The first battle of the classes was a disaster. It was also how everyone found out just how deep Denki was in his feelings for Neito. He looked up to him, sure. It was easy to look up to everyone else who made it into a hero course at UA; that much was obvious. But it was so much more than that, wasn't it? Denki's immense concern and immediate action coupled with his intense defense of criticism toward Neito when anyone else in Denki's position would have refused to help and held a grudge lasting years… the fact that Denki jumped right in and defended Neito over and over again from any harm, physical or emotional, just proved to everyone that Denki loved Neito so, so much. Maybe Denki didn't see it himself, or maybe he was just playing dumb to get everyone off his back, but everyone could see the adoration and care that Denki held for Neito in his eyes and posture whenever Neito was around and whenever someone said something insulting.
Denki had been doing decently in class. He wasn't at the top; classes were much more intensive than his middle school classes, but he was passing. He was kind of thankful for how tough the course material was because it helped keep his mind off of his lost friendships. He only had time for training, studying, eating, and sleeping. There was no room in his schedule for 'wallowing in self-pity.' However, that still didn't stop Bakugou from dubbing him "Dunce face." Denki didn't mind, honestly. That's just how Bakugou was, he learned, and he never meant anything malicious by it.
His schedule was even more tightly packed when Shigaraki Tomura and the 'League of Villains' decided to break into the USJ training building while they were there. No one was fatally injured; it could have gone a lot worse.
Denki felt utterly useless during the invasion. He couldn't help his friends because he was too close to them. He couldn't fault them for yelling at him to help and electrocute the villains; everyone was terrified out of their minds and just wanted to find the quickest way to get out of the mess they had found themselves in. He was just grateful that they listened when he hurriedly explained that, unless they wanted shock treatment that day, he wouldn't be able to electrocute the enemy without them being caught in the crossfire.
One thing that he was grateful for is that Momo had been near him. She was able to make an insulated blanket so that he could shock the villains without risking hurting his comrades. That was a lucky break, though, and he needed to figure out a way to aim his quirk so he could use it without fear of hurting an ally. Neito might have some good ideas on how to do that if he was still around, copying Denki's quirk, and improving both of their usage on it. Denki felt like he had slowed down a lot in his progress since he didn't have Neito to help him work out different ways to use or advance his quirk.
Another thing that he was grateful for is that Class 1-B and Class 1-C wasn't at the USJ training with them. He could focus a little better than if he was worried about where Hitoshi and Neito ended up and how they were faring against the villains.
It kind of hurt, though, when he passed them in the hallway afterwards, and they barely looked at him, let alone asked him if he was okay since the attack.
He was not okay. He had nightmares, but he could hardly complain. Mr. Aizawa and the other pros were the ones who got hurt. Denki felt like he had no right to even have the nightmares, let alone complain about them.
In times like these, Denki felt almost lucky to have schizophrenia. Almost every time he woke up, he would hear a familiar lullaby in his head, lulling him back to sleep. When he didn't hear the lullaby, he would simply start to sing it to himself as he drifted off again. It became a comfort song for him, but he couldn't figure out where he had ever learned it from. It felt ingrained in him, somehow, but he knew that his mother and father never heard of it before; he had asked. He thought maybe he had made it up, but then figured that he wasn't musically inclined enough to make such a sweet song. He assumed that he must have heard it somewhere before, maybe playing in the background at a restaurant or something, and it just stuck with him.
Even though he hadn't been sleeping well, Denki's excitement still burst out of him when Mr. Aizawa announced that they would be competing against Class 1-B in a training exercise. Denki hadn't seen much of Neito and Hitoshi; the classes didn't really mix unless there was a reason to, like a scheduled training exercise to make the classes compete against each other. And, as luck would have it, Denki's group was chosen to go up against Neito's group.
Denki's excitement simmered down as nervous energy took its place. Denki was excited to be able to go against Neito, but it was nerve-wracking as well. Neito was a force to be reckoned with, but his classmates didn't seem to have taken his warnings seriously.
Denki couldn't help but smile as he saw Neito in his hero costume. While Denki chose to be more simplistic, Neito had gone all out. Denki wouldn't have expected anything less, and he felt a weird sense of pride for his estranged friend at the three stopwatches on his belt. Denki and Hitoshi had recruited other friends every once in a while, to get Neito up to three quirks copied at a time, and it was harder than any of them had expected it to be. But he did it. Neito wouldn't have stopped until he did, and Denki was sure that he would get it eventually, because Neito always succeeded when he put his mind to something, no matter how long it took.
