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The sidewalk was busy for this late in the afternoon, and people were milling in and out of the stores on either side of the street. A small crowd gathered around Midoriya and Aizawa as they spoke to the officers arriving on the scene, two villains handcuffed in the middle of the group.
“After trapping the villains, Eraserhead and I waited for police to arrive on-scene,” Midoriya said, finishing up with his statement to the officer in front of him.
The officer finished writing and nodded to the boy. “Thanks for your help, Deku. If we need anything else from you, we’ll contact your school and get in touch.”
“Of course, however I can help,” Midoriya said, redirecting his attention to the police car where the two villains, escorted by Aizawa and a gaggle of cops, were being shoved inside and secured. It still felt surreal to him that he was out and about patrolling, doing what he’d been dreaming of his whole life. They finally finished studying patrol guides in class and had begun a new section as they began real practice.
Aizawa walks up to Midoriya as they finish, speaking to the cop before getting the okay to continue on their patrol. It was almost sunset, so Midoriya knew they would be looking for a way onto the rooftops soon.
“Ways to improve?” Aizawa asks as they start down the street.
Midoriya pondered for a moment, knowing Aizawa wouldn’t rush him. His teacher asked the same question after each incident. This was the first week that his class was going on individual patrols instead of in small groups with their teachers, but he was used to the question and hearing all the unique viewpoints his classmates provided.
They continue down the street as Midoriya starts, “I think it would have-” The crowd pushes and a girl – mid-twenties and wearing a black trenchcoat – gets shoved into his side, startling both of them. Stopping and steadying the girl automatically, Midoriya starts to offer a quick apology when he notices her staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at him.
“Uh… excuse me?” He offers lamely, put off by the look of shock and growing horror on her face. “Are you okay?”
She doesn’t reply, turning and pushing into the crowd once more, going out of her way to squeeze between the people so as not to run into anyone else.
Aizawa steps in front of Midoriya then, staring after the girl for a moment before he stares at the boy’s face, scanning for any abnormalities before investigating the arm the girl bumped into.
“Are you feeling okay?” Aizawa asks. It would be just his Problem Child’s luck that the girl would have some strange quirk that had activated, or that she could see some medical issue that most couldn’t. This kid constantly found and lived on the edge of danger, no matter what he said.
Midoriya answers that he feels fine and confirms that he wasn’t injured during the fight that had happened previously. “I’m glad you thought that was a bit strange, too, Aizawa-sensei,” Midoriya mumbles as his teacher scans him again and peers after the girl before continuing on their way.
Shaking off the strange interaction, Midoriya continues to think aloud about how to improve and listens carefully to his teacher’s feedback.
The sun, now beginning to set, leads the duo to a fire escape. Midoriya easily hops up the stairs a few steps behind his teacher.
Clink!
Midoriya pauses, squinting below him. The low light revealed only shadows; no movement, and nothing that seemed off to him. He turned to catch up to his teacher, who was two sets of stairs ahead of him at this point and about to hop onto the roof. Pushing himself to move faster, Midoriya soon popped onto the roof himself and immediately froze.
Aizawa stood a few feet in front of him and off to the left a bit, one hand splayed back in an obvious sign both for Midoriya to stay put and as a warning to the group of five armed men on the roof that this child is under his protection.
“Damn it, another one?” one of the masked men said, shifting and pointing his rifle at the boy while two other guns remained on Aizawa. The other two villains had mutations, making their bodies larger and more muscular, likely for close-combat advantages, while the other three covered further distances with their guns. An effective team, no doubt.
“Relax, we’ll just take ‘em both out,” one of the mutants said, cracking his knuckles.
“Do you not see their outfits, bastard? They’re heroes!” the other mutant said, pulling the first one back with a hand on his shoulder.
“That one looks a bit young to be a hero, must be in training,” one of the masked men holding a gun said, eyes piercing through Midoriya.
