Fly High, Burn Bright

Chapter 85

There were a few seconds of tense silence during which I was sure explosions rocked through the air form behind us, but I barely heard them. Hawks' bottom lip quivered and tears started to drip down his cheeks, though I wasn't sure if it was because of the shock of seeing me or because he knew he wouldn't leave with his life. He reached up a hand as if to try to caress my cheek, but I slapped it away. The look on his face was like that of an injured puppy.

"I thought you were dead," he whispered, his voice hoarse and cracked.

"You'd love that, wouldn't you?" I scoffed, ignoring his obvious lie. There was no way he thought I was dead, especially not since I'd left him a lovely letter. He was just a lying scumbag trying to come up with a way to slip away from his inevitable death. "You'd just love it if your 'batshit crazy partner' were dead, wouldn't you?" With each word, I dug the blade just a little further into Hawks' neck, a thin red line already leaking with blood. He, however, looked as pale as a ghost, his body completely frozen. So he didn't know that I'd overheard him all those months ago. For fuck's sake, just how dim is he?

"I- I didn't mean that, y-you know I didn't!" He was pleading now, searching for anything that would get my knife away from his neck. "I don't know how much you heard, but I didn't mean any of it!"

Another red bead of blood dripped from where the blade cut through his skin. "So you're saying there was more that I didn't hear?"

"N-no! I never said a-anything against you!"

I yanked the blade away only to knee him in the chest, which sent him coughing up blood. "If you're going to lie, at least make it believable." He made an attempt to wipe the red from himself, but I caught his arm and twisted it back, making him yelp in pain. "Now, how about you tell me just what it is you said about me? Or will you just make something up again?"

"Kira, I swear, I didn't say anything else about you!" He gasped out in pain as I slammed my elbow into his ribs.

"It's Tankei to you now. Kira is gone, all thanks to you, my darling Hawks," I hissed dangerously close to his ear, relishing in the way that he trembled in front of me. "Now tell me. Did you call me a villain?" The blade returned to its spot in the groove of Hawks' neck. "Or maybe a murderer?" It dug a little further in, making Hawks grit his teeth, but that couldn't hold back the scream that was still pleasantly audible. He'd never been good with pain. "How about a traitor?"

And finally, a reaction. "Yes, I did, Tankei," he spat out, finally losing that weak demeanor of his that he'd put up in an attempt to guilt trip me into letting him go. Good. It would've been far too easy otherwise, and at least he wasn't denying that he knew I was alive and with the League now. "I called you a traitor, loud and clear for my entire agency to hear, because that's what you are. You're nothing but a useless little traitor that doesn't know how to deal with emotions properly. That's why you butchered that villain in the alley, isn't it? Because you can't control yourself. Because without hurting others, you're nothing."

His words stung. Oh, how they stung, and I knew it was because he was right. Had I always been like that? Hurting others to make myself feel like I'd accomplished something? No, I hadn't. I'd been happy, I'd been fine before my stupid sister went ahead and got herself killed because of me being a reckless idiot. But after that? I'd wanted to hurt the villain, and I'd wanted to hurt anyone who ever laid a finger on my loved ones. And was that wrong? No. I was protecting them, I was avenging them to make sure that the wrongdoers got what they deserved. That's what pushed me forward - the need to balance the scale, not the desire to hurt others. And right now, balancing the scale meant making Hawks pay for killing Toga.

"I may be a traitor," I grinned, pulling the blade away from Hawks - I wanted this fight to be fair. After all, that's what I was all about. Making things fair. "But you, Hawks, are a monster." There were shouts and explosions still blasting behind me, but for a brief second, it was as if the world went silent. "You're a monster. She was seventeen, Hawks. Seventeen. She had a girlfriend, she had family and friends. Hell, she had me," I seethed, "and you murdered her. She had her whole life ahead of her, and you tore it away from her without a second thought. She was like a sister to me, and you murdered her! So you know what, Hawks? I may be a traitor, but you're the worst monster I'd ever met."

"As if you're any better," he scoffed in response, slowly standing up as he wiped at the cut in an attempt to get rid of some of the blood. "How many people have you killed since you left? How many lives have you pointlessly ended?"

"They hurt me," I shot back, pulling the second blade out of the sheath. Dual wielding had always been more fun. "They deserved it."

"What, so anyone who hurts you deserves to die?" He flexed his wings. They were torn and slaughtered, the feathers nothing but mere stubs, but they were still usable. Good. I didn't want to make this too easy for myself. "The world doesn't revolve around you, Kira. What did they even do to you? Did they make you sad? People don't deserve to die just because they make you sad."

"They made my life a living hell," I spat, ready to attack at a moment's notice. "Do you know what it's like to wake up and wish you were dead because everything you've worked for is going against you? To work so hard to be a hero just for everyone to call you a villain instead?" I was in hysterics now. I couldn't control what I was saying, I just knew I had to say it all before I killed him. "Of course you don't know! You were just born a hero, weren't you? You had it made for you. You were just born strong, and I was tagging along for no reason, wasn't I?" I laughed out loud, throwing my head back and clenching my grip on the blades. "You never needed me. That's why you left me behind, isn't it? I was just useless to you. You never loved me, you never cared about me, you just kept me around because you felt bad, isn't that right?"

For a second, it looked like his eyes softened. "Kira, you know that's not tru-"

"Shut up. I don't want any more of your pity, not when you destroyed everything I cared for. You broke my heart, you know?" The laughter was still there, but I felt tears slipping down my cheeks, too. God, this was pathetic. "I just wanted to protect you, and you broke my heart. Over and over again." I took a breath that sent shudders through my entire body as I tried to calm myself down. "Never again. I'm not letting you hurt me ever again."

He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn't give him the chance. There was a little more than a meter between us, and I covered the distance in the blink of an eye, pushing off the ground with my left leg to launch myself straight at Hawks with my blades drawn. He managed to jump out of the way at the last moment, but not without my blades tearing through another few feathers, making him wince a little. That's where I was stronger - I didn't need my quirk to fight. I relied on my own strength, not on the strength of my quirk when it could be compromised so easily. Hawks, on the other hand, never needed to learn to stand his ground without his quirk. I'd always been there to fight for him, and the agency had let him take the days off while his wings were recovering. It had seemed like a good thing back then, but now that his feathers were all shredded, I bet he regretted never learning how to defend himself without his quirk. 

It was only thanks to the fact that he had years of training that he managed to avoid the first two times I swung at him, but with each attack, I forced him backwards, and he couldn't even retaliate. The usual feathers that he'd use as swords were cut in half and rendered useless, and the most he could do was try to dodge my attacks long enough for backup to come. Lucky for me, his only backup was currently getting murdered by the rest of the League, so I could take my sweet time. I faked to the left, making him duck out of the way only to bring the knife into his shoulder. A blood-curling scream rang through the air, though it was lost in the rest of the commotion. For a moment, the tiny annoying voice in my head asked if this was right, if it was right to be killing him, but the rest of me screamed back. Of course it was right. He deserved it. He put me through hell, and now, he deserved this.

I pulled the knife out of his flesh, the blade dripping with beautiful red blood, the scene more majestic than the most priceless pieces of art. Oh, how sweet it felt to make him pay at long last for everything he'd done. How utterly amazing it felt to give Hawks what he deserved. I vaguely heard him curse at me, curse me with everything within him and plead with me to stop, but I couldn't, not when seeing him bleed brought me so much pleasure. This was Hawks, who I'd loved, who I'd cared for, who abandoned me and slaughtered Toga in cold blood, and he deserved to die. When I plunged the knife into his heart, there was no hesitation.