s hand, before placing his own hands on his face, doing his best to mask the ugly tears that streamed down it. He screeched to himself loudly, pain evident in his voice.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

His skin crawled, his body trembling uncontrollably.

“I didn’t mean to do it, I swear!”

Tenko screamed the lie into the air around him, seemingly trying to convince himself more than anyone else around him.

“Please, just leave me alone! I’ll do anything! Anything!”

The boy heard movement around him and looked up to see the hands of his family floating around him. They merely hung in the air, held up by some invisible force.

The young child was quite perplexed, not understanding the situation surrounding him.

“What-”

All at once, the hands latched onto him, each locking him in an iron grip at a different location on his body. As Tenko panicked, unsure of what was happening, they squeezed harder and began to pull away from him.

He was dead.

The boy’s pain was broadcasted through his screams as his body began to tear apart. His legs and arms screeched in agony, as they bent and twisted unnaturally. His spine broke through his skin with a sickening crunch, his skull beginning to come loose with it. His rib cage was breaking away from his torso, only being kept attached by tendons and sinews.

He was dead.

Tenko’s breathing grew rapidly, his body desperately trying to compensate for and halt the death that was surely coming. He was going to perish, his body turned into a pile of body parts, ironically disassembled like the rest of his family.

He was dead.

He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. 

The boy took in one more breath as he opened his mouth-

Shigaraki screamed into the darkness of the room, his cries echoing through his prison, only to stop when he realized where he was.

The villain who had killed hundreds looked more like a terrified child as he ran his hands all over his body, checking to make sure everything was still there. The sheer fear in his eyes was that of a cornered animal, making his crimson orbs look even more maniacal in the darkness of the room.

Once he had reasonably searched himself enough to make sure everything was in place, Shigaraki fell to the floor in relief, panting harder than he had in a long time. His body still trembled to some degree, but for the most part, he had calmed down. It had just been a dream.

...if that was true though, why did it feel so real? It almost felt like he had been torn apart like that before…..but that had to be impossible, right?! When could he have-

The noise of someone clearing their throat caused his gaze to shoot over beside him, where Izuku was glaring at him wearily. He didn’t speak at all, but his annoyed gaze said more than words ever could. After a moment or two, he simply turned over and went back to sleep.

Shigaraki tried to ignore the hurt in his chest as he rolled over and did the same.

*****

When Izuku had woken up, the lights, if you could even call them that considering how little light they produced, had been on. Perhaps the people who captured the two of them only turned them on during the day? He supposed that it didn’t really matter in the end though.

He had taken the chance to survey the incredibly dim room at that point, getting the best feeling he could for his surroundings.

It was honestly far bigger than he had initially thought, the size being somewhat comparable to a decently sized apartment. The barren, gray walls were made of solid cement while the floor had a surprisingly soft carpet that was more comfortable than expected to sleep on. Haphazardly thrown around were several piles of toys, blankets, pillows, and children’s clothes; the apparent ages of every little object varying immensely. Every pile was messy and unsorted, the place obviously not being that well maintained. Hell, one of the piles of pillows has the dirty gray hair of a mop sticking out of it, grime being practically embedded in it! It was revolting to even glance at.

The first thing Izuku had done was check for security cameras, and while he couldn’t find any, he didn’t rule out the idea that he was being monitored. Just because he didn’t seem them didn’t mean they weren’t there. The same went for all other forms of spying equipment. If he made a plan to escape, he needed to be careful with what he did and said.

So far though, his attempts to find an exit had been fruitless. The wall did not seem like it would’ve come down easily even with One for All, much less without it. The best he could likely do was be an annoyance….but that would probably get him shocked again. 

The door was only opened when the two of them were allowed to go to the bathroom, and that option had been thoroughly ruled out by Izuku as soon as he saw the several armed guards that escorted him back and forth. Even if he somehow got past them, he would still be vulnerable to an electric shock though, an issue he still hadn’t figured a way around yet.

For now though, he just needed to keep his calm. Something would come to him as long as he just took the time to figure things out.

Izuku was quiet as he sat against the wall and started to meditate. He let air flow into and out of his lungs as slowly as he dared, focusing on the feeling of nothing but breathing. 

His thoughts were gone. His mind was clear. His muscles were relaxed.

The young hero let the breath leave him again, keeping his focus on the relaxing feeling.

His insecurities fell away. The inferiority he felt towards Mirio and All Might disappeared. The fear that his friends were just patronizing him flowed out of his mind like running water.

He was calm and comfortably alone in his own little world.

“So…...what are you doing?”

Izuku concentration lapsed as his current roommate, for lack of a better term, spoke up. Annoyed, he threw a withering glare across the room at the young adult in front of him.

Shigaraki snorted at the look, rolling his eyes in exasperation as he mumbled under his breath.

“Sorry for trying to make small talk…..”

The young hero’s eye twitched before letting his breathing grow rhythmic once again. Everything started to fall away, his mind cleari-

“Do you think they’ll give us anything to eat and drink soon? I’m kind of thirsty.”

Izuku’s concentration was once again broken by the older villain’s attempts at starting a conversation. Frustration was clear on his face as he whipped his head upwards to shoot another annoyed look at the adult in front of him.

Sarcastically, Shigaraki held up his hands in a mockingly defensive manner before pretending to zip his lips shut.

Once the boy was sure that his current….roommate was finally going to be quiet, he closed his eye-

“So, are there any girls you like? Now that I think about it, you seem like the type who may be more into guys though….though honestly, it doesn’t really matter to me though.”

Izuku grasped his nose and let out a loud sigh.

“Can you be quiet? I’m just trying to meditate.”

The older villain scratched at his neck nonchalantly.

“Nah, I’m bored. The two of us have just been sitting here for over an hour doing nothing. Surely the two of us can do something besides just sitting here?”

The young hero felt his patience beginning to fail once again.

