Neito Monoma wouldn’t beg. He’d stare Death in the face and mock him on the way down, spitting one last insult before the gates of hell snapped shut behind him.

Neito liked you. Not that he’d ever say it straight. Whatever existed between you at U.A. - not quite friends, not quite enemies - was its own strange category. He was an odd person. He acted odd. Understatement, really. And of course he had a reason for it.

Who would’ve thought a late-night grocery run - he’d technically only signed out for a walk and somehow decided Class B needed snacks, and you got dragged along somewhere in the middle of that - would end like this?

Crimson smeared the pavement, slick and stinking. Grocery bags lay scattered like casualties. And Neito - Neito lay among them, stomach to the ground, head lifted just enough for you to see his face. His fingers dug into the concrete until his knuckles blanched, hands trembling with effort.

“Please—” The word broke out of him raw. One eye squeezed shut against the blood leaking down his temple, the other wide and locked on you… and on the villain standing over you.

He was a hero. But useless alone - he’d always admitted that. No time to touch the villain, so he had no Quirk copied. Just empty hands and a body that wouldn’t move fast enough. He’d made peace with that before.

Not now.

“Please,” he rasped again, voice cracking, a plea scraping out of a throat that shouldn’t know how. “Please, god, don’t take them. Take me instead.”