BURY A FRIEND - DABI

┆ ❛ ONE ❜

A hero is defined by society as an individual whose meritorious achievements further benefit the community as a whole. In reality, these heroes are just special people doing 'good' things so they can get a little famous and keep food on the table. They never really do good just because it's right. Heroism has become just another textbook job for the masses now that a genetic mutation has given the otherwise normal human, supernatural abilities.

Quirk is what they call it. These abilities seemed more a disease than a blessing; acting as a conduit for human greed and arrogance. That is what Hero Killer Stain believed.

Everything has its equal and opposite counterpart, a yin and yang, so to speak. A villain had always been something to be feared. Since the conception of good and evil, those who linger in the dark had always had power. They had always been able to unlock something the ones muddled with morals and virtues could never achieve: freedom. The ability to do whatever it takes and to act however needed in order to succeed, to reach their goal.

A villain, in retrospect, has always been more than a hero could ever dream to be.

To do evil one must be steadfast, ready to sacrifice and courageous─all the qualities a hero should possess. If that is true, why is the villain always regarded as if it were some malignant tumor to society?

The answer is simple; perception is the tyrant of commonality. This notion that good always triumphs evil has always been a half developed trope to satisfy the masses. After all, history is written by the victors. It isn't far fetched to assume that all those heroic tales of war and commonplace act as a smoke screen to disguise far more dishonorable deeds.

Since birth, Kobayashi Ren had been trained to remain in the grey. Neither good nor evil, a steady rock in the middle of a maelstrom. A true neutral, if those existed.

In being such, that meant Ren was generally a bystander. An onlooker as terror unfolded and destruction toppled the city every-which-way. Her gaze remained quite bored as she followed a particular villain taking a middle school student into its amorphous and slimy shape. The way it invaded his very body was lurid and frankly, made her a little sick.

Whoever that kid was, Ren hoped he wasn't as helpless as he looked. He was fighting back, sure, but those pitiful explosions did nothing but waste his own energy. Gentle strands of bubblegum colored hair fell into her face as she shook her head. It seemed tragic to have all the citizens with varying capabilities and receive no genuine help.

For a moment she wondered how significant the blonde boy would be in his death. Would it be a hit for reporters then dwindle into nothing, or would it etch itself into the sins of Musutafu? Only time would tell. However, just as she was turning to leave, her ears picked up the sound of a book hitting the ground. A tiny sense of surprise raised her brow as she observed a young boy with wild dark green hair sprint toward danger.

"Kaa-chan," he cried. His voice was pitched awkwardly, as if he were in the midst of puberty. Did kids go through puberty in middle school?

"Why did you...?" the blonde really did seem ungrateful. Ren crossed her arms and shifted her weight in anticipation. Would this short kid actually save the day? From what she had briefly seen he sprinted forward with no regard to his own safety. Although stupid, the girl had to give it to him, he had guts. Movement unnatural to the scene caught her eye as a man with straw-yellow hair buckled forward with his left hand clutching the area near his stomach.

He seemed to be having some sort of revelation, talk about timing. However, she quickly noticed his physical change in muscle mass beginning to occur. This man...he moved faster than her eyes could track. He had disappeared in the second she went to glance at his face. Did he leave, she pondered with a slow blink, or is he going to save the day?

Her unspoken question received its answer as a sudden burst of wind with the words Detroit Smash proceeding it occurred. Her arms instinctively rose to protect her face. When the dust settled, all that stood there was the man she had seen before. His hair was different and his hight had changed--actually everything about him had changed, but his clothing remained the same. If she remembered correctly, he was the one they called All Might.

It was then she realized that it was raining. The updraft from his punch must have changed the weather. It was indeed impressive. Yet, she did notice that in the raising of his fist to assure the crowd that everything was solved, his body wavered. If she hadn't been raised the way she was, Ren might have thought that he could be an inspiration. The fact of the matter was, sadly, she could care less. In her head this was just another heroic scene, one that repeated far too often.

Just as she predicted, camera crews and hungry reporters swarmed the scene. They circled like sharks and took bites of All Might and that young kid who was unlucky enough to get caught by a low rank villain. It was amusing to see that kid who risked everything getting scolded for acting before thinking. A kid like that seemed to be true, if that could be understood. The blatant disregard for one's safety was the quality of a true hero, yet he is reprimanded and told go home.

A soft sigh parted her lips as she spun on her heel, unaware of the person she was about to run into. Upon bumping into them, the woman uttered a short apology. The emerald in her irises gleamed as she studied the stranger. He was tall and a bit lanky from what she could tell. He wore a long coat with the hood pulled over his head, but she could see the cobalt stare of his eyes back at her. Their exchange was brief but impressionable. She could detect the faint odor that accompanied fire as it burns. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was unusual.

He merely clicked his tongue with dissatisfaction before continuing on his way. Something odd settled in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't light and feathery, no, it was heavy. Call it intuition but Ren had a feeling they would be meeting again. Her gut was never wrong.