Slide under the pipe. Kick-off of the diagonal slab. Duck and roll to avoid the stray ball. Grab pole to change trajectory. Use the rope to climb over the wall. Run like hell. Repeat until exhausted.

That was the training regime Izuku had been going through for the past month. He had long since moved past trying to avoid dodgeballs while running on an indoor track; now he had to navigate an entire obstacle course while avoiding smaller, faster projectiles.

The warehouse he trained in was substantially different from his first day there. When Izuku was still running on the track, the building was a lifeless, undecorated gray. It had stayed unnotable until the obstacle course arrived. Where the runner's track used to be, there were high walls, ropes, and low ceilings scattered about in a circular formation. In the center sat Gran Torino, a baseball launching machine, and a lawn chair. From it, he used the baseball machine to torment Izuku while he trained.

Today, like many days, it was just Izuku and Gran Torino. Nighteye rarely showed up to personally train him, and Izuku was grateful for it. The man never inspired Izuku to do better, only put him down and stressed him out. It wasn't that Nighteye was mean to Izuku, or that he wasn't full of helpful tips and tricks. No, Nighteye was an incredible educator and mentor.

Nighteye just didn't want Izuku to have One for All.

At least, that was what Gran Torino told him. Izuku thought it made sense, so he went with it. Nighteye blatantly called him selfish for keeping the quirk, and maybe he was. As long as Izuku held the quirk, nobody more physically fit could use the power to fight back against the giant wave of crime sweeping the nation.

Nighteye saw him for the child he was, but not the hero he would be. When the time came, Izuku wanted to show Nighteye he was wrong about him.

But that time was not now, Izuku realized, as his fingers slipped while pulling himself over a wall, sending him plummeting back to the floor. Within a few seconds of not moving, Izuku was pelted with a baseball. Izuku groaned as he heard a whistle sound off from the center of the course.

Needing some water, Izuku gathered the balls that were lying all over the track as fast as he could. As soon as he deposited them all back into the launching machine, he grabbed a bottle of water, took a large swig, and sat down. Next to him, Gran Torino put down a book he'd been reading.

"So, have you had any more strange dreams?" He asked. Izuku shook his head as he wiped his cheeks clean of water.

"No sir. That weird dream about the eight stars was the only one so far." izuku replied. Gran Torino grunted.

"Keep updating your dream journal then, brat. Nana and Toshinori never told me anything about dreams, but maybe you're special." He said. Izuku shrugged.

"Maybe it was a one-time thing." Izuku offered. Gran Torino shook his head.

"Nah, probably not." Gran Torino didn't elaborate further.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Izuku was doing his best to regain his energy after his workout and the old man was pondering something Izuku couldn't guess. Eventually, Gran Torino broke the silence.

"How many times do you think you got hit?" he asked. Izuku shrugged, unsure. He pulled off his tank top to look at any bruises forming on his torso. Poked and prodding them to check their age, he counted how many were from this session or not. Eventually, he came to a consensus.

"About 16, maybe 17." Izuku said. Gran Torino snorted and whacked the back of Izuku's head with a cane.

"It was 25, brat. I kept count." He said.

"Jeez, does it matter all that much?" Izuku whined, rubbing the back of his head. 25 or 16, both were a lot of hits. It was the wrong thing to say though because it got him another wack.

"Are you dense? No wait, of course you are. There's a huge difference between 16 and 25 punches straight to your thick skull, kid. Nine hits are enough to knock out a fully grown man alone, and that's just the difference between how many times you thought you got hit and how much you really did." Gran Torino said.

"I'm sorry. I'm trying to get better." Izuku said, disappointed. He had been satisfied with his performance today. Izuku had done better today than he had ever before, in his opinion. But even that wasn't good enough, he guessed.

"You need to. But, if it makes you feel better, how many balls do you think got launched?" Gran Torino asked. Izuku pondered this for a moment before remembering he had just picked up the pile of missed throws.

