Title: Enter: The Gamer
Author: Timothy Wren
Series: Ready, Player: Number One Hero
Episode: 01
Fandom: BNHA/Boku No Hero Academia
Relationship: TBD
Word Count: 5,156
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, some body horror due to Sludge Villain (graphic beginning scene), canon-typical sludge-down-throat, mentions of drowning, mentions of suicide (canon).
Author’s Note: This will be up on Ao3 when it’s complete, or at least closer to complete, but I wanted to go ahead and post the first few episodes just to see how it looks on my website. I actually just spent over half an hour just formatting this (center+bold wouldn’t transfer over in the copy+paste anywhere) so that’s going to need to change before I post the rest. Comments welcome, concrit not.
Chapter One
Izuku’s world changed kneeling on asphalt, drowning on dry land as a villain giggled and forced its way into his throat.
Almost immediately it was too much to take in, a void of sensory deprivation and a wave oversensitivity all at once. There was an overpass, shaded in the sunset, and no one noticed a boy in a school uniform on the ground, hands holding his own neck, unable to so much as move, much less stop it from happening.
Pain.
Crawling horror.
All of his senses pinged panic, panic, can’t escape! to his brain as wretched-tasting slime poured into his mouth, prying his jaw wide to fit. It burned, caustic, and he started to choke immediately.
His eyes were wide with tears and he clawed at the villain’s body, trying to get it out.
Some distant, horrified part of his mind was fixated only on the shortage of air, on the way slime slid up his nose like fire. He remembered reading: A complete lack of oxygen to the brain can cause unconsciousness in ten seconds.
But he was not being strangled, he was being asphyxiated. There was no pressure around his neck, cutting off blood supply to his brain. His blood was still carrying oxygen even though he couldn’t breathe to resupply it, meaning he had about two minutes of useful consciousness– maybe— before passing out.
Then hypoxia-like symptoms would set in, and from there it would be just a slow countdown to seizures, cell failure and his brain panicking as it suffocated to death.
That was the intelligent part of his brain. Usually that part of him was in the driver’s seat, so to speak; reciting facts and analyzing conclusions was a coping mechanism turned hobby, or maybe the other way around.
Today his body’s voice was more prominent than his mind’s, screaming signals that couldn’t be ignored: the violation, the discomfort. The visceral feel of sludge inching down his throat, the sound of laughter and taunting in a dark voice, and the human-animal terror of Izuku’s own skin crawling.
Black spots started dancing in his vision, his hearing became muffled as if underwater, and even as he tried to spit it out, to fight, his arms started weakening.
No, no! His blunt nails pried uselessly at the slime, toes kicking the concrete from where he was being held up–
Black.
A small hand reaching out to his, voice smiling: “When you get your quirk, we’re gonna be heroes together!”
Izuku in his prized All Might pajamas, chasing his mother around; being held up in mockery of flight as she cheered, “Super Izuku! The greatest hero in the world!”
Those same hands, sparking off steadily more violent explosions in his face.
His mother’s voice, a memory never far off: apologizing, always apologizing.
I didn’t get to… It was like he was sinking in a dark ocean, falling deeper and deeper as the light fades away, his hand reaching out and up towards it.
No, please, I need to…
The light grew darker, bubbles leaving his lips. His hand clenched into a fist like he could somehow hold it, keep it from fading away entirely. He closed his hand around the sun and it didn’t matter because the world around him was already being consumed by darkness.
Terror warred with frustration, helpless in his throat. He could feel each eyelash as his eyes struggled to stay open, as a burst of air tumbles into more bubbles in front of him, the last of his breath– desperate sound choking out of him, fingers spasming.
I was supposed to be a hero!
“SMASH!”
A rush, a barely-there tingle on his face. Weight, gravity.
Impact.
Izuku came awake slowly to a hand slapping both cheeks. He can’t breathe. Some sort of bell chimed, nonsensical. His eyes squinted open, light slicing into his vision, and it hurt. He flinched away.
The sharp motion turned his stomach, throat spasming, and he barely had the presence of mind to turn to the side before he was throwing up sludge.
Someone was talking, but the words were too blurry. A hand moved to his back, patting encouragingly, and he belatedly clocked it as the same hand that had been slapping him awake.
His stomach calmed down, throat clear enough for air, and Izuku didn’t think twice before gasping in a great lungful. He had almost died. He almost died.
He clenched hard to the front of his uniform, eyes sightless.