“I don’t care. Just be quiet and let me relax.”

Shigaraki's voice suddenly took on a bit of a teasing tone as a smile crawled onto his face.

“Aren’t heroes supposed to help people? I need my boredom alleviated and I want you to help me fix that.”

Izuku tried to activate One for All once again, only to feel nothing, confirming he was still cut off. Damn, he just really wanted to wipe that smirk off Shigaraki’s face.

“A hero’s duty is to protect the public, not deal with every little problem everyone around them has. Besides, you lose the right to receive help when you decide that murder is an enjoyable pastime.”

His words only seemed to make the older villain even more amused.

“Is that why you think I kill? Because I enjoy it?”

Shigaraki let out an oddly light-hearted chuckle.

“Well, I suppose you’re not entirely wrong, but you’re not entirely right either.”

A cold smile crept onto his face.

“I only destroy whatever I don’t like and what I need to end, nothing more and nothing less. As long as pieces of trash don’t upset me, nobody has anything to fear.”

Izuku, against his better judgment, let himself get drawn into Shigaraki’s conversation.

“How is that any better than what I just accused you of?”

The older villain shrugged.

“It’s not, and I never claimed that it was. I merely found the idea that you thought so little of me amusing.”

The young hero was unsure of how to respond, as the utter lack of empathy his foe had simply baffled him.

“How can you care so little for the lives of people around you? What did they ever do to deserve death at your hands?”

Shigaraki sighed.

“Even after all this time of living in this broken world you still don’t get it, do you? If you ask me, this whole ‘villain’ business is just an excuse to reduce people like me to something subhuman in the eyes of others. You’ve read the history books, haven’t you? This kind of stuff always happens to people like me. Whenever a contrarian idea is thrown out there, someone smacks a label on those who believe in it to excuse anything done to the idealists. In my personal opinion, reducing others to something below human is just as much of a crime as the things I do, regardless of whether I deserve it. Like it or not, but I’m just as much a person as any hero you could meet on the street.”

He covered his face with his hand, small giggles sounding out from him as he did so.

“Everyone only cares for themselves! They only act in their own self-interests! The moment that showing kindness will cause them any kind of inconvenience, they’ll leave you to rot like a squirrel that just got run over on the road!”

Shigaraki parted his fingers just enough to glare at Izuku.

“How am I any different from anyone else?! If everyone else is trash that doesn’t value anyone, why am I the villain?! Because of my bad lot in life?! Because I actually end the lives of others?! How does murder make me any different than anyone else on the street who would pass by a scared child with nowhere to go?! They would leave that child to die without a single thought, not even once thinking back about how they could’ve saved them! At the very least I would be kind enough to end that child’s suffering! At least I’m aware enough to acknowledge what I’m really like!”

Izuku tried to input an interjection.

“How would that be mercy?! Do you really think everyone you’ve hurt wanted to die-”

Shigaraki laughed cruelly as he cut him off.

“No, of course not! I kill because I’m a selfish, uncontrollable person who cares only for myself and that which pleases me! I kill because I enjoy inflicting the suffering others have caused me back onto them! I kill because the entire world is a twisted mess and everything that bothers me in it should just go die!”

The young hero trembled with suppressed rage.

“That doesn’t make any sense! So you just kill because you hate everything?! There’s not a goal or anything beyond that?! How is that any different from what I said?!”

The thin villain looked greatly amused at his question.

“I never said you were completely wrong, just not completely right! I don’t have some noble endpoint I’m trying to reach, I just want to lash out and dish out payback to the entire world! Any goals or shit I preach about a ‘great’ future I’m going to build or how I’ll ‘be the true hero’ is just a bunch of poppycock, crap I made up to make myself more appealing to other villains!”

Shigaraki’s laugh cut off suddenly, his eyes suddenly glaring directly into Izuku’s own.

“The truth is that destruction is the only thing I know. I was born a monster only built to destroy. I was never given the chance to be someone normal.”

Izuku spoke up.

“I don’t understand. I genuinely don’t understand. How can you be so apathetic? How can you act like there was no other choice? How can you possibly think we’re similar in the slightest as people?”

Shigaraki turned away staring at the door, weirdly calm all of the sudden.

“Because I can remember being just like you.”

The young hero was struck speechless, bewildered as his foe continued to talk quietly.

“It’s been fuzzy for so long, but I’m starting to remember. I know there was a time where I was just as hopeful as you. I wanted nothing more than to help people. To me, heroes were the coolest thing in the world. I thought I could be one no matter what everyone else said.”

Shigaraki clenched his fists, balling up the top portions of his pants.

“Except that was just a nonsensical dream. The first moments after my power awakened, I destroyed everything in sight. I hadn’t meant to, but I had wiped out everyone I had ever cared for in one accidental touch.”

The older villain began to grit his teeth.

“I was a thing of destruction, society would never expect me to be anything else. I would be shoved into this role of villain just because I happened to be unlucky enough to touch the ground when my quirk awakened. My life was over before it even truly began. If I didn’t get locked away somewhere for life, I was almost surely going to be placed somewhere all alone where I could never hurt anyone again.”

His shoulders trembled as he continued.

“Still, I thought that surely someone would care enough to help. I hadn’t hurt anyone intentionally, so there must be at least one person who had enough empathy to reach out and pull me away from the darkness.”

Shigaraki paused for a moment, considering his next words, only for Izuku to finish off his thoughts for him.

“But no one came to save you, did they?”

Shigaraki nodded in affirmation.

“Not one person thought I was worth helping. Not a single one reached out. Everyone let me dangle from the abyss, simply walking by as if I wasn’t about to fall off. That’s when I realized how little the world cared.”

The melancholic villain raised his hand to his neck and began to scratch.

“Even me, a tiny child with nowhere to go, was nothing out of the ordinary for those around me! Not one person could be bothered to reach out! They didn’t hesitate at all, they just passed by me as if I wasn’t even there! They all deserve to perish!”

