"A quirkless society!" Deku shouted, "But how to obtain it? Thus, began years of study and research on the ins and outs of quirks. I thought at first, my blood was the key. I am quirkless after all. But that only spelled disaster when met with others that have quirks. Hence, the casualties at the café. I wondered then if it was just the method of how a person was coming in contact with the serum. But that proved to be wrong too, though not as lethal as the first.
"I then changed my attention from the way my body worked to how a quirk user's body did. Once I made the connection between the hormone I told you about and how it affected the quirk factor, things went much faster. I obtained test subjects with vastly different quirks to test the efficacy of my theory and improve my experiments. Did my theory apply to all types of quirks? Quirks creating physical, psychological, even spatial effects?"
Mt. Lady. Aizawa. Uraraka. It made sense now, why he chose those three. What did he do to them? Squad B said they were unconscious but unharmed. But was that actually true?
"I then turned to my mentor, the man who had saved me," Deku continued, breaking me away from my thoughts. "You see, he had a very unique quirk. Where Shota Aizawa could temporarily block someone from using their quirk by disengaging the receptors of their quirk factor, my mentor had the power to completely remove someone's quirk factor. It wasn't just erased, it was gone. So, I began generating experimental serums using his blood instead. And I finally found success. It turned my mentor's own quirk on himself and destroyed it, ultimately leading to his very overdue demise."
"Deku, you can't," I exclaimed. "Destroying quirks will send society into total chaos. Even if you could destroy every quirk in the world, you wouldn't be saving people in the end!"
"If?" he asked, now walking back into my line of sight. "You misunderstand, Kacchan. Yet again, you've roped me in with your childish villains and have assumed I haven't done anything yet. You think that I, like the rest, wanted to pull the trigger, as it were, only after revealing my dastardly plans."
Horror slowly began to build inside me as I watched him continue to an unassuming drawer beneath one of the consoles and removed a small case, no bigger than the palm of my hand. Though I couldn't see exactly what it was he was taking from the case or doing with its contents, it became obvious to me that we had been too late. I thought we were only steps behind this guy when we weren't even strides. We had discovered footprints months after he'd put them there.
"This is how I know I'm not insane," he continued, flicking at something hard in his hand. "Those who are have lost their minds and lost touch with the world. They can only comprehend the one thing they've always known... themselves. They become natural narcissists, planning and executing in a way that puts themselves on a pedestal for the world to see. They want to be noticed. They want to be worshipped. Me? I just want people to be happy. Even the quirkless ones."
He turned around and gave me a full view of the now fully loaded syringe in his hand. It was small, but I got the sickening feeling that whatever it held was one of those 'a little goes a long way' sort of things. And I did not want it to touch me.
"I'd say don't move," Deku remarked simply, tilting his head like he was talking to a child, "but you can't. So, it doesn't really matter." He walked to me and knelt by my side. He put his left hand on my forearm, bracing it, while drawing the syringe closer to my exposed skin.
"No!" I screamed. "DON'T!"
The tip of the needle made contact and was inserted with a small pinch. I continued to shout and scream, with no thought of my dignity, while he slowly injected the liquid inside my body. I expected it to burn or make me instantly sick, but I felt no different. Just terrified.
It took only a few seconds before the deed was done. He removed the needle and tossed it to the side of the room, no longer needing it. I was left crying, wondering what the hell he had done to me. He then sat back on his heels and patted my shoulder in fake consolation.
"You won't feel a difference," he said to me. "At least, not for a minute. It's a gradual process."
"What did you do to me," I gasped. Despite what he had said, I was already starting to feel tired. Fatigue slowly began to inch into every part of me and I was suddenly finding it hard to stay conscious.
"Damn," he chuckled. "You probably get drunk after a single drink, don't you? You just keep surprising me, Kacchan. I never would have pegged you as a lightweight."
He stood up and crossed his arms over his chest in finality. I was fighting to keep my eyes open.
"I gave you my serum," he answered me. "Give it a minute, and you'll be just as quirkless as me."
"No!" Therma screamed, making me jump. "Just leave him alone! You've already done enough!"
"Sorry," Deku shrugged, "but it's already been done. Can't take it back now. See? You can already see the net losing its hold."
Just as he pointed out, the fluorescent green web that had been pinning me to the cement floor was now fading. Or rather it was sinking through my body. Proving that what he claimed was true. There was nothing left for the net to bind to.
He had successfully destroyed my quirk.
All of my energy was gone. Between learning that Deku was alive and had become a villain, that he had made good on his promise to destroy quirks and had now taken mine, all of my life was gone. I could move my limbs now if I wanted to, now that I wasn't being pinned to the ground. But what was the point anymore?
"Here's the nice thing," Deku said, his voice sounding somewhat distorted through the fog. "It doesn't have to be injected. It's a fairly versatile serum. Granted, the injection takes effect much faster, but ingestion is just as effective, albeit slower."
"What do you mean, ingested?" one of the heroes asked. I could almost feel Deku rolling his eyes.
"What I mean," he replied, annoyed, "is that I've mass-produced this serum and tainted water supply worldwide with it. It'll take some maintenance of course. I sure would hate to get so close, only to miss a few and have quirks show up again in the future. But this way, everyone is exposed in one way or another. Drinking water, bath water, rivers and lakes. No matter how someone makes contact, they'll be exposed. And after enough exposure, their quirk will also be destroyed. Just like my good friend Kacchan's was. And it's likely that everyone here has already had their first encounter."
The overall energy in the room had reached an all-time low. We couldn't stop it. We couldn't just cut off people's water supply. And just as he'd said, the deed was already done. He had taken all of the steps without any one of us catching on. He only exposed his plan after he knew he had already succeeded.
"As much as I'd love to stick around," Deku announced, "I expect the ones that rescued your three captive heroes have now informed the rest of your friends of your current predicament and will likely be on their way to save you.
"So, I'll just leave this," he held up the small remote controlling the web we'd been caught in, "right here for them to find. That way I can head out without any danger of you following me."
Before doing so, he made one final trip to my side. Kneeling down for the last time, he gave me his signature coy smile and quietly laughed.
"Although, I guess you could try and follow me now, Kacchan. But I'd like to see you try dragging your useless body across the floor after me." He stood up and turned away, then said, "I guess I lied before. Maybe I was a little motivated by revenge."
Then, with the ominous click of his dress shoes, we listened with dread as our intended target and failed mission left the room.
YOU ARE READING
Wasted Quirk
Fanfiction"He did it. He actually did it." Katsuki Bakugo is haunted by the suicide of his childhood friend, or rather the guilt of knowing he was the one who pushed him to it. How does he cope now that he's the most promising up-and-coming hero? And what hap...
