Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The morning of UA’s entrance ceremony found Musutafu City drenched and miserable.

The student body moved in tight formation toward the doors of Training Gym Alpha, crouched beneath somber black umbrellas or huddled inside their plastic ponchos. They were quiet, or they seemed it, their voices muffled by shock and grief or the spattering of rain on nylon.

Shinsō Hitoshi hung towards the back of the procession, feeling displaced and deeply uncomfortable, like a splinter lodged in the palm of a giant hand. He couldn’t help but grip his umbrella tightly, though his wrists were tender and aching. His eyes smarted from lack of sleep, and he was hyperaware of the band-aid sitting stiff on his cheek.

Hitoshi’s heart fluttered with anxiety, like a bird in a cage.

He had shaken off his new classmates almost as soon as he left the 2-A homeroom, hanging back while the rest of them hurried on ahead. Hitoshi wanted to find members of the newly minted 2-C – the kids who had unexpectedly embraced him after the previous year’s Sports Festival and who threw him a cheeky going-away party once his course transfer had been finalized – but they were nowhere to be seen.

Still, it was almost a relief to be back on campus after nearly a month home. 

Everybody from General Ed had been ushered home in a hurry two weeks before the end of the previous semester, just a day or two before their teachers and Hero Course peers shipped out to Jaku City. Hitoshi hadn’t been prepared for the change. One minute, he was studying English sentence structures and getting his ass handed to him daily by Mr. Aizawa; the next, he was throwing his dirty laundry into a suitcase and running to catch a bullet train bound for Saitama.

Hitoshi had moved through those interminable spring days with an aimless fury. He barely kept up with the sporadic assignments sent to him via email. He found he couldn’t sit still long enough to conjugate Korean verbs or memorize anatomical structures. Instead, he spent hours on end either doomscrolling or training, both of which he did with a fervor bordering on the religious.

In that time, Hitoshi had taught himself to scale the side of his childhood home and knocked five seconds off his best kilometer run. He spent his nights riding his bicycle until his legs ached and he was so far out in the countryside that he couldn’t get cell service. Sometimes he wouldn’t get home until the sun was beginning to rise.

In his final exams, which 1-C took online, Hitoshi came in fifth in his class. He’d ranked fourth in his midterms, he remembered with a snarl, though he had also studied for his midterms. The day after the results came in, Hitoshi lied to his parents over dinner, dutifully telling them he’d come in third and staring at the lump of rice and puddle of curry he’d left untouched on his plate. 

It was strange to suddenly be around so many people. 

Hitoshi checked his phone. Nothing new.

Inside the gym, it was tropically humid and the vibe could have curdled milk. Hitoshi’s shirt stuck to his back.

Behind the microphone and Nedzu’s podium stood a pile of white flowers and a photograph of Kayama Nemuri, the late Pro Hero Midnight.

In the aftermath of Jaku City, the Shinsō household, like those of all UA students, received an email informing of Midnight’s death. It contained no information that hadn’t already been reported in the papers, but as she read the message, Hitoshi’s mother had clutched his hand so hard his joints popped. She said nothing. All Hitoshi could do was bite back his grief and carry on.

Now, the makeshift shrine was like a pin pushing into his chest.

Hitoshi looked away from it and began searching the crowd for class 2-A, for the open space beside Yaoyorozu Momo, for student number twenty one.

“Shinsō! Where were you? We need to stay together as a class –“ 

Class Rep Iida’s class rep voice carried across the gym with astonishing accuracy, as if he had shouted directly into Hitoshi’s ear. Hitoshi saw his square head sticking a few inches over the tops of nearly everyone else’s, his rigid arm karate-chopping in his direction. Hitoshi waved a finger in response and took his place with his new class.

The microphone squealed and six hundred heads turned to attention as Principal Nedzu climbed the podium.

“Hello, students,” he began, the usual joviality barely present in his lilting voice, “it is I, your beloved principal. This ceremony is typically a celebration, but today, it will serve as a memorial, and a reminder, of sorts, of the danger and sadness that is ever present in our world. Recently, our society has faced a tragedy beyond all measure, and UA has suffered uniquely the loss of our esteemed faculty member, Midnight. Hers was not the only heroic life lost due to recent events – nineteen Pro Heroes and countless others whose everyday actions contained tiny, ordinary heroic moments were also lost in the battle – but her death will be felt deeply here in our school, our home. In the wake of this, and other devastating incidents that have occurred recently across Japan, I am urging students, especially those in our heroics courses, to remain safe and vigilant.”

Hitoshi scanned the gym. The faculty stood in a row beside the podium, decked out in mourning clothes rather than their hero costumes. They were barely recognizable in their sober, black suits. Neither Mr. Aizawa, nor the different person he resembled when clean shaven, was present in the line.

It had been more than a month since he last responded to one of Hitoshi’s texts.

“Your instructors are here to teach you, to keep you safe, but they are not infallible, nor are they indestructible, though they may seem so at times. Each and every one of you will sooner or later find yourself in a position where your own ingenuity, strength and courage will be all you have to carry you through. Many of you already have. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you as you head into this new semester. Ours is a vastly different world now than it was a year ago, and as students of UA, you are the ones responsible for carrying it further beyond… but no pressure! <3”

After the ceremony, 2-A made its way to the locker rooms. Hitoshi kept his head down as he changed into his PE uniform and wrapped his capture scarf loosely around his neck. As the rest of the boys talked amongst themselves, Hitoshi perched on the edge of the bench and checked his phone. No new messages.

He opened his chat with Mr. Aizawa. His last message to his teacher was from the day before – “Are we meeting tomorrow?” – and the only response – “Read: 7:15PM.”

It had been like that since they were sent home at the abrupt end of the previous school year. He would text Aizawa, and the only hint that Aizawa was still alive would be the read receipt, updated no more than five or ten minutes later. This was a certain kind of relief, but Hitoshi hardly felt soothed. Somewhere along the line, he had heard that Aizawa was injured, but never anything further. Driven by curiosity, anxiety, or loneliness, he would find himself refreshing his messages over and over again, waiting for the read receipt or the response that never ended up coming.

“Hi, Shinsō.”

Hitoshi looked up, his phone slipping through his fingers and falling to the floor with a sickening thwap . Midoriya Izuku stood over him, arms both in braces, a little smile on his freckled face.

“Hi, Midoriya,” Hitoshi said, sliding to his knees. 

“Congrats, dude.” Midoriya crouched beside him. He scooped up the phone in his scarred hand and passed it to Hitoshi. “Looks like you made it.”

“Thanks,” Hitoshi muttered as he inspected his phone. Despite the chilling sound of glass slapping against the floor, the screen was undamaged. “I guess I did.”

Midoriya grinned again.

“I think we’re overdue for a re-match,” he said, and oh boy , if it didn’t take every ounce of self-control Hitoshi had to not activate his quirk right there, just for old times’ sake.

“Whenever you’re feeling up to it,” Hitoshi said instead. The words seemed to stick in his throat. “I’m not going to be as easy to get this time. I’ve been practicing.”

Clearly not at conversation, though…

“Cool. I can’t wait.”

Midoriya didn’t seem to notice. There was a touch of mania tucked just behind his enthusiasm. His easy smile was interwoven with a hint of brittle intensity.

