And now we get to the part we've all been waiting for! We begin Izuku's descent into madness. Now that we've gone past the bump in the road, we can now begin to see his slow descent into becoming the vicious Demon King that you all got to see a glimpse of in the original. Of course, a much less stupid version of him, but I digress.
There were a lot of things I did wrong in the original version of this story, such as not giving him an actual reason to become a villain other than He'S a HeRo HaTeR vErSiOn Of IzUkU wItH mUzAn'S pOwEr'S. However, I now get the added advantage to build up his character over the course of a few years (within the story, of course) which will allow me to not fall into that pitfall so many other people, as well as myself, have the habit of falling into where Izuku hates heroes because why not.
Now, I want you all to keep in mind the name of this arc: Slow Uprisings.
Izuku is not going to snap his fingers and become the Demon King. He's 11 for fuck sake, he still has room to grow, to change, and to become a 3-Dimensional character instead of a cardboard cut-out. However, he is an extremely smart 11-year-old, and knows his way around the system, so don't get too worried about him not being able to pull some sneaky stuff.
I mean, the kid has what, 5 brains? When someone has 5 whole ass brains, they tend to be extremely smart. So of course he's going to be doing some sneaky stuff. Also, there's a reference in this chapter to Demon Slayer, you know other than Izuku having Muzan's powers (and maybe a part of his original self :eyes:). The first person who figures it out will get a free cookie (not really).
That being said…
WARNING! THIS STORY CONTAINS SCENES/MENTIONS/IMPLICATIONS OF THE FOLLOWING: CANNIBALISM, EXTREME GORE, BULLYING, ABUSE, BRUTAL DEATH, HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION, AND HEAVY BLOODSHED.
IF ANY OF THESE THINGS BOTHER YOU, TURN BACK NOW!
IF THE WARNING DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU…
THIS STORY IS A FAN-BASED FICTION
I OWN NEITHER MY HERO ACADEMIA NOR DEMON SLAYER/KIMETSU NO YAIBA
ALL I OWN ARE MY OCS.
[Vol 1 - 4: Slow Uprisings – Part 1]
It was supposed to be a good day. Izuku was ready and raring to face the day like he usually did. His mother had still been worried about him, but he said that he would be fine. He was originally going to wear his fedora but decided against it. He didn't need to use his powers that day, nor did he want to get any looks for wearing any outdated clothing, so he chose against it.
That, and the sun was nothing more than a vague nuisance to him. It wasn't like it hurt him or anything outside of the occasional sunburn. The most it did was weaken the strength of his Bone Whips. Well, actually, he didn't know what else about him the sun weakened, but it did make him feel slightly weak, but that was beside the point.
Seeing as he was going out that day, his mother asked him to pick up some groceries for dinner tonight. Normally, she wouldn't allow it, but now that she knew the truth about him, and by extension himself coming to terms that he was, in fact, not human, she was okay—if not reluctant—with letting him go pick up the ingredients.
She planned on having Teriyaki with a side of ramen, but she had forgotten to pick up the ingredients for it. Normally Izuku would've been annoyed, but today he wasn't. In fact, he felt oddly happy about leaving the house when compared to yesterday, when he had been a bit grumpy and upset. Which, to be fair, had everything to do with what Natsumi said to him on Friday.
Izuku knew that Natsumi wasn't allowed out of the house on Sundays, yet she always found a way to anyway. If he saw her roaming the streets, he decided that he was going to apologize for blowing up in her face and running away. After all, she was still his friend, and it would remain that way forever. They were as thick as thieves, and he wasn't going to let some quarrel over secrets break their tight-knit bond.
Or at least, that would've been the case, had he heard Natsumi scream at the top of her lungs from a nearby alleyway close to the store he had gone to. While he ran there, he saw two heroes casually talking to one another, almost as if they had completely ignored the scream for help.
Already that was something that got on his nerves, but then he turned the corner and bore witness to something he wished he didn't. And now, he had the image of his friend beaten and bloodied, all thanks to three thugs who thought themselves to be tough.
