CEO

"Guys, quick!" Momo shouted.

Her classmates rose to her feet. "Is it a villain?"

"Yes! They've got a gun!"

Everyone stampeded towards the door.

"And they're shooting at the CEO of a major healthcare corporation!"

Feet skidded across the floor. Sato said, "I just realized I have a dentist appointment."

"And I have to do taxes," Ochako chimed in.

"I just don't care if he dies."

Everyone turned to stare at Todoroki. He blinked at them. "What? Am I the only one who didn't have something instantly come up when Momo revealed we were about to save the health insurance guy?"

Momo stamped her foot down. "Are you really going to ignore your civic duty to save someone in need?"

Mineta grinned. "His health insurance will handle it."

As everyone snickered, Momo shouted, "This isn't funny! That man has a family!"

"All those people whose claims got denied and died had families too, gero."

"It's our duty as heroes to detain villains and save civilians!"

Ojiro crossed his arms. "The only villain I see is the one wearing the suit."

Momo pulled an air horn out of her cleavage and rang it out. As everyone rubbed their ears, Momo spoke up. "Look. This CEO has overseen some shady business practices and hurt a lot of people. But, if we turn a blind eye to his suffering, we are no better than he is. Part of being a hero is saving everyone, including the people like him. So, are we heroes?"

Grumbling under their breath, everyone said in a chorus, "Fine."

"Good. Then let's… oh."

The villain hopped onto a bus, leaving the CEO twitching in a pool of blood. Sero shrugged his shoulders. "Looks like we were too late. We'll get them next time, right?"

Nezu peered out from a window. "I do hope that CEO survives. He was a top donor of the school. Otherwise, I'll have to make budget cuts to the cafeteria and dorm rooms."

Everyone but Momo rushed out in a panic. Sero stuck tape into the gunshot wounds, Jiro listened for a pulse, and Kaminari rubbed his hands together.

"Clear!"

Kaminari shocked the CEO. The man twitched, but didn't wake up.

"No good!" Jiro shouted. "He doesn't have a pulse!"

"Hurry! Get him to the hospital!"

Iida sped him down the street. He rushed inside and got the CEO in front of a doctor.

"Hurry! Use everything you have to save this man's life!"

One doctor went for the anesthesia, but another caught their wrist. "Don't. The insurance guy's watching."

A clerk gave them a beady-eyed glare and cut the anesthesia line.

With a resigned sigh, the doctor took the scalpel and approached the CEO. As he was about to cut, a pager rang from inside the man's coat.

"Coverage for surgical operation denied due to pre-existing condition - BEING ALIVE - please cease operation immediately and administer insurance-approved coffin."

As they lowered the CEO, every student sniffled over his grave. Todoroki sobbed and wailed, "My soba!"

500

In all honesty, I do not think that CEO was any worse than any other man you might find. Take him out of that profession and have him flip burgers or teach literature, and no one would think him evil or deserving to die. The problem is the system that can only profit by denying the service it promises to provide exploiting the fact people are forced to pay for their own wellbeing and collaborating with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and politicians to maximize those profits. Ordinary men will do horrific acts when the systems controlling their lives normalize it, and I can only imagine the distance from the impact his corporation had sanitized everything into numbers and data. I would wager most people in his shoes would make the same decisions. Did he have the power to change that? Maybe. I don't know the industry at all. I'm more inclined to believe the healthcare is far bigger a system than can be changed by one man, even so powerfully placed.

Alright, that's enough of a soapbox out of me. Have a silly robo-Deku diagnosing the insurance CEO man with metallic tumors.