“Hey, kid.” A booming– familiar– voice said, finally breaking through his stupor. How was it familiar? How could it be?
“Jeeze, kid, come on. Breathe.” Izuku was trying. Once he got the first breath it was like he couldn’t stop, lungs greedily pulling in more until he was hyperventilating, overcompensating for the near suffocation.
“T-tr-trying.” He managed, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Hey there. I hate to rush you, but my time– ahem, that is to say, of course, that I need to get this villain to the police station right away!”
The words took a minute to pierce the crazy cocktail of adrenaline and who-knows-what else holding Izuku captive. He blinked up blearily.
A hero?
Blonde hair registered first, then fair skin. He struggled to place a costume and after an embarrassing moment realized the hero wasn’t even wearing one.
Memory punched him hard in the chest.
‘Smash!’
No…
Izuku hurriedly cleared his eyes and was rewarded with All Might– All Might!– laughing, stress edging his smile.
“Come on, kid, there you go. I really do need to get this villain squared away!”
Izuku couldn’t believe it. He almost died, and here was the hero. Saving him with a smile! All might saved him!
“A-autograph!” He choked, moving his hands frantically. There was something wrong with his vision; he shook his head to clear it and that didn’t help. He worried momentarily that he was hallucinating due to hypoxia, but he could deal with that later. He reached for his backpack, nowhere to be found, but All Might merely dropped it into his lap, his notebook on top.
The pages opened to show a broad signature taking up two pages.
“Thank you!” He managed, holding it tightly to his chest. His head was swimming and not just from the near-death experience.
He couldn’t believe he was meeting All Might. No, he literally couldn’t believe it. His head swam. He has so many things he has wanted to ask, answers that he’s never been able to find.
One in particular stood out. This was his chance.
“See you later, citizen!” Izuku looked up sharply, taking in the hero clad in civilian clothes, the shopping bags lying discarded haphazardly, and a villain somehow enclosed in soda bottles.
“No, wait!” Izuku reached out, but as he stood his vision wavered, and when the blood rush was over he struggled to see through the blue film still hazing up his sight. He blinked and All Might was gone. Izuku was totally alone under the overpass.
Izuku stumbled as the reality of that blue obstruction registered. His eyes refocused on it.
He realized it was not a film at all, but a semi-transparent screen.
Alert!
[New Beginnings: A Hero’s Quirk!
You have nearly died, and now you’ve awoken a quirk! You are the main character who has started out with their life in danger. It is time to develop unexpected power, overcome impossible odds, and become the hero of your own story. Welcome to step one of your journey!
Ready, Player: Future Number One?
YES // NO ]
Still dazed, and more than half-convinced he was dreaming– or that he really did die– Izuku pressed yes.
The world exploded with color.
Izuku yelped and flinched back. After a second, he realized there was no other effect, and blinked away the residual flashes.
“What on earth?” He looked around ande the new additions to his vision turned with him, staying fixed firmly in place. It looked for all the world like a HUD screen from a video game, easy-to-read words above various bars.
In the lower right corner was a mini-map. He had blue, red, and green bars, which his experience with video games automatically translated into mana, health and stamina.
He blinked down at his hand, which remained unchanged.
Ding!
A screen appeared cheerfully in front of him.
“Ahh!”
Heart racing, Izuku stopped scrambling back– the screen only came with him, anyway– and focused on what it said.
Quest Alert!
[Save a Friend: I Am Here!
Kacchan is in danger! The sludge villain escaped and has captured Kacchan! Rescue him with your new Quirk!
Quest Reward: +100 EXP
+50 Relationship Points with Bakugou Katsuki
Bonus Objective: Don’t Get Caught!
Bonus Reward: +100 EXP
+1 New Skill
Accept Quest:
YES // NO ]
The words ‘your new quirk’ swam before his eyes. For a moment, he couldn’t even breathe around the feelings that burst to life within him.
Quirkless! Rung in his head like a struck bell, the sense-memory of pain and sharp stings and crushing disappointment, like a sucking void in his chest.
‘Rescue him!’ it said, the words glaring out.
Izuku took a deep breath and hit YES.
Then the reality caught up with him.
Setting aside the monumentalism of having a quirk out of nowhere, Kacchan was in trouble.
A red dot appeared on his mini-map, on the farthest edge still visible. He could probably manipulate it to become full “screen” or something, but Izuku didn’t take the time.
He gathered his things at speed, shoving everything into his bag, and took off running in that direction. It was far away but not that far, and some quick figuring established that, yes, that was very near Kacchan’s route home.
