Krish: The Tortured Hero- MHA Fanfic (OC X Nejire)

Chapter 8: The Final Turning Point- Part 4

A/N: Back-to-back uploads! Looks like my new schedule is working out quite well. Hello everyone, yes, I know it's been a while since I've updated this book. As you can maybe tell from the book's title, it's off hiatus, even though I'll be on a hiatus for a month soon enough- 
But, I'm glad to be working on this story again, and I hope you all enjoy reading it!

P.S: This chapter is very graphic and gory, so please read at your own discretion.

Time stopped. The sounds halted. The very fabric of reality froze, as the 4 children were overtaken with a feeling of pure fear. It crept up to their spines, goosebumps crawling over their body like a million ants were enveloping them. It went from their legs to their arms, travelling across to their torsos and soon covering every nanometer of their skin. The UA students were still soaking wet, the draft of the USJ making their ice-cold skin somehow freeze solid, although that could have just been their survival instincts kicking in.

Krish couldn't even think, or see. The visual information was processed by his eyes, but his brain was filled with flashes of his past. The vicious beatings, the horrific insults...those cold, dark, depressing nights where he knew that nothing would ever improve, and all he could do was lose. Lose his pride, lose his sanity and he could lose his life. 

"What are you doing? Weren't you supposed to make sure no one got past you, or are you so weak that you can't deal with three brats?" Shigarkai asked, snarling at him. Krish couldn't see his face even if he turned around to face him, but that just made it all the more unnerving. Was he filled with rage? Was he smiling sadistically? Or was he just blank. Neutral. Uncaring and unforgiving, he was ready to take Krish's life.

Was this where it all ended? Should he have given in to his desire to live? Did he need these kids to live? Why couldn't he just kill-

And there it was. Krish realised that he just...he just couldn't kill them. He didn't want to. All his life, he was surrounded by death, pain, suffering, and things so vile that the mere idea of them would have made him throw up right there. 

But this shouldn't have stopped him. He wasn't like them. He didn't have remorse for heroes, and he didn't have remorse for villains. So why? Why did he feel so strongly for them? The feeling of guilt of misguided loyalty and claustrophobia that he associated with Shigaraki, and the feeling of...hope? He didn't know what to call it, but that mystical thing he felt for the three students made him...care. He cared about his future, his life, and the people he could have known and could still know. The things he never got to experience, and the wealth of new things he still had to do. 

That's what he was fighting for. He wasn't fighting to escape, he was fighting for the hope that at the end of this long and arduous path, there would be some light at the end, just like the light at the surface of the water he envisioned himself in a few moments ago.

But to get there, he had to rise. Rise up through the struggle, and rise through the water that bogged him down. 

He had to fight for his life. If he didn't do it now... then there was no point in escaping.

"Run" Krish uttered, looking at the students, as he was currently kneeling on the floor. Feeling his calves and hamstrings tense, he began to turn around standing up at the same time. Pivoting off his right foot, he clenched his right hand, a fist forming as soon as he picked up speed, which happened at an exponential rate. 

His quirk was no longer defective, his fist covered in energy, with Shigaraki seeing a glint of light from the strands in his hair. He still wore an unimpressed look, expecting a normal punch from him, as he got ready to block it with his palm, disintegrating Krish before he could even land another hit.