Waking up was painful.

Dr. Amalee pauses and Katsuki can feel her analytical gaze through a cautious glance. He ignores her, not meeting her eyes. How can he when she's about to fully dive into his deepest sin? The crawling feeling of nervous regret shivers up his spine and it takes everything within himself to keep from stopping her.

With a deep breath, she continues reading the letter:

Do you remember when we were six and both of our appendix exploded in the same year, just two months apart? Do you remember that pain? Like something was gutting you from the inside out, right? Well, reviving was like that except much, much worse.

At first, I thought I was on fire. I thought I was pulled from the darkness only to be burned in a specific level of Hell that only the Quirkless go. But then those flames turned into the shivering burn of being overtaken by frostbite. I couldn't tell if my soul was left behind while I was being cremated or cryonically preserved. Either way, I thrashed and I screamed and I cried through all the pain that seemed never ending. Until one day it just suddenly stopped and I was able to take my first breath without it feeling like my lungs were an inferno.

When I woke up, truly awakened, there was someone beside me. Before they even had the chance to introduce themselves and take off my blind fold, I knew they were there. I could hear the slight shuffle of clothing as they breathed. I could taste the sanitizer and latex covering their entire being every time I opened my mouth to breathe. I could sense their heat, smell their sour breath, and knew they were a man in a matter of seconds.

When I was done screaming myself back into the land of the living, he removed my blindfold and I was met with the brightest, craziest smile I'd ever seen. The person introduced himself as Dr. Kyudai Garaki, and I know I don't have to explain who he is to you, Kacchan. It was so unnerving seeing him again because despite not seeing the good doctor in ten years, he still looked the same as when we were five. I knew there was such a thing as an aging manipulation Quirk - I mean, there had to be at least one person out there, right? But I never thought I'd actually get the chance to meet them.

I quickly learned that I was strapped to an examination table. And that I was naked. It was cold in his lab, I could feel my skin pinching into goosebumps and I could see my breath, but I couldn't feel it. When the doctor took my wrist to count my pulse, I realized I couldn't feel his heat through his thin latex gloves, either. There was no internal temperature, as well. Everything was just lukewarm. It was like I was back in my body, able to move and speak but my it was still dead. Only less broken.

The doctor went on to tell me about the process of what he called "re-animation" and how I was his second successful test subject. He raved and ranted about the tenuous procedures and many trials and errors to fix my body and bring me back to life, but honestly, I couldn't give a shit. I was too busy marveling at the fact that I was alive once again and I'd, in all truthfulness, never felt better. It was like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. With this second chance there was no looming Depression in the laboratory corner waiting for me to wake up. There was no pain. And most importantly, no one chasing me around calling me useless and shoving me in locked storage closets.

You know when you look through beams of sunlight coming in through the window and you can see gently floaty particles? My vision was so sharp now, it was like I opened my eyes for the first time.

Instead of listening, I watched the little dust particles be blown away with every exhale and be sucked in like a vortex with every inhale. All five of my senses were heightened to the point of almost being overwhelming and I immediately understood why when the Doctor said one of the only ways he could bring me back was by fusing my body with someone else's Quirk. And a little more, he didn't tell me what, but whatever it was, it made me feel amazing.

After so long sitting in this damned cell, I know now that while I was undergoing the month long re-animation, someone had fucked with my brain. My morals were all tattered and strewn to pieces. To put it frankly, I didn't give a shit anymore. I didn't care about becoming a hero. I didn't care about saving lives or becoming the next All-Might, all that mattered was looking after myself.

And in the minutes of me coming back to life, I had already started planning out how I was going to kill the great Symbol of Peace. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and when the Doctor had suddenly stopped speaking, I realized I couldn't stop talking about it, either.

You know I've always been a mumbler. At least that small part of me was never going to change.

When I was unstrapped, and given a change of clothes, he didn't even have to ask if I wanted to join a small band of miscreants that called themselves the League of Villains. The answer was obvious. Hell, if he did ask, I'm sure I would've said: "Where do I sign?"

However, with every good thing, there's always a catch.

Even though I was re-animated specifically to help the group, it was like I was still an outsider. Shigaraki Tomura never acknowledged me as an equal, or even relevant. To him, my name was Mutt. At least Kirigiri called me by my name, but I was the chore boy out of the group. My soul purpose of being re-animated was to obey every order that the two commanded. First I was the maid, then the busboy, and just before the USJ attack - I was the one that cleaned up the loose ends, if you know what I'm mean.

When I was first turned into the bar busboy, I thought all of Shigaraki's bullshit was a type of hazing. I was wrong. The true hazing was meant for the suckers trying to "apply" into our fucked up little group. First, when Shigaraki had more than two hundred low level villains gathered in the middle of the mountains between the cities, he paired them up and had them fight. Some of the fights ended in death, some of them ended with one tapping out because they knew they'd be killed, otherwise. The ones that survived and got to move on to the next round were the real reason why I was there. Their last stage of their hazing was to try to last more than ten minutes fighting that fucking googly-eyed, brain dead monstrosity Shigaraki called "Nomu".

