6- A Hand
"So you'll stay with the HPSC?"
"Yes…"
–
Ten people. Ten incidents. Three hours. She had arrested seventeen villains, but she couldn't stop. She needed people to see her saving others. She needed people to think of her as a hero, rather than the killer she was. She needed people to love her.
She had climbed over one hundred stories to get to vantage points to shoot out the legs of villains and climbed down each time to greet fans. Their eyes twinkled as they smiled at her, calling her amazing, skillful, and beautiful.
A sweet little girl, bubbly and perfectly innocent, had asked to see her rifle, and she obliged, her arm tensing as he extended it from her elbow. The girl was gone. And her hands were red. There was a little boy, crying over the corpse of a woman, and another boy, screaming and crying as he raked his fingers across the shoddy wooden floor.
She had just wanted to be a hero.
–
"This will be the day you go to Tartarus, villain!" Mr. Brave yelled as he narrowly avoided the swinging arm of Noatak. Once again, they were fighting in a dark street, Brave yelling as he usually did.
They had been fighting like this for nearly an hour, and with every cut and slash that appeared on Noatak's arm, the more he panicked. He had no doubt Brave had called for backup, and that they would arrive soon.
He wheezed as a knee slammed into his stomach, and snarled as he lurched forwards, his arms reaching out to grab the hero. The hero easily pushed his arms to the side and punched him in the nose, sending him tumbling backward. "Look at you, you animal!" As Noatak clutched his nose, gasping as he tried to set it back in place, Brave spun and hit him in the head with the back of his foot.
–
Tasukete was tired. Her eyes hurt and her throat felt dry. She could see everything from her perch on one of the various skyscrapers in the city. Far to the left, there was some parade. Just below her, there was some big group of businessmen arguing over some fender-bender. To the far right, some big fight was going on between some heroes and a villain.
Her legs dangled off the edge, she wasn't going to jump, but she didn't think she'd really mind it if some gust of wind pushed her off. Probably.
She absentmindedly scribbled at her homework. She had already done it all, but there was nothing else to do. She had hobbies, no friends, and she didn't think her parents would want to talk to her.
But the moon looked beautiful tonight.
Those loud noises from the villain fight were getting louder.
She felt nice up here. Nobody was looking at her, and she didn't have to look at anybody if she didn't want to. It was nice and quiet up here.
Except the sounds of explosions. It sounded even closer now! She doodled some patterns on the side of the sheet, not looking at the loud fight.
It was loud though, really loud. LIke someone yelling at you from a dozen meters away loud.
Slam!
Her head snapped to the side, towards the door that had just been slammed open, and landed on a beautiful woman with purple hair and a sleeveless bodysuit. The woman ignored her, perching against a ledge and taking aim with a sniper rifle protruding from her arm.
Tasukete stared at the woman, frozen in place.
"Ma'am," the woman started, "Please evacuate."
Her arm tensed, and a purple blur was ejected from the rifle with a loud bang. A scream from the street rang out, snapping her back to her senses. She wanted to panic but found she just couldn't. Like most things in her life, it all felt dull and subdued.
The floor felt like it was shaking beneath her, her legs trembling as she looked towards the door. Belatedly, she realized the floor was shaking. She barely took a wobbly step forward before she was thrown backwards, her back slamming hard into the floor.
–
"Fuck!" Noatak fell, his shoulder slamming into the ground. But Brave was right. He really was just acting like some animal. He was nothing but a terrible hypocrite, and hypocrites always lose. He couldn't afford to be some animal here.
As Brave reared his leg back, ready to deliver a kick to his stomach, Noatak didn't react. He forced himself to not flinch, and watch the man instead. His eyes darted to the other leg and saw it bend as if he were about to kneel down.
Brave knew he would avoid the kick by sliding away from him, narrowly avoiding it, so he prepared himself to drop to his knee and catch Noatak with a hard blow as he slid away.
He saw the leg approach and clenched his jaw. As the leg slammed into his stomach his eyes blew wide and a cry escaped him, but he held still, grabbing onto the leg.
Brave faltered, and that was all he needed. Brave was lifted into the air, every muscle frozen in place as his mouth opened in a silent scream.
Noatak climbed to his feet, his hand outstretched and his fingers shaking as he held the hero in place. He panted heavily as he used his other hand to nurse his stomach.
"Well?" The hero gasped out, "Do it, kill me you monster."
Noatak flexed his fingers, preparing to blow the man's head off, but he didn't. "No." He said. "I'm not a monster, I'm the hero." He brought the man to his knees and laid his hand on his face. "I'm gonna get rid of heroes. And I'll never even have to kill any of you."
–
Tasukete slowly crawled backwards, her head reeling. As the cloud of dust obscuring her vision faded, she saw a monster. A mass of pure muscle, unrestricted by flesh, formed a human. A head of blond hair, hilariously small compared to the rest of him, poked out from his neck.
"Sick!" He yelled, his massive hand quickly snatching her up from the ground. "Hey hero, got a hostage!"
She winced as the man gave a light squeeze, nearly crushing her entire midsection. "You shoot, she dies."
"You-" A woman dressed in a blue costume barreled into him, kicking him in the head, "Bastard!"
Tasukete fell as the man's grip faltered, gracelessly falling to the ground on her ass.