“You two lovebirds coming, or what?”

Suddenly, Hitoshi was aware of Kaminari Denki looming over them both.

“Yeah,” Midoriya said as he pushed himself to his feet.

“Come on, new kid.” 

Kaminari held out his hand to Hitoshi, who ignored it. 

The rain had tapered off, giving way to a fine mist that left the air wet and cool. Goosebumps rose on Hitoshi’s bare arms as he walked with them towards Gym Gamma. He wondered if Kaminari had clocked Midoriya’s spooky smile, or if Midoriya had clocked the dark circles under Kaminari’s eyes. He wondered if either of them had noticed how fucking nervous he was.

There’s something sick, Hitoshi thought, about getting exactly what you’ve wanted under the worst possible circumstances. 

Nationally, anxiety was at an all time high. In the time since Jaku City, crime rates had spiked. News outlets had spent the past weeks reporting that Shigaraki was dead and the PLF had all been arrested, but Hitoshi knew enough, at the very least, to question that. There was a stark difference between what people read and what they saw around them, and with every press release, the Hero Public Safety Commission did nothing to smooth that divide.

For Hitoshi, personally, anxiety was on a high as well. The excitement he had felt upon his acceptance to the Hero course spent the interim gradually curdling into nerves. He’d been working so hard - how long was it until his new classmates realized he was completely out of his depth? Or, alternately, how long before general paranoia leaked into 2-A and found a target in the token villain of the group?

He scratched at the bandage on his cheek. The wound beneath was almost healed, but Hitoshi had idly picked off the scab that morning and it had once again begun to bleed. A week earlier, some tough he’d gone to middle school with had thrown a bottle at him in the park. It hit Hitoshi’s face with explosive power, raining glass and fresh blood onto his fleece jacket.

The dude was twice his size with some kind of strength quirk to match, but he was terrified by the sight of Hitoshi doing pull-ups twenty feet away. Even from that distance, Hitoshi could see the fear in him.

God forbid Hitoshi be allowed to get too comfortable in his own life. He had texted Aizawa about it just after. No reply.

God, he thought, What would he say to Aizawa?

Four weeks of worry and hurt built in his throat. He clenched his jaw to swallow it back down. It had been four weeks of alternately wanting to scream at Aizawa, wanting to cry into his teacher’s scarf, and wanting to act out indiscriminately like he had as a child.

Now that the moment was here, but the will had left him.

“You okay?”

Kaminari held the gym door part way open, and he looked back at Hitoshi with concern.

“Yeah, sorry,” Hitoshi muttered, squeezing past him and into the building. Kaminari patted Hitoshi’s back as the door swung shut behind them. The rest of the class had gathered in a knot near the entrance, and Kaminari hurried to Jirō’s side, where he gently bumped her left hip with his right. Hitoshi watched as she turned, grinning, and gave him a playful, full-body shove. Midoriya moved to the front of the group, with Iida to his left and Uraraka to his right. 

The door burst open again. 

“We are here!” All Might announced as he entered the gym. He was still in his black suit. Cradled in his long, skinny arms was a giant red box with Principal Nedzu’s face emblazoned on the front. Mr. Yamada - Present Mic, not Aizawa - came in behind him. He had exchanged his sharp suit for his hero costume, but his long hair was still tied in a loose, silky bun. It was a strange look, like someone else’s head pasted onto Present Mic’s body. 

“Helloooooo students!” Casual Mic said. He passed Hitoshi, meeting his eye as he strode to All Might’s right hand. “Are all you listeners out there ready for some Heroics! class! action!??”

“Actually, today we’re mainly going to be taking care of some… housekeeping!” All Might corrected with a smile, rattling the box, clacking the lottery balls inside together. Mic’s face fell, his mouth open and his enthusiastic finger frozen in mid-air. All Might somehow grinned even bigger. “And then some action!”

Present Mic pumped his fist.

“Excuse me, All Might?” Midoriya cut in.

“Young Midoriya, yes?”

“Where is Mr. Aizawa? Will he be here today?”

“Mr. Aizawa will be out until the end of the week!” Present Mic explained. “All Might or I will be filling in as your homeroom teacher in the meantime, so you all had better be on your best behavior but, you know, still ready to get rowdy, ya dig?”

Hitoshi did not dig. 

He felt his heart drop, Mic’s words almost knocking the wind out of him. He stared down at his hands. They were bruised and scraped from a month of training. Two of his fingernails were discolored by blood blisters and the rest had begun to yellow. Were people looking at him? Could they tell he was disappointed? Did they expect him to be? Hitoshi couldn’t bring himself to look up again to find out.

“So, today,” All Might said, “We are going to start by drawing pairs for the first group event of the semester - what Aizawa, Present Mic, and I will be referring to as the ‘Teamwork Exercise and Training Study’ or for short, the T.E.A.T.S.!”

Present Mic’s eyes widened like somebody had stepped on his foot. There was a titter of confusion and amusement from the class. All Might seemed to realize what he had done a moment too late.

“Or, we will call it – the ‘Teamwork Exercise’. Settle down. It’s not that funny. I am going to be randomly grouping you together for this extended exercise. Each of you will be randomly partnered with one or two classmates and you will spend time in the next two weeks acclimating yourselves to each other’s fighting styles and learning to work as a pair”

Hitoshi tore his eyes away from his fingernails and began mentally cataloging who he absolutely did not want to be stuck in a group with. Asui Tsuyu raised her hand.

(He’d work with her.)

“All Might?” 

“Yes, Young Asui.”

“Many of us already have experience working closely in groups. Ochaco and I have been doing our work studies together since last year. You said the pairings were random, but wouldn’t it make sense to put people who already work well together into teams?”

“That is a fair point,” All Might said, “The purpose of this exercise, however, is to work with someone with whom you are less familiar. In the future, you may end up fighting alongside all manner of people, many of whom will be new to you. I want you to learn to adapt to working with anyone, at any time. For the most part, you’ve all become very close since last year, but we want to strengthen your one-on-one skills. Simultaneously, Mr. Aizawa-”

“Or me!” Present Mic chimed in.

“Or Present Mic, yes, will be teaching an in-depth into practical hero law – concepts you probably already use every day but haven’t formally learned. The school has decided it is extremely important to make sure you are aware of the law so that when you eventually need to protect yourselves –“

All Might seemed to look straight at Midoriya.

Maybe, but God, he didn’t want to.

“-you also have the knowledge to protect yourself legally. Does this make sense?”

Someone scoffed in the middle of the group. Bakugo. ( Absolutely fucking not. )

All Might ignored it. Present Mic didn’t seem to hear. 

“Our aim for the next two weeks is to teach you the legal concepts you need to stay out of any… avoidable trouble, and to reinforce your collaborative skills. Then, you will all be tested in a surprise scenario.”

That sent the class buzzing, and Present Mic seized on the renewed energy.

“All right, listeners! Let’s everybody get in a line and grab a lotto ball from All Might over here.”

Hitoshi settled into the end of the line, behind Todoroki and Sero, watching as each of his new classmates pulled a brightly colored ball from the box.

“What do you think the scenario will be?” Sero ( Yeah , Hitoshi could work with Sero) asked Todoroki quietly. Todoroki shrugged and turned to HItoshi.

