Chapter 5: Deku

It was the middle of the night Katsuki Bakugo could not help but stare in disbelief at what was before his eyes, he was currently watching the news on his television, and what he saw were the reports of an abandoned dye factory apparently having exploded. According to the reporters, this was believed to be the factory that the missing boy, Izuku Midoriya had been held hostage at.

On the screen, there was footage taken from a helicopter's point of view, it was of a burning collapsed industrial building that was surrounded by police cars, firetrucks and ambulances. The reports were saying that the police had arrived at the building along with the No.1 hero All Might and a few other heroes. And that they came to stage a rescue, but the time they all got into position there was an explosion that collapsed the whole structure and injured several officers, and pro heroes.

What's more, the police investigators were saying that the explosion was believed to be a result of a volatile chemical reaction, and that Izuku as well as the villains who took him had all been killed. They said that the explosion was intentionally caused by the villains to keep themselves out of jail, at the cost of their lives. They had found no bodies as everyone who was close to the center of the explosion would have had no remains.

A police officer on the ground was explaining all this to the reporters as firefighters worked to put out the fire in the background. He said that all the people who were in the building had likely died and that they were still searching the surrounding area to see if anyone had fled and made it out safely, but that they didn't have any luck in that endeavor so far, nor did they expect to in the future.

Bakugo could not believe what he was hearing, none of this felt right. Izuku couldn't be dead, Katsuki had known him for his entire life, Izuku had always been a constant in Katsuki's life. But now he was somehow dead, the last thing he said to Izuku was that he was better off having been killed, but now that had actually happened and he could only think about everything he had done to Izuku.

Come to think of it, he couldn't even begin to take count of the number of times he had told his childhood friend that he should die, most of those times had just been out of anger, but some of those times, it was like had been serious about wanting him to die. He then felt something below his eyes, and when he moved his hand to check, he felt salty tears. This left him even more puzzled, why was he now crying, why would he cry for someone as useless as Deku?

One month later…

The whole thing had been too easy, faking his own death and escaping the factory before he died for real, was surprisingly too easy. He had placed the gasoline carefully to ensure that he would have more than enough time to make his getaway, and by the time the police and heroes arrived, he had already been gone for over 10 minutes.

The explosion had been bigger than he expected too, but then again he didn't really know what was in those chemical vats so he didn't know what he really had expected. The irony was so funny he could almost laugh, after all it made perfect sense that Izuku Midoriya would have died in an explosion.

Currently walking through the alleyways, Deku was wearing the new ensemble he had put together. He wore a blood red and black hoodie with the sleeves torn off at the elbows, along with a black one-strap backpack strapped across his torso that held all his earthly possessions. He also had on black and white sweatpants, bandages wrapped around his forearms, gloves and shoes that were the same red and black in color, and a utility belt on his waist with a small multitude of knives sheathed. Resting on his forehead was a pair of military goggles with black frames and red lenses, and he had his green hair cut a bit shorter, and dyed the same dark red as the rest of his outfit, in order to minimize the similarity between his old face, and this one.

To top the whole costume off, on Deku's lower face he wore a half face mask that concealed everything from his nose to his neck. It was a sleek black mask that was outlined in red, and on it, painted in white, was a cartoonish, sharp toothed evil grin, that had a shape similar to an upside down triangle. The paint used was the luminescent kind, so the smile would give off a slight glow when it was in the dark. He had acquired the finer points of the costume, including the mask from a street broker named Giran, whose business card he had found among the possessions of the villains Deku had killed a month ago.

If he were to describe Giran in one word, that word would probably be slimy. Giran was the kind of man who profited off of the ill intent of others, so it was natural that he would seem so shifty. To tell the truth, Deku had contemplated killing Giran, as he probably had some part in his kidnapping, and likely he knew his identity. In the end he decided against it, as Giran was now his only acquaintance in this new world he was in, and he would always help so long as he was compensated.

