A/N: (._%.) on AO3 asked when the next update would be because the cliffhanger was killing them, so I thought I'd post this chapter a day early! Enjoy!
Trigger warning: stabbing (nothing major and not who you think it is – document your guesses now and see if you're right by the end of the chapter!)
Denki spared a quick glance behind him, hoping that the hallucination had taken the hint and disappeared. He jumped, startled, when he saw the hallucination still standing there, looking fucking concerned of all things. His own fucking hallucination, of himself no less, was looking at him like he was fucking crazy.
"Fucking hell," Denki cursed under his breath, turning back around, and slamming his head right onto his open math book. "Why me? Why now?"
The thoughts of everything that this change in his mental status meant came crashing down upon him.
He had had years to orient himself with the singing voices in his head, and eventually even felt lucky that his schizophrenia wasn't worse. Some people had voices telling them to do bad things. Some people not only heard things but saw things as well. Denki figured he had gotten off easy until he had turned around only to find himself standing in his room. He guessed that maybe the added stress of everything that went down with the League of Villains and Shigaraki's currently unknown status had advanced his disease and now he was worse off than ever before.
He didn't dare blame Hitoshi's quirk for his misfortune, not even in his head where no one else would ever know. Hitoshi's quirk was a comfort to him, and he wouldn't allow anyone to know about this new development, already planning potential excuses he could use to drop out of the hero course. Briefly, he wondered if there was any coming back from this or if his visual hallucinations would be there to stay. He wondered if his chances at becoming a hero were thoroughly squashed.
"I thought you'd be happier to see me, to be honest," he heard himself insist quietly from across the room.
Denki only groaned in response, not lifting his head from his book. He jumped when he felt hands come down on his shoulders, spinning around and looking at the hallucination incredulously. Not only was this hallucination invading his personal space, but it was also touching him in a way that he could feel. Was this also a tactile hallucination? It was just getting worse and worse.
"I didn't know about the hallucinations," the hallucination defended itself gently. "If I did, I would have gone about this a different way. I swear."
Denki didn't bother responding, hoping that ignoring it might make it go away. He was already crazy enough to hear voices, and now see visual hallucinations, he didn't want to downgrade to actually talking to his hallucinations, too. He fisted his hands in his hair, trying to completely ignore the hallucination, which was harder than he thought it might be considering the fact that he could feel the hallucination touching him.
The hallucination grabbed onto Denki's hands and gently unfurled his fingers, pulling his hands away from his head and holding them instead.
"What is it going to take to get you to go away?" Denki snarled quietly, hoping that no one was passing by his door to hear him talking to himself.
"I'm really sorry, Denki," the hallucination said, a worried look across its face. "I'd change back into me to prove to you that I'm not a hallucination, but I didn't bring any extra clothes…"
Denki paused. That sounded absolutely insane with no connection to anything, just a random jumble of thoughts. Or, it would have, if he had never had the pleasure of meeting—
"Toga?" Denki whispered hopefully, looking up at his own face, silently praying to a god he didn't believe in for it to be true.
"Ye—" Toga was cut off by Denki slamming into her, pulling her into a tight hug, and sobbing against her shoulder.
"How are you?" Denki practically wailed into her shoulder, his question muffled because he didn't even bother to pull away from her shoulder at all before asking.
"I'm okay," she answered, nodding encouragingly, and patting his back.
She didn't normally comfort people, but Denki was so easy. He made normal human interactions that might otherwise be intimidating seem like the easiest, most natural thing in the world. She knew she wasn't the only one who was affected by him in this way, either. If she didn't already know what his quirk was, she would have thought it had something to do with putting people at ease and getting people to like him so quickly.
"How's Spinner?" Denki asked next, pulling back, his lashes wet with tears as he looked at her, bracing himself for any negative answer that might come.
"He's fine, too," she answered.
She could have just told him about how everyone was, but she let him do the honors of what order he wanted to ask about people in.
"And Twice?" Denki ventured, eyes gleaming with a hopeful innocence that begged to be protected.
"He's great! Just as always!" she answered, her smile growing wider across her face.
"And… Dabi?" he asked hesitantly, flinching as he said the name, not quite ready to hear the news, but knowing that he needed to if he wanted to get any sleep that night at all.
"He hasn't been the same…" Toga started, but trailed off, looking off into the distance to think about the specific changes.
Denki's heart dropped, but Toga continued, "he changed since the whole concussion thing." When she noticed Denki's worried expression, however, she stopped playing with him. "Oh! He's completely normal around us!" she reassured, nodding like she wasn't just setting him up for bad news. "But he acts completely different around Shigaraki, now."