It used to be Izuku’s route home, too, but he had started taking the roundabout way to avoid Kacchan and his lackeys on their worse days, and today certainly qualified.
He ran that way, certain there was no time to lose. Soon enough he could hear the tell-tale explosions.
Alert!
[+1 END]
[Sprinting has increased your endurance!]
“I can’t believe I have a quirk!” Izuku breathed to no one as he batted the screen away.
It vanished.
Quickly he came on the area affected by the explosions, and as he approached it was to some people running away, and yet more crowding around the site.
“A villain!” Someone screamed. Another: “That poor kid!”
Izuku turned the corner to a horrifying sight. Kacchan, surely enough, but the sludge villain had warped around him horrifically, a purple-black mass of slime stretching over him from behind and above, trying to enter his mouth like he’d entered Izuku’s.
Izuku’s fists clenched painfully at his side.
He looked around, taking in the scene, and the situation unfolded. Three heroes in attendance and all of them had tried once and then backed off, citing that their quirk wasn’t suitable for this encounter.
“How could they say that?” Izuku gasped, thinking of his own notebooks of analyses, and about all his plans to be a hero with no quirk at all. One of Kacchan’s hands shot out, detonating an explosion perilously close to his face.
The sludge retracted back with an angry exclamation and Kacchan heaved in air, swearing. His airway was still mostly clear. He was so strong! He’d managed to fight off the villain much better than Izuku, staying conscious despite what looked like a fairly prolonged struggle.
But Izuku knew all too well how quickly it could be over, and his eyes saw the sludge move to Kacchan’s nose and mouth. Soon, it’d be inside, and then Kacchan wouldn’t have a chance at all, especially because it looked like the parts of Kacchan already under the sludge completely were being controlled by that villain.
His mind raced a thousand miles a minute. He had to help, he had to do something, but even though he had a quirk now– somehow– it wasn’t super strength or explosions, it wasn’t the kind of emitter he needed to throw off something so insubstantial as sludge.
Alert!
[+1 INT]
[Thinking things out has increased your intelligence stat!]
Izuku stared at the screen for a blank second.
Well, THAT’s going to get real broken, real quick, he thought, and then dismissed it, and his rapidly multiplying other concerns, to focus on Kacchan. Even as he watched the sludge villain forced itself over Kacchan’s mouth, blending its horrific jaw with part of his before another explosion drove him off. For now.
“Damn it, how can I…?” Izuku muttered to himself. “Even if my quirk– holy shit, my quirk, I’ve waited my whole life to say that– no, focus… Even if my quirk did have an offensive element, I’d surely be arrested for vigilantism. Is that why…?”
He remembered the bonus objective on the quest alert. ‘Don’t get caught’ or something. But how?
His fingernails dug into the meat of his palm, almost painful. How could he…?
“I need a way to act without being seen, I need…”
His thoughts ground to a stop as the sludge villain surged forward, opening Kacchan’s jaw wide in a gruesome smile, the movements jerky and unhinged like some sort of horror movie. Nobody did anything, nobody moved; it was like they didn’t know Kacchan was suffocating to death right in front of them!
Red eyes, wide and terrified, looked over the crowd, at the heroes and the spectators, and Izuku’s hands rose up of their own accord. Soon he was pushing and elbowing his way through the crowd, tears in his eyes.
What am I doing? He thought, frantic. I don’t have a plan. I can’t do anything, I can’t–
I can’t just watch this!
His feet pounded the pavement, he broke the front of the crowd, and before he could ever reach for his backpack, something touched his face.
It felt like walking through a soap bubble, but thicker. Everything immediately felt different, though he couldn’t immediately define what.
When he looked up Kacchan and the villain were still there, but something had changed. The light was different. Izuku looked up and was startled to see the sky itself was red.
Alert!
[You have entered an Illusion Barrier! This is a field that contains certain types of Dungeons. Inside the barrier, nothing is real, and no damage affects the outside world.]
What? Illusion Barrier…
The crowd was gone. So were the heroes. They seemed to be in an exact copy of the street with the debris and everything still in place, but if no damage would last…
Izuku realized his quirk had created some kind of pocket dimension. Before he could deal with that, another
Alert!
[It is now a 1v1 fight between you and Sludge!Kacchan. To complete your Quest, reduce the Villain’s HP down to zero before Kacchan suffocates completely!]
A five minute timer appeared with blocky, glowing red numbers.
“What!?”