"Overall, I'd say maybe 50." Izuku guessed. Gran Torino smiled.

"73. You dodged about two-thirds of my shots, though I might have missed one or two." He said. Izuku gave a weak smile at this. It was a nice statistic, but he couldn't forget that he had still been hit so many times. Nighteye had been right about him in at least one way, his left side was undefended. He needed to get better at dodging; he wasn't even close to being agile enough to dodge a kick from Nighteye.

Dropping his fake smile, Izuku looked out across the obstacle course. In reality, it was a very simple course. The reason it was tough was that it looped; it started and ended in the same place. Izuku was forced to do several laps before he either got hit too many times or got too tired to keep running.

The course helped him with a lot of things, namely, his cardio, agility, and awareness. Be it before the incident or after he lost his arm, if you put the old Izuku in this course, he wouldn't last two minutes. He was making good progress, but Izuku wanted more. He wanted to be able to dodge a kick from Nighteye.

"I want to try something else."

[x]

Izuku was smiling as he went into Tokage Groceries. Fujimaki had been right; Izuku felt a lot better out in public with his prosthetic. Before, when Izuku went grocery shopping, he rushed through his list so he wouldn't get stared at. He hated the way people looked at him- as if he was helpless. That wasn't a problem anymore.

His fake arm was a gift from the heavens. The arm looked real and, as Izuku wanted, was light as a feather. He could take it on and off with ease, his center of gravity being none the wiser.

Even though the arm gave him a certain peace of mind, he made sure to only wear it out in public. One day, when he was a hero, he wanted to shed his prosthetic, and show the world his real body, his true worth, with or without two arms. Ms. Utsushimi had given him that confidence, and he wanted to repay her faith with concrete action.

Still, he liked having the arm. It made him feel symmetrical, and symmetrical felt good. Being in a grocery store by himself felt nice, too. His mother hadn't let him wander around without her for months in fear of him hurting himself again. But today she had decided to let him fly the nest for a few hours while she cleaned. So, she sent him off to the grocery store with a few extra dollars for himself.

It was a nice gesture, he thought. It meant she trusted him again.

He had almost retrieving everything on his list. Ham, some spices, and tomatoes were easy to reach, and Izuku thought he'd be home free until he reached the soap aisle. The brand of soap that his mom liked was on the highest shelf, and Izuku couldn't reach it.

That normally wouldn't be a problem in a large chain supermarket, they typically had little footstools scattered about to help. But this place was locally owned, meaning he'd have to ask somebody to help him. He wasn't sure he was up for that today.

He was about to settle for a different brand of soap when a little girl, his age, popped her head out from behind another aisle. Izuku glanced at her but thought nothing of it until she started waving at him.

"Hey, do you need any help?" She asked. Izuku looked at her and then looked behind him, making sure she wasn't talking to someone else.

"Me? Uh, I-I guess." Izuku replied. The girl smiled and bounced her way over to him. As she got closer, Izuku got a closer look at her. To his surprise, he realized they looked remarkably similar. Green tousled hair with big, round eyes and fair skin. They could almost be siblings if it wasn't for two things. Her hair and eyes were more of a swamp green, whereas Izuku's were more forest green in the light.

And her teeth were as sharp as knives.

Izuku immediately assumed she must have a jaw-related quirk. Perhaps it was just a minor mutation, or she could grow her teeth in size and shape, Izuku couldn't tell. He couldn't help but be reminded of a lizard he had seen in the zoo once, looking at her teeth and color scheme. She stopped next to him, and put a finger up to her lips as if to silence him.

"Shh. Don't tell anybody." The girl whispered.

"Tell what-" Izuku tried to ask, but was cut off when the green girl's arm popped off of her shoulder. Izuku watched, fascinated, as the girl's severed arm floated up to the top shelf and fumbled around for the right dish soap.

