Chapter Text
“Thank you, Sir,” Denki said as he gathered his belongings. He slipped out of the classroom and stumbled down the hallways. The sun was setting, and he was sure he’d be in trouble if he wasn’t home by dark. As he turned the corner, someone grabbed the collar of his uniform. Denki winced and yelped as he was forced onto the floor and against the wall. He groaned and looked up at the two boys who had grabbed him. It was the usual two—the boys that made Denki dread going to school—so he wasn’t too surprised at the sight of their sickening grins, but he couldn’t say he was used to it. How can anyone truly get used to being pushed around and beaten every day?
“What do you want now?” Denki muttered. He sank into the spot where he was trapped. He knew there wasn’t a point in fighting. Using quirks at school was banned, and Denki’s was too dangerous to use in this situation. The most he could do was shock them, but that would only make them angrier and release more of their frustrations on him.
Denki groaned as the boy with glasses kicked him in his stomach, making him double over as he struggled not to vomit his lunch. He whimpered and held back tears, listening to the two boys laugh and point out every little imperfection he held. His messy hair, scarred skin, dark circles under his eyes—anything they could see. It was a daily occurrence, and Denki hated himself for letting it get to his head.
The two boys eventually ran off when they got bored with Denki. Denki sighed and shakily stood up, his knees threatening to buckle beneath him. He grabbed anything that had fallen out of his bag and slowly left the school, exhausted from the confrontation. His lip cheek was bruised, and his hair was sticking in every direction. He looked awful, yet no one stopped him to check as he walked, saying that if a problem occurred, “the heroes would handle it.”
That’s always their answer.
Denki looked up at the sky, trying to estimate how much time he had before the sun set completely. Barely twenty minutes. He groaned and started jogging, his knees still threatening to give out on him. He stopped when he came across the alleyway he would take as a shortcut, but that was always in the middle of the day, never when it was getting dark. Denki shook away his fear and stepped down the alley, the sun’s light blocked by the taller buildings.
Denki waved at the people he recognized and politely declined any offers they gave for a drink or snack. He rushed down the alley that seemed to get longer with every step, and when he turned the corner, he froze. There was only one man there, someone Denki didn’t recognize. He looked back, seeing if anyone else was around, but it was just them. He shuddered a breath and started walking, his steps slow and reluctant. The man looked up when he heard Denki’s movements. A cigarette was hanging from his lips, and he had barely grown stubble on his chin. Something about it made Denki feel uneasy.
The man pulled the cigarette from his lips and held it between his middle and index fingers. He smiled at Denki invitingly and waved at him. “Hey, kid. What are you doing in a place like this?” he asked.
Denki shook his head and continued walking. As he passed the man, he felt a callused hand grab his wrist. Denki looked back with wide eyes, and he started shaking as the man’s grip tightened.
“Didn’t your parents ever teach you it’s rude to ignore someone when they’re talking to you?” the man asked. Denki gulped and tried to pull away, but the man’s grip was too firm and tight.
“I- I didn’t mean to,” he stammered. “My parents are waiting for me–”
“They can wait longer. Just talk with me. You’ll still make it home in time,” the man claimed. Denki shook his head and winced. He knew his wrist would be bruised if the man kept this up. He tried to pull away again, and the man slammed his body into the wall. He gripped his neck, and Denki gasped for air. He tried to tear his fingers away, but he couldn’t get a strong enough grip on the man’s hand. Tears came to his eyes as he struggled to breathe, and he begged the man to let him go.
“Please,” Denki winced, “please let me go!”
“I need to teach you some manners first,” the man claimed. He leaned closer to Denki’s face, his breath holding an overwhelming smell of cigarettes. Denki coughed as it flooded his senses, and he tried to scream, but he was losing his voice with the man’s grasp. His skin was bruising quickly, turning different shades of red, blue, and purple.
“Don’t fight,” the man said as Denki tried kicking him. “You’ll only make this worse.”
He wasn’t sure how long he had been there. All he knew was that the night had arrived, and the man wasn’t letting go, only rambling on and on about how “impolite” Denki was being. Denki’s eyes started closing, the light in his eyes disappearing with the sun. His world turned black for only a few moments, but with a loud thud and a muffled scream, the man let go of Denki. Denki collapsed and gasped to catch his breath, his vision slowly coming back. He looked up, seeing the man scream and beg for mercy as a knife was plunged into his shoulder.
“Please!” the man screamed. “It won’t happen again! I didn’t even mean to hurt him! We were only talking!”