Oh, they were tough alright. They must've thought themselves kings of the world. They were so tough for beating on a poor elementary school student who did nothing wrong. It was funny because the look on their faces when he sliced the two big guys to bits made what happened next all the more better.
He remembered their blood coating his skin, drenching his clothes, and yet he didn't care. At that moment, he felt like a wild animal—an untamed king of the jungle in a land full of gazelle, all for him to slaughter and devour. The smell of the blood in the air made something in his brain flip like a switch. At that moment, he had lost all control over whatever had been keeping his inner beast at bay.
Some may call that cliché, but he would call it natural. Some would call what he had done to those thugs barbaric, but yet again he didn't care. Why would he? They were nothing but weak, pathetic gazelle in his hunting grounds. Not only that, but they hurt his friend—no, they beat on her till she was black and blue; drenched in blood and barely clinging to life. And for what reason? Well, he didn't know.
It didn't matter what she did, because the brutality she faced was not worth the crime. If she really did something wrong, then it should've been reported to the cops or the local heroes instead of her getting turned into a bloody pulp.
He knew what he did was wrong.
He knew it made him no different from them.
But by the Gods did it feel natural.
Izuku snapped, and no longer was Izuku. For just that moment, he was a God, but a God that was in pain. There were two reasons why he snapped. The first reason was the intoxicating smell of the blood in the air, which made him go into a frenzy of sorts. But the other reason as to why he snapped had helped him sink back into reality.
He snapped because that was his friend they were beating on. Anyone else and he probably wouldn't have batted an eye. Well, that was a lie, he would've stepped in regardless, but he wouldn't have torn them apart. Maybe he would've just scared them off, but he wouldn't have impaled them with his whips… maybe he wouldn't have killed them all.
And that was when reality had caved in, and his mind went back from being crazed, to being the same 11-year-old boy he had been not just two seconds ago. He didn't live in a reality where he was the king of all the lands, but rather, he lived in the real world.
He lived in a reality where he committed 1st-degree murder three times in a second. Normally, that would bother him. Hell, it would bother anyone if they realized that they committed a grievous crime such as that. But Izuku didn't feel bothered. He didn't feel remorse for his actions.
After all, they were bad guys. They most likely did this before, and they were most likely going to continue if they weren't dealt with right then and there. So he did the heroes who were ignoring the issue a favour and did their job for them.
The confusion and fear on the face of the one who was holding the bat when he looked behind himself to see his big burly friends quite literally fall apart at the seams made it all the better. And then, he killed the scrawny guy. The one who held the murder weapon that killed his friend—because that was what happened. She died just before entering the operating room, and he got to see the doctors slow down and stop moving. He got to see their defeated faces when they realized she had passed.
Then, not even two minutes later, before he could grieve for the death of his best friend, the same heroes that had been talking to themselves by the lip of the alleyway had grabbed him and dragged him away, telling him how he was in a metric crap-load of trouble. That sent him over the edge, but he didn't lash out. He knew that if he did it would've made him look like a villain in front of everyone, who had actually been yelling at the heroes to let him go.
Of course, they didn't, and he was put into a police car, and driven off to the nearby police station.
He kept silent while in the car, all the while he practically fumed at being dragged away to the police station. He thought back to those two heroes who dragged him into the police car. He thought back to their faces, the smiles as if they had done a good job.
But he knew that they didn't. If anything, they failed. Which only served him to get angrier, and for more questions to generate in his mind.
Why the hell didn't the heroes hear Natsumi scream for help, yet he did? Did they ignore it? Did they know about what was happening? If they did, why didn't they step in? Why didn't they help her? Why did they let a little kid who looked no older than 11 rush in and do their job for them? He knew they saw him because they watched him run toward the sound.
One of them even rolled their eyes and joked with the other, who laughed. They thought he didn't see them, but he did, and it only fueled his anger even more.
And that led him to now, where he sat in an interrogation room at the local police station, two police officers to his left and right while he sat in front of another police officer, who looked none too pleased with him, but kept up a happy-go-lucky façade in some vain attempt to show that he wasn't mad at him, despite the fact that he clearly was.
