Chapter Nine: Burden
The heavy rain came down on Asaka. It had been cloudy all day and, in the evening, it had finally started pouring down heavily. Like a much needed, refreshing bath, it splashed down the whole city, bringing down the temperature and making the air feel fresh and cool. Thunder echoed throughout the sky. It wasn't loud or scary. Just an ominous rumble that highlighted not just the current atmospheric conditions, but the psychological conditions of a certain hero.
As she looked out to the city from her balcony, Uraraka felt she could relate to the weather. It somehow portrayed her current mental state. Muddled, gloomy and wild. So many conflicting thoughts going through her head. Was she supposed to feel happy that she found Deku? Or sad about the fact that he had become a vigilante? What will she tell him when she finally gets to talk to him? Will he hate her? Or smile at her?
The gravity hero looked up to the sky as she took a deep breath. She had waited for this for so long, but now she didn't even know how to feel or what to think. Uraraka visualized this moment before. When she daydreamed of the day, she would find Deku. She imagined running into him at a café or restaurant. Or maybe at some park or hero convention. They would talk, she would apologize, he would forgive her. Then, they'll talk some more, laugh, smile at each other, catch up in later meetings and then… maybe, even go out on a date.
Needless to say, things didn't turn out like that. Oh no, not by a long shot. She and her boss were in Asaka, tasked with capturing a seemingly unstoppable vigilante, and in some cruel twist of fate, that vigilante turned out to be Deku. That, she still had a hard time believing. I mean, seriously, what are the chances of something like that happening? Pretty high, according to the universe.
After the fight to capture Darkmask or more appropriately, Deku, she had stayed around talking with detective Daiki and Ryukyu. They explained the timeline of events leading to the fight and how things had gone down. After some paperwork and some more talks at the agency, she had gone home. There would be no talking with Deku until the next day at the earliest if he got released from the hospital.
Uraraka's thoughts were interrupted by her phone chiming with a text. She unlocked her screen to see a text from Sai. "Hey, I'm at your front door 😊"
The brown-haired girl's eyebrows went up in surprise as she blinked a few times. Sai was at her place? Why? They didn't plan anything for that day. Oh well, she didn't have anything to do so she guessed a little chit chat wouldn't hurt.
The gravity hero made her way to her front door and looked through the peephole to make sure it was her friend. Before opening the door, she checked what she was wearing to make sure it was ok. Deciding that her current blue pajama shirt and shorts with yellow stars were ok, she opened the door. "Sai? What are you doing here?"
The telekinesis hero was wearing khaki shorts with black high tops, a plain white t-shirt covered with a black jacket. She also had a folded umbrella, since the weather called for it. The blond girl gave her a hesitant smile, "hey, Uraraka. Sorry for just showing up without asking, but honestly I didn't think this was the best time for you to be alone."
After a second of silence, Uraraka gave her a small chuckle, shaking her head slightly, "I'm okay, Sai, really."
Sai twisted her mouth in doubt, "Oh, come on, boss. A little company won't hurt." She then lifted the plastic bags she was holding, "I even brought dinner and your favorite drink." She said with a wide smile while pulling the wine bottle out of the bag.
The gravity hero laughed a little. Sure, she was feeling down because of everything that had happened, but Sai was right. She sure needed a little company and if said company brought a nice bottle of wine, then even better. "Yeah, I guess you're right. A little company won't hurt."
Uraraka stepped aside to let her friend into her apartment and after closing the door they walked to the kitchen. Sai put the bag of food on one side of the counter and then pulled a bottle of wine from the other bag as Uraraka opened her cabinet looking for some glasses. Sai sat on one of the two stools that were on the other side of the countertop, which was shaped like a mini bar. She looked at her boss trying to gauge how she was doing. The brown-haired girl appeared a little down, but she didn't look like she had been crying or anything like that.
