Heroes, Vigilantes, and Villains

Chapter twenty-one

I felt my shoulders shake in a silent laugh knowing that what the other teen had said was probably true to some degree. "Your place it is," I agreed.

I didn't look back at Bakugo as we turned to leave. I didn't give the boy the satisfaction of a fearful gaze, but I knew that Hitoshi sent the other boy a gaze with something like hate in it, well as close as people like us could get to showing something like that.

As we walked away Hito started detailing some of the more interesting parts of the exam. I stopped truly listening after he told me about the blue haired boy that interrupted one of the explanations, but he knew that I was gone and kept talking anyways as if to put a balm on my nerves.

My skin felt like it was burning all over in every place that the blond teen had ever touched. Every scar roared back to life as if they were the original wounds that had decorated my skin. My hand found its way back up to my throat, rubbing gently at the skin below the choker as if I could erase it. The purple haired teen paused in his story for a moment to watch what I was doing. While the boy didn't say anything, I knew that he was putting the pieces together. I knew that he had realized just who he had pulled me away from though I had never told the other how I got any of my scars, not really anyways.

It felt nice having someone care.

—-

Aizawa POV

The rat called me into his office after the hero course applicants had all left the premises. Focusing on my breathing, I knocked in the door lightly, and was only mildly surprised when it creaked open seemingly on its own.

I looked down to about the height of my knees and found a chimera staring up at me with that intelligent gaze of his that I always tended to find troublesome.

Today was no different.

"Thank you for joining me on such short notice, Shota," the rat greeted, motioning me inside as he walked further into the room. I shut the door back and followed the hybrid creature.

"What is this about, Nedzu?" I asked tiredly, while moving to the seat across from the principal's desk.

"Tea?" The rat asked, motioning to the cart that was to my left.

"Coffee," I answered just before a teacup of the substance was shoved into my hands.

"Of course," the rat said, smiling in the creepy way that only he could. The chimera took a sip of the tea that he had prepared for himself before placing it down before himself at his desk. "Now, let's talk about your little vigilante problem, shall we?"

I was careful to maintain a neutral expression, not that I thought that it really did any good. "Icarus, I assume."

The rat chuckled lightly in what might have been genuine amusement. "Yes, Icarus," he decided. "A long time ago I had this idea for a villain rehabilitation program that would be hosted at the school, but none of the villains in the area that we know about have actually been ones that would qualify for it age wise," the principal explained.

I nodded, having remembered hearing rumors of such a thing. "But the kid isn't a villain, he's a vigilante. What good would that do him?"

The rat's smile deepened as I spoke. "Well you see, as the program's creator, I can always change it however I see fit. So if I were to decide to include a subsection inside of it that would also cover young, nonviolent vigilantes such as the one that you have, I could do just that," the chimera explained before taking another sip of his tea.

"What do I need to do?"

"Catch him," the rat decided. "Catch him and I'll handle the rest."

We might just make a hero out of you yet, kid.