Chapter Text
It was a day plagued with sheets of rain and clouds of gloom. Izuku Midoriya, AKA former hero Deku-- well, sort of a former hero. The narrative decided he never even debuted since the embers burned out few months after the war. Correction, former hero student, Deku, sat alone in a messy cramped apartment with his Hero Analysis book. There, he wrote the same thing he had been writing for the past five and a half years. It had been that long since he graduated from UA, and despite the world being a place where heroes have lots of time to spare, his friends had unanimously decided he wasn’t worth five seconds and ran off to their own careers.
“Quirkless worthless, Quirkless worthless. Worthless Quirkless. It all makes sense.” He said, jotting down the notes. “Worthless Quirkless. Quirk is all that mattersssss. People have no value beyond their superpowers. That’s what I learned in the end. Without powers you might as well not exist--”
His pencil lead snapped. He stared at the page for a moment more, and put down the notes for a permanent marker in his drawer. Then, Izuku climbed up on his desk to face the All Might poster he’d had since he was ten. Why hadn’t he thought before to draw mustaches and nose hair on the symbol of abandoned dreams?!
BANG! The front door swung open, crashing into the shoe rack. Thunder crackled outside, and a shadowy figure stood in the frame.
“MIDORIYA MY BOY!” came a bellow. “I AM FINALLY HERE!!”
Trembling, Izuku’s brain was full of fuzz. “All… Might?”
The figure ran in to steady Izuku on the desk. "Midoriya, my boy. Get down from there. What has happened to you… I hope I’m not too late. Midoriya, can you hear me? I’m suspicious of a brainwashing phenomenon.”
“What?” said Izuku.
“Brainwashing. Hypnosis! I’m believing there was a hypnosis Quirk used on your entire classmate is a ploy to demoralize all followers of heroes. To continue the domination of Quirked people over Quirkless. Powerful over the powerless. Make everyone think they have no friends and that in the end, no one earns peace... Can you hear me?”
Izuku swiped the marker at All Might.
“They got you, too. Listen. Your friends lost interest in you, and haven't had time to spend with you, even when you needed them, since you finished high school. You must be hurting tremendously. But it turns out, it was the work of a malicious secret agent.”
“REALLY?! I was re-convinced that I was completely worthless and unworthy of having friends because they ditched me after I put my life on the line and sacrificed myself.”
“No, my boy! That is absolutely cruel! After all you’ve done and gone through! IT ABSOLUTELY MAKES ME LIVID! NOW LET’S SET EVERYTHING RIGHT! COUGH UP, MY BOY!”
“W-what? Cough up what?!”
“EAT THIS!” All Might plucked a strand of hair from his head and practically shoved it in Izuku’s face.
“What?! Not again! All Might! Are you sure this is really the case? I mean what if my friends just abandoned me because I’m quirkless and therefore useless?!”
All Might approached menacingly, not at all smiling from Izuku’s continuous self-doubt and negativity. His figure loomed like a nightmare, with his tall skeleton self holding a single strand of hair.
“A-and does it have to be hair?”
“Would you prefer to have it passed through? If my suspicion is correct, the way to escape this manipulative brainwashing state is to exert great internal pushing to push out the source, either up or down. How many times have you already pooped young Midoriya? All this time and all this pooping and that nasty quirk is still taking over you.”
“Come on All Might, we don’t have to discuss my bowel activity.”
“Eat this young Midoriya. We don’t have enough time for dilly-dallying!”
Izuku gulps in horror and flashbacks of his first time eating hair. It was just as awful as he remembered, and this time he wasn't even sure why he was doing it. But when All Might tells you to eat you eat.
“All Might, are you sure that they have been brainwashed? All of them?? That seems like a conspiracy theory. Is it more likely they just forgot about their washed-up friend?” Izuku had swallowed, but it wasn’t working. The hair was caught in his throat and he started to gag.
“I have been watching them and I am convinced. They all knew you were quirkless in your last year of high school and they were fine with that. Everything went downhill after your graduation party. These last few weeks, things have escalated. Strange things are happening. I mean Tokoyami even got a tan … strange things indeed.”
“A tan… All Might I don't think he can tan… and how is that connected to my friendship with him?”
“Haven't you been keeping track of your friends?"
“I didn't want to waste their time since I only get in the way. I… I was waiting for them to come to me.”
