what if betrayed Deku joined the akatsuki

 

 

 

The morning sun filtered through the tall, pristine windows of the Heights Alliance dormitories, casting warm, golden rays across the hardwood floors of the common room. It was a Tuesday, unremarkable in every way. The scent of steamed rice, miso soup, and frying eggs wafted from the kitchen area, mingling with the low hum of teenage chatter.

 

Izuku Midoriya stood near the kitchen island, a bright, genuine smile etched across his freckled face. He looked down at his hands—hands that were permanently scarred, twisted, and discolored from the sheer, terrifying power of One For All. They were ugly hands by most standards, but to Izuku, they were a testament to his dream. They were the hands of a hero. They were the hands that had saved Kota, that had held Eri, that had fought alongside his friends.

 

"Deku! Are you going to eat that, or just stare at it?"

 

Izuku blinked, snapping out of his reverie. Ochako Uraraka was waving a pair of chopsticks in front of his face, her round cheeks puffed out in a playful pout. Beside her, Tenya Iida was rigidly chopping the air with his hand, lecturing Denki Kaminari about the proper posture for eating breakfast.

 

"Ah! S-Sorry, Uraraka," Izuku stammered, his cheeks flushing pink as he quickly shoveled a mouthful of rice into his mouth.

 

"You're always spacing out, nerd," Katsuki Bakugo grunted from the neighboring table, not even bothering to look up from his spicy curry. "Keep your head in the clouds and you're gonna get killed on the next training exercise. Don't expect me to save your ass."

 

Despite the harsh words, Izuku’s smile only softened. This was his normal. This was his family. After a lifetime of being Quirkless, of being shoved into lockers and laughed at, he had finally found a place where he belonged. He had the power of his idol, All Might. He had friends who would lay down their lives for him. He had a future.

 

He didn't know that in less than an hour, every single piece of that future would be violently ripped away from him.

 

The heavy oak doors of the dorm entrance swung open with a resounding thud. The chatter in the common room died instantly.

 

Shota Aizawa stood in the doorway.

 

The underground hero was usually a picture of exhaustion, but today, something was fundamentally different. His posture was rigid. His dark, sunken eyes were completely devoid of their usual hidden warmth. They were cold, flat, and terrifyingly blank. He scanned the room, his gaze sweeping past Bakugo, past Todoroki, past Uraraka, until it landed squarely on Izuku.

 

A chill crawled up Izuku’s spine. It was the same instinct that warned him of a villain's attack, a primal scream in his hindbrain telling him that something was catastrophically wrong.

 

"Midoriya," Aizawa’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet it cut through the silent room like a serrated blade. "With me. Now."

 

"Mr. Aizawa?" Izuku asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin and stepping out from behind the counter. "Did something happen? Is there a villain attack?"

 

"Just follow me." Aizawa didn't wait for an answer. He turned on his heel and walked out the door.

 

Izuku looked back at his friends. Uraraka offered him a confused, reassuring smile. Iida gave a curt nod. Bakugo just scoffed. Swallowing the lump of anxiety forming in his throat, Izuku grabbed his uniform blazer and jogged after his homeroom teacher.

 

The walk to the main U.A. building was agonizingly silent. Izuku tried to make small talk, asking about the upcoming hero informatics test, but Aizawa didn't respond. The man didn't even look over his shoulder. The silence was heavy, suffocating, like the air right before a severe thunderstorm.

 

They bypassed the classrooms, bypassed the faculty lounge, and headed straight for the top floor. The administration wing.

 

Izuku’s heart began to hammer against his ribs. Why are we going to Principal Nezu’s office? Did I do something wrong? Did I break a rule? Oh god, did they find out about One For All? Did the secret leak?

 

Aizawa stopped in front of the heavy, reinforced doors of the Principal's office. He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling, before pushing the doors open.

 

"Step inside, Midoriya."

 

Izuku walked into the spacious office. The morning light that felt so warm in the dorms felt harsh and clinical here. Behind the massive mahogany desk sat Principal Nezu, his small paws steepled together, his beady black eyes unreadable.

 

But it wasn't Nezu that made Izuku’s breath hitch.

 

Standing to the right of the desk was Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, his trench coat wrinkled, a grim expression pulling down the corners of his mouth. And standing by the window, his back turned to the room, was Toshinori Yagi. All Might.

 

"All Might!" Izuku gasped, a wave of relief washing over him. If his mentor was here, everything was going to be okay. "What's going on? Mr. Aizawa won't tell me—"

 

"Silence."

 

The word cracked like a whip. Izuku flinched. It hadn't come from Aizawa. It had come from All Might. The skeletal blonde man turned around, and the look on his face made the bottom drop out of Izuku’s stomach. It was a look of profound disgust, mingled with a sorrow so deep it looked as though the man was physically ailing from it.

 

"Sit down, Midoriya," Nezu said softly. It wasn't a request.

 

Izuku’s legs felt like lead as he moved to the lone wooden chair in the center of the room. He sat down, his scarred hands gripping his knees. Aizawa moved to stand by the door, effectively blocking the only exit.

 

"I... I don't understand," Izuku whispered, looking frantically between the four adults. "What did I do?"

 

Detective Tsukauchi stepped forward, placing a thick manila folder onto Nezu’s desk. "For the past three months, U.A. has been suffering from a series of devastating information leaks. The USJ incident. The training camp location. The Kamino Ward raid. Someone on the inside has been feeding our exact schedules, our security protocols, and our weaknesses directly to the League of Villains."

 

"The U.A. Traitor," Izuku said, nodding slowly. "I know. We've all been worried about it. Have you... have you found them?"

 

"We have," Aizawa said from the door. His voice was laced with an anger Izuku had never heard before. "We found them."

 

Tsukauchi opened the folder. He pulled out a stack of photographs and slid them across the polished wood toward Izuku. "Look at them."

 

Trembling, Izuku reached forward and picked up the first photo.

 

His heart stopped.

 

It was a grainy, security-camera still. The timestamp was from the night before the USJ attack. The figure in the photo was wearing a dark hoodie, but the hood was pulled back just enough to reveal a shock of messy, green hair. The figure was handing a USB drive to a man made of purple mist—Kurogiri.

 

"W-What is this?" Izuku stammered, dropping the photo as if it burned him. "This isn't... I wasn't there! I was in my room!"

 

"Keep looking," Nezu said, his tone devoid of its usual cheerful cadence.

 

Izuku flipped to the next photo. It was him, or someone who looked exactly like him, standing in a dark alleyway, talking to Tomura Shigaraki. The next was a printout of bank statements, showing massive, anonymous deposits routed through shell accounts, ending up in an offshore account registered under Inko Midoriya's maiden name.

 

"No," Izuku breathed, his eyes wide, pupils dilated in sheer terror. "No, no, no. This is fake. This is a setup! You know me! You know I would never do this!"

 

Tsukauchi pulled a small tablet from his pocket. He tapped the screen and set it on the desk. An audio recording began to play.

 

“The security systems go down for maintenance at 0300 hours,” a voice whispered. It was Izuku’s voice. The cadence, the tone, the slight nervous stutter—it was perfect. “Make sure the Nomu targets Aizawa first. He’s the biggest threat to the vanguard action squad.”

 

“Good boy, Midoriya,” Shigaraki’s raspy voice replied on the tape. “The master will be very pleased.”

 

"Stop!" Izuku screamed, clapping his hands over his ears. "Stop it! That's not me! Someone is framing me! Toga! Himiko Toga, the girl with the blood-transformation quirk! She got my blood at the licensing exam, remember?! She could have done this!"

 

"We thought of that, Midoriya," Detective Tsukauchi said, his face a mask of professional sorrow. "But Toga's quirk only mimics physical appearance. It doesn't mimic DNA left at the scene. It doesn't mimic your exact retinal scan that was used to bypass the firewall on the faculty servers. And it certainly doesn't explain this."

 

Tsukauchi reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, burned notebook.

 

Izuku’s breath hitched. It was his Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13. The one he thought he had lost a week ago.

 

"We raided the League's secondary base two nights ago," Aizawa said, pushing himself off the doorframe. "We found this in Shigaraki's personal quarters. It details the exact weaknesses of every single student in Class 1-A. Weaknesses that were actively exploited during the training camp attack. How to blind Tokoyami. How to isolate Bakugo. You wrote this, Midoriya."

 

"I wrote it to help them!" Izuku sobbed, tears spilling over his cheeks, burning his skin. "I study quirks! You know I study quirks! I lost that notebook!"

 

"My Quirk is Lie Detector, Midoriya," Tsukauchi said softly. "I am going to ask you a direct question. Did you, or did you not, provide the League of Villains with information regarding U.A.?"

 

"No!" Izuku screamed, looking the Detective dead in the eye. "I did not!"

 

Tsukauchi stared at him for a long, agonizing moment. Then, he looked down at his trembling hands. "He's lying."

 

"What?!" Izuku shrieked, standing up so fast the chair clattered to the floor. "Your quirk is wrong! Your quirk is broken! I'm telling the truth!"

 

He didn't know how the League had done it. He didn't know if they had used a quirk to alter his memories, or if Toga had somehow bypassed the DNA scanners, or if they had simply manipulated the evidence so perfectly that even Tsukauchi’s quirk was tricked by the sheer, irrefutable weight of the data compared to Izuku's panicked, hyperventilating physiological response. All he knew was that the walls were closing in.

 

He turned to the one person who had to believe him. The man who had seen his heart, who had seen him run into the sludge villain’s grasp quirkless.

