Now that the projects are over, I thought that it might be a good idea to write some more before I run out of time again. Finally figured out how to add the fic that I was inspired by, one that's not exactly as dark and depressing as I try to be, but one of the few fics that made me feel odd. Certain fics inspire certain feelings in me, especially since I connect with stories more than I do with real life. Some stories make me happy. Others make me want to throw up. pocket change is one of the fics that make me uncomfortable without torture or madness. Go check it out if you haven't, I've been following it since chapter 1. Anyway, in order to make sure this doesn't stretch out too long, I'm limiting myself to ten chapters of the Shatteredverse. Maybe someday I'll turn it into a full story. But not today. Anyway, we're already halfway there. So expect chapters to be longer. It's going to be one hell of a ride.
WARNING: Some mention of gore and mutilation during the first portion of this chapter. If you're squeamish, you might want to skip ahead.
Midoriya Izuku was no stranger to nightmares. In the days after he had been tossed to the bottom of the ladder of society, he had experienced more than one nightmare of getting cast aside like a broken doll. In the years that followed, his mind conjured up horrors that just got more and more realistic with each time he woke up, a scream in his throat and new scratch marks on his body. In the beginning, it was all related to his Quirklessness. "Waking up" one day and searching the house to find out that mom had left him just like his father had, so quickly that he still bore no memories of the man who supposedly breathed fire and managed to make someone like his mom fall in love with him. Although, that nightmare had cemented itself in reality in the end, with no peep from his mother even though he had spent the day in the hospital. No texts, no calls, not even a message to a teacher that could be relayed to him. Other nightmares stemmed from Bakugou's explosions, ranging from his once-friend just beating him up to actually leaving him at the brink of death after he had gotten used to the pain in real life. A recurring one, moreso now that his eyes had been opened to the disgusting nature of the world of heroes, was him suffocating in the grasp of the Sludge Villain as All Might watched, not with the desperation and regret that had been clear as day in his eyes when he was spectating Bakugou's death, but with contempt. Like he was watching a particularly hardy cockroach finally go into its death throes after crushing it several times with his shoe. In a sense, the main reason he was who he was right now was due to his brain. As useful as it was in analysing and keeping him alive, Izuku's own imagination was also his worst enemy. Because with each and every incident that he experienced and collected some form of trauma from, his brain would store away and use later to torment him better. Most of his nightmares involved Mei at one point of time until his mind had noted the fact that those hypothetical situations just made him angrier instead of terrified. Somehow, even with the knowledge his own self wielded against him as he slept, the part of Izuku that tried to break him each and every day was unable to turn Mei into anything other than fuel for his determination. Of course, the nightmares grew a tad more realistic in retaliation.
Rather than a villain attack in which the heroes stand by and laugh as he expired, it became torture. Physical pain inflicted mentally. The sensation of breaking an arm during the Entrance Examination was agonizing. His brain's conclusion to that trauma? Conjure a night terror about people(more often than not, several individuals came back to torment him. Namely Bakugou, his mom, All Might and now Nedzu) systematically breaking every bone in his body starting from his fingers and toes. Realistically, he would be dead before half of those bones were broken. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't exactly happening in reality. Nearly cooking alive thanks to one Bakugou Katsuki? Get treated to the heat of a bonfire as he burned, tied to a stake. Being a lucid dreamer allowed him some control over the pain he could feel, but unlike regular dreams, he was fighting against himself rather than the mental image an unconscious brain would conjure for regular people. Naturally, he would need to have a nightmare about the USJ incident.
Aizawa-sensei's head implodes when the Nomu stomps on it, and when that giant foot lifts off the ground, a pair of shattered goggles accompanied by brain matter stick to the underside. It tears off one of his arms as he fights desperately. Shinsou runs, just as he did during the Entrance Examination. This time, he leaves behind Asui, who turns to dust underneath Shigaraki's hand. Unlike the quick degradation of his arm, her suffering is prolonged and she screams, usual poker face discarded completely as her face is torn apart layer by layer. She dies screaming, the white sheen of her skull the last thing he sees before she dsintegrates. That moment of distraction allows the Nomu to punch him straight through the chest. Izuku retches and somehow, he still breathes without lungs as the remnants of his organs slide out of his body while the majority of them get forcefully ejected from him. He hangs, skewered but still fighting, and Shigaraki walks over to grin at him with madness in his eyes and sadism dripping from that twisted smile. He picks up the arm torn from Izuku's body and laughs, disintegrating everything but the hand. That one is added to his collection of human hands, grabbing Shigaraki's wrist like he had been trying to defend himself from the villain. His other arm is torn off as well, and this time it wasn't as quick. It is twisted off, turned over and over and over again as the flesh around his arm joint rips and tears due to the strain. He cries out, kicking uselessly at thin air as his arm hangs on by a thread. In an act of cruelty, the villain merely holds on to Izuku's arm before leaning backwards and allowing his body weight to do the slow job of removing his arm from its socket. Tears spill from his eyes, gushing down his face like they had before he figured out that sadness was an emotion that was of no use to him.
