Guidance, or To Help (those in need) by orionchildofhades / shwwmf

1. it goes bad

The day started pretty normally, as anything could when you were quirkless in a world where everybody had some sort of power.

Izuku went to school. He knew what he was getting into. The stares, the name calling. Having Kacchan telling he should jump off the roof was a new addition that the teen had been trying out for a few days now and he got really creative about it. Ending up in the pound with his notebook by his side was not very nice but all he did was stand and keep on with his day. What else was there to do?

So Izuku walked home. He took the long road, just to be sure he didn't meet any of the bullies. From time to time they would actively seek him out to punch and kick the energy out. What could Izuku do anyway ? Once he was alone with them, he didn't have the strength to stand up on his own.

Standing up for others though, that was nice. When he faced Kacchan, his body like a wall between the explosive boy and his new found victim, some form of pride shone in his chest, warming him up a little bit, a different kind of warmth that the hands of the boy he called a friend for a long time.

Izuku liked to help others. It was his one true goal. Everytime he looked at his computer, at his hero, his idol, and saw All Might's smile to the camera, he felt some sort of envy. He, too, wanted to make people happy, to bring them safety, hope. So even if he had to face Kacchan's wrath, and the punches, the burns, the hits and kicks, he would do it. Because the other kid was safe, because it was better him than someone else. Maybe, one day, someone would see him the same way he saw All Might. Okay, that was a little far fetched, he wasn't anything like All Might. But maybe someone would be reassured he suddenly put himself between them and harm, maybe he would bring someone a flicker of hope.

That's what he thought while he walked in some alley, alone and fidgeting with his notebook. He looked over what he wrote in the morning, about the fight and the new heroes.

Mt. Lady and her growing quirk, Kamui Wood and, well, his wood quirk. He added some notes in the margin about a detail. The new heroes seemed very keen to the media, a little bit too focused on their image. And was Kamui Wood capable of creating any kind of wood? Any density? Could he make ebony wood? It would be far more heavy and perhaps harder to break, more efficient against villains. Or not, if he couldn't, Izuku wondered what kind of wood he could make, was it a special kind, since it was a quirk? Maybe a weird human-wood kind of thing since he seemed to be made of it. A unique form of wood, known and created only by the power of the hero. How flammable was it? How would the hero react if he encountered...

Completely unaware of his surroundings, Izuku was knocked over by someone. He immediately scrambled up, trying to fetch his notebook and pencil while bowing to apologies.

Instead, his eyes met with some creature, a mutant type very likely, and immediately after his mouth was filled.

His eyes watered, he tasted sewage water and trash and throwing up sounded like a great idea all of the sudden but his mouth was full and he started choking as the thing, person, something filled his airway little by little.

He was barely aware of hearing a voice, a muted "Thank you, you're my hero, I didn't know he was in town."

Panic clouded his mind. After everything he went through on an everyday basis, after all the pain and insults, all the loneliness and disgust, he would die like this. He couldn't even breathe. His head hurt, and his vision darkened.

And maybe that was really it.

Then he vaguely felt knocked over once again. He breathed. Or he thought he did. He hoped he still remembered how to. He wanted to cough, to spit out everything, to have his throat to himself again. Was it still there?