 (Ugh, no, Hitoshi thought, except that did mean he wouldn’t end up on the receiving end of any of the terrifying shit Todoroki had pulled at the Sports Festival or joint training exercise).

“What do you think?”

“I have no idea,” Hitoshi said.

“Shinsō, you’ll probably be OP in this,” Kaminari ( sure! ) called from ahead of Sero. “Since we don’t know what the setting is - All Might said law, so what if we have to break out of jail or something like that?”

“We won’t have to break out of jail ,” Sero responded.

“How do you know?” Kaminari asked, and Jirō, ahead of him, elbowed him in the ribs with one arm as she reached into the box with her other hand. ( Yes , Hitoshi allowed, he would like to work with Jirō).

“Do you ever listen to yourself talk?” she deadpanned, withdrawing a baby blue lottery ball. “It’s a serious question.”

Kaminari groaned and stuck his hand into the box.

“All Might, is the scenario gonna be us breaking out of jail?

All Might’s smile became strained.

“I can’t tell you, young man. That’s what a secret is.”

“Ah, I know, I’m just messing around,” Kaminari replied with an astonishingly straight face.  He pulled out a pink ball and held it in the air. “Who’s got pink?”

Koda Koji’s giant, blocky hand held his comparatively tiny, hot pink lottery ball aloft.

“Yeah, my man!” Kaminari exclaimed as he hurried to him.

Ah, well .

Sero reached in and withdrew a yellow ball without incident. Todoroki’s was white.

Finally, Hitoshi stepped up in front of All Might.

“I’m glad to see you here, Young Shinsō,” All Might said.

It was almost embarrassing to admit to himself, but Hitoshi was still getting used to the idea that All Might was his teacher. That the very same All Might who he’d grown up watching haul people out of burning buildings on television had sent him an email a few days before containing a list of everything he would need for heroics class, written in ALL CAPS. (“A GREAT ATTITUDE, A SMILE, UNWAVERING COURAGE, GYM SHOES.”)

Hitoshi had received the message while he was perched unsteadily atop a streetlamp in his neighborhood. His heart had leapt when he saw All Might’s name – ALL MIGHT, of all people! – in the sender section. The moment was ruined somewhat when Hitoshi, utterly starstruck, lost his footing and slipped from his roost, suddenly dangling upside down like a deranged piñata as his phone dropped into the brush below.

He had spent ten minutes feeling around for it in the dark once he managed to get himself down.

Hitoshi nodded.

“Thank you, sir.”

He reached into the box and felt around for a moment before pulling out the last ball. Red.

“Shinsō,” Present Mic said in an oddly soft voice. Hitoshi looked at him. He looked exhausted, like everybody else. “Come speak with me after class, okay?”

“Yeah,” Hitoshi responded, frowning. “Is everything okay?”

Present Mic nodded.

“Definitely. We’ll talk later.”

Hitoshi craned his neck towards the group. The rest of the class seemed to have already found their partners. Sero forced a grin as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Aoyama. Ojiro and Uraraka stood, both clutching purple balls, in front of Shoji and Mineta.

“This kind of looks like it came from your head,” Ojiro remarked with a cringe. He held his ball in Mineta’s direction.

In the far corner of the gym, Bakugo and Yaoyorozu already seemed to have started arguing. At least I’m not in her position , Hitoshi thought as Bakugo threw a small, controlled explosion at Yaoyorozu, which Yaoyorozu blocked with a massive stop sign that grew from her arms.

“Looks like it’s you and me again, Shinsō.”

Hitoshi felt a hand on his shoulder and he swung around. Behind him, Midoriya buzzed with uncanny energy and showed him a cherry red ball.

All things aside, it wasn’t that Hitoshi even minded being teamed up with Midoriya, he thought as they sat thirty feet above the ground on a concrete outcrop. Midoriya had pulled a Campos notebook out of… somewhere… and flipped through it with a single-minded fury.

Hitoshi respected him. Liked him, even. They just had history

“I’m actually really excited to be working with you,” Midoriya said, not looking up from his notes.

“ ’Actually’ ?"

“Sorry.” He flattened out the pages and clicked open a pen. “I didn’t mean it like that – I’ve been curious about your quirk since we first met, and I think it’s really cool that you’ve been working with Mr. Aizawa.”

Hitoshi turned to look over the edge of the outcrop. Directly below them, Todoroki had someone backed up against the wall.

“Thanks,” he replied quickly, as if to shuffle Aizawa out of his mind. “Who’s Todoroki working with?”

“Uhh…” Midoriya peeked over the edge as well. “I think that’s Tokoyami down there. Weird. It should be cool to see what they end up doing, though. Tokoyami’s quirk is so naturally opposed to Todoroki’s fire side, but they’re both so strong…”

Midoriya trailed off, like he wanted to say something else. Hitoshi snuck a glance at Midoriya’s notebook. It was open to a page with Hitoshi’s name at the top and a rough illustration of him and Aizawa. He tried to read the rest of the notes, but Midoriya’s handwriting was too small to read at a distance.

“They seem to get along well, from what I’ve seen,” Hitoshi offered blandly, tensing his fingers against the ground as the outcrop began to vibrate in response to whatever they were doing on the ground.

“Hmm.”

Midoriya didn’t seem to notice as he crouched back over his notebook, his braced arms propped stiffly at his sides.

“So, the goal for now is to prepare to be tested together in a mystery setting, which is pretty exciting in itself. Despite what All Might said about working with new people, you and I are actually at a bit of an advantage, albeit a lesser one than I would have had were I randomly paired with, say, Todoroki--” he nodded in the direction of whatever was happening thirty feet below, “-- Or Kacchan –“

“Why?” Hitoshi interjected. 

“I’ve known Kacchan forever,” Midoriya said, scanning his notes. “He, Todoroki, and I all interned with Endeavor last year. We’ve also done a lot of fighting together –“

Hitoshi cut him off. “Not them – what’s the advantage for you and me?”

Midoriya frowned and set the notebook down beside him on the concrete.

“I know we’ve only ever been paired up as opponents, but remember? You and Uraraka saved me. And also –“ he paused, a strange look on his face. He flexed his hands. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that my power can be pretty unpredictable.”

Hitoshi thought back, just for a second, to the blind panic he felt as Midoriya flew after him during the joint training exercise, tentacles of dark energy thrashing at the end of his arm. 

“Yeah.”

“And I’m not sure how much you saw on the news from the battle against the Front –“

“A lot,” Hitoshi said. “They didn’t show much footage of you, but they talked about you, and Todoroki, and Bakugō… Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, Midnight - ”

He cut himself off. It was as if he didn’t realize he would say her name until it was out of his mouth and hovering between them. He took a deep breath. The air in the gym tasted like wet clay.

Midoriya cut back in.

“Anyway, twice now, you’ve been there when something…” He cocked his head, as if searching for the right word, “…interesting happened. First the Sports Festival.”

“The Sports Festival was pretty ‘interesting’ for me, as well,” Hitoshi said, with air quotes. He’d never had anyone break themselves out of his power on their own before. He had been terrified then, too. After seeing what Midoriya had done in his fight with Todoroki, though, Hitoshi was furious with himself that he had only come armed with his quirk and his right hook.