His arm lands on the ground with a wet thunk and gets the same treatment as the first, mirroring the placement of his left hand on Shigaraki's other wrist. The villain grins, before plunging his arms into the ruined stumps that were what's left of Izuku's, digging in with four fingers. The final makes contact and he gets to feel how the sensation of getting disintegrated from the inside out. How his body gradually hollows out as his bones go first, turning him into jelly and getting followed by his organs and muscles. Somehow, all that's left is his brain, the nerves responsible for his five senses and patches of his skin that the Quirk hasn't reached just yet. He would scream, but has no vocal chords to do so. Nevertheless, the sounds rattle in his head, unable to escape and amplifying as he finally begins to die. The Nomu throws him onto the ground, and his last sight of the world is a hand closing around his face. He dies a prisoner of his body, a neverending scream stuck in his head and a Quirk weakly pulsing as it dies alongside him. Izuku doesn't know where the words come from, but he apologizes. To people he never knew and never will. Those who had died forgotten, no body left to bury, or perhaps at the bottom of the sea with concrete shoes to make sure they stayed there. Those like him , who had been tossed aside by the system. His last thought, as always, is of Mei's smiling face. For a moment, he feels at peace.
He is brought out of his daze by someone frantically shaking his body. Gently shoving the person aside, he opens his eyes to check that he still has a body. Flexing his fingers, his instincts start to whisper that something is not quite right when he realizes that there is no IV inserted into him, nor was this the infirmary. He springs to his feet, qualms about One for All forgotten as he runs power through his legs and jumps backwards. Midoriya quickly checks his body for any form of equipment, only finding his mask. He slips it onto his face with one hand while carefully running ten percent of One for All through the other. Despite his confusion at the sudden awakening, he still takes a brief moment to analyse the surroundings.
Everything is white, for some reason. No form of landmarks. It's like he's been trapped in a box, one painted white and ridiculously big. Before he can amp up his Quirk to twenty percent and attempt to smash through the floor, his attention is called by the voice of a woman. Midoriya's eyes zero in on a woman with a hairstyle reminiscent of his mother's wearing what appeared to be a cape and a bodysuit with gloves. His first thought is that she reminds him of someone. His second thought is to go for the face as he uses a quick burst of One for All at thirty percent to dart towards her. The woman's eyes widen and he launches a series of quick jabs. The first collides with the side of her jaw, and the second smashes into her chin, but she recovers quickly enough to block or dodge the remaining blows. Leaping backwards, she hangs, suspended in mid-air. Rubbing her jaw, the woman attempts a smile before saying that she wasn't going to hurt him. Midoriya has half a mind to fire up his Quirk again and show her that floating isn't exactly going to stop him from ruining her day, but drops his mental grasp on the energy source when she starts explaining that she's one of the former holders of One for All. His brain bluescreens for all of two seconds, before he sighs and fully relaxes, removing his mask. Midoriya asks if this is still in his head, and gets an affirmative. Gesturing that it was alright for her to come back down, he apologizes for his violent response. She laughs, waving off his concerns. She drops out of the air, landing on the ground with a gentle thud. A flick of a hand, and the white void they currently occupy is replaced by something more familiar. He sits down on the sand of Dagobah Beach, hundreds of different memories of watching the sunset as the beach got cleaner with each and every day, and wonders aloud about the reasons she had control over what appeared to be his mindscape. The woman with his mother's hairstyle laughs once again, a cheerful, genuine sound unlike the one that Midoriya had finally seen through the day All Might shatters him like he was glass.
She introduces herself as Shimura Nana, and states that this pocket of his mind was actually occupied by One for All. Technically, while they still had some form of control over the surroundings, this was still his realm, and it was still under his control. Testing the theory, he pictures the USJ and the background changes. No longer are they both sitting on the sand, now they are sitting in the middle of the facility, and he is practically coated with blood. The Nomu's headless corpse is draped over him for some reason and he tries not to squirm at the way his clothes are starting to get sticky. Before the horrified expression on Shimura-san's face can replace her smile, the scene has already been changed back to Dagobah Beach. He apologizes, unsure of what else to say after showing her the aftermath of the USJ incident. She forces a smile, but he sees the concern in her gaze and the tension in her frame. Not knowing what else to do after a supposedly dead person shows up in your head, shaking you "awake" from a nightmare and introducing herself as a former wielder of One for All. So just to confirm his thoughts, he asks if she was All Might's mentor. The right thing to do, it seems, since Shimura-san relaxes, the tension bleeding out of her body as she gushes about how "Toshi" had made her proud. Listening to the various things that All Might has done throughout his career, saving people and defending whatever region he was in at that point of time from villains, he wonders how someone that this sunshine lady clearly loves and cares about can turn into the false Symbol he knows today. Almost like she can sense the path his thoughts are taking, the brief rant about All Might cuts off as abruptly as it had started, before she apologizes. He offers a smile, but knowing that his is nothing like hers(All Might's is a mask, her smile is a part of her but Midoriya Izuku will always wield his like a weapon), he elaborates by saying that he knows All Might has done incredible things. However, Midoriya also ensures to tack on the fact that the originally Quirkless hero has forgotten his roots, and the sadness creeping into her face makes him uncomfortable. Weird, considering the fact that they've only been acquainted for a grand total of ten minutes but there is something about her that is so real and disarming that he feels as though she is the child and he is the adult.
