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“Izuku, honey, are you ready?”
“Yes, kaa-san,” Izuku whispers, wriggling his little hands, the thick yellow plastic crinkling over his stubby fingers. “I’m ready.”
“Good boy,” his mother turns and smiles, reaching down to ruffle his springy green curls. “Now, what do you say if the other children ask about your gloves?”
Disgusting. Villain. How could you-
“My Quirk,” Izuku mumbles, sticking his gloved hands in his pockets up to the fasteners clenching them down tight on his wrists. “I need them to help me control my Quirk.”
“That’s right, Izuku. Go on now,” his kaa-san smiles gently down at him. “Katsuki still walks with you to school, right?”
“Yes, kaa-san,” Izuku’s lip only trembles a little as he lies. Kacchan hasn’t walked with him since he was four. “Bye, kaa-san.”
“See you tonight, baby.”
His little feet tap-tap on the stairs as he heads down to the street, little gloved hands held out to help him balance. He’s a small six-year-old, so he can’t quite reach the railing, but his tongue pokes out between his lips with concentration as he sets his feet.
The road is bustling, sidewalk teeming with people heading to work and school, so Izuku holds the straps of his backpack tight as he tries not to knock into anyone’s knees.
A hand touches the back of his neck and Izuku flinches but then he-
Can’t-
Move-
He opens his mouth to scream and a thin trail of drool dribbles out because his-
Lax lips-
Won’t-
Close-
His wide green eyes ooze with tears as someone picks him up and hides his limp face in their shoulder, rough hand pressing the back of his head, thick fingers entangling his mop of curls. A low whine rises as his open eyes press against the cloth of their jacket, eyeballs touching the rough fabric but his lids-
Won’t-
Move-
The normal sounds of the street surround him, happy chatter and the rumble of cars but he-
Can’t-
Move-
Shouts rise and for a moment Izuku thinks someone’s coming to-
“A hero fight, right down here!”
The crowd begins to press and rush, the body holding Izuku rushing with it and for a moment he thinks he’s saved, he’s saved-
They pass. They pass. They pass-
And something in Izuku crumbles.
Villain. Gross. Disgusting. How could you how could you how could you-
At least his kaa-san won’t have to worry about him anymore.
When Izuku wakes up his gloves are off.
His gloves are off.
He opens his eyes and his fingers touch the cool cement beneath him they touch they touch-
He whimpers. Villain villain how could you-
A man is there. Naked in front of him, eyes glazed, drool trailing from his mouth as he sways. Izuku scrabbles back until his bare back is pressed against a cinderblock wall-
Bare back. He’s naked too. Izuku shudders, green eyes welling in shame as he tries to cover himself, curling back to hide but the buzzing fluorescent overhead leaves no shadows.
The man staggers toward him and Izuku cries out, pushing himself back against the wall to try and get away, but the man stumbles forward, shaved head gleaming in the light, shoulders uneven, bruises standing starkly on his thin face.
“Please,” Izuku whimpers, pressing his little hands to the cement to keep himself from raising them. “Stay away- please-”
Ragged toenails drag over the cement. Knobbly hand reaches out, closer and closer-
“Please, I don’t want to-”
The man’s rancid breath is hot on his face and Izuku realizes his head is also shaved, no green curls falling in his face to shield his streaming eyes from the glib stare of the man looming over his curled, naked body.
“Please-”
Closer and closer-
Izuku cowers back, hands lifted to protect his face-
Skin.
On.
Skin.
His hands touch. Knees. He can feel it, feel the knobbly bones peeking out, the hair spotting the skin, the pores opening widening changing-
Izuku screams as the man staggers back. The man screams too, shrieking a noiseless wail as his head tips back and his leg collapses beneath him. Izuku sees it spread from the knee, racing up the man’s naked body as he convulses, muscles spasming and pulling while they still can-
It subsumes him.
Consumes him.
The man is a wobbling pile of pale substance, limb approximations splayed out and squirming on the concrete. The head deflates, spreading in a flattened mound, eyes swimming in pitted little dents.
Izuku screams and cries and tries to get away, away away-
Villain monster disgusting how could you how could you how could you-
The light goes out.
Izuku has been in this shipping crate for three days now. His hair is starting to grow back, a little spurt of green fuzz lining his skull.
He ran out of water yesterday. The sores lining his legs and back are infected, pulsing with pain and leaking a thick, stinking pus.
His hands are locked in small boxes, manacles around his wrist biting into his skin. The tattooed barcode on his neck throbs.
If he tilts his head, he can feel the raised lines with his bare shoulder.
