Guild Master here again, again.
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Tanking another hit to the ribs, Hawk failed to maintain his distance yet again against Haru. He stumbled backwards and barely prevented himself from falling on his back with the elbow Keigo took to his ribs. The spot his father struck him radiated heat along with an excruciating amount of pain. It didn't take an extensive amount of medical knowledge to know that two ribs were broken in that one attack.
Hawk lost a good amount of control over his feathers after getting this far into the fight. Recalling them back into his wings, Keigo remained stoic in the face of his greatest opponent to date as Haru maintained his stance against his own son. Both of his bladed feathers were shaking ever so slightly in his grip with the excruciating pain radiating from his arms and chest.
Only the willpower to stop his father from leaving behind his own family kept the young man standing. Keigo felt the responsibility to keep the only family he's ever had together weighing heavily upon his shoulders.
"... Enough. I won't let this be our last memory with each other."
Haru had enough. With his heart broken from the image of his injured child, the white haired man backed off from the fight to go and retrieve his equipment.
"Wh-wait!"
A sudden buckling of his legs caused Keigo to collapse onto the rooftop flat on his face. The damage he sustained left Hawk a mess with bruises, fractures, and bleeding from his face. Even one of his eyes swelled shut after a particularly nasty elbow to his face.
Calculating the physical state of his son as well as the damage inflicted, the older Nakamura saw through the barely standing hero's facade. He didn't want to hurt him more than necessary, so Haru carefully calculated every single blow to incapacitate Keigo with the correct amount of physical trauma to immobilize Hawk. Even with conditioning and training, Keigo couldn't overcome his body simply collapsing to stop the young man from getting himself killed. Trying to stand back up on his limp legs proved useless as his own body involuntarily kept him down.
Both the pain as well as the injuries pinned him to the ground. All Hawk could do was watch his dad quickly reequip his arsenal and mask before Bloodsoaked pulled his hood back up. Panic set in for the incapacitated hero as he tried to crawl towards Haru while they just walked away.
"J-just st-STOP!"
That final desperate cry got the man to stop dead in his tracks. This may be the last time he could hear his son talk to him directly for the last time. Their paths were now diverging away from one another, so listening to his son's final words was the least he could do for him.
"... Just…"
His voice cracked with tears leaking out of both his open and swollen eyes. There were too many emotions for Keigo to hold in as the one who saved his life and gave him the love of a family was about to disappear. With one last painful look at his dad's back, the broken Keigo begged his old man for just one last thing.
"D-don't go. Please… Please, don't leave me behind."
Both gloved hands tightened into fists with enough pressure for the fabric to creak like strained wooden pillars. Haru couldn't turn his head back to his son. He didn't trust himself enough to let the sight of his own child, the one he raised as his own, begging for him to stay not convince him to go back on his convictions. All he could do was offer one last goodbye.
"... Watch over then, Keigo. They need you now more than ever."
Forcing one foot in front of the other, Haru grit his teeth and endured the sobbing he heard coming from the child he called his son. Now was the time to finalize his plans to protect everything dear to those he loved.
Even if that meant leading those he loved into hating him.
Much Later
He needed space. Slowly trudging through an empty alleyway in the middle of a more rural part of the city, the infamous Bloodsoaked looked completely out of it as he absentmindedly wandered wherever there weren't people. None of this felt real for the one who finally reached this point in their own plans. So much time passed too quickly for Haru. This felt more like the moment one becomes lucid during a bad dream rather than the cruel reality of now being truly alone in this hell. Although he knew that wandering out in the open in his equipment like this was a bad idea, he didn't give enough of a shit.
For now, all Haru wanted was a few moments to himself to feel miserable.
His left shoulder leaned up against the cinder block wall next to him. His chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself after what he did to Keigo. The rotting hate for himself that he had over hurting his own child like he did buried the knife even deeper into his heart. Only the sorrow he felt could outmatch the anger infecting his mind. Not even the constant reminding of his mission could alleviate the pain threatening to break him here and now.
The setting sun cast the man into the shadows of the alley he stood in. Even the light of day abandoned him to the darkness he elected to remain for those he wanted to protect.
"DETROIT SMASH!"
With only a reaction time of less than a second needed to dodge, Bloodsoaked skidded out of the alley with the bottom of his boots leaving a smoking trail on the road. The walls that made up the alley were blown to rubble where the impact originated. Haru had been genuinely caught off guard at the sneak attack; even more so at who it was that could have launched an attack like that with a battle cry specific to that single blow.