As Uraraka opened the bottle and started filling two glasses with wine, the rain outside started to ease up and became a light shower. Sai took a quick glance out the balcony and then back to the gravity hero in front of her. She then decided to start the conversation. "So, we got Darkmask." She saw Uraraka move her mouth around, like she was feeling slightly annoyed. "What do you think is going to happen next?"
Uraraka slid one of the glasses toward the telekinesis hero without making eye contact. She then grabbed her own drink and looked down into it while slowly swirling the dark red liquid around the glass. After a moment of doing this, she finally took a sip. As she did this, she lifted her eyes towards the balcony where she could see the weather outside. A crack of thunder was heard in the distance. She slowly blinked a few times and then looked at the blond girl.
"I'm not sure, but I guess he'll get interrogated and then charged with vigilante activity and illegal quirk use." Even though she had a slightly serious expression, her eyes betrayed the fact that she was feeling sad inside. Sai saw this and pondered her next question carefully. She wanted to know what the deal was between Darkmask and Uraraka. But she didn't want to push too far into what was obviously a very sensitive subject.
Sai looked down to her own drink. She stayed silent for a few seconds then took a quick glance at her boss, who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts as she looked out the balcony. "How do you feel about that?"
Uraraka seemed to be brought back to reality by the question as she looked at the blond girl slightly surprised. "How am I supposed to feel? We came here to arrest him and we did that, so…yeah." She took a sip and then looked back to her companion, "why do you want to know how I feel about this?" there was a hint of aggravation in her voice.
Sai took a deep breath and then looked at Uraraka with a serious expression, "I'm not stupid, ok? I see you've been acting differently this last couple of days." Thunder rolled throughout the sky as the light rain rapidly became a heavy downpour once again.
The gravity hero broke eye contact looking out the balcony once again, "I don't know what you are talking about."
"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about." After not getting an answer Sai pushed a little more, "Do you know him?"
Uraraka took a deep breath and looked at her friend in annoyance, a flash of lighting briefly illuminating her face, "what kind of question is that?"
"Uraraka, you protected him at the end of the fight!"
The gravity hero looked down to her glass and shrugged her shoulders, "so? He was already down, and I didn't want other heroes to cause him unnecessary injuries."
Sai kept her eyes on her boss for a few seconds, then she looked down to her drink once again. There was another moment of tense silence. Sai could tell that Uraraka was dancing around the subject and even though her considerate part wanted to drop the subject, her curious and inquisitive side wanted answers. After all, maybe she could help her friend move forward with whatever she was going through. She again started talking in a low voice.
"Uraraka…" she lifted her eyes to the brown-haired girl once more, "what exactly is your relationship with Darkmask?" Uraraka kept her gaze on her drink as she moved her mouth around as if she wanted to say something, her eyes getting suspiciously shiny. A few seconds later a single tear ran down Uraraka's cheek.
Sai immediately regretted pushing the subject. Damn her curious side. "Hey, I'm sorry I asked, Uraraka. We don't have to talk about this, ok?" She didn't get a response as the gravity hero kept her eyes on her own drink. A long silent moment followed with neither of them saying a word and a few more tears ran down Uraraka's face. Sai didn't know what to say so she stayed quiet, mentally berating herself for pushing the subject.
'Good job, moron. You came here to make sure she was okay and instead you ended up making her feel worse. God, I'm such a terrible friend.'
After the long silent moment, the gravity hero slowly wiped the tears away and took a shaky breath. She slowly lifted her eyes to look at the blond girl, who was looking at her with a sad face. Uraraka gave her a small, shaky smile. "His name is Izuku Midoriya." Sai's eyes went wide remembering that name from their conversation at the bar. "And…I'm the one responsible for him running away from UA."
Sai's yaw dropped open as she gawked at the gravity hero in front of her, surprise etched all over her face. "Surprise!" Uraraka said in a fake happy tone and a very fake, watery smile that immediately turned into the saddest expression the telekinesis hero had ever seen on Uraraka's face. The two stayed silent for a few seconds until the gravity hero spoke again, "I'm not a good person, Sai." She wiped a few errant tears as she continued, "I became a hero for money, and I have hurt those close to me."