"Shigaraki is alive," Denki whispered, but it wasn't a question, and it wasn't directed at Toga. "Shigaraki is alive. Shigaraki is alive. Shigaraki is alive. Shigaraki is alive. Shigaraki is alive."
His chant became more frantic and excited, his voice gaining speed and volume as the intense grin stretched over his face and he started bouncing as he chanted the words over and over again, finally starting to believe them.
"Yeah. He's pissed, though," Toga added, shrugging like it was no big deal.
"Why?" Denki asked, scared to know, but also scared not to ask, wondering if there was a lack of oxygen to his brain before he was revived, wondering if he was still truly himself, the same Shigaraki that he had played online with for years at that point.
"Lots 'a reasons!" Toga chirped, making her way over to Denki's bed and flopping down onto it now that Denki didn't have her in a death grip. "He's pissed that Dabi broke his ribs during CPR for one." Denki forced the corners of his mouth back down as they tried to quirk up. "He's also really mad that you saved him. He totally supports you becoming a hero, don't get me wrong! But he didn't want to be the test subject that proves that he made the right choice!"
Denki bursts out laughing and can't stop until there are tears streaming down his face. His laughs turn back into sobs, and then back into laughs again. He's just so, so relieved that he can't regulate his emotions, and he didn't care. If anyone would roll with his emotional release, it would be those who had gone through the same situation that he himself had gone through.
Once he had calmed down, Toga joined him on the floor. He was too tired to pick himself up to flop onto the bed next to her, so she would just have to go to him!
"We're all really sorry about leaving you in the dark, by the way," Toga whispers. Denki had never heard her so quiet before. "The heroes have been trailing us too closely for comfort to be able to get any message out to you before now. We've finally settled at our new base, and they're still trying to get their hands on a game system. You should have seen how distressed Shigaraki and Dabi were when Kurogiri tried to tell them that it wasn't the priority."
Denki hummed in understanding, though his eyes were still a little sad.
Toga continued, "we all were distressed, to be honest." She looked down at her hands as she spoke, treasuring the newfound connection they had all found with each other since living through that nightmare. "We all knew why they were so damn determined to get a game system up and running. None of us were stupid enough to think that they were just antsy to get back into the game. They made contacting you their own top priority, but when it didn't work out the way they wanted, they sent me instead, as soon as they felt like we had finally lost the heroes for good."
"Is it scary?" Denki asked, secure enough to move the topic of conversation along. It honestly just felt so refreshing to be able to talk freely without Force Majeure's quirk rendering his tongue useless at the worst possible moments. When Toga furrowed her brow in question, Denki clarified, "coming here all on your own. Is it scary?"
"It's exhilarating," Toga practically moaned, stretching out her arms and leaning so far back that she just kind of ended up sprawled out on the floor, grinning up at Denki. "It keeps my skills sharp. It helps me to avoid getting lazy. It's so easy to start to rely on the others," she admitted, eyes looking straight up at the ceiling. "I wouldn't want to become a burden and weigh others down with my mistakes just because I felt too comfortable that they would be able to come along behind me and clean up my mess. Individual missions are vital to our continued success."
Denki was so extremely relieved that the feeling was overwhelming after being in a constant state of perpetual stress since the rescue. Not only was he relieved at the good news, but also at the way Toga was speaking, like they were a closely knit team now, bonded by trauma, but bonded all the same. It was a far cry from the hesitant way that they had all behaved around each other before, especially around Shigaraki. He wondered how different the atmosphere was and how many of them had started to grow comfortable in Shigaraki's presence.
Before sneaking out again, Toga turned back to Denki abruptly. It was comical to Denki to see the startled and excited expression on his own face staring back at him with wide eyes.
"I almost forgot!" she whisper-yelled. "I totally told Bakugou and Kirishima that you'd be eating dinner with them tonight!"
"Oh, no!" Denki groaned. "Did they say who was cooking?"
"Bakugou!" Toga chirped.
Denki slapped a hand against his face and let it drag down in exasperation. "My taste buds are never going to recover," he whined, already salivating in self-defense at the threat of how spicy the meal was sure to be.
Toga smirked and shot him a wink, not caring in the slightest about how his mouth was going to be on fire for at least three hours after the last bite that Bakugou would force down his throat if he didn't willingly eat it himself. She'd done her job, after all.
When she left, Denki kept his lights off and stayed quiet, just in case anyone saw her leaving and then immediately saw that someone was in his dorm room. That would be suspicious.
It was easy, for the first time since the rescue, to be left alone with his own thoughts. He hadn't even realized he drifted off into a peaceful nap until there was a gentle knock at his door.
"Hey!" Kirishima beamed at him, blinding him with his smile, when he opened the door. "It's time for dinner and—woah! Were you sleeping? Sorry, dude!"
