December
Heroics is not a safe profession. Not in the slightest.
Tenya knew this very well, his classmates knew this very well. Just like how his teacher had drilled into his minds time to time again, the world of heroics is absolutely never fair, and even then, heroes are meant to always come out of impossible odds, to muscle through all the adversities that they face to make a better world for those who can't defend themselves.
But it was also easy to forget why heroics is the top profession with the highest death rate in the world, of the sacrifices made to keep society from falling apart.
They should have known. Class 1-A was hailed by the media as "the prodigious one", the one that went through so much adversity even before graduating and managed to push through unscathed.
With such a reputation, it was easy to forget that heroes were as mortal as everyone else. It was easy to push aside how heroes like his brother were permanently crippled by the actions of…
He decided to not recall that person just yet, he needed to give out a speech about his friend, and he couldn't let rage consume him again. He gathered his composure, just in time for cameras to focus on him as he began his speech.
"We're here today, to celebrate a man who brought laughter to all of us with his charm, his brilliant smile, and most of all, his bleeding heart." The man shook as he spoke the pleasantries, his face shadowed by the foggy sky.
"Sero Hanta was not born with the strongest quirk for heroics, and yet he nearly completely mastered his control with it. He told many of my classmates and me about how he didn't think of himself as being on the same level as us, but also assured us that he was fine with that. He was a guy who always saw the best in people, whose jokes were able to immediately lighten up the mood of everywhere he went, but most importantly, he was an excellent hero. Cellophane never was popular within the hero charts, and yet still carried his job with a big smile on his face, helping everyone to the best of his ability."
As the funeral attendees began to soak up his words, all in different stages of grief, Tenya found himself caught up in the anger stage. A name floated around his head…
…Stain…
The man who ended Tensei's run as a hero, not satisfied with ruining the lives of so many people already, had now taken the life of one of his friends. This infuriated Tenya to no end, and it was reflected in his tone during his closing words.
"Today, we bid our farewell to him, taken from us by some villainous scum, we shall certainly…"
There was a small pause, and various of his classmates looked at him with serious determination.
"...Not let his sacrifice be in vain." He finished, his voice straining with rage.
It was then that multiple people began to circle the casket. Some were family members, all relatively close to the family of Cellophane, who grieved the loss to the young man that had brought honor to their name. Some were his old classmates, all reunited over the death of a friend they all held in great esteem, being given a reminder of the hardships that the job they took entails. Some were even old teachers from Cellophane's days at UA, with a particular disabled man having to bury yet another hero who was taken out too soon, a sight he was, unfortunately, getting used to seeing.
And as the group of former students and family members circled the casket, the sound of an elderly woman crying could be heard reverberating out across the graveyard. And slowly, that sadness and hollowness in the young heroes began to grow into anger and vengeful desire.
One figure stood at the back of the crowd, silently, contemplating. On the outside, his narrowed eyes and typical frown were just symptoms of his normal posture and visage, but on the inside?
Turmoil, yes, for one Bakugo Katsuki; turmoil laced its way through his heart. Sero was a dear comrade to him, someone who had never been afraid to poke fun at his… past of aggression.
Bakugo Katsuki was not a person one could describe as heroic, he was brash, crude, mean, self-centered, and his power complex was growing larger every year. His encounters with villains were quick and often ended with his villains walking away with 2nd and 3rd-degree burns. The point is, he was volatile… but he had friends, people who kept him in check and toned down his ego, people who helped him remember why he was a hero, to begin with.
Sero was one of them.
And… despite his aggression towards him, Katsuki…
Was thankful for it.
But he never told the man that, his friend, the man who humbled him when his ego went unchecked and no one else would. For the first time in his short life, Bakugo Katsuki felt true loss, helplessness… He hadn't been able to save someone, one of the people he judged worth more than the tag of an "extra".
And he didn't know what to do about it.
"Heard from the higher-ups that he was chasing some punk before he was attacked by Stain, guy called the police too… It's how we discovered the body. What was his name again?" Bakugo listened in on one of the HPSC agents that were situated by Iida, the man continuing to give his speech.
"Hmm, if I remember correctly…"
His red eyes widened hearing the name.
"His name was Midoriya Izuku."
Five of them sat at the table. Silent, quiet, thinking, and mourning.
Nothing new for a bar.
