Dark Face Of My Fiend | MHA AU

Flood of the Past

The ground was hard, the gravelly, cold concrete against my battered skin was excruciating. I went from one extreme to another - from rushing through fire to crashing violently onto a shockingly frozen concrete floor. My bones ached and the taste of metal - iron - stung in my mouth.
Where am I? The thought replayed itself in my head like a broken record, getting more and more feral the longer it remained. Please... A lone tear ran down my face, stinging my burnt and bruised cheek and rolling onto the ground. Please, someone... I was hyperventilating; unable to feel my arms or legs, I was helpless. Help me... My heart yearned for anything, anyone, anywhere to help. The last human contact I had was with the two men I overheard, who I assume had kidnapped me.

Kidnapped.

That was when it hit me. My only hope now was that All Might or another pro hero would find me and take me home. Oh, how I would prefer Kacchan's insults right now... Being called useless, quirkless or an idiot would much better than this situation, right?

I lay there panicking for hours or minutes or seconds or days. Blinking again and again and again and again. Looking out in the black room, distancing myself slowly but surely from the hope I previously had and slowly accepting the reality; I'm alone and unsafe, scared and lost. The heroes stood no chance in finding me.

I've always heard of poor children being kidnapped or attacked by villains, even caught in the crossfire of a battle between good and evil, but I never expected that I, of all people, may have ever turned out like them.
"M... mo...."
"M-mom..." Anyone, anyone. "K-ka-cchan-n..." Please, help me... "Al-ll... M-mi-ight..." I was trying to gasp for air at this point, only to get tears, more and more. Maybe tears are my secret quirk? I thought in an attempt to cheer myself up, but I only cried more. I'm sorry but I don't think a light joke is enough this time...

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick...

More time passed. He lay there, an empty shell of a boy watching his hope dangle from the puppet strings of Destiny like a loose tooth, waiting to fall out so something newer could grow in replacement. Movement was starting to be gained in his fingers and toes, but even the mere wiggle of the thumb around a finger was enough to wear him out.

It took hours or days for a clench of the fist to be even a considered possibility. Deku has before realised his demise, but the thought of a villain attacking him at any moment and being too subdued to fight back shook him to the core. Even the most limitless of willpower was useless now...

Cameras blasted the area, men carrying microphones with others hauling extreme machines in pursuit of them. They were everywhere. Medics and police officers desperately tried and tried to get to the crime scene, the latter even resulting to use brute force. No one could honestly blame them though: anyone and everyone would want to report on the defeat of the Symbol of Peace in one fell swoop by, even worse, an unknown vigilante - or villain?

It had only been a mere 20 minutes since the disaster that had occurred earlier that day, yet every news crew this side of Hiroshima was here. It was impossible to even catch a breath, let alone see what all the fuss was about.
The incident with the sludge villain was glossed over like an average everyday story, while the 'All Fright', as the incident had been quickly dubbed, was the strongest story since All Might's debut in Japan.

By the police's technology, within the past 10 minutes since the first news crew posted, the crime rate of the local area had already rose by 2%, from villains who hid in the dark now thinking All Might was over for good.

One more joyous bellow put an end to that.
"All Might V All Fright: Is It over?"
"One last laugh for our #1 Hero."
"All Might? More like All Right!"
It was all over. The gossip, panic, worry that Japan may change forever. It was all gone as with one hearty punch to the rubble beneath him, the Symbol of Peace emerged - albeit not exactly unscathed - from his so-called grave, raising one arm into the air, his first clenching the sludge villain trapped in a glass vase, into his victory pose.

The crowd was like a pack of feral wolves. Howling, hooting, whistling, chanting. Even those who were reporting live for the news couldn't help but feel outstanded that their Peace Symbol could withstand a punch harsh enough to take down 100 bison.

What no one realised from their distance was the lack of smile donning All Might's face, or his lack of energy, his muscles burnt away until he was merely his usual caterpillar self, only capable of dreaming to become a butterfly.

From the empty distance a sound came. First footsteps, then the opening of a door, then the resume of walking, then a door, then walking, then a door. With every click of a doorknob, every squeak of a hinge, the noises grew louder and louder.

Men and women of all ages catapulted themselves aggressively, like fireworks, towards their hero. While the crowd grew manic, Yagi couldn't help but panic at the thought of his secret being leaked. The very few he trusted with his secret merely included close friends and his student, Tenko Shimura.

Through seemingly endless corridors the footsteps weaved. Back, forth, some up, a few down. Every now and then an extra pair of feet could be heard, and sometimes none could. Deku now sat in the silence, torso laid sloppily over his crossed legs, his voice too heavy and strained for him to acknowledge the final click of the door the far side of the room behind him.

"Hold, citizens!" Toshinori bellowed, hauling himself forward, reaching and pulling his white shirt over his head and pushing his greasy limp golden hair behind his head, through and under his white, torn cloth of a shirt.
"I am fine," Yagi coughed, blood splattering on the floor and rubble in front of him. He took another step forward, "Because you are here!"

"Well, well, well..." A weaselly voice sang, "I didn't expect I'd ever meet you ever again, Midoriya Izuku." He lifted his head slightly, moving it from shoulder to shoulder to get rid of some of the strain. He tried asking who the intruder was, but all that came out was a chorus of dry, feeble coughs from the pit of his stomach.

"Not feeling too great, huh, quirkless?" The character chuckled half-heartedly and waved it off with a hand, before realising he was in the child's blind spot, "That's okay, I'll come to you." Footsteps, again.

They slowly softened their steps behind Izuku, reaching over and stroking down the boy's spine with his middle finger. In a small squat they lowered themselves to the boy's height, scratching the scalp beneath their short yet messy, ash blonde hair. "Darn it, kid, these glasses really do give my fingers a good ol' time."

"Y-you're a vil-..." Izuku's voice broke, the outstanding fear of being in the presence of a villain, with all the attention on him; he felt like a freak in a circus, put on display for everyone to see.
"Ey kid, it's the hair, ain't it? Didn' have any last time we met, hmm?" his thumb hooked around Deku's jaw, pulling him to be eye to eye with the small, squatting little man.

"Sorry kid, it's not gonna happen," a bald man said, tapping against the arm of his chair. In shock, a little boy no older than 5 dropped a small action figure of All Might. The doctor continued to explain why it was impossible for the boy to obtain a quirk, adjusting his green steampunk glasses that lay uncomfortably on his bald forehead.

The scruffy man took one last glance over the gobsmacked teen, then dropped his chin and giggled, "Yep-idy, kid, it's good ol' Doctor Daruma."

In a second Midoriya snapped, unleashing his underlying unholiness and his violent roots planted themselves firmly into the cold earth.