The Deku

Chapter 4: Candle Wick

"Help!" The sounds of a young boy echoed through the near-empty streets. "Someone help! Please!"

Izuku was the first of anyone around to turn toward the source of the cries. With the same energy boost he felt the day his mother was taken, he blasted his legs down the street.

A young boy, probably not even old enough for middle school with light blue hair ran frantic over the sidewalk and almost crashed into Izuku's legs.

"What's happened?! What's wrong?!" Izuku asked with as much urgency as the boy was displaying.

"I-It's my dad! A bunch of dudes in a truck took him away!" He sputtered with tears flowing hot down his cheeks.

"Where?!" Izuku asked.

"That black truck!" The boy pointed to a black van speeding down the road.

Izuku locked his eyes on the van and instinctively started to run.

He ran, and ran, and ran.

The familiar black van with the familiar silhouettes inside.

He found an opportunity when it hit an intersection with cars speeding by, blocking a quick, safe path.

Izuku had no idea what he could or would do once he got to them. He remembered one of them had a hardened skin Quirk but not much else about the other Quirks. His best bet was to be quick. Rip open the door somehow and pull the father out of the back before any of them have any reaction time.

He needed some extra leverage to make up for the lack of defenses, or powers for that matter.

As he approached the briefly stopped van, he pulled out a pencil from his backpack.

He was just less than a meter from the back doors when he thought he could see in slow motion, one of the men inside turn his eyes toward the boy.

Now he really needed to speed things up.

This was incredibly risky and stupid, just like before when it was his own mother. He needed to be smarter about this but in the moment, he couldn't. Izuku could only rely on luck for so long and this was testing it. The van's doors could just be locked. One of the villains could have a forcefield Quirk on the van. Everyone inside could be faster and won't hesitate to kill him for intervening.

Still, Izuku reached for the door and ripped it open.

Luck gave him one more shot. The villains must have not locked it when they left in a hurry.

The first thing he did with his other hand, as his left hand opened the door. Clenching the pencil with the point out, he thrusted it forward directly into the eye of the villain closest to the back.

He roared in pain while Izuku jumped inside and reached for the kidnapped father who was stuck sandwiched between two more villains.

Suddenly, one of the villains in the back with him grabbed his arm and threw Izuku out through the doors he worked so hard to get through. As he fell out, the villain with Izuku's pencil still in his eye, still gripped in his hand, toppled after him.

"Dammit, Yasako! Move!" One of the villains with a familiar husky voice shouted.

Izuku looked up only to see the barrel of some sort of big gun pointed down at him in the street.

He had to act fast. Without a second thought, he pulled the man with the pencil in his eye (it must have really knocked him out) between himself and the gunman.

Izuku yelled out as he heard the gun go off several times, blasting holes of red confetti out of the villain he used as a shield.

The van sped off. The father could be heard screaming as the doors were again shut.

The green-haired boy, not even realizing the heaviness of the situation now, shoved the body off of himself to watch in defeat as the villains once again got away.

People on the sides of the scene stood in shock. No one knew what to do here but to wait for the authorities.

Izuku didn't want to deal with the police again. Not like this.

He decided to search the body for any leads he could. Turning the villain's body over, he pulled out a couple guns and papers and stuffed everything into his backpack.

"Kid! Hey, kid! That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen anyone do. Are you alright?" A flower shop keeper asked as he walked up.

"Someone call for help! That guy got shot!" A bystander yelled out.

"What?!" Someone else turned to see the dead body next to Izuku.

Izuku Midoriya, through the commotion on the corpse in the street, put on his backpack and scrambled away into the growing crowd. Anyone who remembered the boy's involvement with what they saw lost sight of him quickly.

He didn't feel as short of breath as he was the other day. He felt exhilarated.

And he didn't feel remorse, or shock, or panic from his involvement in the accidental death of that villain. After all, he was just another one of those monsters who took his mother, and now that boy's father. And who knows however many more innocent people.

As he ran from the scene, he looked back to see police and emergency medicals arrive and establish control of the situation. Or so they wanted everyone to think.

Izuku risked his life and sacrificed everything in that instant and they only showed up once the carnage was over. And yet he was putting his trust in them to look for his mother. They weren't even there for that little boy.

From his peripheral vision, he saw the same little boy now being comforted by workers in an ambulance with a blanket around himself.

Izuku didn't stop. He looked straight ahead. He didn't turn around, even when he started hearing people call to him.

He ran to the only place he could call home after this all began. Not his foster home. They won't help him with what he was thinking next. He needed to go back to his Midoriya family apartment.