Izuku awoke in a worn-out school classroom. Was this his…middle school? It looked like no-one had been here in years, maybe decades. The windows were broken, letting a heavy fog in, obscuring the wooden floorboards. He looked at his hands; they were still scarred, still strong. He hadn't just dreamt up four years of his life. And the fingers moved accurately. This wasn't like a dream, it was real. He brought One for All out, testing it with a finger snap at 2%, warping Kacchan´s old desk into a bowl. Whatever this was, he wasn't defenceless. A moment earlier he had been a prisoner of Pestilentia´s group, now he was in this…ruins? He walked along the corridors of the school, old memories of Kacchan resurfacing. All that abuse…they had worked out their issues, but the damage was done. His self-esteem had been pretty much built back up from scratch by All Might, Aizawa-sensei and his friends, he had grown a lot indeed in the end. The school was abandoned, and he felt compelled to leave, to go home. He didn't know why, it was like a suggestion said in his own voice, but with words he hadn't thought himself. Outside, the city was even greyer than the dusty school. The buildings looked completely derelict, and some were falling to pieces. Rusty wreckage filled the streets, cars long corroded into steel skeletons. Despair and fear started to overwhelm Izuku. What was this place? Was this really his old school, his home? What was going on? Was this a Quirk? Had the city been destroyed by villains?
In instants Izuku was running, his legs powered by One for All. He needed to go home. If he could get home, it would all be alright. This apocalypse could never have reached his home!
He was at the door before he could think about the path he had taken. He kicked the door down and headed for the kitchen. It was filled with his mother´s cooking utensils, and some ingredients were even out, turning to dust before his eyes. Inko Midoriya was not there. Izuku checked the rooms frantically, he just needed his mom to be alright, everything else didn't matter. The study was empty. The living room was empty. The bathrooms were empty. Mom´s room was empty.
The only room left was his own. He barged in, tears blinding him. There was no one there. Only a skeleton on the floor, its hands on its face, as if it had been crying. The skeleton was short, and the bone structure told him it had belonged to a woman. Izuku approached it "Mom? Mom!"
The skeleton crumbled.
A hand touched his shoulder, and a voice whispered into his ear "I´m afraid that needed to happen, young Midoriya. I would tell you it was painless, but that would be a lie." Izuku had never felt such anger in his life. His mother was dead, a skeleton crumbled to dust before his eyes, and this person was telling him it had been painful. He had only one way to react. Izuku punched, turning around, using 100% of One for All. The punch did not catch its target. There was no one there. The only thing moving was the wall, collapsing, along with the roof of the side of the house he had just punched.
"Now I know how you react. I am pleased my prediction was accurate. Turn around, Midoriya." He turned, fists ready to destroy the person. He found himself facing a dark silhouette, somewhat reminiscent of Kurogiri, except perhaps even blurrier, vaguer. He could only tell it was human shaped, and taller than him, about 1.90 meters tall. The figure waved its hand, and the room shifted, becoming a windswept grassland, extending flatly as far as the eye could see. "I didn't kill your mother or nuke your home and leave it like that for a hundred and fifty years. What I did was use my Quirk. As far as I know, you are quite the expert on Quirks, so I would like to know your theories. I am, obviously, Pestilentia, or at least, the part that can speak with you right now. Go ahead and tell me your ideas."
Izuku lowered his hands slightly. He needed to buy time, let the villain think he had the upper hand, and then he could strike. "I had thought of it being some sort of telepathy, based on the absence of phone records. I had thought about enhanced intelligence, or a Quirk that slowed aging, to explain the size of your organization, and its efficiency. I had to mind control, and now I´m almost sure that is the correct one." "Nicely guessed. Since it is a rare pleasure to talk with someone who is not a complete imbecile, I shall tell you exactly how it works. When a person absorbs a pheromone I secrete, either through liquid form or released in a mist, the pheromones attach themselves to the person´s brain, forming a link between my mind and the person´s.
"The pheromones convert proteins in a few areas of the brain allowing me to do a few things with my victims´ brains. I can use simple suggestion, making the person affected quite susceptible; combined with traditional brainwashing, it can turn anyone into a sleeper agent for me. With one of the proteins the pheromones produce in the victim´s brain, I can interact directly. On a conscious brain, the effect is rather subtle. You felt the need to come home a few moments ago, didn't you? That is the kind of thing I mean. But the thing is, on an unconscious mind, it allows me to accelerate the sleep cycle, getting REM sleep in as little as a minute. You do know what Rapid Eye Movement is, don't you?" Izuku nodded, Toga had told him a bit about it when she had decided to stop her nightmares as much as possible. "And in REM sleep, dreams happen. The difference between lucid dreams and normal dreams is how much of the brain is awake, and I have my little friends lighting up every synapse at my will.
