MHA: An Alchemist's Vengeance

Chapter 1: The Beginning and End of Our Lives

Sometimes, she could still hear the screams. But that was only in the deepest and darkest silences of the night. It helped when she wasn't alone. But tonight, Keigo was on-call, and Yurina had taken the night off. It wasn't a lazy move, she had been up for the past four days, putting out fires left and right: some, literally.

She was sitting on a long grey couch. It looked out to the city of Kyushu. City night life was nice to look at outside, the noises helped. But it was quieter tonight. A weekday evening, so less people were out partying, less traffic, less people, and more voices in the back of her head. Yurina swirled a mug of red wine in her hand. She crouched over it like a gremlin hoarding gold, a white blanket on her shoulders. Her hair was damp from a shower, just an hour ago. She hadn't bothered to try to dry it –exhaustion maybe –and the moisture bled onto the blanket. If she was cold, Yurina didn't feel it.

Keigo would come back later. Probably in the morning, finding her curled up on the couch, and tease her with her sweet port wine in a yellow mug with cat faces all over, but that was the morning Yurina craved.

She tried closing her eyes again, but it was useless. The world inside wasn't being cooperative. It was probably the date that triggered something. The date, those numbers. They bled into her eyes as a reminder. Newspapers that still wanted some clout would write about it. It had been well over 14 years ago, why couldn't they just forget about it? But no one would. And so Yurina would always remember.

It was in bits and pieces. Never really coherent enough. If it got too clear, that was when she'd start shaking. And heroes don't shake. Not visibly anyway.

If Yurina closed her eyes, she could see the flames. They crackled in a menacing way. Everything had been menacing in the eyes of a seven-year-old. Fire was just fire, it ate and consumed because that was its only purpose. It wasn't evil, it just was. But back then, it had been the devil. There were other people too. They were dressed in black, and they all had different quirks. But it didn't really matter what those quirks did. Yurina remembered the way they killed. How bodies fell like rain on a stormy Sunday. How the blood spilled like buckets of paint when the workers in the mansion would repaint the outside walls of the property. How rough hands grabbed her arms, bruising her as they dragged her through the ash and fire, and how she cried for her parents, and how later she couldn't even remember their faces, and how the head butler screamed her name, and how that name wasn't even hers anymore-

Yurina shook her head a few times and set her mug down. She inhaled deeply and stood up, crossing the living room to the open window. It was large. There was a button to lift them, and another button for fortified panes to descend down as a security measure. She wanted to lift the windows and smell the outside air. Maybe it would be her luck and Keigo would come flying in. Yurina's hand hovered over the button pad on the side of the wall.

In all honestly, Yurina just wanted to sleep. Peacefully that is. Not have some deranged nightmares occurring from the depths of her memories. This was why she always took the nightshift. It kept her mind busy during the dark hours. She could sleep during the day.

"I'll become a vampire, it's fine." She had told Keigo. But he shook his head and took over the nightshift for her for tonight. It was such a bummer that he loved her.

~~~

Hawks flew into the apartment complex around 4:00 AM. He locked the windows behind him and turned to find his girlfriend curled into a tight ball of blankets and pillows. Her favorite yellow mug with cat faces, was next to her on its side. He strode over, to her and picked up the mug. Through the smoke and sweat he smelled, a faint scent of her favorite port red wine lingered in the cup, and he smiled, wondering how long she had been up drinking.