 

"All Might," Izuku pleaded, his voice breaking, falling to his knees. "Please. Please, Dad... All Might. You know my heart. You know I would die before I betrayed you. Please tell them!"

 

Toshinori Yagi turned around. The sunken shadows around his eyes were darker than ever. He looked at the boy kneeling on the floor, the boy he had chosen, and he felt nothing but a sickening wave of betrayal.

 

"I entrusted you with the greatest power in the world," All Might rasped, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "I gave you my legacy. My master's legacy. And you took it, you smiled at me, and you sold us to All For One."

 

"No!" Izuku wailed, clawing at his chest. "No, I didn't!"

 

"You used me," All Might said, taking a step forward, his towering frame casting a dark shadow over the sobbing boy. "You played the part of the helpless, heroic victim perfectly. You infiltrated our defenses. You got my friends hurt. You nearly got Aizawa killed at the USJ. You got Bakugo kidnapped."

 

"All Might, please!"

 

"Do not use that name!" All Might roared, slamming his fist onto Nezu’s desk, cracking the wood. The room shook. Izuku flinched back, curling into a ball. "You have disgraced the name of heroes! You are a villain, Izuku Midoriya. You are worse than a villain. You are a traitor."

 

Izuku stopped breathing. The words hit him harder than any punch the Nomu had ever landed. His idol. His hero. His father figure. He didn't believe him. None of them did.

 

"The police are waiting outside, Midoriya," Principal Nezu said, his voice completely devoid of pity. "You will be escorted back to the dorms to pack a single bag of personal belongings. Then, you will be transported to Tartarus to await trial for high treason and terrorism."

 

"Tartarus?" Izuku whispered. The prison for the worst of the worst. Monsters. Serial killers. All For One. He was going to rot in the dark for the rest of his life for a crime he didn't commit.

 

Aizawa walked over and violently grabbed Izuku by the bicep, hauling him to his feet. With swift, practiced motions, he slapped a pair of heavy, quirk-suppressing cuffs onto Izuku’s wrists. The cold metal bit into his scarred skin.

 

"Move," Aizawa growled.

 

Izuku didn't fight. The fight had been drained completely out of him. His mind was a white-hot static of disbelief and agony. He let Aizawa drag him out of the office, down the hallway, and out into the courtyard.

 

The walk back to Heights Alliance was a blur. Izuku’s vision was swimming with unshed tears. He could vaguely hear the sound of police sirens approaching the school gates.

 

When Aizawa shoved him through the front doors of the dorms, Izuku looked up.

 

Class 1-A was gathered in the common room. They weren't in their casual clothes anymore. They were in their school uniforms, standing in a semi-circle. Tsukauchi must have called ahead. They knew.

 

As Izuku stumbled in, cuffed and sobbing, the reaction of his classmates shattered whatever fragile pieces of his heart remained.

 

Ochako Uraraka was crying hysterically, being held back by Tsuyu Asui. But there was no sympathy in Uraraka’s eyes. There was only terror and betrayal.

 

"How could you?" Uraraka screamed, her voice tearing at her vocal cords. "We trusted you, Deku! We loved you! You gave away our secrets! You let villains attack us! You let Jirou get hurt!"

 

"Uraraka, I didn't—"

 

"Shut up!" Tenya Iida bellowed, stepping forward, his engines whining with suppressed fury. He looked at Izuku not as a friend, but as a stain on the floor. "Do not speak to her! You have disgraced the mantle of heroism! You are a coward and a snake. I am ashamed to have ever called you my brother."

 

Shoto Todoroki stood perfectly still, his heterochromatic eyes colder than the ice he wielded. He didn't say a word, but the slight flare of fire on his left side spoke volumes. He looked at Izuku the way he looked at Endeavor. With utter, disgusted hatred.

 

But the worst was Bakugo.

 

Katsuki Bakugo walked slowly to the front of the group. His palms were popping, small explosions of smoke curling into the air. He didn't look angry. He looked vindicated.

 

"I always knew it," Bakugo said, his voice eerily calm. "I always knew you were a lying, deceitful little rat. You hid your quirk from me for years. You looked down on me. You played the hero, just waiting for the chance to stab us in the back."

 

"Kacchan..." Izuku sobbed, straining against Aizawa's grip. "You know me since we were kids... you know I want to be a hero..."

 

Smack.

 

Bakugo’s fist connected with Izuku’s jaw, enhanced by a small blast of nitroglycerin. Izuku was thrown to the floor, his lip splitting open, blood pooling in his mouth. Aizawa didn't even try to stop it.

 

"You're no hero," Bakugo spat, standing over him. "You're just a useless, quirkless Deku who had to suck up to villains to get power. Go rot in hell."

 

Izuku lay on the hardwood floor, the taste of copper in his mouth. He looked at the faces of his classmates. Momo was crying into Todoroki's shoulder. Kirishima couldn't even look at him. Mineta was hiding behind Shoji, looking at Izuku like he was a monster.

 

They all hated him. The people he had broken his own body to protect. The people he had shattered his arms for. They threw him away without a second thought.

 

"Get up," Aizawa demanded, hauling Izuku back to his feet by the chain of his cuffs. "You don't deserve to pack. You leave with the clothes on your back."

 

Aizawa dragged him toward the exit. But before they could reach the door, the towering figure of All Might stepped into the entranceway, blocking their path.

 

"Wait," All Might said.

 

Aizawa paused.

 

All Might looked down at Izuku. The hero form was gone. It was just Toshinori Yagi, looking frail, angry, and deeply sorrowful.

 

"There is one last thing," All Might said. "You will not take my master's power into that cell with you."

 

Izuku’s eyes widened in sheer panic. "No... please. It's all I have left. Please, All Might!"

 

"You lost the right to it the moment you betrayed us," All Might snarled. He reached out with a large, bony hand, grabbing a fistful of Izuku’s unruly green hair. With a sharp, violent yank, he pulled.

 

Izuku cried out in pain as All Might ripped a clump of hair from his scalp.

 

"I, Toshinori Yagi, the Eighth wielder of One For All, demand the return of the power," All Might chanted, his voice echoing in the silent dorm.

 

Because of the unique nature of the quirk, and the absolute rejection of the current wielder by the previous, the transaction was agonizing. Izuku felt something inside of him—a warm, brilliant sun that had burned in his chest for over a year—suddenly fracture.

 

It was like having his veins ripped out through his skin. Izuku screamed. A guttural, agonizing scream that tore his throat raw. Green lightning violently sparked around his cuffed body, lashing out wildly before suddenly snapping back inward.

 

The embers of One For All, the accumulated power of eight generations of heroes, were forcefully violently ripped from his soul.

 

Izuku collapsed, his knees hitting the floor with a sickening thud. He was gasping for air, shaking uncontrollably. The warmth was gone. The strength was gone. He felt hollow. He felt small.

 

He was Quirkless again.

 

"Take him away," All Might whispered, turning his back on the broken boy.

 

Aizawa dragged Izuku out of the dorms. Izuku didn't walk; his feet dragged uselessly against the pavement. His mind had completely shut down. The pain of losing the quirk, combined with the absolute shattering of his entire world, had plunged him into a state of catatonic shock.

 

Outside the gates of U.A., a heavily armored police transport van was waiting. Dozens of police officers, armed with assault rifles, formed a perimeter. News helicopters were already circling overhead like vultures.

 

They shoved him toward the back of the van. Izuku looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful, clear blue. It felt like a sick joke.

 

"Get in, traitor," an officer spat, shoving Izuku hard in the back.

 

Izuku stumbled into the dark interior of the van. The heavy steel doors slammed shut behind him, plunging him into darkness. The engine roared to life, and the van began to move.

 

Izuku sat on the cold metal bench, his cuffed hands resting in his lap. He didn't cry anymore. He had no tears left. He just stared into the darkness, the words echoing in his head.

 

Traitor. Villain. Useless. Deku.

 

The van had only been moving for ten minutes when the world exploded.

 

A deafening boom shattered the silence, followed by a shockwave that threw the heavy armored van completely off the ground. The vehicle flipped through the air, rolling violently across the asphalt before crashing onto its side with a screech of tearing metal.

 

Izuku was thrown like a ragdoll, his head slamming into the steel wall. His vision went white, then swam with dark spots. Blood trickled down the side of his face.

 

Outside, the sound of gunfire erupted, followed immediately by screams.

 

"Villains!" a police officer yelled outside. "It's a Vanguard ambush! They have a Nomu!"

 

The back doors of the van were suddenly ripped clean off their hinges by a massive, muscular grey hand. Sunlight flooded into the van, blinding Izuku. Standing in the opening was a monstrous Nomu, its exposed brain pulsating, four eyes rolling wildly in its skull.

 

Behind the Nomu, a swirling vortex of purple and black mist materialized. Kurogiri.

 

"Greetings, police escorts," Kurogiri’s polite, echoing voice rang out over the chaos. "We apologize for the interruption. But we have come to retrieve our most valuable asset."

 

A figure stepped out of the warp gate. It was a Twice clone of Dabi, his blue flames already igniting in his hands.

 

"Hey there, Midoriya!" the Dabi clone shouted with a maniacal grin, making sure his voice carried loud enough for the surviving police dashcams to record. "Great job on the intel! Shigaraki sent us to bust you out! Your work at U.A. is done!"

 

Izuku stared in absolute horror. No. No, no, no. They're cementing the frame job. They're making sure everyone believes it.

 

"Don't let them take him!" A familiar voice roared.

 

Izuku turned his head. Blasting down the street with explosions from his palms was Katsuki Bakugo, followed closely by Aizawa, who was swinging from his capture scarves. They had been following the transport.

