"FUCK FUCK FUCK!" Leizcio muttered to himself as he was barely dodging the combined attacks of the three thieves. He had to focus his movement mostly to avoid the whips as they could wrap him up, giving the thieves a chance to end him then and there. The red-haired one seems that his quirk wasn't just his gauntlets, but full-on spectral armor. And the bone bullets weren't making this any easier.

"C'mon shrimp! You were out here preachin about how'd you save these pitiful people! But all I see is you runnin around like a coward! Is that all you can do? Run away?" The huskier one said in his gravelly voice.

The storekeepers and civilians weren't able to do anything, paralyzed in fear of what would happen to them if they interfered. They didn't even know if this hooded man would keep them safe much longer. They were beginning to lose hope.

Leizcio continues to struggle, he begins to run out of space to dodge. Trying to keep damage to property to a minimum, the ground he runs on becomes more difficult to cross as shards of bone stick out of it as if it were a pin cushion. Leizcio might end up the same if he doesn't do something now. His earpiece was destroyed, as it fell when he almost got caught by the whip quirk user. And Leizcio is running on fumes, his energy nearly depleting from the lack of calories he's eaten to supply his quirk. Not sure how much longer he can keep this up he himself loses hope.

However, a person in the crowd yells,

"Don't give up Hero! We're counting on you!"

The shout begins to inspire others to cheer the hooded man on.

"You can do it!" "Beat those villains!" "Don't let up!"

Hearing all these chants, Leizcio starts to see what's on the line. The people that are depending on him. Each one of them has someone waiting for them, in hopes that they're okay.

No

He can't let others go through what he has gone through

This pain was for him to burden, and for no one else to experience

Nobody deserves it

Finding it within himself, he forces his body to go faster, to reach new speeds. Who cares how much it hurts, it'll hurt more if he fails to rescue those around him. A stinging pain hits him once again. Readying himself, he bolts towards the villains.

"Hey what's he doi-

The last thing the red-haired thief saw was a bolt of lightning in his eyes. The streak was then gone. He didn't understand what was happening. But the next second, he felt that he'd been hit with a machine gun, his spectral armor breaking and scattered around him, as he joined the armor with the wind knocked out of him. Leizcio in reality just hit him around 50 times in the chest, and as soon as he saw cracks developing in the armor, he launched an electric-powered fist to knock him out.

"Where'd the shrimp go?!" The husky bone bullet user yelled. He had his fists pointing left and right as he circled trying to see where the hooded man went. But alas, he saw his friend with the whips knocked cold in a few seconds.

Leizcio was able to catch the whip user off guard by managing to run up one of the buildings, jumping off of it, stretching his hands out, he focused a small amount of energy onto his palms, and stunned the villain, leaving only the bone bullet thief.

"Impressive shrimp! But I'm not weak like my friends here! Plus, they didn't know how to truly distract a hero!" The bone thief aims his knuckles at the civilian crowd, shooting out as much as he can. Some civilians run but many stood, freezing in the face of harm.

Leizcio runs over to them, catching each bullet with his hands. However, they're gaining on some civilians, and he's barely holding on to his own pace. Hell, he's still amazed that his consciousness is holding on. As he succeeds in catching most of the bullets, a brown-haired girl is about to be hit, and he's not fast enough to catch them. In a desperate move, Leizcio pushes her out of the way, taking a few of the bullets to the back.

"Ha! You can barely handle that?! I ain't even that exhausted! Looks like you've fucked up hero! What a waste of a powerful quirk!" The last thief boasts, as he slowly walks towards the crowd. The civilians, having had hope, are scared that the only hero protecting them is almost done for.

In a last-ditch attempt, Leizcio runs away. He has to make sure he connects this punch. Once he's run around 2 miles from where he was. He gathers the last bit of steam running, putting it all into one punch. He runs back towards where he was. As he runs, everything pasts him in a flash. Some onlookers catch sight of him. As if it was a bolt of lightning running down the streets. He can't fail this.

"Well, looks like the hero is gone! Now I can't leave any witnesses left can I?!" However, out of the corner of his eye, the thief sees a bolt of lightning approaching. He tries to shoot his bullets but it was too late.

Leizcio jumps over the crowd, he feels the energy from his body dissipate as he focuses it all into one punch. Electricity leaves his fist before it connects, scorching holes into the thief's clothes. As his punch lands, the thief is blown back, hitting the wall of a building.