Until he’d woken up in this crate with those boxes on his hands and that barcode on his neck, it hadn’t really sunk in that he’d been quirk trafficked.
He wonders where they’re sending him. Who bought him.
What they bought him for.
The dark, cramped quiet of the crate is stifling.
He hopes they won’t make him turn children.
He doesn’t-
He doesn’t-
He-
He wakes up in a hot, arid place. The ceilings are low, the rooms are dark, and the heat is stifling. The men around him don’t look down to acknowledge him. Their loose, dirty clothes are belted together with rope and the rifles slung over every man’s shoulder clank as they move.
There’s a muzzle strapped to Izuku’s face and a thick leather collar tied around his throat. When they want him, they untie his leash from the wall and yank him along beside him, always wary of his boxed-up hands.
Izuku’s Quirk is not a weapon of mass destruction. Izuku’s Quirk has one, singular use.
Izuku’s Quirk turns any and all organic matter into a cooked composition of starch, oil, and water.
Izuku’s Quirk, in essence, turns people into noodles.
He tries not to think about the hilarity of it all- the irony.
The Quirk is very useful to the men who bought him from Japan. It only takes Izuku a year to learn their language, learn what happens to the vats he puts his bare hands into.
It doesn’t take long for Izuku to learn that he is singlehandedly feeding the entire al-Shabaab fighting force attempting to take over the entire Middle East.
He is turning their kills into their meals.
He is turning civilians and enemy soldiers and traitors and prisoners and anybody who dies-
He wonders how they aren’t sick of eating noodles by now.
His hair grew back, but without his hands to comb or braid it, it didn’t take long to knot into thick dreads. The camp moves, sometimes in caves and sometimes in the hot sun, but Izuku is never given a tent so his skin crisps and darkens, sun-blisters rising and popping over his face and shoulders.
Scars line his burnt skin, pitted remnants of blisters or thick white lines jagging over his bare skin. His back is a rutted mess of old lashes. After all, his Quirk didn’t require him to be able to stand.
Izuku has no idea how old he is, but his best guess would be around fourteen. His shoulders are broader and his hands bigger, baby fat melted away to leave behind sharp, high cheekbones and a crooked twice-broken nose. His big eyes are perpetually narrowed and hidden under a sharp scowl.
He’s splayed out in the sun, bare body grubby with sand and sweat as camp bustles around him.
A few of the men avoid him warily, and his narrowed green eyes flick toward them, but the muzzle still strapped to his face prevents him from speaking.
“Tabbak,” one calls, walking over to unwind Izuku’s leash from the stake he’s tied to. Chef.
Izuku can never learn anyone’s names. He’s passed around, never with the same group for longer than a few days, but they all know him. Not Midoriya Izuku- Tabbak.
The Chef.
He stands with the leash, moving at the same speed to keep it from yanking on his neck. He follows obediently as he’s led to a tent teeming with a metallic scent.
The flap is pulled back, and the bodies are stacked in two great pots, heaped over one another carelessly. A woman’s filmy eyes meet Izuku’s, her naked limbs flopping out past the pot’s lip.
He doesn’t flinch.
The man behind him clicks his tongue, and Izuku opens his mouth obligingly for the man to slide his gun’s barrel in, resting the sun-warmed metal between Izuku’s teeth. He swallows around the gun as the man undoes the latches on his boxes, freeing his hands.
The boxes click open and Izuku sighs, his limp, pale hands curling free. The man nods and takes the gun out of Izuku’s mouth, gesturing with its tip for him to get moving.
Izuku turns to the first pot, blinking blankly at the tangle of naked limbs before he thrusts his hands in.
His Quirk starts spreading immediately, the mass starting to quiver and teem as flesh is overtaken, but Izuku shoves his hands deeper.
He has to touch every individual body.
He’s up to his elbows in jiggling, slick pasta, reaching around in the pot to make sure he hasn’t left anything. His hand grazes a small, soft foot at the bottom before the pot convulses again. Another corpse deflating and subsuming.
He thinks that one might have been a toddler.
The second pot is worse. The woman he’d locked eyes with walking in is still alive, if barely.
Izuku uses his elbows to break her neck before laying his pale hand on her still, naked chest. His Quirk is better if they can’t feel it.
“Tabbak.”
Izuku blinks.
This one is done, too.
He turns to walk over when dark mist opens at his feet and he falls.
“You will all be scattered and slain.”
What the fu-
Izuku is pinwheeling through midair when he smashes into the rocky outcropping, hitting and bouncing in a tangle of limbs as he rolls to a stop in the gravelly dirt. What-
“Hey kid, what’s-”
Izuku doesn’t even think before he lashes out, rolling to his feet and slapping the person looming over him across the cheek with his bare hand.
