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I’m suffocating. Smoke floods my lungs and I can barely keep my eyes open. I cover my mouth with my arm, trying to blink away the smoke.
Blue streaks across my vision, accompanied by an intense heat. I grin to myself, having already accepted my death. I mean, what else will you do when encircled by a wall of death. I cough, still smiling.
The fire rises higher, stretching into the sky and painting everything in it’s bright blue hue.
I feel my skin begin to sizzle under the intense heat.
It hurts so much.
After a moment – maybe a minute? – of trying to find a way out, I crouch down, staying low to avoid the smoke. I eventually curl into myself, ignoring the ache in my skin. A deep laugh echoes around me - my assailant?
Tears are streaming down my face, I realize. They evaporate half-way down my cheeks, though.
Fuck.
This isn’t a cat and mouse game. This is a kid with a magnifying glass standing over an anthill.
Oh well, what do I have to lose? I’m a villain, no one would care if I got disintegrated. That’s pathetic, but…
I quickly stand up, not bothering to brandish my knives. They’d be too hot to touch, anyway. I charge towards the laugh I heard previously, watching the flames part as I leap through them.
Stumbling into the clearing, I quickly assess my singed skin and damaged clothes. Alright, not dead, clearly this guy doesn’t want to kill me. I look around for an exit, though I am quickly interrupted.
Another wave of flame attempts to corral me back, but I sprint through it, ignoring every instinct screaming at me to do literally anything else. Again, the fire darts away from me, though I feel the side of my leg get burned. A faint snarl over the roaring of the flames catches me off guard.
I laugh in surprise, then cough due to the smoke still in my lungs. A hand grabs the back of my hoodie— the enemy? the one with the fire quirk? most likely—and I immediately begin to struggle, yelling and squirming.
The pleasant feeling of being slammed into a brick wall stops my writhing. I murmur curses as I try to get a look at the guy holding onto me.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he hisses, his hoarse voice sending chills down my spine.
“Ah—Denny’s? They’ve got a weekend de—” I shriek as he slams my face into the wall again. “Fuck! Fine! You’re more of an IHOP guy!” My nose explodes in pain, blood dripping onto my lips and from a new wound stretching across my forehead. I grimace at the metallic flavor.
“Aren’t you just a little shit,” he laughs, dryly. A bit more seriously, he asks, “What did you think would happen if you ran into the fire?”
“I dunno, I’d fucking die?” I reply, emphasizing how obvious that is. As he chuckles slightly, I try to look back at him. He softens his grip, and I twist around quickly and bite his hand. He shrieks, and I, naturally, attempt to get away.
I don’t make it very far, his other hand grabbing my hoodie and throwing me backwards. I fall to the ground, a headache making itself apparent as I try to get up. My vision blurs, and I try to catch my breath.
“Fuck!” I yelp, clutching at my head and trying to move away from the now even more pissed-off assailant. Tasting blood on my tongue made me happy, though – making the bastard bleed is pretty satisfying. I open one of my eyes from behind my hands, finally able to get a good look at my enemy.
He’s got raven black hair that seemingly defies gravity – not unlike Bakugou’s. His eyes are a piercing blue that matches the fire he wields, and most of his skin is a dark color, burned beyond recognition. Those bits are stapled to the healthy patches of skin. It looks incredibly painful, and I cringe at the sight, though it seemed familiar. I feel as though I had seen him before.
“Jesus, you don’t look so hot. I know people say to just be yourself but plastic surgery is is way to go, dude." He snarls at that - rightfully so - and grabs my face with his good hand, dragging me upwards, fury alight in his eyes. I’m gonna fucking die. Not the way I intended, but fine.
Panicked and full of adrenaline, I grab at the fingers holding me and try to bend them as much as possible, desperately trying to rip them away. A shriek and a faint snapping noise tells me I broke his fingers. He drops me again, and clutches at his now limp hand, cursing rapidly.
Hissing flames encircle him and lunge towards me, but it forks at the last second and rushes past my sides instead. “Why aren’t you killing me?” I shout at him, avoiding moving into the flames. My heart pounds in my chest, leaping up into my throat and making me sick.
“’Cause I don’t fuckin’ want to! I just need you to fuckin’—leave,” he replies, and I blink.
“What? Really?”
“Yeah.” He clutches his hands, one of them twisted unnaturally and the other now soaked in blood. “I’ve got shit to deal with and I don’t need a brat in my way.”
“You could’ve just told me to leave!” I shout back, mostly confused but certainly annoyed. You scared the shit out of me for that?!
With a roll of his eyes, the man answered, “I figured you would’ve once you slipped through the gap. You managed to go right where I didn’t want you to be.”
My lips quirk into a frown. “The slamming into the wall was unnecessary.”
“You pissed me off.” He groans in pain. “Not worth the broken fingers, though.”
I scowl and adjust my burnt-beyond-repair jacket. He watches my movements with a keen eye, still crouched and clutching at his hands. His eyes flit to my hands frequently, and I sigh. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“More?”
I ignore that, and look around, before crouching beside him. With slow movements, I unravel the fabric I keep wrapped around my arm, and motion for him to give me his hand. “What were you going to do?”
“Can you quit asking so many questions?”
Furrowing my brows, I move to walk away, fabric in hand, before he calls me back quickly. “Fine! Fine, there were some kindling needing…” He tilts his head ever so slightly, accentuating the smirk on his face. “Cremated.”
Not missing the extremely unsubtle 'I'm doing my daily murdering people' hint, I walk back and kneel beside him. I wrap the fabric around his bleeding hand fully, a pit forming in my stomach at the sight of his bent and discolored fingers.
I continued working, mind racing. Should I help him?
You could kill him so easily.
I sigh quietly, resentful of how my mind wanders. Despite the light burns and undoubtably broken nose, he really didn’t hurt me that bad.
“You need to set your nose back, I’ll teach you how—”
“I’ll just go to the hospital, like a normal person,” I reply, thinking up excuses to tell Inko.
A shout echoes throughout the barren alley, making my heart race. I look up and see several people gunning it for us, laughing. “Hm. I guess they’ll come to me instead. Do you mind?” I jump back, allowing the man to stand up and wave a hand across the expanse of the alley, a massive tide of blue flames roaring to life and consuming them. Effortlessly.
It was fucking terrifying.
“Ah, I burnt your bandages.” He shows it to me nonchalantly, the smoking fabric falling apart. Meanwhile, I try my hardest to breath normally again.
Holy shit holy shit he can just… do that?! Even Bakugou couldn’t do that!
He snaps his fingers in front of my face, startling me. “I assume you’re heading back home? Hm. Bring back some supplies, yeah?” He leans in close, and jokingly adds, “and, if you do go to the hospital, try your best to bring any drugs they’re gonna give you back to me, ok?”
He casually strides away, leaving me alone. I slowly begin walking home, still disturbed. He could’ve just… killed me. Like that.
That’s…really fucking cool.