Lifeless

Chapter 43 - Untitled

I know its been a while, but I'm still trying my best to finish this fic! Life just gets in the way sometimes. If anyone wants to name this chapter I'll be taking suggestions. Since my schedule is clearing soon I hope to be able to update more, but I'm not quite back in the swing of writing.

Thanks for reading :)

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In a few weeks Izuku had changed from being seen as a beggar on the streets to being hailed as a vigilante. It was completely unintentional.

Now the old woman a block over asked Izuku to call her grandma, and there was a colony of cats that patrolled outside his house regularly. Izuku truly didn't know exactly what caused this. He didn't mean to stop the men harassing the woman for her purse, but he knew he couldn't just let them go. And he didn't set out to save so many cats from violent youths, but every time he saw someone mistreat an animal he couldn't just stay still.

It had led to an inadvertent friendliness from his community towards him, and also made all of the rougher people stay away from his house. Izuku had gained a bit of a reputation, a completely unintentionally good reputation as a small local vigilante.

The only problem was the attention it brought.

There were multiple small-time heroes that wanted to be able to say that they brought down a vigilante, even if the vigilante was a small teen boy. Vigilantes were looked down upon in this society, so being able to wear that badge of honor was a great feat for those small-time heroes.

It was inconvenient to fend off and run from random heroes he saw on the street, but ultimately Izuku didn't mind. There were no larger heroes in his neighborhood, so it was refreshing to see some people passionate enough in their profession to patrol such a bad place, even if they were after the starlight at the end of the day.

That's where Izuku was now, running from an up-and-coming hero named Ironside. He had a metal bending quirk, but as long as Izuku stayed far enough ahead the man's quirk couldn't reach him. It was a huge downside for the man, one Izuku would be happy to discuss ways around if he wasn't currently running from the hero. You'd think that a hero whose main fault was his distance would work on his endurance, but Ironside appeared to be a very bad runner.

Izuku dodged through alleys and eventually lost the man, but he didn't slow as jogged back to his home. His bag thud against his back in time with his step, the cans clinking against each other on the off beat.

He may have taken a few extra cans of food from the grocery store, but that wasn't even what Ironside was chasing him for. The hulk of a man was chasing after Izuku because of the trash he took off of Takoba Municipal Beach. It was just a few spare parts that would be useful in making weapons or repairing his meager house, and taking the metal shouldn't have been illegal, but Ironside saw him and decided it was worth it to chase the boy for two miles.

Izuku arrived at his house heaving and panting from exhaustion. He opened the door, greeting the cats and Shinso before dumping his haul onto the "kitchen" floor.

Today was a good day.

~Aizawa POV~

Today was a horrible day.

First he had to deal with a class full of idiots, then he was asked to track down some random vigilante like he didn't already have enough to do. Was it even still cool to track down vigilantes? The general public didn't particularly care for vigilantes, but the numbers of civilians who liked them were on the rise, and if past trends were anything to go by then vigilantes would be popular within the next two years.

So why was Aizawa forced to track them down anyway? He wasn't even given a big time vigilante, only a small timer who -honestly- didn't seem too troublesome. Given the circumstances, a higher up probably wanted the man gone for personal reasons, whether it be that the vigilante has dirt on them or the vigilante is losing them money. Both were plausible, but Aizawa didn't care to solve either one, even if being a vigilante was technically illegal.

There was virtually no information on the so-called vigilante. Even the civilians in the area didn't have any information, though Aizawa had a theory that they were saying that to protect the vigilant. They all acted clueless, not even giving a name to the anonymous person.

At the station a few names were thrown around but none quite stuck. Aizawa was still rooting for 'pain in the ass'.

The victims of the vigilante told a story of a short male, dirty but fluffy hair and neon green eyes. They all spoke of his eyes like they were the most terrifying part of him, maybe it was part of his quirk? No other clues were given to his quirk or otherwise.

The heroes that reported seeing him were inconsistent, and no details came close to helping detectives.

All of the incidents happened in the area, but there was no consistent time or days, meaning that Aizawa was going to be chasing a shadow for the foreseeable future.

Aizawa sighed again at the realization. The vigilante quite literally could be anyone, yet he was still supposed to be on the lookout? He continued on anyway. If he found the vigilante-good, if not, then oh well. The hero's association wasn't going to risk losing Aizawa no matter the circumstance.

As the sun started to rise Aizawa turned around from his path back towards his house. It was unavoidable as an underground hero to stay out late, but it clashed horribly with his teaching schedule.

His students could self manage today while he took a nap, he decided.