Author's Note: Reposted this chapter to fix the spacing.
Izuku was going to hell for this, wasn't he? Here he was, standing silently next to his sleeping mother, with her none the wiser. She was sleeping soundly, and here he was standing next to her. Her left shoulder was exposed, and it was hypnotic for him, for all the wrong reasons.
Not that there were right reasons, mind you.
Midoriya's original quirk, All for One, was screaming in his head, demanding him to take another quirk. It was incessant and bossy, speaking to him sinfully for the last six hours, trying to coerce him to take anyone's quirk, be it man, woman, or child. He had, of course, tried to ignore it, tried to forget about it by listening to music; he had morals, damnit! He wasn't going to let his new quirk control him like this.
By the first hour everything was mostly alright, the music was working and abating the hunger in his body and mind that wanted a new quirk. By the third, he couldn't hear much of anything at all except his quirk screaming in his ears about needing a new quirk to satiate it, promising him that it'd shut up if he did as it wanted. By the fifth hour Midoriya was shaking back and forth in the fetal position on his bed, constantly hearing the words "taketaketaketaketaketake" yelling in his ears like a mantra. And finally by the sixth hour he gave in and went to his mother's room, standing next to her while he heard his quirk telling him he was doing the right thing, allowing him to think for a moment, as his quirk finally quieted down when it realized he was listening to it.
He gulped nervously as he laid a hand gently on her exposed shoulder, seeing a mental image of her quirk, her string just sitting there, ripe for the taking. He "borrowed" it gently, the voices in his head disappearing immediately as the string slotted into place in his body. Midoriya removed his hand and tested out the new quirk he "borrowed," managing to pick up her smartphone from her desk and telekinetically picking it up by imitating what his mother did when she rarely used her quirk.
Izuku wanted to throw up. He had just stolen, not "borrowed," but stolen his mother's quirk without her consent, just like with the sludge villain. He felt sick and in an act of desperation tried to give it back by putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, trying to push her quirk back into her.
It, surprisingly, worked and her quirk slotted back into place, leaving him with the voices in his head screaming at him about why he would do that. "I have the power to take and give quirks? What the hell kind of broken quirk do I have?!" he fiercely whispered to himself before he then left the room and slammed his head against a wall, trying to shut up his quirk madness, to no avail. He needed another quirk if he wanted the voices in his head to stop talking. He must be suffering from quirk madness, so he looked up on his own smartphone how to counteract it.
The responses were varied, some of them saying he needed to commit himself to a hospital or a police station to protect others, some of the saying there was no hope for him. Thankfully, one of them stated that caffeine helped, so that's what he did, even though it was nighttime; he brewed himself a cup of coffee, drinking it while ignoring the searing hot pain it gave him (Kacchan had done much worse, this was nothing). He thought it was bitter, as it was black coffee, and he didn't like it; but thankfully he heard the voices in his head go away, quieting down a fair bit to where instead of screaming, they were now whispering. Much more tolerable in his opinion.
He looked to the clock and saw that it was nearing 5:00 AM in the morning, so he decided to turn on the news and see if anything interesting was going on. His mom gave him a curious look when she left her room not thirty minutes later. "Honey, what are you doing up so early?" she yawned out, stretching her limbs above her head.
"Couldn't sleep much last night, but this is helping," he gestured to his cooled down coffee, sipping it whenever the voices got even a bit louder, quieting them.
"Coffee does its wonders," Inko agreed as she got herself a mug of coffee, joining him on the couch as they discussed their nights, his mother talking about a dream she had and her son talked about what he was doing.
Eventually they had to part ways, his mother leaving for work while Izuku got his school uniform on, taking with him three thermoses of coffee to be extra ready. He didn't bother to flavor them with milk or sugar, as to not dilute his caffeine input, and as well he saw no point at this moment of time until he found a more permanent way of quieting the voices (that didn't involve him to taking a quirk).
On the way to the school several of the students were looking at him oddly, probably because he was walking with more confidence in his step, due to now being assured that he had a quirk, or rather, two quirks. It was amazing what not being a quirkless freak did to one's psyche, even if he had a villainous quirk (in his opinion).