A man with a black stripe in his orange hair slurred, "Hey barkeep, another for me *hiccup* please." His wobbling sitting position drew worried glances from his companions, four heroes.
"Denki, bro, come on." Reaching for his shoulder, Denki batted his hand away with slight aggression.
"Not now eh, Kirishimuh."
"Denki! This is *hiccup* serious! As heroes, we cannot get carried away like this!" The towering form of Ingenium broadcasted his fuzzy voice, clearly slightly inebriated.
"Sparky, that was your 13th can! Are you trying to get sent to the hospital!" A pink-haired woman with fuzzy locks and skin the same color spoke out, her small antlers twitching in her frustration.
"Shaddup Pinkyy, I… fuck I got a headache!" The man waved his newly acquired bottle of sake at her, his slurred words becoming more aggressive the more he drank.
Kirishima more forcibly placed a hand on his shoulder this time, "It's not funny bro, you don't have to hide it." Kirishima stared into his eyes, his own were red and puffy. The tall muscular hero had tears on his face, contrasting his incredible physique.
The last figure sighed without apparent emotion, "Just let him cope how he wants, you lot are so irrational." His purple hair was pressed against the wall he was leaning against, edging it over his forehead and covering his face.
Kirishima turned to him with a frown, "Come on Shinbro, you were his best friend, you should care a little more about him." Mina gasped slightly, and Iida sternly glared at Kirishima.
The purple-haired man, Shinso, revealed his eyes behind his hair, severely dried and with eye bags down to his cheeks. "You really want to go there spikey?" Clicking his tongue, the man stood up to his full height, towering over the sitting red-haired hero who responded by standing up himself, albeit with a more worried face.
They stood like that for a few seconds, neither saying a word. Finally, Kirishima shook his head, looking away as he sat again.
Shinso shrugged and prepared to walk out of the establishment, "Here you go Mina." He tossed her about 5,000 yen, "For the sake." The pink-haired woman reached out and snatched it out of the air.
Standing in the cold alleyway just a couple of apartments far from the Bar, Shinso stared blankly at the floor.
Back then…
A tall and sleek man coughed, yawning before gesturing to the odd-looking teen beside him.
"He will be your training partner for the binding cloth, his quirk works in a similar binding fashion so it's only rational that you learn from him."
"Yo!" Shinso didn't know what to say to that, the lanky teen with shaggy hair was definitely weird. His smile never seemed to leave his face, and he had a weird physique that didn't seem proportional.
"..."
Shinso stood with his binding cloth raised in the air, blankly staring at the newcomer, whose smile was slightly strained.
"You both know what to do, don't bother bugging me any further " The man walked behind a tree and pulled out a sleeping bag.
…
"Well, let's get started then friendo-"
"I'm not your friend, we're rivals, this is the hero course, nobody is here to make friends." Sero dropped his smile for a second before whispering something to himself about an icy hot bastard and edginess.
"Alright first, you're not a villain, man why not drop the menacing look, wontcha?"
"Again, I'm not here-"
"Don't care, that's not how it rolls in 1A pal. We all gotta have each other's backs in this class, and if you don't do the same, you're my enemy." Sero dropped his goofy act, his eyes narrowing and his face contorting into the seasoned hero in training that he was.
Shinso began to sweat slightly, "Whatever…"
Sero instantly adopted his smile again at that, grabbing onto Shinso's hand tightly. "Great! Then let's make a hero wannabe out of you!"
Most of his mind screamed at him to ignore the living tape dispenser, his frolicking personality so at odds, but… no matter what he did or said.
Sero never left.
"Man, trust me, when we make it pro? I'll rank so much higher than you it won't even be funny, thanks to my charm of course. Although even then I could just probably spend all my time helping grandmas cross the road and I still would rank higher than your edgy ass. I mean really man you take dark and gloomy too far, sheheheheh.."
"Sure thing if you don't die first, tape."
"Heh, always with the dark humor aren't we Shinso." The lanky teen grumbled.
And with that particular set of memories, Shinso began staring at the wall.
"So, I was right about which one of us would bite the dust first then…" He clenched his fist.
"You bastard…"
A small flake of snow landed on his cheek, only to be melted by the single tear that fell down.
"I knew you could never keep your promises!"
His knuckles bled against the bricks as he pounded his fist against the wall.
