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“That’s the wrong one.” A voice spoke from the abyss. From the darkness and floating nothingness. “That’s not Mikumo. That’s Izuku. That’s Izuku, I haven’t seen him since he was four. The Heroes can’t have him. They are both mine.”
A deep voice responded to the familiar one, asking a question that Izuku couldn’t quite hear.
“No, her quirk would make it impossible. We need to move quickly, she’ll have a plan already on the go.”
“Mummy?” Izuku asked, hand twining into her skirt.
“Yes dear?”
“Can I have a brother?”
“What do you mean Izuku, you already have one. Can you go get Mikumo and your father, dinner’s almost ready and I think your father just took him outside.”
“Mummy, whose Mikumo?”
Izuku woke slowly. He was in a large round room, on a bed right in the centre. Looking down at him from the glass surrounding the top of the room was All for One. Shooting up Izuku quickly took stock of the room around him, scanning the walls, eyes darting from one end of the room to the other.
“Good morning, Izuku. Or should I call you Ninth.”
Not doorway, or window on his level. Only pictures on the wall, something he didn’t look too closely at. He could look afterwards, if he didn’t immediately find an exit, and when the physical embodiment of the devil wasn’t nearby.
The level of the glass there was a partition on the glass, what looked like a metal walkway that would extend to halfway into the room. Cranking his head back his eyes caught on what looked like a elevator at the very top of the room.
It wasn’t a way out yet, just something to give him a better view.
His eyes jumped back to All for One, he would have to look later. It wouldn’t be good for him to reveal his plan, and for All for One to get rid of anything that would help him escape. They had several warp quirks on hand. Izuku had seen them, several times, personally. The elevator shaft wasn’t needed, so there had to be a reason why there had to be the elevator shaft.
“I won’t give you One for All, it’s mine – you can’t have it!” He shouted, staring All for One down. He had a small smile on his face, Izuku would almost call it fond, as the man looked up at the elevator shaft.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you Izuku. It won’t help and would hurt much more than it would help. It was designed to keep Mikumo in after-all. You know what he’s like.” His lip twisted, more of a twitch, his eyebrows had drawn together subtly as well, even if the darkness shadowed his main features Izuku could see that, “I don’t want to take that quirk from you Izuku, you’ve had too much taken from you. You aren’t like Yoichi, but I just need you to stay here while I sort somethings out for you and Mikumo.”
Izuku stared up at him, of course he would say that, get him to lower his guard. He was never leaving this place if he followed All for One’s plan. He would be getting to that elevator shaft, one way or another. That threat wouldn’t work, and the man couldn’t be vigilant all the time, there would have to be an opportunity for Izuku to sneak out. For him to at least reached it.
“I don’t unfortunately, I don’t know who that is. But if you think you can use him to threaten me into compliance or to threaten me to give you One for All, just know I will stop you.”
A deep laugh echoed through the room as All for One threw his head back joyfully. His laugh was soothing, and nothing like what Izuku would have expected a villain to laugh like. It was completely different to how he sounded in Kamino, and all the other times he and Izuku faced off.
“I see you have your uncle’s sense of humour. He used to pretend I didn’t exist. Still doesn’t change the fact that you won’t be getting out of here and it is not because of your brother. Your mother fucked me over, and now I have you and she had Mikumo, always apart – just like me and Yoichi.” His smile twitched downwards, looked like Eri had done a very good job in making him look whole again – even with his face deep in the shadow so much Izuku could barely see his face. “Izuku, never get an immortal multi-quirked wife. Ever. Especially one who is a vigilante. Saying that, your mother has always been special like that.”
The man walked off, leaving his last words hanging in the air.
Izuku did not know what to think. The man obviously had some delusions, and Izuku felt sorry for whoever Mikumo was. He stared at the space the man had inhabited for a few moments before turning around. He was so far past confused at this point, Izuku knew All for One was 200 years old but this was past the point of senility. Maybe All for One liked playing with his food and Izuku was the rat in his trap. Shaking his head he gauged the distance trying to get the mans words out of his head.
The warning of All for One echoed in his head as his legs bent in preparation, it was about 20 meters. Not too far for him to jump, he had gone higher. Izuku let One for All flow through his body and jumped. The arching green electricity shining the room in green.
He got to where the bottom floor and the windows attached when a thin layer of electricity suddenly flared to life. Catching him in its net not even halfway through his jump. His body slammed into the elevator as he lost control of his limbs once the electricity hit him and he came back down, catching the electricity field on the way down.
He slammed into the floor, body tender and painful, and groaned. Everything in his body ached like he had been hit all over, he smelled like burnt skin, and he was pretty sure his hair was sticking up every direction. He groaned again when a laugh echoed around the room.
Crawling to the low bed in the centre of the room and slumping into the bedding, he would rather be ridiculed in comfort.
“Told you, little one. I just don’t understand why none of my family listen to me.”
“Its because you’re a psychopath who likes putting said family in vaults.” Izuku said into his pillow, it felt better to snark back. “You know reasons that make sense.”
“Yoichi didn’t listen about the commission killing him when they found out about how he was my brother, Inko didn’t listen when we first started dating that she would hate me when she really knew me. Even Mikumo, who couldn’t understand the quirk she used on you two. A way for you two to never be together, it was cruel of her to take your memories.”
“I still don’t know who Mikumo is All for One.”
Izuku heard the man hum in frustration, Izuku wasn’t moving to see if the man looked angry. “So, she took your memories, I bet she dampened down the connection between the two of you too. If I could remember what she looked like, I would rip her apart.” Izuku lifted his head at the fury in his voice, watched him do a full circuit of the room.