"Rapid Fire HV Wave Charge!"
Pelting the streets all around him were destructive blasts that tore apart the road with ease. All Bloodsoaked could do was shield his mask under the volley of explosives aimed at him. Clouds of dust erupted into a column as the assault went on for several more moments.
"Texas Smash!"
Following the second attack on Bloodsoaked was a blast of air powerful enough to tear concrete into pieces like wet sand in a hurricane. The silhouette of Bloodsoaked could be seen for just a moment as the attack blew away the dust to then launch him backwards into the ground behind him for several blocks. Almost a kilometer of road became immediately pulverized with the force behind that last blow. Landing back onto the ground, the two heroes who managed to land their attacks upon their target kept their eyes on the remnants of the street that they tore apart in the crossfire of their joint assault.
"Did we get him?"
Katsuki asked the question more as a rhetorical one with both himself and Izuku now holding their breaths while remaining vigilant of Bloodsoaked. Midoriya didn't respond, nor did he have to with the chill they both felt from where they knew the masked murderer had been sent flying.
"Don't count on it, Kachan…"
They found the killer. Izuku mentally thanked Hawk for the lead that finally allowed him and Bakugou to bring this man down once and for all.
Earlier
The news that Hawk was found severely injured had spread throughout the heroes like wildfire until it reached the ears of Izuku and Mina. They rushed to the last reported location of the injured hero with haste, racing up the side of the skyscraper the medical staff were evacuating Hawk from via helicopter. Their speed let the two young adults catch up to the injured hero before he was about to be airlifted to a nearby ESD medical facility for treatment.
"Keigo-oneechan!"
"Keigo!"
Both the distressed young adults needed officers to prevent them from getting in the way of the medical staff's work in preparing Hawk for transport. What Izuku and Mina saw left them absolutely heartbroken as the medics stabilized Keigo by reducing his pain with the proper anesthesia.
Half his face looked beaten to hell with a meat mallet repeatedly. The bruising looked severe enough to start producing sickly yellow and green colors on the exposed parts of his body. Blood caked his face with trails of it dried up and matting his hair where the strands absorbed the crimson substance. Even his breathing sounded painful through the oxygen mask the medics fitted over his face.
Only a few agonizing moments passed before the officers let the couple approach the injured Hawk. Mina wept openly at the broken state of someone she considered her older brother while Izuku felt that same deep seated hatred from within mature from a simple sprout into a real tangible desire to kill the one who hurt Keigo. This man was the son of his mentor, his father. He would be damned if he let Bloodsoaked just walk after doing what he did to Hawk.
"... I… Izu… Iz…"
It was barely audible. Keigo had just enough strength left in his broken body to request Izuku's presence. Approaching the young man as the helicopter arrived, Midoriya bent his head down close enough to Keigo's ear to listen to his older brother.
Something pushed itself into Izuku's hand at the same time he tried to listen to the last request of Keigo before he was taken to a proper medical facility. Peering down to the object being given to him, he found Hawk's communicator in the limp hand of the hero it belonged to. Taking the device as well as the hand into his own, Keigo asked one last thing of his younger brother before he fell unconscious.
"Don't… Don't let him leave… us…"
Confusion set in from how oddly phrased the request sounded. The juniors watched their senior be airlifted away to get checked out while Izuku examined the communicator given to him. Opening the device, everything on the screen looked to be as expected. Everything except for a notification in the pulldown menu regarding an application running for some sort of tracking program. Tapping on the notification pulled up the GPS coordinates of something traveling across the city and away from the conflict zones. It suddenly dawned on Midoriya that the thing being tracked by the communicator was none other than the last thing Hawk faced before needing to be hospitalized.
Before Mina could question Izuku over what he was looking at, he turned to kiss her deeply out of the blue. Before even being able to respond to the intimate gesture, he bolted off with his quirk active off the rooftop towards a completely unknown location. Leaving behind a concerned Mina had the concerned girl looking at the disappearing green bolt of lightning while she couldn't help but feel a sinking sense of dread for Izuku.
It wasn't for his safety. What she felt concerned for was something she couldn't exactly pinpoint at that moment. What she knew was that Izuku would never be the same by the time he would return to her.
Elsewhere
Racing over the buildings at top speed, Izuku periodically checked the gps for updates on the location of the target marked by Hawk. He was already losing ground against the blip in relation to his mark on the map, even with his top speed being used to try and catch up to his mark. In his haste, Midoriya neglected to mention the tracking device to anybody else before taking off towards the direction of the blinking target on the communicator. Neglecting to tell anybody else about the tracker wasn't a mistake on his part since he intended on facing Bloodsoaked by himself from here on out.
