This oneshot was written by the 2nd place winner of my writing contest Nacatu
Hope you enjoy this oneshot! Again, I got permission to repost her work. Much like the last author, you can expect her to monitor the comments so make sure to leave her good words!

Here, helpless and tired under your boot was the new, up and coming hero Red Riot. He had exhausted his quirk as you'd assumed he would, but was still fighting to get up against the strength of your selective gravity quirk. 

Luckily, within this dusty battlefield of rubble and tumbling buildings, you couldn't see anything farther than eight feet in front of your face, meaning neither did anyone else. Almost guaranteeing you that no hero would or could interfere. 

His eyes were inching shut while he grit his abnormally sharp teeth. His effort was valiant, just as the many hero's that found themselves in this position before him were. Nothing less was expected from such a determined soul, but the more he struggled with himself to somehow overcome the power pinning him on his back, the more gravity you enhanced down upon him. At this point you both were in a gradually lowering crater about three inches deep, cracks in the cement crept outwards feverishly.

You couldn't help but crack a smile too. "You ought to calm down, Red." Your voice was amused and playful despite being distorted from behind your blank, full face mask. You placed your fists on your hips, bending forward to get a better look at his grimacing face.

You were only met with a glare as his struggling body shifted in and out of his hardening quirk. 

"Hm.. not in the talking mood eh?" You mused. "Or could it be that you can't waste the little oxygen you can get into your lungs?" He was crushed farther into the cement again, forcing a painful grunt out of his body.

A mad cackle erupted from you. "AHHaahAHHAHAh.. oh, you are just as disappointing as the rest. I guess nobody can ever handle the pressure of a hero gig. They always crack." You pressed your foot down as an unseen smirk twisted across your face. "One way or another." 

To your mild surprise the red headed hero finally mustered out some type of retort. "You're scum." He spat, his leg twitched in some type of effort to get up while raggedly pulling in breath.

A frown pulled across your face. "Is that what you see?" You asked, digging your heel into his chest. "How odd, because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're the scum on the sole of my boot.

"How skewed is your perception of the world around you that you can't see the situation you're in?" You tipped your head to the side. "Truly embarrassing." 

"You're the embarrassment, L/n." He barked, firing himself up even more. 

You simply rolled your eyes, accompanied by a bored sigh, before putting your feet on either side of him and squatting down, overtop his stomach. Your hands lazily held your face steady as you stared at him. His bright eyes never fail in tracking you. 

"Thought you'd shake me up by using my name, eh?" Your tongue clicked softly in a sickeningly condescending manner. "Very scary, Red." 

Truthfully, it did take you by surprise that he knew your name, or even remembered you at all. You figured you'd long since faded from his memory, you were only children afterall.

"No, you give heroes a bad name." He grunted angrily, body frantic to move even a little.

Unfazed you reached to the top of his head of spiky hair, feeling about the stands like petting a dog. "Please, heroes don't need my help with that." You mused as the hand slid down to his cheek before patting it roughly a few times. "That’s something anyone with a brain can see." 

He attempted to jerk his head away from your hand. "You were a hero too!" 

Another thing to ponder for a few awkwardly long seconds, humming and hawing until snapping your fingers. "Oh, yes that's right. How could I forget? My little one year romp at Ketsubutsu." 

With little more than a hum you placed your chin on your knuckles. "Honestly Red, I wouldn't consider that being a hero so you probably shouldn't either."

"But you were a hero! Y-You were good!" He grunted through his grit teeth, the glare that stayed persistent on his face had a small softness to it. His anger was turning into bargaining. Strange, shouldn't it be depression next?

"Hm, was I now?" You lifted the pressure off him just a little, relieving his tightening lungs. You dropped yourself to his stomach, legs straddling his sides. "I don't believe you really knew me as well as you thought." 

His arms struggled a bit more, now given allowance to shuffle about ever so slightly. "You... Don't remember?" He frowned at you, yet a soft sympathy laced his voice. "No, you remember." The pitying look in his eyes started to mix with a dangerous determination. "You came to school hurt."