"Effectively, I control the dream. And everything in it. I can only control one person at a time, and the pheromones will die within a year if not used, so it isn't useful to control too many people. And even if all this is happening at the speed of thought, I can only keep it up for a finite amount of time before the Quirk strains my abilities. Now, I can´t just read memories, but I can trigger them to appear as the dream, so I will have a peak, if you don't mind. Oh, you do mind? More´s the pity."
Izuku was standing among a group of heroes, the first to arrive to help in Okinawa. A group of terrorists had unleashed a wind pressure bomb by accident as they transported it to Taiwan, where they were planning to cause massive destruction. The islands of Taketomi, Ishigaki, Tarama, Yonaguni and Miyakojima had suffered extensive damage by the wind blast and had become the eye of what had evolved into the largest typhoon in years. Wind currents had carried it to Japan, and Izuku could see the true force of nature, stirred by mankind´s hubris.
The typhoon was massive, stronger than any villain, deadlier than anything he had ever faced. Around him stood his team; Todoroki, Iida, Ochako, Yaoyorozu, and Tsuyu, ready to help. Using an exoskeleton, Mei was already helping JSDF soldiers carry crates and pallets of supplies for the civilians. The other teams on scene included the Shiketsu Squad, two groups from B Class, and about fifty other assorted heroes. The coordinator was a JSDF Colonel, Colonel Shinatose, a veteran of many relief efforts. "Midoriya, your team will link up with an American team and evacuate the civilians on your Area of Responsibility to their airfield. The storm winds will reach us in four hours, the typhoon proper in five. Citizens were already told what to do, so we expect an orderly evac. You will help direct them, and rescue anyone trapped. Now go! Next one, Kendo, you take your team to the hotels by the beach…" Izuku and his team were already moving, Todoroki and Iida taking point. The American airfield was a few miles away, and they had to take into account the time.
Followed by a group of Marines in rescue helmets, the heroes went building by building, directing the civilians to the airbase. Hundreds of civilians moved orderly and quickly to safety, but a few panicked, or were unable to get there on their own, so the heroes helped to get them on the way. The area was quite large, and Izuku was quite proud that they had been given such a large responsibility. He still felt he had let everyone down when All for One had escaped, even if most of the villains had been captured, so it was good to be acknowledged as a capable hero. And this gave him something to concentrate on that wasn't the AfO investigation, which was threatening to drive him insane.
After about three hours, they started feeling the storm winds. The wind speed was much faster than predicted, and it was already starting to cause chaos. They needed to work faster to get the civvies away safely! They were evacuating a school when the rain started, along with even stronger winds. The children could barely keep themselves from being blown away by the wind. Getting them on the bus to the base was very challenging, Momo had to make lead weights for the kids to stay grounded. No more planes would leave Okinawa, the civilians would have to wait it out in the shelters.
As the storm advanced, meter by meter, the rain intensified, and the winds blew with more power. Uraraka was forced to avoid using her Quirk for the sheer danger of floating objects getting caught in the gale, Momo had to keep a strong grip on any object made to avoid having shrapnel flying around. Shouto could only use very compact ice, flying shards could easily kill at the current windspeed. Even Iida couldn't run fast enough into the wind. Still they went, making sure every building was secure in the zone. One last block of buildings remained, a set of old apartments mostly made of wood and brick foundations. The buildings were starting to buckle under the winds, so they split up to cover the most ground. Izuku and Tsuyu took the building in worst shape.
It seemed the oldest, made of the cheapest materials. The doors barely resisted a kick, and soon the heroes were running room to room to check for civilians they found a few families, and carried them outside, to the nearest building made of concrete. The building was falling apart quickly, and a wooden beam fell between Tsuyu and Izuku as they reached for the last rooms. "Just go! I go this!" yelled Izuku.
The last floor was empty on all the rooms he had checked. One remained, and just in time, the structure was getting weaker by the second. He kicked the last door and found someone he didn't expect to see ever again. "Himiko Toga!" Izuku put up his hands, ready to fight. Toga´s eyes were confused for a second, then she smiled, blushing, as she stabbed the air with a knife. "Izuku-kun! Killing you just as the typhoon kills me will be the best death ever!"
