a/n: so first, i wanna thank Katsuki_Bakugou, ufo_house, Akuma-Sama, and (my good ol bud) Trinity, since i used their ideas, but i'm definitely grateful for every suggestion i got! <33
and as always, thank you all for now over 700 votes! <3
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Valui's first thought wasn't fear, like it should have been. It should have been questioning; wondering how in the hell she got found. It should have been an incoherent, fearful mess. It should have been internal pleading for him not to hurt her, take her away, or worse. It shouldn't have even crossed her mind — she should have drawn a blank.
But that wasn't what happened.
Why do you keep calling me that?
"Get your hands off my daughter!" Her father's voice served as an anchor back to reality; the fear crashed over her brain like waves. This man — Tomura — was back after she was so sure she was safe and wouldn't ever have to deal with him again. But here he was, holding her in place like the hostage she was more than certainly about to become again.
"Oh?" His tone was mocking; that single word — the single sound — held such a mocking and conceited tone that it took Valui by surprise. He acted like he had already won, like they weren't in the middle of a crowd of people and next to a car crash that was bound to bring cops to their location; like she couldn't see people across the street talking frantically into their cell phones; like she wasn't sure she could already hear police sirens in the distance; like he wasn't bound to lose because he wanted to make some big scene like an attention-obsessed child. "I don't think I want to."
A child. He sounded like a child, as hypocritical as that was coming from Valui.
As her father stepped closer to them, the fingers on her neck pressed down harder. A strangled noise escaped her throat, her line of vision turning into a tunnel. Her lightheadedness got worse, as did her headache from lack of proper oxygen. It was harder to breathe now, but not impossible — it came in short, gasping breaths as her head was forced to lean back against Tomura's chest to get her neck away from his hand.
Distantly, after performing that small action, she felt his tight hold on her wrist loosen.
He must've heard her gasping breaths, because he stopped almost immediately. "Let. Her. Go. She's not—" Her father cut off to compose himself, though whether out of fear or anger, Valui didn't know. "She's not someone you want. She's just—"
Useless?
Defenseless?
Nothing compared to everyone else?
Whatever she was going to be called was never to be heard, as his sentence was cut off when Tomura hummed; Valui could feel his head tilting back and forth. "Incorrect." From her limited vision, Valui saw a faint purple mist form behind him. "If you'll excuse me now, I'll be taking my new toy and—"
Everything happened so quickly that Valui was left putting together the pieces as she stared at the aftermath.
The loud blaring of sirens filled the air, making the girl's headache pound heavily against her temples. Cops and pro heroes alike begun flooding the scene; somewhere behind her, she heard Kurogiri tell Tomura to "stop acting like a child and let it go," but when Valui turned, she found she had been let go and the two had fled before anyone got close to them. Even if the threat of them taking her again was still there, Valui didn't care — she didn't care about that, her starry vision from being borderline suffocated, her headache that was turning into a migraine, the police and paramedics trying to speak to her. All of it paled in comparison to what was right at her feet.
Her father, with his chest and heart disintegrating.
It was bizarre to watch — someone's skin and organs just...fall apart, as if they were made of some cheap paper that had just gotten wet. There wasn't even any blood, despite the smell filling the air and getting burned into her nose. Was this...fatal? Was it reversible? The paramedics that stood around her father's body simply stared at it and each other with confused, bewildered faces.
No, this isn't reversible.
Or if it was, it was far too late now.
Which ultimately meant...
That was when Valui started crying. Her knees buckled and she hit the concrete, but any pain that brought her was ignored. She frantically shook her father's arm, trying desperately to make him open his eyes again. Regardless of how he treated her at times, this was one of parents; one of the two people she could constantly rely on if she needed something; someone who, while the methods were wrong and more damaging than good, tried to make her achieve a childhood dream that had long since been forgotten.
"V...Valui..." His eyes opened; blue like hers, but much duller now. The tiny spark of light they held was quickly fading. Yet...he smiled at her. "G..good, you're...safe..."
Safe.
Was that why he did this? Why he doomed himself to this premature death?
"D-Dad, you—" Valui's voice shook more than it ever had, fear and grief permeating every word she uttered. "Y-you didn't have to— have to d-do th-this—"
At that, he laughed. It was a weird, hollow sound. "I...did. Because if I... If I didn't..."
Because her mother would be mad?
Because it'd be too tedious to try to find her after she went missing again?
Because, if she died, that meant more paperwork?
"...then you'd be...gone. Or...hurt."
Huh...?
"Y-you..."
A hand was weakly raised and held against her cheek, her tears easily flowing through his fingers and down the back of his palm. His smile faltered now; Valui was afraid to look at whatever little pieces of his heart were left. "Valui..." The tears stopped for just a moment — just long enough to look into closing ones that used to match hers. "I'm...sorry."
"I-it's o-okay..." If there were other things she wanted to say, they escaped her in that moment. Her forgiveness, though shaky and heartbroken as it was, seemed to make the fading light in his eyes brighten for a split second.
"I told...your mother once... After you were born, I'd... I'd protect you until I died." A weak laugh, then a grimace. She distantly wondered if it hurt. "I'm...glad I...did..."
"D-Dad—"
"I love you... Valui..."
The hand slipped from her face; his eyes fell shut; and the last little piece of what used to be his heart disappeared into nothingness.
