The wolf and the beast [c]

The only reaction Mikko had to the outburst was the usual flinch, though this wasn't any worse than his normal time in the schools back in Norway. He reached a hand up to put on top of Kato's arm, not trying to be threatening in his action. Even if the boy flinched away, though, the touch would be just enough. If he wanted to get his point across he had to have a little help and this anger would be the catalyst. He'd borrow it for a bit, maybe give this belligerent boy something nice in return for a little while. As he brushed Kato's limb he pulled in every vestige of anger, draining it dry as he felt it flow into his own body. As the dull red markings covered his fur, glowing like a circuit board on fire, Mikko felt the smoldering flames consume his normally deep dark sea of depression. It pulled his own buried rage to add fuel to the fire, pushing his normal reticence aside as he slammed his hands down on the counter, eyes blazing as his voice picked up.

"And just who the hell do you think you are to tell me how to feel!? You don't know me, you don't know why I'm here or how I got here, just like I don't know a DAMN thing about you besides you're seemingly a closed-minded asshole! Maybe feeling my quirk will give you a hint. Yes, I just took your anger, all of it, and in a bit I'll have changed it into something more constructive. That's ALL I can feel, when I leech the emotions off of others. I didn't live or grow up here, I did so in Norway, where my family and town called me Cursed for what I could do. My mother ignored me, my family beat me, my only friend was a wolfhound that died a few months ago. Have you ever been alone like that? No one believing in you, no one caring if you even lived, no one helping you or caring when you lay shivering in your room because your cousins took your blankets and pillows because they were too good for you? Here, let me show you something else to give you a hint!"

Putting both hands on the sides of his mask, he lifted it up with some scrapes to the side of his head. It was fitted tightly because on top of his head, just behind the left ear, was a bandage over an obvious wound that was partially caved in despite the surgery done to it. The fact that he didn't seem to be showing much from the effects of the hideous thing owed much to modern medicine. He put the skull back down in place, continuing his rant.

"I didn't WANT to do anything, I never have. Everyone says I'm useless, cursed, a leech who feeds of the misfortune of others? Well, I tried to rid this world of that problem of theirs. It wasn't MY fault someone was there to stop me from bleeding out. As far as I'm concerned, I'm living on time not my own, so I'll do what I can to help others not have to suffer like I did. It's what my father apparently expects of me, otherwise he wouldn't have asked me to take the stupid test. 'I believe in you, and I want others to believe in you too. I know you can do it, and do the world good.' What bullshit. Well, I have nothing else to do, so why not? I'll be a Hero. I'll do my best to be as good a Hero as I can. But I'm not proud of ANYTHING, least of all myself, so don't push your views onto me. I'll do my job, what is expected, and that's all that anyone wants." He stopped to breathe, the markings slowly changing the dull red towards a more gold color. Perhaps now he'd let Kato respond. Deep in the back of his mind, the part not burning with the fires of rage, he wondered what the boy felt like without a single bit of anger inside him. It'd be gone for a little while, too, though it would come back slowly in an hour or so.