'What the fuck do you mean, you've always had a Quirk?' Kacchan snaps back at Deku.

'It's exactly as I'm telling you,' Deku replies while wandering around the compound, carefully avoiding Kacchan's gaze. He doesn't need to see him to feel his anger and his confusion. 'I've always had a Quirk.'

'Everyone said you were Quirkless.'

Deku looks around at Kacchan. Kacchan's eyes are wide open in shock and his mouth is hanging open as well. It looks strangely soft on him.

'Yeah. That's what the doctor told me as well. How funny that I discovered my Quirk after getting my heart shattered to pieces. Don't you think that's funny, Kacchan?'

Kacchan is just staring at Deku, not able to believe what the boy is telling him. Deku, the boy he bullied so much for being Quirkless, for being inferior to him, has always had a Quirk. Kacchan snaps to his senses and snaps his mouth shut.

'No, I don't think that's funny,' he growls, replacing the look of confusion with his ever present glare. Deku just shrugs.

'Guess it isn't funny to get your heart broken in such a horrible way. Doesn't change the fact that it made me who I am today,' he says, turning to look at Kacchan again, a grin on his face.

Kacchan feels terrible. He cannot comprehend anything Deku is saying, moreover can't accept the fact that he bullied a kid with a Quirk for being Quirkless when the opposite was true.

'You're feeling a lot of regret and guilt. Is that because you feel bad for bullying me?' Deku taunts, taking two steps forward to get a closer look at Kacchan's face as it contorts in pain.

'Would it be too much if I told you I'm the one that made you bully me, too?'

Deku looks at Kacchan, his head cocked to the side, a grin so wide that his green eyes sparkle in ecstasy. Is that fucking nerd serious, Kacchan thinks to himself. Kacchan is fuming. His nostrils are flared wide and the veins in his head are throbbing. Deku made Kacchan bully him? What kind of sadistic masochistic moron would do that? Kacchan's having trouble gathering his thoughts together in a single comprehensible sentence.

'What.. the fuck.. do you mean..,' he pushes past his lips, trying to look at the green haired boy flaunting around this wicked smile, but he can't. It makes him sick to his stomach to think about what his bullying might've driven Deku to. It makes him feel even worse knowing it wasn't his fault.

Deku looks away from him again as he starts talking in a typical villain show-off way. It pisses Kacchan off.

'I discovered my Quirk the day I was told I could never become a hero. It's a pretty interesting Quirk actually, but not really suitable for a hero. At least, that's according to U.A.'s entrance exam,' Deku rambles while glaring at Kacchan over his shoulder, still wearing that grin that's somehow filled with nothing but malicious intent.

'My Quirk is only suited for people, not robots. Seems quite unfair that we could only fight those during the entrance exam, considering some people with very strong mental Quirks rather than physical ones have become heroes,' he continues.

Kacchan has given up on trying to undo the restraints and he's too taken aback by all the information Deku is bombarding him with to look for any other way to escape. He isn't even sure he'd want to.

'Then what is your Quirk?' Kacchan asks as he grinds his teeth. Actual curiosity and disgust are overwhelming him.

'Mood shift!' Deku says as he spins around and faces Kacchan again. The green haired boy walks over to the place where Kacchan is sitting and takes a seat opposite of him.

'Mood shift?'

'I can shift the emotions of whoever I want around. A complete 360! Okay, that's actually not true, it won't reach that far, but still! It's pretty awesome, don't you think?'

Deku is looking at Kacchan like a gleeful child, his eyes sparkling and his entire body upright in enthusiasm. It's the same look he had when he was getting all giddy about heroes, Kacchan thinks to himself. A wave of regret washes over him.

Deku is looking at Kacchan, reading his emotions, and not quite understanding why the boy is feeling this way. Regret shouldn't be one of the feelings right now. He'd expected fear, anger, guilt, but not regret.

'What do you mean by… by you made me bully you,' Kacchan finally speaks up, looking down at his bound wrists, his face not showing, but Deku is able to read his emotions anyways.

Deku waves his hand around as if it's no big deal. 'I simply manipulated your emotions to such an extent that you'd hate me and pick on me.'

'I never hated you,' Kacchan spits out.

'I know. It was a real fun experiment to see how far you'd go without actually hating me.'

Kacchan can't believe a single thing he's saying. Still, nothing makes sense. Why would anyone want to be bullied?

'So all this time, I never really looked down on you. I never disliked you. I never wanted to do any of that,' he says, more to himself than to Deku.

Deku smirks. 'I wish I could tell you that, but the truth is, I only enhanced those feelings for you. You always looked down on me. Nothing changed about that.'

Guilt hits Kacchan straight in the chest, even harder than when he realized that Deku had become a villain after flunking the U.A. entrance exam. He had always felt semi-responsible for that. If he didn't look down on Deku, if he just took the time to see how much passion he had and help him, however he could, he might not have felt this way. But he never did. He had always been afraid the nerd would pass him by someday if he helped him, however ridiculous that seemed. Now he actually did. If he was able to overpower Kacchan like that, bring him back here, and immobilize him, then he really was something.

'Why?' Kacchan growls.

Deku cocks his head to the side. 'Why what?'

'Why would you want me to bully you?' It's one of the parts he can't understand. He can't imagine a single person that would like to get hurt.

Kacchan looks up and is suddenly facing Deku. His grin is still plastered on his face, nearly looking like a maniacal murdered rather than a vigilante with the best intentions. Because that's what Deku is, a vigilante, not a villain. If he still has the best intentions then he can't be grouped with the rest of those assholes.

'What can I say? I just like to hurt people and I'd like it if people hurt me.' He shrugs it off so casually as it's the most normal thing in the entire world. It's not.

'You like to get hurt?' Kacchan asks in disbelief. Deku only nods once in agreement. It makes Kacchan feel weird. He bullied Deku for so long, only because Deku enjoyed it. It's.. insane. That's what it is.

'What are you thinking about?' Deku asks, reaching out his hand and lifting Kacchan's chin up with his hand.

Kacchan struggles to get loose from Deku's grip, but he doesn't budge.

'Do I have to spit on you again, you asshole?' he growls. He isn't afraid to do it. Now that he knows Deku's Quirk he knows he isn't much of a threat. Manipulating his emotions is a pain, and it causes him a lot of pain, but only mentally. Physically he's still the strongest.

'Just tell me what you're thinking about. I'm very curious to match a person's thoughts to their emotions, you see.'

'I was thinking that you're not at all the kid I used to know,' Kacchan admits. It is what he was thinking about. The bright, gleeful kid that admired heroes has completely faded away, being taken over by someone that has discarded all of that and is acting completely opposite of how he used to act.

Deku lets go of Kacchan and takes a step back, pondering over that.

'I guess you're kinda right. Not completely though.'

'I don't recognize a single thing of you anymore.'

'That isn't true. I still admire heroes. I still want to do the right thing. I already told you that.' Deku can feel his own anger rising. He struggles to keep his own emotions in check, but hearing that his friend doesn't recognize him anymore.. it hurts him. He breathes in deeply, but his own Quirk is failing him and he feels like yelling at Kacchan. Knowing it won't help him achieve his goals, he storms off, slamming one of the doors behind him, leaving Kacchan on his own on the couch in the living area, left behind to his own thoughts.