A/N: Trigger Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Suicide and Aftermath.
This is a Guardian! Izuku fanfiction. I hope you enjoy. Please leave a review if you do! :d
The blond boy writhed uselessly in the viscous sludge, his crimson eyes alight with fear and desperation in equal parts. Asking, begging, for someone to come and save him. Anyone.
Yet, even with those eyes seemingly on him, seemingly burning through his soul and being, Toshinori couldn't find himself able to move.
His hand helplessly clutching at his sore wound, he could only watch as the boy suffered. And hope, hope that someone else – someone who was not him, who was not weak – would soon arrive and save the poor child from his fate.
A Hero, perhaps. But there were so many already surrounding the Villain, and none had managed to defeat the body-snatcher so far. They all wanted him. They couldn't do it. Only he could.
And he could. If he weren't so weak, weren't so useless, then he could end this in the blink of an eye. But the power bubbling within him was just inches out of reach, too far for his hands to grasp and use. At this moment, he was as good as Quirkless, as good as useless.
So, instead of helping a boy who desperately needed him, he stood at the back of the worrying crowd with his head hung low and bile rising in his throat. Doing nothing and being nothing.
At least, until Death Arms shouted out in alarm. "W- Wait! Get back here, kid!"
Looking up, Toshinori watched in shock as the boy – the very same boy he'd just left alone on a rooftop after crushing his dreams – ducked under Death Arm's outstretched hand and sprinted into the burning street without even a speck of hesitation.
The first thought Toshinori had upon seeing the incredible sight was not one of worry for the boy nor one of surprise at his sudden heroism. No. Instead, he dimly questioned where the kid's bright red sneakers had disappeared to. He ran barefoot on the pavement, fluidly dodging the few powerful strands of sludge the Villain fired toward him as if it were second-nature.
And then he wondered why the kid had asked if he could be a Hero without a Quirk when he very clearly had a Quirk. Electricity-based, he guessed faintly as he watched him condense white-blue lightning into a small ball in his hand. The crackles of thunder emanating from the boy's palm rooted him and everyone else to the ground, an overpowering pressure falling upon the street as it expanded and thundered like a miniature storm held captive. The presence of the electric power was absolute, for what else could it be called but a presence?
What was he planning to do?
The boy pulled his arm back, suddenly lobbing the energy at the Villain. The brightness of it intensified, dangerously so, and Toshinori only barely managed to cover his eyes from the makeshift flashbang's effects.
His ears were still ringing with soft crackles of thunder and the clamorous screams of the crowd when he reopened his eyes. A cloud of persisting electricity hung in the air where the flashbang had gone off, slowly shrinking and disappearing into itself.
The boy; he'd sworn he was truly Quirkless. The manner in which he spoke, acted, thought. Toshinori had felt it to be true, felt a connection of sorts – it didn't stop him from lashing out in anger and despair, from ruining the boy's dreams, but he'd felt that connection nonetheless.
But he supposed he was wrong. He had to be.
Because that same boy was now crouched on the opposite end of the street with the victim struggling yet held tightly in his arms while the sludge Villain cursed and rubbed at his eyes. It was… an impossibility. Toshinori blinked in simple shock at the scene, along with the few Heroes and civilians that had managed to shield their eyes from the flashbang.
In less than ten seconds, that boy had defused a situation that four – well, technically five, though he barely can count himself as a Hero for today's pitiful performance – Heroes had been utterly useless in.
Across the street, he quickly rushed away, disappearing into the street Mount Lady was protecting with the victim clutched close. And Toshinori still only watched, feeling taken-aback for the first time in a long while.
He had to find that boy again. Had to. His demeanour was completely different, his entire aura and presence opposite to what it was just moments ago. In the split second he had been able to see the boy's eyes, once soft and emerald yet now hardened and steel, he knew something was different. Something had changed.
Death Arms didn't waste a moment after the boy's disappearance before attacking the Villain, startling Toshinori back to the scene. It seemed that without a hostage in the way and with his opponent being a nearly completely blind Villain, the Construction Hero was able to wrestle the sludge into submission. Kamui Wood was able to capture the Villain not much longer. The situation was entirely done and dusted with only a minute after the boy had intervened.
