A searing sensation of pain pulls at his face, taking the rest of his head with the force. All of the structure to his neck tightens, straining with the arched backwards drag of parabola. No longer can he see anything but the blue sky, colors blotting his vision with the clouds. A thin wire swings in the air, reflected by a dim beam of sunlight. He can't locate his torso or his legs, but he knows they're falling with him thanks to that skinny little string.
As he descends, he can feel his chest tightening. The boy's bated breath quickens while he braces for impact. The bright atmosphere above him darkens as it's covered by a cement ceiling. When he touches down with the mixture of gravel and dirt beneath his body, he stares straight upwards at the bottom of a bridge. A canal runs behind him, the flow of the river's resonating sound flooding his ears.
Then the cackles of bullies break through his hearing like little popping bubbles. His vision swims and he feels like he's drowning when a warm liquid dribbles down from his right nostril. The same way he had been dragged here against his will, Izuku is manhandled by the group of three other boys to get propped upright. Izuku's view of the overpass' belly shifts to his tormentors. Suddenly, his brain registers the reason why his face is laced with so much pain. He had been punched. He thinks his nose is broken but the bullies won't let him check.
Overly extended fingers grip the back of Izuku's head to hold it in place, the nails digging into the boy's scalp. The stretched appendages belong to a bully whose school uniform is unbuttoned and disheveled, the delinquent fashion sense topped off by a backwards cap. He goes to Aldera Junior High the same as Izuku.
Ahead of Izuku, side by side with his former friend Katsuki Bakugo, is a plump boy kept afloat by two draconic wings. The flying bully's rounded face grins ear to ear, smile reaching the sideburns of brown shaven hair. He snickers before ceasing the flap of his wings and stepping foot on the earth's soil, "Grandpa says you got a quirk now."
Katsuki forms a fist and smacks it against the palm of his other hand, cracking his knuckles so that the resounding pop sounds like sparks coming from his quirk. "Show us what it is, shitty Deku!", the spikey haired blonde spits his demands that literal saliva droplets spray out of his mouth.
Izuku struggles in vain against the grip of elongated fingers coming from the bully behind him. The sound of rushing water in the canal reminds the boy of his transformation on the pier. Tears prickle at his eyes and his lip quivers before the rest of his body begins shaking, "I- I can't.."
Katsuki's eye twitches, his knee jerk reaction to the refusal one of anger. "Why the fuck not?!", the blonde glares into the innocent green orbs of his former friend with burning red dots in search of an honest answer. When Izuku doesn't respond right away, Katsuki comes to his own assumed conclusion, "You think it's better than mine, nerd?!"
"I doubt that", the bully with stretched fingers cackles confidently. A cocky grin stretches across his face as he tilts his head to one side, "You sure you heard right, Tsubasa? Maybe your grandpa meant someone else."
"I know what I heard!", the bully with wings bristles before crossing his arms. He holds the pose while pondering to himself in deep contemplation for a bit. Then, snaps his fingers upon having an epiphany, "I know! Get his shirt off!"
"What?!", the boy forcing Izuku to stay still jerks Izuku with him when he recoils in shock.
Katsuki doesn't have quite as outward a perturbed reaction other than his face scrunching up and the question, "Why?"
Tsubasa flaps his arms at his sides with a beat of his wings, agitated that his friends aren't listening to him. "There's supposed to be something attached to his chest, just do it!", he begins stomping towards Izuku to prove his claims himself. However, a grin finds itself on his face when Katsuki comes with him moments later.
"N- No, wait!", Izuku's eyes widen when he sees the two bullies reaching for him. He twists and turns his body so that they have a hard time removing his school blazer. The resistance is met with extra force, the third bully's fingers clinging to him tighter.
"Hold still, fucking Deku!", Katsuki complains when Izuku successfully makes the fabric of his shirt slip through the blonde's fingers. The bully's victim only prolongs the inevitable though. Eventually, Tsubasa's and Katsuki's combined efforts rip Izuku's top covering off. A string dangles from the boy's bare chest, earning a sneer from Katsuki, "What the fuck is this shit?"
"Whoa, talk about lame", Tsubasa gives the wire an unimpressed look. It had slipped free from Izuku's clothes when he had been punched, but the winged boy and the other bullies had failed to notice it until now due to how small and thin it is.
Katsuki turns his head side to side, giving the anatomically incorrect attachment a more analytically critical stare. The blonde's eyes squint until they can't narrow anymore without closing. "What are you? A shitty wind up doll?", he sounds disappointed while his face morphs into a deep frown.
The bully holding Izuku breaks into a fit of laughter. "Yeah! You gonna play us a lullaby if we pull on it?", his stretched fingers probe for the thin string's handle with a tiny twiddle.
Izuku draws away from the prying hand, panic overtaking his features. "No! Don't!", but his rebellion is easily overpowered and he can only watch with wide eyes as the string attached to his sternum gets pulled on.
It's not Izuku's words that sputter, but the ignition of chainsaws that rev themselves to life. Metallic teeth wrest away the flesh of the boy's forearms, the mutilated meat making way for the bar that cleaves between his ring finger and middle finger. Blood doesn't just gush out, the liquid bursts forth in violent jets of red. Izuku's face is torn down the middle, ripped apart until the mangled flesh caught on the suddenly sprouted saw's chain flings off the sharp bits of steel and splatters into the dirt. Pointed fangs and a yellow glare surfaces from the grume.
