The Emerald Prince

Chapter 60: Rescuers

Obviously the Bakusquad had waited for Izuku. Which is why they saw him embracing a tall dark figure in the door way of a public bathroom.
It was a long hug, and clearly intimate with the way the stranger had his arms tight around the greenette's waist, and his head buried into his neck.

Ashido turned to her boys.
"Should we go say hi?" She asked.
Kirishima sighed, "no."
"Should we ask though?" Pointed out Kaminari, his eyes glancing away reluctantly from the strange duo.
"...I don't think we should." Said Sero. Kirishima nodded slightly.

When the four returned their gazes to the scene, the stranger was gone and Izuku stood alone, gazing at the pavement, with an expression they hadn't seen on him since he left to confront Bakugou after the Heroes vs Villains Battles.
It was hard to describe.

They waited for a bit, and hastily turned to look at each other and make small talk as Izuku came back to himself and made his way toward the group.
"I told you guys to go on ahead?" He said, blessing them with a shy smile.

"We wanted to wait!" Replied Ashido brightly, "but you took ages!"
"Oh," Izuku grinned bashfully, "sorry about that!"
Though he apologised, he didn't explain, but they had resolved to let it go, so they did.

"No worries!" Exclaimed Kaminari, grinning brightly and pointed dramatically up the street as he changed the subject with as much tact as a freight train, "LET'S GOOOO!" He yelled, and charged, the others following with no hesitation as he raced along one street and then another.

The park had high brick walls, and a large paved avenue through the centre, with trees standing sentinel either side of the path in twenty metre increments.
They tumbled into a dog pile under an oak tree a few hundred metres down the avenue, panting and exhausted - excepting Izuku, who gazed across the path at a playground with a distant expression on his face, which Kirishima caught.

"Izuku, what's up?" He asked, keeping his voice light but eyes serious as he disentangled himself from a panting Sero.
The greenette chuckled, "It's just a freaky coincidence, this is where Kacchan and I used to play when we were little!"
"Ooh!" Exclaimed Ashido, rolling off an exhausted Kaminari, and lying on her tummy, head propped on her hands to get a look at the greenette sat next to Kirishima, "baby Bakugou stories! Gimme!"

Izuku thought he might be murdered for this, but he was feeling happy and nostalgic and these guys were Bakugou's friends, so he talked. He told them about when Katsuki learned his first swear word, how he learned first aid to take care of Izuku because of his clumsiness... how they planned their own joint hero agency, how they watched every All Might film more than a dozen times together.
He was chatting about Bakugou beating up a kid for sitting on 'his deku's' sand castle, when Sero spoke up.
"What the hell happened?"

Izuku knew what he meant, and stretched to buy time to think up a honest but... well crafted response, "well, Bakugou got a quirk that was a golden ticket to UA, and I was diagnosed as quirkless."
"But why would that..." began Ashido looking confused.
The greenette tilted his head to look at the four with a gentle expression, "were there any quirkless kids in your schools?"
Kirishima, Ashido and Sero shook their heads, but Kaminari's face drained in colour.

Izuku smiled at him, "I know that look. How long did they last?"
If it was possible, Kaminari paled further. "Six months..." he whispered.
"How were they treated?" Continued Izuku, unsurprised and too used to the injustice to be angry anymore.
Kaminari glanced nervously at his friends. "She... was in the year below me so I don't know much but... well she was harassed a lot... I don't think the teachers bothered to stop it, I... I didn't really get involved... she jumped off the roof of the school building..."