Toshinori waited for a few more moments, watching as the aftermath played out and the Villain was arrested and carted away. He didn't cheer with the delighted crowd at the Heroes' victory, instead only thinking of the mysterious boy and how, had he not decided to intervene, the victim may very well have been killed in front of all of their eyes.
The crowd began to disperse at last, but Toshinori waited and watched for a good moment. He was planning on wandering through the charred streets towards Mount Lady and her two charges, and maybe learn a thing or two in the process. He came across her after a little bit of searching, finding her next to the ambulance and paramedics. The victim was long gone – he'd heard an ambulance screech away through the streets – but from the nonchalance of the remaining paramedic tending to some scalded civilians, Toshinori assumed the boy was mostly uninjured.
Meanwhile, the assumed-Quirkless-probably-not-so-much-Quirkless boy was being reamed by Mount Lady for his actions. Which was fair – he was a child. Certainly much more heroic than any of the Heroes here today, most of the civilians nearby thought privately. It was a sentiment Toshinori himself agreed with, but it did not change the facts; he was a child that had put himself in unnecessary danger.
He inched closer, listening to Mount Lady ramble on and on. Hand on his chin, he wondered how the boy would respond to her chastising. The moment on the rooftop was still absurdly clear in his mind – the regret he'd felt the moment he'd closed the door behind him, the guilt and anger that gnawed at him from the inside out, the grief for a dream he too once held. There, he'd taken his words with… relative grace. But considering that he was once Quirkless himself, he knew – thought he knew – what the boy's silence stood for.
He toed even closer, knowing exactly what he was going to do. He was going to speak to him, apologize for his harsh words, and, if he had the gall, ask him the meaning of his strange question.
Had he misunderstood the youth's intentions on the roof? Perhaps he had a younger sibling who was Quirkless, who had dreams. He bit his cheek – he certainly hoped not.
Mount Lady sighed as she spoke, rubbing her temple harshly. A smile quirked at his lips; it was clear the boy was not making this easy for her. "Alright, I'll admit that what you did was heroic. However, that doesn't mean you're not in trouble. You're old enough to know that you can't simply use your Quirk without some consequences. Especially like this – there were Heroes on the scene already! If things had gone wrong, you could have been seriously injured, or injured someone else." She crouched, looking him square in the eye. Her gaze was kind, but stern. "You can't just use your Quirk like that."
The boy looked up at her, his emerald eyes confused. In a voice completely honest and genuinely curious, he asked her, "What's a Quirk?"
Toshinori's train of thought stuttered to a stop. Eh?
"Eyes up, Guardian."
The melodic feminine voice stirred him from a seemingly deep sleep. Blearily blinking his eyes open, he slowly pushed himself up from the ground he was lying upon. His fingers slipped against some sticky liquid that was coating the ground beneath him, but he managed to sit up straight anyhow and look at the source of the voice.
It was a little floating robot, all sharp edges and geometric designs. A shell formed from eight roughly tetrahedral fins, each a gleaming golden, surrounded a spherical metal core with a circular screen displaying a single diamond that glowed a bright blue. All combined, it gave the construct the air of a miniature star. The shell revolved aimlessly around the core, hanging on thanks to a soft blue cloud of almost-solid light emanating from the robot. The… energy, for lack of a better word, was strangely familiar to him, which was weird because he was pretty sure he wasn't familiar with anything. Still, it felt almost… homely in its warmth.
"What." he said, his throat feeling unnaturally dry.
She chuckled softly. "Fair enough." she said, floating back a little. "Hey. Nice to meet you. I'm your Ghost, and you're my Guardian. You got all that? Good."
He blinked. What? "I – I'm sorry. Who am I?"
She suddenly rushed forwards, tapping him on his nose with the edge of her shell and huffing. "My Guardian!"
"O-kay," he said, pulling back a little from her forceful gaze. And touch. "And… that means?"
Her cerulean eye disappeared and reappeared in a peculiar facsimile of a blink. "Oh. Good question." Her floating body angled itself to the side, her eye scanning the dingy alley they were in before she spoke again. "Uhm - well, it basically means that you're a Guardian now, an immortal warrior of the Light. You were chosen by the Traveler, and me, to fight back against the Darkness."
