A/N: (Thank you to the beta's of this chapter Gaspacho and Morbious20! you guys rock and your feedback has given me countless ideas, no exaggerating. anyways onto the show!)
December
He ducked under a swipe from the blade, his blows becoming more erratic and unfocused. Cellophane backflipped into the air and shot out two lines of tape with his quirk, instantly wrapping around Stain and pulling the tape quirk user towards him.
The hero killer blocked his kick with a single arm, knocking him away with a grunt. Cellophane landed on his feet and began to charge again before he felt a raw pain in his leg, causing the hero to lurch over.
"Nobody is coming, not a single one of that band of fools you call allies, it is only you and I, Cellophane! Just submit already! Fighting won't change your destiny, it will only further aggravate your pain before you succumb to your judgment!" Stain chuckled darkly at the beaten and bloody hero.
Breathing heavily, Cellophane kneeled on the ground tiredly, dozens of cuts littering his body. He began to feel lightheaded from the amount of blood he lost in the past 15 minutes. Sero tore off his cracked helmet and released his shaggy dark hair into the cold wind, his lungs contracting heavily with each breath. While the hero knew his time was running out, Stain didn't look worse for wear.
'The hell has he been eating…'
Sero shook his head and stood up, spitting out a glob of blood. The roof of the building was covered in crimson snow, the evidence of a bloody battle between the predator and the prey.
"You… you know, I wonder what kind of lunatic would hunt down heroes just because of his arbitrary as hell 'moral' code…" The sky darkened, with clouds coming to block all sunlight with another slew of snowy weather.
Stain slowly began to approach the hero, resuming his self-righteous monologue: "You couldn't possibly understand. You, who blindly supports the system, a system that allows the fake hero ideology to persist and infect the people of this blind nation. Foolishly fighting for a cause that has manipulated and brainwashed you since birth, to merely cosplay as a hero when you are nothing but an enforcer of arbitrary laws." The wind roared around the hero killer, announcing every step he took.
Sero supported himself on one knee, with his body shaking with adrenaline. And as fear began to consume his very flesh, the figure of the hero killer became less humane and more demonic.
"S-stay the hell away from me murderer!" He couldn't help but feel fearful for his life, Stain no longer holding any semblance to a human being in his mind.
"I won't hear the words of a fake like you."
And as his vision turned delirious after copious blood loss, Sero saw the man split into three versions of himself.
"S-stay away from me, dammit! You monster!" The blade-wielding villain didn't respond, and proceeded to continue to walk forth undeterred by the pleas of his victim.
And in a last act of defiance, the tape quirk user shakily stood up, his slouched form unbalanced. "You think I'm just gonna sit down and accept death!" He was almost slurring his words, a cocktail of fear, internal bleeding, and blood loss messing with his speech.
He placed a shaky thumb to his chest, powered by his last bit of determination, "N-not me, not Sero Hanta, not Cellophane! I'm the hero for the small gu-" His pupils dilated.
And sticking out of his back, the hero killer's sharp blade was coated with his blood. His once white costume was now tainted red, and he felt the light receding from his vision. Refocusing on the blurry figure, Sero gritted his teeth and stretched his hand out forward. Blood spurted out from his mouth as Stain drove the blade further, but Sero did not fall, his entire body shaking in his vain attempt to reach Stain's throat.
'I… Won't… Lose', his fingers curled, shaking.
'I…' His eyelids drooped.
A faint memory of happier times flashed in his mind.
'I Didn't get to say goodbye.'
Stain ripped the blade out in one smooth motion, a line of blood coating the snow below. His face stoic, the hero killer watched as the light faded from the eyes of his kill, still standing however wobbly.
With a small tap, he kicked the hero in the chest ever so slightly. And with stain's foot on his chest and a gasp as all the oxygen exited his lungs, Cellophane fell.
His body imprinted in the snow, dead. Dark crimson liquid staining all around the corpse and turning the snow pure red. Stain stood in silence.
"Yet another fake meets his demise under my will."
The weather picked up, a blizzard forming as police sirens played in the distance. The corpse's pupils rolled to the back of his head, the only thing visible being his milky white eyes, slowly disappearing under a pile of snow growing every second.
Stain crept away, sheathing his sword and dropping off the ledge into the alleyway below. Leaving the corpse behind, another hero joined the kill count of the infamous hero killer.
Izuku scanned himself through the front entrance, shooting down the hall without addressing the entrance lady. His heart thumped like an engine ready to explode, tripping slightly when the elevator door opened and revealed Melissa.
"Izuku?" He couldn't breathe, couldn't stand up straight.
"Hey, hey, what's wrong? Izuku?" Melissa dropped to the floor with him, helping support his body. The man was shaking in terror.
"I-I left him there Melissa, I left him to die!" He growled out, pulling at her shirt. "I… I… I ran away, I c-called the police, but it might be too late…" he muttered gibberish practically, a wall of words.
