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Given everything, Izuku felt like he should have been more prepared for this to happen eventually. After all, Aoyama had been there in class the first time the trigger words were said. Aoyama, who was working for the League of Villains. Aoyama who knew what the trigger words were.
Sure, he had made sound-dampening earplugs, coded specifically to the phrase a part of his costume with the help of Mei, but he never really thought he’d need to worry about it. It was a precaution at most. Nothing more.
“ Scientia Potestast Est .” While he couldn’t hear the words echo across the battlefield, it didn’t make it any less heart wrenching to watch Yagi fall into that familiar pose that was ingrained into his very being from so many years of training when he was young.
The first time he was taken away by the commission for training in their program, he was five. Part of it, he would later admit to himself, was his fault. He didn’t scream hard enough, he didn’t try and tell enough people, he didn’t beg his family enough not to send him. But, it didn’t really matter in the end. They were taking him one way or another.
Five was too young, compared to everyone else, they were all at least ten, the few of them that were there, but that didn’t stop the Commission from taking him. A confirmed quirkless child had to start earlier than everyone else, after all. They had to be useful to the commission or they’d never be useful to anyone.
What use would a quirkless child ever be in a world where quirks were valued more than talent, hard work, or skill?
After his first day in that place, when he just sat down and got to know people, his memory was fuzzy at best. Pain was often a common placeholder for his actual memories. There was too much built up there, too much to dig into for him to delve into what really happened during those five years he was cooped up in their little jail. Enough about what really happened could be told from just looking at his body, though. Scar tissue littered his skin like junk on Dagobah Beach and the basic fighting skills stuck with him. The gun training in particular stuck with him, although that was a little ( big, his mind whispered traitorously ) part of his training that he was willing to ignore. No one ever had to know about that little fact.
The end of his training though, that was stronger. He could remember that time more, even if faintly. More of everything. Whispers about him. Whispers about taking him back later to become more or worse yet, keeping him there. Then, there were other little things too. He didn’t see the other kids anymore. ( Were there other kids anymore? )
There was blood on his hands.
There was always blood on his hands.
( Was it their blood? Did he kill them? )
He couldn’t remember.
That was perhaps the most terrifying part. The lack of memory.
He could’ve hurt people. Killed people. Or worse.
And he’d never know. Not while the memories were too hard to touch. Not while the white walls and the white floor and the tick-tick-tick of the eternal clock still lived in his head rent free. Not while the red covered still his hands in his mind. Not while the red seeped from under the doors and the corners of the walls.
Not while it kept coming back.
He wasn’t ever quite the same after he came out the first time. Sure, his mother greeted him back like nothing had happened and Kacchan was just as mean as ever but it meant nothing in the end. Things were different. He was different. More different than he was really willing to admit.
The second time though… The second time was so much worse.
When he briefly went vigilante, he was taken again by the Commission for a short time. He wasn’t really sure how long he was gone, all the days of being gone blended together, both in and out of the center.
The worst part might’ve been that his memories didn’t leave that time. He’d been useless, unable to use his quirk for the first time since he got it. Sure, they had said the trigger words and put him in semi-unconsciousness while doing it that time, but they were more clever that time, leaving him aware and knowing. They wanted him to know what he did that time. They wanted him to know the authorization codes, the lists of names, the hallways. The places. The faces.
At this rate the Commission wasn’t going to last much longer anyways, this was just their backup plan. He was their backup plan in case everything else went and someone had to take over.
Perhaps he wasn’t the best person for the job, but he was the only one left who’d gone through it that was still alive and fighting. He still wasn’t sure what had happened to all the other kids that went through it, but their names and faces had long slipped his memory into the abyss of unknowing, never for him to recover. The blood he still scrubbed out from under his nails in his dreams said enough from that.
It was easier to cover up after that second time. His friends had expected him to be traumatized after going vigilante for a few months anyways, they didn’t see anything different from what they already expected.