"Izuku Midoriya. That's your name, right?" The officer in front of him asked him, but he paid no mind to his words. All he did was nod, to which the officer sighed. "Well, my name is Officer Tsugikuni. Normally, I would say it's a pleasure to meet you, but you're in deep trouble kiddo," Officer Tsugikuni continued, a small frown on his face as he brushed his black bangs out of his auburn-coloured eyes.
Tsugikuni was a slim-looking man with a light tan colour to his skin, dressed in a blue police uniform. He had his police cap off and on the table, as well as several photographs which had been from the security cameras in the alleyway. The pictures showed him impaling the man that killed Natsumi, and the other two showed the two men behind the scrawny guy falling apart like a bunch of Jenga blocks, as well as a snapshot of one of his bone whips exiting the frame.
"Now, I don't think I need to tell you that killing people is a bad thing. From what your school said, you seem to be well beyond the intelligence level of a normal child. So that means you knew what it was you were doing was bad," Officer Tsugikuni said, pushing the photographs over to Izuku, who had his wrists chained to the top of the table with Quirk disabling cuffs.
The green-haired boy couldn't reach them, nor could he get a look at them, even though he knew exactly what was on them. He tried reaching out for the pictures with his fingers, but he couldn't even so much as grip the ends of one of them. "Oh, my bad, I didn't slide them close enough, sorry about that. Here, let me help," The officer said, pushing the photo's just that much closer so that he could grab them.
Once he gave them a single glance, Izuku frowned before looking back up at the officer. "I don't see the issue here, Officer," Izuku commented dryly, glancing up at the man with his blood-red eyes. "I did the right thing, so why am I here?" the green-haired boy questioned, earning a frown from the officer in front of him.
"You don't know why you're here? I know why you're here, but I would like to hear your reasoning first," the officer began, a slight tinge of sarcasm in his voice as he continued. "Well, do explain, Mr. Midoriya. Tell me why you think committing 1st-degree murder, three times on the same day at the same hour, in the same minute, is excusable?" Officer Tsugikuni replied with the same level of dryness that Izuku replied to him.
"They were in the process of beating and killing my friend," Izuku responded through grit teeth, a vein appearing on his forehead through sheer anger. "So I only did what I thought was right. I stopped them from hurting her. Is that a bad thing?" Izuku quipped, earning a sigh from the officer in front of him, and a chortle from one of the officers to his sides.
"So you think yourself to be some heroic vigilante then, huh?" The officer to his right quipped, scoffing before muttering something about kids these days, letting out a dry sigh before continuing. "Heroes are the ones who deal with scum like them, so—"
"Then tell me why the heroes I saw on my way to the hospital, who were conveniently right outside of the alleyway where my friend had screamed for help, didn't rush in to do just that?" Izuku interrupted, snapping a glare at the officer that spoke up.
"It's a city, kiddo, perhaps they didn't hear her over the sounds of the afternoon traffic?" Officer Tsugikuni replied for the stunned officer, only earning a scowl from Izuku.
There was a distant rage in his eyes, one that didn't look so easily quelled. In Izuku's eyes, he did nothing wrong, even though his actions were considered wrong by the law. As far as he was concerned, he was in the right for ridding the world of three pieces of trash that killed his friend. What else was he supposed to do? Stand around and do nothing?
If that was the case, did that mean the heroes were in the right?
This man… this police officer, was trying to tell him that it should've been left to the heroes—the same heroes who didn't so much as bat an eye at a kid running down the street with a blood-soaked girl in his arms; the same heroes that were just outside of the alleyway where the attack occurred… yeah. No, he wasn't going to accept that as what he was supposed to do.
"I don't buy that," Izuku spat, earning a disappointed sigh from Officer Tsugikuni. He placed his police cap back over his head, straightened himself out, and glared at Izuku, switching from whatever charade he had been using to his true self, something that Izuku already saw due to the look he had in his eyes from the moment he sat down in front of him.
The officer slammed the table with a balled fist, trying to spook Izuku, who didn't even flinch but rather raised an eyebrow at his action.
