Chapter Text
When the detectives called Eraserhead to investigate an underground vault within one of All For One’s many hideouts, he didn’t expect to be face-to-face with a child sitting on top of dead bodies, stacked like pieces of decomposed Jenga.
The smell is putrid and frankly, would cause him nightmares for days. He discreetly uses the scarf around his neck as a makeshift face mask. It barely gives him any relief but it's loads better than none at all. The other non-heroes are wearing hazmat suits and Aizawa’s a bit miffed why he doesn’t get the same treatment.
“Kid,” he calls, voice predictably muffled, shuffling closer but stops within a foot of stepping into the police line, “Are you alright?” he admits, not one of his best moments, anyone who’s not blind would know the kid is not alright, but nothing in his hero course had ever prepared him for this so he is excused.
The child merely looks at him, with eyes twinkling as if he’s not using bodies of marred flesh as his throne. The child smiles in an oddly shaped ‘V’ and Aizawa sees sparkling white teeth and decides not to ask about his hygiene after being trapped for over however long.
“Oui,” the child says, the voice echoes through the cavern and some heads turn their way but notices that he has everything settled – he does not – went back to working.
The kid slides down, his clothes (as if it can be called that, it looks more like rags rather than a proper outfit) getting more sullied and Aizawa doesn’t know how to act in a situation where a child skips – flutters towards him as if he’s not a part of a crime scene.
Aizawa refrains from cringing away as the kid pitter-patters his way closer and the smell hits him harder than it had before. He doesn’t have any shoes on and Aizawa sees the tiny bumps and bruises on his little feet.
He crouches down to his height, “What’s your name?” he asks, hovering around his smaller hands and as the kid immediately latches to him, Aizawa takes that as permission to inspect his hands and the rest of him.
A couple contusions and light lacerations but other than that, nothing noticeably worrying on the surface.
The kid’s ever present smile the moment his eyes landed on Aizawa dims, “I don’t speak Japanese.” And oh, that’s English. He sits back on the sole of his feet and takes in the golden curls of his hair, dirty and messy, and the indigo of his eyes and realizes belatedly that this boy is possibly from the west.
“What is your name?” he repeats in English, not as fluent as the boy but it gets his meaning across just fine.
The boy’s eyes brightens a degree brighter and Aizawa has to squint at him, “All For One calls me Experiment 70064,” he answers and Aizawa’s heart plummets to his stomach. “He’s my creator you see, but I'm quirkless so he throws me away like the rest of my siblings,” he rambles with an almost permanent smile on his face and Aizawa feels sick.
“Eraserhead,” Detective Tsukauchi calls and Aizawa has to tear his eyes away from the child that could’ve been born from the sun to look at him. “There’s more bodies at the back,” his eyes nervously flits at the kid clinging to Aizawa, and then comes back to look at him in the eyes, “None of them have any vitals. Some are even foetuses in a pod. The forensics are reading through the files left behind,” he says, grim, “That kid’s the only survivor.”
Immediately, Aizawa grabs the kid to his chest and he feels him happily clutching to him tighter, Aizawa suspects the kid thinks he’s giving a hug by the way he winds his tiny arms around his neck. “He’s a child,” he presses, the growl in his voice hints the kid that he’s not happy with something he doesn’t understand.
The kid looks at him but innocently grins, continuing to hug him longer.
“He can’t testify for anything.”
Tsukauchi sighs, the grim look on his face stays, “I know,” he tells him, “But he's the only witness.”
Dammit he knows but isn’t there a proper procedure for this? A child, not more than 8 years old, surrounded by his dead siblings, imprisoned by a madman and they think they could just wheedle information out of him without a second breath of air?
Aizawa doubts the kid has experienced fresh air in a while.
The sudden quiet may have bothered the kid as he felt hands gripping onto his face, “Monsieur Hero,” there’s a thick accent in his voice and Aizawa’s sure that’s French, “If you want to throw me away too, can you send me to New York? There’s a place called Sanctum Sanctorum there and I need to meet the Sorcerer Supreme.”
He’s definitely not going to throw him away, but he asks anyway.
“Who is Sorcerer Supreme?”
The kid giggles, an innocent sound despite the gore around him, Aizawa feels whiplash at the contradiction, “I don’t know yet, silly, but you see, Monsieur Hero,” he sees him lean in as if trying to whisper a long uphold secret, Aizawa indulges him.
