Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya hugged his own torso as he walked.
It was cold out. December. He had brought a jacket with him to school, but someone stole it. Unfortunately a common occurrence at Aldera Junior High. Atleast for him, it was.
Izuku doesn't know why he bothers to bring anything other than just his backpack to school with him anymore. It just gets stolen anyway. And the Midoriya family can't really afford to replace any more stolen shoes.
And so he tried not to shiver as he walked. He also tried to not slip on ice. There was a broken off chunk of ice on the pavement infront of him. And so he did what anyone with any common sense would do.
He kicked it.
And so that chunk of ice is now his companion. He kept kicking it infront of him as he walked. He didn't necessarily have anything better to do.
He could see the top left corner of his apartment building from where he currently was. It was a beat-up, old building, with concrete walls and a very unreliable heating-cooling system, it had vending machines in the lobby that served as homes for rats.
Fancy stuff, right?
But it was cheap. The only reason why the Midoriya family lived there instead of some bougie townhome. They couldn't afford much more than what they had, when they were living off of a seamstress' salary.
Izuku had tried to convince his mom to let him get a job. But she said it was too dangerous to get a job around here, and too far of a commute for a fourteen year old to make to get a job someplace else. Even if they could really use the money.
But by far, the worst part about where they lived, is that it was right next to the border of Vikkarda.
What exactly is Vikkarda? Well, a long time ago, the two sides of Reiukona— (the continent they shared) lived generally in peace. Okkodia, and Vikkarda.
They were basically the same, however, Vikkarda was a bit of a cheaper place to live.
But then, Okkodia formed a council, all of their wealthiest people brought together into one room.
And they decided that a certain group of people, were ruining their community. Criminals, they told Izuku, and the rest of his classmates. They learned a lot about this in social studies.
There were bad people in Okkodia, so the High Council simply forced them to move to Vikkarda. It was better for everyone this way, right?
And this caused Vikkarda to progressively become a very dangerous place. All sorts of people lived there— people with mutation quirks, people with dangerous, villainous, even, quirks. Criminals, murderers, all of the above.
And Izuku lived right on the border.
It was a very shady place. It had a decent amount of Enforcers and Heroes patrolling constantly, but it did little to stop the crime.
It was getting dark out. It was 4:30 PM. School had let out at 4, but he had the job of cleaning the classroom today. Again. Like he has been having for the past few weeks, because his classmates don't feel like doing the work, so they pass it on to him in exchange for agreeing to not write slurs on his desk in sharpie anymore.
Usually behavior like that gets corrected by the teachers, as Okkodians are supposed to be above such behaviors, but Izuku was quirkless, so they didn't do much to stop his classmates from picking on him.
They liked to call him a Vikkardian. As if he lived there. Izuku was not like them. Izuku was not a Vikkardian. He wasn't like them.
The cold December wind hit his face as he walked. It was breezy today, to say the least. He could almost feel the water in his eyes actively freezing.
Despite his vision being impaired, as he was squinting to avoid the cold wind, he saw a black van drive by.
This by itself wasn't especially a worry to him. A lot of people around here drive vans, they're big and cheap and easy to live in, if need be.
What worried him is that the windows were blanked out. Not with window tint, like a lot of cars around here had, for the innocent reason of not wanting people-- criminals, to look inside their car,
But no, the windows were blanked out fully, by what looked like duct tape.
Izuku took note of their license plate. Just incase.
It's not necessarily an uncommon occurrence in this area to get kidnapped. Izuku watches the news with his mom every night, he's seen all the missing cases. None of them were ever solved. Likely the perpetrator brought the victims into Vikkarda where no Enforcers or Heroes would ever go looking for them.
They were all unimportant people, to the High Council, anyway, so they never got found.
He was the only one around. As if he were walking in a ghost town. He was alone. Surrounded by abandoned and graffitied buildings.
He had long since abandoned the chunk of ice he had been kicking. It wasn't important.
He's almost home anyway. He can't wait to just curl up in bed and watch a Hero documentary. Maybe a new All Might documentary.
Izuku knows that a lot of Heroes are corrupt, yes, but he likes to think differently about All Might. He isn't selfish, he isn't shallow, and he actually protects people.
