Neito and Razor quietly and quickly made their way through the tunnels, feet moving steadily, not getting tripped up despite the haphazard shadows the flickering overhang lights were throwing around.
Neito had started to feel like something was off, like maybe they were being followed, but before he had made a decision to either ignore it or address it, a figure had crashed down from the ceiling of the tunnel, sunlight streaming in through the newly made hole where there wasn't a hole before.
All three figures coughed from the newly disturbed dust as they dropped into defensive stances as they regarded one another.
Deku stood across from Razor and Neito, eyes glowing green with a determined grimace on his face as he braced himself further against the ground in preparation to strike.
One second, Deku was covered in a beam of light from the newly made hole above him, and the next second, no one could see anything, everyone's vision suddenly filled with an intense, thick, opaque, white fog.
When the fog started to thin, Deku tensed further, but eased his stance to stand more upright instead of moving into action, seeing another villain behind Neito who hadn't been there before with a blade against his neck.
With a quick glance over to Neito and Haze, Razor swore under his breath, wondering if everything had just gone from bad to worse.
"Let us pass," Haze demanded, his voice barely registering above a whisper, but the threat all too real with the blade hovering above Neito's skin.
"I can't do that," Deku said, shaking his head.
"I really don't have time for this," Neito grumbled, reaching up and grabbing the villain's wrist, shoving his hand away from his neck and stepping away.
When Deku made a move to get closer, to instigate the fight, Neito also held out a hand to stop him. "I don't have time for this," he repeated with more emphasis. "I've gotta get to Denki."
"That's why I'm here," Deku said. "To relieve you so you and Mindjack can get to Chargebolt."
"On Endeavor's orders?" Neito asked.
"Not in so many words…" Deku admitted, eyes still continuing to scan over the three in front of him, waiting for any movements that would indicate that he would need to jump into action.
Neito snorted. "There's a bunch of civilians who are heading that way," Neito said, gesturing with a lazy wave behind him, "looking for an emergency exit that hasn't collapsed. They're being led by villains who are helping," Neito rushed with emphasis when he saw Deku's eyes widen, "so I can get to Chargebolt faster. Looks like we're all on the same side here, for once."
Deku sighed, straightened completely, and rolled out his shoulders before shaking the dust out of his hair. "For once," Deku repeated under his breath.
"We're going to find Hitoshi and get the hell out of here so we can get to Chargebolt and cancel out whatever the hell Full Throttle did," Neito explained.
Deku nodded and bounced on his feet. "I'll go the way you came from and make sure there aren't any stragglers and that the one's you separated from found an exit. If they didn't, I'll make one," he said, gesturing vaguely to the Deku-sized hole above him.
"Yeah, just tell them that Phantom Thief and Razor sent you, and the villains should cooperate easily enough," Neito said. "Thanks."
When Deku was gone with a breeze and a flash of green glow, Haze asked, "just like that?"
"We're lucky it was Deku," Neito said. "Why are you following us?"
"I was trying to catch up," Haze said, raising his hands in defense. "We started walking in the other direction, like we planned, and with how dusty it got, I was able to use my quirk to purify the air. Then I thought that I better turn around and help you two out, especially because you'd have to go past the secondary collapse."
"Well, thanks," Neito said. "I appreciate it. Just, for future reference, it's probably a bad idea to use me as a hostage."
"Noted."
They ran steadily but had to slow down near the collapse site as to not stumble and fall over the rubble. Once past the entrance point, they got back up to their steady speed again before Neito indicated for them to slow down, a smile growing on his face when he heard the familiar cadence of his soulmate's voice.
"—some correlation between mental health patients and heroes. In my mind, it's that they don't want anyone to ever have to feel as hopeless as they did, but that's just anecdotal," Hitoshi rambled. "If I had gone onto university instead of going straight into underground heroics, I think that's what I would have based my dissertation on, though."
"And what a dissertation it would have been!" Neito chirped, stepping into the doorway that separated the side panel room from the tracked tunnel.
"Nei!" Hitoshi exclaimed in relief, opting to drop his control on Wakakuro to let him see that they aren't alone, that there are other Pro Heroes joining them on the scene.