"Listen here, brat. What you did was wrong. You murdered three people, and now you're trying to find an excuse to get your record cleared. Just because you're a kid doesn't mean that we can't treat you like an adult for what you did. You're a criminal! Hell, some might even call you a villain for what you did! Murder, for any reason, is still murder and is still a crime. The term "an eye for an eye" doesn't work in the real world. So either you snap out of whatever funk you're in and confess to your wrongdoing so we can speed up the process and get your ass in a prison cell where you belong, then I can go home, and—"
His rant was stopped by one of Izuku's bone whips stabbing into the table just in front of his face, a few centimetres away from breaking the skin on his nose, making the officer's eyes go wide. The two officers snapped to attention and drew out their batons to hit the irate Izuku, only to have their batons stabbed and pinned to the wall thanks to two other bone whips forming from his back.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye, far faster than the officers could react to, and faster than anything they would've expected coming from an 11-year-old kid who hadn't even hit puberty yet.
And what was even more puzzling was that the Quirk disabling cuffs, the things that should've prevented Izuku from doing that, didn't shock him like they were supposed to. All they did was glow the neon blue that they normally did. They didn't turn red in reaction to his Quirk activating. They were supposed to suppress Quirks, yet this pair wasn't doing its job.
"I'm sorry, officer. But you lost me after you called me a villain," Izuku snarled, breaking the cuffs with a flex of his arms, something he didn't even realize he did, which only seemed to make the officer flinch. Retracting his bone whips, he stood up from the chair and glared daggers at the officer, who returned the glare in full.
"Lost you?! What in these four simple words: "you committed a crime" doesn't spell that out to you! I thought you were supposed to be super smart or something?" Officer Tsugikuni snapped, glaring daggers at the boy, who simply stared at him with an annoyed expression. "Oh, I see, you think you did a good thing because you killed a couple of thugs. Ah, I see, well, you're still misguided," the officer relented, shaking his head. "Heroes don't kill, period. Those that do usually lose their license or are put on probation. Killing is never right, no matter what the situation. It doesn't matter how you justify it, Izuku Midoriya, you're still in the wrong," the officer spat, crossing his arms.
However, his cool and collected demeanour was snapped to dust when Izuku's eyes seemed to glow with a burning hatred hotter than Endeavours flames, and an apathy colder than water that Backdraft could spew from his hose hands.
"I would like you to explain to me where I am the bad guy in these photos. What did I do that was bad outside of killing those villains? I attempted to save my friend's life but failed if her death doesn't already scream that to me. I got rid of the villains who killed her, and now you're trying to spin it to make me, the person who got her out of that situation, the person who ran to the hospital with said bloodied girl in my arms, the person that did the hero's job form, look like the villain?" Izuku growled, his eyes narrowing in the direction of Officer Tsugikuni, who kept a cold, calm, and collected expression.
"Oh, and let's not forget the fact that these two "heroes" stood around, doing nothing at all, even after she screamed for help. Let's not forget that these two heroes openly laughed when they saw me running to protect my friend! They were cracking jokes at her pain and suffering, Officer! I wasn't about to stand around and do nothing while my friend was getting beat to death!" Izuku snarled, slamming his hands down on the table with enough force to crack the wood.
The two officers behind him grabbed him by the arms and pulled him back, or at least, they tried, as Izuku shook them off with no real issue at all, the force of the shake knocking them back into the wall behind him.
"You—"
"If a hero's job is to save the innocent, then why didn't those heroes do their job? It wasn't as if they were two blocks away from the crime scene, they were standing just outside of the corner store by the alleyway," Izuku interrupted, dusting off his shoulders as the two officers that had been slammed into the walls slowly got up from the impact, staring at Izuku as if he was some sort of monster.
"It doesn't matter what excuse you come up with to justify—"
"I'm not making an excuse, I'm stating the facts," Izuku once again interrupted. "The only thing you're telling me is that me doing a hero's job is me committing a crime. If I had a hero license, and if I was a bit older, do you want to know what would've happened, Officer?" Izuku asked, tilting his head to the left, yet keeping his desolate expression.