Unlike most Heroes, all of the profits of All Might's merch go to charities for recovering addicts, victims of domestic abuse, orphanages, things of the sort. It was quite respectable in Izuku's own opinion.
A few moments later, he saw the same black van drive by again. The same blanked out windows. The same license plate.
Izuku's anxiety spiked.
He took a few steps to his right, making sure he wasn't close to the edge of the road. He didn't want to be easy to grab. Just in case.
For all Izuku knew, maybe these people weren't even looking to kidnap him. Maybe they were just driving around the block to kill some time.
Or maybe they were driving around the block to kill some quirkless kids.
Okay, let's not think about that. The best thing to do right now is to just keep walking, right? He was close enough to home. If he starts running, they might realize he knows they're following him.
Though he subconsciously started walking faster anyway.
What All Might documentary should he watch once he gets home? Should he watch the one that was exclusively released in Carnatia, (which was a territory across the ocean, not many people were wealthy enough to travel there, but everyone knew of it,) or should he watch the one about merchandise production?
Izuku nodded to himself as he decided to watch the foreign documentary.
The reason it was only released in Carnatia is because the High Council didn't want it to be available in Okkodia at all. Izuku's father bought it for him years and years ago. His mom didn't let him watch it until he turned 13, though. Because of the PG-13 rating. She was strict like that.
It features All Might talking about the High Council's Hero Commision division of authority, and how they allegedly mistreat a lot of the Heroes and Enforcers.
It was one of Izuku's favorites. He wasn't quite sure why.
He was lost in his thoughts, when he was kicked out of his own wandering brain by the loud screech of a car braking.
His heart stopped. He looked up. The van had stopped driving.
The van was parked slightly infront of Izuku, with it's back to him. Once Izuku saw the back doors of the van start to open, he was already sprinting the direction he had came.
There was nothing going through his head other than a repeating mantra of, Run, don't stop, keep going, fuck!.
The cold wind was hitting the back of his head. Atleast he wasn't running against the wind and instead running the way it was blowing.
His shoe was coming untied. His lungs were gasping for air. He heard men's voices behind him shouting. He couldn't tell what they were saying. He didn't care enough.
But he had to keep running. It doesn't matter where. A place with more people? For all Izuku knew, that could be a few miles away. He couldn't run for that long.
The men's shouting was getting closer. His heart was beating so fast. He was getting tired.
But before he could stop running from exhaustion, he slipped on a chunk of ice.
The same ice he had been kicking earlier.
Life seemed to move in slow motion as he fell. His head hit the ground.
THUD!
Izuku didn't remember much of what happened after he tripped.
He knew he hit the ground— he knew there was a man that looked not unlike a lizard, who had bright purple hair.
And he knew there was a man who smelled of burning flesh, and from the look of his face— yep, that was burnt flesh, being held together by staples.
That's.. unsettling, to say the least.
He knew he had been screaming. Loud. His throat was sore. He remembers he had been kicking his legs— and squirming, and struggling, and trying to get out if their grasp— the lizard man's cold, scaly hands were grabbing his frail arms and his sharp claws leaving scratches behind.
And he knew they loaded him into their van. Weirdly it smelled strongly or air freshener—maybe an attempt to cover up other smells.
He didn't know what his surroundings looked like, however, because they had rightly tied a tight blindfold over his eyes, thought Izuku had tried to resist.
Then, Izuku felt a sharp pinch in the side of his neck.
Before he passed out, he heard speaking. He couldn't quiet make out what they were saying— but he had heard something about.. drugs. And.. quirkless. They knew he was quirkless.
Was this a targeted attack? Why would they want to kidnap quirkless people?
And how would they even know he was quirkless in the first place? Maybe it was from his shoes. You see, quirkless people have differently shaped feet than quirked people— due to the extra joint in their pinky toe. It doesn't make much or a difference, but regular shoes can be uncomfortable.
Izuku was lucky enough to have the privilege to have these shoes. His mother saved up for months to buy them for him. But unfortunately, they were a literal red flag, making it easy for people to tell he was a quirkless individual.
