•Manipulation• [BNHA × Male!OC]

Chapter 177: TRIGGER WARNING (like actually)

Suddenly, the scene changes.

The sky, the ground, even myself, warps and spins.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I reopen them, we're in some kind of house.

The kid is on the floor of the living room, fiddling with some toys. He seemed to be a bit older, maybe ten?

The front door suddenly slams open.

All for One stumbles in, his previously handsome visage shredded into bloody ribbons.

Blood streamed from his extensive wounds.

"DOCTOR! DOCTOR!" He screamed, voice garbled with blood.

He collapses to the floor.

The kid runs over, screaming.

"Dad! Dad!" He sobs, reaching out to help the man.

But he quickly pulls back, his hands stained in blood.

"Nora..." All for One whispers, eyes straining to look up at the boy.

Maybe, if this is where this man met his end, he would have been content.

Content with being a father he'd never intended on being, content with leaving behind a child that loved him unconditionally, content with having the family he'd always dreamed of.

He'd come so far and had been stopped so violently by All Might.

But perhaps he would be fine with it, if he could just die in the lap of a child that resembled his brother.

Unfortunately, the world had other plans.

For you see, the child reached out to his dying father figure, pressing small hands against his mangled face.

He sobbed and begged for the curse that lay within him to help, to save the man that saved him all those years ago.

And the curse obliged, after all, that curse was no more than that boy's own quirk.

A bright light shone as the skin tissue started to mend together.

But it wasn't all peachy, as this was the work of a child.

The smell of burnt meat filled the air and All for One screamed.

But as the kid tried to pull away, the man grabbed his hands and held them there.

And when the light subsided, what was left was a mangled mass of scar tissue.

It was grotesque, a face that matched the man within.

It scared the child, the boy falling back just as the Doctor rushes into the room.

He'd lost his eyes in the process, his eye sockets now just a mound of flesh. But still, in spite of the Doctor's fussing and the army of followers spilling into the room to help him to his feet, the man's gaze was fixed on the boy.

He had no eyes, and yet he seemed to stare through the child, at something bigger. Something that he would achieve through this child.

The scene warped again as All for One is carried out of the room, this time changing into a room clad in white.

It looked like a medical office, but gutted to it's bare bones, a singular metal chair in the middle of the room.

The same child was now strapped onto it, his hair was longer now.

The Doctor, looking the same as he does now, raises a scalpel and cuts into the boy's forearm.

He screams as the cut is enlarged.

I slap a hand over my mouth to prevent myself from gagging. It takes everything in me not to look away.

"No self restoration," the Doctor mutters to himself, taking his sweet time to jot the details down in a notebook as the child's voice starts to crack from screaming.

He shuffles back over, picking up a syringe, and stabs into the flesh above the incission.

The screaming gets louder as blood begins to spurt out of the wound.

"Vasodilator shows minimal effect on above observations," the Doctor scribbles in his book once more, not even bothering to remove the needle from the boy's arm.

The child is drooling at the mouth, in so much pain he's losing function of himself.

I look over at Nora, who's looking upon the scene with glassy eyes.

I reach over and wrap him in my arms.

"I have to see this but you don't need to relive it for my sake," I mumble into his hair. He's strangely out of words to say.

The door to the room slides open, in stepping All for One.

"That's bad practice, Doctor," he chides as the Doctor hurries to retrieve the needle from the boy.

"How's the experimentation?" the Doctor grins excitedly at the question, flipping through his book.

"The limit breaker quirk is working wonderfully! He even managed to teleport out of his restraints the other day!" he gushed, opening up to a certain page of his notes.

'Limit... breaker...?'

"It's a quirk that pushes it's user's body to the limit," Nora whispers into my arm, "it affects quirks too."

Such a quirk would be lukewarm at best on it's own, perhaps as a way to enhance one's physical attributes. But having been taken out and combined with other quirks...

I shivered.

"Unlike the other test subjects, his body seems to recover quickly as a result of the high amount of energy flowing through the boy. The scar tissue is extensive, almost his entire circulatory system has been reshaped by it, but he's holding up to it!" That level of muttering could stand up to Midoriya's.

"He's the perfect host! My perfect creation!" he laughed, falling into a chair.

All for One smiles, stepping past the Doctor.

The boy's eyes slowly look up at the man.

Then, he smiles.

Despite the pain he'd been in, despite the open wound on his arm.

Despite it all, he looks up at the man and calls him "Dad..."

All for One smiles back.

"I believe I told you to call me something else," he spoke frigidly.

The child's eyes blow wide before he forces a larger smile onto his face.

"Master."

All for One grins, holding a hand over the boy's wound.

"Good job, Nora."

After he lifts his hand away, the wound has ceased to exist.

It was a regeneration quirk he'd stolen from some poor sap just weeks after his ill-fated encounter with All Might.

How unfortunate it only showed itself after he needed it.

And with that, All for One left the room.