Aizawa, still keeping one hand splayed generally in front of Midoriya, raised his other just a fraction toward his scarf–
“Hey!” the first masked man – he’s jumpy, dangerous, Midoriya thought – shouted, gaining the attention of everyone. He kept his gun pointed in Midoriya’s direction. “I swear if you move even an inch, I’ll kill you both. Starting with the wannabe hero, okay? So cut it out while we think.”
Midoriya grits his teeth. I don’t like being used as leverage. I could just use One for All and get over there quick enough… No, that wouldn’t work, he decided. With a man as jumpy as this, he would just start shooting as soon as he thought they would move. Even if he could outrun a bullet that was shot before he moved, the man would keep firing and might hit Aizawa. He wouldn’t be able to protect both of them and take down all the men with guns standing twenty feet away easily.
Besides, Midoriya thought, Aizawa-sensei’s keeping his hand out to communicate with me to wait, too. Deciding to trust his teacher and wait to see what happened, Midoriya stood still and remained quiet as his teacher responded to the man, “Okay, just relax.”
“Don’t tell me what to-” the man cut himself off, staring past the hero as his eyes widened. Aizawa cursed in his head, hoping Midoriya hadn’t started to do anything to gain the attention and wrath of these men. He needed another few moments and for them to calm down a bit more before he could act; he didn’t want the villains shooting at both of them.
That guy’s staring at me, too? Midoriya wondered, already noticing his teacher tensing with the villains across from them. I didn’t move, though. What’s going on?
Too late, Midoriya realized that freezing his muscles even more wouldn’t help them. The villains weren’t looking at him… they were looking behind him.
Just as he started to glance out of the corner of his eye to see what held their attention, a gunshot went off. Someone slammed into his side from behind, sending both of them flying onto the hard roof as more shots and shouts echo around them.
Midoriya scrambles, realizing at once that the same strange girl from the street had pushed him down and that Aizawa had rushed forward and started attacking the villains.
“Are you okay?” Midoriya asks, crouching in front of the girl who half-sprawled on the roof while holding her shoulders steady as she teetered around to gain her balance.
“I’m fine – get them!” she shouted, twisting to get her trenchcoat unwrapped from around her.
“Deku!” Aizawa shouted, more panic in his voice than usual, as he engaged the villains, his back turned from his student as he focused on them.
“Stay down here,” Midoriya told the girl as he rushed to join the fight. He jumped in, activating his quirk as he kicked one of the muscular men and knocked him out, landing next to his teacher. “Fine, sensei.” Midoriya notices his teacher spare a quick glance toward him before refocusing on the villains. “The civilian is also unharmed.”
Aizawa, unsurprisingly, had managed to take out two of the gunmen before Midoriya joined the fight. Midoriya, setting his sights on the other mutated man, activated One for All and jumped toward him as he noticed Aizawa slamming the last gunman into the roof with his capture weapon. Dodging a punch, Midoriya swept the man’s legs out from under him, leaving him to crash to the ground. He groaned and began to pull himself up, but Aizawa appeared, kicking the man in the head and knocking him out.
“Kid, you okay?” Aizawa asks, taking his time scanning his student for injuries now that the danger has passed.
“Yes, sensei,” Midoriya responds, standing until he sees his teacher approve his health and assure himself his student hadn’t been lying and bleeding out freely. “That girl from before followed us onto the roof-”
“I need to check!” the girl in question half-yells, stumbling toward the two heroes, arms outstretched in front of her.
Midoriya reaches out to catch her, holding her arms in his hands as she almost falls in front of him, ignoring his teacher’s shouted “Wait!”
The girl’s eyes widen again. “Get down, Green!” She slams her hands on Midoriya’s shoulders and goes limp, pulling them both down just as another gunshot rings out. A bullet rips through the air next to the boy a moment later.
Midorya quickly pushes the girl further down and stands protectively in front of her as Aizawa’s capture weapon whips out, disarming the man and wrapping around his arm until it knocks the villain in the face.
Midoriya turns to the girl, face scrunched and eyebrows squished together.