Silence came upon the two heroes once again as the two heroes continued to stare at their drinks. After a long moment Sai decided to ask the first thing that came to her mind, "What happened?"
Uraraka took a deep, cleansing breath and then looked at the blond girl in front of her. "Would you like to hear the long version or the short version?"
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Darkmask, or more appropriately, Midoriya, opened his eyes, blinking a few times. He felt tired and groggy, almost like he was devoid of any energy. He instinctively tried to scratch his eyes, but his arm came to a sudden, physical halt and the noise of chains could be heard. He blinked a few more times in surprise and when he finally looked around, he could see that he was what was clearly in a hospital room. A flash of lighting briefly illuminated his room, making him take a quick glance to the window next to his bed, where he could see rain pouring down heavily.
He turned his head back around trying to get his bearings looking around his room, and then he looked down to his arms to see them chained to the bed with quirk suppressing cuffs and heavy-duty chains. He dropped his head back on the pillow and huffed in annoyance. 'Damn, it looks like they finally got me.' He then lifted his head to look at his legs. He lifted one leg only to see they were also chained to the bed frame.
He flopped down once again, anger and aggravation washing over his body in ever increasing waves. He tried to keep his emotions in check, as he didn't want to start thinking of his current situation, and more importantly the person that helped put him there. The same person that changed everything. He could feel that anger bubbling inside. The same anger he's been carrying for over five years now. The anger that had kept him going all this time. The anger that made him not care about his actions or repercussions. That same anger, that made him abandon everything that fateful night. It was like a rapidly spreading disease that had taken control of him in a matter of seconds.
Even to this day he had a hard time wrapping his head around what occurred that night. Everything had happened so fast, so unexpectedly. The rejection was so vicious and absolute he couldn't wrap his brain around it. He couldn't understand how she, the person he loved, could've turned so unfriendly and angry in such a small amount of time. Yeah, he couldn't understand why she did it. But he could certainly understand how he felt.
He remembered the pain, the intense sense of betrayal and that god, awful, anger. He remembers how that black pit that resided inside of him, exploded into an overwhelming burst of pure, uncontrollable anger that threatened to consume his soul and push him to do something malicious and violent. That black pit that had built up inside of him ever since he was diagnosed as quirkless. Then, it was filled to the brim with the endless acts of rejection, mockery, name calling, physical pain and the heartless advice to commit suicide done by his classmates and his 'friend'. Even his own mother doubted him and never told him what he desperately wanted to hear. That even he, a quirkless person, could become a hero.
In the middle of all this negative blitz, he was glad he was able to get a semblance of control and left before that black pit swallowed his soul and made him do something he regretted for the rest of his life. But then again, he already did something he'll probably regret for the rest of his life. He left UA, his dream school, his new friends and his future hero career.
But he had come to terms with that a long time ago. After much regret, tears and soul searching, he had accepted his destiny and moved on, so to speak. He really had no choice anymore at this point, did he? Damn, here he was again thinking of the past and all the negativity around it. Is this how some villains got started? He didn't know. He asked that question internally multiple times before and he wasn't as close to an answer now as the first time he asked himself that question.
His trip to memory lane was interrupted when the door to his room suddenly opened. A petite girl with grey hair and wearing a nurse uniform stepped inside and suddenly stopped when she saw that he was awake. "Oh, you finally awake." She said with a small smile as she slowly approached him. "How are you feeling?"
"Not that great." The vigilante said with a neutral voice.
The nurse slowly nodded her head in agreement, "Yeah, you had some serious injuries. The internal bleeding was due to Ryukyu's grip, which broke six of your ribs. The doctor's healing quirk probably took all your energy as well." Midoriya hummed in agreement but didn't say anything. The nurse nodded and started to walk out, "I'll go get him and let him know you're awake."
"Don't suppose you can take these off, right?" he jiggles the chains around his wrists.