The transformation is instant, and Izuku steps back as the man shrivels down to goop, pooling out of his clothes and oozing out of his shoes.
Izuku gulps back vomit as he staggers away. What- where-
This first thing he notices is the chill. It’s cold, and the hairs over his naked body stand on end as a thin breeze goes by.
He hasn’t been cold in years-
“Hey!” a young voice yelps. Izuku spins to see a blond boy with a dark streak in his hair scrambling over the rocks toward him. “Are you okay? Do you know what’s- dude, you’re naked!”
Izuku blinks at the boy, vaguely registering his words.
Japanese? But that would mean-
Izuku reaches his shaking hands up behind his head and feels around for a latch he knows is there-
It clicks.
The muzzle creaks, old leather groaning as it bends, but the muzzle falls to his feet and Izuku takes in a deep, open-mouthed breath.
Oh. I’d forgotten this.
The air rushes in and-
He-
Breathes-
“Hey, let’s go get you some clothes, dude, I’m Kaminari, ew, that’s a weird thing right there-” the boy just steps over the thing Izuku made- “We gotta get outta here, there’s some kind of attack going on-”
Izuku follows because what else is he supposed to do? His bare feet are tough enough that he can’t feel the gravel crunching under them as he stumbles behind the blond.
More children, pale and dark-haired.
One of them pulls clothes out of her stomach and holds them out to him, eyes delicately turned away. He stares at her for a moment before accepting the simple shorts and t-shirt.
The sensation of cloth on his skin is immediately uncomfortable and odd, but the brilliant red on the children’s cheeks subsides a bit so he leaves them.
Men come, anger in the lines of their faces- the children shout and scramble but Izuku likes them, they don’t need to-
Izuku knows how to-
The blond reaches for his bare hand and Izuku yanks it back, stumbling and tripping and falling-
His fingers brush a man lunging toward the children. He falls, he spatters. They scream. They scream. Everything is screaming-
When he opens his eyes there’s a man in front of him, dark hair pulled back, eyes glowing red.
“Midoriya Izuku,” the man says, flipping open a file in his hand. “Mind if I ask you some questions?”
Izuku’s lip wobbles. “M-mi-midoriya,” he croaks, tongue curling and dragging over the name. “M-m-”
“Midoriya Izuku, yes,” the man nods. “We tested your blood to confirm. An exact match, just like the others.”
“S-say it again,” Izuku whispers.
“Pardon?”
“My n-name,” he croaks, eyes wide. “S-s-“
“Midoriya Izuku?”
Izuku dissolves into tears.
Shouta stares blankly down at the teen curled on the bed, trying to stem back the pity rising in his chest. The boy is covered in scars, evidence of violence and malnutrition all over him. His skin is deeply tanned except for the lower half of his face, neck, and hands. The standard green hair knotted into long, thick dreads reaching nearly mid-back.
He was the last one to wake up.
Izuku is so cold.
This five-by-five room is so cold.
He doesn’t know what to- what to do. There’s nothing to-
He blinks and he’s sitting at a conference table. How did-
“Now,” a high voice chirps, and Izuku looks up to see a gigantic rat- “Please state your names and give us a brief synopsis of how you got here!”
Izuku is still stuck on gigantic rat when a voice to his left speaks up. “Of course,” it says smoothly, and Izuku glances over to see-
What-
“I’m Midoriya Izuku,” the man smiles, straightening his- suit jacket? “From our conversations, my timeline doesn’t seem to diverge much from yours other than one key difference,” his smile is white and edged in a way that Izuku doesn’t like. “I went to a different middle school and interned at the Hero Commision. I’m now their Head of Operations, managing youth outreach.”
“Translation, you find and indoctrinate children,” the rat grins- why does the rat grin-
“In layman’s terms, perhaps,” the other Izuku’s shrug is smooth and practiced. “UA became part of my operations only a few months ago. There was an unfortunate,” his teeth flash again, “accident with the UA administration. Oversight became necessary.”
The rat’s grin is even fiercer. “Naturally. Next?”
This Izuku’s face screws up in a scowl as he leans back. “Kohaku. Vigilante. Some of us,” he sneers, “didn’t choke on any sludge on our way home after being told to take a swan dive.”
Izuku is so confused.
They keep going around and Izuku can’t help but notice that every other Izuku is-
Quirkless.
