"Guh…hah…hah…hah…"
The edges of her vision wavered – an old and familiar side-effect of her Quirk. The Seki Tekko should have fixed that. But then again, Mikisugi or whatever that pervert's actual name was never imagined her coming up with something like blood bullets. Face caked by sweat, dirt and blood oozing from a cut on her forehead, Ryuko didn't know how much blood she had sacrificed.
Sacrificed.
That was a really good word.
"Tch."
She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, swallowed the glob of blood sitting on her tongue and staggered away from the fire escape, fingers trailing against the weathered metal as exhaustion carried her forward.
"Damn it," a dollop of crimson pinched from her thumb only to freeze midair, reverse direction and disappear into her costume. Blood coated her face and neck. Her hair lay matted to her forehead, soaked by the same liquid preventing her from seeing out of her right eye, "I feel like shit," resembling death warmed over and feeling like she'd gone several rounds against All Might without the bastard holding back, Ryuko stumbled her way towards Couturier's headless corpse. Blood was pooling around whatever remained of the former villain's neck. A puddle growing by the second. She stared at the corpse for what felt like longer than forever before slowly and grimly raising her eyes to the taller building across the street.
A real-estate agency judging by the sign above the front.
A building with a crater no less than a foot across at eye-level.
"Ugh."
Less a grunt of acknowledgement and more a wince of embarrassment, Ryuko felt her cheeks turn crimson, "Really need to work on my aim."
For an appreciably long and awkward moment broken by the distant sounds of sirens and helicopters heading towards Rumi's ongoing battle against the Nomu, she didn't say anything else. Holding her shoulder, blood trickling between her fingers yet never dripping down her arm, air exploded from her mouth in a facsimile of an exhausted chuckle, "I really feel like freaking shit," there was a lot of blood on the roof. Some of it hers. Actually, most of it was. The rest, however, belonged to Couturier, "But it's better than her."
That she couldn't control so much as a single drop of her blood currently painting the roof vicious shades of red went ignored.
As the distant explosions ceased, leaving a deafening silence pressing against her ears, broken only by her ragged breathing, Ryuko's eyebrow twitched, "She better actually be dead."
Confirming the psycho was dead and not merely faking was the hundred-million-yen question.
It was why she didn't turn around and walk away.
And it was why her fingers clenched another sword even as her head was already swimming from sacrificing so much goddamn blood.
It was excruciating. It was torture. And yet she waited for the monster to leap back onto her feet. Maybe she was paranoid, but after the disturbing shit at the USJ, where the blonde psychopath shrugged off a missing arm, regrew said arm in seconds and then taunted Bakugo about his Quirk, nothing was off the table. She felt her heart beating wildly. Her thoughts were filled with nightmares of Couturier pulling a new head out of her ass or popping out of nowhere or something. Anything. A minute passed. Then another. And a third. All without anything happening. No random twitches or strange movements or anything suggesting Couturier was faking her death. Absolutely nothing happened. And continued not happening even when she stepped closer to the headless corpse.
"She's…dead."
Ryuko couldn't express how great saying that felt.
"She's…actually dead…"
It was over.
A dam broke inside her heart as she laughed. Her shoulders trembled. Tears shimmered in the corners of her eyes. She choked back a thick sob. And she laughed. It was over. Couturier was dead. Tet she didn't feel better. Everything should have gone back to normal after killing the villain who killed her dad. Yet nothing had changed. The realization only drove what she'd been denying for several months deeper into her soul. Nothing was going to change. She wasn't ever going to get back to normal.
The life she remembered…being embarrassed at her dad's jokes, being bored in school and hanging out with Tsu and Habuko…was never coming back.
"Fuck you!"
Snarling out every ounce of hatred simmering inside her heart, Ryuko kicked Couturier's corpse, "FUCK YOU, YOU BITCH!"
She kicked the corpse again.
And again.
And again.
Even after finally avenging her dad, she wasn't feeling any better.
She only felt empty.
"…fuck…"
Her legs gave out. And no longer having the energy or motivation to stand, Ryuko didn't resist, "What now?" a tear trickled down her smudged cheek. Couturier was dead. Was there any point doing anything else? Did she still want to be a hero? The only reason she was at UA was to track down the villain who killed her dad. Because All Might promised he would do everything possible to bring Couturier to justice. But now there was nothing keeping her from walking away from everything. She could transfer out of the hero program and figure out something else to do with her life. She could let someone who actually wanted to be a hero take her place.