You knew where this was going. The ghost of a familiar, painful throbbing you’d so often received began to push against the back of your right eye. A feeling of dread swam in your stomach, shaking you to the core.

"You should be careful of what you say next, Red." A warning growl left your tensing lips, as your blank mask stared down at him.

He persisted, hearing a glimmer of humanity in you made him manage the smallest of smiles. "I asked if you were okay." 

Your muscles reflexively clenched as you tried your best to keep your composure. "Stop it."

The softness and vulnerability that started to blossom across his face made you shrink. The fond expressions of this childhood friend were shaking you more than you could have expected. "You know what you said to me?" He asked through a gentle, breathless laugh.

"Shut up!" You pressed him down into the pavement even more, cracks spewed out in every direction. A dry dust cloud plumed up into the rest of the thick air while the crushing sound of cement under the hero almost drowned out the distant fighting. Your hands that now rested on his struggling chest were tight fists, pressing down with hardened knuckles.

He fought back the urge to let all the air out of his lungs. His eyes lifted to your emotionless mask, and you knew despite the very real possibility of him not getting that air back, he was going to keep talking.

"You said you'd fight so what happened to you doesn't happen to anyone ever again." His proclamation was firm and optimistic. 

You bristled at the old vow he had the balls to repeat to you. Feelings bubbles as memories flooded in, uninvited and colder than you remembered them being.

"You inspired me to be stronger, for the people I love!" He wheezed out, fully smiling at you.

"I said Shut Up!" Fuelled on nothing but unadulterated rage, a tight fist was brought cracking down against his face.

The boy went silent.

As you stared down at his unconscious being, no longer shifting in and out of hardening, you realized what you'd done. There was a ghostly break in his skin under his right eye.

A pang of horror snapped against your heart as you scrambled off of him, lifting the pressure off as you went. You immediately went to work on protecting your psyche.

This is progress. This is all for a reason. 

Laboured breath. 

You can't rid the world of people like that man if you work on a hero's side. Remember?

You remembered. 

He hurt you, you were a child! He hurt good people for himself.

...But, Red is good. 
So what does that make me?

Despite how many times you tried to explain away your guilt, this time it wasn't as cut and dry as you could usually make it seem. You knew Kirishima, so saying he was a bad guy would be the biggest lie of the century.

I'm still honouring that vow! I-I kill who deserve it.

Kirishima didn't deserve what you did to him.

This is for the greater good!

Taking a moment to mull that point over was sticky, unclean.

You stared down at your bruising knuckles. "Is that... how he justified hurting me?" 

How ironic.

Manic laughter burst from your lungs. You couldn't help it, the intense hatred for that man reeled back onto your self image in such a strong way that the only thing to keep you from crying was laughter.

The sharp inhale between each bark of hysterics culminated in the most lightheaded feeling, distorting and spinning your vision. 

Still, in spite of your best efforts, tears managed to slip from your eyes. 

The warmth behind the mask was smothering your newly burning lungs, ending up forcing your hand. With an ungraceful pair of hands, a rough tug and yank whipped it off of your heated face. 

So quickly this old friend found his way under your skin. So easily he showed what you turned into.

Maybe you had a feeling, deep down, that you really weren't going about this the right way. Kirishima was just a sobering confirmation of it.

Kirishima...

Your blurry eyes lifted from your hand to his limp body.

Fuck.

You crawled towards him hurriedly, scuffing and scratching your knees on the broken slabs of concrete that bowed down towards him.

The shiner that started to form on his eye roused guilt like nothing before. 

Quivering hands grabbed at his wrists, frantically feeling for a pulse whilst simultaneously trying to regain the level headed front you boasted most of the time. 

Finding no beat of any kind, you tossed his hand away and carefully placed your head against his battered chest, diligently listening for any sign of his heart.

There. 
Deep, far away.
A faint pumping. 
He wasn't dead, just out cold.

You grunted, closing your eyes while shifting back onto your calves. With that out of the way and a calmer psyche, you took this opportunity to assess just how many hits he'd gotten from the violent fights he endured. There were cuts just about everywhere, along with a multitude of bruises forming along his torso, no doubt from a few broken ribs.