"Progress is progress," Neito would murmur to himself as he tried to copy a third quirk, the look of pure concentration on his face.
Neito still got upset when he couldn't master something as quickly as he'd like, but he still never gave up, even when he became overly frustrated with himself. Denki looked up to him for that. If they had switched places, he didn't know if he would have the courage and dedication to keep pushing through after failing again and again. On the other hand, Denki had failed again and again, hadn't he? He messed up using his own quirk again and again and never stopped trying to gain better control over it, but he was just trying to make the best out of what he had been given. If he thought about Neito doing the same thing, he felt a warm sense of connection that they were going through the same thing, even though Denki struggled at the same quirk over and over again while Neito would finally master one only to go on a search for an even trickier one to master and start all over again.
Neito was amazing and Denki always strived to keep up with him and Hitoshi. They were amazing and had very niche quirks, so he felt like he had to work hard and endlessly to keep up, and that might not even be enough someday. He felt lucky every day that he was admitted to Class 1-A, because that's what it was in Denki's mind: Luck. He was lucky that his training with his best friends overlapped heavily with his schoolwork, so that he was able to learn in a more hands-on, applied sort of way, which helped him get good enough grades to qualify. He was lucky that he could recall the methods he used to teach Neito different strategies during the entrance exam and passed. He was lucky that his electricity took down the robots during the practical exam like it was made specifically for him to pass with flying colors.
He felt a little too lucky and felt guilty about it. His video games and playing consistently with High5UrDead and Fri3ndlyFir3 against various other players were helping with strategy development and accounting for the teams' strengths and weaknesses, but he wasn't really a natural born leader like Neito and Hitoshi were. Even if he had come up with an idea to best Neito's group, it wasn't like he could just start giving orders. And if he did start giving orders, it's not like his teammates would actually listen to him. Especially because natural-leader Bakugou happened to be on his team, and Bakugou didn't take orders from anyone. But that was an excuse, Denki had to admit to himself. He wouldn't feel comfortable dishing out orders even if he was placed on a team with other follower-type classmates.
So, when Bakugou gave the orders, Denki listened. He was harsh and abrasive, but he could tell that he was a good friend when it mattered, so he didn't mind so much. Bakugou started calling him "Dunce face" when he missed an obvious question on an exam after another restless night, but he didn't retaliate when Denki started calling him "Kacchan" in return. Fair's fair. Besides, Denki knew that Bakugou didn't mean anything by it. If he wanted to hurt people's feelings, he would. He was like Neito in that way: Picking and prodding on surface level irritations, but never going any deeper than that, never causing any actual malicious harm. And maybe it was his similarities to Neito that drew Denki in right away when they had first met. That, and it was easier to not slip up and accidentally call him by his first name since he hadn't met him in a mental hospital beforehand like he had with a good chunk of the rest of Class 1-A.
"Dunce face, you're on copycat duty," Bakugou had commanded, finishing up giving everyone their assignments for the strategy that he had in mind.
"Kacchan, I don't think—" Denki tried to explain that there was a past history there, but Bakugou cut him off.
"Just do it, idiot!" Bakugou demanded.
Denki imagined that Bakugou thought Denki was the best bet because his electricity quirk would be risky to copy, but Bakugou didn't know that Neito had copied Denki's quirk before. Multiple times, actually, and had shown even better control over it than Denki had.
Denki shook his head, clearing his thoughts, before giving Bakugou a thumbs up and taking off to find his target. Denki had done a lot of training on his own and had developed a lot since the last time they had trained together, so he might have come up with new tricks that even Neito might not expect. He doubted it, but at least he could go to a higher voltage than he used to before he short-circuits his brain.
It was going to be a disaster from the start because Neito had already set his sights on Denki. Neito hated himself for thinking it, but maybe if he could prove that he was better than Denki at using his own quirk, and therefore didn't deserve to be in Class 1-A, then he could start to view him as more than a friend than as a soulmate-extension. He was nervous about it, because if it worked, he might just see him as a rival and nothing more, but with how strongly he felt toward Denki, he figured it was probably a safe bet that that wouldn't happen. He didn't have high hopes for his plan, because Denki was just overall amazing, but he had to try something because not having Denki in his life at all was really painful.