He asks what she was doing here, and the main gist of her answer boils down to two things. One, she wanted to talk to him in person. Two, he was suffering and all the previous users could feel it. Turns out, passing on One for All also passes on a piece of yourself. He would call it a fragment of the soul, but he highly doubts that things like God or souls exist. When the One for All wielder perishes, the last piece of themself activates and awakens(a relief, it means that All Might will not be able to do anything to him in here until he dies). He asks whether or not his "mentor" has ever managed to experience the mindscape. Shimura-san smiles once more, but this one is bitter and more reminiscent of the ones he uses to intimidate people. She explains that because the man had managed to channel One for All at near full power from the very beginning, he had never built the mental connections to his Quirk through the years, choosing only to use all one hundred percent of the power he had been gifted instead of learning to make it more efficient. Saddening, considering that All Might might be able to live longer and run out of time slower if he dialed back on the power he used. But it meant that he was never able to engage with the portion of his mind in which the Quirk slumbered, and Shimura-san was never going to be able to reunite with her mentee while he was still alive. He tried not to feel bitter about the fact that while All Might and he himself both started off Quirkless, they had led vastly different lives. One had gotten sunshine incarnate as a mentor, and most likely still tried to carry out her legacy with his ever present smile, becoming the strongest hero with the help of a Quirk that got stronger with each generation, somehow able to wield it perfectly from the start. Another had been spit on and shunned, had his hopes and dreams completely crushed by his idol before getting an offer to be the successor of the same person who had thought him unrealistic, wielding a smile like a weapon. All Might had gotten support when he needed it the most. Midoriya had gotten a callous rejection and a "suggestion" for the future.
Shimura-san apologizes on behalf of her mentee, and he tells her that it isn't her fault that her student grew up the wrong way. With an oddly solemn expression, she tells him that it is her fault. Because despite all her talk about saving people's hearts along with their lives, she had somehow managed to not get her point across. She confesses that everything the current One for All user sees, the previous ones residing in their head can too, provided they pay attention. Unfortunately(or fortunately for him), they are limited to the five senses of the most recent wielder of their Quirk, and the thoughts of the user cannot be read. Indirectly, she's telling him that they watched All Might crush him. And considering he had already inherited their legacy, they had watched him destroy a giant robot, outplay three of his classmates, cancel an explosion, electrocute villains, mutilate a villain and kill another. He tries not to let a grimace appear on his face, but probably fails considering Shimura-san gives a more genuine smile, probably as a form of reassurance, before telling him that he has done good. Midoriya blinks twice in confusion. She elaborates by saying that despite his idol telling him that he couldn't be a hero, he had still thrown himself into danger in order to save people, breaking his body without hesitation. She also compliments him for standing up for himself, and not resorting to violence despite the fact that he could do so. He attempts a smile and thanks her, conflicted about how she had somehow managed to completely ignore the rage present in all his actions. She pats him on the shoulder with enough force to make him move forward slightly.
The world starts to splinter, a chunk of the sky replaced by the white void he had been greeted with. Shimura-san looks around, mildly surprised, and says that he's waking up. He nods, and asks if this would happen every night from now one. She shakes her head, and states that she or another one of the One for All users would bring him here if they had anything else to say. Another fracture runs through the sky, and a piece the size of a garbage truck nearly falls on them. She quickly relays the information she had brought him here for. The Quirk had finally gotten strong enough to wake up the other dormant Quirks that each of the previous users had added to One for All, and with enough time, they would be his to command. He struggles to wrap his head around the notion that Quirkless Deku was going to get at least one other Quirk apart from the one he currently had, before filing away the information for a future meltdown. Midoriya makes sure to call out a quick goodbye, just before another piece of the sky falls and spears him. Coughing up blood, he forces a bloody grin onto his face as Shimura-san looks on in abject horror, raising a hand in what he hoped was a nonchalant salute before his vision grew dark.
He jolted up into a sitting position, the phantom sensation of something foreign piercing his body chasing him into the waking world. Checking his arms, he frowns when his quick search reveals several long scratches along his left one, not deep enough to draw blood but more than enough to sting. Sighing, he notices that the IV drip has been removed, and the machines he had been hooked up to were gone. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Midoriya gets to his feet and tests out his limbs, wincing at the burning sensation that accompanied every movement. Stretching in an attempt to reduce the muscle fatigue, he runs a finger across the stitched grin engraved in the mask around his neck, feeling several hairline cracks that probably came from a combination of Bakugou's murder attempt and the USJ incident. Cracking the knuckles on one hand, he checks the infirmary for anything else that might have belonged to him(like his weapons), and is slightly disappointed to find none. Hoping that they were just being kept by the school and not completely destroyed like his knife, Midoriya reaches for the door knob, only for it to escape his grasp when the door swings open to reveal a man dressed in a trench coat. They exchange glances, the admittedly plain-faced man and the plain-faced boy(according to his previous classmates) both watching the other impassively. His eyes sweep over the trench coat man's body and find a bulge beneath the clothing that indicated a gun. Conclusion? Either this man was here to kill him(unlikely) or he was a member of the police force that seemingly couldn't wait for a boy to recover before taking his statement(more likely). The man offers a polite smile before reaching into his coat to pull out an identification card, introducing himself as Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. Not one to be rude unless offended, Midoriya introduces himself as well, despite the high chance that the detective already knows his identity. The older man gestures behind them, and he almost sighs to himself at the continuation of his confinement before nodding and carefully clambering back onto the bed. Tsukauchi-san draws up a chair and sits in it before pulling out a notebook, a pen and a recorder. Noticing the last item, he slips a hand under his mask as if to scratch his neck, but instead turns on the recording function and with a little luck, Mei will be able to see whatever they're doing if she receives the notification.