The nurse suddenly stopped and turned to him with a smile, "I wish I could, really. But I don't think my boss and the police would be very happy with me if I did that." She then stepped out and closed the door.
The vigilante exhaled through his nose and flopped back down, "it was worth a try, I guess." He said to himself in a low voice. He stayed there in silence for about ten minutes when the door opened once again, this time with a fairly tall man with blue hair and red eyes and wearing a white hospital jacket. The same nurse from a few minutes ago right behind him.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Akagi. How are you feeling?" the doctor said while taking a look at the chart at the foot of the bed.
"Just tired, and a little sore."
"Any trouble breathing, chest pains?"
"Not really."
The doctor quickly checked his eyes with a small light, and after a few more questions, he left as soon as he arrived. Once again Midoriya found himself alone in the room and with his thoughts. But not even five minutes later the door opened once again, but this time it was detective Daiki and two police officers that entered.
"Ah, Darkmask." He said in a voice dripping with mockery as he walked into the room. "The fabled vigilante of Asaka." He then grabbed a small, wheeled stool, sat on it and got close to Midoriya's bed, "defender of the people and vanquisher of villains." Midoriya kept a serious glance on the detective, who kept his serious glance that was trying, but failing to hide his contempt. "Tell me, how are you feeling, Darkmask, or should I say Izuku Midoriya."
The vigilante managed to hide his surprise and his name being mentioned. "I've been better."
"Hmm, I bet you have." The older man kept his gaze on the vigilante for a moment. "You really gave my heroes a run for their money when they tried to capture you. You even put a few of them in the hospital." Midoriya kept his serious expression and then shifted his eyes to the ceiling.
"Whatever. Maybe they should've been going after villains instead of coming after me."
"You don't get to act like you're one of the good guys, Midoriya. You have caused a lot of collateral damage in the last five years you've been running around this city."
Immediately Midoriya locked eyes with the older man, "Oh, yeah? What about the people that I helped, people that I protected from a villain or criminal? Are you counting those? Or are you only preoccupied with your precious collateral damage?"
The older man nodded stiffly with a serious expression, "And what about those that you hurt? Do you take those people into consideration?"
Midoriya narrowed his eyes at the detective's accusation. "Heroes cause collateral damage all the time where people get hurt. I don't see you giving them a lecture."
The detective huffed in annoyance, "Heroes are licensed for that kind of work and have to assume responsibility if they cause too much damage." He gave the vigilante a second to process what he said. "But then again, I shouldn't be surprised. You operate outside of the law after all. So, you don't have to worry about all that, right?" The vigilante didn't say anything and the detective continued.
"His brother lost a leg because of you." He said, pointing to one of the police officers in the room, who was glaring at the vigilante, "He was on track to get an athletic scholarship at the Tokyo University." He then pointed a finger at Midoriya, "But your fight with a villain destroyed his apartment building and his leg was crushed in the rubble." He stood up and looked down at the vigilante. "You obviously didn't care about those who got hurt or how much property damage you caused while fighting." He started to walk away, "You may think you're a good guy, but you're almost as bad as the villains."
Midoriya contemplated what the detective had said. He knew that obviously he was taking things personally. But he also knew that even if it was a hero fighting a villain, it was impossible to keep property damage to zero percent. And maybe, if it would've been an actual hero fighting the villain, the detective would've accepted it and moved on, but because he was a vigilante he thought differently. That didn't sit well with the vigilante, "Maybe I should've just let the villain do whatever he wanted." He said in a voice dripping with hidden anger. "And maybe then, his brother would be dead instead of missing a leg."
The detective stopped in his tracks right at the door, he slowly turned to the vigilante in the room with a surprised expression. But Midoriya didn't care as he continued, "I understand that you're upset about people getting hurt, but you know as well as I do that a villain doesn't give a damn about other people's lives. If a hero or a vigilante didn't step in, that villain would've probably killed dozens of people before anybody did anything to stop him."