Because of all of their training together, Denki had gotten almost as good as Hitoshi at predicting Neito's moves and staying just out of reach. Neito wasn't proud of himself for what he had said to get Denki's guard down, and he knew he would regret it later, but he couldn't just waltz on up and ask Denki to share his quirk with him during a training exercise where there supposed to be enemies, could he? Especially because he didn't know what Denki's answer would be.
Denki had done a good job at isolating Neito away from his classmates and staying out of the way of all of the quirks he had copied beforehand until the timers had run out. As long as Denki kept Neito in that area, the others were keeping the rest of their team busy. He could do this; he had to for his team. He was sure that Neito was feeling the same determination and loyalty to his own team, so he tried not to pay attention to what Neito was yelling at him, but it was hard, because what if there was truth in there and it wasn't just purely distraction and manipulation to try to win the battle for his team?
Neito knew what he was saying was cruel, and the only way for him to even come up with those ideas was to think about the opposite of what he felt about Denki. Later, once his little crush had passed, he would apologize, and they would laugh over how absolutely in love with Denki Neito had been. Until then, he would have to play the villain.
Denki dodged away from Neito's touch once again but blocked him from leaving the area. He was stalling for time, and Neito had to do something.
"Who are you to be in Class 1-A? Huh?" Neito spat, lunging at Denki once again, who once again moved out of the way.
It was past the time limit, so Denki knew answering questions wouldn't result in being put under Hitoshi's quirk. Even if it could, he would have answered anyway, and just blamed it on his forgetfulness later when Bakugou would inevitably question why he had been so stupid. Bakugou would know he was lying, but he wouldn't be able to dig the truth out of him, so it would have been fine.
He will always answer Hitoshi and Neito. Always.
"I got really lucky," Denki conceded, but didn't allow Neito through to try to find his classmates. "It was like the test was made for me or something."
"That's not what I'm talking about," Neito spat, frustrated that when he did finally make contact with Denki, his costume got in the way from making skin-to-skin contact, and Denki leaped out of the way before he could correct. "What are you going to do when the class finds out that you hear voices? How are you going to be a hero that they can count on when you don't know what you're hearing is real or not?"
"UA already knows. And… It hasn't been bad," Denki defended, but his thoughts were evident on his face. "Maybe I'm getting better?"
Neito knew he should probably back off when Denki phrased his statement as more of a question, but his reactions had slowed down. He was so close to touching Denki's exposed skin and copying his quirk.
"UA knows, but do your classmates? I bet Bakugou would have a field day with that!" Neito taunted. "You would be demoted from stupid to crazy."
Neito knew that he was being a hypocrite, considering that he knew for sure that Bakugou had also been inpatient himself, as a result of seeing him when he was on Unit Echo before he was held and beaten. Surprisingly, Bakugou hadn't participated in Neito's punching-bag session. But Bakugou was a loud-mouth, abrasive asshole who didn't share personal details with anyone, so he was certain that Denki wouldn't be aware of his mental health history of all things. Honestly, anyone crazy enough to want to be a hero and make it far enough to get into UA must have something mentally wrong with them, whether that be some sort of trauma, something they feel the need to prove, or just plain old masochism.
Sure, Neito was being a hypocrite, but he was a successful hypocrite. He finally managed to tackle Denki and put his hand over the exposed skin of his throat. Just in time for their other classmates to join them. The other side battles had wrapped up and winners had been declared. It was down to Denki and Neito, and now they had an audience just as Neito was coming out on top. Victory tasted great.
While it lasted.
Neito stood up, already feeling victorious, and charged up. Denki shot up after him, and put his hands up in a calming gesture, but Neito wasn't paying much attention to him. It had been a while since he had copied Denki's quirk, and by the feel of it, Denki had built up some stamina and endurance to get the voltage even higher. It felt powerful, unstoppable, and electrifying.
The last thing Neito saw was Denki's concerned face as he rushed toward him, even through the blast of electricity that Neito had surrounded himself with.
After that, everything went dark.
A/N: I've had some comments across platforms questioning if ShigaDabi was going to be a thing. It wasn't, but I could make them into a thing if my readers demand it! I have a poll on Pay-tree-on (username is Caelan94), but you don't have to be a patron to vote! The poll is open to the public, so go tell me what you think should happen between Dabi and Shigaraki here:
Also, let me know in the comments if there are any other pairings that you might want to see pop up throughout the story!