He leaned forward, tilting his head. The idea of Light and Darkness… called to him somehow. As if it were familiar, inherent even. But he still had more questions. Many more questions. "An immortal warrior of the Light? Chosen by the Traveler? What-" He looked down at his hands, his eyes now adjusted enough to the dark to see the blood coating them. Seeping out from underneath him. "I – I was dead?"
She bobbed slightly. "I guess so?" He looked sharply up at her. "Okay, don't look at me like that! I don't know what happened before I got here either! I was on Io, of all places, until, like, ten seconds ago. The Light… it brought me here, somehow, and when I saw you, I just knew you were my Guardian. So I brought you back." She turned away nervously. "I… know some things about what's going on , sure, but not much? Because the Darkness isn't even encroaching here – wherever, or probably more accurately whenever, here is. So why did the Traveler send me here? Why were you chosen and revived?"
"That's… uh, rude. I think."
"Sorry." She bumped against his head again, softer this time. "But you are my Guardian, so you'll probably have to get used to me. I've got a big mouth."
They stared at one another in silence for a long minute.
"So…" the boy started, curious, "do - do you have a name?"
She looked at him again, her single eye perfectly judgemental. "Of course I have a name. It's Katherine, but I guess you can call me Kat. Since you're my Guardian and all." She turned fully towards him, her golden flaps rotating gently. "What about you? I… I think Guardians usually remember something. If not everything. Oh, by the Traveler, I'm bad at this. So, do you have any memories? A name would be nice."
He paused at her question. Memories? A name?
No, no. He didn't think he had anything like that. Nothing – his mind was utterly blank on experiences prior to the past few minutes. He swallowed. "No. Nothing."
She hummed softly. "That's fair. Guardians are always born empty. A blank slate. It's a second chance after all. So don't worry about it too much. I'll just call you Guardian for the time being."
Slowly, the boy picked himself up from the ground. Some of the blood still stuck to him as he stood straight, and his Ghost – his Ghost. That felt weird to say – shuddered slightly. "Let me take care of that for you!" she said, a soft blue light suddenly enveloping him. The blood on his clothes disappeared.
He watched, amazed. "That's… useful. Thanks."
"Oh, it was nothing." Katherine preened slightly anyhow.
The two of them paused to look at the pool still expanding behind them. The Guardian examined it closely, his bare feet feeling the rough pavement under him as he stepped away. He wondered how exactly this blood had come to be – or more accurately, how exactly he'd died.
He looked up.
"Did I… fall?" he asked his Ghost quietly. She quickly nuzzled against his head, alighting in his messy curls, and hummed. It was a surprisingly pleasant sensation. "I don't think you fell," she murmured gently, pressing into him. "You… jumped."
The Guardian looked up, seeing the gigantic building opposite. Rising dozens of stories into the sky. it was a sight to marvel at, let alone the dozens like it nearby. But his throat was dry now that he was seeing it in a different light. "I see." he said simply, and looked away. It was… a long fall. "So… um. What do we do now?"
Kat hummed again. Her steel was soft against his skin, as comforting as the light that emanated from her. "You died only moments ago. I… it's against Vanguard law, but considering the situation we're in, I don't think they'd care. So, let's try and figure out who you are. Your name, if you have any relatives or friends, anything like that."
Relatives? Friends? A name? He didn't think he had any of those. He couldn't remember any, at least.
Did he want them? He didn't know that either.
"Who I am," he muttered, staring at his now-clean hands once again. They offered him no insight into himself. "Alright. Let's go."
But before he could take a step in either direction and head towards a new future, a loud explosion rocked the streets.
The Guardian didn't hesitate, turning on his heel and sprinting towards the source of the sound. Kat cursed behind him, and he looked back at her just in time to see the Ghost vanish in a burst of bright light. Suddenly, her voice echoed in his mind – 'Guardians and Ghosts have rigorous mental-links,' she explained quickly. 'Currently I'm in the Light, but I'll always be with you, so, uh, don't worry about that. I'll try to guide you if we get into a fight, but I doubt you'll need much of my help. Being a Guardian and all. Just… be careful.'