"Holy shit!", the boy that had been holding onto Izuku loses his grip immediately. He retreats from the chainsaws to hide behind Katsuki and Tsubasa.
"What the fuck?!", Katsuki is aghast by what he sees. Sweat dribbles down his forehead and he pants heavily, overwhelmed by the heat of what feels like a dangerous fire that's just been lit.
Izuku recluses from them, pointing the chainsaws sprouting from his arms downwards so that they do no accidental harm. "I- I told you not to–", his voice holds an echo of how he'd usually sound that matches his mannerisms but there's a malformed quality to it that still leaves the bullies wary. "Don't be scared! I won't hurt you, I swear!", Izuku's sharp teeth glisten with his own blood.
"This is crazy..", Tsubasa takes a step back to put some distance between the chainsaw boy and himself. The wings on his back quiver, ready to take flight should he be forced to choose between fight or flight.
Izuku's chainsaw mounted head swivels towards Katsuki, desperation radiating from the yellow orbs that serve as his set of eyes. The blonde boy flinches back when he meets the stare, but he at least recognizes the pleading shout that comes from the demonic visage, "Kacchan?!"
"Fuck off! I ain't scared!", Katsuki snaps when he hears the annoying nickname that the nerd had given him when they were younger. He's reminded of the timid boy that he grew up with as a neighbor and looks past the chainsaw transformation, "He's still the same old weakling Deku!"
Tsubasa shoots Katsuki a look of uncertainty, still iffy about Izuku's metamorphosis. He keeps his feet planted, refusing to go anywhere near the macabre of chainsaws. "But Bakugo.. Now he's got a..", the boy pauses to glance over at Izuku before lowering his voice just above that of a whisper, "A villain's quirk."
Still hiding behind Tsubasa, the bully with a backwards baseball cap hears his friend and has an epiphany. "No way! I just realized..", the delinquent raises one of his shaking stretchy fingers to point at Izuku, "You don't think his dad is Toxic Chainsaw, do you?!"
Hearing that accusation about his absent father, Izuku jumps upright to refute those claims, "No! He works overseas! He's not–"
"Yeah, right! I bet that was a lie your mom told you to make you feel better!", the long fingered bully yells over Izuku's shouting before cowering behind the boys that he's using as human shields.
"Your dad's totally a villain!", Tsubasa nods in agreement with his friend while trying to swap places to no longer be the one positioned in front.
"No! He's not!", Izuku wails through sharpened teeth as his arm saws carve into the ground's soil. The bullied boy would be weeping if his transformation allowed him to. "Tell them, Kacchan!", Izuku pleas to his childhood friend to defend his family's honor with hopeful desperation.
Katsuki holds his tongue, staring at the bizarre monsterfication of Izuku Midoriya. He studies the blood soaked school uniform dangling from the boy's body the same as the string attached to the base of Izuku's chest. Brown like the dirt, the sleeves are shredded from where the chainsaws came out. Katsuki knows for a fact, "That quirk isn't even your own, is it.. ?"
Tsubasa twists his head to look towards Katsuki in confusion, "Huh? What's that mean?"
But the blonde ignores his fellow bullying partner. Katsuki's focus is on Izuku even while the boy avoids looking back at him. "IS IT, DEKU?!", Katsuki shouts to regain Izuku's attention.
Slowly, Izuku raises his steel covered head. The chainsaw protruding from the base of the boy's skull is a familiar sight to the blonde even if he hadn't seen it on Izuku before now. "Kacchan.. Pochita is..", and Izuku's weak wet voice is all the confirmation that Katsuki needs to finish putting two and two together.
Tsubasa shares a quick glance with the boy next to him, not quite getting it himself. "Bakugo, what'd you mean by that?", the shaven headed bully tries prying for answers again when the baseball hat bully shakes his head.
"Quiet!", Katsuki snaps for the two extras to shut up. Then he looks back at Izuku and asks about the nature of his childhood friend's quirk, "It was your shitty dog, wasn't it?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I think this was my favorite flashback chapter to write so far for some reason. I had the bullies calling Izuku's father Toxic Chainsaw idea lingering in my head for a while now, so it could just be that I was glad to finally actually put the concept to use. Although, some recent ideas I had for later flashback chapters got me super excited to write eventually, so the place for favorite could change! You may be thinking after Pochita's sacrifice that there isn't much to do with the flashbacks anymore and I originally was stressing over the same thought, but trust me when I say I've come up with some real doozies that disprove that theory.
Also, Twitter isn't safe, just a fair warning. I just saw the new MHA chapter leaks.
There's actually a good number of reviews from ya'll this time, so I'll quit dallying and get to responding now!
To TheHuntBegins18:
I didn't think about how funny that line is until you put it that way, but yeah, big oof lmao
To dougwell666:
Yeah, I sorta figured Pochita took away Denji's disease along with gaining the regeneration factor in Chainsaw Man canon, but I thought it'd make for a good story piece to have as a weakness in my fanfic if Izuku still kept the illness.
To The Alone Sage:
You may have a point that Izuku should have realized something was off as he got older, but this IS also the same universe that people couldn't tell Toshinori is All Might when switching between skinny and muscle form if that's any consolation. Regardless, there's bound to be some epic fights in later chapters like you want, I'll promise that!
To tiguylerobot:
His years may be numbered like Aki's were, but at least his are longer if Inko's lifespan has lasted her this long lol
Thanks to everyone reading and those who left reviews! Hope to see ya next chapter!
