Chapter Text
He awoke with a yawn. Izuku had only closed his eyes for a second or so and now he was awake again… with the distinct sense that he was not quite himself, or more than himself, like someone was sitting on his shoulder and watching his every move. Somehow this didn’t frighten him. He understood, implicitly, what was going on and it was nothing special; just an ordinary Monday like any other. There was much to do… observe… learn. Some important decisions and offers to consider, but in the meantime… school. He shook his head and rose from the bench.
Izuku ran to make it on time, swapping shoes at his locker and walking swiftly down the hall as Aldera’s late bell approached.
Two students, one Kacchan’s friend and one a girl Izuku barely recognized, pushed him hard enough to make him stumble as he passed each of them. Nobody tried to trip him, though, or steal anything from him. That was nice. It might be a good day after all.
He made it on time by a comfortable margin but almost wished he hadn’t. Classes seemed intolerably boring; part of him already knew all of this. Izuku wrote in his hero analysis journal while pretending to take notes. He’d never had a chance to get another pair of eyes on his work. The opportunity was refreshing, even if he wasn't getting his feedback in words per se.
He ate his lunch alone, squirreled away in a nook between the school building and one of the sheds full of sporting equipment. It was a secret, peaceful place. No one would try to take his food here. If the teachers ever wondered where the greenette had gone, they never looked for him. When the weather turned inclement he would have to venture back inside, though. He wasn’t looking forward to that.
He disapproved of all of these things. Izuku normally didn’t notice any of the casual bigotry displayed towards him, but now he wasn’t just Izuku and the angel (devil?) on his shoulder was frothing at the mouth in rage. How… odd… It was strangely comforting to have his mind-guest so offended on his behalf. Everyone else, they saw that he was quirkless and then they stopped caring. He had the vague impression of the shoulder-sitter patting his hair and whispering half-sensical apologies to him… “I’m sorry all these people take perverse pride in being less than they can be.” A smile spread slowly across the student's face.
Izuku had listed UA as his number one choice for high school. That didn’t necessarily mean heroics; it just meant “that prestigious high school that I probably have the necessary grades to get into,” and yet Mr. Kondo… felt the need to tell the entire class that Izuku wanted to go to UA and then Bakugou… snarling and showing his fangs, shouted and swore at him. Mr. Kondo told them to settle down… but it was blatant in his tone and body language that he didn’t care a bit. “No quirks in class…” and yet there were never any consequences for people who broke those rules. There shouldn’t be consequences, of course, for existing as a meta human. Saying “no quirks in class” was like saying “you may not be yourself in class.” It was a medieval, bigoted, hate-breeding policy, just like all the other laws governing quirk expression in Japan, giving everyone the idea that the quirked and the quirkless were somehow fundamentally different races who should have different rights. The Meta Separation Movement might have seemed less radical than the original MLA, but really the opposite was true. Binning up humankind by category never ended well.
Mr. Kondo--who, to be fair, might not have noticed as he was on his way out the door when it started--didn’t do a thing after class when Bakugou pounced on Izuku, ripping the notebook full of countless hours of thoughts and careful analysis from the greenette’s hands, charring it with his quirk and hurling it out the open window. Izuku didn’t hear much of the blonde’s venomous rant about “being the only one from this shitty school to make it to UA;” he was too busy feeling his mind-guest boil over like a tea kettle. “Why don’t you take a swan dive off the roof? Pray for a quirk in your next life.” Bakugou didn’t yell, and the insult was all the more devastating for its unusually calm delivery. The blonde left, giving Izuku a harsh shove and one final burn for emphasis. The blonde’s cronies pitched some casual comments about “useless Deku” over their shoulders as they followed.
Izuku drifted slowly to the window, leaning out and staring down at the fish pond where his notebook had landed. Just like any other Monday…
“Is it really?” a voice that sounded an awful lot like his own asked without speaking a word.
“Yes,” Izuku hummed, staring down the three stories. The mortality rate from a four-story fall was fifty-percent. He didn’t know off the top of his head what the mortality rate from a three-story fall would be. If he landed on his head the distance would surely kill him, right? Stop it. Why was he thinking about this?
Every Monday of his long, healthy life would be just like this one. People would shove him and make fun of him and steal his food if given the chance and the authority figures would smile and nod and ignore everything that happened to him because he wasn’t actually a person as far as they were concerned. He would probably never marry; nobody would want a spouse without a meta ability. He would probably die alone and unloved. Maybe Kacchan would come to his funeral and say things about how “I knew he’d never amount to anything! Look at me, a big damn hero, and look what happened to my childhood friend. Useless Deku. Pathetic.” At least Izuku wouldn’t be required to show up to his own funeral. He could have some peace and dignity six feet beneath the earth.
Why was he still standing here with his head out the window, staring down?
“Amazing. It wasn’t long ago at all that he would have been scorned and shunned, exiled and called an inhuman monster for an ability like that. How quickly the oppressed become the oppressor, forgetting everything they fought for, a little taste of power on their tongues turning them into the evil they deplore.”
