Chapter Text
The street is loud with yelling, and shouting, civilians running out of buildings and being directed to safety amidst the fighting. It hurts to see that more damage to the street is being done by hero attacks than by the villain.
One For All simmers in my veins like a familiar friend as Blackwhip's long dark tendrils reach out and grab 2 street posts to propel me forward. But I reacted too late.
The civilian I was aiming for gets hit by the clocks and disappears to god knows where. I can't dwell, immediately surveying the villains behaviour and the civilians still not evacuated to try and prevent another victim.
The attack started 15 minutes ago.
The villain is slippery, evading the heroes with agile ducking, running and jumping, using the environment to his advantage by swinging off of poles and navigating through rubble faster than the heros can. No one has managed to stop him, and those who got too close disappeared; Creati and Uravity. I hope to AllMight that they're alright.
Avoiding hand to hand combat implies that he doesn't have a strength enhancement, so we need to corner him, or overcome his evasion somehow. All I know is that we can't wait until he runs out of ammunition- if that ever happens. Until the hero's focusing on capture figure out a plan, we all try to keep a distance.
He catches sight of an elderly couple, slower to vacate the scene than the others and he throws a clock their way right before evading another attack and running in a new direction.
They're too far away, thinking quickly I switch to my air force attack to change the direction of the clock, causing it to hit the wall instead, and it disapears. The couple is safe and unaware, frantically searching for something in the battle. When I reach them I carry them out of the way, further down the street.
It feels like the only successful thing we've done this fight is contain him to that section of the street. My brows furrow in frustration, but I force them to ease when I place the couple down.
I smile at them briefly, to assure them that despite how it looks and absolutely is we have things under control, but the lady grabs the sleeve of my glove before I can head back.
“Please, we were with our grandson, help us find him!” She pleads. So that's what they were looking for.
I give a determined nod, facing her and taking her hand in reassurance. “I’ll find him.”
She lets me go, so I head back to the scene.
I’m back quickly, and the fight seems to have slowed. The villain is bleeding out of his calf, and his evading is not as elegant or efficient as it was before, the fight should be over soon. I head back to the front of a building where people are still evacuating and direct able bodied civilians to safety, continuously checking back to the fight so I can prevent any more civilians disappearing. In the villains fatigue his aim is getting worse too, but better safe than sorry.
To my far left, piercing through the echoing and never-ending chaos of the battle, I hear a young voice cry “Granny, Pappy? Where are you?”
Another hero comes to help the civilians to safety, I leave them in her hands and accelerate myself slightly in the direction of the cry.
He’s on the other side of the battle field, clutching his shirt helplessly and standing in the middle of the road as he cries. The villain is facing his way and locks eye contact with me, grinning suddenly as he produces one more clock.
He's gonna aim for the kid, I realize panicked, but before he can take aim one of the hero's takes his attention with an attack.
I use Fa Jin to push myself into the air and off of a building, but a flyaway rubble hits my ankle and I lose my trajectory, landing a little roughly on the pavement before I can re-orient myself back on my feet. Uravity is at my side asking for an update- and I double take for a moment.
The disappearance isn't permanent, and Uravity seems unharmed, but we still don’t know what other effects may have taken place.
I’m behind the kid now, and just as I look back over the villain takes an opening in the battle to throw the clock towards him.
I move before I can think, getting that child to safety is all that matters.
“KID, GET OUT OF THE WAY!”
I’m able to push him clear in time as a flash of green lightning arrives at the scene. Maybe other villains, maybe another hero come to aid, but I don’t get to confirm as the clock hits me in place of the young boy.
~
For a moment I’m completely disoriented, all my senses clouding over, and I almost feel like I don't exist, like I'm just a consciousness, floating in a vast sea of creamy white nothing. It doesn't hurt, and its... scarily peaceful, and a shock to the senses being so abruptly taken from the screams and the hypervigilance to nothing. It doesn't last more than a few seconds, maybe less, but In this state I can hardly tell the difference between a day and a year.
When my senses slowly fade back, I'm still humming in that peaceful calm and as I register my surroundings, I check in with each sense:
- There's a really loud horn blaring.
- It smells like street food.
- my mouth tastes like paint for some reason.
- There’s traffic on the street with no sign of a fight
- There’s a truck barreling toward me.
There's a truck barreling toward me?! I'm immediately torn out of my peaceful daze, eyes widening in surprise as I make eye contact with the driver who is frantically pressing the break. I manage to just jump up out of the way with the aid of One For All and hover in the air with Float, adrenalin soaring through my veins as I watch the aftermath.
The car behind the truck swerves to the sidewalk to avoid colliding with the rear of the unexpectedly and exponentially slowing vehicle and I fly forward quickly to move 2 teenagers out of the way.
As I set them down they check themselves over. A quick look over my shoulder shows me that the cars are back on their way and no one else got hurt, so I turn back to the teens, taking a few deep breaths to detox myself of the lingering fear and adrenalin.
“Are you two alright? Are you hurt?” I ask, checking them over for myself, each of my hands still touching their arms in assurance.