Wakakuro opened his eyes, noted that Hitoshi and this blonde newcomer in a costume that looked almost like a suit had gotten up to greet each other, and was just about to concede that maybe, just maybe, Hitoshi actually did become a hero and wasn't a villain after all.
Until Razor and Haze waltzed right on in, too.
Everyone's eyes turned to look at Wakakuro as he cursed under his breath, favoring his shoulder as he had reflexively tried to just get away. He was still firmly stuck by his straps between the wall and the crooked ladder, and only managed to hurt his shoulder when he ricocheted off the metal rungs.
Hitoshi narrowed his eyes at Wakakuro, wondering what the hell had happened to just reduce all of their progress to nothing, before turning to see the two intruders coming up behind Neito, approaching cautiously. Not cautiously as in they are trying to sneak up on Neito, but cautiously as in they don't want to get brainwashed.
"You just had to pick up a few villains along the way, didn't you?" Hitoshi grumbled, rubbing at his temple to try to ease the oncoming headache.
"What can I say?" Neito drawled with a smug smile and a lazy shrug. "I'm a sucker for talent. You'd be coughing up a lung without this guy," he said, gesturing toward Haze.
Hitoshi regarded Haze thoughtfully before his gaze gradually shifted over to Razor.
"Razor, is it?" Hitoshi asked, hopefully.
"Uh, yeah. That's me. My reputation precedes me?" Razor asked, laughing nervously.
"Something like that," Hitoshi said. "Do you mind helping me out? I've been trying to cut through this material for twenty minutes and I've barely done any damage."
Razor nodded and started to take a step forward, but Wakakuro slammed his back against the cement wall.
"Please. Please, don't hurt me. I won't tell anyone. You can just leave me here, and I won't tell anyone," Wakakuro begged, trying in his desperation to try to slide down against the wall to the floor to make himself seem smaller, but the angle that he was trapped not letting him do so, making him stand against the wall and fidget helplessly.
"I know this doesn't look good for me," Hitoshi said, "but everything I told you is the truth. I'm not a villain, but I'm not about to fight someone who is when there's no need to. I'm a hero, but I'm not the reckless, stupid kind."
It took a lot of hyperventilating, but Razor was able to easily slice through the straps keeping Wakakuro trapped once Wakakuro stopped fidgeting and panicking every time Razor got close enough to help. With Haze's quirk, Wakakuro didn't even cough; the dust was completely taken care of.
Hitoshi took multiple deep breaths once Wakakuro was free and had retreated to the opposite side of the room, promising himself that he'd never take fresh air for granted ever again.
"It's like being on top of a mountain on a fresh, misty morning," Hitoshi said. "Like the inside of my lungs are getting a nice rinse."
Haze laughed. "I usually use it to impede vision, but this is a nice side effect."
"Let's get out of here," Razor suggested, looking upwards toward the street level entrance that the distorted ladder led up to. "I wonder…"
Razor climbed the ladder carefully, testing his weight on each rung before trusting it with his full weight. When he reached the top, he pushed the circular metal cover aside, sighed in relief, and dropped back down to the floor.
"It's all clear, and I recognize the area. It's low foot traffic, so once we get up, we can split up from there without anyone seeing us," Razor said. "Phantom Thief, if you could heal him up, then we can all get on our way."
Neito looked at Wakakuro warily. "Yeah, that might be a problem."
"You got your hands on a healing quirk?" Hitoshi asked. "Have you run out of time?"
"That's not the issue. It's just I fucking hate your caseworker."
Wakakuro winced, and Neito felt some satisfaction from it. It was about time the power roles were reversed, even if there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that Hitoshi would ever be as cruel as Wakakuro was to him.
"And you expect me to believe that you're heroes?!" Wakakuro wheezed before once again folding in on himself and begging to just be left behind and forgotten about.
"The quirk is connected to emotions," Neito explained simply.
Hitoshi sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Yeah, that'll be a problem."
"But you have something to prove, don't you?" Neito asked.
Hitoshi glanced at him and then at Wakakuro and that was answer enough. Neito grimaced as he stalked over and planted himself on the floor in front of Wakakuro, who flinched away from him.
"Knock it off, you fucking baby."
"Nei," Hitoshi whispered, walking up behind him, "he's scared."
