Chapter Text
His body felt off. It wasn't cold, no, but there was this small twinge in the back of his mind that pulled him from his warm bed.
At first he didn't understand what woke him, there didn't look to be anything wrong but the feeling stayed.
That feeling like when you're being watched but no one's there, that feeling that courses through your body unwillingly as it yells at you that something is wrong.
Kicking his blanket off his body and quickly hurling the window open, his fingers curled under the lower sash as he pulled it up to poke his head out the now opened window.
Izuku could see smoke coming from the medical center in his village. It was turning the once blue sky grey and cloudy, as if it would rain but instead the clouds hung low to breathing level.
The fire was crossing the grounds and engulfing everything in sight, guess that's what started up that feeling. Why couldn't it ever be for something good like a surprise cake or a new notebook his mother got for him?
Tilting his head a bit to the right, Izuku could see his mother's workplace up in flames.
She had had the early morning shift today…
“No”, the words dragged out from his mouth as he stared in dread for a few seconds before he moved.
Shutting his bedroom window and bolting down the stairs to the living room.
He grabbed his brown leather satchel, rushing out their home and slamming the door behind him in his mad dash.
It was a twenty minute walk but when running and taking lots of short cuts, it equaled up to around eleven minutes at most.
His mother had gotten him that bag years back when he was 15. He had been begging for one for almost 8 months and so she made him one for his birthday.
It was this soft, brown leather satchel with a stamped in symbol of a white hellebores; his favourite flower and the inside was lined with this smooth to the touch, emerald green satin fabric.
He loved it more than he would ever be able to tell her in words.
The cobble stone was rough as he ran down the darkened streets, the stones uneven under his booted feet. Having almost junked himself a couple times it was a wonder how he hadn't gotten hurt by now.
As a child, he was always the “fragile” one. Other villagers and his teachers would tell the other children not to be rough with him back in kindergarten because “Izuku can't handle it” and “you just have to be gentle with him, remember? Gentle hands.”, it was horrible because it painted him as the weird boy. And to be honest, he was.
He was never into rough housing with the other boys, never wanted to go dig mindless holes in the ground, hell– he didn't even think the girls were pretty. They were pretty in his eyes, of course, but they were pretty like his momma was pretty.
His bag jostled as he ran through a cold alley, passed some tavern and to the right. His feet skittered as he came face to face with the healing center, its two stories towered over him as it burned down slowly; almost as if it was taunting him with each flicker of amber flame.
Once at the center where the fire was mained, Izuku peered into the heat licking off the flames and at the damage. Windows were broken, doors burning down to ash, smoke rising from the flames; and the scorch marks covered the surface like ink splattered onto a canvas. Pulling his shirt up a bit to cover his mouth and nose, Izuku pushed his way into the place in search of his mom.
Inside was like a furnace, the heat of the flames trying to encase him and swallow him whole as he pushed his body to go up the stairs.
Izuku had been in the building many times before as a kid when his mother had to take him to work with her, to be completely honest, this was where he spent most of his time when younger and even now. He spent so much time in these halls and with the medicine that he even learned how to make the medicine pouches and what plants to use in general to make medicine for burns, soreness, cuts and more.
The stairs led him up to the second floor, he tested the creaky door to see if there were flames beyond it before pushing it open a jar and stepping through. Izuku made his way down the hall, opening any door he came across to check just in case she was in there after making sure there weren't flames awaiting him inside.
He kept his shirt up over his mouth and nose to keep as much smoke out as possible, but it still seeped in as he was forced to breathe. It stung his eyes as he scanned rooms and the halls, curled inside his lungs uncomfortably as it forced him to hack.
He came across the last door of the hall, pushing it open and stepping in, he hoped for another empty room because then that would mean she got out; that would mean he still had her.
It was an empty patient room, except it wasn't exactly empty entirely. Besides the normal cot in the corner with a couple chairs, the cabinet with some supplies and a table to work at if required– there was a body, slumped by the far wall.
Kneeling down to the body on the floor, his hand shakily hovered over top of the form before getting the courage to place his hand on them. Once his soft palm made contact with the body's neck to check for a pulse, anything; one word echoed in Izuku’s mind.
Cold...
The coldness of the body coursed through his bones like the night air in winter, a shiver running through his body as he forced himself to move his hand down to the forms right shoulder.
He slowly pushed the body to get it to gently roll over into the side to see the face.