School progressed normally, or rather, it would've had he not been surrounded by quirked people. Every time he looked at someone, even if it was a passing glance, his mind went into overdrive analyzing their quirk if he knew them, and making shit up if he didn't; his brain wanted to know what their string looked like, what it felt like to use their quirk. Several times he had to pull back a hand that went reaching out to them, downing coffee by the pint to quell the quirk madness in his head.
This didn't escape the attention of his longtime bully, Bakugo "Kacchan" Katsuki, who slammed his hands palms-down onto the greenette's desk, releasing a small explosion for more "oomph."
"Deku!" Bakugo sneered as he rounded on the little twerp, who was eying everyone warily, a hunger of sorts in his eyes. He quickly looked away from him, the asshole, twiddling with his thumbs underneath his desk. "What the hell is wrong with you today?"
"No-nothing!" Izuku quickly denied, a little too quickly, in Bakugo's opinion. "Just-just tired today," he argued as he chugged his mystery drink from a thermos. Katsuki smelled Deku's breath and confirmed it was coffee.
"You're not a coffee drinker," Katsuki pointed out, finding the change odd in him. "What, overslept?"
"Kinda?" the greenette vaguely answered before the bell rung, signaling the end of the day. Midoriya quickly stood up, stowing away his thermos. "Bye, Kacchan, but I gotta go!"
Before he could catch the bastard, the greenette ran away, leaving him there, pissed off more than usual. "What the hell's gotten into Deku?" he asked himself before repeating himself to his extras.
"Beats me, Bakugo," one of the generic faces said, putting away his notebook and mechanical pencils. "He's been acting off since today, always looking too long at someone."
"Yeah, what he said," another generic face agreed, putting away their water bottle. "Who knows what's going on in that stupid, useless brain of his?"
Midoriya had to get away, away from the smorgasbord of quirks that he could take with just a handshake or touch of his hand. He ran home, not stopping for anything until he closed the door behind him, dropping to the ground with his back against the wooden door.
"All those quirks…so many to steal—no, don't think like that!" he shook his head, hitting himself before ultimately deciding to down one of thermoses of coffee for a slight reprieve of the voices. "I could barely think with so many quirks in the room!" he remarked as he stood up from the ground, taking out his three thermoses and bringing them to the kitchen, washing them by hand like a good son. Idly he wondered what would happen if he turned his hand into sludge and tried to wash it away, so he did just that, watching as his body recouped the loss of the sludge/hand by quickly refilling it. "Wait, does that mean there's a regenerative aspect to Sludge?" he asked himself, wanting to test it but having no way to safely do so.
He shrugged to himself, deciding to add it to the list of his "History Notes" section on Sludge for later. The voices in his head was coming back, so he turned on his new friend the coffee maker to make (what else) coffee. He downed the scalding hot liquid as soon as it finished, banishing the voices temporarily until they came back as whispers.
He needed another quirk, his original quirk told him. He needed to steal another quirk, lest he go mad.
But where would he get it?
No! He shouldn't think like that! Stealing quirks was wrong, right?!
The voices in his head started talking to him, assuring him that it was okay, that it was normal to feel a hungering for quirks. The voices promised him that they'd stop bothering him when he got enough quirks, that they'd leave him alone.
Midoriya swallowed down his morals as he decided what to do that night.
"Okay, this is the stupidest idea I've come up with," the greenette muttered to himself as he navigated the alleyways he was in. It was past ten at night, the full moon high overhead providing some moonlight. He was wearing a black and red hoodie and ripped denim jeans, acting as casual as he could. He was currently in the seedier parts of town, looking for easy targets.
Alright, that sounds too predatory. Candidates?
Yes, he was in the seedier part of town, looking for unwilling candidates to feed his hunger. Coffee had only done so much in alleviating the effects of his quirk madness (as calling it anything else was stupid), so here he was trying to make himself an easy target for attack. The red light district he was in was indifferent to him, as if they always saw barely legal kids roaming about.
"Hey!" a whisper to his right called to him. Midoriya looked to the source of the noise and saw a Caucasian man wearing clothes fit for a druggie or a homeless person in a nearby alleyway. "Follow me!" he beckoned, delving further into the darkness.
