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‘Maybe,’ thinks Hitoshi, eyes blurring at the sky, ‘being a pro-hero was a mistake, after all.’
There were so many other directions he could have gone. He could have just said ‘fuck it,’ confirmed every negative stereotype about him out of spite, become the world’s best conman. He could have decided to stick with gen-ed at UA and become a teacher, like his old guidance counselor was always pushing for. He could have just shunned quirks as a concept and become a life insurance salesman or something.
A huge upside to any of those paths is that he wouldn’t have a broken leg on a battlefield, helplessly watching the biggest threat since All for One lumbering its way towards the inevitable destruction of Japan, the Eastern part of Russia, most of China, and who knows where else. Also, Midoriya Izuku wouldn’t be dying in his lap.
The latter feels like the bigger upside in this moment, quite honestly. From where his head rests, Midoriya lets out a horrific-sounding gurgle, blood frothing at the corner of his mouth. Hitoshi’s hand grips his tighter.
“This is Creati!” Yaoyorozu’s voice breaks, streaked with panic. “Target is ten miles from the power plant and closing in fast, you need to stop it now!”
The it in question is a thousand-foot pillar of flesh and metal, barely sentient, programmed with the single goal of causing nuclear fallout. Some unholy amalgamation of stolen Nomu technology that apparently hadn’t been destroyed correctly, and a body modification quirk amped up on Trigger.
It’s heading towards the third-largest power plant in the Eastern Hemisphere with the goal of turning it into a bomb. Right now, the heroes are failing at stopping it.
Whoever failed at destroying that Nomu research better never see the light of day again, if they manage to stop the world from being destroyed right here.
“The fuck do you think we’re —” A cough, deep and rattling, makes Dynamight’s already-gravely voice even rougher. “Think we’re trying to do?” He growls deep in his throat. “Damn it, if only I could get closer —”
“Don’t!” This is Uraraka, sounding unusually shrill. “You’ll blow the whole thing up, it’s designed to —”
“I know what it’s designed to do!” There is pure, anguished frustration in Bakugou’s voice. “I can’t fucking do it, but someone has to. Where the fuck is Deku?”
Hitoshi’s shaking hand comes up to tap his comm. “I’m with him,” he says. “We’re — We’re in trouble, here. Could use a hand.”
Yaoyorozu’s voice continues as if he hadn’t said anything. “He’s not answering his comm. Neither is Silvertongue.”
‘Ah,’ realizes Hitoshi. His comm is broken. It isn’t transmitting.
They’re fucked.
On his lap, Midoriya makes another shuddering, nauseous noise. There’s a hole where his gut should be. He is no longer squeezing Hitoshi’s hand back.
The giant creature walks closer to the end of the world. More shouting over the comms, as more and more people fail to stop it — Shouto, Ingenium, Charge Bolt. Midoriya’s breaths are getting even shallower. Hitoshi wants to cry.
None of the rest of them are going to be able to stop this thing. After everything they’ve been through, it all ends here. They’re done. Because nothing is going to make Deku get back on his feet. No miracle, or act of god, or —
And then an old, never-forgotten conversation sinks its teeth into the back of Hitoshi’s neck.
Oh.
Hitoshi moves before he can think any more about it, because if he thinks too much about this, he will never be able to do it. He roughly cups the sides of Midoriya’s head, tries to force eye contact.
“Deku,” he grits out. “Hey, Deku. Look at me.”
The blood at the edge of Midoriya’s mouth drips down his chin. He doesn’t say anything.
“Answer me,” Hitoshi urges through gritted teeth, throwing his anger to the front of his mind so he won’t break down in tears. “Damn it, Midoriya. Answer me.”
Eyes hooded, listless with blood loss, Midoriya stares at him without seeing him. His mouth lolls open, and not a single sound comes out.
No. No. This is their last option. Hitoshi has no more ideas save this one. It cannot fail before it starts.
He bares his teeth, vicious as a kicked dog, and tries. “Midoriya Izuku. If we were ever actually friends in the first place, you will answer me.”
A blink. For a single, precious second, maybe his last second, Midoriya’s eyes focus.
He says, “Wha—”
It’s enough.
Snap. Hitoshi pulls Midoriya under his power, just like he’s done a million times before. In training, in the field, when they’re goofing off. Hitoshi wraps his mental fingers around the silver thread of Midoriya’s will and yanks.
It feels different, this time. Having people under his control usually feels like a thrumming, living connection. Having Midoriya under his control usually feels a bit like dipping his fingers into the tide.
Now, it feels like cupping a butterfly in his hand. Nausea swells in Hitoshi’s throat.
He has to try.
“Midoriya,” he commands. His voice shakes. He thinks, after this, he may never speak again. “Midoriya. Get on your feet. Get on your feet, and don’t stop fighting until we win.”
For a long, long moment, he thinks it isn’t going to work. Their connection flutters. The world feels oddly silent, for all that they’re nestled together in destruction.
Hitoshi imagines blowing on the embers of Midoriya’s soul.
The world erupts into green.
.
It’s the middle of their third year at UA. Hitoshi and Midoriya are, in theory, supposed to be studying for a test together. In practice, this has devolved into Hitoshi fucking around on his phone, and Midoriya hanging upside down off his bed, like the little weirdo he is.
