The Eyes That Make the Storm

92) Death of a Hero

When Stasia dies, she's only eighteen. She's not sure if the only belongs, though, maybe eighteen was the limit. She's unsure and doesn't have the brain capacity to decipher her words- not now.

    Todoroki is standing over her- or is it Kirishima? As her vision blurs she only can focus on colors which also include, green and ash.

    Someone's screaming. There's this pressure on her stomach and an ache in between her ribs. Her eyes dart frantically, trying to make sense of the people scrambling around her and she starts shaking- she's scared. Scared like she's never known fear before. In her last few minutes, she wonders if she ever has before this moment.

    Her eyelids grow heavy and her breathing shallows.

    "Hey, hey! Stasia? Stasia!" One scream, she thinks it was the red-haired one, or one of the red-haired ones because unless she was seeing double- which wasn't unlikely- there were two, and she was blanking on both of their names.

    "Help," the green-haired boy cries out and even in her state, she feels the need to comfort him.

    "Why...why are you yelling?" she whispers.

    "Wha-?"

    "I don't even feel it," she swears and lets out a pathetic laugh. "It's okay, it's okay."

    Their voices fade in and out, She can't make out if they're protests or pleas but they're loud and desperate. And they're the last thing she hears before she dies.

    Stasia's eyes shot open; the dreams were becoming more and more vivid. Whatever is going on is either getting stronger or closer or both. She gets dressed quickly, and runs to the boy's side to talk to Bakugou or Midoriya, anyone, really, but everyone's rooms are empty. She headed down to the main floor to find all her classmates around the Christmas tree in the center of the common room and her eyebrows furrowed.

    "There you go," Aoyama sang as he placed a Santa hat over her hair before he hurried away.

    "The hell?" she mumbled.

    Todoroki appeared by her side and she nearly flinched looking at his hair but willed herself to shake the dream out of her head.

    "Did you..."

    "Forget about Christmas?...yeah," she confessed. "Crazy year I guess."

    "That would be correct," he agreed.

    "Don't leave me, I won't leave you."

    Todoroki nodded, agreeing, "deal."

    While Stasia wasn't there- or more likely, not paying attention- the class had decided to have a small holiday party with a movie session before everyone goes on break. Now that she did know about it, she still didn't care but at the same time, she didn't mind. Most of her second year was occupied and she spent most of it away from her classmates. To the extent that when Dark Shadow appeared over Tokoyami's shoulder, she nearly jumped. It was like that the whole day, jumpy.

    As the day waned into the night, her classmates bid their goodbyes as they each left for home until it dwindled down to only Stasia's main group. Todoroki and Midoriya shared one couch, Stasia and Kirishima, and Bakugou had a chair to himself.

    "You know how you said you hope next year's break is just as good as last year's?" Stasia asked.

    "...yeah," Midoriya said hesitantly.

    "I don't think that's gonna happen," she warned, then slowly lifted up her right sleeve to show bruising that wrapped around the entirety of her arm.

    "When did that happen?" Kirishima asked quickly.

    "In a dream," she explained and the confusion on everyone's face was unmistakable. "...where I died."

    "Oh." Midoriya nodded.

    "The fact that someone is always trying to kill you is a sign of something," Bakugou mumbled.

    "Do you have any enemies?" Kirishima asked.

    Bakugou scoffed "You know how unlikeable she is, don't you?"

    Stasia ignored him. "I would say heroes have a lot of enemies, it doesn't really help in narrowing it down."

    "Do you know anyone with a dream invasion quirk?" Todoroki wondered.

    "None that are alive," she answered as she wracked her brain for answers. Just then, the front doors opened followed by the appearance of Aizawa.

    Stasia turned around and figured, "time to go?"

    "In a minute, I need to talk to you."

    Stasia frowned and got up to follow her dad outside.

    There were at least two minutes in between when they sat down on the steps until he actually spoke when he asked, "have you seen the news today?"

    "No...why?"

    "Nastasia, your Aunt Kana, she- she died."

    "What?"  Stasia's voice grew loud and she felt her heart sink to her stomach. "No no." She shook her head, in disbelief and anger. "That's not- that's not true I just talked to her yesterday."

    "Nastasia-"

    "That's not true," she argued but it came out as a plea because it was. "Dad that can't be true-"

    "That's why I wanted to talk to you."

    "Not really in the mood to talk right now," she confessed with a heavy sigh before she looked down at her shoes.

    "It was in her sleep."

    Quickly, her eyes darted over to her dad who asked, "are you sure all our demons are dead?"