Chapter Four:
Author's Note: Despite the popularity of quirk suppressors in fanon, they don't exist in canon. I looked it up, and there's no evidence of any technology with the ability to erase quirks in canon—it's just a popular fan creation. I'm still going to keep using quirk suppressing cuffs in stories where I find that plot device useful, but this time I thought it would be interesting to try writing a world without them. It makes it much harder for Hisashi to imprison his son if he can't switch off One for All. But that's part of why this is the super dark AU!
Izuku woke up strapped to a chair.
A straightjacket pulled his arms around his waist. Mittens covered his hands. Straps covered every inch of his legs, even his toes. If he could move just a little bit, then he'd be able to summon One for All and bust out of here. But he couldn't so much as twitch.
A metal helmet over his head prevented his face from moving, either. He'd been gagged and blindfolded. He had no idea where he might be. The sound of his own breathing echoed in his ears.
The chair itself was heavily cushioned and each of the straps had been padded. But while rendered completely immobile, every single itch on his body became maddening. He struggled like crazy, but couldn't move. Having his sight cut off left him nothing to focus on but his terror and that nagging itch under his right ear.
The passage of time felt achingly slow. He wondered how long he'd been there. Though he tried to speak through his gag, only muffled sounds came out.
It felt like an eternity passed.
A tear trickled down his cheek. Knowing he was likely being watched, it humiliated him. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed deeply. Yet still, another tear came.
Izuku concentrated all the power of One for All into his right pinky, trying to generate some modicum of movement, willing to break his finger just on the off-chance he could get off even a few of his restraints.
His power switched off. Erasure. His father must be here.
Izuku screamed into his gag, the tears flowing openly down his cheeks now. Though he'd been able to hold back his sorrow and fear, he couldn't even remotely restrain his rage.
"Hush, baby. It's okay. You're safe." Hisashi's arms wrapped around him.
The touch made Izuku's skin crawl. He growled into his gag, unable to do anything to throw it off. He concentrated all his hatred into his gaze as if he could burn through the blindfold.
"Just give me One for All, then this will all stop." Hisashi kept petting his hair. "I don't have any choice but to restrain you like this. That quirk is too dangerous."
Izuku snorted. The sound was unmistakable even through a gag.
"I'm telling the truth. Everything will go back to normal as soon as I have One for All."
Izuku ground his teeth loudly, expressing that he wanted to speak.
After a moment, Hisashi took out the gag. Izuku screamed, "You mean without my quirk, you'll be able to brainwash me like you did to Mom and Uncle Yuuto! How could you do that? How could you?"
"It's not brainwashing. They're still themselves. They've barely changed at all."
Izuku giggled, a high and hysterical sound. "Uncle Yuuto is a serial killer, and you think he's barely changed? How could you let him do those horrible things?"
"Oh, it's perfectly safe. I always send Nomu to follow him around, not that he's ever needed them before, he's extremely good—"
Izuku cried, "How could you use him to kill people against his own will?"
Even without being able to see his father's face, Izuku could hear the frown in his voice. "It was all Yuuto's idea to begin with. Do you think I'd encourage him to do something so dangerous? He gets so easily bored. If I didn't let him play his little games, then he'd sneak out and find even more trouble on his own."
"He's under mind-control! His thoughts aren't his own!" All of Izuku's hatred filled his voice. "You're a monster."
He finally seemed to have gotten through to his dad a little. Hisashi's tone turned defensive. "This wasn't my first choice. Yuuto was dying, killing himself due to his own stubbornness. This was the only way to save him."
"What you did to him was worse than death."
"That's an absurd exaggeration. He's perfectly healthy and happy. I'm hardly in control of him! He still doesn't listen to me one bit." Hisashi's voice held a note of fond exasperation. "All I did was remove his overactive sense of empathy, which was doing its best to get him killed. Without it, he joined me eagerly."
Izuku gulped out a hiccupy sob. "I'd rather die than have you do that to me." He meant every word. If his alternative was to spend the rest of his life hurting other people and enjoying doing it at his father's behest, he'd have preferred to never be born.
Hisashi growled, "Don't speak so lightly of dying. You have no idea what your death would do to me. It pains me so much that you inherited that self-destructive heroism. That's precisely why I need to remove it, to keep you safe."