“Also, I am not a psychopath, but that doesn’t matter right now. Look at the wall, maybe that would help jog your non-existent memory, make use of the pictures like I cannot. That damn fucking quirk, and that damned fucking witch. I don’t know which one it is: if it’s the block or the full wipe. I would hope my wife didn’t wipe the memory of twins. It has awful consequences.”
The tingling in his limbs had stopped, luckily. And he did promise himself that he would look at the pictures, drawing himself upwards he trudged forward to the wall. The shadow of All for One in the top looking down at him. His fury was still there but restrained, it sounded old.
“What am I going to look at All for One. I don’t want to be unprepared for something wild. Maybe a little potato with eyes or something.”
“I mean babies look like potato’s when they first come out anyway.” The man hummed again sounding fond and far too soft, as Izuku reached out for the first picture, a tall man with two little bundles. “I had two, little potatoes. They looked more like me after All Might got to me, then I do now. Although, you do have my hair.”
The photo was a family one that Izuku swore he had seen before.
“And Mikumo got your mothers. He looked far too much like your uncle to be fair to me when he was growing up, white, straight hair. Splitting image.”
Izuku unfolded the picture and stared down into his mother’s eyes, there were two children being held up by a tall man with white hair, the babies weren’t crying – they were laughing. As was the tall man. A baby with curly green hair, and a baby with straight white hair.
He stared from his mother’s eyes, into his father’s eyes and then into the eyes of the little boy who wasn’t him.
“All for One, who is Mikumo.”
His hands were shaking as the realisation that his mother probably lied to him his whole life crashed into him.
Izuku looked into the mirror and thought that the green hair looked weird on him. The curls too. He wanted straight hair like Mummy. Not the curls like his daddy who left him. He would straighten them and then he would turn them white and then he could look into the mirror and not feel lonely.
Plan in his head he ran to his mummy’s room. The one next to the empty one, the lonely room. She would have something that could help him make his hair straight, he had seen her use it before and knew where she put it.
Izuku liked being around mummy when she was at home, it helped starve off the loneliness.
Picking up the big hot metal thing his mummy used sometimes to neaten her hair he waited patiently for it too heat up. Dragging it up and down his own hair until he was satisfied with the way it fell over his eyes. When he got the look just right he put it down again, giggling excitedly.
Running into the living room, after carefully turning the heating thing off and placing it back where it was meant to live, he ran to his mummy.
“Mummy, mummy look! My hair is like yours! Now all you need to do it change its colour to white, and I’ll be like, like. Like um.”
His mother was looking at him weird. Even at 6 years old he knew that look wasn’t good. “Izuku, what happened to your hair. And what did I tell you about talking about your imaginary friend, Izuku they don’t exist, and I am getting sick of telling you this. God now we’re going to have to wash your hair a day early.”
Izuku had heard it before but thought this time would be different.
“Mummy I wanted to look like you. Not um, nevermind, just you I promise.”
She looked at him now, eyes moving from the television. Her eyes were sharp and harsh.
“What did I tell you about lying Izuku. I you know what this means.”
“Please mum, not there.”
She stood, towering over him.
“You know you used to call me Babby, because you couldn’t say your D’s. Mikumo struggled with mummy, she was always muppy – she hated it. You two were so sweet when you were younger. Anyway, you will stay here until I can find a way to break the quirk, she has on you two.”
“Mik! Mik! Mik! Look! You and Present Mic have the same names! He’s my new favourite! Look he has bright hair like you!” Izuku said running up to his twin who was sitting on their asleep father’s lap, blinking away his sleep. “Look! Look! Look!”
“Oh yea! He’s looking too cool Izu. Where’s mup – mummy?”
“Izu, come sit on my lap.” Their dad said, one red eye peaking out. “Inko’s not gonna be here tonight, do you know what that means?”
Izuku crawled onto his fathers lap as Mikumo grabbed his arm and wrapped himself around and over his twin. He blinked at their father as his arm was tugged to get him to be closer to Mikumo. The man stretched and then he leaned down and scooped Izuku onto his lap.
“Uh, bad cooking? Oh no daddy are we have food poisoning again. Mummy said that that was what it was the last time you made dinner.” Izuku said, with Mikumo nodding along before he opened his mouth, the gap where his two top front teeth used to be whistled.
“Oh oh, I know! Quirks! Me and Izu will eat our one and you can have all the others you have!”
Pulling on their shared light Izuku leaned into his father, blinking his eyes like a puppy, his twin copying his movement on the other side, pulling back their quirk.
“I’m so hungry for quirks Daddy.”
He laughed his large arms cupping his kids pulling them closer to his face as he levered himself into a more upright seat. “No, no. No food poisoning, no bad food, and certainly no quirks. Your mummy doesn’t like me feeding you quirks. Tonight, we are getting Takeaway!”
The two boys cheered on his chest as the shadow in the door fled backwards, back into shadows.
Izuku stared back up at the man, having fully stepped into the light. Flashes of memories, the bare imprint of something he knew he should remember crawling at the edge of his vision.
“I- don’t I remember something. But I don’t know. It’s a trick, you’re tricking me. It’s a quirk it has to be.”
“No, Izuku, it’s ok. You’ll get them back soon, I’ll get Mikumo back and you two can be brothers again soon.”
Izuku screamed at the pressure in his head.
“Mummy?” Izuku asked, hand twining into her skirt.
“Yes dear?”
“Can I have a brother?”
“What do you mean Izuku, you already have one. Can you go get Mikumo and your father, dinner’s almost ready and I think your father just took him outside.”
“Mummy, whose Mikumo?”
“No one darling, just checking something. Mikumo is your imaginary friend remember, and remember when I said, I don’t want to hear about them anymore. You have me, that is all you need.”