To Hold the Stars || BAKUGO KATSUKI

A Moment

The television had barely been discernible over the noise of the small electric fan perched above the counter as she'd paid for her smoothie, but Nomi had still taken interest in the old program they were running on the Hero Channel.

"Cadaver?" she said aloud as she handed her money to the cashier. She peered over his balding head at the screen that displayed a handsome young man dressed in all black with a red cape. The byline underneath his picture read CATCHING UP WITH THE HELLISH HERO: CADAVER! "Odd name for a hero."

The cashier looked over his shoulder, following her gaze. "Hm? Oh, yes, him. I heard he's going into retirement soon. Must be why they're actually doing a program on him."

"Retirement?" Nomi echoed. Her receipt printed with a dry wheeze, almost lost to the air when the fan oscillated toward them before the cashier pinned it down with a stubby thumb. "But he's so young!"

The cashier shrugged. "Age isn't necessarily the most important thing to pros. Cadaver was never that popular anyway due to all the controversy surrounding him. I mean, Hellish Hero? Cadaver? Those don't seem like hero names at all. And his Quirk and costume don't help."

"What's his Quirk?" Nomi asked, her eye transfixed on the hero.

"Infernal Surge is what they call it," he said, not-so-subtly shoving the receipt in her hand when she kept staring. "Something about shadow-flames? Definitely hellish if you ask me. More like a villain than a hero."

Nomi touched a finger to her eyepatch. "Right..."

She'd rushed home from the store to flip on her television at home, her smoothie all but forgotten as she caught the tail-end of the program on the pro hero Cadaver.

"Before we let you go, Cadaver, is there anything you'd like to say to any potential future heroes watching?" asked the interviewer.

The hero Cadaver sat across from her in the studio chair. His costume truly reminded Nomi of a knight from Hell. His black hair and black eyes lined with even more black added to the effect, but his smile was kind, even rueful, as he spoke to the camera. Nomi felt like he was speaking directly to her through the screen.

"Sure," he said. "I'd tell any kid to embrace their Quirk. Society will push back against those whose Quirks aren't necessarily considered 'good' or 'heroic,' but I say that's crap. Anyone can be a hero no matter what their Quirk is. The only thing that truly matters is how you use your Quirk. You can choose to protect others or harm others. That decision is what makes a hero."

Nomi sat on her living room floor, stunned, as the interviewer signed off. She looked around the small apartment she and her father had just moved to, at the unpacked boxes that contained their belongings, her mother's conspicuously absent. She then looked out the window to the bustling city, and beyond that, the endless blue of the clear sky. It was only then that she realized a tear had leaked from her eye.

"Anyone can be a hero no matter what their Quirk is."

"You can choose to protect others or harm others. That decision is what makes a hero."

"You still think you can be a hero with a demon eye like that?" her mother's cruel voice mocked. "Don't make me laugh. You'll never be anything more than a curse to others."

No, Nomi thought, her hands fisting in her lap. I'm not just a curse. You're wrong.

Maybe this was what she needed. A new start in a different part of the city, away from her mother and the venom in her breath. A reminder from a pro hero with a frightening power like her own that she didn't have to settle for anything less. She wanted to be a hero. Even after her Quirk manifested, she'd clung to that faint hope, cradling the small flicker of it in her heart for years. Maybe she didn't have to accept the fate that her mother had condemned her to.