"I would've been slapped on the wrist, told that what I did was bad for PR, the public would be outraged for a week, and then they would forget. A key example is what happened with Dunebuster two weeks ago, where he had killed a villain, the media blew up, and then they forgot about it a week later. He was never charged with murder. He was never arrested and scolded. All that happened to him was that his PR took a bit of a hit, and he was knocked down a couple of ranks on the leader board, going from #84 to #91 on the top 100 billboards," Izuku began as he shook his head, turning towards the door of the interrogation room.
"The only thing separating me and Dunebuster is that I'm a kid, I don't have a license, and I have the intelligence and the knowledge that not even a hero would have. Yes, I broke the law, but so do heroes on the daily, and the only thing they get is a slap on the wrist. If the laws are supposed to protect the civilians, then why the hell are you using them against me? If you're so desperate to punish me, I'll spend the night in the holding cell, you can put that stupid charge on my record, and I'll leave the next morning. That's what you're supposed to do, anyway. Not try and threaten me with more prison time that will never happen," Izuku finished, turning his head away from Officer Tsugikuni, who was beet red in anger.
And yet, despite the things the officer wanted to say to Izuku, despite him being a kid, the boy was right. Well, sort of. He wasn't completely right. The only thing he was wrong about was the whole "laws being used against him" thing. Everything else, however, he was correct about. He was the officer that had given the proverbial slap on the wrist to Dunebuster, so he knew more than anyone else that he was right.
Although, at least now he could add assaulting an officer to that stack of crimes, seeing as he did "throw" the other officers into the wall, accident or not. Was it petty? Yes. But did he care? No. After all, he did commit a crime, and no matter what the boy said to him, he wasn't going to change his mind about this choice.
The kid was smart, scarily so, but just because he was smart didn't mean he was going to talk him into believing that he did no wrongdoing, when he did plenty of it. He had dealt with people as stubborn as him, and while he was still confused why the Quirk cancelling cuffs didn't prevent the boy from using his Quirk, he wasn't about to be intimidated by an 11-year-old. Izuku Midoriya was still a criminal, he still killed people, villains or not, and he would put those crimes on his record.
The two officers that had been standing outside of the interrogation room escorted the boy to the holding cell, and he watched with a sort of glee as he was taken there. Maybe spending a night there would make him realize that what he did was wrong. The kid was obviously hyped on adrenaline, so maybe when he calmed down he'd come to his senses.
Now he just needed to get someone to fix the walls of the interrogation room, and then everything would be just a tad bit better…. "I'm not paid enough for this crap…."
[20 Hours Later]
Spending the night in the cold, dark, and dank holding cell had been abysmal, but it was what he had asked for, so he couldn't complain. He remembered his mother coming to talk to him through the cell doors, and he remembered the disappointed look on her face. She kept telling him that what he had done was wrong, despite the fact that he already knew that it was.
When supper time came around, his mother had come back to give him the homemade dinner that she had planned to make, that being Teriyaki and Ramen. It was something that the officers weren't too pleased about. However, if there was one thing they learnt that night, it was that you were never supposed to get in the way of a mother on a mission, as seen when he watched as his mother scolded the two grown adults, who scampered away like scolded toddlers.
Well, they didn't scamper away, but they did walk away annoyed and grumbling. The food was a bit cold, and it tasted bland just as all other food did, but he still liked it. There was nothing wrong with it, and he quite enjoyed his mothers company.
He was alone in the holding cell until 1 AM when an out-of-their-mind drug user was thrown into the cell with him. The guy tried to choke him out in some sort of paranoid drug fit, and at that moment he realized he didn't need oxygen to live, so he let the guy do what he wanted for about half an hour, and when it didn't work, the guy gave up. He was hit in the back of the neck for his troubles with a chop to knock him unconscious so he didn't have to hear the ramblings of a crazed loonie all night.
By the time 6:30 came around, he was woken up by the guards and taken to the sign-out desk, where his mother was waiting for him. Through his mother, he learned that he was expelled from his school after a police officer told them what happened. He also learned that if he was caught on the school campus or near it by 5 feet he would be arrested and escorted home and put under house arrest.
