My hands pulled the ends of my sleeves into the palms of my hands. It was the one thing I liked about the hero costume that I wore. While it was my costume, it was Sakura who designed it, knowing that I wasn't going to come up with anything cool. She was right as I probably would have put together a hazmat suit made of some sort of metal to protect myself from villains.

Instead, since Sakura created the hero costume, it was a long white, turtle-neck sweater with sleeves that were longer than it should have been. Well, it wasn't really a sweater, it was more like a romper as the material ran down mid-thigh, coming together to create shorts. I wore brown socks underneath that almost met the sweater-romper, and ankle boots that were a shade darker.

Despite being a hero costume, it didn't really look like one. The few people whom I'd pass down the street didn't give me stares as they would have if a hero were to pass by. It helped me blend in, and that was a good thing. Not because I needed to go to this place without suspicion, but because if I were to ever become a hero, this costume would have been the best thing for that.

If only Sakura's skill wasn't for waste.

By the time I found the building, I hesitated. It was probably one of the tallest buildings in all of Musutafu, Japan. My hands tightened around the long sleeves of my costume as I concentrated on my breath. I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest as sweat started to collect all over my body.

Out of all the places I could've been going into, I didn't want to go back inside that place. This was the last place I wanted to be. If I could run, I would, but then I would never see Ollie again. My little brother was in there somewhere. If I was terrified inside that building, then I couldn't imagine what he was going through. I needed to do this for him. Ollie needed me more than ever now.

Taking a deep breath, I walked inside the door, being greeted by an empty room with nothing inside. Not even a single person. I thought they would have been waiting for me, but as I looked around, there was no one, not even a single spider in the room.

As a rat, I remember crawling through the inside of the walls, but I was closer to the street than not. That meant I had to have been downstairs when I was trapped here, right? I kept that in mind as I found a door with a huge staircase on the other side. There were a lot more stairs going up than there were going down.

I held my breath as much as I could as I walked down those stairs, hoping I could find Ollie. If I was lucky enough, maybe the heroes had already taken care of Kannon and his goons, and all I had to do was look for him. It was wishful thinking as I knew it was wrong, but telling myself that little white lie helped me push through the door on the bottom floor.

Everything seemed familiar on that floor. Recognizing everything, I felt the air going thin as the temperature started to rise. My thumbs started to rub vigorously against my pointer fingers before I jerked my sleeves up to my elbows. I couldn't let fear get to me. Ollie. I was doing this for Ollie. The thought of getting him out of here and to safety was enough to calm me down, but there was still a small little voice in my head saying I was too late.

No. There was no way I could be late. I was going to get Ollie out of here. If I could prevent it, there was no way I'd let them hurt him.

Keeping that thought in the back of my mind, I took a few steps looking for Ollie. He needed me. I had to remind myself that he needed me more than anything right now. The more I told myself that, I could feel my body relax ever so slightly.

It didn't take long for me to find the door that was to the old room I was once trapped in. My hand wrapped around it, hoping this was it. I had to prepare myself for anything, but if there was one place they knew I could find him, it'd be here. I pushed the door opened, finding the room pretty much the same way it was left when I was last here. In the corner, I saw a plate of crumbs with orange juice staining the carpet. A huge rat started to scurry away as it saw me, running behind a doll that had toppled over. Dolls lined up the room, making it seem like it belonged to some little girl, not as a prison.

While everything looked the same, there was one thing that was different. On the bed with lace bed sheets was a little boy. He wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them into his chest. His chestnut colored hair flopped over his face, which was hidden behind his knees.

"Ollie," I breathed before I took off running towards him.

His head popped up, showing off a red blotchy face and bloodshot eyes. He sniffled for a moment as he looked up at me before his hand started to rub his nose. His feet slid off the bed and onto the ground.

"Tami?" His voice was hoarse, almost as if he had been crying this entire time. "You came?"

I nodded my head before I wrapped him into a hug, pulling him closer to me. My head laid on top of his as I didn't want to ever let him go. Ollie shivered under my touch. Goosebumps poked out of his skin and rubbed against the palms of my hands, begging for more warmth. I didn't realize how cold it was in here because of my hero costume, but it seemed as if nothing changed from the last time I was here.

My brother didn't deserve this. This room wasn't meant for him. It was meant to be my prison. No one should have been in this room as it felt like a walk in freezer the more time had passed. Whatever those villains wanted to achieve from freezing someone to death, I didn't want to know.

