41 – Alleyway
The scream was short.
Metallic. A voice hitting a wall of pain and stopping before it finished the sound. It came from three streets east, through the gap between a parking garage and a shuttered electronics store, and it cut through the evening noise of Hosu and died.
Mirko's ear snapped toward it. Both ears. Her whole body rotated a quarter turn and her legs coiled and she was already calculating the jump.
"Stay here," she said.
I was already running.
"Hayami!"
I didn't stop. Three streets east. Through the gap. The parking garage cast a shadow across the entrance to a narrow alley and the streetlight above the entrance was broken and the glass from the bulb was scattered on the pavement. Broken recently. On purpose.
I pulled my phone out while I ran. Found Todoroki's contact. Dropped a location pin. Sent it. No message. Just the pin. In the anime Midoriya had sent his location to Todoroki and Todoroki had come. The variables were different but the instinct was the same.
The alley was narrow. Brick walls on both sides, fire escape ladders bolted to the building above, a dumpster halfway down shoved against the wall. The ground was wet. Old rain and blood pooling around the body of a man in a hero costume who was face-down on the concrete with a gash across his back that had gone through the fabric and into the muscle. Breathing. Shallow. His hands twitching.
Native. Alive but not getting up.
Past him, deeper in the alley where the light from the street didn't reach, Iida was standing with his arm-guards deployed and his fists clenched and his body shaking. Engine legs humming. Shoulders trembling.
"You paralyzed my brother," Iida said. His voice cracked on the word brother. "Hero Killer!"
The man at the end of the alley didn't answer.
Tall. Lean. Bandages from the neck down, leather straps across his face holding the wrappings in place. His face was flat where a nose should have been. Yellow eyes that didn't blink. A katana in his right hand and a serrated combat knife in his left and he stood with the stillness of someone who had killed seventeen people in places like this and had never once rushed.
Stain.
He was still. That was what got me. Not the weapons, not the eyes. The complete absence of movement. His breathing was controlled and his body was loose and the katana hung at his side like it was part of his arm and he looked at Iida like he was deciding where to start.
Iida charged. Engine Full Burst. Fast, straight-line, powered by grief and weeks of planning and none of the tactical sense Aizawa had been trying to teach him since April.
Stain moved. One step sideways, one cut across Iida's arm as he passed. The katana opened the fabric and the skin underneath and Iida stumbled and blood hit the alley wall in a thin line and Stain brought the blade to his mouth.
His tongue was long. Unnaturally long. It uncoiled from behind his teeth and he licked the flat of the katana and swallowed.
Iida stopped mid-step. His entire body seized, engine sputtering, and he hit the ground face-first. Rigid. Arms locked at his sides. Legs straight. Bloodcurdle.
"False hero," Stain said. Flat. He walked toward Iida. "Motivated by personal vengeance. Revenge." He raised the katana. "You're not worth the blood it cost to stop you."
I came around the dumpster at full speed.
No plan. No technique. Mirko had spent three days trying to teach me to read angles and time my approaches and I threw all of it away and ran at him because Iida was on the ground and the katana was going up and I didn't have time to be smart.
Stain heard me. He pivoted and the katana came down in an arc aimed at my head and I got my forearm guard up and caught the blade on the reinforced plate Mei had built and the impact jarred my arm from wrist to shoulder.
The guard held. The blade bit into the metal and stopped. His eyes were inches from mine and his breath smelled like iron and old bandages.
"Another child playing hero," he said.
"Just a kid who hits things."
I threw a right with my free arm. He tilted his head and the punch went past his jaw by an inch and hit the brick wall behind him and the wall cracked. A chunk of mortar the size of my fist fell out and broke on the ground.
Stain looked at the wall. Looked at me. His eyes narrowed. He pulled the katana free from my guard and jumped back and his posture shifted. His weight dropped lower. The knife came up in his left hand and the katana went to a middle guard.
He came in fast. The knife first, a feint at my face, and when I blocked he reversed into a katana slash across my ribs. The blade hit my side and skidded. The edge cut the fabric and the skin underneath but it didn't go deep. The enhanced muscle was denser than normal tissue. The cut stung and bled but it wasn't the wound he'd intended.
I grabbed his knife arm. My hand closed around his wrist and I drove it into the wall and his fingers spasmed and the serrated knife hit the ground. He was strong but I was stronger in the grip and his arm bent against the brick.
The katana came across from his other hand. I blocked with my forearm and this time the blade bit deeper. Through the guard's edge, into the skin. Blood ran down my arm.
Stain twisted free. He was faster and the close quarters meant his speed mattered more than my strength. He got separation. His tongue came out again, long and flat, and he licked the blood from the katana blade.
My blood. He swallowed.
My body locked.
Every muscle seized at once. Arms pinned at my sides. Legs rigid. Jaw clamped shut. I hit the ground on my knees and then my side and the wet concrete was cold against my cheek. I couldn't move my fingers. I couldn't turn my head. Air came in short shallow pulls through my nose because the muscles around my ribcage were frozen.
Bloodcurdle. I didn't know my blood type. The original body's medical file was in U.A.'s system somewhere and I'd never checked.
Stain stood over me. The katana was raised. Native was still bleeding on the ground. Iida was face-down to my left and his engine was sputtering against the paralysis like a car trying to turn over in cold.
"You have the eyes of a true hero," Stain said. His yellow eyes went to my bleeding hands. Then my face. "That's why this is unfortunate."
The katana started coming down.
My hand moved.
Three inches. My fingers uncurled from the paralysis and I grabbed the blade. The edge cut into my palm and blood ran between my fingers and I held on. The katana stopped.
Stain stared at my hand. Nobody broke through Bloodcurdle. The paralysis was absolute for every hero he'd ever cut.
My enhanced constitution was burning through it. Not fast. The paralysis fighting my muscles and my muscles fighting back and the contest measured in fractions of inches. My jaw unlocked. My shoulder moved. My hand tightened on the blade and the edge went deeper into my palm.
Above us, on the rooftop to the left, a sound. Fast. The scrape of feet on a ledge moving at a speed that wasn't human. Rabbit ears against the Hosu skyline for half a second before disappearing behind the building's edge.
Then, from the mouth of the alley, a rush of cold air that frosted the wet concrete and turned the puddles white. Ice climbing the walls, racing toward the end of the alley.
Todoroki. He'd gotten the pin.
The ice reached Stain's feet and Stain jumped and the katana pulled free from my grip and my palm opened in a line of red and the alley turned white and freezing and I was on the ground with my hand bleeding and my body fighting to unlock. Todoroki stepped into the alley entrance with his right side frosted and his left side steaming and his eyes on the Hero Killer.