Izuku, seeing a chance to get an easy candidate, followed in, seeing the man standing next to a body. "What happened to that guy?" Midoriya gestured to the corpse, which honestly shocked him, though he hid his surprise decently well.
"Oh, that? That happened to the last idiot who decided to follow a stranger. Give me all your money!" the stranger demanded, brandishing his fists, which had a reflective silver sheen to them, as if they made out of metal.
Acting on instinct Midoriya transfigured his left arm into sludge and slammed it into the face of the burglar, forcing it down the stranger's throat, causing him to stop using his quirk and turning his hands back to normal. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Izuku repeated until he felt the man stop fighting him, retracting the sludge and thankfully seeing that he was still alive, just unconscious. With a gulp he placed a hand on the unconscious man's head and took his quirk, the string slotting neatly into place. He activated the quirk by pulling on the new string, feeling in his knuckles shifting into a metal. Looking at his knuckles revealed that they copper-colored, not at all like the silverness of the original's. "Interesting, it appears that I need better handling of someone else's quirks to receive all the benefits," he muttered to himself before looking to the corpse, its face bashed in and disfigured. Midoriya wondered if he could take quirks from dead people and tried to steal the corpse's quirk, finding that it did indeed have a quirk, one that was dying just like its owner. He plucked it with no issue and felt it immediately activate, having no idea what it did or what it was affecting, but his eyes were hurting a little bit. Taking out his phone he turned on the camera app and turned it inwards, seeing that cracks were sprouting from his eyes and he could now better see in the darkness, as if it was midday in the alleyway. "Hmm, a night vision mutation-type quirk?" he talked to himself, examining his face in full. Some concealer would help hide his new predicament, or he could give the corpse back the quirk.
His original quirk growled in protest of that thought, so he decided it wasn't worth the risk. He activated the metal quirk in his knuckles again, slamming his fists together to get a sense of how strong it was. It TINGED! loudly, but he felt some of the metal give in due to being copper. Izuku wondered if he got a low-level strength boost to this quirk, which he'd now dub "Metal Knuckles," for convenience's sake. And for the night vision quirk he'd call it "Cracked Eyes," on account of the surroundings of his eyes now having cracks.
Satisfied and not hearing voices for once, he decided to call it quits and go home, making sure he didn't go down any more alleyways or sketchy areas. Once inside the safety of his home he turned on his desk light and took out his "History Notes" notebook, deciding to write in the new quirks he acquired.
All for One (Emitter-type): Allows the user to take and give quirks from touching directly with someone's body, skin-to-skin contact. Many theories to write about. Sludge (Transformation-type): Allows the user to turn parts of their body into dark green sludge that's smelly. The user becomes practically invulnerable to blunt and sharp objects to any part of their sludge body, however the eyes and mouth are weak points if one transforms completely. Metal Knuckles (Transformation-type): Allows the user to turn their knuckles into a metal-reinforced exterior. Cracked Eyes (Mutant-type): Causes cracks to form out of the users eyes while giving them night vision akin to dark elves like in tabletop games.
As Midoriya was about to make an extension page for each quirk he idly wondered if he should make this in a document online before realizing that could be hacked and he should probably write his notebooks in a cipher, making it harder to read and decode. He resolved to do that tomorrow (or was it today?) and continued to make theories about the quirks he had.
All for One Theories:
Theory #1: People can have more than one quirk in their body (untested except for myself, need willing test subjects).
Theory #2: People can be deprived of their original quirk and given a new one that wasn't made for them (untested, though likely to work).
Theory #3: Someone else can be given the All for One quirk (untested for the indefinite future).
Theory #4: Someone throughout history has already had a quirk similar to this and was either accidentally, or rather, purposely been forgotten (unknown, using a VPN and incognito to look this subject up didn't reveal many results).
Sludge Theories:
Theory #5: This quirk has a regenerative effect to it (semi-tested by putting a sludgy hand underneath water and washing it away, it coming back near instantly).