But the timer ominously struck down to 4:59 and he pushed all incredulity aside.
Okay, alright, what did he know?
Situation: a half destroyed street, bathed in greys and reds from their surroundings. He was standing across from a monster engulfing his– ignoring that mental stutter, swiftly going with some other descriptor– engulfing Kacchan, and those red eyes looked to him with an unnatural terror when he should be full of confidence.
“Damnit, damnit!” The timer showed no mercy.
“Oh, what’s this?” The villain used Kacchan’s mouth to talk, splitting it wide into a smile with too-big teeth. “The pint-sized hidey hole from before! I’m afraid I’ve found a better vessel to play with.”
Izuku pushed down his feelings, pushed down everything, and started desperately trying to devise a plan. His earlier thought was to throw the contents of his backpack at its sludgey eye and claw at Kacchan’s face, which would have at least provided distraction enough that Kacchan could get a breath in, but now–
What had changed?
He had a quirk, but not an offensive one.
There were no witnesses, and he was given five minutes that he didn’t have before.
The villain took a large, threatening step forward, explosions snapping off, but Izuku had stopped being afraid of explosions a long time ago.
If his quirk was like a video game– more specifically, if the villain really had hit points like a video game monster– then Izuku didn’t need much of a strategy. His eyes narrowed on the villain and he steeled himself, gratified to see a red bar floating above his enemy’s head.
Izuku stilled in realization. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes changed color color, picking up a humming blue glow.
Alert!
[+1 WIS!
Work smart, not hard, Gamer!]
He didn’t need a strategy at all.
He could just beat the everloving shit out of the villain until his health went down, and he let Kacchan go.
4:51.
Izuku yelled, running to the side. He gathered up double handfuls of rubble and pelted them at the villain. The fist-sized pieces of concrete plinked off his slimy hide.
The villain’s health bar barely moved.
He’d probably do more damage with his fists, but that would put him in range of an up-and-personal explosion. Izuku gathered more ammo, throwing as he did and keeping his distance, eyes scanning the ground for anything else he could possibly use.
There, in the distance. Behind the villain was a corner destroyed by an explosion. A fire hydrant was on its side, no longer spouting water, and the pipework was exposed and in pieces. Izuku sprinted over, picked up a hefy section of pipe and used his free hand to throw a final chunk of concrete.
When the villain was still turning around, and distracted by the concrete to the eye, Izuku charged forward, trying not to telegraph too obviously.
He rammed the pipe in a hard swing through the large section of mass not engulfing Kacchan, the black slime making up the most of the sludge villain’s body. The speed and impact tore through the gel-like substance, sending some flying, and the villain howled.
Izuku was already jumping away, going low and rolling out of range of a concussive blast. It was slow; either the villain didn’t know how to use Kacchan’s quirk properly or Kacchan was still resisting to his utmost.
Red eyes stared out, furious, helpless.
Save me!
The clock read 4:30. Izuku got to his feet, ignoring the gritty feel of dirt and rocks having torn his skin. He sets his center of gravity and charges in again, from another angle. A tentacle flies at him and he ducks under it, swinging for the eyes and face.
He comes around again and whacks into the main body.
A tentacle, larger this time, catches him in the midsection and hurls him away. Izuku lands hard, taking it on the shoulder blades, one elbow hitting asphalt hard. He barely remembered to tuck his chin in time so that impact wouldn’t ring his bell good.
He groaned as he stood up.
The villain’s health bar had barely taken any damage; about the same as Izuku’s own health bar. Maybe something like four fifths full. He wished he had a proper weapon, or at least a quirk that could do damage.
He looked around for something that could do more damage than a clumsy, blunt pipe. There was a lot of destruction around, but not much to help. If he had to he could continue beating the guy with the pipe, over and over again, even if it only did one point of damage at a time.
There was glass on the ground from a shattered window. It gave Izuku a reckless idea. Quickly he ran over to it, ducking out of range of another careless explosion.
He took off his jacket and wrapped the sleeves around his hand in layers, then found a suitable large piece of glass. He picked it up carefully, a dagger-sized chunk.
The ‘hilt’ felt dangerous even through the fabric. Izuku ran forward, dodging around to the side– the villain was big and therefore, luckily, slow, obviously not used to Kacchan’s quirk, and obviously only half-possessing him. He plunged the glass into the sludge, careful to avoid Kacchan.
“Mmmph!” Kacchan yelled, pulling his face away from the sludge, which coiled and retracted in anger, but did not quite give up its hold on the blonde’s face.
