What Makes A Hero

13

    Weeks had passed easily enough into months and then almost a year, and while it was still growing 'Deku' was earning quite a bit of attention in the correct circles for what he was trying to do- and with effort he'd kept his name mostly from the more prying heroes. He couldn't help the pride that rose in his chest at the thought, but he could do more.

It was what led him to venture into the base of operations firsthand as he had. Never had he been so thankful he had done so. His eyes drifted to the bed that he sat besides, or rather to it's occupant.

       It was no surprise once you factored in the organization's common quirk types that the base was underground, styled as if an ancient, abandoned mineshaft like ones from a pc game complete with slow, creaking elevators, rickety spiral staircases that allowed you to see straight down into an unforgiving drop filled with total darkness, low ceilings with rough, rocky walls, worn wooden support beams, and even tracks for carts. And, apparently, a prison.

This final element was where he got his very first warning of technology- strange considering the group's overall reluctance towards it- so he, cautiously, began working his way over heading towards its direction. His breath caught in horror at what he saw as he turned the final corner-

Izuku forcibly tried to shake himself from his thoughts. How hadn't he known? He should have. It was his duty, his job, his purpose; to protect and help innocents with his information. How had he missed it? How had he missed that not all of its victims were in the relatively safer prison that was the facility?

The two words, shakily mouthed at him refused to leave his head, the hopeless, defeated eyes, the scars and wounds that marred sun deprived flesh, the- Izuku once again tried to dislodge the memories that refused to leave. The two words. Their two last words he would later know. 'Kill me'. Izuku wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel. Instead he ended up only feeling empty. The same burning, clogging, all-consuming, emptiness that he had felt on the roof so, so many years ago.

Once more Izuku tried to drag his attention anywhere at all with a shaky breath. Anywhere but the direction that his current thoughts were taking him and, thankfully, this time he found something.

        The heart monitor didn't change from its painstakingly slow beats, but a thick, shuddering breath interrupted what had been a somewhat steady rhythm for the past eight hours. They were waking up.  His eyes caught on the features; dirtied gray hair that likely would hang all the way to about his shoulders, long unnaturally thin arms and legs that lay at his side in crooked angles, bending awkwardly every which way but the intended one whenever someone tried to adjust them, grey skin that in some lights appeared to be a dark grey and others a light grey and still other times seemed as if it was a splotchy mix of the two or even neither. He'd spent the first two hours distracting himself by trying to see what it really was and ended that attempt at distracting himself when he found himself mentally and emotionally exhausted, no longer sure if it was even grey at all- in fact he was near positive it wasn't grey after all-, and doubting just colors in general. They were tall too and while all their features, though strange, still made them look human, they had a chilling air about them that suggested this was not quite true. Something very much that Izuku would attribute to a predator lurking in the shadows just about a corner, or the little warning his instincts sometimes gave him that something was off.

      He had heard the people here talk about the person who lay before him. That he had once been the child of one of the members, but his quirk had made him inhuman. He'd grown several feet right in front of them, once bright orange hair turning into a pale white, smooth skin going a raggedy, stale grey, and his innocently shining eyes became deep abysses that stared out unblinkingly catching both the minds of the unwary and light itself and dragging all into the depths of despair.