Chapter 2

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Bold- Author's note

Italic- Thoughts/emphasis

*~/0\~* - Time skip/ break

*~/0\~*

"Damn Kaminari, dude ate all my soba," Todoroki muttered under his breath, kicking an innocent rock flying down the path. Todoroki had come back that day from school looking forward to a nice bowl of cold soba when the electricity hero had admitted to eating it. His mouth was already prepared for the soba so he wanted to head out and get some more.

It was a nice day for a walk anyway, the sun had just started to set early as per usual for winter evenings, and the clouds that had gathered trapped a small amount of heat beneath them- not that temperature was a problem for the 'half-hot, half-cold' boy.

Todoroki headed for a nice Japanese store nearby to get some more premium soba noodles than he would usually have, may as well treat himself. It didn't take long to carry out the business, pick the noodles up, pay, and off we go again. He decided to take the longer scenic route home. Even though Todoroki was a lot more open now it was still nice to have some time to himself; being late afternoon there weren't many people out- making it even more enjoyable. Walking up the last stretch of the street before reaching the dorms Todoroki felt a chill shoot down his back. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he scanned the area suddenly feeling on edge.

He was about to pass off whatever made him feel that way when an arm shot out of the shadows and wound its way around his waist multiple times.

"What the- hey-!" The words became muffled as a sweet-smelling cloth covered his mouth and nose, filling his airways with the chemical aroma causing his eyes to roll back into his head and his body to go slack. He fell unconscious and slumped back against his apprehender in a matter of seconds.

*~/0\~*

By the time the fog cleared from his head and the darkness subsided, Todoroki found himself suspended from the ceiling by a pair of manacles secured tightly around his wrists. The room was small and damp with no windows or visible door. It was completely sealed off leaving no noise but the clink of chains and drips of water.

Panic started to set into the young hero as the situation began to settle in his mind. Someone had kidnapped him.
Struggling against the thick metal circling his wrists came to no avail and nothing appeared as he summoned both quirks. His feet scrabbled for purchase on the stone floor but it was just too far and the tips of his shoes only barely scraped it.

Eyes darted around the small claustrophobic space looking for anything as he struggled against his binds, using the wall as leverage to pull on them.

"My my, you're going to hurt yourself doing that."

Todoroki's eyes shot up as an outline of a door formed and a man pushed the stone wall open like a door and stepped in.

"Quite a useless quirk don't you think, I can make a door out of anything. But I suppose useful if you fancy waltzing into a bank vault and helping yourself," A twisted smirk spread across his lips turning the corners up. "But that's not something you would do, right, hero, heroes only do good. Or, so I thought." The smirk soon disappeared and turned down into a scowl as his hand shot out and grabbed Todoroki's chin. "You should know that best, being the son of that bastard Endeavour, huh?"

The situation dawned on Shoto as it became blazingly clear. "This is about my father then. Of course it is. Lucky for you I'm nothing like him. He's no hero of mine."

"Oo somebody got daddy issues~?" The man's long fingers let go of his chin and trailed up his face. "You'd make a fine villain boy. Especially so with your quirks, destructive things them, how can you ever help anybody with them?"

Todoroki yanked his face back looking disgusted. "Get your hands off me, as if I'd ever be like you-"

The villain cut him off by grabbing his face again tightly. "Nothing like him huh? You think you're so special, filthy rich and entitled brat. Think you're above me because you're a hero?"

Todoroki winced as the sharp nails dug into his cheeks. "I don't resort to stealing or ruining other people's lives to better myself off. I want to use what I was gifted to help people. Those who are like that are beneath everyone," He spoke through his teeth only to be rewarded with his head being driven back into the solid wall with a sickening crack.

"Do you think I've always wanted to be 'the lowest member of society'. Don't you think I had dreams as a child, I could've used what I had to be a rescue hero. Life is cruel, life stamps on your dreams and spits on them. Life took my parents from me and heroes didn't do enough to save them. Your father didn't do enough! He gave up and didn't care, he looked down on me as a mourning child and told me to stop crying and grow up. He is no hero, there are no heroes. Only people masquerading for fame and money."

A shiver travelled down Todoroki's spine as he heard the words that felt so close to Stain's view. He looked up at him blearily but no words came as he opened his mouth to speak.

"You disgust me. You parade around just like your father condemning people like me. I'll make you suffer for what he did to me so, in turn, he does too."

"Because you can't... can't do it to him yourself," Todoroki muttered over the ringing in his ears. He knew he should just keep quiet but always fell short when it came to his sarcastic rebellious side from growing up under his father.