“Magic is real. My father is a powerful man, you need all the help you can get to take him out, no?”
Aizawa really tries not to give the kid a weird look but he must’ve failed if the laugh he receives has anything to go by.
“Monsieur Hero, this underground facility is almost as hidden as Tartarus. If not with the help of magic, how do you think you’d find this place if not with the help of moi?” the boy strikes a silly pose and Aizawa doesn’t want to be the type of adult that doesn’t take kids words seriously but it’s a bit difficult at the moment.
“Eraserhead, the others are waiting for his testimony, I know it seems unreasonable but we need – “
All at once, the bodies in one corner of the cave flew with orange tendrils, suspended in mid-air and Aizawa is instantly on his feet and stands in front of the kid and Tsukauchi. Meanwhile, the detective has a gun in his hands, eyes darting around, expecting a villain amidst the corpses.
But none appears.
“Monsieur Hero,” Aizawa briefly glances at him, his own hand lingers on the edge of his scarf and his hair moves in a way that he’s prepared to use his quirk if need be, “Don’t be afraid. It’s only me.”
Aizawa’s eyebrows pinched in confusion but his guard doesn’t falter, “You say you are quirkless.”
With a flick of his wrist, the corpses rearranges itself and opens up a tunnel hidden behind them. Tsukauchi and Aizawa’s attentions immediately snaps towards it.
“I am. I have an extra joint in my pinky toe, but I know magic, Monsieur Hero,” the orange disappears and the bodies flopped, unmoving.
“Anybody can learn magic.”
Then, the boy turns to Tsukauchi and the detective comically tenses. He points to the hole in the wall, “All For One’s body is failing him. He’s trying to create the perfect body for himself to jump into, but as you can see, none appeases him,” he turns to Aizawa, expecting him to translate for him. “Don't tell father but that tunnel over there is his recent escape route. If you’re fast enough, maybe you’ll get to him.”
Aizawa’s eyes widen a fraction, “Tsukauchi-san, All For One’s escaped through there. There’s a chance he’s still on the run, call all Pro-heroes!”
☆☆☆
If he’s being honest, he’s a wee bit lost at the moment.
He’s dead, he knows that. When the Scarlet Witch invaded Kamar-Taj’s sacred temple, she had blew a hole through his chest, which by the way, hurts like absolute hell.
Okay, that's fine. Dying doesn’t exactly faze him. He protects relics and practices magic, none of that is considered as a safe occupation. There’s bound to be something dangerous approaching and he is well aware that he's not strong enough to live that long which, again, absolutely alright. He accepts the shelter of Kamar-Taj with the knowledge of having death constantly be at his doorsteps and it’s just a matter of time he’d open the door for it.
So he’s a little confuse why he wakes up again, a bit disoriented but that doesn’t surprise anybody, clearly not dead dead and as a toddler.
He had a small breakdown of course, anybody in their right mind would’ve, and kind of accepts it. He thinks he read a book about the theoretical viewpoint of reincarnation once in the sacred library but it was boring and he already regrets not finishing it.
Everything moves quickly as a toddler, everything whizzes past him and he could barely make out the blur of his parents’ faces. Turns out as a baby, you have terrible eye sights and the ability to express oneself other than crying and shitting.
At around, he doesn’t know, a few months? Years? Whatever – he learns about quirks. Not his name or age, he doesn’t know those, but quirks. A mutative effects of a person’s genome that let’s them have super powers, so basically another rendition of the X-Men.
He’s unimpressed.
He learns about Pro-heroes and Villains and again, he’s unimpressed, not something he has never heard of – what the heck is his name? Why does he learn more about heroes than his actual name?
At some point, his maman and papa goes to the doctor for his routine medical check-up. He sees, yes, better eye sight now, finally, mutants walking around the city without a hint of fear of being discovered and hunted down by being different and thinks, good for them.
His doctor, a shady man, he doesn’t trusts most doctors other than Doctor Strange and he’s already on thin ice. Previous life trauma possibly. Scholars in his previous life tends to be villainous, oddly enough. Something that has to do with Hydra probably. A wild ride that was –
Tells them in French, thank you his last minute decision of taking French as his extra curriculum, that he has a double toe-joint in his pinky toe and he looks at him weird like, okay? He’s no doctor but he at least knows that’s a good thing. He’s sure that’s normal.