Silence filled the room for a moment, the only noise being Shigaraki scratching his neck.

“....that doesn’t excuse anything.”

The older villain looked surprised at his response.

“Eh?”

Izuku carefully considered his next words.

“Assuming what you said was true, then you really were abandoned by society. That is unacceptable and wrong, something I cannot condone.”

The young hero began to scratch at his arm, the itching in his skin starting to grow.

“That doesn’t mean that you get a free pass for all you’ve done though! Life isn’t fair, and while that sucks, it’s something we all have to live with! Even if you were in a horrid situation, it was your choice to lash out and your choice to kill people for your own selfish desires! No one forced you into doing anything!”

Shigaraki growled.

“People walked right by me, they didn’t care-”

Izuku cut him off.

“Once again, that is horrible, but it does not excuse anything. There are plenty of people with empathy in the world, you were just very unlucky. It’s awful, but nothing you do will change what happened.”

The young boy’s glare bored into the older man.

“Besides, it’s not exactly kind to try manipulating someone who was giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

Shigaraki’s eyes widened a fraction before a smirk crawled onto his face.

“And here I thought that I was being subtle about it. Congratulations for catching on. I would normally give you a reward but, well-”

Shigaraki lazily gestured to their surroundings.

“-we’re not exactly in a place where I can get you anything.”

Did….did he just seriously offer him an opportunity like that on a silver platter? 

Seeing an opportunity, Izuku suddenly asked the burning question that had been at the forefront of his mind.

“What is your name?”

The older villain’s eyes widened slightly at the sudden audacity.

“Eh, don’t you already know that? It’s Shigaraki Tomu-”

Izuku immediately cut him off.

“No, you’re real name. You and I both know that one’s fake.”

Shigaraki paused for a moment, considering his words.

“Well, I did promise you a reward, and I doubt there’s anything that could be gleaned from learning my actual name so…”

The older villain shrugged.

“....sure, why not? If I remember correctly, it’s Shimura Tenko.”

…..

The silence that filled the room was deafening.

To Shigaraki’s surprise, several emotions suddenly shot across Izuku’s face one after another. Realization, horror, pity, anger, horror once again, relief, and finally fear were all very evident on his face as Shigaraki’s words hung in the air.

“....are you sure that’s your name?”

The older villain raised an eyebrow at his behavior.

“Uh, yeah? At least I’m relatively sure it is based on what I’m starting to remember.”

Izuku was quiet, doing his best to keep his expression guarded.

“Would you happen to remember your father or grandmother’s name?”

Shigaraki scratched his chin as he thought about Izuku’s question.

“A little? I think my father was….Shimura Kotaro while my grandmother’s name was Shimura Nana.”

The older villain once again felt confusion fill him as Izuku’s face went pale.

“I feel like I’m missing something here. Is there a problem with my name?”

Several minutes passed before the young hero finally opened his mouth and answered, an expression of defeat on his face.

“.....my mother was named Shimura Inko before she married my dad. Her mother’s name was Shimura Nana.” 

Shigaraki’s eyes widened.

“So that means-”

Izuku nodded his head sorrowfully.

“The two of us are related, we’re cousins specifically.”

The older villain’s smile was uncharacteristically giddy.

“I knew we had to be the same in some way, but us being cousins is even better than I thought! I’ve never had a-”

Izuku ignored him, simply glancing over at the door as a small hatch opened on it and a tray with a few chicken sandwiches and some bottled water on it was pushed in.

Without a word, Izuku got up and grabbed himself a sandwich and a water bottle, before going back to his spot on the carpeted floor from before and sitting down, not even glancing once at Shigaraki.

The older villain noticed his deathly quiet behavior and moved to speak, but was silenced as Izuku held up a hand.

“No, not now.”

“…..”

The message was clear, and despite not really wanting to give in, Shigaraki bit his tongue and forced himself to be quiet as he grabbed himself a sandwich and water bottle.

The two sat in silence, devouring what they could with the minimal noise possible. Neither looked into the other’s eyes, the atmosphere now being crushingly uncomfortable and tense. The revelations both of them had just received would take time to process, after all, something so monumental being far easier to deal with when they were in better states of mind.

As Izuku finished off his sandwich, his cold outside appearance the opposite of his racing mental state, he glanced over at the tray by the door, noting what was left on a passing whim.

Two sandwiches and three bottles of water. That should be more than enough for later.

Draining down the rest of his drink before tossing it to the side, Izuku simply lay back down on the floor facing away from Shigaraki. Tired and stressed, Izuku easily drifted off, resolving to sleep on the information before deciding what to do with the information.

*****

Shigaraki screamed in his sleep, writhing on the floor.

“HANA! HANA!”

Izuku watched his cousin tentatively, unsure of what to do.

The young hero flinched.

His cousin…...he still wasn’t used to that idea. He didn’t know if he ever would be. 

Izuku twiddled with his fingers for a few moments, his mind still reeling from the day’s (night’s? How long had he been here for?) events.

It was so…..surreal, for lack of a better term. He had spent his entire life thinking that the only family he had outside of his mother and father had perished a long time ago. Sure he had played around with the idea in his head before, pretending to meet an aunt, uncle, and cousin whom he made up in his head; his cousin and him playing together and becoming the first friend he had made since his quirk awakened…...but it had always just been a fanciful little dream.

Shigaraki was spasming on the floor as he seemed to experience some kind of nightmare, twitching and jerking around wildly. How the man was even able to continue sleeping like that was a mystery in of itself.

He had always dreamed of having a cousin….

The older man on the floor lashed out at seemingly nothing, his hands trying to disintegrate something that wasn’t there, his malice and anger at whatever it was somehow even being clear as he slept.

…..but this dream seemed more like a nightmare.