It was a natural reaction, one that he wasn't about to get angry about, although it did make one Inko Midoriya furious. Unfortunatly, there was nothing that could be done about it, and so they had to resort to finding a new school, something that Izuku wasn't against. Although it did dishearten him slightly, seeing as he did plan to help that Quirkless kid when he got back. Although now, that seemed like it would never happen thanks to his actions.
The one plus side, however, was that he wouldn't have to deal with Katsuki Bakugo every day. He wondered what Bakugo was doing, seeing as the whole school no doubt told everyone in there that their star student academically speaking was a murderer.
Now that he thought about it, the blond bomber was probably fuming and demanding answers. Bakugo may not have liked him, and while he probably wouldn't be doing it out of wanting to defend his name, rather with some sort of ass-backwards logic, or something along the lines of: "If Cat Eyes killed someone that must mean he's somehow stronger than me, but he's not, and therefore that's not possible," or something to that effect, he couldn't help but feel a tinge of pride knowing that Bakugo was upset over something that he was being told that he had done.
Regardless of whatever reason Bakugo might have had, he felt a little prideful knowing that his school bully was demanding the truth—even though it was the truth, but that was neither here nor there.
When he got home, his mother had to go to work immediately after the fact. However, before she left, she said that as his punishment for what he had done and for making her worry about him, he had to clean the whole apartment without the use of his bone whips. Izuku didn't want to test out what would happen if she found out if he did, so he did as he was asked, and cleaned the house from top to bottom.
He cleaned up every speck of dust, scrubbed away any and all stains, did all the dishes twice over, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathrooms, swept, vacuumed, and mopped the floors, and wiped down the TV screen and windows with screen cleaner and windex respectfully. He even went the extra mile and polished the wooden coffee table and dusted the couches.
When his mother came home, the house literally glistened, which resulted in Inko nearly fainting. It was safe to say that Inko was more than impressed with her son's work, and he was rewarded with Katsudon for a week.
Also, during his little cleaning run, where his mother would normally sweat buckets doing it due to the physical labour she endured doing it, Izuku realized that he didn't sweat, or get tired through physical labour, something he told his mom about. Of course, she didn't buy it and laughed it off by saying that cleaning was only difficult for her due to her weight.
Maybe she was right, he would have to find out if he truly did get fatigued later on.
However, if there was one thing that Izuku came away with after his whole experience, it was that his view on heroes… shifted.
Sure, he still idolized All Might, and maybe Endeavour if not only because he was strong and took out a large majority of villains on the regular, but for his stoic and fiery attitude. However, the ones like the heroes that ignored Natsumi's cries for help, the ones that were by all means in it for the money, the ones that were hiding behind the veneer of being a hero so they could get away with a load of things, whether it be rumours or not.
Those were the heroes that he grew an ire for.
And seeing as there were plenty of those around, all he'd have to do would be to snoop around some online forums and find out just who they really were. After all, a majority of heroes' real names were known to the public. All he'd have to do was do some digging, and he could begin to write down a list of names to track down.
Now that he thought about it, what he was about to do sounded like something Stain would do, the infamous Hero Killer. He couldn't help but say he felt at least a little bit inspired. But unlike Stain, at least he was doing some sort of research. At least he wasn't doing it out of some sort of blind anger towards heroes at large.
He might not want to be a hero, but he did want to be one thing, and that was a cleanser of society. And it would all start with those two heroes that ignored Natsumi's cries for help. Once he found out who they were, he was going to use them as a little experiment to see just what he could do with his Quirk.
After all, there was a deep part of his mind that told him that he still had a lot to do, and a lot to grow, and that in time, he would grow to be the most feared creature of all time.
No, not just the most feared creature of all time. But the most powerful creature of all time. And he wasn't going to lie, that primal, violent side of him that he had awoken back in that alleyway couldn't have been more excited.
But that was for tomorrow. He had spent the whole day cleaning, and it was just about time for supper. His plans for cleaning out fake heroes would start then. But right now, he smelt Katsudon, and he had built himself up an appetite.
-To Be Continued-