Wrote this one shot based on the most recent manga chapter!
Deku soared through the air, with Float to keep him airborne as 45% Shoot Style kicks handled his manoeuvring.
He did his best to ignore his torn costume snagging on an open wound on his calf; All Might never worried about things as trivial as that, so Deku didn't have to worry about it either. What hope could he have at defeating All For One if he could handle a little discomfort?
His predecessor managed to keep Japan on his shoulders with a gaping hole in his stomach; it'd be an insult to One For All if he began fussing over petty gashes.
The cut wasn't deep, and the tight costume successfully managed to keep blood from spilling out, so he didn't have to stop and tend to his wounds.
Crime never rested, and neither would he.
…A break would be nice though.
Some reprieve from the dull aches in his bones and minuscule muscle tears from overusing Full Cowl would be amazing. The thought of a simple, warm shower was enough to make him want to—
No.
Shigaraki. All For One. One For All.
He had to keep moving. Time wasted on himself meant other people would only get hurt.
As if responding to his thoughts, he felt that oh-so-irritating pain at the back of his mind, alerting him to another incident.
Danger Sense was a perfect quirk for a hero, but sometimes Deku wished it would just be quiet.
Kicking towards the street a few blocks away, he felt the stinging headache alleviate itself as he grew closer to the scene, eventually hushing down to a pinprick in his temple when he located the criminal.
Shigeo Suda. 9 counts of murder, with 4 attempted murders to boot.
The explosive flames licking at his hair (courtesy of his quirk) made him one of the more easily recognisable villains from the roster of escaped Tartarus convicts.
Lashing out a tendril of Black Whip, he snared the unsuspecting man in his quirk as he drew him closer, meeting him halfway in the air as he rendered him unconscious with a kick.
Deactivating Float, he landed on the floor and fished around for some capture tape inside his costume.
Empty pouch.
Again.
He didn't know why he bothered checking - he ran out of the resource 14 villains ago.
Tearing at his costume, he grabbed a strip of cloth and bound Shigeo's hands before tying him to a lamppost. He spotted a police car on the way to the incident, so they'd clean up the mess for him.
He turned to the huddled dozen civilians, who were staring at him with wide, terrified eyes.
He supposed he could understand. They did just witness a villain attack, so it wasn't surprising that they were weary.
"Hey." He greeted, waving towards the frozen crowd. "I'm Dek—"
"Nomu!"
Deku instinctively turned around upon hearing the woman's shriek, however found nothing in his sight.
Was it hiding—
No.
It couldn't be hiding because there couldn't be a Nomu.
He spent enough time tearing at his hair in the hopes of deactivate Danger Sense to know that the quirk never failed him.
Turning back to the crowd, he found them taking hesitant steps backwards, their eyes still trained on him in terror.
"…multiple quirks…"
"…monster…"
"…looks evil…"
He did his best to piece together their hushed whispers until he came to a conclusion - they were talking about him.
He tried to ignore the pang in his heart and raised his hands in surrender, intending to diffuse the situation.
Unfortunately, upon seeing his hands move, the group lost all pretence of hesitance and sprinted away from him.
He lowered his hands as he exhaled a deep sigh.
He wished he could run after them.
To assure them they were safe because he was here.
Maybe he could even have a conversation with one of them, in order to both vent his experiences and rest his—
Deku almost laughed at his idiocy.
Crime never rested, and neither would he.
Firing up Full Cowl, he did his best to forget about the searing ache in his chest and focus on any inevitable pain in his skull.
—
Deku didn't know how long he continued his patrol for. He didn't know how many villains he apprehended, or the amount of civilians that ran in terror at the sight of his battered form.
But what he did know was that he was exhausted.
Any previous fatigue he felt in his life was nothing compared to the haze clouding his mind as his body struggled to keep up with the demands of Danger Sense. The only reason his mind continued to push through the fog in his head was because of the threat of extra pain being inflicted upon it.
He felt an internal alarm blare as his body instinctively dodged to the right, only for a bigger alarm to sound as he crashed into the wall of the alleyway he was flying through.
Upon impact, it was almost as if his quirks knew that he was done for. Full Cowl, Float and even the Black Whips he was using to hold his costume together all abandoned him as he fell to ground.