Tsukauchi-san asks him if he's fine with being recorded, and he answers with an affirmative despite all the instincts in him screaming no. The older man's eye twitches at the statement, and Midoriya's guard is raised even higher. To confirm something, he tells Tsukauchi-san that he has never killed another individual, and is rewarded with yet another eye twitch. Conclusion? The man has some sort of truth discerning Quirk. Not very specific if the word individual applies to the Nomu, which was little more than a monster, but probably good enough to separate truths and falsehoods. Darn. That made his life much harder. Time to test the detective's limits. Before the man can question him about his falsehood(if he was willing to reveal his cards this early) or start tearing down his carefully crafted facade by asking the right questions, he offhandedly mutters under his breath that he hasn't gotten a good night's sleep. Tsukauchi-san's neutral and slightly suspicious expression is replaced by one of sympathy and he notes that down in his head. He technically did sleep last night, but with Shimura-san and the nightmares, it appears that it is enough to conceal the actual truth of the matter. Which means that the Quirk was indeed a truth detector, but one that judged what was "true" and "false" from the belief of the individual it was being used on. Good.
He asks with just a hint of irritation if the detective was going to start, and the plain-faced man hurriedly apologizes before turning on the recorder. He states his identity, occupation and motive, also mentioning Midoriya's name, age, the fact that he is a student and asks if he is fine with being recorded. This time, he believes that it is fine because the threat is mostly gone, and when he answers in the affirmative again, Tsukauchi-san's brow briefly furrows in what seems to be bafflement. He hides a smile behind a cough at the success of his first test. Just to throw the man off further(he's hiding something, his brain whispers), he asks if Recovery Girl knows that they're doing the testimony now, and whether he should call her to check. The man blanches, face paling slightly and when no answer comes, Midoriya theatrically arches an eyebrow and tells him very bluntly that the old woman was going to kill him. The fact that he believes it(hell hath no fury like a doctor whose patients were scorned) makes the detective's Quirk ping it as a truth and he pales further. Laughing gently, he reassures the man that it was alright(a lie) and that Recovery Girl would understand why he came in to get his eyewitness' account(another lie) and delights in the fact that this calm and collected man has been reduced to a sweating mess with a few sentences and the threat of an elderly Pro-Heroine looming over him. Tsukauchi-san coughs and regains his composure quickly enough to start running through questions, but the speed at which he is talking is a clear indicator of the panic he is trying to conceal. They must look like quite a pair, the policeman sweating bullets as the child he is low-key interrogating hums a tune and answers questions.
The first few ones are easy. Where he had been during the attack(he answers with the Shipwreck Zone and when no further prodding occurs, he concludes that truths at one point of time can't be separated from truths at another point of time), what he had done(he confesses to electrocution, the tamest of his actions) and whether or not he knew what the villains were after(he answers with the words All Might's corpse and gets the man to choke on nothing). The next ones require some careful wording. How he had sustained his injuries(punched by a villain is apparently specific enough), what he had been doing in the center of the USJ(attempting to escape from the Shipwreck Zone) and if he had seen what happened to the Nomu(a simple yes sufficed, and he didn't bother to elaborate). The detective seems a little frustrated, but says nothing as he takes down another note. Staring at the camera positioned in the far corner of the room behind Tsukauchi-san, he hopes that Mei, if she was watching, had the foresight to piggyback on the video feed to get images of the notebook. Midoriya kept his face blank, heavily suppressing the building smirk as he stumps the man with a Quirk to tell the truth from the lies. The tension in the air appears to thicken when they finally get to the serious questions. He readies his game face, and preps his responses.
The first one is about what he had done in the USJ, but more specifically, what he had done after escaping from the Shipwreck Zone. He tells the man that he had been defending himself and his fellow students, pauses for a moment and tacks on the fact that he had also been defending Aizawa-sensei. When asked to elaborate, he confesses that he had fought the villains to buy time for the heroes to show up and for his classmates to escape. Seemingly sensing that any further pressing would just appear suspicious, he asks if Midoriya had defeated the Nomu. The green-haired child thinks to himself that it was probably the explosives that had done the thing in, and most likely All Might afterwards, and answers in the negative. This time, Tsukauchi-san can barely suppress the way his face morphs into an expression of disbelief before catching himself. The older man's suspicions are suddenly back with a vengeance, and the questions become uncomfortably specific. He asks if Midoriya has ever killed anyone, and holding on to the belief that the Nomu had already been dead from the beginning or was still dying when he had left, he answers in the negative, the second time he has contradicted an earlier statement today. He asks, almost mockingly, why Tsukauchi-san would think so lowly of a child. Midoriya is met with silence, but the pen his opponent is holding creaks in the hand holding it and something akin to anger enters his eyes. Good. Angry opponents made mistakes.
