This is my first BNHA story, so please be kind! Also, please note that this is gonna be confusing as hell for uh. A long time. It's got some mystery and urban fantasy thrown in, and River is actually from an original work that I'm working on, I'm mostly doing this as a sort of character study for her. It's extremely OC centric.


It is known by many that rivers are a contradiction within themselves.

Water that flowed, clean and fast and fresh, provided sustenance for those that gathered on their banks. Fish swam, flashing their silver scales through the light that filtered in. Deer and rabbits and panthers gathered and took the water into themselves. Bears hunted and trees grew tall and strong, nurtured by them.

The duality of rivers came with the rain.

When water cut too deep, when currents ran too fast and caught the unaware to drown them it was a tragic, necessary risk to take for the water. When the sky opened with its sorrow and wept down upon the land the rivers swelled with tears and rage that tore through the land and ripped asunder those not weary enough to flee and those two stuck in their ancient ways to think to leave.

River were life, and given the chance they were death.

River Kelly, River Quinton, these days, was not quite like those rivers. Mostly she gave out grades, not stabbings. Sometimes she passed a snickers out with them, when her students look a little too tired and a little too stressed.

She wasn't even that big on rivers themselves. Despite her name sake River was and always had been a city girl at heart. Ever since she left small town Oklahoma she had been in city after city. LA, NYC, London, Tokyo, Lagos, she had been everywhere in the world.

That was when she was younger, though.

Things had changed and now she was a professor of philosophy at Columbia. She was even coming up on her tenure, that night in April when the sun sunk low and red on the horizon and the shadows reached for her throat. The sky puffed out small clouds so slim they looked more like smoke than condensation, making hazy shapes for her on her walk home from the subway.

It was quiet, this close to her house. Weirdly quiet.

It was the type of quiet that came on play grounds after dark and long stretches of highway. A quiet that was not meant to exist in a city the size of hers. The hair on the back of her arms started standing on end and River began to walk faster.

Her hand dipped into her purse, wrapping around the hilt of a small knife she kept there. Her fingers brush against her dead phone as well. Dread twists inside of her. The Morrison's dog doesn't bark when she walks past, the light that always flickers when she walks beneath it stays on, glowing gold. A single point of light she stops just shy of.

Her eyes sweep across the street, over cars and cracked cement. Into the alleyways and past garbage cans. The shadows don't move.

She relaxes, slowly, willing her shoulders to stop being so tight. The toes of her shoes barely touch the single circle of light when the air around her moves, wind blowing her short hair. Red bangs flutter in front of her face and for an instant she sees only that.

A gunshot rings out.

River runs. Her heart beats in her ears and she tears down the street, under light and back into darkness. The air tastes cold and she smells the copper before she skids around the corner, so low to the ground her finger tips touch street to steady herself. The sight she somes across makes her stomach turn and her pulse beat hotter.

Three men and one women. Two of the men have one arm each and the third is covering the struggling woman's mouth. A gun smokes in his other hand. The woman isn't going down quietly, she thrashes hard, throwing her self between one man and the other and for a second River thinks she might break free.

Then, the third man drove his fist into the womans stomach and she stopped struggling. Over the mans shoulder the woman made eye contact with River and she was struck still for an instant.

Red eyes. Red, red, flashing in the dark.

She knew she should run. She knew she should call the cops, that anyone else would have done that. Something told her that if she left right then, it would be the strange woman's last night. One of the men caught sight of her and his own eyes, red, red the same color as the sunset, the same color as blood, bored into hers.

River pulls out her knife, holding it tight and narrowing her eyes at the scene before her.

"Hey!" she shouts, loud as she can. Maybe someone else will hear and call the cops. Maybe she can buy time and the woman will escape. Maybe she'll close the distance between them and stab the men.

She's contemplating the last one heavily when the third man turns to look at her. She throws the knife, fast and hard, sinking it into his skull. He should go down. He doesn't.

Her heart beats.

