Arthur POV
"I killed someone."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Even saying them out loud made my chest tighten, made my mind quiver, my reality thrown into a loop.
Nezu leaned forward in his chair, it creaked, my enhance hearing didn't help the situation as I could hear even the beats of Nezu's heart in the room.
"Who did you kill?" he asked, his tone taking an almost fatherly quality that I hadn't heard from him before.
"I... I... I killed a villain. They called him Nomu. I didn't have a choice. I couldn't do anything else. Tsuyu was going to die otherwise. I didn't want to. They took away my speed and.. and..." The words tumbled out of me in a broken rush, each one feeling like glass in my throat. My breathing became labored as the memories crashed over me again, the blood, the way the light had simply disintegrated everything in its path, the sickening silence afterward.
"Calm down lad. I know your aversion to violence better than anyone, I know you wouldn't have killed them if there was no other choice." Nezu's voice was steady. "Take your time. Breathe."
I tried to follow his advice, but each breath felt shallow, insufficient. I released a small hiccup, my eyes getting teary again as the image of that severed arm flashed through my mind.
The way the fingers had curled slightly, as if still reaching for something.
God I hated crying.
I hated how weak it made me feel, how exposed and vulnerable.
"So let's start from the beginning. What happened exactly?"
And so I explained, everything. From the moment the villains warped in through that swirling black portal, to discovering that my speed, my greatest asset, the thing that had allowed me to save thousands of people over the years, had been stolen from me, I even told him I had it back now.
I told him about the desperate fight between the two nomus, how they regenerated from every wound I inflicted, how their artificial grins never wavered even as I cut them apart again and again. I described the growing desperation as I realized I couldn't be everywhere at once, couldn't protect everyone with my compromised abilities.
"They didn't feel human," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "When I looked at them, there was nothing there. No malice, no satisfaction, no... spark. They were like machines designed solely for destruction. But that doesn't make it right, does it? That doesn't change what I did."
I explained how I'd tried everything, but they just kept regenerating, kept coming. And then Shigaraki had ordered one of them to kill the students, and I'd seen Tsuyu's terrified face, and I'd made a choice that would haunt me forever.
"And then I used Excalibur," I finished, my grip tightening on the sacred blade until my knuckles went white. "There was nothing left but that arm, I killed something, and it's only remains, are a goddamn arm."
"Ok then," Nezu said, sighing deeply. He was quiet for a long moment, and I could practically hear the gears turning in that hyper-intelligent mind of his. Finally he spoke.
"You didn't have any other choice, I'm sorry you had to do it, but it wasn't immoral. You took a life to save another. That's the harsh reality of what we sometimes have to do."
"No, no, no, don't you get it!" The words exploded out of me with more force than I'd intended. "Heroes don't kill. It's the one rule. The only rule that matters. And I broke it. I'm supposed to be better than that. I'm supposed to find another way. That's what heroes do, they save everyone, even the villains."
My voice cracked on the last word, and I felt fresh tears threatening to spill over. "All Might never kills. None of the great heroes do. They find a way to win without taking lives. And here I am, on my first real test as a student, as someone trying to become a proper hero, and I... I became exactly what I swore I'd never become."
"Arthur, down here in the real world, people are tasked with making hard decisions every day. I couldn't possibly understand the depths of what you must be feeling right now. Just because I'm smart doesn't mean I can understand your struggles, what you've been through, and much less how it all makes you feel. I can only listen and try to offer what wisdom I can."
Nezu paused, seeming to choose his next words very carefully. "But if I'm able to tell you something, it's this. This world isn't black and white, no matter how much we might wish it were. This world is made up of countless shades of grey, and sometimes we're forced to navigate through the darkest ones. What you did wasn't wrong. It was just hard. Impossibly, unfairly hard."
"But that's exactly the problem," I protested, my voice rising again. "Everyone expects heroes to make the hard choices look easy. They expect us to find the perfect solution every time, to save everyone without compromise. How can I call myself a hero when I couldn't even do that in my first real crisis?"
"Arthur," Nezu continued, interrupting me with a gentleness that somehow cut through my spiraling thoughts. "Do you want to know something that they don't teach in hero schools?"
Before I could reply, he continued anyway.
"Heroes aren't perfect, no matter what society might expect from you, no matter what the media portrays, no matter what the history books say. This isn't really taught here because it's an uncomfortable truth, but heroes, just like police officers, just like soldiers, are legally authorized to use lethal force if the situation is deemed necessary. From what you told me, this was unequivocally one of those situations."
The room fell into a heavy silence. Again my goddamn enhanced senses plagued me, I could hear the beating of two hearts.
Then I spoke, my voice barely audible in the quiet room.
"For all our rejoicing of courage and valor... nothing stains the soul more indelibly than killing. Never have I felt so vile as when standing victorious on a battlefield. The thrill of victory fades quickly. What lingers long after... is always ugly. Never again, I say."
My head shook as I said the words, trying to dissuade the memories that tried to surface.
"Hmm, what is that?" Nezu asked, tilting his head with genuine curiosity.
"My mom used to say that to me," I replied, unconsciously touching the blue scarf around my neck, the one Nezu had given me.
"Your mother used to tell you about killing people?"
His voice carried a note of surprise, perhaps even concern.
"No," I shook my head quickly. "It was part of a story she used to read to me... when she could. When she was having good days. She had this book about knights and heroes, and there was this one character who had to kill to protect others. He said those words after his first battle. Mom always made sure to read that part with extra emphasis, like she wanted me to understand something important."
The memory was bittersweet, my mother's voice, clear and strong on one of her lucid days, reading to me by the light of our old lamp. Back when she could still hold a book steady, before the tremors got too bad.
Again silence.
"Nezu," I began, once more. "Have you ever killed before?"