And that led him all the way back to this, seeing Yagi fall into that oh so familiar pose.
Yagi shouldn’t have even been on the battlefield in the first place. He should’ve been back with the healers at best, but yet here he was standing next to Izuku with that familiarly blank look.
“Orders not found. Awaiting orders,” he could hear Yagi say as he finished up with the guy he was fighting and made his way over to his mentor.
The others around him seemed to panic, thinking it was the effect of a quirk that had somehow made it through their defense unit. Those same words that held tight to his consciousness in his dreams, were whispered across the field, voice echoing as others mimicked him in confusion, “Voice not recognized. Handler not authorized. Awaiting handler.”
The protection unit around his mentor parted like the red sea as he made his way into the dead center, closing up behind him just as smoothly.
Oh so slowly, he took a deep breath and clicked his tongue to get Yagi’s attention, “Yagi? Dad? Do you recognize me?”
Yagi turned to him and his shoulders loosened ever so slightly, “Voice recognized. Designation Tango-Yoda-Two-Two-Six-Five. Handler clearance code required.”
Izuku took a careful breath, hesitant but firm, “Clearance code, Alpha-Three-O-Eight-Nineteen-Twelve.”
He was at a loss on whether this was all his fault or he was grateful he went through it if only to save his mentor in this moment. But either way, he couldn’t leave him here.
He’d have to use what they gave him, no matter how much he hated it, just this once.
“Clearance code accepted. Handler authorized. No orders found. Awaiting Orders,” Yagi said, his voice as blank as ever.
“Order issued: exit ready mode,” Izuku rushed forward to hold his mentor for the moment he would collapse.
“Order accepted. Exiting ready mode. Reboot initiated. Expected downtime: one minute, twelve seconds.”
That minute was perhaps the longest of his life, just sitting in the middle of the protection unit with his mentor in his arms. He covered Yagi’s ears and picked him up bridal style as Yagi opened his eyes.
“Let’s go,” Izuku mouthed to him and took his mentor off of the battlefield, making sure to hold his hands on his ears all the while.
He was lucky no one asked questions at the end of the battle. They were, after all, still at a loss given everything that had happened over those days of constant fighting. At a loss at the failing state of the government and the wounds they had all sustained. In comparison, ten minutes seemed like nothing.
Yagi was concerned he knew, which is what led them into the private meeting room a few days later.
“About the program-,” Yagi had started before Izuku cut him off.
“It was when I went vigilante. They took me again, I’m not really sure for how long. But,” he hesitated, “I know they’re going to come for me again soon. I was the replacement in case everything went out the window after the battle.” Izuku gave a quiet sigh.
“You know you don’t have to.” Yagi offered. “I can protect you from them. You don’t have to do it.”
Izuku took a deep breath, sighing slightly, “I knew this would happen a long time ago, Dad. I resigned myself to this fate when they took me the second time. The Izuku that wanted to be the number one was killed a long time ago. For now, I’m just going to find peace in this. Maybe I can even help people.”
“Izuku… please. You don’t know what they’re capable of. It’s worse than you think-” Yagi tried to say.
“It’s been over forty years since you went through it, Dad. I’m sixteen. I spent five years, almost a third of my life, in that place. Don’t tell me that I don’t know what they’re capable of when they’ve already dictated my life for this long. At least I can make a difference here.”
“Izuku- please. I don’t want to lose you.”
“It’s not up to you. I made up my mind a long time ago already.”
It was better if it was him instead of anyone else. After all, he was strong enough to be their soldier and just traumatized enough to know he had to go along with it.
They could break him.
They could tear apart his very being and put him back together over and over again.
But he’d never let them get to his friends.
Now, perhaps the only thing left he was useful for was the commission’s warfare, both psychological and physical. It wasn’t like he could really be a hero anymore. Too much blood still seeped from the walls of his mind.
There were too many years of training, even as they tried to escape him, ingrained in him.
This was for the best.