White noise filled Valui's ears, the ringing seeping deep into her brain. She shook her father's arm again, speaking words — begging words — that she couldn't hear. All the sound around her dulled into static; she didn't even notice a paramedic laying a hand on her shoulder and helping her to her feet. She watched helplessly as her father's body was hauled inside one of the ambulances and taken away somewhere.
"...cuse...e..."
"...ss, are you...kay...?"
"Miss, are you okay?"
Emotion and senses snapped flooded back into Valui's body. The ringing faded until it was a small buzzing in the back of her skull. She looked to the paramedic beside her, eyes dull, though red from crying. The tears had stopped now, leaving only a hollow empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. "I..." Her voice was coarse and her throat hurt. "I'm...okay..."
"You were in hysterics, miss," the paramedic said, worry creating lines on her forehead. "Are you sure you're alright now? We can take you to—"
"I'm fine." Her voice took on a weird tone, one that made the concerned woman stop talking. Valui roughly wiped her eyes on the back of her jacket.
"Do you need someone to take you home? We can call someone to come get you...?"
Valui shook her head. "I...can get home myself." Whatever the woman said next fell on deaf ears; the girl had started walking away, though in the opposite direction of her house.
UA.
Why that school was the first place she decided to go, she didn't know. All she knew was that her father was dead, Tomura had killed him, and UA seemed like the one place she could go to get help.
Walking there, however, proved to be a difficult task. Her legs felt like jelly; every other quickened step resulted in her stumbling. Most of the time, she'd be able to catch herself — on the side of a building, a street light, even sometimes another person — but there were a few times she couldn't. Valui would stumble and she simply wouldn't have the energy to seek out something to catch herself on. She'd collapse to the ground, her knees and palms getting more bloodied and scratched as she went.
By the time Valui got to the front gates of UA, she was a mess: out of breath, disheveled, blood dripping from her palms and knees while tears had resumed dripping from her eyes. She stared weakly up at the iron fixture that prevented her from getting in the main building.
She didn't even have the energy to call out to the guard stationed beside the front doors. It didn't matter, though, as he jogged over the moment she stopped and started staring.
"Is something wrong, miss?"
"I..."
...don't have a dad anymore and some crazy guy wants to kidnap me.
Her first thought drifted to the principal she had met just the other day ago. Surely his meeting with her was on file somewhere and she would be let in; if not, he could just let her in himself... Right? It hadn't been that long ago. "I need...to see Nezu."
"On what business...?"
"It's... It's about what we talked about the other...the other day." She was struggling to breathe, the sadness creeping back up from the pit of her stomach. "I... He visited me. I-in the hospital. Valui...Dyer. S-something has—"
She stopped when the guard touched something in his ear — a radio, of some sort? He mumbled a few "yeah's" and "alright's" into his shoulder where the receiver probably was, finishing with a, "Yes sir." He met Valui's eyes and wordlessly opened the gate, motioning for her to go into the building. "Top floor."
"Th-thank...you," she mumbled, trying her best to smile thankfully, though she was sure it looked like nothing more than a grimace.
Any other day, Valui would be so excited she wouldn't be able to contain herself. She'd be smiling. She'd be nearly bouncing off the walls. She'd be looking at anything and everything.
But now, she saw nothing. There was no joy on her tear and dirt covered face. There was nothing but sadness and grief and agony.
She stumbled weakly through the halls, her dull and half lidded eyes staring at a single solitary point in the distance: the elevator. The confused stares of students burned on her skin, but for the first time in probably her whole life, Valui ignored it. Valui didn't care. She could care less who these people were; what their Quirks were that made them better than her. She could care less what they thought of a Quirkless, bloody, and dirty girl limping through their pristine hallways. She didn't care that society had told her time and time again to respect these people, because they would be the ones protecting her in the future.
Where were they then?
Where had society's precious heroes been just hours earlier? Were they too busy with their petty fame — their stupid TV shows and fashion shoots and what have you — to come save someone? To save some Quirkless, and subsequently, defenseless girl? To save her from having to watch her own father sacrifice himself for her?
The gravity of the situation set back in then, as Valui smashed the arrow up button on the elevator panel with more force than she had expected to come out of her aching hand. Her father had died for her. He had given his life to protect her, because she had no way of protecting herself. When Valui stepped in the elevator and pressed the highest number, and when the doors shut and she was alone, she leaned heavily back against the metal wall and shook.
I'm weak and pathetic and I have to be protected because I can't do it for myself.
One person had already died because of those truths. One person had already died because of her. One person was too many. One person was all that there would be.
Valui stepped out of the elevator when it stopped and opened, steeling herself away and coming to a quiet resolve that grew louder and louder in her head with every step. By the time she reached the door to Nezu's office, it was ringing louder than any siren had earlier; it was silencing any doubtful thought she had — any thought that had been etched into her brain over nearly ten years.
I'm done being useless.
Valui pushed the door open, eyes briefly scanning the room. Nezu was there, sitting on a couch with the man she had met at the sports festival when she got lost — the one who spoken the same words that had since resurfaced in Valui's mind.
"You can be a hero just as well as anyone else in this school."
It was the same words that compelled Valui to say what she was thinking without feeling silly — without thinking she would be criticized or looked down upon or laughed at — when both pairs of eyes turned to her, questions and concerns in both of them.
"I want to become a hero."