A tiny bit emotional.....
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Five minutes before Akira died.....
The stadium had gone quiet.
The evacuation had been mostly completed. The civilians who hadn't left were the ones who refused to.
The VIP box was silent.
Everyone was shifted back to the VIP box from where they were watching the screens.
Momo stood at the shattered window, her hands gripping the frame so hard that the metal had bent beneath her fingers. Her suit was out of battery, and she could not do anything.... She was just a girl in damaged armour, watching her boyfriend get beaten to death on live television.
While she was quiet, her heart was hammering. Every time Muscular hit Akira on the screen, something inside her chest tightened.
Beside her, Honoka was worse.
She stood perfectly still, her arms at her sides, her eyes fixed on the screen. Her body was locked in its place.
Behind them, the rest of the group waited. Jian stood with his arms crossed, his usual smile gone. Yu had stopped recording; her tablet hung at her side, forgotten.
Reika had her hands clasped in front of her mouth, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.
Kiyomasa stood behind his wife. His hand was on her shoulder. He hadn't said a word in ten minutes.
Wei held Nia. The cat-child was pressed against her chest, her tiny body trembling, her eyes locked on the screen where her daddy was fighting something that looked like it had crawled out of a nightmare.
She wasn't crying. Not yet. She was holding it in.
Momo turned to Honoka. She opened her mouth to say something.... some word of comfort, some reassurance, some lie that would make the next thirty seconds bearable.
Just then.... a hell broke loose.
A scream came through the speakers.
Momo's head snapped back.
Honoka's eyes were filled with tears. Her face crumbled, and a sound came out of her that was worse than any scream. A whimper. The sound a mother makes when she watches her child break and can't reach him.
Momo looked at the screen.
And saw something that made her heart stop.
Akira was on his knees. His left arm was gone..... his body was broken in ways that were visible even through the grainy drone footage. And Muscular stood over him, grinning like a maniac.
Momo's legs gave out. She caught herself on the window frame, her knees buckling, her vision tunnelling. The world went grey at the edges, and for a moment, she couldn't breathe, think, or process the image of the boy she loved kneeling in the ash with one arm and no hope.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no, no-"
Behind her, Nia broke.
"DADDY!! DADDY, GET UP!! PLEASE GET UP!!"
Wei held her tighter, her own face twisted with the effort of keeping her composure. Na and Xiaoqing were beside him, both pale, both silent.
On the screen, Akira stood up as his flames flickered, dim, barely visible.
He was running on nothing but pure willpower.
Muscular hit him again. And again. Using him as entertainment, swinging him into trees and rocks and dirt with the casual cruelty of a cat playing with a mouse.
The VIP box watched in silence. There was nothing they could do. There was nothing anyone could do.
Then Momo stopped crying.
She turned and looked at Honoka.
Honoka looked back at her. Their eyes met. No words were exchanged. No plan was discussed. They didn't need words. They had both arrived at the same conclusion independently, the way two people who love the same person arrive at the same answer when that person is dying.
Honoka nodded.
Momo looked at Nia.
The cat-child was still crying in Wei's arms, her face buried in his chest, her small body heaving with sobs. But she felt Momo's gaze. She raised her head. Her eyes met Momo's.
Momo nodded at her. And Nia understood.
Nia's crying stopped.
Momo looked back at Honoka and nodded again.
Honoka moved first.
The HPSC agents standing guard near the broken window saw her coming. The first one raised his hand.
"Ma'am, you canno-"
Honoka's fist hit his face like a gun. The operative's head snapped back, and he dropped. The second operative reached for his quirk-dampening cuffs.
Nia jumped.
She launched herself from Wei's arms.
Her body began to glow and expand rapidly.
Soon the cat was gone... and what was left was a massive black panther.
A roar shook the VIP box.
The roar vibrated through the floor and walls, rattling the glass in the window frames.
Nia stood in the centre of the VIP box in her transformed state. Her golden eyes blazed with a ferocity that made every HPSC agent in the room freeze.
That one second of stunned hesitation was all they needed.
Honoka and Momo ran.
They were through the door before anyone could react. Down the corridor, down the stairs, through the tunnel, past the agents who were still recovering from the last time Honoka had punched her way through this building.
Behind them, voices yelled.
"STOP!!"
"SOMEONE STOP THEM!!"
"THE CAT... WHAT IS THE CAT??????? GET THAT THING UNDER CONTROL!!"
From the VIP box, Nia's voice tore through the chaos.
"COME AT ME YOU FUCKERS!!!!!"
Jian stood at the broken window, watching Honoka and Momo disappear toward the treeline. He didn't try to stop them. He looked at Mei.
Mei looked back at him.
Neither of them moved. They both knew. There was nothing they could do that Honoka and Momo couldn't. This wasn't about combat. This was about being there. About not letting Akira die alone.
While they were running, Momo spoke.
"We did the right thing, right?"
Honoka didn't hesitate.
