Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 56: Shift

Izuku scaled the wall of the alley, ignoring the growing number of scrapes on his hands as he left yet another criminal zip tied to a dumpster for the police to find. He'd lost track of how many criminals he'd apprehended so far that night. It had to have been more than five, but honestly he didn't want to keep track. He just figured that it was easier to throw himself into fights than it was to face the battle that was raging in his head right now. The little imaginary Eraserhead on his shoulder was telling him to be logical. Yes, he'd messed up, but he'd saved more people than he'd allowed to die. Without him, the Asui kids might've become orphans, so he had to be doing at least some good, right? On his other shoulder, however, a little imaginary Kacchan was yelling at him that vigilantism was just one more thing he couldn't do right.

It was just easier to ignore both of them.

Thankfully his online order for a new hoodie had come in sooner than he had expected, so even if he still had to use the wrong color of marble, he could pretend that things were back to normal. Kind of.

"Busy night, huh?"

Izuku jumped as he heard a voice speak up behind him, and almost relaxed when he realized that it was just Eraserhead, but then tensed as he remembered what had happened last time they ran into each other. So much for pretending things were normal.

"Eraserhead..." Izuku forced out an awkward chuckle, "Fancy seeing you here...?"

Eraser rolled his eyes, "Because I'm obviously normally asleep at this time of night, problem child."

He sat down on the edge of the roof and glanced back at Izuku in a silent invitation to sit down next to him, but Izuku hesitated. He wasn't sure what Eraserhead had to say to him, but after everything, it couldn't be good. He'd told Izuku to stay out of the trigger investigation. Izuku hadn't. Someone had died.

Finally Izuku decided that he deserved whatever lecture was coming his way, so it'd be less painful to just sit through it and get it over with right? They sat in semi-awkard silence for another long moment before Eraserhead spoke up, "We can't keep doing this kid."

"...I know." Izuku wrapped his arms around himself. "I need to leave the investigating to you. I can't just go off on my own and do things without telling the heroes."

"Well, yeah, that too, but that's not what I'm talking about." He placed a firm hand on Izuku's shoulder and looked him in the eye, "You can't be a vigilante forever, Viridian. You know that, right? It's not a good long term plan."

Izuku froze, "I, uh, guess I hadn't gotten that far? I never really intended it to be..."

"Be long term. I know." Eraserhead nodded. "You weren't planning on living this long, were you?"

Izuku shook his head and shrunk in on himself a little more. He supposed it was just one more thing to add to the long list of things he'd failed at. Leave it up to a deku like him to not even be able to die right.

Eraserhead sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Kid...you know that's not a bad thing, right?"

Izuku shrugged, but didn't answer. Sure, he'd saved some people, but he'd also hurt some people. At this point, he honestly didn't know whether the world would have been a better place these past few months if he'd just taken a swan dive live Kacchan told him to do in the first place.

"You're using vigilantism as a crutch, problem child." Eraser said finally. "It helped you out when you were in a bad place, but now? You need therapy, kid. Actual therapy. Not just beating up villains until your brain stops screaming that you're a terrible human being and should have done better."