 

"Ah, the heroes," Kurogiri mused. "Nomu. Delay them."

 

The Nomu shrieked and charged at Bakugo and Aizawa. The street erupted into a warzone. Fire, explosions, and rubble filled the air.

 

"Come on, kid," the Dabi clone sneered, reaching into the van and grabbing Izuku by the collar, dragging him out into the street. "Time to go home to the League."

 

"Get off me!" Izuku screamed, kicking wildly. He was quirkless, heavily concussed, and handcuffed, but pure adrenaline surged through his veins. He headbutted the Dabi clone squarely in the nose.

 

The clone cursed, stumbling backward, dropping Izuku.

 

Izuku hit the pavement and scrambled to his feet. He didn't run toward the villains, but he couldn't run toward the heroes either. Aizawa was currently wrapping his scarf around the Nomu's neck, while Bakugo was blasting its eyes.

 

"Deku!" Bakugo roared, seeing Izuku on his feet. "You're not escaping, you bastard! DIE!"

 

Bakugo redirected his trajectory, launching himself straight at Izuku, his palm glowing with a lethal amount of heat. He wasn't aiming to capture. He was aiming to kill.

 

Panic seized Izuku’s chest. He scrambled backward, his cuffed hands useless to defend himself.

 

"Kurogiri! Grab him!" the Dabi clone yelled.

 

Kurogiri expanded his mist, attempting to swallow Izuku. But at that exact moment, Aizawa, realizing what was happening, blinked. His quirk erased Kurogiri's. The mist sputtered and began to violently collapse in on itself, turning from a smooth portal into a chaotic, swirling vortex of dark energy.

 

Simultaneously, the Nomu, desperate to free itself from Aizawa's bindings, wildly swung its massive arm, slamming into a nearby ruptured gas main.

 

The explosion was catastrophic.

 

A massive pillar of fire and concussive force swept through the street. The shockwave hit Bakugo, blowing him off course. It hit the dying, violently collapsing Kurogiri portal, destabilizing it completely. The purple mist turned a sickly, blinding white, screaming with the sound of tearing fabric.

 

And the shockwave hit Izuku.

 

He was lifted off his feet, thrown backward directly into the heart of the malfunctioning warp gate.

 

"Deku!" Bakugo screamed, his voice a mix of fury and sudden, inexplicable panic.

 

Aizawa reached out, his capture scarf darting forward like a snake. The cloth wrapped around Izuku’s ankle.

 

For one fraction of a second, Izuku hung suspended in the air, half swallowed by the screaming white vortex of the broken portal, tethered to his world only by Aizawa's scarf.

 

Izuku looked through the smoke and fire. He looked at Aizawa, who was pulling with all his might, his eyes bloodshot. He looked at Bakugo, who was staring in shock. He looked at the world that had shattered him into a million pieces.

 

You are a traitor.

 

You are a mistake.

 

Go rot in hell.

 

Izuku didn't reach back. He didn't cry out for help. He just looked at Aizawa with dead, hollow green eyes.

 

The portal violently collapsed inwards. The spatial pressure was too immense. With a sickening snap, Aizawa’s capture scarf was cut clean in half.

 

Izuku Midoriya vanished.

 

The portal imploded with a sound like shattering glass, leaving nothing behind but smoke, fire, and the severed end of a white scarf fluttering to the bloody pavement.

 

 

 

Izuku didn't know how long he fell.

 

There was no up or down, no left or right. It felt like being dragged across the bottom of a frozen ocean. His lungs burned. His skin felt like it was being flayed off by a thousand microscopic knives. Colors he had never seen before flashed behind his tightly shut eyelids. He couldn't scream; there was no air.

 

Just as the pressure became unbearable, threatening to crush his skull to dust, the void spat him out.

 

Gravity slammed back into him with the force of a freight train.

 

He plummeted through the air for only a few seconds before crashing violently onto a hard, unforgiving surface.

 

CRACK.

 

Izuku screamed, the sound tearing from his throat as his left shoulder dislocated upon impact. He rolled uncontrollably across rough, wet stone, his cuffed hands scraping against the ground until he slammed into a steel pipe, finally coming to a halt.

 

He lay there, gasping, coughing up blood and rainwater.

 

Rain.

 

It was raining. Not a gentle drizzle, but a heavy, relentless downpour. It pounded against his back, soaked his shredded school uniform, and washed the blood from his split lip down his chin.

 

Slowly, agonizingly, Izuku forced his eyes open.

 

His vision was blurry, spinning wildly. He was lying in a narrow, claustrophobic alleyway. The ground was made of dark, slick cobblestone. Towering steel pipes, weeping with rust and condensation, ran along the towering concrete walls on either side of him.

 

He blinked against the heavy rain, trying to focus. He looked up.

 

There was no sky. Only a dense, suffocating canopy of grey storm clouds, pierced by towering, grotesque skyscrapers made of dark metal and concrete. They didn't look like the modern, sleek buildings of Musutafu. They looked ancient, industrial, like massive steel tombstones jutting into the weeping heavens. There were no neon hero billboards. No sounds of traffic.

 

Just the eternal, deafening sound of the rain.

 

Izuku tried to move, but the pain in his shoulder was blinding. He let out a pathetic whimper, curling his knees to his chest. His wrists were still bound by the quirk-suppressing cuffs. He was bruised, bleeding, concussed, and entirely alone.

 

Where am I? his mind sluggishly supplied. Did Kurogiri drop me in a villain base?

 

He waited for the footsteps. He waited for Shigaraki to walk out of the shadows, to torture him, to kill him.

 

But nobody came.

 

Minutes turned into hours. The rain never stopped. The cold seeped into his bones, freezing his blood. He lay in the puddle of his own making, staring blankly at the rusted pipes.

 

His mind, no longer distracted by the chaos of the fight, finally caught up with the reality of his situation.

 

The memories played behind his eyes like a torture reel.

 

Nezu’s cold stare.

Uraraka’s terrified face.

Iida’s disgust.

Bakugo’s exploding fist.

All Might... All Might ripping his hair out, taking away the only thing that made him special. Taking away his dream.

 

“You are a villain, Izuku Midoriya.”

 

Izuku let out a sound. It started as a wet, ragged gasp, and built into a hysterical, broken sob.

 

He screamed. He screamed until his throat bled. He screamed at the rain, at the steel towers, at the unfairness of it all. He had done everything right! He had shattered his bones! He had kept the secret! He had smiled through the pain, just like All Might taught him!

 

And his reward was this.

 

He realized then, lying in the freezing mud of an alien city, that the society he worshipped was a lie. The heroes were blind. They didn't care about the truth; they only cared about preserving their flawless image. The moment he became a liability, the moment the illusion was threatened, they threw him to the wolves.

 

They didn't save him. They destroyed him.

 

Izuku Midoriya closed his eyes. The boy who worshipped All Might, the boy who muttered about quirks and wrote in notebooks, the boy who dreamed of saving everyone with a smile... that boy died in the rain that night.

 

His heart, once a burning sun of hope, turned to cold, hard ash.

 

He didn't know what this city was. He didn't know that he was in Amegakure, the Village Hidden in the Rain, in a world where chakra ruled and heroes were a myth. He didn't know that eyes were already watching him from the shadows.

 

All he knew was the pain.

 

And as he lay there, letting the rain wash over his battered body, the only thing left inside the empty void of his chest was a tiny, terrifying spark of pure, unadulterated hatred.

 

The hero Deku was dead.

 

The dawn was coming.

 

 

Time in the Village Hidden in the Rain was a fluid, meaningless concept. There was no sun to mark the dawn, no moon to signal the night. There was only the eternal, oppressive grey of the smog-choked sky, and the relentless, deafening percussion of the rain.

 

Izuku Midoriya did not know if he had been in this iron purgatory for three days or three weeks.

 

He dragged himself through the flooded, labyrinthine alleys, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The U.A. uniform, once a pristine symbol of his dreams, hung off his emaciated frame in filthy, blood-stained tatters. His right arm was clutched tightly against his ribs. His left arm dangled uselessly, the shoulder still dislocated from his violent arrival into this world.

 

Every step was a battle against his own failing biology. Hunger gnawed at his stomach with the ferocity of a starved animal, a hollow, hollow ache that made his vision swim with black spots. The cold had long since bypassed his skin and settled deep into his marrow.

 

He ducked beneath an awning of corrugated steel just as a patrol of strange men leaped overhead. Izuku pressed his back against the damp brick wall, holding his breath.

 

He had learned quickly that this place was a warzone. The people here did not walk; they skulked. The civilians wore eyes that looked like shattered glass, staring at the ground, terrified of the towering metal spires above. And the "heroes" of this city—if they could even be called that—wore metal headbands and carried swords. They didn't save cats from trees or smile for cameras. Izuku had watched from the shadows as two of them casually slit a beggar's throat for getting too close to a ration line.

 

There were no Pro Heroes here. There was only survival.

 

Izuku slid down the brick wall, pulling his knees to his chest. He looked at his wrists. The heavy, quirk-suppressing cuffs were still locked tightly over his bruised skin.

 

He needed his left arm. If he was going to survive another day in this hell, he couldn't be crippled.

 

Biting his lip until he tasted copper, Izuku reached out with his right hand and found a rusted, heavy steel pipe fitting half-buried in the mud. He picked it up. His hands shook violently. He positioned his left wrist over a raised stone in the alleyway.

 

He squeezed his eyes shut. I'm sorry, Mom, he thought deliriously. I'm sorry, All Might.

