He remembers being barefoot like he is now. His feet had ached for a different reason then. Glass shards from broken bottles in back alleys had dug into the soles. The coarse pavement pricked at his skin. Now, his feet are numbed by the lack of toes on them. A completely different development. It's no comparison. But to a child, who had been babied by their mother, back then was the worst of times with the worst of pains. Living on the streets by himself was nowhere near as awful as now. All For One may have been right that he was a stray. But it was a short lived period of time…
After he had run away and adopted a new identity for himself, he took to hunting vermin. Not rats. Mice scurried away into small crevices much too quickly for him to catch during the level he was at back then. But raccoons and possums. Critters that would dig into dumpsters and trash cans, larger prey to snatch in his fangs and tentacles behind restaurants. Those were fair game. He was ripping out the intestines from a rodent one night when he met the man who had given him his apartment and job at Anteiku.
The man's hair was graying and he had to use a cane to walk with his limp. But he was strong. Big broad shoulders and muscle structure of a hero, the kid in the alley took caution. The man's left eye was completely scarred over. He had years of experience on him that the ghoul didn't have back then. The man's name was Iwao Oguro. He had been the vigilante, Knuckleduster. And he just so happened to wander the same alleys he would patrol in his prime, still watching over them.
Oguro took the homeless child into his home. He overlooked the boy's quirk. When it came to food, Oguro had the ghoul eat the fingers of criminals as a multitasking interrogation tactic. The ghoul still eats fingers now. Just not of his own accord. Though they are his own. It was a good deal during those days. Oguro was like the father that the boy never had. But it didn't last forever. One night, the vigilante bit off more than he could chew. He got ambushed and outnumbered.
Knuckleduster fought them off as much as he could for as long as he could. He may have been old, but his punches still packed a punch. He may have been slower because of his busted leg, but he could still dodge their attacks. Until, he couldn't. His side got torn open. Then his shoulder. The boy, as young as he was, feeding on only scraps.. Was unable to resist.
It was a repeat of what he had done to his mother. He lost control completely. A primal state of savagery put him into an instinctive mode to kill and eat. The ghoul may have torn apart and devoured the criminals, but he had also ripped into the man that showed him kindness.
The boy was overcome with grief. Oguro had welcomed him into his home and cared for him with no judgment. And like his mother, he repaid that kindness with evil. From that moment on, the boy closed himself off to anyone and everyone. Oguro had left him a home and job to lay low in, so he took to being a recluse. He shut out the world with books and fictional stories. The only times that the ghoul would venture out was to honor Oguro in what little way that he could, by limiting his meals and killings to criminals as a vigilante. Akatani Mikumo took to patrolling the routes Knuckleduster used to, and henceforth, The Tokyo Ghoul had made his home within the hunting grounds he had claimed.
Mikumo disrupts his own memories with a yell that strains his vocal chords. The agony that climbs from his feet to his head is unbearable that he needs some form of release. Sour stomach acid burns his already flaming throat as it gushes forth like a volcano eruption. Mikumo vomits all over himself, only some of his inner contents landing on the floor. Through strained vision that eases in and out of focus, he sees what looks like his toenails and fingernails mixed into the bile.
His head throbs so much that he clenches his eyes shut. He can feel it crawling around in his brain. The centipede destroyed nerves and cells, eating him from the inside. His memories haunt him, coming and going. The day he bit Kacchan. The night he ate his mother. The night he ate Oguro. The look of betrayal on Todoroki's face. Mikumo screams. His mental fortitude is beginning to break again.
But any time that it does, the doctor reminds him of how to retain his sanity. "What is one thousand minus seven?", math questions force him to stimulate his mind. He stays mentally aware, constantly feeling the pain instead of trying to ignore it. He remains consciously engaged throughout it all, making him painfully aware of the constant pain cycle. It keeps him alive. It keeps him mentally stable. It keeps him from becoming like…
The Nomu. Genetically altered, engineered, and enhanced. Their broken brains are exposed at the base of their skulls. They float in cylindrical tanks filled with a preserving yellow liquid, awaiting the time they are needed to be released from their pods. Failures. Unable to think for themselves. Powerful, but empty slabs of meat reduced to canon fodder.
He had been moved. His achilles heel had been severed so he couldn't flee. Unable to walk with cut tendons, he was dragged and forced to crawl. A bloody trail made the path from his torture chair to a torture table. There, he was strapped down and plugged into various monitors to watch his vitals. Shock therapy. Electrocution. Different frequencies of voltage would make his quirk factor spike and drop exponentially. The sparks would also stimulate the centipede, its writhing and aggravated claws ripping at the ghoul's brain.
Mikumo wretches as his pants are removed. He thinks that after all this time, finally, they're going to give him a change of clothes. But his body was less naive than his fractured mind. The doctor brandishes the pair of pliers he uses to remove the boy's fingers and toes. The torture tool then goes for his reproductive organ. Mikumo shrieks, thrashing and tugging at the restraints around his wrists and ankles. The chafing due to his resistance pales in comparison to what happens below.