"You brat!" The man brought back his fist and swung it at Shoto's face, fuelled by his anger.

Shoto's head flew to the side and dropped down onto his chest.

The villain left growling dangerously and sealed the room back up again.

*~/0\~*

The man, who he later came to learn was called Atsuo, never seemed to leave him alone for long. He spent hours at a time in the room taking his anger out with beatings, waiting while he was knocked unconscious for another round when he woke up. Todoroki could say he was used to it, after years of relentless training with his father, but it was getting harder and harder to keep his pain quiet. His head never seemed to have the chance to clear and he was slowly losing grip.

Atsuo was also getting impatient, no matter how many hours he went at the boy he never seemed to break and it was starting to get to him. He found it time to switch to other methods, more brutal things he had seen but never carried out, so while Todoroki was unconscious yet again he dragged a sturdy chair beneath him and transferred him to it and secured him there and waited.

*~/0\~*

Again, really... this is going to cause some permanent damage if I keep getting knocked out. Todoroki slowly came too, his wrists feeling relieved to not be holding his body up. The only problem now was that they were clamped down on armrests.

"You're awake again," Atsuo stated with some excitement lacing his words. That can't be good. "I think it's time our friend Mr Plier comes out to say hello."

Todoroki's eyes widened in fear as Atsuo advanced on him, he started to thrash against the chains that never loosened their grip.

"Don't be so scared~, this is going to be fun! Only for me I suppose though," A manic giggle came from the villain as he clamped the pliers down on the base of his index finger and started to pull and twist, slowly breaking the finger.

Screams weren't held back as they filled the room from the young boy.

"Yes! Yes! Scream louder!" Atsuo released the grip of the pliers and looked at the shivering kid before him. "Oh, this was fun. Can we go again please~" He reached out and grabbed his hand and Todoroki started to fight against him more violently, terrified of having to go through it again. "I think this time... we'll go for the thumb!"

Todoroki paled further, "Please, please don't," He started to plead weakly.

Atsuo only spared him a glance as he repeated the motion on the thumb, and then onto the rest of the fingers on that hand.

Todoroki had screamed himself hoarse as his shivering only got worse from the shock.

The man knelt before him and cupped his chin surprisingly gently. "Oh my boy, it's only going to get worse."

*~/0\~*

There was definitely one thing that could be made certain, Atsuo was true to his word.

Days began to seep into each other, hours feeling like years as Todoroki remained in the room for over a month, undergoing varying forms of torture from Atsuo. The only form of sustenance he received was water and very small amounts of food every other week. Along with the physical pain from Atsuo, Todoroki's body was painfully wasting away, lips chapped, mouth and throat dry and his muscle and fat diminishing down to nothing. About halfway into the month, he had almost escaped- almost. He had managed to get his skinny frail wrists through his manacles and got out of the room when Atsuo was careless to leave the door open to psychologically torture him by tasting freedom. He made it to a large room and heard the voice he'd come to know too well and a foreign one. Letting curiosity get the better of him he looked into the room and ended up getting caught, but not before seeing the stranger take someone's dead body and use his blood to form them into an exact replica of him. He ended up being careless in shock and making a noise and Atsuo found him. The worse part of it all was when he decided to hold his ankle down and stomp his foot down on his knee, easily breaking his leg and leaving him screaming in agony.

Over the next month, it all continued. Hope that someone, anyone, would rescue him had faded. He dreamt that he had been rescued many times only to wake up and still be in the nightmare. It began to eat him up, he had been abandoned by the people he held dear. They had abandoned him and left him to something worse than death. Everything became numb, pain was the everyday norm, he had lost any drive to keep fighting. There was no will left that eventually Atsuo had stopped restraining him.
Bones tried to heal and were replaced with more, open wounds became infected and never seemed to close up. By the end of the second month, Atsuo became bored, Todoroki became broken and he lost all satisfaction and ended up leaving him there.

It wasn't until the disaster in the shopping district that he found some will.

The place where Todoroki was held happened to be in the same area and when an explosion went off nearby, it was beside the building and destroyed part of the wall. Not being restrained any longer he dragged himself over to the hole and found himself in the chaos of the attack. Following vaguely familiar shouts and stumbling down the alleyway, he found him.

"Izu..ku..?" Through his bleary vision, he saw the familiar mop of green hair he had painfully longed to see for months. This is all fake, it's all just a dream. Your friends have abandoned you. His mind was too shrouded to pay any mind to the voice inside it and he allowed a relieved smile to touch his lips just to see Izuku again. The green blur started to move quickly towards him and Shoto let everything go and slumped down into him.

TBC