17. Trapped

As soon as Himiko went through the portal she found herself in total darkness and being grasped by more hands than just Shigaraki. The pressure was let off of her neck allowing her to begin to breathe once again. However immediately after a rag was shoved up to her nose to replace the oxygen with something that smelled oddly sweet. The chloroform knocked her out within seconds.

She woke again to a bright light and found she was unable to move her limbs. She tried to look around but the bright light shining in her eyes only created spots in her vision. Struggling a bit she found her wrists and ankles strapped down to a chair with metal bindings. It seemed to bite tighter into her skin with every movement.

"I would not recommend further movement, Himiko Toga." Himiko stopped in her tracks suddenly frozen. She felt her heart thumping rapidly in her ears and despite the bright light now being dimmed, it felt hard to keep her eyes open. The voice was calm and collected, smooth as if it was perfected over hundreds of years. For some reason, however, it brought a much different feeling.

"That chair was made to restrict quirk activation and reacts negatively to any sort of struggle. However it looks like it's a little overboard for someone with a quirk like yours." Each word was charismatic like he was urging you to trust him or trying to pull you into a deep sleep. But Toga knew any sleep would become a nightmare. Despite all this outwardly charm there was also the presence in every syllable. A dark powerful presence. It held power in it. Overwhelming power. Not like a leader or even a king, but a god. But this was not a good god. Calling him a demon would be an understatement, Hell itself would have spit him back up. He was hatred.

Himiko would have been shaking if it weren't for the tightening restrictions on her limbs. Despite this fear she tried her best to look calm on the outside as footsteps echoed closer towards her. Now that her eyes had adjusted she could make out that she was at the head of a small table and only a couple feet away at the other side of it was an old metal chair. It looked like a crude interrogation room except the only visible objects were 5 feet in front of her. Everywhere else was simply darkness.

The steps continued to echo. Closer and closer. They were heavy steps, not those of a giant, but one who walks with prowess and authority. Along with that was the scrapping of something else following the man, almost like he was dragging something behind himself. She figured they were in a warehouse by the sound of the wide echo on the concrete floor. Himiko had learned to be very perceptive of sounds after being chased by the cops for so long. She then realized that being with Izuku for so long had made her drop her guard. Shigaraki had caught her so easy because with Izuku she always felt so safe. For a while she had thought she was invincible. She now became aware of how truly alone she was.

"But you are not alone, Himiko Toga," the voice spoke again, echoing through the large open building. Himiko suddenly felt herself panic even more as chills crawled up and down her body like small snakes under her skin.

Her thoughts started racing, "Did he just read my thoughts? Who is this guy? And why is he so—"

"Menacing?" His voice rang out again. Each step brought him closer and his dark aura became stronger.

"I was going to say overbearing," she said out loud. Toga was a good actress, but even trying her hardest she realized her voice sounded small and meek. At least her voice didn't crack. Not like it mattered. If the man could read her mind then he knew how terrified she actually was. At least acting helped give her a tiny bit of confidence to try and calm her own pounding heart.

"Hahaha," his laugh was a mockery embraced with forbidden ecstasy. "It truly does bring me joy seeing you can try in your little ways to stand up to me. After all you have been one to go against societal norms."

"You don't know anything about me!" She spat back almost feeling like she was choking as he approached the edge of the light.

"HAHAHAHA!" This laugh was worse. It was of a man who knew he had won and was now mocking the world for attempting to even try. "I know everything about you Himiko Toga. After all, I was the one who asked our villain broker, Kagero Okuta, or as you know him, Giran, to recruit you."

"The League of Villains boss then?" She thought to herself before realizing not even her mind was safe from this man.

"I'm not simply a boss of some evil villain organization, Himiko Toga. I am evil itself," with that the man took his last step into the light, leaning forward on the chair opposing her own. Her mask of calmness was destroyed under the sheer look of his own. His face was mangled beyond anything she had seen. Despite witnessing the horrifying deaths of many, he made her go immediately stiff and sick to her stomach. Where his eyes should have been was damaged, wrinkled skin that ran up to his bald head. The things dragging behind him were tubes attached to various machines around his body, no doubt keeping this monster alive.

"Don't like what you see? Most people don't. Heroes however must love this sight. They caused it after all... Speaking of heroes—I have a few questions about them to ask you."