The detective kept his gaze on the vigilante for a few seconds and then stormed out of the room. Midoriya kept looking at the door for a few seconds and then he dropped his head back down looking at the ceiling. He knew he was right. He knew that villains were out there to target people and to do as they pleased. But that didn't stop the vigilante from thinking that maybe he had taken his anger and his desire to fight villains a little too far. Maybe he could've been a little more careful in his approach.
His thoughts were interrupted by one of the police officers still in the room. "You'll be transported to the police headquarters today. After questioning, you'll be sent to the Asaka prison until you have to go to court to be charged, do you understand?" Midoriya gave the officer a quick nod and then turned his gaze back to the ceiling.
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Uraraka sat silently on her couch looking down into her empty glass after telling Sai the whole story with Midoriya starting from UA to the events that happened earlier that day. She actually felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders. It's been a few years since she had told anyone outside her UA class about what had happened. The only one that knew was Ryukyu and she had told her back in her first year at the agency.
Sai on the other hand was just looking at the gravity hero in disbelief. She had definitely chewed more than she could swallow at this point and felt like a weight was put on her shoulders. She blinked a few times as she shifted her gaze out to the balcony where the rain was still coming down nonstop. 'I guess that's what I get for being nosy.' The telekinesis thought to herself as she processed the whole story she was just told.
This story had everything. Friendship, high school crushes, happiness, anger, betrayal, regret, unrequited love, a friend that had gone missing without a trace and the police investigation that followed. To top it off Uraraka had struck a friendship with Midoriya's mother, who in turn had been extremely supportive of the same girl that had hurt her only son, and made him run away in anger. The icing on the cake was that Uraraka hadn't even seen or heard of Midoriya for five whole years, and then he turned out to be the vigilante that had operated in Asaka for years. Nonsense. Pure nonsense.
The telekinesis hero shook her head slowly as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Damn, that's quite the story, Uraraka." The gravity hero took a quick glance at her and gave her a small nod and a sad smile, then looked back to the empty glass on her hands. Sai kept her gaze on Uraraka and seeing how she was acting it was possible she was still in love with Midoriya. Or was it just guilt? The telekinesis hero wasn't sure at this point. She decided to continue with the conversation.
"Why do you think he ran away?" as Uraraka gave her a questioning look she continued, "I mean, I don't think he would do that just because you rejected him the way you did, right?"
The brown-haired girl took a deep breath and shifted her eyes back to the weather raging outside, "I didn't know it at the time, but Deku had some serious emotional issues that he was just barely keeping under control." She took a moment to gather her thoughts before continuing. "All the talks I had with Inko allowed me to more or less put things together and…It didn't look good."
Sai raised an eyebrow, "what do you mean?"
Uraraka made eye contact with the blond girl, "Well, Deku didn't have any friends growing up and all the kids in school made fun of him, called him names and some even became physically violent." She shifted her eyes down to the glass on her hands, "this happened for years and years and nobody did anything to stop it, not even the teachers."
"But why? What reason did they have to treat him like that?"
"Deku was a very late bloomer, and his quirk didn't manifest until right before he applied to UA. So, the whole time he and everyone else thought he was quirkless."
The telekinesis hero's eyes went wide at that piece of information, "what the hell?! Seriously?!" While the telekinesis hero had heard of late bloomers before, but the idea of someone developing a quirk well into their teenage years was just outrageous in her opinion. After a moment processing this information, she thought about Midoriya's mother. What was her role in all this?
"What about his mother? Didn't she try to help him?"
Uraraka sighed before answering, "Deku never told his mother, but she knew something was going on. She went to the school multiple times to complain, but after they told her they would look into it, nothing really happened, and the bullying continued."
Sai shook her head in disbelief, "what kind of school faculty does something like that?"
The gravity hero shrugged her shoulders, "the ones that don't care about quirkless students."