“Just hang in there, Kacchan!” Izuku panted, struggling to yank out the glass. The villain brought a black-encased hand around, popping off an explosion, but his hand was still high in the air, the sludge-body making him something like ten feet tall. Izuku ducked close to the disgusting slime, curling his head, and the explosion did little more than make his ears ring.
He could smell the slightest bit of singed hair, like when his arms got too close to the flames while cooking.
Izuku stabbed again, and again, before with a wail the villain managed to dislodge him and send him flying. He had read that you’re supposed to roll on impact, but knowing that and doing it were too separate things.
He hit the edge of some upturned concrete. This time, his back hit first, dead center, and his head thunked hard. Pain bloomed black across his vision, dizzying him. He opened his eyes to see hunks of rebar just inches away. He could have easily become impaled on them if he had been sent flying just a little further.
That gave him an idea.
The villain’s health bar was at just below half health. Izuku really needed to go for his eyes, dangerously close to Kachan’s, or find something else.
The pipe was bludgeoning damage, doing little more than smacking the surface of his liquid body. The glass shard– now well out of range from Izuku, who had dropped it as he was hit– had cleaved through it but not done any real stab damage.
Izuku got to his feet dizilly, ribs aching from getting smacked hard enough to end up several yards away. He bent to the rebar, clutching a piece of metal rod about an inch around, and pulled. It was already damaged. As the clock ticked down, Izuku worked it back and forth until a bent crooked piece snapped off with a groan.
Then he caught his breath, tested the balance, and tried to shake off the ringing in his ears. It only served to have his ears and eyes ache, so he just braced himself and ran forward anyway.
The villain let off an explosion and a curse and Izuku ignored it, running right through. He had a lot of experience with Kacchan’s explosions. He tucked his face into his elbow to protect him from the worst of it, and arrived on the other side of the blast with the rebar raised high.
He swung it like an overhead golf-club, the piercing power of the glass and the concussive power of the pipe all in one. As he’d hoped, it carved through the sludge villain’s body, sending sludge flying. He had split part of the body in half, the split portion falling onto the street.
It immediately wiggled, moving to reconnect, but Izuku had realized something amazing about his miracle quirk. In a true fight he would have to incapacitate or outwit or outmatch a villain.
His quirk had evened the playing field. Izuku didn’t have to do more damage to win. He could do the same little blows over and over, because they both had health bars.
His life was like a video game, and this was now a video game fight!
With a hoarse yell, Izuku brought the metal around to bear again, slicing through sludge and sending goops of it flying. He hacked at the main body even as tentacles and Kacchan’s arms tried to stop him, beating them away with his elbows and tenacity, straight up ignoring explosions, so that he could get blows in.
Bruises bloomed on his forearms.
Explosions blew black his hair, burned his cheeks, and had his sight blurring, ears ringing, and still Izuku stayed close and kept hitting.
It actually didn’t take long at all, though it felt like an eternity.
“No, you stupid brat!” The villain hissed, in the middle, but he pulled away enough that Kacchan could take a breath unaided, and the blonde came up swirling.
Another hit and Kacchan worked his arm free, shrieking with disgust.
“DIE!” He snarled, choking, and let loose the biggest explosion of all. Izuku was flung back, but he was already smiling. The villain’s health bar had been so low, surely that blast had finished it off.
He leaned up on his elbows, ignoring the aches and pains in his body. The timer had frozen at 2 minutes and 39 seconds.
Kacchan’s limbs came free as the sludge villain let out a scream of “Nooo!”
The sludge body dissolved. The purple-black residue pooled on the streets, Kacchan landing in a stumble and catching himself on one knee, and before either of them could do anything else the goo… scattered?
The big pile turned to black ash in seconds and caught the wind, or something, fading away entirely. It left behind items in its wake, glowing faintly gold.
“Um. Kacchan?” Izuku asked, only to be distracted by another ping from his quirk.
Victory!
[+50 EXP!
Defeating an enemy has yielded Experience (XP)!]
[+1 STR!
Put your back into it, Gamer!]
[+1 DEX!
You need precision and speed, Gamer!]
[+1 VIT!
Taking those hits has made you more hardy, Gamer!]
[Defeating an enemy has resulted in Loot! Place items in your Inventory to examine later.]
Izuku noticed the glowing items came with their own floating text when he focused on them. He picked up a small bag of what surely couldn’t be real gold, a book labeled Spell Tome, and a small metal sword.