Izuku wanted to scream, to curse, to point out how self-centered his father's supposed love sounded. But he was too afraid. The horror of what Hisashi proposed to do to him nearly overwhelmed his mind. He pleaded, "Please, Dad. Please don't do that to me. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in one of your vaults or strapped to this chair. Just please don't make me hurt people."
Hisashi sighed. "See, that's precisely the problem. You value what might happen to other people above your own wellbeing. As long as you're like that, you're a danger to yourself. This is for your own good."
Izuku saw no mercy for himself in his father's smug certainty. No argument could save him. He screamed, "I hate you."
He'd intended to hurt his father. To avenge even a tiny fraction of his own suffering. To his surprise, Hisashi only laughed. "Do you think that's anything new to me? Inko said the same thing, after she found out. Yuuto screamed his hatred at me a million times. But I know how to fix you. Caring about strangers more than your own family is a disease. And I have the cure."
Izuku felt like he'd been transported to a mirror dimension where crazy was sanity. He wanted this to all be a nightmare. He groped for one straw to cling to. "You can't brainwash me. One for All will protect me."
"You can't fight me forever. Do you know how long you were in here before you started crying? Ten minutes."
Izuku's mind froze. He knew time had passed slower due to his sensory deprivation, but surely not that much slower?
Hisashi continued, "You'll make this so much easier on yourself if you hand over your quirk while I'm still being nice."
"Nice?"
"Yes, baby, this is nice. Nasty would be if I kidnapped all your friends from school and their families and killed them in front of you until you hand over One for All."
"Please. Please don't. I'll hate you forever."
"No, you'll hate me until I manage to get your quirk, and then you'll wonder why you ever cared about those people in the first place."
"Please…" Izuku whispered, all the fight gone out of him.
Hisashi sighed. He caressed Izuku's curls. "Think about it a bit longer. You can't win. If you give up now, you'll be saving countless people's lives. Think of it as your last deed as a hero." He kissed Izuku's forehead—the touch making him squirm with revulsion—and then left.
As soon as they were alone, Nana's voice whispered, "He was lying. Ten minutes, my ass. He left you in here for two hours."
Izuku found himself standing in the Void of One for All. Dark shadows crept around the empty space. Nana Shimura stood before him, wearing her hero costume. Her sad eyes met his. "I know you probably don't want to talk with me right now. I'm sorry. It's just, I'm the only one around. First is curled up in a ball crying. The others are trying to comfort him. I'll go away if you ask me to."
"No! You have nothing to apologize for. I'm the one who's sorry. I didn't understand." Tears filled Izuku's eyes. "You were right. If I'd killed him—" he refused to think of that man as his father ever again "—if I'd killed that monster, then I could have saved Mom and Uncle Yuuto, right then and there." He started mumbling. "The brainwashing forces his own empathy to overwrite the victim's, from what he was saying. No wonder you said the effects will disappear if he dies. I threw away our one chance to save them." Izuku couldn't stop weeping. "It will be all my own fault if he turns me into a monster."
Nana pulled him into a hug. "No, never. Nothing is your fault. I'm still not certain if I was right or wrong to try to use your body to kill All for One. It was a terrible thing that I almost did. But please believe that I did it not out of hatred, but to save his victims. We've all been trying to save the First for generations."
"I should have let you do it." This was a line in the sand for Izuku. To save his mother and uncle, he'd even be willing to kill his father.
Nana's face turned helpless. "Please don't blame yourself. Blame All for One. You never should have been put in this position."
Even through his tears, Izuku kept thinking. He needed all of his mental facilities right now. "In the worst case scenario…if I can't break out…if he starts threatening innocent people to get One for All…can you kill me? Is it possible for One for All to stop my heart?"
Nana bit her lip. Her lack of answer told him yes.
"Please. Promise me you'll do it. You once told me that I'd be better off dead than brainwashed by All for One, and you were right. After what we both saw today, there's no doubt left." Izuku stepped back and took Nana's shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye. "Promise me that you'll kill me before you'll let him do that to me."
"I promise," Nana whispered, though she sounded like her heart was breaking.
"Thank you." Izuku felt like collapsing from relief. But he still had more questions. "From what I heard from the First before, he didn't seem to know about his evil double?"
"Damn right I didn't know!" The First appeared before them, red-eyed and furious. His hair hung tangled and a wildness filled his voice. "How could all of you keep this from me?"
Nana winced. "I'm not sure if we did the right thing—"
"You didn't!"