Tsukauchi-san asks about his knife, and he answers flippantly that it had gotten destroyed. When pressed on that, he worded his response carefully, stating that it had broken after using it in combat(of course, by explosives, but no one needed to know that but him and probably Aizawa-sensei). The detective almost growls and he struggles to maintain a straight face as the adult appears to be having a mental breakdown. The final straw comes when one last question is spat out through gritted teeth, about the reason why Shigaraki and the Nomu had targeted him directly. Midoriya shrugs, tapping his chin in mock-thought and replies that he probably pissed them off. Tsukauchi-san drops the notebook and slams his hands against the bed's railing in frustration. Bingo. He shies back, donning the mask of a frightened child and cowering as the adult yells at him for not answering truthfully(that's, of course, a lie) and not taking the whole thing seriously. He seems to have forgotten the recorder is still on and there is a camera(well, two but no one needed to know about his mask) watching everything he does because in a show of unnatural strength, he attempts to pick his interrogation victim up by the collar. Midoriya screams, just in time for several people to practically bust down the door in their haste. Recovery Girl's frantic eyes narrow and sharpen with seething fury at the sight before her. All Might appears to be paralyzed with shock, smile frozen on his face. Yamada-sensei looks downright appalled, while Kayama-sensei's mouth curls with disgust. Bringing up the rear is Mei, a glint in her eyes as she meets his gaze and makes a quick hand motion that looks like she's reaching out for him, but she is actually indicating his mask and he now knows that she was, indeed, watching.
In a single quick motion, the elderly nurse uses her cane to knock Tsukauchi-san's hand from its place and a second swing sends Tsukauchi-san away from the bed(note: Recovery Girl was a Pro-Heroine for a reason) and while everyone's attention is centered on the man, he pretends to lurch forward in order to grab the recorder. The nurse of UA berates the man, demanding to know what he was doing. The detective looks shaken, like he wasn't quite in control of his body when he had succumbed to rage, but unless one of the previous holders of One for All had a Quirk that could manipulate someone else's emotions, Tsukauchi-san was definitely in control. Oddly solemn, Yamada-sensei and Kayama-sensei escort the detective out the door on Recovery Girl's orders as he attempts to stammer out an apology. All Might follows them, and Mei steps to the side in order to allow them passage to the door before closing it behind the four individuals. The elderly nurse fusses over him, muttering that she shouldn't have left him alone and he reassures her that he's fine. After a few more checks, she clears him from the infirmary, telling him gently that they have been given the rest of the week off due to the attack on the USJ and then warns him to stay away from the police unless with a trusted adult. He nods, and impulsively, hugs the older woman. She tenses before relaxing, laughing softly before returning the hug and patting him on the back. He bids farewell before Mei takes his hand and the two of them leave the infirmary, ignoring the muffled shouting coming from another room. For now, with Mei's hand entwined with his own, he can briefly forget the way the world seems to be is always against him.
He makes sure to turn off the recorder before any conversation can occur. Mei reveals that the mask was indeed recording everything, and he hands it over so that she can start backing up every single file that he had collected over the past few days. He asks her about what to do with the policeman's recorder, turning it over in his hands as he did so. For one, the fact that it was in his possession was considered an offence, because he had stolen from someone else. So in the off chance that someone managed to snag it from him and return it to Why-doesn't-my-Quirk-work-san, he would have to drop out of UA and start going on the run, or expect a nice visit from the kind officers as they "persuaded" him to admit what he had done. Perhaps this time there might even be torture. Mei shrugs, citing the fact that they already have everything the policeman's device contains and more, so he could just hand it to her and she would toss it into her forge the next time it was used. Izuku is about to do so before an idea surfaces in his mind. He feels a smile stretch across his face, a combination of the snarl he wears in battle and the almost sadistic grin that comes with pieces falling into place. His friend notices his sudden silence and a quick glance at his face makes a similar expression cross her own, but on Mei it looks more natural, akin to the one she wears like a mark of pride while inventing something new(and getting blown up in the process). He makes sure that no one is following them, before decompressing his mask. As it whirs and clicks, concealing his face, Mei taps her left ear twice and turns on the comms they have almost all the time(he's still trying to convince her not to surgically implant them, but her reasoning is geting more convincing) before he starts explaining the plan. She gasps, but it's a sound that is less of horror and more of gleeful surprise. She wraps his fingers around the recorder before patting the hand, and that's the end of that. He slides the mask to the side of his head, wondering if they should get a similar one for his friend.
Izuku voices the idea. Mei loves it. She voices one of her own. He thinks that since they've already gone this far, might as well go Plus Ultra. He mentions his thoughts out loud, and she laughs so hard that some of the people walking along the same road give the two of them looks.
They spend the rest of the morning in the library nearby, him running around and grabbing books on neuroscience and anything that might help as Mei uses his mask to start laying the wiring they would later need. He devours information, relaying it to his friend when she needs it while sketching theoretical designs for the mask they are making for her. He asks her if she would rather it fit her style or become a companion piece to the one he originally has. Not missing a beat, even as her fingers fly through the air, she replies with an answer that makes him smile and start on a new sketch("what's stopping you from doing both?"). He runs through another couple of ideas in his head, throwing some at Mei just to get her opinion. In the end, he manages to finalise the sketch using another hour, and places it under a book before rubbing his eyes. Izuku notes that Mei is still coding frantically, so he grabs as many books as he can carry and starts to return them to the shelves he had snatched them from, before telling his friend that he was going to implement his plan for the recorder. She nods briefly, still whole-heartedly focused on whatever slightly illegal(read: utterly and totally illegal) things that she was doing. Giving her a couple of head pats(and getting a swat to the offending appendage in retaliation), he exits a library with a nod to the librarian that was not-so-subtly watching them from her counter. Pulling out the phone that Mei had kept safe for him, he pulls the attachment from it(another thing from Mei) and slips it over his left eye like a contact lens.
