Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 3: Burning

Izuku's everything hurt. How far had he ended up running last night? It couldn't have been more than a few miles, right? He'd come across two more muggings after that first one, so had to run to pick up a hero, then had to run back to the crime...okay, so maybe he'd run quite a bit, but still, he shouldn't be this sore, should he?

"Izuku, you're going to be late for school!"

Izuku groaned and forced himself out of bed. He must be even more out of shape than he'd thought. He'd definitely have to change that if he wanted to keep outrunning heroes. Izuku smiled as he got dressed. He'd saved people last night.

After giving his mom a quick kiss on the cheek, Izuku was out the door and on his way to school. He had to walk carefully to avoid limping, but he'd had more than enough practice with hiding injuries that hiding sore muscles wasn't nearly as difficult as he'd been afraid it would be. Hopefully Kacchan wouldn't want to use Izuku as quirk practice before class, with how sore he was he might not be able to run away fast enough.

Izuku frowned. Would he be able to go out tonight? He needed to be pretty fast to outrun heroes, so if he was too sore, he might get caught. But it had been so...satisfying? Izuku didn't know if it was the rush he liked or if it was as simple as saving people, but either way, he didn't want to wait to get back out there. Stretching helped with soreness, didn't it? He'd have to start stretching every night before he left so he didn't hurt himself. Maybe he should look up warm-ups too?

Izuku was so distracted planning his new nightly routine that he didn't see one of Kacchan's lackey's stick out his foot to trip him until he was already falling. He hit the ground hard and the contents of his backpack scattered all over the hall. The other students simply pretended not to see as they trampled his notes and Izuku felt his eyes start to water.

"Look guys! Deku's clumsy and a crybaby!"

Izuku tried to blink back the tears as he scrambled over the floor, trying to pick up his papers before they were ripped beyond repair. There was a pair of teachers chatting a little further down the hall, but they didn't so much as glance at Izuku even when he cried out as one of the meaner students stepped on his fingers.

"Oh sorry, Deku! I didn't see you there." The kid's smile gave away his insincerity, not that Izuku had been expecting an actual apology anyway. He finished shoving everything back into his bag and stood to get to class, trying to avoid everyone's eyes as he wiped away the tears.

"He's such a useless weaking, why does he even exist?"

Izuku kept his head down and did his best to ignore the whispers as he walked into the classroom and made his way to his seat. Kacchan was still refusing to look at him, which Izuku understood. Kacchan hadn't asked for Izuku to run in to save him, so he must still be mad about that. Izuku should probably apologize, shouldn't he? But knowing Kacchan, that might make the whole thing worse. He should just leave it alone for now, right? If things got worse, he would apologize, but until then maybe Kacchan would just forget about it or chalk the whole thing up to Deku being an idiot.

Though, it was strange that Kacchan hadn't said a single word to him since he'd stopped him on the street after the sludge villain attack. Normally, if their other classmates tried to do something, Kacchan would come along and do it better to prove that he was still the best, so since everyone had decided to be crueler to Izuku...well, he just thought it would make a lot of sense for Kacchan to use this situation to assert his dominance.

So why wasn't he?

Izuku quickly silenced what he was mentally calling his vigilante alarm and rolled out of bed. His soreness had gradually decreased throughout the day, but it hadn't completely gone away, so he'd probably have to pace himself tonight...