A small silence spreads through the street but erupts into cheers. Applauding the hooded hero for saving them and their business. The hero looks back at them, giving them a small thumbs-up before collapsing.

Leizcio was only able to give them a small thumbs up. He burnt up all his calories, barely have eaten enough to keep up prior to his patrol. In his last few moments of consciousness, he sees some civilians surround him with a mix of gratitude and worry amongst them.

"Hey, kid you up?" A brown-haired man asked.

Still groggy, Leizcio was confused as to what was happening. When he got up, he saw that he was in what seemed to be a storage room. Taking a few seconds to process he finally responds to the man.

"Well, I'm definitely up now. Is everyone else safe?" Leizcio asked, still unsure of the outcome when he was woken back up.

"Don't worry son you saved us. We just had to take you in to make sure none of the pro-heroes found you. It was a big risk doing all of that without any license. But this is the least we could do. Some woman called Kachi passed by and hooked you up to these IV bags. She also said she's going to scold you. So I'd be prepared for that." Said another citizen light-heartedly laughing.

"Yeah that sounds about right" Leizcio sighed as he went to fix his goggles. But he didn't feel anything? Oh, Fuck.

"Wait my goggles! I can't b-

"Don't worry, we won't say anything about it. Your goggles got burnt up when you threw that punch of yours kid. I gotta say I was mighty impressed by that! Also thank you so much for saving my daughter! You've done us all a great deal!"

"No worries sir! I was just doing what needed to be done! And-

As Leizcio looked to see the man's daughter, she looked awfully familiar. Brown hair, round face. Wait a damn minute. She goes to the same school as him! Fuck!

In a panic, Leizcio gets up and bows quickly to everyone,

"Thank you so much for nursing me back to health! I am in your debt for keeping my identity a secret! But I must go now bye!"

The civilians tried to say something but it was too late, for Leizcio was gone with the wind.

Leizcio hurriedly pulls out his phone, texting Lavania that he's okay and with Tamashi going over his quirk. Hopefully, she believes that story. Who knows how hard she'd throw a sandal at him if she ever found out.

Shortly after arriving at Tamashi's place, he could feel menacing energy coming from the place. No doubt from how pissed off she was as well. Well, either way, he's going to have to face the consequences.

"Hello? Tamashi? You there?" Leizcio asked with worry in his voice, unsure of what's going to happen to him.

"Leizcio! You did great!" Tamashi yelled as she gave him a bear hug.

"But you're also stupid for not asking for help!" As she tightened her grip, about to destroy Leizcio's ribcages.

"Tamashi! Please let go! Can't Breath!" Leizcio wheezes out as he tries to free himself.

Tamashi let him go and scolded him for a bit. However, she congratulated him on being able to handle the situation.

"While you did good Leizcio, you need to eat much more. What you should be eating should be equivalent to around 5 times the amount of your body weight! It's insane how many calories you burn off!"

"Wouldn't that get expensive as hell though? Surely that can't be cheap?"

"Usually, but I have asked Lavania to ask a medical professional about making some sort of snack thing that contains high amounts of calories. It's most likely doable!"

"Well, that's good at least. Can I get the next day for rest? I'm still healing from my wounds."

"Of Course Leizcio, you just let me know when you're fully healed. Then we can get back to work!"

"Thank you! And could you drop me off back home? My legs are pretty sore from what happened."

"Yeah, let's go."

As Tamashi and Leizcio entered her car and drove off back to the cafe. Leizcio was looking back at his experience. He was able to save those people. But now there's a problem. His identity got revealed to them, and he knows one of them kinda. He never really talked to the girl, but she seems like a nice person so he has hopes that she won't say anything about it.

Looking through his phone, he saw the incident made it onto the news. And turns out that there were some onlookers. Someone filmed the fight, for the most part, luckily Leizcio's face was covered up by the civilians when they came to help him and the video ended there. Since he hasn't revealed his quirk to anybody, he'll be okay. And the battery in his suit was able to conceal the majority of the electricity and whatever leaked looked more like sparks in the video. He's in the clear for now but he can't screw up like that again.

Leizcio received a text from Lavania, seems like she bought the story. But turns out she saw the video, and it couldn't be more obvious to her who it was. Who knows what he's in store for.

Tamashi and Leizcio arrived at the cafe, and an angered Lavania was waiting at the door.

"Leizcio, get in. And you too Tamashi."

Glancing at each other, both Tamashi and Leizcio accepted their fate and walked in regretfully.

Lavania led them down to the gym in the basement to talk to make sure nobody could eavesdrop from outside.