“Who are you?” Izuku wondered vaguely. His body moved on its own, turning on its heel and taking several pointed steps away from the window.
“Don’t you know that?”
Oh. Right. He did. There wasn’t enough of a barrier between them to keep secrets, although… he didn’t consciously know. It was like how he knew to ride a bike. “I see,” he said, not seeing at all.
“Bakugou has no idea what it means to be a hero. You have more of an idea, although you’re still rather confused. Heroics is not an occupation. There were heroes long before the rise of the era of quirks. Practically every story since the dawn of time has revolved around the works of heroes; values change with the eras, but they were great creatures, standing head and shoulders above their peers, performing legendary services for their people or their planet. Meta abilities and the lack there of have nothing to do with it.”
“But I’m sure they help,” Izuku mused.
“Sometimes. And sometimes… they do the exact opposite of that.”
Izuku cocked his head. It moved at his behest… and then his body took a seat at a desk without asking his permission. Still, somehow that was not frightening. It was… he understood… it wasn’t really not him moving his body. “Is that why you’re here? You were looking for someone quirkless…”
“All For One chews through quirked opponents like a wood chipper eating balsa trees. It would be unforgivable to take a quirked combatant into battle against him knowing that individual would almost certainly be stripped of an integral piece of their identity… Soulstealer is an apt name for him. Beyond that… I don’t know whether he can steal active quirks through a third party if that party also has a quirk factor, but I do know for a fact that he cannot steal active quirks through a third party if that third party does not have a quirk factor.”
“What if he gave me a quirk and then tried to steal yours?” Izuku mused.
“You’re a clever little weasel, aren’t you? Perhaps that would work… but I strongly suspect not. I also suspect All For One will not think to try it. He has too many tools at his disposal, enough that one always seems perfect for the job; he never has to think creatively and tends not to notice those kinds of loop holes.”
“Little weasel? You have weird terms of endearment.” Izuku drifted further from himself as they spoke, becoming disconnected from his environment and his body.
“This I have been told.” Izuku had the impression of someone patting his hair again. “You want to be a hero? Here’s a chance for you.” Yes… yes there were people who needed to be saved and without Izuku… this might be his only chance. His entire life he might slave away at the dullest of ignoble desk jobs. His death might be graceless and unsung but… he could be important. He could be a hero, right here and now.
“You’re going to kill that person, whoever it is,” Izuku didn’t like that at all. “And you’re going to use me…”
“There might be fatalities,” his guest agreed. “But you are not responsible for them. You take all the credit, I’ll take all the blame… Everything that goes right, every life saved, that is your glory. Every life taken, that is my shame.”
“I might die,” Izuku pointed out dreamily, not convinced he should care about that point. He might have died a few minutes ago anyway. The drop from the window had started to look rather friendly… before his new acquaintance intervened.
“You might. I will protect your life and health to the best of my ability, but nothing can be guaranteed. I will promise you that no lives will be lost in the course of my work unless absolutely necessary. That includes yours… and if all goes well I will return you with some gifts for your service.”
“Gifts?” Izuku mused. The walls were thin enough for him to feel some twisted feelings in the motivation behind this, his guest attempting to appease some guilt by sweetening the deal. They wanted to make up for the ordeal they were putting the greenette through. All morning long, they’d been trying to convince themselves that taking him would be acceptable, that the trade would be fair.
“You’re not likely to remember much of anything; I don’t want you to and you probably don’t want that, either; it would complicate the situation needlessly for us both. Regardless, most people retain a bit of muscle memory afterwards. Everyone becomes exceptional at darts, for some reason. Amazing dart hustlers, the lot of them. You’ll be able to make so much money betting in bars…” Izuku giggled. “Some will remember bits and pieces of martial disciplines… It’s not something I can consciously give to you, but I think it likely you will retain some additional skills. Perhaps the next time this Bakugou fellow tries to blow up your notebooks, he will end up with the fractured wrist he deserves. You want to be a hero. This is your chance. I’m honestly not sure what I will do without your help; I haven’t found any other candidates,” nobody who would agree, anyway. The other candidates they had happened across… taking them would have been an unacceptable sin. This… given the greenette’s life and personality, Izuku would be borderline acceptable. But only if he said yes. “Time is running out… fighting All For One flat out is not an option, but something truly must be done immediately.”
“You’re really good at manipulating people…”
“I am a manipulative bastard, always have been, always will be. None the less, I am speaking the truth, and you know that I will keep my part of the deal.”
“I don’t seem to have much to lose… everything I have today, from that poor, ruined notebook to my own life…”
“You have more than you know, and I think you’ll see that much better when this is over. Sometimes you have to die to learn what living is about.”
“But you said I wouldn’t die… probably, anyway…”
“You will cease to be for a time. It is not so different from dying.”
“So you want permission to kill me?”
“It does sound particularly awful when you phrase it that way.” The voice, despite having no face, grimaced.