"Uhm, the Sunshine one." Izuku told her, realizing she didn't know which brand to grab. Within seconds, he was holding his dish soap and the girl had popped her arm back onto her shoulder. Izuku didn't know what to say as he bagged the cleaning product. He didn't need to, though, as the girl got right up in his face with a big smile.

"Pretty cool, right?" She asked. Izuku nodded. It really was cool.

"W-what about the quirk l-laws?" Izuku asked, concerned for the girl. Public use of quirks was outlawed despite their wide prominence. Everybody thought it sucked, but it remained an integral part of their society. The girl shrugged her shoulders.

"My daddy owns this place, so I can't get in trouble. If you tell him though, I might get grounded. So don't do that, please." The girl whispered. Izuku nodded.

"Oh, you're Mr. Tokage's kid?" He asked, despite his discomfort at her proximity. He wasn't sure how much longer he was going to be able to handle this conversation, but he was intrigued. The girl nodded in affirmative.

"Yep. I'm Setsuna, by the way. What's your name?" Setsuna asked.

"I-Izuku MIdoriya. Yours? Oh crap, wait-" Izuku fumbled as Setsuna laughed at him. His face was bright red as she continued to giggle. Soon though, she realized he looked uncomfortable and apologized.

"I-It's n-no problem, Tokage. A-anyways, what is your quirk? It l-looked cool." Izuku asked, trying to redirect the conversation. Setsuna beamed at him.

"Oh, I can split my body up and move the pieces all around like drones!" Setsuna looked around them to make sure nobody was in their aisle. "Watch this…"

Izuku almost screamed when her head fell off her shoulders and started circling him. Giggles came from all directions as he fought back his surprise. After her head got reattached and Izuku calmed back down, he couldn't help but look at her in small amazement.

"Y-your quirk is so cool… Are you going to be-" Setsuna cut him off.

"A hero? I haven't decided yet. People keep telling me that I could be a really good one, but I'm not sure it's what I want." She said. Izuku nodded, a little disappointed.

"Yeah, you could be an amazing one with a quirk like that. If you wanted to, you could t-totally do it." Izuku said in earnest. She really could, he thought. He couldn't think of any major heroes that were currently active that had such a unique and diverse ability. One day, when her quirk had fully matured and she mastered it, she could be a force of nature in the crime-fighting scene.

She could scout disaster zones with ease by making her eyes fly ahead of her. Or, she could help people out of dangerous areas by letting them fly on her limbs. Her ability was wonderful.

It was only after all these thoughts went through his head that he realized he had said them all aloud. She was staring at him with a guarded appreciation, like she was flattered, but thought he was weird. Which, Izuku thought, he guessed he was.

"I'm so sorry, s-sometimes all of my thoughts just spill out and-" Izuku tried to explain, but the girl shook her head.

"Nah, it's fine I guess. What was your quirk, by the way?" She asked. Izuku, still feeling apologetic, didn't know how to respond. He'd been asked this a thousand times as a child, many times just to make fun of him for his quirklessness. After a while, he had learned to just ignore them, but now he didn't know how to answer.

"Oh, well, uhm… I have super strength." He answered. It was a bit of an understatement, but it was technically true. Setsuna raised an eyebrow at him.

"You're kinda skinny though." She said. Izuku choked out a laugh, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. He wasn't offended.

"Y-yeah, you got me there." A weird silence hung between them for a few seconds before Setsuna backed off of him, giving Izuku room to breathe.

"Welp, have a nice day. If you need anything else from the top shelf, ring the bell next to the checkout. Our apartment is on the second floor, and the bell is how my dad lets me know to come down for a shift. Later, Midoriya." Setsuna said, waving at Midoriya as she left. Izuku tried to wave back, but she was gone before he could.

Izuku didn't leave the aisle for a few minutes as he did his best to catch his breath. That was the first time he'd talked to someone his age in months. Maybe even before the incident. It was easier, he decided, to talk to people his age now that he wasn't quirkless.