Not even stumbling at the surprise, he nodded as he skidded out onto the main street. But he paused and slowed, suddenly forced into a small crowd also rushing towards the source of the explosion.
'That's… weird. Shouldn't the civvies be running away, not closer?' Kat murmured questioningly. He mentally agreed, though he tensed at the crowd's proximity and general… strangeness. They all had something off about them, and it certainly didn't take him long to find out.
These people were no normal humans, not as he 'knew' them. He knew his memories were defunct and nonexistent from the moment he awoke, but the Guardian could still confidently say that most people didn't have wooden heads or look like human sharks.
'Okay, what the hell is going on.' Kat remarked in her no-nonsense tone. She had a lot of tones, he was beginning to learn. It was nice. She was nice, he thought. 'Give me a sec, I'm trying to parse out this data. The internet here's technically smaller than the Vanguard intranet, but damn if it ain't harder to read. I'll get you your intel in a second.'
Fighting through the crowd, he mentally asked one of the many, many burning questions at the forefront of his mind, 'What's the Vanguard?'
Kat seemed to shake herself up before responding. 'Questions for another time, Guardian. For now, you've got to deal with the situation, whatever it is.' He nodded to himself – she was right.
He was glad to note that none of the people around him thought it prudent to give him anything more than a casual glance. It… he frowned, his analytical mind trying to piece it all together. Whatever he was wearing, these tight dark clothes that he immediately disliked, allowed him to fit in with the crowd. They didn't seem to conform to the colourful and varied attire of the adults around him, though, so he assumed they were a uniform of some type. Perhaps for a school?
Good to know. It could come in handy.
It didn't take him long to navigate to the scene. The explosions only continued to occur, increasing in frequency and decreasing in power as he and the surrounding crowd neared.
His eyes widened in shock as he finally pushed through the crowd watching the situation, stark disbelief colouring his features at the sight.
There were several people dressed in distinct vivid costumes, using peculiar powers to combat the veritable monster writhing in the centre of the street. One man was controlling plants – trees, to be specific – as if he were born doing it. A large heavyset man dressed in construction equipment just metres to his left blocked the crowd from entering into the street. Another wielded water, and he was jumping between the roofs, trying to douse the many flames that dotted the quaint road.
Where these flames had come from, it was clear. There was a boy in the grasp of the green sludge-based monster, flames and loud explosions emanating from his seemed… impossible, but it was still happening. He decided not to focus on it, and to instead determine his course of action. The boy – they were dressed in the same black costume as he was, he noted – was setting the street aflame with every blast, yet his explosions did nothing to slow or stop the beast from forcing its way down his throat and ending his life.
The Guardian grit his teeth, but he could feel – somehow – Kat knock sharply against his head. 'Stay calm.' she intoned in a gentle voice. 'We need a plan.'
He wondered for a split moment why she was encouraging him on this path, some flash of some emotion forcing its way through inexistence and into his mind. He wanted to decipher it, to understand what it meant, what it represented, but Katherine spoke again before he could do so. He didn't mind much – the situation at hand was much more important. 'You are a Guardian, so it's your duty to help. Not that you need me to tell you that, apparently. So. Just try to ignore the… other people. They don't seem to be helping or interfering much, but they've given us enough time to think up some kind of plan.'
He loosened his jaw. Right. A plan. For some reason, he felt he was particularly good at those. Almost instinctively, he began muttering quietly as he scanned the scene, trying to formulate a strategy. There was only one way to get to the monster – head-on. Fires blocked all other paths. He could go for the roofs, but they were too far away from the monster and he didn't know how well he could fall just yet. So that blocked off an aerial attack. But he had to come up with a better plan, a head-on rush just wouldn't work. Additionally, the monster's body was amorphous and seemingly impossible to grasp – the eyeballs seemed to be the only truly solid part. If, perhaps, he could throw something at them…
Suddenly, the boy that was struggling in the monster's grasp – he locked eyes with the Guardian. Scarlet met emerald. Katherine began speaking, likely about to propose an idea of some sort, but any thoughts of tactics or planning had been thrown right out the window in that single instant.