To keep Ollie from freezing up, my hands started to rub up and down his arm, using friction to keep him as warm as I could. It wasn't much help, but it was the only thing I could think of at the moment.

If only I had kept Raiden's jacket, I thought to myself. Ollie could have warmed himself up by wrapping himself in it.

That jacket was now in the 1-A classroom, laying on his desk as I figured it'd be easy for him to find it. If I couldn't get out of here by tomorrow, well, he'd need it for school, unless he had a second one.

Shaking those thoughts away, I pulled my focus back onto Ollie. "Of course I came," I answered his question. "I would never leave you. You're too special for that."

As soon as the word "special" came out of my mouth, Ollie pushed himself out of my grasp. I knelt down in front of him, seeing my little brother wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm. He just wouldn't look at me.

"Even without a Quirk?" Ollie asked.

"Oh, Ollie, you don't need a Quirk to be special. You're perfect just the way you are. Why would you ever think that?" I asked.

Ollie took in a deep breath. "Because of those villains," he told me. "They said they wanted to take my Quirk away from me, but when I said I had none, they laughed at me. They said there was nothing special about me and locked me up in here. I didn't think anyone would come for me."

I took in a deep breath before I reached my hand to touch his face. He flinched, but he didn't pull away when I turned his head to look at me.

"Listen to me, Ollie," I told him. "What I'm about to tell you, it isn't to scare you. You're a brave little boy, and I know we can make it through this."

Before I continued, Ollie nodded his head before he wiped away some of the tears and forced them to stop falling out of his eyes. As much as I wanted to smile because of how brave he was being at that moment, I couldn't. It was all because I was too afraid of what could happen.

For Ollie, I needed to be the one who wasn't afraid.

"Those villains, they find it fun to make people forget their Quirk. So for once, you're at an advantage here. They can't threaten you with that, but that doesn't mean they won't try to find other ways to hurt you," I told him.

His eyes widened when I said that. "Wait, did they take your Quirk? Is that why you don't want to be a hero?"

My lips pressed together while my hand fell from his face and onto his knee. I didn't have the strength to look at him as I looked down.

"No. I-I think they want me for another reason, Ollie," I told him.

"So you really don't want to be a hero?" Ollie asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

I shook my head. "I know it seems so cool, seeing the heroes taking down the villains in the street, or reading comic books about them saving the day, but these villains are far too dangerous. What would happen if I wasn't ready? Or if I made a mistake and something were to happen to me, and I could never see you again?"

Out of all the ways I had expected this conversation to go, I wasn't expecting him to wrap his hands around my left hand, the one that was laying on his knee. My head snapped up to him as I saw his big brown eyes looking at me. His face was unreadable.

"I don't want something to happen to you," he said. "But is it okay if I can still call you my hero?"

A small chuckle escaped my lips. "Oh, Ollie. If I can be your hero, then I'd be okay with that. I just don't want to be a hero to anyone else, okay?"

"That's okay," Ollie said.

I gave him a genuine smile before looking back, seeing the door to the room still opened wide. Here, I thought they would have been waiting for me to come inside, yet there was no one outside.

Did they not think I would find Ollie first? Did they think I would try to find them? I didn't want to know as I snapped my head towards my brother and stood up.

"We need to go," I told him. "If we can, I'm going to get you out of here and get you to safety."

Once again, my brother nodded his head as he jumped off the bed and clung to my side. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer to me. He was still shaking, but this time, I wasn't sure if it was because of the cold or if he was scared of what could happen the moment we stepped outside the room.

To be honest, he wasn't the only one. I wasn't sure how heroes could be in that line of work for so long. How was it they weren't scared? How could they push themselves to go through this kind of horror all the time? At least for me, I could do this for Ollie. I knew a way out because I got in here, but I wasn't sure if that would work.

At least I wasn't playing hero anymore. My job was to get my little brother out of here. I didn't want to think about the other alternative. The heroes should be able to come and fight the villains at that point. That was what Mr. Elastic promised me. All I had to do was find Ollie, create a distraction if needed, and leave the rest up to them.

We walked out of the room together. Like I had thought, the hallway was empty. There wasn't even a small rat that scattered around like there was in the room we were just in. I felt my heart sink a bit. Unlike last time, I couldn't make the easy escape of turning into something and crawling through a hole in the wall. This time, I had Ollie to worry about.

There was no way I was going to leave him behind.