He may be wrong because his maman bursts into tears as if that’s the worse thing imaginable and he panics a bit because does he have cancer? The way his parents are in hysterics right now, one would believe their kid is dying.
The doctor stares him in the eyes and with a sombre look, says, “I’m sorry, you will never get your quirk.”
He gives him a blank look.
Okay? Just like his previous life then. Nothing new about it. He’s a little disappointed that he won’t see what kind of powers his body is capable of but it’s not the worse news he’s gotten.
He doesn’t deign the doctor a response and clearly that’s the wrong move when his maman cries harder. He ignores his frantic parents and tries to peek at his medical record the doctor is filling in. He wants to know what his name is.
“You can’t be a hero, Yuuga.”
Oh, Yuuga is his name. Good to know.
Yuuga looks back up at the doctor that sends his internal danger alarm in haywire, “Yeah I can, it’s not that hard,” after all, he has done it before. Who’s to say he can’t do it again.
Effectively silencing his annoying doctor as he gawks at him in shock and offense, he drops down from his high chair and grabs onto his papa’s shirt, “Papa, I want ice-cream.”
That brought his parents back and they leave the clinic to go find him an expensive ice-cream parlour. It might be his parents’ way of consoling him for not having a quirk but there’s literally nothing to console. He's not complaining though.
His parents, turns out were not his parents after all.
There’s a man with a black helmet on his head that they called All For One and bowing to him as if he’s a God among men and Yuuga’s single brain cell finally connected the dots.
He’s Aoyama Yuuga, a quirkless nobody, a half-French, half-Japanese kid that wants to be a hero to make his parents happy. Said parents bought a quirk for him so he can achieve his dreams. Made a goddamn deal with the devil is what they did.
Is it too late to refuse the quirk? Is there a refund?
Just when he decides to decline the offer of getting a quirk, AFO turns to his parents, ignoring his presence altogether.
“How is the child?” he asks, distorted due to the helmet.
He doesn’t understand Japanese all too much but his papa converse with him in his native language all the time so he picks up a few simple phrases now and then.
His maman doesn’t dare to lift her head up, “He is fine, my Liege,” she says and Yuuga feels way off-footed than he already is.
“I heard from his doctor that he’s quirkless.”
It’s only a statement, said in a bored tone but his maman flinches as if being physically slapped.
“He’s a healthy boy, my Liege,” he hears his papa tries to justify, trembling in his boots and not making eye contact. AFO doesn’t actually have eyes to show at the moment but you get what he means. “His intelligence is above kids his age as well, sir.”
Yuuga doesn’t understand what’s going on.
He feels more than sees AFO studying him.
Without warning, he then kneels in front of him, Yuuga refuses to back down out of spite and stares head on.
Another minute of just being observed as if he’s a bug under a microscope, AFO speaks, “I’ll be taking him. He may be quirkless now, but that can be changed.”
Very ominous, Yuuga doesn’t like that.
“Maman, papa, who is this man? I don’t like him, can you make him go away?” it’s in French and even though it’s a vain effort, he tries it anyway.
His parents doesn’t give him a reply and looks away.
It hurts, not gonna lie.
Before he could run, or shout, or call for help, AFO swipes him from the ground and disappears.
So, yeah. Make it a long story short, he became experiment 70064, AKA Yuuga. His original creator is AFO, his gene pool is still part Aoyama and of course, his gross old sperms. A tube baby one may call it and the Aoyamas were his caretakers because his father hadn’t bothered to raise him himself which, rude, screw you dad, now he has daddy issues.
With a dreadful realisation, this is one of those alternate universe thing he overheard Doctor Strange discussed with their world’s Sorcerer Supreme. They really need to stop talking about important subjects in the open like that, it’s a wonder nobody picks up on it.
This changes everything or nothing at all. He doesn’t know what else has changed, and he doesn’t know what stays the same.
Whatever, the goal is at least the same in every universes he supposes, or most universes.
Kick All For One’s ass is the main priority, with or without the possibility of murder.
Now, back to what the hap is fuckkening.
It has been, maybe a year or two? Still can’t get the timing right, nobody gives him a clock to look at or a calendar so he might be off.
