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Hey there! We've hit [150, 000] which is so awesome! I never thought I'd get that many, and it makes me super proud to see! As 1[5]0K special, I'm [etting you know I aready released] the first chapter[s] of Prelude to Jadeite, a prologue-y thing to the vigilante!Izuku fic I talked about ages ago [(did I even do that on Fanfiction?)]! Posting it should compel me to finish it and get Jadeite itself out, too, so here's hoping!
[fanfiction story id=13582110]
(Lol can you guys guess what that AN originally was before the [edits]?)
Izuku did his best to shutter out the fear and panic that left his limbs shaky as he tore his gaze away from Aizawa's incorporeal body. His teacher spirit was much less corporeal than that of most ghosts, shimmering with uneven light, so maybe-Izuku reached a trembling hand out and felt for his teachers a pulse. A moment passed, with a tension that grew higher and hitched his shoulders.
He couldn't feel anything. Was Aizawa dead? Nonono-Izuku couldn't have failed like that, he promised he wouldn't, he had promised he would save people this time how could he have let a prohero die it was-a subtle pressure against his hand, the faintest sign of a pulse.
Izuku nearly laughed in relief as a sob bubbled up in his throat. He hadn't failed yet! Aizawa was still alive, even if just barely.
"M-Midoriya?" Izuku's gaze snapped upward instinctively, where Aizawa's voice came out strangled as he looked down at his student checking for his own heartbeat. They met eyes for a single second, viridian on silver, before Izuku's glance darted away. Maybe Aizawa didn't notice. Izuku could only hope so-what would his teacher think if he knew Izuku could see ghosts? "Midoriya-what the hell is happening?" Izuku couldn't help his flinch.
Izuku jerked his attention away from his teacher's not-dead body and found himself face to face with a hand reaching out to his face. He almost didn't dodge, hand skimming through some of his hair as he skidded a few feet away. There had been no premonition.
"Oh?" The man breathes, eyes trained on Izuku's revealed temple. "That's an interesting scar you've got there."
Izuku recoiled, hand jumping to his hairline, where he knew the jagged starburst of cracked and scarred skin stood raised, just barely covered by his hair most days. Where he had crushed his head on the pavement. His heart raced.
He pat his hair down quickly.
"Someone doesn't like to talk about that, hmmm ?" Shigaraki taunted. "What, is it proof that your heros failed you?" Seeing the way he blanched, Shigaraki cackled. "Of course it is! Your heros ," he spat the word out like a curse, "Don't care about you." His laughing grew maniacal. "They don't care about any of us!" Silence. The laughing stopped as the unhinged man's emotions completely flipped. "So they won't care if you die."
He lunged forward again, but this time Izuku was prepared and he ducked quickly, using what may as well be his signature move at this point as he tugged the villain into the ground, surprised when the force was once again strong enough to crack the rough stony ground. The ringing in his head increased a notch, limbs fuzzy with static. Ignoring it, Izuku pinned Shigaraki down, hands tightly pinning his wrists.
Despite being pinned with rough stone cutting into his skin, Shigaraki just chuckled. "It's so funny, hero-kun , that you think they will love you if you defeat us. That society will care."
"Midoriya," Aizawa called out from where he crouched next to his body. "I know you can hear me. Don't listen to him, okay." Izuku wished he had the choice.
It was almost funny, how well the man Izuku had not spoken a word to had managed to pinpoint his insecurities so well. But Izuku had already reached the peak of them, and he wouldn't let a villain drive him to that point again. Instead, he leaned down and whispered to the villain so his teacher wouldn't hear. "I already knew that, Shigaraki-san ," he knew his voice wavered, and he was on the brink of tears, but he also knew it didn't matter. "But I want to be a hero so I can save those people the others don't, save them from others, and from themselves. I-" His voice cracked despite his best efforts. "I'm going to be the hero that I always begged for, that so many people have needed but never got!"