"Ha! I gotcha!" A masculine voice exclaimed in triumph nearby him.
He couldn't even muster the strength to turn his head towards them, so he settled for remaining still.
"That old fuck promised me a huge prize if I brought you in, and you're here on a silver platter!"
Old.
Prize.
All For One.
This was clearly one of the assassins the quirk thief sent to retrieve him.
Deku tuned the man out (missing the moment he also fell to the ground) and did his best to force One For All back into action before absentmindedly detecting a dull ache in his cerebrum.
For the first time, he dearly hoped that was Danger Sense coming back to harass him. The fall he took was pretty bad, and a head injury would mean he'd be more inefficient at saving lives.
He grabbed a hold of One For All's familiar warmth but felt it continuously slipping out of his grip, preventing him from activating the power.
Was this..it? A two-bit thug in an alleyway managed to take him out? He almost hoped the man would actually kill him—
Wait.
That wasn't a bad idea.
All For One wouldn't be able to take his quirk, meaning its two wielders would eventually die, right? Shigaraki seemed to have some issues regarding his body, and the old man was riddled with health problems.
Without One For All, was there a possibility they'd simply kick the bucket?
He noticed a shard of broken glass in his peripheral.
10 cm long with a width of 5 cm.
Enough for a quick slice to the jugular.
He'd just have to reach over, and he could finally get some rest. The world would be safe, and he'd die a perfect hero—
"Deku!"
His eyes snapped up from the shard, and he would've recoiled in shock at the sight greeting him had it not been for his inability to move.
"Ura…Uraraka?" He whispered weakly as the girl lifted him with her quirk, slowly resting his head in her lap.
"Mhm." She nodded. "It's me—"
"Stay back!" He caught a second wind, managing to muster the strength to roll off of her thighs and onto the floor. "You're Toga, aren't you?" He asked, his voice boarding on hysteria. "You must've transformed into that man, and captured me, and transformed into her to trick me!"
The girl simply grabbed him once more, returning him to his position on her lap in order to talk to him.
"During the sports festival, you offered me notes on how to defeat Bakugo, remember?" She asked softly.
His eyes lit up in realisation.
"You're really…" He whispered, before shaking himself out of his stupor. "You need to let me go."
His body began shaking in an effort to get up.
"I'm safe now, but I can't afford to rest." He spoke through grit teeth. "I've got to save everyone—"
"Izuku."
He snapped his focus towards her, noticing how her eyes were firmly fixated on his.
"You're doing the best that you can. You can't look after people if you can't look after yourself."
"I don't have time for that!" He shouted. "If they catch me, it's over. I've got to keep moving—"
"Look at you!" She firmly interjected. "You can't move anywhere. Just take a break, and you can move when you're rested."
"If I rest, it'll just give them more time to get stronger." He countered. "I've got to do this, and as quickly as possible. There's people out there suffering because of my quirk…" He trailed off weakly, before gaining resolve back in his voice. "I've got to make sure everyone can smile again."
"I'm not smiling, am I?"
He took notice of her appearance before finally noticing what seemed off.
She really wasn't smiling.
Uraraka, the girl who encouraged him to keep moving with a bubbly grin was there with her mouth a thin line and her eyes filled with watery tears.
"It's not just me." She spoke. "It's our entire class. All Might. Your mother."
His mind flashed briefly towards that painful sight of his mother crying, sobbing out apologies as he came to terms with his quirklessness.
"The hero Deku can rest." She assured softy, running a hand through his hair. "We're all here to pick up the slack when Izuku needs a break."
He didn't know what compelled him.
The lone tear streaking down Uraraka's face, the memory of his mother, or even the stockpiled pain from his heroic work.
But in that moment, Deku rested as Izuku began to cry in Ochako's lap.
Personally, I was a little frustrated that Bakugo was the one to reach out the most vocally to Izuku. Ochako's statement in the JT arc was that she wanted to be the one who saves the heroes when they're so caught up in saving others, so in my mind it was a wasted opportunity not to have her do the brunt of the talking.
But hey - who knows? I might just be an impatient idiot, and Horikoshi might throw in an Ochako confrontation in the next chapter.
Hope you enjoyed - drop any thoughts in the reviews!