Chapter Text
As with most changes in life, this one started out subtle. Something was different, but not enough to cause stress or alarm.
Izuku Midoriya was hungry.
And why shouldn’t he be? He’s a growing boy, after all; barely ten years old, and smaller than most of his peers - even the girls. The lunch bell was due to ring any minute, too. Classes would break for an hour, allowing the students to eat and have some time outside before their afternoon classes.
The green-haired boy tapped his pencil against the surface of his open notebook, thoughts drifting away from what the teacher was saying to the bento his mom had packed for him today. It was mostly just pork, rice, and some vegetables, but Inko Midoriya had also promised a chocolate-chip cookie.
Of course, he didn’t get to enjoy his lunch in peace.
He’d stopped trying to eat lunch with Kacchan some time ago, after constantly having his food stolen or thrown in the trash, or even dumped on his head by the blonde and his friends. On a few occasions, Tsubasa had flown over Izuku’s head with the stolen lunch just to dump it all over his hair. That one had been leftover katsudon, too… So now he ate outside. There were plenty of nice trees that gave him shade from the sun or protection from the snow, depending on the season.
Kacchan was bound to find his little spot eventually, but Izuku had really been hoping it wouldn’t be today. Of course, life seldom granted his wishes. Some kind of cosmic punishment for being Quirkless? Or maybe just rotten luck because he loved to pet stray cats, regardless of what color their fur was or if they wanted to cross in front of him first.
Either way, Kacchan found him today, and was as cruel as ever. He blew up Izuku’s entire bento box this time, bits of charred plastic planting firmly into the dirt, rice and cookie crumbs all over his lap and shirt.
He cried. Then again, Izuku always cried. He cried when the other boys called him ‘stupid Deku,’ or threw erasers at his face, or pushed him over for no reason. He was a crybaby - it was his second most popular nickname. Maybe he’d blame his mom for inheriting that trait, if he was that petty, but all he could really feel at the moment was sad and hungry. The rest of Izuku’s lunch break was spent in the bathroom, furiously scrubbing at the stains on his clothes, and picking stray bits of rice from his hair and shirt sleeves.
All things considered, it wasn’t the worst treatment he’d ever gotten from Kacchan. There had been times where he came home with bubbling burns and dark bruises all over, or blood running from his ears when the blonde had set off an explosion too close to his head. His mom was always worried and fretted over him, asked him to not get in anymore fights, to go to teachers if someone was bullying him. Each time he promised he would, and each time the teachers turned away and pretended they couldn’t see or hear him, and Kacchan would refuse to give a single scrap of mercy.
When he got home though, he still felt awful. It’d sucked to sit through his afternoon classes, unable to focus on anything but trying to hide the embarrassing rumbles his stomach made. It was uncomfortable, and he couldn’t be happier to finally get home. He could smell mom making something in the kitchen, and asked what was for dinner.
“It's a roast, sweetie. I’m afraid mommy was a little distracted today though, and didn’t put it in the oven when she should have. You don’t mind waiting a few more hours, do you?”
He was disheartened, but mentally kicked himself and smiled. Like a hero would do. Heroes smile through their hurt.
“That’s fine! I’m gonna go do my homework.”
Izuku didn’t actually do any homework - he’d finished it all at school anyway. There wasn’t much else to do when his teachers kept reviewing things they’d already taught and he didn’t know how to make his notes any more thorough. He just laid down in his bed, and quietly played a game of ‘interrogation’ with his Silver Age All Might action figure. It was one of the few games he could think of that didn’t involve a lot of moving, because his stomach was cramping uncomfortably and he hadn’t wanted to ask for a snack downstairs. Mom would ask why he was already hungry when lunch wasn’t very long ago, and then he’d have to tell her about the destroyed bento box. He wanted to put off that particular conversation just a little longer.
There weren’t a lot of Villain figurines in his collection to choose from, but he had a few - specifically for these kinda games. ConeFish had been an impressive Villain a few years back, with a Quirk that made her grow poisonous spines all over her body, and she could even eject them as projectiles. She was taken down by Eraserhead in the end - an elusive underground hero with a long-range weapon made for capture instead of causing harm. Evidently, the cloth (or whatever the grey blur was made of) wasn’t affected by that toxin, so it must've not been very acidic.