 

With a feral, guttural cry, he brought the heavy steel fitting down onto the locking mechanism of the cuff.

 

CLANG.

 

Pain shot up his arm, but the metal bent. He raised it and brought it down again. And again. And again. He hammered at the cuffs with a manic, desperate strength born of pure trauma. Blood slicked his fingers, but he didn't stop.

 

With a final, desperate strike, the locking pin shattered. The heavy metal cuffs popped open, falling into the muddy puddle below with a dull splash.

 

Izuku let out a ragged breath, dropping the pipe. He stared at his freed hands. The scarred, twisted fingers twitched.

 

A ghost of a habit, a reflex ingrained in his very soul, took over. He clenched his fist. He focused on his chest, searching for the warmth, searching for the sun, searching for the crackling green lightning of One For All.

 

Nothing happened.

 

The void inside his chest remained silent, cold, and dead.

 

The reality of his situation crashed over him anew, suffocating him. He wasn't just in a strange place. He was powerless. He had been stripped of his quirk, stripped of his title, and stripped of his humanity by the people he loved most.

 

“You are a villain, Izuku Midoriya.”

 

All Might’s voice echoed in his ears, perfectly synchronized with the rhythm of the falling rain. Izuku clamped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut.

 

"Stop," he whispered. "Please stop."

 

“I always knew you were a lying, deceitful little rat.” Bakugo’s sneer materialized in the shadows of the alley.

 

“I am ashamed to have ever called you my brother.” Iida’s voice joined the chorus.

 

Izuku began to hyperventilate. He grabbed a fistful of his own muddy green hair, pulling it hard. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it, I swear! I'm a hero! I'm Deku!"

 

He screamed the last word, his voice cracking, echoing pitifully against the towering metal walls of Amegakure.

 

But there were no cheers. There were no cameras. There was no All Might to tell him he could be a hero. There was only a rat, scurrying across a nearby pipe, pausing to look at the broken boy in the mud before vanishing into the dark.

 

Izuku stared at the spot where the rat had been. Slowly, his ragged breathing leveled out. The tears that had been welling in his eyes froze.

 

Nobody was coming.

 

Justice was a lie told to children to make them sleep at night.

 

Izuku looked down at his left shoulder, protruding unnaturally from its socket. He reached across his body with his right hand, gripping his left forearm. He positioned his shoulder against the brick wall.

 

He didn't cry this time. He didn't apologize to ghosts.

 

With a sickening crunch, he threw his weight into the wall, forcing the humerus bone back into the socket. Searing, blinding agony flared through his nervous system, forcing a choked gasp from his lips, but he remained on his feet.

 

He rotated the shoulder. It screamed in protest, but it functioned.

 

Izuku stepped out from the awning and back into the rain. His eyes, once bright and vibrant, were now dull, flat, and hollow. The embers of One For All were gone, but in their place, a cold, dark fire was beginning to take root.

 

He was starving. He needed to eat. And he no longer cared what he had to do to get it.

 

 

 

Two hours later, Izuku found himself in the underbelly of a bustling, neon-lit market district. The rain was deflected here by a massive series of rusted overhead tarps, though the air was thick with the smell of cheap tobacco, frying fish, and raw sewage.

 

Izuku crouched behind a stack of wooden crates, his eyes locked on a stall selling steamed dumplings. The vendor, an old man with a missing eye, was busy haggling with a cloaked figure.

 

Izuku's mind, previously clouded by grief, began to sharpen. It was the same analytical engine that had once dissected Pro Hero quirks, now entirely re-purposed for survival.

 

The vendor's blind spot is on his left. The cloaked customer is carrying a sword—a weapon, meaning they are likely a combatant. If I move while the customer reaches into his pouch to pay, their attention will be completely divided. Three seconds. That's all I need.

 

Izuku coiled his legs beneath him. He waited for the exact moment the customer dropped a handful of coins onto the wooden counter.

 

He moved.

 

Silent as a ghost, Izuku slipped from the crates, snatched three dumplings from the bamboo steamer, and melted back into the shadows of the alleyway before the vendor even turned his head.

 

He didn't stop running until he was blocks away, deep in the abandoned industrial sector of the city. He collapsed against a chain-link fence, his chest heaving, and shoved the dumplings into his mouth. They burned his tongue, but it was the most magnificent thing he had ever tasted.

 

"Look at this, Gari. A little gutter rat."

 

Izuku froze. The dumpling turned to ash in his mouth.

 

He slowly looked up. Blocking the exit to the alleyway were two men. They wore matching grey uniforms, dark cloaks, and metal headbands with four vertical lines etched into them—the symbol of Amegakure.

 

The one who had spoken, a tall, lanky man with a scarred lip, drew a kunai knife from his thigh holster. The other, Gari, was broader, cracking his knuckles with a cruel smirk.

 

"Stole from old man Hato, didn't you?" the scarred one sneered. "We're the local law around here, kid. And the penalty for thievery is a hand."

 

Izuku backed away, his eyes darting frantically around the dead-end alley. "I... I just needed to eat," he said, his voice raspy from disuse.

 

"Don't care," Gari grunted. "Though, those clothes... never seen fabric like that. And those big red shoes. Might fetch a decent price on the black market."

 

They weren't here for justice. They were here to rob him and leave him for dead.

 

Izuku’s heart hammered against his ribs, but a strange, terrifying calm washed over his mind. The panic of a hero trying to save a situation was gone. This was pure, unadulterated survival.

 

Analysis, his mind whispered. Two combatants. Armed. Confident. They move with an unnatural lightness, same as the patrols I saw earlier. They manipulate an internal energy source to enhance physical capabilities.

 

"Grab him," the scarred ninja commanded.

 

Gari lunged forward, moving at a speed that would rival Iida's Recipro Burst.

 

But Izuku had spent a year training his eyes to track the fastest things on earth. He had fought Bakugo. He had dodged Gran Torino. Without One For All, Izuku couldn't match the speed, but his mind could still predict the trajectory.

 

Izuku threw himself backward, sliding across the slick mud. Gari’s grasping hand missed Izuku’s collar by an inch.

 

Using the momentum, Izuku kicked out his foot, slamming his heavy, iron-soled red shoe directly into Gari’s kneecap.

 

There was a satisfying crack.

 

Gari roared in pain, stumbling sideways. "You little bastard!"

 

"Suiton: Water Bullet!" the scarred ninja yelled. He rapidly wove his hands through a series of complex signs. Izuku watched, his eyes wide.

 

Hand signs? A somatic component to trigger their energy?

 

The man inhaled sharply and spat a high-pressure sphere of water directly at Izuku. It moved like a cannonball.

 

Izuku scrambled behind a rusted dumpster just as the water bullet impacted. The metal shrieked, denting inwards with terrifying force. If that hits me, it'll shatter my ribs.

 

Izuku bolted from behind the dumpster, running deeper into the abandoned industrial lot. He had no power. He couldn't fight them head-on. He had to use the environment.

 

"Don't let him get away!" the scarred ninja barked, helping Gari to his feet.

 

Izuku sprinted through the maze of towering, rusted silos and dripping pipes. He scrambled up a rusted iron ladder attached to one of the massive chemical vats. The structure groaned under his weight.

 

He reached the scaffolding halfway up the silo. Below him, the two ninjas burst into the clearing.

 

"He went up!" Gari yelled, pointing up at the scaffolding. Despite his limp, he channeled energy—chakra, Izuku would later learn—into his feet and began to literally run up the vertical side of the silo.

 

Izuku’s breath hitched. They can defy gravity. I have to change the rules of the board.

 

Izuku looked around frantically. Above him, suspended by a thick, fraying steel cable, was a massive load of cast-iron pipes, waiting to be lowered into a defunct furnace. The cable was attached to a rusted winch system right next to him.

 

Izuku grabbed a heavy metal wrench left behind by long-dead workers.

 

Gari vaulted over the railing, pulling a wicked-looking short sword from his back. His eyes were murderous. "I'm gonna cut you to ribbons, kid!"

 

Gari lunged.

 

Izuku didn't step back. He ducked under the wild swing, the blade slicing a shallow cut across his cheek. Ignoring the sting, Izuku swung the heavy wrench with all his remaining strength, not at Gari, but at the rusted locking mechanism of the winch.

 

CLANG.

 

The lock shattered.

 

The winch screamed as it unspooled instantly.

 

"What—?" Gari looked up.

 

Two tons of cast-iron pipes plummeted from the ceiling.

 

Gari didn't even have time to scream. The payload slammed into him with the force of a meteor, completely crushing him against the steel grating of the scaffolding. The metal shrieked and gave way, sending Gari's broken body and the iron pipes plummeting fifty feet down into the empty, concrete basin below.

 

The crash shook the entire facility.

 

Izuku clung to the railing, his chest heaving, his eyes wide. He looked down into the basin. A pool of crimson blood was already mixing with the rainwater around the crushed pile of iron.

 

He had killed someone.

 

Izuku stared at his trembling hands. For a fraction of a second, the old Izuku rose up, ready to vomit, ready to scream, ready to be crushed by the guilt of taking a human life. A hero doesn't kill. A hero saves.

 

But then, he remembered the look in Gari's eyes. The man was going to butcher him for a pair of shoes. He remembered the feeling of All Might ripping his hair out.

 

The guilt died before it could even fully form. He felt nothing. Only a cold, hollow satisfaction. He was alive. The enemy was dead.

 

"GARI!"

 

A scream of pure, unadulterated rage echoed from below.