They’ve settled into comfortable silence, which means that Midoriya is going to start babbling pretty soon, which Hitoshi is prepared for. They’re sleep deprived and stressed for midterms. Midoriya’s go-to form of stress relief is talking out his stream of consciousness. Whatever. Hitoshi can tune him out, for the most part.
Until Midoriya says, “You can command someone to fall asleep, can’t you?”
Hitoshi blinks up from his phone. “What?”
“With your Quirk,” says Midoriya, eyes focused on the wall and face slowly turning red from being upside down. “You can command someone to go to sleep, right?”
“Yeah, for the most part,” Hitoshi responds.
Midoriya says, “Huh,” and goes back to staring at the wall, eyes glazed the way they usually are when he’s thinking himself in 12 different directions.
He really shouldn’t pick the metaphorical scab here, but Hitoshi finds that he can’t help himself in this instance. “Why?”
“I just think that has really cool implications for how far your power can be pushed!” Midoriya flips himself rightside up and looks all earnestly at Hitoshi.
“What do you mean,” asks Hitoshi slowly, “implications?”
“Well,” begins Midoriya, “that implies that you can command something on a body-level, you know? Like, interfere with something the brain does automatically or subconsciously. You can command things that people usually have no control over. Which, I guess, I’m wondering how far you can push that? Like, could you command a body past its limits? Override the part of the brain that protects itself and order someone to lift something they normally couldn’t, almost like tapping into adrenaline strength. Or, oh, oh, could you use it like a rescue power? Like, stabilize someone until the paramedics arrive, could you command their heart to keep beating? That would be interesting, can you imagine —”
Hitoshi cuts him off. “Midoriya,” he says. He can hear his own voice, in a way he usually can’t. How high and strained it is, how close it is to cracking. His chest feels tight.
Midoriya’s mouth clicks shut. He looks at Hitoshi, and must see something in his face. He shrinks into himself.
“Too much?” Midoriya asks, quietly.
“Too much,” says Hitoshi, voice still strained.
Implications, Midoriya said — his mind obviously going to different implications than Hitoshi’s jumped to. That level of control. That level of ability to play god.
Sometimes, Hitoshi thinks that Midoriya is too good for his own mind. Too kind-hearted for the places that brain of his can take him.
“I’m sorry,” says Midoriya and, to his credit, he sounds like he really is.
Hitoshi says, “It’s whatever. I just don’t want to talk about this again. Okay?”
“Okay,” Midoriya repeats, quietly. “You got it. Sorry.”
Hitoshi grunts, his heart still racing. He tosses his phone away, pulls the textbook closer, determined to move them back towards studying and away from this conversation.
Midoriya is true to his word — he never brings it up again. But Hitoshi thinks about it, now. Knows that Midoriya thinks about it, too. It haunts the edges of his idle thoughts. It sends him gasping upright out of stress dreams.
Hitoshi remembers that conversation.
.
This must be what it’s like to watch a star burn out.
The whole world is hazed in green. It’s as if the light from One for All has replaced the light of the sun.
Deku launches himself, pulsing like a force of nature, at the creature. Hitoshi hears people shouting and explaining over the comm links. He closes his eyes.
‘You were right, Midoriya,’ thinks Hitoshi, far away from his body. ‘Izuku, Izuku, you were right. I can do it. Put that down in your stupid notebook.”
All Might, at his most powerful, could change the weather with a punch. Like this, Deku changes the whole atmosphere. The barometric pressure shifts. Hitoshi’s ears pop. He can taste ozone and copper.
He remembers Midoriya telling him about how he couldn’t use all of One for All’s power, because it would tear his body apart. He thinks about hysterical strength. He thinks about how a dead thing doesn’t care if its bones are broken.
Hitoshi buries his head in his hands and concentrates on the butterfly of their connection, weak in his imagined grasp.
.
“Hey, hey, Shinsou. What do you see when you use your Quirk? Do you have a go-to visualization?”
“Huh?”
“Like, Deku imagines a microwave! I think about untying a helium balloon. Yaomomo says she snaps her constructs together like lego blocks. What about you?”
“Oh. Uh. When people respond to me when I’m asking a question, I see silver threads appearing around them. I imagine reaching out and grabbing them, and then attaching them to me. That’s how I pull someone into my Quirk’s power.”
“Ooooh! That’s so cool!”
“Um.”
“Are the threads always silver?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“Shinsou! Your hero name should be Silvertongue! Because it also means someone who speaks really well, and you’re so good at saying the right thing at the right time and convincing people of stuff.”
“Ohhh! That sounds awesome! What do you think, Shinsou? What do you think?”
.
He can feel when the creature is defeated, because it falls, and the ground shakes. The green light fades away to nothing. The world is no longer as bright — something gone from it forever.
He can also feel when the creature is defeated, because the connection between him and Midoriya twists in a way he’s never experienced before.
Hitoshi can see the silver thread, thin and odd, gathered in the palm of his hand. It tugs. It starts to dissolve.
Hitoshi thinks about spirits, and about souls. He can feel something surrounding him. A touch to his cheek. A forehead pressed to the back of his neck. Something like thanks. Something like I love you.
And then nothing.
Hitoshi realizes that his nose is bleeding. His cheek is in the dirt. His whole body aches too much to move.
From not very far away, he can hear Bakugou start to scream.