"He should be! If he had done his job correctly and treated you right, then your soulmate wouldn't have such shitty feelings toward him, and this quirk would work like a dream! It's his own damn fault! And—"
Hitoshi's hands were on Neito's shoulders, digging in before immediately relaxing only to rub away the tension right after. Neito slumped in place as he grew more relaxed before, finally, he nodded.
Reaching out, Neito met Wakakuro's eyes as he healed him. The quirk pinged off of Neito's emotions as he healed him, changing directions at the slightest change. Still, Neito watched as the fear and trepidation in Wakakuro's eyes turned into relief, wonder, and eventually, self-doubt.
When Neito stepped away, Wakakuro hesitantly reached up to grip his shoulder, and when he didn't feel any pain from that, he moved it back and forth experimentally.
"Thanks," Wakakuro muttered, not being able to meet Neito's eyes.
"Shut the fuck up."
-.-.-
"I'm making a list," Denki said.
"Are you checking it twice?" Isozan asked, snorting. "What's with all of the Christmas music anyway?"
"It's how Hitoshi and Neito found out they were soulmates," Denki said.
Isozan flipped over so that he was on his stomach on the grass and leveled Denki with a narrow stare. "They discovered that they were soulmates in the spring, though."
Denki laughed. "They sure did! Neito was trying to annoy his class by suggesting Christmas music, and Hitoshi—well, it's a long story, but I'm making a list, and no, it has nothing to do with Christmas! My list is comprised of things that you somehow know about, even though you didn't know that I was under the protection of the League of Villains."
Isozan groaned, slapping his face with his hand and letting it drag down. "I'm never going to live this down!"
"I mean, we could have saved a lot of trouble if you had done your research, dude! We did break out of Tartarus a few hours ago!" Denki argued lightheartedly.
"Yeah. I think it's been longer than two hours, too, by the way," Isozan said with a wince. "Sorry. I really didn't know—"
"I know you aren't trying to mislead me or anything. Besides, I'm holding up just fine! This is actually perfect, because now we can figure out how long it can actually last!"
Isozan sighed, running a hand through his hair before flopping back onto his back to stare up at the sky again. "If you say so."
"I do say so! Another thing that I say is that Stranger Things goes on the list. Personally, I think I'm more interesting than Stranger Things. It might be close, but I still think I come out on top, you know?"
"Knowing what I know now, I'd have to agree," Isozan said easily.
"So why did you know about Stranger Things and not about me? It seemed like all the villains knew about the League's protection over me before I even knew how widespread it was."
"Phantasm and I, we find things to escape mentally when we're lying low. I… might use her quirk more than I should, actually. She likes dramatic television shows, and it's easy to get a Netflix account that can't be traced," Isozan explained, eyes tracing the cloud shapes in the sky.
"Why do you need to avoid being traced?" Denki asked.
"We—"
"Oh, shit! Don't tell me if you don't want to. This is a weird power dynamic we have going on right now, but you need to know I'm not holding your answers hostage or anything. I'm still getting you out of this. In my mind, you can tell me to fuck off and we'd still be even because you helped me get out of Tartarus. You don't owe me answers, and—"
"Denki."
"Yeah?"
"I want to tell you."
"Oh. Okay."
"We're running from our family. They're big into organized villainy, and it was suffocating the way they were treating us. Then they wanted us to help them recruit others, and we just couldn't subject anyone else to what we had been through, so we ran. We've been on our own since then, and we've always been together, so being away from her has been… different."
"Thanks for telling me," Denki said, turning his head to look at Isozan with a smile. "I—"
Isozan sat straight up, looking off to his left. "Do you hear that?" he whispered.
Denki sat up, focused his breathing to suppress his electricity to the dullest buzz, and listened.
"Denki!"
Denki gasped and jumped to his feet in delight. "Hitoshi! Neito! Up here! We're up here!"
Before Isozan knew it, he was securely wrapped in Hitoshi's capture weapon, being pulled away from Denki. To Isozan's horror, Denki's stopped mid-step as he moved toward his soulmates, the glow from the electricity constantly wreaking havoc on his body for the past six hours dissipating entirely, leaving a dulled yellow behind as he collapsed to the ground.
"Denki—!" Hitoshi and Neito screamed in tandem as they ran forward toward Denki's sprawled form on the ground, reaching for him, hoping that they would get to hold him and know him as their soulmate, at least once.