Not powerless

chapter 6: Gift

Because he knew that now. This beast wasn’t just a monstrous nightmare designed by After to torture him. It was flesh and blood, and if it could be hurt, it could be killed. Izuku burst through a door into the blessedly fresh air of the roof. Smoke formed a curtain around the edge, but it was clear enough that Izuku breathed in huge lungfuls.

His clothes were in tatters. His hoodie and shirt were torn away by the beasts tail. His pants more closely resembled shorts, and everything was littered with small burns. As much as he was bleeding, the wound on his back was shallow.

He needed a plan. There was nowhere to hide on the roof, and he couldn’t see any neighbouring buildings he could try and jump to. All that left was facing down the beast. Could he do that? Could he face that thing and win?

A low growling had him spinning around to face the door. The beast emerged, fire billowing around it. Its eyes were laser focused on Izuku as it snarled and spat. Maybe dropping heavy cabinets on it wasn’t a smart idea. Then again, neither was the only plan he could think of at the moment. Was it based on an old animated movie he saw when he was a kid? Possibly. Could he think of any other way of beating it? No. Was it a terrible plan that was going to almost certainly get him killed? Absolutely.

The beast prowled, snarling at him. Izuku did his best to snarl back. Fear was gripping his insides like a vice but he refused to let him break here. A hero wouldn’t back down from a scary villain, and that was all this was. Izuku was a hero and this beast the villain. It roared once again and Izuku roared back.

“Come at me you monster!”

The beast charged. It pounced, great cleaving claws unsheathing from its paws and aimed at him. Izuku held his ground and then at the last minute, he dropped. He grabbed hold of the beasts wrists, letting its momentum roll him over until his legs were underneath its body. With all his strength, he pushed upwards. The beast scrabbled and clawed at him, tearing up the sleeves of his hoodie but luckily not catching skin, but there was nothing it could do. Its momentum carried it over Izuku and then, over the edge of the building.

The roars turned to yelps as it fell. Izuku hurried to the edge to see the beast disappear beyond the veil of smoke, only visible as a dim light from the fires on its back. He waited to hear the thud, but that never came. The longer it went, the more Izuku was able to catch his breath, even as the anxiety built. Had that been enough?

The entire building shook. The concrete groaned before collapsing into dust. Izuku fell with it, instinct being the only thing stopping him from crying out and inhaling it all. He fell and fell, the dust giving way to smoke giving way to nothing at all. Izuku fell until he landed in a frigid coldness.

Going from intense heat, the sudden coldness that surrounded his body was excruciating. It collapsed around him and Izuku realised that he was in water. Powerful, roiling, turbulent water.

Above his head was the surface of a great sea, white with foam from the crashing waves. Izuku could barely keep himself together. The water carried him, spinning him over and over until he lost track of where up was supposed to be. So focused was he on not drowning that he didn’t notice the seabed until he was slammed into it.

The force was so powerful it nearly knocked the breath of him. The current scraped him along the rocky bottom. Izuku flailed, trying to reach out and grab something, anything, but then the waves shifted, carrying him upwards.

By pure chance, he broke the surface and Izuku gasped for air. It was only small because a wave crashed over him, forcing him down again. His body was screaming at him, demanding oxygen that he couldn’t give. The spinning was making him dizzy, vomit threatening to rise. Izuku was slammed into the bottom again, but this time his flailing let him catch on something. His hand tightened around an outcropping and Izuku pulled himself into a ball around it.