 

The scarred ninja was standing at the edge of the basin, staring at the crushed remains of his partner. He slowly looked up, his eyes locking onto Izuku. The man's aura flared, a palpable, suffocating wave of killing intent that made Izuku's knees buckle.

 

Oh no.

 

The scarred man didn't run up the wall. He wove hand signs faster than Izuku could track.

 

"Suiton: Water Dragon Jutsu!"

 

The puddles of rainwater around the man violently rose into the air, coalescing into a massive, serpentine dragon made of highly pressurized water. It roared, a sound like a crashing tsunami, and surged upward directly at the scaffolding where Izuku stood.

 

Izuku tried to run, but he was too slow. The water dragon slammed into the scaffolding with the force of a bomb.

 

The metal disintegrated. Izuku was thrown into the air, the wind knocked completely out of his lungs. He plummeted toward the concrete floor, crashing through several rusted pipes before hitting the ground hard.

 

He rolled violently, coming to a stop in the mud. He tried to push himself up, but his right leg was twisted at a sickening angle. He coughed up a mouthful of blood.

 

He couldn't move. He was completely broken.

 

Footsteps approached. Slow. Deliberate.

 

The scarred ninja stood over him, water dripping from his chin, his eyes manic with grief and fury. He drew a kunai, the blade gleaming in the dim light.

 

"You're going to suffer for that, you little rat," the man hissed. "I'm going to peel your skin off while you breathe."

 

Izuku stared up at the man. He didn't beg. He didn't plead. He just stared, his green eyes dark and bottomless.

 

So this is it, Izuku thought. I die in the mud. Forgotten.

 

The ninja raised the kunai, aiming for Izuku's eye.

 

Suddenly, a strange sound cut through the heavy rain. It sounded like the fluttering of a thousand pages of a book.

 

A single sheet of crisp, white paper drifted down from the sky, landing gently on the scarred ninja's shoulder.

 

The man paused, looking at the paper in confusion. "What the—"

 

In a fraction of a second, the single sheet of paper aggressively multiplied, wrapping around the ninja's arm, his neck, and his chest like a rigid, geometric snake. The paper hardened into razor-sharp edges, cutting into the man's skin.

 

The ninja screamed, dropping the kunai as he clawed at the paper binding him. "Who's there?! Show yourself!"

 

The rain seemed to part.

 

Descending slowly from the rusted rafters was a woman. She was breathtakingly beautiful, yet terrifyingly cold. Her hair was a vibrant, light purple, adorned with an origami flower. She wore a long, flowing black cloak decorated with sinister red clouds. From her back protruded two massive, angelic wings constructed entirely of white paper.

 

She landed softly in front of Izuku, her amber eyes locking onto the struggling ninja.

 

"You are loud," she spoke, her voice as smooth and emotionless as a porcelain doll.

 

"An... an angel?" the ninja gasped, recognizing the myth of Amegakure. "Lady Angel! Please, this rat killed my partner!"

 

"I do not care," the woman—Konan—said flatly.

 

Before the ninja could speak again, a new presence entered the clearing.

 

It wasn't a physical entrance. It felt as though the very air pressure in the facility had suddenly doubled. Izuku gasped for breath, his lungs struggling against the sudden, crushing weight of the atmosphere.

 

Walking out from the shadows of the alleyway was a man.

 

He was tall, with striking, spiky orange hair. He wore the same black cloak with red clouds. His face was adorned with numerous black metal piercings—through his nose, his ears, his lower lip. But it was his eyes that completely froze Izuku's blood.

 

They were not human eyes. They were a vivid, piercing purple, patterned with concentric, ripple-like rings that seemed to draw the soul directly out of Izuku’s body.

 

The Rinnegan.

 

The man stopped a few feet away. He did not look at the struggling ninja. He looked only at Izuku.

 

"Lord Pain," Konan said, bowing her head slightly.

 

The ninja’s eyes bulged in absolute terror. "P-Pain?! You're... you're real?! Please! Mercy! I am a loyal shinobi of Ame!"

 

Pain slowly turned his head to look at the screaming man. There was no anger in his rippled eyes. There was only the cold, detached gaze of a god observing an insect.

 

Pain raised a single, pale hand.

 

"Shinra Tensei." (Almighty Push)

 

The air warped. A localized, invisible shockwave of unimaginable kinetic force erupted from Pain's hand. It struck the ninja with the force of a hurricane.

 

The man didn't even have time to scream. The sheer force of the push shattered every bone in his body instantly, launching him backward like a cannonball. He smashed through a concrete wall fifty feet away, disappearing into the rubble in a cloud of dust and blood.

 

Silence descended upon the clearing, save for the ever-present sound of the rain.

 

Izuku lay in the mud, paralyzed. He had seen All Might punch villains into the stratosphere. He had seen Nomus tear through steel. But this... this was different. This wasn't a quirk. This was a fundamental manipulation of reality itself.

 

Pain lowered his hand and slowly walked toward Izuku. He stopped, towering over the broken boy.

 

Konan stepped to Pain's side. "He has no chakra coils," she noted softly, observing Izuku. "He is an anomaly. Yet, he managed to kill a Chunin-level shinobi using only a wrench and gravity."

 

"I saw," Pain replied, his voice a deep, reverberating baritone that commanded absolute authority.

 

Pain knelt down in the mud, bringing his rippled eyes level with Izuku’s.

 

Izuku didn't flinch away. He was too broken to be afraid anymore. He looked directly into the eyes of a god.

 

For a long moment, Pain simply stared. Then, the faintest flicker of recognition crossed the god's features.

 

"Look at his eyes, Konan," Pain murmured.

 

Konan looked. "They are dead."

 

"No," Pain corrected softly. "They are awake."

 

Pain reached out a hand. Izuku tensed, expecting a killing blow, expecting to be crushed into dust like the ninja. But instead, Pain’s hand hovered over Izuku’s shattered leg. A soft, green aura of chakra flared to life around Pain's palm.

 

A warm, soothing sensation flooded Izuku’s leg. The bones snapped back into place on their own; the torn muscles knit themselves back together. Within seconds, the agonizing pain completely vanished.

 

Pain stood back up, looking down at him. "Stand."

 

Izuku hesitated, then slowly pushed himself up. He stood on wobbly legs, completely dwarfed by the two figures before him.

 

"Why did you heal me?" Izuku croaked, his voice cracking. "I have nothing to give you."

 

"I healed you because I see a reflection in you," Pain said, his voice echoing in the empty basin. "You look at the world with the eyes of someone who has had everything stolen from them. Someone who trusted in a lie, and was punished for it. Tell me, boy... who broke you?"

 

The question bypassed all of Izuku's defenses. It hit the raw, bleeding wound in his soul.

 

"The heroes," Izuku whispered, his voice trembling not with sadness, but with a rising, toxic anger.

 

Pain tilted his head slightly. "Heroes?"

 

"They told me I could save people," Izuku said, staring at his scarred hands, clenching them into fists. "They told me that justice was absolute. I gave them my body. I gave them my secrets. I gave them everything! And the moment they were scared... the moment their perfect, shiny world was threatened... they blamed me. They called me a traitor. They ripped my dream out of my chest and threw me away."

 

Izuku looked up, tears of pure fury finally spilling down his dirty cheeks. "They are hypocrites. They play dress-up and smile for the cameras, but they are monsters! They cast away anyone who doesn't fit into their perfect little box!"

 

Konan's eyes softened a fraction. She looked at Pain. She knew exactly what Pain was hearing. He was hearing the story of Yahiko. He was hearing the story of Amegakure, crushed between the Great Nations who claimed to be fighting for "peace."

 

"You have learned the fundamental truth of the universe, child," Pain said, taking a step closer. The rain seemed to deflect around him, keeping him perfectly dry. "Those who do not understand true pain can never understand true peace."

 

Izuku stared, captivated by the absolute conviction in the man's voice.

 

"The world you speak of, the 'heroes' you hate... they are no different from the Kage of this world," Pain continued, his voice rising, echoing with a hypnotic resonance. "They preach justice, but their justice is nothing more than an excuse to protect their own power. They create outcasts. They create suffering. They fuel a never-ending cycle of hatred, hiding behind masks of righteousness."

 

Pain extended his arms outward, encompassing the weeping city around them.

 

"Look at this city. Amegakure weeps because of the 'justice' of the strong nations. They waged their wars on our land, slaughtered our people, and then returned home to be hailed as heroes, while we were left to rot in the mud."

 

Pain lowered his arms and looked back at Izuku. The rippled purple eyes seemed to pierce straight through to Izuku's soul.

 

"You were crushed by a system that refuses to acknowledge its own darkness," Pain stated. "You are powerless. You are alone. But you have survived. You used your pain to kill the one who sought to kill you. You have taken your first step out of the illusion."

 

Izuku's breath hitched. He wasn't being scolded. He wasn't being called a villain. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, someone was validating his pain. Someone saw the hypocrisy he had been a victim of.

 

"What... what are you going to do to me?" Izuku asked, his voice barely a whisper.

 

"That depends entirely on you," Pain replied. "You can walk away right now. You can return to the gutters, scrounge for food, and eventually die a meaningless death in the rain, forgotten by the world that discarded you."

 

Pain slowly extended his pale right hand toward Izuku.

 

"Or, you can join us."

 

Izuku stared at the hand.

 

"We are the Akatsuki," Pain declared, his voice ringing with absolute, divine authority. "We exist outside their laws. Outside their justice. We are gathering the power to dismantle this broken world and rebuild it. We will bring true peace to all nations, by forcing them to know a pain so absolute, they will never dare to raise a hand in violence again."

