Izuku woke up with a start. He looked around, the hospital room, it was darker than he expected but at least he was still here. Still safe, well, he was restrained still but it didn't matter, he knew that he had to be. He had hurt someone. He took a few deep breaths, the room was still dark and it was weirdly quiet. He still heard the beeping of the machinery keeping him alive but the rest of the hospital seemed strangely silent. He heard clicking on tile and looked up, he saw Ochako.
She came in, her tone was quiet and she gave him a small smile, "Izuku-kun…I'm not mad about what you did I promise. I know it wasn't really your fault, you didn't know any better but I promise that things will be different from now on." He took a deep breath when she said that, she forgave him… that made things better, easier. Something still felt wrong though, off, but it was fine, she wasn't mad at him and maybe they could talk more. Instead she came over and started unfastening his restraints.
"U..Uraraka, you can't just.." at which point she suddenly snarled and slapped his face hard enough to leave a handprint, a strange gleam of madness in her eyes when she looked at him.
"Don't you dare say that bitches name or tell me what I can't do!" Suddenly her shape began to twist and melt, leaving toga standing in the room, worryingly armed and standing near him as she inspected him. Her expression somehow seemed even more warped and unstable than it had before when he had been her prisoner. "You've been a very bad boy Izuku. I guess I was wrong, it was your fault!" She slapped him again and then lifted her blade, staring at his body looking at him with disgust.
"They tried to stitch up all your pretty cuts, you let them ruin all of my work Izuku!" Her tone was angry and oddly disappointed. He felt nervous he didn't even know what to day to her. All he could do now was try to keep her distracted, maybe if he was lucky someone would hear her, someone would be able to stop her. He felt some embarrassment at the fact he would need to be rescued again, but right now he was more afraid. He looked into the eyes of his tormentor again and hoped he could stall her.
"H..how did you get in here? And how did you find me, I thought that there were other heroes here?" He tried to sound nonchalant, not wanting to make her feel aggressive or violent as they spoke, but also hoping to keep her attention on him instead of anyone that was out there to help him. She gave him that same smile, her mouth opening to show off her teeth, her fanglike incisors flashing like polished ivory, trying to sound sweet and cute but the smell of blood that surrounded her with the tinge of obsessed madness in her eyes rather ruined the attempt.
"Oh Izuku-Baby I followed you here, you can't ever get away from me. I memorized your scent, no matter where you go or hide I'll always be able to track you down. I'll always be able to smell you. I smelled you on her too…she must have touched you. It's ok, I don't blame you but she shouldn't touch what belongs to me. I had to punish her Izuku…" Her left hand had been behind her back, she suddnely showed it, he saw Ochakos head, eyes pale and dead skin gray, mouth trapped open in a wordless eternal scream. Izuku stared in horror and tried to pull back, he could hear the sounds of bloodspatter, the sounds of blood from Ochakos head falling to the tiles with an odd rhythmic clicking splatter. He stared in horror as Toga seemed to smile ever larger.
"I guess it might really actually be your fault Izuku-darling. I mean you didn't really fight that hard to try to stop them when they came to steal you from me. You know.." She started running her blade over his fingers, leaving small shallow cuts, "that you belong to me. You're my pet, my artwork, I made you so close to perfect and then when you could have tried to stay you were such an INGRATE!" her voice growing increasingly angry and intense, slapping him hard at the last word. He whimpered and tried to pull back but the restraints held him. As he moved his head was angled so that he could see past her properly now, see outside the open door of the room, and when he saw it he screamed.
Bodies, broken, battered and cut. Blood stained the floor as the bodies lay like so much dead wood on the floor. He stared in a dull broken horror. He saw all of them, Tsuyu on the ground bleeding with her eyes dull and dead, Kacchan covered in deep cuts broken on the ground, Aizawa sensei stabbed through his eyes… he kept wordlessly begging for anyone to be alive, anyone to be…then he broke down sobbing at what filled his vision next. Toga let out a girlish giggle.
"Oh yeah, that was wonderful Izuku, the two of them were so surprised to see you up and walking around but they came up. It was kind of funny, but I was soooo proud, they actually thought I was you. When you truly love someone you want to become them, to do everything that they do and show just how much like them you are. And my love for you must be the truest since they didn't know until the last moments. Your mom bled almost as pretty as you do Izuku-kun and she was crying so nicely too. She kept asking me 'why' over and over again as I cut her away. Then the skinny guy…oh he was much more fun, when he coughed his blood came right out. I was so grateful that I was much faster with him…"
Izuku tried desperately to wriggle his wrists free from their restraints but it wasn't working, he couldn't seem to move his hands properly. His mind could barely function and the darkness just seemed to grow deeper. He could hear their screams now as he saw their bodies, smell the blood, and all the while in each case he knew their last expression was one that blamed him, reviled him… As he tried to think, tried to free himself Toga suddenly grabbed him and smiled again.
"You really hurt and disappointed me Izuku, but it's ok! I'm very forgiving." The tone she used on forgiving might have been meant to sound sultry but it only made Izuku feel more afraid, memories dancing in the periphery, he felt so much smaller now, so much weaker. She continued, "I just need to work harder this time and I'll make sure to cut away every part of you that's bad, every part that isn't perfect! Cut cut cut! Slice slice slice! All of it cut away to make sure that you're perfect! And this time I'll make sure that you have no reason to even think of leaving..after all.." her body and face began to contort and twist, voice changing as she seemed to take on dozens of faces. "I'm everyone you'll ever need or want now. You never need anyone or anything ever again, only me, only me!"