Izuku is last, and all those eyes swing to him-
All those other Izukus. All those different paths. Villain, hero, vigilante, barista-but-also-probably-a-villain-
All these Izukus who hadn’t been cursed with their Quirk. Their real Quirk- their natural Quirk. Who they really are.
Izuku gulps. It’s been a long time since he’s spoken properly.
“Izuku,” he rasps, pushing back his dreads. “Sometimes Tabbak. I-” he swallows. “I have a Quirk.”
Silence.
He is-
The only-
One.
“When I was six,” he continues, twisting his gloved hands, “I was Quirk trafficked. Sold to a militia in Somalia. I was there. When the black smoke took me.”
His throat scratches. This hurts. I’ll have to practice.
“And what is your Quirk?” the rat asks, eyes gleaming. Izuku shudders.
“I-” he swallows. “I used it in the rocks. When I got here.”
The rat’s eyes are unblinking.
“It’s-“ he sighs. Clenches his jaw. “Don’t laugh.”
The rat says nothing.
“If I touch someone with my bare hands,” he whispers, “they turn into noodles.”
Complete.
Utter.
Silence.
“I’m sorry, they fucking what-“
The room absolutely explodes with sound and Izuku can’t breathe-
“Quiet down, quiet-“
Izuku blinks and he’s under the table. Izuku blinks and his hands are fisted in his hair, pulling and pulling and pulling-
Izuku blinks and he’s cold-
He’s sitting at the table again. Everyone is sitting down. Everyone is looking at him.
“Fascinating,” the rat murmurs, and Izuku bares his teeth.
“I have questions,” he says hotly, glaring. “Why am I here. Is this Japan. Can I see my mother.”
The rat blinks. “In that order-“
“Also,” he interrupts, “who are you and why are you a talking rat.”
There’s a moment of silence before the rat laughs. “I am Nezu, the Principal of UA. You’re here because you’re in another dimension due to an interesting Quirk, and in this dimension Midoriya Izuku attends UA as a student.”
Izuku blinks. Interesting.
“This is Japan, yes, but not your Japan. Midoriya Inko does exist here, but she isn’t your Midoriya Inko. I’m certain we could request a meeting, but she would not know you.”
Izuku swallows.
Oh.
“Let us return to the topic of your Quirk,” the r- Nezu- grins. “Please explain.”
Izuku sighs. “Armies have to eat,” he says dispassionately. “And there were plenty of bodies lying around. My Quirk works instantly with no way to reverse it, so I was too dangerous to be left unchained. They brought me out to turn the bodies, then,” he shrugs. “They put me back. It’s been like that since I was six.”
They ask him questions, prod for details, but he doesn’t say anything more.
He blinks and it’s quiet.
He blinks and he’s back in the five-by-five.
He blinks and it’s cold again.
I could-
Not your Midoriya Inko. Not your Midoriya Inko. Not yours, you disgusting-
His blisters are healing. He misses the sun.
“We can’t send them all back,” Shouta scowls. “What about 8? The one with the Quirk? The boy’s in an active-“
“Yes, yes,” Nezu waves him off and Shouta fumes quietly. “But we can’t exactly keep him here, can we? He’s not stable enough to be released into the general population, and UA doesn’t have the facilities for the sort of permanent upkeep he would need. It’s just not viable.”
“He’s a child-”
“He’s a weapon,” Nezu frowns. “Best case scenario, the Hero Commission snaps him up and he never sees the light of day again. You know this, Shouta,” the rat’s eyes flash. “You barely escaped such a fate yourself.”
Shouta’s quiet for a moment before he sighs. “Fine.”
“Not to say, of course,” Nezu grins maliciously, rubbing his greedy little paws together, “that we have to send him empty-handed.”
Izuku’s bare feet slam into the dusty desert sand and he tucks and rolls, skidding on his side over the rough ground. He pops to his feet amid shouts of confusion, hefting the gigantic assault rifle given to him by an overexcited pink-haired teenager, and grins.
“Run-!”
“Get fucked!” he roars as he squeezes the trigger, laughing maniacally as he spins, bullets slamming through tents and men, blood spraying through the acrid air. “Get fucked get fucked get fucked get-”
When he blinks, the camp is empty. Everyone either fled or died. Izuku grins as he drops the rifle at his bare feet, green dreads flopping back over his new backpack. The supplies the nice interdimensional rat had given him are safe inside- a passport, rations, ammunition, and several wads of cash in four different currencies.
He smiles, taking in the destruction around him- his captors bleeding out on the packed sand.
Tabbak- no.
The passport in his backpack says Midoriya Izuku.
He’s going- somewhere. Maybe not home, not yet, but away from here.
Somewhere he can get therapy. God knows he needs it.