Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 35: Relapse

The destruction from Izuku's fight last night was obvious as he walked to the park to meet Kaminari. Various damaged buildings were blocked off with caution tape and orange cones surrounded the various holes that the villain had torn into the ground during his rampage. Even after almost an entire day, anyone could have tracked the path Izuku led the villain just by looking around. It was terrible.

Why hadn't he done something more? There had to have been some way to stop the villain or at least localize the destruction! Izuku had been so busy running for his life that he didn't even think about property damage. It was a good thing that he'd never be a real hero, because a real hero would have been strong enough to prevent this.

It took him longer than it normally would to reach the park, partly because he was rubbernecking at the destruction and partly because he was still sore from basically jumping off a roof to save those girls. He hadn't even been able to prevent them from being injured! Why did the heroes even put up with him? It seemed like their lives would be a lot easier if he'd never become a vigilante to begin with. Maybe he should just get it over with and...

Izuku shook his head in an attempt to knock himself out of his spiral. He couldn't kill himself just yet. He would at least have to say goodbye to Eraser, since he knew he was suicidal and at least pretended that he cared. Maybe he could have Eraser talk to Mom once he was gone. Having a hero come to comfort her would probably soften the blow. He would be able to explain better than Izuku could that it wasn't her fault and that he never wanted to hurt her. He could help her grieve. Was that asking too much?

"Hey! Dude!" Kaminari waved his hand in front of Izuku's face, making him flinch and knocking him from his thoughts. He hadn't even realized he'd already arrived at the park. "You ok? You were kinda spaced out there."

Izuku felt like he'd eaten a rock. He'd managed to make a friend, only to make them worry about him almost immediately. Kaminari would probably be better off if they'd never met in the first place. He forced a bright smile onto his face and laughed, "Yeah, sorry. I guess I just didn't sleep well last night."

"Mood." Kaminari said with mock seriousness. "So are you still good to train today, or do you want to take a break?"

"No, I'm good!" No matter how awful Izuki felt, he'd promised to teach Kaminari how to fight and he couldn't let him down...which meant that he couldn't die yet. He could probably ask Eraserhead to either teach Kaminari or explain things to his mother, but not both. That would be leaving him with a bigger burden than Izuku already was alive, which was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. "Alright, so last time we focused on hitting, right?"

"Yep!" Kaminari's face lit up with excitement. "I feel like I'm starting to get a hang of it. I've been practicing some of the moves on my own too!"

"Perfect." Izuku thought for a moment about what they could work on that wouldn't be too physical. He'd already made Kaminari worry by spacing out, so it would be really bad if they were practicing throws or something and Izuku failed to hide the bruised ribs he'd gotten last night. "Well, I guess the opposite of hitting is dodging, so we can work on that...Only if you want to, that is! If you want to work on something else, that's totally ok too! It's just that dodging's important in a fight and it might be useful if you want to learn, not that you have to..."

"Alright!" Kaminari cut off his rambling with a cheer. "Let's learn to dodge!"

Izuku smiled despite himself, Kaminari's enthusiasm gradually infecting him and chipping away at his depression as they walked through some of the ways that Izuku had learned to avoid attacks as Viridian, "So, um, if the villain's taller than you, then you're going to want to bend down low. The tallest people I've fought tend to underestimate how low they really need to aim to hit me, so, um, you can use that to your advantage. Oh, and there's going to be a second or two after they miss you where they need to recover, but you shouldn't let them. You'll already be down low from dodging their attack, so you should go for their knees if you can to throw them off balance."