Chapter 45 Lightning Serenade
A/N: This is a longer one, and very dialogue heavy. I had it all typed out, and just wasn't very happy with the flow of the conversation. I cut and pasted different parts, changed the wording in some areas, and added and removed certain things, and now I'm very pleased with it. A lot of work went into this one, and I hope that it shows!
Denki looked startled, looking wide-eyed and a little panicked as his gaze continuously switched between Hitoshi and Neito. They didn't warn him not to lie to them; they knew Denki wouldn't be able to bring himself to try to deceive them, just like how they would never have been able to lie to each other or him. Despite Denki's amazing poker face minutes earlier during the game, it was no longer a game, and Denki's thoughts were clear on his face for the soulmates to read.
"I wanted to tell you guys, I really did," Denki started out slowly, waiting for the quirk-induced block to render his tongue useless.
Hitoshi had started to run his hand through his hair every few seconds, a very clear sign that he was very, very stressed. Neito sat very still, hands clasped and pressed against his lips as he hunched over, his elbows supporting his weight on his legs as he stared at Denki. It wasn't a good sign that Neito didn't have anything to say.
The soulmates' reactions fed into Denki's own anxiety, so he rushed to explain himself, hoping to give everyone, including himself, a little relief. "It's not what it looks like! Or maybe it is, depending on what you think it looks like… I wanted to tell you everything, but Force Majeure's quirk wouldn't let me! I couldn't talk about anything that happened with the League, or you know I would have told you, right?! I couldn't even use sign language or write anything down, she's so thorough! Her quirk is really amazing actually, but—"
"Did it hurt?" Hitoshi interrupted, brow furrowed with concern. "Her quirk? Aizawa said that it's painful to her victims."
"That's what she warned me before she started!" Denki exclaimed, flailing his arms around in his energetic state as he rushed to make his best friends understand. "But it didn't hurt at all! I was waiting for the pain to start, and then the next thing I knew, she said it was over!"
"How are you talking about this right now?" Neito wondered aloud, not moving from his position with his hands still clasped tightly against his mouth, his voice slightly smothered from the obstacle.
Denki stopped and held his breath, paranoid that now that he was thinking about it, her quirk would start back up again.
"Uh," he hesitated, "I am not sure, actually. I swear it really wouldn't let me before, though. You have to believe me!"
"We believe you," Hitoshi answered automatically, answering for Neito as well.
"Oh, uh… good. Good!" Denki sputtered, hands clenching into fists and unclenching again.
"We're going to sit here and talk this out," Neito reassured Denki in a gentle voice, intentionally relaxing his body language to put Denki at ease, even though he still felt very tightly wound up inside. "No one's going anywhere, and there's no rush. Take a deep breath, okay? Copy me."
Denki would have laughed at the irony of copying the boy with the copy quirk, but he was too wound up with anxiety, so he just did as he was told. Neito continued to model deep breathing for Denki to copy, and Hitoshi had unwittingly joined in as well, matching their calming breaths.
"What did they do to you?" Neito prompted once everyone was calmer.
Denki slumped in place before muttering, "nothing."
"We were so worried when you came back so depressed, and now you're saying that they didn't do anything to you?" Hitoshi asked.
And it wasn't that he didn't believe Denki. Denki didn't lie, not to the soulmates, at least. They were closer than that. He just didn't understand how both things could be true and needed further explanation.
"Yeah…" Denki muttered under his breath. He took a deep breath, gathered his courage, and continued. "When Hitoshi snatched me up with his capture weapon—nice aim by the way, Tosh—"
"—Thanks. I was really nervous. I only had one shot because you were surrounded by so many villains."
"You actually ripped me away in the middle of CPR," Denki said.
There was a pause to allow everyone to consider what that meant, and to think back to the configuration of the villains near Denki at the time of his rescue.
"On… on Shigaraki?" Neito asked hesitantly.
"On Shigaraki," Denki confirmed, eyes switching back and forth between Neito and Hitoshi, looking for any sign of what they might have been thinking. When he didn't see any accusation, he continued, "I was using my quirk to act as the AED to try to get his heart rhythm back to normal. I had just made my second attempt when you pulled me away."
"I haven't heard anything about Shigaraki from Aizawa," Hitoshi admitted, slight worry weighing on his heart for a villain he had despised until just a few minutes ago for taking Denki away from him, now concerned because Denki would be hurt if he was unable to save him.