For the last few weeks Deku had been locating, observing and then fighting minor villains. All this was for the purpose of acquiring skill and practice in combat, as well as testing his ability to analyse quirks, and apply knowledge of his enemy to shift the odds in his favor during a fight. He started small at first, fighting one on one with minor crooks, and eventually he had moved to fighting small groups. Of course Deku didn't win every single fight and had been forced to retreat a few times, but whether he won or lost didn't actually matter, what did were the lessons learned from each experience, regardless of victory or defeat.

And because of this growth mindset he had become much better at both combat, and quirk analysis. Aside from the useful skills Deku had gained, he had also acquired a small number of new scars across his body, and face. These scars were marks of experience, proof that he was growing into somebody stronger every day, somebody strong enough to fight back against this hero society, somebody strong enough to become a monster.

In fact that was the reason Deku was here in his new costume today. Izuku Midoriya's death had become old news now, and the public and the police had shifted their gazes to new topics, that was why it was the perfect time for Deku to make his debut. It was time for him to finally kill a hero.

Deku smiled beneath his mask, as a villainous gleam showed in his eyes. He then slid the tinted goggles over his eyes, and just like that night in the factory a month ago, the whole world was dyed red.

In an alleyway...

"HELP! HELP!" a woman's scream echoed in the night.

Currently Deku was in an alleyway, holding the blade of a knife to the neck of a brown haired woman. The woman was the first person he had seen walking near the alleyway and so, he had restrained her, and told her to scream for the heroes to save her, but he got the impression that she wasn't screaming because he told her to. The reason for doing this was in order to get the attention of a hero, specifically the pro hero Glintfist.

Deku had been stalking Glintfist for the last 4 days, and he had surmised that this was the part of his patrol route where he would be at this time, so it was only a matter of time before he heard the cries and came to the rescue. Glintfist's quirk was one that gave him the ability to launch glowing projectiles from his fists, that could blind and cause damage to his opponents; it was an ability that was effective at both long, and close range.

Deku had recorded all this information in his new notebook "Villainy #1 that he stored in his backpack along with everything else that he owned. For some reason the villains who kidnapped him had apparently disposed of his hero notebook's, and so Deku had to start them all over again, but he didn't see this as an issue and instead saw this as a chance for a fresh start, and he still had memorized information from his previous note books.

"Let the woman go Villain!" shouted the determinate voice of a man rounding the corner into the alleyway.

The person in question was a well muscled man in his late 20s, dressed in a gold and purple costume, that had protective pads guarding his shoulders, elbows, and knees. Over his eyes he wore a gold visor meat to protect his eyes from the light of his own attacks, and his blonde hair was slicked back, and had streaks of purple running down it. This was the man that Deku was looking for, this was Glintfist, here to save the day.

"FINALLY! I was waiting for you to arrive!" Deku aggressively retorted as he released his hostage, and rushed the hero with a knife.

As she was released, she fell to the ground, and backed up using her hands until she backed up against a dumpster less than 20 feet away. Seeing that the woman was now safe, and the villain was now attacking, Glintfist, already in a combat stance reared his right arm back, his fist glowing as he did so; and he pushed his fist out towards the villain. This launched a golden glowing projectile at his adversary like it was a home run.

Deku however did not release his only leverage in this situation without a plan, he was fully aware of Glintfist's combat capabilities, and weaknesses. Deku jumped out of the projectile's path before it had even been launched, ignoring the burst of light that exploded out from behind him when the projectile collided with a building. Having dogged the attack, Deku leapt forward at Glintfist with his knife, Glintfist tried to doge, but he was a split second too late, and received a cut on his right shoulder that was an inch deep.

"Guess you aren't so heroic after all, huh, Glint?" Deku said, disappointed.

Giving Deku a determined glare in response, Glintfist began to power up his left arm for a direct punch. Deku, seeing this attack coming, simply dogged it, allowing for the projectile to smack into the wall behind him and bracing for the shock wave that would ensue. But what he didn't see coming was Glintfist's right hand taking advantage of the temporarily staggered villain. Glintfist grabbed Deku by the neck and slammed his back against the wall of the building with a painful thud, his left hand then grappled Deku's right, twisting it and forcing him to release his grip on the knife.

"It's over. I'm bringing you in to the police, villain." Glint fist said stoically.