The usual silence of his room in the night did nothing to calm his nerves, not like usual. It only served to remind him, to flashback between seeing Cellophane's face fearfully yelling at him to stay back, and the view of Stain's swords reflecting his terrifying demeanor and inability to move.
"DAMNIT." He shot out of his bed, throwing the covers onto the floor. His hands clutched deep into his own body, his body shaking with intense emotion. Pulling on his own face to cover his tears from someone invisible, he could almost feel the fearful gaze of Cellophane begging, with all his heart, to be saved.
"You looked like… you were crying out for help!" And…
"I…"
"Did nothing."
…
He held his hands over to the sides of his head as he continued to argue with the invisible figure.
"Damnit WHAT was I supposed to do? I'm not a hero, I'm not even a vigilante! I'm just a random civilian who got lucky by getting spider powers! What was I supposed to do after ALL those years! All those years spent being tossed around like I didn't matter, did you want me to stand up and fight?" He roared into the soundproofed walls, tears trailing down.
"I… I may have wanted to be a hero my whole life, but now I am something else, you can't do this… You can't make me feel guilty like this." He wiped his eyes, to the outside observer it appeared as if he was talking to some invisible ghost haunting him about his past.
But…
He was really talking to himself.
His mind flashed back to when Melissa and David said he had no responsibility, "But they didn't know I had powers, so they obviously said I had no responsibility! I do! I have the strength and speed greater than most men, I have webbing that can capture people too! And enhanced senses! And yet… All of that AND I STILL FUMBLED THE BALL!" He clenched his knuckles so tightly that blood was drawn, his body shaking even more.
He wanted to tell them, tell them that he was superpowered now like everyone else. But Izuku knew that it would lead to a larger mess, the government would get involved, he would be experimented on like a lab rat and even with all his power, he wouldn't be able to stop them from doing so. He was living a double life, one of a quirkless inventor and one of a quirked criminal who attacked heroes and then got away scot-free because of his quirklessness.
"I am…"
"A useless coward…"
That's what he was, running away from his responsibility, running away from his normalcy, running away from the blame, running away from everything. He always ran away, to never be noticed, and kept living that way.
Wallowing in self-pity, Izuku remained slumped on the cold barren floor, his silent sobs reverberating throughout.
The next day…
Izuku idly played with a circuit board, his heart not really in it. The green-haired man was frustrated at his inability to act as he wanted and wished he did. And this reflected in his work as well, as he had been stuck on the same piece of gear for the past few hours.
A hand came down on his workstation, Izuku lazily glanced up to see the worried face of his employer and mentor.
"Midoriya."
"Yes, boss?"
Izuku sighed.
"I can understand you are not going through the best of times, and I can give you a couple of days off if you need them to feel better, but I can't keep you in your station if you are not working at your best capacity." Despite his mentor speaking softly to him, this elicited a wince in Izuku's face.
"I'm not a child boss, I can keep going…"
"Then get to work Midoriya, or take the days off but it is not good for any of us that you…."
Izuku growled, "..YOU DON'T KNOW HOW IT FEELS LIKE, to feel like you caused someone else's death!" venom excreted from his mouth, which shook David to the core.
However, this was quickly replaced with anger, a type of anger that he had never seen in the usually calm and rational man, "You think I don't know?" It wasn't even near an angry shout, but rather a calm whisper that somehow felt heavier than the loudest scream Izuku had ever heard in his life. He could also feel how the man's grip on his shoulder, once warm and soft, became way tighter and aggressive.
"You think for a second, that I don't regret every single weapon and piece of gear that I've made and has been used to harm an innocent? Do you think the people didn't reverse engineer my own damn inventions to use against us? You think I don't feel responsible for everything my inventions have caused?" David's narrowed eyes remained on him, his chest going up and down as he began to breathe to calm himself down.
Izuku was deadly silent, completely unprepared for this outburst of the man he admired so much for his patience and calmness.
And it seemed that David himself wasn't prepared for this outburst either, as he slowed his breathing to calm himself, every second his grip growing lesser on the shoulder of Izuku's shirt. Brown eyes glanced away for a small second before looking back and then away, he let go.
"I…"
"I'm sorry."
"Just go to your quarters Midoriya, people like us tend to lose ourselves when we are angry. It's going to be okay, I promise."
"Boss..."
"Please." David shook his head, hiding his face.
"Just go."