Have you ever seen someone's head explode, Kacchan?

That was the Nomu's favorite way to kill its opponents. An adult human sized head fit in its hand like a softball. I think I was able to watch it pop a few skulls into splattering chunks as brain goo squelched between its fingers five times before I threw up.

I was the only one who cleaned the area. I was ordered to not stop until every last piece of traceable evidence was nonexistent. For three weeks, I dug graves throughout the surrounding forest. I dragged headless, limbless corpses, and mutilated body parts to their trenches and covered the holes with fresh soil and wild rose bush seeds.

When I was finally able to return back to the bar, I found out that I had buried over 150 bodies. Only 85 applicants made it. And when I asked Shigaraki why the fuck he didn't just recruit them all to win by overwhelming numbers alone, the sicko said he did it because he was bored.

There was no fucking point. And I quickly learned that there was no point in me being there, either, aside from All For One's and the Doctor's orders.

But, I guess I did such a good job at cleaning the massacre that All For One himself decided to send me out into the world to "clean up" other loose ends as well. All of the new recruits' loose ends specifically.

My first mission from AFO: eliminate the ones that survived the first round and got to go home. Including the ones closest to them that might've known about what they were doing in the mountains. I'm not sure why it mattered. I understand why they would want the ones who got away killed, to make sure their attack plan wasn't given away, but why the hell their acquaintances too?

Holy shit, do you know a lot of low level villains have children?

My first victim wasn't even the villain. They weren't home yet. But their son was.

Tiega Kai. Eleven years old. Just three years younger than me. He was a fighter. His Quirk was illusions but because he was so young, they weren't strong enough to stop me. I remember that kill like it was an hour ago.

I remember riding the elevator and making light conversation with a sweet elderly woman bringing her little dog back from a walk. I was nervous the entire time, sweating through my shirt and sweatshirt, worried that she had a mind reading Quirk or an emotion sensing one, but she stepped off on the fifth floor. Even wished me a good afternoon.

Before I left the bar, I memorized where all of my targets lived, with my new found Quirk it wasn't hard at all. And picking the lock to their apartment wasn't hard, either. They lived on the highest floor, the sixth floor, and the layout of the apartment was set up just right to where the boy watching anime on the couch was facing away from me. I could see the top of his head barely reaching over the top of the couch and seeing him there immediately threw me off. I didn't expect anyone else to live there. I was going to wait in a closet or fold myself into a cabinet until the villain came home, but now I had no other choice.

The boy had to go. AFO wouldn't have it any other way. In that moment of hesitation, I could feel my Master seeing through my eyes, pumping adrenaline through my veins. He pushed me to do it and I went for it.

I tried sneaking up behind him, planning to take him by surprise and strangle him, but then the tv went to black and suddenly became a mirror reflecting the boy sitting there cross legged and me hunching over him ready to strike.

He shot up faster than I've ever seen anybody move without a speed Quirk, screaming like the characters on the tv, grabbed something off the coffee table and raised his hand to throw it at me. Before I knew it, I was bounding over the couch and lunging at him. I tackled him to the ground. He did a good job at wrestling me off a few times, every time getting a few inches closer to the door, but I always caught him.

I had a syringe full of poison in my pocket, four times the lethal dose, but I still had his villainous mother to kill after him. So pretty much, I had nothing but my hands while we were scrambling for control on the floor of his kitchen. He'd gotten so close. Then,

Do you know what it feels like to be kneed in the nuts, Kacchan? Well, I can speak from experience that I had no other choice but to let go of the boy and grab my junk. He was quick to escape out the door and I forced myself to stand on shaky legs, dizzy and ready to throw up like The Exorcist everywhere. I was surprised when I stumbled into the hallway and saw the back of him running into the elevator down the hall, but heard the emergency stairwell door slam at the other end.. The kid was smart, I'll give him that, but I still found him racing up a short flight of steps to the roof. The kid must've thought I'd try to catch his illusion before it could reach the ground floor while he stayed on the roof seeking refuge, but I'm nothing if not an over thinker.

I chased him through the exit and onto the roof. There was nowhere else to go, just me and him. He tried to use his Quirk, tried to deafen me with fake tsunami sirens only I could hear, but it was more like someone had the tv volume up a little too loud for comfort. I tackled him again, however this time I was angry because the little shit had kicked me in the balls and wouldn't stop fucking struggling. We grappled for what felt like an eternity until he got loose, shot up and tried to make a run for it again. That's when I stood too, cocked my fist back and landed a punch right in his jaw. He stumbled back, immediately grabbing his face, and that's when I noticed how close we'd gotten to the edge.

I watched how his shin backed against the knee high barrier, how his body tipped back off balance, and how his eyes widened as he started falling. His hands reached for me, barely skimming my sweatshirt, and then disappeared over the edge. For some reason, still unknown to me, I stepped forward to watch him fall, and scream, and splatter. He swan dived face first into the parking lot, and I got to watch how his head popped like a water balloon filled with jelly. Liquidy, runny, jelly.

That's my favorite word, don't you remember from our fight, Kacchan?