For the next two hours, Izuku worked on his impression of All Might’s voice, questioning ConeFish about why she’d blown up the subway tracks. It occupied him enough that he might have missed his mom calling for him downstairs, if he hadn’t been listening for it in the first place.
The food was amazing, and he went to bed happy enough. Bad day over. No world-ending events, nothing dramatic. Just a Quirkless boy going hungry for a few hours because of school bullies.
Except that the exact same scenario kept happening. Kacchan knew where he ate lunch now, and came to find him almost every day to blow up his food or dump it in the trash or any other number of creative ways to ruin Izuku’s lunch. After a while he figured out how to eat very quickly to avoid Kacchan ruining it, or he’d take it to the bathroom and lock himself away in a stall to avoid the harassment altogether. It became second- nature, just another part of his routine.
And it worked for him, until it didn’t.
Izuku felt like he was practically starving. Maybe it was because he was still growing, or because he very suddenly didn’t have access to as many calories as he was used to, but it felt like there was never a time when he wasn’t hungry now. Even after eating a full meal, his stomach cramped up and rumbled constantly, causing teachers to glower at him in class.
It was a change to his life that left him sad and in pain for weeks before he adjusted; the cramps and pains were a constant presence, but he got used to them over time. It was as dramatic as it was subtle - it happened suddenly, knocking him off course, but he recovered in the way that children tend to do.
Then, one day, there was another change.
It was about to be lunch time, the bell was due to ring any minute. He hadn’t even bothered bringing a real lunch today, just stuffed an apple into his bag and hid what his mother had packed in the vegetable drawer of the fridge at home. He’d eat it when he got back from school where he could actually enjoy the taste, even if he’d never be satisfied by any amount of food he ate.
Kacchan and his cronies (he knew Tsubasa, but he wasn’t sure about the other two Kacchan called Fingers and Teeth) approached him to ruin his lunchtime again. There wasn’t any food to blow up, though, so Kacchan settled for burning him.
Izuku writhed as long fingers wrapped around his arms and held them back, and Kacchan put a hand right over his face. He could feel the heat radiating from the palm, could smell the sweet scent of nitroglycerin, like burnt sugar being pressed right against his nose. He didn’t think about what he did next, he just did it - instinctually, he knew if Kacchan set off that blast, it’d leave permanent damage. To his eyes, his nose, his whole face. So he opened his mouth and bit down.
He got the blonde’s hand right in the meaty part between the thumb and pointer finger, and didn’t let go. With a startled cry of pain, Bakugou Katsuki set off an explosion of much more power than originally planned, sending Izuku’s head flying back with the force.
Fortunately, Kacchan’s hand didn’t follow Izuku’s head, even though he never let go - only a small chunk of it did. Izuku could taste the piece of flesh between teeth, as blood filled his mouth and dribbled down his chin. Kacchan’s friends ran away screaming and shouting for a teacher. Kacchan himself hesitated for a second, then he stalked off; probably to get his hand fixed.
It took Izuku a few moments to realise that a piece of Kacchan’s hand was still between his lips, just sitting there. For some stupid reason, he didn’t spit it out, and instead chewed on it like a particularly tough piece of gum. There were no immediate warning bells in his brain telling him to stop doing this, so he didn't; he let himself run on autopilot.
Or he did , until he saw a teacher round the corner of the building, walking towards him very quickly. Izuku hastily rationalized that if there was no evidence, he couldn’t get in trouble. So he turned away from the approaching figure and swallowed the chunk of flesh in his mouth, wondering why it didn’t actually… taste that awful? But he shook that thought away as he furiously scrubbed his face with the back of his sleeve - the uniform was black, so it shouldn’t leave a noticeable stain.
Unconsciously licking up the last bit of wetness on his lips, Izuku turned back and tried to smile innocently.
...He still got in trouble, because multiple students attested to him biting Kacchan. It just made things more awkward when the principal absentmindedly asked where all the blood was, with how large Kacchan’s wound was. Izuku said nothing. He was already enough of a freak, no one needed to know what… what he’d done.
