Crack.
Izuku cried out as his head snapped to the side from the strike. His arms restricted above him made it difficult for him to defend himself. Another two strikes to the gut had him coughing and gasping for air.
Now he was in trouble. He should never have agreed to stay out with Toga, and now he was shackled to a wall in a warehouse and being beaten by two guys, whilst a third watched from a chair a few meters away.
Blow after blow was dealt to him, his bare chest and abdomen taking the majority of the hits. Less than an hour before, he'd been with Toga as she was leading him to another job, she had to complete that day. What he didn't know, was that this job involved stealing valuable items from the Yakuza.
Long story short, they were discovered, with Izuku being grabbed and Toga making her own escape, leaving him behind to be cuffed and beaten.
"I'm gonna ask you one more time, kid. What were you doing in my house." the man in the chair asked, before he was struck once again in the side of the head. "Little bastard, what the fuck were you doing!"
He stood up, stalking over to Izuku. With a ring covered fist, he punched Izuku square in the jaw. He couldn't even make any noise any more. His jaw was most definitely broken, as were maybe a few of his ribs and a damaged right arm which he had landed heavily on earlier that day.
He spluttered and coughed up his own blood, spitting it out onto the floor below, with a couple of his teeth lying in the pool as well. Izuku had always had a high pain threshhold, but even those boundaries were being pushed to their limits at this point.
On another note, where the hell had Toga gone? She just left him as soon as they were discovered, abandoning him to be beaten and tortured by the Yakuza after she had brought him here in the first place.
"You want us to try somethin' else, boss?" One of the man's goons asked him as he cleaned Izuku's blood from his many rings.
"Get the Rack. We'll see what'll break first. You're mind or your body." the man replied with a smirk.
Fear grew in the pit of Izuku's stomach. He had no idea what this 'Rack' thing was, but if it was something the Yakuza was using as a torture method, it certainly wasn't something he should look forward to.
The two goons disappeared out the warehouse, leaving him alone with their boss as the clattered and banged things around outside. "Listen kid." the boss man said. "I already know why you were in my house. You and your little friend stole something of great value to me, and you're going to tell me where I can find her in order to get it back."
Izuku stayed silent, not having much of a choice with his broken jaw and ribs leaving him unable to make much noise at all. He just let out a low whining noise instead. The thing was, he had no idea where Toga was, having been captured before finding out where they were headed next. Had she gone back to the inn, or had she returned to one of her own hideouts?
The two goons returned a moment later with a big contraption. It consisted of a large wooden rectangular plank with shackles at the four corners. What appeared to be a winch connected them all together.
"Very well, kid. I can see you aren't going to talk, so I'll just enjoy breaking you instead." the man said, gesturing for both the goons to strap him down to the 'Rack'.
Izuku began to struggle and fight against them, but with how much damage he'd already received, it wasn't much of a contest, as a swift knee to his gut rendered him reasonably helpless and coughing up his own blood again.
Once he was secured with his wrists and ankles cuffed to each corner of the wooden plank, the boss man began to explain what it was he was strapped into. "This is what is called the 'Rack'. It was an old but rather effective torture method used back in the medieval times in Europe. What it does, is stretch your arms and legs out until it rips them from their sockets, possibly even straight from your body itself."
Izuku lost sight of him as he disappeared above his head, straining himself to see what he was up to, but his neck was in a lot of pain, forcing him to give up his attempts pretty quickly. He heard a cranking noise, and a feeling of pure agony shot through him as the chains around his wrists and ankles began to tighten, tug and pull, stretching his limbs to their limits.
Then, it stopped. Izuku's ears were ringing, and he was struggling to breath, but he could just make out the sounds of someone begging for mercy, before swiftly being cut off. Black dots began to form in front of his eyes as he slowly lost consciousness.
Before being overcome by darkness, the last thing he caught sight of, was purple smoke beginning to form around him, then blackness.
Izuku slowly opened his eyes, the sun's rays shining through a window to his right, forcing him to turn away so as not to be blinded by them. As he turned, he came face to face with Dabi, who was just sitting in a chair not far away with a magazine in his hand.
As Izuku tried to sit up, he cried out in pain due to his still healing body. "Woah, kid, slow down there." Dabi said, dropping the magazine and shooting over to his side, pushing him back down into a lying position. "The boss healed you up a lot, but there's still some internal damages so don't move around too much. We don't want you dying on us."
Izuku was in too much pain at that point to argue, grunting as he made the mistake of flopping down onto the rather comfortable bed. "How long was I out?" he asked. He didn't remember too much about what had happened, just that he ended up in a lot of trouble with the Yakuza.
"A few days. Three or four, I think. I don't know, I wasn't really paying much attention." Dabi replied. "We've all been taking it in turns to watch over you until you woke up. If it wasn't for Toga coming back and telling us where you were, you'd probably be lying dead in a ditch or a river somewhere, so you should probably thank her."
"Thank her? She left me to die!" Izuku, suddenly overcome with rage, pushed himself back up, ignoring the shooting pain in his ribs and arms. "I was left in the hands of the Yakuza because of who knows what to get beaten and tortured for information that I didn't even have!"
"Oh, grow up, won't you?" a new voice stopped Izuku's tirade, both Dabi and himself turning their attentions to the newcomer.
"What do you want, Toga? Whatever it was you did to him, he's not happy about it." Dabi told her, pointing at Izuku who sat there with a scowl on his face.
"So? He's fine now, isn't he? You fine now, little kiddie?" Toga asked with a smirk, making her attempts to rile Izuku up obvious to all those present.
