The Lost Emerald Soul [Fantasy AU]

Reflecting & Understanding Hardships

3 POV:

Standing in his new room at the inn, Izuku looked at the mirror that was hanging on the wall. What he could see was a reflection that he recognized but at the same time was one growing to be completely different. It would also give him some nightmares along with a handful of sleepless nights because he could see his hair coated in dried blood along with his clothing tattered with blood smeared into it or across his skin. "I look like shit..." Izuku said out loud to no one but himself as he moved away from the mirror and proceeded to get into the small tub that was made out of some smooth material inside of his room. 'Must be some sort of monster material... it's not wood or a natural ore material that I can recall from earth.' Izuku thought as he sat in the tub without even removing his clothing due to the daze his mind was in as it wandered to random things.

Sitting there in a complete daze, Izuku started to think back to how the entire day went from when he went out to do what was meant to be a simple task for the adventure guild but had turned into a fight for his life to now ending up in a inn for the foreseeable future since he was no longer apart of the towns guard. Yes, that is right! Izuku Midoriya was a free man from the towns guard since there was a decent reward for the corpse of the Horned Gray Wolf since they were ranked as a grade 5 monster. There was sadly no outright kill task for the creature since they are hardly an issue for humans due to how far away they tend to be from settlements but there was a request for a mature Horned Gray Wolf pelt and horn. As such, this had earned Izuku a total of 1 Gold coin and 5 Silver which meant that after all of his recent expenses and the inn for the night, Izuku had a total of 1 Gold Coin and 20 Copper to his name! Of course, even in the haze of the death fight and dragging the corpse back to town there was one thing that did not escape his mind! This was the fact that once he got his reward and was let go from the guild after answering some questions on where he had located such a creature, Izuku went straight to the guard captain as he paid off his debt.

Of course the guard captain kicked Izuku out of the barracks right away and threw Izuku on the streets since he knew he couldn't earn any more money off of Izuku. Though, an inn in this town was not that costly overall but it still costed him 10 Copper coins which he had paid for an entire month in advance which was three silvers total. As such, this is how Izuku ended up in the tub he was now in at the inn because he was now a free man from the towns guard but also he was now in his state of haze or rather shock due to all of the events that had happened so quickly in this day. Looking at Izuku, could you see that the life in his eyes had dulled which was due to many reasons but the main one was the lesson or rather knowledge of how truly hard it will be for him to ever find a way home or the fact that he may never find a way home in this world. A creature out of nowhere in this world had almost claimed his life today and that realization was like a weight on his shoulders far greater than the weight of being the ninth user of One For All and having to defeat All For One. No.... that weight was one with a clear goal post where he had help running towards it but here he had no one nor a true goal post. There was the idea of going home but in reality how does one go home when you don't even know how you got to where you were in the first place. So having no clear goal post or path to take combined with an extremely hostile environment to live in felt down right soul crushing to Izuku right now to the point he just sat there in the tub while the water turned red due to all of the dried blood washing off of him.

After what felt like hours, Izuku started to move his body slowly as he rubbed water through his hair and cleaned whatever he could out of it and proceeded to finish his bath. As if he was on autopilot, Izuku threw his clothing off as they soaked the floor where they fell before he just slipped under the covers of his bed since the hotel had slightly a slightly better bed than his previous one in the barracks so it was much softer and cleaner. This was the complete and utter lack of regard Izuku had since he had just left everything to be a tomorrow's problem as he closed his eyes and let the pure exhaustion he was experiencing pull him away into the darkness. Sadly, for him he didn't have a quite a silent and peaceful sleep as he wanted.