"Why are you asking that?"
He replied faster than I thought he would.
"Because you talk about this like it's just another tactical decision. You mention grey areas and hard choices like they're abstract concepts. But it's not abstract when you're the one holding the weapon. It's not theoretical when you're the one who has to live with what you've done." I hugged Excalibur closer to my chest, feeling her warm light against my armor.
"It's horrible, Nezu. To snuff out the light of potential change like that. Everyone deserves a second chance, maybe even a third or fourth. I got one, didn't I? When you found me, when you offered me this opportunity at U.A., you were giving me a chance to change, to become better than what I was."
"You can't possibly equate your wrongdoings to this villain, can you?"
"I'm not," I said quickly, "but you talk about this world of black and white, about how the world has hard decisions, how nothing is simple. But sometimes it is that simple. I've seen it, Nezu. I've seen change happen. Real, meaningful change. It's real and it's wonderful." I pressed my forehead against Excalibur's flat blade, feeling the cool metal against my skin. "It's the only thing that rivals Excalibur's beauty, watching someone transform themselves, watching them choose to be better."
"So you're saying that if this villain had shown that spark of change, you think that given that knowledge, you would have pulled the trigger? Would Arthur the vigilante have killed someone if he knew that person could change?"
The question hung in the air for a moment.
I thought about all the villains I'd encountered over the years, all the ones I'd talked down or subdued without permanent harm. I had never been forced to make a decision like today, I could always overpower anything or anyone that stood near me, I could speak and talk to people who were struggling, I could ease someone's day by helping carry their groceries. Still would I have pulled the trigger.
"No," I admitted, the word barely a whisper. "No, I wouldn't have."
"Then what's the problem?"
"The problem is that I didn't see a spark of change in that thing. I felt nothing from it but a constant state of programmed carnage, the need to kill, to fight, to destroy. It didn't feel like I was facing something human at all. I don't even know what it really was. I could only tell myself that when I finally released Excalibur's full power."
I paused, gathering my thoughts as the weight of my next words settled on me.
"But what if I'm wrong? What if there was something human buried deep inside that artificial shell, and I just couldn't see it? What if I gave up too quickly? And even if I am right, even if it truly was just a weapon in human form, who am I to make that decision? I'm not judge, jury, and executioner. I'm supposed to be a hero."
"So what do you want to do, Arthur? Do you want to stay cooped up in this room forever, paralyzed by doubt and self-recrimination?"
"No," I replied without hesitation. That much I was certain of.
"Then what? What comes next?"
"I don't know what I want," I admitted, and the honesty of it was almost liberating. "I don't know how to move forward from this. I don't know how to be a hero when I've done something that feels so fundamentally unheroic."
"Well then, that's your choice to make," he said, jumping down from the chair. "But you should know that the police will likely want to talk to you about what happened. They'll want a full report, and they won't conduct that interview through a door or in this darkened room. So while I hate to pressure you, I suggest you start thinking about how you want to handle that conversation."
He began to walk towards the door, reaching up to grab the knob. The sight of his small frame stretching to reach it would have been amusing under different circumstances. However, he stopped just before opening it and turned back to me.
"Oh, and to answer one of your earlier questions," he said, his voice rougher all of a sudden. "Yes, I have killed before. More than once, actually."
With those parting words, he turned the knob and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the gentle light of Excalibur.
I gripped the sacred blade tighter, drawing comfort from its familiar weight and warmth.
Thanks to her light, I could clearly see Avalon resting at my side, her presence a reminder of healing and protection, she would allow me to endure through this. I could see my hands just as clearly because of the illumination, and I studied them in the soft glow.
I knew they weren't actually stained, Avalon would have healed any physical marks, but when I looked at them, the images overlapped with memories from that terrible night so many years ago.
The night that had changed everything.
The night that had led me to Excalibur and Avalon in the first place.
And just like that night, when I looked at my hands in the sacred light, all I could see was blood.
Narration POV
"God, that kid is going to be the death of me," Nezu muttered as he walked down the hallway, his small feet making barely audible sounds on the polished floor. "Why are you so damn morally upright? You did good, for heaven's sake. You saved your classmate, your friend. Don't be so beat up about it."
He paused outside the dormitory building, looking up at the window that he knew belonged to Arthur's room. Even from here, he could see the faint golden glow seeping through the closed shutters.
"Should I get him a therapist? He did say he thought therapists worked... no, no, I won't do that. Not yet, anyway. He needs to process this on his own terms first." Nezu's ears twitched as he considered his options. "Think of something else, Nezu. Think. How do you help someone who's too good for their own good? How do you teach a hero that sometimes being a hero means making impossible choices?"
The principal stood there for a long moment, his hyper-intelligent mind racing through possibilities and scenarios. Whatever approach he chose would need to be perfect, Arthur was, he didn't know what Arthur was to him, but he hated him seeing this way.
"Damn it," he whispered to the empty hallway. "Why couldn't you have just been a normal problem child?"
A/N: Sup ladies and gents. So I was talking with one of you guys' yesterday in Bleap's server, we were discussing how Arthur would take this whole killing thing, i won't talk much about that, but in the end we talked about a few other things.
I think we know what hero Arthur is most like from DC, Shazam with a mix of Superman. But mostly Shazam, a boy with pure heart given the power to defeat almost any threat.
Papa Nezu, is having some problems with Arthur as you can see, I mean they are really different morally wise, as was seen in the U.A. practical exam.
Plus you may have seen it, but I think I have seven references in this chapter. Yeah. I didn't realize how many references I write into my chapters, normally you guys get a few but never all of them, so let's see how many you got this time.
Just wanted to say that send those stones.
That's pretty much it, see you lads and ladies tomorrow. Thx for reading. Author out.