"We didn't want to hurt you."
"I saw what Izuku saw in that room." The First's voice filled with pain and desperation. "All those shelves…the golden case in the back had pictures of the other users. Did I help him kill you, Nana?"
"It wasn't you. It was never you." Nana looked away. "You don't want to know the answer to that question."
"I do! I'm tired of people keeping things from me for my own good! He used to do that too. He'd claim that I'd be happier not knowing about all the people he was killing behind my back." The First stamped his foot down. "No more! Show me the truth!"
Under the force of his will, the abyss faded into another memory.
The sky overhead loomed grey and drizzly. Izuku stood on top of a hill looking down at a deserted street. His body was once again covered in shadows, like the first time he'd visited the Void. The same darkness obscured most of the surroundings. He could only vaguely make out an empty skyscraper with broken windows and rubble lying across the street. Drops of blood hinted at a struggle.
At the bottom of the hill, Nana Shimura had been forced to her knees by All for One. Threads extended from his fingers, binding her arms behind her back. Bruises covered her face. Blood dripped down from her eyes. Her dark eyes spat defiance.
"Give me One for All, then this all ends," Hisashi said.
Nana lifted her chin to stare him down. With serenity, she said, "You're too late. I've already passed my quirk on."
The villain frowned. "Or you could be lying."
"There's an easy way to find out, big brother." Yuuto stood on top of a cement block. He held a struggling little boy with dark hair.
Nana's face warped with terror. All calm left her voice as she cried, "Kotaro!"
"Give me back my quirk." Yuuto flicked a switchblade open. "Or I'll slit your son's throat."
Kotaro sobbed. "P-please, Mommy, save me!" His legs kicked futilely.
"I really don't have One for All, I swear," Nana babbled. "I can't give it to you. I'm sorry." Tears streamed down her cheeks. It horrified Izuku to watch a proud woman beg. "Please don't kill my son. Please. Please. Please."
Yuuto laughed. "Since you begged me so nicely—oh, who am I kidding? We both know I'm going to kill him." A child's scream pierced the air as his knife struck.
Izuku fought against the shadows wrapping him, but he couldn't move. He couldn't do anything. This was all in the distant past.
He didn't want to see this. But the shadows holding his body still wouldn't even let him look away. He watched as the uncle he'd loved so much lifted up Nana's head by her hair to force her to watch her son bleed out.
Izuku found himself back in the white, empty space of the Void. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
The First had collapsed to a heap on the ground. He curled up in a fetal position, sobbing.
The distressed sound brought Izuku back to his senses. He'd always been able to set aside his own pain when someone else needed help. He dropped to his knees next to the First and patted his back.
The First looked up. The pain in his eyes took Izuku's breath away. He whispered, "Nana…I'm so sorry…"
"It's not me you should be apologizing to," Nana said sternly. "I didn't want to see that memory, so I left. But Izuku was dragged in with you. He shouldn't have had to see that."
The First turned to him with eyes sightless with tears. "Izuku, I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Izuku said. "I needed to see that. It removed the last bit of my hesitation." Over his uncle's head, he locked eyes with Nana. "I flinched away from killing All for One once. I'll never hesitate again."
"T-the vision wasn't what I was trying to apologize to you for, Nana. It was what I did." The First gulped down a sob. "Not that I have the right to even speak to you. After what I did…you shouldn't forgive me. I don't even know how you look at me."
Nana frowned. "You realize that wasn't you, don't you?"
"B-but he's a copy of me—"
"You can't hold yourself responsible for actions you had no control over. What could you have possibly done, from inside the Void?" Nana shook her head. "I don't blame the brainwashed puppet, either. What All for One did destroyed the most important parts of him. That thing I met didn't seem to have much humanity left. I'd put him down, like a rabid dog, but I don't hold a weapon responsible for a murder. I hate All for One for killing my son."
"Even so," the First whispered. "How could you have treated me so kindly, after you first appeared in the Void?"
"It was a bit strange to see your face at first. But I already knew. It was common knowledge passed down among us holders that All for One had resurrected his brother's corpse to parade around like a twisted trophy."
"All of you knew." The suffering in the First's voice started to hold a trace of anger. "Kaji knew all along, and he never said a word!"
"Kaji?" Izuku asked.
"The Second," Nana told him. To the First, she said, "It was his idea to keep it a secret, and the rest of us went along with it. I wasn't sure if it was right, but he seemed so confident you'd be happier not knowing."
