. : | On Broken Wings | : .

Prologue

The fire spread through the apartment complex at an unthinkable speed. Floor after floor was consumed, the flames indiscriminately torching anything within reach of red-hot talons.

"Help!" Came the chorus of the damned; trapped by falling debris, succumbing to smoke inhalation. Everyone waiting desperately for a hero.

Two young girls, sisters, cowered in their room as their world fell apart around them. The flames licked at their nightshirts, neither able to fully comprehend the situation and act accordingly. By now the heroes had arrived on the scene, but no one could hear the two girls clinging desperately to one another.

"Yasu. . ." The younger sister sniffled into her idol's shoulder. "I'm so tired. . ."

Yasu's eyes flashed. "You can't go to sleep, Tes," she murmured, her voice quavering. "You have to wait for the heroes."

No sooner had she spoken then a girder broke through the ceiling, careening toward them.

Out of the building, a hero was finally able to hear their screams beneath the debris.

"I'm coming!" Backdraft called, fighting his way through the rubble, quenching flames as he went. The younger sister, Tes, suddenly threw herself at him, clinging desperately to his uniform.

"Help her; please!" Her hand shook as she gestured back into the abyss. "S-she pushed me out of the way. . . It fell on her!"

Scooping Tes up, Backdraft hurried from the ruin to deposit her safely with the first aid team before delving back in, searching desperately for the elder sister.

Reaching their demolished room, he froze; the girder had bent around her form, so it was only pinning her down without doing any real damage. Her eyes were glossed over, and she looked up as she noticed him before coughing out a glob of thick, black fluid onto the ground in front of her.

"Look, Mr. Hero. . ." She murmured unnervingly, though she was obviously losing consciousness and whatever quirk she had that was saving her was quickly running thin. "My blood. . ."

"It's black. . ."