Level Zero - Villain!Bakugou Rehabilitation

17 || Revoked Realisations

Midoriya Izuku's POV

Izuku didn't understand.

Why? Why would he have done this, become what he did? How could he betray everything he grew up knowing, turn his back on his friends and family? What pushed him over the edge and off the cliff?

And furthermore, what on earth could Kacchan have possibly gained from becoming a Villain?

Izuku knew that his ex-friend was imperious, but not even Kacchan was stubborn enough to turn away from everything he ever loved and destroy it with no regrets. It wasn't humanly possible.

Well perhaps for some people it was, but not Kacchan. He could be heartless, yes, but no one was completely soulless. Kacchan would certainly have the backbone to walk the opposite direction and not look back, but Izuku knew there was no way he wouldn't in some way regret it.

As much as he denied there would always be a part of him, no matter how small it seemed from the outside, that missed his old life. Izuku was sure of it.

Even if something had driven him to leave in the end, there were still all those good, happy memories they had. He wouldn't have forgotten. Would he?

If he did have truly terrible recollections, they would have undoubtedly been warped and disjointed over time. And of course there was also the phycological aspect that bad memories were kept closer to the surface of the mind.

The sad times always stayed more realistic, while the good ones were kept but not thought about as often. The disturbing images that one had seen, awful acts someone committed, or troubling truths people realised always stayed vivid.

It was just the way things were. But then of course since that was true maybe Kacchan had forgotten the nice moments. During his time as Ground Zero he sure would have had more than his fair share of all those nasty, regrettable experiences.

Izuku shuddered as he realised exactly what the implications of being an acknowledged Villain were. But back to the bigger question and away from those less savoury ones.

Why?

Was it a sudden change in heart? No, he was dead set on becoming a Hero for the first years of his life. That period of time is essential for laying down an individual's core beliefs, and Kacchan's values had always been aligned with that of a Heroes'.

To change that would have required outside interference, but who could have done that? No one that Izuku knew of.

Did Kacchan see things that altered his opinion of modern day society? If he did, it'd have to have been something monumental to make him do a full one-eighty reverse of approach.

Perhaps it was a sadistic mood adjustment? No, that's stupid. Kacchan wasn't psychotic, just determined. And when he got set on something, Izuku knew there wasn't a thing anyone could do about it.

But for someone to have got him to go to a completely different side of the spectrum, all the way from adoration to hatred, they'd need to be both incredibly shrewd and incredibly insalubrious. And Izuku knew that Kacchan was smarter than to trust any Villain, even as a child.

He had been just as much of an otaku as Izuku himself, only better contained. They both knew every Villain there was to know. For Kacchan to have let himself trust someone like that, they'd need to be a shadow operating delinquent, one who never came into the spotlight.

But who was powerful enough to earn Kacchan's respect, and intelligent enough to trick him into siding with the Villains? Who had that skill level, but was self-restrained enough to keep hidden from the media?