I could have died. He could have killed me.

“Yeah – as I was saying, though, the advantage is we already have a combo move –“

“You wasting me on live TV?” Hitoshi interrupted. He could feel himself starting to get defensive. There was a point, early in his life, where he would have taken whatever Midoriya said next as license to stand him up and walk him far, far away. 

Midoriya stared at him, deadly serious. “No. How good is your control over your quirk?”

“It’s excellent,” he snapped.

“I mean, I know -” Midoriya responded quickly, “I’ve seen what you can do, but I also know that you have limitations. Everyone does. I want to know yours. Can you brainwash people into using their quirks?”

Hitoshi frowned. The question caught him off guard.

“I, uh -”

He was cut off by the sound of ice cracking, followed by indeterminate yelling from Todoroki, Tokoyami, and Dark Shadow. Hitoshi took the chance to think about how to respond, but when the noise died down, all he had to say was -

“I don’t know.” Hitoshi found himself stung by his own honesty. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure if I can. Why? What are you thinking?”

Hitoshi looked at Midoriya and was surprised to see that he didn’t look disappointed. He had his pen poised to write on Hitoshi’s page in the notebook, a curious expression on his face.

“Hm - is it conditional? Have you tried it? What do you mean you don’t know?”

Hitoshi sighed and leaned back against the uneven cement wall behind him. The muscles along the sides of his spine were sore.

“Using other peoples’ quirks is way harder than it should be,” Hitoshi held his hands in the air and studied them, wiggling each finger. He heard the sound of Midoriya’s pen on paper. “It’s not like controlling someone’s hands, for example. I don’t know how to describe it. If I wanted you to put down your pen –“

The writing stopped of Midoriya’s own volition. Hitoshi dropped his arms back down.

“I could just brainwash you and tell you to put down the pen. Simple enough.”

The writing started up again. Hitoshi continued.

“If your quirk was, a mutant-type quirk like – I don’t know, say, you had a third arm sticking out of your shoulder, or a tail like Ojiro’s, and I wanted you to use that to hold the pen, I could brainwash you and tell you to pick up the pen with your tail or your extra arm. It’s a body part. I can see it and I can name it. Also, fairly simple. That’s how I got Shiozaki to tie up her teammates during my exam.”

MIdoriya was writing furiously. Hitoshi crossed his arms over his chest and stared up at the high ceiling.

“The problem comes with other types of quirks – emitter types, transformer types, you know - the ones you have to willingly or consciously activate. It’s hard for me to – I don’t know – stick my hooks into someone in the right way. It takes a lot of concentration. I’ve tried it on Mr. Aizawa before and it worked, but... it was a lot of effort.”

He tried not to make a face as he recalled -

Seated on the floor of the nap room during lunch, Hitoshi had tried a half dozen times before something finally clicked, and he was able to force Aizawa to force him to drop his hold. The effort had left him foggy and exhausted, plagued by the sensation of a knife plunging into his right temple. When he looked in the mirror later, he saw that his right eyeball was speckled with blood.

Aizawa had asked him what he thought was different that time. It wasn’t long after Hitoshi had begun his training, and it was something he had tried and failed to do periodically before. It was all new, though - Hitoshi genuinely had no idea.

“How did you turn my quirk off that time, then?”

“That was easy. I just put you to sleep. I can’t make people speak or write things from memory – nothing that uses too much of someone’s brain power. I’m not sure yet if I’ll ever be able to do that or if it’s outside the scope of my ability. I think most peoples’ quirks are closer to speaking than to walking in terms of difficulty for me.”

“But you do think you might be able to do it?” Midoriya seemed insistent. His eyes were shining. Yikes . Hitoshi pushed himself to a seat.

“Why?” he asked. He still hadn’t gotten an answer and he was growing concerned with Midoriya’s intensity.

“Okay,” Midoriya finally began, “I have a request. I was wondering if you could do the opposite of what you did at the joint training exercise. When I lost control of my power, Blackwhip, you were able to turn it off. There are two more things that I can do now – both that I activated during the fight with Shigaraki.”

What?

“One is called Float – it’s what it sounds like, which is cool. The other, Danger Sense, is just a splitting headache when I’m in danger, which will probably be useful down the line, but it’s way less cool right now.”

Wait -- what?

“Sorry, what ?” Hitoshi said aloud. “How many quirks do you have ?”

“Just one – well, technically,” Midoriya continued, “Anyway, I’ve gotten pretty good with Blackwhip, and I’ve been able to train it a lot. After the battle, though, I was unconscious for a long time. I don’t know if anyone would have told you, but I was out for like, two weeks.”

“Wow… no, nobody told me.”

“Yeah. Everyone was worried I would die,” said Midoriya casually.

Hitoshi wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Oh,” he replied finally, “I’m sorry…?”

“I mean, I was barely there.” Midoriya shrugged. “When I woke up, I felt like no time had passed… but I also felt like it had been a lot longer than two weeks. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Hitoshi did not, but he nodded anyway. Midoriya went on.

“Anyway, in that in-between time, I feel like I lost some of my ability. The powers that I activated during the battle feel like they’ve been locked away. It’s - it’s not just that I don’t have control of them – I can’t use them at all. It’s like a broken arm – it’s there, and I know it’s there, but no matter how much I try, I can’t do anything with it.”

“So you want me to use my quirk on you,” Hitoshi said, Midoriya’s monologue suddenly clicking into place. He flopped back against the wall, wincing as his tender back hit hard cement.

“Yes. I want you to use your quirk to help me access Float and Danger Sense.”

The expression on Midoriya’s freckled face was utterly hopeful and nothing short of heroic. Hitoshi rubbed the sore spot on his back.

“I mean, I can try.”

At this, Midoriya grinned.

“Awesome,” he said. “You’re sure about this?”

“Of course. Why? Are you scared?”

Hitoshi met Midoriya’s eye. He was absolutely brimming with anticipation. 

“Midoriya-“ Hitoshi deadpanned. “I’m not going to do it right now.”

He watched as Midoriya’s resolve turned to awkwardness.

“Oh - no, sorry. I didn’t think you would.” 

“Yeah, um -” Hitoshi rubbed his neck again. “If I start bleeding out of my eyes, I would rather not do it on the first day of class in front of everyone.”

“Of course,” Midoriya said with a stiff, frantic wave of the hand. “What about tomorrow, though?”

“Yeah,” Hitoshi responded. “An eye bleed on the second day of class sounds fine -”

He was cut off by All Might’s whistle, the sounds of squawking, and the crash of ice on concrete.

Hitoshi didn’t bother to change back into his full uniform for his meeting with Present Mic. He shoved his gym jacket into his backpack with his uniform trousers and layered his blazer over his white tee shirt. On the walk back to Gym Gamma, he checked his phone. No new messages.

Present Mic leaned against the outer wall of the building, staring at his own phone. The rain had started up again, and the blue light in the darkened courtyard put a ghostly shadow over his face.

“Shinsō.”

Mic turned off the phone and slipped it into the pocket of his leather jacket.

“Hi, Mr. Yamada,” Hitoshi replied. It was strange - he had spent a ton of time with Present Mic the previous year, but never alone. Either Aizawa or Eri - or both - was always there as well. “What did you need?”