Despite the variety of things that Mei has created over the years(according to her at least), she has never really dived into the illegal side of things. He chuckles to himself while the false contact lens does its work. Somehow he had become the bad influence in another person's life. With some casual conversations and more than a few arguments over efficiency, Izuku has managed to divert some of her limitless energy to researching neurological implants. While hesitant at first(well, as hesitant as Mei can be), a few old video games that he had been inspired by quickly managed to convince her to support the idea. While still not on the level of the NeuroMods of Prey from the twenty-first century(partly because mapping out the brain required willing volunteers and also partly because brain modification, according to the game, ends badly when used too much), they've at least managed to turn themselves into semi-cyborgs. Not as tough as people made it sound like(although that was probably cause Mei was a genius and he was a willing test subject), but with its own share of complications. A stray thought crosses his mind, whispering that it had caused his emotions to turn off. He crushes it. Midoriya Izuku was still a living, breathing, feeling, human being. As much as he wished the last of the three wasn't a thing. He wouldn't have started his journey down this path if not for his own emotions.
The way they hacked into things without actively hijacking the various digital devices and leaving a footprint for people to find was largely inspired by WATCH_DOGS, in which a single device was used to access pretty much anything in its vicinity. Because they weren't terrorists, or villains, they only used it to pilfer information that they needed. Like he was doing now, accessing the cameras near him to check if anyone was tailing him. Thankfully, it seemed like Nedzu hadn't stooped that low just yet. He made his way to a nearby convenience store, and with a little bit of searching, managed to purchase a box of surgical gloves, a cloth, a bottle of water and an envelope. He asked to use the washroom, thanked the cashier when he gave directions to it and locked himself in a cubicle. He didn't pull on the gloves just yet, cause what most people didn't realize was that the oil from your fingers would still seep through the latex gloves and render them null, and wet the cloth. Wiping down the recorder three times, he finally put on the gloves and did two more wipe downs before placing the object in the envelope and making sure to fold it so that it would stay shut. He exited after slipping the envelope into a pocket, making sure to toss the gloves away and exited the store(after buying a surgical mask and cap) with another nod to the cashier who had assisted him. A quick walk to a nearby cafe for his and Mei's usual orders(in which he trashed the cloth) before finally heading for his intended destination. He wears the mask and cap, before taking a deep breath and saying a silent prayer. It's almost easy for him to blend into the surroundings, but he gets a couple of narrow misses when his lack of presence forces him to move out of the way of oblivious adults. Leaving the package on a desk, he leaves as quickly and as quietly as he can. A quick check of the security system gives him footage of himself, and he edits it discreetly to replace the cap-and-mask-wearing boy with a man wearing a hoodie and a silver watch. It would hold up if one were to just review the tapes, but someone would probably figure out the man was a fake if they delved into the coding and noticed how he had practically ripped a hole in it to change it up.
He walked a couple of blocks away before ducking into a back alley and throwing the mask into a garbage bin and after some aimless wandering, placed the cap and bottle of water in front of a man sleeping on a cardboard box. He turned to leave, paused, sighed and rifled through his pockets before pulling out the cellphone he had been given.
When the homeless individual woke up two hours later, there would be a blanket draped over him, enough food to last him a month(all non-perishables), a small satchel filled with cash that amounted to three hundred dollars and a card with an address on it, the name Midoriya Izuku on the back accompanied by a phone number. Curiosity overpowering wariness, the man would search around for the address and upon knocking on the door, he would be ushered in by an old woman with kind eyes. About thirty minutes later, he'd walk out the door with a job and several suggestions for places to stay. He would return to his original location, pick up the things that had been left for him and immediately set out for one of the homeless shelters on the list. He didn't know who Midoriya Izuku was, but now he owed this person a debt for the rest of his life. Over the next few months, he would slowly crawl back up from the bottom rungs of society's ladder, and despite everything he would still carry the card that had turned his life around. It was tattered, the ink on it faded and blotched by more than a few tears. He had memorized the words and numbers on it a long time ago, and they were as clear as day every time he closed his eyes. Others he met while working and slowly settling into his new home would regal him with tales of how Midoriya Izuku had picked them up when they were at their lowest. And when they tuned in to the UA Sports Festival two weeks after he had been given a fresh start, everyone would stop what they were doing to sit and stare when Midoriya Izuku was announced as the representative of the new students of the Hero Course that year. They would cheer as he fought, and roared even harder with each and every insane act he pulled off in his battles. The homeless man would watch with awe, as this teenager who had touched every single one of their lives proceeded to shine as bright as the heroes out there.
He would buy a phone, and with trembling fingers, input the numbers that he had burned into his mind. As the dial tone rang, he hesitated, struggling to find the words he would say to the boy who had saved him without reward. Then he remembered the words written on that card and lost the lingering traces of anxiety in his system. Take care of yourself, because someone out there cares about you. The line connected, and a tired but content voice picked up. He licked his suddenly dry lips.