"I saved him," Denki said with finality to it, nodding his head as if to try to convince himself that he really did something like that, like he still couldn't believe that he was actually successful. "He's alive."
"You didn't know at first, did you?" Neito asked, connecting the pieces in his mind. "That's why you went from depressed back to normal so quickly. That was when you found out."
"Yeah. I was so worried!" Denki winced at the crack in his voice. "That sounds stupid, though, doesn't it?" Denki asked, looking away from the soulmates, not wanting to see their reaction when they realize that Denki was truly worried for the wellbeing of not only a villain, but the very villain who orchestrated his capture, intentional or otherwise.
"Of course not," Hitoshi insisted so firmly and immediately that it made Denki swivel his head around to meet his eyes. "Anyone would have been worried to be pulled away from a rescue without knowing of the outcome."
"No, you're not understanding," Denki insisted, running his hand through his hair.
He could have just left it at that, but that wasn't fair to the soulmates, and it wasn't fair to himself, either, if he was being honest. He had wanted the support since he had returned to UA, and now that the chance was there to get everything out, he was going to take it, even if that meant that the soulmates' opinion of him would forever be altered.
"Then explain it," Neito nudged. "We're listening."
And they were, Denki could tell. No judgment was visible in their eyes as they waited patiently for Denki to explain his feelings and allow them to help shoulder the burden. They had shared everything else, hadn't they? What was one more shared emotional turmoil in the grand scheme of things?
"They really didn't do anything terrible to me," Denki started, needing them to understand where he was coming from. He decided that the best place to start was from the beginning. "They figured out that the Bakugou that they took wasn't the real Bakugou pretty quickly after we were taken from the forest. Without Bakugou there to use against me, and just me with a bunch of villains in my immediate vicinity… Well, they quickly figured out that they weren't prepared to deal with an electrification quirk because I wasn't part of the plan, apparently. And we all quickly realized that they didn't have the actual Bakugou sitting next to me to threaten me with or keep me from electrocuting the whole room."
When Denki glanced up at the soulmates to make sure they were still following along, he saw a sense of pride in their eyes. It put a crushing weight on his heart that he knew that the incoming truth would change that. He wasn't as strong as they thought he was. Maybe he wasn't meant to be a hero; maybe he wasn't made of the right stuff.
"Wait…" Neito started, a hungry glint in his eyes, unable to resist asking. "How did they react when they realized that Bakugou was a clone?"
"They were absolutely dumbfounded!" Denki exclaimed, throwing his arms out and smiling wide as he remembered. "They quickly figured out that it was you behind their failure, actually. It was pretty intense! I think it only made it worse that they were bracing themselves for Shigaraki's reaction to the fact that they had failed."
"Way to put yourself on the League's radar, Nei," Hitoshi grumbled, but the blonde boys picked up the genuine concern in his tone.
"They considered coming after you, first, Toshi," Denki countered. "They had footage from the sports festival, and they had this huge binder full of information on all of the students. When they saw that you two were soulmates, they were all like, 'well, let's just grab the both of 'em!'"
Denki's upbeat, mocking tone and dramatic arm movements to match did nothing to quell the new anxiety that rose in Hitoshi. "They're targeting us next?!" His eyes were wide with fear at being specifically targeted by the same group that left the social genius of their group a burned shell of himself for days after his rescue. If Denki barely made it out, Hitoshi knew that no one else stood a chance.
"They can try!" Neito sneered, the challenging spark in his eyes letting Denki know that he was itching for a rematch.
"No! No! I got them to back off! You guys are off limits!" Denki reassured, cursing himself in his head for making things worse and causing more anxiety for his friends as he tried to explain.
The soulmates stopped dead in their thoughts, turning to Denki with incredulous looks on their faces.
"Uh, Denki?" Hitoshi started, trying to keep his voice gentle, even when he was screaming on the inside. "How did you manage that?"
"I played some video games with Shigaraki and got him to promise to leave you guys alone. I just kept adding to the list until almost everyone at UA was on it," Denki answered simply with a shrug, like that explained it all.
The soulmates shared a glance, looked back at Denki, and then looked back at each other again before bursting into laughter. After two full minutes of full-strength, non-stop laughter, Denki was getting concerned.
"You guys okay?" Denki asked hesitantly.