"Leizcio. Why the hell did you choose to do this. And why did you encourage him Tamashi." Lavania asked them in a cold and enraged tone.

"I apologize Lavania. I was the one that made the offer to him when he went to go and train earlier today. It's most likely from all the time I spend with vigilantes. But experience will help him to grow. But I did not plan on him stopping any criminals. I only asked of him to do small things around the community."

"Okay I can understand you Tamashi, and you're most likely right as being on the field would make him use his quirk more creatively. However. Leizcio, why did you fight those villains?"

Leizcio took a few seconds to think before he said his answer. He didn't really have a solid answer. But inside, he helped because it only felt right and he didn't want to see others go through tragedy when he could stop it.

"I intervened because I heard someone cry for help. When I saw what was happening, it was some thieves similar to the mugger we ran into. I thought back about it, and if it wasn't for my quirk, we'd probably be dead against that first mugger. These people that were getting robbed, were frozen in fear. I could practically feel it. And I had to push myself, and I know that it's something that's unsafe but I had to protect them. I didn't want them to lose somebody important to them, or have people lose them just because I couldn't help. I wanted to ensure that they'd stay safe to see the ones they love one more day."

A small silence fell on the three. Leizcio was worrying inside, wondering how Lavania would take it. However, all that was in her mind was how proud she was of her little brother. He embodied their mother a lot, always trying to help others when they don't need to, and isn't rewarding. That's the kind of person their mother was. And she could see the same determination in Leizcio's eyes when mom would rush her way to help someone. After deciding what she would say, she stood up and put her hand on Leizcio's shoulder.

"I'm not mad Leizcio, I was just worried for you. But if you were able to do all that on your own, then you'll be okay. You've always been quick on your feet, even without your quirk. You'll be a great hero one day."

Leizcio was taking some time to process this. Mostly because he wasn't beaten to death in an instant. He was also surprised that Lavania was approving of this. He can't let this opportunity down. He has to show her that she can trust in him and his abilities.

And Tamashi being the dramatic person she is...

"Oh, Leizcio that was such a good speech! Lavania isn't lying you know!" She said sobbingly.

As Lavania and Leizcio finish calming down Tamashi, they lead her back to her car and wish her a good night. Leizcio and Lavania are already tired as is. Well, Leizcio a bit more considering he just finished fighting about 2 hours ago. His body exhausted and his mind tired, he throws himself onto bed, falling into a deep sleep.

-BEEP BEEP BEEP-

It's a school day, and Leizcio prepares, as usual, putting on his middle school uniform and walking his way there. As he got there, his classmates seemed to be talking about something.

"Hey, Esperanza! You hear about what went down yesterday night!" Said Iro Hamada. He was one of Leizcio's friends, despite Leizcio being supposedly quirkless, Hamada became friends with him because Leizcio helped him out when he bailed him out of a situation he wasn't at fault for. Since then, they've been good friends for the most part.

"What happened? I fell asleep quite early so I'm not sure." Leizcio replied, lying to his friend.

"There was this hooded guy who saved a buncha people from some villains! They were super fast and you could barely see them stand still! He looked like he was gonna lose but he actually beat them! Too bad he passed out at the end though, wonder what he looked like?"

"Who knows, guess we're just lucky he was there in time."

"Man, how do you always miss out on the exciting stuff?"

"I honestly don't know." Leizcio said knowing damn well he knew why.

Classes in school bored Leizcio as it would any normal student. He'd use his speed here and there to quickly do small work every now and then so it'd allow for more time to train his quirk. He'd also quick read his textbooks at school, trying to train his speed reading ability so he could eventually use it without a painful migraine after. And Leizcio gained an affinity to lunch now, mostly because his quirk leaves him quite hungry most of the time. Since it'd be a bit weird if he was seen gorging on two donut boxes worth of food, he only packed a bento with high-calorie foods to supplement him for the time being.

Glad that it was time for lunch, he headed out of the classroom and was walking down the hall, until he felt a finger tap his shoulder. Curious as to what someone would want with him and a bit nervous that they'd ask him about the incident, he turned around and only one thing came to mind.

'Fuck'

"Hi, you need something?" He asked nervously knowing what was going to happen.

"You're Esperanza, right? Can I talk to you?" Asked the brown-haired girl.

"Of course."

Leizcio's nervous as to what she's going to ask, as it's the girl who was there at the incident and saw his face. What does she want with him?

Chapter 5

END