The knife was alive in her hands, fast as a snake, and even deadlier. A slash here, a stab there…it took all of Izuku´s speed to stay alive. "Just let me kill you! Let me prove you that I love you!" Izuku managed to catch her wrist and disarm her, just as the floor collapsed. Instinctively, he grabbed Toga and shielded her with his body as they fell. The floor below as cracked and brittle, and it broke on impact. Izuku felt his ribs catch the blow, but he couldn't do anything, as they kept falling. A wooden trapdoor broke beneath his left shoulder, with quite a bit of pain, and then he hit a concrete floor. The fall had knocked the air out of his lungs, and he was sure some bones were broken. He still held Toga, whose knife was nowhere to be seen, in the fall it had been lost.
Above them, the remaining support beams were splintering and bending. With a series of cracks, the beams broke, and the building started to fall on them. "Watch out!" yelled Toga, as she pushed Izuku out of the way of the falling debris. Floorboards, broken beams and an old wardrobe blocked the trapdoor. Directly underneath it was Toga, held in place by a half-inch wide splinter impaling her left leg. In an instant Izuku was at her side, the instinct to help overriding his self-preservation, making him ignore the fact she had just tried to kill him seconds ago.
Toga stared at her leg in shock, the adrenalin still kept her from feeling the worst of the pain. "Oh, hey, I didn't have that before." She looked pale and nauseous. "I think it didn't hit a vein, we can remove the splinter and you are going to be alright. I am here, and you are going to be alright." Her gaze was full of confusion "Why are you helping me?". Izuku didn't hesitate as he answered "Because that´s what heroes do. I am going to break the splinter, so we can move you over there, okay? I need you to hold the stick steady, so it doesn't move and hurt you." "Okay, I´m ready. Do it." Izuku grabbed the splinter a few inches above her leg and snapped it as carefully as he could. Toga winced, but she just motioned to the other end of the splinter. Izuku snapped it with even more care, and lifted Toga so she could hop away from the blocked entrance. "Okay, now don't put any weight on that leg. I´m going to sit you down over there, alright?" Toga nodded weakly, and limply sat down aided by Izuku. Some light still made its way through the rubble, but away from it, this basement was pitch dark, so Izuku broke a chemlight, lighting the gloom in an orange hue.
Using the light, he looked around, finding himself in a veritable survivalist bunker, filled with Meals Ready to Eat, emergency supplies and gallons of potable water. If weapons were readily available in Japan, he was sure he would have found at least thirty different guns. He grabbed the nearest first aid kit, a full back pack that included some basic surgery equipment and returned beside Toga. "Midoriya, what happened? Are you alright? The storm is getting worse!" in his earpiece came the muffled words of Todoroki. "I´m okay, Shouto, but I am trapped, and a civilian here needs first aid. I have supplies to last until you are able to come and get me out, you don't have to worry about me. You should evacuate now!" "Midoriya…I…alright. We´ll be here as soon as we can. Stay safe, brother."
"Why did you say I was a civilian? I am a wanted villain!" Toga was even more puzzled now. "If I had told them you were here they might have wanted to capture you instead of getting to safety. And you are hurt, so I don't care about you being a villain, I´m going to help you!" Izuku placed a hand on her shoulder gently. "Now let's take that splinter off and disinfect it." Izuku looked at the wound more closely, using his cell phone flashlight. If he wanted to get the splinter out without causing more harm, he had to do so smoothly, and in the correct direction. "I´m going to pull it upwards. I need you to hold your thigh with your right hand, and with your left I want you to squeeze my free hand for the pain, okay?" "Yes, just do it." Izuku pulled on the splinter in one smooth move, removing it completely, as Toga squeezed his hand, hard. She let out her breath after it was done. "I´ve never had a thing stuck like that, Izuku-kun, just normal stabs." "No stabbing is normal, Toga." Izuku told her with concern. "I´m going to clean the wound now, this will hurt, so same plan with the hand." Izuku grabbed medicinal alcohol from the first aid kit and poured into the wound. "FUCK, it burns!" Toga grasped his hand even harder. The blood washed with the alcohol, and he cleaned it with some cotton. "To close it I will use this glue EMTs use instead of stitches nowadays, it doesn't hurt but it may be a little cold. There, both sides done. Now I will bandage it to keep it clean, and I will get you some water."