That fear, that terror, that begging gaze, was not something he felt he'd ever seen before. Nor was it something he ever wanted to see again. Not on that boy, not on anyone.
Before he could even begin to stop himself, he was running, ducking under the large man's arms and sprinting into the ablaze street without a single thought or plan. The crowd behind him screamed, the grey-haired man worriedly demanding him to return. But there was no fear or hesitation within him as he ran through the burning streets. In fact, he'd lost those soft sensations entirely…after all, he was a Guardian now. Even with scarce knowledge of his duties and abilities, he still knew that death held no sway over him and that humanity was his to protect.
The Guardian felt the Light call to him as he ran. It was strange – a new sensation to him, but somehow, he knew it had always been a part of his soul and being. He felt it call him, and he called it in turn. Natural. As simple as breathing.
'Okay, okay, not great. You don't have a plan.' Kat seemed panicked as she spoke, but privately, the Guardian thought she had no reason to be. He extended his hand and opened his palm, feeling for that ruthless electric energy he knew rested at the edge of his being. Exhaling steadily, he allowed the Light to enter him. It did so instantly, slotting into place as if it was always meant to be there. 'You need to call the Lig– wait, you're already doing that?!'
The monster, swearing something at him, quickly sent three strands of its body whipping his way in an attempt to deter him from his warpath. But to the young Guardian, these attacks seemed to move in almost slow motion. He slid in between them easily, still collecting the Light within his palm. It came so naturally, he scarcely believed it was real. 'Okay, good so far. Seems you've a real affinity for the Arc, Guardian. That's good. Alright – that energy you've got so far, condense it, quickly. You have to save the kid first, and you can't risk hurting him, so try – try a flashbang. Yeah, make a flashbang, throw it at the thingy, grab the kid, and run.'
Alright. He could do that. Manipulating the now named Arc energy in his hand, he did exactly as Katherine suggested, condensing the errant electricity into a miniscule ball. 'Good so far; not a perfect flashbang, it's more ball-lightning, but it'll work. You need to make sure it doesn't hurt the hostage – you need to control the explosion. Keep it to just disorientation. It'll be hard, but you have to do it.' He nodded mentally, preparing himself for what he knew to be a daunting task as he pulled his arm back.
The ball-lightning travelled through the air in a lazy arc, the sludgy monster's eyes widening in fear as it neared. The Guardian, his hand splayed, crouched further down as he ran closer, and let the Arc loose. He clenched his hand, containing it before the lethal lightning could spread any further and hurt anyone, and let it dissipate and crackle away in the air.
He could faintly feel Katherine resonating with pride. That was… a nice feeling. New.
The flash from his grenade only mildly irritated him; he assumed it was because it was made from his own Light. Everyone else on the street screamed or groaned, throwing their hands over their eyes and hissing. Luckily, that included the monster. He'd made a good assumption in guessing that the monster's eyes were its only weak-point.
It threw sludge over its eyes, groaning and shuddering. The hostage slipped slightly from its grasp, enough that he could take a single breath and stare him down with blurry eyes. "Dek- What the fuck?!" he screamed, which, to be honest, the Guardian thought to be quite an apt response. Not pausing in his stride, he leaped forward with as strong a push as he could manage, letting the Light guide him. Latching onto the victim, he grabbed his arms and pushed him through the slime.
Easier than pulling, he mused. The slime would be too difficult to get a hold of, and he'd rather not waste time scrabbling for purchase there. The two fell through the monster's body with ease, the Guardian instinctually using his Light to propel them through the sludge. He didn't pause now either, gathering the struggling boy up in his arms and sprinting away.
There. A small side-street, filled with civilians beckoning him with worried eyes and faces and a seriously gigantic woman hanging over them. He slid into the crowd, using the Light to throw himself the final few metres. When he slid to a stop in front of the crowd, the giantess' arms came down with a loud thump, locking them and the crowd away from where the sludge monster was still roaring.
'Smart,' Katherine commented. 'If a little… weird.'
He agreed.
Setting the nearly unconscious victim on the ground, the Guardian looked up at the dozens of shocked and worried faces staring at him.
'So,' he murmured to Kat, some traces of errant amusement in his tone, 'you have any idea what the hell happens now?'
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