“I could have used this in the fight.” He huffed, realizing. “How do I open the Inventory?”
But as he said the word, a screen opened in front of him, entirely black with various empty boxes. He tapped the sword point against one and watched it ripple like water.
“Okay, seems simple enough…” He bit his lip, testing out the intuitive process. As he slid the sword through, it did not reappear on the other side, and once he fed the hilt into the interface his hand followed seamlessly.
He let go of the hilt and pulled his hand back. A small image of a sword appeared, more animated than the actual thing. Izuku desperately wanted to read the book but Kacchan was coughing and spitting a few feet away and his time was limited. He hurriedly placed both other items into the Inventory before his friend could notice and demand answers. The book got its own representation but the gold didn’t, and he frowned until he realized there were indicators at the bottom of the screen.
30gp // 0¥
Well that fantastically lowered his chances of getting robbed, if he could store Yen in the system and not have any on him.
As he was about to close the inventory, Izuku noticed a smaller item that was hidden below the others. A small silver key glinted on the ground. Well, ‘small’ for something from a video game. The whole key was about six inches long from teeth to wide circular ring.
The floating text identified it as a “Dungeon Key”.
His curiosity almost overcame him but Kacchan chose that moment to straighten up and Izuku shoved it into the inventory and hastily closed the window.
“Kacchan, are you alright?” He asked, mostly worried about the other boy’s airways, and took a hesitant step closer. Katsuki looked up at him with murder in his eyes by pure reflex.
“What the actual fuck, nerd? Where are we?” He spat more sludge to the side, glaring at their surroundings.
Alert!
[You’re not out of the woods yet!
When all enemies have been defeated, Illusion Barriers break apart quickly, depositing the inhabitants back into the real world.]
“Oh shit!” Izuku’s eyes widened. He looked up. The red sky was starting to crack, white lines running through it like glass.
“What? What’s happening?” Katsuki demanded sharply, rising to his feet.
“Kacchan we have to go right now or we’re going to be back in front of that crowd, with the heroes and civilians all around us.”
“Oh fuck no.” Katsuki grabbed his wrist and they hauled ass, sprinting to the edge of the barrier, visible in the distance a few street intersections away.
They ran for it, all the while aware of the sky shattering above them. Large chunks of red-glass shapes fell to the ground around them, dissipating into glitter. One crashed next to them and Izuku brought his hand up to shield his face, but nothing hurt.
They hit the edge of the Barrier and dove through. Sound returned in a rush; people walking on suddenly busy streets, cars moving and birds chirping, the wind on the buildings.
Both of them sat stunned on the sidewalk, breathing hard. Izuku looked back and saw precisely nothing. No red, no shimmer in the air, no indication that the street behind them was any different than the sidewalk they were sprawled on.
It was full of people milling about, even, with a few cars that definitely hadn’t been there before.
“Okay, nerd, explain. Now.”
Alert!
Quest Completed!
[Save a Friend: I Am Here!
You’ve rescued Kacchan from the Sludge Villain!]
[+100 EXP!]
[+50 Relationship Points with Bakugou Katsuki!]
Izuku looked over at Katsuki, wondering if his quirk was broken already. It certainly didn’t look like he had gotten an improved relationship with Kacchan out of the deal, but maybe he had been working from a negative?
“Um.” He said, eloquently.
Kacchan’s hands popped off small warning explosions and the blonde winced, his quirk far too overworked.
“I know you know what the fuck just happened. Explain.”
Maybe he was still in the negatives re: relationship points.
Izuku opened his mouth only to blink away as another ping sounded.
Alert!
Bonus Objective Complete: Don’t Get Caught!
[+100 EXP!]
[+1 Skill Added. See Menu for details.]
“We got away but there are still all those people just over there. I don’t want to answer any questions about what happened if those heroes find us, so let’s just go home, okay?”
“Tch. Fucking fine, let’s go already.” Katsuki stood up and dusted off his frankly unsalvageable uniform pants. They were torn and stained from the sludge. His eye twitched, likely at the idea of that whole crowd thinking he was some kind of victim of a villain attack.
Izuku scrambled to his feet as well.
“But don’t think you’re off the hook.” Once more burning ruby eyes slid over to him, cutting. “Talk while we walk.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets aggressively.
Izuku bit his lip, hesitant. He could play dumb, but Kacchan was way too smart to fall for that.
As they walked, he hesitantly began his tale of almost drowning at the hands of the villain they’d just defeated. The sky darkened from sunset to true twilight around them as they took the long way home.