"What are you doing?"
Rumi looked up from her playing to see a chubby boy the same age as her. He had the hair at the sides of his head cut shorter than the hair on top of his head, making a short mohawk. His turquoise shirt was bigger than it should have been, to make room for the tortoise shell he had.
She recognized him; they were in the same kindergarten class, but, to her knowledge, this was the first time they spoke to each other.
"I'm playing heroes and villains," she said, looking down at her figurines.
"Can I play?"
Rumi looked back up, rabbit ears twitching. He was nervous, but hopeful.
"Sure. Who you wanna be? All Might or Yoroi Musha?" she asked, holding each figurine respectively, to let him choose.
"I wanna be All Might."
"But I wanna be All Might."
"Fine, I'll be Musha."
Rumi handed him the armored figure, and he sat down next to her.
"I got a whole lot of hero figures, but they don't make villain figures, so I had to use one of the power rangers instead." Rumi looked to her red power ranger sadly.
"What are the power rangers?"
"You've never seen the power rangers?!"
"No."
"You've gotta come over to my house, I have the DVDs. What's your name?"
"I'm Iku."
"Cool. I'm Rumi."
"Hey, did you hear about the mudslide?" Rumi whispered to Iku, sitting in the desk next to her. It was their last year of middle school, making them both fourteen years old. And their ninth year as best friends.
"Shh," hissed angrily at her.
"Three were found dead," she continued, a hand covering the side of her mouth.
"Shh."
"But nobody was missing, thanks to the-"
"Shh!"
"New hero team, the Pussycats."
"SHH!"
"Usagyiyama! Yukkuri!"
Both students looked up to the teacher, who was not amused. "Do you mind not speaking while class is in session."
"Yes, m'aam," they said in unison.
The teacher turned back to the board, while Iku mouthed 'I hate you' at Rumi. She only snickered silently in response.
During lunch, Rumi explained to Iku through a stick of carrot, "So, there was a mudslide somewhere up north-"
"Where, though?"
"I don't know, I can't remember. Anyway, so there was a huge mudslide, but it only managed to take out one house before the new team, the Pussycats jumped in."
"Didn't they come out a year ago?" Iku asked while picking at his rice on his plate.
"Yeah, isn't that cool? They're that popular already!" Rumi paused to finish off her chewed up carrot before continuing. "But honestly, they give me an idea."
Rumi slammed her hands on the table, startling Iku, causing his head to retreat in his shell. "We should form a hero team!"
Iku's lowered one brow over his eye. "A hero team?"
"Yeah, we both wanna be heroes, so why not form a team?"
"I know, but . . ." Iku looked down at his lunch, his eyes becoming regretful and sad.
Rumi's smile slowly faded. "What? You don't wanna be a hero?"
"I do, honestly, but I just . . . don't think I could make it. . . ."
"What! You'd be an awesome hero!"
"I know, but . . . my quirk isn't the most flashy and amazing. I can do whatever a tortoise can, which is not very much. . . ."
"Iku, look at me." Iku shifted his eyes toward her, and she grabbed his face. "You are my best buddy, and I will not let my best buddy become a boring accountant. I can do whatever a rabbit can, which is jump around and shit. Now repeat after me: I am awesome."
"I-I am awesome," he said quietly through squished cheeks.
"I have an awesome quirk."
"I have an awesome quirk."
"And I will become a hero!" At the last statement, she hopped out of her seat with a fist punching the heavens. Iku raised his fist a little less forcefully.
"And I will become a hero."
The next day, as they were walking home from school, Ginny brought up the topic of hero names.
"Okay, so I've been thinking long and hard, but what if my hero name was Miruko."
"Miruko? Like 'watch?'"
"Yeah! Like, 'just watch me.' Got a nice ring to it, don't ya think?"
"What could be my hero name?"
"Yeah, I've been thinking about that, too, and I think Kiku sounds cool."
"That sounds girly, though."
"You're saying that to a girl, dude."
"You don't care. I've seen you eat a hot pocket that you found at the train station."
"It was a perfectly fine hot pocket! Anyways, just think. Miruko and Kiku. Watch and Listen. The Hare and the Tortoise!"
"I think it goes 'Tortoise and the Hare.'"
"Yeah, but I'm the one wearing the pants in this relationship."
"You say while wearing a skirt."
"I'm wearing shorts under this and you know it."
"Yeah, yeah," Iku said while reaching into his pockets. Finding nothing, he checked his back pockets, then he swung his bag around to his chest to look inside it, panic filling his eyes. Then, he groaned in defeat.
Rumi looked back to him since she walked a little faster than him in the past ten seconds. "What's wrong, bro?"
"My phone. I think I left it at school," he muttered while backing up.
"You want me to go with you or. . . "
"No, I'll catch up with you. I'm gonna be back as fast as I can." Then he turned and sprinted back towards the school.
"You're coming over, right? I'll beat you at Mario Kart!" she yelled after him.
"Will do!" He shouted over his shoulder as he turned the corner.
But he never caught up. In fact, he never came over for Mario Kart.
He didn't join Rumi while walking to school. He didn't show up at school either. Rumi ate lunch alone. When nobody was looking, she lifted the top of Iku's desk up. His phone was still there, nestled in the corner.
She walked to his house. Which was a street away from hers. She swung the gate open, walked up the sidewalk, and let herself in through the front door, since she was trusted enough not to break into their house.