Izuku was given detention for a week, and wasn’t allowed to eat outside anymore, but that was nothing compared to the look his mom gave him when he got home. He was so ashamed by the disappointed tears in her eyes… he didn't realize the lack of hunger he felt the rest of the evening.
Izuku’s fourteenth birthday was in a month, which was exciting, because then he was just a year away from highschool! He’d finally be able to apply for UA’s hero course!
But that wasn’t the only thing he was excited about at the moment; just a few blocks from his house, there was a Hero fight happening! All Might could be there! More likely it’d be Kamui Woods since he was a recent debut in the area and trying to make a name for himself, but that’d be cool too!
Running like he’d just stolen something very expensive, Izuku clutched his Hero Analysis for the Future, Vol. 13 notebook to his chest tightly. Just as he was about to turn the corner to where the fight should be, a large tremor ran through the ground, nearly sending him sprawling. And right there, not a hundred feet away, was All Might punching a huge and significantly armored Villain.
It didn’t look like anyone he recognized, so Izuku immediately flipped to the first blank page in his notebook and started sketching the Villain. They looked like a huge armadillo, covered in scales that seemed to resist some of All Might’s lower-level punches. They buckled and practically disintegrated under a Texas Smash though, so this was no big deal for the country’s No. 1 Hero. The fight was over in moments, and Izuku barely had time to get a good sketch of the Villain down before flipping hastily to the first page of his book.
Each journal’s first few pages were always dedicated to All Might, depending on how much the Hero’s costume or moves had changed since the last installment. Sometimes there was nothing new to add at all, but he still filled an entire page with sketches and brief anecdotes as a basic requirement. He didn’t have a good reason, it just felt right to dedicate at least a little bit of each new Hero Analysis for the Future to the best Hero ever.
The rest of his day was spent in the afterglow of watching All Might fight from so close up. He made some preliminary notes on the Villain as he walked, with what he could remember of their fighting style and Quirk. It was rare, but sometimes they escaped jail or prison later, and he might want to add more, so he made sure to leave an extra page blank just in case.
He didn’t notice anything was out of the ordinary until someone grabbed him by the shoulder, yanking him off the street and into an alley. Izuku tried to scream, but they covered his mouth with one hand as they dragged him further with the other. When they got as far as the person presumably wanted to take him, they slammed him up against a wall.
Izuku blinked the spots from his vision furiously, taking in the criminal before him. He couldn’t tell much about them on sight, but it was pretty obvious what their quirk was - their hair was composed of a dozen ropes of thick, octopus-like tentacles, the color varying from bright red to a muddy brown. Each one moved independently, but surprisingly none of them were used to restrain him - maybe they didn’t have that great control over it? Or they didn’t feel that it was necessary for the situation, what if the limbs could secrete some kind of poison-
“Look kid, give me all your valuables before I kill just kill you and pick ‘em off your corpse!”
Oh. That’s bad. He doesn’t really have anything to give them, a few spare yen and his library card being the only thing he keeps in his wallet. This person was speaking with a very slight accent, which seemed an odd thing for his brain to focus on at the moment. Were they foreign? Or did they just not realize he was barely a teenager and thus couldn’t have much of anything worth stealing on his person?
When Izuku didn’t answer, frantically mumbling and trying to think of a way to de-escalate things, they snarled and slammed him into the wall again, hand squeezing around his throat as their hair-tentacles thrashed wildly. One slammed into the wall behind him, and Izuku felt his heart skip a beat as a chunk of brick flew away.
What was he supposed to do? He had nothing to give them, and couldn’t even articulate this because all of the air was being stolen from his lungs.
What do I do what do I do what do I do-
He slapped the back of the hand on his throat. Surprisingly, they relaxed their grip immedietly. Blinking the tears from his eyes, Izuku pretended to reach for his back pocket while he tried to think. There was nothing he could do here, he was powerless - what was he supposed to do against someone clearly so much stronger?
Even Kacchan got hurt when you bit him, came a thought, unbidden from his subconscious.
But what if I really hurt them? Well, it's not like anyone really cares when I get hurt, but I don't want to hurt anyone else. But if I do nothing, I'll probably die. Would doing something make that more or less likely?