Izuku unconsciously gripped his own arms, digging his fingernails deep into his skin.

Had All for One done this to his cousin? What was he saying, of course, it had to have been that bastard! 

His fingernails pressed deeper into his skin as he began to scratch.

What sort of torture had he inflicted on Shigaraki to make him as cruel as he was now?! What crimes and torments had he inflicted?! In what ways had he destroyed the sanctity of Shigaraki’s mind?!

White marks were visible on his arms as he began to scratch with more fervor than before.

Was Shigaraki the fate that would’ve awaited him if his cousin had been successful in capturing him?! Were those same tortures destined to be applied to him?! Was his mother right?! Was that bastard not satisfied with just destroying and humiliating their family?!

Unnoticed by Izuku, the skin on his arms started to be coated in a crimson red as he dug harder and harder into it, breaking through it from his sheer fervor. His breathing began to quicken, his breath becoming short.

Did All for One know about him as well?! He had to if Shigaraki knew! Was he going to come after him, uncaring of who was in his way?! Was he going to kill his parents who had done everything they could to protect him?! Was he going to kill his classmates who had bothered to befriend someone as useless and horrible as him?! Was he going to tear everything he loved apart in front of his face and laugh as he broke him down and stripped him of everything, leaving nothing but a cold, bitter shell like the man in front of him?!

His vision began to go blurry, feelings of vertigo feeling him as the world seemed to spin around him. Chills ran all along his body as the emotions he had been holding in rushed forward all at once. More tiny streams of blood trickled down from underneath his fingernails as the air around him seemed to grow inexplicably thicker.

He wouldn’t let that happen! He would rather die than become a monster like Shigaraki! He- He-

His tongue felt dry, like sandpaper in his mouth. Sweat poured down his back in what felt like gallons.

He- He….

His body was trembling, his skin cold and clammy.

……he didn’t stand a chance if All for One really wanted to capture him, did he? All for One was  If no one saved him in time, the only way to escape All for One would be death…..

Leaning back against the wall, he felt his eyes begin to droop. Shigaraki’s screams were piercing and his arms were a mess, but he honestly couldn’t bring it in him to care, too emotionally exhausted to even think about something like his wounds getting infected.

…….

He had to get out of here. He had to get out of here as soon as possible. The longer he stayed, the more things other than his life became in danger.

Izuku’s eyes glanced back at the tray in front of the door one more time before his eyes closed completely, taking note of it one more time as he drifted off.

Two sandwiches and three bottles of water. 

*****

Izuku woke up to Shigaraki being shoved through the single iron door to the room. 

The older villain stumbled, trying to regain balance. As he finally seemed to be able to stand normally again, the door behind him slammed shut with an audible thud. He whirled around to look at it with a heated glare, his pale cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

“SCREW YOU! I ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT I’D COOPERATE!”

Shigaraki’s indignation didn’t so much as receive a response, the guards almost surely outside of the door remaining completely silent.

With a frustrated sigh and some mumbling under his breath, the older villain collapsed against the wall opposite of Izuku. The young hero quickly tried to pretend he was asleep to avoid talking to the man, but he was unfortunately nowhere near fast enough.

“Can you believe those Yakuza?! They don’t take you at your word no matter what you say!”

Shigaraki rolled his eyes in his exasperation.

“Seriously, I just want to be able to go to the bathroom without having an armed escort.”

Izuku was quiet, refusing to give Shigaraki the pleasure of dragging him into a conversation. The latter was….displeased, to say the least.

“Are you still upset over the two of us being cousins? Seriously, it’s not the big of a deal. It doesn’t change the friendship the two of us have. I already consider you my little brother after all.”

He had never been particularly religious, but if there was a god, Izuku prayed for it to kill him right then and there so he wouldn’t have to listen to the madman’s delusions. Shigaraki was either the most deluded, the most idiotic, or the most persistent person he had ever met. Seriously, he had told him that he hated him and wanted nothing to do with him how many times at this point?

As Shigaraki continued to ramble on, Izuku felt his eyes drift over towards the tray a few feet to the right of the door….. 

His eyes widened a fraction.

Wait, hadn’t it been in front of the door before he slept? Now he thought about it-

He scanned the tray quickly, his alarm growing.

-hadn’t there been food and water on it before he went to sleep last night?

“The husband then says: ‘I am. 7 pounds, 7 ounces, 20 inche-’”

Izuku interrupted the older villain mid-sentence.

“Shigaraki, did you eat the rest of our food and water from last night?”

The white-haired villain cocked his head in confusion at the question.

“What?! No! I thought you ate it!”

He let out a small huff.

“I don’t appreciate you interrupting my joke though, it’s a real knee-”

Izuku ignored the childish whining of the man in front of him, his eyes shooting all around the room. 

There were large piles of blankets, clothes, and pillows everywhere. If someone really wanted to hide in here, it wouldn’t be too difficult. 

His gaze flashed over to the wall, trying to make out his surroundings in the dim light of the room.

Or perhaps there was a secret room neither of them knew about, someone could be hiding in-

A small rustling noise from one of the piles of pillow drew his attention. He noted that the rustling had come from the pile of pillows he had seen the ends of mop billowing out from earlier……

Wait a moment…..

Izuku quietly moved to his feet, Shigaraki’s voice cutting off instantly. With slow and deliberate steps, the young hero approaches the pile, doing his best not to make a sound. 

Now that he was able to make out everything more clearly, wasn’t this hair too thin to be from a mop?

The teen paused right next to the pile staring at it for a moment, noting the sound of soft breathing, the pillows slightly raising and lowering with each breath.

Like a viper, Izuku struck, grabbing the hiding person by the hair and violently pulling them out of the stack of pillows. He only got a glimpse at their short stature for a moment, before they kicked him in the shin, the pain forcing him to drop them.