She reaches her arms out to him, once again saying, “Let me check, let me check,” under her breath.
Just as Midoriya begins to try to help her stand again, Aizawa steps between them and pulls the girl away from him with his capture weapon. “Who are you?” he asks gruffly, keeping the girl wrapped in his scarf as she struggles. This girl comes out of nowhere, gives a horrified face on the street toward his student, and then just happens to be there when his student is shot at twice? Too strange to be a coincidence.
“No, no. I need to check, let me check, please!” she shouts, kicking in the restraints. Aizawa holds his capture weapon tight, refusing to give her any room.
“I don’t think she’s with them, Eraserhead. She’s gotten me out of danger twice when they’ve shot at me,” Midoriya says from behind his teacher, peeking his head around his shoulder to see the girl more clearly.
“Who are you, and why do you keep trying to grab onto my student?” Aizawa asks. “And why did you look at him so strangely before?”
The girl struggles with one last burst of energy before slumping into the scarf with a huff. “My name is Rin, and I’m trying to figure out whether Green there is about to die again.”
“Again?” Midoriya asks skeptically.
“What do you mean?” Aizawa demands, debating on whether that was a threat.
Rin takes a deep breath before speaking. “My quirk is called Prophecy, and, upon touching someone, it allows me to see their death if they’re going to die in the next hour. When I ran into you on the street, I saw you get shot up here and bleed out before help arrived, so I followed you and pushed you out of the way.”
Midoriya gasps, staring wide-eyed at the girl. “T-thank you! That quirk must be so useful.”
She shrugs and stretches as the scarf loosens just enough to allow her some extra room to breathe. “I don’t use it very often.”
“Why not?!” Midoriya asks again, fully stepping forward beside his teacher.
“Because the universe tries to correct itself, and the person usually dies anyway,” she says bluntly.
Midoriya’s next gasp drowns out the quick breath Aizawa takes in. He loosens the scarf around the girl and lets it curl back around his neck. “The second shot,” he reasons.
She nods. “I rushed forward to touch Green to make sure he would be okay. I saw that guy shoot you and pulled you down to get out of the way. Sometimes, the next death comes before I can even check with the person, so…” She raises her eyebrows and looks toward Midoriya, slowly reaching out one of her hands.
Midoriya looks to his teacher and waits for his slow nod before grabbing onto the girl's hand and watching as her eyes widen again.
“Well?” Aizawa asks, scanning the roof around them.
“The fire escape is a safety hazard,” she replies.
Midoriya frowns. “Okay, no fire escape.” He hesitates. “How… how long will the universe be… ‘correcting itself.’”
“If you can make it one hour from when I first ran into you, then it seems to be okay after that,” she says, almost apologetically. “I always feel like it’s my quirk causing this, but I’ve been assured that’s not the case.”
“Your quirk is amazing, please don’t feel bad about it,” Midoriya tells her. “It gives people another chance at living and making a difference in the world. It’s amazing!”
“It’s been about twenty minutes since we ran into you on the street,” Aizawa says to himself, realizing they have forty minutes before his student would actually be safe again. Danger lurking around every corner… it would be difficult to do. “How many times have you done this successfully?” Aizawa asks her as he scans the roof again, paranoid that someone lurked in a shadowy corner.
She grimaces. “Once.”
Aizawa and Midoriya both freeze before sharing a glance, one’s terror more hidden than the other’s.
“I tried to help all the time when I was younger, but I haven’t done anything to try and avert the future in the last five years or so because I couldn’t keep feeling that shame and grief when the person would die anyway.”
“What changed?” Midoriya asks earnestly.
She sighs. “Well, not to be all dramatic, but I guess you, Green. I’ve never seen a hero’s death before, and I guess it got to me. Much less a kid who died in such a way.”
“O-oh. Um… thanks?” he says uncertainly. “My hero name is Deku, and this is Eraserhead.”
Rin nods to Aizawa in greeting. “I haven’t heard of you before, Eraserhead.”
