Chapter Text
The depths of Tartarus house only the absolute worst of Japan’s villains. Serial killers, child traffickers and abusers, and now the greatest supervillain that Japan has ever known: All For One. All Might’s victory over the boogeyman of Japan’s underworld at Kamino finally cast out the long shadow All For One had cast over the nation for a century, and with it lead to the uncovering and capturing of the League of Villains spy that had set the entirety of UA on edge since their existence came to light.
Kevlar steel-toed boots echoed down the long hallway that led to the lone prison cell on the floor. Guard 2710 came to a stop in front of the panel beside the reinforced steel door, letting the biometric scanner trace his eyes to confirm his identity as he punched in a code. Steel bars retracted with a mechanical hiss, and the door slowly began to open. Fluorescent light from the hallway began to seep into the sunless cell, revealing the inhabitant held suspended by two chains connected to the quirk suppressant cuffs on their arms.
Dull, unkempt green hair haphazardly tumbled down the young man’s head all the way to his upper back. His body, once packed with dense muscle, had atrophied to the point where his ribcage pressed uncomfortably against his skin. A patchwork of scars marred his once impressive physique from his ankles all the way up to the faded starburst scar that encompassed his right eye. Bruises, some fresh and some faded, littered his body and made his malnourished form look all the more pitiful. Perhaps the young man’s most harrowing feature were his eyes, once vibrant and housing a blazing inferno of determination, now extinguished and devoid of life.
Guard 2710 sighed to himself, he didn’t know why his superiors insisted on continuing to torture the boy when it was beyond obvious by this point that he wasn’t going to talk. Interrogators from both the HPSC and police force, though only those police interrogators approved by the HPSC conveniently, had failed to extract any information from him in the year he had been locked up so far.
It was like he had mentally retreated from the world upon his arrest. Doctors had ruled out a quirk being the cause of such an event, and other than malnutrition his physical health was clean in spite of the near daily “incentives” he received to confess. He would eat, he could walk under his own power (on days where his legs weren’t shattered), but otherwise was completely unresponsive.
He didn’t know much about the investigation into the League of Villains, now renamed to the Paranormal Liberation Front, but he didn’t need a deep grasp on the subject to know that the HPSC had been grasping at straws trying to track down Shigaraki since the conclusion of the Kamino Ward Incident. It had been a year since Midoriya Izuku was hauled out of his dorm at UA in chains, and they had nothing to show for it other than a broken child who was now near-universally hated by his fellow countrymen. He’d never say it out loud, but Guard 2710 thought the narratives spun about the boy by the HPSC stunk to high hell. He didn’t know how one of the boy’s notebooks ended up in that dusty bar, but for the HPSC to forgo the formal investigation in favor of securing a quick ‘victory’ to reassure the public made him sick.
So if Midoriya’s daily meals had a bit more food than regulations called for, Guard 2710 had no idea how it kept happening.
Dim, emerald eyes looked up at him as he kneeled in front of the boy. He’d been chewed out for feeding the “Nation’s Backstabber” the first couple times he did it, but his commanding officer silently dropped the matter when he saw that it was the only way they could effectively keep him alive.
Regardless of whether he truly was the UA traitor or not, no kid in his position deserved to be treated like this.
The flickering of the hallway lights caused his head to snap away from the food tray, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck raise.
“Well that’s not good…” He muttered. Breaking protocol, he turned his radio on within the cell as a slight tremor shook the deepest floor of the prison. Immediately he was assaulted by a cacophony of panicked voices. One finally cut through the noise to address him directly.
“GUARD 2710, STATUS REPORT!”
He’d never heard his superior panicked before. His hand moved to his ear, double-tapping the smooth metal piece to reopen his half of the comms link. “Guard 2710. Finished meal #3, about to resecure the isolation cell and return to the scheduled observation route.” He answered, voice steady from years of experience despite the fact that something was clearly wrong.
“NEGATIVE. WE ARE UNDER ATTACK, REMAIN ON B10 AND DEFEND PRISONER 90715 AT ALL COSTS. I REPEAT, WE ARE UNDER” The radio feed stuttered out to static and he cursed under his breath. Being in the deepest part of Tartarus meant that radio transmission was the only means of getting information verbally. It was archaic and a single point of failure but who would ever try and attack Tartarus, let alone escape?
A larger tremor almost knocked him off his feet, the lights flickered ominously and threatened to plunge both himself and his prisoner into total darkness. Bracing himself against the wall, he took a steadying breath and ran through his options. He could simply leave and make his way topside to assist in whatever was happening, but that meant disobeying a direct order and, as much as he hated to admit it, he needed this job. That, and the moral side of him absolutely refused to leave Midoriya down here to die. If things really were spiraling out of control above them, then the green-haired boy being left to the whims of vengeful inmates did not sound promising at all.