“You-know-who wanted me to check in with you.”

“Aizawa?” To his great embarrassment, Hitoshi couldn’t get a lid on the excitement in his voice.

“Who else?”

“He hasn’t been responding to my messages. Is he okay?”

“He hasn’t? Oh god...” Present Mic made a face somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “He hasn’t been feeling up to talking to anyone lately, but that’s…”

He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses.

“He’s fine. I’ll see if I can get him to check his phone,” he said. Hitoshi frowned but didn’t bother to correct - he had checked it, just never replied. Present Mic went on, “Look, dude, I know this must be frustrating for you, but Aizawa’s had a lot on his plate lately.”

“If he needs anything, I can help him –“

“It’s nothing you can help with. You’re a child . He’s an adult. Are you keeping up with your training? That’s important to him.”

“Yeah.” Hitoshi had spent the past month so sore, he could have laughed at the question. “I’ve been working really hard.”

Concern shaded over Present Mic’s face.

“You’ll have to excuse my saying this, little listener, but you don’t look so hot.”

“I don’t know how to respond to that, sir. I feel fine.” 

In truth, Hitoshi felt like he had been picked up by a giant hand and tossed down a short flight of stairs, but really, that was neither here nor there. Present Mic eyed him.

“O-kay, I trust you. Eraserhead trusts you, too. I’m going to level with you right now – the most you can do for him is take care of yourself. Give him one less thing to worry about. Do your homework – you were ranked fifth in finals for 1-C, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Keep it up – don’t let your grades slip. And make sure you’re eating enough – are you eating? You look thin.”

“You sound like my mother.” 

“I do?”

“No, my mother doesn’t care about me,” Hitoshi deadpanned before he could stop himself. 

Present Mic cracked the tiniest smile at that. “I’m serious, though – and try and get some sleep.”

“You should follow your own advice, sir.”

The only other time he had seen Present Mic without his hair sprayed for the gods was in the wee hours of the morning that past winter. Hitoshi was jogging past the teachers’ dorm and Mr. Yamada, in shearling boots and peacoat several sizes too large, was depositing a massive bag of recycling into the bins. Now, even in the dim light, Hitoshi had also noted how Mr. Yamada’s face looked gray and drawn, with the dark undereyes and fine lines he was more used to seeing on Mr. Aizawa.

Present Mic removed his glasses and pulled a cloth from the breast pocket of his jacket. 

“You should respect your teachers, kid.” He breathed onto one orange lens and began to clean it. “Do you feel ready for this?”

“The hero course?”

“The hero course, the project, all of it,” Present Mic said, moving onto the second lens. “It’s a big change.”

Hitoshi’s brain said Fuck no. His mouth said, “Yeah,” and showed more teeth than felt strictly appropriate.

“Great, Go get some rest,” Yamada said, popping the glasses back on, “For real.”

Hitoshi thanked him and stepped out from beneath the gym’s awning. Fat raindrops fell into his hair. He pushed his umbrella open.

The rain was forecast to stop and start all evening and into the following morning. It fell steadily as Hitoshi crossed the PE grounds towards the main path that would take him back to the dorms. There weren’t many students out on the campus, which was fine by him. Eye contact seemed exhausting at the moment. He had left the C Class on good terms, but on the off chance he ran into one of his former classmates – or current classmates, for that matter – who might want to talk to him, he couldn’t trust himself not to break into a dead sprint to get away.

As he approached the 2-A dorm, he pulled his student ID out of his pocket. It was shiny, with a fresh picture to match his fresh designation as a student in the hero course. He had taken the picture himself, against a blank, white wall in his bedroom after his mother had tried and failed for half an hour to take one that didn’t land somewhere between “vaguely creepy” and “obviously sinister.” (“Hitoshi, honey, maybe try smiling in this one? Oh no, wait… on second thought, don’t smile…”)

He studied it for a moment, pausing under the white lights in the entryway. He had lost weight. It showed in his face, his cheeks suddenly bereft of baby fat. It wasn’t a great picture, rather, it was just one where he didn’t look like any sort of person at all. Just a handsome guy who could do with a few more REM cycles. Or - Just an ordinary dude who could look handsome if he tried, but this time he wasn’t trying. It was fine. Whatever. He grimaced and tapped it against the sensor. The door clicked open.

The first time it had done that – the previous afternoon, when he had come early to begin unpacking – he couldn’t stop himself from grinning out of shock that it had worked. That this wasn’t all some elaborate trick played by forces unknown.

He shouldered the door and pocketed the card. He scanned the block of lockers in the entryway until he found his own near the bottom.

“-- they’re even reporting it in America –“

That was Yaoyarozu’s voice. From his place in the entry, Hitoshi could see the spiky top of her ponytail peeking up over the back of a couch in the common area. He slipped his shoes off and traded them for his slippers.

“But we don’t know if it’s actually true, do we?” Jirō’s voice, now.

“Doubtful –“ Yaoyarozu responded.

“So creepy… why would they do that?” Ashido’s voice came in as well.

“They probably don’t know the truth,” Yaoyarozu said, almost conspiratorially. “It’s easier to believe that he’s just dead. I’ve almost been wishing we could –“

Hitoshi passed the couches on the way to the elevator. The three girls stopped talking. Jirō looked guilty as she passed the tablet she had been holding back to Yaoyorozu.

“Hey, Shinsō –“ Ashido leapt to her feet. She had changed into a pair of shorts and a massively fluffy sweater roughly the same color as her hair. The overall effect made her look like a giant cherry blossom that had grown human legs.

“Hey,” Hitoshi replied. He punched the up button on the elevator. “What’s up?”

“The school is catering dinner for us tonight, so when the robots drop it off at seven, we’re all going to eat together, okay?”

“Okay,” Hitoshi echoed. A devilish smile grew across Ashido’s face.

“If you don’t come down by 7:10, Yao-Momo and I are gonna break down your door with a battering ram, you got that?”

The elevator doors slid open and Hitoshi stepped inside.

“Yup!” he called as they closed again. He swung off his backpack and leaned against the railing, consumed with the thought of how nice it was going to be to lie perfectly still for the three and a half hours before dinner, and whether or not Ashido was serious about the battering ram.

Hitoshi’s room was on the fifth floor, across the hall from Yaoyarozu’s and beside Satou’s. He pushed the door open, threw his stuff on the ground with the open boxes, and face planted directly into the bed like a dead fish. This was the best thing ever.

Three hours and twenty-six minutes later, Hitoshi woke to rustling outside his door. His mouth tasted of sleep and unbrushed teeth, and he was clammy around the collar. He couldn’t get out of his rumpled blazer and gym shirt fast enough.

“Shinsō! Are you ready to get wrecked?” Ashido called from outside. It was 7:07.

Hitoshi pushed the door open a crack. He blinked. In the blinding, institutional light of the hallway, was Ashido with a military grade ram.

“It’s 7:07,” he muttered. Ashido let out a little hah and dropped the front half of the ram. It thudded against the carpet. They stared at each other.

“You don’t have a shirt on,” she said finally. Hitoshi looked down at himself like he’d forgotten about ripping it off in a sweaty, disoriented fury thirty seconds earlier. His hand flew to his chest. He was covered in bruises of varying shades, all earned during the break from falling off of and out of high places.