The unknown midget tried to get up to their feet and run, but Izuku instinctually grabbed the intruder by the neck before slamming them to the ground, a growl escaping his mouth as he pinned them to the floor. His fellow prisoner struggled in his grip, whimpering in her pitiful little voice.

Izuku’s eyes widened.

Wait, her?

The young hero examined the person beneath him and found, to his shock and horror, a small girl with light grey hair covered in bandages and clothes that could barely be amounted to rags. Her teary, red eyes were filled with absolute terror and she stared at him with a look that all but screamed how afraid she was….

...afraid of him.

Izuku instantly let go of her, the girl scrambling to her feet and grabbing a pillow before cowering in a free corner of the room. She hid behind the trembling object, holding it desperately in front of her as if she was trying to shield herself from him.

The young hero was at a loss for words, the sheer shock of the girl suddenly appearing and the stabbing pain of guilt stabbing through him distracting him as he tried to process what was going on.

Tentatively, he took a step toward her with his arm outstretched.

“I-”

“ I am a beggar, nothing but a beggar. They are rich people, nothing but rich people.”

Shigaraki treaded softly past Izuku, his voice singing a surprisingly sweet melody as he moved forward. His approach to the girl was quiet and slow, doing his best not to frighten her as he moved forward.

“They have good obi and good kimonos.”

The girl coward as the intimidating man approached her, trying her best to fruitlessly hide behind the insufficient pillow.

“ Who will cry for me-”

Shigaraki kneeled before the girl, not reaching out his hand, simply staying unmovingly in front of her as she recoiled away from him.

“ -when I die? Who will cry for me, when I die?”

The girl trembling slowed to a crawl, her eyes peeking out cautiously from behind the pillow. Now that she was still, Izuku could see a shiny white horn growing out of her head.

“I have money, I have no life. No friends to love, no place to hide.”

Her mind enraptured by the surprisingly beautiful melody, the girl moved the pillow aside, looking directly into the towering villain’s eyes.

“Who will cry for me, when I die? Once the worms have eaten up my heart and eyes?”

Shigaraki held his hand out to the girl, the latter recoiling backward for a moment before hesitantly reaching out her own hand towards his.

“Who will cry for me, when I die?”

Izuku watched with a stupefied expression as the young girl took Shigaraki’s hand, the appendage holding onto her frail extremity with a firm but gentle grip.

“I hope when I perish, there will be tears in your eyes.”

Shigaraki gave the girl a soft smile, her looking up at him in wonder.

“Else, the cicadas will be the only ones to let out a sigh…..”

The older villain looked her in the eyes with an unbelievably gentle expression.

“What’s your name, little one?”

The girl stood there in silence for a few minutes, her crimson eyes almost seeming to glow in the dim room. She had been quiet for so long, that Izuku had thought she was mute until she finally opened her mouth and responded in a soft voice.

“Eri.”

*****

As Izuku sat back down, rubbing the new bandages covering his arms, he once again glanced back at his cousin in order to watch incredulously as Eri leaned in against Shigaraki’s side, her head nuzzling against him like a puppy starving for attention. 

After finding the girl, Izuku hadn’t even had time to apologize before a large man with an arrow shape seemingly etched into his hair entered and pulled him out of the room, blindfolding him as soon as they were outside. Izuku had thought at first that he was being taken away to be tortured, only to be surprised when the man took him to a medical office to get his wounds from the previous night cleaned out and wrapped up.

Apparently, his little….freakout had been noticed, confirming his belief that the room they were sleeping in had cameras installed somewhere in it. He would need to figure out where they were located.

The intimidating Yakuza member hadn’t said a word as he fixed him up, his attitude oddly cordial. Once he finished, the Yakuza took him by the bathroom, walked him back to the room, and removed his blindfold before shoving him back inside after a brief command to not harm himself again.

Back on the topic of Shigaraki and Eri though, the young girl seemed to have already taken a liking to the older teen. Considering Shigaraki’s appearance, it was honestly surprising that she didn’t seem intimidated by him at all. She must be a brave kid.

As Eri glanced at him nervously once again, Izuku wincing at her fear, a thought suddenly struck him.

Why was Eri being kept with them?

The young hero’s thoughts suddenly began to race.

In fact, why were he and Shigaraki being kept together? Wasn’t the risk of letting the two of them possibly kill each other or collaborate quite great? Now that he thought about it, wasn’t the same also true for Eri? Why were they so ok with all this? As hostages, didn’t they need them alive-

Izuku’s blood ran cold.

Oh…...oh no. They didn’t need any of the three of them alive, did they? Maybe they didn’t necessarily need them dead, but that was the most reasonable explanation for why they would keep them together. 

But wasn’t there still the risk of collaboration?

Izuku paused, suddenly glancing around at his surroundings, once again failing to locate any of the hidden cameras he was now sure were there.

Oh yeah, he forgot about those.

The young hero felt frustration mount in him.

This situation just kept getting worse! Not only was he now confident that he may be killed while trying to escape, but he also now had a child to help escape as well! He couldn’t afford to leave the little girl alone in an environment where her life could be ended on a whim.

“Do you want to eat with us Izuku?”

The young hero snapped out of his daze and looked up at Shigaraki, who gestured his head towards a new tray of food and water that has just been pushed through the slot in the door. The smell drifted over to him, his stomach growling in response and reminding him that he hadn’t exactly eaten a lot last night. His lips were very parched as well.

Stressing over this wouldn’t do him any good, especially not while dehydrated and hungry. He could think more about it later.

Without a word, Izuku got up and grabbed the tray, plopping the food and himself down in front of his cousin after a bit of deliberation.

It wasn’t much, just three bowls of rice and a fillet of fish to split amongst them. There seemed to be some kind of white powder cooked into the fish, but Izuku chose to ignore it.