"Did I help him kill Kaji?" the First interrupted.
Nana winced. "Yes. The Third watched it happen. He left a record behind for his successors."
The First got to his feet. "I'm going to find Kaji and make him show me that memory."
"No!" Nana cried. "First, please. The Second's death…it wasn't pretty. I understand why you're angry. But Kaji kept you from seeing that particular memory as an act of love. Please, accept that mercy. If you can't do it for your own sake, do it for his. He doesn't want you to see that memory, and I promise you don't want to see it. No good will come of it."
The First sank back to his knees. He looked so small and sad, like his whole world had crumpled around him. Izuku wished so desperately he had some words of comfort to offer. The First whispered, "Kaji didn't want me to touch him when he first arrived in the Void. I knew he'd been through some trauma. I just didn't know I was the one who did it to him."
Nana said, "Stop saying it was you. That thing isn't you."
"For what it's worth, I agree," Izuku said. "I think you diverged into different people when you were separated. You're no longer the same." And it was hard for Izuku to see his Uncle Yuuto as a complete monster, but now wasn't the moment to say so.
Nana said, "I think the reason the Second kept it secret from you was because he felt guilty. One for All can fend off the brainwashing, so he thought it was his fault that happened to you, because he took your quirk."
"Oh. That's just like him." The First shook his head. "As if any of this could ever be his fault. It's because of All for One."
"That's finally putting the blame on the correct person," Nana said.
The First laughed. It was a hollow, bitter sound. "You know what adds insult to injury? Hisa—All for One doesn't even think that he did anything wrong. He probably thinks he saved me from my foolish little delusions. He's awarded himself the trophy of brother of the year. He'll never be sorry. Why should he be? He got everything he wanted."
"It won't end like that." Izuku locked eyes with his other uncle. "I won't let him get his happy ending with me. No matter what."
An understanding passed between them. The First nodded. "I'm going to go find Kaji. Don't worry, I'm not angry any longer. I just want to give him a hug." The vestige faded away.
Izuku and Nana stood alone in the Void.
"I meant what I said about not blaming him," Nana said, staring after where the First had vanished. "If anything, I always felt sorry for him, though I wasn't sure how he'd take it if I told him so. I can't imagine how I'd feel if All for One turned my corpse into a Nomu, then used it to commit atrocities."
"I should apologize to you again," Izuku said. "I had no idea what I was talking about when I had the colossal nerve to blame you for wanting to kill All for One. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to kill me in revenge for your son's death. It would be what my father deserved, watching his own son die in front of him."
Nana looked shocked. "What? Never. I don't hold you even the tiniest bit responsible. I'd never in the million years wish harm on you. Please, don't take responsibility for someone else's crimes. You're not your father."
This just further proved Nana was a better person than his dad in every way. Izuku said, "I was wrong. You're a true hero." He hesitated. "As someone whose judgment I trust, can I ask you a question? Do you think my Uncle Yuuto can still be saved?"
"That's a tricky one." Nana shifted from foot to foot. "When I was alive, I wanted to save the brainwashed version of First by killing All for One. We all did, none of us blamed him. But after how the First reacted to that grisly trophy room…you didn't see the way he was screaming and sobbing. He went nearly cationic just from second-hand knowledge of the murders his other self had committed. If your Yuuto got his conscience back, I don't think he would be able to live with the memories of what he'd done."
"It might be the cruelest thing I could do to him," Izuku said softly. If it had been him—if he'd been the one responsible for all those crimes—he'd rather die than try to live with it. Cowardly though that might be, it was true.
Nana twisted her hands. "I don't want to discourage you, but I don't want to give you false hope either. No matter what, even if your Yuuto—even if he can't survive—it's not your fault." She met his eyes. "Please believe that. It's not your fault."
"It's All for One's fault. I know." Izuku made his resolve.
The dream world started to dissolve around him.
Nana said, "Someone must be waking you up in the real world. Nineth, no matter what, remember we're with you."
The Void faded away. Izuku opened his eyes to find his blindfold gone and Uncle Yuuto looming over him.
Author's Note: The exceedingly talented Aracne_web drew a beautiful picture of Evil-First-Possessing-Izuku for my fic "Coronation." This is a different version of Evil First than this fic, but all Evil Firsts are wonderful. Delete the spaces to get the link:
not-someone-who-matters.
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