The injection they gave Izuku caused him to pass out for the rest of the ride.
When Izuku woke up, he was in a dark, cold room. He could feel the softness of a mattress under him— along with the stabbing feeling of a spring having broke free from the mattress and poking into his thigh. He was sat upright— he could tell that much. He was leaned against a pillow.
"H- Hello?.." Izuku called out. He didn't get an answer.
Nobody was in the room with him, it seemed. Izuku breathed out a sigh of relief. He would rather be alone in a dark room than there be someone in there with him, unable to be seen.
Izuku tried to lift his arm— only to find that his hands were binded behind him with something made of metal, handcuffs, probably. His wrists hurt. How long had he been sat here?
The young teen didn't know why he was so relaxed right now. He should be thrashing. He should be screaming in terror and agony. But he wasn't. He didn't quite have the energy right now. Not like anything he was able to do right now would help the situation.
All he could feel right now was the mattress beneath him, the cuffs binding him, and a sharp pain in his upper arm. Not unlike the one he similarly felt in his neck, where they had injected him back in the van.
He doesn't have a blindfold on currently— he knew that much. He could see the small amount of light, moonlight, it seemed, peeking through the edge of the tight blinds.
'I guess I'll just have to wait this out.. until someone comes to get me. Or maybe nobody will come to get me,' he thought, sighing to himself.
Now, Izuku wasn't particularly suicidal. Even if he had thoughts every once in awhile, he would never act on it. His mom needed him too much. But right now, he felt that he would rather have been killed right away than experience what he might have to experience while being here.
He can still feel the rough material of his gakuran— (Middle school uniform,) rubbing against his skin. He could see the small reflection of moonlight shining against the metal buttons, Thank God.
Atleast these people weren't creeps. Hopefully. Izuku crossed his fingers behind his back. There was still a chance they could be creeps. But atleast they didn't do anything weird to him while he was passed out.
But they took his backpack. Probably. He couldn't see it in the dark of the room— and the bright yellow fabric is pretty easy to see! Along with the reflective strips Izuku's mother had sewn onto each side of the bag.
She was frequently worried about him being hit by a vehicle, since the sun was setting a lot later this time of year.
Hopefully they didn't break his phone. He's got a lot of things saved on there— along with the fact that if he didn't have a phone, he likely couldn't call for help.
Shoot. his notebook. If they have his backpack, and if they looked through his things, it's very likely he have his notebook, too.
It wasn't just not getting his stuff back Izuku was worried about, he was also worried about the fact that he had practically stalked various Pro-Heroes, analyzing their quirks, finding out their addresses, tons of information that would be useful to villains. Limelight Heroes, Underground Heroes, all types. He wouldn't necessarily call himself a professional analyst, but the fact that he had personal information on many famous Heroes, and that personal information was now in the hands of the people who kidnapped him, wasn't necessarily good.
And who knows, maybe they wouldn't even look through his notebook. He was just a student, after all. He had tons of notebooks. To the naked eye, it wouldn't really look like anything special.
Even if it did have the words, Hero Analysis For The Future written on the front cover.
Izuku paused.
Well, nothing he could really do about it now.
After a while of sitting quietly in the dark, his mind frantically finding through all the possibilities of what could happen, he finally heard the door click open.
A stream of light from the hallway filled the room.
Izuku froze. Crap.
He squeezed his eyes shut— doing a bad job of pretending to be asleep. He could tell, from the light shining through his closed eyelids, turning them a brighter red, that the unknown person had turned on the lights in the room, making the room even brighter than before.
Izuku's heart was racing.
Oh God. They were gonna kill him. Oh fuck.
"Open your eyes," The unknown person said. It sounded like it had a filter, or a voice changer over it. And he had a very formal tone to him. He? Maybe? Probably, Izuku guessed it was a man.
Izuku, knowing he was already fucked beyond fix, slowly peeked one eye open.
It was blurry, but he got an okay look at the man— was it a man? Was it even a human?— who was standing right infront of the bed.
His head was made out of glowing purple smoke, and he had a silver mask infront of it. He had yellow glowing eyes— that, similarly to the rest of his face, were made of smoke, but Izuku could tell that they were his eyes.
