Age: 15
Time doesn't flow constantly. It's elastic. It stretches when you're scared and snaps when disaster strikes.
For me, time had stopped.
I stood at the edge of the danger zone, fists clenched at my sides, feeling sweat (my damn, explosive sweat) soaking my back. My mind, that perfect calculator I prided myself on, was counting seconds.
15 seconds since he went in. 20 seconds. Gas saturation must be at 40%. One electric spark and goodbye.
"Get out of there, dammit!" I gritted out.
Around me, Toga was a whirlwind of efficiency. She had organized a human chain with three brave civilians to move the injured away from the impact zone. She wasn't using knives; she was using charisma and sharp orders.
"Hold the perimeter!" she shouted. "Don't let anyone smoke or use phones nearby! No sparks!"
She was doing something. Izuku was doing something.
I was the only statue. The "genius" paralyzed by his own firepower.
Then, movement in the fog.
A figure emerged from the yellow cloud. It was Izuku. He was coughing violently, eyes red and watery from chemical irritation. He was dragging the truck driver, a man twice his weight.
"Help!" Izuku croaked, his voice muffled by the wet handkerchief.
Two paramedics ran toward him, taking the driver.
"Good job, kid!" one said. "Get back, we'll give you oxygen!"
But Izuku didn't stop. He didn't let them put the mask on him. He broke free from the paramedic and turned back toward the building.
"There are more!" he shouted, pointing to the first floor. "I heard someone in the office bathroom! The door is jammed!"
"Wait, it's too dangerous!" a firefighter who had just arrived tried to stop him.
Izuku didn't wait for bureaucracy. He ran back to the fountain, soaking himself from head to toe again, and ran back into the chemical hell.
"DEKU, NO!" My scream was lost in the chaos.
I watched him climb.
He didn't use the gas-filled stairs. He used the facade. He jumped onto the roof of the truck cab, propelled himself to the sill of a broken window, and climbed the drainpipe with an agility that wasn't human; it was the agility of someone who has spent three years cleaning a beach full of unstable scrap metal.
He entered the first-floor window.
He disappeared again.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Suddenly, an electric sound. Zzzzt.
I looked up. A high-voltage wire, severed by the initial impact, was swinging dangerously close to the pool of liquid propylene leaking from the truck.
The wire swayed in the wind.
Basic physics. Pendulum.
In three swings, the wire would touch the truck's metal. The electric arc would ignite the gas.
"It's going to ignite!" I screamed at the firefighters. "The wire! Cut the power!"
"We're on it, but the grid takes minutes!" the fire chief replied, pale.
They didn't have minutes. They had seconds.
One. Two.
The wire swung.
I watched the window Izuku had entered. Nothing.
"IZUKU! JUMP! IT'S GOING TO BLOW!"
And then, I saw him.
Izuku appeared in the window. He had a woman clinging to his back. He looked at the wire. He saw the impending spark. He knew he didn't have time to climb down.
He had to jump. But it was too high, and with the extra weight, he'd break his legs landing on the asphalt.
He hesitated. A second of deadly doubt.
The wire touched the truck.
SPARK!
The world turned white.
The gas near the ground ignited. A wave of fire formed at the base of the building, ready to expand upward and devour them. The thermobaric shockwave was milliseconds away.
I closed my eyes, screaming my friend's name, waiting for the sound of his death.
But the sound never came.
Instead, I felt... pressure.
Air pressure so brutal it pushed me backward, knocking me to the ground next to Toga.
TEXAS... SMAAAAASH!
There was no fire. There was wind. A localized hurricane.
I opened my eyes.
The gas, the fire, the smoke... everything was gone. It had been literally erased from the map by an upward gust of wind so powerful it had changed the street's weather in an instant. The propylene had dispersed into the upper atmosphere before it could fully detonate.
And in the air, falling gently amidst a rain of glass and dust...
A muscular, blonde, smiling figure held Izuku and the woman in his arms.
All Might.
He landed on the asphalt with a heavy but controlled impact. There was no trace of weakness in him. He was a mountain of muscle and confidence.
"It's fine now!" his deep voice shouted, resonating in the street's stunned silence. "Why? Because I am here!"
He set the woman and Izuku down gently.
Izuku was shaking. His clothes were singed, his skin red from chemical fumes, and his hands bloody from climbing glass. He stared at All Might with his mouth open, tears cleaning tracks on his dirty face.
All Might looked at him. Not at the crowd. Not at the cameras. He looked at him.
"Young man," the Number One Hero said, and I saw something in his expression I had never seen on TV. Respect. "That was... crazy. And it was brilliant."
Then, steam started coming off All Might's body. A cough escaped his lips, quickly disguised as a laugh.
"Hahaha! The paramedics will take care of the rest! Adieu!"
All Might leaped into the sky, disappearing as fast as he had arrived, before anyone could see that his time limit had run out hours ago and that he had forced that last hit just to save the suicidal kid.
People started cheering. Applause erupted.
But Izuku didn't move. He sat on the asphalt, staring at his empty hands.
I stood up, dusting myself off. I walked toward him. My legs were shaking.
Toga got there first. She knelt beside Izuku and started frantically checking his arms.
"Idiot, idiot, idiot!" she scolded him, tears in her eyes. "You smell burnt! I told you not to die!"
"I'm fine, Toga-chan..." Izuku murmured, voice raspy.
I reached his side. I stood over him, casting my shadow.
Izuku looked up. He looked at me with fear, expecting the scolding. Expecting the "I told you so." Expecting me to yell at him for being reckless and weak.
I looked at the building. I looked at the broken window on the first floor. I looked at the overturned truck.
He had gone in there with nothing. Without my titanium gloves. Without my jump boots. Without a Quirk. And he had saved two lives.
I, with my nitroglycerin and my perfect blueprints, hadn't saved anyone.
I dropped the "Project Atlas" briefcase to the ground. The metallic sound was final.
I crouched down and, without a word, grabbed Izuku by the front of his wet shirt and hugged him.
It was a clumsy, rough, aggressive hug. My forehead knocked against his sore shoulder.
"K-Kacchan..." he stammered, stiff with surprise.
"Shut up," I growled, squeezing my eyes shut so no treacherous tear would escape. "Shut up, Deku. Just... shut up."
I felt him relax. I felt his hands, wounded and dirty, clutching my back. Toga joined the hug, sobbing loudly into our necks.
There, in the middle of the street, surrounded by sirens and rubble, my arrogance finally broke.
I didn't need to fix him. I didn't need to build him armor to make him worthy. He was already a hero. The problem was never his weakness; the problem was my blindness.
"You were right," I whispered, so low only he could hear. "You don't need the gloves."
Izuku let out a sound that was half laugh, half cry.
"Thanks, Kacchan."
In the distance, in a dark alley, a skeletal man watched us, wiping blood from his mouth with a satisfied smile. Destiny had been rewritten, and this time, the ink was permanent.