The intensity in her voice continuing as the could touch of metal against his skin came as she started to cut, the psychotic glee in her eyes making his entire body want to shrink even farther down as she seemed to loom over him. "It will be wonderful Izuku, only us, forever and ever. Only me cutting out all the worthless parts of you, but there are a lot so I have to cut away so much, but then you'll be perfect!" The blade went at his throat and suddenly he shot up screaming.
Still restrained, but the hospital room was properly lit again, he didn't see any bodies on the ground and his own body seemed to be in about the shape it was before they gave him a sedative. He turned and saw All Might…well Toshinori, sitting on a chair near him, seeming to have been startled awake by Izukus scream. He looked at Izuku, wordlessly asking for permission before he put his hand on Izuku to comfort him. Izuku sighed and tried to breath. He wished he could have more of the dreamless sleep he had had the first night here in the hospital but that didn't seem to be a choice. He shivered, trying to put on a brave face for All Might and for the others. He couldn't let them see how weak he was, see how undeserving he was…
Toshinoris voice was calm as he looked at Izuku, "Midoriya my boy…the dreams happened again didn't they?" Izuku nodded but still seemed uneasy. Yagi looked outside wordlessly asking Aizawa to enter who in sight of Izuku used his quirk, showing that Izuku was safe. Both nodded thankfully to Aizawa. It was a half measure but at least it made sure that Izuku knew that Toga hadn't snuck in. There were also other protocols being used for the time being but it wasn't able to be done over the whole hospital due to the sheer number of people working there.
Yagi put a hand on Izukus shoulder, "My boy…perhaps you should look at seeing a therapist once you're able to move or if you like we could probably make arrangements for someone to come to you." He looked at his protégé with genuine concern and even some fear in his eyes. This young man that he had chosen to be the bearer of One for All had endured so much in such a short period of time. He saw the potential in this young man that seemed to show more with each challenge but also seemed to drive him closer to a kind of self-destruction.
Yagi looked at Izuku and gave him a small smile, "I'm…I'm alright. I just need to power through this. I can do it, I promise all I need is some time and.." Yagi saw the fact that Midoriya as holding back tears and he saw the twinges on the boys face, that look of frustration and the self loathing that he had been carrying for so many years. The young man continued "I just have to get over it. I know that if I'm strong enough I can deal with the problem and then.."
"Stop. Please stop right now." Yagis words were quiet but forceful as he looked down at Izuku. His tone was tired but also rather sad. "Needing therapy doesn't make you weak, and you aren't talking about a mild scare. You were abducted and tortured for an extended period by someone who also played games with your mind in addition to numerous other…unsavory actions against you." He sighed quietly, he had known other pro heroes, some of them friends, who had ended up having breakdowns or facing other disasters in their lives because they weren't willing to seek help either because of the feared stigma or because they thought that they didn't need it.
He sighed, for a few moments his eyes seemed to be looking at something far away. "Young Midoriya…you were there in my battle against All for One, you saw the amount of damage done. That was with both of us weakened, crippled.." Izuku nodded but he looked fairly confused. He wasn't sure how that related to what All Might had just said, but he listened as Toshinori continued.
"When I faced him…I want to say that I was facing him purely as the symbol of peace, that I was acting to bring a criminal to justice. That my focus was on removing someone who had preed on society for the sheer zeal to do what was right. In truth…the truth was that I wanted to annihilate him. He took away my mentor, the one who let me become a hero, the one who let me become the man I am now. When I faced him I didn't want to bring him in, I didn't want to capture him. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to annihilate him in every way possible and destroy all he had built. It wasn't just a matter of what he was, in terms of the monolith of crime and manipulation. It was that he had killed someone dear to me and I would not let her death sit unanswered."
Izuku stared, enraptured, he wasn't sure what Toshinori had meant in all of this as it didn't seem connected to what they had been speaking about before. But He listened, both wanting to hear what had happened but also because it felt like All Might was bringing him in deeper into his confidence with what he was telling him. Izuku looked at his mentor and saw that Yagis eyes seemed very far away suddenly. Izuku wasn't even fully sure at this point if the man was speaking to him directly or if he had sort of fallen into his own memories with this as he saw the faraway look n the eyes of the former symbol of peace.
"That battle…caution was attempted but it wasn't truly possible to be sure that no one else would be caught up in it. When we faced off it was more than a normal battle between men, even a battle between forces of nature. It was something darker and more terrible, it was two gods raging on the earth. I don't like to refer to myself as such but the kind of power that was being unleashed… Nature is apathetic, it neither has malice nor benevolence. When the two of us fought it was something darker. Primal rage and destruction a battle that had spent generations in culmination found its release. The desire to destroy one another, to annihilate one another, our strikes did not always find their mark and when beings of our power fought the surrounding devastation was horrific. They claimed the area we fought in had been the victim of a hurricane, and I imagine it may have looked or felt that way to anyone unlucky enough to see it." His voice seemed to have gotten smaller, almost introspective as he looked down, he looked at Midoriya who saw a solemn sorrow in the eyes of his mentor.
"My boy…I still remember that day. The horror of what I saw came after though. When I saw the devastation we had wrought, when I saw all of it I was affected more than I realized. I don't regret fighting him or what I did to him, but I will always carry the burden of the damage caused. The screams of the dead still echo, alive in my mind in my darker hours." He put a hand on his proteges wrist. "My point is that I still have echoes and terrors from my past as a hero, and I had them when I had more experience and training. I needed help and I had sought it for both mind and body, you doing the same is necessary for you to become the hero that we both know you can be."
Izuku nodded, tears in his eyes both from the stress of the situation and from All Mights words. He was uneasy and he was nervous, but he would do what his mentor had recommended. He closed his eyes again, hoping that eventually he might not face constant nightmares when he closed his eyes.