 

Pain leaned down slightly, his Rinnegan burning into Izuku's green eyes.

 

"I can give you the power to tear down the hypocrites who broke you. I can give your pain a purpose. Cast aside the naive boy who wanted to be a 'hero.' Become a god with us."

 

Izuku stood frozen in the rain.

 

He closed his eyes. He saw U.A. He saw the shining towers of Musutafu. He saw the blinding smile of All Might, telling him he was a mistake. He saw the chains, the cuffs, the prison that awaited him for a crime he didn't commit.

 

Hero society was a diseased tree. It looked beautiful on the outside, but the roots were rotten, feeding on the broken bodies of people like him, people like Shinsou, people who fell through the cracks.

 

He opened his eyes. The tears were gone. The fear was gone.

 

The boy who wanted to save everyone with a smile was dead. But in his place stood someone who would save the world by making it understand exactly how it felt to be broken.

 

Izuku Midoriya raised his scarred hand, and firmly grasped the hand of a god.

 

"Teach me," Izuku said, his voice completely devoid of warmth, cold as the iron spires around them. "Teach me how to make them feel my pain."

 

A ghost of a smile, faint and terrifying, graced Pain’s lips.

 

"Konan," Pain commanded, turning away and beginning to walk back into the shadows. "Bring him. We have much work to do."

 

Konan stepped forward. She reached under her cloak and pulled out a spare garment. It was heavy, black fabric, lined with crimson. She draped it over Izuku’s small, shivering shoulders.

 

Izuku looked down at the cloak. Woven into the black fabric were red clouds, bordered in white. They looked like clouds of blood raining down upon the world.

 

He pulled the cloak tightly around himself. It was the warmest thing he had felt in days.

 

Without looking back at the crushed body in the basin, or the life he had left behind in another universe, Izuku followed the two gods into the eternal rain, stepping firmly into the shadows of the Akatsuki.

 

 

 

 

The deeper one descended into the central tower of Amegakure, the colder the air became. It was a damp, pervasive chill that smelled of old iron, ozone, and dried blood.

 

Izuku Midoriya walked in silence, a step behind Konan and Pain. The oversized Akatsuki cloak billowed slightly around his ankles. He was no longer shivering. The pain in his freshly healed shoulder was a dull throb, completely eclipsed by the hollow, echoing void in his chest. His mind was unnervingly quiet. The frantic, muttering fanboy who obsessed over Pro Heroes was gone, locked away behind a newly erected wall of trauma and absolute apathy.

 

They arrived before a pair of massive, heavy stone doors.

 

Pain did not push them open. He merely raised a hand, and invisible kinetic force blasted the doors apart with a grinding screech of stone.

 

"Enter," Pain commanded.

 

Izuku stepped into the cavernous chamber. It was dimly lit by flickering torches mounted on the walls, casting long, dancing shadows across the uneven stone floor. The air inside was heavy—not just with humidity, but with a palpable, suffocating pressure that made Izuku’s lungs seize.

 

It was killing intent. Pure, concentrated, and radiating from the figures standing within the room.

 

They were the Akatsuki. Ten S-rank criminals, monsters of myth and legend, gathered in the flesh or projected via shimmering, multi-colored astral holograms.

 

"Well, well, well," a raspy, grating voice echoed from the shadows. A man stepped forward into the torchlight. He had slicked-back silver hair and carried a massive, three-bladed scythe resting casually on his shoulder. Around his neck swung a silver amulet. "What the hell is this, Leader? You brought a stray dog out of the rain?"

 

"Mind your tongue, Hidan," Pain said, stepping past Izuku to take his place at the center of the room. "He is our newest affiliate."

 

A chorus of scoffs and low chuckles rippled through the chamber.

 

"You've gotta be kidding me, yeah?" A blonde boy, who looked only slightly older than Izuku, leaned forward. He had a strange, manic glint in his blue eyes, and his hands were tucked into his cloak. "He looks like a stiff breeze would snap him in half. Is this a joke? Art requires a canvas, not a twig, un."

 

"Quiet, Deidara," a deep, rumbling voice hissed. It belonged to a hulking, hunched figure shrouded in a cloak, wearing a mask with glowing green eyes—Kakuzu. "If he's useless, we can sell his organs on the black market. Young kidneys fetch a high price in the Earth Kingdom."

 

Izuku stood perfectly still. In the past, being surrounded by a room of murderous villains would have sent him into a panic attack. He would have been calculating escape routes, desperately trying to summon One For All, terrified for his life.

 

Now, he just looked at them. His dead, green eyes swept over Hidan’s scythe, noting the dull, rusted edges—a weapon designed to inflict maximum pain and draw blood, not for clean kills. He looked at Deidara's hands, noticing the subtle, unnatural shifting of the fabric—hidden appendages or tools. He looked at Kakuzu’s bulky form—heavy, likely low mobility, relies on defense.

 

His analytical mind, once used to admire heroes, was already dissecting the monsters.

 

"He has no chakra network," a raspy, amphibious voice noted. A massive man with blue skin and gill-like slits under his eyes grinned, revealing rows of razor-sharp, shark-like teeth. A massive sword wrapped in bandages rested on his back. "I can't sense a single drop of nature energy in him. He's completely powerless. Right, Itachi?"

 

Izuku’s eyes shifted to the man standing next to the shark-man.

 

He was of average height, with long, raven-black hair tied back in a loose ponytail. His face was passive, expressionless, marked by deep stress lines beneath his onyx eyes. He emanated no outward killing intent, no boasting arrogance like the others. Yet, looking at him, Izuku felt a primal, terrifying instinct scream at him to run.

 

The man—Itachi—slowly opened his eyes. They were a brilliant, burning crimson, adorned with three spinning black tomoe. The Sharingan.

 

For a fraction of a second, Itachi’s eyes locked onto Izuku’s. Izuku felt as though his soul was being X-rayed, his every memory, sin, and weakness laid bare.

 

"He is not powerless, Kisame," Itachi spoke. His voice was soft, calm, and chillingly composed. "He is simply... empty."

 

"Enough," Pain declared, his voice cutting through the chatter like a thunderclap. The room fell silent instantly. "This boy has been forged in the same hypocritical fires that burn this world. He has a mind built for strategy and a heart that understands true pain. He will be trained to serve the Dawn."

 

Hidan scoffed, twirling his scythe. "Trained? By who? I'm not babysitting some quirkless—or whatever the hell he is—runt. He can't even use Ninjutsu!"

 

"He will not need to," Pain replied. He turned his rippled purple eyes toward the quiet man in the corner. "Itachi. He is your responsibility."

 

Kisame let out a barking laugh. "Good luck, kid. Try not to die on the first day."

 

Itachi did not argue. He did not nod. He simply closed his crimson eyes, the red fading back to onyx, and turned toward the exit.

 

"Follow," Itachi said softly.

 

Izuku looked at Pain, who gave a slow, confirming nod. Without a word, Izuku turned and followed the Uchiha out of the cavern, leaving the mocking laughter of the Akatsuki behind him.

 

 

 

They walked in silence for miles, leaving the towering metal spires of Amegakure behind and entering a desolate, rocky wasteland where the rain finally began to thin into a cold, biting mist.

 

Itachi stopped at the edge of a jagged cliff overlooking a churning, grey river. He did not turn around.

 

"Kisame was correct," Itachi said to the wind. "You have no chakra coils. You cannot mold elements. You cannot walk on water or scale vertical surfaces. In this world, you are lower than a civilian."

 

"I know," Izuku replied, his voice flat.

 

Itachi slowly turned to face him. The Sharingan flared to life once more in his eyes.

 

"But when I look inside you," Itachi continued, stepping closer, "I see a cavern. A massive, hollowed-out space within your physical being. It is scarred, burned, and expanded far beyond human limits. It is as if your body was the vessel for a sun, and that sun was violently extinguished, leaving behind a shell of immense physical durability. What happened to you?"

 

Izuku looked down at his ruined, scarred hands. He thought of the green lightning. He thought of All Might’s bony hand gripping his hair.

 

"I was a vessel," Izuku said, his voice dropping to a whisper laced with venom. "I held the power of a god. The power to save everyone. But the god decided I was a traitor, and he ripped it away."

 

Itachi’s expression did not change, but the spinning tomoe in his eyes slowed. "A traitor."

 

"I didn't do it," Izuku said, looking up, meeting the bloody gaze of the Uchiha without flinching. "I gave them everything. I broke my bones for them. And they framed me. They threw me away because it was easier than finding the truth."

 

Silence hung between them, save for the rushing river below.

 

Itachi knew the weight of that word. Traitor. He knew what it felt like to sacrifice your soul, your family, your entire life for a village, only to be branded a monster and hunted like a dog. He looked at the boy and saw a mirror reflecting a different kind of tragedy. Itachi had chosen his path of betrayal to prevent a war. This boy had betrayal thrust upon him by the very people he sought to protect.

 

"The world is built on convenient lies, Izuku," Itachi said softly. "The strong dictate what is just, and the weak are forced to bear the burden of their sins. If you wish to survive among monsters, you must shed the last remnants of the victim they made you."

 

Itachi reached into his cloak and withdrew a single, standard iron kunai. He tossed it. It landed in the dirt at Izuku’s feet.

 

"Pick it up."

 

Izuku bent down and gripped the handle. It was heavier than he expected, perfectly balanced, cold and lethal.