"Thank you for caring about me, Midoriya Izuku. I will forever be in your debt. My name is Bubaigawara Jin. If you need me for anything, just call." and while the kid laughed, he would still call at a later date.
But that day is not today and that story is not yet ready to be told.
It takes several more hours to return back to the library due to his detour(and yet, he would do it again in a heartbeat, just like he had and just like he will) and Izuku will need to curb his spending for the next month or so. He hasn't been strapped for cash in a long time, and with the huge amounts of scrap metal and other parts he has yet to sell, he doubts that it will happen anytime soon. Besides, what he is doing is for those who will never be saved by the heroes, and that is more than enough to keep him kind despite how some people would argue that the people he saved would never amount to anything(and while he didn't know it just yet, these people would pay back whatever he had done for him, with interest. And with almost fourty people, that is a lotof reward for something he didn't expect reward from). By the time he returns to the library, Mei is leaning against a wall outside, the mask on the side of her head, eyes closed and basking in the sunlight. He alerts her with a cold drink to the face, which is rewarded with a startled sound plus a jab to the ribs. She sips at the coffee, a hand reaching to detach the mask from her head but stopping when he mentions that it looks better on her than it does on him. She smiles almost sheepishly but keeps it on, and he gestures that they should leave before taking a long drink from his own cup. They walk in silence, drinking their beverages and holding hands. After finishing her cup, she lobs it in a nearby bin and asks him what they're doing next. He smiles before leaning over and whispering into her ear("Next, we prove a point." ) before finishing the last of his.
The UA Sports Festival is in two weeks time.
The perfect opportunity to send his message.
A week later, Izuku is eating dinner(cup noodles for once because he is too tired to cook anything and the house is cold and empty) and watching the news when it finally shows up. For a couple of minutes, reporters are talking about the recording of the conversation between him and Tsukauchi-san , citing police brutality and UA's failure in protecting its students. They begin to play the recording, calling it "an example of how far the police have fallen" and painting him as a victim. He laughs to himself, the sound echoing in an apartment that he shares with a ghost that doesn't want to talk to him. The reporters are forced to stop just as the recording ends, and the screen cuts to static. He hums, hunger forgotten for the time being, and logs onto the major social media platforms and media outlets to see how far that brief clip has spread.
Two days after that, while the public is still in an uproar and UA is doing damage control(which, for some reason, involves daily visits to Principal Nedzu, the equivalent of dancing with death), he uploads the video footage of his mask and the camera that was in the room after Mei makes sure that if their location was going to be traced, they would show up in Brazil rather than an internet cafe in Hokkaido. They cause a local blackout in the process while destroying the camera footage of everything in the nearby vicinity of the location of the upload. He mentions to Mei, as they walk away in the darkness and sounds of terror, that they are no better than villains at this point. She gives him a sad look, before tugging him in for a hug("For the forgotten"). He returns the statement, and they walk away.
The next day, he gets dragged into Round 2 with Tsukauchi-san, and once again, he miraculously manages to dodge the questions long enough for people to intervene and drag the detective out of the room. He is left in the room alone, for what seems like ages but is probably only a couple of hours, and is practically kicked out of the police station when he offhandedly mentions to an audience that he cannot see that the reputation of the police force is going to go straight down the drain when people find out. Not if, but when. His mask is safely at home, unfortunately for the people who were demanding for him to relinquish any data he had. Another unfortunate thing for them is the fact that one, they can't torture a minor and he sure as hell won't let them do it, and two, they didn't account for Mei's new and improved Eagle Eyes(the original name she had given the contact lenses was Big Brother, but that was too eerie even for him) and the lucky decision he made to wear them that day for testing before they bundled him into a car.
This time, he prepares to give it to several news stations, with the help of some of those that had reached out to him and wouldn't stop pestering him about repaying their debts. According to the rather dramatic plan brewing in his head, the packages will be deposited simultaneously with instructions to release the video all at the same time. The police will be unable to shut down all of them at once, and if they do, they will be taking the news network off the air for perhaps a day. The public outrage would multiply. Across Mustafu, no, across Japan, his contacts prepare. People he has touched and the people that they have touched when his only wish for all of them is to do what he has done, and be the heroes of those who have none. They coordinate with a warp quirk user, similar to Kurogiri, but exclusively using mirrors. A Quirk that is limited by the size of the mirror and the location of it. He has made sure everyone has a body-sized mirror to use, and the exit in each media station required a little more searching, but Mei provided the idea of using the television screens. They tested it with the woman herself, and she cries when her "useless" Quirk gets a serious power boost, upgrading from "mirror bouncing" as she called it, to the ability to pass things and people through all reflective surfaces. She asks him why she doesn't just drop off the recordings using her Quirk alone and he explains that they're making a statement.
