... Just pretend like this chapter isn't incredibly short, m'kay?
Katsuki doesn't know how long he's been like this, suffocating in the slimy mass that is the villain, but he did know that he was growing weaker. His struggling had managed to gain him a few weak gasps of air, but they wouldn't sustain him for long.
He thrashed wildly, eyes burning from the liquid that fell into them as they watered. Smoke particles caused them to water as the street caught aflame from his explosions. The slime monster seemed to have expanded, liquidy arms and viscous body parts filling the streets and whipping around keeping the heroes who had arrived from getting closer. He could just barely hear them muttering to each other how they weren't suited to this. Cowardly Bastards!
He was running out of time, the heat had increased to the point that it was drying out his skin, and the liquid of the villain was preventing him from igniting his nitroglycerin. He was well and truly stuck, and for once, Katsuki didn't know what he could do to beat the villain. His efforts did nothing.
He was useless.
Toshinori Yagi watched on helpless as he recognized the villain he had beat a few months ago. He wondered how it had escaped, and cursed himself for having used up all his time
He was useless
Izuku stared, forest eyes wide and horrified as Kacchan was suffocated by that awful slime villain he had met the day he had killed himself. The pros stood around, proclaiming themselves helpless.
Izuku stared as tears began to stream down his face, panic growing in his nonexistent heart. His heartbeat seemed to increase, metaphorically pumping through and leaving a loud booming thump in his head. For a second, time stilled as it seemed as though Katsuki made eye contact with him. A sharp pain like lightning bolted through Izuku as a gasp was torn out of his throat.
Izuku found himself flying forward without meaning too, willing to do anything to get Kacchan free, yet his hands just slid through the slime easier than they would have moved through water.
Izuku is useless.
"ARRGGH!" Katsuki wrenched his body forward with a hoarse shout, but only managed to throw himself slightly out of the slime. His mouth remained covered though, and his vision began blurring as he ran out of the air. He needed a hero to save him, but he was all alone, and wouldn't be saved in time. There was nothing to help in survive. (Was this karma? He deserved this, right?)
Was he going to die here?
Katsuki throat burned as his body slackened. (For a moment he wondered if he should have even bothered trying to get free. He deserved to die, after all. A death for a death) Slowly, Katsuki felt his heart failing him as he slipped into unconscious. A flash of green in the crowd caught his eye through the blurry haze. The color was familiar. (Would he get to see Izuku when he died? Would he be able to apologize?)
Izuku had felt a strange painful squeeze in his heart, as he watched Kacchan struggle. A suffocating feeling began to build, and somehow, Izuku knew that Katsuki was about to die. As lonely as Izuku was, the last thing he wanted was for Katsuki to become a ghost as well.
Izuku had met Kacchan's crimson eyes, seen the frustrated tears and fear in them, despite how unfocused they were. The fact was expounded on Izuku's as his heart squeezed painfully.
Kacchan was dying.
Izuku couldn't possibly not help.
As Izuku clawed at the slimy villain he could feel his heart begin pounding. For a fraction of a second, he thought he saw his hand make contact with the sludge, but in the next it was slipping through again. He felt frantic and desperate, and he doubted he had any semblance of control of his limbs. He lunged again and again, trying to do anything to get ahold of the villain and save Kacchan when no one else would.
The voices of Izuku's past taunted him calling him useless and weak and everything that Izuku had always known about himself. He cringed back from the voices, allowing his hands to drop and for him to stumble a few steps back from Katsuki's slowly stilling body. (What did he possibly think he could do?)
And yet.
And yet.
Despite all the years and all the hardships he'd been through, despite all the names and the pain and the tears, despite everything that Izuku had learned meant he was useless, he would not give up.
(He lunged forward once again, wrenching at the odd feeling in his gut and a loosened brick suddenly flung itself forward slamming into the villains eyes, causing it to flinch back, giving Katsuki a gasp of desperately needed air.)
A burning filled his body, lighting his nerves with electricity as power surged through his body.
(A wholeness filled Izuku, dragging his feet to the ground. His senses tingled as they registered more feeling than he felt in months.)
A leaden weight formed in his arms as they burned and tingled and flickered like a weakened flame struggling to catch ahold of its strength.
(The stones below him dug painfully into his school shoes' thin soles sending bites of pain into his feet.)
Izuku would not give up. He was intangible, and dead, and unable to be a hero and he couldn't grab the slime. By all accounts, he couldn't do anything.
(With nearly nonexistent hope, Izuku reached out for Kacchan's wrist.)
But for once, Izuku refused to be useless.
Black began encroaching on Katsuki's vision. This was it. As his eyes began to drift closed, the painful fire burning in his lungs began to increase, suffocating him.
Then, suddenly, relief.
The slime villain had flinched back, allowing Katsuki to get the breath he'd been unable to get for the past few minutes. On instinct, he gasped in air, eyesight clearing and catching a glimpse of familiar wide viridian eyes as a soft hand closed tightly around his wrists. Katsuki's heart stuttered. He had died, hadn't he?
"Deku?" A beaming smile spread across the green-haired boys face.