 

"You have no Ninjutsu," Itachi lectured, pacing slowly. "But you have a mind that calculates at a terrifying speed. I watched you observe Hidan and Deidara. You were looking for weaknesses. You have the vessel of a warrior, and the mind of a strategist. I will teach you how to use them. I will teach you Taijutsu to shatter bone, Shurikenjutsu to strike the unseen, and Genjutsu resistance so your mind can never be broken again."

 

Itachi stopped, his Sharingan burning.

 

"Attack me. With intent to kill."

 

Izuku gripped the kunai. For a brief second, muscle memory flared. He almost called out Full Cowling. But the void in his chest remained empty. He had only his muscles, his scars, and his rage.

 

Izuku lunged.

 

He was fast—faster than a normal human, thanks to the residual physical conditioning required to hold One For All. He slashed horizontally, aiming for Itachi’s throat.

 

Itachi didn't even draw a weapon. He simply shifted his weight a fraction of an inch. The kunai sliced through empty air.

 

Before Izuku could recover, Itachi’s hand shot out, gripping Izuku’s wrist with the force of a steel vise. With a fluid, almost gentle motion, Itachi twisted. Izuku’s feet were swept out from under him, and he was slammed violently onto the hard stone.

 

The air rushed from Izuku’s lungs. Before he could gasp, the tip of his own kunai, now in Itachi's hand, was pressed against his eyeball, so close he could feel the cold metal on his eyelashes.

 

"You fight like a brawler," Itachi said coldly. "You telegraph your strikes. You rely on momentum. That is how a 'hero' fights. A shinobi does not fight. A shinobi executes."

 

Itachi tossed the kunai aside and stepped back. "Get up. Again."

 

 

 

The next six months were a crucible of unimaginable agony.

 

Pain had promised to forge Izuku into a weapon, and Itachi was the merciless hammer. Izuku’s days began before the sun rose—though the sun never truly penetrated the clouds of Amegakure—and ended only when he collapsed into a bloody, bruised heap on the training grounds.

 

He had thought cleaning Dagobah Beach was hard. He had thought Aizawa’s quirk apprehension test was brutal.

 

It was child's play compared to this.

 

Itachi systematically broke down every instinct Izuku had developed at U.A. High.

 

“You hesitate!” Itachi’s voice would ring out as a wooden bokken cracked across Izuku’s ribs, sending him sprawling into the mud. “You aim for the center of mass to incapacitate. By the time your opponent is incapacitated, they have already cast a jutsu to kill you. Aim for the carotid. Aim for the spine. Aim for the eyes!”

 

Izuku had to learn how to kill. It was a psychological barrier that physically made him sick for the first two weeks. He would vomit after every session, the ghost of All Might standing over him, shaking his head in disgust.

 

But every time he felt himself breaking, he remembered the look in Bakugo’s eyes. “You’re just a useless, quirkless Deku.”

 

The rage would return, cold and hard. He would wipe the bile from his mouth, pick up his blade, and attack again.

 

Without chakra, Izuku had to rely entirely on biomechanics and physics. Itachi taught him the anatomical weak points of the human body. He learned how to sever a brachial artery with a flick of his wrist. He learned how to shatter a kneecap with a precise heel strike. He learned how to move without making a sound, rolling his steps from the outside of the foot inward.

 

But Izuku’s true mastery came with tools.

 

"Shurikenjutsu," Itachi explained one evening, standing before a dense forest of dead trees. "It is not merely throwing a blade. It is mathematics. It is predicting where your opponent will be, not where they are."

 

Itachi threw eight kunai simultaneously, his hands a blur. They ricocheted off each other mid-air, curving around tree trunks, and struck eight separate hidden targets dead center.

 

Izuku’s eyes widened. His mind went into overdrive. Angles of deflection. Kinetic transfer. Wind resistance.

 

He picked up a handful of shuriken. He couldn't use chakra to guide them, but he had something else: a brain that had spent ten years hyper-analyzing the physics of Quirks. He treated the shuriken like bouncing projectiles. He mapped out the geometry of the forest in his head.

 

It took thousands of throws. His fingers bled, calluses tearing and reforming. But by the fourth month, Izuku could throw a barrage of shuriken, bounce them off a stone wall, and hit targets entirely concealed behind cover.

 

To supplement his lack of raw power, Izuku embraced shinobi tools. He wired his red boots with reinforced steel plates. He wrapped his arms in razor-thin, high-tensile wire strings. He learned to lace his weapons with paralysis poisons provided by Sasori.

 

He was transforming from a brawler into a phantom.

 

But physical conditioning was only half the battle.

 

One evening, as they sat by a small campfire in the wasteland, Itachi looked at Izuku. "Look into my eyes."

 

Izuku, exhausted, looked up. The Sharingan spun.

 

Instantly, the world melted. The campfire vanished. Izuku was no longer in Amegakure. He was standing in the common room of Heights Alliance.

 

"Deku."

 

Izuku spun around. Uraraka was standing there. But her face was twisted in a horrific snarl. She raised a hand, and suddenly, Izuku felt the gravity violently rip away from him. He slammed into the ceiling, bones cracking.

 

"You traitor," Iida’s voice echoed. A blinding flash of silver sliced through the air, and Izuku felt a burning agony in his stomach.

 

"No," Izuku gasped, coughing up blood. "Itachi! Stop!"

 

Suddenly, All Might towered over him, his eyes glowing red. “You are a mistake, Izuku Midoriya. Die.” All Might brought down a massive fist.

 

Izuku screamed.

 

He snapped back to reality, gasping for air, clutching his chest. He was sitting by the campfire, drenched in a cold sweat. Itachi was sitting exactly where he had been, his eyes normal.

 

"Genjutsu," Itachi said calmly. "An illusion cast into your mind. Without chakra, you cannot disrupt the flow of energy to break it. You are entirely vulnerable to sensory manipulation."

 

"How... how do I fight it?" Izuku panted, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest.

 

"Pain," Itachi replied. "A sudden, sharp spike of physical agony can snap your nervous system back to reality. But more importantly, you must train your mind to recognize the illogical. You must master your own trauma so completely that it can no longer be used as a weapon against you."

 

For the next two months, Itachi subjected Izuku to daily Genjutsu torture. Izuku was forced to relive his worst memories, his deepest fears, and horrific scenarios of his own death over and over again.

 

At first, it broke him. But slowly, the tears stopped. The panic attacks ceased. Izuku realized that the phantoms of his classmates could no longer hurt him, because he no longer cared about them. The hero Deku who sought their approval was dead.

 

Izuku learned to bite his own tongue, to dig his nails into his scars, using the physical pain to shatter the illusions. His mind became a fortress of iron and ice.

 

During his limited downtime, Izuku returned to his old habits, but with a dark twist. He acquired a stack of blank parchment from Konan. He bound them together.

 

Shinobi Assassination Tactics No. 1.

 

He watched his fellow Akatsuki members whenever he returned to the base.

 

Hidan: Immortal, but requires a blood ritual. Must stay inside a drawn circle. Counter: Use wire strings to physically drag him out of the circle mid-ritual. Decapitation neutralizes mobility.

 

Deidara: Explosive clay requires hand-mouths. Earth-based chakra. Counter: Lightning nullifies the clay. Since I have no lightning jutsu, sever the hands or bind the mouths with wire. Blind his left eye, it's mechanically enhanced for long-range.

 

Sasori: Puppet body. The only living part is the core in the left chest. Counter: Ignore the puppets. Bypass defenses using ricochet shuriken targeting the core directly.

 

Itachi watched the boy scribble in his notebooks, calculating the exact methods to slaughter gods. Itachi felt a profound, solemn respect. Izuku was no longer a victim. He was becoming the most dangerous thing in the elemental nations: a genius with nothing left to lose.

 

 

 

A year had passed since Izuku fell through the portal. He was sixteen now, though his eyes looked a hundred years old. He had grown taller, leaner. His unruly green hair had grown out, tied back with a dark grey ribbon. He no longer wore the tattered U.A. uniform; he wore a sleek, black mesh combat suit, reinforced with light armor plating, and an array of weapon pouches strapped to his thighs and lower back.

 

He knelt on the cold stone floor of the central chamber. Pain stood before him, Konan at his side. Itachi stood in the shadows.

 

"You have survived a year under the Uchiha," Pain rumbled. "Your body and mind have been broken and reforged. But a sword is useless until it is tempered in blood. It is time for your initiation, Izuku."

 

Izuku did not look up. "Give me my target."

 

"Fifty miles north of Amegakure lies a border town," Pain explained. "It is overseen by a corrupt minister of the Earth Kingdom Daimyo, a man named Gato. He claims to be operating a refugee camp for those displaced by the border skirmishes."

 

Pain’s eyes narrowed slightly. "In truth, he is hoarding the supplies provided by the capital, starving the refugees, and selling the orphans to underground syndicates to fund a private mercenary army. The Daimyo turns a blind eye because Gato pays him well."

 

Izuku’s jaw tightened. A corrupt official exploiting the weak to line his own pockets, while the people in power look the other way. It sounded sickeningly familiar to the Hero Public Safety Commission.

 

"He is surrounded by fifty armed mercenaries," Konan added smoothly. "He resides in a heavily fortified compound. Your mission is to infiltrate the compound, eliminate the mercenaries if necessary, and execute the minister. You will do this alone. If you succeed, you will be granted your ring, and you will officially become a member of the Akatsuki."

 

"And if I fail?" Izuku asked, his voice deadpan.

 

"Then you will die," Pain replied simply. "And you will prove that you were nothing but a weak child clinging to a grudge."

 

Izuku stood up. He bowed his head slightly. "It will be done, Lord Pain."

