Chapter Text
The crowd of frightened bystanders rushed towards Izuku in the streets of Musutafu. Waves after waves of screams drowned out by explosions and falling rubble came from the direction they were running from. He saw the faces of scared people shoving past him, some stopping for a mere moment to tell him to run, but no, he wouldn’t let this opportunity for a brilliant post to slip through his fingers. He side-stepped into an alleyway, away from the rushing mob, to grab his equipment out of his bag.
He grabbed his oxygen mask, tinted glasses, and threw on the hoodie he had stuffed into his bag. With the hood up, securing the glasses in place, he ruffled around his backpack to find a small, palm-sized camera that attached to his glasses.
He wiped the sweat forming on his brow; there hadn’t been many urban sightings of heroes recently, so he desperately needed to get over to the fight scene quickly. A colossal bang ripped through the building, sending bricks down towards Izuku from the roof. Swiftly dodging them, he lept into the street as dust kicked up from the ground and booked it to hide behind a nearby car. He slid over the hood and focused intently on the figures behind the wall of dust. He reached up to click the record button on the side of the camera and laid in wait.
He heard scuffling in the alley ahead of him and focused on the figure making its way out of the alley with its hands on its head. The spiky-haired hero stepped out into the street, followed by a slime looking being. In its acidic arms were three people: two children, and one woman, who Izuku assumed was the mother. The blonde hero’s face was scrunched, and Izuku saw veins plastered all over his forehead. The situation filled his eyes with fire and bloodlust; he was in no mood for negotiation.
“Let the people down, or I’ll blow your head off.” The masked hero said, half-assed. From his tone, it seemed like he wanted to kill the villain, more so than he wanted to save the people. Izuku licked his lips; this is just what he was looking for. He had seen this kid before, a pompous hero with a superiority complex who thinks he’s better than everyone else: Katsuki Bakugou.
His hero name was ‘Ground Zero’, quite fitting for his explosive nature, which had garnered him a lot of attention already. Izuku curled his lips up into a smile. This would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He had a gut feeling this wouldn’t go well, so he swiftly backed up farther across the street. The slime looking villain proceeded farther out into the open, its horrid stench traveled into Izuku’s nostrils which smelled like rotting corpses. He had to hold back his breakfast to focus on what was happening in front of him.
Bakugou sent warning shots out towards the slime, who avoided them with ease and slung around the hostages. The children, held upside down by their feet, were pleading desperately to be set down, and their mother was begging to take her instead of her children.
“Kekeke, you seem quiet compared to how you were earlier. Cat got your tongue?” Bakugou grinded his teeth together, searching desperately around him for anything to use in combating the monster. He took a step closer, and the monster in response formed a hand around the civilians heads.
“One step closer and I’ll rip them apart.” It held a demonic stare. Its large stature made its multitude of eyes look down on Bakugou. Izuku could tell the boy hated it. The feeling of helplessness, the feeling that if he did anything, everything would get fucked up.
He used his pointer finger to tap on his earpiece. He was whispering, and Izuku swore in his mind. If he properly equipped his backpack that day, he could’ve listened in on his conversation. Luckily for him though, it didn’t seem to matter. The blonde clenched his fist.
“Like hell I’m just going to stand here like a dumbass while this asshole gets away!” He takes his finger off the earpiece and launches towards the monster, who grins even wider than before. Bakugou clenches his fist and hurls an explosive punch towards the monster who blocks it with one child’s body. Stunned from his actions, he freezes for just long enough for the monster to hit him with the other child. With the force of the monster’s body, a crack rang out, and the child’s body went limp. Bakugou’s body flung towards a building too close for Izuku’s comfort, and he stopped watching the fight for a second to ensure he would have his life by the end of this.
Only a block away, Izuku spotted a fire escape and ducked between cars as to not be seen by either party in the fight. Both monsters were too busy to notice him, and he climbed the fire escape ladder with ease, situating himself to watch the fight again.