All Might sighed. “The first stage affects cognition, causing your friends to ditch you all these years. The second stage alters personality. You know young Koda is a famous influencer now? The boy barely said three words in all your school years, and now he’s making YouTube videos selling health supplements. And young Aoyama no longer eats cheese, my boy. Cheese!!” He said loudly. “Does this mean nothing to you?”
“No, not really. Why should it? His cheese was not that good. He should have stopped eating it a long time ago.”
“Well then what about Bakugou? How come he no longer likes spicy curry?”
“He has always liked his food to burn, that is odd. Brainwashed hmmm, I don't know about that?”
“You need another hair then,” said All Might. He plucked a second one and pushed it into Izuku’s face.
“Not another…”
“Does it need to be three!?” Izuku almost roared.
He took it reluctantly. The hair stuck to his tongue and slid anywhere but down his throat. Izuku shuddered when it tickled the inside of his cheeks. All Might passed him a bottled water and looked at him expectantly.
“Now what?” said Izuku
“Are you feeling any different my boy?”
“Uhm… my stomach’s kinda rumbling, but I haven’t had lunch yet-”
Izuku was rudely interrupted when his stomach contents came rushing out. All Might pat his back in worry and loudly encourages him to let it all out. “That’s it, Young Midoriya! Let it all out… Huh, Katsudon for breakfast? Oh! There! I see it!”
Izuku reeled as All Might stared at the content of his vomit, in it, a single fat, short, wrigging bug. It was gross and bulged like an overfed tick, but really, looked like any unremarkable, invasive, and uninteresting worm.
“That’s it.” All Might said. “That is the cause of the brainwashing. An infection from the bug in the stomach.”
“Wait…” Izuku looked around. What happened? Had he suddenly wanted to destroy his prized merch!? “That was in my stomach? Was I brainwashed by a bug? It doesn’t look like anything.”
“Now that you mention it, I was expecting something more… cool. It looks so sad and insignificant…”
Izuku squatted down and picked up the sorry, unremarkable vomit-covered bug. All Might winced beside him and shuddered as the bug wriggled.
“How do you feel? Any significant changes?”
“I certainly feel better, like a fog in my head cleared up and I’m more in control? Sort of feeling.” He took a deep breath.
“Now. I’ll take that,” All Might said, tossing the bug on the floor. He stomped on the bug and dragged his shoe across the floor for an extra kick. What a load of suffering from a bug. Both All Might and Izuku squatted down to check the guts, but the dead bug put itself back together, wriggling to life.
“What? Why is it still alive? Is it an immortal bug?” Izuku put a hand on his chin and started muttering about Quirk bugs.
Accustomed to muttering by this time, All Might paid no mind and attempted creative ways to stomp the bug, hit with a shoe, a rock, and anything in sight as Izuku watched, fascinated.
“Kinda reminds me of when the girls caught Mineta trying to break into their rooms and steal underwear. They subjected him to torture but he never learned his lesson.”
“That is concerning, but I heard that young Mineta is quite respectable now and is in a steady and hush relationship with a non-hero girl.”
“Wait, really? Hmm… maybe it is brainwashing.”
All Might sighs and bends back to crack his back. Unfortunately, the bug is still alive. “Let’s put it in a jar with vinegar. Send it off to get a sample of the thing. There’s a chance these keep regenerating the more you think of them. So we lock it up and leave it alone.”
With the bug in a jar, Izuku had another question. “Wait, All Might. If this happened at our graduation party, why has it taken five years for anyone to notice that something was wrong?”
“I can’t say. Things seem to be slowing down, distorted. You know, you used to be able to get a bionic mecha suit in under two weeks if you had a billion dollars to spare. Now, the same suit takes eight years to build. It doesn’t make sense.”
“None at all! How strange, maybe the bugs warp the whole universe around them.” Izuku replied.
“I’m sure all will be answered in time. Now, who should we save first?” said All Might.
“Who would I subject to eating your hair?? I don't know? Wait, what if you run out of hair? Does it have to be your hair?”
“Don’t be ridiculous young Midoryia, that was special just for you.”
“… All Might… you're so mean.”
Suddenly, All Might’s eyes widened with fear. “There’s one that we must go to now. Now that we’ve confirmed the bugs, there’s a former classmate of yours we cannot neglect for another second, before he turns to villainy.”
“Villainy? But surely, even if it warps your personality and judgment, it doesn’t cause you to commit crimes?”
“Perhaps not terrible crimes yet, but it’s a slippery slope, and I have heard that young Iida has taken a habit of breaking the rules.” Izuku winced when he recalled how by the rules Iida was back then. These bugs would pay.