 

He turned and walked toward the exit. As he passed Itachi, the Uchiha spoke, barely loud enough for Izuku to hear.

 

"Do not let the ghost of the hero hold your blade back. If you hesitate, you will die."

 

"The hero is dead, Itachi," Izuku whispered back. "I am just the ghost."

 

 

 

The rain fell heavily on the border town, turning the dirt roads into a quagmire of mud and filth.

 

Izuku crouched on the thick branch of a dead pine tree overlooking the minister's compound. Through the scope of a monocular tool he had built, he surveyed the area.

 

It was a sprawling, traditional estate surrounded by high stone walls. Watchtowers manned by armed mercenaries stood at the four corners. In the courtyard, chained to iron posts, were dozens of emaciated refugees, shivering in the rain. Cages filled with children were loaded onto a wooden cart, waiting for transport.

 

A sickening twist of disgust churned in Izuku’s stomach. Heroes exist in my world, and they still let things like this happen. Shinobi exist in this world, and they cause it. It's all a joke.

 

Izuku pulled his Akatsuki cloak tight. He checked his wire spools mounted on his wrists. He checked his kunai pouches.

 

Fifty men. I can't fight them in a prolonged melee. I need to strike from the shadows. Terror is a weapon.

 

Izuku dropped from the tree, landing silently in the tall grass outside the wall.

 

He approached the western watchtower. A mercenary was leaning over the railing, smoking a cigarette, complaining about the rain.

 

Izuku flicked his wrist. A razor-thin wire, tipped with a small weighted dart, shot upward into the darkness. The dart wrapped silently around a wooden crossbeam above the guard. Izuku pulled the wire taut, anchoring it to his belt.

 

He didn't climb. He simply used the tension of the wire and his immense physical strength to launch himself silently upward, scaling the thirty-foot wall in a single, fluid bound.

 

He landed behind the guard without a sound.

 

The guard turned, catching a glimpse of the red clouds on the black cloak. His eyes widened. "Wh—"

 

Izuku’s hand shot out, clapping over the man’s mouth. At the same exact moment, his other hand drove a kunai precisely beneath the base of the guard's skull, severing the brain stem.

 

The kill was instant. No scream. No struggle.

 

Izuku lowered the body silently to the wooden floorboards. He felt a brief, hollow pang in his chest—the last dying nerve ending of Izuku Midoriya. He crushed it instantly. He is a monster. He is in the way.

 

Izuku slipped down the ladder into the courtyard.

 

For the next thirty minutes, he became a phantom. He moved through the shadows with terrifying efficiency. He used his wire strings to string up patrols, hanging them silently from the rafters like macabre puppets. He used ricocheting shuriken out of the darkness to silently drop guards stationed at the cages.

 

He didn't use flashy jutsu. He didn't scream a battle cry. He dismantled the compound's security using pure, calculated mathematics and lethal force.

 

Eventually, a guard stumbled upon a hanging body.

 

"Intruder!" the man screamed, firing a flare into the sky. "We're under attack!"

 

The compound erupted into chaos. Doors smashed open, and dozens of mercenaries flooded into the courtyard, drawing swords and readying jutsu.

 

Izuku stood in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by cages of terrified refugees. The rain plastered his green hair to his forehead. The red clouds on his cloak seemed to glow in the light of the torches.

 

"It's just one kid!" the mercenary captain roared, drawing a massive broadsword. "Kill him!"

 

Twenty men charged at Izuku simultaneously.

 

Izuku didn't run. He took a deep breath, perfectly calming his heart rate.

 

He flicked both his wrists. Dozens of shuriken, all attached to imperceptible wire strings, shot out in a massive radial arc. They didn't hit the men. They hit the wooden pillars, the stone walls, the iron cages, embedding themselves deeply.

 

The mercenaries laughed. "You missed, you brat!"

 

Izuku yanked his wrists back.

 

The wire strings snapped taut, forming a massive, invisible spider web of razor-sharp steel across the entire courtyard at neck and knee height.

 

The charging mercenaries didn't even see the wires until it was too late.

 

The front line hit the high-tensile steel at a full sprint. Limbs were severed. Throats were slashed open. Agonized screams filled the night air as the mercenaries collapsed in a bloody, tangled heap, completely immobilized by their own momentum and Izuku’s trap.

 

The remaining men froze in absolute terror, looking at the blood spraying in the rain, looking at the emotionless demon child standing at the center of the web.

 

"Monster," one of them whispered, dropping his sword and running.

 

Izuku ignored the fleeing men. The defense was broken. He released the wires, leaving the dead and dying in the mud, and walked calmly toward the main estate house.

 

He kicked the sliding wooden doors completely off their tracks.

 

Inside the lavishly decorated room, Minister Gato was frantically stuffing gold bars and scrolls into a satchel. He was a fat, sweating man, wearing fine silks that starkly contrasted the filth of the people outside.

 

Gato looked up, his face draining of color as the blood-soaked Akatsuki cloak entered his sanctum.

 

"Guards!" Gato shrieked. "Where are my guards?!"

 

"They're dead," Izuku said, his voice cold, flat, and hollow.

 

Gato backed up until he hit the wall, trembling violently. He looked at Izuku, a child, but saw the eyes of the Reaper.

 

"Wait! Wait!" Gato pleaded, raising his hands. "Please! I have money! Look! Gold! Ryo! I can give you whatever you want! Who sent you? The Daimyo? I'll double whatever he's paying you! Just spare my life!"

 

Izuku stopped walking.

 

For a terrifying moment, the image of Minister Gato morphed. The fat face twisted into the sleek, polished face of a Hero Public Safety Commission President. The gold bars turned into licensing deals and media contracts.

 

“I can give you whatever you want!”

 

They were all the same. They exploited the weak, fed on the helpless, and when a blade was finally put to their throat, they tried to buy their way out. They believed the rules didn't apply to them.

 

“You are a villain, Izuku.”

 

"You don't understand," Gato sobbed, falling to his knees. "I'm a vital part of the economy! These people... they were nothing! I was making something of them! I'm an important man! You can't kill me!"

 

"You're right," Izuku whispered. "You are important. You are a symbol."

 

Izuku drew his kunai. The blade gleamed with the reflection of the lightning outside.

 

"You're a symbol of everything that is rotten in this world," Izuku continued, his voice devoid of any mercy. "You feed on the broken. You build your paradise on the bones of the innocent. And you think you are untouchable."

 

Izuku stepped forward.

 

"No! Please! I have a family!" Gato screamed.

 

Izuku didn't hesitate. He didn't blink.

 

With a swift, practiced motion, Izuku drove the kunai directly into Gato's heart.

 

Gato gasped, his eyes bulging. He clutched at Izuku’s cloak, leaving bloody handprints on the black fabric. Izuku leaned in, his green eyes burning with a cold, terrifying fire.

 

"Feel the pain you caused them," Izuku whispered into the dying man's ear. "And know that the dawn is coming for the rest of your kind."

 

Izuku twisted the blade and ripped it out.

 

Gato collapsed to the floor, dead.

 

Izuku stood over the body. He looked at his hands. They were covered in blood. But he didn't feel sick. He didn't feel guilty. He felt a dark, absolute certainty settle over his soul. He had excised a tumor from the world. If the heroes wouldn't do it, if the system protected the monsters, then he would become the monster that hunted them.

 

He wiped his kunai on Gato's fine silks, sheathed it, and walked out of the room.

 

Outside, the surviving refugees were huddled in their cages, staring at him in terrified awe. Izuku walked over to the cages. He didn't smile at them. He didn't tell them everything would be all right, because he knew it wouldn't be.

 

He simply took out a lockpick he had stolen from Kakuzu, snapped the locks on the cages, and walked away into the rain.

 

 

 

Two days later, Izuku returned to Amegakure.

 

He entered the central cavern. The Akatsuki holograms were waiting.

 

Izuku walked to the center of the room. He reached into his pouch and tossed a blood-stained scroll onto the floor. It rolled open, revealing Gato's severed head, sealed perfectly for confirmation.

 

The room was silent.

 

"Well," Kisame whistled, breaking the silence. "Color me impressed. The kid actually did it."

 

"Probably used poison. Coward's work," Deidara scoffed, though there was a hint of begrudging respect in his tone.

 

Pain looked at the head, then looked at Izuku. The boy’s posture was flawless. His eyes were cold, unreadable, and completely devoid of the lingering weakness he had carried a year ago.

 

"Itachi," Pain called out.

 

Itachi stepped from the shadows. He looked at his pupil. He saw the blood. He saw the absolute emotional detachment. Itachi felt a pang of sorrow for the boy, but also a deep sense of pride. He had forged a masterpiece.

 

"He is ready," Itachi said simply.

 

Pain nodded. He reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a small, heavy object. He tossed it through the air.

 

Izuku caught it effortlessly.

 

He opened his hand. Resting in his scarred palm was a heavy silver ring. Engraved on the face of the metal was the kanji for "Void" (空, kū).

 

"You have shed your past," Pain’s voice echoed with divine authority. "You have embraced the truth of this world. You are no longer a victim. You are an agent of the Dawn."

 

Izuku slipped the ring onto his right index finger. It fit perfectly.

 

"Welcome to the Akatsuki, Izuku."

 

Izuku looked around the room, at the monsters, the killers, the S-rank criminals. They were no longer his enemies. They were his comrades. They were the sword that would cut the rot out of the world.

 

He looked down at the red clouds on his cloak, and for the first time in a year, a tiny, chilling smile touched the corners of his mouth.

 

I am not Deku, he thought. I am the Void. And when I return to my world... they will all know pain.