The doctor that diagnosed him as quirkless, big shocker says no one ever, works for AFO and has been experimenting on him to make sure his body is the perfect fit for his royal pain in the freaking ass. Something about his body’s deteriorating state and needs a replacement?
Yeah, bodies does that after centuries, father, you crazy old coot.
The process is painful and the conditioning is more so.
Some days he wonders how his mind hasn’t break yet from all the torture he had to go through but thank God it hasn’t, he needs to be the one to end his father’s life with his bare hands.
Viva la revolution, father dearest.
He lives in isolation in a cellar made specifically for him. Sometimes he hears voices from outside, other kids presumably, crying or screaming. He stays quiet, until the noise dies down. Once it does, he made a complicated gesture with his fingers and the cameras in his room shifts into pictures of him just staring at a wall in various angles.
At early hours of the day – or night? Seriously, he can’t tell, he hasn’t seen daylight since being captured – he practices his magic, calling it out and honing it with the desperation of a man that is at its ends wit.
It’s not grand or big or terribly powerful, the one thing that he has gotten right so far is messing with their surveillance camera and that had taken embarrassingly longer than it should have.
He summons two daggers, his go to weapon from his previous life, but it comes out looking like swirly lines drawn in orange highlighters in mid-air. A whip made solely out of electric magic comes out more like tiny fireworks that barely cuts through skin. He even tries using his voice, with his index finger and thumb making a circle and screaming through it, it made a small gust of wind and just makes him feel more winded and tired than anything.
The cellar’s door stays sturdy and unscathed.
He wants to cry.
The foods there, he suspects, is poisoned, if only just barely so. He has lost count how many times he got so sick from them that he finds out from passing conversation between the other scientists during his daily physical conditioning that they were trying to heighten their immunity by feeding them synthetic poison. Most of the kids died from them he guesses because as their scheduled sleep comes around, the usual nightmare induced screaming lessens by a lot.
He still tries to get out regardless. The twist of guilt in his guts for all the siblings he didn’t get the chance to meet doesn’t deter him any.
The first time he met Shigaraki fucking Tomura, he breaks into a run and threw himself at him, pathetically sobbing. Shigaraki must’ve never had positive reinforcements before because he stills like a statue and once he comes to, he hisses like a wild alley cat and when he was about to push him away, Yuuga cries louder and clings tighter.
He’s lonely okay!? Isolation does things to you and seeing someone kinda his age is oddly cathartic.
They don’t talk and Shigaraki stops shoving him when he realizes that Yuuga can and will turn himself into a goddamn leech, soaking up the physical contact and warmth the boy provides.
Minutes later, one of the doctors pulls him away and Yuuga, begrudgingly detaches himself from him. The scientist guides him to a pod and Yuuga follows after him with dead eyes, his body groomed to listen. Another session of experimentation later, and Yuuga is surprised that Shigaraki is still there when he comes back.
“Um,” the voice made him outwardly flinched without meaning to but he forces himself to walk further into the room and sits next to Shigaraki and strangely, he lets him. Yuuga fits his arm under Shigaraki’s and hugged it closer, absolutely shameless and not caring of the consequences. “Are you okay?” the boy asks eventually and Yuuga almost cries again.
He knows what daijoubu means at least and nobody had asked him that since he got here. It’s a bit overwhelming if not disconcerting.
He nods an affirmation but he thinks they both know he’s lying.
“I’m Aoyama Yuuga,” he says after a few beats of the other not knowing what else to say to break the ice. “I don’t know Japanese,” he awkwardly tells him, his Japanese pronunciations butchered.
He worries he doesn’t understand until Shigaraki introduced himself in return, “I’m Shigaraki Tomura,” he tells him and they stayed like that until Yuuga has to walk back into his cellar.
The next time they meet again, Shigaraki – hesitantly after Yuuga stares expectantly at him with his big doe eyes – opens up his arms and Yuuga bodily threw himself at him. He wonders if Shigaraki is as touch-starved as he is but Shigaraki never hugs back and that's fine. It’s sweet really, it just means he’s afraid to accidently use his quirk on him.
He savours the contact more than socially acceptable.
