Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. I do not own My Hero Academia

Chapter One: You Can't Go Home Again

I used a Delaware smash on the creature and it exploded into gore. I was glad it hadn't dissolved into nothing and thanked my God for the meal he had provided. It was some kind of Chimera, cross between a deer, a baboon, and a dung beetle. The meat was rancid and riddled with maggots but I didn't care. I hadn't eaten for what felt like 57 days. Granted, I couldn't be sure. Time hadn't flowed right since The Ascension.

As I savored the experience of having a full belly, I continued my trek across the desert. I was told by my God that I would find water somewhere in this wasteland. The constant hum told me He was watching. The sun beat down hard, wringing all the moisture from my body like a sponge.

While I trekked, I was set upon by tarantulas the color of arsenic and green. I managed to kill most of them, but not before they laid eggs in me. They hatched over the next few days, ripping out of my skin, then crawling to my ear, whispering to me of my failure, before flying off on leathery wings. Great tentacles made of twisted metal and sin sprouted from the ground and tried to take me. While I managed to fight them off, it cost me an arm. The pain was intense, but it eventually grew back gnarled.

I wandered for years in the burning desert, never a drop to drink, and earning new scars from every creature I came across. It's in this beaten, ragged condition that I came across my destination. My throat was so dry it hurt when I gasped, but I couldn't help it. The destination I have been searching for is my old house. Then the door opens and my heart swells! It's my Mommy!

"Izuku! Come on in! Dinner is ready!" she cheerfully calls out. I'm four years old again, and I run up and give my Mommy the biggest hug ever. I love my mommy! She's made my favorite ramen. I eat it all up, while she looks on smiling happily.

"Don't forget." She reminds me. "Tomorrow is when we see the doctor about your quirk!" "Awesome! I bet I'll have flame breath just like dad!" I exclaim, bouncing up and down excitedly. Then I calm down and ask her a question I need to hear the answer to. "Mom?" I ask. "Do you think I can be as big a Hero as All-Might?" She walks up to me, thinking hard. "No." she answers. Then she smiles at me, bends down and wraps me in the biggest mommy hug in the whole wide world. "You'll be bigger." I start to cry tears of happiness. After dinner, we spend some time playing All-Might, and before I know it, it's bed time. She tucks me in, kisses me good night, and I fall asleep dreaming about the awesome quirk I'll get and how I'll save everyone.

Tomorrow comes and my life is shattered with two sentences. The doctor bluntly tells me "Give up kid. It's not happening." It turns out I don't have a quirk, and I never will. I'm devastated and spend the drive home crying. When we get home I run upstairs to my room. I spend some more time crying but eventually calm down. In order to cheer myself up, I watch some of my videos of All-Might, but the tears flow anew once I realize I'll never be able to be hero without a quirk.

My door opens. I turn around to see my mom. I point to the screen, tears still in my eyes. "Mom? Do you think I can still be a hero, even without a quirk?" I ask, voice quivering. Surprisingly, she doesn't say anything. I dry my eyes and look at her curiously. I don't think I've ever seen mommy so quiet. Then, I get my answer. Something silver flies out from her hand and bites into my leg. I scream in pain and fall out of the chair. It flies back out of my leg and the wound gushes red. It was a knife! My mommy was holding a knife! My mommy just stabbed me!

"Mommy?!" I gasp, terror spreading through my body with the pain. She starts to advance on me. " I'm sorry Izuku." She responds very matter of factly. "Mommy's going to have to get rid of you." Get rid of me!? I don't understand! "Why?!" I yell. "You're never going to be a Hero, so there's no reason to keep you around." She smiles sweetly when she says that. I've never been so scared. "Your father and I will just have to try for a better boy next time." "Please don't kill me mommy!" I scream. "I love you!" She stops and looks at me with the most disgusted looking face I have ever seen. What she says next chills me to my bones. "Mommy only loves REAL boys, and REAL boys wouldn't shame their parents by being born without a quirk."

