Work Text:
Izuku stares at his helmet.
All For One.
Fucking All For One, that self-centered, god complex pest on existence.
Giran is a slimy little weasel but he is good at what he does. Izuku does not ask how he got his hands on an MRI machine; he simply pays for services rendered.
After thorough scans, Izuku compares the scans of his six-year-old brain to his now eleven-year-old brain. What he finds is…
As he suspected, he must have suffered severe brain damage during his suicide attempt. Impossible to guess how severe without scans from right after the incident. Izuku has searched the doctor’s records twice and no such scans exist. All Izuku can do is compare the two snapshots of his brain to each other, as well as with a control scan of a normal, healthy brain.
His brain is…abnormal. It is certainly far too developed for a preteen. If he did not know for certain these were images of his brain, he would believe it belonged to someone in their late twenties. All sections are fully developed. Enlarged hippocampus; at six, only slightly, likely a small birth defect, a harmless one, which could explain his talent for memorization. At eleven, extremely so. The amygdala is uneven, growth partly stunted. The pituitary is somewhat enlarged, as well.
Even after Izuku was fully recovered, Sensei would at times lay his hand on Izuku’s head and ‘check his progress’ as he put it. It must have been then that he did it. Played God with Izuku’s own brain, adjusting it ever so slightly each time then watching Izuku’s reactions, his behavior, to build it into whatever shape would best serve Sensei’s glorious purpose.
It explains everything.
His learning is faster, better, ever since the bridge. He assumed it was because now he was actually using the skill, training it, honing it, but in truth, it was because Sensei made him that way.
His emotions are blunted; so much so that he most often thinks he is unable to feel anything at all. Not even fear.
Aggression, however…
It seems to simmer at all times. When it explodes…
It happened when he killed Tomura. Tenko. He lost control. He beat Tenko savagely and stabbed him over and over and lost count. Even Izuku can hardly recall the details.
The anger, and the discomfort that came after as a reaction to it, is a large part of what lead Izuku to begin considering turning on Sensei.
Izuku is only what Sensei made him.
Is there anything left of him that is truly him? Is he a different person now? Who would he have been if not for Sensei? If not for his suicide attempt? If not for Katsuki Bakugo?
Izuku was murdered and became someone else.
He can’t even be upset about it because he’s not sure he can physically be upset. Can he feel anything at all? Is this sadness? What does sadness feel like? If he can’t feel, is he really alive? What’s the point of living if there is no emotion?
The rage fills him. It bubbles up to a boiling point in an instant and overcomes him.
Roaring out, he swipes his helmet off the table and listens to it clatter and bounce across the concrete floor. He flips the table. He throws his computer screens to the ground and stomps and stomps and stomps them all to bits and kicks the bits aside. He tips over his massive computer tower and kicks it until the casing splits open and he can rip out the guts. He tears the hard drives out of his server towers and smashes them against the wall. He flips his cot over, tosses the flimsy piece of shit to the ground as hard as he can. He runs at his racks of weapons and slams his body into them, tipping the first and knocking them over like dominoes.
When the anger ends, everything is destroyed.
He’s empty again.
Somehow, he always feels more empty than usual after eruptions of burning rage. It is not physically possible for something to be more empty than empty; it is a physical impossibility; to argue that would be to argue in the metaphysical, but honestly, perhaps that is all he is dealing with. Rather than a crisis of conscience or some such nonsense, Izuku is experiencing a metaphysical crisis of identity and reality.
Does Izuku have an identity?
Is Izuku even real?
Did Sensei strip him of his identity and his tethers to reality with it?
A crisis of conscience is not nonsense. He knows that. A person is meant to have a conscience. Does Izuku have a conscience? Does one need to have morals to have a conscience?
The conscience tells one what is right and what is wrong. Fact. Morals and the conscience are intrinsically linked. Fact. To standard human morals and conscience, killing a fellow human is wrong. Fact. If one has a properly functioning conscience, one would feel guilt and shame if one killed a fellow human. Fact.
Izuku did not feel guilty killing all of the Shie Hassaikai, nor any of the people Sensei ordered him to get rid of, nor Sensei himself or the doctor. He is not ashamed of those actions. They are simply actions. Right and wrong has no relevance. An action is either performed or not performed, that is all. Guilt, shame, and other nonphysical entities have no relevance to the performing or not performing of an action.
Tomura.
Tenko…
He makes Izuku’s chest hurt.
Is that shame? Is it guilt?
What does the pain mean?
Izuku picks up his cot and places it back on its feet. He turns off the lights, then lays down.
Nothing makes sense.