Between sips of water, Toga asked "Why are you so GOOD? Is it your Quirk or is it from your family or do they teach that in UA?" "I just want to be the best hero I can, for all the people that have been there for me. I kind of feel the…uh…the need to help? I want to save people, I wanted even when I didn't have a Quirk." Oh no! Why had he just said that? "You didn't have a Quirk and you still want to help others? Didn't they bully you? Wasn't Bakugou abusing you?" "How did you know that?" He was more intrigued than creeped out. "After I met you I wanted to learn everything about you, be like you, so I researched, I am good at it. Is that creepy? I guess I never really thought about it being creepy? Anyway, I wanted to kill Bakugou very much! He was such a douche!" She pouted in a weirdly cute way. "We uh…are talking about it. We are not friends yet, but maybe someday."
"You are too good for this world, I want to kill you." "Why…why do you want to kill me?" "I…huh. I just feel I want to? Do you ever get weird thoughts out of nowhere? Just telling you things? With your own voice and all?" Now this was getting very strange. "I think of that even when I don't want to. I just look at a picture of you being super cute and hot and part of me thinks that, but then I start thinking I want to stab you and drink your blood. I mean, it tastes really delicious, but I don't know what makes me think that?" "Toga, this is very strange, I had never heard of something like that, random thoughts don't usually command people to kill others, and are not that insistent." "But people do get weird thoughts?" Yeah, like how I just caught myself thinking you look really cute in this light. "Uhhh…sure, everyone has them!" "I guess I should think about…hehehe, think about the thoughts." "Are you hungry? I´ll go find some food?" "Sure, I would love to eat!"
Izuku grabbed some cans of food and MRE´s, he wanted Toga to be able to pick something she liked, not just feed her whatever. "Here, we can set up this little stove and heat the food, which do you want?" Toga picked up a canned stew and they lit the camp stove, quickly heating both their meals. "I think maybe it's the blood loss speaking, but I kind of like not fighting with you…is that weird?" "I prefer not fighting you, too. Why are you even a villain anyway? I mean, Shigaraki had his plan of killing All Might, Overhaul wanted to end Quirks…why did you chose that?" "My Quirk is evil, everyone says so, and it ended up becoming impossible to live with it. I started listening to myself, I wanted to kill them! I wanted their blood! I wanted their identities, their dreams! I wanted to live as someone else, even if it was for only a short time…but it was never enough. I could never get enough blood to live as anyone else, or they discovered me, or the cops found me. I was almost ready to give up, and then I heard about Stain. He wanted to change society! I wanted to be just like that, I wanted to have a society that let me live as myself, I wanted to be like Stain so much I started to want to kill him. It would have been so easy, I thought. He was working with the League of Villains, so I could join, I could drug him, keep him in a basement, take his blood every day, I could be Stain forever!
"But I joined too late. Then, those killers and psychos started just…showing their human sides, I guess? And I felt I had a family for the first time. I don't remember my family at all, maybe I´m an orphan or they just never cared, I tried to look for them one time and I found nothing. Maybe they died? So, the villains became my family. I never thought I could be loyal to anyone but myself, and they earned it so much. I would have died for any of them, I guess that's why I stayed, even if I didn't really think we would make a society that would ever accept me." Her face had gone from calm, to passionate when talking about Stain, to tender as she spoke of the League, to a very sad tone in the end. "I guess I am alone again, and this time I have no idea what I can do. I…I really wanted you to kill me back there, in the moment. And anyone else would probably have killed me, or at least let me die in the rubble.
"A wanted criminal, a deadly villain, found dead after a building falls on her…if you had seen that in the news, would you have been happy? Relieved? I know you said you would never kill anyone, but an accident killing me would have taken a weight off your back, no? Not having a crazy girl obsessed with you who has told you to your face that she wants to kill you. I…I wish I hadn't seen you here. I wish I had never met you! It was always so easy but with you it is all so confusing!" Toga broke down in tears, sobbing into the torn, ragged sweater she was wearing.
Izuku didn't know what to do. If it had been anyone else, he might have known how to comfort them, but Toga…she was right, in a way. He could tell himself he wished no harm on anyone ever, but he would have slept better at night knowing she was gone. He felt evil just thinking that. It was also the first time he had heard her version of the story, and he couldn't help but empathize. He couldn't help but wonder about what had made her life so terrible that becoming a villain had been the better choice. Izuku was conflicted. Could he forgive her crimes because he knew she was also a victim? Could he still see the best parts of a person who had done so much wrong? He just stopped thinking, and let his instincts decide.