“These bodies are easy to throw around, hero.” It cackled, seeing the anger of Bakugou’s face. He rushed in again, but this time the slime took the hit directly and Bakugou bounced off like the monster was a trampoline. Its laugh ran through the streets and he tore an arm off the woman to send at Bakugou.
“Why not wait for back-up hero? You can’t do anything to me with your puny tactics.” Explosions burst out his palm and just as he was about to charge in again, two other heroes arrived on the scene. One, a girl in a black and white full-body suit, and the other, a boy mixed with mechanical parts and a black suit.
“Ochako! Iida! Back off, I’ve got this handled!” The girl, Ochako, stepped besides Bakugou to calm him down, and the boy, Iida, approached the monster to negotiate with it. Under his armor, he was scared, the woman still in its grasp was bleeding out, and she didn’t have much time left. He called to Ochako to back him up, and they both rushed in to subdue the monster.
Iida, using jets on the back of his calves, sprinted towards the monster’s back to distract it while Ochako, slowly, shot her hands out to touch the monster. The monster manifested a limb to whip both of them aside, plus the bodies of the children it used to protect itself. Iida caught one, while Ochako dove to catch the other, but she didn’t stop the child’s body from hitting the pavement in time.
Using this opportunity, the rogue Bakugou snuck up on the monster the jam a punch into its side. Not expecting the impact, the monster flung the woman’s body towards Bakugou, who dodged it, and sent a last explosion in towards the monster.
Its body flung goop everywhere, some slithering away into manholes, sewers, and cracks in walls. Iida ran towards the woman and dropped to his knees, seeing the woman’s head pool with blood underneath. Seeing the scene end, Izuku stopped the recording to head up to the rooftop to make his escape. He carefully slid down one of the fire escape ladders, minimizing the rattling in made, but before he climbed up, he heard another voice down below near the now crime scene.
“I take full responsibility!” The boy in the full-face mask, Iida, was bowing towards a hero who had just arrived. Held in place by a scarf, the black-haired man towered over the three teenagers and Izuku immediately identified him as Shota Izawa. He smiled even more in mask than before. A full-blown hero scolding his students? In public? What a sight to behold.
Izuku clicked the record button again and zoomed in on the scene. Iida’s voice boomed across the block as he tried to explain the situation, while Ochako trembled on the spot, and Bakugou stared off into space. Izawa held up a finger and Iida stopped his rambling.
“So which one of you engaged the enemy before I told you to?” All three stayed silent. Iida slowly raised his hand, to Bakugou and Izuku’s surprise. He raised his hand so confidently, Izuku was almost convinced he had orchestrated the entire thing, but Aizawa wasn’t.
“I don’t believe that.” He turned towards Ochako and Bakugou, “Do you two have anything to say about that?” Bakugou shook his head, and Ochako kept her eyes trained towards her feet. Aizawa pinched the bridged of his nose.
“All right, well, Iida your punishment will be determined at school. Let’s go, the police will handle the crime scene.” Izuku blinked twice in astonishment. Did he hear that right? There were a couple things wrong with that whole interaction. One, the straight man, Iida took the fall for Bakugou, the boy he knew from personal experiencing wasn’t a good person, second, the girl with them didn’t speak up on Iida’s defense, and lastly, probably the most damning thing: the three of them were students.
Izuku shook his head in rage. This is exactly why he was doing what he was doing. To stop these kinds of insane actions from happening, to stop hot-headed arrogant assholes like Bakugou from getting away with everything because he had people to take his fall, to tell people like Ochako it should be encouraged to speak up against heroes who misuse their power, and get innocent people killed because of it.
He flung himself up the fire escape ladder and onto the rooftop above. Strangely, there weren’t any news helicopters flying around. Just another reason to get the videos to his computer and upload them to his blog. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, and seeing descending roofs, jumped down onto the street level. He stayed in the back alleys for a few more blocks, taking off his glasses and mask when he approached a busy street. Just then he felt a chill go down his spine, and he turned towards the alley. A shadow rushed to the side and Izuku felt an ominous presence past go towards the shadow. He stood there for another second before stepping into the lively Musutafu street.
