Work Text:
Seeing Shigaraki behind bars should have felt relieving, they finally arrested him, his league and killed AFO but what laid in chains in front of was not what he faced in the war.
He should have been sneering at him right now, struggling in his chains to get at him.
But he wasn’t.
He laid there, arms cuffed with heavy chains and locks, his hands together in an anti-quirk lock. His hair covering his face and not a muscle out of place since the last time he visited.
The once gamer enthusiast villain who sneered and quipped back sat there and did nothing. It was like he became a husk, devoid of emotions and consciousness.
Izuku clutched his arm and slightly lowered his head, feeling sick like worms were slithering all throughout his body, itching to dig towards the surface.
And it was all his fault.
He lifted his head again when the guard called out to him that his time here was done. He took one last look at Shigaraki and left the room, the guard escorting him
“You come here weekly, just standing and watching Shigaraki without anything happening between you and him. We heard from other inmates who were involved that you were the one who defeated him, so I don’t know why you come back to see him. Don’t you hate him?”
The guard tried to converse with him. He spared the guard a glance before looking forward again, ignoring his question.
The guard sighed and continued on. They reached the exit where Aizawa and All Might were waiting for him. The guard left him and went back to his job.
All Might clasped his shoulder, leading him back to the car they arrived in, Aizawa carefully watching over him and getting in the driver’s seat.
All Might sat beside Aizawa, and they drove off with him in the back. They hadn’t been letting him go anywhere alone recently. Always one of the teachers had to go with him wherever he wanted to go.
He let his head flop against the headrest and turn to look out the window, watching the scenery roll by.
A shiver echoes across his spine, and he bites down on his cheek, eyes becoming half-lidded. He focused on his reflection, staring into his once shining emerald eyes, now shaded forest. A blip of red seeped around his pupils and he closed his eyes, dozing off.
It was a long ride to and from UA and Tartarus, so he often took naps when driven, it helped him get back the sleep he loses during the night.
The outside noises fade into silence, and he could feel the chill of his surroundings and the movement beneath his feet.
He opened his eyes and found himself in his mindscape, writhing shadowy mounds squirming acting as the ground. His eyes were drawn to the vault door across from him, the edges rusted with blood and time.
Walking up to it, there were faint essences of power slipping through the edges, drafting in and beckoning him forward.
He knew what was behind it, he wanted to open it, see the familiar environment he’s known for the past year. But he couldn’t. Opening it would just cause harm to those on the other side.
“If you miss them, you can simply open the door and see them again.”
The voice came from behind and he didn’t need to think to identify it. OFA kept its previous hosts as vestiges, it wasn’t far off that AFO did the same.
He didn’t deign AFO with a response, just turning around to face him with a glare.
“Don’t look so feisty, you took all my quirks, I can’t even hurt a fly now.”
AFO stepped across the ground, ignoring how it seemed to reach for him, trying to pull him under.
Izuku moved to the side, not wanting to be in close proximity with AFO. He only grinned and examined the vault door.
By being on this side of the door, he trapped himself with AFO, but it also meant he could keep AFO in check. He gazed down at the floor, watching how it treated him and AFO. It mostly ignored him, if not help keep his balance while doing the exact opposite to AFO.
Izuku felt something sting his eye and drip down his cheek and onto the ground. AFO hummed and turned to him.
“You’re too weak for these quirks, try as you might, you will succumb to it, and I will take great joy in watching it happen.” AFO started laughing.
Izuku started choking as AFO laugh faded and he found himself waking up to coughing and seeing red. Aizawa’s gaze on him as his quirk was flowing through him, stopping his talk with AFO. All Might held out a spare handkerchief, concern pouring out of his expression.
He took the handkerchief and nodded to Aizawa, cleaning up the blood he sputtered out and wiping his bloody tears. He’d have to wash his eyes inside.
All Might and Aizawa, exited the car, helping Izuku out as they led him back to the dorms.
After the war ended, his class denied moving back home and instead kept living at the dorms, wanting to stay close to each other.
All Might and Aizawa left him as he entered the building, knowing he had company in there that could comfort him.
But as he walked in, he couldn’t hear any movement in the building. He wasn’t Jirou but surely there would be shuffling, music, banging, anything. Maybe they had all gone to bed?
Izuku looked to the clock on the wall and figured that the class already had dinner and left some for him in the fridge.
He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge and finding the predicted leftovers, lifting it out, unwrapping it and sticking it in the microwave, waiting for it to heat up.
He turned to the sink and let the water run for a few seconds to get to right temperature before sticking his head under and letting water fall onto his eyes and going behind his eyelids, washing his whole eye socket.
Once he felt it was enough, his closed his eyes and rubbed them against his eyelids. Dragging his lids back to let any water still stuck in there out.
The microwave beeped and Izuku rubbed his eyes, wanting to get rid the blurry vison. He took the food out and set it on the table, grabbing some utensils and juice, blowing on each bite until he was able to eat it without burning his mouth.
He kept thinking about what AFO said, perhaps he was joking, but it didn’t feel like a joke, he was already feeling some of the effects of taking his quirk and the quirks he stole, what was next?
