Muse

Chapter 42

For the last ten minutes or so, an unnerving feeling had settled in the pit of Izuku's stomach. It started out like bad heartburn, a mild discomfort but manageable. He thought patrol duty would be enough to shake off whatever this was, but then it began growing, like he was standing in a room full of anxious people. It could have been nothing. He had been on the clock for well over twelve hours now and was running on virtually no sleep, restlessly pondering exactly what had been going through Alyssa Blake's head and why he had agreed to meet up with her. He shouldn't have been doing either of those things. If anything, he should've been on his way home by now. His agency was doing well, almost up to standards that All Might would have been proud of, but instead he had been stewing in this nervous energy while covering for Momozono when she left early to pick up her kids from daycare. It could have been the exhaustion or sleep deprivation, something that always made him a bit on edge when he hadn't gotten enough sleep or had one too many cups of green tea, but something in his gut was telling him he needed to be somewhere else.

The abject feelings of terror and rage he experienced had only grown more urgent with each step through the Koreria District, fluttering around in his chest like a caged songbird. Soon he was starting to spot the familiar markers of Akihabara and the bridges that went over the waterways running around it and felt his own anxiety add to the mix. There was so much noise in his head, so much fear and anger along with a whole other amalgamation of emotions. Suddenly, the anxiousness rose to a fever pitch, peaking and radiating inside him to point that he almost confused it for his own feelings. Then, all at once, the sensation was gone, as if the connection had been abruptly severed. He started running.

He should have felt relief that the strange anxiety attack had ended, but now he felt more on edge than ever. He tried to grasp onto the sensation from earlier before it slipped away, but it was gone, nothing more than a faint flicker of a candle with dying embers. He still kept running, leaps and bounds sending him over obstacles until he was about a block away from the Radio Building- then the anxiety was back, only it had morphed into a more generalized, widespread concern, not as sharp as before. He noticed a small crowd gathering in-between the buildings, clamoring amorously at whatever was going on outside. Sparks of One For All petered out as he landed on a mostly uncrowded street and went over to investigate. It was entirely possible that it was just the opening of some event in the store, but once he spotted a pro-hero in the alley, the paranoia suddenly felt validated.

"Excuse me," he apologized, politely weaving his way through the crowd before they parted after noticing the costume. "Please stay back," Izuku ordered, noticing one of the people had gotten a little too close to the scene. He noted a strange chemical smell to the air before he stopped to discover a disheveled Uwabami leaning over a body splayed out on the ground. "Uwabami?"

The part-time model's cat-like eyes darted towards him, causing her to nearly drop the item she had picked up. Her shock quickly shifted into relief. "Oh-! Deku, what are you doing here?"

Izuku paused, thrown that someone as popular as Uwabami knew who he was. "I was on patrol and saw the crowd."

"Well thank god for that. I was on my break from my Meet-n'-Greet when these villains tried jumping me in the alley. I was about to restrain them when you arrived."

"Do you need any help? Are you hurt?"

"Me? I'm fine. It'll take more than a couple of thugs to take me down," the Snake Hero followed Izuku's gaze to the blood-stained manacles. "Oh this? It's not mine. One of the thugs tried to grab me after cutting themselves." He nodded though her smile unnerved him for some reason. The feeling, while not as intense as earlier, had not dissipated, instead growing with a sharp, focused intensity. Was he feeling Uwabami's emotions? Was that what he had sensed earlier?