“That’s the point,” he grumbles, only half listening to the greetings.
“And as for you,” she says, “I’m going to keep calling you Green.”
“Uhh…” Midoriya cocks his head and squints in confusion.
“It’ll just be easier for me. Y’know, I’ve already been calling you that and thinking of that as your name. I don’t want to get confused,” she explains apologetically.
“O…kay?” he says uncertainly, not wanting to argue with the person who could help prevent his possible death.
“Rin,” Aizawa says, “What happens now? We just avoid the fire escape? Does that buy us some time?”
She nods. “It buys us a bit of time. That’s your ‘death scenerio’ for until it would have happened. The only thing is that I don’t know exactly when you would be using the fire escape in that future. Could be three minutes from now or thirty. I won’t get another vision until then, so I just need to keep checking every so often and hope it’s in time to prevent the next scenario from actually happening.”
“What if I just stay in this spot and don’t move?” Midoriya asks, bringing his hand up to his chin. “We’d still have to be careful of anyone who came up here, but we’d be able to see them easily.”
She sighs. “I’ve tried that many times. It’s never worked. The roof could randomly collapse under your feet, a random pipe explosion, a helicopter flying nearby could crash onto you…” she stops at the wide-eyed look Midoriya gave her. “Sorry.”
“No, no. Information is good,” he replies unsteadily.
Aizawa taps a few buttons on a device before looking back up. “I’ve notified the police; they’re on their way to round up these villains and investigate the fire escape. Given the circumstances, we can forgo protocol and get out of here. Kid, you stay close to me.”
“Sensei-” Midoriya begins to protest.
“No arguing. Do you understand?” Aizawa knew the kid didn’t want to bring anyone else to harm in case it came to that, but there was also no way that he was letting the kid out of his sight, much less out of his reach, for longer than absolutely necessary. He wouldn’t let one of his kids die on his watch.
“Yes, sensei,” Midoriya says begrudgingly. It would be safer for you if you weren’t near me, he thinks regretfully. He also understood his teacher and pro-hero’s point of view on the situation, but felt like it would be safer if he were just aware of the danger and got away from as many people as possible as soon as he could.
“Good. Now, let’s get to the street while we know you won’t twist your neck on the way down and take it from there.”
While he had been sarcastic, Aizawa still took special care to ensure his student reached the ground safely. He held onto his student as his capture weapon wrapped around a stable pipe on the roof (that he thoroughly tested beforehand) and lowered them both to the ground below.
“I’m going to go get Rin.” Aizawa glanced back and forth along the emptying street, glaring toward the couple of remaining groups of people along the road.
“I’ll be fine for twenty seconds, Aizawa-sensei,” Midorya assures him, feeling a juvenile need to roll his eyes.
Aizawa grunts in response, continuing to survey the area. Midoriya sighs, wishing his teacher had a bit more faith in him. He may not have the best track record, but still. He takes a look around himself. The sun had almost completely set behind the horizon, and most shops had closed or begun their closing routine. The street wasn’t nearly as busy as it was before, as citizens returned to the safety and comfort of their homes.
“Stay here, but keep an eye out around you.”
Midoriya agrees, and only when he continues to look back and forth around him does Aizawa’s capture weapon stretch back out to the roof. A moment later, his teacher disappears to get Rin.
Keeping guard on himself was… strange. Knowing that danger could come from anywhere and that his life was in near-constant danger for the next thirty or so minutes was even stranger.
Just as a car in front of him catches his attention due to the slightly erratic driving, a squeal behind him has him whipping around right as he hears his teacher above him shout, “Deku, move!”
Sure enough, as he turns, he sees a truck come careening down the street straight toward him. He waits just long enough to make sure he wouldn’t be jumping into danger if the truck swerves again before leaping to the other side of the road as far as he could, landing in a body roll and ending on his stomach peering up as the truck course-corrects at the last moment, avoiding a building and nearly smashing into the car that originally had his attention on the opposite side of the street.