Izuku pushed his plate away and hugged himself tightly around his stomach. He felt sick again, it felt like worms again. He breathed in and out for a few minutes until he could move.
He washed his plate, glass and utensils, drying them and putting them away too. Cleaning his spot at the table and wandered over to the stairs, looking at the empty living room on his way.
Ignoring the emptiness, he made his way to his level and to his room, unlocking it and seeing all the merch of his mentor scattered around his room.
He looked at his hand, flexing it and letting OFA run through it and then closing it into a fist, OFA dissipating.
He closed his door and locked it, setting his phone on his dresser and moving to the middle of his room to sit down on the floor.
Something clicked into place in his chest, and he started coughing, blood coating his hand. It felt like something was squeezing his lung from the inside out.
He looked to where his phone was and moved to get it but stilled when he saw AFO in the mirror. He wore a smile stretched too wide, all his teeth showing, his skin slightly tearing at the corners.
He crumpled to the floor again when it felt like something just punched their fist straight into his gut. He looked up to mirror AFO for an answer but received nothing in return, only watching as he took a seat on his bed.
When suddenly he could feel and hear and see everything in a certain radius he gasped and held his head as it throbbed in pain with all these new senses.
But he screamed when different mutations started ripping through his skin, forming new bone structures and melding to already existing bones. Muscles, veins and nerve endings wrapping themselves to these formations.
Tears welled in the corners of his eyes as he tried to block out AFO’s booming voice “You can’t control the quirks like I can, you don’t have the will to contain them and so they will consume you.” He sounded so smug.
Instinctual information started overloading his brain, with every quirk digging its way to the surface came instincts on how to use it.
Izuku writhed against the floor, agony filling his screams. The quirks adding and removing limbs to his body. There were extra eyes then none at all.
He knew where all the teachers were then he couldn’t feel them at all.
His vision came and went,
Black and white,
Red and green colour-blindness,
Thermal vision,
Echolocation,
Multiple angles of his room,
Then back to normal.
His teeth became sharp and sliced his gums open then his face peeled off only to stitch back together.
He could feel all his organs disappear, his body hosting only a skeleton then filled with mechanical substitutes, then sweets posing as organs.
His bones crumpled and dissolved, his skin becoming jelly and his muscles becoming lax and becoming soup. His nerves touched each other, and he felt like he was on fire.
Then he was on fire, his body now resembling something akin to a giant ant. And then he was cold and back in his original body.
And just as he was going to pass out from this torture, the medical quirks activated and brought him back into consciousness.
He tried to reach for phone despite the feeling of his guts falling of his body as another quirk came on.
He almost reached it when the mental quirks started. He started seeing ghosts, seeing the vestiges looking horrified and trying their best to help, Sir Nighteye in his hero gear and looking sick and a bunch of other ghosts he didn’t looking on at the bloodied mess that was Izuku.
The ghosts stayed as he started reliving his worst memories and worst nightmares, curling up and pulling out his hair as it attacked him.
For some reason, as the mental quirks started, it left his chest open, like an abandoned vivisection. All his organs hanging onto one another, his intestines falling out and twitching, squirming as if they had a mind of their own. His lungs and heart stayed in place, if only protected by his ribcage.
Suddenly he felt his morals slip and slide, he was beginning to not understand what was right or wrong. He should probably feel happy that he was gifted with feeling all this pain.
No! He shouldn’t! It was horrible! He was hitting his head against the floor now. Why couldn’t he get these thoughts out?
He felt the need for sharp objects. He eyed the corner of his desk and dragged himself over, lifting his head up and smacking it against it, feeling his skull pierce into his brain.
It wasn’t enough, the healing quirk kicked in. He wanted this to stop! He needed to eat his heart; no he needed the hospital. He needed to rip himself apart. He needed Aizawa.
The ribs protecting his lungs and heart were quickly smashed and they dangled with the rest of the organs as he reached in and doubled over as the pain of grasping his own heart sent tremors of pain through him.
His continued to pull, another quirk allowing him to live with the heart separated from him. So as he ripped it out and started crushing it with a manic grin, he heard something heavy hit his door.
Aizawa bust in, his quirk blaring at him as his closed in on the heart and bust open with squirts of blood coating him. All the quirks shut down and the world faded into black for the last time, Aizawa’s face turning to horror as he dashed forward.
The yelling stopped and the world fell oddly quiet. His eyes peeled open; his mind damaged but back to being his. His body was wrapped in his hero costume, and he was in his mindscape or the remains of it.
Two vault doors appeared in his vision. To the left he could feel the essence of home, warm and fluffy, familiar. And to the right was a vault door that reeked of pain and suffering, the cold trying to seep through.
It was easy to figure out who was behind each door. And there was no way he was going back to him. He looked to the door on the left again and trudged forward.
He hesitated a bit once he reached it but opened it anyway, light shining through, greeting him with warmth. Seven different pairs of arms reached for him and dragged him in, surrounding him with warmth and tears.
With Izuku being the final host of OFA, they would slowly disappear now but that was okay, because AFO wasn’t going to exist either now.
The world slowly crumbled around them, but they stayed together even as they were consumed by the quirk. Nothing being left behind.