Chapter 37 Lightning Serenade
"Just because we kidnapped you doesn't mean that you can slack on your training," Dabi lectured, leading Denki back to the training area. "Also, I'm using my quirk this time."
Denki blanched. "What?"
"You heard me."
"That's not fair!" Denki whined, sounding more like a toddler on the verge of a tantrum than a high school hero course student.
"Use your quirk on me if you want," Dabi offered with a nonchalant shrug.
"I could quite literally kill you," Denki retorted, letting the heavy metal door fall shut behind them as the entered the underground training area that was positioned right under the bar.
"See, that's the problem with you hero types. You're so squeamish about death," Dabi breezed.
Denki burst out laughing at that but was still aware enough to dodge out of the way of the blast of blue fire that Dabi had sent his way.
After a good hour of relentless training (the only way that Dabi seemed to be able to train was absolutely relentless and ruthless, but that worked for Denki), the villain and the future hero were breathing heavily, cooling their skin on the cool cement of the floor.
Denki was just happy that the floor was still cool after having Dabi's flames steadily heating the room to boiling point for the last hour. Denki hissed as he sat up, feeling the tightness of his skin where he was burned when he didn't move out of the way quite fast enough.
"Sorry 'bout that," Dabi drawled, remaining steadfast in his position sprawled out on the floor. "You'll have to make do with basic first aid; villains don't tend to have many healers at their disposal."
"I'll forgive you if you patch me up," Denki chirped, smiling widely at the villain sprawled out next to him.
Dabi groaned, sitting up to go grab the supplies, not quite ready to leave the coolness of the cement. He figured he'd have to get up anyway because Denki wouldn't know where the first aid kit was, and if he sent the kid asking for it, the other villains would question why he needed it and then be on his ass for going too hard on the kid during training. Not only would that annoy Dabi, but it would also be uncomfortable for Denki. He's a tough kid; he has to be to be in the hero course. He's probably had much worse. The only difference was that he would have to endure the normal healing process instead of having a magic healing lady kiss his boo-boos away.
It was also a good workout for Dabi. Villains had their specialties, and to stay alive, they usually stuck strictly to what they were good at. Again, they didn't have many healers to fall back on if they made a mistake. What might be a simple wound to heal for a hero with a healer at their agency could mean the death of a villain. So, Dabi hadn't had many willing participants that he could go all out with in quite a while. Of course, he understood; training wasn't worth potentially dying over. It was still nice to go all out, though, when he could manage it. And Denki put up one hell of a fight.
He wasn't going to go as hard as he did, but Denki never backed down or looked scared, even with the blue flames coming right at him before he dodged away. The challenge in Denki's eyes and the glee evident in his smile pushed Dabi to go further and further. He might have scolded himself for being too careless, but he doubted he would have gotten so wired if it wasn't Denki in that training room with him.
Truthfully, Denki appreciated that Dabi always took him seriously and treated him like he knew what he was doing. Always following Bakugou's orders didn't leave much room for him to show off and live up to his full potential, so it was nice to be training with Dabi again, whose observant eyes tracked him like radar. Dabi would make minute adjustments until he was running Denki at full throttle and continuing the little adjustments to keep him there. It was exhausting and exhilarating and Denki loved it so, so much.
Denki hummed in relief as Dabi put burn relief cream on the areas that were sure to blister if left untreated.
"Sorry," Dabi repeated, now that he had a chance to look at the damage he had caused up close.
"Don't be," Denki dismissed. "I'll be fine. And I know you went easy on me."
Dabi scoffed. "And why would I do that?"
"I think you're a whole lot more powerful than you ever let on," Denki accused lightly, watching Dabi loosely wrap gauze around his arms. "You could have melted me if you wanted to. I bet you could have filled every corner of this room with your flames if you wanted to."
Dabi hummed in appreciation. "You handled a lot more than I thought you would," Dabi praised. "I went harder than I had initially planned because you just kept taking everything I threw at you and rolled with it."
Shigaraki had narrowed his eyes when he had spotted the bandages wrapped around Denki's arms, looked between Dabi and Denki, and rolled his eyes when they both looked away like the wall and ceiling were so interesting.
"I expect this kind of recklessness from the heroes, but you, Dabi?" Shigaraki scolded lightly, but already knew that he wouldn't push it.
He had noticed that both boys were in a fantastic mood. Both seemed energized and bright, so he wouldn't fault them for something that made them feel that way. He himself often chased the high of happiness wherever he could find it.
Later, Twice had demanded that the trio of gamers pause the game and come eat the dinner that he had made with Magne's help. The trio tried to say that they weren't hungry, but Toga threatened unspeakable things if she found out they snuck any snacks later. Shigaraki grudgingly paused the game and shuffled out to the kitchen, Dabi and Denki following behind, eager to eat as the smell of the spices hit them. The League members that were present were only a little surprised that Shigaraki didn't even threaten to high-five Toga's face for the threat and fell into easy conversation across the table instead of waiting in silence for Shigaraki to lash out for the slight against his authority. Progress.
It was during dinner that Denki learned about All Might's well-kept secret that now involved Midoriya.
"So, the soulmates are off limits?" Denki clarified.
"I already said they were," Shigaraki answered, but more amused than annoyed.
"And Class 1-A?" Denki continued.
Shigaraki didn't answer and wouldn't meet his eyes. Super sus of him.
"Class 1-B?" Denki asked.
"Sure," Shigaraki answered, just glad to be off of the topic of Class 1-A, but knowing that it would circle back soon enough.
"Upper-level hero courses?"
"No use to me."
"General studies?"
"Safe."
"Business?"
"Safe."
"What about the support classes?"
"Safe."
"Class 1-A?" Denki asked again, hoping that the repeated question-answer rhythm would get Shigaraki to slip up and answer him.