Shigaraki seemed shaken beneath him, small tremors running through his arms. Izuku tensed as his hand jerked up, but it was toward his neck. "Itchy…" Shigaraki muttered. "So itchy." He turned one crazed red eye toward Izuku, dark crimson ringed by lines of dry skin. "You don't have a clue what you're talking about." He barked out a short, uncontained laugh. "You have no fucking clue! You're just a spoiled hero brat who doesn't know what it's like to not be saved!" He stilled again, back to mumbling. "So itchy." The man twisted his neck uncomfortably so that his manic grin of chipped teeth was pointed at Izuku. "Hey…" he said conversationally. "I really want to destroy you."
"Midoriya!" Izuku jumped off at Aizawa's warning, as the glimmer of a portal opened under Shigaraki.
"Bummer." Shigaraki pouted as he stepped out of the portal next to the noumu, whose brain was almost fully healed.
"Shigaraki," Kurgogiri began, but the other villain interrupted him in a low voice.
"Shut up"
The misty villain seemed to sigh. "Of course."
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Izuku shivered tensing up as Shigaraki looked at him. Such a mild voice could convey such anger… there was something dangerous about it that set his nerves sparking. He begun scratching his neck furiously again muttering to himself at a volume they couldn't hear from the distance. "YOU CHEATED!" Shigaraki screamed suddenly, Izuku flinched back slightly at the violence in his guttural cry. "What fucking cheat code did you use?" He growled, stalking forward. "What's the redeem code that gave you access to my backstory like that? Who do you think you are, pretending like you understand me, huh?"
Izuku blinked at the man, guard automatically lowering. His… backstory ? He had been talking about himself of course, but he recognized the hurt that undlay the vehemence in Shigaraki's voice. To know that this dangerous villain had a similar enough backstory to him unsettled Izuku-in another life, would he have turned out like this man? Hell-bent on hating and destroying everything that had hurt him, even society itself? He would like to think not, but if a few things had been different… Who knows. Tōrei hadn't been entirely wrong, after all.
Izuku watched the man cautiously as he paced, scratching at his neck and pulling at strands of pale hair. "What can I do to hurt you?" he snarled to himself, teeth creaking through his growl. "How can I make you pay? What are you're weakness, how much have you upgraded your skillset...You must be using hacks." ; Shigaraki glanced up, growl peaking. "I guess all I can do is break you." The villain made to step forward.
"Shigaraki," Kurogiri snapped.
" WHAT? " yelled the villain petulantly.
"Have the Noumu do it."
" What? " He asked again, disgust ringing in his tone. "I want to break him myself!" He argued petulantly.
"Shigaraki," the portal-man berated sharply. "What would Sensei tell you to do?"
The villain huffed, hands reaching up to his neck as he grumbled to himself. "He would warn me that I don't know this NPC's quirk and I should use lackeys to do my dirty work."
"Exactly-"
"But he also told me I could destroy whatever I want to. And I want to destroy him." He turned a maniac eye back to Izuku. "And I'm going to turn him to dust."
Shouta didn't like this. At all.
His students weren't supposed to be anywhere near facing villains yet, and here they all were facing death. Mirdoya, the shy, awkward kid who sometimes had a quirk that broke his bones, and other times made his body disappear, was apparently Midori, and had somehow known the villains were going to attack. It didn't make sense.
And he was standing besides his body. Nothing made any damn sense.
Shouta prided himself on being ahead of things, he worked with the police and vigilantes and the underbelly of society, so why was he so out of depth?
Out of body?
Seriously, he wished he could just go to sleep and forget this hell had all happened. But no-one second he was having his head smashed into concrete, and the next he was standing in a cloud of dust, body uncomfortably cold and with none of the pain he should be feeling. His first thought was that he was dead, and it didn't seem incorrect when he'd looked down at his body.
He'd had to watch his student take his pulse, and when Midoriya's name slipped out, he had not missed the way he looked up at the sound. For whatever reason, as soon as their eyes seemed to meet, Midoriya had gone back to checking his heartbeat. By the way his student's shoulders slumped in a released tension, Shouta could assume he was still alive-but that answered very few questions.
Before he could ask any, Midoriya had engaged with the villain. Despite himself, Shouta had been impressed at the fluidity that Midroya moved with, dodging the villain and beginning his own counterattack in the span of a breath. He took the opportunity to crouch at the side of his body, uncomfortable looking down on it.
