Something is missing. Deep within, a part of himself is gone. The boy trembles, his body no longer feeling the same as it once did. It's not just that something was taken from him. He feels violated just as much as he does deprived. A thief had stolen more than just his dignity from him. It's as though he had his kidney carved out in his sleep. He's fragmented. Broken. Damaged. He had never known the true definition of those words until now, he realizes with an incomprehensible dread. What he could be dreading, what could possibly be worse than what he feels right now, he doesn't want to even imagine.
He stirs, trying to put action to his thoughts. He tries to move, at least a fraction of an inch. However, there's a strong resistance keeping his hands together behind his back. The same constraining force is applied to his legs in front of him. He wiggles in place and comes to the conclusion that he's sitting down. He's bound to a chair. The boy tries to wrench his arms free first, but he feels narrow straps dig into the flesh of his wrists in protest. There's no breaking free. No getting loose. He hangs his head in solemn defeat.
How he lost the will to fight already... So quickly. So easily. He knows for sure now that something was stolen from him. The boy swallows the pit in his throat, the emptiness within echoing the collision the pit makes within his stomach. All of his strength has been sapped from him. He has no stamina. There's a lack of aroma in the air, the smell stale. He can't even hear the room's ambience. He tries calling upon his predatory instinct to escape. No animal, monster or not, can be held in captivity without repercussions. But no claws nor fangs are apart of him anymore.
A hand, calloused and large, reaches through the darkness. The boy realizes then that his eyes hadn't been closed or covered. The void had merely been the room's shadowy state. His vision just never adjusted. He shirks away from the sadistic touch as best as he can, but the rough fingers grab his cheek. "Poor boy.. You must be hungry..", a voice just as callous as it is sardonic beats at the teen's eardrums harsher than any physical beating could. The boy's eyes widen and water as he strains to see in the dark. Yet, he doesn't need to see to know who it is that he's in the company of. He recognizes the voice clearly. A voice that makes his ears on the verge of bleeding.
"S- Sensei..", the boy whispers words of acknowledgement and full fledged terror. All For One in the flesh. The man who can.. The captive's breath hitches in his throat. The man who can take other people's quirks for himself. The boy realizes then what had been stolen from him.
He had always fantasized the nonexistence of his ghoulish quirk. A life where he had been born with a different quirk or quirkless. Other times, he had dreamed of a world in which he had never been born at all. So why he feels so distraught and overcome with despair by the loss of his curse, he doesn't know. He reaches for the clawed hand of the ghoul but doesn't receive any requited touch. Akatani Mikumo, who he had crafted as his new identity, doesn't exist anymore. Tied to a chair in the presence of the world's most powerful villain is just a useless quirkless Izuku Midoriya, a long forgotten footnote.
All For One's fingers drag across Midoriya's frightened face. Then the hand they belong to recedes back into the darkness. "The good doctor will tend to your diet.", the heinous villain holds light humor in his tone. Midoriya shakes when shivers run down his spine in response.
The boy shakes harder, flinching roughly, when he catches movement in his peripheral vision. A glint in the shadows draws his gaze. Circular glasses. And a lab coat. A doctor, just like All For One said. The man is of a portly and short stature, balding with a bushy mustache. Midoriya watches as his elder walks out of sight. The tap of shoes is the only indication of where the man resides. Midoriya fixates on that noise. The doctor is behind him now.
He can hear the rustling of a fabric. Then, a touch. The doctor is grabbing his wrist. Not too roughly or forcibly. Not like All For One. The touch is tender. Cautious? Careful. Calculatively careful. For a fleeting moment, Midoriya actually believes that the doctor is going to undo the restraints. But then, he feels something cold clench onto his left index finger. The hard press is metallic, Midoriya deduces. It's a tool, like a wrench or pliers. Midoriya sits up straight when he realizes what's about to happen. The tool tightens just like the doctor's grip upon receiving resistance.
"No! NO! NN-", Midoriya's pleas morph dramatically into a bloodcurdling cry when he feels his finger being crushed by the metal tool's strength. The pressure increases, breaking bone and closing around flesh. Opposing ends being pushed together crushes what's in between. The process is slow and agonizing as the single digit is chopped off. Midoriya thrashes in the chair that he's bound to, more so from the torture being inflicted upon him than to escape, but doesn't accomplish anything other than rougher treatment from the doctor.
His pinky is next, the tool's bend on the brink of the finger's knuckle. Midoriya screams at the top of his lungs as the tool carves into his flesh, easily breaking past the skin and tearing into tissue. The bone snaps like a twig and the pinky is severed. A searing hot sensation spikes from the cut points and spreads into his full hand. Warm blood pools out and drips to the floor where the fallen fingers lay. A phantom pain lingers from where the detached digits originally resided. The boy yells as loud as he can again, tugging desperately with all of his might to shrug the doctor off of him.