Nothing was sugar coated, all the dirty truth and blatant manipulations exposed to the glaring light of Izuku’s scrutiny. He wasn’t truly himself, of course. The walls were too thin… although this was as thick as they could get, wasn’t it? His guest was actively trying not to manipulate his thoughts and feelings, trying to make sure that Izuku answered this question honestly, and guiltily half-hoping that Izuku would refuse flat out and send everything back to square one because the greenette was just so young and vulnerable and easily manipulated… It was… flattering. His shoulder-sitter didn’t need his permission, of course, but asked anyway. Izuku was a person worthy of respect, a person whose body should be his own, a person whose opinions and welfare mattered. “Well, it’s not as if I weren’t thinking about taking my life myself earlier… and this is a death worthy of respect, isn’t it? Something noble… something a true hero would do.” Even Kacchan would have to say nice things about him at his funeral. It was the path of least resistance, the easiest way out. If he fought All For One and won he would be a hero, even if only one person ever knew about it. If he died, he wouldn’t have to drag himself through these miserable Mondays for the rest of his second-class life. It was a win-win scenario. “You’ll keep your part of the deal? You won’t use me to kill anyone, or maim anyone or anything like that, unless you absolutely have to. I don’t want to wake up and find out about things like that…”
“I do not lie. My word will be kept. Anyone I hurt will thoroughly deserve it.”
“Alright then. You can have me… for as long as you need me.” The walls fell away and the observer merged into his mind… like a tickling sensation starting at the back of his brain then spreading rapidly through the neural networks, settling like sediment on a sea floor, burying and consuming him, digesting thoughts and feelings from the inside out. There was no pain, just the vague sensation of his sapience falling apart--a spiderweb breaking up in the wind. How fragile life is, spun of gossamer threads linked only by thought.
It was a quiet, painless death… and yet his arm was killing him.
Izuku groaned as he drifted back to consciousness, clutching the throbbing bite scar. The fight had gone on without him it seemed… There was nobody near him anymore. “What the heck?” he muttered, dragging himself to his feet and shaking his head in search of lucidity. “Where is everybody?” He was surrounded by detritus ranging from Mineta’s orbs to random fused bits of metal to… what even was that and how did it get here? Was it alive? Best not to think about it.
Monoma was not where the greenette had left him. A buzzer rang out shrilly and Izuku jumped. Ah. Time was up.
Izuku made his way back towards the entrance of the training grounds. Eventually he met up with a very confused Tetsutetsu. “Uh. Hi?” Izuku said.
“Oh! It’s you. I was kind of worried about you…” the 1-B student greeted him and began to explain what had happened without prompting.. “Shinsou knocked you out but he actually was hurt. I think you really did break something.” Izuku winced. “But he managed to drag himself away and the fight just… kind of moved without you? Ashido managed to drag Monoma off to jail while the rest of us fought. It, uh… was mostly just chaos. I’m honestly not sure where the rest are now.”
“Why? Did you get brainwashed?”
“Yeah,” Tetsutetsu admitted. “I woke up half way to their prison… I slipped and hit my head on a pipe and came to.”
“I guess we’ll find out who won when we get out of here,” Izuku nodded to himself. He rubbed his arm absently. War Dog’s bite still ached. Honestly, she owed him more than just an apology. She ought to have sent him a gift basket or something.
Shinsou appeared, ducking out of an adjacent passageway. He walked with a heavy limp and had definitely acquired some bruises since Izuku saw him last. The look he gave the greenette overflowed with guilt but also relief. Izuku gulped and stepped to the right so that Tetsutetsu stood between them.
It wasn’t Shinsou’s fault. It was a good, clever move certainly permissible in training and laudable in a real life fight. You did whatever you needed to in order to win as quickly and neatly as possible but Shinsou knew about Izuku’s… issues and clearly felt bad about what he’d done and Izuku, Izuku didn’t want to be within a kilometer of the poor, purple haired student. It wasn’t Shinsou’s fault, it wasn’t, but it wasn’t Izuku’s, either… except it was wasn’t it?
He’d agreed. His bodysnatcher had asked him flat-out for consent to take him for a joy ride and he had given it and… he gagged as the rest of the memories began to sink in. He agreed because he’d been suicidally depressed. He hadn’t even noticed that? It wasn’t… feelings like that, that would make you seriously consider throwing yourself out a window on the urgings of an insult and a whim didn’t appear out of the blue but he’d never… he’d never felt like that before or since had he? Had his “shoulder-sitter” intentionally made him feel that way? Twisted him like that? No, no that didn’t fit with anything else. Izuku had actually felt that way, played with taking his life in his hands and throwing it away because it felt worthless. He had throw it away, hadn’t he? He’d handed it over to a stranger with nothing more than a noble motivation and a promise. A promise that had not been kept. “You didn’t have to kill Hirano,” Izuku heard himself mutter aloud, voice laced with rage, “you lied to me. You didn’t keep your part of the deal!”