Pantheon

Chapter One ~ Beaten Into Shape

A couple of heroes began to usher the people back. Carefully avoiding the blast radius along with them.

He frowned, unslinging his bag and reaching into it with the opposite hand, pulling out a simple charred notebook. The letters were smudged and damaged beyond repair, but he knew it to be his newest analysis book, though far from the first Katsuki had tried to destroy.

Had this happened only an hour ago he would be right up there with the rest of them. Battling for a spot where he could watch the heroes duke it out with some poor villain. Where he could learn just a little more about how to be the best hero he could be.

'What's the point?"

He chucked the notebook into the nearest trash can. Sparing one last glance to the crowd as another explosion shattered a nearby window he turned down a side street, headed toward a side street that would get him back home in time for dinner.

"DIE!"

BOOM

He spun on his heel with all the speed and grace of a seasoned fighter. He knew that voice, that stupid, hateful, entitled voice that had tormented him for about as long as he could remember.

The crowd shifted as the explosion rocked the entire street. Then he saw it, a sickly green viscous liquid he now knew all too intimately. A flash of blond hair and crimson eyes. The black and white of his school's standard uniform. That damn snarl that had stared him down for every breath he took.

Then he just...ran.

The muscles in his legs moved before he had even registered what he was doing. A hero known in the area, Death Arms, had seen him coming and tried to stop him with a yell he barely registered, swiping at air as Izuku dipped under the hero's attempt to grab him.

Some of the crowd turned to look at the commotion. What they saw was a streak of green as he weaved through them. Pushing and ducking through them with all the might his frail body could supply him.

The villain caught sight of him as he broke from the pack. Tightening his hold on Bakugo for a moment until he realized it wasn't one of the heroes that had finally gotten ballsy enough to rush him. The tension in his eyes all but disappeared when he recognized the green-haired boy.

"You again? Payback time kid!" A toothy cartoon smile distinguished his face from the rest of the ooze. The only mistake Izuku needed.

A stream of ooze rushed toward him, swinging in a wide arc in an attempt to strike him in his side. With a burst of energy Izuku did not even know he was capable of he quickened his pace, ducking right before it reached him. Rising just in time to see another coming down with all the force of a falling tree.

Using the remaining inertia from his initial dodge he pivoted to the side, twisting with his book bag strap in hand. Then released it at the end of his move. All life stilled as it soared through the air like stone launched from a trebuchet.

Then it struck, a collective gasp echoing from the crowd around them as it met its intended target, the villain's exposed eyes.

"GHAAAAHHA!"

Ignoring the villain's pained cries, the young teen continued his mad rush, all but diving into the creature's sludge-like body.

"What the fuck are you doing Deku!?"

Saving his worst enemy, Izuku realized in that moment, that's what he was doing. Even after the world itself had come crumbling down around him, even knowing he was risking his life to do something so incredibly stupid, after everyone had told him it wasn't possible, he was saving someone.