Heroes, Vigilantes, and Villains

Chapter nineteen

Izuku POV

The week went on much the same as the first day under my father's... care, for lack of a better word, had gone.

Every day there would be a light knock at the door, something just stern enough to jolt me awake from whatever light sleep it was that I'd managed to have fallen into.

Once I was awake, and sometimes fed depending on the time of day that they chose wake me, the warpgate user would bring me to speak with the villain that I learned was called All For One, a name based off of that of the man's quirk, that seemed to suggest just what his quirk actually did.

The man would try and convince me to join him, to slowly warp my mind so that I would start to see the world as he did. I wanted to tell the villain that his actions were futile, that I was one of the most stubborn people that I knew, besides Bakugo who I learned this stubbornness from, but I let him believe what he wanted to. People were always easier to get along with when they thought that they held all of the cards in their hands. But if he really knew everything like he seemed to believe that he did, he would know that I already knew just how shitty hero society was, but I stayed anyway because it is something that used to be beautiful to me and I don't want to see it destroyed as he so clearly did.

After however long the endlessly tiresome conversation with the man masquerading as the father that I had when I was four, the villain would instruct Kurogiri to have me sent to the nomu, having me fight them as I had the first day. As the days went on, the bioengineered creatures that I fought became increasingly more violent in nature as they followed orders worse than the ones previous to them.

After I beat the creature, knocking it out one way or another, the man made of mist would let me out of my latest cage, only to throw me into the cage disguised as my room. If I was lucky and Shigikari was bored enough, the light blue haired villain would let me out to go play video games in his room.

Not that I was any good at any of them.

The youngest villain and I didn't talk very much to one another, not in any way that really seemed to matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. But the few times that we were together were spent violently insulting and bickering with the other as we tried to destroy each other in the game. After however long, the warpgate user would collect me and lock me in my room while grumbling something almost incomprehensible about trying to get the other villain to go to sleep.

But today was different

Today when Kurogiri came for me, he didn't take me to All For One, but straight to the nomu cages, to the last one that I had yet to fight.

—-

Shigaraki POV

I stepped through the warpgate the Kurogiri had left open for me. I'd seen the brat's first fight, the surprisingly well way that he had handled himself with little injuries on his part and an almost quick incapacitation of the failed nomu. It had been impressive in a way that I didn't know that quirkless fighting could be. So, knowing that the difficulty level would be at its highest today, I wanted to see how well the little vigilante conducted himself.

That and I was sure that I wouldn't get another chance to see the boy that Master has proclaimed to be my little brother on such good terms once again after the boy leaves us.

I wasn't disappointed when I came through.

Izuku was already in the cage with the nomu, the fight seemed to have already started a few mixtures before I joined the other villain in watching it. It wasn't like anything that I had seen in real life before.

Modern heroes tended to fight cleanly to look good for the press in the daylight, while saving their underhanded practices for when no one else was around to see them. But the kind in the cage was no hero, nor did he care about who was watching.

The boy moved like an animal, clawing, scratching and hitting at the failed nomu, anything to get the advantage in the fight against a creature much faster and stronger than himself. I watched the way that the bioengineered creature finally got a hand on the small boy, dangling that child up off of the ground as he choked him to death. But the vigilante allowed himself to be taken, as he wrapped his legs around the beast's arm before pointing his toes and hitting the nomu straight in the unguarded eyes.

The beast wailed a painful scream that drowned out the dull relief that ran through my body as the nomu dropped the teen in shock. Not waiting a minute, the boy scrambled behind the bird-like creature, driving an elbow into the exposed brain on the creature to keep him down. As the nomu wailed once more, the teen adjusted his stance before grabbing the Nomu's head and bashing it into the cage's bars until the wailing stopped.

He won, if only just barely. I have no idea what the boy was planning to do if he were to have failed in his plan.

Guess I won't have to find out.

—-

All For One POV

My usual grin split onto my face as the warpgate opened and I heard footsteps enter the room, adding variant noise to the persistante thrum of the machines.

It's time, if he's willing to take it.

"Izuku," I greeted, knowing that no one else had come.

"Father," the boy replied. I couldn't help but imagen a dead look on the teen's face as he gazed at me, the disdain evident in the boy's voice.

"I hope you've taken time to consider my offer."

I heard the teen laugh in a way that sounded impossibly forced, telling me that this was nothing like how his genuine laugh would truly sound. "Not even a passing thought since you gave it yesterday. And the day before that, and the day before that... you get the point, I'm sure."

I felt my smile become sharper at the boy's purposefully imprudence. "Come now, I've offered you everything that you could ever want. The only thing that keeps you from fitting in amongst everyone else here. All you have to do is join me."

Why won't you just join us?

"Do you ever get tired of getting turned down?" The teen asked, the cocky tone still in his voice. "Or do you just like hearing our own voice that much?"

A body crashed into the wall in front of me, an angered laugh escaping the mouth of the owner of said body. "So violent, pops," the teen said, presumably standing back up as he did. "I guess you really do have the ability to take and give any quirk that you want then," he guessed.

I felt a small wave of anger float up inside me at the implication that the boy was making that he'd intentionally set me off so that I would use one of my quirks to hurt him, so that he could test just how my quirk works.

He really would make a good villain if he would just give in already.

I felt my smile deepen. I knew that he was bound to give it, no one can hold out against the idea of power like this forever. I just wished that I was sooner rather than later.

He'll come around eventually, and when he does, he can bring me whatever secret it was that the old blond oaf is hiding.

"Kurorgiri, take the boy home," I ordered, feeling a giddy sense of excitement at the chaos that was to some once everything had finally fallen into place.