Disclaimer: I own neither BNHA nor Harry Potter and any of its characters.
AN: Enjoy!
Tagging Izuku is a lot less boring than people would believe. The green-haired boy simply lingers around a selected playground for what feels like hours. Katsuki and Hitoshi boringly watch him go back and forth on the swing, repeatedly.
It drags to the point Katsuki grunts and looks as if he's constipated. The blond twelve-year-old is about ready to throw a fit when an unknown figure approaches Izuku.
The woman wearing a well-woven straw hat with a light blue ribbon tied around it is as shifty as some amateur on the lookout for drugs. The boys can see her nervous expression as they're hiding behind a tree that's facing their friend's back.
"Who the fuck's this bitch?" Katsuki mouths voicelessly. Hitoshi shakes his head; he doesn't have a clue either.
As Katsuki's hearing is half reliant on his hearing aids, it's normally decent at best if he wishes to eavesdrop. The blond nudges Hitoshi's shoulder with an elbow as a result, the implicit order to replace him in the task is as transparent as glass.
Much to either one's dismay, their cover is way too far to hear anything clearly. Therefore, the information that comes in short and broken phrases are decidedly unreliable.
Numb on both legs with lashes dripping with sweat, the two stick to pure sight-based observation.
There are strands of hair that stick out of the circular dome the hat has to fit her head. She's bespectacled with dark-blue hair, still young and pretty looking. Perhaps around her mid-to-late twenties.
Katsuki almost compares her with his mother when he remembers that Bakugou Mitsuki doesn't age like normal people do. "I think she's called Nemuri." Hitoshi suddenly interrupts the blond's train of thought.
The purple haired boy is squinting as he says it, forehead all tight and furrowed. He's working hard, so Katsuki's logic tells him that he can't be the only useless one in this endeavour. He purposefully smacks Hitoshi in the eyes, temporarily blinding him.
The victim of the violence gives a silent cry, too shocked for any sound to leave him. "She's bowing," Hitoshi hears Katsuki's scratchy pubescent voice narrate. "I think she wants something. Shit, she's touching him now too. Get your filthy hands off, perverted hag!"
"What?"
"Bulk up, Eggplant. Can't you see what's happening? Damn, you're useless."
"You were the one who did this to me, dumbass!" Hitoshi hisses. "I can't see and I wonder why." He adds with venomous sarcasm.
With a good traditional rub, Hitoshi's sight returns even if it may be blurry around the edges. He sees the woman that Katsuki's talking about with her hands on Izuku's forearms, eventually lowering herself to her knees.
"That fucking paedophile!" Katsuki assumes with horror and is quickly hushed.
Hitoshi, for one, wears a sombre expression. "She's crying." He says, voice soft and stable. He doesn't like seeing people cry.
"Is she one of those extras that're looking for closure too?"
"I don't know." Violet lashes lower in response. "We'll follow them. Look, they're going somewhere."
They end up in a temple. One of those with classical tiled roofs and torii gates that lead up a set of staircases that can last forever. The passageway is spacious and wide, and practically an open invitation to get caught.
Katsuki's pulling his hair when Izuku and the woman are a quarter way up in their steps. He swears, but Hitoshi tunes it out in favour of figuring out their latest dilemma. Who knew that following people could be so hard?
This is why he low-key believes he can't become an underground hero. He'll need plenty of training before he can live up to the task.
"We'll get masks." The violet-haired boy suggests. Animal masks are normally available all-ear round. It shouldn't be too hard to find one.
He gets one of a snake and Katsuki's a tiger. Just for good measure, they get one of a fox for Izuku too. The boy in question has long been gone though, so the pair find themselves sprinting like their lives depended on it.
A wide space greets them and the bespectacled woman is there, but not in the way they initially expected. A funeral is in the middle of attendance; the woman seems to be a friend of the deceased- if the wide difference between live and still portraits are any indicator.
People are on their knees on soft tiled mats. They take turns offering stick incense in respect, it is the final send off. Beyond wax paper doors, Hitoshi even thinks he sees a man that looks a lot like him. He shrugs off the notion.
So that's the reason the woman was crying.
His gaze leaves the area shrouded in flower arrangements and slight wisps of scented smoke, they turn to the boy beside him. Katsuki seems to be in a world of his own, teeth grinding as his upper lip tremble.
What is it? Hitoshi bites his tongue before he can blurt. What do you see?
As one of them hasn't forgotten the original goal, Hitoshi's quick to find Izuku. His best friend is sitting near the front like he knew the deceased, wearing fine clothes of mourning that must've been new because he's never seen that set before.
They share wardrobes, Hitoshi knows what he's talking about.
The chants of an airy robed priest fill the air. To mourn and grieve is not something Hitoshi is familiar with; it's been years, and he's still blind to the form Izuku takes when he ceases to be human.
Some openly wipe their running tears, stifling ugly sobs with a plainly embroidered handkerchief or plain tissue; others pretend to be stoic, unaffected by the sadness that has physically manifested in the classic arrangement of flowers. Katsuki's shared their meanings before.
Lilies, for peace and tranquillity. May the deceased return to a time of purity and innocence; carnations, as pink as the skies at dawn, represent remembrance. Remember this death, so do the flowers seem to say.
Like smiling spirits with their mouths sewn together with vines, they can only stand by idly without action. Understand that those returned to the Gods may not return. Strangely enough, Hitoshi silent laments how he can easily see Izuku as one of those symbolic decorations.
Chrysanthemums lament and grieve, wherein dark red roses without thorns express the deepest of sorrows. The boy counts all of this with clinical methodology, attention left bare to the blurred figure that crashes down on to the aged temple floor.