Toga recoiled at the hand he placed on her shoulder, her eyes frightened, looking like a dog kicked for years by its owner when a new person approaches. He pulled her in for a hug, knowing full well he was exposing himself for any hidden weapon she might have, allowing her the freedom of biting him with her fangs, of doing any underhanded trick. She returned the hug, as if she was clinging for dear life. Izuku felt her shake in his arms with as she sobbed. The tears stopped, and she stayed in the embrace for a while. When she separated, it was like looking at a completely different person. The Himiko Toga he had fought was cheery, enthusiastic, quite creepy, but still somehow cute and attractive; the girl in front of him looked broken, dead inside, lost. It broke his heart to see her like that, villain or not.
She looked at her hands, turning them around, pausing to look at her wrists. "I don't know what I´m going to do, Izuku. The only thing I have left is what I feel for you. I wanted you, I wanted you beside me, I wanted to be a normal girl, I wanted you to like me, I wanted you to like me as much as I like you. I wanted to kiss you, and hug you, and hold your hand, and see movies, and cuddle. But I´m a monster, you would never want to do that with me. I would have gone so far to do that, I would have taken anyone´s face. Your friend Ochako, the frog girl, a total stranger. And my head just kept screaming on and on and on and on to hurt you, to kill you, saying that if I really liked you I should steal your face! Is that really me?" She sighed. "I don't even know what to say, Toga, this is the first time I´ve heard your side of things, and I can´t help it, I want to help you. I think talking about this is a good first step. Do you even want to be a villain anymore?" She hesitated for a moment, looking away, deep in thought. "No, I don't want anything anymore. I just want you, but why would you even want to be my friend, let alone my boyfriend?"
"Maybe if I knew you better we could be friends?" Toga´s eyes lit up in pure happiness. "I´ve become friends with very different people, and as a hero student I believe everyone has a bit of good inside. If you want to become good, I can help you. If you turn yourself over to the police they can help you with the voice that tells you to kill, I can help with the police, so they treat you well, Tsukauchi owes me a couple favours…" She looked like she was about to cry again, this time out of joy. "If I…if I turn myself in, will you visit me?" Izuku took her hand and answered softly, "I will, I promise." Toga squealed in delight and kissed Izuku, and for some reason he couldn't even know, he returned the kiss. They were both very clumsy, and Toga´s little fangs bit Izuku´s lower lip a little. It lasted just a moment. Izuku couldn't help but smile, he had just had his first kiss! With a pretty girl! A wanted criminal and villain, but still a cute girl!
Toga froze in front of him, and Izuku felt himself leaving his body. He could see himself, completely still, not even breathing. "What is it, never had an out of body experience before? Best dreams start like this, sometimes." It was the disembodied voice of Pestilentia, whispering directly into his ears. "This memory told me quite a bit. Did you realize at any point you were not actually in control, but were rather…how can we say this…a camera, watching in first person?" Izuku knew the answer was a no. He hadn't stopped a second to think about anything, the whole situation had played exactly as it had in real life, until he had been pulled out from his body. "It's a weakness of memory dreams, if the dreamer catches on, they can see just how limited the dreamscape is. Walk five steps to any side, beyond the walls in this room, and its just a blank space. I´m sure by now you have thought up ten ways a Quirk like mine could be used for good, haven't you?" "I have."
"Do tell, young Midoriya." "You could work as a detective, or a therapist, finding out ways to help people deal with trauma. You could help people with PTSD fight nightmares. A Quirk like that could do so much good…" "But I will never use it for that, is what you think? Well, I offer you a deal. Since you got much closer to catching me than any hero in the last, hmm…five years? Helm Ultra disappeared how long ago?" Izuku knew and was filled with dread; Helm Ultra was Britain´s number 1 hero, and after disappearing for six months, had been found dead in a lake in Canada. "It was four years ago…you did that?" "I had no use for him anymore, and in the end, he begged for death. I can give that mercy, yes. My deal, then. I will tell you one of two: my own story, with motivations, crimes and all, or young miss Toga´s, and I know it all. Make your choice, and if I´m feeling merciful by the moment story time is over, I might just let you wake up again."
Izuku knew he had no power here, but he knew what he had to ask, to confirm every theory going through his mind at light speed. "Tell me about Toga."