…

"Ughh," Toga muttered as she slowly began to shake her head back and forth attempting to stir the mush of memories inside her head. Strands of hair fell in front of her face as she began to open her eyes. Spots filled her vision from the change in atmosphere. It was brighter and significantly warmer than the warehouse. Staring slumped over at the wooden floor boards she recognized the League of Villain's bar that she had arrived on her first day. It was the same as usual, except significantly louder. Looking down she noticed the same metal chair still held her in place but this location was filled with voices. Around the bar itself were a number of different shady members. She recognized Dabi, Shigaraki, and the bartender

They seemed to be talking fairly loudly about something, however none of the words seemed to make any real sense to her at that moment. She felt like a baseball bat had been knocked into her head. Or like she had been hit by a car…

Suddenly her eyes shut tightly as memories from the previous night flooded her mind. The faceless man—no, the faceless monster had questioned her about... him. She couldn't even resist either. Whatever his quirk was, it had taken hold of her mind and observed every memory that involved Izuku Midoriya. Although it was somewhat fuzzy, she clearly remembered feeling agony. If she had tried to resist he would only cause her more pain. She had no idea how long he had been with her, but at the end she remembered feeling powerless. He had crawled into her head and made it his, then threw it away like it was nothing more than scaps. Somehow she was alive now. She slightly looked over to the right to see the other villains making all the noise. The noise began to slowly turn into words. And the words into something comprehensible.

"Woods… camp… attack at midnight… Midoriya…" Her eyes suddenly opened up wide as she quickly pieced together what they were saying. They wanted Izuku. He was currently at camp.

"Has it really been that long since I've been here?" She dismissed this thought quickly. She was not the priority right now. They were going to attack Izuku. But why him? HE had said why. The faceless god had told her why, asked her to make sure he was right. Multiple times. But what was it?

"Then All Might will…" Shigaraki's hoarse voice began to say. Izuku is All Might's successor. Their boss needed to make sure it was him. He had the suspicion for a while but asked her to make sure. That's why they all originally wanted the boy, to put an end to All Might and his successors. That wasn't it though. All Might had a weakness. The man had told her. It was Izuku. He wanted Izuku to be his own. Use him as a weapon. But Izuku also had a weakness. He had a big weakness.

"We strike tonight, see if she is awake," Toga's eyes went wide but then quickly flew closed. She heard footsteps on the wood floor approach her lifeless form. She had let her body go completely limp, just in time she hoped.

"She seems to be sleeping boss—totally awake and ready, chief!" said a voice very close to her. She panicked for a second thinking he might have noticed something, but as it turns out the man was just insane. She felt the restraints removed from her hands and feet followed but a quick shove. She knew she couldn't move even as her body was sent face first onto the ground. The impact was combined with a swift kick to the side, sending Himiko a wave of new pain. Yet she held it in. Her pain tolerance was high and her acting skills were even better.

"Hmm I really did think she might be faking it, but it looks like my master played with her head a little more than she could handle," Shigaraki commented. "Alright looks like we'll let her rest a little longer, it's not like we need her conscious anyway. Kurogiri open up a portal; we need to visit Sensei for our new equipment…"

Their voices began to get quieter and then disappeared all together as the group was warped away. Toga suddenly let out a loud gasp. It was no lie that it took a lot of her power not to kill whoever had been responsible for landing a blow on her "unconscious" body.

"Probably Shigaraki," she figured. She had already planned on killing him for a long time. Despite not being a villain, she was not opposed to ending a couple more lives before calling it a day. She began to get up, with only a little struggle. Her hands and feet were not used to this much activity after so long, plus the lack of blood flow with the extremely tight bonds didn't help.

Standing up fully she brushed herself off and turned around to find someone staring directly at her. A masked man was standing on top of the bar, looking like he was dancing like a… ballerina? Mid-twirl he had stopped when he noticed the girl was no longer unconscious.

"SHE'S AWAKE—I didn't see anything," he half exclaimed. It seemed like his personality and mannerisms changed midway in between his thoughts like two people were driving the wheel that was the brain. The black and white color scheme down his suit might have represented these polar opposites that resided inside of the man. After her observations she decided it wouldn't be that hard to take him on. After seeing the faceless villain, she looked at the rest of these so-called villains as nothing.