A day before the Sports Festival, class 1-A is surrounded by people from other classes, and much to his surprise, the purple haired pervert is apparently part of the General Education course. He claims that they have to watch out because if they got lax, the General Education students would swoop in and replace them. Bakugou, being Bakugou, calls everyone extras and shoves his way past them, effectively alienating their class. A boy with weird eyebrows announces that he is from class 1-B and declares war on them. A blond boy with a crazed expression follows up by saying that they shouldn't sit on their high horses because they were lucky enough to fight villains, and if this was a movie, it would be the point when the music abruptly stops with the sound of a car screeching to a halt. He hears someone chuckle softly, and when his classmates part before him, he realizes the person is him. Midoriya is too tired, too angry to care. He walks up to the boy with the arrogant smirk, and asks him almost calmly if he thinks that they are lucky. Behind him, he hears someone mutter(it sounds like Kirishima, saying "resident psychopath is on the warpath again") as the blond answers with an affirmative. He grabs the boy by the collar and whispers venom into his ear. He talks about a monster which broke bones like twigs, a crazy villain with a thirst for killing and death's touch. About how their teacher had his arm snapped and face pounded, how he had killed and electrocuted and stabbed and almost died. About the sensation of your bones breaking through skin and your stomach acid melting you from the inside out. He tells this piss-poor excuse of a human being that if he still thinks that class 1-A was lucky, then he would gladly break the boy's bones for him so that he was lucky as well. Pale-faced, the blond backs away from him with a look of pure terror and runs. The crowd looks towards him, someone exclaims that he's the guy from the video, and suddenly everyone is either running away or asking him questions. He sighs, and wishes that he had run away.
The day of the Sports Festival finally comes around. He is actively shunned by his class, minus Asui(who still wants him to call her Tsuyu or Tsu or something along those lines), Shinsou(probably still feels guilty) and Uraraka(who is just a nice person in general). Jirou and Yaoyorozu are on the fence, and he wonders if they'll ever get off of it. Midoriya discreetly trains them in combat, whether it be through "picking on them" in further Battle Trials, nothing like the first thankfully and just advice in general. He spends more time with Mei, plotting their steady descent into terrorism and also just for fun. He can feel the eyes on him when he walks out along with class 1-A, and the burning stares intensify when he is announced as the representative of the Hero Course by Kayama-sensei, one of the few teachers that don't treat him with hostility or suspicion. She cements her place as his favourite teacher when she mentions the fact that he got the highest recorded score in the Entrance Examination, even higher than All Might himself. That shuts up the people whispering about him, most likely because of his recent fame as the kid who was interrogated and almost beat up by a police officer. He knows the controversy surrounding himself, some arguing that there was a reason for Tsukauchi-san's anger while others firmly declare himself the victim. He isn't one for the attention, and is getting more and more uncomfortable as he climbs onto the stage. He hopes that his fellow fighters are ready and thumbs the mask underneath his uniform in preparation. Tapping the microphone, he speaks, the words coming naturally as he allows the burning rage that has been building up in him for days to finally express itself.
"My name is Midoriya Izuku. I think most, if not all of you, know me as the boy who was almost punched by a policeman. I will not say anything about the situation, because I'm ninety percent sure that the school will expel me if I do so. Now, I want to ask you all a question. Have you heard of the Gunpowder Plot? I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't. It's part of pre-Quirk history, and even then, it would have been considered history to those living before Quirks existed. They wished to blow up Parliament in order to overthrow a tyrant king, and they failed when they were betrayed by an anonymous source. The most famous of all the conspirators is Guy Fawkes, the man responsible for keeping watch of the gunpowder barrels they were going to use and refused to give up his comrades until he endured days of torture. He is a symbol of resistance, and stylistic masks of his face were used in protests centuries afterwards. Guy Fawkes was a symbol of freedom." he takes a deep breath, and knowing that there's no turning back now, he puts on his game face.
"Why did I become a hero? Because when I look around, all I see are the forgotten. Those cast aside by society because of their Quirks or lack thereof. For the first fourteen years of my life, I too faced oppression because I was a late bloomer. If you remember the Sludge Villain incident, I was the unnamed citizen responsible for saving Bakugou Katsuki. When the heroes stood by and did nothing, I ran in without a Quirk and pulled him out, buying him enough time to live. They called me reckless, and praised him for his heroic Quirk. They told me to leave it to the pros. People only started believing in me after I got a Quirk. Like my worth is judged based on some power that I got months ago. I'm here to change that. This is my message to the world. I will not use my Quirk in today's festival, nor any pieces of equipment. And I will win. This is for the Quirkless, those with Quirks considered weak and useless. This is for the ones that the heroes never saved. Fear not, because I am here. And this," he puts on the Guy Fawkes mask, the signal for his people to start moving. Midoriya puts on a top hat and an elegant cloak, grinning underneath it all. Even while all eyes are on him, the Eagle Eyes tell him of the simultaneous break-in's and the response of the news stations. He spreads his arms, and laughs to the heavens as everyone stays frozen while watching his requiem.
"This is my Gunpowder Plot. Plus!"
And across the world, his words struck a chord within hundreds, no, thousands of people. They pump their fists in the air for Midoriya Izuku, a boy that has suddenly become a symbol for them.
"ULTRA!"
Holy shit. This is the longest chapter I have written to date, for all of my stories. I took a lot of inspiration from my favourite things, like the two games mentioned and the movie V for Vendetta, which was responsible for the last part of this chapter. If I have done the math right, I'll need to go through two major events in the BNHA timeline per chapter if I want to finish the Shatteredverse in 10. This is more exciting than it should be. Leave a comment, tell me what you think. Come along for the ride. We're going to burn the world down.