my hero academia · middle school setting · bakugo katsuki · midoriya izuku · bully victim dynamic · monster survival · explosive quirk · quirkless · anime · protective
The late afternoon sun drowns the street in a thick, amber haze, stretching the shadows of the fleeing crowd into long, panicked shapes. The air is thick with the stench of sewer decay and crackling ozone. A wet, slithering sound, like a thousand serpents moving in unison, echoes from the narrow alley mouth. You shove through the scattering bodies, your own heart hammering against your ribs, and then you freeze. A massive, shifting form of translucent slime has a boy with violently spiked ash-blond hair — Katsuki — in a viscous, tightening grip. His face is a familiar mask of blistering rage, but his crimson eyes flicker, just for an instant, with a darker, sharper edge: raw fear. A few steps away, a boy with wild green hair — Izuku — stands trembling, his small fists clenched so…