Neither of us said a word as we tiptoed through the hallway until we found the staircase. It was the same staircase I used to get down here. I should have been eager to go through it, except something didn't feel right. The air around me started to get hot. Sweat poured down the back of my neck, making me wish my hero costume wasn't so long.

"Why are we stopping?" Ollie asked.

I didn't answer him. Instead, I looked at the door handle. All I had to do was pull it open and we could be on our way into the busy street. It seemed all too easy that I wanted to believe it was true.

The only thing holding me back was the ivory colored goo that curved onto the handle.

"We're trapped," I whispered.

I didn't need to look down at Ollie to know the expression that plastered onto his face. His hands clung tightly around my clothing as he pulled himself closer to me. My arm wrapped around his shoulder before I looked back, wishing I had just gone through that door instead.

Standing behind me was a man in a dark suit and a woman with vibrant pink hair.

"Very observant," Kannon praised as he looked at me. "You didn't actually think we'd let you leave, did you?"

Nightshade started to giggle as he said that. Her eyes looked right at Ollie, the same way a cat would look at a mouse before striking. I pulled Ollie behind me, not wanting her to get anywhere close to him.

My brother was too innocent to deal with her. He needed to leave. That door behind us was our only way for him to make it out safely. I didn't say a word as I gently pushed him towards the door, hoping he'd get the message.

"You leave him out of this," I growled. "Do whatever you want with me, but leave my brother alone."

The door behind me opened, but I knew it was because Ollie was sneaking away. If he got away, I didn't care what they would do to me. After all, I was just here to be a distraction. That was what Mr. Elastic told me. As long as I didn't give them what they wanted, I should be fine. Things had to be fine.

If only things were that easy.

I never heard the door behind me close. Instead, I just heard a shrieking noise, the same kind Ollie would make if he saw a spider in his room before begging someone to kill it. I turned around feeling everything stop.

For a moment, I forgot there were three villains I had to worry about. For a moment, I thought Ollie could make it out safely.

I was wrong.

My mouth trembled when I saw my little brother trying to struggle out of the grasp of a man three times his size. The more he did, the more the man would let his arms turn into a gooey substance that would melt onto Ollie's body, slowly turning him into a gigantic meatball with a head.

In that moment, I couldn't breath as terror had fallen into Ollie's eyes.

"Tami, Tami, Tami," Kannon's voice tsked. "You've tried my patience time and time again. You need to learn there are consequences for your actions. As long as you do exactly as we tell you to, your dear little half-brother will be fine."

"Don't listen to him!" I heard my brother scream before the man behind him slapped his hand over his mouth. It didn't stop Ollie from screaming, but it muffled the sounds and the words that he was saying.

Disappointment flooded over me. I knew Ollie would hate me for this, and unlike telling him I didn't want to be a hero, I could see him forever holding this over my head. Thing was, I wasn't kidding when I told him I'd be his hero. As long as I could keep Ollie safe, then I was happy.

Just how was I going to keep him safe if I became a hero? It didn't take long for these villains to realize he was the one person I'd do anything for. If I became a hero, they'd use him against me. A hero's job wasn't for me. I was never meant to be a hero.

I turned around, squeezing my eyes shut as I looked down at the ground. The tears were fighting their way out of my eyes, making me feel weak. What kind of hero cried? What kind of hero would do what I was about to do?

The answer: no one.

"Just leave him alone," I said. "Leave him alone, an-and I'll—I'll do whatever it is you want me too. Just don't hurt him."

There was a round of applause coming from Nightshade's hands that nearly covered the screams and protests of my brother. I couldn't look at anyone as nails dug into my arm and pulled me away.

All I could do was hope the heroes could come before the damage was done.

Author's Note:

Hello everyone, hope y'all are doing well. I'll admit, I'm publishing this chapter a lot sooner than I had planned as I was just informed that this story has reached 20K reads. Holy cow! Thank you all so much for reading, leaving your wonderful comments, and showing your support. It truly means a lot. To celebrate, this chapter has been posted, but this story will still be on hiatus until I get this story finished, edited, and other things done. My guess, with how everything has been going, it shouldn't be more than a few weeks.

Anyways, I don't think I'd be spoiling much if I said we are about to witness some fight scenes very soon. With that being said, I want to know, what was one of your favorite fight scenes from BNHA?

Character Spotlight: Oliver Davis
Quirk: None
Likes: Heroes

Song: White Palace from Hollow Knight.