Worthless Necessity [HitoZuku]

Chapter 119 - The darkness manifest

Midoriya's entire head felt fuzzy; every single movement became clear, he could see the bullet that was loaded in the gun, he could see the villain's finger pressing down on the trigger, he could hear screaming all around him.

But he couldn't move. All his muscles had tensed up, he could hear his heart pounding in his chest, he could hear his own breathing, but he could do nothing except to stare straight into the barrel of the gun.

He could hear more shouting, but he was barely able to process what was going on, with all of his focus on the gun that was right in his face.

A flash of light flared past his face, and the sound of a gunshot firing off rang through the air. Midoriya felt pain flaring through his shoulder, down his arm, and through his body, snapping him out of his daze. The villain's gun was no longer pointed at his face, but he was quickly readjusting his aim, and Midoriya hastily grabbed onto the barrel of the gun with his hand, wrenching it away so that it was pointing at the ground, just as the villain fired again.

Pain flashed through his hand, but Midoriya just jumped up, wrapping his legs around the villain's shoulders and flipping him over, smashing him into the ground and dislodging the gun from the villain's hands. Kicking the gun away, Midoriya turned around, only to notice that X-Less was still struggling against the two strength-enhancing villains, with blood running down his nose as he was punched in the face again.

That flash of light.

It took Midoriya some time to process it, and he growled; despite trying to hold off two villains on his own, X-Less had still tried to protect him, and had gotten hurt in the process. That hero had just saved him from getting shot in the face at point-blank range.

Midoriya bared his teeth and lunged, swiftly disorientating and knocking out one of the villains, giving X-Less enough time to regain his bearings to take out the remaining villains. Together, they knocked out the rest of the villains, and allowed the police and security to arrest and handcuff the villains.

X-Less groaned as he pressed some tissue against his nose, trying to soak up all the blood, and Midoriya stared up at the hero, concerned, ignoring the blood dripping from his shoulder and hand. X-Less seemed to notice the smaller boy looking up at him, and grinned at him, wincing slightly due to the bruise on his face, "Hey, kid. You alright?"

He seemed to notice the hole on Midoriya's hoodie, and the blood that was dripping down the boy's arm, creating a small puddle on the ground that gradually grew bigger.

"Hakryuen, uh... your arm..." X-Less muttered, staring at the bloody puddle, before his eyes trailed back to the boy's injured arm, as Midoriya paused, just seeming to remember that he was shot.

Midoriya used his uninjured hand, and prodded at the gunshot wound on his shoulder.

"I... don't think you should be touching that..." X-Less stated, watching as Midoriya poked his finger into the wound, "Kid, please don't touch it, please wait for the paramedics to check it out, come on, please..."

Midoriya just stuck his finger into the wound, digging around for a bit, completely ignoring the horrified look on X-Less' face. It took him some time to find the bullet, and he slowly wiggled it about, trying to get it out, just as the paramedics arrived.

Some of the paramedics moved to look over X-Less, checking over his broken nose and bruise, and several others tried to help Midoriya with his injured shoulder and hand, only to stop and stare as Midoriya tried to fish the bullet out on his own.

Midoriya finally got the bullet out, and seemed to notice that several of the paramedics were looking at him with stunned and petrified expressions on their face. He tilted his head in confusion, as one of the paramedics asked, "Did you just... fish it out on your own?"