Before the man could even stop the ballerina pose she was on top of him. She fought dirty but also smart, using all her knowledge of the human anatomy to her advantage. The first shot was a knee to the groin, followed by a hit to a pressure point behind the ear. The one-sided fight continued with smashing the masked man's face against the bar into a liquor glass. It shattered upon impact and ripped open a hole in his mask along with a spill of blood from his cheek. The fight was over in a matter of seconds. However Toga realized she was not being met with any resistance. The man slumped onto the floor behind the bar and began clutching at his mask.

"No, no, no, no, no—it's ripped…" Unlike before, his voice was a consistent tone. It was despair. What started out as a small cry was now an all out scream like a mad man. "I'M GOING TO SPLIT! MY MASK—NO, NO, NO!" Toga couldn't bring herself to move as this man began tearing at his mask and showing even more skin. The tear was only growing as he touched it, but rationality didn't seem to be something he considered. He was broken. He wasn't just a villain. He had a story, most likely a bloody past. Himiko realized the two were no different. Except he had no Izuku. He had no one, not even his own mind could keep him decent company.

The villain's own mind was screaming at him. It was torture. He felt his body begging to tear in two, but he had to resist. He had to stay together. Thinking back to the last time he had split… he didn't even know which version of him was the original. Who was he? Did it even matter? Should he just accept his fate? Should he just split—a gray sweatshirt was tied tightly around part of his head.

"That should hold," Himiko said, making sure the hoodie wouldn't fall off. He was suddenly silent. All his thoughts went back to normal as if in a flash. He was secured. Tied back together. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked up at the blonde.

"Marry me!—We hardly even know each other!" His split personality looked like it had come back together as well. Toga took a step back but realized he was no longer a threat.

"You need some serious help, Mr…?" she said before turning around to make sure no one else had arrived in the meantime.

"Call me Twice—Need help! Yes you are completely right! I can help you!—I'll help her first!" His personalities seemed to both be in favor of that at least.

"How so?" She said slowly as the masked man got up and pointed finger guns at her.

…

The purple portal into the bar opened up to find Twice putting on a new mask. Shigaraki looked questionly at him but everything looked normal, except…

"Twice clean up after yourself if you break something!" Kurogiri said, appalled by the broken glass on HIS CLEAN bar. Twice half apologized and then went to stand by the lifeless blonde figure on the floor he had been assigned to guard while they visited the master to get new villain support items. She was still lying in the same place where Shigaraki had left her so at least Twice hadn't screwed up with that.

However the real Himiko Toga was outside of the building and just got in a taxi heading towards Izuku's camp. Twice's idea was a good one, so her unconscious clone would take her place until she could warn Izuku of the villain's upcoming attack. On top of that she had found her spare villain uniform that she had originally left at the League before her first mission. Donning her old school outfit and oversized cardigan she found it strangely comforting despite all the horrors she had committed in these clothes. She had also stolen a map leading to the camp.

"I wonder how they got their hands on something like this," she began to mumble. "Unless there's some sort of traitor—" Just then she saw it. There was a cat lying in the passenger seat of the taxi. It wasn't that uncommon for taxi drivers to pick up pets and keep them, but there was something special about this one. It was her cat. The same cat that had often disappeared at the apartment and then showed up days later like nothing had happened. The same cat that had always watched but never liked to be touched. Never ate the cat food, just hid it. In fact the very reason she had gone to the pet section in the first place was because of her. Now it was here staring right at her. Something was seriously wrong.

"Oh do you like my new pet? I think she likes you, too." A feminine voice said from the driver's seat. Looking up at the rear view mirror, Toga realized not only was the taxi driver wearing a medical mask and concealing baseball cap, but also was staring at her. No not just staring. It was like a wild animal viewing its next prey. It was the same look of insanity that Himiko had looked at all her victims with.

Toga went to try the car door handle, but it was locked from the outside. She looked back to the front of the vehicle but the driver and cat had already disappeared. To make matters worse the car was already speeding towards the edge of the rural bridge they were just about to cross. It was only a couple more miles until she reached the camp, but right now her destination seemed a whole world away.

[Hey it's the author once again with a pretty big announcement. I talked earlier about making a discord server to bring all of my communities together and I did it! That's mostly the reason this chapter is a little late, but I'm already almost done with the next chapter so that should appear soon as well. Anyway please join the server because we spend a long time on making it and it will be a great addition to the community. Link to server: https://discord.gg/hBeGsak ]