“Sorry –“ Hitoshi said.

“Oh, it’s no problem –“ Ashido replied, her face suddenly looking even pinker.

“Are we doing this?” Yaoyarozu’s voice was tinged with resignation as she emerged from her own room, stretching her arms across her chest. She looked relieved to see the battering ram half on the ground and Hitoshi’s face through the cracked door, the answer a likely no .

“I’m gonna get dressed,” Hitoshi told them, closing the door. For a moment, he entertained not getting dressed, and instead getting back into bed, but he was up now, and besides that, Ashido seemed way too excited by the prospect of property damage.

He kicked off his wrinkly gym trousers and pulled on a pair of black jeans. From his dresser, he took a striped tee shirt and the chunky cable knit cardigan that his mother had given him for his birthday the previous year. (Hitoshi’s birthday, in July, had been the hottest day of the year by that point, and the time he spent trying it on to appease her had been a sweaty nightmare.)

He tucked in his shirt and rolled up the sleeves of his cardigan. Rolled down the sleeves. Untucked the shirt. In the elevator, he rolled up his sleeves again.

Hitoshi checked his phone. No new messages. He signed, thinking back on his conversation with Present Mic. It was undoubtedly meant to mollify him, though it had the opposite effect.

The elevator doors opened with a ding

“Finally! The man of the hour!”

Kaminari stood from his seat and waved his arms above his goofy blonde head. Everyone else turned and looked, utensils hovering midway between bowl and mouth. Food had been there for ten minutes, and they hadn’t waited to get started

Hitoshi smirked and made his way to the counter where dinner was set up family style.

“It’s beef stew!” Iida announced as Hitoshi dragged the ladle through the enormous, steamy pot. Iida continued “With noodles! This is how they do it in Russia!”

“Yes, I see,” Hitoshi responded. A saucy glob fell to the formica countertop as he spooned himself a bowl.

“You’ve been to Russia?” Midoriya asked, eyes bright with genuine interest.

“I have not,” Iida responded.

Hitoshi took his seat amongst the group, wedged between Todoroki, who scooted over silently, and Kaminari, who clapped him on the back so hard that he nearly dropped his stroganoff.

“My dude,” Kaminari grinned, “We were talking about whether or not we would have to drag you down here.”

Hitoshi frowned, his spoon sticking out of his mouth. “Why?” he asked around the obstruction.

“You just seem like you’re trying to be a loner,” Kaminari began. He stood back up, slouched, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “All, ‘I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win,’ or whatever. We’re glad you’re here.”

“Thanks,” Hitoshi said, shoveling another bite of stew into his mouth. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was in front of him.

“Hey, Shinsō –“ Asui’s voice came from across the room, where she sat with the rest of the girls. Hitoshi looked up from his bowl. “How is Mr. Aizawa doing?”

He felt twenty pairs of eyes on him. Her question hit like a punch to the chest.

“I… don’t know,” Hitoshi admitted, scratching the back of his neck, “I haven’t spoken to him in a few weeks.”

“Weeks?” asked Midoriya. He was perched on the edge of his seat, craning his neck as if he hadn’t heard right.

“Yeah, not since we got sent home.” Hitoshi paused. “Well, you know, before I got sent home. With General Ed. Before the um… battle, I guess.”

“Wait –“ Kaminari began, his eyes narrowing, “Do you not know what happened?”

“Of course, he knows. He’s being polite – everyone knows –“ that was Kirishima, whose jaw dropped when Hitoshi shook his head.

“Present Mic just said he’s been busy. I mean – I sort of know. They called it a terrorist attack on the news when they were reporting it live. I heard sort of... third hand that Mr. Aizawa was hurt, but mostly it’s just what they’ve written in the paper. I can tell they’re not telling the whole truth.”

“We were talking about this when you came in before,” said Yaoyarozu into her cup of tea, “I read some English-language newspapers online, and they’re all saying the same stuff that they’re saying here. It’s because there’s no real information coming out of the HPSC, but some of us –“

She looked dead at Todoroki, and Hitoshi could feel him tense beside him.

“- Some of us saw things happen way differently. They took our statements and then – nothing.”

“Mr. Aizawa cut off his leg –“ Midoriya burst in.

“Wha – what?” Hitoshi stammered, unable to process the information. Midoriya had said a string of real words, but together, they didn’t quite compute. “Were you there?”

“It was during the fight. Kacchan was there, too,” Midoriya took a deep, focused breath. Hitoshi stole a glance at Bakugō, who stared into his bowl of beef stew. Midoriya’s voice shook as he spoke. “Do you know about quirk destroying bullets?”

Hitoshi nodded as Midoriya explained. He knew things had been bad – it would take a moron to not understand. But still – 

He was from the suburbs. The closest he had seen to real combat was his entrance exercise. He felt a scream growing in his chest, but it died somewhere in his throat. His hands shook.

“You okay, man?” Kaminari asked. He took Hitoshi’s bowl and placed it onto the table in front of him. “We’re just surprised he didn’t tell you personally.”

“He didn’t-“

“If Aizawa wants to sulk, that’s his business.” 

Bakugō’s voice was harsh but uncharacteristically quiet. “He thinks he’s Achilles, but really, he’s just being a fucking idiot.”

“Bakugō – “ Kirishima looked up, astonished. “You can’t—"

“I’m not finished yet –“ Bakugō continued. He stood up from his seat, “He should be back out here teaching us, showing everybody that he’s not a coward. The principal made a big deal about how we need to be strong and brave, but where’s Aizawa in this? Everybody but him? He’s an idiot .”

At that, Bakugō stomped to the dishwasher and deposited his empty dish.

“That’s not really what he said –“ Uraraka chimed in, but Bakugō cut her off.

“I heard him. It was a load of crap.”

“Come on, man – Aizawa saved your life, you said it yourself!” Kirishima called after him. Bakugō looked back, his eyes shining as he made his way to the elevator.

“First – don’t tell people that. Second - I’m saying this because I respect him. If we all have to be out here pretending like nothing happened, then he should, too. He acts like a hardass when it’s us fucking up or acting weak. You should hold him to the same standard. That goes double for you, Deku –“

Bakugō pointed at Midoriya, who visibly flinched. He turned and leveled his finger at Hitoshi.

“And triple for you, Forehead.”

The elevator ding ’d and Bakugō stepped in.

“Welcome to 2-A,” he snarled as the doors closed behind him.

For a moment, the room fell into a stunned silence, save for a low growl and faint pop of explosions coming from the elevator shaft.

Finally, a voice spoke from the empty clothes beside Uraraka on the couch.

“Guys - who is Achilles?”

Hitoshi shook his head. The name seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. He realized he’d been holding his breath.

“Hagakure –“ Iida said firmly.

“What?” she shot back.

“I should talk to him,” Midoriya muttered, but made no motion to get up from his chair. He focused on his hands in their braces, flexing his fingers, then balling them into fists. Wordlessly, Todoroki stood beside Hitoshi, gathered his phone and dishes, and left the circle. Kirishima stood as well.

“I’ll talk to him later, once he’s cooled off a bit.” He groaned with frustration. “I can’t believe he said that.”

“I can,” Sero chimed in, looking up to Kirishima, “You and Midoriya know him better than any of us… did that really seem so far out of bounds?”