The woman with purple hair started running to her, screaming something, but it was all drowned out by the sound of the villain and the other hero fighting. Dumbly, she stared as the woman grew closer.
"Run!" She could faintly make out. But she didn't really want to. She thought about all the times she had dangled her legs off of skyscrapers, gently swaying them back and forth with the wind. She probably wouldn't have cared if she fell then, nobody would, why would it be different now?
She felt a crushing sensation around her chest as she was lifted into the air again. "Damn! That was pretty good!" It was the villain, yelling his head off about a 'good fight' or something. "Alright, who's next?"
"Let her go!" The woman yelled, aiming her rifle at the man's chest.
"I just don't get it," the villain drawled, waving her around like a doll, "Why do you guys even care about these normies? They're so weak."
Her arm shook, and her arm tilted just slightly upwards like she might have aimed the rifle at his head. "Because I'm a hero!" She yelled, her voice cracking, "I care about everyone! Why wouldn't I care? Let her go!"
The man shrugged, his lips curling into a grin. "Alright."
The next thing she knew, she was flying through the air before her back collided with something, probably one of the generators. She could hear something snap, her head flying back as her mouth parted to gasp. She cared. That woman cared.
The sound of running, concrete being punched and broken, and occasional gunfire, filled her mind for the next minute as she sat there, her legs not responding to her. That woman had cared.
"Why wouldn't I care?"
Why shouldn't she care? Tasukete didn't want to die. She didn't want the breeze to sweep her off the roof and bring her plummeting to her death. She didn't want some villain to squeeze her until her ribs broke off and stabbed her own heart. She didn't want to die. For the first time in years, she cared, she cared enough to do something about it.
She felt a burn in her spine as she used her quirk. Tradeoff. She could heal any wound she got, but at the cost of another wound of the same caliber appearing somewhere else. She barely used it, only using it to get rid of the occasional hangnail. She'd get wounded somewhere else if she used it here, but anything was better than what she assumed to be a broken spine.
She gasped, her legs spasming and a scream tearing out of her lips. There was an intense burn on her arms, and when she looked down she gagged at the sight.
From her elbows, her arms had been entirely cut off. Blood spurted from the wound, and she could see red stained bone jutting out. She stumbled to her feet, and wobbled around as her eyes roamed the roof. She needed to run, she needed to get to the rooftop access door.
As she ran towards it, a wide smile spread across her face. She was going to live, and for the first time in a while, that made her happy.
"Oh no you don't!" Suddenly, she was being crushed again.
–
Brave's opened his mouth, but all that escaped it was a pained gasp.
Noatak reached the influence of his quirk deeper into the hero, his fingers, digging into the flesh of his face.
"Us people," he breathed out, glaring down at the kneeling man, "Are like cattle to you. And you heroes are the ranchers. I've seen it." The image of a 'hero' shooting his mom and brother in the skull showing up in his mind made him squeeze the man's face even harder, one of his fingers digging into the hero's eye. "If we were all animals, we could all live, equal" he snarled, brushing past all the strings of the man's life he could easily tug, "happy, lives." He grunted as he found the brightest, loudest string of them all.
He snapped it, and released the man.
Gasping and wheezing, the man dry heaved and emptied his stomach on the ground.
"You're all just animals in the end."
–
"I'll admit," the villain said, "You're pretty good, even grazed my eye with one a' those bullets." Tasukete actively struggled, the stumps of her arms uselessly pounding against the hand that held her up. "But I'm the one with a hostage. Maybe if this brat ran away earlier instead of just sitting there waiting for someone else to help her we wouldn't be here."
The woman's mouth twitched into a snarl, her rifle trained directly on the villain's head. "Let. Her. Go."
"Nah." The man shook her around, jostling her head. "Hey, d'ya think if I toss her off the building I'd have enough time to run?"
The woman barely had enough time for her face to contort with fear before Tasukete felt herself being flung through the air once again.
Time seemed to slow down as she flew. She faced the moon, its beauty wasted on her eyes as they flickered around, desperate to find something to help. Her feet barely scraped the edge of the roof, but she knew she wouldn't find purchase on it. She was going to fall through the air and slam into the pavement below. What was left of her arms flailed around, reaching for the edge, just barely missing it.
She was going to die. She didn't want to die. Her gaze landed on the moon, and the head that blocked it. Surrounded by a soft silvery glow, her purple hair fell around her face, giving her a heavenly look. Her hands reached down over the edge, reaching out to save her.
Tasukete thrust her arm forth, reaching for the hand offered to her. The woman's fingers swiped through the air, narrowly grazing the sharp point of her protruding bone, but she had no hands to grasp salvation.
.
–
-An- sorry for so so late
-Lowkey forgot if im going Last name First name or first name last name but im PRETTY sure im going last name first name
-Anyways Noataks character is "I gotta not be an animal and a murder while calling heroes animals and murderers because hypocrites ar bad"
-I might have to explain his quirk in a future an because I dont think theres a way to smoothly fully explain the quirk and ik its kinda confusing'
-Tasukete dies :(
-Her death is supposed to resemble how you just cant help someone who doesnt want help, and if u ask for help too late it might be over already. She died because A- she didnt care enough to run, B- she cared too late
-If you're struggling with something just go ask for help, if you think someone else is strugglgin with something, reach out to them. If you wait too long it might be too late
-I love you :DDD