Heroes, Vigilantes, and Villains

Chapter twenty-six

Izuku POV

Internships for the UA students came swiftly after the news that the Hero Killer was in Hosu City the day of the Sports Festival and what happened to the Pro Hero Ingenium. Never had I been happier than when I heard from Hito that he was planning on interintering with a hero in the UA area rather than one near the city in question. I knew that he would never actively seek the man out, Hito wasn't like that even if some in his class surely were, but trouble always seems to have a way of finding people like us.

I would be lying if I said that I didn't seek it out this time though.

The ride into the city was cold as I leaned my head against the window and watched the buildings blur past the window as we moved at a speed that I knew that I would never be able to on my own. I wasn't seeking the hero killer out by any means once so ever, I had no intention of meeting an entity that had once been a vigilante himself before morphing into something more sinister in nature, but I knew of someone that most likely would be and would die if I didn't get to them first.

Idiot children.

I promptly ignored the thoughts in the back of my mind that reminded me that I was the same age as the hero course student. You act like an imprudent five year old that still believes themselves to be immortal and invincible in nature, you get thought of as a foolish five year old.

I've been taking the bus out to Hosu every night since the start of internships earlier this week, stalking around the area and waiting for the other foot drop since I saw on an article that Tenya Ida had taken an internship in the city. It was easy to put together his motives for picking such a small-time hero over his better choices when you knew that the Hero Killer tended to stay in the same city to gather at least three or four victims before moving on to the next. This was the boy's only chance at getting, what I'm sure in his mind, is justifiable revenge, consequences be damned.

Someone has to make sure that the idiot doesn't get himself killed.

Barely three steps off of the train, an explosion shakes the earth as screams of terror ring out into the night. All of my instincts told me to run towards the noise, to the flames and burning buildings, to the inhumane screams coloring the night, but everything that I knew about the Hero Killer told me just how foolish this would be. The man is hubristic, thinks of his insanity as something close to an art form in nature, something to be done quietly and gazed upon by those that find it once everything is finished and the damage is done.

Wherever the noise is, he'll be in the opposite direction, and so will the kid.

—-

The streets were quiet as I ran through them. Though this would normally be a welcome respite from the normal sounds of the night that I've grown accustomed to hearing over the past year or so, this felt like a pregnant silence. Like something on the brink of happening.

Then it happened.

An angry cry rang out from the mouth of an alley further up the street, followed by the loud thumping of a body being bashed against the ground with enough force to bruise, if not break, the person on the wrong side of the blow. Running as fast as my short legs would let me, I dashed to the source of the noise, quietly appalled by the sight that I found.

A man dressed in haggard clothing and rags wrapped around his body was standing over the crumpled body of the very boy that I'd been trying to stop, a long blade poised in his hand in what was sure to be a deadly arc had he not stopped to say something to the crumpled figure beneath him. The other teen was laying on the ground as a Pro Hero was propped up against the alley wall, both of them would look like nothing more than bloody corpses if not for the slow rise and fall of their chest. A quick glance told me that the other boy's legs were uninsured even though he seemed unable to use them.