Everyone at elementary school had defaulted to bullying him for it, but maybe it would be easier to make friends now that people didn't think he was broken. Without realizing it, Izuku was clutching his fake arm as he thought this.

He needed to get away from people before he got overwhelmed. He got the last items on his list before checking out. Mr. Tokage was the cashier today. Sporting a thin smile and hints of gray in his temples, Mr. Tokage looked much older than he actually was.

"Will that be all, young man?" Mr. Tokage asked. Izuku nodded, not saying a word.

"Alright," He continued. The man glanced down at Izuku's left hand, a knowing look in his lidded eyes. From under the counter, he pulled out a small chocolate bar and tossed it to Izuku.

"To your recovery." Mr. Tokage said. Izuku's eyes widened. He tried to give it back, but the man refused.

"I've seen you come in here with your mom a bunch of times, kid. You're looking a lot better. You earned it." He said. Izuku sighed and accepted the treat.

"T-thanks."

[x]

Izuku was still thinking about the Tokages while training with Gran Torino the next day. They had been so nice to him, more than he deserved. It was hard to forget.

"Hey, did you hear anything I just said, brat?" Gran Torino asked, annoyed. Izuku shook his head to clear any dangling thoughts of the Tokages.

"Sorry, sir. What was it again?" Izuku asked. Gran Torino scoffed.

"You were the one who asked me in the first place, kid. I said that we're going to work on dodging actual attacks today." He said. Izuku blushed, remembering he asked him to do this yesterday. Hopefully, his grogginess would clear up by the end of the day.

"Alright, let's get started. What's first?" Izuku asked.

"First, we-" Izuku never got to hear what the man was about to say because, across the warehouse, a door slammed open. In the entrance stood Nighteye, and he looked serious.

"Nighteye? I didn't think you were coming today." Gran Torino called out. Izuku nodded, Nighteye had a schedule that he kept religiously, and they were not on that schedule today. Nighteye dropped a briefcase he carried next to the door and walked in, hands in pockets. He didn't even glance at Izuku.

"It's been six months, to the day, since All Might left us. My schedule cleared up today, and I want Midoriya." Nighteye said; his voice firm.

"Fine by me. We were going to start real combat training today-" Gran Torino was cut off when Nighteye shook his head.

"No. I'm taking him out of here. He needs to see what it's like before we actually start training him. He needs to know." Nighteye said. Izuku tilted his head.

"See what? Where are we going?" Izuku asked. Nighteye turned to him for the first time, and Izuku got a good look at him.

Nighteye's eyes were covered in shades that looked remarkably similar to his normal glasses. He couldn't make out a specific expression because of them, but he noticed that Nighteye's eyes were red and puffy.

"I'm going to take you out on a patrol. You'll be perfectly safe with me." Nighteye said. Gran Torino spoke up.

"That's a bad idea. You know how rough crime has been. We don't need to expose him to that crap." He said. Nighteye didn't appear to care.

"What about combat training?" Izuku asked. Nighteye shrugged.

"Later. Come on now, I don't have all day." Nighteye said. Izuku looked at Gran Torino, who was shaking his head at him. He wasn't sure what Nighteye wanted, but whatever it was, it was important.

"Alright." He agreed. Gran Torino sighed while Nighteye nodded in approval.

"Let's go." Nighteye said.

[x]

Nighteye didn't play the radio as he drove; he found it distracting. So many songs with different tempos and meanings, if he wasn't careful, he might crash while he got too invested in a song. Or worse, he might miss a crime that he could've stopped otherwise.

He guessed he and the brat agreed on that, at the very least. Izuku didn't like to listen to music in the car either. As a city kid, he seemed content to just enjoy the novelty of a car.

"So," The kid asked, "Why are we doing this?"

"A couple of reasons." He replied. When Izuku didn't ask what, Nighteye continued.