This time though, Shigaraki brandishes a video game console after his more than tough session of poking him with multiple needles until his body almost shuts down, he’s shaking by the time he comes back but Shigaraki pushes the game into his hand and with broken English, explains the game he insists they play.
He doesn’t understand a single thing he’s trying to convey but it makes him smile – the first he had in a while – nonetheless.
It becomes routine after that and it quickly becomes Yuuga's favourite time of the day.
One day though, Shigaraki stops coming and Yuuga’s heart hurts and breaks.
At some point right after, the doctor explains to AFO – in English, thank God, his brain barely has enough capacity to translate them right about now – while he’s strapped onto a metal bed, gritting his teeth after being injected with drugs of unknown origin – again! – that he's a lost cause. Nothing works on him and no quirks are suited for his fragile body.
His father said something and the other responded with vague hand gestures.
Give him a break, he's having a hard time focusing what the conversation is all about with him being zonked up like this. He’s also in complete, agonising pain so it’s a little bit difficult to stay conscious to begin with.
Based on his body language, AFO got angry and like any other supervillain, made a mess of the doctor's life work by swiping his hands across the table like a stressed out college student minutes before their essay is due and watches everything falling off and breaks.
Something, something, wastes of resources, something, something, dispose him with the rest.
Oh? He’ll get to see his other siblings?
It becomes rather apparent that none of them are alive as the doctor unceremoniously threw his unmoving body into a pit of human remains.
Now, his mind really is about to break.
☆☆☆
Magic comes easier in his second life, at least, it should. He can’t use magic until his well into his 20s in his previous life so being able to practice them since he was 6 is a milestone of a difference.
It pulses through him as the doctors played with his body, the pain and suffering helps him reopen – even if only a crack – that incessant inner core throbbing in him.
Some say, if you’re exposed to intense mental torture hard enough, that mystic core in you opens up as your body’s defence mechanism and of course, some has more magical energy than others, i.e. Doctor Strange vs. himself.
But as he lays on the corpses of his brothers and sisters, the oldest to be around 10 years old, he thinks, I have taken my vows to protect those in need, forgive me, oh, ancient one, for I can't allow my heart to be vengeance-free.
His lips moves in an ancient dialect, “The world has forsaken us. Brandish me, the sword made of the bones of the fallen, avenge thee with the blood of our enemies, for the living shall thrive.”
Orange markings carves his body in runes none can read but him, his near vacant eyes stares off to the ceiling of the vault as his pupils fills a vibrant honeyed gold. He closes his eyes and takes his soul into the body of a rat eating the flesh of his dead brother.
There’s a draft within the vault and he finds a small tunnel.
The connection between the rat and him cuts off within only 5 minutes of him using it. He scrambles to catch another rat that tries to scurry away. That one takes about 30 minutes, much longer but not enough. It’s hard to establish connection, let alone keeping them when he’s starving, and possibly, dehydrated.
There’s another group of rats, he takes the consciousness of the biggest one and runs out, it’s starting to get longer this time but it thins every time he feels like he’s nearing the edge of the finishing line. He nearly pukes, overusing his magic like this but he’s desperate and humans does everything in their power without logic or reason when they’re desperate.
He makes a grab at another rat, the rat screeches at him but he stares at it and forces his way in, nearly breaking the rat’s leg while he’s at it.
He runs and runs and runs until he’s outside.
Just when he feels like it’s about to be cut off, he pushes through, grappling with the connection until it clicks in place. He continues to run and doesn’t stop even when he’s wheezing for breath, even when he’s so close to blacking out, he ploughs through.
He doesn’t stop until he finds a police station far within a city. It had felt ages getting there but Yuuga is nothing but persistent.
He leaps and he possesses the body of a cat that sleeps at the front entrance of the station.
He stretches, barely acclimatising himself into a new body before he walks inside.
He sees, with the eyes of the cat, a policeman with a feline quirk. He jumps onto his desk and before he bats him away, Yuuga made eye contact and that’s enough for him to fight for control.
He speaks through him, with the officer’s voice, sending an S.O.S through an intercom and he waits until they dispatched Pro-heroes that could’ve been a small army.
And through him, he guides them to the direction of his whereabouts.
But by then, his father had changed location, fled without knowing an army is about to infiltrate his place of operation.
Yuuga doesn’t care. His father can wait. His siblings need a proper burial.
And he needs a freaking therapist.