The woman bites him, hard. Skin breaks and he shouts, swinging with the gun. The woman ducks and it hits one of the men holding his arms and after that its over. River is stilled in her awe as the woman before her moves fast, faster than her eyes can follow. A mans head goes flying and the other two and thrown away violently in pieces. None of them rise again. One of the heads rolls to a stop before River's feet, red eyes staring up at her. Dull, lifeless.

Her heart beats again.

Heat coils tight in her guts. She's never- never seen anyone who moves that fast. Who's that strong.

She looks up, expecting the woman to be on her feet in victory or ready take down River next.

She isn't. She's on the ground, in a pool of blood that's coming mostly from her stomach. River runs to her side, falling to her knees and tearing the cloth of her jeans to soak them in the blood on the ground. There's so much of it.

She can't call an ambulance. Even if she could, it wouldn't do much good.

"Hey," she says again, quieter now, "Hey, it's gonna be okay now." She dares touch the woman's' shoulder. She's cold. Colder than ice and its burns.

River gather her in her arms.

"No," the womans voice is low and soft, the whisper of waves on a beach. It crashes into River, digs deep into her ribs. "No, it's not, but that was a good thing you did River girl," she smiles up at her. "A real brave thing."

"It didn't- I didn't even help that much," River objects. She'd stabbed a man in the head and he hadn't dropped like he should have. She'd tried to save this woman but she couldn't. She'd been too late and she'd made so many stupid mistakes. She should have gone in swinging, not drawn their attention. She should have protected-

"You're a good person, River Kelly. You got a kind heart. Remember that, would you?"

River frowns down at her. She's wrong, she's all wrong and, River never told her her name. She doesn't know what's going on.

"I owe you a favor," the woman continues.

"You don't owe me anything," River argues. The woman shakes her head. Her eyes are glassy and the sunset is fading from them. Shadows stretch across the two women.

"Then I'll give you a favor. Take it," the woman pushes her hand between River's breasts and a hot cinder wedges itself into her sternum, catching her off guard. She sucks in a sharp breath. "Tell Michael I said hello."

She lets out a breath and goes limp in Rivers arms.

River cradles her for a long few minutes, blood seeping into her clothes and growing cold. At last she kisses the strange woman on the forehead and rises, leaving the cold body to lay on the ground. It felt wrong, like she should have done something else. Something more. The whole situation feels wrong.

She stares down at the dead woman a few moments longer. The world comes back. There's noise again. The dog starts barking, a car flies past before hitting traffic that hadn't been there before, someone screams and River disappears into the night, leaving a dead woman in the cross roads.

Death has not stuck to River for a long, long time.

Not since she was seventeen, and she clung to Taro with his blood in his head and a bullet between his ribs. Not since an explosion brought down towers of iron and stone and she stood alone in the rubble, Farah's body at her feet.

She doesn't even know the woman who died.

It shouldn't hold onto her for so many days later but as she sits in the kitchen in her little house, eating dinner with Carter while Tarmac lays at her feet, chewing at a chunk of boiled chicken.

She likes her house. Normally, she feels totally at ease. There isn't anyone left in the world who could kill her, besides the person sitting across from her with his face stuffed with half of a chicken and three full potatoes.

She feels secure, surrounded by the pine cone patterned wall paper and the worn out tile. The sofa is old and lumpy and has a stain that never quite dried but she had wrestled it through the door with Carter the first day they moved in together, broken the leg and fallen on the floor in front of it laughing. The TV is new, shiny and HD and hooked up to as many game consoles and she could manage without shorting anything out.

She loves her house. She loves her fiancé. She loves her spoiled as fuck cat.

But she can't focus on it.

She can't focus on the rosemary in the chicken or the smell of the caramel candle sitting on the counter. All she can think of is sunset eyes that dimmed when the light fell.

You have a kind heart.

Her sternum throbs with the cinder sitting under the bone.

"…think? 'Vera? 'Vera!"

Her head jerked up, towards Carter. "Sorry, what?"

How long has it been since she'd been so distracted by anything she missed what other people were saying? She's getting sloppy. Complacent. Not that it really matters. No one can kill her.