A thundering crack and shudder split through the entire floor as Guard 2710 found himself suddenly slamming into the opposite side of the cell, the wall groaning slightly from the weight of the impact. He saw stars as his head violently snapped backwards into the titanium-reinforced concrete, and a curse slipped from his lips as pain laced outwards from the point of impact. He slid down the wall into a sitting position, waiting for his vision to clear. If it wasn’t obvious that things were going horribly wrong, then it sure was now.
He focused back on the middle of the room where Midoriya was chained.
“I’ll be lucky if only one of his arms is dislocated from that last tremor.” A dull, painful throb quickly settled into the Guard’s head as he looked at Midoriya. He stared for a moment, rubbed his eyes, blinked three times, and then looked again.
Midoriya hadn’t moved an inch. That last tremor had been strong enough to fling him across the room and leave him thoroughly concussed, but Midoriya hadn’t so much as flinched as far as he could see. His dull eyes remained fixed on the doorway, just as they had been from the moment he opened the isolation cell door. Guard 2710 would have found it highly unnerving, if not for the fact that they were both almost certainly in a survival scenario they’d be lucky to make it out alive.
He knew he was banking on a miracle, but it was the best chance that both of them had of making it out of the prison alive. He forced himself to his feet, ignoring the pounding drum of pain in his head as he approached Midoriya. Opening a pouch on his belt, he pulled out a key and slotted it into the quirk suppressant glove on the boy’s left arm.
‘Input accepted. Guard 2710, please input your authorization code.’ A robotic voice sounded from the gloves.
“Confirm: Guard 2710. Authorization code 2X75J1W.”
‘Authorization code accepted.’ A brief whirring noise accompanied a slackening of the gloves. Guard 2710 undid the clasps on the gloves to get them the rest of the way off, careful to brace Midoriya’s body against his own so he didn’t collapse upon being released from his bonds.
One glove, then the second dropped to the ground with a dull thud, but the weight that he was expecting to support never came.
Days later, Guard 2710 would be found alive in the medical wing, with his only injuries being those caused by the initial tremors of the mass jailbreak. When debriefed, he would recall his last memories being the taste of ozone, and looking up into the glowing, toxic green eyes of Midoriya Izuku.
~~~
“Have any 5s?”
“…go fish.”
Fifth shot Third a dirty look, grumbling as he reached towards the stack of cards in the middle of the table. Third simply smiled back innocently at him.
“Got any 10s?”
Fifth threw his arms up in exasperation, cards fluttering helplessly in the air as Third claimed yet another win at Go Fish. “How???” Fifth asked, irritated beyond belief.
“It’s not fair Third! That’s your 8th win in a row.” Izuku pouted, putting his cards down in a huff. The incomplete vestige of All Might patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.
“You’re not cheating again are you? I thought we agreed to no more cheating after we canceled Uno nights.” Seventh asked, clearly suspicious of the Third holder’s unusual luck with card games.
“I swear I wasn’t cheating this time! Ask Second, he’ll vouch for me.”
“Leave me out of this.” Second grumbled, arms crossed.
“He would vouch for you regardless, so he isn’t exactly a trustworthy source.” Fourth pointed out.
“I still think charades was the better move, how do we keep letting Third talk us into card games?” The First Holder, Yoichi, pondered aloud.
“We tried charades for the first month that Ninth was here, and mutually agreed that you and Second were so bad that we’d never try it again.” Sixth said, one eye cracking open to look at the group.
“Oh come on! Second was clearly the problem between the two of us.”
“Bullshit, your acting sucks! Who in their right mind would have guessed that the word was skateboard based on that piss poor performance?” Second spat back.
“Why you-“ Second yelped as Yoichi practically flew over the table to tackle him, profanities and insults being thrown back and forth as they wrestled on the ground.
Nana, Seventh, facepalmed as Izuku simply sighed and went to sit on the couch with Fourth, snuggling into the man’s comparatively giant frame. Hikage looked down at him with a small smile, and wrapped an arm around the Ninth One For All holder.
To say that the vestiges had been horrified at what had happened to their bundle of sunshine would be putting things mildly. However, what they did not anticipate was One For All responding to Izuku’s internal pleas to escape the physical and mental torture he was subjected to during his first week of imprisonment. They’d been in the middle of drawing up plans to burn the HPSC to the ground when Izuku suddenly appeared in the midst of them all, no weird mist clinging to his body or anything.
The hug pile that resulted lasted for two days worth of time in the real world.
Rebuilding Izuku’s shattered mind and heart then became their foremost priority. The vestiges employed every tactic they could think of, from helping Izuku finish mastering their quirks to no end of shenanigans courtesy of Yoichi.
Somehow he’d managed to spawn in the entire One Piece series, alongside a massive screen and projector, into the vestige realm. An ability he’d conveniently forgotten to mention to the rest of them until that point.
Hence how they now found themselves in an exact replica of the Midoriya’s apartment, though Izuku had begged Yoichi not to replicate his room one-to-one, else he die of embarrassment. That didn’t stop him from screening the home movies of Izuku dressed in his All Might onesie, however, something Nana and Toshinori took great pleasure in seeing.