Shigaraki opened his mouth to say something, no doubt an idiotic attempt at small talk or some other dumb comment but was silenced by a small glare Izuku shot at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Eri winced at his harsh glare towards his cousin, trying to hide from him behind Shigaraki’s arm.

A concerned frown crossed the younger hero’s face as he glanced at Eri’s terrified reaction.

He needed to nip that fear in the bud right now while he still could. He could not afford to have Eri protest or make any mistakes when he made his escape. 

Izuku’s gaze shifted back to Shigaraki, who was now staring down at the little girl with amusement in his eyes.

The problem was how much of a liking she had taken to Shigaraki. It would be easiest to connect to her through somebody she seemed to have a positive opinion of…..but he really just didn’t want to deal with his cousin.

The young hero wanted to slap himself at the selfish thoughts but resisted the urge to do so as he separated the fish into equal portions for each of their bowls of rice.

What was he thinking?! Getting an innocent child out of this hellhole alive was much more important than his own personal feelings! How could he even think of doing something as selfish as putting himself before her?!

Izuku gritted his teeth, before forcing a smile onto his face and looking up at Shigaraki and handing him his breakfast. The older villain looked at him in pure shock for a moment, stunned at the sudden display of goodwill, not noticing the strained nature of his smile in the slightest.

“I apologize-”

Every single word was excruciating to force out with his faux-affable tone.

“-for glaring at you like that. That was rude of me.”

Shigaraki continued to look at him with bemusement for a while before his expression shifted slowly into a weirdly radiant smile.

“Apology accepted!”

….that smile was somehow more disturbing than anything Izuku had ever seen.

Quickly focusing his gaze back on Eri, Izuku held out a bowl to her. The girl looked at him for a few moments, trembling, before slowly reaching out and gripping the offered food with her tiny hands and snapping it back towards herself.

She looked from the food to him for a moment before glancing away with a look of discomfort.

Well…..it was a start.

Shigaraki then proceeded to open his mouth and start talking, Izuku forcing himself into conversation with him. He noticed with satisfaction that Eri seemed to look at him with less and less fear as he and Shigaraki conversed, her posture dramatically relaxing as she lay against the older villain.

To his surprise though, Izuku found himself slowly getting more and more enraptured in his conversation with Shigaraki, the older villain actually proving himself to be surprisingly thoughtful despite his childish tendencies. The topics were surprisingly wide and varied, ranging from ethics and philosophy to math and science. What Shigaraki seemed particularly adept in though was the history of quirks, the two of them actually getting into several heated debates about the morality of several historical events.

They argued about the original governments of the world and the variety that existed in how poorly they responded to quirks, both of them providing theories on why some countries were more successful at integrating them than others.

They discussed the nature of many long-dead villains such as Oji Harima, Destro, Ikari, and even Magnetar. While Izuku didn’t agree with Shigaraki’s admiration for the men and women, it was hard to deny that his prose and persuasion skills weren’t amazing for someone he had written off as a childish idiot.

They even talked about the somewhat archaic laws currently in place for quirk users, and how some updates to the system could make life higher quality for everyone. It was astounding how well-versed Shigaraki was in law, the sheer knowledge he seemed to have somehow memorized being more than anyone else he had ever met in his life.

It was…..surprisingly nice. In the midst of all the chaos of the past day, it was great to just relax and stop worrying about all he had been through or how to escape. 

He was so deeply invested that, for a moment, he forgot who the person he was talking to was. He forgot about the worries and doubts that had been eating him up inside. He forgot that he was trapped in a hopeless situation with no chance of escape.

It took him back to a bench in a grocery store on a seemingly unimportant day where he made his first friend in years. The jokes and thoughtful discussion that got passed between them, the ideas they talked about, and the new perspectives he had been offered.

Had those been more real than he thought?

….it was honestly terrifying how easily the two of them seemed to get along.

Before Izuku knew it, the lights had turned off and another thing of food slid through the slot in the door.

The three of them shared the food between themselves before they each went back to the places where they had slept the previous night. He still wasn’t anywhere near comfortable enough to sleep next to Shigaraki.

To Izuku’s surprise and relief though Eri gave him a small, tentative smile before laying down next to Shigaraki and cuddling up against him, the villain being surprisingly accommodating to the little girl.

As he said before, it was a start.

*****

He couldn’t sleep, he had too much on his mind. 

Izuku leaned back against the wall, as he stared at the source of his discomfort, the sleeping Shigaraki with  Eri curled up in his arms. The fragile child looked out of place being cradled by the thin, inhuman villain behind her, but the form and protective grip he had around her left no room for argument about his kindness towards the girl.

Maybe….his cousin wasn’t too ba-

The young hero shook himself out of his delusion.

No, he needed to stop thinking like that! The monster holding onto that child had murdered far too many people for thoughts like that to be reasonable! He was just reading too much into it! Shigaraki must just be messing with his head, just like everyone else! He couldn’t let himself be a victim twice!

Despite his internal claims to the contrary, Izuku continued to stare at the gangly villain.

Shigaraki screamed in his sleep, writhing on the floor.

“HANA! HANA!”

Who was Hana? Was that someone he cared for? Was she why he was like this?

Against his better judgment, the young hero’s mind began to wander once again.

Based on his screaming, she was likely dead. Perhaps, her death had somehow pushed Shigaraki into becoming the person he was today. Could he really fault him for grieving if that was the root of his wrath?

Izuku immediately shot his own question down.

No, even if he really did lose someone, he had done too much to be forgiven! He didn’t deserve the empathy that he had refused to give to others! He was just a dirty villai-

“If you ask me, this whole ‘villain’ business is just an excuse to reduce people like me to something subhuman in the eyes of others. You’ve read the history books, haven’t you? This kind of stuff always happens to people like me. Whenever a contrarian idea is thrown out there, someone smacks a label on those who believe in it to excuse anything done to the idealists. In my personal opinion, reducing others to something below human is just as much of a crime as the things I do, regardless of whether I deserve it or not. Like it or not, but I’m just as much a person as any hero you could meet on the street.”