Merciless. Relentless. Onto the next finger. This one is cut at the bend, just short of the knuckle. That hurts more. The bone joint there shatters under the crushing force of the torture instrument, tiny shards splintering as the tiny limb gets amputated. Midoriya wails in excruciating torment. Tears increase the blood puddle beneath him. "PLEASE! STOP!", his begging hysterical and hoarse has no power in preventing more spillage to continue growing that puddle.
Each finger shares the same treatment. Until all ten are removed. They split and sever, bending in directions that they aren't meant to twist or turn. Each one torn off from an unnatural angle, the amputations aren't exactly clean cuts. Sometimes the doctor tugs with the tool, ripping the fingers free from their sockets before completely slicing them off. Every abnormal removal contorts and disfigures what remains of Midoriya's blood soaked hand. He gasps and wheezes while trying to breathe through intense sobs. The dismemberment begins to numb now that it's finished.
Spittle spills from his quivering lips, streaming down his chin with his tears. His crestfallen face raises when he sees the doctor walking around to his front. He holds out his hand, in between two of his still attached fingers one of Midoriya's detached ones. Whimpering, glancing between the severed digit and the doctor, the boy begins to realize what's being requested of him. No. Not asked. Ordered. With his quirk removed, his taste pallet and cravings have returned to normal. And yet..
Midoriya timidly tries to take his own finger with his mouth. The doctor practically shoves it down the boy's throat. Midoriya gags at first, but knows better than to spit it out. He almost vomits. But he clenches his mouth shut, teeth clacking together. He's breaking out in a sweat as he tries to resist his acid reflux. The boy fiddles with the finger using his tongue, like playing with food that he doesn't wish to swallow. Watery eyes close as he tries to visualize anything other than the texture that he tastes.
He forces himself to bite down. Chewing his finger is like gnawing on a piece of tough meat. But the harder he clenches his teeth, the softer it gets. Remnants of bone crunch under the pressure of his jaw strength and warm liquid oozes out. A metallic copper taste floods his mouth that makes him bite down harder. The fingernail pops loose and slides down his throat. He grinds his back fangs together to tenderize the flesh of his finger before swallowing that too. The doctor waits patiently for Midoriya to finish cannibalizing a part of himself before holding up another finger to repeat the process.
Fresh tears retrace old ones as the boy opens his mouth to accept the offering. The doctor slides it in slowly this time, sadistically savoring the teen's humiliation. A smirk furrows the stout man's bushy mustache. Midoriya's blood stained teeth gnash together with his pinky in between. He manducates the small appendage like it's a bite size snack. This time, he chews a lot harder and faster to get it over with. His tastebuds sting from the rapid rush of blood. A noise rises in his throat that's a cross between a moan and a groan.
Satisfied for the moment, the doctor stops feeding Midoriya his own fingers, much to the boy's relief. That solace is extremely short, however. The doctor bends down, rebrandishing the metallic tool he was using earlier to cut those fingers off. Midoriya can see the torture instrument now that it's in front of him. No longer left up to the imagination, he can see the craftsmanship intended for splitting and gripping. Ichor stains the sharpened ends of the tool like rust. Midoriya looks down to see the doctor reaching for his bound and exposed feet next.
Panicking, Midoriya curls his toes in an attempt to resist what's about to happen. He shakes his head frantically in denial and his body twists in a mimication of the movement. "No! No! NO! NO!", his desperate shouts do nothing to help him though. The doctor forces Midoriya's big toe to uncurl and places it between the shears of the cutting tool. Cold steel sends a sharp stab into the boy's foot before it can even actually draw blood. The metal severs his flesh and begins sawing off the toe just like what had happened to his fingers.
Midoriya's body releases various liquids as he undergoes the process of torture. Snot streams from his nostrils and tears pour out from his eyes. Spit flies out of his mouth with every agonizing scream that echoes throughout the dark chamber that he's in. Blood splashes across the floor with each toe that's chopped off. The torment is too much for him to endure that he winds up pissing himself, urine running down his leg and mixing with the rest of his DNA spillage. The foul odor mixes with the smell of his intense sweat, clothes soaked and stuck to his body.
Midoriya's feet reflexively twist in an effort to avoid the doctor's touch. The restraints around his ankles dig deeper into his skin, sawing just the same as the torture tool. Festering flesh begins swelling, extremely inflamed. And Midoriya feels it all. His mind processes the pain for what feels like an eternity, all ten toes taking a long time to remove. The boy's heels dig into the floor as his feet continue recoiling from the pliers that turn and snap his bones. But to no avail. The final toe bends upwards as it too is broken off from the foot. Midoriya's rising scream matches its slow climatic removal.