"Slow down, Izu-, oh...Izuku!" The green-haired man held her tightly as they sat on the floor, which would have drawn a blush from the blue-eyed blonde in any other situation. She pushed him forward and looked right into his puffy eyes, as she had never seen her friend so distraught.
Pleading with her eyes, Melissa began to reach to the young inventor: "P-please, Izuku I need you to please tell me what happened?!" Izuku was still trembling, his breaths sporadic.
"I… mmm erm, a hero, a hero tried to arrest me…" Izuku finally got out, trying to level his breathing back to normal.
"WHAT?!? Why?!? What did you do?" Melissa was stunned by this revelation.
"I don't know! But after that, the hero killer, Stain, showed up and he attacked him! And… And I left him there to die! I could've helped!" He choked out.
Melissa paused for a moment, her mind working at several thousand miles per minute trying to process all the information the man had just revealed to her. 'Stain? That guy on the news a few years back? The hero killer? Izuku… What the hell happened?' She frowned at him.
"What do you mean you could have helped! You're not a hero Izuku; you're quirkless just like me!" He winced, her words scathing to him. She didn't know he had his powers, she didn't know that he injured Sero before he went against Stain.
"I could've helped… And now if he's dead… I would've indirectly killed him, Cellophane was his name." Izuku looked down to the floor, his face shadowed.
Melissa sighed, her blue eyes softening. "Izuku, you can't let it get to you! You're just a civilian, and you're my best friend, I know you hate seeing people in trouble but… What could you have possibly done?" The man shook his head, wiping his face clear of tears.
"You don't get it…"
"You can't let it consume you, it is not your responsibility to fight villains dammit!" 'Responsibility', that word kept popping up. What did it mean? Why did certain people have the responsibility to act and others didn't?
The elevator dinged again, "What's going on!" David shot down the hallway with a worried expression, he had gotten a call about loud noises coming from the base floor and reports of someone running through the building.
"Papa! It's Izuku! He had an encounter with a villain!"
"WHAT?!" David rushed to the younger man's side, putting a hand on his shoulder as he shook.
"He witnessed a hero get attacked by the hero killer Stain, he believes it's his fault for running away instead of helping." David absorbed the information, his hands running through his hair.
He'd seen young men and women encounter villains first hand before, and many had this kind of reaction, especially when meeting a renowned murderer such as Stain's caliber.
"My boy…" He trailed off.
David squeezed his shoulder, "You couldn't have helped him, you have to calm down, did you call the police?" A nod.
"Y-you don't get it, boss… He tried to arrest me for using my quirk unlawfully…" The two Shields lurched, their eyes bogging out in confusion?
"But, you don't have a quirk!."
….
'Tell them!'
….
"I know, I know! But he thought I did! And then Stain showed up and they started fighting! What if he is dead? It took four heroes to beat him last time!" Izuku roared, his voice cracking under the emotion of the situation.
"That's erroneous Izuku, my boy, you have no responsibility-" Izuku interrupted the man with a furious growl.
"W-what is all this about responsibility? W-what makes someone responsible to act? Why am I not responsible to act? Just because I'm not a hero? Because I'm quirkless and denied from hero schools?" The bitterness and frustration that he had hidden deeply inside his heart was leaking out, being powered up now that he had his powers..
David was taken aback by the sudden outburst of the man, he locked eyes with Melissa, who was holding Izuku against her as they both leaned against the wall. The world-class inventor took a breath, "My boy, it's not that simple." Melissa nodded to him.
David thought of how best to put this, he knew better than anyone how being quirkless could stifle dreams, but realizing Izuku had wanted to be a hero once upon a time… he needed to have nuance.
"With great intellect, with great will, with great determination, and with great power, comes great responsibility."
Izuku's eyes widened, his mouth open as the words caught in his mouth, tears still flowing down.
"We act based on this responsibility, I am responsible to do good with my mind, to help people with my mind, and create technology to help those who need it. And this hero? He's responsible for you and responsible to protect you with his power, Izuku… You are quirkless, you have no power of your own against villains!" Izuku shut his mouth, shut his eyes, he dried his tears.
"You don't have the responsibility to fight them, legally or morally."
'But I had the power to stop him, to stop Stain, I know I did…'
'I thought it wasn't my responsibility, yet every instinct I had told me to go back and help… I thought it wasn't my responsibility because… I wasn't a hero… But that's not important.'
'I knew maybe, I already knew this on the inside the entire time. Who have I been kidding?'
'These powers of mine weren't for nothing, not for me to just waste away for cheaper transportation and to make a quick buck.'
'With great power, comes great responsibility. And with my inability to understand that, I had condemned a man to death.'
"Should I have acted?"
"Izuku-"
"If I had the power to, should I have interfered?"
The three remained in silence, the dim light of the hallway shadowing their faces. Neither wanted to answer his question, and neither were ready to grasp the totality of his question either.