"You don't want to be a hero?"
"Nope!"
"Every girl your age wants to be a hero."
"Not me!"
"Why?"
"Because being a hero is boring! I want to be like you, dad!"
Did that make her a coward?
"Shit," head tucked against her knees and thoughts converging towards a headache, Ryuko choked back another angry outburst, "What the hell am I going to do!?"
A month ago – goddamn it, a week ago – she wouldn't have needed to think about the answer. But finally killing Couturier changed everything. And she didn't know why. Her life was a mess. It had taken months of clawing her way back from that darkness to regain some measure of normalcy. To not hate every hero for not protecting her dad. She still remembered that darkness. And now she was going to throw everything away? Again? She chewed her lower lip until copper filled her mouth with familiar bitterness. She pulled her knees together and cursed at the top of her lungs. What was she going to do with her life? Did she even still have a life? She felt empty. So goddamn empty inside. Like Couturier had sliced everything out of her heart until only hatred and anger remained.
Now that was gone.
Leaving nothing inside her chest but emptiness.
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't goddamn fair!
She didn't know how much time passed.
And she didn't care.
But at some point after her tears finally dried, Ryuko noticed one of Couturier's purple swords lying within arm's reach. It seemed so strange in the darkness. A weapon a normal hero or villain wouldn't have chosen yet the psycho used like a goddamn master. She didn't know what pushed her to reach towards the weird choice of support gear. Just that she slowly reached out, fingers scraping through the twilight towards the crescent-shaped handle.
STOMP!
The sound of a someone breaking her arm with their foot registered faster than the pain of a someone breaking her fucking arm with their foot.
"GGGAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!"
"Now…Now…"
Ryuko nearly passed out from the pain, voice raw and every nerve in her body screaming. Yet standing on top of her arm, crushing it beneath an armored pink boot adorned with red bows, Couturier's headless corpse spoke in a way that didn't require vocal cords, "You brought this on yourself for being too strong," the voice warbled, echoed and twisted back on itself without repeating as flesh and bone regenerated, "You wanted me to take you seriously, right?"
The only thing that didn't come back was the creepy rabbit mask.
"And here I am, so why are you complaining?" as the pace of her regeneration erased every trace of Ryuko's attack, leaving unblemished skin and blue eyes surrounded by wrinkles of maniac disappointment, Couturier stomped her boot against the broken arm with a little more emphasis.
"FFFFFFUUUUCCCCKKKK!"
"Stop screaming," the warble in Couturier's voice disappeared, replaced by an ominous lack of emotions as her fingers latched around Ryuko's throat, "And ~don't~ think about passing out. Because if you do…"
Her grip abruptly tightened.
"I'll kill you," pure hatred oozed from the monster guised as a young blonde woman. A miasma of utter sadism as she slowly squeezed her fingers until Ryuko couldn't breathe, "And then I'll kill your friends. Understand?"
"Ggghh…!"
The pain was excruciating.
She could barely think.
But despite the unbearable pain, Ryuko curled two trembling fingers on her still working hand and shot another bullet through Couturier's stomach.
"Gosh, was that supposed to hurt?" unbothered by the hole in her stomach surrounded by ragged flesh and tattered clothing, Couturier's smile broadened in response to the surprise slapping Ryuko in the face, "You're only killing yourself, you know. How much blood are you sacrificing every time you shoot me? A liter? Maybe two liters? Oh well, it doesn't really matter, does it?" she raised her arm, dragging the beaten teenager off the roof while her stomach stitched itself shut, "You're just wasting your time."
"Fuck…ghh…fuck you…"
"You sure do have a dirty mouth," if she found the insult hurtful, Couturier's tittering betrayed an inhuman mind, "But cursing won't avenge your dear old daddy. Or maybe you never wanted to avenge him. Maybe this was always about ~you~, Ryuko."
Ryuko spat at the villain, "As…if…you…bitch…"
"Hmm, maybe not!"