The ping of Danger Sense in the back of Izuku’s head caused him to shoot up in alarm. It had never been this acute in the past, only the equivalent of a soft nudge when guards came to feed his physical form or drag him off for another round of "interrogations."
“I felt it too.” Hikage murmured, eyes narrowed dangerously.
“So, he's finally making his move.” Yoichi said, fixing his hair from his recent scuffle.
A sudden rumble shook the vestige realm, threatening to knock them off their feet.
“The cuffs!” Nana exclaimed. “The guard’s taking them off!”
“Then it’s time, Ninth. Are you ready?” Third asked, walking over and bumping Izuku’s shoulder fondly.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Izuku said, wringing his hands nervously.
“Hey now, none of that kiddo.” Nana soothed, pulling him into a warm embrace. “We’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“Hell yeah we will!” Fifth hollared, ruffling Izuku’s hair.
All Might’s vestige placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently, and Izuku was flooded with feelings of warmth and determination.
“Once you’re awake, you’ll need to move quickly. Avoid confrontation at all costs and focus on escaping the prison.” Sixth, En, started.
“From there, make your way to the safehouse. You have my memory of where it is.” Second continued, his gaze stern yet fond. Izuku nodded in affirmation.
“After that we’ll focus on contacting Eighth, he knows that you're alive and will have escaped but we’ll have to figure out a means of communication.” Hikage finished.
Yoichi pulled Izuku into a gentle hug. “Like Nana said, we’ll be with you every step of the way Ninth. We are a part of you now, and we’ll always be here for you.” He said, smiling down at Izuku.
Izuku felt the trademark Midoriya tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he latched onto Yoichi and returned the embrace, mumbling out a quiet ‘thank you’ to the First holder.
Another rumble told them that their time was up. Pulling away from Yoichi, he gave them all a brilliant smile as white began to overtake his vision.
~~~
The deep-rooted aches and pains that ran from head to toe were always the first indication that he was back in the real world.
‘Remember Ninth, we’re all with you.’ The synchronized voices of the past holders rang out in his head. A small smile slipped onto his face as he braced himself. After one long year of hell, Izuku truly opened his eyes once more. One For All hummed contentedly deep in his core, and the familiar taste of ozone flooded his senses. The surge of raw power rippled out from him like a shockwave, knocking the kind guard into the wall and blissful unconsciousness.
Blinking at the unintended development, he called forth Blackwhip. Dark, eldlich tendrils writhed around his arms but heeded his call, and he extended them out to gently wrap up the guard. He was the only one who seemed to have any regard for Izuku’s well-being in this god-forsaken place, and so the least he could do was ensure his safety.
Stumbling to his feet, he tried to take a step forward before pain laced up his legs and sent him to his knees once more. Having been mentally severed from his body for over a year, his coordination was rusty to say the least. That, and the interrogators systematically broke each of his legs last week in yet another attempt to get him to spill information on Shigaraki and the League. He’d always prefer that over the times they waterboarded him.
‘He felt like he was drowning. Thick sludge forced its way into his mouth and flooded his lungs as he desperately scratched and pulled at the disgusting substance. He sputtered and wretched, trying anything to relieve the suffocating pressure setting in-‘
“I got you Nine.” Nana chimed softly, pulling Izuku back from the brink of a surefire panic attack. The freedom and joy of Float flowed through him, and he felt Nana holding him in a comforting embrace as he surrendered bodily control to the Seventh holder.
Before the Kamino Incident, he only ever felt impulses from the vestiges, flashes of memories and the desire to suddenly do things that he’d never shown any interest in previously. That was how he’d picked up card tricks thanks to Third and a newfound love of baking courtesy of Nana.
“Sato was so happy when he saw me baking for the first time…” He thought sadly. Sharing such moments with his classmates, his friends, was a bitter impossibility now. They probably hated him for what they thought he did, and he’d no doubt be all but unforgivable in their eyes.
Regardless, he had more pressing things to worry about. With One For All reaching singularity, he had come to embody the very definition of a vessel. Though he could use the past holders’ quirks, they could also “take the reins” of his body and act on their own accord. It was a weird feeling, being in the backseat of your own mind and watching someone else take the wheel, but he trusted them implicitly and they’d agreed to only ever take over should he explicitly ask one of them to.
“Check for a keycard Nine, should be attached to his belt.” Second instructed, voice steady as ever.
Izuku groggily obeyed as he took over from Nana, setting the guard down on the elevator floor. Fumbling slightly, he checked the guards belt pouches and eventually found what looked like a keycard. Swiping it on the panel, he punched the button for the ground floor and let out a shuttered breath to try and steady himself as the elevator lurched to life.
He didn’t know what kind of situation would await him beyond the walls of Tartarus, but he took small comfort in the fact that he wouldn’t be facing it alone.