…….

Was that what he had been doing this whole time? Was he reducing those who broke the law to nothing more than ‘villains’ in order to free his consciousness of any harm that was inflicted onto them?

He wanted to answer no. He desperately desired to just claim that he was not doing that in the slightest and that Shigaraki was just getting in his head. He really should just ignore his words.

Izuku winced and looked down at the floor in front of him.

But he had just nearly done just that. Hell, he had been doing it ever since he was a child. Every day of his life he had been ignoring the plights of people like Shigaraki all because he had been taught to see them as ‘villains’, as something not deserving of the title of human.

Was that really wrong though? Was it really that bad to try and remove empathy for people when they did things as heinous as his cousin?

Shinso glared darkly at him.

“Whatever your quirk is though, I’m sure that you can’t understand how I feel! You’ve never had to deal with everyone being afraid to even just talk to you! You’ve never had to deal with the isolation I go through every day just because of how I was born! You’ve never had to deal with people seeing you as nothing more than a ‘villain’!”

That was different, Shinso was just an excep-

Izuku passively wrote down notes about the fight occurring on the TV screen before him. He was quick and efficient in his analysis, barely paying attention to the screams coming from the blue, wolf-like villain on screen.

“I’m the villain?! I’M THE VILLAIN?! AFTER EVERYTHING THIS SHITTY SOCIETY HAS PUT ME THROUGH, I’M THE ONE AT FAULT! WHAT KIND OF CRAPPY WORLD IS THIS PLACE!”

He was-

Izuku mumbled to himself jotted down another note on his newest note on a new villain he had discovered named ‘Twice’.

“Seems to suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder and perhaps even some kind of psychosis. Previously homeless and appears to be immensely insecure. Perhaps that can be exploited for benefit in a fight?”

That-

Shigaraki screams echoed through the room. His painful writhing on the floor too severe to be an act.

“HELP ME! PLEASE, JUST HELP ME!”

He- He-

Izuku wandered silently through the hallways of his middle school, completely quiet as everyone gave him a wide berth.

Despite their best tries to keep quiet, he could hear everything they said as they whispered and glanced at him worriedly.

“What’s so scary about him again?”

“Bro, did you see what he did to Bakugou back in elementary?! Oh wait, that’s right, you just transferred here this year. So basically-”

“Why would they let a dangerous individual like him go to school here? Shouldn’t he be in Tartarus or something?”

“Maybe even the heroes are too scared to try and catch him…..”

“I heard his dad bribed the Commission!”

“That’s got to be it, after all, how could they let an obvious future villain stay in such a high-quality school!”

“He’s going to be a villain by high-school, mark my words!”

“Damn, they’ll really let any villain like Midoriya just walk around in a school like this nowadays. We’ll likely be dead by years-end.”

Izuku bowed his head, trying to ignore the voices of those around him as they continued to mumble. Nonetheless, he couldn’t ignore it as the same word was thrown at him again and again.

“ Villain.”

“ Villain.”

“ Villai-”

Izuku yelped as he bumped into someone and desperately tried to regain his balance. Desperately, he tried to force out a response as he looked up.

“Sorry, about that-”

His breath caught in his throat as he saw just who he bumped into.

Katsuki loomed over him, the sheer malice on his face indicating the sheer amount of pain he wished to inflict onto the far smaller boy.

“Get out of my way you shitty villain .”

…….

How long had he been ignoring this? Had society been like this his whole life and he just hadn’t realized it? Had he really partaken in the dehumanization of those who were considered abnormal just like the kids in middle school had done to him unknowingly? Or perhaps he had always just known it and hadn’t wanted to admit otherwise….

Shigaraki hesitated as he reached out towards Eri, glancing down at his fingers for a moment in fear, before carefully stroking her head with surprising tenderness.

Realization struck Izuku.

If Hana had been killed by Shigaraki’s own hand, was it his quirk that had done it? Was that why he seemed almost afraid to touch Eri at first?

Izuku took a glance down at his hands, the two biggest causes of misery in his life. He had always hated them and blamed them for his problems, but how close had he come to doing the exact same thing he was now sure Shigaraki had done? Was he perhaps....lucky that things barely went wrong?

The young hero tentatively placed the five fingers of his left hand on his shirt, once again confirming that his quirk was inactive.

When his quirk had activated, he had hurt both Katsuki and mom. Through the briefest of instinctive reactions, he had decayed just a bit of skin on both of them. He had thought that it was the worst possible scenario, but now he couldn’t help but wonder about that notion.

What if his quirk had been as strong as it was currently? What if it didn’t shoot pain through its victim's body, immediately alerting him to what was going on? What if he had wrapped his small arm around his mother’s neck or his tiny fingers around a vein in Katsuki’s wrist by pure chance?

Izuku trembled at the thought.

He already knew the answer. Mom or Katsuki could’ve died if things had just been a bit different. No matter how much he hated the crap he had been put through because of his quirk, he couldn’t bear the idea of being responsible for the deaths of either. Yet, it had been so close to happening all the same. Perhaps that made him luckier than he realized.

The successor of One for All glanced up at his still sleeping cousin one more time. To his brief amusement, he was drooling on Eri’s long mop of hair as she had rolled closer to him unconsciously.

Shigaraki wasn’t a good person. There was a good chance that he couldn’t even be considered a redeemable person in all honesty. He had hurt too many people, destroyed too many lives, and taken too much pleasure in sadism.

Despite all that though, he was still just that, a person. Society had viewed others like him as something less than that for so long. Yet, wasn’t it arguably society’s fault that so many people like Shigaraki existed at all? Once or twice a generation would be understandable, but even with All Might around large groups of villains were practically an epidemic! Before All Might, that number was even higher! Was a society that produced so many cruel people really as just as it seemed?!