And without a single care in the world, Couturier opened her fingers and allowed Ryuko to collapse onto the rooftop, "But if this is seriously the best you can do, I suppose there's no point dragging this out," she'd picked up the purple scissor blade without moving so much as an inch, "I'm getting bored playing with you. So, how about I leave you a present. A little something to remember me by," the distance between herself and Ryuko wasn't any more than four feet. A trifling small distance, but in the darkness, looming over the fallen student with a purple sword shifted from one side of Ryuko's face to the other, Couturier looked taller than Mount Lady.
"Which eye do you want to lose, Ryuko?"
The villain cocked her head sideways as the sword hovered over Ryuko's left eye, "Your left?" and then swung the purple scissor blade a couple of inches to the right, "Or your right?"
A purple thigh-high boot snapped Couturier's neck before she could make the decision for Ryuko.
"Sorry about hopping in at the last second!"
Rumi bounced on one foot as she landed on the rooftop where Couturier had been standing not moments ago, "That Nomu guy was tougher than he looked," the sound of the blonde villain smashing into the emptied building halfway down the block, shattered glasses and assorted debris raining onto abandoned streets, was anything but music to the rabbit hero's long ears, "Had to smash its brains to knock it out," a drop of blood splattered next to her foot. A thin dollop of crimson followed by several more in quick succession from the wound puncturing her shoulder.
An injury the hero didn't seem to notice.
"Gonna wager that was Couturier."
It wasn't so much a question as it was Rumi repeating the only possible explanation, "Huh, thought she'd be taller," deep maroon attempted to pierce the dust and smoke silhouetted against the flames from the Nomu punching into an underground gas line, but it was impossible to see anything besides darkness and distant flashes of blue and red, "What happened to Monsoon?"
The hero's voice tightened.
Something even through the agonizing haze of blood and pain, unable to move without feeling like she was going to throw up and heart pounded inside her chest, Ryuko noticed.
"He's…fine…" laying on her side with her cheek pressed against the filthy roof, bile welling in the back of her throat and squeezing her broken arm, instinctively knowing that wouldn't help but hoping it would help anyway, Ryuko forced open her eyes, "Got…damn it…he got away…earlier…" she couldn't see. There was too much blood covering her face. And all the pain made her Quirk worth less than bullshit. But she saw Rumi. She saw the tanned heroine's leotard torn around her stomach and chest. Saw the cuts and bruises. Noticed the large hole in her shoulder.
And she laughed.
A desperate, pain-filled chuckle.
"You…ghhh, shit…you look like shit," she forced out the insult, if only to take her mind off the pain.
"What, this little paper cut?" preempting the question she knew Ryuko wanted to ask, Rumi patted her shoulder, "Let my guard down like an idiot."
The older hero forced a smile.
"Ryuko…" but try as she might, Rumi couldn't maintain the cheerful façade, "…I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," hatred boiled from the bloodied gap between Ryuko's trembling lips and the red-soaked concrete underneath her face, "I don't want apologies," she didn't blame the hero for anything, "But if you want to apologize," despite being unable to move without pain exploding throughout her body, Ryuko forced herself onto an elbow, gasped out an unnatural string of curses and glared at Rumi with eyes teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, "Then stop her," blood dribbled from her clenched teeth, a foamy mixture of blood and spittle, "Don't let her get away."
Those were dangerous words.
Those were incredibly dangerous words.
But as worrisome as it was hearing the same girl who watched contact sports instead of the latest teledrama, which she didn't necessarily find wrong, demand she prioritize vengeance over going to the hospital, Rumi knew Ryuko was right about one thing – Couturier was a deranged and dangerous villain. There was no questioning that. She didn't know how many lives Couturier stole. Some part of her mind refused to think about the exact number. And another part realized it was a stupid question. The only thing that mattered besides Ryuko going to the hospital was beating Couturier to within an inch of her life before locking the villain inside the deepest, darkest prison and throwing away the key.
And only after she'd personally escorted Couturier to Tartarus would she teach Ryuko the difference between justice and vengeance.
Maybe.
If she bothered remembering.
"Heh…don't need you telling me what to do."
Snorting out the side of her mouth, Rumi punched one hand against the other and grinned, "I was going to kick her ass with or without your permission!"