The car swerves to miss the truck, and before he realizes it, the vehicle is a dozen feet from him and barreling towards his prone body.
Too close, can’t get roll out of the way in time, his mind shouts at him.
Relying on instinct, Midoriya activates his quirk and pushes into the ground below him. A small crater is left on the street as he shoots into the air, feeling the car rush below him before he crashes down onto the top of the car and rolls off the back with the momentum, landing harshly on the ground once more.
He groans, lying in the street as he recovers. This… really sucks, he decides, holding still as he waits for the initial pain to wear off and figure out if he was seriously injured anywhere.
“Midoriya!” a voice shouts over him suddenly. “Are you all right?”
Midoriya waits to answer his teacher’s question, realizing that he must have landed on his arm at a wrong angle – it definitely hurt too much to be normal, but he’s had worse before. He groans in response as he takes stock of the rest of his aching body, knowing he has a moment to pull himself together since Aizawa wasn’t pulling him out of the way of some other weird danger.
“You son of a bitch!” Rin shouts from further away. “You hit a kid and you’re running from the damn scene? I’ve got your license plate, you piece of shit!”
A hand lands softly on his back. “Kid?”
Midoriya rolls over, Aizawa helping as gently as he could, as he responds, “My arm. Just my arm.” He holds his arm up. Red blood drips down to the pavement, a long, jagged cut running from below his wrist to his elbow.
Aizawa curses. “That needs stitches.”
“We can’t go back to UA,” Midoriya says firmly. “It’ll put everyone in danger.”
His teacher sighs. “As much as I hate to say it, I agree with you. We’ll need to head to a small clinic somewhere and make them aware of the situation, maybe have them meet us somewhere and-”
“Not an option,” Rin interrupts, kneeling next to the duo.
Aizawa glares at her. “Explain.”
She sighs, reaching out and holding Midoriya’s good arm, eyes steely as she sees something she’s expecting. “The nurse will give you the wrong dosage of pain medication, and you’ll die from an overdose before we even realize.”
Midoriya winces. “No medications, then?”
Rin shakes her head. “That’s not the issue here. Hospitals and doctors are even worse than being out and about, wandering around. You start to let your guard down, and something will always go wrong. Always. Someone will make a mistake, and it’s too hard to avoid it.” She rips off strips of her trenchcoat as she glances toward him. “I’m sorry, but this is just going to have to do for the next half-hour or so.”
“Hold on. Since we have a bit of time before that death scenario would come to be, let me disinfect the wound as best I can and put some gauze around it to keep it as clean as possible,” Aizawa says, opening pockets and pulling out alcohol pads and wrapped gauze.
“Nice,” Rin says, placing her strips of cloth next to Aizawa for him to use later.
“This is going to sting. I need to get some of the debris out of there,” Aizawa tells his student.
Gritting his teeth, Midoriya nods. He tries to ignore the pain as his Aizawa unwraps the alcohol pads and begins rubbing and patting them against his open wound. After most of the blood had been cleaned up, Midoriya realized that his wound wasn’t as bad as he had originally thought, thankfully, and he felt assured that it would be fine until he could go to Recovery Girl later and get it taken care of.
Rin reaches forward after Aizawa hauls Midoriya to his feet, grasping onto his arm, and shakes her head at them. “Nothing yet, we just need to keep checking and get a move on.”
Aizawa checks his watch. “We’ve got about twenty minutes left before we can call it safe. Any suggestions?”
“Is there any place that could be considered safe?” Midoriya asks, tilting his head toward Rin.
She shakes her head. “Honestly, staying aware and on the move always seems to work the best. Anytime I’ve tried to hunker down in one spot, things take a bad turn quickly.”
“On the move it is. Kid, you’re not leaving my side again under any circumstances. Understood?”
