Build Me a Funeral Pyre

The End of an Era

What is a hero?

If asked by the general public, some would strike a pose and proudly state that heroes are the perfection of society. They have no need to fear because the heroes are always there to save the day. They'd list their favorite heroes, counting on their fingers and smiling about how they almost got to see their idols in person.

Others would merely answer the question without dancing around the bush. Heroes exist to push back the scum of society, clean and simple.

Some would even puff out their chests and exclaim that they plan on following the footsteps of heroes, bent on creating a far better world.

However, heroes are not mere tales with colorful stories woven with frivolous words and spun with golden threads of how courageous and chivalrous they are.

Heroes can be cruel, thoughtless and unforgiving. Heroes are humans and the public often forgets that. They ignore the fact that heroes can have feelings, feel love and hate and everything between. They push back the realities that heroes can make mistakes and once that realization comes crashing back to the public, they turn that shock into anger and take it out on those that they had once idolized.

Such hateful words that are written out and released into the internet in the early hours of the morning when most are in bed still sleeping. They strike out with a vengeance and cry out how hurt and betrayed they feel. They speak with such venom that it's hard to realize that there was a time in their lives that they had loved that hero. They let the dark tendrils of hate burrow into their hearts and very existence. They nearly make it their life goal to tear down the pedestal that they, themselves, have built.

Hawks is no exception. He is far from it.

In fact, he serves as the final nail that is hammered in the coffin of the golden age of heroes.

Hawks had, in his state of shock, forgotten his own words of everything in Deika City being on live broadcast.

They had seen him cradle Dabi as he took his last breath. They had seen as Hawks started to shake his shoulders- begging, pleading and crying for Dabi to wake up. They had seen the tears that streaked down his face and they had heard the wails of his heartbreak.

They had heard when he proclaimed to Dabi's body on how much he had loved him.

They had heard the moment when Hawks had used Dabi's true name. Todoroki Touya and it sent the public into a fuming frenzy.

Sides were taken. Some stood behind Hawks, supporting him. Others had began to dig a little more, learning more of Endeavor than anyone had ever wanted to. What they had learned, filled them with a fury and they began to spread vile words on the internet. Smiting the new number one hero down with a vengeance.

Even then, there were a majority of the public who supported hero society as a whole and thus, Endeavor. They defended him and lashed back at Hawks. Questioning how could a hero ever love such a clearly loveless and irredeemable person such as the League of Villains' Dabi?

Even while Deika's fight still set to live, wars began to break out on the internet. No one had or still even knows what to do. Everyone is confused and hurt and the sting of betrayal is just the tip of the iceberg.

It seems that Dabi really had achieved his one goal in life. To completely shatter each pedestal and to set the public's blind clothes ablaze, forcing them to realize the cruel twists of reality and its warped sense of humor.

Everything can happen so quickly, as Mister Compress tries to pry Hawks from Dabi's body- the media is already buzzing. For the first time in possibly Hawks' life, he does not care of his fans' feelings. Witnessing Dabi's death served as the final crack in his mask and he throws back his head in a blood curdling scream.