His chest falls were mild at best.

You took a quick look around. Nobody in sight to see either of you and the far off explosions told that you both were now far removed from the battle at hand. There was no way they'd find him in time out here.

"... shit." Curses started to pour out while your fists bunched some fabric of your pants tightly, begrudgingly peering over at Red Riot. Regardless of your Villain alignment, you lightened the weight of gravity on the hero. 

His body lightened as his back rose off the ground a bit in the low gravity around him. Like he was captured in a tractor beam.

This lowered pull alleviated any intense pain he may be feeling in his body and made scooping him up into your arms much easier than it may have been before. 

His hair swayed about as if underwater, unbridled by gravity. It was surprisingly hypnotic, like a sea urchin with soft spines being influenced by every little wave and current flowing by.

"Okay, listen up, Red. I'll get you back to your team and we'll forget about all of this." You said, hoping that maybe he was in there somewhere, able to hear what you said. But, honestly this was more just you trying to convince yourself this would make your stance as a villain go back to normal if this encounter went completely ignored. 

Along with possibly making it up to him for the beating you gave him, especially after he had already been totally spent. But that was a bit of a stretch for you to ever admit. 

Venturing out into the thick dust cloud with Kirishima limp in your arms made a smile brighten your face like a sunbeam on a cat. He looked like he was dreaming of something, the way his eyebrows twitched every once and awhile with his sharp teeth being as haunting as the war zone around.

He could definitely tear out somebody's jugular with those chompers, if he ever felt inclined too that is.

You continued in silence, avoiding the eyes of either side engaged in combat. 

This place was utterly demolished. Just about everything that landed in the wake of these heroes and villains was destined to meet such a dismal fate. Cracks traced every bit of the decimated city, fronts of stores and boutiques were nearly unrecognizable clumps of ruins caved in on themselves, and the dust that was settling was something only a black hole could clean.

There were fairly muddled sounds of fighting up ahead, which would have made this task close to impossible if you were unable to distinguish who was who on sound alone. 

That was if it weren't for the suddenly incessant 'DIE's from that explosive blonde Kirishima appeared to be fairly close with.

You gently set him down on a large, tilted piece of building that was decorated with a multitude of rebar rods sticking from just about everything around.

Taking a moment, you savoured having an old friend from your past life here with you again before things went so messy. He may very well hold the last bit of that Y/n that's left.

You squatted beside him and tentatively brushed a hand over his head before tracing it down to his cheek, patting it a few times in a way that may almost be compared to affection. 

"You hang in there, Eijiro." 

His brows knit closer together as his eyelids flickered, only open enough to peek through. His vermillion eyes slid in your direction, thoroughly dazed. 

You smirked half heartedly as your thumb rubbed back and forth over the skin from the apple of his cheeks to the sharp bend in his jaw. 

His eyes widened a fraction at the touch, then even more at sight before him. You without your mask. Like you were never touched by battle even once.

You stood up, still looking down at his badly battered frame with a sigh. "Until next time, Red Riot."

Finally taking your eyes off of him, you turned your attention towards the fog where you last heard Bakugou screaming bloody murder. You cupped your hands around your mouth. 

"Help me! Help please!" You did your best to sound like a scared civilian, hoping that since without the mask, your voice might sound different enough for a hero to show up and not think it's a trick.

You didn't really have the choice to stick around and find out though. 

You turned back to Eijiro who was still staring at you, utterly confused with a tiny, unsure smile. 

"Don't look at me like that, Red. We're even now. Nothing is different from how it was before." You said placing a fist on your hip.

The redhead chuckled weakly, obviously not believing a single word. "Okay, okay. Whatever you say." His smug grin was almost too much to handle.

A glare met him as you were about to argue further, until the sound of rushing footfalls came into ear shot. You took this as your cue to go, bolting off the way you came and taking the lighter gravity that enveloped Kirishima with you. only managing to exit his view mere seconds before Uravity made it onto the scene.

He was safe now. 

And for the first time in a long time, you were absolutely certain you did a good thing.