"It's fine, Kiri," Denki said with a sleepy smile, stretching his arms over his head as he stepped out into the hallway, closing his dorm room door shut behind him. "How much damage are we talking?"
Kirishima grinned mischievously at Denki. "I might have swapped Bakugou's ghost pepper flakes with something… well… mild."
Denki gasped, bouncing on his toes at the anticipation of Bakugou's reaction when he realizes.
"Oh, Kiri," Denki winced. "I'm sorry, buddy, but you're on your own for this one!"
"I wouldn't have it any other way!" Kirishima answered, grinning and purely excited for Bakugou's inevitable explosion. "He's going to know it's me, anyway."
"Why's that?" Denki asked, almost afraid to know.
"I signed the bottom of the jar with my name!" Kirishima chirped, the gleam in his eye absolutely begging for punishment.
"Yeah… uh… quick question. What kind of flowers do you want me to bring to your funeral?" Denki asked, proud of himself for keeping his face and tone serious throughout the whole question.
Kirishima barked out a laugh, threw his arm over Denki's shoulders as they walked, and softly shared how glad he was that Denki was feeling more like himself. Kirishima was glad that it didn't seem like a fluke before in the common room. He'd be damned if he wasn't going to keep a close eye on Denki though, just to be sure.
Shouto stood in the kitchen, against the counter, facing the toaster, and just staring at it. Bakugou was grumbling every time he had to move around Shouto, but he didn't seem to have the time or energy to spare to actually yell at him to move out of his way, god dammit! Or maybe he had already tried to no avail before Kirishima and Denki had made their appearance.
Shouto saw Denki out of the corner of his eye, grabbed a fork that was sitting on the counter next to the toaster, and dropped it in. Denki saw him do it. And Shouto was very intentional about it, not caring that Denki saw, and maybe even wanting Denki to see him do the odd action.
"Oops," Shouto deadpanned, no emotion in his fake-surprise. "I dropped my metal fork into the toaster. What can I do?"
His eyes didn't leave Denki's. Very subtle, Shouto. Very subtle.
Denki wasn't sure what Shouto was doing, but he was in a good mood and was ready to play along.
"Just unplug it, dude," he suggested, walking over and reaching for the plug.
"No. That will ruin my toast," Shouto argued.
By the smell of it, the toast was already burnt beyond recognition, but Denki just shrugged, a smile growing on his face at Shouto's strange antics.
"Can you safely get it out for me, Kaminari?" Shouto asked. "Since your quirk is electrification, it should be easy for you to not be electrocuted by something that could kill an ordinary person."
Okay… morbid and graphic… but still whatever.
"Sure," Kaminari shrugged, charging up his quirk to counteract the circuit that would connect once he grabbed the fork, easily plucking it from the toaster and handing it to Shouto.
Shouto took the fork carefully from Kaminari's hand. "Thanks," he stated easily, before turning the fork in his hand and stabbing it right into Denki's arm.
Denki hissed, pulling away. "What the hell was that?" he growled, watching Shouto carefully for any more signs of attack.
Instead of answering, Shouto turned to the rest of the kitchen and announced loudly, "it's okay, everyone. This is the real Kaminari!"
Denki stared at him, completely dumbfounded as he walked away, tossing the fork that was just used to assault him in the sink as he passed by. He wasn't the only one. It seemed like everyone's eyes were wide as they followed Shouto's retreating figure until he went through the doorway to the dining room and was out of sight. Midoriya quickly shuffled over to Denki and offered to wrap the stab wound that Shouto had just caused to his arm with a fork of all things. Maybe he was actually still in his dorm room, Denki thought. Maybe he was still dreaming during the nap he fell into after Toga left. But, if he was dreaming, it wouldn't have hurt, would it?
"Sorry about him," Midoriya murmured, shaking his head in exasperation. "He got it into his head that your happy mood in the stairwell was a red flag and decided to test to see if you were one of the villains from the camp acting as Kaminari."
Denki snorted. That damn king of conspiracy was going to be the death of the League of Villains if they weren't careful. A smile grew on Midoriya's face, too, grateful that Denki was still in a good mood, and he didn't react negatively to Shouto's weird tests to make sure that he was still him.
"It shows that he cares," Denki reassured Midoriya as he finished wrapping his arm in gauze. The wound wasn't deep and there was really no need for anything more than a band aid, but Midoriya was just as extra as Shouto, just in his own way, so Denki didn't object. "Plus, one of these times he's going to get it right, and he's going to save everyone with his outrageous thinking."
"Yeah, maybe," Midoriya answered noncommittally with a shrug, but Denki saw his smile grow as his eyes lingered at the doorway where Shouto had exited.