He wore a very neat vest-suit. He seemed very formal.
He held a platter of what seemed to be— and smelled to be, food, in his left hand.
Izuku almost— almost admitted to himself that he was hungry. But no, he couldn't. Because if he admitted to himself that he was hungry, then he wouldn't be able to forget the fact that he was hungry.
It was kinda hard to keep lying to himself though, when he heard his stomach rumble loud enough for even the man infront of him to hear.
Izuku slowly opened his other eye.
'This guy looks like some kind of butler..' Izuku thought to himself, gulping.
"I've brought you dinner," the butler-looking man said, lowering the platter onto the bedside table.
"Katsudon; your favorite, as you've mentioned in your diary."
Izuku blushed, embarrassed.
"H- Hey! It is not a diary. It's an analysis notebook," he blurted out without thinking.
People at school liked to tease Izuku, and call his very distinguished analysis notebook, a girly diary. Which it is not. It is a very professionally organized notebook of compiled analyses and information, that should be taken very seriously.
But that's when Izuku realized something very terrible.
They did look through his bag— and they do have his notebook. Along with all the information inside of it.
Not only do they have his notebook— they have his phone, his school ID, his wallet, everything.
shit.
Maybe Izuku shouldn't be rude to this guy. Wait— was this even one of thebguys who had kidnapped him? He didn't remember him. Or were those guys just middlemen? Oh shit— did he get sold??
"I suggest you keep your manners," the mysterious man said bluntly,
"I also suggest you eat your food before it gets cold."
Izuku hesitated for a moment, before sighing and lifting his hand.
That was when he was painfully reminded, with a wince, of his.. impairment. Cuffs on his wrists bound to the bedframe.
Creepy way of tying someone up, sure, but he'd rather be sitting on a bed than on the cold, hard, gross floor, for hours on end.
The suit-clad man noticed Izuku's struggle, and reached into his pocket, gracefully taking out a small key that looked to be a match to the cuffs.
"I realize you cannot eat whilst being impared,"
The man said, slow as ever reaching down and unlocking the teen's wrists.
"I apologize for binding you. Master's orders," He added, giving a small nod of his— head? Before leaving the room.
Master? That's ominous. What if it's some kind of hot, 20 year old mafia boss?
Okay, it's most likely not. But can you blame Izuku for trying to glamorize this situation?
Being held against his will by a hot 20 year old mafia boss, like in one of those fantasy dark romances, is definitely a lot better of a situation than some creepy killer old guy!
Or maybe it's a woman. A woman wearing a tight suit and.. has long blonde hair, and, okay— stop that.
Most likely it was some ancient, evil man.
Izuku turned his attention back to the plate of food placed on his bedside table. Should he trust it?
Izuku thought for a moment. Why would they kidnap him, just to immediately poison him as soon as he woke up? That wouldn't make any sense at all. Unless they were just trying to take his belongings— but in that case, why not just mug him? Or why not just kill him right away?
But why would they want him, or his belongings, at all?
He was just some random quirkless kid. He didn't come from a wealthy, or even well-known, family. He was practically invisible to everyone he met— he didn't even have a quirk, for fuck's sake.
He's pretty much average in every single way.
But what even are the chances that it's poisoned, right?
Right?
But.. he was so hungry. He had tried to not think about it— tried to ignore it, but it was inevitable.
He was most likely gonna die either way. What were the risks?
Izuku grabbed the bowl off of the platter and set it down on his lap. He picked up the chopsticks included on the side of the bowl, and began to chow down.
Oh shit. This is some good katsudon. His mother's own recipe wasn't even this good! Don't tell her that. Izuku would never say that to her face, but it's true.
After a few minutes of desperately stuffing his face, the bowl was completely empty.
He placed the bowl back down on the platter that still was set on his nightstand. And only a second later the man from before opened the door once again, and stood there in the doorframe looking at Izuku.
"Master has summoned you," he said monotonely, as per usual. His voice was rather.. mechanical. It was obvious that the man's voice was being filtered, probably though the mask. Maybe for anonymity? Or maybe he had a deformation of some sorts.
Izuku blinked in surprised confusion.
"Uhm.. okay."