“Mom…” He whispered to the body as if it would open its cold dead eyes and answer him back with soft, comforting words.
The body was of a chubby woman with silky green hair and emerald eyes, the same eyes he had inherited from her.
She was in a soft, cream white work uniform with a name tag on it reading Inko Midoriya. The kind woman who used to laugh at her own jokes, read him bedtime stories when he was little, help others with anything she could when she was living and so much more– was gone.
And it left a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he forced himself to get up and out of there. She had looked just as lovely as normal, so it must've been smoke inhalation; the silent killer and the fire combination.
Standing up on his weakened legs, he forced himself to walk out of the room and leave while trying to hold back choked cries. There was nothing left for him in this town if Inko was gone.
His mother was the only thing keeping him in this village, so why bother staying if she wasn't here anymore. It didn't matter now, not anymore, so what was the point of staying?
So he didn't.
—————————————————
Walking through the enchanted forest. Izuku was mindlessly pushing branches out of his way so they'd snap back behind him and kicking rocks as he traveled along the dirt ridden path.
It was currently 6:42 am, not a time Izuku would normally be awake because he ‘accidentally’ stays up til the crack of dawn. But currently his little village called Norfall was burning to a crisp, like his toast when he puts it over the fire for too long like an idiot.
Wandering aimlessly down the path with nothing but the clothes on his back and a satchel with some pocket knife, notebook, pencil and some warm water that would probably taste like crap wasn't exactly how he expected his day to ago but beggars can't be choosers.
As Izuku walked along the forest floor, thoughts ran around his head like a waterfall.
All his thoughts were jumbled up and a complete mess, some of the thoughts that bounced off the walls of his brain were ‘this is a horrible idea’. And then others were just ‘why do I do this to myself?!’.
So, yeah, not exactly rational but who can't blame him. His village just lit up into flames and had taken his only family with it.
After some time on his route, the forest path he was walking started to get narrower and the branches thickened the deeper he adventured; blocking the sun out bit by bit and making the walk more...alarming.
Following the path it started to move to the right more and more. Izuku –not having a map on hand- had no clue where he was headed but knowing his luck with literally anything, it was probably not a good way.
The trail was a dirt path with brushes, fallen leaves and rocks scattered around. He started to go on auto pilot after the feeling of unnerve had begun to disperse.
Lost in his thoughts, I didn't notice where he was placing his feet until he heard a sharp–
SNAP
–sound from under himself.
Izuku felt something below him snap up, wrapping around him as he was pulled upside-down into zero gravity.
He found himself tangled up in a rope and hanging 5 feet in the air. He had been so busy losing his mind over being in the forbidden forest -named by the surrounding villages- that he didn't notice a trap that was definitely for a larger animal.
The rope was tangled around his legs, trailing down his upper thighs to wrap around his stomach as he swung weakly back and forth Ike a pinata.
Some of the rough rope wrung around his chest and arms, which hung above his head with the pull of gravity, the ropes digging into his clothes uncomfortably.
Disoriented, he looked around the surrounding area that he could see from his current predicament.
His bag was just out of reach. It must've slipped off him when he had tipped backwards and was pulled upside-down.
It was laying on the ground to the left of him, some of the stuff in it was scattered across the ground like fallen leaves.
Looking at the things scattered over the ground, Izuku could see his pocket knife was a bit in front of him; if he could just swing enough to reach it, he'd be free to continue on his way.
Yeah, about that–
He couldn't reach it in his state.
He was stuck like a bird in a cage, alone in this woods for who knows how long and he was probably going to die here at this rate.
If not from starvation, then by either some hunger driven predator, being mulled by a bear or even just from the blood rushing to his head with a vengeance.
And so he hung there with his eyes closed, trying to make the pounding in his head go away.
It didn't work, he really needed to get out of this before he ended up dead meat. What on earth did he do to upset the gods enough to have himself hung like a pinata and munch on by animals as if this was an all you can eat buffet?!
Nonono– no!
That is not happening, he is getting that stupid pocket knife from the ground and cutting himself out of this situation!
So he swung his body back and forth. And back and forth.
And back and forth.
This wasn't working at all, all he had accomplished here was tiring himself out and wasting roughly fifteen minutes of his precious -running away from life problems- time.
But what else could he do?
Just wait for someone to come along and help him out? No, that was stupid.
That would never work–
…Right?