“Yes, sensei,” Midoriya relents. He understood the importance of listening to them and obeying his teacher, but part of him still thought it would be better if he went off on his own instead of possibly putting their lives in danger if something like an explosion happened randomly. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if something were to happen to one of them on his behalf. However, he also knew he couldn’t make this kind of decision on his own. His teacher was a pro, and Rin had been in this situation many times before and had the most experience. He needs to trust them to handle themselves and help keep him as safe as possible in the next twenty minutes.
After checking to see if there was a new death scenario, Rin deemed it safe to continue, and they began a careful journey down the road. On the way, Rin recited the license plate she had memorized of the vehicle that sped away to Aizawa, who sent a message to the police along with a description of the car and its last known location.
The group wandered down the streets with caution, Aizawa thoroughly checking the streets and maintaining a mental perimeter around them while Midoriya kept on guard. Rin glanced around her often and occasionally grabbed Midoriya’s arm to check if a new scenario was ready before huffing and marching along with them when she didn’t see anything else.
Midoriya could feel her frustration mounting each time she didn’t see anything new. He knew she felt pressure to see the next scenario before it began so that she could warn them of what was coming and how to avoid it, but he didn’t feel like this was all up to her. He was being trained to keep an eye out, and Aizawa was great at spotting potential danger before something bad happened. He couldn’t count the number of times they had been on patrol and Aizawa pointed out different signs that something or the other was about to occur.
Lost in his thoughts, Midoriya nearly stumbles when Aizawa comes to a halt and throws a hand in front of him.
“What is it?” Midoriya asks, peering around his teacher toward a convenience store with its lights on a couple of doorways down. It was one of those twenty-four-seven convenience stores that had a variety of goods accessible at any time, he notes.
“The clerk in that store looks too panicked. Something’s up in there,” Aizawa says grimly, hating their luck. He couldn’t ignore this, especially due to the likelihood that someone could be in danger. He had an obligation to help them and wanted to. But… this would just be putting Midoriya in immediate danger, basically asking the universe to take a shot at him.
Rin reaches out again, then shakes her head after making contact with Midoriya’s arm.
“We have to check if he’s okay,” Midoriya says.
“I’ll call it in, there might be another hero around-”
“Sensei, you’ve said before that this area is usually reserved for UA heroes, especially now that all the classes are doing patrols, and we’re the only ones out here tonight. Whatever’s going on could get really bad before someone can respond to your request.”
Aizawa frowned, obviously not liking the options presented to him. Midoriya didn’t care for them, either. His teacher would either have to leave him to go take care of whatever is going on by himself – which would be putting both of them in more danger as their focus wouldn’t be on either of their current tasks at hand – or they would both go in to figure out what was going on – possibly handing himself over to his next death scenerio about ten minutes away from when he would be considered safe. Leaving wasn’t an option, and they both knew it.
“I don’t like the thought of leaving you out here alone, but it could be too dangerous, given the situation, to bring you in there,” Aizawa admits.
Rin huffs. “Given my experience, I don’t doubt that something is going on in there right now, but it will only get worse if we go in. And splitting up is a horrible idea. I think the last scenario could have happened right then, just because we were split up. The universe knows how hard it’s going to be to kill you outright with a pro right beside you.”
“We can’t just let someone get hurt or die,” Midoriya says, staring imploringly at both of the adults. “I don’t care whether you want me to wait here, wander around, or go in there, but you have to check it out. Please. If we can prevent this, we have to.”
Rin freezes, soaking in his words as Aizawa ponders. She knows he didn’t mean that as a dig at her. It was just how he was; she could tell even from what little she knew about him. On the rooftop, he would have pushed aside his teacher when he reached for his capture weapon again, setting off the villains, if she hadn’t intervened. He would have taken the bullet for his teacher. And when he lay bleeding out with his teacher pressing his hands into the wound and shouting for help over his phone, he would have seen the villain who shot him crying across the rooftop after Aizawa had captured them. He would have seen the man who shot him begging for forgiveness. And he forgave him before he died.
Rin shakes her head, trying to clear her mind of death once again. She supposed that was the difference between Green and her. He was a true hero. She just ended up with a quirk that allowed her to play hero before failing miserably.