All along his walk home he kept feeling an itch on the back of his neck, an urge to look over his shoulder. He knew nothing was there, but every corner turned he needed to check for his own sanity. Was someone following him? He shook his head. No, he was being paranoid. He turned up to his apartment door and fumbled with his keys. Even his hands were feeling the effects of his paranoia.
He finally got the door open and took off his shoes, locking all three of the locks on his door. From this morning, all the lights in his apartment were off. He turned them off regularly, but today, even with the sunlight poking through the windows, he felt antsy.
“What is wrong with you?” He whispered to himself, grinding a knuckle into his temple. Every door he opened, he had to pump himself up and prepare for anything that might lie behind each door. And without fail, every single door he opened had nothing exciting inside. No intruders, or heroes trying to hunt him down, no villains trying to kill him, only his belongings exactly how he left them that morning.
He sighed when he got up to his room, and he opened his door with no hesitation. His laptop sat at his desk closed, and he opened it to see his recent blog post:
[Hey everyone, I know you all are waiting for an update, but there isn’t much to see right now. I’m trying to get some fresh information on the heroes I’m watching, but they’ve been on high alert for some reason. I’m trying to look into it, but I don’t want to get caught looking up things that make me look suspicious. So I’m going under for a couple weeks. Sorry, but it’s just for my safety. See you soon.
-Quirkless]
He stared at the screen, the time stamp reading three weeks ago. He grinned and plugged in his camera to upload the videos he took. When they were done, he put on his headphones and listened to the videos to make sure he had nothing that would reveal his identity. Scrubbing through the videos, his eyes kept drawing towards Bakugou. He hadn’t talked to the kid in years, the last time they talked was in middle school when Bakugou pushed him down the stairs. He clenched his fist; it seemed like every time he did someone wrong, people would shove it to the side because he would be a glorious hero.
Well now, he would finally show everyone how much of an asshole he was, how reckless he was, and how unfit he was to be a hero.
The videos were done uploading, and he clicked on the ‘make post’ option. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. There were so many thoughts running through his mind he didn’t know what to write first. He couldn’t talk about getting bullied by Bakugou personally, but he could act like some random kid with a quirk bullied him. He nodded and started typing.
[It’s been three weeks and I finally have some evidence to show everyone.]
He links the two videos.
[In the first video, the apprentice heroes, Ground Zero, Ingenium, and Uravity are fighting an unknown villain in the middle of a Musutafu street. As the video goes on, it is blatantly seen that the hero Ground Zero goes off on his own, and instead of trying to negotiate with the villain, rushes in and gets innocent hostages killed. In the second video, it might be hard to hear, but you can hear Ingenium take the fall instead of Ground Zero. Is this really who you want to be protected by? Children who can’t even control their feelings in a serious scenario? You shouldn’t accept this. Spread this post around and let’s see some consequences for these actions. Stay safe everyone. Signing off.
-Quirkless]
Izuku hits the post button and sinks into his chair, tired. This was the thing he needed to finally get himself out of his slump again. During these three weeks he had been pulling his hair out, trying to find any information to post. Even at the detective agency, where he was an intern at, the amount of recent cases had plummeted. He sighed, at least he wasn’t at school anymore.
After experiencing bullying from his classmates, he graduated early and had been doing well for himself. Even his mother, seeing how much he was suffering, allowed him to get his own apartment in the city. It was close to the detective agency, and the freedom made him feel more alive than ever. Well, the freedom wasn’t what made him feel alive: it was the blog he ran that made him feel like he was truly living. Having the freedom to do anything he wanted was helping his blog run like a well-oiled engine.
He had more time for exposing horrendous heroes, he had more time to work and get his detective career going, and he felt happier than he ever had before.
A couple hours later, he jumped into bed. The moonlight shone through the window onto his laptop and he leaned into his pillow. He still had plenty of things on his mind, starting with getting his equipment back from Mei at her workshop, and how well his post was doing. But none of that mattered if he didn’t get any sleep, so he snuggled into bed and drifted to sleep, not knowing that in the morning his entire world would be shaken from one blog post.