Midoriya's head bends all the way back as he releases a full body wail. Then, it slumps forward. His chin rests on his damp heaving chest. His hair is matted to his forehead and face, hanging over. His shoulders roll forward as he tries to sit up straight but fails. He feels as though he's on the verge of passing out. He's surprised that he hasn't already. Nausea creeps up from his abdomen to his head, rattling his brain. His mind is swirling and his vision grows darker than it already was.
"You may not rest yet.", but the deep demanding voice of his Sensei doesn't allow him to slip into unconsciousness just yet, "The procedure has only just begun."
A tiny sting in his arm has Midoriya drawing his gaze back to the doctor. Through obscured vision, splotches of color bouncing around the black chamber, he can see that he was poked by a needle. Whatever was injected into him by the syringe only worsens his state. The energy in his system significantly drops like a sugar crash. "Why are you doing this to me.. ?", Midoriya rasps.
That same large calloused hand from before reaches through the shadows once again. This time, Midoriya has no fight left in his system to recluse from it. "Before.. You were nothing but a stray. Then you became housebroken.", All For One's palm covers one of the boy's eyes, "I wish to now make you greater than both. My personal attack dog."
A shock of electricity runs through the boy's system, supercharging him in an instant. There's a burning sensation that spreads throughout his entire body at once. It jumpstarts his heart, blood flow fluctuating. The touch shocks his brain and restores what had been missing. The eye that's left uncovered bulges as it stares into a darkness that begins to creep into its sclera. The pupil shrinks and burns bright red like a fire that's just been set. His mind that had been shattered peers through the cracks of his eye like a mirror. His ghoulish instinct returned to him, his scream becomes a roar.
He calls upon his returned power, flexing his arms and legs to break free of his bindings. But nothing happens. All For One releases his grip as he explains, "The doctor has injected you with a serum that diminishes your RC cells. Your quirk requires such substance that it will take you a lot of trial and error to adapt to."
The ghoul looks down at his feet, noticing now that his toes are taking much longer than they should to regrow and heal. The flesh is fluctuating as it tries to repair the damage that's been done. "Through repetition, this process should theoretically cause a quirk evolution.", the doctor tacks on his own explanation behind the torture that's being inflicted, "Intense stress or emotional catalysts has resulted in a phenomena called 'quirk awakenings' that I would very much like to manifest within you."
The ghoul growls as he twists his wrists in a continued attempt to break free. His fingers regrow over scabbed skin, dried blood dying his new fingernails black. They twist and contort as bone structure reattaches and pop back into proper placement. His former self restored, Akatani Mikumo bites back a shout when his toes go through the same painful process of regrowth. He can still taste his own blood in his mouth as he swallows his saliva.
"Shall we continue?", the doctor goes around Mikumo's chair to get at his fingers again. As promised, he plans to repeat the procedure of amputating the appendages. All For One's hand comes through the shadows again. Sparks sprout from the ends of the villain's fingertips as they reach for the ghoul.
Akatani Mikumo yells as his face is obscured and his body is drained of its energy all over again. The blood in his system boils before flash freezing. The dark void of the room is reminiscent of how he feels without his quirk. It had been an extension of himself. A part of his identity. The diminishment of his RC cells had seemed so prevalent before that he'd forgotten about his aching wounds. He'd almost forgotten what the cold steel pressed against the skin of his fingers felt like.
All For One's hand lingers over the boy's face, holding it up in an iron grip. The villain's sleeve rustles as something crawls beneath it. A centipede. The insect skitters out with its many legs, looping around its owner's wrist and then across his hand. The boy wants to pull away and resist but his Sensei's aura warns him not to. Visions of his own death flash through his mind. Drowning in his own blood. Choking on the red liquid until he suffocates. The centipede crosses the threshold between All For One's hand and Izuku Midoriya's face.
Midoriya trembles as the elongated metameric creature crawls across his cheek. He feels every tiny leg that treads his skin. When the insect reaches his ear, its preformal spines tap the lobe in order to feel out the area. Midoriya opens his mouth, but his breath is bated. Then the centipede enters the canal. He screams. He yells. The centipede crawls into his ear and he can longer resist his desire to let loose. All For One releases the grip on the boy's head, allowing Midoriya to swing and shake it haphazardly. The insect doesn't come out.
The age old villain watches as the doctor begins cutting fingers again. The boy's expressions shift drastically as he twitches in his chair. A smile comes over All For One's face, "You've got to break a mind before you can repair it."