"It's a simple question;
Do we bear monsters?
Or do we create them?"
Prologue: First Encounters
Chizome can't remember his second kill. The first will always be clear in his mind. The terror. The guilt. The shame. And then, after all that the painful sense if peace. As if everything wrong in the world had become right.
The second has been lost in the dusts of time. The name he remembers, the frozen expression of desperation as he stabbed the man through the heart. But the feelings are numb. He remembers it made him feel something.
Maybe the reason is because it never meant anything in the end.
The body cools beneath his feet, and Chizome knows he will remember this one. The blood of the man remains splattered on the wall, painting a streak of red. As rigor mortis sets in, the body curls in on itself into fetal position.
A slow, misty drizzle pours outside. A soft pitter-patter of raindrops that fall onto the pavement and collects in tiny puddles. Where the blood leaks, it stains the once clear water an inky cloudy color.
It's like a painting.
Chizome staggers away from the body to pick up his sword. As he tasted his final loss, the so-called hero managed to get a punch into Chizome's side. A sharp spike of pain as he places pressure near his abdomen to check alerts Chizome he may have a broken rib.
He kneels down to pick up his sword, ignoring the pain.
It's worth it. Worth the pain. The new era he will create with his filthy grubby hands.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see a light turn on in one of the abandoned warehouses to the left of him. His heartbeat thrums fast, steady with adrenaline.
Chizome chose this place because of its distance from other hero agencies. There would be no other heroes on patrol, no civilians out and about. Chizome had no delusions. He knew eventually he would kill "innocents". He didn't think it would come so soon after the glory of his first righteous kill.
He waits.
There's a creak, and then a whirring and clattering as the rustic doors of the warehouse came ajar. Chizome shifts his weight forward, ready to leap into action.
A figure stands beneath the cloak of darkness. They're small, maybe an elderly man. They grip something long and curbed. A weapon? Chizome narrows his eyes.
The figure steps into the light. He lifts the item in his hand, and extends it, and the umbrella opened. Chizome pauses.
A little boy. Somewhere between seven and ten, definitely a runt. Chizome can't make out the boy's features from afar, but he discerns the boy has green eyes and dark tuffs of green hair. His skin is pale, as if not often exposed to sunlight. His entire frame was thin, skeletal, with bony legs and knees. Chizome ponders if he should kill this boy. If it ran, he wouldn't hesitate.
Unexpectedly, the boy doesn't flee at the sight of him. Chizome begins to wonder how long the boy has been watching him, and if the reason he shows no fear is because he knows Chizome is a killer. He sneers. If this one is a little-villain-to-be he doesn't mind nipping it in the bud. Then, the boy begins to walk directly towards him, and Chizome stops thinking.
The boy's little foot steps echo on the empty streets as his boots splash on the ground. He remains steady, as if he were going to take a stroll instead of approaching a man with a sword. He's more like a soldier, or an officer than a child. Chizome has seen academy-trained personnel, and he guesses the boy is mimicking their actions. Strange. Most children don't control their physical action at all.
As the child shrinks the distance between them, Chizome growls. "Are you stupid?"
The boy pauses in his trek.
"Don't you see what's in front of you?" Chizome ruthlessly stepped aside to display his recent kill.
The umbrella conceals the boy's expression. Chizome can see is the boy look down at the body, then up again to peer at him.
"I see it," the boy says, in a voice as soft and sharp as bell chimes, "but I don't know if you see what I'm looking at."
"Oh?" Chizome inquired. "And what is that?"
"Your undoing, probably."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The boy lifts one hand, as if to calm him. But then, thinking of it better, he lets it fall back down at his side. "Don't be too offended. Not a lot of people can see things the way I do. Someday, you'll agree with me I think."
Chizome snorts. He gazes down at the body beneath him, kicked it with one of his boots, lets it turn over. The man died with his eyes open, and now his expression was frozen in neverending fear. And pain.
"Killing this vermin," he spits out, "is something I'll never regret. He's–"
"KroKro Man," the boy finished for him. "Exalted hero, won many accolades, makes millions of merchandising and brand deals. Behind the scenes he takes money from corporations to allow their dirty dealings to go through. He collaborates with supervillains. He runs a prostitute ring in the red light district."
Chizome feels a shock of surprise. Actually, he hadn't known half as much as that. Only one of those reasons on the list had been enough to drive Chizome to kill.
"How did you know that?" Perhaps... it's a quirk of the boy's? It would explain why a young child would have no pity for a hero.
The boy shrugs. "Unfortunate circumstances. I also know who you are. I know a lot if things, about what you're doing, about why you think you're right. Unfortunately, I think I'm right too. And I have to say, your way of exterminating will do you no good. As long as you don't kill the Queen, you won't exterminate the hive."
"And who is the Queen?" Chizome asks, ignoring the implication that the boy had been monitoring him. That question will come later. He doesn't like the way the boy talks. Giving less information than he can, but hinting that he has answers Chizome wants. For now, he'll settle for one answer. The answer that could be anything. Some people said villains, other people said greed, capitalism, human nature. A few, the ones who knew blamed the puppet master at the heart of the crime syndicate, a puppet master whose name Chizome does not know but would someday kill. Another select few said it was the systems that allowed heroes to work for more than altrustic purposes. And some, a very brave and quiet few, said that it was quirks themselves.
"Society," the boy replies.
"Ha!" Chizome barks a laugh. "All that mystique and you say society!" He wheezes, and then he winces as the pain on his ribs comes back. He changes his tone then.
He forces himself to move forward, pull the boy up by the collar, lift him several inches off the ground. "That's why I'm cleaning up society, boy."
"No. You think you are. You're not. No one can when they can't see the problem." Chizome can tell the boy is a stubborn one. He hasn't even let go of the umbrella, and Chizome can't even feel those tattle-tale tremors to indicate he's experiencing fear. Chizome places him back down.
The boy adjusts his calmly collar, another adult-like gesture, as if he were accustomed to being threatened by men twice his size, and it was nothing to worry about. Then, in a softer mildler tone, the boy says, "I know you're trying to be good. I can show you how, before you give in to the despair of wasteful killing."
The last comment strikes something in Chizome, though he manages to keep his expression passive. Despair. Is that the name of this feeling? He thought it was anger. Anger at the world full of corruption and greed, who lauded hypocrites while striking down their true saviors. Well, most of them. There were some true heroes left. Even he realized that.
But despair. Maybe that's apt. So much despair that he feels it whittling away his sanity, like a pencil being sharpened into a weapon. Even now, as he looks at the body at his feet, he could feel the joy draining from him. It's just another vermin. There will be more to take his place.
He stares at the silhouette of the boy, which is illuminated by the light of the lampost flickering above them. It almost seemed like a halo.
He laughs at himself. A halo. Ha. How could a child who reacted to murder so calmly be an angel? If he ever had been, he was surely fallen now.
"Alright," Chizome agrees. "I'll listen if you stop talking in circles and just show me."
"Would you like to come inside? I can explain better after we have a cup of tea, and you seem unwell." The boy extends his umbrella. The light finally shines down upon him, and Chizome can see his face.
A small, freckled, round face. A wide mouth and poison green eyes. He can see.
The boy smiles, but his eyes are cold as stone.
A/N: Thanks for reading this guys! This fic is being cross-posted to AO3 and I'll update this to the most recent point within the next few weeks, but you can read ahead there if you like. :3 This work is most mostly gen, but it will eventually have a hint of Tododeku as it goes on (as well as other side pairings).