"Do you know how bad crime has gotten since All Might's death?" He asked. Izuku shifted in his seat.

"I-It's gotten worse. Without the Symbol of Peace, I know violent crime has gone up." Izuku said. Nighteye nodded.

"An understatement. It's quintupled. Even though there are more heroes than ever, we're struggling just as much as we were in the dark times before All Might." Nighteye said. Izuku didn't say anything.

"We need a special hero to step up, and soon. Endeavor is incredible, but he isn't what we need. We need the true Ninth." Nighteye continued, glancing at Izuku as he said this.

The boy wasn't worthy of One for All, and even if he was, Japan needed someone who could step up to the plate today, not ten years from now. He had nothing against the kid, but he didn't have the right mindset or the age.

Off in the distance, Nighteye saw a minor villain battle taking place. He wasn't concerned; the fight was being controlled by several heroes careful to keep the fighting contained. Nighteye had driven here knowing that; he had checked the Hero Network before picking up Izuku.

The kid said nothing as Nighteye parked a few blocks away from the villain fight. The fight had split, with some of the villains fighting in the streets whereas the others were fighting outside a grocery store. After watching the heroes' battle in silence for a few minutes, Izuku finally spoke up. His voice was quiet and cold, something Nighteye hadn't heard from the boy since they had first met.

"Is this why you brought me here? To push me into giving up One for All?" Izuku asked. Nighteye nodded.

"I need you to understand. It's been six months, Izuku, and crime is already this bad. What will happen in a year? What about five? Who will step up? Japan needs somebody to make them smile again, someone who can beat back villains without any issue. We need a real hero." Nighteye replied. Izuku didn't say anything, his eyebrows furrowed.

"I've found a young man, a fresh U.A. graduate, who I can trust to give the quirk to. Thunderstrike. You may have heard of him." He continued.

Thunderstrike was a man with a heart of gold and a useful quirk to boot. Depending on what material he touched, he could create sonic blasts at different intensities. When just touching the air, he could generate blasts strong enough to feel like a punch to the gut. While touching steel, he could create a force strong enough to uproot a tree and blow over cars.

Nighteye had scouted the man for his agency almost immediately after founding it, and the man had just recently officially signed onto his team permanently. He wasn't perfect, but he was the ideal candidate. His record was littered with minor infractions of U.A. policy, but those had all been over minor things. Fights, pranks, and other such things that Nighteye could care less about.

Off in the distance, the fight on the roof of the supermarket was intensifying. Izuku continued his silence, igniting Nighteye's nerves.

"What gives you the right to hold his quirk hostage? What makes you want to keep his quirk all to yourself so bad!? Please, Midoriya. Why?" Nighteye begged, his voice cracking.

The car was silent for a few seconds while they both realized what he said. Nighteye tugged a bit on his collar, flustered that he lost his cool. Izuku continued his stoic stare at his feet.

"Do you miss him?" The boy mumbled, not looking up. Any rage that lingered in Nighteye froze at the question. His chest tightened a bit.

"Of course I miss him. He was my best friend and my mentor. I looked up to him." Nighteye said.

"If you really looked up to him… how did it make you feel when he put his faith in you?" Izuku continued. Nighteye leaned back in his chair, threading his fingers together in thought. He remembered back to the early days when Nighteye had convinced All Might to let him be his sidekick.

At first, the man only used him for his future sight. He never let him run into battle with him and never made him pick up his slack. He didn't want to put his burden on Nighteye whatsoever.

After a few years of this, eventually they were pulled into a large-scale operation. It was to take down a huge crime boss in northern japan who had dozens of dangerous employees. This was the first time Nighteye was truly called into action as a combatant, and he would never forget what All Might said to him the night before it all went down.

"I believe in you. That's what he said to me. It was simple, but I've never forgotten it." Nighteye said. This made Izuku look up. Nighteye felt a twinge of regret in his chest when he realized the boy was tearing up.