"Yo, Iku, you in here?"
A moment later, she could hear frantic footsteps coming down the hall. Hope leaped into her chest before she saw that it was Iku's mother, not Iku himself.
"Oh, Rumi! Have you seen Iku anywhere?" she asked fearfully. She had the same tortoise shell as him, but she had strawberry blonde hair while Iku had brown hair.
"No. I came here to see if you knew."
"Oh no, oh no, oh no," Iku's mother murmured to herself, biting her thumb nail.
"Ms. Yukkuri, what's going on?"
"I think Iku's missing."
Iku was missing. No one knew where he went, no one saw him after he ran back for his phone. The police didn't know where to look. A week passed by, filled with heartache and panic and questions.
The school was full of concern, but it was choking Rumi's throat. She grit her teeth and scraped her nails along the top of her desk. These people didn't know him. They didn't care about him. They faked that worry. To not appear heartless. She knew better. She knew him better then any of these bastards. She continued to eat lunch alone.
The end of the week, Rumi was beginning to think that the police weren't doing anything to find him, bring him back. Until, on the Monday following, it was revealed they found him. Or at least, his body.
Rumi's heart turned to stone, and fell into her gut.
What followed was a moment of silence throughout the entire school, but Rumi couldn't stand it. She stood and yelled, "What happened to him?!"
Her classmates looked up at her in shock. Their teacher's jaw dropped at her action. "Usagyiyama, sit down. Show some respect."
"I'll show you some respect if you tell me what happened to him."
"Usagyiyama, sit down."
"Not until you tell me!"
"Sit down!"
Rumi screamed in frustration, ran past the desks of shocked students, and slammed the classroom door shut behind her. She ran. She ran out of the school, rage filling her brain, all the way to Iku's house.
She threw the door open and ran in, only to find Iku's mother and father sitting on the couch in the living room, a police officer standing across from them. They stared at her, startled.
Cold anger filled her pupils. She looked to Iku's mother. "Tell me." They knew exactly what she meant.
The police had gained an anonymous tip. Apartment residents a city over heard muffled screaming in a room on the fifth floor; before it was quickly silenced. Two heroes accompanied the police to check it out. They knocked down the door to find a man and a woman and a little rat terrier. And blood on the walls.
They found a camera. And every video had Iku, being tortured. He had been bound and beaten. And raped. And little bits of him cut off. All while he was screaming silently. The woman had a quirk that could literally take someone's voice away. The man's quirk was unknown.
Iku's body couldn't take it. He died from a heart attack.
Iku's mother was sobbing, Iku's father let a few tears loose. But the part that made Rumi gag was when the police found Iku's tortoise tail, in the sink. It had tiny punctures in it. The rat terrier had chewed on it.
Rumi was allowed to go to the man's trial. She wanted to see this man with her own two eyes. She sat on that wooden pew, waiting for the trial to begin. Her ears twitched and her legs bounced.
The judge said a few words, but she didn't hear him. The doors opened, and the man walked in, chains rattling and flanked by two police men. Chilling hatred glazed over Rumi's eyes.
He wore an orange jumpsuit. He had pale skin, a black beard and a receding hairline. But the thing that Rumi noticed right away were his eyes. They were empty, emotionless. As if this whole situation was a mild inconvenience.
Iku's murder was pointless. At the hands of this monster, no less.
The man walked slowly to his seat.
The murder was pointless.
He slowly sat down.
Pointless.
He whispered something into his lawyer's ear.
Pointless.
Rumi launched herself from her seat. But before she could even lay a finger on him, two police grabbed her from either side.
"Let me go, dammit! Let me at him! You hear me, asswipe! I'll beat you to a bloody pulp, you hear me?!" The policemen dragged her out of the courtroom. Iku's mother was crying. "He was going to be a hero! He was going to be the best hero and you killed him! You killed him, you piece of shit! Burn in hell! Burn in fucking hell!"
The courtroom doors slammed shut, and she broke down and sobbed.
She wasn't allowed to the woman's trial. But that didn't matter. They were both found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Only possibly eligible for parole when they're both old, wrinkled and dying.
She sat by his coffin on his last night at his house. She couldn't sleep anyway. Not when he was sleeping forever. At his funeral and wake, everyone wore black. Except for Rumi. She wore his favorite color: turquoise.
Before he was to be cremated, Rumi gently placed a white lily on his coffin, and whispered into his ear, even though she couldn't see his body. "Iku, I hope you're doing good in heaven. And while I'm stuck here, I'll become a hero. And beat every villain to a bloody pulp. I promise. We're a team, after all."
Then, no one dared to turn away as his body burned.
Now the rabbit hero, Miruko. She made it to the Number 5 spot of most popular hero. She did it, just for Iku.
"I hope you can see me, Iku." She murmured, as she waved to the cheering crowd and flashing cameras.
Miruko: *doesn't have a backstory and we have no idea if we will ever get her backstory*
Me: It's free real estate.
This is probably my darkest story (yet). Miruko is awesome and deserves a backstory, and if I don't get it, I'll just make it. And I am really curious as to why she wants to beat villains up all the time. Is it personality or is it tragic past? The world may never know.
Due to the recent release of her official name, I had to go back and change a few things. Which gave me a chance to fix up a few things I didn't see at first. Hope you don't mind.
Please say whatever you have to say in the reviews, thank you.