"We knew it!" Neito managed to blurt out in between heaves. "We called it!"
Denki was even more confused if that was possible.
Hitoshi took a few deep breaths to calm himself as he wiped the tears from his eyes, the smile still on his face, and his laughter just under the surface, waiting to burst out of him again. "When you were first taken, we told everyone that you would be fine right away, and we were totally right! We—" Hitoshi snorted before controlling himself enough to continue. "We even said that you would charm your way out of there! Looks like we weren't too far off!"
"You guys aren't upset?" Denki ventured cautiously, needing to get clarity on how they were feeling about everything before his anxiety would start to ebb away.
"About what?"
Denki blew out a breath through puffed out cheeks, frustrated that he would have to spell out his own shortcomings for the soulmates to understand just how fucked the whole situation was. "I saved a villain's life. The world would probably be better off as a whole if I had just decided to do nothing."
"Since when have any of us just sat back and decide to do nothing?" Neito asked rhetorically. "I'm also not big on the whole utilitarian thing. You saw someone who needed help, and like a goddamn full-fledged hero, you helped him." Neito was going to pound this praise into Denki's thick skull if it was the last thing he ever did.
"But—"
"Are you uncertain because you didn't suffer?" Hitoshi asked incredulously.
"Well... yeah," Denki said with a matching incredulous shake of his head at the question that he thought would have an obvious answer. "I made friends with the villains! Instead of resisting everything they might try and sticking to strict morals! Instead of fighting back with everything I had until I either died or escaped! I took the cowardly way out!"
"Cowardly?!" Neito repeated, clearly very offended on Denki's behalf at his own thoughts. "Sparky, you did amazing, and I'm not just saying that because it's what you need to hear. I'm saying it because it's the truth. Would I lie to you?" When Denki shook his head, too stunned to answer verbally, Neito continued, "you managed to survive becoming a hostage to the League of Villains, which is incredible all by itself. Adding to that, you got out with no casualties, and that is completely because of you because there would have been at least one if it wasn't for your quick thinking and heroic impulse to just rush in and help in any way you can when there is someone who needs a hero, let alone how many people would die if the League went on a rampage after their leader died, so you might have unintentionally prevented more massacre just by that alone! How many people can say that they went against the League of Villains, got out alive, and also made damn sure that there were no casualties in the aftermath?"
"Well—" Denki started to answer, absolutely certain that he wasn't the only one.
"Not enough," Neito answered for him with a sense of finality to his answer.
"Plus, you even got the villains to agree to your terms just by talking things out instead of having to resort to violence," Hitoshi chimed in. "If it was one of Aizawa's practical exams, you'd pass with flying colors because you caused zero collateral damage."
"And charmed not just Shigaraki, by the looks of it," Neito added, calmer now, indicating toward Denki's phone where the evidential TikTok draft resided.
Hitoshi doubled down, not giving Denki a chance to find a way to depreciate himself once again. "Anyone would be relieved to find out that a rescue attempt was successful, regardless of if the one you were rescuing turned out to be a villain. You more than anyone with your intense ability to become friends with literally anybody."
"It's proven," Neito added decisively with a firm nod.
"And it's an asset," Hitoshi insisted. "Not a failure. Just because you didn't do things the traditional way doesn't mean that you didn't do it right."
"Sometimes tradition should just fuck right off!" Neito added, voice loud.
At that, Hitoshi and Denki looked at Neito oddly.
"Too much?" he asked, quieter.
"Too much," Hitoshi and Denki confirmed.
But had Neito not achieved his goal? Denki was looking a lot less lost and a lot more comfortable, which is exactly how he should feel all the time around the soulmates if Neito had anything to say about it.
"Are they going to come after you again?" Hitoshi asked, not as concerned as he would have been if Denki had reported that he had offended all of the villains on a personal level and then destroyed their most prized possessions, but still concerned nonetheless.
"Oh, no!" Denki assured, a newfound energy in his words with the relief of the support of the soulmates washing over him. "They all know that I'm going to be a hero! In fact, they want me to!"
Hitoshi and Neito stared blankly at Denki for a second.
"You might be the first hero ever to be endorsed by a villain organization. Not just tolerated, but completely supported in your mission," Neito breathed, amazed. The unspoken question of how the hell Denki could have doubted himself with this much potential at his fingertips lingered for a moment. "You could change this whole thing around, make people less violent, make people feel even safer than the Symbol of Peace even could."