"H-he said the same thing to me, too. "Be the Ninth Wielder. I believe in you."" Izuku said, sniffling. "He told me I could do it even though I had just gotten him killed… I hear it every single night."

Nighteye didn't know what to say. Midoriya had never shared what went on between them that day. He didn't interrupt as Izuku continued.

"He died so I could live. I want to honor him… but I'm tired of being selfish. If you really think that I'm not cut out to be the Ninth, then-"

He never got to finish, because their attention was ripped from their conversation as his car raised into the air. Nighteye peaked out the window to see what was going on and realized a second too late that a villain had picked up the whole vehicle.

Nighteye's seatbelt choked him as his car was thrown like a frisbee, sending all his possessions flying throughout the car as they flew.

Shit, Nighteye thought, he had stopped paying attention to the fight. He ripped his seat belt off of himself and Izuku, grabbing the surprised boy and leaping out of the flung car. Covering Izuku's head with his hands, Nighteye landed back-first against the concrete wall of an apartment complex. Cracks spread out from behind him as rubble and dust rained on him from above. He coughed, tasting copper in his mouth.

Dazed, he could only vaguely make out the sight of his destroyed car blocks down the road. One broke formation to come over to him and check his vitals, but Nighteye shooed him away, already recovering. He felt his face and cursed. His glasses were gone, and he hadn't brought a second pair. He checked Midoriya, he was unscathed, but his prosthetic had gotten lost mid-air.

As he stood up, he felt his mind sharpening into battle mode. The current conflict, when he had arrived, had been contained by a handful of heroes in a three-block radius. Now though, whenever Nighteye's attention had drifted from the battle, things had changed.

He had thought the villains were petty thieves, but it appeared they must've been a part of some local gang. Their buddies must have all come in to help fight off the heroes, which drastically changed the tides of the fight. The villains went from maybe five to over fifteen. Some of them were animal mutants, whereas a handful were just using plain old guns. He picked out his phone and sent a message through the Hero Network for backup.

He looked over to the hero who had come to make sure he was ok. He didn't recognize him, but he looked like he just got out of school. That was good, he was fresh on the protocol. The backup must already be on the way. Nigheye looked at Izuku.

"Get this kid out of the danger zone. Don't let him out of your sight until you're in the clear." He ordered. The young hero nodded, not questioning the order. Heroes didn't usually take orders from others, but Nighteye was known in every corner of the country, so the kid probably felt he couldn't refuse.

It didn't matter to Nighteye, so long as Midoriyia was out of the danger zone.

He scanned the fight from one end to the other to decide his plan of action. Most of the fighting was being done on his left, toward the supermarket. Nighteye wasn't concerned about that. The fighting near there was even. What he was concerned about was the very thin line of heroes keeping the other gangsters from joining their friends. If that group was to fall, this might turn into a problem for the main force.

His eyes settled onto the villain who had destroyed his car. He pulled out his Hyper-Density Seals, thumbing their cold surface as his eyes flashed an amethyst purple.

[x]

Izuku's head felt hollow as he was carried by the hero escorting him. He was hyperventilating. Nausea permeated his entire body as if he had been riding a rollercoaster for two hours straight. It wasn't the sudden movement from being saved from the car, nor was it the emotional stress of almost giving up One for All. It was the battle itself.

At this moment, all Izuku could think about was when he made the biggest mistake of his life. Images from the battle he had long since thought he blocked out made their way into his skull, giving him a splitting headache.

A man in a pristine black tux, his arms spread out as thousands of mechanical tentacles erupted from his back. The same man flying high into the sky, only to come back down with muscles the size of his apartment complex.

The man's fist, now normal-sized, inches from his face. The only thing stopping Izuku from being blown away being a human meat shield- All Might.

He cast his gaze out to the battle around them. Eight villains and five heroes were battling near him. Why was he here? Where was he? Did he wander into another battle?

Was another hero going to give up their life for him? He almost retched at the thought.

