Patchwork

'If the ship of Theseus were kept in a harbor and every part on the ship were replaced one at a time, would it then be a new ship?'

He was bits and pieces, woven together with red string, going as deep as his DNA. He was a masterpiece, an abomination. A victory over nature, and the first Noumu to ever hold intelligence as a weapon, it was the work of the Doctor, his Magnum Opus.

Make no mistake, this skin that wrapped over his flesh was merely a disguise, there was no humanity left in the empty green eyes that hid behind a black helmet. He was not a boy, nor an innocent child, but an unforgiving machine made of scraps, that had replaced him bit by bit until he became a beast. Because even if he was truly above the mental capacity of a Noumu, he would never be what he once was.

Izuku Midoriya. A person. An individual with free will.

He had no such thing, he had no right to such a thing but a mission, one that he was failing. He was losing despite all of the upgrades and years of training, after tolerating the agony that was housing the different quirks that stung and burned beneath his skin, that even after months had passed, they still rejected their use, and yet every time they misbehaved he only forcefully glued them into his flesh with a vice grip.

It was the beauty of his Hemokinesis, as his Master liked to remind him.

And now, the regeneration of the Hemokinesis was working on overdrive, the augmentation quirk working in tandem with his original one, allowing him to reassemble his decaying body with the speed of a hummingbird. However, limbs snapped under the punches of Lemillion, their strength enough to pulverize the bone inside, leaving his quirk struggling to catch up in the midst of what was, frankly, an unfair match.

Lemillion and Nighteye, mentor and disciple, brawn and brains. A team working together on the battlefield that evolved into a truly deadly pair.

Their cooperation was immaculate, orders were given left and right, the commands from Nighteye allowing for Lemillion to foresight his future attacks and movements. Making him dodge most of his attacks using his Permeation quirk, making his only option be speed. If he could overwhelm them with swift and careful lethal attacks, he would win. But it was, sadly, not meant to be.

His reaction time was what allowed him to maintain the two heroes at bay, and while he was known for setting an unforgiving rhythm to a fight, he was nowhere near the level of raw strength that the heir of One for All, himself, had at their beck and call. It was a losing battle, he knew, but even in these circumstances, he did not falter, his mind solely focused on his orders, buzzing with the energy of the drugs the Doctor had tailor-made for him in particular.

He could faintly remember the trials, the months of apathetic endless proving that matured into the deathly concoction that barely toed the line between melting his veins and setting them alight with incredible energy.

It was a frightening power, one that had made many professional heroes fall beneath him.

Still, he was running out of time. Regardless of the weapons he had at his disposal, the agony from his wounds was sure to defeat him. The numbness from the anesthesia was fading the more he reassembled the smashed pulp that his insides transformed into after every kick or punch, the energy required to keep up with not only their combined strategizing but both of Lemillion's quirks making it clear that the end of the line was fast approaching.

Ah... But maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

The stench of blood was thick in the air, the red liquid flowing as if underwater, never dripping onto the floor, but sticking to every piece of tissue that was lost; flesh and bone reconstructing into what once was, gathering until his patchwork of flesh was tightly held together by red strings. Again and again, until he couldn't feel anything but the strings of cold command that reverberated in his ears, it wasn't real, yet the voice of his Master sounded as clear as the day he'd heard it for the first time.