"You could give a new meaning to heroics altogether," Hitoshi added. "Not everyone can throw a punch like All Might," Hitoshi knew better than anyone, "but a whole lot more people can learn communication skills and feel heroic with you to compare to. You have this amazing quirk, and for people to see that you would freely use it to assist but refrain from destruction at all costs… that could do unbelievable good, Denki."
"You could be the greatest hero ever," Neito whispered, eyes sparkling with joy for his closest friend. "Just don't forget about us when you make it big, okay?"
"What do you mean?" Denki bit back, but the intensity was lost in his growing smile. "You'll be right up there with me. I wouldn't make it nearly as far without you two helping to pave the way. It didn't take much convincing for Shigaraki to see that, either."
A heavy pause weighed in the space between the trio as they looked at each other, Denki's grin growing wider as the soulmates' eyes grew wider as they started to realize.
"Us?" Hitoshi asked simply, unable to form a cohesive question at the magnitude of what Denki was telling him.
"We are—also—?" Neito was also speechless for once. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and tried again. "How did you convince Shigaraki to include us in his support?"
"You both were vouched for," Denki said vaguely, continuing, "I explained that you two made me who I was, and that they shouldn't even try to recruit you because you two were even more steadfast than me in your goal to become heroes. We're a team. It feels like it's always been that way."
"And he just took you at your word?" Hitoshi asked, amazement still lingering.
"You did," Denki countered, making intentional eye contact with both boys, the gratefulness of their trust in him not needing to be spoken aloud when his voice was already heavy with it.
Neito shook his head as if to physically shake off the newfound pressure. "What about all the burns you had?" he asked then, if only to change the subject. To be fair, though, he was curious. "Did that happen before you got them to come around to your side?"
"No." Despite talking about injuries sustained during his time held captive, a wide grin grew over Denki's face. He closely watched Neito as he answered smugly, "they didn't want me to fall behind in my training, so… I spent some time training with some of the League members."
"What?!" Neito shrieked, jumping to his feet. "I want to do that!" he all but whined, a pout on his face as his brows furrowed at the unluckiness of it all.
Before Hitoshi could make a smart comment, Denki supplied, "oh, I'm sure you'll get your chance."
"If they crash another training, I'm volunteering for tribute!" Neito stated decidedly with a firm nod.
Hitoshi snorted and Denki smiled at the thought of Neito proudly and immediately offering himself for the taking if the villains were to ever invade again. Denki smiled wider when he thought of the fact that Dabi wouldn't even be surprised, and wider still when he imagined the looks on their classmates' faces when the villains would actively avoid taking Neito, partly because they knew how much trouble he could be, and partly because he was off-limits to them, now.
"So, this draft on TikTok…" Hitoshi started, breaching the subject once again.
"Oh!" Denki exclaimed, bringing up the offending video in question. "This one is me, this one is Toga, and all of those ones are Twice's clones!" Denki explained as he pointed at each of his images on the screen. "Twice was actually very impressed with you, Neito," Denki added, looking up from his phone to meet Neito's eyes. "At least, I think he was… he tended to say one thing, and then immediately say the opposite thing. But he definitely said that you made an amazing clone for your first try and without any exact measurements. He said that the clone shouldn't have been able to even walk without taking measurements, but you still managed to not only have the clone walk and run, but also trick them into thinking it was actually Bakugou until they brought us back and they took a closer look after he was suspiciously not fighting back."
Neito grinned at the praise. There was something immensely satisfying at being recognized for your hard work and talent by an enemy.
"Toga was pissed, though."
Hitoshi and Neito laughed at that, the splayed cards and poker chips laying around them long forgotten.
"I think Mr. Compress would let you try his quirk if you two ever met under the right circumstances," Denki informed Neito.
"Mr. Compress? Which one is that, again?" Hitoshi asked, fully invested in learning more and relieved that the intense atmosphere was dissolving into something more lighthearted once again.
"The one with the mask and the top hat. He has the quirk that turned me into a marble!" Denki chirped.
It was comical and strange, but on Denki, it felt totally natural that he would be so thrilled about the quirk that played a huge part in his capture.
"What did it feel like?" Hitoshi asked, completely intrigued. Neito, too, leaned in with rapt attention to soak in Denki's answer.
