Training Shinso

Chapter 7: False Memories

Author's note~
This is part two of the previous chapter.

Once their laughter died down, Aizawa composed himself and said, "Let's move on to creating false memories now."

"How will we do this exactly?" Shinso asked.

Eraserhead replied with his own question, "Have you heard of Loftus and Coans' 'lost in the mall' experiment?"

Hitoshi nodded, "Yeah. They managed to implant false memories in the participants of them being lost in a mall during childhood."

"Correct. We can replicate this study to see if you can get Midoriya to believe he got lost in a shopping mall during his childhood using your Quirk."

"Uhm..." Izuku scratched his head, "What if that's actually happened to me before? For real."

"You've gotten lost in a shopping mall before?" Hitoshi asked in an amused tone.

"I was five and I spotted an All Might souvenir store okay?!" Midoriya covered his face with his hands as he blushed.

Shinso chuckled.

"I guess we'll have to think of a different scenario," Aizawa said.

"Wait. I have an idea," Hitoshi said. "Midoriya, who were you with at the mall?"

"My mom."

Activating his Quirk, Shinso instructed, "Forget that we're testing you on false memories, due to retrieval failure. Create the memory in your mind that you and I both met when we were five. You were lost in a shopping mall and you ran into me. You had lost your mom and I had lost my dad and we helped each other find them again. Afterwards, our parents let us get ice creams."

Aizawa said with an impressed tone, "You linked in a false memory with a true memory smoothly there. Smart thinking."

Shinso smirked slightly and released Midoriya from his Quirk.

Izuku blinked at them, frowning, "Did you do something? I can't remember what we were testing." He scratched the back of his head.

"Do you remember how we first met, Midoriya?"

Izuku gave Hitoshi a puzzled look but replied, "Well, yeah! Of course I do! We were five, I think, and I got lost in a shopping mall. I bumped into you at an All Might store and we helped each other find our parents! Then, I think we got Ben and Jerry's ice cream or something. It was a long time ago though."

"Ask him more questions about it. See if it can cue his memory," Eraser said.

"What did we do after getting ice cream?"

"Uhm... I think we- went around the shops for a bit?" Izuku said uncertainly.

"When did we meet next?"

"Uh- at the Sports Festival! When we faced off against each other."

"Did you recognise me when you saw me after all those years?"

"Err- I- I don't know. I don't think so? I feel like- there's something missing. Or- I- I don't know." Midoriya furrowed his brow, confused as to why he was struggling to recall.

Eraserhead slowly nodded his head to himself as he pondered. Once he'd finished his mental analysis, he explained, "So the false memory was formed as a result of suggesting that you two met at the mall being incorporated into already existing memories of going to the mall. This helped Problem Child to create his own false memories as you only told him that you two met after getting lost, found your parents, then had ice cream. He added in the fact that you met at an All Might store, which was real, but also that you had Ben and Jerry's ice cream and then went shopping afterwards, which was false. The latter was never even mentioned by you at all. However, he seemed to become confused about the more recent memories of the Sports Festival and was unable to create his own false memories to fit in with the true ones. So this most likely means that the older the true memories, the easier it will be to create false memories. But the newest memories cause more conflict as they are still fresh in the mind. Another note: I'm sure the Quirk would still be able to implant false memories without needing to incorporate them into real memories, although we don't have enough time to test this out today."

Shinso nodded in understanding, absorbing this information. Midoriya, on the other hand, was frowning so hard his eyebrows were practically covering his eyes.

"Sorry, I'm confused. What are you talking about?"

Shinso blinked at him before realising. "Oh yeah." He asked Aizawa, "Should we practise more or should I return his memories?"

"I think we've found out all we can for now. You can restore them."

Hitoshi nodded then said to his friend. "I'll return your memories, okay?"

Izuku nodded and was under his control. Shinso returned all his memories and removed the false memories.

Midoriya awoke, gasping slightly, "I remember now! Or, well, the true memories. We first met at the Sports Festival, not a shopping mall." He placed his hand on his chin and squinted his eyes as he silently began to analyse their new findings.

"Care to share your analysis, Midoriya?" Aizawa said.

Izuku jumped slightly then said, "Oh! Sure! I was just thinking... altering memories using Shinso's Quirk could be incredibly useful in therapy. If he could brainwash someone to forget a trauma they've been through, it could help to prevent all sorts of mental health conditions, like PTSD for example. More on the heroics side of things... if you had permission to use your Quirk on, say, young villains; if they forgot the crimes they committed, or any trauma that may have been the reason behind them becoming a villain, they could have a second chance to start over and wouldn't have to resort to criminal activities. They could also be given false memories to help set them on the right path."

Whilst listening to this, Shinso felt a strange, yet pleasant feeling of hope swell inside his chest. He had endured many agonising years of being shunned by society for having a 'villainous' Quirk. But now- now he could prove to the world that he could use his Quirk for good. He could help people. He could

be a hero.

Author's note~
🥺💜

The next chapter will be following on from this one. I was originally going make it into one big chapter but this one was more serious and the next is so much fluff so I thought it'd make more sense to separate them out. Also that's the last of all the psychological stuff; sorry, I just got excited when I realised I could link in what I learned in psychology class to my fanfic lmao

Hope you enjoyeddd. Have a nice day.