Shouta's assumption was proved when Midoriya reacted to his warning. But that just begged the question of why he could hear Shouta's…. Ghost. Really, why did Shouta get stuck with all the damn problem children?
With the villains on the other side of the plaza, Aizawa hoped that Izuku would take the opportunity to run but he just stayed, watching and tense for battle. Fucking kid-they were talking about destroying him! These were real villains, and Midoriya couldn't really hope to survive them.
"Midoriya, disengage." His student didn't react. " Midoriya ." Shouta repeated, an edge to his voice.
Seeming to make a decision, his student looked back, meeting Shouta's gaze boldly. Midoriya Izuku shook his head, and said through his bright green eyes, I won't give up until everyone is safe. I will protect them.
And just like that, he lunged forward to meet Shigaraki. All Shouta could do was watch his student's back. He doesn't need to do much-Midoriya weaves expertly around Shigaraki's attacks, not retaliating much, and the few times Izuku dodges and ends up facing Shouta, he has a determined smile beaming at the villain. It's almost like he's taunting Shigaraki, with the ease he ducks under Shigaraki's swings, and spins out of the way of an outstretched hand without going on the offensive. Shouta would reprimand him for being careless, but out of the fray himself, he is able to simply observe and notice the way his eyes stay trained on Shigaraki and never gets within easy reach. He's not engaging because he's playing around, but because he wants to stay safe-
Is he stalling? What for- Iida. They'd said a student had escaped, and if anyone had, the boy with the speed quirk was most likely. So the heros were coming, and all they had to do was hold out until then. Midoriya might be less reckless than Shouta had originally thought.
They would still be having a talk about his activities with the police. If they made it out of this alive.
A hand gets too close to Izuku, reaching out to his arm, and Izuku flinches, flashing his other hand out and over Shigaraki's. Instantly, a crack rings out as Shigaraki's wrist breaks when hand is snapped in the wrong direction. With a quick clench of Izuku's hand, the other small bones pop as they fracture.
Shigaraki jumps back spitting out curses as he cradles his practically crushed hand up to his face. It was surprisingly ruthless from Midoriya, but Shouta had seen the panic at the hand brushing against his sleeve and it was a tactical move, all things considered.
"KUROGIRI!" the villain growls. "Cut him in half."
"Of course."
The portal opens midair, around Midoriya's midsection, closing instantly. Shouta gets a flash of his student, dull-eyed as the top half of his body slides off, leaving blood and guts pooling out.
Instead, the portal closes around his midsection, leaving Midoriya completely unscathed. He grinned cheekily. "Well that didn't work very well, did it?"
Shigaraki snarled ferally. "STOP USING CHEATS. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A NPC!" He took a menacing step forward. "I'm going to kill you, and I'm gonna make it slow." He threatened.
"Lol, good luck with that." Did Midoriya really… just use text talk out loud? In a situation like this? Shouta almost face palmed, but he saw the way Shigaraki's head perked up, catching sight of something behind Izuku.
"Well, then I'll just have to kill someone else!" The villain shrieked in a frenzied joy as he lunged into Kurogiri's portal, which opened a few feet away from the approaching pair of Bakugou and Kirishima.
"Midoriya!" Shouta yelled, and watched in slow motion as Midoriya turned around and registered his classmates's danger. In less than an instant, the small green boy flung himself forward, a scream tearing itself out of his throat. He had no time to reach his classmates, to stop the villains hands from making contact with the boy he was aiming for. It was doubtful that even his telepathic range would be enough. Shouta turned to his own body, frantically shoving it, before his vision disappeared, just sound left.
"KACCHAN!"
He found himself with a face buried in crush cement, memories of the past few minutes blurry, but an urgency to lift his head just in time to see Shigaraki's hand already tight around Midoriya's face.
Shigaraki's hand was rough on his face, finger nails sharp and leaving little crescents on his cheeks. He wasn't disintegrating though, which was good.