“We’re going in together,” Aizawa decides. “I don’t want you away from me, but if I say to get out or go or do anything… you do it immediately with no questions. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sensei!” Midoriya shouts excitedly.
“You’re a civilian, so you need to stay out-”
“No,” Rin says immediately. “I need to be next to Midoriya in case a new scenario comes up, and I can prevent it from happening. You and I together are his best bet of surviving this. I’ll stay down and behind you, but I’m staying next to Green.”
Aizawa hums before nodding. “Now, let’s go see what’s going on.”
The three of them sneak up to the window to see inside the store, hesitantly peeking through the window one by one.
The clerk stood behind the counter, sweating and looking around nervously. They scanned the rest of the store, but there was nothing suspicious and no one else in the store with him. “Um. What is going on?” Rin asks, giving up the pretense of sneaking and standing as she spoke.
Aizawa glared at her a moment before standing himself. “Let’s go in and ask.” It was strange that there didn’t seem to be anything wrong in there. It felt like they were being lulled into a false sense of security, but that only put Aizawa more on edge. This whole thing was a mess, but he’d be damned if one of his decisions cost the life of his kid.
The bell let out a ding as they opened the door.
“I-I’m so s-sorry,” the clerk said immediately before freezing as he stared at their clothes. He jumped suddenly before continuing, this time his eyes wide and imploring. “We’re c-cl-closed right now.”
He looks like he’s trying to tell us something, Midoriya ponders. And he started making that face when he saw our clothes.
“Are you okay?” Aizawa asks, scanning his surroundings again. “You can tell me, I’m a pro.”
Aizawa realized at that moment that, while the store looked empty, the one place they couldn’t see and would explain the man’s behavior was behind the damn counter.
A man covered in quills pops up with a shout as the clerk screams and cowers to the side. The now-known villain swings his body, dislodging dozens of quills and sending them flying towards the group.
“Down!” Aizawa shouts, shoving his two companions into an aisle and almost falling on top of them in his haste. The loud thunk, thunk, thunks as the quills embed into the floor and shelves where they once stood is almost deafening before they stop. Aizawa immediately shouts for Midoriya to “Stay there!” as he looks above the shelf and activates his quirk.
The man throws more quills at them, and he ducks back down, cursing.
“Mutation quirk,” Midoriya surmises.
“Yes,” Aizawa says, hating this whole situation.
Rin touches Midoriya’s arm before her eyes bulge, and she grabs both of their sleeves and pulls all of them a few shelf-lengths away.
Another round of quills barrels into the shelves they were standing at before they can ask why, and a whole set comes crashing down from the force. A sharp metal bar had come loose and pointed outward, now lying in the spot where Midoriya had once stood.
Midoriya’s eyes widen, and he looks appreciatively toward Rin. She grimaces and forces her thoughts to clear as she reaches toward Midoriya again. A loud shout, and Aizawa grabs Rin and pulls her backward before she can reach Midoriya, who jumps back away from them as some broken machine lands in between them, spraying metal parts everywhere as it crashes.
The standing shelf next to Aizawa and Rin begins to topple over. Aizawa reaches up and holds it at an angle, using his capture weapons as leverage as Rin crouches below, trapped on both sides by debris.
Aizawa grunts, trying to shove the shelf off him to free up his hands and get to his student, but it’s too heavy and he ends up just pushing on it with all his might as he looks around wildly to catch a glimpse of green hair.
“Watch out!” Midoriya shouts, jumping and kicking the shelf away from his friends while the villain appears at the end of the aisle, already twisting to shoot more quills at them. Midoriya lands and immediately kicks out again, using air pressure to send most of the quills back at the man.
Aizawa rushes forward, hopping over the quills that had landed in the ground in front of his student and sends out his capture weapon to wrap the villain up. “That’s it,” he says, glaring down at the villain. “You’re done.”