Glintfist had successfully disarmed and restrained Deku, but he had made a mistake. Both of his arms were now occupied restraining Deku, but Deku still had his left arm free.

"Big mistake!" Deku said to his adversary, with a smile that echoed the one painted on his mask.

With his left hand, Deku grabbed a knife from his belt, and stabbed the hero in his gut about three times, before he released his grip on Deku. Glintfist hunched over and backed up, hand clutching his new wounds. Deku, having recovered, made his way over to the hero who had now been forced to his knees from the pain.

"Now then, let's conclude this duel of ours, Hero." Deku mocked, as he got ready to finish the job.

Gritting his teeth, Glintfist powered up for a right hook, and this time he had caught Deku by surprise. The superpowered punch made contact with Deku's lower stomach, and he was sent flying across the entire length of the alleyway before crashing to the ground. Then Glintfist rose to his feet with one hand still clutching his stomach, he pressed a finger to his ear, activating the earpiece.

"This is Glintfist, I need the support of any other heroes in the area. I'm currently facing off a villain, I don't know what his quirk is yet, but he isn't to be underestimated." Glintfist said as he glared at the villain who was recovering from the blow.

"Shit!" Deku hissed.

He cursed himself for underestimating this guy, he had allowed himself to be caught by surprise not once, but twice, he had underestimated his resolve as a hero. Deku would sear this mistake into his memory, he would not make these same mistakes again, he promised himself that. But reflection would come later, now he had to focus on winning before he was outnumbered.

"Surrender now villain, you'll be outnumbered shortly!" Glintfist warned as he readied himself to throw another punch.

Once Deku got up, he grabbed another knife in his right hand, and once again ran straight for Glintfist, this time even faster than before. The hero threw another glowing projectile, but Deku dogged it, and threw the knife in Glintfist's direction. As the hero readied to throw a punch with his left fist, the bladed weapon found itself in Glintfist's left bicep, which stopped him from launching the attack. Deku drew a knife in his left hand, and sprinted straight for Glintfist, who tried to block with his right arm, but he missed the knife. As Deku leaped forward and successfully stabbed him clean through the heart, and in only a few seconds, the hero was dead.

Deku now stood over Glintfist's still warm corpse, now was the time for the final part of this hunt, now he would have to mark his kill. He pondered for a second, how should he mark it? Of course there was only one way. Deku removed the golden visor, revealing a pair of brown eyes, he then took his knife and made several cuts beneath each eye, the result of this act, made the corpse look like it was crying bloody tears.

Satisfied with his work, Deku smiled, but then he noticed what was behind him.

"Oh, so you're still here?" Deku said, as he noticed the woman he had held hostage earlier was still sitting against the dumpster, unable to move from the fear. "I'm surprised you haven't run away."

He began walking over to her, and the terror in her eyes grew, as she tried to make herself smaller, in the wake of the approaching murderer. When he got what he deemed as close enough, Deku crouched and got at eye level with her.

"Do you mind doing me a favor?' he said, in a hushed tone.

The woman kept cowering, and still couldn't respond, but didn't break eye contact either.

"When the heroes come, make sure to tell them, that DEKU is here!" he said as his whisper rose to a yell as he emphasized his moniker.

And in an instant, the red-clad villain disappeared into the night.

At UA…

All Might was sitting down on an outdoor bench, in his powered down form, holding a piece of paper in his hand. The papers were the proof that he had been hired by UA High School, and that when the next school year began, he would be working as a teacher. But despite this, or maybe because of it, he couldn't help but feel like a fake.

Actually, he knew exactly why he felt this way, it was because of Izuku Midoriya, the kid he had failed to save from peril, peril that All Might had put him in to begin with. A kid had died because of him, and now he was running away from that fact by playing teacher. He had tried to apologize personally to the boy's mother, but when he found himself at her door he couldn't bring himself to knock. What kind of hero was he? His arrogance had gotten an innocent killed, and he wasn't ever strong enough to take responsibility.

Right now, he didn't feel like a hero, he didn't feel like he was invincible, he just felt pathetic, and right now, he just wanted to hide away, in some other world.