Carter frowns at her, his dark eyes hard and irritated. He was always so pretty, but the scowl makes him ugly.

"I said, 'tonight the night to try those ropes, don't you think?' You haven't been listening to me all night. What's wrong with you?"

River scratches her neck, managing to look sheepish. "Sorry, I was just distracted. I'm tired-"

"Oh no!" Carter's frown turns into a scowl and he sits straight up. "You've been using this same excuse for three days, I'm tired of it. You're my fiancé, but you're not acting like one. I've been patient with your tired crap, it's been like a week River!"

River cringes. "I'm sorry! Okay? I just don't have the energy right now."

"Then just lay there and let me do my thing!"

"Carter, no," she says more firmly, frowning at him. "You're acting like a jerk."

"And you're acting like a cold bitch. I spent all day waiting for you, I even made you dinner and this is the thanks I get?!" Carter stands up so fast his chair screeches on the tiles. Tarmac yowls and runs out from under her feet, bolting to the wall and running right into it. "And your cat!" he goes on. "He's been driving me up the wall, damn it River!"

River presses her lips into a thin line and looks up at him, her eyes hardening.

"I think that's enough. I'm not dealing with this, Carter. I'm not."

Carter slams his hands on the table, sending his plate clattering to the ground and crashing to the floor. It isn't fine enough to break on impact but it got his point across.

River's heart picks up. Her ribs tighten and the cinder burns hotter.

She stares right at him.

Doesn't move. Doesn't run. Or speak. Just stares at the red creeping up his neck and the way his hands are shaking on the table. Tarmac hisses at him, fur standing on end.

The love that had filled the house with such warmth simmers off and the warmth coiled into a horrible chill that echoes in her bones. She feels sick, like throwing up, and the betrayal stings like a slap in the face.

Carter broke eye contact first. He rips his hand through his hair and glares down at her.

"I'm out of here," is all he said before he stormed away. Out of the kitchen, out of the house. The door slams behind him and River slowly tries to breath again. She blinks rapidly, tears from her eyes and finishes eating quietly before she cleans up after herself. She leaves Carter's mess on the floor and picks up Tarmac so he won't eat what Carter left behind.

She walks past their picture lined hallways, ignoring the smiling couple in front of a lake, the stack of two people on the front lawn of his mothers house. She doesn't look at the big photo snapped of him down on one knee and her hand over her mouth.

She passes all of this by and goes to lay down in her room, shutting the door firmly behind her and curling up with Tarmac stuck under one arm. Much to his chagrin.

Her cheeks are still wet when she finally fall into sleep.

She isn't sure if she actually wakes up, but she becomes away of the cinder burning in her chest and the wetness on her cheeks and the fact that she is no long asleep and no long breathing.

She tries to breath, but it doesn't really work.

It isn't dark, like she feels it should be. It's bright. Bright, orange, yellow. Tarmac curls around her shoulders, his small paws kneading into her shirt.

"Haaa, so you're the one."

Her head snapped to the side, catching onto someone standing in the corner. He's tall, dark, wreathed in shadows.

"Yep. I'm the one," she's not sure what she's the one of, but if he's here for her it's probably for a reason. She shifted on the bed, getting her knees under her and gets ready to cut him.

"So she explained to you about the favor?" the man asks. He steps into the light and she falters. His hair is made of fire. She takes a breath and settles back down, gently lifting Tarmac off of her shoulders to put him to the side. There's something wrong but she can't place it. She can only focus on the person standing in front of her. The man with fire for his hair.

"Uh. No. Do you mean…" she trails off, touching her chest where the woman had pushed the hot coal under her skin.

"Her favor, yeah," he confirms. "I'm Michael."

"Michael. Okay," she says slowly. She grips under her jaw, digging her nails in and trying to think.

"I don't think she thought you would die this soon," Michael adds.

She stiffens. "Wait, what?" her nails bite hard into her skin, pain brings out some of the clouds in her head.

"You're dead," he says, slowly. Points to her.

