No Rose is Without its Thorns

An End to Suffering

WELCOME!!!!!!! I would like to thank my friends and family, The Forgotten Gods for helping me create this wonderful monster, and A big thank you to Bbkp2301 for creating the original idea for the story!! You'll all see his name a lot more, as he's keeping me busy and filling my brain with tons of new ideas that gotta get written. Couldn't do it without you, Scorp. Thank you. I hope you all enjoy the new story!

       Izuku awoke, his body tense and muscles aching from being crammed into a cage made to fit a medium sized dog. The screams of his fellow 'patients' greeted him happily and he groaned tiredly. They were never silent, their minds all broken from the never-ending experiments. It wasn't their fault, but he wouldn't mind some silence every once in a while. They were so, so loud.

He subconsciously scratched at a phantom itch on the back of his hand, nails scraping and tearing, reveling in the soft release it brought until he began to draw blood. He pulled his hand away when he began to feel the tepid liquid trail down his arm and he silently cursed. That was imprudent and stupid. He was exhausted from the experiments and the overuse of his quirk and shouldn't waste his precious energy on something as silly as self-harm, even if it made him feel so much better. That alone was a new low.

He opened his eyes and heaved his heavy head from the cold metal bars behind him when the creek of the broad doors being pushed open echoed through the room. He jumped at the noise, fear freezing in his veins. Anything that came through those doors was never good. This time they entered with a dirty, empty gurney to be put away until needed again. His stomach did a little flip. An empty gurney meant another had died. Another poor soul had been ripped away from the world, and Izuku wondered what kind of life his now dead peer had lived before ending up here. He hoped it was better than his at least, though he knew it wasn't likely. No one with a good life ended up here.

Izuku didn't exactly understand why his mother gave him away to this facility, but he honestly hated her for it. He was ten when she sold him off, her only explanation being a tearful murmur of apologies and the empty promise that the nice doctors would help him. Help him with what, he was never fully sure, but the longer he was there the more he began to figure out it was about his quirk. Like many people in the facility, his quirk was... unique. His case was a bit different, of course. He didn't carry the usual brand of uniqueness that many other quirks had. Instead, his was literally fate changing. He was four when it developed, the memory bittersweet. His mom refused to so much as meet his gaze. His quirk had been the cause, of course. It was a villain's, after all.

The doctors left the room once again, leaving Izuku alone with the 'once people,' once again, though he truly preferred their company over those who imprisoned them. Izuku was barely still a thinking being, the only thing keeping him sane was the rhymes and poems he made up. Most of them were sad, but what else would he think about? He was a guinea pig to a bunch of madmen, it's not like he had much to be happy about. Occasionally he sang little tunes to himself until his voice was hoarse, just in order to block out the other's screams. He began a new poem as soon as the metal doors swung shut once again. He came up with one and began to mumble it under his breath in silent prayer.

"When my mind broke,

It laid bare in my soul

First shining through the cracks

Then bleeding through the holes

Until nothing was left

But raindrops of gold."

He repeated it over and over until he felt himself begin to drift off. He soon fell asleep, ignoring the feeling of being watched. It wasn't really anything he had.