He was really starting to doubt he would get out of this alive, even if he had a million yen to give… Taking a deep breath, Izuku let his legs give out under him, praying his stupid, stupid plan would work. He let his body go limp, falling a bit forward as he collapsed.
Surprisingly enough, it was much more effective than he could have ever thought. The villain stumbled back for a second, probably thinking Izuku was going to fall into them, but just as quickly they crouched down to his level.
“Hey, don’t faint! I didn't cut off your air for that long, did I??”
Then, Izuku lunged - closing his jaws around the first thing he could make contact with, his eyes screwed shut in anticipation. Izuku’s attacker let out a strangled scream that quickly turned into a gurgle, thrashing underneath him and slamming their fists into his back and side. He barely registered the blows and he sank his teeth deeper, until his premolars clacked together, painfully grinding against one another in the back of his mouth.
After a few moments, the criminal stopped thrashing, and Izuku pulled away. Turns out the first place he could reach… was their neck. They were dead, it was obvious. He didn’t feel as horrified as he probably should have, as he sat back and felt warmth leak down his neck and under his collar. A sizable chunk of flesh remained in his mouth; he chewed it slowly, as if testing the feel in his mouth.
It didn’t taste bad. It was no Katsudon, but it was surprisingly nice. For several moments, Izuku chewed and chewed until… he swallowed it. Suddenly, Izuku’s stomach made itself very known, like a man stranded in a desert who’d just had his first drink of water.
Well, they… they were already dead, right? It wasn’t like he would be hurting anyone if he… no, no this was fine. Totally fine. Probably.
Leaning down carefully, Izuku braced his hands on the shoulders of the person below him. He couldn’t find it in him to feel entirely guilty, looking into those lifeless eyes; this person was going to kill him first, he just acted in self defense. Carefully, he sank his teeth back into the still-gushing throat. He bit down, yanked his head back, chewed, and swallowed. It was somehow even better than the first taste, and after that he just couldn’t stop himself. He ate and ate until his stomach stopped growling, until he was no longer hungry. And then he continued until he was full.
Gasping lungfuls of air as he sat back, Izuku couldn’t believe it. For the first time in years, he was actually full! No more nagging hunger pains, no more awful cramps, just a comfortable, satiated feeling as his stomach adjusted to the sensation of… something like normalcy, anyway.
Taking a step back and grimacing at the mess, he wondered if he should try to clean up at all. There wasn’t much he could do now, though. It was mostly bones left, and a serious mess of blood. He'd always been pretty squeamish around horror movies, but this strangely didn't bother him - perhaps he was just too enthused by how content he felt to be bothered. It was probably a good time to run, seeing as he didn't have several gallons of bleach available - and he'd rather not linger to be caught for this.
So he ran. Izuku ran down back alleys and unpopulated side-streets, slammed into garbage cans and leapt around stray cats until he found his apartment complex. The sun was setting, and he was grateful for the small measure of cover as he snuck around the back of the building to find the hoses for the community garden. He hosed off as much as possible, and whatever remaining blood was thankfully indistinguishable from any other fluid on his dark shirt and pants. The smell wasn’t so bad either, once he took a few fistfulls of growing lavender and rubbed it on his clothes.
He told his mom he fell in the river, and she fussed over him, demanding he take a hot bath and put on fresh clothes immediately. It wasn’t until he was in bed that night that Izuku realized he’d dropped his journal somewhere along the way. For a while, he was upset - but there was just so much else for him to process that it quickly faded from his thoughts.
A tiny, whisper-quiet corner of his mind demanded that he should feel shame, regret, disgust. He’d eaten a person after all. But… It had been a bad person. A person who hurt others, instead of trying to get help for whatever situation they were in. All he did was stop a criminal, and take an… admittedly gruesome reward for it. Heroes receive praise and gifts all the time, the flesh and blood of something already dead wouldn’t be missed by anyone, right? Once they were dead, it wasn’t much different from eating pork or beef - it was a living thing, but now it’s dead, and no one bats an eye.
Kacchan treated him like he was even more worthless than pork, and he was still alive. It was just flesh.
Just flesh, that satisfied him more than any amount of food had in years.