"Hey, hey! No throwing up. I'll get you out of here, little guy. Don't worry." The hero carrying him said. Izuku's head was pounding, but he took a second to look at who was carrying him. His suit was a bright yellow and white mix, with a large W centered on his chest. He knew this hero. Livewire. He had a simple electricity quirk.

His eyes dragged themselves toward the main fight. It was outside of a grocery store that he was intimately familiar with. Oh god, Izuku thought. Were the Tokages still in there? He swallowed.

"W-were you able to evacuate?" Izuku choked out. The hero looked grim.

"We cleared the streets, but any residents-" He never got to finish, because he was blind-sighted by another flung car. Livewire was sent flying, crashing into the back of an alleyway near them while Izuku was sent tumbling down to the concrete.

Despite his nausea and all the scrapes littering his body, Izuku was able to drag himself behind a building to avoid any more flying cars. He breathed in as hard as he could, holding it until it hurt before releasing it. Dr. Fujimaki had told him that the most important thing to do when panicking was to breathe, so he focused on that. In, out.

In...

Out.

In…

Out.

Once his head was spinning less, Izuku took stock of his body. His prosthetic was gone, lost somewhere between here and where they had parked. That was fine, it couldn't help him anyway. He felt around his limbs; none of them were broken. He was bleeding in four places, none of them his head. He was ok.

When he realized he was ok, his memories of the situation began to return to him. No, he hadn't wandered into the battle. Nighteye had tried taking him into a controlled environment to convince him he needed to give up One for All. He locked away those thoughts, they weren't going to help him. Where was Livewire?

He peaked down the alleyway he crawled into. Away from the road and in a pile of garbage bags, Livewire was sprawled out in unconsciousness. Izuku stumbled over to the hero to check his pulse. It was still beating. Izuku wasn't a medical expert, nor did he have a good understanding of the human body, but he knew that Livewires arm was broken. Arms weren't meant to bend that way.

He did his best to push it into the correct position before trying to pull him out of the side from the road. He didn't want any villains to see the unconscious hero and try and beat on him while he's down.

He grabbed at the hero's skin-tight suit, but he didn't quite have the grip strength to haul him to where he wanted. He settled on using the garbage bags as leverage while he rolled the unconscious man out sight. Izuku made a mental note to work on his grip strength. He needed it to be twice as strong as a normal person's.

With Livewire now safe, izuku remembered the main issue at hand. The streets were a warzone, and while there weren't any pedestrians in danger, anyone who lived in the area was threatened.

His stomach dropped as he remembered that he was almost 20 meters from Tokage Groceries. Izuku glanced at the villain fight. It was still going strong, but the fight was gradually being dragged towards the store.

Izuku couldn't fight anybody. Not just because he didn't have a license, but because he was weak. If he went back into that chaos, his panic attack would resurface and he'd probably be killed.

He had never wanted to be strong as he did right now. If he could use all of One for All, or even a little bit, he'd be able to clean up all these gangsters in a matter of seconds. Nobody could get hurt again. Livewire wouldn't have a broken arm and probably a concussion. Nighteye's car wouldn't be a burning pile of destroyed steel. If only he was strong…

Izuku slapped his cheeks; he was just a kid. He didn't have to do anything- he couldn't do anything.

If a hero didn't step up soon, the battle was going to be taken inside of the store. From across the street, Izuku could see cracks begin to form on the building's load-bearing walls. The building was being weathered rapidly by the onslaught of attacks from the villains.

Whenever an attack from the villains missed a hero, the building was the one that took the damage. It was a no-brainer for the heroes- they'd rather the building tank the big hits than get hurt themselves. What they didn't know, however, was that an entire family lived in that building. An entire family that showed nothing but kindness to Izuku.

In…

Out.

Before Izuku even knew what he was doing, he was sprinting across the street.

[x]

I love Setsuna, did last year, do this year. Super underrated.