“We’re ok. Thank you,” Says the taller one, he has bright blue eyelashes framing his nervous eyes. He looks shaken but overall relieved and unharmed, thank goodness, I bring my hands down and stand up a bit straighter in relief.
“Yeah geez, that came out of nowhere. What happened?” Asks the other. He seems more amused at the near death experience, which is fair. It’s a natural reaction to laugh a bit hysterically once safe after almost getting hit by a car, we're all in the same boat in that regard. He has teeth framing his face, which must be his quirk and looks really cool, I wonder what his quirk does-
Before I can answer I’m dragged back by the hood and pulled off the ground with only the tip of my boots still down. I feel -and probably look- like a bunny caught by the ears and draw into myself sheepishly, thinking that it's probably one of the pros, or maybe even Kacchan, about to scold me for my recklessness. The teens jaws both drop respectively and the one with teeth on his face remarks:
“Holy shit it’s Crimson Riot.”
“What on earth happened here kid?” The deep voice of the man holding me questions, and immediately I’m gushing out an explanation.
“I’msosorrysiriwasfightingavillainandthiskidwasintroublesoIranforwardtopushhimoutiofthewaybutthenIgothitinsteadandIendeduphereandI'msosorryIshouldhave-”
Wait.
Crimson Riot?
Crimson Riot retired 7 years ago, he doesn’t even live in Japan anymore.
“Mr. Crimson Riot sir! I’m such a big fan, oh my god. This guy here helped us- cause this car was about to hit us which was crazy holy shit, anyway- he was just making sure we were ok, you can put him down. Please. Unless you think he’s a threat but he actually seems really nice and he did help us and-”
“Oh my god, stop talking you’re making us look lame in front of Crimson Riot.” The tooth faced teen groans while lightly shoving him.
Crimson Riot puts me down and steps into view next to me and-
He looks 15 years younger.
“The reports I heard from civilians when I got here pointed at you,” he turns to me and- holy moly I see why Kirishima drew his hero name from this guy he looks so cool- “Said you just -appeared in the middle of the road, and then saved these kids from the fallout. Show me your license.” he asks, and holds his hand out to receive it.
All I can do is stare and blink. What is happening??? Crimson riot is retired, and somehow he’s here, in his hero costume, wherever here is. I mean it looks the same as the street I was on before, but there’s no sign of a fight. I got hit by the clock and somehow turned up here, with Crimson riot, and yeah, actually I remember that this street was one of his patrol roots, but from when he was active, not now.
“I swear to god kid, you better have a license or something to prove to me you have legal permission to be fighting villains.” He says impatiently. Next to us the teens are filming the interaction on their phones and taking pictures with awe at getting to see one of their idols in person.
“Oh right! Sorry, I’m just… trying to figure out what the quirk did to me.” I reply as I reach into the pocket that I keep cards and documents in, pulling out my provisional license card and handing it to him sheepishly. “I’m really surprised to see you, I thought you were retired in Hawaii, but you're here! So…” I trail off, not knowing how to finish that sentence.
“Retired? I’m far too young for that kid! I know the young'uns are overtaking me, but I'm not that far past my prime.” he laughs, and looks down at my card, then looks up at me, then back at the card. “Birthday?” He asks, furrowing his brows.
“15th July, 2024 sir!” I supply cheerfully.
The teens stop taking pictures.
“Bro what are you on???”
“Yeah dude, what?”
“What do you mean? That's my birthday.” I look back and forth between them. What’s wrong with my birthday?
Crimson riot hands me back the card, and I put it back in my pocket.
“What quirk did you say you were hit by, again?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. This villain was producing these clocks from his arms and hands and then throwing them at people, and when the people got hit they would disappear. I think it’s temporary though, because one of my classmates who got hit by it disappeared, but then was back later. And I'm also, you know, back, so I should probably head over to Night-eye's agency to check back in and let them know I'm ok.”
Crimson Riot looks at the teens for a moment, who have started to shift a little uncomfortably. He waves them off, and they walk past us awkwardly, waving and thanking me again before heading on their way.
Ok, what is going on?
“Is everything alright, sir?” I ask, feeling shy at the sudden loneliness. He doesn’t reply immediately, hesitating, thinking, before putting his hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eyes.
“Look, kid. You're not in trouble, but I need to take you to the station, please come with me.” He says softly, leading me by the shoulder to walk down the street with him.
It gives me a better look at the street, and I’m relatively familiar with this street, I take this route to go to my favorite stationary shop, and some of the stores here now closed a while ago and were replaced by new ones, so why are they still-
Oh my god. The clocks, the younger Crimson Riot, the wierdness about my birth date.
“Kid, I need you to try and stay calm, we’re gonna figure this out, and everything is going to be ok, ok?”
He’s being gentle. Oh god no. No, no ,no please tell me I’m wrong. I’m not- this isn’t-
“Hey, hey, take a deep breath, it's ok. It’s gonna be alright. Let's get you to the station, ok? There's probably some protocol or other for this type of thing, don't worry.” He soothes, still guiding me down the street and trying to help me stop hyperventilating because this cannot be happening.
I’m-
Oh, god-
I’m in the past.