“It was in the bleachers –“ Kirishima replied. “Out of the damn park.”

Hitoshi’s hands were still shaking.

“I’m gonna go,” he announced stiffly, picking up his half-finished bowl and carrying it to the compost.

“You sure you’re okay?” Kaminari called to him.

“I’m fine.” Hitoshi said. I gotta get out of here , Hitoshi thought.

He rolled down his sweater sleeves and walked to the entryway.

 Iida stood and followed him.

“Where are you going? It’s supposed to rain!”

Hitoshi ignored him. He crammed his feet into his sneakers and grabbed his bicycle key from the corner of his locker.

 Iida sighed. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“I don’t care!” Hitoshi called over his shoulder as he exited the building. Faintly, he heard somebody go, oh boy , before he let the door slam shut.

Outside the air was cooler and crisper than it had been that afternoon. The light from the lamps and the windows bathed everything in a sick, yellow glow.

Hitoshi hurried to the bike shelter in the back of the dorms. A bright light automatically switched on as he approached. He crouched down and removed his chain, draping it and re-locking it across his chest. Dirt and wet smeared onto his clothes.

He rode across campus feeling like nothing – lighter than air, his eyes not quite registering anything ahead of him but the footpath, the only thought in his head was go . He took a deep breath as he sped towards the gate.

Hitoshi had meant it when he said he didn’t care. It sounded like he was trying to be a tough guy because he was . 

Trying.

The previous year, he couldn’t stand to be cooped up in the dorms all night, insomnia chewing away at the backs of his eyelids, springing them open every time he tried to sleep. At first, he had taken to wandering the campus, and then, when he realized he could just… leave… he started doing that as well, taking his bicycle and flying through the bright nighttime streets of Musutafu. He knew the city now almost as well as he knew Yoshikawa and all the farmlands and suburbs that surrounded his hometown. He knew it almost as well as he knew Saitama, where he would sometimes sneak off to in middle school, catching the last commuter train out and conning a ride back off any schmuck who would stop their car long enough for him to ask “can you help me?” all before his parents could wake up and find him missing.

He hung a left out of UA’s main road and down into the city proper, away from the residential sections that sprawled in the other direction

The lingering strangeness of the day sat thick in the pit of his stomach. He tried not to think about it, but the temptation was there. It was like sticking his hand onto a hotplate or not thinking about pink elephants.

Hitoshi surged down the hill and into the sea of neon and silver. What he wanted, really, was a cigarette – one of those slim ones that once upon a time he would lift from his mother’s handbag, and that she knew he was stealing, but that she also knew she couldn’t punish him for, because his father didn’t know that she still smoked.

His parents’ quirks were both as far off from his as could be. Hitoshi was a troubling anomaly, as his pediatrician had told his parents when he thought Hitoshi was out of earshot. He was likely a mutant, as a psychiatrist told his mother at their first appointment. That time, they were face to face. Hitoshi was five and for some reason, the bigger kids in the neighborhood always ended up wandering halfway down the block after they spoke to him.

He pulled over in front of the first 7-Eleven he saw and chained his bike to a signpost on the sidewalk. The place was lit up harsh and fluorescent. Hitoshi squinted as he approached the fat, middle aged man at the counter.

“What’s up, man?” the clerk asked him with a nod. Hitoshi pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

“Can I get a pack of Pianissimos?” He withdrew the five hundred-yen coin that had been rolling around his billfold for a week.

“Gonna need some ID,” said the clerk.

Gotcha , Hitoshi thought as a faint, static tingle radiated across his temples. The man’s eyes went blank. His arms fell slack at his sides. “Just – please – give me a pack of Pianissimo Slims.”

The clerk turned to the rows of cigarettes behind the counter and dumbly raised one hand as if it were disconnected from his body. He plucked the pink package from its dispenser and placed it into Hitoshi’s outstretched palm.

“I’m taking a lighter, too.” Hitoshi said, pocketing one from the stand on the counter. He slid the coin to the clerk. “Take the money.”

The clerk obeyed.

Hitoshi dropped the pack into his pocket and released him, that electric crackling on his brain fading as gradually as it appeared. 

“Thanks, hoss,” Hitoshi said, rapping his fist twice on the counter. The clerk jumped, confusion settling over his face as Hitoshi left the store.

Now that, Hitoshi thought as he lit a cigarette, was some real tough guy shit. 

He hopped back on his bike and took off. Mr. Aizawa would murder him if he ever found out, but it seemed unlikely that Mr. Aizawa would. If he had tried the same move a few months earlier, he would have expected his teacher to drop down out of the sky, grab him by his ears, and drag him back up to UA like a misbehaving child, but a few months ago, he also wouldn’t have tried it.

Jeez , Hitoshi thought - one day in the Hero course and already he’s breaking not only school rules, but the law? The whole ass law? All for a pack of nostalgic ladies’ cigs and ( brr… ) a white lighter? He almost wanted to grab himself by the ears, almost wanted to whip out his phone and leave Aizawa a voicemail telling him what he had done and how he planned on making it right. He’d go back to 7-Eleven and apologize profusely, bow so deeply that his hair would brush the linoleum, go back to the dorms, call his shrink – that same one who said he was a mutant – for sleeping medication and never, ever leave campus without permission again. Mr. Aizawa could listen to it or not, it didn’t matter –

Screaming in the distance. Not piercing, like a person in distress, but an argument, like two people about to be.

Hitoshi stopped his bike short.

It wasn’t like he’d never seen a crime committed on his little jaunts – a real one, not like, ya know , petty quirk use to facilitate the underage purchase of tobacco products. It was a known fact that people did dodgy stuff under the cover of darkness. That was why Eraserhead spent his evenings as Eraserhead and not “high school teacher, sleeping.” It was why Hitoshi wasn’t just a weirdo from the suburbs made good but a hero-in-training. Still, “in-training” meant something, and “unlicensed” meant something similar. A stab of anxiety hit him square in the chest.

Sure, hero society was crumbling around him, but for all intents and purposes, he was still powerless in the eyes of the Hero Public Safety Commission until at least June.

His mind wandered to what Yaoyorozu had said over dinner.

And really, fuck the Hero Public Safety Commission.

Hitoshi flicked his cigarette butt away, sending a spark into the street. He turned right at the intersection and headed towards the commotion.

The ride was only two or three blocks to an alleyway running alongside a different 7-Eleven, and by the time he arrived, the fight had broken up. One guy was left standing there amongst the dumpsters and bales of compressed cardboard. He was youngish, in a rumpled suit and obviously unsteady on his feet.

“Hey – are you okay?” Hitoshi asked as he skidded to a stop. The man looked up at him, horror twisting his face. Hitoshi frowned and walked his bike into the alleyway. In the low light, it almost looked as though the guy’s face and hands and jacket were spattered with blood.

“You get away from me, too,” the guy hissed, almost skittering away from Hitoshi. He disappeared for a moment, leaving only a handprint on one of the cardboard bundles. Hitoshi got closer to it - yeah, that was blood.

“You got it, boss,” Hitoshi called down the alley, not moving from where he stood. “What happened to you?”