The rumble of thunder traveled across the sky once more as the blond girl looked down slowly shaking her head. She couldn't believe people could be so heartless and severely mistreat someone just because they lacked a quirk. It didn't make any sense to her. After processing all this information, she finally understood why Uraraka was so sad and troubled. Not only had she lost a friend and the guy she was possibly in love with, but unknowingly added to the long list of abuse Midoriya had suffered. Becoming another person in the list of abusers that had left a deep mark on Midoriya's psyche. She wanted to say something about that but wasn't sure it was a good idea. She had done enough damage for today. But then she heard Uraraka clear her throat.
"So, now you can imagine how awful I felt, after I put all the pieces together and saw how horrible it was to reject him the way I did." She lifted her gaze to the telekinesis hero sitting on the couch across from her.
"Not only did I physically hurt him, but I also broke the fragile disguise of control Deku had put over his scarred emotions." Another tear rolled down her cheek. "Damn it…I'm such an awful person, Sai." she said as she wiped the tear off her cheek.
Sai felt the sting of tears on her eyes, and she quickly moved next to Uraraka, throwing her one arm around the gravity hero. "Don't say such things, Uraraka." The brown-haired girl leaned her head on the blond girl's shoulder, "You're an amazing person, with a good heart, okay?" Sai said in a low voice.
Uraraka took a shaky breath, "I love him, Sai" Uraraka said in a sad voice. "I loved him then and I still love him now."
Sai slowly closed her eyes as she let out a deflating breath. 'Of course, I just knew it wasn't just guilt.' She thought to herself. "It's okay, Uraraka. You didn't know what was going to happen and you certainly didn't know what was going on inside Midoriya's head; nobody knew."
"Still…"
"Still nothing! Okay?!" The blond girl retorted with a slightly raised voice. "You didn't know, Uraraka."
The gravity hero sighed and seemed to relax, "…thank you."
The two stayed like that for a moment in silence, each thinking of the conversation they just had. All of the sudden the peaceful moment was shattered by a very loud lighting strike nearby, which caused the two heroes to yelp in surprise and hold tighter onto each other. After a few seconds the two started giggling at the scare they just had, courtesy of the crazy weather.
As the two disengaged their hug, still giggling, Uraraka spoke first. "I think we should go ahead and eat." Sai gave her a nod with a smile and the two made their way to Uraraka's dining room. There the two young heroes enjoyed dinner and talked about more comfortable topics, finally getting Uraraka out of her unhappy phase. After a couple of hours, Psytempest took her leave, and made her way back to her apartment.
The rain had finally eased up enough to walk without an umbrella. As she walked back, she couldn't help but find Uraraka's story very weird and interesting. Especially the part where Midoriya was quirkless right until entering UA. That just didn't make any sense. But on second thought, there were a lot of things that were still unknown about quirks, so she just assumed that this was another one of those unknown things about quirks. But the other part she was more worried about was that like she had suspected, Uraraka was still in love with Midoriya.
She was sure that this was probably going to blow up in Uraraka's face. Not only did she hurt Midoriya, but he had become a vigilante, a man that fought villains and heroes alike. In her opinion, it was very likely that Midoriya's feelings for the gravity hero were pretty much gone at this point. Replaced with god knows what. Especially if he had a very rough time on the streets, making his heart hard and uncaring.
This was the part that worried the telekinesis hero. The whole time she had known Uraraka, she seemed like a very nice and friendly person with a good heart. So, it was safe to assume that she would probably try to act on those feelings and get some serious emotional pain in the process. Maybe that was a good thing, right? Maybe that would finally make her forget about the past and move on. Psytempest sighed, this was so messed up. She didn't want Uraraka to suffer. She deserved to be happy. Problem was that Sai didn't really know how to help her friend. Maybe a simple talk about it would be a good start?
A/N:
Two chapter update to make up for the long wait. Hope you guys like the way the story is going. For those saying that Izuku could've beaten the heroes that captured him; remember that he was fighting multiple heroes and he was hit with a energy draining quirk that took a lot of his energy. I don't know how strong Ryukyu is the manga, but it must be extremely hard to get out of her grip, especially after getting slammed against the ground more than once. I know I could've articulated this better in the story but I'm pretty happy with how it came out.