Izuku placed his hand on the floor, scrunching up the fuzzy, dark carpet beneath him.

Even ignoring all that, people like him and Shinsou were constantly reduced to the level of people like Shigaraki just because their quirks were a bit more disturbing than average. How was that fair?! How was that acceptable even in the slightest?! It made no sense!

The young successor sat there for a moment, trying to force himself to calm down.

He had gotten really worked up there. That wouldn’t do, at least not in this situation. If he got out of this alive, he could think this through later. 

Once more, Izuku found himself stealing a look at Shigaraki.

The point still stood though that, at least to some degree, Shigaraki was right about his close-mindedness. The man was a monster, plain and simple, but he was a monster with a point. He wasn’t pure evil, he was a person just like him. An admittedly bad one, but a person nonetheless. If he wanted to be a hero who saved everyone, that was information he’d need to figure out what to do with eventually. 

The young boy’s grimace grew.

After all, he promised himself that he would save everyone he possibly could. If he wasn’t trying to save even the people he fought, wasn’t he breaking that vow?

A determined fire began to burn in this chest.

He wanted to save everyone! No, he would save everyone! He just needed to figure out how!

Izuku burned with determination for a moment before he sighed and let go of the carpet beneath him.

He had just gotten too worked up again right there. He needed more time to think this over. He had received enough mind-blowing realizations for that day and now he just needed some rest. He could think this over some more when he woke up.

There was no chance in hell that he was going to become a villain. Even if Shigaraki had a point, he was going about it the wrong way. Murder did not solve anything and his cousin very clearly ignored all the good hero society had done as well. There was a compromise that needed to be made there between both of their ideals.

Maybe, just maybe though, escaping this hellhole alongside this contradictory murderer would help him figure out if that goal was a possibility. He may not like it, but at the very least, there was a chance he could take that from this terrible situation. A chance he couldn’t afford to not take even ignoring how in danger their lives were.

Without a doubt though-

Izuku dug his fingers into the floor beneath him one last time.

-he would figure out a solution to save everyone if it was the last thing he did! He would be like Mirio! He would be like All Might! He would be the invincible paragon who saved everyone, no matter how moral or immoral they were!

With how wrapped up in his thoughts Izuku was, it was no surprise that he would miss many of the small details in the room he would normally have noted. He was distracted, stressed, and tired beyond belief, so who could really blame him for not paying the best attention to everything around him? 

For instance, he was completely oblivious to the small patch of carpet beneath his hand that had been turned to dust.

*****

Overhaul looked down at the obviously fake credentials of the man in front of him.

“You have quite a nice resume here. Are you sure you can break them?”

The well-dressed man before him smirked.

“Within an hour, they’ll never be the same.”

The Yakuza looked at him warily, his fight or flight response screaming at him from the man’s sheer aura of power that seemed to fill the room.

“Alright then, I’ll leave it to you.”

*****

Hisashi’s Quirk Files:

Code Name: None

Real Name: Ikari Asuna 

Quirk Name: Scaretale

Quirk Description: A truly terrifying ability, Scaretale can best be described as a combination of sleep manipulation, telepathy, dream manipulation, and fear manipulation. Using Scaretale, Ikari was able to lull her victims to sleep, the pull of exhaustion getting stronger the longer someone spent around her. Upon the victim falling asleep, Ikari would be able to access their deepest fears and doubts, using the knowledge to trap them in a seemingly endless nightmare where hours could become weeks, days could become months, and weeks could become years. A world of your worst fears and doubts constantly tearing apart your sanity with no hopes of escape. The only way to truly counter it was to either be a manipulator of dreams yourself or to somehow force Ikari in the dream landscape, who is practically a god within the realm of sleep, to let you go.

Strengths: Ikari's ability works phenomenally against those who don't know about it, easily letting her stall for time until she can lull her victims to sleep. Out of all known quirk abilities in history, I would rank hers as the second most psychologically damaging to be exposed to. If the victim's mind doesn't shatter like glass under her power, they'll be lucky to still have their sanity intact by the end of the encounter. It was phenomenal for extracting information and just pure torture, making her a valuable partner for All for One. Her intelligence was also truly phenomenal.

Weaknesses: Ikari's quirk, while powerful when in effect, is practically useless when her victim is awake. A quick blow to the head or an attack on any vital places upon sight would easily stop her quirk from taking effect. Her physical abilities were laughable due to her status as an old woman, her body having been incredibly frail. Most, if not all, counters to mental manipulation should also work in defending against her (See Appendix Entry 24 for more details). Fellow dream manipulators have also noted that her hold on the dreams was not actually that strong, control being able to be torn from her rather easily if one can manipulate dreams to an equivalent level as her. Her sadism often led her to relish encounters for far longer than necessary, and her arrogance was oftentimes her biggest undoing. 

Recommended plan of attack: No longer necessary due to Ikari being confirmed deceased, her body being cremated not long after her death by Shimura Nana. 

Personal notes: Ikari is an absolute monster. I never got to experience her reign of terror personally, but words cannot describe how glad I am that Shimura ended this disgusting piece of trash. It seems she was able to at least do something right.....back on track though, Ikari's orphanage and the experiments she inflicted onto the children housed in them were quite infamous. Victims had a 73% suicide rate after at least 1 hour of exposure, the other 27% having life-long mental issues. Her sadism was unmatched by perhaps any other known villain in history, making the fact that her death was so painful all the more cathartic. To sum up the encounter, Shimura figured out a way to escape from Ikari's mental palace somehow, waking up and almost immediately smashing her head into the ground repeatedly until her powers no longer functioned due to brain damage. Afterward, it was reported that Shimura took her sweet time killing Ikari, the nightmare she had experienced supposedly being so painful that she wasn't satisfied until she had Ikari, and I quote, "bawling on the ground like the pathetic bitch she was."