"You know damn well I'm not fine!" Izuku yelled back. "What the hell was so important that you left me to be tortured and killed after spending so much time convincing me to go along with you?"
"Oh, I didn't steal anything~" Toga replied. "And those guys weren't Yakuza, they work for us~"
"They what?!" Izuku cried out in disbelief. Dabi looked almost as surprised as he did, seemingly not aware of the plan.
"I just told you, they work for us. All for One wanted to know if you could be trusted with certain information, so he hired some goons to grab you. All I had to do was convince you to go along with it. You were never in any real danger, little kiddie~" Toga elaborated.
"But...The stuff before..." Izuku muttered.
"Oh, that was all real, that was to test out your fighting skills, which aren't bad I suppose~" Toga said. "Everything after that, the convincing you to come along with me to 'steal' something, getting discovered and running away to leave you alone was all set up by the boss~"
"So, it was all a test?" Izuku asked, still not quite believing it.
"Yup~ Boss wanted to see if you would give up the location of our homebase or any information about us like our names or appearances." Toga explained. "It went pretty successfully if you ask me~"
"I-I want to go and see him." Izuku said after a few moments of hesitation, deliberating whether he actually wanted to go and see All for One or not.
"Who, the boss? Sure, he's expecting you anyway~" Toga replied. "I'll go and get Kurogiri for you~"
With that, she disappeared out the door once again, leaving both males to comprehend what had just happened. "You sure you wanna do this, kid?" Dabi asked him now that they were alone once again. "You planning on storming in there, demanding why he'd do something like that to you?"
"No. Toga already pretty much explained it all. I want to know why he chose me specifically to join you all." Izuku replied. "There's gotta be some special reason for it, otherwise he wouldn't go through all this trouble, right?"
"Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure of the reason myself. I just know that it has something to do with that hero school you were supposedly so desperate to get into." Dabi told him. "Apart from that, everything you wanna know will have to come straight from the horse's mouth himself."
The sound of the door opening interrupted their conversation once again, Kurogiri entering the room followed closely behind by Toga. "How are you feeling, Midoriya? Can you stand?" Kurogiri asked him.
Izuku slowly turned himself round so his feet were hanging off the bed, shuffling his way onto them and pushing himself up, only to overdo it and go straight down the other way and faceplant the floor. Toga, as expected, burst into laughter, clutching her sides as Izuku just laid there for a moment, before Dabi and Kurogiri both helped him back to his feet.
Whilst still unsteady, he managed to keep his balance for a few minutes. When he attempted to walk, however, he found himself toppling to the floor again, only this time Dabi was quick enough to catch him. "Why is it every time I see you, I have to hold you up so you don't fall over?" he asked.
Izuku's cheeks flared up, feeling incredibly embarrassed at the fact he probably looked like a little toddler learning to walk for the first time. He wasn't happy with the fact that he had to be held onto as he attempted to keep his balance and walk for more than half a yard.
After several more attempts, Izuku finally managed to keep upright and steady, pacing back and forth slowly under the watchful eye of Kurogiri, who was trying to determine if he should send Izuku in to face All for One in his current state.
Deeming him stable enough, Kurogiri nodded to Toga, who grumbled as she left the room once again, returning after a moment with some clothes in her arms. ""Your new clothes have arrived, Midoriya. Feel free to put on anything you like, then come and find me when you're ready to go and see him." Kurogiri explained to him, gesturing for the other two to leave with him and give Izuku a little privacy to get changed.
Izuku watched them go, then turned his attention to the pile of clothes that had been dumped at the foot of the bed by a begrudging Toga. Sifting through them all, he settled on a pair of black sweat pants and a plain white shirt with nothing written on it. There were quite a few shirts and coats that had some nice designs on them, but he'd save them for later. Right now, he needed answers.
Slower than he'd have liked, he managed to get changed and head out of the room, limping slightly whenever he put pressure on his left leg. It didn't take long to find Kurogiri, as the man happened to be walking down the hall toward him at that moment. "Ah, Midoriya. Are you ready to go and see him now?" Kurogiri asked when he caught sight of him over a pile of laundry he was carrying.
Izuku nodded, determined to find out exactly what it was he wanted to know. He was well aware of the boldness that he was demonstrating by doing this, going to All for One and demanding the man tell him everything, but he couldn't help it. Stubborness and persistence were two things he'd always been known for after all.
"Very well, prepare yourself for teleportation." Kurogiri told him, raising his hand and allowing his trademark purple smoke to protrude out and surround them both in the hallway.
After a few seconds of blindness, Izuku found himself in the room he'd only been in once, the hideout of All for One. His eyes immediately caught sight of the large grinning man sitting in his oversized chair, obviously expecting him as had been explained to him already.
"Young Midoriya" All for One said as Izuku approached him cautiously. "How are you feeling?"
"I'd be lying if I said I'd had better days." Izuku grumbled. He was aware that Toga had already explained it all to him, but Izuku couldn't help but ask the question anyway. "Why?"
"Why? Well, to test you of course. I needed to know if I can trust you with the holding of valuable information. I apologize if my men went a bit overboard, but I told them to make it seem as realistic as possible, so that you'd believe it was real as well." All for One explained. "You're wondering why I chose you specifically to join my League, aren't you?"
"Y-yes. That was the reason I wanted to come and see you in the first place." Izuku replied. "Why would you choose someone like me to join you, knowing that I'm quirkless and practically useless to you?"
"Well, it's simple really. I'm going to give you a quirk, and then if you manage to survive, I want you to enroll into UA."