"Yes," she said. "No one comes between me and my baby."
Momo nodded and ran harder.
The jungle opened up around them. Burned trees. Scorched earth. Craters. The smell of ash grew stronger the longer they ran. The ground shook with distant impacts. They could hear the fight.
Honoka and Momo smiled through their tears and ran harder toward the sound.
***
Soon, they reached the edge of the clearing.
Both of them stopped.
Akira was in Muscular's hand.
Hanging by his neck.
The monster held him like a toy, massive fingers wrapped around his throat, white eyes staring into Akira's eyes.
Honoka and Momo were frozen. They were shell-shocked. Their bodies locked in place, their brains unable to process the image fast enough to produce a response.
Before either of them could say his name.
Before they could scream.
Before they could take another step.
SNAP.
Akira's body went limp. His head fell to the side. His eyes went dark.
Muscular dropped him.
He hit the ground.
And he didn't get up.
The world stopped.
Honoka's legs weakened. She fell to her knees in the ash, her hands reaching forward, reaching for something that was too far away, reaching for a body that wasn't moving.
Momo ran.
She didn't think. Her body moved on its own. She sprinted across the clearing, past the craters, past the debris, past Muscular who stood watching with those massive white eyes, and she dropped to the ground beside Akira.
She grabbed him. Pulled his body into her lap. His head lolled against her chest. His eyes were open. But there was no life in them.
"Akira," she said. Her voice cracked. "Akira, wake up. Akira! AKIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
Alas... there was no response.
Honoka crawled to them as she reached them and took her son's hand — the only one he had left. It was cold. For the first time in his life, Akira's skin was cold.
She pressed his hand to her face and sobbed.
Muscular watched them. The mother and the girlfriend, kneeling in the ash, holding a dead boy between them. He tilted his head, the way he always did when something interested him.
Above, the helicopter camera recorded everything.
The reporter had stopped speaking. She stood in the open door of the helicopter, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. The camera operator beside her had lowered his lens for a moment before raising it again, because the broadcast was still live and the world was still watching.
Millions of people saw the two women kneeling beside a dead boy in a burned jungle.
In the evacuation shelter beneath the stadium, where the students and remaining civilians had been gathered, every screen showed the same image.
Class 1-A watched.
Izuku was crying violently. His shoulders shook, his face was twisted, and tears were pouring down his cheeks. He had watched a boy his age die on a screen he couldn't reach through.
Ochaco was beside him, crying into her hands. Iida stood behind them, his fists clenched at his sides, tears running down his face in straight lines.
Bakugo was silent. He stood at the back of the shelter... his body froze. His jaw was locked. His palms were sparking out of rage.
Todoroki stood beside the wall, his head down, his hair covering his eyes. His right hand was clenched so tight that frost had spread across his knuckles and up his forearm.
The rest of Class 1-A were in various states of shock and grief. Some crying. Some silent. Some holding each other.
Izuku lurched forward. Toward the door.
"We have to go," he said, his voice breaking. "We have to help. We have to-"
Vlad King blocked the door. His massive frame filled the exit. His head was down. His eyes were hidden behind the shadow of his brow.
But there were tears on his chin.
"You can't," he said. His voice was thick. "None of you can."
"BUT HE'S-"
"I know," Vlad said. "I know....."
***
Throughout the country, in living rooms and offices and train stations and hospitals, people watched.
They had seen the blood oath that morning. They had cheered. They had called him the Symbol of Fear. They had shared his speech, made fan art, and trended his hashtag. They had watched him fight sixty-seven students and win.
And now they watched him die.
A fifteen-year-old boy, murdered on live television. Murdered while the system that was supposed to protect him stood outside a tunnel arguing about custody and legal frameworks.
The country broke.
In a house far from U.A., far from Tokyo, far from the jungle and the stadium and the cameras, a small boy was screaming.
A kid sat on the floor of his living room, and the television screen had the image of Akira's dead body. His hands were gripping his own hair. His face was red. His eyes were swollen shut from crying.
Mandalay was on the floor beside him. She had her arms wrapped around him, holding him against her chest, her face pressed into his hair.
She was crying too.
But her body shook, and the boy.... Kota could feel it.
"HE PROMISED ME!!" Kota screamed.
"HE PROMISED ME HE WOULDN'T MAKE KIDS CRY AGAIN!!"
Mandalay held him tighter.
"HE PROMISED!! HE LOOKED ME IN THE EYES THAT DAY!!!!! AND HE PROMISED!! AND NOW HE'-HE'S...."
He couldn't finish. The words dissolved into sobs.
Mandalay pressed her lips to the top of his head.
She had no words. There were no words to be said. There was nothing she could say that would make this better, nothing that would undo what they had just seen, nothing that would bring back the boy who had knelt beside Kota on a beach and promised him a world without tears.
All she could do was hold him.
So she held him.
And they cried together.
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Sadnessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss......
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