With that she reaches for me and grabs me by the scruff of the neck. She picks me up effortlessly. I try to struggle, and my mom responds by slashing me with the knife. With each cut I scream in agony, and she giggles, amused by my pain. She buries the knife in my shoulder and I go limp, in too much pain to resist anymore. Or at least, that's what I think, until I feel the blade press against my neck. My survival instinct kicks in, and I use my remaining strength to bring my feet up to her chest and kick off. I succeed in breaking her hold and drop to the ground, pain shooting through my body. My mother stumbles backwards, trips, and falls. Her head hits the sharp end of the table, caving in a portion of her skull.

I'm 16 again. As I laid on the ground in pain, I looked around the room. It looked nothing like it did when I was a child. It looked destroyed, rundown, covered in cobwebs. Rather than posters of All-Might, pictures of my God were plastered on the wall, with blasphemous messages written in infant blood, reminding me that I was His, and He was always watching. Fearfully my gaze fell on my mothers corpse. She was still where she fell, attached to the table. She looked desiccated and shriveled, her clothes covered in filth. The knife, still in her hand no longer gleamed silver. Instead, it's rusted and stained with feces. I painfully got up and headed for the door. That's when I realized the door is gone. My eyes grew wide as I heard cracking noises and turned around.

My mothers corpse slowly, achingly, rose to its feet. She opened her mouth. Or rather, her OTHER mouth. Where the wound that killed her was, now was a large pair of voluptuous red lips. The voice that comes out of it is that of insanity itself.

"IzuKu. That WAsn'ta nice thing to dobbut downtworryMOOMYForyVes YowNOW GIS MOOMY A KOSS UND MAKE IT ALL BEITTER! She rushes me. I tried to activate my Quirk, but it's no use. My God doesn't want me to win. He wants me to suffer.

She catches me with a right hook. She's much stronger than she looks, and the blow sends me reeling. I attempt a haymaker, but she easily dodges it and responds with a kick to my groin. All the wind is knocked out of me, leaving me easy prey for her next attack, a shove that sends me flying into the wall. She's on me in an instant, her fingers around my throat. I feebly attempt a punch using my gnarled arm. She nails it to the wall with her filthy knife before I can make contact.

Her second mouth opens revealing four rows of large hook like teeth, and most disgustingly, a long ropy tendril like tongue. The tongue writhed through the air, before to my horror tunneling into my ear. I swear I can feel the foul, slimy thing caressing my brain, and I feel like my soul has been violated. More than anything else though, I feel ANGER. My mother was a wonderful woman! How DARE My God create this abomination to desecrate her memory! I was not going let it wear her face any longer!

Using my anger for strength, I tore my gnarled hand free from the wall, blade and all, and used it to cut the tendril. The tongue shot out of my head and the creature reeled in pain. I ripped the knife from my hand and rushed the creature burying it in her skull, hilt deep. She fell to the ground, but I wasn't taking any chances that she would get back up. I looked for the heaviest thing I could wield, and my eyes fell on a broken lamp stand. I picked it up and brought the base down on her head, hard. I was greeted with a satisfying crunch and spurt of blood. So I did it again. And again. And again. I'm lost in rage as I turned the creature's face into paste. Before the final blow lands, I stop. It's my mom again, just like she was when I was four. She smiles at me warmly "Sweetie, mommy lo-" I cut her off, bringing down the base one last time. My Quirk activated and the blow is so powerful her head explodes, covering me and the room with blood, gray matter, and skull fragments. As I catch my breath, the creature's body vanishes before my eyes.

I let out a howl of anguish, venting out all my pain. This was the worst part of living after the Ascension. It wasn't the chronic hunger or thirst. It wasn't the fluid geography, changing on My God's whim. It wasn't even the predators cobbled together from nightmares. It was the mental torture. Having my memories twisted and perverted into abominations with the sole purpose of causing me pain.

As I tried to recover, I heard shuffling coming from outside the room. I looked where the door was and it had returned. I glanced down to where the creature's corpse had vanished. Strangely, the knife remained. I was too weak to continue using the lamp stand, and I needed a weapon, so I took it. I went out the door and into the hall, careful to step over the dog sized rat carcasses with human faces that littered the floor. The noise was coming from my parent's room. When I flung open the door the figure inside screamed in terror. I was shocked, because I knew who it was. Even with a third of his hair gone, the multiple scars, deep radiation burns, a skinless left arm, and his right leg being replaced with that of a grasshopper, I instantly recognized him.

"Kacchan?"

To Be Continued...