Shigaraki just sighed, finally looking over at Denki and meeting his eyes.
"What is it? Oh, no. Is it the traitor?!" Denki gasped.
"No. It's not about the traitor. It's about Midoriya," Shigaraki answered hesitantly, figuring that the heroes who knew probably knew that the League of Villains knew about the quirk One For All.
Either way, Denki wouldn't have been able to tell anyone being under Force Majeure's compulsion quirk.
"If you're trying to recruit him—!" Denki started but was interrupted.
"No. Nothing like that," Shigaraki reassured. "He's already heavily involved."
"What do you mean?" Denki asked, putting his eating utensils down to give Shigaraki his full attention.
After a look around the table to make sure none of his followers objected to telling Denki, Shigaraki explained to Denki that Midoriya was gifted his quirk by All Might.
"I've never heard of anything like that before," Denki stated, intrigued.
"He told you he was quirkless when you guys talked before going to UA, didn't he?" Dabi interjected, knowing that Midoriya had been on Unit Beta during a time that overlapped with Denki's stay and that Midoriya had been one of the ones invited to crash Hitoshi's thirteenth birthday party.
Dabi knew how bonded people could get with those they met at a mental health hospital. He also knew how trusting they could be after continuously talking about difficult topics during group therapy session. Dabi had easily predicted and had not been surprised that Midoriya would have talked about being quirkless as that was the major reason why he was inpatient in the first place.
"Yeah, but I thought he was just a late bloomer… a really late bloomer," Denki admitted, eyebrows furrowed in thought.
Shigaraki remained silent, giving Denki time to think over what he was being told.
"Is that why he keeps breaking his bones when he tries to use his quirk?" Denki asked finally.
He wasn't going to ask. He was going to just suffer forever wondering. However, he knew that everyone had seen Midoriya during the sports festival, and he had very obviously hurt himself during the duels. He figured it was a safe bet that this little tidbit of information wasn't a secret from the villains, or anyone else, really.
Shigaraki nodded, scratching at his neck absently as he answered, "his body didn't grow with his quirk because it wasn't his until recently. He was given a fully mature quirk that his still-growing body can't handle. It's ripping him apart from the inside."
Denki picked up hints of anger as Shigaraki spoke. Denki failed to see how it was villainous to be angry about a teenager hurting himself over and over again just to grow into a quirk that was thrust upon him, but maybe that was just the villains rubbing off on him.
Turning on the television, everyone who was still at the base gathered around to watch. It made Denki uncomfortable watching Aizawa and Principal Nezu apologize for something that wasn't their fault. How could they have predicted a traitor and then prevented that unknown traitor from getting information? It wouldn't have been easy, if it was possible at all.
"You can't tell me," Denki declared as the press started asking questions of the panel.
When prompted for clarification, Denki continued, "you can't tell me who the traitor is. I wouldn't be able to handle it! All—all this mess! How could I—?"
A knock came at the door then. "Pizza delivery!"
It didn't look suspicious at all to the heroes who burst in through the walls and door from every angle with Denki backing away from the villains who were facing him, surrounding him, hands up and outstretched as if to tell the villains to keep away, even if in reality, he was begging for them to keep a vital piece of information to themselves.
"Kurogiri!" Shigaraki commanded, knowing that his interim guardian would understand the command without it having to be spelled out for him.
As Kurogiri's mist started to spread in preparation to making multiple warp gates for the villains to escape, branches extended from who was soon revealed to be Kamui Woods, wrapping tightly around every villain, rendering them all immobile.
As Dabi allowed the blue flames to start to overtake his body, a manic grin spreading on his face at the sudden action and anticipation of a good fight, Gran Torino came darting in, foot aimed to knock Dabi unconscious and render him and his quirk useless to the other villains.
Denki didn't know how to feel as All Might reassured him that they were there to rescue him and how brave he was in a time when he must have been so scared. He didn't know if the compulsion would have let him answer, even if he had made the effort to. He watched in horror as a falling wire from a hole in the ceiling dropped down onto a restrained Shigaraki.
Denki had enough experience with electricity to know that it was a live wire, and the resulting convulsions from Shigaraki was him being electrocuted. Luckily, Kamui Woods wasn't out to harm anyone and quickly moved Shigaraki out of the reach of the wire, but Shigaraki remained limp and unmoving in Kamui Woods's branches.
Denki was already taking a step forward, panic gathering in his throat, when something amazing happened.
The swirling cloud that tickled his stomach, which he thought at first was just nausea from the intense situation he had found himself in, soon spread and flowed quickly out of his mouth, quickly enveloping his whole body. He choked and gagged and couldn't breathe, but in just a few seconds, it was over, and he was in a completely different area altogether.
Denki rushed forward toward Shigaraki, whose body lied too still in the gravel. With no heroes around to witness his quick reflex to help the villain who kidnapped him and who was supposed to be his enemy, Denki dropped down at Shigaraki's side, quickly rolling him onto his back and making sure that his hand wouldn't accidentally fall on himself or the surrounding area around them. The last thing Denki needed was to be injured or have the surface collapse under them as he assessed Shigaraki's condition.
There were no heroes to witness UA's consistent first aid and CPR training paying off. There were no heroes to pull Denki away from the one who had organized his capture. There were no heroes to help Denki stay calm and go through the motions of CPR after Denki realized that Shigaraki wasn't breathing and had no pulse. There were no heroes to rely on to take over if Denki became to exhausted. There were no heroes that would correct Denki if he made a mistake that could very well be fatal for Shigaraki.
Even if there were heroes there, Denki knew he'd be on his own anyway. He knew that him trying desperately to save Shigaraki's life would look awfully suspicious.
Denki was so grateful that there were no heroes there.