Metal Knuckles Theories:
Theory #1: The type of metal that can reinforce my knuckles varies to how much I train the metal (untested, but the original owner of the quirk had silver-colored knuckles instead of the copper I wield).
Theory #2: Activating the quirk gives the user a slight strength power-up (untested, need a handheld kilo-tester to measure strength).
Theory #3: I can use Metal Knuckles in conjunction with Sludge to surprise opponents (tested by transforming into mostly sludge and turning my arm back into a regular arm with reinforced copper knuckles. Worked quite nicely and I'm able to spawn my regular arm anywhere on my sludge, regardless if it makes any anatomical sense).
Cracked Eyes Theories: Not much to actually actually write about to be honest. The quirk simply improves human eyesight in low light levels. If only there was a way to remove the cracked portion of the quirk so I can look normal without concealer…
With his mechanical pencil smoking with how much he was writing he retired to his bed, taking off his disguise hoodie and blue ripped denim pants and putting on comfy pajamas, laying down comfortably on his matress.
Midoriya had finally satiated the hunger and quirk madness for his quirk, and not having voices in his head was a novelty at this point. If he was religious he'd probably pray to a god that it wouldn't come back tomorrow, to let him be a quirkless freak once more instead of the monster he was surely becoming.
Stealing quirks from people, even if they were villains or corpses, was wrong, it had to be. No good person, no pro hero had a quirk like he did. Did that mean he was destined to become evil, to become a villain?
No! Midoriya resolved to become a hero even without a heroic quirk, with a villainous quirk that could land him in Tartarus for simply existing. He'd have to figure out what he wanted his primary quirk to be so he could attend UA, but that could come later, for now he must rest.
"This is so boring…" came the disinterested voice of a young blonde-haired woman, prowling the rooftops with cat-like grace. She, under the orders of a heavily crippled "Sensei," has been looking for someone "unusual," whatever the hell that meant. She went down to street level and kicked an empty aluminum in frustration, wondering why her skills as a stalker/murderer were being wasted.
She was lethal with a blade and was a boon to undercover stealth missions, so why did "Sensei" want her to prowl about the city looking for someone who she didn't have an ID for. No name, no distinguishing features, she didn't even bloody know what sex they were.
No no no, someone "unusual," someone she'd know straight away if they were her target. Did "Sensei" have any idea how little that narrowed things down?! What the hell was she looking for that warranted a search like this?
She walked her way all casual like down one of the nearby alleyways, looking for a human snack to satiate some of her blood hunger, when she came across two bodies, one clearly dead based on the injuries to his face, and one unconscious. Toga licked her canine-like teeth in celebration, taking out her knife and slicing width wise to his wrist and began drinking the passed out man's blood.
Himiko didn't want to drink stale and rotted blood from the corpse. Fresher was always better as she slurped up the blood hungrily, not noticing that the unconscious man was becoming a lot less unconscious, waking up and immediately sending a fist to her head.
She staggered from the hit, it hurting and surely leaving a bruise. Toga brought up her knife, ready to attack, when she realized the man had stopped attacking her, staring in disbelief at his knuckles.
"Do you have a hand fetish or something?" she mocked her opponent.
"My quirk…it's not working!" the man exclaimed in fear and worry, clenching and unclenching his fists rapidly.
"Hmm? Was it working before?" Toga asked, her knife ready to slit his throat and drink all the blood she wanted from the fresh body.
"Yes it was working—wait, why the hell should I tell you?!" the man in homeless clothing questioned before lunging at her, throwing a punch while over-extending himself. She seized the opportunity as she easily side-stepped it and in the motion in-between used that as an opportunity to slash his throat, making him bleed profusely. He grabbed at the sliced area, trying to stem the tide of blood by holding both hands to it. Using some dexterity Himiko kicked him in the chin, sending him flying back into a wall, bleeding out.
"Oooh, yummy blood!" she enthused as she drank from the slice, kneeling next to the corpse she just created. The blood was nice and warm while also tasting like pennies and salt.
It was perfect and satiated the quirk madness inside of her temporarily. Toga, not for the first time, wished she had a special machine to collect blood from a person to snack on/use later on, as that would save her some nights from acting like a vampire and feasting for blood.