The villain scoffed. "You really are just too cool, Eraserhead." Sure enough, his teacher had somehow found his way back into his body and had his grey gaze trained on them. Grey…? Izuku twitches a hand, reaching for telekinesis, despite the sharp spike of electricity the strain sends through his head. Shigaraki, noticing the movement, pulled back, getting a safe distance away.
Just in time, as in the distance, Aizawa slumped back over, head falling softly into dirt, though his spirit did not reappear.
The villain gazed at him contemplating as he stood, arms spread in a protective wariness in front of the other two boys.
"Get out of the fucking way, Deku! I can take him!" Kacchan yelled from behind Izuku, drawing Shigaraki's stare.
" Kacchan , hmm?" His focus twisted back to Izuku. "Ne, Hero-kun, how about I kill him instead?"
Izuku's heart thudded at the deranged laughter, taking a step back as a stronger fear washed over him. The man's killing intent had grown impossibly strong, hair mangled and eyes bulging with bloodless. "Hey hey, it'll be fun!" Shigaraki giggled. "Let's play a game," he beamed, teeth chipped. "Noumu," the man started, his voice low and dark and noxious. "Kill the blond one."
Panic soared, crescendoing and becoming a roaring, crashing, aching orchestra in Izuku's ears that rang with the boom of thunder sparking across an empty plain. His form crackled with lightning and snapping electricity that sparked chaotically, uncontrollably as his form flickered rapidly, no longer stable. Nonononononono if Shigaraki said kill then the noumu would kill in a second. A snapped neck, a crushed body, blood staining blond hair, grisly bones poking through pale skin. No time to think or do a single thing against the monster that was wrong wrong wrong , Izuku raised his output as far as it would go, ignoring the loud shrieking in his head- much to much to much TO MUCH CAN'T COnTroL IT I CAN'T- and threw himself over Kacchan.
The punch connected solidify, shaking the ground and send a massive cloud of rubble into the air that cast shifting shadows of smoke on the ground.
Those watching tensed as the dust began to clear, expecting the damaged corpse of a body with all it's bone's cracked, shattered and arms askew. They weren't far off-just a little bit wrong.
"HAHAHAH!" Shigaraki cackled. "He really though he could do anything!" he shrieked, voice cracking in delight.
The dust settled, but no sun shown on the darkened plaza as it revealed a small figure dressed in black with hair that should have been green but looked far more like obsidian.
" Ne… " a small voice rang out, higher than it should have been, the soft voice of a middle-school boy. Blood dripped from blackened curls, streaming down a white face and dripping to the pool that stained the ground.
Complete, unreasonable fear crashed over the four others standing in the clearing, a heavy weight that made Shigaraki's knees weak, and the noumu call out in a discomfort that it should not have been able to feel.
Black light from indistinct charcoal flames flickered at the boy's feet and glanced off the liquid crimson that stained the boy's arms and soaked unstaunched through tattered bandages. A bloodied smile grinned wide from a scuffed face, pulling at the blood that dropped from his chin. " Ne... " the boy repeated, grin stretching too wide, growing menacing with flickers of that adumbral fire that lit darkly shaded glowing eyes. " Would you like to try that again? "
I just realized-and yes this is a little late-but Izuku's ability to float is very poetic considering canon.
And also-I looked at both the manga and the anime for this chapter (Because let me tell you: it was DIFFICULT to write this chapter, since I changed everything around)-and Shigaraki really is so calm. He's childish, obviously, but much less so than I usually think. He doesn't loose control until the very end.
You'll notice All Might has yet to show up. Despite the early warning Izuku gave and also Iida, and the police. Well. We COULD call it plot convenience (because, yes, there are certain things I want to happen, and All Might would damage that) but instead, lets just think about how a group of police are gone, so All Might is having a more difficult time getting all those criminals behind bars. Will this affect the time he has left to fight the noumu? Yes… but he also hasn't passed on OFA yet, so let's just… you know, pretend like time works the way I want it to?
I'd also like to let you know that I really, really wanted to leave this chapter on the end of Aizawa's POV. *sighs in cliffhanger sadism* Not that I didn't still leave a cliffhanger….