“S-sensei?” a small voice asks. Aizawa turns as he recognizes the strangeness in his student’s voice and sees the kid standing a bit off-balance. His hands are out in front of him, as if to help keep his balance, before he looks down.
Aizawa’s eyes follow his and his breath catches in his throat. One of the quills had impaled Midoriya’s leg, which was on the ground when he kicked out earlier. He cursed, tightening the restraints on the villain before rushing over just as Midoriya wavered and began to sink to the ground.
Aizawa guided his student down slowly, heart racing in his throat, wondering what the hell was going on.
Rin appeared and helped Midoriya lie down, freezing a moment after touching him.
“What is it?” Aizawa asks, eyes not leaving his student’s that were growing with panic.
“Poison,” Rin whispers. “I’m so sorry. I tried, I’m so sorry.” She sobs then, laying her head on Midoriya’s arm.
“No,” Aizawa said, turning and pacing back to the villain before lifting him up by his shirt. “What’s the cure to your quills?”
The villain smirks, remaining quiet.
“Tell me, damn it! How do I save him!”
“He won’t tell you,” Rin says quietly. “You can’t stop it, I’m so, so sorry.”
Aizawa’s heart seizes. He turns, seeing Midoriya gently pat Rin’s head as she cries against him. Midoriya’s eyes, scared and so, so young, were on him. Aizawa drops the villain, ignoring his protest at the treatment, and checks his watch.
“It’s time,” he says, stumbling over to them. “It’s been an hour, so it’s going to be fine, kid, okay?”
Midoriya nods slowly, blinking and trying to focus on his teacher. His head feels fuzzy, and he can’t quite remember what’s going on, but Aizawa is here and telling him it’s fine, so he decides to go with that.
Suddenly, the world shakes and he hears his teacher again. “Kid. Kid! Midoriya, open your eyes, stay awake, the paramedics are on the way.”
Eyes… closed? It is dark, he muses.
“Izuku!” A broken plea forces his eyes open to check on his teacher.
He sees a blurry shape hovering over him. He blinks slowly. Again. And then he can finally make out his teacher above him.
“-hing we can do, I’m sorry,” a female voice says above him sadly.
“Screw your damn quirk, it’s past the time limit. There’s got to be a way to figure out the toxins in his system so we can give him an antidote.” His teacher sounded… angry. But more than that… scared? That wasn’t a word he was used to being associated with him.
He continues to ponder what’s created this change in his teacher as his eyes slip closed once again and he falls into unconsciousness.
The first thing that drifts into his conscious mind is a consistent beeping sound. Beep… beep… beep. Midoriya quickly gets tired of listening to it and searches his awareness for where he could be and why he felt so out of it.
As he gets closer to being awake, his whole body aches dully, and he groans. He hears a voice call his name and follows the sound, forcing his eyes open and blearily looking around. Fluorescent ceiling lights, white ceiling tiles, white walls, and he’s lying on a bed. Hospital.
Aizawa appears in his line of sight with a glass of cool water, which he gulps down as fast as he’s allowed.
“W-what happened?” Midoriya asks, stretching his body to attempt to get rid of the aches.
Aizawa goes on to tell him the events that occurred between when he fell unconscious and when he awoke. By the time he finished, another visitor knocked on the door.
Rin hesitantly walks in before rushing forward when she sees Midoriya awake. “How are you feeling? I was so worried.”
“I’m fine, just a little achy. Thanks to you, I’ll be able to leave soon.”
She lets out a breath, collapsing into a chair. “Oh, you don’t have to thank me.”
Midoriya laughs. “For stabbing that villain with one of his own poison quills so that he would tell us the antidote? Yeah, I think I should thank you. If you hadn’t done that… well, you saw my future. You saved my life.”
Rin smiles softly. “Yeah, it felt good.”
Aizawa leans forward. “I have some contacts I can reach out to if you’re interested in being trained and using your quirk full-time to help others with the back-up of heroes.”
Hesitantly, Rin nods her head, Midoriya smiling big in the background.