Blossoms of the Dark Continued

CCXIX Selene: Pomegranate

Trigger Warning: 

- death

- nuclear bomb-like decimation

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There are people whose worth you recognize immediately.

Then there are those whose value you realize when you lose them.

However, there is a third: the people in between.

Those whose importance you acknowledge from very early on, forget about, recall occasionally, forget again, and finally remember when they are about to go away forever. For me, Shigaraki falls into that third category. This man, not much older than I, changed my life in ways I never thought possible. All those nights ago, when his broker Giran abducted me from the Hanada manor and brought me to him, I knew nothing would ever be the same.

First he blackmailed me into becoming the League of Villain's spy; otherwise he would have made the prostitution public knowledge. I countered his blackmail with an offer of my own. This crazy youth readily accepted it. In fact, he passed an opportunity into my hands, telling me that I was capable of seeking vengeance all by myself.

If Shouto believed I had the potential to become a clever businesswoman, then Shigaraki believed I had the power to become a formidable villain. In drastically different manners but with the same convictions, both men had faith in me.

Now I have lost one of them.

Fisting his shirt with one hand, I pound the other against his heart. With each thumb, I hope to hear the sound of blood coursing again. Absolutely nothing. His eyes remain stubbornly shut, as though he is happily lost in the city of dreams. If you go off to seek merriment, what will I do, hmm? You're the one everyone looks up to. None of this I can manage by myself.

Dissociatedly, I notice Present Mic-sensei dragging a hysterical Daruma-san out of the laboratory. The other heroes follow suit, leaving just the one hero who performed the immediate autopsy and myself behind. Ha! There goes my two milk thermoses! I cannot even bring myself to enjoy the joke.

I should kill the hero. Teleport Shigaraki's body to Yotsubashi-san. Follow his commands from here on out. But I do none of that. For a while, the world has stalled. Everything ceases to exist besides me and Shigaraki's cold corpse.

Thank you. Not just for letting me have my revenge or protecting me from the rapists. I know I've expressed my gratitude to you plenty of times before, but not for what I am about to say now. You gave me an actual fighting chance. Albeit dark and twisted, I found strength somewhere inside this crippled, broken body to resist my circumstances because of you. I became Lucifer Morningstar due to you. So thank you, Shigaraki Tomura. For all that you have done for me.

Just as my internal monologue finishes, a spasm rocks beneath my fingertips. I still, convincing myself that what I felt was just my desperate imagination. But then I feel it again. That twitch.

Shocked, I back away from Shigaraki's body.

Good thing I do.

Because the next tremor is so powerful, his back arches up unnaturally. So small is the angle that I fear his spine will break. The Pro-Hero forgets how to move. So have I.

Suddenly, Shigaraki sits up. Water drips down his hair, sending shivers all across his skin. "I'm cold," he grumbles faintly.

No sooner does he utter those words does the earth roar beneath my feet. Where his fingers touch the ground, ripples of decay and destruction emanate in all directions. Like concentric rings, the power spreads, crumbling everything in its path. I watch the lab hospital shatter. Then the hospital structure. The city skyscrapers. Any heroes who could not take to the air in time. Any heroes who decided to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their comrades. Finally, apartment buildings. Dust billows into the air, creating beige clouds that obscure all vision. The so-called forensic expert Pro-Hero is the first to die.