“The world will remain corrupt as long as filth like you remains,” a figure in the shadows said. Denki watched in horror as the man’s throat was slit, his blood pouring from his neck as he lost his ability to breathe. The figure in the shadows slowly stood up and looked down on Denki. “Are you injured?” he asked, his voice being enough to shake Denki.
Denki shook his head and hid his neck and wrist. He shakily rose to his feet and leaned against the wall to balance himself. His breathing was labored, barely able to get enough air into his lungs to keep him from being lightheaded. He looked back at the figure in the shadows. He could barely make out the man’s shape, but his face was too obscured to make out any details. Even then, he could easily make out the many knives and blades he carried, even a katana on his back.
“Go home,” the man in the shadows said, “before you’re hurt again.”
Denki gulped and pushed himself off the wall. He stumbled forward, and the soft glow his hair gave off barely illuminated the man before him. Denki’s heart dropped at the sight.
“You’re… the Hero Killer,” he said as he stepped back. He tripped over the dead man’s arm and fell to the ground with a grunt. “I- I won’t tell anyone I saw you! Just don’t–”
“I don’t hurt the innocent unless they become a problem for my mission,” Stain claimed. “Now run home.”
Denki nodded and pushed himself to stand. He grabbed his bag off the ground and started running. His heart pounded against his ribcage, and he winced as his throat ached. He made it home after ten minutes, and he rushed inside. He nearly collapsed when he made it through the door, and he struggled to keep himself from crying once again. Stomping footsteps approached, and his older sister, Dachi, came around the corner with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Where were you?!” she screamed. Denki winced and pushed to pass her. He slowly walked upstairs, ignoring his sister’s yelling, and he turned into his father’s office. He slowly opened the door, seeing his father staring at a corkboard, trying to put the pieces together for a case he had worked on in the past.
“Dad?” Denki spoke, his voice hoarse and weak. Riku turned around, and his heart stopped when he saw the dark bruises on his son’s neck.
“Kiki!” He said as he rushed to the boy’s side, cupping his flushed cheeks in his palms. “What happened?! Who did this?!”
“Dad, I’m fine. I just… had another issue with those kids at school,” Denki lied through his teeth.
“It’s never been this bad before,” Riku muttered. He sighed and moved to his desk, where he held many rolls of bandages. He returned to his son and carefully, gently wrapped the bandages around his neck, making sure it wasn’t too tight on his skin. “There. Now nothing can get to the bruises.”
“Thank you,” Denki muttered. He looked past his father, inspecting the bulletin board behind him. “Who’s that?” he asked, pointing to a photo in the middle of the board. Riku looked back and let out a humorless laugh.
“Just a vigilante. I had a few run-ins with him about… five or six years ago?” he answered. “He disappeared without a trace, and I’ve been trying to find him.”
“Maybe he gave up on it?” Denki suggested. Riku shook his head and returned to the board, looking up at it like someone would with the stars.
“No. No, Stendhal was too determined for that,” he claimed. He looked back at his son and let out a sigh. “Why don’t you head to bed for the night?”
“Why is he so important that you’re spending your time off looking for him?” Denki asked bluntly. “Why not someone, you know, active?”
“Being active or not isn’t always important when looking for a villain, son,” Riku sighed. He picked up his pen and started writing down anything he could remember about Stendhal.
“I thought he was a vigilante?” Denki said.
“He was, but he was a vigilante who killed villains,” Riku explained. “And that would—technically—make him a villain as well.”
“How is that wrong if he’s stopping them? What if they’re released from jail or escape? Killing them seems like a permanent solution,” Denki claimed. Riku froze and slowly turned to face his son, a mixture of concern, disgust, and anger on his face.
“Never talk like that again,” he said, trying not to let his anger get the best of him. “That’s how villains—how Stendal thinks. You’re not a villain, Denki. Go to bed. Now.”
Denki winced at the fire in his father’s eyes. He nodded and silently left the office, slipping into his room and locking himself inside. He wasted no time changing into his pajamas and hanging up his uniform. He was too tired to eat or bother speaking to the rest of his family, but he still found himself at his computer, searching for Stendhal’s name. He thought about what his father had said.
That’s how Stendal thinks.
Was that really so bad? Why did that make him sick? Villains were the cause of so many tragedies—why shouldn’t they be taken out of this world to make it safer? Denki sighed and started scrolling through an old news article that vaguely mentioned his father, mainly focusing on Stendhal and the villains he had killed. Just reading about the villains made Denki feel disgusted. He skimmed through it, looking for anything that had to do with Stendhal, but most of the article had been taken up by the villains. Who they were, what they did, and how they died. Their deaths were the only part Denki enjoyed reading about. He looked through every article he could find, but each one was filled with information on the “victims” and barely anything about Stendhal.
