A/N: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia. Reviews are greatly appreciated! :)
The Antihero – Chapter II
"Imagine that the world is made out of love.
Now imagine that it isn't.
Imagine a story, not of good against evil,
but of need against need against need,
where everyone is at cross-purposes and everyone is to blame."
- Richard Siken
Years ago, there had been a boy, Haruka recalled.
Back when she had still aspired to become a professional hero, her struggling and deranged family had moved to a nice, normal-looking neighborhood where she met a young blonde boy who led a posse of all the other neighborhood boys, all sharing a single, identical goal.
To become a hero.
The boy was fiery, explosive, ruthless and unkind. He constantly wore black t-shirts with skull pictures on them, a reminder of his fearless and tough nature. If she reached back into the depths of her mind, she could pull out the memory of his name and she allowed it to roll onto her tongue.
Bakugo Katsuki.
A natural-born leader.
It's true that the boys had never been particularly kind towards her, especially Bakugo, but it didn't matter to her. There was something magnetic about him that constantly made her want to sneak out of her creaking, shabby home to play "hero" with him and his followers at the nearby playground.
Perhaps it was his strength. Bakugo had already manifested his quirk by the time Haruka had met him and the boy was explosive not only in nature, but in the literal sense as well. Every obstacle they encountered on their heroic expeditions around the neighborhood would always be torn down by him alone.
Perhaps it was his unwavering determination. Bakugo expressed his desire to become the number one hero like no other person Haruka had ever seen. Every day, Bakugo had his mind focused on one thing – victory. And it was this steadfast strength and willpower that allowed Haruka to forget.
It allowed her to forget the sharp stench of alcohol that permeated their home whenever her father came home, stumbling and aggravated. It allowed her to forget the pain that she felt whenever her father would raise his hand against her, creating brand new bruises across her skin, painting them with throbbing polka-dots. It allowed her to forget the ache that stabbed her heart when she had peeked into her mother's room one night and watched as she sobbed and crumpled to the floor, desiring nothing more than to escape this wretched family.
Most importantly, it allowed her to spark a flame within her – the desire to become a hero. To become someone that could save people like her mother from people like her father.
She watched as all the boys displayed their quirks and created silly hero names, all except for one, timid, green-haired boy she hadn't been able to talk much with. Her own quirk had already manifested too, but out of embarrassment from the fact that all the other boys were already so determined to become heroes while she had only discovered this aspiration very recently, she chose to keep it a secret.
But just like everything else in her life, nothing good ever lasted.
Not long after they had moved in, Haruka was ripped away from her "hero" games and her explosive comrade when her family finances plummeted and they were forced to relocate. Debts and other words she had not yet understood absorbed her family as her father attempted to explore a variety of career paths to increase financial support. And her dream to become a hero gently flickered away until the flame was extinguished.
She had hoped that she would be able to rekindle the dying embers of her dream, but such hopes were trampled upon the moment that her abusive, two-faced father made the morning news as a new, mediocre pro-hero who had managed to save a young girl from a criminal.
Of course, she had initially thought this was good news, regardless of the fact that she was disgusted by how her father acted like the perfect gentleman in front of the media, holding a young girl her age so protectively in his arms in a way that Haruka herself had never experienced. But the seeds of greed had already planted itself in her father's mind, and heroism, fame and media attention allowed it to bloom.
Indeed, for Haruka Haiiro, heroism was dead.
Heroism died along with her childish ignorance on the day that she saw her father step out their cracked and groaning apartment door, a wide smile on his face as he left her and her mother with nothing but debts and betrayal.
Heroism died when she viewed her pro-hero father on TV, gloating at the fame he received while he publicized his new relationship with a younger, wealthier female celebrity. To him, her and her mother were nothing more than deadweight he had long abandoned. A forgotten part of his past, their existence had already been erased by him in the media.
Heroism died as she witnessed her mother's fragile body decay by weakness and illness, driven to the bone with fatigue and overwork in order to support her. Meanwhile, society accepted her father as a pro-hero, congratulating him for his achievements and admiring his new family.
This was not the hero she aspired to become.
But it was the hero that society had accepted. And she loathed it.
On some rare days, she would think back to Bakugo, the young boy with wild, blonde hair whose resolve to become the number one hero she envied. On such days, she would feel a pull on her heart – not because she was reminded of what she had wanted to be, but because she was reminded of what she could have been but can no longer truly be.
He was just a relic, a lost remnant of her childhood and innocence, arising from a time when she had still believed in heroes.