The man noisily knocked into something and then reappeared from behind a row of metal trash cans. He gestured imprecisely, past Hitoshi and across the street. Hitoshi looked over his shoulder but saw no one out of place. A couple leaving the restaurant directly opposite, three girls his own age jockeying for position around a fourth girl’s cell phone as they hurried past. Nobody who looked like they had recently been on the other end of this guy’s bloody fist. Hitoshi turned back to him – “I don’t see anything.”

“He was screaming at me – “

“Who?” Hitoshi stepped closer, and the guy, in turn, stumbled deeper into the shadows. His back hit the chain-link fence at the end of the alley, sending rats scattering out from under the adjacent mountain of garbage bags in a chorus of peevish squeals. He shrunk into the farthest, darkest corner. Only a tiny amount of light reached him, barely there but leaking in from both ends of the street.

“He says we’re all gonna burn…” he moaned as he began pawing at his eyes and cheeks with his bloody hands. “We’re gonna burn in hell and… ugh, there’s something on my face, man.”

“It’s blood,” Hitoshi said, almost to himself. The guy was in his own world, crying and rubbing dirt and blood onto his cheeks. “Do you want me to call someone for you?”

“NO!” the guy screamed suddenly. Hitoshi jumped as the guy stormed out from his corner, deliberately kicking the metal trash cans that stood between the two of them. Hitoshi took a step back, but his heel hit something soft - a rat? Oh god no - and he lost his footing, just barely avoiding the grab the guy made for his shirt front. Hitoshi wished, for just a second, that he had his capture weapon handy - though if the thing at the first 7-Eleven didn’t get Aizawa to come down and personally kill him, his taking down a drunk in a street brawl certainly would . Still, Hitoshi could almost see that phantom version of himself tie the dude’s arms down to his sides and dangle him from one of the overhead fire escapes until help arrived.

The guy took another swing.

Hitoshi kept his body loose, sliding into a rough three-point landing before he lost his balance and his lower back hit the damp ground. The guy kept grabbing, and Hitoshi crab-walked away until he was far enough to scramble up to his feet.

“Did you not hear me?” The guy was screaming all the while. “Did you not hear me? No one can help - he’s crazy . He’s crazy, and he burned me. He blew holy fire out of his mouth -”

The guy lunged again, and this time, Hitoshi dodged, feinting to the right and knocking the dude’s bloody hands away with his left elbow. His heart pounded but each of his blocks landed exactly where he intended. For all their unpredictability, dudes this fucked up tended to telegraph their movements well in advance. Still, Hitoshi felt like he couldn’t get ahead. Without the scarf, his offense was trash, and he couldn’t…

Well, actually, he could.

Really, he should .

“What the hell are you talking about?” Hitoshi shouted, batting the dude away with the back of his right hand.

“HO-LY FI-RE -” the guy elaborated. 

Helpful , Hitoshi thought as he watched the guy’s eyes glaze over and his posture go slack. He winced as the psychic friction prickled on his brain. The hold wasn’t as effortless as it had been in the 7-Eleven, but it got the job done.

“Go to sleep,” Hitoshi told him, and the guy dropped to the ground, bloody hands folded beneath his cheek and everything. That should have been that, but there was something unsettling about the image, about the pinprick sensation growing inside Hitoshi’s skull. He got closer and poked him with the toe of his sneaker. 

The dude stirred. 

Hitoshi almost screamed, even though he was still holding fast onto the dude’s free will. He was afraid to let him out of his sight, let alone let go. He crouched down, got a good look in the guy’s face. 

He was definitely young. There were fine lines starting around his mouth and eyes, but past that and beneath the spray of blood dotting his pale skin, he had the delicate features of a little kid.

Pain flared behind Hitoshi’s right eye; he tasted bile in the back of his throat. He drew back.

“What’s going on out here?”

Hitoshi twisted around. Another man stood a few feet behind him, backlit in the mouth of the alley, clutching a baseball bat in his right hand. 

“This guy’s passed out,” Hitoshi replied stupidly - a lie only by omission. The pain in his head was starting to feel like a hot knife buried in his skull. He looked back at ol’ bloody knuckles, half expecting him to have woken up and stuck him with something pointy.

What is with this guy? Hitoshi thought. People not named Midoriya Izuku couldn’t just break themselves out of his control, and Hitoshi was at a loss to explain why it felt like this guy might. Still, the psychic connection between them felt so tenuous, like a tug-of-war where the opponent was just that much stronger. The rope burned Hitoshi’s hands as, millimeter by millimeter, it was pulled away.

Hitoshi suppressed a gag. He slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Did he hurt you?” the man with the bat asked. He had a respectable haircut and wore a green polo - the second 7-Eleven employee to cross Hitoshi’s path that night. He almost felt bad for him.

“No.” Hitoshi could hear the strain rattling his own voice. “I just heard screaming and I found him like this.”

Batman moved in a little closer.

“I wouldn’t come near him,” Hitoshi warned. “He’s covered in blood.”

“Well, you get away, too, then.”

Hitoshi didn’t need to be told twice. He stood and backed away until he and Batman were nearly shoulder to shoulder.

“You sure you’re okay, kid? You look a little peaky.”

Hitoshi rubbed his face and discreetly examined his hands. He was way too close to the barf zone for his personal comfort, but at least he wasn’t bleeding.

“Yeah.”

“Look, you should get out of here. I’m just gonna call the cops - I doubt they’ll show up, but there’s no reason for you to stick around.” Batman’s voice was rough, though oddly soothing compared to the psychic rope burn Hitoshi had going on inside his brainpan. His eyes were starting to water. God, he didn’t want to let go of Bloody Knuckles, but slowly, gently, he did. 

The pain eased up, nausea dissipating almost immediately. Bloody Knuckles, to his credit, stayed down.

“Go on,” Batman said, gesturing with a nod of his head towards the street. Hitoshi nodded back. He took a step toward where he had dropped his bike, grabbed the handle bars, and swung himself onto the seat.

Hitoshi made it only as far as the stop light at the end of the block before he began to think seriously about going back to the alley. That poor 7-Eleven guy. What Hitoshi should have done was brainwash him, too, and walk him back inside the store and out of harm’s way. Hitoshi could have called the cops himself - not like that would have done anything to help - and left before they showed up and caught him using his quirk illegally for the second time that night, what a disaster .

Was there a universe in which that wouldn’t end with him under some kind of protective custody, either on behalf of UA or the law? That was a thought Hitoshi didn’t want to touch any more than he had to. 

The light turned green, and he pedaled away for real.

Hitoshi didn’t stop until he was miles down the road, deep into residential Musutafu. He pulled his phone from his pocket. No new messages, but somehow, it had gotten to be past midnight. 

He only just began to feel like he was calming down. All the pent-up frustration of the past four weeks and the freakiness of the past four hours had worn away, leaving dull, thudding exhaustion in their wake. He looked in the vague direction of UA - it felt like as good a time as any to go back. The security lights were shrouded in haze, just vaguely visible above the city. Hitoshi sighed and began riding towards home - up the hill, and once his quads were thoroughly on fire, past the gate.

By the time Heights Alliance was in view, he realized it had been a few hours since he last thought about Mr. Aizawa, Midnight, or his classmates, but now –

He rounded the 2-A building to the bike shelter. Above him, nearly every dorm light was aglow.