“Should have guessed,” Denki muttered to himself. He powered off his computer and slipped into bed. He turned off his lamp, enveloping the room in darkness that was only broken by the light glow of his hair, and he stared at the ceiling instead of closing his eyes to rest. He shakily brought his hand to his neck, feeling the bandages underneath his fingers. He shuddered a weak breath and closed his eyes after a few minutes of wondering. Maybe rest was all he needed, and he would forget what had happened to him that day.
Dachi hummed softly as she helped her father prepare breakfast for the family. She looked back, seeing Denki walk into the kitchen with their little sister, Dorimu, in his arms, barely awake. Dachi laughed at the sight of the dark circles under Denki’s eyes, as well as the way his hair stuck out in every direction. Denki carefully put Dorimu in her chair and rubbed his neck.
“You look like shit,” Dachi said confidently. Riku tapped her arm, silently telling her to watch her language. Denki groaned weakly and leaned against the counter. Riku turned around and frowned at the broken and tired look in his son’s eyes.
“Why don’t you stay home today?” he suggested. Denki lifted his head and nodded. He pressed a kiss to Dorimu’s head, making her giggle softly, and he silently left the kitchen, his throat hurting too much to mutter a single word. He returned to his bedroom and sat down at his computer, the same spot he had spent the entire night. He powered it on and returned to the tab he had left off on, a news report on the Hero Killer. He rested his head in his hand and watched the video closely, listening to the reporter speak on the death of the hero Stain had gotten to. The footage was barely over a year old, but Denki wanted to take what he could get. He was desperate to find out why he had saved him—why he would kill someone just to keep him out of harm’s way—but Stain was just as much of a mystery to the news as he was to him.
Goddamn it.
Denki switched gears back to Stendhal. He had difficulty finding anything for the vigilante. The death of a villain was much less cared for than the death of even the smallest hero. There was only one report that had made it past online articles, and it had gathered very little attention from the public. Denki sighed and clicked on the video.
“Breaking News: vigilante ‘Stendhal’ caught on camera. This is the first and only footage ever caught of him, and the owner of the security camera claims he heard fighting outside his home the night it was recorded.”
Denki rolled his eyes and leaned closer to his screen, trying to make out the poor footage. It was hard to make out any details about Stendhal other than his long, tightly pulled back hair and the mask that hid his face. Denki looked at the footage frame by frame and squinted. There was something on Stendhal’s back—something familiar. Denki sighed and leaned back. He couldn’t see well enough to decipher it. Maybe he needed glasses like Dachi? Not that he would ever wear them.
Denki repeated the pattern of constantly jumping between looking for Stendhal and wondering about Stain. He rarely broke away from his computer, only leaving when he got hungry or his father called him downstairs. He felt strange, obsessing over someone he had dismissed just the night before and wanting to know more about someone who could have killed him at any moment. Maybe there was something wrong with him? Denki shook away the thought. There wasn’t anything better he could do. He sighed and finally pulled away from his computer. When he looked out his window, the sun was setting.
“Shit,” he muttered. He leaned against his wall and stared out at the setting sun, waiting for his room to be flooded in darkness. He felt sick as it enveloped him. The dark made him uneasy now, something about it reminding him of the man’s fingers around his throat. He winced and quickly left his room, slipping into his father’s softly-lightened room instead. Riku turned around and tilted his head.
“Ki? You okay?” he asked. Denki nodded his head and sat down in one of the chairs against the wall. “Are you here for something?”
Denki didn't answer, only glancing at the board that had grabbed his attention the night before. Riku looked back and sighed. “Denki, I don’t want you worrying about him anymore, okay? This is something for me to handle, not you.”
Denki nodded and hung his head. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, pulling up his legs to press his knees to his chest. He covered his mouth as he tried his best not to get sick. He hated that he couldn’t even stand the dark anymore. That man had affected him more than he would have liked—the bruises were enough as is, but they stood as more of an inconvenience in his mind.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Riku asked suddenly. “I know it wasn’t anyone at school. Who did that to you?”
Denki winced and turned his body away, closing himself in as if he was trying to disappear. Acknowledging it would make it real—too real. He only shook his head and stayed quiet. It hurt too much to say anything anyway. Riku let out a defeated sigh and slowly approached the boy. He pulled him into a gentle hug, and that was enough to make Denki break down—make everything that had happened finally sink in. Even then, he could only think of one thing—one question.
Why?
Why did he have to be attacked? Why did that man do what he did? Why did Stain save him? All of it only made Denki feel like the pathetic waste of space so many people claimed him to be, and he hated himself for listening, for starting to believe every last word.