She looks down and sucks in a hard breath she's not sure she actually feels. Fire. Fire, orange and yellow and red cloaks her body. Underneath it everything is black. Everything. There's a pile of ash on the floor.

Her hand was covered in black lace already, but now the rest of her body is blackening to. Charring and peeling. The soot on her side is Tarmac, she realizes. She's held him to her. He hadn't been able to escape.

Tears gather in her eyes and guilt churns in her stomach.

"I don't… understand," she says, because she doesn't. There's no one who can-

"Carter," she says, just as soon as the thought crosses her mind. She closes her eyes. Rage churns her stomach. "Carter."

"He lit the house on fire," Michael confirms. She stares at the table side, watches the cover of her manga smolders. Overhaul and Izuku turn black and burn into ash in front of her very eyes. She should be in tremendous pain.

"So I died. And you're Michael. The Michael? Angel of death?" her mind flies back to the woman in the crossroads. Her red eyes. The man who didn't go down when she buried a knife in his head. She'd never failed to kill someone before.

She was, after all, the Red River.

"You got my number. You're… not a very good person," he says, and she has to agree. She's not. She doesn't think she ever has been.

"So. Hell?" she guesses. She holds Tarmac again to her chest, feeling only worse when his rough tongue touched her cheek. She had held him down while he burned to death.

"Normally, yes," Michael steps closer to her. The fire in his hair reaches out and consumes part of his face. When the shadows twist she realizes she can see wings too. Six of them, spread behind him in a phantom stretch. "But, you're owed a favor."

"I don't know what that favor is supposed to be," she admits. She's not sure why she got the favor in the first place. She was no use, in the end.

"You didn't let her die alone," Michael says after a minute. "You didn't have to. You even tried to save her. Just because you didn't succeed doesn't mean it wasn't worth anything. To her, it was worth a favor. One of seven."

"Who was she?" River has to ask. She wants to know. She had to know about the woman with the burning eyes who died in the arms of a stranger. The woman she let die in the crossroads.

Michael just looks at her. "Your favor. I can't let you stay on this mortal plane, you're too much trouble."

River closes her eyes and tries to think. To understand everything that's going on. It's hard. She doesn't have enough information, she doesn't know-

She hasn't been this helpless in so many years and it makes her hands shake.

"That's fine. These past few years… all I've been doing is trying to escape, anyhow," she admits. The walls are burning but they've covered in books. Tamora Pierce, K.M. Shae, P.C. Cast, Christine Warren and manga. So much manga. Sometimes it felt like she was trying to make up for the teenage years she was never really allowed to have. She was stuck as 17, but she never really had been.

"Huh. I can work with that," Michael announced, standing straighter. "Actually, that's easy. We can even twist this into a life lesson on repentance."

"… okay now you've lost me," River admits. Tarmac seems to know what's going on, because he starts purring his fuzzy butt off.

Michael reaches for her night stand and picks up the ashes of her My Hero Academia volume 14. It was ashes, but in his hands it becomes a novel once more.

"You'll enroll in a hero course and spend your life working to better humanity. A shot at redemption bought by an act of kindness towards a stranger. Perfect. Heck, I'm good!"

Michael grins at her and she's too caught off guard to say anything to that when his smile warms her from the inside out and fills her with a hope that nearly breaks her heart. Under her ribs the Favor simmers, beating a fire that rivals the flames that consume the world around her.

"What about Tarmac?" she asks swiftly, holding her precious cat to her chest.

Michael makes eye contact with the feline for a moment before he nods decisively. "He'll stay with you, and keep and eye on you for me."

The fire inside and the fire outside get bigger and bigger until she can't take it anymore and she has to close her eyes and look away from Michael, who's human visage had been melting. More eyes flashing into existence, a head hovering over his shoulder where it hadn't been before. The heat beats into her like drums, hotter, hotter, hope rages within her bones.

It vanishes.

She opens her eyes and she's sitting in a bedroom that doesn't belong to her.

Michael is gone, the fire is gone, Carter is long gone. The room is empty and beige, devoid of anything save the bed and a closet. And a small black cat sitting at the foot of her bed, looking utterly smug.