Pieces of cement fly and Quirk-cause hot air streams through as screams and fearful gasps spread faster than a plague. Even then, Hitoshi wonders with an unwrapping ache in his chest, could he see Izuku now too?
"VILLAIN! VILLAIN ATTACK!" Someone yells fervently, because the shock has overridden all the usual human rational into mindless sleep. So much so that he or she or they can only state the obvious.
The cackling funeral-wrecker has a grating voice that Hitoshi wishes desperately to cut off. He steps backwards instead, one arm spreading out to feel for the living firecracker that's supposed to be there but isn't.
"… Kacchan? Izu?"
Panic on par to the time Izu jumped off a tree swells in Hitoshi's chest – too fast does his awareness of the surroundings fade, tunnelling his vision into one goal only. Find them.
Violet eyes well with barely kept tears that this doesn't become something of his fault. Because how could he think otherwise? when at the very moment he wishes to see Izuku, Kami-sama answers his prayers in the most twisted way possible.
"Where are you two?" the youth frantically searches, stealthily avoiding the Villain that has found logic in narrating his life story to the bunch of civilians that're actng weirdly composed about all of this.
His heart pumps blood faster than oxygen can diffuse through the stretch of his veins. Every second lost, and Hitoshi can feel the ache growing increasingly painful. His breath comes short, cold sweat collecting at the base of his neck. Crouching, Hitoshi creeps behind large chunks of rubble that mysteriously litter the place.
Danger finds him anyway. Distantly, his friends scream. The violet haired boy spots Kacchan first, bleeding and bent over on his stomach on seemingly solid air. Izuku's safe by default, that means.
Chaos waits for none, so he cannot even afford the time that comes with the irritating sting when he sees the two of them together without him. The villain groans, wretchedly and full of pain – both physically and mentally. The spilt second his eyes land on Hitoshi's small build, he lunges.
(Where had they been just now? Left alone without a companion that was only inches away earlier, Hitoshi has a place beside them as well; Izu and Kacchan can't abandon him like this. I won't survive, not again.)
Stomach dropping, Hitoshi closes his eyes and braces for the impact which hits him harder than a freight train. The villain has him, arm cradled by his vulnerable neck. "Stay away!" the wild-eyed monster cries with open desperation. "One more step and the kid dies!"
It's warm, Hitoshi breathlessly realises as his legs grow weak. He also notes that the man is touching him and he hates it. "EGGPLANT!" Kacchan yells shakily over the distance with frustrated worry. "USE YOUR QUIRK! USE IT, FUCK!"
Izuku trills, front hooves raising as Katsuki slips off to the back. The melody is one full of threat and mysterious magics. Almost enchanted, Hitoshi can almost imagine the pied piper playing his pipe, dressed in green with a tune that leads to Death.
It's a promise, Hitoshi understands. Blink, and one will miss it. Izuku's wings were never just for show.
"SHUT UP!" The villain barks angrily, gooseflesh over his tan skin. "Shut up shut up shut up!" His muscular arm tightens, and Hitoshi painfully chokes when the pressure crushes his windpipe as it crumples like paper.
Katsuki can only stare through his lashes that drip with sweat. Izuku rears on his hind legs, beaked mouth pointing upwards – his teeth show, one belonging to a carnivore. Leather wings spread and the wind behind them whistle. In this form, the Thestral is already twice Katsuki's height.
Izuku charges, ironically deaf to the deafening warning of a familiarly blond hero that shrieks "WAIT, LITTLE LISTENER!"
Katsuki almost grins, but the expression falls before it has the opportunity to build. The nameless villain's skin glows, and the blond recognises the Quirk activation because he'd been hit by it and sent flying before Izuku caught him. Never before had Katsuki wanted for Izuku to put on a little more meat.
But Izuku's speed ensures that his jaws catch onto the arm that's bringing their beloved friend pain. The villain screams, blood pouring despite the stopper that's the Thestral's teeth. The equestrian creature in question makes a guttural sound from his throat, and Hitoshi–
The boy simply goes slack– as much as the Villain's unkind hold allows. He's become something akin to a doll. Save the trembling, Hitoshi's eyes are wide and unseeing, skin layered with a wet shine belonging from both the Heat Release Quirk and the monster inside his head.
His mouth opens and closes like the air around him isn't enough, yet the breaths gradually become more and more shallow until Hitoshi stops breathing entirely, entrapped in a mind that forgets how.
Redness films his pale skin when the boy even registers Izuku's appearance in front of him, Hitoshi's violet hair starts to singe and smoke.
Izuku gives a high whiny, yet his bite stays strong and true. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
He needs to pull, tear a chunk off of the one that's harming part of his precious herd. Tears start to run down his face, the monster's Quirk only grows hotter. Izuku somehow manages to swallow a mouthful of something bloody when suddenly, everything ends.
The Villain's Quirk stops. The glow from his skins dims like a light switch turned off. "What…?" the man gapes, his hold on the child hostage easing. Hitoshi slides downwards, too weak to support himself.
But that isn't important. What matters are the white bandages that appear out of nowhere, snaking around his body and the Villain heaves out a soft grunt as his ribs squeeze into a position they're not supposed to be in.
Defensively, Izuku nearly teleports to Hitoshi's side, wings curling protectively around the older boy. The dust by the boys' feet pick up, an invisible force appearing to manipulate the forces of gravity. Not enough to pick up a human, but enough that their saviour's hair stands.
His eyes glow like rubies underneath the sun. Glare in place, "That's my nephew you got there, damn it." he says, but Hitoshi's too gone to hear it. Izuku sings, and his song isn't kind.