Denki explained how it felt like a million years and a millisecond at the same time until he got the hang of the timing. Neito and Hitoshi thought it was outrageous, and also just like Denki, that he could convince a villain to use his quirk on him over and over again until he could figure it out.
Denki looked sidelong at his companions.
"What?" Hitoshi inquired when he caught Denki's quizzical expression.
"Even before knowing any of this, both of you told me that I should delete that video. I guess I just don't understand why… why you would…?" Denki trailed off, knowing that the two would understand what his words could not express.
"We guessed from the beginning that you'd make it out just fine and might even become friendly with some of the members," Neito answered easily. "The only reason it was surprising just now was because of the way you acted after you were rescued. We thought we were wrong."
"I'm actually kind of relieved… No, really relieved that you were treated well," Hitoshi admitted.
"That doesn't explain why you didn't… you know…" Denki argued lightly, rolling his eyes in frustration at himself for not being able to find the words.
"While you were missing, there was talk of a traitor disguised at UA, reporting back important information to the League of Villains," Neito spoke quickly in a hushed voice. "Some people who don't know you thought that you might be… an informant for them, and that maybe they took advantage of the opportunity to get an update from you."
"Everyone who knew you quickly shut that down, though," Hitoshi added when he saw Denki's face start to lose its color. "And when you came back, you were so traumatized that everyone just kind of assumed that you were treated horrendously by the League. It cleared your name for the few who theorized that you were working with the League. If this had gotten out, it would be hard to explain that away."
"It was easy to explain away to you guys," Denki argued, though he knew exactly what Hitoshi meant.
"We know you, Denks. Everyone else is so ramped up with fear that they would jump on the first scapegoat they could find, just to feel a little more secure," Neito explained.
"Yeah…" Denki gave in. "Shigaraki threatened to leak information that would make me look like the traitor. He said it would be easy… I didn't realize just how honest he was being at the time…"
"Is he—?" Hitoshi asked, eyes wide with alarm as he jolted forward, adrenaline coursing through his veins as if he was going into battle at that very second with the intended threat against Denki.
Even if Shigaraki and the League of Villains had implied that they would support the trio becoming heroes, it didn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't throw as many roadblocks as they could at them.
"No," Denki answered with a small smile, shaking his head. "That was before. They all decided that their best bet was for the three of us to become heroes as quickly as possible. Force Majeure was actually their way of making sure that I wouldn't be considered as a traitor."
"That still doesn't explain why you can talk to us about all this," Hitoshi pushed.
"Maybe it's because you two found out without any communication on my end," Denki guessed with a shrug. It was his best guess. "I was unable to communicate it with anyone new, but it didn't stop me from talking about what had happened with those who were there. Maybe you transferred into that category when you started to piece together what actually happened on your own."
Neito shrugged, not super concerned with the specifics now that Denki seemed to be able to talk freely with them. Hitoshi, however, made a mental note to explore different possibilities later.
Hitoshi and Neito didn't end up asking Denki if he was still in contact with the League of Villains; it didn't matter because they knew that Denki would never betray them or anyone else at UA. Maybe it was naïve of them to think that Denki had an accurate read on the situation he was in, but they trusted his judgment completely. Denki was so observant and socially gifted that he would surely be able to see right through any tricks that the villains might have tried to play. It only made them more confident in their decision when they learned that Denki had saved the life of the League's leader. Denki was a hero through and through, and apparently, even villains could be convinced of that.
"Check out this one!" Denki exclaimed as he scrolled to the next video in his drafts.
"Shadow clone jutsu!" the Denki on the screen yelled. A second later, five more Denkis popped up on the screen in various ninja-like poses.
"We even got Mr. Compress to put Toga and the Twice clones in his marble things, then release them all at once so they appeared instantly like that. We tried it a few times before with them just jumping into frame, but something was missing, you know?"
The idea of having a notorious and dangerous group of villains so enamored with Denki within the few short days he spent there that they would use their quirks to help Denki make not one, but two TikToks, was almost unbelievable. Almost.
"If Todoroki is the king of conspiracy, you must be the king of content," Hitoshi theorized aloud.
After a pause, with the repeated "shadow clone jutsu" coming from the phone every few seconds, the trio fell into a fit of laughter once again.
It felt so good to know that gaining the support of the League of Villains didn't mean that Denki would lose the support of his best friends. He felt like he could truly breathe again.