Chapter Text
“I do dislike how unscientific it is,” Doctor Garaki complains, as Izuku cuts off his own hand with a stifled scream.
The hand falls next to the corpse’s body parts with a dull thud.
It was almost embarrassing, Izuku had done this dozens of times, and yet he still only barely managed not to scream.
“Do you want the guy back to life or not” the fourteen year old snaps, putting down the sharp knife. It’s not a question.
Garaki simply chuckles, looking down at the body once more as he watches Izuku activating his quirk once more.
Izukus hand was already growing itself back, bone, veins, nerves, muscles, skin, than scar. It’s always in that order. Izuku thought he knew pain, but he was only ever truly reminded of it when his nerves were newly reformed and were covered in layers of muscle. That scream was always harder to hold back than the one he would smother for the act of cutting himself apart.
Izuku never was allowed to truly analyze any quirk, so he would never admit it, but he always found it funny how his index finger didn’t grow back even after All For One gave him the regeneration quirk.
Izuku picks up his fallen hand, placing it among the machine and flesh. He touches it with one finger, and then it starts to stir.
Garaki is already ready, stabbing the undead man with the needle which contained some kind of sedative.
Izuku hated these moments in between life and death. Izuku hated All For One, hated Shigaraki, hated Garaki, hated life, hated himself.
Izuku wondered if the reason he always felt so present in this lab was because of his hate.
All For One was a cruel villain, but he was an even worse father, killing people every day just to force Izuku to bring them back. All For One liked to kill Izuku as well, but he always came back from…
Izuku came back from death, but it felt more like coming back from the concept of nothingness.
The Nothing was an odd thing, it was an infinity of no emotion, no feeling, no memory, no thought. But the thing about infinity, is it doesn’t end, obviously. Infinity is obviously infinite, but it still managed to surprise Izuku that it still hadn’t ended.
Izuku could feel the Nothing in the back of his mind. Usually, the nothing was at the front and center, like a horrible case of brain fog, but here in the lab Izuku doesn’t feel the Nothing. He only feels rage.
How many dead bodies were in this room?
Izuku can remember the first time he died, the first time he felt the nothing, and a small part of him had always been there. Then Izuku died again, and the part of him that was stuck in infinity grew. Then he died again, and again, and again, and again, and by that point All For One was killing him every other time in their stupid little biweekly meetings.
A large part of izuku was still dead, and it was a miracle it didn’t show on his body. On the good days, the part of izuku that was dead was in the background, on the bad days, the death was in the front of his mind. On most days he still dissociated.
Izukus eyes snap back to the body, Garaki’s putting it in one of his weird floating tanks so he can perform some kind of gene therapy on it.
This body had been missing a lot of pieces, usually bodies were missing a lot, but it was unusual that this dude was missing both arms and it’s head.
Usually, when making a nomu, they only needed Izukus blood. But this was a nother high end nomu, it needed more of izuku so it wouldn’t end up a brainless zombie.
When izuku was reviving a normal person, just a drop of blood and a touch of the hand was needed. But when someone was missing more of themselves, they needed more of izuku so their brain got enough energy to function.
Izuku massages the scar now on his wrist; there was already a ring there from all the times he had to cut off his hand, but it’s slightly thicker now.
Izuku glances at the pile of bodies, he can feel death, can feel how the essence of the body loosens the longer the bodies are dead. He doesn’t like the feeling of pulling the essence back together.
Tonight will be a very long night.