"I wonder why this guy couldn't use his quirk…I know!" the blonde-haired girl snapped her fingers in realization as she pulled out her smartphone, calling a particular person. "Hey, Doc! I have a dead guy here that said he couldn't use his quirk anymore…you want to examine him? I'll tell you, if you drain him of all his blood and give it to me…you will? Great! I'll text you the location!" she texted him the location and then after took out a specially made, just for her, pack of blood-infused gum, courtesy of Giran after she did a job for him as a favor. Himiko had no idea how he accomplished something of this caliber, but this was Giran, he could do a lot. She blew a bubble with her blood gum, loving the taste, before a purplish black portal opened nearby her, two male grunts coming out and carrying the bodies through the portal. Toga waved to them excitedly, them ignoring her, until they were done and she went through with them.
Doctor Garaki had seen a lot over the years due to his quirk, Life Force. He'd seen the world change, especially due to his master's help. His master's ability to take and give quirks had amassed him many allies over the 200+ years of being alive, and many enemies.
Which was why he was most interested in seeing why people were losing access to their quirks after a scuffle. The first man was based in Musutafu city, who was supposed to have a quirk called Sludge. After using his connections Garaki managed to get a vial of the villain's blood, double-checking that he did indeed have no more quirk factor, which meant someone stole it.
The implications was alarming. Someone having a quirk similar to his master's could make them a massive threat, or a valuable ally if talked down and coerced to work with the League of Villains.
Speaking of the League of Villains…
"Ooooh! What's this?!" Toga asked as she put her face right up against the glass holding a monstrous black creature, which was suspended in a neon green fluid.
Garaki sighed as he answered, "That's a nomu, for the fifth time I've told you. Now, can you please leave me to my work?" he asked, taking out a fresh syringe and ready to pierce the throat-slashed man's body.
"You promised me his blood, Garakie!"
"It's not 'Garakie,' it's Garaki," he sighed even harder as he pulled blood from the corpse. He brought it over to his work station, turning online some specialty equipment that he had patented when he was a wee lad. "Fine, you'll have his blood as soon as I finish checking both of these corpses for quirk factors, okay?"
"Yay!" she celebrated by throwing her arms up in the air like a child. She found a rolling chair to sit down in and took out her smartphone, blowing gum bubbles as she scrolled a social media platform.
Garaki turned on an application of his computer and scanned the blood syringe for any quirk factor. The findings he found were staggering: The man had a quirk, and now he didn't. He pulled up the corpse's quirk dossier, finding that the druggie and homeless person had a transformation-type quirk called—
"Weee!" Toga sped around the room on the rolling chair, cutting corners and building speed.
The balding doctor wanted to bang his head against a wall as he then examined/took blood from the bashed-in face corpse. He analyzed it and discovered that the man also didn't have a quirk factor, despite having a quirk dossier. "Did the copycat take from the corpse before he died? I didn't even know you could take a quirk from a corpse," the doctor muttered, seemingly to himself.
"Wait, there are people out there that can take quirks away?" Toga asked inquisitively, hope in her eyes.
Garaki looked over to a monitor that was, well, monitoring them and the screen flashed green twice, his master (who was listening in) giving him the greenlight that he could talk about this. "Alright, you zygote, listen up. There's usually only one person in the world who can take and give quirks. You know him as Sensei, I know him as Master."
"Can he take my quirk away?" she asked hurriedly.
"Of course he can, but he doesn't want it. If he wanted it you'd be dead already," Garaki informed her. "There seems to be another individual out there who has Master's quirk, or something like it. Maybe if you find him or her, they can take your quirk away, but why you would want that is beyond my imagination," the bald doctor offered. "My guess on this copycat is that he or she is located in Musutafu, due to all the incidents happening there," he told her. "I'll also get you your blood that I promised you."
"Thank you so much, Doc!" She blew him a playful kiss, which made Garaki snort.
"I'm your senior several times over, little girl," he pointed out as he attached a specialized device to the fresher corpse and started to drain the blood into a bag.
It would take some time, but maybe he could pass the time talking to this girl…