Letting another life be taken by this killer was the last thing Izuku wanted to happen. Not while he still had a say in the matter.
"... Wai…"
Something behind Midoriya caught his interest as he raced across the rooftops of the city at top speeds. It sounded like somebody was trying to get his attention. By turning around, Izuku significantly cut down his speed in order to keep himself from crashing into anything while checking his six.
"You…"
Out of nowhere, a fist collided with the young hero's left cheek and sent him tumbling into a rooftop passing by below at just the right time. Tumbling head over heel until the stairwell ceased his momentum, Midoriya groaned in pain at the violent stop he took courtesy of whoever hit him.
"Fucking Moron! Where the hell do you think you're going?!"
Izuku didn't need to pick himself back up with Katsuki providing that service to him which he then followed up with a back and forth throttling of the green haired young man while gripping the front of his costume. Bakugou looked less than pleased to find his childhood friend chasing after something by themself.
"W-w-w-w-h-h-a-a-a-t-t-t-"
"Shut the fuck up, moron! I'm talking here! What the fuck is wrong with you?! Mina called and told me that you were doing something without saying anything. Either you tell me what's going on or I'll blast it out of your skull…"
The fiery sparks erupting out of Bakugou's other hand sent the message loud and clear to Izuku. Immediately, Midoriya spilled the beans to his childhood friend in a short enough summary to explain himself. Katsuki only listened with a serious expression plastered onto his face and didn't let Izuku go until he heard the whole story. After hearing out Midoriya, Bakugou let the other boy go to let them fall unceremoniously into the floor before taking a seat where he stood with a huff. Seeing Katsuki looking more annoyed than angry left Izuku a bit perplexed as he attempted to sit back up.
"Every time you almost convince me that you're not a brainless idiot, you keep pulling this shit."
In a small moment of confusion over Bakugou's words, a frustrated Katsuki startled Midoriya slightly when they looked straight into his eyes with a hardened expression. Never had Izuku seen such a serious look in the usually temperamental young man's eyes before today.
"Tell me right now, what on earth possessed you to do this all by yourself? The fact that your girlfriend called me is enough to tell me that you're really off your fucking rocker if you think you can take on Bloodsoaked by yourself."
That was perhaps the first time Bakugou ever admitted to actually being worried about Izuku. Hearing the admission out loud finally put into perspective how foolish Izuku had been acting after seeing an opportunity to confront the serial murderer on his own.
It truly left a bad taste in his mouth that he kept running off without concern for himself when there were good people still worried about him. He felt like such an idiot when this issue was something he almost lost Mina and Nakamura over. All that struggling and angst and yet he was still making the same mistakes as before. Feeling like a waste of space had been the softest explanation regarding how Izuku felt at that moment.
"I-I'm sorry, Kachan."
"... Che, whatever."
Although it sounded calloused, the apology had indeed been accepted by Bakugou. Another few moments of somber silence passed until Katsuki pushed himself back onto his feet before Izuku.
"Well, where the hell is that thing pointing us?"
A small amount of confusion crossed Izuku's mind over what Katsuki had been talking about at that moment. Returning that confusion with slight irritation, Bakugou rephrased the question to get through to his fellow hero.
"The gps, retard. Where is he?"
When it finally registered for Izuku that Katsuki wanted to know where Bloodsoaked was, he scrambled for the phone next to him to show the explosive quirk user the precise location of the killer they were after.
"... Great, let's go."
Again, Izuku needed a moment to process the request. Bakugou just hooked his right arm over Izuku's shoulders and pulled them both to the edge of the rooftop they were currently situated upon.
"C'mon, that bastard isn't gonna just turn himself in. Why don't we see what we can do?"
For the first time in years, Izuku saw his friendship with Bakugou shine back through the blonde spitfire. That cocky grin of Katsuki's filled Midoriya with confidence that his friend would have his back through thick and thin. They would both fight this serial killer together. As friends.
Bakugou then caught Izuku off guard once again when he shoved the unsuspecting Midoriya off the rooftop without warning. Izuku thankfully had the reaction time trained into him to catch himself and prevent his head from becoming acquainted with the pavement several stories below. Still, the two of them were underway in fighting the greatest threat this world has known to date.
They would fight this evil. Together.