When he's brought back to his chair, his healing factor does nothing to fix his posture for hours. He's whimpering in an undignified state, counting backwards at sevens from one thousand, muttering the numbers to himself. The regrowth of his body parts pushes puss out and clears infection, but doesn't stop the burn. Tears drip to the floor with a mixture of blood, rewetting the dried stains from the previous times he'd undergone this same process.
Meanwhile, Katsuki Bakugo sits also bound to a chair. Though, minus the torture. He's in the company of more accomodating villains. The group surrounds him, varying from casual poses to stances with their arms crossed. Though the brash blonde refused to speak with any of them. Not without speaking to one specifically first.
When Bakugo demanded, "Let me see Izuku!", none of them knew who he was talking about.
It was only through trial and error did they eventually deduce the member of the group avoiding the U.A student must be 'izuku'. Akatani Mikumo pulls his mask off so that he can look his childhood friend in the eye. Despite being a clone, he has all the mannerisms and memories to be anxious during their reunion.
"Finally done being a coward and come to see me man to man, huh?!", Bakugo barks at the familiar boy. He looks him up and down before softening his angry expression, "You kept me waiting days, dork.."
"S- Sorry, Kacchan..", Mikumo awkwardly glances around the bar. All the other villains are watching with curious gazes. Especially Tomura Shigaraki. The boy's clone sighs to himself before taking a chair to sit across from the blonde. "It's been a while, huh?", he lets out an unamused huff next.
"Where the fuck have you been? What the hell are you doing HERE?", Bakugo begins spitting out questions that have the other boy looking ashamed. Especially when the final question is, "Why didn't you come back to me?", earning a flinch as though it were a verbal blow.
Before Mikumo's clone can give any answers to those inquiries, the leader of the bunch stands up from his bar stool to intervene. "He's with us now. You should join too.", the whole point of Bakugo's capture had been to convince the boy to join them. Tomura Shigaraki believes their connection could be the key to getting what he wants.
"I keep telling you.. You can shove your offer and go to hell!", Bakugo snaps at the blue haired villain viciously over being interrupted before redirecting his attention to his reunited childhood friend, "Why would the Izuku I knew link up with a band of misfit villain wannabes?!"
At that, Mr. Compress steps forward, "We apologize for the rather forceful measures taken to get you here. We need you to understand that we're no mere thugs working in the name of aimless evil. Not in the least. It wasn't by accident that we spirited YOU away."
"We all have a story to tell, but the bottom line is that we all suffered.", the villain leader retakes control by dismissively waving off Compress, "Mikumo.. Or, 'Izuku', has suffered too."
Himiko moves closer to the clone of Akatani, wrapping her arms around a single arm of his. "Hey.. Why is he calling you Izuku?", she keeps her voice down to a whisper.
"Later..", Akatani returns her gaze apologetically with the promise of explaining things eventually. Even for a clone, he feels the same guilt the original version would.
"Oi, I asked you a fucking question!", but he has to deal with Kacchan first. Bakugo looks between Himiko and Akatani, expecting answers.
"He's right..", the clone recalls the ridicule over his quirk and the other difficulties he had to face, "Society did this to me just the same as it did to them."
"That's bullshit and you know it.", Bakugo growls out through clenched teeth. Mikumo's eyes lower and see that the bound blonde's fists are in a similar state.
"Maybe..", is all Akatani can say in response to that.
Suddenly, the sound of a rapping at the door draws everybody's attention. Nobody was expecting the knock, let alone any visitor in general. "Pizza!", let alone a delivery driver.
"Did someone here order a fucking pizza?", Shigaraki shoots the group a glare but none of them fess up.
Well, other than Twice being Twice. "I did! Hell no, I woulda got takeout!", he earns a sharper stare from the villain leader.
And then.. All Might SMASHES the wall down with the door. "WE are here!", he announces his arrival through the self created entrance. But he's not alone. Branches snake around the room, wrapping around each of the villains and capturing them. Kamui Woods crouches on a stack on crates, using his quirk to subdue the group.
"You- !", Dabi's blue flames start to ignite as a counter to the wood. However, Vlad King is another hero that makes his presence known. The blood manipulator hardens his plasma to reinforce the flame user's imprisonment.
"Kurogiri!", Shigaraki calls for warp support next. But Edgeshot takes out the bartender before he can use his quirk, moving faster than the speed of sound.
The villain group are completely outclassed. All Might stands at the center, his gaze meeting Akatani Mikumo's clone's. Recognition crosses the hero's blue eyes and he opens his mouth to speak. But the Tokyo Ghoul unleashes his Kagune, predatory organ shredding Kamui Wood's branch like processed paper.
"Don't try it!", All Might moves just as fast as Edgeshot did. A big burly hand snatches the ghoul by his much smaller arm. In an effort to escape, the clone contorts to dislocate his shoulder. Instead, Akatani's arm breaks. And gray gushes out instead of blood.
"Izuku?!", Bakugo stares in shock as he witnesses both his childhood friend oozing away and the heroes having come to rescue him.
"Akatani?!", Himiko shrieks in horror and confusion too.
"I- I don't understand..", Shigaraki fidgets in his wooden restraints. His bloodshot eyes land on Twice as he wonders.. Where is the real Tokyo Ghoul?
In that same instance, eggs that the centipede had laid dormant in the original ghoul's head hatch.