What a fucking popper.-

Katsuki startles and Dr. Amalee loudly gasps when her phone suddenly goes off, interrupting her narration of the letter. The gentle chimes signal the end of their session and Katsuki can't help but feel unbelievably relieved that it's over.

When Dr. Amalee scrambles for the phone and finally turns it off, they sit in complete silence. Katsuki continues to ignore her gaze, pretending the steady stream of vapor coming from the purifier was the most interesting thing in the world. And that the last twenty-two minutes spent reading the damned letter didn't leave his throat dry and tight, and definitely didn't leave him feeling like there was a numb, gaping hole ripped through the middle of his chest.

As the silence lingers, the more the story in the letter starts sinking in. While Dr. Amalee was reading, he could picture exactly what she was saying with ease, like she was reading him something from a fictitious book, but this isn't fake, is it? This happened. This is a huge part of Japan's worst villain's origin story, and this is something he'll have to re-read for himself, proof read again and type out.

Then, in that moment, for reasons unbeknownst to him, Maimie Hana came to mind.

The dam cracked and crumbled almost instantaneously.

His eyes burn with fresh tears that he doesn't care to wipe away. He can't see the air purifier anymore even though he is still staring so intently at it. Something is strangling him, he's choking on nothing yet he can't bring himself to breath. His chest hurts as images of Tiega struggling against his death are replaced with Maimie. His screams are replaced with Maimie's. His panic is replaced with Maimie's.

His body, smashed and broken and lifeless is replaced with Maimie's.

The heels of his palms grind into his eyes, trying to stop the tears, trying to gouge out the images of such a young life being stripped away too soon. And the fucked up way Midoriya said popper during their fight so many years ago like it was an expression of excitement suddenly has meaning. The psychopath, every time he said it, probably had an orgasmic rush he was reminded of when he watched Tiega's head erupt against the pavement.

Warm hands grab his wrists and gently pull them away from his eyes, which are puffy and unfocussed from all the rubbing. His gaze is quickly met with Dr. Amalee's. She is sitting on the low coffee table and leaning forward so she is the only thing he can see. He watches as her deep eyes shift from hazel and swirl into a pastel blue, into a faded lavender, into a soothing yellow. As the colors mix and swirl, he's mesmerized, and he can feel all of his tensions, all of his heart broken emotions swirl with them.

This is Dr. Amalee's Quirk. She can help control someone's emotions by an event of equivalent exchange. She can manifest a sense of tranquility, pass it on by eye contact, and take her patient's turmoil through touch. She's once expressed to him that if she over uses her Quirk, she can become depressed.

In a matter of seconds, the hole in his chest is back together and he no longer pictures Maimie Hana splattered dead in a parking lot. But Dr. Amalee's Quirk can only go so far as her eyes settle back into their natural hazel. The air is still suffocating.

She doesn't back away or let go of his wrists as she speaks. "Drop your tongue from the roof of your mouth and loosen that jaw."

It takes him a moment to do so and he acknowledged how his jaw aches from grinding his teeth.

"And now focus on your eyebrows. Let all the tension drain from every muscle around your eyes. And let your face totally relax."

He raises his hands to his face and she lets him do so by placing her hands on his knees. He uses his fingers to massage circles starting from above his eyebrows, around his eyes, and over his cheek bones. After a moment, he lets himself sink back, back, lax into the chair with his hands lazy at his sides. He feels himself frowning so he opens his mouth like a yawn, pops his jaw and completely relaxes.

"I want you to take a breath with me," she continues in a soft voice, a slight smile gracing her thin lips. "but we're going to do something different this time. I want you to imagine a color to assign to the idea of hope."

Yellow.

"And then I want you to imagine a color assigned to the idea of fear."

Green. The immediate flash of color confuses him and his heart drops.

A light tap on his knee brings him back. Her eyes swirl briefly and he's calm again.

"And what I want you to do is breathe in through the nose, and breathe in hope." She inhales, her back straightening, chest expanding. "Breathe out fear." She curls in on herself as she exhales. "Imagine that color just coming in. Breathing in hope."

He does it with her now, mimicking her. Pumpkin fills his lungs all the way to his throat and he melts further into the chair. When did he get so goddamn tired?

"And breathe out fear. Once more."

There's a pause, and she leans back, taking her hands with her but doesn't move from the coffee table. "I want you to know that you aren't the cause of that. You aren't the cause of that boy's death or all the others that died because of what Midoriya was told to do. He was put on that path and he chose to stay with it. He chose to stay there and listen and be taken advantage of as leverage against All Might, against the world… against you. Tiega Kai's murder was not and is not your fault, Bakugo. You must know that. And anything else that we read in his letter is only addressed to you, because you're the one writing the book. You must understand this before I allow you to read or listen to another world from these pages. Okay? Promise me that this letter is going to be a stepping stone for you to heal, not repent. Promise me."

A tear escapes and he quickly wipes it away.

"Sure."

Lies usually feel like cotton lining his cheeks. Even when he reaches around her and takes a few sips of water, the cotton is still there.